The Merchant of Secrets

by Caroline Lowther

  “Caroline,” he continued, “I’d like you to meet Dave Jones.” Todd bent his neck slightly to the right to acknowledge the person sitting next to him. I was at first overwhelmed by fear and anxiety and then a series of unfamiliar emotions welled up within me; I wanted to lunge at Jones and to strangle him as he brought out a dark side that I didn’t know existed within me. The monster I had been reading about whom until the very moment existed only in newspaper print and in our files was now before me in this small room. The child rapist, drug dealer, pimp, extortionist and I were sharing breathing space. It more than horrified me and it was more than I could bear. I couldn’t understand any of this; why Todd was pretending that Jones was one of the good guys. The world had turned upside down and nothing made sense anymore.

  “Todd, why are you bringing Jones into our office, don’t you know what he did to women and children in Afghanistan”? I asked, trying to elicit from him some acknowledgement of Jones’ horrific deeds and the mortification I felt at being in Jones’ presence.

  “I’ll tell you why, Caroline. What happened between him and a few women a long time ago is none of your business. Mr. Jones here is the President of PFG Corporation and prior to that he was one of our best field operatives, with 20 years of experience, including 10 years in Afghanistan.”

  Todd was heaping exultant praise upon the Devil? I thought I must be in Hell. There are certain breeds of human being that shouldn’t be free to walk the streets and Jones was one of them. Jones had defiled the reputation of every American soldier stationed in Afghanistan. In a country where one American soldier commits an act of murder other U.S. soldiers are captured and killed in retaliation, there’s no telling which innocent American soldiers might have paid with their lives for the crimes committed by Jones. How many American throats were slit in bloody revenge for Jone’s villainous rampages? And yet all of his horrors were whitewashed as if they had never happened and his record had been cleansed so that Jones would never pay for what he had done.

  My disgust with our government at that moment cut deep into my gut. I began to contemplate quitting my job and moving to Canada, away from this government which seemed to have lost all moral focus. I had spent the better part of 8 years of my life on the technological forefront of three wars; Iraq, Afghanistan, and defense of the home turf. I had altered my whole life to adhere to the security demands of my country and my job, and now I was faced with this hypocracy. I wanted to turn around, swing the door open and run as far away as possible, but the door was closed and there were just too many security guards outside for any expectation of successful escape. I was weighing my options when Todd opened fire.

  “Caroline, you were caught red-handed at Ft. M accessing not one, but two Top Secret databases although your security clearance is only at the “Secret” level. You violated federal law.” I thought at that moment that Todd would have thrown his mother under a bus if it meant enhancing his career.

  I thought to myself silently, “raping children is fine, human rights abuses on a massive scale, and running a heroin racket while on the payroll of the US government is fine, but an innocent mistake with no harm to national security is suddenly a criminal act worthy of this?” He was standing by the goalposts of righteousness and moving them to fit angle of whatever ball was in the air. I could barely maintain my composure as he continued.

  “I let you slide on that one…,” he said.

  “You didn’t let me slide, Todd. I out-maneuvered you by taking it out of your jurisdiction and under the IRS’s authority.”

  Todd rolled on “but this clearly is a significant issue and we can no longer ignore your transgressions. I don’t know what you have against Mr. Jones here, or his friend Mr. Valdez for that matter, but it’s got to stop. Mr. Jones has kindly agreed to waive legal action provided that you obey his right to privacy and that means that you are prohibited from accessing his files, you are not to try to contact him, and you are required seek help for whatever issues you’re dealing with. It will probably come as no surprise to you that your security clearance is suspended,” he proclaimed.

  I fought hard to suppress the impulse to strangle him; it was just like Todd to delight in causing people misery. That’s what he had in common with Jones; he liked to inflict pain. He rambled on about giving me a break and a second chance and a lot of other garbage.

  “But if you don’t do as I tell you, I can assure you Mr. Jones will precede with legal action against you.” It was no use; I was already numb, stricken with disbelief that something like this could happen to a devout American like me. I wanted out, out of it all. I wanted to unload my burden, break out of this cage and go out and have fun like normal people do. I wanted to wander through a mall and not think about the explosives that might be hidden in trash containers, or to a movie theatre without thinking about Abraham Lincoln’s last moments and wondering if my colleagues and I would end up like that. I wanted to go on a vacation wherever I wanted, without first submitting my travel plans detailing every restaurant where I might eat, every person I would meet, every museum I would visit so that security could review it and give it their approval. I wanted to go home at night and know that I wouldn’t be awakened at one o’clock in the morning with a crisis on my hands because some idiot clicked on a link to a phony website and invited a group of hackers from the Ukraine to take a virtual tour through an electronic file room of our top secret government files. I wanted basic freedoms that the other American had.

  Then he gave me the name of the shrink I was ordered to see to get my job back and I went.

  Sometime between the mob scene in the conference room and my first appointment with the shrink, I realized that even with the gates flung wide open I still couldn’t leave. I was branded at birth with the idealisms of God and Country and no matter what happened at the office I couldn’t walk away from who I was bred to be. Like most the people in the intelligence community I was raised to believe that there’s something more important than self-interest and I couldn’t define myself without it. There was a stubbornness inside of me that wouldn’t accept defeat and so like a good soldier I marched on.

