by Ty Patterson
‘This one came to us through another snitch, and it was a month away. We threw everything at filtering the intel. We got agents shadowing the top gangbangers in the chapter, bugged them, used parabolic mics, email intercepts, mobile intercepts… everything. And all that we gathered pointed to a huge motherfucking deal going down in an industrial warehouse at night in Harlem. We then got together and corroborated it and picked holes in it. Squeezed the snitch. Threatened to shoot his balls off, send him to Gitmo, all that shit. The story held. You know how these things are. There is no foolproof intel. But this was as good as it got. And we ran the paranoid test to see if we were being played. The analysts came back and said it smelt of roses.
‘So then we planned the operation, and come the night, we had eyes on the warehouse from all possible locations, SWAT on standby… everything in place to hit the bastards.
‘The deal didn’t happen. Déjà vu. The warehouse was cleaner than a newborn baby ward in a hospital. And this time, the heat on me was nuclear. We went back to the drawing board and relooked at the intelligence, and we didn’t think we were being played. We got the experts to analyze all the taps to see if they could detect lies, and they couldn’t. Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Sherlock Holmes, right?
‘We had a mole. All this just confirmed it. Of course, this conclusion wasn’t public knowledge. I discussed it with the Director and a few others… not more than five others in the agency were privy to this.’
‘That’s it? That’s all you have to go on? Fuck, man, there could be a million reasons why all those deals never happened. You’re dealing with gangs here, not exactly the most rational guys on the planet. I can’t believe I’m wasting my time listening to this shit from you about some mole based on this crap!’ Broker growled and made a move to get up.
Isakson held a hand up. ‘That warehouse had graffiti all across it, like it was a museum for street art. You know how it is with graffiti – there’s so much of it, you stop paying attention to it. But in all that spray painting, one stood out. Not because it was exceptional or anything like that. It was just a smiley face, two eyes, a curve, that kind of thing. Nothing that would worry Picasso, if he were alive, or that Zephyr guy. You’d forget it, thinking it was the work of just another frustrated street artist.
‘Except for this.’
He removed a file from a filing cabinet, removed a sheet of paper, and handed it over to Broker.
Broker saw what Isakson meant by the crude image. Two large eyes and grinning teeth were what identified the shape to be a face. Underneath, circled, presumably by the FBI, was the inscription, ‘Better luck next time. 5Clubs.’ The spelling left a lot to be desired, but the message was clear.
He looked up at Isakson and handed back the sheet.
‘Remember, I had held back this deal from the NYPD and the 5JTF… the SAC and I were the first to the scene, the first to see this.’
There was a long silence as the two of them mulled it over.
‘Of course we put our best forensic team on that, and they said the image had been drawn about eight hours earlier. We had started our surveillance of the warehouse about four hours before the deal. The spray used was a very common variety, and we didn’t get very far with that.’
He returned the file back to the cabinet, leaned back, and looked at Broker.
‘You know there was supposed to be two hundred Ks of crack to change hands that day… we did see an increased supply in Harlem and the Bronx for a few months after that, so we know the exchange took place. We went hard on our snitches and even collared a few gang members, but we got clean and innocent from them, and we had to let them go. Their sneering faces… I still remember them.
‘I went back to the auto shop and all the other sites and tore them apart. All the locations over the thirty months had graffiti, and all of them had this smiley or traces of it. Enough traces left to fill the gaps.
‘I ran a search for all such graffiti in drug deals or any deals of any kind, especially where the deals had gone sour… and I noticed that over the last two years, many of the “turkey deals” had such gang graffiti affiliated to some gang or the other left at the sites. Get this – not a single NYPD bust where they acted alone had such images. Only our busts had.
‘That time window is important. I studied all our reports, photographs, and even those that came to us from the NYPD and JOCTF, and before that window, the success rate of the FBI and the NYPD was much higher than what it was. We took drugs off the street, put badasses behind bars… with 5Clubs, we got small fry, and they walked soon, but we got their drugs. In those thirty months, the success ratio just dropped, the number of no-shows rocketed.’
