Secret sanction

Chapter 22

One thing you learn when you practice criminal law is that the moment a police officer tells you not to be concerned, start gnawing on your nails. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I didn’t have anyway near enough time or attention to worry. I kept writing my opus summary while I waited for Imelda to bring me some materials on Operation Phoenix.

She waltzed back in at quarter after eleven and dropped a bunch of printouts on my desk.

“Where have you been?” I bellowed.

She bent over and began writing on my yellow legal pad.

“Workin’,” she said. “I made the supply run, then ran all over this damn post lookin’ for printer cartridges.”

I watched what she was writing. I said, “Well, I’ve gotten a lot of work done, and I want someone to start typing.”

“And what’s with you?” she barked. “Is your ass glued to that chair or something? You can’t tell those clerks to type?”

She straightened back up and I read what she had written. “Found on Internet. To be safe, used supply room terminal.”

“Okay, okay,” I grumbled. “Just take what I’ve finished and get it typed.”

She collected my stack of yellow pages and departed. I grabbed the printouts she left behind and dug in. It took nearly thirty minutes. There was a lot of stuff on the Internet concerning Operation Phoenix. There were extracts from history books. There were testaments from guilt-ridden veterans who were participants. There were some wild ramblings from antiwar groups who made reference to it in fairly negative ways. Some of the articles made for pretty fascinating reading, and some made you wonder if everyone who posted things on the Internet had all their marbles.

Operation Phoenix was a secret operation run jointly between the CIA and the Green Berets during the Vietnam War. A secret pact was made between the two that actually bypassed the military chain of command. Neither the Joint Chiefs nor General Westmoreland even knew it was happening.

It was a classic counterinsurgency operation where the CIA penetrated a number of communist cells that were operating in South Vietnam, then the Special Forces did the nasty work of eliminating the suspects. Some of the material Imelda got off the Internet said the Green Berets only killed a few dozen operatives. Others claimed they killed thousands. Killed them without trial, without proof, just knocked off whoever the CIA told them to take out. The sterile euphemism they used was “sanctioned.”

I guess I was too engrossed in trying to study the anatomy of my high school cheerleading squad to have been paying attention, but the operation got exposed sometime in the early or mid-seventies, just as the war was winding down. Then there was a mad rush by various congressional investigating committees to help the Army sort fact from fiction, to borrow General Partridge’s phrase. The word for what the Green Berets were doing was assassination. The words for what the CIA was doing was playing God. It was a war, but the people being summarily executed were South Vietnamese citizens, thus technically our allies. That’s a pretty vital distinction.

I saw immediately why Bill Tingle wanted me to research this. I mean, it made a lot of sense. Here was Jack Tretorne, aka Mr. Jones, masquerading as an NSA employee while he helped cover up a possible massacre committed by a Green Beret team. You couldn’t escape the parallels. Still, it struck me as beyond stupidity. Operation Phoenix had apparently led to an explosive scandal, and I just couldn’t believe that the same folks who did it the first time would turn right around and try it again. That’s like Ford Motor Company trying to reintroduce the Edsel.

Besides, this was not a war. At least, technically this was not war. There were no communist cells being infiltrated, no suspects being assassinated. This was a NATO police action, or whatever silly word was being used to describe an attempt to coerce the Serbs by bombing the crap out of them. As simple as that.

On the other hand, there was the murder of Jeremy Berkowitz. Maybe Tretorne told General Murphy to “sanction” him. As bizarre as that sounded, everything going on here struck me as bizarre. So why not? Tretorne seemed to me to be exactly the kind of guy who would order someone killed in cold blood. There was no sign of life or moral gravity in those eyes of his. And, if a man would help engineer a cover-up, then he was already breaking some very serious laws. What was a few more?

I decided I needed to be cheered up. All morning I’d been working out another scheme, and I decided its time had come. It was time to do some flushing, as they say in quail-hunting circles.

I left the office and walked back over to the NSA facility. The guards passed me through to the inner sanctum, I pushed the doorbell and looked up and stuck out my tongue at the camera in the corner. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made major.

A moment later, the door made that humming sound, and I pushed it open. Miss Smith was waiting. I gave her a shy grin, and she returned it with one of those wonderfully plastic smiles she must have perfected at some northeastern preppy college. She reminded me of a thousand cheerleaders I used to lust after.

“How are you today?” I asked.

“Fine.”

“That’s nice. I hope this isn’t inconvenient, but I need to talk with Mr. Jones again.”

“Follow me,” she said, and I studied her lovely sway as she led me back through the building, then to the stairway in the rear. We went down the stairs again, and I noticed that her hair roots were brown, not blond. The more I learned about this woman, the less real she seemed.

