The Brea File (34 page)

“I can’t explain.”

“You damned well
have
to explain.” When he did not answer she asked, “Does it have something to do with a case?”

“Yes.”

It was a very tough equation. In recent weeks Jan’s home had been invaded, her bedroom bugged, her activities spied on. This afternoon her daughter’s life had been threatened. Tonight her good friend—perhaps her best friend—had died. She deserved to know why.

That was on the one side. On the other Paul couldn’t discuss a confidential FBI investigation with anyone outside the Bureau, even her. And it was also true that she couldn’t afford to know even as much as he did.

Carey McWilliams. Vernon Lippert. Timothy Callahan. Raymond Shoup. Carole Baumgartner. Each of them had known or seen something he or she shouldn’t, something that might be dangerous to someone.

To Brea.

Macimer had the sensation of being on the very edge of revelation. He was that far away from having it all laid out, the entire scheme visible, the odd-shaped pieces falling into place in the odd-shaped holes.

But it stayed just out of reach.

“I’ll tell you this much,” he said. “We know that what happened this afternoon wasn’t an accident.”

“The truck…”

“That truck deliberately forced Carole off the road. But it didn’t end there.” He watched the horror of what he was saying reach her eyes, flood them, scream a silent protest. “I think Carole was murdered tonight. Linda wasn’t the target of that accident this afternoon, Carole was. But the driver didn’t care if Linda was hurt. She was in the way, that’s all. Tonight he finished the job.” Macimer paused. “I don’t want any of you in the way any longer.

I want you, Chip, Kevin, Linda—all of you—as far from here as possible. As soon as possible.”

“You’re telling me to run.”

“I’m asking you,” he said.

It was the fact that he had asked, he thought later, that finally won her over.

American Airlines flight 115, nonstop to Phoenix, left Dulles International Thursday afternoon. Chip and Kevin were eagerly looking forward to the trip but Jan was unusually quiet. While the two boys were getting reading material from a newsstand, Paul and Jan had a few moments alone in the vast waiting area.

“I still don’t like leaving without Linda,” Jan said.

“As soon as she’s released, I’ll put her on the first available flight. Meanwhile I won’t have to worry about the rest of you.”

“You’re serious about that, aren’t you?”

“Carole was murdered, Jan.” The underwater autopsy had confirmed the presence of an air embolism. Even though it could not be proven that the deadly air bubble had been deliberately caused, Macimer had no doubt.

“We’ve never been threatened before, not that I know of. Not once in twenty years.”

“Twenty years ago you didn’t have underground newspapers printing the names and addresses of agents, making us targets.” It was a plausible evasion, he thought.

“Maybe it’s time for you to get out,” Jan said quietly.

“You know better than that, Jan. Besides, I couldn’t leave in the middle of a case. Especially this case. I have to see it through.”

“Without me.” Jan was silent for a long moment, staring at him. Over her shoulder Paul saw Chip hurrying toward them. Kevin trailed behind, leafing through a magazine as he walked.

Jan said, “Maybe you’re right, Paul. And maybe I’m the one who doesn’t belong here anymore.”

The words echoed in Macimer’s mind as he watched the shuttle bus taking Jan, Chip and Kevin away from the terminal. He could not even guess how final Jan’s words had been, or whether the gulf between them could still be breached.

The plane, a 707, waited out on an apron near the runways, which undulated in the heat like cheap mirrors. Unlike most major U.S. airports, Dulles International did not have separate terminals for each airline. From the single huge terminal, serving all carriers, a fleet of cumbersome-looking but surprisingly efficient shuttles loaded passengers for departure and brought new arrivals in from the landing strips.

Macimer continued to stare across the hot apron as the passenger cab of the shuttle rose slowly from ground level to the height of the 707’s passenger door. Then there was the pantomime of the shuttle cab’s silent descent and crabbed retreat. The faces at the windows of the plane were small and unrecognizable.

When the aircraft trundled out toward its takeoff, Macimer turned away, depressed.

On the way to his car he took the wrong aisle in the parking lot and caught a glimpse of the two men sitting in a gray Ford sedan. Macimer paid them no notice.

