by Fritz Galt
Their conversation suddenly having ended, she felt a distinct sense of loss. Whatever they might discuss was gone.
She turned back to the young man who had burst into their conversation. “So talk. Who are you?”
“I’m from the inspector general’s office,” he said with an air of superiority.
“So what? I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“I need to ask you some questions.”
“Do I need my lawyer?”
He eased off from his hard-guy pose and gave a self-deprecating smile. “No. All I need is some cooperation.”
She was skeptical. “Don’t you need some sort of warrant?”
She had no idea how the IG office worked. Was it there to intimidate employees or improve the organization? She had responded to requests for information before and complied with the annual inspection teams sent to her department. But she had never been interrogated by someone from the office that policed the agency.
He spun away and she got a good look at the hairs on the back of his neck. “We might be able to discuss this,” he said, and turned back, “over dinner tonight.”
“Dinner?” That was rather forward.
“As in a restaurant.”
“Should I assume that what you are seeking is unclassified information?”
“Could be. But it might be best discussed informally.”
He gave her the creeps. Either she complied and cleaned her hands of the matter, or she resisted and risked becoming the target of an inspector general’s probe.
She stared at the ID badge hanging around his neck. Clearly he, as a fellow CIA employee, would not try to take advantage of her.
“Let’s meet at Tyson’s after work,” he said.
“Where specifically?”
“The Silver Diner at eight o’clock?”
That was specific. “Sure. As long as you’re playing.”
“It’s Company business,” he said coolly.
That gave her a shiver. How many women had he used that on? At last she nodded. “As long as this isn’t a date.”
“Of course not.”
After Barry Wiseman left her lab, she locked the door and leaned against it. Why was he there in the first place? Was he after the Aleppo Codex? No, he had to ask what “The Crown” meant.
Maybe he was after her. Had she done something wrong that made her the subject of an investigation?
She thought back over the past few weeks of her workaholic existence. She had come and gone from her Maryland apartment without incident and certainly without any wrongdoing. Her conscience had been clear until Barry Wiseman had walked into her lab.
Maybe he had just stumbled across her lab and her Jewish name had caught his attention. Was he trying to pick her up?
He came across as a shmendrik, a clueless mama’s boy looking for a bride. She hadn’t checked for a ring. He was far too aggressive to be married.
Now, Dean Wells. He must be married. Come to think of it, did Dean wear a ring?
She sat down. She was so confused. Why were men circling her like sharks? Was it her perfume?
She struggled to get her mind back on work.
One look at the computer screen brought her back to the mystery of the codex. Dean had planted a thought that she couldn’t shake. She had to establish ownership.
The first step was to authenticate it. There was only one authority she knew who could do that, a friend who had just written a scholarly work on the Aleppo Codex.
She reached for the telephone and called Columbia University in New York.
A grandfatherly voice answered the phone.
“I have something that will make your day…” she began.
A few minutes later, she hung up. Saul Friedman, Professor of Jewish Studies, was on his way to Langley.
Men of all ages were suddenly throwing themselves at her feet.
Maybe it was the codex.
Chapter 11
Dean left Rachel’s office with a clear destination in mind: the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
He was headed to a city that lay beyond the Israeli security shield and the protection of Jordan. It was a Palestinian enclave sealed off from the outside world.
He ran down to the Israel desk and squared a few things away. They would arrange safe passage for him in and out of Israel.
He patted the diplomatic passport in his breast pocket. If things went wrong, he had a few friends in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
On his way through the Near East and North Africa bureau, he stopped by his desk for some more light logistics.
He called the young woman who lived across the street, had an extra key, and kept an eye on his house. Maybe she knew about his missing service pistol.
“Have you seen anyone enter my house?”
“Only you,” she replied. “But I could come by and clean up for you.”
He knew the economy was bad, but he wasn’t sure that’s what she had in mind.
“Have you been in my house lately?” he persisted. “I’m missing something valuable.”
“Are you accusing me of robbery?”
“No. Borrowed anything?”
There was silence on the other end.
Then another thought hit him. “Have you been feeding my cat?”
“No. She doesn’t like me.”
He hung up mystified. Who had taken his gun? Maybe it was one of the workmen he had hired to service the central air. He didn’t have time to explore that possibility. He had to visit his boss and discuss his plans.
José Gomez cleared his schedule for Dean. He took note that Dean would meet Abdul Aziz in Hebron.
“Hebron is in the Palestinian Territories.”
“I know,” Dean said.
“How do you know he will be in Hebron?”
Dean smiled. “A certain analyst in languages combed through the codex. If you ever need something translated, ask for Rachel Levy.”
“I’ll file that away for future reference. So, are you going to wear one of those rags around your head?”
Dean straightened his blue suit. “You know me.”
Gomez pulled out a map of Israel and spread it out on his desk. He searched around a bit, then put his finger on the West Bank.
