by James Bruno
“I thought we were humane,” Haley said in a low voice. He sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup. His face was the picture of four-square rectitude; his eyes, however, were cold, almost indifferent.
“I never held anything against the man,” Tulliver rushed to add. “He’s pre-eminent among foreign affairs thinkers. Trouble is, the university-think tank-foundation types can’t usually handle the rough and tumble of politics once they’re outside their ivory towers. Fennimore was weak. He had to go — uh, despite our bolstering him…at various times.”
Tulliver had been conniving against Fennimore from day one. While going out of his way on the surface to act the loyal deputy, Tulliver exercised tight control over the information flow to Fennimore and President Merriman. In the case of the Darfur conflict in Sudan, he had managed to manipulate their attitudes by forwarding the more upbeat intelligence and diplomatic reports while withholding those — reflecting the true situation — which painted a bleak picture of rising violence and genocide. Behind the scenes, he had gotten Fennimore and leading black figures to convince the President to undertake a peace mission to Africa. At the same time, he clandestinely fed the media inside information on the folly of such a mission. The upshot was a policy disaster, one that Tulliver stepped in quickly to “fix,” thereby winning for him the President’s esteem and Fennimore’s demise. Haley’s role was to carefully screen the reports, sending up only the relatively few rosy ones.
“I like to think that we are realists,” Haley said. “After 9/11, the Marquess of Queensbury rules just don’t apply. The world knows when we act weak. The baddies just lie in wait ready to pounce where they can, waiting for the big ol’ American lion to take a snooze. Weak leaders invite disaster. It’s up to us supporting cast to make the star of the show look good and to keep the crowd feeling content.”
It occurred to Tulliver for the millionth time that profundity was a trait alien to the U.S. Marines, or most military officers for that matter. Those who affected intellectual depth appeared pathetic when sprinkling their discourse with mashed metaphors and trite homilies, a common trait among the intellectually challenged uniformed services.
“Keep things under control, Dan. Those two Croats almost did us in. The Croats told me that they were screening out the nutcases. What gives anyway?”
“State’s supposed to take a good close look at them before they come here. State’s falling down on the job, in my view.”
“But those two guys. They’re, um, under wraps now?” Tulliver asked disingenously.
“They’ve been recalled, sir,” Haley replied with no explanation.
Tulliver sat straight up in his chocolate leather chair and cleared his throat. “Eh, good. Good work. Recalled. Fine. That’s fine.” He nodded deeply and began to shuffle through the stack of paper piled in front of him.
Haley rose to leave.
“And those, those Africans we were supposed to bring in under CHASM…”
“Scratched, sir. Only a half dozen were brought here before the President’s mission. After the mission, ah, didn’t realize success, I called Goldman and told him to put a freeze on any further resettlements of Sudanese.”
“That’s good too. The very nerve of those people ordering the President of the United States to leave — and during a peace mission — simply goes beyond the pale.”
Tulliver leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over his round belly, and stared out on to the South Lawn. Jutting his lower lip out and squinting, he took on a contemplative pose.
“You know, it just goes to show their primitiveness. We’ve got our hands full with our own after all. I never felt easy bringing in all those Liberians. Talk about risking blowing the cover on the program. Sorry to say it, but it’s in the nature of the Negro—”
There was a tap on the door. Buckwheat Thompson entered. He instantly caught Tulliver’s eyes and held them with a grave look. He clutched a bunch of papers in one hand and a fountain pen in the other. He did not acknowledge Haley’s presence.
“Sorry to barge in.”
There followed an awkward silence. Thompson stood still as a monument as he sought carefully his next words. Tulliver looked at him expectantly. Haley folded his arms and leaned forward from his perch on a window well.
“Well, what is it then?” Tulliver demanded.
“Big problem. Maybe. You know Win Ferret. Ambassador Goldman’s guy who handles the Yugos?”
Tulliver searched his mind.
