by David Rich
“What did you mean when you said your name was on your passport?” ICEman One asked.
ICEman Two looked at him and stood up. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.” Then to me. “Someone will bring you water.”
ICEman One wasn’t sure. ICEman Two waited at the door. ICEman One said, “I hope they keep you in here for days.”
That was the key to everything for that guy. He was stuck there and he wanted everyone else to share a piece of his misery and he hated them because they would all get out before he would. There was no use in rubbing it in. He knew.
Pongo and Perdy, Patterson and Pruitt to the Marines, met me when I came through customs. They were still MPs, still big, and still in uniform. Pongo carried the suitcase I had left behind in Erbil. If the Major intended to draw attention to my arrival, he succeeded.
“Major Hensel arranged for it to be sent,” said Pongo.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Do you want to be under arrest?” That was Perdy coming as close to a smile as he could.
I had not seen them since my last mission, when I learned that a baton pressed across my throat made a convincing argument, but I felt like I was reuniting with old friends. They called me Lieutenant, and with that I could feel Robert Hewitt fading into the background. That was fine, but the tension between soldier and spy welled up. Soldier felt like a cheat because in peace, at home, nothing was easier. And ease was an unwanted visitor. I was afraid of it. Afraid ease would make me wither. At home, time was a nice soft ride on a tram: nap time. Under cover, time became a roller coaster, stretching almost to a halt, careening through fog and darkness, chasing the light. The stuttering current of that life, the unpredictability, was like a puzzle injected directly into my eyeballs. I did not want to stop until I completed it: It could never be completed.
Pongo and Perdy took me to an office building just a few miles south of the airport. I told them what little I safely could about the graves and the money, and they were grateful for the update. I meant it when I said I would try to use them on my next mission.
They ushered me into a room where Major Hensel sat with two CIA men: Thompson and McCoy, late thirties, fit, lean, clear-eyed and ambitious: twins from different mothers. McCoy had a thick head of brown hair. Thompson kept his short. They were the opposite of the ICEmen I had just left. These guys believed they were in a great place and wanted to stay there. McCoy fixated on my bags. “Are those yours?”
The Major made the introductions. We did not shake hands. He ended by saying, “These gentlemen were responsible for your delay at the airport. They felt it was important to meet with you before you slipped away to attend to other matters.” He returned his attention to his iPad.
“We’ll have to search those bags,” said Thompson.
Pongo and Perdy left. Major Hensel looked at me questioningly. I shrugged. The two CIA men searched through my bags, which contained the clothing Major Hensel had bought me in Chicago. From a side pouch, McCoy pulled two matching ski masks and held them up like a cop who found planted bags of dope. “And what have we here?”
“Souvenirs.” He set the masks on the desk. “Put them back,” I said. I did not mind them seeing the masks. It was Major Hensel seeing them that bothered me.
McCoy smiled at me, knowing he found a way to irritate me. He left the masks on the desk and so did I. Anger was erupting in me. I was looking at the room to plot my moves: kick McCoy, spin, slug Thompson, and so on. They were so easy to hate. But I decided to fight the anger rather than fighting those guys.
They put me on a couch so I sat low, and they pulled their chairs close. The Major sat in a chair on my right. Thompson showed me a small voice recorder he would be using.
McCoy started right in. “We had the situation in northern Iraq well in hand. You have destabilized the region and undone years of our work. The PKK is a terrorist organization. In the last two days, they have attacked a border station and blown up two oil rigs. They are terrorists and designated as such by the United States government and, let me mention, every European government. Hell, even the Australians hate them.”
“What do you have against Australians?”
“You will give us all the information you have about the PKK. Full descriptions of everyone you met. Locations. Every word of every conversation you had.”
I said nothing. Thompson said, “Start now.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start when you first contacted the PKK.”
“I never contacted the PKK.”
They looked at each other like prosecutors at their first trial.
“When you first met them.”
“I never met them.” I breathed deeply and kept my voice calm.
“The PKK assaulted a Regional Government facility and took you with them.”
“Was I at a government facility? Was that where they hung me up and electrocuted me?” Time to huddle again. I got up and repacked my bag. “You guys don’t mind, do you?” We all sat down again.
McCoy tried again. “You led a raid on DS Security Services with a group of men suspected of being members of the PKK.”
“No one identified himself as PKK in all my time in Iraq.”
Thompson groaned and said, “You claimed to have given money to the PKK.”
Major Hensel said, without looking up, “That was part of a cover story on a classified intelligence mission.”
They went on, banging into the wall of my equanimity at different angles. The anger had dissipated. I felt refreshed. I kept expecting some mention of Gill, but his name never came up, so I gave it a try. “Do you guys know Gill? Big guy. CIA man. Thought you might know him.”
They denied knowing him. The Major decided the interview was over.
“This is not over,” Thompson said, to prove that he had given up.
