Rising Phoenix

by Kyle Mills

  “Out for a little stroll?”

  Frank Richter and Laura had obviously been talking.

  Beamon ignored him and turned to Tom Sherman. “Sorry I’m late.” Sherman shrugged.

  Besides Richter and Sherman, Dick Trevor and Trace Fontain were the only other people present. Beamon squeezed into his chair. The table they had chosen was a bit too small for the group.

  “So what have you got for us, Mark?” Sherman asked.

  “Good stuff, actually. Things are starting to look up a little.” He snapped open his oversized briefcase and pulled out a complicated-looking portable stereo and a slightly crumpled piece of paper that contained his most recent notes on the investigation.

  “The first good news is that poisoning deaths are way down. Coke-related deaths are almost nonexistent—not counting that recent episode in D.C. That seems to have been an isolated incident. Heroin deaths seem to be slowing down.”

  Laura’s graphs had proven to be surprisingly accurate, and had become popular tools in estimating future deaths. The fact that estimating future deaths was a pointless exercise seemed to have been lost in the FBI’s sheer love of statistics.

  “What have you been able to find out about the episode here?” Richter interrupted.

  “Not much. Strychnine was the poison—probably household rat poison—we should have confirmation on that this afternoon. Obviously, we’re working to track it back to its source, but as you know, that line of investigation is turning out to be a disaster.”

  “Why?” Sherman cut in.

  “Well, three quarters of the witnesses are dead and the other quarter won’t talk. It seems that the narcotics-using community has convinced itself that this is all the government’s doing and that we’re just pretending to investigate, when what we actually want is to collect intelligence on distribution lines …” He left the sentence hanging.

  Tom Sherman looked at him strangely. “Is there something else?”

  “Well, yeah. Laura has a theory on the strychnine poisoning. And I hate to admit it, but she might be right.”

  All eyes turned to her.

  “Um, yes. Well, it seems like this was a pretty sloppy operation. The fact that now, two days later, we haven’t seen any more of this type of poison appear, and the isolated geography—one housing project—seems to indicate that the drugs were hit pretty far downstream. Also, the poison was unsophisticated, probably something that anybody could pick up at any of a hundred stores in the D.C. area. It makes me—us—wonder if the CDFS was behind it at all.”

  “A copycat,” Sherman proposed.

  “It’s a possibility. I think everybody would agree that this doesn’t really jibe with what we’ve learned about the CDFS to date.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Sherman said.

  The thought of copycats cropping up across the country made everybody’s head swim. A red herring in every state from here to California.

  “And we may well be,” Beamon said. “I mean, if it were me, I’d mix it up a little. Different drugs, different poisoning methods. It keeps us off balance and it keeps the drug users guessing. And scared.”

  The group nodded in general agreement, and Beamon decided to move on. He pointed at Trevor. “DEA’s got some new info.”

  “Yeah.” Trevor’s voice was quiet. He sounded almost depressed. Beamon understood and sympathized.

  “Luis Colombar, whom I’m sure everyone here is familiar with, has put the word out that he’s looking for information regarding an American asking specific questions about his drug-manufacturing facilities. The word is that he suspects that someone poisoned his coke during the manufacturing process.”

  Frank Richter stood and walked over to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup. “That makes sense—it’s what I’d do. You figure that security isn’t all that great at the manufacturing stage. And what security you have is aimed at people stealing stuff.”

  Beamon nodded gravely and continued the thought. “Right. And what better way to hit a lot of stuff with only one operation.”

  “Do you know if he’s gotten any bites?” Sherman asked.

  Trevor shrugged. “As you probably know, we’ve been unsuccessful at putting anybody into Colombar’s operation. At this point we don’t know what he’s got.”

  A long silence ensued. Finally Sherman spoke. “Been watching TV lately, Dick? Your statistics seem to be on every channel.”

