The Middleman

by Olen Steinhauer

  They had reports of unknown men of suspicious character, sketchy vans passing through new-car suburbs, neighbors reporting on neighbors. There were politically minded citizens reporting on newscasters who seemed under the sway of the Massive Brigade. Students reported on classmates who’d once professed a distaste for the federal government. And foreigners, so many foreigners. What they got, really, was a cross-section of American paranoia, of hidden prejudices rising to the surface. Whatever diverged from the mainstream was suspect.

  That first full day, Owen Jakes invited her to join him on a conference call with Fay Levinson, a rosy-cheeked legal attaché officer in Berlin. When the video connected, Levinson cheerily said, “Hi, Owen!”

  Jakes whispered to Rachel, “I got her her job.”

  Levinson updated them on the cooperation they were receiving from German intelligence, which had spent the past twenty-four hours tracking the web of Martin Bishop’s European connections.

  “Do the Germans really have time for this?” Rachel asked.

  “Yesterday,” Levinson told her, “the Reichstag watched three American politicians die, a fourth on life support, and they know Bishop was inspired by a local group; they’re terrified they’re next. The BfV is kicking in doors all over Berlin. Don’t think the Bureau’s going through this alone. The moment they find anything useful, they’ll be on the horn to me, and I’ll get it to you and Owen.”

  “Thanks,” Rachel said. “And how about getting me clearance for Owen’s KRL report from 2009?”

  Levinson hesitated, head cocked, then nodded. “I’ll see what I can do on that front, okay?”

  After they hung up, Jakes said, “Isn’t she great?”

  Even though the conversation hadn’t been materially useful—and Rachel held out little hope of getting the 2009 report—learning that the Germans were just as worried was reassuring, and in the face of four hundred people doing a remarkable job keeping themselves hidden, it was almost as good as a lead.

  Still, there was uneasiness, and she struggled with basic questions. “It doesn’t match,” she told Jakes. “Why kill these people? Bishop’s writings never advocated direct, targeted attacks. He mentioned them, yes, but as a threat to hold over elected officials. He never actually advocated murder. And now, right out of the gate, he goes for the most extreme action? What changed?”

  “As you well know,” he countered, “the world doesn’t run on airtight logic.”

  “But he’s smart enough to know that he’s shooting himself in the foot.”

  Jakes shrugged and got up to go. “The real question is: Why does it matter why? That’s not going to help us put Martin Bishop behind bars.”

  The next afternoon, Ashley dropped off a bundle of pages that smelled of Fogo de Chão’s grilled lamb. “Magellan Holdings,” she said.

  Rachel had just gotten off a dismal call with the Albuquerque office. “This better be good news, Ash.”

  Ashley took a chair with a grand flourish and smiled. “Magellan Holdings LLC is the source of Massive’s funding, pre–June 18.”

  “And they are?”

  “A shell company. Well, the end of a line of five shell companies scattered around the world. Magellan’s incorporated in the Bahamas. The only listed officer is one Laura Anderson—we looked her up. Australian, seventy-eight years old. Resides at a nursing home in Brisbane.”

  Rachel leaned back, trying to picture this. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  “It sure does,” said Ashley. “It means someone really doesn’t want to be found.”

  In the outside world, the press was knocking on the Bureau’s door. Sam Schumer had come out quoting a confidential source saying that on June 18, nearly four hundred people with connections to the Massive Brigade had disappeared. He rubbed his endless forehead, tugged at his mustache, and spoke to his audience with the faux desperation of a shyster. “This is the question, fellow citizens: Where are our children?” Rachel got an angry call from Assistant Director Paulson, who demanded to know if she had been Schumer’s source. When she denied it, he told her to reconnect with Schumer, ASAP, “because if we’re not driving the story someone else will gladly do it for us.”

  16

  THIS WAS what it was like to never be alone.

