Casey couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Whatever glimmering of pride Casey felt at knowing his boss was paying attention to what he came up with on his time as a freelance amateur sleuth and commentator quickly disappeared. “What do you mean, delete it?” Casey asked.
“I mean you should take it off of your website,” Jim said.
“Why? I didn’t actually call anybody out. I just put things together to try to make sense of everything.” Casey’s voice punctuated his disagreement with Jim’s suggestion. “If I make somebody nervous because I hit too close to the bone, then so be it. Didn’t you tell us to find the truth?”
“If you can prove it,” Jim said.
“That’s what I’m doing,” Casey said.
Jim shook his head. “You didn’t prove anything. All you did was make a case based on circumstantial evidence and conjecture. Not to mention upping the ante by saying Ms. Fahda was intentionally killed.”
“I said it’s possible,” Casey retorted. “And how does that change anything? I also said the whole bombing was a set-up to begin with, whether Mari was there or not. Wouldn’t that cause more heartburn with the people responsible?”
“But all your evidence is linked to that one woman, and you announced it to the world,” Jim said. “That’s why it’s dangerous.”
“Sir, Mari’s already dead,” Casey pointed out.
“Dangerous for you, Casey,” Jim said. “If you’re right, and someone diverted one of the bombers to silence Mariam Fahda once and for all, there’s a damn good chance that same person might come after you.”
Casey hesitated. “You think I’m right?”
Two men walked by the opening to Casey’s cubicle, arguing loudly over which of New York’s baseball teams would take the World Series Championship home next.
Jim stood up, ignoring Casey’s question. “Come with me.”
Casey followed Jim down to the cell leader’s more private office and closed the door behind him. He sat in one of the leather chairs reserved for visitors and waited for Jim to take his customary position behind the large desk. When his boss failed to come into view, Casey turned and saw that Jim didn’t make it past the bookcase that took up most of the room’s north wall.
“This picture was taken in 2000.” Jim was talking to Casey, but he was facing the bookshelf, his back to the young analyst. “The short guy holding up the sixty-pound black drum—or trying to hold it up—is Arturo Fuentes. His wife, Judy, took that picture one weekend while we were fishing near Cape Charles.”
Casey didn’t get up. He figured Jim was going somewhere with his reminiscing, though he didn’t know where, and he knew his boss didn’t expect Casey to actually look at the photograph on the shelf. Despite Casey’s characteristic lack of diplomacy, he knew there were times when it was best to keep his mouth shut and just listen.
“That was before we went high-order on al Qa’ida,” Jim added. He finally moved to his desk and lowered himself into the chair. “After 9/11, NSA leadership, along with the rest of the Intelligence Community, became spooked by the transnational terrorist threat. It wasn’t that we weren’t tracking these guys for years, but after the Twin Towers fell, people saw a suicide bomber on every street corner. We were given carte blanche to monitor anyone and everyone—here and abroad.”
Jim looked over at the picture and continued. “Art and I had been on the same shift for two years, which is how we came to be friends, but in October 2002, Art was moved out of the op center. He said it was a paper promotion, meaning he wasn’t getting a pay raise, but I learned from some of the other people on the floor that Art was chosen to be part of the new WMD syndicate.”
“Iraq?” Casey asked.
“Yes,” Jim said. “But, at the time, only the people in the WMD group knew that for sure. It wasn’t hard for the rest of us to figure it out, though. When you’re told to stop monitoring specific channels and frequencies, that doesn’t mean NSA is no longer interested, it just means someone else is monitoring them, and they want tight control of the information that comes from those sources.”
“That makes sense,” Casey said. “Fewer people in the know means fewer chances for leaks.”
“In theory, yes,” Jim said. “But in 2002, NSA didn’t have the number of people they have now. When they needed someone who could provide real-time translation of Arabic and who also understood the scientific and technical vocabulary associated with weapons of mass destruction, Arturo Fuentes quickly made the short list. If there had been more candidates to choose from, Art would have never been picked.” Jim’s eyes fixed on Casey’s. “And he’d still be alive today.”
“Why wouldn’t he have been picked for that group?” Casey asked.
“Because Art wasn’t a ‘yes’ man. He believed he was hired because of his abilities, and that meant giving his opinion even when he knew it wasn’t what his superiors wanted to hear. When Art thought he was right about something, you had better have some damn good contradictory evidence to convince him otherwise,” Jim said. “He was a lot like you in that respect. But they weren’t looking for opinions. They just needed to give the impression of due diligence so no one would question the conclusions they’d already come to.”
Now Casey started to understand. But it was Jim’s story, and he wanted his boss to confirm what he believed the ending was going to be. “Who are they? The ones who already knew the answers?” he asked.
“Who knows?” Jim said. “The U.S. power base, I mean the real power in Washington, goes well beyond the roster of elected officials. Where Art got into trouble was questioning the reports coming out of the WMD syndicate that said Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons programs were operational, and production was continuing right under the noses of the UN inspection team.”
“Didn’t the CIA say the same thing?” Casey asked.
