EXFIL

by Anthony C. Patton

  Billions of dollars of foreign aid won’t help people not prepared to assume the discipline and moral restraint required for social progress.

  The nature of my profession distorted my perspective, but Bangkok was a dangerous place for men unaccustomed to resisting temptation. I’m not suggesting that the average Thai man was depraved or lacked a moral compass, but the three best red-light districts in Bangkok—Soi Cowboy, Nana Plaza, and Patong—blended in with the broader culture there in ways that Las Vegas did not. A lot of behavior that would be deemed scandalous in America didn’t even raise eyebrows in Thailand. As an outsider with the discipline of a soldier, I initially felt immune to such temptations, but would soon learn the hard way that small steps could lead us astray.

  U.S. government officials in the business of collecting information—as not all of them are Intelligence Officers—often made gratuitous outings to the go-go bars, with the alleged purpose of cultivating relationships with sources. There were scenarios in which taking sources to go-go bars served the purpose of building rapport or gaining insights about what made the source tick, for sure, but many sources weren’t interested in go-go bars and viewed such invitations with suspicion.

  The U.S. Embassy crew had a reputation for frequenting these clubs, but the way I saw it, “look but don’t touch” entertainment was better than seeking a mistress or a prostitute, which most wives would agree with in the silence of their worries.

  Many men surrendered to temptation, or never viewed monogamy as a condition of marriage in the first place, but most married men I knew, myself included, could look but not touch and go home to our wives and kids without missing a beat.

  When it came to work, I was never a creature of habit, to avoid falling into predictable patterns and routines, but the way the game played out, Club Ecstasy, the legendary gentlemen’s club with the mauve neon lights in Soi Cowboy, was the diplomats’ and expats’ go-go bar of choice.

  After several visits, the bouncers and dancers knew me well. “Mr. Lance!” They saved me VIP tables beyond the velvet ropes and brought me the prettiest girls, which is how I met Jewel. She initially made tantalizing offers for some expensive fun in the back rooms, but she finally relented, respecting that I wasn’t game. After that, she warmly asked me about my family and admired the latest photographs on my phone, while playfully sitting on my lap. Of interest, her mannerisms suggested that she understood the purpose of my visits and ensured that my guests always had a good time.

  Jewel attended nursing school in her free time, had a heart of gold, and might have avoided working as a dancer under different circumstances—a cliché, I know.

  But these were the cards she had been dealt. To make up for lost revenue, I tipped her well and bought drinks for her and the other dancers, which made her boss happy and forced me to use creative language when submitting receipts for reimbursement.

  We would flirt and she would kiss my cheek, or gently caress my crotch with a wink, but keeping the relationship Platonic allowed her to forget who she was pretending to be.

  To show how cultural norms can vary, one of my would-be sources accepted an offer for some expensive fun in the back rooms with a dancer, paid for by Uncle Sam, returning with a grin and fist bumps for all the world to see. An amateur Intelligence Officer might view this as a positive step in the relationship, an indication that he might be willing to provide secrets or that his behavior could be exploited, but many men around the world simply didn’t consider this a compromise of their values.

  The challenge was to accept this fact of life without resorting to moral relativism.

  Beth knew about my forays to Soi Cowboy and seemed to understand that it was just business; in fact, she met some of my contacts and agreed that go-go bars were often the best venue to cultivate the relationships. Naturally, she had heard enough stories about American husbands surrendering to temptation, and would have preferred that I avoided Club Ecstasy altogether.

  In fact, we often made love after I returned home at night, allegedly because she missed me. I could have sex twice in one night, but the implicit suggestion—although she never said as much, of course—was that she could discern whether she was second in line.

  Between hosting parties for attaché wives, finishing her Ph.D., and writing a book, Beth kept busy and leaned into the arrangements for our follow-on assignment to West Point. She planned my promotion party and seemed shocked when I wasn’t selected, and even considered the possibility that we could delay the move by a year to try for promotion again the next year.

  After all, her selling point to me had been that West Point would be good for my career.

  We never argued, but she sometimes showed frustration that I wasn’t more willing to temper my career ambitions for hers. At the same time, she was disappointed that she wouldn’t be married to a brigadier general but also appeared content when I took assignments that weren’t good for promotion. She hinted that I could remain in Bangkok for one year as a geographic bachelor and arrive in West Point the next year as a colonel or a brigadier general, whatever the case might be.

  We still had a few months to decide the specifics of what we would do.

  My replacement canceled his assignment at the last minute for a family issue, and it would take another year to find a replacement, so the third year would be mine for the taking.

  For the first time in our marriage, it seemed that we were getting caught up in life at the expense of the two of us, but I was honest enough to understand that this was probably the most exciting development for her in many years. She had to grasp this opportunity. She had given up her Army career to dedicate time to our family, and she was now going to be a college professor at West Point, with a book deal on the horizon, and only me standing in the way.

