Abuse of Power

8

The Beat Cafe seemed like an odd place for a meet.

It was located next to a strip club in North Beach, and Jack thought of it as really nothing more than a hamburger joint with a gimmick. Done up like an old 1950s coffeehouse, its walls were adorned with huge photographs of beatniks, now long forgotten.

Pay a small fee and you could walk through the restaurant to the back, climb a set of wooden steps, and find yourself in a tiny “museum” full of more photographs, newspaper articles, and even furniture, all centering around the prehippie Beat Generation.

The museum had a kind of quiet, reverential charm, but was the last place Jack would have picked to rendezvous with a source. If anything, he would have chosen the Etna Cafe, which was just around the corner. At least you could get a decent drink there.

He checked his watch, a vintage Hamilton Gilbert he’d inherited from his father that could well have been part of this museum.

It was nearly nine P.M.

He stood staring at a stark, moody portrait of an attractive blonde when he felt a presence next to him.

Bob Copeland.

“It’s always about the girl, isn’t it?” asked the rough, smoky voice. “Carolyn Cassady. She was the real driving force, you know. Married to Neal Cassady and sleeping with Jack Kerouac.”

Copeland was a stout man with a bulldog face who had always reminded Jack of one of his heroes, Winston Churchill. Without the accent, of course.

“That must’ve made for an interesting home life,” Jack said.

Copeland waved an arm. “All this nonsense destroyed Kerouac. He was a true American literary giant who despised the so-called Beat Movement that hacks like Ginsberg ruthlessly promoted.” He looked at Jack. “Did you know Kerouac voted for Nixon?”

“I had no idea.”

Copeland shrugged. “It’s all ancient history. Which is what we’ll both be a few years down the line. Think anyone’ll ever erect a museum in our honor?”

“Doubtful,” Jack said.

A former Defense Department official, Vietnam combat veteran, and a leading proponent of cyberdefense, Copeland was a member of a conservative think tank who divided his time between Washington and San Francisco-Jack’s most reliable “anonymous” source back in the days of Truth Tellers. He had a direct line into the D.C. nerve center and Jack had been all too happy to mine that connection.

The man also had a love affair with clandestine theatrics, which was why he always chose their meeting places. That usually meant the Museum of Modern Art, or the Academy of Sciences, but maybe Copeland was looking for a change of pace these days.

Jack couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t seen or heard from the man in over two years.

“You’re looking pretty good, Jack. How you been?”

“Can’t complain.”

Copeland chuckled. “The hell you can’t. You still getting death threats?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“At least you’ve still got the old self-confidence. That and a pocketful of cash is all a man really needs. Everything else is dead weight.” He shot Jack a glance. “Speaking of which, you see much of the ex these days?”

“Not really.”

Jack didn’t exactly think of Rachel as dead weight, but he had no interest in seeing her. Jack met her while doing a segment for one of his shows, The World of the Runway Model. She was tall, almost five foot nine, with raven hair and green eyes. After interviewing her for the program, he took her for a quick coffee at a local cafe in North Beach. She immediately struck him as more than just a body.

“What did you learn from your parents?” she asked him-out of nowhere, it seemed, but that was the way she was. Inquisitive in ways he never quite fathomed. And she was direct. There was nothing she would not ask.

They quickly became inseparable, joined in body and in mind. But they were also talkers, big-time, who hashed everything out-or talked it to death, whichever came first. In the end, they realized that neither of them was really listening to the other, two alphas competing for the same turf. At least he and Rachel had always had a wonderful time in bed, which is more than could be said for a lot of married couples. But they clashed just about everywhere else. After the divorce, he vowed never again to mistake an orgasm for a declaration of love.

“I hear she’s dating a tax attorney,” Copeland said. “That’s gotta be a helluva letdown after the turbulent world of Jack Hatfield.”

“What is this, Bob? This Is Your Life?”

“You’ve been underground for a while, my friend. I’m simply trying to get a feel for your state of mind.”

“I haven’t been under anything. Just making a living.”

