Loose Lips

CHAPTER 1 I will never know the truth. My friends thought I was a budget analyst who worked for the Department of Agriculture. It wasn't my choice for a cover. In fact, it would have been just about my last choice, but it was what the Agency told me to tell them. I had business cards that said selena keller, planning and accountability division, usda, and if someone called the number on the card, he would reach a bank of sterile phones at the Central Intelligence Agency. In principle, a CIA flack would deftly look up who I was and who I was supposed to be on an electronic Rolodex. In practice, callers were likely to receive a "Selena? Selena who? You said Keller? Does she work here? Are you sure you have the right number? Selena . . . hold on . . . Department of Agriculture, right? Um . . . oh, okay . . . yeah, she's still in a meeting. Yeah, still there. No, no idea when she'll be done. Can I take a message?" I wonder if any of my friends ever thought it odd, my abrupt change of careers. I'd spent most of my adult life in India, studying Sanskrit literature. When I joined the Agency, I'd just received my doctorate from Columbia University, and what I knew about budget analysis, or agriculture for that matter, could have been inscribed inside a matchbook. After I'd been in Washington for six months, the head of my thesis committee called to invite me to the annual Ramayana Conference in DeKalb. I declined, telling him that I was up to my elbows writing a report on the industrial pet feed sector. If he suspected anything, he never let on. I got the job at the CIA the way you get a job anywhere: I answered an ad on the Internet. That spring I was living in Manhattan, and nine major university presses had recently declined to publish my dissertation, The Dialectic of Manjusri: Monasteries and Social Welfare in Northeastern India, a.d. 600800. To support myself, I was teaching an undergraduate section in multicultural studies at NYU as I sent out applications for postdoctoral fellowships and tenure-track positions. It was beginning to dawn on me that I might spend the rest of my life teaching at some godforsaken Midwestern universitya place with a name like Mongeheela Statewriting articles that would be perused by no more than six geriatric scholars. I found the ad while surfing the Drudge Report. Bernard Lewinsky was denouncing the treatment of his daughter, issuing an appeal for assistance with her legal bills. An article beneath this linked to the CIA's website, which in turn connected me to a section called "Employment." The text read: For the extraordinary individual who wants more than just a job, we offer a unique careera way of life that will challenge the deepest resources of your intelligence, self-reliance, and responsibility. It demands an adventurous spirit, a forceful personality, superior intellectual ability, toughness of mind, and a high degree of personal integrity, courage, and love of country. You will need to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous, and unstructured situations that will test your resourcefulness to the utmost. The accompanying photo displayed a black man, a black woman, and an Asian woman, all in their late twenties. The women conveyed rangy athleticism underneath their sensible professional clothes; the man wore no tie, and his collar was open beneath his blazer. Their expressions were alert and serious. All three were staring intently at a piece of paper I imagined as the order of battle for the Russian Mechanized Infantry Brigade. I had a stack of copies of my resume in front of me on my desk. On an impulse, I folded one into thirds and sent it to the CIA's Department of Human Resources. I never really expected that I would hear from them. [read more]