It was the kind of thing that could enable men in it to listen to a desperate man in a hotel room call FBI headquarters in New Orleans and ask for one Nick Memphis, and then go in and hack him to death with axes.
LANCER ADVISES NO FURTHER ACTION, said the stamp. NATIONAL SECURITY IS AT STAKE (REFER TO ANNEX B).
It was a war party.
Shreck, the hard-looking black man who was called Morgan State, and the serious Hatcher were waiting for him.
“Colonel Shreck, I—”
“Listen to me, Dobbler. I need a fast assessment. Try not to get this one wrong.”
Shreck’s face was hooded and taut; he looked like the statue of a violent medieval German knight in the armor room of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that had briefly fascinated Dobbler when he was a child.
“Just before Swagger was killed, he spent some time in that truck with an FBI agent. Now, what I have to know, would he have talked? As we break the incident down, they were not together more than four minutes, all of it highly stressed. Is it possible that during that period of time, Swagger could have told the agent something, convinced him of certain things?”
“Ah—” said Dobbler, stalling for time.
But then, “No. No, it’s not probable. Swagger was a private, taciturn man, we saw it here. And he couldn’t have trusted anyone and he couldn’t have known who it was he’d have picked up. No, it’s not likely.”
“Possibly he passed him something,” said Morgan State.
“But Colonel Shreck, there was no direct link to us. We operated under dummy institutions, and left no trail. What could Swagger have known?”
The colonel nodded imperceptibly.
“May I ask what’s happening?” Dobbler said.
“Tell him,” Shreck said to Hatcher.
“We’ve learned from a friend that an FBI special agent named Nicholas Memphis—the agent Swagger kidnapped—has requested access to the FBI’s RamDyne file. It’s exactly the sort of thing that Lancer is supposed to protect us from. And somehow—stupidly, incredibly, by one of those bureaucratic screwups that happen, the transmission was authorized. He has the file. He knew Swagger and he has the file.”
“Good lord,” said Dobbler, a cold stab of fear coming into him. “Could he go to the press? Or to a politician? Or to—”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Shreck impatiently, turning to Morgan State. “Get Payne. Tell him we want this Memphis taken, interrogated, and all his secrets removed. Then Payne can kill him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The phone was ringing. Nick stopped drying his breakfast dishes and went to pick it up.
“Yeah.”
“Nick?”
“Uh, yeah?” The voice, a female’s, had a familiar lilt to it.
“Nick, it’s Sally Ellion in Rec—”
“Sure, hi, what’s up?”
“Nick, you’ve got me in so much trouble.” She was whispering.
“Oh. The file.”
“I didn’t know you were on suspension.”
“Ah. Yeah, yeah, it was crummy of me not to tell you. I’m very sorry. It wasn’t honest behavior. I just had this damn case I was really hot to clear. I thought … oh, it was so stupid, I thought in my time off I’d just be able to concentrate on it.”
“Nick, I’ve got a directive to return that file by special courier instantly.”
“Oh, Jesus. I hope you’re not in any trouble.”
“I have to have that file back. You weren’t even supposed to leave the building with it.”
“Yeah, but since I couldn’t stay in the building, I couldn’t read it there, could I? Anyway, Sally, I’m very sorry to have disappointed you. I’m done with it, I’ll leave in ten minutes and have it back to you in an hour. Okay? And could this be our little secret, I mean, the fact that I actually looked at it?”
“Oh, yes. It has to be. I can’t tell them you left the building with it. Please hurry.”
“I’m on my way.”
Nick showered quickly, and put on a gray suit. In a strange way it pleased him to have some mission in life, even if it was only to deliver the file.
He’d been turning over what he’d learned in his head. He remembered the strange message the man who may have been the Salvadoran secret policeman Eduardo Lanzman had crawled into the bathroom to leave for him. ROM DO was the message in the blood, in the split second before it was obliterated. Possibly the beginnings of the words Romeo Dog, which was early-sixties Army radio code for the letters R and D and the Bay of Pigs invasion force call sign in 1962? R and D. Ram and Dyne. RamDyne …
It was almost something. But it was still nothing. Why didn’t he write RA DY, why ROM DO, what was there about the radio codes of the Bay of Pigs? If it was from the Bay of Pigs?
