Summer Cool

31

At the airport in Tucson, Paine made a call to Billy Rader, and one other call, and then they got on a plane. In the seat next to him, Bob Petty, exhausted, slept, but Paine couldn't sleep. He watched Bob Petty's fretful slumber, and he looked out the window and watched America move west under him, and after a long while he did sleep because the stewardess was waking them both, telling them with her vacant charm to fasten their safety belts because they were descending toward landing at La Guardia Airport.

They circled a few times, in a clear, blue, late-summer sky, with high, small, fat clouds that looked almost autumnal. The captain told them that it was eighty-nine degrees in New York, with a high expected of ninety-three, but that the heat was supposed to break that night. "If you believe it," he said, which made most of the passengers laugh, but Paine just looked at the skyscrapers below and waited for the plane to land.

When they reached the ground, as Paine had arranged, Bryers’ car was waiting for them. Bryers got out himself from the back, without help from the driver, looking grim but satisfied. He smiled stoically and held out his hand for Paine to shake, saying, "Good work, Jack," but Paine ignored the hand and moved past him into the car.

Bob Petty sat between Bryers and Paine. The car trip up to Yonkers was strained. Bryers tried to talk a few times, but Paine looked out the window, watching New York go by. "You think perhaps we should have cuffed Petty?" Bryers said once, but Paine didn't respond.

By six o'clock they had reached Yonkers. Paine pushed out of the limousine as it reached the curb, and Bob Petty followed.

Billy Rader was waiting for them outside Bryers’ office. There was a folder under his arm, and he smiled and rose to shake Paine's hand. Paine shook it, and said, "Thanks, Billy."

Rader 's smile widened. "Wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Paine said, "Let's go," and they all went into Bryers’ office, Bryers last, protesting.

"Shut up and come in," Paine said, and when Bryers was in the office Paine closed the door behind him.

"Go ahead, Bobby," Paine said, and Petty took a swing at Bryers and knocked him down.

"What-" Bryers started, but Paine said, "Shut up," and told Bryers to get up and sit in a chair. Billy Rader went around Bryers’ desk and sat in his swivel chair, and Paine and Bob Petty stood.

"I take it you got it?" Paine asked Billy Rader.

"I told you my friend was pissed," Rader said. He opened the folder on Bryers’ desk and drew out a sheaf of papers.

Bryers, nursing his jaw, looked from Rader to Paine. "You're all about ten seconds from arrest," he said.

"I don't think so." Billy Rader laughed, and then he consulted the papers in front of him. "Special Agent Kevin Bryers," Rader read, "covert domestic intelligence arm of the DEA, on loan for the National Security Council." He looked up, watching the color drain from Bryers’ face, replaced by shock and anger.

"How-" Bryers began.

"Let me finish," Rader said, turning back to his paper. "On loan from DEA to the Yonkers Police Department, acting chief, on a twelve-month assignment to infiltrate, expose, and wipe out a Colombian drug operation just making inroads into Westchester County in New York. Said drug ring is already well established in Tucson, New Mexico, and in southern California, and will use its connections in Westchester to move down into New York City and up into New England."

"I told you-" Bryers sputtered. "National security-"

"I told you to let me finish," Billy Bader said. He consulted his paper. "Bryers is the architect and chief administrator of something called. ." Bader peered close at the paper, and then looked for Bryers’ reaction, "Operation TM." He looked up, smiling. "I suppose that stands for Tiny Man. But what he's really the head of is something called Operation Hush, which even the dopes at the DEA who thought he was just looking to shut down Tiny Man's drug business, didn't know about."

Bryers nearly fainted. "Oh, God."

"Your reaction is understandable, Acting Chief Bryers." Billy was growing angry. "Because, let me tell you what a sick crock of shit Operation Hush really is. I have," he said, going through his papers to take out a single sheet, waiting for a fresh reaction of despair from Bryers, "a faxed copy of the original meeting transcript from tapes kept by Acting Chief Bryers’ secretary in Washington. She keeps everything, because she's smart, and isn't taking a fall for anybody. These are Bryers’ own words." He read from the sheet. " 'To misrepresent, or shall we say, distort, Tiny Man's actions in Vietnam, in particular the action of February 10, 1971, Covert Action Number Three-nineteen, excursion into Cambodia to eliminate supply depot. We know, of course, that Kwan was dealing with these people, was doing drug deals with them. I think we can use that fact, which, of course, was unknown to the unit at that time. As far as they knew, they were eliminating a hostile force, a major supplier to troops using the Ho Chi Minh Trail.'"

