“Deputy Director Carney, please,” I say into a new prepaid cell phone I purchased an hour ago.
“May I say who’s calling, please?”
“His favorite reporter,” I answer. I take a breath and steel myself.
You can do this, Ben. Act confident. Don’t act like you’re scared out of your mind. Keep the upper hand.
A moment later: “This is Craig Carney.”
“Hello, Mr. Deputy Director. It’s twenty-four hours later. You’ll recall I set a deadline.”
“I do recall that.”
“Did you read the article I e-mailed to your office?”
“I read a document that doesn’t remotely bear any relation to the truth, Mr. Casper.”
“Either way, I snap my fingers and it’s online, front and center, a pretty big headline. Should I snap my fingers, Mr. Deputy Director, or do you have something to tell me?”
“I have something to tell you.”
“Will I like it?”
“I would if I were you, yes. But not over the phone. Come to my office.”
That’s about the least surprising thing he could have said.
“Your office? I don’t think so. Let me think a second.” I take a swig of the bottled water I’m holding. My mouth is dry as a sandbox. My heart is pounding so furiously that I can hardly hear myself speaking.
I take a couple of short breaths. The delay works for me, because he thinks I’m trying to come up with a place to meet. The truth is, I already have one.
“The Washington Monument,” I say. “One hour. Stand on the east side and face the Capitol. And Mr. Carney, this is just the two of us, right?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” I say, mimicking him. “If it’s more than the two of us, I snap my fingers. Know what I mean?”
Carney lets out a sigh. “It will be just the two of us, Mr. Casper.”
“Okay. See you there. Wear a Nationals cap.”
“Wear a what?”
“A Nationals baseball cap. So I know it’s you.”
“You’ll know it’s me.”
“Wear a Nationals cap and, come to think of it, have a Nationals pennant. Y’know, those things you wave?”
“Why do I need to do that?”
“Because I’m not going to appear until I see you. And from a distance, I won’t recognize you. So wear a Nationals baseball cap and be waving a pennant.”
“I don’t have either of those things.”
“You’re one of the most powerful men in the country, Mr. Carney. I’m confident you’ll make it happen. Do as I say, or in one hour, we publish the story. Oh, and I also set up a new e-mail address, under a fake name, of course, that is timed to send this article to the
Post
,
the
Times
,
and about ten other newspapers ninety minutes from now. Unless I stop it, of course.”
He doesn’t answer. Good. He’s letting me call the shots.
“One hour,” I say. “And give me your cell number.”
He does so. Then I hang up the phone. I wipe the sweat from my forehead, bend over at the waist, and vomit into a bush.
An hour later, I dial the cell number Craig Carney gave me.
“Hello, Mr. Casper,” he says when he picks up. “I’m here at the Washington Monument, as you can see. Where are you?”
Where am I? I’m among about five hundred people strolling the west side of the National Mall right now, looking at the many memorials. But he doesn’t need to know that. Like pretty much everyone else around here, I have a camera, only I’m not snapping pictures. I’m using it as I would a pair of binoculars, zooming in wherever I need to look, trying not to be too obvious.
“I want you to move to the other side of the monument, Mr. Deputy Director. Come around to the west side and face the Lincoln Memorial.”
“Okay, I’ll go around to the other side of the monument.”
I have a feeling he didn’t say that for my benefit. I think he’s trying to signal someone—FBI agents, CIA, Capitol Police, whatever—what he’s doing. He must be wearing a wire. That’s about as surprising as a hot day in August.
“You’re not waving the pennant, Mr. Carney. I told you to wave it.”
Okay, that wasn’t called for or necessary, but give me a break—I’m nervous here. I’m trying to convince myself I have the upper hand. This is high-stakes poker and I’ve never played anything but solitaire.
“Okay, are you happy now?”
“I’m just kidding. I don’t know if you’re waving the pennant or not. I’m not on the National Mall right now. Sorry about that. There’s been a change of plans.”
They say that a lot in movies, when there are ransom drops or other controlled meetings.
There’s been a change of plans
,
delivered with much more bravado than I can muster right now, when I’m doing my damnedest to keep the tremor out of my voice. Hell, I’m trying not to piss my pants.
I say, “Go to the Foggy Bottom metro station and take the Orange Line to the Landover stop.”
“Landover? This is ridiculous.”
“Do it or become a national disgrace. The clock is ticking.”
I punch off the phone and listen to a tour guide tell me and a dozen other people what each of the pillars on the perimeter of the World War II Memorial represents. Interesting.
Even more interesting? What happens next. Due east, at the Washington Monument, Craig Carney is speaking into his collar. So that confirms he’s wired up, and he’s obviously telling his people that he’s on the move.