“Pickup stories and character profiles for the local affiliates? Not exactly GNT, is it? Makes me wonder what you might do to get back into their good graces.”

As this was starting to sink in, Copeland moved to a glass display case that held a blue denim shirt. Reportedly Kerouac’s.

Jack stared at him. “Are you trying to tell me something, Bob? Or is this just your usual schtick?”

“Careful. I’m not the enemy, remember? I didn’t have to answer your call.”

“I know. So why did you?”

He raised a shoulder and let it drop. “Loyalty, I suppose. I’ve always felt bad about what Lawrence Soren and his hatchet squad did to you. You’re a man of integrity, and to see you attacked like that caused me considerable pain.”

“Yet you never bothered to call.”

Copeland smiled. “You know how it is in this business. Somebody slits your throat, everyone else is just trying to avoid the spray. It’s never anything personal.”

“Except to the guy who’s getting his throat slit. So how about you cut the small talk, Bob. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have information to share. Did you look into what we discussed?”

Copeland nodded. “I did, just as you asked, and I found out that you’re a tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic who has no idea what he’s talking about.”

“Of course,” Jack said. “And is that what you believe?”

Copeland eyed him sharply. “Come on, Jack, give me a little credit. Nobody spews that kind of venom unless they’ve got something to hide. Character assassination and misdirection are standard operating procedure these days. On both sides of the aisle.”

“So you’re saying this goes back to Washington?”

Copeland shook his head. “I’m saying no such thing, because I don’t know. If there’s anything more to that blast than what you learned from the press conference this morning, nobody’s talking about it. And about all I could get out of one low-level administration lackey were a few choice words that would make my foulmouthed friend Dick Cheney proud.”

Jack frowned. “So then why are you here, Bob? If that’s all you’ve got, why agree to this meet?”

“Because I like you, Jack. I’ve missed doing business with you, and I think you may be right about this thing. And if you are, you deserve fair warning that you’re about to swim upstream in dangerous waters.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“No. Just a general feeling based on the reception I got when I started asking around about this alleged Iranian.”

“Did anyone deny he was Iranian?”

Copeland shook his head.

“Who did you ask?”

Copeland sighed. “Come on, you know I can’t answer that. You need to tread lightly, my friend. You already drew attention to yourself at that press conference. You didn’t back down when that federal mouthpiece started in on you, and you kept asking questions when you didn’t like his answers.”

“That’s my job,” Jack said.

Copeland chuckled again. “Right. Which is how you got your name on another list. When someone starts acting like an actual reporter, the people I know tend to get nervous. They don’t like real questions, hardball questions. They like reporters who get with the program. And I don’t care what you’re looking to find out. You start poking at a hornet’s nest, you’re bound to piss somebody off.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Look, you’re giving me nothing but generalities. Help me out here. Who do I need to be looking at?”

“Anybody and everybody, would be my guess. Try throwing a rock and see who throws it back. But make sure you’re prepared to duck.”

“And what about you? You just gonna watch or-”

“Give me some credit, Jack,” Copeland said irritably. “I’ll keep digging, as discreetly as I can. I’m curious, too, but I’m not interested in a suicide mission.”

Jack nodded. “Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it.”

Copeland gestured to the portrait of Carolyn Cassady. “She was something, wasn’t she?”

Jack shrugged. “If you like the type.”

“Oh, I do. Hell, if I’d been around back then, I probably would’ve made a move on her myself.” He paused. “She wrote an autobiography, you know. I hear it’s pretty good.”

“Yeah?”

“I think Dark Nights still has a copy. You should grab it before somebody else does.” He gave Jack a curt nod, then walked to the stairs and turned. “It might just open your eyes.”

Then a moment later, he was gone.

Just Like Copeland to test a man, Jack thought.

Whenever someone’s actions puzzled Jack, he sought answers in the Bible. He had read and reread both Testaments, committing long passages to memory. And right now Job 18:2 came to mind, when Bildad said to his long-suffering friend: “When will you put an end to words? Reflect, and then we can have discussion.”

Jack grinned.

The roles were a good fit.

He would reflect, then they would talk.

