by Dean Ing
"The point, Guthrie."
"Point is, he thinks he knows Lane by another name and without the lip fuzz. Didn't remember what name - not even with a twenty to help jog his memory - but he said Lane's been in several times. But not recently. And not as Lane. So I showed him a hundred. Told him I'm keepin' it for him, for when he can give me a name and address without Lane knowing. Best this parts man could do was tell me he thinks Lane, whoever he is, is a Fresno guy. Couldn't say why; just his impression." Guthrie paused to swallow.
"Mr. Luna, I think we could be onto a sting."
Silences are not all the same. This one seemed a little more friendly. Finally Luna broke it. "My name was not always Pepe Luna. Men in our business - I do not need to explain, I hope." A faint sigh, as of a schoolmaster faced by a student who may be honestly at a loss to add two and two. "But I intend to discover who he is. You, Guthrie, need to know who he is as much as I do.
"Because if he is connected to a business rival, you may hope to disappear, even retire from this line of work one day. But if he is government, then whether or not we could be convicted, for the rest of our lives we are already marked men, wherever the government of los Estados Unidos reaches. And that means everywhere. Do you understand now, Guthrie, why you need me?"
Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Guthrie took a cut at it. "If he's a cop, he'll want to testify sooner or later. Maybe there are ways to get him not to."
A dazzle of white teeth in the shadows of the Lincoln. "Very good. And toward that end, I have assets far greater than yours. In fact, you are one of my assets. It would be a shame if my assets should become - scattered. At best, you would be alone. Whoever fired into Lane's apartment might be luckier with you. And I would not be pleased with you either."
"Hell, I know that, Mr. Luna. That's why I'm still on the job. I've been scouting around Fresno a little, something else may turn up, hard to say - "
"But you will continue to look, and to keep me informed, in our mutual interest," said Luna. "And do not change apartments."
"Sure, no problem. You know me, Mr. Luna - "
"Yes, I know you, Guthrie. And you know me." He raised his voice, not much, rattling off something to the snake twins in front, then lowered it again as the Lincoln turned left. "When you locate our missing man so that I can reach him, my thanks will be worth ten thousand dollars. Perhaps then you can buy some deodorant."
Ralph Guthrie was too relieved to have any irritation at this, babbling on about his intentions for the immediate future. When the Lincoln pulled up within sight of his Luv pickup, he could have wept with pleasure.
Guthrie stood trembling on Merced's broken pavement, lit a Winston, and watched that carload of trouble until it was out of sight, thinking, Ten large! Not much for Luna, but it'll do. And the fucker's right; if I skip, they'll all be looking for me.
Tasting the carrot, feeling the stick.
21
MAY 1994
Because Monday was a Memorial Day freebie, they actually got to see a movie after all.
Jan kept saying she should get back to Bakersfield, and Gary kept offering new reasons why she could wait until Tuesday morning: less traffic, another dip in the pool, more of his sparkling company. He loved that wistful quality in her statements about leaving, a hint that she didn't really want to, and it gave him a nice case of the pitty-pats just beneath that fading bruise on his sternum. It told him she did not want to outstay her welcome. Fat chance!
"Holy Mary, but I'm easy," she lamented Monday night after the film, having agreed to stay until the following morning.
Gary opened the Camaro's door for her, appreciating her legs as she tucked them inside. His melancholy was as bogus as hers: "Yeah. The responsibility must be crushing for you," he said, shutting the door, walking around to his side while she unlocked it for him.
When he was inside: "What responsibility?" Jan asked, mystified.
"Role model for the world's bimbos," he said, and cackled as she pounded his right shoulder. "All right, then, just the Catholic bimbos." A muted squeal of comic outrage, and another mock pounding. "The blondes? How about only the gorgeous, evil-bodied, blonde Catholics from Bakersfield?"
"You forgot the 'bimbo,'" she reminded him.
"Not as long as you're with me," he said, and she fell against him, laughing.
