Travis shook his head dismissively. “That makes no sense. That can’t be. You’re telling me that I am responsible for what’s happening here?”
“Of course you are. Who else is responsible?”
“Well, the people who sent me. My supervisor, my section chief, all the people you spoke of—”
“That very well may be the case, Michael, but they chose you to come down here, and they chose you because of who you are and what they believed you might do. So why you? That’s another question yet to be answered, is it not?”
Travis was silent. He was afraid now, and there was a claustrophobic tension in his chest, his throat, even his head. The impulse was to run, but where to?
“There’s nowhere to go,” Doyle said. “Whatever you feel, it’s right there inside you. You run away, you just take it with you.”
“So what’s going to happen now?” Travis asked.
“The gang of thugs that organized this crapshoot are on their way here. If they ordered you back to Kansas and you said no, then they’re on their way here, no doubt about it.”
“And what do we do?”
“Who is your senior?”
“The man who sent me here is my supervisor, Tom Bishop, but the section chief is a man called Frank Gale.”
“Seriously? Frank is the section chief over this?” Doyle laughed dryly. “Oh, this will be fun. When we last crossed swords, he wasn’t a section chief, but I am sure that the added seniority and authority have done nothing but exaggerate the sheer stupidity and arrogance of the man.”
“He was the one who established the unit I work for in Kansas. The direction for the unit came directly from Executive Assistant Director Bradley—”
“Warren,” Doyle interjected.
Travis should have been surprised, but he was not. He had passed the point of being surprised by anything Doyle said. “You know him as well, right?”
“Bradley Warren? Oh yes, indeed. Bradley Warren and I go back a long, long way. Warren was there right at the start, early 1950 when I came in. He and I shared many a conversation. Seems like we have a crew of old familiars on the way, eh? And when you have a moment, you should ask Oscar Haynes about what a warm, generous, and wonderful man Bradley Warren truly is.”
“Well, Warren is above Gale, and he directs the unit on a day-to-day basis. Whether or not he reports directly to Hoover, I don’t know.”
“Oh, I am sure he does. Nothing happens in your Bureau without Mr. Hoover being fully aware of every detail.”
“I know,” Travis said. “I am well aware of that. That is why I am trapped. There is no one I can go to.”
“And there is also another possibility you have to consider.”
“Which is?”
“That the director himself might make a visit.”
Now Travis was surprised, and he shook his head in disbelief.
“Don’t look so shocked, Michael. If you think that such a thing is impossible, then you have underestimated the degree to which I am a threat to the man.”
“But Hoover? Hoover will come here?”
“Not only that, but he might very well have already organized your unexplained disappearance.”
“What?” Travis said. “What on earth are you talking about? Of course they’re not coming to kill me.”
“Maybe,” Doyle said. “What they may very well do is give you a choice, and if you don’t choose right, then they are definitely going to kill you. They might kill you right away, or they might ship you off to some psychiatric institute, and there you will become a guinea pig for more barbaric drug trials under the supervision of some outright horror of a human being like Donald Cameron or Sidney Gottlieb.”
“They cannot do that!” Travis said, visibly stunned by Doyle’s words. “How can they do that? What—”
“They did it to Harold Blauer, Frank Olson, our friend Andris Varga,” Doyle said. “They were not the first, and they sure as hell won’t be the last. I don’t know who Varga really was, but I don’t doubt for a second that he was in the employ of the FBI or the CIA, perhaps even both, and that was the way he paid for his American liberty. The price of freedom, eh? Nevertheless, once he’d exhausted his usefulness, they killed him and used him to get you close to us. Anyway, details are pointless now. The simple truth is that you are no longer playing by the rules. You are no longer being a good company man. I can imagine they are very interested in seeing that you don’t speak to anyone about this odd murder that took place in a small town called Seneca Falls.”
Doyle sat down.
Travis continued pacing. He was too agitated and disturbed to keep still.
“So this is it?” Travis said. “I am just supposed to wait here for them to come down and do whatever the hell they want to me?”
“Yes, that is what you’re supposed to do,” Doyle said. “Whether or not that is actually what you do is your decision.”
“Well, of course I am not going to do nothing!” Travis said. “But what do I do? I can’t very well just shoot whoever shows up and hope for the best.”
“You could do worse than that,” Doyle said.
The door opened behind Travis and he stepped back.
Valeria stood there for a moment, and then she said, “They won’t go.”
Doyle frowned. “Sorry?”
“I told them that people were on the way. I told the Bellancas and Akiko and Gabor, and they said they were not going. They said that if you were in trouble, then they were in trouble too. Even John Ryan said that if there was going to be any fighting, then he was in. He said you would understand that, Irishman to Irishman.”
Doyle turned to Travis. “See? Real friends? What do they say—a friend helps you move, a real friend helps you move a body?”
“So what’s happening here? We’re going to have a running gun battle with the FBI?”
