“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Zorn consoled his companion. “My daughter barely acknowledged my existence between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. Now she’s moved less than an hour away from us. Go figure.”
Zorn saw that Nagy’s drink was running low, so he downed the remains of his own and ordered another round.
“My Carol still talks to me, but she’s not much of a listener,” Nagy went on, idly swirling the icy dregs in his glass. “I don’t know if it’s just her generation, but she seems to have boxed herself into a tiny world where everything has to be politically correct. All this from a girl who spent her childhood immersed in European culture. I don’t get it.”
“Would I be correct in guessing your daughter’s in college?” Zorn asked with a conspiratorial smile. “Where minds are supposed to be opened rather than closed?”
“Right you are,” Nagy answered, letting out a dark laugh. Carol is studying poly sci at GW, which I guess explains some of it. But she was never so erratic before. She’s like a car that won’t hold the road.”
A few moments later the bartender brought their fresh round of drinks and tucked the bar tab under Zorn’s glass. Nagy reached for his wallet but Zorn laid a hand on his arm to make him stop.
“No, your money’s no good here. This will go on my expense account.”
Nagy’s face brightened.
“Thanks. From your op-ed piece, I gather that your company does some kind of defense work. Is that what brings you to D.C.?”
“You guessed it,” Zorn replied, raising his head to steal a glance at the hockey score. “I run a small company my father started in France during the sixties. We’ve developed some technology that Homeland Security has taken an interest in.”
“Well, that would make sense. DHS is spending money like water these days.” Nagy paused to give his partner a searching look. “I hear they’ve hired a boatload of ex-Agency people and DOD special operators. You’d think they were starting their own Special Operations Command.”
Zorn raised a conspiratorial eyebrow and let out a soft chuckle.
“Why not? I suppose the sky’s the limit these days with the intifada.”
“So do you expect to pick up some new business from DHS?”
“Hard to say. As a foreign-based bidder, we’re probably a long shot.”
“When will you find out?”
“In the next few days, I expect. If we get the contract, I may have to stay a while to set things up.”
Suddenly a gleam shone in Nagy’s eye and a grin spread across his wide mouth.
“If you do that, please let me know. I’ve been doing some part-time work for another DHS contractor and I’m looking to make a change. If you win, will your company be doing any hiring?”
Zorn’s eyes narrowed for the briefest moment. Just what he had feared: a job seeker. He went straight into evasion mode.
“Probably not much. Our work is pretty technical. You wouldn’t happen to be a licensed polygraph operator, would you?”
“No, I’m a jack of many trades, but not that one. Right now my employer has me training surveillance teams. Basic stuff I did on my first tour of duty in Paris.”
“Have you tried Tetra Corp?” Zorn asked. “They always seem to be hiring for one project or another.”
Nagy gave an open-mouthed laugh.
“Funny you should mention them. Tetra is the outfit I’m working for now. Can you suggest anyone else?”
“No, I really can’t,” Zorn answered with a shrug. “Not here in the U.S., anyway.”
Zorn breathed an inward sigh of relief, having steered the topic away from employment.
The two ex-spies continued talking for a while longer, sharing anecdotes about France and Tunisia. Something about hearing all those names of past acquaintances jogged Zorn’s memory, because suddenly he recalled the name of the Tetra executive with the brush-cut hairdo and the trimmed mustache whom he had seen leaving the DHS conference room with Larry Lawless.
“Did you ever run into Max Steiner when you were in Europe? I seem to recall he started off in EU Division,” Zorn asked, taking a shot in the dark.
Upon hearing the name, Nagy put down his drink and sat up a bit straighter.
“Now, if that isn’t a coincidence,” he said with wide eyes. “Max is with Tetra now. He’s top dog in the program I work for. In fact, he’s the one who got me the job.”
“Well, bully for Max,” Zorn replied, affecting nonchalance. “I recall that he moved over to East Asia Division shortly before I left the Agency. Sharp guy. I shouldn’t be surprised he landed on his feet.”