  There was Holly, and the pimply-faced George who took their sopping wet selves around the key to Cutler Channel, where a Latina Mary waited at the end of Paradise Point Drive in a Range Rover stocked with snacks, blankets, towels, and a change of clothes. He lay with Holly in the cargo space as Mary drove them nonstop up the chicken leg of Florida, higher, playing the radio loud so they could all listen to what they had wrought.

  Holly pulled the blanket over their heads when they stopped to fill the tank, and in the humid darkness she whispered that he was a hero of the Revolution, and that one day his name would be in the history books. He didn’t ask if he would be there as a villain or a hero, because he wasn’t sure he could form the words. As Mary pulled onto the highway again, Holly kissed his forehead and ran her fingers down his chest to his groin, and he closed his eyes. He had submitted to everything else; why not this?

  Afterward, he slept.

  It was long after midnight, and they’d been on the road thirteen hours straight when they arrived at a large, rambling house in the swamplands of Louisiana, deep in the kudzu empire. Both he and Holly walked weak-kneed into the embrace of eighteen Georges and Marys, all excited and terrified by what had occurred, but however they felt about the act they were uniformly in awe of Kevin, one of the Revolution’s bloody hands. They served him and Holly homemade gumbo, watching every bite he took. He felt as if the eyes of God, everpresent, had suddenly become flesh. That wasn’t all he felt.

  He felt as if, by virtue of one little trigger, he’d aged considerably. It wasn’t the first time—there had been Afghanistan, after all—but the intimacy of him, a sniper’s rifle, and a woman on a stage was something entirely different. Like someone opened a door in his head, ignoring the sign that said, “Don’t open until midlife crisis.” Like he’d walked through that door and gotten cozy with a new kind of mortality.

  The adoration only made him more claustrophobic, made him want to kick them out of the house and tell them not to come back until they’d found a fucking cell phone so that he could call his mother, but not even those who blow the first trumpet of the Revolution are allowed such things. A room of honor on the top floor, yes. And Holly, who stared down any Mary who showed signs of interest. But no phone.

  He didn’t sleep—how could he? Holly made sure he didn’t, and even without her he knew he wouldn’t have been able to. So he tried out her Pall Malls, holding down coughs as he smoked by the window and watched the sky brighten into morning. He felt so lost.

  A day passed. A day of leftover gumbo and cans of Miller Lite and eager looks and Holly, midday, bringing him back up to their room. By then everyone knew that Diane Trumble would likely survive the bullet in her neck, but that didn’t undermine their awe and appreciation. A man could live like this, he thought, but only as long as the ruse lasted; only until they realized that he wasn’t the hero they’d made him out to be.

  It was nine the second morning when Benjamin Mittag pulled up to the safe house in a pickup truck driven by a young woman. Kevin saw them approach from his window. Both Mittag and the woman were in rough farmer’s clothes; Mittag wore a fake mustache and mirrored cop glasses, a small bag on his shoulder.

  The Georges and Marys watched as, in the living room, Mittag gave him a bear hug, then turned around and raised a fist in the air. They raised theirs, a field of floating knuckles. He said, “This is one of the first heroes of the Revolution. In the future, children will know his name.”

  Kevin tried to control his bowels.

  Mittag said, “Come on, motherfucker,” and pulled him upstairs. When they entered the bedroom, Mittag closed the door and sat on Kevin’s stained sheets. He rubbed his hands through his hair. “You got her in the neck, but weren�
��t you aiming for the chest? Was there trouble with the shot?”

  He’d had plenty of time to prepare his answer. “I heard—well, I thought I heard—someone in the building. Outside the room. Coughing.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  He shook his head.

  Mittag frowned. “And that threw your shot?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Just as I was pulling the trigger. Aim. Cough. Fire.”

  Mittag leaned back. “Yeah, that might do it.”

  “Or maybe I’m not as good a shot as I think.”

  “You are, man.” A grin. “Look, you and me, we’re going on another trip.”

  “Where?”

  “Boss man wants a meeting.”

  “Bishop?”

  “Daddy’s pissed off. But we’ve been quiet long enough.”

  Kevin had no idea what that meant.

  “We leave in a couple of hours,” Mittag said, then sniffed the air. “Does it smell like pussy in here?”

