Authors: James Mills
Two yards of grass ran between the curb and the sidewalk. With her feet still in the gutter, she lay back, stared up at the
stars, and thought about what Gus would want her to do. She fell asleep.
A sound next to her head brought her suddenly upright, dazed but awake.
“Mrs. Parham? Are you all right?”
It was Todd.
“Oh, Todd, where did you come from? What time is it?”
“It’s five
A.M.
What are you doing here?”
“Well, where would I be, Todd? I live up there, remember? Didn’t anyone think of that?”
“We didn’t know where you were. We’ve been searching for you.”
“I left a note. No one saw the note?” Why was she arguing with Todd? It wasn’t his fault. “Where are my husband and daughter?”
“I think you should come with me.”
“Where are they?”
“Carl can explain it better than I can.”
“Are they all right? Are they hurt?”
“No, they’re okay. Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk.”
He helped her up.
“I’m sorry, Todd. Excuse me. I’m not angry at you. I’m just tired. Where is everyone?”
“Come with me.”
Todd led her past the barricades to a huge tractor-trailer truck with
FBI
written on the sides.
Carl was inside, sitting with a half-dozen other men and women at one of two counters running along the sides of the truck.
When he saw her, he shouted, “Michelle!” and slammed down a telephone. “Where the hell—let’s go next door.”
He took her hand, none too gently, and hurried her into a neighboring Winnebago camper ATF was using as an office and conference
room. They sat in a small sitting room with chairs, a sofa, and a coffee table.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Where are Gus and Samantha?”
Carl told her everything he knew—the Mercedes station wagon, the explosives dogs, the opinions of all the experts.
“So that’s where they are now. In the limousine.”
Michelle said, “But they’re safe?”
“Safe as anyone can make them. If the Mercedes has the maximum explosives it could possibly have, and if those explosives
are the most powerful they could be, and if it goes off with the maximum effect, Gus and Samantha will experience a very rocky
ride inside the limousine, and they may suffer cuts and bruises, but they’ll be okay. That’s why they’re still there. It’s
safer than running the risk of trying to bring them out.”
During the night, Gus allowed Samantha out of the car once to go to the bathroom in the garage. He turned on the ignition
to activate the electrical system, and lowered the windows. He left them down for one minute, then closed them and turned
off the ignition. It failed to make anything cooler, and the odor of urine and feces in the garage was worse than the odor
of sweat in the car. He decided not to lower the windows again.
When Gus awoke Friday morning, the phone was buzzing.
“Gus, it’s Carl. How was your night?”
Gus looked at his watch. Five-thirty. A few rays of light penetrated the garage windows. Samantha was curled into a corner
of the seat, still asleep.
“The night was hot, is how the night was. Carl, where is—”
“Before you say anything, you might like to know that CNN is broadcasting pieces of our telephone conversations, even—”
“They broke the scrambling?”
“Not yet. They’re broadcasting the scrambled signals, just to show what they sound like. But NSA says the networks have approached
foreign intelligence sources, offer
ing high prices for decryption devices, and may have them at any time. When the people behind this operation will have a device—or
if they have one now—is less clear. To answer the question you were about to ask, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“What was lost has been found. No damage, no problems. Don’t worry. We’ve also heard from someone else. You remember L.Y.?”
Larry Young.
“Of course. What’s happened?”
“He’s back in London, called Carl, said he’d heard something on a radio station, not much. I guess the foreign media isn’t
that interested in our courts, but he wants to know is it true there’s a threat, what’s going on, is Samantha safe.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I didn’t want to alarm him. I told him she’s fine, don’t worry about a thing, I’ll keep him advised. He seemed relieved.”
Even if Larry knew everything, how could he help? Gus wanted to tell Rothman about Samantha.
“Concerning what you just said about this phone, what if I had something critical to say?”
“How critical?”
My daughter’s a killer. Is that critical enough?
“Immediately, not very. But overall, extremely.”
“Don’t say any more. Let me talk to the technicians.”
Carl hung up, and Gus put the phone back between the armrests.
