Classified Woman (8 page)

T
he following morning, only one day after Feghali’s e-mail and before signing in, I stopped by to meet Saccher at his cubicle. He’d left a message that he wanted to see me on some urgent matter. I had no idea what it was about.

When I appeared at his desk, Saccher grabbed a chair from an empty cubicle and rolled it over. After some pleasantries, he began. “Okay … I know you’re working on many different projects and counterterrorism cases; plus, you’re here part-time, so a lot of my CI stuff has been handled by Dickerson for the past month or so. Kevin—well, Kevin is not much of a translator, we both know that. I know how he got in here; I’ve resigned myself to the bureau’s disastrous state in translation and analysis—drowned in corruption, incompetence, nepotism, you name it. I won’t even get into that!”

I nodded for him to continue.

“You and I know and have talked about the primary targets—the three most important targets of this operation out of twenty plus—right? Come on, you discovered most of the evidence.” He grabbed the file from a stack and handed it to me. “I want you to take a look at this and let me know what jumps out at you, okay?”

I leafed through fifty or so stapled sheets, a collection of Counterintelligence project translations submitted by the Turkish translation unit at the end of each day. I started to hand the file back to Saccher. “So? What is it?”

Saccher pushed it back toward me. “Come on Sibel, just look at it closely. Take a few minutes and go through it. Then tell me what you see.”

Now I was curious. I set the file in front of me and paid careful attention to each line, each word. These were not from all three translators in the Turkish unit—they all had been submitted by Melek Can Dickerson. Her name and ID were printed on the top of each sheet. Each page had several target ID numbers followed by either the summary translation of the communication or
Not Pertinent to Be Translated
stamped on them.

On closer inspection, I realized one target in particular had
Not Pertinent
stamped on every single piece of intelligence. That target happened to be the one the Dickersons named during their visit: the colonel they wanted to introduce us to, the man with whom she worked in the past and associated regularly. I started turning pages and scanning for the same target ID number: there it was, on every communication stamped
Not Pertinent to Be Translated
. I could see it all now, plain in full sight: she’d been steadily blocking the translation of her friend and business associate for over a month.
She’s shielding the criminals for whom she worked—and who are clearly still her friends
, I thought.

Saccher was watching me intently. I plopped the file back on his desk. “Dennis, it all fits. Now, with everything else you have—the visit and dividing the lines—you can do something about it, right?”

Saccher looked puzzled. “What visit? What dividing?”

“The report,” I said. “The report on the Dickersons’ visit to my house, the forgery of my initials on CT cases in New Jersey and the latest division instructions!”

“What the hell are you talking about? Are you talking in code? What visit or forgery?”

I felt blood rushing to my face. “I reported several highly suspicious activities involving Dickerson to Feghali, and he said he filed it with personnel security upstairs and sent you a copy on everything. I reported everything in writing, some with backup documentation—her handwritten note on dividing the lines.”

Now it was Saccher who flushed. “What report? When? I didn’t get a damn thing. Just start from the beginning and tell me everything; from the beginning, Sibel.”

It took me nearly thirty minutes to tell him everything: I went down the list, ending with Feghali’s recent directive prohibiting Kevin and me from ever meeting with him, Saccher, without first obtaining permission.

With every passing minute Saccher’s face grew darker; his pupils dilated and he was breathing hard. When I finished, he jumped to his feet. “Come on; let’s go upstairs to the security department. Let’s go and check if Feghali ever reported this shit. I also want to check Dickerson’s personnel file. Let’s go …”

We hastened to the eighth floor, which houses the FBI-WFO Personnel Security Division. Saccher had me wait in reception while he went inside.

About ten minutes later he came back extremely agitated, nearly yelling. “There is not a single damn thing in her entire file, Sibel! No report, no memo, no notice—nada! Feghali never reported this. Do you know what this is, Sibel? This is espionage. It smells like it, it sounds like it, and now it sure looks like espionage. This should have been reported to me right away. Oh Sibel, how could you be that stupid? You should have come to me a month ago!”

“I did as I was told,” I blurted out. “You should have come to the unit. You should have told me this when you suspected her blocking translations …”

We were both fuming. He grabbed my elbow and gave it a shake. “Didn’t you say she and her husband went to Turkey for a week or so last month?”

Not following completely, I slowly nodded yes.

“Any foreign travel by FBI employees—especially if they’re going to the target country—should be filed and reported to the bureau in advance. You’re allowed to leave only after it’s reported and approved. Dickerson bypassed that. She went to Turkey without reporting it. Nothing is in her file. In fact, I think someone has gone through the file and emptied it. Even her background check and referral sheets are missing…. This is a clear case of espionage, Sibel. I have to report this to my boss and unit chief right away. The bureau has been penetrated, and somehow I’m not surprised. The question is how badly … how much damage.”

He turned around and I followed him back to the elevator. I had never seen Saccher angry, never like this before.
We’re all doomed
, I thought;
it’s too late, the damage is done
. Knowing these targets, I shivered at all the possibilities—and at the risk Kevin and I now faced.

I followed Saccher to his desk. “What do you want me to do?”

He turned to me and sighed, and apologized for yelling; that this was not my fault. “I have to do something about this now,” he explained. “I have to brief my boss and the unit chief. We need to figure out our next step before we hand this over as a counterespionage case. Meanwhile, don’t let Feghali know about this meeting. I believe she’s hooked him already…. Feghali may have given her the Turkish informants list. We have to issue an alert: lives may be at stake.” Then he asked, “Are you working next Monday?”

“No, I have school.”

“Take a few hours off from your school. This is important. Come to my desk at eight in the morning. Bring Kevin with you. I want the three of us to meet. Not a word to Feghali or Dickerson, understood?”

