Dead Silence Page 5

  Hooker said, “Fourteen. He was held back last term.”

  “Huh?” I didn’t know details, but the essay contest had to be a big deal if the prize was a trip to New York. Statewide, maybe nationwide. And from Minnesota? He was no dummy.

  “Perhaps troubled,” Hooker offered. Barbara’s staff had assembled all the info they could gather on the teen—not easily done because they couldn’t contact his teachers or friends until a parent had been notified. The foster parents didn’t count because they weren’t adopting, they were volunteers with Lutheran Social Services. The program provided temporary homes for teens at risk.

  Will Chaser had actually grown up on an Indian reservation south of Oklahoma City, Hooker told me. It explained the cowboy connection. The reservation was in Seminole County, oil and gas country, but also a stronghold of federally funded ghettos and the apparatus associated with despair: day care, public housing, programs for substance abusers, which included about sixty percent of the adult male population.

  Two years ago, the Indian Opportunities Center had “relocated” the boy to a Sioux reservation near Fond du Lac. Maybe he had gotten in trouble, or maybe he’d displayed uncommon talent. A few months later, Lutheran Social Services accepted him into their Foster Grandparents Program. He had been living in Minneapolis ever since with a couple in their fifties, Ruth and Otto Guttersen. If the senator’s staff couldn’t contact the birth parents by midnight, the FBI would notify the Guttersens that Will had been abducted.

  Hooker said, “The child has already had his share of trouble. A bloody pity he has to go through something like this.”

  “Fourteen years old,” I repeated, feeling a renewed urgency. I checked my watch: 9:40 p.m.

  An abduction fires the irrational in rational people. The brain’s flight-or-fight response triggers a craving to do something even when waiting is the only option and there is no visible foe to fight. I’d been through it.

  Maybe the Brit understood because he made an effort to lighten the mood, waving me into the kitchen as he said, “While awaiting battle, the wise knight oils his armor.” He took a six-pack from the refrigerator. “Care for a drop or two?”

  Rolling Rock, green bottles. When I reached for one, he warned, “Not yet,” then used his steel pincers to pop the tops.

  “Handy.”

  “That’s why it’s attached to my wrist. But this doesn’t compare to an ice ax. You made an unusual choice of weapons, Ford. If memory serves, the intelligence services haven’t used an ice ax since your people summited Leon Trotsky in Mexico.”

  I took a step and winced because of my knee. “I’d forgotten. But they left the business end in Trotsky’s head, didn’t they? I left mine in the street. If it’s valuable, I hope someone returned it.”

  “The last man to use that ax was Sir Edmund on Everest. Thanks to you, I may lose my fellowship next committee vote.” The Brit smiled. “Don’t worry, the ax is back on the wall. And Hilly would have approved, I think.”

  I followed him around the corner into the sitting room, where management had set up a buffet table. In the adjoining suite, they had also installed desks and additional computer lines.

  The room was crowded. A half dozen people, a plainclothes bodyguard, plus Senator Hayes-Sorrento, who was pacing the terrace, a phone wedged against her ear. Staffers were also on phones or frowning at their computer screens. When the woman noticed me, she waved and managed a wan smile but continued talking, emphasizing a point to some subordinate.

  The senator looked good for a woman who had just been assaulted. Blue blouse, gray slacks—the first female on the hill to wear men’s suits. She had been a TV anchor before inheriting a congressional seat from her late husband. The woman still had the requisite good chin and eyes, the photogenic jaw that could flex on cue. She was also smart as hell. The Senate was the next logical step.

  Writers described her as handsome, a word safely attached because the mix of feminine and masculine reflected her political style but also transmitted a sexuality that was pure female. It was no charade. On a recent Caribbean vacation, it had almost ruined the senator’s career. A blackmailer, a hidden camera and a beachboy were involved.

  Thanks to random good luck, I was able to snatch the video and return it. Barbara and I had had a few dates since, but I didn’t feel the abdominal awareness that signals sexual chemistry—possibly because those signals weren’t being sent by Barbara.