He shook his head, feeling an ache begin in it somewhere. He now believed that he had an indication—but no legally constituted evidence, another matter entirely —that this RamDyne was in some way involved in the murder of Eduardo Lanzman and possibly the murder, therefore, of Archbishop Jorge Roberto Lopez. He knew he’d ventured into very hazy areas, the vaunted wilderness of mirrors, where it was possible to lose your bearings in a second, and become so riddled with paranoia that nothing made sense anymore. Everything in him told him to back off, it was none of his business.
But the idea … those guys running around on their own special mission. Who watched them? Who paid them? Shreck, Payne, the others? To whom did they give their accounts? To some Lancer Committee. Who founded them? Where did they come from in the year 1964, suddenly rich and influential enough to get the deal going with fifteen hundred Armalite rifles. Who were they?
Annex B would tell him.
I’ve got to get Annex B, he told himself.
But what the fuck is Annex B?
“There he goes,” said Tommy Montoya in the van, “that’s my little Nicky.”
Jack Payne, watching through the scope as Nick Memphis walked from his little suburban house to his Dodge, and climbed in, just grunted.
“Take him now, Payne-O?” asked Tommy.
“No. They’re expecting him. Let him return the fucking file, then we’ll nail him on the way out. What I want is someone in his house. He’s got to have a piece in there. If it ain’t a piece, he’ll have a kitchen knife or a razor or something. I want it lifted. We’ll use it when we chill his bones out after our little chat.”
“Jack, man, it’s no sweat, I can do the house,” said one of the other team members.
“Yeah, Pony, that’s fine, you do it. We’ll wait on you.”
“You don’t want to tail him?” asked Mr. Ed, the driver.
“Nah. Let Pony get into the house and pick out a nice toy. No prints now, Pony, you got that?”
“Sí, Jack, sure, got it.”
“Okay, go to it, son.”
Pony stepped out of the back of the Electrotek 5400 surveillance van parked a discreet distance down from Memphis’s house. Jack watched him go. He was dressed like a workman. He went to the house, knocked on the door, then blandly went around back.
“He’ll get in,” said Edwards, always called Mr. Ed. “I seen him do locks. He’s like a fucking genius with locks.”
“Great,” said Jack.
It was true. Pony was back in thirty minutes. His trophy was a little Parkerized Colt Agent.
Payne, wearing plastic gloves, popped it open and gently plucked one round out.
“Ooooo,” he said, “Glaser safeties,” looking at the blue-tipped bullet nested in the brass case and imagining the clusters of lead suspended like bunches of grapes inside the jacket. “These nasty suckers make instant spaghetti,” he said.
“Oh, Nicky,” said Tommy Montoya. “You in the shit now, my friend.”
“Hi, I—”
“Shhhhhh!” she whispered, her small pretty face knitting in anger. “Put it there,” she commanded in the same conspiratorial whisper.
“Yeah, sure.”
He set the box with the Ram
Dyne file on her desk and backed away. She didn’t look at it directly. He just stood there and could feel the sense of furious betrayal radiating off her neck, which was all he could see.
“Sally, I’m—”
And finally she looked up.
Her face was compressed with pain. She was trying to show him how much he’d hurt her. Hurt her? He didn’t even know her! The abrupt envelope of intimacy somewhat befuddled him. It occurred to him suddenly that this pretty, idiotic girl conceived herself as being in love with him, one of those crush things, nurtured from afar down through the months. He could not have begun to engineer such a turn of events and now that it was here, it embarrassed him; he felt as if he’d trounced on a fragile secret thing of hers. He felt unworthy. But also irritated. Hey, I never knew I meant anything to you, do you see?
“Did you have any trouble?” she finally asked. “I mean, getting back into the building?”
“No. No, you know it’s funny, even though I don’t have an ID or anything, they just let me back in. You know, what’s his name, Paul on security, he just waved mildly, like he has every day for the past four years. I guess some people didn’t get the word.”
