The Dream Merchant of Lisbon: The Game of Espionage

By Gene Coyle

CIA officer Shawn Reilly recruits foreign officials to spy for the United States. He thinks of his job as selling dreams to people who need money, need their egos stroked or want revenge on their bosses or government. After spending many years in the hellholes of the world, he has wound up in the twilight of his career in Lisbon, Portugal where he faces a “by the book” boss, a crumbling marriage and Boris, the chief of the Russian intelligence service in Portugal who is likewise targeting Shawn. At the same time, the Libyan intelligence service is trying to lure a Central Asian chemical weapons specialist to Libya and the Russian service is on the tail of the Kazak scientist. Boris’ attractive daughter, visiting from Moscow, is swept up in the plots within plots, where as in the real world of espionage, all is not necessarily as it first appears. The various threads of intrigue come together in Lisbon. In addition to performing his professional duties Shawn is forced to face the question for an aging spy of just what really matters in life – one’s duty or love. The Dream Merchant of Lisbon goes into the minds of the major players to explore the psychology of espionage, based on the author’s true life experiences in that shadowy world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 10, 2004
• ISBN: 9781453595114

Gene Coyle

Mr. Coyle spent 30 years as a field operations officer for the CIA, almost half of that time abroad, working undercover in a variety of countries, including Portugal and in Moscow in the mid-1980s during the Soviet Union era. He is a recipient of the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit for one of his Russian operations. After retiring in 2006 he taught courses on national security issues until 2017 at his alma mater, Indiana University, while beginning to write fictional spy novels as a hobby. Having himself been an intelligence officer and recruited a number of foreign officials, he is able tell a realistic story of what goes on in the shadows and the motivations of people who become spies. This is his ninth spy novel about the intellectual chess game that goes on between the hunter and the hunted.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter I

THE RECEPTION

White-gloved waiters in tuxedos carrying silver trays filled with canapés and finger sandwiches circled the large reception hall, deftly gliding over the highly polished parquet floor to feed the hundreds of guests. Other waiters manned temporary bars covered in white linen table clothes positioned at each end of the hall and attended to their thirst as efficiently as the tray bearers dealt with their hunger. A locally-hired string quartet played softly on the upper landing of a white marble staircase that led to the upper floors of the British chancery in Lisbon. A red velvet rope informed the invited guests that they should remain on the ground floor of the eighteenth century building or out in the perfectly manicured garden. It had been the location of the Embassy of the United Kingdom for almost two hundred years. American diplomat Shawn Reilly found himself wondering how many gin and tonics had been consumed on the premises over two centuries as he raised one to his lips. His mind tended to drift to such questions when trapped in pointless conversations as he was at the moment at one end of the reception hall. Fortunately, he had developed over the years the ability at such diplomatic receptions to appear to be engaged with his interlocutor while his mind went walkabout. A British pensioner living in Portugal, who had somehow wangled herself an invitation to the reception in honor of the visit of Prince William, was enlightening Reilly on the joys of gardening in Portugal.

