by Bob Mayer
“Did you steal that from the library?” Kane asked. “They don’t lend periodicals. Stealing’s a crime, you know? Librarians can be real bad-asses going after book thieves. I could turn you in.”
Tucker didn’t bite. “How do you feel about double-agents, Kane?”
Shaw didn’t give him a chance. “He mustn’t like them much, because he killed one.”
“Interesting,” Tucker said. “Why is the military hiding your file?”
“Ask the military,” Kane said.
“Or perhaps it’s the CIA?” Shaw said. “Clowns In Action.”
“That’s cute,” Kane said. “They call you Boys in Suits.”
“Yeah,” Shaw said, “but ours actually matches the letters which means we can spell.”
“And the N in Ranger stands for knowledge,” Kane said. “We all have our cute sayings. Don’t you guys work for the same government?”
“That’s the theory,” Tucker said. He indicated the charred metal in his desk. “Recognize this?”
“You don’t?” Kane said.
Shaw spoke. “Damon’s remains were found on the top floor of an abandoned building on the lower West Side. Along with four others. Three are tentatively identified as associates of Damon. There wasn’t much left. No I.D. on the last one. Yet.”
“You don’t seem curious about any of this,” Tucker pointed out. “Yet you were chatting about the history of this area on the way in.”
“Current news isn’t history yet. I prefer history.” Kane glanced over his shoulder at the door.
“Nervous?” Shaw asked.
“Should I be?”
“You’re acting weird,” Shaw said. “Weird isn’t good.”
“Besides my lack of a sense of humor,” Kane said, “I’m known for acting weird. I think I should call my lawyer.”
“You are nervous,” Shaw said.
“If you guys are doing good cop-bad cop,” Kane said, “I can’t tell who is who.”
“Who are you?” Tucker asked.
“Why am I here?” Kane responded. “Told you I don’t know this Damon guy. And what does that have to do with a melted M-16?”
“There’s a report that you threatened Damon on the day of the Blackout,” Tucker said. “And went to meet him.”
Kane felt the familiar tingling, cold sensation. A distancing from the room, from Shaw and Tucker. “A ‘report’? By who?”
“You didn’t laugh when I did the Blazing Saddles bit,” Tucker said. “Your friend did. The one who tried to hide the C-4 and was armed with an MP-5.” It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t think your friend is all there,” Shaw threw in. “Crazy eyes.”
“I never saw Blazing Saddles,” Kane said. “I like Monty Python, though. And it wasn’t an MP-5. It was an HK-94. An MP-5 has automatic capability and that would be illegal.” Kane suspected Merrick had modified the HK though and it probably was capable of automatic. Another reason a warrant would have been a problem.
“Good to know.” Tucker sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling. “Pieces and parts. So many pieces and parts. But the one constant is you.”
“You lost me a long time ago,” Kane said. “Pretty much when you busted into my apartment with guns drawn.”
“Gotta admit I’m a little lost too,” Tucker said. “Except for the fact you might have been the last person to see Damon alive.”
“How do you figure that?”
Shaw was thumbing through papers in the folder. “A report.”
“By who? About what?” Kane asked.
“A confidential source,” Tucker said. “The explosives in your apartment. Where did they come from?”
Kane stood. “Time for me to talk to my lawyer.”
Shaw stared at him. “You’re acting awfully guilty. Isn’t he, Tucker?”
“He is indeed.”
“You haven’t accused me of anything,” Kane said.
“That’s why you’re acting guilty,” Tucker said. “As if we had. The explosives?”
“Sergeant Merrick was on my team at Fort Devens years ago,” Kane said. “He was showing me something he’s working on. Demo guys like to show off their toys.”
“You’ve never seen C-4 before?” Shaw asked. “Aren’t explosives tightly controlled? Even among high speed units like Special Forces?” He pulled up another folder. “Interesting. A person from a Special Forces unit at Fort Devens was arrested earlier this year selling C-4 to some undesirables. You connected to that?”
“Okay.” Kane held up his hands. “You guys are all over the place. If you have something you want to know, why not ask me?”
Tucker leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “We have been and you’ve been evading.” He gestured to Shaw. “What hasn’t he answered?”
Shaw read from his notes. “Do you know Sean Damon? Did you know the killing of Leon Cibosky is unsolved? Do you dislike double agents? Why is the military hiding your file? Or is it the CIA? Do you recognize the item on Agent Tucker’s desk? Are you nervous? Where did the explosives in your apartment come from?”
“I answered some of them,” Kane said.
“Evasively at best,” Tucker said.
“You haven’t answered any of my questions either,” Kane pointed out.
Tucker laughed. “You are suffering from a serious misunderstanding of the current dynamics of the situation.”
“What he means,” Shaw said, “is we ask the questions.”
“Why?” Kane asked. “You don’t have a warrant. You haven’t arrested me. I agreed to come here. What do you really want to know?”
“Let’s start over,” Tucker said. “Sean Damon. You were at the Marcelle Law Firm the same date and time Damon was on—” he paused and glanced at Shaw who had another folder open and supplied the answer.
“Eight July.” Shaw smiled. “We have photos of him going in and then you.”
“I didn’t meet with him,” Kane said. “He had business with Thomas Marcelle. I work with his daughter. Who is no longer with that firm. Nor am I.”
“But you were then,” Tucker said. “As was Ms. Antonia Marcelle.”
“What’s odd,” Shaw said, “is that our surveillance didn’t see you leave.”
“I went out the back door,” Kane said. “Why do you have Thomas Marcelle under surveillance?”
“We’re like elephants,” Tucker said. “We never forget. Thomas Marcelle cut a deal with Damon.”
Kane raised an eyebrow. “That was 1967. You’ve had him under surveillance since then?”
“Elephants,” Shaw said.
“You don’t happen to have him under surveillance right now, do you?” Kane tried. “His daughter wants to talk to him.”
“The surveillance is random and periodic,” Shaw said.
Kane shook his head. “As I said, I didn’t meet with Damon. I saw him in the hallway. He went into the conference room with Thomas Marcelle. I got no idea what they were up to.”
“Really?” Tucker said. “Just an amazing coincidence?”
Shaw held up a piece of paper. “The following week, on thirteen July, you stood on the north corner of Jackson Square Park and were picked up by Damon. Hard to miss that big gold car.”
Kane went still, waiting.
“Unfortunately,” Tucker said, “the assigned agent lost the tail.”
“Fortunately,” Shaw said, “that car, a Mercedes 600 Pullman, was found in a loading dock underneath a building at 85 Tenth Avenue. The building whose top floor was incinerated the same night you took a ride in the car.”
“The night of the Blackout,” Tucker said. “And Damon’s remains were just identified in what was left of that top floor. Which wasn’t much. Except a number of these.” He tapped the M-16 remnant. “Starting to see all the connections?”
Kane didn’t answer.
Tucker picked up the M-16. “We ran the serial numbers. Stolen from a National Guard Armory in Vermont earlier this year.” He tossed it on the
desk with a thud. “What happened that night, Kane?”
“I’ve been falsely accused of things before,” Kane said. He pointed at the magazine. “I know my rights.”
“We haven’t read them to you,” Shaw said. “Unless I missed something. Did I miss something?” he asked his partner.
“Nope,” Tucker said. “Do you know why we haven’t told you your rights?” he said to Kane. “Because this is bigger than you. You’re nothing. A nobody. Actually, you’re worse than nothing, you’re a walking disaster, Kane. You have no idea what you’re involved in.” He pointed at Kane. “But you’re going to help make it right. Or you’re going to go down. Hard. Because we think you’re awfully guilty.”
“Awfully guilty,” Shaw echoed.
“Guilty of what?”
“Killing Damon, his three men and whoever else was there that night,” Shaw said.
“If you had an ounce of evidence,” Kane said, “you’d have arrested me, had a warrant, and torn my place apart. You got nothing.”
Tucker sat back in his seat. “Do you know where these M-16s were going?”
“I’m not answering anything,” Kane said.
“Ireland,” Shaw said. “The IRA, Provos, whatever you want to call them. Damon was brokering their weapon purchases, using money collected by NORAID.”
“If you knew that, why didn’t you arrest him?” Kane asked.
Tucker gave a weird smile. “I did. Three years ago.”
Shaw spoke. “That’s why the question about double-agents was pertinent.”
“You flipped Damon?” Kane asked.
“Surprised you were working for an informant?” Shaw asked.
“I never worked with or for Damon,” Kane said. “Why did you flip him? Why not put him away?”
“Had no choice,” Tucker said. “The government had an airtight case in 1967 and look what happened? I had a strong suspicion if I brought the case to the Southern District there’d be no rope or a very long one at best with which to hang Damon. Like the very loose rope Thomas Marcelle gave Damon when he should have gone away for the rest of his life. Damon boasted as much when I brought him in here. That he had connections in high places. We made a deal.”
“Why would he make a deal if he knew you couldn’t make a case?” Kane asked.
“We each had something the other wanted,” Tucker said.
“And that was?”
“We’re asking the questions,” Tucker said.
Three years. Kane wondered how many people had died in Damon’s ‘factory’ in those three years? How many films made and lives destroyed? Tammy, the girl Damon used in the films before Sarah, for certain. “To quote someone, you have no idea what you got involved in by doing that.”
“That’s not for you to question,” Tucker said.
Kane stared hard at Tucker. “Why would you make a deal with Damon? He was a psychopathic killer.”
“How do you know that if you never worked for him?” Tucker asked. “I don’t have to defend or explain my actions to you. You’re the one on the hot seat. A very hot seat. Here’s what you need to know. Damon was giving us information. Some of it quite valuable. In the past three years we’ve made significant arrests around the country based on it. Took bad people off the streets. And when he departed the living, he was aware of something.”
“Something big,” Shaw added. “The question is whether you were involved in it.”
Kane was getting tired of the Mutt and Jeff routine. “Fuck you guys. You made a deal with the devil. And if you made such significant arrests, why are you two idiots sitting in a room with no windows? Seems you should have an office with a view and your names on the door.”
“Those guns were destined for the IRA,” Tucker said. “Damon also had money from NORAID.” He tapped the M-16. “We know what happened to these. What happened to the money? Whoever did the killings took it. Where’s the money, Kane?”
“He had money there?” Kane asked. “How do you know that?”
“See,” Shaw said. “That’s an example of you not answering a question by asking a question.”
“Hard to answer questions when I’ve got no clue what you’re talking about. What money? How much?”
Tucker waved a hand. “Let’s forget about the money for now. Here’s the thing. From his contacts, Damon picked up rumors that the Provos were planning something big in the United States.”
“What?”
“We don’t know,” Tucker said.
“That’s why we’re talking to you,” Shaw added.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Kane said.
Tucker pushed forward. “His last report said that there was an IRA team in the U.S.. That they wanted weapons and explosives. Damon was trying to find out more before he so abruptly disappeared.”
“If he was providing them with the weapons—” Kane began, but Tucker was shaking his head.
“He said he wouldn’t help them,” Tucker said.
“Why?” Kane asked.
Shaw answered. “He said they were crazy.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement from a psychopath,” Kane said. “But otherwise he would have supplied them with weapons and explosives? And you’d have been okay with it? How many others has he supplied?”
“Nice try,” Tucker said. “Here’s the thing. In three years, I never saw Damon bothered. But whoever these people are, they bothered him.”
“He actually used the word ‘crazy’,” Shaw added. “As you noted, that’s a worrisome term for someone like Damon to use.”
Tucker continued. “He said that when he refused to get them what they wanted, they were bypassing him and that there was nothing he could do to stop them. They would get the money, weapons and explosives elsewhere. Maybe you and your friend from Fort Devens are the elsewhere? Perhaps you supplied those M-16s?”
“Did your surveillance see me with them? Observe me putting them in the trunk of Damon’s car?”
“Perhaps that C-4 your friend had was for them?” Tucker indicated the phone on his desk. “I could call the field office in Boston and have them take a trip to Fort Devens and talk to your friend. Search his quarters? His unit?”
“This doesn’t look good,” Shaw threw in.
Kane shook his head. “I’m going to talk slowly, since the two of you don’t seem to be listening. If you seriously thought I was supplying C-4 and weapons to terrorists, you’d have cuffed me at the apartment and wouldn’t have let Merrick drive off. Since you know so much about my past, you know that I was interrogated in Long Binh in Vietnam. The people doing that make you two look like Laurel and Hardy.” When there was no response, Kane continued. “What’s an IRA team doing here in the States? What did Damon say they were going to do with the equipment if they got it? Did he say exactly what they were looking for? What kind of guns? Explosives?”
Tucker and Shaw exchanged a glance. The latter fielded the answer. “We don’t know.”
“He didn’t tell you,” Kane said. “He could have been full of shit.”
“Why would he lie about this?” Tucker asked and it sounded like a real question, which meant he was unsure.
“Do you know what Damon was doing in that building where he died?” Kane asked. “Either of you ever been there?”
“We didn’t know he had a place in the old Nabisco Factory,” Shaw said. “The car in the loading dock tipped us off and that’s why we had the remains examined. We were never able to tail him there, the few times we were on him.”
“In three years?” Kane was incredulous. “Your surveillance isn’t very good.”
“Our surveillance was on Thomas Marcelle,” Tucker said. “Damon was our asset.”
“This is very compartmentalized,” Shaw added.
“Sounds like this is fucking blind,” Kane said. “You never checked on your asset to see if you were getting double-crossed.”
“That’s your area of expertise, isn’t it?” Tucker said. “Double-agents?”
“He threatened me,” Kane backtracked. “Told me he killed people in that limo. Did you look at the back seat? The bullet holes and the blood stains? And the trunk? Steel-lined. That’s where he threw people. He threatened to take me to what he called his ‘factory’. Told me some of what he did to people to get them talking. I’m assuming that’s where we’re talking about.”
“Why was he threatening you?” Tucker asked. “What did he want from you?”
“He was working with the Cappucci family on plans to divide up the contracts for Westway,” Kane said. “I got wind of it because I was following Alfonso Delgado, married to Sofia Cappucci, over a divorce case. Damon wanted me to keep quiet. He is, was, good at threats. I said ‘sure’ and that was that.”
“You know,” Tucker said, “there is another possibility about what happened to Damon.”
“There has to be,” Kane said, “since I had nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe,” Tucker said, “this IRA team got pissed because Damon wouldn’t work with them. Then they found out he was asking questions. And they took him out. That team has to be pretty good because they got him and his three top men.”
Kane snorted. “The Unholy Trinity. That’s what they were called. You had to know that. How many people you think they killed in the last three years while you’ve been playing your game with Damon? Actually, playing his game?”
Tucker ignored that. “Did the IRA kill him? There was the unidentified body. Who was that? One of the IRA team? Were they covering their tracks? You’re the last person who saw him that we’re certain of.”
Shaw chimed in, and this time it seemed he was talking more to Tucker. “What doesn’t make sense is them burning the place down with their guns in it. If they wanted weapons, why not take them? They wouldn’t destroy guns that would be going to their cause. And the money.”
“I got no clue what you guys are talking about,” Kane said. “Damon wanted me to keep quiet. We chatted in his car, I agreed, then they dropped me off at my apartment. Whatever happened that night during the Blackout, I got no idea. I was busy defending the diner I own in the Village. Plenty of witnesses to that.” He pointed at Tucker. “Maybe the IRA or NORAID found out Damon was a rat, working for you guys? Maybe you got a leak in your office?”
