Private Sector

by Brian Haig

  After a tender pause, she said, “Try again.”

  “Again . . . Okay, I heard you were going out with somebody else and I didn’t want to confuse you.” Incidentally, this happened to be true.

  She chuckled. “I was going out with somebody.”

  Note the verb tense. Also how easily I got that out of her. Boy, am I good at this game. I said, “Guess where I am?”

  “I don’t care where you are. You should’ve called. I can sort through confusion.”

  “Maybe I can’t. I’m sitting in my new office at a tightassed firm called Culper, Hutch, and Westin.”

  “You’re the new exchange student?”

  “Lucky me. Clapper said the last one claimed she had such a great time, I’d love it here.”

  “He’s lying. I haven’t even debriefed him yet.” She added, “But you? . . . What was Clapper thinking?”

  “He hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you. I think he hates them.”

  “Well, tomorrow, it’s going to be a much smaller firm. I’m bringing a gun to work. I’ve compiled a list of people I’m going to cap.”

  “I might have some suggestions. What are you working on?”

  “Morris Networks. Same thing you worked on, I’ve been told.”

  “Then you’ve met Cy?”

  “Would he be the guy who counseled me on my lousy manners as he casually mentioned that Clapper and he are asshole buddies?”

  She laughed. “Smooth as a baby’s butt, isn’t he? And Barry?”

  “Yes, Barry. The top spot on my list to get capped.”

  “Good choice. But don’t underestimate him, Sean. He’s vicious. Also very, very smart. He was number one at Stanford Law. Did he mention that yet?”

  “He was working up to it when I cut him off.”

  There was another long pause before she said, “I’m really glad you called. I have some things you might want to hear about Culper, Hutch, and Westin.”

  “No need. I’m supposed to take some ethics and procedures test, and if I fail, I’m back in Clapper’s lap. I mean, this is too easy, you know?” But as a matter of interest, I asked, “Incidentally, did the firm bill your government-funded time to the clients?”

  “Three hundred an hour.”

  “Can you fail because your morals are too high?”

  “That’s how you fail.” She then suggested, “And actually, I’d recommend it. Can we meet tonight?”

  “My place or yours?”

  “Don’t push your luck, Drummond.” She laughed. “Drinks in a neutral corner.”

  “Oh. . . I see.”

  “Don’t get huffy.”

  “I’m not . . . Look, for you, is this meeting business or pleasure?”

  “Strictly business.”

  “Oh. . . I see.”

  There was a long pause before she said, “But what happens after drinks is up for grabs.”

  I laughed.

  She said, “Unfortunately, I have some work to finish up that concerns Culper, Hutch, and Westin. We’ll discuss it. Pentagon, North Parking . . . is around nine okay?”

  “Sure. Look for the suave, good-looking guy driving the Jaguar.”

  “I will.” She asked, “And what will you be driving?”

  Hah-hah.

  She added, “But, Sean, really . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be stupid—do take their suits.”

  “Right.”

  We hung up, and I leaned back into my chair with a nice sappy smile. I should’ve made this call a long time ago. I liked her. I liked her voice. She had one of those throaty voices that send a nice tingle up your spine. It was a sexy, edgy voice, which was part of her almost hypnotic power over male jury members. And probably her gorgeous face, great legs, and primo ass played a role also. But I’m part of the new Army, so thoroughly politically corrected I never even notice a soldier’s sex. Right.

  In truth, I had fibbed—to her and perhaps to myself; my protracted dillying and dallying had a very primitive and reasonable foundation: fear. Some women you go out with, you both have a great time, and maybe it will work and maybe it won’t. Some women are just a great time—remember each other’s names in the morning, don’t complicate things, and everybody’s happy. Lisa Morrow, you don’t run into her type often, and you don’t dive in without considerable forethought, because you know it will be a long, hard climb out of a very deep, dark pit if things don’t work out. But perhaps I’d just reached that time of life, that level of maturity, that emotional plateau where I was ready for something more. I did recall a conversation I’d once had with Miss Morrow where she said she believed in monogamous relationships, long-term commitments, and legally sanctioned castrations for cheaters. That sounded to me like a warning. Was I really ready for this?