  I liked the woman. She was driven and complex, and aggressively private in the way some public figures are. Because of the way I’d dealt with the video, she trusted me. Because I knew the video’s content, pretense was pointless. The woman felt free to say damn-near anything when we were alone together. We hadn’t known each other long, we weren’t lovers, yet were becoming confidants. It was an unusual relationship for two healthy heterosexual adults.

  As I stood in the doorway, talking with Hooker, I glanced toward the terrace to confirm Barbara was still on the phone. She’d been looking at me, hoping to get my attention. I saw her confidential nod, as she held up a finger, eyes posing the question Can you give me a few minutes?

  No problem.

  Hooker noticed the exchange. He took out a cell phone, touched a button or two, then slipped it into his pocket. “This might be a good time.”

  I said, “For what?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned so he could say privately, “There’s a gentleman who would like to have a word with you.”

  “Who?” I was unfolding the paper he had slipped into my hand. There was a key, too.

  “It’s a room number. Just down the hall.”

  “Do I know this person?”

  Hooker replied, “I couldn’t say,” meaning exactly that.

  The room was empty but the phone was ringing. It was my old boss, Harrington, the man who’d summoned me to New York.

  When I recognized the voice, I said, “The gentleman who gave me the message. A new member of your staff?”

  “No, just returning a favor. You sound irritated.”

  I was, but it wasn’t because he’d used Hooker as a messenger. “I had a date tonight, but something pulled me away. Your people? I need the truth.”

  Harrington said, “Our people, you mean?”

  “Depends on the answer.”

  “Why do you think I called? You’re suspicious because of the timing. I would’ve been suspicious myself.”

  I said, “As a general rule, I’m suspicious of anyone who invites me to lunch. Almost getting killed proves it’s a good rule.”

  In the last week, Harrington and I had met several times, usually at the Lotos Club, but once at the Café Vivaldi, in Greenwich Village, where we’d interviewed a member of Alpha 66, a Cuban militant group. Fidel Castro’s personal possessions—the contents of a secret home, including his private papers—had been discovered, seized and shipped to Langley. That was the story leaked to the international press anyway. Castro Files was the phrase being used to underplay that more than three tons of personal effects, books, photos and papers had been confiscated.

  Harrington had a personal interest in what the files contained. So did I. It was my main reason for coming to New York.

  I changed my question to eliminate wiggle room. “Did you have any prior knowledge about what happened tonight? Even a hint?”

  With the phone to my ear, I was searching the room, opening closets, switching on lights. Empty rooms make me nervous. So do telephones.

  Harrington said, “Zero. No involvement. It’s not the way we operate. Even off the reservation, it would mean breaking all the rules. Can you think of an exception?”

  He was talking about the kidnapping. Anywhere outside the United States was off the reservation.

  I said, “The only rule is, there are no rules,” quoting one of the organization’s own maxims. But he was right. I couldn’t think of an exception.

  “Besides, do you really think I would’ve okayed anything involving an exemption? How
long have we known each other?”

  An exemption was a noncombatant minor. Exceptions are exempt—another rule of a black ops team that had no rules.

  I wanted to believe him. Harrington had a daughter. Like me, he had lived through a kidnapping. Plus, the man had changed in a way I’d yet to quantify. In our meetings, he’d been personable, not cold. He’d admitted past mistakes and made comments that were introspective, even philosophical—totally out of character. Maybe years of accumulated guilt had snapped some internal guy wire.

  It happens. It has happened to stronger, smarter men than me, which is why I focus on the present, not the past. I am aware of the dangers of exploring murky demarcations between principles and morals, obligations and duty. I prefer sunnier places, like the Amazon.

  A more compelling reason to believe Harrington was what Choirboy had told me while we were in the water. My second question was: Why kidnap the senator?

