(1976) The R Document (22 page)

‘You’ve done quite enough,’ said Collins graciously. ‘I have everything I need. I’d better … ‘ He hesitated, effectively. ‘As a matter of fact, there is one more thing. We have a tax case going, and the name of one of your inmates has come up constantly. I wonder if I could see him in private for five or ten minutes?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Warden Jenkins. ‘Just tell me who it is, and I’ll have him brought in and you can talk to him alone.’

‘His name is Radenbaugh. Donald Radenbaugh. I’d like to see him.’

Warden Jenkins did not hide his surprise. ‘You mean you didn’t see this morning’s paper? Or watch TV?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Donald Radenbaugh is dead. I’m sorry. He died three days ago. Dropped dead of a heart attack. We withheld the story until his next of kin could be located. We released it last night. It was announced early today.’

‘Dead,’ said Collins hollowly. He felt ill. Then his one high hope of learning about The R Document was dead also.

‘Your timing was off by three days,’ said Jenkins. ‘Bad luck.’

In despair, Collins was preparing to make his immediate departure, when suddenly a thought struck him. ‘Did you say you withheld the news three days because you had to locate Radenbaugh’s next of kin?’

‘Yes. He had a daughter in Philadelphia. She happened to be out of the city. We finally found her - not only to notify her of the death but to determine disposition of the body. With her consent, we buried him locally at Government expense.’

‘How did she take the news?’

“Naturally, she was pretty broken up by it.’

‘Are you saying Radenbaugh was close to his daughter?’

‘Except for former Attorney General Baxter - who’d

been a friend - Susie was the only one who stayed in touch with him regularly.’

‘Do you have her address?’

‘Not actually…’

‘How did you notify her?’

‘She has a post-office box at the main post office in Philadelphia. We wired her, and when she got it, she phoned us.’

‘Can I have her post-office-box number, Warden?’

‘Why, yes.’ He went to his desk, peeled through a series of folders, and opened one. ‘It’s P.O. Box 153, William Perm Annex post-office station, Philadelphia 19105.’

‘Thanks,’ said Collins. ‘And you say she was in touch with her father regularly?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe she knew some of his business. Maybe she could help me.’

‘Maybe. But I doubt it’

‘I doubt it too,’ said Collins, discouraged. ‘We’ll see.’

*

It had been an incredibly streamlined operation. So far it had gone without a hitch.

Seated in the rocking cabin of the sleek motorboat as it zoomed across the artificial channel that separated the southern tip of Miami Beach from Fisher’s Island, he tried to review the events of the past week.

Six nights ago, in a wooded area outside Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, he had parted from FBI Director Vernon T. Tynan, agreeing to make the bizarre deal offered to Donald Radenbaugh, convict.

Two nights ago, crouched in the rear of the warden’s car, he had been driven out of the sleep-stilled prison as Herbert Miller, citizen and free man.

Since his meeting with Tynan, there had been only one visitor he knew by name, and that had been Tynan’s assistant, Harry Adcock. There had been three others also, but they had been nameless. Radenbaugh recalled that he had been placed in solitary confinement, to isolate him from the

other inmates. In solitary, he had hosted an elderly man with a limp who had applied acid to change - painfully - his fingerprints. Next there had been an optician to take away his steel-rimmed spectacles and fit him with contact lenses. Then there had been a barber, who had shaved off his moustache and sideburns, dyed his fringe of blond hair a deep black, and fitted him with a black hairpiece. Finally, there had been Adcock, with papers (a birth certificate, an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army) and cards (a driver’s license, a car-rental credit card, a Social Security card) to replace the credentials in his old wallet and to transform him officially into the respectable Herbert Miller, aged fifty-nine. There had been a dark brown suit of the latest cut to replace the one he had worn to prison, which was no longer in style and thus might be conspicuous.

