Trigger City

by Sean Chercover

  “I cannot fathom how you manage to stay in business if you can’t even make it to a meeting at the appointed time.” His English accent was crafted to portray a social status higher than that which he’d enjoyed as a young man.

  “Come again?”

  “I said, ‘you’re late.’”

  I glanced at my watch. I was seven minutes late.

  “I had to stop at the bar and say hello to some real reporters.” I sat down across from him.

  Crawley blew a stream of smoke just over my head. “Thank goodness I don’t fancy myself a reporter. You might’ve hurt my feelings.” He smiled, “That is, if I had any.” The accent was particularly strong today. Probably practiced it at home.

  The waiter arrived and Crawley ordered a Kansas City skirt steak, well done, and the waiter winced. He was gonna catch hell from the chef. I didn’t really want to break bread with Crawley but I’d been forgetting too many meals lately. Might as well kill two birds.

  “I’ll have the filet,” I said.

  “And how would you like that cooked?” the waiter pleaded.

  “Blue,” I said. The waiter smiled.

  “Disgusting,” said Delwood Crawley.

  He ordered another double Johnnie Black on the rocks and I ordered a glass of the house red to go with my steak.

  I opened my notebook and ripped out the page where I’d written the ’graph I wanted to insert in Crawley’s column. I slid the page across to him. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a leather case and put on his reading glasses. He read the item.

  “Oh my dear boy. Is this your attempt to approximate my style?”

  “If it’s not purple enough, I apologize,” I said.

  Crawley looked at me over the top of his glasses. “It’s purple enough. It is not clever enough.”

  “Just run it as I wrote it.”

  “Please,” he scoffed. “Whispers in Washington: A little bird—or more accurately, a big hawk—tells me…? That is beyond dreadful. I simply cannot allow it to run under my name. Not in its present form.” He hit me with a condescending smile. “I’ll fix it up.”

  “You’ll run it as I wrote it. Verbatim.”

  “I see. Sending a coded message, are we? Why not use the personal ads like everybody else?”

  I almost said It has to be seen as news, but I didn’t want to offer him the legitimacy. I said, “It can’t be seen as coming from me.”

  The waiter brought our drinks.

  Crawley slid the paper aside and folded his glasses and put them on top of the paper. He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and immediately lit a fresh one. He’d once told me that the toxins in a cigarette become more concentrated as you smoke it down—that by smoking only the first half of each cigarette, he could smoke three packs a day and keep the health risks negligible.

  That was Delwood Crawley all over. The guy thought he could outsmart cancer.

  He said, “Tell me, what sort of trouble are you in this time?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Now my feelings are hurt,” he mocked. Another serpent smile. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Not as far as I can throw a piano.”

  “All right then. If you refuse to share anything juicy and you insist that I run that tripe you penned, it’s only fair that you pay for my dinner.”

  “Deal. Let’s move on.”

  I lit a cigarette of my own, fully planning to smoke it all the way to the filter. But the steaks arrived and I stubbed it out after a couple of drags.

  Crawley made a face when I cut into the meat and blood leaked onto the plate. He gestured with his fork, “Well, it fits you, anyway.” He took a bite of his gray, overcooked steak, chewed for a long time. “This latest murder of yours was particularly gruesome.”

  I knew he’d bring it up and now he had. But I hadn’t expected him to call it murder.

  “Self-defense,” I said.

  “I’m sure the barbarians on the police force were content with that explanation but it didn’t appear that way to me.” He said it with a smile, of course.

  He was goading me. There was no way it could’ve looked any other way. I cut off another piece of meat, ate it.

  “Didn’t know you were there,” I said.

  “I saw the security video from the mall.”

  “Who showed it to you?”

  “Come now, you don’t actually believe that I would reveal a source. In any event, something as titillating as that is always bound to find its way out of police evidence.”

  Titillating. Strange word choice. Probably said a lot about Crawley.

  “Anyhow, the footage is being leaked to television outlets.” He dabbed at his mouth with a white linen napkin. “I should think it’ll be all over the telly by tomorrow. Perhaps even later this evening.”

  In my mind I saw Jill watching television. Watching me kill a man. Goddamn. I drank some wine. Take it easy, Dudgeon. Just get up to Jill’s place before the nine o’clock news…

  “It’s been edited down to thirty seconds,” he said, “and only long shots, but it’s clear enough. It appeared to me that you acted quite deliberately indeed. I suppose how it will appear to the average television viewer is dependent upon which parts they show and how the newscasters spin it…”

  I ate some more steak as he talked. The steak was excellent a minute ago. Now I couldn’t taste it at all.

  “I don’t suppose,” said Crawley, “that they’ll show the part where the man’s head hits the floor and everything spills out. As I said, bloody gruesome…too grisly for the evening news, I’d wager.” He cut off a piece of meat and chewed it happily. He was enjoying the hell out of this.

  My phone vibrated. I left the table and stepped into the hallway. The phone’s little screen read: FBI HQ.

  I answered and Special Agent Holborn said, “I have an urgent message for you: go visit your client.”

  I glanced at my watch: 6:12. “Now?”