  Whatever; we had both made it clear that our previously warm, collegial, professional relationship was about to become something more.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He admired her ass for a long and pleasant moment as she bent down to inspect what he knew would be a flat tire.

  Tuesday night, at 8:59. He had dawdled and meandered around a small corner of the gargantuan parking lot for nearly three hours. Less than two hundred cars were still sprinkled over the nearly two square miles of flat, black tarmac. Only hours before, the vast expanse had been cluttered, without an open space to be found. Thousands of cars. Amazing, really. And to think there were two other huge lots and three smaller ones on the other sides of the five-sided complex. Thousands of people had streamed past him on the way to their cars, gripping their briefcases, planning their evenings, scurrying to get their kids from childcare centers, and largely ignoring him.

  The very few who had bothered to give him a second glance would recall a tall, blubbery man with dark hair, a thick, wal-ruslike mustache, and eyes completely obscured behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. Let them take a picture for all he cared.

  Later, he would remove the mustache, burn the wig, and remove the thick padding that made him appear chubby and unfit.

  What would the police do when they responded to the call? Very little that night, he gauged. The following morning they would likely post a pair of officers by the sidewalk that led to the parking lot. They would flash their tin at passersby and ask if they had observed anything or anybody suspicious the evening before. Somebody who appeared out of place? A loiterer taking an untoward interest in the females who passed by?

  They could ask all the questions they wanted for all he cared. Few witnesses would recall him specifically, and even those would discount him automatically.

  He moved down the line of cars, checking locks, inspecting the interiors through windows—to all outward appearances, diligently performing his job. Between five and six the foot traffic had been torrential. Surge after surge had rushed by him. First came mobs of underpaid secretaries in running shoes, flapping their arms and complaining in flustered voices about the stupid things their bosses made them do. Then hordes of sour-faced civil servants wearing bored expressions and cheap, wrinkled suits. Last came the people in uniform, serious-looking, as though the weight of the world rested on their weary shoulders. Between six and seven the pace slackened like a body pumping out its final spurts of blood. After eight the foot traffic dwindled to a trickle. The only people who remained inside the huge office building were the night shift and fanatically dedicated. There were few enough of those.

  He approached and beamed his flashlight at her face. “Problem, ma’am?”

  She looked up with a jolt, then relaxed as her eyes took in his uniform. “Uh . . . yes, my tire went flat.”

  He shifted the beam toward the right rear tire. “Sure did. Damned shame, too. Looks new.”

  “It should. Couldn’t have more than ten thousand miles on it.”

  He chuckled. “Nothing’s made like it used to be, huh?” Especially after it’s been vigorously punctured a few times with a kobar blade, he failed to add.

  “I
’m not old enough to know,” she replied, chuckling and crossing her arms, appearing not quite as upset as he’d expected and hoped she would be.

  He moved closer. “You got Triple A?”

  “I do.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Right . . . but. They’ll send a truck in an hour.”

  He saw her glance at her watch and knew she was regaming her options. He raised his eyebrows. “Ever done it yourself? You know, changed a flat?”

  “Never.”

  “Ain’t easy the first time. Let me give you a hand.”

  “Thanks, but it won’t be necessary.”

  His smile got friendlier. “No problem. I gotta be out here all night anyway.”

  “Is that right?” She gave him a curious look. “I didn’t realize they were posting security guards in the parking lot.”

  “You work here?” he asked.

  “Temporarily.”

  “Guess that explains it, then.”

  “Explains what?”

  “Ever since that September thing, we been out here. You know, keeping an eye out for ragheaded rascals with suitcases.”

  “Oh. . . of course.”

  “Waste of time, you ask me. In a year, I’ve caught two car thieves, a couple of punks from the District.” He patted his ample stomach and chuckled. “Given out plenty of parking citations, but seems like the terrorists were warned that big bad John’s in the lot.”

