Weaponized (8 page)

K
yle stands by his bed and contemplates Robinson’s passport. Pages worn down from frequent flipping and the whole thing thick with official stamps.

Kyle thumbs through, charts Robinson’s globe-hopping. Germany. Dozens of African countries. The UAE. Most of Asia, with a lot of time in China. Eastern Europe. Month in Croatia. A world traveler with the miles to prove it.

Kyle opens up the fridge, pops the tab on an Angkor beer, and drinks. The cold feels good against the lining of his mouth scorched by scotch.

He stares at his graphite-colored laptop sitting on the desk. No way he can take it with him. If anything should happen, the computer would only make things worse. But he pulls the flash drive out of the USB port and puts it in his pocket.

He imagines what Neil would say about Robinson’s plan. Neil, his nagging moral compass, would tell him that he’s making the wrong move, that he should go home and clear his name, that sacrificing someone like Kuo, no matter how corrupt, drags him down closer to Chandler’s level.

Kyle would counter:
But what about all the risk involved on my end? How is this the easy play? I could be killed.

Neil would answer:
Sure. There’s great physical risk, but fucking over Kuo doesn’t clear your name. It gets you even farther away from who you are. Swapping identities with someone so you can pick up info to blackmail Kuo isn’t the way a victim would act. It’s the way a guilty man or a man too weak to fight would act, and I would never want to see you as either one.

Yeah,
Kyle would argue,
but getting the info on Kuo keeps me from being arrested and having to testify.

Kyle can already hear Neil shutting him down with one of his favorite lines:

Some of the most honest people have had to do some time. Don’t be afraid of the time; be afraid for your name.

Kyle brings the beer to his lips again.
Wash it all away. Just keep moving.

P
hnom Penh International is the size of a shoebox. A small customer-service area and blue chairs bolted to the floor in front of the departure board. Its sole distinguishing features are a Dairy Queen, a few stands selling indigenous trinkets—mostly elephant statues, totems of eternal return—and a pizza place, overpriced, because it can be.

Outside, pilots unload UN rice and medicine from a fleet of small planes refueling for the flight home.

Kyle stands in line at the kiosks to print out his boarding pass. Pink shirt, pinstripe suit, red suspenders, puffed-up hair. He’s more Robinson than himself now, and he can’t keep his foot still. He’s artificially awake, hopped up on adrenaline.

A kiosk opens up. He approaches it, takes out Robinson’s AmEx, swipes it, and waits while the machine processes.

The computer freezes, then starts to hum like an overworked appliance. Kyle stands there, waiting for the system…

Waiting.

Waiting.

Long time.

Don’t shake. Don’t act suspicious. What would Robinson do? Probably have a cigarette and talk about his Anglophile mother.

The computer comes back to life.

And tells Kyle his card is denied and the system can’t issue a boarding pass. It instructs him to speak to a service representative.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He hits the cancel button, swipes the card again, his foot keeping time with his anxiety.

Hum. Hum. Hum. Computer processes.

Waiting.

Same shit.

Still waiting.

Fucking frozen.

The computer refuses the card again. Instructs him to speak with a service representative.

He looks at the other machines; they’re all occupied, and the lines are starting to wind around the rope. He can’t get in another line; he’ll lose too much time. He needs to make his plane.

Fucking hell cocksucking shit.

He’s moved on to cluster cursing. Never an auspicious sign. He raises his hand to the side of the machine, ready to slap it. He tries to gain control of himself but loses it after one more quick glimpse at the blinking screen:

Card denied. Speak with a customer-service representative.

He doesn’t want to speak with a customer-service representative. He wants his goddamn fucking ticket. The one he paid for with Robinson’s fucking card.

That’s what he wants.

He broadsides the machine with his palm. Not once. Not twice. Three times. Hits it so hard that it’s shaking. Slapping the machine around like it’s a gangster’s moll momentarily pacifies his anger, but it also has an unforeseen side effect.

A uniformed security guard appears beside him and grimaces. “Problem, sir? Problem with machine?”

Kyle’s hand is still in the air and he’s contemplating a fourth slap. “Problem. No. No problem,” he says. Act like nothing’s wrong. Be Robinson. Smile in the face of adversity. But he can’t. His hand is visibly shaking.

