Too many swirling questions about all this back in Washington. The FBI brass is saying one thing. The rank and file is leaking something decidedly different to the New York Times and the rest of the press.
This assassination attempt is my fucking story. I was almost killed.
I need your information to get something together on this. I need to know how you know.'
In police work, detectives say you don't really need a motive, that they can try you just fine based strictly on physical evidence, especially with the advent of DNA testing, and I suppose much the same is true of reporting. Information, especially good information, is valuable no matter how you come across it. Still, it's always good to know the motive of the person giving it to you, if that's how you're getting it. Subtleties can be shaded, or accented, or even omitted, all for the sake of the proper pitch. As a reporter, I like to know what I'm dealing with, and why.
In this particular case, I sensed that Daniel Nathaniel might feel threatened by the burgeoning strength of the Wyoming militia generally, and of Billy Joe Walbin specifically. Fear is a good and trustworthy motive, when properly understood. I knew I could play this to my favor.
He said, 'Take the information to the bank.'
I replied, 'The only place I can take it is to my editor, who's going to demand to know how you know. And unless you tell me, it will never see the light of day. Never. And think what a waste that will be.'
After a pause, Nathaniel looked me in the eye and said, 'I have a pipeline into his group, but if that gets into print, my source is dead, and maybe so am I. But I know this reliably. They held a meeting. They have been planning this for about six weeks. The information is good.'
That takes care of that. I felt my hand balling up into a fist again.
All that adrenaline. 'What conditions are we talking under?' I asked.
Nathaniel knows the game pretty well, knows how to use the press to his advantage, like all those high government officials back in Washington who he claims to despise.
'A source familiar with the nation's militia movement,' he said.
That seemed too vague, leaving open the possibility it was a law enforcement official. I didn't like it.
'No good. How about a well-placed militia leader?'
'And the day you print that, you can come out and cover the assassination of Daniel Nathaniel for your paper.'
Fair enough, though I still grimace when people refer to themselves by name like that, as if their very sense of greatness transcends who they are.
'Right. An authority who monitors developments within the militia movement?' I suspected he'd like this, being called an authority and all.
He thought for a moment and said, 'Good.'
I checked my watch for the time: 2:30 P.m. Pacific, meaning 5:30 in Boston. West Coast stories are a killer, given the deadline issues.
Much to my joy, or maybe relief, I had achieved more than I thought I would on this trip. The problem now was getting it into print.
'Let's go back over some of this,' I said. 'Have you had any direct contact with Walbin? Did he send a bulletin around to other militias that this was going to happen? Did he seek your advice?'
Nathaniel said, 'Look, we're not the fucking King Sisters. You know us better than that. I mean, we don't all pick up the phone every night and make small talk with each other, telling everyone else what we're doing the next day. And some of these guys, they're just weird, I don't know what the fuck they're doing.'
'You learned about this but didn't go to the feds with it?'
'I don't like the feds.'
Good point. I pressed him but didn't get any more. He did say he had received calls in the last couple of days from reporters with the New York Times and the Washington Post, but hadn't returned them. I love it when people tell me that.
'I'll pass on your regrets when I see them,' I said. Finally, I added,
'I have to run. I appreciate your help. You around tomorrow? I'd like to call you for some more info, or some clarification. But I'm on deadline right now, right up against it.'
'Call me,' he said, nodding his head at me, still flat. He hit a button on his desk, and his two security goons came in. The interview was over. I bade a quick farewell to Nathaniel. It wasn't exactly friendly, because we're not exactly friends.
Outside, I drove down the dusty road as fast as the rental Grand Am would take me, slowing down at the guard shack on the way out only so the kid there could see me flipping him the middle finger. I thought I saw him reach for his gun, but was far out of view by the time he would actually have been able to pull it. He was probably just scratching a sore.
Decision time. No matter how I argued it in my own mind, I knew this story would benefit from another day of responsible reporting and thinking. Problem was, this was daily journalism, and responsibility and thought didn't have a fixed place here. I was caught in what is known as a cycle, when newspapers and networks breathlessly publish and broadcast scraps of information, half-truths, even nontruths, all, ironically, in the name of prominence and respect. This was about competition, not about reader enlightenment.
As I sped down the highway toward Coeur d'Alene, the pines smacking past me out my side windows, I replayed the day. The most prominent militia movement leader in the nation was saying, for the first time, that the assassination attempt was likely part of a militia-related conspiracy born in the hills of rural Wyoming. It was enough of a story to get the Record credit on the morning wires and network shows again. Whether it was enough to get this anonymous old man to call me again, I couldn't be sure. He hadn't called after my last Hutchins interview, which was beginning to make me nervous.
Still, there were many unanswered questions here, chief among them, Who was Billy Walbin and what might he have to say about this? Could Stevens or Drinker add anything? Would they? Was the FBI already on to the Wyoming angle, or would this be news to them? Right now, the story had more holes in it than Tony Clawson. On deadline on a Monday evening, I doubted whether I would be able to fill them.
It was only 3:00 P.m. here, but already the sun was getting weak, and I flipped the heat on low. I had a batch of calls to make on my cell phone. The first was to my travel agent, to see what time their last flight of the day left from Spokane. The destination of the second call was a little less clear. Should I put my hopes in Stevens, or in Drinker?
I had had more contact with Stevens, but doubts nagged over whether she had the stature, the authority, or even the confidence to leak me information of any great quality. Actually, I doubted that she did.
Drinker was a more interesting case. From my research, I knew he had helped reporters in the past on significant stories.
It's like a narcotic, the modern information game. Suddenly, obscure bureaucrats or hamstrung officials can see their secretly leaked information appear in print or on television before hundreds of thousands of people, shaping public discourse, influencing policy, getting results. And all without attribution. Once in, always in, and I decided right then that Drinker would be my best shot, so I placed my next call to FBI headquarters in Washington.
'Director Drinker's office, please,' I told the receptionist.
The phone rang six times before it kicked over to a woman's recorded voice, asking me to please leave a message. I hung up and called back the main number.
I said, sounding both confident and dismissive, something that came a little too naturally, 'Hi, I'm trying to get Assistant Director Kent Drinker paged. Can you help me out?'
The man was anything but helpful. 'Can't do that,' he said. 'If his secretary's not in, I can pass you through to his voice mail and you can leave a message there.'
He seemed about to do just that when I butted in. 'Look, this is Jack Flynn calling. I'm a witness to the assassination attempt on President Hutchins. I have some new information on the incident, and it is urgent that I talk to Drinker right away.'
The operator hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then he said gruffly, 'Hold on.' A couple of long minutes later, he came back on the line. 'I can try him, but I can't guarantee anything. You have a number he can call you back on?'
