Classified Woman (7 page)
Authors: Sibel Edmonds
That night I lay awake and stared at the ceiling. The more I thought, the louder the alarm went off in my head. Waiting until Tuesday already was beginning to feel like weeks.
I went over their visit, just what had taken place.
Melek Can Dickerson had worked for ATC, ATAA, and before that, with these organizations’ counterpart in Germany. Individuals and entities within these organizations, including certain Americans, were directly involved in global criminal activities: nuclear black market, narcotics, and military and industrial espionage. These organizations and their players are not driven by any ideology or nationalistic objectives. To them this is business, and the highest bidder, regardless of nationality or ideology, gets the goods.
Douglas Dickerson was an air force major; he had above Top Secret Clearance. Was it possible he used his position and access to sensitive classified information in the Pentagon to provide criminal entities with desirable information, and in return got paid handsomely overseas and set himself up to retire to a lavish life?
In one visit, he had named at least three or four targets of FBI counterintelligence investigations as their “close friends and business associates.” Considering the importance and role of Turkic-speaking Central Asian countries in illegal activities carried out by these Turkish networks—and Dickerson’s position in a weapons procurement division of the Pentagon dealing specifically with Turkey and these countries—his value to these criminal entities would make perfect sense.
With her background and ongoing relationships with the primary targets, how did Jan Dickerson obtain Top Secret Clearance and get into the bureau’s most sensitive unit dealing with Turkish counterintelligence? As a translator, she could act as a valve, block information and intelligence from transmission, and meanwhile alert those targeted and tip them off.
Yet, I kept asking myself, why would the Dickersons risk recruiting me before checking me out thoroughly? And why would they risk even more by doing it in front of a witness—my husband—so boldly and without finesse?
Tuesday could not come soon enough.
On the following Tuesday morning, I arrived at work a little after 9:30. The first thing I did, even before signing in, was to turn on my computer and type a half-page report on the Dickersons’ visit. I would cover the details in person, with Feghali.
I knocked on his half-open door three times. “Oh,” he said, looking up. “Long time no see, Ms. Perfectionist, Ms. Bossy. What’s bringing you to my office today? What is it we’re doing wrong—or not right enough for your taste?”
I rolled my eyes and handed him the sheet. “This is urgent, Mike. I need to report a serious incident to you. You know the paper we sign … the one that says if we come across anything suspicious, if anyone tries to recruit us, we need to immediately notify FBI security and management? Well I’m here to report an incident like that. Am I in the right place, or should I just go directly upstairs to the personnel security division?”
He had already begun skimming my summary report. He motioned me to sit down while he continued to read. Then he asked what this was about. Recounting the exchange, I mentioned also the primary Turkish targets under Saccher’s CI unit (I wasn’t allowed to tell him more).
Feghali listened; then leaned back in his chair. “I’m sure you’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” he finally said. “Think about it, Sibel. The FBI spent months, if not years, checking out Melek’s background, her past, her previous employment, her family … if they—the experts, the investigators—have determined that she is fit to be cleared at Top Secret level, if they have decided that she is qualified to have clearance and work here, it means she is cleared and OK. You and I are no experts. Do you know how arrogant that sounds, questioning the experts’ and investigators’ judgment?”
Yes, perhaps; that was one of the questions I had been asking myself for the past two days: How could she get clearance and get in? “I know,” I said. “Believe it or not, I agree with your assessment. But what do you make of this? I mean, how could she be listening to people she used to work with, work for, and whom she still associates and socializes with? Also, her husband works with the ATC and is getting paid to do things for them, using his access and high-level position at the Pentagon. That’s odd; suspicious!”
“Look,” Feghali said, “the FBI had to check out their tax records and financial background; they had to interview her previous employers. If they said she is cleared at Top Secret level, I’d say she is; I wouldn’t question or doubt their word.”
I thought for a second. “What if she’s a mole for the FBI? What if she’s an informant? What if she’s a
spy
? That would explain why she’d be associating with the targets of our wiretap, right?”
Feghali shook his head. “This ain’t the CIA. Sibel, the FBI doesn’t operate that way. The informants are not allowed to work inside the agency, they’re kept outside. Only agents work undercover, not administrative personnel, translators…. I think Melek Dickerson is a fine woman. I don’t see any reason to suspect her or doubt her loyalties.”
“So should I go upstairs and report this to the Security Division, maybe even Saccher?”
“Oh no, that’s my job. I’ll take care of it. I’ll send a report to security, with a copy to Saccher’s division. In fact, I don’t want you to talk about this with anyone, including Saccher. I’ll take care of it myself; I’ll do it right away.”