  Trevor winced. “We’re trying to track down the leak, but I don’t see much hope. I gave the order to stop keeping statistics the day we spoke—but I can’t keep the street agents from talking to each other.”

  “Are the numbers accurate?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sherman’s voice softened. “Are the numbers accurate?”

  It was well known that the quieter Sherman got the madder he was. If you had to strain to hear him, you were on your way out.

  “Yeah. They’re accurate. Give or take five percent. The numbers on the drug rehab clinics I can’t vouch for. At this rate of decline, we could see the complete eradication of coke and heroin within our borders in a couple of months.”

  Beamon reached for the briefcase that he had brought into the meeting with him. He opened it and pulled out a T-shirt. “You guys seen this? I picked it up yesterday.” He shook out the shirt, presenting it to the group. The front depicted a chalk outline of a man traced on a sidewalk next to a smoking crack pipe. The caption read: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

  Beamon tossed the shirt to Laura. “Souvenir.”

  “Let’s face it, public opinion was moving away from us anyway,” Beamon continued. “DEA’s little leak is just gonna speed things up a little.”

  “Okay, enough of this,” Sherman said. “What’s going on in Poland?”

  “I think everybody’s heard that Scott over in Bonn found the guy who collected the mushrooms. Apparently he runs a business supplying exotic produce to restaurants. Our man posed as an academic who was going to use the mushrooms to study cancer or something.”

  “Description?”

  “Yeah,” Beamon pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket and began reading from the paper in front of him. “Short—five foot eight or so—and thin. Long, light-brown hair and beard, wire-rimmed glasses and—this is interesting—he goes on to describe him as kind of cold.”

  Richter looked perplexed. “Why is that interesting—I could have told you this guy was one cold son of a bitch.”

  “If you remember, the girl who helped him at the bank said the exact same thing.”

  “So it’s the same guy?”

  “Laura and I would bet our respective asses on it.”

  “So where does that get us?”

  “Nowhere, really. Scott’s convinced that this mushroom guy—Lech something or other—was involved in smuggling them out. You’ll recall that customs has no record of anything like that coming through them. Anyway, he’s following up. And on that note, Trace has some information that I know is near and dear to your black hearts. Now that we know how many mushrooms were transported, we can take a shot at estimating potential deaths. Trace?”

  Fontain cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. Mr. Orloski estimates that he provided our suspect with approximately one and one eighth tons of mushrooms. Assuming that the CDFS’s distilling process is reasonably efficient, that translates to around ninety-seven thousand kills.”

  Sherman groaned.

  “Actually, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “My analysis of the tainted drugs shows that the CDFS used about half again as much poison as was necessary—which explains the limited number of nonfatal incidents. So that knocks back our kill potential pretty significantly. Also, you have to make an assumption about how many times someone is going to use the stuff. For instance, a heroin addict might buy a two-week supply and unknowingly take fourteen lethal doses. In essence, he’s wasted thirteen kills.”

  Beamon cut the scientist off. They would be here all d
ay if he let him start in on his assumptions. “Okay, Trace. Boil it down. How many people can they kill with what they’ve got?”

  “Best guess. Thirty-six thousand.”

  Beamon nodded gravely. “Assuming that they don’t branch out into other types of poisons.”

  Fontain shrugged and nodded.

  Beamon could see from the faces around him that the scientist was in danger of an endless Q&A. He decided to put a stop to it before it started. “Thanks, Trace. We won’t hold you up any longer. I know you’re busy.”

  Fontain stood and scampered out of the room before anyone could start in on him.

  “Well, there you have it, for what it’s worth. Now let’s get down to some real cop stuff.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced an unlabeled cassette tape. It took a few moments for him to figure out how to get the tape into the portable stereo on the table, but the machine finally accepted it upside-down. He pushed the door shut and hit PLAY.

  “I saved the best for last.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Do you have batteries in that thing, Mark?” Laura asked, looking smug.

  “Batteries? Uh, no. Don’t these things come with batteries?”

