The Brea File (17 page)

A rifle shot shattered the long silence of the night. Startled, Leroy Parrish gave an anguished cry. Macimer reached for him to silence him, but his attention was diverted. He stared at the point where he had seen the muzzle flash. The direction of the flash had been skyward. As if the rifleman were shooting at stars.

A faint hope grew as Macimer waited. Then a cool voice floated over the swamp. “You out there, Paul?”

He grinned in delicious relief. “Me and the snakes.”

“You got your pigeon with you, too?”

“He’s here, all in one piece.”

“Well, you can come out and dry off,” Gordon Ruhle said. “These old boys won’t be giving us any more trouble.”

Ruhle himself had jumped the man who had fired his rifle skyward in a reflex jerk of the trigger. Two other agents had overpowered a second terrorist. The third, wounded in the arm, had been found lying beside the attackers’ vehicle. Offering no resistance, he had even told the agents where to look for the Rothleder murder weapons buried at the edge of the swamp.

A long time ago, Paul Macimer thought, as he drove south from Washington toward Quantico. Looking back, it seemed like a different world. The lines of choice, so clear just a few years earlier, had already begun to blur a little in the mid-sixties. But there had been nothing uncertain or unclear about the satisfaction Macimer had felt when he labored out of that muddy bottom and found the three redneck terrorists subdued and handcuffed.

His reminiscent smile faded as he thought of Russ Halbig. Did Halbig also remember that night in Mississippi? On night duty at the Jackson Field Office, he had taken Macimer’s call. He had warned against the agents talking to any reporters. The three prisoners were to be brought quietly to Jackson while Macimer took Leroy Parrish into hiding.

Then, Macimer later learned, Halbig thoughtfully placed a call to Washington, D.C. By the time the agents reached Jackson with their prisoners early the next morning, J. Edgar Hoover, alerted by Halbig’s call, had personally released the announcement of their capture, thus scooping the hundreds of reporters who were in Mississippi that day.

For Paul Macimer, the Rothleder case was the high point of his tour of duty in Mississippi. Six months later he was transferred to northern California, where violent student anti-war protests were causing concern. Russell Halbig was rewarded for his role that night in Jackson by being assigned to the Administrative Division of the Bureau in FBI Headquarters. Gordon Ruhle stayed on in Mississippi for another four years. He had been particularly successful in developing a network of informants in the Klan. Ruhle became part of the FBI’s expanding operation in the South designed to disrupt and discredit the KKK, a program called COINTELPRO….

A long time ago, Paul Macimer thought again. Although their paths had sometimes crossed, that summer in Mississippi was the last time Ruhle, Halbig and Macimer had worked together. Now, at least for one night of nostalgia, Halbig was bringing them all together. Macimer wondered why.

Russ Halbig was not a sentimental man.

Some forty minutes after he left the Washington Field Office, Paul Macimer turned off Highway 95 as he spotted the first green sign announcing the presence of the big Marine base at Quantico. He followed the signs westward. About a half mile from the main highway a large brown bug splattered against Macimer’s windshield. Soon the collisions became frequent. One of the bugs landed in the trough for the windshield wipers. Only stunned, it clung there as Macimer drove on.

Suddenly the ugly brown bugs were everywhere. Neatly lettered green signs directed Macimer through portions of the Quantico Marine Base until he saw the sandstone towers of the twin seven-story dormitories of the FBI Academy. Sheltered in the air-conditioned silence of his car, the windows rolled up, Macimer drove through a dancing cloud of the bugs. Only when he stopped on the broad, hot parking area in front of the Administration Building and opened his door did the full assault of the locusts strike him.

The din was a solid canopy of sound. The shrill singing enclosed him and the brick-and-glass buildings and the surrounding woods like a dome over a stadium. Macimer hurried through the swarming cicadas, grimacing once in distaste when one of the bugs in flight struck him in the mouth. Close to the front of the building the swarm thinned out. Macimer plunged through the glass doors with a sharp feeling of relief.

In the wide lobby he brushed a couple of locusts from his jacket. Then he paused to catch his breath, staring back across the broad, sun-baked parking area and its unwanted carpet of brown. He had forgotten about the locusts. There was always concern, each time they reappeared in their periodic cycle, that they would overtake and destroy the quiet country towns in their path. The FBI Academy seemed impervious to this attack.