“You have a gun, maybe. I don’t have one. Don’t believe in them.” He turned to Valeria. “We don’t have any guns, do we, sweetheart?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Michael. Seems that a running gun battle with the FBI isn’t in the cards today.”
“Jesus Christ, I can’t believe you’re being so damned nonchalant about this! The FBI is on its way, Doyle. The FBI will send people here, they will be armed, and if what you say is true, if they really are here to take me in and do whatever they’re going to do with you, then we need to do something.”
“And what would you suggest, Michael? They are federal, after all. They can cross state jurisdictions with impunity. They are accountable to no one but Hoover and the president himself. What would you have us do? Run for our lives? We have been running for long enough now. And, frankly, I think it has gone beyond that, dear friend. If they have finally resorted to murder, then we have gone as far as we can go. They’re not coming to negotiate, Michael. They’re coming to get their own way once and for all.”
“So, what are you going to do? Just quit? Just let them come? Just hold up your hands and be defeated? How can you do that? How can you even consider such a thing?”
“We’re not going to hold up our hands, Michael,” Doyle said. “Be defeated? I would never even consider such a thing. We’re going to let them come; we’re even going to make them welcome, and we will listen to what they have to say. That’s the plan.”
“The plan? That’s not a plan!”
Valeria crossed the caravan and sat beside Doyle. She reached out and took his hand.
“Are you willing to die, Michael?” Doyle asked.
“To die? No, of course not. Of course I am not willing to die.”
“Then today you will probably die,” Doyle said matter-of-factly.
“Edgar, seriously, stop teasing him,” Valeria said.
“He needs to face the reality of what is
happening, my sweet,” Doyle said. “He needs to understand and appreciate that his life is over.”
“What? What the hell are you saying?” Travis exclaimed.
“I am saying that this is the end of the line for you, dear Michael Travis. How old are you?”
“How old am I? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s just a question. How old are you?”
“I am thirty-one,” Travis said.
“Well, that was your hand this time around. That was your deal. What you’ve done is what you’ve done, and what you’ve seen is what you’ve seen, and here is where it all comes to a conclusion. If I were you, just to make a point, I would go out in blaze of glory. A real Western-style shoot-out between you and a few of your colleagues, if you can manage that. Better still, if you can kill Gale and Warren, then the world will owe you a tremendous debt.”
“I am not going to kill Frank Gale and Bradley Warren—”
“Why the hell not, eh? They wouldn’t even think twice about killing you. In fact, even if they aren’t on their way right now to make sure the job is done properly, they will have assigned it to someone who won’t think twice either. That I can guarantee, no question about it. Hence my question, are you willing to die?”
“I don’t want to die—”
“That’s not the question, Michael,” Doyle interjected. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to die. I asked if you were willing to die.”
“No, I am not willing to die,” Travis said.
“Then you need to change your mind, my friend.”
“What? What the hell—”
“You have to decide that today is a perfectly acceptable day to die. That is all I am suggesting.”
“I don’t even understand you anymore,” Travis said. “All I know for sure is that is that in about forty minutes or so, Tom Bishop and Frank Gale and whoever the hell else decides to come along for the ride, will be here with a host of agents and an arsenal of weapons. I have a Bureau-issue .38 revolver, and you have nothing.”
“Oh, believe me, Agent Travis, we have something a great deal more powerful than the Bureau’s arsenal of weapons,” Doyle said, smiling.
“More powerful than guns?” Travis said. “What have you got? A tank?”
“Not at all,” Doyle said. “What we have, my poor, dear, unfortunate, anxious, doubting Thomas, is a shadow play… a shadow play of smoke and mirrors to rival their own, I believe.”
48
They had gathered in the central marquee. Akiko Mimasuya was there, as were the Bellanca brothers, Gabor Benedek, Chester Greene, Mr. Slate, Oscar Haynes, even John Ryan. Strangely enough, it was seeing that mute old man that put everything in perspective. The previous Tuesday, the fifth, and Travis had sat listening to Supervisor Bishop as he outlined the situation in Seneca Falls. Ryan had been the one to show him where the body of Andris Varga had been found. Between that moment and now, Travis’s entire life had been turned back to front and upside down.
The assembly was waiting for Doyle, and Doyle came in after Travis, Valeria Mironescu beside him.
“People are coming,” Doyle said. “Government people.” He looked at Slate, Haynes, and Greene. “Among them will be people you know, of course, and we are going to have to deal with this.”
“Finally,” Haynes said. “This has been a long time coming, Edgar.”
“Not long enough,” Greene added. “They’re never going to let it lie, are they?”
“You knew they never would, Chester. This is what they do.”
“And you others… really, you don’t need to be here. This doesn’t concern you.”
“If it concerns you, then it concerns us,” Benedek said. “We already discussed it. We already told Valeria.”
“And if I ask you to leave?” Doyle said.
“Ask,” Benedek said. “See what good it does.”
“I don’t have a plan,” Doyle said. “I don’t know what they will do if they don’t get their own way.”
