The Border: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  Marisol says, “You won.”

  “I haven’t won anything.” But I haven’t lost, Keller thinks. Depending, that is, on whom he appoints. He looks at the man standing behind and beside Ribello and doesn’t recognize him. About my age, Keller thinks. White hair. Tall, craggy.

  He steps forward as Ribello says, “Our nation is grounded on the rule of law, and the people must be assured that government officials administer the law fairly and objectively. Special Counsel Scorti will have all the appropriate resources to conduct a thorough and complete investigation, and I am confident that he will follow the facts, apply the law, and reach a just result. Mr. Scorti?”

  Scorti steps to the microphone. “I don’t have much to say at this point, other than that, to avoid any appearance of conflict, I am resigning my position at the law firm of Culver-Keveton. I will do my utmost to see this matter to a fair and just conclusion. Thank you.”

  Marisol is already googling. “He’s from Boston . . . a Republican . . . graduated Dartmouth . . . served in Vietnam—Bronze Star and Purple Heart—”

  “Army or marines?”

  “Marines,” Mari says. “Columbia Law School . . . was a US attorney . . . then US assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. He oversaw prosecution of Noriega—”

  “That’s why he’s familiar.”

  “—the Lockerbie bombing case, and the Cimino crime family.”

  The past keeps coming back, Keller thinks. Sean Callan was a hit man for the Ciminos.

  The phone rings. Senator Elmore. “Art, this guy’s the real deal.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s his own man,” Elmore says. “Dennison’s not going to run him. That’s the good news. The bad news is, neither are you.”

  “Okay.” He clicks off. Looks out the window and sees that news trucks are already pulling up, reporters gathering outside. On the television, the reporters are peppering Ribello with questions.

  “What is the scope of Mr. Scorti’s investigation?” one asks. “Will he have the latitude to pursue ex-director Keller as well as Lerner?”

  “Mr. Scorti will have the latitude to investigate all aspects of this matter,” Ribello says.

  “That includes Keller.”

  “I believe the word ‘all’ is explanatory.”

  “Does his scope include the death of Claiborne?”

  “I don’t know how else to tell you . . .”

  “Will Mr. Scorti have prosecutorial powers?”

  “Mr. Scorti will be able to prosecute on any federal charges he determines, as recommended by a grand jury.”

  “Will Scorti have the latitude to investigate President Dennison’s potential financial connections with Terra?”

  “Once again,” Ribello says, “the special counsel will follow the evidence where it leads.”

  We’ll see, Keller thinks.

  It will take weeks, he knows, before Scorti reaches out to him. The special counsel will have to get offices, hire a staff, review documents.

  “You need a lawyer,” Marisol says.

  “That’s what Ben Tompkins said.”

  “Even a broken clock . . .”

  “I don’t want a lawyer,” Keller says.

  “This isn’t the time to be naive or arrogant,” Marisol says. “Or stubborn. Or do you want to go to jail?”

  “I want to put Jason Lerner in jail.”

  “Great,” Marisol says, “you can play volleyball together.”

  Keller sighs. “I don’t know any defense lawyers. I mean, I do, but most of them would love to see me in a cell next to their clients.”

  “You know Daniella Crosby.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “One of the most prominent defense lawyers in DC,” Marisol says. “We were on a literacy committee together, went to lunch a few times. She and her husband dropped by our Christmas party.”

  “There were so many people . . .”

  “I have her on my phone.”

  Keller looks out the window at the gathering horde of media. “Call her.”

  Daniella Crosby’s office is downtown, on Seventeenth and K, not far from the White House and the Hamilton Hotel.

  An African American woman in her midforties, black hair cut short, oversize eyeglasses framing a strong face, she looks across her conference table at Keller and gets right to it. “I don’t know if I can keep you out of jail. Did you in fact reveal details of a classified ongoing investigation to the Washington Post?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you also remove investigative materials from the DEA offices?” she asks.

  “I did.”

  “And do you still have these materials in your possession?”

  “Possibly,” Keller says.

  “That’s a yes,” she says. “Mr. Keller, you know I can’t help you if you won’t be truthful with me. In fact, I won’t represent you.”

  “Ms. Crosby—”

  “Reverend,” she says. “If we’re going to be formal, it’s actually Reverend Crosby. I’m an ordained minister. Or shall we make it Daniella and Art?”

  “Daniella,” Keller says, “you’re asking me to trust you, and frankly, I don’t trust anyone.”

  “What about Marisol?”

  “She’s the exception.”

  “Make another one,” Crosby says. “You’ve chosen to take on the president of the United States and all his cohorts, over half of Congress, several large drug cartels and now the special counsel. You really think you can do that alone?”

  “I don’t want you to be in possession of knowledge that could put you at risk.”

  “Why don’t you stop patronizing me and let me decide what risks I’m willing and able to take?” she asks. “If I take your case, which as of the moment is extremely doubtful, it will be my job to protect you, not the other way around, so the sooner we get used to that dynamic, the better.”

  “I think you have the wrong emphasis here,” Keller says.

