Free The Unknown Knowns by Jeffrey Rotter

A gradual acceptance of his true identity was taking hold, starting with my hands, which felt busy, unusually busy. It progressed inward to touch the hairs of my forearms, my nipples, my heart. And I’m speaking here of the muscle not the metaphor. It was like easing yourself into cold water, who he was. I just had to go in deeper, I thought. Deeper, and he would be there.
    The elevator was superslow, so I took the stairs. But there was no exit on the ground floor. Another flight down I opened the door to find myself in the parking garage. From some remote corner came the compound echo pattern of dripping water. My heart juddered when I heard a car engine engage. I peered through the colonnade of cement pylons to see fluttering brake lights. The white Ford had suspicious plates that didn’t indicate any state of origin; the alphanumeric code exceeded the six-character maximum. A car of importance, a mystery car. But the head bobbing over the steering wheel? It was unmistakable.
    Seconds later I leapt behind the wheel of my Corolla. I saw the Ford charge up the ramp from the garage and heard it whinny as it hit the street. I followed, trying to maintain a discreet distance, but the Nautikon was driving erratically and I was kind of excited. He nearly missed the on-ramp, and so did I. We squealedacross the yellow vee, and I smelled hot tread. When we were both safely on the interstate, I fell in behind a panel van.
    A whole anxious hour passed before we arrived in Denver. It might only be seventy-five miles from my home, but the Mile-High City is terra incognita, another dimension of civic possibility. Call me provincial. I’ve only lived in two places my whole life—Columbia, South Carolina, and Colorado Springs. Wherever I wind up next will definitely be for the long haul, the prosecutor has promised as much. He has acne scars that you never see in the newspaper photos. With the sentencing some five months away, all I can do is let my peers decide, or maybe a military tribunal.
    SIX
    Rep. Neil Frost: You know, we’ve requested this special hearing for a special reason. To see if we can’t improve the field efforts and interoperability of the myriad agencies concerned with the homeland effort. But our microconcern here is the widely discussed and litigated Oaken Bucket incident.
    Mr. Diaz, many of us know what’s widely known—the details of the case from what we’ve read in the papers and from the court documents—but I wonder if you could give us your first-person account. Now, I’d like you to dial it all the way back to the beginning. Tell us how you first met Mr. Rath.
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    Agent Les Diaz: If I may, Congressman, I’d like to rewind it back even further, to way before I was recruited by Central. I was a young gun on detail at TTIC. It’s 2003, this was in, Maryland,and I was compiling lab data for toxicity on fruit juices and baby formula—routine rookie stuff. But my record was exemplary, if you don’t mind me bragging. I’d put in for a transfer and was being considered at that time for fieldwork. It was just a matter of what degree or what value of assets I was going to oversee, contingent on my track record. I think it was in January of ’04 when I got the call from Dick Dodd at the Water Terror Emergency Readiness Team—
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    Rep. Frost: This is WATERT?
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    Diaz: Correct. WATERT.
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    Rep. Frost: And are you still technically with the CIA, or are you now with the TTIC?
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    Diaz: That’s privileged. But, yes, I’m a CIA employee. Least that’s what it says on my paycheck. I’m just on detail assignment with NCTC.
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    Rep. Frost: So you went from TTIC to NCTC?
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    Diaz: They absorbed TTIC. Dodd, at that time, was holding a spot for me in humint analysis, with a desk in the Northern Virginia office. I was eventually bumped over to the Rec Division, where there was a hole in the field team.
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    Rep. Frost: I see.