“It didn’t hurt that he’s an old chum of Larry Lawless,” Nagy noted. “Max retired shortly after 9/11 to sign up with Larry’s first company, the one he sold to Tetra for megabucks. Max also made a tidy sum on the deal. Hell, if I had Max’s money, I’d burn mine.”
For a moment, Zorn considered asking Nagy whether he also knew Lawless or Pat Craven, but thought better of it. He really didn’t want anyone at Tetra focusing too closely on his past association with Craven. So he went on trading names with Nagy until the conversation trailed off.
“If you win your contract, we should get together to celebrate,” Nagy said at last to break the silence. “I could round up a couple of guys you might know from the old days.”
“That would be great, Jack. But don’t go out of your way just yet. You and I have each other’s contact info, so let’s stay in touch, shall we?”
Chapter Eight: Common Ground
“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.”
–Leon Trotsky
APRIL, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Margaret Slattery knocked on the door and waited. A minute later, the door opened and Nelson Blackburn waved her in with the hand that held his mobile phone. Blackburn wore a smartly creased blue business suit and a fresh white dress shirt with gold cufflinks, a distinct improvement on his usual rumpled look. Across the room, an empty garment bag lay across the back of an easy chair and, beneath it, a pile of discarded clothes on the floor.
“No, I hadn’t been expecting that,” the president’s senior policy advisor growled into the phone. “Why do flaps always have to happen on Fridays?”
He closed the door and waved Slattery toward the suite’s living room with his free hand. On her way in, Slattery gazed around her. The suite was a respectable one for the Hay-Adams, not one of those junior suites that combined the bedroom and living room into a single space. But, on the other hand, it wasn’t one of the hotel’s super-deluxe suites boasting multiple bedrooms, a dining room and a gas fireplace. She walked past the coffee table and chairs to the French doors that looked across Sixteenth Street toward St. John’s Church—but not the White House. Clearly Tetra didn’t see Blackburn as an A-list player. But for Blackburn to be allowed the use of any room at all at the Hay-Adams represented a special perk indeed, considering the clever circumvention required of rules against accepting gratuities from contractors.
Blackburn waited for Slattery to seat herself on the sofa before moving toward the elegant chintz-covered armchair across the coffee table from her. He offered her a shrug and a smile, as if to apologize for not giving her his full attention, and told whoever was on the line that he had a visitor and would call back later. Then he ended the call and took an extra moment to put the phone on airplane mode.
“So happy you stopped by on your way to the reception, Margaret. It’s been a long week, hasn’t it?”
“Endless,” she replied with a weary half-smile. “So I won’t take much of your time, Nelson. But I wanted to talk to you about the ESM program before you go upstairs. This thing gets bigger and bigger by the day. Suddenly we’re talking about hauling in a million Muslims for risk assessment interviews, and deporting the high scorers by the tens of thousands. Yet I’ve seen absolutely no ground rules for it. DHS and Tetra seem to be running things out of their back pocket, without reporting to anyone in th
e White House, and with absolutely no regard for civil liberties or due process of law.”
Blackburn leaned back in the armchair and crossed his scrawny legs, folding his pale hands in his lap.
“Come now, Margaret. DHS follows a chain of command like everyone else. And I’m sure they’ve got plenty of lawyers on hand to whisper in their ears if they go astray.
These are perilous times. The president wants us to make the intifada go away, and Congress has given him the authority and resources to do just that.”
“But, just for a moment,” Slattery objected, “think about who will be doing the heavy lifting. The FBI and DHS don’t have nearly enough trained officers for the job. Which means most of the people engaged in hauling in the suspects and deporting those who pose a violent risk will be contractors. Tetra contractors.”
She paused and raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Lawless’s people. Now what could possibly go wrong with that?”
“It’s not our call, Margaret,” Blackburn replied without looking at her. “The decision has already been made.”
In the next moment he glanced around as if he had forgotten something. His eyes settled on a brace of luxury-brand water bottles. He took one and opened it without offering the other to his visitor. Slattery ignored the slight and continued speaking.
