Authors: Stephen Coonts
Liberty (10 page)
“No, but we could tell them what they have. We haven't yet. We wanted to talk to you first, hear what you have to say.”
“Golly, gee, that's sweet of you guys,” Tommy said. “I didn't know we were that kind of friends. Be that as it may, let me tell you the sad truth. There's no case here, amigo. What you got is shit. Even if it is me on that tapeâand I'm not admitting that it isâthe FBI and U.S. attorney will be delighted to tell you that you gotta put me in the building with a gun in my hand before you have a shot at an indictment. We're not talking conviction, we're talking indictment.”
Carmellini rose from his chair and headed for the door. “You two tell the FBI anything you want,” he said as he reached for the doorknob. “And have a nice life, fellows.” He closed the door behind him.
“So what do you think?” Norv Lalouette asked Archie Foster when Carmellini's steps had faded.
“He's good, damn good. No question about that.”
“I watched his face. He didn't turn a hair.”
Archie Foster studied the image on the television screen. “He's one damn cool customer,” Archie muttered finally, and used the remote to kill the television.
“If he really killed Svenson, he might come after us,” Lalouette pointed out.
Foster snorted. “He's smarter than that.”
Patsy Smoot ran a motel on a road in Broward County, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale. Like hundreds of others, hers was built in the 1950s, before the age of interstates, to serve an increasing tide of motor tourists who were venturing south in the fall and looking for a place to spend a few days, or a few weeks, or the whole winter. The air conditioners were in the windows of the units, each of which had one double bed, a small bath with a shower, and a twenty-something-year-old television wired to an antenna on top of the motel office, which contained the tiny apartment where Patsy and her husband, Fred, lived.
Patsy ran the desk and filled out the forms that it took to stay in business these days. Fred was the handyman and groundskeeper. An illegal Mexican woman named Maria cleaned the units and made beds seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Smoot's Motel stood between a Burger King and a sleazy beer joint, and across the highway from a used car lot. Similar businesses lined the highwayânow a fourlaneâin both directions as far as the eye could see. The most prosperous of the businesses, like Burger King, had asphalt parking lots, but Smoot's and the used car lot and the beer joint made do with crushed seashells, which a local contractor delivered, spread, and rolled every third or fourth year when the inevitable potholes developed or grass and weeds got too much of a start.
“We need to do the parking lot again,” Fred told his wife this morning as she looked out the office window at the cars in front of the units.
“We did it two years ago,” she replied curtly.
“I know, but the guy didn't put all that much on, and the weeds are growing through again. And we got a soft place where the RVs go around the building.”
Ten years ago the Smoots had installed hookups for ten recreation vehicles behind the motel in a patch that had been weeds and trash. More and more people are out on the road these days in those things, Patsy Smoot thought distractedly. She focused again on the car in front of Unit Six. It was a good-looking new car, apparently a rental. She didn't see many of those at Smoot's. People who rented from the big agencies rarely stayed at $24.99-a-night motels; they stayed at a major chain's facility near the interstate.
“I think we should call the FBI on that bunch in Six,” she told Fred now.
“What for? They ain't done nothin' and their money's good. They're paid ahead, ain't they?”
“Yes. Renting by the week. Four single men in that unit with one double bed. Been here almost four weeks now. And driving that rental.”
“Hell, we're half-empty. They leave and Six will sit empty most of the summer. You know that.”
“They're Arabs,” Patsy Smoot said, almost as if she were merely thinking aloud. “Or Palestinians or Iranians or some such. Can't tell'em apart.”
“Lebanese, one of them told me. Working at one of those food warehouses.”
“Seems like we ought to call somebody.”
Fred snorted. “Think they sneaked a whore in there?”
“No. If that was it, I'd have done called.” She was a little peeved at Fred. She ran a decent place, and he damn well knew it.
“Hell,” Fred said hotly, “what about that guy from Ohio in One? Claims that girl is his daughter, but for all I know he's some schoolteacher who ran off with one of the students. She oughta be in school. He's probably porkin' her. Maybe we oughta report him for traveling with a minor female. Don't think that's a crime, but what the hell.”
His wife didn't reply.
Fred reached his peroration without further ado. “We go calling the law on our quiet customers and we might as well put the Going Out of Business sign up right now,” he declared. “We aren't the morals police or the INS. Half our customers are from some Third World cesspool. Came here to make it in America, so they did. Work hard and send money home every month, just like Maria. Goddamn, Patsy, we've had'em packed in four to a unit many a time.”