I was satisfied with his response. I had given him a written memo, provided all the details verbally, and he would send a formal report to the appropriate parties, including Saccher. I thanked Feghali and left his office.
Toward the middle of December, right before Dickerson left for Turkey (she and her husband were spending their holiday season there), I had stayed late at the office to wrap up a few projects. I was busy typing up translations when Amin stopped by, holding in his weary hand a thick folder stuffed with paperwork.
I raised my head and smiled. “What’s up, Amin?”
He told me he was exhausted. (Amin was the most competent and savvy Farsi translator in the bureau; therefore, many high-level, demanding projects were assigned to him.) He had stayed late to scan paper-based work project orders and transmit them to HQ, a new procedure that still had more than a few glitches. Amin was the only person who was able to get it done right.
“The incompetent man, Feghali, gave me this thick folder with tons of documents and asked me to transmit them one by one to HQ,” he began. “Going through them, I came across several of yours that I couldn’t read or make out the handwriting in the sections you are supposed to fill out as the translator in charge of completing the project.”
He removed a few stacks and placed them on my desk. “Please be a doll and look at them and let me know what the codes and numbers are. I usually don’t have any problem reading yours, but somehow I couldn’t make these out.” He pointed to several documents.
I picked them up and started reading. I stopped short within the first few seconds. “Hey Amin, these are not mine. I have never seen them before. You must be mistaken.”
He bent over and turned the page. “Here it is, your initial, S.E., your last name at the bottom, and it is for the Turkish department; you are the only one who can initial and sign these, since the other two are only monitors.”
I grabbed the documents, pulled them out of his hand and started to read the forms. He was right. My initials and name were signed, yet neither was in my handwriting. “This is not my handwriting; someone forged my initials and signature on a document that was supposed to be translated by me, assigned to me. Oh shit!”
Amin too looked alarmed. “What were these about—the documents, the project?”
“I don’t know. The actual work—the original document in Turkish and any translation corresponding to that—was already sent to the requesting field office … let me look at it again.”
I went over every page. “Judging from the file number, it’s relevant to nine eleven operations. Also, the field filled out by the agent in charge indicates detainees of Turkish and Uzbek origin, that’s all. Oh, let’s see here … this was sent back to the requesting office together with the translation almost two weeks ago.”
“Which one do you suspect, Kevin or Dickerson?”
I already knew which one had done this but I wanted to make sure and to have another set of eyes confirming it. We pulled out Dickerson’s file, and checked the handwriting on the first document. Bingo!
“But it still doesn’t explain why she would do such a thing. This is forgery, for God’s sake; people go to jail for this.”
Then it struck me. “Oh my God! What if someone guilty was released based on what she sent? What if someone who
should have been released
was sent to jail based on what she did? What if it’s too late?”
There was nothing we could do at that late hour. I decided to wait until the following morning. Amin asked me to make sure to report the incident in writing.
The next morning I went directly to my desk, pulled out a copy of one of the forged signed documents and walked straight over to Dickerson. She pulled off her headset and smiled. “Hi, how are you doing? How is Matt?”
I wasn’t in the mood. “What the hell is this?” I smacked down the file. “You have some explaining to do—not only to me, but to the agent in that field office, Feghali, and the security office.”
She picked up the file and slowly turned its pages. “How did you get this? We sent this to the field office in New Jersey almost two weeks ago. Who gave you this?”
“
We?
What do you mean
we?
First of all, you’re not a translator. You’re a monitor and cannot perform verbatim translations and send them to agents in Counterterrorism without my review. Second, forgery is a crime. How dare you forge my signature and initials on something I haven’t even seen? Why did you do this, Jan?”
She coolly stared at me. “
We
means Feghali and me. First: because you’re here only on a part-time basis and are not available every day. Second: Feghali has decided that I no longer need your approval and signature. He has given me authority to do all translations. I mean
everything
.”
I sighed. “Stop the BS. Feghali cannot do that. But let’s say he did; then why wouldn’t you sign
your
name on it? Why would you forge my name, initials and signature?”
She pushed the file back at me. “Here, go and settle it with Feghali. He’s the guy in charge, and he decided to do it this way. Plus, what’s the big deal? Why would you care about what was translated or mistranslated on some Uzbek and Turkish detainees out in New Jersey? You shouldn’t concern yourself with things like that. Just let it go. That’s my recommendation.”
I went back to my desk and wrote a short memo describing what had occurred and the documentation backing it up. I first e-mailed it to Feghali, and later shoved a folder containing the memo and a copy of the documents with forged signatures under his closed door. He was on vacation.