Isakson swallowed his bitterness and continued.
‘We quietly disbanded the 5JTF, saying that it was redundant since the JOCTF was already doing the same thing. We, the FBI, still did the things we were supposed to do, arrest, busts and all that, and we still ended up holding nothing. Then another drug bust went wrong.
‘This time we walked into a trap, a booby-trapped warehouse. Lost two agents. Good guys, with families, the kind of agents the FBI is built on. The gang just blew them away with a dirty bomb, no smileys, no messages this time. The bomb was message enough.
‘I was pulled off my normal duties by the Director and tasked with working with our Internal Investigations Section, IIS, to find the rat. By then, everyone knew something was off, but were too scared to vocalize it. We had been through this before. We had Hanssen, who spied for the Russians for twenty years, and whenever there was an Ames or John Walker at other agencies, we went through extensive procedural upheaval, making sure we were secure. We became a paranoid organization for some time during such periods, suspecting everything and everyone, and no one wanted those days back. But they were here.
‘The Director said I would be reviewing our processes and security systems, but those in the know were aware that the IIS and I were on this mission. I became Mr. Unpopular – the guy tasked with investigating agents. You know what we found in one year of investigation? A big fat zero. We went through hundreds of agent files, grilled them, aggressive interrogation, went through case files, tapped agents’ phones, followed agents. Nothing. No clue, no hint, nothing. Everyone came clean.’
Isakson rubbed his face wearily with both hands, but when he removed them, his eyes were bright and hard. ‘The Director declared that everything was good with us, and I was back on active duty. Investigation closed. Morale improved almost immediately after we spread that message, and today we’re in a much better position than we were a few years back.
‘In reality, I was still running a solo investigation, reporting only to the Director… and getting nowhere.’
He smiled grimly. ‘The asshole is still out there. Investigations still turn to crap, maybe one or two a year. And this is an equal-opportunity asshole – all the shit is gang related, but not limited to any one gang. 5Clubs, Latin Kings, the Crips, Bloods… busts involving all of them have gone south. Different gang smileys turn up regularly – though of course, given 5Clubs’ hold over the city, most of the drawings refer to them.
‘This is where you come in. We need your help. Director Murphy has given me a free hand and unlimited resources, but I don’t want to use anyone from the FBI. Been there, done that, didn’t get anywhere.
‘But I might have a chance if I use outside contractors. I went to Clare to see if her Agency could help, and she flatly refused. She said it was a good idea to take on outside help, but she has enough on her plate without helping us wipe our own ass. Can’t blame her. I then asked her if she could recommend any contractors, and at that she basically threw me out of her office.’
He laughed a genuine laugh. ‘I can see why you guys have a lot of time for her. That lady has the biggest, brassiest pair of balls I’ve ever seen.’
Broker pondered for a moment and asked the obvious question.
‘You haven’t told me anything about the JOCTF and 5JTF; how many in each of those, how many had access to the information flow?’
Isakson raked his fingers through his hair, a man who knew the enormity of the task at hand, maybe even its futility.
‘Task forces are clearing houses for information in the first instance, and that information goes to a lot of people. Unit Chiefs, Section Chiefs, Associate Directors, SACs – Special Agents-in-Charge, ASACs – Assistant Special Agents-in-Charge, Special Agents… a lot!’
‘Give me a number.’
Isakson said reluctantly, ‘Including the Field Agents and the SWAT teams who went on the busts, thirty on our side. The juice came to about ten of us and then got disseminated.’
‘These thirty have been on this investigation since the beginning?’
‘Since time began.’
Broker looked out of the window. That’s one hell of a number, and those thirty could have further spread the word, pillow talk, water cooler gossip, no way that could have been contained to just thirty.
He watched a bird fly past the window, forage its only concern.
