The Night Ranger

7

LANGLEY

Age brought wisdom. So Shafer had heard. He disagreed.

He was closing in on seventy, old enough to know the truth. His friends and neighbors and college classmates hadn’t grown wiser over the years. They’d just grown more like themselves, become more of whatever they were when they were young. The introverts faded into oblivion. The lazy divided their time between television and naps. The business guys played golf every day, shooting ninety-five with fifteen mulligans. The drinkers . . . they drank. Until they died.

Shafer didn’t understand any of them. So few winks left on this mortal coil, and they wanted to golf? He tried not to spend time with anyone his age, though all too often he had no choice. Only his wife understood how he felt. His friends didn’t want to hear about their mortality, and nobody under fifty had a clue what he meant. They thought they did, but they didn’t. They couldn’t help but find him ridiculous. Young people always found their elders ridiculous. Just you wait, sonny . . .

So Shafer worked. A few months ago, he’d admitted the truth. No more talk of retirement. He would come to Langley until the guards locked his office and dragged him out. He guessed he’d become more like himself, too. He was sharper and more impatient and more cynical than he’d been when he joined the agency almost forty years before. And he’d been plenty cynical then. Working in Africa in the 1970s had wiped away any and all his illusions about human nature. Sometimes he thought that Idi and Mobutu and the rest of the Big Men were running their own private game to see who could be most brutal, most decadent, most flat-out evil. I’ll see your gold-plated electric testicle clamps and raise you a soup bowl made of a human skull. First prize was eternity in hell. Second prize was eternity minus a day. But young Ellis Shafer didn’t protest. No one from the agency did. Human rights had been even lower on Langley’s priority list back then.

Now Africa had come back to him. Thanks to Wells. Poor Wells. Odd to think of the man that way when he’d killed more guys over the years than a plane crash, but Shafer knew as much as anyone the price Wells paid for what he did. Especially the last couple years, as the wars dragged on and the missions got messy. Wells was still big, but the pictures were small.

This one had looked different at first. Simple. Clean. A way for Wells to rebuild his relationship with his son. Shafer wanted Wells to have that chance.

Then James Thompson gave Wells that fake number.

—

Even before the NSA told Shafer about the phone, he wondered about Thompson. Everything about him seemed a little too slick. Pictures of him were all over the WorldCares website. One page highlighted Thompson’s availability for speeches. “Let the head of one of America’s fastest-growing charities share his inspiring secrets with you! Mr. Thompson donates all speaking fees from corporations or for-profit organizations to WorldCares,” the page explained. But when Shafer checked Thompson’s schedule, he found that the guy spoke mostly to non-profit groups like colleges and think tanks. The website was silent on what happened to those fees.

Then there was the Texas attorney general’s report: “WorldCares’s board has been overly deferential to Thompson . . . Thompson’s pay is in the top one percent nationally for all charities of WorldCares’s size . . . Thompson regularly charged meals at some of Houston’s most expensive restaurants to his WorldCares expense account . . .”

Since then, Thompson had run WorldCares more carefully. The group had increased spending on overseas programs. But Shafer wondered if he was doing the minimum so WorldCares wouldn’t get dinged again.

After he hung up with Wells, Shafer scoured Thompson’s life for signs of distress, financial or otherwise. He found nothing. No liens, no lawsuits in state or federal court, no drunk-driving charges or even jaywalking tickets. Thompson attended an inordinate number of galas in Houston, if the Chronicle’s society page was to be believed, but going to fancy parties wasn’t a crime. He’d never been married, but being a bachelor—or gay—wasn’t a crime either. By 7:30 p.m., Shafer’s eyes ached from all the reading. He wanted to go home, but he knew he ought to stay, look over the classified briefings Nairobi station had produced in the last two days. Then the phone trilled—

“Ellis.” His master’s voice. The one and only Vinny Duto.

“Director.”

“I’d like to offer you a ride home this evening.”

“Need a partner to carpool? Sides of beef up front don’t count?”

“Something like that.”

“Don’t you usually make the proles stand aside with your emergency lights?”

“See you in five.” Click.

