Chapter 23 of Princessa

Herding Goats

Before dropping off into a much needed deep sound sleep, vice president Myerinck had one last phone conversation with Jack Croft; about that maddeningly  irritating little Malvian problem. “Jack” says the veep, and then pauses “just to, cover our… all the bases, I want you to give me everything you have, on Malvia… and so forth.” 

“Well” says Croft, wishing he could just be done with this, and get into a nice warm bed himself “apparently they’re onto… our eavesdropping op. Running some kind of low budget counter-measures of their own. Yeah, you won’t believe this shit, but, we had voice-one, that’s their king; talking with… Bin Laden in Karachi. And of course we know he’s not in Karachi. And then we had voice-one talking to Zwarhiri in Bagdad…”

“No kidding.” “Yeah” says Croft “and… well, anyway, turns out they’re just cheap poor-quality recordings. But you don’t know that ‘til you’ve taken all the time to translate it, which takes forever. But you can imagine what our guys must have thought when they first heard that stuff. Anyway, we got voice-one talking to voice-two, that’s one of their agents here, or we think it is anyway; that we tracked to up there in Jersey about a week or so ago. But we got one talking to two in…Toronto now. But again, low-quality recording bullshit.”

“So… just a bunch of crap” says the veep. “Well… not, all of it” says Croft “we had… voice-three, that’s their little princess, talking to voice-one in London or somewhere. And of course we know, or knew, she was in Jersey, because she was spotted there, at the house where their agent was. But then just a little while ago, we got voice-three, the girl, calling home… from a McDonald’s in New York.”

“No shit” says the veep. “Yeah” says Croft “so… for whatever it’s worth, that’s about it.” “Okay, thanks.” “Yeah” says Croft “sorry, there isn’t more.” “Alright” says the veep, then “hey… wait a minute Jack, you still there?” “Yeah, I’m here.” “Say… who was on that house, in Jersey?” “Um… gosh, I dunno. One of… Hayden’s guys, I guess.” “No” says Myerinck “it wasn’t Hayden’s op. Someone was on the house, watching… voice-two, or whoever, the agent; and they spotted the girl there… and then…”

“Yeah, you’re right” says Croft “after the phone intercept, we put… Whitson… Bill Whitson, was there, surveilling the place. I’m sorry, I can’t think…” “It’s okay” says Myerinck “is… he still there, Whitson?” “Uh… I really don’t know. I’d have to check.” “Well, find out for me” says the veep “and… anyway, whatever, get some people over there. Keep an eye on that place, you know, just to cover our asses on this thing.” “Sure” says Croft “I’ll take care of it.” “Oh and… call me, if you hear anything.”

“You got it” says Croft, his mind about to go totally blank, yet wondering why first Hayden, and now the vice president, got such a… strange interest in some young girl from the middle of nowhere. Was she… maybe connected to that Pakistani physicist, who was selling all those nuclear plans? Or was there… really a Bin Laden connection? Ah hell no, this is all just stupid, far-fetched bullshit. He calls the New York office to get some people to go over there to Jersey and straighten things out. Then grabs a blanket and pillow and stretches out on the big leather couch to forget about all of it for awhile.

Andy leaves the alley going back through the little parking area. Then walks a few blocks over, circles around a few more blocks to come up on the other side. On the east side now of Smet’s house, facing the rear entrance from half a block away. With the bright sun to his back he looks through the binoculars to the house across the street from Smet’s. One of the windows on the second floor has a couple of flower pots out on the ledge, and in between them is a little glint of light, like reflecting off a small camera lens, or something.

That’s a lot easier, thinks Andy, instead of just staring out the window all the time, like in physical surveillance; you just mount a few cameras here and there, and then somebody can monitor all of them, from his easy chair in front of a computer screen. A lot more comfortable way to do things. He walks over and looks up the alley behind Smet’s house. There’s a utility pole for telephone or electrical or whatever, and up there near the top, appears to be another little camera mounted, giving you a view of the back of the house at the same time. Very convenient, he thinks, just one guy from one spot can see everything all at once. Sit there, have a cup of coffee, eat pizza; even put it on recording for when you wanna go to the bathroom or something. Pretty easy stuff, maybe even make you lazy, who knows. He takes the long way around and then finally back to the car.