  One of the most interesting developments during this time was my initial contact with Captain Chen. Our analysts said he was working for a cyber unit based in Beijing run by Lieutenant Colonel Li, who was the mastermind of several destructive cyberattacks, including denial-of-service attacks and IP theft worth billions. As far as we could tell, Chen was working for Li in a notional administrative position in the Chinese Embassy, to provide cover for his more nefarious activities. After two meetings with me, it turned out that the chemistry just wasn’t right, due to our age and personality difference, so I opted to arrange a casual encounter with Tom.

  This might sound magnanimous of me, but it wasn’t easy for my ego to recognize that I wasn’t the right person for the job and to pass the lead to Tom’s capable hands.

  Everyone in Washington was screaming for more intelligence on China cybersecurity issues, and while the system usually didn’t reward team players, I knew that failure would be the worst possible outcome. I just hoped that the powers that be in Washington would recognize my mentoring of a young captain when considering my promotion to brigadier general.

  To my credit, Tom and Chen hit it off, and so did their wives.

  The two couples had productive dinners and tourist outings, but as far as we could tell, Chen was an ambitious family man with no clear motivation to divulge secrets. In fact, we couldn’t rule out the possibility that Chen viewed Tom as a potential source.

  We were in the Chen business for the long haul and we were prepared to do all the heavy lifting, or so I thought. To my dismay, the response from Washington was lukewarm after several meetings with modest results.

  Informally, we learned that CIA thought our frequent public meetings with Chen would highlight our interest in him and compromise future collaboration. We were told to stand down.

  This seemed shortsighted: China continued to launch cyberattacks, so what did we have to lose? We were trained to salute and follow orders, even to be deferential to the CIA, but I had been around long enough to know that big egos and turf battles were often the driving forces behind the cold logic of bureaucratic cables. So, in short, I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  As the weeks passed, Beth and I found creat
ive ways to avoid the discussion about whether I would remain in Bangkok for a third year. My best guess was that she was giving me time to cool down, with the understanding that I would come to my senses and join her at West Point.

  However, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t handle not being on the promotion list, and I understood that my chances for promotion would plunge if I accepted a teaching position.

  As much as I was trying to make a rational decision that would work out the best for me and for the family, in many ways, I was hoping for the decision to be made for me.

  This was why I accepted Jewel’s invitation to enter Club Ecstasy outside of work.

  I had met a source for drinks down the road, and for no particular reason, found myself walking past Club Ecstasy on the way to a taxi stand. It was apparently a painfully slow night, and so Jewel was standing outside sipping a Cuba Libre with a straw, luring clients with her glossy red platform high heels, white stockings with lace trim, and a skin-tight red dress that enhanced her cleavage and also revealed the bottom of her delightful ass cheeks. Without saying a word, she set her drink down, took my hand, and led me inside.

  She knew what I wanted before I did.

  As she led me toward the back rooms, I scanned the area vigilantly to ensure that no one who mattered could see me. My observation skills were on high alert. All clear.

  The secret of intelligence collection was remaining clandestine.

  We entered the VIP room and she closed the door with a deliberate twist of the lock. My heart raced as almost two years of innocent flirting suddenly became very real. Jewel released my hand and walked to a table with a bottle of Scotch, a bucket of ice, and two tumblers. I watched, mesmerized, as she dropped two cubes into a tumbler, removed the cork to pour the amber fluid, and took a sip. With a devilish grin, she set the tumbler down, leaned up against the wall, and beckoned me with a flip of her hair to reveal her neck. I kissed her, caressed her ass, and raised her dress to reveal a white cotton G-string with pink polka dots. Goose bumps prickled on her skin as she reached back and fumbled with my zipper to reach inside and stroke me to teakwood hardness. I slid her panties down, and she grabbed my hand.

  “Rip it off,” she said.

  Aroused like never before, I dropped my pants, ripped the cotton G-string with a firm snap, to her moaning delight, and shuddered with ecstasy as I slid inside her with scintillating friction.

  After several thrusts, I pressed her against the wall and gripped her hair.

  “Harder, general, yes.”

  As we lay on the bed after, I knew I had broken a seal that could never be closed.

  I was most surprised by how I didn’t care. Who knew I had something like this lurking within? Nothing could have stopped this tide of desire. During an awkward discussion about money, she told me not to worry; I was a valued customer from whom payment wasn’t expected. She probably wanted an authentic experience, not the usual fiction, and might have imagined an honest future with me. After all, many GIs returned home with a Thai princess. I already knew I wasn’t going to be that guy, but there was something special about Jewel. Shockingly, I ignored the possibility of security cameras. I couldn’t explain why I had been willing to take such a risk, but something in my gut told me Jewel wouldn’t betray me. I left with a polite kiss on the cheek.

  It was clear, at least to me, that this wouldn’t be the last time.

  Keeping in mind that Beth would be waiting for me, I spent the next two hours walking the streets and having a few beers to justify being buzzed and ready to sleep. When I arrived, I was relieved to see Beth sleeping, but the silk pajamas and empty glass of white wine on her nightstand suggested she might have considered testing my virility after a night on the town. I turned off the lamp and quietly slid under the sheets, holding my breath. She rolled over, mumbled she loved me, and drifted off into sleep after I’d kissed her on the cheek. That was close—way too close for comfort.

