The Disposable Man

Chapter 13

The phone rang just before midnight, an ungodly hour in a rural state. I was on the couch downstairs, half-comatose in front of the TV, surrounded by old newspapers, empty bags of junk food, a couple of dirty plates, and a bowl of melted ice cream. For the past three days, I’d been either checking in at the state police barracks, as required, or hunkering down here, eating poorly, not shaving, reading in the paper about everyone’s outrage at rampant police corruption, and waiting.

I didn’t mind the late-hour interruption.

“It’s me,” said Kunkle’s voice. “Just listen.”

I stayed quiet.

“Go for a walk up the street. Now.” The phone went dead.

I hung up the receiver slowly. Something had come up in the Boris case, and Willy wanted to fill my ear with it, in direct conflict with a court-set condition-something I wasn’t inclined to dismiss lightly.

I got up, went to the bathroom, and washed my face, watching myself in the mirror as I toweled off. The moment I’d been entertaining-purely as a notion-had finally arrived. Without the excuses of adrenaline or ignorance, on which I could have blamed my confrontation with Alonzo, I was willfully considering a violation of the rules I’d followed my whole life. The mildness of the affront made no difference. Brushing aside a court order was a big enough event that if the judge ever caught wind of it, he’d make sure I’d never forget.

I left the bathroom, put my shoes on in the living room, and, leaving the TV on and the house security system off, slipped out the back door. I cut through a small thicket of young trees on the edge of our property and emerged onto Orchard Street. From there, I headed uphill, away from the veiled glow of Western Avenue below.

It was a dark, clear night, and the stars overhead gave me more than enough light to see by, although I wouldn’t have used a flashlight in any case. Taking Kunkle’s cue, I was being unusually cautious. Coffin knew the burden of the restraints he’d put upon me-cooked up, no doubt, as much to force my hand as to keep me under wraps. In the l80 days we had until trial, nothing much was going to stimulate any headlines-unless I did something to change that.

Several times during my walk, I paused under a tree, enveloped in shadow, and waited. I saw a pet or two roaming its territory, a couple of ’possums and a family of raccoons. Once, a car drove by, forcing me into the bushes. But generally, I remained alone.

Willy hadn’t specified where he’d contact me, and I hadn’t expected him to. A Vietnam vet who’d specialized in long-range recons behind enemy lines, he was given to lurking in the night, finding, I expected, a form of inner peace that escaped him during the day. A friend of mine had once said there were two types of human beings-the simple complicated, and the complicated complicated. If ever there was a man who defined the latter, it was Willy Kunkle. In my experience, he was unique in regularly reliving his nightmares in order to quiet his own inner rage.

We met up near the crest of the road, where it borders one edge of Meetinghouse Hill Cemetery. I saw his shadow separate from one of the headstones to beckon me, and I climbed over the low stone wall to join him. In this vast, open spot, the stars gave a ghostly glimmer to all the marble and granite markers surrounding us like frozen gnomes.

“You check your tail?” he asked in a bare whisper.

“Several times.”

He set off for the back of the cemetery, where the newer graves petered out at the edge of a field still popular with the local deer. I followed, my feet silent on the soft, immaculate grass. I found myself breathing shallowly, my mouth open, further adding to the absolute silence.

We finally stopped by a low bench inscribed with two names, located in a broad, flat area from which we could see anyone moving. The entire world seemed to end at a distant belt of trees, colored only in pewter gray.

“What’ve you got?” I asked in a low voice.

“First is what we don’t got, which is Ron and J.P. Ron’s out because that’s the way Sam and I want it-he’s got a young family, and he’s too squeaky clean anyhow. He’d probably turn beet red before telling a lie, and then fuck it up anyhow. J.P.’s too much of a company man. He might be okay, but now’s not the time to find out. And neither of ’em have military training, which the three of us do. I think that counts.”

