Nelson Demille: Wild fire

“CONUS” meant “Continental United States.” “Hostilities” meant “war.” The rest of it meant “find an Iraqi we can link to a terrorist threat against the U.S. so we can make life easier for the folks in Washington before they bomb the shit out of Baghdad.”

The message went on: PRIMARY THREAT AND EMPHASIS REMAINS UBL WITH NEW EMPHASIS ON UBL/SADDAM LINK. BRIEFING ON THIS NEXT WEEK-TBA. WALSH, SAC.

For the uninitiated, “UBL” is “Osama bin Laden,” which should be “OBL,” but long ago somebody transliterated the Arabic script into Latin letters as “Usama,” which is also correct. The media mostly uses the “Osama” spelling of the scumbag’s name, while intelligence agencies still refer to him as “UBL.” Same scumbag.

The next e-mail was from my second boss, the aforementioned Vince Paresi, an NYPD captain assigned to the ATTF to keep an eye on the difficult cops who sometimes don’t play well with their FBI friends. That may include me. Captain Paresi replaced Captain David Stein, who, like Jack Koenig, was killed-murdered, actually-one year and one month ago today in the World Trade Center.

David Stein was a great guy, and I miss him every day. Jack Koenig, for all his faults and for all our problems with each other, was a professional, a tough but fair boss, and a patriot. His body was never recovered. Neither was David Stein’s.

Another body that was never recovered, along with two thousand others, was that of Ted Nash, CIA officer, monumental prick, and archenemy of yours truly.

I wish I could think of something nice to say about this asshole, but all I can think of is, “Good riddance.”

Also, this guy has a bad habit of coming back from the dead-he’s done it at least once before-and without a positive body identification, I’m not breaking out the champagne.

Anyway, Captain Paresi’s e-mail to all NYPD/ATTF personnel read: YOU ARE TO STEP UP SURVEILLANCE OF IRAQI NATIONALS, REACH OUT TO IRAQIS WHO HAVE BEEN HELPFUL IN THE PAST, AND BRING IN FOR QUESTIONING IRAQIS ON WATCH LISTS. YOU ARE TO PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO IRAQIS WHO ASSOCIATE WITH OTHER ISLAMIC NATIONALS, I.E., SAUDIS, AFGHANIS, LIBYANS, ETC. STAKEOUT AND SURVEILLANCE OF MOSQUES WILL BE STEPPED UP. BRIEFING NEXT WEEK, TBA. PARESI, CAPT. NYPD.

I think I see a pattern here.

Hard to believe, but it wasn’t so long ago that we were trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing every day, and memos were more carefully worded so as not to appear that we disapproved of Islamic terrorists or that we were upsetting them in any way. That changed real quick.

The third e-mail was from my wife, Kate Mayfield, whom I could see at her desk across the NYPD/FBI great divide of the 26th floor. My wife is a beautiful woman, but even if she weren’t, I’d still love her. Actually, if she weren’t beautiful, I wouldn’t have even noticed her, so it’s a moot point.

The message read: LET’S KNOCK OFF EARLY, GO HOME, HAVE SEX, I’LL COOK YOU CHILI AND HOT DOGS, AND MAKE YOU DRINKS WHILE YOU WATCH TV IN YOUR UNDERWEAR.

Actually, it didn’t say that. It said: LET’S GO AWAY FOR A ROMANTIC WEEKEND OF WINE TASTING ON THE NORTH FORK. I’LL BOOK A B amp;B. LOVE, KATE.

Why the hell do I have to taste wine? It all tastes the same. Also, bed-and-breakfast places suck-cutesy run-down hovels with nineteenth-century bathrooms and creaky beds. And then you have to eat breakfast with the other guests, who are usually yuppie swine from the Upper West Side who want to talk about something they read in the Arts and Leisure section of the Times . Whenever I hear the word “art,” I reach for my gun.

I typed my response: SOUNDS GREAT. THANKS FOR THINKING OF IT. LOVE, JOHN.

Like most men, I’d rather face the muzzle of an assault rifle than a pissed-off wife.

Kate Mayfield is an FBI agent, a lawyer, and part of my team, which consists of another NYPD guy and another FBI agent. Plus, now and then, we add a person or two from another agency, as needed, such as ICE or CIA. Our last CIA teammate was the aforementioned Ted Nash, who I strongly suspect was once romantically involved with my then future wife. This was not why I disliked him-it was why I hated him. I disliked him for professional reasons.

I noticed that Harry Muller was cleaning up his desk, locking away sensitive material so that the cleaning people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, couldn’t photocopy or fax it to Sandland. I said to him, “You got twenty-one minutes before the bell.”

He looked up at me and replied, “I have to go pick up some Tech stuff.”

“Why?”

“I told you. I’m doing a surveillance upstate. The Custer Hill Club.”

“I thought you were an invited guest.”

“No, I’m trespassing.”

“How did you catch this one?”

“I don’t know. Do I ask? I own a camper, a pair of boots, and a hat with earmuffs. So, I’m qualified.”

“Right.” Harry Muller, as I said, is former NYPD, like me, retired with twenty years in, the last ten in the Intelligence Unit, and now hired by the Feds to do stakeouts and surveillance so that the Suits, as we call the FBI, can do the cerebral work.

I asked him, “Hey, what’s with this right-wing stuff? I thought you were with us?” “Us” meaning the Mideast Section, which makes up about 90 percent of the ATTF these days.

Harry replied, “I don’t know. Do I ask? I just have to take pictures, not go to church with them.”

“Did you read the e-mails from Walsh and Paresi?”

“Yeah.”

“You think we’re going to war?”

“Duh… let me think.”

“Does this right-wing group have any Iraqi or UBL connections?”

“I don’t know.” Harry glanced at his watch and said, “I need to get to Tech before they lock up.”

“You got time.” I asked him, “You going alone?”

“Yeah. No problem. It’s just a non-invasive surveillance and stakeout.” He looked at me and said, “Between us, Walsh says this is just killing trees-file building. You know, like, we’re not just up the Arabs’ asses. We’re on the case of domestic groups, too, like the neo-Nazis, militia, survivalists, and stuff. Looks good for the media and Congress, if it ever comes up. Right? We did this a few times before 9/11. Remember?”

“Right.”

“Gotta go. I guess I’ll see you Monday. I need to see Walsh first thing Monday.”

“He’s working Monday?”

“Well, he didn’t invite me to his house for a beer, so I guess he’ll be here.”

“Right. See you Monday.”

Harry left.

What Harry said about file building didn’t make too much sense, plus we have a Domestic Terrorist Section for that kind of stuff. Also, snooping on rich right-wingers with a club upstate was a little odd. Also odd was Tom Walsh coming in on a holiday to debrief Harry on a routine assignment.

I’m very nosy, which is why I’m a great detective, so I went over to a separate, stand-alone computer where I could access the Internet, and did a Google search for “Custer Hill Club.”

I didn’t get any hits, so I tried “Custer Hill.” The counter at the top showed more than 400,000 hits, and the mix on the first page-golf courses, restaurants, and several historical references in South Dakota having to do with General George Armstrong Custer’s problem at the Little Bighorn-indicated that none of these references would be relevant. Nevertheless, I spent ten minutes scanning the hits, but there were no references to New York State.

I went back to my desk, where I could use my ATTF password to access internal files on the ACS-the Automated Case System, the FBI’s version of Google.

The Custer Hill Club came up, but apparently I had no need to know about this file, and below the title was row after row of Xs. Usually you get something, even on restricted files, such as the date the file was opened, or who to see about getting access to the file, or at least the classification level of the file. But this file was completely Xed out.