  “He’s expecting you at seven.”

  “I don’t understand. Who—”

  “I don’t understand, either. And I’m not particularly happy about serving as your secretary. That was the message that I’ve been told to deliver. I’ve delivered it.”

  “Who told you?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Oh, come on, Holborn…”

  “The call came from National Headquarters. I wasn’t invited to ask questions. Gotta go.” The phone went dead in my ear.

  Back at the table I said, “Something’s come up. Your deadline’s eight?”

  “Eight o’clock, never changes,” said Crawley.

  “Hold the piece until you hear from me. I’ll call you before eight. If I don’t call, trash it.”

  Crawley drained the last of his scotch. “Very well. But must you really play it for such high drama?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  At 6:47 Isaac Richmond opened the door and I stepped inside. He didn’t say anything, just closed the door and led me into his study. This time he didn’t sit at the coffee table. He took the power position—the tall leather chair behind his desk. He didn’t offer me a seat. It wasn’t to my advantage to stand before him like a soldier under his command, so I sat anyway.

  “Why have you been avoiding me?” His tension was palpable. And contagious.

  “Our agreement was that I report to you biweekly,” I said. “It hasn’t been two weeks since my last visit.”

  His face flushed. “I made it very clear that I was buying sixty days of your life.” And his voice was getting louder. “If I call, you answer. And if I tell you to report, goddamn it, you report.”

  “I’ve been a little busy,” I said. “Perhaps you’ve seen the news.”

  Richmond shot to his feet and stabbed the air between us with his index finger. “You’re fucking right I’ve seen the goddamn news! And I want a full explanation.”

  This was a very different Isaac Richmond than I’d seen previously and I didn�
�t intend to give him anything until I learned why.

  “Full explanation,” I said. “Man tried to kill me. I killed him instead.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Stabbing the air again.

  “I didn’t find it funny at all,” I said. “Why don’t you stop pointing at me, sit down, and tell me what’s got you so riled.”

  Richmond sat. His mouth tightened, twitched. “The man was not trying to kill you.” Quiet anger now. “I sent him to pick you up and bring you here.”

  The words came back on me like a distant echo: Ray Dudgeon…You’re coming with me. I knew in an instant that it was true. I didn’t want to believe it.

  “He cut me,” I said.

  “After you scalded him.”

  “He chased me with a knife,” I said.

  “No, he did not. I’ve seen the police report. He sheathed his knife. His hands were empty when you threw him to his death.” Richmond fixed me with a hard look, waiting for an answer.

  I said, “Okay. But. He approached me with a knife in his hand. I simply defended myself. What the hell would you do if a man pulled a knife on you in a parking garage?”

  Richmond looked away, let out a long breath. “Much the same, probably.” When he looked at me again, the anger had receded into the background. “What a goddamn mess.”

  I said, “The knife was unnecessary. Why not just ask me to come see you?”

  “I told him you’d been avoiding me, that you wouldn’t even take my calls. Told him not to give you the option of refusal.”

  “Poor judgment on both your parts.” I wasn’t about to give him even an inch on this.

  “I didn’t tell him to use a knife. I thought he’d bully you, verbally.”

  “I don’t bully well.”

  Richmond’s mouth twitched once. “So I’ve heard.” He picked up the telephone receiver, pressed a button, said, “Gentlemen, come in here a minute.” He held up a hand to cut off my question and cradled the phone.

  The door opened and two men entered.

  The DHS agents. I felt dizzy, like the earth’s axis had just shifted.

  The taller one gave me a curt nod and I managed a nod back at him. The shorter one didn’t even look at me.

  Richmond said, “You’re surprised,” and I turned to face him.

  “Little bit, yeah.”

  “I’ll explain. Wouldn’t have been necessary, but things have gotten out of hand and standard operating procedure no longer applies.” He had all of his composure back now. He was Colonel Isaac Richmond, leader of men. “In short, this is the lay of the land: What I told you before was true. My daughter was murdered and I was uneasy about the speed with which the police cleared the case so I made a few calls to friends in Washington.”

  “These guys?”

  “Their superiors.”

  “What agency? ’Cause it sure as hell ain’t DHS.”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “What agency?” I repeated.

  “Not relevant. My contacts were former clients in the intelligence community. They didn’t know if Joan’s murder was engineered by Hawk River but they had an interest in finding out. So they contracted me to coordinate the operation. These two gentlemen, and the man you killed, were sent to assist under my direction.”

  I felt like a rube. “Jesus,” I said, “I can’t believe I fell for your grieving father routine and I’ve been working for the fucking government the entire time.”

  The taller guy behind me said, “Your patriotism is noted.”

  Without turning I said, “You power monkeys use the Constitution for toilet paper, so skip it. You couldn’t spell patriotism.”

  “Enough,” said Isaac Richmond. “I’ve spent my entire life protecting this country from enemies foreign and domestic—I will not be lectured. From a legal standpoint, you’ve been working for me, not the government.”

  “A fine distinction at best,” I said.

  “Get over it,” said Richmond.

