Cold Frame (22 page)

“Okay. And if they don't?”

“Then
the
National Security Council itself meets, first without the President, and then, if necessary, with the President.”

“And all this takes how long?”

“An entire career can be made and spent working one issue through the NSC Interagency process.”

“And this is what you do at this DMX thing?”

“No. DMX
starts
at the principals level. Each agency represented on the DMX committee comes to the meeting with a single name, which that agency is proposing for something called the Kill List. Each rep makes the case for why their ‘candidate' merits being elevated to the status of enemy combatant and killed without notice or even due process, say, like the case of an American who's gone over to Al Qaeda.”

“Wow,” Av said. “And does this committee reach a decision?”

“Sort of. DMX is technically an advisory committee, not an executive committee. They can only nominate candidates for the Kill List to the President, usually one per meeting. The chairman is Carl Mandeville, whose title is special assistant to the President and senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff.”

“Damn,” Av said. “Can he say all that in one breath?”

“He makes the final decision on whether or not to put a name forward, based on what he hears at that meeting. If there's any serious pushback on a name, then he'll usually tell the agency that nominated that individual to go back and bolster their arguments for taking him out. If we all agree, yeah, that's a true badass who needs to die, then that's usually how it goes.”

Av remembered the name from his conversation with Colonel Steele. “So these meetings aren't usually about turf issues?” he asked.

“Not visibly,” she said. “Deciding which agencies were going to get to play on the DMX took a year and a half. Now that was all about turf. No, this is serious shit, and turf wars aren't allowed in the room, although sometimes it feels to me as if agencies are competing to see who can get a name onto the list. We're all professional bureaucrats, so I guess we can't help it even when we're making decisions like this. But it's Mandeville who makes the final call on putting someone in America's crosshairs.”

“Colonel Steele said the DMX decides, the President signs, and then the big gray drones leave for faraway places. How do you feel about being part of something like this?”

“When you hear the briefings, say, like when the CIA rep comes in and describes how a certain Paki colonel enjoys capturing Western journalists and personally sawing their heads off with a dull hacksaw while they're tied to a chair? It gets easier with time.”

“I can see that,” he said. “But the cop in me is so ingrained with defendant protection procedure, you know, Miranda stuff, that I'm not sure
I
could do that. So: why tell me?”

She nodded, then looked around the bar. There were more people there now, but no one seemed to be paying them the slightest bit of attention, not even Eli.

She sighed. “I probably shouldn't have, but you remember I talked about Americans who go over to Al Qaeda or ISIS, guys like Anwar al-Awlaki?”

“Yeah?”

“Cases like that are one of the most sensitive aspects of DMX, because the guy we were looking at is an American. Our Constitution doesn't allow our government to kill its own citizens, at least not without due process.”

“Your meetings sound like due process, of a sort, anyway.”

“And Awlaki was duly nominated, approved, found, and executed by a drone,” she said. “It wasn't that hard a call, really: he looked like Bin Laden, lived in a cave very far from home, and helped the nine-eleven attackers. He fit the profile like a glove. But: lemme give you a what-if.”

“Okay.”

“What if an American citizen goes over to the enemy, and then comes back to the States clandestinely, for the purposes of conducting terrorist attacks here at home, say, starting forest fires, derailing oil trains, or causing explosions on a gas pipeline? Seen any news stories like that?”

“All of the above,” Av said. “But I haven't heard that these were terrorist attacks, just—bad shit happening. What's your real question?”

“If we knew where he was, using whatever assets which are available to the DMX agencies, and they are substantial, could we put his name on the list? And then have a sniper kill him in downtown Cleveland one day?”

“I'd say no. You'd get your Cleveland field office to snatch him up, read him his rights, appoint him a shyster, haul his ass into federal court, and then prosecute him in a death penalty case. You're obviously in a gray area killing people overseas, but here? Talk about some seriously bad optics.”

