The Kingmaker

CHAPTER EIGHT

The team that descended on our building reminded me why so many American citizens go live in the woods and mumble about black helicopters and paste I LOVE GUNS stickers all over their rusted old pickups.

The FBI agents came up from Kansas City. The CIA folks flew in from Washington, apparently on a very fast jet, because they and their FBI buddies were streaming through the front door some two hours after I called to report the incident. Not that you could tell them apart-they all wore cheap-looking gray and blue suits, complemented by that glum, dour expression that distinguishes a government employee from the rest of humanity.

They went over that house with a fine-toothed comb, took foot molds and fingerprints of my entire team, and inventoried everything we had and a few things we didn’t. They canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses and asked every colonel’s wife who resided on that row if she had happened to be staring out the window at three o’clock that morning. All this was accomplished with Prussian efficiency and New Yorker manners, which is to say the worst of both the old and new worlds.

When all this was done, the head of the team, a CIA guy named Smith-if you couldn’t guess-pulled me into an upstairs room for a come-to-Jesus meeting, as we say in the ranks.

He had a tough-guy look about him, a slouchiness of the face, a well-defined musculature of the body. He stuck a cigarette between his skinny lips, lit it up with a Zippo, then flipped the lighter shut with a harsh jolt of the wrist, badass style. He puffed a few times and fixed me with a withering glare. “So, Major,” he began, “how long you been in?”

“Thirteen years.”

“You’ve been briefed on security procedures before? You’ve signed those little forms that say you understand your duties and obligations?”

“I have.”

“Still, you made a Top Secret tape and left it lying around a room?”

“I did,” I confessed, my lawyer’s instincts screaming I shouldn’t, but my conscience seeing absolutely no way around it, considering the circumstances.

A trail of smoke eked from his nostrils. “That’s a real dumb-shit move, buddy. A first-rate dick-up.”

“I could say I had no idea burglars would break in and steal it. But that doesn’t make any difference, does it?”

“Nope.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He took another drag from the cigarette and seemed to ponder that question. That moment dragged on much too long. Eventually he poked his lit cigarette toward my face. “First, I’m gonna report this to my superiors. I’m sure they’ll then report this to your superiors. I don’t know how they handle these things in the Army, but in the Agency you’d be looking at doing some time.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets and glumly nodded. This is pretty much how the Army handles these things, also. “So I’m in pretty big trouble?”

“The loss of that tape, that’s a fuckin’ catastrophe.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t done trying. “You know, technically, the tape was guarded. I did try to stop them and was overpowered.”

“You had no safe. You weren’t armed. And, uh, you were asleep. I wouldn’t try goin’ that route, I were you.”

I shuffled my feet a few times. “Yes… you’re right… unless… well, there might be one other extenuating circumstance.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a really odd thing. I hesitate to bring it up.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Try whatever lawyer bullshit you want.”

“Right.” I scratched my head and replied, “The thing is, who knew we’d made any tapes? Miss Mazorski and I didn’t tell anybody… not even anybody on our own defense team.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, whoever did the theft knew we’d made them, and even that the tapes were in her purse. Don’t you find that suspicious? I sure do. And they even brought blank ones along to replace them. If I hadn’t walked in on them, we might never have known those tapes were taken. But of course, they were stomping around and making all that noise.”

“So?” He drew another long drag and stared at me with a fathomless expression.

“So who could possibly have known we made those tapes?”

“You tell me.”

“No, you tell me.”

“I haven’t got a clue,” he replied, with all the intense insincerity that response deserved.

“Well, I do. You wired our interrogation room. You listened to everything we said.”

He coolly looked around for an ashtray, didn’t see any, so he walked over and opened the window. He flipped his burnt-down butt outside, faced me, and said, “That’s a serious charge, Drummond. Can you prove it?”

“It’s circumstantially obvious.”

“To you, maybe.”

