by Gordon Kent
Peretz grunted. “And then they could have put all sorts of black crap into the pipeline under a legitimate task number and outsourced the actual ops to Force for Freedom.”
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, Abe.”
“These people deal with black ops the way they deal with everything else—bury it under the flag! And reclassify it so nobody else can see it.”
Craik shook his head. “Whether they were doing dumb stuff like sending Spinner to Tel Aviv, or whether they were really into black stuff, they’d have to have seen pretty quickly that they were going to have to get their operations into the system, much as they might have hated the system. You can hide crap like that for only a little while before you’ve got so many accountability problems you’re spending more time covering up than you are working. That’s why they would have ‘superseded’ their own numbers with the legit task number. But that they even could do so meant that they already had clout in DIA—they were able to get their shit a DIA code classification.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
He looked up at Peretz. “The classification code that blocked my access, by the way, is ‘Perpetual Justice.’ I thought that Perpetual Justice was just somebody’s wet dream under one of those goddam names they pick out of computerized lists. A single operation. But it could be that it’s more like a program. A way of doing things.” He sat back. “Illegal things.” Alan was looking at Abe’s chest again. “But that raises a question: would they still be doing some sort of Perpetual Justice thing, or is that over?”
“Perpetual Justice may just be a way of thinking, Al, not a way of doing. If in OIA you thought preemptive war is swell and your enemies have no rights, then yeah, you’d still think it if you went to DIA. Like I said to you before, these people are true believers. They’re committed. This isn’t the nutcase fringe, muttering about black helicopters and close encounters. These are very smart, very, very sincere people.”
Alan thought about that, then smiled. “I have a hard time believing they’re breaking the laws that real intel people have to live by.”
“That’s why they hate people like us.”
Alan looked at the newspaper clippings and the typed page, his frown deepening as he read. “There were also people who went to other parts of DoD?”
“Yeah—DoD, a couple to State, one woman to NSC, some to jobs here and there. Two of them—where is that? It’s on the typed stuff—” He tried to read upside down, and Craik spun the page around and Peretz jabbed with a finger and said, “There—Crennan and Kravitz. They went to a congressional staff. Congressman—Kwalik. Ohio.” He tapped a newspaper photo. “House Intelligence Committee.”
“Just good people moving to other jobs, or true believers spreading the gospel?”
“No way to know.” Abe pushed himself out of the chair’s embrace. “I’ve got to go.”
They found Rose, and then they stood there talking for a few last minutes, the Craiks sounding apologetic about never being home: Rose saying she had to go to Germany with her admiral for five days, Alan adding that he had a London trip coming up. Rose said she had to work tomorrow. Abe said, “How come you two are such lousy parents and have such great kids? It isn’t fair.”
They all laughed. It was a good joke, if painful.
14
“He’s with Bella,” Irene said from the doorway. “Naturally.” She was back in work clothes, her hair wet, her cheeks flushed in the cold air.
The dog nuzzled his hand and barked, pushed its head into his thigh and barked again and ran in a circle. Piat wanted to avoid Irene as much as possible. He knelt by the dog and started to give him a good scratch. Piat looked up at Irene and smiled. “I—” he managed before she gave him a thin smile and closed the door.
Piat found Hackbutt half a mile up the ridge that loomed over the cottage by the simple expedient of looking for the bird. He had no trouble guessing what Hackbutt was doing, either. He was trying Bella at “waiting on.”
He prepared himself during the climb. While his eyes watched the ground in front of him, seeking the easiest path between the damned tufts of coarse grass, his brain was evaluating what he had seen of Irene (puffy eyes, pot smoke, anger) and guessing at what he would find in Hackbutt, and how he could make them work. Together. Apart. Whatever.
Hackbutt hailed him when he was still more than fifty meters below them. Piat cast well to the south of the pair and then came back to them carefully. He’d learned not to spook a bird or a falconer.
