Man in the Middle (21 page)

I said, “Sure.”

“A classic narcissist, compounded by a manipulative personality classification.”

I looked at Bian and shrugged. She shrugged back.

Don was amused by our ignorance and with a snotty smile informed us, “Here’s language even you’ll understand, Drummond. A self-serving asshole with a velvety tongue who will screw you for a nickel.”

“Was that you, or Charabi? Or both?”

He gave me a long, hard stare. He turned to Phyllis. “Do I really have to put up with this?”

She advised him with some insight, “He’s trying to taunt you. Ignore him and he’ll stop.”

I smiled at Phyllis. She ignored me, and to humor her, I stopped smiling.

Bian said to Don, “I have no idea how these things work. Presumably this was a vetting process and this snapshot psychoanalysis was part of it. Right?” He nodded, and she asked, “Did this psychiatrist veto an arrangement?”

“That’s not how it works. He offers insights; I decide. However, he classified Charabi as a high-risk asset. Specifically, he predicted Charabi would follow his own agenda, guided by his own scruples, which in the doctor’s judgment were scarce and very elastic.”

Incidentally, every time he spoke, Don’s eyes flashed toward Bian. You knew exactly what was going through his filthy mind. Geez— dogs in heat show more savoir faire than this guy.

Bian, for her part, seemed totally oblivious, or perhaps she mistook Don’s interest as intellectual flattery. Message to Bian—it’s not your mind he wants to get into.

I have known women who live for this kind of attention; others I know do nothing to invite it and are perilously blind to the signals. I don’t mean that Bian was naive, or a naif, but she spent four years at West Point, where the boy-to-girl ratio is about ten to one. In such a male-dominated environment, I imagine the female either dampens her antennae or becomes a sexual hypochondriac.

Anyway, I tried to catch Don’s eye and said, “I haven’t knocked over any foreign governments, so maybe this is going over my head. For replacing Saddam, isn’t that a reasonable trade?”

“On first blush, Drummond . . . yes, sure . . . I might agree with you. A duplicitous liar for a pathological mass murderer. Sure. Why not?”

“That’s what I asked you—why not?”

“I ran his background and he wasn’t . . . credible.”

Credible, for most people, concerns integrity and trustworthiness; these people, however, play by different rules, and more often it’s about whether they can get a grip on his short hairs.

Having not spent time with Agency types, however, Bian found this concept elusive and asked, “Can you explain that?”

“Well . . . why do you think he fled Iraq in the first place?”

“The newspapers said—”

“I know what the media reported. He experienced some political squabble with Saddam and was forced to flee for his survival. Where do you think they obtained that story, Major?”

“I see. Then what did Charabi forget to include?”

“Charabi was a banker in those years. A midlevel account executive at the Iraqi national bank. A virtual nobody”—he smiled—“for Saddam, a nonentity. The man and his views were irrelevant.”

“But Saddam later went through a lot of trouble to have him murdered. There had to be something.”

“Over three million Iraqis went into exile during Saddam’s rule. Many of these people were politically opposed to Saddam. He would’ve run out of bullets if he tried to kill all of them.” He stared at Bian. “When he went to that much trouble, the motive was always personal.”

“I see.”

“But you still haven’t guessed, have you?” He gave us both one of those triumphant, I-know-something-you-don’t little grins and said, “Charabi was an embezzler. He moved about twenty million dollars from one of Saddam’s personal accounts to his own personal account in Switzerland. It had nothing to do with politics.” He added, “It was, for Saddam, a matter of personal honor, of principle.”

Bian remarked, “That principle being that Saddam could loot billions from his own people, and they couldn’t steal it back.”

Don laughed and awarded her a wink. “Hey, I like that.” He said, “Here’s another insight I think you’ll find fascinating. After the invasion, we found, inside Saddam’s palaces, dozens of copies of
The Godfather
videos.” He added, “It seems Saddam perceived himself as a godfather figure—that formed his self-image, and that inspired his style of leadership. Pathetic, isn’t it? Life imitating art.”

This was interesting; also, it was irrelevant. Returning to the topic, I said, “So you told Charabi you weren’t interested. What happened next?”

