“You know how this might end up?”
Shaw turned away from the desk. “The country doesn’t need another one.” Not by my hands, he didn’t say.
“We got one whether we need it or not,” Murray said. “I admit, part of me says, ‘Right on!’ about why they’re doing it, but from what Jack tells me, we have at the very least a technical violation of the oversight laws, and definitely a violation of the Executive Order.”
“Unless there’s a classified codicil that we don’t know about. What if the AG knows?”
“What if he’s part of it? The day Emil got hit, the AG flew to Camp David along with the rest of ’em, remember?”
“What I want to know is, what the hell our friend is going to Panama for?”
“Maybe we’ll find out. He’s going down alone. No security troops, everybody sworn to secrecy. Who’d you send over to Andrews to choke it out of ’em?”
“Pat O’Day,” Murray answered. That explained matters. “I want him to handle the liaison with the Secret Service guys, too. He’s done a lot of work with them. When the time comes, that is. We’re a mile away from being ready for that.”
“Agreed. We have eighteen people working ODYSSEY. That’s not enough.”
“We have to keep it tight for the moment, Bill. I think the next step is getting somebody over from Justice to cover our asses for us. Who?”
“Christ, I don’t know,” Shaw replied in exasperation. “It’s one thing to run an investigation that the AG knows about but is kept out of, but I can’t remember ever running one completely unknown to him.”
“Let’s take our time, then. The main thing right now is to figure out what the plan was, then branch out from there.” It was a logical observation from Murray. It was also wrong. It was to be a day of errors.
The F-15E touched down at Howard Field right on time, eighty minutes before the scheduled arrival of the flight from Andrews, Bright thanked the pilot, who refueled and took off at once for a more leisurely return to Eglin. The base intelligence officer met Bright, along with the most senior agent from the legal attache’s office in Panama City, who was young, sharp, but too new in his post for a case of this sensitivity. The arriving agent briefed his two colleagues on what little he knew and swore both to secrecy. It was enough to get things going. His first stop was the post exchange, where he got some nondescript clothing. The intelligence officer supplied a very plain automobile with local tags that they left outside the gate. On base they’d use an anonymous blue Air Force sedan. The Plymouth sat near the flight line when the VC-20A landed. Bright pulled his Nikon out of the bag and attached a 1000mm telephoto lens. The aircraft taxied to a stop at one of the hangars, and the stairs folded down with the hatch. Bright snugged his camera in and started shooting close-ups from several hundred yards away as the single passenger stepped out of the plane and into a waiting car.
“Jesus, it’s really him.” Bright rewound and removed the film cassette. He handed it to the other FBI agent and reloaded another thirty-six-frame spool.
The car they followed was a twin to their Air Force sedan. It drove straight off post. Bright and the rest barely had time to switch cars, but the Air Force colonel driving had ambitions to race the NASCAR circuit and took up a surveillance position a hundred yards behind it.
“Why no security?” he asked.
“He generally doesn’t bother, they told me,” Bright told him. “Sounds odd, doesn’t it?”
“Hell, yes, given who he is, what he knows, and where the hell he happens to be at the moment.”
The trip into town was unremarkable. The Air Force sedan dropped Cutter off at a luxury hotel on the outskirts of Panama City. Bright hopped out and watched him check in, just like a man on a business trip. The other agent came in a few minutes later while the colonel stayed with the car.
“Now what?”
“Anybody you can trust on the local PD?” Bright asked.
“Nope. I know a few, some of them pretty good guys. But trust? Not down here, man.”
“Well, there’s always the old-fashioned way,” Bright observed.
” ‘kay.” The assistant legal attaché reached for his wallet and walked to the registration desk. He came back two minutes later. “The Bureau owes me twenty bucks. He’s registered as Robert Fisher. Here’s the American Express number.” He handed over a crumpled carbon sheet that also had the scrawled signature.
“Call the office and run it. We need to keep an eye on his room. We need – Christ, how many assets do we have?” Bright waved him outside.
“Not enough for this.”
Bright’s face twisted into an ugly shape for a moment. This was no easy call to make. ODYSSEY was a code-word case, and one thing that Murray had impressed on him was the need for security, but – there was always a “but,” wasn’t there? – this was something that needed doing. So he was the senior man the scene and he had to make the call. Of such things, he knew, careers were made and broken. It was murderously hot and humid, but that wasn’t the only reason Mark Bright was sweating.
“Okay, tell him we need a half-dozen good people to help us with the surveillance.”
“You sure -”
“I’m not sure of anything right now! The man we’re supposed to be shadowing – if we suspect him – Christ Almighty, if we suspect him -” Bright stopped talking. There wasn’t much else to say, was there?
“Yeah.”
“I’ll hang out here. Tell the colonel to get things organized.”
It turned out that they needn’t have hurried. The subject – that’s what he was now, Bright told himself – appeared in the lobby three hours later, looking fresh and scrubbed in his tropical-weight suit. Four cars waited outside for him, but Cutter only knew about the small, white Mercedes into which he climbed and which drove off to the north. The other three kept it in visual contact.
It was getting dark. Bright had shot only three frames on his second roll of film. He ejected that one and replaced it with some super-high-speed black and white film. He shot a few pictures of the car just to make sure that he got the license number. The driver at this point wasn’t the colonel, but a sergeant from the criminal-investigation detachment who knew the area and was impressed as hell to be working a code-word case with the Bureau. He identified the house the Mercedes pulled into. They ought to have guessed it.
The sergeant knew a place that overlooked the house, not a thousand yards away, but they were too late getting there and the car couldn’t stay on the highway. Bright and the local FBI representative jumped out and found a wet, smelly place to lie down and wait. The sergeant left them a radio with which to summon him and wished them luck.
The owner of the house was away attending to matters of state, of course, but he had been kind enough to give them free use of it. That included a small but discreet staff which served light snacks and drinks, then withdrew, leaving the tape recorders, both men were sure, to record events. Well, that didn’t matter, did it?
The hell it doesn’t! Both men realized the sensitivity of the conversation that was about to take place, and it was Cortez who surprised his guest by graciously suggesting that they speak outside, despite the weather. Both men dropped off their suitcoats and went through the French doors to the garden. About the only good news was the impressive collection of blue bug-lights which crackled and sparkled as they attracted and electrocuted thousands of insects. The noise would make hash out of most recording attempts, and who would have expected either of them to eschew the house’s air conditioning?
“Thank you for responding to my message,” Cortez said pleasantly. It was not a time for bluster or posturing. It was time for business, and he’d have to appear appropriately humble before this man. It didn’t bother him. Dealing with people of his rank required it, and it was something he’d have to get used to, Félix expected. They needed deference. It made surrendering all the easier.
“What do you want to talk about?” Admiral Cutter asked.
“Your operations against the Cartel, of course.” Cortez waved toward a cane chair. He disappeared for a moment, then returned with the tray of drinks and glasses. For tonight, Perrier was the drink of choice. Both men left the alcohol untouched. For Félix, that was the first good sign.
“What operations are you talking about?”
“You should know that I had nothing personally to do with the death of Mr. Jacobs. It was an act of madness.”