FEBRUARY 1993

Henry had shown Stan how to use a word-processor, how to format, how to print. Not that Stan understood anything the young man had said.

There was that, but now came the hard part. Stan had to sit there, him a little beer-soaked, and write out the reasons why FBI Counterintelligence should not ignore the new USSR-USA….. okay, word processors were better than typewriters, because he then backspaced over 'USSR-USA' and simply replaced it seamlessly with Russia/USA relations, right there on the screen. Easy. You couldn't do that on a typewriter, because the mistake would already be committed to paper!

The 1990s were superior afterall, Stan thought. Except that the DOJ was now ignoring a peril that, acc. to Stan, had never abated.

Stan's FBI reports over the years had been mostly a string of isolated sentences, seldom did he write in complex paragraphs. Nobody wanted 'War & Peace' in an FBI file. Each sentence therein took the place of a paragraph. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. Keep words to a minimum. That's how he'd been taught at Quantico, that was the best way to keep things simple, not overthought, just the facts listed in some coherent order.

And when they did not cash out into anything coherent, list them anyway. Only use verbs when necessary. Let someone else wear out their shoe-leather and find more facts, which filled in the blanks.

This one, though, Stan had to create a full narrative. Henry had given Stan 'Elements of Style', by William Strunk Jr. But Stan was in too much of a hurry to be involved in the theory of narrative composition!

As such, he had only turned to Henry to teach him how to use a computer, and its word processor. He'd never done that. He'd never known that technically, the computer and the word processor were two different things. But Stan was now even more obsessed with convincing his superiors that his hunch about Russians was intel-worthy, worthy in 1993 as it had been in 1962 or 1987.

So he dumped Strunk's, and dove into the computer screen in front of him.

It meant Stan had to learn how to write in complete sentences, in complex paragraphs - a thought had to flow, then be connected to the next one. No non sequiturs allowed. He had to put it all onto paper with requisite verbs and nouns, because in 1993, it was difficult to do gum-shoe work to demonstrate….

….. that Soviet illegals….. backspace backspace backspace backspace, which Stan could immediately see was infinitely better than that old typewriter white-out … Russian illegals, they still posed a threat.

That they may STILL be operating in America, this time as SVR illegals!

Stan had drained two cases of 24 beers in putting all that together. He even got Henry to read it through, although Henry had at first balked. He'd even had Henry print it out, because Stan was useless in connecting the printer to the computer….

Henry had just magically hit two keys, and voila, there it was. Stan's manifesto. Stan swore to himself that he'd hit those keys multiple times. If it hadn't been for the son of two former Soviet illegals, one of whom had been the best friend Stan had ever had, ever… the Russian menace that Stan clearly saw alive and well in 1993 would never have been presented to FBI brass.

This missive was the hill on which Stan would die.

604 TO 206 - RICHARD PATTERSON ALL OVER AGAIN

Philip: Elizabeth, The Centre wants you back in Seattle. They're concerned that you suddenly stopped checking in. I told them what they should have known - that you're too much of a committed professional to go rogue, or go off the grid.

Elizabeth: I'm not a child, Philip.

Philip: No one is saying that. But you are 'too professional' still, aren't you Elizabeth? You're not 'rogue' are you?

Elizabeth: Oh fuck off, Philip.

Philip: They won't tell me why, but they want you back here. In Seattle. It's a direct order. They want me to hear you repeat it back to me.

Elizabeth: Jesus, Philip, there's no need for that. Fuck.

Then February 26 hit, and even Elizabeth conceded that it was time to head south, back over the 49th. That despite the seismic hit she had taken in the Canadian restaurant that day, that, yes, even that now had to wait.

Except she could not leave Canada. Not yet. This was 'Richard Patterson' all over again.

ABOUHALIMA, AJAJ, AYYAD, SALAMEH

Stan was standing stiffly across from the newly minted Director of Counterintelligence for the FBI, the woman who he now worked for. A woman who five minutes from then was about to blow off equally newly-minted, President Clinton's Chief of Staff, so as to take another call from New York.

It was her first week as director.

She put down Beeman's handiwork, folded her hands at the desk, and let eyes remain fixated on the desk's surface. The first thing she did was to straighten the FBI pens in the pot to her right side. She mumbled, "Agent Beeman, these pens aren't recording this conversation are they?"

Stan did not appreciate his new boss's black humour. "With all due respect, ma'am….."

"Jesus, Beeman. Don't 'ma'am' me. I'm not your mother. I'm half your age!" She then picked up Beeman's report, and said, "before I was in the Bureau, Agent Beeman, I was in teacher's college. This is a difficult read, sir….."

"I appreciate that it is difficult, but that is the nature of what Russians do."

"No, no, no, no," she repeated. "A difficult 'READ'! Split infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions. Effect and affect. Misuse of past tense, past pluperfect…. it was endless, Stan."

The two remained in silence, him still stiffly standing. She sitting, resuming folding her hands, hands clasped now atop of Beeman's missive.

"Okay, Stan," she said looking at him. "I'm not naïve. I'm new, I get that. You old cold-warriors - this new world must be hard for you. I get it, Stan."

Stan unclasped the hands he'd had respectfully behind him, and now gestured to take advantage of this small opening.

