Man in the Middle (14 page)

Well, as I mentioned, she was very attractive, and I found her company quite pleasant: I couldn’t imagine a man who wouldn’t.

“Do you have a picture of this guy?”

Of course she did, and she reached into the side leg pocket of her Army trousers, withdrew her wallet, and fumbled out a small photograph, which she handed to me as I drove. I gave it a brief look, then handed it back.

The photo was color, taken perhaps at a military ball, and Mark Kemble, attired in his formal dinner mess dress, had a major’s rank on his sleeve, yellow cloth on his lapels—a tanker—with enough badges and medals on his chest to shame a Christmas tree. He was looking directly into the camera with a large friendly grin, was slender and broad-shouldered, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a strong jaw and cleft chin. I could see where some women might get a little sweaty over him. Handsome. Dashing.

I predicted, “You two will produce beautiful little babies together.”

No reply.

I glanced over and Bian was staring out the window in a sort of sulky trance. I suppose this was all a little overwhelming for her—the love of her life in a war zone, a politically hazardous murder case on her hands, and me. I can be annoying.

“Are you okay?”

She continued to stare out the window.

I don’t like talking to myself, and we drove without speaking for a few minutes. It was almost six o’clock, and the sky had already turned dark, the wind was whipping the trees, and a gusty, gloomy squall was moving in—a typical late October day in the moody, blustery city of Washington, D.C.

Out of the blue, she informed me, “I really want to break this case.”

“Think like a cop, Bian. It’s not personal.” After a moment, I advised her, “What you should be hoping is to make it through this with your career intact.”

“What does that mean?”

“Think Oliver North and Bud McFarlane.”

“Who?”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-one. What’s your point?”

“The Iran-Contra scandal?”

“Nope—never heard of it.”

“Ronald Reagan?”

“Was he the guy before Lincoln, or just after?” She nudged me in the ribs. “Okay, tell me about . . . who were these two again?”

“Ollie and Bud. Bud was a former lieutenant colonel who became President Reagan’s National Security Advisor. Ollie was a serving lieutenant colonel on his staff.”

She noted, “You should always keep a close eye on lieutenant colonels.”

“I just pinned on a few days ago.”

“Oh. Then . . . congratulations. How’s it feel?”

“Not bad. They say it takes a full year before it sinks in that they’re paying you more to act stupider. I’m still getting used to it.”

“Well . . . you seem to be off to a good start.” She laughed. “Back to your story.”

“Not a story. It’s a D.C. passion tale. Ollie and Bud—good guys, well-intentioned, patriotic, salt-of-the-earth types. There was a law at the time banning our government from sending money or weapons to the Contra rebels who were battling the communist government in Nicaragua. On the other side of the world, the Iranians and their Hezbollah pals in Lebanon were kidnapping American officials and torturing them to death.”

“That last thing, that sounds ugly.”

I nodded and continued, “Among others, one hostage was CIA, another a Marine officer. Our official diplomatic response was summed up as—problem too hard, tough shit.”

“And how were these two events connected?”

“They weren’t. Not until Ollie talked Bud into a plan to kill two birds with one stone. Under the table, we would sell weapons and ammunition from our military stocks to Iran for their war against Iraq. These munitions would be sold at bargain basement prices, the Great Satan’s image in Iran would gain a little luster . . . with a sub-rosa understanding that the Iranians would release the hostages. To come full circle, the cash from these arms sales would go straight to the Contras, who would use it to buy arms and supplies to kill more commies. Symmetry, right?”

I looked at her to be sure she understood. Apparently so, because she remarked, “That sounds like a really stupid idea.”

“Why?”

“Where do I start? Because you can’t trust Iranians, for one thing. And if you think about it, you’re offering them an incentive to take more hostages so they can blackmail you for more arms. Because it sounds like you’re talking many tons of equipment and hundreds of millions of dollars. Because this means complicated logistics, middlemen, and money-laundering.”

“All of the above. Anything else?”

