The Broker (6 page)

Initially, Hubbard and Backman argued over the best way to market JAM. Hubbard wanted to peddle it to the Saudis, who, he was convinced, would pay $1 billion
for it. Backman had taken the rather provincial view that such a dangerous product should be kept at home. Hubbard was convinced he could cut a deal with the Saudis in which they would promise that JAM would never be used against the United States, their ostensible ally. Backman was afraid of the Israelis—their powerful friends in the United States, their military, and, most important, their secret spy services.

At that time Backman, Pratt & Bolling represented many foreign companies and governments. In fact, the firm was “the” address for anyone looking for instant clout in Washington. Pay their frightening fees, and you had yourself access. Its endless list of clients included the Japanese steel industry, the South Korean government, the Saudis, most of the Caribbean banking conspiracy, the current regime in Panama, a Bolivian farming cooperative that grew nothing but cocaine, and on and on. There were many legitimate clients, and many that were not so clean.

The rumor about JAM slowly leaked around their offices. It could potentially be the largest fee the firm had yet seen, and there had been some startling ones. As weeks passed, other partners in the firm presented varying scenarios for the marketing of JAM. The notion of patriotism was slowly forgotten—there was simply too much money out there! The firm represented a Dutch company that built avionics for the Chinese air force, and with that entrée a lucrative deal could be struck with the Beijing government. The South Koreans would rest easier if they knew exactly what was happening to the north. The Syrians would hand over their national treasury for the ability to neutralize Israeli military communications. A
certain drug cartel would pay billions for the ability to track DEA interdiction efforts.

Each day Joel Backman and his band of greedy lawyers grew richer. In the firm’s largest offices, they talked of little else.

______

THE
doctor was rather brusque and appeared to have little time for his new patient. It was, after all, a military hospital. With scarcely a word he checked the pulse, heart, lungs, blood pressure, reflexes, and so on, then from out of the blue announced, “I think you’re dehydrated.”

“How’s that?” Backman asked.

“Happens a lot with long flights. We’ll start a drip. You’ll be okay in twenty-four hours.”

“You mean, like an IV?”

“That’s it.”

“I don’t do IVs.”

“Beg your pardon.”

“I didn’t stutter. I don’t do needles.”

“We took a sample of your blood.”

“Yeah, that was blood going out, not something coming in. Forget it, Doc, I’m not doing an IV.”

“But you’re dehydrated.”

“I don’t feel dehydrated.”

“I’m the doctor, and I say you’re dehydrated.”

“Then give me a glass of water.”

Half an hour later, a nurse entered with a big smile and a handful of medications. Joel said no to the sleeping pills, and when she sort of waved a hypodermic he said, “What’s that?”

“Ryax.”

“What the hell is Ryax?”

“It’s a muscle relaxer.”

“Well, it just so happens that my muscles are very relaxed right now. I haven’t complained of unrelaxed muscles. I haven’t been diagnosed with unrelaxed muscles. No one has asked me if my muscles are relaxed. So you can take that Ryax and stick it up your own ass and we’ll both be relaxed and happier.”

She almost dropped the needle. After a long painful pause in which she was completely speechless, she managed to utter, “I’ll check with the doctor.”

“You do that. On second thought, why don’t you poke him in his rather fat ass. He’s the one who needs to relax.” But she was already out of the room.

On the other side of the base, a Sergeant McAuliffe pecked on his keyboard and sent a message to the Pentagon. From there it was sent almost immediately to Langley where it was read by Julia Javier, a veteran who’d been selected by Director Maynard himself to handle the Backman matter. Less than ten minutes after the Ryax incident, Ms. Javier stared at her monitor, mumbled the word “Dammit,” then walked upstairs.

As usual, Teddy Maynard was sitting at the end of a long table, wrapped in a quilt, reading one of the countless summaries that got piled on his desk every hour.

Ms. Javier said, “Just heard from Aviano. Our boy is refusing all medications. Won’t take an IV. Won’t take a pill.”

“Can’t they put something in his food?” Teddy said at low volume.

“He’s not eating.”

“What’s he saying?”

