Root and Branch

by Preston Fleming

  Zorn raised an eyebrow but decided not to challenge the supervisor’s remark.

  “Okay, then,” Zorn went on, “how about the father and son we saw interviewed this morning? As I recall, the son rated Category One and the father Category Three. What do you suppose will happen to those two?”

  The administrator ran his tongue over dry lips and glanced down at some papers on his desk, a pained expression on his face.

  “Since both are U.S. citizens, both will go into detention while the FBI investigates their cases.”

  “But you said you generally release the Cat Threes. So why not let the father go?”

  The examiner sucked his teeth and folded his arms across his chest before answering.

  “Because he’s been reclassified as a Cat Two. Under DHS procedures, the final Triage category can be stepped up or down one grade, based on circumstances.”

  Zorn took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to suppress his anger. This was not how the system was supposed to work. While a subject’s percentile Triage score was fixed by the algorithm and could not be altered, DHS had insisted upon retaining discretionary authority to adjust a subject’s risk category up or down one notch in borderline cases. Only now did Zorn realize how ripe such a loophole might be for abuse.

  “So indulge me,” Zorn told the site supervisor with a tight-lipped smile. “What possible grounds would one have for judging that sad little man, Amjad Ibrahim, a violent terrorist risk?”

  “Look,” the supervisor replied with upraised palms, “the search team found bomb-making instructions in the son’s bedroom. There’s no way the FBI is going to turn the dad loose if they think his live-in son is a jihadi.”

  Zorn’s felt his gut churn at the injustice of it.

  “Wait a second! What you’re saying totally subverts the Triage methodology! Our function is to identify violent jihadis based on behavior and attitudes, not mere kinship. We can’t let Triage become a rubber stamp for hard-liners and Muslim-haters or we’ll alienate the respectable Muslims whose help we need against the jihadis!”

  Stung by Zorn’s rebuke, the supervisor’s face flushed and sparks flared in his eyes.

  “My operators and I turn out Triage scores all day long, Mr. Zorn, but the DHS people just smile at us and use our scores however it suits them. At the end of the day, you and I are just contractors. If the FBI and DHS decide to lock the father up along with his son, then both will land behind bars and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.“

  Zorn gave the administrator a look that left no question who was in charge.

  “I’ll be damned if I let them mess with our technology. From now on, whenever DHS bumps a Triage category up or down to justify a preferred outcome, I want to hear about it. Do you understand?”

  The supervisor hesitated.

  “Okay, Mr. Zorn. But I know these DHS people. If you want to win their contract to expand Triage nationally, sooner or later you’re going to have to play ball with them.”

  A few minutes after the pilot announced the plane’s descent to Washington’s Reagan National Airport, Zorn ignored the flashing seatbelt light, left his seat beside Choe and slipped in next to Patrick Craven.

  “I hear that DHS sometimes hikes an interviewee’s Triage category to avoid having to set him free,” Zorn began, speaking just loud enough for his seatmate to hear him above the engine noise. “Care to comment?

  Craven looked at him with an expression of mild surprise.

  “As I recall, adjusting categories in borderline cases is permitted under the rules. Is that a problem?”

  “I recognize that your people have broad discretionary authority over how they handle the people they round up, Pat. But I need to protect the integrity of the Triage system. For the DRA program to work as intended, I need your assurance that ICE won’t manipulate Triage risk categories except in true borderline cases, say, where the next category is only a point or two away.”

  Zorn held Craven’s unflinching gaze for a long moment.

  “Is that really so important to you?”

  “We didn’t bring Triage all this way to see it turned into a rubber stamp. Besides, Pat, bumping a Cat Three up to Cat Two is plain wrong. If word of it ever got out, there’d be hell to pay from several camps. And you know it.”

  Craven turned away from Zorn to stare out the window at the city lights moving swiftly below.

  “I think we can work something out,” the DHS official replied without looking Zorn in the eye. “Anything else?”

  The response was vague and noncommittal, but left an opening for Zorn to revisit it later, so he let it go. Instead, he broached another topic of concern.

  “Well, yes,” Zorn went on. “I’ve heard about a high-volume deportation operation being run out of Minneapolis airport. Is it true that ICE has been removing all non-resident aliens who score Cat One or high Cat Two? And that you’ve rounded up so many U.S. citizens and resident aliens that you can’t house them all? If the ESM program was only approved this month, how has DHS been able to ramp up enforcement actions so quickly?”

  Craven squirmed in his seat and tugged at his collar as if it were buttoned too tight.

  “The answer is classified. If you win the contract, you’ll get access to the full details soon enough. But, just between you and me, a small-scale expedited removals program was launched a year ago, about the same time you won your contract for the Triage pilot sites. It was a no-bid contract to Tetra Corp for air logistics facilities to deport high-scoring non-citizens from all three pilot cities. A contract was also signed for construction and management of several overseas transit sites.”

  Zorn let out a deep sigh and shot Craven a sour look.

  “Well, if Tetra has already snapped up the air logistics contracts, then what crumbs are left for the rest of us? Does Tetra have the inside track for the DRA business, too?”

  Craven cocked his head at Zorn and flashed him a conspiratorial smile.

