I had so much fun (during these relatively inactive Covid times) chronicling the entwined true spy stories of private-sector intelligence, FBI Counterintelligence and spy-mastering in Monaco, I've decided to serialize a never-before-published satirical espionage novel I wrote almost twenty years ago.
It features Jeff Dalkin, who looks exactly like Bruce Willis and suffers from Tourettes syndrome (please pardon his profanity, he can't help it).
Dare I say, this story may be based on something that actually happened (at least parts of it).
Dalkin first appeared in my novel Crinkum Crankum...
...and later in Lo Mein.
1.
Jeff Dalkin swigs a dry martini and peruses the Los Angeles Times.
Garbed in cutoffs, t-shirt, Oakley shades and
a grey baseball cap that says Hot Dog on a Stick he looks the spitting
image of Bruce Willis with his near-shaven head and ever-present smirk.
Dalkin does not rush to answer his cell phone, which is chirping, but puts it to his ear on ring four. "Yeah-what?"
"Is that you?"
Dalkin grimaces in recognition of the gruff voice belonging to assistant FBI director R. James Cloverland. "No."
"Then who is it?"
"Someone
else."
Silence.
"All
right," Dalkin finally squawks.
"Whattaya want?"
"How
are you?"
"Unruly."
"Where are you?"
"Paradise."
"Where?"
"It's
a bar on Anacapa."
"Is
that anywhere near Washington?"
"It's
somewhere very far from
Washington—wanking willies."
"Can
you come to Washington?"
"Why
the hell would I do that? I hate Washington—wanking
willies."
"Then I'm coming there," says Cloverland. "Where's Anacapa?"
"You're the F-F... flat-heeled barnacles of ineptitude—whew! FBI. Barf-bags. You figure it out." Dalkin un-powers his phone and slaps it down on the bar. "I should-a moved to Tahiti," he mutters. "Tits and tally-whacking."
2.
When
R. James Cloverland finally figures out where Dalkin is, he flies United to
LAX, rents a car and cruises ninety-three miles up Pacific Coast Highway to
Santa Barbara. Then he phones Dalkin and
follows his instructions: Enter
Nordstrom's department store, escalate two floors up, the terrace restaurant, take
a pew.
Dalkin
plunks himself next to the FBI assistant director for national security,
startling him.
"This
used to be the best deal in town," squawks Dalkin. "A great view and a cup of Joe for twenty-five
cents." Dalkin motions both hands
at the Santa Ynez Mountains.
"What
happened?"
"The
homeless. They camped outside, waited
for the doors to open, came on up and stayed all day long. So now this place charges more than
Starbuckies—spit and sputum."
"Why'd you move here?" asks Cloverland, one eye closed.
"The climate, the ocean, the wine, the babes… but mostly to get away from you.”
"But
isn't it... boring?"
Dalkin
shakes his head. "Never a dull
moment—until you arrived. What's
up?"
"We've
overhauled counterintelligence," says Cloverland.
"About
time. Who's we?"
"CIA,
the Bureau, DOD. An inter-agency review
called CI-15."
"I
know CI stands for Currently Indisposed. But what's with the fifteen? Wait, let me guess: Fifteen of you bureaucrats forming a
circle-jerk?"
"Cute."
"Oh,
shit..." Dalkin stands and assesses an unconventional getaway through
fencing meant to keep scavenging birds away.
"There
you are!" a husky man hollers.
"Sonofabitch!" Dalkin sprints across the terrace and picks
up a chair.
"No,
no, I got you now," says Husky, facing Dalkin across a table.
"The hell you do."
Husky throws a rolled envelope at Dalkin. "There, it touched you! You're served!"
He
scoots off, leaving Dalkin hollering about assault and battery.
Cloverland
sits watching, much amused. "Dare I
ask what that was about?"
"Goddam
process server," says Dalkin.
"On my tail for two months."
"What's it about?"
"Hell, if I know." Dalkin rips open the envelope. "Shit. It's about Ding-a-Ling Widgets."
