Code 13

by Don Brown

  OFFICE OF THE NAVY JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL

  ADMINISTRATIVE LAW DIVISION (CODE 13)

  THE PENTAGON

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  TUESDAY MORNING

  P.J. sat at his workstation. At nine o’clock in the morning, his eyes were already burned into the screen of his laptop as he conducted more legal research on Fourth Amendment issues.

  Which way to go?

  Already he’d written two different drafts of his opinion letter, one with one result, one with the other.

  Part of him wanted to get it over with already. He knew what they all wanted. They wanted him to buck his own conscience and rubber-stamp this thing.

  Part of him hoped a case would come down from the Supreme Court that would give him enough legal cover to kill the project before it got started.

  At the moment, he was studying a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion favoring the good guys. That is, if one defined the good guys as anyone interested in preserving the Constitution and opposing turning America into a police state.

  But on June 25, 2014, the United States Supreme Court, despite an inconsistent, spotty track record on constitutional questions in the last ten years, finally got one right. In Riley v. California, the high court ruled unanimously, in a 9– 0 vote, disagreeing with the Obama Justice Department, holding that police must get a warrant before snooping on people’s cell phones.

  What a rare, refreshing victory for the Fourth Amendment. The same justices who mucked up the Obamacare ruling in a divided 5–4 split were, finally, on the same page.

  “Let’s see,” he mumbled under his breath. “Could I cite this case to argue that random drone surveillance would require a warrant? I mean, nine to zero is a strong vote.” He moved his mouse over the court’s opinion, copied it, and pasted it into his research file.

  His desktop phone rang.

  “Code 13. Legislation, Regulations, and FOIA. Lieutenant Commander MacDonald speaking. This is a nonsecure line subject to monitoring. May I help you, sir or ma’am?”

  “Boy, that’s a mouthful. Is that the way I’m going to have to answer the phone when I report for duty?”

  Instinctively he looked over at Victoria, who sat in her cubicle about twenty feet away. Victoria’s eyes shot over at him as if she knew who was on the other line.

  With the final draft of this opinion due in less than forty-eight hours, the last thing he needed was a looming, hissing catfight on top of everything else. But what could he do about it? It wasn’t his idea to station both at the same duty station with him, at the Pentagon, in the most elite, selective appointment in the Navy JAG Corps.

  It was his idea to ask Victoria out to wine.

  But the long kiss wasn’t his idea.

  But he’d done nothing to stop it either.

  In fact, he’d very much enjoyed it, which at the moment compounded the gut-wrenching flood of guilt drenching his stomach.

  “Well, whether you answer the phone like that depends on if you want to kiss up to the captain.”

  She giggled. “P.J., you know I’ve never been much on kissing up. Especially not to a captain.”

  “You got that right.” He glanced at Victoria, who thankfully had turned her eyes back to her computer screen. “The Caroline McCormick I know never kisses up to anybody.”

  She laughed again. He had almost forgotten how he enjoyed that velvety laugh of hers. “Hey, what are you doing around 1300 tomorrow?”

  He checked his watch. “Same ole routine. I’ll do lunch, probably grab something from the Center Courtyard Café and bring it back to the office, then maybe PT if I have time.”

  “Did you get my text?”

  “Ah . . . yes.” Why do I have the feeling you could have been watching me just before you texted me? “Sorry. I was going to respond, but one thing led to another.”

  “Same ole P.J.” She laughed. “You’re still using that old flip phone that gets delayed messages, aren’t you?”

  He forced a chuckle in return. “I know. But you know me. One of the last holdouts resisting the peer pressure to stick a minicomputer in my pocket.”

  She laughed again. “Now, P.J. MacDonald, I thought for sure when you moved to Washington they would have made you move into the twenty-first century.”

  “Not quite yet. I’m still rebelling because of all those people and teenyboppers who always keep their noses glued to their smartphones. Those things are turning us into a nation of sheeple. One of these days this old flip phone will wear out, and then they won’t be selling them anymore. Because they’ll all be obsolete, I won’t have any choice. Heck, it was the last one in the store when I bought it.”

