Man in the middle

CHAPTER THREE

The gentleman marched straight up to me and asked two direct questions I did not want to hear: "Who the hell are you? And what in the fuck are you doing at my crime scene?"

I withdrew my creds and flashed them in his face. "Special Agent Drummond."

He snapped the creds out of my hand and studied them for a moment. I had the impression he knew I was full of shit.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Detective Sergeant Barry Enders. This is my investigation."

I shifted my attention to Major Tran. She was apparently preoccupied, because she avoided my eyes.

Enders pocketed my creds and said, "Look, Drummond-if that's your real name-you logged into a crime scene using a phony federal ID, you entered the premises, and lied to my investigators. Let's see, that's"-he began drawing down fingers-"impersonating a federal officer… trespassing… interfering with a police investigation, and… give me a minute-I'll think of three or four additional charges."

He reached down to his belt and whipped out a pair of metal cuffs, apparently not needing another minute.

I looked at Tran, and this time she returned my stare; actually, she smiled.

"What's going on here?"

Tran informed me, "No veteran agent comes to an indoor homicide without disinfectant. Rookies make that mistake-once. Cause for suspicion, right? So when I stepped out, I asked Barry what he knew about you."

Enders said, "And guess what, smart-ass? There is no FBI liaison at the Arlington Police Department."

To Tran I said, "You're sharper than you look."

"Actually, you just weren't that clever." She added, "We called FBI headquarters and asked them to confirm the employment of Special Agent Sean Drummond. Would you like to guess what they said?"

I did not need to guess, and anyway, Enders weighed in again. "So let's start with your rights. You have the-"

"I have the right not to hear my rights."

"Ah, hell… a funny guy. Who are you? A reporter?"

I ignored that insult. "Write down this number."

"Why?"

"Do as you're told, Detective. Now."

He stared back. Clearly he and I were in a macho pissing contest; we would either stare at each other forever or somebody had to take a swing. Women are better at this; they smile, say something nice and conciliatory, and get revenge later.

But Tran withdrew a pencil and notebook from her pocket and said, "Give me the number."

She copied as I said, "Local, 555-4290. Call and ask what you should do with me."

Enders, taking a threatening step in my direction, insisted, "The next call anybody's making around here will be you-from lockup. Hands up for the cuffs."

"Don't be stupid, make the call."

Tran, who had already shown she was clever and alert, put a hand on Enders's arm and advised, "I don't see how it can hurt."

Reluctantly, he took a step back, then flipped open his cell and dialed as Bian read him the number.

I waited patiently as he listened to the phone ring, then somebody answered, and he identified himself, then explained his problem-moi-and, after a long moment, he said, "And how do I know you're who you claim… Uh-huh… okay… Yes ma'am… Uhhuh." He looked at me and listened for a long moment. "No, no need, ma'am… Yeah, that would be acceptable… Yes, in fact, he's standing right here."

He handed me the phone and rubbed his ear. To Tran he said, somewhere between impressed and annoyed, "This guy's CIA. That was the assistant to the Director." Then, to me, "She wants a word with you."

Shit. I took the phone from Enders and stared at it, while I toyed with the idea of just punching off.

The lady on the other end, Ms. Phyllis Carney, was my presumptive boss, an elderly lady with the looks and bearing of a fairy-tale grandmother and the avuncular temperament of the Big Bad Wolf. About eighty, and thus long past mandatory retirement, which showed she was either irreplaceable at her job, or she knows the apartment number where the chairman of the House Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee keeps his mistress. Probably both-Phyllis doesn't like loose ends.

Her official title is Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, an amorphous designation, which seems to suit her fine. I had been working for her for six months and had yet to figure out exactly what she does, or who she is. You feel you know her, and on the surface you do. At the same time, something about her is chronically elusive, a maddening mystique, as our writer friends might say. But partly her job is to cover her boss's butt, a Sisyphean task in a democratic land such as ours, where the head spook is always distrusted by the President, despised by the press, pilloried by the left, demonized by the right, and at any given moment is the object of no less than thirty ongoing congressional investigations and inquiries.

