by Flynn Vince
The rock quarry was situated thirty odd miles west of D.C. Few people knew of its storied history, and for the people who now used it, that was just fine. It was a relic from the Cold War-one of the few places that hadn’t been declassified and leaked to the press, and that was due solely to the fact that it had never been on the books to begin with, and no politician in the last thirty years had been informed of its existence. It also helped that even at the height of the Cold War the place was rarely used. Due to poor planning, the site was at the convergence of two underground streams, which meant that it flooded frequently. Some upgrades had been made in recent years. More sump pumps were installed as well as several dehumidifiers and a backup generator, but even so, the place was like a concrete petri dish. The men who worked there liked to joke that they didn’t have to worry about Congress blowing the whistle on them, it was OSHA who would shut them down for unhealthy working conditions. Fortunately, the men and the women of the clandestine service were used to working in less than ideal situations.
The place was laid out like an old World War II command bunker, with hallways branching out like a network of arteries. Rapp found Coleman napping in one of the bunkrooms and woke him with a firm shake and a cup of coffee. Coleman swung his feet onto the cold floor and took the mug from Rapp. After a few sips he scratched his blond hair and began to fill Rapp in on what had been an interesting night. One of the guys fetched the notepad and handed it to Rapp, while Coleman hit the high points.
Rapp tried to decipher the chicken scratch. “What about bugging Doc’s office?”
Coleman grinned. “I didn’t push him on it. I thought you’d want to save it for the shock value.”
Rapp nodded. He did.
“He noted it, but it’s pretty lame. All he says in there is that he’s done a little consulting for Langley’s inspector general.”
“Is he aware that Adams supposedly left the country?”
“No.” Coleman went on to fill him in on a few more things.
Rapp continued to speed-read his way through the notes. After about ten pages, he looked up at Coleman and said, “He’s been a busy beaver.”
“I’d say so. You gotta hand it to him. He’s pretty good at this surveillance game. My guys tell me his equipment is out of this world. Shit they’ve never seen before.”
Rapp thought about that and filed it away. Maybe the idiot was worth saving. He checked his watch and said, “Anything else before I go in there? I’m on a tight schedule.”
“I went to bed around five, but up until then it was a full-blown pity party. He definitely sees himself as the victim. He’s really upset about being shot. He was in a lot of pain. I think he’d probably crawl out of his own skin for a painkiller right about now.”
“Good. Where are they?”
Coleman walked over to a metal file cabinet, yanked it open with a screech, grabbed the red bottle, and handed it to Rapp. Rapp took the pills and a bottle of water and went down the long hallway to the cells. He punched in the code for the cipher lock on the door and pulled it open. There were two cells on the left and two on the right with heavy steel doors that looked as if they might have been salvaged from a battleship.
The place was not permanently wired for audio and sound. The humidity wreaked havoc on the a/v equipment, so Rapp carried his own device. It was only a precaution, in case he missed something and needed to play it back later. More than likely, though, he would trash the recording the second the meeting was over.
Rapp stopped at the first door on the left and pulled back the heavy slide on the peephole. Johnson was sitting back with his bandaged foot on the table. In front of him was another yellow legal pad and a pen. Rapp threw the dead bolt on the door and opened it. Coleman’s guy left without saying a word. Rapp set the bottle of water on the table and shook the container of painkillers back and forth to get Johnson’s attention.
“You ready for another one of these?”
Johnson held out his hand. “Yes.”
Rapp looked at the sweat on his upper lip and said, “In a minute.”
Johnson started to squirm and looked at his foot with deep concern.
“We just have to go over a few things first.”
Johnson moaned and banged his fist on the table. “Come on. Just give me a pill.”
Rapp stared him down and asked, “What do you know about me?”
“I know you shot me in the foot last night for no good reason. That’s what I know about you.”
Rapp could see what Coleman meant now by the pity party thing. “In the broader sense, Max, what is my reputation as you know it?”
He looked around the room nervously and shrugged his shoulders.
Rapp took off his suit jacket and draped it on the back of the chair. He rested his hand on his gun and said. “It’s not a trick question, Max. Honesty is what’s important this morning. I don’t care if you insult me, just tell me the truth. That’s the only way I’ll let you walk out of here. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t know. This is so fucked up.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” Rapp said a bit more forcefully. “The truth is the truth and a fucking lie is a fucking lie, and if I think you’re lying to me, we’re going to start up that game again.”
“What game?” Johnson said in genuine confusion.
Rapp drew his gun for effect and said, “Left foot, right foot, left knee, right knee.”
Johnson buried his face in his hands.
“So remember,” Rapp said, “the truth. Now for the second time… What is my reputation?”
Johnson shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know… you’ve killed a lot of people.”
Rapp tried to be objective. “All things considered I guess that would be a true statement.”