  “Well . . . as a matter of fact, if you got my text, you know I’m going to be at the Pentagon tomorrow afternoon to see Admiral Brewer and then pop into the offices at Code 13 to say hi to everyone.”

  “Super. I heard you might be stopping by soon.” An awkward pause. “So when are you officially reporting for duty?”

  “Friday, it looks like. Unless Captain Guy has other ideas. I’ll be in Section 134 handling Command Authority Issues.”

  “Super. That’s what I heard.” At least they’re not putting her over in Ethics with Victoria.

  “But listen,” she said. “I have a proposition for you.”

  “Oh really? What kind of proposition?”

  “Well, you said you might PT later on. Think you could delay your PT to about 1300 and maybe take me out for a run?”

  He checked his watch. “You said 1300? Well, the problem is I’ve got this legal opinion due to SECNAV in less than forty-eight hours.”

  “Aw, come on, P.J. If I know you, you’ve already got the draft done of whatever you’re doing, and you’ve probably already edited it several times and don’t want to submit it before you have to because you want the final draft to be perfect.”

  He chuckled. “You do know me, don’t you?”

  “Some things a girl doesn’t forget.”

  “I’ve got a feeling there’s not much you forget.”

  She laughed. “Okay, I’ll stop by around 1300, say hello, then maybe we can go down to the locker room, change, and you can take me out for a jogging tour of Washington.”

  P.J. glanced at Victoria’s darting eyes. “Okay, that would be great. See you then.”

  CHAPTER 10

  AIRFLITE CORP

  U.S. DOMESTIC HEADQUARTERS

  OVERLOOKING THE SAVANNAH RIVER

  SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

  TUESDAY MORNING

  Richardson DeKlerk brought the glass to his lips, sipping his first spot of brandy for the day. He checked the clock on the wall. 9:30 a.m.

  Normally he didn’t start drinking until noon so he could get in a full morning’s work without being under the influence. But the utter incompetence of both Jack Patterson and Bobby Talmadge had driven him to an early-morning swig. He drained the liquor down his esophagus and thought some more.

  Perhaps Jack wasn’t all that incompetent. At least he had gotten a dossier on these Navy lawyers who were holding up his billion-dollar contract in the cryptic office in the Pentagon called Code 13.

  Of course, Jack should have gotten the dossier on the obstructionist bureaucrat JAG lawyers for the hourly rate that he’d been paid. A thousand dollars an hour should have gotten more than a dossier. In fact, Richardson could have hired four or five private detectives to dig up the same information.

  But in Jack’s expensive defense, at least he got the job done. Information costs money. And in many cases, it costs a lot of money.

  With another swash of the intoxicating brew, Richardson picked up the dossier, provided by Jack’s firm today, and glanced over it again.

  From: Jack Patterson, Esq.

  To: Richardson DeKlerk, CEO AirFlite Corp

  Subj: U.S. Navy Internal Legal Procedures for Approval of

  Contract—Project Blue Jay

  Classification: Confidential

  a. You asked us to investigate in
ternal U.S. Navy legal procedures for legislative approval of contracts and, in particular, the top-secret project known as “Blue Jay.” As a result, the following is provided:

  b. Internal U.S. Navy regulations require full legal vetting of acquisitions contracts for major military systems to ensure full legal compliance.

  c. Within the Office of the Navy Judge Advocate General, the legal division responsible for providing such advice is the JAG’s Administrative Law Division, also known as Code 13.

  d. Based upon reliance on strategic contacts in the Pentagon, we have learned that the action officer assigned to write the opinion letter to the Secretary of the Navy on the legality of the proposed deployment of drones under the contract is Lieutenant Commander P.J. MacDonald, JAGC, USN.