“That his stomach is upset.”

“Is that possible?”

“He’s not spending time on the toilet. Hard to say.”

“Is he taking liquids?”

“They took him a glass of water, which he refused. Insisted on bottled water only. When he got one, he inspected the cap to make sure the seal had not been broken.”

Teddy shoved the current report away and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The first plan had been to sedate Backman in the hospital, with either an IV or a regular injection, knock him out cold, keep him drugged for two days, then slowly bring him back with some delightful blends of their most up-to-date narcotics. After a few days in a haze, they would start the sodium pentothal treatment, the truth serum, which, when used with their veteran interrogators, always produced whatever they were after.

The first plan was easy and foolproof. The second one would take months and success was far from guaranteed.

“He’s got big secrets, doesn’t he?” Teddy said.

“No doubt.”

“But we knew that, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did.”

5

TWO OF JOEL BACKMAN’S THREE CHILDREN HAD
already abandoned him when the scandal broke. Neal, the oldest, had written his father at least twice a month, though in the early days of the sentence the letters had been quite difficult to write.

Neal had been a twenty-five-year-old rookie associate at the Backman firm when his father went to prison. Though he knew little about JAM and Neptune, he was nonetheless harassed by the FBI and eventually indicted by federal prosecutors.

Joel’s abrupt decision to plead guilty was aided mightily by what happened to Jacy Hubbard, but it was also pushed along by the mistreatment of his son by the authorities. All charges against Neal were dropped in the deal. When his father left for twenty years, Neal was immediately terminated by Carl Pratt and escorted from the firm’s offices by armed security. The Backman name was a curse, and employment was impossible around Washington. A pal from law school had an uncle who was a retired judge, and after calls here and there Neal landed
in the small town of Culpeper, Virginia, working in a five-man firm and thankful for the opportunity.

He craved the anonymity. He thought about changing his name. He refused to discuss his father. He did title work, wrote wills and deeds, and settled nicely into the routine of small-town living. He eventually met and married a local girl and they quickly produced a daughter, Joel’s second grandchild, and the only one he had a photo of.

Neal read about his father’s release in the
Post
. He discussed it at length with his wife, and briefly with the partners of his firm. The story might be causing earthquakes in D.C., but the tremors had not reached Culpeper. No one seemed to know or care. He wasn’t the broker’s son; he was simply Neal Backman, one of many lawyers in a small Southern town.

A judge pulled him aside after a hearing and said, “Where are they hiding your old man?”

To which Neal replied respectfully, “Not one of my favorite subjects, Your Honor.” And that was the end of the conversation.

On the surface, nothing changed in Culpeper. Neal went about his business as if the pardon had been granted to a man he didn’t know. He waited on a phone call; somewhere down the road his father would eventually check in.

______

AFTER
repeated demands, the supervising nurse passed the hat and collected almost three bucks in change. This was delivered to the patient they still called Major Herzog, an increasingly cranky sort whose condition was
no doubt worsening because of hunger. Major Herzog took the money and proceeded directly to the vending machines he’d found on the second floor, and there he bought three small bags of Fritos corn chips and two Dr Peppers. All were consumed within minutes, and an hour later he was on the toilet with raging diarrhea.

But at least he wasn’t quite as hungry, nor was he drugged and saying things he shouldn’t say.

Though technically a free man, fully pardoned and all that, he was still confined to a facility owned by the U.S. government, and still living in a room not much larger than his cell at Rudley. The food there had been dreadful, but at least he could eat it without fear of being sedated. Now he was living on corn chips and sodas. The nurses were only slightly friendlier than the guards who tormented him. The doctors just wanted to dope him, following orders from above, he was certain. Somewhere close by was a little torture chamber where they were waiting to pounce on him after the drugs had worked their miracles.

He longed for the outside, for fresh air and sunshine, for plenty of food, for a little human contact with someone not wearing a uniform. And after two very long days he got it.

A stone-faced young man named Stennett appeared in his room on the third day and began pleasantly by saying, “Okay, Backman, here’s the deal. My name’s Stennett.”