I nodded.

I took the elevator back down to the fourth floor and noticed I was shaking. I went straight to Kevin’s station and told him to meet me in the coatroom in three minutes. When he got there, I quickly explained what happened. He was to meet me in Saccher’s office the following Monday at eight without raising any suspicions. Feghali and Dickerson specifically were not to know. Poor Kevin looked devastated.

The following Monday I got to Saccher’s unit a few minutes before eight. Kevin arrived moments later and the meeting began. Saccher had met with his boss and the unit chief for counterintelligence. He then explained briefly their decision to collect more evidence before transferring the Dickerson case to the FBI Counterespionage division. He had confirmed, via his sources and informants, that Dickerson indeed had worked for and with certain target entities; and that she and her husband appeared to be part of a larger operation, a global network. The players included U.S. officials—both elected and appointed—and certain Pakistani, Saudi and Israeli elements.

Dickerson’s success in penetrating our unit meant that all of the targets already had been tipped off and would no longer be of value. More important, though, was that Saccher’s unit had lost any chance of pursuing the U.S. officials under parallel criminal and espionage investigations. Nearly everything Dickerson had blocked dated back to 2000 and early 2001—before she had gotten inside.

The next part of Saccher’s plan was to have Kevin and me go through everything—every piece of communication Dickerson had stamped
Not Pertinent
or may well have intentionally mistranslated—translate what was involved, document those considered important, and then translate the select pieces as evidence. Finally, we were to submit them to Saccher’s unit.

Dickerson, it was emphasized, must never suspect what we were up to. With our translations of her blocked intelligence in hand, Saccher and his boss planned to interrogate her in a “surprise blast” to try to rattle her into confessing. Saccher’s unit then would have enough to transfer the case to Counterespionage under the Justice Department.

When asked how Dickerson could have bypassed the background investigation, Saccher replied that he couldn’t be sure, that in addition to her husband’s highest level security clearance, they may have other accomplices inside the bureau.

I pointed out the problem with Feghali—how he could and would make life miserable.

Saccher agreed to set up a meeting with the four of us. He dialed Feghali’s extension and left a message.

Kevin looked afraid. “She-she knows our last name,” he stuttered, “information …
contact
information … Dennis, you know how dangerous these people are—who’s going to watch out for us?”

Saccher smiled. “Don’t worry, big man; we’ll figure this thing out. As part of our plan, per normal procedures, we’ll conduct damage assessment. Just be patient.” He told us he would be away for a few days but that in a few weeks’ time things would get resolved one way or another.

During my next four working days, I spent time going over Dickerson’s blocked communications. Among hundreds of pieces, in every ten or fifteen checked, I would come across a mother lode of hot intel that no translator, no matter how incompetent, would or could ever miss.

We were looking at people involved in sophisticated networks and operations geared to penetrate our nuclear and military technologies and intelligence—that were then sold to the highest bidder in the global black market. This could be a government entity, another network, a front organization, or individuals connected with a known terrorist group. This was not about any one ideology or nationalism; this was about power and money.

We were also dealing with a list of dirty joint CIA and Turkish operatives in Central Asia, Caucasus and the Balkans. As the FBI pursues foreign terrorists who target our nation, other agencies carry out equally bad or worse attacks overseas. Stunningly, some of these black operations employ the same groups accused of carrying out attacks against us.

Within a week I had identified four explosive pieces of communication blocked by Dickerson and was almost finished translating them verbatim. There were hundreds more, but I knew these four were enough for Saccher’s planned “blast” interrogation.

Meanwhile, Saccher called to let us know that he had set up the meeting with Feghali for the following Friday, February 1, at 9:30 a.m. I stayed off Feghali’s radar until then. I knew how easily he could be provoked; and now Feghali couldn’t stand the sight of me.

Kevin too, despite his linguistic shortcomings, discovered three important pieces of intelligence blocked by Dickerson, one of which dealt with the Pentagon’s own network of moles. Between the two of us, we were ready for the upcoming meeting.

Prior to the scheduled 9:30 meeting that Friday morning, Kevin and I decided to meet ahead of time and to stop by Saccher’s office for any last-minute instructions. By the time I got to the building, Kevin was out front waiting. Without wasting time, we headed inside.

Saccher was in a good mood, a warrior in his element, ready to chase down his prey. He had a list of questions prepared and asked us to let him start the conversation with Feghali. We were to wait to be prompted before saying anything.

We told Saccher what we had unearthed so far. He had the exact same reaction: no one could possibly miss the importance and sensitivity of these four pieces and stamp them as not pertinent to be translated.

Saccher looked at his watch: 9:15. “Okay, the meeting is supposed to start at 9:30. You guys go down and get ready. I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes.” Kevin and I headed down to the fourth floor.

As soon as we entered, before the glass door even closed behind us, we were face to face with Feghali. He looked and sounded hyper, tapping at his watch. “Come on,” he said, “we have the conference room until ten o’clock; we better go in there and start the meeting right now. Let’s go.”

I looked at him innocently. “Okay, I’ll go and grab my notepad; but has Saccher gotten here already?” Feghali had no idea that Kevin and I had just come from Saccher’s office.

“Saccher? Oh, Saccher won’t be able to make it. He called to cancel earlier today and said he had to go out for some urgent operation.”

Without looking, I knew Kevin must have been in shock. I had to speak before he blurted out that we were with Saccher only minutes earlier. “Oh, really?” I jumped in. “Then shouldn’t we cancel this meeting anyway? This was a meeting he requested, right? I guess you can postpone it.”

Feghali swallowed. “No, we can go ahead and meet; afterwards I’ll report back to him and give him the minutes of the meeting. Come on, let’s go.”