I stopped by Kevin’s desk and told him what had occurred with the documents. Kevin commented in Turkish, “I would watch out for this woman. There is something seriously wrong with her. I was talking about it with Behrooz the other day, since both of us were there when she took the documents out.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kevin looked surprised. “Oh, Behrooz didn’t tell you? I noticed Dickerson at Omi’s desk [the Hebrew translator who had raised hell over his work being sabotaged]; she opened his bottom drawer and pulled out several thick files; then she bent over and put the entire stack inside her duffel bag, the one she always brings in with her. I nudged Behrooz and pointed it out to him. He almost fainted. Haven’t you noticed? She always walks in with that shriveled empty duffel bag; but watch her when she gets out: the bag is full and fat!”
I hadn’t noticed. I never paid attention to the comings and goings of people in our unit. There are no security checks for the translators entering and leaving the FBI building. Of course, anyone who wanted to could take out a suitcase full of documents and it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. I wondered why she, Dickerson, would steal documents from the Israeli Counterintelligence Desk.
I asked Kevin if he had reported it. “Of course not,” he replied. “None of my business. I don’t care. I’m just telling you that she is strange. Something is seriously wrong with this woman.”
I double-checked with Behrooz; he confirmed the story. I wrote another memo to Feghali reporting the incident, and e-mailed that one too. Things seemed to be piling up with Dickerson. I thought about what Feghali had told me, his attempt to reassure me. Now I wasn’t reassured at all.
On the third day of January I was hard at work when Dickerson stopped by my desk holding a legalsize sheet of paper.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began. “We—the three of us, you and I and Kevin—have been randomly reviewing and translating the incoming intelligence related to these targets.” She placed the paper in front of me. “This is not the most efficient way. Instead of doing it this way, we should divide these targets into three groups, and have each group of targets assigned to one of us. This way we will each have a group of targets we regularly monitor and translate.”
The crude, hand-drawn chart showed a list of our counterintelligence target ID numbers—more than twenty IDs—divided into three separate groups. The first had an arrow pointing to her name: Melek Can Dickerson; the second had a similar arrow pointing to my name; and the third pointed to Kevin’s. I shook my head dismissively. “We don’t make the rules on this; Saccher’s department is in charge of this. You should be talking to him.”
“Why should this be Saccher’s business? His objective is to get the translated intelligence; it doesn’t make any difference who is doing which target. I believe this will make everything easier and more efficient—”
Reaching for my headset, I repeated, “If he decides to do it, I’ll have no problem. Just go and see him to discuss this. He’s the agent in charge of this counterintelligence operation.”
Dickerson slammed her hand down on my headset. “Why are you being so difficult? I’ve discussed this with Kevin and he agrees with me; we’ve already divided the lines between the two of us. Saccher doesn’t give a shit about how we do things here; he’s not even allowed to come into the unit without us escorting him. He’s irrelevant. I don’t want you to go over these targets randomly.”
Suddenly it hit me. I grabbed the page and looked at it again, this time carefully. Based on Dickerson’s division, she would be in charge of a group that included our top two targets—our primary targets, per Saccher. Interestingly enough, both targets were among those the Dickersons had named during their visit to our house, including the colonel, her former boss and the man they visited every week and shopped for at the bakery in Alexandria. She was trying to shield them from us, from the FBI.
I stood and faced her. “I’ll go and talk with Kevin myself, alone!”
Dickerson took two steps and blocked me. “I know this is not the career you want to pursue, Sibel. Just do what I asked you to do—a simple request. Why would you want to put yourself in danger by getting in the way?”
“What?” I snapped. “What did you say?”
She stepped aside and let me pass. “I’ll take this to Mike Feghali. He’s the supervisor; he will decide.”
I took long strides to Kevin’s station. He looked up and greeted me in Turkish. I waved the paper in front of him. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about? You and Dickerson divide targets and rewrite Saccher’s rules and procedures?”
Kevin looked at the paper, then opened his drawer and pulled out a sheet identical to the one I was holding, in Dickerson’s handwriting. “Yesterday she came to me and gave me this.” He handed me the page. “She said it was your idea, that you’d already agreed this was the best way. So I said OK.”
I grabbed a chair and dragged it over. I sat and leaned to face him head on. “Kevin, you were right the other day when you said that she was a dangerous woman. I think she’s more dangerous than you think.” I told him about the Dickersons’ visit to my house and the forged signatures.
Kevin paled. “What are we going to do? What if she gives our names and contact information to the targets? I have family back in Turkey; you do too. What we know can get us killed over there. Why would they let her work here, knowing her history and associates?”
