Secret sanction sd-1

by Brian Haig

  I found a table and sat down to eat. I took the first bite of that meat. It had the texture of overcooked leather, and this was when my imagination faltered. I suddenly found myself wondering where my law school classmates were eating. About a year before, I had gone to lunch with a guy I hung around with named Phil Bezzuto, who was already a partner in one of those big D.C. firms. He took me to one of those glitzy power restaurants on Wisconsin Avenue, where rich and famous people were sprinkled about at various tables, feeling oh so superior because they could all afford hundred-dollar lunches that they tried not to spill on their thousand-dollar suits and hundred-dollar neckties. No imagination required at that place. All the tables had white linen tablecloths, crystal glassware, and the kind of super-fancy plates that actually break when you drop them. Phil was rubbing it in real good. When it came time to pay the bill, he flashed his firm’s card and told the waiter to put it all on the expense account. Not that he couldn’t afford to pay it himself. He told me he was pulling down 300K a year with an almost guaranteed 30 percent bonus. I was making just short of 50K and the Army has this thing against bonuses. Expense accounts, too. He was doing real estate law, and the things he feared most in life were paper cuts or running into some road-raged driver on the beltway. Then again, for all I knew, Phil’s gleaming new Mercedes 300SL was bulletproofed.

  This was the kind of self-pitying, self-indulgent, wistful melancholia I wallowed in as I ate my mystery meat and sipped warm milk from my carton. There weren’t many soldiers left in the mess hall, but the few remaining stalwarts occasionally glanced over at me and then mumbled quietly among themselves. I didn’t feel very welcome.

  I plopped half a bottle of greasy Italian dressing on my brown-edged salad and began thinking about marble-eyed Mr. Jones and the lovely Miss Smith. The Army teaches that before you go into battle, you must know your enemy. Right now, the enemy knew me, whereas I knew next to nothing about them. Well, I knew their lousy aliases. And I knew that they supposedly worked for NSA. I knew Jones was a cocksure wiseass. I knew he was a ladies’ man, and shame on Morrow for not seeing through him right away. I knew Miss Smith had startling blue eyes, pouty lips, long legs that tapered into slim ankles, big boobs-about double D cups was my guess-wore nice clothes, and smelled like an expensive French perfume. When it comes to females, my skills of observation are uncannily sharp.

  As things stood at that moment, those two were my best leads. If I could find out who they were, then maybe I could find out who sent them and exactly what the hell was going on here. I finished my salad and walked back over to the dessert section of the serving line.

  The only dessert left on display was something that, from a distance, resembled brown pudding. I studied it more closely and decided it looked even more like something squishy and moist that came out of a dirty diaper. Even a fertile imagination like mine couldn’t turn it into chocolate mousse. I decided I’d had enough culinary treats this day and went back to work.

  Chapter 21

  At six o’clock, I was in position across the road from the NSA facility. I was hiding behind another wooden building and watching the entrance. Miss Smith, now more fully known to be Alice Smith, walked out and smiled brightly at the two guards, both of whom smiled back right nicely, then followed her with their eyes as she moseyed down the street. She had a very nice mosey. One hip this way, one hip that way, and this very encouraging jiggle up top.

  Staying behind the row of wooden buildings, I set off in her direction. I caught glimpses of her between the buildings as she continued her journey.

  At the end of the dusty street she went left. So did I. She kept walking past another seven or eight buildings, then turned and walked through the entry of a small, one-floored wooden building. A printed sign over the entryway read NO MALES. I deduced this to be some kind of women’s dormitory or barracks. I made a date inside my mind to maybe pay her a visit later, then sprinted back to my hiding place across from the NSA building.