Patsy shot back, “So you think they're poor working slobs staying in a cheap motel because it's all they can afford and driving a rent car that must cost them two hundred, maybe two-fifty a week?”
Fred had argued enough. He drained the last of his coffee and slapped the cup down on the counter. “You do what you damn well want, woman. You always do. I don't know why you even talk to me about stuff, anyway. But I'll tell you this: Just because these people don't look like us don't mean they're fuckin' terrorists out to blow something up. I don't like siccin' the law on people minding their own damn business. Goes against my grain, so it does.” He stomped out to fix the leaky faucet in Unit Two, muttering, “Maybe we need a damn Gestapo to arrest all these little warts we don't like.”
The window drapes in Unit Six were drawn, as they were every morning. Job or no job, those four never went out before noon, then they stayed out until midnight. Patsy Smoot waited until she could hear Fred mowing the grass around back, then she looked up the FBI's telephone number in the phone book and dialed it.
The call wound up being taken by a female FBI agent in the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force. She wrote down all the information on a formâincluding the name and driver's license information of the man who rented the unitâthanked Patsy for calling, and promised to follow up. Then she sent the form to one of the bureau teams that was tracking possible terrorist cells.
The form was on a clipboard the next day when Hob Tulik, down from Washington for an inspection, flipped through the forms on the board and saw it. “This cell, Number Eleven, you've had what, seven calls on them?”
“Yessir. Four male suspects in their twenties, from Arabia we think, all here on student visas. Two were at the University of Illinois, one at Stanford, one at the University of Missouri. They're packed in one little room at Smoot's Motel on Route One, north of Fort Lauderdale.”
“Studying hard, are they?”
“No, sir,” said the agent, ignoring the sarcasm. He pulled a file on Cell Eleven and opened it. “We've been working this cell for three weeks. Two suspects are working at a food warehouse, one is a laborer at a tire store, and another is a part-time convenience store clerk. Strange thing is that they drive a rental car from an airport agency. Displayed a California driver's license for a man named Safraz Hassoun and used a credit card in that name. Los Angeles address on the license. We're having the records pulled on the driver's license and have requested a copy of the credit card app.”
Hob Tulik leafed through the file, which contained four photos, all candid snaps with the subjects unaware of the photographer. “Which one is Hassoun?”
“None of them. There was a Kuwaiti student named Hassoun at UCLA last year, but as far as we know he's left the country.”
“Terrific. What are we doing in the way of surveillance?”
“We think one of them has a cell phone, sir. We're trying to find out the number and get court authorization for an intercept and the records. Their motel room contains no telephone. Smoot's Motel does have a pay phone on a car window mount in front of the place, and we have an authorization to tap that. We'll get it done in three or four days, whenever the technicians can process it. We don't have the people to stay on the suspects around the clock, so we have a man in the motel and follow them to and
from their jobs. If they leave their jobs before their shifts end, we won't know it.”
from their jobs. If they leave their jobs before their shifts end, we won't know it.”
“That the best we can do?”
“We're working seventeen possible cells.”
“I understand.”
Jake Grafton was watching the news on television when his daughter Amy came in that evening. She had lived in a dorm for her first year of college, then shared an apartment with two other girls for three semestersânow she was bunking at home. The move home was Amy's idea. Jake resisted the return to the nest at first, until Callie noted that in a year or two Amy would be gone for good. “Better enjoy her company while you can.” Now Jake looked forward to Amy's evening arrivals home from the library where she studied and worked part-time.
Amy kissed his cheek, then dropped onto the sofa beside Jake and kicked off her shoes. “I've got to write a paper,” she said, “and I don't know what I want to say.”
“Been there myself,” her father muttered.
“The question is: Can constitutional democracy survive in the age of terror?”
“That's a good one.”
“I don't know the answer. I'm really worried, Dad. The news is scary. There seem to be many people in the world who don't have a stake in civilizationâthey don't want civilization.”
Jake used the remote to turn off the television.
“Rome fell to the barbarians,” Amy continued, “because it could no longer defend itself. Are we like the Romans?”
“There's the format for your paper. Compare America today to ancient Rome.”
Amy thought about it. “That's a good approach. Thanks. But it doesn't answer the question: Can we survive?”
“I don't know the answer, Amy. No one does. Civilizations
have been rising and falling since the first farmers built huts close together for protection.”
have been rising and falling since the first farmers built huts close together for protection.”