“And to any reporter I tell the story to, maybe.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette. Otherwise he appeared as cool as a brick of ice. He said, “Drummond, you got a coupla problems here. You and your client, you been discussing things way outside your security sphere.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I hear these things. And as to whether anybody wired your interrogation room, I’d be willing to bet that if you were to go over there right now, you wouldn’t find any trace of wire.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Call it good gut instincts.”

“I see. What do you intend to do?”

“Like I said, report your very serious security violation to my superiors. What they do with it’s up to them.”

“Very fine,” I said. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind if I make a few calls to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.”

“Actually, I do. That’d be a real stupid idea,” he said, struggling to appear unimpressed.

“Stupid from where you stand… from where I stand, it’s brilliant.”

“No, really, Drummond… do that, and God knows what might happen to you.”

“Oh, goodness. Did I just hear a threat?”

“Just say I got good intuition, too. But listen here, pal, there might be a way around this makes everybody happy.”

“And what might that be?”

“Well, you got a client that did a lot of damage to this country and don’t exactly deserve your loyalty or sympathy. You’re a soldier, right? We need to know what your client gave away. Lives… our country’s security could depend on this. All we want is your guarantee that if he was to tell you something he disclosed to the Russkis, you’ll let us know. It’ll be quarantined from this little game you lawyers are about to play. Strict fire-walls between us and the prosecuting team, I swear.”

Well, goodness gracious. What was I was hearing? The theft was an attempt to blackmail me into becoming their stooge. And the noise and fracas was a trigger to make sure I knew. And the ass-kicking? That was just the fun part, I guess-for them, anyway.

“All I have to do is tell you whatever he discloses to me?”

“Simple as that.”

“Or you’ll report the security violation to my bosses?”

“Right again.”

“Sounds fair… just one problem.”

He took another puff off his cigarette. “And that would be?”

“This.” I withdrew Katrina’s tape recorder from my pocket and held it up to show it had been running.

The thing with smartasses like him-they can’t believe anybody can out-smartass them, until the evidence is jammed right under their noses. Looking quite annoyed, he said, “Drummond, you lousy bastard, give me that tape.”

“Well, that would be stupid, wouldn’t it?” Actually, regarding stupidity, I wondered for just the merest fraction of a second if Mr. Smith had been authorized by his bosses to use deadly force in pursuit of this blackmail. If so, the easiest thing for him to do at this instant was yank out his gun, blow a hole in my head, and walk off with that tape. From his bewildered expression I supposed he was wondering the same thing.

“Drummond, you can’t do that,” he finally blurted.

“Well, yeah, I can. Military judges don’t take kindly to government agents who mug an Army lawyer and attempt blackmail. I’m an attorney, Mr. Smith. Trust me on this. I have very good intuition. I have good gut instincts.”

Smith and I did not share the same sense of humor. “Listen up, asshole, Morrison’s a worthless fucking traitor. Give me that tape.”

“No.”

Mr. Smith could’ve benefited from a few more gallons of brainjuice, but the realization suddenly struck him that I wouldn’t be tossing threats back and forth if a solution to this quandary wasn’t possible. He broke into a smug grin and said, “What do ya want? What can I do?”

“Get your bosses on the phone.”

“Don’t go there, Drummond. You got no idea who you’re fuckin’ with here. These guys, they don’t like to be bothered by pipsqueaks.”

We played eye tag for a moment until he came to the right conclusion, which was this: I could and would screw him into a wall.

He angrily yanked out a cell phone, stalked out to the hallway, and punched in a number. I heard him whisper furtively into the mouthpiece. I looked out the window and politely let him make his explanations in privacy. I thus had to imagine what his bosses were saying when they found out the thug they sent out to blackmail me was now being blackmailed himself.

He eventually walked back in with a very sour expression and handed me the cell phone. In my most wiseass tone, I said, “And to whom am I speaking?”

An older voice replied, “Major, this is Harold Johnson.”

This was not good. “I’ve heard of you before,” I said, which was true, because Johnson was the deputy director for intelligence, the number three guy in the Agency, and something of a legend in the secret agency community.

