The Lion's Game (62 page)

Thinking of my own long-distance relationship with Beth Penrose, and my former marriage, I wasn’t sure what was better. But I said, “Of course.”

She further revealed, “I like older men.”

I guess that meant me. I asked, “Why?”

“I like the pre-sensitive generation. Like my father. When men were men.”

“Like Attila the Hun.”

“You know what I mean.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the men of your generation, Kate. It’s your job and the people on it. They’re probably okay guys, too, but they work for the Federal government, which has become very strange.”

“Maybe that’s it. Jack is okay, for instance. He’s older, and he acts normal half the time.”

“Right.”

She said, “I don’t usually throw myself at men.”

“I’m used to it.”

She laughed. “Okay, enough morning-after talk.”

“Good.”

So, we made small talk—the kind of stuff that used to be pre-coital talk thirty years ago. The country has changed, mostly for the better, I think, but the sex thing has become more, rather than less, confusing. Maybe I’m the only one who’s confused. I’ve dated women who are into the new/old concept of chastity and modesty as well as women who’ve switched mounts faster than a pony express rider. And it was hard to tell who was who by appearances, or even by what they said. The women have it easier—all men are pigs. It’s that simple.

Anyway, you’re not supposed to talk about classified stuff in the presence of civilians, even Albanian taxi drivers who pretend they don’t speak English and don’t know where Federal Plaza is—so we made small talk all the way downtown, getting to know each other.

I suggested we get out of the taxi a block before our destination and arrive separately. But Kate said, “No, this is fun. Let’s see who notices and who leers.” She added, “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

The FBI, of course, is not like most private employers, or even the NYPD for that matter, and they do keep an eye out for possible sexual conflicts and problems. Notice that Mulder and Scully still haven’t gotten it on. I wonder if they get laid at all. Anyway, I was only working for the FBI on contract, so it wasn’t my problem.

The taxi arrived at 26 Federal Plaza before 9:00 A.M., and I paid the driver.

We got out and entered the lobby together, but there weren’t many of our colleagues around, and the ones we recognized didn’t seem to notice that we’d arrived together, late, in the same cab, and that I hadn’t changed my clothes. When you’re doing it with a workmate, you think everyone knows, but usually people have more important things on their minds. If Koenig was around, however, he’d be on to us, and he’d be pissed. I know the type.

There was a newsstand in the lobby, and we bought the
Times
, the
Post
, the
Daily News
, and
USA Today
, despite the fact that all these newspapers and more are delivered to us five days a week. I like my newspapers fresh, unread, and unclipped.

As we waited for the elevator, I perused the headline story in the
Times
, which was the story about the newly admitted terrorist attack. A familiar name and face caught my eye, and I said, “Holy shit. Excuse my French. The brioches are repeating on me.”

“What is it?”

I held up the newspaper. She stared at it and said, “Oh ...”

To make a long article short, the
Times
printed my name, and then a photograph of me taken supposedly at JFK on Saturday, though I don’t recall wearing that suit Saturday. It was obviously a doctored photo, and so were a few quotes from me that I didn’t recall saying, except for one that said, “I think Khalil is still in the New York metropolitan area, and if he is, we’ll find him.” I didn’t actually say that verbatim and not for public consumption. I made a mental note to punch little Alan Parker in the nose.

Kate was going through the
Daily News
and said, “Here’s a quote from me. It says we came very close to capturing Asad Khalil at JFK, but he had accomplices at the airport and managed to evade us.”

She looked up at me.

I said, “See? That’s why we didn’t have to talk to the press. Jack or Alan or somebody did the talking for us.”

She shrugged, then said, “Well, we agreed to being ... what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Bait. Where’s
your
picture?”

“Maybe they’ll run it tomorrow. Or this afternoon.” She added, “I don’t photograph that well.” She laughed.

The elevator came, and we rode up with other people going to the ATTF offices. We all made small talk, except for the people reading the newspapers. One guy glanced at me, then back at his paper. He said, “Hey, you’re on Khalil’s Most Wanted List.”

