Operator - 01 (9 page)

“Quiet. How about you? How did it go with your family?” Eileen is my best friend at State, the only one who knows the whole story about my family issues. She is older than me, a tall, willowy blonde in her mid-thirties who walks fast, eats at her desk and can read and write six languages. She has mentored me almost from my first day as an intern. I like the fact that she has no higher career aspirations and no interest in politics.

“Better than I expected. It’s been a long time,” I pause for a moment. “Listen, I’m still in Conestoga and I’m going to have dinner with my sister. I can drive back to D.C. late and be back in the office tomorrow, but I’d like to hang around here for another day or two. Can you talk to the Admiral for me?” I use our nickname for bureau chief Jim Larimore. He is a straight arrow, a former Coast Guard captain who completed his doctoral degree at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.

“I told him when you left on Thursday evening there was a good chance you’d need to be gone a few more days, so you’re okay. I’ll e-mail him and make sure we get you officially signed out by extending your personal leave request form tomorrow morning. I’ll set it up for a full week and if you get back sooner you can just change the req, okay?”

“Thanks, you’re a life saver,” I say, relieved.

“That’s the job,” Eileen replies smartly before she disconnects.

* * *

I have the key in the door to my motel room when the intense beam of light hits me. I spotted the Sheriff’s cruiser from a block away as I walked back from DeLoria’s Pizza on Main Street. There are two deputies in the car, and I don’t recognize either of them. They seem tense, but the shotgun is still locked upright between the seats. In a town the size of Conestoga, the odds that they’re on a random stakeout of my motel are pretty low. I don’t believe in coincidences, anyway, especially not a couple of hours after I’ve been poking my nose into police business. So I continue on my way until the moment the light from the cruiser hits the back of my head and I hear the command voice they teach police rookies projected from a loudspeaker.

“Put your hands up against the door,” the voice booms. After ten at night on a Sunday in Conestoga, a whisper would be sufficient to get my attention from ten feet away. I see curtains part from a nearby motel room as curious eyes peek out. I comply without hesitation. “Spread your legs.” I do.

The two deputies move in. One pats me down professionally but indifferently, removing a small folding knife from my pocket. Then he clicks handcuffs on me and turns me around, keeping one hand on my shoulder and one on the back of my head. The second deputy holsters his weapon and opens the rear door on the driver’s side of the cruiser. The deputy who cuffed me pushes me forward gently and guides my head down as I step into the vehicle.

I don’t bother to ask questions; I know I won’t get anything useful from these two. They are silent for the short drive to town hall, which houses the mayor’s office, the town registrar and sheriff’s department for Conestoga. The building is quiet, and only a few vehicles are parked outside. There are several other cruisers, but I do not see the Sheriff’s SUV. Inside the office, the deputies empty my pockets and fill out an inventory list. They seal the envelope containing my wallet, cell phone, keys and the 3” folding Spyderco knife they’ve confiscated, then both sign it in the presence of a desk clerk and hand it over to her. She opens a safe and stashes the envelope inside. Then the two deputies lead me toward the back of the office. The magnetic lock for a solid-looking steel door clicks as we approach and the larger man opens it. Inside are a half dozen holding cells in a row, each with two steel cots. A few of the cells are occupied. The lights in the cellblock are already out and the men are sleeping – or at least lying down. The deputies escort me to an empty cell and after locking it instruct me to turn around. They remove the handcuffs through the bars and leave me standing in the cell. Neither deputy has spoken a word to me since cuffing me outside the motel.

I stand there for a moment as questions and implications race through my mind. I realize that I haven’t been Mirandized, fingerprinted or photographed. So I haven’t actually been arrested, just detained. I lie down on the bed, on top of the rough wool blanket, and close my eyes. Speculation is useless: answers will come soon enough. I am asleep before the lights wink out.

Chapter Four – Monday

I sit uncomfortably on the hard gymnasium floor with my legs tucked under my knees. My ankles ache after the first few moments, but I will not allow myself to move. I have flown a military transport for sixteen hours from Virginia to reach the northern island of Hokkaido in Japan, accompanied by Dasher, my training supervisor at the Activity.