  She chuckled with him, then asked, “Were you here the day it happened? When the plane hit?”

  “Off duty, thank God. Saw it on TV like everybody. Hell of a thing.”

  “An awful tragedy.”

  “Sure was. So, should we get started?”

  She smiled. “Really, I won’t need your help.” She glanced again at her watch, then looked up. “I have a friend coming to pick me up. He should be here any minute.”

  He smiled back, though this surely was not what he had anticipated or desired to hear. A visitor would screw up everything, and she was proving to be mulish and uncooperative. She should already be tucked inside her own trunk, hands cuffed behind her back, shuddering with fear and imagining the dreadful things he had planned for her.

  He glanced around, the painstaking security officer surveying his domain.

  Nobody in any direction.

  Not a soul.

  He looked back at her. “Mind if I keep you company till your friend arrives? Gets boring out here, this hour.”

  “I’d appreciate it. I’ll enjoy the company.”

  “Me too. So what do you do in the five-sided nuthouse?”

  “I’m an attorney. JAG actually.”

  “No kidding.” He nonchalantly fumbled with something on his belt. “I like that show.”

  She smiled. “That’s not what it’s really like.”

  “No?”

  “Not at all. A JAG officer flying off a carrier deck is com—”

  She froze. The very big gun he was pointing at her stomach had suddenly acquired her full attention. She looked at his face. He was no longer smiling, and her expression turned to one of befuddlement.

  “Don’t get excited now.” He kept his voice cool and deliberately calm. “Just a simple robbery. No more, no less.”

  Her eyes darted around the parking lot, and he could sense her exasperation that they were completely alone in the vast expanse. Nothing but empty cars and the nasty man with the gun.

  With his free hand he reached out and removed her shoulder bag and the briefcase she clutched with her hand. Not a spot of resistance from her. He said, “Almost done. Just open your car and your glove box.”

  “I have nothing valuable in the car.”

  “Maybe not . . . I’d prefer to judge myself.”

  She studied his face and he was impressed with her coolness. Some women would be frantic by this point, on the verge of howling bloody murder and blowing the whole thing. He had scrapped his original plan, was working spontaneously, and was hugely pleased that he had pegged her correctly.

  He waved the pistol. “Come on, open your door and the glove box.”

  “I can’t.”

  He worked up a fierce scowl. “Don’t push me, lady.”

  “You’ve got my keys.”

  “Oh . . . in the purse?”

  “Exactly.”

  He held it out and allowed her to dig through the insides till she found the keys. She held them in front of his face. She was playing the odds and hoping for the best. They both relaxed.

  She turned her back to him and unlocked her car door. He quietly set her purse and briefcase on the ground and holstered the pistol. She bent forward and leaned inside the car to reach her glove compartment. He took a step closer to her body, reached forward with both hands, seized the front of her throat with one hand, and wrapped the other tightly around her jaw. She began straightening up, pushing back toward him, trying to fight, but the advantages of surprise, size, and brawn were his.

  He gave her jaw a fierce jerk to the right and felt the distinctive snap of her neck. A choked groan exploded from her throat. Her body immediately sagged forward—if not dead, surely on

  the way to dead. He pulled her backward and let her drop naturally onto the tarmac.

  He closed her car door, relocked it, and threw the keys back into her purse. He withdrew a vial from his pocket, bent over for a few seconds, made a few minor adjustments to her body, retrieved her purse and briefcase, then calmly walked away. He had parked his car in South Parking, and he walked completely around the gargantuan building and departed without incident.

  Too bad he’d had to improvise and leave such an understated calling card that way. He’d just have to make it up with number two, and he knew just how to do it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE TAILOR AT BROOKS BROTHERS HAD AN AVARICIOUS SMILE, WITH SEVEN suits and five sports coats with matching slacks slung on a back-room rack. Apparently there’s a standard array, like with military uniforms—a blue pinstripe, a gray pinstripe, a herringbone, and so on. Black and brown shoes, belts to match, twenty shirts, and three pairs of suspenders I wouldn’t be caught dead in. It began, however, with an idiot’s tutorial regarding which shirts and slacks and ties matched which coats and suits, and why did I suspect Barry had a hand in that? Twenty minutes of being pinned and chalked later, I told the tailor to hold the alterations for two days, without mentioning my wishy-washiness about the ethical propriety of taking $30, 000 in fine clothes for only a few days’ work.