“And after last night,” Johnson added quickly, “I don’t doubt it for a moment. I mean what the hell… I was at Langley before you were. I put in my twenty-five years. I served. What you did last night was wrong. I mean, that’s no way to treat a fellow professional.”
Rapp was glad he’d gotten five hours of sack time, because Johnson was a perfect example of what happened to the human mind if deprived of sleep. Add to that the fact that he probably hadn’t felt real pain since he was a kid, and you had a very agitated fifty-six-year-old man. “So let’s do a quick recap. For the last year, you’ve been whoring yourself out to whoever will pay you. You’ve broken dozens of laws. You’ve illegally spied on officials in your own government-”
“Illegal!” Johnson scoffed. “What would you call this? You don’t exactly play by the rules.”
“I sure don’t, but there’s a big difference between what I do and what you do.”
“Maybe in your mind.”
“Really… why don’t you tell me how much money I’ve made breaking the law during the course of my career?”
Johnson squirmed in his seat.
“I’m not into your relativism, Max. I do this job because I think it’s important. I do it because narcissistic fucks like you care more about your own ego and making a buck than our national security. What really pisses me off, though, is that you’re the same assholes who when the next 9/11 happens, will all sit around pointing your fingers at guys like me and saying I didn’t do enough to protect the country. Well, I’m fed up, Max. I’m sick of swimming upstream. I’ve spent the last two days running around dealing with bullshit like this. Like you. Greedy fucking children, who don’t give a shit about anyone or anything other than yourselves.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really?” Rapp folded his arms across his chest. “You call yourself a fellow professional, Max. Well, if you really think you’re a professional, then you know damn well that you wandered way off the reservation and I have every right to put a bullet in your head.”
“That’s not true… there are things… things you don’t know about.”
“Bullshit!” Rapp yelled. Adams had tried the same line on him. “It’s your ch
oice, Max. Are you going to repent with all your heart and soul, or am I going to put a bullet in your head? Your choice!”
CHAPTER 47
THIS was not Rapp’s first séance, as they liked to say in the business. There were a couple of books out there on how to properly interrogate a prisoner, but they were pretty remedial. The more nasty stuff could be found in the CIA’s Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual or the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual. This was stuff that the CIA had authored decades earlier when people were either brave enough or crazy enough to put such things in writing. Rapp had read both a long time ago, and found them to be useful in the sense that they offered an outline, but it was all a little bit like reading about a baseball swing. Most people can read and easily understand the swing, but less than one percent of one percent of the population can actually step into the batter’s box and hit a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball.
Rapp had no doubt that Johnson was scared to death of him. But was he scared enough to actually tell the truth? With most people, the fear of death or severe pain was all it took, and as long as you could check out the story they would tell you the truth, because if they lied, you went back into the room and pushed whatever button worked.
Johnson looked up at Rapp and in a convincing voice said, “I want to tell the truth.”
Now came the sticky part. With Johnson, the crux of the problem was that he had lived by a double standard for so long that he thought lying was his birthright. He was the great inquisitor, charged with making sure Langley’s people played by the rules. And if he had to break the rules to catch them, then so be it. He was above it all. The rules were for the little people. It was no wonder he and Glen Adams had become bosom buddies. So Rapp had to come at this one from a slightly different angle.
“I have to be honest with you. I have a long day in front of me. I have to go pick up a friend this morning who’s all fucked in the head because he’s been working his ass off and he’s come within a fraction of losing his life twice in the past year, and his job is made five times harder than it should be because he’s got assholes like you running around. And then I have to get up to the Hill and listen to all those blowhards on the Judiciary Committee grill me because I didn’t treat some terrorist with kid gloves and then after that I have to get over to the White House and tell the president that I either killed you, like he asked me to do, or I spared your life and went against his orders.”
“The president ordered you to kill me?” Johnson’s eyes were wide with fear and disbelief.
“After what happened last week, the president has decided this War on Terror is not just a campaign slogan. He’s dealing with the aftermath of the attacks, trying to find the guys who are still at large and make those who helped them pay, and in the midst of all of that he finds out that the CIA’s inspector general has left the country and flown to fucking Caracas, Venezuela, of all places.” Rapp saw the surprise in Johnson’s eyes. “That’s right. Your old buddy Glen Adams.
We’ve been on to him for about a month now. Someone slipped up, he got spooked, and he bolted. Turns out he’s been working for that thug Chavez for the past four years.”
“Hugo Chavez?”
“None other. We started going through his stuff and unfortunately your name was all over the place.”
Johnson swallowed hard.
“That’s how we got on your tail. We didn’t know shit about Sidorov and all these other pet projects you had going.”
“People saw me last night. A lot of people.” Johnson looked up and pointed at Rapp. “And they saw you, too.”
“Russians. All of them. They play by a different set of rules. They respect this.” Rapp waved his gun around. “They know I’ll hunt them down and put a bullet in their head. A guy like Sidorov… he has enough problems. The last thing he wants is a guy like me hounding him.”