Traffic was relatively light on the wide, divided highway heading east from the airport toward Washington. Otherwise the unobtrusive gray sedan would easily have gone unnoticed, since it lagged far behind him. It stayed visible in his rearview mirror all the way into downtown Washington, and he was not sure it had broken away until he was within a few blocks of the Washington Field Office.

By then, Macimer reflected, there was no need to keep him under direct surveillance.

* * * *

At the WFO Macimer reviewed the teletypes received that morning from Collins and Garvey. He read the reports by the agents who had combed Gerella’s apartment; the search had been unproductive. He also read summary reports from Rodriguez and Singleton on the search for the three missing Cubans; attached was a list of three youths—two were named Xavier—on whom the search was being concentrated because they matched all or most of the subject’s profile. Next were the FBI Lab’s reports on the detailed examination of evidence found on Roosevelt Island, along with Raymond Shoup’s autopsy report. Water in Shoup’s lungs had come not from the pool where he was found but from the river, indicating that the body had been moved after Shoup was drowned. Footprints found with Shoup’s in the soft earth near the shore of the island and along the footpath had been made by a heavyset man wearing rubbers over his shoes. Which meant no identifiable footprints, Macimer noted, unless the rubbers themselves, which had a distinctive ribbed sole pattern, were found. They wouldn’t be, he knew. Brea had worn them deliberately, and he would quickly have disposed of them.

The Special squad’s accumulation of records covering the Brea investigation now filled most of a four-drawer file cabinet. But Brea was still out of reach.

Just before five o’clock Joe Taliaferro returned to the office, and Macimer briefly reviewed with Taliaferro and the ASAC, Jerry Russell, their plans for another Friday night surveillance of the suspect from the Energy Research and Development Administration. The Alexandria office, Russell reported, was maintaining photographic surveillance of everyone who visited the print shop suspected of being the suspect Molter’s drop. A registered clerk from the Soviet Embassy in Washington had been identified as one of those visitors.

Macimer left the office shortly after this briefing—an early hour for him. He instructed Harrison Stearns to call him the minute anything important came in on the Brea case. Then Macimer drove through heavy traffic to the suburban hospital near the Meadows where Linda had been kept for observation.

Linda seemed improved—more alert, less remote. Macimer was encouraged. To occupy the girl’s mind he had her make a list of what she wanted to take to Arizona with her. He would do her packing and have everything ready.

He wanted her away from Washington.

* * * *

On the drive from the hospital he looked for the gray Ford Fairmont sedan but was unable to spot it. He arrived home shortly after six-thirty.

To cover any attempt to reach him at home during his absence from the empty house he had hooked up the answering device to his private telephone. He disliked using the tape-recorded system, though it was sometimes useful. There were three messages clocked on the recorder. He rewound the tape and switched the instrument to playback.

The first caller had hung up without speaking, rousing Macimer from his slumped position in his chair. He shrugged off his curiosity; a great many people disliked dealing with the tape-recorded message system and automatically hung up.

The second call was from Jan, who had arrived in Phoenix on schedule. Macimer turned off the answer-phone and dialed the number of Jan’s parents’ home in Sun City. Jan was asleep, her mother told him, tired from her flight. Macimer gave her the flight number and time of Linda’s scheduled arrival in Phoenix on Friday. If there was any change, he added, he would telephone again.

When he hung up he wondered if Jan had really been asleep.

Several minutes passed before he remembered that there had been a third message on his recorder. He switched on the instrument once more.

This last call was the least expected and most puzzling. It was from Erika Halbig.

* * * *

Special Agents Lenny Collins and Pat Garvey dined that evening at the Nut Tree, a popular restaurant in Vacaville, an easy drive from Sacramento. It was crowded and they had to wait for a table. They were finally seated next to an interior garden which had been enclosed as an aviary. Bright-plumed birds flitted among the greenery and vivid splashes of hanging fuchsias. After watching the spectacle for several minutes, ordering a dinner of curried chicken breast and sipping an icy margarita, Collins said, “This beats Sambo’s.”

