Love Thy Neighbor

by Mark Gilleo

  Chapter 32

  FBI Agent Chris Rosson was hot on the trail of his latest suspect. The evidence was straightforward. The perp had started with small assaults and minor infractions. Invasion of private property, trespassing, and loitering — judging by the turds left on the floor underneath his desk.

  When Agent Rosson opened his bag of Cheetos and found not only had the air already escaped through a hole in the bottom, but that the contents of the bag had been pilfered, he called in the experts. Thanks to Rosson, there were now a dozen rat traps scattered around the fifth floor of FBI headquarters. The maintenance crew referred to them as “mice enticers,” as if the distinction between rat and mouse meant anything when the vermin are scurrying over your shoes, comfortably planted from nine to five at the most advanced investigative entity on Earth.

  The Director of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Eric Nerf, had also spent the majority of his career in the pursuit of rats, usually those on the next rung of the bureaucratic ladder. It had been fifteen years since he last donned a bulletproof vest and a rain jacket with his employer’s name emblazoned on the back. His shirts were pressed. His tie collection managed to keep up with the latest fashion, following the trends from thin to thick, from bland to colorful. His slicked-back black hair was gelled and dyed to perfection. As a bureaucrat he had exchanged his gun for a pen, to use his sense of investigation for general suspicion of those who worked for him as much as real criminals.

  His forays onto the floor where his staff toiled were limited to the far aisle of cubes, those that stood between his corner office and the elevators. So when the Director appeared at Agent Rosson’s cube and cast a shadow on the agent’s workstation, Rosson’s heart took a couple of un-syncopated beats.

  “Rosson. I need a word with you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rosson answered to the back of his superior’s suit as Eric Nerf turned the corner and walked towards the meeting rooms on the other side of the floor. The Director may have made a rare trip into his employee’s lair but he wasn’t going to demean himself by having a conversation in a cube. That just wasn’t done by someone of his stature, of his rank, of his mindset. He was an office guy. He met in offices or conference rooms and he discussed matters with others who had offices. There was nothing for him in the world of cubes. He had briefly been there and had no plans on going back. As a government employee, his rise through the organization was totally independent of his ability to manage people or relate to them on their level. He was the man in charge and, as such, his subordinates were to follow orders. And orders came just as easily through email. Unless the Director was passing along a good ass-chewing, as happened to be the case.

  “Shut the door behind you,” the Director said as Rosson entered the room. The room was small and windowless. It had no electrical outlets, no carpet, and gray paint on the walls. Agent Rosson took a seat at the end of the table and the Director put his butt on the corner of the metal table.

  “What’s going on, sir?”

  “Rosson, have you been working the list of leads we get from the CIA? That less than popular list of calls and letters that the general public sends to the CIA contact address and call center.”

  “Yes, sir. I have been working my portion of the list for the last five months or so. My rotation is supposed to end next month.”

  “Any progress?”

  “Progress?”

  “Anything that has struck a chord of plausibility with you? Any leads that made you think, ‘maybe I got something here?’”

  “No sir. Had a jewelry store in the Bronx that we checked out for being a potential Halawa broker. But that was in October. I have been keeping the system up to date with those leads. You can check on my comments and progress.”

  “I don’t need to. I have always looked at that list as a dog-and-pony show. It’s a feel-good list, though I am well aware of the less-than-feel-good names the agents have for it. The list is a pacifier for the general public and a get out of jail free card for our friends at the CIA.”

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “The CIA, by virtue of this list, is able to send us every crackpot inquiry that comes to them from unsolicited domestic sources.”

  “I get the feeling you are about to tell me that I have missed something.”

  Eric Nerf puckered his lips and made a sucking sound with his mouth like a fish gasping for breath. “I just got off the phone with the Deputy Director of Clandestine Services at the CIA. It seems there was information on the CIA list that has since been deemed ‘of interest to national security.’”

  Rosson ran his hand through his prematurely gray hair. A man with great perception in most situations, he was nervous because he didn’t know if he was going to get patted on the back or lose part of his derrière.

  “Do you remember a house here in the D.C. area on the list?”

  “Sure, it was a few weeks ago. In Arlington. I switched with Agent Taylor because I knew the neighborhood. The address sort of jumped out at me. I lived nearby when I was in junior high school. Moved before my freshman year.”

  “Did you visit the house?”

  “Affirmative. I stopped by and spoke with the woman who made the call.”

  “And…”

  “It was a dead-end. The woman was on at least half a dozen different medications for psychosis. Meds for schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar disorder.”

  “How did you obtain this information?”

  Agent Rosson didn’t blink. “Her medicine cabinet was open when I went to use the john. Though I didn’t mention the medication in my notes for that report.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just because she has the medicine, doesn’t necessarily mean that she is using it. Besides, someone could misinterpret that information as being obtained illegally.”

  The Director nodded and picked at his teeth with his fingernail. “Was there anything unusual about her claim?”

