by Steve Berry
“Which would only bring more attention. Better we ramble like idiots on things we can’t prove.”
“Something like that.”
I wanted to know, “Were you listening in at the house by the lake?”
He shook his head. “For what? No need.”
“Because the guy who came to the cemetery was your bird dog?”
“He once worked for me, if that’s what you mean.”
Foster did not want the files inside that case seen by Coleen. So he’d used the situation to reverse what she’d managed to set in motion, allowing Jansen to be led straight to the files. But why not just destroy them himself? Why involve Jansen at all? Only one answer made sense. This guy wanted to see them first.
“What’s Bishop’s Pawn?”
“How much of the files did you read?”
“Enough,” I lied, trying to alter the situation.
“That operation is classified. But it was something of great concern to this country.”
“That’s what this is about? We’re concerned for the country? You’re retired. That’s not your problem anymore.”
“This country will always be my concern. I started with the bureau in 1959, back when the Soviet Union and communism were our greatest threats.”
“And how many communists did you find? Never mind. I know the answer. Not enough to get excited over.” I paused. “If any at all.”
“You have no idea what we faced.”
“Actually, I do. I can read. The threat of a communist infiltration was total bullshit, used by guys like you to keep a job and further your own paranoia. The CIA, which actually dealt with communists, determined that King was no threat to national security whatsoever. Yet the FBI decided otherwise. Did you really think that the Soviet Union was behind the civil rights movement? Trying to destroy us from within?”
“Stanley Levison was a member of the Communist Party of the United States.”
I knew that name. A close friend and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., he was a white lawyer from New York who helped draft some of King’s most famous speeches and organize events. He also raised money for the SCLC. True, history noted that Levison had once been a member of the Communist Party, but he ceased all connection to it long before he and King ever became linked.
“Levison was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Internal Security,” Oliver said. “Parts of that testimony are classified to this day.”
“What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?’
That’s what my mother used to ask me when I tried to bullshit her.
“There was a genuine concern that Levison might influence or manipulate King into causing widespread political unrest,” Oliver said. “That was standard operating procedure for communist organizations back then. They wanted to bring this country down. King himself was on the FBI Reserve Index. People to be detained in the event of a national emergency.”
“King was no communist.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes. We do. You used that nonsense to justify illegally wiretapping not only Levison and King, but too many other people to even count. The sad part is even both Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson allowed that to happen. They all three loved getting the inside scoop on people, including King. Not a one of them ever told Hoover to stop. All of you were crazy as hell.”
“Easy for you to say, sitting here now, reaping the rewards of our caution.”
I’d had enough. “Stanley Levison was a progressive liberal who believed that the blacks of this country were getting screwed. And by the way, they were. He stood up for what he believed and helped the man at the tip of the spear do his job. J. Edgar Hoover hated King and everyone associated with him. That’s a fact. So Levison became a target. It’s just that simple. I agree, it was a different time with different values. But that doesn’t make what you did right.”
This guy was getting on my last nerve.
“I’ve heard your criticisms many times before. They don’t affect me. We did our jobs. I make no apologies.”
I recalled something else I once read. “There was an internal FBI report, from 1963, I think, that concluded the civil rights movement was not communist-controlled. I’ve read parts of it. Hoover would not accept that report, so its author changed the conclusion and instead proposed targeting the SCLC by COINTELPRO.”
“I wrote that report.”
The revelation took me aback.
“Hoover was brash, brilliant, full of self-esteem, cocky as a rooster, and totally amoral,” he said. “I agree, he institutionalized totalitarianism within the FBI. He was in total control. I witnessed that control for many years. In some respects that was good.”
I could not imagine how.
“Presidents, congressmen, cabinet officers. They all thought the FBI was their own personal police force to be used on their enemies. But we were anything but that. Partisanship was strictly forbidden. Hoover worked hard to keep us out of politics. We were then, and still are, an investigatory agency, not a police force. Big difference.”
“That didn’t prevent Hoover himself from using his agents like the police.”
“There is some truth to that. We worked in a vacuum with no oversight from the executive or legislative branches. That wasn’t intentional. It simply happened over time, thanks to Hoover’s longevity and the reputation he forged as someone who didn’t require supervision.”
“A big mistake.”
“Yes. It was. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty.”
“As long as it’s not viewed through a filter.”
“Again. I agree. Hoover became dangerously autonomous. None of us challenged him. And for good reason. He convinced Congress to exempt the FBI from civil service laws. So every agent’s future rested entirely in his hands. Disagreeing with Hoover was the worst thing you could do. Believe me, I know.”
“That’s why you rewrote the report?”
He nodded. “My career would have been over. Hoover believed King to be an immoral, lying hypocrite. He hated the man. So everyone else within the FBI was required to hate him, too. I knew what he wanted to hear. Once a policy was set by Hoover, it could not be undone. You either played ball or went home. Your choice. I chose.”
“The whole ‘I was just following orders thing’ went by the wayside at Nuremberg.”
“This country was different then. The public supported the FBI. They loved Hoover. He was their hero. There was a respect for law enforcement that’s gone today.”
