When the doors finally opened on the garage level, the ringing in my ears had settled into harmless background noise. ‘Music Box Dancer’ was playing on the elevator, I remember that. Somewhere in the near distance I could hear an engine turn over.
I wasn’t too late, but if I wanted to catch the Nautikon I had to act fast. I fell against my driver’s-side door, fumbling with the key, remembering too late that my car was parked right next to his. Through the windshield I saw his startled eyes. He threw the Ford into reverse and backed out, clipping my pelvis with his side mirror.
The Ford bounded up toward the exit so fiercely that its rear bumper scraped on the rumble strips. For some reason I thought about corduroy. In my rearview mirror I could see that the arm on the gate was down. He seemed to be having trouble finding his parking ticket. His brake lights throbbed red in anger. I threw the Corolla into reverse, swung the car around. He offered the ticket to the hungry machine. It swallowed. By the time I pulled up behind him, the candy-striped arm was rising in salute.
As for my parking ticket, it was right where it should have been, under the sun visor. It was just a matter of inserting it in the slot and the chase could continue. But when I lowered the window, a stiff breeze poured into the garage. The ticket slipped away and fluttered under the Corolla. I unbuckled my seat belt and threw open the door, but I was too close to the ticket booth to get out, so I had to climb through the passenger door.
I watched the Nautikon hang a right and disappear in the direction of the interstate. Finally I found the ticket pasted to a blot of motor oil. I fed it into the machine and stomped on the accelerator. By then the Nautikon must have been a mile away. But where? Where? Denver was dark. I had no choice but to follow my instincts.
Even though Jean says I don’t have any. She says I live in a diving bell where the real world can’t get in and I can’t get out. But I do have sensitivities to the motives of others. Buried, misinterpreted – but sensitivities nonetheless. I knew for instance that Jean would eventually leave me. True, I misjudged how soon that would take place, but I knew it would happen. And, yes, I did actually look up from my comic books for a second to see that she had needs. I looked up, Jean. And then you were gone.
And maybe I’d misjudged the Nautikon. Even dolphins are known to kill for pleasure. I just had to follow him, keep my eye on him, and take whatever measures were necessary to restore him to the sanctity of his mission and remind him of the righteousness of his cause.
I turned right on Tremont Street, made another squealing right, clung to his bumper through twists and turns until we landed on a freeway. A few miles later we slipped onto I-70 west. I sensed the Nautikon’s trajectory like we were both driving the same vehicle but in parallel realities. Our feet manipulated synchronized pedals, our hands gripped two tangents of the same Hegelian steering wheel. After a mile of hard driving, there he was, just ahead of a glazier’s truck with a massive pane strapped to one side. I fell in behind the truck hoping a giant sheet of glass would not dislodge and slice me in half. And also kind of hoping it might.
The next sign we passed read: PISTON RIDGE 74 MI. Onward and upward to the land of the Oaken Bucket.
TEN
Rep. Frost: It says here that Colorado State Patrol observed you leaving the [Censored] Radisson at 2:45 a.m. at what is described as a high rate of speed.
Diaz: Congressman, with respect, that was all cleared up with the CSP at the scene. And I’ll tell you what I told Officer [Censored] on the shoulder of I-70. I was an agent of the Department on assignment in the greater Denver area doing classified work. I explained that I was in pursuit of a suspicious party, and that this was a strictly federal matter. The best way he could aid my investigation was to keep his head down until such time as we called in local backup.
Officer [Censored] was compliant. He understood the sensitive nature of what was going on. But I guess for protocol purposes I agreed to take a Breathalyzer. Everything came out more or less pristine, and I thanked him for his assistance. It can’t be easy for these guys when Homeland starts stepping on local toes. Frankly it’s a real pissing tournament out there. But [Censored], he’s a decent guy. I don’t question his motives for a second.
Rep. Frost: I’m not especially interested in his motives. I keep reading from the police report, and it tells me your driving was erratic and your blood alcohol registered in excess of .08 percent. This alone would have been grounds for Department censure – not to mention a DUI. Am I wrong about this?
