Zero history

42. ELVIS, GRACELAND

Winnie Tung Whitaker was wearing a pale blue iteration of the sweatshirt with the South Carolina state flag monogram. Milgrim imagined her buying the full color-range at some outlet mall, off the highway to Edge City Family Restaurant. The blue made her look more like a young mother, which she evidently was, than a bad-ass, which she’d just told him she was. He really didn’t doubt that she was either. The bad-ass part was currently expressed by a pair of really impressively ugly wraparound sunglasses with matte alloy frames, worn pushed up over her smooth black hair, though more so by something about the look in her eyes. “How did you know about this place?” asked Milgrim. Their starters had just arrived, in a small Vietnamese cafe.

“Google,” she said. “You don’t believe I’m a bad-ass?”

“I do,” said Milgrim, rattled. He hurriedly tried his chili squid.

“How is it?”

“Good,” said Milgrim.

“You want a dumpling?”

“No, thanks.”

“They’re great. Had them when I was here before.”

“You were here before?”

“I’m staying near here. Called Kentish Town.”

“The hotel?”

“The neighborhood. I’m staying with a retired detective. Scotland Yard. Seriously.” She grinned. “There’s a club, the International Police Association. Hooks us up with lodging in members’ homes. Saves money.”

“Nice,” said Milgrim.

“He has doilies.” She smiled. “Lace. They kind of scare me. And I’m a clean-freak myself. Otherwise, I couldn’t afford to be here.”

Milgrim blinked. “You couldn’t?”

“We’re not a big agency. I’m covered for a hundred and thirty-six dollars per day, meals and incidentals. More for a hotel, but here, not really enough. This is the most expensive place I’ve ever seen.”

“But you’re a special agent.”

“Not that kind of special. And I’ve already got pressure going on, from my boss.”

“You do?”

“He doesn’t see the cooperation via the legate and the Brits going anywhere. And he’s right, it isn’t. He isn’t crazy about me running around London on per diem, conducting investigations outside U.S. territory, without the proper coordination. He wants me back.”

“You’re leaving?”

“That’s bad for you?” She looked as though she were about to laugh.

“I don’t know,” he said, “is it?”

“Relax,” she said, “you aren’t rid of me that easily. I’m supposed to go home and work through the FBI to get the Brits on board, which would be slow as molasses even if it worked. The guy I’ve got the really serious hard-on for, though, he’d be gone anyway.” Thinking about this person, Milgrim noticed, made her eyes look beady, and that brought back his initial reaction to her in Covent Garden. “Recruiting a U.S. citizen in the U.K. is okay,” she said, “but interacting with non-U.S. citizens, in furtherance of a criminal investigation or a national security matter? Not so much.”

“No?” Milgrim had the feeling, somehow, that he’d just penetrated some worryingly familiar modality, one that felt remarkably like a drug deal. Things were going seriously transactional. He looked around at the other diners. One of them, seated alone, was reading a book. It was that kind of place.

“If I did that,” she said, “the Brits would get very upset. Fast.”

“I guess you wouldn’t want that.”

“Neither would you.”

“No.”

“Your tasking is about to get a lot more specific.”

“Tasking?”

“How’s your memory?”

“The past ten years or so, nonlinear. I’m still putting it together.”

“But if I tell you a story, a fairly complicated one, now, you’d retain the general outline, and some of the detail?”

“Hubertus says I’m good with detail.”

“And you won’t inflate it, distort it, make up crazy shit when you tell it to someone else later?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that’s what the people we tend to work with do.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re pathological liars, narcissists, serial imposters, alcoholics, drug addicts, chronic losers, and shitbirds. But you’re not going to be like that, are you?”

“No,” said Milgrim.

The waitress arrived with their bowls of pho.

“Curriculum vitae,” she said, and blew on her pho, the shaved beef still bright pink. “Forty-five years old.”

“Who is?”

“Just listen. 2004, he resigns his commission, fifteen years an officer in the U.S. Army. Rank of major. Last ten years of that, he was with First Special Forces Group in Okinawa, Fort Lewis near Tacoma. Spent most of his career deploying in Asia. Lots of experience in the Philippines. After 9/11, he does deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But before the Army figures out how to do counterinsurgency. Resigns because he’s a classic self-promoter. Believes he has a good chance at striking it rich as a consultant.”

Milgrim listened intently, methodically sipping broth from the white china spoon. It gave him something to do, and that was very welcome.

“2005 through 2006, he tries to get work as a civilian contractor with CIA, interrogations and whatnot.”

“Whatnot?”

She nodded, gravely. “They see, to their credit, that his talents and expertise don’t really go that way. He knocks around the Gulf region for two years, pitching security consulting services for oil companies, other big corporations in Saudi, UAE, Kuwait. Tries to get his foot in the door as a consultant with the rich Arab governments, but by this time the big dogs in that industry are up and running. No takers.”

“This is Foley?”

“Who’s Foley?”

“The man who followed us in Paris.”

“Did he look forty-five to you? You might not make such a good informant after all.”

“Sorry.”

