Our Man in Madrid

Each time the ritual was renewed, the sense of nervous energy that balled and knotted in his stomach reminded him of a blind date. The idea conjured up images from Don McLean’s “American Pie.” There he was, sitting alone in the outdoor seating of a bustling café as he was the “Teenage broncin’ buck, with a pink carnation and a pickup truck.” There he waited. It was entirely usual for his expectant guest to wait between five and fifteen minutes before making his arrival to the always populated but never too crowded café. His guest also took care to be variable in arriving. One meet he would make the first man wait six minutes, another meet he would wait thirteen. The interval was never the same and the route he took to the café was never repeated as a means of ensuring he was never followed to the café and to ensure that the outdoor seating where these discreet talks took place was not surveilled. By whom could be anyone’s guess, but the game was being played against multiple oppositions, each renowned for their cunning in action and brutal measures. Safety therefore, while impossible to guarantee, was paramount to the two players and to the overall success of the operation.

Blake Levy had been stationed in Madrid for almost two years. In that time, he had managed to recruit seven residents of the city. His intentions as an intelligence officer of the Central Intelligence Agency were far from vindictive, as Hollywood portrayals of employees of intelligence services would lead the public to believe. Rather, Levy’s regular tasking was usually far more mundane. The local residents, his agents, were not passing overtly dangerous secrets to him but were rather answering his questions politely and in some measure of the truth. Levy was easily approachable with his neutral look. He usually dressed in blue jeans and a faded brown jacket. His dark hair, tanned skin, and fluent ability to not only speak Spanish but also speak in the particular dialect and vernacular of the people of Madrid made him a natural in fitting in to the environment. But Levy was no predator of the common people. In what seemed like another life entirely, Levy had received extensive on-the-job training in blending in to city life when he worked undercover as a state police officer back in his home state of Virginia. One such operation in rooting out a human trafficking ring operating out of Richmond attracted the attention of talent seekers from Langley. The pitch was an attractive one, especially for an unmarried man with these special abilities in his late twenties.

Levy’s current position had more or less been dropped into his lap. His official cover listed him as a liaison with the United States Embassy and the city government. Officially, his job description would tell its reader that Blake Levy of the Foreign Service Officer in the employ of the State Department and that his primary responsibilities included negotiating policy with city government officials and providing political support on certain issues when asked to do so.

In reality, someone else performed these responsibilities while Levy made his contacts with key members of the city government and the Spanish national police force, known as the National Police Corps. Levy often consulted and provided support for police investigations while passing on details of these investigations to his office for analysis. The information Levy gathered would then be cross-referenced with intelligence reports to find patterns or connections to tracking enemies of the United States or using the information to protect vital interests. In regard to the position of the CIA in Spain, the mission was to provide support wherever possible with the goal of preserving political stability in the country.  

Several months ago, Levy was approached by one of his agents who informed him that one of his superiors had confided in him that a notorious contract killer had entered the country with an eye on assassinating someone in the police leadership.

It was an urgent plea for help.

When Levy reported the contact to his Chief of Station at the embassy, it was reasoned that this could be a trap set to capture Levy. The plea could also be a signal that Levy had gotten too close to ongoing information-gathering operations from a hostile intelligence service. The Russian SVR was aggressively gaining influence in Southern Europe, a slew of terrorist and organized crime networks could not be behind this. Levy had to accept this as perfectly reasonable, but countered that this mysterious contract killer could be a valuable prize for the Agency if he could be isolated. But then how could there be any proof that this contract killer even exists? It truly could be a made-up notion to lure Levy into the open and isolate him.

Even in times of relative peace, an intelligence officer operating in a foreign nation was never safe regardless of holding an official cover. Diplomatic immunity would hold little sway over a determined enemy with no defined state. Out of the many scenarios that could play out from the initial contact, whether the end goal was to discredit the CIA in Europe or an unofficial inquiry to the American government about protection and assistance in searching for the assassin, the danger lurked.

And now here Levy sat at the café, sipping at his bitter coffee on a beautiful Sunday morning. He made a subtle show of scanning his iPhone’s email as though he were any other person waiting on someone. He contained his anxiety about this meet. Its purpose was to gain the details of the contract killer, exactly which of this Spanish officer’s superiors had reached out to him, and most importantly, to gauge the man who would sit across from him.

It was the ultimate question in the warped world of human intelligence, “Can I trust this information?”

Levy was unarmed, as he always was. Guns tended to cause more problems than they solved, and besides, ninety percent of his work these days involved learning minute details from personal conversations. His mind was his weapon of choice. However, he would be a poor practitioner of tradecraft if he did not have an escape plan at the ready. Levy’s chief of station waited in a parked car with the engine running on the adjacent street, within sight of where Levy sat but not overtly so. He was also listening in through a secure, hidden app on Levy’s iPhone. He could hear nothing presently but the ambient sounds of the café and the activity of the people around Levy. So far, everything appeared as normal, and as safe as could be expected.

And so Levy waited. And waited, and waited. Twenty-three minutes had gone by. Levy’s contact had never been so late. Adrenaline began to course through Levy’s senses with increasing intensity. Every instinct and every element of his training told him something was wrong, that he was in imminent danger, totally exposed to the opposition.

VMM. The iPhone vibrated, a text from Levy’s chief.

“Where is he?”

Levy took up the phone. “5,” he responded. It meant five more minutes and we leave. As much of a risk as this simple meeting had grown to be, he knew it would to worth the effort to try to learn more about the situation instead of cutting losses now and leaving.

Just as Levy looked up from having sent the message, he spotted two men approaching him at an easy pace. They sat down at the table next to him and made their presence obvious. They stared contemptuously at Levy, both of them large and hardened men. Their appearance betrayed nothing specific about them. They could be Russian, they could be thugs not connected to intelligence services, but they were hostile and their glares told Levy everything he needed to know.

We know who you are and why you are here.

Levy’s iPhone vibrated again. He shifted his eyes but took care not to avert his body language. He still needed to show these newcomers to the scene he was not intimidated, as that may be the only thing keeping them from attacking him in so public a location.

“You’re marked,” Levy chief said plainly. “Just sit tight. They won’t move on you, just a play.”

Levy knew his chief was assuming this. An action so brazen without violence, so far, could mean Garza was compromised or that Garza had betrayed him to these new actors. With orders to sit tight, Levy knew he would have to wait this out.

Thirty minutes had gone by since Levy arrived at the café. He wondered how much longer he would be waiting on Garza or for this new scenario with the two toughs to develop. Levy waited, matching the hateful stares coming back at him with the empty chair across from him still vacant.

The scene grew only grew more foreboding as beautiful Sunday morning in Madrid continued to pass.