NSA

NSA
　
　
     On the way to my gate at the airport, I saw an old friend, Neal T— ambling through the concourse. I waved to him and, when I reached to shake his hand, he pulled me close bumping my chest against his. We had been in journalism school together and, a few years before, I had attended his wedding in Brooklyn. Through the internet, I was aware that he had recently been divorced.
     I told Neal that he looked lost. He seemed to regard the airport as a large maze interesting only to the extent that it could confuse and befuddle him.
     "I’m always lost," Neal said.
     "Still with the Agency?" I asked him.
     He murmured something about freelancing and mentioned a publication that I didn’t recognize. I suppose I looked briefly quizzical.
     "Special correspondent," Neal said.
     I asked him if he had time for a drink. "Always," he replied.
     We sat in a concourse tavern as far from the television screens mounted on the walls as possible. It was noisy but I could hear him if I bent my head toward his lips. He drank a martini. I wondered if his hand trembled just the tiniest bit when he lifted the glass to his mouth. The place smelled of onion rings and sweat in the rumpled clothing of the intercontinental travelers and the waitress pestered us, begrudging us our moments between orders. Airport bars are like hospitals – the time outdoors on the runways vaporous with mirage and evaporating jet fuel means nothing inside; people inhabit all sorts of different time-zones. It’s every time in the world in an airport bar and no time in particular.
     "I suppose you want to know about the divorce," Neal said.
     "I’m sorry about that."
     "Well, you were in the wedding and, I suppose, I owe you an explanation."
     "Of course not."
     Neal had married a staff-writer from the Food Network. She was a version of his mother, but perfected. The catering at the wedding reception was memorable. Neal and his bride had seemed improbably happy.
     "Do you have time?" Neal asked.
     I took my cell-phone from my pocket to check the time. A text-message told me that my flight was delayed.
     "Everything going to the coast is delayed," I said.
     "Typhoon or something," Neal replied.
     The waitress was looming overhead. Through the tinted glass, the thunderstorms bubbling up over the horizon looked green and ghastly. We ordered another round.
     "I blame it on the goddamn NSA," Neal said.
     "How so?"
     "Well, you remember, last October – the famous leaker, the alleged spy and threat to national security, what’s his name –"
     "Sloan Marshal."
     "Right, Sloan Marshal – you recall, he was holed-up in Stockholm at an embassy, as some reported, or in a hotel a thousand meters off the runway. Hiding out while the USA was demanding his extradition for spilling the beans to Wikileaks. He told the world that the NSA was tapping everyone’s phone and logging all our secrets."
     "It was the big story of the hour. I remember."
     "Sloan Marshal, the man who betrayed his country according to the State Department and the Justice Department and every other official department, including the Pentagon, and, of course, the darling of the media, the guy who blew the whistle on the government’s spy program snooping on you and me –"
     "Shush!" I said, gesturing up at the TV screen above the bar.
     "Yeah, Big Brother is watching," Neal said. "Anyway, I had the assignment from the Agency to get my ass to Stockholm and run this guy down and score an interview. Just like a thousand other journalists, both print and media. So I kissed my darling wife goodbye, took the train to Kennedy, and crossed the Atlantic to Sweden."
     I nodded.
     "As you can imagine, it’s media frenzy at Arlanda. No one knows where Sloan is staying, although rumors abound. Everyone has a theory but it’s all word-of-mouth, nothing verifiable. And a third of the journalists look pretty spooky to me, probably goons working for the CIA or the FBI or NSA or who knows what. I kept encountering people in bars, just like this one, right off the concourses who are, so to speak, a bit too chummy, overly friendly, who just want you to give them a friendly wink and a nudge, who say they are working for anarchist journals supposedly or neo-pagan news outlets or the Socialist Workers World, for Christ’s sake, but who knows – they all look like cloak and dagger to me. And, of course, you’ve got Fox News and MSNBC and all the other cable vultures with full entourage, absolute scorpions one and all, throwing elbows this way and that. People are holding press conferences to announce that they are holding press conferences and the sidewalk outside the terminal is crowded with camera operators taking pictures of the control tower just to show that they’ve made the trip to Stockholm and the whole time, our boy, Sloan is out-of-sight, being debriefed, I suppose, by Amnesty International or the Russians, who knows? If he’s staying at the Airport Marriot, no one knows where or under what name and the Swedes are hospitable to this sort of stuff, sticking their finger in the official eye of the USA, gouging, but not too hard, and completely secretive – you can’t get anything out of their officials. Political asylum, you know."
