Root and Branch

by Preston Fleming

  “Glad to have you back, boss,” Choe began with a forced smile. “You had me worried there for a while. When you stopped responding to my messages for a few days, I feared something happened to you. And then yesterday you went dark again.”

  “Sorry. I was in a place where I couldn’t be reached.”

  “I understand, chief, but it’s not just me looking for you. Pat Craven rang me last night asking where you were. And, just between you and me, he seemed anxious.”

  “Dang. I saw his voicemail and forgot to call. Let him know I’ll ring him soon, won’t you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  But Choe didn’t take the cue to leave. He kept his eyes glued to Zorn and went back to twisting his ring as if he expected something.

  “Is there anything else?” Did I miss something important yesterday?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Choe replied, licking dry lips. “But last night a DHS buddy of mine told me that one of their accountants working on the ESM project found some unexplained variances between monthly removals and repatriations. Apparently, when the accountant tried to get the variances resolved through normal DHS channels, he got the runaround. So after a while he gave up and took his data to the Justice Department.”

  “What happened then?” Zorn asked, his ears perking up. “Did Justice do anything?”

  “Not as far as I know, but my buddy says the incident has senior people at Homeland Security sweating bricks. Since it involves air logistics, I thought you’d better know. All I can say is that I wouldn’t want to be in that poor accountant’s shoes right now.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Those detainee numbers are classified at the TITAN level. You don’t go outside channels with special access material—even to Justice—without facing, well, repercussions. I hope the poor slob is up to date with his life insurance.”

  “Nobody’s come to us asking about those repatriation numbers, have they?” Zorn followed up, suddenly alarmed.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Well, if they do, refer the inquiries to Pat Craven, will you?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Zorn turned his attention to his computer to signify the meeting was over.

  Once Choe was gone, Zorn returned to his email and was only three messages down when the intercom buzzed.

  “Pat Craven called while you were in conference, sir,“ the receptionist announced.

  Zorn let out an audible sigh.

  “Did he leave a message?”

  “No. Only that he’s coming right over to see you.”

  “Did he give a reason?”

  “No, sir.”

  Zorn’s face tightened into a grimace as he went back to answering his backlogged emails. It seemed as if only a few minutes had passed when the intercom buzzed yet again.

  “Undersecretary Craven is here to see you, Mr. Zorn. May I show him in?”

  “No, I’ll come out,” Zorn told her, adjusting his shirt cuffs and buttoning his jacket before stepping out the door.

  Moments later, Zorn and Craven exchanged perfunctory greetings in the waiting room under the watchful gaze of the receptionist. For a moment, Zorn caught himself wondering what the young woman might have gleaned from months of observing people’s comings and goings at the Zorn offices. Right now her eyes were focused on Craven in a strange way, as if she expected him to draw a pistol or expose a suicide vest. She waited for Zorn’s nod before buzzing him in.

  Once the two men were seated in the conference room, Zorn could see glimmers of what the receptionist had picked up. For though Craven had put on a brave face in the waiting room, now he looked rattled. His dark skin had gone gray and his lips trembled.

  “I understand that you met with Larry Lawless this morning,” Craven began as if addressing a stranger. “Is there anything about it you want to tell me?”

  "If Larry has filled you in, what do you want from me?” Zorn responded in a voice every bit as cold as Craven’s.

  “All Larry told me was that your merger was off and that all options were on the table. What exactly does that mean, Roger? Please tell me you’re not thinking of pulling out of ESM.”

  “Is that what Lawless told you?”

  “Never mind where I heard it. Is it true?”

  Craven’s dark eyes were screwed into narrow slits and his nostrils flared as he awaited the CEO’s response.

  “Yes, Pat, it is. As majority shareholder of Zorn Security, I’ve decided it’s no longer in the company’s interest to stay on as ESM contractor. I’ve directed counsel to prepare notices of termination for all our ESM contracts. The letters will go out by close of business today.”

