Ghost

by Fred Burton

  Rewards for Justice has brought many tips to our ears. We get phone calls and walk-ins every day. Most of the time, the tips come from individuals looking for a quick buck, and their intel is suspect. However, the program has yielded some valuable pieces of information.

  A few days after the fruitless meeting with the Libyan defector, I get a call from the security desk upstairs. A guard there tells me an Iranian-American just came in through the front door. He says he’s got crucial information for us. I grab my notebook and head upstairs.

  We get two or three walk-ins a week, and they usually are serious time wasters. Some of them are wannabes looking for attention. Others are delusional or mentally imbalanced. Most just want a chunk of change but have nothing of value to offer in return. Some of these folks have become regulars. They show up at different agencies and different locations, always looking for money. Fortunately, we now document every walk-in and get a full workup on their backgrounds. We share that information with the FBI and CIA; that way we expose the charlatans and nut jobs. When we identify one of these types, we send a burn notice out to all agencies, warning them that this person is only going to waste their time.

  But every now and then a nugget walks through the door. This is why we suffer the other fools. It is the 1 percent rule. We have to cut through the other 99 percent to find the one with a key bit of intelligence that will help save lives.

  I reach the front security desk and find a sharply dressed Iranian waiting for me. He shakes my hand, and I lead him down a hallway to a secure debriefing room. When we sit down, I offer him a drink of water.

  “No, thank you,” he says in broken English. He’s got just a hint of a southern accent. It sounds strange, sort of like Ayatollah Khomeini channeling Rhett Butler.

  “What would you like to talk about?” I ask.

  “I have information that can save President Reagan’s life.”

  He has my attention now. “Is somebody going to kill him?”

  “Yes. There is a plot to assassinate the president.”

  “How do you know about it?”

  “I have friends,” he tells me cryptically.

  “When is this going to happen?”

  He ignores the question. “Iranian agents are assisting.”

  “You mean Iran is helping plan an assassination attempt on the president of the United States?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Tell me about the plan.”

  “I have heard about your Rewards for Justice program,” the Iranian says as he fidgets with his tie.

  Here it comes. “Yes,” I say in a noncommittal tone.

  “How much would you pay for this sort of information?”

  He wants money. Still, we must vet the threat. Perhaps he’s in the 1 percent. I pull out my pen and start a full workup of my new Iranian friend. It turns out he’s a businessman from Florida with contacts all over the Iranian-American immigrant community. At first glance, his vitals look good. He may be telling the truth. If he is, he may end up with a payday after all.

  Over the next few weeks, Gleason has me run down what little the Iranian has given us. We check our own sources. I meet with the FBI and CIA. He’s not one of the repeat nuts or wannabes. FOGHORN unearths no criminal history. I bring the Secret Service into the loop. They start their own investigation and want to meet with our Iranian informant. He refuses. He says he trusts only me.

  I finally convince him to meet with myself and a Secret Service agent, whom I introduce as a fellow DSS investigator. Throughout the meeting, the Iranian seems sincere and the threat sounds plausible. He drops a hint that there’s a connection between the plotters and Iranian intelligence in Vienna.

  The Secret Service puts the Iranian under surveillance. At the same time, we vet his information and check out his Vienna lead. We come up dry. Is he on the level? I can’t tell, but we have to take the threat seriously, no matter how much time this sucks out of our schedules.

  I meet with the Iranian two more times. Each time, he drops another hint, another tidbit for me to follow up. When I ask him to take a polygraph, he initially balks at the idea. Later, he changes his mind. He comes in, we hook him up, and then we fire questions at him.

  The results are inconclusive. In the Dark World, everything exists in shades of ambiguity, especially the information that goes into our threat matrix. We ignore these tips at our peril.

  We take other precautions, and security around the president is tightened. Nevertheless, after several weeks of dancing with our Iranian informant, the Secret Service comes back with sensitive information. The threat is not credible. I look over what they uncovered and am forced to agree. Iranian intelligence is not trying to kill President Reagan. At least, not yet.

