by A. C. Fuller
He took my hand and shook. "Alex, I'm Amand. Please come in."
"I'm not coming in," I said. "I just came to bring you this."
I swung the drive off my shoulder and set in on the top step. When I looked up, Amand offered an amused smile.
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Vane, but don't you think we would have taken the drive from you if we'd wanted it?"
"I don't know what you're doing. I know we don't want it or need it."
"Do you think we don't know that you have the printout?"
That pretty much confirmed what we'd figured out about them getting to Tudayapi's before us.
"How did you get her to flip?"
He just smiled, studying me.
"It doesn't matter that we printed it. There's nothing on it that isn't already public. For the life of me I have no idea why it was worth killing over."
"We haven't killed anyone."
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out what kind of lie he was telling. There were three options. First, he could have known I had the recording. So, lie number one was, "I have to lie, but we both know the truth about the shooting." The second was that he knew about the shooting, but didn't know I knew. So, lie number two was, "I really want to convince you that I'm telling the truth." And the third option, which I immediately dismissed, was that he didn't know about the shooting, that he'd been brought in later, and sincerely believed that no one had been harmed in pursuit of the drive.
Amand was wearing a constant smile, like he was such a phony that he had a fake look of sincerity plastered across his face at all times. When he insisted that they hadn't killed anyone, his cheeks had tightened a little. He said it with a little more emphasis than he would have if he knew that I knew the truth about the shooting. My best guess was that he was selling me the second type of lie because—and I had to agree with Quinn on this—if they knew we had the recording, I didn't think this would be going so smoothly.
And since the recording was the only thing I had going for myself, I was glad he seemed not to know about it.
"Why'd they let me through the gate?"
"Please, why don't you come in?" He stepped out of the doorway and onto the top step, avoiding the backpack, which he hadn't even acknowledged. He gestured toward the open door like he was inviting me up for coffee and cookies. His smile was so phony, so fixed on his face, you could mistake him for a mannequin. But I realized right away that I hated him because he reminded me of myself at my worst.
I stepped up and he headed back into the building.
I grabbed the backpack and followed him in.
The inside of the building was nicer than I expected. Amand led me through a foyer and down a wide hall into what I assumed was his office. The first thing I noticed were two large pictures on the wall. The first was of a boy with a cheesy grin and a baseball uniform, kneeling on a patch of the greenest grass I'd ever seen. He was 10 or 11 and, judging by his uniform, he played for Eugene Lumber and Paint. "Your son?" I asked, gesturing at the photo.
He nodded, but I already knew it was.
The second picture was a close-up of a beautiful little girl with curly black hair—his daughter, I assumed. She was leaning into a water fountain, the water spraying her nose as she giggled.
"Do you keep pictures of your kids here to make people think you're a regular guy?"
"Alex, please," he said, sitting down in a black ergonomic chair, the same kind we have at The Barker. I sat across from him in a matching chair, a smooth, black-lacquered desk between us. "You're treating me with such suspicion."
As I was staring at him, I flashed to our conversation in the airport. I'd known that something was a little off about it. But, in retrospect, it was quite impressive. Assuming that Innerva handing me the drive had been the catalyst for this whole thing, he and Holly had researched me and concocted a story that I'd believe in under twelve hours. They'd learned enough about me, my business, and the happenings in our field to be able to convince me they were corporate headhunters. Sure, I'd been exhausted and in shock from James's death, but still, it was an impressive feat of bullshitting. And, in a sense, they were corporate headhunters.
"Look," I said, "I just wanted to give this drive back to you. You followed me to the airport, you chased me through Las Vegas for it, you—or someone—chased us through Nevada and into Idaho. I don't want anything to do with this anymore. I'm leaving it here, I'm catching a bus back to Seattle, where I want to get on with my life."
"Alex, you asked earlier why we let you through the gate. Would you still like to know the answer?"
"Yes."
He leaned over and reached a hand under the desk. I flinched, thinking for a half-second that he was going to pull out a gun. His hand came back up with a sparkling water. Perrier in a little green bottle.
But he'd noticed my flinch. "Alex, you really need to calm down. We are the good guys, like you." He slid the water across the table, then retrieved another. "They switched to plastic bottles a while back," he said. "But it's still good. I keep a mini-fridge under my desk. I quit drinking ten years ago." He twisted the cap off the bottle and it gave a little hiss. "These are my new booze."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I want you to trust me, Alex. I truly do." His shiteating grin was gone. He'd grown warm and friendly. "You don't strike me as a fundamentally cynical or paranoid person, Alex. Give me fifteen minutes and I think you'll see that we're on the same side here."
"Why'd you let me in?"
"I'll tell you, but I think maybe you already know."
"Quinn?"
"Yes, you had the sense to leave her elsewhere. She's not the type we welcome here. You, on the other hand…"
"Why me?"
"We figure you might be reasonable."
"About what?"
"You run a business in America. A very successful business. A very influential business. We exist for the purpose of protecting American business—and thereby, protecting Americans—from foreign and domestic threats."