Shafer had trouble believing the kidnapping of four volunteer aid workers had turned into a seventh-floor problem. On the other hand, the story was everywhere. #freethefour was the top hashtag on Twitter. CNN and Fox were still running clips from Thompson’s tearful press conference.

—

Duto’s convoy was idling when Shafer got downstairs. Three Crown Vics and two Suburbans. The showiness of these official details infuriated Shafer. They sent the message that citizens existed to serve the government, instead of vice versa. A generation ago, CIA directors had made do with a couple of bodyguards. Now even one-star generals who specialized in procurement were given armored cars.

“Evening, Vinny. Shouldn’t you be kissing ass for campaign donations? Instead of riding around like a Russian plutocrat?”

“Your dentures are clicking, Ellis.”

They rolled out the main Langley gate onto 123. The evening traffic was hardly moving, but the convoy wasn’t running its flashers. Shafer figured that Duto expected the conversation to last awhile.

“What’s Wells doing in Dadaab?” Duto said without preamble.

“You care about the Fab Four?”

“What’s Wells doing in Dadaab?” As if Shafer hadn’t spoken at all.

“Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“You know what he’s doing. Looking for them.”

“And you’re helping. Asking our friends in Maryland to run numbers for him.”

“They’re not our friends. They’re more like our geeky half brother, the one we made fun of all through high school. Then out of nowhere he invented Google and now he’s a billionaire.”

“I don’t think you answered my question, Ellis.”

“In my cleverness I’ve forgotten it.”

“Cleverness or old age?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Let me ask again. Why are you asking NSA to run Kenyan phone numbers?”

“John asked me to.”

“You know what the Kenyans want? What their ambassador told the President last night?”

Shafer had plenty of answers to that question, from More visas to A new pony, but years of trial and error had taught him that these conversations had a rhythm. Annoying Duto too hard for too long put him in lockdown. And Duto seemed to have something important to say. Shafer held his tongue.

“They want us to help them out with al-Shabaab,” Duto said. “And by ‘help out,’ I mean invade.”

“They must know we’re not going anywhere near Somalia. They’ve seen Black Hawk Down like everybody else.”

“That was twenty years ago. This is now. Nick Kristof writes about South Sudan so much it’s like he’s running tours to the place. And guess what, people listen. They want to know why we and our trillion-dollar military don’t do something about it.”

“But South Sudan is a thousand miles from Somalia.”

“Out there”—Duto pointed vaguely at the cars on 123—“it’s just Africa. And Africa is hot again. Right now we the people, in our infinite wisdom, for reasons neither you nor I can divine, take our minds off the economy, whatever, we have decided to give a rat’s ass. Conflict minerals, Joseph Kony, Congo, it’s all bad. And we need to fix it. Shoot the Children and Save the Warlords, or maybe the other way round.”

“You’re on a roll, Vinny. Please continue.”

“Which is to say these four nitwits picked either a really good time or a really bad time to get kidnapped. The Kenyans, they see everybody’s paying attention. And, back to where this started, they want us to finish off Shabaab. Go over the border into Somalia and wipe them out.”

Shafer understood. “Why they keep fingering Shabaab for the kidnapping. The next step, they start pushing us, first in private, and then in public, to go into Somalia to get the volunteers.”

“Correct. And there are folks in Stuttgart more than happy to do that.”

“Stuttgart?”

Duto smiled. His teeth were white and perfect. They hadn’t always been. “I’m disappointed in you, Ellis. You don’t know that Stuttgart, Germany, is the home of Africom, especially created by the Pentagon in 2007 to oversee military operations in Africa. And General Ham, commander of Africom, knows very well that his pride and joy is A-one on the chopping block with budget cuts coming.”

“His name’s really Ham, Vinny? That’s unfortunate. On several levels.”

“Carter Ham, yes. Point is that he’s looking for something to do. You can assume that colonels in Germany are working up PowerPoint presentations as we speak.”

“And you’re sharing all this with me because you’re not in favor.”

“Enough is enough. Time to give the frontline guys a break. Even if this is only ten, fifteen thousand soldiers, you know what everybody who just got home from Afghanistan is gonna think? Here we go again. Now we’re attacking Africa? Guys are gonna snap. But our lifers by the airport”—the Pentagon was just across 395 from Reagan National—“you know how they are. Best way to get promoted is to plan a war that actually happens.”

