Her third area of “focus” was taking the pulse of the country. D-PAC was polling nonstop, every day, fifteen hours a day. If labor in western Pennsylvania was bothered by an issue, D-PAC would know it. If the Hispanics in Houston were pleased with a new welfare policy, D-PAC would know it. If the women in greater Chicago liked or disliked a Lake ad, D-PAC knew yes or no and by what percentage. “We know everything,” she boasted. “We’re like Big Brother, always watching.”
The polling cost $60,000 a day, a bargain. No one could touch it. For the important matters, Lake was nine points ahead of Tarry in Texas, even in Florida, a state Lake had yet to visit, and very close in Indiana, Tarry’s home state.
“Tarry’s tired,” she said. “Morale is low because he won in New Hampshire and the money was rolling in. Then you came from nowhere, a fresh face, no baggage, new message, you start winning, and suddenly the money finds you. Tarry can’t raise fifty bucks at a church bake sale. He’s losing key people because he can’t pay them, and because they smell another winner.”
Lake chewed a piece of pineapple and savored the words. They weren’t new; he’d heard them from his own people. But coming from a seasoned insider like Tyner, they were even more reassuring.
“What are the Vice President’s numbers?” Lake asked. He had his own set, but for some reason trusted her more.
“He’ll squeak out the nomination,” she said, offering nothing new. “But the convention will be bloody. Right now, you’re only a few points behind him on the big question: Who will you vote for in November?”
“November is far away.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
“A lot can change,” Lake said, thinking of Teddy, and wondering what sort of crisis he’d create to terrify the American people.
The dinner was more of a snack, and from Mortimer’s Lake was driven to a small dining room at the Hay-Adams Hotel. It was a long, late dinner with friends, two dozen of his colleagues from the House. Few of them had rushed to endorse him when he’d entered the race, but now they were all wildly enthusiastic about their man. Most had their own pollsters. The bandwagon was rolling down the mountain.
Lake had never seen his old pals so happy to be around him.
THE LETTER was prepared in Documents by a woman named Bruce, one of the agency’s three best counterfeiters. Tacked to the corkboard just above the worktable in her small lab were letters written by Ricky. Excellent samples, much more than she needed. She had no idea who Ricky was, but there was no doubt his handwriting was contrived. It was fairly consistent, with the more recent samples clearly showing an ease that came only with practice. His vocabulary was not remarkable, but then she suspected he was trying to downplay it. His sentence structure showed few mistakes. Bruce guessed him to be between the ages of forty and sixty, with at least a college education.
But it wasn’t her job to make such inferences, at least not in this case. With the same pen and paper as Ricky, she wrote a nice little note to Al. The text had been prepared by someone else, she did not know who. Nor did she care.
It was, “Hey, Al, where have you been? Why haven’t you written? Don’t forget about me.” That kind of letter, but with a nice little surprise. Since Ricky couldn’t use the phone, he was sending Al a cassette tape with a brief message from deep inside rehab.
Bruce fit the letter onto one page, then worked for an hour on the envelope. The postmark she applied was from Neptune Beach, Florida.
She didn’t seal the envelope. Her little project was inspected, then taken to another lab. The tape was recorded by a young agent who’d studied drama at Northwestern. In a soft, accentless voice he said, “Hey, Al, this is Ricky. Hope you’re surprised to hear my voice. They won’t let us use the phones around here, I don’t know why, but for some reason we can send tapes back and forth. I can’t wait to get out of this place.” Then he rambled for five minutes about his rehab and how much he hated his uncle and the people who ran Aladdin North. But he did concede that they had rid him of his addictions. He was certain he would look back and not judge the place too harshly.
His entire narrative was nothing but babble. No plans were discussed for his release, no hint of where he might go or what he might do, only a vague reference about seeing Al one day.
They were not yet ready to bait Al Konyers. The sole purpose of the tape was to hide within its casing a transmitter strong enough to lead them to Lake’s hidden file. A tiny bug in the envelope was too risky. Al might be smart enough to find it.