  Choirboy’s answer had implicated a group of religious crazies. But even if he spoke the truth, it didn’t guarantee he knew the truth.

  I said to Harrington, “If the tables were turned, wouldn’t I be your first suspect?”

  He replied, “You’re right about the timing. Yes, I understand. But this is a business call, not social. Do you mind?”

  Someone could be listening. A warning in his tone. I sighed, preparing myself for a code protocol that was outdated but still part of the game.

  Harrington said, “I think what happened tonight has to do with the library collection we discussed. Are you with me?”

  He gave me a moment to translate: Castro Files.

  “I want that collection. Sure. At least, take a look. But I’m not the only one. There are people all over the world who want it. And powerful organizations. A library that extensive? No telling what it’s worth on the open market.”

  I said, “I know, I know. People are dying to get their hands on it.”

  “I’m not that desperate. Not yet. Move too fast, I overpay. But moving too slow could be even worse—for both of us. That’s another reason I called. I’m counting on you to keep me updated. That shouldn’t be hard. Same hotel, right?”

  He was referring to Barbara.

  “It’s like you’re a mind reader.”

  “Odd, that you should make that reference. I enjoyed your friend’s lecture. It was interesting. Maybe you should consult him on the matter.”

  He had heard Tomlinson speak on psychic surveillance? The new, open-minded Harrington.

  I listened to him say, “The people who screwed up your dinner plans tonight are making a bid on the collection. That’s what happened.”

  “A theory?”

  “If your girlfriend’s people haven’t heard, they soon will. The info’s coming in right now. Hold on.” The phone went silent. I guessed he was reading a bulletin on the SIGINT web, a high-clearance intelligence source. “The party crashers don’t want the entire library. They want four volumes.”

  Harrington was telling me the kidnappers had made contact with a ransom demand. I looked at the door, wondering if Barbara knew.

  “The same volumes we want?” We wasn’t used editorially. It was possible that a carton labeled C/CN-103 contained information on an illegal organization. Harrington was still involved. I was once a member. It was the Negotiating and Systems Analysis Group—the Negotiators. Information about the organization could be filed under C for Castro and CN for Clandestine.

  If there was such a file, it contained the last documents anywhere that proved the Negotiators existed—or so Harrington had promised me.

  Harrington said, “Different volumes. There’s proof, if you need it. What they’re after wouldn’t interest you or me. Feel better?”

  I asked about the boy, saying, “Do they still have something to trade?”

  Harrington said, “Looks like they might—there’s a photo. I’m reading their offer right now.” There was another long pause before he said, “Do me a favor, stick by the phone, okay?”

  He hung up.

  More than just files and property had been seized. Harrington had finally told me the whole story after our meeting with the Alpha 66 militant.

  Cuba was not a peaceful place, despite the death of the man Cubans once called the Maximum Leader, or the Bearded One.

  Fidel Castro’s secret retreat had been uncovered on a tiny island off the southern coast of Cuba, Playa Giron. The island had been declared a military zone in 1962 but, in fact, Castro owned the island. Used it for vacations, then as his home in later years, finally as a sanctuary when he became ill.

  After officially transferring control of Cuba to his brother, Raul, Fidel had spent his last year on Playa Giron, writing his memoirs, almost a hermit except for medical attendants, visiting physicians and a few friends. His most valued possessions were brought to him—a common request for a dying man but Fidel Castro was anything but common. He ordered his valuables hidden, anticipating that his regime might have to live in exile for years before returning to power.

  He was at least partly right. The Castro regime collapsed soon after his death in December, although not as soon as some expected, and the main players had fled to a sympathetic Venezuela, either unaware of what the Maximum Leader had left behind or where the valuables were hidden.

  When the U.S. military discovered the cache, Castro’s assets—Playa Giron included—were declared to be without legal provenance and so were confiscated. The collection now filled an entire warehouse at a secret facility in Maryland, not Langley, Virginia.