  CHAPTER 14

  I found Dr. Sickle in a brown brick building, dating from the 1970’s and clearly nobody had spent the money to upgrade it in the last 30 years. Located in an office park, it was a depressing environment. In the waiting room there were few magazines or anything else to look at while waiting; just a panel of buttons attached to the wall, one with the name of Dr. Sickle on it, so I pushed it.

  After about 20 minutes he came to retrieve me from the waiting room; a short man nearing the half- century mark with a potbelly, wearing a bright red tie, and resembling a penguin. With a soft, pleasant smile he directed me to his office. “You can sit there,” he said, pointing to a chair on the opposite side of his desk. There was a reading light with a high wattage light bulb shining in the direction of the seat of the person who was being questioned, which in this case was me. It was unnerving but I just thought it was part of the testing. That light bulb provided the only light in the room thus intensifying the focus on the visitor in the chair. The walls were decorated with his own self- made works of art, so he boasted. Curiously all were painted in the same palette of medium brown and dark green. Seeing that, I wanted to turn the light back on him.

  I took my seat and waited for him to begin the interrogation. He began asking about my childhood and about my grandparents then settled on my sex life and clung to that topic for most of the remaining sessions, apparently looking to be entertained. I was unnerved by his voyeurism and denied him the opportunity. He seemed to be personally deprived of physical affection from another human being, or maybe he was just obsessed with sex because he was dysfunctional in the bedroom. Either way, he struck me as the type of person who shouldn’t be allowed near children. Then he held up pictures of ink blobs on cardboard and asked me to tell him what I saw and I invented some ridiculous answers to fit the ridiculous questions.


  The six sessions were pretty much the same and after the requirement was complete a package arrived in the mail, with a return address indicating who it came from, and I could tell it was my evaluation. I tensely opened the heavy envelope and began reading. In it, the penguin-like therapist released a torrent of allegations against me, including that I was delusional and a danger to myself and those around me and that I should immediately be removed from my position and commit myself to a “treatment program.” The words on the paper hit like a right hook from a heavyweight boxer. I foresaw the damage it would do to my ability to regain my security clearance.

  Also inside the envelope, was a note from Todd requiring my presence at a meeting the next Monday at 1:00 at his office. It was clear he intended to bury me.

  Without a security clearance I could no longer work for the Department of Homeland Security, the role that had defined me for so long was gone, and with it my identity and my pride. There was no reason to get out of bed in the morning anymore, I was alone and drowning in anguish, gripped by a fear that I had become a shadow of my former self. I was being dragged to the gates of Hell by a clown in a bright red tie. For almost my whole life I had been strong and took pride in my resilience but this was too much even for someone like me. I was at the point where I needed to escape, so I opened the liquor cabinet, put a bottle of gin to my lips and drank to unconsciousness.

  There were many of us who believed in the sanctity of our duty to this country but it was a lot like believing in Santa Claus, at some point you have to grow up. The Jones experience led me to the bitter truth that there were plenty of people running the show who were not only ignoble but out right heinous. That blinding reality and the destruction of a childhood dream that had guided me for so long made everything fall apart.

  I gradually awoke sometime later under florescent lights in small room with a mauve curtain. A heart monitor on my left kept my heart’s rhythm, tubes stuck into my hands forced liquid into my veins. I was confused and in a fog, but gradually coming back to myself when a masculine voice emerged from the chair on the left side of the bed. “Hi beautiful” the voice greeted me. “If this is heaven”, I thought, “God sounds a lot like James Bond.” I turned to see Colin’s face smiling warmly at me from a few inches away, with twinkling blue eyes and wavy brown hair. He was a delight to see. I didn’t think anybody cared about me, but there he was.

  A nurse hastened in, an up- beat, pretty woman in her mid- twenties from West Virginia, wearing blue hospital pants and a “one size fits all” kind of nurse’s shirt she apparently got from a uniform store. “Hi there Caroline! Well I guess you kinda like gin,” she joked, “you gave your boyfriend quite a scare.”

  Upon hearing the word “boyfriend” I looked at Colin. His faced turned red and he silently bowed his head to stare at his shoes. I concentrated on his face, and after a few moments he looked up and stared back. As tears filled my eyes and flowed down my cheeks he gently leaned over and with his fingers wiped them away, then cradled me in his arms until the flow of tears had stopped. He told me how much I meant to him and said that I should never again feel so lonely that I couldn’t call him to help me get through whatever pain I was dealing with. As he spoke all of my fear dissipated in his arms. He insisted I should stay with him at his apartment, promising to chase the demons away and to make me feel safe. My spirits soared in a way only someone who has been through Hell could imagine or understand.

  The next day we drove back to his apartment in Georgetown. His place was still here, and I was still here, the spell was broken and all was good.

