Free The Rendition by Albert Ashforth

boss. What do her people think they’re getting paid for?”
    As the waiter set down two more mugs of beer, I watched Buck smear some Stilton cheese on a slab of dark bread. “You’re not suggesting I owe Colonel Frost an apology.”
    Between bites, he said, “Like I say, Alex, Colonel Frost has forgotten you and your obnoxious behavior.”
    Recalling the debriefing, I said, “I did an awful lot of kvetching.” Courtesy of my mother, I command an extensive vocabulary of Yiddish expressions, spoken with a Bavarian lilt.
    Buck nodded. “I heard. She definitely showed superhuman restraint. As have many of your friends and colleagues on occasion.”
    After a minute, I said, “If the Nadaj rendition goes back to Colonel Frost, then—”
    â€œThen it goes back to the deputy secretary of defense.”
    I said, “And from him to the secretary of defense.”
    â€œWe’re both thinking the same thing, Alex. The government is eager to get its mitts on Nadaj.”
    â€œWhat the hell did he do?”
    Buck shook his head. “No idea.”

Chapter 6
Friday, January 18, 2008
    â€œMy friends would hate me if they knew some of the things I’ve done to make a living,” I said.
    Eight months had elapsed since my meeting with Buck at Arlington Cemetery.
    Jerry Shenlee touched a finger to his rimless glasses and gazed at me across the table with a noncommittal expression. “I’m surprised you still have friends. Most of us don’t.”
    Shenlee is clean shaven, has a square, mildly flushed face, and wears his red-blond hair cut short, in the military style. He retains a kind of flinty look, a characteristic he acquired growing up on the plains of North Dakota and that he’s never quite been able to shake. But the important thing is, he fits in at the Pentagon, which is where I understand he now spends a good deal of his time.
    It was just after eight, and Jerry and I were having breakfast in AP Smith’s Restaurant on Main Street in Saranac, a town in the northern foothills of the Adirondack Mountains—and a place in which I’ve come to feel very much at home.
    As Jerry and I spoke, I began to feel a growing sense of alarm. “What’s up?”
    â€œWhen you hear what it is, you’ll know what’s up.”
    When I first met Jerry, he was a newly minted Annapolis grad, a spiffy-looking young guy attached to the 766th MI Detachment, with a windowless basement office located in one of the detachment’s sections at Tempelhof in West Berlin. Like a lot of us, Jerry Shenlee’s come a long way since the days of the Cold War.
    Something else about Shenlee: I’ve never seen him smile. On this day, he appeared particularly grim. He was wearing a gray sports jacket, open collar, khaki-colored pants, and, on his wrist, a G-Shock digital watch. As I silently watched, he pushed aside his cup of cold tea, reached down and pulled some colored folders out of his briefcase, a couple of which had “CONFIDENTIAL” stamped across the top. The folders were filled with forms, letters, printouts, and who knew what else. I assumed that Shenlee had my 201 personnel jacket, evaluations, and detailed reports on some of the “special projects” I’ve been involved with over the years.
    When they say “special projects,” think “special ops.”
    As he leafed through his folders, he shook his head. “If our government is good at anything, Klear, it’s creating paper and keeping tabs on people.”
    â€œTell me about it,” I said as I poured out some more coffee, resigned to the fact that this was Shenlee’s little party and he was calling the shots.
    It was Friday, already a nice day, and the sun was slanting through the restaurant’s big front window. Since it was mid-January, Smith’s was close to full, jammed with skiers eager to get out on the slopes. I live in Saranac and