The Fix, Page 23

  someone had followed them there, shot out Decker’s tire, assaulted him, and taken it. So someone was watching them. Or else they had been watching the old house.

  He heard a buzzing sound and looked down. It was Jamison’s phone. He didn’t recognize the number and the caller ID came up as unknown, so it wasn’t on Jamison’s contact list.

  He heard the shower running. He could have just let it go to voicemail, but decided to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Nancy Billings. I was calling for Alex Jamison or Amos Decker with the FBI?”

  “I’m Amos Decker.”

  “Oh, hi. I’m a teacher at the school where Anne Berkshire worked as a substitute. I understand you might have some questions for me. I’m sorry to be calling so early, but I have to leave for work soon.”

  “No, that’s no problem. Could we meet after school?”

  “Yes. I have to go home and let out the dog, but there’s a Starbucks near where I live.” She gave him the address and they set a time.

  He called Bogart and filled him in on what had happened with Agent Brown. Next he told him about Billings and the meeting later that day.

  Bogart said, “I’ll start following up on the military whistleblower angle. I know that’s Brown’s bailiwick, but I have some contacts there too. And the FBI investigated and the DOJ prosecuted a great many whistleblower cases over the years.”

  Decker clicked off and put his phone in his pocket. He went to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and brushed his teeth. He came out at the same time Jamison did. She was wrapping a scarf around her neck.

  “Did you eat?” she said.

  “No. Slipped my mind.”

  “Wow, the old memory is just crapping out on you,” she said dryly. “That’s okay. We can get something on the way in to Hoover.”

  “Nancy Billings called. She worked with Berkshire at the school. I’ve arranged for us to meet her after she finishes at school today.”

  “Hopefully, she can tell us something helpful.”

  When they opened the exterior door to their building, Harper Brown was standing there. She wore jeans, boots, a black turtleneck, and a brown leather jacket. She held up a bag.

  “Bagels. And I’ve got coffee in the car.” She glanced at Jamison. “But not enough for you.”

  Jamison said, “We were about to head out to run down a lead.”

  Brown looked at Decker. “DIA HQ. Whistleblower files. You in or out? There won’t be a second offer.”

  “Can’t Alex come with us?”

  Brown shook her head. “I had a hard enough time getting permission for you to come out. We can’t have a tagalong.”

  Jamison bristled at this comment but said, “Okay, Amos, I’ll let Bogart know about this when I get in to the office.”

  “I’ll fill you all in on everything when I’m done at DIA.”

  “Well, to the extent they’re cleared to hear it,” said Brown, staring at Jamison.

  Staring directly at Brown, Jamison said, “And I’m sure I’ll do the same, so long as you’re cleared for it.”

  They drove off, leaving Jamison standing in the parking lot. She shook her head, apparently trying to clear her thoughts.

  “Maybe I should just go back to being a journalist,” she said to herself.

  CHAPTER

  35

  DIA’S SPRAWLING HEADQUARTERS was at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. It was located on the east side of the Potomac River, and across that body of water from National Airport. The Potomac cut a path northwest, with the far shorter Anacostia River snaking northeast.

  At the entrance Decker received a visitor’s badge and went through the security protocol. On one wall was the seal of the agency, a flaming torch of gold on a background of black with a pair of red atomic ellipses encircling a globe.

  Brown pointed to it and said, “Flame and gold represents knowledge, or intelligence, as we like to call it. The black equals the unknown.”

  “And the red?” asked Decker.

  “Scientific aspects of intelligence.”

  “Is it that scientific when you’re dealing with people?”

  “Maybe more than you know.”

  They passed a wall with names on it. Decker stopped and stared at it. Brown, who had been walking down the hall, came back to stand next to him.

  “Torch Bearers Wall,” she said. “The people on here have been awarded the highest honor for service to DIA and the country. We also have a memorial wall in the courtyard with the names of the seven DIA personnel killed on 9/11 during the attack on the Pentagon.”

  Decker pointed to one name on the list. “Colonel Rex Brown. Any relation?”

  “My father,” said Brown, before heading off again.

  Decker fell in step behind her.

  “Think you’ll end up on the Torch Bearers Wall?” he said.

  “I’d rather that than the memorial wall.”

  “What’d your father do to be on the wall?”

  “Classified.”

  She opened a door and motioned Decker inside. He stepped through and gazed around at three walls of computer screens all alive with pictures but no sound. Brown closed the door behind her.

  “We have around-the-clock watch centers everywhere literally taking in everything of significance going on all over the world. This is just a bit of feed from some of those operations.”

  “Impressive,” said Decker as he sat down in a chair set around an oval conference table. “And how does this help us?”

  The door opened and a man came in. He was about six feet tall with burly shoulders, massive arms and thighs, and close-cropped graying hair. His military cammies seemed unable to fully contain his muscular physique. And he wore a scowl.

  “Agent Brown,” he said gruffly.

  “Colonel Carter,” she said pleasantly. “This is Amos Decker with the FBI.”

  “Highly irregular. Couldn’t believe it when I got the email. Man hasn’t even passed his FBI security clearance, much less DIA protocols.”

  “The whole case is a bit irregular,” said Brown. “But we feel Decker is vital to getting to the bottom of this.”

  “It’s your professional funeral.”

  “Just working a case,” retorted Brown. “And I’ll use any asset I have to get to the truth. And Decker is a hell of an asset.”

  For the first time, Carter looked at Decker, who was wearing the same clothes as yesterday: wrinkled jeans, a stained sweatshirt, and a rumpled windbreaker. His hair was uncombed and jutted out every which way. And he hadn’t shaved, so his five o’clock shadow was prominent.

