The Brea File (30 page)

Then it was Henry Szymanski’s turn. The deficient security at Quantico had not been explained to the Director’s satisfaction.

And the failure of scores of FBI Lab technicians to find evidence that would lead to the identification and apprehension of the bombers was the subject of withering interrogation by the Director.

The FBI Lab, in spite of its favorable reputation with the general public, had sometimes been criticized—most notably, again, by Bill Sullivan—for being long on paper work and short on science. The lab’s purchase of a million-dollar high-resolution electron microscope had drawn the scornful observation that the lab’s scientists did not know how to use the supervoltage microscope after it was installed. The criticism, coming during the 1970s when the Bureau itself was the object of intensive media scrutiny, was not entirely fair; the truth was that the scientific community in general was slow to learn how to make effective use of these remarkable instruments. By 1984, however, as Szymanski’s report made clear, the FBI Lab was employing the electron microscope routinely for viewing single atoms, making information available on their organic and inorganic material structure to identify materials and their sources. The tests completed during the past five days, involving microscopic examination of minute fragments and scrapings from the scene of the bombing, had identified the specific Army plastic explosive used and the estimated quantity required to produce the resulting material stresses. It had been learned that the plastic substance had been implanted in the sill and frame of the doorway to the aircraft, concealed as rubberized sealant. The explosion had then been triggered by an acoustic activator rather than a mechanical, chemical or incendiary time-delay fuse.

“Acoustical!” Landers interjected.

“Callahan set it off himself,” Szymanski explained. “My people tell me the activator could have been set to respond to Callahan’s voice alone, to specific predictable words he might use or to a specific decibel level.” He paused a moment before adding, “That means, of course, that the bomb could have been planted at any time over a period of days prior to the actual explosion.”

The discovery proved that the criminals had access to and knowledge of sophisticated bomb activators, but it offered no further clue to the identity of those whom Szymanski termed “the perpetrators.”

When John L. Landers turned his attention to Russell Halbig, his mood was no more jovial. He questioned Halbig sharply about the identification of a young man murdered on Roosevelt Island Monday night as the thief who had stolen an FBI vehicle carrying classified documents, including the missing Brea file. “Has he been positively identified?”

“Yes, Director. His fingerprints are the same as those found in the stolen vehicle.”

“And Macimer discovered the body.”

There was a prolonged, heavy silence.

“What about this Antonelli?” Landers finally asked. “The private investigator who arranged by phone to meet Macimer on the island.”

“There is a PI named Antonelli in New York,” Halbig said, “but he was on a case in upstate New York yesterday. He never heard of Macimer, and he wasn’t in Washington. Those statements, of course, are being verified.”

“So someone else telephoned Macimer,” the Director said.

“A call from Antonelli—or someone using that name—was logged at the Washington Field Office. It has also been confirmed that Macimer received another call while at Hogate’s Restaurant. That call came at about seven o’clock. Macimer didn’t leave Hogate’s until around eighty-thirty, after eating dinner there.”

The Director studied Halbig curiously. Halbig had displayed no emotion over the revelation that his wife had had dinner with Paul Macimer at Hogate’s. Perhaps there was no reason for him to be disturbed. It was a chance meeting, Halbig had said. He had been working at FBI Headquarters until eight o’clock himself. He had hoped to meet his wife for dinner earlier but had phoned her in the afternoon to say that he would be unable to break away. Erika Halbig had then gone to Hogate’s on her own. Halbig had not known she was going there and had driven home alone, arriving shortly before his wife returned home in a taxi.

A cold fish, the Director was reminded.

“When can we expect the coroner’s report on the cause and time of Raymond Shoup’s death?” Landers asked.

Szymanski volunteered the answer. “The FBI Lab has already examined the preliminary police reports. They indicate death by drowning, but there are indications of violence. Shoup’s left wrist was broken. Time of death has tentatively been placed at between seven and ten o’clock last evening. We’ll know more definitely when the full autopsy report is completed.”

James Caughey said, “He could’ve broken his wrist when he fell.”

“That is a possibility,” Halbig admitted.

