Gordon Kent - The Spoils of War

After twenty minutes of this, Ben went on as if he had never stopped. “Politicians want the truth to serve their own ends—their own ends. Not the truth. Not the truth you saw. And they never see the people—the dead ones, the results of prolonged interrogations.” He pressed a key. “Okay, you brought what your people said you’d bring. Not your fault that it’s shit, but it is. My contact says you’ll be the officer in charge on this operation—one of the pieces in Perpetual Justice. Who makes up these names, eh?” He took the bifocals off his nose and wiped them carefully on his bush jacket’s tail. Then he pressed a few keys and spun the laptop to Alan, so that he had the keyboard under his hands and the screen lit up before him. It was an older model IBM, he noted.

“What we’re giving you is shit, too.” Ben’s voice had an edge. “Political shit, just like yours. I wanted to talk to you—really talk. You think this is a set-up, don’t you? It’s not. We’re providing a lot of the material to support these Perpetual Justice ops—and some of it is a pile of crap.”

Alan tried to feign unconcern, but his shoulders were tight and he felt as if he’d been strapped in an ejection seat for seven hours. “I’m uncomfortable with your choice of topics, maybe.”

Ben polished his glasses again. “Will I surprise you if I say we know you quite well, Commander? Africa, Silver Star, some not-so-secret decorations. You are an operator, yes? And my guess is, you are a believer.” He smiled, changing his round head into the face of everyone’s friend. The perfect friend. “As I am. A true believer in a complex canon of—of what we are.” His turn to look out the window.

Alan started through the files to cover his mixture of pleasure and fear. How could he not be flattered that they knew his career? And why did this seem so much like a recruitment attempt?

The reality outlined in the files drew him away from Ben’s words. His part of Perpetual Justice was a snatch operation against a suspected al-Qaida moneyman, and for the first time he saw a parallel between what had happened to him yesterday and what he was about to do. That hadn’t really pushed through Alan’s conscience until that very moment, a twinge:

The big SUV had powered through the streets as two men in the front shouted at each other. A big man in the back had had a gun. Alan had registered these things at a distance because he couldn’t form a coherent thought. When his brain had finally turned over, it had started on an endless loop of threat and fear. Captured. Torture. He had been conscious of just how many secrets he knew and could betray—operations, Afghanistan, fear—panic. Who has me? Why? I’ve been captured! Torture. Prepare myself Who has me?

He snapped back to the computer. His hands were trembling. He did not raise his eyes to meet Ben’s.

The documents in front of him were recent surveillance findings of the target, clearly much altered. They’d had a certain amount of information deleted, but they were thorough, carefully annotated. Exactly what he’d need to plan his operation.

The next file was a clean summary of the target’s ties to al-Qaida and his location in the financial hierarchy. To Alan, it was like reading an academic paper with no footnotes. Everything was neat and tidy—the target’s role, his family relations, his bank accounts. To Alan, it stank. Intelligence was never that simple. Terrorists were never that simple. He looked up, straight into Ben’s smile.

“Okay, you pass. You really are an intel officer. You had me worried.”

“This is like a document you send to a briefer.”

“Give that man a cigar.” Ben paused, clearly pleased with his phrase. “There’s more of the same. It was pushed on us. We decided to tell your people through you. I’m going to talk out of school—that’s your phrase, yes? Okay, out of school, under the rose—we’re a secretive lot, we have a great many phrases for this. Okay? The surveillance reports, his location—I’ll back those. My people, or people I know, did those. The background, the bank accounts, the summary—not ours, okay? I can guess, but I won’t—you don’t want to criticize your president. Same-same. Right?”

Alan was scrolling down the summary, looking at an Excel spreadsheet on banking that looked impressive as hell. Except that it was unsourced.

“Jesus.” Alan looked up self-consciously. “Ah, sorry.”

Ben smiled. “I think I’ve heard the name before.”

Alan’s eyes went back to the document and he grimaced. “I don’t get it. All this unsourced stuff.”

“But when you deliver it to your Central Command, it will become sourced. From Israeli military intelligence. Very trustworthy, yes? Maybe in some circles, more trustworthy than your own CIA?”

Alan murmured “Jesus” again without thinking.

“We decided we wouldn’t do it without telling somebody—and somebody is you, Commander. They try and fuck us. Okay, we’re proud in the military. We don’t trade shit unless we mean to fuck somebody. We ask for you. ‘Send the guy running the operation.’ So we—so I can have this conversation. There it is. It’s political. Somebody wants this man. Is he al-Qaida? I have no idea. But I think if he is, there would not be all this amateur shit in the package.”

Alan shook his head slowly. “I haven’t seen what I brought you.”

Ben held up his hand, balanced it, teetered the palm slowly up and down. “Same-same. Some shit.”

“I didn’t see it. Not my stuff.”

“Of course not. Me, I’m a meddler. I won’t do one of these things, these ‘exchanges,’ without reading everything.”

Alan shrugged. “We’re not like that.”

Ben smiled. “No? What’s to stop a double agent from filling that data stick with stolen secrets on stealth technology and giving it to you to pass? Nothing simpler.”

That idea had never occurred to Alan, whose hands froze on the keyboard.

Ben continued, “May I give you a piece of advice, professional to professional? If they won’t let you read the material, refuse the meeting. Let them find another Patty.”

“Patsy,” Alan said automatically. “Does our stuff pick up authenticity, too? I mean, what I delivered—”

“Will be devoured by our politicians. Because it comes from US intelligence. ”

Alan started pressing the keys that would dump the data files into his stick. “I don’t like being used.”

Ben nodded. A slow smile spread over his face. “Good. I was afraid you wouldn’t listen.” He paused and said, “There’s more than one Israel.”

“I’m getting that idea, yeah.”

“I wish we had more time to talk—” Ben said. He rose to his feet. “You are in a hurry.”

Alan collected his bag, rested his hands on the seat back. “Maybe I’d be more receptive if I hadn’t been grabbed by other Israelis yesterday.” He shrugged, nothing to lose. “Or followed here by a surveillance team.”

Ben winced. “Not mine.”

Alan shrugged again, because it made no difference. “Thanks for the heads-up on politics. I believe you. Okay?” He was tempted to unburden; life since Nine-Eleven had left him with more reservations about his own profession than the rest of his career combined, but Ben was not the man. “You going to be in trouble over this? You know I’ll put in a contact report.”

Ben smiled. “As will I. May I tell you something that will surprise you, Commander? This is the start of something. I dislike the politicization of intelligence. I love my country. I will not sit still. Now, I fight back. And not just here.”

When they shook hands at the door, Ben gave him a slip of paper that proved to have his real name—Colonel Benjamin Galid—and a phone number. “In case,” he said.