Arabian Deception Read online

  Pat watched the chief give the USB to his aide de camp. Once the presentation was on the big-screen televisions behind him, he launched into the same briefing they had given to the SecDef three months earlier. The same briefing the SecDef had rejected while making clear that the subject was closed. The chief was committing insubordination, which meant, by extension, so was Pat.

  When he arrived to work the next morning, the first thing Pat did when he turned on his computer was open up the day’s version of the Early Bird. The Early Bird was a collection of military-related articles that got assembled every morning by the Army Public Relations Staff and was disseminated electronically to senior Army leaders around the world. The first article on the list was from the New York Times. It was titled: Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force Size.

  Pat read the article twice. He was looking for a ray of sunshine, but from every angle, it was a disaster. The chief had told the SASC committee that the SecDef and the POTUS were making a mistake. The NYT then got a comment from the office of the SecDef, stating that the chief was wrong. The president was backing the SecDef. Senator McCain and a few other members of the Senate and House Armed Service Committees were backing the chief. The SecDef had to know that hearing yesterday was a setup. McCain and the chief had clearly conspired to introduce the topic into the hearing. Pat had been duped into getting caught up in the middle of a battle between two giants. He could feel the blood rushing to his face. A rage was growing within him. He looked over at Chris, who was drinking coffee from a mug and staring at his computer.

  “Did you know anything about the plan yesterday to conduct gross insubordination in front of Congress, the press and the American C-SPAN watching population?” Pat said in a loud voice.

  He put his coffee down, looked at Pat. Pat could see the veins in his neck pulse. “I don’t like your tone, mister. You better check it before I check it for you.”

  “Would you two give us a moment?” Pat said to the other two guys in the room. He waited until they left the room.

  “For what it’s worth, I think the chief is right and the SecDef is wrong. But this is the Army, and in the Army, we follow orders. You just involved me in a palace coup, and you didn’t even have the decency to let me know about it.”

  “It’s better that you have deniability. You didn’t need to know. Don’t take it personally, but you’re just the dumb grunt we brought in to be a talking head. Everybody knows that. Nobody’s going to blame you for anything.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Pat, you’re way out of your depth on this. Just keep your head down and let me do the worrying.”

  Chris was right. Pat was out of his depth. Deep-state Machiavellian treachery was not his forte. He had no political skills. But Pat was good at physical confrontation, which was where this conversation was rapidly heading. Back to his comfort zone at last. Chris had played football at West Point. He was an affable ex-jock with all the self confidence that came with jockdom and being one of the popular kids. At six foot one and two hundred pounds, in his little world, he was probably even used to being imposing. Pat was four inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier than Chris, which was a pretty big size advantage. But his real advantage was that he had grown up in the projects of South Boston and had been in a lot of fights.

  Pat wore the same uniform, but he was from a different world. He hadn’t gone to West Point like all the other guys in the office, including the chief. He had gone to a commuter college in Boston, then spent half of the next twenty years training to kill people up close and the other half killing people up close—whereas guys like Chris had usually never even been in a fist fight. Pat wasn’t belittling what it took to destroy a target at two thousand meters with a main tank round, but it was a different skill set than what Pat did.

  Chris had a temper and a naïve belief that he was a fighter. He rose out of his chair when he saw Pat start to get up. When Pat moved toward him, he threw a haymaker, a lazy right hook with everything he had behind it. In a move that he would never use against a serious opponent, Pat slipped the punch and rolled his hip into Chris’s body. He grabbed Chris’s extended arm and put his other arm around his torso, and he flipped him high over his body. When he had him over his head, Pat pile-drove him onto the tile floor. With Chris’s right arm still locked in Pat’s left hand, Pat stepped on his throat with his right foot and explained his point of view.

  “You say they won’t be coming after me. But you don’t know that. You just jeopardized my ability to support my family, and that was not a decision that’s yours to make. I don’t give a rat’s ass about what happens in this building or in this city. I never have. I’ve put everything I had into this man’s Army and you just pissed it all away and didn’t even give me the courtesy of asking for my consent. Now you go in there, and you tell your buddy the chief that I want a transfer to Operations immediately. And you had better hope you’re right that I have nothing to worry about, because if you’re wrong, the next time I see you, I won’t be so gentle and kind.” Then Pat walked out and went home.

  That afternoon, there was a press release identifying the next Army chief of staff. The SecDef couldn’t fire the chief, but he could name his replacement to make sure he understood he was a lame duck and that his term would not be renewed. In this case, the chief’s replacement was named before the current chief had even finished half of his four-year term, which was a first, and a supreme insult.

  Pat received a phone call from the personnel office that afternoon that his transfer to Operations had been approved. The routine in the Army Operations Center was a nine-to-five, and the next two months were blissfully uneventful.

  One day in August, while Pat was sitting at his desk, he received a letter from his branch office in the Hoffman Building. It was an official letter like the ones he was accustomed to receiving. They usually gave him a heads-up on promotion boards, or they were official notifications of selections and assignments. This message began with “I regret to inform you.”