Stan said, "all I'm asking for, ma'am…..", he stopped and winced at his mistake, but kept going nonetheless, "….. I'm asking for resources. Minimal. They're non-existent now. Assign junior people to go and reassemble files, paper-files. Things you can put your hands on. I promise you, they're here, the SVR, just like the KGB was. Their best, their brightest. They blend in, they suck you in…."

Stan decided he'd better stop there. He'd seen an opening, but now sensed he was blowing it. He was sounding invested.

"Look, Stan," his boss said, "me, I joined the Bureau because of the Cold War. Because of the Soviets. You know what? Me? I miss the Cold War, just like you. You know what I miss most? The Cold War had rules. When I joined, the USA and USSR had worked out 40 years of warfare rules, dirty ones, but they were there. Lines that neither side crossed - and when they did, you knew by instinct that someone somewhere had gone rogue."

"Now?" she continued. "Our adversaries, they don't play by rules. They're real fuckers, Stan. I got to this desk, because I had to face it - the Cold War, it's over. We won."

At that her intercom buzzed. Stan heard her secretary say soberly, "White House Chief of Staff - Mack McLarty - line one." Bill Clinton's majordomo was cutting in on the only time Stan had managed to procure with any of the FBI counterintel brass.

All Beeman heard, though, was his boss (who was now standing at her chair, at her side of the desk), say, 'yes sir' and 'no sir'. Whatever questions the White House was having with whatever the hell was going on, his boss didn't seem to have any real answers.

Then the intercom buzzed again. Mack McLarty was then treated to something that rarely happened to any Chief of Staff.

He was put on hold.

On line 2? New York FBI Special Agent Nancy Floyd, she had been the one to have eclipsed The White House. Why? What could possibly be so important? Stan heard much of this conversation, mainly because Floyd was yelling at her end in such a loud voice.

Stan had heard a few words that Floyd had told his boss, who was now sitting, scribbling Arabic names onto Beeman's Russian report. 'Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh,' were the names she wrote.

Stan then heard Floyd shouting, loud enough for him to hear clearly. "We built the fucking bomb for them!" That's what Islamist-expert, New York Field Office Special Agent Nancy Floyd had just shouted at the Washington Counterintelligence chief.

That day, 1,336 pounds of urea-nitrate nitrogen had exploded in the basement of the World Trade Center, killing 6 including a pregnant woman. One thousand people had been injured. Fifty thousand had to be evacuated from both towers, exposing how inefficient the Trade Center's stairwells had been.

Subsequently four New York residents, Islamists all, were convicted for the crime, joined by two more in 1997.

A later inquiry exposed that the FBI had been, indeed, monitoring those people's activities, and had even supplied them with (what the FBI had though were inert) materials. White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty called the whole saga a 'clusterfuck', one that exposed how vulnerable the United States was to homegrown terrorism.

Let alone the foreign variety.

But that day, Special Agent Stan Beeman, he returned to his desk, his SVR-illegals manifesto tossed in a bottom drawer. Later in the day when his young boss came out, asking to see his report, he happily got it out for her.

Instead, she wrote down the four Arabic names she'd recorded there, handed him his life back to him, and then she disappeared into The Vault.

Fuck.

Stan, he felt very old. Weary. Exhausted. Now not caring, he loaded the secure FBI tracking site into his cubicle computer. He typed in, 'Philip Jennings'. Of the many 'Philip Jennings' which popped up, he quickly sifted through those which could not possibly be his nemesis.

One that Stan breezed by was even a travel agent - in Seattle. Stan's immediate thought? 'Philip wouldn't be that stupid,' so he quickly scanned to the next ones.

A moment later, a technician stood over Beeman. Right there at Stan's cubicle.

"Stan, Stan, Stan," the techie said. "If it was any other day, I'd write you up myself. Quit it. You couldn't cover your computer tracks if you tried. Just quit it."

REV. TREVOR - THE OFFICE DOOR WINDOW

Rev. Trevor sat silently on his side of the desk in his office. His church 'gender safety' training had caused him to insist that his Board install window panels, even on his doors. If he was ever alone in his office with a woman, like he was presently, the window would afford them both protection.

Of sorts.

The woman seated opposite wasn't exactly crying, but she was visibly shaking. She had not been verbally coherent, not much. She wasn't particularly loud, either, but Rev. Trevor's secretary did look in through the door's window, had mouthed to him, 'should I call someone?'

Rev. Trevor had shaken his head, confident that the woman in front of him had not noticed. That one was a surprise, though, because in the few days he'd come to know her - she seemed otherwise hyper vigilant about her surroundings. In fact, the two Sundays she'd attended service, she had casually quipped to him the names of the ushers who'd welcomed her at the door (one of whom had forgotten to wear her name-tag), as well as other such trivial oddities that led Trevor to think outloud, 'wow, this woman pays attention!'

Rev. Trevor that evening made personal notes in his private diary about this encounter. He didn't always. His wife had once chided him for diarizing about private counsel-sessions, doing it with neither knowledge nor permission of the 'counselee'.

It's just that he'd never once run into a potential parishioner like her. Fifteen, maybe twenty years older than him.

All this had even eclipsed Rev. Trevor's other hobby, he was a news junkie.

Meaning that he was in his office at the church, behind the door's window, with this mystery woman, rather then home glued to the TV.

While CNN was doing 24/7 'Breaking News' about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Where CNN's correspondents were quipping that the old Cold War with the Russians, had now been formally replaced by Islamists. Jihadists.

Two words which all of America was fast conflating, wrongly, with Islam.