A small man about sixty, in an old leather flight jacket, he had the deep voice and the leathery face of a heavy smoker. He never drank anything but soda, and no one had ever seen him eat. In the last half hour in Brewer’s presence, he’d already had five glasses of cola. He sat, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, staring at the Brooklyn Bridge through the saloon window and nodding at Brewer’s words.
In a booth behind them, by herself, waited his companion, a large woman with two glasses of beer who was reading a Gothic novel.
Brewer was explicit about what he wanted: “I’m having my air freight shipped to Cargo City terminal at JFK from six or seven locations in the city. Today. I want you to load it on the Connie tomorrow. You can make two refueling stops—one in Gander and another in Shannon. Flight time should be about twelve to fifteen hours. Okay?”
“Okay,” Poke said. “I figure it’ll take me couple of hours to load—then it’s over the hill and far away.” Poke spread his arms like wings.
“Now look, Poke,” Brewer said. “You have to be clean as a cat. I can’t have you load my stuff, then get grounded by some FAA regulation. Or by somebody putting a lien on your kite. This cargo has to move fast—from the time it gets to Cargo City to takeoff time. It just isn’t going to stand up to much scrutiny from customs. You read me?”
“It’ll move like shit through a goose. See you day after tomorrow on the other side.” Poke stood up and started to walk away. Then he stopped. “Say, Brewer, this is on the up-and-up between us? I mean, you’re not setting me up for something, are you?”
“Perish the thought, Poke.”
“I mean I don’t forget you was once a Fed.” He shrugged at Brewer. “I never done a day of time and I’d hate to do it now. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Brewer.
Poke and the woman left and went slouching up the street, in close tête-à-tête.
It was time for Brewer to start worrying again. For one thing, Poke could screw up—he could be stopped for any number of reasons he didn’t tell Brewer about. Then there was the plane, a thirty-year-old antique. It could develop engine trouble and be grounded anywhere along the way. Worse, it could drop into the ocean.
Brewer’s main concern, however, was the paper. He had spent his career around export/import documents—manifests, bills of lading, certificates of exemption, export licenses, and all the other forms of paper impedimenta. The two documents he was most concerned about were the Rated Commodities Watch List and the Table of Denial and Probation Orders Currently in Effect.
Both documents were issued and regularly updated by the Export Control System in the Bureau of East West Trade of the Department of Commerce. Both documents were carried by every customs officer. And every item on Brewer’s shipment was on the Watch List.
As long as U.S. Customs accepted the End User’s Certificate—which certified that the parts were all destined for use inside Britain—there would be no problem. But if customs challenged the certificate, just the litigation could take months. Worse case—if they nailed Brewer, it was back to Sweetmeadow for more years than he wanted to count.
But with over eleven thousand export licenses issued each month in the United States, for more than one thousand types of strategic commodity, Brewer hoped he would slip through with the crowd.
Later that day, the last parcel of Rooley Attashah’s parts arrived at JFK’s Cargo City from a public warehouse near Bush Terminal in Brooklyn. Brewer then filed his papers and waited.
He spent the evening drinking beer and reading.
Customs in New York noted that all the items on Brewer’s document were on the Rated Commodities Watch List and so sent a copy to the Export Import Control System offices in Washington by overnight Guard Mail.
Export Import the next morning sent a copy of Brewer’s document to McCall’s office by messenger, along with eight other documents. Joanie Walsh put the envelope on Borden’s desk. And there it sat, waiting for Borden to open it.
That morning, the weather was perfect for flying when Poke strolled around to Cargo City terminal and presented his papers for Brewer’s cargo. Then he waited.
About nine-thirty, a customs man walked into the cargo area with his clipboard and a briefcase bulging with papers and envelopes, tags and tickets, stamp pad and various official rubber stamps. He stepped up to the cargo and ran his eyes over the cartons, taped, strapped, and labeled. Then he looked at his clipboard for the carrier’s name—Poke. And he frowned.