No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a President Lincoln rose, Reilly replied to the elderly flower enthusiast while scanning the room over her head with his blue-gray eyes. With a ruggedly handsome face, a few lines around the eyes and a little gray around the temples, he could have passed in his well tailored suit for a successful banker. He was, however, a CIA officer under the cover of working at the American embassy. After more than twenty-five years experience on various diplomatic circuits around the world, he could pretty well pick out other intelligence officers just by the way they worked such a reception. He watched the French DGSE officer LeClerc drifting slowly around the fringe of the crowd. He seemed to be looking for someone in particular among the attendees. The Pole had staked out a position near the entrance so he had first crack at whoever entered the hall. Not terribly subtle, but occasionally effective if you knew exactly who you wanted to accidentally meet at a reception. In the middle of the hall Reilly saw the Israeli Second Secretary, Yossi Sharon. According to the reply from CIA Headquarters to Reilly’s name trace request several months back, there was no record of him being a MOSSAD officer. However, Reilly’s instincts told him otherwise. There were several aspects about young Mr. Sharon that hinted to Reilly that he was more than just a diplomat. At the moment, it was the way Sharon’s eyes kept scanning the room for someone more interesting to meet while carrying on his current conversation. Reilly himself used to be a stroller, but around age forty-five he had switched to the technique of standing near the bar. Sooner or later everybody came by for a drink; even the ragheads would stop by to pick up a fruit drink. The downside to being stationary was occasionally being trapped by gardening specialists, ministry of agriculture officials and Bangladeshi diplomats. All of who were of no interest professionally or personally to Reilly. No, we live in an apartment, though my wife often brings fresh flowers home, he politely replied to the retiree’s next question as to his own gardening pursuits. Actually, Kathy hadn’t brought home any flowers for some time as she had gone back to America four months earlier, but no reason to burden the pensioner with that fact. They had simply told people at the embassy she was going to the U.S. for a while to visit relatives, though the story had grown a bit thin by August.

A Slavic looking individual about Reilly’s age approached the bar. Excuse me, I think I’ll get a refill, he told the gardener, holding up his empty glass as proof for his reason to move on. Reilly noted the Western-style suit on his target, but the shoes were definitely Russian ugly as Kathy always described them. He overheard the man order a scotch neat in British-accented English. Reilly managed a spot next to him and ordered the same. The bartender delivered both drinks together. Reilly took a quick sip and commented to his soon-to-be new friend, they didn’t bring out the good stuff today, I’m afraid. The Slav gave a small grin and tasted his.

No, well perhaps the monarchy had a bad year and has had to economize somewhere.

Reilly returned an appropriate smile and raised his glass in a toast, to Prince William. His scotch-drinking companion raised his glass to Reilly’s. He had already learned that the man spoke English well and had a sense of humor.

I’m Shawn Reilly of the American Embassy.

I’m Boris Parshenko, Russian Embassy. He smoothly pulled a card from the right pocket of his expensive, but ill-fitting black pinstripe suit and presented it to Reilly. It stated that he was the Counselor for Trade Affairs. Reilly placed the Russian’s card in his shirt pocket and proffered his own which proclaimed him to be the Second Secretary for Political Affairs. Thus began the diplomatic mating dance. They went down the standard list of questions for three or four minutes. Been here long? Does your family enjoy Lisbon? Reilly then excused himself and moved on to speak with someone else. With hard targets like Russians, Reilly never liked to appear as if he was that keen on having met them and never suggested a follow-up meeting at the first encounter. His theory was that a Russian would forgive him for being a CIA man and still talk to him, but not if he were a pushy pain-in-the-butt CIA guy immediately proposing lunch, dinner, coffee, a family outing, tennis or any other of the standard ploys to justify meeting again.

One of the CIA Station’s young, first tour officers crossed Reilly’s path and gave him a nod. For her, attending such functions was still a novelty and a thrill. He remembered his first overseas posting some twenty-five years earlier at a backwater capital in South America and a visit by his blue-collar parents. During their stay there had been the monthly diplomatic association luncheon, as well as a diplomatic golf tournament, and he had organized a cocktail party in honor of their visit. His dad, a first generation American of Irish ancestry, had grown up on the south side of Boston and after WWII had worked his entire adult life in the same factory. At the end of their visit, himself announced that he was very proud of his son and presumed the job paid well; he just couldn’t figure out what, other than partying and playing golf, diplomats actually did for a living.