At Mailbox America in Chevy Chase, the CIA now controlled eight boxes, duly rented for one year by eight different people, each of whom had the same twenty-four-hour access that Mr. Konyers had. They came and went at all hours, checking their little boxes, picking up mail they’d sent themselves, occasionally taking a peek at Al’s box if no one was looking.
Since they knew his schedule better than he knew it himself, they waited patiently until he’d made his rounds. They felt certain he’d sneak out as before, dressed like a jogger, so they held the envelope with the tape until almost ten one night. Then they placed it in his box.
Four hours later, with a dozen agents watching every move, Lake the jogger jumped from a cab in front of Mailbox America, darted inside, his face hidden by the long bill of a running cap, went to his box, pulled out the mail, and hurried back into the cab.
Six hours later he left Georgetown for a prayer breakfast at the Hilton, and they waited. He addressed an association of police chiefs at nine, and a thousand high school principals at eleven. He lunched with the Speaker of the House. He taped a stressful Q&A session with some talking heads at three, then returned home to pack. His itinerary called for him to depart Reagan National at eight and fly to Dallas.
They followed him to the airport, watched the Boeing 707 take off, then called Langley. When the two Secret Service agents arrived to check the perimeter of Lake’s townhouse, the CIA was already inside.
The search ended in the kitchen ten minutes after it began. A handheld receptor caught the signal from the cassette tape. They found it in the wastebasket, along with an empty half-gallon milk jug, two torn packages of oatmeal, some soiled paper towels, and that morning’s edition of the Washington Post. A maid came twice a week. Lake had simply left the garbage for her to take care of.
They couldn’t find Lake’s file because he didn’t have one. Smart man, he tossed away the evidence.
Teddy was almost relieved when he got word. The team was still in the townhouse, hiding and waiting for the Secret Service to leave. Whatever Lake did in his secret life, he worked hard not to leave a trail.
THE TAPE unnerved Aaron Lake. Reading Ricky’s letters and looking at his handsome face had given him a nervous thrill. The young man was far away and odds were they’d never meet. They could be pen pals and play tag at a distance and move slowly, at least that’s what Lake had contemplated initially.
But hearing Ricky’s voice had brought him much closer, and Lake was rattled. What had begun a few months earlier as a curious little game now held horrible possibilities. It was much too risky. Lake trembled at the thought of getting caught.
It still seemed impossible, though. He was well hidden behind the mask of Al Konyers. Ricky had not a clue. It was “Al this” and “Al that” on the tape. The post office box was his shield.
But he had to end it. At least for now.
The Boeing was packed with Lake’s well-paid people. They didn’t make an airplane big enough to haul his entire entourage. If he leased a 747, within two days it would be filled with CA’s and advisers and consultants and pollsters, not to mention his own growing army of bodyguards from the Secret Service.
The more primaries he won, the heavier his plane became. It might be wise to lose a couple of states so he could jettison some of the baggage.
In the darkness of the plane, Lake sipped tomato juice and decided to write a final letter to Ricky. Al would wish him the best, and simply terminate the correspondence. What coul
d the boy do?
He was tempted to write the note right then, sitting in his deep recliner, his feet in the air. But at any moment an assistant of some variety would emerge with another breathless report that the candidate had to hear immediately. He had no privacy. He had no time to think or loaf or daydream. Every pleasant thought was interrupted by a new poll or a late-breaking story or an urgent need to make a decision.
Surely he’d be able to hide in the White House. Loners had lived there before.
TWENTY-ONE
THE CASE of the stolen cell phone had fascinated the inmates at Trumble for the past month. Mr. T-Bone, a wiry street kid from Miami serving twenty for drugs, had taken original possession of the phone by means that were still unclear. Cell phones were strictly prohibited at Trumble, and the method by which he got one had created more rumors than T. Karl’s sex life. The few who’d actually seen it had described it, not in court, but around the camp, as being no larger than a stopwatch. Mr. T-Bone had been seen lurking in the shadows, hunched at the waist, chin to his chest, back to the world, mumbling into the phone. No doubt he was still directing street operations in Miami.