  He’s right, Dudgeon. Focus on what’s in front of you…

  Still I burned with anger. I pressed it down and focused on what Richmond was saying…

  “…hiring you was not my first choice, believe me. But it was the best choice we had, given the circumstances.”

  “Circumstances being the government wanted to know if Hawk River was behind Joan’s murder, but they couldn’t be seen investigating. When you called your friends, they had the perfect cover. Getting me to do your legwork solidified the cover story and preserves deniability for your client. A father hiring a private eye to look into the death of his daughter? Who would question that? No reason to suspect a government connection.”

  “Very good. I’m impressed.” He didn’t sound impressed.

  “But this isn’t a true investigation,” I said. “If they need deniability, then this is a containment operation.”

  “Potentially. Depending on what we learn.”

  “Let’s say it does become a containment op. The final task of which is my death, if they really want to be sure of containment. Wouldn’t that be the logical endgame?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Of course not. If the operation had gone as planned, you never would’ve known anything about it.”

  “But you’re telling me now.”

  The taller man at the back of the room spoke again. This time I turned to face him. “Whatever you want to believe, Mr. Dudgeon, we are not in the business of murdering innocent Americans. Our operation has national security implications and we will do whatever is necessary to protect its secrecy. But as long as you aren’t planning to expose the operation’s existence, then you have no reason to fear for your personal safety.” His tone was radically different from when they’d braced me in the bar. They’d sent their genuine tough guy—their action man—to bring me in, and I’d killed him. I’d gotten lucky as hell and I knew it, but they didn’t.

  So the tough guy talk was out, but the intimidation was now in even greater force than before.

  I turned in my chair and said to Richmond, “I have no intention of exposing your operation. I’ll send you a check for the balance of what you’ve paid me.” Pushed my chair back and stood up. “Been nice knowing you.”

  I turned to leave. Stopped. The government guys were aiming their handguns at my chest.

  Behind me Richmond said, “Sit down, Mr. Dudgeon. We’re not through with you yet.”

  What choice did I have? I sat.

  “Let there be no misunderstanding,” he said, “you are working on this case until I tell you that you are no longer working on this case. And I don’t give a rat’s ass if you don’t like working for the government. You will share with me everything you’ve learned, and then you will go out and learn some more. Once this operation comes to a conclusion, you will go on with your life. And you will not reveal the existence of this operation to the press, the Chicago police, the FBI, or your neighbor’s cat. Understood?”

  I understood. I understood that I’d been played by professionals. I understood that I held no cards in this game, had no leverage, was way out of my league. I understood that simply walking away from the table was not an option. I understood just fine.

  I said, “I’m told that the video from the shopping mall is being leaked to the press. It didn’t come from me, but it’ll keep this story going for another news cycle or two.”

  “That doesn’t concern us. The police will not learn anything about the man you killed. His prints will not match anything in a database. He had no identity and we have no need to correct the record of how it went down. You just stick to your story—you don’t know who he was or why he was trying to kill you.”

  “I can do that.” It beats saying I killed a man for asking me to come to a meeting.

  “And I think you’ll find that your friend Terry Green has suddenly lost interest in the story.” He didn’t elaborate and I figured I’d get the details from Terry later. “Now that we’re clear on the ground rules, we’ll put the past behin
d us and move forward. Let’s hear your report.”

  So I told him what I’d learned so far. Most of it, anyway. Did my best to minimize Amy’s part in it. Left out the Web sites that she and Steven had made and Blake Sten’s visit to her home following the murder. Told him that both she and I suspected Steven was faking his illness and suspected that he’d gotten something off Hawk River’s computers that Joan had intended to share with the congressional committee.

  Maybe guys in the intelligence community operate on hunches more often than they claim, but for whatever reason, Richmond didn’t ask me to provide rationale for my suppositions.

  He just said, “I expect you to follow up on these suspicions and bring me what you learn—without delay.”

  Then I told him about Tim Dellitt’s visit to my office and Blake Sten’s threats and the assault on Ernie Banks. I explained my visit to the FBI in sketchy terms—a few half-truths and a couple of lies. Told him that I’d tried to get Holborn invested so I could call on the FBI for help if Sten’s threats escalated. And I told him that Holborn wasn’t much interested in what I had to say.

  Richmond was a smart man and I don’t think he fully believed me. But he was fully committed to his own objective and he sifted through my verbal report for the nuggets that would lead him to that objective.

  “Your suspicions are supported by Hawk River’s attempts at intimidation,” he said, “so we will proceed on the assumption that there is some evidence—computer file or whatever—still floating around out there. Until now your task has been to learn the truth about Joan’s murder. That remains a goal. But moving forward, your primary task is now to locate that evidence before Blake Sten does. And bring it to us.”

  Some grieving father. I nodded, “Got it. Justice for your daughter runs a distant second to covering the government’s ass, right, Colonel?”

  “You’re dismissed.”

  I stood up. “No wonder Joan was so unhappy.”

  His face flushed again. He said to the government spooks, “Step outside, gentlemen.”

  Richmond looked at the desk blotter for a while after they left, then his mouth twitched three times. He straightened his spine and looked up at me and there was a deep pain in his eyes that couldn’t be faked.