O'Farrell's Law

by Brian Freemantle

  “We can close down Belac,” the CIA department head said. “Lure the bastard here, have the FBI arrest him, and then hit him with so many indictments he won’t know which way is which.”

  “What about the ambassador, Rivera?”

  “Which is what he is, an ambassador,” said McCarthy, with logic that would have been absurdly obscure to any other man.

  “He’s not committing a crime within the jurisdiction of any American court. And he can always cop a plea of diplomatic immunity if we save it up for later.”

  McCarthy nodded in agreement. “He’s got to be stopped, though.”

  “No doubt about it.” Sneider knew the way now.

  McCarthy used the private telephone on his desk, one that was security-cleared but did not go through the CIA switchboard. “George!” he greeted when Petty answered. “How are things?”

  “Good,” said Petty, from his office near Lafayette Park.

  “Busy?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Thought we might meet?”

  “You choose.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s good.”

  “Twelve-thirty?”

  “Fine.”

  The summons to Charles O’Farrell came twenty-four hours after that.

  NINE

  PETTY DECREED a meeting in the open air, which he sometimes did, and which O’Farrell regarded as overly theatrical, like those movies about the CIA where people met each other without one acknowledging or looking directly at the other. The section head chose the Ellipse, at noon, but O’Farrell intentionally arrived early. He put his car in the garage on E Street, which meant he had to walk back past the National Theater and the Willard, where he and Jill had endured the embarrassment of that face-slapping row. Momentarily he considered the Round Robin again but almost at once dismissed it. Instead he cut around the block to the Washington Hotel, choosing the darkened ground-floor bar, not the open rooftop veranda overlooking the Treasury Building and the White House beyond. It was more discreet, anonymous; he certainly didn’t want to encounter Petty and Erickson taking an early cocktail themselves. He didn’t know if either of them drank; didn’t know anything at all about them. Just that they were the two from whom he took his orders. In the first year there had been three. Chris Wilmot had been an asthmatic jogger who’d died on a morning run down Capitol Hill. O’Farrell never knew why the man hadn’t been replaced.

  He ordered a double gin and tonic, but poured in only half the tonic, briefly staring into the glass. Okay, so now he was drinking during the day. Not the day; the morning. Needed it, that’s all. Just one, to get his hands steady. He studied them as he reached forward for the glass; hardly a movement. He was fine. Just this one then. Wouldn’t become a habit. How could it? Other times he had an office to go to and accounts to balance. Nothing at all wrong in taking an occasional drink this early; quite pleasant in fact. Relaxing. That’s what he had to do, relax. Get rid of the sensation balled up in his gut, like he’d eaten too much heavy food he couldn’t shift, the feeling that had been there since the telephone call.

  More movie theatrics. “There’s a need for us to meet.” No hello, no identification, no good-bye, no kiss-my-ass. O’Farrell openly sniggered at the nonsense of it. The barman was at the far end, near the kitchen door, reading the sports section of the Washington Post, and didn’t hear.

  O’Farrell took a long pull at his drink. Tasted good; still only 11:20. Plenty of time to cross over to the park. To what? He made himself think. There was only one answer. Who would it be? And why? And how difficult? The method was always the most difficult; that’s what made him so good, the time and trouble he always took over the method. Never any embarrassment, never any comeback. It would be the sixth, he calculated, the same number now as his great-grandfather. Who’d retired after that. No, not quite. The man had stayed in office for another five or six years at least. But he’d never been forced into another confrontation. Six, O’Farrell thought again. All justified, every one of them. Crimes against the country, against the people; his country, his people. Verdicts had not been returned by a recognized court, that’s all; no question of what those verdicts would have been, if there had been an arraignment. Guilty every time. Unanimous; guilty as charged, on all counts.

  Eleven-thirty, he saw. Still plenty of time. Some tonic left. He made a noise and the barman looked up, nodding to O’Farrell’s gesture.