We reached the conference room at the end of the hall again, and Miss Smith’s long, manicured fingers very elegantly slid her little plastic card through the lock slot, then she pushed the door open. There were about five men in the room, all sitting around the table, with Jack Tretorne at the head. Aside from Tretorne, it looked like a nerd’s convention. There were lots of thick bifocals and pocket penholders and short-sleeve white shirts. These were NSA employees, no doubt about it. They had that certain charisma.

Tretorne had on his duck-murdering vest again. He looked badly out of place, like a jock at a software programmers’ convention. He glanced up and the room fell quiet. If I were a courteous guy, I would’ve said, “Excuse me. I’m obviously interrupting, so why don’t I just leave and you can call me when it’s convenient for you.”

I didn’t say anything; I just stood there. Tretorne’s marble eyes studied me, but I had no idea what he was thinking. Then he looked around the table and said, “If you all can please excuse us for a few moments, Major Drummond here is working on a very critical project, and I must speak with him. Alone.”

The nerds all got up and began filing out of the room. Finally, it was just the three of us, and Miss Smith closed the door.

“Hi,” I said.

He got right to the point. “What do you want?”

“I just need a few minutes. I’m preparing our summary, and I have to get a few questions answered. You understand, right?”

I collapsed into a chair before he could answer. I looked over my shoulder. “Miss Smith, would you be a good girl and fetch me a cup of coffee? Three sugars and just a small dose of cream.”

The lovely Miss Smith’s face turned instantly ugly. “I don’t fetch things, and don’t call me a good girl.”

I smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were Mr. Jones’s administrative assistant.”

I could see Jones nodding his head furiously for her to do what I asked. She pouted for about two seconds, then whirled around and walked back through the door.

I said, “Boy, has she got an attitude. How do you put up with that?”

Jones’s eyes were studying me very coldly. It was a little like being examined by that mechanical camera upstairs. “She’s all right,” he assured me. “This isn’t the Army, Drummond. We fetch our own coffee around here. Now, what do you want?”

“Well, remember yesterday when we looked at those films, and you read those radio transcriptions?”

“Of course I remember.”

“Good. I’ll need some kind of verification that all that was authentic. Also, you mentioned that the films will be stored in a file at NSA. I’ll need some kind of reference or name for that file.”

“I can get you that,” he said. He smiled. This was all so easy.

“Gee, that’s great,” I said. “One other thing. I’m gonna need your full name, social security number, and where you work at NSA.”

Oops, it was not so easy anymore. The smile was instantly replaced by a deeply perplexed look as he said, “Why?”

“Well, since you wouldn’t let me have the films or transcripts, you know, them being too sensitive and all, I have to cite you as a material witness in my exhibit. This is a highly controversial incident we’re investigating. The findings are going to be closely scrutinized. I can hardly write that I met with some jerk from NSA named Jones and leave it at that. I mean, how many Joneses are there at NSA? Must be a thousand or so, wouldn’t you guess?”

Tretorne’s jaw, I noticed, became very tight. There was very little body fat on his face, and right at that moment, those two little muscles just below his ears were ticking like time bombs. My obnoxiousness was breaking through the iceberg.

Just at that moment, he was saved by the bell. Miss Smith traipsed back through the door with my cup of coffee in hand. She gave it to me, and I took a sip. It was cold as ice, and she must have added half a jar of cream and at least ten large spoonfuls of sugar. The girl had spunk. I liked that.

I cranked back my neck and drained the whole thing. “Ah, just the way I like it. Thanks, honey.” Take that for spunk, bitch.

Miss Smith tried to take this in stride, but I noticed that she stomped a little as she worked her way around the table and took a seat near the opposite end. Unfortunately, Tretorne had recovered his composure.

He leaned across the table and, in a tellingly reasonable tone, said, “Listen close, Drummond. I’m not going to be listed in your report. Let’s get that clear. My work requires me to do sensitive work, and I cannot risk being exposed. Just use the name of the NSA chief, Lieutenant General Foster.”

I grinned. “Hey, don’t sweat it, Jonesy, old pal. My report’s going to have ‘Top Secret Special Category’ stamped all over it. You won’t be exposed. Besides, General Foster had nothing to do with this.”

A tinge of red was working up Tretorne’s neck, and his face was becoming flushed. “He knows all about it, Drummond. Just do what you’re told.”

You could tell by his tone that Tretorne was a guy who was used to giving orders and getting his way.

My smile got even wider. “Gee, I really can’t, old buddy. Look, if it’ll make you more comfortable, I’ll list your name and employment data in a special annex that’s eyes only to the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Can’t get more accommodating than that, can we? See, the thing is, Jonesy, you’re now part of my investigation. You invited yourself in the moment you walked into my office. I mean, surely you knew that.”

“No, I didn’t. And I still don’t believe it.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, getting up and preparing to leave.

