Personal injuries

CHAPTER 38

We met at the Hickory Stick Mall, one of those vast emporia where the immense parking lot, all but empty in the still darkness of 4:30 a.m., bore silent comment on the trivial appetites that would have this place swarming by midday. A large reader board for the multiplex, the only thing illuminated, against a ghostly sky tinctured with the first gray drops of early light, advertised a number of the films I hadn't yet seen. Last Action Hero. Jurassic Park. For the moment, I had no need for imaginary adventures.

As cover, we'd agreed to wear fishing attire, posing as a group of Center City yahoos trying to land a crappie or two before work. I'd borrowed a khaki vest with zippers and pockets from Billy, one of my sons. The surveillance van moved around the huge lot picking up each of us, our signal no more subtle than our parking lights.

Robbie and I were together on the north side of the mall. We'd had only a few moments to talk before the gray van came by. Robbie had been up all night with Rainey. Looking him over, I realized that Robbie Feaver had turned an important corner in his life in the last few weeks; he remained good-looking, but worry and sleeplessness and depression and poor diet had worn on him in a way likely to be permanent. They had stolen some of his glory. Yet he'd maintained the show-must-go-on spirit, and had done his best to look his part. He had on a snappy golf shirt, with a rich firestitch weave, and fancy golf spikes, wingtip style, with kelties over the laces.

I told him he could still say no to this.

"No I can't," he answered. "I always knew I was gonna get Brendan or die trying." The best news, he said, was that he'd be in the woods, so he wouldn't have to worry about taking a dump in his trousers.

In the van, I asked for a minute with Stan. As we stepped out, McManis handed each of us a pole. Neither Sennett nor I was much of an outdoorsman and McManis briefly called us back, warning us, completely deadpan, to watch out for the hooks. Stan and I stood out among the vacant painted stripes of the parking lot, a hundred yards from various expensive department stores, pretending to test the flex of the rods.

I told Stan that my client seemed fairly concerned he was about to be killed.

"Won't happen," said Sennett. "If I didn't think we could protect him, I wouldn't be going forward. Don't let him back out on me, George."

That wasn't the issue, I said. I just wanted Stan to assure Robbie that he'd virtually sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" every time he mentioned Feaver's name to the sentencing judge.

He did it, but Robbie didn't look much happier. In the van, we reviewed the scenario one more time and Alf readied the equipment. Odds said Milacki wouldn't frisk Bobbie again for fear that one more insult might drive him into the government's arms. Even so, with Robbie wearing neither boots nor a suit jacket, hiding the FoxBIte was a challenge. Considering everything, Alf had decided to secrete the units in the crown of a wide-brimmed Australian-style raffia golf hat, concealing them under a sturdy rubberized lining. Kiecker made Robbie go through several swings to be certain the headgear would stay on. The one serious problem was that in order to fit the recorder and transmitter within the slender space available, Alf had to use a smaller battery. That meant Robbie couldn't meander through the round with Tuohey waiting for him to get conversational at the nineteenth hole. The FoxBlte would run out of power after an hour and forty minutes.

A staticky squall of radio reports reached the van from the agents positioned in the Public Forest. The communications were easily overheard and sometimes unsettling. The surveillance was not as comprehensive as planned. Amari's guys had erected deer blinds in four of the oaks that bordered the golf course. The process of building them in the middle of the night, with the County Forest Police occasionally sweeping down the neighboring roads, had been both comical and hair-raising. But even with nightvision binoculars, it had been impossible to fully scope out the terrain. As light began to perk up, the agents were reporting that there were a number of spots-especially the deep bunkers of the sand traps-where Robbie would be completely out of sight.

There had been some discussion of putting the portable camera in Robbie's golf bag, but it would have been almost impossible to keep the lens trained in the right direction. Instead, the four surveillance agents in the trees were each equipped with cameras, two standard video cams that would record in color, and two of the 2.4 GHz models that would transmit a picture to the van. A cordon of additional agents would be poised at the perimeter of the course with binoculars, joggers and walkers, out with the first sunlight, were not uncommon, but Sennett for once seemed unconcerned about the risks of detection.

"If we get blown, we get blown," he said. Nobody could get word to Tuohey anyway in the middle of the golf course. Sennett, to his credit, was determined not to lose sight of Robbie.

Finally, at 5:30 a.m., it was time to go. Amari had a unit tailing Tuohey, and they radioed that Brendan and Kosic had just pulled out of the garage of the stone house in Latterly. Two surveillance cars, new Novas that had been fitted over with the rusted bodies of earlier models, swept into the mall lot to follow Robbie to the country club. Evon and McManis and I walked Robbie to the Mercedes.