The Dark Nights bookstore was a San Francisco landmark, located just down the street.

The young woman at the cash register had so many tattoos and piercings that Jack had to wonder what had motivated her to mark and mutilate herself. Some fashion statements are permanent, and chances were pretty good that one day this girl would be a sixty-year-old grandmother wondering what the hell she’d been thinking.

Then Jack realized he sounded just like his old man, complaining about “kids these days…” It was the natural progression of things, he supposed.

He found the book Copeland had recommended, paid for it, then nodded good night and went outside and across the street to the Etna, where he found a table in back and ordered a single malt.

When it came down to it, this place was the real Beat Cafe. Kerouac had spent many a night here, getting polluted with Neal Cassady and the woman they shared. Jack honestly couldn’t care less about these people, but Bob Copeland’s suggestion that he buy a copy of Carolyn’s autobiography had not been unmotivated.

So, as he waited for his drink, he opened the book-which she’d titled Off the Road — and carefully leafed through the fragile, yellowing pages, scanning them one at a time.

He got his first hit on page 94.

Halfway down, in an excerpt of a letter from Neal Cassady to Kerouac, a word had been neatly underlined in pencil: operation

Jack knew full well that this wasn’t some random marking, but was Copeland’s handiwork, the result of his love for cloak and dagger.

He found the next one on page 98, at the end of another excerpt: road

Then there was nothing for a few pages until he reached page 109, where the last word of the first paragraph was underlined: show

His drink came, and he let it sit as he continued on through the remaining pages, one after another, all 355 of them. There were no more pencil marks to be found.

When Jack was done, he quickly went through it again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Then he closed the book, knocked back his scotch, and felt its heat roll through him as he quietly contemplated Bob Copeland’s message.

Operation Roadshow.

Jack immediately thought of a PBS television series that Rachel used to watch, where people brought in ancient household items to be evaluated by antiques dealers, in hopes of striking it rich.

He was pretty sure that Copeland’s message had nothing at all to do with antiques.

Not even close.

But what, then, did it mean?

Jack spent most of the night trying to find out.

He got on his laptop back at the boat and hit Google and his usual go-to databases, checking news sources, public records, legislative filings, reference materials, freedom of information archives.

All he found was a single notation in the footnotes of an article about World War II, referencing a little-known intelligence operation called Roadshow, in which British spies attempted to infiltrate the German government and take it down from the inside. The operation had been a complete failure.

And so, apparently, was this search.

A couple hours before dawn, Jack looked down at Eddie, who was curled next to him on the bed. “What do you think, fuzzy? Are we being played?”

Eddie cocked an ear and tilted his head as if puzzled by the question, and Jack gave him a pat.

“My thoughts exactly.”

Abandoning his task, Jack closed his laptop and then his eyes. He quickly fell asleep.

Before long, Jack was launched into a dream about Iraqi insurgents trying to steal his Humvee, which had a cache of explosives in back. His dead friend Richard Riley made an appearance-eyes as blank as ever-and so did Agent Forsyth, both of them coming and going as the dream shifted and morphed into a Truth Tellers panel discussion about Islamic fundamentalists and Beat Generation poetry.

He awoke at six A.M. with Eddie’s usual face lick, and found the little guy wiggling around like crazy-which meant only one thing:

Tony Antiniori was in the vicinity.

Jack pulled on some clothes and found his friend topside, sitting at the dining table across from the galley, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the paper. Eddie immediately jumped into Tony’s lap and let him scratch his ears.

“You look like hell,” Tony said to Jack.

“Thanks, pal. You look rested.”

“I had a good workout.” He winked.

“Good thing I’m a gentleman or I’d ask for details.”

Jack rubbed his face, trying to wake himself, then moved to the galley and poured a cup of coffee. Black, no sugar.

“How did things go with Bob Copeland?” Tony asked.

Jack took a long sip of his coffee. “He’s an enigma. I wish for once in his life he’d get to the point instead of circling it. You ever heard of something called Operation Roadshow?”

Tony thought for a moment. “Not that I remember. What is it? Some kind of black op?”

