by April Smith
Abbott rubs his nose disdainfully.
“You’ve been down in the muck too long. This is not a negotiation.”
“Everything is negotiable.”
“You can walk off this ramp whole.”
“No censure? You won’t make me look bad?”
He shifts on his feet. What a girlie question. “No censure.”
“All right, fine.”
I show him the device in my hand. “Here’s the data,” I say, and rocket the thing in a fine sparkling arc, high over the fences and deep into the wild green-white current of the river, where it is sucked into the giant turbines.
Abbott laughs and a stray wisp of setting sun lights his face.
“You look relieved,” I say.
“Oh, I am. And you are under arrest.”
Inside the control room of the dam, long, curving banks of computers trigger the gates of the navigation locks and release the spillways. You can sense the rumble and hear the huge weight of water as it spumes out of the downstream side. The techs have been evacuated except for one nervous shirtsleeved supervisor behind the main desk. Two baby sheriff’s detectives allegedly guarding the rogue FBI agent are perched at workstations, nosing through other people’s personal stuff. The cold air smacks of the bloody ice of a fish market. We’ve been contained here for hours.
SAC Robert Galloway nearly blows the door off its hinges as he bursts inside, ordering everyone else out.
“What the hell are you thinking?”
I cradle my left arm in its sling. “I could ask the same of you.”
“You flat-out defy the deputy director.”
“He set me up and you know it.”
Galloway staggers slightly backward, as if stunned by the accusation. “You better slow down.”
“Abbott had me pegged from the beginning. He had read my file before that first meeting in L.A. He knew I had been diagnosed with PTSD, but he overrode the doctor’s recommendation, because he wanted me on this case.”
Agitated, my boss sits on the edge of a rolling chair. “You tend to think a lot of yourself, Ana, but many agents could have done this job.”
“I happened to suit his needs. Abbott had a personal interest in reining in Dick Stone, going back to when his family was involved in building the powerhouse for the Bonneville Dam. The one we’re sitting in right now. Remember that photo of Megan wrapped in the American flag? This is the project she tried to kill. Abbott put an end to that by adding her to the ‘dirty hippies’ list. Dick Stone imploded and they went underground.”
“And what about you?”
“I’m getting to me. Stone took thirty years to implement the Big One, his ultimate revenge on Peter Abbott and the federal government that abandoned him. If anything makes him a terrorist, that’s it: the patient planning, the fixed beliefs. He used his influence with the vulnerable Rooney Berwick to uncover illegal deals with the Abbott family. Stone always said that symbols are important, and destroying the dam was a good one. What is it except a massive monument, literally, to power?”
Galloway has been sitting forward, hands on the armrest. His body has become still, but his worried eyes take everything in.
“And you?”
“Me? Well, I was the perfect dunce for Peter Abbott. Good enough to get Stone, and then totally disposable. He wasn’t worried about family dirt coming out, because that could be manipulated. You could blame it on the source. The undercover was unstable. Disturbed. Am I sounding a lot like Dick Stone? And if the deputy director was very lucky, I might go over the edge and identify with the suspect, and die in a tragic shoot-out.”
“That’s a stretch, Ana.”
“I could easily have been the first one out that door, Robert.”
Galloway’s expression goes from cautious listening to pissed as hell. “This is terrific.”
He gets up so abruptly, the chair scoots backward. The hostile Brooklyn accent hits like a bludgeon.
“We did everything possible not to let this happen. Despite training and supervision, you allow yourself to get in too deep, and let a nutcase, someone out for nothing but sick personal revenge, destroy your career.”
“Are you talking about Abbott or Stone?”
“Lady, you are cruising. You defied the deputy director during a tactical operation.”
“I made the determination he had something to hide.”
“So you toss crucial evidence into a river. In a case of domestic terrorism.”
“I didn’t want him to have it.”
“How stupid can you be?”
“I guess that’s obvious.”
“This is big-time stupid. I am here to tell you that Peter Abbott is charging you with treason. Destroying evidence in a terrorism investigation is a treasonable act.”
Lights blink. Computers tick along, mockingly doing their job. There is hydropower to output! Fish to manage! But you are trapped inside a concrete bunker ten feet thick and you will never see daylight!
The future will be this: imprisonment in a stale progression of lawsuits and appeals, maybe even jail time, until my vitality is sapped.
Just go on being Ana Grey.
I notice Galloway has been watching me during this brief meditation, jacket open, fists on hips, totally perplexed.
“I have something to tell you, too,” I say. “About Steve Crawford.”
“What about Steve?”
“He wasn’t who we thought he was. Going in, you couldn’t have asked for a more loyal friend, a more good-hearted person, but when nobody was looking, he got hungry.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s right. The most talented agent to come through L.A., isn’t that what you said? The golden son? Steve knew that Stone had a valuable stash and figured to steal it, but the thing blew up in his face. He wasn’t killed by an act of terrorism. It was greed.”
