The Clause

by Brian Wiprud

  I sat in the last open seat, surrounded by what looked like a cheerleading squad or church group: the girls were all various shades of blond with very white, straight teeth—the girl-next-door. Next to me was the girls’ chaperone, a mid-forties woman in stretch pants, blue eyeliner, and an orange pageboy. She whispered: “Did you see what happened?”

  The entire bus leaned in to hear.

  I whispered back: “I just heard the explosion, and saw flames coming out of the parking garage. Probably a car bomb, I dunno. I just want to get out of here, you know, before something else happens.”

  There was a collective blond gasp.

  Pageboy scowled. “Fucking Muslims!”

  Maybe they weren’t from a church group. I hoped not.

  IN ALL BATTLE, THE DIRECT METHOD MAY BE USED FOR WAGING WAR, BUT INDIRECT TACTICS WILL BE NEEDED IN ORDER TO ENSURE VICTORY.

  INDIRECT TACTICS, CAREFULLY APPLIED, ARE INEXHAUSTIBLE AS HEAVEN AND EARTH, UNENDING AS THE FLOW OF RIVERS AND STREAMS; LIKE THE SUN AND MOON, THEY END BUT TO BEGIN ANEW; LIKE THE FOUR SEASONS, THEY DEPART TO RETURN AGAIN.

  THERE ARE FIVE MUSICAL NOTES, YET THE COMBINATIONS OF THESE FIVE RESULT IN MORE MELODIES THAN CAN EVER BE HEARD.

  THERE ARE FIVE PRIMARY COLORS (BLUE, YELLOW, RED, WHITE, AND BLACK), YET IN COMBINATION THEY RESULT IN MORE HUES THAN CAN EVER BE SEEN.

  THERE ARE FIVE CARDINAL TASTES (SOUR, ACRID, SALT, SWEET, BITTER), YET COMBINATIONS OF THEM RESULT IN MORE FLAVORS THAN CAN EVER BE TASTED.

  IN BATTLE, THERE ARE TWO METHODS OF ATTACK—THE DIRECT AND THE INDIRECT; YET THESE TWO IN COMBINATION RESULT IN AN ENDLESS SERIES OF MANEUVERS.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Forty

  EUROPEAN ORGANIZED CRIME TASK FORCE

  MEMORANDUM

  1830 EDT MONDAY AUGUST 9, 2010

  TO: EOCTF SUPERVISOR PALMER

  FROM: AGENTS KIM AND BOLA, INTEL SURVEILLANCE SECTION

  Re: G. Underwood investigation—ghosting

  1. Surveillance subsystems targeting Nee Fat Tong cell phone intercepts were restored at approximately 1600 EDT. Transcripts reveal Nee Fat Tong aware that Kurac made bail at Hudson County court for Tong operative Shui Fu Wing at approximately 1000 EDT with the object of using him as an informer.

  2. Ping and intercept G. Underwood’s cell phone detected locations variously. 1505 EDT Flushing, New York, traveling, destination JFK airport, ending 1623 EDT.

  3. G. Underwood DNA hair samples were collected and sent to NSA lab August 8th, results not expected for at least seven to ten days. Print check on “G. Underwood” from his apartment match US Navy file for G. Underwood #842-00-1010 DOB August 23, 1971, Clifton, New Jersey. Death certificate of August 2005 reports accidental death from fall of twenty stories. Y3 SPT Subsystem data mining of comparative information suggests identity of person who fell to death was Phillip Greene, SS# 181-11-9898 DOB March 3, 1970, a fellow employee of G. Underwood, and that G. Underwood likely co-opted Greene’s identity at the time of death. G. Underwood licensed his business “The Screen Man” using Phillip Greene’s Social Security number and to file taxes and to obtain a driver’s license and passport. G. Underwood continued to use his actual identity socially.

  4. Homeland Security advised to add G. Underwood and Phillip Greene to No Fly List, apprehend and detain.

  Forty-one

  VORTEX 5 SATELLITE

  LOCATION: THE CAUCUS RESTAURANT, 401 9TH STREET NW

  WASHINGTON, DC 20004

  DATE: MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2010

  TIME: 1936 EDT

  DEPUTY DIR. EOCTF SUPERVISOR PALMER (SP)

  DEFENSE INTEL. AGENCY DIR. LEE (DL)

  SP: Bill, good seeing you. Glad you could meet me on short notice like this.

