Man in the middle sd-6

by Brian Haig

  "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 causes, 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 hubb
ies 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?

  But as I said, Washington attracts a lot of these zealots yearning to borrow Uncle Sam's checkbook and a few legions to rearrange the decor at home. Some are the real deal and their tales of oppression and woe, and their sad optimism, are deeply affecting, even heartbreaking; others are charlatans, schemers, phonies, and scoundrels. Unfortunately they are hard to tell apart, and when you guess wrong, you have a long supply of corpses with a short list of excuses. A happy few, like Shah Pahlavi or Aristide, get their wish; but possibly these are not the best examples.

  It's interesting. Having Irish heritage, I find all this a little ironic. Rather than enlist others to fight their battles, my ancestors had the literally unsettling habit of migrating in vast, freckled flocks to fight other people's causes.

  There is, in fact, an almost embarrassingly long tradition of this in the Drummond strain. In 1862, Great-great-grandpa Alfonso fled Ireland, he claimed to escape the potato famine; and a pregnant lady and an aggravated father with a shotgun might have added a little impetus. While still scratching his ass on the dock in New York harbor, he promptly accepted one hundred greenbacks from a prosperous New Yorker to take his place in the Civil War draft. He spent three years as an infantryman in a war he understood nothing about, killing people he felt no animus toward, at the behest of somebody who deserved to be there, and decided America truly was the Promised Land.

  Great-grandpa Seamon served nearly a year in the trenches as an infantryman in the War to End All Wars-subsequently renamed the First World War, after that turned confusing. He insisted to his grave that he shipped out without the slightest idea the Germans, whom he had no particular feelings toward, were killing the English, whom he truly detested, and the French, whom he regarded as uppity bastards who would benefit from a Hun boot on their throat. At least Seamon read the newspaper, cover to cover, every morning the rest of his life.

  Grandpa Erasmus waded ashore at Normandy, got lost in the Huertgen Forest, and spent the final months of his war cooling his heels in Stalag Eighteen. Afterward, he swore those were the most relaxing and luxurious years of his life. But maybe you had to know Grandma Mary.

  My own father became a lifer, and made a full-blown career of fighting wars in hilly and jungled places with obscure and unpronounceable names. He battled the commies in Korea and completed nearly two full tours in Vietnam-the former referred to as the Forgotten War, and the latter as the War Everybody Wishes They Could Forget.

  But as I look back on this extended family chronicle, it strikes me that the Drummonds make good infantrymen-at least we survive-though, as they warn about mutual funds, past successes never guarantee future returns.

  Also the wars that five generations of Drummonds have fought have become increasingly less popular, less fashionable, and more morally confused. I myself was an infantryman before I became a lawyer and saw action in Panama, the first Gulf War, Bosnia, and Mogadishu-messy war, good war, utterly confused war, total fuckup.

  As I grow older, I find myself less tolerant of people with well-expressed causes they want Sean Drummond to fight for.

  Anyway, Phyllis must have been reading my thoughts, because she suggested, "So you're familiar with Mr. Charabi?"

  I allowed that question to linger in the air, then said, "What was… or what is, the Agency's relationship with Charabi?"

  "None. He approached us many years ago. We did some back-grounding and didn't like what we saw."

  "I know the official line. Try the truth."

  "I'm telling you the truth. We took a pass." She emphasized, "Charabi was, and is, the Pentagon's creature. Start to finish."

  "And how did the dead guy on the bed end up as Charabi's… as his what?"

  "Technically, his controller. But it's more complicated than that… Before he moved to the Pentagon, Cliff Daniels was a career officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency. About a decade ago he befriended Mahmoud Charabi, or possibly vice versa." She concluded, "That's it. As far as I can go on an unsecure line."

  I thought about this a moment. From the news reports, I had read that Charabi spent about twenty years peddling his plans and scams for a free Iraq. I'll bet he thought his train had come in when this President decided that Saddam needed the boot, if only somebody could help him justify why.