Then it disappeared. Mr. T-Bone let it be known that he might kill whoever took it, and when the threats of violence didn’t work he offered a reward of $1,000 cash. Suspicion soon fell upon another young drug dealer, Zorro, from a section of Atlanta just as rough as Mr. T-Bone’s. A killing seemed likely, so the guards and the suits up front intervened and convinced the two that they’d be shipped away if things got out of hand. Violence was not tolerated at Trumble. The punishment was a trip to a medium-security pen with inmates who understood violence.
Someone told Mr. T-Bone about the weekly dockets the Brethren held, and in due course he found T. Karl and filed suit. He wanted his phone back, plus a million bucks in punitive damages.
When it was first set for trial, an assistant warden appeared in the cafeteria to observe the proceedings, and the matter was quickly postponed by the Brethren. The same thing happened just before the second trial. Allegations of who did or did not have possession of an outlawed cell phone could not be heard by anyone in administration. The guards who watched the weekly shows wouldn’t repeat a word.
Justice Spicer finally convinced a prison counselor that the boys had a private matter to reconcile, without interference from the front. “We’re trying to settle a little matter,” he whispered. “And we need to do it in private.”
The request worked its way upward, and at the third trial date the cafeteria was packed with spectators, most of whom were hoping to see bloodshed. The only prison official in the room was a solitary guard, sitting in the back, half asleep.
Neither of the litigants was a stranger to courtrooms, so it was no surprise that Mr. T-Bone and Zorro acted as their own attorneys. Justice Beech spent most of the first hour trying to keep the language out of the gutter. He finally gave up. Wild accusations spewed forth from the plaintiff, charges that couldn’t have been proved with the aid of a thousand FBI agents. The denials were just as loud and preposterous from the defense. Mr. T-Bone scored heavy blows with two affidavits, signed by inmates whose names were revealed only to the Brethren, which contained eyewitness accounts of seeing Zorro trying to hide while talking on a tiny phone.
Zorro’s angry response described the affidavits in language the Brethren had never before encountered.
The knockout punch came from nowhere. Mr. T-Bone, in a move that even the slickest lawyer would admire, produced documentation. His phone records had been smuggled in, and he showed the court in black and white that exactly fifty-four calls had been made to numbers in southeast Atlanta. His supporters, by far the majority but whose loyalty could vanish in an instant, whooped and hollered until T. Karl slammed his plastic gavel and got them quiet.
Zorro had trouble regrouping, and his hesitation killed him. He was ordered to immediately turn over the phone to the Brethren within twenty-four hours, and to reimburse Mr. T-Bone $450 for long-distance charges. If twenty-four hours passed with no phone, the matter would be referred to the warden, along with a finding of fact from the Brethren that Zorro did indeed possess an illegal cell phone.
The Brethren further ordered the two to maintain a distance of at least fifty feet from one another at all times, even when eating.
T. Karl rapped a gavel and the crowd began a noisy exit. He called the next case, another petty gambling dispute, and waited for the spectators to leave.
“Quiet!” he shouted, and the racket only grew louder. The Brethren went back to their newspapers and magazines.
“Quiet!” he barked again, slamming his gavel.
“Shut up,” Spicer yelled at T. Karl. “You’re making more noise than they are.”
“It’s my job,” T. Karl snapped back, the curls of his wig bouncing in all directions.
When the cafeteria was empty, only one inmate remained. T. Karl looked around and finally asked him, “Are you Mr. Hooten?”
“No sir,” the young man said.
“Are you Mr. Jenkins?”
“No sir.”
“I didn’t think so. The case of Hooten versus Jenkins is hereby dismissed for failure to show,” T. Karl said, and made a dramatic entry into his docket book.
“Who are you?” Spicer asked the young man, who was sitting alone and glancing around as if he wasn’t sure he was welcome. The three men in the pale green robes were now looking at him, as was the clown with the gray wig and the old maroon pajamas and the lavender shower shoes, no socks. Who were these people!
