O'Farrell's Law

NINE

PETTY DECREED a meeting in the open air, which he sometimes did, and which O’Farrell regarded as overly theatrical, like those movies about the CIA where people met each other without one acknowledging or looking directly at the other. The section head chose the Ellipse, at noon, but O’Farrell intentionally arrived early. He put his car in the garage on E Street, which meant he had to walk back past the National Theater and the Willard, where he and Jill had endured the embarrassment of that face-slapping row. Momentarily he considered the Round Robin again but almost at once dismissed it. Instead he cut around the block to the Washington Hotel, choosing the darkened ground-floor bar, not the open rooftop veranda overlooking the Treasury Building and the White House beyond. It was more discreet, anonymous; he certainly didn’t want to encounter Petty and Erickson taking an early cocktail themselves. He didn’t know if either of them drank; didn’t know anything at all about them. Just that they were the two from whom he took his orders. In the first year there had been three. Chris Wilmot had been an asthmatic jogger who’d died on a morning run down Capitol Hill. O’Farrell never knew why the man hadn’t been replaced.

He ordered a double gin and tonic, but poured in only half the tonic, briefly staring into the glass. Okay, so now he was drinking during the day. Not the day; the morning. Needed it, that’s all. Just one, to get his hands steady. He studied them as he reached forward for the glass; hardly a movement. He was fine. Just this one then. Wouldn’t become a habit. How could it? Other times he had an office to go to and accounts to balance. Nothing at all wrong in taking an occasional drink this early; quite pleasant in fact. Relaxing. That’s what he had to do, relax. Get rid of the sensation balled up in his gut, like he’d eaten too much heavy food he couldn’t shift, the feeling that had been there since the telephone call.

More movie theatrics. “There’s a need for us to meet.” No hello, no identification, no good-bye, no kiss-my-ass. O’Farrell openly sniggered at the nonsense of it. The barman was at the far end, near the kitchen door, reading the sports section of the Washington Post, and didn’t hear.

O’Farrell took a long pull at his drink. Tasted good; still only 11:20. Plenty of time to cross over to the park. To what? He made himself think. There was only one answer. Who would it be? And why? And how difficult? The method was always the most difficult; that’s what made him so good, the time and trouble he always took over the method. Never any embarrassment, never any comeback. It would be the sixth, he calculated, the same number now as his great-grandfather. Who’d retired after that. No, not quite. The man had stayed in office for another five or six years at least. But he’d never been forced into another confrontation. Six, O’Farrell thought again. All justified, every one of them. Crimes against the country, against the people; his country, his people. Verdicts had not been returned by a recognized court, that’s all; no question of what those verdicts would have been, if there had been an arraignment. Guilty every time. Unanimous; guilty as charged, on all counts.

Eleven-thirty, he saw. Still plenty of time. Some tonic left. He made a noise and the barman looked up, nodding to O’Farrell’s gesture.

The barman set the fresh glass in front of him and said. “Time to kill, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“Visiting?”

“Just looking around,” O’Farrell said, purposely vague. Never be positive, never look positive, in any casual encounter; always essential to be instantly forgotten at the moment of parting.

“Great city, Washington. Lot to see.”

A great capital for a great country, thought O’Farrell, the familiar reflection. “So I hear.”

“Where you from?”

“Nowhere special.”

The barman appeared unoffended by the evasion. He said, “Austin myself. Been here five years, though. Wouldn’t go back.”

“Never been to Texas,” O’Farrell lied, unwilling to get entangled in an exchange about landmarks or places they both might know. There was a benefit, from the conversation. It was meaningless, empty chitchat, but O’Farrell looked upon it as a test, mentally observing himself as he thought Petty and Erickson might observe him later. He was doing good, he assured himself. Hands as steady as a rock now, the lump in his stomach not so discomforting anymore.

“All the sights are very close to here,” offered the barman. “Smithsonian, Space Museum, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial …”

And the Museum of American History, thought O’Farrell. It was his favorite, a place of which he never tired; he’d hoped, a long time ago, that he might find some reference to his ancestor in Kansas but the archivist hadn’t found anything; perhaps he should try again. He said, “Thanks for the advice.”

“You feel like another?” The barman indicated O’Farrell’s empty glass.

Yes, he thought, at once. “Time to go,” he said.

“See you again, maybe?”

“Maybe,” said O’Farrell. He wouldn’t be able to use the place anymore, in case the man remembered.

The bar had been darker than he realized, and once outside he squinted against the sudden brightness, wishing he’d brought his dark glasses from the car. He hesitated, looking back toward the parking garage and then in the direction of the Ellipse, deciding there was insufficient time now, nearly five-to as it was. O’Farrell was lucky with the lights on Pennsylvania and again on the cross street but still had to hurry to get to the grassed area before the hour struck, which he wanted to do. Petty was a funny bastard and absolute punctuality was one of his fetishes.

He heard the chime from some unseen clock at the same time as he saw both of them on one of the benches opposite the Commerce Building, and thought, Damn! He wasn’t late—right on time—but it would have been better if he’d been waiting for them rather than the other way around.

They saw O’Farrell at the same time and rose to meet him, walking not straight toward him but off at a tangent into the path, so that he had to change direction slightly to fall into step.

“Sorry to have kept you,” he said at once.

“You weren’t late,” the section head assured him. “We were early.” Petty was using a pipe with a bowl that seemed out of proportion to its stem; the tobacco was sweet smelling, practically perfumed.

“It was a pleasant day to sit in the sun,” Erickson said.

O’Farrell still had his eyes screwed against the brightness and hoped he didn’t get a headache. He experienced a flicker of irritation. The three of them knew why they were there, so why pussyfoot around talking about the weather! He said. “What is it?”

“Difficult one,” Petty said. “Bad.”

Weren’t they all, O’Farrell thought. He scarcely felt any apprehension; no shake, no uncertainty. “What?”

“Drugs and guns, two-way traffic,” came in Erickson. “Cuba working to destabilize God knows what in Latin America.”

“Drugs!” O’Farrell said at once.

“Massive shipments,” said Petty. “That’s how Havana is raising the money.”

O’Farrell had the mental image of little Billy playing space games in the Chicago cafe. And then remembered something else. I think they ought to kill the bastards! Make it a capital offense and execute them; no appeal, no excuse, nothing. Dead! Jill’s outburst that day in Ellen’s kitchen: the dear, sweet, gentle Jill he didn’t believe capable of killing anything, not even a bug. He said, “There can’t be a federal agency in this city not connected in some way with drug interdiction.” It was not an obvious attempt at avoidance. The rules were very clear, very specific: he—and these two men walking either side of him—only became involved when every legal possibility had been considered and positively discarded.

“They would if they could,” Petty said. He stopped and the other two had to stop with him while he cupped his hand around his pipe bowl to relight it: briefly he was lost in a cloud of smoke. “It’s being done diplomatically,” he resumed. “After the initial delivery in Havana, it’s all moved through diplomatic channels. Nothing we can do to intercept or stop it.”

“Moved everywhere,” said Erickson. “Europe, then back to here, according to one source.”

“Who is?” O’Farrell demanded at once. Another clear and specific rule was that he was allowed access to everything—and everyone, if he deemed it necessary—connected with an operation, to assure himself personally of its validity. Increasingly over the years, he had come to regard what he’d initially considered a concession to his judgment to be instead a further way for the CIA to distance itself from the section.

“Supply pilot,” Petty said. “Got caught up in a storm. An AWAC zeroed in on him and some of our guys forced him to land in Florida.”