“You never say no in this business. I just let it hang when I left.” He stared at me a moment. “But Cliff Daniels, while still on the Iraq desk at DIA, also attended that meeting.”

“I’ll bite. Why?”

“There is, inevitably, something of a rivalry between our two agencies for good sources. As first among equals, we generally get first pick. Sometimes,” he added, smiling, “sources we don’t want end up in the arms of our friends across the river. Sloppy seconds.”

On a hunch, I asked Don, “Did your shrink friend also assess Daniels?”

He paused, then said, “In fact, he did.” It appeared to amuse him that I would pick up on this. He looked at Bian and said, “Pardon my French, it was in the nature of a sport fuck for him. You know how weird those guys are.”

Don winked at Bian and with a sort of mocking smile turned back to me and, regarding that assessment, asked, “What do you think?”

I thought Don needed ten pounds of saltpeter pumped up a catheter. But I recalled everything I knew about Daniels, his life background, Theresa’s description of their marriage and their life together, his e-mails to his ex, and those to Charabi. “A classic passive-aggressive personality. Right?”

He seemed at first irritated by my guess, but eventually said, “Well, I suppose he’s not
that
difficult to figure out.”
Up yours, Don.
“In fact,” he continued, “Cliff was one of those people who stank of ambition and frustration. He kept trying to impress Charabi—dropping hints about his own importance, his own brilliance, his ability to make things happen.”

He turned once again to Bian and asked, “What do you get when you put a passive-aggressive in the same room with a manipulative narcissist?”

Bian replied, “A marriage made in hell.”

Again, he laughed. Don had his own metaphors, however, and said, “It was like watching a leech attach itself. You know? Daniels was an accident waiting in the wings, and Charabi a hundred-car pileup in search of a busy intersection.”

I liked Bian’s metaphor better. Less wordy.

But recalling the letters I had just read from Crusader Two—that mixture of cloying friendliness and ingratiating coercion—any or all of these analogies and/or metaphors seemed to fit what occurred. As they say, no man is more dangerous than he with a will to corrupt. Charabi was that man, and he had skillfully worked his seduction, and Daniels was so absorbed by his own ambitions and his own professional and personal frustrations that deciding between right and wrong meant only what was right for
him
.

“How was this meeting arranged?” Bian asked.

He answered her question with a question. “Why do you think DIA was present?” So we thought about it, before he informed us, “Albert Tigerman—a few months before this meeting, he had met Charabi at a Georgetown cocktail party, was impressed by the possibilities he presented, and thought it would be a smart idea to develop a relationship.” He looked pointedly at me and noted, “This is what happens when neophytes dabble in intelligence work.”

In fact, Don’s suffocating air of superiority was pissing me off. We were discussing, after all, how a manipulative liar weaseled his way into our intelligence system, how he misled us, fed us false intelligence, and caused incalculable damage.

Don should’ve felt some remorse over this, even been deeply embarrassed. Yet in his mind this was just more proof of his own virtuosity. Don was smart, Cliff was an idiot; this was zero-sum gamesmanship, and Don won.

I knew I shouldn’t, but I said, “You know what? I can’t believe you still have your job.”

“What the—”

“You were there, Don. At the beginning. Did you intervene? Did you keep Charabi and Daniels apart?”

“What are you—”

“You left that room knowing Clifford Daniels was an easy mark for this shyster. You allowed this to happen.”

Don was a little put off by this charge, and he stared at me with those flat brown eyes. “That’s utter nonsense, Drummond. I’m not the least bit responsible for what happened.”

“Bullshit. After that meeting, Charabi turned Daniels into his boy toy. Over the next decade, Charabi got money from the Pentagon and institutional support in Washington. Worse, he got a conduit to feed his lies and deceptions into, a river of lies that flowed straight to the Oval Office.”

“You’re forgetting something. The Agency made well-known our view that Charabi wasn’t credible. On numerous occasions we conveyed this to the White House. We even went to the unusual length of leaking this to the press.”

“That’s covering your ass, not preventing a disaster. The ass you failed to cover was the country’s.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Don was staring at me now with some intensity, I’m sure wishing he had brought a gun to this meeting.

Phyllis snapped, “That’s enough. We’re not here to affix blame. Right now we need to understand what damage was done, and how it can be fixed.” After a moment of reflection, she amended that. “
If
it can be fixed.”