A few blocks away there’s a small shopping area, a mostly Arabic neighborhood from the lettering on the signs, but there’re also Hispanics and blacks going in and out of the little mom and pop grocery stores and newsstands, and so forth. Andy parks the car and goes into what looks to be the busiest of the little stores. “Are there any apartments for rent around here” he asks the man at the counter. The man looks at his face and clothes “no” he says “no places for rent here.”

“I’m from Bosnia” says Andy “and I need a place to stay.” “No places here” says the man again. “Well how about… someone I could call, get in touch with. Someone who might know of a place.” The man writes a number on a piece of paper and hands it to him. Andy goes back to the car and writes down the phone number of the store on the back of the paper the man had given him. Then drives back to the hotel. It’s a lot quicker than the subway trip was. He parks in the ramp on the other side of the wide streets.

Back in the room, Smet’s watching the news, reading the paper. Finishing a take out meal he’s gotten from the McDonald’s. “You doing okay” asks Andy. “Yeah, these chicken strips are really good, tasty, juicy. Got sweet and sour sauce, barbecue; some crispy fries and ketchup; even the coffee’s pretty good. Sure feels good to eat something again, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” “So how’d it go?” asks Smet “I see you made it back alive anyway, so…” Andy sits down in a chair across from the old man, trying to figure a way to explain things to his boss. He’s waiting for an answer but Andy decides to get a coke from the fridge, then lights up a cigarette. “So?” asks the old man. “So… I gotta think about for awhile, okay. But, uh, what’s… all in the news, anyway.”

“Oh, you should see” says Smet “they got pictures of that guy, killed up in Westchester. Some sort of big shot in the government… died in a furnace explosion, they say. Can you imagine that? Oh and, they got us, in the paper too. Apparently some kids took… their grandfather… from his bed, right out of his hospital room. Here look.”

He shows Andy the story buried the back pages of the big thick newspaper. There’re even artist’s sketches of the old man and the three kids, with sweatshirt hoods over their heads and winter scarves around their faces. The sketch of the old man sort of resembles a cadaver on an examination table. “Jeez” says Andy “why even bother. These could be anybody, anyone on the planet.”

“Yeah I know” says Smet “but think about it; to Efrin and the folks back home, reading this on the internet, or whatever. They can put all that together, all the pieces. See what we been doing, without us even telling ‘em.” “Yeah, but if they could, so could anybody else.”

“Nah” says Smet “listen… if anybody else knew, actually knew, who was at the house, or at that hospital, they’d lock down the city. Cops checking every entrance and exit; airports, rail, everything, everywhere. They’re always very heavy-handed that way. Very… overkill, you know, swat teams kicking down doors, always. Never subtle or try to sneak up and catch you on the sly. They’d check every hotel room, every car, round up all the usual suspects, all that sort of thing.”

“Well they know Maria. That’s for sure. And look, if they got photos of every one of us, from your house, coming and going… then why not, slap those all over the news. I mean… bad as those sketches are, you could probably… superimpose our photos over them, and get a pretty good match.” “Maybe yes, maybe no” says Smet. “But... if the only people running that op, were the guys at the house; then…well, maybe there’s no one left to say anything.”

Andy thinks about it for a moment; but it doesn’t seem very clear. Why would… a top-ranking government official, undersecretary of something or other; be running some kind of wildcat operation, with nobody else in on it. It just doesn’t make any sense. “Listen” says Smet “the Americans got… a lot of shit on their plate. Not just us, little tiny Malvia, to worry about. We’re a big deal, to you and me. But to them, maybe we’re just back-burner stuff. And if the one hand has no idea what the other is doing, then maybe it gets lost in the shuffle, for awhile anyway. Sure, they’ll sort it out eventually. But by that time, we’ll be long gone.”