It said something about Phyllis that her boss chose her for this punishing and thankless task. It said something more that she accepted it when her high school classmates were either six feet under or dodging skin cancer and hurricanes in America's elephant dying grounds.

She must've been a good choice, however, because her boss was already the second-longest-serving Director in a job where few occupants are around long enough to have overdue books at the library.

Enders reminded me, "Drummond… the phone. Your boss."

I actually like Phyllis. She's courtly and well-mannered in that nice, old-fashioned way, and also businesslike and intelligent. At times, too, I think she actually likes me. However, spooks and soldiers have a relationship that, to be charitable, is best characterized as complicated. Partly this is because Army folks, when not covering their own butts, live by the soldier's code, a credo that frowns upon such mannerisms as betrayal, deceit, sneakiness, and moral hedging. These of course are the very qualities that make the CIA the world-class organization it is. But mostly, I think, we just don't trust each other.

Actually, I had no real cause to doubt this lady. And neither could I think of a single reason not to.

"Drummond," Enders barked, "you're wasting my county minutes."

I cleared my throat and put the phone to my ear. "Sorry for the wait. I was killing an international terrorist." Pause. "I strangled him with my bare hands. He really suffered. I knew you'd like that."

She made no reply, though I could hear her breathing heavily. I hate when women do that.

After a long moment I suggested, "Why don't I just hold this conversation with myself? At least I'll like the responses."

She answered, very tartly, "This is no laughing matter, Drummond. Do you know the cardinal sin in our business?"

I could tell she wanted to answer that, so I made no reply.

"You've just blown your cover." She said, "I shouldn't need to remind you that the CIA has no legal authority to investigate domestic homicides. If that detective decides to make a stink-"

"Thank you. I'm a lawyer. I understand."

"Are you? Well… Cucullus non facit monachum."

Translated, the cowl does not make the monk. That really hurt. "Look, Phyllis-"

"No-you listen, I speak. Apologize to that detective. Kiss his… his fanny as much as it takes, then be gone. I promised him you'd depart immediately."

I glanced again at the briefcase by the foot of the bed. Bian Tran's eyes followed mine, and she smiled. I needed to even the score, and I knew how to do it.

I informed Phyllis, and by extension Enders and Tran, who were being rude and eavesdropping, "Of course. I'll just tell Enders you changed your mind."

"I… What?"

"Problem-? No… Detective Enders looks like a bright guy with good sense-"

"You'll explain nothing. I told you-"

"Complications? Just one. Call the Office of the Secretary of Defense."

"Drummond, are you listening to-"

"Exactly-what is a military police officer doing in a civilian apartment building outside military jurisdiction and poking her nose into this?"

Enders recognized something was amiss, and he was now staring with some annoyance at Tran. For some reason she had lost her smile. Actually, she looked pissed.

Phyllis, also annoyed, was saying, "Drummond, you're out of your mind. The last thing we want-"

"Tell Jim… I mean, the Director… tell him we'll discuss this when I return." I punched off and handed the phone to Enders, who regarded me with newfound appreciation.

Major Tran also was looking at me, probably wondering how she was going to spend the rest of her day. She suggested to me, with a tiny note of apprehension, "We need to have a word. Alone."

Enders demanded, "What's going on here?"

I turned to Enders. "Understand that the victim was a Pentagon employee. He worked in a very sensitive office and possibly there are highly classified materials in his briefcase. I suspect that's why the major is here." I gave Tran a pointed look and added, "I know that's why I'm here."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"I'm CIA. We lie."

He thought this was funny and chuckled.

I told him, "Don't touch that briefcase while Tran and I straighten this out."

She and I left and walked together through the living room, through the glass sliders, and outside onto the porch. It was narrow, not long, perhaps four feet, so we ended up about a foot apart, maybe less. Below us, Glebe Road was in its usual state of congested agony, and I pictured Cliff Daniels when he was still alive, standing where now we stood, cocktail in hand, perhaps observing the swarm below, and also perhaps meditating upon the unhappy causes that would make him snuff out his own life. Rarely is suicide a spontaneous act, and I wondered what concoction of miseries and maladies convinced Cliff to remove himself from the gene pool.

