"If you are not only outspoken but staunchly against the head of state, surely things can go wrong," the CIO man says. "You should be on guard. When you shoot at someone, you can expect them to shoot back."
Hard-liners in the agency were crowing about Ncube's humiliation for days, the officer says.
"There was a kind of happiness that this outspoken priest had been exposed. For others, this didn't move the economy one inch. It was just a stunt, something you would rejoice over for one hour. It didn't achieve anything."
The officer has enough education and seniority to put him above having to get his hands dirty, like the agents who interrogate and torture suspects. He's polite, sophisticated and wears a crisp suit.
He joined the CIO because of political ambition. Now, with Mugabe fading, he fears that his career in the CIO might not get him far after all.
Slowly and cautiously, he is trying get a foot into the opposition camp as well, by leaking information to the MDC's security wing through an intermediary. But it's a nerve-racking business, given the ruling party's predilection for watching its own as avidly as it watches the enemy.
In years past, the officer says, the CIO higher-ups saw opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as a buffoon. They poked fun at his chubby cheeks and looked down on his lack of education. To them, he was no match for Mugabe, with his numerous degrees and stinging rhetoric.
But most people in the CIO don't joke about Tsvangirai anymore. They poke fun at Mugabe.
"People talk openly [about it] in the organization. There are certain things you would not have said openly, like statements against his excellency the president. Ah, but these days, people even say that.
"They say the old man should go. They even use, in a derogatory way, the term mudhara. It means 'old man,' but it's not a respectful word."
Tsvangirai is "not seen as very bright, but he's accepted because of the leadership change that everyone wants to see. There's no alternative. He is the alternative to the system. By virtue of that, he's accepted."
During the elections this year, CIO officers cruised around Harare, the capital, in search of suspicious-looking foreigners. I picked up a tail near the U.S. Embassy shortly after the March 29 vote. To make sure, I pulled suddenly into a coffee shop parking lot, without using my turn signal.
