Editing Three Days of the Condor (section)

== Plot ==
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Joe Turner is a bookish [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] analyst, codenamed "Condor", who works at the American Literary Historical Society in [[New York City]], which is actually a clandestine CIA office. The staff members examine books, newspapers, and magazines from around the world to compare them to actual operations or to find ideas. Turner files a report to [[George Bush Center for Intelligence|CIA headquarters]] on a thriller novel with strange plot elements that has been translated into several languages despite poor sales.

As Turner leaves through a back door to get staff lunches, armed men enter the office and murder the other staffers there.
Returning to find his co-workers dead, he grabs a gun and exits the building. He contacts the CIA's New York headquarters in the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] from a phone booth and is given instructions to meet Wicks, his head of department, who will take him to safety. Turner insists that Wicks bring somebody familiar, since he has never met his departmental head. Wicks brings Sam Barber, a college friend of Turner who is also a non-field CIA employee. The rendezvous is a trap and Wicks attempts to kill Turner, who wounds him before escaping. Wicks kills Barber to eliminate a witness and blames Turner for both shootings. Later, Wicks is killed by an intruder in his hospital room.

Turner encounters a woman named Kathy Hale and forces her to take him to her apartment. He holds Hale hostage while he attempts to figure out what is happening. Hale slowly comes to trust Turner, and they become lovers. Turner visits Sam's apartment where he encounters Joubert, a European who led the massacre of Turner's co-workers and had disconnected Wicks from life support at the hospital. Outside the building, Joubert tries to shoot Turner, who manages to escape. But Joubert discovers Turner's hiding place by tracking the license plate on Kathy's car and the next morning, a hitman disguised as a mailman arrives at Hale's apartment, but Turner manages to out fight and kill him.

No longer able to trust anyone, Turner plays a cat-and-mouse game with Higgins, the deputy director of the CIA's New York division. With Hale's help, Turner abducts Higgins, who identifies Joubert as a freelance assassin who has undertaken assignments for the CIA. Released and back at his office, Higgins discovers that the "mailman" who attacked Turner worked with Joubert on a previous operation and that their CIA case officer was Wicks.

After tracking a hotel key he found on the mailman, Turner discovers Joubert's location and utilizing a portable phone he stole off a phone company truck, Turner sneaks into the hotel's switchboard and is able to trace a phone call from Joubert and learn the name and address of Leonard Atwood, [[Deputy Director of CIA for Operations|CIA Deputy Director of Operations]] for the Middle East. Confronting Atwood at gunpoint in his mansion near [[Washington, D.C.]], Turner suggests that his own original report filed to CIA headquarters had exposed a rogue CIA operation to seize Middle Eastern oil fields; fearful of its disclosure, Atwood had privately ordered Turner's section eliminated.

As Atwood confirms this, Joubert enters and unexpectedly kills him, faking a suicide. Atwood's superiors had hired Joubert to eliminate someone who was about to become an embarrassment, overriding Atwood's original contract for Joubert to kill Turner. Joubert suggests that the resourceful Turner leave the country and even become an assassin himself. Turner rejects the suggestion but heeds Joubert's warning that the CIA will try to eliminate him as another embarrassment, possibly entrapping him through a trusted acquaintance.

Back in New York, Turner has a rendezvous with Higgins near [[Times Square]]. Higgins describes the oilfield plan as a [[contingency plan|contingency "game"]] that was planned within the CIA without approval from above. He defends the project, suggesting that when [[peak oil|oil shortages]] cause a major economic crisis, the American people will accept any measures to keep their comfortable lives. Turner then reveals that he has given full details to ''[[The New York Times]]''. Higgins retorts that Turner is about to become a very lonely man and questions whether the [[whistleblowing]] will really be published. "They'll print it," Turner defiantly replies. As "Condor" walks away, Higgins shouts after him "How do you know?"