“And what kind of oversight will the ESM program get from the White House?” she asked, leaning forward in her seat for emphasis. “This is no fire-and-forget missile launched from some drone twenty thousand feet above Afghanistan, Nelson. This is happening right here, on American soil.”
“The president and the NSC are heavily engaged overseas at the moment,” the White House strategist replied without changing expression. “They’ve left domestic counterterrorism to the FBI and DHS, with oversight from Charlie Scudder and the CPG Deputies Committee.”
“A group that hasn’t met in weeks. And as for the deputy NSC advisor…” She let out a deep sigh. “Well, you know my opinion of that chattering fopdoodle.”
Blackburn suppressed a smile.
“And have you expressed these concerns of yours to Charlie?”
“I reached out to him this morning and he blew me off.”
“Then have you talked to your boss, the White House counsel?”
“He couldn’t be bothered,” Slattery answered with a stony look. “Said he had ‘other things on his plate’ and told me to take it up directly with DHS.”
“So did you?”
Blackburn squirmed to find a more comfortable position in the low armchair and took a sip of water.
“Remind me, who’s that undersecretary over there in charge of the ESM program?” he muttered under his breath. “Cramer? Crayton?”
“Patrick Craven,” Slattery replied. “I did some business with him in a past life. He’s not a bad sort. But before he landed at DHS, he was a VP at Tetra. Do you see my point? The people at Tetra and DHS are way too chummy. If someone doesn’t keep them on a tight leash, the Tetra people will be writing themselves blank checks just like they did in Iraq. They don’t call Lawless the ‘Thief of Baghdad’ for nothing.”
“Hmmm, this is beginning to sound like a conversation we’ve had before, Margaret. Have you taken my advice and built some bridges to Craven and his people?”
“Let’s put it this way,” Slattery replied, making a sour face. “I’ve offered some suggestions and Pat’s given me a polite hearing. But when I asked to be read into the classified portions of the ESM program, Craven refused. He claimed I didn’t have a need to know. Maybe if you…”
Blackburn raised a hand to interrupt while a self-satisfied grin spread across his face.
“Actually, that’s one problem I believe I can fix. The president can clear anyone he chooses for any classified material whatsoever. Tomorrow I’ll see to it that DHS sends you the necessary paperwork to see whatever special access material you want related to ESM.”
“Thank you, Nelson. That would be an enormous help.”
“Happy to hear it,” Blackburn concluded, rising from his chair. “But if you run across any problem of a legal nature, I’ll expect you to fix it on your own, or through the White House Counsel’s office. Don’t come back to me unless it’s so bad you need to call in an airstrike on these people.”
Slattery rose and extended a hand to her long-time mentor.
“It’s a deal,” she said. “I’ll do my level best. But something tells me this may not be last time we talk about the ESM program or the operators over at Tetra.”
Zorn USA received official notification that its Triage system had won the Detainee Risk Assessment contract late on a Friday afternoon. After opening some bottles of top-shelf champagne for the staff to celebrate their well-earned success, Roger Zorn and Brandon Choe set out across Key Bridge to Georgetown in Choe’s red Porsche Boxster for an early mezzah at Zorn’s favorite Lebanese restaurant. After dinner, they planned to head over to the Hay-Adams for the annual cocktail reception of a security contractors trade group that Zorn Security had recently joined.
When they arrived in Georgetown, Zorn was dismayed to see how few people were on the streets in the popular nightlife district, despite it being Happy Hour on a Friday night. A pair of recent car bombs on M Street had made a serious dent in Georgetown foot traffic, from which the area had not yet recovered. Zorn was further saddened upon entering Al Balad to see how run-down the eatery had become since dining there a few years ago. Once the habitat of well-heeled Arab diplomats, Middle East policy experts, arms merchants and oilmen, tonight Al Balad was nearly empty.