Bader looked from Bryers to Bob Petty. "This part I want you to listen to carefully, Bobby." He read from the transcript." 'Which, of course, they were doing anyway. But Tiny Man was playing it both ways, and I think we can make use of that. Tiny Man's been having things his way for quite some time. Special Forces knew that he was taking care of his own business as well as ours when he took that unit into Cambodia. That village had been supplying guns and ammo to the Viet Cong, and cocaine to Tiny Man, and when they fucked him over on the coke he thought it would be a good way to teach a lesson so he told Special Forces about the village. They were only too happy to help him out.'"

Billy Rader grew angrier as he continued to read from the transcript." 'But that was then, and this is now, gentlemen. We've been given a mandate to do something, anything, to clean up these covert operations, which could still prove embarrassing. I think that now we've got a golden opportunity to do it by getting Tiny Man, and that Special Forces unit, out of the way. And without dirtying our own hands directly, in the bargain.

"'I've been studying up on this Special Forces unit, and I think if we turn them loose on Tiny Man, do a vengeance thing, tell them they went into Cambodia only to murder civilians for Tiny Man, they'll take care of Kwan for us. At the same time, we can tell Kwan they're after him. Turn the coin both ways, so to speak. At the very least, we end up with half the problem solved. We can clean up whatever's left, but with a little luck there'll be no dust at all. There's one man in particular, Robert Petty, who's got the background, the mental profile, to take care of things nicely. He's a cop in Yonkers, New York, and I think I can get in there myself, set the whole thing up. DEA will help me on that, they want Kwan bad themselves anyway. We won't tell them the rest, of course. Research tells me that-get this-Petty's been trying to bust up this drug operation from the inside before it gets established, and doesn't even know Tiny Man is involved. (Laughter.) Can you believe that? If I handle him right, it'll be like lighting a cherry bomb on the Fourth of July. (Laughter.) It's a golden opportunity.'"

Billy Rader looked up as Bob Petty took another swing at Bryers, knocking him off his chair. For a moment it looked as though Bryers wasn't going to get up, but Paine helped him back into the seat.

"And if you want my two cents' worth," Paine said to Bryers, "I liked the way you tried to keep me away by threatening me and then offering me a job."

"Here's the thing," Billy said to Bryers. "Your ass is cooked as of now, and you know it. I've got a man inside the White House who isn't afraid to blow his whistle. I've got four or five of your men, including your two DEA boys in Tucson named Sims and Martin, already lined up to say whatever I want to hear to save their own skins, especially after they heard how you used them and their agency. This thing makes Iran-Contra look like baby puke. And you know it. The American public never figured out that shit anyway, but they'll figure this one out real quick. I'm a good reporter and an excellent writer, and I'll make sure of it. Domestic spying, tinkering with government agencies, doing a Manchurian Candidate number on the head of a Vietnam War hero-shit, they might even lynch you. So the only choice you have is to spill your fucking guts to me before it gets to a House committee and the courts, and try to set the record in the best direction for yourself that you can." Billy took on the look of a prosecutor with the murder weapon, covered with the defendant's fingerprints, in his hand. "You're going to have to name names, and quick, shithead-or I promise to nail you to the cross."

There was quiet in the room. They could see Bryers running it all through the computer in his head. Accounts were being balanced, options weighed. They saw the tally go up, the shadows fall behind his eyes, the look of the caught animal, looking for whatever hole to crawl into, drop across his face.

"We'll talk," he said to Rader.

Billy's face lit up. He pulled a tape recorder from his briefcase and set it up in the center of Bryers’ own desk. "Fine," he said. To Paine and Bob Petty, he said, "This may take some time, and I doubt you boys will want to hear all the grisly details right now. Maybe you'd like to go home, take a rest. The two of you look like shit, anyway. We can talk tomorrow, after I phone this in to the Times Herald. Be nice to see a Texas paper get a little glory for once. " He turned a large, affectionate smile on Bob Petty.” When this is done, you're going to be quite a hero. I'll get a Pulitzer Prize, of course. Is there anything you want?"

Petty took a final swing at Bryers, hitting him squarely on the nose. Bryers doubled over, throwing both hands to his face, trying to stem the sudden flow of blood.

"Jesus, you broke it!" Bryers cried.

Petty said, "That's all I want."

"Go," Billy Rader said, and when Paine and Bob Petty left he was placing his microphone in front of Bryers, turning on his tape recorder, beaming like a six-year-old on Christmas morning.