October's Ghost

CHAPTER TWENTY CONFERENCE CALL

There were five Bureau vehicles and six Miami PD cars in the convoy, which exited the Airport Expressway going south on Twelfth Avenue and slowed to a crawl just as it turned west on Twenty-third Street. Two of the marked police units had already dropped off, blocking Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth streets, and at this point the remaining Miami PD units moved quickly to the other four intersections that would effectively isolate Thirteenth Avenue between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth. Number 2744, an older single-family house, was located almost in the middle of that block, on the east side of the street. That address also graced the warrant held in the lead Bureau Suburban.

The first Bureau car to approach the house was an older bronze Volvo, chosen for the task because it looked so un-law enforcement-like. The two agents looked casually toward the house as they passed. Nothing looked out of the ordinary in the last-minute reconnaissance. “It’s clear,” the driver reported over the handheld radio.

With that the service of the search and arrest warrants began. The Volvo swung left at the end of the block and sealed off Thirteenth from that side, a block closer in than the marked unit. The five other vehicles, including four Chevy Suburbans carrying the FBI equivalent of a SWAT team, accelerated to the house and came to quick stops, two in the empty driveway, one on the lawn, and one in the street. The follow-up car blocked the end of the street opposite the Volvo just as the whop-whop of a helicopter came from the east.

“Go!” the team leader shouted over his hands-free radio. Twenty helmeted agents, clad in indigo jumpsuits and body armor, streamed from the vehicles and moved to their appointed areas of responsibility. As half of the team surrounded and secured the exterior of the house, staying low and covering every opening, the entry team moved as a single entity toward the front door. Two agents in the lead held a black steel battering ram, which they brought back as they neared their target. Upon reaching it, they swung forward, aiming for the lock side, and punched the wood-paneled door in with hardly any effort.

“Federal agents! Search warrant! Get down! Search warrant!” The scream was continuous as the first three agents entered behind the partial cover of a view-ported shield. They moved through the house, toward the back, followed by their seven colleagues, who secured each room, hallway, or closet as the penetration progressed.

“Freeze!” the leader of the point group yelled at the sight behind the door just kicked. His reaction was instinctive, yet what he saw caused him just the slightest pause. They didn’t often come upon this in a warrant service, and they certainly hadn’t expected it here. “Keep your hands in the open.”

Avaro had heard them come through the front door but had no time to react. The gun under his right leg could do nothing now. His hands, clad in fingerless black gloves, came up slowly so there would be no doubt as to his intentions.

Two of the agents from the follow-up team put their guns on the suspect from the doorway as the rest of the house was checked and secured. The team leader then stepped gingerly into the room, his MP-5 trained on the man. Proper procedure dictated that the suspect be instructed to “go prone,” but that was obviously not an option in this case.

“Do you have any weapons?”

Avaro’s eyes fell on the yellow “FBI” stencil on the agent’s chest. The idiot had to call from his house! Fucking fool! “Under my leg.”

The agents’ fingers placed the barest amount of pressure on the triggers of their submachine guns at the admission. One stupid move was all it would take.

But that move would not happen. The team leader sidestepped to the man and reached under his right leg. The bone in the atrophied limb was easily felt through the thin cotton pants. He eased the 9mm pistol from between the leg and the cushioned seat of the wheelchair and laid it on a table to the side. “Anything else?”

The barrel was a few inches from his face, and he looked through the sights in reverse to see the blue eyes of the FBI agent staring down the right way at him. The stupid, fucking fool! “No.”

“Baker King, this is Baker Leader, we have house secured and unknown male in custody.”

“On our way.” Agents Christopher Testra and Frederico Sanz got to the back room just as the house’s only occupant was being cuffed and Mirandized. That he was in a wheelchair surprised them, but only momentarily. What the rest of the room held was infinitely more interesting.

“Nice setup,” Testra commented. The compliment had a purpose beyond the commentary.

“Thanks,” Avaro replied.

Thanks… The voice sounded identical. Testra got a nod from his partner. “You’re welcome.”

“So your guys page you, leave a number of a phone booth, you call them there, and…”—Sanz gestured to the sophisticated communications setup on the table— “What, you use this to keep in touch with your boss?”