“Israel never ceases to amaze me,” Gomez said. “Look how close everything is. Tel Aviv is just thirty miles northwest of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is five miles south of Ramallah. Ramallah is only forty miles from Amman, Jordan’s capital. And yet, you go from the sea to a divided city to a disputed area to a Palestinian territory to the River Jordan to an Arab kingdom in less than a hundred miles.”
“With lots of sharp elbows in between,” Dean added.
Gomez traced the borders of the West Bank, a large area that took up nearly a third of Israel. “I’m also always surprised by how large the West Bank is,” he said. “What are the Palestinians belly-aching about? In any peace agreement, they’ll get all of northeast Israel.”
Dean made no comment. He never took sides in the dispute. It was easy to argue the rights of both sides and easy to argue that a pluralistic society had no sides. He dealt with the facts on the ground.
Gomez’s finger then drifted southward from the central city of Ramallah past Jerusalem and Bethlehem to the city of Hebron, landlocked in the dry hills of southern Judea. It lay forty miles across an Israeli desert from the tiny sliver of land called the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean coast. “And here’s Hebron down here in the middle of nowhere.”
“The largest city in the West Bank,” Dean reminded him.
“So it is.”
Dean had been to other cities in the West Bank: Nablus and Jericho to the north, Jerusalem in the center and Bethlehem south of that. “I’ve never been to Hebron,” he admitted. “Nowadays it’s kind of a war zone.”
“Israeli troops still occupy the streets?”
“No. But Israel has a presence and artillery aimed at the city from the surrounding hills.”
“To the Tomb of the Patriarchs. I’ll have to find out more once I arrive. I expect to meet directly with Abdul Aziz.”
“And you’re sure money will do the trick? You think he’s soft enough? Remember what happened to Palestinian traitors in Gaza. Hamas executed them. Imagine what Palestinians would do to Aziz if they found him taking money from an American.”
“He’s taking a risk just talking to me,” Dean said. “I can’t say if he’s completely receptive to our offer or not. But sending his daughters to Stanford would be a real success and give us lots of leverage.”
“He’s playing a high-stakes game. If the radicals catch wind of this, he’ll be stoned in the public square.”
“If he has the support of his faction that I think he has, he should be just fine.”
Gomez still looked dubious. “Are you sure about your personal security?”
“I’m never sure about anything. But we’ve got to try. The last thing we need is a major faction of the Palestinian Authority going over to al-Qaeda.”
Gomez’s dark eyes remained fixed on Dean. “I’m letting you take a pass on this one.”
Dean shook his head. “No chance. This is what I live for.”
Gomez sat back and folded the map. “You’re risking your life. And if you’re compromised, you’re completely deniable.”
Dean had been aware of the rules of the game for his whole career. “I’m prepared for that.”
“If made to speak, you will admit nothing.”
He was prepared for torture. He had been trained to withstand pain for a sufficient length of time to allow members of his team to escape.
“Nobody’s going to come in and rescue you,” Gomez said.
Dean nodded. He was all alone.
“Okay, then. Good luck.” Gomez rose to his feet.
The two men shook hands, and Dean was on his way.
Gomez had put up a good fight, probably because he didn’t want to lose a man in the field. But Dean left the office with a bounce in his step. Gomez had allowed him to complete the mission.
He directed his thoughts to the logistics of entering the West Bank. How would he get to Hebron without revealing the money and student visas?
Aleppo had been a relatively open and inviting place. Hebron would not be.
Chapter 12
Carla tried sitting at her desk and catching up on email. Several hot issues had come up that required her attention. But, for some reason, the words were just swimming before her eyes.
When mental block struck, she had two solutions. One was the unlimited supply of candy bars in the vending machine outside the Mental Health Unit. The other was her private email account, which she could only access through her unclassified computer.
She swiveled her desk chair and logged into the unclassified system. There she kept threads of conversations going for days with a wide circle of friends. Within moments, she was greeted by new messages.
Jody thanked her for dinner and asked if Carla would consider a blind date.
“Aargh!”
She logged out of her account without replying and shut the system down.
Her attention traveled to the stack of folders on her desk.
The personnel file for Dean Wells lay on top. Below that was Dean’s security file. His was an interesting case. Matt Nelson in Security had been troubled by what so many eyewitnesses, not to mention Syria’s security apparatus, claimed Dean had committed.
Dean had seemed so dismissive of the claim. Either he was putting up a convincing front, or he felt blameless and relied on less bright minds in senior positions to eventually sort it all out. Maybe Dean had more important things to attend to.
She had already given her diagnosis and closed the file on him. He was not guilty. He did not kill his contact before he could obtain any information. She decided to do him a favor and drop the case. She picked up his personnel file and headed to Ron’s office with purpose. But her boss was nowhere in sight.
“Ron?”
“Yes?”
