The Falconer's Tale (31 page)

“We certainly wouldn't want that to happen, Jerry.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Craik's time with his family was too short, he knew—he
should be spending hours with them, not minutes—but he
squeezed in what he could. Coming home at nine, he saw
each of his children, then clumped downstairs to eat something
and was met by Rose at the bottom of the steps.

“I was just going to call you.” She kissed him. “There's
store-bought meat loaf and frozen green beans. Without a
microwave, we'd starve.”

“I was going to get a sandwich.”

“God doesn't want you to eat a sandwich.” She put an
arm around his neck. “You look so tired.”

“God knows why; all I do is sit on my ass all day.” He
debated telling her about the meeting with General Raddick
and decided it was the wrong time. They put their arms
around each other's waist, steering themselves into the
kitchen. It was a big room, tiled halfway up with white
ceramic in the twenties, the suggestion that it might be an
operating room mitigated by antique copper pans and
baskets hanging from the ceiling. They had meant the
kitchen to be the center of their family, and they had
succeeded: the room was warm and profoundly, usually
untidily, informal.

“This is the best house we've ever lived in,” he said. He
sank down on a stool by the island, where she had set two
places, two glasses of dark wine. “You haven't eaten yet?”

“Sure, but I thought I'd be friendly. I'll suck on a piece
of bread or something.” She put a heaped plate in front of
him. “I've got a confession to make.” She was standing close
to him, wearing blue jeans and a putty-colored sweatshirt
with the sleeves pushed up. She was forty-two, and he
thought she was gorgeous.

“How'd you like to have sex with a sailor?” he said.

“I'm shocked, shocked at the very idea! And both of us
captains.” She leaned on him. “Eat first, and no nuzzling
until I confess.” She removed the hands that had slipped
under the sweatshirt.

“Okay, confess.”

“Eat.”

“Confess.”

“I forgot to tell you that you had a phone call.”

“Oh, Christ, not the unit!”

“Some woman. She wouldn't say who she was. Somebody
you got on the side?”

“Southern accent?” He was thinking of Mrs Stillman.

“God, no, more like Syracuse.” Rose was from Utica, New
York; Syracuse was to her the poor relation. She made her
voice lugubriously heavy. “‘Sorta like dey talk in de old
prison flicks.'”

“That's Chicago.”

“No, she had the Upstate nose. Very nasal. Anyway, she's
going to call back. I apologize. I should have told you when
you came in.”

“I'm glad you didn't—one less thing to think about.” He
was shoveling in the food. It was pretty much like what he
got at the DIA cafeteria. “If it's important, she'll call back.
Otherwise, what the hell.”

“She sounded nervous.”

“I have that effect on women. They go all weak.”

She was sitting opposite him now. She crossed her eyes
and tipped her head. She said, “I'm going to drink this wine
and then I'm going to be squiffed and I'm going to bed.
Not alone.”

She had ice cream and frozen strawberries for dessert,
and she was just putting them together when the telephone
rang and they both shouted, “I'll get it!” and Alan got to
it first. It was a wall telephone right in the kitchen, left
there by some earlier owner from the days when telephones
came with the house. Its location allowed them to communicate—
looks, grimaces, hands—while he talked.

“Alan Craik.”

“Captain
Craik?” Rose had been bang on. The voice was
both nasal and heavy, not at all Chicago but quite possibly
Syracuse.

“Speaking.”

Pause. Then, “You don't know me.” Pause. “I called
earlier.”

“I'm sorry; I was working.”

“This isn't—I'm not a telephone salesperson or anything.”

Pause. Alan yawned. He made a face at Rose, who was
eating his ice cream and strawberries.

“I need to talk to somebody.”
He didn't know what to make of that. Some wacko? Why
him? “I guess you need to tell me who you are and what
this is about.”

“No, no, I can't do that. Not over the phone. That's why
I called you at home. I figured—” She didn't say what she
figured. Rose had certainly been right about the nervousness,
too—her words came in bursts, jagged, her voice
sinking sometimes almost to inaudibility. “This is very sensitive.”

“Well, mmm, unless I know something about you—”

“I'm an Air Force officer, okay? This is straight, Captain,
nothing funny about it. This is serious. Would you meet
me someplace so we can talk?”