  The final discussion with Beth about staying a third year was less difficult than I imagined. She took it in her stride; she knew I had dreamed of being a general since I was a cadet.

  Asking me to give this up would be like me asking her to give up her Ph.D. or the teaching position at West Point. Most military couples did spend time away from each other, just as we had when I’d been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, but the decision to stay in Bangkok for a third year would raise questions in the minds of those who were prone to gossip.

  To reduce the risk of getting caught with Jewel, I stayed away from Club Ecstasy until Beth and the boys had left. Afterward, however, our encounters were more frequent, until I bought her a maid outfit to hide in plain sight at my apartment. We never discussed money in a transactional way, but I gave her funds for nursing school and personal expenses, until we arrived at an unspoken price of about $40 each night, two or three times a week. She insisted I was her only special client, that she was using the money to start a new career. I chose to believe her and took consolation in this, but we both knew there was no scenario in which we would end up married.

  One of the biggest challenges of the intelligence business was avoiding the temptation to pound round pegs into square holes, or to simulate an assembly-line process for a business that was inherently cyclical. Amateur Intelligence Officers focused on things like counting the number of meetings they had per week or how many reports they wrote per month, with low quality reports being the inevitable result of this methodology.

  There were no shortcuts or formulas for quality intelligence, which was a stubborn lesson that many Intelligence Officers learned the hard way.

  As anyone in the business knows, the narratives of successful cases are written after the fact. During the daily grind, it was impossible to predict which relationships would succeed and which would fail. The more seasoned officers knew that many variables were beyond their control, which was why the fortuitous collection of a video of Captain Chen having sex with a Thai prostitute turned out to be a game changer.

  The owner of a no-tell motel near Club Ecstasy was a retired U.S. Army sergeant named Dale, with a long gray ponytail, beer belly, and early stage whiskey nose.

  He agreed to help us if anything ever fell into his lap.

  In this case, Dale recognized Chen as a possible Chinese diplomat—his exact words and gestures describing Chen were less diplomatic—and activated a video camera hidden in one of his rooms. Dale explained that some clients paid extra to return home with evidence of their sexual exploits, and he was right to conclude that I would like to have such a video of Chen in his moment of passion. We weren’t normally in the business of coercion, but we were at war. The situation called for courageous leadership.

  After reporting this development, noting that it had fallen into our laps—it wasn’t a honeypot designed to trap Chen in a compromising position—the response from Washington was unambiguous: stand down—full stop.

  We apparently weren’t in the business of coercing foreign diplomats, not even those who were a clear threat to our national security. In contrast, we had no problem sustaining a never-ending global war on terrorism with boots on the ground and drone strikes. The information was shared with CIA, who also expressed no interest in coercing Chen, adding that this might backfire and result in a demarche from the Chinese. We never got the full story, but CIA usually claimed that our proposed operations would interfere with their sensitive operations, which they couldn’t reveal to us. How convenient.

  Washington decided that risk aversion and diplomatic expediency would dictate how this war would be fought. Given our limited success against the Chinese cyber program and the damage they were inflicting on us, one successful attack after another, this was unconscionable.

  If I knew anything about Chen, and no one knew him better than I did, he would agree to provide us information after being presented with the evidence. And as it turned out, I was right.

  Washington was furious, but everyone was “cautiously optimistic” and wa
nted to “see where it goes” now that the deed had been done. We never did receive follow-on guidance to terminate the relationship. As the CIA advised us, we now “owned” Chen, including any fallout if the operation went south. The bureaucracy was in risk aversion mode to ensure that no one inside the Beltway would take the fall.

  In the end, I was right to force the issue.

  FOUR

  Before I returned to America, there were two important developments, one unfortunate, the other more intriguing. While working with Tom to pursue Chen, I gave him a crash course on the craft of intelligence to impart my years of hard-earned wisdom. As with any craft, knowing what not to do in intelligence was half the battle. You had to know when to drop would-be sources who couldn’t go the distance and not run sources beyond their useful lives.

  As luck would have it, we bumped into two Middle Eastern military attachés during a national day event, who were eager to meet outside the diplomatic circuit, away from their Muslim brethren, especially when Uncle Sam was paying the bill. Both had a penchant for the red-light districts and would settle for nothing less than Club Ecstasy. We had limited interest in seeking sensitive information from them because of the strong relations between our two governments in fighting terrorism, but we wrote intelligence reports and took the opportunity for Tom to hone his skills.

  Despite the difference in rank, Tom worked them like a pro, collecting interesting tidbits as we sipped our Scotch and enjoyed the company of Thai dancers, who were only too eager to entertain four military attachés with expense accounts. By now, Jewel and I had ceased all public contact, but we would exchange smiles as she moved from one client to the next.

  Although Tom appreciated my mentorship, he demonstrated that I didn’t have much to offer beyond the initial Jedi Knight training sessions.