On Zorn’s return to France in June, the poor dog, shorn nearly to the skin, resembled a scarecrow. In the meantime, Zorn’s canine companion had become attached to his wife and scarcely paid attention to him during his first week at home. Only after taking over the dog’s feeding and grooming and launching a campaign of daily walks and car rides did the dog at long last warm up to him again.
Likewise, it was taking Zorn longer than he had expected to readjust to life and work in France. Perhaps it was the indolence of the Languedoc summer; or a mild dose of culture shock after having spent some ten weeks in the U.S. capital; or the deepening chill between him and his counterparts at DHS and Tetra. But Zorn could not shake a feeling of estrangement, of being on edge, of no longer being sure where life was taking him.
Until March, Zorn and his wife had lived a supremely comfortable, even complacent, life in an affluent enclave of Carcassonne, amid cosmopolitan friends, with their grown children and extended family close at hand, and a predictable path into retirement and old age. Before his stay in Washington, Zorn had traveled often to visit clients in faraway lands, savoring the contrasts, yet on his return feeling secure in a place where he had deep roots. Now, having seen how the EMP attacks and the intifada had shaken America to its foundation, he questioned that stability.
And after failing to recognize in time how the ESM program had gone off the rails, he also questioned his own judgment. It had been his decision to join the emergency measures project and manage its Triage program from Washington. Thus it was his responsibility to avoid fiasco. But he had failed in that duty, not having noticed how his Triage technology and aircrews were being misused. So much for being heir to the Clausewitz of Counterinsurgency. And despite his resolution to terminate the ESM contracts, Walter Lang had somehow persuaded him to delay the exit in order to pursue a merger with Tetra Corp. So now, nearly three weeks later, the termination letters had not gone out. And he had not told anyone in France about them except Walter Lang. Not even his wife. But did DHS and Tetra know? That was the question keeping him awake at night.
Zorn trod with dust-encrusted boots down the whitewashed corridor that led out onto the villa’s stone veranda, where Kay had laid out a luncheon buffet for two on a glass-topped wrought-iron sideboard. She rose from her seat and greeted him with a hug and kisses on both cheeks.
“I’ll shower later,” he announced without looking at her. “I’m starving.”
Kay offered her husband a half-smile and withdrew a slender bottle of local rosé from an antique silver wine cooler. She uncorked it and poured him a glass before measuring out a smaller one for herself.
“To a superior vintage this year,” she said, raising her glass.
“The best ever,” he replied dully before drinking.
“Have a seat. You look bone-tired.”
Zorn waited politely for Kay to put aside her glass serving dome and lift her fork before touching his own salade niçoise.
“How are the vines looking this week?” she asked after they had taken the edge off their hunger.
“We’re still nominally in drought, but the vineyards look okay so far. The grapes are ripening fast, so we’ll likely begin the harvest early, perhaps in just a few weeks.”
He had begun by talking into his plate but finished by looking up at Kay with a glint of pleasure in his eyes.
“I’m so pleased to hear it,” she said, grasping her half-filled glass by the stem and swirling it continuously, as if from nervous habit. “You seem so discouraged since your return from the States. You hardly speak to anyone. And every night you toss and turn and wake up exhausted.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s no wonder that you’ve been spending as much time in the vineyards as you do at the office. You’re depressed, Roger. I’ll confess to you now that I had a bad feeling about you during those last weeks in Washington. I feared I might be losing you.”
She gave him a searching gaze, but he looked down at his plate and took another bite of food.
“I stayed away too long. I should have come home sooner.”
Zorn wasn’t sure what Kay meant by losing him and didn’t want the conversation to drift toward his relations with other women. For while he hadn’t consummated a sexual act with Margaret Slattery, he had come perilously close. And the last thing he wanted now was to talk about it. Yet, the word ‘lost’ could also apply to his emotional remoteness, for his thoughts often returned to his flight over the Caribbean and his unfulfilled promise to exit the ESM program. Pushing aside both unwelcome trains of thought, Zorn reached across the table to refresh his nearly empty glass.
