Rubicon, p.20
Rubicon, page 20
“I reported all of this in a press conference; I have now been labeled a coward, a fool, and even a traitor. The vice-president of the United States has called me all these things; I am still waiting for him to call for an investigation.”
Hart paused. His gaze swept from one side of the room to the other.
“Mohammed al Farabi is not a terrorist; he is exactly the kind of man on whom we should be relying, a voice of reason, in the Middle East. Yesterday, he identified the man who murdered Dieter Shoenfeld and would have murdered me. He was interviewed by a member of the D.C. police. He was shown six photographs and asked if he recognized any of them. Without a moment’s hesitation, he picked out the photograph of Henry Lattimore. He said it was a face he would never forget, because Lattimore was one of the men who interrogated him while he was held prisoner at Guantanamo.”
Hart looked straight ahead, his eyes hard, determined. He spoke in a slow, measured cadence.
“Lattimore didn’t get to Guantanamo on his own. He was there because someone in the government sent him. And that means that what happened here in Los Angeles was not an attack by a terrorist organization, but part of a domestic conspiracy. The only questions still remaining, at least for those who do not suffer from ‘a disturbed mind and an unprecedented disregard for truth and decency,’ are how many people were involved and how high up into the government this goes!”
Hart left without taking any questions from the press. He had to get back to Washington. Lattimore was the key to Rubicon, the link that connected what had happened to Dieter Shoenfeld, what could have happened to him, and the attack in Los Angeles. Someone had sent Lattimore to Guantanamo and someone had to know who.
The plane landed in Washington a few minutes before eleven o’clock. David Allen was there to meet him. Hart had one question.
“Were you able to do it? Has the chairman called an emergency meeting?”
“Seven o’clock tomorrow night. It gives everyone time to get back. They won’t all come back,” he added, walking quickly to match Hart’s pace. “But most of them will be there.”
Hart did not break stride, his footsteps a stark staccato in the dimly lit parking garage.
“And the director? Any trouble?”
“A little. He said it would take a while to pull together the information, that he didn’t want to come unprepared. The chairman told him that he was already out of time, that he could either come voluntarily or under subpoena.”
Hart slowed down. There was a look of mild surprise on his face.
“That’s more than I would have expected. I wasn’t sure he had it in him.”
“No one likes to be lied to, and after what came out this morning - about Lattimore and Guantanamo – it’s hard to believe that Townsend did not know more than he told the committee, hard to believe that, if he was not lying, he didn’t do more to find out the truth about Rubicon and about the death of Raymond Caulfield.”
They reached the car, Hart’s BMW.
“Mine is still in Canada,” said Allen.
“Probably a good place for it,” replied Hart with a quick, abbreviated grin as he got into the passenger side.
“It got you there.”
Hart shook his head at how much had happened.
“That was only a few weeks ago and it already seems like years. Sometime it’s hard to keep everything straight. Everyone should be out campaigning, going to those local events we all like to complain about; smiling, shaking hands, saying all sorts of stupid, meaningless things, and at the same time, feeling more alive than we ever have before or ever will again. But instead, the country is too scared, too worried about what might happen next, too confused about whom to blame for how we got to where we are. It’s got to stop.” He looked across at Allen. “The lieutenant is expecting me?”
Allen’s eyes lit up.
“You know what he said, when I told him you were flying in tonight and wanted to see him? ‘Later the better.’ That’s all. Didn’t ask why, didn’t complain that it was going to be damn near midnight, didn’t even seem to think there was anything unusual about it.”
Hart stared into the darkness.
“When he called me this morning, I think he expected I’d be back. He has that instinct for things, a sense of what is going to happen just before it does. Maybe it comes with the territory: spending your life dealing with other people’s murders.”
“How did he figure out that Farabi might know something about Lattimore? Why would he even think about the possibility that Lattimore had been at Guantanamo?”
Hart did not respond; he had other questions of his own.
“What’s been the reaction? Anything out of the vice-president’s office?”
“They’re sticking to the same line: that Farabi is a terrorist and no one should take his word for anything; and that even if Lattimore was at Guantanamo at some point, that doesn’t prove anything about some conspiracy.” Allen turned away from the road long enough to let Hart know that despite that, things had changed. “But they’re nervous. They hadn’t expected this. No one did. Everyone is waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next revelation. The speculation is endless. It’s all anyone can talk about. The circle is closing. It’s just that no one is yet certain who it’s closing in on.”
“It’s closing in on the vice-president,” said Hart. His eyes were cold, determined, full of an anger that was becoming more difficult to repress. “He’s behind it, all of it. I know it, and I swear to God I’m going to prove it! There has to be something that connects Lattimore to the vice-president.”
Allen pulled up in front of the police station. He offered to wait, but Hart told him to go home.
“You’re going to need a good night’s sleep. There’s a lot to do tomorrow.”
The station was nearly deserted. Somewhere down an empty hallway a door slammed shut and a shouted voice dwindled into muted insignificance. Leonard Coleman was waiting in his small, private office. He had a larger desk than the ones in the room outside and a comfortable high-backed leather chair. His suit coat, old and threadbare, hung on a rack just inside the door. For reasons that were never explained, Coleman wore both a belt and suspenders. It gave him a look of cautious efficiency. When Hart walked in he was folding up his handkerchief.
