Man in the Middle by Brian Haig Read Free Book Online Page A

explanation for your silliness during that phone call.”
    “I understand.”
    “If you say that again, I’ll—”
    “Are
you
ready to listen?”
    I heard her draw a sharp breath. I tend not to draw out the best qualities in my bosses. She said something I already knew. “This better be good.”
    So I succinctly recounted what I had observed and what I surmised, including that Cliff might have had a helping hand when he killed himself, that Major Tran was suspiciously territorial toward that briefcase, and that perhaps it contained something incriminating, or worse. Phyllis is a good listener—at least a patient one—and she did not interject or comment until I finished. Then she said, “This is curious.”
    “I know why it’s curious to me. Why is it curious to
you
?”
    “Well . . .”
    We were already off to a bad start. “Start over.”
    Silence.
    “Phyllis, I’m involved. Tell me what’s going on here, now, or I’ll let Tran walk out with that briefcase.”
    “You’re too nosy for your own good.”
    She meant for her own good, but with her that might be the same thing. I said, “Three questions. Who is Cliff Daniels? Why are you and the Feds interested in him? And why am I here?”
    “This is . . . inconvenient. I can hardly elaborate over an insecure cellular phone connection.” After a moment, she added, “Had you been following the news you would have noted in last week’s
Post
that Clifford Daniels has been ordered to testify before the House Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee.”
    “Why?”
    “I suppose because Cliff Daniels was Mahmoud Charabi’s handler.”
    A lot of Arabs are in the news these days, but I was familiar with that name. Twenty years before, Mahmoud Charabi had fled Iraq, two steps ahead of a posse of Saddam Hussein’s goons, who stayed on his tail and had a clear agenda. There followed a few attempted whacks, including a nasty affair with a hatchet in a London hotel and a shotgun ambush outside a Parisian nightclub. Then Saddam called off the dogs; either other Iraqi exiles bumped Charabi down on the hit list or he was no longer worth the effort. Thus he entered his rootless and peripatetic figure stage, seeking haven first in Switzerland, then London, then Paris, and eventually setting up shop in Washington. As with many exiles driven by restless ambitions and old grudges, he founded an organization for the liberation of his homeland, the Iraqi National Symposium.
    Many of these so-called liberation and opposition groups are little more than social clubs for nostalgic expats, associations for preposterously lost causes, or scams for gullible fools to throw money at. The world is indeed a wicked place, filled with nasty tyrants, hateful prejudices, ancient crimes unrepented, starvation, diseases, genocide, and fratricide; all of which, of course, is Pandora’s fault—though I suspect human nature also may have something to do with it. And for every wrong, there is somebody who wants to make it right.
    In Washington, there are literally thousands of these expat revolutionaries in the wings, organized into hundreds of groups and organizations, all vying to get their dreams and their causes on Uncle Sam’s to-do list. The lucky few even find rich and/or powerful patrons to bankroll and lobby their causes. But there is, I suppose, something romantic and adventurous about these foreign people peddling grand ideas for miserable places, because they are highly sought figures on the Hollywood Stars Seeking Grand Causes tours, the D.C. cocktail circuit, and in Georgetown’s more storied salons. And why not? Listening to Xian discuss why anguished Tibet must be liberated and free certainly makes for more ennobling table talk than the hubbies bitching about greens fees at the Congressional Country Club. Personally, I prefer uncomplicated company when I eat—definitely when I drink.
    But it’s clear what draws these galvanized exiles to our shores: our unimaginable power, and