Potamos resumed his seat and Templeton stood over him. The director was taller than he appeared to be on television, and looked older than his reported age of forty-seven. A nice-looking guy, Potamos thought, as the director started speaking in a measured, calm tone.
“You’re aware, Mr. Potamos, that the claims you’ve made on TV are in direct conflict with the information that led to the attack today on the Jasper Project.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You cite information obtained from people you refuse to name, yet expect us to assign more weight to your sources than the ones we’ve relied upon.”
Potamos shrugged and held out his hands, palms up. “Look, Director, all I know is what I was told by people who are credible to me. I don’t know who gave you your information about that nut Jasper and his cult—an undercover agent, right?—but it seems to me that you should at least be open to the possibility you and your agents made a mistake out at that ranch. Now, with all due respect, sir, I have a story to write, and I know you have a lot of work to do to sort out this mess. Why don’t we just get on with our jobs and—”
“Mr. Potamos, I am asking you, as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to withhold any stories or future TV appearances until I’m able to do exactly what you suggest, ‘sort out this mess.’ I assure you that if you agree to help me and the Bureau with this small favor, we’ll work closely with you to ensure that you receive exclusive information, before any of your colleagues do. You can build on your scoop with validated information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation itself.”
His expression said he’d just made an offer Potamos couldn’t refuse.
Potamos stood. “Thanks for the offer,” he said, “but I think I’ll pass. Nice meeting you, sir. Keep up the good work.”
His first steps to the door were tentative; would they stop him? They didn’t. He left the room, fought the urge to run, made his way down to the ground floor, and exited onto Pennsylvania Avenue, where he hailed a cab. Ten minutes later he was running up the stairs to Roseann’s apartment. She was on the phone when he entered.
“Hold on,” she said, “he just walked in.”
“Who is it?” he asked, noticing a pile of papers torn from a small pad with names and phone numbers written on them.
“It’s Gil Gardello,” she said.
Potamos took the phone from her.
“The story,” Gardello said. “What happened at the FBI?”
“Nothing. We broke bread and swapped recipes.”
“Stay there, Joe. I’m on my way.”
“Don’t bother, Gil, I—”
The click of the phone being hung up was like the snap of a bullwhip in Potamos’s ear.
“Joe,” Roseann said, “all these messages are for you. The phone’s been ringing off the hook.”
He quickly scanned the slips of paper. “What’s this one?” he asked, handing it to her. “There’s no name.”
“Oh, my flight information. Bill Walters called. He’s booked me into the Cedars in Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh.”
“When?”
“Tonight. A fancy dinner for a bunch of big shots, government and business types. The money’s great, triple scale, and all expenses.”
“Tonight?”
“I’m subbing. That’s why it’s last minute.”
“I thought maybe—”
“What?”
“I thought maybe you’d be around with all this craziness going on.”
“Oh, Joe,” she said, kissing him, “I’ll be back later tonight. The job’s two hours. Fly there on a puddle jumper—only an hour flight—do my thing, hop the last plane back to DC tonight. Come with me, Joe. Get away for a few hours.”
“Nah, can’t. I’ve got all these TV shows to do tonight.”
“You’re going to do them?”
“Yeah. I’d better start calling everybody back.”
“And I have to get ready. I leave for the airport in a couple of hours.”
Potamos nodded and started dialing a number.
“Joe.”
“What?”
“I’m really proud of you.”
“Are you? Good. I’m proud of you, too. Go on, get your act together.” He smiled as he finished dialing and waited for the Larry King show to answer.
He’d just confirmed to King’s producer that he would show up that evening when Gil Gardello arrived.
“You’ve got a hell of a nerve,” Potamos said.
“Joe, listen to me. I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I said you were fired to wake you up, that’s all, get you to realize you were skating on thin ice. Bowen’s been after management to can you ever since you popped him, and I’ve been going through hoops to keep you around. You’re still a reporter for the Post. You’re no TV star, for crissake. You’re a print journalist and a damn good one. You’re onto a big story, Joe, and like I said, the world is yours, all the support you need, unlimited expense account, researchers, whatever you need.”
Potamos said nothing.
“There’ll probably be a book, too, Joe, with a big advance,” Gardello said. “Do a tour, talk shows, book signings.”
Potamos saw that Roseann was standing in the bedroom doorway, a quizzical look on her face.
“And,” Gardello said, his voice emphasizing that what he was about to say next was especially important, “George Alfred Bowen is already grousing about you having this story. Follow up on it with me and you’ll hurt him a lot worse than a punch in the nose.”
“Do it, Joe,” Roseann said.
“Yeah, I’ll do it.” To Gardello he said, “But I do it my way, on my schedule.”
“Of course, Joe. That’s the way it’ll be.”
“Great.” He turned to the bedroom. “Hey, Rosie, you’re goin’ to miss me on Larry King.”
“Program the VCR.”
Potamos looked at Gardello and grinned. “ ‘Program the VCR.’ You know how to do that?”
