Man in the Middle (59 page)

On one hand, I admired and appreciated his loyalty to Bian, and I liked him for it. The occasion, however, called for the other hand, and I gave him a hard stare and asked, “Have I told you how to do your job?”

“No, but—”

“Because I would really fucking appreciate it if you reciprocated that professional courtesy.” I allowed him a moment to contemplate the shift in the tenor of our conversation. I said, “Maybe I’ve made this too friendly, too informal. Maybe we should reconvene to an interrogation cell at the MP station.”

“Okay, okay. Relax . . .”

I now knew what was really bothering me, and asked, “When Bian was reassigned from her battalion to the corps staff, it was supposed to be for a full year—right?”

“I have no idea.”

“You’re really starting to piss me off.”

“Uh . . . okay, a full year. Her fiancé had just begun his one-year tour in Iraq. Bian wanted to stay for the duration of his tour.”

“But she rotated stateside after what . . . six, seven, eight months?”

“Yeah . . . maybe.”

I offered him another cold stare and he quickly amended his statement. “About seven and a half months . . . She got an early drop. Why is this important?”

“Why was it curtailed?”

Kemp now looked restive and a little unhappy. He said, “Why don’t you ask her former boss? Bian and I were friends, and . . . Look, you’re making me very uncomfortable.”

“And you well know that the personal comfort or discomfort of a professional officer is irrelevant. I asked you a question. Answer it.”

“Because . . . well, because it was . . . a hardship transfer. Because her fiancé, he died . . . here in Iraq. His death was very rough on her.” He added after a moment, “The general was sympathetic. He personally intervened to arrange a transfer stateside.”

I gave it a moment, then said, “Kemp, because this is the Army, I don’t have to swear you in or read you your rights, or any of that nonsense. I’m an officer of the court pursuing an official investigation. Lying, quibbling, or misleading statements can and will result in charges. Don’t make things any worse for yourself.”

Kemp started to say something, and I cut him off. “We’re now on the record. Are we clear?”

He stared at me a long time.

I said, “According to the manual, Army criteria for hardship transfers and discharges pertain only to deaths in the
immediate
family. Reconsider your reply.”

It looked like he was giving himself a root canal, but he said, “It was . . . just a situational transfer. After her fiancé’s death . . . she . . . she went to pieces. She took it very, very hard.”

This still didn’t sound like the Army I know and love. Unhappy or mentally depressed soldiers, ordinarily, are sent to the unit chaplain, or in these more Zen-like times, to a unit counselor, they get their “give-a-shit” ticket punched, and are returned to duty. In extreme cases, the soldier can be awarded a thirty-day leave for mental convalescence—i.e., a month to drink and screw him/herself silly— which typically fixes the mood rings of most soldiers. If neither of these tried-and-true methods fails to produce a mentally stable soldier who is willing and able to kill at the drop of a hat, next step is a discharge—not a transfer—and their issues become the problems of the VA—the Veterans Administration.

Clearly, my threats and cajolements weren’t doing the trick. As somebody knowing once said, stupidity is trying the same thing over and over and watching it not work. What I needed was a new approach, i.e., a bigger lie. I informed him, “I don’t understand why you’re being antagonistic. Bian Tran is a witness
for
the Army. I am not her enemy.”

He seemed to weigh this.

I informed him, “On the stand, where she’ll likely end up, she will be cross-examined by a vicious, mean-spirited defense attorney. The defense will of course access her personnel and medical records and, naturally, her mental stability will be at issue. Always is. And if, as you’ve led me to suspect, there is some damaging revelation, the defense attorney will exploit it to humiliate her in a courtroom before her fellow officers. You can’t protect her, Kemp.” I took his arm and warned, “Don’t try.”

He mulled this over. “All right.”

“All right, I’ll answer truthfully? Or all right, fuck you?”

“Both.”

Now we were getting somewhere. I gave him a moment to settle his nerves before I asked, “What happened to Bian Tran? I’m guessing something traumatic.”

“Yes, it was . . . very traumatic. Her transfer was psychiatric. Bian felt responsible. She was crushed. She couldn’t stop crying. And she couldn’t function, professionally or personally. A complete mental breakdown.”

