22
One wood. Two iron. Pitching wedge. The totems of a civilization dedicated first and foremost to its own entertainment. The clubs rattled in the blue Callaway bag, protective covers atop their precious heads, as Jim D’Angelo walked down his driveway toward his Cadillac Escalade. D’Angelo was a golfer in the John Daly mode, a meaty man with a jiggly stomach and giant haunches.
“You know, that’s a hybrid,” Shafer said. “He’s a real environmentalist.”
“Hope it’s got a reinforced chassis,” Wells said. He and Shafer were watching the Escalade from a Pepco — Potomac Electric Power Company — van down the street.
D’Angelo got into the Cadillac, put the clubs beside him in the passenger seat.
“Cute,” Shafer said. “They get to ride up front.”
“That’s a man who loves his golf clubs. We doing this here or fo llowing him?”
“Here.”
Wells rolled up, turned into D’Angelo’s driveway just as the Cadillac’s rear lights flickered on. D’Angelo honked, at first a quick beep and then a longer blast, as Wells and Shafer stepped out. D’Angelo lowered his window. “You guys got the wrong house—”
As they neared the back of the Escalade, D’Angelo reached into his jacket for what Wells assumed was a phone. Retired NSA guys didn’t carry. At least Wells didn’t think they did. But D’Angelo wasn’t going into his jacket pocket. He was reaching higher across his body—
“Jim!”he yelled. “We’re agency! CIA!”
D’Angelo stepped out of the Cadillac, holding what looked to be a Glock.40. A lot of pistol. D’Angelo’s hands were shaking, but he was so close he could hardly miss.
“Lemme see the other guy, too,” D’Angelo said. “The shrimp.” Shafer was on the other side of the Escalade.
“Least I’m not an elephant,” Shafer muttered. He moved beside Wells, hands high.
“You have a weapon?”
Wells: “Yes.”
Shafer: “No.”
“Take it out, put it down, slowly.”
Wells did.
“Now lie down, both of you.”
“We were hoping to do this without making a scene,” Shafer said.
“Little late.” D’Angelo hesitated, tucked his pistol into the waistband of his green golf pants. The Glock dented his tummy notably. “Shrimp, reach into your pocket, toss me your wallet.”
Shafer did. D’Angelo flipped through it, dropped it on the driveway.
“Ellis Shafer. What about you?”
“John Wells.”
“Lemme see.”
Wells tossed his wallet to D’Angelo, who poked through it without comment and tossed it back. Wells was reminded of what Whitby had said about his reputation. Not so long ago, Wells was treated with respect, even deference, on those rare occasions when he used his real name outside the agency.
But the shooting in Times Square had happened four years before, and — as Wells had asked — the agency had tried to keep his photos off the Internet and refused any and all interview requests. For the first few months, he’d received thousands. These days, he got only a few each month. His career hadn’t ended after Times Square, of course, but only a handful of senior officials at Langley and the White House knew what he’d done more recently. And the wheel of celebrity spun so fast these days that a couple of years out of the spotlight made a notable difference in name recognition. A subset of women — and a few men — viewed him almost as a purely imaginary figure, a living James Bond, a perfect projection for their fantasies. Anne had suffered from a mild version of that syndrome, though she’d shaken it quickly.
“Hey, sport,” D’Angelo said. “Kick it over.” He nodded at Wells’s pistol. Wells nudged the pistol toward him. D’Angelo tossed it in the Cadillac.
“We need to talk to you,” Shafer said.
“You need to go. I got a one o’clock tee.”
Shafer walked toward D’Angelo. “Jim. It’s my duty to remind you you’re a database engineer. You never killed anything in your life more dangerous than bad code. John could have taken your head off if he chose. He was polite and didn’t. But don’t tempt him. Even without his pistol, he’s more than a match for you. Now, please stop wasting time and invite us in.”
The speech froze D’Angelo. He stood, hands on hips, as Shafer stepped closer. “Come on,” Shafer said. “Chop, chop. Quicker we get in, quicker we get out.”
WELLS AND SHAFER SAT on D’Angelo’s couch, a black leather sectional, in a living room filled with photos of D’Angelo and his wife, who was nearly as big as he was, and their two sons, who were even bigger. Everything in the house was oversized: the photo frames, the television, the furniture, even the black Lab that sloppily greeted them.
D’Angelo sat across from them, pistol in his lap. “What do you want?”
“You worked for the NSA.”
“I can’t confirm or deny—”
Shafer pulled a file from his jacket, handed it to D’Angelo. A copy of his personnel record. “Like I said. Quicker in, quicker out.”
“Sure. I retired last year. As you already know.”
“You were there twenty-five years. Degree from Carnegie Mellon in operations research, went straight to Uncle Sam.”
“Sounds right.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Always wanted to start my own business.”
“Consult. Work an hour, get paid for a day, isn’t that what they say about consultants?”
“They do.”
“And it’s going good? Even with the economy?”
“So far.”
“Good enough that you can play golf on a Tuesday afternoon.”
“Listen, whatever you’re fishing for, I really do have a tee time. And unless they’ve changed the rules, you can’t operate on American soil, anyway. Which makes this conversation either informal or illegal or both.”
“I’ll get to it, then.”
“And you’re not taping this, correct—”
“We are not. Informal. Like you said. So, at NSA, before you retired, you ran the consolidated prisoner registry.”
“I wouldn’t say I ran it alone. But yes.”
“Complicated job,” Wells said.
“Sure. Multiple layers of security, levels of access, sites all over the world.”
“And comprehensive. Every prisoner anywhere.”
“Yes. We were asked to put together one database where the agency and DoD could track everybody.”
“Ever hear of an interrogation squad called TF 673?”Shafer said.
“No.”
“A black site called the Midnight House? In Poland?”
“No.”
“You sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Now, see, if you’re going to lie to us, you got to be smarter than that,” Shafer said. “Of course you know about 673. Their prisoners were in the database, and you managed the database, yes?”
D’Angelo puffed air through his cheeks like a three-hundred-pound chipmunk. “Just get to it.”
“Six-seventy-three had ten members,” Shafer said. “Now it has three. The others are dead. Know anything about that?”
D’Angelo hesitated. Then: “I heard a rumor.”
“That why you freaked out when we got here?” Wells said. “Went for your gun?”
“I didn’t know who you were, and you weren’t wearing uniforms. It had nothing to do with that unit, 673.”
“Maybe you thought somebody was coming for you because of those two detainees you deleted from the system.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” D’Angelo pushed himself up. “And you need to leave.”