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“I hope it doesn’t surprise you that I was already aware of that. Hence my visit there. I am a good board member after all.”
“You’re not only a board member. You also have a direct financial interest in the business of Vector.”
“As board members so often do.”
“The budget for the complex is six hundred and forty-four million, nine hundred and seventy-six thousand dollars per annum.”
“It’s expensive keeping us safe. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” McIntosh started to rise from his seat.
“Which means the cost ofeachof the ten prisoners currently housed there is over sixty-four million dollars. Hardly a bargain compared to Gitmo’s thirteen million per pop.”
McIntosh sat down. “Prisoners?What on earth are you talking about, Roger? Have you suffered a stroke or something?”
Blue Man took out additional photos that Robie had taken showing the men being wheeled off to ambulances. “I’m talking about these men.”
“Could be anyone,” said McIntosh, glancing at them. “Looks like some Air Force personnel in distress. As you said, it gets hot out there.”
“They’re not Air Force personnel, as you well know.”
“You say, I say.”
Blue Man’s expression now hardened. “This back-and-forth grows wearisome, and you are not the only item on my agenda for today.” He leaned forward. “Vector’s COO and CFO alsosay. As does Colonel Sumter. They’re ISIS, Taliban, and Al-Qaeda prisoners taken from the battlefields and smuggled into this countrywithoutthe knowledge of government leadership.”
McIntosh’s eyelids rose a bit more fully, revealing his pale blue eyes. “You’ve . . . you’ve talked to Sumter?”
“We actually couldn’t get him tostoptalking once he saw the trouble he was in.”
“I don’t see it that way at all. And contrary to your observation, itwasall approved with a nice little bow on top.”
“What was approved a very long time ago and never revisited was the operation of London AFS as a PARCS radar array monitoring facility, which function it was performing up until about a year ago. Then its purpose dramatically shifted. It has the same quasi-pyramidal building as its cousin in Grand Forks and the same impressive surveillance system. However, since we already have one of those in North Dakota, and the one at Grand Forks is newer and better positioned, a spare was not really needed. But that’s certainly not the first time the Pentagon has had redundancies and wasted money. So a complex out in the hinterlands with a duplicative purpose? You must have felt like a pot of gold had been dropped into your lap because that made it the perfect facility to house additional unauthorized prisoners who should never have been brought into this country. To torture them. And then dispose of them when they had told all they could or refused to do so, and then you would pass along this intelligence to others in government under the subterfuge that it had come through ordinary channels. The ambulances? They might as well have been meat wagons for thebodies. Which we are right now digging up, by the way, based on information provided to us.”
McIntosh sat back. “I commend the speed with which you have moved on this, Roger. I really do.”
“The federal government is like an aircraft carrier. It takes us a while to get going, but once we do, look out.”
“Yes, indeed.” McIntosh managed to tack on a smile, even as his skin grew as gray as the side of a naval vessel.
Blue Man next took out the photos Robie had given him of the people getting off the jet.
“I wondered why Vector was given the contract, since the capabilities of their people are not known to be in the PARCS space. But the VP of operations for Vector is well-known to me. He headed up security at Gitmo for six years. And here he is with two of his top lieutenants arriving at London AFS.” Blue Man held up the photos for McIntosh to see. “He of course has also been arrested, and from what I understand he is already attempting to make a deal. The CFO and COO have already received blanket immunity in return for their testimony. It may well be that you’re the odd man out on that, Patrick, which is why I saved you for last, if for no other reason than I don’t like you and never have.”
McIntosh made a hissing sound as he sucked on his tongue. “Why are you even involved in this? You are barred from operating in this country. I think you left me a hole to climb through.”
“We are an intelligence agency tasked with protecting this country from enemies both foreign and domestic. We have worked in conjunction with the FBI this entire time. They are the lead agency on this, we merely their very willing helpmate. That type of arrangement occurs all the time and has been thoroughly vetted in the courts. Thus you will find that not only is there no hole for you to escape through, but that the roof over your head for your remaining time on this earth will be provided by the federal government.”
“Roger, I think if we discussed this civilly—”
Blue Man spoke over him. “The long and the short of it is you are running a secret and unauthorized prison, using government funds that were meant to pay for a fully operational eye in the sky, with the result that you are charging the American taxpayer many times what it costs to house prisoners at Gitmo, which was an alarmingly high rate to begin with. In the last year your good CFO has calculated that, thus far, profits to Vector have exceeded nearly a half billion dollars, which is, by any standard, an outrageous margin of return. I trust you understand that Uncle Sam frowns on gouging like that. In fact, he frowns on it so much that there are multiple laws against it, all of which you have broken.”
“We were doing good, Roger. The information we received and passed along—”
“—has not resulted in anything positive. Almost all of it has been proven erroneous and thus useless. The rest of it was already known through legitimate intelligence sources.” He paused. “Let me be as clear as I possibly can be. This was not about helping this country. This was about lining your pocket. So please do not plead patriotism as your defense. You’ll only embarrass yourself and make me even angrier than I already am.”
As Blue Man had been speaking, McIntosh had sunk lower and lower in his very fine and very expensive chair.
Blue Man continued, “It speaks to the appallingly large and frustratingly complex footprint of the DoD that such a scheme could have worked in the first place, and that it’s taken so long for the truth to come out. But with an overall budget of nearly a trillion dollars, thousands of facilities all over the globe, millions of employees and contractors, billions of square feet of space, and enough divisions and departments and programs that the right hand literally isn’t even aware that thereisa left hand, it wasn’t that difficult to hide this sort of thing. The budget at London, though obscenely out of whack, doesn’t even register as a blip on the Pentagon’s overall spending. You, of course, had allies within the Air Force, the Pentagon, and the Congress to help you bury the truth—whom your CFO has helpfully provided information about—including significant six- and seven-figure payoffs. My director has been fully briefed on this and has communicated this in writing to the director of the FBI and the IGs of the Air Force and the DoD. And lastly, again to be as transparent as possible, a warrant for your arrest is being issued as we speak.”
Blue Man rose and smoothed out his dress shirt and tie. “Now I’m going to leave before I do or say something I might regret. However, I would suggest that you make plans to sell your vacation home in Italy. I don’t see much opportunity for you to use it. And you might need the additional funds for legal fees. And please dissuade yourself from any thoughts of fleeing. As soon as you leave this room there will be multiple eyes on you, until your arrest warrant is executed. Thank you for your time.” He pointed at the empty glass. “And you might want to get yourself another drink, Patrick. Good-bye. We will not be meeting again.”
