To Janet and me, he said, “I’ve instructed Jack and Phyllis that it’s time to let you in on the rest of the story.” He stared at both of us as he added, “You realize that nothing said here will ever be repeated outside this room.”
Janet said, “I won’t agree to that.”
“When we’re done, I’m sure you will.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong.”
“Oh, you’ll come around.” The poor fool obviously didn’t have my experience with her.
But there’s a thin line between confident expressions and polite threats, and I wasn’t completely sure which I had just heard from his lips.
Now that he had made his point, though, he turned to Mac-Gruder and ordered, “Tell them, Jack.” Gosh-maybe Jack was his real name.
And Jack, a bit sourly said, “Operation Trojan Horse-the cover name conveys exactly what’s happening. The syndicate we’ve been discussing has become the largest money-washing conduit in the world. Success breeds success in this occupation as in others, and what’s happening here is criminal organizations and terrorist groups have been lining up to let this syndicate wash and handle their cash.”
Phyllis put a hand on MacGruder’s arm and asked us, “Do you understand why we did this?”
“Tell us,” Janet replied.
“We’ve fostered this growth to allow our people, and the National Security Agency, to dissect the pieces of this sprawling syndicate. It is quite large, and highly fragmented, but we track a fair amount of its phone calls, e-mails, and wire transfers. We don’t have every piece of it mapped out yet, but with each day it operates its filthy business, we learn more.”
MacGruder amplified on her thought, saying, “Most important, we learn where its money comes from, how much, and where it goes.”
I suggested, “Then seize it and shut it down.”
Peterson replied, “That’s the last thing we want to do.”
“Perhaps it should be the first.”
“It’s not about the money,” Phyllis responded. “That never was the point of this thing.”
“What is the point?”
“Money is just paper, printed by governments. Our interest lies in the syndicate’s customers. We care about the people and organizations who make this money, how they make this money, where it’s coming from, where it’s going, and what it buys. We learn where they deposit it and where they pick it up, once it’s been freshly laundered. We’ve been exploiting this information to roll up terrorist groups and criminal gangs worldwide. We pick off their people a few at a time, so they don’t become suspicious. We drag in those people, sweat them a bit, and learn more. Sometimes we do it, sometimes other U. S. government agencies do it, sometimes we cue our foreign counterparts to handle it.” She paused to let us absorb this, then commented, “It’s become a virtual Yellow Pages to the nastiest organizations on earth.”
MacGruder added, “How do you think we’ve been able to roll up so many Al Qaeda cells these past few years? Al Qaeda uses our syndicate extensively. We’ve mined this piggy bank for intelligence we could never hope to get any other way. We’ve been able to plot Colombian money, Mexican money, terrorist money-”
Peterson suddenly said, “That’s enough, Jack.” And just when it was getting really interesting, Jack stopped.
Looking at Janet and me, Peterson said, “Do you understand what you’ve been told?”
But he wasn’t really inquiring, he was emphasizing, and he further amplified, “Trojan Horse is the most lucrative intelligence operation we’ve ever run. It’s the modern equivalent of Venoma, when we broke the Soviet code, or when we broke Japan’s and Germany’s codes in the Second World War. In this fragmented new world order of ours, this operation, this syndicate, this is our key to the bank.”
I glanced at Janet. It was a good thing she was studying Peterson’s face, not mine-I seemed to be experiencing a massive attack of moral claustrophobia. Understand that Clapper was here to jar my memory about my profession, to counter the concern, I guess, that after a few weeks of wearing civilian suits and hanging out with the rich and privileged, my brain had turned somewhat mushy toward the entire concept of Duty, Honor, Country. Also there was the matter of the signed oath required of all Special Actions attorneys. If my memory served, something about protecting national security secrets upon penalty of God knows what.
So I was sitting there, weathering a crisis of guilt, conscience, and conflicted loyalties. I could see absolutely no way for this to be resolved to everybody’s satisfaction-even to anybody’s satisfaction. Whichever side I chose was going to cause me great personal angst and loss.
Janet finished mulling and, of course, asked Peterson, “So who murdered my sister?”
“I don’t know.”
“You really don’t?”
“I really don’t.”
“You have suspicions, though, don’t you?”
“Remember where you are, Janet. This building is a vault of suspicions. My day begins with suspicions, my day is filled with suspicions, and the worst of those suspicions keep me awake at night.” He snapped, “Yes-I have suspicions.”
“All right. Help me get my sister’s murderers.”
Sounded like a good solution to me.
But Peterson scowled and said, “The CIA isn’t permitted to engage in operations inside the United States. I’d like to help; I can’t.”
“You mean,” Janet said, “you don’t want to risk having your precious operation compromised.”
“Of course it’s a factor,” he confessed. “The killer is not my concern, however. It’s a domestic matter, not international. My interest is this syndicate, with protecting millions of lives from international terrorism, drugs, and other criminal mayhem.”
And like that-bang, something went off in the back of my head. What?
Janet said, “That’s too bad. My sister is my concern. And if you think…” and so on, and so forth. I hadn’t slept in two nights. I was forgetting something, and I was groggy, and the temperature in the room wasn’t helping. Yet… what?
I sat up. “Wait a minute.”
Janet stopped talking. Peterson stopped talking.
I said, “The cops, Meany-how did they get to my apartment so fast this morning? And what the hell was Meany doing there?”
Peterson shook his head. “Who’s Meany? What are you talking about?”
MacGruder coughed. Phyllis sat and looked ladylike and grandmotherly, like she should have a sewing kit in her lap and should be knitting something; like a handmade garrote, maybe.
“Who’s Meany?” Peterson repeated.
Only after a long pause did MacGruder inform his boss, “I believe he’s referring to Special Agent George Meany, sir. He’s the SAC of the FBI task force hunting the serial killer.”
And like that, another piece fell into place in my head, and I said, “Tell us about the cover-up, Jack.”
He did not respond to that. In fact, aside from some squeaky seats and feet shuffling, the room went completely quiet.
Peterson said, “Drummond, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I nodded in the direction of Phyllis and Jack. “They do.”
So he regarded Phyllis a moment. And then Jack.
After a moment of this, Phyllis suggested, very suavely, “Director, perhaps we should have a word with you… in private?”
Janet was staring at me.
But I broke eye contact with Janet, and I established eye contact with Phyllis. I asked her, “When did you know?”
She was still making eye contact with her boss, who said to her, “Answer him, Phyllis.” He then added-actually, he emphasized-“I’d like to know, too.”
Well, all this asinine eye contact stuff came to an abrupt end, because Phyllis turned back to Jack and said, “You explain it.” Shit really does roll downhill.
Jack stammered, “We weren’t… I mean, when Captain Morrow was murdered, we had no idea… we never put two and two together… she’d left the law firm, weeks before. The police concluded it was a robbery.”
“What about after Cuthburt?” I suggested helpfully.
“No, no… not then either. We made no connection between her and Captain Morrow. Not really until Anne Carrol was… well… she was SEC, and the FBI discovered the link, actually…” He paused, then said, “Only then was it brought to our attention.”