“You think we could send fifteen thousand men? For four hostages?”

“We sent more than that to Mogadishu twenty years ago.”

“That was a famine, Vinny.”

“It’s Somalia. There’s always a famine. Not saying it’s a lock. Just that everything’s lining up. The media’s going crazy, the Kenyans are whispering sweet nothings, Africom’s gung-ho, and it looks like an easy win. White House loves those. So we figure we’ll go in with a battalion, and before we know it we have three brigades committed. Mission creep.”

—

Shafer enjoyed hating Duto. Not just because Duto was arrogant or a bully or a liar, though he was all those. Duto was the system made flesh, the physical embodiment of the agency’s worst traits, its self-protective bureaucracy and endless craving for more. More meaning more money, more operatives, and more authority to fly unmanned drones in a worldwide covert war. The drone program galled Shafer. The agency killed scores of suspected terrorists each year without ever telling the public—much less the targets—how it chose them.

Killing top-level targets like Ayman al-Zawahiri made sense. But Shafer believed that Duto had allowed the agency to rely too heavily on missile attacks. The endless assassinations damaged America’s moral standing. They would inevitably create a new generation of terrorists desperate to revenge themselves on American soil. Even the names that the Air Force and General Atomics had given the drones annoyed Shafer: The MQ-1 Predator. The MQ-9 Reaper. What, The FU-69 Awesome Flying Killing Machine That’ll Blow Your Terrorist Ass to Shreds would have been too subtle?

But as far as Shafer could tell, Duto didn’t worry about long-term blowback. To him, the drones were the best kind of program, one that provided easily measurable evidence of its effectiveness. Every quarter, Duto could offer PowerPoint shows to the congressional intelligence committees detailing how many missiles the agency had fired, how many targets it had killed. Even better, the strikes happened in unpleasant places like central Yemen. Independent journalists and aid groups had little chance to discover who had really been killed. The congressional committees were happy to take Duto’s assurances. No one wanted to ask too many specifics and mess up a program that seemed to be disrupting terrorist activity at little risk to Americans.

Truly, Duto had won. On his watch, the CIA had helped find Osama bin Laden and set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Within the alphabet soup of agencies that made up the American intelligence community, no one doubted that Duto was more powerful than the Director of National Intelligence, his nominal boss.

Now he’d decided to get involved with these hostages. Shafer suspected Duto couldn’t care less about the morale of the soldiers who might be sent to Somalia. Most likely he wanted one final triumph before riding off into his Senate campaign. If the CIA found the hostages, it would make sure that the reporters who covered the agency gave it—and its director—full credit.

But Shafer knew he had no choice but to rise to Duto’s bait. He couldn’t stand by as the United States skidded toward another military adventure. In his own way, Duto was brilliant. He was profoundly amoral, but he knew how to use morality’s tug to mold Shafer and Wells to his own ends. He knew they would grit their teeth and let him use them. He didn’t even have to lie, at least not today.

Duto turned toward Shafer now, his body broadcasting his eagerness to win Shafer’s agreement. “You’re about as subtle as a car salesman,” Shafer said.

“Another war. You want that?”

No. I don’t. Especially not if this kidnapping is some game James Thompson is playing.

“What’s John doing, Ellis?” Duto pressing his advantage.

“He’s at the WorldCares compound, that’s really all I know.”

“Why’d he get involved at all?”

“His son asked.” Shafer explained Evan’s connection. “Anyway, he talked to Thompson last night after the press conference. Asked me to run Thompson’s phone numbers through NSA.”

“And one came back blank?”

Fortunately, at that moment the Suburban stopped short and Shafer had a chance to hide his surprise. He wondered if he’d ever stop underestimating Duto. Just because the guy had stubby fingers and eyelids like Nixon’s didn’t mean he was stupid. He’d obviously spent the last twenty-four peeking over Shafer’s shoulder. Now that Shafer had come up with evidence that maybe the case was more than a simple Shabaab kidnapping, he’d stepped up.

“Yeah. One was blank. We don’t know what it means. Could be a mistake.”

“Does Wells think he’s involved?”

“If he does, he hasn’t told me. What does the station think?”

