To Free a Spy (18 page)

Warfield went to the army recruiting center the day he graduated from high school and told the recruitment officer what he wanted to do: Sign up for as long as the army would allow on the condition that he could go to OCS and be assigned to military intelligence. “Forget it, son,” the officer said, when he stopped laughing. Only a few qualified for officer candidate school, and the folks in military intelligence do the inviting—not the other way around. “Besides, why would you want to, boy? Those people out there in Fort Huachuca are a little creepy.”

Armed with the name Fort Huachuca, Warfield went to the library in Wichita Falls and found out what else he needed to know. He went home and typed up a letter to Major General Thomas K. Feranzo, Chief, Military Intelligence, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, specifying what he wished to do. He also typed and enclosed his own nineteen-page analysis of Sun Tzu’s principles of spying, a copy of his high school transcript that showed he graduated with honors, and letters from his principal and his football coach that said he worked hard and was a boy of good character.

Eleven days after he mailed the package off to General Feranzo he received a large tan envelope from Feranzo’s office. All the documents he’d sent, including his original letter to the general, were inside. A list of army recruiting stations was enclosed. That was it.

Later that day, Warfield told his father he was leaving home. He had prepared his parents for this day so it was no surprise. He loaded everything he owned into his nine-year-old Ford pickup, and Raymond and Cam talked for a few minutes and hugged each other. As Cam was about to drive off, Raymond pulled a Ka Bar pocket knife out of his jeans and handed it to him. He wanted Cam to have it.

Two days later Cam pulled up to the gate at Fort Huachuca. When the MP at the gate required documentation before he could enter the base, an apprehensive Cameron Warfield fumbled through his papers and found the envelope that had General Feranzo’s name and return address on it.

“It’s all in here,” he told the military police officer and flashed the envelope in front of him. Bluffing wasn’t much different than faking, and he had learned how to fake in football. Sun Tzu would approve of it too. The MP glanced at the return address and instead of examining the contents as he should have, nodded and gave Warfield directions to the military intelligence command center. Warfield finally breathed again as he drove away from the guard station.

The MI headquarters building was a one-story cream-colored building that was built out of wood—a long time ago, Warfield decided. “Here to see General Feranzo,” he said when he got inside.

The corporal sitting at the wood desk looked up at him. Warfield thought he seemed not more than two or three years older than he. “You want to see the general?”

“Yes sir.”

“You in the army?”

“No sir.”

“Didn’t think so. You don’t say
sir
to a corporal, buddy.”

Warfield knew that. “Can I see him now?”

The corporal suppressed a smile. “No way.
You can’t just walk in and see a general!
Gotta go through people and you need an appointment to do that around here. Where you from anyway?”

“Rawlings, Texas.”

“What do you want to see Feranzo about?”

“Nothing that concerns you. How do I get to see him?”

The corporal looked Warfield over, chewed on his lip for a moment, glanced around the room and got up from behind the desk. “Come with me.”

He led Warfield out the door he had entered and they stood on the porch. The corporal pulled out a pack of Camels, tapped the top against his finger until a tight-wrapped cylinder popped out, and offered it to Warfield.

Warfield shook his head.

The corporal lit up, took a deep drag and exhaled parallel streams of smoke through his nostrils as he studied the Texan. “Look, I don’t know why but I like you. You got some balls walking in there like that. But you don’t know what the hell you’re doing! Either that or you’re stupid. Now tell me what it is you want. Maybe I can help you out.”

Warfield looked at the name plate on the soldier’s uniform. Macclenny, it said. “So, Corporal Macclenny?”

“That’s right. Actually you can just call me Macc. I’m pretty much a peon around here.”

“Didn’t mean to be rude, but I’m gonna see that general.” He told Macc of his two contacts that got him nowhere and showed him the package that had been returned to him. “I want to make a deal with the army and it looks like only some big shot can do it.”

Macclenny laughed. “You
are
determined,” he said. “Tell you what. I sort the Old Man’s mail when it comes in. Some of it goes in the trash and the rest goes to the other brass on the general’s staff in there. They decide what he sees, and I can tell you it
ain’t
much. The major back there, he’s the one who collects the winning pieces and puts ’em in a neat little stack on General Feranzo’s desk every morning.”

