CLOAK & CORKSCREW: 10) UNSCREWED & SCREWED
My Saturday Evening Post: A serial Novel of Intrigue & Lunacy
23.
Armand Chantelot had intended to let Tom Richardson rot for a week in stinky solitary confinement reasoning that after experiencing the joys of the French prison system the American would beg to be recruited by French intelligence and moved to a plush safe house with moules and pommes frites and good Burgundy instead of tripe.
But now he had media from the United States, France and the rest of Europe, demanding that the Paris police answer questions about Richardson. Were they holding an ex-CIA officer, and if so, on what charges?
When first asked, a public affairs officer, not realizing the further fuss any obfuscation would cause, denied that such a person was in their custody without checking to discover this was a black case, under DCRI control.
Chantelot cursed when he read about his case on the front page of Le Monde. The only consolation for this ambitious DCRI officer was that his own name had not been mentioned. But this would change, he knew, if the story escalated. One thing Chantelot had learned in the intelligence business, if not in life generally, was to choose his fights carefully. Stay alive to fight another day.
And so he didn’t need his superiors to order him to bail out of what might escalate into a highly untenable position.
Quickly, Chantelot amended the public affairs denial with a terse statement saying that, yes, indeed, Tom Richardson was in French custody, at the request of U.S. authorities. But as the U.S. Justice Department had not followed up with the necessary extradition papers, Monsieur Richardson would be released forthwith.
Thomas Richardson, ex-CIA officer, knew nothing about Josh Penner’s press conference or media interest in his case when, dirty and disheveled after three days of imprisonment, he was escorted to the same white interview room as before.
It took Richardson a few minutes to adjust his eyes from the darkness from whence he came. A few minutes later, Chantelot appeared.
“You have been treated properly?” Chantelot asked.
Scoffed Richardson, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“This is nothing compared to real prison. I just want to ensure you have not been mistreated.”
“Only by you,” said Richardson. “You are holding me against my will because I won’t break the laws of my own country and give you classified information.”
Chantelot felt a qualm of uneasiness. This was not good. For a mad moment he wondered if he could resolve any embarrassment to himself by arranging for Richardson to be found drowned in the River Seine.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the Frenchman. “We were informed by the Americans that you are the subject of suspicion. And so we are only doing our jobs.”
“Yeah, right,” said Richardson.
“But your country,” Chantelot continued, “has failed to initiate extradition proceedings. So we hold you no longer.”
Richardson felt a twinge of relief but did not stir a muscle.
“However,” the Frenchman continued, “you are ordered to leave France within 48 hours.”
“Under the circumstances,” Richardson looked directly into Chantelot’s eye, “leaving France will be my great pleasure.”
The Frenchman reached into his suit pocket and extracted a typed document. “We need you to sign your release.” He pushed the one-pager across the table, along with a ballpoint pen.
Richardson read. In exchange for release, the signatory promised not to discuss the circumstances of his detention, under penalty of imprisonment, to include the identity of persons involved in the detention and all matters discussed.
Richardson pushed it back across the table. “I’m not signing this.”
Chantelot glared at the American. “Very well,” he finally said. “But if you violate these terms, I will find you, and you will suffer a fate worse than prison.”
Richardson stuck with the Frenchman’s eyeball grip until Chantelot abruptly stood, turned on his heel and stomped out.
24.
Back inside his studio apartment on the Isle-St-Louis, Tom Richardson powered his Mac Book and, rebooting it, found the hard drive wiped clean. He connected his cell phone to a charger and ventured out for his first decent meal in three days while catching up with news from the International Herald Tribune, which, its its popular People column, reported In an unusual press conference yesterday, Hollywood idol Josh Penner announced that police in France illegally detained a former CIA office named Tom Richardson. Penner claimed that he is making a movie based on Richardson’s life
“What?” Richardson could not conceal his surprise. In a daze, he put down his newspaper and tried of make sense of this development. Then he pulled a notebook from his pocket and scribbled a few thoughts:
One, That’s why the DCRI let me go.
Two, How did Penner know I was being held?
Three, Why did he say we’re making a movie when we have no agreement?
The answer, Richardson imagined, might lie with his cell phone, which, upon returning to his apartment, he keyed for messages.
Derek Priddle, from The Woodpecker Press, had called two days earlier. And also a woman he had met a week earlier at a café on St.-Germaine-des-pres. But no Josh Penner.
Richardson resolved to depart first thing next morning, ahead of their ultimatum, lest USG put new pressure on the French to detain him.
And he would take a train to avoid passport control at the airport.
So now it was simply a question of where.
And, he decided, he would not phone Priddle or Penner until he was outside of France and purchased a new pay-as-you-go phone.
But where to?
Amsterdam and Geneva both appealed to him, each just over 200 miles from Paris, reachable within a few hours.
25.
From the moment Jack Woodward entered Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service he had wanted to join the U.S. Department of State. He loved the buzz of Washington, D.C., the thrill of being at the hub of international intrigue. And he yearned to serve in foreign capitals as a diplomat, representing the United States of America.
And so, after four years of diligent matriculation and earning a high score on the Foreign Service Officer Test, Woodward passed was accepted for employment into the State Department. He spent his first few years in Washington as a Latin America desk officer before obtaining a post as deputy consul at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, in advance of which studied Spanish until fluent.
