Man in the Middle (61 page)

It was interesting that everybody, including Sean Drummond, assumed that that disclosure was the handiwork of some anonymous person back in D.C. And why wouldn’t we? That
is
where the disclosures and intelligence compromises usually occur. Bian’s camouflage, in other words, was our own cynical preconception regarding Washington and its appalling laxity with secrets, about which nobody was more brutally conscious than she. A sweet irony, if you think about it. I’m sure she did think about it.

But was this Saudi angle part of her plan from the beginning, from point A? No, I thought not. I was sure that Bian was genuinely surprised, as were we all, to learn what Charabi and his Iranian pals had offered Cliff Daniels in exchange for his betrayal: Ali bin Pacha. But, experienced as she was in the shadowy politics of Arab terrorism, Bian was very quick to understand the opportunities bin Pacha posed, for us and for her.

Ultimately, Daniels and Charabi were her real targets, but chance had thrown this promising new opportunity into her lap and she went with it. So while we all sat in Phyllis’s office trying to unravel and understand Daniels’s betrayal, Bian’s mind was on other matters, spontaneously devising a plan to exploit our own worst impulses. And the plan she devised was both brilliant and corrupting, because what she set in motion rested on two possibilities of dishonorable conduct.

One, she strongly suspected that Saudi intelligence was well aware that Ali bin Pacha, himself a Saudi national—and thereby his boss, al-Zarqawi—were getting contributions and assistance from important Saudi citizens, and was desperately trying to keep it hidden. She was a veteran intelligence officer with regional experience, after all. Wherever there’s naughtiness in the world of Islam, Saudi money usually is involved. Usually, it’s the motor.

Also, I recalled the private conversation Bian and I shared on the plane after Phyllis and Waterbury had delivered the new directive from Washington; to wit, the Saudis were getting bin Pacha and we weren’t getting within a thousand yards of Charabi. I was hot as a pistol, and ready to rumble. Bian’s mood had been one of casual acceptance, a pessimistic surrender, and that had surprised me. I had expected anger and disillusionment from her, not resignation.

With the view of hindsight, I now understood, because Bian’s moment of disillusionment, her journey from idealism to cynicism, had happened long before, in a back alley in Sadr City.

For this play, however, there was no script. All the actors had a free choice because Bian designed it that way—do the right and honorable thing, pursue truth and justice. It was interesting that nobody did.

So even before she flew to Baghdad, she had thrown the dice and notified the Saudis about our impending capture of bin Pacha. Maybe her time in Iraq left her with some low-level contacts in the Saudi intelligence service, or maybe she just placed a direct call to the Saudi embassy in D.C. How she sent up the red flag to the Saudis about bin Pacha didn’t matter then, and it didn’t really matter now—it was merely the bait that lured the actors onto the stage.

Which led to assumption two: She was betting that Washington would succumb to Saudi pressure and join into what my Italian lawyer friends call
insabbiatura
—burying an inconvenient case in the sand. It was Bian who had suggested the joint interrogation of Ali bin Pacha, a solution that seemed to assuage everybody’s concerns.

But I did not believe she understood or even guessed that the Saudis would ultimately murder Ali bin Pacha. How could she? I don’t believe she minded, though.

And by eliminating Ali bin Pacha, the sheik and his royal masters thought they had taken care of the problem . . . except for one nasty detail—that hidden recording. This was big trouble for the Saudis, because it was incontrovertible physical evidence of murder and conspiracy. Phyllis saw it as troublesome as well, but she also saw it as an opportunity, a device to squeeze a few new terrorist names from our Saudi friends.

So Sheik Turki al-Fayef made his deal with Phyllis and walked smugly out of that conference room, pleased that he had purchased silence for his country, and pleased for himself, because the ruling family owed him a big favor for saving two royal asses.

And then there was Bian’s impassioned tantrum afterward—her display of anger, frustration, and disillusionment that in retrospect was as effective as it was affected. And I understood why. She was offering Phyllis one last chance, the chance to choose principle over practicality—the chance to do the right thing.

And Sean Drummond, too, had been offered that choice.

