“You still in computers?” Crosby had asked. What had once been largely Traeger’s cover had become his job after retirement from the Company.
“I sold the business,” Traeger said.
That was all. But Dortmund had told him how Traeger had lost his secretary on his last assignment. How much violence all of them had stowed away in their memories.
A car pulled into an opening several rows over. No one got out. Crosby lifted his binoculars and Morgan leapt into view. The show was about to begin. Crosby rolled down the window and pitched his cigar.
Suddenly two men appeared, one on either side of Morgan’s car. They were armed. Crosby sat forward, holding his breath. There was always the unexpected happening that changed all plans, and this was one of them. The back door of Morgan’s car was pulled open and one of the men ducked in. Then the trunk popped. The second man, having checked it out, rapped on the roof of the car. Pfft. The sound of a gun with a silencer on it is distinctive, once heard never forgotten. Morgan fell forward. Busy with his glasses, Crosby imprinted the two men on his memory. Both of them were behind the car now, wrestling something out of it. They moved swiftly with the cumbersome object toward a vehicle down the row. A Hummer. Huge. Crosby, who had started his motor when he heard the pfft that had removed Morgan from this vale of tears, backed out of his space and followed.
As the Hummer cleared the airport and headed north, Crosby was about to notify Traeger what was going on. He decided to wait. What he had just witnessed might have been some part of the plan Traeger had not confided to him.
Up the coastal road and then a turn, taking them east, over the mountains and lesser hills and then into the wide-open spaces, eventually the desert. Fortunately, the Hummer used more gas than Crosby’s rental and stopped several times to refill its tank. Crosby pulled in behind and kept a safe distance away.
The men took turns going to the john, and Crosby studied their magnified faces with his binoculars. He was sure he did not know them. Meaning, he was satisfied that they were not in the Company. He amended that. They had not been in it in his and Traeger’s time. Back in the Hummer and off again, ever eastward. Where the hell were they going? Crosby was not only hungry but his bladder was sending him urgent signals. At the truck stops where the Hummer tanked up he had not wanted to risk going inside because one of the men would be in there and when he came out the Hummer would soon be on its way.
During the drive he had time to think. Morgan had been hooked up with Theophilus Grady and his Rough Riders. Grady had publicly claimed responsibility for the theft of the sacred image from the basilica in Mexico City. Morgan had tried to pull a double cross on Grady and market the picture for a cool million. It seemed obvious that those who had thwarted his plans were in the Rough Riders. And they were bringing the recovered treasure with them. So it looked as if Crosby would learn where Grady was holed up. He saw no reason now why he shouldn’t check in with Traeger.
“Where were you when the shit hit the fan?” Traeger demanded.
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone got to Morgan before we did.”
“I know. I saw it happen.”
A pause. “You saw them empty the trunk? Morgan’s trunk.”
“I am on their tail right now. So what else happened?”
“The whole plan blew up when we found Morgan dead.”
Traeger wanted details on what Crosby had witnessed. “Have you got the plate number of that Hummer?”
Crosby read it to him.
“Where exactly are you now?”
“We’re going east on I-80. Reno is just ahead.”
“Rough Riders?”
“That’s my guess.”
“If I knew where you were going I’d meet you there. They’ve got what we’re after.”
“I’m not going to try to get it back alone.”
“Of course not. Once you’re there, wherever there is, I’ll join you.”
“Good.”
“And Crosby? Watch your back.”
“Why, what’s it doing?”
Crosby had been watching his back. There had been one false alarm, when he was certain a car was keeping with him, but it was too obvious, and soon the car pulled into an oasis and was seen no more. Crosby went back to admiring the country through which he was driving.
Once, years ago, he and Lucille had packed up the kids and just driven for two months, going all the way to the coast, the southern route on the way west, the northern going home. He remembered coming off the desert into Gila Bend with more than a sense of relief. The wasteland behind them was deserted; they almost never saw another car; the sun was merciless. It was a stretch of highway better driven at night, but once he had gotten under way, there seemed nothing to do but go on. And on he had gone. Lucille fell silent; even the kids in the back of the van settled down. The tension they had all been under became clear when they greeted their arrival at Gila Bend with a cheer.
It must have been a hundred in the shade, but a kid wearing just jeans was painting the overhang of the motel into which Crosby had pulled with his family. They were all into the pool five minutes after he registered, romping in the tepid water. What memories he had of that trip, and of so many other moments with his family. The kids were all grown now; there would be no more such family trips. He wished he could share these memories with Lucille. God, how he missed her. It occurred to Crosby that Traeger had no family. That was probably the best way, given the work they were in, but Crosby could not have borne the danger if he had not known that he would be returning to Lucille and the children.
Hours later, at Salt Lake City, the Hummer turned north onto I-15. On the roadside signs the distance to Pocatello was given.
Ten miles out of Salt Lake he noticed the Hummer behind him, as huge as the one ahead. After another twenty miles, he was sure that second Hummer was following him. He put through a call to Traeger and told him what was happening.
“You’re south of Pocatello?”
Crosby gave him the mileage.
“I’m on my way.”
