Overwatch

by Marc Guggenheim

“Thirteen years, sir. On One-Ten and also One-Eleven.”

  “There’s a Project One-Eleven?” Jahandar asks, feigning ignorance. Over the years, he’s found it’s useful to give his underlings conflicting ideas about what he does and doesn’t know about his government’s workings.

  Jafari sips his tea and nods. “One-Ten is the construction of a nuclear warhead. One-Eleven focuses on the reconstruction of the nose-cone interiors to accommodate the warhead.” He can’t help but allow a bit of pride to creep in, adding, “I’m one of only three engineers to work on both projects.”

  “Well, you’ve done your nation a great service, Dr. Jafari. This is a remarkable achievement.” Once again, Jahandar is sincere, as Muslim law requires him to be. Despite whatever misgivings he may have about using Iran’s new nuclear might—and those misgivings are many and profound—there is no denying that Iran’s entrance into the nuclear club is a major leap forward for his nation. “I’m curious, though. After thirteen years of work—to say nothing of the many years of work by those who preceded you—after all that time, what was the key to your success? What turned the tide and made such an achievement possible?” Jafari shifts in his seat. Jahandar has made him uncomfortable. He takes another swig of tea, gathering his thoughts. “What was responsible for your breakthrough?” Jahandar presses, filling the silence. “I’ve always been fascinated by what makes the difference between failure and success.” This is not a lie. The only deception being employed now is Jahandar’s refusal to fully elaborate on the reasons for his inquiry.

  “Some designs recently came into our possession. Blueprints. Schematics. Obtained by the VEVAK.”

  “From whom?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. I wasn’t made privy to that information.”

  “Nor, I suspect, did the VEVAK share the circumstances with you.”

  Jafari shakes his head. “No, Ayatollah.” Then, in an effort to be helpful, he adds, “But judging from the annotations and use of what’s known as the customary system of measurements—as distinguished from the metric system—the use of this customary system suggests to me that the schematics were obtained from Americans.”

  Jahandar nods his understanding but doesn’t betray his thoughts. Jafari shifts in his seat again, suddenly uncomfortable at the thought of some nameless, faceless Americans—or any Americans, for that matter—getting credit for an achievement that is rightly his. He leans forward in his chair and tries not to sound desperate. “But the schematics were incomplete. And in any case, only a very…focused mind could glean details that would be of any use to us.”

  Jahandar offers a characteristic professorial smile. “Of course. You built the tower. These Americans—if that is who it was—merely provided the capstone.”

  Jafari seizes on this theory, nodding vigorously. “I’d say those schematics saved us a month, maybe six at the outside. I—we—would have come to the same conclusions in time.”

  Jahandar knows this is a lie, but that is between Jafari and Allah. He just nods his head sagely and watches Jafari’s body unclench under the warmth of his paternal smile. Behind that smile, however, is a mind hard at work. Jahandar’s intellectual capabilities are not insignificant, and at the moment they’re all marshaled to assemble the puzzle pieces in front of him. A clear picture is beginning to form. The six American spies who were held at Ardakan Charity Hospital were in possession of schematics and blueprints that made the realization of Iran’s nuclear ambitions possible. When the plans were discovered, the VEVAK took them and did the logical thing by turning them over to Jafari and the other scientists and engineers of Project 110. This sequence of events seemed like the will of Allah. This is the way of God: The country’s greatest enemy has given Iran the means to achieve its nuclear ascendance. While such good fortune may be the way of God, however, Jahandar knows it’s not the way of the world. And that’s what troubles him.

  THIRTEEN

  OVERWATCH OPERATIONS CENTER

  9:56 A.M. EDT

  “IT’S DONE,” Tyler Donovan reports. “He’s killed it.”

