Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  The admiral nodded approvingly and got up.

  “Summerfield said you were smart. It does have all the fingerprints of the vice chief on it. And you know what happens to people who attract the attention of the vice. But I wanted to make sure you know you’ll be playing two games. Do the investigation, like I said, by the book. But require the full cooperation of the staff and resources of the NIS: Opnav is to be clearly in charge, Dan.”

  Dan stood up. “Aye, aye, sir. And I assume that Opnav’s objectives visa-vis NIS do not take precedence over the investigation’s objectives?”

  The admiral gave him a direct look. “Absolutely,” he said. “You find what you find. Facts, opinions, recommendations.

  By the book, Commander.”

  “Yes, sir. Will you want reports?”

  “Not on the investigation—we stay at arm’s length on that until you hand in your preliminary. But on the other matter, yeah. Be like E. T.: Call home occasionally.

  Talk to the EA. NIS is not just going to take this lying down, and you may need the occasional cudgel taken up. And since he did not care to come when he was called, you can use Captain Summerfield as your conduit to the EA or to me—if he would be so kind.”

  Dan walked back to OP-614 and reported the gist of what had happened to Captain Summerfield, including the tone of the admiral’s last remark.

  “Oh dear, maybe he’ll transfer me out of Opnav,” Summerfield said wistfully. But then his face grew serious.

  “I’ve heard of Opnav staffies being detailed into investigations, but never outside the building. The vice chief must really want to jerk NIS’s chain.”

  “From the look on that guy Ames’s face, we can consider said chain to have been well and truly pulled. I guess I need to go upstairs to JAG and get the latest gouge on doing a JAG investigation.”

  “Yeah, okay. And then go by the Oh-six travel office —you have to get rolling on this thing most-skosh. Although, actually, he said NIS had to pay the TAD costs?

  I love it. You know, I’d recommend you drive up to Philly. 7t’s easier than doing all the airports, and you won’t have to wait for the old ladies up on the fifth floor to do the TAD orders paperwork. Now, are there any actions you’re leaving in the system?”

  “Only two long-term actions: a nuke-submarine port visit to our beloved allies in Greece, and the NATO Portuguese frigate. The port-visit package is over in OP-Six-sixteen. And the frigate—”

  Summerfield shook his head. “The NATO Portuguese frigate. Do you realize that that turkey’s been kicking around the system now for about twelve years?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m recognizing some of my old point papers.”

  Summerfield laughed. “I’ll give it to Lieutenant Colonel Black of Her Majesty’s ever-enthusiastic Marines.

  He will absolutely love the Portuguese NATO frigate issue.”

  Dan decided to get up to JAG before his Marine buddy found out what he was inheriting. Snapper Black was a Marine F-18 driver who was suffering manfully through every single day of a cross-training assignment to the Navy staff, albeit with a wicked sense of humor.

  He would need it when he inherited the Portuguese frigate issue, Dan thought. As a result of the unending budget cuts, the military service headquarters had been depopulated by about 40 percent. The cuts left the other two working staff billets in 614 vacant, so Snapper would necessarily inherit any currently working issues when Dan left to conduct the investigation.

  When Dan got back to the office an hour later, he was carrying a large three-ring binder filled with the pertinent rules, regulations, and checklists of the Navy Judge Advocate General (JAG) Manual pertaining to the conduct of informal JAG investigations. Dan knew that the label “informal” was a bit of a misnomer. The actual investigation was plenty formal; it was just that courtroom rules of evidence did not apply until the investigation was used to make the decision to convene a “formal”

  military-justice proceeding, such as a board of inquiry or a court-martial. The use of an informal investigation gave the investigating officer the widest possible latitude in pursuing the facts of a case, and, at this stage, the facts of the case were the objective.

  He sat down at his desk and began to go through the checkoff lists and forms. Snapper Black came in a few minutes later ana walked directly over to Dan’s desk.

  “Greetings, comrade,” he began. Snapper was built like a small tank, and he had a round, froglike face and a gravelly voice.

