by Jay Deb
Thirty-five miles per hour was the posted limit, and Goodman was pleading innocence, thinking he’d been pulled over for speeding.
Ignoring him, Doerr said in an altered voice, “License, registration and insurance, please.”
Goodman tilted his body to the side, extended his hand over to the glove box, opened it, and put his palm inside. With the speed of a leopard, Doerr inserted his arm inside the vehicle, pulled the door lock’s lever, pulled open the door, reached for the car key, stopped the engine, and pulled out the key.
The man appeared petrified.
“Remember me?” Doerr asked, the flashlight still pointed at Goodman’s face.
“Look. If you were in that jail and something happened to you…I don’t make all the decisions there.”
Goodman had probably received threats from inmates, and now he thought he was being confronted by a jailbird.
Without saying anything, Doerr pointed the flashlight to his own face.
Goodman squinted at Doerr, relaxed his shoulders, the tension gone from his face, but he appeared sullen. “You? Mr. Doerr?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?” Goodman straightened up in the driver’s seat.
“I want the truth, sir. What happened in that jail that night?” Doerr turned the flashlight off, raised his gun and pointed it at Goodman’s head. “How did the scientist leave? Who all were involved? Where did the records go? Tell me everything.”
“I already told you the truth.” Goodman glanced at Doerr and then looked at the road ahead. “Now give me my car key back. I won’t report this incident to the cops.”
“I saw you at that restaurant with that woman. I have pictures of you kissing her. She works for you at the jail, and you’re taking advantage of her,” Doerr guessed, “aren’t you?”
“I did nothing illegal,” Goodman said defiantly. “She’s my friend. She’ll confirm that.”
Doerr had guessed right. She did work for him.
“And, by the way, I called the Langley office. No one knows about any CIA person doing an investigation in my jail. So back off now and give me my keys.”
“Does that really matter now?” Doerr pressed the gun’s barrel against Goodman’s head. “I can send these pictures to your wife and the Justice Department.” Doerr bent his body to level his face to Goodman’s. “Guess what will happen then.”
The man said nothing, thinking about something.
Good sign, Doerr thought.
A few minutes later, looking miserable and switching tone, Goodman said, “Mr. Doerr, please believe me. I’m in a lot of trouble already. I didn’t do anything wrong. Please let me go. I’ve got a family.”
“Just tell me the truth. And then I’ll be gone.” For a second Doerr felt pity for Warden Goodman. He might be caught in someone else’s sinister plot.
“I know life is hard sometimes,” said Doerr. “It’s harder if you don’t have any moral character.”
Goodman simply sat there and Doerr waited for him to speak.
“Come on now,” said Doerr, afraid that a state trooper might pass by and accost him, leading to a sticky situation. “It’s ten p.m. Tell me.”
“I’m not saying anything. You can’t make me.”
A few cars passed by, throwing gusty wind at Doerr. Some slowed down, trying to see what was going on. He couldn’t stand there the entire night. He knew he had to apply the good old method to extract what he needed.
Doerr pressed the gun’s barrel against Goodman’s head and with the other arm, started choking the man, who tried to push away Doerr’s hand, but his efforts were futile. The overweight warden’s arms were no match for Doerr.
Doerr released the choke hold.
The flashlight was turned off and it was dark inside the SUV. Still Doerr could see Goodman’s ashen, afraid face. “Do you want to tell me what happened, or do you want to die here?” Doerr cocked his gun.
“Okay.” Goodman sighed; maybe he was finally ready. “If you’re from the CIA, you should know what happened.”
“Obviously I don’t. Enlighten me. What happened?”
Goodman took a deep breath. “Everything is off the record. Right?”
“Of course.”
“It all started four months back. Folks from the CIA came to me. They wanted to take the scientist out of the jail by staging a jailbreak.”
Doerr’s eyebrows tightened. “What do you mean?” Doerr asked, flabbergasted.
“You’re just wasting my time, Mr. Doerr. Your agency knows everything that happened here. And I believe you know what happened here.”
“I don’t.” Doerr looked straight into Goodman’s eyes. “Why would I do all this if I knew what happened?”
“Okay, will you let me go if I tell you everything?”
“Yes.”
“Do you promise after I explain everything you’re not going to bother me again and keep everything to yourself?”
“Of course. Now stop bullshitting and start talking.”
Making a false promise to extract information was routine in intelligence, but he’d always done his best to keep the promises made.
Sweating, Goodman shifted in his seat. “Four months back people from your agency came here and told me that there was a serious national security issue. There was a nuclear scientist named Jon Janco, who was in a penitentiary in Texas at that time. Janco had a vast knowledge about nuclear science and he knew pretty much all aspects of making a big bomb. He headed NRC at one time. He served on NRC’s advisory committee. He taught at Harvard for a while. But then he was prosecuted for passing nuclear secrets to Iran.”
Doerr nodded. “What did the folks from my agency ask you to do?”