There had been Adcock’s oral instructions. Immediately after his release, he was to proceed to Miami on a red-eye flight. In Miami, a room had been reserved for Herbert Miller in the Bayamo Hotel, located on West Flagler Street. The following day or evening, he would be free to dig up his hidden one million dollars. He would not be followed. Late morning of the next day, he would meet with a realtor named Mrs Remos in the suburban community of Coconut Grove and from her get the name of a safe plastic surgeon in the area who would perform cosmetic surgery around his eyes before he left Miami. That night, he would go to a waiting motorboat at the Municipal Pier in Miami Beach and be taken to Fisher’s Island. There, at the first oil-storage tank, he would be hailed as Miller. He would give the password twice, the password being ‘Linda’. He would drop the package containing three-quarters of a million dollars and return to his boat. Back in Miami Beach, he could proceed with his surgery. After that, he would be totally free to go where he wished, do what he liked.

‘You’ll get your new suit just before you leave prison,’ Adcock had said. ‘In the right-hand side pocket there will be an envelope. In it will be your air ticket to Miami, the location of your rendezvous with the motorboat, a map of Fisher’s Island showing you where the drop is to be made, and enough money to carry you until you get your hands on

your quarter share of the loot. Just do what you’ve been told. Don’t get any tricky ideas. They’ll only endanger your health. Got it?’

He had got it all.

He had taken the red-eye special and arrived at Miami International Airport on schedule.

He had checked into the dilapidated Bayamo Hotel on schedule.

He had rented a car, constantly making certain he was not being watched or followed, and had driven into the Everglades west of Miami. There he made his way on foot to the bank of the mangrove swamp where he had secreted the million dollars in a metal box over three years ago. He had emptied the contents of the box into some grocery bags he had acquired, placed the bags in a suitcase he had purchased, and retraced his steps to his car.

The rest had gone easily. In his hotel room, he had removed a quarter of a million from the suitcase and placed it in a second suitcase that he had had ready. At night, he had taken the second suitcase, with his share of the money, to Miami International Airport and shoved it inside a locker. Leaving the airport, he had picked up a copy of the next morning’s Miami Herald. Scanning it, he speculated about whether the demise of the late Donald Radenbaugh had been announced yet. On the sixth page he had found an unflattering three-year-old picture of the bald, bespectacled Radenbaugh, and his obituary. It had felt strange to read of his own death, to learn how little he had achieved and how overshadowed it had been by the summary of his felony trial and conviction. It was unfair. It had not said that he was innocent. And finally, he had grieved for his beloved Susie, left with such a legacy. He wondered if he would ever dare contact her and reveal the truth. He knew he dared not. People who could invent a new human being were people not to be crossed.

The next day, according to his instructions, he had had only one appointment before the critical evening’s mission. Late in the morning, he had driven out to Coconut Grove and in a realtor’s bungalow had had a brief and satisfactory meeting with Mrs Remos, an elderly mulatto who had ex-1 y-A

pected him. ‘You are fortunate, Mr Miller, indeed fortunate,’ Mrs Remos had said. ‘We recently lost the dependable plastic surgeon we have always used, but just two days ago we found a replacement. He is Dr Garcia, most competent, and because of his temporary situation he can be counted as safe. He was smuggled in recently from Cuba, and until we get his papers he is an illegal alien. We must proceed with caution. You will be free tonight? Ah, after ten o’clock. Very well. Dr Garcia will be waiting for you in your hotel room at ten fifteen. We would rather he not ask for you at the desk. We would prefer to have him in your room, waiting. You have your door key? Ah, good, let me have it. Your hotel will have an extra one for you in your mailbox, I’m sure. Dr Garcia will examine you, inform you what can be done, and arrange the time and place for the surgery. Ten fifteen, then? It is agreed.’

Radenbaugh had used up some of the afternoon sightseeing and shopping, and then returned to his hotel room to wait for evening. When night had fallen, he had taken his heavy suitcase downstairs, gone outside, and proceeded by taxi across the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach and the Municipal Pier. By eight o’clock he had found his contact, handed the suitcase to the phlegmatic Cuban proprietor of the motorboat, and then boarded it himself.

Now, as planned, he was en route. It was less than half a mile to Fisher’s Island for the final payoff and the climax of his deal.

Once more, he tugged the hand-drawn map out of his coat pocket and committed it to memory.

Fisher’s Island was an abandoned 213-acre piece of land, totally unoccupied, bearing thickets of wild Australian pine trees, a rotting ghost of a mansion on a private estate once owned by the founder of Miami, and two oil-storage tanks.