It was a rather unique existence—eating, drinking and exchanging rumors for one’s country—and the subset of intelligence officers under the cover of being diplomats was an even more exotic life. During quiet moments, Reilly still marveled that there was such a world of smoke and mirrors where rarely things were as they first appeared. He’d had a lot of quiet moments since Kathy’s departure. Even stranger than the existence of such a cloak and dagger universe was that he, son of a Boston factory worker, had become a practitioner of that art. Not the fantasy world of books and movies, but the shadowy real world where you recruited people to spy, helped overthrow governments and sometimes people died. The baseball scholarship had gotten him to a respectable state college. His innate talent at persuasion had brought him to the attention of one of his professors who near graduation had suggested Reilly might want to talk with some friends of his from Washington. After a couple of years’ training, Reilly and his new bride Kathy were on their way to South America. He’d never had a real job, as himself would have seen it. He pondered how many cocktails he’d consumed over the decades at such functions to help make the world safe for democracy, as he took another sip of the second-grade scotch and stared out across the room full of Lisbon’s social elite, diplomats and spies.

Having made the acquaintance of the Russian, of a Pakistani diplomat a bit earlier and learned how best to grow roses in the Algarve, Reilly decided he’d earned his paycheck that day. He started making his way through the sea of guests towards the door. The Station’s two junior officers, Thompson and Chow, were covering the event in any case. They had probably arrived promptly at six and would be there till the finish, trying to meet someone who might become their first recruitment. After twenty-seven years with the Agency, he didn’t have to prove any more he could recruit people; he had already done that many times in many places around the globe. However, spotting and assessing new targets was the part of the job he enjoyed most and so, just to keep his hand in, he occasionally made appearances at receptions. His career would probably have been further along if he had concentrated more on the bureaucratic side of the business and taken management positions in which he only sat behind a desk long ago, but he was a street case officer at heart. He’d gone from one hellhole to another around the world, several times just by himself for months on end in places where it had been too dangerous to take along one’s family. That probably hadn’t helped his marriage either. On the positive side, at least he hadn’t turned into an ass-kissing bureaucrat like the current Chief of Station.

Leaving already? asked a familiar voice from over his shoulder. He turned to see Paul Jones, the Economics Counselor from his own embassy.

Didn’t know you came much to such events? Reilly replied, while grabbing one last cucumber sandwich from a passing food bearer.

My British counterpart would have taken offense if I hadn’t made at least a token appearance. Soon as I can find Susan we’re headed for home.

Well, I’ve gotten dinner out of it, so I’m out of here now. By the way, do you know the Russian Trade Counselor standing over there by the bar, Boris Parshenko? Reilly gave a discreet nod of his head in the direction of his new friend.

Met him once or twice. Doesn’t know a thing about trade. Excuse me, there’s Susan. Bye, Jones hastily replied and dove off into a crowd to retrieve his wife. Jones was as close to the stereotype absent-minded professor as Reilly had ever met, but a likeable guy about the same age as himself. Kathy and Susan had spent a lot of time together during the past two years. As for Boris, Reilly had had a gut feeling that he was no more a trade counselor than Reilly was a political officer. Jones’ tidbit of information was one more reason to suspect Boris was a Russian intelligence officer. Reilly made a mental note to send off a trace request first thing tomorrow morning about his new scotch-drinking, Dunhill-smoking acquaintance as he headed for his armor-plated BMW illegally parked a few blocks from the embassy. Having diplomatic license plates and thus immunity from local traffic regulations did have its practical advantages. He headed for home.

The prostitutes who worked the street where he lived were just coming on duty for the evening as he arrived at his six-story apartment building. He resided in an older section of the city, which still had that old world charm of cobblestone streets and red tile roofs. Reilly knew on a first name basis the people who ran the small grocery, fruit and bread stores in his neighborhood. He hit the button to trigger the automatic door to the basement garage as he neared the driveway. He remembered how when the embassy did the security survey to approve his renting this apartment, they considered the regular presence of the ladies of the evening as a positive feature, explaining to him how they would see anyone lurking around and thus deter potential terrorists or common criminals. Sounded reasonable to Reilly, though Kathy had been less thrilled about dinner guests having to go through a gauntlet of hookers to reach their front door.