Testra visually examined the multiline cellular system spread across the table. Two phones, indoor antennae, a coax cable going out the window — to a roof antenna, no doubt. And… Hmm. You are a serious player. “An encryption package?”

“Well,” Sanz said in a very teacher-like fashion. “We are a very smart fella. Now why don’t you be even smarter and tell us your name and who you work for.”

Avaro stared stoically at his inquisitors. He would say nothing, and there was no way they could make him talk.

“Mum’s the word, eh?” Testra picked up one of the cell phones and dialed a number from memory. “You were right to think we couldn’t tap your cell calls, at least not without a whole lot more trouble.” He bent forward and smiled at the defiant face. “But that don’t matter now… Hello, this is Special Agent Christopher Testra, Miami FBI. Blue Rainbow Sunset.” The confirmation of the code phrase came from the phone company supervisor without pause. “I have a federal wiretap warrant, and I need the name of the registered user of this number and a list of all calls made from it for yesterday and today. I’ll wait.”

Their prisoner’s expression changed as the seconds of waiting dragged to minutes. “I ain’t done nothing, man.”

“We’ll see about that,” Sanz said. “My guess is that your fingerprints are all over this stuff. I didn’t see any ramps from your doors, so my guess is you’re pretty much a homebody.” A quick flash of anger resulted from the comment. “Which ties you to this place quite nicely. And we have you on tape talking to a very bad boy about some very naughty things. No, I figure you’ve done plenty.”

Testra scribbled a few things on his notepad before thanking the supervisor and hanging up. “Well”—he looked down at the name—“Avaro Alvarez. Pleased to meet you.”

Alvarez? Avaro Alvarez? “Did they have the call list?”

“Ten minutes, Freddy.” Testra caught the speculative tone of his partner, then the name clicked. He had worked too long on the Coseros case to forget the name of Alvarez. “Do you think his daddy knows what he’s doing?”

Sanz smiled. “We should know in about ten minutes.”

Some arrests required force. Others required guile.

“Hey, we got a gas leak.”

The booming voice from the porch startled Sam Garrity. His nose tested the air as he walked through the living room to the front door. There was no obvious rotten-egg smell, which had come to be associated with natural gas, though that was produced by an additive to the odorless gas. But smell or not, it was nothing to fool with. There had been problems in the neighborhood before with leaks in the underground lines. He didn’t need the added distraction on this day especially, but what was there to do?

“Where’s it this time?” Garrity asked the worker after opening the door. He was a stocky black guy, dressed in the blue jumpsuit that gas-company workers wore when the work got dirty—Great! Digging again—and carrying a probe that looked like a vintage metal detector less the sensor plate at the bottom.

“Not sure, but we got a pressure-drop warning,” the worker explained. “We’re checking all the streets and all the houses. It should take just a couple minutes. But if the sniffer detects anything, I’ll have to shut your meter off for a while.”

A “So what?” look flashed on Garrity’s face. “Who needs gas when you’ve got a microwave?”

The worker smiled, but not at the joke. “Sure, but cold showers ain’t no fun.”

“Yeah. Come on in.” Garrity stepped aside and let the worker pass through before pushing the door closed…

But it stopped against something, which his eyes identified as the foot of the worker just before he felt the touch of cold steel behind his left ear.

“FBI. If you move, you will be dead.” The agent tilted his head toward the microphone concealed under the jumpsuit. “Whiskey One. I’ve got him.”

In seconds there were two more agents in the front room. The trio put Garrity on his face, searched him, and cuffed him before lifting and setting him in a straight-back chair one agent had dragged in from the adjoining dining room. More agents, cops, and who-knew-who-else were arriving, and soon the street in front of Samuel Garrity’s modest Hyattsville home was impassable. One agent showed the stunned man the search and arrest warrants, reading the pertinent portions of both along with the requisite Miranda warning, then stepped out of the way as another man entered the living room.

“Hello, Sam,” Deputy Director, Intelligence, Greg Drummond said. “I hear you’ve been moonlighting.”

Garrity’s face, painted with surprise, followed the DDI as he strolled around the room like a disappointed parent who’d just caught his teenager in a lie. A very big lie.

“I’m just curious, Sam. Why?”

There was no answer, just an averting of the eyes.