  DL: Anytime you’re buying, I’m here for you.

  WAITER: Can I get you gentlemen something from the bar?

  SP: Yes, a sidecar for me.

  DL: Ketel One martini, up, dry, dirty, twist.

  WAITER: Very well. Do you want to see menus?

  SP: Later. Maybe.

  WAITER: Very well. I’ll be back shortly with your cocktails.

  DL: So, Tom, how you liking EOCTF?

  SP: To be honest I think I preferred being a liaison at DIA. It was easier, I’ll tell you that. I wasn’t working all these crazy hours, weekends, all that. Delores is not a happy camper. She’s basically raising our girls herself.

  DL: Well, it’s a rung to better places maybe. Think of it that way.

  SP: How about yourself?

  DL: Can’t complain. It’s not hectic, and the SIGINT programs make data collection so much easier. We’re buried under data, though.

  SP: I hear the NSA has programs that do the analysis as well as the collection.

  DL: Hm, yes, well, that scares me not just a little. Pretty soon you have a machine making the calls, dispatching covert Tile 50 teams to assassinate despots.

  SP: Hasn’t stopped 381 from doing the same. Soon as they find Bin Laden, he’s a dead man.

  DL: I’m not so sure machines can make the distinction between enemy combatants and a senator on the IC trying to cut their budget.

  SP: Just the same, is there anybody who doesn’t think 381 doesn’t still do X50 covert ops?

  DL: Tom, you’re getting paranoid.

  WAITER: Here you go.

  DL: Thanks.

  SP: Thank you very much.

  WAITER: You’re very welcome, and I’ll stop back in a bit to see if you want menus.

  SP: Cautious, not paranoid.

  DL: If they were targeting a satellite at this table, you don’t think that the CIA could figure out that when you say “381” you mean them? And frankly, even I don’t really believe they do those X50 covert ops, not after they got caught.

  SP: You’ve been in this business a lot longer than me. Don’t you ever just sort of get a sense that 381 is somehow monitoring what we do? Maybe not all the time, but sometimes? And have you ever had a project that had some odd details that make you think 381 was somehow involved and just slipped out just before you got there?

  DL: The case you told me about, the Serb gem-theft ring?

  SP: That’s the one.

  DL: As I recall, night before you were going to spring the trap, the Serbs had the gems stolen from them?

  SP: Except now it turns out this thief is ghosting, and he’s ex-Navy intel.

  DL: Hm, yes, that does sound a little spooky. Whopper of a coincidence he stole the gems when he did.

  SP: And this thief worked out of a Cuban mob over in New Jersey.

  DL: Spookier still. All this and the Serbs.

  SP: Why are the Serbs spooky?

  DL: Bosnian conflict. The CIA was a little slow to report atrocities they collected intel on. They had egg on their face when it leaked.

  SP: Not sure how that could be connected to a gem-theft ring. I have little doubt these Serbs have blood on their hands from the conflict, especially the older ones, but what would the connection with 381 be?

  DL: [laugh] Didn’t you just recount the feeling you get when you’re on a project and it feels like the CIA has somehow already been there? I can’t tell you why the CIA would want to steal these gems and ruin your party, but as you say this is spooky from enough angles to warrant looking into.

  SP: Your sources see deep enough into the data pool for this?

  DL: Deep enough.

  WAITER: Gentlemen, another drink, or are you ready for menus?

  DL: I’d better go, Tom. My marriage needs me.

  SP: Just the check. Thanks, Bill. Call you tomorrow?

  DL: Tomorrow. Be well.

  *END*

  Forty-two

  The baton-twirling squad from Minnesota was nice enough to
give me a ride in their van to Jersey City on their way to Montclair for a jamboree or something. I told them Hertz lost my reservation, and Cheryl, the girls’ coach with the blue eye shadow and orange hair, offered to help me out. It was a short ride made long by Cheryl’s chatty prying. She wanted to know who I was and what I did and where I’d been. My lack of sleep was impairing my ability to fictionalize, and Cheryl was pushing my brain to the absolute limits. I started with the story that I had just returned from visiting my aunt in Florida. That made the rental car complicated, so I just said my car was in the shop, and I needed a car for a few days.

