“I have a source in the CIA,” I began. “I met him overseas. He was the person who helped me nail the Costa story, actually. He’s a strange guy, but very bright. And he hates the agency, which means he’s willing to say almost anything. He wants to be a journalist; it’s almost an obsession with him. Anyway, he contacted me a few weeks ago to ask whether we might ever hire someone who had worked for the CIA as a reporter. I checked with Marcus and then told him it was impossible. We’d never hire an ex-intelligence officer at the Mirror. And he said that was bullshit, because we had a spy working for us right now. And that was Arthur.

“My first reaction was the same as yours, that it was completely unthinkable. But then this guy—my source—said that if I wanted evidence that Arthur was working for the French, I should follow his coverage of the communications deal in China. And not long after that, Arthur began writing stuff that was very negative for the U.S. side and helpful to the French. He wrote a column saying we should pull out of the negotiations because of China’s human rights record. And then he had the big story this week about the CIA payoffs in China. And at that point, I knew I had to come see you.”

“Jesus Christ!” Weiss was trying to control his temper, but you could tell he was furious. I thought at first he was angry at Bowman, but it wasn’t that. “Listen, Eric, I’m not blaming you. You were right to come to see me, but I have to say I’m not impressed with your CIA friend, who denounces one of the finest reporters in America after you tell him the Mirror won’t give him a job, and after we publish stories the agency doesn’t like. I’m not impressed with that, at all. Did he give you any evidence?”

I tried to think. It wasn’t easy with Weiss glaring at me. What had Rupert Cohen told me, exactly? I needed to be very careful now. I didn’t want Weiss to think I was being used by someone from the agency, and I didn’t want him to doubt my judgment any more than he already did.

“His evidence was pretty thin,” I said. “He claimed he’d heard corridor talk about Arthur at the agency a few years ago. Then he checked the agency files and found out that during the early eighties, there had been some kind of investigation of Arthur, but it was closed.”

“And that’s it? He blackens the reputation of one of the country’s finest journalists on the basis of corridor talk, and some crappy investigation that even they decided was bullshit. That’s it?” Weiss was getting angrier, the more he thought about it.