I watch Galloway’s face as the shadow of uncertainty deepens.
“Or, you could say, it was due to the stresses and strains of undercover work. He was a casualty of war. Like a lot of us.” I take a ragged breath. “I’m just as devastated as you are. I loved the guy.”
Galloway’s hands fall to his sides.
“I choose not to believe it.”
“Lucky you.”
Donnato escorts me out of the powerhouse and into a black sedan. He maneuvers through the remaining rescue vehicles and news vans and hits the darkening road. The locks on the doors go down.
“Did they really burn down the farm?”
“Yes.”
“Did they kill Geronimo?”
“Who is Geronimo?”
“The blind baby foal, goddamn it—”
“I think he’s fine.”
“You think? Don’t lie to me.”
“I have never lied to you.”
“All right.”
“Are you okay?”
“I want that horse to go to a good home.”
“Don’t get teary. Jesus, what’s the matter?”
“Promise me. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I have the data.”
“No you don’t. You threw it in the river.”
“That was Darcy’s cell phone. She didn’t need it anymore.”
In the dashboard light I see Donnato’s face squinching up.
“Don’t be telling me this.”
I reach inside the sling where I have secreted the PalmPilot from the clumsy searches of baby deputies and the sharp eyes of my SAC.
“Dick Stone gave me his testament.”
“What’s on there?”
“The manifesto. What he wanted to be printed in the newspapers. What he said the American people need to remember.”
Scrolling past planting schedules and shopping lists, I discover a file called “Career of Evil.”
“This is it! Memos dated 1972 to 1974, signed by Peter Abbott, authorizing illegal phone taps against ‘suspected student radicals.’”
&nb
sp; “Keep looking.”
The screen is filled with numbers.
“Fish statistics. Great.”
And then a map. “A map of Bonneville Dam. Hey, wow. It’s a schematic.”
Donnato looks over. “Detailed?”
“The building plans for the dam. What Stone must have used to plot the bomb attack. There were several contractors.” I’m punching buttons, enlarging the type on the plans. “Hamilton, Meizner, Adams-Vanguard—”
“Adams-Vanguard is one of Abbott senior’s shell companies.”
“So Peter’s father, the congressman, was lining his pockets with a multimillion-dollar contract.”
“I’ll bet if we had another twenty-four hours, we could come up with a link between the builders of the powerhouse project and contributions to young Peter Abbott’s political career,” adds Donnato. “But we don’t have twenty-four hours.”
I hold it out to him. “You do.”
“It’s collateral,” Donnato says. “It was Stone’s collateral; now it’s yours.”
“He wanted to cash it in. He wanted Abbott to roll on the floor like a pill bug.”
I press the device into Donnato’s hand and find that mine is trembling.
“Get him,” I whisper.
“Roger that.”
I realize that I am becoming incoherent.
“Where is Galloway sending me? Why would he burn me? I’m a hero. Aren’t I?”
“Shhh. You’re valued. Believe me, at the highest level.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“If you knew everything, you wouldn’t do the job. These aren’t the days of Dick Stone. The tentacles were working—all those people behind the scenes, helping to protect you until the case came together. The supporting elements of the undercover are like your crystal ball—we see your future and help you dodge it.”
He kicks it up to eighty on the country road.
“What is my future?”
I watch a big green freeway sign for Portland snap backward into the dark.
“Aren’t we going to the county jail?”
Donnato does not reply.
“But I’m in custody.”
Donnato’s voice is breaking. “You just have to trust me.”
We drive in silence through the poignant end of day. The little road is sweet, the way it flows between the silver river and vertical slopes of scree, where multiple waterfalls sport like nymphs. It is the same drive I made with Stone when he began to tell his story of betrayal by his own people; we are simply going in the other direction. Stone wasn’t asking for trust or belief. He wasn’t asking for anything when he told it. But Donnato’s tone is full of pleading.
A rusted shell of a gas station and a neon sign half-buried in leaves that says MOTEL put you in mind of 1940s detective stories, where scheming lovers escape to a motor court out in the boonies with a million bucks in cash—only to discover the final, bitter twist.
There is always a double cross.
How far would the Bureau go?
In the car, my teeth are chattering with cold. We turn down a short road and past a restaurant. The restaurant is closed, but as we swing around, I see it is adjacent to a private airfield. If you sat on the patio, you could watch the planes. They look thin and flimsy, like scraps of paper.
The tower is lighted. A small jet waits on the tarmac, engines running. The door is open and the stairs are down.
“It’s best if you leave the country,” Donnato says.
I reel out of the car. The air is freezing and my shoulder is stiff. The sky has dropped to deep and final lavender.
“It’s waiting for you,” he says. “Go on.”
“Go on? To where?”
“I have no need to know.”
“You have no need? You can’t just dump me here.”
“Ana, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“What’s hard? Knowing nothing? Leaving everything? The Bureau,” I whisper, almost ashamed. “The Bureau is my family.”
