The Falcon and the Snowman

by Robert Lindsey

  The vision of Fawkes and the blustery morning filled his cell.

  After the first sighting, he went back to the Volkswagen to water and feed the pigeons in the back seat. As he leaned against the car to rest, a roadrunner ran, hopped and flew through the broken chaparral, stabbing at mice. And then he waited.

  After a while, Chris decided to return to the mound, his lookout, hoping for another sight of the young prairie falcon. But she was gone; the only birds he spotted with his binoculars were an occasional mourning dove and tight formations of teal flitting between puddles.

  There was a pair of ravens circling in endless spirals to no purpose while coyotes, far in the distance, barked from the foothills. The shadows of twilight were beginning to stab over the jagged edge of the mountainous horizon, and as Chris admiringly watched the panorama of pastels change from rose to orange-streaked gray, he saw the prairie falcon approaching up high, two hundred yards away. Planing her wings flat and taut, she glided down and settled into the dusk with a small tug on the wire. On his mound of rocks, Chris froze, afraid to move his hand or turn his head. When at last the final streaks of twilight had given way to darkness, he cautiously made his way down the hill to the Volkswagen for cold stew out of a can and a can of cold beer. It had to be at first light or not at all.

  He cursed himself for not bringing help, but then he thought again: These are my towers. No one else knew the prairies came here, and no one was going to know.

  Before dawn, he was out of his down bag quietly stamping his feet, awakened by the mental alarm he had set for himself in his final moments of consciousness the night before. His toes ached from the cold.

  Chris went to the car and grabbed one of his pigeons from the cage and wrapped a leather vest, with nylon nooses bristling almost invisibly from it, around the bird. Then he lit up a joint of Thai and waited.

  As dawn broke, Chris wasn’t sure if it was the joint or his imagination, but as the morning’s first lark announced the arrival of sunrise, he looked up and saw the young prairie moving slightly. She was restless, slipping her head out from under a wing—probably, he thought, struggling to regain her wits for the day, just as Chris himself had done a few minutes earlier.

  In the mantle of gray half-light, Chris tensed, bracing himself, as the pigeon struggled in his left fist. The prairie was now growing more restless on her perch, and Chris decided it was time. He started the engine of the Volkswagen and gunned it, startling Fawkes. She swiveled her head in dismay and suddenly bumped off the perch, rising not far from Chris in a tight ring. He had to act quickly. He kissed the pigeon for luck, whispered, “Keep your head down!” and launched it out of the Volkswagen.

  The pigeon recognized its peril from the spiraling falcon immediately. It began to struggle frantically for altitude, flapping its wings and moving diagonally away from Chris. Fawkes forgot the chug of the Volkswagen. She turned and dived rapidly for her breakfast. It was a beautiful stoop. Fawkes seemed to hit the pigeon with only a glancing blow—but that was all it took: in that instinctive pass, the falcon’s blue foot had become ensnared in a noose. Chris yelped in triumph.

  The falcon beat her wings furiously to gain level flight. Just as furiously the terrified pigeon beat its wings to escape in another direction. Finally they fell to the ground in tandem, four wings flapping against each other in helpless desperation. Chris sprinted the quarter-mile to the screeching birds, hoping every second that Fawkes wouldn’t extricate herself from the thin thread and escape. He approached the flailing birds from behind and quickly popped a hood over the passage, sending her into darkened tranquillity. Then he stripped the pigeon of its vest and let it fly free.

  Vito wrote a reply to Chris: Everything could be handled. His associates in Chicago should have no trouble springing him. “My friends will look out for everything,” he said. “You get plastic surgery on your face and nobody will ever see Chris Boyce again.” Chris burned his note and flushed the ashes down the toilet.

  He then wrote a second letter to the aging Mafioso. As always, he seemed to show deference to his elders:

  I don’t mean to pry or get personal; what would be the broad, general mechanics of an exit? In transit? In what way would my movement to Ill. be handled? This would appear to be most crucial. What type of summons could bring a spy there without arousing Fed suspicion? Would the crew know my true identity?