  Such cases come and go. We vet so many that they blur together in my mind after a while. I hear everything from the bizarre to the outlandish. Aliens are controlling the secretary of defense. The Russians want to steal the Statue of Liberty. Qaddafi is secretly plotting to take over the United Nations. There’s an unending chorus of delusional baloney flowing from the streets to our front desk. All of it must be listened to because of that 1 percent. We cannot miss that one valid warning that could save lives and prevent catastrophe.

  Toward fall, a call comes in at the end of another long day. It is a tipster, warning us that the U.S. ambassador to Colombia is about to be hit. The drug cartel has it in for him. The cocaine lords play a particularly ruthless game, so we take the threat seriously. I miss Mullen’s expertise on the subject. He’s gone now, and I’m helping to cover South America until we can develop one of our new agents into the regional expert.

  During our vetting process, our informant mentions that a Colombian enforcer named Victor may have additional details for us. I run down this lead and discover Victor is now in federal custody. The U.S. Marshals Service has him stashed away in WITSEC.

  I contact an acquaintance in the U.S. Marshals office and ask if I can meet with Victor. I might have well asked for a face-to-face with Pope John Paul. The Marshals Service takes witness protection extremely seriously, and they trust no one until proven otherwise. In my case, I’d already worked with several U.S. Marshals during the UN General Assembly meeting back at the beginning of the year. The DSS generally has a good relationship with the Marshals Service, and we worked well together in New York. Nevertheless, before they will let me sit down with Victor, they will thoroughly check my own background.

  When it comes to the cartels, you never know who is on the payroll.

  Just before 8 A.M. a few days later, the phone rings at my desk.

  “Agent Burton,” I say into my receiver.

  “Agent Burton, this is Bob.”

  A pause. I try to think of the Bobs I know, but I don’t recognize the voice.

  “What can I do for you, Bob?”

  “I understand you want to meet with Victor.”

  I try to conceal my excitement. “Yes.”

  “Okay, ten hundred this morning.” Bob gives me a D.C. address, then issues gives me final instructions. “Come alone. Go to the fourth floor and wait. No backup surveillance. No partner. Just you. Clear?”

  “Very. See you at ten hundred.” But I’m talking to a dead line. Bob’s already hung up.

  An hour after the call, after briefing Gleason, I leave the office and head for the street, where I catch a cab. I give the cabbie an address several blocks from the rendezvous point. He drops me off and I begin to stair-step toward my final destination. Running an SDR is not limited to vehicles. You can do it on foot as well. At each intersection, I make sure to take a casual glance over my shoulder, the one I’ve practiced so many times while running with Tyler Beauregard. A few times, I stop and watch the foot traffic pass my location. I double back twice, then find another observation point and people-watch again.

  Just before 10 A.M., I reach the address Bob has given me. It turns out to be a construction site surrounded by a chain-link fence. I walk the fence line until I
find a gap that I can squeeze through. It is a tight fit, but I manage. I step into the ground floor of what appears to be a future office building. It is hardly more than a steel girder skeleton right now. The floors are unfinished. There are no exterior or interior walls. As I climb a set of stairs built into one corner, I’m greeted by dozens of pigeons that have taken roost here.

  I reach the fourth floor and my hand unconsciously reaches for my Model 19, snug in its shoulder holster. Gripping the handle, I move off the stairwell into a maze of wires and cables, stacks of cinder blocks, plywood, and tools. Up ahead, there’s a room already framed and drywalled. It is the only one finished in the entire building. I approach silently, moving with short, smooth strides until I reach the doorway. Peering inside, I see only two chairs. The room is unfinished; the exterior wall has yet to be built. Somebody could be thrown right off the building from that side of the room.

  I check my watch. Ten A.M. Showtime. I move to one of the chairs and position it so my back is to the outside opening. I cover the doorway. A flock of pigeons soon fly in to settle down along the exterior I-beam. A few wander deeper into the room. They don’t even appear to notice me. If they do, they don’t seem to care.