Amy wasn't in a philosophical mood. She picked up her books and stood. As she did, she said, “I don't want my grandchildren growing up in a new dark age, ignorant and starving and dictated to by illiterate holy men ranting about evil and preaching holy war against the infidels.”
“Nor do I,” Jake agreed.
“I'd rather see all those sons of bitches dead,” she added grimly. “That isn't politically correct, but I'm getting sick of political correctness, too.”
Jake smiled as she went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk and a snack. A chip off the old block, he thought. He didn't know if that was good or bad.
“Here's the first copy of the magazine, Mr. Corrigan,” the secretary said gleefully. She handed him a magazine. “A courier brought it directly from New York.”
“Thank you, Miss Hargrove.”
Thayer Michael Corrigan was riding a stationary bicycle. He placed the magazine on the stand on top of
The Wall Street Journal
and examined the cover likeness.
Looks good,
he thought.
For an old fart, you aren't half-bad.
The Wall Street Journal
and examined the cover likeness.
Looks good,
he thought.
For an old fart, you aren't half-bad.
He kept riding as he scanned the cover story. He had already seen most of it, of course, traded back and forth as e-mail. The reporter wanted to ensure he had his facts right, he said, “standard procedure.” Corrigan snorted. Preapproval of cover stories was the only way that the magazine could ensure that captains of industry would continue to grant interviews for future cover stories. No one wanted to be sandbagged by some scribbler out to make a name for himself.
Yep, the story was the one he had seen, with only minor editing changes. He used the towel to wipe his face and settled down to serious riding.
The view out the corner office windows was of a duck pond teeming with birds. The groundskeeper fed the ducks and swans every morning to keep them there. The shrubbery around the pond was manicured in the Japanese style,
very arty. And labor-intensive. All in all, the scene made a nice statement about Corrigan Engineering, Inc., “Building a Better World” as the slogan under the logo proclaimed.
very arty. And labor-intensive. All in all, the scene made a nice statement about Corrigan Engineering, Inc., “Building a Better World” as the slogan under the logo proclaimed.
Thayer Michael Corrigan had started out forty-six years ago with a contract to inspect New England railroad bridges. When people asked about the old days, he liked to talk about those bridges, about wading through the trash and poison ivy, jumping out of the way of passing trains. He had talked about those days for the magazine reporter, who had devoted a long paragraph to that humble beginning.
He didn't tell the reporter that he would probably still be inspecting railroad bridges if he hadn't had a chance meeting two years later with a man in Cambridge. He had never talked about that meeting with anyone.
As he stared at the duck pond, he remembered. The acquaintance began casually enough, and ripened rather quickly into a friendship. Dinners here and there, cigars and whiskey afterward. The man's name was Herbert Schwimmer. He too, he said, was a consulting engineer. Or so Corrigan believed for several years. He was ten or fifteen years older than Corrigan, had a nice accent, and said his parents came to this country from Europe before the war.
One evening Schwimmer made the observation that in the post-World War II era American companies were the technological star cores, the place where research and engineering, competition and the possibility of profits fused old materials into new things that had never before existed. These places, Schwimmer said, were the wealth generators in the age of capitalism.
Somehow, Corrigan couldn't remember exactly how, the subject of industrial espionage came up in their conversation. “You understand,” Schwimmer said, “that industrial secrets are impossible to keep. People talk shop to lovers and friends, they leave the company for a competitor, patents are infringed, competitors spy on their rivals
and do reverse engineering ⦠Yet there is a time, a brief window, when knowledge has value, when it can be converted to gold.”
and do reverse engineering ⦠Yet there is a time, a brief window, when knowledge has value, when it can be converted to gold.”
Weeks later Herbert Schwimmer confided that he was a broker in intellectual property. “I am not interested in the atomic secret,” he said with a grin. “Nor do I deal in political intelligence. I wouldn't pay a nickel for the latest war plan. I need products that I can sell to other companies.”
“Where?”
“Here and in Europe. Everyone guards their secrets and buys those of the competition. Of course, the value of intellectual property decreases over time, and one must know the market.”
Today Corrigan's reverie was broken by the buzz of the intercom. “Your wife is on the telephone, Mr. Corrigan. Line two.”
Corrigan pushed a button to put his wife on the speaker. He kept pedaling.
“Yes, dear.”
“Congratulations on the story. Power, no less.”
“You've seen a copy?”
“A friend in New York faxed me a copy of the cover. A good likeness.”
