The Unknown Knowns (14 page)

 

Rep. Frost:
Was this when you first suspected you were dealing with a foreign operative of some sort?

 

Diaz:
I'd had my inklings from the get-go. My inner gyroscope was
spinning in that direction. Forget night-vision goggles—the gyroscope of intuition is an agent's best recon device. Like I've always said, if it walks like a duck, even one percent like a duck, then we have to presume we're dealing with some form of waterfowl. And, Congressman, it's duck season.

In other words, he'd passed my threshold of suspicion, and I decided it was high time I confronted him.

He made some evasive comments, even said something about my wife, which I don't know how he'd be privy to that information. That really got my hackles in an upright position. I can see the bartender lady is already prejudiced against me, and I don't want to drag Department business out in the open. Our directive is to keep it covert. So I make the determination that it's best I leave the scene. As in check out of the hotel altogether, and pronto. If he tails me again, it's on for real.

I go back to my suite to pack. Rath—did I mention this?—Rath has somehow booked the room adjacent to mine. So if I press my ear to the wall, I can hear him dicking around in there. He's got the Weather Channel on real low. Five-day forecast and the lake levels—I can hear all that. Then it goes quiet, and the next thing I hear is the guy snoring. That's my cue to vacate.

I would've left directly but there was one more test I still needed to run. And I decided to knock it out in a hurry right then. We've got a one-stop battery of tests that evaluates pH, turbidity, total and fecal coliform, total organic carbon, ultraviolet absorption, free and total chlorine residual, and heterotrophic plate count. It's called the PHT-COCUA-CHPC.

You take a water sample and drop it on a blotter grid. If all the squares turn blue, you're golden; anything turns red, it's go time. We can detect down to three parts per million, anything from sheep shit
to cyanide. I ran the PHT-COCUA-CHPC, and the blotter grid came out looking like a pretty blue patchwork quilt, which is to say the Lazy River was safe.

 

Rep. Frost:
How do you explain the discrepancy between your test result and the samples taken at the crime scene the following day?

 

Diaz:
Could be a number of factors, Congressman. Lye, which is what I understand the agent was, isn't detected by the PHT-COCUA-CHPC. That's another whole battery of tests that DHS won't foot the bill for. Talk to your bean counters. Then there's the time factor. A window of
x
number of minutes between my finishing up at the Lazy River and my subsequent encounter with Mr. Rath. I judged this to be sufficient time for him to dose the water with lye after I completed the test, and then haul ass back upstairs to my room.

 

Rep. Frost:
Though you testify that he was sleeping.

 

Diaz:
We're dealing with an enemy that does not play by the conventional rules. That's all I can say. I get back to my room, takes me three, four minutes by elevator. I go to the can, get my shaving kit, make the bed, rehang my wet towels, and box up the test equipment. That takes maybe ten minutes, plenty of time for Rath to slip downstairs and do his terrorism in the river.

I was standing there in the bathroom, and all of a sudden I feel this presence in the doorway. Sometimes I wonder if I'm especially attuned to negative presences. I peek around the corner of the bathroom and see Rath poking his big fat forehead inside my room. I'd made the mistake of leaving the door open a crack—

 

Rep. Frost:
Yes. And what happened next?

 

Diaz:
One interesting aspect of my room is I had a perfect vista of the capitol dome. Knowing what I know, seeing what I've seen, a sight like this sets off alarm bells. Did you know that dome is twenty-four-karat gold? From the aerial view it's just like one big jihad bull's-eye, like a giant Kick Me sign. An extremist could make a potent symbolic statement there with a single pipe bomb. One more thing while we're on the subject: Were you aware that at Coors Field the twentieth row in the upper deck is painted purple? That's to designate that it's precisely one mile above sea level. There's another symbolic target.

We talk a lot of hot air about first line of defense and about protecting lives, Congressman, but really what they're after? It's our symbols.

 

Rep. Frost:
Sure, son, the symbols. Mr. Rath testified that you used some kind of sonic weapon to disable him. Are you going to tell me this too was Department protocol?