“I wish you’d come back sooner, too,” Kay went on, “but I didn’t want to stand in the way of your success. And now you really have succeeded, Roger! You single-handedly tapped into a gusher of new profits for the company! And Walter says the search for a merger partner is going very well. Soon both of you may be able to retire, if that’s truly what you want.”
Though he didn’t want to pour cold water on his wife’s enthusiasm, Zorn failed to share her rosy outlook. Having had almost three weeks in Carcassonne to consider what had gone on in the States, now he wished he’d ignored Lang and signed the termination letters right away. The reduction in revenue would have required austerity throughout the company and spoiled chances for a merger with Tetra. But perhaps he might have found another merger partner in Europe. At least that would have allowed him to sleep at night.
Walter and the board would likely have fought him. And Kay wouldn’t have understood, because there was no way to tell her the whole story about detainee abuses without revealing classified information. To date, the only misgivings that Zorn had shared with his wife about the emergency program related to the breakneck pace of deportations, the manipulation of Triage scores, and the lack of oversight from Congress or the White House. So far he had told Kay nothing about his visit to Corvus Base or his having dumped Muslim detainees into the ocean from ten thousand feet. Zorn knew that keeping this bottled up was taking a toll on him, but what else could he do until he left the program? If he told Kay more, and if a leak were traced back to her, the entire family could be at risk.
Kay waited patiently for her husband to acknowledge her words of encouragement. At last, he emerged from his reverie and looked up at her.
“Yes, of course, earnings from the American program have been strong this year,” he went on. “But there’s no guarantee the program will last. When the intifada ends, I’d expect the emergency measures will end, too. And when that happens, Tetra may lose interest in the merger. So let’s not count our chickens just yet.”
After thirty years of marriage, Kay Zorn rarely challenged her husband when he took the negative side of an argument, especially when he was in a raw mood. Instead, she changed the subject, a tactic she often used to draw him out.
“So what was it like when you first landed over there?” she asked. “Was the intifada as bad as our TV news made it out to be? And has it really become better lately?”
“Better? What does better even mean? The intifada may be weaker now, but it’s caused lasting damage. Since the country’s independence, America has survived a revolutionary war, a civil war, two world wars, the Cold War, and countless armed conflicts. And yet it’s the damned Muslims who’ve come closest to bringing down the republic. Just as they did in France during the Algerian Crisis. And are attempting to do again. It’s beyond tragic, Kay! Just consider: the entire effort of the world’s sole superpower is being devoted solely to finding and getting rid of these jihadi vermin!”
Zorn was surprised at the bitterness and frustration in his own voice and noticed the look of concern in his wife’s eyes.
“What’s made you become so anti-Muslim? I don’t recall you being like that when we first met, after you left your work in the Middle East.”
“Things were different then, Kay. Muslims were far more secular then. In those days, most educated Arabs were Arab Nationalists or s
ocialists, not Islamists. They respected the West and wanted to emulate us. There was none of this jihadi nonsense or clamoring for sharia law, except in Iran just after the shah fell. If anything, the Sunni Muslims were the reasonable ones. Now, even the socialists wear Islam on their sleeves and want to revive the caliphate. They’ve gone backwards, Kay. Big time.”
Kay Zorn lifted her chin and peered at her husband through tired eyes.
“You’re becoming just like your father.”
She refilled her husband’s wine glass while leaving her own empty.
“I should be so lucky. For all his shortcomings, Papa lived by a clear set of principles in a much simpler world. He died a respected man, his ideas having been put into practice all across the globe.”
Kay shot her husband a pained look, and Zorn couldn’t tell if she was feeling pain for him or for herself. He found out a moment later, when she circled back to the subject of his dark moods.
