Thinking of revenge on Hooper gave Clint just a taste of that cool, clear feeling he liked. So he went to the middle of the small “living room” and practiced his draw. He was a pocket man, not a holster man—easier to conceal and easier to draw fast if you had the right jacket, which he did. The peacoat had wide slit pockets at perfect angles. He whipped out twenty quick lefts, then twenty rights, then twenty doubles. On the two-gun draws he alternated bracing left over right, then right over left for steadiness, none of that waving-’em-around bullshit like in westerns. Wampler liked short-barreled guns with flush or internal hammers that wouldn’t catch on things. He turned around and went through the routine again. Not a snag or fumble. Gotcha. The best was doing it live, out in the woods by Little Creek, using the skinny poplars and willows for targets—if you could hit them, you could hit a man practically with your eyes closed. Plus it sounded great. Clint did another twenty draws each way.
Then he stepped into the “kitchen” and instead of drawing a gun with his right hand he whipped out his hand-made blackjack and rapped it righteously against one of the wooden cabinets. The weighted end left a quarter-size dent in the wood, just like it would leave on a skull, Clint thought. He hit another cabinet, harder, and this time the sap went all the way through and he had to wrench it back out through the ragged hole. When he finished his workout, his pulse and breathing were right up where he liked them and his vision was clear and sharp.
Half an hour later Castro called to say he could go the full forty thousand on a new crated Stinger. “And he’ll front the money on the next two, at thirty-seven five.”
“Fine. Deal. See how flexible I can be?”
“I vouched for you, Clint. I think you understand what that means.”
Wampler felt flush and lucky, though still hungry. “Oh. And I want five thousand of my money to be in the form of a dependable used car, Mr. Car Dealer. A good one, not some fucked-up little economy car. I want it legal and mine. I also want a sawed-off shotgun and some ammo and a blanket to cover them up with. The gun, the car, and thirty-five grand gets you the missile. And seventy-five thousand more gets you double trouble. Or is it triple?”
“I’ve got a secure place we can meet.”
“That’s good, but I’m not moving one inch until I’ve got my money.”
• • •
Five hours later Wampler parked his ’09 Sebring in the Denny’s parking lot in Fallbrook and stepped out into the cool winter air. He left the sawed-off shotgun on the backseat, covered in a bright yellow-and-black serape. The pistol under his Windbreaker felt useful and he was assured by the flat, hard combat knife strapped to his calf. His fingertip throbbed in the cold, same beat as his heart.
Skull’s two Pendleton friends were older than Clint had expected. One short and one medium. They had tattoos and military haircuts and moved with brisk authority. They reminded him of Skull. The parking lot was dark but busy enough, and the friends had told him that Fallbrook had some sheriffs for patrol but not many. Wampler saw a security guard who seemed not to notice them. His heart rate always fell in dicey situations like this, and he saw things in a slowed-down kind of motion. For the two Stingers he handed over $50,000 in the backpack in which it had come to him. The other $25,000 was his end, already stashed in the car. The Sebring had a big trunk and the crates fit fine alongside the plastic bags of his cash.
Wampler shut the trunk and got back into his new $5,000 used car. The balance of $35,000 from Castro for the first Stinger sat on the front passenger seat in a steel navy ammunition box covered with the heavy wool coat he’d brought from home. He wondered again if he should keep Skull’s and Brock’s shares. With the blood of a murdered federal agent on their hands, it might be a long, long time until they saw the light of day. There was a question of honor, however. He had honor. Up to a point. One of the men was coming to the car so he drew his .44 and kept it in the dark and rolled down the window.
“More where those came from,” said short, who called himself Skip.
“All the business I’m giving you, Skip, seems the price might come down some.”
“Take a thousand off the next two, if that helps.”
“Off each one or both?”
“Off each of however many you want, my friend. We aim to please. Where are these babies going?”
“If it mattered to you, you wouldn’t be selling them.”
“It’s a big world out there, partner.”
“That’s why you need me. ’Cause I know where the customers are.”
“You know how to find us.”