None of the four men in the conference room thought it was. Study of the footprints along the muddy path through the woods on the island confirmed the presence on the island of someone other than Macimer and Raymond Shoup. Castings had been made of those footprints. Additional tests would be made of the material under Shoup’s fingernails, and of his clothing, in the search for identifiable hair, skin, fibers and other substances. In spite of this, Macimer’s involvement had raised disturbing questions. No one seemed prepared to suggest that the Special-Agentin-Charge of the Washington Field Office might have been responsible for Raymond Shoup’s death, acting alone or with someone else, but the possibility hovered behind the other questions being asked. Macimer had recovered the boxes of stolen documents from the vehicle Raymond Shoup had stolen. The Brea file was missing, presumably taken by Shoup. Now Macimer had found Shoup dead, and the file was still missing.

“I know what you’re all thinking,” James Caughey said, “and I don’t buy any of it.”

“No one is being accused of anything—yet,” John Landers said sharply. “Not without proof.” He glared at his three executive assistants, none of whom spoke. Finally his angry gaze settled once more on Russell Halbig. “Have the Office of Professional Responsibility briefed on the entire case to date. I will talk to the Attorney General myself. The integrity of the Bureau is involved in this case. One way or another, I want it cleared up—and I want it before Monday!”

Landers did not have to remind the other men of another unspoken question hovering over the meeting: How would Senator Sederholm’s committee react to an FBI scandal on the eve of hearings to confirm Landers’ appointment as Director of the FBI?

* * * *

“How the hell did someone else get to Shoup before we did? How was he found?” Paul Macimer demanded. No one in the Washington Field Office had ever seen him angrier. “What the hell were we doing out there?”

Jack Wagner and Calvin Rayburn did not look at each other. They sat stiffly and uncomfortably in the two chairs across from Macimer’s desk, reluctant to draw personal attention by any movement. Wagner, for once, was unable to think of any humorous remark, and would not have made it if he did.

Finally Rayburn said, “We didn’t cut spoor, it’s as simple as that. Sometimes you have to get lucky.”

“I’d like to think we rely on something besides luck,” the SAC said sarcastically. He had picked up a pencil and was tapping it back and forth, reversing the ends. Watching him, Wagner thought of Johnny Carson, who used a pencil that way as an unconscious prop on his late-night television show. Wagner winced as Macimer abruptly snapped the pencil in half between his fingers. “Damn it, he didn’t live six blocks from Fedco—he was right under your noses all the time!”

After another awkward moment of silence, Wagner said, “What about the other guys? I guess they didn’t stumble on anything either.” He realized as he spoke that attempting to divert the heat to another target probably wasn’t going to work.

“What other guys?” Macimer snapped.

This time Wagner exchanged glances with Rayburn. He cleared his throat. “We weren’t the only ones assigned out there,” he said cautiously.

“You were the only ones from the Special squad—or from this office.” Macimer paused, suddenly alert. “Who did you see?”

“Well… I don’t know who he was, but I’d swear this one guy was Bureau. I spotted him Friday night at Fedco. I’ve seen him before, I know that.”

“What did he look like?”

Wagner shifted uneasily. He had the feeling he was walking through a minefield. “I didn’t get a real good look at him…”

“Just good enough to be sure you’d seen him before.” Macimer’s tone was dangerously soft.

“Yes, sir. But he was on surveillance, I’m sure of that. You get so you have a feeling for it.”

“Did you see him, too, Rayburn?”

Rayburn shook his head. He seemed relieved to be clear of that particular line of fire.

Macimer stared at Wagner. He too felt a prickle of warning over the suggestion that another agent had been looking for Raymond Shoup. Who was he? And who had assigned him to a case already being covered by the Special squad?

“You’re sure he wasn’t MPD?” Macimer asked abruptly.

Wagner broke off a shrug, seizing on the question as a possible way to safer ground. “Could be he was a city cop, someone I’ve met before. Maybe he was working another case altogether.” Wagner paused a moment before venturing to add, “But I was sure you’d put the kid out there…” His voice trailed off uncertainly.

“What kid?”

“Why… Stearns, of course. Agent Stearns.”