He tossed a file on the blankets, on Joel’s legs, next to some old magazines that were being read for the third time. Joel opened the file. “Marco Lazzeri?”

“That’s you, pal, a full-blown Italian now. That’s
your birth certificate and national ID card. Memorize all the info as soon as possible.”

“Memorize it? I can’t even read it.”

“Then learn. We’re leaving in about three hours. You’ll be taken to a nearby city where you’ll meet your new best friend who’ll hold your hand for a few days.”

“A few days?”

“Maybe a month, depends on how well you make the transition.”

Joel laid down the file and stared at Stennett. “Who do you work for?”

“If I told you, then I’d have to kill you.”

“Very funny. The CIA?”

“The USA, that’s all I can say, and that’s all you need to know.”

Joel looked at the metal-framed window, complete with a lock, and said, “I didn’t notice a passport in the file.”

“Yes, well, that’s because you’re not going anywhere, Marco. You’re about to live a very quiet life. Your neighbors will think you were born in Milan but raised in Canada, thus the bad Italian you’re about to learn. If you get the urge to travel, then things could get very dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous?”

“Come on, Marco. Don’t play games with me. There are some really nasty people in this world who’d love to find you. Do what we tell you, and they won’t.”

“I don’t know a word of Italian.”

“Sure you do—pizza, spaghetti, caffè latte, bravo, opera, mamma mia. You’ll catch on. The quicker you learn
and the better you learn, the safer you’ll be. You’ll have a tutor.”

“I don’t have a dime.”

“That’s what they say. None that they could find, anyway.” He pulled some bills out of his pocket and laid them on the file. “While you were tucked away, Italy abandoned the lira and adopted the euro. There’s a hundred of them. One euro is about a dollar. I’ll be back in an hour with some clothes. In the file is a small dictionary, two hundred of your first words in Italian. I suggest you get busy.”

An hour later Stennett was back with a shirt, slacks, jacket, shoes, and socks, all of the Italian variety. “Buon giorno,” he said.

“Hello to you,” Backman said.

“What’s the word for car?”

“Macchina.”

“Good, Marco. It’s time to get in the macchina.”

Another silent gentleman was behind the wheel of the compact, nondescript Fiat. Joel folded himself into the backseat with a canvas bag that held his net worth. Stennett sat in the front. The air was cold and damp and a thin layer of snow barely covered the ground. When they passed through the gates of the Aviano Air Base, Joel Backman had the first twinge of freedom, though the slight wave of excitement was heavily layered with apprehension.

He watched the road signs carefully; not a word from the front seat. They were on Route 251, a two-lane highway, headed south, he thought. The traffic soon grew heavy as they approached the city of Pordenone.

“What’s the population of Pordenone?” Joel asked, breaking the thick silence.

“Fifty thousand,” Stennett said.

“This is northern Italy, right?”

“Northeast.”

“How far away are the Alps?”

Stennett nodded in the general direction of his right and said, “About forty miles that way. On a clear day, you can see them.”

“Can we stop for a coffee somewhere?” Joel asked.

“No, we, uh, are not authorized to stop.”

So far the driver appeared to be completely deaf.

They skirted around the northern edge of Pordenone and were soon on A28, a four-lane where everyone but the truckers appeared to be very late for work. Small cars whizzed by them while they puttered along at a mere one hundred kilometers per hour. Stennett unfolded an Italian newspaper,
La Repubblica
, and blocked half the windshield with it.

Joel was very content to ride in silence and gaze at the countryside flying by. The rolling plain appeared to be very fertile, though it was late January and the fields were empty. Occasionally, above a terraced hillside, an ancient villa could be seen.

He’d actually rented one once. A dozen or so years earlier, wife number two had threatened to walk out if he didn’t take her somewhere for a long vacation. Joel was working eighty hours a week with time to spare for even more work. He preferred to live at the office, and judging by the way things were going at home, life would’ve certainly been more peaceful there. A divorce, however, would’ve cost too much money, so Joel announced to
everyone that he and his dear wife would spend a month in Tuscany. He acted as though it had all been his idea—“a monthlong wine and culinary adventure through the heart of Chianti!”