“I don’t know what that asshole Smith did, but I apologize nonetheless. Trust me when I tell you he’s something of a wild card. He sometimes approaches his job with too much… shall we say, enthusiasm?”

Idly rubbing the big lump on the back of my head, I replied, “No kidding.”

“Now what’s this problem he’s caused?”

“I’m not sure what problem you’re referring to, sir. Where he wired the interrogation room where I met with my client? Breaking and entering into my legal offices? Stealing legally protected tapes? Maliciously mugging an officer of the United States Army? Or the attempted blackmail? Which one’s your favorite? It’s the mugging that really pisses me off.”

“Jesus, what was that asshole thinking?”

“And do you believe he admitted all that on tape? Hard to find good help these days, isn’t it?”

What I’m sure he wanted to say was, “Up yours, Drummond,” only that would’ve killed the mood here, and he was an old pro. He replied, “Well, listen, I’m terribly, terribly sorry if he did all that. Nobody told him to. Believe me.”

“Of course not,” I said, following my line in the script.

“Now, what do we have to do to get this cleared up?”

“Why, sir, the first military judge I run into’s going to get it all cleared up right nicely for us.”

“That’s not a very good idea.”

“Convince me of that.”

“Because Morrison’s the biggest traitor I’ve ever heard of.”

“Well, you know, you’re probably the fiftieth person who’s told me that, only I have yet to see a single shred of evidence. And I have yet to get an inkling of cooperation from the prosecution or your Agency.”

“That can be corrected.”

“Can it?”

“Yes. I, uh, I didn’t realize you were having a problem about this. I can have truckloads of evidence on your desk by nightfall.”

“That’s a good start point.”

Showing what a diligent listener he was, he asked, “And what’s a good end point?”

“Your guarantee there’ll be no more attempts at wiring our interrogation rooms. And no more break-ins to my offices or attempts to find out what we’re discussing.”

“Done.”

“Oh, and a television for my client, with satellite cable that gives him all those late-night dirty movies. He’s a very lonely man, you know. And books and writing materials.”

“Drummond, you’re pushing it. There are very sound reasons for denying him those things.”

“Undoubtedly true. But I have this tape. And if I use it, he’ll be watching all the cable TV and reading all the lurid thrillers he wants in less than a week.”

“Yes… I suppose.”

“Good. We’ve got a deal. Only-not that I don’t trust you-I’m holding on to that tape.”

A roguish chuckle resonated through the phone. “No. Mr. Smith leaves with that tape. It’s a matter of common trust here-you don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you.”

“How about I send the tape to my boss, General Clapper, where it’ll be in neutral hands?”

“That works for me. Now put that asshole Smith back on.”

“Certainly, sir. And it was a pleasure speaking with you.”

“The pleasure was yours, Drummond. All yours.”

Not really. I tossed the phone to Smith, whose face looked like an overripened tomato. My own face looked worse, what with my swollen nose and the fact that both my eyes had started to blacken. I wondered if Smith was the guy who did the job on me.

He snapped the cell phone closed, wounded-badass style, gave me a perfectly arctic glare, then marched stiffly from the room.

When I got back downstairs, all the blue- and black-suited storm troopers were gone, and Imelda was looking at me inquisitively. “They gonna boil your ass?” she asked, well aware of the stiff penalties for losing classified materials.

“In fact, some Agency bigwig called to thank me for putting up such a valiant battle in defense of our country’s security. He said I’m a real good guy.”

Imelda mumbled, “Tell ’em to talk to me.”

It occurred to me that I had just won a round. However, a case like this can last fifteen or twenty rounds, and to be lulled into complacence can be fatal. Regarding my conversation with Johnson, I was still a little shaky. A man does not rise to such an exalted position in the CIA-where backstabbing, one-upping, and conspiracy are art forms-unless one is ruthlessly persistent. I had the sense we would meet again, that I had just tipped my hand, and the next occasion would be a bit more artful.