by Carson, Gary
The rain picked up, drifting in curtains, sparkling on hundreds of windshields. I circled through the lot, looking for a dark green Lumina with a missing hubcap on the right front tire. The restaurant was busy and cars pulled in and out of the lot, their low beams probing the downpour. I made a couple circuits, then backed into a space near the south exit to wait for Brown to show up. The railroad tracks ran behind me, passing a grain elevator and a field piled with rusting junk. A switch engine rumbled by and blasted its horn.
Fifteen minutes later, a dark-colored Lumina pulled in on the far side of the lot. It stopped for a minute like the driver was looking for a space, then it drove through the steam gushing out of the vent and turned past the front of the restaurant. The rain was coming down hard now, banging the roof of the station wagon, puddling the floorboard under an open vent. I closed the vent, then turned on the wipers and slouched down in my seat, watching the Lumina glide through the lot and circle around to come out where it had started. Its right-front hubcap was missing. The driver stopped again, then turned and headed towards my spot.
I flashed my headlights, taking out the Glock and laying it on the seat beside me.
#
The Lumina parked a couple rows over and sat there for a while with its engine running. Exhaust puttered from its tail pipe, wisps of smoke whirling across the blacktop in the rain. Five minutes passed, then its tail lights went dark and this skinny geek wearing a black trench coat got out and walked over to the station wagon, hesitating before he came up to the car. It was Brown, all right. He scanned the lot, then leaned over and rapped on the passenger window, trying to see through the fogged glass. He was alone as far as I could tell, but there was no way to know for sure. I picked up the Glock and unlocked his door.
"Emma?" He peered at me, his glasses beaded with rain. "Everything OK?"
"Get in," I said, watching his hands, checking the rearview in case somebody was trying to sneak up through the rows of parked cars. "You alone?"
"I sure as hell hope so."
He looked baggy and haggard, hair plastered over his skull. Blanching when he saw my bruised face and the gun in my hand, he got in and locked the door.
"Take it easy," he said.
"Go screw yourself."
I watched him light a cigarette, fumbling with his lighter to get a flame. I was ready to blow his head off if he twitched the wrong muscle and he must've picked up on my vibes.
"Thanks for meeting me." He cracked his window and let out a cloud of smoke, trying to act casual. "You don't need the gun, OK? I'm just a writer with a bad back. All right? No threat at all."
"Unbutton your coat and put your hands on the dash."
I patted him down the best I could, checking all his pockets. He was clean as far as I could tell – no tape recorders or mikes or hidden bazookas. I relaxed a notch; if something was going to happen, it would've happened by now.
"All right," I said. "Start talking."
"Not so fast." He sat back, his eyes wandering over the dash. "You know why they let you go yesterday. Did you check for bugs and tracking devices?"
"It's not my car," I said. "Just leave it at that."
He shook his head. "We've got to be careful, Emma. I saw the report on your friend. The stripper. It's my ass big time if somebody's listening and they'll come down hard if they think you're talking to the press. They can't afford any leaks."
"The car's clean," I said, keeping an eye on the lot. "I've only had it for like an hour."
"Did you park it anywhere? Leave it for a while?"
"It's never been out of my sight."
"How about tails?" he asked. "Did you see anything?"
"Yeah," I said. "A bunch of traffic."
He studied me for a minute, then nodded and let out his breath.
"That's the trouble with the city." He took a drag like he needed it. "We're probably OK for a while, but we better not stay in one place for too long. I don't think anyone followed me, but who can tell in this crap. We can go somewhere else or drive around if you want. It might be safer to keep moving."
"This'll do for now." I watched a car drive by on Second. "So start talking. Tell me something that makes sense for a change."
"All right," he said. "Let's start with Matthews. He's not FBI, but he's using Bureau ID. It's a standard practice."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'll get to that in a minute."
"Get to it now." I adjusted the rearview. "How do you know him?"
"I met him in D.C. a couple years ago," he went on. "I worked there for five years. L.A. Times Washington Bureau."
"Sure you did."
"I can prove it." He went for his pocket, then froze when I raised the gun. "Take it easy. I've got my old press card in my wallet. It's expired, but I've still got it."
He pulled out his wallet and handed me a laminated press ID. It looked official enough, but he could've bought it in a toy store for all I knew. The photo showed a younger and more clean-cut version of Brown wearing a suit and tie. He looked sober and almost respectable.
"I broke a lot of stories," he said. "You can check it out if you want – they've got them on microfilm at the library. I was a good researcher and I had a lot of contacts at the Pentagon and State Department. Just look it up."
"So what happened?" I gave him back his card. "How come you're working for that Berkeley rag if you used to be this hot-shot reporter?"
He flipped his half-smoked butt out the window and sat there for a minute, staring at his hands. The weasel looked embarassed, but there was more to it than that. He was trying to make up his mind about something.
"I guess I have to tell you or you'll never believe me," he said after a while. "A couple years ago, I was working a story – let's just leave it at that for now. It was a dead end, but I must've got too close to somebody because they set me up on child pornography charges and got me fired. Smeared me good; that's how they work. I beat the charges and moved up here, all right? I work freelance for rags like the NewsWire because nobody else will touch me after what happened, but I'm still a good reporter, no matter what they say. I keep in touch. I still have contacts."
