Thirty-nine-year-old James Lewis, a veteran covert operative, and his Vietnamese-born wife, Monique, had invited Agency colleagues to their apartment for a dinner as only Lewis could prepare. A gourmet chef, he had spent hours fixing the meal—nothing but the freshest ingredients, the best spices, the perfect wine. The Agency’s top Middle East specialist, Robert C. Ames, was in town on temporary duty, and there was a sense that what was happening here made this shattered capital city, once likened to Paris, some sort of epicenter—a place of deadly intrigue, espionage, and ancient rivalries. In short, Jim Lewis’s kind of place. Monique, too, had special reason to celebrate this evening. The next day was to be her first on the job, working as a CIA secretary in the embassy. It was spring, a time of hope even in Beirut, and a time for Jim Lewis to put his culinary skills to the test on behalf of friends old and new.Across town somewhere, other preparations, no less elaborate, were under way.