They came to a bench near a flowered area and Petty slumped onto it, bringing the other two down with him; the section leader’s self-consciousness about his size meant he sat with his head hanging forward, almost as if he were asleep.

“This is just the spot on July Fourth,” Erickson said. “Fantastic view of the fireworks. You ever been here on July Fourth?”

“Yes,” O’Farrell said. Ellen must have been around eleven, John a year younger. He wondered why they’d never brought the grandchildren; he’d have to suggest it to Jill. “Why’s he talking?”

Erickson snickered. “The plane was packed with almost half a ton of coke, ninety-two percent purity, that’s why he’s talking. He wants a deal.”

“He going to get it?” Letting the guilty escape justice in return for their informing on others was a fact of American jurisprudence with which O’Farrell could never fully become reconciled. It made it too easy for too many to escape. His hands were stretched in front of him. one on each leg; very calm, very controlled. They really could have been talking about the weather or the July Fourth fireworks.

“It’s a Customs bust, not our responsibility,” said Erickson.

What, precisely, was their responsibility? O’Farrell wondered. He couldn’t imagine it ever having been defined, within parameters. Well, maybe somewhere, buried in some atom-bomb shelter and embargoed against publication for the next million years. “Which means the bastard might!”

The moment O’Farrell had spoken, he snapped his mouth shut, as if he were trying to bite the remark back, abruptly conscious of both men frowning sideways at him.

Petty said, “You got any personal feelings about this?”

Nothing is personal; never can be. If it becomes personal, withdraw and abort. The inviolable instructions. Always. O’Farrell said, “Of course not! How could I?”

“You seemed to be expressing a point of view,” Petty pressed.

“Isn’t a person allowed a point of view about drugs?”

“We comply, we don’t opinionate,” Erickson said.

The logic, like the word choice, was screwed, O’Farrell thought. How could they do what they had to do—but much more importantly, how could he do what he was required to do—without coming to any opinion. It was the same as concluding a judgment, wasn’t it?

“Just as long as it isn’t a problem,” Petty said, almost glibly.

“The courier isn’t who we’re talking about,” Erickson added.

“Who then?” O’Farrell was glad to escape the pressure. Still no shake, though; no problem. He felt the twinge of a headache. Not the booze; goddamned sun, blazing in his face like this.

“The ambassador in London. Guy named Rivera. Glossy son of a bitch.” Petty began to cough and tapped the pipe out against the edge of the bench. “Doctor says I shouldn’t do this.”

The dottle made a breeze-blown, scattered mess and it didn’t smell perfumed anymore. O’Farrell found it easy to understand why pipe smoking was banned in practically every public place: it was a filthy, antisocial habit. He said, “What about the arms supplier?”

“The FBI can get him,” Erickson said. “They’re setting up a scam to get him within American jurisdiction. Then … snap!” The man slapped his hands together sharply, a strangely demonstrative gesture, and O’Farrell jumped, surprised. He wished he hadn’t.

“London’s the target then?” He looked from one man to the other. Neither spoke. Petty gave the briefest of affirmative nods. Arguably deniable, if the shit hit the fan, thought O’Farrell. “There’s a file?”

“Of course,” Petty said.

“What’s the time frame?”

“Linked to a move against die supplier,” Erickson said.

“I need to be sure.”

“The usual understanding,” Petty agreed at once.

First one, then the other, recognized O’Farrell. Like a vaudeville act. Except that this wasn’t the sort of act to raise a laugh. Deniable again. Brought before any subsequent inquiry, each, quite honestly and without the risk of perjury, could deny a chain of command or instruction. I may have said this, but I categorically deny saying that. No, sir, I cannot imagine how the impression could have been conveyed for this man to believe he was operating under any sort of official instruction. Yes sir, I agree that such an impression is impossible. Yes sir, I agree that the concept of taking the life of another without that person having been found guilty by a properly appointed court of law is inconceivable. No sir, I did not at any time.… Was that another fear, O’Farrell wondered urgently, that he was so completely exposed, without being guaranteed—no, not even guaranteed—without any official backing in what he unofficially did for his country? Close, he thought; not a complete explanation but coming close. He said, “If the arms dealer is caught, then surely the ambassador, Rivera, will be publicly implicated?” Again it was not an obvious attempt at avoidance; rather the question of a professional properly examining what he was being called upon to do, examining all the angles, all the pitfalls.

“Of course,” Petty said, glib again. “But so what! There can be a denial from Havana. He’ll invoke diplomatic immunity. And go on trafficking.”

“So what about the coincidence of something happening to Rivera at the same time as the arms dealer is busted?” O’Farrell persisted.

“Examples—and benefits—to everyone!” Erickson said, embarking again on their vaudeville act.

“All the innocents, on the outside, imagine some sort of feud between the two,” Petty began.

“… thieves falling out,” said the other man.

“… Cuba privately gets the warning it deserves,” mouthed the section chief.

“… and so do all the other arms suppliers, against becoming involved again.”

“… all the angles covered …”

“… all the holes blocked …”

“… discreet …”

“… effective …”

Petty smiled, the star of the show, confident of another consummate display. “How we always like to be,” he said in conclusion. “Discreetly effective.”

It was a virtuoso performance, O’Farrell conceded. He wished he were able to admire it more. “Anyone else involved?”

“Peripheral people … shippers, stuff like that,” said Erickson. “They’ll get the same private message.”

“England is pretty efficiently policed,” O’Farrell pointed out. More than any other country in which he had so far operated, he acknowledged to himself for the first time.

“We accept that,” Petty said, rising up on the verbal seesaw again.

“Usual understanding,” Erickson descended.

“… Yours is always the right …”

“… to refuse …”

Now! thought O’Farrell. Now was the moment, the agreed-upon, accepted moment, when he was allowed to decline. Before he became irrevocably committed by that one further step, going forward to access the topmost classified files, after which there was no retreat, no escape. Easily done, supposedly. No requirement for an explanation or reason. He’d immediately come under suspicious scrutiny, he guessed; practically tantamount to resigning. Wasn’t that precisely what he wanted, to resign! Just continue with a recognized official job? The halt came with the continuing thought: a recognized official job with a recognized official salary, to which his pension would be linked. Couldn’t afford that now, not while he was helping Ellen and John. Blood money, he thought; bounty hunter. He said, “I’d like to interview the pilot first.”

The men on either side smiled, and Petty nodded at the acceptance. The section chief said, “It’s a very necessary operation.”

They wouldn’t be sitting here in the blinding sunlight if it hadn’t already been judged that, O’Farrell thought, irritably; so why the apparent justification? “Where is all the documentation?”

“At the Lafayette office,” said Erickson.

“I’ll look that over afterward.”

“The pilot is being held in Tallahassee; name’s Rodgers, Paul Rodgers.”

“Be careful,” Erickson said.

O’Farrell turned to look directly at the man, genuinely astonished.

Erickson appeared embarrassed, too. He lifted and dropped his hands in a meaningless gesture and said, “It’s never easy,” which was neither an apology nor an improvement.

“Is there anything else?” O’Farrell asked curtly.

“In London … anywhere else you have to go … you’ll keep in touch through the embassy’s CIA channels,” Petty said.

Why did they keep on saying things that were routine! Careful, O’Farrell thought; it would be wrong to overreact and read into remarks significance that was not there. Routine or not, they had to be said. There could be no misunderstanding or mistake. “Of course,” he said.