"Who is we?"
"Allied Regional Data Security."
"But who do you work for?"
"It's complicated, Alex. How familiar are you with post-9/11 U.S. security systems?"
"Not very."
A smile flashed across his face. He leaned forward in his chair. "'You sleep under the blanket of freedom that I provide, and then question the manner in which I provide it.'"
It was a line from A Few Good Men, a bad Jack Nicholson impression. But I chuckled because, I had to admit, I loved that movie. I was softening on him slightly, and I decided to play along. "And you would rather I just said Thank You, and went on my way?"
He gave a little fist pump, pleased that I'd recognized the line. "Actually, Alex, we'd rather you join us."
I said nothing.
"By bringing the drive here, by not bringing that unfortunate woman, and through years of actions big and small, which I've learned about only in the last few days, you've shown yourself to be a great candidate."
I was playing it cool, and I gave him a look like I didn't know what he was talking about, but I was afraid that I did.
He said, "A candidate for what, you're probably wondering. Alex, we'd like you to partner with us at ARDS. Our job is to protect the security interests of the U.S. We have partners all over the world, and we'd like you to join."
"Is that why you haven't killed me?"
"Alex, you have the wrong idea entirely. We don't kill people except in very rare circumstances, and only when authorization has been given and grave national security risks are present."
"Define grave," I said, but he just resumed grinning.
I wanted to dive across the desk and wipe the smile off his face. But besides the fact that he could probably kill me with one hand, I didn't want to let him know what I knew about the shooting at The Gazette.
He continued, "The contents of that drive are unimportant in the overall scheme of things. We know what'
s on there now, and we know it's not enough to do any damage to anyone. As far as we are concerned, that case is closed."
I was beginning to trust this guy, and I hated myself for it. "If it was a CIA hard drive, why were you chasing us? Why not them?"
"Ha! Now that's a complicated issue."
"But there must be someone in charge, someone giving the orders."
He smiled at me like I was a child. "Alex, do you know how many people work directly and indirectly for the U.S. security system?"
"I don't know, twenty thousand total? Not counting the military."
"One point two million. And over two-thirds work for private contractors."
That didn't sound right, but my read on this guy was that he was relaxed, knowing he was in charge, but he was also trying to convince me of something. Back when I was a journalist, my editor loved to remind me not to have "bad guys" in a news story. Even the criminals, the drug dealers, the murderers, are the heroes of their own stories. Society might not like what they do, but journalists have to understand their motivations if they want to write about them accurately. I thought of my old editor while talking to Amand because, while it was clear to me that he was the villain, the longer we spoke, the less I felt that Amand saw me that way. To him, I was a naive kid who needed to be educated. And, once I was, of course I'd agree with him.
He continued, "I'm one of 800,000 men and women servicing American security interests from within a private company. Alex, the world of security the government created in response to 9/11 has become so massive, so unwieldy, and so secretive, that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it, or exactly how many agencies do the same work. And no one is in charge."
He paused for dramatic effect, stood, did a lap around the desk, and sat back down. "And this is a good thing, Alex. A great thing. You know the saying, 'To kill a snake, cut off the head,' right? U.S. security doesn't have a head, and therefore it can't be killed."
He was growing excited as he talked, like he was pitching me a story I just couldn't pass on. "Don't you feel safer knowing that there are men like me protecting your interests? There's a reason we're called Allied Regional Data Security. It's all about data these days. For centuries, we spoke to people, built relationships in foreign countries. Diplomacy. Now, half of U.S. intelligence is gathered by listening to recorded cellphone calls and reading emails. Most of this information, known as signals intelligence, or sigint, is funneled into a steel and glass building twenty-five miles north of the State Department in Fort Meade, Maryland, the headquarters of the NSA. I've met some of those losers. They get off on eavesdropping on phone calls and reading emails. They know who's sleeping with whom, who has a sick kid, who's pissed at his in-laws. As long as you're not hurting America, you're safer than ever. Guy like you should love what we do."
"I guess whether one loves it depends on your definition of 'hurting America.'"
"It does, but my bet is that you and I have similar definitions. You're no activist, Alex."
He was right, of course. I was aware of all sorts of problems in the world, but I'd never set about to fix them. "I'd say I'm conscious of many of the things I choose to stay unconscious of."
"Perfect, Alex. And you help millions of Americans remain unconscious, as well."
It was clear he meant that as a genuine compliment, but it hurt like hell. "That's the exact opposite of what journalism is supposed to do," I said, defensively.
"Please, Alex. Let's be grown-ups here. We're partners, or about to become partners. We both know that journalism hasn't served that purpose much lately, if it ever did. We both know that most of what goes on is not fit for public consumption. Information is a game. It's always been a game. Journalists play it, intelligence agencies play it. Is it even slightly surprising that there'd be back and forth there? That there always has been? Why do you think we don't really care about the drive? Because Americans don't care, either."