He locked the steel-core door of the three-bedroom apartment behind him, turned off the alarm and checked for voice messages on the phone. No calls. About the only calls he ever found on it were the occasional ones from Kathy. She obviously called when she knew he wouldn’t be home, leaving requests that he mail certain items to her sister’s home in Michigan. She hadn’t said she wanted a divorce or anything before she had flown home—just wanted some time alone to think she’d said. He had known better than to press her to be more specific about her plans when she left, but had expected her back by now or some definitive word from her. He’d called her a few times at the sister’s, but they only talked of trivial things. The topic of why after twenty-five years of marriage she’d decided to leave never seemed to come up during the calls. Reilly had spent a good many nights himself analyzing what had gone wrong. He’d been faithful all those years. Granted, his work had occupied a lot of his time, but still he thought, he’d been a pretty good husband compared to many around. The best he could figure was that it had been a cumulative effect, no single glaring reason. Too many crummy apartments in crummy countries and too many nights of him out on the streets and Kathy left at home alone. Maybe if they had had kids. They had decided early in the marriage to wait a few years and then there were concerns about being able to get health care for a baby in certain countries or other reasons to postpone starting a family—and suddenly they were in their forties.

He wasn’t really in the mood to think about Kathy that night. He tossed his suit coat and tie on the back of the floral-print, government furnished sofa and kicked off his shoes. The tired diplomat poured himself two fingers of Oban single malt and settled his six foot one frame into his favorite reclining leather chair. The sigh that came out as he went down was that of a man at least seventy, not one who had just recently turned fifty. There was some wear on him, but he’d stayed in shape—at least enough so that people found it plausible he had once been an athlete. His sigh hit the ceiling, bounced off a picture of Kathy on the white marble fireplace mantle and came back at him. Even he recognized the signs of a man who just didn’t care any more. He was tired of saving the world, of trying to save his marriage and particularly tired of dealing over the past year with a COS who didn’t know what an operation was, having never really personally conducted one. If that was what the Agency was promoting to the top, perhaps it was time for Reilly to retire and find a new career, or at least something himself would consider a real job. He’d pondered that option more and more since Kathy had gone on vacation. He’d become eligible to retire when he had turned fifty back in March. One major question, however, attached to the idea of retirement was what exactly would he do for a second career. Unlike many of his colleagues who had law degrees or had had several years of experience in the corporate world before joining, Reilly had come straight to the Agency after college with a history degree. He wasn’t sure there was a great demand in the private sector for a middle-aged guy who only knew how to commit espionage or to put down a dead drop in a dark alley. The truth was, he was scared to retire. He had not risen to the senior ranks, but he was looked up to by many, particularly the junior officers who knew something of his record. He pretended he didn’t care, but he did like it when they came to him for advice. And the money issue aside, could he handle as a retiree not being a part of the game after all these years? He loved the spy business, and of being in the know of what was happening behind the scenes of world events. Reilly loved the mental challenge of convincing people to spy for him. He had never thought of it as getting them to commit treason, but rather as helping them to fulfill a dream. Perhaps one they already had or one Reilly had helped them to formulate. Reilly simply sold dreams.

He took Kathy’s photo from the mantle, poured himself another two fingers of Oban and settled back in his chair. He remembered how they had first met at a friend’s party in Washington many years ago. The then young spy was crazy about her from the start. Aided by the scotch, his brain recalled happier days together—the first time they had made love, and of a boat trip along the coast of Belize. He fell asleep in his chair thinking about her wonderful smile.