Warfield’s hopes stirred. “So what can you do?”

“Okay, you give me what it is you want Feranzo to see. I’m in and out of his office all the time. Phone messages and stuff. I’ll put yours on top of his stack.”

Warfield cracked a smile. This was good. “What do I owe you for this?”

“Nothing. But the way I figure it you’re gonna be a general someday yourself. Remember me then.”

The rest was history. Officer candidate school graduation at the top of the class, a degree in international studies from the University of Arizona compliments of the army, graduation from the military’s famous National War College, years of intelligence training and hundreds of undercover operations. These were now part of Warfield’s military innards. As was Macc Macclenny.

Warfield looked at Fleming. Smiling now, she said, “Wherever you were the last couple of minutes, you were having a good time. Better not be because of the redhead dancing out there.”

He chuckled. “The redhead would’ve been more exciting.”

The one-man band across the room included a keyboard, accordion and synthesizer. The voice behind it was doing his best to sound like Dean Martin and had filled the small dance floor. Fleming pulled Warfield onto the dance floor.

“Good as the It’ll Do, War Man?”

Fleming often teased him about his life before her. He’d given her piecemeal glimpses of those days and when she brought them up he accused her of using his own bullets against him. Now and then he still went to the It’ll Do with Macc for a beer and they’d laugh about the women they’d known and dragons they’d slain, but that lifestyle was behind him now.

Being with Fleming like this made him think about the important things he always put aside. Like kids, for one. Not that he was too old for them, but he hadn’t even decided to marry yet. And was marriage
for
him? Never would he find a better lover and more loyal companion than Fleming, and maybe she came along at a time when he needed something to latch onto besides chasing spies and barflies. But get married? He’d always packed light. A wife and kid or two would slow him down. Kids ought to be raised on a farm or in a small town with a drug store and soda fountain where you could still get a strawberry shake after football practice and talk to your high school sweetheart and go home to a mom who always had dinner for you and a dad who couldn’t wait for your game Friday night and was not preoccupied with catching some terrorist who might be planning to blow up the world. There were men like that. They should be the fathers.

Cameron Warfield had followed his passions. He cared about Fleming, maybe loved her even, if he understood what loving a woman meant, and he hoped she felt okay about him pretty much as-is, because he couldn’t change course right now. Maybe someday, but he couldn’t expect her to wait around for that.

Dean Martin shifted into Everybody Loves Somebody, and Fleming DeGrande snuggled her head under Warfield’s chin. “You’re pensive tonight, Warfield.”

After dinner they meandered out to the car and drifted back to Hardscrabble Ranch. The road was deserted and the CD played loud enough to overcome the sounds of the road. It was still warm out and Fleming stood up in the seat of the convertible and folded her arms on top of the windshield. Her hair was blowing straight back when Warfield looked up at her, and she had removed the straps from her dress and let it fall away, exposing her breasts to the moonlight and balmy evening air. He thought how beautiful she was, how much confidence she had in herself. Twenty minutes later he pulled the Beamer into the garage at Hardscrabble and hit the button that rolled the door down. Fleming smiled. He’d be staying over.

* * *

Next morning, Warfield woke up before the alarm and mapped out his day as he went through his morning routine in Fleming’s weight room. After a shower he said goodbye to her and grabbed a yesterday’s bagel on the way to his car. The sun peeking above the horizon glistened in the dew that covered the Lone Elm Mercedes. At the instant he put the key into the ignition switch, he noticed that the grass next to the driveway was matted down by recent foot traffic. In the millisecond it took his brain to register that he should not turn the ignition key, it was too late.

* * *

The windows in Fleming’s bathroom crashed in from the shock wave. She looked out at the smoke and dust and ran down the stairs with her half-on robe flying behind her. She figured the explosives were taped to the frame beneath the driver’s seat, because the Mercedes came to rest on its right side. Warfield dangled from the seat belt harness, his lower body and legs hanging down to the right-side door, which now lay against the ground.

