Chapter 1
Swallowing Pickled Herring
“Any ransom demands so far?” I inquired.
“No, not yet,” he replied. “We have not had any contact from the kidnappers. We’re obviously expecting something in the way of demands, but no communication at this point. The proof of life factor comes into play too as you well know.”
I must be a hungry glutton for punishment because I was seated before the Director of Investigations and Counterintelligence, Diplomatic Security Service, U.S. Department of State (and yes he likes that plenipotentiary and the extraordinary accolades that entails), and ever-so-politely holding my begging bowl in front of me.
I was flat broke and needed money to support my precarious standard of living. The cost of staples such as booze, cigarettes, and classy women had all become too expensive on my meager government pension. While I fully embraced consumerism as a true American value, I wasn’t a cheap date.
Unfortunately, Jersey Briggs accommodated my pathetic plea for more porridge by dropping red herrings into my bowl and I didn’t like their taste one bit. Fishy would have been a good descriptor.
I certainly wasn’t going to bite the hand that was offering to feed me once again, but I wasn’t going to swallow my chum whole either. Even in my desperate straits, I resented an obvious slight-of-hand job from a former colleague and sometime friend.
The question was why? I thought. Why would Jersey spin a story he damn well knew I wouldn’t buy? The answer was all too obvious: he had to hew to the bureaucratic script, no matter how lame it sounded to both of us. It wasn’t so much what he was telling me since I had accepted much of it at face value. It was the stuff he was leaving out that bothered me most.
The devil is in the detail as some inane State Department pundit might say. I didn’t want to get fired before I got back on the department’s gravy train and headed for the lounge car. That wasn’t my metaphor, but Jersey’s. According to him, the choo-choo train with my name on it was pulling out of the station and I’d better get aboard if I ever wanted to work for DS again. Okay Jersey, I think I can, I think I can, I laughed to myself. And that was why I was here. He badly needed someone to pull the outfit’s train. I was desperate for money and Jersey sensed my pecuniary neediness. Ok, all aboard folks!
“Avery, I know we’ve had our little differences in the past, but we need to put all the baggage behind us and work together. You’re not much of a team player, but you’ve got to cooperate and coordinate your investigation with headquarters; that means me, specifically, like it or not. Otherwise, you’ll be fired at once.”
I viscerally responded to his hollow threat by opening my eyes. He had gotten my attention with that line and I sat a bit more erect in my chair.
Jersey continued telling his tall tale: “She was being driven to class at the International School of Delhi. The ISD caters to foreign kids whose parents comprise the top echelons of the international business community and diplomatic enclave in the Indian capital. Reportedly, the embassy chauffeur followed a predictable travel routine. He should have known to vary the routes and times to keep the opposition off balance. As you know very well, it’s still one of the best and easiest countermeasures against being jacked or, in this instance, napped.”
I didn’t correct him, but he should have added “hi kid” to the beginnings of those last words. They might have better befitted the circumstances. Maybe that was what the bad guys first said to the ambassador’s daughter as she was being forced out of her vehicle at gunpoint.
“Maybe the driver thought it was a sobriety checkpoint,” I interjected. “The cops are really cracking down these days in India. I read that thirty-two percent of the traffic fatalities are due to drunk driving and the remainder to ordinary stupidity.” Of course, I made that stuff up out of whole cloth to bolster my credibility. Not surprisingly, my whole cloth was much too transparent, even for Jersey.
He shot me a dirty look and rolled his eyes at the same time. He could simultaneously chew gum too since Jersey was a multitalented DS agent. That was how he ascended so quickly in the department hierarchy. That and the fact he was good at kissing ass at the right time and in the right place. The place was easy to locate, but the timing was more difficult. He had to find targets of opportunity that could enhance his career and he had an uncanny knack for such things. Regardless, Jersey was a natural butt-boy, a successful agent, and a rising star in the organization. And I was envious.
“It’s just basic Security 101 stuff, even absent any specific security concerns. Obviously, we still don’t get the message through to some,” Jersey mentioned to no one in particular. He completely ignored my earlier interruption and clever theory of the crime.
He was certainly right about the message though. Following department security procedures and protocols was a huge pain in the ass. They conflicted head-on with our innate sense of independence, individuality, and invincibility.
One of the biggest misconceptions about terrorists was the notion that they were all created equal, but they were most definitely not. For every trained, skilled, dedicated and savvy bad guy out there, there were two or three others who were bumblers of the first order. They sometimes made the most stupid mistakes imaginable and didn’t succeed in bagging their intended quarry.
Unless the target was a well-known official or personality, these little failures and fiascos usually got no more than a few lines under the fold of an inside section of the international papers. Sometimes, with smaller fish, the incidents didn’t even catch the attention of the media. Moreover, in a number of ransom cases, the victim’s family and friends often kept the matter intentionally secret and away from the authorities and press. They would rather take their chances dealing directly with the bad guys than the government authorities. That was because those players were sometimes one and the same.
Sometimes we Americans didn’t need to look abroad or under our bed for the scary bogeymen.
Jersey got up from his desk and started pacing his office. This was a standard routine when he was trying to spin something or to outright lie. He probably thought that the walking and talking bit was a more persuasive communication method with his audience of one. However, I’d seen him do this little ritual on more than one occasion for other, more gullible people. It was one more indication that he was trying to scam me.