  The barman set the fresh glass in front of him and said. “Time to kill, eh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Visiting?”

  “Just looking around,” O’Farrell said, purposely vague. Never be positive, never look positive, in any casual encounter; always essential to be instantly forgotten at the moment of parting.

  “Great city, Washington. Lot to see.”

  A great capital for a great country, thought O’Farrell, the familiar reflection. “So I hear.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Nowhere special.”

  The barman appeared unoffended by the evasion. He said, “Austin myself. Been here five years, though. Wouldn’t go back.”

  “Never been to Texas,” O’Farrell lied, unwilling to get entangled in an exchange about landmarks or places they both might know. There was a benefit, from the conversation. It was meaningless, empty chitchat, but O’Farrell looked upon it as a test, mentally observing himself as he thought Petty and Erickson might observe him later. He was doing good, he assured himself. Hands as steady as a rock now, the lump in his stomach not so discomforting anymore.

  “All the sights are very close to here,” offered the barman. “Smithsonian, Space Museum, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial …”

  And the Museum of American History, thought O’Farrell. It was his favorite, a place of which he never tired; he’d hoped, a long time ago, that he might find some reference to his ancestor in Kansas but the archivist hadn’t found anything; perhaps he should try again. He said, “Thanks for the advice.”

  “You feel like another?” The barman indicated O’Farrell’s empty glass.

  Yes, he thought, at once. “Time to go,” he said.

  “See you again, maybe?”

  “Maybe,” said O’Farrell. He wouldn’t be able to use the place anymore, in case the man remembered.

  The bar had been darker than he realized, and once outside he squinted against the sudden brightness, wishing he’d brought his dark glasses from the car. He hesitated, looking back toward the parking garage and then in the direction of the Ellipse, deciding there was insufficient time now, nearly five-to as it was. O’Farrell was lucky with the lights on Pennsylvania and again on the cross street but still had to hurry to get to the grassed area before the hour struck, which he wanted to do. Petty was a funny bastard and absolute punctuality was one of his fetishes.

  He heard the chime from some unseen clock at the same time as he saw both of them on one of the benches opposite the Commerce Building, and thought, Damn! He wasn’t late—right on time—but it would have been better if he’d been waiting for them rather than the other way around.

  They saw O’Farrell at the same time and rose to meet him, walking not straight toward him but off at a tangent into the path, so that he had to change direction slightly to fall into step.

  “Sorry to have kept you,” he said at once.

  “You weren’t late,” the section head assured him. “We were early.” Petty was using a pipe with a bowl that seemed out of proportion to its stem; the tobacco was sweet smelling, practically perfumed.

  “It was a pleasant day to sit in the sun,” Erickson said.

  O’Farrell still had his eyes screwed against the brightness and hoped he didn’t get a headache. He experienced a flicker of irritation. The three of them knew why they were there, so why pussyfoot around talking about the weather! He said. “What is it?”

  “Difficult one,” Petty said. “Bad.”

  Weren’t they all, O’Farrel
l thought. He scarcely felt any apprehension; no shake, no uncertainty. “What?”

  “Drugs and guns, two-way traffic,” came in Erickson. “Cuba working to destabilize God knows what in Latin America.”

  “Drugs!” O’Farrell said at once.

  “Massive shipments,” said Petty. “That’s how Havana is raising the money.”

  O’Farrell had the mental image of little Billy playing space games in the Chicago cafe. And then remembered something else. I think they ought to kill the bastards! Make it a capital offense and execute them; no appeal, no excuse, nothing. Dead! Jill’s outburst that day in Ellen’s kitchen: the dear, sweet, gentle Jill he didn’t believe capable of killing anything, not even a bug. He said, “There can’t be a federal agency in this city not connected in some way with drug interdiction.” It was not an obvious attempt at avoidance. The rules were very clear, very specific: he—and these two men walking either side of him—only became involved when every legal possibility had been considered and positively discarded.

