by Joe Navarro
For the next fifteen minutes, Lynn paces back and forth in front of my desk the same way I would do to Koerner. Finally, I give her the high sign to start dialing, and as I might have predicted, Ramsay picks up at the second or third ring. In short order, he and Lynn are right back where they left off yesterday—gabbing in German and apparently cracking jokes about stodgy old me. Whatever Rod said has Lynn almost rolling on the floor, and she seems to mean it. As soon as she hangs up, she flashes me a thumbs-up.
“Eways asked him a question, and he wants to clarify what he said. I told him we’d be there within the hour.”
“Fine by me,” I tell her, “but we’ll want to stop by Perrera’s again on the way out.”
“More coffee?”—thinking maybe that I’m wired enough already.
“No, sandwiches to go. Spies always travel on their stomachs.” And in fact, the first thing I do when we get to Rod’s mother’s trailer is to hand him a bag with three still-warm Cuban sandwiches nestled inside. The smell of the roast pork and ham drifts over the living room like some heavenly cloud. Rod’s pleased, I can tell; he’s maybe even more pleased with the cold Diet Coke that Lynn fishes from her purse for him. We’d noticed a pile of empties in the garbage bin on our previous visit.
“How is your mom, Rod?” I ask, settling down at the end of the couch like an old pal.
“She’s fine,” he says as he hands out paper plates, but the way he bites the right corner of his lip suggests otherwise. “She’s worried I’m in some kind of trouble.”
Lynn plays her part perfectly, fixing Rod with a look that says “Why would your mother ever think that?” I take a big bite of my sandwich, give it a good chew, then follow Lynn’s lead.
“Listen, Rod, I can promise you’re definitely not in any trouble. How could you be when you’re helping us and the Germans? Mothers always worry, but you can have your mom call me if she’s concerned, and I’ll put her worries to rest. In fact,” I say, pulling out a business card and jotting some numbers on the back, “tell her if she has any questions, to call me day or night. Or she can call Lynn. These are our private lines.”
I’m not particularly worried about Mrs. Ramsay, at least not yet. Rod seems enough of a mama’s boy that he wouldn’t be initiating these visits if she really has a bug up her ass. But wherever the alert barometer should be set, we’ve dealt with the issue up front and without hesitation (if not entirely honestly), and I can see that Rod is relieved.
“This is really good,” he says, digging into his sandwich.
Lynn: “You never had one before?”
“No, this is my first.”
Me: “What? You’ve been here how long and you haven’t had a Cuban sandwich—that’s a sacrilege! It’s an insult to my people!”
Rod smiles, takes a few more bites, then gets down to business.
“Have you heard from Al?” he asks as he adjusts his seat slightly side to side.
Interesting, I’m thinking. He’s willing to ask the questions, but he isn’t comfortable doing so. He’d fronted his mother’s concern the same way—some fidgeting here, some lip-chewing there. Now that that issue is out of the way, he’s moving on to the second item on his agenda and, I’m guessing, by far the more important one. I wonder if, like me, Rod stayed up half the night poring over what little he’d learned about Conrad’s arrest and strategizing how he was going to get inside our heads. I’ve been cutting our sessions too short for his liking, and I intend to keep things that way.
“No, not really,” I finally answer. “The investigation is all but closed on the army’s part—it’s now in the hands of the Germans.”
Ramsay is leaning back in his chair, savoring the last of his sandwich and finishing off his diet soda, when Lynn jumps in. “What was it that you wanted to tell Mr. Eways, Rod?”
“He asked me if I’d ever seen anything that might be construed as suspicious.”
I remember the question, and not particularly liking it at the time. “Suspicious” conjures a hundred different things to a hundred different people. Policemen, CI officers, wives who worry their husbands might be cheating on them, classroom teachers, teenage girls—they all interpret the word according to their own place in life, their own experiences. God knows, Rod must have found it “suspicious” when Al and I showed up at his house-sitting door two days ago. Truth told, I’ve been finding him “suspicious” ever since. It’s one of those words that means nothing and everything, but Rod has clearly been pondering the question and wants to make a clean breast of something. Except the set of his jaw tells me he isn’t quite ready to go there yet.