Fleming desperately looked for some sign of life. She cupped her hands around her face as she looked through the crazed windshield and saw blood trickling from Warfield’s nose, mouth and ears. She scrambled up to the driver side of the car and tried the doors without success. Even if they weren’t locked or wracked by the explosion, the weight of their steel armor plate made opening them impossible. She banged and screamed but Warfield didn’t respond. Two drivers who heard the blast had driven halfway from the main road to the house. One changed his mind and left and Fleming shouted at the other to call 911.

Fleming felt the helplessness she’d experienced a few times with a patient whose condition was beyond help, but this time it was personal. This was the man she loved. A small crowd of curious and concerned gathered as Fleming sat on top of the car like a guardian angel. Debris covered the driveway. The pungent smell of explosives lingered in the air. The armor plating had protected the fuel tank and at least there was no fire. Some tried frantically to get inside the Mercedes but failed. Finally, emergency crews and a life flight helicopter arrived, and Macc got there at about the same time. Warfield was alive but unconscious when the life flight crew hooked him up to support systems and lifted away.

Cross invited Quinn and
Fullwood to the Oval Office on the morning the Ana Koronis trial started. He didn’t want to be blindsided by any embarrassing testimony, and wanted a fresh read on his friend Austin Quinn who as the head of the CIA had been under pressure since the Koronis story broke. It was bad enough that a federal grand jury indicted Ana on charges of spying at the same time she was sleeping with Quinn but ever since the day Otto Stern told Cross she was a suspect, Cross knew the mess would infect not only himself personally, but the CIA and even Cross’s presidency. Over the months, cable news programs made household names of Austin Quinn and Ana Koronis and never missed an opportunity to remind that her parents were Iranian. In the process, it evolved from gossip to speculation to sacred truth that Ana despised the United States for killing her husband and son.

The contrast that morning between Quinn and Fullwood was striking. Fullwood’s straining shirt collar cut into his neck and the cigars had left a permanent mark on his teeth. By contrast Austin Quinn could have stepped out of a TV ad for men’s clothing. Cross wondered if Quinn still ordered eight new suits every year. His shirts and ties alone cost more than most men spent on entire wardrobes. There were new wrinkles in his face but the strain hadn’t changed his style.

“Anything I need to know about the trial?” Cross asked. Neither man had much to offer that Cross didn’t already know, and, as Cross expected, Quinn was subdued. His ex-lover was on trial, along with his credibility. Cross needed assurance the testimony wouldn’t contain any surprises. Enough damage had been done. Each man said it wouldn’t.

* * *

Through the U.S. attorney Joe Morgan, Warfield had kept up with the pre-trial proceedings during his recovery from the explosion. The Justice Department spent most of a year collecting and analyzing information about Ana Koronis before deciding to go with it. They wanted to proceed because she was a high-profile Washington insider, a potential feather in the Justice’s cap if she were convicted, but that sword had two edges: There would be a lot of negative press if they blew this one.

The paneled courtroom in the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, the same from which a federal grand jury investigated former president Bill Clinton in his Monica Lewinsky scandal, was packed. Ana had no living relatives in the United States and her law firm associates and socialite friends kept their distance like cats from water. The only person in the courtroom who might have been in Ana’s corner was a woman who showed up for the trial daily and seemed to nod approval when testimony favored Ana. Warfield found out through Morgan that she was a State Department employee named Tot Templeton. She worked with Ana’s law firm before Ana married Spiro Koronis. Ana’s only other friends there, and in all of the country it seemed, were her attorneys, led by Manny Upson. But these were
paid
friends.

Warfield knew Ana had two strikes against her before the trial started. Americans hadn’t forgotten the four-hundred-forty-four-day Iranian hostage crisis that began in 1979, and the anti-American demonstrations and rhetoric had rekindled if anything in recent years; Iran continued to be an international pariah to this day. Ana Koronis was a living, breathing, present target for Americans’ anger toward and mistrust of her native country even though her parents had moved from Iran to the U.S. a few months before she was even born. The second strike: She was the sister of the notorious terrorist, Seth, who was hated by the peoples of the earth who respected human life. Judge Millard Leaf and the defense team weeded out prospective jurors who couldn’t hide their prejudice, but an impartial jury of her peers in all probability didn’t exist.