Diaz: No and yes. That was all addressed in the internal Department report. And the unreliability of the CSP apparatus was shown to be a mitigating factor. The charges, as reflected in my file, were summarily dropped. As far as what you call my erratic driving –
Rep. Frost: I’m just reading from what’s in front of me, son.
Diaz: – all I can say is that this was what I’d classify as a high-speed-pursuit-type scenario. Whether I was doing the pursuing or the vice was versa is immaterial. My actions that night were not inconsistent with departmental procedure under said circumstances. But, Congressman, I wish you’d allow me to rewind another twelve hours so the committee can grasp the macrobandwidth of the time line here.
Rep. Frost: Whatever you need to do. We just want the complete rundown.
Diaz: Good. This is noon the day before. I got to the [Censored] Radisson, parked in the underground garage, and checked in. They gave me a corner room on the top floor with a view of the Rockies. The hotel is in like a rehabbed warehouse district, with lots of brew pubs. You can get cowboy clothes made in Italy and a manicure for your dog. I had some paperwork to chew through that night, so I stayed in and ordered room service. If you’re ever in Denver, please don’t miss the Rocky Burger at the [Censored] Radisson. Sounds weird with the jalapenos, but damn.
Next morning I hit the ground early. Like I said, this particular hotel has some creative water features. In the solarium area there’s what they call a Lazy River, where they pump water nice and slow through this cement culvert and hand out inner tubes so you can just, well, float. Hell of a relaxing feature, but if the wrong people got access, I don’t even want to –
Rep. Frost: Yes. Well, it seems the wrong people did get access. We’re talking about the site of the initial incident, correct?
Diaz: Interesting thing about this process, Congressman, is it’s not static. We have to learn as we go. Adapt. This Lazy River was off the map for me. I’d never seen anything like it. So I spent all morning checking out the unorthodox filter system. And that’s when I noticed that creep – um – the subject of this inquiry. Mr. Rath. Tell the truth, he virtually fell on top of me, literally.
I’m below the surface collecting some humint and I feel this splash and a hairy leg across my back. I could’ve puked, even though I don’t think that’s physiologically possible underwater. So I surface and there he is barely keeping his head above water, which I can’t blame him with that big head of his. Huge forehead, like I said earlier. Well, in person it’s just unreal.
I thought to myself, Jesus, these Islamofascist extremists don’t know when to quit. The guy followed me all the way from Colorado Springs, and now he wants to play Marco Polo in Denver?
Rep. Frost: Not to get bogged down in footnotes, but here’s where I have to ask you – and I offer my apologies if this is a delicate matter – about a young lady, name of June Fresto. One of the victims in the Denver incident. Is it true the two of you were seen fraternizing that selfsame day at the [Censored] Radisson?
Diaz: Fraternizing is a strong word, Congressman. Strong word. I met my share of ladies on the road. I won’t lie. Remember, I was a widower on the rebound, not just an operative of the DHS. I’m human, sir. I get lonely, as I’m sure the Congressman does too.
Rep. Frost: I’d like to meet the man who hasn’t known loneliness.
Diaz: But yes, Mrs. Fresto and I made each other’s acquaintance prior to the incident in question. I wouldn’t say we quote unquote befri
ended each other. But she could see I was traveling solo, and she did me the kindness of inviting me to lunch. Rocky Burger number two. Couldn’t get enough.
It was in the hotel restaurant where I noticed Rath’s behavior growing more irregular. He was clearly singling out Mrs. Fresto because of my passing association with her. If I’d known I was endangering anyone’s life, I never would’ve, you know, interacted. At lunch that day I observed him at a nearby table with his three-ring binder. He appeared to be taking more notes. Mrs. Fresto had a little boy who was, as you say, sadly involved in the Denver incident. I was entertaining him with a little bar trick I knew. You take a drink and gargle it like mouthwash, but at the same time you sing.
Rep. Frost: Sounds like fun.