  Fifty years of secrets, tens of thousands of documents censored to protect only Castro, plus a hidden cache of Fidel’s personal possessions. Because the Senate and the CIA had been in a tug-of-war, courts had sealed the containers soon after they were grouped and before most were cataloged or analyzed.

  There was worldwide political interest because of the files, but there was also a treasure trove of valuables—literally.

  Two decades before his death, Castro started a government-funded salvage company, Carisub. Several dozen Spanish treasure galleons had sunk in Cuban waters, and Carisub’s mission was simple: Find the treasure and notify Fidel, who was an avid diver.

  Carisub used four boats and employed sixty divers, who were trained in archaeology, epigraphy and numismatics. They were an elite team, all loyal members of the Cuban Communist Party.

  Cuba is a treasure diver’s dream, and Carisub’s pros found a lot of wrecks and salvaged a fortune in Spanish gold, silver, coins, emeralds, rubies and jewelry.

  It was known that the Cuban dictator had invested in small rarities to shield his own wealth and also to give him a quick out. Fifty million in gold was fifty kilos of trouble. But fifty million in rare stamps and gems could be hidden in a hatband and converted into cash anywhere in the world.

  To the world’s clandestine organizations, though, the cache of private papers were more valuable. Unknown facts about the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy’s assassination, the Soviet collapse, funding of anti-Western terrorist organizations, the truth about Angola and Granada—surprising data might surface.

  The same groups were worried that other secrets might surface, too. Appointed as cochair of a Senate intelligence subcommittee, Barbara had been at the center of the political firestorm that followed. Fidel’s private papers and files were a small part of what had been seized, but their contents might have a big impact in terms of national security or intelligence. Barbara Hayes-Sorrento, backed by the powerful Cuban-American lobby, wanted the papers to be made public.

  Harrington and I did not want them made public, not until we knew what the files contained anyway, something I hadn’t told the senator.

  My friendship with Barbara Hayes-Sorrento was coincidental but was now potentially useful. It put me in a helluva tough position. My standards of morality change with border crossings. But never in my life have I set up a friend or allowed anyone to use me as bait to harm a friend.

  That’s exactl
y what Harrington had been asking me to do. But it was different now—in my mind anyway—because the kidnapping gave me a legitimate reason to stay in close contact with Barbara. I had been there when it happened. I was the one who had told the teenager to stay in the car—the worst possible advice, it turned out.

  I wanted an active role in tracking the bastards and catching them. When Harrington finally called back, I tried to make that clear.

  I said, “I’m more of a hands-on sort of person. We should get together and discuss the next step.” He had confirmed the kidnappers had made contact before returning to the subject of Castro’s files and Senator Hayes-Sorrento.

  “More questions?”

  “A request, really.”

  Harrington said, “I’m all ears.”

  “I want an application.”

  “A job, you mean. A real job . . . with us.”

  “That’s right.”

  “No need to apply. The answer is yes.”

  I stopped by a window. The room was on the eighth floor. Snowflakes convexed skyward on a monoxide thermal, car lights eight stories below. “You’re sure you understand what I’m asking—”

  “I offered you two research positions. You nixed both. Finally, we’ve found something that meets your high standards. I’m relieved.”

  The sarcasm wasn’t imaginary. I was working on my own terms now. I’d told him I would accept only assignments that meshed with my interests as a biologist or that presented an unusual technical challenge. I was a private contractor, in theory, who had yet to accept my first job.

  Harrington had offered me missions in Venezuela and Pakistan. I already had enough enemies in South America. For the Pakistan job, I needed at least six weeks to get in the kind of shape the job required.

  I had said no to both.

  Going after the teenager, though, was a good fit. Because I had a personal interest, I would have requested the job even if hack amateurs had abducted him. But these people weren’t hacks, they were pros—I’d seen their work. If they kept the boy alive, I had a decent chance of doing a reverse snatch-and-bag. The kidnappers would expect law-abiding cops, not someone like me.