  What would be the total bill? Exit, facelift, I.D., passport, credit cards, the works?

  How much time between exit and completion of facelift?

  Would not my meeting of your attorney previous to an exit lead to an investigation of a connection between the two? Are you worried about CIA heat? I know nothing about O.C., drug dealing, etc. I respect a man who holds the agency in contempt. In all probability counter intelligence would think the KGB is responsible.

  Would you ever broaden your horizons? Would all relationship between us cease at the completion of an exit?

  Two weeks after she plummeted to earth with the pigeon, Fawkes was back in the air. For three months, Chris and the falcon hunted, man and animal in the marvelous partnership that always had such a hypnotic effect on Chris.

  He would never forget the last time:

  Chris removed the hood near a pond of cinnamon teal, and Fawkes, as usual, exploded from his fist to gain altitude, eager for the kill. Poised for his own assignment in the partnership—flushing the teal—Chris waited for Fawkes to relax and level off. But to his surprise, Fawkes didn’t stop. She climbed higher and higher, oblivious of the teal, confusing Chris. To his horror, Chris soon understood why: a large orange-footed wild hawk—a haggard—had spotted Fawkes poaching on his territory, and he was preparing to expel her. Chris saw the big old hawk rising to gain the advantage; then both of them were rising in parallel corkscrews. Chris rushed forward on the ground to be closer, but he knew he was only a helpless spectator in the impending combat.

  Fawkes and the haggard, in a spectacular double corkscrew that could only have been choreographed by nature, fought stroke for stroke to achieve the dominant altitude from which one would soon launch its opening attack. Chris leaned on a post and did the only thing he could do: watch his falcon battle for her survival. They pushed hundreds of feet into the air, and after a while, Chris could no longer tell one bird from the other. When they were only barely visible from the ground, Chris saw that one bird had opened the attack. The dark speck was above its antagonist and let loose with a diving stoop. Chris strained to see which of the birds had the advantage.

  It was the old hawk.

  Fawkes was fleeing for her life. Chris never saw her again.

  God, how he missed his birds, his outdoors, Chris thought. Except for Vito and a few other prisoners in D Block, Chris didn’t have contact with anybody except his lawyers and the CIA spook named Jerry Brown who still called him downtown periodically to go over more documents. Chelius and Dougherty visited often and tried to keep his spirits high until the sentencing. They said they would try to have him sentenced under a Federal statute that gave judges the flexibility to show youthful offenders—those under twenty-five—more leniency than older defendants. First, they said, there might be a short sentence for a psychological evaluation, possibly at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego. There were a few rays of hope, they said encouragingly.

  But Chris had decided that he had seen enough of prison to convince him he didn’t want to do any more time. He was, like his birds, he thought, not meant to be caged, and he vowed to escape.

  Isolated and lonely, Chris had only one friend: Vito Conterno.

  Vito had warned him that the guards could overhear prisoners’ conversations in D Block, so the escape negotiations had to continue via the prison “kite” communications network—notes secretly sent between cells, usually wrapped around a heavy object like a razor or piece of soap that was tied to a string. The sender flipped the weighted missile down the corridor, then retrieved it after the i
ntended recipient had removed the note. Vito sent Chris a kite trying to quash his worries about the escape and said they should plan it for as soon as possible. Chris replied:

  Talking to you in my position is like getting close to a cobra. Once again no offense. You’re right, once I get settled in a pen it would be all the harder. My lawyers are completely straight and of no use to me except for legal advice. Sitting here I can not contact anyone but my lawyers and my family, which is straighter even still. My old network is down. They would not even consider contact. In fact I am considered a threat to them as long as I’m incarcerated. After an exit I revert to an asset.

  You just told me I was too easy to get close to. Okay, I will be above board with you. Jesus, I wish I had heard of you before. I wish I had some knowledge of your reputation. I am a babe in the woods as far as O.C. figures. But to hell with it. I bury these thoughts. You offer me my life.