He was under his desk working with a poorly fitting shoe.
She stated her business. “I’m done with the Dean Wells case.”
“Why?” came the response from under the desk.
“Despite Matt Nelson’s concerns, the guy doesn’t need us pestering him. I’ve given him a clean bill of health.”
Ron appeared and his eyes shot up to her. “You stand by that?”
“I trust my own diagnosis.”
Ron stood and tested his shoe. It was as if there was a rock inside it. “I ask because I sent a referral to the inspector general yesterday, and they’re looking into it.”
“Looking for what?”
“You know. Security violations.”
“Security violations? On Dean’s part?”
“He’s only one aspect of the investigation. The IG needs to understand more about the crime.”
“They’re calling this a crime?”
Ron shrugged. “Dean’s own boss wouldn’t refer the case, so I did.”
“If his own boss didn’t worry about it, why should you?”
Ron sat down with a frown and worked with his shoe again. “I was sure Gomez had already reported it. Maybe there’s some dirty laundry he doesn’t want aired.”
She was taken aback. “You’re accusing José Gomez of a cover-up?”
He finally sat upright, his shoe problem fixed. “I’m accusing nobody of anything. In fact, I based my actions on your diagnosis. There’s more to this story and someone has to look into it. If not the area office, then what do we have an inspector general for?”
“Well, the problem is not Dean,” she asserted, and handed over the file.
She left his office mildly annoyed. If the inspector general was treating this like a criminal case, who was going to represent Dean? An ultra-secret organization like the CIA treated security violations as potential sabotage. Suspects were assumed to be guilty until proven innocent.
She was wavering between returning to her desk or raiding the candy machine when she saw a tall figure inside her office. The guy was in need of a shave. He was leafing through a file folder. Maybe he was another patient.
She crossed to her desk and glanced at the folder.
It was Dean’s security file. She snatched it from him.
The young man blinked at her through his thick glasses. “What was that for?”
“Didn’t your mother tell you to stay out of other people’s business?”
He sidled up beside her. He was invading her personal space.
“Get away from me, or I’ll file a sexual harassment grievance so fast, it’ll leave your head spinning.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Does it matter?”
He dug around in his pants, and she tried to avert her gaze. What was he doing?
At last he produced a wallet with a business card. If the guy was on the up and up, it was turning into some weird business meeting.
She ripped the card from his hand. The words jumped out at her: “Inspector General’s Office.”
That explained a lot.
At least she knew why he was there.
“Okay. You’ve got my back to the wall. What do you want?”
He raised his eyebrows above his frames. “Gee, I’m not robbing you. Why are you so defensive?”
“Get away from my desk,” she said, and cleared him out of her way. “Now state your business.”
He shrugged. “I was going to ask you about Dean Wells.”
She dropped the security file on her desk and sat down. “Why do you ask…” she stared at the business card, “Barry Wiseman?”
He eased into the chair opposite her. “You don’t want to talk about him?” he said with unexpected empathy.
Wait. She was the psychologist. What was with this role reversal stuff? Jody had tried it on her just the night before.
“What do yo
u want to know?” she asked at last.
“Did he kill the guy?”
She sighed. That was one question she could answer for the inspector general. “Nothing in my conversation with him indicated culpability,” she said. “However, I can see why there are outstanding issues.”
“Like what?”
“Let me emphasize. I don’t think Dean committed the crime. But you might wonder why there were so many witnesses who said he did, and he has no explanation.”
“There were witnesses?”
“At least five.” She jabbed at the security file. “They’re in the report.”
“He can’t explain the witnesses?”
She shrugged. “Total blank.”
He rose to his feet and squared up the chair. “Thanks for your honest appraisal. Mind if I take this file?”
“It’s yours,” she said. “I’m done with the case.”
Chapter 13
Many CIA employees came to the operations directorate with a background in the military. José Gomez came from law enforcement.
Having grown up on the tough streets of Miami’s Little Havana, he had lived daily with drugs and gangs. But he came from a proud family whose tobacco plantation had been nationalized by Fidel Castro. Any breach of the legal system by Cubans in America was a personal affront to him.
He had emerged from his youth dedicated to the goal of cleaning up the streets. Straight out of the police academy in Miami, he had hit hard at the drug runners. It wasn’t within a policeman’s power to reach the kingpins in foreign drug cartels, so he struck at the hoods who imported, distributed and sold the drugs.
Given his intimate knowledge of the characters involved, he had some early and noteworthy successes that caught the eye of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Soon, he was cooperating on joint operations with federal agents and getting a taste of the broader powers available to law enforcement.
His model of street smarts and taking out the small guy quickly gained the attention of the CIA, and soon they hired him to oversee anti-cartel operations in Colombia. Only now, he could go after the big fish. Strangely, every time he eliminated a kingpin, the business shifted to other drug lords and continued unabated.