‘You investigated all thirty.’ It was a statement, not a question, but Isakson nodded.
‘Turned them inside out, made them take polygraphs, aggressively interrogated them, all under the guise of routine internal investigations, not that they bought it. We didn’t stop at that. We dug into their phone records, financial records, mortgage statements, credit cards, cash transactions, linked accounts, put their children under the scanner, checked out their schools, put tails on all of them, tracked their Skype or messenger chats, followed their wives, went back to their birth records, parents’ records, girlfriends, partners, all of those in their immediate orbit. We put them through psych evaluations… I got to know those guys better than I know myself. If they stopped at a Walgreens, I knew about it and why. If they went to a strip club, I knew what they did there, who they talked to. If they argued with their wives or girlfriends, we knew about it! Got enough reports that if I had to print them and convert them back to trees, we would have a brand-new Amazon forest.’
‘All these in electronic form?’
‘Most of them, say ninety-percent, the rest, paper files in a secure storage only the Director and I know.’
He pushed a slip of paper at Broker containing names, titles, contact details and demographic details of all thirty agents. Broker skimmed through the list, swiftly noting the three married women and five single men, divorcés.
Isakson saw his pause, read the names upside down, and commented, ‘Yeah, I focused on those divorcés, seeing how they could fit a traitor profile, but they came clean too.’
‘Too clean? Any of them?’
‘Look.’ Isakson’s voice rose in frustration. ‘They came clean to me. However, I can’t keep second-guessing my investigation and its findings. There are quicker ways to insanity, if that’s where I want to go. Hence, I need a neutral pair of eyes, which is where you come in.’
He looked at Broker. ‘So?’
Broker shrugged. ‘Of all the gin joints and so on, why me? There must be a million other contractors out there who can help you, and who like you a damned sight more than I do.’
Isakson leaned forward. ‘You guys are trusted by Director Murphy, who has heard of you via Clare. The National Security Advisor likes you. Makes my job easier to work with someone my bosses trust. Your dislike for me has nothing to do with it.’
Broker got up and turned to leave. ‘I’ll give it some thought and get back to you. But if I was you, I wouldn’t be holding my breath.’
‘You would be doing your country a favor by helping us.’
Broker swung round at the door, and Isakson felt the full force of cold blue eyes. ‘Save it. My associates and I are the last people you should be using the patriotism card on. Your bosses know what we do, who we do it for, what motivates us. They wouldn’t hold us in such regard if we were your average Joe Mercenary. I’ll think about your request and get back to you.’
The two agents who followed Broker were hanging around outside Isakson’s office. Broker glanced at them as he brushed past them. ‘The next time you follow me, I’ll break your legs.’
Chapter 11
When in doubt, coffee, was Broker’s motto, and the Jura brewed him a hot black one when he reached his office. He leaned back in his chair and allowed the aroma to clear his mind. If he was honest with himself, he could help out Isakson. There wasn’t anything on his plate that his analysts couldn’t handle. He had already activated General Klouse’s project, but even that didn’t require his all-day attention. He’d let Isakson stew for a couple of days and then tell him he was on board.
That decision made, he went over his analysts’ reports, looking for mentions of any out-of-the ordinary military hardware and didn’t find any. He checked Werner to see if the spiders were configured correctly, and saw that they were. He patted it. Of course patting it made it work harder! This was artificial intelligence, after all. He then pushed everything out of his mind and turned his thoughts to Isakson’s revelations.
His computer chimed softly. Isakson had sent him the dossiers of the thirty agents and the key surveillance summary sheets and findings. He shook his head at Isakson’s persistence and then smiled. Broker would have done the same in Isakson’s situation.
He opened the files and started reading them swiftly, keeping his mind blank, letting it make any associations unconsciously.
