Man in the Middle

by Brian Haig

  Six weeks after I returned, Diane Andrews, who had been the CIA courier, contacted me. During her frequent trips to Baghdad, we became friends. When she learned about Mark, despite being under orders not to discuss this with anybody, she couldn’t live with herself. She invited me to dinner at her apartment, and over a bottle of Chardonnay, she cried and told me about Cliff. She had no idea why she had an affair with him, or why she ever trusted him, or why she told him about the exploitation cell; she knew men didn’t find her physically attractive, and she was desperate, she wanted to impress him, and acted stupidly. Nor was she sure that Cliff was the source of the compromise. But her instincts said it was him.

  She said she knew her career was over, it should be over, and she would handle this in whatever way I decided. I told her to confront Daniels, and she agreed. But he wouldn’t return her calls, so she accosted him one night at the Pentagon exit as he was leaving work. He denied everything, so she threatened to turn him in, thinking it would force his hand, because an innocent man wouldn’t care. He became enraged. She was thankful they were in a public place, because he threatened to kill her, which terrified her, and she literally ran from him.

  So it was in my hands, she said. I asked for a few days to make up my mind. Little did I know, I was about to become responsible for another death.

  The next morning, browsing through the morning newspaper, I saw that Diane had been murdered the night before. I waited two weeks to see if the police or the Agency would figure it out. They didn’t. So Daniels was about to get away with Mark’s death, and with Diane’s murder.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I sipped from my scotch before I flipped to the next page. I had been right about Diane’s murder and that was gratifying. In retrospect, it seemed so obvious—now, at least—that Diane had sought out Bian and voluntarily turned her on to Cliff Daniels. And likewise, as her former lover, it was logical that Cliff Daniels knew when and where Diane jogged. Having already sold his soul to his ambitions and then descended to treason with Charabi, it was a short step to the next level, murder, and Daniels made that leap. By eliminating Diane, he thought he had covered his tracks, he thought he was free and clear; in fact, he invited his own murder.

  I continued to read. Over the next two pages Bian described how she approached and entrapped Cliff Daniels, first locating his office in the Pentagon, and from there following him to his car, to his apartment, learning where he got his hair cut, shopped for his groceries, bought his hooch, and she even followed him on a date with one of his mistresses. Then, after a week, in one of the Pentagon cafeterias she fell into a chair at his table, struck up a conversation, and asked him out. What followed was a blow-by-blow account of where and when they went, and what they did. I wasn’t sure why she felt it necessary to include all this detail, but maybe the explanation would come later. Interestingly, she never wrote that she slept with him—she used more delicate expressions like “the evening ended on a romantic note”—but I understood.

  I thought of that pig having sex with Bian, and I wanted to kill him. I got to that night, and it read:

  I took him to dinner at a local bar where I handled the bill. With cash, as I always did. He liked it when I paid. It appealed to his vanity and his selfishness. As usual, the jerk got drunk, and kept putting his hands all over me while I had to act like I enjoyed it. I promised him a night he would never forget, and I meant it. The fool laughed.

  Maybe you’ve already figured this out—but why that night? I knew the maid was coming the next morning and I needed to be there when the police arrived. So I kept him out till midnight, until almost all the other residents of his apartment complex were in bed and asleep. I slipped on a blonde wig and long silk gloves before we got out of the car, and told him this was part of what I had planned for him, which he liked. He had kinky appetites, but I don’t think you want to know the details, and I damned sure don’t want to recall them.

  Upstairs, I asked him to get me a drink of water, and while he went to the kitchen, I went to the bedroom, got his pistol from his bedside table, screwed on the silencer I had earlier ordered via the Internet, and chambered a round. When he came into the bedroom, I told him to undress and get on the bed. He was so excited he nearly ripped his clothes off. I turned on the radio, found an easy listening station, and did a slow striptease that got him more excited. He lay back, fondling himself and watching me. I really hated him, Sean. He kept making obscene comments, telling me the things he was going to do to me, and all I could do was imagine what I was about to do to him. I was down to my bra, my underpants, my wig, and my gloves. Believe me, he was even more disgusting, more selfish and corrupt than you were told. I still didn’t know all the details about how he caused Mark’s death, but I was sure he did, and I knew he murdered Diane—he split open her skull and left her like garbage in the woods.

  So I climbed on top of him, and he told me he loved me, and I told him how happy that made me as I reached for the Glock I had prepositioned under the mattress. He didn’t even notice when I held it by his head.

  The moment of truth. I thought about not doing it; it wasn’t too late to just turn him in. But not very long and not very hard. I thought about telling him everything. How gratifying would that be, to watch his face as I let him know why.

  But in the end I simply said, “You’re going to die,” and then I blew his sick brains out.

  I stared at the wall for a moment. I was sure that Bian had never killed before, though it didn’t sound like she was very troubled by guilt, which I guess I understood. But also, no matter how much she detested this man, in the end, she couldn’t force herself to mentally torture him. Good people may do bad things, but they don’t have to enjoy it.

