The Middleman

by Olen Steinhauer

  “You have no idea where Ingrid is?” Sarah Vale asked, as if this question were very important.

  “It’s a big country,” Rachel replied. “She could be anywhere.”

  “Well, it would be really helpful if we could find her.”

  “Why?”

  Vale rocked her head from side to side. “From what we’ve gathered, she was closest to Bishop at the end. We expected her to show up when the amnesty was announced, but she never raised her head.”

  Rachel, too, had wondered about Ingrid’s disappearance. “Then why isn’t her picture on the wanted lists? I haven’t seen it.”

  Johnson leaned forward. “Honestly? We don’t want some local cops going Rambo on her—she’s got a baby. We just want to bring her in and have a conversation.”

  By the time she’d worked her way through the events of July 4, their Thai lunches had arrived, and as they cracked open polystyrene boxes, releasing fragrant steam into the little room, Rachel took the opportunity to turn the conversation around. She asked if her story thus far jibed with the report Jakes had filed, and their replies were noncommittal. She asked if the congressional investigation into Watertown was causing anxiety in the halls of the Hoover Building—was Jakes worried about keeping his job? Paulson? Neither wanted to answer that, but Vale said, “Sometimes the idea of being here in Seattle, on the edge of the continent, feels like a smart career move.”

  That answer said a lot without admitting a thing, just like Johnson’s reply when she asked if Owen Jakes knew they were meeting with her: “Let’s try not to bother him with details.”

  She liked them both.

  4

  “IT’S ODD,” she admitted once their trash had been taken by an assistant whose name, after four months, Rachel still couldn’t remember. “You keep referring to my ‘report’—it was hardly that. A collection of notes. An attempt at a narrative. There’s no way what I wrote could be considered a report.”

  “Why not?” Vale asked, pressing RECORD again.

  “My information was too fragmented. I obviously never got the chance to speak to Bishop or Mittag, and I was only able to get a few minutes with OSWALD—Kevin Moore. I made mistakes, certainly, but I never imagined that I wouldn’t be able to sit down with Bishop and ask all the questions that needed to be answered. The Massive investigation ended with more questions than it had begun with.”

  “Such as?” Johnson asked.

  “Such as, why shoot those politicians? Where did the Brigade get its funding? We tracked it to Magellan Holdings but ran into a dead end. Has that led any further?”

  She gave them a moment to answer her question, but they just stared back at her, waiting.

  “But maybe the most important question is: Who was sharing information with Sam Schumer?”

  “Schumer?” Vale asked, now that Rachel had broached a subject she was authorized to engage with. “Is this about him finding out about Bishop’s murder before us?”

  “Exactly.”

  Johnson nodded slowly, as if she’d brought up a very important point. Vale vaped, that green ember pulsing. But neither wanted to follow up on her important point, so Rachel said, “Bishop was killed in an empty field, outside of a tiny town in the literal center of the country. We only learned about it because a passerby noticed Mittag and some others standing around. We hadn’t even verified his death by the time Schumer posted the news.”

  Vale nodded, as if she agreed that it was a mystery, then said, “Schumer has a hotline for calling in tips. Whoever called the Lebanon police could have called him. Or one of the officers might’ve called. He’s got quite a following out there.”

  “The anonymous caller didn’t mention a murder, just Mittag and three others, talking. And we asked the police officers—they didn’t call Schumer.”

  “But it was news in the station, certainly.”

  Rachel didn’t want to argue the point so long after the fact, but Johnson and Vale really wanted her opinion. “I didn’t think that was what happened. The only thing that made sense to me was that Schumer had a source within Massive. That he was communicating with the group. Which meant that he was privy to information we didn’t have access to, and maybe he had been all along.”

  “So you went to Sam Schumer,” Johnson said as he rubbed his face. Exhaustion seemed to be settling in.

