by Brian Haig
She must’ve been a good choice, however, because her boss was already the second-longest-serving Director in a job where few occupants are around long enough to have overdue books at the library.
Enders reminded me, “Drummond . . . the phone. Your boss.”
I actually like Phyllis. She’s courtly and well-mannered in that nice, old-fashioned way, and also businesslike and intelligent. At times, too, I think she actually likes me. However, spooks and soldiers have a relationship that, to be charitable, is best characterized as complicated. Partly this is because Army folks, when not covering their own butts, live by the soldier’s code, a credo that frowns upon such mannerisms as betrayal, deceit, sneakiness, and moral hedging. These of course are the very qualities that make the CIA the world-class organization it is. But mostly, I think, we just don’t trust each other.
Actually, I had no real cause to doubt this lady. And neither could I think of a single reason not to.
“Drummond,” Enders barked, “you’re wasting my county minutes.”
I cleared my throat and put the phone to my ear. “Sorry for the wait. I was killing an international terrorist.” Pause. “I strangled him with my bare hands. He really suffered. I knew you’d like that.”
She made no reply, though I could hear her breathing heavily. I hate when women do that.
After a long moment I suggested, “Why don’t I just hold this conversation with myself? At least I’ll like the responses.”
She answered, very tartly, “This is no laughing matter, Drummond. Do you know the cardinal sin in our business?”
I could tell she wanted to answer that, so I made no reply.
“You’ve just blown your cover.” She said, “I shouldn’t need to remind you that the CIA has no legal authority to investigate domestic homicides. If that detective decides to make a stink—”
“Thank you. I’m a lawyer. I understand.”
“Are you? Well . . . Cucullus non facit monachum.”
Translated, the cowl does not make the monk. That really hurt. “Look, Phyllis—”
“No—you listen, I speak. Apologize to that detective. Kiss his . . . his fanny as much as it takes, then be gone. I promised him you’d depart immediately.”
I glanced again at the briefcase by the foot of the bed. Bian Tran’s eyes followed mine, and she smiled. I needed to even the score, and I knew how to do it.
I informed Phyllis, and by extension Enders and Tran, who were being rude and eavesdropping, “Of course. I’ll just tell Enders you changed your mind.”
“I . . . What?”
“Problem—? No . . . Detective Enders looks like a bright guy with good sense—”
“You’ll explain nothing. I told you—”
“Complications? Just one. Call the Office of the Secretary of Defense.”
“Drummond, are you listening to—”
“Exactly—what is a military police officer doing in a civilian apartment building outside military jurisdiction and poking her nose into this?”
Enders recognized something was amiss, and he was now staring with some annoyance at Tran. For some reason she had lost her smile. Actually, she looked pissed.
Phyllis, also annoyed, was saying, “Drummond, you’re out of your mind. The last thing we want—”
“Tell Jim . . . I mean, the Director . . . tell him we’ll discuss this when I return.” I punched off and handed the phone to Enders, who regarded me with newfound appreciation.
Major Tran also was looking at me, probably wondering how she was going to spend the rest of her day. She suggested to me, with a tiny note of apprehension, “We need to have a word. Alone.”
Enders demanded, “What’s going on here?”
I turned to Enders. “Understand that the victim was a Pentagon employee. He worked in a very sensitive office and possibly there are highly classified materials in his briefcase. I suspect that’s why the major is here.” I gave Tran a pointed look and added, “I know that’s why I’m here.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“I’m CIA. We lie.”
He thought this was funny and chuckled.
I told him, “Don’t touch that briefcase while Tran and I straighten this out.”
She and I left and walked together through the living room, through the glass sliders, and outside onto the porch. It was narrow, not long, perhaps four feet, so we ended up about a foot apart, maybe less. Below us, Glebe Road was in its usual state of congested agony, and I pictured Cliff Daniels when he was still alive, standing where now we stood, cocktail in hand, perhaps observing the swarm below, and also perhaps meditating upon the unhappy causes that would make him snuff out his own life. Rarely is suicide a spontaneous act, and I wondered what concoction of miseries and maladies convinced Cliff to remove himself from the gene pool.
Or perhaps Cliff never had that conversation with himself; maybe somebody had that conversation for him.
For a few moments neither Tran nor I said a word. Her arms were crossed and she was staring off into the distance at a mushy formation of cumulus clouds that didn’t look all that interesting. Despite this conversation being her idea, she was forcing me to make the first move.
So, to get this off on the right foot, I commented, “You ratted me out back there.”
“Well . . . what can I say?”
“‘I’m sorry’?”
“Screw off.”
“Close enough.” I smiled.
She shook her head. “All right . . . I’m sorry. Look, Sean—”
“Colonel Drummond to you, sister.”
“You’re—?” She looked at me with surprise, then disbelief. “Hold on—you’ve lied about your identity once. And I’m supposed to believe you now?”
I opened my wallet and withdrew my military ID, which, as per regulations, I had only the week before updated to reflect my new rank and, more happily, my new paycheck. I allowed her a long moment to study it, and watched her expression shift from skeptical to irritated.