  Footsteps in the stairwell focus my attention. I hear a soft shuffle outside the room. Every nerve is alert. My hand is poised to skin my S&W at a split-second’s notice. A tool clatters, followed by a soft muttered curse. A moment later, a shaggy-looking transient steps into the doorway. He’s dressed in an old army fatigue jacket that has long since seen better days. It is threadbare and covered in stains. His jeans and boots aren’t much better.

  “Burton?” the bum asks.

  I nod.

  “I’m Bob.” He grins at my surprise. I stand up and shake his hand. He’s unshaven and smells like soap is but a distant memory for him. It is an excellent cover. He’s obviously a pro.

  I sit back down. He slides away from the door and asks, “Do you have a gun?”

  “Of course. Two.”

  “No problems. You’re okay.”

  “Yeah, I’m one of the guys in a white hat.” We both chuckle, then he adds, “I checked you out myself.”

  “Trust, but verify,” I reply. That’s one the cornerstones of our profession.

  He looks at his watch. “They’ll be here in two minutes.”

  Like clockwork, 120 seconds later Victor walks through the doorway, trailed by three other U.S. Marshals, all of whom look like refugees from Woodstock.

  Who’s next? Jimi Hendrix?

  Victor takes a seat, and I’m instantly repelled by the man. His wardrobe looks like a cross between Miami Vice and Saturday Night Fever. It’s a pseudo-macho, bottom-feeder-meets-fortyish-disco-junkie sort of look. He’s sporting a white leisure-suit coat over a button-down shirt that Victor apparently forgot to button. This oversight reveals a tangled, hairy chest and a thick gold chain draped around his neck. I wonder if he’s bought this stuff off the rack. Where does one go for such attire? Drug Scum Emporium?

  He has long black hair, which he’s pulled into a ragged ponytail. It dangles below his collar like a coonskin hat gone bad. It serves to highlight a diamond earring dangling out of his left lobe. His black eyes settle on me. It gives me the creeps watching as he checks me over. This dude has a bad vibe. A very bad vibe.

  He crosses his legs, and I see he’s sporting a pair of off-white sharkskin dress shoes. Slip-ons, no laces. Obviously, he doesn’t plan to kick anyone.

  The marshals form a perimeter around us. One of them takes up a position behind and off to one side of Victor’s chair. He crosses his arms and scowls. He looks like a hippie bouncer.

  Victor reaches into his shirt pocket. The move makes everyone tense. He pulls out a cigarette case and extracts a smoke.

  “What do you want?” he asks. His voice is low, accented, and hostile.

  “I need some information about some associates of yours.”

  Victor scoffs. “Associates.” He finds a lighter in his jacket pocket and spins the flint until he gets a flame. He lights his smoke and watches me.

  “Associates,” I agree with him, “in Colombia.”

  A fleeting expression of fear scrabbles across his face. He quickly stamps it out. His face hardens, and by the time he answers me, he looks utterly ferocious. I find myself missing Ahmed. At least he looked harmless—without his assault rifle, anyway.

  “Who?” he growls.

  I give him the names.

  “Bad men. Very bad. You’d do wise to say away from them.”

  “What are their roles in the cartel?”

  He shakes his head, blows a lungful of smoke at me, and says, “They are killers.”

  “Assassins?”

  “Whatever they need to be.”

  I think about this for a minute. This is bad. I may be dealing with the 1 percent here.

  “Tell me more about them.”

  Victor flashes me a grin that could send children fleeing in terror. “Bombs. They like bombs.”

  “What sort? Letter bombs? Grenades?”

  Victor shakes his head. “No, no, no. Their specialty is the car bomb. They’re very good and very thorough. They kill their targets.”

  This is a key piece of information. We will take precautions with the ambassador to minimize this threat.

  I ask some follow-up questions and probe for details. Victor answers with short, blunt replies. After forty-five minutes, I’m done. Without another word, Victor stands up and storms out of the room. The three hippie-marshals follow right behind him. I’m left alone with Bob.

