The Clause

by Brian Wiprud

  It was a young guy in a purple Patagonia pullover, ponytail, and sandals. Stray feathers dotted his clothing.

  “I’m going to take a trip to the Bahamas and learn how to fly fish.”

  His eyes widened, his head bobbing. “We can help you with that! When were you thinking of going?”

  “Pretty much now. See, I just got laid off and got a nice settlement package, thought this was as good a time as ever to take a few months off and do something just for me.”

  “Stupendous! Good time to go, off season. Let’s go look at the catalog, and then I’ll make some calls, how’s that?”

  “I already have a lodge that I want to go to. Bernard’s Cay Bonefish Lodge. An old friend operates it. I sent Tim an email last night saying I was coming—can you contact her and confirm?”

  “I think Bernard’s Cay would be perfect. And you know Tim: she’s a certified casting instructor. I’ll shoot her an email and confirm.”

  “Let’s go with that. Two weeks. Then we’ll see where I should head next, how’s that?”

  “Dude, I am so jealous, you’re going to have an awesome trip.” He eagerly jabbed a finger at the laptop.

  I wandered off into the store. If you’ve never been to a fly shop—I hadn’t—it’s sort of like a golf, climbing, or ski emporium. There was a lot of designer outdoorsy clothing that was like it was from an L.L. Bean catalog. It ranged from tropical wear for Ecuador to parkas for Tierra del Fuego. I flipped a few price tags and rolled my eyes—they were about four times what I would ever pay for clothes. My idea of a shirt is one that costs under forty dollars. Under twenty even better.

  At the fishing rod rack, the price tags were equally eye-rolling. They were all six hundred dollars and up. So were the reels. Just the line that went on the reels was pushing a hundred. Walk into a ski or golf shop and I guess you’d find pretty much the same level of pricey merchandising.

  The lures they sold—flies—could either be fuzzy specks or fluffy pink birds that fit in your hand, all with a single hook to match. Many were tied with feathers, while others were constructed from plastic foam, wire, and hair. Some looked like something you’d stomp on if you saw it in your bathroom, or swat with a newspaper on the kitchen counter. Others looked like cat toys. They had eyes and looked like frogs and fish and mice and maybe even squid; I couldn’t be sure what they were all supposed to be. Most were tucked neatly into about a jillion cup-sized cubbies built into the top of a wooden desk. Below, the desk drawers held dozens of plastic boxes with more flies. A wall rack of plastic drawers held still more. The sheer volume of flies suggested a huge knowledge base and was a little intimidating. There were thousands of different kinds. How could you possibly know which fly you were supposed to use? In golf, all the balls are the same size, and aside from color, very much the same. Were fish really this choosy? I guessed people were pretty particular with what they eat, so why not fish?

  There was an entire wall of the components used to tie flies should a guy want to make them himself. I guess some people have a lot of time on their hands.

  Farther along, I found racks of rubber pants and boots for walking around in rivers and staying dry. I was hoping I wouldn’t need any of those, and from the pictures I’d seen I didn’t think I would. In the tropics, I’d roast like a pork shoulder in those things. Confirming my suspicion was a rack of neoprene hi-tops for walking in the ocean, which from a display I could see were worn with flimsy, quick-drying pants. Very expensive flimsy, quick-drying pants.

  The luggage section of the store displayed an array of special padded cases for fishing rods of every dimension, some that were tubes, and others that were more like briefcases. It seemed the rods themselves came apart into two or four sections. One of the cases drew my attention. It was perfect not only to transport fly fishing equipment but also sparks. It was a soft-sided duffel on wheels that had room for rods and numerous nooks for reels and other equipment, definitely the deluxe travel case for the hardcore angler who planned to check his equipment. While I would have preferred to keep my valuables close, I didn’t dare subject my carry-on baggage to close scrutiny. If for any reason they went through the bag, they would be sure to find that I was transporting a substantial sum of cash and jewelry. That would not be good. In this piece of luggage I could layer the cash behind the padding and intermingle the sparks with the reels so that the scanners wouldn’t notice them as being separate from the metal of the equipment.

  “Okay, Bernard’s Cay is expecting you day after tomorrow!”

  “I need to book the flights. Through Nassau?”

  “Yup, you’d have to fly into Nassau tomorrow, then catch the morning flight to Bernard’s the following day. Can’t do it all in one day, have to stay over in Nassau for a night.”

  “No flights out tonight?”

  “No way. No flights to the Bahamas after, like, noon.”

  “Can I arrange the flight through your shop?”

  “We can recommend a travel agent we work with for our group trips.”

  “Let me put it this way … what’s your name?”

  “Josh.”

  “Josh, I need you to be my full-service fly-fishing guy, and help me out with the travel agent to get my tickets. Since I’m new to this, I also need you to help me out because I have none of the stuff.” I waved my hand around the shop. “Tell me what I need, I’ll buy it.”

  The kid practically wet himself with excitement. “Whoa! You have nothing? Not even a rod?”