Everyone laughed. Why was I not finding this funny?

Someone else said, “Don’t stand too close to Corey.”

More laughter. The higher the elevator went, the stupider the jokes got. Even Kate chimed in and said, “I have a bottle of Lady Clairol blonde I can lend you.”

Ha, ha, ha. If I weren’t a gentleman, I’d have announced that Ms. Mayfield was a very natural blonde.

Anyway, we got off at the ICC on the twenty-sixth floor, and Kate said to me, “Sorry. That was funny.”

“I must be missing the joke.”

We walked toward the ICC. “Come on, John. You’re not in any real danger.”

“Then let’s use your photo tomorrow.”

“I don’t care. I volunteered.”

We went into the ICC and made our way toward our desks, greeting people as we went. No one made any amusing comments about my photo in the newspaper. It was all very professional here, and the elevator funnies were an aberration, a moment of unguarded un-FBI behavior. The elevator comedians were probably all reporting each other now for laughing. If this was my old Homicide squad room, they’d have a blown-up photo of me captioned, “Asad Khalil Is Looking for This Man—Can You Help?”

I sat at my desk. In reality, there was almost no chance that my photo in the papers, or even on television, was going to draw Khalil out, or that I would become his target. Unless I got too close to him.

Kate sat opposite me and began flipping through the paperwork on her desk. “My God, there are tons of stuff here.”

“Most of it is garbage.”

I scanned the
New York Times
, looking for the story of the murder of the American banker in Frankfurt. Finally, I found a small AP piece that gave only the barest details and made no mention of any Asad Khalil connection.

I assumed that the various authorities didn’t want to help create confusion amongst the American citizenry and law enforcement people, who were looking for Khalil here.

I gave the newspaper to Kate, who read the article. She said, “They must be having some doubts about this.” She added, “And they don’t want to play into the hands of Libyan Intelligence, if that’s what this murder is about.”

“Right.” Most of the homicides I’ve dealt with were committed by idiots. The international intelligence game is played by people who are so smart that they
act
like idiots. People like Ted Nash and his opponents. Their brilliant schemes get so convoluted that half of them must wake up every morning trying to remember whose side they’re on that week and what lie was the truth disguised as a lie disguised as the truth. No wonder Nash didn’t say much—he used most of his mental energy trying to resolve conflicting reality. My motto is—Keep it simple, stupid.

Anyway, Kate reached for the telephone and said, “We need to call Jack.”

“It’s six hours earlier in Frankfurt. He’s asleep.”

“It’s six hours
later
. He’ll be in the field office.”

“Whatever. Let him call us.”

She hesitated, then put down the receiver.

We both read the headline stories in the newspapers, commenting to each other about how the media didn’t have to be manipulated—they managed to get most of the pre-packaged news wrong anyway. Only the
Times
, to give the Gray Lady her due, got most of it right. But, as with my files, the important and interesting stuff was missing.

There were photos of Khalil again in all the newspapers, and a few doctored shots had him wearing glasses, a beard, a mustache, and grayish hair parted differently. This, of course, was supposed to alert the public to the possibility that the fugitive had changed his appearance. What it accomplished, however, was to make the public suspicious of innocent people with glasses, mustaches, and beards. Also, as a cop, I knew that the thinnest of disguises were usually effective, and even I might not be able to spot this guy in a crowd if he was smiling and wearing a mustache.

I perused the articles to see if anyone had taken my suggestions about making public the theory that Mrs. Khalil and Mr. Gadhafi were more than friends. But I didn’t see any hint of that.

Despite my motto of keeping it simple, there are times when psychological warfare is good stuff, but underused by the military and by law enforcement—except when the cops question a suspect and use the old “good cop/bad cop” routine. In any case, you have to plant seeds of doubt and deception through the media, and hope the fugitive reads it and believes it, and that the good guys remember that it’s bullshit.