  Rykman nods sagely, keeping his own counsel. He’s been expecting this moment ever since the fiasco at Ardakan Charity Hospital. A smart warrior knows his enemy and sees their capabilities for exactly what they are, and William Rykman is nothing if not a smart warrior. He knows that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Jahandar is too. Once his operatives had their covers blown by the VEVAK, Rykman knew it was just a matter of time before Jahandar put the pieces together. That same intelligence, however, is not shared by President Tehrani. The man is as dense a leader as Rykman’s ever encountered. The Iranian president could be depended on to jump at the bait Rykman had dangled in front of him: a nuclear warhead. Tehrani wouldn’t question whether the nuke was operational. He wouldn’t wonder why or how American spies could be so reckless as to provide critical engineering information to the Iranian nuclear crusaders working at Darkhovin. He wouldn’t suspect his country of being manipulated and, therefore, wouldn’t resist the temptation to announce to the world that Iran had finally joined the vaunted nuclear club.

  Ali Jahandar, of course, is an entirely different opponent. His request to visit Darkhovin—a trip known to the Overwatch only because of its assets inside Iran—confirmed as much. That Jahandar then felt compelled to meet with Darkhovin’s lead engineer was of great concern. The wily ayatollah is figuring out what Rykman is up to. The operational security of Vanguard was clearly compromised and, with it, the project’s chances for success. Those chances are still quite good. But good is not enough in Rykman’s world. He operates the Overwatch in a risk-free environment where there is no acceptable amount of uncertainty. Such is the price of manipulating the course of the entire world.

  “Good thing we green-lit Solstice,” Donovan observes.

  “Copy that,” Rykman agrees. “Has the package been delivered?”

  “Affirmative,” Donovan says with a curt nod. “We got the engineer too.”

  “Keep him under surveillance to confirm the kill.” Dr. Yousef Jafari’s death is a reasonable precaution; Jahandar might have shared his suspicions with Jafari, and the nuclear engineer might then have decided to take a more scrutinizing look at the nuclear weapon he and his team had constructed (with the Overwatch’s secret help). This would only increase the odds of the Iranians discovering the nuke’s imperfections. And imperfections, once detected, could be corrected.

  “Eliminate the delivery agent,” Rykman says. “Close the loop.”

  “Copy that,” Donovan replies with characteristic obedience. “We have an operative in Syria I like for that. I can have him in-country by tomorrow.”

  “Go,” Rykman confirms as he stands up. “I have to make a call.”

  Five minutes later, Rykman is at ground level and his phone is doing its work moving through the encryption necessary to initiate a secure call. After a few seconds of electronic machinations, his partner answers. “Yes?”

  Assuming, by some miracle of technological legerdemain, an eavesdropper managed to breach the security of the call, he would be rewarded by something approaching gibberish: “Roll-up on Vanguard’s almost complete,” Rykman reports. “Solstice proceeds apace.”

  “Do we have someone in Tel Aviv?” Rykman’s partner wonders.

  “Someone in the Knesset,” Rykman confirms, referring to Israel’s 120-member parliament. “He’s a former Mossad agent. Eight years with them. He’s providing Solstice accountability.”

  “It might be worth letting him know about Iran’s Project One-Ten,” the partner speculates. “Perhaps there’s some usefulness we might wring out of Vanguard after all.”

  Rykman likes this idea. “We could probably make it look like Solstice was retaliatory,” he says in agreement. “Neat and clean. I’ll get it done.”

  * * *

  UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA

  11:00 A.M. EDT

  The Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, r
eminds Alex of an apartment building in Queens. Although the courthouse was built in 1995, its red-brick façade and low ten-story profile are reminiscent of the dozens of apartment buildings that were mass-produced in the 1950s and 1960s to accommodate the baby boom generation and its need for affordable housing. The building’s bottom three floors, with its marbled accents and archway entrances, are the only indication of its function as a courthouse. Otherwise, it looks like the kind of building people live in.

  It’s also the building in which lawsuits against the Central Intelligence Agency are typically filed. Theoretically, the CIA can be haled into any one of the United States’ eighty-nine district courts, but the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria is the one where most lawsuits against the Agency are filed, by virtue of its proximity to the CIA’s headquarters—the presumed focal point of any liability—in McLean, Virginia.