“Those are difficult, maybe impossible, things to disguise or hide. Lots of loose ends, lots of people involved, lots of moving parts that could spring a leak.”

“But if it worked, nobody would be the wiser. Our hostages would be saved, and the Contras would kill more commies. What’s not to like?”

“It was breaking the law.”

“A slight technicality.”

“I believe it’s called theft of government property and criminal conspiracy. That’s a ten-to-twenty technicality.”

“Very good.” I explained, “And yes, it did leak, and yes, the scandal nearly brought down Reagan’s house.”

“I’m sorry, does this have something to do with Daniels, Hirschfield, or Tigerman?”

“Bear with me.”

“I’m trying.” She added, “But you’re very trying.”

Indeed, I am. I explained, “Ollie and Bud were both very ambitious types, but in their hearts, and in their minds I think, the ends were noble and the means were justified. When they were caught, they were forced to resign. They’re still testifying at congressional investigating committees.”

“Am I now seeing the connection to Daniels?”

“If you’re paying attention . . .”

“Well . . . spell it out for me.”

“Bud and Ollie were two fairly average guys, over their heads in very important jobs, in a very complicated and treacherous world.”

“I see.”

“A lot of other senior officials were implicated, including the Secretaries of Defense and State. Several senior officials were forced to resign. A few were led off in handcuffs.”

She shifted around in her seat. “You’re implying that perhaps that scandal is a parable or a parallel for this case?”

I said nothing.

“You think this case goes that high? Spreads that wide?”

“I have no idea—yet.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Consider what we just heard from Theresa Daniels about what Cliff has been doing over the past decade, and whom he has been doing it with.” I continued, “He may have been operating with permission, or even with orders, from his bosses—and from their bosses—including people in the White House. These things always begin small—like that Watergate security guard performing his nightly rounds and finding a piece of burglar’s tape stuck on a door lock. At that moment in time, he had no idea he had the President of the United States by the balls.” I looked her in the eye. “We know that Clifford was a subject in an espionage investigation, and we now know that, for many years, he was connected at the hip to two senior Defense officials. My instincts are telling me this is much bigger than just Clifford, and probably much wider.”

She replied, “We don’t know that he broke any law.”

“He did.”

“How do you know that?”

I looked at her. “I want to be sure you know what we’re getting into.”

“I do know.”

“Do you? Because, should there be other people with their hands in the same cookie jar, once we walk into Hirschfield’s or Tigerman’s office, the shit could hit the fan. After that, there’s no turning back.”

“Well . . . how far are you from retirement?”

“Your problem’s bigger than mine. I at least have a boss who might run a little interference for me.” Or might not.

“I’m an Asian-American woman with a military academy degree, and fluency in three languages. Corporate quota hunters have sticky dreams about people like me. You, on the other hand, are an average white male with a law degree.” She smiled. “Worry about yourself.”

“I love America.”

We lapsed back into thoughtful silence. I pulled into North Parking at the Pentagon. It was 6:15, well into happy hour, and I had no trouble finding a parking space close to the building. I turned off the ignition, and we got out and began our trek up the long walkway.

“As a matter of interest,” Bian asked as we walked, “Ollie and Bud? What happened to them?”

“Ollie was slick and managed to spin it to become a hero to conservatives. He was canonized, the good Marine doing his best for the nation he adores. It helped that it was heartfelt, I think. So he got the usual raw deal accorded to disgraced officials: a radio show and a fortune from books and the speech circuit.”

“And Bud?”

“Yes, Bud. He went home one night and ate a bottle of pills.” I allowed her a moment to think about that, then said, “Happy ending. He was discovered before it was too late. The point is, in Washington even well-intended people can do bad things.”

“But there’s a larger moral here, isn’t there?”

I nodded.

“You’re using this story as a parable. Cliff is one of those two guys.”

Right again.

She said, “You’re telling me he was swept up in something, something bigger than him, something more complicated than he could fathom.”

“Eight points. Go for the full ten.”

