“No. This is the CIA. Not the Boy Scouts. When we get an order from the boss, we follow it.”
“What about any of your friends? Did you tell any of them?”
Dunne thought a long moment about his friend Roger Magee, who had in fact warned him against taking the assignment. Magee had spent his whole career avoiding mistakes like the one Dunne had made. If Dunne named him as a confidant, the FBI would be up his ass in twenty-four hours. Dunne didn’t know whether Magee would back him up, but he didn’t want to put him in that situation. Dunne would have to clean up his own mess.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t tell any friends.”
“So there is no record of any kind, written or oral, to corroborate the allegations that you have made about Deputy Director Strafe.”
“Just my word. And I’m telling you the truth. I did what I was told. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
* * *
They spent another ninety minutes taking Dunne through the details of his account. After the free narrative, they switched to rote questions. The agents were trying to fill in pieces of the chronology they’d received from the CIA, rather than add new facts. It was only near the end of the session that they asked a question that made Dunne’s stomach tighten.
“Who is Veronika Kruse?” asked Rudd.
Dunne didn’t say anything at first. He took a drink from the water bottle. Rudd and Velazquez waited. “Take as much time as you need,” she said.
“Veronika Kruse is a woman I met in Geneva. I met her at a club.”
“Did you have any reason to believe that she was a security risk? That she could compromise your operation?”
“No. Not in the beginning. Then, later, I don’t know. I can tell you what happened. Probably you already know.”
“We don’t need to ask you any more questions about her now. All we want to know now is whether she tried to obtain any classified information from you.”
“No,” said Dunne. “That wasn’t the problem.”
“I see. What was the problem?”
“Personal.”
They let it lie. They didn’t pursue the matter of Veronika Kruse, and the interview ended a few minutes later.
Dunne left the FBI Washington Field Office with a sense of dread. He thought he should go home and warn his wife what might be coming. But by the time he got there, it was too late.
28 Washington, D. C. – October 2016
Alicia Silva was sitting at the breakfast table in the kitchen, staring at her laptop computer, when Dunne returned home. There was a box of tissues next to her. When Dunne entered the room, she looked away. “Desgraçado,” she said, barely audible. She closed the lid of her laptop and went into the bathroom. Their four-year-old daughter Luisa was taking a nap on the couch in the living room; Alicia checked her and closed the living room door. When she returned to the kitchen, she stared at Dunne. The corners of her lips were trembling.
“How could you?” she said. “I’ve always loved you. You were my only love.”
“We need to talk,” said Dunne. He pointed to the computer. “What have you been looking at?”
“What is Stylet?” she asked coldly.
“It means stiletto, in French,” answered Dunne.
“I know that,” she said. “What were you doing at the Stylet Club in Geneva?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Someone sent me an email. It said you were at this club with a woman. They sent me pictures. You pig.”
“What pictures?” said Dunne.
This last bland, equivocating question from Dunne drove Alicia into a fury. She picked up a coffee cup from the counter and threw it at him. It missed his head and hit the wall with a splintering crash that woke the four-year-old sleeping in the next room.
“Pictures of you and this naked woman,” she screamed. “This one. Right here! You see? She has her hand on your cock. Big tits. Brazilian wax. Did she blow you or fuck you? I cannot look at you. You’re a liar and a cheater and a shit. I’m leaving!”
The child was wailing now at the sound of her mother’s screams. Alicia waddled into the next room. She took Luisa in her arms, wrapped her in a coat, and whispered to her in Portuguese as she walked to the door.
“Nós estamos indo embora. Eu vou cuidar de você minha querida. Nós vamos encontrar uma nova casa.” We’re leaving him, my darling. We’ll find a new home.
Alicia took her purse and a warm coat, and a bag by the door that Dunne had overlooked when he arrived. She slammed the door behind her and carried the child to the car.
* * *
Dunne sat down at the kitchen table and looked at the computer screen. The image had the grainy look of a tabloid photo: the flash of the camera illuminating her white skin; the sheen of the blond hair against the dark, empty room; the slight bend in her knee as the hand reached toward him. And the absurd, humiliating portrait of a man with his trousers and shorts around his ankles, staring wide-eyed at the camera in the horror of being exposed.
Dunne shut the lid of the laptop. “I’m a fool,” he muttered, and then a whimpering groan. He ran to the door to chase after his wife, but Alicia was gone.
He returned to his seat at the counter. He was shivering, though it wasn’t cold. The screen of the laptop wasn’t quite closed. It gave off a glow around the edges. He took out his cell phone to call his lawyer, Mark Walden, and then put it away. What would he say?
Dunne raised the screen again. The photograph had been sent as an attachment to an email. It came from a throwaway address, “[email protected].” If Dunne had still been a member of the intelligence community, he might have been able to track the sender, but not now.
Thought you should know… was the subject line of the email. The body of the message read: The Spy Michael Dunne at Stylet Club in Geneva, September 27, 2016, with Veronika Kruse, before he attacked the Citizen Journalists.
“Motherfuckers,” Dunne muttered. He wondered for a moment how they had gotten Alicia’s email address, but that was so easy. They had everything.