  “How so?”

  “Your priority seems to be defending me,” Keller says. “My priority is prosecuting Lerner.”

  “And the president.”

  “If that’s where it leads,” Keller says. “You have to understand—my entire purpose in leaking this story was to provoke a special counsel investigation. I’m not running from this, I’m running toward it.”

  “You run into a fire, you might get burned.”

  “I’m aware of that risk.”

  “The risk is very real.”

  She explains to Keller that he could be charged under three federal statutes. The first is USC 18-793—the so-called Espionage Act that was used to prosecute Edward Snowden—with a sentence of up to ten years.

  “They could make that case,” Crosby says, “but I would argue that 793 pertains only to information regarding the national defense, which I think would be hard for them to show.”

  The second statute is 18-641, the Federal Conversion Statute, which refers to the theft of government property, including records, and also has a maximum sentence of a fine and ten years.

  The third is 18-1030, which figured in the Chelsea Manning case, prohibiting the transfer of information regarding national defense or foreign relations from a computer.

  “If any of the information that you told to the Post was ever entered into a DEA computer,” Crosby says, “you might be in jeopardy of a 1030 violation, another ten years.”

  The most probable prosecution strategy, she says, would be to throw all three of these at the wall like spaghetti and see if any of them stick.

  “What’s the defense?” Keller asks.

  “Other than you didn’t do it?” she asks.

  Keller doesn’t answer.

  Then the best defense strategy, she explains, would be to cite the various whistleblower acts that protect federal employees from prosecution if they reasonably believed governmental officials have committed abuse, or if their actions threatened the public health and safety.

  “I w
ould certainly argue,” Crosby says, “that a heroin-trafficking network purchasing influence at the highest levels of government would constitute a threat to the public health and safety. The problem is, can you prove that government officials were colluding in this or seeking to cover it up?”

  “Jason Lerner is a senior White House adviser,” Keller says.

  “But he wasn’t at the time of the offenses you allege,” Crosby says. “So that might incriminate him and still not exonerate you. Do you have anything else?”

  He tells her about his conversations with O’Brien asking him to quash the investigation, omitting references to the Guatemala raid.

  “That’s somewhat helpful,” Crosby says, “but not exculpatory. O’Brien is a powerful chairman of a relevant committee but not in direct authority over you.”

  “Denton Howard offered me my job to shut the investigation down.”

  “So what?” Crosby asks. “He was your subordinate.”

  “He said he was acting on behalf of the then president-elect,” Keller says.

  “Was this conversation recorded?”

  “Not by me.”

  “Then it’s your word against his,” Crosby says. “And we still have the same time frame problem. Even if Dennison did convey that offer, it’s not obstruction of justice because he had no statutory authority. Did the sitting attorney general at the time ever ask you to shut down the Lerner investigation?”

  “I didn’t bring it to her.”

  “That’s a problem,” Crosby says. “Why not?”

  Keller says, “I was in the middle of conducting not only an investigation, but an operation to bring down a major heroin-trafficking organization related to Towergate. I was concerned that any premature revelation to the AG’s office might jeopardize that operation, placing not only it, but certain undercover agents in danger. My own people were already leaking to Howard, and he was passing it on to O’Brien.”

  “So what are you engaging me to do,” Crosby asks, “defend you or help you incriminate Lerner?”

  “I guess both.”

  “And if there comes a point when those two interests conflict with each other?”

  “Would you allow a drug cartel to influence the government of the United States?” Keller asks.

  “If it meant defending my client, yes.”

  “Then at that point,” Keller says, “I’ll fire you.”

  “Just as long as we understand each other,” Crosby says. “You’re not talking to the media anymore. That’s what I do. I’m very good at it and you’re very bad at it. Now tell me everything.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  She looks at him like he’s an idiot. “The beginning?”

  He tells her everything.

  Except about Guatemala.

  Or the bridge.

  Sean Callan has been moved, moved again, and then moved again.

  Every time it’s the same routine. They throw a hood over his head, shackle him hand and foot and toss him into the back of a vehicle, sometimes into a plane. Where the Esparza brothers go, Callan goes. Then they shove him into a warehouse, a barn, a basement, and chain him to the wall.

  He gets minimal food—some tortillas, rice and beans, a bowl of pozole. Every few days they unchain him and spray him with a garden hose, maybe give some used clothes because Iván complains that otherwise he stinks.

  Callan knows he smells. He hasn’t brushed his teeth in weeks, his hair and beard are long and matted, he looks like a psychotic homeless man. Psychotic is about right; he knows he’s losing his mind. Hour after hour of sitting against a wall—nothing to look at, nothing to read, no one to talk to.

  The only exception was when Iván came to tell him a joke. “What’s the difference between Jesus Christ, herpes, and Elena Sánchez? No? Elena Sánchez won’t ever come back.”

  Callan loses track of hours, of days and nights, if someone asked him how long he’s been a prisoner, he couldn’t say. Weeks, months? He doesn’t think it’s been a year.