  Pat’s class slot for the National War College had been cancelled, no reason given. Pat grabbed the phone and called his branch manager, a colonel Pat had served with previously. He wasn’t a friend, but they knew each other.

  “Pete, what’s going on?” Pat asked.

  “The order came from the top.”

  Pat’s hands were shaking with fury. “From who?” he asked.

  “DoD. The Office of the Secretary of Defense.”

  “Is there an appeals process, or do I have to recompete on another board?” he asked.

  “There’s no appeal and there’s no other board,” he said.

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means you’ve gone as far as you can go.”

  It took a few seconds for Pat to process that information.

  “If I’m capped at colonel, that’s fine with me. Just send me back to the unit. The Army of the Potomac is a toxic place. Coming here was a huge mistake.”

  “Without the War College, you can’t go anywhere, Pat. You’ve already punched every ticket there is for an O-5. Now that you’re a colonel, you need the War College so you can take an O-6 command. Without it, you’re stuck where you are.”

  “Seriously, that’s it? I have to stay where I’m at for the next ten years?”

  “No, you can move to another duty station in another two to three years, but what I’m trying to say is they won’t be Pat Walsh jobs. Without the War College, you’re off the command track. No more operational assignments, just staff work with the major commands.”

  “Come on, Pete. Are you seriously trying to tell me you don’t have a single black book or shotgun assignment that you’re trying to fill?”

  Pete paused for a few seconds, as if he wanted to say something. Finally he said, “I told you everything I can tell you. I’m sorry, Pat. You don’t deserve this.”

  Pat hung up the phone in stunned silence. There was no way he was going to ride
a desk and stare at a computer monitor for the next ten years. Pete was obviously lying to him about other positions being available. He considered calling a few of the general officers he had worked for over the years, who he knew would go to bat for him. In the end, though, he decided it would be futile. No one in uniform had the power to take on the SecDef, and only a fool would try. It took a day of brooding silence before Pat accepted his fate and went home for the day.

  When he told his wife that he was putting in his retirement papers, she was thrilled. It was the happiest he’d seen her in a decade. She even hugged him. Their oldest was about to enter high school, and it was a perfect time to put down some roots and offer the kids some stability. Pat had been running so fast on the Army treadmill that he’d neglected his family. As he processed the reality of retiring, he began to see the end of his military career as an opportunity to be a better father and husband. Pat’s new focus became figuring out what he was going to do next.

  Life after the Army was not something he’d ever given any thought to. He didn’t have a plan, and with four kids, he didn’t have much in the way of savings. He had six months of back leave, so he’d be earning his full salary for half a year, and after that his Army retirement would kick in. That wasn’t enough to live on, but it was a pretty good supplement. When word got out, Pat received a lot of calls from people who had already left the Special Operations community and had gone into the defense contracting business. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were making a lot of guys rich. The job offers he received paid two and three times what he was making as a colonel, but Pat’s wife and he agreed that his days of deploying were over.

  Pat was attending a mandatory transition class at Fort Belvoir when he was introduced to a vice president at Toll Brothers. He asked for Pat’s resume, and a few days later Pat went to Raleigh North Carolina and interviewed for a job as a project manager in residential construction.

  He left early in the morning and drove four hours to interview at 9 a.m. John Kleinschmidt met Pat in his office. He was wearing blue jeans, a polo shirt and work boots. When the interview was over, he took Pat to a huge subdivision they were developing, and they walked through one of the construction sites. Next, they stopped for a late lunch at a Jason’s Deli in a nearby strip mall.

  “If you want the job, it’s yours,” John said to Pat.

  “I’ll go home and talk it over with my wife. When do you need an answer?”

  “We’ll get you a written offer by the end of this week, and we’ll need an answer by Monday. Do you have any concerns?” he asked.

  “How do you see my future?” Pat asked.

  “The market is the best it’s ever been. We completed three hundred and forty homes last year, and we expect to complete five hundred and thirty this year. We have plans for two more major subdivisions that will provide year-over-year growth of more than thirty percent each year for the next five years. You’ll start as a project manager with an assistant PM who knows what he’s doing, but once you understand how to build, we’ll move you into an area manager slot and eventually, if you do well, into a district manager role. Once you make area manager, the money gets very good. Our area managers make one hundred and twenty thousand a year plus bonus, which is usually another thirty to fifty thousand.”

  The drive home was a long one. Pat was happy for it, because it gave him time to think. He had a lot to think about. It was 2004 and the housing boom was in full force. He really liked John Kleinschmidt and Toll Brothers. The money sounded good, but what he really liked was the work, being outside and building something. The more Pat thought about it, though, the more it made sense to just build houses on his own instead of for someone else. Kleinschmidt seemed like a great guy, but after his experience in the Pentagon, Pat had had enough of big organizations and office politics. By the time he pulled into the driveway of his split-level in Woodbridge, Virginia, Pat had concocted a plan to borrow against everything he owned and go into the home-building business in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was very excited. No more politics, no more polyester green suits, no more two-hour commutes. He was going to drive a pickup truck, wear jeans, listen to country music, work outside and report to nobody but himself.