It was like that through their late martinis, and their later midnight swim, and somehow their lovemaking was more satisfying than ever precisely because it became more languid, accommodating, no longer so desperately athletic. Another good sign: not once did either of them mention what Gary now thought of as the "F" word: Freddie.
He fell asleep wondering if this was what it was like to be married, a little nonplussed to find he was not uncomfortable with the idea, Jan snuggled spoon-fashion against his backside. His last waking thought was faint astonishment that, for the first time since he was old enough to grasp a steering wheel, he hadn't the faintest idea who had just won the Indy and couldn't care less. If God and Janelle Betancourt were very good to him, maybe he'd feel the same way the morning after the Super Bowl.
Jan left after scrambling up a big breakfast of chorizo and eggs for them, what she called her Once-a-Month Cholesterol Decadence Special. Gary's morning at work became an anodyne against a feeling of loss. There wasn't room in the DEA offices that morning for both his love life and the CIA's Graham Forster.
In his late fifties, Forster was a few pounds shy of paunchy, sported a Phi Beta Kappa key and an Ivy League accent, his wing-tip oxfords burnished a deep oxblood, his mane of hair only a few shades whiter than
Gary's pool-bleached crew cut. Paul Visconti introduced the man to Gary and took part in the meeting, his casual elegance seeming almost grubby measured against Forster. The CIA analyst would have passed as a very senior attorney; Gary judged that he might be exactly that, among other things.
Forster began by saying he'd done his reading, which included Gary's report, a "two-oh-two." He made it clear that his presence on the West Coast implied some urgency at Langley and went on, with an apologetic smile toward Visconti, "For the record, I've satisfied myself that Mr. Landis's only connections with Langley have been contacts under the aegis of DEA. Just clearing the air, Mr. Visconti. In the past, that hasn't always been the case." Visconti nodded; in a serious breach of etiquette, the CIA had placed a few men in other agencies from time to time.
"The circumstances of this debriefing would be quite different if you were one of ours," Forster went on to Gary. "The fact is, this isn't a debriefing at all in the classic sense. It's time to share some information. If you have the context of our concern, it may help you to help us."
Visconti sighed. "Hell of a note, isn't it, when one federal agency must explain why it's willing to cooperate with another." Not a question; a complaint.
"A sign of the times," Forster agreed, unfazed, and turned toward Gary. "We are now concerned that someone else may have concluded what I at first surmised, that you are a Langley asset. That could account for the attempt on you, Mr. Landis."
Gary frowned. "I thought the Russians had pretty much pulled back from that sort of thing - what's the old Sov term, 'wet work'?"
A frosty smile and a nod. "Pretty much, as you say. But Ivan's military intelligence, alias the GRU, is still in business. I don't know whether they're involved here. It wouldn't surprise me either way. A very long time back, we began compiling an entire file cabinet that's now backed by an armload of floppies, on an operation so covert, so deadly, we could not be certain it exists." Pause; a deep breath. "Have either of you ever heard of the Spooker File?"
Assured that they hadn't, Forster spun them a tale that activated Gary's scalp hairs: the twenty-five-year series of deaths and disappearances, all agents of Western powers, chiefly on the West Coast; the consistent pattern of missing funds; the conspicuous rarity of young agents from Langley's list of suspected victims.
"Of more than twenty compromised assets in several agencies -
our British cousins, Israelis, French, Americans, and a few oddments - nearly all were old, experienced hands. In fact, only one or two were as young as you, Mr. Landis. The true total is probably higher because, as you will appreciate, an officially friendly nation hates to admit its less-friendly operations on our shores.
"The missing assets may, indeed, be taking their ease in Patagonia, or wherever. We don't think so. We believe most or all of these assets were terminated for their connections and, of course, for their spooker kits. It would help if you could repeat for me, in sequence, the events that provoked you to, um, exfiltrate."
Gary and Paul exchanged wry looks at this; the CIA seemed to have a nice, comfortable word for everything: "asset" for anything worthwhile, including human beings; "terminate" for murder; "exfiltrate" for a plain old panicky bugout. With Visconti's blessing, Gary spoke for a pocket recorder, detailing the note he'd received, its wording, the burst of muted gunfire that had made it all seem real and urgent, the doper stash of money he had taken along.