“And we’ll pouch anything technical you need in the diplomatic bag,” Erickson said.

Just like Cuba pouched its cocaine, thought O’Farrell; things to kill with, one way or the other. He stood, looking down at the two seated men. “I wonder if it really will be taken as a warning?”

“That’s the message,” Petty said. “It’ll be heard, believe me.”

The two remained on the bench, watching O’Farrell walk back toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Well?” Petty asked.

Erickson made an uncertain rocking motion with his hand. “Okay, I think.”

“Symmons isn’t often wrong.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“There can’t ever be a first time.”

“Sorry,” Erickson apologized. “Figure of speech. Sorry about telling him to be careful, too. That was stupid of me.”

“Yes,” Petty said, unforgiving. “It was. Very stupid. Did you smell booze on his breath?”

“Before noon! You’ve got to be kidding!”

“That’s why I put the pipe out, to be sure.”

“Were you?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I didn’t get it myself; I would have expected to.”

“Yes,” Petty agreed. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”

“That final remark was interesting,” the deputy suggested.

“About being taken as a warning?”

Erickson nodded. “You think that indicated any doubt, about the validity of what he does?”

“It sometimes happens. I would have thought he was pretty straight about the morality, though.”

“There was a sharp reaction when he heard drugs were involved,” Erickson said. “His kids ever get mixed up with any shit?”

Unknown to O’Farrell—although suspected by him because it was obvious—everything in his background and family had been examined by the Agency. Petty shook his head. “Squeaky clean, both of them.”

“Maybe just a natural response to narcotics.”

“I think we should take precautions.” Petty decided.

“More than usual?” There was always surveillance.

Petty nodded. “Just to cover ourselves.”

“Probably wise,” Erickson concurred.

“You were right,” Petty announced.

“Right?”

“It’s a great day to sit in the sun.”

That night O’Farrell deliberately made three full martinis, which he drank unseen in the den, and he insisted upon opening the Napa Valley wine to drink with the steaks. Jill only had one glass and O’Farrell limited himself to two, wanting to prove to her—and to himself—that he could leave some in the bottle for another occasion.

He took her abruptly in bed, without any foreplay, and she was obviously startled and then responded, and it was good for both of them.

Afterward she said, “That was practically rape!”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say I minded.”

“I might have to go away for a while.”

“Where?”

“Something to check out down south first. Then Europe, possibly.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.” As quickly as possible, he thought. Get it over with.

“I’ve got some time coming,” said Jill. “I might go up to Chicago.”

“Why don’t you do that?”

“I’m glad that thing with drugs at Billy’s school was a false alarm.”

“So am I, if it really were a false alarm.”

“You want to know something?”

“What?”

“I’m so very happy and content. You happy?”

“Of course,” O’Farrell said. Dear God, how he wished that were true.

TEN

O’FARRELL REMEMBERED the first time very well. He could recall, vividly, every operation, of course, but the first most clearly of all. He had not been with the Agency then. Seconded to it from his special-duty unit in Vietnam, he had been on a deep penetration probe over the border into Cambodia, just himself and two other full-time CIA officers, checking a report that the village headman near Vinh Long was a primary intelligence source for North Vietnamese coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. And actually come upon the bastard huddled among his communist contacts, identifying American positions on a map on the ground between them.

It was O’Farrell’s introduction to the importance of forethought; his aptitude test, as well, for the job that the Agency would offer when he finished his army tour, although he was never to know it had been such a test. He’d actually moved, without the slightest sound, in the bamboo thicket from which they were watching, bringing up the M-16 to wipe out every one of the motherfuckers. And then felt the restraining hand upon his arm and looked up to see the CIA supervisor, Jerry Stone, shaking his head and then gesturing for them to pull back.

It had been the following day when he killed the headman, without any compunction. It was a war situation and people were killed in wars. And he knew, unquestionably, that the man was guilty. He’d carried out that execution in front of the man’s own villagers as a warning against cooperating with the enemy. And Stone had found the map in the man’s hooch, and they’d set up the ambushes at every U.S. emplacement they knew to be targeted by the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong and shot all sorts of shit out of them when they hit. The body count had been thirty-five. He’d been awarded a Bronze Star for distinguished service.

As a professional serving soldier, O’Farrell had never had any difficulty over Vietnam. He’d been proud to go—wanted to go—and serve his country. He saw it as a simple black-and-white conflict, the way his father had seen the war in Korea, freedom versus communism. It had been easier for him, he supposed, and easier still for his father, because they knew about communism, the way it should be known about. Personally. His mother had only been a child, little older than nine, he guessed, when she’d been smuggled out of Latvia, but she’d been able to recall what it had been like and tell him about it—every detail—when she’d felt he was old enough. She told him how Soviet soldiers had come into Klaipeda and raped her mother and how they would have raped her, although she was only a child, if the woman hadn’t refused to tell them her hiding place, in the chimney inglenook. How she’d crouched there, hearing it happen, and afterward heard her mother murdered in their anger at not being able to find a girl they knew to be there somewhere, even though they practically ripped the house apart. And the less personal stories. How anyone bravely stupid enough to oppose the Soviet annexation was either deported or slaughtered, all freedom crushed underfoot. Of the secret police and the all-too-eager informants and the forcible induction of all the able-bodied men into the Russian army, an induction from which her father had escaped only by taking her on an apparently suicidal rowboat voyage across the Baltic to Karlskrona.

The opposition to Vietnam that arose at home had bewildered him; still did. He had never been able to understand why the draft dodgers and the flag burners and the protesters couldn’t comprehend the reality. America’s mistake had not been fighting in Vietnam. It had been not fighting enough, making it a limited war that stopped at a dividing line instead of going right on up into Hanoi. If Johnson or Nixon had done that, hundreds, thousands, of lives would have been saved, just as thousands of lives were saved by what he did. Vietnam would now be unified and free. And the war would have ended years earlier than it had, and without that humiliating claptrap about peace with honor, which had been nothing of the sort, but rather America being ass-whipped by a bunch of peasants in lampshade hats and black pyjamas.

The FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign came on at the same time as the announcement and O’Farrell obeyed, gazing through the window at the flatness of Florida. Why the doubts then? Why the doubts and the need for a quick drink to steady himself and the constant self-examination? Intellectually—although he never conceded it emotionally—he had difficulty with the Hitler and Stalin and Amin analogy. But he sincerely believed, he told himself, that a lot of lives, and suffering and hardship and misery, had been saved by what he’d done. After all, he’d carried out his own investigation every time and studied every piece of information. And a lot of lives would be saved if he were satisfied with this and took out a diplomat abusing his privileges by trafficking in drugs and guns. It would be difficult, for Christ’s sake, to come up with any combination that caused more deaths and suffering and hardship and misery than drugs and guns.

You know what drugs are? he’d asked Billy.

And the answer: Stuff that makes you feel funny. Boom, boom and the Coke container was breached by the space invader. Easy, he told himself; don’t make it personal. He shouldn’t have reacted so vehemently in front of Petty and Erickson. Got away with it, though; still, not a mistake he should make again. Shouldn’t make any mistakes; couldn’t make any mistakes.

O’Farrell became conscious of the stewardess in the aisle and looked toward her. She was a milk-fed, apple-cheeked blonde and professionally pretty, like a doll; there had to be a factory somewhere producing five hundred such girls every week, already clad in the uniforms of the world’s airlines.

“I need your tray table up in the seat in front of you, and I need to take your glass,” she said. The teeth were capped and perfect, like everything else about her. He wondered if she were still a virgin and was surprised at the turn of thought.

