people with their hands in the same cookie jar, once we walk into Hirschfield's or Tigerman's office, the shit could hit the fan. After that, there's no turning back."
"Well . . . how far are you from retirement?"
"Your problem's bigger than mine. I at least have a boss who might run a little interference for me." Or might not.
"I'm an Asian-American woman with a military academy degree, and fluency in three languages. Corporate quota hunters have sticky dreams about people like me. You, on the other hand, are an average white male with a law degree." She smiled. "Worry about yourself."
"I love America."
We lapsed back into thoughtful silence. I pulled into North Parking at the Pentagon. It was 6:15, well into happy hour, and I had no trouble finding a parking space close to the building. I turned off the ignition, and we got out and began our trek up the long walkway.
"As a matter of interest," Bian asked as we walked, "Ollie and Bud? What happened to them?"
"Ollie was slick and managed to spin it to become a hero to conservatives. He was canonized, the good Marine doing his best for the nation he adores. It helped that it was heartfelt, I think. So he got the usual raw deal accorded to disgraced officials: a radio show and a fortune from books and the speech circuit."
"And Bud?"
"Yes, Bud. He went home one night and ate a bottle of pills." I allowed her a moment to think about that, then said, "Happy ending. He was discovered before it was too late. The point is, in Washington even well-intended people can do bad things."
"But there's a larger moral here, isn't there?"
I nodded.
"You're using this story as a parable. Cliff is one of those two guys."
Right again.
She said, "You're telling me he was swept up in something, something bigger than him, something more complicated than he could fathom."
"Eight points. Go for the full ten."
We walked in silence for a few minutes. Eventually Bian understood the real significance, and she asked, "But how did Cliff respond--like Ollie, or like Bud? That's the question, isn't it?"
"Good. There's a big prize for the extra credit."
"From what we now know about Cliff, he was not like Bud. His life suggests Cliff was durable, resilient, a survivor. More Ollie than Bud. Right?"
I nodded.
"So you believe he was murdered."
I asked, "Do you have a firearm?"
"What does that--"
"Do you have a firearm?"
"Yes . . . in the safe. At work."
"Start carrying it."
CHAPTER TEN
Bian flashed her Department of Defense building pass and got us quickly past the security checkpoint and into the fluorescent bowels of the beast. Every time I enter this building I feel a flutter in my stomach; it's called panic. In civilian life, only two things are certain, death and taxes, whereas the career military officer faces a third, worse certainty: an assignment inside this building. I had so far managed to avoid this fate. So far. Yet, like bullets on the battlefield, I knew that somewhere inside the Pentagon was a desk with my name on it.
"My office is upstairs. Fifth floor," Bian informed me. "Mr. Waterbury asked me to check in before the interview."
"Let's not, and just say we did."
"He'll notice. He's sharper than you think."
"Fooled me."
She chuckled, and we kept walking.
In the eyes of the great American public, the Pentagon is a huge and confusing labyrinth that somehow burns through some four hundred billion dollars of taxpayer cash per year.
The building, however, in nearly every human and architectural sense, is amazing. There actually are tours, and the guides will inform you this is the earth's largest office structure, comprising some 6,636,360 square feet, occupying 29 acres, able to house about 23,000 workers, in varying levels of comfort and discomfort.
In short, it is a gigantic memorial to function over form, and incredibly, the entire thing was constructed in a sixteen-month span of hyper-frantic activity during the heyday of the Second World War, at the amazing price of less than fifty million bucks.
I once cited this remarkable statistic to a defense contractor pal. He laughed and commented, "Morons. We're gettin' ten times that just to refurbish the basement. And we stretch it out for years."
Other interesting esoterica--the building boasts some 284 rest-rooms, the world's largest collection of white porcelain bowls under one roof, over 2,000 freestanding commodes, and half as many wall-mounted urinals. Regarding this inviting statistic, I'll restrict myself to one useful observation: You would be an idiot to buy a home downstream.