Black Tide (38 page)

Something came to me and I said, "When did you leave the museum, Craig? Was it right after the theft?"

I had struck at something, for his whole body stance changed. Before, he had been in the lawn chair like a lump of white dough, soft and yielding and relaxed, even in my presence. But with this one question, he had drawn into himself, as if his insides had tightened and expanded.

Craig said, ''About a month or so later." "Did you leave on your own or were you fired?"

He allowed himself a small smile. "Fired. One day I came to work five minutes late and he shit-canned my ass that morning. It was all a game. I just knew that he was waiting for the first excuse, the first reason to get me out of there. Ben Martin didn't even bother waiting for that kind of decision. He just upped and quit."

Craig shrugged. "Can't really blame Justin Dix for doing that."

I thought of something else and said, "What I don't understand is why you seem sympathetic to Justin, Craig. You told me he wasn't the friendliest boss, that he blamed you and Ben for the thefts, and then he fired you a couple of months later for something as minor as being a little bit late for work. But you don't talk poorly about him, Craig. Why?"

Then he said something with a smile that surprised me. "Haven't you ever heard of worker loyalty?"

"What? What kind of loyalty? You haven't been at the museum for five years."

Then he tossed the empty beer can behind him on the trampled lawn and looked at me a bit blearily, and I knew he must have been drinking some more beforehand. This last can must have reached some sort of limit within him.

"You know, they really shouldn't have laughed at me that night, after I got freed… It could have been different…"

"Who shouldn't have laughed at you?"

Another change of expression. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"What do you mean by that?"

He shook his head. "I've talked to other reporters and magazine writers, you know. But none of them were like you. For one thing, you're too old. Most of 'em were just out of college, working their way up and out. Go away. I'm tired of talking to you,"

"Craig, I --- "

"Go away," he said, his voice louder. "Before I call my lawyer."

And for the second time that day, I retreated.

When I got home I had that annoyed feeling that comes when you realize that you haven't been following the little tidelines and paths that you've set up for yourself. I've convinced myself that, except for my health --- which I had no control over --- I was reasonably independent. Oh, the arrangement I had with
Shoreline
was great and I was making a good salary, but with my other interests and some judicious saving and investing, I could do fairly well if Shoreline went bankrupt or Admiral Holbrook retired and was replaced by someone who had a lesser interest in national security and promises made to me and the Defense Department.

Part of that independence in lifestyle was connected to my independence in action, and I've also convinced myself that no one could ever make me do something unless I wanted to do it, that I could never be pushed away from something that I wanted, by means or threat.

Some thoughts. Twice this day, I had backpedaled from confrontation --- once when Justin Dix had threatened me with a phone call to the FBI and once when Craig Dummer had threatened me with his lawyer.

It was like the legal establishment --- the FBI and private lawyers --- were suddenly ganging up on me. It didn't make me happy, but at the moment, there was nothing I could do about it.

Later that night I was up in my study going through some papers and such, and I came across the file folder with the information I had gathered about the
Petro Star
. I remembered my breakfast meeting earlier that morning with Paula Quinn and I decided that later in the week I would anonymously mail her some of the information I had learned about Cameron Briggs, and then let her and her fellow brothers and sisters in journalism turn their sharp pencils and words upon Mr. Briggs and his unique environmental opinions. It would be fun to watch the media herd gang up on Cameron Briggs and strip him down to his designer shorts. I hoped that it would be successful enough so at he would at least get fined, maybe even do some jail time.

Though at this point I would be happy if all that ever happened was that the Exonia Hospital would move their fashion show somewhere else. But something tickled at me, something that had to with the FBI. And when I started browsing through the printout that I had stolen days ago from the Puzzle Palace while I was in the state of New York, it came to me, on the very last page of Cameron Briggs's printout.

It made me smile. Tomorrow I would get my revenge against the legal world at the expense of a phone call or two, and that seemed to be a hell of an achievement.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It had taken me about an hour and a half to get here on this Tuesday morning, to Maine's largest city --- Portland --- and I expected my time here wouldn't last as long as the trip back. Once there I parked on the restored waterfront --- Portland wisely having followed the path of its older but smaller sister city Porter to the south --- and I walked past a number of restaurants and brick buildings that contained lawyers' offices and consulting groups. There was a ferry landing if I wanted to take the ocean route to Nova Scotia later that afternoon, but on this muggy day, I had other work to do.

At a phone booth near a marina, I took out a roll of quarters and a folded sheet of paper, and I started dialing. The piece of paper was the last printout in Cameron Briggs's Department of Defense file, and this is what it said:

Cameron Briggs (Criminal Investigations)

See Op Harpoon

JD Files

J. Carney/Contact JD

File Number: OC-NE-423

In the times I had looked over Cameron Briggs's file, I had skipped across this jumble of words and letters, not knowing what they meant, until I had thought yesterday about the FBI, and their titular boss, the Attorney General, who headed up the Department of Justice. Or the Justice Department, depending on how you said it. JD, then.

I spent a couple of minutes on the phone with Information and other folks and after I pumped in a number of quarters, the phone rang and a quick, professional man's voice said, "Justice Department, Criminal Division."

"Mr. Carney's office," I said. "One moment."

There was a clicking and a distant ringing, and a woman's voice answered. "Mr. Carney's office."

"Morning," I said. "This is Ron Allan calling, Protocol Office at the State Department. I have Mr. Carney's name here on an invitation list for a reception in September. Could you verify the spelling of his last name, please?"

"Certainly," the woman said, and she did.

“And his first name? I'm sorry, but this list is handwritten, and all I can make out is the first letter. A 'J.' You know how it is."

