by Terry Irving
Rick looked at Eve. "What about you? I don’t think anyone knows who you are." His eyes softened. "I would like to think you were safe somewhere."
"I’m not going to say this was all part of my future plans, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, Trooper." She took another drink. "And I’m fairly certain that the people who are after you are the same assholes who are arresting and killing my guys in the Movement – or at least they’re close cousins. The government isn’t exactly welcome on a lot of the reservations these days."
She started braiding her hair like a warrior preparing for battle, pulling each strand tight.
He looked from one woman to the other. "OK. Let me start at the beginning – or at least what I think was the beginning. It took me a while to realize that anything was going on but random accidents. I did a film pickup out in Virginia for Joe Hadley–"
Dina interrupted. "The reporter who ended up in the Potomac?"
"Along with his crew." Rick nodded and started counting on his fingers. "That would be coincidence number one, since the crash happened right after I picked up the film. At just about the same time, I almost put the bike into a car that jumped a red light. I thought it was just another lousy DC driver, but now I’m pretty sure it was the first time they tried to kill me, and that’s coincidence number two." He sipped his coffee. "Number three, the source that Hadley was interviewing had a gas leak explode in his house that night. There was nothing left but splinters. The cops ruled it an accident."
"Are you sure it wasn’t?" Dina said sharply.
"Nope, and I’m not sure that Hadley’s car didn’t just blow a tire on the George Washington Parkway. It could just be coincidence or a run of crappy luck. It’s not, but it’s at least as plausible as Oswald being the only shooter in Dallas."
He continued. "Let’s add some more ‘coincidences’. A black Impala that sure looked like the same car that I almost T-boned downtown tried to run me off the road at National Airport later that night. That’s four, and it’s quite a stretch, but you could still say it’s all coincidence."
Rick held up five fingers. "Two Vietnamese cowboys in a 240Z – the same car that the shooter parked outside my house this morning – tried to run me down on Suitland Parkway. At some point, even a sweet idiot like me has to admit people are trying to kill me. Just because I’m paranoid–"
"Doesn’t mean people aren’t after you," Dina finished. "The question is, why? You’re just a schmuck. Why would they be after you?"
"Ellsberg was just a schmuck until he got the Pentagon Papers out to the New York Times," Rick said. "It’s all about the pickup I made out at that guy’s place in Virginia. Hadley was determined to nail the Committee for the Re-Election of the President after he had to apologize for a story about loose cash in someone’s safe last week. This was his big score – a bookkeeper from CREEP willing to spill his guts."
Rick thought for a second. "You know, I hadn’t put this together, but the primary film of the interview got lost, and Shelley – the production assistant across the hall – told me she had found it. Then it turned out to be the wrong film, and she got canned." He shook his head. "I’ll bet she found the right film and someone in the bureau covered it up. Anyway, the ‘A-roll’ – the main interview – is gone, Hadley is gone, and the source is gone."
"Again, why would they be trying to kill you?"
"Because I still have the ‘B-roll’."." He took the silver can out of his inside pocket and spun it on its edge on the tabletop.
Both women looked blankly at the spinning can, so he explained. "‘B-roll’ is the secondary film you shoot to make the story look better. Pete Moten, the soundman, gave me a silent camera and this can of film. Said it was important. I dropped off the ‘A-roll’, but totally forgot about this and only found it in my bag after that Datsun made me take a detour through the woods on the way to Suitland."
Rick felt his face freeze. "That’s where I screwed up. I asked my housemates to help me with the film. That’s what got them killed."
"No way." Eve shook her head. "You didn’t kill anyone. Don’t take the guilt away from the people who did the crime, and don’t make your friends look like dumb pawns in your game. They chose to do what they did, and they deserve respect for that choice."
"I wish I could believe that. Anyway, they developed the film in the basement, and it turned out to be pictures of pages of some sort of ledger. They printed them out." He pulled the papers from inside his jacket. "Here they are."
Dina grabbed the photos and began to study them.
"Corey identified it as a deposit ledger for CREEP and took off, scared out of his mind. Steve recognized that these numbers" – Rick pointed at a column – "were serial numbers for hundred-dollar bills."
"Yeah, but they’re not consecutive. You can’t prove where they came from," Dina said without looking up.
"Remember that those three are – shit, were – the best computer techs in the city. Apparently, the banks are just beginning to record all the serial numbers of big bills, where they go and when. So, they got into the banking computers and followed the money trail."
Eve looked doubtful. "How did they get inside a bank?"
"They didn’t," Rick said. "They had this briefcase with a keyboard, and they hooked up over the phone. I didn’t even know it was possible, but these were the guys who were inventing this stuff." He paused again and then rubbed his eyes. "Crap."
"OK, I see." Dina pointed at some of Steve’s microfine annotations. "According to them, these are bills that went from the Federal Reserve directly to the accounts of the government of South Vietnam in 1968, ’69… and ’70." She flipped through the pages. "There must be five hundred thousand, seven hundred… Shit, there are millions of dollars here."
She tossed the papers on the table. "And you’re saying that this is a deposit ledger for the committee? So, the South Vietnamese were taking the money we were giving them."
