Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

11

Pendlebury’s visit to Washington had been scheduled to finalise the plans for the back-up support with which he was to be provided in Palm Beach, but what had been discovered on the separate videotapes gave extra point to the interview with Warburger and Bowler. Every night, since the New York opening reception of the exhibition and now, in Florida, the duplicate tape had been flown to Washington for both visual examination by recognition experts and a scan from a computer programmed with the physiognomic characteristics of every known Mafia associate on the files. Because of the speed at which it could be operated, it had been the computer which twice registered Robert Chambine. Upon re-examination, the visual experts had confirmed the identification.

The three men sat hunched forward in the viewing room, watching the latest film of Chambine touring the exhibition in Palm Beach, occasionally slowing the film to establish better any idea which occurred to them. Then they sat through the first film, as if it were important they recognised Chambine there as well.

It was Warburger who put up the room lights, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the one in front.

‘Right again,’ he said. There was a self-satisfaction in his voice.

‘We’ve run the tapes through until they’re almost frayed at the edges,’ said Bowler. ‘Chambine is the only face that so far has any connection. Surely it’s not going to be a one-man operation?’

‘Couldn’t be,’ said Pendlebury immediately. ‘The stamps aren’t heavy, certainly. But they are difficult to handle. One man couldn’t do it. It would take too long.’

‘Maybe he’s a spotter,’ assessed Bowler.

‘Or the man whom Terrilli has entrusted with organising the job,’ suggested Warburger.

The Deputy Director went back to the file. ‘Only a soldier,’ he read aloud.

‘Ambitious, you said,’ Pendlebury reminded him. ‘What about surveillance?’

‘Initially we’ve moved in a twelve-strong team, three women included. No one is to maintain observation on two consecutive days. We’ll change the whole shift before the weekend.’

Pendlebury nodded. ‘Any contact with Terrilli?’

‘Not that we’ve picked up so far.’

‘Telephone monitor?’

‘It’ll be in place by tonight. Then he’ll be sewn up tighter than a Thanksgiving Day turkey.’

‘Chambine has got to be the man,’ said Pendlebury, more to himself than the other men in the room. ‘It doesn’t check out any other way.’

‘It’s better than I ever expected,’ confessed Warburger.

‘What’s known?’ asked Pendlebury, who had not had the advantage of previously seeing either film.

‘Robert Chambine,’ recited Bowler, from the file before him, ‘soldier attached to the New York family, minor conviction for loan sharking, suspicion of homicidal assault in 1975, released through lack of evidence, happily married with two children, no known connection with Giuseppe Terrilli or any of the Florida people. Thought to be ambitious, as I said earlier.’

‘And not a stamp collector,’ said Pendlebury quietly.

‘We played back every video taken at the Waldorf Astoria,’ said Bowler. ‘We’ve only the sighting of him the night before the exhibition ended.’

‘Do I control the surveillance team on Chambine?’ asked Pendlebury.

Warburger nodded. ‘Pointless our trying to do it from here. It would lead to confusion. We’re assigning a total of fifty people, just for him alone. That enables you to shift-change every two days.’

‘What’s the rest?’ asked the dishevelled man.

Warburger stood up, went to a desk in the screening room and took up a clipboard.

‘Besides the people covering Chambine, we’re allocating you another one hundred men. In addition, there’ll be a communications section, answerable to you, plus three helicopters which we’re placing at Miami rather than at Palm Beach. Terrilli’s air division is installed there and he might have some intelligence set-up which could get suspicious of the sudden arrival of three helicopters, even though the company owning them has no traceable association with us.’

‘I don’t want an army like that on the island,’ Pendlebury warned the Director. ‘There’s no way it could go undetected.’

‘We accept that,’ said Bowler. ‘But at all times during the day and night I think we should have a moving group of maybe twenty to thirty people within five or ten minutes of the hotel.’

For several moments Pendlebury didn’t speak, considering the planning. Then he said, ‘Controlled by the communications unit?’

‘Right,’ said Warburger. ‘Who in turn would transmit whatever orders you gave. Give you instant mobility.’

‘Should work,’ said Pendlebury.

‘In addition to your immediate team, I’m moving thirty men to Miami and another thirty to Fort Pierce, for extra support should you need it.’

‘Lot of men,’ said Pendlebury reflectively.

‘The first time we met, I told you I meant this to work,’ said Warburger vehemently. ‘Now we know we’ve got him hooked, I’m even more goddamned determined.’