“Did you see her?” Hackbutt said as he came up. “Did you see her?” Of course, he didn’t mean Irene. He meant Bella.
“Sure did, Digger.” Piat smiled at him. “Waiting on. I saw her do it for what—five minutes?”
Hackbutt stroked the eagle on his wrist and cooed at her, and then cocked his head at Piat, his face still split by his smile. “I told her! I said you knew birds, that you listened to me. That you’d know just what I was doing. She said you didn’t give a shit about birds, and I said you did. And look! You knew what we were doing from the valley!”
“You training with the lure?” Piat asked. He knew that big birds like eagles seldom took to waiting on in captivity when there was so much food available so close by and with less work. Because he’d just read about it.
“You really know your stuff, Jack. You have a glove?”
Piat pulled one from the pocket of his oilskin coat. He flourished it and put it on.
“Take her. This’ll be better with the two of us. I wanted to call Annie, but Irene’s in such a mood—”
“I noticed.” Piat took the weight of the eagle on his wrist. She had her jesses, decorated with the new silver bells, but no hood, and she looked at him, turned her head as if to consider him from another angle, and then started nipping at his glove. Piat took a little tube of chicken from Hackbutt’s bag, squeezed it in his gauntlet so that only a fraction was visible, and Bella began tearing at it.
“Don’t give her too much—I want her keen. She’s smart, Jack—smartest bird I’ve ever seen. But unless she’s hungry, she’ll just watch you like you’re a show.
“The new command is ‘up!’” Hackbutt said. “Give her a try.”
Piat rolled his fist to hide the chicken. Bella turned her head and gave him a look—anger, disappointment.
He raised his fist smoothly, not so much throwing her as indicating the way to the sky. He’d never flown Bella before, and for a second he thought she wouldn’t rise, but just at the top of his fist’s arc she exploded off his wrist.
She was a big, heavy bird and she didn’t climb like a hawk. She climbed in circles that grew and grew with every pass. For the first few seconds, she didn’t appear to gain any real altitude at all, and then suddenly she was climbing away.
“That was beautiful,” Hackbutt said. “I’ve never watched her—I’ve always been the one.”
Piat realized that he still had his left hand sticking up in the air. He felt foolish, but he understood about falconry. It was in that one, explosive moment, when Bella left his fist and reached into the sky, her wings tearing the air with such strength that every beat fanned a wind through his hair.
She climbed for a long time. “That’s excellent—most birds will never go beyond a hundred feet or so. Look at her!” Hackbutt couldn’t keep still. “I should have done this months ago.”
Piat watched her. “What if she sees real prey?”
“All the better!” Hackbutt exclaimed.
“Digger,” Piat began.
“I’m going to leave her for six minutes, and then I’m going to start the lure going.”
Piat set his watch alarm. It was like a student exercise at the training school. You have six minutes to make your pitch. “Digger,” he said again.
Hackbutt flicked his eyes to Piat and then went back to watching Bella. “She’s so high, I have to worry that she’ll just fly off. I’m not sure we’ve ever been this far apart before.”
Piat had planned a sp
eech. He dumped it. Instead, he said, “Would that be so bad?”
Hackbutt gave Piat his full attention. “What are you saying, Jack?”
“The purpose of raising her is to release her into the wild. Right? And she’s almost at her full growth—she’s huge. She’s fully trained. Right? So what would be so wrong with her flying away? You’re going to release her in—what, two weeks?”
Hackbutt nodded slowly, as if a harsh truth had been revealed—perhaps a terminal cancer. And then he raised his eyes to the sky. “Sure, Jack. You’re right.”
He’s going to cry.
“I need Bella, Digger.” That statement had been meant to be the cap of an emotional appeal, but to hell with it. “I need her for the operation, Digger. And if you agree, she’ll be with us for a lot longer. At least a month. Maybe longer.”
Hackbutt’s face turned back from the heavens. Tears were running down his cheeks, but his voice was strong. “The wildlife program would freak out, Jack.”