Rose was halfway through his ice cream. He was thinking
of their being in bed. It had better be soon, he was thinking;
he was really tired. “You'll have to tell me what you want
to talk about.”

Pause. Then: “Perpetual Justice.”

His fatigue was pushed back by a jolt of adrenaline. He
frowned. “What do you know about that?”

“A lot. But we have to be careful. Please. All I want to
do is talk. I've got to talk to somebody!”

She wanted him to meet her right then, but he said he
couldn't, and he said it in a tone that made it clear he
wouldn't. She wanted to meet him in a parking garage at
White Flint Mall, an idea that told him that she'd seen too
many spy movies but wasn't in operational intel herself.
He suggested lunch the next day at a fast-food joint near
Bolling, but she said that was too far for her, and she named
one in Bethesda. He named a Chinese restaurant in a ratty
shopping center farther around the Beltway toward his
office, guessing that she was in the Maryland part of the
DC sprawl and the Chinese place would be halfway between
them. She said reluctantly that she'd meet him there
tomorrow at noon and hung up.

When he had settled the phone into its cradle, he shook
his head at Rose. “I've made a lunch date with a strange
woman.” He went over and put his arms around her. “I'm
nuts.”

“I ate your ice cream.”

“Fuck the ice cream.”

“That would be so messy. And cold.”

“You're warmer.”

“And not messy. Come on.”

Alan got to the Chinese restaurant where he was supposed
to meet the woman almost fifteen minutes late. He was
thinking that she should be grateful he had got there at all;
at the same time, he knew that if she was really an Air
Force officer, she was busy, too, and she might have given
up and left. Sheer nervousness might have made her do
that anyway.

He looked around. The place was only a quarter full—a
bad sign at the busiest time of the day. It wasn't much:
tatty paper lanterns and the little paper parasols that went
into drinks that came in things like coconut shells, Formica
tables, tubular-steel chairs from the sixties. Still, the place
had been there for years; he'd had it filed away as a good
spot for a semi-clandestine meeting. He thought of Abe
Peretz.

A broad-faced Oriental woman was smiling and half-
bowing at him and saying something that suggested that
she wouldn't bother to learn English, no matter how long
she stayed in the restaurant trade. He had already spotted
a woman sitting alone, and, when the woman ducked her
head away as their eyes threatened to meet, decided she
was the one. Craik grinned at the Chinese restaurateur and
headed for the lone woman's table.

She was in civilian clothes, an unremarkable dark dress
that was a nod toward dressing for success but didn't put
much faith in the idea. She had swagged a blue and beige
scarf around her neck and one shoulder; she had brown
hair, shiny, probably washed that morning; small, neat hands
with chewed nails and only clear polish; an expression of
fear when she looked up at him.

Alan sat down. He had his Navy ID card ready in a pocket,
and he put it down on the table as if he were trumping
her hand. “Alan Craik,” he said.

She licked her lips. She had food in front of her but
hadn't touched it. She put her head out a little so she could
look at the card. “Thank you.”

“Now I'd like you to return the favor.”

“Oh, no—” Her hair swung back and forth as she shook
her head.

“I need to know who you are. You know how it goes—
my security officer gets to know who I talk to. Sorry.”

“I'm not going to report this to
my
security officer.” The
voice was definitely nasal, the t's and d's hard and punchy.

“Bad move.”

“I don't want people to
know
.”

“Ma'am, the security officer is the best friend you've got
if you're doing something on the sly. At least if you report
it, you've got it on the record if it goes bad later.” The idea
of something's going bad shook her; her eyes went to her
shoulder bag, which was standing on the table next to her.
She was ready to bolt. “We've both come all this way,” he
said. He made his voice sound pleading. “Please. I have to
know who you are.”

She chewed on her lower lip, ruining what was left of
the pale lipstick there, and then she went into the shoulder
bag and burrowed until she came out with a wallet, from
which she extracted an ID card. Craik retrieved his own ID
and looked at hers. Sarah Berghausen, captain, US Air Force.
The photo matched.

He gave it back. “That wasn't so bad, was it?”

She snatched the ID and forced it back into the wallet.
The Chinese woman came up then—she had been lurking
back by the kitchen door, perhaps thinking she was
watching a marital spat—and put down a menu and a pot
of tea, and he glanced at the menu so fast that he was able
to say “Number sixteen” before she had moved away again.
When she was gone, he said, “Okay, what can I do for
you?”

