To Free a Spy (12 page)

The reverie was replaced by the shock of the metal bucket that slammed against his forehead! Several men—he couldn’t tell how many—were all over him now. They whirled him around like a top and kicked his legs out from under him. The ringing in his ears was almost as loud as the shouts of the attackers. He could see only straight down because of the bucket. He was on his back, and four or five pairs of hands scrambled to bind nylon ropes to his ankles and wrists.
Hadn’t he learned anything? Never should have closed his eyes, not for one blink. And if he had signed Rudy on today he would have been there in the room with him and this would never have happened.

Another kick to the bucket. Everyone was shouting, but Red knew the noise would attract no help. There was new pain where his limbs were attached to his body as the goons stretched him into a double Y and tied his ankles and wrists to the old cast iron plumbing pipes that ran along the walls. His torso lay on the cold concrete floor.
Everything went black. He was back in the youth prison in southern Illinois. It was warm. The kid that snitched, laughing, looking down at him now, holding his very own quivering bloody arm that Red had ripped from its socket…The Roman candle. July Fourth. And then, that black bastard. The pleading, the screams, the smoke, the threat of death to the man and his family if he ever told what Red did to him with that Roman candle. The laughs at supper that night as he and his brothers told their old man. Both of his victims looking at him now, refusing to help, laughing as he cried out.

The bucket. Someone kicked it again. The towel in his mouth muffled the screams. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes were ready to pop out. Were the droplets streaming down his face tears or were they blood?

He struggled to maintain consciousness and thought of other tight situations he had been in from which he emerged more powerful. A few broken bones but bones always grew back. There were scars, but he liked scars: They had an impact on anyone who might be thinking of challenging him. His eyes opened to the sight of a large cockroach on the wall beyond his feet. It began to climb and then as quick as it had appeared darted into a crack in the concrete. Thousands came back out, all running down the wall to the floor and toward him. Then another kick—to the ribs this time. In the sliver of consciousness that had returned to him, he heard the others laugh. At the same time another voice said, “Don’t do that no more, man. Cosmo wants him ’live.” Another answered, “He gon’
wish
he dead in a minute.”

His eyes struggled open again and tried to focus on the inside of the bucket. All the voices were gone now. How long had he been unconscious? Beyond the rim of the bucket was the blurred shape of another man checking the knots in the rope that bound him. As his eyes focused, Red Russell knew he had seen this man before.
Today. Chow hall. Sitting with that Cosmo dude! Brows, was it?

Maybe it wasn’t too late to make some kind of deal. Offer
him
the Main Man job instead of Rudy. Everyone had a price. He couldn’t speak because of the gag in his mouth but he made nasal sounds and flexed every muscle in his body to get the big man’s attention. His wide-open eyes tried to convey the message that he wanted to talk. His focus improved to the point that he could see the knife blade in the man’s thick hand. Brows Brickley walked around to his side, kicked the bucket away from his head and jerked the muffler out of his mouth. “Red Russell?”

Red talked fast. “Look, man, you and me, we can run this joint, man. You won’t be no flunky no more. You’ll be
somebody
. You can have all the power Terracina’s got. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. Anything!”

Brows gave no indication he even heard Russell. “You Red Russell, right?”

Russell couldn’t resist being himself any longer. “Yeah, man, untie me and I’ll show you my name tattooed on my ass. You can kiss it while you’re checkin’ the spelling.”

Brows again seemed not to notice. He positioned himself on his knees between Red’s splayed legs and looked into his eyes. “Cosmo, he ain’t got no hard feelin’s ’bout that little accident at lunch today. Knows it wasn’t nothin’ personal.”

Red’s attitude continued to prevail over his present circumstances. He cleared his throat and with every ounce of wind he could muster, blew the collection into Brows’s face. Brows hesitated for a moment, took a damp towel from the floor and wiped it off, held up the rusty knife blade for Russell to see and exhibited what might pass for a smile. Russell watched the serrated edge until the big man moved it to some place between Russell’s spread legs where Russell couldn’t see. He now understood why Brows had knelt there, but had little time to think about it before his body quickened. A sting at first, then pressure, then pain like nothing he could ever have imagined as the blade jerked and sawed through tender tissue and nerve endings, and pulled on other parts that were connected somewhere deep inside him. He heard himself crying. All the colors in the world flashed before him. He was hotter and more tired than he’d ever been in his life. He felt his bowels release. In less than a minute the screams died out and the bright colors faded away. What seemed like hours since he stood under the shower thinking about Elyse, about the power he held, about how he had replaced Cosmo Terracina as top dog, had been a little more than four minutes.