I slid the ID back into my wallet. She said, “I overheard you tell the lady on the phone that you’re a lawyer. I . . . an Army lawyer at the Agency?”
“I didn’t ask for this gig.”
“Weird.”
“Right.” Of course higher rank is a license to bully, so wasting no time, I said, “Major, you have three seconds—what’s going on here?”
“I told you.”
“Tell me again. You have my permission to alter your story.”
“Why would I change it?”
“Fine. I’m sure you’ll have no objection when I leave with Mr. Daniels’s briefcase.”
“Actually, I’ll mind a lot.”
“Aha.”
She looked annoyed. “Let me remind you, Colonel, Clifford Daniels was a Pentagon employee. The contents inside his briefcase are possibly military property. It’s my responsibility and my duty to secure it.”
“No, the contents are U.S. government property. The Supreme Court decided this issue long ago.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Big Dog vs. Small Dog. Famous precedent. I’m surprised you’re unfamiliar with it.” She looked clueless, so I offered her a brief technical summary of the decision. “When the big dog pisses on a tree, the little dog gets lost.”
She did not find this amusing. In fact, her eyes sort of narrowed and she said, “I’m a law enforcement officer; you’re not. That briefcase will leave with me.”
“Not outside a military gate you’re not, Major. Out here, you’re just a lady who doesn’t get the dress code.”
She cleared her throat. “You’re putting me on the spot.”
“You put yourself on the spot.”
“Don’t get carried away by that civilian suit, Colonel,” she said with a hard stare. “You’re still a military officer. It would be a bad idea to get your loyalties twisted.”
“What does that mean?”
“Think about it.”
“Pretend what you like.”
I asked, “Do you have reason to suspect there’s sensitive or compromising material in Cliff Daniels’s possession?”
“How would I know?”
“That’s not the right answer, Major.”
She hesitated, probably tempted to say fuck you, but instead she suggested, “Colonel, let’s keep this friendly. Okay?”
“You made it unfriendly.”
“I realize that. And that was a big mistake on my part.” She smiled warmly. “Hey, I’m woman enough to admit it.” She stuck out her hand. “I apologize. Come on—let’s start over.”
“I’m enjoying where we’re at right now.” I ignored her hand.
“Well . . . I’m not. I’m sure we can come to an accommodation. Just lose the attitude. I don’t respond well to overbearing men.”
“What do you respond to?”
“The same things you should respond to. Duty, honor, country . . . the higher needs of the society we’re both sworn to protect.”
“No . . . seriously.”
She laughed. And I, too, laughed.
Indeed, this was an intriguing lady. Of course, it never pays to underestimate the competition. Clearly Bian Tran was a fascinating and surprisingly complex woman—self-confident, forceful, spirited, and, I thought on a more contradictory note, sly, brazen, bawdy, and slightly cynical. Beneath that cool intelligence and soldierly veneer, I sensed, was a woman of considerable passion, of suppressed spontaneity, of independent motives—qualities any smart female in the military keeps in check, if not repressed, if she wants a successful career.
It’s a little strange. Here was this physically exotic Asian woman, and you expect her to exhibit the manners of the old country, to be inscrutable, demure, subservient to males, and all the rest of that misogynistic crap the occidental male typically associates with oriental ladies. This is why in the great and immutable melting pot of America, stereotypes are such dangerous stuff; they narrow your frame of mind, and shape your reference and behavior. The object of that stereotype can stuff it up your butt.
At any rate, this seemed like the right moment to put everything on the table. I informed her, “Cliff Daniels was under watch by the FBI and CIA.”
She stared at me blankly.
I wasn’t buying that and said, “I think you already know this.”
“How would I know that?”
“You tell me.”
She looked annoyed. “Maybe this conversation would move faster if you enlighten me.”
“Maybe it would, but I wasn’t informed.”
“You weren’t . . . You must have an idea?”
“I have better than an idea. Think of the one thing that brings these two brotherly agencies together.”
“Oh . . .” She did appear genuinely startled by this news, then said, “Seriously, I had no idea.”
“Now you do. And as a cop, you’re aware that espionage takes it out of the hands of the Defense Department and into the pockets of the FBI and CIA. That briefcase is leaving with me.”
She took a short moment and mentally explored her options. She had no options, but took a stab anyway and said, “On one condition.”
“Did I give you the idea I’m asking for permission?”
“Just hear me out. Okay? Let’s work out an arrangement.”
“I neither need, nor do I want . . . an arrangement.”
“Oh . . . yes, you do. We leave together with the briefcase, and we’ll search it together.” She put a hand on my arm. “This is a good deal for you. I’m both a military police officer and I’m assigned to the Office of Special Investigations. Suppose we do find something inside that case. I can get to the bottom of it faster than you can.”
After a long moment, during which I made no response, she added, “My office reports directly to the Secretary of Defense, and we play for keeps. When we ask, people answer.”
“Sounds like the Gestapo.”