“All thanks to people like J. Edgar Hoover, who certainly did his part to make people distrust the police.”
“Again, I can’t disagree with those conclusions. Hoover built an empire. He worked mainly in secret and masked his actions behind a totally crafted public image that he went to great lengths to create. But you’re right, he waged a war on civil liberties and, unfortunately for Martin Luther King, by the time the civil rights movement came into existence, Hoover was at his zenith.”
My anger was growing. This guy was no moralistic saint. Repentant. I knew his type. Official vigilantes. Self-appointed Boy Scouts of the heartland with their perfect suits and brush-cut hair, possessed of values and beliefs that could justify anything, telling you precisely what you wanted to hear while driving a knife into your back.
“You personally knew there was no connection between communism and King, yet you went ahead and tried to destroy him.”
“We tried to destroy a lot of people. But Hoover and King’s relationship was different. King had the audacity to openly question the FBI’s own civil rights record. He pointed out there were no black agents and he leveled that there was a southern bias, on our part, with investigations. He was right on both counts, by the way. Hoover forbid the hiring of blacks and we did cater to southern law enforcement. We could not have functioned without good relationships with the local police. Those southern cops hated King and everything he stood for. When it came to choosing between civil rights prote
stors and the cops, that was no choice at all.”
I was going to enjoy kicking this old man’s butt. And I intended on doing just that. I was rapidly becoming real comfortable with a devil-may-care attitude. But the presence of Foster and the Perrys added a level of complication. So I decided to keep fishing while this guy was still nibbling at the hook.
“In ’64 King attacked Hoover again on the communist angle,” Oliver said. “His quote was that there were as many communists in the civil rights movement as there were Eskimos in Florida. That’s when Hoover held his famous press conference and called King the most notorious liar in the country. After that it was total war for Hoover. My marching orders were clear. Destroy King.”
“What was your role in COINTELPRO?”
“I was head of domestic intelligence. I ran the entire counterintelligence operation under Hoover. Then I headed its dismantling, after he died.”
At least I was speaking to the man at the top. “Only it’s not dismantled, is it?”
“That depends. As far as active and current? It’s gone. Times have changed.”
“Yeah. People actually try to follow the law now.”
“But as to guarding against threats from the past? We must remain vigilant to those.”
I motioned to the case. “Like what’s in there?”
He glanced at the waterproof case. “I truly believed that Juan Lopez Valdez was dead. He hasn’t been heard from in over twenty years. Instead, he’s not only alive, but went to the Dry Tortugas to meet with Benjamin Foster’s daughter and bring her documents that should no longer exist. I assure you, Lieutenant Malone, nothing good would have come from anyone seeing what’s inside there.”
“Then it’s lucky for you I came along and screwed everything up.”
He gestured with the pipe. “There is an element of fortuitousness in your presence.”
“Along with a pain in the ass?”
He chuckled. “Oh, yes. Jansen wants to kill you.”
“Let him try.”
“You’re an interesting man. A young naval officer. Fighter pilot. Law school graduate. JAG lawyer. Now a special operative with the Justice Department, whatever that means. And all before you turn thirty.”
“I’m having my résumé printed, can I include you as a reference?”
I could see I was getting to him. This guy was accustomed to giving orders, then people bowing as they backed from the room to follow them. But he’d heard two words that he hadn’t wanted to hear.
Bishop’s Pawn.
My lawyer sense told me he was now more than a little annoyed. Killing me remained a problem. Others knew about me, and he was no longer running with the big dogs. He didn’t call the shots. Instead, he was retired, living here in Shangri-la with his marble FBI emblem in the entrance hall floor, dependent on people still in positions of power to cover for him.
Those were the ones Stephanie Nelle was after.
The folks in DC whose strings this guy pulled.
So I decided to get with the plan and help her out.
“Why am I here?”
“I was hoping we could solve this problem together. I know what Foster wants.” He pointed at the case. “Those to be burned. I get that. People are motivated by a variety of reasons. Ideology, passion, duty, loyalty. Some by personal gain. What do you want?”
I nearly smiled. He’d brought me here to bribe me.
Something thudded into the door loud enough to grab both my and Oliver’s attention. He rose from his seat and rushed across to a desk, where he withdrew a weapon.
“Stay here.”
You wish.
He headed for the door.
I snatched up the coin from the top of the waterproof case and pocketed it, then I cut Oliver off, planting a solid right uppercut that sent the bastard down. I then relieved him of his gun and mocked him.
“You stay here.”
I opened the door.
Jansen lay on the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I bent down and checked.
Jansen was still breathing, but he’d taken a pop to his head, a fresh gash marking the method of attack. I came alert and stared down the corridor toward the entrance hall. The man in the glasses who’d escorted us inside lay sprawled on the terrazzo. Apparently, somebody unexpected had arrived.
But what about Coleen, her father, and her husband? I decided there was no choice, so I called out, “Coleen?”
“In here.”
I heard the voice, muffled, as if through a closed door, coming from ahead. Three doors down I found them, but the knob was locked.
“Stand back,” I said.