  e. A graduate of the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia School of Law, LCDR MacDonald has been instructed to provide an opinion letter to the Secretary of the Navy on the legality of the proposed usage of the drones under the contract, if approved by Congress.

  f. Principally at issue, and under consideration by LCDR MacDonald, are (1) posse comitatus implications of the Navy overseeing the drone project for use by domestic law enforcement (Homeland Security) over U.S. territory, and (2) Fourth Amendment sustainability under the federal government’s self-declared Constitution-Free Zone.

  g. LCDR MacDonald has been ordered to clear up these issues in anticipation of libertarian and Tea Party opposition in Congress to the project, with the expectation that opposition may be raised on these grounds.

  h. Intercepted emails from classified sources in the JAG chain of command indicate that LCDR MacDonald may be wavering in his opinion. Should MacDonald recommend to the Secretary of the Navy that the projected purposes are illegal or unconstitutional, the effect upon the Secretary would be unclear.

  i. Recommend continued correspondence with congressional liaisons to apply political pressure on MacDonald’s superiors.

  Sincerely yours,

  Jack

  Richardson leaned back in his chair and tossed the memorandum on his desk. The two-page letter probably cost AirFlite twenty-five thousand dollars. That would be twelve and a half grand a page! Maybe more.

  He decided not to glance at the invoice when it arrived. He would let Ivana read it and tell her to pay the bill without even telling him.

  He picked up the telephone. “Ivana.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you come in here, please? And bring me another drink. Then I need your help with something.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  He glanced at the twenty-five-thousand-dollar memorandum again, for the third time, and made a decision. Something needed to be done about this P.J. MacDonald character. No midlevel naval officer was going to stop this contract. Not now. Not ever.

  A knock on his office door.

  “Come in.”

  The door cracked open. Ivana, wearing a fitted white-and-gold dress that ended above her knees, smiled at him.

  “Your drinks, sir.” Her voice was cheery, and she carried a silver tray holding another glass, a glass pitcher of ice cubes, and two different liquor flasks. He loved her walk almost as much as he loved her velvety, Czech accent.

  “I know you were drinking cognac, sir. So I brought you another flask of that. And in case you wanted to switch up, I also brought you a flask of scotch.”

  “Set it on the desk, Ivana.”

  At that point he noticed it. The gold ankle bracelet dazzled against her tanned ankle, just above her white pumps.

  She stepped over toward his desk. “Certainly, sir.”

  Was that flirtatiousness in her voice?

  “Would you like another glass?”

  “Sure.” When she stepped behind his desk to pour his drink, he caught a whiff of her perfume. The rock on her finger glistened as she drained the drink into his glass. Perhaps a half carat at most.

  What a waste for a woman so enticing to be tied up with a boring engineer.

  She turned and started walking away. “Ivana?”

  She turned around. “Yes, sir?”

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you bear a striking resemblance to the former Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova?”

  Her pretty face brightened. “You think I resemble Anna Kournikova?”

  “Actually,” he said, “the resemblance is quite striking.”

  “Thank you.” A kittenish grin crossed her lips. “She is a beautiful lady.”

  He responded quickly. “She has nothing on you, my dear.”

  Her smile broadened. Her eyes glistened with a sparkling bluish hue.

  “I think you are a handsome man.” Her velvety accent thickened. “So much in control.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Such a strong visionary.”

  He stood up and pulled her close to him. Their kiss was instant, electric. Why had he waited this long? He did not wish to stop, but the thought of the unexecuted contract distracted him from the excitement of the moment, and he pushed her away.

  “Is something wrong?” A look of longing settled into her eyes. “You do not like my kisses?”

  “Nothing is wrong. I love your kisses. And I hope to kiss you again.”

  “Do you promise?” She moved in, closer to him, as if coming for more.

  “Yes. Of course.” He stopped her advance with his hands. “But we have work to do. First I want you to get me Senator Talmadge on the phone. Then, after that, I want you to get Jack Patterson on the line.”

