The Brea File

by Louis Charbonneau

  Fortuitous indeed, Macimer thought.

  “I suggested to the Director that you be named to head up the investigation of the Brea file,” Halbig said. “He agreed. You’re one of our most experienced people in dealing with terrorist activities—and, of course, you were part of the PRC Task Force, so you’re familiar with the background and circumstances Lippert was digging into.” Halbig rubbed his nose pensively. “Did you know Vernon Lippert? Yes, you must have.”

  Macimer was still trying to absorb the implications of the missing Brea file. “Not well, but we met a few times.”

  “He died in a boating accident last February. I’m sure you heard. Apparently he had been conducting an unauthorized investigation of the whole PRC affair up until his death. Why he made a secret of it, and what he found, we don’t know, except for the reports I’ve mentioned. We want to know as quickly as possible. Set up your own team—you can have anyone you want, within reason, of course. You’ll have to work out of your own office, I’m afraid; you have no idea how short of space we are here. The key to this one, Paul, is resourcefulness—quality, not quantity. We can’t use big manpower because we don’t want this investigation to be highly visible until we know what’s involved.” Halbig paused, and there was a glint in his eyes that Macimer couldn’t read. “Report directly to me. The Director will want to be right on top of this. I’m sure you’re aware that his confirmation hearings come up before the Senate in two weeks.”

  For the first time Macimer had a feeling of uneasiness about his assignment. He remembered Jim Caughey’s warning: It could be trouble. Watch your step. Circumspect as he had been, Caughey had stuck his neck out making that phone call.

  Trouble for whom? Macimer wondered.

  What were the contents of the Brea file? And why had Vernon Lippert concealed them?

  “The Director is listening to those two tape recordings this afternoon,” Russ Halbig told him. “Copies and transcripts will be on your desk in the morning. I suggest you take a look at our files on the People’s Revolutionary Committee to refresh your own memory. And,” he added, “to see if you can find what set Vernon Lippert off.”

  * * * *

  FBI files in the Records Management Division occupied nearly three complete floors of the FBI Building. There were more than 60 million cards in the General Index, for which the Automated Records Management System—called ARMS—provided automated index searching and name checks. The investigative files themselves numbered more than 7 million, and many of these were massive, containing thousands of forms and documents. Every piece of paper, or serial, in any Headquarters file was numbered, and there was a corresponding index card with an abstract of its contents. It was said that someone went to a file and consulted a record more than 60,000 times a day.

  Not that anyone—even a Special Agent—was free to roam the seemingly endless corridors of file cabinets. Anyone doing so without specific authorization would be stopped and questioned. In the old days, Macimer remembered, messengers had been used to retrieve requested files or documents. Now there was a speedier telelift system with little plastic cars running along overhead rails, stopping at a network of 72 stations to drop off files and mail, like the dump cars of a miniature railroad set. Macimer wondered if a model-train hobbyist had designed the system.

  The file on the PRC encompassed a number of folders, each several inches thick. Macimer signed for the material and left the building.

  * * * *

  “One squad room,” Macimer said. “Desks and phones for two dozen agents to start. I don’t want them sitting around tomorrow waiting for a phone.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “I’ll need a desk man on this, Jerry. Someone just to handle the paper work. I know we’re short-handed right now, but—” Macimer thought suddenly of Harrison Stearns. The personnel report from the SRA at Dulles had gone beyond the customary “Excellent” rating to say that Stearns was dependable, good at detail, young enough to make mistakes but never the same one twice. “Is Stearns still on the nut box?”

  Jerry Russell smiled faintly. “Your instructions were: ‘Until further orders.’”

  The nut box was an index of crank callers and doomsayers. The agent assigned to the box on night duty was stuck with answering all of the calls. The onerous duty was generally rotated among the new or first office agents. Harrison Stearns had been handling those complaint-and-crazy calls since being reassigned from the RA’s office at Dulles International. “Have him here at seven in the morning,” said Macimer.