O’Farrell restored the tiny table and handed her the glass; three but it had been a boring trip, although there had been time to think. And the gin hadn’t touched him at all. Sober as a judge. Wasn’t that what he was, a judge appointed to carry out a full and complete inquiry and to reach a verdict properly befitting the crime? No, he thought, in immediate contradiction. His responsibility was the sentence, not the verdict. The verdict had already been reached. Another contradiction. Returned. But still to be carried out.

O’Farrell was working professionally, which imposed many patterns. An important one was untraceable invisibility. So he disdained any thought of a hotel, cruising around the town until he located a motel on Apalachee Parkway and limiting his association with any staff to the single act of checking in.

He was at the detention building fifteen minutes ahead of the Washington-arranged interview. There was a bar opposite, and he knew he had time, but he entered the government building, pleased with his self-control. O’Farrell endured the expected affability of the local officer, agreeing that drugs were a bitch and the shortages of enforcement resources were a bitch and changing policies were a bitch and that the constant infighting between the various federal agencies was a bitch, but that this was a good bust and there was going to be a lot of promotional mileage out of it.

O’Farrell insisted on entering the interview room first so that Rodgers had to be the person coming to him. He didn’t stand when the man entered. When the escort asked if he should stay, O’Farrell barely shook his head so that the prisoner would see the contemptuous dismissal of the idea that Rodgers might be any sort of physical risk.

Because he was still on remand, Rodgers had been allowed to retain his own clothes, a cut-to-the-skin black shirt, open at the neck, and designer jeans that O’Farrell guessed had been additionally tailored, so perfectly did they fit. The loafers were Gucci. All the jewelry had been impounded, but there was a thin white ring marking the skin around the man’s sun-bronzed neck. There was also a wider band of white on his tanned wrist and the pinky finger of his left hand. Everything would have been gold, O’Farrell guessed; heavy gold. Rodgers was exercise lean, tightly curled hair close to his scalp.

“You my man?” Rodgers said, still at the door. The teeth were white and even, like the stewardess’s on the plane.

“Sit down!” O’Farrell ordered, gesturing to the seat on the other side of the table.

Rodgers did but reversed the chair to straddle it like he was astride a horse, arms crossed over the round of its back. Christ! thought O’Farrell. Then: Don’t get upset, personally involved. Then: Stuff that makes you feel funny. Just feet away—six or seven feet away—was one of the bastards providing shit to make kids feel funny.

“So, you my man?” Rodgers’s nails were perfectly manicured.

“Can you count?”

“What sort of question is that? ’Course I can count!”

O’Farrell splayed his right hand in front of the other man’s face and said, “So count,” opening and closing his fingers seven times. If the asshole wanted it played macho-man rules, it was all right by him.

“Thirty-five,” Rodgers said.

“Years,” O’Farrell added. “That’s the max: thirty-five years. I checked with the District Attorney. And that’s what they’re going for, the maximum, no parole, because you haven’t got a defense that Perry Mason would even consider. You’re thirty-three. I checked that, too. So you’re sixty-eight when you get out. You any idea how difficult it is to get any pussy when you’re sixty-eight?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Facts,” O’Farrell said. “I’m talking facts.”

“Haven’t they told you, for Christ’s sake?”

“Told me what?”

“I want to cooperate! Do a deal!”

“They told me.”

“So what …?” Rodgers faded away, confused.

“I want you to understand from the beginning,” O’Farrell said quietly. “You’re going to tell me everything true, no bullshit, no fucking around. True from the very word go. Because I’m going to check and double-check and if I find just one thing wrong—” O’Farrell narrowed his thumb against his forefinger, so there was practically no space between—”just that much wrong, I’m going to dump on you. I’m going to go back to the DA and I’m going to say that Paul Rodgers is a scumbag and I don’t deal with scumbags and you can throw the book at him. Sixty-eight years old and trying to get pussy … Just think of it.”

“Jesus!” the drug runner exclaimed, physically recoiling.

It had been overdone, O’Farrell conceded; theatrical, just like Petty and Erickson. “You understand?”

“ ’Course I understand!” Rodgers said. “You think I don’t know what I got to lose!”

The bombast and swagger had gone, O’Farrell thought; so it had been worthwhile. “Good. So what is it you’ve got to tell me?”

The smile came back, a sly expression. “Haven’t we got something to tell each other?”

Careful, thought O’Farrell. He said, “Like what?”

“Like the exchange. What I get for what you get.”

“You don’t listen, do you?” O’Farrell said. “I’m not offering you shit. You’re looking at thirty-five years, and you’re going to go on looking at thirty-five years until I’m convinced you’ve leveled with me. On everything.”

“This way I got nothing! I’m dependent on you all the way!”

“Don’t you forget it,” O’Farrell said. “Forget that for a moment and you’re screwed.”

“I dunno,” Rodgers said, shrugging and looking away. “I dunno this is such a good idea.”

Would he personally be off the hook if this bastard withdrew cooperation? Probably not; Petty talked of there being a file at Lafayette Square. He said, “So what other shot you think you’ve got?”

“I need a guarantee.”

“You need a miracle.”

The man’s lower lip was going back and forth between his teeth, like Ellen’s had, in Chicago. “I just didn’t expect it to be done this way, is all.”

O’Farrell exaggerated his sigh of impatience, moving as if to stand. “Okay, so you’ve nothing to tell me! I’ve wasted my time and that makes me mad, but you’re the guy digging the grave. Enjoy life in the slammer, jerk.”

He actually began to rise and Rodgers said, “No! Wait!” He made a lowering gesture with his hand. “Okay, we’ll talk—I’ll talk. Just don’t go.”

For several moments O’Farrell remained neither standing nor sitting, appearing unsure whether to agree. Then he sat and said, “Okay. So talk.”

Rodgers swallowed and looked away, assembling his thoughts. “Been doing it for quite a while,” the man began awkwardly. “Years. Had a good run. Because I was careful, see. Word got around. Made a reputation.”

“Flying from where?” O’Farrell asked.

“Colombia, always Colombia.” Rodgers extended his hand, palm cupped upward. “They got the trade like that. Bolivia and Peru might be bigger growers, but Colombia controls the trade.”

“In what?”

“Coke, man! Marijuana too. And pills. Methaqualone.”

O’Farrell thought the man spoke like a salesman, offering his wares. Stuff that makes you feel funny. He said. “Whereabouts in Colombia?”

“All over. I guess Medellin more than most.”

“And to where?”

“All over again, in the early years,” said Rodgers. “Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Mexico. Couple of times—three actually—I even flew into Florida. Too dangerous, though. Had to abandon the airplane every time because I couldn’t refuel.”

“Dates!” O’Farrell insisted at once. There would be an official record of abandoned aircraft.

“Dates?”

“The month and the year when you abandoned aircraft in Florida.”

Rodgers frowned with the difficulty of recall. “June … I think it was June … 1987. Then again in September that year. January eighty-eight. I’m sure about that, the nearest I came to getting busted—”

“What about later?”

“They came to me in eighty-eight,” Rodgers said. “February. I got a place on the beach just outside Fort Lauderdale. Guy comes there one day. Latin, prefers to speak Spanish. Very smooth. Says he had a proposition and I think it’s a setup, and I tell him to go to hell, that I’m a property developer and I don’t know what he’s talking about. He laughs at me, says he admires my caution. But not my business ability. Says that flying one way with cargo but back again empty is a wasted commercial opportunity, which I know it is, but what’s been the alternative? I still think he’s sucking me, so I go on playing wide-eyed and innocent. Then he asks if I’m curious how he found me, and I say I am, and he tells me it was on the personal recommendation of Fabio Ochoa—”

“Who is?” interrupted O’Farrell. He already knew but wanted Rodgers to tell him.