  She then briefly described how she straightened up afterward, getting dressed, taking Daniels’s cell phone, and she then sat down and accessed his computer—trying to learn who he had colluded with—only to discover an impenetrable roadblock: the encrypted files. So she placed the computer inside the briefcase and positioned his briefcase in the place where I first saw it, with the corner sticking out from beneath the bed. She continued:

  I drove back to my apartment, showered, changed into my uniform, drove back, and then I sat in my car in the parking lot, waiting for the maid, and then for the police to arrive. I thought about what I had done, and about what I still had to do. I knew my career was over, and that was okay. My career was over the instant the bullet tore through Mark’s heart. I knew what would happen if I got caught, and that, too, was okay. There were still so many unanswered questions and guilty parties. And it wasn’t just about Mark. Not anymore. It was about all our soldiers in Iraq, who trusted people in Washington to do what was right. So that was my plan. Involve myself in the investigation, find out who did what, and punish them. I would be the avenging angel. Nothing and nobody would stop me.

  Enter Sean Drummond. I didn’t like you much. Not at first, anyway. You annoyed me and you frightened me, and worse, you nearly figured it out. My God, you came close. Then I found myself liking you too much. You are so much like Mark. I thought I was with a ghost, or that maybe Mark’s spirit had sent you. I know, silly. The problem is, Sean, once you’ve committed murder, there is no going back. And once I had a better inkling about what Daniels had done, I couldn’t let myself go back. I was falling in love with you, but it was too late for that, because it was too late for me, which meant it was too late for us.

  So, there it is. To be truthful, I don’t regret it. Except for one thing. You. Also, you might be in career trouble because you were my partner, and because you might be blamed for things that went wrong, like the leak. Thus, this letter—this is your alibi and this should help you clear up any loose ends about the investigation. I’ve laid out everything in a way that should be easy to verify.

  Don’t waste your time looking for me. You won’t find me. I love America, and I will miss it, and I will always regret losing the chance to see if it would work betwee
n you and me.

  But I need to start over.

  Love, Bian

  I put the letter aside, refilled my glass with scotch, and walked out to my small porch. I looked down on the traffic, at the lights and sights of northern Virginia, at my busy cross section of America.

  Bian Tran had taught me something about myself, and if people in Washington were paying attention, she had taught them something as well.

  War, they say, is supposed to be an extension of politics by other means; for those who are fighting it, though, and for those who love them, it becomes an affair not of the mind but of the heart.

  Before you open the gates and unleash the dogs of war, it is wise to remember that the dogs have a mind of their own. Bian was not starting over; she had returned to the beginning.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  It was the last thing I needed to do, the final mystery that had to be solved.

  I pushed open the glass door and entered the restaurant. Seated at a table near the back was my date, Phyllis, alone, sipping tea and studying a menu.

  She was dressed conservatively in a smart red wool suit, with a colorful scarf pinned around her neck by a shiny brooch, and I, more casually in a blue blazer over a polo shirt and faded jeans.

  I fell into the chair directly across from her and asked, “Come here often?”

  She looked up from the menu and said, “My God, Drummond, I do hope you’ve never actually used that line.”

  “Never,” I lied.

  She flagged down the waiter, who happened to be the same gangly kid with purplish hair who had served Bian and me. Phyllis said something to him in Vietnamese, which surprised me; another reminder of how little I knew about this lady.

  The kid looked equally surprised, but he recovered quickly, smiled pleasantly, and they chatted back and forth for about three minutes; for all I knew, Phyllis was recruiting him to go back to Vietnam and overthrow the commies.

  I quickly got tired of listening to a conversation I didn’t understand, and I turned my attention to the menu—still no red meat, still no cold beer. I really wanted a hamburger. I really needed a beer.

  Earlier that afternoon, I had made the quick trip to Arlington National Cemetery and located the grave of Major Mark Kemble. It was raining and windy, and I saluted his grave, and then knelt down and we had a long, amiable chat. Maybe Bian had found time to stop here before she fled, maybe not. So I told Mark that he would be proud of Bian, and I told him everything she had done, and I confided how jealous I was of him.

  The kid was laughing at something Phyllis told him, and then he disappeared back into the kitchen. Phyllis mentioned to me, “He recommends the freshwater white fish. It’s the house speciality.” She then reminded me of how well she knew me and observed, “But you don’t like fish, do you?”

  I asked her, “How long have you known?”

  “About the white fish?”

  “I’m tired of the games, Phyllis.”

  “Humor me about the fish, anyway,” she replied. “I was first introduced to it in Vietnam. Did you know I spent five years there? During the war, of course. I loved the country, and especially, I loved the people.”

  Phyllis is not much for small talk, so she was leading up to something, and I had to let it play out.

  She looked at me and said, “I wish I could say I look back fondly on those years. I don’t, though.”

  I was obviously expected to ask why, and I did.

  “I could say because it was such a horrible and ill-conceived tragedy for our nation. That’s how Americans look back on it. We lost fifty-eight thousand lives. I knew some of those people . . . I knew very many of them, actually.”

  “One of my uncles is on the wall. As are the fathers of several of my friends.”

