THE MISFIT UNIT: 2) OPERATION ROOSTER
My Saturday Evening Post: A Serial Novel of Intrigue & Lunacy
2.
When R. James Cloverland, FBI assistant director for national security, finally figures out where Dalkin is, he flies United to LAX, rents a car and cruises 93 miles up Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Barbara. Then he phones Dalkin and follows his instructions: Enter Nordstrom's, escalate two floors up, the terrace restaurant, take a pew.
Dalkin plunks himself next to Cloverland, startling him. "This used to be the best deal in town," squawks Dalkin. "A great view and a cup of Joe for 25 cents." Dalkin motions both hands at the Santa Ynez Mountains.
"What happened?"
"The homeless. They camped outside, waited for the doors to open, came on up and stayed all day. So now this place charges more than Starbuckies."
"Why'd you move here?" asks Cloverland, one eye closed.
"The climate, the ocean, the wine, the babes.” Dalkin waves his arms around. “But mostly to get away from you.”
"But… isn't it... boring?"
Dalkin shakes his head. "Never a dull moment—until you arrived. S’up?"
"We've overhauled counter-intelligence," says Cloverland.
"About time. Who's we?"
"CIA, the Bureau, DOD. An inter-agency review called CI-15."
"I know CI stands for Currently Indisposed, but what's with the 15? Wait, lemme guess: Fifteen of you bureaucrats engaged in a circle-jerk?"
"Cute."
"Oh, shit..." Dalkin stands and assesses an unconventional getaway through fencing meant to keep scavenging birds away.
"There you are!" a husky man hollers.
"Sonofabitch!" Dalkin sprints across the terrace and picks up a chair.
"No, no, I got you now!" says the husky fellow, facing Dalkin across a table.
"The hell you do!"
Mr. Husky throws a rolled envelope at Dalkin. "There, it touched you! You're served!" He scoots off, leaving Dalkin hollering about assault and battery.
Cloverland sits watching in amusement. "Dare I ask what that was about?"
"Goddam process server," says Dalkin. "On my tail for two months."
"What's it about?"
"Hell if I know." Dalkin rips open the envelope. "Shit. It's about Ding-a-Ling Widgets."
"Who?"
"Don't ask. If I tell you anything, they'll subpoena you too. So let's get back to your inter-agency spew. It must be secret, right?"
Cloverland nods.
"So why the hell you telling me? I hate being burdened by secret stuff."
"Hear me out, I'll get to you." Cloverland pauses. "We had a major CI review and reassessed every spy case that went wrong over the last 20 years. And what we discovered was, in many instances, our problems were self-generated."
"Ain't that the fucking truth," Dalkin mutters. "I assume you're going to get more specific?"
"Okay, here's specific. You remember the Edward Lee Howard case?"
"The CIA crypto-crud who defected to Moscow, right?"
"Good memory." Cloverland nods. "Howard flunked a polygraph so the agency fired him. Bureaucracy—especially the intelligence community—does not know how to fire someone well. Howard was bitter. Ultimately, his attitude, fired up by booze, was, you trained me to be a spy, so a spy I'm gonna be. He started selling secrets to the KGB. As you'll remember, Vitaly Yurchenko defected to us, gave up Howard, re-defected, and Howard fled to Moscow where he eventually drank himself to death."
"Didn't Howard pull off his escape while under surveillance by something like 22 special agents from the FBI—baloney-beating bastards?" says Dalkin.
"Yeah, well." Cloverland squirms. "He got away. The point is, the whole thing could have been avoided if Howard had been better treated. As I understand it, CIA ordered him out of the building on the spot. They didn't even give him bus fare home." Cloverland pauses. "More recently, Perfidious has had similar problems."
"The Brits?"
"Both their services—MI5 and MI6—have been dealing with rogue spies. At MI5 it was David Shayler. MI6 had Richard Tomlinson. Neither defected to Moscow but both revealed secrets to the media out of bitterness. The Tomlinson case has similarities to Howard. He was canned. Arrives one day for work as usual and his security pass doesn’t work. These kinds of situations have caused a lot of aggravation, not to mention the cost in human resources and money."
"Got it," says Dalkin. "Is this supposed to lead somewhere?"
Cloverland nods. "It is."
"Good. How about we take a shortcut."
"We feel—and so does Perfidious Albion, the Brits—that we need a new way to deal with the few mavericks who weren't weeded out during the interview process. A program, if you will, that prevents them from turning on their ex-employer and running to hostile intelligence services—or to the media."
Dalkin shrugs. "Makes sense."
"So instead of firing such persons, we would simply transfer them to a special unit, where they can be rendered harmless."
"They'd still have a salary and benefits?"
"Of course." Cloverland nods. "Not only that, they’d also believe they were being promoted."
"But in reality, cast-offs?"
"Exactly," says Cloverland. "In the long-term, their salary and benefits would be a fraction of what just one defector costs us. The Brits used to run a station for this kind of person in the south of France. But money became an issue for them."
"Money is always an issue for the Brits—bollocks and chips—unless we pay. So what do you want from me?"
"I want you to create a special misfit unit that does this for the US/UK intelligence community."
“You want that with fries?”
“I’m serious.”
“But why me?”
Now it’s Cloverland’s turn to smirk. “Because you’re the biggest misfit of all.”
Dalkin digests this. “Ain’t that the fucking truth.”
“So?”
Dalkin allows the concept to percolate the caffeine already in his brain. "You know, anything else you might have wanted, I'd turn you down flat. But this? I kind of like it." He pauses. "It would have to be here, of course."
"Here?"
"Santa Barbara. If I'm running this unit, it's gotta come here."
Cloverland takes but a second to consider this. "That's fine. We want our mavericks as far away from Washington and London as possible."
"And when these mavericks of yours get here, what are they supposed to do?"
"That's your first assignment," says Cloverland. "Come up with a program that'll keep the misfits busy. More important"—he winks—“a program that will keep them out of the way. We're calling this Operation Rooster."
"Well, fuck-a-doodle-do,” says Dalkin. “And that wasn’t Tourette’s.”