The Night Letter

Chapter 38

Chapter 38

After Phenisee made his decision that satisfied no one, few would have suspected that he suffered the most from it. The uncertainty of it all wore at him. An under reaction could leave them in danger, an over reaction risked looking like amateurish guesswork. He was haunted by the men he had lost in Khost. What mistake had that been? What could be learned from it? Or was it just operational risk? He kept going back to it. Surely there most be something to salvage from such a catastrophic loss.

He didn't get very far in this meditation when Cindy burst into his office.

"Have you seen this bullshit? More catch and release. It's a disgrace; the interrogators can't do their jobs," she said, throwing down a report on his desk. He picked it up but didn't really look at it.

"Can you hum a few bars?"

"Malawi Abdul Omari! Captured only ten days ago and just released. Another high value objective wasted," she said but Phenisee was already nodding his head.

"Yes, yes, yes." He knew all about it. He knew that Omari was a sometime asset for another agency and that probably had something to do with his release and he knew that Cindy knew it, too. He couldn't understand why she was getting upset about it.

"I've already drafted a very angry e-mail. Don't worry, I haven't sent it yet, haven't even filled out the address block but if this goes on I might just hit send. And then resign!" Cindy continued. She would not be consoled but he still didn't understand why. This was a minor disappointment probably adding up to nothing. They talked some more then he dismissed her with a smile on her face and he was left with the impression that she had been trying to distract him from his morbid obsession. The work doesn't stop, the administrative machine needs oil. He appreciated her for things like that. But he would follow up the thoughts he had started. Anyway, the administrative part of the job was his least favorite.

He was at the age when he had to ask himself why he was still doing this. His balance sheet was enviable. He could afford to retire. Most people spoke of getting that last kid through college or saving for the catastrophic expense that might lurk somewhere in the future. It was true, he did have a child in college but if the money did not come from him it likely could have been found somewhere else and the price of tuition was not enough to repair the relationship with his child, anyway. He had a wall full of awards and citations, most of them meaningless, that other people might have been satisfied with. He had his memories of being right often enough he hoped they would not interfere with his sleep at night when doubt threatened to make an insomniac out of him. But retirement could also mean years of replaying every misstep and bad break of his career over and over again. He would remember the victories, too but those didn't make the mistakes hurt any less. For people in his position it was impossible to know how you would remember a career until was already in the past.

It was like a refusal to surrender a lover to someone else's care even when a relationship had turned sour because you simply didn't trust anyone else to do a good a job with it, even after all your own mistakes. He had to see this one through to the end. Maybe then he would reconsider retirement but he doubted it. There were people whose careers he was cultivating. He had to protect his investments. The voices inside the heads of the people he passed in the hallway everyday were as audible to him as if spoken, as if shouted, "is he rising or is he falling? Should I follow or clear out before he crashes and brings me down with him?" He knew the consequences of sticking around too long but he still lifted his stiffening bones out of bed every morning to face them.

In his hand he held a freshly printed inspector general announcement letter. Not even Cindy knew about this. He had just gotten it himself. Only the directorate heads got the original and then forwarded it to concerned parties. He had just received the forward but it contained no text, just the signature block and the attached letter. The date on the letter was over a week ago. Headquarters had known about it and said nothing. Surely they had discussed it among themselves but had excluded him over the course of how many teleconferences? He liked the buffer that the time difference offered between him and Washington but there were traps in it. Removed from political maneuvering, his proximity to the rising sun as well as to events of actual importance often provided him a vital half step lead but there was no way he could make up the difference when they withhold information from him for a week. He wondered why the secrecy but did not discount the possibility that no great importance adhered to the announcement of an IG inspection and it had simply escaped comment. That was plausible except the timing of it could not have been worse. The base was under threat; didn't the IG know they would just be getting in the way? A request for delay would smell to them like blood in the water. Was the inspection because of the threat? No one mentioned an inspection in association with the annual plan but of course he had not read the annual plan. He did not think the IG would waste a trip only for him. They were probably looking at the entire HUMINT platform from Mazar to Kandahar and Herat to J-Bad. Did anyone else in country know about this? Were they blind copied?

The single page letter flopped in his hand like the wing of a dead bird and he scarcely referred to it knowing from past experience announcement letters said little. In ordinary times an inspection would be nothing to worry about. But he thought he might have reason to worry now. He felt the first flutters of doubt weeks ago, before there was a specific threat of attack. He had wanted to look into it even as he felt the trepidation of what he might find. Then, with the the talk of an imminent attack, his focus shifted. No operation was ever perfect and the things that troubled him were incidental to the mission. Now that he was being inspected he couldn't afford to pick and choose his concerns. He had to consider everything, every fault and vulnerability, and guess where the IG would look and if he would have enough time to fix or bury a problem before they found it. He did not think force protection would be an issue for him. He had followed all procedures. The important decisions got made over his head and he just implemented them. If the situation deteriorated much he would surely take some blame for it. That was partly his function. But the people whose opinions counted would know he had done all he could do and would protect him. There were too many plaudits to win to consider suspending the mission, even temporarily.