The Broker

2

The isolation wing at Rudley Federal Correctional Facility had forty identical cells, each a twelve-foot square with no windows, no bars, green-painted concrete floors and cinder-block walls, and a door that was solid metal with a narrow slot at the bottom for food trays and a small open peephole for the guards to have a look occasionally. The wing was filled with government informants, drug snitches, Mafia misfits, a couple of spies — men who needed to be locked away because there were plenty of folks back home who would gladly slice their throats. Most of the forty inmates in protective custody at Rudley had requested the I-wing.

Joel Backman was trying to sleep when two guards clanged open his door and switched on his light. “The warden wants you,” one said, and there was no elaboration. They rode in silence in a prison van across the frigid Oklahoma prairie, past other buildings holding less-secure criminals, until they arrived at the administration building. Backman, handcuffed for no apparent reason, was hurried inside, up two flights of stairs, then down a long hall to the big office where lights were on and something important was going down. He saw a clock on a wall; it was almost 11:00 p.m.

He’d never met the warden, which was not at all unusual. For many good reasons the warden didn’t circulate. He wasn’t running for office, nor was he concerned with motivating the troops. With him were three other suits, all earnest-looking men who’d been chatting for some time. Though smoking was strictly prohibited in offices owned by the U.S. government, an ashtray was full and a thick fog hung close to the ceiling.

With absolutely no introduction, the warden said, “Sit over there, Mr. Backman.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Backman said as he looked at the other men in the room. “Why, exactly, am I here?”

“We’ll discuss that.”

“Could you please remove these handcuffs? I promise not to kill anyone.”

The warden snapped at the nearest guard, who quickly found a key and freed Backman. The guard then scrambled out of the room, slamming the door behind him, much to the displeasure of the warden, a very nervous man.

He pointed and said, “This is Special Agent Adair of the FBI. This is Mr. Knabe from the Justice Department. And this is Mr. Sizemore, also from Washington.”

None of the three moved in the direction of Mr. Backman, who was still standing and looking quite perplexed. He nodded at them, in a halfhearted effort to be polite. His efforts were not returned.

“Please sit,” the warden said, and Backman finally took a chair. “Thank you. As you know, Mr. Backman, a new president is about to be sworn in. President Morgan is on the way out. Right now he is in the Oval Office wrestling with the decision of whether to grant you a full pardon.”

Backman was suddenly seized with a violent cough, one brought on in part by the near arctic temperature in his cell and in part by the shock of the word “pardon.”

Mr. Knabe from Justice handed him a bottle of water, which he gulped and splashed down his chin and finally managed to stifle the cough. “A pardon?” he mumbled.

“A full pardon, with some strings attached.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know why, Mr. Backman, nor is it my business to understand what’s happening. I’m just the messenger.”

Mr. Sizemore, introduced simply as “from Washington,” but without the baggage of title or affiliation, said, “It’s a deal, Mr. Backman. In return for a full pardon, you must agree to leave the country, never return, and live with a new identity in a place where no one can find you.”

No problem there, thought Backman. He didn’t want to be found.

“But why?” he mumbled again. The bottle of water in his left hand could actually be seen shaking.

As Mr. Sizemore from Washington watched it shake, he studied Joel Backman, from his closely cropped gray hair to his battered dime-store running shoes, with his black prison-issue socks, and couldn’t help but recall the image of the man in his prior life. A magazine cover came to mind. A fancy photo of Joel Backman in a black Italian suit, impeccably tailored and detailed and groomed and looking at the camera with as much smugness as humanly possible. The hair was longer and darker, the handsome face was fleshy and wrinkle free, the waistline was thick and spoke of many power lunches and four-hour dinners. He loved wine and women and sports cars. He had a jet, a yacht, a place in Vail, all of which he’d been quite eager to talk about. The bold caption above his head read: THE BROKER — IS THIS THE SECOND MOST POWERFUL MAN IN WASHINGTON?

The magazine was in Mr. Sizemore’s briefcase, along with a thick file on Joel Backman. He’d scoured it on the flight from Washington to Tulsa.

According to the magazine article, the broker’s income at the time was reported to be in excess of $10 million a year, though he’d been coy with the reporter. The law firm he founded had two hundred lawyers, small by Washington standards, but without a doubt the most powerful in political circles. It was a lobbying machine, not a place where real lawyers practiced their craft. More like a bordello for rich companies and foreign governments.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Mr. Sizemore thought to himself as he watched the bottle shake.

“I don’t understand,” Backman managed to whisper.