"Any time you think this is out of control," Jim said, "you say `Uncle Petros' and we're coming to get you. You don't have to be right. If you're spooked, bring it down. Nobody'll say word one afterwards."

I shook his hand and Evon gave him a half-embrace with an arm quickly raised to his shoulder.

"Big show," she said. "Big star." He liked the thought.

We drove to a predetermined spot in the Public Forest, a small graveled area where bikers and cancers commonly off loaded their equipment. Alf and Clevenger worked feverishly on the electronics; everything functioned. From the outposts in the trees, the cameras captured an impressive panorama, and, with the benefit of manual operation, could magnify images up to 48 times as they zoomed in. Alf reported that the agent-cameramen were belted to the tree trunks like loggers.

At 5:45 precisely, the Mercedes appeared in the club parking lot. The hot pink of sunrise was almost gone from the eastern sky. Robbie, who had put on a white vest to protect against the morning chill, looked to the woods with a commanding face-aloft expression practiced in the court room. Then he threw the heavy white leather golf bag, with a brand name emblazoned on it in gold script, over his shoulder, and set his hat on his head with both hands. To conserve power, the FoxBlte had been turned off after McManis recorded the customary initiating speech. One of the surveillance cars now prowled along the edge of the road and the agent on the driver's side hit the FoxBlte remote. In the van, we heard Robbie state, "This is a test, this is just a test of the emergency warning system." Alf radioed and the agent's auto pulled away.

As Milacki had promised, the maintenance gate was unlocked, and Robbie began trudging through the heavy midwestern woods. This was, for the most part, a first-growth forest, full of the old hardwoods, bur oaks and pin oaks and white oaks and hickories, with ferns and runners growing up in their shade. Primroses and wild raspberries clustered in the marginal patches of sun. Robbie tromped along, preoccupied and unconnected to what was around him, much like the settlers who'd walked the forest a century before. The traders, farmers, and merchants who'd first come to this area were hardscrabble types looking solely for the chance to profit. The land to them was not the home of the spirit but a commodity to exploit. The Public Forests had been saved from despoliation at the end of the nineteenth century through the efforts of a few Eastern-educated architects and city planners, rich men's sons who were indulged because these parcels seemed too remote to be worth quarreling over.

On the audio, as Robbie walked, there was an almost musical background of birds and insects, the rutting calls of squirrels and chipmunks, and the rushing water of little brooks descending from the pond where Robbie was to meet Tuohey. He groaned now and then under the weight of the bag, but skipped the occasional wisecracks that sometimes punctuated the recordings when he was alone.

Eventually, he reached the road through the Public Forest. The parking lot where we were stationed was no more than three or four hundred yards away. He walked down in our direction, then followed a woodland path back toward the golf course. On the screen, we saw him step over the galvanized guard rail at a curve. The ground was soft as he approached the water and, off-balance with the bag, he stumbled at one point, catching himself against the steep bank. Even so, a spot of black mud stained his vest. Habits being what they are, he fussed with it for a time before heading on.

The chain-link fence between the country club and the forest broke at this point for a bridge that crossed the neck of Galler's Pond. The spring waters spread with indifference between rich and poor, over both public and private land. The bridge was divided along its length by a fourfoot stockade fence. The rear side, with the cross-braces running between the posts, faced Robbie. He was supposed to dump his clubs over and then use the ties to vault onto the club property. He had just boosted the bag across when, on the screen, he cranked a concerned look over his shoulder.

The agent operating the nearby camera was taken unawares. He'd kept a tight shot on Feaver for fear that he'd lose him among the leaves. Now, as the cameraman attempted to locate what had distracted Robbie, he panned far too quickly and couldn't regain focus as he retreated to a wider shot. By the time he'd readjusted and found Feaver, Robbie was back at the bottom of the bridge talking to a Kindle County police officer. We'd heard Robbie tromping down the span, dispensing a sunny greeting, but it was a shock to see it was a cop who'd accosted him.

"Playing golf, are you, sir?"

"Right. I'm meeting some friends."

The cop was huge, a former jock of some kind, a physical presence in the tight blue uniform. He sized up Feaver.

"The club isn't open now."

"Right, but these guys are members."

"Uh-huh," said the cop. "They've had a problem here recently. People sneaking on and messing things up. It's private property, you know."

Robbie said once again that his friends belonged to the club. When the cop asked who they were, Robbie, with some hesitation, gave Brendan's name. The officer pointed through the fence, noting that nobody was on the fifth tee. Tuohey, Robbie said, would be right along.

"Can I see some i.d.?" the cop asked.