I didn’t argue. The fact behind all this supposed calculation was that he and Sammie had decided to stick their necks out for me, for whatever reasons. I knew from experience I couldn’t change their minds. The least I could do was to follow their ground rules.

“We got pretty good evidence Rarig’s dirty,” Willy went on. “Ron traced his career till he got into the Army and was shipped overseas. He was in on the D-day landings at Omaha Beach as a radioman and supposedly made it out alive, but that’s where we think somebody pulled the switch. His whole unit was basically wiped out. They landed in the wrong place or something-I don’t know-but they caught all hell and were written off.”

Willy hunched over slightly on the bench, his body language expressing his pleasure. “But here’s the good part: where the official Army unit history brags about him being a survivor, Ron dug up a hometown news article, written at the time, that has him listed as killed in action. There was a retraction a few days later, but we’re thinking the paper got it right, and the feds had to scramble to cover it up. And I said, ‘unit history,’ right? That’s because that’s all there is on him. The Army lost his enlistment records-everything having to do with his identity. And remember Sammie telling you we were getting some high school yearbook photos faxed to us? Never happened. They called us back and said the books’re missing for that year, not only from the library, but from the principal’s office as well. Before, the only complication was finding a way to have ’em copied.”

“What about after D-day?” I asked.

Kunkle laughed softly. “All of a sudden, we have tons of records: wounded in action, shipped back to DC and straight into a career at the State Department. From that point on, we got rental information, mortgages, country club memberships, driver’s license, registration forms-you name it. Like he was compensating for having no past early on.” He paused and then added, “He never married, by the way.”

I played devil’s advocate. “None of which tells us much. We thought he was a spook almost from the start.”

Willy was unfazed. “Yeah, well, the spook’s in business again. We been keeping a watch on his place, taking turns. This afternoon, he got a visitor. Looked like a typical guest-old lady, white hair, bag of golf clubs in the trunk-but her plates were from Maryland. I checked her out, just for kicks. Name’s Olivia Kidder, and her place of employment is the CIA.”

I raised my eyebrows in the darkness. This was either a curiously coincidental time for old buddies to reunite, or a sign that something was finally in motion.

“How’d you find out where she worked?” I asked a moment later.

“Routine check. I think most of their employees are out in the open. I don’t know what she does there, ’course. Hope to hell it isn’t a janitor or something. Anyway, the plan we cooked up was to hit ’em tonight-see what they got to say. That’s why I called.”

“Sammie’s still there?” I guessed.

“Yup. Kidder’ll probably spend the night-long drive and all-but we didn’t want her to split tomorrow without having a crack at her. I mean, what’ve we got to lose?”

I thought back to the conversation I’d had earlier with my reflection in the mirror. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

Heading north in Willy’s car, I began feeling increasingly at ease with my decision. My chances of success were dim, but at a time when most aspects of my life were in serious disarray, the simple act of riding through the gloom was enough to make me believe in the possible again.

But not without misgivings. The sense of betrayal I’d felt on the night of the jewel theft, coupled with the maneuver Fred Coffin had pulled in court, was not to be eclipsed by some fresh air and a drive-especially when that drive could be taking me straight into more trouble.

I hadn’t questioned the timing of Willy’s visit to the Windham Hill Inn. If Olivia Kidder had indeed just arrived from DC after a long drive, it seemed unlikely she’d still be up. But he and Sammie had done their homework. As we crested the peak of the driveway and coasted into the parking lot with the engine turned off, I saw that while most of the inn’s lights were extinguished, the same was not true of the room to the far right, a one-story wing that, through the window, looked like a piano-equipped library.

We’d barely eased out of the car and softly closed its doors before Sammie appeared out of the night like a breeze, her clothing dark, her eyes gleaming.

“They’ve been talking for hours, sitting about two inches apart like a couple of conspirators.”

She gestured to us to follow and led the way under the stinking ginkgo tree to a large bush planted near the inn’s far corner. From there, we had a clear view into the lighted room and could see John Rarig, as described, with a small, snow-capped, animated woman. From both their expressions, I could tell their topic was not a happy one.