Seven hours and four refills later, Broker leaned back and stretched with a satisfying grunt. He could read nonstop, without moving, and had done so from the moment he clicked his mouse. The pad in front of him had scribbling on it – Venn diagrams, models, graphs crudely drawn – and in the center were nine names: Charlotte Adams, Becky Pisano, Emily Santiago, Kory Refus, Claude Beucamp, Rick Stonehaus, Eric Yarbrough, Floyd Wheat and Chris Slinkard.
Women didn’t fit the traitor profile, and that was precisely why Broker had jotted their names down. The next five names were the divorcés and the last, Chris Slinkard, a Special Agent in a strong marriage with two kids, was perfect material for FBI recruiting posters.
Broker had picked the women and Slinkard because they didn’t fit the profile, and the single men just had to be included. He would turn Werner loose on all thirty, but those nine would be his starting point. He would compare whatever Werner threw up against Isakson’s reports and look for anomalies, coincidences, patterns, spreading the net wider with each search.
Broker was rinsing his coffee mug when his mind turned to the FBI’s previous traitor.
Robert Hanssen, a veteran FBI agent, had been spying for twenty-five years for Russia before his arrest in 2001, and was the most destructive traitor the FBI had known. Hanssen’s betrayal had led to the execution of two KGB double agents, the imprisonment of a third, and thousands of pages of highly classified material to land in Russian hands. Hanssen’s betrayal still haunted the FBI, and the slightest whiff of a mole made the organization paranoid.
Broker had been in the intelligence business for a long time and knew that every intelligence or investigative agency in the world was susceptible to betrayal from within. All that the best agencies could do was constantly reinvent their security protocols, minimize the damage when a rat was discovered, and relearn and reshape themselves. He could imagine the suspicion hanging in the air in the FBI corridors and, for the briefest of moments, felt sympathy for Isakson. He shook his head, snorted, and polished his mug extra hard.
Being a double agent in an organization such as the FBI was not easy. It required leading a double life and layers to be maintained for many years. Successful double agents were able to make the life layers a habit, as ingrained as brushing teeth in the morning. Such agents got exposed because they either got betrayed by another double agent or in some cases got careless, or overconfident, and made mistakes. Robert Hanssen got exposed because the FBI tapped a former KGB agent who gave evidence that led to Hanssen’
s arrest.
Isakson’s traitor was yet to make any mistakes, which meant that the traitor was so seasoned that the double life was his life. Or that Isakson had not picked up his mistakes. Or, and this was a possibility, that there was no traitor – that all that happened could be coincidences, even the messages at the warehouses. Broker would start his investigation fresh; he didn’t want to be contaminated by Isakson’s thinking, assumptions and judgment.
Broker also realized that there was no one who was beyond suspicion. With that in mind, he glanced at his watch and made a call. It was early, very early, but the person at the other end took calls at any time.
Broker met Clare in a drab office near City Hall the next day.
‘Keeping busy, Broker?’ Clare greeted him.
‘Can’t complain, ma’am. There’s enough wickedness in the world for me to earn a living,’ replied Broker.
Clare poured him a coffee and waved at him to continue.
‘I met Isakson yesterday–’
‘I heard,’ Clare interrupted him with a ghost of a smile.
Why wouldn’t she? She’s head of the most secretive and well-informed Agency in the world, Broker thought and continued, ‘He wants my help in an investigation of his.’
‘I think I know which one.’
‘Do you think his theory has legs?’
‘I’m sure you know the answer to that one, Broker. The FBI has been traitor-free for several years now. Either that situation is too good to be true, or it is true. No organization is immune to rats. In any case, I heard that there is some evidence to back his theory, so he’s not shooting in the dark. Are you going to help him?’
Broker nodded. ‘Yes, after letting him swing in the air for a day or two more. Unless you have some assignment for me and the rest…’ He trailed off.
Clare shook her head. ‘Nothing right now. But even if something comes up, I’m sure you can multitask well. Besides, they’ – she nodded, referring to the FBI – ‘know I have dibs on you.’