“Hit machine,” the guard says. “Why you hitting machine?”

“Misunderstanding. Just a misunderstanding.”

“What? Why you hit machine? Can’t do. Can’t hit.”

“I was wrong. I’m going. I’m on my way out.”

“Why? Why you hit?”

“I’m just leaving…”

The guard stares past Kyle at the face of the kiosk. “No leave. You need to see customer service. That all. Very simple. No hit. Customer service.”

“No. Not necessary.”

“To hit. Yes. Customer service. Follow me.”

“No. Not necessary.”

“Customer service. I take you.”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t want to trouble—”

“Not trouble. This way.”

“Sir…”

The guard gets on his walkie-talkie, speaks into the receiver in Khmer, then turns back to Kyle. “This way.” He beckons for Kyle to follow. “This way. With me.”

Kyle follows the guard’s instructions. Too late to run. No way he can leave now without causing a scene, no way he won’t be pursued, no way this won’t be on camera, and no way it won’t end up on the news once people figure out who he is.

No. No fucking way. He’s got to see a customer-service rep.

The guard leads Kyle to the service area while smiling and beckoning with his hand. “Very close,” he says.

Kyle trudges along, the unfamiliar sound of Robinson’s Ferragamos echoing. He curses the noise and the way the shoes strangle circulation. How the hell does Robinson walk around the third world in these? Kyle’s barely walked around the airport and already feels blisters blossoming.

The security guard plops Kyle down in a seat in front of a service rep, a Khmer girl blowing on a steaming cup of tea.

“Ticket trouble,” the guard says to the girl as he walks off, “man have ticket trouble.”

“I’m Mai. How may I help you?” she says to Kyle. She’s young, barely drinking age, wearing a simple black dress and thick-rimmed glasses.

“The kiosk won’t print my boarding pass,” Kyle says, and sits on his hands so she can’t see them shake.

“I’m sorry about that, sir.”

“Will this take long?”

“Not at all.”

“Good.”

“I’m just going to need to see your passport and e-ticket.”

Kyle dips into the jacket pocket, pulls out Robinson’s passport, puts it on top of the e-ticket, and turns them over to Mai.

“Oh…and your credit card too.”

“Fine,” Kyle says, and hands her Robinson’s black AmEx, then sits on his hands again.

Mai begins to type furiously. “Have you enjoyed your time in Phnom Penh?”

“Yes.”

“What was your favorite thing to do?”

Kyle sucks on his left cheek, thinking,
Are we
seriously
going to do this shit, Mai?
“I think…I wasn’t here very long. Just walked around the Central Market.”

“My mother sews. She has a stand at Central Market.”

Kyle tilts his head, trying to see what she’s typing. “Great. Good. Good for her.”

She opens up Robinson’s passport, flips through the pages, punches a few more keys. “You look younger.”

“What?”

“Than in this photo.”

“Oh,” Kyle says, shifting around on his hands. “I was tired when that was taken.”

Mai giggles, showing her rabbit teeth, her pink tongue.

“Everything okay?” Kyle asks.

She punches a few more keys, drinks some tea, flinches at how hot it still is, and says, “Hmph. I can’t…seem to override the system to print out your boarding pass.”

Kyle’s sweating like a man waiting for test results.
Christ,
he thinks,
I’m a total bomb as Robinson.

Then Mai hands his passport back to him, leans over the desk, and says:

“You appear to be on a no-fly list, Mr. Robinson.”

Within twenty seconds of Mai’s verbal neutron bomb, three Asian men approach the desk dressed in corporate camouflage—sober suits and ties, the type of clothes designed and selected to be instantly forgotten.

One of them reveals himself to be the leader by removing his sunglasses and fixing his stare on Kyle. The other two look straight ahead, avoiding Kyle’s eyes, as if he’s committed a lurid crime.

“Mr. Robinson,” the leader says. “Security. We’re going to have to ask you to come with us. This is purely a formality.” He tilts his head a bit. “I’m certain
you understand.
”

“I want to be put on a plane immediately,” Kyle says. “I paid for my ticket. There is no reason for me to be on a no-fly list…”

“It’s not us, Mr. Robinson. It’s the computer.” He motions subtly for Kyle to rise. “We want this straightened out as much as you do. If you’ll just follow us.”