Sammie pointed to a narrow set of stairs leading to a back porch. The door connecting it to the inn led directly into the library. “What do you say we invite ourselves in?”

I laid a hand on her forearm. “Hang on a sec. As soon as we go in there, we’re opening ourselves to some serious problems. If these people choose to react like Alonzo did, Coffin’ll land on us like God Himself. I’ll end up in the slammer, and you two could be suspended.”

“Fuck Coffin,” Willy said without hesitation. “That bastard made me look like an idiot, saying you ripped off that brooch under my nose. He can drop dead, for all I care.”

“I’m not worried, either,” Sammie chimed in. “Besides, we got nothing to worry about.” She pointed at the window. “They’re up to something. They’re not going to squawk.”

Willy looked at me suspiciously. “You covering your butt all of a sudden?”

I smiled back at him. “Little late for that. But loyalty should have its limits. This is not a great career move for you guys.”

His face soured predictably. “Loyalty? Spare me. You think you’re doing me a favor, running interference so I don’t get fired? I’m pissed off is all, and I’d love to shove something up Coffin’s nose. I could care less about some stupid career.”

I nodded. “Okay. Lead on.”

We filed quietly up onto the porch. Sammie tried the doorknob, found it unlocked, and preceded us into the room.

Rarig and Kidder deserved credit. They didn’t bat an eye-merely stopped speaking, sat back, and watched us line up before them.

Rarig smiled thinly, recognizing me. “Ah, Lieutenant. I thought you weren’t supposed to be seen in such company.”

“This is not an official visit,” I answered, struck by his knowledge of my legal standing. I nodded to the woman by his side, hoping to throw them off balance. “Ms. Kidder. Nice to meet you.”

Her face lit up with pleasure. “Very good. Trace my plates?” Her voice was clear and youthful, touched by a slightly ironic inflection. A successful veteran, I thought, of many a mental contest-and certainly no janitor.

“I did,” Kunkle admitted. “And your place of employment.”

Rarig addressed me again. “If not official, then what is this?”

I settled into an empty armchair. After a slight hesitation, my two companions did likewise.

“We thought it was time to clear things up a bit. Till now, we’ve been sticking to the legalities, like warrants and what-have-you. But as you implied, I’m working a little more independently at the moment, so I thought we might cut the crap and try being honest with each other.”

Rarig raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t been honest?”

Willy scowled at him. “Don’t be cute.”

Olivia Kidder was taking us in with the interested eye of a birdwatcher-silently waiting, I thought, for things to become more clearly defined.

“Your real name’s not John Rarig,” I said, gambling a bit to win her respect. “He probably died on the Normandy beaches in ’forty four, or in a hospital back home as a result of his wounds. You weren’t born in Ames, Iowa, and you haven’t spent your whole career as a State Department paper pusher. You and Ms. Kidder came up together inside the CIA, which probably has a room full of identities like the real John Rarig’s, just so guys like you can operate in daylight. You were a spook specializing in Soviet affairs, based in Austria, at least in the early years. What do you do for the Company, Ms. Kidder?”

She nodded slightly. “Please call me Olivia. I’m a glorified file clerk, really.”

“Which is no doubt belittling both your talents and your position. Mr. Rarig, what was Sergei Antonov doing spying on you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Who is he?”

Willy muttered, “For Christ’s sake,” and Sammie shifted restlessly in her chair.

Rarig clarified his statement. “Lieutenant, if I was what you say I am, wouldn’t you think me a little simpleminded to suddenly spill the beans just because you’d like me to? For all I know, your whole embarrassment with the attorney general is just a ploy to get me to trust you.”

His patience exhausted, Willy launched himself from his chair and stood glaring down at John Rarig. With one lame arm dangling and his powerful right fist bunched up before him, he presented a conflicted image of impotence and fury-much more threatening than just an angry man. Rarig and Kidder watched him closely and, I noticed for the first time, with something approaching fear.

