by J. B. Turner
• • •
At the hospital, it was a relief to see Sam sitting up in bed, and smiling. But he was still obviously very weak. Deborah kissed him on the cheek, then got a progress report from his doctor and his two sisters. She put on a brave smile. She didn’t tell him about the note, or that her security pass had been withdrawn. She didn’t want to worry him. When the visit was over, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, whispering in his ear, ‘It’s gonna be fine, honey. You get well. I love you.’
• • •
The Civic Center metrorail station was stifling hot and seething with hot, sweaty people. The station was situated at the intersection of Northwest 12th Avenue and 15th Street, and was popular with all those who worked in or visited the nearby Jackson Memorial Hospital, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, the Veterans Hospital and the Cedars Medical Center. But Deborah hadn’t used it for years, preferring the privacy and safety of her car. At 10.01 a.m. the train pulled up and Deborah found a window seat, Jamille beside her. The documents were in the small rucksack that Jamille was carrying.
Sommers got on at the next stop, the Santa Clara station. He was wearing shades and a distinctive red Tampa Buccaneers hat, a button-down white shirt, chinos and brown moccasins. He sat down in the seat behind them.
‘Glad you made it.’ He didn’t waste any time. ‘You got the documents?’
Jamille took off the rucksack and handed it over. Sommers rummaged inside and pulled out the documents. He removed his dark glasses, scanning the pages feverishly. Every time the train stopped at a station Deborah looked around anxiously, half-expecting to see the man with the crazy dark eyes who’d attacked her and Sam.
But gradually she relaxed. Sommers continued reading on, all the way to Palmetto. The color drained from his face.
‘All this came from your hacker?’
‘We believe so,’ Deborah replied. ‘This was a hard copy made by a friend of his, who has also wound up dead.’
‘Sounds like the NCS.’
‘Who the hell are they?’
‘National Clandestine Service. Covert action, human-intelligence gathering, right. They had to be overhauled after 9/11. After a few too many mistakes.’ Sommers placed the documents back in the rucksack and handed it to Jamille. ‘It’s complete capitulation.’
‘So, who would have drawn it up?’
‘You told me that the Herald’s publisher was warned off this story because of national security, right?’
‘I’m sorry to say that’s true.’
‘This has to be the work of Michael Cunningham.’
‘The way I see it, we have two options. Firstly, we sit tight on what we’ve got.’ There was a pause while the message sank in. ‘Or we approach the CIA direct. This is their program, after all. Right, Robert?’
Sommers winced. ‘Why would they acknowledge an unacknowledged program with some reporter? I’ve tried, and I’m on the inside. They’d set their lawyers on you, citing national security and all that crap.’
Deborah nodded.
‘The CIA is a monster, Deborah. They can make your worst nightmares come true.’
‘What do you know about Cunningham?’
‘He gets handed files and information on everything from the analysis of an interrogation of a leading Islamist to ongoing assassination plots by Mossad you name it. He arrived after I left, so I don’t know him personally. But the job can take over your life. You end up living in an alternative universe, populated by terrorists, potential terrorists and foreign spies. It’s an impossible task.’
‘So how am I going to get to him?’
Sommers put on his shades. ‘My advice? Go through official channels. You may be lucky.’
• • •
Later that night, back in her condo with Jamille after spending most of the day and evening at Sam’s bedside, Deborah punched in the number for Marion Main, Director of Media Relations for the CIA, on her BlackBerry. She waited for nearly a minute as it rang and rang.
‘Marion Main. How can I help at this ungodly hour?’
‘Sorry to bother you, Marion. Deborah Jones of the Miami Herald.’
‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘I’m sorry…’ Deborah explained that she had ‘sensitive’ documents in her possession. And that the paper urgently needed to authenticate what they had, preferably with the Director. She gave her BlackBerry number and e-mail address.
‘I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see what I can do,’ Marion said.