“Yeah. That fruitcake who mouthed off at the CHASM interagency meeting the other day. Until then he’d been a wallflower, taking notes for Goldman,” Haley said.
A light of recognition flicked on inside Tulliver’s head.
“That’s the one,” Thompson said. “Last Wednesday night, he went home from the office at his usual time, had dinner with the family, watched some TV, then proceeded to slaughter the whole lot. Including the dog.” Thompson wore a wide-eyed stunned expression accentuated by large, horn-rimmed glasses. He carefully seated himself on the sofa in the middle of the expansive office.
Tulliver slowly sat forward and alert. Haley did the same.
“He methodically bashed the brains out of each of them. His 69-year old mother, his wife of sixteen years, and their three sons, Win, Jr., 14, Brandon, 11, and Jeremy, 5.” Thompson spread out on the coffee table in front of the sofa a series of photographs. He then turned his head away and contemplated the Washington Monument which towered just beyond the South Lawn.
Haley, followed by Tulliver, got up and went toward the coffee table, cautious in their steps as if approaching a time bomb.
“Oh, Jesus,” Tulliver said barely audibly. Before him lay black and white police shots of the crime scene and the victims. Laid out in accordance with the age of the victims, the first photos were of Cloris Ferret, the mother, with a large, blood-caked hole where her left eye socket had been; her hair was singed away and her clothing blackened ashes caked to her body. The next series revealed an unrecognizable young woman’s burnt body; the parietal and temporal areas of the left side of her skull were missing. The rest of the photos showed the charred remains of the three boys. Their heads were likewise smashed. The kindergartner’s head was wrapped in a knotted towel.
Tulliver looked up at Thompson aghast.
Thompson was nodding. He looked straight at Tulliver and said coolly, “The police say that he tied the towel around little Jeremy’s head to keep the boy’s brains from spilling out into the van.”
“Van?” Tulliver asked.
“Oh, yeah. After he killed them. He loaded them into the back of the family minivan, covered them with a blanket, loaded a shovel and a filled gas can and drove three-hundred miles to North Carolina. Out in the middle of a forest, he dug a shallow grave, dumped the bodies in, poured the gas over them and set them on fire. Trouble was, five bodies piled on top of each other on a moist forest bed don’t burn too well. A park ranger spotted the smoke from a distance and called in other personnel to check it out. By the time they arrived, Ferret took a powder.”
Haley, though pale, had been taking it all in dispassionately. “Do the police have an idea where he is?”
“Not yet. They’re looking. The FBI is rushing down. There’s an APB out on him. I asked the FBI to keep the White House informed.”
Thompson laid out additional photos of the Ferret household. The scenes were grisly ones of blood-splattered walls, chairs and the boy’s beds. The photographer documented in pictures the dragging of the bloody bodies from their death spots, through the living room, to the front door and out into the driveway where the van had been parked. A final photo depicted Leo, the dog, in the garage with his legs splayed, jump rope around his neck and unseeing, open eyes.
“Why, why’d he do it?” Tulliver asked incredulously. “Was he having emotional problems?”
“Any leads on his whereabouts?” Haley added quickly.
“Never mind that for now,” Thompson said as if giving an order to his s
uperiors.
Tulliver raised his eyebrows in an expression that important men give when put into the unusual position of being commanded to do something.
“He’s got documents. Lots of documents,” Thompson continued.
“Documents? Of what?” the other two asked in unison.
“Two safe drawers of files…on CHASM.”
“Oh shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!!” Tulliver’s exclamations turned from the religious to the scatological.
Haley’s jaw muscles tensed. His eyes blinked nervously. “Documents he took from where?” he demanded.
Thompson again shook his head slightly as if in disbelief. Yet he sported a strange Mona Lisa demismile. “From Goldman’s office…”
“That’s incredible. Don’t, don’t those weenies at State check—” Tulliver began.
“…and from here,” Thompson continued.