“No, you?”
“No.”
“You can get a tape from the show,” Roseann said, emerging from the bedroom dressed in a black cocktail dress and carrying a small carry-on bag. “How do I look?”
“Sensational,” Gardello said, meaning it.
Potamos explained where she was going and turned on the TV set. His interview with CNN was being replayed. Potamos turned in his director’s chair and asked, “Do you think I should wear a blue shirt tonight, maybe get a haircut, a trim, before the King show?”
Her answer was to lean over the back of the chair, hug him, and say, “You look perfect the way you are, my handsome Greek.” She straightened up. “Have to run. I’ll be back by midnight. Nice to see you again, Gil.”
“Same here. Play good.”
“I’ll try.”
And she was gone.
39
That Same Day
Washington, DC
“Max?” Jessica Mumford said into the intercom in response to someone buzzing from the lobby.
“Max?” the male voice said. “No. It’s Skip.”
Hearing his name and voice startled her. She managed, “What are you doing here?”
A laugh preceded his response. “I’m here to see you. Anything sinister about that?”
“No, of course not. I—”
“Hey, Jess, I may be your former husband but that doesn’t mean I can’t stop by to say hello to my ex-wife.”
“Do you want to come up?”
“Unless you want to come down to the lobby.”
She pushed a button releasing the downstairs inner door to the elevators. A minute later he knocked and she was face-to-face with him.
“Well, well,” he said, “you’re more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”
“Really?” She didn’t return the compliment. The man standing in the hallway was not the man she remembered from when they’d conducted their whirlwind courtship and ran off to cement their folly. Dissipation ruled his once boyish face. Hi
s hair had begun to recede and had become curly, corkscrews growing haphazardly on top, shaggy and untended at his temples and over the back of his neck. He wore a lightweight yellow-and-brown plaid shirt, khaki pants in need of pressing, brown hiking boots, and a lightweight gray windbreaker.
He walked past her into the living room and took it in. “Very nice, Jess. Looks like you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it reflects you, the furnishings, the decorations, everything in its place. Perfect order, like birds in flight.”
He went to a wall covered with framed eight-by-ten color photographs. “Ah hah,” he said, “still tracking down our little feathered friends.”
“Yes. The Bureau is trying to locate you. A Special Agent Wingate called.”
“The Elephant Man.”
“The—?”
“He has unusually big ears.”
“Oh.”
“Serving drinks, or should we go to a bar?”
“What would you like?”
“Still partial to bone-dry martinis, straight up?”
“Would you like a beer?”
“Sure, anything but a light,” he said, sitting on the couch.
She went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator, where a lonely bottle of Amstel Light represented her beer stock. “All I have is light beer,” she called.
“If I must,” he said from the living room.
A bottle opener eluded her until she found one that had been put in the wrong drawer after dishwashing. She paused for a moment to choose an appropriate glass. As she started to open the bottle, she remembered that the photos she’d been examining through the magnifying glass were still on the coffee table in front of the couch. She came to the kitchen door. Traxler was holding the glass and peering through it at the picture from the top of the pile. He sensed her presence, looked at her, and asked, “Where did you get this?”
“What, that picture? Cindy Pearl took it.”
“When did she take it?” His voice was suddenly heavier.
“I don’t know, a few months ago.” She came to the table and reached for the picture, but he held it away from her.
“You’ve been looking at this, Jess?”
“I—no, I was going to but—”
He looked up at her with hostile eyes, then took the shot of the men in the valley near Plattsburgh and put it in one of his windbreaker’s pockets. There was no joy in his smile. “I wish you hadn’t seen it, Jess.”
“I’ll get your beer,” she said.
“Don’t bother.” He stood and came around the couch until he was between her and the apartment door.
What had been apprehension hardened into defiance. She locked eyes with him. “I did look at that photo, Skip. I saw you in it.”
“I should be flattered, or concerned, considering what I do for a living, that you still know what I look like.”
“I have things to do, Skip, and parrying with you isn’t on the list.”
“No, Jess, I think talking to me should be at the top of your list.”
“Get out, Skip. Leave me alone. What you do with your life doesn’t interest me, even if—”
“Even if what?”
“Even if you were the agent who infiltrated the Jasper group.”
“Oh, yeah, I sure was that agent. Scope in action— again.”
Her concern reappeared. She considered trying to change the subject, lighten the mood. But the heat his face and body language gave off caused her to realize that words wouldn’t alleviate what was in the air.
“Was it really this Jasper group behind the missile attacks on the planes?” she asked, going to the sliding glass doors to her small balcony, which were partially open. “That reporter who’s been on TV claims you attacked the wrong people.”
“I didn’t attack anybody. You believe this reporter, right?”
She shrugged and wrapped her arms about herself, leaned against the closed portion of the doors. “I don’t know what to believe. The reporter claims it was a hate group up on the Canadian border, near Plattsburgh, where—”
“Where this picture was taken.”
“Yes.”