Tonight, Radenbaugh reflected, it would be populated by at least two persons, Radenbaugh himself and someone unknown.

The motorboat was slowing and sputtering to a stop.

Radenbaugh leaned forward and saw the pilot signaling to him. Nervously he gripped the suitcase and. bendine low.

made his way out of the cabin and stepped up onto the wooden dock. The pilot called out to him, and then he remembered, and reached back to accept the powerful flashlight.

Setting foot on the island, he began to ascend the trail. The landmarks he had memorized were clear. The only difficulties were the darkness, despite his flashlight, and the burden of the suitcase with three-quarters of a million dollars in cash inside.

After a while - he had lost all track of time - he made out the first of the oil-storage tanks, caught the area of the drop in the beam of his flashlight, and started toward it.

He was a dozen yards from the tank, wheezing as he hiked in the stillness, when he heard a rustle. He halted. He heard a voice.

‘You are Mr Miller?’

The voice was high-pitched and with a definite Spanish accent.

‘I am.’

‘Put out the flashlight.’

Quickly he snapped off the flashlight.

The accented voice came out of the darkness again. It was near. ‘What is your word?’

He’d almost forgotten. He remembered. ‘Linda,’ he called out. ‘Linda,’ he repeated.

There was a grunt. ‘Leave right where you are what you have. Go back the way you came, go back to the boat.’

He lowered his suitcase to the ground beside him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I am going.’

He turned away quickly, and tried to make haste as he sought the road. In the dark, without the flashlight on, he was confused, and he stubbed his toe and fell. Rising, he went more slowly.

After a few minutes, he stopped to catch his breath. Then he caught something else. The drift of voices, two voices, chattering cheerfully behind a clump of trees.

He had not thought of the money much since recovering it from the edge of the mangrove swamp. Now, almost for the first time as a free man, he allowed himself to think about it. He wondered why Tynan wanted so great a sum,

without strings. Maybe personal financial troubles. He wondered why it had been entrusted to what sounded like two persons, at least one of whom was of Spanish origin. He wondered who they were. Possibly FBI agents. He was tempted to have a look. Donald Radenbaugh would not have given in to such temptation. Herbert Miller would and did.

Instead of returning to the road, he cut diagonally through a scattering of pine trees. He moved carefully, so that he would not stumble and fall again, and in five minutes he saw alight.

He crept closer, slipping from behind one tree to the next, until he was no more than thirty feet away. He stopped and watched, and listened, holding his breath.

There were two of them, all right.

One, plainly illuminated by his partner’s lantern, was kneeling beside the open suitcase, either counting or examining the money. His partner, standing over him holding the lantern, was indistinct.

The taller man with the lantern asked, ‘It is all there?’ He spoke an unaccented English.

The one kneeling, busy, said, ‘It is here.’

The man with the lantern said, ‘Ah, you will be very rich - the rich Senor Ramon Escobar.’

‘Holy Jesus, will you shut up, Fernandez?’ barked the one who was kneeling, and then he looked up fully into the direct light of the lantern and sputtered something in Spanish. Radenbaugh could see him now: short, curly jet black hair, long sideburns, ugly face with deeply sunken cheeks and a livid scar along his jawbone.

As the person addressed as Escobar once more devoted himself to the contents of the suitcase, the two men continued conversing, but now only in Spanish.

Watching them further was pointless, and Radenbaugh backed away and gingerly started toward the road. His curiosity had not been satisfied. He could not believe this pair, Escobar and Fernandez, were FBI agents. Who were they, then? What did they have to do with Director Tynan?

When he found the road, and resumed walking to the landing, he ceased to speculate about what he had seen. He was more occupied with himself, and his own future.

The passage back to Miami seemed faster and was infinitely more relaxed.

Ashore on the mainland again, and unencumbered, he knew that he was free and on his own completely, at last.

And then he knew that he was not.

There remained one final piece of unfinished business. This morning he had made arrangements - courtesy of Vernon T. Tynan, via the realtor named Mrs Remos - to meet in his hotel room with an illegal alien and plastic surgeon named Dr Garcia.