* * *

Next morning, Harvey Joplan walked over to Riley in the exercise yard. “You’re Neanderthals,” he said, his eyes bloodshot. “Not even human.”

Riley didn’t try to hide his amusement. “Problem?”

“You oughta live in the jungle.”

“This
is
the jungle, Joplan. But smaller than you’re used to. In the spy jungle, you deal in information that affects thousands of innocent lives, millions maybe. Here in my jungle, Cosmo’s jungle, the problems are much simpler. They involve one life at a time. No innocent victims. They always earn it. And there are no newspapers, no political spin, no lawyers, no appeals, no long waits. It’s sudden, decisive justice.”

“I understand about Red Russell. Politics. Ran for higher office and lost. But why the focus on me?” Joplan asked.

“Cosmo’s got a sense of right and wrong.”

“According to whose rules?”

“Whoever’s got the power to enforce them. In your case, it’s Cosmo.”

Joplan thought for a moment. “What does he want, Riley?”

“Tell the feds everything you know. Answer every question truthfully, even questions they
don’t
ask. Answer them too. That’s it. Any holding back or lying, Cosmo will wonder if you missed the little hint he gave you. He might decide he needs to be more direct with you next time.”

* * *

Warfield was in his car when Macc Macclenny called. “Got the word from LaRez. It’s all set.”

“Joplan?”

“Yep. Ready to talk. And you’re not gonna believe how it happened.” Macc told Warfield the story.

Warfield shuddered. “So Joplan caved after hearing about Russell’s misfortune.”

“Well, Joplan didn’t exactly
hear
about it. Woke up the next morning and found Russell’s testicles in his cell—scrotum and all—wrapped up in a bloody towel.”

“God!”
Warfield shuddered. “Russell alive?”

“He’ll live. Warden’s got him on suicide watch, though.”

Warfield wondered who else
would be present at the meeting with Cross as he waited for the guard at the Northwest Appointment Gate to let him enter the White House compound. Today was sort of an official turnover of Joplan back to the FBI. After Macc called him, Warfield wanted to get the ball rolling as soon as he could. Instead of flying to Atlanta to meet with Joplan yesterday, he had asked the warden to put Joplan in a private room and arrange a phone call between him and Warfield. All Warfield wanted from the conversation was to satisfy himself that Joplan was indeed going to talk. It was the FBI’s job to download him before the seven days expired and get the judge to approve continuation of his incarceration.

The phone conversation with Joplan yesterday afternoon satisfied Warfield and he’d called Cross with the news. Cross wasted no time arranging this morning’s meeting. Warfield thought the president was making too big a deal of it, however, and suggested instead that he get FBI chief Fullwood on the phone and tell him Joplan had had a conversion. Cross blew that idea off without even thinking about it. He wanted Otto Stern and Austin Quinn to attend the meeting along with Fullwood.

Warfield went to a reception area near the Oval Office where Paula Newnan was talking with Earl Fullwood. He didn’t know the FBI Director well but had met him on a couple of occasions, the most recent being a National Security Council meeting months earlier. The FBI Director was not an official member of the NSC, but, like Warfield and others, was invited when his input at a meeting was needed. Warfield’s first thought on seeing Fullwood now was of the scent of the black cigars he chewed on. Warfield remembered that the last time he saw Fullwood on a TV newscast he would have sworn he smelled cigar smoke.

Paula saw Warfield and walked over to greet him. She had the rare ability to maintain a sense of who she was
before
the White House, even in the midst of all the egos and pressures there. Warfield had seen too many others get caught up in the thin air of apartness that too often infected those who existed in the shadows of power. Warfield was having a laugh with Paula when he noticed Fullwood standing across the room eyeing the two of them as if he had just spotted two of his Most Wanted. A minute later Warfield walked over to Fullwood. Brown-stained teeth greeted him.