“They got me, I think.”
“Oh, Mrs. Everett from the symphony is in the other room. It's the annual fund drive. I was thinking of giving them a hundred. Is that okay with you?”
“Fine,” said Thayer Michael Corrigan.
She discussed their dinner plans, then said good-bye.
Corrigan looked at his watch. Ten more minutes. As he wiped his face his thoughts returned to Schwimmer and his business proposition. It hadn't come out all at once, of course, but in dribs and drabs over the course of six or eight weeks. Actually, he had been the one who asked Schwimmer what secrets he wanted.
Two months later Corrigan sold his first secret to Schwimmer. He went looking for it. He was the low bidder
for a consulting contract for a division of a company building radars. He couldn't get into the lab, of course; he was hired to help with the structural design of a new building. He spent his spare moments mining the trash. Fortunately he wasn't caught. His excavations yielded blueprints and technical notes that he used to write a coherent summary of a new radar design. Schwimmer paid him $10,000 for the summary. Personally mining the trash was a huge risk, one he never took again. From that day forth he bribed garbage collectors. Thayer Michael Corrigan was on his way.
for a consulting contract for a division of a company building radars. He couldn't get into the lab, of course; he was hired to help with the structural design of a new building. He spent his spare moments mining the trash. Fortunately he wasn't caught. His excavations yielded blueprints and technical notes that he used to write a coherent summary of a new radar design. Schwimmer paid him $10,000 for the summary. Personally mining the trash was a huge risk, one he never took again. From that day forth he bribed garbage collectors. Thayer Michael Corrigan was on his way.
The intercom buzzed again. “Your wife again, sir.”
“Yes, Lauren.”
“I'm sorry to bother you, T. M. Everett says Rebecca DuPont gave the symphony two hundred. I knew you thought it important ⦔
“Give them a quarter million.”
Corrigan pedaled on, thinking about his wife. She was modeling in New York when he met her at a party five years ago. God, she was gorgeous. She wasn't one of those half-starved, flat-chested fashion horses, but a model for women's fitness magazines. How to get great abs, lose cellulite, sculpt the buns, that kind of thing. She was really built. And she was thirty-five years younger than he was and loved to fuck, so he did a half hour on the damned stationary bike every day. And popped the little blue pills. She didn't know about the pills, and he wasn't about to tell her. Thank God for little blue pills.
Of course, Schwimmer wouldn't have been interested in the formula for blue pills. Back then he had wanted leading-edge high-tech stuff in aviation, radar, computers, sonars, the space program. Corrigan had founded a company and recruited engineers and was making serious money when he finally realized Schwimmer was after the information for the Soviets. He braced him on it. Yes, he was KGB.
But there was little risk, Schwimmer insisted. The FBI was looking for spies in the political arena and in government
laboratories. “I told you I am not after the atomic secret, and I don't give a damn what Washington is plotting.” Of course not. The Soviets had other sources for that information. The real question, Corrigan realized, was who was going to earn the money providing the industrial secrets that Schwimmer and his colleagues were going to get in any event, from someone. They would buy the information they wanted or some liberal half-wit would pass it to them gratis for ideological reasons. Schwimmer was absolutely right, the stuff was valuable and impossible to keep secret. Corrigan decided that he wanted the money.
laboratories. “I told you I am not after the atomic secret, and I don't give a damn what Washington is plotting.” Of course not. The Soviets had other sources for that information. The real question, Corrigan realized, was who was going to earn the money providing the industrial secrets that Schwimmer and his colleagues were going to get in any event, from someone. They would buy the information they wanted or some liberal half-wit would pass it to them gratis for ideological reasons. Schwimmer was absolutely right, the stuff was valuable and impossible to keep secret. Corrigan decided that he wanted the money.
Today on the exercise bicycle he grinned to himself. He had made the right decision. He had built a large consulting firm that did business all over the world. The most profitable division was the smallest, industrial secrets, and it had made him filthy rich. The cover of
Power
magazine, no less!
Power
magazine, no less!
Sure, there had been problems through the years. He hired men who solved those kinds of problems and he paid them very well, more money than they could ever have made doing anything else.
Schwimmer was long gone. Other contacts had come and gone, and the money kept flowing. Business had boomed during the Reagan years, when American industry led the world into space and the computer age had dawned. Stealth airplanes, quiet submarines, guided weapons, networkcentric warfare, space-based sensors, encryption technology, the Soviets had paid top dollar for all of it. Ironically, they couldn't use even a small portion of what he sold themâthey lacked the industrial capacity. Thayer Michael Corrigan had enjoyed that delicious irony.
