“There’s a Starbucks around the corner,” the well-dressed man said.
“Dressed like this? Where’s your car?”
“In the next parking lot,” the well-dressed man said, and nodded across the street. “Walk down the street. I’ll pick you up.”
The well-dressed man walked away to the left, and the junkie to the right.
Five minutes later, sitting with the junkie in a rented Lincoln parked five blocks from the post office on Boeing Drive, Vic D’Alessandro punched the appropriate buttons on his Brick, and fifteen seconds later was rewarded with the voice of A. Franklin Lammelle, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“And how, Vic, are things in scenic El Paso?”
“Pics coming through all right?”
“I’m looking at them now,” Lammelle said. “Who am I looking at?”
“That’s the guy who dropped a letter addressed to Box 2333 into the slot in the post office.”
“The FBI told you that?” Lammelle asked.
“No,” the junkie offered. “But when, thirty seconds after this guy dropped his envelope into the slot, half a dozen FBI guys inside the lobby started baying and going on point like so many Llewellin setters, we took a chance.”
“Hey, Tommy, how are you?” Lammelle said.
“Very well, Mr. Director, sir,” CIA Agent Tomas L. Diaz replied. “How are things in the executive suite, Mr. Director, sir?”
“You don’t want to know,” Lammelle said. “So what happened next?”
“He walked back to his car, more or less discreetly trailed by the aforementioned Llewellins and a dozen unmarked vehicles, including, so help me God, Frank, a Model A hot rod.”
“Jesus,” Lammelle said. “So he cleverly deduced he was being followed?”
“I’m sure he expected it,” Diaz said. “He didn’t try to lose anybody until he was in Mexico, and then he became professional. He didn’t have to. The FBI stopped at the border.”
“But you didn’t lose him?”
“It’s been a long time since I did this, Frank, but it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you learn how. .”
“You didn’t lose him,” Lammelle pursued.
“He changed cars three times. I don’t know about the first two, but you’ll notice the dip plate on the Mercedes.”
“I noticed. You get a gold star to take home to Mommy, Tommy.”
“These aren’t drug guys, Frank. This is too professional.”
“SVR?”
“Who else? Mexican intelligence is an oxymoron. Maybe Cuban, maybe even some of Chavez’s people. But I’d go with SVR.”
“Castillo thinks this whole thing is an SVR operation,” Lammelle said, and then asked, “Tommy, did the FBI make you?”
“No. They were too busy falling all over each other to look for something like that.”
“I’d love to know what was in that envelope,” Lammelle said.
“So would I,” D’Alessandro said. “But once it went into the slot, it was firmly in the clutch of the FBI; we couldn’t get close, and I didn’t think I should ask for a look. Can you find out?”
“I’ll try. Where are things now?”
Diaz said: “Vic’s got half a dozen guys standing by in Juarez-”
“Who, Vic?” Lammelle interrupted.
“China Post. On Castillo’s dime. He-we-didn’t want to use anybody from the Stockade.”
Lammelle knew that American Legion China Post #1 in Exile enjoyed among its membership certain retired special operators. And he knew that Castillo often hired the highly skilled warriors.
“And what are they doing now?”
“Things that I could not do without getting my cover blown,” Diaz said. “And now we have both the dip license plate and the photos of the people-all of the people, not just the letter dropper. If we can get a positive ID on any of them-”
Lammelle put in: “The dip plate-I got this just now-goes on a Venezuelan-embassy Toyota Camry assigned to their consulate in Juarez.”
“That’s where it was,” Diaz said. “So we will-because we don’t have anything better-radio the code word ‘Hugo’ to the China Post guys, and they will start sitting on the Venezuelan consulate. Two questions.”
“Shoot.”
“How soon can you ID the letter dropper?”
“Those pics are being run through comparison now. No more than an hour; probably less.”
“My work would be a lot easier if I had some better radios.”
“We’re trying to keep McNab out of this, so that means no equipment from the Stockade, and you’ll understand, Tommy, that it would be just a little awkward for me to walk into domestic operations here and check out something you could use.”
“I can hear the chorus of whistles blowing,” Diaz said. “Well, then, how about a couple of Bricks like Vic’s?”
“Castillo’s working on getting you something-it won’t be Bricks, but maybe CaseyBerrys. As soon as we can get them to you, we will.”
“I’d really like to have a Brick, Mr. Director, sir.”
“Talk to Castillo. I’ll call you as soon as I have a positive ID on the letter dropper.”
FIVE
Office of the Director Federal Bureau of Investigation The J. Edgar Hoover Building 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1205 18 April 2007
“An unexpected pleasure, Frank,” FBI Director Schmidt said as he offered his hand to DCI Lammelle. “What can I do for you?”
“How do you turn off the recorder, Mark?”
“Excuse me?”
“Turn it off, Mark. I don’t want this recorded for posterity.” After a just perceptible hesitation, Schmidt pointed to a door. “I’ve got sort of a bubble in there,” he said.
“Fine, providing you swear on your honor as an Eagle Scout that the recorder in there is shut off.”
Lammelle then held up his right hand, palm outward, center fingers extended, thumb and pinky crossed over the palm, in a gesture signifying Scout’s honor.
“Frank, I don’t thinking mocking Scouts is funny. I was an Eagle Scout.”
“I know. I know a lot about you, Mark. And so that you know a little more about me than you apparently do, I was also an Eagle Scout. Is that recorder going to be turned off, Scout’s honor?”
“The recorder will not be turned on,” Schmidt said.
Lammelle wagged the hand that made the Scout’s honor and raised his eyebrows.
Schmidt sighed, then made the sign with his right hand, and said, “Scout’s honor.”
As they both put down their hands, Schmidt asked, “What’s this all about?”
“Why don’t we wait until we get in your bubble?”
Schmidt waved him through the door into a small, windowless room equipped with a library table, four chairs, a wall-mounted flat-screen television, and an American flag. There were two telephones on the table, one of them the red instrument of the White House telephone network.
When Schmidt had closed the door behind him, Lammelle laid his attache case on the table, opened it, then sat down and took from it a manila envelope.
“Beware of spooks bearing gifts, Mark.”
Schmidt took the envelope, removed a stack of photographs, and examined them.
“This is the guy who dropped the letter in the post office in El Paso,” Schmidt said. “Two hours ago. How the hell did you get this?”
“A friend gave it to me. Do you know this guy’s name?”
“No. Not yet. I’m working on it. Is that why you’re here? You want to know his name?”
“His name is Jose Rafael Monteverde,” Lammelle said. “He’s the financial attache of the embassy of the Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela in Mexico City.”
“You sound pretty sure.”
“I am sure. And how about a little tit for tat? Show me what was in the envelope.”
“I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. And you shouldn’t have been nosing around El Paso. Christ, you could have blown the FBI surveillance!”
“I hate to tell you this, Mark, but my friends said your surveillance guys were about as inconspicuous as two elephants fornicating on the White House lawn. Not that it mattered, because they didn’t follow Senor Monteverde across the border into Juarez”-Lammelle pointed at the photographs-“where most of those were taken.”