     "Then, there’s a rumor, a friend tells a friend sort of stuff: Sloan is supposedly about to depart from some other airport on the other side of town. He’s booked a passage to some autonomous or semi-autonomous zone is Central Asia, some place that has no extradition agreement with the Americans, needless to say, a hydrocarbon republic with a name no one can even pronounce. It’s just crazy enough to seem logical. After all, the guy is on the lam, running from the CIA and so, it stands to reason, he might hop a plane to nowheresville, some ex-Soviet republic. At least, that’s the word and we all have it on good authority. I talk to the home office and they authorize me to take the same flight – Merkur to Astana, that’s the name of the capitol."
     "I never heard of it." I said.
      "No one has. But Merkur out of Deutschland, Berlin – that’s the hub city I think -- flies there, twice daily ordinarily with a load of petrochemical engineers and terrorists. Non-stop from Stockholm And they don’t take-off from Arlanda, but on the other side of the city, the other airport – I don’t recall the name right now. So I booked my flight and dashed out of the Marriott to find a cab and, there, at curbside is Whitney Soledad, the glamor girl from CNN –"
     "The ‘Whitney Soledad’?"
     "The very same. She’s waving her arm in the air and we both make a mad dash for the same cab and end up it sharing a fare across the county to the other airport. Time is short and she’s bitching at the cabbie and he’s pretending not to know English. ‘The flight’s overbooked," Whitney said. ‘That means Sloan’s flying for sure. Otherwise, why would so many folks want to go to the Semi-autonomous Zone.’ ‘Not for the scenery or the food,’ I said. ‘Exactly,’ she winked at me. "Do you have camera?’ I ask her. ‘Sure,’ she says, ‘I got a deal to share a camera and sound guy. He’s ahead of me.’ She’s smaller than she looks on the tube but even more attractive, very much put-together, if you know what I mean. ‘I’m on stand-by,’ she said, ‘but I’m equipped to buy my way onto the plane.’ ‘Maybe, I can sell you my seat,’ I told her. Immediately, and I kid you not, she opened up her purse and began flashing wads of money at me. ‘I’m joking,’ I said. ‘I can make it worth your while,’ she says. ‘I’m sure you can,’ So, you see, I’m sort of flirting with her. But, of course, I don’t want to lose my gig, the boss has told me to make that flight, and so I tell her: ‘No, no, you’ll have to do business with someone else.’ So she sits back, sends a couple dozen text messages, and, during the whole ride – maybe an hour – I think I can see some black vans hustling up to tail us, and, overhead, a helicopter that keeps coming in and out of focus, and, finally, I say to her: ‘Did you tell anyone where you were going?’ ‘No," she says. ‘Did you?’ ‘No, I want an exclusive on this. But I think we’re being followed.’ ‘Hell,’ Whitney says, ‘how do we know that we aren’t in the crosshairs of a drone right now? For all we know, they’ll take him out by drone-strike just when we hop on board.’ ‘I don’t think so,’ I say. "Of course not,’ she tells me. ‘I’m just joking with you.’ "
     "We get to the other airport, a pretty miserable affair out on the taiga, and, sure enough, there’s a big crowd of journalists hovering around the jetway. The gate agent announces that the flight is overbooked and, exactly as she promised, Whitney makes a deal with some mining engineer to buy his seat – the guy doesn’t have a clue and can’t believe his good fortune: the aircraft pays him, gives him a voucher, and he also scalps his seat to Whitney for five-hundred. Then, we start boarding. ‘Where’s Sloan?’ someone asks me. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Have you seen him?’ someone else asks. "Oh, yeah, he was here before the thundering herd reached the airport,’ another guy says. ‘And they’ve already hustled him onto the plane, at least, that’s what the gate agent said.’ ‘Did you talk to the gate agent?’ ‘No, but I talked to someone who did.’ ‘Okay, okay,’ I say. And, then, we’re aboard. I’m on the aisle and the window seat right next to me is empty, and stays empty, and, pretty soon, people are circulating, they won’t stay put, exploring the airplane, checking its nooks and crannies for the famous whistleblower, and the stewardesses are plenty pissed-off and I’ve got six or seven eager beavers lurking around me, eyeing that empty seat.’ Then, Ms. Soledad comes up the aisle and steps right over me and plops herself into the empty seat next to the window. She’s removed her wrap, her jacket-thing, and you can see that she’s all set up to get the interview, to make herself irresistable to the poor guy. ‘So this is your seat,’ I ask her. ‘I’m back in the cattle-class,’ she says. Then, she winks at me again. ‘But I know for damn sure whose got this seat reserved,’ Whitney tells me. ‘You’re dressed to make a kill,’ I tell her. She smiles, a lot of wattage in those teeth, and says ‘A little glamor never hurt anyone,’ and, then, she fake–pouts ‘Don’t hate me because I’m pretty.’ ‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘He’s in the toilet,’ Ms. Soledad says. ‘One of them in the rear, by the galley, is ‘occupied’ and it’s been ‘occupied’ the whole time I’ve been aboard. The stewardess back there is really evasive. I know what they’re doing. He’s being hidden in the toilet until we taxi out on the runway. That’s the plan," Whitney says. ‘But you’re in his seat,’ I tell her. ‘No, I’m in your seat,’ she says. ‘I beg to differ.’ ‘Listen, you know, you can’t resist,’ Whitney tells me. ‘We’re a team. Just like in the cab. You run interference for me and I run interference for you. Go back into Economy for just a half-hour and, then, we switch places – you get what you want and I get what I want.’ ‘How is this fair?" I ask her. ‘We’re a team,’ she says."
     "Then, the flight-deck announces that the hatches have been closed and that all passengers must return to their seats, because the aisles are crowded, everyone is jostling around, craning their necks looking around. Whitney puts her hand on my leg and says ‘pretty please!’ and, let me tell you, I’m a sucker, I’m a complete sucker, so I went back into economy and found her seat and sat there during take-off and, then, for another forty-five minutes as we bumped our way up to altitude. Before the drink service began in economy class, I got up and barged my way into the front of the plane, actually shoving aside a stewardess who looked pretty miffed, but there were others up there too, and, there she was, Whitney Soledad, sipping a gin and tonic, next to the empty window seat, and people were queuing up to take pictures, one after another, of that unoccupied seat. ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘We found out that the lavatory was busted; it was ‘occupied’ because out-of-order.’ ‘So where is Sloan Marshal?’ ‘Who knows?’ Someone said ruefully: ‘Well, at least, we know where he isn’t.’ One after another, journalists shuffled up and took pictures of the empty seat and a couple of guys even used digital camcorders to show the seat that Sloan was supposed to be occupying. When the photography had ceased, I asked Whitney for my seat back. ‘Have a heart,’ she said. ‘But it’s my seat,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it up to you, when we land,’ she told me. Then, the stewardess shoed-me back to the rear of the plane."