“The last few years they’ve focused on the relationship with the Kenyan police and Interior Ministry.”

“Meaning they don’t run any decent agents on their own in Kenya and are stuck with what the Kenyan government tells them.”

Duto didn’t disagree.

“And the Kenyans are saying privately what they’re saying publicly? That they’re sure it’s Shabaab.”

“Yeah. But when we ask them for details, to tell us where they think the hostages are so we can put a rescue plan together, they say they don’t know yet, they’re still working. And by the way, so far they’ve made clear that they don’t want us to run our own investigation. More or less insisted we stay in Nairobi. I’m starting to think we may have to go around them.”

—

As always, Duto had figured out how to play both sides. By using Wells as a back-channel investigator instead of the agency’s officers in Nairobi, he would avoid any blowback in case the Kenyans were telling the truth and Shabaab was holding the hostages. In that case, the Kenyans would be furious if the CIA interfered. They’d complain to the White House, and Duto would leave Langley on a less than triumphant note. Using Wells would let Duto skip that trap. He’d look like a hero if the Kenyans were wrong about Shabaab, and lose nothing if they were right.

“What do you want from me, Vinny?”

“Wells gets a lead, you let me know ASAP. Whether it’s Shabaab or not.”

“And you’ll put something together to save the hostages. Something that doesn’t involve SEAL Team Six.”

“That’ll be a White House decision. They want to use Special Forces, no problem. But realistically, it’ll depend on the size of the opposing force and on timing.”

“Long as you get full credit for finding them.”

“It’s not about credit, Ellis.” Duto almost sounded sincere. “Point is, Wells needs our help—”

“How’s that again?”

“He wanted NSA to run those numbers, didn’t he? He wants our help, he’s got to give to get. And if he understands the stakes, he’s more likely to agree. So make sure he understands them.”

“This mythical invasion.”

“You don’t believe me, call your friends in the five-sided building.”

But Shafer knew what they’d say. The story rang true. He could already imagine the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs beating the drums on the weekend’s talk shows, the Secretary of State’s op-ed in the Post this Sunday. Sending soldiers to war is never an easy decision. But the United States has no choice but to intervene in Somalia. Let me be clear. We are not invading merely to rescue these four aid workers, though their kidnapping has thrown a spotlight on the collapse of the Somali state . . .

Finding the hostages quickly was the only way to make certain a war wouldn’t happen.

“What if Shabaab has them, Vinny? You know that’s possible.”

“Then I guess we’ll go to war. But at least we’ll know what we’re doing.”

“Fine. I’ll tell him.” Duto had steered him as effortlessly as a jockey on the homestretch. “But you know no matter what I say, he’ll do what he thinks is right.”

“I’m counting on it.” Duto sat back in his seat, reached for his phone. Then he reconsidered. “You know, Ellis, don’t you think it’s time for you to admit you belong to the agency as much as me? Maybe more. I’m the one who’s leaving. Your little idiosyncrasies, the ugly clothes, all the rest, they’re just part of the shtick.”

“I speak truth to power, Vinny. I don’t kiss its ass.”

“Sure you do.” Duto’s voice was smooth. Soothing. He sounded like an oncologist delivering bad news. You’re going to need to come in for some more tests . . . “Every big company has somebody like you. Somebody to wave his tiny fists in the air so we can all pretend to listen before we go do whatever it is we were going to do anyway.”

“You know, Vinny, towards the end of the thing in Kabul”—Wells’s last mission, where he’d gone to Afghanistan to look for a traitor inside the CIA station—“I thought you might be human after all. Humbled by what had happened. It made you harder to hate. I should have known it wasn’t real. And, I have to admit the truth, I’m glad it wasn’t. I’m glad you’re back, Vinny.”

“I sleep fine.”

The convoy rolled up to Shafer’s house, clogging his gentle street.

“I know it. Try not to choke on a pig in a blanket at your fund-raising fellatio tonight.”

“That’s sweet, but you know I can’t fund-raise yet, Ellis. Call John.”

Shafer popped open the armored door with his bony old man’s shoulder like he was escaping a four-wheeled tomb. “Aye aye, captain.” He saluted, slammed the door hard as he could, and watched the Suburban roll away with his mouth twisted into a powerless scowl.