Tulliver fell silent. His face had the stunned paralysis of a deer caught by fast-approaching headlights just before impact.
“From the NSC. From our office,” Thompson finished.
The other men could not speak. It was taking them a while to absorb the enormity of the news.
“Let me get this straight, Buckwheat,” Tulliver finally said, his voice trembling. “This guy, this, this…nerd, Ferret, takes a bunch of compartmented top secret documents on a program virtually nobody’s supposed to know about, takes them out of the State Department, out of the White House — out of offices of such high security that they practically strip-search people on their way out, takes them home, or somewhere. He then massacres his entire family, including the pet dog, hauls the whole mess off to some woods in North Carolina where he unsuccessfully tries to incinerate it. Then he conveniently disappears…presumably with hundreds of documents on one of this country’s most sensitive fucking programs. And, and the goddamn FBI can’t find the son of a bitch?!!” Saliva flew from his mouth as he spluttered the last sentence.
“Yes. Except for the dog. He left the dog’s carcass in the garage.” Thompson still sported a stiff, nervous grin. It and his quick, flip reply further fanned Tulliver’s ire.
In a movement almost too fast for the human eye, Tulliver kicked the coffee table over, sending the horrific photos flying in all directions. “You think this is funny mister?! You think this is funny?!! That lunatic, that, that Lizzy Borden with a security clearance is in a position to bring this whole fucking Administration down! Is that something that amuses you?!”
Haley inserted himself between the two, and placed his hands on Tulliver’s shoulders. “It’s okay, John. I’m sure Buckwheat here feels the same as we do. We all want him caught and quick,” Haley said soothingly.
Thompson sat on the sofa dejectedly, his head bowed, but the weird little grin still in place. “Yeah,” he said.
Ferret wended his way at a deliberate pace in his red convertible. Under a boundless blue sky warmed by a perfect sun, he breathed deeply of his newfound freedom. The scent of pine from the surrounding forest brought only pleasant thoughts, of family nature outings gone by — Lynette, the boys…, of his days as a young army lieutenant in the 10th Mountain Division, of camping in Quebec with father and mother…mother.
The stark, dramatic land and seascapes of the Gaspe invigorated him, released creative energies. And the French language. So mellifluous, soothing. Thank God that mother, born and raised in France, saw to it that he was fluent at a young age. An awkward, lonely boy. Mother. Not gentle like most. The way she punished. So much pain. And shame.
The traffic on Route 132, which hugged the undulating coastline of the broad Saint Lawrence, was sparse. Wide open spaces to liberate the spirit. He took it all in with a wide turn of his head and again breathed deep. He closed his eyes for an instant. The wind ran through his hair, caressed his head. So good. So free.
The cache of funds he collected by liquidating assets over a period of weeks and days before…before quitting work would keep him going for years.
But he would not be complacent. No. Though he had expunged the evil from within himself, he was too aware that it romped freely in villages of the Balkans, of Africa, of the Middle East, in military bases scattered abroad as well as at home, in the hardwood-clad, carpeted offices and conference rooms of the loci of power. Places he knew intimately. They, the powerholders were the evil and they must be stopped. Ferret nodded with great conviction. He would expose them, and protect himself, using that which he had taken from the dark, dirty recesses where the evil was documented.
“A man is not a man unless he has complete freedom and the means to survive. It is a primal urge.” Mlavic’s voice resonated.