Diaz: The kid liked it. I gargle-sang some Bob Marley for him – ‘Jamming’. It’s a positive song with a message. I believe deeply in the power of optimism, provided it’s the cautious variety. I only hope I lifted the boy’s spirits a little bit before the terrible episode that was to befall him the next morning. Poor kid, and with no father figure in his life. I hope you pardon me speaking ill of the afflicted party, but his mother was no model of womanly virtue either. I imagine I wasn’t the first single gentleman she’d turned to for comfort. And I’m not blaming the victim here, as you suggested the other day. This isn’t another ‘Blame America First’ thing. It’s just a simple statement of fact.
After lunch I had work to do. I ran some tests, and everything checked out for the most part. I admit in retrospect there were some oversights. I might have been more diligent, but we’re ascertaining as we go with this terrorism thing. It’s what we refer to in the Department as a curve of learning.
It had been a long day. And I’m a man who believes work is its own reward, but a cold one is good too. So I parked it at the bar and ordered a Comfortable Screw. Not an hour later there’s Rath again. By this juncture, I’ve about had it. I feel like I’m trying to shake a wood tick off my pecker, you know? Sorry, but that’s how I felt. Plus I’m starting to understand that he’s got ulterior motives, ones that aren’t apparent on the surface.
Rep. Frost: Was this when you first suspected you were dealing with a foreign operative of some sort?
Diaz: I’d had my inklings from the get-go. My inner gyroscope was spinning in that direction. Forget night-vision goggles – the gyroscope of intuition is an agent’s best recon device. Like I’ve always said, if it walks like a duck, even one percent like a duck, then we have to presume we’re dealing with some form of waterfowl. And, Congressman, it’s duck season.
In other words, he’d passed my threshold of suspicion, and I decided it was high time I confronted him.
He made some evasive comments, even said something about my wife, which I don’t know how he’d be privy to that information. That really got my hackles in an upright position. I can see the bartender lady is already prejudiced against me, and I don’t want to drag Department business out in the open. Our directive is to keep it covert. So I make the determination that it’s best I leave the scene. As in check out of the hotel altogether, and pronto. If he tails me again, it’s on for real.
I go back to my suite to pack. Rath – did I mention this? – Rath has somehow booked the room adjacent to mine. So if I press my ear to the wall, I can hear him clicking around in there. He’s got the Weather Channel on real low. Five-day forecast and the lake levels – I can hear all that. Then it goes quiet, and the next thing I hear is the guy snoring. That’s my cue to vacate.
I would’ve left directly but there was one more test I still needed to run. And I decided to knock it out in a hurry right then. We’ve got a one-stop battery of tests that evaluates pH, turbidity, total and fecal coliform, total organic carbon, ultraviolet absorption, free and total chlorine residual, and heterotrophic plate count. It’s called the PHT-COCUA-CHPC.
You take a water sample and drop it on a blotter grid. If all the squares turn blue, you’re golden; anything turns red, it’s go time. We can detect down to three parts per million, anything from sheep shit to cyanide. I ran the PHT-COCUA-CHPC, and the blotter grid came out looking like a pretty blue patchwork quilt, which is to say the Lazy River was safe.
Rep. Frost: How do you explain the discrepancy between your test result and the samples taken at the crime scene the following day?
Diaz: Could be a number of factors, Congressman. Lye, which is what I understand the agent was, isn’t detected by the PHT-COCUA-CHPC. That’s another whole battery of tests that DHS won’t foot the bill for. Talk to your bean counters. Then there’s the time factor. A window of x number of minutes between my finishing up at the Lazy River and my subsequent encounter with Mr. Rath. I judged this to be sufficient time for him to dose the water with lye after I completed the test, and then haul ass back upstairs to my room.
Rep. Frost: Though you testify that he was sleeping.
Diaz: We’re dealing with an enemy that does not play by the conventional rules. That’s all I can say. I get back to my room, takes me three, four minutes by elevator. I go to the can, get my shaving kit, make the bed, rehang my wet towels, and box up the test equipment. That takes maybe ten minutes, plenty of time for Rath to slip downstairs and do his terrorism in the river.
