by Mike Lawson
In the room with Harris were Diane Carlucci and Darren Thayer, the two young FBI agents who had been in Bremerton; Richard Miller, head of shipyard security; and two NCIS agents— the same two who had been at the briefing the Bremerton chief of police had held after apprehending Dave Whitfield’s supposed killer. Also present were Bill Smith, Emma, DeMarco, and Chief Superintendent Morton of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was a large crowd and they were all seated around an oval-shaped table in one of the RCMP’s conference rooms.
“You know goddamn good and well, Smith,” Harris was saying, “that you have no jurisdiction in this thing. The DIA doesn’t arrest spies, particularly spies operating in the United States. You should have called us the minute you had a lead on Carmody, and you damn well know it.”
“Time was of the essence,” Smith said.
“Bullshit!” Harris screamed. “All it would have taken was a damn phone call. This whole thing’s an organizational cluster fuck and I’m tired of it. Like you guys, what in the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he said, pointing at the NCIS agents.
“What do you mean, what are we doing here?” one of the NCIS agents said. “We’re talking about navy security. We have to know—”
“But you have no jurisdiction at this point. Have you got that?”
“Yeah,” the NCIS guy said, “but—”
“And you,” Harris said, pointing at Emma, “you’re retired, for Christ’s sake.” Emma gave him back a blank stare. “And you,” he said, now pointing at DeMarco, “as near as I can tell you’re some kinda political gunslinger. Nobody can figure out what you do or who you work for. I called Washington and told ’em I wanted both your asses shipped out of here, ASAP, and the next thing I know the Speaker of the House is talking to the director. The Speaker! I don’t know why you people have so much pull, but I’m telling you that from this point forward, this is a Bureau operation. Have you all got that?”
Diane Carlucci was sitting off to Harris’s right as he ranted, eyes downcast, trying not to make eye contact with DeMarco— and trying not to smile.
“Calm down, Glen, before you have a stroke,” Smith said. “We all agree it’s your show from here on in. Okay?”
But Harris wasn’t through. “This is the kinda shit the 9-11 Commission was trying to put a stop to. Federal agencies stepping all over each other, not sharin’ information, grandstanding to get the credit. And Jesus Christ, Smith, immunity! You didn’t have the authority to promise him immunity.”
Smith shrugged. “I told him we’d give him immunity to get him to talk. And you’re right, I don’t have the authority. So later on if you decide not to give him immunity, you can tell him that.”
Harris started to respond, then thought about what Smith had said. “Yeah, maybe so,” he muttered. But he wasn’t through yet. “And why can’t we move this guy back to the States?” Harris asked Morton.
“You can if you wish, Mr. Harris,” Morton said calmly. “It makes no difference to me. But I will point out that Mr. Carmody said that if he was extradited, he might be less forthcoming.”
Harris shook his head. “Jesus, what a mess.”
No one in the room responded. “Okay,” Harris said after a moment. “I’m gonna bring this guy in and have him give us a statement. I could kick all of you out of the room but you’d just go call your bosses and bitch, so I’m gonna let you sit in on this. For the moment.
I’ll ask the questions, and you will all sit there and be quiet. Are we clear?”
Everybody nodded— except Emma.
* * *
CARMODY WAS LED into the conference room. He wore leg irons and his hands were cuffed in front of him. A chain linked the handcuffs to a wide leather belt around his waist. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit, and the jumpsuit had the word PRISONER stenciled on the back so he wouldn’t be confused with a janitor.
DeMarco couldn’t help but think that Carmody, even manacled and dressed in jail coveralls, didn’t look like a spy. Spies were supposed to be little, weaselly-looking guys with beady eyes and weak chins. Carmody looked like Hollywood’s version of what he’d once been: an ex–navy SEAL. Handsome but hard, athletic and muscular. He looked like a hero, the guy you’d want standing next to you in a firefight. But looks, DeMarco guessed, and as his mother always said, can be deceiving.
Carmody took a seat in a chair at the head of the conference table and took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. The chain securing the handcuffs to the belt made it difficult for him to raise the cigarette to his lips.
“Put that cigarette away,” Harris said.
Carmody winked at Harris and lit the cigarette with a match. Before Harris could say anything else, Carmody exhaled the smoke and said, “We’ve been giving the North Koreans everything we could on the reactor plant systems on all classes of nuc ships: Nimitz class carriers, attack boats, Tridents. They don’t want to build nuc boats, they just want the reactor technology. We snuck a laptop into the training facility and made copies of CDs that contain the reactor plant manuals. We’ve—”
“Jesus Christ,” Miller said, his face blanching white. “How did you—”
“Shut up,” Harris said, looking at Miller.
Morton rose from his chair and brought Carmody an ashtray.
