by Brian Wiprud
SP: So if you’re 381, why not just assassinate Radmatic?
DL: My guess is they couldn’t find him, or that they were waiting for you to find him for them. When you had pulled him in close, they sent a man in to flush him out into the open. How much were the gems worth?
SP: One hundred fifty million.
DL: One hundred and fifty million is good rat bait. I’m sure they’d just as soon do the same with General Mladic except the Serb military has him tucked away. You can be sure that if he’s ever turned over alive it won’t be until he’s so old and feeble his mind is gone.
SP: Why didn’t Milosevic spill the beans? Surely he knew.
DL: You’ll note he happened to die while on trial. Perhaps he intended to. People that have the capacity to seriously compromise the CIA have a way of dying at convenient junctures.
SP: So this means that Gill Underwood is a CIA handyman?
DL: Is that your jewel thief? Yes, he was probably a contractor. Maybe the Cubans were running him for the CIA, as a buffer. The CIA has gotten a lot better at keeping their distance, about maintaining plausible deniability. I’ve heard that with handymen they don’t even explicitly tell them what they’re supposed to do. They’re just supposed to figure it out. In this case I’m sure the target was obvious enough.
SP: But this man Underwood was a career Navy intel officer, injured in action. And then a career jewel thief. What kind of handyman is that?
DL: Fits the profile. CIA often recruits disaffected troops, even at hospitals where they are recovering from PTSD, many lost souls looking for some sort of direction, any direction. Think about it: if you’re the CIA, you don’t have to pay this Underwood character, you just have to let him steal. There’s no money changing hands; you’re not even telling him exactly what to do. You just put him in the situation and have him take care of it. No money trail, no communication trail. More often than not they switch out their identities with dead men, so they’re ghosts. In this case, you have someone who is skilled at breaking and entering and stealing. Better him than someone with a Langley building pass. If he gets caught by the local flatfoots, so what? If he starts in about a connection to the CIA, who’s going to believe a common thief?
SP: Only thing is … the only thing I don’t get is that Underwood’s woman got shot when he stole the gems. Underwood has been making a lot of noise like she’s still alive, but we think she may be dead and that he’s using her to make us and the Kurac mis-anticipate his motives. But what bugs me is that she was shot by one of the Kurac five hundred feet away. That’s a hell of a shot for a goon. Maybe she wasn’t shot? Maybe Underwood wanted us to think she was? Or maybe Underwood shot her?
DL: [laughter] That’s hard to say. You can be sure there’s some trickery attached to it. Or, just as likely, it was a function of The Clause. You know The Clause?
SP: Not in this context.
DL: Supposedly, there’s an unwritten rule in the CIA, and it’s called The Clause. It all has to do with protecting the mission, of covering the CIA’s trail of witnesses and mistakes, of closing the door and turning out the lights. No matter the cost.
SP: Cost. In money?
DL: [laughter] That, too, I suppose, but I was referring to human lives. The fine print in The Clause is that everybody is expendable.
SP: And what about us?
DL: Hm?
SP: You and me. What does 381 do about us? Are we expendable?
DL: I’m sure they think this all went completely over your head, Tom. They’re used to thinking the Bureau is comprised of lesser beings.
SP: If they record all calls, then they know I called you.
DL: A subsystem would have to flag a call like that, and why should such a call be flagged?
SP: If they were looking to see if I’d reach out to another source, they might.
DL: Now you’re making me want another drink. But I won’t, because I’m going to resist your paranoia. You should know by now what happens to snoops, to complainers, to might-be whistle blowers within the intelligence community.
SP: They get promoted, or reassigned.
DL: Precisely. They don’t pry out the bent nails in the FBI; they hammer them flat and move on. On that note, I’m driving back to Reston, safe in the knowledge that at the very worst I might be reassigned to Huntsville, Alabama.
SP: Thanks for the history lesson, Bill.
DL: You’re not going to follow up on this, are you? Let it go, Tom. There’s nothing you can do, especially now that the deed is done.
SP: I don’t like being the inferior being.
DL: Perhaps you’ll find some solace knowing that in the end, we’re all—even the CIA—inferior beings to the NSA.
SP: [laughter] Good night, Bill.
DL: Safe home.
SP: You too.
Forty-eight
EUROPEAN ORGANIZED CRIME TASK FORCE
MEETING MINUTES
900 EDT WEDNESDAY AUGUST 11, 2010
ATTENDANCE: LOG ATTACHED
RE: KURAC GEM THEFT RING—RECENT DEVELOPMENTS RE: G. UNDERWOOD
1. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors on Monday evening’s operations. Grand Central Banana Republic exchange of Britany-Swindol gems a feint by G. Underwood, who attempted the actual exchange with the Nee Fat Tong at JFK airport one hour later. Intel Surveillance Section was unable to provide adequate data to indicate there was another exchange planned at approximately the same time. The result of the second exchange was a shootout between the Kurac and the Nee Fat Tong and car explosion. Intercepts indicate G. Underwood was in possession of military-grade explosives that forensics say were used in the explosion. It is believed G. Underwood used the car explosion to escape. Britany-Swindol gems not recovered at that time. Only two survivors of the car explosion and shootout, both Kurac, both at Queens County Hospital under guard. See attached list of dead and injured. One lookout was arrested and detained, Bobo Dismic, armed with a SIG Sauer P229. He was on the Homeland Security special interrogation list by the CIA and transferred to their authority.
2. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance countered the assertion that their section was unable to provide adequate data. The Kurac were pinged after the feint exchange at Grand Central and could have been followed. A cell phone intercept from approximately 1600 EDT was posted indicating jeweler Doc Huang placed a call to Nee Fat Tong underboss Jimmy Kong requesting a meeting in Flushing to “finalize the deal” and also asked if his men were ready to follow and intercede. Had operations checked the posted data at that time they could have acted appropriately. Agent Kim referred to previous meeting in which Intel Profiler warned of a possible feint.
3. Intel Profiler Agent Laurenta confirmed that in previous meeting she had advised of the possibility that G. Underwood would engineer the double exchange option as a way of dividing his enemy’s forces.
4. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors that the coordination protocols with NYPD task force and National Guard at Grand Central delayed operations following the feint exchange, to include securing a briefcase discarded by the Kurac that posed a significant danger to the public. Records indicate the posted information was accessed at approximately 1630 and operations team was en route to the airport when reports of JFK car explosion were broadcast. The car explosion overloaded the agency’s resources coordinating with counterterrorism forces convinced explosion was terrorist act. Emergency protocols enacted by Homeland Security diverted operations forces to counterterrorism duties. Underwood escaped the failed JFK exchange due to Port Authority police unable to enact their emergency protocols completely and in timely manner.
5. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer advised agents that a review of operations and surveillance procedures would be enacted by internal review section to determine how future operations might function more efficie
ntly and what personnel assignments need to be adjusted.
6. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer requested update on events of Wednesday, August 11th at 100 EDT in Hudson County, New Jersey.
7. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors that that morning’s operations in Hudson County, New Jersey, successfully recovered a portion of the Britany-Swindol gems. Intercepts indicated G. Underwood and T. Elwell had arranged with Roberto Guarrez, reputed Cuban syndicate chief, for a car to be delivered for their use in flight to Mexico with the gems. Operations mobilized and were in place well in advance. An attempt was made to intercept the targets before they drove out with the car from a parking garage, but data posted by Intel Surveillance was in error as to the location of the target vehicle—it was on the upper level of the garage, not the lower level.
8. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance section countered the assertion that their section was unable to provide accurate data. A review of the records indicate the transcripts were correct regarding what was said between G. Underwood and R. Guarrez regarding the location of the car.
9. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors that contingency measures were enacted to seal off all vehicular exits from the building. At approximately 100 EDT gunshots were heard inside the garage on the upper level. Two agents were deployed to investigate, when the target vehicle exited the garage at a high rate of speed almost injuring the two agents. Undercover vehicles boxed in the car and disabled it according to standard procedures. Agents began an approach to the vehicle when an incendiary device ignited within the vehicle before the occupants of the dark car could be identified positively.
10. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance referred to their transcripts indicating that G. Underwood intercepts suggest that he had a “trunk full” of military-grade ordinance.
11. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta indicated that the immolation function of the ordinance precluded standard field tests, but that observations at the time of ignition suggest male and female occupants in the vehicle, age and identity still unconfirmed, contents of vehicle unconfirmed. An unregistered .38 caliber nickel-plated handgun was recovered from the wreckage. Ballistics confirm that this weapon was discharged just prior to the exit from the garage, where the body of a male victim was located. The victim was identified as Dragan Spikic, suspected leader of a Kurac syndicate trying to exchange stolen Britany-Swindol gems with the Israelis. On his person was a M70 handgun. It is assumed that G. Underwood arranged a last-minute exchange and the deal went bad. Circumstances suggest that G. Underwood shot and killed D. Spikic with the nickel-plated handgun found in the remains of the burned vehicle. The gems recovered were in the fuel tank and thus not destroyed by extreme heat. Presumably they were in the gas tank for the purposes of smuggling them to Mexico.
12. Intel Profile Agent Laurenta suggested that the circumstances may have been carefully engineered by G. Underwood. Of concern is the reason for both the type and use of incendiary ordinance.
13. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta indicated that briefings by Intel Profiler Agent Laurenta suggested that G. Underwood was unstable and might act violently. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance had posted data suggesting that G. Underwood was in possession of military ordinance of this type and was unable to dispose of it before his departure. Operations were using available information provided by other departments in accordance with procedure. Suicide is listed under guidelines as possible function of violent behavior prior to capture. Operations enacted standard protocol to apprehend G. Underwood but did not have the opportunity to intercede in his suicide.
14. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer asked why Tito Raykovic’s wife was accompanying D. Spikic to an exchange, and if so, what became of her.
15. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance section referred to intercepts indicating that she had left her husband after the theft of the Britany-Swindol gems from T. Raykovic and had taken up residence with D. Spikic at the Plaza Hotel. Intercepts with T. Raykovic indicate the couple was estranged.
16. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer rephrased his question as to whether she was at the exchange, specifically, noting that criminals don’t commonly bring their girlfriends to exchanges.
17. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta indicated that it was possible she was along as insurance that things would not turn violent. I. Raykovic was witnessed entering the building with D. Spikic. The garage surveillance camera system had been sabotaged and did not capture data of the actual encounter with G. Underwood or where I. Raykovic went after the encounter. Other area surveillance data might reveal her escape. Pings on her phone are nonresponsive.
18. Intel Profiler Agent Laurenta suggested the possibility that G. Underwood attempted to coerce D. Spikic and I. Raykovic to drive from the garage in a car rigged to explode with an incendiary and half the gems. The incendiary would make identifying the bodies difficult except that they matched male and female like G. Underwood and T. Elwell. The original intent was to have them drive the car out and make it look like G. Underwood and T. Elwell were dead, and that instead G. Underwood and T. Elwell may have escaped.
19. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta posed the question that if G. Underwood did not drive the car out of the garage, then who did, and why?
20. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer tabled the discussion until such time as forensics delivers more information on the car and its occupants. In the meantime the file on G. Underwood will remain inactive and prosecution against the two Kurac by the Justice Department should be initiated once the suspects are deemed medically fit to stand trial or extradited under warrants posted by other countries.
21. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta cited an instance in which a prisoner extradited abroad had found European security lacking and managed to escape and return to the U.S. to commit more crimes.
22. Before adjourning the meeting, EOCTF Supervisor Palmer announced that he had accepted a promotion effectively immediately, and that an acting supervisor would soon be installed to head the EOCTF.
******************MEETING ADJOURNED******************
Forty-nine
FairfaxAdvance.com
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Crash Kills Local Man
by Kerry Wells, Staff Writer
Police responded last night to reports of a vehicle that had gone off Ridge Road and flipped. The driver, William Lee, was returning to his home on Laurel Lane in Reston when apparently he lost control. The impact of the crash proved fatal. Investigators confirmed that he had a single drink with a friend just prior to the accident. While Mr. Lee was apparently not impaired, police speculate that he may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Mr. Lee was a career intelligence director with the Defense Intelligence Agency, a Rotarian, and a longtime resident of Reston. He leaves behind a wife and five sons.
Fifty
Fishing for bonefish is a little like golf except the holes move. The course is what’s called a flat, a vast expanse of ocean often no more than calf deep, or less. The caddy is the guide who tends the tackle, spots the approaching fish, and advises the angler on how to make casts. The cart is the boat that takes the angler from place to place looking for bonefish, poled from a raised rear platform by the guide. Unlike golf, casts are sometimes made from the boat as it drifts mile after mile over the flats. Other times you wade.
The fish themselves are really nothing much to look at. With olive backs, mildly striped mirror-like sides, and white bottoms, they have downturned mouths like a sucker or a carp. Their smallish eyes are set on either side of a pointy snout. These fish travel in groups, the size depending on the size of the fish. Larger fish the size of a forearm—or larger—travel singly or in groups of three. Smaller fish sometimes school by the thousands.
I had never heard of a flat, and when I saw how big, sunny, and uniform they were, they reminded me of some deserts in the Middle East. The impression was reinforced by headgear ang
lers wear. Many hats have shrouds or cowls that cover the neck and face. I wore a bandana under my hat and across the lower half of my face. The rest of the outfit was light in both weight and color; the shirts and pants are made of quick-drying materials with a lot of pockets for gear. Flats boots are neoprene tennis shoes with thick soles made specifically for protecting anglers’ feet from sharp shells or coral heads.
Some flats are covered in drab turtle grass that looks like camouflage through the rippled water surface. Others are sharp brown coral heads. But mostly the bottoms are clean, almost featureless sand where small crustaceans live on what the tides bring. Of course, the tides also bring bonefish nosing the bottom, eating the shrimp and crabs. The fish shove their noses into the sand and blow to scare up their prey, leaving telltale blowholes in the sand bottom over large areas.
The cycle of life on a flat doesn’t stop there. A lemon shark’s favorite meal is a bonefish, and so they prowl the flats a little like the coyote after the roadrunner. Bonefish are fast, and when you hook one you have to let them run. Eventually the pull of the line and the bend of the rod slows a bonefish down, and you can play the fish out and land it before letting it go. If a lemon shark is around at that time it will chase down the bonefish and rip it in half. You have to keep an eye out for the sharks when you release bonefish—they’ll take them right out of your hand, and possibly take your hand, too. Wading can also attract them because the plumes of sand from your footprints look to sharks like bonefish blowing holes in the bottom.
One of the guides told me that the last thing you want to do is try to run from lemon sharks. The thrashing sounds like bonefish spooking, and the sharks target the commotion. He once saw someone bit on the ankle running from a shark on the flats, and it was lucky there was a boat nearby. The splashing and blood in the water would have drawn sharks from a quarter-mile radius in a matter of seconds. Most are only maybe three or four feet long. If you slap your rod on the water near them they will shoot away. Still, I wouldn’t want to be on a flat with a bloody nose. Like any other shark, they smell blood from a distance, and if you have a fish that’s bleeding when you release it, that bonefish is lunch.