Hostile Contact

by Gordon Kent

  “Who’s going to do the talking, you or me?”

  “This is ‘in chambers,’ so he’s going to talk to both of us. There’ll be a steno. Don’t say anything you’ll regret reading in a transcript later.”

  There was a curving drive from a brick gateway up to a huge front door, but they didn’t go in there. “Keep going—he said ‘around the side,’ ” the lawyer said.

  “Servants’ entrance?”

  “Don’t make smart remarks, okay?”

  There was a porte cochere on a side drive that led off into the darkness and, presumably, a garage or perhaps several garages. Dukas saw the reflected taillights of another car and guessed that Menzes and his legal people were already there. He was right: Inside, an Asian woman led them over carpeted floors, past muted lights on tables whose wood shone with polish, to a paneled door. Behind it, Associate Justice Coll waited with a stenographer, Carl Menzes, a lawyer from the Agency, and somebody else who only later turned out to be a high-ranker from the CIA Ops Directorate. Nobody looked friendly. Off to the side, a wan man in a too-big suit looked as if all were lost already: Ronald Welbert, Nickie Groski’s court-appointed attorney. Dukas had had only five minutes on the telephone with him, and all he had really learned was that Welbert hadn’t seen his client in twenty-six days.

  Associate Justice Coll was late-middle-aged, chunky, with terrific black eyebrows, maybe an Irish jock who’d played halfback at Holy Cross and stayed in shape. In fact, he had; he was still the terror of a weekend touch-football league. He was wearing slacks and slippers and a dark cardigan sweater over a turtleneck. His first words were, “It’s half-past eleven, and I want you guys out by midnight.”

  Coll sat behind a desk that had once been a pine country table and now shone like mahogany. Dukas took in a wall of bookshelves, brass lamps, colored prints of fishing and shooting—a gentleman’s study of perhaps a hundred years ago. The justice introduced them, with quick explanations of their presence, except for the senior Ops man, and turned to the NCIS lawyer. “You representing NCIS? Is it Miss or Missus? FEI-sel or Fei-SEL? Okay, shoot.” He ignored Welbert.

  She gave it to him quickly and a little breathlessly: national security, continuing case named Crystal Insight, suspicion of tampering with files.

  “Mister Dukas, you’re the special agent in charge of the case?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the relevance of Nickie Groski? That’s a different case.”

  “He’s part of Crystal Insight. He was in at the end, when George Shreed fled the country.”

  “So?”

  “I believe that Nickie Groski can tell us more about Shreed and what he was trying to do at the end.”

  “But Shreed isn’t the focus of your investigation, is he? Shreed is Mister Menzes’s focus.” Menzes nodded; his lawyer nodded; the well-dressed smoothie who would turn out to be an Ops Directorate heavy hitter glowered.

  Dukas, who had been given a chair that was too straight and hard for him, leaned in toward the judge. “Your Honor, I apprehended George Shreed in Pakistan as part of my investigation. Mister Menzes and the Agency weren’t there.”

  Menzes’s lawyer started to cluck like a chicken, and Coll waved him silent. He was leaning back, his hands folded over his gut. “You have a problem with the Agency, Mister Dukas?”

  Pat Feisel jumped in. “I think Mister Dukas means that pursuing Shreed was the focus of his investigation, Your Honor. He took a bullet making the arrest.”

  The justice nodded, scowled. “Mister Menzes, how come your people weren’t in on that arrest?”

  “That isn’t relevant,” the Agency lawyer made the mistake of saying.

  Coll looked at him with bright, hard eyes. “I wouldn’t advise you to tell many judges that their questions are irrelevant, or you’ll have a short career. Mister Menzes?”

  That was the way it went. Coll was on the Agency’s side, but he didn’t like uppity lawyers. They wrangled; Dukas asked that the Agency people leave while he explained Sleeping Dog to the judge; objections bounced around the room like handballs.

  “Give me one justification for not letting them sit in,” Coll growled.

  Dukas hesitated. “I don’t object so much to Mister Menzes. Can I ask who the other gentleman is?”

