The Lion's Game

CHAPTER 28

By noon, even Kate, Ted, and Jack looked thoroughly debriefed. In fact, if we'd been any more debriefed, all we'd have left in our heads were empty sinus cavities. I mean, jeez, these people knew how to get the last piece of information out of you without resorting to electric shock.

Anyway, it was now lunchtime in Hooverland, and they left us alone for lunch, thank God, but advised us to dine in the company cafeteria. They didn't give us lunch vouchers, so we actually had to pay for the privilege, though as I recall the chow was government-subsidized.

The cafeteria-style lunchroom was pleasant enough, but there was a reduced Sunday menu. What was offered tended toward healthy and wholesome-a salad bar, yogurt, vegetables, fruit juices, and herbal teas. I had a tuna salad and a cup of coffee that tasted like embalming fluid.

The people around us appeared to be the cast of a J. Edgar Hoover training film called Good Grooming Leads to More Arrests.

There were only a few black guys in the lunchroom, looking like chocolate chips in a bowl of oatmeal. Washington may be the capital of cultural diversity, but change comes slowly in some organizations. I wondered what the bosses here actually thought of the ATTF in New York, in particular the NYPD guys, who when assembled look like the alien bar scene in Star Wars.

Anyway, maybe I was being uncharitable toward my hosts. The FBI was actually a pretty good law enforcement agency whose main problem was image. The politically correct crowd didn't like them, the media could swing either way, but the public for the most part still adored them. Other law enforcement agencies were impressed by their work, envious of their power and money, and pissed off at their arrogance. It's not easy being great.

Jack Koenig, eating a salad, said, "I can't tell if the ATTF is going to stay on the case, or if the Counterterrorism section here is going to take it away from us."

Kate commented, "This is precisely the kind of case we were created for."

I guess it was. But parent organizations don't always like their weird offspring. The Army, for instance, never liked its own Special Forces with its fruity green berets. The NYPD never liked its anti-crime unit made up of guys who looked and dressed like derelicts and muggers. The spit-and-polish establishment neither trusts nor understands its own down-and-dirty special units, and they don't give a rat's ass how effective the irregular troops are. Weird people, especially when they're effective, are a threat to the status quo.

Kate added, "We have a good track record in New York."

Koenig thought a moment, then replied, "I suppose it depends on where Khalil is, or where they think he is. Probably they'll let us work the New York metro area without interference. Overseas will go to the CIA, and the rest of the country and Canada will go to Washington."

Ted Nash said nothing, and neither did I. Nash was holding so many cards so close to his chest that he didn't need a bib for his yogurt. I was holding no cards, and I was totally clueless about how these people carved up the turf.

But I did know that ATTF people, based in the New York metro area, often were sent to different parts of the country or even the world when a case began in New York. In fact, one of the things that Dom Fanelli told me when he was pushing this job on me was that ATTF people went to Paris a lot to wine, dine, and seduce French women and recruit them to spy on suspicious Arabs. I didn't actually believe this, but I knew there was a possibility of hitting the Federal expense account hard for a trip to Europe. But enough about patriotism. The question was, If it happens on your turf, do you follow it to the ends of the earth? Or do you stop at the border?

The most frustrating homicide case I could remember was three years ago, when a rapist-murderer was loose on the East Side, and we couldn't get a fix on the guy. Then he goes down to Georgia for a week to see a friend, and some local yokel cop stops him for DWI, and the local yokels have a brand-new computer bought with Federal bucks and for no reason other than boredom, they run the guy's prints through to the FBI, and lo and behold, they match the prints we found at a crime scene. So we get an extradition order, and yours truly has to go down to Hominy Grits, Georgia, to extradite the perp, and I have to put up with twenty-four hours of Police Chief Corn Pone ribbing me about all kinds of crap, mostly about New York City, plus I got lessons in criminal investigation and how to spot a killer and if I ever needed any help again, just give him a call. That sucked big-time.

But back to the lunchroom at FBI Headquarters. I could tell by Koenig's musings that he wasn't sure the ATTF was in a strong position to pursue or resolve this case. He said, "If Khalil is caught in Europe, two or three countries will want a crack at him before we get him, unless the U.S. government can persuade a friendly country that he should be extradited here for what amounts to a crime of mass murder."

Though some of this legal stuff seemed to be for my benefit, I already knew most of this. I was a cop for almost twenty years, I taught at John Jay for five years, and I lived with a lawyer for almost two years. In fact, that was the only time in my life that I got to fuck a lawyer, rather than vice versa.

Anyway, Koenig's major concern was that we had dropped the ball at the goal line, and we were about to be sent to the showers. Actually, this was my concern, too.

To make matters worse, one of our team, Ted Nash by name, was about to get traded back to the team he started with. And this team had a better shot at winning this kind of game. An image of Police Chief Corn Pone flashed through my mind, but now he had Ted Nash's face, and he was pointing to Asad Khalil behind bars and saying to me, "See, Corey, I got him. Let me tell you how I did it. I was in this cafe on Rue St. Germaine-that's Paris, Corey-and I was talking to an asset." And then I pulled my gun and capped him.

In fact, Ted was babbling, and I tuned in. Ted was saying, "I'm going to Paris tomorrow to talk to our embassy people. It's a good idea to begin where it began, then work backwards from there." He went on.

I wondered if I could sever his windpipe with my salad fork.

Kate and Jack chatted a bit about jurisdiction, extradition, Federal and state indictments, and so forth. Lawyer crap. Kate said to me, "I'm sure it's the same with the police. The officers who start the case work it through to the end, which keeps the chain of evidence unbroken and makes the testimony of the case officers less open to attack by the defense."

And so on. I mean, jeez, we haven't even caught this scumbag yet and they're perfecting a case. This is what happens when lawyers become cops. This is the crap I had to put up with when I dealt with ADAs and District Attorney investigators. This country is sinking in legalities, which I guess is okay when you're dealing with your average all-American criminal. I mean, you need to keep an eye on the Constitution and make sure no one gets railroaded. But somebody should invent a different kind of court with different rules for somebody like Asad Khalil. The guy doesn't even pay taxes, except maybe sales tax.

Anyway, as the lunch hour ended, Mr. Koenig said to us, "You all did a fine job this morning. I know this is not pleasant, but we're here to help and to be useful. I'm very proud of the three of you."

I felt the tuna turn in my tummy. But Kate seemed pleased. Ted didn't give a rat's ass, which meant we finally had something in common.