Bayou Brigade (3 page)

Parfrey, career Republican whose constituency filled out the lower southwest of Texas, the man .who owed all he was to “the
little people,” squirmed in his bed. “Well,” he snarled impatiently, “whaddya want?”

“You have something my. employers want.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Peters. We want the list, Senator.”

Parfrey suddenly realized who Peters represented. “Look here, son, I told yer employers that I would get their list to ’em.
I need time.”

“You’ve had time. We know it’s printed. We know you’ve been holding back. That’s not part of our agreement.”

Parfrey would not be intimidated. He had seen too many battles in the field and on the Senate floor to waste precious bedtime
on useless threat-mongering. “I can’t talk to you now.”

“The list is ready. You will deliver it to the prearranged spot tomorrow morning at ten. If you’re not there I will send someone
to see you.”

“Now you listen to me.” The Senator was pissed off. “I don’t give a rat’s ass if you—” Click. Peters had hung up.

Shifting under the blankets, Parfrey stared silently at the telephone, a shiver working its way up his spine. His rational
half said to call the Capitol first thing next morning and admit to having supplied a terrorist organization with government
secrets, including a promise to deliver the President’s itinerary for ten thousand dollars. He couldn’t bring himself to complete
the deal; this group was ruthless, unstoppable. They were able to bribe him once, now they were blackmailing him to no end.
It must be stopped, at any cost. But could he live with the consequences? A possible prison sentence? His practical side told
him to give the bastards what they wanted. He would disappear for a while, maybe go to South America. Were they going to kill
the President? Certainly that’s what they intended. And did that matter? The present Administration was unable to move effectively
against inflation, social disparity, and economic strife. A bunch of mealy-mouthed, candy-ass bureaucrats, he reasoned. Everyone
was in it for themselves, and that’s how he’d behave right down the line.

In his office the following day, Parfrey opened the sealed envelope marked ON HOLD, which had remained in his desk for three
days.

“I’ll be gone for two hours,” he barked to his secretary. The door slammed behind him. Parfrey was going to take the ten grand
and sell out completely. What choice did he have? The revolution would succeed with or without him anyway; why not skim off
a bit of cream for Number One and then make tracks?

Rounding the corner and stepping into the elevator, the Senator caught a glimpse of Jack Roper from Idaho. They had a two
o’clock appointment; by that time, Parfrey would be happily ensconsed in his private jet, scampering off to Rio de Janeiro
with a wallet bulging with C-notes.

The exchange took place on schedule at a small cafe on Massachusetts Avenue.

“How do I know this is authentic?” Peters, the terrorist courier, had a manner that would freeze water. He had black, wavy
hair and a lean but well-proportioned and muscular frame. He pored over the single typed sheet of paper detailing the chief
executive’s early April schedule.

Parfrey was convincing. “That’s exactly what you asked for.”

Peters disagreed, tossing the page on the Formicatopped table. A waitress delivered the Senator’s order—a greasy pastrami
sandwich, and water. Peters wasn’t eating
(he probably drank blood,
Parfrey thought).

“This is the same schedule he had last week,” said Peters.

Parfrey nearly gagged on an oversized chunk of meat. “The itineraries are often similar. You’ll hafta take mah word on it.
Now where’s my money?”

The courier stared at the senator, deciding to accept his word for it. “At home,” he said.

“My home?”
Now the Senator
was gagging.
“What kind of happy horseshit are you pulling?”

“Don’t get excited, chubby,” growled Peters, lowering his head. “You go home now. When I’ve verified the authenticity of this
paper, someone will phone you and tell you where the money is.”

Parfrey suppressed an urge to punch out the cold-hearted bastard. “You motherfuckers entered mah home?” Several customers
looked up at him.

“Do as I say.” Peters left his seat and walked quickly from the restaurant, ducking into a waiting cab which sped off in the
direction of the Capitol.

After eating, Parfrey had the driver leave him at his Georgetown apartment, where he contemplated the future from a heavy
red recliner. Recalling his early days in Texas as a senatorial candidate, and the high-spirited idealism that originally
brought him to Washington, he shrugged in disbelief. Remembering all he once held sacred, the obliteration of the country’s
democracy seemed an unpardonable sin. However, his greed knew no bounds, as thousands of dollars in pay-off money could attest.