“And we don’t have time to explain,” Mr. Sizemore said. “It’s a quick deal, Mr. Backman. Unfortunately, you don’t have time to contemplate things. A snap decision is required. Yes or no. You want to stay here, or you want to live with another name on the other side of the world?”

“Where?”

“We don’t know where, but we’ll figure it out.”

“Will I be safe?”

“Only you can answer that question, Mr. Backman.”

As Mr. Backman pondered his own question, he shook even more.

“When will I leave?” he asked slowly. His voice was regaining strength for the moment, but another violent cough was always waiting.

“Immediately,” said Mr. Sizemore, who had seized control of the meeting and relegated the warden, the FBI, and the Justice Department to being spectators.

“You mean, like, right now?”

“You will not return to your cell.”

“Oh darn,” Backman said, and the others couldn’t help but smile.

“There’s a guard waiting by your cell,” the warden said. “He’ll bring whatever you want.”

“There’s always a guard waiting by my cell,” Backman snapped at the warden. “If it’s that sadistic little bastard Sloan, tell him to take my razor blades and slash his own wrists.”

Everyone swallowed hard and waited for the words to escape through the heating vents. Instead, they cut through the polluted air and rattled around the room for a moment.

Mr. Sizemore cleared his throat, reshuffled his weight from the left buttock to the right, and said, “There are some gentlemen waiting in the Oval Office, Mr. Backman. Are you going to accept the deal?”

“The President is waiting on me?”

“You could say that.”

“He owes me. I put him there.”

“This really is not the time to debate such matters, Mr. Backman,” Mr. Sizemore said calmly.

“Is he returning the favor?”

“I’m not privy to the President’s thoughts.”

“You’re assuming he has the ability to think.”

“I’ll just call and tell them the answer is no.”

“Wait.”

Backman drained the bottle of water and asked for another. He wiped his mouth with a sleeve, then said, “Is it like a witness protection program, something like that?”

“It’s not an official program, Mr. Backman. But, from time to time, we find it necessary to hide people.”

“How often do you lose one?”

“Not too often.”

“Not too often? So there’s no guarantee I’ll be safe.”

“Nothing is guaranteed. But your odds are good.”

Backman looked at the warden and said, “How many years do I have left here, Lester?”

Lester was jolted back into the conversation. No one called him Lester, a name he hated and avoided. The nameplate on his desk declared him to be L. Howard Cass. “Fourteen years, and you can address me as Warden Cass.”

“Cass my ass. Odds are I’ll be dead in three. A combination of malnutrition, hypothermia, and negligent health care should do it. Lester here runs a really tight ship, boys.”

“Can we move along?” Mr. Sizemore said.

“Of course I’ll take the deal,” Backman said. “What fool wouldn’t?”

Mr. Knabe from Justice finally moved. He opened a briefcase and said, “Here’s the paperwork.”

“Who do you work for?” Backman asked Mr. Sizemore.

“The President of the United States.”

“Well, tell him I didn’t vote for him because I was locked away. But I certainly would have, if given the chance. And tell him I said thanks, okay?”

“Sure.”

Hoby poured another cup of green tea, decaffeinated now because it was almost midnight, and handed it to Teddy, who was wrapped in a blanket and staring at the traffic behind them. They were on Constitution Avenue, leaving downtown, almost to the Roosevelt Bridge. The old man took a sip and said, “Morgan is too stupid to be selling pardons. Critz, however, worries me.”

“There’s a new account on the island of Nevis,” Hoby said. “It popped up two weeks ago, opened by an obscure company owned by Floyd Dunlap.”

“And who’s he?”

“One of Morgan’s fund-raisers.”

“Why Nevis?”

“It’s the current hot spot for offshore activity.”

“And we’re covering it?”

“We’re all over it. Any transfers should take place in the next forty-eight hours.”

Teddy nodded slightly and glanced to his left for a partial look at the Kennedy Center. “Where’s Backman?”

“He’s leaving prison.”

Teddy smiled and sipped his tea. They crossed the bridge in silence, and when the Potomac was behind them, he finally said, “Who’ll get him?”

“Does it really matter?”

“No, it doesn’t. But it will be quite enjoyable watching the contest.”

Wearing a well-worn but starched and pressed khaki military uniform, with all the patches and badges removed, and shiny black combat boots and a heavy navy parka with a hood that he pulled snugly around his head, Joel Backman strutted out of the Rudley Federal Correctional Facility at five minutes after midnight, fourteen years ahead of schedule. He had been there, in solitary confinement, for six years, and upon leaving he carried with him a small canvas bag with a few books and some photos. He did not look back.

