Decency (18 page)

“Good enough. Let’s start there. What Bonnie tells me is that the NSA regards just about anything you learn in the course of your job, whether it’s classified or not, as something they can fire you for telling. Is that your belief?”

“Absolutely. Under their edicts, saying the color of the headquarters building is bluish-green is a firing offense, even though you can plainly see it as you’re driving by on Highway 32.”

“We’ll just leave it up to you for now to tell us what you can. First of all, could you give us a bit of your background, if you would please.”

“I’m bred and born American. My father, an Air Force pilot, met my mother at an RAF base near Glasgow where he was an exchange officer. They married and moved to Boston when he left the service, which is where I was born. Mother became terribly home sick. They moved back, and settled in Glasgow, which is where I grew up. I studied languages and graduated university, at Glasgow, with a degree in Russian. After knocking about a while, I took up teaching Russian here in America, at Catholic University in Washington. I took the government proficiency tests and after a brief spell at the State Department, wound up at NSA twelve years ago.”

“So you are a Russian linguist with NSA?”

“You can infer what you like, that’s something I’m unable to confirm to you now.”

“Hmmm. Okay. What brought you into the psychological evaluation process?”

“You’ve heard of sexual harassment? Well, I was accused of that. Complete rubbish. I had asked a female co-worker out once. She refused. A short time later, I was notified of a complaint lodged against me. She claimed I was constantly asking her for dates, always ogling her, and generally making things uncomfortable for her. I denied it. So, of course, they ordered me to psychological evaluation, to determine if I was some kind of aggressive personality, or otherwise unreliable to suspend my clearance.”

“Excuse me. Just because you had a sexual harassment complaint made against you they referred you to psych eval?”

Thompson looked startled. “Ms. Hawkins, you really don’t know much about NSA. Doing a mental on you is their knee-jerk reaction. In one sense, you can understand it. They have to be paranoid about security. But the way it works in reality is whenever they want to start you on the way out, for whatever reason, that’s what they do.”

“But if it’s a legitimate evaluation, nothing would come of it. You’d be cleared by the psychologist.”

Now he looked weary and impatient. “Think what you like. I’m telling you what I know. Any psychologist worth his salt can find something. Just like any lawyer worth his salt can figure out something to sue for.”

“All right, what happened in your case?”

“They said I was passive-aggressive. They suspended my clearance. They notified me of pending termination. If two of my colleagues hadn’t stepped forward and said I was the most reliable person they’d ever worked with, they would have fired me. The hearing board determined I was sufficiently reliable and referred me back to management.”

“So, the system worked in your case.”

The blue eyes flashed in anger. “If you call being falsely accused, falsely labeled passive-aggressive, and allowed to stay only because two other people risked their jobs, and being dead ended career-wise the ‘system working,’ then I suppose you could say it did.”

“Mr. Thompson, I’m sorry. I had to ask you that. Genuine anger is a good thing here. What happened then?”

“Well, to smooth things over, the agency transferred me to a different section and promoted the woman who complained.”

Excitement, however slight built. His experience with psychological evaluation was the kind of corroboration that could support the case.

“Mr. Thompson, what you’ve told us about the automatic use of psych evals could be very useful evidence to us. If we find that we can use it, would you be willing to testify to what you’ve told us.”

“No, I would not.”

The shock must have been apparent. “They will retaliate. I’ve worked hard to get back into their good graces so I can hope for a promotion. If I did what you’re asking, at very best I would simply never be promoted. I would be given less and less responsibility. Eventually, if I didn’t quit, they would find a way to show lack of performance or maybe a more serious ‘psychological’ problem and get me out the door.”

“Why would you want to stay or, better still, why do you stay?”

“So far as I can tell, there’s no market for Russian linguists, at least not a well-paying market. I have twelve years invested towards retirement that I can’t responsibly throw away and a family to protect, a family I did not have when I asked the co-worker out. And, I’m an older white male. We used to joke about petitioning EPA for endangered species status. My options are limited.”

“One more question. How did you get hooked up with the whistleblowers group? So far you haven’t said anything about making any kind of complaint.”

“Oh, I did. I made a formal complaint under the agency’s system. I thought I could make it right. I tried to get them to see that false sexual harassment allegations were a real threat to the morale. I tried to get them to see that jerry-rigged mental evaluations were no good to them and destructive to the employee. I thought that the result of my case, keeping me, would show them they allowed things to get too far along before false allegations and false psych eval findings were corrected. They looked at it, or said they did. They politely informed me there was no quote, ‘substantial basis sufficient to warrant further action’ unquote. A white-wash. I was pretty devastated. I just looked for support and ended up finding it in the whistleblowers group. And it does help. After all, you’re here and listening to me.”

