Chapter 5
Gaming the Game Plan
Kali and I decided to put our heads together. It was the latest bonding fad in the department. She smelled sweet and sexy which made her a very appealing woman. If it weren’t for the age issue, I would have hit on her very hard. I guessed she was somewhere in her mid-thirties. Unfortunately, I liked my women much younger. Maybe I could get past my personal bias and be less discriminatory toward her. As colleagues and investigative partners, I’d try my best.
Then again, maybe I could be her mentor, big brother, sugar daddy, or sex partner if she’d let me. I just hoped she wasn’t hung up on the age-thing too. Sometimes younger women didn’t like to acknowledge and act out their Electra impulses. That was a psychological condition I could easily understand and appreciate at my age. For what it was worth, I was always a big Buick fan.
We had been given the middle finger, but little else. It was a good tip as far as it went, but we needed much more information. The accompanying note provided no forensic leads whatsoever. In any event, we were being much too stationary and had to step up our investigation—fast. The first step was to get ourselves organized into a task force. For that, we would need private, secure office space. We also needed one of Big Bird’s ace investigators to work with us. He graciously gave us an office on the second floor of the chancery and Ravi Patel.
Ravi Patel was the senior Foreign Service national or FSN on the RSO’s staff. Three other Indian investigators rounded out the numbers. The FSN investigators were worth their weight in gold, and then some. They typically had many years of experience as senior law enforcement, or intelligence, or security service agents with their government before they joined the embassy. And Ravi was no different. He had been a senior official in India’s intelligence and security apparatus, the Central Intelligence Bureau, known simply as the IB. The IB was reputed to be the oldest intelligence agency in the world. I then wondered if India was home to the world’s oldest profession too.
In other words, Ravi Patel was part of the Indian intelligentsia which made him a bright and clever asset for our team. His standing would also significantly help raise the team’s overall IQ numbers. Organizationally, the IB sat in the Ministry of Home Affairs, but in practice, its director was a member of the nation’s Joint Intelligence Committee and could directly report to the Prime Minister, if circumstances required. Historically, the IB was tasked with intelligence targeting, but it had shifted focus in recent times to internal security matters. Fighting terrorism, both external and internal, was now the number one concern of the organization.
Ravi had served in a number of positions throughout the country. He rose quickly through the ranks and was rumored to become one of its top leaders until he was seriously wounded in a gun battle with Sikh separatists. He took a disability retirement from the Indian government and signed on with the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi as an investigator.
Ravi rose quickly in the embassy hierarchy too and soon became the top dog of the investigator’s kennel. Not only was he highly competent and dedicated, but he was also a superb investigator and hardwired into the GOI authorities. His wound in the line of duty, and resultant limp, earned him the nickname of Chester from the old TV series, Gunsmoke. Since his employment, he had risked his life and limb on more than one occasion for Uncle Sam—his Marshal Matt Dillion. He was a perfect addition to our mini-task force. From now on out, we would call him Chester too; a manly, Anglo-American name. Moreover, we would call him by his nickname to his face instead of behind his back.
However, we had a problem with Chester; most certainly not with him personally, but with his nationality. He was Indian, but not the Native American variety. In order to have access to all of the embassy intelligence, he needed to be a U.S. citizen with a security clearance. The rules were strict and we couldn’t simply ignore them. We didn’t want to be brought up on espionage or other related criminal charges; however, it was vitally important to cut Chester in on all of the sensitive information the embassy had collected. We required his insight and experience to guide us through the investigative process with the local authorities. We desperately needed some clues and a pinch of dumb luck too.
We decided to apply the government’s own rules and regulations to grant him citizenship and clearance. We would have to greatly compress the processing time, but we’d always stay within the letter of the law. It was important for law enforcement types to set the example for others who didn’t have the chutzpah or stones to break the law legally. I ran my idea by Kali and she agreed that expediency was called for under the circumstances. It was an unorthodox solution, but perfectly legal in my book. I just hoped they didn’t throw it at me later because that wouldn’t be a good chapter in my life.
We would be able to grant Chester both U.S. citizenship and an interim top-secret security clearance within two hours if we played our due-diligence cards properly. Chester reluctantly agreed to become an instant American out of overarching patriotic zeal and a firm promise of continued employment with the embassy. He was already demonstrating those virtues and qualities that we looked for in our new citizens. That meant his principles could be easily compromised. God bless America!
The first step was to have Chester complete a non-immigrant visa form and submit it to the Consular Section on the first-floor of the chancery. That was the easy part. He already had a couple of photos and we attached them to his form. It stated the reason for his visit to the United States was for religious purposes. In other words, he wanted to see Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
This action was a no–brainer for the consular folks who stamped passports for Indians wanting the same thing day-in and day-out. It was routine and perfunctory, up to a point. Chester’s twist was that he requested only single-day admittance to the States. That wasn’t for the theme park, but rather the amount of time he could legally stay in the United States. One calendar day was the limit before he was in violation of U.S. law by overstaying his visa.
Chester dutifully signed the paperwork and it was witnessed by Kali. She took the completed package to the Consular Section and returned fifteen minutes later with Chester’s Indian passport and a freshly stamped NIV. Since Chester was an employee of the U.S. government by virtue of his tenure with the embassy, his application was quickly granted. He was a known quantity, as they said. He was considered an outstanding candidate for return to India and clearly not a risk to overstay his visa.