He stared at me, his left eye twitching.
"The feds set you up?" Maybe it was true, maybe not, but I didn't have any trouble believing it could happen.
"The cops raided my place at four in the morning and confiscated all of my files," he said. "They claimed they found a bunch of kiddy porn on my computer – thousands of pictures of little kids and runaways. They said I was selling them over the internet to this international ring of pedophiles, but the D.A. dropped the charges a couple months later – no explanation. Somebody wanted me out of the way. I don't know who, but it could have been anybody."
"So how'd you meet Matthews?"
"I can't go into details." Brown lit another cigarette, cupping the lighter with his hands. The flame shadowed his hollow cheeks and reflected on his glasses. "He was using State Department cover back then. He works for the Company."
"What company?"
"You know," he said. "The CIA."
I just stared at him.
"Special Activities Division," Brown went on. "Used to be the Directorate of Operations. They keep changing the name." He watched me through a cloud of smoke. "That's the spook division and guys like Matthews aren't even supposed to be working inside the country, so what's he doing talking to some car thief in Emeryville, California?" He took another drag, spilling ashes on his coat. "Remember that picture I showed you at the Hot Box? The male hooker? I found out the kid had been busted by Emeryville P.D. on a hustling charge, so I went down there to see if I could talk to him yesterday. Get a line on his clients. I was surprised when I saw Matthews at the station and I was even more surprised when I found out that he was meddling in your case. That's why I called you, OK? This is a big story. It's part of the same story I was working on when they framed me and it's my ticket off the NewsWire, if you want to know the truth.
I've been working this story for years."
"The CIA." My flake detector was buzzing.
"You've heard of them, right?" He sounded impatient. "Did you think they were a myth or something?"
"So he's a spy."
"No." Brown shook his head, smoke streaming from his nostrils. "Forget that James Bond crap. You want the jargon, he's a Collection Management Officer. That's a desk guy who runs agents and collects information. The word is he's working in the field for a group inside the Division. He's using FBI cover, so maybe the Bureau's involved, but I don't know the details."
"He told me he was FBI."
"Like I said, it's a common practice."
"Common on another planet."
"Look," he said. "I know how it sounds, but this kind of thing goes on all the time. The government's got all these factions and they're constantly fighting with each other over policy and influence. Matthews works for one group inside the CIA and he's investigating another group inside the CIA. All right? The guy who was in your car when you got picked up works for the other group. He's into some nasty business. It's the biggest secret in Washington."
"So how come you know about it?"
"I told you," he said. "I've got sources. People send me stuff anonymously. I'm not the only one interested in the guy in your car."
"Who is he?" My head was spinning. "What's he want?"
Brown studied me. "His name's Oliver. He's an Army major detached to the Pentagon. He used to have a partner named Mitchell. Bald guy. He's a professional killer, but you'd probably get an argument about that from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They work for a policy group that reports directly to the White House."
"They work for the President?"
Brown shrugged. "It's hard to say. Nobody really knows who's actually running the country these days." He coughed into his hand, his eyes shifty. "I'm trying to put it together from all these bits and pieces, but it looks like you got caught in one of their spook wars. I know the players and I know the background – part of it, anyway – but I can't figure out why they suddenly got interested in you. What did Matthews want? He pulled some big strings to get you released – they usually try to stay in the background. What did he say? How'd you get mixed up in something like this?"
"Something like what?" I had this nasty feeling that I'd just wandered into the Twilight Zone. Brown sounded like he knew what he was talking about, but he could've been some kind of child-molesting conspiracy nut for all I knew. The Bay Area was full of paranoids and wack jobs in tin-foil hats who wandered around mumbling about the CIA and flying saucers. "You're supposed to be the one with the inside scoop," I said. "Why don't you tell me what's going on?"
Brown thought about it for a minute.
"I'm not sure," he said, watching the parking lot. "Something strange happened in Oakland a couple nights ago. Down in the bottoms." He looked over at me, then lowered his voice. "Have you ever heard of the Loose Nukes market?"
Just then, a car went by on Sixth Street, its headlights steaming in the rain.
The driver looked kind of familiar.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rain flurried through the lot, spattering the blacktop, beading on hubcaps and fenders. The car pulled into a space in front of the restaurant and its headlights went dark, but I didn't see anyone get out.
"Let's take a ride." I started the engine.
"Something wrong?" Brown sat up, looking around.
"I don't know," I said. "I can't tell anymore."
I pulled out and made for the exit, watching the mirror. Nobody followed us out of the lot as far as I could tell, but I circled the back streets until I was sure, then headed north on Sixth, hiding in the traffic. Brown smoked constantly, talking about all this weird crap that made just enough sense to freak me out.
"When the Soviet Union collapsed," he said, "the Russians lost control of their military stockpiles. The command structure broke down. Their soldiers weren't getting paid and there was a lot of looting and profiteering. They were selling weapons wholesale. Guns. Tanks. Aircraft. You name it. That was bad enough, but Washington was worried that nuclear weapons from the Russian arsenal were being sold on the black market and could end up in the hands of terrorists and hostile nations." He lit another cigarette, watching the street. "They called it the Loose Nukes market."