When he had finished, at Forster's request, he went over that harrowing moment when the slugs ripped through his window. "I remember switching off the lamp, getting up, taking a couple of steps. I was standing up when they shot at me."
"Shot at you. Isn't it possible that they intended to shoot near you? Not hit you, but provoke you into doing exactly what you did."
"I've thought about that," Gary admitted. "At first - well, hell, it's natural. I assumed the attempt was genuine. But I was walking diagonally across the room. My chair took a couple of rounds, and I figured my getting up made the shooter squeeze off a burst before he was ready. But maybe not." He turned to Paul as he repeated, "Maybe not. It could've been better shooting than I thought."
"That is the scenario we're entertaining," Forster said. "And, of course, a deliberate miss implies that they wanted some particular action from you. Let's assume that the same faction that sent that note also fired the weapon. Taken together, those actions should send an undercover man streaking for imagined safety, with whatever negotiables he had in his spooker."
"Interesting idea, Mr. Forster, but somehow I just never got around to putting such a bugout kit together." Gary's grin was openly dismissive.
"They couldn't know that. They may have known you carried fairly large sums in the course of your duties." Forster paused, inspected his flawless manicure. "You're relatively young," he said quietly. "Some people in our line of work - more than we'd like to admit - eventually do begin to take such precautions."
He spread his hands. "Paranoia reigns. It's a human failing, one of the temptations that cause agents to hold back, um, some of the valuables passing through their hands. Cash, refined drugs, gemstones. He who would travel fast, travels light."
"Too damn light in this case," Visconti snorted. "Gary had less than seven thousand dollars with him, and even that hadn't been squirreled away. It was pocket change to the people he was dealing with."
"La Familia," Forster supplied. "Don't forget, we're on that operation as well. Mr. Landis had passed samples of their drugs to one of our people for chemical workup. He did intersect us in the field, Mr.
Visconti. Now it seems that someone, a very professional, hostile, subtle someone, was surveilling those contacts. Probably he or she thought you would be a much greater prize - forgive me, but we're talking about the money - than you proved to be. Your contact, our man, has asked to be transferred." His gaze met Gary's. "And I am assured that he doesn't even know about the attempt on you.
"He knows - or says he knows - he's been surveilled off and on for some time. Hasn't been able to pin it down, but twice before, in fifteen years of service, he has had those feelings. We used to give little credence to such vague apprehensions. We don't anymore, certainly not with him. He was right both previous times."
"If he's right this time," Gary said, "it sure isn't La Familia. Even if they thought I carried a bag of diamonds, they have their own way of handling UC guys like us. It was like them to use a noise suppressor on an assault rifle against me, but the rest of it - nahh. And your guy would be pushing up daisies, too."
"Our conclusions exactly," Forster agreed. "You intersected an asset who was ours. You came under suspicion by some faction that, for decades, has functioned very effectively as a kind of invisible terminator."
"I saw the movie," Gary said with an attempt to lighten the moment. This old guy had become too goddamned disconcerting.
Forster, without cracking a smile or shifting his gaze: "I hope you live to see many more films, Mr.
Landis, and well you may; somebody out there doesn't like you, but you're evidently blessed with the devil's own luck. You were surveilled, perhaps since the first sample you passed over to us. The same hostile faction that surveilled you, and shot into your apartment, was waiting to take you when you tried to leave with your spooker."
Now Visconti grew restive. "We've checked out all of Gary's neighbors in Merced. No way."
"Not that way. As we all know, there are other ways. If that faction has no interest into how many pieces it shatters the law, several other ways come to mind. Phone taps, shotgun mikes, bugged vehicles, even laser resonators and motion sensors." Now the impeccable Forster turned to Gary. "How many times during your stay in Merced did you two talk on phones - land lines, cellular, whatever?"
"A few. Maybe four or five?" Gary looked to Visconti for confirmation; got it.
Visconti: "Our circuits are scrambled to TEMPEST standards, you know that."
