Ghost (28 page)

thirty-six

LILLYBROOK

November 1995
Bethesda, Maryland

“Hi, Paps, how’re you feeling?” I don’t need to ask that question. My dad has lost so much weight it looks like he’s wasting away. As he zips up his winter coat, I can see his T-shirt underneath hanging on his scarecrow frame. He’s pale and wan, and I know he doesn’t have much time left.

“I’m okay.” He limps to the car. Gently, I help him, holding on to his arm. “Thanks, Freddy,” he practically whispers.

I get him to my car and ease him into the passenger seat up front. Jimmy’s in back, strapped into his booster seat. “Grandpa!” he exclaims.

“Hey, Tiger,” Dad replies. I walk around to the driver’s side. For a moment, I pause and look up the driveway. This is the house Dad and Mom bought when I was just a boy. I was raised here. This is my old neighborhood, and the sight of it under these circumstances almost makes me lose my self-control.

I get behind the wheel and turn the motor over.

“Nice new car,” Dad says.

It’s a BMW 5 Series. I gave up the four-wheel drive for another sedan earlier this year.

I throw the BMW into gear, and we roll past the landmarks of my youth. We pass by the street Yosef Alon’s family lived on. Black September operatives killed him right in that front yard over there. The only difference all these years later is that the tree the killers used as concealment is long gone. The FBI tore it out and took it away back in ’73. Evidence. Of course, it disappeared.

A soft silence settles over the three of us. Jimmy’s content to wait for the adults to say something. Dad stares out the window. This is his home, too. He’s been a fixture in the D.C. area since he returned from the war.

“Remember the time you took me to the White House, Paps?”

“Nixon was actually nice to you.” Dad laughs. Somehow, this humble man who never quite lost his rough-around-the-edges upbringing made friends on both sides of the political aisle here in D.C. He was a coal miner’s son who worked the mines himself before the war, and again for a while after he returned from Nuremberg and the war crimes trials he helped to guard.

His humble origins never held him back, and he wore them like a badge of honor when he received invites to political soirees. That happened a lot when we were all younger. I always marveled at this. He was not a rich man, or a powerful one. But he was respected.

One time, he went to a White House function. Some button-down Ivy League snob struck up a conversation with him and asked, “What do you do?”

Dad didn’t brook snobs. “I’m in coal.”

“You own your own company?”

“No. I used to shovel it.”

The button-down walked away.

Thanks to Paps, I had an extraordinary childhood. He introduced me to presidents. I shook Joe Louis’s hand. Dad once gave me a signed photo of JFK that the president had inscribed to me. It is one of my prized possessions and perhaps one of the reasons why I admired President Kennedy so much.

When I used to go on fishing expeditions in the dead bodies cabinets, I read through the assassination file over and over. Within the report, I found the Secret Service had uncovered an interesting fact. When Lee Harvey Oswald was discharged from the marines, he was so bitter that he sent a threatening letter to the secretary of the navy. Who was the secretary of the navy at the time? John Connally. In Dallas that November day in ’63, Connally, then the governor of Texas, was riding shotgun in the president’s Lincoln Continental. One school of thought inside the Secret Service was convinced Oswald wasn’t trying to kill Kennedy. He was trying to kill Connally and settle an old score. He hit the wrong man. I don’t know if that’s what really happened or not. Only Oswald could tell us that. But it always puzzled me that this bit of information never made the Warren Report.

We come to the rescue squad station. Both Dad and I stare out the window at it, lost in thought. I can almost see Fred Davis and I climbing out of the old rig after a long night’s work. The place hasn’t changed much at all.

“Dad, look! A fire truck!” Jimmy exclaims happily.

“Your dad used to drive that thing,” Paps tells him.

I smile. Jimmy seems impressed. I realize this is a special moment. Three generations of Burton men spending time together hasn’t happened in a while. We don’t have much time left as a trio.

“Freddy, is all that stuff cleared up at the office? They’re not still after you, are they?”

“No, Paps. They’re not.”

“That was outrageous,” he grumbles.

“Yeah. It all worked out, though.”

After we caught Ramzi Yousef, the news blitzkrieged through the alphabet soup agencies. The FBI went public and took credit for the capture. Normally, that wouldn’t bother the DSS. We like to remain in the shadows. But this time, Al was infuriated. The day after the news broke, he sent me out to host a press conference with the State Department beat reporters. I told the truth of how it went down. This was a Rewards for Justice success, and we were proud of it.