  His good-bye to Holly was easy; she’d always treated him as if he were leaving. To the others, he just nodded. After a late lunch, he and Mittag were driving a car with Texas plates through the swamps, and north. They didn’t speak, which was a relief. Though nearly two days had passed, Kevin still felt the residual echo of his shock and feared that if he started speaking he might not stop, blabbing his entire life, from birth all the way to now.

  When, the following morning, they stopped at a backwoods gas station near Marshall, Texas, Kevin went in search of a toilet. The fat woman behind the counter directed him around the side of the building, but when he got there the bathroom door was locked. He was turning back to ask for the key when he heard a toilet flush.

  The door opened, and a skinny black teen opened the door. His eyes were shy, embarrassed, and Kevin felt an inexplicable urge to hug him, to tell him everything was fine. Instead, he said, “Hey, brother.”

  “Hey.”

  Though his scrambled brain felt a few degrees west of crazy, he controlled his voice, keeping it steady. “Can you do me a solid?”

  The boy just looked at him.

  “My cell died. I gotta get word to my mom. Tell her I’m gonna be late for dinner.”

  The boy looked him up and down, shrugged, then shoved a hand deep into the pocket of his low-hanging jeans. He pulled out a cell phone. “You ain’t calling another country?”

  Kevin laughed, then cut it short because he didn’t know how it sounded. “No, man. She’s in San Antonio.”

  The boy watched as Kevin, hands trembling, dialed the number he’d been holding on to for months, the one he had last sent a text message to on June 18.

  After two rings he heard a woman’s voice. “Yes?”

  “Mom, it’s Kevin.”

  Janet Fordham, who had only days before told Rachel Proulx that she had given up hope of ever hearing from her agent, almost shouted. She got control of herself, but when she spoke she was choked up. “So good to hear from you, son.”

  Kevin started to cry.

  “Shit,” said the boy, turning away to give him privacy.

  17

  RACHEL SAT in Mark Paulson’s office, the aroma of Ashley’s lunch still lingering in her nose, waiting for him to reach the end of the memo she’d quickly thrown together after her call with Janet Fordham. “This is the beginning,” she said, impatient for him to finish reading. “This is how we close it down.”

  She wasn’t sure Paulson had heard her, but there was no point saying it again. The information spoke for itself.

  Finally, he said, “Where’s Butte La Rose?”

  “Louisiana. In the Atchafalaya Basin.” In answer to Paulson’s blank stare, she said, “The bayou.”

  That was enough for him. “And how old is this intel?”

  “Three hours.”

  He nodded. “We could have a team there in twenty-four.”

  “Bishop isn’t there. Mittag isn’t either.”

  “But eighteen members are right there, waiting to be rounded up,” said Paulson. “Those other houses—they might be empty now. This is an assured capture.”

  She’d worried about this before handing him the report. Paulson’s background in banking left him, on occasion, surprisingly ignorant. Which was why she didn’t share OSWALD’s role in the shooting of Diane Trumble. She tried to make it simple for him. “If we sweep in now, it’s bound to expose OSWALD.”

  Paulson sighed.

  She knew what was on his mind—the press. Now that Sam Schumer had revealed to the world the four hundred missing followers, grieved family members were shouting to the press about FBI secrecy. That afternoon, a Wall Street Journal editorial had castigated the FBI as symptomatic of a bloated federal system that was as fat as it was ineffectual. The Massive Brigade, the paper argued, was too nimble to be caught by bureaucrats. Paulson could feel the hot breath of his critics on the back of his neck and was waiting in terror for the president to call his direct line. So she threw him a bone. “Look at the third page.”

  He turned to it, scanning the other safe houses Kevin had identified for them. She said, “I’ve asked our field offices to surveil them. We’ll have choices. We can pick off an earlier one. It won’t expose OSWALD, but it will show the press we’re not sitting around doing nothing.”

  Paulson returned to the first page and sighed. “OSWALD’s still in contact?”