“Allergies,” he said with watery eyes and a helpless grin. “Or maybe jet lag, or something I picked up on the plane. Or some lethal disease I got at one of the airports while I waited to get through security.” He looked at Hart over the spectacles he wore halfway down his nose. “How did you know this man Farabi knew Lattimore? That was the only reason I made that trip - flew all the way to Rome, Italy - because you told me you were sure he could pick him out of a photo array.”
Hart sat back, started to tell him something that was not quite true - the methodical, logical way he had arrived at that conclusion - and then just shrugged his shoulders.
“I guessed.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Then why did you go?”
In a near perfect imitation, Coleman shrugged back.
“I guessed you might be right. It made sense, you know. Which is the reason you didn’t really guess: you knew something. You knew - you couldn’t prove, but you knew - that the murder of Mr. Shoenfeld, the attempt to murder you, were connected to this thing you call Rubicon, and you knew - because Farabi told you - that part of it at least depended on using terrorists held at Guantanamo. And that means someone from the government - probably someone from the CIA - is involved. Given what you already knew about Lattimore - what he did in the military, how he suddenly disappeared - there would be a reasonable chance that Lattimore was involved in this from the beginning.”
“As I say, lieutenant - a lucky guess.”
“Call it that if you want - you were right.”
“But does it bring us any closer to catching him, to finding Lattimore while he’s still alive?”
“We’ve got a few leads, nothing definite. A couple people claim they’ve seen him, but nothing has checked out. We did learn, however, that he once knew this guy.”
He reached inside a file folder on his desk and pulled out a grainy black and white photograph. Henry Lattimore, dressed as an army ranger, was talking with a civilian, a man of slight build with an intense expression.
“That’s H.L. Harrison. He was on the national security staff until a couple of years ago. Where was this taken?”
“We’re not sure. Looks like somewhere in the Middle East, or maybe North Africa.”
“You’re not sure? How did you get it?”
“We’re not sure of that, either.”
Coleman spread his fingers apart. He began to move them slowly back and forth against each other, barely touching.
“It just showed up, right here on top of my desk one morning, neatly sealed in a plain manilla envelope, my name printed - or rather, typed - on the cover. No note, no message - nothing. Someone wanted me to know that Lattimore and Harrison knew each other; not only knew each other, but from the look of that picture, worked together at some point. It’s what you said when I asked you about giving Lattimore’s picture to the press, that someone would remember him.”
“Someone in the agency,” said Hart. “Maybe someone who knew Raymond Caulfield. But whoever made sure you got it, what about Harrison? Where is he? What have you found out?”
“Mr. Harrison has disappeared, left the country, and did it rather suddenly, the day after Lattimore broke into your house, the day after Lattimore got rid of Frank DeStefano.” Coleman twisted his mouth a little to the side. “The day after Lattimore and DeStefano failed to kill you.”
“Have any idea where he may have gone?”
“Could be anywhere. He doesn’t have any family. Married once, but divorced a long time ago. The ex-wife wouldn’t know anything.”
“Where has he been the last couple of years, after he left the government? Wait a minute, I remember: He was at one of the think tanks, then he was with one of the companies, the private outfits, that were supplying security forces in Iraq and certain other places. That would fit. I’ll find out what I can.”
Hart got up to leave. Coleman, moving in his slow, deliberate way, walked over to the coat rack and pulled an envelope out of his suit coat pocket. He gave it to Hart.
“Mohammed al Farabi.” Coleman’s dark eyes had a new intensity, a sudden gleam of light. “Now there is a man worth meeting. When I was leaving he gave me this. He said he had remembered something; wasn’t sure if it meant anything, but he thought you might be able to make sense out of it.”
Hart opened the envelope and removed a sheet of paper on which, in a fine, legible hand, Mohammed al Farabi had written a few short sentences. Hart read it through twice, put it back in the envelope and put the envelope inside his own pocket.
“Just before he left Guantanamo, he heard someone talking, one of the interrogators. He isn’t sure, but he thinks it might have been Lattimore. He said that ‘When it’s over there won’t be anyone left.’”
“What do you think it means?” asked Coleman with a worried look.
“I don’t know. It could mean a lot of things.”
Coleman shoved his hands into his pants pockets and searched Hart’s suddenly evasive eyes.
“That isn’t what you really think, though, is it? You know what it means, don’t you?”
Charlie Ryan’s voice was echoing in his mind, the last thing Ryan said to him the last time they talked. Hart looked at Coleman, waiting, always a little ahead of things with his uncanny sense of what would happen next.
“I think it means that we don’t have much time. I think it means that a lot more people are going to die.”
Chapter Twenty
Ronald Townsend sat alone at the witness table tapping his fingers. Then, as if surprised that he was doing it, he pulled his hand down into his lap. He began to tap his foot.
