CLOAK & CORKSCREW: 14) CONVERGENCE
My Saturday Evening Post: A Serial Novel of Intrigue & Lunacy
32.
State Department mole Jack Woodward positioned himself on a chair in the lounge of the Four Seasons Georgetown so that he could see anyone and everyone who entered and exited this high-end hotel.
Lunch-trade bustled around him when he spotted Josh Penner alight from a Lincoln Town Car and swagger into the lobby.
Woodward jumped to his feet and intercepted the movie star as he was about to turn into the elevator bank. “Mister Penner?”
Penner faced the suit, that is, someone who reminded him of a studio executive, not your typical autograph hound. “Shit, you’re going to serve me?” Must be about the TMZ civil case.
“No, no, I’m not a process server.” Woodward laughed. “I work for the U.S. State Department.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you but I’m in a hurry.” Penner aimed himself at an open elevator.
“I need to speak to you about an important matter.”
Penner stopped, turned, shrugged. “What?”
“Your recent trip to Venezuela.”
Now Penner looked annoyed. “What about it?”
“Look, it’ll only take ten minutes, just a quick chat.” He added, “I’m the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.”
The lofty title, coupled with curiosity, got the better of Penner. “Okay.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Ten minutes, starting from this second.”
Woodward led the actor to a quiet table in the corner of the lobby.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” said Woodward. “On behalf of the U.S. Government, I would like to establish a back-channel to Hugo Chavez. We have assessed our options and decided that the best way is for you to introduce us.”
“Lil’ ole me?” Penner smirked. “With all the resources the government has at its disposal, you need me to make an introduction?”
“In a word, yes,” said Woodward. “I don’t know if this matters to you, but you would be doing a great service to your country.”
Penner would have liked to say that he was already doing a great service for his country as a super-spy for the CIA, but instead bit his lip and remained quiet. Then he rose. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“Hold on.” Woodward’s tone turned brusque. “I can have your passport revoked.”
Penner’s eyes popped. “For visiting Venezuela?”
“No.” Woodward spoke softly. “For visiting Cuba.”
A year earlier, Penner had traveled to Havana for dinner with Fidel Castro. On CIA’s nickel.
“What?” Somewhat bemused, Penner re-rumped his rear. “Everyone goes to Cuba.”
“That doesn’t make it legal. In fact, it is highly illegal for a citizen of the United States to travel to Cuba.”
“Give me a fucking break,” said Penner.
Woodward shook his head. “No break. It would be to our advantage to make an example of you. Kind of like what the IRS does a month before income tax is due. We prosecute you, get big headlines, and deter thousands of Americans from traveling to Cuba and fueling their economy.” Woodward folded his arms. “Is that what you’d like?”
Penner glared at Woodward, his eyes burning embers. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
Woodward glared back with equal intensity. “Yes.”
“That’s illegal.”
“So is traveling to Cuba.”
“What if I report this to the police?”
“In this town?” Woodward motioned around him with his eyes before hardening his expression. “This isn’t Hollywood. Washington is my town. The police will think it’s a publicity stunt. And I will pin the whole resources of USG against you.”
Oh, really? Penner kept his trap shut about why this wasn’t an issue. “So how exactly is this supposed to work?”
Over the next five-minutes, Woodward explained precisely how he expected it to work.
Penner scribbled a couple notes; uncertain in his own mind the next step he would take.
When Woodward finally rose to depart, Penner lamely waved, a dour expression upon his face.
Venezuelan intelligence officer Jose Hernandez could scarcely believe his eyes as he rounded into the Four Seasons Georgetown forecourt. Is that CAHUNA? He caught the State Department spy’s eyes for a fleeting moment.
Woodward paled in alarm as he kept walking east on M Street toward Foggy Bottom. Shit! They’re watching me.
Hernandez had spent the previous 90 minutes dry-cleaning his tracks in shopping plazas and malls. And now, as he darted into the Four Seasons for a pre-scheduled rendezvous with Josh Penner, he muttered to himself in Spanish. Of all the coincidences. Hernandez did not like coincidence. In his mind, coincidence was God’s way of saying pay attention.
He was already on edge, surprised that Josh Penner had turned up in Washington and requested a meeting. Sure, his president wanted timely results. But Hernandez liked to be in control of timing and environment. And now, against his better judgment, he had allowed himself to surrender both. Am I walking into a trap?
Briskly, Hernandez strode to an elevator, ascended and alighted on the third floor. He looked both ways, found the direction he needed and walked to one corridor’s end, knocked softly.
For a paranoid moment, Hernandez expected FBI agents to jump out from a dozen rooms and go boo!
Instead, Josh Penner opened the door, and the Venezuelan slipped inside, vastly relieved.
“You okay?” asked Penner.
Hernandez wiped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “Yes. I walked. Warm day.”
“Help yourself to something from the mini-bar, Alexis.”
“Water,” said Hernandez. He opened the minibar and grabbed a bottle of Evian, sat at a round table after closing the curtains. “I don’t have long. What is your news?”
“Good news.” Penner grinned. “I got Joe Lucas interested in Hugo’s proposition.”
“Lu-cas?”
“Yup. A-List director. Hugo will be very pleased.”