  “Commander Collins isn’t here,” Dan said hopefully, keeping his head down.

  “Commander Collins is a Communist, as the whole world knows. It’s how he wants to die that’s in question.

  The Portuguese frigate, for Chrissakes.”

  “You can’t hurt me. The Vice Chief of all the Naval Operations has appointed me boy investigator. I’ve got a letter and everything.” He waved his appointing letter in the air, on the theory that if Snapper was going to bite something, he might go for the letter.

  “Death and destruction be rained upon you,” Snapper intoned. “May your whiskey be perpetually watered. May the Communists suborn all your children.

  May—”

  “Okay, Snapper,” grumped Captain Summerfield from his inner office. “Go get your crayons and work us up a novel idea about the Portuguese frigate, you want to vent all that spleen.”

  Snapper cocked a theatrical eye in the direction of the inner office and then leaned closer to Dan. “That blonde you’ve been lusting after, over in OP-Six-three?

  She’s a he; Clinton rules. And has syphilis, which she got from your mother. Who—”

  “Snapper.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Snapper backed away toward his desk, miming silent but graphic gestures in Dan’s direction.

  Dan felt mildly sorry, but that was the code of the West: If somebody was lucky enough to escape from Opnav for some kind of temporary duty, the remaining inmates picked up the load. Yeoman Jackson was calling him.

  “Guy on line two says he’s from NIS, wants to talk to you. What’d you do, Commander?”

  “He’s been consorting with goats again,” offered Snapper.

  “Everyone’s a comedian today,” Dan said. “Patch him back here.”

  His phone rang once and he picked up.

  “Commander Collins.”

  “Commander, this is Doug Englehardt over at NIS.

  I’m the case officer on the Philadelphia problem.”

  “You the guy’s gonna be my deputy dog on this investigation?”

  There was a moment’s pause on the other end.

  “Well, Commander, not exactly. That’s actually the reason I was calling.

  I wonder if you can come over here to the Navy Yard for a little meeting. We’ll introduce you to your, ah, deputy at that time. Can you make it this afternoon, say thirteen hundred?”

  Dan thought quickly. Remembering the choleric Mr. Ames, Dan’s political instincts told him that his first meeting with the NIS troops ought not to be on their home turf. One of him amidst all of them.

  “Actually, Mr. Englehardt, I’ve got some policy issues to wrap up here in Six-fourteen.” From out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sumnierfield and Snapper listening.

  Snapper was rolling his eyes. “Let’s do this. I’ll get the OP-Oh-six conference room at, say, sixteen hundred.

  We’ll do the first organizational meeting then.

  And maybe you or your people can brief me at that time on the tech support services NIS can provide to this investigation, especially if it turns into a homicide case. And I intend to go to Philadelphia first thing tomorrow to get this thing under way. I have the appointing letter. Okay? See you here at the Puzzle Palace at Sixteen hundred? It’s room—”

  “I know where the Oh-six conference room is, Commander,” Englehardt interrupted. His voice was decidedly less friendly. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  “Great, Mr. Englehardt. Appreciate your cooperation.

  See you then.” He
hung up.

  Summerfield was rocking back in his armchair and nodding in approval.

  “Very good. Very good. They come to you. They work for you. I like that.”

  “Those civilians are gonna hate life,” Snapper observed.

  “Come to a meeting away from their offices at sixteen hundred? Those guys all go home at sixteen hundred.”

  “Everybody knows we Opnav weenies are dedicated,” Dan said. “The hard part will be getting the conference room. Jackson.”

  “I’m talking to the secretariat right now, Commander.

  They say as long as you’re out of there before Opsdep debrief at seventeen hundred, you’re good to go.”

  “Jackson, you stop being efficient,” ordered Snapper.

  “You’re gonna scare the captain.”

  at 1610, dan collins and Captain Summerfield were waiting in the OP-06 conference room across the hall from Vice Admiral Layman’s front office.