I’ve survived Delta Force selection and training and have been whisked away by the Activity, not without some regrets. The Intelligence Support Activity, codenamed “Gray Fox” at the time I join, is headquartered in a non-descript building in Arlington, Virginia. The purpose of the unit, as Alpha told me several years earlier, is to provide field level intelligence for the covert units of the Joint Special Operations Command. When the ISA was founded, there was a great deal of distrust between military commando units and the CIA. The ISA was set up to give units like DEVGRU – Seal Team Six – and the Delta Force the information they needed to mount counterterrorism operations. The ISA was essentially a special-purpose integrated field surveillance unit. As the Internet evolved, the ISA evolved with it until it employed as many computer experts – hackers – as communications experts.

On my first day in the ISA, Alpha introduced me to Dasher, the Command Master Sergeant for the direct action arm of the ISA. “We’re shooters,” Dasher explained to me. “Except that when we shoot, nobody can know about it. We infiltrate enemy locations to map them out and identify targets. Sometimes we’re also tasked with completing special assignments that are best carried out by an individual rather than a team, because we’re the only unit in the special ops community that trains and deploys shooters as individuals. That’s why you go through Delta selection and training before you can even set foot inside this building. We do everything they do except we do it alone, without maps and without the Army Rangers to bail our asses out if we screw up. Before you go on your first field deployment, you’re going to break into the network operations room of a Fortune 500 company and the main vault of a bank right here in Arlington without leaving so much as a drop of sweat to show you were there. You’ll learn to tell an SAS officer from a U.S. Marine Force Recon Sergeant or a Navy Seal Master Chief just by how they walk in civvies. You’ll get so you know if someone is telling you the truth without a machine, and you’ll learn to fool any polygraph or voice-stress analysis. And of course there will be no medals. Nobody outside this unit will ever know what you’ve done here.”

Dasher is like a personal trainer, rotating me through an ever-changing series of exercises. My days alternate between learning the basics of electronic communications from NSA specialists, maintaining my pistol and rifle skills at the FBI range in Quantico and learning field surveillance from the CIA at a place in Virginia called “the Farm.” I have been put into an advanced program of daily Ju-Jitsu instruction with a Brazilian master based in the D.C. area, and I’ve reached the point where I can reliably take down any man or woman in my class except for the instructor. I also continue my language training, concentrating on the dialects I will need for my regional specialization – the Caspian Sea/Hindu Kush area including Iran, Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

About twenty-four hours ago, Dasher calls me at six a.m., just as I’m getting home to the small basement apartment in Arlington I rent but rarely see, and tells me to grab my “go bag” and meet him on the helo pad at ISA headquarters. We make the brief ride to Langley Air Force Base by helicopter then board a military passenger jet. Sixteen hours later we land in Sapporo, Japan. A car takes us directly from the runway to a non-descript public high school in the middle of the city, where a bespectacled young man escorts us into the gymnasium. It’s dark outside. The young man invites us to kneel at the edge of a gym mat and observe the class. There are no other onlookers.

The class starts off with a prolonged period of silent meditation. The instructor is an old man with gray hair who can’t be an inch above five feet tall standing on his hat. His face is worn like the hide of an elephant and he’s wire thin. The only unusual thing about him I spot are his wrists, which seem unnaturally thick.

The instructor is wearing a white Gi – the two-piece standard martial arts uniform made of sturdy white cotton – and a hakama, a black skirt worn only by Japanese fencing masters and Aikido black belts. I don’t see any bamboo swords, so I guess that this is an Aikido class. Aikido is distinguished by joint locks and throws, which use the strength and motion of an opponent to power them. The rap against Aikido is that it’s “soft.” As a martial art, Aikido is strictly defensive. Injuring an attacker with Aikido is considered a grave offense. And unlike Ju-Jitsu, there are no Aikido tournaments.

The class progresses more or less as I expect: a period of stretching follows the meditation, then students break into pairs to practice throwing techniques. I notice that even the least experienced students seem to have a good awareness of the other pairs around them. The class of twenty male students is crowded onto a few small gym mats. Practitioners are constantly throwing their partners, who roll through the paths of other students, yet there are no collisions. Still, by the time an hour has passed, I am wondering what imaginable reason Dasher has for dragging me all the way to Japan to observe a glorified aerobics demonstration.