 

Diaz:
It wasn't sonic. And it wasn't a weapon per se. I Tasered him. I'm of the considered opinion that if you're going to cock it, you better fire it, and you better not talk about it too much. You have to bear in mind the situation I was confronting at that juncture. And in retrospect I wish I'd done more than Taser the guy. We might have averted Oaken Bucket two days later. But they don't let field inspectors carry anymore. Anyway, I checked Rath's vitals and everything seemed fine, so I left him there on the floor and went down to my car. But I barely turn the key in the ignition when who do I see at my passenger window? Rath, back from the dead. I mean this guy's cojones were bigger than Barbara Bush's earrings.

I tried to make a quick exit, but the ticket—I couldn't find the parking ticket. It's my usual practice to slide it under the sun visor; that way you always know where it is at all times. But American cars these days, frankly, the craftsmanship isn't there anymore. The metal visor armatures—and I know this for a fact—are manufactured in Malaysia, where who knows if they even have parking garages. Well, the ticket must've slipped out. I looked everywhere and finally found it under the seat.

By then Rath was riding my bumper, but he still had to clear the ticket booth too. That bought me some time, so I gunned it to the expressway. After a few miles I started to relax. I thought, Okay, I'm free and clear. Then I consulted my rearview, and there was that beat-up old rice burner two cars back.

That's when I saw the flashing lights. I pulled over to the right, and when I did, Rath passed by me real slow, like he was ogling me. His interior dome light was on the whole way. It was a spooky image, I tell you. I dealt with the state trooper, and as soon as I was back on the road, there he was again, pulling out of a weigh station behind me.

Did you know what
corolla
stands for in botanical language? It's part of a flower, the crown or something. My wife's father drove one too. The car, not the flower.

 

Rep. Frost:
Yes, you do raise a critical issue, one that I've only recently seen as germane. This is a personal detour, and you might call it a fishing expedition, but if this inquiry is about optimizing our agency performance in the field, it's critical that we know our agents.

 

Diaz:
Not sure what you're driving at, Congressman, but fire away.

 

Rep. Frost:
Agent Diaz, I know the subject of your wife must be painful, but I'm wondering if you could describe for us the circumstances of her—What I mean to say is, could you tell us how she…?

 

Diaz:
Died? Yeah. She drowned. Any more questions?

 

Rep. Frost:
This was in the summer of 2005?

 

Diaz:
That's correct. Late summer.

 

Rep. Frost:
I'm going to have to ask you to give me the bullet points of this tragic episode.

 

Diaz:
I don't see how this pertains, but hell, these are your hearings, Congressman. We were in Myrtle Beach on vacation. That town has the highest concentration of world-class golf courses on the planet, or any other planet that I know of, and I was determined to play as many as I could in a week. It was a Saturday about 11:00 a.m. I was on the tenth hole, which is like a 354-yard par four. It doglegs right around these cypresses or oaks or something. I remember thinking I could make it in two, but if I wasn't careful it might slip off into the bunkers and land in the river.

 

Rep. Frost:
What are you using on the second shot, a five?

 

Diaz:
Six-iron.

 

Rep. Frost:
Smart thinking.

 

Diaz:
Thanks. But I knew if I wanted to nail this baby, I needed to keep my inner gyroscope level, so I'd stopped for some refreshment and a strategy session with my caddie. Nice local girl. When all of a sudden this state trooper came humping across the sandpit in his aviators.

I was still with TTIC, doing lab work. Nothing so sensitive I needed to be on call 24–7, so I never carried a pager. But in my line of work you prepare for the worst—there's always the danger you'll get interrupted in the middle of a hole. So I thought, Heck, I guess it's back to work.

Well, this wasn't official business.

Me and the caddie, we were comparing tans when the cop walked up. Cop said: “You Agent Diaz?” I set down my Cuba libre on the rear of the cart and showed him my badge. The caddie perked up like she'd never seen a federal badge before.

“I got some troubling news,” he said. Big redneck.