In fact, Bian was a brilliant seductress who preyed upon everybody’s worst instincts and impulses—the Saudi predilection for buying or burying their way out of trouble, and America’s susceptibility to make stupid deals in the name of diplomacy, oil, and political expediency. I have no idea how she kept a smile off her face. I could not have pulled it off. Nobody had the slightest clue what fools we were making of ourselves.

Then, later, probably with the same tip Bian had given her blonde reporter friend about Charabi, for good measure she threw in the tale about the two rotten princes. This time, Washington no longer had a choice; as it eventually did, it was forced to publicly request their extradition.

The Saudis had a choice, but they had already tried option A—buying off the problem—so they defaulted to option B—burying it.

For Mahmoud Charabi, public exposure of his lies and his treachery meant embarrassment, and big complications for his future ambitions; for the two princes, it meant death.

So I had worked my way from Z back to M. I knew enough now to speculate about Bian’s motive, MO, and intent. Yet, a key piece— maybe
the
key piece—was still missing. So I punched a number into my cell phone, and Barry Enders answered. After I identified myself, he replied sarcastically, “Drummond? . . . Drummond? Sorry . . . can’t seem to place you.”

“I was busy, Barry. Somebody had to win the war.”

“Oh . . . we won?” He laughed, not nicely. “Where are you?”

“Back. Any breakthroughs?”

“A few, yeah.” He said, “Hold on. I need to relocate.” A few seconds later, he said, “Where was I?” After a pause, he said, “Oh, yeah—Daniels’s phone records. Sprint handled his home service, so I got the numbers and names of his recent girlfriends and paid them a visit.”

“And . . . ?”

“Let me say first, two of those ladies won’t have sex lives without him. Know what I’m saying?”

“He was generous with his attentions.”

“Don’t you have a way with the words?” He said, “The third lady’s named Joan Carruthers. Said she suspected him of cheating on her. Said she was thinking of breaking it off.”

“Jealousy. Possible motive, right?”

“Well . . . here’s another thing. There was no cell phone in Daniels’s apartment. Right? And neither was there a cell phone account at his home carrier, Sprint, so we never considered he had one. You following this?”

“Okay.”

“I got to thinking, though—a guy who works in an important Pentagon office . . . this day and age, and no cell phone?” He said, “So I checked around, and turns out he used a different service. Cingular.”

“And what did that reveal?”

“More calls to the same three ladies, but, well . . . there were calls to and from another lady.”

I knew where this was going, and to save him the trouble said, “Bian Tran.” And I knew, further, why the cell phone was missing from his apartment. Here again, the name was Bian Tran. Aware that she had made calls to that phone, probably minutes after Daniels died she had lifted it to throw us off an easy lead. Very slick.

He asked, “What’s going on here, Drummond?”

What was going on was that I neither needed nor wanted Barry and the police to pursue this investigation any further. For one thing, as I said, this had become personal, and I wanted to take care of it myself. But also, if everything I now suspected panned out, a thousand tons of shit was going to land on anybody involved with this. Though I knew he wouldn’t see it this way, I decided to do Barry a big favor.

“What’s going on is not what you think,” I lied. “Daniels was suspected of espionage—I told you that. And Bian was a lead investigator. So, yes, they were acquainted before his death. And yes, they spoke over the phone.”

“About something as sensitive as espionage? Over an insecure airwave? Do I look that stupid to you?”

Actually, Barry Enders was the farthest thing from stupid. Of all the people I had met in this case, he was the smartest, and he had come closest to uncovering the truth.

Well, on second thought, that made him the second smartest. Bian was the smartest. And Sean Drummond, who had looked over her shoulder every step of the way, was the biggest halfwit.

Because, here again, Bian had cynically gambled on the government’s worst instincts—the institutional infatuation with covering up failures and embarrassments. And, here again, the government came through with flying colors; the Feds were dispatched to quash Enders’s investigation and Bian got more of the one thing she desperately needed—time. Time to pursue more leads, time to get to Iraq, time to place the noose around the necks of her targets.

“Are you out of answers, Drummond?”

Not yet.
I explained, “Bian’s assignment was to establish a social connection, to create trust, and see what she could learn about his activities.” I added, “They not only spoke over open airwaves, they even met in public places a few times.”

