ago, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
As she entered the ransacked house that awful gray morning, she had pulled tighter around her face the hijab she wore out of deference to tradition. The scarf masked the burnt smell of gunfire, and hid the trembling of her own mouth as she stood over the pitiful bodies. She reached to touch the children, but her fingers stopped just short of their dark mops of hair. One was nine, the other ten, both boys. If they had been American children their pajamas would have featured Scooby-Doo or Power Rangers or Spider-Man. But these two boys wore PJs with a repeating pattern of soccer balls, with rainbow arcs of speed drawn behind each ball to suggest a powerful and accurate kick.
They lay on their stomachs and she realized that they’d been shot in the back.
There was no sign of the children’s parents, people she knew, freelance translators who worked with the State Department. She knew them because she was here to help the Kabul government shape and refine its own version of Homeland Security. The boys’ father had called her an hour earlier, waking her from a deep sleep. I wonder, Ms. Vochek, if you could come by and talk to me and my wife. We have information of value. Time is critical.
“It’s two of your people,” the Afghan officer in charge of the scene said.
“My people.” She tore her gaze away from the children. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes. The killers. Two men from the State Department.”
“The people who killed these kids work for State?” Horror filled her voice.
“Yes. In the security division. They grabbed the parents, stuck them in a trunk after they shot the family. Wife is dead, husband is wounded. May not make it through the night.” The Afghan officer shrugged. “What is wrong with you people?”
She was placed in charge of the interrogation of the two State Department employees. The Afghan government fed the media a careful fiction, announcing that two unknown gunmen had attacked the family.
Vochek’s questioning of the two State Department employees showed yes, they worked for State-but they were taking orders from a secret group within State, operating in Kabul, as a private information network. This group was driven by its own agenda to spy on the insurgent Taliban. The group believed the parents knew of the locations of key Taliban figures. One of the two gunmen, trigger-happy, cut down the children as they fled from their parents’ attackers.
“Didn’t mean to,” one of the men told her. “We were just going to take the parents to force them to talk. The kids freaked. Ran. We couldn’t have them waking the neighbors”-as if gunfire wouldn’t shatter the quiet- “and I just shot them.” The man wept. “Because no one could know what we were doing. No one.”
The idea that a small rogue group could be operating independently, secretly, and illegally inside the vast maze of the government made her sick. Washington smothered the story; the two State Department employees, who worked in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, were sent back to the United States, charged with far less serious crimes. Vochek protested. She was told to forget the incident. And she had no idea what had happened to any other members of the rogue cadre inside State-if they had been charged, or dismissed, or told to proceed a bit more cautiously with their under-the-table work.
It was grossly unfair, and she complained about it in memo after memo to her supervisor.
The only response was a maddening silence, until Margaret Pritchard appeared in her office one afternoon.
Pritchard was in her late fifties, a carefully groomed woman with ash blond hair and slightly oversized eyeglasses. She introduced herself as being from a Homeland task force in Washington that Vochek had never heard of. She shut the door of Vochek’s office. “You don’t like the idea of these unapproved covert groups.”
“No, I don’t.”
“They offend you.” It was a dry observation. “I’ve read your memos and your e-mails. You certainly love your outraged adverbs.”
“I don’t love outrage, but it serves a purpose.”
Pritchard leaned forward. “Would you like to help me shut these groups down?”
“No, thank you.”
“Why not?”
“Because the government doesn’t want these dirty dogs shut down. They had their chance. I saw two men who killed a family get slapped on the wrist. I don’t want to participate in another charade.”
“Dirty dogs. I like that term. But this isn’t a charade. The administration wants these groups closed and ended but with no publicity, no acknowledgment that they ever existed. This is a problem that’s been building over time-too many agendas, not enough accountability, too much leeway given to produce intelligence and hard results. I’ve been put in charge of a team to find the illicit groups, gather evidence against them, build a strong case, and then gut them.” She leaned back, crossed her arms. “You and the rest of the team will have enormous latitude.”
“I haven’t said yes yet. How many groups are there?”
Margaret Pritchard shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes groups have formed then dissolved. I suspect there’s a very private CIA hidden inside the CIA. Establishing whether or not they exist will be our first job. We have our suspicions.” She reached into her briefcase, unfurled a long piece of paper. A web of colored lines connected circles; the circles overlapped the names of the agencies and the departments: CIA, FBI, NSA, Defense, State, Homeland.
“We suspect certain activities-assassinations, thefts, sabotage-were ordered by a cadre of people inside the government, contrary to our current foreign policies. They might produce good results but this isn’t how our government operates. We’re unsure where the groups are hiding inside the bureaucratic maze-where they get their money, their people, their resources.”
“You’re forming a secret group to find a secret group.” Vochek gave her a bitter laugh.
“It takes a thief.” Margaret Pritchard leaned back from the chart. “You’ll work out of the Houston office. I don’t want people in DC knowing what we’re doing. We’ll keep our numbers few, very low-profile, make heavy use of outside contractors so word doesn’t spread among the people we’re investigating.”
No good deed could bring back the Afghan boys in pajamas. But if there were no secret groups, then there were no rogue operations, there was accountability. She would have to keep her silence, for the sake of the government, but the rogues using government cover and resources to advance their own agendas would be gone.
She wanted to make the first mark for right in the ledger. She thought she had with Ben Forsberg.
She opened her eyes at the sound of the hospital door opening, and Margaret Pritchard stood at the foot of her bed. Vochek blinked against the early morning light hazing in from the window. “Not a word other than pleasantries. We’ll talk shortly.”
Vochek nodded.
“Your notoriously hard head seems to be undamaged.”
“I’m fine.” The attacker had left her with a bad knot.
“I took the liberty of bringing you some of your clothes from Houston.” Pritchard held up a bag. “Clearly I’m paying you too much.”
“Does my mom know I was hurt?”
“Not from me. That’s for you to tell her, Joanna.”
“Thank you.” Vochek went into the bathroom. She had showered earlier that morning-awake at four, restless. She opened the bag: two of her Chanel suits, summer-weight gray; two Armani suits; and silk blouses, shoes that matched, hosiery, underwear bought from a store. Clothes were her one vanity, but she had found it paid to look like she meant business. Pritchard was a thorough soul and she’d included in the bag basic makeup, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss.
Vochek wished for a moment that her mother had half the initiative and poise of Margaret Pritchard. She would have to call Mom today, but better to wait until she was out of the hospital so she didn’t have to lie by default.
Vochek used the toiletries and dressed in her favorite suit. It felt like putting on armor; she was ready to go face the world again. She felt entirely herself again for the first time since Pilgrim’s gun smacked into her head.
“The hospital’s set you free,” Pritchard said. “Come on.”