Sarah Berghausen cleared her throat and said, almost
whispering, “I heard you went to General Raddick about
Perpetual Justice.”

It stunned him. He and Raddick had had a private meeting
only yesterday. “How did you hear that?”

She fidgeted. She shrugged. She whispered, “I overheard
something.”

“Somebody else saying I'd talked with General Raddick?”

She nodded. He tried to hold her eyes, but she didn't
want to look at him. “That meeting was private and the
subject was classified.” She nodded again. He sat back and
folded his arms. “Who'd you overhear?”

She shook her head. He lunged forward and said, “Look,
Captain, you wanted to talk to me! So talk!”

She licked her lips again. She looked at her hands while
microwaved chicken with cashews and three spices was put
down in front of him, then a bowl of rice. The Chinese
woman poured him another cup of tea. She looked as if
she wanted to stay and offer marital counseling, but he
thanked her and she backed off.

Sarah Berghausen said, “I'm a financial officer in a classified
branch of DIA.”

“Perpetual Justice?”

She picked up her fork and probed the food in front of
her, now cold and glistening with a milky sheen. “Not its
official name.”

“Okay.”

“The reason I called you—” She tried the food, or at least
the sauce. “I can't do my job. They're doing stuff without
sending it through me. I can't keep track of the money! If
GAO ever came down on us, all hell would break loose and
I'd be the first one they'd go after!” GAO was the General
Accountability Office, financial watchdog of the government.
Classification and priority meant nothing to them.
GAO had a reputation for humorlessness and dedication,
and “forgive” was not in their vocabulary.

“Why would GAO come down on you?”

“They just do!” She waved her fork, then put it down.
“I can't eat. I can't sleep anymore. I'm a bean counter,
right? Well, the shits I work for don't let me see the beans.”

“So you came to me because you heard I'd talked to
General Raddick. But you must have overheard
what
I talked
about with General Raddick, otherwise how would you
know I was the one to come to? And, because I know what
I talked to Raddick about, I'm putting two and two together
and guessing that you think there's funny stuff going on
with Perpetual Justice. Am I right?”

“I don't know that it's funny stuff. It's just that they don't
go by the book. I'm in the dark. I was ordered to this unit
six months ago because I was due for this kind of rotation.
I didn't know anybody when I got there; I didn't know
what to expect. The guy I replaced had everything in a
mess. I wouldn't sign off on some of it. I still haven't signed
off on some of it. I complain to the officer-in-charge, he
goes, ‘Don't sweat the details.'” Her face was like an angry
child's. “My job is the details!”

Alan ate some of the chicken-in-library-paste and forked
a lot of rice into the rest and said, “I'm going to run some
names past you. Wave when you recognize one.” He mixed
the rice into the library paste. “Herman Ritter.”

She jerked. It was a comical reaction, except Alan didn't
dare laugh. She looked like a bad actor playing astonish
ment. “How do you know that?”

“Alice K. Einhorn.”

She moaned. She gulped cold tea.

“Geoffrey Lee.”

She chewed on her lower lip. Now, she couldn't seem to
unlock her eyes from his. After several seconds, she
muttered, “That's fantastic.”

“Tell me about Herman Ritter.”

“I, uhm, shouldn't—”

“Yeah, you should. If GAO comes down on you, you're
going to look awfully good for talking to me. But you have
to
talk
.”

“Ritter's the officer-in-charge of the unit. He's a civilian,
but there's a light colonel under him.”

“Not unusual. Tell me about Ritter.”

“Well, he's— He's pretty snotty, you know the type? He
likes to bully people. He blows up, screams at people, gets
right in your face. But he's got a good reputation on the
outside, as I understand it—he writes books—”

“What does the unit do?”

“I can't tell you that.”

“Are they cooking the books or are they just sloppy?”

“I don't think they're—” She frowned. “It isn't cooking
the books, exactly. It's like Ritter can't be bothered with
stuff like that. It's—for all his reputation, the truth is that
from where I sit, he's incompetent. He can't do things
right
.”

That sounded to Craik like the people who had sent Ray
Spinner to Tel Aviv. He said, “Alice Einhorn?”