  Only about five minutes had passed, so I hoped Mr. Jones was still at his desk or conference table or whatever. Lots of bosses work later than their employees, and I assumed by the way they had treated each other that morning that he outranked Miss Smith. Another forty-five minutes passed. I paced back and forth. I daydreamed about Miss Smith’s walk. Mosey, mosey, jiggle, jiggle. Finally, about a minute before seven, Jones emerged. He ignored the guards and headed off in the opposite direction from the way Miss Smith had taken. He had a jaunty walk, almost a swagger. We walked about five minutes before he also hooked a left into a wooden building. God bless the Army for marking everything in sight. This one had a big sign, written in large, bold letters that read VISITING GENERAL OFFICERS’ QUARTERS.

  If our Mr. Jones was a government employee, he was a hefty one, since Army general officers are very finicky about who they allow as neighbors. Why this is, I don’t know. Maybe they all like to get together at night and dance around naked. I waited around for three minutes and watched to see if I could tell which lights went on inside which room. I saw nothing. Jones’s room had to be on the back side of the building.

  Among the many useful skills we were taught in the outfit was breaking and entering. They even brought in some ex-cons to put us through the paces. I ended up working with a guy named Harry G. No last name, just Harry G.

  Harry was what my grandfather would call a grand piece of work. He was short and squat, much like a fireplug, bald as a billiard ball, and had this pair of sparkling little black eyes. When he laughed, he sounded just like a horse with a hernia. He’d only been caught once, he informed me, even though he had burgled thousands of places. The government knew he had managed to steal a fortune and threatened to do an IRS audit to add to his legal woes, then prosecute him for tax fraud on top of burglary, unless he agreed to cooperate. Since Harry always worked alone, he figured they couldn’t make him rat out anybody. Any kind of ratting, in Harry G’s book, was a capital offense. But since he had no partners to turn in, he therefore agreed.

  The deal was this. In exchange for agreeing to train government agents in his skills, he was allowed to stay free. Oh, and he had to promise to stop stealing. Harry said, hey, what the hell, he was already worth millions, so why not? It would give him something to balance out the ledger when he met The Maker, as he put it. Maybe give a little back to the country that had given him so much. He had about ten more of these worthy justifications, and I thought they were hilarious at the time.

  I spent a month with Harry. Two days on disabling burglar alarms, three days on picking locks, five days on safecracking, et cetera, et cetera. When Harry was done with me, I could break into and hot-wire a car in one minute flat. I could do a reasonable second-story job on a well-protected home, and get past most any safe manufactured before 1985. That was the year the government had forced Harry out of business, and he ruefully admitted that he hadn’t kept up with the new technologies.

  I went back to my tent and lay down for a nap. I set my alarm for one o’clock, then fell asleep. When the alarm went off, I dressed in running shoes and a pair of Army sweats, which were as innocuous as green berets around here. I grabbed my black gloves, a knife, a poncho, and cut eyeholes in my Army-issued black ski cap, then tucked those in my waistband.

  It was dark, and very few people were out and about. I jogged as though I were a late-night fitness addict. Since this was an Army base and lots of folks pulled night shifts, late-night runners were a common sight. Nobody paid me any attention. I got to the Visiting General Officers’ Quarters and did three swift laps around the building. I saw nobody, and nobody saw me.

  I quietly went through the front entrance and into a hallway. There were four doors, two on the left and two on the right. I immediately ruled out the two nearest doors, because both had windows that faced the front of the building, and I hadn’t seen any lights go on when Jones entered his room. This left the last two. I had a 50 percent chance of hitting the right one.

  I walked down and stood by
the doorway on the left. I let two minutes go by to give my eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. Then I bent down and studied the lock. It was a simple two-way tumbler. As Harry used to say, a piece of cake. I took out a straightened paper clip and went to work. Harry had taught me to insert the end of the clip and start feeling to the left. Once the end of the clip struck the first tumbler, spin it quickly counterclockwise, then withdraw it quickly. Harry would’ve been proud. I hit it on the first try.

  Then I stayed where I was for a full minute. Picking a lock makes noise, so I waited to see if I could hear anyone stirring inside the room. If I did, I was prepared to sprint out of the building and call this one a dead end. Finally I twisted the knob and quietly entered, carefully pulling the door shut behind me.