  “He’s on the box tonight,” Russell pointed out.

  Macimer did not reply. Stearns would be there at seven and he had damned well better stay awake. Macimer was giving Stearns a second chance, but he wasn’t going to make it easy.

  “I’d like a fingerprint team out to my house in the morning,” Macimer said after a moment’s reflection. “I should have done that before.”

  Jerry Russell raised an eyebrow. “You think there might be a connection between your robbery and this missing file?”

  “Let’s say I’m just playing a hunch they were looking for something besides jewels.”

  Russell shifted uneasily in his chair. “But why would anyone think…?” The question trailed off.

  “Someone might have the idea that file was still intact when I took possession of those stolen cartons.”

  “It’s that explosive? I mean, someone would think you’re sitting on it? Why wouldn’t they figure the auto thief grabbed it?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. And I think it might be a good idea to get someone Spanish-speaking in on this, just in case—preferably Cuban. Check with Personnel and see who they have in the Bank.” The Bureau’s computerized “skills bank” covered all active agents. If an investigation required an agent under thirty who spoke Spanish, played the guitar and was an expert skin diver, the Bank would produce his card on request. “I’d also like to talk to the team who are on that auto theft. Who do you have on it?”

  “Rayburn and Wagner. But they’re out and may not be back in tonight. You want me to call them in?”

  “Tomorrow will do.”

  Russell had been making rapid notes. “Anything else?” he asked when he had caught up.

  “That’s enough to get us started. Send Garvey in here.”

  After Russell had left, Macimer picked up his phone and dialed his home. Kevin answered. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  Still not very communicative. “Is your mother there?”

  When Jan came on the line Paul asked her if she had washed the sheets she removed from their bed Saturday night. “If you want the truth, they’re in a plastic bag waiting to go to the Salvation Army,” she said. “Unwashed.”

  “Don’t do anything with them and don’t give them away,” Macimer said quickly. “And I hope you’re not planning to do any vacuuming or heavy housecleaning.”

  “Is this a complaint, sir?”

  Macimer laughed. “Hardly. But I’m sending a fingerprint team out to the house tomorrow. They’ll want to do their own vacuuming.”

  Jan’s voice instantly sobered. “Is that necessary?”

  “It’s a long shot,” Macimer admitted, half to himself. “I’m also going to be late tonight—better not hold dinner.”

  “Gee, that’s a change.”

  “I’ll make it up to you when I retire.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Pat Garvey was standing in the open doorway when Macimer hung up. The SAC waved him in and nodded toward a chair facing his desk. Garvey’s eyes looked bloodshot after a day spent poring through files and extracts. “What have you got so far?” asked Macimer.

  “As of right now I have eighteen Xaviers between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. I stretched the age parameters a little. Most of those are from the index at Internal Security. I still have a couple dozen of our own files to go through.”

  “When you’re finished, run those names through the
general index and the CCH files at NCIC. See what matches you come up with.”

  “I figured on that.” Garvey hesitated. Busy with his own tedious assignment all day, he had been aware of the late-afternoon activity, the office talk of shuffled assignments and a “Special” under way. “Uh, I was wondering…”

  Macimer grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving you out. I’ve got someone else coming in to take over the search for Xavier and his pals.” He paused. “You’ve been grousing about not getting a chance to see the sun here. How soon could you be ready to fly to California?”

  Garvey’s eyes lit up. “I can be through here in a couple hours.” It would mean working overtime and possibly going blind, but he didn’t hide his eagerness. “I could leave tonight.”

  “Have Willa Cunningham check on airline schedules for tomorrow afternoon. You’ll be going to Sacramento. Collins will be going with you,” he added, “so coordinate with him.”

  “Yes, sir.” Garvey didn’t question the obvious urgency of his new assignment. When the Director designated something as a “Special,” working around the clock was not unusual. He would be smart to catch some sleep on the plane. That is, if he could get Collins to sleep. One of a score of blacks in the WFO, Collins was both a talker and an avid backgammon player.