“I see,” Drummond said knowingly. It was money. He had dealt with treason in many forms, and one thing that always stuck out when those motivated by ideology were caught was their willingness to slam the system they’d struck out at with their actions. Those motivated by greed had no such conviction that could “explain” their acts, even if they thought otherwise.

“Mr. Drummond, you should see this,” the supervising agent said, leaning through the doorway of a room down the hall that bisected the house. “We have some interesting stuff in here.”

Drummond saw Garrity’s eyes widen a bit as he looked to the agent speaking. “One minute. Well, Sam, how do we do this?”

“What do you mean, sir?” He added the “sir” out of habit, and subconsciously in the hope that it might bring some mercy.

“I mean that you can tell us everything—everything— and then we can see if anything can be worked out.”

The offer was thin, but then what else did he have? Everything they needed to hang him was in the room they were now pawing through. Garrity was far from a genius, but it took much less to realize that things were going to happen with or without his cooperation. He decided to get on the boat before it sailed without him. “All right. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

“Good.” The DDI turned to his Agency bodyguard. “Pick a room and get the stenographer in here. We have a story to hear.”

Mike Healy paused after the Agency’s Florida liaison to the INS finished recounting what he knew. Getting him to do even that had taken some strong words from the DDO. CIA officers were not prone to disobeying direct orders from a superior, in this case the DCI himself, but then disobeying a deputy director had about as much appeal to it. It was the choice of who was on the other end of the secure phone.

“You are absolutely certain of this?” Healy asked after processing the believably unbelievable.

“Positive, sir,” the officer affirmed. “I did just like the director ordered. When Portero came in for an interview, he gave me this big long story about a missile and said he had proof of some kind. I thought he was a bit loony at first, but his past checked out. Plus he knew things that only someone in a government position would know. So, I got all the pertinent information and passed his story to Director Merriweather, just as ordered.”

“Pertinent information?”

“Right. Name, address, phone.”

“Anything after that?”

“About a month later the director called me personally and told me to forget what Portero had told me. So I did.”

Healy was thinking ahead of himself, trying to add this new piece to the overall picture. “No notes, correct? No hard copy of any kind?”

“It never happened, sir,” the officer said: “Just like the director told me… I forgot. Until now, that is.”

“Forget it again,” the DDO directed. “This time on my order.” Click. “Anthony, what have you done?” he asked after hanging up. Whatever it was, he couldn’t use the officer he had just talked to to prove it. The Agency relationship with the INS was quasi-legal at best, but very necessary, which meant he could jeopardize neither the officer nor the ongoing operation. And that, in turn, left no way to use the information to hang his esteemed boss high and dry.

“There has to be a way,” Healy told himself, wishing that determination were enough to make his desire a reality.

Nick Beney caught his boss coming through the door. “That was fast.”

“You said hurry. What’s up?” Bud asked, setting his bottled water on the deputy NSA’s desk.

“More now than when I called you.” Calling anyone out of a meeting with the President took guts, precisely the reason Bud had chosen Beney as his deputy. “Greg Drummond is on a mobile and Director Jones is at Hoover, and Mike Healy just got in the queue. He’s at Langley. All urgent, to use their words.”

“Wonderful,” Bud said. Urgent had to mean something about Cuba, and a trio of calls from the integral players in the situation could hardly signal anything positive. Life wasn’t that fair. “Let’s not make anyone wait. Conference it, and I’ll pick up in my office.”

Bud walked behind his desk and twisted the window shades closed to cut the glare from the afternoon sun. He finished the water with a quick gulp and lifted the handset. “Hello, everybody.” He was answered by three return greetings. “First of all, nobody is on speaker, right?” None were. The speakerphone was too much of a security risk, allowing those within earshot to hear things that were never intended for their ears. “And this is a four-corner conversation here, so let’s keep the interruptions to a minimum. Gordy, do you want to start?”

“Sure.” The FBI director could be heard flipping pages on his end of the line. “Our Miami field office served search and arrest warrants on the occupant of a house who a wiretap indicated was receiving information from a CIA employee. Greg was in on the warrant service up in D.C.”

“This was the leak you were worried about?” Bud asked.

“Yeah,” Drummond answered. “What did you get, Gordy?”

“The person receiving the information was Avaro Alvarez, son of José-Ramon Alvarez.”