“I dunno” says Andy, trying to follow the old man’s reasoning, and seeing holes in it every step of the way. “They sure are keeping a low profile on it, anyway. “Well, I been watching the tv” says Smet. “Tomkin and everybody else are just repeating that same party line, like trained monkeys. All about that tragic furnace explosion. And at one point, they even mentioned the hospital. Said it had nothing to do with anything. Just some of the weird shit that happens in a big city from time to time.”

Andy runs it all through his head, and none of it adds up. Smet is ever the optimist, seeing only thing’s breaking their way all the time. But that’s… just too many coincidences, too much luck. And you can’t always get by with your eyes closed, just hoping for dumb luck all the time.

Bill Whitson’s thinking along those same lines. But with a lot bleaker view of things, back in his dark little room staring at his split-screen computer across the street from Smet’s house in Jersey. His burning ears about as red as his bloodshot eyes. He’s been on post for days now. All alone since that asshole Hayden showed up with a bunch of young tough guys, yelling instructions and giving orders that didn’t make any sense, to him anyway.

It was a simple op at first; simple and straightforward. Track this old guy, some slow-footed old dinosaur from some little nowhere country. But for some odd reason the old guy has phone contacts with the king of that little nowhere place. So… he tracks the calls, charts the voice, tracks the cell phone; finds a location to watch the guy. It’s all good work, hard work, but a good decent op. All properly filed, reported, up-channeled, like it’s supposed to be, no problem. The old guy turns out to be nobody, or with no identity match anyway. He’s traveled a lot, mostly eastern Europe; got a number of passports with different names, no doubt an agent of some sort; but nobody knows him or what he’s up to.

Then this little girl shows up with a couple of other kids. So what, take the photos, send the reports. Nothing on the others either; but the girl’s some kind of goddamned princess or something. Jesus, what the fuck’s she doing here. Next thing y’know y’got this fucking crazy man, Hayden, with his big loud mouth and fancy suit, yelling orders, changing the whole operation; like he’s bigger than all that. No more reports without his say so. Everything top secret now, hushed.

Then, that one thing that really makes Whitson wanna bend over and puke his guts out, sending up phony stuff. Saying ‘no change in status, nothing to report’ just routinely updating the ops center... with lies. That’s criminal stuff, go to jail for that. And it’s not fair… to order somebody to do that. But he went along with it anyway, goddamnit. Hayden had bullied him into it. Then… when they all went out on that snatch and grab op…

Well, that was kind of fun, like being in on the big play; like maybe it was gonna pay off, make a name for yourself, get a medal or something, who knows. But now what. That little motherfucker got himself killed, good for him; but now what; stop lying, keep lying, what. There’s no way out.

Whitson knows what’s going on. Maybe he’s the only one who does. He knows the players, or their faces anyway. Even matched them up to that hospital thing; saw that in the paper, where the cop car was blown up and all; but he hasn’t reported it. Every time he reaches for the phone, or even looks at the goddamn thing… he thinks of Hayden’s direct order - no upchanneling information “goddamnit don’t even think about it” without his approval.’

And all of what he has sent up, is bogus stuff, lies, to his superiors. So now what; who’s gonna make the car payment, the kids’ tuition, with him in jail. Well, shit; maybe it’ll all blow over somehow; if y’just wait it out. No that’s not gonna happen. His ass is fried, no matter how it sorts out. Hayden had ordered him to lie. Hayden is dead. So nobody knows about that order. Now he’s sitting on all the key pieces; just sitting on them, and his ass is fried; and what can you do.

Fucking little Malvian spies, what are they even doing here. Well they’d killed that son of a bitch Hayden, had t’give ‘em credit for that. Who’d’ve ever thought… well, maybe he can go there, take the wife and kids and move to Malvia, wherever the hell that is. Maybe they can use an unemployed surveillance man. Or hell, maybe he can get a milk cow, out in the countryside. Kids can herd goats, or whatever they do in that little country.