  I set my trilby on the counter and pulled a thick wad of hundreds from my pocket. “So you’ll book me the tickets, too? I need to pay for all this in cash, if that’s okay. I just sold my car and would rather use up that cash than deposit it only to spend it, if you know what I mean.”

  He gulped. “Let me call my boss, but I’m sure that’ll be fine, dude.”

  What businessman doesn’t like large influxes of cash?

  I dropped ten grand and change in that store. When I left two hours later, a miniature fly shop was all packed into that rolling duffel and a shoulder bag. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that the soonest flight I could book to Nassau was early Tuesday morning. I needed to stay one more night without my pursuers knowing about it.

  Twenty-nine

  Tito’s watch: 11:00.

  The tackle safely stowed in the Toyota’s trunk, I left the car where it was and entered the subway at 23rd and Lex, bought a fare card, and headed uptown to Grand Central Station. It was the best place I could think of to make a phone call to Vugovic. I had his number from Tito’s phone.

  What made Grand Central an ideal location was lots of cops and a sprinkling of National Guard roaming around—it’s not the kind of place people come to do abductions. Also, it’s a transportation hub. I could go practically anywhere locally by dozens of different trains, including upstate. Once they pinged my phone there, they wouldn’t bother to come looking. And neither would the FBI. The Plaza was as near as I cared to come to these dirtbags until that evening at the exchange. I didn’t want to chance any close encounters that weren’t completely necessary. I suppose I could have called from a diner on 23rd Street and been fine. I was being extra, extra careful in the home stretch.

  I stood just to the side of an entrance off of 42nd Street, brass doors churning pedestrians in and out of the station next to me. Forty feet from me, watching the entrance, were two National Guardsmen with machine guns. My own personal bodyguards, for the moment.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Underwood. We should talk.”

  There was a long pause, during which he probably wanted to ask how I got his number but thought better of it.

  “So, the mouse taunts the cat, hmm?”

  “I’ve been thinking, Vugo, and I hope you have, too. There’s a better way to do this. Right now you and the Ch
inese are set up for a gun battle when I try to make the exchange. That’s not good for anybody, most of all, me, because I won’t get my ten million.”

  “Is that your price? Ten million?”

  “Firm. Two in cash, the rest in Guatemalan bearer bonds. After all this hassle, I would think it would be worth your while to just pay it to me yourself and cut out the Chinese.”

  “I hear the Chinese did not deal to you from the top of the deck. You did not expect us to, either, or you would have tried to return what was stolen. Why now?”

  “Like I said, I think you’re probably gearing up for a big gun battle in which the timing will be very tricky. You may mow down the entire Tong, and me, but that doesn’t mean you’ll put your hands on the Britany-Swindol sparks. I’m smart enough to know that if you capture me I’m dead no matter what, so handing over the sparks at that point means squat.”

  “We might let you die more quickly if you turn over the gems.”

  “Look, Vugo, I’m giving you this one opportunity to do this on the up and up. I don’t want to wait around any longer. I have to get Trudy out of here, now. This way you get the gems, one hundred percent certain. The other way is a crap shoot.”

  “I suppose you think I can snap my fingers and magically make ten million in cash and Guat bonds appear.”

  “Spikic should be able to arrange that through the Russians.”

  “You seem to forget who you are dealing with, Underwood. We are a people who do not make terms. We make enemies and then kill them. We will do what it takes to find you.”

  “Nice speech, but how does that get your boss the hundred and fifty million from the Israelis? It won’t. Look, I get that you’re a soldier, you’re all about killing and winning. Is that all that matters to your boss? I’d make sure, if I were you.”

  “I do not make terms, ever.”

  “I guess this was a mistake. Fine. I’m just going to skip town and get Trudy to a doctor, worry about the sparks sometime down the road. Bye.”

  I hung up. But I left the phone on.

  Predictably, my phone rang, and it was Vugo.

  “Underwood, you are too hasty. Americans are always in haste. Why don’t you let us get you a doctor for Trudy.”

  “Is this why you called me? Look, I’m at Grand Central right now. Be here in two hours with the money, and I’ll give you the sparks. Call this number when you get here.”

  I hung up but still kept the phone on to see if he would call back.

  He didn’t.

  Somebody else did.

  “Mr. Underwood?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Yes?”

  “We have a solution to your problem.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Agent Brown, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  One Mississippi, two Mississippi …

  “So what’s the FBI’s solution to my problem?”

  “For one thing, we can sequester Trudy in a hospital under a false name and save her life.”

  “And then prosecute her, great.”

  “I think we can work a deal, here, where you both get probation for helping us recover the Britany-Swindol gems and secure a conviction of the Kurac. You just have to set it up. You’re already at Grand Central.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’ve pitched a tent here.”

  “All you have to do is go through with whatever you’re going to do to make the exchange, and we’ll do the rest. But you have to make the exchange, the money for the gems. No double cross or we all lose.”

  “So I don’t get the ten million?”

  “No. The ten million is evidence.”

  “We get probation and I get Trudy well, that’s the bargain. Probation that can be revoked permanently if I get a parking ticket or Trudy jaywalks.”