The next morning the black BMW turned slowly off the Avenida des Forcas Armadas into the entrance of the U.S. Embassy compound. Strictly speaking, Reilly was supposed to show his embassy badge to the local guard, but after two years all of them knew the car and his face, which looked like he’d had a hard night of drinking. He looked that way more and more often since Kathy had left. He popped the hood and trunk so one guard could check for bombs in there, while the other walked around the car with a large mirror on a pole to look at the undercarriage. Having been declared bomb free, the barrier was raised and Reilly proceeded to his reserved parking place. Normally, a second secretary did not rate a reserved spot, but then one of the worst kept secrets in the embassy was that Reilly was the CIA Deputy Chief of Station. Aside from having the parking space and an armored car, at fifty Reilly would have been the Foreign Service’s oldest second secretary. Another clue was that, unlike a real Foreign Service Officer, he showed little deference to Ambassador Brown, a former car dealer from Cleveland who had contributed generously to the president’s election campaign. Not enough to get the post in Paris or Rome, but enough so that he could pick up the phone and call the president’s chief of staff if he felt he wasn’t being treated right by the State Department’s career diplomats. Reilly wasn’t much of an ass kisser by nature, and he figured the COS did enough for the both of them.

The embassy was a fairly new structure of ugly concrete walls, but at least surrounded by well-kept gardens which were now at their summer peak. Reilly entered the main chancery, said hello to the Marine guard on duty behind the bullet-proof Plexiglas and took the stairs to the top floor where only American staff employees were allowed. He proceeded down the corridor over the moderately priced beige carpet and past the photos of previous American ambassadors dating back to the nineteenth century. He reached the mahogany veneer door which matched the rest in the corridor except that this one had a steel center and no section name on it. He entered the cipher lock combination and passed through the door into the area which housed the CIA section of the chancery. The local employees in the embassy jokingly referred to the section as the water company for the same initials in Portuguese were those of the company of industrial water. He went directly to his own office, hung his coat on a hook behind the door and dropped into his simulation-leather chair behind the simulation-wood desk. The Chief of Station rated real leather and real wood. As only the Deputy, he had to live with something a bit less expensive according to some obscure administrative regulation, written by some obscure administrative officer who probably had received a cash award for having come up with such a rule to save the government money. He did have several nice watercolors of Ireland on the off-white, plaster walls, which he had brought in from home. On one corner of his desk stood an eight by ten inch photo of Kathy and him in happier days.

He turned on his computer, entered a few passwords and began reading the incoming traffic from Headquarters and other CIA stations around the world. Given the five hour time difference, there were always a number of cables waiting to be read which had been sent out the previous day from Washington. He marked several of them for action by different officers at the Station. He then pulled from his shirt pocket the calling cards of the Russian and Pakistani diplomats he had met the previous evening. He typed up a short cable on each, explaining how he had met them and added the few biographical facts he’d learned about each one. He asked for traces and an expression of operational interest by the Russian and Pakistani desks at Headquarters. Fifteen minutes later he was done and went searching for a cup of coffee. He checked first to see what the office pot had in it. The bag read decaffeinated Italian Vanilla Cream, something brought in no doubt by young Thompson. Reilly didn’t drink any kind of coffee that needed more than one word to describe it. The embassy cafeteria sold coffee. It was hot, black and from Brazil.

Upon his return from the cafeteria, he checked his queue to see what cables others had written were waiting for his review. Steve Thompson had written nine paragraphs about a junior Indian diplomat he’d met at last night’s reception and would see for lunch next Monday. Reilly edited it down to three. Thompson was on his first tour and still suffered the delusion that anyone at Headquarters had the time or inclination to read nine paragraph descriptions of how witty he had been during conversation with an early developmental. Amy Chow’s shorter cable covered her second chance encounter with a Chinese first secretary almost old enough to be her father. Normally such an age gap would be a problem with a developmental, but the Chinese liked the master-student relationship and Amy was playing it well. He sent her cable forward with a few edits to the COS for release.

Amy, a twenty-seven year old Chinese-American on her first overseas tour, knocked on his door. Got a minute?

Sure, come on in. Good cable on comrade Liu, he added as he dug around in his desk drawer to find two more aspirins. He swallowed them with a slug of coffee. He then put his feet up on the corner of his desk. Reilly’s signal he really did have time to chat.