“That’s just it, the entire IC was in on it,” Jim said. “Remember the speech Colin Powell gave to the Security Council in February 2003?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the intercepted phone calls the Secretary played were NSA’s contribution to the deception.”
“You mean they were fake?” Casey asked.
“Not fake, just not complete—like a sound bite,” Jim explained. “The UNSC was only given what they needed to hear.” He thought for a second and said, “You could probably say the same for Secretary Powell, but not for Art. He was privy to the entire conversations. It was his job to translate and transcribe those and hundreds more just like them. But just like a media sound bite, when you put that audio in context with the rest of the recording, what was offered as proof for why we needed to invade Iraq didn’t actually prove anything. And when Art pointed this out, even back in December before the speech, he was told to just keep translating the intercepts, that someone else would decide what to do with them.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t just leave it alone,” Casey said.
“At first he did,” Jim said. “By mid-January, though, the reports were getting even more outrageous. Satellite imagery of a new soccer field being built in Samarra became evidence that nuclear material was being moved to hidden, underground bunkers. A conversation about a lack of new tires for the police motorpool became code speak for delays in moving the mobile bio-labs to an outlying site where the UN inspectors wouldn’t find them.
“Art couldn’t take it anymore. His marriage was strained as Art took his frustration home with him, unable to tell Judy what was bothering him because everything he was working on was classified top secret or higher. The last week of January, Art went to Chris Reynolds, head of Weapon Systems in the Signals Intelligence Directorate, and said he was out.”
“He quit?” Casey asked.
“Yes, but he also told Chris that he wasn’t going to just sit on it. Art said he thought the Senate Intelligence Committee might be interested to hear how they were being fed a bunch of bullshit from the NSA and probably others, as well.” Jim lowered his eyes. “That was January
24th, the last day anyone saw Arturo Fuentes alive.” He looked back up at Casey. “A county engineer found his body in a storm drain near Crownsville, Maryland, two weeks later. They determined it was suicide, though I don’t know how they could figure that out from what was left after the dogs found him.”
“Jesus,” Casey said under his breath.
Jim folded his arms and leaned forward on the desk. “Now do you understand why I told you to be careful about the accusations you make? The relative safety I said you have because you live in America only goes so far—even with evidence. Art Fuentes had hard evidence of intelligence manipulation, and it got him killed. So please, reconsider taking that post down. For your own safety.”
Casey thought about the warning Jim Shelton just gave him. It was more than anecdotal. It was personal. And Jim really thought Casey could be in danger if the wrong people got wind of his Complicity Doctrine theory. Jim probably knew Casey would resist his suggestion to pull the post, hence the story of the late Arturo Fuentes. But Casey wasn’t ready to duck and run just yet.
“If I delete the post,” Casey said, “and I’m not saying I’m going to, but if I did, won’t they win before the game even starts?”
“It’s not a game, Casey! That’s the point,” Jim argued. “These people didn’t think twice about killing a dozen innocent civilians just to keep Mariam Fahda from possibly exposing their plans. You already did that by publishing your goddamn theory for the whole world to see. So tell me, what’s going to stop them from coming after you next?” Jim removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the corners of his mouth. Before Casey could answer, Jim added, “Nothing, Casey. That’s what. The people behind this have a much larger agenda than launching some missiles into Yemen, and they’re not going to let a nobody blogger with an active imagination fuck it up.”
Casey had seen Jim get angry before, but he’d never heard the man curse like that. And while cussing was almost second-nature to Casey, thanks to his past employment with the United States Navy and the lack of decorum common in much of his generation, hearing Jim drop the f-bomb told Casey that his boss wasn’t joking around—if there had been any doubt. Something else the man said, though, made Casey wonder just how much Jim knew that he wasn’t communicating.
“You’re positive Mari was a target, aren’t you?” Casey asked. “I mean, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so concerned about someone trying to kill me, would you?”
“What are you insinuating?”
“You have proof the bomb at Soren’s was meant for Mari,” Casey said.
Jim looked behind Casey to make sure the door was closed and got up. He walked around and leaned on the front of the desk. “I called in a favor from one of the people I trained at NSA years ago,” he said in a lowered voice.
“And?” Casey prodded.
“I gave her the list of names you brought in and asked if NSA was tracking any of them, specifically in connection with the bombings,” Jim said. “They intercepted a coded transmission from overseas confirming that Yahia Abdulsalam, Saleh al Fishi, and another man named Murad al Hawati were terminated. I checked, and al Hawati is also on the list.”
Son of a bitch, Casey thought. “Who sent the message?”
“Forget it,” Jim said. “Look, my friend was already breaking the law by telling me as much as she did. The best I can give you is that someone was curious about those names before the bombing even happened.”
“You mean NSA knew about this? And they didn’t do anything to stop the bombers?” Casey asked incredulously.
“Don’t start casting stones,” Jim cautioned. “That intercepted message alone wouldn’t have led even the best analyst to make the connection to a terrorist attack no one saw coming. All that message did was confirm the deaths of three Arab men. The value of that intercept actually comes after the fact because we know the men named as the bombers were already dead before the bombing happened.” Jim stood up before he said, “The only other information she gave me was that the transmission was sent to a satellite receiver somewhere in northern Virginia.”