Garvey managed only a forced grin. The day had been tiring and frustrating, a dogged attempt to reconstruct the movements of some two hundred agents who had been part of the People’s Revolutionary Committee Task Force, cross-referencing assignment sheets against daily reports for the date of August 28, 1981, and verifying these by personal interviews. Most of those agents were easily eliminated from suspicion of involvement in the Brea affair; they had worked in pairs or squads on the fateful day. That information did more than provide corroboration of their activities. “We’re looking for someone who was alone that day, acting on his own,” Paul Macimer had said. “We’re looking for Brea himself.”

Twenty-three agents listed as part of the Task Force had been on individual assignments in the field that day. So far Collins and Garvey had managed to account for only eleven of them. One of the things that was bothering Garvey was the knowledge that a commitment of more manpower would have made the review much swifter, much more certain of success. Yet Macimer’s orders had been explicit: Collins and Garvey were handling this part of the investigation on their own.

Garvey didn’t like investigating other FBI agents, even though he knew that Brea had to be identified and exposed. He didn’t like working in the dark, and he sensed that his boss, Macimer, knew more than the agents did. And he liked least of all the fact that, sometime on Friday, he and Collins would be working their way down to Fresno—investigating Macimer himself. And like it or not, Macimer was not above suspicion.

Garvey picked at a steak while Collins devoured the curried breast of chicken and a heaping platter of fruits, nuts and condiments. Finally, over coffee, Garvey brought up the possibility which Collins, only half jokingly, had suggested. “I can’t believe Macimer is involved.”

“Then why are you so worried?” Collins asked cheerfully.

“It doesn’t make sense they’d put him in charge of the special investigation if he was under suspicion.”

“Maybe the people who put him in charge were also in on it. We don’t know that Brea acted on his own that day. Don’t forget, Macimer worked at the seat of government himself for a while. He also got nice fat promotions ahead of older agents. He’s got friends where it counts. Maybe he’s holding some IOUs.”

“I don’t think even you believe that.”

Collins shrugged. “I’ll tell you one thing, if Macimer was so eager to get at the bottom of this thing, we wouldn’t be out here on our lonesome. There’d be a few dozen other agents digging into these assignment checks looking for Brea. Hell, that’s one of the things the Bureau does best, throwing in the big manpower when that’s what’s needed to break a case open. And I’ll tell you something else. No matter what we find tonight or tomorrow or the next day, if there’s anything that points a finger at one of the big boys, Macimer or anyone else, and we send in our report, it’ll just disappear. That’s the last you’ll ever hear of it. Unless…”

Collins paused, cocking his head to listen to the song of a bird with bright yellow on its wings. Collins wondered what it was; he had never had time in his life for birdwatching, any more than he had made space in his thinking for taking people on faith alone, trusting in the goodness of mankind. Garvey, he thought, was upsetting that….

“Unless what?” Garvey prodded.

“Unless we turn something up that we feel we should take straight to Headquarters.”

Garvey stiffened. His skin felt cold, as if the air conditioning had been turned up too high. “Disobey Macimer’s instructions?”

“Why not?” Collins demanded. He had been stirring another spoonful of sugar into his coffee, and he pointed the spoon at Garvey as if in accusation. “Why should we keep quiet, if those orders are part of the whole stinking cover-up?”

“I don’t believe it,” Garvey said flatly.

“You don’t want to. Hell, neither do I. I like Macimer. But the world doesn’t surprise me as much as it does you, Garvey.” He paused, then grinned broadly. “Besides, you’re forgetting there’s one other big name on that list. You know who it is.”

Garvey knew. It was the name of the man who had been in charge of the task force hunting the PRC in the summer of 1981: John L. Landers, now Acting Director of the FBI.

* * * *

At nine o’clock that Thursday evening, while Collins and Garvey were sitting down to dinner, Paul Macimer turned off the Beltway at Exit 19 and swung south toward Bethesda. He had not seen the gray Ford following him, but almost certainly it—or another car—was close behind.

After a short drive he spotted the brightly lit façade of the Marriott Hotel, which Erika had mentioned as an easy-to-find landmark. He turned up the hill past the Marriott and found a parking space in front of the sprawling hilltop complex of the Linden Hill Hotel.