“Where are you going?” Tretorne demanded, now even more perplexed.

“I’m going to call a military judge. I’m gonna tell him to write me a court order addressed to the director of the NSA that gives him six hours to release your name and job data.” I was assuming that Jack Tretorne was not an attorney and wouldn’t know whether I could do that or not.

“That wouldn’t be a very good idea,” he muttered in a very menacing tone.

“Why, Mr. Jones, you’re not threatening me, are you? There is another way I can handle this. I’m pretty damned sure I can also talk that judge into issuing a writ against you and your agency for withholding evidence critical to a criminal investigation. Hell, maybe I’ll ask the judge for both.”

This issue of law, Tretorne obviously thought he knew something about. “You can’t bluff me,” he snarled. “That’s been tested in federal court a million times. Nobody can force the government to release classified data.”

“You’re right,” I said. “But you’re also a little confused. All those cases involved civilians without security clearances requesting the release of classified information. I represent another government agency. Also, the information I’ve requested is going to be enclosed in a classified investigation packet.”

He was still sputtering something when I closed the door behind me. Another law of war is to keep the enemy off balance. God knows he got his share of agony out of me the day before, and I wanted Tretorne to feel what it was like to sweat for a change.

I was sure he would immediately get on the phone to the lawyers back at the CIA to ask them if I could accomplish everything I’d just threatened. They were lawyers, though. They would defer. All lawyers, everywhere, always defer. In civilian firms, lawyers never answer anything right away because then they’d lose the opportunity to pump up a bunch of billable hours. In government agencies, lawyers never answer right away because they’re bureaucrats and on general principle never do anything right away. Besides, they like to minimize risk by meeting with lots of colleagues, so they can make sure the blame for wrong answers gets spread around.

What Tretorne would eventually learn was that I could get the writ for his name, but CIA and NSA lawyers could fight it and keep it in limbo for months, long past the point of relevance. He would also be told that no military judge can compel another government agency to hand over sensitively acquired, classified information. Regardless, it was going to be a while before he got this confirmed, and I wanted to see if I could force his hand.

I went back to the office and returned to working on my phony screed. At four o’clock I went back over to General Murphy’s headquarters building and asked an eager-looking captain if he could please find me a secure phone in a private room. He led me down the hall to the adjutant’s office, who was off visiting troops somewhere, got me the secure key, and left me alone.

I called the Chinese takeout again and was put right through to Colonel Bill Tingle.

I said hi, we did the shift to secure mode thing again, then Tingle said, “Found him.”

“I can’t thank you enough, sir. Who is he?”

“Tretorne’s a GS-17 in Operations.”

A GS-17 is like the equivalent civilian rank of someone between a two- and three-star general, and Operations is the half of the CIA that does field work.

“Wow,” I blurted out, because I couldn’t think of anything even halfway clever to say. I felt like that proverbial fisherman in the small wooden boat who’s just realized he’s hooked a three-ton man-eating shark on his line.

He added, “He’s in charge of field operations for the Balkans. Career man, too. Not one of them political Pudleys.”

I had no idea what a Pudley was, but that was the word Tingle commonly used to describe anyone he didn’t like. Most often, I’d heard him use it to describe lawyers. Like years before, when I told him I was leaving the outfit to become a lawyer, and he screamed, “You wanta stop bein’ a hardcock to become a goddamn Pudley?”

I said, “Did you learn anything else about him?”

“He’s got a good rep. A can-do guy. Also, he went to West Point. Guess he did his few years, then got out and went to the Agency.”

I said, “Very interesting. By the way, I read about Operation Phoenix.”

“Don’t believe the half of it. Believe the other half, though. That really happened.”

He was in Vietnam then, and was wearing a green beret, so I assumed he probably had firsthand knowledge about the whole thing. He may even have been part of Operation Phoenix. I didn’t like the thought of Bill Tingle, who was something of a personal hero of mine, assassinating folks, so I did what I always do when confronted with unpalatable facts. I instantly decided he didn’t do it.

I said, “Any chance that’s what’s going on here?”

“How the hell do I know, Drummond? I’m here, and you’re there.”

“I just thought there must be some reason you wanted me to look it up.”

“Look, son, I’ve been in the Army since 1950. You have no idea how stupid we can be.”

“Okay,” I said, “I can’t thank you enough, sir.”

“Right. Hey, another thing. You see that Williams asshole again, tell ’em I said to get fucked.”

“Will do, Colonel.”

“One more thing. Think before you act, boy. Sometimes what looks bad is really good.”

“Right,” I said, then he hung up.

Bill Tingle was a coarse, crusty old fart, but you don’t get to be old in his line of work by being stupid. “Think before you act” was always good advice. Of course, that required that you have time to think, which was something I didn’t.