Casey didn’t know how to respond, so he remained silent as he stood up.
“And that does not leave this room.”
“Aye, sir,” Casey said. Jim had just provided Casey with probably the best proof he was going to get that Mari Fahda was murdered by the same people who orchestrated the Friday morning bombings, and whoever was behind them fully intended to blame the Houthi from the beginning. Only, he couldn’t use it as proof, because he couldn’t tell anyone about it. Still, it was not damning evidence, by any count, and there were any number of other scenarios besides Casey’s theory that could be based on the same evidence. What was missing was the answer to who was behind the whole thing, and until Casey knew that, he wasn’t walking away.
* * * * *
Casey left Jim’s office after promising to think about removing the Complicity Doctrine post from Middle-Truths. He returned to his cubicle and found the red light on his desk phone flashing. He picked up the receiver and dialed the code to retrieve the message. When the voicemail was over, Casey hung up the phone and checked his watch. Maybe he’ll be late, Casey thought as he headed for the IWG reception desk.
Nope. Right on time. Casey saw Paul Giordano through the glass doors before he entered the room. The cop was inspecting the company propaganda hanging on the walls that passed as artwork. He pointed to one of the framed posters when Casey greeted him.
“You have people on six continents?”
“I guess,” Casey answered. “That probably refers to where we have contacts on the ground who give us information.”
Giordano glanced over at the reception desk where the secretary was trying to pry the required identification from a middle-aged man before she issued him a badge and granted entry into the IWG spaces. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” he asked.
From Giordano’s tone, and considering the unofficial investigation the detective was conducting, Casey figured his cubicle wouldn’t be private enough. “Follow me,” Casey said, and the two men headed out to the lobby and into the stairwell.
“Elevators broken?” Giordano asked as they passed the seventh-floor landing. He knew they weren’t because he just used them when he came into the building.
“What? Oh, sorry. Habit, I guess.” Casey almost never took elevators anymore. He preferred the exercise of taking the stairs to the awkward silence that always accompanied an elevator ride. They descended the remaining flights and exited on the basement level to the rear of the building. Casey led Paul Giordano past a couple huddled beneath an umbrella in the designated smoking area and stopped under a painter’s scaffold beside a rusting dumpster that was most likely green at some point in the past. The rain, along with the stench that emanated from the metal container, all but guaranteed there would be no one else within earshot.
Giordano almost laughed at the meeting venue. “Good enough,” he said. “Are you sure that picture you sent me was the same as the tat on the deli guy?”
“Yes,” Casey said. “Well, basically. There may have been more ornamental stuff around it, but that was the main part, which is why I remembered it.”
“You said you got the symbol off a knife your grandfather had?”
“Yeah. He brought it back from France—from Saint Lo, after the Normandy invasion,” Casey explained. “My grandmother told me the dagger was from a soldier with the 2nd SS Panzer Division.”
“Well, today that symbol’s used in one form or another by several white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups,” Giordano said. “It’s called a wolfsangel, or wolf-hook. It’s prominent in the logo of the Aryan Nations, but plenty of other boneheads get the ink because it looks cool, not necessarily because it represents the actual group they belong to.”
“So, does that information get us any closer to finding who the bomber was?” Casey asked.
“More than that,” Giordano said. “I think we can start to go after the people who set this
whole thing up.”
Casey didn’t understand how they could do that without even knowing who the man with the satchel was. “Just because we know the dude was a white supremacist?”
“Because we know he was Jared Prince from Mills Point, West Virginia,” Giordano said.
“How the hell do you know that?” Casey asked.
“After you sent me that picture, I had one of my boys downtown drop what he was doing and run a search for me for anyone who showed up in a hospital or the morgue in the past week with a wolf-hook tattoo on his neck,” Giordano said. “We got lucky. Mr. Prince’s body was found by a homeless woman in Tribeca Park early Saturday morning. Apparently she was either kind-hearted, drunk, or paranoid, because our guy still had his wallet on him when the ambulance showed up. He’s still at the morgue while the City tries to find someone to come claim the body. I’m going down there right after this to ID the prick myself.”
“Holy shit,” Casey said and smiled. “So what’s next?”
“Next we find out when Jared Prince showed up in New York, where he was staying, and more importantly, who sent him.”
Chapter 24
Casey returned to the office and went to look for Susan. He found her in her cubicle as expected, but he didn’t expect to find Andie Jackson there, as well. The women stopped talking when they saw Casey.
“Ladies,” Casey said, nodding to each in turn.
“I guess it’s still raining,” Andie said.
Casey ran a hand across his head and squeegeed the water from his hair to the floor. “I guess you’re right,” he said.
“Couldn’t find an umbrella?” Susan asked.
“No, thank goodness.” Casey smiled at his own cryptic response.
Susan looked at Andie with raised eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. Andie let out a short laugh. She imagined it wasn’t the first time Casey said something that would baffle anyone with common sense or someone who didn’t know him the way Susan did.
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