She nodded. “I agree,” she said. Then she paused to sweep the barroom again. Av had the clear impression that there was another, even more interesting shoe about to drop.

“Frankly, Detective Sergeant,” she said. “I'm getting scared.” She took a big breath and blew it out. “There. I've said it. I'm scared.”

Av tried to make light of it for a moment. “You? A senior supervisory special agent at the FBI—scared?”

“Listen carefully, Detective Sergeant: I think McGavin and Logan were not random events. I believe they were murdered.”

Whoa, Av thought. Time the fuck out. Yes, McGavin's death was possibly poison of some kind—the ME had implied as much. Logan? How could that be a homicide? Suicide, maybe, but—he'd witnessed it. Nobody pushed the dude in front of that car. He stepped out, all on his own.

He studied her face. She was staring down at her ginger ale, her lips tight and her hands even tighter on that glass. He reached out and touched the back of her left hand. She started and then relaxed her grip on the glass.

“Before you break that thing,” he said. “So: I'm listening. I assume you have a prime suspect?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Before you reveal that to me, understand that I'm duty bound to run with it. Sure that's what you want?”

“I don't know what I want,” she said. “Because I'm tangentially involved. I simply don't know what to do, and I
always
know what to do.”

“Okay,” he said gently. “Start from the beginning. You've told me about the DMX, and I appreciate that that information is highly privileged and needs to be protected. You say you think McGavin and Logan were murdered. By whom?”

“Carl Mandeville, executive director of the DMX.”

Av was shocked. This was the guy Steele had warned Av about—leave town if you think he's interested in you. “Holy shit” was all he could manage.

“Amen to that,” she said. “I believe that the people he's killing have privately come to the conclusion that the whole concept of the DMX is legally wrong and morally repugnant. There are—were—three of them: McGavin, Logan, and Wheatley. Maybe others, I don't know. Apparently at the behest of certain U.S. senators, they'd begun within their respective agencies to lobby secretly for an internal review of the entire process. Basically, they want to kill the DMX, and they're confident that such a review would do that. Why? Because nobody would be willing to get out on point defending it.”

“Okay, and?”

“And, Carl Mandeville is determined to prevent that. Now two of those three persons are dead.”

Aw, shit, Av thought, again. Here it is: the mother of all tarbabies, sitting right across the table from him. Suddenly some of this recent hugger-mugger he'd been encountering was starting to make sense. That guy in the mask, for instance.

She sighed again. “And you want to know why I'm telling
you
all this, right?”

“I'm guessing it's because you don't have a rabbi in the Bureau?”

“Did,” she replied. “I replaced him on the DMX. He got out on early retirement.”

“From the
Bureau
?”

“Let's just say he was encouraged to pack it in.”

“Ah,” Av said. “Didn't care for the DMX, did he?”

“I wasn't privy to all that. He had a s
é
ance with the director one day and the next day we were doing his hail and farewell. I was selected as his successor to the DMX, probably because wiser heads ran like hell when they were asked to do it. I was called in the next morning to the executive deputy director's office, read into the program, and that's all I know. In terms of rank, I'm the least senior rep at the table.”

“Are you qualified to be there?”

“I have some credentials in the CT world, Detective,” she said stiffly. “I've been around, okay? Mandeville says he actually asked for me, which is bullshit, I suspect. But, yeah, it was a surprise. And now, I just had to talk to somebody.”

“Jesus, Ellen,” Av said. “I'm not somebody, I'm a fucking nobody. I'm a has-been homicide dick. My previous lieutenant exiled me to the Briar Patch and since then he's been trying to get me fired, as I think you will remember.”

She rubbed her left temple with her left hand, as if her head hurt. “I think I'm going crazy,” she said.

“Oh, gosh, I wonder why,” he said. “Given this alternative universe you work in, where eighty-five different government agencies compete to consign some crazed Muslim bastard to death-by-robot, for bragging rights? Let's see, now: who the hell
would
you talk to?”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Obviously I've strayed a little too far off my reservation. I'll take you back to your man cave now.”