  Alex finds himself in the courthouse’s wood-paneled courtrooms about once a month. He generally appears to argue on what’s known as 12(b)(6) motions, referring to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure that provides for the dismissal of civil lawsuits for lack of merit.

  After all, the CIA doesn’t pay Alex to investigate clandestine assassination plots. Solstice and Overwatch occasionally have to take a number and get in line behind Alex’s day job. It doesn’t matter that his life has been threatened. In fact, the sword dangling over his head is the best reason for him to act as if nothing has changed.

  Although the assignment of judges is supposed to be random, the availability of judges, which is a function of how government institutions run their courtrooms and manage their dockets, affects the process. Judges with a tendency to permit cases to go to trial often find themselves unavailable to hear motions. This includes motions to dismiss. And the more of those that are granted, the fewer trials they have to preside over. The fewer trials, the more available they are to hear motions to dismiss. It’s the kind of feedback loop that accounts for the fact that, more often than not, when Alex is arguing a motion to dismiss, he’s doing so before the Honorable Judge Quentin Hotchkiss.

  Judge Hotchkiss is an erudite jurist in his midsixties. Alex likes him for his efficiency and sense of humor, the latter being a quality that most judges, in Alex’s experience, lack. Alex recalls a time when he was opposing a motion to compel before Judge Hotchkiss. Carl Draper, the attorney for the other side, was accusing Alex of failing to comply with a request for production of documents in violation of federal law. Alex’s defense was that the documents his opponent had requested didn’t exist. He suspected Draper knew as much but was trying to grind the system. Calling another attorney a liar before a judge in open court is something Alex knew to handle delicately. He said something like, “Suffice it to say, Your Honor, I don’t always agree with the factual assertions made by opposing counsel.”

  Hotchkiss smiled and wryly noted, “I’m sure Mr. Draper would say the same thing about you and your factual assertions.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Alex replied without hesitation. “But I try to limit those instances by confining my assertions to the truth.”

  Judge Hotchkiss denied Draper’s motion, finding in favor of Alex.

  Now he is presiding over a similar issue. Alex is trying to dispose of a lawsuit brought by a George Washington University professor who, in addition to his classroom activities, blogs about Middle Eastern issues. The professor’s complaint—the legal pleading that commences a lawsuit—alleges that the CIA has been maintaining a file on him as a result of what he posts on the Internet.

  In order for a motion to dismiss to be granted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the judge must presume that every allegation in the complaint is true. With that presumption in place, the question is whether a legal cause of action has been claimed. For this reason, lawyers often call 12(b)(6) arguments So What? motions, as in, “Yes. Everything alleged by the plaintiff is true…but so what?” That’s the argument Alex is making now.

  “Even assuming for the sake of this motion that the CIA is maintaining a file on Professor Dalton, the existence of such a file wouldn’t be a tort”—a legal wrong for which relief can be granted—“and even if it were, there are no damages. Professor Dalton hasn’t been harmed—nor has he even alleged being harmed—by the creation of a file that may or may not exist.”

  Judge Hotchkiss nods sagely before looking to Alex’s opponent, a scrappy young attorney Alex suspects Dalton recruited straight out of GWU Law School.

  The kid, Todd Kessel, does the best with what he has: “The harm, Your Honor, is violation of privacy, which is a legitimate cause of action under the Privacy Act of 1974, 42 United States Code section 552a. As for the issue of damages, the statute provides for a mandatory minimum of one thousand dollars plus court costs.”

  It’s a good argument, but Alex is ready for it: “The existence of a file, Your Honor, doesn’t per se violate Professor Dalton’s privacy, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Plaintiff has alleged merely the existence of a file, not any extralegal means on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency to procure the information it contains.”

  “It’s our contention,” Kessel fires back, “that when a government agency keeps a file on one of its citizens, that itself is a violation of privacy.”

  “Cool.”