“One of the big guys in Colombia … and I’m talking big. An actual member of the Cartel. I’d flown for him a few times, out of Medellin,” Rodgers said. “But it still don’t mean a thing, right? It could still have been a come-on. So I say ho-hum, diddly-dee, admitting nothing. And then he knocks me sideways. Tells me his name is Cuadrado and he knows I am doing a run the next week for Ochoa—which I was—and that when I get into Medellin, Ochoa is going to meet me personally and tell me what a one-hundred-percent guy he, Cuadrado, is. Which is exactly what happens, and now it can’t be a setup with any of you guys, right?”

“What did Ochoa tell you?”

“That business was expanding. There was going to be a two-way traffic, drugs outward, weapons inward. And that the risk factor was going to be cut to nil because from now on there would only be one customer, Cuba. That it was all official, right up to Castro’s crotch in Havana, so there’d be no hassle. And that Cuadrado was in the government and I was to do everything he said.”

“You went to Cuba?”

“That collection from Ochoa was for Cuadrado,” said Rodgers. “The airstrip is at Matanzas and it is official. Government planes, government officials, all the right stuff. Cuadrado drives me into town and gives me a fat steak and a Havana cigar and sets out the whole deal. Says they’ve hit upon the perfect enterprise, giving the capitalists—he actually said that, the capitalists—what they want and with the money from the capitalists they’re going to give the oppressed in Latin America what they want, the way to gain their freedom. All bullshit—but what the hell, I’m making more money, so he can spout crap all he wants.…”

Freedom! thought O’Farrell. What did this oily son of a bitch know about freedom! Or those other sons of bitches in Havana! Freedom to them was maneuvering countries into becoming client states, dependent for arms or money or both, and then treating them like satellites. The Soviet Union had been doing that since 1917. He said, “We’re talking truth, agreed?”

Rodgers looked at him warily. “So what’s the matter?”

“Cuadrado is in the government?”

Rodgers smiled. “Works in their Export Ministry! Isn’t that a kicker!”

“And you’re a drug runner?”

The grin on Rodgers’s face faded. “So?”

“So what’s an official of the Ministry doing setting out the whole deal—your words—to the delivery boy?”

Rodgers’s face went tight at being dismissed as a delivery boy, but he cleared it quickly. “Ochoa guaranteed me. And Cuadrado has a personal problem.”

“Personal problem?”

Rodgers put an outstretched finger beneath his nose and inhaled noisily. “He got too fond of sampling his own supplies.”

“So he was high when he told you this?”

“At thirty-five thousand feet. Feeling no pain.”

There should be photographs of Cuadrado in CIA files, O’Farrell calculated. And the Agency should have sources in Havana to provide some background material as well. “So what else did he tell you?”

“That the scheme was foolproof. All the ordering—the drugs too, after delivery to Cuba—would travel as diplomatic cargo; get that!” Rodgers laughed.

“How did the weaponry come, loose or crated?” O’Farrell asked.

“Crated; nearly always crated.”

“That couldn’t be diplomatic cargo.”

“Sea,” Rodgers said at once. “Like the man said, it was perfect. The majority of the supplies came from Europe, by ship. Sometimes they were rerouted during the voyage. But always to somewhere safe, where there was no hassle.”

From the Cuban—the communist—point of view, it was perfect, O’Farrell conceded. “So that’s how it happened?”

“Smooth as silk,” Rodgers said.

“How many trips did you make, running guns?”

There was another frown, for recall. “Thirty,” the man said. “It has to be thirty at least; more I guess. I didn’t really count.”

The switch, from past to present tense and then back again, was all part of the finger-snapping, macho shit, thought O’Farrell. You my man? Black jive, in addition. Christ, what an asshole Rodgers was! Scum. Scum that got scoured out, cleaned away. Everything fumigated afterward. Stuff that makes you …

No. Wrong. And for more than one reason. He was trying to shrug off the responsibility for what he was now committed to do, shrug it off onto another offense, onto something vaguely involving his family and an innocent, gullible, long-lashed, round-cheeked little guy who played with plastic spacemen. Billy, the risk to Billy, couldn’t be his shield, his excuse. He’d made his own decision, in a brown-dirt village square with squawking chickens and crying, pleading villagers in front of two calm-eyed, calm-limbed CIA officers. Black and white: wrong and right. Like this was wrong. He said, “Where?”

A vague shrug. “Everywhere.”

“What do you mean, everywhere?” The voice almost too loud, too demanding.

“Just that, man.”

Man. O’Farrell said, “You got a bad memory? Forgotten what we talked about, maybe?”

“What the hell do you want?”

“Where! That’s what I want! Where!”

A shrug started, then stopped. “Colombia itself, a lot of times. There are guerrilla groups there, you know? FARC and M-19 …”

“I know,” O’Farrell said shortly. “Where else?”

The hesitation this time was not for recall, O’Farrell gauged. This time the fucker was running the other delivery places through in his mind, trying to calculate which would cause least offense.

“I did a run to Brazil, place near Porto Alegre.” Rodgers appeared proud of the choice; the evasion.

Brazil was a drug-producing country; it would have been small-time stuff, a few handguns to allow the local traffickers to strut their stuff, bang-bang you’re dead. “And?” Very quiet, like it didn’t really matter, but looking directly at Rodgers to show he wasn’t impressed by this bullshit.

“Mexico! Two or three to Mexico!”

Another producer. A border country, though, where there were frequent shoot-outs and investigating agents—Americans—had been blown away; blown away by weapons this shithead had flown in. “And?”

“Other places.”

“What other places!”

Another half shrug. Then, reluctantly: “Matagalpa.”

“What about Managua?”

A full shrug this time. “Okay, man! So what the fuck!”

“You supplied the Nicaraguan government!”

“I flew a plane down, I flew a plane back. I’m a delivery boy; you said that. Who the fuck knows who I supplied?”

“It’s a communist government; this country is supporting the rebels.”

“And in Chile it supports the government of Ugarte Pinochet, who makes Adolf Hitler look like a wimp! And in Uruguay it supported a Nazi who ran the fucking country! And in the Philippines we supported—for how many years, man?—a guy who peed his pants all the time he watched blue movies and a wife who had more pairs of shoes than the world’s got feet! Come on! We talking actuality here or we talking fairy tales!” Rodgers had to stop for breath. “Don’t give me philosophy, okay? I did Nam and I learned my philosophy: smart guys survive, dumb guys die. That’s all you gotta know. Aristotle and Plato? Forget ’em. Off the wall, all of them. Only one philosophy in life. Number one: número uno. Everyone else—all the governments, all the leaders—are out to fuck you, because you know what their philosophy is? Number one, that’s what. The smart guy’s philosophy of life. You do Nam?”

No, thought O’Farrell, I didn’t do Nam. I served in Vietnam, served three extended tours. He said, “I was there.”

“You ever know such shit?” Rodgers’s hands were out, palms again, an inviting gesture. “You ever know such shit in your life! I mean what the fuck were we there for?”

“A principle,” O’Farrell said, and wished he hadn’t.