As the class winds to a close, the instructor motions the students to kneel. He points to his three most senior students – all black belts wearing the hakama skirts – and commands them with a few terse words in Japanese. They rise to their feet and surround him. On command they attack simultaneously, using standard karate punches and kicks. They do not pull their punches, but none of them manages to lay a finger on the instructor. He appears to move slowly, dancing through them in circular motions, using the momentum of one student to block the attack of another. It is impressive. The instructor seems to have eyes in the back of his head, always sensing an attack and whirling out of the way or intercepting and redirecting it in midstream before it reaches him. The students roll gracefully each time and return immediately to the attack. This goes on for about five minutes, after which the master claps twice and the students bow and return to their kneeling positions, panting. I admit I’m impressed, although I hardly think that wearing out my opponents aerobically is something I’d care to try in CQB.

“This traditional Aikido,” the master says in halting English, addressing me directly and bowing slightly. I return the bow, and remembering the in-flight pamphlet on Japanese customs that Dasher handed me when we departed Virginia, bow much deeper than the master, who smiles. He waits a minute and claps again. The same three students rise. Again they attack their instructor. This time, however, the master’s reaction is different. As each attack arrives, he again moves off-axis to redirect the force. This time, however, he adds a small jerk of his shoulder or a tap of his hand into the element. The arm or leg he targets begins to tremble. Then he puts the students on the ground, one by one, twisting them into knots where they appear unable to move until he leans down to release them. He repeats this demonstration several times in different combinations before having the students grapple him directly. One starts with a half-nelson lock around his neck while the other two each control an arm. In a few seconds he has reversed the position, again leaving the students trembling on the ground. As hard as I look, I can’t see exactly how he’s doing this. I’ve heard my Ju-Jitsu instructor talk about nerve strikes, but nothing like this. The master continues to repeat the technique from different starting holds, with similar results. Then he bows to us again and motions to me. I look at Dasher questioningly. “You’re not actually going to believe this is for real unless you feel it yourself, are you?” Dasher asks. I nod and rise stiffly to my feet.

“Please attack,” the instructor says. I hesitate. I’ve just seen this guy take down three young black belts in a variety of situations. But I am still irrationally reluctant to strike a man older than my mother and considerably smaller than my youngest sister. The dull ache of jetlag is still in my bones, though, and I want to see if this man is for real, so I take a step forward and throw a jab. The instructor retreats a half step and the blow hits air. I jab again and the master takes another step back, patiently waiting as if nothing has happened. I get the point. Without warning, I crouch and dive in low to execute an under-arm hook takedown – a simple Ju-Jitsu move that I am particularly fond of because the initial approach mirrors a football tackle. The basic technique involves grappling the opponent around the chest under both arms, stepping a foot around one of his legs and then using your lower center of gravity to pull the opponent down over your leg. I explode into the tackle, using my years of experience as a linebacker tempered by my more recent daily martial arts workouts.

The result is not at all what I expect. Instead of tackling the instructor, my arms grasp empty air. Then before I know what is happening, the gym mat hits my chest at ninety miles an hour. My six-foot-three, 250-pound Ju-Jitsu instructor has never put me down with equal force. As I try to get up, I realize I can’t move. My right arm is inexplicably sticking out straight behind my back, up into the air, and it is quivering. My left arm won’t move, either. I am intensely aware of the chuckles from the seated students.

Five times, I try to take the instructor down with different approaches, scientifically ferreting out a weakness. Five times I fail. I only touch the man once, as I make a sideways approach for a leg tackle and a sudden instinct tells me to adjust at the last moment. My open hand grazes the small man’s bony thigh. But that is all, the opportunity is gone as soon as it appears and I am pitched forward in a manner that will break my neck if I don’t roll. Then the instructor again brings me to the mat before I can recover my feet. Finally, the tiny man bows to me with another smile and I bow back with genuine respect. I hobble over to Dasher, my muscles more sore than they had been at the end of the final 40-mile march during Delta Force selection. “Tough little son-of-a-bitch, ain’t he?” Dasher says, smiling broadly and slapping me unnecessarily hard on the back.