  Judge Hotchkiss smiles. “Did you just say cool?”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Alex says with a grin. “I meant to say, That’s cool.” He waits a beat for that to land and shrugs. “I’ve always wanted to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Because that’s where Mr. Kessel’s incredibly imaginative legal argument will take us.” He pauses again before adding, “That is, if you let us, Your Honor.” Alex takes care to employ an inflection that conveys his opinion that this would be a terrible idea.

  Were Hotchkiss to embark on this perilous legal road, it would inevitably lead to him getting reversed on appeal. (But likely by the Fourth Circuit and long before reaching the Supreme Court.) Alex’s argument contains the implied threat of such a reversal, an outcome all judges dread.

  Correctly sensing that this judicial math is making an impact on Hotchkiss, Kessel tries to buttress his failing argument. “The CIA’s charter prohibits it from spying on American citizens. Why create a file on one of those citizens if not for the purpose of spying on him?”

  Alex shakes his head with vigor. “For all Professor Dalton knows, and for all he’s alleged, that file contains nothing but the printouts of his blog posts. If he truly wants to know its contents, his proper remedy is to file a FOIA request,” Alex says, referring to the Freedom of Information Act, “not a lawsuit in federal court.”

  Kessel wants to make a point in rebuttal, but Hotchkiss cuts him off. “Thank you, Counsel. I’ll take this matter under advisement, read your briefs, and try to deliver a ruling to you by the end of the month.” The court stenographer’s transcript of the proceedings will include this statement verbatim, but without the judge’s tone, which suggests he’s already made up his mind. Alex can feel it too. And he smiles with the inward satisfaction that comes from knowing he’s notched another courtroom victory in his belt.

  Dr. Edward Dalton, who’s been sitting at the plaintiff’s table throughout the discussion, can sense the same thing. He shrinks in his chair and looks resigned, albeit not particularly surprised. Before court, Alex did his due diligence and learned—without much astonishment—that this was the fourth lawsuit Dalton had filed against the CIA, and the ninth against the federal government. Dalton has the look of someone experienced at tilting at windmills and losing.

  Alex returns to the defendant’s table and busies himself with organizing his papers to avoid Dalton’s gaze. It’s not that he’s ashamed at having won the motion—the facts and the law were on his side—but there’s an awkwardness that accompanies interactions with those on the losing side of a legal engagement. In this particular case, that awkwardness is coupled with the judgmental stare Dal
ton has perfected on scores of George Washington University students. Although Alex has angled himself away from Dalton, he can feel the professor’s gaze drilling into the back of his head.

  This kind of situation is not unfamiliar to Alex. By and large, plaintiffs bringing suits against the CIA are a passionate, idealistic lot. Alex is used to the looks of damnation that come when their dreams of prolonged litigation against America’s foremost spy agency are dashed. His standard practice is to ignore them, move on as fast as possible, and hope there isn’t a subsequent chance meeting in the courthouse elevator or parking garage.

  The professor reaches out and grabs Alex’s arm. So much for the avoidance option.

  Alex tries to pull away but discovers that Dalton possesses a surprisingly strong grip for an academic. Alex flashes a look toward the bench, searching for Dalton’s lawyer, and sees that the man is engaged in some conversation with Judge Hotchkiss’s clerk. He turns back to tell Dalton that by touching opposing counsel in this manner, the professor might find himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit, but Dalton gets the first word in. And it’s only one word: “Compartmentalization.”

  Alex had a mental list of things Dalton might possibly say to him—Fuck you being at the top—but Compartmentalization had not been on it. Alex is caught so off guard that all he can muster in response is a jagged “Excuse me?”

  “Compartmentalization, Mr. Garnett,” Dalton says. Alex glances again at the attorney. Still talking to the clerk. Still oblivious. “Your argument is premised on the assumption that each directorate in the CIA knows what the other directorates are doing. You assume, in fact, that there is communication within directorates. You presume that if the CIA had me under surveillance, that information would be shared with the Office of General Counsel and, further, with you. But the CIA—like any intelligence agency—depends upon compartmentalization. Secrets are kept precisely because the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Do you understand?”