What Hackbutt had really said was “I really want to do what you suggest, but—”
“I can fix that.” Piat spoke with authority.
Hackbutt’s eyes were back on the sky. “She’s the best thing I’ve ever done, Jack. I don’t want to lose her. But—but I’ve only done it when I let her go. When she has a mate and a clutch of eggs.”
Piat nodded. “I need her, Digger.”
High above, Bella turned suddenly but took no other action. She had caught a hint of movement far below. A hare, perhaps, just a little too bold on the hillside.
“She sees something. What do you want her for?”
“As the lure. For the target. To get him to come out of his tree,” Piat said. “Only if we have to.”
Hackbutt watched Bella. He raised his binoculars, shutting Piat out. “And the wildlife people would agree?”
“Sure,” said Piat.
“And when we’re done, you’ll help me let her go?” Hackbutt asked.
“Sure,” Piat lied.
High overhead, Bella saw the hare again. It had tried to become invisible by immobility, but it was young and it moved too soon. This time, its movement was much too bold, and she dropped.
The hare bolted from its cover and ran along the hill, bounding a meter in every stride.
Bella made a minute course correction.
The hare sensed her. He changed his direction, heading uphill at right angles to his original path.
He did it too soon, while she was still well up in her flight envelope with room to maneuver and lots of speed.
Her wings spread like a parachute and her talons reached for the hare while her wings reached for the sky, and in one beat of the terrified heart of the prey she had him in her talons and in the air.
When he got back to his room, Piat left a message for his divers requesting a meeting. Then he spent the evening on the internet, learning about a conservative American congressman named George Kwalik.
Alan Craik had called the Marine analyst, Sergeant Swaricki, and Rhonda Hope Stillman, the Southern earth mother, into his office. He made a point of asking Swaricki to close the door; a flicker of something—panic—passed across Mrs Stillman’s face. One reason that she was so good was that she was afraid she’d do something wrong, and now, Craik saw, she thought she was going to be reamed out.
“This is something that I don’t want to travel,” he said. He hoped to mollify her with that. It didn’t. He added, “This isn’t personal or about anybody’s performance or anything.”
She settled her pretty bulk. “Well, that’s a considerable relief! I thought you were going to scold us!”
“You’re the two best people I’ve got—why would I scold you?” He had the fitness reports approaching final draft. They had both seen theirs, as they had to by law; what had they to fear? Swaricki, nonetheless, was scowling, which Craik put down to Marine culture.
“I’ve got a task that I’d like done,” Craik said. “It’s over and above what you’re both already doing, which I know is a lot. But this has to be done, and I want it done right.” He looked at her, then at him. They were waiting before they’d commit themselves. “This has grown out of a recent tasking we signed off on.” He twirled a yellow pencil between his fingers, watching the gold lettering flash past and then wheel up toward him again. His left hand was missing two fingers; once, that damage had made him wince every time he saw it, but now he hardly noticed. He glanced up at Swaricki. “Sergeant, you’ve already seen a little of it.” He leaned back in his desk chair and turned to Mrs Stillman. “There was a reference in a tasking that seemed a little funny. No headers or footers, and the contents were pretty well blocked out. The sergeant thought that one of the lines that was left referred to torture.”
He let that settle in. Mrs Stillman was frowning again, now probably over the reference to torture. Everybody was pretty gun-shy about torture by then—Abu Ghraib, White House legal quibbles, the Senate trying to hammer out an antitorture statute and getting blindsided by a presidential signing letter. He linked his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling. “I ran the date-time group past one of the DPs downstairs. He came up with a limited-access classification named Perpetual Justice.” He looked at them without changing his position. “Ever hear of it?”
They moved their heads from side to side.
“I went to the CIA officer of record on the tasking. I learned two things: the document does refer to torture, and it does have a task number. But the task number looks like it was added to the document after the fact.”