  “You might as well take it, Mr. Underwood. Better to be alive than dead. None of these people, not the Chinese or the Serbians, are going to give you ten million dollars. No matter what kind of bargain it may seem to you, they steal, they don’t pay, and that’s who they are, and they will steal these gems from you and kill you. Didn’t you get that from your conversation with Vugovic just now? And how do you hope to set up any exchange with us listening to your every word? Any deal you try to arrange, we’ll know about it and be there anyway. And as you said to Vugovic, the alternative is a gun battle at LaGuardia in which you still won’t get your ten million, much less escape with Trudy.”

  Did she expect me to correct her about the airport, or confirm it?

  “LaGuardia is a big place.” Maybe she’d buy it, maybe not.

  “What’s your choice?”

  I let another couple long Mississippis slip by, like I was in anguish.

  “You guys screw me over and I won’t testify.”

  “We’re the good guys, Underwood. We don’t screw people over.”

  “I have a huge scar on my stomach that reminds me every day that there are no good guys.”

  “See you in two hours.”

  She hung up. I disabled Phone #2.

  The two National Guardsmen were looking at me, and I didn’t feel very safe anymore.

  Thirty

  EUROPEAN ORGANIZED CRIME TASK FORCE

  MEMORANDUM

  MONDAY AUGUST 9, 2010

  TO: EOCTF SUPERVISOR PALMER

  FROM: INTEL PROFILER AGENT LAURENTA

  RE: G. UNDERWOOD MILITARY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE

  I conducted a review of G. Underwood’s military and medical records to develop a tighter understanding of his past in hopes of anticipating how he will behave in the future. Full records are available in the file. Salient observations:

  • Underwood was injured during a Naval operation of his own design in the Gulf. While the exact nature of the operation is classified, hospital interviews reveal that the operation was designed to capitalize on the enemy’s expectations, which in “Art of War” theory are a weakness for opposing forces. However, Underwood’s interpretation of events indicate that unbeknownst to him, his superiors used his operation as a feint to distract the enemy from another front, to the extent that his superiors intentionally revealed the operation’s unfolding to the enemy in advance. The result was that the compromised mission went badly, with multiple fatalities, and Underwood critically injured. According to Underwood, his operation was used as a decoy for another that failed to deploy adequately due to a clerical error.

  • Contrary to surveillance information received August 8th in a conversation between Roberto Guarrez and Loj Vugovic, G. Underwood met T. Elwell at the psychiatric ward of Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in the summer of 2002 and participated in interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) as part of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The role-transition stage of IPT was conducted as behavior therapy designed to correct behavioral deficits. Roleplaying in which the patient re-centers their skill sets on a vocation divorced from the one in which the stress disorder originated was used so that behavioral disorders are not propagated. Others in the group chose to direct their military skill set toward occupations such as advertising, police work, real estate, and woodworking. Underwood’s choice for his roleplay was jewel thief. Attending physicians thought this an interesting choice and one that needed to be explored rather than discouraged in as much as PTSD has been linked to changes in cognition such as perceived threats, vigilantism, indifference to the law because of prior abuse by authority figures. Resultant psychophysiological arousal often manifests itself in hyper-vigilance and diminished empathy associated with criminal behavior. After a series of structured interviews, coaching, and behavioral assessments, Underwood seemed to acquire the reinforcers to lessen his life punishment and changed his roleplay to window washer. Upon discharge from the hospital, outpatient coaching to prevent relapse was recommended. Underwood nev
er returned to Portsmouth, and it is unknown if he ever received outpatient coaching.

  • Conclusions: Underwood’s criminal behavior is the result of unresolved behavioral disorders cultivated during service and subsequent PTSD. In essence, he has re-created in a criminal environment the military environment that harmed him. He has taken his tactical training and experience in the Middle East and applied it to the logistics of stealing gems. Comparative elements include allies with shifting alliances (fellow criminals, organized crime), authority figures (police, security guards), codes of conduct (“The Clause”), and comrade in arms (T. Elwell.) He believes his tactical theories failed when applied in the Gulf because his operation was undermined by authority figures which resulted in the death of the entire squad with which he was embedded. As a jewel thief, his tactical theories have been applied and he now undermines authority by his success. In effect, by successfully stealing gems, he is reversing the emotionally crushing consequences of his failed military career.

  • Application: Understanding Underwood’s behavioral disorder and relationship to authority should assist federal agents in predicting his future actions and in apprehending him. Of primary consideration is that surrendering to authority is not an option. Knowing that he will always defy and attempt to divert agents from his actual intent using tactics is crucial to anticipating his actions. Of secondary consideration is the stability of his current mental state. If T. Elwell dies, it could trigger a complete PTSD relapse in as much as her death would have been as a direct result of his tactical theories gone awry, which would mirror the loss of the squad in the Gulf. In that event, it is prudent to anticipate this relapse would express itself as either avoidance (he would simply isolate himself and drop out of sight) or hyperarousal (anger and violence). Even if T. Elwell is already dead, the PTSD relapse could express itself as delayed onset and occur at any time.

  Thirty-one