Outside, Major Hensel said, “Nicely done. I thought you were going to confess to killing Gill. That’s why I ended it.”
Will Panos was waiting for us at The Slammer, another sports bar featuring over ten million beers no one will every taste, near the pier in Manhattan Beach. The Major was as careful there as he had been at the French restaurant in Chicago. We sat at a high-back booth in the rear of the restaurant, far from the windows and the view. The TVs could not be avoided. Loud rock and roll from the seventies and eighties overwhelmed the buzz of basketball fans burping their opinions.
Will Panos and I sat across from the Major, whose choice of beer was called Delirium Tremens from Belgium supposedly.
“They only have three kegs in the back and they pour some flavoring into Bud and call it rare.”
“Maybe. I’ve been to this brewery, so maybe I’ll be able to tell,” he said.
The waitress was young, with blond hair made bright by sun and peroxide or something similar. She was slim, but had chubby cheeks. Her eyes were light blue. Her teeth were white and smooth. At last I felt like I had arrived in Southern California. I wanted to flirt with her. Instead, I ordered a Dos Equis and a hamburger.
I asked the Major about Daisy.
“Casts on both arms and legs. We got her some help. She said she liked working with you.”
“Any investigation into Darrell White’s death?”
“I’ll get to that.”
“She thinks you’re god,” I said.
“She said the same about you. Do you think that devalues it?”
I told the story, only leaving out Victor entirely. The Major opened the bank envelopes and looked over the figures. He put them away without comment.
Will reported that all the goons’ names belonged to dead soldiers, but I had already figured that. “One of the graves is at Arlington. Three are in a private cemetery near Bishop.” I liked hearing that. “Will these graves have money in them or not?”
“Some will have money, some
won’t. Can’t tell until they’re dug up.”
Will squinted for a moment. The waitress delivered the beers. Will said, “If most of the graves did not have money, then why did they rush to dig one up right after Frank Godwin was shot? Why go after Frank at all?”
“Every lie needs a partner. The best lies are polygamists. Bannion was under pressure from his partners. Even his boys were tapping their feet. They wanted to start their revolution and they wanted to know when the seed money would reappear. Bannion could hardly say don’t worry about the government because the money was never in the ground. He had to pretend he was fighting us for it. Racing us to it. It wasn’t enough to kill Frank and say he betrayed us. They had to raid one grave and get caught to prove the government was in control. That way, Bannion could say they could carry on with the millions he wanted them to think he had already stashed in Erbil.” I paused to let Will digest that. “What was in that one they tried to raid?”
“Half a million,” the Major said.
“Just in case they managed to get away with it. But the result was that Bannion never had to worry again about anyone, someone like McColl, opening a grave and finding a body where there should have been money.”
Will said, “So Frank’s list was a backup to McColl’s list, which was a backup to another list, the DS list?”
“Yes. A big circle. All just in case. I rushed back to Wisconsin assuming Frank gave me bad information. Frank had given me what he had.”
The Major went back to Erbil. “When you passed through the tunnel and caught Bannion, why hadn’t he run?”
“One of his boys had turned on him. Was waiting outside.”
“Why?”
This was the danger zone with Major Hensel: the simple question. My answer had to shut out further questions because Victor was my problem. I was not sharing him. I sipped my beer and took a bite of the burger and stole a French fry from Will. The short truth—money—would be the worst answer. It opened doors. This called for a long-winded lie, the kind that is transparent to people like Major Hensel.
“Bannion had fired him and never got around to paying him off. The goon had stopped by that night to collect and ran into the attack. When Bannion ran, this guy trapped him, not realizing what was really going on.”
At least the Major didn’t laugh. I hoped he understood: What’s the use of hiring a liar if you don’t let him lie? I handed over the lists of officers and diplomats that Bannion had dictated. The Major pushed his plate away to look these over. I saw him wince a couple of times. “Carl Haberman is a close friend. So is General Wick.”
“With Bannion, it’s safe to assume there will be some payback included. Some false leads.”
The Major put the lists in the inside pocket of his sport coat. He shook his head. “We have to treat it as real.” He was not happy. I told him about Colonel Hoyle, too. Nobody was happy.
The waitress cleared the plates and asked if we wanted fresh beers. The Major ordered another round. I watched her walk away.
Will said, “Kristen is coming down to Pendleton for a visit. With her daughter.”
“When?” I was too quick, too tense.
“Why?”
“I might need your help.”
The Major changed the subject. “The FBI thinks you killed Darrell White. The secretary identified you. Said you had visited the office. They want you for a lineup. Someone saw the body being carted down the street. Naked, apparently.”
“He couldn’t decide what to wear.”
“Agents Hanrihan and Sampson are going to be looking for you. Expect them. I’ve managed to make it clear to the FBI leadership that the graves are none of their business. But if you show up at the graves, they will show up and I can’t stop them.”