Thanks. Mr. Liu and I had a good conversation last evening and he seemed pleased to see me. He said he’d be at the diplomatic association luncheon next Tuesday.

That’s a good sign. Maybe you can work into the conversation on Tuesday how you’re still paying off your college loans. Reilly could tell by the puzzled look on her face that it wasn’t perfectly obvious to her what his suggestion would accomplish, so he explained further. That will show him you’re not some rich kid who didn’t have to worry about money. Second, it will lay the groundwork for a future conversation about how would he pay someday for his son to attend a university out in the West. The smile on her face told him she saw the point. Remember, you always need to be preparing the ground for future conversational topics with your developmentals. Thompson walked by the door and didn’t even look in. He’d obviously seen Reilly’s editing work.

Who was the old guy at the bar I saw you talking to last night? Amy asked, obviously without thinking about the fact that Reilly was probably as old as the old guy at the bar.

Boris Parshenko. Said he has been here two years, but it was the first time I’ve seen him on the circuit. Claimed to be the trade counselor, but I bet you a bowl of fried rice traces come back saying he is a hood.

Sweet. I can’t believe you go to one reception a month, stay just thirty minutes and meet a Russian intelligence officer.

Reilly gave her a big grin. Luck is always better than talent. Now get out of here and go make some luck for yourself. Reilly’s headache was beginning to subside.

Chapter II

DIPLOMATIC ASSOCIATION LUNCHEON

Reilly was about half way through reading the morning message traffic two days later when he got to the trace response from Russia House about Boris Parshenko. His gut instincts had been right. Boris was intel. First in the KGB, then he survived the changeover in 1991, and was now a senior colonel in its successor organization the SVR. He had previous tours in London, Stockholm and then London again. He had been met by a number of Agency officers over the years, always polite, but never willing to have one-on-one contact. Whatever his specialty was, it didn’t seem to be chasing Americans. Given his age and rank he was probably the SVR Rezident in Lisbon. His father-in-law was a retired Red Army general. The cable ended with the recommendation that as Parshenko had given Reilly his card, he should phone him and invite him to lunch. Reilly presumed that bit of really original advice, which he would ignore, had been written by someone fresh out of the Clandestine Service Trainee course. Someone who had probably never actually met a Russian in person.

His phone rang. He saw from the caller ID screen it was the extension of the COS’ secretary.

Yes Helen, how are you?

I’m fine, thank you. The boss would like to see you.

The COS always used his phone to call Helen to instruct her to call him. For the same effort he could just as easily call Reilly himself, but he never did. Reilly finished reading the last two new cables before starting his trek up the hallway to see the COS. He never looked forward to conversations with the COS and after the first six months of his arrival tried to have as few as possible. He tapped on the open door as he entered the chief’s well-appointed office. Reilly had to admit the man looked good sitting behind a large, mahogany wood desk. Unfortunately, the appearance of being a seasoned spy chief was as close as the COS came to actually being one.

Have you tried this Italian Vanilla Cream? he asked Reilly, holding up his cup. It’s excellent.

No, not yet. What’s up?

The COS pivoted in his executive model leather chair so as to pick up the cable about Parshenko from his credenza. I see we have a hot one—this Russki of yours.

He probably is the Rezident, but you notice he hasn’t been keen on contact with Americans over the past twenty years.

The Italian Vanilla Cream drinker adjusted the fountain pen in its holder so that it was at a precise ninety degree angle to the black marble base with its brass name plate. When are you going to call old Boris and invite him out?

I’m not. Hopefully I’ll encounter him again on the circuit and I’ll see what vibes I get from a second encounter.

Headquarters wants you to call him now.

Reilly reached over and pointed to the pertinent paragraph of the cable. Actually, it just recommends a phone call. I’ll look for him at next week’s dip luncheon, he added as he rose to leave.

"Ah, yes, I see.