Just before midnight, she called back. ‘If you want to arrange an interview at a later date,’ she said, ‘he’d be delighted to help you in any way he can.’
‘I’m just asking for a few minutes of his time. How about tomorrow?’
‘That’s just not possible right now. It’s been a long day. I’m sorry.’
40
Just after one in the morning, Nathan Stone noticed the smirk on the concierge’s face as his jinetera, a Cuban prostitute he’d known for years who was wearing a short red leather skirt and tight white crop-top, pretended to stumble on her way out of the Hyatt and into the steamy Miami night, a middle-aged man on her arm. The man’s other hand was up her skirt.
Nathan had asked Rosa, a seventeen-year-old who’d escaped the Havana slums as a child prostitute, to hang around the hotel’s lobby bar for an hour. Within five minutes of arriving she began flirting with the middle-aged white guy who was sinking beers by himself. A short while later she’d called Nathan from inside the hotel’s Alcazaba nightclub as the man ordered more drinks at the bar. Nathan didn’t tell her the man’s name. But she was playing her part perfectly.
He followed them from a distance, careful to stay in the shadows at least fifty yards behind. Rosa led him two blocks to the bustling Miracle Mile, a four-block district of restaurants, art galleries, fancy boutiques and live theaters. It ran along Coral Way between LeJeune and Douglas.
Nathan lit a cigarette as the crowds thickened and he felt his heart begin to beat that bit faster as he kept his eyes locked on to the couple. He was in his element, crazy thoughts tearing through his head. The steroids and speed had kicked in.
Down Salzedo they went and along Andalusia Avenue to an Irish bar. They stayed for twenty minutes. Then Rosa and the man staggered half a dozen blocks to the trendy Globe Bar on Alhambra. People were spilling out onto the street, hanging on to their drinks, while the Latin dance tunes pumped out hard. No one gave the couple a second glance as they headed inside.
Nathan remained in the shadows, occasionally glancing at his watch. He reflected how pathetic men were when easy women were presented to them on a plate.
Apparently the man had a long-term girlfriend, a Linda Shoulton. She worked as a partner in a high-powered private equity firm, Groschman Capital Management, in midtown Manhattan during the week, and would head back to Dunedin at the weekends.
Just before two A.M. Rosa emerged through the throng outside the bar. She was alone. She walked back towards the Miracle Mile, never glancing in Nathan’s direction. He walked off the other way.
Less than a minute later, his cellphone rang with a text message that contained a picture of the man—Robert Sommers—lying semi-naked with Rosa on the floor of the bar’s toilet. It was not a great snap, taken at arm’s length by the Cuban girl, but it did the business.
A short while later Nathan’s cellphone rang again. ‘You get it?’
‘Very good, Rosa. Where is he now?’
‘Out of it.’
‘I assume you slipped him the mickey?’
‘Chloral hydrate in his bottle of Schlitz, as requested. By the way, mister, you owe me one thousand dollars.’
‘It’s already in your mother’s account, Rosa. I’ll be in touch.’
Nathan ended the call and sent the picture to the cellphone of his handler, then on to Linda Shoulton, with the short message, ‘When the cat’s away, the mice will play.’
He couldn�
�t keep the grin off his face as he headed into the night.
41
Deborah awoke in a cold sweat as the early-morning light flooded her bedroom. Her phone was ringing.
‘We need to talk, Deborah.’ It was Sommers. ‘I’ve just had the National Enquirer on the phone. They have been sent a photo of me with a girl I bumped into at the Hyatt last night. I’ve been set up.’
‘But why?’
‘Don’t you get it? This is a warning shot, not to get involved with you. My girlfriend’s been sent the picture too. It’s even on the fucking Internet. I’m meeting my lawyer downtown in an hour,’ Sommers continued. ‘I just wanted you to know what had happened…’
• • •
The news from Sommers unsettled Deborah. They meant business, whoever they were, but she was undeterred. Half an hour later she had come up with a name which kept recurring in Internet searches of academics who specialized in the workings of the CIA. She printed out a couple of profiles from Time and Newsweek and showed them to Jamille.