He called Poke. “Where are you going with this material?” he demanded. “Every item on here is on the Rated Commodities Watch List. Every last thing.”
Poke shrugged. “I just fly it to the address.” He pointed at the destination. “England. I’ve already filed my flight plan.”
“Well, you’re not flying anywhere. I’m putting this on hold until I hear from Export Import Control.”
“How long will that take?”
The customs man shrugged. “You know Washington.”
“I’ll lose my shirt if I sit here for long. How about making a phone call to them?”
“I’ve six other loads to check. After that we’ll see.”
Poke took a shuttle over to the passenger terminal and hunted up Brewer. Brewer went to a pay phone and made a credit card call to London. He identified himself as Mr. Cricket. The Minister came to the phone promptly.
“They’re shitting all over your End User’s Certificate,” said Brewer. The Minister telephoned the British consulate in New York.
Brewer and Poke sat down to wait. Something had to give. If someone came around the corner and clapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, Brewer would know who had won the Great War of the Washington/London Bureaucrats. Not his side.
Poke arrived back in Cargo City in time to see the limousine from the British consulate arrive. He heard a U.S. Customs man say to the British consulate man: “You guys are making a joke out of the End User’s Certificate. We’re blowing the whistle this time. That cargo is going to sit there until hell freezes over.”
“You people,” the British consulate man replied, “are trying to compel Britain to enforce American law in Europe. I’m here on orders of my government to make an official protest.”
Poke went back to Brewer.
“That’s tough old beans,” said Brewer. “I know at least thirty ex-spooks from the U.S. who are importing American stuff into London and Vienna and everywhere else. There are other guys in Hong Kong and Montreal and Buenos Aires and Christ knows where else. The minute they get the stuff they tear up the End User’s Certificates.”
“Then what do the Feds do it for?”
“It makes it very tough on the Russians.” He shook his head. “But what the hell. Why did they have to pick on my cargo to make their point?”
At noon, in Washington, Borden came in from a long meeting to check his phone messages before going to lunch. He saw the envelope from Export Import and opened it. Nine new cases to check out. He shuffled through the documents, and at the bottom he found the JFK sheet. “Holy shit.”
He called New York Customs. Everyone was at lunch. He tried McCall, who was attending a conference in Manhattan, and had him pulled out of the meeting room.
“I want to read something to you,” Borden said. And he commenced reading the parts list.
“Where?” demanded McCall.
“JFK. They’re all out to lunch.”
“You keep calling them, Borden,” McCall said. “Make them hold up on that shipment until I get there.”
McCall ran down the marble steps two at a time. When he got to the street, he couldn’t find a cab. He had half-run all the way to Seventh Avenue before he got one.
The cab started across town to the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The cab driver shrugged at McCall as he encountered one traffic snarl after another. “Crosstown,” he said. “It’s always the toughest way to go.”
“How about the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel?” McCall asked.
“It’
s a lot longer,” said the cabbie. “This way I can go out Queens Boulevard to Van Wyck Expressway right in to JFK. The other way you got to go all around Brooklyn on the Belt Parkway.”
“I spend one half of my life in cabs chasing airplanes,” McCall said. “And the other half on airplanes, chasing cabs.” He looked out at the traffic.
It took more than twenty minutes to get to the Midtown Tunnel. Once they got through it, the Expressway was fairly clear. But they were stopped by road-surfacing work on the Van Wyck and crept for nearly fifteen minutes. It was well after one when they reached the airport.
McCall hunted up the customs officer. “Where is it?” he demanded.
“Ha!” exclaimed the customs officer. “You should have been here before lunch. It was Bunker Hill all over again.”
“But where’s the cargo?”
“It’s about a quarter of the way to England … if that old kite hasn’t crashed somewhere. You never saw anything loaded so fast in all your life.”
About half a mile away, Brewer was stepping aboard his jet flight.