“Those two security guys,” Johnson said with a “got you” expression on his face. “They were American. They saw me. They saw you drag me out of the club.”
“You mean the two guys from Triple Canopy? The former Special Forces guys? We already talked to them. Gave them the rap sheet on what you’ve been up to. They wanted to know if they could help with the interrogation. I told them I’d see how things went this morning.” Rapp checked his watch. It was six-fifty-six. “You’ve got thirty minutes to convince me that I should stay your execution.”
Johnson was staring off into the distance with a blank expression on his face.
“Do you understand what I just said?”
“I can’t believe he was working for Hugo Chavez.”
Rapp didn’t show it, but he was smiling inside. Maybe there was a bit of a patriot still in the man. “None of us are too pleased about it. Now did you understand what I just said?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure you did, so I’m going to make it real clear. The president has told me to kill you. He’s furious that a guy with Adams’s security clearance has defected. Between you and me, he’s horrified that little sausage Chavez is going to parade Adams in front of the cameras.
He knows you helped Adams collect a lot of his information.” Rapp shrugged. “He can’t get his hands on Adams, so you’re the next best thing.”
“I didn’t know he was working for Chavez.”
“Max,” Rapp said with a heavy sigh, “I’d like to feel some sympathy for you, but it’s not like you didn’t know you were breaking the law. You climbed into bed with a rat bastard and you were caught. Now… the only chance you have of living a minute past seven-thirty is if you put all your cards on the table. I know this won’t be easy for you because you’re a professional liar. You’re going to have to fight your instincts. If I think you’re lying, and trust me, I’ll know when you are, the gun comes out and we do the left foot, right foot thing. Understand?”
“And if I tell you the truth?”
Rapp grinned. “Let’s just say, there are a few people around here who think you’re pretty good at what you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, if you are completely honest and you hold nothing back, I might consider letting you live. And if I think I can trust you, I might even give you a job.”
There was a genuine glimmer of hope in his eyes. Johnson sat up a little straighter like a dog ready to please. “All right. I think I understand.”
“Let’s hear it, and remember, no lies.”
“All right… about six months ago Glen came to me and explained his suspicions about what you and Irene were up to. He said that I was the only one who would understand his situation. That if you were going to catch someone who was breaking the law, you couldn’t fight fair. You had to be willing to break the rules yourself.”
“And you agreed,” Rapp said in a reasonable tone, wanting to help him along.
“Yes.” Johnson started to speak but stopped.
“Fight it,” Rapp said. “Your only chance is to tell the truth.”
“What if it pisses you off?”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“By shooting me in the foot?”
Rapp shook his head. “Only if you lie to me. So you decided to go to work for him…” Rapp made a rolling motion with his hand, telling him to pick up the story.
“It started out pretty simple. He wanted me to bug an office. I didn’t even know who the guy was.”
Rapp knew immediately that it was a lie. He pointed the gun at Johnson’s bandaged foot and said, “Fight it.”
“All right,” he said quickly, “I knew who he was, but I’d never met him.”
“Go on.”
“His name is Thomas Lewis. He’s a shrink. He’s kind of the go-to therapist for the bigwigs on the seventh floor. Has a practice out by Tyson’s Corner.”
“I’m familiar with him.”
“Well… we bugged his office.”
“That’s real classy.”
“I wasn’t calling the shots. I was mere
ly following orders.”
“Like me,” Rapp said. “The president wants me to kill you, so who am I to question him. I should probably just kill you right now and get it over with.”
“Please let me explain. I thought it was a little underhanded.”
“But you also thought it was brilliant.”
Johnson hesitated and then said, “Kind of.”
“So how’d you do it?” Rapp asked.
“I set up a passive system in a nearby office and started recording. I’d go back to the place every couple of weeks to check on the equipment, but it was pretty much handled off-site. The recordings were uploaded to a server every day. I’d put them on a disk and hand them over.”
“Did you ever listen to any?”
Johnson started to say no, but caught himself. “A few, but not many.”
“Seriously.”
“Yeah. It might sound interesting, but it’s boring as hell.”
“How many copies?” Rapp asked casually.
“I gave one to Adams and the other one is up on the secure server.”
Rapp nodded and picked up the bottle of painkillers. He popped the top and took out two pills. He held them in front of Johnson and said, “You know Marcus Dumond?”
“Yes,” Johnson snorted. “He’s a disrespectful little shit.”
“Not really. Just seems that way because he’s so much smarter than the rest of us. At any rate he was telling me the other day that he has a new software program that can tell how many times something has been copied. Now Marcus is at your office right now. If I call him up and ask him to find out how many times this stuff was copied and he comes back with something other than two… well… let’s just say you and I will be finished. So think real hard. How many copies did you make?”