Chairs were overturned, shelves disemboweled, carpet torn up. He ripped the back from the red recliner. No money was to be
found. Examining the washer and dryer, something caught his eye. The utility room door had been jimmied, its lock forced apart.

The phone rang.

Parfrey noticed the receiver was heavier than usual, but there was no time to process that random thought.

“Hello?”

It was Peters. “Is this Willard Parfrey?”

“Yes, you asshole, where’dya hide the money?” The Senator heard an ear-splitting whine, a shooting, painful whistle. The sound
swelled, exploding the blood vessels in his head.

When police discovered the body, a nearby dresser was coated with blood, skull fragments, and bits of gray matter. Parfrey’s
headless corpse was face down on the floor, one hand still clutching the phone.

Hamilton Winship hadn’t slept in three days. The heads of five government security agencies were clamoring for results on
a case that appeared impossible to solve: two prominent U.S. senators had been murdered in execution-style terrorist assaults—one,
Will Parfrey, by an exploding telephone, and a Korean ambassador, closely involved with the CIA intelligence operation, in
the Far East, was cut down in front of his home.

“What’s the connection between all this and calling me in at six in the morning?” Ben Slayton leaned back in the less-than-comfortable
swivel chair, rolling his neck until it cracked.

Winship paced the office nervously. “That phone rings every fifteen minutes,” he said, gesturing angrily at the hateful device,
“and the boys upstairs won’t let me go home until some progress is made.”

“Progress on what?”

Winship ignored him. “I’ve run through every file we have in the computers. Nothing makes sense, yet our intelligence reports
confirm some undefined conspiracy is brewing behind the bamboo curtain.”

He paced the room twice before settling in the chair behind his desk. He glanced at the large portrait of Harry Truman hanging
on the wall, as if for inspiration.

“So far,” said Slayton, “you’ve told me nothing. Just some unrelated facts.”

Winship slapped his hand on the desk top, rattling a metal rubber-stamp tree and toppling the tray of large paper clips. “On
one hand, the Justice Department is pressuring me to conduct a full investigation of the events in question. On the other
hand, a handful of powerful senators and a few blasted liberals with nothing better to do are sending me communiques like
this one.”

Slayton glanced at the memo typed on onion paper letterhead: “I must object to the claimed appropriation of $200,000 by the
Treasury Department for stepped-up terrorist counter-intelligence. Intended Senate Bill 451 will demalversify this unnecessary
appropriation.”

“Can
you
understand it?” inquired Winship.

Slayton rubbed his eyes. “Have you sent it to be decoded?”

“Don’t push me, Ben. Senator Conklin’s office issued that one, and it reads just like these others.” He tossed a handful of
similar memos in the air. They fell in patterns at the base of the desk.

“None of these fellows are ever around when you need them,” Winship continued. “The boys in the Justice Department tell me
to ignore the senators. The senators threaten to investigate
our
investigation.”

“What does it all mean?”

“I
can’t get any answers!”

Slayton thought this a typical Washington snafu. For Winship, it was beginning to take its toll. He again paced the carpet
impatiently. The phone rang. It was the switchboard at the Senate Offices—Dick Conklin
was
in Washington, but no one could ascertain
where.
The weary Winship suggested, “Have you checked the bordellos?” When the operator asked, “What’s a bordello,” he slammed the
phone down.

Rubbing the bald spot on his head, Winship looked over at Slayton. “I’m sorry, this must be terribly confusing to you, but
please bear with me. Can we get some coffee up here yet?”

“The cafeteria is open. Want some?” Slayton got up from his seat.

Winship motioned for him to remain. “No, no, I’ll get it. Sugar?”

“Of course.”

“Meanwhile, set up the opaque projector and look at this.” He passed a small roll of 35-mm film to Slayton on his way out
the door.