McCall was yelling into the phone at Borden. “Of course I’m sure! Brewer got every jot and tittle on Attashah’s list and flew it the hell out of here. We have to catch him on the other side. You get your butt on the next Washington flight to London and I’ll meet you there. And—hey, Borden, bring Dice. Don’t fail to bring Dice. You hear me?”
Madeline Hale received a cable from Malta that morning: RE YOUR REQUEST FOR CRIMINAL RECORD OF ANTON RUMBH UNABLE TO COMPLY. NOTHING IN OUR FILES ON ANTON RUMBH OR SEVEN VARIANT SPELLINGS.
Another cable arrived from New Delhi: REFERENCE YOUR WIRE (XC2790) NO SUCH PERSON AS ANTON RUMBH SEVEN VARIANT SPELLINGS IN OUR CRIMINAL RECORDS LAST TEN YEARS.
The cable at three made it conclusive. Athens reported no criminal record for any person named Rumbh, seven variant spellings.
Anton Rumbh had obtained an American passport and an Interpol criminal record—both fraudulently. Why would anyone want a false Interpol criminal record?
In the mail, she received a confirming carbon of Interpol’s profile on Russell Pines a.k.a. Peno Rus. The last sentence in that report noted that Peno Rus was an avid collector of American Colt .45’s. And that suddenly told Madeline Hale a great deal. It was time to find out who had put the red flags on Brewer’s personnel file and on Rumbh’s INS passport file.
Hale called a friend in the FBI.
“I need a favor,” she said. “I need some sub rosa information.”
Illegally legal, Brewer had called it. Then legally illegal. The salami tactics of relativism. Brewer had started with phone taps; she with illegal information. A slice at a time; a step at a time.
McCall met Borden’s flight at the passport control gate in Heathrow Airport outside London that evening.
“Where’s Dice?” McCall asked.
“Behind me in the line somewhere. Has Poke arrived yet?”
“Late,” McCall said. “He left Gander for Shannon but he’s bucking stiff head winds. He’s overdue at Shannon.”
Borden chuckled. “Can you imagine anyone flying one of those old bats anymore? I can walk faster than that.”
“Listen,” McCall said. “When Poke lands we have to move fast on this. We’re not going to get any cooperation from our British friends on this. After that flap in New York, they’re sticking to their story. Okay?”
“How are we going to destroy that stuff?” Borden asked.
“Modern technology,” McCall said. “Gasoline and a match.”
“Remember,” Borden said. “You’re dealing with a real fox.”
“How can I forget it?”
He and Borden went into an airport pub to await the arrival of Poke’s old Connie.
At 1:00 A.M. they received word that Poke had landed in Shannon, complaining of engine trouble. Estimated repair time five hours. McCall and Borden and Dice all went to bed in the airport motel.
At 6:00 A.M. Borden woke McCall in his motel room. “Poke took off from Shannon shortly after two.”
“Two!” McCall sat up in his bed. “When did he arrive here?”
“He didn’t.”
“What! What are you telling me, Borden?”
“He left Shannon more than four hours ago and he hasn’t arrived here.”
“Quick. Query the other airports.”
“I have. No word yet.”
By seven they had their information. Poke had landed at Orly, Paris. “The cargo,” Borden said, “was unloaded and cleared French Customs an hour ago. Brewer made a clean getaway.”
By eight McCall and Borden and Dice were booked on a flight to Paris.
On the plane McCall said to Dice. “This is your baby, Dice. You find Brewer and that cargo.”
Dice looked solemnly at McCall. “I think you’re out of your mind. You’re not smart enough to catch Brewer.”
A great autumn fog rolled over much of Normandy and muffled the entire city of Paris right after the three of them arrived. In a drizzling mist McCall and Borden started spreading some money around Orly. The old airport had been overshadowed by the Charles de Gaulle Airport, and with less freight volume flowing through it than formerly, they were hoping someone had noticed the truck that carried the cargo away. French Customs was distinctly icy.