She looked me in the eye. “We’re not that nice.” After a moment she handed me her cell phone. “Call your boss. Tell him to cancel that call to the Pentagon.”
“Her.” I took her cell phone. “Give me a moment. She’s going to throw a fit.”
“Sounds like a tough woman.” She gave me a sympathetic look and added, “I’ll say it again . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in hot water.”
She opened the glass door and stepped back inside, then moved to the far corner of the living room, where she crossed her arms, pretended to study the carpet, and I could observe her observing me.
I flipped open her cell phone and dialed Phyllis. Miss Teri Jung, her lovely and very affable secretary, answered and said to hold on.
Phyllis made me wait a full minute before she came to the phone. I sensed she was in an unhappy mood when she opened by saying, “Drummond, I am exceedingly unhappy with you.”
“I understand.”
“You had better be calling from your car.”
“I understand.”
“I’m expecting a good explanation for your silliness during that phone call.”
“I understand.”
“If you say that again, I’ll—”
“Are you ready to listen?”
I heard her draw a sharp breath. I tend not to draw out the best qualities in my bosses. She said something I already knew. “This better be good.”
So I succinctly recounted what I had observed and what I surmised, including that Cliff might have had a helping hand when he killed himself, that Major Tran was suspiciously territorial toward that briefcase, and that perhaps it contained something incriminating, or worse. Phyllis is a good listener—at least a patient one—and she did not interject or comment until I finished. Then she said, “This is curious.”
“I know why it’s curious to me. Why is it curious to you?”
“Well . . .”
We were already off to a bad start. “Start over.”
Silence.
“Phyllis, I’m involved. Tell me what’s going on here, now, or I’ll let Tran walk out with that briefcase.”
“You’re too nosy for your own good.”
She meant for her own good, but with her that might be the same thing. I said, “Three questions. Who is Cliff Daniels? Why are you and the Feds interested in him? And why am I here?”
“This is . . . inconvenient. I can hardly elaborate over an insecure cellular phone connection.” After a moment, she added, “Had you been following the news you would have noted in last week’s Post that Clifford Daniels has been ordered to testify before the House Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee.”
“Why?”
“I suppose because Cliff Daniels was Mahmoud Charabi’s handler.”
A lot of Arabs are in the news these days, but I was familiar with that name. Twenty years before, Mahmoud Charabi had fled Iraq, two steps ahead of a posse of Saddam Hussein’s goons, who stayed on his tail and had a clear agenda. There followed a few attempted whacks, including a nasty affair with a hatchet in a London hotel and a shotgun ambush outside a Parisian nightclub. Then Saddam called off the dogs; either other Iraqi exiles bumped Charabi down on the hit list or he was no longer worth the effort. Thus he entered his rootless and peripatetic figure stage, seeking haven first in Switzerland, then London, then Paris, and eventually setting up shop in Washington. As with many exiles driven by restless ambitions and old grudges, he founded an organization for the liberation of his homeland, the Iraqi National Symposium.
Many of these so-called liberation and opposition groups are little more than social clubs for nostalgic expats, associations for preposterously lost c
auses, or scams for gullible fools to throw money at. The world is indeed a wicked place, filled with nasty tyrants, hateful prejudices, ancient crimes unrepented, starvation, diseases, genocide, and fratricide; all of which, of course, is Pandora’s fault—though I suspect human nature also may have something to do with it. And for every wrong, there is somebody who wants to make it right.
In Washington, there are literally thousands of these expat revolutionaries in the wings, organized into hundreds of groups and organizations, all vying to get their dreams and their causes on Uncle Sam’s to-do list. The lucky few even find rich and/or powerful patrons to bankroll and lobby their causes. But there is, I suppose, something romantic and adventurous about these foreign people peddling grand ideas for miserable places, because they are highly sought figures on the Hollywood Stars Seeking Grand Causes tours, the D.C. cocktail circuit, and in Georgetown’s more storied salons. And why not? Listening to Xian discuss why anguished Tibet must be liberated and free certainly makes for more ennobling table talk than the hubbies bitching about greens fees at the Congressional Country Club. Personally, I prefer uncomplicated company when I eat—definitely when I drink.
But it’s clear what draws these galvanized exiles to our shores: our unimaginable power, and their deplorable lack of it; our “light on the shining hill” mentality, and their fingers pointed at dark places; our uniquely American sense of can-do compassion, and their desire, no matter how selfless, to exploit it.
Indeed, America has a grand record of knocking over other nations, even if our history of installing lasting new regimes is a bit checkered. Plus, I suppose it’s hard these days to find a great power willing to kick a little butt for a righteous cause. The Europeans have been there, done that; they have lost their appetite, if not their flair, for foreign empires, intrigues, and escapades that often turn out badly. As for the Russians and Chinese, they lack charitable impulses. They liberate like the mob lends money; the vig sucks. But Americans are a generous if slightly naive people, with a distinct messianic bent and the animating conviction that what works for us must work equally well for others. We are the New World, they are the Old; new is always better. Right?