  “What are we after, sir?” the young agent asked.

  “You’ll be briefed in the morning. But I can tell you this much.

  Vernon Lippert, the RA in San Timoteo, which comes under Sacramento’s jurisdiction, was doing a free-lance investigation into the PRC blowup three years ago. Whatever he dug up, it apparently attracted some attention. The file has disappeared, and there are no duplicates on record. You and Collins will be trying to put that file back together again, following in Lippert’s footsteps. I’ll go over what we have before you leave.”

  “What happened to Lippert?”

  “He died in an accident…” A small alarm bell rang in the back of Macimer’s brain, the same kind of intuition he had foolishly ignored Saturday night as he turned into his driveway.

  For the first time he wondered about the coincidence of Vernon Lippert’s death and the disappearance of the Brea file.

  He looked down at the stack of folders before him on his desk, the detailed record of every step of the PRC investigation. The thickness of the files was intimidating. Much of it was both routine and familiar, however, and he could skim through it. What interested him—what must have interested Lippert—were the last stages.

  With a sigh he pulled the first of the files toward him, the action and his nod dismissing Garvey.

  * * * *

  “What happened to your eyes?” Jan asked.

  “Do we have any Visine?”

  “I don’t think that’ll help, I think you need a transplant.”

  “I need a little sympathy, that’s what I need.”

  He had come home late, washed down a sandwich with a glass of milk and relaxed for an hour through the eleven o’clock news, observing with relief the TV film coverage of the surrender of the hijacker at Miami to FBI Special Agent Callahan. Now he was getting ready for bed.

  “What’s it all about, Paul? This new case.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Then don’t ask for sympathy.” She said it lightly, but there was a slight edge to the words.

  He had told her about meeting Halbig at Headquarters over an assignment, and now he mentioned Halbig’s casual comment about “getting together soon.”

  “That’ll be fun.” Jan Macimer and Elaine Halbig had been close. They were both young agents’ wives, themselves nearly the same age, going through the same stage of their lives, having their first child only a month apart. Later, when Halbig married a blond beauty ten years younger than Elaine, less than a year after their bitter divorce, Jan had never been comfortable with the younger woman or with Halbig. “Erika and I were never exactly pals,” Jan mused. “I suppose it was more my fault than hers. I couldn’t forget Elaine as quickly as Russ did.”

  “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. These things happen.”

  “Yes… they do, don’t they?”

  “What’ll I tell Halbig if he actually does set a date?”

  “Oh, I don’t suppose it’ll come to that.”

  “But if it does-?”

  Jan laughed. “I don’t imagine you’ll complain—not if I remember the way you couldn’t take your eyes off Erika the last time.”

  “That’s a gross exaggeration.”

  “It was gross,” Jan agreed, “but no exaggeration.”

  Macimer glanced at her quizzically. She was standing before the dresser brushing her ash-blond hair—a color enhanced by “frosting,” Jan cheerfully admitted. The color became her. So did the short, curly hairstyle. Jan had spent a lifetime having her naturally curly hair straightened by hairdressers rather than let it collapse into what she called her Orphan Annie frizz. Now fashion had caught up with nature; curly hair was in. And at forty-one Jan thought shorter hair more suited to her. She also liked not having to do much of anything to it beyond a few strokes with the hairbrush.

  As she lifted her arm to tug the brush through the tangle of short curls, the pajama top she wore lifted with the motion, exposing the tight curve of her buttocks. Macimer never wore anything to bed but pajama bottoms; Jan always wore the matching tops. A practical arrangement—“Look how much we save on nightgowns,” Jan had pointed out. And Paul had always thought his pajama tops more effective on her than on him. Besides, the buttons had long been a signal between them. All Jan had to do was leave the coat unbuttoned, open to his hands.