“On her door, it says ‘Policy and Tasking,' but I think
she's into everything. Some of the older guys, the military
guys who have been there a while, they complain that they
can't tell what the lines of command are. The truth is, it
looks like Ritter and Einhorn run everything from the top
down, and the organization chart doesn't mean squat.”

“What about Lee?”

“He's a lawyer, I guess. At least he's listed as ‘Legal Affairs.'
I went to him once to ask about some money that was
being authorized—I mean, I thought, Well, if he's the legal
guy, he can tell me if it's legal. He bullshitted me, and the
next day Ritter called me in and screamed at me that I was
questioning his judgment. I was asking about things that
weren't my business. I tried to tell him the finances were
my business, and I thought he was going to hit me. He's a
big guy, and he loves to intimidate. I got nowhere.”

“Did you take it up with the lieutenant-colonel?”

“Fat chance. He's tight with Ritter. Worried about his
own career.” She had pushed her plate far away and now
leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “Why did you
go to General Raddick?”

“You know what a task number is?”

“Of course! Is there a question about a tasking? That's
just what I've been talking about! Oh, God. When they've
spent money, the paperwork is like they sprinkled amounts
on the task numbers with a salt shaker. The numbers
can't
correspond with what actually goes on. I mean, they charge
stuff to taskings that were completed a year ago.
Two
years
ago.”

“Ever seen expenditures for a company called Force for
Freedom?”

She gave him the bad-actor astonishment again. “How
do you
know
all this?”

“How much money?”

She shook her head. “You wouldn't believe me. A lot. I
mean, a
lot
. And it's no-bid. I see the contracts. The amounts
are big, but I think they're slippery—Force for Freedom is
billing stuff against one contract when I'm sure as can be
that it's part of another. It's just a can of worms.”

“Does their money come through a DIA pipe?”

“Well, some of it does. That's what I'm supposed to be
there to monitor. But they spend more than that. There's
money coming from another source. I can't tell you.”

“DoD?”

She looked irritated.

“Secretary's office? One of the undersecretaries?”

“It's got a number and a name but I don't know what it
is, okay? But it's a lot, so it isn't somebody's office coffee
money.” As if the talking had made her feel better, she
pulled her bowl of cold rice toward her and began to dig
into it with her fork. After a mouthful, she grabbed the salt
shaker.

Craik asked her if she knew what sort of operations the
unit was into, but she said she didn't. Everything was coded.
She knew nothing about the operations themselves except
what would be implied by the task number, and they were
so general that they didn't help any more than to tell her
that the unit spent a lot of money on antiterrorism and
“control and exploitation of enemy combatants.”

“And it's all called Perpetual Justice?”

“Ritter and his cronies call the unit Perpetual Justice.
See, below Einhorn's level, the unit's split into two camps,
sort of pro-and anti-Ritter. If you're for Ritter, you call it
‘PJ;' if you think he's a shmuck, you use the official name.
Which I'm not allowed to tell you.”

He tried to get her to tell him anyway, and he tried to
get her to tell him where the unit did its work, but she'd
made up her mind by then that she'd said enough. She was
clearly feeling better, but as they paid for their dismal
lunches and headed out, her nervousness came back and
she seemed to sag. She wouldn't give him a telephone
number.

“I really wanted to ask you—what—what you think I
should do.” Even now that she had talked, her question
was still hesitant.

“You ought to think about going to GAO,” he said. “You'll
be better off to be the whistle-blower than the financial
officer who let things get worse.”

“It'd be my career,” she murmured.

“Quit. You have a detailer? You know him?” Craik tried
to hold her eye.

She shrugged. “Her. Sure, I know my detailer.”

“Call her today and tell her you want a new job immediately—
anywhere. You won't have to say why. Listen,
Captain. I may not be Air Force but I know the system. If
you tell her you'll go anywhere, she'll know that something
is really, really wrong—and she'll move you.”

She turned away, fiddled with her purse, and then got
up. “I'm afraid to leave. Afraid that I can't pass my accounts.”

Craik stood up with her. “I know it is easy to say, but
stop being afraid. Don't do wrong just because you are
afraid of the consequences of doing right.” Even as Craik
said the words, he realized that they were for him. And
that his career, his hunt for flag rank, was over. Maybe to
himself, and maybe to her, he said, “All the people at Abu
Ghraib—who were afraid to speak up—they'll go to jail,
too. And have to live with what they were part of.”