  “He’s going to try for daily reports, but no promises. It’s not easy getting away.”

  Paulson rubbed an eye with his pinkie, and finally nodded. “Let’s go put the fear of God into them, then, shall we?”

  By five thirty, the Denver field office had struck gold—at least a dozen Massive followers were still living in the safe house near the base of Black Mountain in Wyoming. She told them to fly a SWAT team up there. Before heading out to Ronald Reagan Airport, she stopped by Paulson’s office to give him the news. The man seemed positively giddy.

  A Bureau jet flew her five hours to Sheridan County Airport, and, upon landing, a local agent picked her up in a black Suburban and drove her through the redbrick center of Sheridan. The bars were closing, and a few tall men in cowboy hats wandered down the sidewalks, wobbly from drink. Independence Day signs, already starting to fade, advertised steer roping and bronc riding.

  “They’re in position?” she asked the agent.

  He checked the time on the dash: 12:42 A.M. “Should be.”

  On their way up I-90, north of town, her phone buzzed. It was Owen Jakes. “It’s all ready?” he asked.

  “Just about. What’s up?”

  “Can’t sleep. Wish I’d come along.”

  “There’ll be plenty of raids soon enough.”

  “May I suggest something?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Keep your finger on the trigger tonight. These people are psychopaths.”

  The next call was from Commander Stephen Reyes, and she told him she would be there in twenty.

  “There are some lights on,” he replied.

  She knew what he was getting at; all evening he’d sounded nervous. “They can’t all be asleep, can they?”

  “Are you sure about your plan?”

  Given the armaments inside that house, she’d decided that instead of surprising them, she would announce herself from a safe distance. Give them a moment to think through their options and consider surrender. A sudden attack would result in a confused gunfight and a lot of blood. Reyes disagreed—an announcement, he contended, would only give them time to arm themselves and draw out the fight. He’d been in Waco for the disastrous Branch Davidian raid, and he didn’t want a repeat performance.

  But these weren’t members of a religious cult. They were young people who, no matter what they thought of the government, didn’t want to die. There was nothing waiting for them on the other side.

  “We’ll talk when I get there,” she said, and hung up.

  “He wants to be a hero,” the agent said
as he drove through blackness under a white moon.

  “What?”

  “Reyes. He wants to do it himself. With stealth. Doesn’t want any bureaucrats standing in his way.”

  “I don’t see any bureaucrats in this car.”

  He laughed. “Just keep telling yourself that, Agent Proulx.”

  They cut the lights and rolled at half speed until they reached the outer edge of the property, then pulled into a ditch. She took a bullhorn from the trunk and walked to meet Reyes farther up the road. Because of his black outfit, she didn’t see him until he was right next to her. He shook her hand, then led her through spindly trees to where the land sloped; in the middle of an open field lay the large ranch house. A couple of lamps glowed in windows along the wraparound porch. As they walked, he reported in whispered tones that earlier that evening a woman had left the property, and his men had tracked her all the way to a previously unknown safe house south of Nephi, Utah.

  “Great work,” she said. “That’ll be our next one.”

  He pointed across the field. “There’s twenty-seven of us scattered out there. We can be at the front door in sixty seconds.” He touched his ear, listening. “A female is in the kitchen. Making coffee.”

  Moonlight lit up the craggy path between Rachel and the house. She’d gone over maps to figure her best approach, but here, actually preparing to approach the house, her plan to stand at a safe distance and shout to them through the bullhorn … it felt wrong. How would a group of paranoid kids react to the sound of an amplified voice telling them to lay down their weapons and surrender?

  Alternately, what would they do when black-clad agents smashed through their doors with battering rams?

  “Take this,” she said to Reyes, and handed him the bullhorn. “There’s been a change of plan.”

  It was nearly two o’clock when she walked up the long gravel driveway, then stepped onto the cracked stones that led to the porch. She walked steadily, careful not to hurry, but also making no effort to be quiet. By the time she reached the steps she’d noticed curtains parting. She was surprised she even had to knock on the door, and more surprised that it took them a full minute to open it.