* * * *

Macimer didn’t bother with the intercom to call Stearns to his office. His summons rattled some glass partitions. Stearns entered hesitantly as Wagner and Rayburn hurried out, glad to escape. The young agent’s eyes were miserable, haunted by dark circles. Defeated, Macimer thought. He felt his anger drain away.

He allowed Harrison Stearns to sit in silence for a moment, pulling himself together, before he said, “Okay, let’s have it, Stearns. What were you doing at Fedco?”

In a dull, empty voice, bereft of hope for himself, Stearns recounted his attempt to trace the thief who had stolen his FBI vehicle, a theft Stearns held himself personally responsible for. The SAC’s expression remained impassive as the young agent described his after-hours vigils over the weekend. On Sunday night Stearns had thought he was onto something. He had followed a youth whom he had spotted loitering near the parking lot of Farrantino’s Restaurant, where there had been a number of recent thefts from parked cars. “I wondered if maybe our thief might not have a record because he wasn’t into stealing cars so much as stealing
from
them. Stealing my car might have been a freak thing because the keys just fell into his hand. This kid was acting suspicious, all right, but that’s all I had. I couldn’t be sure he was the right one. I followed him to this boardinghouse where he lived and I found out who he was. I figured that was all I could do then.”

Stearns had intended to pursue his investigation further when he finished his desk assignment Monday. As it happened, he didn’t get away from the WFO until after seven o’clock. He returned to the boardinghouse where he had tracked the suspect. He parked a short distance away and staked out the place from his car, but the youth never appeared. After two hours or so Stearns gave up for the night. By then, he now knew, Raymond Shoup was dead.

“Why didn’t you put your suspicions on report?” Macimer asked quietly.

“At that point I thought it was just a shot in the dark. I couldn’t be sure it was him.” There was a dogged truthfulness in the words rather than an attempt to justify himself. “I only saw him at a distance Sunday night, and it was dark. And I never got much of a look at the one I bumped into the night I lost the car.”

“If you’d made a report, we could have checked him out yesterday. Instead… someone else did.”

“But how did anyone else find him? How could anyone else know who he was?”

Macimer regarded the young agent with what was, under the circumstances, a surprising amount of sympathy. The fact was that, rather than making a second major blunder within a month’s time, Stearns had done a commendable piece of investigation on his own initiative. He had just missed breaking the case—arriving at the boardinghouse within minutes of the time Shoup left. Understandably, that was not the way Stearns saw it at the moment. It might not be the way Headquarters saw it.

“There’s only one way anyone else could have found Raymond Shoup,” Macimer said. There was no way to soften the blow. “He followed you, Stearns. He guessed that you might be on the right track, and he followed you.”

Harrison Stearns’s face was ashen in the seconds following Macimer’s quiet statement. “Oh my God!” he whispered.

* * * *

On the way to the hospital in Georgetown, Macimer stopped at the boardinghouse where Raymond Shoup had been staying and spoke briefly with the manager. Alice Volker had “just happened” to hear portions of a telephone conversation Shoup had had just before hurriedly leaving his room shortly after seven o’clock Monday evening. What the woman had heard was not helpful, but Macimer left his office and home phone numbers with her. She might remember something else, he suggested. Alice Volker seemed eager to cooperate. “Such a nice young man, he was,” she said, and Macimer guessed that she would repeat those words before television news cameras, if she hadn’t already done so. “Who could have done such a thing to him?”

Macimer drove on to Georgetown. Raymond Shoup had not been such a nice young man, but he hadn’t deserved his fate. Such ends were not neatly doled out; the punishment didn’t always fit the crime. Shoup had died because he knew too much—or asked for too much. Or simply because he had the file.

And was the Brea file now in the hands of his murderer?

Macimer found a space in the crowded visitors’ parking lot at Georgetown University Hospital and sat for a moment in the car, ignoring the heat that quickly gathered under the roof on this hot, bright morning. He thought of the way he had been manipulated by the man who called himself Antonelli—a man almost certainly involved in Raymond Shoup’s death. The youth’s murder had been cold-bloodedly planned. And Macimer had been meant to find him.