From the overhead view, we could see Robbie nodding agreeably and gesturing in the wide way he employed when he was attempting self-conscious charm. He appeared such a picture of confidence that it was hard not to believe he'd get by. It was another mini-coronary, but we'd survived many by now. Tuohey would be arriving any second to bail Robbie out. We all hunched behind Alf, leaning toward the monitor. Amari was issuing orders over his radio. The second camera could not pick up Robbie, but had found the cruiser parked around a bend in the road. It was a Police Force vehicle, not from the Public Forest Division.

The cop took Robbie's wallet and without returning it asked him to come away from the fence. He traded places with Feaver and with one hand hoisted the golf bag back to their side,' then remained behind Robbie as he walked him the thirty or forty feet up to the road. When they reached the black-and-white, the cop said, "Put your hands on the vehicle, sir, and lean against it, with your legs spread."

"God bless you, Alfie," Stan whispered. Kiecker, busy with the dials, tossed off a salute. Detected, the FoxBIte, which bore the recorded preamble, would have given away everything, once someone figured out how to play it.

The cop went down Robbie's sides quickly. For one hopeful second it looked certain Robbie had cleared. Then the cop straightened up.

"Now slowly lift your hands to your head," he said "and remove your hat."

"Hey," Robbie answered good-naturedly, "don't you think this has gone far enough?"

"Remove your hat, please."

"Think my brains are gonna fall out? I couldn't have a gun in my hat."

The cop withdrew his baton and told Robbie he was asking him for the last time to take off his hat. "How about I call my lawyer?"

With that, the copper lifted the baton to shoulder height

"Oh, Lord!" That was Evon. But the cop didn't hit him Instead he flicked the hat off with the end of the nightstick. The hat plummeted to the asphalt with suspicious speed. The FoxBIte emitted a resounding ping and, with that, the frequency hopper went dead. Klecker sprung even closer to the equipment, switching dials and plugs to no avail, barking at Clevenger. It now became a silent movie.

Robbie, with a show of tremendous irritation, grabbed the hat off the asphalt before the cop could reach it. The policeman shook his stick at Robbie twice and Robbie waved his hands around indignantly. He finally put the hat back on his head, looking grumpy and clearly making ready to depart. The cop took another step back, remonstrating further. Finally, he removed his service revolver from his holster.

The sight of the gun coming up had a Zen-like intensity, prefigured as it was by our worries. I was still uncertain about the cop and his intentions, but Sennett had arrived at a far clearer interpretation of events.

"God, no!" he screamed. "No, no. Move!"

McManis already had the handset at his lips. "We're up!" McManis yelled. "All agents in at once. Go! Go!" he shouted.

Before he had finished, Evon was out the door of the van, sprinting down the yellow center line in the narrow forest road. McManis in his blue seersucker suit seemed to have been drafted out behind her and took off in her wake at full canter. He said later he did not think about the fact he was unarmed. Until then, Evon's sporting background had been little more than a curiosity to me, but the speed with which she disappeared into the distance, putting more and more space between McManis and herself, looked almost like a cartoon.

Inside the van, Amari was screaming instructions into two different walkie-talkies. When I looked back, Sennett was crouching, gripping the monitor by its sides, his face close enough to be colored by the gray glow.

Robbie was still alive. He had both hands in the air and he was nodding vigorously to the cop, who had hold of the hat. The policeman shook it several times, while Bobbie yammered what, given his nature, was all but certain to be a ludicrous explanation. As it turned out, he had told the officer that the hat was equipped with a biorhythm meter to help promote an even golf swing. The copper appeared to be considering that, but all the same, he put the hat under the arm in which he was holding the gun, and ripped out the lining. He stared for some time into the crown, where the complex electrical equipment was wound tight within a cocoon of colored wires. Then he lifted the weapon straight at Robbie. For the first time the copper looked seriously angry.

"No!" wailed Sennett again. "God no!"

The officer claimed later he'd thought it was a bomb. BEFORE SHE REACHED THE BEND where the police cruiser was parked, Evon hopped the guardrail and began breaking through the woods, swinging her arms to clear the thorny undergrowth. By the time she reapproached the road, she saw the cop with his arm fully extended and his service revolver two feet from Feaver's head. Her own handgun was over her belly in something called a Gunny Sack, an enlarged fanny pack that could be pulled open, exposing the firearm. She extracted the 5904 that way and assumed position, yelling as loudly as she could.

"FBI! FBI! Drop the gun or I'll shoot."

The cop's head swung a quarter turn. She was about fifty yards from him in the trees and he was obviously uncertain where the voice had come from.

"I am Instructor-Qualified at Quantico. I can put a bullet inside your eardrum fifty times out of fifty from where I am. Drop the gun."

