Walter Williams - Deep State

For perhaps the first time in her experience, Helmuth seemed physically uncomfortable. He shifted in his chair, patted his sleek hair, and pursed his lips.

“It has nothing to do with what we’re doing here. Or with Judy being killed.”

“Yes?”

He gave her a quick glance.

“There are certain things I’m not prepared to admit to the government,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Such as?”

He gave her a stony look.

“Things that could get my green card revoked,” he said. “Which would mean I’d have to lose my lovely job working for you in Los Angeles and return to Germany.”

“You may have lost that anyway,” Dagmar said.

Again Helmuth shifted in his seat.

“Are you going to tell Lincoln?” he asked.

“Depends.”

He looked at the floor for a moment, then looked up.

“I found a hookah bar in Limassol where we could buy hash,” Helmuth said. “Magnus and I have been going there every night before we head to the clubs.”

Dagmar rolled her eyes. “For Christ’s sake!”

Helmuth’s eyes flashed “You can’t believe the hashish that comes through Cyprus!” he said. “Moroccan, Syrian, Afghan… blond from Lebanon, bhang from Kashmir. It’s a connoisseur’s paradise!”

“Are you out of your mind?” Dagmar demanded. “You didn’t remember who you’re working for?”

Helmuth gave her a cool look.

“I’m working for you, I believe.”

“That,” said Dagmar, “is what we’re here to decide.”

He looked away. A jaw muscle ticked angrily in one cheek.

“Anything else?” Dagmar asked. “Any other little sins I should know about?” He didn’t answer, so she named a few: “Women? Cocaine? Meth?”

Helmuth flapped a hand. “Of course there were women. I can give you names if you like. But none of them asked me where they could find you or Judy, and I never told them what I was doing here.”

“How about Magnus?”

“He’s a pro, is Magnus. He was after pussy, okay, but he wouldn’t give information for it. Not when he had money, and he’s got plenty of dollars in those little kilt pockets.” Helmuth rolled his eyes. “Christ, he’s got a house in northern Virginia that looks like Tara.”

“Anything else?”

He gave her a resentful look.

“Like what?”

Dagmar waved her hands. “Fuck, Helmuth,” she said, “how the hell should I know? Black market activities? Artifacts stolen from archaeological sites? Complicated financial instruments designed to destroy Western economies?”

Helmuth dared to offer a sneer.

“Child’s play,” he said. “I gave all that up years ago.”

“Boys being boys, according to our little Pip.” Dagmar reporting later, to Lincoln in his office.

“Boys doing what, exactly?” Lincoln asked.

“I believe it all falls into the category of ‘victimless crimes.’ ”

Lincoln gave her a bleak look. “You should have seen Cyprus back in the day. Victimless crimes everywhere you looked. All the victims would just…” He twiddled fingers in the air. “Disappear. Or sometimes simply fly into pieces.”

Dagmar dropped into a chair.

“How’d you do with Magnus?”

“Denied everything.” He snorted. “Arrogant kilt-wearing shit.”

“You might polygraph them again, and avoid those questions about past criminal behavior. Just ask about foreign governments and assassination and Judy.”

Lincoln’s face wrinkled, as if he’d just bitten into a lemon.

“I’ll do that. And-since I don’t think this local guy is very experienced-I’m sending for another operator from Langley.”

Another voodoo priest, Dagmar thought.

“And how long will that take?”

“They take the murder of U.S. citizens pretty seriously. A few days, I’d guess.”

And in the meantime Dagmar would be living under guard, along with the person who had betrayed her.

At least Ismet had done well on the polygraph. That was something, anyway.

“I need the drive with the email addresses,” Dagmar said. “Time to send out the two-hour warning.”

Lincoln turned to his safe, reached for the number pad.

“Avert your eyes, now.”

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Tuna wore video specs for the demo. Somehow his peculiar shambling gait translated to the subjective image: Dagmar, watching a flatscreen in the ops center, knew she was Tuna’s point of view because no one else walked like that. He was marching along Anafartalar, a street named after one of Ataturk’s victories over the British.

Dagmar and Lincoln had chosen rush hour for the action again, and the streets were clogged-a good thing, since it would hinder police reaction.

Tuna dodged off the main street and took a secondary street parallel to Anafartalar. There had been a bombing on Anafartalar some years earlier, and there were CCTV cameras there now, as well as other cameras atop the Sumer Bank across the street.

While Tuna wasn’t under observation he changed his appearance. He paused to reach into his shopping bag for a scarf, which he wrapped around his lower face with a sound that whispered against his microphone, and then a hat that he pulled low over his forehead, cutting off the very top of the video image. Then Tuna hurried on, toward the crowd that could already be seen clustering ahead of him.

The buildings to Tuna’s right opened up, and there was Ulus Square, with its equestrian statue of Ataturk on its plinth. Dagmar recognized it perfectly well-she remembered passing by it in August, on her way to Ankara’s citadel.

Great Big Idea had returned to the Turkish capital for the first time since Dagmar and the others, glancing nervously over their shoulders, had scuttled away back in August. It was hoped they wouldn’t have to run again-if this demo worked, there would be demos every day here, until the generals were driven from the capital or until the resistance was broken.

Anger and outrage was exploding out of the people now. The killings in Izmir had created a fury that might be enough to propel the dissidents into the houses of government.

Video images from the Skunk Works drone overhead showed that Ulus Square was already full, thousands of people standing packed into the small area, with long ropes of people stretched from the square along every major street.

The image on the flatscreen lurched wildly as Tuna vaulted from the road to the elevated square, then looked out over a sea of heads. He was considerably taller than the average Turkish citizen, and he could see clean to the giant bronze statues at the base of Ataturk’s plinth.

The place reeked of symbolism. Across the road from Ataturk’s statue was the former parliament building, now the Museum of the War of Salvation. Down Ataturk Boulevard was the colorful Victorian-Seljuk pile of the Ankara Palace, the state guesthouse where Ataturk had resided while leading his revolution.

Dagmar could scarcely imagine a better place for a demonstration against the junta, unless it was the Pink House itself.

The image panned down as Tuna reached into his shopping bag for a bullhorn, and then he raised the out-of-focus implement to his lips. Ismet translated Tuna’s words as they came from the speakers.

“Take out your greeting cards! Write a message on them, and bring them to the monument!”

Tuna repeated the message several times. Heads bowed as the crowd brought greeting cards out of bundles, bags, and pockets. But though there was a movement toward the plinth, somehow the crowd seemed stalled.