Macimer had been present when the new Academy, one of J. Edgar Hoover’s longtime dreams, was formally dedicated back in 1972. He remembered learning then how effectively isolated the agents and other Academy students were from the outside world. The new agents in training, and the other law enforcement officers selected for one of the eleven-week Academy training programs, were aware of neither the crying of locusts nor the humid June heat. The entire facility, including the administration buildings and classrooms, recreational and physical training facilities, and the tall dormitory buildings, was enclosed. Each building was connected to the others by way of glass-walled corridors. Except for visits to the outdoor firing ranges and specialized training sites, students at the Academy never had to set foot outside.

At the main desk in the lobby Macimer identified himself and asked where he could find Timothy Callahan. The clerk behind the counter checked a schedule on a clipboard. Callahan was giving a demonstration talk over at the Big Bird at eleven o’clock. The “Bird” was a grounded aircraft used in mock hijacking field exercises. It was located near the wooden tower used to demonstrate SWAT tactics in sniper situations.

“I can have a driver take you over there, Mr. Macimer. Mr. Callahan is going to describe the Florida hijacking, the one that happened Monday.”

Macimer glanced at the clock on the wall behind the desk. Almost a half hour, but that probably wasn’t time enough to catch Callahan, a talkative man, before his demonstration exercise. On the other hand, it gave him a few minutes to touch bases with Gordon Ruhle, his second reason for driving down to Quantico. He asked where Ruhle was lecturing.

There were two dozen small classrooms and a number of larger, seminar-sized conference rooms in the Academy, in addition to the thousand-seat main auditorium, the library, gymnasiums and conditioning rooms, cafeteria and coffee shop, lounges and dormitory facilities. Macimer found the seminar room number the clerk had given him and peered through the window set into the door.

The room was a miniature amphitheater, the rows of desks in ascending tiers looking down at the lecturer’s podium with its sophisticated modern teaching aids, which ranged from a series of retractable blackboards and graphics display boards to a television console and a small computer console with its keyboard and cathode ray tube display panel. A man stood before a blackboard, his back toward Macimer. There was no mistaking those wide shoulders, the forward thrust of the neck, the thick black hair turning iron gray. Macimer opened the door at the back of the room and slipped into a seat just as Gordon Ruhle turned around.

The older agent’s glare caught Macimer instantly, held him, then moved on without a change of expression. Macimer grinned. It was always one thing at a time with Ruhle, and duty came first. “I could make it short and sweet, what I think you should do about terrorists,” Gordon Ruhle said to the attentive group of agents. “You should line them all up against a wall and have your own Valentine’s Day garage sale.” He waited out the small explosion of laughter with its startled undercurrent. “But that isn’t the way we do it at the Bureau, of course. We have a manual and charter to go by. I’ll fill you in on what the Manual says, and maybe a few other things you should know about that aren’t in the book, as we go on.

“You’ve heard the old saw, if you want to catch a thief you have to think like a thief. Well, that applies to terrorists in spades. If you’re going to get anywhere dealing with them, whether you’re negotiating for the release of a hostage, bargaining, stalling for time, trying to convince them the game isn’t worth the candle, or whatever, you have to know the people you’re dealing with. You’ve got to know how they
think
.”

Gordon Ruhle paused. The room was in total silence, the creak of a desk coming like a shriek when one listener moved. Gordon still had that presence, Macimer thought. The agents in the room, all volunteers for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, knew that this speaker was not going to give them academic theories. He would say what he thought—and what he thought was the product of hard-earned experience in the field. The knowledge he spoke of that went beyond the FBI Manual was not printed anywhere; it was inside the heads of agents who had personally fought the battles against bank robbers and wartime spies, auto thieves and embezzlers, organized mobsters and corrupt public officials—and terrorists.

“The first thing you have to know,” Ruhle said, “and maybe it’s the last thing, too, and everything in between, is this—and don’t you ever forget it:
The terrorist doesn’t accept any of your rules
. He doesn’t believe in your moral or legal restrictions. He doesn’t recognize your laws. The only law he recognizes is his own. The only justice he believes in is what he creates for himself. There isn’t anything else. So he isn’t hamstrung by any nice ideas of right and wrong, of what can or cannot be done, of honor or duty or any of the other things that impose restraints on the actions of democratic governments.”

