"Laurence M. Janifer - Agent in Place" - читать интересную книгу автора (Janifer Laurence M)

LAURENCE M.
JANIFER

Knowledge is the ability to predict. A little knowledge is dangerous, of course. But dangerous to
whom?

AN AGENT IN PLACE

It will be very interesting to find out whether I can write this one down and get it published. I'm
asking a science-fiction writer to polish it for me, and it will go out under his by-line if only because a
habit of anonymity is hard to break; but none of that should make any difference. Whatever else they
have their eye on, and I know they're spread thin, they have their eye on me. There is no doubt of that.

Which sounds paranoid until you know the facts. Such as my profession, which is Special Agent, and
who they are. They're Central IntelligenceтАФnot the CIA, though around Washington we've mostly given
up trying to make the distinction; Congress can think what it likes, and our appropriation comes out of
the "Miscellaneous" barrel anyhow. CIA is mostly an international net specializing in data recovery,
though like everybody else they take on other jobs now and then. Central Intelligence is "specifically
nonspecialist," as the Director put it once to a House Committee: we do a little of everything from
spy-eye work to protective guarding, and sometimes we make a connection that somebody looking at
only one area might miss. We don't get into the news much but we earn our pay. Until recently I didn't
know just how thoroughly we earned our pay. But, as I said, they're spread thin. This report may have a
chance of getting through. And you might like to know where our small piece of your tax dollar is going.
The Director was telling me that he had access to files "not quite as extensive as Hollywood's Central
Casting, but adequate for our purposes," and I was wondering just what sort of impersonation deal I was
up for, since to my knowledge I didn't look much like anybody in the news. It had to be that: why
mention Central Casting otherwise?
So I slumped a little in the chair next to his desk, and took one long, sad drag on my cigarette, and
said: "All right, sir. Who am I supposed to be?"
He didn't congratulate me on the deduction. He wastes very little time. "You don't like impersonation
work, I take it?"
"Frankly, sir: no," I said. "You're loaded with makeup and memorization, and you have nothing to do
but wait until somebody tries to pot you. It may be useful; it may even be necessary now and then; but it's
depressing."
"This isn't quite the usual thing," he said. He frowned at my cigarette. He'd given me a lecture about
the Surgeon General onceтАФbut only once. "There isn't much makeup, and there isn't much memory.
You're going to be triggered for one phraseтАФwe can do that under depth hypnosis, but I'll tell you what
the phrase is and what your action will be; beyond that, we won't tamper with you at all."
The Director is very big on keeping things as open as he can with the rest of us. I've heard him say
that we were "valued professional aides, and not chess pieces"тАФin that same Committee hearing. It
irritates me to think about that, now.
"And nobody will try to pot me?" I said. "It sounds unusual."
"Well . . ." He pushed an ashtray across the desk to me and I stubbed out the cigarette. "I wouldn't
quite go that far," he said. Which made matters clear, if not comforting.
"All right," I said. "So ... who's in danger? Who am I supposed to be?"
"A man named WelkinтАФBeer Barrel Dave Welkin," he said. "And, as for who's in dangerтАФ"
He went on with quite a speech about the election year, and everybody being in danger, the spate of
assassinations in this country since 1963, the job the FBI and the Treasury men were trying to do, and
the fact that we were spread so thin we couldn't cover every danger-spot or even every possible target:
"We have to confine ourselves to what we can see and know, which isn't much," he said, but I, was