  She sighed and pulled the rubber band off the tightly wound cord, running it to an outlet behind her. The recorder came to life, spewing out loud tape hiss. A moment later the hiss deadened, and Beamon managed to find the PAUSE button. “One of the operators on the deathline brought this up to me yesterday.”

  The hotline set up to collect anonymous tips on the case had become known as the “deathline” because of the reams of death threats that Beamon received on it every day. It seemed that there were more than a few people who were concerned about the FBI’s thoughtless interference in the CDFS’s solution to the national drug crisis.

  “I had the tape washed through the computers. It was pretty hard to understand at first. The guy used the old towel-over-the-mouthpiece trick.”

  “Traced?” Richter asked.

  “A pay phone between here and Baltimore.” Beamon pressed the PAUSE button again, setting the tape back into motion.

  The tape noise deadened and the operator’s voice came on. It had a strange mechanical edge. “FBI.”

  The other voice on the line was clearly nervous, even through the towel and computer tampering. “Hello … I, uh, thought that you’d want to know that they’re planning on poisoning a shipment of cocaine on the twenty-eighth. It’s going to be in one of Anthony DiPrizzio’s warehouses on the New York waterfront.” Pause.

  The operator’s voice: “Sir, can you give me your name and how you came by this information?”

  “No. But so you know I’m telling the truth, I’ll tell you this. The poison came from mushrooms growing a few hours outside of Warsaw.” Dial tone.

  Beamon reached over, ejected the tape, and stuffed it back into his suit pocket.

  “You all know that we’ve kept the source of the poison pretty quiet.”

  Sherman looked doubtful. “Well, we’ve done our best, but there are a hell of a lot of people in the health care community who have figured it out. You think this might be something?”

  “You never know. I’m meeting with DiPrizzio at four this afternoon. Joe up in New York set it up.”

  “That ought to be an interesting get-together. Anything else?” Sherman scanned the faces at the table. No one spoke.

  “Okay, let’s get back to work.”

  The group stood, pulling jackets from chair backs and tucking notebooks under their arms.

  “Not you, Mark. Have you got a few minutes?” It wasn’t really a question. The others picked up their pace. Laura was the last one out, struggling to pull the door shut while holding a coffee mug in one hand and the portable stereo in the other. Sherman got up and handed her the dangling cord. He quietly closed the door.

  Beamon pushed the chairs next to him away, giving himself enough room to stretch his legs out. He had an overwhelming desire to smoke, but resisted.

  “So you think this DiPrizzio thing might come to something, Mark?”

  “Probably not—but we’ve gotta cover all the angles. So what’s up, Tommy? You didn’t keep me after class to ask me that.”

  “Same shit, different day. Problems, problems.” His smile was forced. Beamon waved him on with an exaggerated motion.

  “Calahan and I met with the President yesterday.”

  “I heard—my condolences.”

  The weak smile again.

  “The President’s not happy, Mark. I’d go so far as to say he’s panicking.” Beamon opened his mouth to speak, but his friend cut him off.

  “He’s pretty surprised by the public’s reaction to this thing. It’s put him in an impossible political position. He’s got to condemn the CDFS as radical vigilantes, but he can’t speak out too forcefully without pissing off all the people who are pro-CDFS.”

  “I’ve got a crazy idea, Tommy. Why the hell doesn’t he just pick a side and say how he really feels, instead of hiring a bunch of weasels to tell him what the voting majority wants to hear. It’s their goddam fault. If the boys on Capitol Hill didn’t spend all their time chasing girls and rounding up campaign funds, maybe these guys wouldn’t have found this necessary.” The frustration he felt was quickly turning to anger.

  “That’s not the way of the world and you know it, Mark. You like to deal in facts, so here they are. The only way for President Jameson to win is for these guys to get caught. He hopes that the issue will fade in the two years before the next election. He’s serious, Mark. He actually intimated that it might be better for the country if there wasn’t a drawn-out trial.”