Wampler rolled up the window and slid the big pistol under the coat on the passenger seat. With this part of the deal done he headed south again for El Centro. He stopped at a motel on the edge of Fallbrook and used the pay phone to call Mary Kate Boyle. “I got some money in my pocket now, Mary Kate. Where are you at? You there? What’s that clicking sound?”
“It’s my damned phone falling apart. I got to get something better.”
“Where you at? Are you coming out here to California to be my girl or not?”
“I’m coming to California to see some friends. There’s nothing in this about being your girl, Clint.”
“But you are coming, now, aren’t you?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“I made the biggest deal of my life today. I got a new used car and thirty-five thousand dollars in it, every cent of it mine if I want it to be. All I got to do is deliver two more missiles and I’ll have even more. I think I might be in the missile business for a while to come.”
“I don’t understand how you can make so much money so fast. Thirty-five thousand dollars and a car, Clint? Skull never made money like that in one day.”
“Then you know it’s Clint can take the best care of you.”
“Where do you get ’em? You can’t just buy missiles in El Centro, can you?”
“Like I’d tell you?”
“Did you go to El Centro like Skull said you were going to?”
“Maybe. Why are you asking so many damned questions?”
“I’m trying to talk to you.”
Wampler let his suspicion run its course while he pictured Mary Kate Boyle. Last he’d seen her, one of her eyes was puffed up purple and her lips were cut. But she had a good figure and one of them alluring smiles when her mouth wasn’t all swollen. He’d been pissed off at Skull for messing her up, but what could he do? You couldn’t fight a guy that big. You could kill him but that wasn’t fair. “I was in El Centro for a while. That’s where Lyle and Brock got busted and I got away. I’m out of that desert now. Like I said, I’ve got my money and now I’ll get myself a place to stay. A good place, not some trailer. You going to come join me in it or not, Mary Kate?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sound like you might could.”
“I’ve got friends in San Diego.”
“I ain’t moving to San Diego, girl. We went to see some business contacts there. Too many people in that city.”
“What kind of place you looking for?”
“What kind of place you looking for?”
“Someplace I don’t get hit by Russell County hell-raisers, Clint. I’ve had enough of that for the next about hundred years.”
“How about the beach? Chicks like the beach.”
“It’s up to you.”
“I can’t believe you’re coming to see me. I feel happy about that.”
“I never said it was to see you.”
“It ain’t what you say, MK, it’s what you do. I got a real nice Sebring, decent sound and just about new. One of my friends out here, he owns a Ford dealership. He set me up with a good deal.”
“What color did you get?”
“Kind of a gunmetal gray.”
“Why’d he sell you a Dodge if he owns a Ford lot?”
“What kind of question is that? It’s a used Dodge. What are you talking about, Mary Kate?”
“Shall I call you when I get to California?�
��
Clint thought about that for a short moment. “No. You don’t call me. I call you. You driving or the bus or what?”
“Trailways. And I’ll need to be picked up, Clint. I can’t be dragging luggage all over San Diego.”
“Clint’s your man! What a great day this has been. How are those lips of yours healing up?”
“Not bad.”
“So, whatcha wearing right now, Mary Kate? That black lacy top with them little shiny things on it?”
She hung up and Wampler laughed but didn’t call back.
• • •
He met Castro off a dirt road near Jacumba to deliver the Stingers. The night was cold and the breeze hissed in the treetops. Wampler blew into his hands while Castro opened and closed the crates, then started loading them into a beaten-up old F-150. When Castro had pushed in the last crate and closed the squeaky tailgate, he started toward Wampler, reaching inside his sport coat. The pistol seemed to just appear in Wampler’s hands, holding steady at Castro’s forehead.
“Oh no,” he said, stopping instantly. “I’ll take my hand out slow, Clint. It’s going to have a pack of smokes in it.”
“Anything but smokes’ll get you dead.”
“Watch this.” Israel pulled his hand from behind the breast of the coat, a half-flattened red-and-white package held between thumb and forefinger. He shook a cigarette into the opening and offered it to Wampler.