“Principle! What fucking principle!” Rodgers erupted. “You know what the South Vietnamese were doing while our guys were getting blown up and killed or maimed or losing their minds because they couldn’t understand what the fuck they were there for? The South Vietnamese were cheating us and robbing us and laughing their balls off at us and having the greatest fucking time of their lives, that’s what they were doing! Same philosophy, Asian version. Número uno.”

“I believed—believe—it was important.”

“You wanna tell me the final score? Like, was it a win, or a loss, or a draw?”

Peace with honor, thought O’Farrell, remembering his reflections on the way to Florida. Not reflections; very much the sort of cynicism that this bastard was offering, but from a different side of the fence. He had lost control of the interview; he didn’t know, at that moment, how to continue it. Hurriedly he said, “Ochoa supplies the drugs?”

“Usually. The stuff I got caught with came from the Milona family, in Cartagena.”

“And the guns come from Europe?”

“That’s what Cuadrado told me,” Rodgers said. “And when we really got the thing under way, I several times saw crates brought from the port to Matanzas with Czech lettering.”

No proof, O’Farrell thought, in an abrupt flare of hope. He’d heard a fairly convincing story of a drug-and-gunrunning enterprise, but so far there was nothing tying in the Cuban ambassador to Britain. And without that proof, he didn’t have to proceed; wouldn’t proceed. He said, “What was the system? Where did the drugs go? Who got paid the money after the drug sale?”

“Europe,” Rodgers said at once. “America too. Everywhere.”

“A city. Give me a city,” O’Farrell said.

“London.” Rodgers said finally. “That’s what Cuadrado told me, that London controlled the European arms sellers who were reliable and who could get everything. He boasted their guy was in the government, too, just as he was. I tell you, Havana’s put a lot of thought into this.”

“Does London handle the drugs as well?”

Rodgers frowned doubtfully. “Never quite understood that,” he admitted. “I got the impression that wasn’t how it was done, but I don’t know.”

“What about the guy in London?” O’Farrell pressed. “What about a name?”

Rodgers shook his head. “No name, ever. Just that their man knew the business. Was highly respected.”

“Like you did,” O’Farrell said carelessly.

“Got unlucky, is all,” Rodgers said, equally careless.

Shithead, O’Farrell thought. He said, “You ever think about what you were doing; worry about it?”

“Why. the hell should I?” Rodgers came back. “I was making big bucks; free enterprise, the American way. You ever worry about what you do?”

As soon as he’d posed it O’Farrell had regretted the question, but he regretted the response even more. Yes, he thought; increasingly. Every day and every night I worry about what I do. “Cuadrado ever say anything more specific about the arms suppliers? Any names?”

The shoulders went up and down. “I told you already, they were using a lot of different suppliers. I never heard no names.”

“There must have been some lead about London,” O’Farrell insisted. “Some lead to who it was.” If Rodgers could provide it, then this was his moment of commitment, O’Farrell acknowledged; his stomach felt loose.

Opposite him Rodgers sat with his chin on his hands, leaning forward on the chair back. His brow was creased and O’Farrell wondered if he were trying for genuine recall or trying to invent something that might help him get the special treatment he was seeking. “Not really,” the man said emptily at last.

“What does ‘not really’ mean!”

“We were eating, time before last … we kinda got into the habit of going out together every time. Some guys are like that, they get a buzz out of hanging around sky jocks. I didn’t mind, what the hell—”

“What happened!”

“It was when Cuadrado was talking about electronic equipment,” Rodgers said. “Said it was going to be high-class stuff, the best. Fixed up by whoever was handling it in London. And then he says, ‘He’s a real hotshot but that don’t matter.’”

“‘A real hotshot but that don’t matter,’” O’Farrell echoed. “What’s that mean?”

“No idea,” Rodgers said. “Just thought it was a funny remark.”

Would a Cuban in his country’s export ministry consider an overseas ambassador a hotshot? Maybe. And then he remembered Petty’s description during that theatrical briefing in the Ellipse. Glossy son of a bitch. Similar, but still not a positive enough connection, not positive enough for him to carry out the sentence with which he had been entrusted. He said, “That all?”

“That’s all,” Rodgers said. “You satisfied?”

“Not by a long way. We’re going to need to meet again.”

“When?”

“What’s your hurry?” O’Farrell said, intentionally bullying. “You got all the time in the world.”

Before leaving the building, O’Farrell requested material he wanted from Washington and received the immediate assurance that it would be provided the following day. He ate, early and without interest, in the motel coffee shop, and afterwards went directly to his room. By coincidence a segment of “Sixty Minutes” was devoted to Nicaragua, with a lot of footage of American troop exercises in neighboring Honduras. Cut into the report was film of protests throughout America against the United States’s involvement. O’Farrell was curious: How many Americans were already in-country, “advisers” or “aid officials,” working with the Contras? There’d be quite a lot, he knew, despite congressional objections and protest marchers with banners.

After “Sixty Minutes” O’Farrell turned off the television, wishing he’d bought a book or a copy of the Miami Herald at least. He’d noticed a liquor store two blocks away on his return from the interview and determinedly driven past. It meant he hadn’t had even his customary martinis. It would be a five-minute walk, ten at the outside; not even necessary to cross the highway. Nothing wrong with a nightcap, hadn’t had anything all day. Well, just those on a plane on the flight down. Only three. Long time ago. Hardly counted. O’Farrell stretched out both arms before him, pleased at how little movement there was.

Determinedly—as determinedly as he’d driven past the liquor store—O’Farrell undressed and put out the light and lay in the darkness, sleepless but proud of himself. He didn’t need booze; just proved to himself that he didn’t need booze.

The file arrived the next day as promised. There was confirmation that a Rene Cuadrado held the post of junior minister in Cuba’s export ministry and a sparse biography putting his age around forty. He was believed to be married, with one child. He was said to live in Matanzas. There were three photographs. The file upon Fabio Ochoa was far more extensive and obtained mostly, O’Farrell guessed, from Drug Enforcement Administration sources. There were five photographs of the Colombian. O’Farrell chose the best picture of each man and intermingled them among fifteen other prints of unnamed, unconnected people shipped at his request in the overnight package. In addition to what had been sent down from Washington, local authorities confirmed the three abandoned aircraft landings Rodgers had talked about. So he’d told the truth there; but then he’d had no reason to lie.

Rodgers sat correctly on the chair this time, sifting through the photographs, laying out each print as he’d studied it as if he were dealing cards. He made a first-time, unequivocal identification of both Cuadrado and Ochoa.

“You sure?” O’Farrell persisted, nevertheless. That was what he had to be, sure; one-hundred-percent sure.

“You think I don’t know these guys!” He extended his hand, forefinger against that next to it. “We were that close!”

There was something he’d forgotten, O’Farrell realized. He said, “Just you? Or were there others?”

The question appeared to disconcert the other man. “There were others,” he conceded dismissively. “But I was the one.” The fingers came out again. “We were that close, believe me!”

So Rodgers’s seizure hadn’t stopped the traffic. Stuff that makes you feel funny. O’Farrell collected the photographs and said, “All right.”

“What now?” Rodgers smiled, knowing he’d done well.

“You wait some more,” O’Farrell said, slotting the prints into the delivery envelope.

“Hey man!” protested the smuggler. “I’ve cooperated, like you asked! How about a little feedback here! How long I gotta wait!”

Man. O’Farrell felt himself growing physically hot. “As long as it takes,” he said. Maybe longer, he thought.