As Ruhle talked he prowled the miniature stage, flicking angry glares upward at the rows of agents. He didn’t have to raise his voice. No one had any trouble hearing him.

“It was Marx who said that revolutionary action has to be reckless,” Ruhle continued. “What he meant was, a revolutionary can’t be afraid of the results. He doesn’t care who gets hurt. The IRA doesn’t give a damn if some school kids or the parish priest gets blown up by a bomb along with the British soldier it’s intended for. The PLO doesn’t give a damn if a bunch of old women or nice old men are blown to bits by a bomb left in a market. The true terrorist doesn’t even care if
he
is the one who is wiped out along with his enemy. All he cares about are the results he wants, not the side effects. Hell, he’ll fill the playground swing with plastic explosive if that will get the results he wants. And he won’t lose any sleep over those kids.”

Gordon Ruhle stalked back to the lectern, glanced at the wall clock, which now read ten minutes before the hour. “That’s the message for today,” he growled. “We’ll start getting into specific tactics as we go along. Right now you’ve just about got time to jet over to the hijack demonstration and hear what Agent Callahan has to say. When it comes to terrorists, especially hijackers, he could write the book.”

* * * *

“You didn’t even blink,” Macimer said, bracing Ruhle near the doorway as his class of agent-students spilled along the wide, brown-carpeted corridor outside the classroom. “How did you know I’d show up for your sermon?”

“Halbig mentioned it. Did you let him put something over on you?” Ruhle asked with a laugh. “I thought I taught you better than that.”

“I should have guessed he’d tip you off. And if I were to make another guess, it would be that he’s asked you out to his place Saturday.”

“Yeah, you’ve got it. You and Jan gonna be there?”

“Yes. Is Mary here with you?”

“She’s coming in tomorrow for a weekend visit. When I tell her about Saturday being Homecoming Night, she’ll wet her pants.”

Macimer grinned. “It’s good to see you, even if you’re as ornery as ever. Did Halbig also tell you why I wanted to see you, besides friendship?”

Ruhle’s dark eyes sobered. “He told me about some file you’re looking for, has to do with the People’s Revolutionary Committee business back in ‘81, right?”

“That’s it. The Director has made this a ‘Special.’ That’s why I’d like you in on it with me.” The compliment was indirect but unmistakable, and Macimer saw something flicker in Ruhle’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” the older agent said thoughtfully. “Hell, Paul, you know ordinarily I’d jump at a chance to get in on something like that, but… this ATTF program is a volunteer thing, too. And it’s important.”

“I know it is. Look, let’s talk it over at lunch.” He checked his watch. “I have to see Callahan first—maybe I can catch him after his press conference.”

Both men grinned. Callahan’s relish for the media was well known, though it did not detract from his reputation as the chief of the FBI section dealing with hostage-holding terrorists. “I imagine there’s at least a couple of reporters here today for the big story,” Ruhle said.

“Are you coming over?”

“You know me and speeches. I wasn’t even planning on showing up for Landers’ show for the grads next week.” Ruhle shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Yeah, why not? I’ve heard the Irishman before, but it might impress the kids in my seminar if I show up. Besides, it’ll give us time to swap our own war stories.”

They drove over to the demonstration area in Macimer’s car. Macimer did not turn on the air conditioning for the short ride, and he quickly felt his shirt clinging to his back as the sweat built up under his suit jacket. He remembered a hundred other times the two men had ridden together, sharing a moment of triumph or frustration, a quiet council of war, the revelation that a case was about to break or a new child was on the way. They had been more than working partners, and sliding into the old, comfortable relationship was as easy as slipping on a pair of worn moccasins, shaped to the foot.

Macimer parked by the side of the road, looking down on an open field and the faded silver shell of a venerable C-54, acquired from the U.S. Air Force ten years ago. A crowd stood on the far side of the plane, their faces tilted upward. Macimer heard the metallic sound of an amplified voice. He could not see Timothy Callahan from the roadway, but the sea of faces in the crowd was turned toward the plane’s forward doorway.