  Chapter 3

  Cary, North Carolina

  Pat pulled up to the double-wide trailer that served as the Trident office. It was seven in the morning, and there were already two cars in the lot. The red Infinity Q36 belonged to Jessica, his office manager, and the black Ford F-150 belonged to Stan Winthrop, his site manager. Stan had joined Pat three years earlier, after Pat had finished his second house. It was a memorable event, because it was the first house Pat made a profit on.

  The first had been a disaster. Even though he’d stayed up nights memorizing the building codes, it seemed every time Pat had an inspection, he had to pay someone to fix something. The competition for subcontractors was fierce. Back then he was the new guy and he got the bottom of the barrel. Most of the subs running the work crews knew less than Pat did. The lessons were costly, but he never made the same mistake twice.

  Stan had come to Pat after his wife had wiped him out in a divorce. He was an authentic North Carolina country boy, and he’d forgotten more about building than Pat would ever know. Stan was a middle-aged wiry guy with long blond hair and a thick beard. He usually had a cheek bulging with Redman while he made his rounds, inspecting the work done by the subcontractors. He and Pat had become fast friends, and the company had really taken off. They’d reached the point where they were now developing their own thirty-unit subdivision.

  Jessica had joined soon after Stan. She managed the finances and the logistics of the company. Jessica was a young Korean-American girl who was only a few years out of UNC-Chapel Hill. Her dad was a retired special operator who had been Pat’s SOT instructor when he had gone through the course at Fort Bragg many years earlier. He was a man of very few words, and when he’d called out of the blue one day and told Pat his baby was looking for a job, Pat had hired her without ever meeting her. Her dad was a legend.

  The three of them are an unlikely team, but they worked well together. The subdivision was ahead of schedule. They’d finished with the roads, the power and the sewerage lines, and they already had six homes getting built.

  “Pat, I was just telling Jessica here I need an assistant,” said Stan.

  “He’s just being lazy. Your boys spoiled him over the summer. Now he can’t do anything for himself,” Jessica replied.

  Pat’s two oldest sons had both gone back to college the previous week. They had worked the site most days during their summer vacation. It was the first week in September 2008 and the schools were back in session.

  “What’s the problem, Stan?” Pat asked.

  “It’s no problem, it’s just that we have six homes being framed and three more ready to start, and I need to go through the punch list on two this afternoon. Problem is, there’s only one of me, and you’re too busy selling to spend any time building. I need some backup.”

  “He’s got a point, Jessica,” Pat said.

  “I don’t know if you two read the papers, but the market is changing. Lots of stories about subprime mortgages. This is not the best time to be hiring,” Jessica said.

  “Are you having trouble selling homes?” asked Stan.

  “No, I have four already under contract. This location and our luxury niche are in big demand. I have two real estate agencies telling me I need to hurry and finish the whole subdivision because they’re positive they can sell it out this year,” Pat replied.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” asked Jessica.

  “Hire Stan a sidekick,” Pat replied.

  The three of them then sat down and went through the daily task list. It was a morning ritual that they completed before the crews arrived each day. Afterward, Pat went into his personal office and did some e-mail and paperwork before heading out onto the worksite.

  The days were predictable and enjoyable. Most of the time, Pa
t would go home for lunch. The subdivision was only ten minutes from Pat’s home. Cary, North Carolina, was often ranked as one of the best places to live in the United States. The homes were expensive, but the quality of life was superb.

  A week later, Pat was picking up his two remaining stay-at-homes from the local Catholic high school in Raleigh when he received a panicked call from Jessica.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “The bank just called our loan.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they cut off our credit line, and they’re demanding immediate repayment.”

  “That has to be a mistake. Everything is current. I’ll drop the kids off and then swing by the bank.”

  “Are you watching the news?”

  “No, I’m driving. What’s going on?”

  “Lehman Brothers just went bankrupt. Something big is happening. People are panicking.”

  Hal Frazier, the loan manager at the Wachovia, wasn’t available when Pat stopped in to see him that afternoon. Pat went back to the office and followed the news more closely. There was a financial crisis. The banks had been bundling subprime mortgages with AAA-rated mortgages and grading the bundles as AAA. Then they’d made derivative products out of those toxic bundles until they had a ton of mortgage products that were many multiples of the real number of outstanding mortgages. The credit rating agencies, like Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Finch, all gave these bundles of mortgage products AAA ratings, even though they were mostly filled with subprime junk. This had gone on for years, until one day it all just collapsed.

  When Pat finally got in to see Hal the next day he was not his normal exuberant self.

  “Tell me this is a mistake?” Pat asked.

  “It’s not.”

  “I’m current, I have a perfect credit rating and there’s no provision for you to call the loan,” Pat said.