  “Don’t you have any friends who you could borrow a car from?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Don’t you have any family?”

  “I do, but they need their cars.”

  “What’s wrong with your car?”

  “Um, the brakes.”

  “That’s a one-day job, they should give you your car back.”

  “The brakes are special order, we’re waiting for parts.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “A, uh, Maserati.”

  “You drive a Maserati?”

  “Yes, I drive a Maserati.”

  “That doesn’t sound very sensible for an everyday car. You should buy another car.”

  “I don’t want to carry double insurance.”

  “What’s your insurance company?”

  “Allstate.”

  “Have you tried Geico?”

  “Yes. I tried Geico.”

  “How much was that a month?”

  And on and on and on. I felt like just saying:

  “Look, Cheryl, I’m a jewel thief, and in this box is a hundred and fifty million dollars in sparks, and I went to the airport to detonate a car bomb and blow up a Chinese tong and a Serbian smuggling ring. But first I made a man shoot himself in the head.”

  Imagine how many questions THAT would have created.

  My brain throbbed from the weight of all the lies I’d packed into forty minutes as I began to walk north and away from the Holland Tunnel’s entrance. Tito’s watch told me it was 7:11.

  Twenty minutes later I was at my gym in Hoboken, the one where I’d stashed the sparks in the tennis balls. I opened my locker; stuffed my belly bag, sparks, and clothes under the tracksuit and on top of the tennis racket; and tromped to the showers.

  The hot water jetting onto my skull helped ease the brain throb and relax my neck, which was rock hard from the tension of the exchange and killing. It was hard to believe it went down like that. Doc getting popped in the neck and head was gruesome, and I liked her; I thought she was on the up and up even if her friends weren’t. Reliving the struggle with China Boss made me feel brutal and mean and want to go back to kicking a dead man, so I tried to pretend I saw it in a movie.

  Worse was reliving my clumsiness right at the most critical moment. I should have just gotten out of the car and not announced that my companions should stay in the car. In fact, I should have told them to get out with me. China Boss had to believe that my plan was probably to detonate the car and kill them once I was a safe distance from the car. And why not? That way I could walk with the ten million and the Britany-Swindol sparks. At the same time, China Boss saw my phone had timed out and that my threat to detonate was empty. Believing that my intentions were not to follow through with the exchange, his decision to turn the tables was well calculated. I should have checked the phone periodically to make sure the speed dial was locked in and ready, but more importantly I failed to adequately know my enemy. Understanding the enemy’s perspective and interests was critical.

  I went from the shower to the whirlpool and from there to the sauna. I think I slept a little in both places, or passed out.

  Laid out on my back on the wood bench in the sauna, I was jolted awake by two men in towels who sat across from me.

  The bald and bearded one said: “The TV is saying it wasn’t terrorists.”

  “Then who?” The other had a beak-like nose. “Who else would blow up a car at the airport?”

  “I’m only saying what they are saying. What about Timothy McVeigh?”

  “Who?”

  “Guy who blew up that building in Ohio.”

  “Oklahoma bomber?”

  “Oklahoma, Ohio, Iowa, whatever. That’s the guy. He was a white guy, just pissed off about paying taxes.”

  “Yeah, yeah. He blew up the IRS or some shit. That makes sense.”

  “Maybe this makes sense, too, an angry employee. The bomb went off at a remote part of the garage. And they have a picture of a guy they’re looking for, you see that?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Looked like Billy Idol. A Muslim can dye his hair.”

  They glanced at me and my white hair. I said:

  “Hey, I have an alibi.”

  They laughed, and Bald Bearded said: “Maybe you better choose a new hair color, amigo. Every cop out there is looking for a guy like you with white hair.”

  “You’re shitting me. Really?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Beak Nose said.

  I made an effort at a convincing laugh, and gestured at Bald Bearded. “I guess maybe I better shave my head.”