To distract him, I point to a heavily lacquered doll on the coffee table.
“Is it authentic?”
“Yes,” he says, “I got it as a gift for Mom in Japan.” The deep breath he takes in just then tells me he’s trying to calm himself. “It’s really nice, isn’t it?”
“Nice?” Lynn says. “It’s beautiful!”
“Really beautiful,” I add.
“They’re worth a lot now,” Ramsay says, swelling a little with pride. Lynn picks up on his more relaxed state and forges ahead.
“So what did you want to clarify for Mr. Eways?” she asks, as I briefly wander off to dump some crumbs in the garbage can in the kitchen. I want Ramsay to think I’m not interested in whatever he might have to say on this subject. A lifetime of studying TV detective shows would teach you exactly the opposite—everyone leans into the suspect when the sweat starts pouring down his brow—but in the real interview world, the key thing is to distance yourself at these moments, to lessen the psychological pressure on the suspect and let him or her talk free and clear.
“There was a girl stationed in Germany—Caroline. I wanted to date her really bad. But she wasn’t that into me.”
Rod’s looking at me, not Lynn, when he says this, so I shoot him back a look that begs to know if this Caroline was a looker. “Really good-looking,” he says back, understanding me exactly.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“I wanted to spend more time with her. So I hinted to her that I was involved in something and wondered if she wanted to take part.” Lynn and I can’t help ourselves; we both lean in before we catch ourselves and pull back again.
“And?” Lynn asks.
“She turned me down.”
“That’s it?”
“We were selling gasoline coupons on the black market. I was trying to see if she was willing to give us hers.” Rod’s studying us as he talks, to see if we believe him.
“Honest, that’s the truth,” he says, trying to convince both of us but doing the reverse: Truthful people convey; the dishonest try to convince.
“I see,” says Lynn.
“And were you also mayybeee looking for something from this Caroline other than just her time?” I ask, getting back to the playful tone of yesterday.
“Mayybeee,” Ramsay says, sheepishly strumming his fingertips together.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, and he smiles. Score ten points for Navarro for keeping the subject relaxed and talking.
“So why are you concerned about Caroline?” Lynn asks, bringing us wayward boys back to the straight and narrow.
“Eways might talk to her eventually, and I don’t know what she’ll say went on from that time period. I don’t want Eways to think I was trying to get Caroline involved in something that Conrad has been arrested for. I was just trying to get her interested in me, that’s all.”
“So did she ever cooperate with you?” asks Lynn.
“No.”
“I take it she didn’t become your girlfriend either?” I ask, looking askance.
“We were good friends and that’s all. I know what you’re hinting at and the answer is no, I didn’t bed her.”
“Hey, just wondering.”
“We were just friends.”
It’s Lynn’s turn to jump in: “You two—you sound like you’re in junior high, I swear.”
�
��Important things need to be clarified,” I say, to which Ramsay agrees with a solemn nod.
“Boys!”
“Well, I don’t think you have to worry. It’s not like you asked her to take documents or anything like that,” I say, treading lightly.
“No, nothing like that,” Ramsay answers, as his face contorts slightly around the corners of his mouth, a sure sign of psychological distress.
“So it was strictly something you thought up to spend more time with her, and it merely involved the black market?”
“Yes, it had nothing to do with Conrad or selling information,” Ramsay says. This is the second time he’s avoided using the word “espionage.” Why is he distancing himself with the words he uses? I wonder if Lynn has caught that.
“Gasoline was expensive. A lot of soldiers could make some nice side money selling their coupons. There were also the cigarettes. You could make a fortune selling American Marlboros on the black market. They’re a different tobacco mixture than what’s sold in Europe.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?” I ask.