We walked in silence for a few minutes. Eventually Bian understood the real significance, and she asked, “But how did Cliff respond—like Ollie, or like Bud? That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Good. There’s a big prize for the extra credit.”

“From what we now know about Cliff, he was not like Bud. His life suggests Cliff was durable, resilient, a survivor. More Ollie than Bud. Right?”

I nodded.

“So you believe he was murdered.”

I asked, “Do you have a firearm?”

“What does that—”

“Do you have a firearm?”

“Yes . . . in the safe. At work.”

“Start carrying it.”

CHAPTER TEN

B
ian flashed her Department of Defense building pass and got us quickly past the security checkpoint and into the fluorescent bowels of the beast. Every time I enter this building I feel a flutter in my stomach; it’s called panic. In civilian life, only two things are certain, death and taxes, whereas the career military officer faces a third, worse certainty: an assignment inside this building. I had so far managed to avoid this fate. So far. Yet, like bullets on the battlefield, I knew that somewhere inside the Pentagon was a desk with my name on it.

“My office is upstairs. Fifth floor,” Bian informed me. “Mr. Waterbury asked me to check in before the interview.”

“Let’s not, and just say we did.”

“He’ll notice. He’s sharper than you think.”

“Fooled me.”

She chuckled, and we kept walking.

In the eyes of the great American public, the Pentagon is a huge and confusing labyrinth that somehow burns through some four hundred billion dollars of taxpayer cash per year.

The building, however, in nearly every human and architectural sense, is amazing. There actually are tours, and the guides will inform you this is the earth’s largest office structure, comprising some 6,636,360 square feet, occupying 29 acres, able to house about 23,000 workers, in varying levels of comfort and discomfort.

In short, it is a gigantic memorial to function over form, and incredibly, the entire thing was constructed in a sixteen-month span of hyper-frantic activity during the heyday of the Second World War, at the amazing price of less than fifty million bucks.

I once cited this remarkable statistic to a defense contractor pal. He laughed and commented, “Morons. We’re gettin’ ten times that just to refurbish the basement. And we stretch it out for years.”

Other interesting esoterica—the building boasts some 284 rest-rooms, the world’s largest collection of white porcelain bowls under one roof, over 2,000 freestanding commodes, and half as many wall-mounted urinals. Regarding this inviting statistic, I’ll restrict myself to one useful observation: You would be an idiot to buy a home downstream.

In fact, three of the four military services have their headquarters within these walls; the Marine Corps has its own sandbox within walking distance uphill. The underlying spirit behind this shotgun marriage is that proximity will force the services to work together in neighborly harmony. The official term is unification, and it would seem to make sense, because after all, the four military services perform the same basic mission, the same rudimentary purpose—laying waste to nations that piss us off. And why it makes sense is exactly why it doesn’t work: We’re all vying for the same taxpayer bucks, pool of human talent, and opportunities to strut our stuff.

Bian and I walked past a wall on which were hung, in a neat, orderly line, the official seals of the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The message here—all for one, one for all,
e pluribus unum
.

Maybe the tourists believe this.

My own service, the Army, is the oldest, the largest, the smartest, with obviously the most primo JAG Corps. The Marine Corps are also fairly good guys, primarily because they act and think like the Army, except they’re a lot more hormonal, with a truly monumental gift for blowing smoke up your butt.

The Air Force, newest of the services, is like an orphan teenager with a fat trust fund—prematurely arrogant and totally obsessed with all the cool shit it can buy. Nobody likes them, but we all envy them.

Last, our seafaring comrades, an overdressed yachting club whose main contribution to national security seems to be propping up bars and bordellos in strange and exotic ports.

The other services might have a different take on all this—of course, it’s a well-known fact that their outlooks are distorted by their small-minded prejudices.

But in fact, how each service does its job does tend to color its culture, traditions, worldview, and strategic perspective.

The Navy, for instance, sees the globe as three-quarters water, with several largely irrelevant landmasses called continents populated by quarrelsome people who somehow become scared shitless the instant an aircraft carrier rolls up off their shore.