  The apartment walls were painted black, with a black leather sofa and black lacquer cocktail table. A chrome floor lamp leaned tentatively over the sofa. Two sunken arm chairs, also in black leather sandwiched the sofa. The bedroom was also painted in black.

  “Honey, why did you paint this place all black?” I asked. “I guess it’s your favorite color?”

  “Nah,” he replied while determinedly attacking the cork in a wine bottle with a particularly lethal- looking screw. Holding the bottle in his left hand while pulling hard on the handle with his right, he grimaced until the cork gave-way and the bottle popped open. Triumphantly, he grabbed two wine glasses off the shelf with his left hand, and holding the bottle in his right, deftly poured wine into each glass without wasting a drop.

  “Bartender?” I asked.

  “It’s that obvious?” he asked. “Bahamas. A few years ago.”

  “Work?”

  “Yea.”

  “Well the black walls and furniture make the place disappear into the night; it’s like this place becomes part of the darkness,” he said. “I like it.”

  We stepped onto the tiny brick patio in the back of the house. The garden was enclosed with red brick privacy walls about eight feet high. We sat in the wrought iron garden chairs and he set his glass down on a glass-top cocktail table with a handmade driftwood base.

  “Souvenir from the Bahamas?” I asked, looking at the driftwood.

  His phone rang. “If you’re hungry,” he said, “there’s some cheese and crackers in the kitchen, help yourself.” I took the cue that he needed to speak privately, and left him alone .

  The refrigerator was bare except for some old milk, some old eggs, and a six pack of beer. In his kitchen cabinet there was a loaf of bread he had forgotten about months before, and it had spawned new life in the form of a spongy white and green mold. Despite it being about the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in a kitchen, I didn’t mind it so much. The old milk, the old eggs, and the beer were a part of his character. He was thoughtful and kind, and that’s all that mattered. After the call was finished, he made room in his closet for my clothes and I put my toothbrush next to the sink. Then we turned off the lights and crawled into bed.

  The next afternoon I morphed into a domestic diva, spending hours in the kitchen cooking butternut squash soup, beef curry, roasted eggplant, and crème brulee for desert. When it was ready, I called him to the table and he pulled up a chair, and chowed down the entire meal in less than five minutes. Then he got up and headed for the bedroom.

  “Hey I’ve got a meeting in Chicago, wanna come along?” he asked, pulling a sweater over his head.

  “What if Todd’s guys are there, with cameras?”

  “Well, we’ll have to travel separately I guess,” he said, tossing the sweater on a chair. He was tan, athletic, and unbelievably cute.

  “Okay, and meet up at the hotel? “I asked.

  “Yea,” he replied while slipping off his shoes “we’ve got to maintain appearances.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll book a room.” I reached over and turned off the light but couldn’t sleep, thinking about Chicago. Colin was a tremendous amount of fun, when he was in a good mood.

  The next morning Colin went out for a run. When he came back, he was making coffee and the humming of a coffee grinder woke me from my sleep. When it was done he poured himself a cup and returned to the bedroom, placing his coffee cup on a trunk which he used as a table, and dropped his physically exhausted body into an armchair. Outside the sky was still semi-dark, so I was reached for a light.

  “Leave it off!” he snapped.

  Brooding eyes and heavy eye-lids gave away that he hadn’t slept a wink all night. The smoothness of his face was disrupted by creases between his brows and in his forehead, caused by consternation over something that was deeply bothering to him. When he started to speak about the rising violence in Libya, now that the governments of Tunisia and Egypt had fallen, I looked over at his laptop which was still lit and realized he had gotten up early to read Defense Department briefs before he left for his run, and that’s triggered his dark mood. He went on to describe how the third regime in three months would collapse. The civilians were out-gunned by Gaddafi’s forces, but the military was outnumbered by the millions of civilians taking to the streets. In Egypt, the population of people under fifty was experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives
and was swept up in euphoria. “It’s wild” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  We were all worried in varying degrees about the speed at which the wave of change hit us and of the vulnerability that it created in the region. Like flood waters pulling in everyone into their path creating death and destruction along the way, the murderous rampages of government loyalists moved swiftly through the countryside leaving the streets stained with the blood of the thousands of innocent civilians they had slaughtered. But the Arab spring had a life of its own and could not be contained. The civilian’s hearts and heads pounded for freedom from decades of suffering and tyranny, and they were ready to die for their revolution. Nobody knew what the outcome would look like, but to ensure the best possible outcome for the U.S., the State Department had sent hundreds of diplomats into Libya to try to connect with rebels forces.

  After a few minutes he broke the silence. “It looks like Gaddafi’s not going to leave office willingly and will be killed in office. Dumb on his part; he could’ve run away with his family and had a great life with all of the billions he stored in hidden bank accounts. Gaddafi’s domino will fall within a few months and we’ve got to get agents on the ground to make contact with the people of Libya,” he said, taking a sip of coffee and leaning back in his chair. “The communication going back and forth between our people and the Libyan opposition leaders has to be protected, so a new system architecture is being developed to deploy on the ground, to ensure that the information being relayed back is transmitted and stored safely. That’s why I’m going to Chicago.”