Or perhaps Cliff never had that conversation with himself; maybe somebody had that conversation for him.

For a few moments neither Tran nor I said a word. Her arms were crossed and she was staring off into the distance at a mushy formation of cumulus clouds that didn't look all that interesting. Despite this conversation being her idea, she was forcing me to make the first move.

So, to get this off on the right foot, I commented, "You ratted me out back there."

"Well… what can I say?"

"'I'm sorry'?"

"Screw off."

"Close enough." I smiled.

She shook her head. "All right… I'm sorry. Look, Sean-"

"Colonel Drummond to you, sister."

"You're-?" She looked at me with surprise, then disbelief. "Hold on-you've lied about your identity once. And I'm supposed to believe you now?"

I opened my wallet and withdrew my military ID, which, as per regulations, I had only the week before updated to reflect my new rank and, more happily, my new paycheck. I allowed her a long moment to study it, and watched her expression shift from skeptical to irritated.

I slid the ID back into my wallet. She said, "I overheard you tell the lady on the phone that you're a lawyer. I… an Army lawyer at the Agency?"

"I didn't ask for this gig."

"Weird."

"Right." Of course higher rank is a license to bully, so wasting no time, I said, "Major, you have three seconds-what's going on here?"

"I told you."

"Tell me again. You have my permission to alter your story."

"Why would I change it?"

"Fine. I'm sure you'll have no objection when I leave with Mr. Daniels's briefcase."

"Actually, I'll mind a lot."

"Aha."

She looked annoyed. "Let me remind you, Colonel, Clifford Daniels was a Pentagon employee. The contents inside his briefcase are possibly military property. It's my responsibility and my duty to secure it."

"No, the contents are U.S. government property. The Supreme Court decided this issue long ago."

"What are you talking about?"

"Big Dog vs. Small Dog. Famous precedent. I'm surprised you're unfamiliar with it." She looked clueless, so I offered her a brief technical summary of the decision. "When the big dog pisses on a tree, the little dog gets lost."

She did not find this amusing. In fact, her eyes sort of narrowed and she said, "I'm a law enforcement officer; you're not. That briefcase will leave with me."

"Not outside a military gate you're not, Major. Out here, you're just a lady who doesn't get the dress code."

She cleared her throat. "You're putting me on the spot."

"You put yourself on the spot."

"Don't get carried away by that civilian suit, Colonel," she said with a hard stare. "You're still a military officer. It would be a bad idea to get your loyalties twisted."

"What does that mean?"

"Think about it."

I leaned my butt against the railing and thought about it. Though her face communicated other emotions, I sensed she was under considerable duress to bring home that briefcase. Like me, she might not have been told why, and also like me, she might only be guessing it was something important; I suspected otherwise, though. I said, "I'll pretend you didn't say that."

"Pretend what you like."

I asked, "Do you have reason to suspect there's sensitive or compromising material in Cliff Daniels's possession?"

"How would I know?"

"That's not the right answer, Major."

She hesitated, probably tempted to say fuck you, but instead she suggested, "Colonel, let's keep this friendly. Okay?"

"You made it unfriendly."

"I realize that. And that was a big mistake on my part." She smiled warmly. "Hey, I'm woman enough to admit it." She stuck out her hand. "I apologize. Come on-let's start over."

"I'm enjoying where we're at right now." I ignored her hand.

"Well… I'm not. I'm sure we can come to an accommodation. Just lose the attitude. I don't respond well to overbearing men."

"What do you respond to?"

"The same things you should respond to. Duty, honor, country… the higher needs of the society we're both sworn to protect."

"No… seriously."

She laughed. And I, too, laughed.

Indeed, this was an intriguing lady. Of course, it never pays to underestimate the competition. Clearly Bian Tran was a fascinating and surprisingly complex woman-self-confident, forceful, spirited, and, I thought on a more contradictory note, sly, brazen, bawdy, and slightly cynical. Beneath that cool intelligence and soldierly veneer, I sensed, was a woman of considerable passion, of suppressed spontaneity, of independent motives-qualities any smart female in the military keeps in check, if not repressed, if she wants a successful career.