“I’ll say.”
He let the silence sit between them for a while, trying to figure out how to deflate it.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I should have told you. This case was tantalizing me, though. It had nothing to do with my screwups of the last two months. I just hated to let the goddamn thing die, even if the career was shot. You handed me the damned file. I just didn’t have the strength to walk away from it.”
She swallowed.
“I’m sorry for what they’re doing to you. I’m sure it’s not your fault.”
“Ahh, it is. I thought I was so smart, and I just kept blowing it. Look, I have to get out of here before I get you in any trouble. You’ll be okay?”
“I think so. As long as I get it back to them by tomorrow. And I have to sign a form saying it never left the office.”
“So you have to lie for me?”
“Yes.”
“See, I’m great luck for women. Look, Sally, it was a crummy thing to do. I apologize. Could I—I don’t know, make it up? Would you like me to buy you dinner or something?”
“I have a date tonight.”
“Sure, I understand. Okay, I’m sorry again, now I’ll get out of—”
“I don’t have one tomorrow night.”
“Oh. Uh, well, then. Um, can I pick you up in front of the building here at, say, six? Maybe we’ll go down to the Quarter and get oysters before it fills up with tourists.”
“Six,” she said. “And don’t worry about the lying. It’s no problem.”
“Thanks, Sal. Thanks a lot.”
It was a glorious day out. Nick walked through the tall buildings of downtown New Orleans. He had nothing to do, and nothing but time to fill. So task-oriented all his life, he suddenly felt buoyant. Exhilarated, he thought he might walk on down to the Quarter now, have a nice lunch, then head on back to the house and take a nap. He felt cured of his depression. He had a date with an attractive girl, he was still young enough. He knew people. He’d be all right. Hey, maybe this wouldn’t suck so bad after all. He had enough money to get through another couple of weeks or so.
Live a little, Nick. Don’t have to be a Feeb grind your whole life. Maybe Sally would find him attractive, maybe she wouldn’t. If it happened, it happened. But a world had just opened up. Amazing how good a woman’s smile can make you feel.
It was at this moment in his ruminations—he was lost in the shadows of the tall commercial buildings and jostled by the anonymous lunchtime crowds—that he heard his name called.
“Nicky! Hey, Nicky, Nicky!”
He turned to see his old snitch Tommy Montoya, broadcasting Latino animal magnetism, his neck swimming in gold chain.
“Tommy!” he called. “Tommy, damn, I’m glad to see you. Hey, I was going to call you. Hey, you got a moment? I got some stuff I want to ask you.”
“Sure, Nicky, no problem, man.”
Nick stepped toward Tommy and in an instant three other men were on him, crushing inward roughly.
“Hey, what the—”
They went for his arms. He thrashed, thought he caught one with an elbow in the face, but as they crunched in upon him, all their huge weight just pressing against him, there came the prick of a needle through his suit coat into his lower back, and suddenly his legs lost their purchase on the earth, he lurched forward through swirls of light, and had the vaguest idea of sleep and surrender while he knew he was falling. He seemed to fall for quite a while and had only the vaguest impression of a van pulling up.
Nick awoke in darkness on the dirty floor of the van. He could hear the sawing of crickets and somehow he sensed a fetid, overhanging jungle atmosphere.
He tried to sit up but handcuffs had him manacled. His head felt as if someone had hydraulically pumped six tons of plastic waste in through his nostrils.
“Payne-O, he’s come to.”
“Oh, great. Hi ya, Nicky, how ya feel? Man, that sodium pentothal hits like a fucking truck, don’t it?”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Just working stiffs, sonny. Get him up.”
“Right, Payne-O.”
The name Payne-O. It was so familiar.
Rough pairs of hands lifted Nick. A flashlight beam hit him in the eyes. His head throbbed. He could make out the shadows of four men.