Carney starts to head west and north toward the Foggy Bottom station. Several people dressed as tourists suddenly lose interest in the attractions they’re supposedly here to view and simultaneously begin to change course. A man in a navy suit and sunglasses near the Korean War Memorial breaks sharply toward the Washington Monument and trails Carney from a distance. A man in a gray T-shirt and blue jeans at the Lincoln Memorial breaks north into a jog, which means he’s either one of Carney’s guys or he likes to jog in denim. Two women, one in a blue suit and the other in a brown sundress, strolling east along the reflecting pool, suddenly stop strolling and nonchalantly pivot in the opposite direction. A casually dressed man and woman, who are not more than twenty yards away from me at the World War II Memorial, freeze in their tracks, touch their ears momentarily, and then start following Carney as he passes by on his way to the metro station. A nearby woman who is a dead ringer for Patricia Arquette in
Goodbye Lover
bends over and fixes the strap on her heel. I don’t think she’s with Carney, but I thought Patricia Arquette was totally hot in that movie.
I dial up Carney again. When he answers, I say, “One more thing, Mr. Carney. I’m going to ask you a question, and if you don’t give me a truthful answer, then we’re done. The article gets published. Ready for my question?”
He stops and waits a moment before answering. “Ask your question,” he says.
“Did you come alone, as I asked?”
He looks around him. He doesn’t know if I’m here or not. I told him I’m not, but he can’t be sure.
“No, I didn’t, Ben. I’m the second-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency and I’m meeting with someone who is wanted for two murders and who’s trying to extort me. There’s no way they’re going to let me meet with you without watching my back. But that’s all they’re doing, Ben. No one’s going to arrest you or try to hurt you.”
Fair enough. He admitted it. He told the truth. It’s a start. There are no guarantees in life.
“Turn around, Mr. Carney. You passed me a couple minutes ago.”
“Oh—you’re here. Okay. Where are you?”
“The World War II Memorial,” I say. “The tour group by the Atlantic arch. I’m the guy in the wheelchair.”
When I stand up from my rented wheelchair, the others in my tour group let out audible gasps. “It’s a miracle!” I say. “I can walk!”
I leave them behind and meet Craig Carney, looking resplendent in his dapper three-piece gray suit and crimson tie, the Nationals baseball cap and pennant now discarded. We agree to take a walk along the reflecting pool. He’s built up a little perspiration in the scorching heat, which gives me some comfort, because I’m sweating through my clothes right now.
I try to keep my breathing even, but it’s hard. This is what I’ve been waiting for, but I have a sinking feeling I’m not going to come away a happy customer. And I don’t see a whole lot of other options for me out there.
“I know everything there is to know about you, Ben,” says Carney. “I know about your childhood. I know about your father and mother. I know that that newspaper of yours is something you do out of love, not because you have trouble paying the bills. It’s your baby. And that’s why I know that, whatever else, you’d never print a story that you know isn’t true. You wouldn’t do that to your baby.”
“Fear of death can do wonders to your integrity,” I note.
“Oh, it doesn’t have to come to that.” He says it like I’m being overly dramatic. I hope he’s right about that. “Y’know, Ben, when my father was in the Senate, he used to have a saying. ‘Don’t get in front of a ball rolling down a hill.’ Pick your battles, in other words. If you can’t stop something, don’t waste your time trying.”
“So he probably wouldn’t have been a big fan of, say, Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony.”
Carney chuckles. “You’re equating yourself with a civil rights leader?”
“I’m no hero,” I say. “Far from it. But we do have one thing in common. We’re both fighting our government. I just didn’t realize I was doing so until people started shooting at me and framing me for murder.”
We approach the Lincoln Memorial. Gotta love Honest Abe, but I’m not a huge fan of the Greek temple look of this memorial. Still, it’s hard not to be awed. I’ve been here fifty times, and I get chills every time I look up at him.
“The United States government doesn’t kill its citizens,” says Carney. “If someone’s been trying to kill you, it isn’t us.”
Given that he’s wearing a wire, what else is he going to say?
“I never had an affair with Diana Hotchkiss, Ben. If she told you otherwise, then it’s one, but not the only, lie she told you.”
We turn left—south—around the pool.
“Why didn’t you say so, Mr. Deputy Director? This whole thing’s been a misunderstanding. My bad. Sorry for your troubles.”
Carney doesn’t even crack a smile. He’s not what you’d call a whimsical guy.
“You’re anxious and confused. I don’t blame you. You’re looking at serious criminal charges. Your life could be over very soon. But you know what, Ben? What you don’t realize is how lucky you are.”
“Lucky because I know about your affair with Diana.”
He lets that comment pass. We bend around the pool again, this time heading east.
“You know much about World War II, Ben?” he asks me.
“Enough, I guess.” I saw
Saving Private Ryan
and that HBO series Tom Hanks did. Does that count?