  Carter looked at Brown in disbelief. “What the hell! Does he work undercover at the FBI?”

  Decker stirred and said, “No, but I did brush my teeth for the meeting.”

  Carter stared at him for a few seconds and then slammed his electronic notebook down on the table and sat. Brown slipped into a seat on the other side of Decker and took out a notebook and pen.

  Carter started tapping keys on his notebook and the screens on the wall all went dead except for one. “Whistleblowers,” he said. “Starting from A and going to Z.” He looked at Decker. “There’s a lot, so try to keep up.”

  “Do my best,” mumbled Decker, staring at the live screen.

  On the screen there appeared a photo of a man.

  “Karl Listner,” said Carter. “From 1986. Military contract with a company we won’t be disclosing to Mr. Decker. Listner was the liaison. He found out about certain irregularities and came forward.”

  “Our person’s name is Anne,” interjected Decker. “So do you have any non-males doing the whistleblowing?”

  Carter looked sharply at Brown. “I wasn’t given those parameters.”

  “Sorry, Colonel, this was all done in a rush.”

  “Of course it was, which is why this guy is sitting here. And when you rush you screw up, but that’s not my problem. It’s yours.”

  He hit some more keys.
“Okay, we have fifteen possibilities.” He glanced at Decker. “Aren’t you going to write any of this down?”

  “I’m good,” said Decker.

  Carter visibly rolled his eyes, gave Brown a seething look, and turned back to the screen.

  * * *

  Hours later they had run through all of the whistleblower files. Brown turned to Decker and said, “I didn’t see anything helpful. Not even any of the peripheral players could be Berkshire.”

  Decker nodded. He turned to Carter. “There’s a mistake in your files.”

  “Impossible,” barked Carter.

  “Frame sixty-four and frame two hundred and seventeen. Sixty-four says Denise Turner was stationed in Islamabad in July 2003. Frame two hundred and seventeen says it was Faisalabad. You might want to pick one.”

  Decker got up and walked out.

  Carter hit some keys and brought up the frames in question.

  “He was right,” said Brown thoughtfully as she looked at the screen.

  “Sonofabitch got lucky,” Carter shot back.

  “Don’t believe that for a minute.”

  She rose.

  Carter said, “Who the hell is that guy?”

  Brown stared after Decker. “Still trying to figure that out myself, Colonel.”

  CHAPTER

  36

  DECKER WAS WAITING for her outside the room. He leaned against the wall, his hands shoved into his pants pockets.

  She said, “I think you shook up the good colonel.”

  “Yeah, look, could there be any other whistleblower cases out there? Maybe that no one knows about?”

  “I don’t see how. The whole point of being a whistleblower is that you blow the whistle and come forward. So we would have a record of it.”

  Decker sighed and closed his eyes.

  Brown said, “By the way, did you spot any other mistakes in there?”

  “Nine. Nothing substantive, so I decided to let the ‘good colonel’ find them.”

  “You’re a real piece of work. But Carter is also an asshole, so it’s no skin off my nose.”

  “So not a whistleblower, then,” said Decker, opening his eyes.

  “Apparently not, unless she did something unrelated to the defense sector or DIA. That’s possible.”

  “Bogart is looking into that.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  Decker looked around. “How about you talk to me about your world.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  She considered this and said, “Okay, follow me.”

  She led him down the hall and into her office. It was small, utilitarian, and had no windows. And there wasn’t a scrap of paper on the desk. Just a small laptop.

  By way of explanation she said, “We don’t like paper much. And we don’t like windows. Surveillance issues, you know.”

  She pointed to a chair, which Decker took. She sat behind her desk.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “How about the very beginning? Robert McNamara created DIA when he was SecDef under the Kennedy administration.”

  “McNamara. Right, and later he did such a great job managing Vietnam.”

  “I’m just giving you the facts, I’m not providing commentary.”

  “What’s your principal role here?”

  “Intelligence gathering. We use HUMINT to get there, unlike some other agencies.”

  “Human intelligence, you mean?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you operate only internationally?”

  “Why would that make sense when so much of what’s going on now happens domestically?”

  “So you operate in this country?”

  “It’s no secret.”

  “Have there been changes in how you do things?”

  “Where is this going, Decker?”

  “In the direction of the truth, one would hope.”

  “Whose truth?”

  “Any truth works for me right now.”

  “You saying you don’t think I’m telling the truth?”

  In answer he pointed to a small poster tacked to the wall behind her. It was a DIA recruitment poster.

  Decker read off the words printed on it: “You speak the language and live the culture. You could be anybody, anywhere.”

  He dropped his gaze to look at her. “Are you anybody anywhere?”

  “I could just say it comes with the territory.”

  “Yeah, you could. Or you could go farther than that. Maybe with something more recent than freaking Robert McNamara.”

  “I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Well, since I’m a cop, let me tell you what comes from the territory I occupy. People commit crimes and the cops track them down and arrest them. It’s a pretty linear philosophy. A to B to C.”

  “Not how my world works.”

  “Right. So you want the criminals to blow up the world while you’re working some sort of backdoor convoluted spy bullshit maneuver that you can use in your next life?”

  She put her feet up on her desk and leaned back in her chair. “Okay, I see your point.” She gathered her thoughts. “Over a decade ago, DIA requested the ability to recruit U.S. citizens to spy and be informants.”

  “Is that so unusual?”

  “No. But DIA also wanted to do it without having to reveal to said citizens that we were a government agency.”

  “How does that make sense?”

  “It apparently didn’t. That language was removed from the bill authorizing the recruitment provision.”