  When she turned around and came toward the bed, the pajama jacket was unbuttoned.

  Her response to his hands, his mouth, his body was immediate and strong. Her aggressiveness surprised and nearly overwhelmed him. The familiar pattern of their lovemaking, prolonged and slow, collapsed before this strange, almost painful urgency. It was over so suddenly that Macimer was left vaguely dissatisfied, unsure about her, confused and uneasy over her abrupt changes of mood.

  He remembered something Will Rogers had said about money and women being the two most sought after and least known things we have.

  Money’s easy, Macimer thought.

  6

  When the SAC summoned him to his office at seven o’clock Tuesday morning, Special Agent Harrison Stearns cracked a shin in his haste coming around his desk. He limped on, hearing muffled laughter behind him.

  Stearns had been on duty until midnight. It had been a quiet night, few crank calls, the kind of night he would ordinarily have passed reading a mystery novel. Instead he had spent the time worrying over his future, wondering if he would shortly be packing for reassignment to Butte, Montana.

  He hurried into Paul Macimer’s office. The SAC gestured toward a chair. Stearns stared involuntarily at a plastic bag on the chair, noting its contents. A facetious question popped into his head and he quickly repressed it.

  “What is it, Stearns? What were you going to say?”

  The young agent’s heart sank. Macimer knew what he was thinking. Stearns swallowed his nervousness, hesitated, then blurted it out. “I was wondering if… if you brought in your laundry, sir.”

  Macimer laughed. “You thought that was to be your next assignment, did you? Not a bad idea, Stearns, considering what you’ve got us all into. I want those sheets tagged and sent over to the Laboratory. There are some semen stains on the bottom sheet, possibly on the other one.” Briefly he explained the origin of the stains. Macimer wasn’t sure how much could be learned from them but it was time for another miracle of the Lab. He paused, letting Stearns sweat a little, not sure what else was coming. “When you’ve done that, I have a new job for you. As of now you’re off the nut box.” When he saw the relief on Stearns’s face he said, “You may wish you were back on it before the next couple of weeks are over. We’ve got a ‘Special’ running, trying to put back together a file you lost for us. It was among the docu
ments in those cartons you were bringing in from the airport.”

  Stearns’s eyes were stricken. It was worse than he had feared.

  “I need someone to coordinate the paper work on this, so we don’t drown in our own reports. Frankly, I wouldn’t be using you even as a file clerk if I had anyone else. We’re short-handed, so you’re it.” Macimer leaned forward and spoke with heavy irony. “All you have to do, Stearns, is see that nothing else gets lost. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Stearns mumbled.

  “We’ll see. Take care of those sheets, then move your stuff into the special squad room. Russell will give you a desk. And tell him I want to see Garvey and Collins as soon as they report in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was hard to remain angry with someone so anxious to do right, Macimer thought as the young agent went out, carefully closing the door behind him. But good agents weren’t made of good intentions. The pressures of the coming days would tell a great deal about Harrison Stearns.

  Macimer turned his attention to the stack of files he had plowed through the previous afternoon and evening. Next to them were the two cassette tapes sent over from the Director’s office that morning—what time did Landers get in, anyway? Attached to the two cassettes was a note that read: “I have listened to these carefully. They speak for themselves. I needn’t tell you how important it is to the Bureau that the truth behind them be unearthed as quickly as possible.” The note was signed “John L. Landers.”

  The truth. By God, that’s what Landers would get!

  The densely detailed investigative reports in the PRC file had brought it all back too vividly, that long, hot, unhappy summer….

  * * * *

  The country had seemed depressed with itself, caught in a malaise of frustration over runaway inflation and a depressed economy, high oil prices and low expectations. Starting in June, the People’s Revolutionary Committee struck repeatedly against the corpus of the supposedly ailing monster. The System was in its death throes, they cried. It was time for the people to rise up and overthrow the twin tyrannies of big business and big, faceless government.