At exactly seven o’clock, all the members in their places, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee opened the session with a terse statement:
“We now have evidence that suggests at least the possibility that the attack in Los Angeles was part of a domestic conspiracy, though precisely to what end remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that the committee needs to get answers about what the government, and in particular the CIA, knew about this and when they knew it. Director Townsend has agreed to appear this evening voluntarily. He will, however, be put under oath.”
Released from his pent-up anxiety, Townsend shot straight up from the chair and raised his right hand.
“Because Senator Hart has done more than anyone to uncover what has been going on,” continued the chairman after the oath had been administered, “to say nothing of the fact that he appears to have been one of the targets for assassination, I’m going to ask him to lead off the questioning of the director.”
Hart gave one of the clerks a stack of photographs, all copies of the same one, and asked her to distribute them to the members of the committee. Then he turned to the director.
“This morning, I sent over to your office this photograph, along with the names and what was known of the background of the two men seen in it. I see you have the photograph with you.”
“Yes, senator,” replied Townsend in a steady voice.
“The two men have been identified as Henry Lattimore and H.L. Harrison. Is that your understanding?”
“Yes, that’s correct, senator.”
Hart had worked all day getting ready. He moved relentlessly from one question to the next.
“Henry Lattimore has been identified as one of the two men who broke into my house in Georgetown, murdered Mr. Dieter Shoenfeld and, there is reason to believe, would have murdered me.” Hart nodded toward the thick file folder on the table next to the director. “You have been given a copy of the statement I made to the police and the other materials pertaining to the manner in which that identification was made?”
“Yes, senator, I have. There is no doubt that Lattimore is one of the men who murdered Shoenfeld. Nor is there any doubt that Lattimore is one of the two men in the photograph.”
“We’ll get to that in a minute, Director Townsend. But first, you also have with you, I believe, a copy of the statement by Detective Leonard Coleman of the D.C. police detailing the circumstances of his interview with Mohammed al Farabi and the way in which Henry Lattimore was identified as having been involved in the interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo. Do you have that statement?”
Townsend tapped the top of the file.
“Yes, senator, I do.”
Hart looked at the director as if he expected an explanation. The director stared back, a guarded expression on his face. The silence deepened, became profound.
“Senator, I’m not sure what you want me to say,” he said finally. “It appears - I mean, there is no doubt that Lattimore was one of the two men who broke into your home and killed Shoenfeld; and it appears that he was at some point at Guantanamo -”
“It appears? I think it more than appears, Mr. Townsend. Look at that photograph again. When I sent this over this morning, I asked if you would try to identify where and when it was taken. Were you able to do that?”
Townsend pulled the file over until it was right in front of him. He opened it and turned to the page he was looking for.
“It was taken approximately three years ago,” he reported.
“Just before Lattimore left the military and disappeared,” Hart interjected. “And where was it taken?”
Townsend pressed his lips together and appeared to concentrate.
“We think somewhere in Afghanistan, but we can’t be a hundred percent certain.” His expression became more candid. “But if I had to guess, that is where I would say it was: Afghanistan, three years ago.”
“And at that time, three years ago, H.L. Harrison was in what position with the government?”
“He was deputy director of the National Security Advisory Council.”
“What exactly is the National Security Advisory Council, Director Townsend? Would you describe it to the committee. It isn’t part of the CIA, is it?”
“No,” he replied with a quick, sideways movement of his head, eager to distance himself from any connection with it. “The National Security Advisory Council was set up to coordinate the gathering of intelligence among the various agencies. It was supposed to perform the same kind of role played by the office of the National Security Advisor in the coordination of foreign policy issues.”
“The National Security Advisor reports directly to the president. Who does the head of this agency report to?”
“The vice-president.”
“I see. The vice-president. So, H.L. Harrison was working for an agency that reports to the vice-president, and three years ago H.L. Harrison was somewhere in Afghanistan where, as that photograph shows, he was deep in conversation with Henry Lattimore, who was then doing something with special forces?”
“Yes, it appears so.”
“And then, just a year or so later, this same Henry Lattimore is in Guantanamo, interrogating prisoners. But he was not in special forces then, was he? He had left the military just a year before. He left special forces and went to work for you - for the CIA - isn’t that true, Director Townsend?”
The veins on the director’s temples began to throb; the muscles around his jaw tightened into knots.
“No, senator, he did not. At no time was Henry Lattimore ever employed by the agency.” He let out a breath, as if relieved of an obligation. “Not directly.”
It took a moment for those two words to sink in. When they did, Hart’s eyes turned lethal.
“Not directly,” he repeated in the same slow cadence the director had used. He bent forward, mocking the director’s quiet subterfuge. “Not directly. You mean the CIA did not hire him directly. The CIA hired one of the companies, the private contractors who have gotten rich in this war, and one of those companies hired Lattimore.”
“Yes, so it appears.”
“So it appears. You hire someone; they hire Lattimore. Then when Lattimore gets caught - when he’s identified as the man who committed murder in my house, when he’s identified as someone who was at Guantanamo, when it becomes apparent that he’s involved in the conspiracy that involved Los Angeles and God knows what else besides - then you and others like you can deny that you knew or should have known anything about him or what he was doing! Only this time it’s not going to be so easy to hide from responsibility. What was the name of the private contractor, Director Townsend?”