“And that fertile brain of yours has already written a script in which I’m the heavy, the bad guy, the black hat.”
“No, that’s not true.”
“You’ve been hearing things about me.”
“That isn’t true, either. I just wonder why you would be out in a field with other men in the same area where this other hate group operates. Were you undercover there, too?”
“You might say that.”
“Are the other men in the picture hunters? Guns in those bags?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Jess, always did. Let’s take a ride.”
“I’m expecting someone.”
“Max.”
“Yes, how do you—?”
“You said his name when I arrived.”
“Oh, right. Yes, I’m waiting for someone named Max.”
“A beau?”
“A friend.”
“I see. Does he work with you at State?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Meaning it’s none of my business. Come on, Jess, I didn’t ask you to stick your nose into this.”
“How have I done that?”
“This picture,” he said, patting his jacket pocket.
“You know, Jessica, I came by today to touch base with you. It’s been a long time. We had our problems, that’s no secret, but we were both young—impetuous youth, as they say. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about where I am in life and where I want to go. I’m through with the Bureau, through sticking my neck out for civil servant pay. I thought . . . I thought it might be time for you and me to get together again, try to make a go of it.”
Jessica listened, wishing the buzzer would sound, announcing Max’s arrival.
“You’ll hear a lot of bad things about me, Jess, concerning the Jasper assault. Yeah, I was the one who infiltrated the group and brought back the evidence linking Jasper and his crowd to the missile attacks.”
“Then it was the Jasper group behind the missiles. You should be proud.”
“That’s right. But sometimes you make mistakes. Easy to do in that circumstance.”
“A mistake? About whether it was Jasper?”
“Uh huh. Not that it’s a big deal if I did make a mistake. Jasper just represents another hate group put out of action. They’re all the same, Jasper, Freedom Alliance, Aryan Nation, Silent Brotherhood. Like the mob. What difference does it make if you put the wrong capo in jail, or kill the wrong godfather? They all have to go eventually.”
His cavalier analysis of the situation was chilling to Jessica. Was he admitting to her that he had, in fact, made a mistake in fingering the Jasper Project, and was justifying it?
“I don’t agree with you, Skip, but—”
“I don’t give a damn whether you agree with me or not, and if your friend hadn’t taken that picture, it wouldn’t matter whether anybody agrees with me. What could they do to me for making an honest mistake, a slap on the wrist from those clowns at the Bureau, a reprimand, a bad report in my file? That doesn’t matter because I’m resigning.”
He pulled the photograph from his jacket, looked at it for what seemed a very long time, slowly shook his head, and returned it to the pocket. “But this changes things, Jess, this picture, and you knowing what’s in it.”
“Why? I don’t understand. I don’t know anything about it, Skip. You were on a hunting trip, fishing with friends?”
As she said it, she knew the gathering of men in that valley on the Canadian border was neither a hunting nor a fishing expedition. It was what the reporter spoke of on television, the right-wing hate group that had really been behind the missile attacks.
As though reading her thoughts, Traxler said, “Yeah, you’re right, Jess.”
“You were undercover with them? You were—you were part of them?”
He closed the gap between them and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I meant it, Jess, when I said I came here to see whether we could take a stab at getting together again, ride out whatever comes of this mistake I made. If I know Templeton, he’ll smooth it over, spin it a hundred and eighty degrees to make the Bureau look good. It’s just this reporter claiming we were wrong. A bloodsucking reporter against a decorated FBI special agent. There’ll be some controversy, the do-gooders in Congress will insist on holding hearings, the press will sell newspapers, and it’ll blow over. At least that’s the way I had it figured until I came here and saw that picture of me with them. That changes things. You change things.”
He tightened his grip on her shoulders. She shook loose, but there was nowhere to go.
“Let’s take that ride, Jess. Give me a chance to explain things to you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Skip.” She slid to her right. He stepped back. She thought for a moment that he might decide to leave—until his hand went into another of his jacket’s pockets and came out with a small revolver.
“Put that away, Skip,” Jess said, her quavering voice betraying her fear.
“No,” he said. “I’ve been planning my future for too long to let you and one Kodak moment screw it up. Come on, Jess. You haven’t seen our lovers’ nest in a long time.”
“Lovers’ nest?” She realized then how far apart they had grown.
“Our cabin in the woods. We used to enjoy the ride there. Remember? Nice this time of year. I don’t have a convertible anymore but—I’m losing patience, Jess. Don’t underestimate me. I have no problem shooting you right here. We haven’t seen each other in years, and the gun can’t be traced to me.” His eyes darted about the room. “I’d hate to mess up your neat apartment. We can talk on our way, maybe figure out how we can resolve this nicely, like two reasonable adults.”
“All right,” she said. “I . . . I need to go to the bathroom first.”
“Go ahead. I hate to stop on the road.”
Jessica started for the bedroom, paused, picked up the pile of photos, and went to the desk in the living room.
“You never change, do you?” Traxler said. “Always the neatnik.”
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