“I just don’t understand why you can’t be more contented, Roger. Ever since you came back from Washington, you seem to be in a perpetual state of gloom. Frankly, I think you’ve fallen into some kind of rut. I know you won’t consider seeing a doctor or a therapist for depression, so I won’t even ask. But why not try something new to break the mold? We could take a trip somewhere. How about someplace with a cool climate, like the Baltic Sea? Or Scotland? Or one of those Alaskan cruises?”
“But I have tried new things. I just spent two and a half months in the U.S., for God’s sake. Some holiday that turned out to be. No, right now, I just want to stay here in Languedoc. At least till we bring in the new vintage.”
“And complete the merger with Tetra?”
“Ah, the merger,” he added, as if it were an afterthought, without meeting his wife’s gaze. “I’ll be talking to Walter about that on Monday. We’ll see.”
But Kay was not finished.
“All right, Roger,” she said with pursed lips. “I can understand why you might be fed up with the U.S. government. And tired of battling their intifada. But we don’t live in the States any more. Don’t you have customers in Europe who need your attention? You used to travel to clients nearly every week. Now you hardly set foot on a plane.”
“Of course I have other clients, Kay. But I’m sick and tired of flying across the globe to drink sweet tea with corrupt secret police chiefs in miserable hellholes that show no sign of joining the civilized world. Sometimes I wish the damned merger would go through just so I can say good riddance to it all. But matters may not be quite so simple.”
He finished his wine and poured the bottle’s dregs into his glass.
“Then why not try to explain it to me, Roger?”
“It’s a long story, and it’s one I’m not fully at liberty to tell you. The secrecy agreements over there for special access projects carry sanctions beyond anything you can imagine. Believe me, you’re better off not knowing.”
A hurt expression spread across his wife’s face and Zorn realized that he had dug himself a hole that might be difficult to climb out of.
“Secrets separate us,” Kay replied with a flat voice and a blank expression on her face. “I’m not exaggerating when I said I feared losing you over there. Sometimes I wonder if I’m holding you back from the life you wish you could lead. I certainly hope not. But then, for years I haven’t the slightest idea of how to make you happy.”
Zorn had landed in dangerous territory and knew it. But he couldn’t tell his wife why he felt like such a caged animal without also telling her about the dumpings over the Caribbean, about Corvus Base, and about the repatriation centers. And about his promise to Margaret Slattery to investigate the abuses. But he could do none of those things without risking everything he possessed. So now it was his turn to change the subject.
“No, Kay, you’ve never held me back and you’re not doing it now. Maybe you’re right about my being in a rut. But I have to find my own way in my own time. So how about you? You’ve been without a husband for ten weeks, and while I was gone, you became a grandmother. Does that make you feel any different? Might you feel a bit as if life were passing you by?”
A trace of a smile formed on Kay Zorn’s lips and she shook her head.
“To be perfectly honest, no. I don’t feel any different at all, Roger. You see, I no longer care for a life devoted to comfort and status. Nor do I regret no longer having a youthful face and body. I’m perfectly happy to wear on my face and figure the life that I’ve lived. No, my dear, what I really want is my husband back.”
Soon after sunrise on Monday morning, Roger Zorn’s Citroën ceased crunching the gravel of his winding driveway and pulled out onto the side road that led by many twists and turns to the A61 highway and Toulouse. Close behind Zorn was a Land Rover with his two security men. Nothing could be heard in the darkness but tires on blacktop and the distant crowing of a cock. The air all around had scarcely cooled during the night and remained thick with heat. Ahead of the two cars, an early morning haze hid the distant mountains from view.
The drive to Zorn Security headquarters in Blagnac, near the Toulouse airport, took just over an hour. The offices were located in the upper floors of a newly built post-modern office building near those of many other aerospace and defense-related companies. Zorn parked in the building’s basement garage and rode a private elevator to the top floor, where he commanded a corner office at the end of a long corridor.