Dunne went upstairs and put on a sweater to stop his shivering. He returned to the open laptop. His fingers paused above the keyboard. If they would do this, what else would they do? He typed his name into the Google search box.
At the top of the list was the Post story from two days before, but below that was a new web posting from Fallen Empire, with the headline “CIA Snoop Caught in Sex Club.” It showed the top half of the lurid picture, with Veronika’s face blurred. Other sites weren’t so chaste. A web search quickly turned up a dozen copies of the full photo, on Reddit and 4chan. Dunne’s humiliation had gone viral.
Dunne’s hand was shaking. His bowels felt loose. He coughed as if something were caught in his throat, but he was gagging on his own shame and revulsion.
He needed to call Walden. He took some deep breaths as he punched the lawyer’s number into the phone. When Walden’s secretary asked why he was calling, he wouldn’t answer. “Private matter,” he said. She wouldn’t put him through without an explanation, but Walden called back five minutes later, upbeat and solicitous.
“Hey, Michael, how did the FBI interview go?” he asked. “I need a debrief.”
“I’ll get to that,” Dunne said. “Something bad has happened. I am all fucked up here. My wife has left me.”
“Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
“It’s pathetic, I’m sorry. Someone sent Alicia a photograph of a naked woman holding my penis in her hand. She went nuts. She took our daughter and left. She’s eight months pregnant. What am I supposed to do? The picture is all over the Internet.”
“One step at a time. First, is the picture real?”
“Yes. I’m such an asshole. The woman’s name is Veronika Kruse. Can you get it taken down?”
“Probably. Not everywhere, but most sites will delete it. Do you know who sent it?”
“They’re punishing me,” said Dunne. There was a tremor in his voice.
“What are you
talking about? Who’s punishing you?”
“Everybody. The people I was spying on. Maybe someone at the agency. George Strafe knew about the photograph, because I told him. I don’t know, but this is payback from somebody.”
“Calm down. Don’t blame your colleagues. Things don’t work like that.”
“The FBI asked me about the woman in the photograph. They asked if Veronika Kruse had requested any classified information. How did they know about her, if someone didn’t tell them?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Michael. You’re stressed. It will only make things worse. I’ll contact the General Counsel’s Office when we hang up. All right?”
“It won’t make any difference, but okay.” Dunne took a breath. He didn’t want to look weak and disoriented. Not with his lawyer, or anyone.
“What else did you tell the FBI?” asked Walden. “I hope you were careful.”
“I was truthful. I told them that George Strafe authorized everything I did and that he promised that if anything went wrong, he would fix it. The Feebs asked if I had any proof, or if I’d told anyone about what Strafe told me. I said no. Then the email with the dirty picture arrived.”
“I wish you hadn’t made the accusation against Strafe. It won’t help. But we’ll settle this case. Believe me. I’ve been in many negotiations with the agency that were more complicated than this.”
“I don’t want to settle. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Let me be the lawyer for a while, and you be the client. Okay? Tell me what else the FBI asked about.”
Dunne was going to argue again, but he caught himself. Walden was right. He was just digging a deeper hole. He summarized his interview with the two special agents: what he had said in his own narrative, and then the interrogatory, back and forth. Walden took notes and stopped Dunne every few sentences to clarify. It was reassuring, to have someone else worrying about him.
“Send me the picture of you and the woman, please,” Walden said when they had finished the reprise of the FBI interview.
“Give me a break. Is that necessary?”
“Sorry, I know it’s embarrassing, but I can’t get websites to take down a photograph unless I have a copy of it. I’ll have a couple of my associates start calling social media companies as soon as we get the picture.”
“I want to die,” said Dunne.
“Stop it!” said Walden sharply. “Pull yourself together. If you’d like me to talk with your wife, I’d be happy to.”
“I think she’ll want a divorce lawyer,” Dunne said. He meant it as a wisecrack, but as he said the words, he knew they were true.
* * *
Alicia returned just after seven that night. A cold October wind blew some leaves over the threshold. She was holding their daughter. Her face was wan; her lips were dry; her eyes were puffy from tears.
“Mommy has been crying,” said Luisa. “She’s upset.”
Dunne tried to embrace his wife, but she pulled back. She spoke coldly, flatly, the life crushed from her voice.
“I didn’t come back for you, Michael. I need to be in the house. It’s bad for my new baby if I leave now. And for Luisa. She doesn’t know what’s wrong, seeing her mother like this.”
Dunne reached to comfort his daughter, but she cringed and grabbed for her mother’s blouse. She was a striking child, with her father’s red hair and her mother’s radiant skin. Alicia put her down, but she continued to cling to her mother.
“I want you to leave this house tomorrow,” Alicia said. “I’ve talked to a lawyer. I want us to meet with him as soon as possible.”
“You want a divorce?” asked Dunne.
“Yes.” She put her head in her hands. The tears came again. “Oh, Michael, my heart is broken.”
“I’m so ashamed. I don’t know how to make it better.”
“I loved you so much.” She said the words despondently. In the past tense. Dunne struggled for some way to connect with the woman who had slipped away from him.
“Let me get you something to eat. Have you eaten dinner? Or a cup of tea, or something.”