“If you’d please just follow us,” one of the other men says, still avoiding eye contact, echoing the leader.

“You’re harassing me,” Kyle continues. “I am an American citizen and I am being harassed—”

The leader interjects with a leer, “You would like us to call your embassy, then?”

Kyle’s trying to conquer his overwhelming fear with indignation. “You are harassing an American citizen.”

“We will happily call the embassy and they can come and—”

“I don’t want my embassy,” Kyle says, terrified they’re going to choose that option. “I want to get on a fucking plane,” he adds, his voice following a twelve-tone scale, starting low with general anxiety and ending in a soaring crescendo of panic.

“And you will, Mr. Robinson. Please follow us so we can straighten this out.” The leader gives another head tilt, more threatening this time. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“I don’t belong on a no-fly list.”

What would Robinson do? Well, apparently, he’s done lots and lots of nasty shit or Kyle wouldn’t be here.

Out of options, Kyle stands, defeated, and agrees to go with the three men.

The leader pulls a stray piece of lint off Kyle’s shoulder. “What a wonderful suit.” He flicks the piece of lint into Mai’s garbage can. “Follow me,” he says.

The leader and Kyle walk side by side out of the service area and into the airport proper. They pass a series of crowded boarding gates. Kyle looks at them longingly. All of these people on their way home to be greeted by loved ones the minute they pass through customs.

Kyle wishes he had told someone about this plan. But who? Neil’s his only friend and would have told Kyle he’d finally lost his mind.

No two ways about it. He’s stranded.

The leader leans into Kyle and whispers, “We appreciate you not making a
scene.
It would have been uncomfortable.”

Kyle sees fewer people, notices he’s being escorted to an increasingly remote section of the airport. “Where are we going?”

The leader doesn’t answer, just turns back and urges the two following behind to pick up the pace.

Why didn’t I run?
he thinks.
Why did I follow that guard to the counter?

The leader pushes open a service exit door and ushers Kyle through. The others follow. “Close that,” the leader snaps at his underlings.

The hallway’s empty except for a mop and a bucket filled with gray-green water. No windows, no air, no natural light; fluorescent lights flicker.

Kyle’s through playing along with this routine. “We near it yet? The security office?”

“Sure,” the leader says, smirking. “Right down this hall.”

Kyle knows this is bullshit; this whole situation is total bullshit. “Who are you guys? Seriously.” He feels the burn of the bleached floor in his nostrils. “Who are you? Tell me.”

What he wants to do is scream out that he’s not Robinson, that they’ve got the wrong guy. Problem is, he’s not much better off being Kyle West.

Maybe it’s best to just face the situation as Robinson.

Maybe somehow it’ll work out and he’ll get on the next plane.

Then it happens.

Bitter tang of chemical spray. Brutal. Sends Kyle’s gag reflex into overdrive. And that’s before it ends up in his eyes. He staggers, opens his mouth to scream, but the lingering chemical cloud is so strong, he chokes instead, a dry, hard hack.

A foot takes out Kyle’s legs, hurling him down. “Eat the floor. Eat the fucking floor.”

The foot stays put in the center of Kyle’s back while someone ties his hands together with cord and pulls it tight in one fluid motion.

“Keep your head down…keep it down.”

Kyle’s pulled to his feet. He can barely see through the tears. The chemical taste on his tongue is like ingested insect spray.

He sees someone wave around a Taser.

“Keep your fucking eyes in front of you.”

And then the hood goes over his head.

Claustrophobia kicks in. He can’t breathe. Starts to panic.

A quick kiss from the Taser current sets his spine straight.

“Move. Move.”

Someone steers Kyle by the waist and says:

“Nice to see you again, Robinson. Been too long.”

Then kicks him in the small of the back.

T
om Fowler’s bored as hell, so he’s doing dumbbell work. Lateral raises, concentration curls, triceps kickbacks. For someone in his sixties, he cuts an imposing figure. Doorway-size shoulders. Neck bulging like a frog stretching to catch a fly. The thick veins on his forearm fence a memento from Vietnam, a massive tattoo of a dragon, multicolored wings spread, clutching a submachine gun. Another reminder of the war dangles close to his throat, a necklace of Buddhist charms given to him by a monk he rescued in Cambodia.