“In addition to the CDs we copied,” Carmody said, “we answered any technical questions they had.”
“Give me an example,” Harris said.
Carmody shrugged. “The manuals give you a general description of how the reactors operate— system pressures, temperatures, design parameters, that sort of thing— but they don’t always give you the nitty-gritty on particular components. Say the manuals talk about a certain pump. The Koreans— their scientists, I guess— would ask us for the materials the pump is made from, who makes it, how it works. That sort of thing. So we’d get the information, write it down, make sketches if we had to, and give it to my control.”
“Oh my God,” Miller said. DeMarco felt sorry for Miller. Somebody was going to be a scapegoat for the gigantic hole that Carmody and his pals had punched into navy security— in fact there would probably be a large number of scapegoats— but Miller was definitely going to be the head goat. DeMarco wondered how close to retirement Miller was; he hoped he was real close.
“How did you suck Mulherin and Norton into this thing?” Harris asked.
“A talent spotter found them,” Carmody said, “and I offered them enough to make them happy. It didn’t take all that much.”
Everybody in the room nodded, apparently understanding what Carmody meant. DeMarco didn’t, but Emma explained it to him later. Intelligence agencies often posted people near military installations, people who were charming and had a gift for gab. Often these people were good-looking women. The talent spotter’s job was to find people like Mulherin and Norton, people in debt, carrying a grudge, who could be turned into traitors.
“Why did you spend so much time down on the boats?” Emma said.
Harris’s head spun toward Emma, his eyes blazing, but before he could say anything, Carmody said, “I got other stuff. The sailors would talk about ship operating schedules; missions they’d been on; intelligence acquired on missions. I spent a lot of time just bullshitting with the enlisted guys, buying them drinks, picking up information.”
Miller put his head in his hands.
“And how did they get you to cooperate?” Harris asked.
“Money,” Carmody said. “They contacted me while I was living in Hong Kong and made me the offer.”
“So all it took to get you to betray your country was a little money,” Harris said, his voice disdainful.
“No, it took a lot of money,” Carmody said.
“How did you pass on the information? Were you mailing it, e-mailing it, using dead drops, what?” Harris said.
“I delivered it in person. I didn’t trust the Koreans to pay me, so I’d meet my control here in Vancouver and hand him a package. Before the meeting, we’d a
gree on a price.”
“Why Vancouver?” Morton asked. His tone implied that he was rather annoyed that the Americans had allowed this mess to ooze across the border.
“Because it’s not in the United States. And Vancouver has a large Asian community. My control felt safer here.”
“Seattle has a large Asian community as well,” Harris said. “Why didn’t you meet there?”
“I don’t know. This was where he wanted to meet, so this is where we met.”
“Who killed Mulherin and Norton?” Harris said.
“My control, I guess. If he didn’t do it personally, he had someone do it. I didn’t kill them.”
“But why did he kill them?” Harris asked.
Carmody pointed a finger at Emma. “Her. She guessed what we were doing at the shipyard and then she rocked Mulherin pretty good with that fake assassination attempt she pulled.”
“What!” Harris said, whipping his head toward Emma.
“I’ll tell you later,” Smith said, looking sheepish.
Carmody looked from one man to the other, smiled slightly, then continued speaking. “Mulherin was pretty high-strung to begin with and after the thing she pulled, my control was afraid Mulherin would give the whole game away if she rattled him again. So my control decided to terminate the op— and Mulherin and Norton at the same time.”
“You’re lying your ass off,” Emma said.
“Lady,” Harris said to Emma, his tone of voice warning her to be quiet. “And what do you know about a submarine noise expert from the Undersea Warfare Center named John Washburn?”
“Who?” Carmody said, looking genuinely confused. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Bullshit,” Harris said. “He was part of your operation.”
“Believe what you want,” Carmody said, “but I don’t know who you’re talking about. The only people I worked with were Mulherin, Norton, and my control.”
“Then why did you run around the western United States for a week, leaving clues a blind man could have followed?” Harris said.
“My control told me to run, to avoid capture, until we could meet in Vancouver. That’s all I was doing.”
“You were using credit cards in your own name, getting your picture taken by surveillance cameras. You expect us to believe you’re that inept?” Emma said.
Carmody shrugged. “What can I tell you?” he said. “I’ve never been a spy before.”
Emma started to say something, then just shook her head.
“I think you’re lyin’, bud,” Harris said, “about that little road trip you took, but what I really want to know is how, exactly, you’re going to give us your control.”
“I called him after Mulherin and Norton were killed,” Carmody said. “I told him that I had no intention of letting him pop me, too, and that I had one last package for him. A big one. I said I needed money and a passport to disappear. So we agreed to meet here in Vancouver this week to make the exchange.”
