White Wolf McLeod

by David J. Wallis

  “We always have a back up plan, what you might call a contingency. Every one of our aircraft is wired with explosives. Its not only an incentive to make sure missions are completed but discourages anyone from trying to steal Company property.” He nodded towards the aircraft. “It’s rigged to blow, if I see anyone approach that plane without my say-so.

  “Oh, and by the way, I wouldn’t count on the other two of your team helping.” He raised a hand to forestall any objections. “They haven’t been harmed. They’re just being watched. You have means to contact them?”

  “No. They’ll act on their own if they think I am in danger.” McLeod decided not to bluff his way through this one. He silently cursed himself for placing his entire team in jeopardy. He had severely underestimated the Company’s all consuming paranoia and lack of sense of fair play. Next time, it would be different, he vowed to himself.

  “Good. Then we have time to talk a while. You know, I am rather familiar with Chino’s background. But he really impressed me while we were keeping company. Would you believe that he escaped from us twice? He nearly crippled four of our agents. He could have killed them, but he didn’t.”

  “I’m going to have to punish him for that. He’s growing soft,” McLeod declared evenly.

  “It’s the only reason why he’s still alive,” the operative countered. “If he had killed one of ours, we would have had no choice but to eliminate him. However, he could be very useful to us. Why don’t you let me try to convince him to join us? I think he enjoys being in the jungle. Killing is in his blood.”

  “He won’t. I think you know that. Also,” McLeod added with emphasis, “you wouldn’t even be able to control him. He remembers what he had become in the jungle, and he would rather kill himself than go back to that life again. You’d probably have to kill him in the end, anyway, before he turned on you.”

  “And how do you control him?” Doris asked with an eager curiosity.

  “That would be a trade secret, and unlike you, I don’t tell my secrets.”

  “You’re a hard man, McLeod. You would have made a good agent—well, almost—yourself.”

  “Let’s quit the bantering. I’m tired, and tired men make mistakes. I’m sure that it isn’t too comfortable in that plane either. Name your terms.”

  Doris moved his body to rest his hands on top of the box and face the Marshal. “I’m a trader. I don’t believe in giving something for nothing. The question is, what do you have to give me in trade? Your services perhaps?”

  “Now that we are finally putting our cards on the table, what exactly do you think I can give you?”

  “First, I need to know what you plan to do with the information you’ve uncovered.”

  “Nothing,” he answered plainly.

  “Nothing? Somehow that doesn’t seem like you. What you have in your hands sounds to me to pretty damaging.” He was good, McLeod thought grudgingly.

  “To whom? You personally? You’re a shadow. I don’t even know your real name. Someone in the CIA killed the Alvarez boy? Even if the public bought that story, who would I bring to justice? I’d be laughed out of every courtroom in the country if I tried to close this case and blame the CIA. You’re secret is safe with me.”

  “But what about the documents and the files you’ve gathered? Can’t have those lying around for someone to find, now can we?”

  “Then you’ll be interested to know that my new superior has ordered me to turn all the information we have amassed on this case to him personally. I no longer have any information in my possession that could link the CIA with this case. And if I have read my new boss correctly, he’s going to bury everything as if it never happened. Or, he might try to do the same thing his predecessor was fairly successful at until he was caught.”

  “And what was that, Marshal McLeod?”

  “Blackmail. To him it was like a fetish. He thought it was fun to find something on people and on organizations, something that he could use as leverage to buy his way up to the top. After he figured he had climbed as high as he dared, then he wanted perks. The more perks the better.”

  “I’m curious. How did you find out about him?”

  “He got careless. Then he got scared. He went home and put a bullet into his head. Only it wasn’t suicide.”

  The operative’s eyes widened with interest.

  “Oh, it was good. Very good. One of these days forensics is going to be able to catch up with all the tricks the Company uses to make things look different from the way they really happened.”

  “You’re accusing us of killing Director Welsh now?” The operative’s eyes were dancing with laughter in his otherwise impassive countenance.

  “No. But there are two people here that know the truth. Which brings me to another question: why did the CIA have Detective Renkins in Lake Tahoe killed? Was that another message?”

  “You were doing so good in Tahoe. We thought we’d give you a hand. After all, you did stick a monkey wrench in some of our plans. We just had to make sure that the outcome came out the way we desired. If there’s a war, I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. I mean, it won’t be exactly like you started it. The elements and the reasons for a war were already there. They just needed a catalyst.”

  “That seems to me to be enough to trade for Chino.”

  Doris laughed his mirthless laugh a second time. “Not by half of it. I need something from you that will guarantee that you won’t give us trouble ever again.”

  “I just told you: I don’t have anything any more. And quite frankly, I don’t give a damn what you people do outside the United States. Just stay the hell out of my jurisdiction, and we’ll get along just fine.”

  The agent shook his head. “That’s not good enough. I need—no, I want you.”

  “I’m not the man you want,” McLeod said, preparing to play his trump card. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the memo Charlie had given him. He handed it to the operative, letting it drop onto the box before the man could grab it.