“You and Joe can play footsie all you want,” Willy said in a low, tight voice, “but I’m not much of a bullshitter. You’re dicking us around, maybe ’cause you whacked that Russian, or maybe ’cause you’re a smoke screen for someone else. But our jobs are on the line, and I don’t need some smartass fuck like you telling me fairy tales so you can pretend you’re a virgin.”

He leaned forward, placing that large, muscular hand on the arm of Rarig’s chair, his face inches away from the older man’s. “It wasn’t all that tough digging up what we got on you, and it’ll be easy to dig up more. The CIA are a bunch of fuckups. I saw it in ’Nam, and I’m seeing it now. So if you want to do this the hard way, that’s fine with me. Sam and I are still legit, even if Joe’s on thin ice, so we’ll get the hell out of here, do our pissant paperwork, and come back to hang your balls from that vomit tree out there. Is that the way you wanna go?”

His speech was all the more impressive considering he’d just told me he didn’t care about his job. And it obviously had an effect. Rarig sat blinking, pressed back against the cushion of his chair, even after Willy had straightened up.

Rarig glanced at Kidder, who nodded. He then smiled uneasily at Willy. Spook or not, he was in his mid-seventies-no longer capable of slugging it out, even with a one-armed man. But Willy could affect people that way in any case. It was the anger he carried within him-and the clearly feeble restraints containing it-that remained his most eloquent ally. And Rarig seemed to be a good listener.

“I wasn’t saying we couldn’t find some middle ground,” he conceded uncomfortably. “But given the accusations you just made, I stand to lose quite a bit if I’m not careful. Isn’t that reasonable?”

It was clear Willy would have been just as happy beating his brains out, but he looked over at me instead, sighed slightly, and sat back down.

I tried to keep the conversation moving our way. “It’d be reasonable if you made us some gesture of good faith. That’s how middle ground is reached.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence in the room.

“When you went down to Langley,” Rarig finally asked me, “what were your impressions of Gil Snowden?”

I didn’t ask how he knew about that, guessing Kidder had been his source. “That he knew more than he admitted, like you.”

“Why?”

I rose to my feet and crossed to the door, putting my hand on the knob. “I guess Willy was right. We’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

Sammie and Willy were stopped halfway out of their chairs by Rarig quickly saying, “Snowden killed your Russian.”

I stayed where I was, waiting for more. “My turn-why?”

“Because he thought Antonov was going to tell me something about Snowden.”

“Was he?”

The older man shrugged. “We’ll never know.”

Irritated, I turned the handle. “Guess,” I said.

Rarig hesitated and then gestured wearily to my chair. “Sit back down. It’s a bit of a story.”

We all three resumed our seats, which seemed to revive Rarig’s self-confidence. “Would any of you like coffee, by the way? I should have asked earlier.”

“Enough,” Willy warned.

“Okay. I’m sorry,” he said, steepling his fingers before his chin, his elbows propped on the arms of his chair. “Twenty-five years ago, when I was, as you guessed, working out of Vienna, we had a plan to make one of our defectors-let’s call him Yuri-appear as if he wanted to return to the old country. He and his wife had been living in DC for years. He’d gotten a Ph.D. and had been working for our Army Intelligence, so the Soviets were definitely interested. We floated rumors he’d become unhappy with his new life, and that if the Russkies wanted him back, he’d have some nice stolen tidbits to help them let bygones be bygones. It was an attractive bait. He’d been working in areas sensitive enough that some of the Army Intel guys actually still did distrust him.”

John Rarig shook his head at the memory. “He was a straight shooter, of course. I’d met him soon after his arrival, and he, his wife, and I became pretty close over the years. I was ordered to use that friendship to make this scheme look attractive to him.”

“You didn’t fight it?” Sammie asked, her own strong sense of loyalty stung.

Rarig pursed his lips. “I didn’t know what was really going on.”