“The head of the CFS?” Bud asked.

“Exactly.” Jones confirmed. A barely audible “Jesus” came from the DDI’s end of the line. “Avaro Alvarez was also directing the actions of two men in Los Angeles who killed Francisco Portero and one of my agents.”

“Son of a bitch,” Drummond said clearly this time. He knew just about everything after talking to Garrity, but not that. “You’re sure? Directing them?”

“The tape does not lie,” Jones said. “And we should know more soon. I just got word a few minutes ago that one of the gunmen was captured alive by the L.A. office. But let me tell you the rest. Avaro also had a sophisticated communication scheme involving pagers and phone booths worked out. He used this with the men out west and with the CIA leak. His name’s Samuel Garrity. Anyway, Garrity broke security and used his home phone. That’s how we nailed them. But he also had an encrypted cell-phone system set up to keep in contact with his bosses.”

“Encrypted. Like a voice scrambler?”

“No, Bud. Beyond that. It was one end of a multi-user package. Any phone with the same coded package can decrypt the transmission and convert the signal to simple audio. Without the package all someone would hear is white noise. It’s a pretty fancy system for a user like Alvarez.”

“So the other end has to have the same equipment,” Bud said.

“Right. Actually the properly coded microchip,” Jones explained. “And guess who was at the other end? Avaro’s cell-phone records indicated calls exclusively to one number. That number is a cell phone registered to a company called Onotronics.”

“Wait,” Drummond interrupted. “Onotronics out of Fort Lauderdale?”

“I knew you’d recognize it,” Jones said. “A major manufacturer of secure communications systems. They even did work on WASHFAX and SECVOCOM. And the company is owned and operated by Gonzalo Parra.”

“Number two in CFS,” Drummond expanded.

“And the calls in the previous two days have all terminated at a cell node near Shelton College, on the Cape.”

“Dammit,” Bud said softly. Why them? There were plenty of legitimate Cuban-American groups longing for their nation to be free again. Bright, patriotic, honest people. And too quiet in this case. The CFS had made the most noise making a name for itself, and had garnered much of the attention that should have been directed elsewhere. It was little wonder the rebels chose to contact such a “high profile” group, and less surprising that Anthony Merriweather had anointed them as the chosen ones. His chosen ones.

“It’s all very incriminating,” Jones said. “But not direct enough to prove CFS involvement beyond Avaro Alvarez. From this there’s no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Parra or any other CFS official was at the receiving end of those calls. We have him cold on espionage and conspiracy to commit murder, but we can’t legally extrapolate that to his father or anyone else without more evidence.”

“I think I can give some of that,” Drummond said. There was a determined edge to his voice that came from the revelation that murder was side by side with treason in the CFS’s repertoire. “Garrity came clean. Completely. The leak I thought I had in my directorate was actually in the next office.”

“What?” Bud said, the suggestion hard for even him to comprehend. “You mean Anthony?”

“Yes, but he didn’t even know he was giving just about everything discussed in his office to Garrity, and by way of him to the CFS.”

“How?” Bud asked.

“Anthony’s incessant scribbling and note-taking.”

“But that all went into the burn bag,” Healy said. “I thought we discounted that”

“The notes, yes. But Garrity didn’t need those.” The DDI explained the janitor’s exploitation of the device to decipher indented writing.

“We use Deep Reader!” Jones said, making the same mental note as the DDI to see that more stringent security measures be implemented regarding note tablets.

“But how did this Garrity link up with the CFS?”

“Chance and availability, Bud. When Garrity decided to use his toy for some moneymaking, he just went to the top of the list. The CFS was the big topic of the moment for Anthony, and they were reachable. Not like some of the other parties in his notes. Garrity couldn’t very well just go up to the Chinese embassy, or wherever, and say, ‘Look what I can do for you.’ But he could easily slip away to Florida, like on a vacation, to make his pitch to Alvarez and his bunch.”

“The money,” Healy said.

“Yep,” Drummond said. His counterpart had made the connection. “Garrity was passing pilfered intel to the CFS, and they were selling it to any and all takers. A financial trace that S and T was running identified a long list of contributors to a CFS account in Bern. The Chinese, the Israelis, Russians — all through intermediaries. It goes on and on.”