It still wasn’t adding up. I said, “She lost a loved one. Sad, but this is war, and as a professional soldier, she surely was mentally prepared for this eventuality. A West Pointer, a battle-tested officer who led troops into combat and who suffered the loss of soldiers. Others have described her as tough, resilient, a cool customer. Why did she take it so hard, Kemp?”

“Guilt, Drummond. Plain guilt. So heavy, so overbearing, so painful, it simply shattered her into pieces.” He looked away for a moment and said, “Imagine, if you will, how it must feel to be responsible for the death of the person you loved. What this would do to your insides?”

“Why did she feel responsible?”

“I didn’t say she
felt
responsible. She
was
responsible.”

“How? Why?”

“The CIA courier brought us a message that tipped us off to a large load of weapons and trainers coming from Iran into Karbala. This was during the midst of the Shiite uprising . . . you might remember . . . Sadr’s Shiite militia had taken over the city, his people were killing our soldiers, and we all knew a major operation would have to be mounted to restore control. So preventing those weapons and trainers from linking up with Sadr’s people . . . well, that would be a real coup. Less guns, less bombs, less American deaths.”

“And Bian was in charge of this operation?”

“That’s not how it worked.”

“Okay. How did it work?”

“Bian was the analyst assigned to shape a response. As I said, the CIA never told us how they knew, or about their sources, but they informed us that the Iranian shipment and trainers were going into the city of Karbala, in a sector assigned to the First Armored Division. Bian provided the division operations shop with an order. A description of what was coming, when, and where to intercept it.”

The lights were now coming on. I said, “And the division assigned this mission to her fiancé’s . . . to Mark Kemble’s battalion.”

He stared at the ground a moment, and the man was clearly in pain. Finally, he mumbled, “It was the worst coincidence I’ve ever seen or heard.”

“Because Mark Kemble, being the battalion operations officer, decided he would personally oversee this high-value operation.”

He nodded. “Great officer, I was told. Real hoo-ah, lead-from-thefront type. Highly decorated, loved by his men . . . all-around great guy. But something went wrong, tragically wrong—the shit hit the fan, three soldiers were killed, and obviously, Mark was one.”

“What went wrong?”

“If you ever learn that, be sure to let me know. Understand that the CIA, they kept our entire exploitation unit completely in the dark about the source of these intelligence insights. Every week or two, some lady courier flew over from D.C., she’d drop off some cryptic crap, she’d leave, and we had to run with it.” He added, “I have no idea.”

I thought about this. It did not compute. After all, these were military intelligence people, and I said, “But you had suspicions, right?”

After a brief silence, he said, “Of course we had suspicions. Pretty obvious what the Agency had, right? A mole in Iranian intelligence or inside Sadr’s movement. Somebody very high up.”

Close, Kemp. But not close enough. I asked, “Is that what you thought? What Bian thought?”

“We all thought that. This stuff we were getting was dead-on. Priceless.”

“Except this time.”

“Yeah. There was no weapons shipment. No Iranian trainers either.”

I paused to consider my next question, which was a big mistake. Because, suddenly, it all came together—Bian had literally been turned into the instrument for her lover’s death. Kemp did not have the details just right, but he was close enough. Daniels had informed his pal Charabi about the compromised code, Charabi passed it to his friends in Tehran, and they, in turn, decided to be vindictive, sending disinformation they knew was being intercepted, decoded, and read, offering the Americans a target that was too tempting to pass up; in effect, luring an American unit into a trap. Bian ended up near the end of that long chain, and her fiancé ended up in a coffin.

War is filled with ugly twists and bitter ironies, but this cruelty was almost incomprehensible. And before I knew it, something heavy was stuck in the back of my throat. Poor Mark. Poor Bian. I swallowed a few times and tried to dislodge the lump, but it only moved higher until it lodged behind my eyes. Chester was looking at me strangely. “Hey . . . you okay?”

“I’m . . . uh . . . getting over a cold.” I coughed a few times and, after a moment, said, “Last question. What do
you
think went wrong?”

“You know what? I’ve thought about that a lot. We all did. Mark’s unit, what they ran into, that was a prepared kill zone, an ambush. I don’t know, maybe the CIA’s source was a double agent. Or maybe the Iranians caught on to him and used him to plant false information. Whichever . . . Sadr and the Iranians knew we were coming, and they decided to make us pay.”