“Look, Officer—I get two weeks a year—”

Says: “Your wife's name Janet Diaz, sir?”

It was like time stopped. I didn't nod. I didn't have to.

Janet was an Ohio girl with limited experience of the ocean. She didn't know the first thing about undertow. Apparently she went out for her morning swim and got out too far, and well—when the riptide comes, you can't fight it. Marines down at Parris Island get sucked out to sea all the time. Big strapping boys all pumped up for Basra, but in that riptide they go down like marshmallow Peeps in a FryDaddy.

Speaking of golf courses, there's another serious gap in our defenses. You could put anthrax in the sandpits. You could spike the sprinkler system with DDT, inflict a heck of a lot of havoc. Somebody should look into that.

But Janet, she was my whole life. My everything. My princess. Her loss was a hurtle, Congressman, I'm telling you. I'm still not completely healed, and we're coming up on two years now.

 

Rep. Frost:
I'm truly sorry for your loss, son. But I bring this up because in your HR file at the Department it states that after the death of Janet Diaz, that's when you put in for the transfer to WATERT. Am I correct? Did you not also seek psychiatric treatment at that time?

 

Diaz:
It was recommended that I see a grief counselor for at least a month and a half. That's Department protocol. I don't place much stock in headshrinking, but I played ball, did my six weeks on the couch. Took some R & R. And when I was all better, they rubber-stamped my transfer to WATERT. Best thing that ever happened to me. Going out to eyeball some actual hard targets, getting your boots dirty—for an agent that's what you call therapy. The open road helped me clear my head and get beyond Janet's, you know, passing. But to answer your question, her death did turn me against the forces that are out to jeopardize our water. No question I was on a mission.

 

Rep. Frost:
But your wife's death was ruled accidental. Are you saying this was a criminal act? Are you linking the drowning to some kind of terrorism?

 

Diaz:
I'm not linking anything to anything. All I'm saying is, What is it going to take? Would you prefer to wait until—all due respect, Congressman—but would you want to wait until somebody plants a pipe bomb on a waterslide? All those kids blown up during their
funnest hour. Then will you wake up and do something to protect the inalienable right of every American to recreate in our public waters without the imminent threat of attack?

 

Rep. Frost:
I think I speak for the whole subcommittee when I say nobody desires a pipe bomb or any explosive on or near a waterslide. But I can see this is a convenient time for us to address another sensitive topic: the Psychological Fitness Report authored by the DHS forensic psychologist, Dr. Ronald Schacht, in September 2005, not long before your transfer to WATERT and not long after your wife's passing.

I'm reading aloud here, and I hope you'll bear with me because I'm sure you've read this a dozen times before.

“In the opinion of the psych board all Agent Diaz's pending assignments or transfers should be closely vetted. On mental status examination including cognitive assessment he performs less than optimally. From our first session (09/09/05) subject displayed heightened anxiety and spoke of periods of depression. In subsequent interviews (09/15/05; 09/19/05) the object of these anxieties had grown more particular. Unprompted, subject stated ambivalent feelings toward large bodies of water. He spoke of enjoying water sports but had compulsive worries about water safety (relating no doubt to the manner of his wife's death). On one occasion, when presented with a glass of ordinary tap water, subject became irritable, addressing the water with abusive language as if it were an adversary. Subject complained of ‘foreign elements' in the water and began to make nonsense sounds until the glass was removed.”

I could keep reading if you want, but the gist of it is that after this assessment was filed, your transfer to WATERT was downgraded
from a management spot to what Dick Dodd refers to in his testimony as “pool patrol.”

 

Diaz:
I don't know what you want me to say. I've read that report. Who hasn't? Everyone inside the Department knows they were doing a mental on me. All I can tell you is, What is it going to take? Do you want a dose of polonium—do you want a teaspoon of polonium 210 in your Jacuzzi, Congressman? You do have a Jacuzzi bath, don't you, Congressman? I mean, is that what it's going to take? Huh? Would that be a loud enough wake-up call for you?