I told him I’d given everything to Feghali, that he’d reported it to the security division and Saccher’s unit, and that I hadn’t heard anything from either. “Mike instructed me not to mention the report and let him handle it.” I paused. Now we had to report this incident, Dickerson’s attempt to shield targets. I assured him I would file a report with the unit supervisor; that “someone will get to the bottom of this.”
I went back to my desk to write the memo, placed it inside a legalsize envelope with copies of Dickerson’s handwritten instructions and sealed it. Then I went to see Feghali in his office. The door was closed. Fifteen minutes later, it was still closed.
I had to leave, so I brought the package to Kevin for him to drop off. I mentioned that Feghali had been in a closed-door meeting for more than an hour.
Kevin pointed to Dickerson’s vacant station. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”
I didn’t know what to say. “Give him the package before he leaves. If you can’t, lock it up in your drawer, and I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” I handed him the envelope and left him looking nervous.
That evening, Kevin called. He had waited until 6:30, he said, but Feghali was still in his office with Dickerson when he left. “I even wiggled the doorknob; he had the door locked. I could hear them whispering inside…. What time will you be in tomorrow?” I told him I would be there by ten. The situation was getting out of control; I decided to contact Saccher if this continued.
The next morning I arrived at ten o’clock sharp. I always started off the day by going through my e-mails and phone messages. Almost immediately, Kevin appeared at my desk, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked as though he hadn’t slept at all.
As we talked, I glanced at my screen and scanned e-mails. There was one from Feghali, sent the previous evening at 6:41 p.m., addressed to Kevin, Dickerson and me. “After reviewing your workload and projects under Saccher’s Counterintelligence division,” it began, “I’ve decided to divide the targets among the three of you, permanently. This will increase the efficiency of processing these lines.” Beneath this he listed the target ID numbers and the name of the translators assigned to them. I unlocked my drawer and pulled out Dickerson’s handwritten instruction: Feghali’s division scheme was identical to it. As a postscript, Feghali added, “Please do NOT discuss this with Special Agent Dennis Saccher. This decision does not concern him and I forbid you to discuss this with anyone but me. Also, from this point on you shall not meet with SA Saccher without notifying me first.”
Kevin’s face drained of all color. “Shit; I knew she had gotten to him. She’s been working on him since she arrived here…. Do you know how many behind-closed-door meetings they’ve had in the past month? Usually after hours? Shit!”
“I’ll give Feghali one more chance,” I replied. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll go to Saccher. Based on the bureau’s rules, Feghali is not even allowed to know about these targets, their names and their ID numbers …”
“Don’t underestimate Feghali,” Kevin said, deadly serious. “There are other things that you don’t know about, Sibel … let’s have coffee outside, I don’t want to talk about this here.”
I decided to hear Kevin out before giving Feghali the memo. When I got to the coffeehouse, Kevin was already there, looking rattled.
“Do you know how only agents are allowed to know and maintain informants’ and assets’ identities, contact information?”
I shook my head no. During my work I had not come across anything that involved procedures concerning FBI informants’ information, and wondered what this had to do with Feghali or Dickerson.
“Feghali has found a way to access that information,” Kevin continued. “I don’t know how. Also, according to Sarshar, Feghali has found a way to use and cash in on this information. Again, I don’t know how. I’m telling you what I’ve heard from several sources.” He went on to describe illegal transactions involving nepotism and other illicit activities, all of them disturbing. Kevin sounded afraid. He considered Feghali evil. “I won’t inform Saccher. I want to stay away from this shit.”
I looked him in the eye and told him he didn’t have a choice, that if we didn’t report this, we would be co-conspirators. “Like it or not, you’ve been exposed to this; you are a witness.” I sighed. “I’ll call Saccher tomorrow morning. This information on informants can be huge. Think about it: he could be selling that information to the targets. Do you know how much he can get for that—for ratting out FBI informants? Do you know that this can get some of these informants killed?!”
As I got up to leave, Kevin said he wanted to wait a few minutes; he didn’t want us to be seen together by Feghali.
What a paranoid chicken!
I thought. That was then.
When I got to my desk, my phone light was blinking: voice mail. As if connected telepathically, Saccher had left a message, asking me to meet him about something urgent the following morning at nine sharp. Now that was Karma! I thought about Feghali’s warning,
You are not allowed to meet with your case agent, Saccher, without notifying me first
. I shrugged and mumbled to myself, “Screw you, Feghali; you and the Dickersons are about to be exposed.”