A knot of staff officers carrying briefing folders crossed paths with us and we both fell silent. After they were out of earshot Chester said to me, “There was an investigation. Afterward. But by the CIA, not us. We were even forced to take polygraph tests. But you know what? If there was a compromise, those bastards never shared anything.” He paused and then said, very unhappily, “A month after Bian left, the whole exploitation cell was disbanded.”

“You’re a smart guy, Kemp. What’s your best guess?”

“My best guess?”—he stopped walking—“All right, sure.” He turned and faced me. “You’re not here about any damned 15-6 investigation.”

I started to deny this, then thought better of it.

He said, “I have no idea why you’re lying to me, Drummond, or what trouble Bian is in. But I promise you”—he looked me in the eye— “if you hurt her, I’ll find you, and I’ll hurt you.”

We stared at each other a long moment. I put out my hand and said, “It’s not my intention to harm her, Kemp. That’s a promise.”

He stared at my hand, but never shook it. “Leave her alone. She’s been through enough.”

I did not say, “More than you’ll ever know,” though, in truth, I now knew more about Bian’s problems than I wanted to. I felt a deep, deep sadness for her. At the same time, an alarm bell was making loud dings in the back of my head.

I left Kemp Chester standing in a courtyard, fuming. I walked back to the office of the G1, where I ordered the same clerk to find me a private office with a phone, which he did.

I called Phyllis’s cell phone and didn’t get an answer, so I chose the message option.

I left a brief and unexplained message to immediately place bodyguards around Hirschfield and Tigerman, or better yet, get them both out of town, or barring that, make arrangements for two funerals. I hung up and thought about my next move.

It was time to go home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

J
im Tirey kindly gave me a lift to the airport.

As I mentioned earlier, the route from the Green Zone to the airport includes Iraq’s deadliest roadway—known with grim unaffection as Suicide Alley—so Jim’s favor wasn’t in the true spirit of generosity. He wanted to see me climb on the plane, and be 100 percent sure I ended up seven thousand miles out of his hair. Really, who could blame him?

We pulled up before the terminal, and Jim pulled up to the curb and slammed the SUV into park. I went around to the rear, withdrew my duffel, and looked around for a moment. The hour was late, yet the terminal was crowded and bustling with soldiers; from their gleeful expressions, they all were outgoing, not incoming. This was the first place I’d been inside this troubled land where people looked happy, and maybe the only place where they were sure tomorrow would be a rosier day. Tirey came around and we ended up, face-to-face, on the road.

He said, “Enjoy the flight.”

I said, “Enjoy Iraq.”

“Hey, my bags are already packed. Any day now, the long arm of OPR—that’s the Office of Professional Responsibility, our Gestapo— will have me on a plane back to D.C. for a long discussion about how this shit went down.”

“D.C. is filled with idiots,” I told him. He gave me a blank stare and I explained, “They think it’s a punishment to boot you out of here.”

He laughed.

During the drive, we had stuck to the kind of aimless chatter that did not distract us from identifying vehicular bombers who wanted to send us home in a box. There are no leisurely drives in Iraq, incidentally. If I haven’t mentioned it, the place sucks. But we both knew there was a big piece of unfinished business, and I asked, “What have you heard from the Bureau?”

“Not a word . . . officially. I’ve got a pal in the Director’s office, though.”

“And?”

“He says I’ll love Omaha, and Omaha will love me. Lots of free time, very quiet, very law-abiding citizens. It’s impossible to screw up there.”

“Hey, maybe there’s a CIA station in Omaha. We’ll get together. You know, prove them wrong.” This prospect for some reason did not seem to excite him, so I offered him a synopsis of Drummond’s Law. “Somebody else will screw up soon, and you’ll be forgotten.”

“Hey, I’m a big boy. I don’t need—”

“Seriously. They’ll send you someplace else that really sucks before you know it.”

“I don’t think so.” He added, miserably, “That video of me with the reporter . . . they’ve sent it to the FBI Academy as a training aid for new agents. I’m famous.”

I smiled at him, and he smiled back. A few seconds late.