“The Russians,” Bud said with a slight chuckle. “I guess it wasn’t just my convincing that got them to come on board.”

“You laid the groundwork, but catching Anthony’s thoughts on the modernization program might have been the convincer,” Drummond said.

“So there is no druggie connection between the CFS and Coseros,” Healy observed.

“Maybe in the future, but all Coseros has done so far is pay for information.”

“No wonder he could avoid indictment,” Jones commented.

“Right. Every time I went in to brief Anthony on a new surveillance of Coseros, the same information made its way to him through the CFS.”

“Wait a second,” Bud said. “A CIA leak was supplying Anthony’s notes to the CFS through Avaro Alvarez. They were then selling this information to Coseros and others to fill their coffers. Plus, the son of the CFS head was also directing the actions of two men who killed the man who had the tape of the Castro/Khrushchev conversation. My question is why the CFS would have any interest in Portero?”

“Because they knew about the missile,” Healy revealed.

“How?” Bud and Drummond asked simultaneously.

“I can’t tell you exactly how,” the DDO said, the word “can’t” obviously translatable to “won’t.” “But Anthony received word soon after Portero came over that he had a story about the missile, and some sort of proof. A month later the person who informed Anthony about this was told to develop amnesia about the entire affair.”

“And you cured that, correct?”

Healy didn’t respond right away. “Something like that.”

“Bud, we suspected from some of the wiretap transcripts that Anthony might have known, but we didn’t know how,” Drummond said. “Now we do.”

“So the CFS learned about Portero from Garrity.”

“And they must have contacted him,” the DDI finished the NSA’s thought.

“And believed him,” Bud added further. “And now we’re about to put a group of corrupt scum in charge of an entire country.”

“With a nuclear weapon,” Healy said.

“Not once we’re through with it.” The NSA’s words were like a wall of determination, impossible to breach. “That was obviously what they thought, but they can forget it.”

“Gordy, with what we have right now, who can we nail?” the DDI asked.

“Just who you have. That’s it.”

“But we can’t let those guys take power in Cuba! The rebellion is going to succeed, probably within twenty-four hours, from what the reports tell us.”

“Greg, it isn’t as easy as that,” Bud said. “These men have been given the tacit approval of the United States government to assume power in their country. By your boss, by the Congress, by the President. If we toy and prevent that without an absolute certainty of being able to prove their involvement in this, we will all be out of a job.”

“A fucking job, Bud?” Drummond practically yelled. “We’re talking about the leadership of a country!”

“Not the same one, Greg. I’m talking about our own. Possibly others,” Bud said. A strong American government sometimes meant a stronger government somewhere else — like Moscow. “If we arbitrarily stop Alvarez from assuming power and can’t justify it, the whole thing will point first at your boss, then at you and everyone at Langley, then at Jim Coventry for helping broker the arrangements, then at me for not knowing, then, my friend, the finger will point right at the President for approving the fiasco in the first place.”

“So, what, we just let things happen as planned?” Drummond said with mild sarcasm.

“No,” Bud countered. “But we have to do it right We have to be able to nail something criminal on them. If we can do that, we can stop this thing and deflect a good deal of the criticism that will follow in any case right on your boss, where it belongs.”

“The President will still feel the heat,” Healy said.

“He can handle it if he can show that he took immediate steps once evidence of illegal activities was discovered. Otherwise,” Bud went on, “nothing he does will matter. The press will crucify him. And so will everyone else, right or wrong.”

“We have to get Anthony out, too,” Healy said.

“Has he done anything other than make a bad decision?” Jones inquired.

“Legally, no,” Drummond answered. “He hasn’t violated any security rules either.”

“Greg!”

“Mike, what do we have?”

“So the CFS goes and Anthony stays?” Healy could be heard falling back in his chair.

“Now wait. Anthony is secondary right now.” Bud knew his observation, though right, would not find favor with the DDO. “We have to—”

A few rapid knocks at the NSA’s door preceded its opening. “Bud, there’s—”

“Nick,” Bud said, one hand covering the phone and his eyes asking what the interruption was for.

“Sorry, but there’s a call from an Agent Jefferson,” the deputy NSA said. “He said he couldn’t get through to the director. Then he got a hold of Ellis, and Ellis said you’d want this right away. Jefferson said to tell you he has another tape.”