  “Not at all,” he replied. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, Roger, but I have it on good authority that Tetra is only going through the motions in the risk assessment competition next week. It seems they rate your Triage technology even higher than their own system. Believe it or not, I really think Tetra wants you to win.”

  Chapter Six: Making the Case

  “States are as the men; they grow out of human characters.”

  –Plato

  MARCH, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Roger Zorn returned to Washington with lingering concerns about what DHS was doing with Triage scores. Could he really rely on Pat Craven’s vague assurances that ICE would stop bumping up non-violent Category Three detainees to Category Two, thus rendering Triage scores meaningless?

  But, at the same time, Zorn felt buoyed by Craven’s disclosure that Tetra Corp favored Zorn USA as its risk assessment partner. With Tetra as likely lead contractor for the expanded ESM program, Zorn USA’s chances of winning the DRA contract for his Triage technology looked brighter than ever.

  The moment Zorn and Choe returned to their Rosslyn offices on Monday morning, Zorn directed the younger man to use his contact network to assess the attitudes of selection committee members toward Zorn Security and its Triage technology. The early responses to Choe’s inquiries brought good news: namely, that most committee members seemed to view Zorn Security’s hard-nosed reputation as a plus, not only because they trusted the Zorn organization to go tough on terrorists, but because Zorn’s father’s notoriety made Tetra Corp and the other Big Five security contractors look moderate by comparison. The only committee members likely to oppose Zorn’s bid were outspoken champions of civil liberties like Margaret Slattery and Audrey Lamb.

  Zorn spent much of Monday morning revising his draft op-ed article to project a hard-line stance. He retitled it Root and Branch after his father’s treatise on counterinsurgency. The article appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s Op-Ed page on the Saturday morning before Zorn was schedule
d to appear before the DRA contract committee. The article led with recent poll results showing a steep rise in post-EMP radicalization among Muslims in America. Then, without so much as hinting that an ESM program might already be underway, the piece urged DHS to implement a crash program to identify, detain, and, where possible, remove radicalized Muslims found to be most prone toward jihadist violence.

  To that end, Zorn proposed creation of a large-scale deportation apparatus to repatriate dangerous jihadists to their home countries rather than detain them in the U.S. at taxpayer expense, where they might have recourse to the courts. Though relying upon Pat Craven’s private disclosures in crafting the article entailed some risk, Zorn calculated that his former colleague was not likely to object, since the full-scale deportation program had already been approved and Zorn’s article simply endorsed the concept.

  By the following Monday morning, the Wall Street Journal piece had created a firestorm of controversy in the nation’s capital. Editorial writers and talking heads called Roger Zorn everything from a modern-day Lafayette, sailing in from France to help America fight Islamist tyranny, to the foremost proponent of mass deportations and ethnic cleansing since Slobodan Milosevic. Alt-right populists who reviled political Islam echoed Zorn’s call for large-scale removals, as did immigration officers and police in cities where the intifada raged. But civil libertarians denounced him as a monstrous Islamophobe.

  While Zorn had aimed the article at Washington’s national security establishment, it had clearly struck a nerve among a wide swath of Americans who craved revenge against Iran and Pakistan for their alleged role in attacking America’s electrical grid. Social media posts ran five to one in favor of deporting suspected Islamists en masse, and many posts called for even more drastic measures. A flurry of invitations arrived for Zorn to appear as a guest on cable news and radio talk shows, but Zorn refused them all.

  He was a businessman, after all, not a politician. And deportation of removable aliens was already the law of the land. What Zorn Security offered was a tool, much like an MRI or CAT scan that showed surgeons where to operate. He was all too happy to leave the politics to DHS. The risk remained that Craven’s people might push the emergency measures too far, as they’d done by fudging Triage risk categories. But Zorn would leave that worry for another day.

  On the morning scheduled for Zorn USA’s presentation before the DRA contract selection committee, Roger Zorn and Brandon Choe arrived at DHS’s leased offices in a mirror-faced high-rise in Crystal City, Virginia, opposite Reagan National Airport. On their way past the receptionist, the two men encountered the departing Tetra Corporation presentation team, headed by Larry Lawless, Tetra’s chief of business development.

  Though the two men had never met, Zorn recognized Lawless instantly from photographs. Lawless was nearly his age and almost as tall, standing just short of six feet, but outweighed Zorn by at least forty pounds, with his ample paunch and a double chin that ran straight into a gobbler neck. It was evident that Lawless devoted more effort to tanning, facials and manicures than to exercise. The executive introduced himself with a broad grin as he extended a puffy hand to Zorn.

  “I read your opinion piece in the Journal. Couldn’t agree more. I hope the people on the other side of that door are paying close attention.”

  “Thank you,” Zorn replied, shaking his competitor’s hand. “I hope we’ll have the chance to work together one day soon.”

  “That’s very likely,” Lawless replied, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Plenty of work to go around these days, if you ask me.”

  Before Zorn could pull Brandon Choe forward to introduce him to Lawless, the latter moved on when a member of his six-person presentation team spoke softly in his ear. On second glance, the speaker looked vaguely familiar. He was of average height and wiry build and, from his upright bearing and brush-cut hairdo, looked to be former military. And there was something about his deep-set eyes, hawk nose and trimmed mustache that made Zorn suspect they had crossed paths before.

