Chapter 1 – Chapter 1

Sometimes the simplest of questions require the greatest amount of preparation.

"The golden question for this week the same as for last week?"

"Yep," my boss answered.

We were sitting in the office of the chief of station, the highest-ranking CIA agent in country, in the Nicosia, Cyprus, embassy and, as usual, I was trying to see if I could see anything at all through that small, rectangular bulletproof window beside his desk. It was a shame as gorgeous as the vistas of mountains in two directions were from the American embassy in Cyprus' capital that we were stuck with these security windows, which only gave the illusion that we weren't in a secure fortress. No one laughed about it, though. An ambassador had been shot dead a couple of decades ago through a window in the old embassy building.

"What is it exactly?" I asked. Each week the station got a new shopping list of intelligence questions for that embassy's region from CIA headquarters in Langley. The question at the top of the list was known as "the golden question." You got points from the chief of station, Ted Jamison being the one here in Nicosia, for providing the answer to any of the questions. But Ted was so hardnosed that only answering the golden one would earn a pat on the back. The said getting the answers to the other questions was our job—just what we were being paid for.

"The elite Maroon Beret commando unit of Turkey's 9th Corps, currently stationed on the Iran border, is moving to either the Iraq border or here—to the northern, Turkish zone of the island. The question is, which is it?"

"The importance being?"

"They have been undergoing special training in cross-border infiltration. Presumably the training is leading up to crossing someone else's border. Any way you cut it, that's not good for U.S. policy."

"And we know that how?" I asked. ". . . that they are getting such training."

"We know it because it's our own Green Berets who have trained them for such an operation. And that training includes covert redeployment."

"And we couldn't just ask the Turks where the unit is going?"

"Oh, certainly not. The Turks are among our most valuable—and sensitive—allies. They are probably aching for us to ask so that we can get embroiled on the consenting side. Either we'd have to agree with the action, or they'd claim we did and it would somehow leak that we knew about it in advance. If the unit is going to the Iraq border, it will be messing around with the Kurds, and we couldn't approve of that in the slightest, so we don't want to officially know anything about it. In the same vein we have to prepare for it if that's what is happening. The same thing here in Cyprus in spades. We don't want to officially know about anything, but we damn well better be prepared for what we're going to do about it. What we'd much prefer is for them to stay right there on the Iranian border and harass Tehran. But indications are that they will be on the move from there."

"And why do we think they may be coming here?"

"Satellite photography shows new construction at the Turkish army base on the mountainside below St. Hilarion castle and above Kyrenia. Why are you asking, Ron? You got an answer to this one?"

"Not that I can give right now. But one I think I can get. I think I can get to some of the soldiers at the base here. If there's construction, the soldiers will have some idea what's happening."

"Using your special services?"

"Yeah."

"You know how hard it is to get to mainland Turks assigned to the military based on the other side, don't you? They're kept on a short leash. Rarely let off base. Never in fewer than groups of three—to keep each other in line."

"Yeah, I know. But I may have a way. They may be on a short leash, but Turks are well known to be randy—and to like variety. And to consider any hole as worthy to be filled." Ted was right, though. The troops on the Turkish-held northern coast of Cyprus, with the lower two-thirds a Greek republic, had proved impossible to pick off one by one for intell purposes.

"More power to you then. What do you need?"

"A few days loose from anything else. And can Logs fix up two bottles of Johnny Walker Red for me?"

"Knockout or lethal?"

"Slow-working knockout would be best—both of them. I'll be on the other side for a few days. Can I use the beach house at Karavas?"

"Sure, as long as you don't bring any men back there. Don't want it being noticed."

"Right, Ted, we wouldn't want the Agency connected with any gay activity, would we? Even to get a golden question answered."

We both laughed. The irony of homosexuality being a cause for instant dismissal laid against the Agency having a "candy" unit to use that basic preference to its advantage wasn't lost on either of us. Still it was a thin wire for anyone in that unit to walk. At any point that the Agency decided it wanted to separate you, it could be quickly accomplished.