On that subject, I was wondering if Mr. Khalil was reading about himself and seeing himself on TV. I tried to picture him somewhere, holed up in a cheap rooming house in an Arab neighborhood, eating canned goat meat, watching daytime TV, and reading the newspapers. But I couldn’t picture that. I pictured him, instead, nattily dressed in his suit, out there in public, working on fucking us again.

If this case had a name, it would be called “The Case of the Missing Information.” Some of the stuff missing in the news was missing because they didn’t know it. But what was also missing was stuff they should have known or concluded. The most glaring thing missing was any reference to April 15, 1986. Some hotshot reporter with half a brain, or half a memory, or a modem, should have made this connection. Even newspaper reporters weren’t that stupid, so I had to figure that the news was being managed a little. The press will cooperate with the Feds for a few days or a week, if they can be convinced that national security is at stake. On the other hand, maybe I was reading too much into what I wasn’t reading. I asked Kate, “Why didn’t any of these stories mention the anniversary date of the Libyan raid?”

She looked up from her desk and replied, “I guess someone asked them not to. It’s not a good idea to give the other side the public relations it wants. They make a big deal of anniversary dates, but if we ignore it, they get frustrated.”

Sounded good to me. There were a lot of considerations regarding an event of this magnitude. The bad actors were putting on a tragedy, but we weren’t going to give them free advertising.

Anyway, there wasn’t much new in the news, so I accessed my voice mail as Kate was now doing. I should have used the handset rather than the speaker because the first message was from Beth at 7:12 A.M. She said, “Hey, you. I called your place last night and this morning, but didn’t leave a message. Where are you hiding? Call me at home until eight, then the office. Miss you. Big wet kiss. Bye.”

Kate continued listening to her own voice mail, pretending not to hear. I said, as if to myself, “Got to call Mom back,” but I didn’t think that was going to fly.

Anyway, the next message was from Jack Koenig, who said, “Message for Corey and Mayfield. Call me.” He gave a long phone number with lots of zeros and ones, and I guessed he wasn’t back in his office down the hall.

There was a similar message from Teddy Nash, which I deleted.

There were no further messages, and I looked at new stuff on my desk.

After a few minutes, Kate looked up and said, “Who was that?”

“Jack and Ted.”

“I mean the other one.”

“Oh ... Mom?”

She said something that sounded like “wool shirt,” but I may have misunderstood. She stood and walked away from her desk.

So, I’m sitting there, sleep-deprived, the bullet hole in my abdomen aching, six undercooked brioches in my stomach, the last and final act of my career in trouble, and some crazed terrorist is drinking camel milk somewhere, staring at my picture in the papers. I could handle all of that. But did I need
this?
I mean, I thought I’d been up-front with Kate.

Just when I was having second thoughts about Ms. Mayfield, she returned with two mugs of coffee and put one on my desk. “Dark, one sugar. Right?”

“Right. No strychnine. Thanks.”

“I can run out and get you an Egg McMuffin if you’d like. With cheese and sausage.”

“No, thanks.”

“A man on the move needs solid food.”

“Actually, I’m just sitting here. Coffee is fine. Thanks.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t take your vitamins this morning. Let me run out and get you some vitamins.”

I was detecting a wee bit of taunting in Ms. Mayfield’s tone, or maybe the word of the morning was baiting. Not only
was
I bait, I was
being
baited. I said, “Thanks, but coffee is all I need.” I lowered my head and studied a memo in front of me.

She sat opposite me and sipped her coffee. I felt her eyes on me. I looked up at her, but those blue eyes, which were heavenly a little while ago, had turned to ice cubes.

We stared at each other, then finally she said, “Sorry,” and went back to her paperwork.

I said, “I’ll take care of it.”

Without looking up, she replied, “You’d better.”

After a minute or two, we got back to the business of catching the world’s most wanted terrorist. She said, “There’s a combined report from various police departments regarding car rentals in the metropolitan area ... basically, thousands of cars are rented every day, but they’re trying to isolate cars rented to people with Mideastern-sounding names. Sounds like a long shot.”