The cop crooked his arm instead, keeping the revolver directed at Robbie, but from a foot farther away. He tucked the FoxBIte under his armpit, and with his left hand squeezed the transmission button on the radio fixed to his shoulder and spoke into it.

She repeated her instruction, but the cop's posture had slackened and she realized for the first time she would not have to fire. She could hear the cavalry rampaging through the leaves and the brush, and an entire posse of agents suddenly poured out of the woods, five or six of them, all screaming "FBI!" Three wore blue plastic parkas with the Bureau initials in huge yellow letters. They surrounded the cop and Robbie, crouching in a semicircle directly behind the policeman. Evon ran up to join them, and McManis arrived right behind her, badly out of breath. He put his hands on his thighs to recover his wind, then came around to where the coo could see him.

"I want to ask everyone to lower their weapons on the count of three," he said.

At three, the cop cheated a look back to make sure the agents had complied, but then directed his gun toward the ground. The FoxBlte remained in his other hand.

McManis told the cop he'd gotten himself in the middle of a Bureau operation.

"So you're saying this guy is yours?" the cop asked about Robbie. Robbie's hands had sunk when the cop lowered his gun, but they were still held at a small distance from his sides as a gesture of compliance. His eyes remained grimly fixed on the officer. At one point, he caught sight of Evon to the rear and winked, but under the circumstances, he'd been unable to manage a smile.

McManis avoided the cop's question. What he wanted was the FoxBIte. Drawing on the military heritage of many of its agents, the Bureau lived by a code which said that the next worst thing to losing a body to the bad guys was losing your equipment. Even if they couldn't salvage Bobbie's cover, they needed the FoxBIte back to maintain the security of future operations. Besides, the unit was cuttingedge, borrowed by Klecker from the Bureau's black-world spooks who worked foreign counterintelligence. Evon knew it was in capital letters this time: Don't Embarrass The Bureau.

The standoff was still ongoing when Sennett jogged up. I was about one hundred yards behind, Stan having outrun me as usual. He had just approached the cop when I got there.

"I'm the U.S. Attorney." From his blue suit coat, Stan withdrew his own federal credentials. "I'll take that, please." He reached out for the FoxBIte.

The cop pulled the unit farther away, but he looked down to what he held and for the first time put his revolver back in the holster. He watched TV like everyone else and recognized Sennett from the news. He was finally convinced these were really the feds.

Sennett took a step closer and asked for the equipment again. He was almost a foot smaller than the cop, but he gave no quarter and appeared hard enough to seem threatening.

"You want it, call my C.O.," said the cop. "Which is who?"

"Brenner, Area 6."

"Six?" said one of the agents standing in the narrow semicircle to the rear. "What the hell are you doing out here? You're fifteen miles from the North End."

"I live out here. He told me to look into this on my way in for roll call."

From the distance, I could hear sirens keening. In less than a minute, another black-and-white made a squealing halt at the roadside. Two other Force cars shortly appeared from the other direction. The six cops trooped down together and stood beside the officer who'd been surrounded.

Everyone held their places for some time. The sun had broken through an early morning haze and shone pleasantly. Eventually, several cops, including the first one, removed their caps. There was not much joviality, even though a couple of the local agents who'd been working for Amari were vaguely acquainted with a few of the policemen. It was the usual thing, Evon figured, the Bureau and the locals. The agents frequently viewed cops-less educated, more intuitive, and lower paid-as slugs, often embittered ones, because many had failed the Bureau's qualifying tests. The cops tended to see the Bureau types as pansies who knew more about filling out paperwork than dealing with real crime.

Amari suddenly came trotting up the road, waving. He had one of the large walkie-talkies in his hand and two other agents were behind him. McManis met them on the shoulder. After he heard them out, he gathered a number of us, including Stan and Evon and me, about fifteen yards farther up the pavement.

The unit tailing Tuohey had reported that about fifteen minutes ago he had abruptly changed course. Brendan had just arrived at St. Mary's, an hour late for his usual Mass. Amari had sent an agent into the clubhouse. The locker room attendant, who'd just come in, said Tuohey hadn't been out here for two weeks because of bursitis. Jim looked at us, his graying forelocks lifted from his brow on a breeze.

"We have a city cop sitting out here just waiting for him? And no Brendan? And Robbie ends up completely blown? We just fell through Tuohey's trapdoor." He looked away, trying to cope with the bitterness of getting beaten this way.

"Christ, this guy is smart," Stan said. He screwed up his face to absorb his own distress, then said something I'd never heard in the more than twenty-five years of our acquaintance. "This guy," he said, "is smarter than me."