The Attorney General nodded his large head, as if concurring, but then said, “I’m sure you believe that, Admiral, but there’s always the possibility that some of your people are not as honest as you.”
“I run a tight ship,” Wilcox responded, through clenched teeth. “My people are not monitoring American citizens unless we have a FISA warrant.”
Wilcox personally believed that FISA was making him work with one hand tied behind his back, but the law was the law and he followed it-and he was damn certain his people did too.
“Admiral,” Scranton said, “I don’t doubt your integrity. Nor does the president. The fact remains, however, that he’s authorized this audit. I imagine he just wants some peace of mind. I’m sure you understand. And even though we don’t expect Aaron’s review to uncover anything improper, Congress will also be pleased we’re doing this little-ah-spot check, if you will.”
“The only thing that’s going to come out of this so-called audit is that this guy-” the admiral jerked a thumb toward Drexler-“will be given access to programs where he has no need to know. And that could jeopardize-”
Need to know in this context was not an idle phrase but a fundamental principle applicable to the protection of classified information. One of the best ways to keep from spilling the beans-loose lips, sinking ships, et cetera-was to limit the number of people allowed access to classified data, and only those with a valid job-related need were permitted access.
“The president’s giving him the need to know, Admiral,” the attorney general said, flexing some of Santa’s muscle. “And, by the way, I’ve already discussed this with your boss.”
Meaning the Secretary of Defense, Wilcox assumed.
“Now I know you’re not happy about this, but…”
“You’re goddamn right I’m not,” the admiral muttered, but he knew he’d already lost this battle.
The goddamn Aziz case. Would it never end?
Dillon entered the director’s office and noticed immediately that Admiral Wilcox’s perpetual frown was even more pronounced than normal. His face looked like a fist with eyes. He assumed the cause of the admiral’s displeasure was the other man already in the room.
“Dillon, this is Aaron Drexler,” Wilcox said. “He’s from the Justice Department. The president has asked Justice to review our operation to ensure that… that we’re doing everything by the book. More fallout from Aziz.”
Dillon nodded pleasantly at Drexler, noting the man’s shoes as he did. Penny loafers-hardly appropriate with a suit.
“Drexler, this is Dillon Crane, one of my senior people. He reports to the deputy director. He’ll give you everything you need. Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m late for a briefing.”
Dillon smiled at Drexler.
Drexler didn’t smile back.
Aziz. What a debacle that had been. That is, it had been a debacle as far as Admiral Wilcox and the administration were concerned. For Dillon Crane it had been a roaring success, justifying everything he did.
It began with the NSA’s machines intercepting a phone call, and what the machines captured were certain words spoken in Farsi. Had the words been spoken in English it’s quite likely nothing would have happened, as the words were innocuous words, boring words, words like alloy, heat treatment, and thermal expansion. But when the machines heard those particular words in Farsi, it was like a marble falling in a Rube Goldberg device: the marble rolled down a chute, dropped onto a cog, turned a gear, and a little mechanical man spun around, arm outstretched-and one of Claire’s technicians was electronically smacked on the back of the head.
Claire’s techs rapidly discovered that one of the people talking was an Iranian but now a U.S. citizen. This was Dr. Ahmed Aziz, a metallurgist who worked for Owens Corning. Aziz was talking to another Iranian, also a metallurgist, and these two smart fellows were trying to reverse-engineer a particular component-a cast alloy able to withstand high temperatures in a radiation-rich environment. After consulting with various experts, Claire’s techs concluded the casting under discussion was part of a gizmo used to speed up the enrichment of uranium-enriching uranium being one of the crucial steps in building a nuclear weapon.
Normally, if the U.S. government even suspected that Dr. Aziz was talking to a nuclear scientist in Iran, this would have been sufficient information to obtain a FISA warrant. And that’s what Dillon needed-a warrant-so he could legally record more of Dr. Aziz’s conversations. If he had such a warrant, the next time Dr. Aziz phoned his bomb-making pal, the FBI would have just cause to detain Aziz and question him and do all those things civil libertarians objected to but which made perfect sense to Dillon if you were trying to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power. But since Dillon had recorded Aziz’s initial conversation illegally, this wasn’t possible.
So Dillon fudged. Just a bit.
There’s a mosque in Houston known to nine of the sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies. The mosque funnels money to al-Qaeda and the U.S. government allows this to occur because it can learn more by following the money trail than it can by arresting the money movers. This being the case, one of Claire’s people hacked into the computer of the bank where Dr. Aziz kept his money and made it appear as if money had been sent from the man’s checking account to the mosque. The FBI saw where the money came from, obtained a warrant to eavesdrop on Dr. Aziz’s communications, and asked for the NSA’s help-and Dillon pretended to be surprised when they did. And when Dr. Aziz made his next phone call, Dillon’s people-now operating in a completely legal fashion-recorded him and the FBI whisked Dr. Aziz off to a cell. After three days, Aziz admitted that he had indeed been trying to help the Iranians build a bomb. “Why shouldn’t a good Muslim country have the right to protect itself?” the scientist said.
Unfortunately, Dr. Aziz’s family obtained a very loud lawyer who pointed out to the media that the metallurgist was a virtual pillar of his community and he had been disappeared by his own government. Where are we living, the lawyer screamed, Nazi Germany? And because the media listened to the lawyer, the lawyer was able to get Dr. Aziz’s congressman to listen to him as well. And the congressman-delighted to have all the free publicity-called over various people from the NSA, the FBI, and the departments of Justice and Defense, and asked them to explain why they had incarcerated his constituent without the benefit of a trial.
So the FBI explained. They said they had detained Dr. Aziz as a suspected terrorist under the provisions allowed by the Patriot Act, and they did this because he was helping Iran build a nuclear weapon. And, they pointed out, Dr. Aziz confessed. He confessed because you tortured him! the congressman shouted. We didn’t torture him, the FBI said, we just didn’t let him sleep too well for a couple of days.
Then there were problems with the legally obtained intercepts. There were some questions regarding the accuracy of the translation, but the biggest problem was Owens Corning, Dr. Aziz’s employer. Owens Corning, unfortunately-at least it was unfortunate from the FBI’s perspective-utilizes high-temperature castings to make fiberglass, which is in turn used for insulating houses. Dr. Aziz was now claiming that’s what he’d really been talking about with his Iranian buddy-how to make fiberglass-and it was only because he was tortured that he’d said otherwise. Bullshit, the FBI said, and complex technical arguments were given to show Aziz was lying, but because the arguments could only be understood by egghead scientists, and because Dillon couldn’t let the FBI have the recording the NSA had illegally made, Dr. Aziz and his congressman eventually won the day.
But Dillon Crane was satisfied, even though Dr. Aziz would most likely win a very large judgment in his upcoming lawsuit related to all the mental and physical anguish that he’d suffered. He was satisfied because he’d identified a traitor and because the U.S. government now knew the Iranians needed a bomb-making component that they couldn’t currently buy or build. Dillon knew that this wouldn’t stop Iran from eventually building a nuclear weapon but it would slow them down, and that was the best he could do.