“She never mentioned that she even
knew
Daniels.”

To me either, Barry.
“What can I say? It was a highly classified government investigation.”

“Yeah?” There was a long, dubious pause. Reaffirming my high estimation of him, he said, “I also accessed
her
phone records and
her
charge card.”

“So what?”

“Well . . . they went on two dates. September 20, a nice dinner at Morton’s steakhouse, she had lobster, he had steak, and somebody slurped five scotches and two very expensive bottles of red wine. That came to three hundred big ones. October 15, they attended a ballet at the Kennedy Center—tickets at two hundred a pop.” He added, “You know what’s really interesting? She booked the reservations on her phone, and
she
paid both bills. And with cash, not charge.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. It’s in her expense reports.”

“As a taxpayer, I’m incensed. I saw Daniels’s other lady friends. She didn’t have to spend a nickel to get this guy.”

“Welcome to our new, kinder, gentler federal policy. We try to send them upriver with a nice memory.” I said, “Barry, she’s not a suspect.”

He said, with real steel in his voice, “I’m the cop. I say who’s a suspect, and I say
she’s
a suspect.”

“Forget about her.”

“Where is she?”

“Someplace you can’t touch her. She’s—”

“The hell I can’t. Watch me.”

“ . . . in Iraq and—”

“A subpoena will fix that. Have her ass on the next—”

“Shut up . . . just listen, Barry.” He quieted down. “Bian was shot and kidnapped by terrorists two days ago.”

He went quiet.

I reminded him, “They don’t respond to subpoenas.”

He stayed quiet.

“We all feel bad, Barry. She’s a fallen hero. You’ll look like an unpatriotic shit if you push this.”

This, obviously, was not what he expected to hear, and for a moment there was a stunned silence. Eventually, he said, “Well, I’m . . .” Whatever it was he was going to say, he changed his mind and told me, “You know what? If I had a buck for every time you’ve lied to me,
I’d
be eating at Morton’s.”

“Call the public affairs office in the Pentagon. They’ll confirm that she’s listed as MIA.”

He promised or, considering the circumstances, threatened to do just that. On that distrustful note we both punched off.

There was one more loose end, and Phyllis was dangling at the end of it. So I dialed her next and, when she answered on the second ring, I said, “Drummond here.”

She replied, with a note of impatience, “Where’s here?”

“Back.” I told her very nicely, “And by the way, thank you for not blowing up my plane. It meant a lot to me. Seriously.” I asked, “Did you get my message about Hirschfield and Tigerman?”

She did not respond to my paranoia, yet could not resist reproaching me about procedural minutiae. She said, “You know better than to leave an electronic message. What if I misplaced the phone, or if I hadn’t checked my messages?”

“They’d be dead. So what? I never liked them anyway. Neither do you.”

“You wouldn’t be so cavalier if they
were
dead.”

“Wouldn’t I? There are more where they came from. Arrogant eggheads are a dime a dozen.”

“I don’t think I like your attitude.” That was the whole point. Phyllis had decided there were things she didn’t want me to know that turned out to be things I needed to know. As a lawyer, I expect clients to mislead me and withhold important information, because they are guilty and they want to hide it. So now it was time to learn the source of Phyllis’s guilt. She said, “Tell me what that message was about. What exactly is the threat to Tigerman and Hirschfield?”

“I’m not in the mood.” I changed subjects and asked, “Hey, how about those two dead princes? Did your sheik friend freak out or what?”

“It’s very . . . unfortunate. Turki won’t even take my calls. In our business, these deals are supposedly sacred.” She added in a tone suggesting I should be very concerned, “The White House is ordering a full investigation.”

“So now we’re investigating our investigations. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?” I added after a moment, “You should remind them that investigations don’t always turn up results they like. Consider this one.”

She now sensed that Sean Drummond was a problem employee whom she was mishandling. She said in a far friendlier tone, “Sean, come straight to Langley. We’re all waiting for you.”

“I don’t think so. I’m now the spy out in the cold. Isn’t that how you people phrase it?” I added, “I told you to get rid of me. You should’ve listened.”