  Coll looked at the as-yet-unidentified man and nodded to him. The man never looked at Dukas as he said that he was Deputy Assistant Director for Operational Planning in the Operations Directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  “You got a name?” Dukas growled.

  “Mister Dukas! I ask the questions.” Coll looked toward the Ops powerhouse.

  “Clyde Partlow,” the presence said. An organizational chart clicked into place in Dukas’s brain: George Shreed’s boss, or equal—the organizational chart was deliberately vague. Where had he heard the name recently? He looked at Menzes and it came back: Shreed’s funeral, Menzes saying, I thought Partlow might come, but he didn’t have the balls.

  Then they wrangled some more, and the judge ruled that the Agency people could stay, but Welbert had to leave. Pro bono lawyers in cheap suits weren’t cleared. Pat Feisel wormed an assurance from Menzes that they’d leave Sleeping Dog to NCIS, but Dukas was thinking that Clyde Partlow hadn’t given any such assurance. Dukas thought he saw what had happened: CIA Operations had taken Nickie Groski and all or a lot of the Shreed case away from Menzes and Internal Affairs. What he was seeing was the aftershock of an internal CIA battle. No wonder Menzes was behaving as if Dukas were an untouchable. Dukas said, “I didn’t hear Mister Partlow signing on to this agreement, Your Honor.”

  Partlow cleared his throat. “In the interests of national security, Your Honor, I’m really not at liberty to make any such offers. However, Mister Dukas can rest assured that I understand discretion.”

  Coll shared a look with Partlow and said to Dukas, “You’ll have to settle for that, Mister Dukas. Speak now or let us all go to bed.”

  And so Dukas told them about the Chinese Checkers comm plan and Jakarta, but not about the E-mails from Rathunter, which he didn’t want Clyde Partlow to have, because he could see which way the wind was blowing. Ops must have Nickie the Hacker’s computer files as well as Nickie himself, he thought, and, primitive as the Agency was in its understanding of computers, it would be trying to winkle out what Shreed had done in his last days—and to use that knowledge to stage its own operation. If Partlow got wind of Rathunter, the Agency would be all over him.

  Partlow said, “Mister Dukas is on a fishing expedition.”

  The Agency lawyer whispered fiercely to Partlow and then stood and said, “We’re absolutely opposed to letting Special Agent Dukas talk to Nickie Groski, Your Honor. Our mandate is to protect the interests of the United States.”

  “By denying a kid his constitutional rights?” Dukas said.

  “That’s a lie!” The lawyer raised his voice. He was earning his money. “This young man is being held in an entirely appropriate way!”

  “So that his lawyer can’t even see him?”

  “That’s a law-enforcement matter. He’s been charged in four separate jurisdictions. Your Honor, we are not responsible if there’s been slippage in the system.”

  Pat Feisel was on her feet. “Your Honor, may I ask a legal question?”

  Coll gave her a grim smile. “I’d be grateful for a legal question.”

  “Your Honor, I don’t understand the Agency’s standing here. The Groski boy has been charged with two local violations and with violation of federal parole, which was an FBI matter. The Central Intelligence Agency has no standing, as I understand the Enabling Act, to arrest or detain within the borders of the United States.”

  There was silence. The Agency lawyer glanced at Partlow. Something like a bitter smile passed over Menzes’s face. Dukas gave Pat Feisel a surprised look. Coll fiddled with something on his desk and then looked up and said, “The Agency’s interest is legal under the Enabling statute, Missus Feisel.”

>   “And detention?”

  “I’m not aware that detention is at issue here. Your application is to lift my ban on communication.”

  “Your Honor, we can’t communicate with a boy we can’t locate!”

  “But that’s a different issue. Don’t push me, Missus Feisel.”

  Another silence fell. Pat Feisel exchanged a look with Dukas, who started to say that detention goddamned well was the issue, and her look shut him up. Instead, she said, “Your Honor, could we have Mister Welbert back? I think what he has to say is relevant here.”