  “What’s this?”

  “This is what is going to free Chino.” McLeod suddenly slammed his hand down flat on the paper. “You accept this information, you agree to free Chino. If not, I’ll take it to the Justice Department. Better yet, I’ll take it to the press. They’ll have a field day with it.”

  Doris lost his smile and gazed back at McLeod with a new appreciation. It was not something that he liked. “How can I make a deal like that? I don’t even know what’s on the paper. For all I know, it’s a blank piece of paper.”

  “Let’s just say that I am offering you a deal you can’t refuse. I don’t believe in cheating people. I never take revenge. I just get even. Nothing personal; just business. But I can assure you that you will find this information extremely enlightening, more than enough to compensate for any babysitting costs you may have incurred looking after my man. It will also be the favor that you’re looking for me to fork over. Once we have concluded this agreement, we don’t owe each other anything. We won’t even know each other.”

  Doris looked at the paper under McLeod’s palm and started weighing the options. The Marshal knew that the operative was well aware that he could not own McLeod much less trust him, any more than a man could own or trust a wild animal. He withdrew a small two-way radio out of his right pocket and spoke into it. “Release our guest.” Then he turned to McLeod. “Now, can I have the paper?”

  “Not until I see Chino get into the car with Tim.”

  The operative nodded, accepting the terms. The two men turned their attention to watch the aircraft door open. Chino and the pilot exited. Then Chino slowly walked across the grass field surrounding the runway towards the hangar, limping slightly from the CIA’s last attempt to capture and subdue him. When he was close enough to see McLeod sitting in the hangar, the Marshal waved him to climb into the car with Tim. Then McLeod raised his hand from off the paper.

  Doris picked up the paper and started reading it. His jaw almost dropped w
hen he had finished it. “You were right. This is very interesting. So, tell me, why are you willing to give this to me. You obviously know how important this is.”

  “I wanted Chino back. Besides, I don’t owe that son-of-a-bitch a thing.”

  The operative rose to his feet and stuck out his hand. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you. You play a mean game.”

  McLeod rose and looked at the proffered hand with distaste. “Let’s agree not to do any more business together, shall we? You stay on your side of the street, and I’ll stay on mine. Just don’t cross it.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” the man replied, withdrawing his hand. “Kennedy did us a favor. We’re now in Vietnam. Do you know how lucrative the Golden Triangle is going to be? It’ll make Colombia look like a TV dinner.”

  “I’d prefer not to know. The less information I know, the less threat I’ll be to you. Wasn’t that what you were really worried about?”

  “Not really,” he admitted with true candor. “Actually, I was hoping to turn you.”

  “I would be your worst nightmare.”

  “That I would not care to dispute.”

  The men started walking out of the hangar. “By the way, you didn’t happen to uncover anything about Kennedy’s assassination, did you?”

  “No. Should I have? No, don’t answer that. I’ve already had my fill of bullshit.” McLeod left the agent standing in the hangar doorway with a bemused look on his face.

  As Tim retraced their steps back to Washington, D.C., he could not help but ask the question that had been burning in his bonnet. “Excuse me, bossman. But what exactly was in that memo?”

  “Enough for an indictment in the right places,” McLeod responded cryptically. “And, let’s just say that we should be expecting a new Deputy Director soon.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EBEL’S PARTY

  THE NATION, HAVING mourned terribly over the Thanksgiving holidays while burying their beloved President, tried its best to input some joy into the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. McLeod and his wife went through the motions of preparing for the holidays, only because their adopted daughter would arrive soon from boarding school, and she always enjoyed keeping the spirit of the season.

  McLeod had already received his Christmas presents, if one looked at the “coincidental” events that had occurred in less than a month’s time in a rather morbid light. For him, they were just conclusions to the careers and machinations of very wicked men, a kind of closure, really, to a number of barely connected threads that had comprised his latest case.

  Congress had concluded its business during the second week of December, its members joyously returning home. Senator Laughlin’s plane winging its way to Nevada had mysteriously developed problems in mid-air—some said that there was an explosion—and had plummeted into the ground somewhere in Colorado. McLeod did not pay attention to nor cared about the exact location. He only felt that there was some injustice that other people aboard the aircraft had to pay for the Senator’s sins of betrayal against his master. That alone would prevent him from forgiving Don Michael Seriglio. Killing people who might deserve death was one thing; killing innocents who were in the way through no fault of their own was unforgivable. If Buddha permitted him, he would be more than satisfied to send Michael to hell early.

  Andrew Prescott, having lost much of his support with the death of President Kennedy, retired for the holidays in Massachusetts to do some ice fishing and some political regrouping. Somehow, he fell into the river and drowned. It took nearly a week to locate and dredge his body out from under the ice. McLeod probably would never know which family had been ultimately responsible. He knew that all he had to do was ask Sylvia. But he just did not care; the knowledge might come back and haunt him some day in a different case. There were also a hundred—maybe a thousand—men waiting to take Prescott’s place.