It's a little strange. Here was this physically exotic Asian woman, and you expect her to exhibit the manners of the old country, to be inscrutable, demure, subservient to males, and all the rest of that misogynistic crap the occidental male typically associates with oriental ladies. This is why in the great and immutable melting pot of America, stereotypes are such dangerous stuff; they narrow your frame of mind, and shape your reference and behavior. The object of that stereotype can stuff it up your butt.

At any rate, this seemed like the right moment to put everything on the table. I informed her, "Cliff Daniels was under watch by the FBI and CIA."

She stared at me blankly.

I wasn't buying that and said, "I think you already know this."

"How would I know that?"

"You tell me."

She looked annoyed. "Maybe this conversation would move faster if you enlighten me."

"Maybe it would, but I wasn't informed."

"You weren't… You must have an idea?"

"I have better than an idea. Think of the one thing that brings these two brotherly agencies together."

"Oh…" She did appear genuinely startled by this news, then said, "Seriously, I had no idea."

"Now you do. And as a cop, you're aware that espionage takes it out of the hands of the Defense Department and into the pockets of the FBI and CIA. That briefcase is leaving with me."

She took a short moment and mentally explored her options. She had no options, but took a stab anyway and said, "On one condition."

"Did I give you the idea I'm asking for permission?"

"Just hear me out. Okay? Let's work out an arrangement."

"I neither need, nor do I want… an arrangement."

"Oh… yes, you do. We leave together with the briefcase, and we'll search it together." She put a hand on my arm. "This is a good deal for you. I'm both a military police officer and I'm assigned to the Office of Special Investigations. Suppose we do find something inside that case. I can get to the bottom of it faster than you can."

After a long moment, during which I made no response, she added, "My office reports directly to the Secretary of Defense, and we play for keeps. When we ask, people answer."

"Sounds like the Gestapo."

She looked me in the eye. "We're not that nice." After a moment she handed me her cell phone. "Call your boss. Tell him to cancel that call to the Pentagon."

"Her." I took her cell phone. "Give me a moment. She's going to throw a fit."

"Sounds like a tough woman." She gave me a sympathetic look and added, "I'll say it again… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you in hot water."

She opened the glass door and stepped back inside, then moved to the far corner of the living room, where she crossed her arms, pretended to study the carpet, and I could observe her observing me.

I flipped open her cell phone and dialed Phyllis. Miss Teri Jung, her lovely and very affable secretary, answered and said to hold on.

Phyllis made me wait a full minute before she came to the phone. I sensed she was in an unhappy mood when she opened by saying, "Drummond, I am exceedingly unhappy with you."

"I understand."

"You had better be calling from your car."

"I understand."

"I'm expecting a good explanation for your silliness during that phone call."

"I understand."

"If you say that again, I'll-"

"Are you ready to listen?"

I heard her draw a sharp breath. I tend not to draw out the best qualities in my bosses. She said something I already knew. "This better be good."

So I succinctly recounted what I had observed and what I surmised, including that Cliff might have had a helping hand when he killed himself, that Major Tran was suspiciously territorial toward that briefcase, and that perhaps it contained something incriminating, or worse. Phyllis is a good listener-at least a patient one-and she did not interject or comment until I finished. Then she said, "This is curious."

"I know why it's curious to me. Why is it curious to you?"

"Well…"

We were already off to a bad start. "Start over."

Silence.

"Phyllis, I'm involved. Tell me what's going on here, now, or I'll let Tran walk out with that briefcase."

"You're too nosy for your own good."

She meant for her own good, but with her that might be the same thing. I said, "Three questions. Who is Cliff Daniels? Why are you and the Feds interested in him? And why am I here?"

"This is… inconvenient. I can hardly elaborate over an insecure cellular phone connection." After a moment, she added, "Had you been following the news you would have noted in last week's Post that Clifford Daniels has been ordered to testify before the House Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee."

"Why?"

"I suppose because Cliff Daniels was Mahmoud Charabi's handler."