  “They would if they could,” Petty said. He stopped and the other two had to stop with him while he cupped his hand around his pipe bowl to relight it: briefly he was lost in a cloud of smoke. “It’s being done diplomatically,” he resumed. “After the initial delivery in Havana, it’s all moved through diplomatic channels. Nothing we can do to intercept or stop it.”

  “Moved everywhere,” said Erickson. “Europe, then back to here, according to one source.”

  “Who is?” O’Farrell demanded at once. Another clear and specific rule was that he was allowed access to everything—and everyone, if he deemed it necessary—connected with an operation, to assure himself personally of its validity. Increasingly over the years, he had come to regard what he’d initially considered a concession to his judgment to be instead a further way for the CIA to distance itself from the section.

  “Supply pilot,” Petty said. “Got caught up in a storm. An AWAC zeroed in on him and some of our guys forced him to land in Florida.”

  They came to a bench near a flowered area and Petty slumped onto it, bringing the other two down with him; the section leader’s self-consciousness about his size meant he sat with his head hanging forward, almost as if he were asleep.

  “This is just the spot on July Fourth,” Erickson said. “Fantastic view of the fireworks. You ever been here on July Fourth?”

  “Yes,” O’Farrell said. Ellen must have been around eleven, John a year younger. He wondered why they’d never brought the grandchildren; he’d have to suggest it to Jill. “Why’s he talking?”

  Erickson snickered. “The plane was packed with almost half a ton of coke, ninety-two percent purity, that’s why he’s talking. He wants a deal.”

  “He going to get it?” Letting the guilty escape justice in return for their informing on others was a fact of American jurisprudence with which O’Farrell could never fully become reconciled. It made it too easy for too many to escape. His hands were stretched in front of him. one on each leg; very calm, very controlled. They really could have been talking about the weather or the July Fourth fireworks.

  “It’s a Customs bust, not our responsibility,” said Erickson.

  What, precisely, was their responsibility? O’Farrell wondered. He couldn’t imagine it ever having been defined, within parameters. Well, maybe somewhere, buried in some atom-bomb shelter and embargoed against publication for the next million years. “Which means the bastard might!”

  The moment O’Farrell had spoken, he snapped his mouth shut, as if he were trying to bite the remark back, abruptly conscious of both men frowning sideways at him.

  Petty said, “You got any personal feelings about this?”

  Nothing is personal; never can be. If it becomes personal, withdraw and abort. The inviolable instructions. Always. O’Farrell said, “Of course not! How could I?”

  “You seemed to be expressing a point of view,” Petty pressed.

  “Isn’t a person allowed a point of view about drugs?”

  “We comply, we don’t opinionate,” Erickson said.

  The logic, like the word choice, was screwed, O’Farrell thought. How could they do what they had to do—but much more importantly, how could he do what he was required to do—without coming to any opinion. It was the same as concluding a judgment, wasn’t it?

  “Just as long as it isn’t a problem,” Petty said, almost glibly.

  “The courier isn’t who we’re talking about,” Erickson added.

  “Who then?” O’Farrell was glad to escape the pressure. Still no shake, though; no problem. He felt the twinge of a headache. Not the booze; goddamned sun, blazing in his face like this.

  “The ambassador in London. Guy named Rivera. Glossy son of a bitch.” Petty began to cough and tapped the pipe out against the edge of the bench. “Doctor says I shouldn’t do this.”

  The dottle made a breeze-blown, scattered mess and it didn’t smell perfumed anymore. O’Farrell found it easy to understand why pipe smoking was banned in practically every public place: it was a filthy, antisocial habit. He said, “What about the arms supplier?”

  “The FBI can get him,” Erickson said. “They’re setting up a scam to get him within American jurisdiction. Then … snap!” The man slapped his hands together sharply, a strangely demonstrative gesture, and O’Farrell jumped, surprised. He wished he hadn’t.

  “London’s the target then?” He looked from one man to the other. Neither spoke. Petty gave the briefest of affirmative nods. Arguably deniable, if the shit hit the fan, thought O’Farrell. “There’s a file?”

  “Of course,” Petty said.

  “What’s the time frame?”

  “Linked to a move against die supplier,” Erickson said.

  “I need to be sure.”

  “The usual understanding,” Petty agreed at once.

  First one, then the other, recognized O’Farrell. Like a vaudeville act. Except that this wasn’t the sort of act to raise a laugh. Deniable again. Brought before any subsequent inquiry, each, quite honestly and without the risk of perjury, could deny a chain of command or instruction. I may have said this, but I categorically deny saying that. No, sir, I cannot imagine how the impression could have been conveyed for this man to believe he was operating under any sort of official instruction. Yes sir, I agree that such an impression is impossible. Yes sir, I agree that the concept of taking the life of another without that person having been found guilty by a properly appointed court of law is inconceivable. No sir, I did not at any time.… Was that another fear, O’Farrell wondered urgently, that he was so completely exposed, without being guaranteed—no, not even guaranteed—without any official backing in what he unofficially did for his country? Close, he thought; not a complete explanation but coming close. He said, “If the arms dealer is caught, then surely the ambassador, Rivera, will be publicly implicated?” Again it was not an obvious attempt at avoidance; rather the question of a professional properly examining what he was being called upon to do, examining all the angles, all the pitfalls.

  “Of course,” Petty said, glib again. “But so what! There can be a denial from Havana. He’ll invoke diplomatic immunity. And go on trafficking.”

  “So what about the coincidence of something happening to Rivera at the same time as the arms dealer is busted?” O’Farrell persisted.

  “Examples—and benefits—to everyone!” Erickson said, embarking again on their vaudeville act.

  “All the innocents, on the outside, imagine some sort of feud between the two,” Petty began.

  “… thieves falling out,” said the other man.

  “… Cuba privately gets the warning it deserves,” mouthed the section chief.

  “… and so do all the other arms suppliers, against becoming involved again.”

  “… all the angles covered …”

  “… all the holes blocked …”

  “… discreet …”

  “… effective …”

  Petty smiled, t
he star of the show, confident of another consummate display. “How we always like to be,” he said in conclusion. “Discreetly effective.”

  It was a virtuoso performance, O’Farrell conceded. He wished he were able to admire it more. “Anyone else involved?”

  “Peripheral people … shippers, stuff like that,” said Erickson. “They’ll get the same private message.”

  “England is pretty efficiently policed,” O’Farrell pointed out. More than any other country in which he had so far operated, he acknowledged to himself for the first time.

  “We accept that,” Petty said, rising up on the verbal seesaw again.

  “Usual understanding,” Erickson descended.

  “… Yours is always the right …”

  “… to refuse …”

  Now! thought O’Farrell. Now was the moment, the agreed-upon, accepted moment, when he was allowed to decline. Before he became irrevocably committed by that one further step, going forward to access the topmost classified files, after which there was no retreat, no escape. Easily done, supposedly. No requirement for an explanation or reason. He’d immediately come under suspicious scrutiny, he guessed; practically tantamount to resigning. Wasn’t that precisely what he wanted, to resign! Just continue with a recognized official job? The halt came with the continuing thought: a recognized official job with a recognized official salary, to which his pension would be linked. Couldn’t afford that now, not while he was helping Ellen and John. Blood money, he thought; bounty hunter. He said, “I’d like to interview the pilot first.”

  The men on either side smiled, and Petty nodded at the acceptance. The section chief said, “It’s a very necessary operation.”

  They wouldn’t be sitting here in the blinding sunlight if it hadn’t already been judged that, O’Farrell thought, irritably; so why the apparent justification? “Where is all the documentation?”

  “At the Lafayette office,” said Erickson.

  “I’ll look that over afterward.”

  “The pilot is being held in Tallahassee; name’s Rodgers, Paul Rodgers.”