“You buy Marlboros for about eight dollars a carton at the PX and sell them for twenty dollars or even twenty-five dollars. Germans love the real American cigarettes—not the stuff they sell on the store shelves.”
Lynn whistles appreciatively at the markup.
“Then there were the CD players. You could buy a nice one—a Sony, say—for about a hundred bucks at the PX and sell it for three hundred dollars, and the Germans would still be coming out ahead.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah.”
“You sound like you know all about that,” I throw in.
“Kinda-sorta-mayyybeeee,” Ramsay says.
“I’ll take that as another definite yes. By the way, was Conrad involved in the black market?” I throw in.
The abrupt change doesn’t seem to faze Rod. “When I first got there, I didn’t have a car, so he asked me for my coupons and we worked out a deal.”
“Well, I guess if you didn’t need them, what’s the harm?”
“Exactly, everybody was doing it,” Ramsay agrees.
“It’s like that at every base, isn’t it?” I say.
“It is.”
The larger point is this: Ramsay and I have found a way to connect. Like I said earlier, every person communicates differently. Some come out and say what they mean, others circle about, still others want you to say it for them, and then there are the ones who don’t want to say anything at all. Finding the way early on is key because when you get jammed up later—and you always do—you have something to fall back on, common ground to get the conversation back on track. If Ramsay wants to play coy, that’s fine by me so long as he’s talking.
Today we’re getting a more complete picture of what went on in Germany, about the value of money and how Ramsay and Conrad viewed criminal activity—which in Rod’s case was pretty much “Everyone else is doing it, why not me?” The Big Question still to be explored is what other schemes the two of them combined on. For Rod, were black-market Marlboros a kind of gateway drug to espionage?
Superficially, at least, it isn’t hard to connect the dots. Conrad had been in Germany for over a decade, so he had to know everyone. Ramsay, for his part, seems as if he can get up to no good in any environment—he’s a thrill seeker. Add brothels, prostitutes, and drug use to the mix, and the vectors point down predictable paths. But soldiers have been chasing skirts since time immemorial, and ever since the dark days of Vietnam, drug abuse has been a reality for many soldiers serving overseas, and still, very few have taken that further step of selling out their country.
The easiest approach for Lynn and me, of course, would be the most straightforward. Jolly Rod along for a while, trade some cheerful banter, then when he least expects it, hit him between the eyes with the question we ultimately want answered: “Did you commit espionage?” But there are three possible responses to that—well, maybe four if you include “Define espionage”—and none are satisfying. He might say “No, and I want an attorney,” and that would be it. No further interviews and no case—all the evidence is in Moscow. Or he could say “No” and not request an attorney. We’d still be playing the same game, but he’d know exactly where the finish line was as far as we’re concerned, and start doling out information (or non-information) accordingly.
Or he could scream “Yes,” pull his hair out in bitter self-recrimination, and otherwise become the sort of drama queen that he doesn’t seem to be. But even then—even if he swears on a stack of Bibles that he’s committed treason against his country and begs the judge to send him to the gallows—we still have to prove the case, still have to provide corroborating evidence that Rod was where he said he was on the tenth of who knows when, meeting Dimitri Ispyalot, a secret agent he claims to have met, and passing along the documents he’s accused of supplying to America’s sworn enemies. Crazy, huh? But that’s where the investigative abuses of the sixties and seventies have landed us, and a guy as smart as Rod Ramsay isn’t likely to be dancing in the dark on that subject.
Better by far to circle around what you really want to know—thus all this talk about food, gasoline, cigarettes, taxis, snacks, movies, CD players, restaurants, wine, bread, prostitutes, marijuana, smack, you name it. Anything but—horrors!—espionage. Besides, every new little revelation helps to fill in the larger puzzle of just who Rod Ramsay is and what he’s capable of.
