15.
Hollywood star Josh Penner left his car with the valet at Spago and taxied to the Holiday Inn Express at Marina Del Rey, a 20-minute drive from Beverly Hills.
CIA case officer Charles Mulberry, waiting in room 221, opened the door.
Penner sauntered in and glanced around, put his hands on his hips. “A little better than the last place. But not much. You’d think with all the tax I pay you could afford the Ritz-Carlton around the corner.”
Mulberry shook his head. “It’s not the money. As I’ve said before, our objective is to be low profile.”
“Yeah, that’s all right for you,” said Penner. “But when I walk out of a dump like this, the scumbag paparazzi on my tail reports that I’m scoring drugs. And I can’t sue them, because if I do, they’ll ask me under oath what I was doing there. And if I answer, this whole relationship is screwed.”
TMZ had just reported Penner’s brouhaha outside the Vagabond Inn, the down-market motel in down-market Oxnard where they’d last met, and speculated that he led a seedy double-life of some kind as a way of implying drug deal without running the risk of a lawsuit for libel.
Mulberry had learned his lesson, too, having been stuck inside that dumpy room for over an hour until he was certain Josh Penner’s media bushwhackers had departed.
Mulberry made Penner repeat twice his conversation with Tom Richardson, word-for-word. It had been only a brief exchange, but it accomplished the singular objective: Richardson had shown a willingness to meet. Now it was a question of where and when.
Mulberry did not tell his movie star asset that Richardson was, at that moment, being held captive by French intelligence, which had agreed to help CIA make the world a tad smaller for their rogue spy. The agency was waiting to see what the French had reaped, and to determine if Richardson could be spooked into silence, rendering further involvement by Penner unnecessary.
But headquarters, whose most senior seventh floor executives were tightly focused on the Richardson matter, had requested a contingency plan.
“How soon can you fly to Europe to meet Richardson?”
Penner shrugged. “I’m between movie shoots right now. The sooner the better.”
Mulberry nodded. “This is different than what you’ve been doing with world leaders,” he said. “Richardson is trained to detect subterfuge.”
“You don’t think I’m up to it?” shot Penner.
“I’m just saying, you need to be psychologically prepared.”
Penner shook his head, smiling sardonically. “I’m a professional actor,” he said. “Which makes me better at this than you guys.”
Mulberry nodded. Waterboarding. “I’ve been summoned to Washington for further instruction. I just want to be sure I can tell them you’re ready to fly at a moment’s notice.”
“Yep,” said Penner. “I’ll solve this problem for you guys.” He paused. “Oh, by the way, the FBI wants me to do stuff for them, too.”
“What?” Mulberry suddenly felt a compulsion to count his teeth. He sat listening, dumbfounded, as Penner related his meeting and conversation at Spago with an FBI special agent named Jenny Jones.
“She’s a real fox,” Penner added with a wink.
Mulberry did not want to get back into bureaucratic protocol and CIA-FBI rivalry with his asset. But he could not conceal the outage he felt. “Don’t do a thing more with her until I sort this out,” he hissed.
“Huh?” said Penner, somewhat offended. “I can do anything I like.”
This angered Mulberry even more, but he constrained himself. “I understand that. But there are complications here that need to be reconciled. That is, if you want to continue a relationship with CIA.”
“Penner narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I’d rather have a relationship with her?”
Mulberry didn’t know whether he meant the FBI, or Jones personally, but felt the better way to proceed was to deescalate. He spoke softly and deliberately. “The FBI knows about our relationship with you.”
“How come?”
“You may recall that you had lunch with someone from the Venezuelan embassy named Alex…”
“That’s not his real name,” Penner interjected, proud to be more in-the-know than his CIA handler. “It’s Jose Hernandez, and he’s a spy.”
“Who told you that?” snapped Mulberry.
“Jenny Jones.”
Mulberry rolled his eyes. “We were legally obliged to inform the FBI because it crossed the line onto their turf. Remember? I told you that.”