‘Professor Norman McCabe of Yale. You heard of this guy?’
‘Means nothing to me.’
‘He’s been a thorn in the side of the CIA since Vietnam. Everything from the CIA’s links with heroin cartels in Southeast Asia to the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib. He’s got to be worth a try.’
‘But what’s he going to tell you that Sommers couldn’t? He’s not inside track. Also, he may not appreciate being drawn into this investigation after what happened to Sorley and Sommers.’
‘Someone apart from me has to be interested in the truth.’
‘I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this, honey.’
• • •
McCabe answered the phone immediately.
‘Deborah Jones of the Miami Herald. Can you spare a few minutes?’
‘The last time a journalist asked me that, I was on the phone for nearly two hours.’
Deborah laughed. ‘I assure you, sir, ten minutes tops.’
‘Okay, how can I help?’
Deborah went over the story again. ‘So, does this sound like a CIA operation to you?’
‘The Agency is a law unto itself,’ McCabe said. ‘Your story puts me in mind of the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages operation, which was masterminded by Bill Casey, the CIA’s director during the Reagan years. They financed the Contras from arms sales to Iran. The hallmarks of that operation were, according to the Senate House Investigating Committee, secrecy, deception and disdain for the law.’
‘So do you think it’s possible that the CIA, or some cabal within Langley, could be involved in the deaths of John Hudson and Richard Turner?’
‘You’ve described a classic pattern of events. Tell me, Miss Jones, does the name Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Martin mean anything to you?’
‘No.’
‘In 1964 he was asked by the CIA to terminate the life of Bruce William Pitzer. Martin refused as the assassination was to be on American soil. The following year Mr Pitzer was found dead in his office. It was recorded as suicide.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘My point, Miss Jones,’ McCabe said, as if running out of patience, ‘is this. Do you know what Bruce William Pitzer did for a living?’
‘No.’
‘He was a photo technician, present during the autopsy of John F. Kennedy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland.’
‘Are you saying there are parallels?’
‘Absolutely. Whilst you may have struck gold in journalistic terms, you’ve also saddled yourself with a major problem. You might be better off forgetting the whole thing.’
‘I haven’t come this far to give up now.’
‘Well, I wish you good luck, Miss Jones, and I admire your courage and persistence. Remember—the CIA, oil, big business, dictators, and Central and South American death squads are all one and the same thing. Whatever they tell you, don’t believe a word. Now, if that’s all, I’ve got a tutorial in five minutes to prepare for. Nice talking to you.’
42
The hours dragged on, but by mid-afternoon Marion Main had still failed to get back to Deborah.
‘McCabe,’ Deborah said eventually, snapping her fingers. She felt a fool for not asking him before. ‘Goddamn, he’s got to be worth a try.’
Jamille rolled her eyes. ‘You called him this morning. Besides, he’s not going to give you Cunningham’s cellphone number, honey, is he? Get real.’
‘The professor was very amenable. Gotta be worth a shot. He just might have the number.’
‘Yeah, but he’s not gonna divulge that to you, is he?’
‘Why not?’
‘What you been smoking, honey? You’re gonna call him up again and say, “Gee, Professor McCabe, you don’t happen to have Michael Cunningham’s cellphone number handy, do you?” It ain’t gonna happen. Just sit tight and wait for that CIA bitch to get back to you. Plus, he ain’t a fan of the CIA, is he?’
‘No harm in trying. Besides, it might be doomsday before Marion Main gets back to me.’ Deborah dialed McCabe’s number and waited.
‘You’re crazy, you do know that?’ Jamille said.
Deborah shrugged.
McCabe came on the line sounding flustered, but to Deborah’s surprise he casually gave out the number, stressing that she ‘shouldn’t divulge under any circumstances’ where she had got it from.