  Coll looked at his watch and started to say something, and Dukas knew what it was—that there was no point in having Welbert in, because he was ready to rule—but Coll made a face and waved at the door. He leaned back and looked resigned, as if assuring both the reality and the appearance of justice was a strain. Dukas went to the door and waved Welbert in, and he came in with a walk that other people must have made fun of all his life, hitting his feet too hard on the floor, his arms hanging from his drooped shoulders as if he were carrying Willy Loman’s sample cases. Pat Feisel murmured to him.

  “Can I speak?” Welbert said.

  “The very reason you’re here,” Coll said with something that was not quite a sneer. He gave Welbert’s suit a disapproving look up and down.

  “Your Honor, I was appointed by the Prince George’s County Superior Court to represent Nickie Groski on two charges, conspiracy to commit murder and association with known criminals. Later—”

  “Make it short, Counselor; it’s late.”

  “His mother asked me to represent him on all the charges, that’s all.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “I represent him in four jurisdictions. I haven’t seen him in more than three weeks.” Welbert couldn’t keep a whine out of his voice.

  “Whose fault is that?”

  “Your Honor, I can’t find him! They’re keeping him someplace.”

  “Who’s keeping him?”

  “The government.”

  “Mister, mmm, Welbert, you’re taking up our time. What’s your point?”

  “Your Honor, I want to be allowed to see my client!”

  “Well, I suggest you start with a court that has jurisdiction. The subject tonight is whether I lift my gag order on Nickie Groski, and what you’re saying isn’t relevant. Now, your last chance—have you got anything to say relevant to Mister Dukas’s request?”

  “I support an application for habeas corpus, Your Honor.”

  “Well, find yourself a court to file it in.” Coll slapped a hand on his desk. “Mister Dukas, your application is denied.” He checked his watch. “We’re fifteen minutes over.”

  When they were outside in the warm night, Dukas saw Menzes as only a dark shape down by his car. He was being read out by the other two from the Agency. Dukas couldn’t make out the words but he got the outraged tone of their whispers. He walked to his own car and said to Pat Feisel, “You want to chew me out?”

  “No, you done good.”

  They both listened to the harangue for a few seconds more, and then the men seemed to run out of rage, and they wandered off into the dark, presumably to other cars. Dukas said to Mrs. Feisel, “Hold on a second.”

  He walked down to Menzes, who was leaning against his car with his blazer draped over his folded arms. Dukas said, “We need to talk.”

  Menzes nodded. “What’s this shit about faked documents in an Agency file?”

  “What’s this shit about you guys holding a kid for a month without his lawyer getting to him?”

  “Not me.”

  “Those two?” Dukas jerked his head toward the darkness.

  Menzes shifted his weight and arched his back as if it hurt. “The Constitution applies in every case except when we say the country’s threatened. God help civil liberties if we ever take a real whack from somebody.” He shook his head. “I’m pretty down, Mike.”

  “Can you be at my office at seven in the morning?”

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” Menzes tossed his coat into the car. One of the cars started in the darkness and then the other, and the two men watched as the headlights bored toward them, so bright they had to turn their heads away. Menzes watched the red taillights disappear. “Ever have the feeling you’re on the wrong side?” he said. “The fix is in, man—the fix is in. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  Dukas got into his own car and sat next to Pat Feisel without turning the key. “Who overrules Coll?” he said.

  “Court of Appeals.”

  “Welbert’s got the right idea—application for habeas corpus on Nickie Groski. First thing in the morning.”

  “Unh-unh.” She wiggled in the seat, pulled her skirt down from behind. “You got to go in with power to do that. I can’t do it.”

  “Who can?”

  She saw that he was serious. “You’d have to fight the Agency toe-to-toe. NCIS can’t do that. The Navy can. You’d have to go all the way to the CNO.”

  Dukas started the car. “Watch me.” He slitted his eyes, his right hand on the gearshift. “Think the FBI would like to join us in suing the CIA?”

  Jakarta.

  Piat had Derek wake Bobby a little after midnight by shining a big flashlight in his face and then shouting at him. The house was dead-black inside, no electricity, and when the light went on, bugs headed in every direction. Once he’d shut up and gone out and slammed the door again, the only sound in the big room was skittering bugs and Bobby Li, breathing. They’d left the plastic bucket for him to piss in, this fastidious little man who just wanted to be valued as the best agent in the world.