“I can’t keep anything down,” she answered. “I keep throwing up. But get Luisa something simple.”
Dunne knelt toward his daughter. He wanted desperately to be useful to someone.
“Do you want some cereal, Lou?” he asked. “Or some scrambled eggs?”
“Lucky Charms,” she said, staring up at him. He reached out his arms, and she deliberated and then let him pick her up.
Dunne went to the kitchen and filled a bowl with cereal. Luisa sat at the table while he poured the milk. “Apple juice?” he asked.
“Yes, please.” He gave her the glass, and then kissed her forehead.
“I’m going to talk to Mommy,” he said. “I think she’s thirsty.”
Dunne poured a glass of Gatorade and brought it to his wife in the living room. Alicia waved him off.
“You need to drink something. You’ll get dehydrated otherwise. Take a sip.”
She tipped the glass toward her lips but gagged at the taste.
“I can’t,” she said. “Not now.”
“You need fluids. You’ll get sick.”
“I am sick. I’m going upstairs to bed. You can sleep on the couch in your study on the third floor.”
“What about Luisa?”
“I called Heidi’s mom next door, Annie. She’s coming in a few minutes. Luisa is going to have a sleepover with Heidi tonight.”
“Okay,” said Dunne. He wasn’t fit even to be in the same house with his daughter.
When the doorbell rang, Alicia walked Luisa out to meet the next-door neighbor. Dunne watched his daughter walk away, trying not to cry.
“Goodbye, Daddy,” she said.
“I need a hug,” Dunne called out, as his daughter was almost to the door.
He took Luisa in his arms and held her tightly, as if there might never be another time. She looked at him quizzically when he finally let her go.
“It’s okay, Daddy. Mommy will feel better.”
Alicia tried to smile, but it didn’t hold. She took her daughter’s hand, whispered something in her friend Annie’s ear, gave her daughter a kiss, and closed the door. She walked past Dunne in the living room, but he called to her.
“Hey. Can we talk?”
“Not now. I’m going to bed.”
“Drink some water, darling.”
“I tried. It didn’t stay down. I’ll try again in a little while. Don’t call me darling.” She took slow, square-footed steps up the stairway to her bedroom.
* * *
Dunne lay on the couch, eyes open, his mind a black knot of disgust. From the bedroom he heard muffled sobs from his wife, interrupted every half hour by her unsteady steps toward the bathroom and the sound of her dry retch over the toilet. He went upstairs when he couldn’t bear to hear her suffer any longer.
“I’m frightened for you, baby,” he said. “I’ll take you to the doctor.”
“Go away!” she wailed.
“Take a pill so you can sleep, at least.”
“I can’t,” she said, sobbing again. “It will hurt my baby.”
“What about aspirin?”
“I’ve already taken some. I’m cramping and I’m hot. I can take care of myself.”
“Please, please,” he said.
“Go upstairs. Leave the house tomorrow. That’s all I want.”
The phone rang just before midnight. Dunne picked up the extension and listened into the call.
“Are you Mrs. Alicia Dunne?”
“Silva is my last name, but yes. Who is this? What do you want?”
“I’m Jennifer Paige from the New York Examiner. I’m calling to check an item we’re running on page three tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to talk,” said Alicia. Her voice was as thin as a frayed piece of thread.
“Please don’t hang up, Mrs. Dunne. I know what you’re going through. We just want to get the facts right. Is it tru
e that you’re getting a divorce because your husband cheated on you? We have the picture. How terrible. I’m so sorry. Has he been fired from the CIA, your husband?”
“Please stop,” she said. Her voice was barely audible now.
“Were there other women, Mrs. Dunne, besides the blond one in the picture? You’ve seen the picture, right? Just to confirm.”
“Agh!” It was between a whimper and a sigh, as if she had been pierced by a knife but had too little strength to scream.
Dunne heard a click as the phone went dead. It rang again a few moments later, but Alicia let it continue until Dunne heard the beeping noise of a phone off the hook, and then silence. She was crying again, a low moan.
He went to her room again and knocked softly on her door.
“Go away,” she said. “Just go away.”
“I think we should we go to the hospital.”
“Not now. Tomorrow. Leave me alone. Please, that’s all I ask.”
Dunne retreated to his study on the third floor and listened as she cried and gagged. He thought of calling an ambulance but decided that would be a last assault on her dignity and privacy.
Just after two a.m., she was quiet. Dunne tiptoed down to her second-floor bedroom and listened at the door for the sound of her breathing, to make sure that she was alive.
* * *
Dunne came downstairs the next morning. Alicia was already in the kitchen, hollow-eyed. She had a bowl of Raisin Bran in front of her getting soggy in the milk. She looked up at Dunne reproachfully, and tried a tiny spoonful. She nibbled at a few flakes and put the spoon back.
“I’m spotting,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m bleeding.”
“We should go to the hospital now.”
“I’m waiting for the contractions to begin. Otherwise they’ll just send me home.”
Dunne reached out his hand to feel her distended belly and the baby inside.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. She lifted another soggy half spoonful toward her mouth.
The Paladin Page 17