I pounded my right foot into the wood. Two more kicks and the jamb gave way.
I stepped inside.
“Something’s happening here,” I told them. “And it’s not good.”
Then I realized.
The waterproof case was back in the library.
“Follow me.”
We returned to the room to find Oliver still on the floor, the waterproof case gone, the French doors leading out to the terrace open.
“Get in one of the cars out front and get out of here,” I told Coleen.
“I’m going with you,” she said, then she faced her husband. “Take Dad and go. Do you have your cell phone?”
Nate shook his head. “The guy back there on the floor in the hall took it.”
I understood Coleen’s point, so I rushed back inside and searched Jansen, finding the unit.
“When you get away,” she told Nate, “call us on your phone.”
Nate nodded.
“Let those files go,” Foster said. “They’re not worth all of this.”
“I can’t,” Coleen said.
I agreed with her.
“I demand you listen to me, Coleen.”
“We’re way beyond that,” she told him.
I grabbed Foster by the arm and led him away, whispering into his ear, “Go, or I’ll tell her what you did to get us here.”
I could see the threat registered.
The older man nodded his acquiescence.
“You and I will talk privately later,” I muttered.
We all raced from the house, rounding one side and following the towering hedges back to the driveway entrance.
Several parked cars waited.
“One of those hopefully has keys in it,” I said. “Take it.”
Foster and Nate headed off.
Coleen and I left the grounds and found the street beyond the hedges. To my left I saw two men moving east, toward the ocean, carrying the waterproof case. They were nearly a hundred yards away, too far for the gun, and besides, I didn’t want to draw any attention that might bring the local police.
An engine cranked behind us, and a moment later one of the cars with Nate driving sped from the house. I motioned for them to turn right. Nate hesitated, seeing the two men with the case farther down the street. I knew what he was thinking.
He had a car.
We didn’t.
“We’ll get it,” I told him through the closed window. “Get your father-in-law out of here.”
He turned the car right and disappeared down the street.
Coleen was already running toward the two other men.
I followed.
One of them glanced back and saw her. They increased their pace. So did I. I saw them cross the street at the end of the block and trot down a narrow, sandy footpath, then disappear into the oaks and palms that separated two of the estate properties. A posted sign noted that the trail was for public beach access. A wall ran down the right side guarding the perimeter of a huge house that rose among the trees. A fence protected the private property to the left.
Coleen crossed the street and headed for the trail.
I ran faster.
A shot popped ahead.
Coleen was unarmed, which meant she was taking fire. I crossed the street and plunged into the foliage, following the sandy ground through the
trees. Coleen was huddled against the trunk of one of the thicker oaks. The two men were near the trail’s end, where daylight and the sound of surf signaled ocean.
I knelt and sent a bullet from Oliver’s gun their way.
It thudded into the sand at the end of the trail just as the two men crested a small dune and disappeared from sight. I ran ahead since the path was clear and found the dune. The sand beyond was thick and soft, slowing their forward progress. Fifty yards past them, where the waves crested at the shoreline, an inflatable boat waited. Daylight was waning, but enough light remained to see everything clearly. This part of the island seemed the realm of the wealthy. More private. Less crowded. No one was on the beach. I dropped to the sand, using the dune for protection, and fired again, intentionally sending the bullet to the right of both men.
“The next shot will be into one of you,” I called out, telling them there was nowhere to go.
They stopped.
“Leave the case.”
Coleen came up and lay belly-first beside me. I kept the gun trained. One of the men held a pistol. He moved to raise the weapon and I fired another round at his feet.
“Drop the gun.”
He did.
I’d already noticed a large boat about two hundred yards offshore, similar to the one Valdez had been using. But there was no way he could be here. His boat was back in the Keys. My guess was that these guys worked for him and had been previously dispatched to keep an eye on Oliver.
“Leave the case and go,” I said again.
They hesitated so I stood and aimed the gun.
“I can shoot you both. Right now. Doesn’t really matter to me.”
They turned and headed for the inflatable, trudging through more soft sand. Coleen and I headed for the case. She opened the container and made sure the files were still there.
“Tell Valdez to go back to Cuba,” I called out. “This is over for him.”
Coleen stood beside me and we watched as they pushed the inflatable into the surf and left.
“You handled that like a pro,” she said with a grin. “Aren’t you full of surprises.”
* * *
We fled the beach and headed back down the public trail to the street. It seemed quiet at the far end of the block where Oliver’s house stood. Probably because they were all still unconscious. Palm Beach proper was left, toward the south, a few miles away, past some of the most expensive real estate in the world. To our right, only a few hundred yards away lay the northern tip of the island. I decided the shorter route was the smart play, so we walked until the road ended. Across a narrow saltwater channel I saw more land populated with more lavish condominiums. No bridge made a connection from here to there. A small park stretched to our left, which came with a boat ramp. I knew Coleen wanted to read what was in the case as much as I did. And since there was no way to exclude her, I gestured toward one of the picnic tables. Daylight kept fading, now only a rim of orange on the western horizon, a lurid glow that highlighted the ever-graying darkness of the clouds scurrying low overhead.