III
“Palo Alto, Palo Alto.”
Emilio Sapienza, bishop of Santa Ana in Orange County, in moments of levity said that he was prelate of Disneyland and Busch Gardens; but usually he was serious, perhaps too serious. He disdained the insignia of office, wearing a red zucchetto only with reluctance, and then with a black cassock that looked as if he had had it from his seminary days. He preached the preferential option for the poor and, more surprisingly for a bishop, lived it. He was forever wandering around the farmers’ markets in his diocese, haunting the barrios, speaking the Castilian that was almost unintelligible to Latinos. His one vanity was to think that, when his seventy-fifth birthday came in a few weeks, the Vatican would refuse his pro forma letter of resignation. He had miles to go before he slept, as the poet said, but which poet he, like Bertie Wooster, would not know, and he had no Jeeves to enlighten him. Whenever George Worth came to see him, Sapienza would shake his head and murmur, “Palo Alto, Palo Alto.” He had wanted the Catholic Worker house located in his diocese and had never forgiven Worth for establishing it in Palo Alto.
“I began it when I was a student at Stanford.”
“Start another here, George.”
“One is more than I can handle.”
Bishop Sapienza’s unvoiced dream was that, if the Vatican did accept his resignation, he would found a Catholic Worker house in Santa Ana and live out his remaining years doing what George Worth did.
Like George, he had deep reservations about Miguel Arroyo. As far as Sapienza was concerned, hungering and thirsting for justice was a lifetime occupation, an objective attainable in the next world, not in this. Justicia y Paz seemed to think that justice was just around the corner and that it needed prompting by less than peaceful means. Not that Miguel himself had taken up arms against the Minutemen on the border. Already, Sapienza had officiated at several funerals of young men who had gone out to
the desert to fight and come home in body bags. He blamed Miguel for that; Miguel who had sounded a call to arms and dramatically declared that California had seceded from the Union. The man was a romantic, a dangerous romantic.
“And all this over a stolen image.”
George looked shocked. “It’s hardly just another image.”
Sapienza conceded this. But if one wanted instances of the desecration of the sacred, think of all the offenses against Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.
“The people are so deeply devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
“So am I, so am I. But I wouldn’t go about shooting people for her sake.”
“Neither would Miguel.”
The two men commiserated with each other for an hour and then George headed for home.
“Palo Alto, Palo Alto,” Sapienza called after him, a blessing, a curse, or just a joke told too often. But it could have been relief that George had left before the scheduled arrival of Neal Admirari. Lulu was with him, and it was the first Sapienza had heard of their marriage.
“Oh, we’ve been married in petto for years,” Neal said breezily.
“I won’t ask what that means.”
Lulu said, “Never ask a wordsmith what he means.”
“I will say you both look happy.”
Somewhat to his surprise, Lulu dropped to her knees, tugging Neal down beside her, and asked for his blessing.
“You have been married, in the Church, haven’t you?” he asked in alarm. Sometimes people interpreted his lifestyle as a disdain for all the rules.
“No, in San Diego.”
“That’s close enough.” And he raised his unringed hand in blessing over them. Lulu had to help Neal to his feet afterward. Sapienza could not have said why he liked these two, particularly Lulu. His dislike for journalists had been fed during his unhappy years in Washington, working in the Taj Mahal a block from the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He hoped this wasn’t because Lulu had written flattering portraits of him, especially since he had come to Santa Ana. Neal pretended to think that the town was named for a general.
“I think it was the other way around.”
“You could rename it for General Arroyo.”
Sapienza rolled his eyes. He had hoped that subject had left with George Worth, but after all these two were journalists and the theft from the basilica in Mexico City continued to be the central item in the news of the day, along with accounts of the guerrilla battles in the Southwest mountains and desert. But it was the mystifying presence of Don Ibanez in the long-term parking lot in San Francisco that the two had on their minds.
“It turns out that the man who was killed was a former CIA agent.”
Lulu added, “It looks like a botched attempt to regain the image. Ignatius Hannan was there, too, with his staff.”
“The dead agent was associated with Theophilus Grady.”
“Hannan is offering a million dollars ransom for the image.”
But it was the presence of Don Ibanez that intrigued Sapienza.
“And how does Don Ibanez explain his presence?”
“Who knows? He is incognito in his hacienda.”
Sapienza had visited there; he had been given the grand tour; he had stood nonplussed in the replica of the basilica, trying not to think of what the money that had gone into it might have done for the poor in his diocese. Don Ibanez seemed to read his thoughts. Sapienza left with a sizeable check.
“And Vincent Traeger was there, too. Posing as Don Ibanez’s chauffeur.”
“Traeger?”
“Another former CIA agent. Hannan has hired him before.”
“It sounds as if you have all kinds of leads to pursue.” He might have been asking why they had come to him.
“We thought you could intervene for us with Don Ibanez.”
“I scarcely know the man.”
“He thinks the world of you.”