Willy burst out laughing, to my irritation. “And you had your pension to think about. You guys are good. I thought I hung out with assholes.”

In a touchingly protective gesture, Olivia Kidder reached out and squeezed Rarig’s forearm. He smiled at her. “No. He’s right. I’d been in the game since the war. Benefits were a real concern. I should’ve smelled a rat, but I was told the point of the plan was to use Yuri to lure a Soviet bigwig we were after out into the open where we could grab him. It meant the end of Yuri’s work for the Army, but he’d had a good run, and he was well positioned for a cushy civilian job. But it was risky placing an old defector in a town like Vienna, so close to the Hungarian border, and I did put on blinders about that.”

I looked at his downcast eyes as he spoke, and remembered his impotent yearning to return the inn to its utopian roots. In a job where the truth had been so routinely expendable, it had to have been tough not to make lying a natural reflex. His sudden openness, after such coyness moments earlier, made me very suspicious.

“Anyhow,” Rarig resumed, “it all went bust. Yuri went to the meeting, somehow our grab team got lost, and Yuri was never seen again. We found out later the Soviet plan had been the exact reverse of ours. Something went wrong, though, and Yuri was killed. One source told me they overdid the chloroform. Not that we knew anything at the time.”

Rarig, still looking at the rug, let out a small puff of air. “So, the Company brass came down like buzzards, trying to find out what had gone wrong. The problem was, there were several possible scenarios. One theory was that Yuri had in fact re-defected, meaning everything we’d gotten from him over ten years was now suspect. Another was that some Russian mole within the Company had blown the whistle on our operation, thereby saving the Soviet target and getting rid of Yuri in one swoop. And then there was what turned out to be the truth, somewhere in the middle.”

Sammie was looking understandably confused and fell back on her more conventional police training. “What happened to Yuri’s backup?”

For the first time since he’d begun his tale, Rarig looked up at us, his face brighter. “Ah,” he said, holding a finger in the air. “That, as they say, is the nub of it, or at least what they ended up focusing on at the end. Had Yuri been lost through carelessness? Had he shaken us off so he could make a clean run? I was inclined to look elsewhere, which is what brought me to focus on Gil Snowden. He was a Young Turk with a doting DDO, born into the right family tree, and with connections to burn. This had been his first overseas operation. I thought at the time he’d messed up somehow, but I could never prove it. His DDO threw a protective cloak over him and that was that. When the ax finally dropped, it fell on Yuri, predictably enough, whom they blamed for losing touch with his own team.”

“What’s a DDO?” Sammie asked.

“Deputy director of operations,” Willy said sourly. “I met a couple of them in ’Nam. Assholes with rank.”

Rarig smiled. “Crude but occasionally true. I wouldn’t argue the point in this case.”

There was a brief lull, after which I asked, not bothering to hide my incredulity, “That’s it? Twenty-five years ago, you all get your pal Yuri killed, and that’s why Boris or Antonov or whatever the hell his name is gets strangled on your front lawn? By a CIA boss, no less? You’re going to have to do better than that.”

Olivia raised her hand politely, like a student asking permission to speak. “Perhaps I can clear that up a bit. Have you ever heard of James Angleton?”

“Sure. He was your big counterespionage head for a long time.”

She nodded. “That’s right, for twenty years. He and John began at about the same time, as I did, for that matter. Hunting out moles became an obsession with him. He’d ruin a career on a rumor, or discredit a good defector on little more than a hunch.”

“He took one of my defectors,” Rarig added, “and locked him up for two solid years because he thought he was a double. He wasn’t. And there wasn’t one shred of evidence. Angleton was a sick man.”

“In 1973,” Kidder resumed, “just before the Vienna fiasco, William Colby was made director. One of the first things he did was to fire Angleton and dismantle his operation. He reduced counterintelligence from three hundred people to eighty, almost overnight.”