My goal today has been to get just enough for us to chew on without satisfying in the least Rod’s information hunger, and after about two hours, I think we’re there. We’ve logged enough time—particularly because this little mobile home community is going to start buzzing like a beehive if Rod keeps spending hours inside every day with two visitors who, dress down as we might, stand out like sore thumbs every time we pop by.
Sure enough, as we’re getting into our car, one of the neighbors is out watering his lawn and staring straight at us with a giant question mark on his face. To answer it, we wave at Rod and give him a big smile as if we’ve known each other our entire lives, and Rod smiles and waves back just the same.
5
TRIUMPH AND DESPAIR
August 26, 1988
“Wake up!”
I shout it loud enough to raise the dead, so loud in fact that I see Koerner’s head shoot up over the sloppy towers of paperwork in his office across the way. Even Lynn seems startled, and she watched me dial.
But raising the dead might be just what’s needed because Rod, at the other end of the line, sounds half dead himself. Maybe he’s hungover or sleeping fitfully (a guilty conscience?), but when he finally responds, his voice is full of gravel and an octave lower than usual. The words “What’s up?” sound as if they’re coming from a crypt.
Me, as chirpy as I can be: “Something came in from Germany this morning. Lynn and I were wondering if you had time for us again today?”
Rod, pepping up slightly: “Sure. Give me time to—”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t spell it out.”
“Okay,” he says, almost normal.
“We’ll see you in an hour. Want some coffee?”
He doesn’t even bother to answer.
* * *
TRUTH IS, MY HEARTY cheerfulness was a bit forced. Last night’s surveillance duty had been a bear. It was midnight when we were told to stand down, and one-thirty in the morning when I briefly cradled my daughter’s face in my hands. I set the 4:55 a.m. alarm back to 6:00 a.m. before climbing into bed, but Rod Ramsay was standing in the doorway, blocking my way to Dreamland. Worse, the communications vault this morning has been no more yielding than yesterday. We’ve received nothing at all from HQ, the Washington Field Office, the army, or the legal attaché in Bonn who is (supposedly) assisting the Germans with leads.
I spent the first couple hours of my workday crafting the FD-302 for yesterday’s interview and vetting it with Lynn. By 9:30 a.m, we were both sick of inaction and decided to go on the offensiv
e. That’s when I called Rod—the ear-shattering “Wake up!” was sheer inspiration. And it seems to have worked.
Rod’s neighborhood is clogged with people waiting by their mailboxes—a mystery until I remember that today is Social Security payday, virtually a public holiday in the retiree-rich Sunshine State. By now, people close by Rod’s trailer have seen Lynn and me often enough that they wave when we drive by. Lynn gives them her best Queen Elizabeth half wave back, while I (creature of habit) check their unoccupied hands for lethal weaponry. Happily, there’s none, and Rod, showered, with hair slicked back and bags under his eyes, is waiting to greet us.
I hand him his coffee and, this time, a bag of Cuban toast (Cuban bread slathered with butter and pressed on a grill), and we both dive into it together. Lynn finished her share on the way over, but I wanted to make sure I’d be Ramsay’s eating companion.
“We hate to bother you,” I finally say, with a sheen of butter glinting off my chin, “but our attaché in Germany sent us a question.” Lynn keeps her face vacant although she knows this is bullshit on my part.
Rod breaks off from his mouthful of bread, gulps greedily on his café con leche, and at long length favors us with: “Shoot.”
“They’re wondering whether you know if Conrad ever visited the United States after he retired.”
“He did—back when I was in Boston, before Tampa.”
“Oh, I thought you moved here right out of the army.”
“No, I lived in Boston for a while before my mother moved down here.”
“I see,” wondering why this hasn’t surfaced before. “So what was Conrad doing in the States?”
“Visiting family in Ohio.”
“How about you. Did he stop off in Boston?”
“Just a courtesy call, that’s all.”
“Courtesy call?”
“That’s what he called it. I remember him saying it that way.”
“And what’s a courtesy call look like?”
“Not much. We caught up on what was going on in Germany and on the base. And then he left. He was between flights.”