‘I owe you one, professor,’ she said, and put down the phone. Then she looked across at Jamille and grinned. ‘You were saying, honey?’
‘Not another word,’ Jamille said, trying hard to suppress a smile.
• • •
Although she was excited at the breakthrough, Deborah still felt distinctly uneasy. Sure, she could just call the number. But first she wanted to run the idea by Sam.
She had to wait until Sam’s sisters left his bedside to grab a coffee before she could outline her plan of action.
He didn’t raise any objections, maybe because he was only half awake.
Half an hour later, in her condo, Deborah made the call from her cellphone.
Amazingly, Michael Cunningham picked up.
‘Good afternoon, sir. My name is Deborah Jones of the Miami Herald. I believe you know our executive editor, Harry Donovan. We did a profile of you a little while back.’
‘I know Harry. But I think you’d be better advised to follow procedural guidelines, young lady, and contact our press people.’
‘The matter is a rather delicate one, sir. Documents have come into our possession. And it is vital to establish their authenticity.’
‘I don’t have time for this. Speak to Marion Main.’
‘I’ve tried that already. She wanted to line up an interview when you returned. We need to speak to you now.’
‘I’m sorry Miss Jones. Everything goes through Marion. Don’t use this number again.’
Cunningham hung up.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Jamille asked Deborah.
‘What the man said. Speak to Marion Main, and put some pressure on her as well.’
‘What kind of pressure?’
‘You’ll see.’
Marion Main answered at the third ring.
‘Marion, hi, Deborah Jones again.’
‘It’s not still about these goddamn documents, is it?’
‘I’ve just spoken to the director.’
A long silence ensued. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘And he’s referring us back to you.’
‘How on God’s earth did you get his number?’
Deborah ignored the question. ‘Look, we’re going through official channels as he’s requested we do, and we just want him to answer some specific questions about papers we have. Otherwise we will have no choice but to run with this story as it stands.’
‘Unbelievable. You guys are the limit. You’ve gone behind my back and approached the director on his private number. I’ve got a good mind
to take this up with Harry Donovan.’
Deborah looked across at Jamille who smiled back at her. ‘He’s sitting right here,’ she lied. ‘Do you want to speak to him?’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’m going to put in an urgent media request call on your behalf. I can’t promise anything. But leave it with me till four P.M.’
By five o’clock Deborah hadn’t heard anything. Resigned to not getting the call, her luck suddenly changed when the phone rang. It was Marion Main.
‘Sorry about the delay. Mr Cunningham is simply too busy at the moment. But he has given you the go-ahead to talk to his deputy. How does that sound?’
‘I need to speak to the guy at the top.’
‘The Deputy Director is willing to speak to you frankly on his secure line. But only for five minutes. Take it or leave it.’
‘I’ll take it. Thank you, Marion. I appreciate your help.’ Deborah got straight through to Cunningham’s deputy who was clearly expecting her call.
‘Right. This is how it’s going to work.’ He sounded crisp and efficient. ‘I am going to give you a heads-up on this. But we must set out the ground rules before I take you into my confidence. First of all, what I’m going to tell you cannot go in the paper. Is that clear?’
‘You got it.’
‘We have reason to believe that a low-ranking CIA official has fabricated documents to make it look as if they are authentic CIA programs. Classic black ops.’
‘So how does John Hudson fit into this?’
‘I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I can tell you that he was recruited by this CIA man to provide cover for his internal spying operation.’
‘So are you saying that what we have here is a complete fabrication designed to undermine American national security?’
‘Exactly. We have a spy in our midst.’
Deborah’s mind was racing.
‘But it wouldn’t be the first time in modern history’ he said, ‘that such things have happened. Have you ever heard of the Zinoviev Letter?’
‘I’ve heard of it…’
‘Way back in 1924, MI5 in Britain claimed they’d intercepted a letter written by Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Comintern in the Soviet Union.’