  Rachel didn’t check the time, and there were no windows to gauge the hour, but she guessed they had been talking six hours by then. Vale puffed on her e-cigarette, and Rachel told them about her phone call with Schumer, remembering the cigarette stink of that back room in the sheriff’s office as, over the phone, Schumer told her about his “ace in the hole.”

  “His other source was FBI?” Vale asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  She shook her head. “I’m saying that Sam Schumer had a source in Massive but wasn’t about to admit it. So he lied. It’s second nature to him.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “No,” Rachel said. “I’m not a hundred percent about anything. I just know the alternative is unthinkable.”

  Johnson woke up a little. “How so?”

  “Because if Schumer’s source really was FBI, then the timing damns us. How else could we have known he was dead? It would mean that we killed Martin Bishop, not his own people. And if that’s true, those crowds out there, who already suspect this, are going to set fire to this country.”

  That earned a moment of silence. Vale turned the e-cigarette in her fingers like a baton while Johnson stared at Rachel, chewing his lip. Finally, he said, “We might as well move on to Watertown.”

  “Yes,” Vale said quietly.

  Rachel stared at the pulsing green light, then shrugged. “OSWALD had given Janet Fordham the location of Benjamin Mittag, so there was nothing to do but fly straight to South Dakota.”

  Johnson scratched the corner of his mouth. “Was that the only information OSWALD shared?”

  She shook her head. “Fordham said he was upset. He asked if we had killed Bishop. Later, he told me about the long-range rifle shot, from a white pickup truck.”

  Johnson and Vale exchanged looks, as if each wanted the other to speak first.

  “What?” said Rachel.

  Johnson finally succumbed, stretching in his chair. “Weird thing. The Bureau’s worried that if that detail—the white pickup—goes into the final report it’s going to open a can of worms. Martin Bishop dead from infighting—that story makes sense. It’s something you can hang your hat on. But this, a deus ex machina bullet coming from the cornfields to—”

  “Wheat,” Vale cut in.

  “What?”

  “Wheat fields, not cornfields.”

  Johnson, irritated, shook his head. “Whatever. A magic bullet suddenly gets rid of public enemy number one. How’s that going to look? It’s going to be the seed of a thousand conspiracy theories. You said it yourself—it would be unthinkable.”

  Rachel finally understood what was going on here. “What does it say in the report?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Johnson. “It’s concluded that Mittag killed Bishop. The report doesn’t mess with details. And you can see why, right?”

  Rachel didn’t bother answering. She had a feeling that this was why they’d flown across the country to spend all day with her in this room. To get her to this point in the story.

  “Who killed him?” she asked.

  “We don’t know,” Johnson said. “Whoever it was, though, did us quite a solid.”

  “It’s not like we’re not investigating,” Vale said. “We’ve got a team puzzling through it as we speak. But for now, for the public, it would be dangerous to present questions we can’t answer.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said.

  Vale leaned closer, smiling. “Yes?”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “So you’re on board?”

  “On board?”

  Vale’s smile faded; she looked at Johnson, who said, “Can we depend o
n you to not go telling the press about that big, glaring hole in the report?”

  Ah. There it was. Rachel lowered her head to give them a good, strong look. “Like I said before, I don’t talk to the press. Not anymore.”

  5

  “HAD TO be a letdown,” Johnson said after a moment.

  She looked at him.

  “There you are, working months—years, really—tracking these people. And then suddenly Bishop’s dead.”

  She thought about that—had it been a letdown? Had she been so driven by ego that this unexpected turn of events troubled her in that way? Yes, actually. She remembered listening to those giddy field agents—we’re getting drunk tonight—and the deflation that followed. The sudden emptiness. And then …

  “And then there was Watertown,” she said heavily.

  Vale sucked on her nicotine, released a cloud. “Sounds to me like you did everything right, though.”

  “Maybe,” Rachel said. “But just because you do something right doesn’t guarantee that anything’s going to turn out right.”

  “No matter how it turned out,” said Johnson, “the fact is that, after the night of July 8, the Massive Brigade was no longer a threat to American security.”

