The Second Perimeter (6 page)

E
mma led DeMarco to a café on Bremerton’s waterfront. The place smelled of incense and flowers and served fifty varieties of herbal tea. The cheerful lady who ran the café sported John Lennon–style wire-rim glasses and had straight, gray hair that reached the small of her back. She wore what DeMarco thought of as a granny dress, a long shapeless thing as glamorous as a flour sack that touched the tops of her Birkenstock sandals. DeMarco had thought that hippies were extinct, but apparently not.
Emma ordered an exotic tea, something with ginseng in it. DeMarco asked for coffee, then a Coke, then a plain old Lipton’s and each time was informed by the woman— not only a hippie but a health Nazi— that she didn’t stock such beverages. He settled for a glass of water; the happy Nazi put a slice of lemon in it.
They took seats near a window where they could see the ferry terminal and watch the jumbo ferries from Seattle dock at the terminal in Bremerton.
“I think Whitfield may have been right about Mulherin and Norton,” Emma said.
“That they’re committing some kind of fraud?”
“Not fraud,” Emma said. “Something else.”
“What else? What are you talking about?”
“Let’s look at everything Dave Whitfield said from a different perspective. He said Mulherin and Norton, two guys in debt, suddenly retire early and come into a lot of money and start buying things. Then you consider
where
they’ve been working, in a training facility loaded with classified materials. And then right after Whitfield calls you about them, he’s killed. So maybe Whitfield saw Mulherin or Norton doing something or overheard something and—”
“Espionage? Is that what you’re saying, Emma?”
Emma nodded her head slowly.
DeMarco had never been near a spy in his life, at least not that he knew of. His normal assignments involved wayward politicians and greedy bureaucrats and being the middleman for deals that Mahoney didn’t want his fingerprints on. “You might be right,” he said to Emma, “but you saw the security in that place.”
The shipyard’s perimeter was protected by tall fences topped with barbed wire; boats armed with machine guns patrolled the waterfront to keep watercraft— watercraft potentially filled with explosives— from approaching the drydocks or ships that were moored at the piers; armed guards manned entry gates and patrolled the grounds, and cameras were located in strategic spots. And these were just the security measures that were visible.
People entering the shipyard were carefully controlled. The employees, the ones who worked on the nuclear ships, had to have a security clearance and they wore badges that had their pictures on the front and a magnetic strip on the back, like the strip on the back of a credit card. To enter the shipyard, workers had to show their badges to guards stationed at the gates and swipe the badges through bar-code readers to further confirm they were allowed to enter. Miller, the shipyard security chief, had said that random searches of backpacks and lunch boxes and vehicles were performed at all times, and if the national or regional threat level increased,
everybody
was searched, from the shipyard commander’s wife on down to the guy who mopped the cafeteria floor.
“Let me tell you something about security systems,” Emma said to DeMarco. “Most systems— including the one at this shipyard— are primarily designed to keep the bad guys
out
. But once a worker has been vetted for a security clearance and given a badge, he’s
in
. And once he’s in, he’s trusted, and he has access to classified information, and most important, he knows how such information is protected.” Emma paused to sip her tea, then added, “And espionage isn’t the only possibility.”
“What else is there?”
“Sabotage. There are currently four nuclear-powered submarines being overhauled at the shipyard. Sabotaging one of these ships would have significant repercussions. Not only the cost to repair whatever was damaged, but fleet operations would be disrupted if a vessel had to be taken out of service for a significant amount of time, and work on all the other ships being overhauled would be delayed.”
“It’s kinda hard to picture Mulherin and Norton as spies. I mean these guys, they’re just—”
“Remember Aldrich Ames?” Emma asked.
“The CIA guy?” DeMarco said.
“Right,” Emma said. “Ames was probably the most damaging mole ever to penetrate a U.S. intelligence service. He was an alcoholic and poorly thought of by his coworkers. He was turned down for promotions, not all that bright, and openly flaunted the money he received from the Russians. In spite of all that, he fed CIA information to the KGB for almost ten years, and ten native Russians providing intelligence to the CIA died because of him. When you think about it, Mulherin and Norton bear a rather large resemblance to Aldrich Ames.”
“What about Carmody?”
“We don’t know anything about Phil Carmody,” Emma said and her lips compressed into a stubborn line that said they soon would.
“Hell, even if they are spies, according to that tall gal up in the training area, what’s-her-name, Shipley, it’d be pretty hard to sneak anything classified out of that place. You sure as hell can’t sneak one of those big damn books out of that vault.”
“I know,” Emma said.
They sat in silence a moment until DeMarco said, “If all those security systems don’t keep the spies out, how
do
they get ’em?”
