Charlie sat facing him at one of the three schoolteacher-style desks in the tiny and otherwise unoccupied detectives’ bureau. Doxstader stood outside the door, in the lobby, feigning interest in the M amp;M’s machine, but obviously eavesdropping.
“If I were acting as your attorney, I’d have had you out of here before my helicopter left the pad at Langley,” Eskridge continued. “But as someone whose concern is national security, I have a reservation that needs to be addressed first.”
Charlie confessed, “I realize I haven’t exactly taken a textbook approach to things, but there’s a chance some good has come out of it.”
Eskridge stiffened. “Do you have another tip for us?”
“No, not a tip-”
“Good. The Secret Service, not knowing better, believed you. They trumped up a charge to yank Mr. Clemmensen away from the marina. Then they inspected his yacht stem to stern. The closest they found to contraband was a bottle of Aqua Velva. Clemmensen himself is a speeding ticket shy of being Mother Teresa. And if he weren’t such a good old good ol’ boy, we’d have ourselves a flap now.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Good. Now-”
“There’s one other yacht there that’s just in from the Caribbean, registered to a family named Campodonico-”
Eskridge cut him short. “Listen, Charlie, you acted heroically in Fort-de-France. Everyone commends you; everyone is grateful. But if we were to go after anybody else without probable cause, we would be on a witch hunt, and we don’t do witch hunts, despite what you may read on blogs. The people paid to do this sort of investigating are currently in India, based on good intelligence. To conduct an investigation based on anything less is begging for a flap.” Eskridge paused to think. “Why is the name Campodonico so bloody familiar?”
From outside, Doxstader said, “The anthropologist.”
“Ah, yes, right.” Eskridge turned back to Charlie. “He writes coffee table books on indigenous tribal rock painting. My wife has given me several of them as Christmas gifts. So, yes, Campodonico is, in a way, a terrorist.”
Charlie wanted to argue for an unofficial peek into the life of Tom Campodonico, but he recognized that he stood a better chance of convincing Eskridge to launch a new investigation into the Kennedy assassination. Tonight.
“So you have a choice to make, Charlie Clark. You can stay here-the company has no power to detain you. On the other hand, Mobile’s finest may find-
“I promise,” said Charlie.
Eskridge nibbled at his lower lip, seemingly unconvinced. “Where will you go?”
“A few hours drive from here, in Mississippi, there’s a casino where I have a good relationship with a couple of slot machines.”
“Congratulations, you’re a free man.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said.
He had every intention of going to Mississippi tonight.
And returning to Alabama first thing in the morning.
9
Earlier that same night, Bream sat at the helm of the Campodonicos’ sixty-foot cabin cruiser, entering Mobile Bay, the sky so dark and the water so gentle that if it weren’t for the salty air, he might have believed he was chugging through outer space.
He dreamed of sitting at a bar, his fingers wrapped around a cold bottle of Bud.
The yacht had plenty of beer, and the plush cabin was much more comfortable than any of the seedy dockside dives that would still be open when he reached the marina. He’d been at sea for the better part of four days, though. He could have covered the distance from Saint Lucia in two days and change, but so as not to raise any eyebrows in the Coast Guard radar stations, he’d dropped anchor for one night at Saint Kitts and stayed a second night in Anguilla. Now he felt as if sea salt clogged his pores. Not much of a seaman, he longed for the “firma” sensation of terra firma.
And he was close. But he still had to pass Customs and Border Protection. Along the 95,000 miles of American coastline and in 3.4 million square miles of ocean territory, CBP had to contend with 15 million registered small vessels and another 10 million unregistered. And the agency’s primary job was commercial traffic. Consequently, CBP agents boarded only about 45,000 small vessels per year, or 1 in 500. Under ordinary circumstances, Bream stood a better chance of being boarded by pirates.
Of course, illegally ferrying a nuclear weapon hardly rated as ordinary circumstances. An added worry was that the cutout from Lahore, Dr. Jinnah, might have figured out that he’d been an unwitting part of a false trail meant to lead the CIA to the United Liberation Front of the Punjab’s door. An even greater risk was defrocked Air Force intel operative Corky Morrison, Bream’s surfer boy “associate”-a little meth money and the mercenary would spill all he knew. Accordingly, when Bream had rendezvoused with the Zodiac near Saint Lucia, he had shot both men. His only choice. Live men tell tales.
The unbelievably resourceful Alice Rutherford had killed the remaining mercenaries-Carlo Pagliarulo, Lothar von Gentz, and Klaus Wagner-saving Bream the trouble. And in helping Charlie land the plane, she had helped perpetuate the Punjab diversion. Otherwise Morrison, monitoring the flight, would have stepped in via radio.
And if Alice now reported what she’d learned about Bream, fine. He no longer existed, effectively.
Nosing the yacht into his slip at the sleeping Mobile Bay Marina, he telephoned the local CBP office. “Hey, y’all, Tom Efferman here, fresh back from the beautific island of Saint Lucia,” he told the voice mail. As he’d anticipated, the office had long since closed for the day.
Tom Efferman was a damned fine alias. In 1976, in rural Blue Ridge, Georgia, a horse bucked, throwing five- year-old Thomas Efferman to the ground. The animal’s front hooves slammed onto the boy’s head, permanently damaging his brain. He subsequently left his mother’s trailer only on Christmas, if he was able.
Four years ago, Bream-born in 1971 in Nashville and given the name Maddox Mercer-learned of the boy when hacking the database of an organization that delivered holiday meals to the homebound. Thomas Efferman’s social security number was all Bream needed for the state of Georgia to send a copy of the boy’s birth certificate to an accommodation address he’d set up in Montgomery, Alabama. With the birth certificate in hand, obtaining an Alabama driver’s license under the name Thomas Efferman was a relatively simple matter of passing the driver’s test. The boating license was simpler still.
Prior to meeting with Qatada, Bream-as Efferman-had offered to rent the Campodonicos’ yacht. The couple needed money, having underbudgeted their retirement and overestimated the sales of books about tribal rock paintings. In the Campodonicos’ patrician yacht club social set, renting carried a stigma. Bream had figured that out in advance of contacting them. In person, he suggested, “How about we just tell folks I’m your nephew or cousin?”
Now he steered their yacht’s starboard side even with the dock. Technically, he couldn’t go get his Budweiser-or disembark at all-until he had either passed a CBP inspection or received the call from CBP releasing him. But the CBP folks were in bed, and the cops enforced the shipboard regulation with less frequency than they busted up penny-ante poker games.
As he bounded onto the quiet dock, two Mobile policemen materialized out of the darkness.
Standing unnaturally straight, Bream said, with a slight stammer, “Evening, officers, how y’all doing?” As an innocent man would.
“ ‘Evening, sir,” both cops said as they hurried past on the way to Clem Clemmensen’s boat.