Somebody didn’t like the fact that we went public. In the weeks that followed, I was specifically targeted. The State Department’s inspector general (IG) opened an investigation on me. So did the Department of Justice’s IG office. Rather than celebrating our success, the IG wanted to know why we didn’t follow proper procedure. It smelled like a witch hunt, and while the FBI and CIA promoted agents and handed out bonuses in self-congratulatory moves in the wake of Yousef ’s capture, our guys in Islamabad received nothing. Jeff and Bill didn’t even get so much as a letter of commendation.

That made me indignant, and I shook the tree hard until they finally got what they deserved.

“Is the investigation over?” Dad asks me.

Since most of this played out in public, I’d confided in Dad and told him what was going on inside the office. Somebody way above my pay grade was very cheesed off at what I had done. They lost sight of the real point, though. We’d taken a killer off the streets—a killer who was about to go after our own diplomats in Pakistan. That truth meant little to whatever paper shuffler was behind the witch hunt. All he cared about was the process, the bureaucratic niceties that in the Dark World blow ops and get people killed.

I look my dad in the eyes. I can smell his Old Spice cologne and it brings me back to my childhood. He always smelled of Old Spice and Lucky Strike cigarettes. “Yeah, Paps. The investigation’s over. Nothing came of it. Everything’s okay.”

“You sure?” he asks warily.

“Yeah.” I break eye contact to watch the road. “Honestly, I think the other agents in the office were more upset about it than I was.”

“Well, that just shows they’re loyal.” Dad reaches into his jacket pocket and produces a blue DSS baseball cap. He flips it up and covers his buzz cut. I’m touched by the gesture.

We hit another stop light. I still have to drop Jimmy at day care. I’m going to be late for work. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I realize I couldn’t care less.

“Freddy, that Yousef was no different than the Nazis I guarded at Nuremberg. I will never understand what made them do those things. These terrorists are the same.”

I look back over at Dad. I can see pride in his eyes. He once guarded the worst criminals in human history. I inherited his sense of moral outrage, his belief in the beauty of righteousness. Ten years in the Dark World hasn’t shaken that out of me, and it never will. I had an excellent teacher.

“Thanks, Dad” is all I can manage.

I’ve seen plenty of gray, way too much of it, in my career. But I’ve held on to my beliefs. In the end, it wasn’t that hard. After all, it’s the black and white that defines the gray in between.

We reach the clinic. Today, Dad starts chemotherapy. He’s been diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. The doctors give him three months.

“Freddy, I want to be cremated.”

No.

I don’t want to hear this. I can’t deal with it. I want to escape this fate we’re both staring down. And I won’t lose it. I won’t. Not in front of my dad.

I can’t say anything. I don’t trust myself. He puts a reassuring hand on my arm as I park the BMW. “There’s a little creek that runs through Lillybrook.”

He pauses. Lillybrook was the West Virginia coal camp he grew up in during the Depression.

“It goes through a little hollow. We used to play there as kids when we had nothing. Nothing.”

He’s told me about this place before.

“Spread my ashes there.”

I force myself to turn my head. I’ve been looking in the rearview mirror, studying Jimmy, knowing there is no escape from these words. But now, I have to be the man my dad expects me to be.

I face him. Our eyes connect. He looks so weary, so worn down already by this ravaging disease.

“Okay, Paps.”

“Thank you, son.”

In March, Jimmy and I honor this sacred promise together.

epilogue

BROTHERHOOD OF THE BADGE

Spring 2004
Silver Spring, Maryland

A gentle wind tempers the warmth of this clear spring afternoon. I walk among the shade trees and blooming flowers. The well-manicured lawn is soft underfoot.

“Hey, buddy. I’ve missed you.”

My own voice carries on the wind. I don’t come home much anymore, only three or four times a year on business. But every time I do, I come here.

To Fred Davis’s grave. I kneel down and pick up the dead flowers scattered around his headstone, thinking about those soul-saving nights at the old house at Brandt Place. That was a lifetime ago. Literally. My closest friend has been dead for almost a decade.

He was the best of us. And not a day goes by when I don’t think of him.

I pick away a few upstart weeds and throw them atop the pile of dead flowers I’ve made.

Being here takes me back to my days as a cop. This cemetery was part of my old beat. I used to push a patrol car up Georgia Avenue right over there almost every night.

And then there were the rescue squad days. Up until recently, those were the happiest days of my life. I think that’s why Fred and I were always so close. Life got so much more complex later. We swam in a sea of chaos and just tried to keep our heads from going under. As a cop, as a pilot, and as an agent, personal happiness is always subordinate to duty.

I didn’t realize until later just how much of a sacrifice that meant. When Fred finally showed me, I was crushed. Then liberated.

The phone rang one morning in February 1997. I thought it would be FOGHORN with another crisis. It turned out to be Kenny Burchell, an old friend from the rescue squad.

