The Lion's Game

CHAPTER 26

We crossed the Potomac River by way of some bridge and got into the city. There wasn't much traffic at 8:30 A.M. on a Sunday, but we saw a few joggers and bicyclists as well as some tourist families on spring break, the kids looking stunned at being rousted out of bed at this hour.

As we drove, the Capitol Building loomed up to our front, and I wondered if the full Congress had been briefed yet. When the shit hits the fan, the Executive Branch likes to present the Congress with a done deal, then ask for their blessings. For all I knew, there were already warplanes heading for Libya. But that wasn't my problem.

We got onto Pennsylvania Avenue where the J. Edgar Hoover Building is located, not far from its parent company, the Justice Department.

We stopped in front of the Hoover Building, a uniquely ugly concrete slab structure whose size and shape defy description.

I'd actually been here once for a seminar, and I'd gotten a tour. You have to take the tour, especially through their cherished museum, or you don't get lunch.

Anyway, the front of the building is seven stories high, to conform to height restrictions on Pennsylvania Avenue, but the rear is eleven stories high. The building contains about two and a half million square feet, bigger than the old KGB Headquarters in Moscow, and probably the biggest law enforcement building in the world. About eight thousand people work in the building, mostly support types and lab people. About a thousand actual agents also work in the building, and I don't envy them, any more than I envied the cops who work at One Police Plaza. Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.

We pulled up in front of the building and entered a small lobby that looked out onto a courtyard.

As we waited for our host, I wandered over toward the courtyard which had a fountain and park benches and which I remembered from last time. There was a bronze inscription carved into the wall above the benches, a quote from J. Edgar Hoover, and it said, "The most effective weapon against crime is cooperation… the efforts of all law enforcement agencies with the support and understanding of the American people." Good quote. Better than the unofficial FBI motto which was, "We can do no wrong."

There I go again. I tried to adjust my attitude. But it's a male ego thing. Too many alpha males in law enforcement.

Anyway, there were the usual photos on one wall-the President, the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, and so forth. The photos were friendly-looking and hung in a chain-of-command grouping so that, hopefully, no one would mistake them for America 's Most Wanted Criminals.

In fact, there was another entrance, a visitor's entrance where guided tours began, and in that entrance were the Ten Most Wanted mug shots on display. Incredibly, three fugitives had been arrested as a result of visitors recognizing the photos. I had no doubt that by now, Asad Khalil's photo was in the number one spot. Maybe someone taking a tour would say, "Hey, I rent a room to that guy." Maybe not.

Anyway, the reason I'd been here about five years ago was for a seminar on serial killers. There were homicide dicks invited from around the country, and they were all a little nuts, like me. We put on a skit for the FBI called Cereal Killers, and brought in boxes of Wheaties, Cheerios, Grape Nuts, and so on that had been knifed, shot, strangled, and drowned. We thought it was pretty funny, but the FBI psychologists thought we needed help.

Back to the unhappy present at FBI Headquarters. It wasn't a normal workday, of course, and the building seemed mostly empty, but I had no doubt that the Counterterrorist section was around and about today. I hoped they didn't blame us for screwing up their Sunday.

Jack, Kate, and Ted declared their weapons at the security desk, and I had to admit I wasn't carrying, which is sort of a no-no. But I informed the security guy, "My hands are registered as lethal weapons." The guy looked at Jack, who tried to make believe I wasn't with him.

Anyway, before 9:00 A.M. we were escorted to a nice conference room on the third floor where we were offered coffee and introduced to six guys and two women. The guys were all named Bob, Bill, and Jim, or maybe that's what it sounded like. The two women were named Jane and Jean. Everyone wore blue.

What could have been a long, tense day turned out to be worse. Not that anyone was hostile or reproachful-they were polite and sympathetic-but I had the distinct feeling that I was back in grade school and I was in the principal's office. Johnny, do you think the next time a terrorist comes to America, you can remember what we taught you?

I'm glad I didn't bring my gun-I would have capped the whole bunch of them.

We didn't stay in the same conference room the whole time, but moved around a lot to different offices, a traveling dog and pony show, going through the same act for different audiences.

The interior of the building, by the way, was as stark as the outside. The walls are painted linen white and the doors are charcoal gray. Someone once told me that J. Edgar had banned pictures on the walls, and there still weren't any pictures. Anyone who hangs a picture dies a mysterious death.

As I said, the building has a weird shape, and it's not easy to figure out where you are half the time. Now and then, we passed a glass wall where we could look into a lab, or some other place where people worked. Although it was Sunday, a few people were bent over microscopes or computer terminals, or fooling around with glass beakers. A lot of what looked like windows here are two-way mirrors where the people you're seeing can't see you. And a lot of what looks like mirrors are also two-way where people on the other side can see you checking your teeth for poppy seeds.

The whole morning was basically a series of debriefings where we did most of the talking, and people nodded and listened. Half the time, I didn't know who we were talking to; a few times I thought we were directed to the wrong room because the people we were talking to seemed surprised or confused, like they'd come into the office to catch up on something and four people from New York burst in and started talking about poison gas and a guy called the Lion. Well, maybe I exaggerate, but after three hours of us telling different people the same thing, it all started to get blurry.

Now and then someone asked us a specific question of fact, and once in a while we were asked to express opinions or theories. But not once did anyone tell us anything that they knew. That was for after lunch, we were told, and only if we ate all our vegetables.