Ferret put a CD into the player. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose … He smiled.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gallatin missed Lauren terribly. Her aunt, Celeste’s sister, watched over her at the clinic every day Gallatin was away and reported to him each day on his daughter’s progress: none. After his encounter with Ferret, the leads had dried up. But he wasn’t about to give up. Not in a million years. Ferret’s words kept ringing in his brain. The Branko’s were “taken care of. Out of the way.” Were they dead? Or locked up in some military prison? “They got through, but shouldn’t have.” Got through what? Escaped from confinement somewhere? Got through with a mission? A mission launched by the federal government? Then there was the warning. “If you dig too deep, you’ll get hurt. Seriously hurt.” Too many questions. And the hint of answers was ominous. His only child was lost, huddled in the far reaches of some emotional bunker, having fled the terror of losing her mother to cancer, having experienced the fire bombing of her best friend’s house and the critical injury done to that child. In the event that he, in his quest to get to the bottom of this tragedy, brought injury or worse to himself, could Lauren ever expect to return from that distant desert of her psyche? Her hope for recovery lay in her sole parent being there for her. If he were removed from the picture, what hope would there be for his daughter ever to lead a normal life?
He had returned to Cleveland, and his office, after ten days. He focused on his job, worked through the back caseload, pleased his superiors with the results. But his heart was not in it. And the nagging questions kept echoing in his mind along with the teasing bits of revelation provided by Ferret.
He sat by Lauren’s bedside early in the morning, sometimes during lunch hour, and in the evenings until the hospital staff kicked him out. Like an angel fallen from the stars, he pondered, as he gazed at the sweet, yet expressionless, face. Her straight, light brown hair invited frequent caresses from a distraught father. But most of the time he sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, contemplating the only thing left in his life that had meaning for him. As he recalled good times, the three of them on vacation, at cookouts, playing ball with family members and neighbors, at prayer in church, tears welled up in his eyes. The tiny voice, now silenced. “When will Mommy get better, Daddy?” she had asked over and over again during the final, agonizing week of Celeste’s life. Without his girl, he could no longer go on. Gallatin had concluded that their mutual survival depended one upon the other. It was as basic as that.
Ferret’s voice continued to intrude into his thoughts. “Deep down in your male’s rough soul. Did you not feel…sense just a twinge…free?” A sick man. But that sick man was his key to getting answers. Gallatin rushed to a pay phone in the hospital lobby, fumbled through his address book and punched 202 — the Washington, D.C. area code, and the rest of the numbers.
A female voice answered equivocally, “Mr. Fer—, er, uh, Office of Special Admissions. May I help you?”
“Mr. Ferret please. This is Michael Gallatin.”
Silence.
“Hello? Are you there? Mr. Ferret please.”
“Oh. I’m very sorry. Mr. Ferret…is no longer at this office. Good day,” Gerrie, the receptionist, replied.
“Wait!” It occurred to Gallatin in that flash of an instant that trying to get any kind of informatio
n even indirectly related to his personal investigation of the Suleijmanovic killings always seemed to be like attempting to catch snowflakes intact. “Can you give me a forwarding number please?” Gallatin’s heart was pounding. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand.
Silence.
“Ma’am? You still there ma’am?”
“Uh, yes. Of course. Mr. Gallatin, may I ask your relationship to Mr. Ferret?”
Now it was Twenty Questions time. His mind raced to seek a snap analysis of what was going on as well as an answer that wouldn’t have this skittish functionary hanging up on him. It was evident that the woman was screening Ferret’s calls and that Mr. Joe America had little chance of getting anything more than an assurance that she would “leave a message.”
“I’m…I’m with the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. I’ve been working with Mr. Ferret on a…a special project. I’ll be discussing this with him further by secure phone. But at this time, I need simply to talk with him about a convenient time when he could…come over here to meet with us.” He blinked in astonishment at his own rabbit-out-of-a-hat imagination.
“I see. Well, Mr. Gallatin. A tragedy has occurred. Mr. Ferret, you see…his family was murdered early this week. And Mr. Ferret…he has not shown up.”
Gallatin’s budding pride in his mental and verbal legerdemain dissipated in an emotional vapor as the full impact of Gerrie’s news made itself felt. It was a blow-between-the-eyes shock for which he wasn’t prepared. And he struggled to comprehend it. It would take much more time for him to try to fit this grim development into the rest of the mystifying puzzle with which he was struggling.