“They’ll do what they always do,” Haynes said. “They’ll behave like spoiled children.”
“It might get noisy.”
“So let it get noisy,” Slate said. “To hell with them, Edgar. We’ve run away for long enough. We knew they’d find us, we knew it would eventually come to this, and we either face them down or…” He shook his head resignedly. “Hell, we don’t have a choice, right?”
“And what about him?” Greene asked, nodding toward Travis.
“Special Agent Michael Travis,” Doyle said, taking a step to his right and putting his hand on Travis’s shoulder, “has a Bureau-issued .38 revolver about his person, and I, for one, am hoping that he shoots both Frank Gale and Bradley Warren.”
“Gale and Warren are coming?” Slate asked.
“Edgar told me that some of you knew them,” Travis said.
“We know them very well,” Haynes replied. “Too well, you could say.”
“If I am not misjudging the situation, I believe that Mr. Hoover may be gracing us with a visit as well.”
Haynes smiled. There was something altogether mischievous in his expression.
“And we use what we know to our advantage,” Doyle said. “What we know is the only weapon we have. And everyone else… really, I do appreciate your support and loyalty, but for this I need you to make yourselves invisible, at least for a while. Stay here, of course, but out of sight. If it gets noisy, then come running, but I don’t believe it will.”
“Stay with me,” Valeria said to the assembly. “Let’s go to the caravans, and we’ll wait there.”
“That’s what I want,” Doyle said. “Really.”
Benedek was the first to move, and then Akiko, the Bellancas and Ryan followed him without protest.
Valeria took Doyle’s hands, kissed him, then put her arms around him. She whispered something that only he could hear, and he said, “I promise. Absolutely, I promise.”
She didn’t say anything else. She did not look at Travis, nor back at Doyle as she escorted Benedek and the others away from the marquee.
Travis looked at the men in front of him, just four of them, and he wondered how the hell they were going to face down the might of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Do not worry about what you don’t yet know,” Greene said.
“I am terrified,” Travis said.
“Of what they will do to you?” Slate asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Slate smiled. “Hell, man, the worst they can do is kill you, and that isn’t so bad. You get a chance to start all over, or so I’ve heard.”
“I don’t want to die,” Travis said.
“He’s in love,” Doyle explained.
“I am not in love,” Travis countered.
“Of course you’re not, my friend,” Doyle replied, laughing. “And I’m not a crazy old Irishman.”
“With the McCaffrey girl, right?” Haynes asked, his question rhetorical. “The cop’s sister.”
“I know the one,” Slate added. “Good choice, Agent Travis.”
“You people—” Travis started.
“We’re teasing you,” Doyle said. “You show them how scared you are, they’ll know. They’ll take advantage of that. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You think you’re so implacable, so impregnable, but you walk around with whatever emotion you’re trying to hide painted all over your face. If you’re not careful, that’ll be your undoing, Michael Travis. Don’t ever take up poker. I mean that.”
“So what do we do?” Travis asked. “That’s a real question now, okay? That’s not just me passing the time of day. I want to know what we’re actually going to do when a fleet of sedans turns up here and a host of suits get out of them.”
“We’re going to meet them right here,” Doyle said. ?
??We’re going to listen to what they have to say, and then we’re going to make a judgment call.”
“I think we know what they’re going to say,” Greene said.
“People can change, Chester,” Doyle replied, the sarcasm obvious in his tone.
“You know as well as I that these people don’t change, Edgar.”
“Michael did,” Slate said.
“But he was here,” Haynes interjected.
“Granted,” Doyle replied. “Okay, so maybe they won’t have changed. Hell, I’m just stalling. You keep asking me what to do, and to be honest, I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers all the time.”
“Really?” Slate asked. “Hell, Doyle, you should have told me that right from the get-go. I’d have run away with Barnum and Bailey.”
“They wouldn’t have had you, you crazy son of a bitch.”
“Okay, enough!” Travis said. “That’s it. This is utter madness. I give up. Just let them come and do whatever the hell they like. Trying to get anything sensible out of you people is… well, it’s just impossible.”
“You give up?” Doyle asked.
“They can bring whatever the hell they like. They can do whatever the hell they like. I don’t care anymore.”
“Well, that’s more like it,” Doyle said. “That kind of attitude is a lot better than whatever you had going on before.”
“You are unbelievable,” Travis said. He moved left and sat down at one of the tables where they had previously eaten.
“Oscar… why don’t you go get a bottle of wine, eh?” Doyle asked. “Let’s have a glass of wine before the shit hits the fan.”
“Good plan,” Haynes said, and headed out of the tent.
“You’ll join us, of course, Michael,” Doyle said, taking a seat beside Travis.
“Sure. What the hell. Let’s get drunk. How about that for a plan? Seems like the best idea I’ve heard so far.”
“Don’t be facetious, Agent Travis,” Slate said. “It doesn’t suit you.”