He grips my arms. “I wouldn’t have been able to bring you here without cooperation on the highest level. From Galloway,” he adds, relenting. “Do you understand?”
“Come with me,” I say desperately. “You once said you loved me.”
“I love you completely.”
“I love you, too.” I hold on to him. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“You’ll be flying into a private airport where there will be no customs. No questions asked.”
“How is that possible?”
“Sara Campbell’s parents sent a private plane to pick her up. The mercenary, Sterling McCord, is bound to deliver her back into their hands. He was kind enough to say he would help get you out of the country.”
I pull away and look into his eyes.
“Mike, he wasn’t just being kind.”
Donnato says, “I know.”
“What are you doing, baby?”
I search his face. The face I’ve loved and relied on every day of my life in the Bureau.
And then there is no hope for it. We kiss, just once, but so much so that when we stop and I open my eyes, everything—the airfield, the plane, the silhouettes of trees so full of life—looks washed with blue, as if the retina screens in the backs of my eyes have gone out of whack and I can no longer reliably describe the world.
My partner says, “You have to go.”
We grip each other until he releases me and walks to the Bu-car and does not look back.
I move numbly toward the plane. Sterling McCord is waiting at the stairway. A uniformed steward hesitates in the lighted door.
“You have a real good friend. He always will be.”
I have no answer but the ache in my heart.
“Sara’s inside. We better take off before she does. Would you like a hand?” he asks, and offers his.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll know when we get there,” he says, and guides me up the metal steps.
I follow, like a blind horse being led out of the flames.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the dedicated professionals in the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI who shared their expertise with frankness and generosity: Special Agent George Carr, SWAT; Special Agent Kevin G. Miles, bomb technician; Supervisory Special Agent Bruce Stephens, retired; Special Agent in Charge Randy Parsons, retired; and especially Special Agent Larry Wilson, retired, whose experience as an undercover helped inspire this book.
At the FBI Academy in Quantico, I was educated in the rigors of undercover school by Stephen R. Band, Ph.D.; Carl Jensen III, Ph.D.; and Arthur E. Westveer, violent crime specialist. The interviews were facilitated with the much appreciated support of Philip L. Edney, public affairs specialist at FBIHQ.
This book grew out of a research trip to Oregon undertaken with my stalwart husband, Douglas Brayfield, and daughter, Emma, whose care for and knowledge of horses informs every page. Special thanks to Halle Mandel and Rick Sadle for their warm hospitality in Portland; to our guide, Crofton Diack; to Norm Sharpe and Frank Klejmont, formerly of the Portland police department; Captain Donna Henderson; Patrick Barry of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and at the FBI’s Portland Division, Public Affairs Specialist Beth Anne Steele.
I owe an enormous debt to the accommodating folks at the Bureau of Land Management, Burns District, who allowed us to observe the mustangs in the wild, a life-changing experience. Thomas H. Dyer, Mark L. Armstrong, Ramona Bishop, and Tom Seley all work tirelessly on behalf of the horses.
Thank you to hazelnut farmers Harry and Carol Logerstad; horse trainer Richard Goff; music expert Piero Scaruffi; Barry Fisher, Crime Laboratory Director, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department; pathologist Lisa Sheinin, M.D.; author and FBI historian Richard Gid Powers; equine veterinarian David Cox, DVM; and Michael Grunberg of Sandline International, who were all kind enough to answer dozens of inquiries.
An author is sustained through th
ree years of writing not only by the compassion of strangers, but by the good humor of family and friends, publishers and agents. I am thankful to my son, Benjamin, for his spirited counsel; my parents and my brother, Ronald, for their faith; to Michelle Abrams, Susan Baskin, Carrie Frazier, Lauren Grant, Joy Horowitz, Evan Levinson, Janice Lieberman, Linda Orkin, and Julie Waxman for being such good pals; Angela Rinaldi for wisdom in all things; to everyone in the first-rate Knopf organization, headed by the incomparable Sonny Mehta; and to the terrific assistant editor, Diana Coglianese. On the agent side, thank you once again to the beloved Molly Friedrich; Bruce Vinokour and the team at CAA; and the two outstanding individuals to whom this book is dedicated: FBI Special Supervisory Agent Pam Graham, for her integrity and friendship, and David Freeman, who gave the greatest gift one writer can give another, which is to find the soul of a troubled manuscript and light the way home.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
April Smith is the author of North of Montana, Be the One, and Good Morning, Killer and is also an Emmy-nominated television writer and producer. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.
ALSO BY APRIL SMITH
Good Morning, Killer
Be the One
North of Montana
This Is a Borzoi Book Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Copyright © 2008 by April Smith
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, April, [date]
Judas horse : an FBI special agent Ana Grey mystery / by April Smith.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“This is a Borzoi Book.”
1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation—Officials and employees—Fiction. 2. Undercover operations—Fiction. 3. Animal rights activists—Fiction. 4. Anarchists—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.M467J84 2008