  He misses Nora, wonders how she is, hopes she and the little girl are all right, that she’s not grieving for him.

  With nowhere else to go, his mind wanders to the past.

  He was seventeen when he killed his first man.

  Eddie “the Butcher” Friel, in the Liffey Pub back in New York, in Hell’s Kitchen. Shot him in the face with a .22, gave the pistol to the Hudson.

  Then it was Larry Moretti.

  After that he went to work for the Cimino family, and Johnny Boy Cozzo gave him the job of taking out the boss, Paulie Calabrese, Christmas of ’85. He had to leave the city after that, down to Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, all the garden spots where people needed people who could kill people.

  He lost count of how many.

  His soul was in a garbage heap until Father Juan pulled it out.

  Then they killed him, too.

  Adán did.

  Ordered it, anyway. Adán Barrera didn’t do his own killing, that’s what he had people like me for, Callan thinks.

  So now if I’m in hell, then I’m in hell and it’s what I deserve.

  He has no clue where he is the night they come in, unchain him and take him to a shower tacked to a corner wall. The water trickles, but it’s warm. Then they sit him down in a chair, shave him and give him a haircut, then toss a new pair of jeans, a denim shirt and a pair of sneakers at him.

  “Get dressed,” one of them says. “Iván doesn’t want you looking like a bum.”

  For what? Callan thinks. For the video when they shoot me?

  He gets dressed, they slip a hood over his head and put him in the back of a car. They drive for what he guesses is about two hours, then the car stops and they take the hood off.

  He knows where they are from the old days.

  The border crossing at Tecate.

  Two federales stand outside the van.

  “Get out.”

  “Am I going to get a bullet in the back?” Callan asks.

  “Not from us.”

  Callan gets out. The federales take him by the arms and walk him to the Border Patrol booth. Two men in plainclothes are waiting for him, and the federales hand him over.

  “Sean Callan?” one of them says. “FBI. You’re under arrest for suspicion of the murder of Paul Calabrese.”

  They turn him around and cuff him.

  Take him back to America.

  Crosby prepares Keller for his interview with the special counsel. They don’t work every day, but most days, and for several hours. He goes to her office at nine and leaves shortly after lunch.

  For the first few days, the media were camped out in front of the building, but when Keller continually declined to answer questions and Crosby gave them bland answers, they got bored and left.

  Typically, Keller takes the Metro in the morning, from Dupont Circle to Farragut North. Weather permitting, he prefers to walk home up Connecticut Avenue to clear his mind after the prep session. Occasionally he stops in at Kramer Books or Second Story, but more and more often someone recognizes him and wants to talk so he usually decides not to go.

  “Until we get an offer of immunity you take the Fifth,” Crosby says. “After that, we give them everything they want.”

  “Including the tapes?”

  “If they ask for them,” Crosby says. “They will, in an omnibus demand for something like ‘any and all materials in your possession relating to this matter.’ Then you have to give them the tapes.”

  “What if they suppress them?” Keller asks.

  “I don’t make Scorti for something like that,” Crosby says. “But I’ll seed the field.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s why you hired me,” she says. “I’ll go on the media and remind them of the possibility that you have materials such as recordings. Then if Scorti tries to suppress the tapes, he’ll be under enormous public pressure to release them.”

  It’s why I hired her, Keller thinks. It’s smart and sub
tle, and I wouldn’t have thought of it. And it shows she’s interested in bringing Lerner down. But he’s not convinced. Which is why he made copies and stored them beyond the reach of subpoena power. He notices that Crosby hasn’t asked him if he’s done that.

  They have a working lunch in the office and go over more details. No firm date has been set for the interview.

  Eddie’s going crazy in the San Diego lockup.

  Not metaphorically crazy, literally insane.

  He thought he could do solitary again easy based on his time in Florence, but now he realizes that the supermax didn’t build him up, it wore him down. The cell is twelve by six and the walls are starting to vibrate if he stares at them long enough, like they’re made out of water, a sheen of water over the sand when a wave finishes washing up.

  So that’s not good.

  He knows he shouldn’t stare at the walls but there’s nothing else to look at—no windows, no TV, not even a slot in the door where he could look out at the tier, and he knows that no matter how hard he stares at the walls they aren’t going to wash away.

  They’re driving him crazy in here and Eddie thinks it’s intentional, they’re softening him up for the negotiations. They slide in a tray of breakfast—if you can call it that—at 6:15 in the morning and then come back at 7:30 a.m. to inspect the cell.

  For what? It’s twelve by six; a decent NBA player couldn’t lie down in here. What do they think he’s going to hide in there, a tank? The Red Hot Chili Peppers? A hot tub full of strippers?

  The guards do counts at eight, ten thirty, and four, which Eddie figures is just their way of fucking with him some more. The problem Eddie is having is he’s having a hard time keeping track of which count is which. The other day he thought it was the four count and it was only the eight.

  The first few weeks he was religious about working out—push-ups, pull-ups, planks—because the Eme guys at V-Ville told him that was the key to keeping his spirit strong.