60.
Venezuelan intelligence officer Jose Hernandez, decided to reconfigure his relationship with Josh Penner into overt mode, and to meet the movie star openly.
And so the two convened in The Willard’s lobby, an extravagant, high-ceiling hall where the term lobbyist was coined during Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency.
It would have been easy for the FBI to eavesdrop. But Hernandez didn’t care. There was nothing they could do about the Venezuelan cultural attaché conducting cultural business with a U.S. citizen.
As he awaited Penner, Hernandez attempted to pick out those in the lobby present to watch him. And then an elevator opened and Penner appeared. The two men shook hands and sat in leather club chairs.
“So you got me a meeting?” said Penner.
“Why you go directly to my president’s office?” asked Hernandez, a half-smile, half frown.
“I want to see him about new matter,” replied Penner.
Hernandez responded with a puzzled expression.
“One that has nothing to do with you,” Penner added.
“No?” Hernandez felt sorely tempted to put Penner in his place, inform him that anything concerning Penner’s relationship with Venezuela now concerned him. But he was experienced enough to disallow his ego from getting in the way. “What is it about?”
“Someone else wants to meet your president. And I considered it important enough to try to make it happen.”
“What person?”
“Some dude from the State Department.”
As well trained as Hernandez was, for any eventuality, his jaw dropped, a reaction not lost on Penner.
Discombobulated, Hernandez glanced around the lobby. He lowered his voice to barely a whisper and his mouth felt dry and parched. “Who?”
“Jack Woodward. Says he wants to open some kind of backchannel.”
Hernandez’s mind raced. “But this is not what my president asks,” he finally said.
Penned shrugged. “Bite me.”
Hernandez placed his hand over his mouth and snorted. Then he shook his head. “My president, he expects Hollywood celebrities. Not State Department.”
“You know,” said Penner, “I met Hugo before I met you. I’ll do whatever I want. It’s for Hugo to decide if he likes who I bring to see him, not you.”
Hernandez remained motionless for a few moments. Then he shrugged, and tried to regain control. “Okay, I call, we see, and I let you know.”
“Let me know what?” Penner snapped, irritated.
“If my president will meet you next week.”
Penner leaned forward and looked Hernandez directly in the eye. “Do what you want. But I’m flying to Caracas next week, and Hugo will see me.”
Sitting nearby, Jeremy Katz did not catch every word, but enough to write home about: Is Josh Penner is recruiting a spy in the State Department for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez? Or is he infiltrating a State Department official into Hugo’s orbit for the CIA?
It took Katz all of fifteen seconds to call Jack Woodward’s name into the Dataveillant, and seconds more for the Dataveillant to set his computers abuzz. Katz also transmitted a photo from his iPhone of Penner with an unnamed person, presumed to be Venezuelan.
Upstairs in Penner’s suite, Jenny Jones and the Special Agent in Charge of the Washington DC Field Office, conferred in advance of the actor’s return, having heard the whole exchange on a wire they’d fitted onto Penner.
“This is odd,” said the SAC, shaking his head. “Why is Woodward acting behind Hernandez’s back.”
“A disagreement?”
Penner entered the room and plopped himself on an easy chair near the two G-men. “That was weird.”
“I’ve got it,” said the SAC, ignoring Penner. “Now Josh should meet with Woodward, tell him a Venezuelan diplomat named Jose Hernandez has objected to his meeting Chavez, see his reaction.”
Jones shrugged. “Works for me.” She looked at Penner. “Josh?”
Penner glared at her. “Would someone bother to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“You don’t need to know,” said the SAC.
“The hell I don’t.”
Jones and the SAC exchanged glances.
“Jack Woodward is a person of interest to us,” said the SAC.
“Huh?” Penner considered this. “You mean beyond trying to blackmail me?”
The SAC nodded at Jones, who spoke. “We have reason to believe Jack Woodward is spying for the Venezuelans.”
“So why don’t you just arrest him?”
“It’s not that easy,” said Jones.
“Why?”
“Espionage is tough to prove without catching a suspect red-handed.”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” said the SAC. “Call Woodward. Tell him you have a confirmed meeting Chavez but there’s a glitch. Tell him he has to come to The Willard to overcome the glitch.”
Wordlessly, Penner pulled out his cell phone and touch-keyed a number. “We’ve got a meeting. But I need to sort out a glitch before it’s 100 percent confirmed.”
“What glitch?”
“I’ll tell you in person. I’m staying at The Willard. C’mon over and I’ll explain it.”
“Okay, okay,” said Willard, exasperated. Five-thirty, the Round Robin Bar.”
61.
Within minutes, the Dataveillant had accessed all of Jack Woodward’s statistical identifiers: date and place of birth, social security number, current address and phone number, previous addresses and phone numbers, supermarket club memberships and shopping habits, Blockbuster membership and movie choices, Amazon book and other merchandise orders. Astroglide?
But when it came to employment, a red flag shot up.
The Dataveillant had seen this before, associated with The Spooky People.
It meant, trip a wire and you’ve got company: government monitors.
The Dataveillant worked in a gray zone of quasi-legal access. He never broke any laws but, as an occupational hazard, risked civil litigation for invasion of privacy.
So he avoided, at all costs, leaving footprints or handprints, and tripping wires. He usually did not encounter trip wires with State Department personnel. In fact, had recently worked a divorce case involving a senior State Department official and the databases were clear as a whistle.
So what was up? Did Woodward work not for State, but for CIA?