“The first opportunity,” Emma said, “is the background checks performed when they issue a man or a woman a security clearance. That’s the time to see if they’re in financial trouble or susceptible to blackmail. But that’s not how spies are usually caught.” Emma gestured toward the shipyard, the eastern end of which was visible from the teahouse. “All that security— the fences, the cameras, the safes, the cyber locks— that’s the
physical
perimeter that protects the facility and its secrets. But there’s a second perimeter that’s just as visible but not as apparent— a
human
perimeter. The employees. Employees like Dave Whitfield watching their coworkers, looking for odd behavior, looking for something that
stinks
, as poor Dave put it. It’s the second perimeter that catches the spies.”
Emma tipped her cup back and swallowed the remainder of her horrible, healthy tea. “There’s somebody I need to talk to,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

I
need some help here, Bill,” Emma said.
Bill Smith— his real name— worked for Emma’s old outfit. He was five foot nine, slim, had curly dark hair, and wore glasses with heavy black frames. He didn’t look like an international spy; he looked, to his great dismay, very much like the older brother of a guy who did a national TV commercial, one that had been running for more than three years. He and Emma were sitting in a Denny’s restaurant and Emma winced as Smith poured half a pint of raspberry syrup over his waffles.
“I can’t do it, Emma,” Smith said. “We’re more shorthanded right now than we were during the cold war.” Before Emma could object, he held out a forkful of waffle, red syrup running down the handle of the fork. “Wanna bite?” he said.
“God, no,” Emma said. “I’m telling you, Bill, these guys are up to something. I can
feel
it.”
“Have you talked to the Feebies about this feeling of yours?”
“Yes. The Bureau assigned two young agents to Whitfield’s murder. The one in charge is not only greener than grass, he’s handling a caseload that would break a donkey’s back. He thinks the likelihood of espionage is pretty far-fetched…”
“Which you have to agree it is,” Smith said.
“…and he says he doesn’t have sufficient probable cause to get warrants to look into these guys’ finances or search their homes.”
“Probable cause,” Smith said and made a sound that was half snort, half laugh. In Bill Smith’s normal line of work, probable cause was rarely, if ever, an impediment.
“And as for Whitfield’s murder, he says they’re starting to think that poor schizophrenic really did it.”
“Well maybe he did do it.”
“He didn’t,” Emma said. Emma, as the old saying went, was sometimes wrong but never uncertain.
“So what do you want?” Smith said.
“I want someone from research to check these people out, particularly Carmody. And I want to borrow a computer guy to tell me how they could trick the shipyard’s IT security. And I need a team, just a small one. I want these guys followed for a while and their houses searched. I particularly want Carmody’s place sniffed for explosives and spyware.”
“Jesus Christ, Emma. Maybe you’d like a helicopter, too?”
“I’m serious, Bill. It really makes me nervous that he spends his time on board the ships.”
Smith sighed. Emma was a force of nature. “Look,” he said, “the research we can do. You just won’t get priority. The computer stuff, there’s an NSA guy we borrow sometimes when we’re overloaded. Maybe we can convince them to spare him for a conference call. But a team’s out of the question. I’d have to bring guys back from overseas to do what you want. You gotta believe me, Emma: communism was a piece of cake compared to this terrorism stuff.”
“
Listen
to me,” Emma said. “They’re inside a naval shipyard that overhauls nuclear-powered warships!”
“I hear you, Emma, but I can’t do it. Sorry.”
Emma sat back in her chair.
“Well in that case, Bill, I’d suggest that you kick this up the line so that when something bad happens, your ass will be covered.”
“Now that wasn’t called for, Emma.”

E
mma reclined on the bed in her motel room, waiting for the phone to ring. She was feeling lonely and grumpy. After Christine went back to D.C. with the symphony, Emma had moved into the same motel where DeMarco was staying in Bremerton. It was clean and functional and conveniently located— and, in Emma’s opinion, only slightly better than a cardboard box. Emma was used to five-star accommodations.
Emma had worked for the DIA for almost thirty years. She never discussed with anyone what she did while working for the agency but in her time she had slept in mountain caves without even a blanket for warmth; she had survived by eating grubs and uncooked bitter roots; she had been bitten on the ear by a scorpion and had once acquired an exotic fungus between her toes. She had suffered these hardships without complaint or self-pity— yet here she was feeling extremely peeved because the water pressure in the motel’s shower was so low it took five minutes to rinse the shampoo from her short hair.
The phone next to the bed rang.
“Yes,” Emma said.
“It’s Peterson in research.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ll start with Norton and Mulherin. They have a history of indebtedness. Their employment records are spotty— lots of supervisor comments about tardiness, insubordination, sloppy work, etc. Before they retired they filed grievances every other month about something: lack of promotion, age discrimination, unfair shift assignments. That sorta whiny crap. Both are divorced and both have kids they don’t support. Neither has a criminal record, unless you count the DUI Mulherin got six years ago. They’re just a couple of fuckups.”