  Piat woke him again at three in the morning, shaking his shoulder and marveling that the little man was sleeping so soundly. Bobby Li came to and looked up into the light, and Piat said, “It’s Andy,” and saw Bobby’s frightened face relax a little. “Get up, man.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Time to go to work.”

  Piat lit a gasoline lantern and put it on the floor near Bobby’s chair. The room still smelled of Bobby’s being sick and his urine and his sweat. Piat called in Bill and told him to empty the bucket. He gave Bobby a cigarette. “Kind of hard on you, Bobby.”

  “I know you doin’ it for a good reason.”

  Piat smoked. Bill came back in and put the bucket down, and Piat told him to make tea. Piat took out another cigarette, offering one to Bobby. Bobby’s hands were trembling again and he shivered, although it was a hot night. Piat smoked, looked at him, looked away. Finally, he said, “I want to get you through this, Bobby. I want you to come out of it looking good, so we can go right on like always.”

  “I still be your agent?”

  “You bet. That’s the deal. You want to be my agent, don’t you?”

  “I always try real hard, Andy. I try to be the best. I do good work for you, right?”

  “Lots of good work.”

  “You not going to shit-can me?”

  “Not if we get through this okay. Understand me?”

  Bobby looked at him and then shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why you doing this to me, then?”

  Piat leaned forward, hitched his chair closer so that they were bent toward each other over the bright light like two conspirators. “A case officer has to be able to trust his agent. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely. You bet.”

  “If I can’t trust you, Bobby, what have I got?”

  “You always can trust me, Andy! Always. I do good work! Don’t I deliver?”

  “What happens if a case officer can’t trust his agent?”

  “You can trust me. I do very best for you!”

  “Bobby, Bobby—you lied to me.”

  “No—”

  Bobby was about to tell him that he hadn’t really lied, Piat knew; he’d be looking for an excuse to lie, right now, even though before they went to sleep, Bobby had admitted, in tears, that he’d shot the guy in the Orchid House and ha
d lied to Piat about it. Piat waited, and Bobby ran his inventive mind over possible excuses, and he said, “I didn’t mean to lie, Andy.”

  “I know.”

  “I had to.”

  “Sure.”

  “See, I was ’tween the rock and the hard place, no way out. Shooting that guy, that was the way out. Nothing against you, honest, Andy—I doing it for you, too, trying to save some of the op, make it work ’cause I know it’s important to you. I want to do good work for you!”

  “Why did you have to shoot him, Bobby?”

  “Well— He say some bad things to me.”

  “Bobby, if you don’t tell me the truth, we can’t go back to the way it was. You see? You know how sad that makes me? This isn’t my decision, Bobby. This is out of my hands.”

  “That other guy. He don’t like me.”

  “It’s out of my hands. But if you tell me the truth, we can go back to the way it was before. But there’s got to be trust. You follow me?”

  “Sure, trust. You can always trust me, Andy.”

  “Bobby, you lied to me.”

  “Only ’cause I had to.”

  “Why?”

  Bobby’s torso was twisted in the hard chair, mostly leaning to his right, but with the shoulders turned back; his legs went the other way, so that he was a kind of human pretzel. Twisting, turning to find a way out, his arms locked around himself to keep from flying apart. “I had to shoot him. He going to kill you otherwise. I save your life, Andy.”

  “Bobby, you have to tell me the truth. If you go on lying, we’re finished.”

  “I’m telling the truth! Only one time I don’t tell the truth, because I have to do something; I got no choice! I tell you, the guy was going to kill you; I shot him to save my friend Andy! That’s the truth!”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “I don’ know, just some guy. Making threats.”

  Piat leaned back in his chair. He studied Bobby Li. He pushed the chair back six inches so there was more space between them, more darkness. “I know who the guy was, Bobby. So do you. I’d rather that you told me yourself who he was. That way, I can tell my boss that you gave me the information yourself. That’ll really help, if I can say that you gave up this information yourself. Okay? Come on, Bobby—who was the guy you shot?”