The Debriefing Read Online Free PDF Page A

someone driven by things he deeply believes in but doesn’t stop to question for fear ofwearing away the edges of his commitment. Now he says, “No trouble cleaning up afterwards?”
    “No, no,” Kiick replies. He is an overweight, balding, shabby man in his fifties, given to making gestures that are delicate, effeminate almost. “We recovered the bug without anyone knowing it was even there. Carted it off with the flowers. The film looks to be first-class. I don’t think he suspected a thing.”
    “Other than the fact that the handbag was pointed our way,” says Stone, “I wouldn’t have either.”
    Kiick takes this as a compliment and beams like a schoolboy. “We’ll doctor the tapes before the end of the week. I found a pro who works for the Israelis and free-lances on the side.”
    “Make sure he doesn’t get to know more than he has to,” cautions Stone.
    “He doesn’t even know my nationality,” boasts Kiick.
    “What about the bank account?” asks Mozart, Stone’s lazily efficient second-in-command; he makes everything, including brilliance, seem effortless, something one does with one’s left hand. He is lounging on a couch, his vest and jacket unbuttoned, his Ivy League Phi Beta Kappa key dangling on a gold chain stretched across his generous stomach.
    “The bank business will be taken care of when Gurenko makes his next run to Geneva,” Kiick explains, a noticeable tightness to his voice; it makes him uneasy to deal with ambitious people. “The fifteen thousand dollars will be deposited in a numbered account under a phony name. The signature will be in Gurenko’s handwriting, no mistake about it. Christ, the signature alone is costing me two grand, but it’s worth every penny.”
    “Everything will depend on how you play him,” Stone says. He throws the towel back into the bathroom and settles into Kiick’s swivel chair. “There’s a tendency in these affairs to rush things, but the secret is to go slow. The slower, the better.”
    Kiick nods in eager agreement. “We let him know we’ve arrested a German for selling him NATO documents for ten thousand dollars, and we say we found out he pocketed theother fifteen thousand dollars and stashed it in a numbered account. We play him the doctored tapes to prove you only got ten thousand dollars.”
    “He’ll deny it,” Mozart offers, competing with Stone. “He’ll be angry as hell. Remember it’s an anger that comes from innocence.”
    Stone ignores Mozart. “That’ll be the crucial moment,” he tells Kiick. “He could go either way. It’s your business to make him go our way. He’ll be angry, but he’ll be frightened too—frightened to death. You’ve got to play to the fright. The important thing is to ask him for a favor so inconsequential that it’ll seem easier for him to do it than go to his security people and open up the can of worms. In the back of his mind he’ll know that even if they believe he paid over the whole twenty-five thousand dollars, there’ll be that minuscule grain of doubt, and that doubt will ruin his career.”
    “Once he does you a small favor,” Mozart chimes in, “you reward him, but the reward has to be small enough so that he’ll accept it. Send him a Sony portable, or better still a kitchen appliance that his wife won’t want to give back.”
    “If he keeps the reward,” Stone says, “you’ll have him. The next time you go back at him, you’ll have the original business to hold over his head, plus the fact that he’s already done you a favor—”
    “—and accepted a gift,” says Kiick.
    “—and accepted a gift; exactly,” agrees Stone. “So then you escalate. You wait a few weeks and ask him for a second favor, hardly more important than the first—the makeup of an economic delegation due to turn up here, or the guest list at one of their receptions. Then you come across with another reward. Not cash; never give cash. A fur coat for his wife. A color TV. Something like