  Craven gave Zorn a hard stare.

  “I happen to know you’ve been sitting on those notice letters since June,” he sputtered. “Why send them now?”

  Zorn tried hard not to lose his composure. There was no way Craven should have known about the letters.

  “Very few people were privy to those letters, Pat,” he answered through clenched teeth. “You just blew your source’s cover.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Craven replied with a dismissive wave. “As if he has to worry. But you haven’t answered my question. Why quit ESM now, when we have the intifada on the run? Pulling Triage out before the mission is accomplished threatens national security.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Zorn replied in a calm voice. “The contracts give us the right to terminate without cause on ninety days notice. I won’t put the company at risk a day longer by cooperating with your department. And I think you know why. But I’m not going to spell it out for you because I don’t want you claiming that I breached my nondisclosure agreement. So unless you have something else to discuss, our talk is over.”

  Craven sat across from Zorn in silence, his arms crossed over his chest. But when he spoke again, his voice no longer held a note of menace.

  “Okay, I hear you,” the DHS undersecretary said quietly. “But tell me this. What if Tetra sweetened its offer and the merger went through? Might that change your mind?”

  Craven was grasping at straws, but Zorn couldn’t afford to dismiss the idea out of hand. He thought about it while his visitor capped and uncapped his pen.

  “Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

  Zorn’s show of indifference seemed to spark Craven’s temper all over again. The veins in the man’s powerful neck throbbed as he spoke.

  “Come off it, Roger!” he thundered. “What's your game, anyway? Are you in business to make money, or are you and your White House girlfriend on some sort of do-gooder crusade to stop the ESM program in its tracks?”

  “I’m not even going to dignify that with…”

  But Craven wouldn’t listen. He stabbed a thick forefinger inches from Zorn’s face.

  “No, Roger, give it to me straight. Do you or do you not intend to blab to the media about what Max Steiner and his people are doing overseas? I need to know from you now!”

  Each word was its own icicle. Zorn could see the desperation in Craven’s eyes and imagined that the man saw his career and perhaps much more riding on the answer.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Zorn barked in response. “Do you think I’ve forgotten the secrecy agreements I signed when I joined your damned program? Trust me, I have no desire to die suddenly from a freak heart attack or an unsolved mugging. And I have no intention whatsoever to tell the media about what I’ve seen at Tetra’s overseas bases.”

  “Can I hold you to that?”

  “You can do any goddamned thing you want with it. Right now, all I want is to get out from under our contracts with you people, pray that nobody leaks what you’re up to before the terminations goes through, and return to doing business in our home markets, far away from this snake pit.”

  “Okay, then. Here’s what I’d like you to do,” Craven said next, his voice calm again. “As a personal favor to me, I want you to hold onto those notice letters for another twenty-four hours. The moment I leave,
I'll reach out to Larry and see what we can do to keep Triage in play.”

  Zorn thought about the offer for a moment. Either Lawless met his demand for a cash merger or he didn’t. If not, he’d fire off the notice letters one day later.

  “I suppose there’s not much harm in waiting another day.”

  “Then that’s it,” Craven declared. “I’ll be in touch.”

  The two men rose and Zorn escorted his guest back out through the waiting room. He held his breath until the elevator doors closed, and then exhaled deeply. As the receptionist buzzed him through the security door, he realized that his hands were shaking.

  As afternoon turned to evening and the Zorn USA offices emptied, Roger Zorn remained at his desk, clearing up administrative work that had piled up during his absence. At seven o’clock, he opened his laptop and logged into the sterile email account that he shared with Margaret Slattery before heading out to meet Jack Nagy.

  He was hoping to discover a new message from Slattery and found two, both drafted about an hour earlier. The first consisted of only one line, and announced that their appointment with Nelson Blackburn was scheduled for noon the next day.