“He wants three,” said Hernandez. “Big names. Including a woman.”
“Working on it.” Penner winked. “The hottest young actress in Hollywood said she’d think about it. Problem is, she doesn’t even know where Venezuela is. Bimbo!”
Americans. “When you have three ready for travel?”
Penner shrugged. “Gotta get back to you on that, pal. Just wanted your prez to know I’m on the job.” He paused, “By the way, I might need your help on something. If you’re interested.”
Hernandez wasn’t, said nothing, just stared blankly at Penner with trepidation.
“I’m gonna be making a new movie. A spy movie. I’m going to need expert consultants, to tell me how spies really look and act, what situations make sense, which don’t. You know, verisimilitude.”
Hernandez looked at Penner stony-faced. Aside from not liking this one bit, he had no clue what verisimilitude meant.
“Main thing,” added the movie star. “I’m willing to pay a lot of brazhort to the right adviser.”
Hernandez flashed his gold tooth and quizzical expression. “Brazhort?”
Penner dug into his pants pocket and yanked out a bankroll of bills. “Yankee dollars.”
“I am diplomat, not spy,” said Hernandez. “Your friend, my president, he would not like.”
“You want me to talk to him about it?” said Penner.
“No-no-no.” Hernandez shook his head violently. “We stick to this business.”
“Tell me you’ll at least think about it,” said Penner.
Hernandez said nothing. Until he quickly decided the best thing to do, for his own mission, was to say he’d at least think about it.
“Excellent,” said Penner, putting his arm around the Venezuelan. “So we’ll talk about this next time you fly out to LA?”
Hernandez shrugged. “Call me with news. I will visit, and we complete my president’s request.” As the Venezuelan eased himself out the door his mind returned to CAHUNA, their chance encounter.
FBI Special Agent Jennifer Jones watched from a lobby chair, behind a newspaper, as her target, Hernandez, rounded out of the Four Seasons. She waited another five minutes before ascending to the third floor.
Josh Penner answered her door knock in a bathrobe. “Just about to jump in the shower,” he said. “Join me?”
“Not today,” she said coyly. “But I’ll come in and wait until your finished.”
He welcomed her in and gestured at the opulence. “Like my suite?”
In truth, it was the most luxurious hotel accommodation Jones had ever seen. She nodded, wide-eyed.
“You should see the shower.” Penner winked.
Jones plunked herself down on an easy chair.
Penner drew a chair opposite the FBI agent. “Okay, talk first. Hernandez was here.”
“I know.”
“I made the pitch.”
“And?”
“He says he’ll think about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But he wasn’t enthusiastic. I need to get him to LA, show him the life.”
“When?”
“He’s ready when I am. But there’s something I’ve got to line up before he comes.”
“And what’s that?”
Penner studied Jones’s face.
She knew very well he couldn’t say.
“I’ll tell you in the shower.”
“Cute.”
“That’s me.”
Jones rose to leave. “See you back in LA.”
“I’ve got to fly to Europe first.”
This piqued the FBI agent’s curiosity. She gave him a quizzical look, but when he didn’t fill the silence she let it pass to avoid another reference to showering.
“Ciao,” said Penner, escorting her to the door, opening then closing it behind her.
Then he sat down. After a slew of visits from assorted characters, his mind had become more muddled than a well-made Old Fashioned. He needed a recap to get things straight, lest caught in confusion he say the wrong thing to the wrong person.
For the CIA, he was rusing Hugo Chavez, with a view to taking the Venezuelan president’s temperature and filling gaps for agency psychological profilers. And now he was also rusing Tom Richardson, a rogue spy who planned to write a tell-all book—a book the agency obviously did not want him to see. And so instead CIA wanted to insert their own officer, Sophie Gunderson, a real looker with the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.
For the FBI, he was trying to better get to know Alexis, whose real name was Jose Hernandez, a Venezuelan intelligence officer sent by Chavez to find other Hollywood stars to cavort with and enhance his public profile. His mission was to corrupt Hernandez by offering big money and a new career in Hollywood in exchange for changing sides. To do this, Penner was using his spy movie situation with the CIA and Tom Richardson.
And while the CIA was disturbed that the FBI was in contact with him, he hadn’t mentioned to them that such contact was ongoing with FBI Special Agent Jenny Jones, another real looker, and CIA hadn’t brought it up.
Question: Did the FBI know of his connection to CIA? Penner did not recall. But he had not told them about either of his CIA assignments.
Wait, wait, wait—that wasn’t all. Now Jack Woodward, an Assistant Secretary of State, clearly oblivious to Penner’s connections to both CIA and the FBI, was trying to blackmail him into an introduction to Hugo Chavez.
Should I tell CIA that the State Department is moving in on me? No. When I mentioned the FBI, they freaked. And it might irritate this guy Woodward if he finds out and he’ll prosecute me. The CIA might come to my rescue, as they did with the Malibu cops. Or they might just run like hell.
Should I tell the FBI that someone from the State Department is trying to blackmail me? After all, blackmail is a crime.
All things considered, Penner reasoned that, for now at least, the best thing to do was… nothing. To go along with everyone.
If nothing more, it made good grist for his own movie one day.