Final Winter

‘Some role,’ Brian said, rising to the conversation. ‘You know what I am? I’m a fucking rat, true and simple. I work with these people and do missions with them, travel with them and eat with them, and you’re asking me to betray them, one right after another.’

The Director said, ‘Catholic, are you?’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘Too young to have gone to the Latin Mass?’

‘Yeah,’ Brian said. ‘And I haven’t been to Mass in a hell of a long while. Look, sir, what I’m saying is—’

The Director interrupted with a sentence of Latin words. Brian stopped, and said, ‘All right. Say that again, will you?’ ‘I said, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” A Latin phrase from the first century. It loosely translates as, “Who will guard the guardians?” Or, “Who will watch the watchers?” Different phrases, same meaning.’

The Director spread an arm out, as to emphasize a point, and said, ‘Since 9/11, we’ve been working in the shadows. The Tiger Teams — thank God — haven’t received any news-media attention at all. If any of our work ever does get out to the public, it’s always attributed to intelligence agencies. That’s it. The title and concept of the Tiger Team hasn’t been revealed. Which has allowed us to do tremendous work, here and abroad, in disrupting terrorist cells, disrupting terrorist planning, and even helping some regimes see the error of their ways. We have been given great power to protect this country.’

The Director leaned forward slightly over the desk. ‘But with that great power comes great responsibility. A little secret for you. Just after 9/11, after the shock and terror, there was an opening, and some took advantage of that opening. We knew there was only a slim opportunity to set something up that would protect us and kill our enemies. Not merely reshuffling office cubicles in some government agency, or setting up a color-coded alert system. Speaking of which…what color are we at today?’

Brian shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Don’t know. Orange, I guess.’

The Director smirked. ‘Here you are, a valued member of Tiger Team Seven, and even you don’t know our alert level from the Department of Homeland Security. So there you go. And as I was saying… with this power comes great responsibility. We have minimal oversight, but what oversight there is has to be tough. Which is where you and a number of other Tiger Team members come in. In addition to your regular duties, you check out your comrades. You see what they do. You take a fresh look into their background. Nine-hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, there’s nothing there. And what is there is something minor. Like looking at porn while on company time. Big deal. But we can always say later, when the Congressional investigations start — and, my friend, they will start, that you can believe, it’s the nature of the beast — that we had oversight in place. That’s your job. To guard the guardians.’

‘The job sucks.’

The Director said nothing for a moment. Then his voice changed, became softer, more reflective. He said, ‘Two months after 9/11, I was in Afghanistan. I was a liaison to an anti-Taliban group that was operating near Kandahar. We were moving at night and some of the mujahedin had stopped a Toyota pickup truck, running without lights along this long dirt road. Took the men out of the truck. There were four of them. They weren’t from Afghanistan. They were Saudis — volunteers who had come there to fight for the Taliban. To the Afghans there, they were outsiders. Interlopers. Arabs. So you know what happened to them?’

‘Something not nice, I’d imagine.’

The Director said, ‘Here, let me help you with your imagination. Besides myself, there were two other Americans there. And a few dozen mujahedin. And those mujahedin took the four Arabs away and took turns buggering them, and when they were done their throats were slit. Our allies had raped and murdered these men, and left their bodies in the Toyota truck as a warning to other outsiders about what happened to those who were captured by Afghans. And our Afghans were happy and were singing, and there we were, representatives of twenty-first-century America, witnessing a war crime, and we didn’t do a damn thing. That, detective, is what sucks. Sorry you don’t like your job. Get over it.’

The Director opened up a desk drawer, pulled out a folder which he tossed in Brian’s direction.

‘Your next assignment,’ he said. ‘As soon as possible.’

Brian picked up the folder, opened it up. Adrianna Scott’s photograph looked up at him. He looked to the Director and said, ‘Adrianna? Are you sure?’

‘Nobody is immune from oversight. Not even myself, not even her.’

Brian said, ‘It’s going to be busy this month, with…well, you know. Final Winter and all.’

The Director nodded. ‘I’m sure you’ll find the time. If you’ll excuse me, detective, I need to get ready for my next meeting. And by the way, the Homeland Security threat level today is yellow. Not orange.’