I told Chester to leave the embassy and get a cup of tea down the street. He should return in about an hour and report to me. I had a couple of cigarettes while I waited. As instructed, Chester returned. I told him to sit down and not to worry, but I was placing him under arrest. I then put on my DS Special Agent hat, figuratively speaking, and formally introduced myself to him. I didn’t bother to Mirandize him then, but would do so later to cover all the legal bases. I then demanded to see his passport. He was inside the chancery and now on sovereign U.S. soil. I wanted to confirm that he had a valid visa to be in the United States legally.
He looked at me strangely and produced his passport. I quickly scanned it and found what I was looking for. His one-day visa to the States had expired given the time difference between the two countries, overstaying his visa by at least 14 minutes by my count and was now in violation of at least two sections of Title 18, United States Criminal Code. Investigating passport and visa fraud violations was DS’s stock-in-trade. These statutes served as the foundation for DS agents’ status as federal law enforcement officers and criminal investigators. Obviously, Chester had been messing with the wrong people. I immediately placed him under arrest. He was a criminal in Uncle Sam’s eyes. He didn’t resist and went quietly. Kali served as witness to the whole sordid affair.
As I placed him under arrest, he blurted out that he couldn’t go home again since he feared for his life. He then spoke the magic words we had rehearsed: “I demand political asylum in the United States of America.”
Chester tearfully explained that it was impossible for him to return home. His wife would kill him when she found out he’d become a U.S. citizen without including her. He wouldn’t stand a chance and he greatly feared for his personal safety and for his very life. It was a compelling and heartrending story that both Kali and I found totally plausible.
As required by the circumstances, we completed the paperwork that would grant him asylum in the United States. Kali hand-carried the paperwork to the Homeland Security Customs and Immigration officer assigned to the embassy. Based on her sworn testimony, Chester was promptly granted asylum in the United States. He was a free man again, but not quite home.
The next step was to get Chester an immigrant visa for permanent residency and a green card to the States. We completed the paperwork in record time. In short order, Chester was granted immigrant status based on the petition we prepared on his behalf.
The next to last step in the process would be getting him citizenship and that exercise would be fairly simple. As a bona fide immigrant alien and a long-time employee of the U.S. government, he automatically jumped to the head of the line for citizenship by regulation and law. He was already well-versed in American history and culture so the immigration questions were a breeze for him to answer.
Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb? What was the color of George Washington’s white horse? Do you believe the pyramid eye on the US dollar bill is Indian in origin and, if so, which tribe?
It was just the usual stuff for citizenship applications and the Foreign Service entrance exam. However, Kali and I prepped him on the correct answers. I had to Google one of the answers though. Granted, I thought the “Grant’s tomb” question was a trick one, but I didn’t want to take the obvious answer for granted. Chester passed the quiz with flying colors and I arranged for Ambassador Thurman to administer Chester’s oath of citizenship. It was a moving one-minute ceremony and we moved right along to get him a security clearance.
I told Kali we needed to conduct a full-field background investigation; a Single Scope BI, in the parlance of the biz, for Chester in order to get him a top-secret security clearance from the department. She understood the drill and immediately went to work.
While I interviewed Chester, she would interview his supervisor and coworkers, review his official personal folder and security file for any and all relevant information. She also would conduct the internal embassy record checks of the various federal agencies at post. Kali would conduct the neighborhood checks over the phone since her facility in Hindi and English was slightly better than mine. Chester completed the security questionnaire in my presence and I took two sets of his fingerprints. It was now down to the personal interview.
The PI, or personal interview, was probably the best investigative tool in the background investigative process.
The applicant must answer questions regarding his or her personal history. It could be a very stressful experience, especially for the interviewer. I started by asking him about his citizenship. Chester claimed that he was a dual-national and held both Indian and United States citizenship. When I asked if he could verify the claim, he handed me his Indian passport and a huge stack of paper consisting of his applications and petitions for his non-immigrant visa, political asylum/refugee status, permanent residency, and U.S. citizenship. His paperwork seemed to be in order and I was impressed with his wonderful penmanship. I asked the customary questions by keying on the answers on his security questionnaire. He answered the box marked sex correctly from what I could tell since there was no indication of foreign travel to Sweden. That was a good sign since we could no longer ask about the applicant’s sexual orientation.
I was about finished with the interview when something caught my eye. Chester indicated on the questionnaire that he had been recently arrested for something and I asked him about the circumstances. He said some embassy jerk had coerced him into getting U.S. citizenship and a security clearance. I cut the interview short at that point and, as a fellow American, congratulated him on passing the interview with high honors.
Kali returned with all of her files and notes and gave me a thumbs–up sign. That meant she hadn’t found anything in Chester’s past that would disqualify him for a security clearance. I instructed her to fax Chester’s questionnaire, his fingerprint charts, and our investigative report to DS’s Evaluations Division at headquarters. They could churn out an interim top-secret clearance for Chester within 24 hours based on our reporting and the results of a favorable national agency check. That would be done via electronic submission of his fingerprints to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. I thought technology was great when it worked to my advantage.
By tomorrow, Chester would be a cleared American citizen who could legally have access to our government’s most sensitive secrets. He could now be a Bubble boy with the rest of us. However, he would have to apply for a U.S. passport on his own time and dime. I adamantly refused to dirty my hands by facilitating passport fraud. After all, I did have certain principles to uphold as a DS special agent. I must be losing my touch, I thought. The whole enchilada, from beginning to end, took 2 hours and 25 minutes. In my younger days, I could crank such things out within 2 hours—tops.