“All right, Mr. Thompson, I think you may have sufficient reason to seek legal counsel. If we agree to act as your attorneys you have confidentiality for what you tell us, will you tell us further details?”

The man answered without the slightest hesitation.

“Yes, I would. But understand, I still cannot disclose classified information to you unless you have the proper clearances.”

“Fair enough. We will act as your attorneys to determine whether you have a basis to make claims. Now, can you tell us who you are and what details you may have left out.”

“My name is Duncan Richardson. I am a Russian linguist employed by NSA and everything I have told you is the absolute truth. The more important information, that I haven’t told you, is that I am personally aware of five instances of employees at NSA being forced into psychological evaluations as a device for getting rid of them.”

“That could be invaluable, Mr. Richardson. Would you be in a position to testify?”

“Oh no, I’m sorry, no. What I said before about being unable to stand the retaliation is still true. You would have to keep my identity a secret from the court. I just can’t let the government know.”

“It might be possible to keep your identity secret. But I can’t give you that assurance now.”

“Well, again, I’m sorry. Mrs. Hawkins, you just don’t know what kind of people you’re dealing with.”

“Why do you say that?”

Richardson looked at each of them for a long moment. Something, fear or shame but something deep, appeared to grip him.

“I knew people who crossed swords with the agency who died. It could happen to me.”

His eyes darted back and forth, his knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his chair, and he almost cowered like a lamb from an unseen wolf.

“Who, what are their names?”

“I only knew the name of one of them, Carl Foley. The other was a woman, a computer scientist. The agency let people think the indications were possibly suicide or natural causes. I just don’t believe either one was at all unhappy or prone to suicide. I used to see them every day, or almost.”

“Mr. Richardson, what you’ve told us helps a lot. I think we can let you go for now. We will need to have complete information on how to contact you.”

“Sure. Just don’t discuss anything of substance on the phone.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s very simple. If they want to, they can listen. That’s all I can tell you.”

In the car, Bonnie spoke first. “I don’t quite know what to say. I believe the man. But I don’t
want
to believe him. If what he says is true…”

“I know what you mean. Like looking over the edge of the universe isn’t it?”

“Abe, I have to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“I just want you to know we ran into something that may put the firm at risk.”

Abe’s radar went up when Kelly said that.

He stiffened and, wary as a mountain lion, said, “Like what?”

“We found an NSA employee who says the agency will retaliate for disclosing that they use psych evals to get rid of people. But he also said the NSA can listen to our phone conversations if they want to. We certainly can’t have the privacy of the firm’s phone conversations compromised.”

“I said before that NSA has the capability. The question is whether they would want to. That takes us back to the need to upgrade our security.”

“Abe, I’m of a mind to go ahead with this matter. But I don’t want to have any of the partners feel like I blind-sided them with these potential problems if it turns out badly.”

Abe pulled a file from the stack on his desk.

“Kelly, I retrieved some of my notes on the business of whistleblowing. Some of it comes from the hearing reports on the whistleblower statute and some from newspaper accounts.”

He flipped through several sheets before coming to what he was looking for.

“Here we are. Let’s see…

“General Motors retaliated against Ralph Nader for raising the Corvair concerns by investigating his life…

“Kerr-McGee retaliated against Karen Silkwood for trying to bring up employees exposed to plutonium at the Cimarron plant in Oklahoma…

“The Air Force fired William Fitzgerald for pointing out cost overruns on the C-5…

“Brown and Williamson published results of investigating Jeffrey Wigand’s private life after he said the tobacco companies were manipulating nicotine content in cigarettes…

“The NRC attacked Bob Pollard, a project manager at the Indian Point nuclear plant, for raising the same kinds of issues that later led to the Three Mile Island disaster…

“Morton Thiokol acquiesced to NASA the night before the Challenger launch explosion, even though they first agreed with their engineer, Roger Boisjoly, that the o-rings were not safe in cold weather, and then later shunned him.

“More recently, there’s Kathleen Willey…

“I have a few more examples, but those make the point.”

Abe put down the file and removed his glasses.

“Kelly, the point is it goes with the territory. And as you reminded me, labeling people mentally deficient, in order to get rid of them, is something we just can’t ignore and call ourselves a law firm. But the risk has to be reasonable.”

“Thanks. Your support means a lot.”