A lot of Arabs are in the news these days, but I was familiar with that name. Twenty years before, Mahmoud Charabi had fled Iraq, two steps ahead of a posse of Saddam Hussein's goons, who stayed on his tail and had a clear agenda. There followed a few attempted whacks, including a nasty affair with a hatchet in a London hotel and a shotgun ambush outside a Parisian nightclub. Then Saddam called off the dogs; either other Iraqi exiles bumped Charabi down on the hit list or he was no longer worth the effort. Thus he entered his rootless and peripatetic figure stage, seeking haven first in Switzerland, then London, then Paris, and eventually setting up shop in Washington. As with many exiles driven by restless ambitions and old grudges, he founded an organization for the liberation of his homeland, the Iraqi National Symposium.

Many of these so-called liberation and opposition groups are little more than social clubs for nostalgic expats, associations for preposterously lost causes, or scams for gullible fools to throw money at. The world is indeed a wicked place, filled with nasty tyrants, hateful prejudices, ancient crimes unrepented, starvation, diseases, genocide, and fratricide; all of which, of course, is Pandora's fault-though I suspect human nature also may have something to do with it. And for every wrong, there is somebody who wants to make it right.

In Washington, there are literally thousands of these expat revolutionaries in the wings, organized into hundreds of groups and organizations, all vying to get their dreams and their causes on Uncle Sam's to-do list. The lucky few even find rich and/or powerful patrons to bankroll and lobby their causes. But there is, I suppose, something romantic and adventurous about these foreign people peddling grand ideas for miserable places, because they are highly sought figures on the Hollywood Stars Seeking Grand Causes tours, the D.C. cocktail circuit, and in Georgetown's more storied salons. And why not? Listening to Xian discuss why anguished Tibet must be liberated and free certainly makes for more ennobling table talk than the hubbies bitching about greens fees at the Congressional Country Club. Personally, I prefer uncomplicated company when I eat-definitely when I drink.

But it's clear what draws these galvanized exiles to our shores: our unimaginable power, and their deplorable lack of it; our "light on the shining hill" mentality, and their fingers pointed at dark places; our uniquely American sense of can-do compassion, and their desire, no matter how selfless, to exploit it.

Indeed, America has a grand record of knocking over other nations, even if our history of installing lasting new regimes is a bit checkered. Plus, I suppose it's hard these days to find a great power willing to kick a little butt for a righteous cause. The Europeans have been there, done that; they have lost their appetite, if not their flair, for foreign empires, intrigues, and escapades that often turn out badly. As for the Russians and Chinese, they lack charitable impulses. They liberate like the mob lends money; the vig sucks. But Americans are a generous if slightly naive people, with a distinct messianic bent and the animating conviction that what works for us must work equally well for others. We are the New World, they are the Old; new is always better. Right?

But as I said, Washington attracts a lot of these zealots yearning to borrow Uncle Sam's checkbook and a few legions to rearrange the decor at home. Some are the real deal and their tales of oppression and woe, and their sad optimism, are deeply affecting, even heartbreaking; others are charlatans, schemers, phonies, and scoundrels. Unfortunately they are hard to tell apart, and when you guess wrong, you have a long supply of corpses with a short list of excuses. A happy few, like Shah Pahlavi or Aristide, get their wish; but possibly these are not the best examples.

It's interesting. Having Irish heritage, I find all this a little ironic. Rather than enlist others to fight their battles, my ancestors had the literally unsettling habit of migrating in vast, freckled flocks to fight other people's causes.

There is, in fact, an almost embarrassingly long tradition of this in the Drummond strain. In 1862, Great-great-grandpa Alfonso fled Ireland, he claimed to escape the potato famine; and a pregnant lady and an aggravated father with a shotgun might have added a little impetus. While still scratching his ass on the dock in New York harbor, he promptly accepted one hundred greenbacks from a prosperous New Yorker to take his place in the Civil War draft. He spent three years as an infantryman in a war he understood nothing about, killing people he felt no animus toward, at the behest of somebody who deserved to be there, and decided America truly was the Promised Land.