     "As you can imagine, it was a long plane ride to nowhere. The petrochemical engineers swallowed as much booze as they could, sealed themselves off behind their earbuds, and went to sleep. Chemists and engineers like that, it seems, can always will themselves into a state of profound slumber. The other coach passengers consisted of scribblers for third-rate publications, freelancers, wire-service stringers, internet bloggers and other, and various, ink-stained wretches. Some of the seats were occupied by technical crew for the on-air personalities at the front of the plane and they were on holiday from the moment that it was announced that Sloan wasn’t on the flight and so there was a lot of drinking and bullshitting and standing in the aisles notwithstanding the disapproving glares of the stewardesses and, then, after six or seven hours, we came down out of the sky and bumped onto the bumpy runway at Astana International in the middle of the Semi-Autonomous zone."
     "We staggered down the jet-way. The airport was small and smelled like curry and, beyond the windows, I could see that the runways crossed a flat, treeless prairie that somehow managed to look both very hot and dry and very cold at the same time. A saw-edge of white-capped mountains braided one of the horizons and the peaks seemed to be almost below the horizon. The oil engineers hustled toward customs but almost everyone else, and it was the majority of the passengers, hunkered down in a couple of lounges immediately adjacent to the jetway. I checked with my smart-phone and found that the next flight was scheduled for 22 hours later and the journalists seemed mostly resolved to wait out the interval at the airport. Some soldiers armed with submachine guns anxiously surveyed the crowd of writers and TV people. An official with a clipboard circulated among the passengers, making notes. Whenever someone aimed a camera, the boys with the machine guns looked nervous and violently shook their heads."
     "I thought that Whitney would ignore me, but, instead, she approached and took my arm. ‘I really appreciate your help,’ she said. ‘That was a long flight back in coach,’ I told her. ‘Listen, I owe you,’ she said. She gave me her best on-air smile: ‘Let’s get out of here and go downtown. At least, we can get a decent meal. We’ve got plenty of time.’ I shrugged and started to protest, but her hand was on my wrist and she led me down the passageway to Border Control. No one spoke English and it was impossible to state our business in the Semi-Autonomous Zone, since, after all, we didn’t have any business in the Semi-Autonomous Zone but had come completely by misdirection and accident, but, after a few minutes, the security guy tired of trying to understand and waved us through the checkpoint. We dashed after one of the oil company engineers on his hike to the baggage claim and he obliged us by writing the name of the best hotel in town. ‘It’s my treat,’ Whitney said. ‘I feel somehow like I got you into this.’ I asked her about her cameraman. ‘I have an arrangement with one of the guys in the back of the plane,’ she said. ‘I share him with a couple other gals.’ ‘Is he going with us?’ ‘No, I checked with him. He’s not interested in downtown Hooterville – at least that’s what he told me.’ "
     "After the confinement of the plane and airport, all the space and light outside the terminal had a strange effect on me – it was like a deafening sound and I couldn’t seem to hear very well. Maybe, it was the pressure differential form the flight. The cab-driver made some apologies about the route downtown, but we couldn’t figure out what he was trying to tell us. Apparently, some kind of demonstration was underway somewhere near the city center and the cabbie seemed defensive and nervous. The freeway from the airport was almost completely empty, a slick concrete channel that lead downhill from the plateau toward the city. From the distance, the capitol looked very modern and sleek, glittering towers and domes like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. Up close, there were ravine cutting through the bare hills where the capitol had been built and those seams were festering with slums made from concrete blocks and corrugated tin, ditches full of poor people incised into huge terraces covered with government buildings and newly built skyscrapers. The avenues in the city were as wide as a football field, mostly empty except for an occasional panel truck or limousine, and the embankments above the highways were planted with dense mats of tulips. Different colored flowers seemed to spell out letters and words, but, of course, we couldn’t read them and there were traffic circles that whirled us around strange monuments, huge pedestals, plinths like the base of the Statue of Liberty except without any figure on top, big sepulchral blocks that were either mausoleums or museums or both. Smoke was rising from one of the suburbs and helicopters battered the clouds overhead and, at some of the intersections, we saw olive-colored armored personnel carriers and lines of troops in riot gear trudging doggedly toward distant barricades marked by red and yellow flags. ‘Is much trouble,’ the cab driver said grinning apologetically."