Half an hour later, when Samantha awoke, they each had a swallow from a half-bottle of Evian mineral water
they’d found in the bar. Five minutes later they were thirsty again. He should have saved all the water for Samantha, taken
whiskey for himself. He wondered how much alcohol he could handle in this heat. He didn’t want to face a choice of drunkenness
or dehydration.
Perspiration poured from him. He had tremendous admiration for Samantha’s courage. She appeared to have made a vow not to
complain.
He said, “How are you?”
“Okay.”
“Thirsty?”
“Just a little. It’s okay.”
She had the cards out, laying them down on the seat between them for a game of solitaire.
The phone buzzed.
“Gus, it’s Phil.”
Rothman. “Give us some good news.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Gus. In fact …”
Rothman’s voice broke.
“What is it, Phil? Is Michelle all right? What’s happened?”
“I’m sorry, Gus. It’s your father. I’m sorry.”
What Rothman had to say was obviously worth the risk of someone unscrambling the conversation.
“The maid found him in his bedroom this morning. He’s dead. I’m sorry, Gus.”
Samantha’s eyes were on him. She knew it was bad news.
“How did it happen?” He tried to hide his shock. He didn’t want to upset Samantha. He’d been with his father yesterday morning,
listening to an incredible tale of disastrous judgment and attempted blackmail. He should have guessed, he should have done
something.
“We just received a copy of a two-sentence note the police found with the body. You want me to read it to you?”
“Please.” The limo seemed even hotter now. The poor man. What a life—all that money and nothing else, just lies and misery.
“Here it is. ‘Please forgive me for the trouble I am causing. I saw Gus this morning and he will be able to explain.’”
“Who’s it addressed to?”
“No one. It was handwritten on a piece of notepaper lying on the bed next to the body.”
“How did he do it?”
“The coroner thinks pills. There were four empty prescription containers in the bathroom sink. Barbiturates. They’ll do an
autopsy.”
There was a long silence while Rothman waited for Gus to say something. Finally, Rothman asked, “What do you think happened?”
“I know what happened.” Gus held the phone, not speaking, then he said, “Give me a minute, Phil. I’m going to put the phone
down, but don’t hang up.”
Gus lowered the instrument to his lap and put his head back and closed his eyes.
Samantha didn’t say a word. She had picked up the cards, held them in her hand. After a couple of minutes Gus said, “It’s
about my father, Samantha. He killed himself last night.”
He heard her breathe, a tiny gasp, a little girl’s shock, disbelief dissolving into sadness. She knew about sudden death,
and she was wise enough to say nothing. He felt her hand touch his forearm. Her grip made him want to cry. He opened his eyes
and put the phone to his lips.
“You’d better prepare yourself, Phil. This is going to be a big one.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Are you worried about decryption?”
“Screw decryption. We’ll risk it.”
“You want it all now? It’ll take a few minutes.”
“Let’s do it now.”
“Two days ago my father called and said he had to see me immediately. Wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but he had to see
me. So yesterday morning I flew up to Connecticut, and we had coffee in his study. He said he had something to tell me that
was shameful and humiliating and that he hoped I might somehow be able to forgive him for.”
Gus glanced at Samantha. She had released his arm, and her eyes were filled with fear and curiosity.
“He told me that when he was serving on the board of directors of a tobacco company nineteen years ago—I don’t know how much
you know about my father, Phil.”
“Not much.”
“He’s an attorney,
was
an attorney, worked eleven years for an investment bank on Wall Street, had lots of friends in that world and lots of money.
He was always terrified of losing his money, of somehow not having enough money. He called it security. He never had a minute’s
peace in his life, Phil. He never talked about anything but money, business, and security. I couldn’t’ve cared less. I should
have tried harder to understand. He was on a lot of boards over the years and I wasn’t surprised when he told me that one
of them had been this tobacco company, Briggs & Paulman.