  The second email read as follows:

  “This just in. The female detainees who were returned to the U.S. at your urging have been moved. They are now being held incommunicado at a maximum security Federal prison in Pennsylvania pending trial. No further news on their condition.”

  Zorn read the two messages, deleted them, and logged out of his laptop before showing the device in his four-drawer safe for the night. Minutes later he was driving his rented Toyota Avalon up I-66 toward Tysons Corner, having inspected its USB ports for unwelcome thumb drives. After a twenty-minute ride, he exited the freeway onto Leesburg Pike. A few minutes later, he reached the spot where he had arranged to pick up Jack Nagy at eight P.M., not far from where they had met earlier in the summer.

  Zorn turned off at the upscale hamburger eatery he had chosen for the car meeting’s pickup point and stopped the Avalon in an unlit area twenty yards short of the entrance. Nagy recognized the Toyota from Zorn’s texted instructions and hopped into the passenger seat right on time. He was dressed in jeans, a striped rugby shirt, and a navy blue windbreaker, blending in easily with the restaurant’s other patrons.

  “Welcome back,” the retired spy greeted Zorn. “A lot has happened while you were away.”

  “I know. Your reporting since I left D.C. has been excellent, Jack. Rendition Branch’s ramped-up detention of U.S. citizens is disturbing news.”

  “You can say that again,” Nagy agreed. “When they rolled up Carol, the only Americans that our teams were being targeted against were hard-core anarchists with blood on their hands. Now the net is being cast far more widely. It seems like anybody at all who expresses sympathy for the intifada or objects to the emergency measures makes the list. I’ll have more detail for you in my next message.”

  “When can I expect to see it?”

  “Mid-morning, probably. From here I’m going straight to an assignment. I have no idea how late it might last.”

  “No problem. I can wait. By the way, don’t forget to submit your expenses. It’s been nearly two months since we’ve seen each other, so I brought you some extra cash.”

  Zorn slipped a thick envelope from his jacket pocket and laid it on the dashboard. Nagy tore one end off the envelope and thumbed through the stack of fifty-dollar bills.

  “You’re more than generous, Roger. I wish Tetra paid me so well.”

  “Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. It seems my company’s business here may be ending soon. If that happens, I won’t be needing your reports much longer.”

  “I understand. Actually, I never expected our arrangement to last more than a few months. But I was hoping to keep it going until I was able to locate my daughter. So tell me, do you have any more news about where Carol is being held?”

  “As it happens, I do,” Zorn answered with a smile. “This afternoon I heard from my source that Carol has been moved to a maximum security federal prison in Pennsylvania.”

  “Thank God! At least she is with the DOJ now and not Homeland Security.”

  “I also checked the Bureau of Prisons website,” Zorn went on. “The feds don’t have more than a couple of maximum security facilities in Pennsylvania. So you might have a shot at locating her with a habeas corpus petition.”

  “Except that they suspended habeas corpus...”

  “Yes, but challenges have reached the Supreme Court now. The ACLU and other activist legal foundations are giving DHS a hell of a fight. Give them a call and see if they might take your daughter’s case on a pro bono basis.”

  “Maybe I will,” Nagy replied with a faraway look.

  “I wish I could do more, Jack, but I’m flying back to France in a few days. And I probably won’t be coming back.”

  “That’s okay. You’ve found Carol. She’s all that matters to me any more.”

  “Of course. If I hear more, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Same here,” Nagy replied.

  And without saying more, the retired spy slipped out the car door and disappeared into the dimly lit parking lot.

  Shortly before he reached I-66 to head home, Zorn’s phone rang. The screen said the caller was Patrick Craven. Unlike the night before, Zorn pulled over to take the call.

  “I talked to Larry,” Craven began without a greeting. “He’s come up with a new offer that should be more to your liking. He wants to see you tomorrow morning at nine, same place where you met today. Can you make it?”

