He stood looking out the window for another moment, then turned and faced Sinclair. “I want that bitch arrested,” he said. His voice was a low, deep-throated growl, like the noise a dog might make before it attacks. “I want her phones tapped, I want her apartment searched, and I want someone to get into every computer system she uses.”
“Jake, we can’t…”
“I want her source, goddamnit! I also want every person in this agency who knew about Diller polygraphed before the day is over. That includes you.”
“It wasn’t one of our people.”
“I want them all polygraphed. Today.”
Sandra Whitmore knew she looked terrible.
The bastards had come to her house at two in the morning just like the fucking gestapo, and some lady cop had watched her get dressed—had even watched her pee—but they wouldn’t let her put on any makeup or comb her hair. So now she stood in a jail jumpsuit, flip-flops on her feet, her face bloated and unadorned and looking all of its fifty-six years—and all her fellow journalists were watching. The courtroom was filled with journalists.
She hoped no one could see her feet; her toenails looked like talons.
The judge—some big-nosed, bald-headed bastard who thought he was God—was talking again. “Ms. Whitmore, you said in your story that your source was a CIA employee, and if what you said is true, the government needs to know this person’s name. Your source divulged sensitive national security information, has caused the death of a CIA agent, and…”
Whitmore’s lawyer rose to his feet. “Your honor, there is no proof that …”
“Don’t you dare interrupt me,” the judge snapped. “As I was saying, your source caused the death of a CIA agent, and this person could endanger other intelligence operations. In other words, your story was not only irresponsible but you are, right now, protecting a traitor. And contrary to what your attorney has argued, the identity of your
source is not protected by the First Amendment or the press shield law. So if you don’t name…”
Whitmore’s lawyer—a pompous wimp in a three-piece suit—rose to his feet to argue with the judge again. Her lawyer. What a joke. He had made it clear that he worked for the
Daily News
and not for her, and if she didn’t like that fact she could pay for her own attorney— knowing damn good and well that she couldn’t afford one. But right now he was pretending that he cared about her welfare as he challenged the judge’s last statement.
Whitmore didn’t bother to listen to the legal wrangling; she already knew how this was going to end.
Her source. She couldn’t believe it when he had called her. Why me? she’d asked. Why hadn’t he called one of the heavy-hitters at the
New York Times
or the
Washington Post
? Or why not Sheila Cohen who worked for the
News
and had won a Pulitzer in 2007? The guy said he came to her because he didn’t trust the flaming liberals at the
Times
or the
Post
, and he wasn’t sure that Sheila had the balls for this kind of story. That had made her laugh; it also made her think that he didn’t know Sheila Cohen very well.
Her source told her that a man named Conrad Diller—a junior VP at Taylor & Taylor, the company founded by playboy millionaire Marty Taylor—had met secretly with several high-ranking officials in Tehran. The purpose of the meeting had been to sell the Iranians equipment that would improve the guidance system for their Shahab-3 missile, the Iranian medium-range missile that could hit Tel Aviv. According to her source, the CIA was aware of the meeting but were doing nothing to stop Diller from completing the deal. He concluded that either someone at Langley was getting a kickback from Marty Taylor or, more likely, the agency was playing some sort of dangerous political game. Whatever the case, the sale had to be stopped and what Marty Taylor was doing had to be exposed.
The next question she’d asked had been: Why should I believe you? And that’s when he had pulled out his CIA credentials. He also showed her proof that Diller had flown to Iran. Then she did
what any good reporter would do: she confirmed the facts as best she could. She verified that Conrad Diller worked for Marty Taylor and verified, via an independent source, that he had taken a flight to Tehran from Cairo. She also called a guy at the
Wall Street Journal
that she’d had an affair with fifteen years ago and he confirmed that Taylor’s company was in deep financial trouble. Whitmore figured that Marty Taylor had to be up to his pretty neck in red ink to be selling classified shit to Iran.