  The room smelled like perfume and I felt a sudden stab of fear. Maybe Jones had lined up some company for the night. It took me nearly a minute to work my way across the room to the bed. A lumpy figure was under the blanket and I could hear light snoring. Only one set of snores, though. A uniform jacket was slung across the desk chair, and I got out a small penlight and studied it. There was a single star on the collar, and the nametag read Jackson.

  I put two and two together; the first two being the perfume, and the last two being her name. General Wanda Jackson was in charge of the military post exchange system. I guessed she was visiting here to check on the service being provided to our boys and girls in the field. It took me another full minute to work my way back to her door. I turned the interior locking mechanism, then slipped out, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I waited two minutes, then went to work on the next lock. It took me four tries this time. I was glad Harry wasn’t there. He would’ve chewed my ass till it bled. I slipped in, closing the door behind me, and whiffed the air. This odor was much more satisfying. The room reeked of men’s cologne, which meant it was almost certainly Jones’s lair. Soldiers in the field, even general officers, don’t wear cologne. But civilians who think they are ladies’ men almost certainly do.

  I stood for a moment and listened to Jones’s breathing pattern. He was a quiet sleeper, which was not a good omen since quiet sleepers are very often light sleepers. I worked my way over to his desk. It was a tiny room, but I moved very slowly and very delicately, so it took me a full two minutes. I knew what I wanted; it was only a matter of finding it. Quickly and without bashing into anything.

  My hand pawed softly around on the floor until it hit Jones’s briefcase, which was located right between his desk and the headboard of his bed. I squeezed it and felt it. It was smooth, maybe suede, or maybe a very fine Italian or Spanish leather. I lifted it up and left the way I came in, making sure to leave the door unlocked.

  I walked out the entrance and stretched as though I were preparing to jog, while I searched both sides of the street. Nothing. Not a soul anywhere in sight. I then ran across the street and dodged between two buildings. I had a poncho stuffed inside my waistband, and I pulled it out, whipped it open, then got inside it, using it like a little tent. I got on my knees and placed Jones’s briefcase on the ground. Then I pulled out my penlight and inspected my haul.

  The briefcase was locked. It had one of those little combination locks, only, unfortunately, not the cheap type found on most briefcases. These were made of solid brass, three tumblers, with ten numbers each. Mr. Jones had spent a lot of money on this briefcase. Too bad for him, because I didn’t have the right equipment to get into it without damaging the mechanism. So be it.

  I took out my knife, made a hole, withdrew it, and flipped it over, then used the serrated edge to cut a long slit along the bottom edge of the case. Then I kept sawing along the next edge. I took some joy in destroying Mr. Jones’s obscenely expensive briefcase. You have to take your victories where you find them. That done, I reached inside and felt around. There were a few papers and folders, but I figured that Jones knew better than to store any classified materials in his room. Besides, what I was looking for was smaller. I finally felt a tiny booklet and pulled it out.

  I opened it up and there was Jones’s handsome face inside his passport. The name wasn’t Jones, though. It was Tretorne; Jack Tretorne, to be exact. I flipped quickly through the pages. Jack was a busy traveler. The passport had been issued only a year and a half before, yet nearly all the pages were already filled with visa stamps and entry permits. All the ones I saw were for European countries, the majority of which were Balkan states. It was not an official passport of the type commonly issued to government employees. It was a common, garden-variety passport. That might mean something, and that might mean nothing. As a result of the terrorist scares of the seventies and eighties, lots of government employees in sensitive jobs were encouraged to travel with civilian passports. That way, when Abdul the 747 hijacker began walking up the plane row collecting passports and looking for candidates to shoot and dump on the tarmac, he wouldn’t be able to discriminate.

  Since I’d already had to break into his briefcase, I decided to keep his passport. It might come in handy, but even if it didn’t, now Tretorne would have to go through all the hassle of getting a new one. I rather liked that idea. I had ruined his briefcase, and now I was stealing his passport. Then I began rummaging around inside the briefcase again. This time I was fishing around to see if I could find a small plastic card. It took a while, but I finally felt a hard plastic edge inside one of those little compartments they put inside these fancy briefcases.