"And putting it back into the campaign." Rick finished her sentence.
She shook her head. "And no one would know because it was cash and because you didn’t have to report who gave cash contributions to a campaign until the Election Law went into effect in April. This makes Watergate look like the ‘third-rate burglary’ that Mitchell said it was. They were taking money from a foreign government. No wonder President Thieu thought he could blow up the peace talks every time it looked like Kissinger was close to a deal."
"And more American soldiers died." Rick’s voice was low and cold. "They stretched out the war. Hell, they’re bombing the crap out of Hanoi right now and losing more planes every day. People are dying just so the bastards in Saigon can go on stealing."
"On the committee, no one thinks they can nail Nixon for Watergate." Dina mused, "I mean, they’ll gavel up the hearings and make accusations and hold people’s feet to the fire. Maybe they’ll even get to impeachment, but no one really thinks they’ll get a conviction."
Eve asked, "I thought impeachment was a conviction?"
"No, it’s like an indictment. The Senate has to vote to convict, and the votes just aren’t there." Dina looked up. "But even Republicans won’t stand behind the bastard over this. I mean, everything else can be explained away as just tough politics, but this is treason."
"Admittedly, I just finished law school, but I’m not sure that this" – Eve waved at the stack of papers – "is good enough to hold up as evidence."
"No, it’s not. But this is." Dina’s finger stabbed at one column of figures. "It’s the bank’s record numbers of the transactions. Along with these notes – I guess that handwriting is Steve’s?"
Rick nodded.
"With Steve’s notes, a good forensic accountant can nail these bastards."
"That’s what he said he was trying to do – give some prosecutor a road map."
She sighed. "Unfortunately, there isn’t a good forensic accountant on the whole damn staff of the Watergate Committee. Just a bunch of political lawyers. And they’re so ham
strung by trying to be bipartisan, they won’t investigate anything that isn’t either printed in the newspaper or handed to them on a silver platter."
"I guess that’s a dead end, then." Rick sat back. "All I can do is try to stay alive. It’s just like Ia Drang. Everyone is dead, and I’m left trying to stay alive."
Eve smacked his forearm. "Whoa. Stop the self-pity express before you run off the rails completely. You’re not in this alone, you know. You’ve got us and you’ve got Corey and–"
"Corey! That’s it!" Dina snapped her fingers. "He’s on the Banking Committee, right? The White House is sending everyone but the First Lady up to talk to the Joint Committee, but they’re stonewalling Senator Patman and Banking. The White House even strong-armed the Republicans into denying him subpoena power, and that stopped him cold. Why? Because the staff guys at Banking and Commerce are probably the best money people on the Hill."
Eve nodded her head. "And with these files to work from, they can go digging for the transactions even if they can’t admit the film exists."
"Exactly." Dina snapped her fingers. "They aren’t going to need evidence that will stand up in court. The White House can’t let stuff this flammable even be introduced in an open hearing. He’ll have to resign first."
She sat back with a smile. Then her broad face turned serious, and she leaned forward. "The first order of business is to keep you two alive and keep these files from getting ‘accidentally’ burned or blown up or something. With the disappearance of the other film, there’s been too much of that sort of thing already."
Around them, the women at the bar went on talking and laughing, and the taunts and bragging around the pool games sounded like the happy chatter of teenagers. For a second, Rick had the feeling that he was somewhere safe – a place where he was among friends and the rest of the world could just be ignored.
Then, a chill ran down his spine and curled around his scrotum – in his experience, good feelings like this never lasted very long.
CHAPTER 21
Dina went off and talked at some length to the bartender, who kept giving Rick suspicious looks. Eventually, she returned to the table and dropped in her chair.
"OK, Sam has a room upstairs that no one uses." She sighed. "He’s not thrilled about having a guy around – much less a straight couple – but I told him you guys were trying to avoid a jealous girlfriend, and he gave in."
She smiled at Eve. "That would be your cycle-dyke girlfriend, of course."
She laughed at Eve’s slightly shocked surprise. "It was easier to spin that story since you clearly have a thing for bikers."
Eve opened her mouth to say something, paused, and settled back in her chair.
Dina laughed again. "Rick, you better be nice to this kid. I feel responsible."
"I’ll be nice, but I’m not sure I can convince the other players in this game." Rick shook his head. "Whoever they are."
Dina’s face sobered. "Yeah, you’ve got a point there." She shook her head and stood up. "Well, whatever’s going to happen, the best thing is to get you guys off the streets and out of sight. You should stay here for the rest of the afternoon and just chill. This place is a tighter secret than the CIA’s little hideout under Mount Weather."
Eve asked, "Mount Weather?"
"See? Even fewer people know about this place." Dina dropped a set of keys in Eve’s hand. "When it gets late, just go through the door behind the restrooms and up one flight of stairs. It’s an empty apartment, and Sam said there were a couple of cots up there, but not much else. Apparently, some of the staff bunk up there on nights when they have a bit too much fun after the bar closes." She smiled. "That might be fine for them, but you kids make sure and get some sleep. I’m going to go home and act extremely normal."
Rick said, "You’re pretty good at acting normal. Who’d have ever known you were gay?"