  Once Zorn and Choe entered the DHS office suite, a young female staffer escorted them into the conference room.

  “Will the rest of your team be coming soon?”

  “No, it’s just the two of us,” Choe replied, happy with the contrast between Zorn Security’s minimalist staffing and the bloated bands of bag-holders that Big Five contractors typically assembled for such occasions.

  Once the DHS staffer withdrew, Zorn and Choe introduced themselves to each member of the selection committee in turn and made small talk with those whom they had met during the Triage demonstration in Minneapolis. Familiar faces included those of Patrick Craven, Margaret Slattery, Audrey Lamb, and the florid-faced G-man from the FBI. Other committee members included a stiff-backed general from the Defense Department, sporting a rack of medals on his chest, and an owlish blonde with strikingly long legs, perhaps in her early forties but dressing younger, from the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

  What struck Zorn about the group was its relatively small number. He had appeared in the past before selection committees that included a dozen or more junior hangers-on. Perhaps the lean staffing for this meeting was intended to prevent leaks. Such interagency committees were notorious for reaching decisions at a snail’s pace but leaking the results instantly to the media. If confidentiality were truly their concern, then Zorn’s op-ed piece proposing measures mirroring those that had been secretly approved might raise hackles. But if results were their aim, then Triage was still the ticket.

  While a technician loaded Choe’s PowerPoint presentation, Zorn muttered under his breath to Choe.

  “I wonder how many of these people lust after a revolving door job with one of the Big Five when their current gig is up.”

  “Take it from me, every one of them is chummy with our competitors,” Choe replied. “They ought to wear jumpsuits with iron-on logos, like NASCAR drivers, so we could see who their corporate sponsors are.”

  A moment later, the door to the corridor opened once again and a tall man of patrician bearing, dressed in an immaculately tailored double-breasted blue suit, entered the room with a pair of junior aides in tow. Zorn identified him at once as Charles Scudder, the new deputy national security advisor. Though he had spent the past decade teaching international law at Columbia, Scudder was a veteran of the Washington foreign policy establishment, having served in the State Department and on the NSC Staff in previous administrations.

  But, according to Brandon Choe’s sources, Scudder wore his ambition like strong cologne and was assiduously avoided by his peers, even those with whom he shared background and interests. One of Scudder’s former colleagues quipped that the ex-professor probably had fewer friends than fists. It was rumored that Scudder had clawed his way into the NSC only by jumping onto the president’s campaign bandwagon with some fancy last-minute fund-raising.

  As Scudder scanned the faces around the table, the buzz of conversation and noise of shuffling papers fell to a murmur. Then he turned to Craven with a smile that moved only the corners of his mouth.

  “Pat, why don’t you introduce the next presenter, since your department has the action on this program?”

  “With pleasure, Charlie,” Craven replied, casting a quick glance toward Zorn.

  “During this session we’ll hear from Roger Zorn, CEO of Zorn Security, a leading French security contractor that has served a blue-chip global clientele for over half a century. Roger took the reins of the family business six years ago, after a distinguished career in finance. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Roger holds dual American and French citizenship and spent a decade in the Middle East under cover with the CIA.”

  The last sentence raised more than a few eyebrows. Which made Zorn wonder whether some in the room had been counting on anti-French bias or the “not invented here” syndrome to send his bid to the bottom of the pile.

  Zorn acknowledged Craven’s introduction with a nod and stood, remote con
trol in hand, to begin his presentation.

  “Triage doesn’t measure general criminality, anti-social behavior or psychopathic personality,” Zorn explained. “What it does is predict the likelihood of committing political violence. We’ve validated this measure over hundreds of thousands of test subjects, in more than a dozen countries. At this point, Triage is fully capable of separating the sheep from the goats.”

  “Or the wolves from the sheep,” Scudder added with a grating laugh, which no one joined.

  “Can you shed some light for us on how your Triage technology manages to take into account so many variables and integrates them so well with content from external databases?” the youngish woman from the DNI’s office asked.

  “I’m not privy to how our competitors developed their technologies, but perhaps the difference is that we developed Triage in France and in countries where privacy and civil liberties issues don’t play quite the same role as they do here.”

  “Leave it to the French,” Zorn heard a male voice quip from the back of the room. It wasn’t a compliment.

  “Regarding your validations,” one of Scudder’s junior aides asked, “has Triage been validated specifically on Islamic insurgents?”

  “Yes, we’ve run validations on Islamists in every country where Triage is deployed,” Zorn replied. “What we’ve found is that Triage works far better against jihadists than polygraphs do because the latter have difficulty catching deception from subjects whose culture condones lying to outsiders. Triage is also less vulnerable to countermeasures, like desensitization training and the use of drugs.”

  “So are you saying that a dedicated jihadist who tries to conceal his willingness to commit violence won’t be able to game your system?” Margaret Slattery asked with narrowed eyes. “And, on the flip side, what are the chances of a peaceful Muslim being labeled falsely as a jihadist?”