  The room was long, stuffy, and narrow, with paneled walls, behind which were banks of sliding wall-sized maps of the world. Although Dan, having called the meeting, was nominally in charge, he was glad Summerfield had come down. After two tours of duty in the Navy policy world, Dan felt reasonably confident about his Washington bureaucratic skills, but Ronald Summerfield was an acknowledged master within OP-06. He had spent years in the Washington arena, including a three-year tour in OLA, as the Navy’s office of legislative liaison was known. Several of his Naval Academy classmates were already flag officers, including the vice chief himself.

  Being a classmate, Summerfield was reputed to have an unusual degree of access to the vice chief, access facilitated by the fact that he had also been the executive assistant to the previous vice chief. But Dan had noticed that, if all this was true, Summerfield was extremely circumspect about it. A branch-head captain who took advantage of such connections would be taking his chances with the one-, two-, and three-star admirals in the Opnav chain of command between Summerfield and the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.

  Dan did not know very much about his boss on a personal level, other than that he had an invalid wife and was a heavy-duty gun collector.

  “From what you’ve told me,” Summerfield was musing from his chair at the side of the table, “NIS has no real incentive to cooperate with you.

  They’re also fully capable of running their own investigation behind your back to make you look bad. You know they have an office in Philly, just like they do at every other big naval installation.”

  “Yes, sir,”

  Dan said, looking at his watch. “I’ve been thinking about that this afternoon. I was going to ask the office of the NIS Resident Agent-Philadelphia to fax down their preliminary incident report just as soon as I get a chain of command established here. I’m planning to go through this deputy for anything I want from NIS.”

  “Good. There are lots of potholes they can put in your way—lose your paperwork, misplace evidence, break the chain of custody on physical stuff, promise a report tonight but get it in after you leave town tomorrow, that sort of stuff. But you are correct in assuming that the cure is to put the NIS deputy on the hook to provide what you need. They derail him, they look bad, not you.”

  “Have you figured out why the vice chief might be doing this?” Dan asked.

  The captain scratched the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow and looked away. “Well,” he replied, “the current director of the NIS is one of the vice’s proteges.

  His name is Walker T. Keeler, and he’s a classmate of mine. Even back at the Academy, he always did think a lot of himself. What we may have here is a case of the protege getting a little big for his britches and somehow managing to offend his patron saint. This might just be an attention-getting device of some kind. Ah, I think they’re here.”

  The door was opening at the end of the conference room and four people filed through the door, shedding raincoats. There were three men and one very good looking woman. The first man, who introduced himself as Doug Englehardt, was a well-fed and sleek-looking man of about fifty; he was wearing a dark blue suit and carrying an expensive leather briefcase. He introduced the second man, who was a young black’civilian named Robby Booker. Booker was wearing a tan double breasted suit and had a pronounced high-top fade-away hairdo. He immediately flopped into a chair at the table, put a bored expression on his face, and began to tap on the tabletop with the point of a pencil. The third man, named Smithson, was older, about sixty. He was wearing a shirt and tie but no suit coat. He carried a portable projector, which he positioned at one end of the table and then went looking for the screen. Obviously a briefer and not a participant, Dan thought.

  Dan introduced himself and Captain Summerfield to the clutch of bureaucrats, then focused on the woman, whom Englehardt identified as Ms. Grace Ellen Snow.

  Only about one inch shorter than he was, she was dressed in an expensive-looking midcalf-length gray linen suit. Her dark hair was pulled back along the sides and top of her head to a barrette and then left to fall in a graceful cascade to her shoulders. She looked directly at him when they were introduced, and he was struck by her bright green eyes. She had a lovely, if somewhat aloof, face, he thought. As he tried to get his brain back on track for the meeting, he caught the beginnings of an amused expression on Summerfield’s face. As every one found seats around the table, Englehardt suggested they start, pointedly reminding the two naval officers that it was quite late in the day. He took a leather bound notebook out of his briefcase.