I was standing there in the bathroom, and all of a sudden I feel this presence in the doorway. Sometimes I wonder if I’m especially attuned to negative presences. I peek around the corner of the bathroom and see Rath poking his big fat forehead inside my room. I’d made the mistake of leaving the door open a crack –
Rep. Frost: Yes. And what happened next?
Diaz: One interesting aspect of my room is I had a perfect vista of the capitol dome. Knowing what I know, seeing what I’ve seen, a sight like this sets off alarm bells. Did you know that dome is twenty-four-karat gold? From the aerial view it’s just like one big jihad bull’s-eye, like a giant Kick Me sign. An extremist could make a potent symbolic statement there with a single pipe bomb. One more thing while we’re on the subject: Were you aware that at Coors Field the twentieth row in the upper deck is painted purple? That’s to designate that it’s precisely one mile above sea level. There’s another symbolic target.
We talk a lot of hot air about first line of defense and about protecting lives, Congressman, but really what they’re after? It’s our symbols.
Rep. Frost: Sure, son, the symbols. Mr. Rath testified that you used some kind of sonic weapon to disable him. Are you going to tell me this too was Department protocol?
Diaz: It wasn’t sonic. And it wasn’t a weapon per se. I Tasered him. I’m of the considered opinion that if you’re going to cock it, you better fire it, and you better not talk about it too much. You have to bear in mind the situation I was confronting at that juncture. And in retrospect I wish I’d done more than Taser the guy. We might have averted Oaken Bucket two days later. But they don’t let field inspectors carry anymore. Anyway, I checked Rath’s vitals and everything seemed fine, so I left him there on the floor and went down to my car. But I barely turn the key in the ignition when who do I see at my passenger window? Rath, back from the dead. I mean this guy’s cojones were bigger than Barbara Bush’s earrings.
I tried to make a quick exit, but the ticket – I couldn’t find the parking ticket. It’s my usual practice to slide it under the sun visor; that way you always know where it is at all times. But American cars these days, frankly, the craftsmanship isn’t there anymore. The metal visor armatures – and I know this for a fact – are manufactured in Malaysia, where who knows if they even have parking garages. Well, the ticket must’ve slipped out. I looked everywhere and finally found it under the seat.
By then Rath was riding my bumper, but he still had to clear the ticket booth too. That bought me some time, so I gunned it to the expressway. After a few miles I started to relax. I thought, Okay, I’m free and clear. Then I consulted my rearview, and there was that beat-up old rice burner two cars back.
That’s when I saw the flashing lights. I pu
lled over to the right, and when I did, Rath passed by me real slow, like he was ogling me. His interior dome light was on the whole way. It was a spooky image, I tell you. I dealt with the state trooper, and as soon as I was back on the road, there he was again, pulling out of a weigh station behind me.
Did you know what corolla stands for in botanical language? It’s part of a flower, the crown or something. My wife’s father drove one too. The car, not the flower.
Rep. Frost: Yes, you do raise a critical issue, one that I’ve only recently seen as germane. This is a personal detour, and you might call it a fishing expedition, but if this inquiry is about optimizing our agency performance in the field, ifs critical that we know our agents.
Diaz: Not sure what you’re driving at, Congressman, but fire away.
Rep. Frost: Agent Diaz, I know the subject of your wife must be painful, but I’m wondering if you could describe for us the circumstances of her…What I mean to say is, could you tell us how she…?
Diaz: Died? Yeah. She drowned. Any more questions?
Rep. Frost: This was in the summer of 2005?
Diaz: That’s correct. Late summer.
Rep. Frost: I’m going to have to ask you to give me the bullet points of this tragic episode.
Diaz: I don’t see how this pertains, but hell, these are your hearings, Congressman. We were in Myrtle Beach on vacation. That town has the highest concentration of world-class golf courses on the planet, or any other planet that I know of, and I was determined to play as many as I could in a week. It was a Saturday about 11:00 a.m. I was on the tenth hole, which is like a 354-yard par four. It doglegs right around these cypresses or oaks or something. I remember thinking I could make it in two, but if I wasn’t careful it might slip off into the bunkers and land in the river.
2009 - The Unknown Knowns Page 12