“ ’lo Warfield. What’s goin’ on at that little camp of yours—
Lone Elm
is it?” Fullwood had headed up his home state’s crime investigation agency before his present appointment. To Warfield, Fullwood neither looked the part of FBI Director nor acted it. Polyester suits. Thin, grayed shirts. Scuffed wing-tips. Forty pounds overweight. A seemingly-fixed scowl on his face. Warfield noticed once at a meeting that Fullwood’s socks incredibly didn’t match. Fullwood must have had some terribly damning information on the former President, John McNabb, who’d appointed him, Warfield mused. He thought Cross would ease him out and knew that could not come soon enough for the troops a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue at the FBI headquarters.

“It’s Mr. FBI himself,” Warfield responded. “How’s crime, Earl?” Warfield knew the Bureau’s reported stats showed a turn for the better in the last year, but an investigative reporter at
The Washington Post
was looking into allegations the Bureau had played with the numbers. It was a sensitive subject for the FBI.

Fullwood’s bushy eyebrows moved closer together but he hardly made eye contact with Warfield. “You’ve seen the numbers, Warfield. It’s
down
.” He crammed the cigar back between his teeth and went to the coffee pot.

Otto Stern joined Warfield. As broker and filter for information that reached the president, the national security advisor had the greatest degree of access to the president of all his inner circle.

“Otto. How goes it?”

“Warfield.” Stern said flatly. He was a solemn man with a calm, strong, monotonic voice. Warfield thought it all fit, including his name. Stern had been CIA deputy director for operations at the time the CIA mole Aldrich Ames was spying for Russia. In the Ames aftermath, Stern resigned. It had happened on his shift. The investigation cleared him but there were leaks that some members of the investigative panel were not one-hundred percent satisfied Stern should be absolved of responsibility. Stern went on to join a Washington think tank and Cross later brought him into the White House. Warfield had wondered whether that was a wise move by the president, because even a hint of impropriety by such a high-profile figure as the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency was never really forgotten, but gave Cross credit for having the courage of his convictions.

The conversations stopped. Cross had walked in and as usual started working the room with greetings and personal comments. He smiled when he got to Warfield. “Fleming DeGrande still happy?”

Warfield deadpanned, “Still has
me
.” Cross always bantered with Fleming at the times they’d been together. One night as Warfield and Fleming drove home from a function at the White House she’d laughed and called Cross a
hunk.
Warfield feigned jealousy and cried that Cross was too old for her and, by the way,
he’s married
.

Austin Quinn arrived and migrated to Cross after shaking hands all around. When he had gotten to Warfield he smiled and said, “Colonel, good to see you. You know, every time I hear your name mentioned at Langley it’s on a good note.” It occurred to Warfield that Quinn was always Gentlemen’s Quarterly perfect. Warfield was particular enough about his own appearance, whether in camo’s or a sport jacket, but Quinn was a male fashion plate with the addition of an infectious smile that exhibited perfect teeth. Warfield had never seen him even remove the jacket to his suit. Always wore cufflinks that peeked out beyond his coat sleeve. Never without a pocket square. Every hair in place. He must not ever sit down because there’s never a single wrinkle in his clothes. Appeared on Best Dressed lists every year. Shoes that looked spit-shined. None of this, however, diminished his image as a man’s man who was well-liked by his colleagues inside the beltway as well as the folks in his home state of New Jersey.

Warfield had first met Quinn at a roast in his honor in Atlantic City more than six years ago and his power and influence had ratcheted upward since then. As a U.S. senator he sat on the intelligence committee and became a frequent guest on Sunday morning TV news shows. He campaigned for Cross, and when Cross was elected president he named Quinn to be Director of Central Intelligence. Cross’s critics yelled cronyism but Quinn had since received good marks at CIA.

Quinn was informal with Cross. “Can we get started, Garrison,” he said, looking at his watch. They were old friends—football teammates at Yale—but Warfield was unimpressed with Quinn’s lack of decorum. Warfield felt that unless you were alone with the president, you addressed him as
Mr. President
even if he was your own brother. There are invisible lines you don’t cross. And you don’t tell the president when to start a meeting. All in all, nevertheless, Warfield had a favorable opinion of CIA Director Austin Quinn.