  “Not many fathers are on the wall. They were mostly so young.” She looked away for a moment, then said, “At least we were able to fit all our dead on a wall. They lost two million lives, and we left millions of southerners to a hellish fate. What about them?”

  Usually, Phyllis’s ulterior meanings are more nuanced and subtle than this. What it boiled down to was this: The two people at this table knew enough to possibly force a premature end to this war as well. She wasn’t going to insult my intelligence by lecturing me about American honor, or the geostrategic stakes, or even my security obligations. I appreciated that. I know my duty, and I do it—most of the time. I would’ve told her to screw off, anyway.

  So I told her something she already knew. “You knew about Bian from the beginning.”

  “I knew more than you knew.”

  “Then why?”

  “Why did I let Bian into the investigation in the first place? Why did I allow her to go with it? Why didn’t I confide in you?” She paused, then asked, “Or why did I let her slip away?”

  She sipped her tea, obviously pleased that I had figured out this much. After all, no boss likes to think they hired a complete idiot—it makes them feel stupid. At the same time, she was testing me.

  “Start with how you knew.”

  “Well . . . like you, I wondered why an MP officer was at a civilian murder scene.” She added, “When I saw how very determined she was to become involved . . . Let’s just say that aroused my curiosity all the more.”

  “Because, unlike me, you knew this was the second related murder.”

  She did not reply.

  “Reason to be suspicious, right?”

  “At least reason to dig a little deeper,” she acknowledged. “From a background check at Army personnel I learned about her former job in Baghdad. General Bentson is an acquaintance. I called, and he told me the whole sad story.”

  “And you already knew how her fiancé died?”

  “Did I forget to mention that I’m in charge of that investigation, too?”

  “In fact, I think you did fail to mention it.”

  “Well, I’m mentioning it now. We spun our wheels for two months, Sean. All the resources of the Agency, and we couldn’t figure out who compromised this very sensitive and important operation, or who murdered Diane. How frustrating. Embarrassing, too.”

  “But then, you were pretty sure you had your murderer.”

  “I thought I had a reasonable suspect.”

  “Why didn’t you have Bian arrested? I would.”

  “It was all circumstantial. No evidence linked her to Diane’s murder, and Daniels’s case could have been suicide.” She picked at something on the table, a piece of lint, maybe. “You yourself told me that it looked like suicide.”

  Actually, I had said that it was murder made to appear like suicide. Phyllis has an amazing memory for details, incidentally. I nodded anyway.

  She said, “In my judgment, a premature arrest was too risky.” She smiled and added, “She would have lawyered up, and you know what a mess lawyers make of things.”

  I nodded again, though this was not exactly true. The toughest part of a homicide investigation is finding a suspect and a motive. There are no perfect crimes, only unsolved ones, but sometimes you have to find the suspect to find the imperfections. Detective Barry Enders, in fact, absent both suspect and motive, had already collected evidence sufficient for any competent prosecutor to put Bian away for a long time. Every criminal investigator knows this, I knew this, and I was sure Phyllis knew this, too.

  I said, “Regardless, you had to understand the dangers of placing a murder suspect inside an investigation about a crime in which she had a conflict of interest. She was the killer, after all.”

  “Turn that logic on its head—can you think of a better place to park a suspect than right under your nose?”

  “How about in jail?”

  The boy reappeared with a plate of appetizers, a combination of squiggly dead things and rice squashed into marble-size balls. Phyllis said something to him in Vietnamese, and he laughed and scampered back into the kitchen. The kid was obviously charmed by her. I really needed to have a talk with him.

  Phyllis speared
a rice thing with a chopstick and handed it across the table. She said, “Try one of these. They’re marinated in vinegar and sugar. Quite tasty.”

  I bit into it. Not bad. An interesting combination of sweet and sour, yin and yang, sort of easy and hard to take at the same time—like Phyllis.

  She speared another one, popped it into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. She said, “Putting Bian into the investigation was the key that unlocked everything. We learned how the leak occurred, who was responsible, and why.”

  “And what about the collateral damage?”

  “I don’t worry about that.” She noted, “The country doesn’t really understand this war. Nor does it seem to care to. Turki al-Fayef was right about that. Forgive my cynicism, but our people are more interested in Tom Cruise’s silly antics on Oprah’s couch than who’s giving secrets to the Iranians. In a week, the Saudi princes will be forgotten, washed away by a hurricane or a gruesome murder somewhere. And Mahmoud Charabi, should he ever come back to Washington, will be welcomed like a visiting dignitary.”

  Sad. But also, I thought, probably true. But I was also sure that she understood that at some point, America could care. And if what happened in this case ended up on the front page of the morning newspaper, that point might be tomorrow night. That’s why she and I were sharing this table and pretending to enjoy each other’s company. Phyllis had been dispatched to make sure I kept my mouth shut.

  “So why did you pick me?” I asked her.

  “I trusted you to do the right thing. I still do.”

  “And what is the right thing, Phyllis?”

  She did not answer. She didn’t need to.

  I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about Bian?”