Brian Haig - Man in the middle

This submissive babble was the last thing I expected from Ms. Gung-ho. Her stubbornness, after all, was what brought us here in the first place. Well, I had made lots of misjudgments during the past few days, nor, like the three billion other males on the planet, have I ever been particularly good at understanding women.

After a long, thoughtful pause, she asked, "What were Phyllis's instructions to you about Charabi?"

"There is no Charabi. Just a figment of my imagination. What did Waterbury say to you?"

"Yeah, like that. And the intelligence leak?"

"You can't get to one without the other. Besides, Phyllis kept all the relevant e-mail messages."

"Good point. Anything about closing out Cliff Daniels's murder investigation?"

I looked at her.

She looked back and observed with pretended innocence, "I ask only because Waterbury mentioned nothing about it to me."

We both sipped from our beers, and out of nowhere we heard the sound of a loud explosion. The chandelier above our heads actually swayed and shook-a little close to home. The highway from Baghdad to the airport was aptly and horribly nicknamed Suicide Alley, and it sounded like a suicide bomber had just nailed somebody. Maybe it was Waterbury; we should be so lucky.

Without speaking, Bian set up the speakerphone in the middle of the conference table. I dialed the Washington switch, gave the nice operator the number, and a few unanswered rings later heard Detective Barry Enders's voice growl, "Jesus H… Look what friggin' time it is. If this isn't about a murder, there's about to be one."

I identified myself and told Enders that Bian was beside me, listening on the speakerphone, then informed him, "We're calling for an update on the investigation."

There was silence for a moment. Enders then said, "What investigation?"

"Barry, it's me," replied Bian. Sounding slightly annoyed, she said, "Don't jerk us off."

"Who's jerkin' who off? A bunch of Feds came in yesterday. They took everything, jurisdiction, the crime scene log… my files… the lab specimens. They even ripped the pages out of my detective book. Don't even tell me this is a surprise to you."

Bian and I exchanged troubled looks. No wonder Phyllis and Waterbury felt no need to warn us off this venue. Bastards. But smart bastards.

Enders continued, "Now you're calling at this hour to rub it in. What is this, some kind've trap play to see if I'm-"

"Barry," I interrupted, "this is the first we've heard of this."

"Yeah… right."

"Who signed the order?"

"Justice Department. I was also ordered to develop a memory lapse. They were real assholes about it, too."

"Yet this is still an open case for you, is it not? A death in your jurisdiction-isn't it your responsibility to file cause of death?"

"That's not how it works, Drummond. The Feds give the judgment, I write it down, end of story."

I was, of course, familiar with the proper procedures, and we both knew I was testing the waters. The answer was, screw you.

He asked me, "Why do you care? You insisted it was suicide. And you know what? I have a feeling that's what the Feds will conclude: suicide." He laughed.

Bian recognized I had a credibility problem here and said, "I changed his mind. So did you. Now he… actually, we both believe it was something else. Murder."

"Look, I think we're done-"

"What if I offered you insights about why Cliff Daniels was murdered?" I asked.

"Great. I'll give you the number to Special Agent Barney Stanowitz. Big ugly asshole with bad manners. His card's in my office. In fact," he confided, "he warned me that if anybody asked about this case I should call him."

Going on instinct about Barry Enders, I said, "Give me a minute, Barry. One minute. Then make up your own mind about what you're going to do."

He hesitated. Not a good sign.

I nodded at Bian, who is much nicer than me, and she said, "Barry, you're a smart guy. I think you know what's going down. A cover-up. Conspiracy. You don't know why, and maybe you don't care. But I suspect you do care."

Bian and I looked at each other. No reply.

Bian said, "Barry, please."

"Okay… one minute. Drummond, make your case."

This was less than a commitment but more than the phone slamming down.

So I confessed, "Maybe I misled you about the trouble Daniels was in."

"Wow, no shit. Didn't they teach you at law school that it's a crime to lie to the cops?"

"Cut the crap, Barry. One minute. You promised."

"If you want the full minute, speak more clearly."

"Okay. Possibly Cliff Daniels betrayed this country. Possibly he gave enormously sensitive information to the wrong people in Iraq and compromised a very important operation. You wondered why a CIA person and a military policewoman were sent to his apartment. Now you know-espionage."

There was a long, contemplative pause. He said, "My oldest boy-Elton-he's a Marine. First Marine Division. Already been to Iraq once." After another moment he mentioned, "Did my own four years as a Jarhead before I became a cop. Semper Fi."

"Couldn't get into the Army?"

"Hey, I tried. Only the Army recruiter, he said I possessed two irreconcilable issues: My parents were married, and I don't look sufficiently stupid."

"Really? You look stupid enough to me."

We both laughed. He said, "All right, I'll give you more than a minute. Go ahead, blow some more smoke up my ass."

So I gave him part of the story, essentially that Daniels got in over his head and gave a foreign agent some information, though we didn't yet have a clue what that information was, because it was in code, and the code was a ballbuster. Nor did I clarify how we learned about this.

He was a smart guy, though. He knew that when dealing with a federal government official, he was not hearing one-third of the story, another third was sprinkled with fairy dust, and the final third was total bullshit. But I fed him enough truth and his cop brain was filling in some of the blanks. I wrapped it up, saying, "Here's the big piece you were missing-motive-why somebody wanted to murder Cliff Daniels. In fact, the list of people who didn't want Daniels dead would fill a matchbox. There are people in Washington, and here in Baghdad, who would benefit greatly from his death. We're sure his killer was a woman, and possibly she was hired help, but don't exclude the possibility she was working on her own."

For a moment, Barry said nothing. He needed time to process these clues and revelations, and he eventually asked the right and proper question. "What do you want me to do about this?"

Bian had done some thinking on this topic, because she immediately responded, "Now you know there was a murder. That simplifies your problem. Focus on the killer."

When he made no reply, Bian added, "Colonel Drummond has a theory that all murderers make mistakes. Is that your theory as well?"

"Yeah, most do. We also have a thick file of cold cases that dates back to 1969. See if you can talk him into examining it. We'd love to know what mistakes they made."

"But this killer may have left trails," Bian insisted. "That high-priced wig. Probably hers. Wigs are no longer fashionable for women-how many stores in the D.C. area sell expensive hairpieces these days? And that triple-X video… we assumed it was his and maybe we assumed wrong. Likewise, how many stores in the area sell porn?" I gave Bian a look and she asked Barry, "Am I overstating the obvious?"

"Yeah, I do this stuff for a living. And you're overlooking that people purchase wigs and porno on the Internet these days. I'll check around, though."

Bian looked at me to see if I had anything to add. I suggested, "They had to have gone out together once or twice before. Dated, slept together, whatever. Check his charge-card records. See where he socialized lately. Maybe somebody will remember her."