I said, “It would help if you went back to Frank’s list and dug those up first and left the DS graves for a little while.”
He leaned forward and stayed that way and stared right at me. The lights bounced off his glasses, keeping me from a good look at his eyes except to tell they were not moving. I thought he was going to reassign me or order me not to pursue any loose ends. My side of the booth sank a few inches into the concrete floor.
“One of the graves on your fake list was dug up last night. Would that be Victor Kosinski doing that?”
I looked daggers at Will, but he was as astonished as I was.
“Will did not tell me. Was Victor the goon shooting at Bannion?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else you want to tell me about him?”
“Not yet.”
He sat back and looked at one of the TVs as if he had not noticed it was there before. “If you need help. We do have resources.”
I thought about my pledge to utilize Pongo and Perdy, but I was not ready for them. The Major excused himself.
Will and I walked out to the pier. Pigeons strutted and fluttered. Seagulls swooped. Four small sailboats bounced beside the highway of sunlight painted on the water.
“I didn’t tell him,” Will said.
“I know.”
“Victor Kosinski has entered the country twice at the Peace Arch into Seattle. I never have him leaving the country. That’s it. Until three days ago. He flew into New York.”
“Where was the dig from the fake list?”
“Massachusetts. Pittsfield. What is going on?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
“Why did you want to know when Kristen would be down here?”
Will was a careful, precise man. Questions were phrased to elicit the answers he wanted. He was also a single-minded man, and if I told him that Victor Kosinski was the shooter in Montana, Will would insist on helping me go after him. I did not want Will to die helping me.
“Just because of the timing of the search of the graves. You might be busy for a while.”
“I don’t lie to you.” His voice was breathy with passion, a mix of fear and hurt feelings. He slammed his palm on the pier railing, startling two pigeons. His head tilted up while he struggled to control himself and form his next question. He did not look at me when he spoke. The wind took his words and I asked him to repeat what he said. He turned toward me. “Is Kristen in danger?”
The shooter in Montana hit him and missed me, and Will had been wondering about it ever since. Maybe he wanted to believe he had saved Kristen. The shot that killed Sergeant Rios drilled his head and came from farther away. Why was Will hit in the knee? Why was Jim Williams hit in the neck? Will had been thinking about it, just as I had been.
“The shooter wants the money and he is going to want me to lead him to it.”
31
Agents Hanrihan and Sampson started following me that night in Santa Monica where I had checked into a motel near the beach. From my motel, I walked over to Ocean Avenue and turned north. The postcard on my left showed the sun touching silvery blue water, a wide beach, two kids standing in the surf, and a sparse assortment of sunbathers. After two blocks, I came across a fish restaurant with a patio in front. Just past the valet parking, a particularly dirty homeless man was sitting against the building. I gave him twenty dollars and pointed out the agents down the street. “Tell the woman I want to talk to her. If the man tries to come in, wrestle with him a little bit, just a little bit. He’s an FBI agent, but he won’t hurt you.”
I took a table on the patio so I could see the action. The homeless guy stopped the agents about twenty yards before they reached the restaurant. Hanrihan was dismissive and started to move on. Sampson listened. Hanrihan had to wait while Sampson dug in her purse to give the guy money. They proceeded toward the restaurant, but as they got close, the homeless guy stepped in front of Hanrihan to block him. Hanrihan tried stepping around him. The homeless guy was talking and putting up his hands the way a crossing guard would; he had a job and he wanted to do it well.
Sampson saw
me and I beckoned her to join me. She took a quick look back at her partner, then came over. Hanrihan pushed the homeless guy out of the way and that made the homeless guy hug him from behind to stop him. Hanrihan was extremely unhappy about that embrace. He threw his arms out wide to burst away. He pushed the homeless guy too hard and landed him on his ass. Passersby were watching. Hanrihan brushed himself off and marched over to our table. He sat down next to Sampson and glared at me. He was still brushing himself off. He brushed back his bang with his fingertips, then looked at them and wiped them on the tablecloth.
“You put him up to that. You think that’s funny? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I didn’t answer. The silence made him self-conscious. He checked with Sampson. She said, “He’ll talk to me.”
That didn’t sink in at first. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“I mean, he’ll only talk to me. He’ll talk to me only.”
Hanrihan squinted in disbelief and his mouth hung open. And the homeless man spoke from the sidewalk. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
Hanrihan stood up fast, as if he were going to chase the homeless man. But he just growled at Sampson. “I’ll wait across the street.” He went out and the homeless man followed him.
She ordered ice tea. I had a beer. We ordered a seafood appetizer sampler to keep the waiter happy. Sampson waited patiently for me to get started. She wore no makeup that I could see and the small wrinkles near her eyes added to her attractiveness. Her attitude was all business without being abrupt or harsh. “I know who did the killings in Montana, Wisconsin, and Houston.”
“That’s nice. We think you did a few of them.”