She sat forward in her chair for emphasis. “The reason he did that was because counterintelligence zealotry was crippling the organization. Real or not, we’d become totally paranoid that everyone was reading everyone else’s mail. So, after Angleton was retired-when Yuri came up missing-nobody wanted to return to the bad old days and go hunting for a mole. Nobody.”

“Except me,” Rarig said.

“But you had nothing on Snowden,” I repeated.

Olivia Kidder explained more fully. “John found out through private sources that Snowden had been approached by the KGB immediately following Yuri’s disappearance. No one knows what was discussed, and nothing ever surfaced to incriminate Snowden, but it was a damning piece of coincidence.”

I finally saw where this had been heading. “And the KGB bigwig Yuri was being used to lure into the open was Sergei Antonov,” I said.

“Better,” Rarig corrected me. “It was his boss-my counterpart in the area-Major Georgi Padzhev. And it was Padzhev who supposedly contacted Snowden later.”

I got up and walked to one of the windows facing the ginkgo tree, which was now shimmering like a ghost in the glow from the inn’s lights. Rarig’s and Kidder’s appraisal of Gil Snowden matched my own gut reaction that he was connected to the attempt on my life in DC. To hear of an oddly similar scenario, in which someone actually had been killed, sent a chill down my spine. The more I hoped I’d found a dimly marked path toward vindication, the less I was questioning its highly dubious source-and the readiness with which it had been offered.

I turned to face them both, paying lip service to my doubts. “If Snowden’s been so squeaky clean all these years, couldn’t the meeting between him and Padzhev have been arranged so news of it could be leaked to you-just to make Snowden look bad?”

John Rarig laughed. “That’s good, Lieutenant. That was a common ploy. The problem is only I got news of it, and since I was already known as pro-Yuri and anti-Snowden, I would’ve been a poor choice to discredit him.”

“Gil Snowden was a small fish then,” Kidder added. “Georgi Padzhev wouldn’t have known or cared about him. Logically, a meeting between Snowden and Padzhev would have originated with Snowden, and handing Yuri to the Russians would’ve been the perfect way for Snowden to show good faith.”

It was all so neat and tidy, and so conveniently unprovable. But paranoia’s catching, and I was in need of answers. Still, I struggled.

“When I went down to DC,” I said, “I was almost killed by a man with a knife the night before I was to meet Gil Snowden-a supposed mugger. But Snowden seemed to know all about it the next morning, which was unlikely unless he’d had prior knowledge. If you two are right about him, then why did he try to take me out? I’m a nobody, and everything I knew was shared by my department. Why such a high-risk move?”

“Because that was merely plan A,” Rarig explained. “Since it failed, plan B’s the mess you’re in now.”

“The CIA is framing Joe?” Sammie burst out.

“Snowden is,” Kidder answered. “Whoever else might be involved is anyone’s guess. That’s why John and I are keeping such a low profile. Otherwise, we would have gone straight to the appropriate oversight committee and blown the whistle. As it is-and given what’s happened to you-we’re going to need more than a few hunches before we can show our heads and survive.”

“The reason you’ve been targeted,” Rarig said, “is because you have a reputation for doggedness. You don’t give up. Snowden’s a corporate animal. He knows that if you knock off an organization’s primary mover-or better still, discredit him-everyone else will end up milling around in circles.” He paused and then added, “Had any pressure lately to solve the ‘Boris’ case?”

“That’s why we’re here, wise guy,” Willy said.

“But you’re acting on your own, and at some risk to your jobs.”

“He’s right,” I said. “Nobody’s interested in Boris anymore. We’re the only ones who think he’s the key to all this.”

Willy pointed at our hosts. “Then we better hitch our wagon to someone else, ’cause these two’re getting ready to give you the screwing of a lifetime.”