“Did it occur to you, Carmody,” Harris said, “that your control might meet with you, take your information, and kill you anyway?”
“Yeah that did occur to me,” Carmody said, “and I was trying to figure out a way to keep that from happening. But now I don’t need to figure anything out because you’re gonna protect me.”
* * *
“I LOVE WAFFLES,” Smith said as he shoved a forkful into his mouth. “My wife never makes ’em. She says it’s too much trouble to clean the waffle iron. And this place, I swear to God, they make the best waffles in North America. No matter where you go, Cleveland, Baltimore, Vancouver— the same texture, the same taste. It’s amazing.”
“They probably use the same batter and the same waffle irons in all their restaurants,” DeMarco said.
“I think it’s more than that,” Smith said. “I think it’s their quality control.”
“They’re waffles, for Christ’s sake,” Emma said. “They’re not making Ferraris.”
DeMarco, Emma, and Smith were in an IHOP— an International House of Pancakes. DeMarco thought the waffles were pretty good, too. And the bacon and the eggs and the hash browns. If he finished everything on his plate he wouldn’t have to eat for the next three days. Maybe he’d hibernate.
Emma was having coffee and half a grapefruit. Before Smith could say anything more about the cuisine, she said, “Carmody’s scamming us, Bill.”
“How?” Smith said.
“For one thing, the North Koreans have about twenty subs but none are nuclear powered. Them stealing U.S. navy reactor technology is like a guy with a bicycle stealing an owner’s manual for a Porsche. The Chinese, the Russians, even the Indians, I could believe. But the North Koreans, I don’t think so.”
“Carmody said they wanted the technology for land-based reactors.”
“Yeah, I know what he said,” Emma said. “And he’s lying.”
“I don’t know,” Smith said. “Maybe the North Koreans—”
“No!” Emma said. “I’m not buying any of it. I’m not buying it’s the North Koreans, I’m not buying Carmody getting caught the way he was, and I’m not buying him giving everything up so easily.”
“Well, I can see why he confessed,” Smith said. “What else was he going to do?”
“And he is getting immunity,” DeMarco said.
“I doubt he’s gonna get immunity,” Smith said, his eyes twinkling behind the lenses of his glasses.
“You gave the guy signed papers,” DeMarco said.
“So what?” he said. “We’re talking national security here, not carjacking.”
“Jesus, remind me if I’m ever arrested not to believe the government.”
“You work for the government, you dummy,” Smith said. “Why would you, of all people, believe the government?”
“Will you two shut up,” Emma said. “I’m telling you, Bill, he shouldn’t have confessed. We had no, absolutely no, evidence of espionage. Zero. If we tried to take this case to court— without Carmody’s confession— we wouldn’t be able to find a lawyer willing to prosecute.”
“What can I tell you, Emma? The guy’s scared.”
“Does he look scared to you, Bill, this ex–navy SEAL? I’m telling you, we’re missing a piece here.”
Smith shrugged and poured more syrup on his waffles. DeMarco thought if he put any more syrup on his plate the waffles would float.
“Did you guys believe Carmody when he said he didn’t know Washburn?” DeMarco said.
“Yeah,” Emma said. “I think his control was running two independent ops and there was no reason for Carmody to know about Washburn. The only link between Carmody and Washburn was Carmody’s road trip. Carmody’s control was using Carmody to distract us while he— or she— was trying to sneak Washburn out of the country.”
“Or she?” Smith said. “Do you think—”
“Has Washburn given anything up yet?” DeMarco asked Smith.
“No. I called the FBI this morning and they said the bastard’s hangin’ in there, not sayin’ a word. But they’ll break him eventually. You know,” Smith said to Emma, “instead of sitting there stewing, you oughta be feeling pretty good here. You stumble onto an operation, bust it up, and we find out what Carmody gave ’em and how he did it. And then you see through the Carmody smoke screen and we nab Washburn. So you’re a hero, a heroine, whatever. The worst thing that can happen at this point is we don’t get Carmody’s control. So lighten up and eat your damn grapefruit.”
Smith took a couple more bites of his waffle before saying, “You two oughta go back to Washington. This really is a Bureau show from here on in.” With a little cackle, he added, “Now that we’ve handed it to them on a friggin’ platter. But there isn’t anything else to do now except scoop up Carmody’s boss.”
“I can’t leave yet,” DeMarco said, surprising both Smith and Emma.
“Why not?” Smith said.
“I have to find out what happened to Dave Whitfield. There’s a pissed-off
Secretary of the Navy who wants to know why his nephew died. And in case you’ve forgotten, there’s that poor schizophrenic bastard in a jail cell in Bremerton that’s going to be convicted of killing Whitfield unless somebody tells them he didn’t do it.”
34
What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” Glen Harris said.