  Beamon’s eyes widened. “He did not! What did you say?”

  “I told him we didn’t do that kind of thing.”

  Beamon snorted. “Christ!”

  “That doesn’t go beyond this room, Mark. I just want to get across to you where you stand.”

  “Where I stand? What do you mean?” He knew perfectly well.

  “This is all going to come down on your shoulders in the end.” Sherman couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  Beamon slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Jesus. Cheer up, Tommy. I knew what I was getting into.” That wasn’t entirely true, of course. No one could have predicted the way this case would consume the nation.

  “Who was it that said there’s no such thing as bad publicity? You wouldn’t believe the calls I’ve been getting from private industry—I’m not gonna have to fill my pockets with the salmon at my retirement party, you know? I’m thinking about getting a fucking agent.”

  That was true. There was nothing the American public respected more than fame. Private companies were virtually beating down his door, making him various offers of employment. Each one was more spectacular than the last. And that didn’t include the $1.2 million guaranteed advance on his autobiography.

  Sherman perked up a bit and remained silent when his friend gave into temptation and lit a cigarette in the poorly ventilated room. At least the filter was still attached.

  “You know I’m not screwing around here, that I’m doing everything I can, right, Tommy?” Beamon’s tone had turned serious.

  “I’m not second-guessing you, Mark. You’re the best man for the job. I told Jameson that again yesterday.”

  “Did he buy it?’

  “Good to see you, Joe,” Beamon said, extending his hand. He had to raise his voice a bit to be heard over the chaotic background noise that was a constant at the FBI’s largest office.

  “Welcome to New York, Mark. Come on back.” Joe Sheets motioned toward the open door of his office across a sea of agents and support personnel.

  Beamon hadn’t seen Sheets for years. Shaking hands with his old friend had brought back a flood of memories. They had been roommates at the academy and had become fast friends during their twelve weeks there—despite the fact that they were very different people. Beamon had been
first in his class academically but had been less than impressive in the physical fitness category. In fact, his performance had been bad enough for Sheets to call him when women were first being accepted as agents, just to point out that Beamon’s time in the mile wouldn’t have passed him in the women’s category, either.

  Sheets hadn’t shone in any one category—but had been a solid all-around performer. Fairness, reliability, and hard work had landed him an assistant director’s slot and the helm of the New York office. Well deserved, as far as Beamon was concerned.

  As he pushed the door shut and looked around his friend’s spacious office, he pointed at a picture on the credenza. “Jesus, is that Bobby?”

  Sheets sat on a slightly threadbare sofa and smiled. “It’s Robert now. He’s a commercial artist in Chicago. Wouldn’t you know that my son would be the only artist in the world who doesn’t want to be in New York.”

  Beamon chuckled. To say that Sheets and his son didn’t see eye to eye was an understatement. If he remembered correctly, his old roommate’s idea of a good painting involved dogs playing poker, and his son saw all FBI agents as fascist scum. A little distance probably wasn’t an entirely bad thing.

  Beamon filled a cone-shaped cup from a water cooler in the corner and sat at the other end of the sofa. “You can’t keep ’em from spreading their wings, I guess.”

  “That you can’t,” Sheets agreed, looking at his watch. “You’re late. Our guest should be here any time now.”

  Beamon nodded and took a sip of water.

  “So what’s this all about, Mark? With this CDFS thing going on, I wouldn’t think you’d have time to worry about New York’s organized crime problems.”

  Beamon looked behind him, confirming that the door was completely shut.

  “We got a tip that they’re gonna hit one of DiPrizzio’s shipments.”

  “The CDFS? Who gave you the tip?”

  “Nobody. Anonymous.”

  A timid knock at the door interrupted their conversation, and a round-faced woman poked her head in. “Mr. DiPrizzio is here for his three o’clock appointment.” Her tone was bored, as though the most powerful man in the New York mob always dropped by around this time.