Now the Agency’s sent him back here—the ashes of Southeast Asia.

His biceps starts to burn and he drops the weight on the office floor. He didn’t shower this morning, and his sweat’s mixed with the lavender of his girlfriend’s soap.

Women.

Fowler’s never forgotten what his first wife said as she slammed the bedroom door and never spoke to him again:

“When women are alone and bored, we play dress-up. We put on Mommy’s makeup and try on her clothes. When men are bored, they play dress-up too. Only when they do it, they put on uniforms, go to someone else’s country, and kill everyone.”

Her name was Victoria Rose. That was it. No fucking nicknames for her. No Vicki, or Vic, or Rosie. Don’t even think about it. Victoria Rose.

It’s 1975. Fowler’s just gotten back from Saigon. He’s anxious; he’s waiting for
something.
He meets Victoria Rose in a bar one night when he’s wearing his civilian uniform, Levi’s and a leather jacket, holstered gun close to his heart. At that moment, Fowler’s seriously considering bank robbery as his next career move. Something that lets him carry a gun. But Victoria Rose gives him an outlet.

She’s a peace activist, a graduate student in social work. But she fetishizes violence, specifically men of violence—men like Fowler. She likes to be close to it, to feel the weight of it lying on top of her. Like some of her hippie friends who called cops pigfuckers but secretly wanted that uniform, wanted to be on the other end of those handcuffs, the true unspoken Janus face of liberalism and power relations.

Because Fowler’s a rare breed.

Most men came back from Vietnam with PTSD if they were lucky, if they were
real
lucky. Most of Fowler’s buddies hit the booze, hit their wives, hit the heroin they had started fucking around with over there, or died horribly from cancer, courtesy of Agent Orange. But Fowler didn’t come back with PTSD, didn’t come back with the urge to drown all the memories in a sea of self-destruction.

Fowler wants another war. He gets Victoria Rose instead.

First day in Vietnam, September ’69, Fowler goes on a raid. There’s a firefight. He fends off the Communists and gets in a few close kills. Ted Shackley hears about the raid. And Shackley
is
the CIA in Laos; he pulls the strings. Locals call him the Blond Ghost.

And Shackley likes what Fowler did under enemy fire, under
pressure,
and recruits him into the Phoenix Project, a CIA-designed program of pacification that’s all about punching up big kill numbers to show the suits in Washington that we’re winning the war, that we’re rounding up any South Vietnamese harboring Communist or anti-Western sympathies. Working for Shackley is like working on a satanic factory line. He’s got to report quantifiable results back to the shareholders on the Hill.

And Fowler kills real good. He’s employee of the month every month for several years straight.

When the war ends, in ’75, Fowler goes home, and after settling down with Victoria Rose, he realizes he doesn’t like the idea of being out of uniform. So he takes Shackley’s advice and joins the Agency’s training program, where Fowler learns there are two types of CIA. There’s the intellectuals, the analysts, the guys who go to good climates under diplomatic cover and haunt embassy halls, blue bloods who pass notes to nuclear scientists at cocktail parties.

Then there’s guys like Fowler. Guys who get sent to denied territory to root out subversion. Guys who work off the books, fly below the congressional radar.

After he graduates from the program, Fowler gets his next war, gets his marching orders to Angola.

And Victoria Rose calls him a fucking fascist while he’s packing his bags to go.

But what she doesn’t get is this: It’s not that Fowler blindly follows orders. It’s not that he doesn’t question orders.

It’s that he
likes
the orders.

He does four years in Angola and enhances his reputation for being one of the Agency’s prime go-to guys for smash-and-grab ops. And just when he’s turning the tide in Africa, he gets a call to take a night flight to Afghanistan.

Fowler’s close to Bill Casey, Reagan’s controversial CIA head. Casey picks Fowler up personally in Angola, waits with him on a hot tarmac, and says:

“This isn’t ’Nam, Tommy. We’re doing this one right. We’re going over to win.”

So Fowler’s in Afghanistan, but he gets kicked out. Everyone around Fowler wonders the same thing—and with good reason: How in the fuck do you get
kicked out
of Afghanistan, Tom? I mean,
really.