  Vale agreed. “It always sucks to see how the sausage is made, but people just keep ordering sausage.”

  Rachel looked at them both, thinking that it was easy to talk about the pros and cons of unnecessary deaths when you weren’t present for them. It was like a flat-footed twenty-year-old joining a war rally, or a male politician expounding on abortion legislation. She hadn’t been there either, though. She’d been on the other side of a soybean field, watching two monitors that lit up a foul-smelling barn. She’d seen the silent approach, soft footsteps up to the doors and windows, the placing of small charges, the 3-2-1 countdown, and then chaos.

  And then that sheriff. She said, “Donegal made it clear that Owen was responsible for what had happened.”

  Johnson exhaled, long and hard. “And you believed Sheriff Donegal?”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “I don’t know, Rachel. Why would anyone lie? But they do. Every day, and in every way. People lie. It’s what makes our jobs so goddam hard.”

  Rachel leaned back, rubbing her leg—it was screaming. “Look, I’m not proud of what I did. But Owen’s little unauthorized pep talk killed nine people. I’m not sorry I did it, and I never will be. I’m only sorry that it made him into a victim, and that as a result he’s got himself a new office and now lords it over good agents like yourself.”

  Vale reached over and paused the recording. “Don’t worry. I can erase that last bit.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “If he ever listens to this, then I want him to know exactly what I think of his sorry ass.”

  That earned a lengthy silence and, eventually, a grin from Vale, who started recording again. “There were two survivors, yes?”

  “A girl from Portland, Oregon, and OSWALD.”

  “OSWALD,” said Johnson. “Now, his debrief we do have. How much time did you get with him, before…”

  “Not long. Twenty minutes, maybe, before I was shipped back home. All I had left was my story, which I wrote on the flight back.”

  She could have said more, but neither of her interrogators cared about the fury she’d felt as she banged at the keyboard, making very clear how Owen Jakes had, with malice, undermined her operation. No, that wasn’t their mission. Blame was beyond their purview. Just the facts, ma’am.

  “How long,” Vale asked, “before you were shot?”

  Instinctively, she rubbed her leg again. “Ten days. I was on leave, waiting for my hearing. And, yes, I’d been drinking.”

  “Alone?” asked Johnson.

  “Alone,” she admitted. “What’s frustrating is that I’d had too much; my vision was bad. I was on the sidewalk, heading home. Late. Empty street. Then a man appeared at the next corner. Had I been sober, I would’ve realized what was happening. But I didn’t.” She took a deep breath, feeling that spot in her thigh, remembering the blinding pain. “He just stood there, as if he were waiting for me. Or waiting until he could ID me. I stopped. Then he fired once—a .357 caliber—and disappeared.”

  “Did you ID him?” Johnson asked.

  “I gave a description—Caucasian, forties, a little gray—but it wasn’t enough for a match. And whoever he was, he knew how to avoid street cameras.”

  “It’s still an open case,” Vale pointed out.

  “Half open,” Rachel said, and when they looked confused she shrugged. “Come on. Paulson put me in the press release—my name was out there. For anyone who worshipped the martyrs Bishop and Mittag, I was the devil. You should’ve seen the threats on my Facebook page before I closed it down.” Neither seemed impressed by what she was saying, so she spelled it out for them. “We’ll probably never know who shot me, but we damned well know that he was a follower of the Massive Brigade.”

  “Yes,” Johnson said, agreeing finally. Vale nodded as well.

  What Rachel didn’t tell them, and wouldn’t—it wasn’t their business—was that she’d felt no fear when she was shot, just confusion. The only time she felt actual fear was the next evening, when she woke in the hospital, after the operation, to find Gregg sitting in a chair, eyes on her. She even jerked, wanting to get away from those hands of his, but her leg was in no shape to help her escape. It was in the paper, he said by way of explanation, and when he nodded at the bouquet of lilies he’d brought—Mackenzie’s idea—and leaned in close to kiss her forehead she thought she might vomit. It had been a very long time since she’d been able to trust kindness from Gregg Wills, because she knew how quickly it could turn to acid.