Penner smiled, catching on. “So now you’re in a fight with the FBI over little ol’ me?”
Mulberry sighed. I’m going to lose my job any second. “It’s just a glitch that needs to be figured out.”
16.
Armand Chantelot let Tom Richardson cool his jets in a dank Parisian jail cell for most of the day. Finally, at four in the afternoon, he ordered the rogue American intelligence officer into an interview room and let him sit there another hour by himself.
The windowless interview room had white walls, white ceiling, a scuffed white floor and a white table, illuminated by fluorescent white light.
Chantelot nodded at Richardson as he entered and seated himself in a second chair, facing the American across the table. “Comfortable?”
“Yes.” Richardson smiled. “Thank you for such gracious hospitality.”
“You seem to have upset your American colleagues,” said Chantelot.
Richardson allowed a few seconds to tick. “Is that a question?”
“Your colleagues at CIA. Why are they upset with you?”
“I don’t have colleagues at CIA,” replied Richardson.
“You are telling me you do not work at the CIA?”
“I used to work at CIA. The people there are no longer my colleagues.”
“Why,” pressed Chantelot, “are your ex-colleagues upset with you?”
“Wouldn’t you have to ask them?”
“Yes. I did ask,” said Chantelot. “You must have your own opinion?”
“Maybe they don’t like that I’m writing a book?”
“Ah.” The Frenchman stubbed his cigarette into a white ashtray on the table. “Now we are getting somewhere. What is this book about?”
“It’s no secret that I’m writing a book about my job experiences.”
“Your CIA experiences.”
“Yes.”
Chantelot nodded. “You were terminated by the CIA?”
“Yes.”
“You were supposed to be based in France, and then you were fired, no?”
“Yes.”
“And before that?”
“You know I can’t talk about that, it’s classified.”
“But you are willing to write about classified matters in your book?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else to write about?”
Richardson knew that Chantelot and a computer forensics team had already scoured his computer’s hard drive for any documents pertaining to his book. And he also knew they had come up empty because he used his Mac Pro only for communication. His manuscript had been written on another computer, not in France, and the manuscript preserved in a virtual vault, which only he could access.
“The Americans have asked us to send you back to the United States,” said Chantelot.
“Aside from the fact that I haven’t broken any laws, don’t they need an extradition order for that?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Chantelot shrugged. “I’m not concerned about the legal system.” He locked his eyes into Richardson’s. “And to tell you the truth, I’m not concerned about CIA problems with their ex-employees. I am concerned about national security in the Republic of France.” Chantelot left some space for the American to absorb this. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, very. Under the guise of assisting your American liaison partner, you want me to tell you about CIA’s operations in France.”
Chantelot regarded the American. “Good. You grasp matters quickly.”
Richardson snickered. Only USG would be stupid enough to orchestrate such a self-defeating scenario. “All you have to do is hang tight and buy my book when it’s published.”
“I’d rather pay you more now and not have to wait,” said Chantelot.
Richardson shook his head. “No can do. They would know, from whatever action you take, that I provided classified information to a foreign intelligence service. That would make me a traitor instead of a whistleblower—and would open me to the death penalty.”
“We could come to an arrangement,” Chantelot said quietly. “So they do not find out.”
Richardson chuckled sarcastically. “One thing I learned is never trust an intelligence service. And I especially learned not to trust the French intelligence services.”
Chantelot let the affront pass without comment, wondering briefly what this cocky American might be willing to tell him after three days and nights of bright light and no sleep—and maybe hanging upside down. “I give you time to think about it,” said Chantelot. He got up and walked out, leaving Richardson in the room for another two hours. But Chantelot never returned, and the American was eventually led back to his cell in solitary confinement.
For a frantic moment, Richardson considered asking for a representative from the U.S. embassy. But he quickly decided his compatriots would have little sympathy for his plight. Stay calm, wait it out.