“You know what we’ve been talking about? How fast you’d see things our way and cooperate with us. I’m of the opinion that a good scout like you would see the error of his ways and come clean. Tommy here says you’re going to be a stubborn motherfucker, giving us grief the whole night long. But you know what, Nick? It don’t matter. We got plenty of time and no other place to be. And remember this: everybody always talks. Nobody’s a hero.”
“Tommy’s a piece of shit.”
“Nicky, I always liked you.”
“You piece of shit!” Nick yelled.
“Oh, Nick’s a tough boy, ain’t he,” said the heavyset, smaller man. Nick could see a tapestry of blue ink embossed on his thick arms.
He remembered the RamDyne file. Payne-0.
“You’re Payne, right? The Green Beret. You were at the massacre on the Sampul River. Man, you must be real proud of yourself, you piece of shit.”
“Oh, Nick, Nick, Nick. That was a wonderful job of work. We killed two hundred communists that day, so that fat assholes like you could rest in your fat little country, not a thought in their heads.” He laughed an awful laugh. “Nick, that’s what we do. You know, that’s our job.”
“Payne-O, you oughtn’t to tell him—”
“Oh, we can trust Nick with all our secrets, can’t we, Nick? Nick’s one of the good scouts, right?”
“Fuck you, Payne,” said Nick, liberated by the drunken freedom of the drug still in his system. “You let me out of these cuffs, man, I’ll tear your fucking heart out. Your specialty is machine-gunning kids. I read the file. Let me tell you, motherfucker, I’d like to match you against an FBI SWAT team instead of women and kids in a river. We’d teach you something you didn’t know about rock and roll, motherfucker.” Nick was really screaming.
Payne laughed. Tommy laughed.
Nick looked beyond him and saw the darkness and the stillness of the Louisiana bayou. God knew where they were. Miles and miles beyond civilization. There was no help or mercy. He saw his own car parked just outside. He knew what that meant. It meant they would kill him in some way made to approximate a suicide and the car had to be there to explain how he’d gotten out there.
“Now, Nick, this can go hard or it can go easy. What’s it going to be?”
“Either way it’s fucking curtains for me, sucker.”
“Not necessarily,” said Tommy. “When we make you see how we’re operating in National Security, you may even want to join us. We do what has to be done. You better be fucking gl
ad somebody in this fucking country is. We’re like the fucking Roman centurions, man. We keep the barbarians away. Isn’t that right, Payne-O?”
“He’s got that right.”
“Shitasses like you always say you’re doing something for the country. You’re the barbarians, motherfucker.”
Then Nick spat in Payne’s face.
Something awesome and rhinolike flared in Payne; even in the darkness Nick could sense the surge of naked rage. At that second Payne wanted to rip his eyes out. But he regained his professional control, and wiped the phlegm off his forehead.
“Payne-O,” said one of the other guys, “he ain’t gonna volunteer any info.”
Payne’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, shit, you’re right. That stretches it out. But it’s fastest up front. So shoot him up.”
Nick felt his jacket sleeve being shoved up.
“Oh, Nick, have we got a tongue loosener for you.”
He felt the prick of a needle, its long slide into his vein, and the odd largeness as whatever was injected into him filled his veins.
“Okay, Nick, just relax, let it happen,” Tommy said.
Nick tried to fight it.
“It’s very sophisticated stuff. Phenobarbital-B, an advanced compound, state of the art for CIA interrogations. Go ahead, fight it. The more you fight, the more you talk.”
Nick felt nothing. Then he felt everything. Lights were going on, then going off. He felt his will shredding. He felt it going away. In his weakness and terror, he yearned only to please.
“Now Nick,” came the voice from very far away, “Nick, Nick, Nick. Tell us a story. Got the tape going, Pony?”
“It’s on.”
“Nick, how’d you first hear of RamDyne?”
Nick tried to find a way to resist, but the point of it seemed quite ridiculous. Why not give them what they wanted? Everybody did.
“I—I—”
“That’s right. Go on.”
“I was on surveillance with the Secret Service prior to Flashlight’s visit. Um. One of their agents mentioned that RamDyne exported the big surveillance rigs to Central American governments and I’d been looking for some way …”