“2006 to present. This is where it gets good. Going back to what he knew best before 9/11, he exploits old contacts in the Philippines and Indonesia. Moves his business to Southeast Asia, which is a gold mine for him. The big companies are more focused on the Middle East at this point, and smaller operators can pick up more cash in Southeast Asia. He starts by doing the same security consulting work for corporate clients in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Hotel chains, banks… He games the political connections of those corporate clients into consulting work for those governments. Now he’s teaching tactics, counterinsurgency strategies, which he’s maybe only barely qualified to do. Interrogation, which he’s not qualified to do. And more. Whatnot. Instructing police units, probably the military too, and here’s where he starts to seriously get into arms procurement.”

“Is that illegal?”

“Depends how you do it.” She shrugged. “Of course, he also has some former service buddies working for him by this point. While he’s teaching tactics, he’s also specifying the equipment these outfits will need. He starts small, outfitting counterterrorist police squads with special weapons and body armor. Stuff sourced from American companies where he has ties of friendship. But if general officers of these countries’ militaries get visibility on what he’s doing, and get a chubby from it, which some of them are highly disposed to do, and are also impressed by his Rambo routine, your classic multitalented American commando but with more business acumen, they can start talking to him about equipment needed by their militaries’ conventional forces.” She put her spoon down. “So here’s where we start talking real money.”

“He’s selling arms?”

“Not quite. He becomes a hookup artist. He’s hooking up deals with contacts in the United States, people who work for companies that build tactical vehicles, UAVs, EOD robots, mine detection and removal equipment…” She sat back, picking up her spoon again. “And uniforms.”

“Uniforms?”

“What did your Blue Ant guys think they’d picked up on in South Carolina?”

“An Army contract?”

“Right, but the wrong army. At this point, anyway. And at this point, the man I’ve just described to you regards your employers as direct and aggressive competitors. Those pants are his first shot at contracting equipment himself. He won’t just be the hookup.”

“I don’t like the way this sounds,” Milgrim said.

“Good. What you need to remember, with these guys, is that they don’t know they’re con men. They’re wildly overconfident. Omnipotence, omniscience-that’s part of the mythology that surrounds the Special Forces. I had those guys hitting on me every last day in Baghdad.” She held up her fist, showing Milgrim her plain gold wedding band. “Your guy can walk in the door and promise training in something he personally doesn’t know how to do, and not even realize he’s bullshitting about his own capabilities. It’s a special kind of gullibility, a kind of psychic tactical equipment, that he had installed during training. The Army put him through schools that promised to teach him how to do everything, everything that matters. And he believed them. And that’s who your Mr. Bigend has interested in his ass today, if not seriously after it.”

Milgrim swallowed. “So who’s Foley?

“The designer. You can’t make uniforms without a designer. He was at Parsons, the New School for Design.”

“In New York?”

“Kind of doubt he fit in. But never mind him. Michael Preston Gracie’s who I’m after.”

“The major? I don’t understand what it is he’s done.”

“Crimes that involve lots of official acronyms. Crimes that would take me all night to explain accurately. I hunt in an underbrush of regulations. But the good thing about these guys, for me, is that the smaller the transgression, the sloppier they’ll handle it. I watch the underbrush for twigs they’ve broken. That was Dermo, in this case.”

“Dermo?”

“D-R-M-O. Defense Reutilization and Marketing Offices. They sell off old equipment. He manipulates old Army buddies. Illegally. Equipment’s sold on to foreign entities, be they companies or governments. ICE notices a shipment, all curiously shiny-new. No ITAR violations but they note the shiny, the new. I look into it, turns out those radios were never meant to be sent to DRMO at all. Look a little closer and the DRMO buy wasn’t right either. See he’s involved in lots of these purchases, lots of contracts. Nothing huge, but the money seriously adds up. Those pants of yours look to me like the start of a legitimization phase. Like he’s started listening to lawyers. Might even be a money-laundering angle there. What did I tell you his name was?”

“Gracie.”

“First name?”

“Peter.”

“I’ll give you a mnemonic: Elvis, Graceland.”

“ ‘Elvis, Graceland’?”

“Preston, Gracie. Presley, Graceland. What’s his name?”

“Preston Gracie. Mike.”

She smiled.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Tell Bigend.”

“But then he’ll know about you.”

“Only as much as you tell him. If we were back in the States, I’d play this another way. But you’re my only resource here, and I’m out of time. Tell Bigend there’s this hard-ass federal agent who wants him made aware of Gracie. Bigend has money, connections, lawyers. If Gracie fucks with him, let’s make sure he knows who to fuck back at.”

“You’re doing what Bigend does,” Milgrim said, more accusingly than he intended. “You’re just doing this to see what happens.”

“I’m doing it,” she said, “because I find myself in a position to. Maybe, somehow, it’ll cause Michael Preston Gracie to fuck up. Or get fucked up. Sadly, it’s just a gesture. A gesture in the face of the shitbird universe, on behalf of my ongoing frustration with its inhabitants. But you need to tell Bigend, fast.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got Gracie’s flight schedule on APIS, via CBP. He’s on his way here. Atlanta by way of Geneva. Looks like he’s laying over for a meeting there, four hours on the ground. Then he’s into Heathrow.”

“And you’re leaving?”

“It’s a piss-off, but yeah. And my kids and husband miss me. I’m homesick. I guess it’s time.” She put down her spoon, switching to chopsticks. “Tell Bigend. Tonight.”