Interrogation

"The problem for me," said the young officer, running his fingers through short cropped hair. "The issue I can't get past is that we knew about you, we could see you on the radar, but there is nothing official anywhere about you. And you don't communicate very well..."

The young man was dressed in fatigues and had a pencil thin brush of hair above his lip, which looked fake; as if were pasted on his porcelain face. He obviously liked paying for sex because that 'stache was definitely not going to attract women.

"Volunteer," I replied. "I never was official. You have intercepts from my communications I take it?"

"Hard disks full of them," said the soldier. Captain Peyton, was his name; something or other. Didn't matter anyway since it was obviously fake. They always were. "They never taught you to communicate?"

"No," I replied. "I'm uncleared and most personnel had to keep stay away from me. Antiseptic information reasons. It created a problem when there was something important to discuss because I would have to guess the correct path."

The Captain looked confused. "You must have communicated with your handlers somehow? How did you get paid?"

"I was never paid," I replied. "Volunteers volunteer. And occasionally somebody in authority would show up next to me on an airplane. I took hints."

"Well. You've been a lot of trouble to us" he said. "And nobody else is claiming you."

"I never knew for sure who I was working for," I replied. "It didn't matter as long as things moved in the right direction." As for the rest of it, I offered no answer because I didn't especially care if I was trouble to his "us", or not. I had stood up for my country in a way that people in the system, who had sworn to uphold the Constitution, had not.

Granted, it was because I could. The one benefit I had as an outsider was rights, although admittedly you can't eat rights. There were serious repercussions to me, making all that trouble over telecoms immunity and wiretapping without a warrant, but they were not the same kinds of trouble as what Cheney and his boys made for Joe and Valerie Wilson. I didn't have a career in public service to destroy and I was not precluded from hitting back, like Mrs. Wilson was, by a blanket nondisclosure.

"Sounds like you were taken," said Captain Peyton. He sure thought he was clever, this young fellow.

"I was a sucker, it was true, but not in terms of the mission. Everything I did benefited the country. It just didn't benefit me. Now the only place it still hurts is in my wallet."

It was true. If things had gone differently I would be having a totally different conversation with a totally different guy. The fact is that some of the biggest American businessmen were volunteer spies. But because they somehow used it to open a few doors, or used special information to cash in, they were thought of as entrepreneurial geniuses. In fact they were just doing their patriotic duty. They then redirected some of that information for private gain."

The captain stared down at his hands. He had his doubts. It was obvious I knew everything about the system, and how it worked. It was also clear that I had big holes in my knowledge, particularly in regards to basic tradecraft and human communications techniques.

"Where did you learn about the Proximate system," he asked, hesitantly. He obviously was uncomfortable uttering a word that was classified, although nobody every told me that the system was in fact classified. Because they were never allowed to speak directly to me they could never tell me what was permitted or taboo. I had to use common sense or guess.

"If you have intercepts back into the 90s, then it will all be there," I replied.

"I'll look through the hard drives, but I want to hear it from you," he said.

"Another time," I replied. "I must be getting on." The difference between military intelligence people and civilian spy agencies is that the military sometimes forgets to ask, and instead tries to threaten. They need to be reminded sometimes that we don't live in a police state, or at least not yet, and that I'm free to do what I please.

The Captain looked momentarily unsure, and then relented.

"Okay," he said. "How about some lunch? Do you eat lunch?"

"Tomorrow," I said. "You can treat me tomorrow."

He paused, then nodded. It would be the first time I had gotten something from these guys after they had made my life such a misery over the past two years. "Are we going to Le Mont?" I asked.

"I was thinking of the mess hall," replied Captain Peyton. "How about if we compromise on the Chinese buffet down on University?"

"Great," I replied. "See you at 12:15."