  I pulled it out and flashed my penlight on it. There was Jack Tretorne’s handsome face again. Only this card did not show his name, only a long number and the name of the issuing agency. Oh, and of course, it also proudly displayed the shield of the Central Intelligence Agency. This was the identification card Jack used to get in and out of that big complex in Langley, Virginia. An NSA factotum, my ass.

  I decided to keep his ID also, before I put everything away and walked back across the street to the Visiting General Officers’ Quarters. I went back down the hallway to Tretorne’s room, entered quietly, and made sure I moved just as stealthily back over to the desk. I gently set the briefcase back down on the floor, right where I found it, with the side I’d cut open flat against the desk, where I hoped it wouldn’t be noticeable.

  I then made my way back out, this time turning the inside locking mechanism on the doorknob so the door would lock when I closed it. I hadn’t noticed Tretorne carrying his briefcase when he first came to see me two days before. Nor had he carried it with him the evening before, when I followed him back to his quarters. I hoped he was the type who didn’t use his briefcase every day. I didn’t want anything to make him suspicious yet.

  I decided to give Miss Smith a pass that night. It seemed highly likely that she was also a CIA employee, and I really didn’t care what her real name was.

  I raced back to my tent and changed into battle dress. Then I went to General Murphy’s headquarters building. The sergeant who was pulling night duty asked me what I wanted. I whipped out my fancy orders and told him I needed a private office with a secure phone. He showed me down the hall and let me into the office of the operations officer. Then he used a key to open up a special metal cabinet that contained another special key that would convert the phone to secure. He handed the key to me, warned me not to mess anything up, and left me alone.

  Colonel Bill Tingle was a living legend in the Special Operations community. It was widely rumored he was the real-life guy John Wayne portrayed in that sappy 1968 movie The Green Berets. Tingle was long past mandatory retirement age, but a special committee of Congress just automatically extended him on military duty every year. For all I knew, he had over a hundred years on active duty. He’d been a full colonel during the Vietnam War and was the mastermind behind the San Te raid, which was a heroic attempt at a helicopter assault deep into North Vietnam to free a bunch of our POWs. The raid went off without a hitch, but for one inconvenient little detail. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese had removed all the POWs from the camp
a few weeks before. As a result, the raiders went in and killed a bunch of bad guys, but returned empty-handed. It was an intelligence glitch-up, but other than that, everybody agreed the raid itself was a stunning masterpiece.

  After the war ended, it was Tingle’s idea to form the outfit, and he’d remained on board ever since as the official adviser. It was a young man’s game, so outfit commanders came and went, but old Bill Tingle was always there, like the cornerstone of a building. Even after I left, I always made it a point to call Tingle at least once a year, and we were on each other’s Christmas card lists. I think he found it terribly amusing that an outfit guy left to go to law school and become a JAG officer. Bill Tingle hated lawyers.

  I dialed a special number that all outfit vets were required to carry around in our wallets. If we ever suspected our former association with the outfit was at risk of being exposed, we were supposed to call that number. A male voice answered and said, “Ling Hai’s Chinese Takeout.” This was the outfit’s screening service, and I said, “I’d like to talk with the bull, please.” The bull was Bill Tingle’s code name.

  I heard some switching noises in the background, then this deep, gravelly voice said, “Tingle.” I can’t remember ever seeing Bill Tingle without a lit Marlboro in his lips, which accounted for the fact that he sounded like Darth Vader chewing on marbles. On the other hand, him being the toughest man anyone ever saw, maybe he was born that way.

  I said, “Hey, sir, Sean Drummond here.”

  “Drummond? Drummond? Ah yeah, the dumbass who quit and went to law school.”

  “Right, sir. Same Drummond. Listen, I need a big favor.”

  “Favor? Then I’ll give you the number for May’s escort service. Old May’ll do you a favor you’ll never forget.”

  Tingle had a lousy sense of humor. I laughed anyway. “Sir, if you don’t mind, we have to go secure.”