On this point, he sounded like Quinn, but I still didn't agree. Bird and I were quite good at making people care. And though we usually used those powers to get them to care about nonsense, I still believed that we could get them to care about the drive, about Gunstott. And I knew we could get them to care about the shooting.
Amand continued, "As pissed as people would be to know about half of what goes on in the name of national security, they'd be much more pissed if it didn't happen and we became a minor power."
I finally opened the water and downed it in three long swigs. I shook the few remaining drops around in the bottle and asked for another. I was buying time. My sense of Amand was that he was genuine. He wasn't going to hurt me. He really didn't care about the drive.
"Alex, do you know who I was before I came to ARDS?"
"Should I?"
"Well, my story got a lot of press. Your site even did a piece about me. I've been waiting to see if you recognized me, though I do look a lot different now."
I'd thought he looked a little familiar in the airport, but only in the way that a generic-looking person always looks a little familiar.
He smiled again and cupped his hands under his chin, as if to say, "C'mon, you really don't recognize me?"
I frowned at him.
"I was a CIA contractor in Pakistan, posing as a diplomat. Killed two guys."
"You're that guy?" I remembered the case. It was three or four years earlier and had gotten a lot of attention in the U.S. Amand had been arrested and charged under Pakistani law for killing two civilians. The conflict had escalated tensions between Pakistan and the U.S., but I couldn't remember the details.
"You know the story, right? I'd been there two years when I got into a scrape. I was driving through Lahore in the Punjab region, just going about my business. I was going to get a tea on my way to a meeting. I stopped at a red light and two guys came up to my car, told me to get out. They were trying to rob me, Alex. I was packing, of course, and I shot them both."
"How'd you end up getting out of that one, anyway?"
"We paid them off." He said it looking straight into my eyes, like he wanted to study my reaction.
"It's that easy?"
"They knew they'd never actually convict me, of course. It was a Pakistani stickup. Their way of lodging a protest against our covert actions there. The drone strikes, the Bin Laden killing—in which we illegally invaded their airspace—and so on. They were being the kid who won't put his damn shoes on until you give him a candy bar. Anyway, the candy bar was about $3.5 million to the families of the deceased, but you can bet that local police and judges and officials got a piece of that. Officially, it was diyya, which is blood money. In Islamic Law, you sometimes pay diyya and you sometimes pay qisas, which basically means an eye for an eye, or physical retaliation."
"And we wrote about this?"
"One of your blogs ran some stupid Huff-po-esque liberal shit-think about how Americans should be subject to the laws of the lands they're working in, how diplomatic immunity shouldn't apply in this case. Normal useless drivel that makes some people feel a little less evil after reading it, but, of course, changes nothing."
"So why are you telling me this?"
"Because the whole story was a lie, Alex. Of course those two guys never tried to rob me. I murdered them, and I'd do it again. It's why I was there."
"Who were they?"
"That part I can't tell you, but let's just say they had interests adverse to those of the United States."
I shook my head in disbelief. "The whole thing of you getting robbed was a lie?"
"Listen, I want you to understand something. It doesn't matter that you know. The truth doesn't matter. We live in a post-truth world—I read about it on your site, Alex. The point is, no matter what you do, the fact that you have that information can't hurt me. There's just too much information out there and the official story is too firmly etched in the public mind."
I finished my second water and he handed me another, then
said, "In a few minutes, you're going to walk out of here, with the drive. You can keep it as a souvenir. That's how much I trust you, and how much I want you to trust me. We don't care about it. All I ask is that, over the next few years, if I call you, you take the call."
"That's it?"
"Well, I'd also ask that you answer the questions I have when I call."
"What sort of questions should I expect? I don't know anything about anything important. Anything security related."
"I agree with you on the 'security related' part, but not the 'anything important' part."
"Gossip? Stuff we know but don't print? Info you can blackmail people with? What would you want from me?"
He leaned forward, like we were conspiring together. He said, "In my business, there are formal assets and then there are 'hip-pocket' sources. People who work elsewhere but are happy to share info from time to time. We'd like you to become the latter."
I didn't like the thought of being in anyone's hip pocket, of course, but it was dawning on me that this was real. This could be over in a few minutes. He seemed not to know that I had the recording, and he was offering me a deal, and all my mind could do was calculate how long it would take to get back to Greta. "If I say yes, what happens to Quinn?"
"People like your companion can't do any real damage," he said. "She's been right that someone has been watching her, but it was never the CIA. Those guys make twice as much money as we do, so they farm people like her out to people like us."
"You didn't answer my question."
"I assure you that she'll be fine. You head back to Seattle, let her go wherever she goes, and we'll pretend like this whole thing never happened."
"Can I go back and see her? Just let her know what's going on?"
He stood and walked around to my side of the desk. "That won't be necessary, Alex. We already have people outside the coffee shop. They'll tell her."
I leapt up. "You what?"
He stepped back. "Oh, don't worry, Alex. We're not going to hurt her. We'll be taking her back to Vegas."
"Her place in Vegas burned down."