Great-grandpa Seamon served nearly a year in the trenches as an infantryman in the War to End All Wars-subsequently renamed the First World War, after that turned confusing. He insisted to his grave that he shipped out without the slightest idea the Germans, whom he had no particular feelings toward, were killing the English, whom he truly detested, and the French, whom he regarded as uppity bastards who would benefit from a Hun boot on their throat. At least Seamon read the newspaper, cover to cover, every morning the rest of his life.

Grandpa Erasmus waded ashore at Normandy, got lost in the Huertgen Forest, and spent the final months of his war cooling his heels in Stalag Eighteen. Afterward, he swore those were the most relaxing and luxurious years of his life. But maybe you had to know Grandma Mary.

My own father became a lifer, and made a full-blown career of fighting wars in hilly and jungled places with obscure and unpronounceable names. He battled the commies in Korea and completed nearly two full tours in Vietnam-the former referred to as the Forgotten War, and the latter as the War Everybody Wishes They Could Forget.

But as I look back on this extended family chronicle, it strikes me that the Drummonds make good infantrymen-at least we survive-though, as they warn about mutual funds, past successes never guarantee future returns.

Also the wars that five generations of Drummonds have fought have become increasingly less popular, less fashionable, and more morally confused. I myself was an infantryman before I became a lawyer and saw action in Panama, the first Gulf War, Bosnia, and Mogadishu-messy war, good war, utterly confused war, total fuckup.

As I grow older, I find myself less tolerant of people with well-expressed causes they want Sean Drummond to fight for.

Anyway, Phyllis must have been reading my thoughts, because she suggested, "So you're familiar with Mr. Charabi?"

I allowed that question to linger in the air, then said, "What was… or what is, the Agency's relationship with Charabi?"

"None. He approached us many years ago. We did some back-grounding and didn't like what we saw."

"I know the official line. Try the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth. We took a pass." She emphasized, "Charabi was, and is, the Pentagon's creature. Start to finish."

"And how did the dead guy on the bed end up as Charabi's… as his what?"

"Technically, his controller. But it's more complicated than that… Before he moved to the Pentagon, Cliff Daniels was a career officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency. About a decade ago he befriended Mahmoud Charabi, or possibly vice versa." She concluded, "That's it. As far as I can go on an unsecure line."

I thought about this a moment. From the news reports, I had read that Charabi spent about twenty years peddling his plans and scams for a free Iraq. I'll bet he thought his train had come in when this President decided that Saddam needed the boot, if only somebody could help him justify why.

I wasn't sure why or how Charabi became that go-to guy; but he did, and apparently the dead guy on the bed played a big hand in it. Also, as I recalled from the news reports, Charabi was supposed to be the Pentagon's man to run Iraq after the invasion, though obviously that hadn't worked out exactly as planned, since nobody seemed to be in charge in Iraq now, at least no Iraqis, and possibly not even the U.S. military.

Then, somehow, Daniels himself ended up as a target of intelligence interest, with an invitation to explain his activities in front of a congressional panel. Interesting.

Anyway, Phyllis repeated herself, saying, "I really can't go any deeper on the phone." She added, "I've told you more than you should know, as it is. Unless you're part of the investigation."

"I didn't know there was an investigation."

"With Daniels dead, it's now imperative to learn why. An investigation is how we usually handle these things."

"Maybe it was suicide. Sure looks like suicide."

"Maybe it was. But knowing what you now know, the alternative gains a little added weight… don't you think?" She gave me a moment to think about it, then said, "Now you persuade the Arlington police that it was suicide. And bring back that briefcase."

"Are you ordering me to lie to the police? I want to be clear on this."

"Did I say that?"

"In so many words… yes."

I couldn't see her smile, but I could picture it. She said, "You're a lawyer, Drummond. Handle it."

"Am I part of this investigation?"

"Do you want to be?"

"No."

"Then now you are. Is that settled?"

"Not yet. Who am I working for?"

"You report to me."

"And who do you report to?"

She ignored my question and said, "The Agency inspector general and the FBI already have an ongoing investigation, of which Daniels was a subject. But we'll handle them as parallel efforts. Ours will be kept separate, quiet, distinct."

Interesting. "And will one hand know what the other hand is doing?"

"I receive ongoing updates on what they're doing."

