leaned back in his chair and said, "No, this is not right. This is very stupid. Tigerman and Hirschfield stopped talking to me months ago. I am a pariah in Washington." He laughed again.
"All right. If you didn't kidnap the major, who did?"
"I believe that is your problem, Colonel."
"Is it? Then why did she write your name in her blood?" Another short scoot.
"I really have no idea," he replied, and we stared at each other a moment.
I knew this man was a liar and a cheat, and I shouldn't believe a word that came from his fat lips. Not his denial about murdering Cliff Daniels, or about kidnapping Bian, but I did. That left open the issues of who did kill Cliff and who took Bian, but as he said, that was not his problem; it was mine.
I mean, he had already confessed he was a liar, that he had betrayed his pals in Washington, and that he was willfully consorting with Iran, our presumptive enemy. On second thought, confession was the wrong word; he was bragging. He was enjoying himself, looking an American officer in the eye and boasting openly and freely about how smart he was, and how deeply and easily he screwed the big, powerful USA, and his enemies in the CIA.
And why not? He thought he was talking to a dead man. Which reminded me, and I took another short scoot closer to his desk, and to his gun. But he quickly picked up the pistol and asked in a coldly reasonable tone, "Do you really think I am so stupid I haven't noticed you doing that? Back away."
Whoops. I backed away.
But it seemed our conversation was drawing to a close, because he sort of summarized our situation, saying, "So, you and I, we seem to be at a crossroad. I do not have this major you want, and you have this computer that is very troubling to me."
"And you have the gun."
"Yes, that also." He leaned toward me and asked, "If I asked you where this computer is, can I trust you to tell me the truth?"
"Can I trust you not to shoot me afterward?"
I saw that his finger was back inside the trigger guard. He was too preoccupied with his own thinking to answer my question--actually, I knew the answer--and he leaned farther forward and began sharing his own thoughts. He said, "Of course, only you and this missing major know where Cliff's computer is located. Now she has been kidnapped, and of course, this is Iraq--forgive me if this sounds cruel-- she is as good as dead." He paused very briefly and then said, "So . . . if you are dead, too, nobody will find this computer."
I was afraid he would put that together. Looking like a man who was happy with his own reasoning, he aimed the pistol at my chest, and his finger began to squeeze.
I quickly said, "Well . . . maybe I wasn't completely forthcoming about the computer."
The pistol didn't go down, but neither did it go off.
I told him, "When I said I have the computer, I meant the Agency has the computer."
"So you lied. It is not . . . hidden?"
"That depends on your definition of hidden." Actually, it was hidden from me; that's a pretty good definition.
He asked, "And what is your definition?"
"It's in the possession of my boss, who works directly for the Director. Only three or four people have read the messages, or know about them, including the Director."
I was telling the truth, of course, but he looked a little surprised, and also a lot dubious. He asked, "If you lied to me once, why should I believe you now?" Then he answered his own question and said, "I think I will just kill you and take my chances."
"I thought you were smarter than that. You know, for instance, that your e-mails were professionally encoded. Do you really believe a couple of Army officers broke that code? It was a real ballbuster." I tried to remember some of John's technogibberish, and sort of mumbled, "VPN, and ISP protocols . . . firewalls layered upon firewalls . . ."
While he mulled this over, I said, "Kill me, and the deal will be off."
"You have never mentioned a deal."
"Well . . . the idea was that you and I would have a confidential discussion. This whole thing would be kept under wraps, and nobody would be the wiser."
He stared at me very intently with his