Just a couple of fuckups. That seemed to be the consensus opinion as that was at least the third time that Emma had heard that phrase, or a variation of it, used to describe the pair. So why had Carmody hired them?
“Is that it?” Emma said.
“No. I checked their bank records. Six months ago both men came into some money, a hundred thousand dollars each. This was just before they retired from the yard and started working for Carmody.”
“What was the source of the hundred thousand?”
“Carmody’s company. I guess it was some kind of signing bonus.”
Emma snorted. “Would you pay these two a signing bonus?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And where did Carmody get the money from?”
“He bought a house in San Diego when he was stationed there back in the nineties. He rented the place out when he wasn’t there. Seven months ago he sold the house and used the profit from the sale to start up his consulting company and to pay Norton and Mulherin. But there’s something fishy about the sale. He was paid almost three times what the house was worth. A development company bought the house and I haven’t been able to trace where they get their money from. I could do it eventually, Emma, but they told me I couldn’t spend any more time on this.”
“Could someone be funneling money through the development company?”
“Sure. It’s big, it’s global, and it’s got income flows from a dozen different directions. It’d be perfect for funding foreign ops.”
“You need to find the source of Carmody’s money.”
“I’m sorry, Emma, I can’t. Not now, and not unless you get something solid.”
Emma was silent for a moment.
“What about Carmody?”
“He’s a totally different breed than Mulherin and Norton. He started off as a navy nuc, trained as a reactor operator in Idaho Falls, then served on both attack boats and boomers. His record was spotless. Good fit reps, commendations, fast track for promotion. He was being considered for officer candidate school when he decided to leave the nucs.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. He was twenty-four years old— he enlisted at eighteen— and after six years he was tired of submarines and decided he wanted to be a SEAL. The nucs weren’t happy about him leaving but he said if they didn’t transfer him, he’d quit, and he was just too good for the navy to lose. And the SEALs really wanted him, a big young guy with a technical background. He was a dream candidate.”
“How’d he do in the SEALs?”
“Great, until right before he quit. He’s one of those guys that has his medals stored in a government lockbox because he can’t tell anyone why he got the medals. Kinda like you, Emma.”
Emma ignored the compliment. “What happened before he quit?”
“He was in…someplace, and…well…something went wrong. One SEAL was killed and Carmody got the blame.”
Emma could tell that Peterson was reading from a report and not telling her everything— or anything.
“Come on, Peterson,” she said. “What kind of op and what did Carmody do?”
“Sorry, Emma, I can’t say. The point is, Carmody had to make a decision in the middle of a firefight and he made the wrong decision. In hindsight, that is. You know how it is; you’ve been there before. Anyway, Carmody was the NCMFIC and he took the hit.”
NCMFIC was military-speak for noncommissioned motherfucker in charge.
“Did they bust him out of the SEALs?”
“No. This guy was a star. They put a letter in his file and were going to make him repeat some training— basically a slap on the wrist— but he quit before they could.”
“So when he left the navy, he was pissed.”
“The records don’t say. His stated reason for leaving was to pursue work in the private sector. He may have been bitter, but you don’t get that impression. I mean there’s no nasty letters to his CO in his file, no demands for hearings. It looks like he was just ready to move on after six years of putting his ass on the line for minimum wage.”
“Do you know what he did after he left the SEALs?”
“Sort of. I don’t have a lot of detail but he was in Hong Kong for almost seven years. He got out of the navy in ’96, bummed around Europe for a year, then he took a job at a utility company outside of Toledo that operates a nuclear power plant there. But in ’98 he quit the job at the utility company— it was probably too much like being back on a sub— and goes to Hong Kong where he lands a job with an outfit that provides security for big shots and their businesses and their families over there. I don’t know if Carmody was a bodyguard or some other kind of security consultant, but being an ex-SEAL he could have been either. Then the company he worked for in Hong Kong relocated to Thailand in 2003. This was six years after Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese so I imagine by then private enterprise in Hong Kong was starting to feel the heat from the old-timers in Beijing. The problem is, we have no record of what Carmody did after the security company relocated, but he stayed in Hong Kong until he came up with the shipyard training thing last year.”
“That’s quite a career change,” Emma said, “from hired muscle in Hong Kong to training consultant in the States. I wonder why he didn’t relocate to Thailand with his old company.”
“Beats me,” Peterson said.
Emma thanked Peterson and started to hang up, but before she did, the researcher said, “Emma, this guy Carmody is smart and if he’s gone bad, he’s dangerous. I’ve heard you’re kinda on your own out there. You be careful, ya hear?”
Emma put down the phone and stared for a minute at the picture on the wall across from her bed. It was an oil painting of Mount Rainier rising above magenta-colored clouds, and it was hideous. She wondered if there was a company somewhere called Ugly Art, and if every motel in the country purchased from them.
She thought for a moment, made another phone call, then called DeMarco’s room. There was no answer. Where the hell was he?