“You know the story about when the Nazis bombed the city of Coventry in England? A lot of people think Churchill knew that bombing raid was coming because British intelligence had intercepted and deciphered the Nazis’ coded radio messages. You know about that, Ben?”
“I know that some people think Churchill knew the raid was coming, but he didn’t say anything because he was afraid the Nazis would figure out that the Brits had broken their code. So Churchill decided it was better to let one city get leveled to keep this advantage a secret. He let Coventry take a hit for the greater good of winning the war.”
“Right. That’s right, Ben.”
“And I know most people think that story’s bullshit.”
“Maybe so,” he says. “Maybe not.” It occurs to me now that I’m talking to a top banana at the CIA, so he may actually know whether that story is fact or fiction. “But surely you see my point, Ben. Sometimes there’s a bigger picture. A greater good, as you said.”
“Okay, so what does this have to do with Diana? Or me?”
Carney stops and faces me. “It means there are things I’d love to tell you, if I could, that would explain everything to you. But for reasons of national security, I can’t.”
“Then forgive me if I’m not tracking this,” I say. “How does this make me lucky?”
He nods. “Because I want this over,” he answers. “So I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
“You’ll walk away from all your criminal problems,” says Carney. “All criminal investigations are dropped. Diana’s death is ruled a suicide. Jonathan Liu’s death is a suicide. Any responsibility for that dead police detective? Wiped clean. This little blackmail stunt you’ve pulled on me—all is forgiven, Ben.” He wags a finger at me. “Now, you’re not going to find a better deal than that.”
I try to maintain a poker face, an air of skepticism. But I can’t deny that I’ve been praying for something like this. A chance to get my life back. To move on. And for Anne Brennan, and Diana’s parents, to do the same. I have more than myself to consider.
“And the people trying to kill me?” I ask.
He stares at me for a long time. I swear I see a trace of a smile, but maybe it’s just an optical illusion. If you stare at a wall long enough, it appears to move.
“As I said, Ben, the US government has nothing to do with that.”
“Of course not.”
“But maybe we know who does. And maybe we can work something out so that problem goes away, too.”
I can’t keep up this blank expression much longer. I’m not wired for it, as Carney is. So I start walking again, moving toward the Washington Monument along the south side of the reflecting pool. Sweat is dripping into my eyes and running along my cheek. Carney knows that I’m on unfamiliar ground here. I’m in way, way over my head.
“And for all this—for immunity from prosecution and from machine-gun ambushes—I have to do what?” I ask.
“Nothing, Ben. Literally nothing. No more questions. No more investigating. Just let the whole thing go. It’s the right thing to do in terms of national security, and you save your life in the process. Everyone wins.”
Somehow I don’t feel like a winner right now. I’m unsure how to proceed. Every instinct I possess tells me to lap up this deal like a dog, to say yes immediately. This is what Anne wants. This is what George Hotchkiss wants. This is—
This is what I want.
“You’re going to say yes,” Carney says.
“I am?”
“Yes, you are, Ben. For several reasons. For one, you know if you print that bogus story about me, you’ll ruin the reputation of your newspaper. And I’ll sue, and I’ll win. Because we both know that Diana and I never had an affair.
“And even if you keep up this investigation of yours—and let’s pretend you dig up something worth printing—all you’ll accomplish is making this country less safe by disclosing tactical advantages we’ve managed to put in place against our enemies. And
that’s
assuming you manage to stay out of jail and you’re not under prosecution for two murders. And all
that
assumes that you even manage to stay alive, which, from what I understand, is a very tenuous proposition.”
We walk for a moment, and I try to decipher everything this guy is telling me. It sure would be nice to be recording this conversation so I could play it later.
Which is why I’m glad I’m recording this conversation so I can play it later.
“Is Diana alive?” I ask.
Carney smiles. “That’s not our deal. Our deal is you don’t ask questions.”
“Who killed Jonathan Liu?”
“Why, you did, Ben.”
“What is Operation Delano?”
He sniffs a laugh. “Enough, Ben. I need your answer. Right here, right now. Do you spend the few remaining days you have left tilting at windmills, or do you get your life back as it was?”
I break away from him to think for a moment. I let my eyes wander over the west end of the National Mall. The Lincoln Memorial was the location of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Protests against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, marches for women’s and workers’ rights—all of them have taken place on the Mall. Every memorial here pays tribute to courageous souls who battled evil forces, some visible and some invisible, to make this country and this world a better place.
I’m no hero. I never have been. I’ve lived a safe and cautious life. Why should I change course now? Especially when Carney’s right—the only thing that pressing forward will do for me is land me in prison or get me killed.
“I need an answer right now,” says the deputy director. “Come on, Ben. You know there’s only one answer.”
“You can wait twenty-four hours,” I say. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”