  “Yes, sir.” Her face looked both disappointed and starry-eyed. “I shall get the senator for you right away.”

  She turned and walked toward the door, and he gazed at her as she left the room. Why had he pushed her away? She was there for the taking. Right in his office. Then he remembered. As much as he loved women, he loved money and power more. The more he poured into a woman, the more money he would lose.

  Best to enjoy them in spurts but keep them at a healthy distance.

  Her intoxicating voice, this time with a bit more spark than usual, oozed through his intercom. “Senator Talmadge is on the phone, sir. Line one.”

  Richardson picked up line one. “How is my favorite United States senator today?”

  A chuckle from the voice on the other line. “I hope you’re referring to me as your favorite senator, Richardson.” Another nervous-sounding, bookend chuckle.

  Not a good sign, this nervousness in Talmadge’s voice. “Well, let me put it this way, Bobby. If I was in fact referring to you when I used the phrase ‘my favorite United States senator,’ then the continued use of that phrase might well depend upon the status of the little project I’ve asked you to work on.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Put it this way, Bobby,” Richardson interrupted. “For some of us, there’s a fine line between having a favorite senator and having a senator we are determined to see defeated in the next election, and are prepared to spend millions of dollars either way.”

  “I know, Richardson. You’re calling about the drone project.”

  “Actually, ole boy, I thought you would have already called me with some positive news. But the sound of your voice doesn’t seem so jolly.”

  “My apologies. I’ve not forgotten you, and I understand what this AirFlite project means to the economy in Savannah and southeastern Georgia. I hope you’ll give me the privilege of being part of that ribbon-cutting ceremony. It’s going to be a great day for the Peach State, Richardson. And I’m going to recommend that the governor put you in for the Governor’s Economic Development Award.”

  Richardson pulled out his desk drawer, extracted his .38 caliber revolver, popped open the empty cylinder, and started spinning it. “My dear senator, you should know that I couldn’t care less about any feelgood political award the governor of Georgia, or any other politician, for that matter, might bestow on me for political purposes.” He started loading
bullets into the chamber. “I can buy my own awards anytime I want.”

  He finished loading the gun and popped the cylinder back into place, then brought the gun to his mouth and blew his breath onto the barrel, caressing the barrel with his finger, allowing the touch of his finger on the barrel to ignite an irresistible tingling that spread throughout his body. “What I want is an executed contract.”

  He aimed the gun at the door, imagining that either Senator Bobby Talmadge or that meddlesome Navy officer from the Pentagon who was playing the dangerous role of obstructionist to Richardson’s aims would dare walk through the door at that moment.

  “Don’t worry, I—”

  “Don’t worry? Did you just tell me not to worry?”

  “Well, yes. Look, I have an appointment to talk with Senator Fowler today. You know, he’s the most powerful member of the U.S. Senate. He’s the chair of the Armed Services Com—”

  “Yes, I know who Fowler is. Spare me the patronizing. What I want is action. So tell me why I don’t have a signed contract yet.”

  “They . . . Look, I expect the Navy to approve within the next couple of days. Then it’s clear sailing. Don’t worry.”

  Richardson took a swig of liquor. “Do you even know who in the Navy is responsible for pushing it along?”

  “Yes, of course. The Secretary of the Navy. And I expect—”

  “Do you know what’s holding up the Secretary of the Navy?”

  “Uh, I believe he’s waiting on approval from the Navy JAG.”

  “Why is the Navy JAG delaying?”

  “I, uh, I’m sure it’s a matter of processing some paperwork. Look, everybody wants this project—”

  “A matter of processing paperwork?”

  “Could I please finish, Richardson?”

  “You’re going to be finished if you don’t get this contract through the Navy and then through Congress. Since your people don’t know as much as my people, let me enlighten you.”

  “Richardson—”

  “Don’t Richardson me, Senator.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Richardson picked up the twenty-five-thousand-dollar memo, but his fingers shook with anger to the point that he couldn’t even read it. “Give me a second, Senator.”