There was an uncomfortable pause while we all considered what he meant. He shook his head at our stupidity. “Jesus Christ. We been sitting here for God knows how long, listening to a bunch of teary-eyed war stories, totally missing the obvious. What’ve we got so far? That some CIA bureaucrat came flying out of Washington to whack a Russian on Rarig’s front step so the beans wouldn’t be spilled about some supposed conversation that took place a quarter century ago-a conversation which, of course, only Rarig ever heard about, and which never led to anything. Then, once the body’s been discovered in a quarry Snowden couldn’t have possibly known about, he shows his hand by inviting you down to DC, where he tries to get you killed one day, and then shows off that he knew all about it the next. And finally, just in case our taste for bullshit is still running strong, we’re supposed to believe that, failing to kill you, he set up the world’s fanciest frame on the assumption that without our fearless leader, the rest of us are going to act like chickens with our heads cut off.” Willy stopped long enough to give us all an incredulous look. “Get real.”

I cupped my cheek in my hand, staring at the opposite wall. My entire life was disintegrating before my eyes, and every time I tried to grab hold of it, the opportunity was pulled away. Willy had just done it again, throwing water on the hopefulness I’d been trying to ignite.

Stubbornness replacing reason, I argued the point. “Okay,” I told him, “finish it up. If their story stinks, what replaces it?”

“Plain as the nose on your face,” he said. “Rarig’s brought in on the Yuri operation. He’s supposedly Yuri’s friend, the current Austrian field man, knows the lay of the land, the identities of his Soviet counterparts. He’s perfect. But Rarig’s getting long in the tooth, pissed off at the young bucks coming up like Snowden, and he sees a chance to make everything right. He’ll sell Yuri to Padzhev for a tidy Swiss bank deposit, get out of the Company come retirement, and have a time bomb against Snowden-courtesy of Padzhev-in case he ever needs it. He farts around for a few years, dissipating any suspicions, and finally cashes in some of the loot, buys a Vermont inn, and becomes the country squire.

“Only things go wrong. Padzhev’s old right-hand man shows up. He’s Mafia now, driven by greed instead of the old red flag, and he threatens to squeal unless he’s paid off. Rarig knocks him off, dumps him in the quarry, and sets up this whole frame against you to get both us and Snowden’s people off his scent. He didn’t count on that crummy tree, though, and on our tracing it back to him, so now he cooks up this cock-and-bull story because he knows if we swallow it, there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t go charging into the CIA to bust one of their guys, and we ain’t going to be able to persuade anyone else to do it for us.”

It was, as I’d feared, as plausible as what Kidder and Rarig had told us; more so, in fact. The hopes I’d been stacking up against all logic-regardless of the consequences-collapsed.

As a cop, it was true that I’d become like a dog with a bone, making up in labor what I might have lacked in brains, depending on the evidence to light my way. Now I was at a loss. Nothing had clarity, and my growing inner turmoil was giving every hypothesis equal weight.

I rose to my feet one last time and walked to the door. “Willy’s right,” I said, feeling the pull of my own emotional exhaustion. “This is all just a bunch of stories. There’s no reality to it anymore.”

I opened the door and stepped out, seeing Sammie rise to join me, and hearing Willy exclaim paradoxically, “Jesus. You can’t quit now.”

Sammie caught up to me halfway across the lawn. “Joe, wait. What’re you doing?”

I turned to face her. “I’m tired, Sam, and I’ve run out of ideas. I don’t know what those two are up to-they’re probably crazier than rats in a can-and I don’t think they give a damn about us. Right now, I just want to go home. Maybe I’ll come up with something in the morning.”

“Willy was right about something else,” she said as I turned away. “You can’t quit.”

I stopped again and placed my fingertip against my temple. “I know that up here,” I admitted, “but right now I’m feeling like maybe there’re some puzzles that just can’t be worked out.”

She looked into my eyes. “You gotta keep at it.”

I didn’t share her optimism, but at this point, their faith in me was quite possibly the only life raft I had left.

“All right,” I finally said, fighting every instinct. “Get Willy out of there and we’ll try hashing this out on the way back home.”