He coolly looked around for an ashtray, didn’t see any, so he walked over and opened the window. He flipped his burnt-down butt outside, faced me, and said, “That’s a serious charge, Drummond. Can you prove it?”
“It’s circumstantially obvious.”
“To you, maybe.”
“And to any reporter I tell the story to, maybe.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette. Otherwise he appeared as cool as a brick of ice. He said, “Drummond, you got a coupla problems here. You and your client, you been discussing things way outside your security sphere.”
“And how would you know that?”
“I hear these things. And as to whether anybody wired your interrogation room, I’d be willing to bet that if you were to go over there right now, you wouldn’t find any trace of wire.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Call it good gut instincts.”
“I see. What do you intend to do?”
“Like I said, report your very serious security violation to my superiors. What they do with it’s up to them.”
“Very fine,” I said. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind if I make a few calls to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.”
“Actually, I do. That’d be a real stupid idea,” he said, struggling to appear unimpressed.
“Stupid from where you stand… from where I stand, it’s brilliant.”
“No, really, Drummond… do that, and God knows what might happen to you.”
“Oh, goodness. Did I just hear a threat?”
“Just say I got good intuition, too. But listen here, pal, there might be a way around this makes everybody happy.”
“And what might that be?”
“Well, you got a client that did a lot of damage to this country and don’t exactly deserve your loyalty or sympathy. You’re a soldier, right? We need to know what your client gave away. Lives… our country’s security could depend on this. All we want is your guarantee that if he was to tell you something he disclosed to the Russkis, you’ll let us know. It’ll be quarantined from this little game you lawyers are about to play. Strict fire-walls between us and the prosecuting team, I swear.”
Well, goodness gracious. What was I was hearing? The theft was an attempt to blackmail me into becoming their stooge. And the noise and fracas was a trigger to make sure I knew. And the ass-kicking? That was just the fun part, I guess-for them, anyway.
“All I have to do is tell you whatever he discloses to me?”
“Simple as that.”
“Or you’ll report the security violation to my bosses?”
“Right again.”
“Sounds fair… just one problem.”
He took another puff off his cigarette. “And that would be?”
“This.” I withdrew Katrina’s tape recorder from my pocket and held it up to show it had been running.
The thing with smartasses like him-they can’t believe anybody can out-smartass them, until the evidence is jammed right under their noses. Looking quite annoyed, he said, “Drummond, you lousy bastard, give me that tape.”
“Well, that would be stupid, wouldn’t it?” Actually, regarding stupidity, I wondered for just the merest fraction of a second if Mr. Smith had been authorized by his bosses to use deadly force in pursuit of this blackmail. If so, the easiest thing for him to do at this instant was yank out his gun, blow a hole in my head, and walk off with that tape. From his bewildered expression I supposed he was wondering the same thing.
“Drummond, you can’t do that,” he finally blurted.
“Well, yeah, I can. Military judges don’t take kindly to government agents who mug an Army lawyer and attempt blackmail. I’m an attorney, Mr. Smith. Trust me on this. I have very good intuition. I have good gut instincts.”
Smith and I did not share the same sense of humor. “Listen up, asshole, Morrison’s a worthless fucking traitor. Give me that tape.”
“No.”
Mr. Smith could’ve benefited from a few more gallons of brainjuice, but the realization suddenly struck him that I wouldn’t be tossing threats back and forth if a solution to this quandary wasn’t possible. He broke into a smug grin and said, “What do ya want? What can I do?”
“Get your bosses on the phone.”
“Don’t go there, Drummond. You got no idea who you’re fuckin’ with here. These guys, they don’t like to be bothered by pipsqueaks.”
We played eye tag for a moment until he came to the right conclusion, which was this: I could and would screw him into a wall.
He angrily yanked out a cell phone, stalked out to the hallway, and punched in a number. I heard him whisper furtively into the mouthpiece. I looked out the window and politely let him make his explanations in privacy. I thus had to imagine what his bosses were saying when they found out the thug they sent out to blackmail me was now being blackmailed himself.
He eventually walked back in with a very sour expression and handed me the cell phone. In my most wiseass tone, I said, “And to whom am I speaking?”
An older voice replied, “Major, this is Harold Johnson.”
This was not good. “I’ve heard of you before,” I said, which was true, because Johnson was the deputy director for intelligence, the number three guy in the Agency, and something of a legend in the secret agency community.
“I don’t know what that asshole Smith did, but I apologize nonetheless. Trust me when I tell you he’s something of a wild card. He sometimes approaches his job with too much… shall we say, enthusiasm?”
Idly rubbing the big lump on the back of my head, I replied, “No kidding.”
“Now what’s this problem he’s caused?”
“I’m not sure what problem you’re referring to, sir. Where he wired the interrogation room where I met with my client? Breaking and entering into my legal offices? Stealing legally protected tapes? Maliciously mugging an officer of the United States Army? Or the attempted blackmail? Which one’s your favorite? It’s the mugging that really pisses me off.”
“Jesus, what was that asshole thinking?”
“And do you believe he admitted all that on tape? Hard to find good help these days, isn’t it?”
What I’m sure he wanted to say was, “Up yours, Drummond,” only that would’ve killed the mood here, and he was an old pro. He replied, “Well, listen, I’m terribly, terribly sorry if he did all that. Nobody told him to. Believe me.”
“Of course not,” I said, following my line in the script.
“Now, what do we have to do to get this cleared up?”
“Why, sir, the first military judge I run into’s going to get it all cleared up right nicely for us.”
“That’s not a very good idea.”
“Convince me of that.”
“Because Morrison’s the biggest traitor I’ve ever heard of.”
“Well, you know, you’re probably the fiftieth person who’s told me that, only I have yet to see a single shred of evidence. And I have yet to get an inkling of cooperation from the prosecution or your Agency.”
“That can be corrected.”
“Can it?”
“Yes. I, uh, I didn’t realize you were having a problem about this. I can have truckloads of evidence on your desk by nightfall.”
“That’s a good start point.”
Showing what a diligent listener he was, he asked, “And what’s a good end point?”