“They didn’t tell me all the details. But they did say that Janco was going to be transferred to another penitentiary in Colorado before going to a state prison in California. Then about two months back Janco came here. I was told to turn away any of his family members if they tried to visit him. I was to tell them Janco wasn’t here. Then two officers from the CIA came here to be placed in one cell. A kidnapping was to be staged by those two officers. I was told to lock all the cells except those belonging to the two officers and Janco that night. Then leave the main gate open and make sure no prison employee was present between three and six a.m. I arranged everything that day. But an employee of ours came in that night thinking it was his shift. He locked the main door and was dozing on a chair when the CIA officers were taking Janco out of the prison. And…” Goodman let out a deep sigh. “And then there was some kind of scuffle and our prison guard lost his life. When I came to know about this the next day, I felt terrible. I was scared that this whole thing would blow up, and instead of being a warden of a prison, I may soon become its inmate.”
Doerr suppressed a laugh. “What happened after that?”
“I called the CIA guys immediately. They said they were confident that the situation could be managed since just one person was dead, not a dozen. They asked me to make sure that the dead guard’s family got compensated adequately and his death got reported on the back page of a local newspaper and did not get any more attention.”
“But that didn’t happen, right?”
“Nope. It appeared on the front page of the Las Vegas Review Journal, and they’re still writing about it. The guard’s wife gave an interview to multiple TV stations and then the FBI showed up.” Goodman wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“How far along is the FBI?” Doerr inquired.
“They don’t know much. When the FBI showed up here, I again called the CIA guys. They said the FBI would just do a routine investigation and make a big report that no one would look at. And then this matter would be closed. Now the local congressman is pissed. He nearly lost the last election, so he’s coming here every now and then, asking me what fucking changes I’m making to improve security and safety, and what measures I’m taking to find the perpetrators. You see my predicament now? Do you see what I have to deal with?�
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“Yes.” Doerr wasn’t bothered in the least about Goodman’s trouble. He got what he deserved for lying. “What was the CIA going to do to Janco?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. I was just told that Janco would be taken out of America and would most likely never return to the US and all this was somehow related to the national security issues that were a top priority for the CIA. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go home. Can I have my key back?”
Doerr knew he had to leave too. “Just one last question.”
“Okay.”
“If the CIA had so much control over everything, then why didn’t they just take Janco out of the country and do whatever they wanted to do to him? Why all this kidnapping and jailbreaking drama?”
“See, Mr. Doerr, I asked them the same exact question. If they didn’t do all this, then I wouldn’t be getting cooked like this.”
“What answer did they give you when you asked that question?”
“They said it was better to make a victim think that they were getting rescued by someone from outside. Janco would believe them and willingly do whatever the kidnappers commanded him to do. It was like someone laying his head in a guillotine eagerly without force or pressure, thinking that it was a cushiony bed.”
“Why did they choose you?” Doerr asked. “There are dozens of jails and wardens. Why you?”
“I thought you had only one more question.”
“Okay. A couple. Answer, please.”
“Why they chose me, I don’t know.”
“And why did you agree to do it for them?”
“Why I did it?” Goodman let out another sigh.
“Let me guess. They photographed you in bed with your mistress or subordinate or whatever that woman is.”
Goodman nodded. “I took her to Paris once, all expenses paid by the state. I don’t know how, but the CIA had my credit card statements, the bills and many photos of me holding her hand in various spots in Paris. And they threatened to send the receipts to the state officials and the photos to that slut who I call my wife. I had no choice but do what they told me to do.”
“And you’re still screwing that woman?”
“We stopped all contact for a while. I saw her today after a long time.”
Doerr knew it was a lie. Goodman had gone to the restaurant and the motel at least twice during the last seven days. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” Goodman said with all the confidence in the world. “I didn’t even want to meet her. But she insisted.”
“I’m sure she did.” Doerr threw Goodman’s keys on his lap, walked back to his car, and drove away.
DOERR WAS DRIVING back on Interstate 15, racing toward Las Vegas. Nothing made sense. Why would the CIA make up so much to take a scientist out of the country? And why were they asking him to find the scientist if they already had him. Was it possible that the CIA took Janco out of the country and then they lost him? And if they had lost him, then didn’t they have a pretty good idea who could have taken Janco?
But then Warden Goodman might have told him a bunch of lies, and maybe what Stonewall had said was one hundred percent true. Doerr was angry and wanted to call Stonewall and confront her. But he knew it wasn’t a good idea to talk to someone when he was infuriated. He decided to wait, calm down, and then pick up the phone to call her.
Chapter 20 Washington, DC
It had been six months since Alison Stonewall, the CIA director, had been divorced. An end of a fifteen-year-long marriage, two kids; thankfully the kids had been old enough to know what had been going on. The marriage had been practically over three, four years back, when her husband had started working late every day. She’d suspected there was someone else in his life, and it had been confirmed a few months later, his big complaint – she never had time for him.
But she’d wanted to repair her marriage and had seen a marriage counselor. Their relationship had gone up and down over the next few years like a seesaw. Then she’d sadly realized that their marriage was over for good. The truth had stood before her like a crystal ball that she’d pretended not to see for so long.