The owner, a Lebanese Christian who had emigrated to the U.S. as a child, sat down with the two men over sweet Arabic coffee after their meal. Zorn asked the restaurateur whether business had begun to recover since Georgetown’s latest terrorist bombings.
“Not that I can see,” Marwan replied with a glum face. “And even if foot traffic improves, it may not be enough. These days it seems to me that Americans want nothing at all to do with the Middle East. I’m thinking of shutting this place down and opening a patisserie out by Tysons Corner. People want comfort food now.”
And Zorn could hardly fault Marwan for such a choice. If the intifada didn’t stop soon, downtowns across America might well empty out at night, much like certain districts of Paris and Marseille that he knew.
Zorn finished his coffee, paid the bill and set off with Choe to the Hay-Adams for the security contractors’ trade event, of which Tetra Corporation was the lead sponsor. Moving from Georgetown into D.C.’s “Green Zone,” they passed through a checkpoint heavily fortified with concrete barriers and barbed wire. Even so, Islamist-inspired shootings, stabbings and vehicular attacks remained almost a daily occurrence inside the Zone, especially after dark. So Choe drove slowly down the quiet streets and Zorn kept a sharp lookout for danger signs.
The Hay-Adams, which occupied an historic mansion built in 1928 in the Italian Renaissance style, boasted one of the most prestigious addresses in Washington, directly across H Street from the White House. Choe left his Boxster with the valet and the two men joined the throng of guests in the security line waiting to enter the lobby and take the express elevator to the Top of the Hay. There the trade group had booked all five function rooms, each with a panoramic view overlooking St. John’s Church, Lafayette Park or the White House.
Upon clearing security and exiting the elevator on the top floor, Zorn and Choe accepted flutes of champagne from black-clad servers and made their way to the George Washington Room, where Zorn spotted Patrick Craven huddled in conversation with Margaret Slattery, Charles Scudder, and Nelson Blackburn.
“Let’s go talk to Pat,” Zorn proposed. “Do you see who’s with him? It wouldn’t hurt us to score some face time with Scudder and Blackburn.”
“And isn’t that the Slattery woman talking to Blackburn?” Choe asked as Zorn led the way through the crowd. “I’m told she and The Full Nelson were once an item. But I suppose they’re both rather
past that sort of thing by now.”
Zorn turned around and gave Choe an arch look.
“Watch your step, laddie. Blackburn is only a couple years younger than I am. Wait till you reach our age. Believe me, life does not end at sixty.”
Zorn picked up a second glass of champagne from a server’s tray and waded past generals, bureaucrats, lobbyists, corporate executives, and more gorgeous women than he had seen in one place since his last outing to the Folies Bergère. Many of these beauties appeared to be unattached and circulating. Where did they all come from? Did the DHS, Pentagon and the intelligence community employ that many attractive young women in high positions to attend an event like this?
But as he held that thought, he saw Scudder and Blackburn break away and disappear into the crowd. So he presented his spare glass of champagne to Margaret Slattery with his most charming smile and received a surprisingly friendly look in return. She was dressed in an open-neck black silk blouse and a gray-green pantsuit that set off her red hair to striking effect. His blood rose, as it had the first time they met, and wondered if she found him even a fraction as attractive as he found her.
“Congratulations on winning your contract,” Slattery greeted Zorn and Choe as she accepted the proffered glass to replace her empty one.
“Thanks for your support, Margaret,” he answered, taking the liberty of using her first name though he didn’t recall having done so before. “We really didn’t expect to win.”
She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow in mock surprise.
“Oh? That’s not the impression I had. You were the only presenter who seemed to grasp the full scope of what Charlie Scudder wanted.”
“Do tell me more.” Choe cut in. “I like what I’m hearing.”
Slattery let out a sly laugh.
“I find it hard to believe you two didn’t pick that up from the other members’ reactions,” she said. “Remember, Scudder wants maximum results. Which means putting fellow hard-liners in charge. Picking a risk assessment contractor with a reputation like yours sends a clear message to everyone.”
Root and Branch Page 12