Both encounters were recorded, on film as well as tape, and Petty and Erickson considered them, comparing them with the earlier transcripts of Customs and FBI interviews.

“I think he was too aggressive,” Erickson said. From his spot by the window he could see the protestors against something, but could not hear their chants to discover what it was.

“I don’t know.” Petty pointed to the film. “Look at Rodgers; pimp-rolling son of a bitch. He needed to be knocked off balance, and O’Farrell certainly did just that. And by doing so he got more than anyone else.”

“Anything particular strike you?” Erickson demanded pointedly, looking back into the room.

“‘You ever think about what you were doing, worry about it,’” quoted the section leader at once. “Of course I noticed it.”

“So?”

Instead of replying, Petty fast-forwarded the video, stabbing it to hold on a freeze-frame at the moment of O’Farrell’s question. Petty said, “There’s no facial expression to indicate it meant anything to O’Farrell himself.”

“It didn’t have a context,” Erickson said.

“It might have produced an angry reaction; got the bastard to say something he was holding back,” Petty suggested.

“I’ve got an uneasy feeling,” Erickson said.

“I’ve always got an uneasy feeling until an assignment is satisfactorily concluded,” said Petty.

ELEVEN

O’FARRELL COMPLETED the files in the Lafayette Square office by midmorning. To ensure his success in the argument with Petty he carefully went through everything again, intently studying the photographs as well as the case reports. A real hotshot, he thought; then, glossy son of a bitch. José Gaviria Rivera certainly appeared that. The photographs were not just the snatched, concealed-camera shots of the ambassador with Pierre Belac. There were some posed pictures, at official diplomatic functions—sometimes with his dark-haired, statuesque wife—and others taken at various polo functions, several showing the man with an equally statuesque but fine-featured woman whom the captions identified as Henrietta Blanchard. From the accompanying biography O’Farrell knew the diplomat to be fifty-two years old; the photographs showed a man who kept in shape, and who dressed in clothes designed to accentuate that fitness, like Rodgers. There was another similarity in the perfect evenness of the teeth. The ambassador seemed to smile a lot. Although the circumstances of his studying both men were different, and it was difficult for him to reach a conclusion without seeing how Rivera moved and behaved, O’Farrell did not get the impression that Rivera was flashy, like Rodgers was flashy. Glossy, certainly, but the gloss of someone accustomed to luxurious surroundings and fitting naturally into them. O’Farrell decided that although the word hardly seemed appropriate for a representative of Cuba, the man’s stance and his demeanor appeared aristocratic, the chin always lifted, the arm and the frozen gesture invariably languid.

The second examination finished, O’Farrell reassembled the file and restored it to the safe, thinking about what he was going to do. He was right, he told himself; he was un-arguably right. And they’d made the rules, not him. He was merely—but quite properly—obeying them. To the letter, maybe, but wasn’t that how rules should be obeyed, to the letter? Of course it was. His decision. Always his decision. Another rule. Theirs again, not his.

Petty would see him immediately, O’Farrell knew, but he held back from making the contact at once. Lunchtime, after all. And he’d finally brought the sepia photograph and the cuttings in from Alexandria and made appointments at the copiers recommended by the helpful archivist at the Library of Congress. The afternoon would be fine for seeing Petty. Not that O’Farrell was avoiding the confrontation. He was giving the evidence he had studied the proper consideration it deserved, not rushing anything. Was there a chance of his changing his mind? Unlikely, but there was nothing to lose by thinking everything through again. The sort of reflection they would expect, would want from him.

At the copy shop O’Farrell impressed upon the manager the importance of the cracked and flaking newspaper cuttings, and the man assured him that he would personally make the copies. The discussion took longer at the photographic studio. The restorer there offered to touch up the original, assuring O’Farrell that it would be undetectable, but O’Farrell refused, unwilling to have it tampered with. There was then a long conversation about the paper and finish of the copy. The man suggested the heaviest paper and a high-sheen reproduction, which was precisely what O’Farrell did not want. He listened to various other suggestions and finally chose the heaviest paper but a matte finish, which he thought most closely resembled the photograph taken all those years ago. Not the same but close.

O’Farrell completed everything with almost an hour to go before he was due to return to Lafayette Square. He found a bar on 16th Street, near the National Geographic Society building, a heavily paneled, dark place. It was crowded, but O’Farrell managed a slot at a stand-up shelf that ran around one wall. Because the jostle was so thick at the bar he’d ordered a double gin and tonic and wondered when he tasted it if the man had heard him, because it did not seem particularly strong.

Would he still be called upon to make a recommendation about Paul Rodgers, now that he had reached a decision about Rivera? O’Farrell supposed the man could give sufficient evidence before a grand jury to get an indictment against Rene Cuadrado. In practical terms that would not mean much, because of course Cuadrado would remain safe from arrest in Cuba, but the media coverage would expose the Havana government as drug traffickers and Congress or the White House might consider that useful. What happened before a grand jury wasn’t his concern, O’Farrell recognized. It was the district attorney who would have to decide what deal to offer Rodgers in return for his cooperation. So what was he going to say, if he were asked? Stuff that makes you feel funny, he thought. Fuck him. Fuck Rodgers and his shoulder swagger and finger-snapping jive talk. Coke mainly, of course. Marijuana too. And pills. Methaqualone. Just like a salesman, offering his wares. How many kids—how many people—had been destroyed by the shit brought in by the bastard? Impossible to calculate, over the period he’d boasted—yes, actually boasted!—of operating. So he could go to hell. Literally to the hell of a penitentiary and O’Farrell hoped it would be for thirty-five years, which was a figure he’d made up at the interviews, just wanting to frighten the man. Perhaps the sentence could be longer than that. O’Farrell hoped it was. Clear the scum off the streets for life. Hey, you my man? No, thought O’Farrell. I’m not your man. If I’m asked, I am going to be the guy who screws you.

O’Farrell went to the bar and ensured this time that the man knew he wanted a double, and not so much tonic this time. He supposed he should eat something but he didn’t feel hungry. He’d wait until dinner, maybe cook himself a big steak. If he were going to do that, then he’d have to stop off on the way home and get some wine. It was becoming ridiculous, constantly buying one bottle at a time. Why didn’t he get a case: French even, because French was supposed to be superior, wasn’t it? Ask the guy’s opinion and buy something decent and lay it out like you were supposed to in the cellar. Ask about that, too; get the right temperature and ask whether to stand it up or lay it on its side. All the pictures he’d ever seen had the wine lying in racks, on its side. Okay, why not buy a rack then? Nothing too big. Just enough for say a dozen bottles, maybe two dozen, so he wouldn’t have to keep stopping.

He’d tell Jill about it when he telephoned that evening. She’d seemed okay when he called last night, although she was worried that Ellen’s payments still hadn’t been straightened out. Ellen was being silly about Patrick, holding back from taking the bastard to court. He’d try to talk to Ellen about it this weekend, when he went up. make her see that it wasn’t just herself and how she felt—although he could not conceive her retaining any feeling for the guy—but that she had to consider Billy now. That Billy, in fact, was more important, far more important, than her own emotions.

Just time for one more, O’Farrell decided. The lunch-time crowd was thinning, and when O’Farrell reached me bar and got the drink, he decided to stay there. He hoped the copier wouldn’t screw up and damage the cuttings. The Library of Congress archivist had been very helpful, talking of special acid-free storage boxes that sealed hermetically, cutting down on the deterioration caused by exposure to air. O’Farrell wondered if he should get some. He didn’t have a lot of stuff, so one would probably do by itself; two at the outside. He decided to call the man again to ask about it. Maybe this afternoon. No, couldn’t do it this afternoon. Had something else to do this afternoon. Soon now; less than an hour. Time for…? No. Had to get back. Make his argument. No problem. Knew the file by heart.