  “Just a minute. Let me check my calendar,” Zorn replied. He waited a beat before adding, “That was a joke. Of course I’ll be there. Thanks for going the extra mile, Pat.”

  “All right, then. I hope things work out for the two of you,” Craven said in a monotone before clicking off.

  “Yes!” Zorn cried out aloud, doing a fist-pump in the air before speed-dialing Jay Pankow to inform him of the meeting.

  By the time Roger Zorn was back in his room at the Hyatt and had ordered a room-service dinner, Jack Nagy was parked across the street from his surveillance target, a luxury high-rise apartment building on U Street in Northwest Washington, D.C.

  Nagy’s eyes were fixed on a particular set of windows in a particular seventh-floor corner apartment. When he arrived on site, the lights were lit. His task was to report when they clicked off. Not having been told who lived in the apartment, Nagy had no idea how long he might have to keep watch in his darkened car. So he took a sip of black coffee from his twenty-ounce cup and settled in for a long wait.

  Though this was one of the easier surveillance assignments Nagy had been given in recent weeks, there was something about it that bothered him. His uneasiness stemmed from a remark he had made to Roger Zorn less than an hour before. Nagy had noted that, earlier that year, Domestic Renditions Branch’s targeting had focused on hard-core anarchists who had committed acts of violence. Now, even outspoken critics of the emergency measures had become fair game.

  It was obvious that whoever lived in this pricey U Street apartment was no twenty-something social justice warrior. He or she had to be someone who had achieved some measure of success in life, someone with whom you might rub elbows on K Street or Capitol Hill. Such a prominent someone would have connections, likely powerful ones. What sort of consequences might a rendition like this bring about?

  Nagy hadn’t liked it much when his work for Tetra shifted from surveillance training to managing active surveillance teams, and then later, to performing real-time surveillance for sensitive renditions. He had justified it to himself because he thought it might help him find his daughter. But now that Zorn had located Carol, and his collaboration with Zorn was near an end, Nagy had a very uncomfortable feeling about tonight’s operation.

  He was barely a half hour into his assignment when the lights on the apartment’s west side blinked out. Minutes later, lights on the east side dimmed, as
if the only remaining illumination were coming from deep inside the flat.

  Nagy unmuted his hand-held radio and spoke in a clear and unhurried voice.

  “Lights out on the target’s west side. Low-level lighting on the east side, probably from rooms in the rear. Red Team is cleared to go up. Repeat. Red Team may proceed.”

  Then Nagy opened the app on his tablet computer that allowed him to view real-time video from the team’s body cameras. After that, he sipped his coffee and waited.

  Margaret Slattery turned off the living room television and downed the last ounce of chardonnay in her lipstick-stained glass. Leaving her shoes beneath the coffee table, she rose unsteadily to her feet and carried her dinner tray to the kitchen. She considered unloading the tray, wiping it clean and returning it to its slot under the counter, but couldn’t be bothered. Tomorrow the maid would come. So the dirty dishes and the empty glass and bottle stayed on the tray. The sink was nearly filled with dishes, anyway.

  Padding across the hardwood floor in her stockinged feet, Slattery doused the hallway light and entered the dimly lit master bedroom. There she removed her dress and tossed it onto the daybed where Roger Zorn had slept the night before. The woolen decorative throw he had used as a blanket still lay folded at its foot. The three-quarters-full bottle of bourbon and Zorn’s empty crystal tumbler remained on the nightstand by her bed, where he had left them before putting her to sleep.

  The bed felt far too big for only one person. Would Roger come back tomorrow?

  Stepping inside the bathroom, Slattery switched on the overhead light before pulling her satin nightgown off the hook and slipping it over her head. Whether it was the wine or her long workday, she could barely keep her eyes open. No need for sleeping pills tonight.

  The rituals of teeth brushing, hair combing, face washing, rubbing body lotion on legs and hips, and applying moisturizer to face, were accomplished in short order. When done, she turned out the bathroom lights and headed for bed.