A Turkish Triangle
In October 1962, CIA officer Karl Baier is sent to Turkey to discover those responsible for the recent deaths of three Soviet assets useful for the U.S. spying operations there. These are coincidentally the days when the world’s fate hangs by a thread: the two nuclear superpowers at loggerheads over Cuba.
Rapp makes a good-faith effort to bring Turkey into play, pointing out that Turkey guards the Soviets’ warm-water ports and so was a good place for the U.S. to be setting missiles of their own while Khrushchev set his up in Cuba. We were all sitting on the edge of our seats in front of the TV in the U.S.; Baier hears his news only third-hand from those who have seen Cronkite’s version.
That is how much of the novel happens: told, not shown, in windowless offices as characters recite poli-sci textbook versions of what’s happening outside. The metal chairs mentioned are familiar—and as hard to sit on, on the page, as in real life. The most riveting part of these sessions seems to be what the suits are wearing. We are taken to wonderful locations—and no more than I can learn from Wikipedia evoked in descriptions. Minarets on the cover, and not one muezzin call marks the passage of time?
We often are told that real-life spycraft is dull. It could hardly be otherwise when, as happened in late-70s Tehran, U.S. agents were posted without bothering to learn the local language and had to get their intel from more attentive Soviets. But perhaps at least one of the sacrificed assets could still be alive when our hero enters the scene so we could work up some sympathy and thrills over the death.