Jersey paused to sip his coffee and then continued his story. Fortunately, he didn’t spill any brew on his heavily-starched shirt. It probably would have gone unnoticed since starched and stuffed shirts were a common sight in the building. But Beth, his second wife, would have surely blamed me for her husband’s clumsiness. We didn't get along since I occasionally pulled childish pranks on her husband.
“The ambassador’s daughter would have been sitting in the backseat of the car, if she had followed normal practice. From sketchy eyewitness reports, we have been able to piece together that her vehicle was intercepted at a narrow cross-section of road about a mile from the school. It was the perfect chokepoint for a grab. Her car was cut-off by a tanker truck that pulled in front of it. The chauffeur probably didn’t have enough room to perform a bootleg or J-turn maneuver to escape; even if he knew how to execute one in the first place."
“Three bad guys popped open the front passenger door with a jaws-of-life rig. The GPS device secreted in the vehicle activated and alerted the embassy security office, but by the time the cops arrived at the scene, it was much too late; the embassy driver and the ambassador’s daughter had been kidnapped. The entire operation took about four minutes which indicated that these guys were damned good. As best we can tell, there were no amateurs involved in this grab-and-run operation, other than the chauffeur.”
I let Jersey ramble on since I was interested in seeing how far he could push my envelope before I could no longer remain stationary. I didn’t doubt the fact that the ambassador’s daughter had been kidnapped—CNN had already carried the story during its early morning news shows. What had me wondering was the fine print of the story that Jersey wasn’t disclosing.
As DS’s Director of Investigations, he was the man on the spot to make things better. Ideally, making them better meant recovering the ambassador’s daughter, alive and in good health. Making things second better meant finding a credible scapegoat to lay things off on if the investigation didn’t go well. I had been in his spot for several years before retiring and knew how hot the seat he was occupying could get. I also clearly understood my new role in this drama.
“Jersey, why do I sense I’m not getting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from you?” I pointedly asked.
“It’s the old need-to-know principle at play, Avery,” he responded. “You know the rules: you don’t get any more information than necessary to do your job. You’ll be further briefed on the case and what’s expected of you when you get to post. Until then, that’s all the information you’re getting from HQ. You either go with the flow or you don’t go at all.”
“But why choose me?” I plaintively whined. “There are several experienced agents at post who can certainly do the job. In fact, they’d probably do a better job since they’re already familiar with the local scene and circumstances.”
“Avery, that’s precisely the problem. They’re too damn close to the situation. They are likely to be called before the department’s Accountability Review Board, if one is convened. We need someone who’s not connected with the case in any way, shape, or form. We have to use the ‘odd man out’ strategy on this one."
“We need to send someone we can depend on, someone who won’t spin the facts and circumstances of the incident and someone who already has a valid multiple-entry visa for India. You’re definitely the oddest person I could think of so that’s why you’re here."
I told him to go screw himself, if he could find his ass with either hand. I mentioned that if he needed any help, he could call in his stud bitch admin assistant to give a firm shove. I noticed that it was the first time Jersey had laughed during our meeting. He must have had some anal retentive hope that things would turn out okay for him in the end.
“So what’s my role in all of this?” I asked. “Playing the teat on the bull or perhaps something more practical that I can actually milk for a change?” I uttered, thinking I might have cowed him with my clever bons mots. I couldn’t help the puns and wordplay because real actions and decisions might have unintended consequences. Those could be career limiting or deadly if you weren’t careful, I remembered from my early career. Regardless, Jersey deftly sidestepped my childish nonsense.
“You will serve as the principal liaison officer between the local authorities and the embassy. As such, your role will be to coordinate the flow of investigative information back and forth between our government and the Indian authorities. The bottom line, you will be the point man for the U.S. government in the investigation of this incident. However, you will not, under any circumstances, put on your gumshoes and beat the bushes or the pavement for the bad guys. You will not play the hero in this drama; no Lone Ranger stuff this time. Do you hear me Avery?”
Jersey was getting red in the face. It was obvious that his blood pressure was peaking. Maybe I could push him over the edge and stroke-him out. Sometimes collegiality was a fickle and feckless thing among those who served and protected.
“Loud and clear, boss man. Yes sir, ten-four and five by five,” I replied by the numbers.
Jersey sat down and was quiet. He looked emotionally drained and probably felt like shit on a shoe.
I thought about what Jersey had mentioned earlier. The old need–to–know principle for Christ’s sake! I knew the principle by heart. I had been repeatedly kneed trying to know things during my DS career. My groin was so swollen that my cup had runneth over, I silently groaned.
Ok, I would go with what he gave me, but I didn’t like it. I knew there was more to the story than what Jersey was telling me. I’d have to uncover the facts the old-fashioned way by doing solid detective work.
Yeah, right. Instead, I would work the old boy and girl network for more information and some answers. The department grapevine was a good source of juicy gossip and I would tap into it. I just needed to squeeze the rest out of Mother State since she had always quenched my thirst for scuttlebutt in the past.
The meeting was over. Jersey knew what he wanted me to do, and I knew what I was going to do. We both knew they weren’t the same thing.