IT WAS A Sunday evening. Stonewall was visiting her seventy-five-year-old mother, who was in remarkable health despite her age and had been living alone in her apartment on the outskirts of Washington, DC, since her husband died from cancer ten years back.
Mom liked the color green very much; the sofa, the blinds, and even the walls were green.
Stonewall settled down and her mom offered her a glass of lemonade. The beverage tasted good. At first she tasted orange flavor, but once she finished it, lemon lingered in her mouth.
“Really good lemonade,” said Stonewall. “How did you make it?”
“I put in the lemon, sugar, and some ice,” her mom said proudly. “Poured water and then added the orange peel at the end.”
“Where did you get the recipe? Internet?”
“No. I invented that recipe. The key is that the peel has to be put in at the very end.”
“Very clever, Mom.” Stonewall continued talking to her mom, and then she felt the vibration of her ringing phone. Ignoring the phone call, she carried on her conversation with her mom.
Thirty minutes later, Stonewall felt her phone’s vibration again. This time she pulled her cell phone out of her purse. It was Doerr.
There were only a select few people who had Stonewall’s cell phone number. Stonewall pressed the button on the top of the phone, letting the call go to voicemail, thinking Moody was perhaps unable to deliver something to Doerr in Italy, and that was what the call was about.
A minute later, there was another call from Doerr. She knew how tenacious Doerr could sometimes be. She was afraid that if she didn’t talk to him, he might be calling her all night.
She pressed the green button on her phone.
Chapter 21 New York
Doerr had been thinking about what he’d heard from Warden Goodman. It had been the CIA who had staged a fake kidnapping of the scientist and blamed it on some unidentified foreign agents. There was a possibility that Goodman had lied, and there was only one way to find out the truth – have a discussion with the CIA director.
At first, he hadn’t wanted to call and confront Stonewall, fearing he might be blurting outrage-filled insults at her. After three days, he felt his fury had given way to a calm head; his anger had dissipated to an extent that he could have a meaningful talk with her.
It was Sunday evening, and Doerr knew that was when Stonewall’s workweek began; she’d mentioned many times – she worked almost every Saturday. Her Sunday morning included a quick visit to the church followed by some shopping, and then her work began in the evening, checking emails, verifying progress reports, and scheduling meetings for the week ahead. She’d said Sunday night was the right time to call her, no meeting and not too many people bothering her during weekends.
Doerr called her at five thirty – no response. Thinking her shopping was going on longer than normal, Doerr called her later and this time she picked up.
“This is Max,” Doerr started politely. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” Stonewall said. “How’s everything going? Haven’t heard from you in the last few days.”
Ignoring the question, Doerr said, “I talked to the warden in Nevada.”
“Nevada? Which warden?” Stonewall asked, sounding surprised.
“Larry Goodman. The warden of the prison where Janco was.”
“Why? Aren’t you supposed to be in Italy right now?”
“Yes, but I’m not in Italy. I’m in New York.”
“How come?”
Doerr heard an old woman’s voice on the line. “I hear some people there. Are you home or elsewhere?”
“I’m with my mom. Having dinner together.”
“I’m sorry. In that case, I’ll call tomorrow.”
“No. Let’s discuss it right now. My evening was already ruined once I received this call. I have to finish it. Now,
tell me why you’re not in Italy.”
“I spent some time in Italy. There wasn’t any solid lead there. Felt like our own people were trying to hide something from me. So I went back to the Nevada jail to investigate. I’ve always found going back to the original crime scene is sometimes very useful. So I met Warden Goodman of the Nevada prison where the scientist escaped from or was supposedly kidnaped.”
“And…”
“And what Warden Goodman told me,” Doerr said sarcastically, “is very different from what you said before my mission began.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He said the whole jailbreaking and fleeing the country was staged by the CIA. But he couldn’t tell me why the CIA did it. Now I’m calling you to ask why, Madam Director. Why?”
“You can call me Alison,” Stonewall said softly.
“I think I’ll stick to madam director for now.”
“Okay. Now, what exactly did Goodman say to you?”
“He told me there was no involvement of any foreign agent. The CIA carried out the whole drama.”
“Goodman is obviously lying,” said Stonewall. “And how did he tell you? You walked into his office and that guy blurted all that out?”
“No. I have my methods of getting the truth.”
“Which method did you apply, Max?” Stonewall asked coldly. “What did you do? Last thing I need right now is another scandal that involves my agency. What did you do to Goodman?”
“I would rather keep that to myself.”
“No. You don’t have a choice.” Stonewall sounded angry. “You work for me. What did you do to Goodman?”
“I employed pretty much the same technique that the CIA used to make Goodman help with the kidnapping.”
“Stop giving me a puzzle. Just tell me what you did. Straight.”
“Okay. I took a picture of Goodman kissing his mistress and then put a gun to his head and then he told me everything. Happy now?”
“He told you that we took his mistress’s photo and then made him do stuff?”
“Yes. That’s what he said.”
“Obviously he is lying!”