He was fifty-two years old, divorced, broke, thoroughly estranged from two of his three children and thoroughly forgotten by every friend he’d ever made. Not a single one had bothered to maintain a correspondence beyond the first year of his confinement. An old girlfriend, one of the countless secretaries he’d chased around his plush offices, had written for ten months, until it was reported in The Washington Post that the FBI had decided it was unlikely that Joel Backman had looted his firm and his clients of the millions that had first been rumored. Who wants to be pen pals with a broke lawyer in prison? A wealthy one, maybe.

His mother wrote him occasionally, but she was ninety-one years old and living in a low-rent nursing home near Oakland, and with each letter he got the impression it would be her last. He wrote her once a week, but doubted if she was able to read anything, and he was almost certain that no one on staff had the time or interest to read to her. She always said, “Thanks for the letter,” but never mentioned anything he’d said. He sent her cards on special occasions. In one of her letters she had confessed that no one else remembered her birthday.

The boots were very heavy. As he plodded along the sidewalk he realized that he’d spent most of the past six years in his socks, no shoes. Funny the things you think about when you get sprung with no warning. When was the last time he’d worn boots? And how soon could he shuck the damn things?

He stopped for a second and looked toward the sky. For one hour each day, he’d been allowed to roam a small patch of grass outside his prison wing. Always alone, always watched by a guard, as if he, Joel Backman, a former lawyer who’d never fired a gun in anger, might suddenly become dangerous and maim someone. The “garden” was lined with ten feet of chain-link topped with razor wire. Beyond it was an empty drainage canal, and beyond that was an endless, treeless prairie that stretched to Texas, he presumed.

Mr. Sizemore and Agent Adair were his escorts. They led him to a dark green sport-utility vehicle that, though unmarked, practically screamed “government issue” to anyone looking. Joel crawled into the backseat, alone, and began praying. He closed his eyes tightly, gritted his teeth, and asked God to please allow the engine to start, the wheels to move, the gates to open, the paper-work to be sufficient; please, God, no cruel jokes. This is not a dream, God, please!

Twenty minutes later, Sizemore spoke first. “Say, Mr. Backman, are you hungry?”

Mr. Backman had ceased praying and had begun crying. The vehicle had been moving steadily, though he had not opened his eyes. He was lying on the rear seat, fighting his emotions and losing badly.

“Sure,” he managed to say. He sat up and looked outside. They were on an interstate highway, a green sign flew by — Perry Exit. They stopped in the parking lot of a pancake house, less than a quarter of a mile from the interstate. Big trucks were in the distance, their diesel engines grinding along. Joel watched them for a second, and listened. He glanced upward again and saw a half-moon.

“Are we in a hurry?” he asked Sizemore as they entered the restaurant.

“We’re on schedule,” came the reply.

They sat at a table near the front window, with Joel looking out. He ordered french toast and fruit, nothing heavy because he was afraid his system was too accustomed to the gruel he’d been living on. Conversation was stiff; the two government boys were programmed to say little and were thoroughly incapable of small talk. Not that Joel wanted to hear anything they had to say.

He tried not to smile. Sizemore would report later that Backman glanced occasionally at the door and seemed to keep a close eye on the other customers. He did not appear to be frightened; quite the contrary. As the minutes dragged on and the shock wore off, he seemed to adjust quickly and became somewhat animated. He devoured two orders of french toast and had four cups of black coffee.

A few minutes after 4:00 a.m. they entered the gates of Fort Summit, near Brinkley, Texas. Backman was taken to the base hospital and examined by two physicians. Except for a head cold and the cough, and general gauntness, he wasn’t in bad shape. He was then taken to a hangar where he met a Colonel Gantner, who instantly became his best friend. At Gantner’s instructions, and under his close supervision, Joel changed into a green army jumpsuit with the name HERZOG stenciled above the right pocket. “Is that me?” Joel asked, looking at the name.

“It is for the next forty-eight hours,” Gantner said.

“And my rank?”

“Major.”

“Not bad.”

At some point during this quick briefing, Mr. Sizemore from Washington and Agent Adair slipped away, never to be seen again by Joel Backman. With the first hint of sunlight, Joel stepped through the rear hatch of a C-130 cargo plane and followed Gantner to the upper level, to a small bunk room where six other soldiers were preparing for a long flight.

“Take that bunk,” Gantner said, pointing to one close to the floor.

“Can I ask where we’re going?” Joel whispered.

“You can ask, but I can’t answer.”

“Just curious.”

“I’ll brief you before we land.”

“And when might that be?”

“In about fourteen hours.”

With no windows to distract him, Joel situated himself on his bunk, pulled a blanket over his head, and was snoring by takeoff.