“Another tape of what?”

Beney shrugged. “Your flashing line. Do you want it?”

Bud drew in a short breath. All the unknowns were coming together, and instead of making the situation clearer, they were complicating it. Now this, whatever “this” was. “I’ll take it.” Bud removed his hand from the mouthpiece. “The three of you hold on for a minute.” He put them on hold and pressed the flashing line. “This is DiContino.”

“Sir, Director Jones’s secretary would not put me through because he’s on a call,” Art explained.

“With me. What’s this about another tape?”

“Of Francisco Portero discussing the missile.”

“With who?”

“I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I know I’ve heard the voice before, at a speech.”

“Who, Jefferson?”

“I think it’s the director of Central Intelligence, Anthony Merriweather.”

A momentary void of silence greeted the FBI agent’s disclosure. “Discussing the missile?”

“Yes. It sounds like Portero recorded a phone conversation with Merriweather.”

Bud thought quickly. This might be what was needed to do what mere suspicion could not. “Any warning beeps?”

“None,” Art answered. In order for phone conversations to be legally recorded without a wiretap warrant, both parties had to be knowledgeable of and agree to its being done. In addition, a distinct beep had to sound every fifteen seconds as a reminder that the conversation was being recorded.

It was just a shot. Merriweather would never have allowed himself to be recorded talking to Portero. And a surreptitious recording without a warrant was blatantly inadmissible as evidence. But as evidence of what? Even this wasn’t illegal. Borderline improper and damned stupid without a doubt, but that wasn’t enough. Bud wanted Merriweather gone as much as Mike Healy. His remaining in the picture while the CFS was being accused — and telling all, no doubt, to bring down anyone else with them— would point to the President harboring the man responsible for their recruitment. He had to go, but how? Recordings or not, there wasn’t enough on him to force him out. Or on the CFS, Bud reminded himself. With all the technology and all the manpower they had at their disposal, time was the one obstacle he could not see them being able to surmount. Merriweather and the CFS had to be dealt with before the time came for the changing of the guard in Cuba, or not at all.

“I appreciate you letting me know, Jefferson, but you know as well as I that you’re describing an illegal recording.”

“I know, but…he’s the director of the CIA. Are you saying that he can just talk about a potential national-security issue over an open phone line, and no one is gonna care?”

“I don’t care if he’s God, Jefferson. We can’t use it, even if it is him and he’s discussing something he shouldn’t.” Bud knew that even this wasn’t beyond the bounds of legal, though it would certainly take Anthony down if it could be admitted as evidence in a case against one of the others. “If he had been warned he was being recorded, then that…” A thought occurred instantly, and Bud seized it before going on. “…that would have been different.” Very different.

“So this means nothing?” Art asked with irritation.

Bud didn’t notice the tone. The thought he had had a second before had become an idea, which was playing over and over in his mind. After a few seconds the idea became a plan, with both a beginning and an end. And with participants.

“Maybe not,” Bud said. He checked the time. It would have to happen fast, preferably before Delta’s operation was over. And it would have to be quiet. Beyond even hushed. Entirely because half of what he was envisioning was more unethical than anything Anthony had done. But Bud was willing to step over that line for this. In fact, he looked forward to it. For this the circle could not expand, meaning he would have to use people already in the loop to tighten it around the necks of two different men. “Jefferson, your partner knows about this, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hang on.” Bud gave the same direction to the other three still waiting and dialed the NMCC. “This is NSA DiContino. Give me the secretary.”

“Bud.”

“Drew, I need a fast plane for two in the Los Angeles area, pronto.”

“What? Bud, we’re kind of busy here,” Meyerson said. “Delta is on their way, the Russians have their ABM system on alert, and you’ve got us crossing wires like some telephone-switching crew.”

“Christ, Drew!” Bud drew back and cooled down. “Look, I don’t have time to explain. Not now. Please. Something fast that can get across the country.”

“Just a minute.” The minute was only thirty seconds, thanks to the ability of the National Military Command Center to almost instantly locate a piece of hardware any where on the globe. “All right. I’ve got a VC-Twenty-one at Los Alamitos. It’s CINCPAC’s plane. He’s on a visit, and he’s not gonna be happy with you taking it.”