The room darkened, and Slayton viewed the film, a positive reversal contact sheet apparently meant for reduction to microdots.
Mostly names and dates, the sequence was meaningless to Slayton. Halfway through the roll, he came upon this:

090     SEQUENCE A

SAM7 to Pond 1 11/13/80

SAM7 to Pond 2 1/14/80

SAM7 to Pond 1 2/22/81

011     SEQUENCE B

RPG7 to Pond 3 12/12/80

RPG7 to Pond 1 12/9/80

Underneath, scrawled in grease pencil in tiny lettering, was another sequence, in code:

Playpen Opens 3/7, Eratepo WDC

In addition, Slayton could make out a detailed list of what might be shipping bill numbers, or purchase order data, followed
by the phrase TANGO NEWOR, which also appeared to be an obscure code.

Swinging open the outer office door, Winship was already talking. “I do believe the ’sequence A and B’ are operation code
names for a massive weapons shipment. I can only guess at the rest. The computer suggests we “input more data,’ but you know
those damned machines. Damned uncooperative.”

Handing Slayton a steaming cup, Winship continued, eyeing the projection screen, “There is consistency between the Pond Ones
and the Pond Threes and something that comes up later.”

The film was advanced to the next frame. It read:

VZ 61.No Code

Refer ahead to Pond 1, Chicago

Refer ahead to Pond 3, WDC

“It’s not Coded,” surmised Winship, “but it sets up a corollary for what comes next.”

Slayton rolled the film ahead. Appearing was:

Pond 1- 3000 units

Pond 2-14000 units

Pond 3-      40 units

“The message refers to guns,” chirped Slayton, “but where’s the key?”

Winship’s voice hinted a sudden grimness. “We don’t know. The rest of the roll was destroyed. It was part of a series of supposedly
decoded intelligence reports smuggled out of China and delivered to Ambassador Son Quo Park of South Korea. The film we have
now is an enlargement of seventeen microdots arranged and encased in two aluminum paper clips reinforced with a thick metallic
lacquer.”

Slayton interjected, “Park was murdered the other night, correct?”

“The killer was looking for the film, but Park was clean. The paper clips were sewn into the lining of his coat.”

“Why don’t we have the entire roll?”

“Three frames were destroyed. Park’s body was set afire when the assassin could not find the evidence he or she was after.
We salvaged what we could of the film.”

“Hmmmm, the SAM7’ must refer to the Soviet’s surface-to-air missile with infrared guidance. RPG’ is another Russian weapon,
not terribly effective. But who could be fencing 14,000 SAM7s out of Russia? And may we assume from this inventory that 3,000
SAM7 and RPG7 rocket launchers are lying in someone’s basement in Chicago?”

Winship raised one eyebrow, intoning, “That’s the sort of question you’re very good at answering.”

“But where do I look in Chicago? Are there any leads?”

No reply came. The overworked, harassed career administrator reopened the window curtains and trudged back to the desk. Opening
the top drawer, he removed a two-inch-thick pile of loose papers and dropped them in Slayton’s lap.

Slayton turned off the projector. “Is this your first novel, Ham?”

“You don’t have to read this CIA intelligence report right now,” came the scornful answer. “In essence, we sent two operatives
overseas in early 1979. One ducked behind the Iron Curtain and infiltrated a Russian military surveillance part in Siberia.
The other followed an obscure lead that a group of American mercenaries had created a terrorist training camp in western China.
Our agent spent six months at the camp and discovered, much to our surprise, that the Soviets were paying them to educate
Arab revolutionaries on the latest weapons technology. The Siberian outpost was the transfer point for arms and electronics.
When both agents collated enough evidence, they were to have high-tailed it to Peking and stowed away across the China Sea
to Japan.”

Examining the file, Slayton said, “According to this, only one man escaped.”

“Agent Belogorsk safely returned to the United States only last week, carrying this brief. He explains the Soviets’ method
of transferring weapons across the Chinese border—not the easiest thing to do, considering how much the two countries hate
one another.”

Slayton referred to the stack of paper. “What about the Chinese agent?”

“Unfortunately,” Winship sighed, “he was captured in Peking a few days after Belogorsk slipped through. Our intermediary in
Hong Kong received the microdots from a Red Chinese national who’d apparently accompanied our man from the western provinces.
It was an alternative plan that worked, thank God. Son Quo Park received the paper clips containing the microfilm last Tuesday,
but the unknown terrorist group no doubt got wind of our agent’s capture. They followed the film to Park.”