  Deputy Director Eric Simmons passed away in his sleep last week. The newspapers did not report such an insignificant event except for a line or two in the obituary columns. McLeod learned of it from sources within the Department. The attending doctors ruled that he had suffered a massive cardiac arrest, but McLeod surmised the truth. The CIA had again cleaned up loose ends that could lead someone errantly or purposely to ventures it wanted—it needed—to keep secure within the shadowy world it operated with impunity in the name of protecting the Free World.

  The best news of all came in the form of a Christmas card from Sylvia Castanza. His wife brought it to him in the living room where he was reading a mystery novel, enjoying its farcical premise and formula investigation replete with surprise discoveries revealed at the end of the story by the all-knowing sleuth, with his feet propped up on the coffee table.

  “Yobo, your girl friend sent you a love letter,” she said with a big grin as she handed it to him.

  You see, he said silently to Simmon’s ghost, my wife knows everything she needs to know about my past and my relationships. There’s nothing you could have threatened me with to be one of your underlings.

  He opened the card and started reading the letter she had penned with her own hand.

  “Dear Junior and family,

  “Uncle Luigi was extremely pleased with your gifts. They were just perfect to settle the ruffled feathers that had been agitated through some misunderstandings. Michael seems to have been mollified, and he appreciates the fact that you kept your promise. He stopped short of apologizing, but that is the nature of men in his position.

  “Uncle also appreciates the information you passed on to him about the involvement of a certain party. It explains a lot, and it has increased his standing with his friends. His friends believe that they can now deal with the situation from a more advantageous position.

  “You probably have guessed the motives and the people responsible behind a number of ‘accidents’ that have recently occurred. You may also be interested to know that the underlying causations that threatened to precipitate a war between certain family members have been temporarily mollified. I told you to ‘watch your back,’ and you’ve done well so far. But your job is far from over. The infiltration of drugs into our country has just begun, and it’s going to get a lot worse. You’re going to be very busy if you want to remain a U.S. Marshal.

  “By the way, Uncle says that you still can have a job anytime you want it. He always said you were a ‘brighta boya.’

  “Love always, Sylvia.”

  “Good news, huh, Yobo,” his wife told him after she read Sylvia’s letter. “We also received an invitation from your new boss, Director Daniel Ebel. He’s throwing a Christmas party at his house this Saturday.”

  “Throw it away. We’re not going.” McLeod returned to his book.

  “You go, Yobo!” she commanded him in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “He’s your boss, and you need to show your face. He might be just as crooked as the others, but you still need his support. You go and make him believe that you are a part of his team. Then you can get to know the man. Remember: know your enemy and you will be forearmed.”

  McLeod sighed and set the book down, his interest in it having waned. “I hate parties,” he declared half-heartedly. Seeing the look of determination on his wife’s face, he amended his statement. “But I will go. You’re going, too, right?”

  “Me?” she laughed. “I hate office parties.” She sauntered off towards the kitchen, leaving McLeod chuckling to himself.

  SHORTLY AFTER WHITE Wolf had been discharged from the Air Force, he returned to his grandfather’s village for a visit. His half-brother Busting Teeth was there, and he suggested that they go into town for a drink. White Wolf could not remember the name of the town; it didn’t matter. That was not the reason why he remembered the outing.

  It was one of those towns where the Red Man and the White Man lived tenaciously side-by-side. The particular bar-restaurant his half-brother took him to was divided down the center. Native Americans sat on one side, while the oth
er town inhabitants sat on the other. Intermixing was not allowed or tolerated.

  “Come on,” Busting Teeth said, choosing a vacant table on the Indian side.

  White Wolf’s entrance caused a stir on both sides of the dividing line. Neither the Red Man nor the White Man knew what to make of him. As White Wolf sat down next to his half-brother, one of the more outspoken and militant Braves stood up to challenge him.

  “What gives you the right to sit down on the side of the People?” the Brave said accusingly, tantamount to a fight.

  “I say so,” Busting Teeth answered, rising to meet the challenger. “He’s an Indian.”

  “Really?” the Brave said derisively. “Looks like a White Man to me. If he’s an Indian, let him prove it.”

  White Wolf looked up at the Brave. This was not the time for a fight, he reasoned. Besides, the People had enough problems dealing with the White Man than fighting among themselves, which would only be to the benefit of the White Man.

  “We are the People, and we live in this world at the consent of the Great Spirit,” he answered. “Unlike the White Man, we do not own this world. It belongs to the Great Spirit. And what we do in this world should be to honor the responsibilities the Great Spirit has given to us.

  “I have just come from a White Man’s war, fought because the White Man and the Yellow Man want to shed blood over land that doesn’t belong to them and to enslave the minds of people they have no love for or loyalty to.

  “So, let me ask you? What land do you fight over that doesn’t belong to you? Why have you allowed others—the White Man in particular—to exercise control over your own mind? Do you relish being a slave to the White Man’s prejudices?”