  “Nothing more unusual than the average call that comes through that channel. The woman claims she saw three Middle Eastern-looking men at her door in the middle of the night. She only saw them through the peephole. She said they muttered something about hospitality through the door before they disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “I believe the phrase she used was ‘vanished into the night.’”

  “So you didn’t buy her story?”

  “Well, her son showed up as I was about to leave and I spoke with him. He seemed to have his act together. A grad student at Virginia Tech. I asked him if he had seen anything unusual and he said no, but that they did have Pakistani neighbors — a family of three — husband, wife, and daughter. He said they were a typical family. I asked a few more questions and took a peek at the house across the street where the Pakistani neighbors lived. No one was home, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The son admitted that his mother had some obvious issues. I closed the report as an unreliable source.”

  “I see.”

  Agent Rosson considered sharing his culinary interlude with the garlic muffin but decided against it. “Where is this conversation going, sir?”

  The Director of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force cleared his throat. “The information I am about to share is highly confidential and is not to go outside this room.”

  “I will leave it here.”

  “The CIA hit on a match for the address across the street from one Maria Hayden. It appears that a clandestine agent for the CIA has infiltrated a potential sleeper cell and has taken up residence at the same address from the list we received from the CIA. This intelligence asset represents six years of work including, as I was told, imprisonment of the agent as part of his cover.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I don’t kid. The Deputy Director made it very clear that there is to be no action taken toward this address or anyone coming or going from the residence. It was, as he put it, a matter of national security. Any attempt to investigate this address or apprehend any
one at this address will be dealt with harshly.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you have twenty eight months until retirement at eighty percent of your salary. So don’t fuck it up.”

  “Not a problem sir. I closed the FBI’s end of the investigation the day after visiting the location.”

  “That’s good. That’s good. I’m relieved,” Director Nerf said with concern. “But I am going to need you to amend your report.”

  “Amend?”

  “Re-post.”

  “Exactly what am I re-posting?”

  “Go back in to the system and change the reason for closing the account. Amend the ‘previous unreliable source’ notation with ‘closed at the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency.’”

  Rosson was processing the information in his head. “You want it backdated?”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I can change the date that I closed the report. The date that I altered the report — the date I accessed the report — that I cannot change. So if someone is looking at the report, they will not be able to see what was written before but they will be able to see the date that something was modified.”

  “Do it.”

  Rosson was quiet for a second and then asked. “Why is the CIA running the domestic list through their databases? I mean, correct me if I am wrong, but the FBI has jurisdiction over domestic terrorism. If the CIA is using the list, why bother sending it to us?”

  “Deniability. If they miss something, they blame it on us, claim that the information was the FBI’s jurisdiction. If they catch something and we don’t, they can point their finger at us for not catching it. And if something big, something important were to slip past our filters, we will be the ones to blame. The heads will roll right here in this office. Right here on this floor.”

  “So much for working with one another.”

  “You never believed that interagency cooperation bullshit, did you? Shame, shame. You think decades of institutionalized hatred and mistrust for one another is going to disappear because the President and Congress tells it to? You can see how that worked with the civil rights movement.”

  “A little different, but I see your point.”

  “You know, there is a saying in Washington that there is only one thing worse than another 9/11,” the Director said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Being blamed for it.”

  Chapter 33

  The wind howled along the waterfront in Georgetown. The curvy two-section five-story building that ran parallel to the Potomac housed a conglomeration of restaurants, law firms, and condos that cost well into seven figures. A fountain dissected the open air between the building sections and during the heydays of summer the seats around the pools of water were filled with young people holding hands and slobbering over their favorite ice cream. When the weather was nice, the restaurants facing the river opened their patios to throngs of young professionals who flocked to the deck chairs and tables like seagulls to a spilled order of French fries. The captains of expensive boats pulled up to the docks, luring the beautiful people from their tables for a trip to Roosevelt Island and whatever else they could talk or impress their subjects into doing. Downhill from the main drag on M Street, with its bars and boutiques, the waterfront offered a view of the Key Bridge to the right and the Kennedy Center to the left. It was an address for the kings, and those who wanted to imagine they were royalty for the afternoon.

  With the wind whipping down the Potomac in mid-winter form, the action on the Waterfront was muted. The occasional brave jogger could be seen running down the large concrete path, their breath visible to the restaurant patrons who were warm and cozy behind the glass windows.

  When a female Georgetown medical resident with a sensitive nose jogged downwind past the docks, she paused in motion. Legs still pumping in her high-tech thermal pants, her torso covered in a vest with her school’s name, she removed her earphone jacks and inhaled. With that, the woman with dark hair and dark features stopped running in place.

  Following her nose, she walked over to the retaining wall that kept the water of the Potomac, when it flooded, away from the expensive real estate. The jogger looked down at the empty boat dock. She first saw what looked like a leg protruding from the dock at water level. She moved several steps upstream for a better look. Peering over the edge, she calmly reached into her pocket, pulled out a thin cell phone, and called 911.