He slowly got to his feet and moved forward with great apprehension until he stood before the three. “I’m looking for some help,” he said, almost afraid to speak.
“Do you have business before the court?” T. Karl growled from the side.
“No sir.”
“Then you’ll have to—”
“Shut up!” Spicer said. “Court’s adjourned. Leave.”
T. Karl slammed his docket book, kicked back his folding chair, and stormed out of the room, his shower shoes sliding on the tile, his wig bouncing behind him.
The young man appeared ready to cry. “What can we do for you?” Yarber asked.
He was holding a small cardboard box, and the Brethren knew from experience that it was filled with the papers that had brought him to Trumble. “I need some help,” he said again. “I got here last week, and my roommate said you guys could help with my appeals.”
“Don’t you have a lawyer?” Beech asked.
“I did. He wasn’t very good. He’s one reason I’m here.”
“Why are you here?” asked Spicer.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“Did you have a trial?”
“Yes. A long one.”
“And you were found guilty by a jury?”
“Yes. Me and a bunch of others. They said we were part of a conspiracy.”
“A conspiracy to do what?”
“Import cocaine.”
Another druggie. They were suddenly anxious to get back to their letter writing. “How long is your sentence?” asked Yarber.
“Forty-eight years.”
“Forty-eight years! How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
The letter writing was momentarily forgotten. They looked at his sad young face and tried to picture it fifty years later. Released at the age of seventy-one; it was impossible to imagine. Each of the Brethren would leave Trumble a younger man than this kid.
“Pull up a chair,” Yarber said, and the kid grabbed the nearest one and placed it in front of their table. Even Spicer felt a little sympathy for him.
“What’s your name?” Yarber asked.
“I go by Buster.”
“Okay, Buster, what’d you do to get yourself forty-eight years?”
The story came in torrents. Balancing his box on his knees, and staring at the floor, he began by saying he’d never been in trouble with the law, nor had his father. They owned a sm
all boat dock together in Pensacola. They fished and sailed and loved the sea, and running the dock was the perfect life for them. They sold a used fishing boat, a fifty-footer, to a man from Fort Lauderdale, an American who paid them in cash—$95,000. The money went in the bank, or at least Buster thought it did. A few months later the man was back for another boat, a thirty-eight-footer for which he paid $80,000. Cash for boats was not unusual in Florida. A third and fourth boat followed. Buster and his dad knew where to find good used fishing boats, which they overhauled and renovated. They enjoyed doing the work themselves. After the fifth boat, the narcs came calling. They asked questions, made vague threats, wanted to see the books and records. Buster’s dad refused initially, then they hired a lawyer who advised them not to cooperate. Nothing happened for months.
Buster and his father were arrested at 3 A.M. on a Sunday morning by a pack of goons wearing vests and enough guns to hold Pensacola hostage. They were dragged half-dressed from their small home near the bay, lights flashing all over the place. The indictment was an inch thick, 160 pages, eighty-one counts of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine. He had a copy of it in his box. Buster and his dad were barely mentioned in the 160 pages, but they were nonetheless named as defendants and lumped together with the man they’d sold the boats to, along with twenty-five other people they’d never heard of. Eleven were Colombians. Three were lawyers. Everybody else was from South Florida.
The U.S. Attorney offered them a deal—two years each in return for guilty pleas and cooperation against the other codefendants. Pleading guilty to what? They’d done nothing wrong. They knew exactly one of their twenty-six coconspirators. They’d never seen cocaine.
Buster’s father remortgaged their home to raise $20,000 for a lawyer, and they made a bad selection. At trial, they were alarmed to find themselves sitting at the same table with the Colombians and the real drug traffickers. They were on one side of the courtroom, all the coconspirators, sitting together as if they’d once been a well-oiled drug machine. On the other side, near the jury, were the government lawyers, groups of pompous little bastards in dark suits, taking notes, glaring at them as if they were child molesters. The jury glared at them too.
John Grisham Page 18