Here’s how. He notices a certain disquieting trend in the makeup of his mujahideen. He notices that Egyptian intelligence is looking at the anti-Soviet jihad as the best news they’ve had in years. The bulk of Egyptian jihadists—the militant radicals who tried to whack Mubarak—are rotting in jail, and they’re pissed. Pissed right the fuck off. ’Cause they’re missing the big jihad, missing the chance to martyr themselves. Then the Egyptians get a bright idea: Let’s let them out. Fuck it. Let these lunatics go out and die. Let them be someone else’s problem.

Fowler’s fucking problem.

So a wave of militant Islamists, the real deal, the sons of Sayyid Qutb, arrive and start radicalizing Fowler’s troops. His freedom fighters weren’t exactly secularists before, but after the Egyptians arrive, the troops start praying five times a day and stop listening to Fowler because they’ve been told he’s an infidel.

So Fowler goes to the CIA director and gives him the frontline scoop: We’ve got to do something about these fucking Egyptians. I’m losing control of my troops. And Fowler’s told to let it go, that they’re all on the same side. And Fowler says, We’re all on the same side right now, but wait. The director doesn’t like Fowler’s tone. And Fowler doesn’t like this simple-minded anti-Communist who has never seen a day of frontline fire and doesn’t know shit about radical Islam. And, well, words are exchanged, there’s a hard shove against a filing cabinet, and Fowler’s given his walking papers.

But thank God things are really heating up in Nicaragua, because there’s no hard feelings, and Bill Casey puts Fowler on a plane that evening—to go train Contras.

And while Fowler’s camped out in Nicaragua with wife number two, the unthinkable happens: The Soviet Union implodes. (Another historical game changer the CIA never saw coming, just like the Berlin Wall and Pakistan going nuclear and, hell, let’s go there—9/11. Fowler always thought the Agency’s analysts were using a crystal ball covered in cobwebs.)

So the Cold War is over and Fowler gets called back home and that’s okay. He won’t miss Nicaragua, and wife number two elects to stay behind, and he’s okay with that too. Fowler doesn’t go native wherever he’s stationed. He knows the way the Agency works: the guy who’s your best friend
today
may be the guy you have to kill tomorrow. He keeps to himself, keeps his attachments loose.

But Fowler’s not someone who does well with peace.

When he gets back to DC, he’s beached behind a desk, and he panics. He’s been running hostile ops for almost twenty-five years and now he’s counting paper clips. Not a promising career trajectory. But thankfully—Fowler’s particular luck—the Balkans start acting like the Balkans again after a fifty-year nap. Clinton’s administration wants to help the Bosnian Muslims but doesn’t want to commit troops; Bill still has severe Somalia agita. And the Republicans aren’t big on humanitarian intervention yet. So Clinton turns to the Iranians and the Saudis to ship the guns and to guys like Fowler to show the Bosniaks how to use said weapons against the Serbs.

Plus the Agency needs boots on the ground, so they allow mosques throughout Europe and the Middle East to advertise this skirmish as “Afghanistan: The Sequel.” And this time, the Agency starts to notice strange things about the imported freedom fighters. They’re not only butchering Serbs—which no one minds, although the boiling-people-alive thing is a little
much
—but also starting to terrorize the moderate Muslim population, whom they consider just as bad as the Serbs for not following the “proper” path to Islam. And some of the CIA guys who knew Fowler in Afghanistan start coming up and saying: “Hey, Tommy, maybe you had a point back in ’85. Maybe a bunch of godless Communists or Serbian socialists is less scary than the alternative.”

No shit,
Fowler thinks, but keeps his mouth shut. ’Cause Bosnia is the only war going right now, and he doesn’t want to get sent home.

In ’95, Miloševi
ć
signs the Dayton Accord, and Fowler gets shipped back. He’s sweating bullets because he knows Clinton and Gore are cutting the CIA to ribbons and subjecting it to open-market principles. So when he gets called into DCI John Deutch’s office, he’s sure he’s getting handed a pink slip.

But he doesn’t. He gets promoted, put in charge of a new Agency program.

Extraordinary rendition.