Lastly, she called the CIA and asked if the agency would care to comment on her story. They pulled the usual gambit of stalling until right before her deadline, and when they called back all they did was badger her for her source. When she refused to name him, they said that if she published, ongoing operations could be jeopardized. The CIA’s lawyer then quoted some obscure federal code and said that if their operations were in any way compromised she could be subject to criminal charges. But that’s all the arrogant bastards said, and they never said anything about some spy being in danger. And so she published—and now she was in a jail jumpsuit.
She remembered the shit storm that had erupted in 2003 when that CIA agent Valerie Plame had her cover blown by Scooter Libby—or whoever the hell it really was. A couple of reporters were jailed for contempt for refusing to reveal their sources and one, a gal named Judith Miller who worked for the
New York Times
, spent almost three months in jail for refusing to give up a source. Whitmore didn’t know all the details regarding Plame, or what Miller had done; all she knew was that the leak investigation had gone on for months, had involved a gaggle of politicians and prominent journalists, and they came damn close to getting the vice president before it was all over.
And all that ruckus just for
naming
a spy—not for getting one killed.
She was in a world of trouble.
“Ms. Whitmore,” the judge asked, “do you understand that I’m going to place you in jail for contempt and that you’ll remain there until you agree to cooperate?”
Whitmore looked up at the judge’s glowering face and then glanced over at a guy from the
LA Times
she knew. He didn’t look the least bit sympathetic; he looked like he was having a ball. The little prick.
“Ms. Whitmore, do you understand me?” the judge repeated.
She looked back at the judge, directly into his beady eyes, and tilted her chin defiantly. “Yeah, I understand,” she said. And then, for the benefit of all the media present, she added, “And you can lock me up forever. I’ll never give up a source.”
One of the journalists sitting behind her cheered, and she figured that whoever he was he had to be very young. The rest of the journalists all let out little groans as they wrote down the hackneyed, self-serving quote they would be forced to include in their stories.
Actually, she was petrified of going to jail. She had three addictions: nicotine, alcohol, and pain medication. She’d been taking painkillers ever since she sprained her back five years ago, and at work she went outside every half hour to smoke. And at night,
every
night, she drank half a bottle of cheap scotch. Jail was going to be a living hell—and the government was going to do everything it could to make it so.
But she would endure it, by God, she would.
This was the best thing that had happened to her in twenty years.
When the story appeared in the paper, Conrad Diller knew he was going to be arrested, so he wasn’t surprised when two FBI agents knocked on his door. He was only surprised that they had waited ten days. As they were placing the handcuffs on his wrists, he told his wife to call the lawyer.
He had spoken with the lawyer only once since the article appeared. The man had said, “When they come for you, they’ll ask if you’re Conrad Diller and you’ll say ‘yes.’ Then they’ll read you your rights and ask you if you understand them, and you’ll say ‘yes’ again. After that, I don’t want you to say another word. Do you understand?”
The lawyer had waited for Diller to say that he understood, but he didn’t. What he had said instead was, “I’m not going to jail for this, and you damn well better make sure Marty Taylor understands that.”
The federal prosecutor was a man named Barnes and he worked for the U.S. attorney responsible for the Southern District of California. He reminded Diller of his high school wrestling coach: five foot nine, a compact, muscular body, and gray hair cut so close you could see his red scalp through the bristles. And just like his old coach, Barnes
wanted you to think that he was a tough little bastard and, in spite of his size, could kick the crap out of you. Diller had been afraid of the wrestling coach—and he was afraid of Barnes, too.
“Mr. Diller,” Barnes said, “if you don’t cooperate with us, you’re going to spend at least ten years in a federal prison, a prison filled with violent, psychotic criminals. You will be beaten and gang raped and become the house pet of some demented sadist.”
Diller’s lawyer snorted—but it was an eloquent snort, a snort that implied that everything the prosecutor had just said was theatrical bullshit.