  “Get what you needed?” he asks.

  “Yeah. Not good news, though.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I appreciate the help,” I tell Bob.

  He shrugs. “No problem. You took care of my guys in New York.”

  “I was impressed with them. Very good men.”

  “They said the same of you.”

  I nod at the professional compliment.

  “So, what’s with Victor?” I ask.

  Bob steps forward and puts a hand on the back of the empty chair in front of me. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s pretty creepy.” I don’t really expect an answer, but I felt compelled to mention it. The whole meeting has left me feeling sullied and unclean.

  Bob leans toward me. He lowers his voice and says, “Victor gave up three Colombian cartel members.”

  That’s why he’s in WITSEC. That’s why all the secrecy and the crazy rendezvous point.

  Bob leans even closer. He’s only a few feet from me now. “The cartel has a million-dollar bounty on his head.”

  “They must want him bad.” Victor obviously burned some powerful people back in Colombia.

  “No doubt. He’s also a killer.”

  I’m not surprised. Bob rakes one hand across his neck as he continues, “He cut an informant’s throat with a four-inch buck knife. Watched him bleed out. Like a kid stepping on a bug.”

  “Nice guy.”

  Bob shakes his head, stands upright, and walks back toward the door. “You have no idea,” he says over his shoulder.

  “What do you mean?”

  He turns and leans against the doorway. “If he thought you were dirty, he would have tried to kill you, too. Even with us here.”

  I go stone cold inside. I have no doubt Bob is right. Victor was like a coiled snake.

  “Don’t worry, we had your back the entire time.” Bob gives me a sardonic grin.

  My mind flashes to the hippie-agent who stood behind Victor, arms folded. He had a shoulder holster under that Berkeley love-in costume he was wearing. He spent the entire meeting with one hand on his piece. That’s how much they trusted their WITSEC protectee.

  Bob sees the recognition in my face. “Yeah. He’s that dangerous. Glad you got what you needed.”

  He heads through the door. “See you around, Agent Burton.”

  And then I’m alone with the pigeons, mind swirling with a d
ozen thoughts at once. My body uncorks one long shudder. That’s part of the post-adrenaline-rush letdown. I’ve never come face-to-face with pure evil until now. And here he is, under the protection of the federal government. He’s a killer who not only got away with his crime but will live on the taxpayers’ dime for decades to come. Why? He gave up three higher-ups for his own miserable skin. Somebody made the call to trade up and go for the bigger catch.

  Justice became just another bargaining chip.

  This is the way the world works. We’ve got to make these deals if we’re ever going to bring the cartels down and take out their leadership. Still, the idea that U.S. Marshals have to guard a man like Victor makes my skin crawl. Though logically I recognize that the Dark World is morally ambiguous, I cling to my black-and-white view of things. Right and wrong, they are the pillars of what I stand for and believe in. But the big gray gap between them just got a little bigger today.

  I sit and consider that as the pigeons peck around my feet. I’ve got to be careful in this business. If I let it own me, I’ll lose my moral compass like so many others have in the past. You grow so obsessed with catching the bad guys that you’ll do anything to get them. Ultimately, it is all too easy to go too far. That’s when congressional hearings get held, careers are flushed, and once-good men get sent to prison.

  The pursuit to protect can distort all logic, can justify any means. Take that first step, and it will be a long slide down. I don’t want to become what I revile—a man corrupted by his own good intentions.

  I don’t want to make deals with the Victors of this world. There has to be a way to do this job and not lose the sense of right and wrong that’s motivated me all my life, thanks to my father. That was his gift to me, part of his legacy and an enduring wellspring of pride for both of us. Now I am my own man, and it defines who I am.

  The pigeons grow curious. They approach me and wait, hoping for some bread crumbs. I scuff one shoe across the concrete floor. One of the birds flaps its wings and backs off. The others follow suit. For a long moment, they stay at arm’s length, studying me, assessing me as a threat. Funny, that’s what I came here to do, too.