  Anyway, I am isolated. I cannot touch my links nor would I even consider trying. Even exited I would have to establish new ones. I do not know what slots I would fill after that. Obviously my cover was blown as a direct source within the CIA. There are many other roles to play. I don’t work for any men and I never will. I work for the KGB. The U.S. government is not going to collapse in our lifetimes. It would seem to me that there would be mutual interests that could be exploited between O.C. and the KGB to the advantage of both parties. No doubt such connections might already exist although that was not my specialty and I wouldn’t know.

  I did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to the NSA and the CIA over the last two years. I am not trying to brag or impress you, I am merely stating a fact. I delivered the agency’s crypto codes, cipher machines and the Pyramider Project. These came out in court so I don’t mind telling you. The diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Australia are poisoned at their worst ever through my efforts. For this the Soviets are grateful. It means the main base for monitoring of Chinese and Russian telemetry by satellite surveillance will be shot down and kicked off the continent by the Australian government. Can you put something soft besides that razor on the line so it doesn’t make noise when you throw it? Why don’t we say matches when we want to pass something?

  Until I receive my sentence I cannot see anyone that I trust. I think I will be moved out of here very quickly after that.

  Chris said his lawyers had told him chances were good that he would be sent to a Federal prison in San Diego for his psychiatric evaluation.

  It would mean I would be transported between here and there by the marshals, probably in a sedan.

  I want out. I will raise $15 [$15,000] as soon as I can talk to a friend. The study in San Diego would be perfect. I could have visits and I would have to be transported. $15 is cheap, very cheap. Perhaps at the end of the study. How long does this type of thing take to arrange?

  George Chelius was on the phone to Bill Dougherty: “Bill, something terrible has happened. I’m going to withdraw from the case.”

  Chelius had just been called into the office of Assistant United States Attorney Richard A. Stilz, who had handed him the notes Chris had written to Vito Conterno.

  Chelius had believed in Chris. He did not understand his psyche, his curious sense of disillusionment and anger at his country, but he had believed that Chris had become a spy not out of pro-Soviet sympathies, but through an enigmatic act of bad judgment whose consequences had snowballed and eventually smothered him. He had not even been sure that Chris was not a secret agent for the CIA. Chelius was now bowled over by the admission of loyalty to the KGB and its implication that he had been working for the Russians all along.

  Stilz told Chelius that he planned to give the notes to Judge Kelleher.

  The implication was clear: any chance of leniency toward the troubled son of his former boss would probably vanish.

  “Take it easy, George,” Dougherty advised Chelius, urging him not to withdraw until they could discuss the affair with Chris.

  When Chris learned that Vito had given his notes to the warden at Terminal Island, he became physically ill in his cell. Once again he had trusted in something—this time, the Mafia—and it had let him down.

  Like Fawkes, Chris had been trapped by a pigeon—a stool pigeon. Vito Conterno was a professional snitch—a Mafia hit man who had agreed to testify before a Federal grand jury against other mobsters in return for a light sentence and, eventually, a new identity in a distant city. He was a murderer-turned-government witness whose life in prison was gilded by a silk robe and slippers. From the beginning, Vito had given Chris’s notes to the Federal agents.

  His precise motive for entrapping Chris is uncertain. Perhaps it was patriotism or outrage against the egghead kid who had spied for the Communists against his country; or perhaps it was merely an act of gutter survival, throwing Chris to the wolves so that he could curry favor with his keepers.

  When Chelius and Dougherty asked for an explanation, Chris admitted that he was the author of the incriminating notes, and seemed close to tears when Chelius said he was afraid the notes had destroyed any chance he had had for leniency. After all, Chelius said, Chris had now admitted he worked for the KGB; it was sure to be used against him.