"Rick, you are sweet, but you’re also the only friend I have who didn’t figure out I was a lesbian within the first conversation." Dina shook her head. "You don’t let people get close to you. I almost had to stuff you in a sack just to get you to talk to me back in school. You had a wall up all the way around you."
"Hey, that’s not true," Rick protested. "I talk to people."
"If you count ‘hello’ and ‘see ya later’ as talking, yes. Actually getting inside your head requires dynamite." Dina stood up and started getting ready to leave. "Lucky for you, I’m training to be a Senator, and that requires digging my claws into people and never letting them go. Especially when they’re worth the effort. Call me at home tomorrow."
Eve held up a hand. "I don’t mean to be paranoid, but what about the phones?"
Rick nodded in agreement. "There were some strange noises on the house phone last night. And that guy knew just where to go, and I know I didn’t let him follow me home."
He paused for a second, realizing he’d forgotten about his dead roommates for a few moments. "Goddamn it."
Dina gave him an awkward hug and patted his stiff shoulder. "Nothing you could have done, sweetie."
Eve stood up, and the two women wrapped each other in a long hug.
Dina pulled back and sniffed, tears bright in her eyes. "OK, I can’t think about that right now. Here’s how we do phone calls. Call me from one phone and ask for someone else and then just tell me you were looking for another number. Make it the number for another phone. Add a one to the first number and subtract a one from the last. I’ll go to a pay phone and call you."
"Hold it, hold it." Rick said. "You’re going to have to run through that again, Agent 99. And where did you learn all this spy stuff, anyway?"
"Hey, I told you Dad was on the red list. Our phones were tapped my entire childhood. I used to sing songs to the FBI agents when I got tired of calling them names. This was the only way I could talk to my girlfriends." Dina leaned over and went through the routine step by step, "So, you call me, ask for Joe Schmoe, then say, ‘Isn’t this four-four-three-five-one-oh-four?’ I’ll go and call five-four-three-five-one-oh-three. Add one to the first number and subtract one from the last."
"Now, if we’ve got that straight" – she smiled and turned to the door – "good night, kids."
The apartment turned out to be a relic of the 1940s with peeling wallpaper, a battered combination stove and sink unit, and a single tin cabinet over the stove layered with decades of brown cooking grease. The bathroom had a claw-footed tub and a showerhead bolted onto an upright pipe that rose from the faucets. There was a yellowed vinyl curtain hanging off a circle of metal attached to the shower pipe. Dust and grime coated everything. All the shades were pulled down in the front room, but the single bare overhead bulb revealed three army surplus wood and canvas cots folded away in a corner.
"Wow, what a cozy little hideaway," Eve deadpanned.
"It’s not about where you are," Rick said with mock pretension. "It’s about who you’re with."
"I’m with a biker who attracts people with guns. What’s that say about me?"
"You’re clearly the innocent victim of bad companions. Now let me think a second."
Rick turned in a circle. He needed somewhere to put the film and the photo prints. Eventually, he walked into the bathroom, knelt down at the end of the tub, and – carefully avoiding touching the wall so as not to leave streaks in the dust – shoved everything high up under the rim. The prints were bent between the tub and the wall and were sprung tightly enough to keep everything from dropping to the floor.
He stood up and looked at his work. He couldn’t see it from the floor and the rim covered it from the top. That would probably work unless someone took the place apart, which he supposed could happen.
He went back to the living room, where Eve was sitting on the floor next to the door with her knees bent and her back against the wall, watching him patiently. Rick turned the overhead light out, went over to the front window, and slowly pulled back a side of the shade.
He watched the street for a long time, just absorb
ing the people passing by. As the afternoon turned into evening, more began to appear in pairs or groups, and most of the groups were made up of one sex or the other. The men seemed to be separated into two types: those who were wearing outrageous leather outfits, formal evening wear, or extremely tight jeans, and those who were aggressively normal – if that were possible.
He was trying to form a picture of the scene so anything that changed would stand out. He really had no idea if this would reveal another assassin waiting for them tomorrow, but he figured it couldn’t hurt.
Then he checked out the other direction for just as long.
Finally, he let the shade fall closed and turned on the light. Eve hadn’t moved and was still watching him without expression. The question of who was going to sleep where was on both their minds. Feeling a bit flustered, he began to set up, leaving a careful space between the cots.
She stood up and helped.
When they were finished, Eve sat down on one of the narrow cots, hit it with her fist to verify its rock-like stiffness, and gave Rick a crooked grin. "Well, I guess that eliminates one possible way to spend the night."
"Guess so." He sat down across from her. For a moment, he was silent, still filled with the sense of foreboding he’d first felt downstairs. "Look. I know Dina makes fun of me for being closed up, but I’ve had too many people who got close end up dead." He sighed. "Jeez, that sounds melodramatic. Everyone who fought over there could say the same damn thing."
"And they’d be right."
"I guess. Anyway, I don’t have any right to drag you into this. Hell, I don’t even know why I was dragged into it. Nevertheless, I’ve got skin in this game. Even if they weren’t guys I knew – soldiers who were in my unit or whatever – good men died because this bastard stretched out the war when he could have ended it."