He told me Fred Davis was dead. I remember holding the phone, unable to speak, unable to move. I’d been through so many crises that they’d become old hat to me. I’d just kick into autopilot mode and get done what needed to be done.

Not this time. I’d just spoken to Fred a few days before, his Explorer hit a patch of ice while he was on his way home from work the night before Kenny called me. His rig skidded into a pole. He was taken to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, where he slipped away.

I brush away a few windblown leaves. I want Fred’s grave to be pristine before I leave. It’ll show others that this man has not been forgotten.

I remember driving over to the hospital. I knew that I could walk in, flash my badge, and see his body. I could say good-bye. I parked in the lot and couldn’t get out of the car. I couldn’t even bring myself to reach for the door handle. In the end, I sat in the driver’s seat and cried.

I have always been a contained man. I temper my emotions with logic whenever I can. I’ve never been the outgoing, life-of-the-party type. I’m quiet and slip through the world, comfortable in its shadows. But Fred was my friend.

He was my friend. We’ll always be bound together by the brotherhood of the badge. I have never stopped grieving his loss.

The funeral was torturous. I wore a dark Jos. A. Bank suit with black tape over my badge. I hung it around my neck, just like a St. Christopher’s medal. Hundreds of cops showed up. The U.S. Park Police helicopters flew overhead in a missing man formation. Bagpipes played, and all I could do was stare at his widow and wonder why this had happened.

Fred never had a chance to have the family he had always wanted. I did. I was the lucky one of the two of us, but my family never came first. My life was all about the job. I started counting up all the missed birthdays, all the Christmases I was overseas or in New York. There were times I was gone for months on protective details and nobody—not even Paps—knew where I was. When I added it all up, I’d already missed some of the most important milestones of my son’s life.

That’s not how I was raised. I had sacrificed my own children for the greater good.

It became unbearable. Fate stole Fred from his family. I’d squandered mine. I was so busy fighting the good fight, trying to save lives, that I’d lost my own. I didn’t own it anymore, the service did. And I realized that I didn’t want my son to have a stranger for a dad. Or a widow for a mom.

It was time to pass the torch to the younger guys in the DSS. In ’98, I got an offer to go to work for Strategic Forecasting, better known as STRATFOR. It was the opportunity I needed to save myself and my family. I left the DSS with no regrets.

Well, with few regrets. I wish I’d been able to scratch more names off the list in my moleskin journal. But that game isn’t over yet.

We moved away from my childhood roots and set up house in Austin. At STRATFOR, I refined my countersurveillance techniques and have helped CEOs and corporations build security plans, both here and overseas. At the same time, I still work in the Dark World. STRATFOR has been called “the shadow CIA,” famous for its forecasts of international events. I am part of the counterterrorism team within the company. We watch overseas threats, analyze them, and report our findings to our clients.

Our new life in Texas reinvented my family. My wife didn’t have to work anymore. My hours were shorter, and I didn’t have to disappear for weeks on end. I had a much more normal job. I was no longer part of a near monastic order with all the demands that were required of me.

It took Fred Davis’s death for me to realize what I needed to do with my own life. In a way, it was his last gift to me, this liberation. Since we moved to Austin, my family is my new life.

Fred had always been the one I turned to when the pressure grew too intense. He’d set me at ease, make me laugh. I’d feel reenergized every time we’d get together. I never thanked him. I didn’t know how. We never did touchy-feely well. We pretended to be too tough for that.

I reach for his headstone and run my fingers across the letters inscribed in it, clearing away the moss that’s grown over the words.

“I wish our kids could have played together, my friend.”

I have three now, Jimmy and my two little girls. Together, Fred and I could have tormented their dates when the girls hit high school. That would have been fun: a cop and a spook scaring the hell out of some sixteen-year-old would-be Romeo. The girls would have hated it. But they would’ve been home by curfew.

The shadows grow long. It is time to go. I stand and start to walk away.

No. Not this time. I stop and turn.

“Thank you, Fred. I just wish you didn’t have to die for me to get a second chance.”

The next day, I take the Metro from my hotel in Pentagon City, intent on checking in with the STRATFOR office on K Street before I leave for my new home.

Instead, I find myself in a conversation with a World War II veteran. I saw his Pearl Harbor veteran’s cap and we began to talk about sneak attacks.

“I’ll tell you,” he remarks, “I never thought we’d get sucker-punched again.”

From my viewpoint, it was inevitable. September 11, 2001, was not a wake-up call for me. It was a reminder.

“It will happen again,” I reply.

“What makes you think that?”

“We can’t be a hundred percent right all the time.”