  The dead body was stuck near the corner post of the dock, the back of the victim wedged under the planked walkway. With spring still months away, and the Potomac alternating consistency between ice water and a Slurpee, the body could have gone unnoticed for another month. Except for the smell. Nature’s way of pointing the living to the dead.

  The ambulance and police converged on the scene, lights flashing, sirens off. News traveled quickly. A couple of lawyers from a law firm on the fourth floor grabbed their coats and headed for the elevator. Where there was death, there was fault, and where there was fault, there was money to be made.

  A small crowd braved the cold and stood on the retaining wall from a distance, watching the police pull the fully clothed body from the frigid water. When the coroner flipped the corpse on its back, a gagging sound mixed with the sound of a woman crying. The body’s face was white, the mouth open.

  Detective Earl Wallace, career officer with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, cornered the jogger who was perturbed that her run had been interrupted. He sucked in his gut a little as he made his way to the witness and introduced himself. Early fifties, black, and graying, Detective Wallace still maintained a boyish face. His knees and diet, however, protested the mere thought of an exercise routine.

  “How did you find the body?”

  “I smelled it,” the jogger answered. The wires to her headphones now resting over each shoulder. Her red running cap was in her left hand.

  “How do you know what a dead body smells like?”

  “I’m a resident at Georgetown hospital. We have dead bodies from time to time. But I also did a pathology rotation in the morgue to see if I could stomach it.”

  “How did that go?”

  “I survived. Made it through med school.”

  “Most of the bodies in med school are preserved.”

  “Yes, I know,” the jogger answered, stretching her legs.

  The coroner came over and whispered into the detective’s ear. The detective nodded in response. The coroner zipped the black bag closed, its contents out of sight.

  “Let me get your name and contact information and then you are free to go.”

  The jogger did deep knee bends as she gave the detective her personal information, and then jogged off in the direction of Georgetown University.

  It took the medical examiner less than an hour to pinpoint drowning as the cause of death.

  Detective Wallace, resident expert on dead bodies from the D.C. Robbery and Homicide unit, walked into the small office area of the morgue and hit the buzzer near the desk to let the medical examiner know that someone was waiting.

  The medical examiner hit his foot on a lever that opened the door to the examination room and popped his head through the opening. He was wearing an apron smeared with human muck, streaks of undistinguishable, unmentionable bits, combined with the more discernable blood and dirt. Two dabs of powerful mentholated ointment stretched from the underside of the medical examiner’s long curved nose. The medical examiner immediately recognized the officer.

  “Detective Wallace. Please come in. Good to see you again.”

  “It’s never good to see me. I only come when someone is dead. But thanks just the same.”

  “Like the Grim Reaper,” the doctor said, returning to the table with the drowned body. The metal table was wet and water ran into the built-in drainage channels in the corners. The body was on its back, naked and fully exposed.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “White, male.”

  “
Obviously,” Detective Wallace said, looking down at the man’s groin.

  “I always start with the obvious,” the doctor said with a smile. “White, male, in his mid-thirties. Cause of death, drowning, as indicated by foam in the airways and nostrils. Though that could change.”

  “What? The foam or the cause of death?”

  The medical examiner looked over the frame of his glasses at the detective.

  Wallace smiled and walked around towards the head of the deceased. “When we fished him out, he had a wallet, but there was no I.D. No driver’s license. The wallet still had sixty bucks in it.”

  The doctor nodded. “Makes sense. Probably wasn’t a robbery. I can’t find any sign of foul play. No GSW, no stab wounds. No cuts. In a majority of drowning cases we find ancillary injuries. A lot of drowning victims have contusions on their head. They hit their noggin on the side of the boat, on a rock, whatever. Of course, many drowning victims also have post-mortem injuries from bumping into things in the water. This guy on the table has a few, but nothing of real consequence. There is always a danger of misdiagnosing ante-mortem and post-mortem injuries with drowning victims. Drowning victims always float face down. Given the weight of the head and the face-down position, some post-mortem injuries can bleed. But I don’t think that is the case with this guy.”

  “He was found wedged under a dock.”

  “That shouldn’t make a difference. The current probably carried him there and his clothes got stuck on something protruding from the dock structure. There was nothing to indicate otherwise.”

  “So no post-mortem means...”

  “He probably didn’t go too far.”

  “So it’s not a body that came through Great Falls.”

  “Absolutely not. It fell somewhere east of Chain Bridge. There are too many rocks farther upstream. The body may have not traveled far at all.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There was some residual blood in his mouth and sinus cavity that I haven’t found a cause for yet. He has some scars on his knuckles. Battered hands. Looks like he was a man who wasn’t afraid to mix it up. Maybe a boxer, maybe a barroom brawler. Also has a tattoo on his arm,” the doctor said, pointing with the sharp end of the scalpel.