His lawyer was an overweight, badly dressed old man named Porter Henry. He was at least seventy, wore a wrinkled brown suit, a frayed white shirt, and a yellow bow tie speckled with little blue dots. When Diller was arrested, he had thought the law firm Marty Taylor used would defend him, but Taylor’s lawyers refused, saying there could be a conflict of interest issue at some point in the future. They did recommend Porter Henry, though, and a little research on the Internet had shown that Henry won a lot more cases than he lost— but still, he would have liked it better if the guy had been someone more like himself, someone in his thirties who knew how to dress. He just couldn’t relate to the old fart—and he didn’t trust him either— but so far the guy had kept him out of jail.
“He’s not going to do any time,” Porter Henry said to the prosecutor. “Your entire case is based on the unsubstantiated testimony of a dead woman.”
Now the prosecutor smiled—a thin, nasty little smile that didn’t show his teeth. “Yeah, but she’s one hell of a dead woman,” he said. “A patriot who gave her life for her country, and her testimony is documented in reports she sent the CIA.”
Henry snorted again. “Reports that we can’t see in totality because they’re classified.”
“I’m not going to debate this with you, Mr. Henry,” Barnes said. “Either your client admits he went to Iran on behalf of Martin Taylor or we go to trial. And I’ll win in court.”
When Porter Henry’s only response was a negative shake of his head, the prosecutor looked at Conrad Diller and asked, “Are you in love with Marty Taylor, Mr. Diller? I’m trying to understand why you’re willing to go to prison for a pampered millionaire who’s disavowed any knowledge of your actions.”
“This meeting is over,” Porter Henry said.
“Then we’ll see you in court,” the prosecutor said.
Diller went back to Henry’s office after the meeting with the prosecutor. The office was like its occupant: old-fashioned and musty. There was a massive desk stacked with correspondence and unanswered call slips; Audubon paintings of green-headed mallards hung on the walls; a scarred wooden table, one better suited for a farmhouse kitchen, was piled high with yellowing stacks of papers. Dusty law books were scattered
everywhere
—on shelves, on chairs, on the floor—and none of them looked as if they’d been opened in years.
Porter Henry plopped his wide ass into the swivel chair behind his desk and pointed Diller to the wooden chair in front of the desk. “Now, I know that guy scared you a bit, but…”
“I’m not going to jail,” Diller said.
“Son, I want you to listen to me,” Henry said.
Diller had noticed before that the old man had a fat, jovial face and was always smiling but the smile never reached his eyes—and he had really cold, dead eyes. Porter Henry was, upon reflection, a scary son of a bitch.
“All the government has,” Henry said, “is some message—a message they can’t admit into evidence in totality because it’s classified. And this message was probably encrypted originally, which means somebody had to translate it from code into normal English. Or maybe it was passed to couriers, and God knows what the couriers did to the message. And the government is going to have to be able to prove that this woman was really at this meeting that you allegedly attended, and they can’t do that.”
“She was there,” Diller said, “at least for some of it.”
“But the government can’t
prove
it,” Porter Henry said, “unless they can get some Iranian to take the stand, and that’s not going to happen.” Then he smiled, exposing horsey, yellow teeth. “So relax. No jury is going to send you to jail when the government’s entire case is based on the word of the CIA—the most unreliable, untrustworthy intelligence agency in this country’s history.”
“If they show the jury the video of that woman being killed, they’ll fry me.”
Henry shook his head. “They just showed you that video to scare you, Conrad, but the video is irrelevant and inadmissible. You’re being accused of trying to sell classified technology, not for killing that agent. In addition, there’s no proof that there’s any connection between that young woman’s death and you being in Iran, and the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations has denied that his government killed the woman. So don’t worry about the video; a jury will never see it.”
Before Diller could say anything else, Porter Henry continued, “I know you’re worried but Mr. Taylor is paying you five million dollars for your troubles. I would think that would bolster your resolve. How old are you, Conrad?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Thirty-four years old and five million dollars. Think about that. If you invest that money wisely, you can retire right now. You’ll never have to work for the rest of your life. And all you have to do to earn the money is go to court and stick to your story: you were in Tehran as a tourist, you met with nobody, and the government can’t prove otherwise. Young man, I wish I had had a retirement opportunity like yours when I was thirty-four.” Porter Henry smiled when he said this, and again the smile didn’t reach his eyes.