“Your hand ain’t shakin’, Mr. Car Dealer.”
“I’ve had guns pointed at me before. So put it away.”
Wampler spun the pistol around his finger with a gunslinger’s flourish and a smile, then pocketed it and snatched the smoke. “How come you’re driving that shitty old truck?”
“Less attention.” Castro lit Wampler’s cigarette, then one for himself. “I got some people who want to meet you, Clint. And I got a buyer for seven more of those Stingers at thirty-five grand apiece.”
“You work fast.”
“I work when there’s work. Life is like that, Clint. It just goes along real slow, day to day, you get up, you get bored, you go to sleep. Then swoosh, off it goes in some crazy way you least expected. The trick is hanging on. Letting it happen. Letting it pay.”
“You got all sorts of advice for me.”
“I’m trying to be helpful. I have young sons. When they’re your age, I hope I can offer good advice to them, also.”
“Good advice? Like selling stolen missiles to a drug cartel?”
“Cartel? Good guess, I’d say. You’ve got a quick mind, Clint.”
“I get ahead in life by taking the stuff I want. And I never took one thing from anybody who wanted it less than I did. The only difference is I’m smarter and meaner. And faster. Maybe that’s the biggest and best difference about me. I’m faster.”
“So do you want to do seven more Stingers?”
“You just pony up seven times thirty-five and they’ll be yours. Clint will take care of you.” Seventy-seven grand in the pocket, he thought. Seventy-seven grand!
“Clint, I can do better than that. I’ve got a sweet new Explorer that just came from the factory. It’s one of the most beautiful SUVs Ford’s ever made. I’m talking the good V-eight, shift-on-the-fly four-wheel drive, traction control, cobalt blue, cream-colored leather, tow hitch with electric, premium sound, Ford’s own electronics that beat the hell out of Bluetooth. Extra-dark tinted windows, navigation, off-road tires, and a free year of Sirius. It’s something a young man like you could feel real good in. Women like the white leather and the blue. My plan was keep it for myself. I haven’t even prepped it yet, but I’ll let you take it as partial payment for five hundred over invoice. Just as a gesture of goodwill, Clint. Thirty-nine five. Thirty-nine five.”
Clint puffed on the cigarette and flicked some embers into the cold wind. “Plus you’ll take this piece of shit Chrysler back, right? For the five grand I done already gave you for it.”
Castro sighed and looked over at the Sebring, then back at Clint. “That’s a nice little car for five grand.”
“Then take it back and sell it for six.”
“Okay, Clint. You have yourself a deal. You’ll get exactly one quarter of a million dollars for seven Stinger launchers, seven missiles, and the Sebring. Of that amount, thirty-nine thousand five hundred are the new Explorer. I’ll have the fleet manager do the paperwork and I’ll get one of the junior salesmen to deliver it to you.”
“So the paper don’t point to you.”
“That’s the way it works.”
A new Explorer and sixty thousand five hundred dollars, thought Clint. Not bad for a day’s work and a few more hours tomorrow or the next day. Mary Kate, you’re gonna love me. Love me a lot!
32
The next afternoon the Department of Justice sent Hood an economy-class e-ticket from San Diego to Washington, D.C., for early the next day. He would appear for testimony the following day, then fly home.
The flight was rough and arrived slightly ahead of a powerful Atlantic storm. Hood took a taxi to the ATF headquarters on New York Avenue, arriving in a darkness swirling with snow. He had time for a quick sandwich and a cup of coffee across the street before going in. He watched the bureaucrats and office workers bundled in overcoats and scarves bustling onto the Metro Red Line. He carried his overnight bag through the snow and into the building and went through the scanner, then gave his name at the desk. An intern met him and took him up. The building was new and sleek, with faceted glass walls and a feeling of openness even in the winter dark. The hallways and offices were laid out in angles that challenged logic and memory. From an upper story Hood looked down on the courtyard and the lights of the district muted by snowflakes.