“He said nineteen years ago, when he was associated with Briggs & Paulman, a Colombian businessman he knew came to him with
an idea. The guy was talking about all the
bad press the tobacco industry was getting over what he called the cancer business, and that none of it had really been proved,
and it was basically a lot of lies. So they talked about that, and then the guy said something like, ‘Yeah, just like all
the lies people tell about marijuana and cocaine,’ how natives in the Andes have been using coke for centuries and it’s just
a cultural thing, never did any of them any harm. And it turns out this guy is an expert because he’s in the timber business
and his forests are in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia and he knows all about the coca trade.
“My father told me that back then he didn’t know much about the subject at all, didn’t care much either, and then the guy
started talking about how much money there was in the marijuana and coke business and someday when it’s not illegal anymore
how someone’s going to make a killing. The guy tells him that when those drugs are legal and you don’t have to pay millions
in bribes and commissions, all that money will be profit. The guy said it would be a hundred times what tobacco produces.
“I was sitting there in my father’s study, drinking coffee with him, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My father
told me he started asking questions and the guy answered them and they decided to meet again. They met three or four more
times and finally some lawyers brokered an agreement between my father, Briggs & Paulman, and this guy’s forestry company.
I asked my father, ‘What kind of agreement,’ and he squirmed and looked into his cup and the next time he looked up, where
I could see his eyes, he was crying.
“I’d never seen my father cry before. It embarrassed the hell out of me. He said they signed an agreement that if someday
marijuana or cocaine was no longer illegal, Briggs
& Paulman and my father and this timber guy would become partners in the growing, production, marketing, and distribution
of the legal drug. He said he knew that today it sounded crazy that anyone would sign an agreement like that, but that back
then cocaine wasn’t the big thing it is now, and no one knew much about it, and he thought tobacco and alcohol were a lot
worse and nobody cared about them, so he didn’t think that much about it.
“I asked him who this guy was, and he said his name was Roberto Vicaro-Garza. Roberto is the father of Ernesto, and the forestry
company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Translnter. My father had been talking to the biggest coke dealer in the world—I
mean Roberto Vicaro
was
in the forestry business, but he was in lots of other businesses besides, including drugs—and I guess my father must have
known who he was. But it was money, it was business, and they were talking about if and when it ever became legal. And I met
this guy, Phil. I took a trip to Colombia with my father the summer before law school, and I actually
met
the guy.
“So what happened, three days ago John Harrington came to see my father. He told him he knew about the agreement—Ernesto Vicaro
was a client of his and had a copy of it. It was clear that if marijuana or cocaine were decriminalized, Briggs & Paulman
and my father would be in a position to make a fortune. Harrington said he was concerned that people would think the reason
I wanted to be on the Supreme Court was so I could speed the repeal of anti-drug laws and make a lot of money from the legalization.
Harrington said the best way to avoid that scandal, of course, would be for me to withdraw, and if I did that Har
rington could assure my father that the existence of that agreement would remain secret.
“So my father wanted me to withdraw. He begged me. He was in tears.”
Gus stopped talking, and Rothman had the good sense not to interrupt the silence. Samantha was staring at the seat back.
In a minute Gus said, “There was no way I could tell my father what he wanted to hear. He kept saying, ‘But the family, the
family, think of the scandal.’ He said, ‘They’ll call me a dope dealer. The newspapers will say I’m a drug trafficker. There’ll
be investigations, the police will get into it, I might be indicted.’
“I tried to convince him that he hadn’t done anything even remotely criminal, but he wouldn’t listen. ‘Think of the family,
think of the scandal.’ I’d never seen him like that. He was sobbing, really, just coming apart.
“Then I guess it got through to him that I was not going to let this make me withdraw, and he stopped crying and said he understood,
of course I couldn’t withdraw, he was sorry to make such a scene, please forgive him, forget the whole thing, he hoped I wouldn’t
find it necessary to talk about the conversation with anyone else. I really thought he’d come to his senses and everything
was more or less all right. I was going to talk to you and Dutweiler about it, what he’d said, Harrington’s threat. Then I
ended up in this limo and I never had the chance.”