He had followed the same path three weeks earlier, upon his return from Washington. That morning he sat down with his board chairman, Walter Lang, and laid out what he had discovered about abuses in the Emergency Security Measures program, starting with the Triage demonstration in Minneapolis, to the conference at Middleburg, to his review of classified ESM documents and his visit to Corvus base.
To do so was a violation of his nondisclosure agreements, but it was the only way he could persuade Lang to revoke the ESM contracts. Zorn had even described the dumping of detainees over the Puerto Rico Trench. But he trusted Lang completely, and felt relatively safe from adverse consequences now that he was home in France.
Zorn had also laid on Lang’s desk the draft termination letters severing the company’s ties with Homeland Security and had urged Lang to approve them. The chairman listened, mostly in silence, asking few questions until the end.
“And what do you aim to achieve by withdrawing?” the older man asked in a measured tone.
“I aim to preserve our good reputation and protect the company from legal liability if and when the abuses are exposed.”
“A laudable goal, but what will be the financial effect of an early withdrawal? We’ve made a considerable investment in the American project, and have only begun to reap the rewards.”
“If we continue to work throughout the ninety-day notice period, I project that we’ll recoup our investment and a little more.”
“And how about cash flow?” Lang inquired, fixing Zorn with his steel-gray eyes. “Can we remain solvent?”
“I expect it will be tight for a while.”
“Since your return, I’ve taken the liberty of asking the staff to do some financial simulations,” Lang replied. “By their reckoning, if we lost the American contracts, Zorn Security would be insolvent within four to six months. We’d be compelled to dismiss staff, sell assets, and borrow at extortionate rates of interest. If we could borrow at all. Our value to any strategic acquirer would be nil.”
“You’re quite certain of that?” Zorn challenged, meeting Lang’s gaze with a hard stare.
The chairman picked a spiral-bound sheaf of printouts from the corner of his desk and handed it across.
“See for yourself.”
Zorn gave the printouts a quick glance before handing them back. Meanwhile, his mind was reeling. He didn’t recall having told Lang until now of his intent to terminate the contracts. What had prompted Lang to do the simulations?
“So you propose that we turn a blind eye and go forward as if we knew nothing?” Zo
rn challenged, his voice rising.
“No, Roger. I’m proposing that we find an acquirer as soon as possible. Let them take over our contracts and deal with whatever may come.”
“Without informing the new owner of what we know? That would be fraud. It would never stand.”
“It would stand if the acquirer already knew what was going on and wanted to buy the company in any case. And take over our American contracts. Think about it, Roger.”
“You mean to sell to Tetra?” Zorn felt his heart drop.
“Why not? They’re eager to have us. Lawless has told you as much. And it’s clear that Tetra needs Triage to keep their deportation juggernaut running.”
Zorn thought back to his meeting with Larry Lawless in the Hay-Adams bar. What Lang said was correct. Then all at once a thought hit him.
“My god, Walter, do you suppose Lawless had Pat Craven send me to Corvus Base so they could frighten us into selling?”
He also thought of his hacked runaway Volvo but kept silent about that.
“It’s entirely possible,” the old soldier answered with a Gallic shrug.
Zorn felt his guts churn with anger.
“Sons of bitches!”
But Lang remained unruffled.
“Look at it this way, Roger. Will resigning our contracts make the misdeeds stop? No. So why should we impoverish ourselves and our employees by turning away the Americans’ money? Why not strike a deal with Tetra and be done with it?”
“And let Tetra get away with murder?”
“What other choice to you have, Roger? Are you, a Frenchman, prepared to go before the American public and accuse their government and its foremost security contractor of monstrous crimes while they struggle to rid the nation of dangerous terrorists? How far do you think such a plan would take you?”
Zorn knew even better than Lang that, within twenty-four hours of making the accusation, he’d be the one forced to defend himself. If he lived that long. He’d be a pawn sacrificed without profit to an opponent who dominated the chessboard. Still, he resisted Lang’s merger proposal, and the chairman appeared to sense it.
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