“No idea. And I’m not even sure Copeland knows. But he went to a lot of trouble to put that phrase in my head, so I figure it must mean something.”

“I can check around.”

“Good luck. I tried, and all I found was some obscure World War II reference. Either this is something so far under the radar that it’s out of our reach, or Copeland is playing mind games.”

“Which do you think it is?”

“He may be annoying sometimes, but that’s not usually his style.”

“And you think this has something to do with the cover-up?” Tony asked.

“What I think is that all we’ve got is a hunch, based on speculation and hearsay, and unless we can get some solid information we’re just spinning our wheels.”

“So why not go to the source?” Tony asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Jamal Thomas or his brother. Ask flat out if they’re sure about who was driving that car and whatever else they might remember.”

Jack shook his head. “The brother’s not talking and the cops have Jamal on lockdown. I tried talking to his brother’s public defender a few days ago and got rebuffed. No way I’ll ever get to those kids.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” Tony said, then folded the newspaper over and slid it across the table. “The story’s buried on the second page, but I think you’ll find it interesting.”

Jack put his cup on the counter and crossed to the table, staring down at a single column, headlined CARJACKING SUSPECT TO BE RELEASED.

“Jamal’s bail was set at 200K,” Tony said. “His folks could barely afford the 25K they paid for Leon. His attorney filed a motion to reduce bail and the judge granted it.”

“How much?”

“He’ll be putting up ten percent with the bondsman, twenty thousand dollars. They’re taking him home at the close of business tonight.”

“Hold on,” Jack said. “If his folks-”

“There’s just a mother.”

“Okay. If she was tapped out by Leon’s bail, where’s the twenty grand coming from?”

Tony tapped the tabletop. “Read the article. Says the bond is being put up by an organization called the Juvenile Defense Coalition.”

“Never heard of it,” Jack said.

“Apparently they’re dedicated to keeping troubled teens out of jail because the poor things might actually have to take responsibility for their actions.”

Jack nodded. “Better to have them out on the street where they can sell dope to school kids and break into their neighbors’ houses, right?”

“Or steal cars from potential terrorists,” Tony said.

Jack shook his head in disgust. He had no problem with the juvenile justice system treating kids like kids, but there was a point where you had to draw the line. Sure, some of them came from broken homes and had grown up in terrible environments, but that didn’t really excuse the choices they made. And when it came down to it, the law-abiding citizens of this country were usually the victims of those choices.

Jack had come to believe that some people were just born bad. These kids knew damn well that what they were doing was wrong and couldn’t care less.

So why should anyone else?

Of course, in this case the actions of a bunch of misguided do-gooders might actually work in Jack’s favor. If the kid was due to be released, that meant access, and Jack might finally be able to talk to the punk.

Juvenile court records were routinely kept confidential in California, but Jack had managed to use a back-channel source to get a name and address, and he knew the kid lived with his brother and mother at the Sunnydale projects.

He had tried contacting the mother-Juanita Thomas-shortly after the blast, but her line was a constant busy signal, and he had assumed that he wasn’t the only one looking to do a bedside interview with her son. But now that the focus of the investigation was a bunch of militia wannabes, most of Jack’s colleagues would be centering their attention on the Constitutional Defense Brigade. Which meant, if he was lucky, he might just have the carjacker all to himself.

He looked at Tony. “You interested in a trip to Sunnydale tonight?”

Tony shook his head. “I’m headed to Camp Parks to run a training session. Gotta be up at dawn.”

“So what-you’re leaving me out in the cold?”

“I’d just slow you down anyway. I’m a doddering old man.”

Jack stifled a laugh. “A doddering old man who thinks two hundred knuckle pushups on a hardwood floor are just a warm-up every morning.”

“Sorry, Jack, but duty calls. Besides, if you’re heading into Sunnydale, what you really need is a negotiator. Somebody who knows the area and is a helluva lot easier on the eyes.”

Jack took a moment to process this. “Are you talking about who I think you are?”

Tony grinned. “As a matter of fact, I am.”