Then the Soviet Union imploded, and money from the new Russia had dried up.
The bicycle beeped at him. One more minute. He increased the pace, worked the pedals as fast as he could. At the end of the minute the machine beeped again and he slowed down, pedaled slowly during the cooling-off period.
The world changed in 1991. Now it was changing again. The age of terrorism was here, and once again there was big money to be made. Security was the top-dollar commodity now and the American government was the customer.
Thank you, Osama bin Laden, you stupid rag-head fanatic, plotting mass murder in your mud hut. You are going to make me a billionaire!
Thank you, Osama bin Laden, you stupid rag-head fanatic, plotting mass murder in your mud hut. You are going to make me a billionaire!
He got off the bicycle, wiped his face and hands, and picked up the magazine. He examined the cover art closely. It was a good likeness. He pushed a button on the intercom for his executive assistant.
“Frank, call
Power
magazine. Tell them I want to buy the portrait they used for the cover. Get it framed for the reception area.”
Power
magazine. Tell them I want to buy the portrait they used for the cover. Get it framed for the reception area.”
“Yes, Mr. Corrigan. Right away.”
Alderson, West Virginia, was a sleepy coal town tucked between two steep, wooded hillsides with a gorgeous river, the Greenbrier, running through it. Tommy Carmellini parked on the main street on the north side of the river, got out of his car, and stretched. He was several inches over six feet tall and wore a baggy light sports coat and trousers that didn't quite fit. In an age when men picked clothes to show off their physiques, Tommy Carmellini's clothes hid his wide shoulders, long, ropy muscles, and washboard stomach. Cut an inch or so too long, his sleeves partially obscured the massive wrists, oversize veins, and superstrong fingers that years of rock climbing had developed.
After working the kinks out, Carmellini went into a small grocery store. He bought a cold can of soda pop and stepped back out on the sidewalk to drink it. The river was wide here, flowing along in the summer heat under the shade of huge oaks and maples. Several boys were fishing along the banks. A couple of them eyed his car curiouslyâyou didn't see many old red Mercedes coupes parked in coal country.
When Tommy finished the soda he went back into the store. He was the only customer. He asked the female clerk, “Where's the women's prison?”
“Cross the river on the bridge, honey, and stay on the highway. It's a ways down the river, but there's signs. You can't miss it.”
“Okay.”
“You here to visit someone?”
“My mom. She's got a few more years left to do.”
He ditched the can in the trash by the door and walked back to the car.
The visitors' room at the prison was divided by a table that ran from wall to wall. The prisoners and visitors were separated by a wall of bulletproof glass that ran the length of the table. Carmellini was the only visitor. He took the middle of five seats. The place smelled of disinfectant. Massive walls, puke green paint, tiny windows, the bars, the vast silence ⦠the hopelessness of it washed over Tommy Carmellini.
When the guard brought Zelda Hudson into the room he was stunned at the change in her appearance. She wore no makeup at all, her dark hair was cropped just below her ears, and her beltless prison shift hung on her like a sack. She looked years older than he remembered her.
She took a seat opposite him and stared at him through the glass without a flicker of interest.
“Name's Carmellini,” he said into the, intercom mike after the guard left the room and they were alone.
“I recognize you.”
“Was sort of surprised when you pleaded guilty without making a deal with Justice.” Zelda had masterminded the theft of USS
America
last year. After she was indicted by a grand jury she pleaded guilty at the arraignment, which left the media aghast at her effrontery, cheating them out of a show trial.
America
last year. After she was indicted by a grand jury she pleaded guilty at the arraignment, which left the media aghast at her effrontery, cheating them out of a show trial.
“I don't know what you want, Carmellini, but I've told you people everything I have to say.”
“Well, I was in the neighborhood, just thought I'd drop in and say hi.”
“Right.”
“So you got what, about thirty years to do before you're eligible for parole?”
“So you read newspapers.”
“Not really. You know how death penalty cases areâfame and fortune. You and Hillary Clinton were on the cover of the supermarket tabloids every time I bought beer.”
“I hope you kept a scrapbook.”
He tugged at an earlobe. “You always did have a difficult personality, as I recall.”
“Listen, Carmellini. You helped put me here. Oh, I know, I fucked up and all that, but you shoved me into this hellhole. Say what you came to say and hit the road.”
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