  “Not for Opnav, Mr. Englehardt,” Captain Summer field said with a patronizing smile. “We all still have the Opsdep debrief to do, and then our division director’s meeting.”

  “I figure to be out of here by seventeen hundred at the latest,” Dan said from his position at the head of the table. “First order of business is my appointing letter.

  I’ve made some copies for everyone.”

  He passed the copies down the table to the three NIS people, ignoring the slide pusher. Englehardt put his copy in his notebook without looking at it. The young black man left his copy facedown on the table and continued to play Gene Krupa with his pencil. Grace Ellen Snow scanned her copy, then nodded once.

  “The second thing I want to do is set a schedule,” Dan continued. “I plan to leave for Philadelphia early tomorrow morning, before rush hour.

  I plan to use my own POV as the quickest way to get going, given the normal delays we face here in Opnav making travel arrangements.

  I plan to spend a few days or so in Philly to see what we’ve got, and after that, we’ll determine a formal schedule. Mr. Englehardt, that appointing order says you guys owe me a deputy.”

  Englehardt nodded, still not looking at the appointing order, as if to imply that its authority was of no consequence to him. He opened his notebook, looked down, and cleared his throat.

  “Commander, the NIS will cooperate with this investigation to the maximum extent of its ability and authority under the law and the charter of the NIS,” he began. Dan thought he sounded like a diplomat reading precise negotiating instructions. He looked over at Summerfield, who rolled his eyes. Grace Snow was watching Englehardt.

  “We propose to appoint Ms. Snow here as your operational liaison from the NIS for the duration of this investigation, or until such time as the investigation is devolved back into more, um, conventional channels.”

  ” ‘Operational liaison’?”

  “Yes, Commander. The assistant director of the NIS for criminal investigations thought that would be a more appropriate title, since Ms.

  Snow, who is a managerial employee of the NIS, necessarily must remain under the administrative control of the NIS.” He paused and looked up at Dan.

  “Okay. Continue.”

  “Right. Ms. Snow will accompany you during the field portion of the investigation and will then prepare a separate report to be appended to the report of your investigation required by the JAG Manual, based on all the evidence gathered by you a
nd whatever might turn up from the efforts of our own field offices.”

  “Wrong.”

  Englehardt put down his piece of paper. “I beg your pardon?”

  Dan could see that Summerfield was suddenly having trouble keeping a straight face. Dan sat back in his chair and smiled politely at Englehardt.

  “I said, ‘Wrong.’ Or perhaps I should have said, Nice try. Look, I don’t care what Miss. Snow’s title is. But there is only one investigation, and only one investigating officer, and there will be only one report.

  If you care to read that appointing letter, you will see that it has been signed by the JAG himself, Admiral Crutch field, who works for the Secretary of the Navy, who is at the top of your food chain and mine.

  There had better not be any separate investigation activity going on at your NISRA offices that I have not set in motion. That would lead to a duplication of effort, confusion, people working at cross purposes, and probably a compromise of evidence in this case. I’ve been led to believe that these are the hallmarks of previous NIS investigations that lie behind my appointing letter in the first place.”

  Englehardt’s face reddened. Grace Snow had begun to study the table; the young black man had stopped tapping his pencil and was looking at Dan with some interest. The older man at the other end of the table began to shuffle his slides, looking as if he wished he was elsewhere.

  “If Ms. Snow is to be the operational liaison between my investigation and the NIS,” Dan continued, “I propose to task NIS for all the support I need through Ms. Snow. It will be up to NIS to respond to Ms. Snow, and she to me. She will be, in effect, the investigation’s expert on the capabilities of the NIS, and she will be the principal conduit of all information that the NIS now has or will obtain pertaining to this investigation. In that regard, my first tasking is to call for a summary report of whatever information NISRA Philadelphia has on this incident to be made available to me upon my arrival in Philadelphia, which should be at around ten hundred tomorrow morning.”

  “Our arrival.”

  Dan looked over at Grace Snow, who had spoken for the first time.

  “Yes, precisely, our arrival,” he amended, nodding in her direction.