McCall followed a different tack. Leaving Borden and Dice to search for Brewer and the Iranian cargo, McCall set out to find Poke. The Connie couldn’t have gone far. He contacted flight control and learned where Poke had gotten to: Weary from its flight against Atlantic head winds, the old Connie had gone to Brussels for maintenance.
McCall hit a snag. Due to flying conditions, commuter flights from Paris to Brussels were either booked solid or canceled. So McCall cabbed into Paris and took the train to Brussels. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he told Borden.
The autumn fog had rolled over much of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Car drivers and plane passengers alike had taken to the rails, and they all seemed to be on the train to Brussels. McCall managed to get a boarding pass but no reserved seat. He stood during the entire ride.
McCall watched the red lights go flashing by in the muffling fog and thought about Brewer. It was incredible for even one as gifted as Brewer to have rounded up all that contraband and gotten it this far. It was a brilliant job. Now there was only one last barrier between Brewer and Iran: Bobby McCall. If Brewer got by him, he had a clear run to his goal.
It was strange being Brewer’s adversary. They’d fished together, sailed the Chesapeake together, gotten kited on beer and laughter together, and, especially, handled a number of dangerous assignments together. Brewer was the best of companions, charming, endlessly cheerful, full of wit and humor. McCall had probably come closest to glimpsing the inner Brewer.
Of all the spooks in Washington, Brewer was the only one who lived for the game itself. He loved those sharp close contests with the arms dealers. When most agents were playing it safe or demanding other assignments, Brewer was out working a scam, setting a trap, dodging a deadfall. He came closest to making it all seem like a suspense film. But one thing astonished McCall. He would never have believed Brewer could turn traitor.
Furthermore, McCall had always secretly believed that he himself was the better all-round agent. And it would have been fascinating to go up against Brewer just to find out, except for one thing: the package he’d sold Wainwright.
McCall had to either call off the whole operation or add one more name to the list of assassinations of Rus and Rock and Slane. Charlie Brewer.
When he got to the Brussels Airport, the fog was lifting and the terminal was packed with passengers queuing up for their long-delayed flights. There were lines everywhere.
He found the Constellation in a nose hanger. Two men were working on one of the engines.
“How long is it going to take to fix that?” he asked them.
One of them shrugged eloquently. “Who knows? It is difficult to find mechanics who know how to fix these ol
d engines. And getting parts is impossible. This belongs in a museum.”
Well, at least Poke wasn’t going to be hard to find. He was never far from his plane. He often slept on it. McCall went back to the passenger terminal. He searched out the places that sold cold soda.
In ten minutes he found Poke and his large girl friend—at Le Cheeseburger.
Poke wouldn’t look at him. “We got nothing to talk about, McCall.”
“One shouldn’t make enemies in your business, Poke,” McCall answered.
Poke smiled bleakly at him. “Would you want Charlie Brewer for an enemy?”
“But he’s off and gone! You don’t need to protect him anymore.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” McCall said. In his hands he held a $100 bill.
Poke looked at it, then at his girl friend. “Very nice, McCall. I love portraits of great men.”
“How about two?” McCall asked. With his thumbs he revealed a second $100 under the first.
“I do love two, McCall. I truly do.”
“Then talk to me. Where did Brewer go? Do you know?”
“It’s a possibility,” Poke said.
“Three,” McCall said. His hands now fanned a trio of bills. “Talk to me.”
“I got the license number and the make of the truck,” Poke said.
“Four,” McCall said. “Tell me.”
Poke grinned at his girl friend. “Want another beer?”
“Five,” McCall said. “A perfect poker hand.”
“Write it down, McCall.” Poke nodded at his girl friend. “Tell him.”
McCall wrote it on a paper napkin with a felt pen as the woman spoke. “O-I-K, one-nine-one,” she said.
McCall pocketed the napkin. “Good show, Poke.” He handed him the five bills. He held up five others. “I was ready to go for a grand.”
Poke clucked his tongue. “Never was good at poker.”
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