Brian Haig - Man in the middle

This did not appear to amuse him. He said, "You might find that Daniels was involved in very sensitive work in support of our war effort. I have no idea why he… why he killed himself. But I hope you do find out, and I hope you treat whatever you discover with the discretion it might deserve."

I looked at him, then at Waterbury. "Since we're giving free advice… by tomorrow morning Clifford Daniels's death will be in the public domain. He is a figure of considerable media interest, the press will become nosy about his death, and they can- and I'm sure they will-dig. There is no shortage of people inside this government with issues and agendas who will leak their own theories and suspicions. Are you prepared for that?"

I allowed Tigerman a moment to mull that reality.

I said, "Now, is there any other 'advice' you'd like to offer us?" He turned his back and walked back to his desk. We walked out, and as the door closed behind us, I heard him say, "Be careful."

Waterbury went back to his office, and Bian and I walked through the long corridors, back toward the exit and North Parking.

After a few moments of silence, she remarked, "I don't think that went well."

"Were you expecting a confession?"

"No. A crack in his veneer would've been helpful, though."

"He's a career lawyer and a government bureaucrat. If he tells the truth, his lips fall off." I asked, "But as a man, what did you think of him?"

"I guess he was slicker than I anticipated. Basically, a very arrogant person, overconfident, high IQ… not the type who scares easily. He exposed nothing… until the very end." She saw that I was surprised she had picked up on that, and asked, "Why do the guilty ones always fish?"

"Be careful. He could just be curious, concerned for a dead member of his staff, or wondering how this is going to play with the press."

"You really believe that?"

I smiled.

She asked, "Did we accomplish anything?"

"Personally, I found his glibness reassuring."

"You'll have to explain why that's a good thing."

"For the hunter, the complacent prey is always best."

She nodded and thought about that. "That's a good one. Chinese proverb?"

"My Irish grandmother." She smiled, and I noted, "Here's what's important. Mr. Tigerman confirmed that he has something to hide. We should assume that people higher in the chain of command also share that secret." I looked at her. "For instance, he and your boss are in this together."

"Do you think?" She scratched her head and scrunched up her face. "Boy… I never picked up on that."

"I'm just saying, be careful how much you disclose to Waterbury. His loyalty is to the people who gave him his job."

"I know that. What's next?"

"I don't know what's next for you. I'm hungry."

"I was hoping you'd say that. I'm famished." She asked, "What do you usually eat? Raw meat?" She thought this was funny and laughed.

I smiled back.

She said, "Let me guess. A meat, potatoes, and beer guy?"

"Right food groups, wrong order."

"Great. I know the perfect place. Give me a lift to my car, then follow. It's less than two miles from Daniels's apartment building."

As we drove, I used my cell to call Phyllis and exchange updates. She informed me that a team of NSA technicians was working furiously on decoding the suspicious file drawers. I advised her to call them every thirty minutes, be a complete pain in the ass. She warmly thanked me for telling her how to do her job, and asked how our meeting went with Tigerman. So I told her, she laughed, reminded me to watch my backside, and signed off. Phyllis is not a micromanager-which I like-but it occurred to me that she knew this case might piss off a lot of powerful people. And further, it occurred to me that "watch your backside" might mean, if you step on the wrong toe, you're on your own. You have to pay attention with these people.

Anyway, we found Bian's car, she started it up, and I followed her for about two miles and into the narrow parking lot of a small, worse-for-wear strip mall on Columbia Pike. She parked, and I parked next to her. As I got out of my car, she approached me, saying, "I hope you like Vietnamese cuisine."

I started to climb back into my car. But she reached over and grabbed the door before I could close it. She laughed and said, "Come on. You'll like it, I promise." She grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the car. Wow. She was strong.

"I hate fish."

"So do I. Fish are disgusting. Trust me."

I was really hungry, and out of the corner of my eye, about two blocks from where we stood, was the golden arch of salvation. I started to make a dash before Bian grabbed my arm. "Come on. I know the lady who owns this place. She needs the business." She added, "I'll get you a fortune cookie."

"I thought that was Chinese food."

"All right. I'll read your palm."

The illogical red-lettered sign over the entrance read, "Happy Vietnamese Cuisine." Regarding that, I asked her, "How can the food be happy?"

"What?"

"Happy… it says happy cuisine."

"Oh, shut up."

Anyway, we crossed the parking lot and entered through a glass door with Asian letters on it, into a small, cramped restaurant; all in all, it resembled a low-scale pizzeria: plastic tables, plastic chairs, checkered tablecloths, but for those seeking a genuine Asian ambiance, on the walls were a few cheesy paintings of sampans and short people plucking rice in misty bogs. The smell was overpowering. I said to Bian, "Call the cops. There's a corpse in here."

She laughed. "It's fish sauce. A delicacy, actually, like a Vietnamese gravy. You squeeze the oils from the fish, store it in a closed vat, and let it simmer for a few weeks. The taste is very tart."

"The smell is very awful."

"Is this really the same tough guy who was too manly to use disinfectant at an indoor murder scene?"

"That was only a rotting corpse."

She stared at me. "Be nice or there'll be another corpse." Anyway, the lady who ran the place spotted Bian and trotted with bouncy, mincing steps across the floor toward us. They embraced, exchanged cheek pecks, and Bian and she began conversing together in Vietnamese. Mentally, it took a moment for me to adjust to Bian's bantering in this strange tongue, with all its gymnastic consonants and antic musical quality-like listening to a record suddenly skip from 33 to 78 rpm. I wonder how we sound to them.

After a moment, the woman led us to a table at the back, directly beneath a large painting of a thatch-roofed village on stilts populated by little people with thatched saucers on their heads. I mean, if you let your imagination roam, you could almost feel the sweat form on the back of your neck.

The woman apparently spoke little English. "You sit… you sit… you sit…" she said, looking at me.

I sat, I sat, I sat.

Bian mentioned to me, "She's the owner," then said something to her and the woman laughed. The owner was basically mid- to late sixties, wore a scarlet silk ao dai-the traditional female garb-and had at one time been what Grandpa Erasmus would call a real looker. She was still slender and very attractive, but she had hard years on her, evidenced by her tired eyes, her deeply creased face, and a pronounced stoop in her shoulders. Bian informed me, "I told her you don't like fish."

"Whatever. I hate fish."

"She called you a typical American. No taste buds."

I smiled at the older woman and informed her, "My ancestors are Irish." This, of course, excuses a wide range of human flaws and abnormalities.

Bian translated this, the woman nodded knowingly and mentioned something in reply. Bian laughed and said something back.

Bian informed me, "She said she knows about the Irish. Bloodthirsty savages, sloppy drunks, and weepy poets."