“Thank you, Drew. I’ll call you back in a minute with a flight plan for it.” He brought Jefferson back up. “Okay, you and your partner get out to Los Alamitos, and fast. I don’t care how.”

“Sir, my partner was just involved in a—”

“I don’t give a damn what he was involved in, just—”

“She, sir,” Art said loudly. “Her name is Frankie Aguirre, and she just shot three bad guys dead. Okay?”

Bud knew he had to come down from the high his mind had put him in. “I’m sorry, Jefferson. But this is very, very important, and we can’t let anyone else in on it. You and your partner are already in, and what needs to be done is a nonevent.”

“I don’t follow.”

Bud explained it briefly. “Do you have a problem doing this?”

Art remembered what he had done to protect Bill Sturgess from a legal system that could not comprehend his anguish. Now he would have to lie again, actually just not tell, about a similar act, though this time a quite opposite goal was the motivation. “I can do it.”

“And your partner?”

“No problem.”

“Good. You’ll get more instructions in the air.” Bud went back to his conference call. “Sorry, but it was well worth the interruption.”

“What was it?” Jones asked.

“A couple of your agents in L.A. got a recording from Portero’s killers that has Anthony listening to Portero tell the story of the missile. Problem is, it’s an illegal recording.”

“Christ!” Healy swore. “Why are we tiptoeing around this? Legal, illegal. I know we have to follow basic principles, but Anthony is the highest intelligence officer in the land, and he’s fucked things up royally. God knows what his backdoor shit is going to cost us in the long run, and I mean lives, not dollars!”

“Mike…”

“Greg, he’s right,” Bud said. “Gordy, the agents who handled the wiretap — can we use them for something?”

“For what?”

Bud told him without attempting any justification of his plan. “I’m leaving out what follows.”

The director of the FBI wasn’t a rocket scientist, but then he didn’t have to be to take the NSA’s thought process to a conclusion. “You know that’s a crime.”

“I haven’t said anything,” Bud pointed out correctly. “The part your agents will play is completely legal. What comes next—”

“I’ll handle,” Greg Drummond said, jumping in. It was also clear to him, and it would be a pleasure.

“I suggest you do not know the rest, Gordy.”

Jones was a lifelong Bureau man, sworn to uphold the law. He had a particular dislike of those in government who used their positions to skirt the rules of society that John and Jane Q. Public were bound to follow. And he was a pragmatist above all else. He also could not forget that he had once run interference for a colleague who’d taken too much of a liking to the tables in Atlantic City while involved in an undercover operation. Looking the other way was infinitely easier than bearing false witness, but no less challenging for the soul. “I’ll inform the agents down South personally,” the director said, hanging up immediately.

“I can do this, Greg,” Bud offered.

“Right. With that missile still there and the Russians on the edge.”

He was right. Bud’s place was in D.C., with the man who would be making decisions, not running off to involve himself in something that he should be physically removed from. “You’ll have to face him down, Greg.”

“Bud, I’ve been in this town a long time. Longer than you, even. If there is one person out of all the shitheads that I am not afraid to tangle with, it’s Anthony Merriweather. I think I’ll even enjoy it.”

Bud wondered if any man could enjoy destroying another at the moment of its happening. He was also suddenly glad that it wasn’t going to be him doing it.

“If this all works, then we have a new problem,” the DDO pointed out. “Who is going to take the reins in Cuba?”

“I’ll talk to Jim,” Bud said. “He brokered the original agreement. Maybe he has some idea on this. And you, Mike, you need to get in touch with your man in Cuba.”

“I guess they will want to know there’s been a change.” Healy considered something for a second. “It might be good if Jim and I do the talking together.”

“Good idea.” Bud took another look at the time. “You better get a move on, Greg. We need you in position to coordinate.”

“On my way.”

Both CIA men hung up together. Bud kept the phone in his hand and rang the office of the chief of staff. “Ellis, listen. I need to see the Boss again.”

“You just left him.”

“Get him back to the Oval Office,” Bud mildly demanded.

Gonzales realized he shouldn’t argue, considering the way the “request” was delivered. “It’s done. Is this about Jefferson’s call?”

“What call?” Bud asked, his tone hinting at the answer he expected.

“Oh.”