Phyllis was right. Don and I exchanged looks. I think we both felt bad about our little display of bad manners, not to mention our failure to keep our eye on the ball. In fact, Don said to me, in a very apologetic tone, “Fuck you.”

“Up yours.”

What this meeting needed was a commercial break, and on cue, Bian’s cell phone began bleeping—it had one of those irritating musical ringtones. She flipped it open. “Major Tran . . . Oh, hi, Barry. You’re working late . . . I—Well, hold on . . .”

She looked at me. “Detective Enders.” She looked at Phyllis and Don. “Please excuse us a moment.” She looked back at me. “It’s important. Let’s step out to take this.”

Which reminded me; in addition to investigating Daniels’s crimes, we were also investigating his murder. I got to my feet and reoriented my mind-set back to the A-to-Z mode.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

W
e walked out and headed straight to the coffee bar, where we discovered a pot, quarter filled with gooey black tar. It looked like it had been brewing for a week. “Can I pour you a cup?” I asked Bian.

“You can’t be serious.” She appeared horrified. “It looks poisonous.”

My ass was really dragging, and if I didn’t get a jolt of caffeine I would pass out. I filled a paper cup for myself, and when it didn’t melt the paper, took a long sip. “Ummh . . . good.”

“Why do men do such stupid things to prove their manhood?”

“Men don’t—”

“Of course they do.” She laughed. “You’re really funny.”

Actually, if it was possible, it tasted worse than it looked. But as Mom always reminded little Sean, waste not, want not. I set aside the cup for later.

Into the phone, Bian said, “I’m back, Barry,” then went into listening mode for about two minutes. She made a few verbal nods and once or twice prodded Enders to elaborate on some point, but I had no idea what they were discussing. Eventually she said, “Okay . . . yes, I’ve got it . . .” Pause. “Yes . . . Colonel Drummond’s also here.” She looked at me and said to him, “Why don’t you repeat this to him directly?”

She handed me the phone. Enders said, “I hope you two are working late, not screwing around.”

“You have a filthy mind, Detective.”

Bian was looking at me inquisitively.

Enders said, “Give me a break, Drummond. Tell me you’re not thinking about it.”

I looked at Bian. “My God, you’re right. There’s a female inside that uniform.”

“Who you trying to bullshit? The lady can make cooked spaghetti stiff again.”

Bian seemed to be seeking my attention by sort of waving her middle finger.

Well, enough male bonding. In fact, Bian’s expression indicated it was beyond enough. “Where are you?” I asked him.

“The lab. The autopsy wrapped up an hour ago, and now I’m here.”

“I wish my laundry worked that fast.”

“Slow day.” He added, “Where were— Oh yeah . . . the autopsy—” Then, as if reading off a page, “Stomach contents: steak, well done, and a baked potato, with a spinach salad. That was probably dinner. Serology results: high alcohol content, point one nine, so Daniels was legally stewed. That’s not uncommon with suicides, incidentally. Cause of death: gunshot to the head, fired two to three inches from Daniels’s skull. Death: immediate—sometime between midnight and one.”

“Okay, that’s how it looked.”

“Was it? There were no open bottles or empty glasses in Daniels’s apartment.”

“So he went out and got smashed beforehand. Does it matter
where
he got drunk?”

“Probably not. Now guess what you saw but didn’t see?”

“Let me see . . .” I knew this contradiction was coming and answered, matter-of-factly, “Cliff Daniels was right-handed and the entry wound is in his left temple.”

A little miffed that I ruined his surprise, for a moment he said nothing. Then he found his inner voice, which was pissed off. “You bastard. You knew . . . and you never mentioned it.”

“I recall you saying my views weren’t welcome.” Which was true, of course, and petty of me to bring up. I added, “Anyway, it’s irrelevant. Also, probably misleading.”

“The hell it is. This is highly suggestive that a right-handed killer fired the bullet. Then, to cover it up, the killer had to place the gun in the victim’s left hand.” As if I needed it spelled it out, he added, “In other words, it wasn’t suicide—it was murder.”

I allowed him a moment to cool off, then asked, “Are you armed?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Work with me here.” I instructed him, “Remove your pistol from the holster.”