Chapter 6 - The Allies
The allies came slowly. They always do.
The first was Anne Cho. She had been working on Marcus Webb for eight months. She had a file that was two inches thick. She had surveillance reports. She had travel records. She had financial records. She had a wiretap transcript. She had a confidential informant who had been providing her with information for eight months. She had a name — Karim Saleh — and she had an address in Dubai.
She did not have a recording of Marcus Webb's voice.
Now she had one. She had the recording from Rafael Vega's USB drive. She had the original recording from Kunar Province. She had the altered recording that had been played in the auditorium. She had the analysis that had been provided by the intelligence center at Fort Belvoir. She had the metadata from the original file and the altered file. She had the analysis of the difference between them.
She had everything.
She went to the U.S. Attorney's office in Tucson on the third day after Rafael Vega's drive was handed over. She spent four hours with an assistant U.S. Attorney named Maria Delgado. She walked her through the file. She walked her through the evidence. She walked her through the wiretap transcript and the confidential informant and the recording from the USB drive.
At the end of the four hours, Maria Delgado said, "Agent Cho, this is the strongest case I have seen in eleven years. I want a grand jury. But not yet. We do not move on Webb until the voice analysis is complete. And we do not move until we have every piece of evidence we can possibly put in front of a jury. Because Webb is a lieutenant colonel with twenty-eight years of service. He has a lawyer. He has a family. He has friends in the Pentagon. And if we move on him before we are ready, we are going to lose."
Cho said, "I know."
"Then how long?"
"Six weeks. Maybe eight. The voice analysis takes time. The corroboration takes time. The confidential informant needs to be extracted safely. And we need to know who in the Pentagon is going to answer the phone when we call."
"Who in the Pentagon is going to answer the phone?"
"Someone who is not afraid of a lieutenant colonel. I am going to find that someone."
The second ally was Major Stephen Knox.
He had not wanted to be an ally. He had wanted, for three weeks, to be the man who put a staff sergeant on trial. He had wanted, for thirty years, to be the man who stood beside his best friend from West Point.
But he had stood in an auditorium and he had listened to a recording. And he had heard his best friend's voice change the target from Koh-e Safi to Deh Bala. And he had realized that his best friend had used him.
He called Anne Cho the day after the auditorium.
"Special Agent Cho," he said, "this is Major Stephen Knox."
"Major Knox."
"I want to make a statement. I want to make it in writing. I want to make it under oath. I want to make it in a room with a recorder. I want to tell you everything I know about Marcus Webb. I want to tell you about his finances. I want to tell you about his travel. I want to tell you about the trips he took to Dubai. I want to tell you about the bank account in the Cayman Islands that he told me was a family trust. I want to tell you about the night in 2017 when he called me from Kabul and told me that he had met a man who was going to change his life."
"Major Knox," Anne Cho said, "I need you to understand that once you make this statement, there is no going back. Marcus Webb is your best friend. You will be testifying against him. He will be arrested. He will be charged. He will be tried. He will be sentenced. He will spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. And you will be the reason."
"I know," Major Knox said. "I know that. I know that I will be the reason. And I am going to be the reason anyway."
"Why?"
"Because he used me. Because he used my dislike of a staff sergeant to put the blame on her. Because he knew that I would believe anything bad about Elena Vega because I did not like her. Because he knew that I would stand in front of two hundred trainees and call her a traitor. Because he knew that I would be the perfect instrument for his cover-up. And because I was. I was the perfect instrument. I was the major who did not ask questions. I was the major who believed the report. I was the major who did not read the original recording. And I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to be the major who does."
"Then come in tomorrow morning," Cho said. "Bring your lawyer. Bring your conscience. Bring everything you have."
"I will," Knox said. "I will."
The third ally was a woman named Patricia Yee.
She was the deputy general counsel of the Department of Defense. She had been appointed to the position by an administration that was not the same administration that had appointed the previous deputy general counsel. She had been in the job for eleven months. She had spent most of those eleven months fighting with career officials who did not want to move quickly on anything involving a senior officer.
Anne Cho called her on the fifth day after the drive had been handed over.
"Ms. Yee," she said, "my name is Anne Cho. I am a CID special agent. I am working on a case that involves a lieutenant colonel at Fort Belvoir named Marcus Webb. I need to talk to you about it."
"Special Agent Cho," Patricia Yee said, "I have been reading about your case in the newspaper. I have been wondering when someone was going to call me."
"Ms. Yee, I need the Department of Defense to move on Marcus Webb before he figures out that we are looking at him. I need a search warrant for his home and his office. I need a warrant for his phones and his laptop. I need an arrest warrant that is sealed until the moment we execute. And I need it before the end of the month."
There was a pause on the line.
"Special Agent Cho," Patricia Yee said, "I have been the deputy general counsel for eleven months. In those eleven months, I have signed exactly three warrants for a senior officer. All three of them were for officers who had been under investigation for at least a year. All three of them were executed without public disclosure. All three of them resulted in a conviction."
"And?"
"And I am going to sign yours. Because I have read the file. Because I have listened to the recording of Rafael Vega. Because I have listened to the recording of Marcus Webb's voice. Because I am a lawyer and I know what the evidence looks like when it is enough. And because — Special Agent Cho — I am a woman who served in the Army for twenty-three years before I became a lawyer. I served with men like Marcus Webb. I know what they are. I know what they do. And I am not going to let him walk out of this with a retirement."
"Ms. Yee—"
"Special Agent Cho, I am going to sign your warrant. But I am going to ask you for one thing in return."
"Anything."
May you like
"When you arrest him — when you walk into his house and you put the handcuffs on him — I want you to call me. I want you to tell me that it is done. Because I want to be sitting in my office when I hear it. And I want to remember that I was the one who signed."
"I will call you," Anne Cho said. "I promise."