  “Don’t knock it ’til you tried it,” he winked.

  “I always wanted to try it, and now I have my chance. I go out there like this and everybody will be calling the cops every which way.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I pulled my towel over my face and lay back down. So, the FBI figured they’d just haul me in the good old-fashioned way. Not a bad move on their part. Since I stiffed them at Grand Central and instead blew up a car at JFK, I guessed they were done playing games and issued a composite, maybe a security still. It would follow that Gill Underwood would be on the No Fly List at that point, and it was likely Phil Greene was on there, too. I still had the Michael Thomas passport I got from the Chinese, and that’s the name that was on my ticket for Nassau. How would the FBI know about the new identity? It seemed farfetched that any of the captured Chinese would say much of anything that might implicate themselves in the exchange, much less provide details on my passport, if they even knew any. Showing my face at LaGuardia the next morning might be hairy. My options beyond that would be to drive, to take a bus, or to take a train. Cars make a lot of sense for versatility, but fugitives always seem to get pulled over by troopers or fingered by motel managers. Greyhound? I’d sooner have gone to prison than take a long-haul bus filled with Axe body spray, Hardee’s wrappers, and quiet desperation. Trains were nice. Big seats. I could sleep.

  As much as I would have liked to come in out of the cold with Tim in the Bahamas, that was seeming like a low-percentage play. Could I really see myself going back to the fly shop and saying: “I lost all the stuff you sold me yesterday. Hit me again.”

  My next move? Obvious. Shave my head with the razor in my toiletry kit, put on the tracksuit and old Pumas. That outfit was so common in New Jersey that it was practically a uniform. Trenton should have named the striped tracksuit the official state fashion. Bald and in a tracksuit, I would blend with the populace well enough.

  Then what? Was my part done, had I really killed Vugovic and his goons, possibly even the dirtbag who shot Trudy? Probably. They were all standing close enough to the car that they were at least severely injured. Vugovic was a few paces behind his men. He might have survived, but he’d be in the hospital for sure and I had to imagine the FBI would hang onto him and charge him with conspiracy and smuggling. There might be some other stray Kurac goons around but nobody to tell them what to do. Yet Vugovic’s boss was still at large, and I knew that was the real mission. No doubt Spikic didn’t want to dirty his hands and run me down himself, especially if he was in hiding from The Hague. Then again, with a hundred and fifty million at stake, he might well, es
pecially if encouraged. That was the point, and had been all along, That was the mission that nobody told me, the mission I was expected to figure out.

  Two down, one to go: the FBI. Even if they managed to get their hands on me I wouldn’t be sliced and diced like if the Kurac bagged me. Just the same, the FBI wouldn’t pay me for the sparks and I would be prison-bound. A poor result, all in all. The only way to get out from under the Bureau was to give them what they wanted: the sparks and me. Or let them think they got what they wanted. That’s where the incendiary grenade could come in handy. Maybe.

  Traveling with the Britany-Swindol sparks wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t dare try to take them past customs. The idea of just letting them go, of dropping them at a police station, was a disservice to Trudy, even if it might take some of the heat off. So far I’d only squeezed one million forty thousand dollars out of them. True: handing them over to the FBI had the potential to buy me some leniency should they catch me. I was probably dreaming if I thought handing over the sparks would inspire the FBI to turn a blind eye to my escape, that they wouldn’t try to hunt me down in the Bahamas. Especially after the car explosion at JFK. They may not have known I caused it, but it would make them pissed off enough not to be in a forgiving mood.

  I took the towel off my face and sat up.

  I waved at Bald Bearded and Beak Nose. “See you guys.”

  “Yeah,” they said in unison.

  In a bathroom stall I did the first pass of going bald with a small scissors. The second pass was with a razor in front of a mirror, both times trying to avoid witnesses. Plucking my eyebrows softened the look of my eyes. I shaped up my stubble so that it resembled a beard and mustache.

  Billy Idol was gone, and I looked radically different. Fortunately, I had slicked back my hair for the Mike Thomas passport photo, so I was still a close enough match for the passport photo, if not my Phil Greene driver’s license. The beard and mustache would have to go when I traveled, to help match the photo.