"Who?"
"Don't
ask. If I tell you any more, they'll
subpoena you too. Let's get back to
your inter-agency spew. It must be
secret, right?"
Cloverland
nods.
"So
why the hell you telling me? I hate to
be burdened with secret stuff."
"Hear
me out, I'll get to you."
Cloverland pauses. "We had a
major CI review and reassessed every spy case that went wrong over the last
twenty years. And what we discovered
was, in many instances our problems were self-generated."
"Ain't
that the truth," Dalkin mutters.
"I assume you're going to get more specific?"
"Okay,
here's specific. You remember the Edward
Lee Howard case?"
"The CIA crypto-crud who defected to Moscow."
"Good memory." Cloverland nods. "Howard flunked a polygraph so the agency fired him. Bureaucracy—especially the intelligence community—does not know how to fire someone well. Howard was bitter. Ultimately, his attitude, fired up by booze, was, you trained me to be a spy, so a spy I'm going to be. He started selling secrets to the KGB. As you'll remember, Vitaly Yurchenko defected to us, gave up Howard, re-defected and Howard fled to Moscow, where his own hosts eventually took him out."
"Didn't Howard pull that off while under surveillance by something like 22 special agents from the FBI—baloney-beating bastards?"
"Yeah,
well." Cloverland squirms. "He got away. The point is the whole thing could have been
avoided if Howard had been better treated.
As I understand it, CIA ordered him out of the building on the
spot. They didn't even give him bus fare
home." Cloverland pauses. "More recently, Perfidious has had
similar problems."
"The
Brits?"
"Both
their services—MI5 and MI6—have been dealing with rogue spies. At MI5, it was David Shayler. MI6 had Richard Tomlinson. Neither defected to Moscow, but both revealed
secrets to the media out of bitterness.
The Tomlinson case has similarities to Howard. He was canned. Arrives one day for work as usual and it’s
over, see-ya-bye. These kinds of situations have caused a lot of
aggravation, not to mention the cost in human resources and money."
"Got
it," says Dalkin. "Is this
supposed to lead somewhere?"
Cloverland
nods. "It is."
"Good. Any chance of a shortcut."
“You
need to be somewhere?”
“Yup—the
beach.”
"We
feel—and so does Perfidious—that we need a new way to deal with the few
mavericks who weren't weeded out during the interview process and only on the
job do we discover they don't fit in. A
program, if you will, that prevents them from turning on their ex-employer and
running to hostile intelligence services—or the media."
Dalkin shrugs. "Makes sense."
"So instead of firing such persons, we would simply transfer them to a special unit, where they can be rendered harmless."
"They'd still have a salary and benefits?"
"Of
course." Cloverland nods. "Not only that, they'd be led to believe
they were being promoted."
"But
in reality, they'd be cast-offs?"
"Exactly,"
says Cloverland. "In the long-term,
their salary and benefits would be a fraction of what just one defector would
cost us. The Brits used to run a station
for this kind of person, in the south of France. But money became an issue for them."
"Money
is always an issue for Brits—bollocks and chips—unless we pay.
So, again, why are you telling me all
this?"
"I
want you to create a special misfit unit that does this for the US/UK
intelligence community."
“You
want that with fries?”
“I’m
serious.”
Dalkin
allows the cast-off concept to percolate with the caffeine in his brain. "You know, anything else you might have
wanted, I'd turn you down flat. But this? I kind of like it." He pauses.
"It would have to be here, of course."
"Here?"
"Santa
Barbara. If I'm running this unit, it's
gotta come here."
Cloverland
takes but a second to consider this.
"That's fine. We want our
mavericks as far away from Washington as possible, so that works nicely.”
"And
when these mavericks of yours get here, what are they supposed to do?"
"That's
your first assignment," says Cloverland.
"Come up with a program that'll keep them busy. More important"—he winks—“a program that
will keep them out of the way. We're
calling this Operation Rooster."
"Well,
fuck-a-doodle-do,” says Dalkin.