Forster: "What does that matter if someone has bugged you and is, in effect, sitting by your side? On one or more occasions, I'll wager you called your supervisor by name, Mr. Landis. Someone was listening.
It doesn't take much more than a name to make up a warning note, if the reader of that note has inside knowledge," Forster said.
They covered other details. Gary scraped his memory bare to describe incidents in which he might have been a target of surveillance. Visconti then brought up the likelihood of media attention, since the Briant boy's remains in the mine shaft were of local interest.
Forster agreed that, with good liaison between law-enforcement bodies, at worst the hostile faction would consider "Charles Lane" as a deniable corpse hidden from media spotlights. "We accept that the youngster's fate - Lowery? - was simply death by misadventure, years before that shaft was used by our hostiles as a disposal site. For one thing, his hair was not taken. But the hostile faction will be aware that his body could be found only with, ah, yours," he smiled pleasantly at Gary. "Langley is very interested in the fact that your hair was taken, as well as that of the Frenchman, Genet."
"Uh-huh. You've found some more like that?" Visconti guessed aloud.
Forster looked quickly at the RAC. "I can't confirm that," he said, nodding nonetheless and raising four fingers, a silent and deniable way of saying, yes; four. "A hostile faction will have to suspect that M'sieur Genet's remains were also found, and all this will make them very cautious for a while. In any case, Mr.
Lane's trail seems to have ended. It would be quite unfortunate if you reappeared in that persona, Mr.
Landis. It could send that hostile faction scampering off permanently."
Now, for the first time, a hint of Forster's flinty resolve surfaced in his tone. "And that would leave a ragged tapestry of loose ends, all the way back to a Czech defector I met in my early days before someone terminated him. Rather admired the handsome rascal. We intend to wrap up this entire faction, gentlemen.
Until now, we've never even been able to prove it's out there."
"Um," Visconti said. "I'm not sure it's proven yet. Beyond reasonable doubt, I mean."
"I suppose not," Forster conceded with another of those smiles chipped from ice. "Yet we have the outline of a pattern, left by people who have taken pains to avoid patterns. You have stared them in the eye at close range, Mr. Landis, and you lived. You may be unique in the Western intelligence community."
"They ca
n pass as women," Gary said instantly. "Both Caucasian, one medium-blonde but dark complexion, maybe peroxided, a young woman. They're not women, though, unless they're on major steroids. Shit, not even then, I think."
Asked to relive the confrontation, Gary had to get past his anger before he managed, eyes shut, to recapture the moment. Both "women" had been of medium build, neither memorably large nor small. The one at the wheel had chestnut hair, shoulder-length and fairly wiry. "I felt it on my face when I leaned down to see her gas gauge," Gary said.
"That close," Forster murmured, with a touch of awe. "Well, I'm sure you know you'll be getting some VICAP questionnaires from the FBI, now that this is looking like a special kind of serial-murder operation."
Visconti: "I'm surprised the Bureau doesn't have someone here. This is definitely not like the old days."
"A lot of streamlining lately. Since Freeh took over as Director at the Bureau, you don't even hear words like 'Feeb' much at Langley anymore. You do hear words like 'cooperation.' I wonder how long it'll last," he added with a wry smile. "Anyway, VICAP doesn't get a whole lot of victims capable of answering questionnaires, Mr. Landis. They'll want every possible detail: how they behaved, what they wore, how they talked."
"The driver's voice; I tell you, that bothers me because it was just a woman's voice. A little butchy, maybe." Gary's eyes flew open. "Not like the young one, the blonde who nailed me with that hypo. Her voice was really soft - you know, breathy, the old Marilyn Monroe thing. A guy in drag. I didn't get a good look at her face. Let's face it, I was thinking about other things."
"Blonde, you said."
"Not too blonde but yeah, fairly short straight - hell!" He shook his head in disgust, a quick guilty glance at Visconti. "While they were waiting for that poison to take over, the young one said something else. 'It's in him,' something like that. In a different voice, Paul. No breathiness, male, not very mature, but not a boy, either. Goddammit, it was a guy!"