Acting Deputy Director Fredrick Lansing stood as Hood came into his office. He hovered, sallow faced, then sat and pushed a thin stapled collection of papers to Hood. “Grossly’s subpoena and your hotel for tonight. You’re testifying under oath before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at nine tomorrow morning. They’ll want you to answer the same questions you answered before, and God knows what else. Tell them what you told them the first time and you’ll be fine. So long as it’s true.”
Hood glanced down at the document. You are hereby commanded . . . “He wants someone to blame.”
“He wants to hear the words gun, walk, and ATF in the same sentence so badly his face turns pink. He’ll ask you again and again who gave the order.”
“There was no order. We just came up short.”
Lansing sat back and tapped a pen on his desktop, nodding. “You do understand the real reason why Grossly’s so hot for this, don’t you?”
“He wants our budget cut.”
“That’s not the end goal. The goal is to make ATF look either dangerous or inept—it doesn’t matter which—and hold the attorney general and the president ultimately responsible. It’s another way to discredit the administration. They’re using you to do it.”
Suddenly it dawned on Hood why it was him, and not Bly or Velasquez or Morris or any of the other agents involved with Blowdown who was sitting here. “You gave me to Grossly because I’m not genuine ATF. I’ll be easier to blame and fire.”
“It looks that way but it isn’t.”
“How can it not be?”
Lansing looked heavily at him. “Grossly was interested in you, particularly, Hood. Maybe because you’re not ATF he figured you’d be quicker to point upstairs. He asked about you and we gave him some information. Since Fast and Furious, it’s our new transparency with Congress. Fine. But it looked to me like someone whispered in Grossly’s ear. He knew what questions to ask, where to look. Not all of those photos or video came from us, you know. So who supplied them? Grossly is a partisan and nothing more. He wants to beat down this president so his party can take over again. I’m a Republican. But he’s the right wing at its worst. It’s simple politics, Hood. You’re a tool. So am I and so is ATF. And by the way, Janet Bly will be testifying right after
you. Grossly subpoenaed her, too. Not Velasquez or Morris. You and Bly.”
Hood looked through the window blinds and the black shiny glass to the district beyond. “When will you fire us?”
“When the timing is best. We might have to make a show of it, you know.”
“Wash the hands.”
“It plays outside the Beltway. Thirty years with ATF and I’ve never seen agents treated like this.”
Hood looked through the window again to the darkness and the lights below. “You don’t know how close we were to intercepting those Love Thirty-twos. We missed them by inches. Literally inches, when the transport chopper took off. We knew Pace and Jones were getting ready to ship those guns somewhere. We watched them load them in and we still missed. I think about it. I wonder about it. I dream about it. And I don’t know what we could have done better.”
“Tell Grossly. I mean it. Say it to him like you just said it to me.”
Hood nodded, feeling patronized and abandoned and alone.
“Hood, I don’t know what Darren Grossly and his committee know about Lonnie Rovanna yet. But when America learns that it was an ATF-surveilled gun that killed Congressman Freeman, all hell will break loose. A thousand guns lost in Mexico? One of them the gun that killed Representative Freeman? The agency tasked with keeping such guns from the hands of violent criminals? You can hear Grossly: Where are the rest of those guns right now? Where was ATF leadership when all this was happening? Where was the attorney general? Where was the president? Hood, your head will roll but it won’t roll alone. I’m sorry. This is ugly business. The ugliest I’ve seen. I hate to see good men and women suffer in it.”
• • •
The next morning Hood walked into Rayburn House Office Building Committee Room 2154 and looked into flashing cameras and the steady glare from the video lights. He wasn’t sure this was how celebrities felt. He was led to the witness dock by a one of Grossly’s aides, who sat him in the middle seat, which left him flanked by two empty chairs on either side. He was given a bottle of water. In front of him was floor, and a few yards away was an empty row of seats facing him. Behind this row was another, raised on a dais. Seven men and two women presided there, with Representative Darren Grossly in the middle. Grossly gave him a brief nod. Hood nodded back, then read the name signs of the others, recognizing most. The American flag behind them had been lowered in mourning for the fallen congressman, Scott Freeman.
The Famous and the Dead Page 23