‘Where are we putting those not on shift?’

‘Howard Johnson hotels and Holiday Inns at Lantana, Lake Worth and Boynton Beach. Even off duty, they’ll be tuned to the communications division, so that they’re on instant call.’

‘What about the sea?’ asked Pendlebury. ‘There’s a lot of water to get lost in.’

‘We haven’t forgotten that,’ said Warburger. ‘We’ve got two cutters, each containing six men apparently on an extended fishing trip, moving in and out of Jupiter…’

The Director saw Pendlebury move to speak, but held up his hands, stopping him.

‘I know Terrilli has got a sea division and I know our guys are amateurs. I don’t see them bringing off any sea interception, if it becomes necessary. They are there as first defence. If it become obvious there’s need for sea expertise, we’ll call in the coastguards.’

‘We’ve put a lot of work into this,’ said Bowler.

‘I believe you,’ said Pendlebury.

‘So what have we overlooked?’ asked the Director.

Pendlebury considered the question, seeking the flaw. Then he said, ‘I can’t think of anything.’

Warburger smiled at the assessment. ‘There isn’t anything we haven’t thought of,’ he said.

‘And there’s been luck,’ said Pendlebury, careless of giving offence. ‘Chambine’s appearance after Terrilli’s was something we could never have expected. Or hoped for.’

‘Chambine is going to be the key,’ agreed Warburger.

‘How closely have you briefed those watching him?’

‘I personally instructed them,’ said Warburger.

‘How are things going with Senator Cosgrove?’ asked Bowler.

‘Good enough,’ said Pendlebury.

‘He’s not demanding too much involvement?’

‘Not yet,’ said Pendlebury. ‘But I kind of imagine he wants to be around when it happens.’

‘He won’t get in the way,’ promised Warburg again. ‘He’ll be present at the press conference, of course.’

‘Press conference?’ said Pendlebury.

‘I thought we’d stage one in Palm Beach after the arrests,’ said the Director. ‘Might even come down myself.’

Bowler saw Pendlebury wince. The man tried to disguise the expression by looking down and slightly moving his wrist, so that he could see his watch.

‘Anything more?’ asked Bowler.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Pendlebury. ‘I’d like to get back. And I don’t think there’s any point in my coming here again, not until after it’s all over.’

‘What about the Englishman?’ said Warburger, remembering Charlie suddenly.

‘Nothing,’ said Pendlebury. ‘It’s going fine.’

The Director leaned forward, to give emphasis to what he was going to say. ‘Now that the pattern is establishing itself, I think we have wasted a lot of time over that man.’

‘I don’t fully agree…’ started Pendlebury, but Warburger talked over him. ‘He creates an uncertainty. And I don’t like uncertainties. I went along with you this far, but I want you now to take a positive directive. At the slightest indication of any difficulty, you’re to have him removed.’

‘It would be a shame to frighten away Terrilli or his people,’ said Pendlebury.

‘And an even greater shame to lose them,’ argued the Director. ‘That damned man can do nothing but get in the way.’

As Warburger spoke, Charlie Muffin was emerging from the Senate Records Office not two miles from where the three F.B.I. men were in conference.

It had been easier than he had expected, but then Charlie was unused to the Freedom of Information Act or the efficiency of American library systems and computer records. Giuseppe Terrilli’s name had not been linked with organised crime since the Democratic administration’s investigations under Bobby Kennedy. And even then it had involved situations that existed much earlier. In 1958, a Giuseppe Terrilli was named as a link between crime in America and the gambling syndicates in Havana, before their expulsion by Fidel Castro. There was then a gap of four years, after which the name of Terrilli appeared again, this time in connection with the refusal of a gambling licence for one of the Las Vegas hotels later discovered to be wholly Mafia controlled. After that, nothing.

Not on Terrilli, at least. But by going back as far as he had, Charlie had come across another name and it had intrigued him as much as what he had learned about the Mafia associate.

It would never have shown up but for the excellent cross referencing available in the records office and only then because he had probed so deeply into the Bobby Kennedy investigation. Kelvin Cosgrove had never been involved in any Terrilli probe, but he had been associated with others and appeared to have established himself so highly that there had been speculation of his being appointed Attorney-General after Bobby Kennedy’s Californian assassination.

It could still be a coincidence, Charlie thought, waving down a passing taxi to take him to Dulles Airport. But increasingly he was disregarding the anomalies upon which he kept stumbling as coincidence.