The woman laughed for a moment and said, "I certainly do. Mr. Carney's first name is John, but everyone who knows him well calls him Jack. "

''And his title?"

"Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Investigations."

"Jeez, sounds like he's been there for a while."

"Oh, he has. About four or five years."

"Thanks a lot," I said, and she said it was no problem, no doubt thinking she was assisting another secret ally in the bureaucratic world of D.C. And who was I to shatter her illusions?

Although it was past the noon hour, I didn't have much appetite for lunch, and I just wandered around the port area for a while. I walked down one pier and sat on the old wood, looking at a large, rusting oil tanker at a pier on the other side of the harbor, shadowed by cranes and other pieces of equipment. On the stern were the letters PETRO STAR and below that, in smaller white letters, was MONROVIA. I just sat there, breathing and thinking, looking for the first time at the ship that had brought me here and to New York City and other places. Before I got depressed, I left the dock and spent a marvelous half hour in an antiques store that had old navigational maps, formatted and framed, and polished brass work with little placards that claimed the gear had been pulled up by divers from wrecks in the Gulf of Maine. There was an old compass that I thought would look great in the living room, but I had to pass it up. Money was no problem, but in paying for this old antique, I would have to use a credit card and that was not possible. I didn't want any records of my being in Portland on this Tuesday.

When it was about a half hour past noon, I went back to the same phone booth --- having been lucky the first time around, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try again --- and I dialed the same number, and again spoke the magic words: "Mr. Carney's office."

This time, I got a different woman answering the phone. Her voice sounded younger and bit unsure, which I had been counting on. It being lunchtime, Jack Carney's regular secretary would be gone, replaced by someone who was a temporary or someone in a secretarial pool who wasn't experienced and who might be easily flustered.

Which I hoped.

"Yeah," I said, deepening and hurrying my voice. "Could you put Jack on the line? This is Greg Samson, from the House Subcommittee on Crime."

"Urn, could I have your name again?"

I muttered something like I couldn't believe the incompetence of certain hired help, and repeated my name, louder. ''And could you hurry it up? I'm already late for a meeting with the congressman. "

She murmured something back, and in a moment a man's voice came on the line. "This is Carney."

"Hi, Jack, this is Greg Samson," I said. "I don't know if you remember me, but we met a couple of months ago, at that AG's party in Bethesda." Given the current Attorney General's fondness for parties --- as reported in the papers --- I was gambling that Jack Carney would have been there. I was right, since Carney said, "Unh-hunh."

And I continued with, "I'm a staff assistant on the House Subcommittee on Crime, and I need to have a quick question answered, and then I'll leave you alone."

Carney sounded slightly cautious. "Well, Greg, this is generally not the way things are done. Why don't you write up the request and put it through channels?"

"You're absolutely right, Jack, but I thought this would save us both some time. I got an inquiry from Congressman Hughes, the subcommittee chairman, about an investigation that he heard something about, and he just wanted to know what it entailed. He wants something quick, and I thought if you could give me a brief rundown, it would save me time, it would save you and your staff time, and that would be the end of it."

"What's the investigation?"

"Something called Operation Harpoon. It's a few years old, and he thinks it took place in the New England area. I guess some constituent's got some questions about it."

"Mmm," came his voice. "That sounds familiar. Let me get to the files here. Hold on."

He put the phone down on his desk I grasped the phone receiver tighter, feeling the slick plastic slippery in my hand. Long minutes stretched by, and my breathing seemed to slow. Then came that clattering noise when someone picks up a phone, and I thought to myself, Lewis you are one very bad boy. And very bright.

"Operation Harpoon," Carney said. ''An eighteen-month investigation, centered in eastern Massachusetts. Coding here says it was a corruption case. Investigation ended about six, seven years ago. No resolution, no arrests, no convictions. Case closed out."

“What kind of corruption was it looking into?"

"Let's see," came the voice of Jack Carney, and in the next three seconds I learned that while I might have been a bad boy, I certainly wasn't very bright.

A couple of tourists near me were walking across Commercial Street, and an oil tanker nearly clipped them, and in doing so, the driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and leaned on his air horn. The screech of brakes and the bellow of the horn seemed to blast right through my head, and Carney's voice changed.

"Uh, Greg?" Carney said. "Could I put you on hold for a moment?"

"Sure, Jack," I replied, and I hung up on him. I took out a handkerchief, wiped down the phone, and walked two blocks to my Range Rover. I thought about what might be going through Jack Carney's head right about now. All he knew was that someone from a pay phone had been scamming him, looking for information about Operation Harpoon, and then had hung up on him, not bothering to wait around for a phone trace. It made me wonder what kind of guy Jack Carney was. If he was embarrassed about the scam, he might keep it a secret and get on with his life. But if he was angry --- or worse, curious  --- then he might do some digging.

I drove back to New Hampshire on back roads, avoiding the main highways wherever I could. As I headed south, I wondered was just being paranoid, on the road to insanity, but in remembering other places I had been, my actions seemed fairly sane and quite logical.

Before working in what we called the Marginal Issues Section of the DoD, I had bounced around other departments and sections for a number of months, gaining experience and building up a little knowledge of what I had gotten into. The year I joined up, the DoD did this for some of us new folks to give us what they called "depth and breadth" of knowledge. You were usually assigned to some senior official for a week or two, and then moved on. They called it the Mentor Program, and God knows if it's still being used. I rather doubted it, since my exposure --- in a few instances --- had been incredibly dull (most bureaucrats being the same everywhere), but in one memorable instance, exquisitely terrifying.