Mrs Stillman’s breath hissed in. She lived for accuracy, and postdating was not only illegal, it was also inaccurate.
Craik pulled himself up and put his elbows on the desk. “Torture isn’t our business. I’ll say personally I think it’s wrong, and I think the sergeant believes the same thing, but this office isn’t here to deal with torture. Okay? So it isn’t the torture part. It’s the task number. ‘It’s the task number, stupid.’ Where did that come from? Anyway, if it’s true that somebody’s been backdating tasking approvals, then this office has a problem. The whole system has a problem. If a task number was backdated, then the activity was done without approval—it didn’t go through the process—and there’s been opportunity for breaking laws and opportunity for misusing funds, because, as you both know, when you don’t go through the process, there’s no oversight. Mrs Stillman?”
She had been fidgeting. Now she said, “Is this one of our taskings?”
Alan knew he had to be cautious. He said, “I don’t know. The limited-access classification appears to be ours. Other than that, I don’t know.” He was twirling the pencil again. “Here’s what I want.” He looked at both of them. “I want the two of you to go through the system looking for the task number that was added to that document, and looking for anything that has ‘Perpetual Justice’ in it. I want you two to do it because you’re the best and because you’re discreet, and I want two of you because two heads are better than one. Plus you’ll check each other.” He looked at Mrs Stillman. “Can you do it?”
“We don’t farm it out?”
“No. I want this kept close to the vest. Just the three of us.”
Swaricki said, “I don’t mean to question you, sir, but, uh—this is a legal order?”
“It is, and I’ll give it to you in writing if you want.” Swaricki nodded: he wanted it in writing. Another victim of Abu Ghraib—trust.
Mrs Stillman said, “This is on top of everything else we’re doing?”
“I see it as part of the Green Book review. So I suggest that Sergeant Swaricki put aside some of his Green Book work while he does this, and, Mrs Stillman, you can hand off the training sessions to somebody for a while. I mean, this isn’t going to take all year, is it?”
Mrs Stillman looked at Swaricki and back at Alan and said, “Part-time, maybe a week, I’d think. If it’s limited-access classified, we’re gonna be closed out of a lot. It’s really a computer search.”
Alan looked at Swaricki. “Can we say a week?”
Swaricki shrugged. “I don’t even see a week. If it’s all limited access, we’ll be done in an hour.”
“Well, try. Okay?” He looked at Mrs Stillman. “Okay?”
“Starting now?”
“You’ll both have to carry all your other duties, remember. All but the Green Book work. Just fit this stuff in.” He was writing “Perpetual Justice” and the task number he had seen on Partlow’s computer on two slips of paper. “Report to me verbally when you’ve got something, and then I’d like a report in writing when it’s over. Sergeant—well, both of you—you’ll get a written request for the information from me later today.” He handed over the pieces of paper and stood. “Make notes. Keep a paper trail. If this turns into anything, I want it all on the record.”
They started out, but he called Mrs Stillman back. When Swaricki paused at the door, Alan nodded, and the sergeant went out and closed the door after him.
“Sit down for a second more, will you?” He took the desk chair again, waited until she sat. “Who’s the best Saudi analyst you’ve got?”
She blushed. “It sounds vain to say it, but me.”
“You’ve got enough on your plate. Who else?”
She named a civilian in the office. He remembered the man’s fitness report—all excellent, except for relations with his coworkers—and his own meeting with the guy, which had made Craik dislike him but therefore work hard not to show it. “I want a bio on a Saudi.” He had the name from Partlow’s taskings, Muhad al-Hauq, already printed out. “Get everything there is. Open source, classified, Google, whatever. Have him do a Lexis Nexis, the whole nine yards.”
“That’s easy.” She got ready to get up. “That it, captain?”
“Just a sec more.” He smiled at her, because he thought that again she’d think she’d done something wrong. “This has to stay just between you and me. Not in writing. If that bothers you, tell me now.”