After three years, Woodward returned to Washington, his old beat, if higher up, and set his sights on becoming an ambassador. Even the best and the brightest could not hope to attain an ambassadorship until the age of 40, an unwritten rule of the service.
While diplomacy was the name of the game with regard to other countries, rivalry among Foreign Service officers to climb the ladder was anything but diplomatic, giving rise to the moniker Snake Department.
Woodward persevered, took his knocks and, after a posting as Consul to Costa Rica, finally at the age of 42 got appointed U.S. ambassador to Honduras.
An embassy is like a fiefdom, with ambassador as lord.
Returning to Washington after a three-year tour, Woodward found himself depressed. No fiefdom to command, replaced by a mild case of mid-life crisis. He strove to posture himself as a candidate for ambassadorship to one of the large, important South American nations, such as Brazil and Argentina, but watched in frustration as these posts filled with political appointees wealthy enough to donate handsomely to the campaign coffers of whoever had been elected to the White House.
And so Woodward stagnated, back at his old regional desk, a sitting target for younger, ambitious Foreign Service officers who desired to climb over him.
A social drinker on the diplomatic reception circuit abroad, Woodward, deprived of a fiefdom, and surrounded by vipers, steadily increased his alcohol intake to a point where he started drinking at lunch and never stopped through the day until by mid-evening when, at home, he had drunk himself into a stupor and passed out.
Woodward lived with his wife and two cats in a handsome colonial townhouse on N Street in Georgetown. They had met just a few blocks away at Georgetown University. The house—and money—derived from her side of the family.
Ms. Woodward, having become disenchanted with her husband’s drinking habits, slept in her own bedroom, with the cats. If she knew of the torrid affair her husband had enjoyed with a Venezuelan secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras while serving in that country, she would put him out completely, sue him for divorce and turn him into mouse-meat for the vipers at the Snake Department.
Disgrace is what Woodward feared more than anything. And the possibility of his fall from grace is what abruptly confronted him while attending a State Department conference in Caracas.
Woodward had expected to see Rosa waiting in his hotel room. He had not seen the sweet young Venezuelan in over six months and, sexually estranged from his wife, had much catching up in mind.
Instead, he came face to face with an officer from DISIP, who had stunk his room with tobacco smoke, and who took amusement from Woodward’s surprise as the diplomat’s expression changed from lustful grin to bewildered angst.
The man from DISIP laid a number of lewd photographs across the bed, all starring a very naked Woodward.
The implication was simple and required little explanation. Woodward had endured security training from time to time that encompassed this very subject: Foreign intelligence honey-pot traps.
Worse still, the man from DISIP pointed out, speaking in a gravelly whisper that matched his pencil mustache and black-as oil hair slicked back to expose a large square forehead. And the second girl in some of the photos, the one Rosa had introduced as her cousin eager to engage in ménage a trois? She was only 15 years old. In other words, below the age of consent. As in, statutory rape.
Clearly, there had been a misunderstanding, said the man from DISIP. And he was on hand to help.
Yes, Woodward could be arrested and charged with a sex crime and jailed indefinitely awaiting trial and then sentenced to many years in prison. And, yes, the local media would report his arrest and Venezuela would lodge an official complaint with the U.S. Government to ensure the case received maximum publicity in the United States, especially news outlets in Washington, D.C.
But that is not the outcome the man from DISIP wanted to see. No, he had a plan, he said. A plan that would keep Ambassador Woodward out of prison and out of the newspapers.
Woodward, sitting in a chair, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, already knew what kind of plan this would be.
And just so Woodward understood the ramifications of pretending to go along but not following through with The Plan once he left Venezuela, the man from DISIP laid out what he would do if Woodward attempted a double-cross: He would issue a worldwide warrant for his arrest, call a news conference, seek his extradition and try him in absentia. In other words, he might not serve time in jail but would be disgraced—and confined thereafter within the borders of the United States or risk arrest.
The man from DISIP did not have to tell Woodward that his wife would divorce him, his friends would shun him, and the vipers at the Snake Department would eat him alive.
Now that he had shown his stick, it was time for the man from DISIP to pull out the carrot.
A ciphered bank account had been opened in Montevideo, Uruguay—the Switzerland of South America. In it, one million dollars had been deposited. It would be Woodward’s to spend any way he wished, though the man from DISIP pointed out the danger of throwing money around, especially cash, in the United States, where a sudden unexplainable windfall could lead to suspicion. However, Woodward could travel to South America and draw from the account and lavish himself with good times. And the account would be replenished commensurate with the quality of Top Secret material from State Department files, especially classified documents that pertained to Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico.
And, finally, the man from DISIP promised, not only would Rosa join him, as he had intended, this very trip, but she would bring her young cousin too!
It took Woodward only five minutes to make his decision.
Excellent, the man from DISIP had said.
And for the next three hours two other men from DISIP schooled the diplomat on a) identifying the documents they desired most and b) tradecraft and commo for conveying such to a DISIP case officer in Washington, D.C.
By the time Woodward set his head to pillow he was a confirmed traitor.