Sometimes it was difficult not to take pleasure in such praise, culpable pleasure, he was sure. His great fear was that he was a showboat like Miguel Arroyo, drawing attention to himself by trying not to draw attention to himself. Several other bishops had followed his example and abandoned the episcopal regalia except on liturgical occasions. His first reaction had told him what others must think of him. Look, Ma, I’m simple.
“And how would I persuade him. If I tried?”
“Lowry, the cook at the Catholic Worker, suspects that Don Ibanez knows where the stolen portrait is.”
George was lucky to have such a man in Palo Alto. Ah, the conversations he’d had with Lowry. Lowry, having returned to the faith of his youth after years as a communist, had seemingly lost forever the deference laity paid to the clergy, especially to bishops.
“Will you take up tent making, too?” Lowry screwed his vile pipe into the corner of his mouth.
“Only after I’ve survived a shipwreck or two.”
But Lowry’s remark had linked Sapienza to Saint Paul, to the first generation of bishops, the apostles, whom bishops down the ages descended from.
Now, in answer to the two reporters, Sapienza said he didn’t have time or leisure to make a trip to Napa Valley.
“You could do it with a phone call.”
As if to prove them wrong, Sapienza consulted a Rolo-dex and then rang the number of the hacienda. The daughter, Clare, answered. She had come to Sapienza when she had decided against staying on with George at the Catholic Worker. She would be better off in a convent. He agreed that such poverty was not for her. But even as he said it, he doubted that she would long take comfort from his endorsement of her decision. The real problem was her feeling for George Worth. So much for the convent.
“Oh, Bishop, he’s not here just now. Is there anything I can do?”
“Just ask him to return my call. There’s no rush.”
Lulu and Neal hadn’t liked that addendum, but still they thanked him. He watched them go out to their car, holding the slip of paper on which Lulu had written the number of her cell phone. He was to call them as soon as he heard from Don Ibanez.
Meanwhile, he drove to Palo Alto to have a talk with Lowry.
IV
“Where would you hide a book?”
Theophilus Grady stood at a picture window that provided a magnificent view he did not see, thumbs hooked in his holsters, pondering the news from San Francisco. Morgan, it was clear, was a traitor, but then Grady had known that for some time, thanks to Gladys Stone. He had yet to hear from the teams he had sent to shadow Morgan. He felt surrounded by people he could not trust, but distrust is the bane of the vigilante. Vigilantes by definition work outside the law, their sense of loyalty in escrow, so how could they be expected to be loyal to their leader? But finally word came. The two Hummers were on their way, and they were bracketing Crosby on the interstate as they came.
Crosby. He had zapped a photo of Crosby to Wortman in the second Hummer, and he made the identification. Grady tried to smile. At least it wasn’t Traeger. The photo of Traeger had drawn a blank from Wortman. Traeger had led the squad that had spirited Grady out of Albania. Traeger was real trouble. But Crosby was not much less. It was clear from talking to Wortman in the second Hummer that Crosby had been a witness of what had happened at the San Francisco airport. He did not like to think what that meant for his old comrade. After some thought, he told the Hummer following Crosby to let him come on unmolested. Wortman expressed surprise and disappointment in the response.
“But keep him in view. I want to know exactly where he is once he gets here.”
Wortman sounded like a man who did not intend to follow orders.
Some hours later, he was closeted with Ehman, the driver of the first Hummer, the one Crosby had tailed. He listened impatiently. Ehman had no idea how to report; most of it was jabber.
“Do you have it?”
Ehman looked blank.
“What you got from the trunk after you took care of Morgan?”
“That package? Sure, we h
ave it.”
“And the money?”
“Wortman has that.”
Ehman and those with him seemed to know less about what had happened on the scene in long-term parking than he did. He had kept their tasks separate. He didn’t want any of them pulling a Morgan on him. Well, now they knew what happened to traitors.
“We just got the hell out of there when the police arrived.”
Did he want to be congratulated?
“Wortman picked up the car that must have followed me out of there.”
“Where is he?”
“He should be here any minute.”
Ehman knew nothing of the details of missing money that Hannan had put up for the picture. What in hell had Morgan thought he could palm off on them for a cool million? The cunning Arroyo had assured Grady that the image was safe.
“Where?”
“Where would you hide a book?”
Grady waited. Arroyo was a pain in the ass. Revolution makes strange bedfellows.
“In a library!”
Arroyo would say no more. The one thing they had for sure in common was the conviction that that portrait should not be returned to Mexico City, not for a cool million, not for anything. It was, after all, the casus belli. Grady had an informant on Pulaski’s staff and knew at least something of what was going on out there. Maybe he should have stayed in place on the border, fought the good fight, as Pulaski and his Minutemen were. That would be a helluva lot better than being squir-reled away here, dependent on reports. And relying on asses like Ehman. On the other hand, if they had not decamped, he would have been deprived of that triumphant news conference in El Paso.
So what the hell had happened in San Francisco? Of course he didn’t believe a fraction of what he got from the media. He realized that he had been wiser than he knew to allow Crosby to come to where he was. Crosby could give him a better report on what had gone on in the long-term parking lot than Ehman or any of the others. And then, predictably, Mooney, Independent congressman from Arizona, was on the line.
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