I almost tell him more, like how the interagency turf wars continue despite the attempt to unify things under the Department of Homeland Security. September 11 prompted many positive changes, like larger budgets for the intel services and more assets to use in investigations. But it also created more layers of bureaucracy, more rules and procedures that everyone must follow. The days of the mavericks making things up as they went along are over.

In my day, we started as three agents against the threat matrix. The world was our beat and we had no rule book. We lived by the seat of our pants and did what we could to stem the tide of carnage. We lacked resources, funding, and technology, but we did have the chance to make a difference. Today’s agents can’t do what we did. They’ve got too many restrictions, too many manuals to follow, too many bosses to keep happy. They lack the freedom and the flexibility we enjoyed. I think if I’d stayed in the DSS, I would have suffocated in today’s climate.

“You’d think we’d be a hundred percent right about the big ones. Like Pearl Harbor and Nine/Eleven,” the veteran says bitterly.

“Well, there are a lot of places where the system can break down. When that happens, we get hurt.” Since 9/11, there has been an effort to fix those places, but much work remains. Information sharing is still a problem, and the local law-enforcement agencies who form the front line against terror still do not receive the data they need. They don’t have security clearance for most of it. We still lack HUMINT resources in the Sandbox. Coordination between agencies remains touch and go, even during crises. Politics infuses everything, especially after the WMD fiasco in Iraq.

That said, the good guys are holding the line right now. The FBI has done a good job disrupting the operational cells here in the United States. There have been some notable successes since the towers fell. Overseas, we’ve fared less well. London, Madrid, Indonesia—they remind me that we’ve still got plenty of work to do.

“Well, maybe it’s a good thing then. Maybe this country needs to get hit every few years.”

The veteran’s comment surprises me. “Why?” I ask.

“We’re a complacent people with a short memory. Pearl Harbor. September Eleventh—they were reality checks for the country. They made us wake up and realize the dangers we really face.”

“Perhaps,” I say. The idea that Americans getting killed could be a blessing in disguise is anathema to me. I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to prevent that from happening.

At the same time, I realize he has a point. Average people in New York; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and other big cities are more aware of the threat that terrorism poses than ever before. In these places, office buildings now have evacuation plans and emergency kits and actually run disaster drills. Businesses have prepared contingencies to sustain the continuity of their operations in case their headquarters get hit. Aboard airliners, passengers have better situational awareness, and attacks have been thwarted because of that. In general, we are far more tuned to the dangers lurking in the Dark World than when I was in the DSS.

Before I know it, we’ve reached the stop for Arlington National Cemetery. The veteran struggles to his feet, grabs his cane, and bids me farewell. As he walks into the station, I can’t help but think about my dad.

On a whim, I spring to my feet and edge through the doors just before they close. In a few minutes, I’m walking through row after row of headstones. Heroes. Veterans. They are proof of the blood sacrifice we’ve given as a nation. Around me, a scattering of Greatest Generation veterans search for lost buddies. I walk past an elderly man on his knees, praying before a grave.

The day is warm. Yesterday’s breeze is gone. The stillness in the air lends a serenity to these sorrowful scenes.

Suddenly, I come up short. Did I just see a name I know?

I turn and walk back to the marker. With a shock, I realize that I’m standing in front of Ambassador Arnold Raphel’s grave.

March 16, 1943.

August 17, 1988.

He died with President Zia in PAK-1.

Do his loved ones know why?

And what of General Herbert Wassom’s family?

They deserve to know to know the truth. And only those of us on the ground in 1988 know it.

Now that I’m out of the DSS, I can do it. I can tell what I know. I owe that to the families.

My time in the Dark World has always been about the victims. Justice is poor compensation for trauma and loss, but it is the best we mortals can do. I kept going and fighting long after I should have stopped, motivated by that desire.

As I leave Arlington, I reach under my suit coat. No longer do I wear a shoulder holster, but tucked inside my pocket rests my moleskin journal. My list. The names within these pages are signposts on the journey that became my life. Some of the names have been scratched off. They’re in supermax prisons now, or dead from old age or violence. Abu Nidal is the latest one to go, assassinated by his former allies inside Iraq just before we launched our invasion.

But other names remain. Mugniyah, Hasan Izz-Al-Din, and others still ply their trade of death and violence. Though I’m no longer a government agent, I am still in the game, thanks to STRATFOR. I run my own HUMINT sources from Beirut to Baghdad, Bogatá to Bolivia. I watch. I listen. I do not forget. Instead, I search for answers in the dark corners of the world. My files grow, and cold trails grow warm again. Oh, yes. There will be more names scratched off this list before I’m done.

Bank on it.