He smiled. “In your dreams, Supervisory Special Agent Ellen Whiting,” he said, leaning forward. “I'm speaking as the senior representative of the Briar Patch, now, and I must insist: tell me more.”

“Senior?”

“Okay, maybe as the
only
representative, present and accounted for? You need some help with a homicide? Maybe the four horsemen of the Briar Patch are just the guys to call.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“Not at all,” Av said. “That's the good news, Ellen Whiting: no one takes us seriously.”

“Clearly. And?”

“Who would see
us
coming.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. And congratulations: you've just achieved formal tarbaby status.”

“Ducky,” she said. “Why don't you get brother Eli over there to fix me a real one.”

“No,” he said. “Remember your Harley. In the meantime, I'll gather the Briar Patch posse together and we'll kick this around. Putting all the supersecret spooky shit aside, it's a possible homicide. We don't need to know anything about your precious DMX. Give me a contact phone number, then take me back to my place. Then you go home.
Then
get that drink.”

She cocked her head. “I must be losing my touch,” she said. “Most guys would have said: take me back to my place, come on up, and I'll get you whatever you need. In the way of booze.”

He grinned at her. “I'm not most guys,” he said. “And, besides, you're still scary. Even scarier, now that I think about it. Jesus, Special Agent.”

“Jesus isn't cleared for DMX,” she said.

Av rolled his eyes. They finished their drinks and went back outside, both of them looking around for watchers. Seeing nobody obvious, they climbed aboard the bike and headed back down Wisconsin. They'd gone two blocks when a black Mercedes S500 in front of them slowed down for no apparent reason. Ellen slipped the Harley into the next lane to pass, but then had to brake for a red light. The Merc slid alongside a moment later and stopped for the light. Av glanced casually to the right and saw the Halloween mask looking right back at him.

“Hey?” he said into his helmet mike. “Guy on the right is a tail.”

Ellen didn't hesitate for a second. She gunned the Harley into the intersection and right across it so fast that Av nearly fell off. She then went down to the next intersection, turned left in front of oncoming traffic and a cacophony of blaring horns, and then sped into a residential area with narrow streets made even narrower by parked cars. She went around several blocks until suddenly they were slanting down a winding road toward the bottom of Rock Creek Park. She pulled into a creekside parking lot and shut the bike down.

“Okay?” she said as she took off her helmet.

“Chee-rist, what a ride,” he said, grinning.

“What'd you see?”

He told her about the Halloween mask and the times he'd seen this guy before.

She pursed her lips for a moment and then asked him to describe the man in as much detail as possible. Av did.

She shook her head. “Guy who looks like that?” she said. “Not likely to be a professional surveillance operator—the face is too distinctive.”

“I'm thinking that's the point,” Av said.

“He wants you to know you're being stalked?”

“Yeah.”

“Oka-a-a-y,” she said. “And who might want you to think that?”

“You tell me, Special Agent,” he said.

“
Supervisory
Special Agent,” she reminded him. “And, yes, I think I know who might be doing this.” She looked over her shoulder and then screamed:
“Down!”

Av didn't hesitate—he dropped and rolled as fast as he could down toward the creek as an autoloading shotgun opened up, blasting tree branches and leaves all over him. As soon as he dropped off the bank and into the edges of the creek he pulled his Glock and pointed it up the hill at—nothing. He thought he could hear a powerful V-8 gunning it back up the hill, but there was no sign of a shooter except for a haze of gun smoke drifting down toward the creek.

He looked around for Ellen Whiting. He couldn't see her, but then he heard her cursing from around a sharp bend in the creek. He stood up, wet from the waist down but alive, and crawled up the bank. Ellen stood up some fifteen feet away, looking like a bedraggled wet hen. When the leather vest flopped open he was treated to a spectacular wet T-shirt. She saw him looking and gave him an annoyed look, but he noticed that she didn't close up the vest.