  I wasn't sure why or how Charabi became that go-to guy; but he did, and apparently the dead guy on the bed played a big hand in it. Also, as I recalled from the news reports, Charabi was supposed to be the Pentagon's man to run Iraq after the invasion, though obviously that hadn't worked out exactly as planned, since nobody seemed to be in charge in Iraq now, at least no Iraqis, and possibly not even the U.S. military.

  Then, somehow, Daniels himself ended up as a target of intelligence interest, with an invitation to explain his activities in front of a congressional panel. Interesting.

  Anyway, Phyllis repeated herself, saying, "I really can't go any deeper on the phone." She added, "I've told you more than you should know, as it is. Unless you're part of the investigation."

  "I didn't know there was an investigation."

  "With Daniels dead, it's now imperative to learn why. An investigation is how we usually handle these things."

  "Maybe it was suicide. Sure looks like suicide."

  "Maybe it was. But knowing what you now know, the alternative gains a little added weight… don't you think?" She gave me a moment to think about it, then said, "Now you persuade the Arlington police that it was suicide. And bring back that briefcase."

  "Are you ordering me to lie to the police? I want to be clear on this."

  "Did I say that?"

  "In so many words… yes."

  I couldn't see her smile, but I could picture it. She said, "You're a lawyer, Drummond. Handle it."

  "Am I part of this investigation?"

  "Do you want to be?"

  "No."

  "Then now you are. Is that settled?"

  "Not yet. Who am I working for?"

  "You report to me."

  "And who do you report to?"

  She ignored my question and said, "The Agency inspector general and the FBI already have an ongoing investigation, of which Daniels was a subject. But we'll handle them as parallel efforts. Ours will be kept separate, quiet, distinct."

  Interesting. "And will one hand know what the other hand is doing?"

  "I receive ongoing updates on what they're doing."

  "That's not what I asked."

  "Figure it out."

  I figured it out. Phyllis would hold all the cards. I asked, "What am I investigating?"

  "Whether Daniels was murdered or not. We'll see where it leads from there."

  "And Major Tran?"

  "Yes… I'm glad you brought her up. Do you feel you can trust her?"

  "As much as I trust you."

  Now I was sure she was smiling. She asked, "More r
elevantly, does Major Tran trust you?"

  "Absolutely. As we speak, she's on the other side of a glass slider, trying to read my lips."

  Phyllis laughed. She asked, "Can you work with her?"

  "I can work with you, so I'm sure I can work with her."

  I thought I heard a sharp breath. I think I had just worn out her patience for my insolence. Part of the fun of this job was seeing how far I could push it. The Army, peculiar institution that it is, tends to be fairly stiff regarding such issues as insubordination and disrespect to superiors. Candor is permitted, even encouraged, so long as it is rendered respectfully. Of course, one senior officer's interpretation of respect can differ substantially from another's, so you have to watch your P's and Q's. The CIA, also a fairly hierarchical organization, is sort of a halfway house between a martial culture and a civilian one, and you have a little more leeway to be a pain in the ass.

  Back to Phyllis. She said, "I think it would be invaluable to have the Defense Secretary's own investigative staff in on this. The Pentagon is, after all, a fortress of sorts. You should… partner with her."

  "You mean, use her as a Trojan horse?"

  "You know how much I dislike analogies. You shouldn't oversimplify complex situations." She added, after a long pause, "But yes, that one fits."

  Lest you think I'm a complete fool, it was Phyllis, after all, who dispatched me to this death scene in the first place, and nothing she does, or thinks, is serendipitous. She is well aware of my nosy, mulish ways, my propensity to rush around corners, my… well, enough virtues. The larger point is, I was the sole military person in her office, Mr. Daniels was an employee of the Pentagon, and it was suddenly clear why she picked me for this job.

  And now she was exploiting one Trojan horse to recruit another- a frightening display of how her mind works.

  The truth is, our relationship is no more or less complicated than that between a cat and a mouse. I'm nimble and quick. And so is she, with a facile mind and razorlike paws. It's sort of fun, also scary, and often dangerous. But the larger truth is, I wanted a piece of this case.