  “You know,” she said, wanting to purge any thoughts of her ex, “getting shot probably helped me. It was harder for them to can an agent who’d just taken one for the team.”

  That earned her more silence; then Johnson checked his watch. Rachel checked her own—it was nearly four thirty. They’d spent the entire day in this miserable little room. “Are we done?” she asked.

  Again, these two emissaries from DC conferred with a glance. “Almost,” said Vale. Johnson reached down and finally lifted the briefcase that had been next to his feet all day. Popped it open, took out a manila folder, and passed it to her. Vale said, “Given the sensitivity of the investigation, and the way public opinion is so volatile right now, it would be really helpful if you signed this.”

  Rachel opened the folder and found three pages, stapled. There was her name and address, and below it a series of paragraphs and subsections that led to a final page with space for her signature. She read the opening lines, verifying what she had suspected from the moment he pulled out the folder. “It’s a nondisclosure agreement.”

  “Yes,” said Vale.

  She furrowed her brow. “This isn’t necessary. Everything I’ve done for the Bureau is classified. And I already told you, I’m not speaking to the press.”

  “Then just consider it a lawyerly formality,” Vale suggested.

  Rachel returned to the contract, reaching a section called “Penalties.” It said, among other things, that if she were to speak to anyone—not just the press, but anyone—about events related to the investigation and apprehension of the Massive Brigade, not only would she be prosecuted with life in prison and forfeit her government pension, but she would automatically relinquish her United States passport. She looked up at them. “Have you read this?”

  “Of course,” said Johnson.

  She pushed it back across the table. “I’m not signing.”

  “Rachel,” said Vale, a pleading note to her voice. “We believe that you have no plans to approach anyone, but, hey, we’re all adults here. You have well-documented anger issues, and you blame Owen Jakes for what happened in Watertown. You’ve said it yourself. Put those two together, and when the report comes out next week and you read it and get angry about something you don’t agree with … what will you do?�
��

  “Why don’t you show me the report now, so I can tell you?”

  Vale leaned back, and Johnson leaned forward. “We’re not joking around. Do you think the report is going to describe the Watertown raid the way you just did? People’s jobs depend on the story—and it’s true, by the way—that the occupants had guns and explosives. You throw a wrench in that? Good people lose their careers, and assholes in the streets will start smashing private property.”

  Rachel stood up, and her leg, immobile for so long, tingled and barked in pain. She really didn’t want to listen to this. “You two seem like decent agents, and you probably believe a lot of what you’re saying. But, no. Take those pages back to Jakes and tell him to smoke them, okay?”

  Vale shook her head. “Don’t be stupid, Rachel…”

  “Have a nice flight home,” she said, and limped past them to the door. She opened it, stepped through, and once the door closed behind her she grimaced and rubbed her thigh. Christ, but it hurt. Then she looked up to see Paula, Chuck, and Henry staring at her from their desks. Awkward smiles. She hobbled over to her desk and grabbed her things. Henry hovered around her. “Everything cool?”

  “Tell Max I’ve gone home, will you?”

  He turned to look back to where Lyle Johnson and Sarah Vale were exiting the interview room. Johnson was on his cell. As Rachel turned to leave, Vale looked in her direction and, sadly, smiled. The poor woman looked like she was about to cry.

  6

  SHE ATE at a dependable vegan restaurant around the corner from her apartment, and while waiting for the mock duck she ran through messages, then called her mother and listened to her day. A pharmacy visit, a minor scuffle with her insurer over medication preapproval, and lunch with Derek, the widower who had been courting her for years now. It was good to listen to her mother’s life. It helped distract her from what her own life had become—rising early, chasing that television for therapy, hiding her pain in the office. Back in DC, before attacking Owen Jakes, and before the stranger with the .357, her days had been unpredictable. Upon waking she couldn’t be sure in which city she would sleep that night, and the hours in between carried an urgency that she hadn’t known since.