  Chris insisted that he had not meant what he said in the notes. Yes, he said, he had feigned loyalty to the Russians, but it was because he thought that was what Vito wanted to hear; he wouldn’t help an innocent man, would he? Yes, Chris said, he did want to escape, but, no, he was not loyal to the KGB. The notes were elements of a charade. After Chris presented his defense, Chelius agreed to stay on the defense team with Dougherty; but doubts had been planted in the attorney’s mind, perhaps never to be exorcised completely. Once more, Chris had left the people around him wondering what really went on behind his thin face and probing eyes.

  After meeting with his lawyers, Chris, still shaken, had another session with Jerry Brown of the CIA. While riding back late that afternoon to Terminal Island, once again passing the mountainous southern face of The Hill, he thought of one thing: he would spread the word that Vito was a snitch. He relished the idea. But when he reached the prison, Chris discovered that he had been preempted: Vito had told other inmates in D Block that he was a snitch and had just come from squealing to the Feds.

  “Hey, you fuckin’ snitch,” one inmate taunted him as he was led down the corridor to his cell.

  “Hey, look what’s back! Joe Valachi,” Vito Conterno shouted.

  “You son of a bitch!” Chris screamed.

  Then other inmates took their cue from Conterno, and Chris could hear their chant, “Joe Valachi … Joe Valachi … Joe Valachi …” ringing in his ears until he finally fell asleep.

  Daulton also was depressed much of the time these days as he awaited his sentencing. He had evaded jail so often, for so long, that he found it impossible to accept that he might now actually go to prison, possibly for a long time. And then something happened that gave him hope—and still another chance at survival.

  It was contained in a postscript to the bitter strife among the jurors who had decided Daulton’s fate. It was written six days after his conviction and filed with Judge Kelleher by Kahn and Re:

  Peggy Fuller, being first duly sworn, deposes and says:

  1. That prior to the commencement of the trial, several jurors ex pressed the belief that Mr. Lee was guilty.

  2. That the majority of the jurors became aware of the conviction of Christopher Boyce on the same charges during the course of the Lee trial.

  3. The fact of the Boyce conviction was discussed in the Jury Room.

  4. That other jurors discussed the case outside the Jury Room.

  5. That pressure was applied on me outside the Jury Room to change my vote.

  6. That I do have reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Mr. Lee and had the jury been polled, I would not have agreed with the jury verdict.

  Affiant says nothing further.

  Executed this 20th day of May, 1977, at Los Angeles, California
.

  (signed) Peggy Fuller

  Miss Fuller told a reporter several jurors had seen a newspaper headline reporting Boyce’s conviction on May 14, the night of his conviction, while they were dining in a Holiday Inn restaurant. It was a serious allegation. If it was accepted by Judge Kelleher, it could mean a new trial for Daulton. It would mean that the jury might have been prejudiced against Lee because his case was so closely intertwined with that of Christopher Boyce.

  Stilz and Levine contacted other members of the jury and were told a story different from the one related by Miss Fuller. Joan Lyon, the housewife who had served as foreman of the jury, wrote a letter to Kelleher stating that she had contacted nine of the other ten jurors (besides herself and Peggy Fuller) and had found none who had seen the newspaper headline.

  “We are dumbfounded as to what has prompted Miss Fuller to make these statements,” she said, calling the assertions “absolutely false.”

  “We are satisfied that our performance of duty was in keeping with our oath as jurors. Because of the total lack of truth in the affidavit,” she said, “we felt you should be so informed and I was delegated to write to you for the group of jurors.”

  Judge Kelleher held a hearing to determine which of the statements addressed to him was accurate. Miss Fuller took the witness stand and testified that she had seen the news headline and that another juror—whose identity she could not recall—had told her, “Well, if Boyce is guilty, then Lee must be guilty too.”

  Eight other jurors who had been subpoenaed to the special hearing before Judge Kelleher followed her to the stand. They all denied her charges. Kelleher ruled that there were not grounds in the affidavit for a new trial, and then he turned his attention to the next matter pending before him.

  49

  The sentencing of Christopher John Boyce was scheduled for June 20, 1977. The night before, Chris began a letter to his parents. Neatly, slowly, he wrote in longhand: