October's Ghost (48 page)

“Sure.” The FBI director could be heard flipping pages on his end of the line. “Our Miami field office served search and arrest warrants on the occupant of a house who a wiretap indicated was receiving information from a CIA employee. Greg was in on the warrant service up in D.C.”

“This was the leak you were worried about?” Bud asked.

“Yeah,” Drummond answered. “What did you get, Gordy?”

“The person receiving the information was Avaro Alvarez, son of José-Ramon Alvarez.”

“The head of the CFS?” Bud asked.

“Exactly.” Jones confirmed. A barely audible “
Jesus
” came from the DDI’s end of the line. “Avaro Alvarez was also directing the actions of two men in Los Angeles who killed Francisco Portero and one of my agents.”

“Son of a bitch,” Drummond said clearly this time. He knew just about everything after talking to Garrity, but not that. “You’re sure? Directing them?”

“The tape does not lie,” Jones said. “And we should know more soon. I just got word a few minutes ago that one of the gunmen was captured alive by the L.A. office. But let me tell you the rest. Avaro also had a sophisticated communication scheme involving pagers and phone booths worked out. He used this with the men out west and with the CIA leak. His name’s Samuel Garrity. Anyway, Garrity broke security and used his home phone. That’s how we nailed them. But he also had an encrypted cell-phone system set up to keep in contact with his bosses.”

“Encrypted. Like a voice scrambler?”

“No, Bud. Beyond that. It was one end of a multi-user package. Any phone with the same coded package can decrypt the transmission and convert the signal to simple audio. Without the package all someone would hear is white noise. It’s a pretty fancy system for a user like Alvarez.”

“So the other end has to have the same equipment,” Bud said.

“Right. Actually the properly coded microchip,” Jones explained. “And guess who was at the other end? Avaro’s cell-phone records indicated calls exclusively to one number. That number is a cell phone registered to a company called Onotronics.”

“Wait,” Drummond interrupted. “Onotronics out of Fort Lauderdale?”

“I knew you’d recognize it,” Jones said. “A major manufacturer of secure communications systems. They even did work on WASHFAX and SECVOCOM. And the company is owned and operated by Gonzalo Parra.”

“Number two in CFS,” Drummond expanded.

“And the calls in the previous two days have all terminated at a cell node near Shelton College, on the Cape.”

“Dammit,” Bud said softly.
Why them?
There were plenty of legitimate Cuban-American groups longing for their nation to be free again. Bright, patriotic, honest people. And too quiet in this case. The CFS had made the most noise making a name for itself, and had garnered much of the attention that should have been directed elsewhere. It was little wonder the rebels chose to contact such a “high profile” group, and less surprising that Anthony Merriweather had anointed them as the chosen ones. His chosen ones.

“It’s all very incriminating,” Jones said. “But not direct enough to prove CFS involvement beyond Avaro Alvarez. From this there’s no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Parra or any other CFS official was at the receiving end of those calls. We have him cold on espionage and conspiracy to commit murder, but we can’t legally extrapolate that to his father or anyone else without more evidence.”

“I think I can give some of that,” Drummond said. There was a determined edge to his voice that came from the revelation that murder was side by side with treason in the CFS’s repertoire. “Garrity came clean. Completely. The leak I thought I had in my directorate was actually in the next office.”

“What?” Bud said, the suggestion hard for even him to comprehend. “You mean Anthony?”

“Yes, but he didn’t even know he was giving just about everything discussed in his office to Garrity, and by way of him to the CFS.”

“How?” Bud asked.

“Anthony’s incessant scribbling and note-taking.”

“But that all went into the burn bag,” Healy said. “I thought we discounted that”

“The notes, yes. But Garrity didn’t need those.” The DDI explained the janitor’s exploitation of the device to decipher indented writing.

“We use
Deep Reader
!” Jones said, making the same mental note as the DDI to see that more stringent security measures be implemented regarding note tablets.

“But how did this Garrity link up with the CFS?”

“Chance and availability, Bud. When Garrity decided to use his toy for some moneymaking, he just went to the top of the list. The CFS was the big topic of the moment for Anthony, and they were reachable. Not like some of the other parties in his notes. Garrity couldn’t very well just go up to the Chinese embassy, or wherever, and say, ‘Look what I can do for you.’ But he could easily slip away to Florida, like on a vacation, to make his pitch to Alvarez and his bunch.”

“The money,” Healy said.

“Yep,” Drummond said. His counterpart had made the connection. “Garrity was passing pilfered intel to the CFS, and they were selling it to any and all takers. A financial trace that S and T was running identified a long list of contributors to a CFS account in Bern. The Chinese, the Israelis, Russians—all through intermediaries. It goes on and on.”

“The Russians,” Bud said with a slight chuckle. “I guess it wasn’t just my convincing that got them to come on board.”

“You laid the groundwork, but catching Anthony’s thoughts on the modernization program might have been the convincer,” Drummond said.

“So there is no druggie connection between the CFS and Coseros,” Healy observed.

“Maybe in the future, but all Coseros has done so far is pay for information.”

“No wonder he could avoid indictment,” Jones commented.

“Right. Every time I went in to brief Anthony on a new surveillance of Coseros, the same information made its way to him through the CFS.”

“Wait a second,” Bud said. “A CIA leak was supplying Anthony’s notes to the CFS through Avaro Alvarez. They were then selling this information to Coseros and others to fill their coffers. Plus, the son of the CFS head was also directing the actions of two men who killed the man who had the tape of the Castro/Khrushchev conversation. My question is why the CFS would have any interest in Portero?”

“Because they knew about the missile,” Healy revealed.

“How?” Bud and Drummond asked simultaneously.

“I can’t tell you exactly how,” the DDO said, the word “can’t” obviously translatable to “won’t.” “But Anthony received word soon after Portero came over that he had a story about the missile, and some sort of proof. A month later the person who informed Anthony about this was told to develop amnesia about the entire affair.”

“And you cured that, correct?”

Healy didn’t respond right away. “Something like that.”

“Bud, we suspected from some of the wiretap transcripts that Anthony might have known, but we didn’t know how,” Drummond said. “Now we do.”

“So the CFS learned about Portero from Garrity.”

“And they must have contacted him,” the DDI finished the NSA’s thought.

“And believed him,” Bud added further. “And now we’re about to put a group of corrupt scum in charge of an entire country.”

“With a nuclear weapon,” Healy said.

“Not once we’re through with it.” The NSA’s words were like a wall of determination, impossible to breach. “That was obviously what they thought, but they can forget it.”

“Gordy, with what we have right now, who can we nail?” the DDI asked.

“Just who you have. That’s it.”

“But we can’t let those guys take power in Cuba! The rebellion is going to succeed, probably within twenty-four hours, from what the reports tell us.”

“Greg, it isn’t as easy as that,” Bud said. “These men have been given the tacit approval of the United States government to assume power in
their
country. By your boss, by the Congress, by the President. If we toy and prevent that without an absolute certainty of being able to prove their involvement in this, we will all be out of a job.”

“A fucking
job
, Bud?” Drummond practically yelled. “We’re talking about the leadership of a country!”

“Not the same one, Greg. I’m talking about our own. Possibly others,” Bud said. A strong American government sometimes meant a stronger government somewhere else—like Moscow. “If we arbitrarily stop Alvarez from assuming power and can’t justify it, the whole thing will point first at your boss, then at you and everyone at Langley, then at Jim Coventry for helping broker the arrangements, then at me for not knowing, then, my friend, the finger will point right at the President for approving the fiasco in the first place.”

“So, what, we just let things happen as planned?” Drummond said with mild sarcasm.

“No,” Bud countered. “But we have to do it right We have to be able to nail something criminal on them. If we can do that, we can stop this thing and deflect a good deal of the criticism that will follow in any case right on your boss, where it belongs.”

“The President will still feel the heat,” Healy said.

“He can handle it if he can show that he took immediate steps once
evidence
of illegal activities was discovered. Otherwise,” Bud went on, “nothing he does will matter. The press will crucify him. And so will everyone else, right or wrong.”

“We have to get Anthony out, too,” Healy said.

“Has he done anything other than make a bad decision?” Jones inquired.

“Legally, no,” Drummond answered. “He hasn’t violated any security rules either.”

“Greg!”

“Mike, what do we have?”

“So the CFS goes and Anthony stays?” Healy could be heard falling back in his chair.

“Now wait. Anthony is secondary right now.” Bud knew his observation, though right, would not find favor with the DDO. “We have to—”

A few rapid knocks at the NSA’s door preceded its opening. “Bud, there’s—”

“Nick,” Bud said, one hand covering the phone and his eyes asking what the interruption was for.

“Sorry, but there’s a call from an Agent Jefferson,” the deputy NSA said. “He said he couldn’t get through to the director. Then he got a hold of Ellis, and Ellis said you’d want this right away. Jefferson said to tell you he has another tape.”

“Another tape of what?”

Beney shrugged. “Your flashing line. Do you want it?”

Bud drew in a short breath. All the unknowns were coming together, and instead of making the situation clearer, they were complicating it. Now this, whatever “this” was. “I’ll take it.” Bud removed his hand from the mouthpiece. “The three of you hold on for a minute.” He put them on hold and pressed the flashing line. “This is DiContino.”

“Sir, Director Jones’s secretary would not put me through because he’s on a call,” Art explained.

“With me. What’s this about another tape?”

“Of Francisco Portero discussing the missile.”

“With who?”

“I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I know I’ve heard the voice before, at a speech.”

“Who, Jefferson?”

“I think it’s the director of Central Intelligence, Anthony Merriweather.”

A momentary void of silence greeted the FBI agent’s disclosure. “Discussing the missile?”

“Yes. It sounds like Portero recorded a phone conversation with Merriweather.”

Bud thought quickly. This might be what was needed to do what mere suspicion could not. “Any warning beeps?”

“None,” Art answered. In order for phone conversations to be legally recorded without a wiretap warrant, both parties had to be knowledgeable of and agree to its being done. In addition, a distinct
beep
had to sound every fifteen seconds as a reminder that the conversation was being recorded.

It was just a shot. Merriweather would never have allowed himself to be recorded talking to Portero. And a surreptitious recording without a warrant was blatantly inadmissible as evidence. But as evidence of what? Even this wasn’t illegal. Borderline improper and damned stupid without a doubt, but that wasn’t enough. Bud wanted Merriweather gone as much as Mike Healy. His remaining in the picture while the CFS was being accused—and telling all, no doubt, to bring down anyone else with them— would point to the President harboring the man responsible for their recruitment. He had to go, but how? Recordings or not, there wasn’t enough on him to force him out. Or on the CFS, Bud reminded himself. With all the technology and all the manpower they had at their disposal, time was the one obstacle he could not see them being able to surmount. Merriweather and the CFS had to be dealt with before the time came for the changing of the guard in Cuba, or not at all.

“I appreciate you letting me know, Jefferson, but you know as well as I that you’re describing an illegal recording.”

“I know, but...he’s the director of the CIA. Are you saying that he can just talk about a potential national-security issue over an open phone line, and no one is gonna care?”

“I don’t care if he’s God, Jefferson. We can’t use it, even if it is him and he’s discussing something he shouldn’t.” Bud knew that even this wasn’t beyond the bounds of legal, though it would certainly take Anthony down if it could be admitted as evidence in a case against one of the others. “If he had been warned he was being recorded, then that...” A thought occurred instantly, and Bud seized it before going on. “...that would have been different.”
Very different.

“So this means nothing?” Art asked with irritation.

Bud didn’t notice the tone. The thought he had had a second before had become an idea, which was playing over and over in his mind. After a few seconds the idea became a plan, with both a beginning and an end. And with participants.

“Maybe not,” Bud said. He checked the time. It would have to happen fast, preferably before Delta’s operation was over. And it would have to be quiet. Beyond even hushed. Entirely because half of what he was envisioning was more unethical than anything Anthony had done. But Bud was willing to step over that line for this. In fact, he looked forward to it. For this the circle could not expand, meaning he would have to use people already in the loop to tighten it around the necks of two different men. “Jefferson, your partner knows about this, correct?”