  But, actually, I wasn’t ambivalent.

  Having a few hours to kill, I wandered back to the firm and noodled through their manuals. The Army also has manuals, but primarily to explain things like how to point a directional claymore mine so it craps death and destruction on the other guy, instead of spoiling your day, or how to frantically clear a jammed M16 automatic rifle while badasses are storming your position. The subject matter possesses a certain, shall we say, puissance, that moves you to ignore the drollness, read carefully, and remember the tiniest details. But you have to wonder about a firm that hires the best and brightest from the nation’s top law schools, and then feels the need to explain in tedious detail how to prepare a business letter, and under which conditions it’s ethical to bill a client, and under which it’s most definitely not.

  There was, in fact, an espresso machine on my floor, one of those souped-up models you find in glitzy restaurants, with copper tubing, and pressurized nodules, and thingees you turn and doo-dads you push, and geez—what if I jabbed the wrong damned button and the whole f-ing building exploded? To be safe, I coaxed a passing secretary into fixing me a cup, and then wandered to the library. It was about 8:00 P.M. Some thirty associates were hunched over texts or scrounging through the stacks for some obscure ruling or other. This wasn’t the late shift. Everybody looked tired and glum. This place really sucked.

  They were mostly young and attractive, late twenties, early thirties, hungry, ambitious, and what they all needed was to go out, get
drunk, get laid, and get a life.

  But one should always follow one’s own advice, so I departed at 8:30, affording myself a leisurely thirty minutes to get to the Pentagon. So there I am, driving happily through the streets of D. C. in my shiny Jaguar sedan, radio blaring, hopeful, horny, eager, and I guess a little too preoccupied, because suddenly there’s this swirling blue light behind me. I did not need this nonsense.

  And so we had to go through the whole rigmarole—eight minutes waiting for the cop to run my plates, five minutes explaining why the car was not registered in my name, two minutes playing lawyer and trying to talk my way out of the speeding ticket, then ten more minutes completing the basic transaction. Miss Morrow, incidentally, was raised well, the type who always brings expensive wines to a dinner, never misses a thank-you note, and is punctual to a fault. I glanced at my watch—Ooops . . . Miss Right was about to become Miss Rightly Pissed Off.

  I raced into the Pentagon’s North Parking lot at 9:26. I saw a wash of blue and red lights. I was not really in the mood to see another cop, so I parked and began strolling toward the sidewalk that leads up to the towering guardian of Western civilization. Radios were crackling. Uniformed flatfoots were copying license numbers off cars. I counted three police cars, two unmarked cars, and a gaggle of cops clustered around a gray Nissan Maxima.

  Eventually I picked out an Army uniform on a corpse that I assumed was some flabby colonel who’d just left the Pentagon Athletic Club. He’d ignored that gut overhang for years, and with that gung-ho gusto military men are so widely admired for, overtorqued his artery-hardened ticker. It was fairly common. In fact, maybe this was why the cemetery was across the road. Convenient for everybody, right?

  A Pentagon security agent edged toward me, waving his arms. “Police investigation.”

  “Sorry.” Still, I tried to snatch a closer peek at the corpse on the off chance it was Clapper. Maybe God had answered my prayers and slammed a lightning bolt up his ass. But maybe not. I had made it quite clear that I wanted to witness this heavenly feat.

  My thoughts were disturbed by an ambulance hauling at high speed down the road toward the parking lot. I was walking past a young detective chattering into his radio: “—Caucasian female, approximately thirty years old, in an Army uniform. The name on her nametag is Morrow. That’s M-O-R-R . . .”