Headlights floated by in the rain. Neon signs. Storefront windows. It was like this weird, streaming hallucination with Brown rambling in the background like some kind of lunatic. Maybe he was crazy, maybe not, but he didn't seem like much of a threat so I stuck the gun under the seat where I could get it fast if I had to.
"I've been researching this for years." Brown relaxed a little when he saw me put the gun away. "The Loose Nukes market was for real and guess who was one of its biggest customers?" He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to me, his eyes intense. "The CIA."
I took the next left. Almost clipped a parked car.
His jabber was starting to make me really nervous.
"That's a fact," he went on. "Very few people know this – even in Washington – but the Agency was buying nuclear weapons on the black market. Russian warheads and bombs. Tactical. Strategic. They've got a stockpile on the east coast somewhere, but I've never been able to track it down. It's an underground facility. That's all I know."
"So?" I thought I was going to scream. "So what? What's that got to do with me?"
He was watching me closely. "The guy in your car was in charge of the operation. Oliver. He's still running it for all I know." He turned away again, blowing smoke at the dash. "Get the picture?"
"You're insane. Why would they do that?"
"Why do criminals buy stolen guns?" He shook his head. "This is huge, Emma. A covert, untraceable stockpile that doesn't show up in the nuclear weapons tracking system. It's managed by a faction inside the CIA that might be working for the White House. They could detonate one of those bombs anywhere in the world, blame it on terrorists or whoever, and nobody could prove any different." His eyes bored in. "Why was Oliver in your car? What did Matthews want? He's been chasing this thing longer than I have."
I didn't say anything.
"There's more," he said, lighting another cigarette off the butt of his old one. "I thought the operation was dormant, but it looks like it's active again. Matthews has been working here in Oakland for months. He was running an agent named Chase. Howard L. Chase. He was a lawyer for a shipping company in East Oakland named Ligar Shipping."
"How do you know this crap?" The name Chase gave me a jolt and it must've shown on my face.
"Confidential sources." He frowned. "Have you heard of Chase before?"
"Yeah," I said reluctantly, clamping down on the wheel.
He perked up at that. "How'd you hear about him?"
"I read about him in the paper. There was a fire down in the bottoms and they found his body in a vacant lot."
Brown nodded. "Ligar Shipping was a front: a CIA proprietary company. They set up these fake companies all the time. Oliver – the guy in your car – was running it. He must've set it up because he needed to ship something and wanted to keep it quiet. If something went wrong, it couldn't be traced back to the Agency."
"You think he was shipping a bomb?"
"Nobody knows." He blew a smoke ring. "This Chase character was probably a CIA asset. He was the lawyer for Ligar Shipping. He worked for Oliver, but he was working for Matthews, too. Matthews was trying to find out what Oliver was doing and Chase was his agent inside the company. Understand? Chase was a double. He was spying for Matthews. Maybe Matthews found out what he was doing and blackmailed him. I don't know."
I didn't say anything, but I was getting a very bad feeling.
"It's complicated," Brown went on. "Chase was working for Oliver, stealing documents for Matthews and it looks like he was embezzling from the shell company at the same time. The cops don't know about the Agency connection, but they think Chase set the fire himself to cover his tracks.
They found accelerant stains on his clothes that matched the stuff used to start the fire. Nobody knows what happened, but it looks like something went wrong with the operation. Chase was caught in the middle. Maybe he thought he was blown for some reason and tried to run with the cash. He burned the place down, but his employers caught up with him before he could get away. They killed him when they found out he was working for Matthews."
I thought I was going to puke. If Brown was telling the truth, we had blundered into a hit. A government hit. I flashed on the goon I'd shot at Vincent's and had to choke down this ugly panic.
"There's more to it than that." I decided to tell him the whole story and see what happened. I had to tell him if I was going to try to cut a deal with Matthews. "The guy who was in my car when I got busted thought Matthews had hired me to steal this Lexus. I was taking him to get it when the cops pulled me over."
"Lexus?" Brown got all excited. "What do you mean?"
I told him everything that had happened except the parts about Steffy and the guy I'd drilled through the head. It was a relief to talk about it and by the time I'd finished, Brown had a sweaty look like he wanted this story bad.
"Chase's car," he said. "That's the missing piece."
"Missing piece?" I couldn't take it anymore. "What's the big deal about his goddamn car? Everybody wants it, but nobody knows why. What's so important?"
"I don't know." He blew a smoke ring. "They must've grabbed him when he was trying to get away after starting the fire, then they drove him in his own car to that place in Oakland. Maybe he hid something in the car. Papers, most likely. Evidence. He was documenting the Ligar operation for Matthews." He shook his head. "Then you came out of nowhere and stole the car. They had to think you were involved."
"Papers?" I braked for a light. "All this for papers?"
"It has to be." Brown had this look of pure greed. "If we can get to them first, I can blow this out of the water. Don't you see? If this goes public, they're screwed. It's my ticket off the NewsWire and it's your only way out of this mess. I don't know if we can help your partner, but we've got to find those documents."