O’Farrell was sure he could get a taxi, so he didn’t hurry over the third drink, but there weren’t any cabs cruising 16th Street when he left the bar. He moved impatiently from one foot to another on the curb, looking both ways along the street, then started to walk, which was a mistake, because when he glanced back he saw someone get a cab from where he had been standing. When he finally picked one up, his watch was showing only five minutes from the appointment time, and two cars had collided at the junction with L Street, so there was a further delay getting through.

He was twenty minutes late reaching Petty’s office. The section head was tight-lipped with irritation, and Erickson, from his window spot, looked pointedly at his watch when O’Farrell entered.

“Sorry,” O’Farrell said. “One car rear-ended another on L; caused a hell of a tie-up.”

“That’s all right,” Petty said.

From the man’s tone O’Farrell knew perfectly well that it was anything but all right. What the hell? he thought. He said, “I’ve read the file.”

“And?” Erickson said.

“I don’t think it’s sufficient,” O’Farrell declared bluntly. He felt empty-stomached and there was a dryness at the back of his throat; he was glad at the strength that appeared in his voice.

“What!” Erickson exclaimed, just ahead of Petty.

“I think it is too circumstantial,” O’Farrell said. “The requirement, surely, is that there is enough evidence to convince a court if a prosecution could be brought? Having talked to Rodgers and read all that’s been assembled, I am not satisfied a jury would return a verdict of guilty.” There was still no difficulty with his voice, no indication of his uncertainty.

“Now let’s just go through this again!” Petty leaned forward on his desk in his urgency. “We’ve got a drug smuggler testifying that Cuadrado told him about the use of diplomatic channels. We’ve got London positively named. And then we’ve got the Cuban ambassador to Britain provably associating with a known arms dealer. You call that circumstantial!”

“There is no direct link to Rivera, no definite identification, from anything Rodgers told me. Or from what Cuadrado told him,” O’Farrell insisted. “And there’s no proof that Rivera is obtaining arms from Pierre Belac.”

“You think it’s a social friendship, for Christ’s sake?” Erickson demanded.

“I think there’s insufficient proof, as I said. It might be different if we had separate testimony, from Belac.”

“He’s a professional arms dealer!” Petty said. “He’s not likely to volunteer anything even if we manage to bust him. And Commerce isn’t ready to make a case yet.”

“I’m sorry,” O’Farrell said, with what he hoped was finality.

“You got anything else to tell us?” Erickson challenged openly.

“Like what?” O’Farrell asked, avoiding an immediate response.

“You having problems beyond the evidence you’ve seen?” Petty asked.

“Justifying things to yourself?” Erickson suggested.

There were reverting to their pitter-patter style of debate, O’Farrell realized. He said, “Not at all. I am just following procedure.”

“I think there’s sufficient evidence,” Petty said.

“The assignment would not have been proposed if there weren’t,” agreed the deputy.

“I have to be sure personally,” O’Farrell insisted. “I’m not.”

“So you’re refusing?” Petty said.

“No!” said O’Farrell at once. “I’m seeking further evidence.”

“I don’t see how we can provide more than we have already,” Petty said.

“Then I’m sorry.” O’Farrell wondered who else would be assigned to the job. It didn’t matter; not his concern anymore.

“So am I,” Petty said heavily.

“Would you like to go through everything again? Reconsider?” Erickson offered.

O’Farrell shook his head. “I’ve studied everything. I don’t think I need to reconsider.”

“Without stronger evidence?” Petty asked pedantically.

“Without stronger evidence,” agreed O’Farrell.

Petty made a production of lighting his pipe, speaking from within a cloud of smoke. “Then we’ll have to get it, won’t we?”

O’Farrell had begun to relax, imagining he had maneuvered himself away from an assignment without either refusing or resigning. Abruptly—sinkingly—he realized he had not done anything of the sort. The operation wasn’t being abandoned or switched to someone else: it was simply being postponed.

José Rivera hesitated outside the Zurich bank, stretching. He’d picked up a cramp hunching over the statement of the working account he’d opened to handle the transactions with Belac. He’d done well, negotiating the interest-bearing facility. As well as he had done in outnegotiating Pierre Belac. Certainly the account would not remain at $60 million because Belac was due another $30-million installment for another shipload of weaponry on its way to Havana. But the account included the full $15 million Rivera had added to the price Havana was being charged, on the entire deal. He’d decided to leave it in the interest-bearing account for a few more weeks before transferring it to his private account. Rivera was glad he had taken the trouble to come to Zurich on his way to Brussels, awkward though the detour was: by putting all the money in a controlled withdrawal account he had obtained an extra half-point interest and at these sorts of levels that was a worthwhile increase. It was a good feeling, being a rich man.

On his way back to the airport, Rivera considered taking a further detour after the Brussels meeting, spending a day or two in Paris making preliminary inquiries among housing agents there. He had more than sufficient money and it made economic sense to buy at the current market prices rather than wait for some indeterminate period by which time the cost would undoubtedly have increased. Or should he go straight back to London, instead, and make the Paris trip later, perhaps bringing Henrietta with him? That might be an altogether better idea; make it more of a pleasure than a business trip.

There was no delay on the flight, and Rivera was in Brussels by midafternoon. Belac produced documentation showing that all the small arms and ammunition had been dispatched, along with half the missiles. He’d made preliminary approaches to Epetric, a Swedish company, about the VAX and intended confirming the order as soon as Rivera advanced the next allocation of funds necessary for a deposit.

“Thirty million?” suggested the ambassador, fresh from studying the Swiss accounts and sure of the amount.

“I know that’s what we discussed,” said Belac. “But as well as back settlement for what’s on its way to Havana, there are deposits for the VAX and a fourth ship to charter, to carry the tanks. I need fifty million to allow for the ten-percent withholding. Transferred direct to the anstalt, BHF Holdings.”

If he kept back the ten percent from the latest demand, he’d have five million gaining interest, Rivera calculated. He said, “I know the name well enough by now.”

So, of course, did Lars Henstrom, the Swedish informant within the Epetric contracts and finance department, when Belac placed the confirmed order two days later. Henstrom passed the information on at once, and within two days it was transmitted to both the U.S. Department of Commerce and Customs Service.

Under an American-Swiss treaty, Berne had agreed that the country’s traditional bank secrecy laws can be abrogated and accounts made available to investigators if Washington satisfactorily proves that such accounts are benefitting from the proceeds of drug trafficking. The CIA used the sworn statement of Paul Rodgers to seek access to BHF Holdings’ accounts, from which they learned of the multimillion-dollar transfer the day after a meeting they had observed in Brussels between Pierre Belac and Jose Rivera. They learned, however, about more than just the transfer. Against it was recorded the number of Rivera’s account in the Swiss Banking Corporation on Zurich’s Paradeplatz. The CIA made a further access request, and it was granted, giving them complete details of Rivera’s secret deposits.

Petty reached O’Farrell at the Alexandria house. “You wanted better proof,” the section head said. “We’ve got it. It’s time we talked again.”

Petty merely held down the lever to disconnect the call, keeping the receiver in his hand and dialing again immediately. Gus McCarthy, director of the Plans division, answered at once.

“We need to talk, just the two of us,” Petty said.