After the attempt on Mubarak’s motorcade and the two bombings in Saudi Arabia targeting Americans, Clinton decided he needed to get serious about radical Islam.
Because the 1993 World Trade Center bombing wasn’t a big enough tip-off?
Fowler thinks as he listens to the DCI. But he keeps his mouth shut. Hardest lesson he’s had to learn, but he’s got it down pat.

“We need someone with your unique skill set for this,” Deutch says.

Unique skill set,
Fowler thinks.
Blow me.
No problem, though, because Fowler’s back in business, sending eighty-something suspected jihadists to Egypt or Jordan for “questioning.” And then the trouble starts.

Fowler’s stationed in Milan—one of militant Islam’s main arteries—and the Agency tells him to rendition a radical cleric named Abu Aziz. When he and his team jack Aziz, it’s business as usual. The team waits for him to be out of public view, then a white van pulls up, someone shoots chemical spray in Aziz’s eyes, and he’s thrown into the back of the van. Hood and handcuffs follow. Then off to the airport, where Fowler’s crew and Aziz are packed on a plane to Egypt.

The usual stirrings occur back in Milan.

A witness comes forward to say Aziz was forced into the back of a white van. Aziz’s wife files a missing-person report, hires a lawyer and a private detective. In response, the Agency plants a trail suggesting Aziz might have taken a secret recruiting trip to Albania. It all dies down fast. Everything goes back to normal.

A year later, the Egyptians run out of reasons to hold on to Aziz. God knows they looked, but outside of being a loudmouth, he’s strictly jihad lite. And the first thing Aziz does with his newfound freedom is call his wife. And he’s got
shit
to say. He tells her the Americans kidnapped him and sent him to Egypt, where he was tortured nonstop for a year.

And here’s where it gets messy for Fowler.

The Italians had been watching Aziz for years, and part of their operation involved tapping his phone. So the Italians hear Aziz bitching to his wife about his rendition at the hands of the Americans, and they go fucking ballistic. How dare the Americans come in and snatch their suspect before their operation bears fruit? Of course, Fowler would have told the Italians, you don’t catch terrorists by
waiting
for them to do something.

The Italians take the Aziz tape to the state prosecutor, a man so fervent in his hatred of Bush and Iraq that he makes the Jacobins seem positively milquetoast about the Church and the monarchy. The prosecutor immediately opens up an investigation. And Fowler’s been sloppy. He let his people use personal cell phones and stay in hotels under their real names. So unraveling the case of Aziz and determining the chain of events that led him to a basement in Egypt with electrodes hooked up to his nuts is no sweat.

The prosecutor goes public with his case and with the suspects’ names, and he indicts them all for kidnapping, assault, and a whole smorgasbord of lesser charges. And the left-wing press on both continents is all over it, running exposés, signing book contracts. In fact, Kyle’s buddy Neil wrote a book called
Torture Team,
all about Fowler’s crew.

So in the middle of this shitstorm, the DCI travels to see Fowler in hiding.

“How the fuck did this happen, Tommy? How could you be so fucking sloppy?”

“I wasn’t.” Fowler’s wearing a suit to look nice for his boss, but he never wears suits, and his shirt collar is strangling him. “The Italians told us not to worry. That everyone was in on it. They were acting like it was the old Gladio days. I’m not that fucking lame. If they hadn’t said there was nothing to worry about, you think I would have taken such risks?”

“They want us to extradite you, want you to stand trial.”

“Fuck them. The prosecutor’s a Communist.”

“And we all agree, Tommy. No one’s gonna send you or any of your people back to Italy. This whole thing…pure politics.”

Fowler nods.

“And the way the press is talking about you,” the DCI says. “Treasonous.”

“They’re calling me a storm trooper. American Waffen-SS.”

“Treasonous.”

“Fuck them.”

“And, Tommy, you know no one is going to let anything happen to you. You’ve been a soldier for us for thirty years. We take care of our own.”

Now Fowler’s nervous. He knows what “take care of our own” usually means.

“You’re what now, Tommy, sixty-something?”

“Around that.”

“You can retire with the Cadillac plan.”

Fowler takes off his jacket, loosens his tie, rolls up his sleeves. “You want me to go out?”

“Not at all. But it’s like when a bar closes: you don’t have to stop drinking, but you can’t keep doing it here.”