     "I didn’t recognize the trees on the boulevards, peculiar-looking things with barrel-shaped trunks from which the bark was peeling to reveal a fatty-looking wood the color of yogurt. We passed some mosques and, then, a burnt-out section of town and, after that, the cabbie seemed to favor parking lots as his thoroughfare, huge empty slabs of concrete or asphalt between the big glass buildings. We came to a dry river bed and an ancient train station built of interlocked girders like the Eifel Tower and, then, we were at the hotel. The streets were foggy with pepper gas and the air smelled of rotting cabbage and a little knot of worried-looking cops were marching irregularly down the sidewalk."
     "The hotel was serviceable and the staff at the front desk spoke some English. ‘It is not as bad as it looks,’ the girl told us. Whitney said that we would only need one room. ‘I think we need two,’ I told her. ‘You’re a gentleman,’ she said. "I can see that. I enjoy your company.’ She asked where we could eat. The desk clerk pointed the way to a dark doorway and a café where a half-dozen petrochemical types were drinking martinis with their silent, painted girlfriends. We ordered some food and drinks and sat at a table in the restaurant near a fountain that whispered obscenities to us. ‘What kind of place is this?’ I asked. ‘Who cares?’ Whitney said. She ordered shrimp scampi – ‘at least, you know, it’s been well-frozen,’ she told me. I was going to order a steak but Whitney said that in places like this steak was always horse-meat. So, instead, I had spaghetti and meat balls. The sauce seemed to be made from ketchup. At least, the booze was okay, mixed drinks without ice, in tall crystal highball glasses. Whitney said she was tired and told me she was going to the bathroom. A few minutes later, she came back to the table and said that she didn’t mind if I used the shower in the room and that we needed to take a nap."
     "The hotel was stifling and the elevator thumped and seemed to claw its way upward and, then, room was as cold as a refrigerator. I couldn’t tell exactly what time it was – for some reason, my cell-phone hadn’t reset to the local hour. A tiny balcony hung from the sliding door overlooking the city – the balcony was like a book shelf enclosed by a metal rail. Whitney stepped outside to smoke cigarette. I could smell the tobacco and the nicotine mixed up with the smell of tear gas wafting up from the city streets. There seemed to be big fire underway on the outskirts of town."
     "One thing lead to another. I told Whitney: ‘You know I’m married.’ She said: ‘You think I’m not?’ In the middle of the night, or what seemed the middle of the night, I was awakened by a loud thudding boom. It was the kind of thump that displaces the air and causes you to feel the boom in your lungs and rib-cage. I went up and drew the curtains to look out over the city. Some sirens wailed and the fire at the edge of town was still burning, but otherwise the streets below were empty. ‘Did you hear that’ I asked Whitney. ‘Maybe an earthquake,’ she said."
     "The next morning, we found our way to the café with the fountain for breakfast. The omelets and sausage looked questionable and so we had fresh fruit. The strawberries were the largest I had ever seen – they were as big as my fist and red as blood. I couldn’t identify the kind of melon that the place served. We took a cab back to the airport. In the car, Whitney said to me: ‘We need to be discrete about this.’ I agreed with her. ‘We will keep a secret,’ she said. ‘It’s our secret,’ I replied. ‘Won’t tell a soul,’ Whitney said. There were checkpoints and men with guns. Everyone was drunk and hilarious at the airport. Sloan, the man who had blown the whistle on the National Security Association and its spy apparatus, had departed from Stockholm in the night, apparently bound for Bolivia or, perhaps, Venezuela. ‘You won’t tell a soul,’ I said to Whitney as we walked to the gateway. She kissed my cheek: ‘Not a soul.’ "
     "But here I am. So, obviously..."
      On the PA, a voice announced more delays. It seemed that the typhoon was continuing.
     "The bitch," I said.
     "How do you know it was her?" Neal asked me. "After all, I’m the one telling you the story."