The Mulberry Bush by Charles McCarry

invisible man that I was supposed to be. In time the sense of camaraderie was cooled by experience as I discovered that not everyone I met inside the Inside was all that different, after all was said and done, from the folks I knew in academia and politics.
    Mammals are mammals. They like to stay close to one another, to walk as one in a perpetual circle, mentally in step, to be the same color and size, to munch the same grass, to go back the next year to the same starting point and do it all over again, to see the genetic and other benefits of having mavericks like my father who left the herd eaten by predators.
    Headquarters was not a breed apart, just another herd.
    I never truly belonged to the herd or wanted to belong. But I got better and better at impersonation. Little by little, my doppelgänger came into being, and then became me as I, in turn, gradually becamemy doppelgänger. In the end I was the role and the role was me. Even the polygraph could not tell the difference.
    At times, it is true, I longed to be myself, to be free to be myself in the presence of a witness—just one. And so I waited for Luz—pictured her, searched for her, talked to her in my mind. Knew I would know her when I found her.

6
    For five years after I left Moonshine Manor I never set foot in Headquarters—or for that matter, in the United States. Unlike Father, I was sent immediately into the heart of darkness, which in my time was Islam. It was a superb hiding place. My targets were terrorism and terrorists. I lived like a terrorist, under many aliases. I operated alone and reported directly to a single person at Headquarters. I was constantly on the move, sometimes visiting half a dozen countries and speaking as many languages and dialects in twice as many days. I liked the work and to my surprise discovered that I had a knack for it. Despite Fred’s warnings about boredom, I found it unfailingly interesting. True, it involved a lot of wasted time, but what line of human endeavor does not? I liked the danger, which was real and constant. I liked keeping my eyes open and my wits about me during every waking moment.
    Every month, usually in some out-of-the-way retreat in the European countryside, I met my handler, Bill Stringfellow. I had always liked him within limits. Over time my misgivings about him dissipated and I began to regard him with something like affection. As a handler Bill—a formerchief of the division I now worked for—was competence itself, never a wrong move or a foolish word. From the beginning of our new relationship he dropped his avuncular manner and treated me as an equal. When we were together, he gave me his full attention. When we were apart I had the sense, even though I knew this was in no way justified or even possible, that he was looking out for me.
    In operational matters Bill made sure I had what I needed and on the whole, gave me my head. He kept his word without fail and to the letter telling me what to do but never how to do it. He knew the craft of espionage inside out, and he was good company—a tonic, actually, because on the surface at least, he was so completely himself. Bill liked to meet at taxpayer expense in Europe at isolated châteaux and
schlosses
that had been converted into hotels with restaurants that were listed in the Michelin guides. We would arrive at some converted castle separately, meet as if by chance in the bar and for the benefit of the staff and the other guests, mimic taking a liking to each other, then bond like the only two English speakers on a Chinese ship, eat dinner together, drink together, play golf or tennis after breakfast and backgammon after dinner—passions of Bill’s that I could take or leave alone.
    Business—what I had done since last we met and how I had done it, what Headquarters thought I should do next—was conducted on long hikes well out of the range of listening devices. Bill was in his sixties, but his