"That's not what I asked."

"Figure it out."

I figured it out. Phyllis would hold all the cards. I asked, "What am I investigating?"

"Whether Daniels was murdered or not. We'll see where it leads from there."

"And Major Tran?"

"Yes… I'm glad you brought her up. Do you feel you can trust her?"

"As much as I trust you."

Now I was sure she was smiling. She asked, "More relevantly, does Major Tran trust you?"

"Absolutely. As we speak, she's on the other side of a glass slider, trying to read my lips."

Phyllis laughed. She asked, "Can you work with her?"

"I can work with you, so I'm sure I can work with her."

I thought I heard a sharp breath. I think I had just worn out her patience for my insolence. Part of the fun of this job was seeing how far I could push it. The Army, peculiar institution that it is, tends to be fairly stiff regarding such issues as insubordination and disrespect to superiors. Candor is permitted, even encouraged, so long as it is rendered respectfully. Of course, one senior officer's interpretation of respect can differ substantially from another's, so you have to watch your P's and Q's. The CIA, also a fairly hierarchical organization, is sort of a halfway house between a martial culture and a civilian one, and you have a little more leeway to be a pain in the ass.

Back to Phyllis. She said, "I think it would be invaluable to have the Defense Secretary's own investigative staff in on this. The Pentagon is, after all, a fortress of sorts. You should… partner with her."

"You mean, use her as a Trojan horse?"

"You know how much I dislike analogies. You shouldn't oversimplify complex situations." She added, after a long pause, "But yes, that one fits."

Lest you think I'm a complete fool, it was Phyllis, after all, who dispatched me to this death scene in the first place, and nothing she does, or thinks, is serendipitous. She is well aware of my nosy, mulish ways, my propensity to rush around corners, my… well, enough virtues. The larger point is, I was the sole military person in her office, Mr. Daniels was an employee of the Pentagon, and it was suddenly clear why she picked me for this job.

And now she was exploiting one Trojan horse to recruit another- a frightening display of how her mind works.

The truth is, our relationship is no more or less complicated than that between a cat and a mouse. I'm nimble and quick. And so is she, with a facile mind and razorlike paws. It's sort of fun, also scary, and often dangerous. But the larger truth is, I wanted a piece of this case.

Phyllis mentioned, "Incidentally, Bis dat qui cito dat."

In plain English, he gives twice who gives promptly-and I understood what she meant, and why. As soon as Clifford Daniels's identity was nailed down, via witnesses, personal identity cards, dental records, and/or fingerprints, the Arlington Police Department public affairs people would issue a standard public notice. With luck, the local press might not recognize the significance of Daniels's name before they filed their late edition; without luck, some enterprising reporter would run Clifford's name through Lexis, Google, or Yahoo! and get an interesting hit. Either way, by morning, the nuts and junkies would be on this like flies on poop.

Washington has always thrived on juicy rumors and corpulent conspiracy theories, fueled by amateur Oliver Stones-people with dark outlooks, overheated imaginations, whose mental bolts could stand a good tightening. But the proliferation of cable news channels, talk radio, and Internet blogs has changed a beltway pastime into a national frenzy. Every paranoid idiot now has an outlet and an audience. A few even have network anchor jobs.

I informed Phyllis, "That isn't my problem."

"It is now. Speed, Drummond. Get this done quickly." Right.

She agreed to call Major Tran's office and work out some kind of bureaucratic entente, and I told her what I needed when I returned to the office… starting with a new job.

I snapped shut the cell, stepped back inside, and rejoined Major Tran, who was still pretending to study a piece of faux artwork on the wall.

I nodded at her. She nodded back.

"When did you first figure me out?" I asked her.

"I don't know. Maybe… the instant you claimed you're FBI."

"Really? I was obnoxious, overbearing, and a prick. What gave me away?"

"You were all of the above. You just don't fit the mold."

"I'm… devastated."

"You'll get over it."

"I'm even wearing fresh undershorts."

"Thank you for sharing that." She smiled. "You forgot your look of wholesome goodliness."

We walked together, she and I, back to the bedroom and Detective Sergeant Enders.