system.
“Stone told Agent Grey that he was born in Ohio as a deliberate misdirection so that if anybody checked, they would not find Julius Emerson Phelps in that state and maybe just give up. It was another layer of deception. One more possible escape route.” Peter Abbott nods and opens a file. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” “It’s a love story!” I announce to a dozen sets of startled eyes. “The greatest love story ever told! She’s a radical professor; he’s an undercover FBI agent. They fall in love. He busts her out of jail and they join the revolution. Now they’re old and gray, still together, still fighting for the cause.” Peter Abbott sends me a squinty, patient smile and drinks some water. There is a moment of silence.
“We have a former agent who flipped.” Galloway waves an unlit cigar impatiently. “That’s the whole deal right there.” He taps Stone’s rookie ID photograph, which shows a handsome, square-jawed young man wearing a white shirt and a suit with narrow lapels and a skinny tie. He has the steely, unspoiled look of a new cadet. Invincible confidence.
It stops my mind to imagine that the same hazelnut farmer who builds bombs and gets off on Blue Oyster Cult went through the Academy in Quantico, just like I did. That once upon a time, we shared the same ideals.
“That’s the way my mind works,” he said of the hazelnut trees.
Military discipline and control.
“He was a silver-spoon kid from Connecticut with a law degree from Yale,” Galloway raps out. “Gung ho on the Bureau, wanted to be led the right way and do the right thing. He starts out on a moral crusade but gets corrupted by the forces he’s mingling with — drug dealers, radicals. Apparently, he had a powerful father on Wall Street.” “It’s always about the father.” Angelo winks grotesquely at Peter Abbott with his bad eye.
“Maybe part of it was rebellion,” Galloway says, “but we didn’t have undercover school and contact agents back then. These single guys had no support system, nothing to pull them back to our side. The subculture was their best friend. Stone was in his twenties, let’s remember, living with the hippies and vulnerable to their influence. They told him America was wrong. Capitalism was wrong. The war in Vietnam was wrong. Marxism was right. Law enforcement meant working for the Establishment. Does that jibe with your impression of Stone at the time?” he asks Abbott.
“He was stubborn. Not a team player.”
“Agent Grey worked up a profile of the bomber who made the signature device that killed Steve. Older. Impatient. Practical. Doesn’t care about perfection.” Abbott: “I’ve read it.”
Galloway nods. “There are still some people in the Bureau who think Stone got a bum deal.” “From
“That he took the fall for our failed policies. Spying on civilians did not turn out to be a popular song.” People shift uncomfortably, loyalty prickling. We give it our all, every day. Don’t ask us to justify the past.
Galloway shrugs. “There was no understanding of the psychological vise you put someone in when they go deep cover. It’s not easy to assimilate back.” Angelo: “At this point, what does headquarters want?”
“We want Stone.”
Galloway: “Do we walk in with federal warrants and blow the operation? Or do we see where this is going? This could be bigger than Stone. We don’t know. We’re just getting our arms around it.” “I’ll tell you one thing.” Angelo is leaning forward, elbows on the table. It is interesting that he in his narco threads and I in my Oregon grunge have cornered one end of the table: two actors still in wardrobe; street players in a room of merchants. “We should install a listening device in Omar’s bar. Put undercovers there around the clock. If that’s where Stone hangs out, and where they buy and sell, it’s likely he gets his explosives there, and Steve Crawford was following the trail.” “Done,” says Abbott. “I understand Agent Grey is embedded in the cell?” “I’m not in bed with them yet, sir.”
Galloway shoots me a warning look, but Abbott only chuckles.
“Stone won’t let her on the farm,” Galloway explains. “His paranoia is aroused. She’s got to make her bones with the organization.” “We’ve been kicking around a sting operation.” I sense Abbott’s support and decide to cash in the chips. “The BLM is doing its annual roundup of the wild horses. They cull the weak ones from the herd, put them up for adoption, and send the rest back to the wild. It’s called ‘a gather.’ We don’t like it.” “We?”
“Me and my homies in the movement. The BLM uses helicopters to run the horses down.
“Do you have any doubts about continuing?”
“Why would that even cross my mind?”
Abbott’s expression is predatory, like that of a tiger carefully placing one paw after the other in a nest of snakes.
“I understand you’ve gone through critical-incident training.” I stand, parka flying, looking like a raving homeless person among the suits. “What are you implying, sir?” Donnato: “Take it easy.”
Abbott: “I’m wondering about your emotional stability.”
“Not an issue. I’ve been certified for duty. I’ve been living with the bad guys, taking calculated risks every day, and it’s paying off. I know the territory. Let me get in and I’ll get this guy.” Peter Abbott doesn’t lift that wise, prowling stare from my face.
“Remaining undercover, knowing who he is, will be difficult. The mission has changed,” he reiterates evenly. “We are asking you to occupy close quarters with an agent that you know has gone milk-sour. It’s a psychological minefield.” “I am able and committed.”
He folds his clean white fingers.
“Thank you, Agent Grey. Would you mind stepping out of the room?” “A covert operation is still the way to go,” I insist. “I formally request to stay on as the undercover—” “He realizes that,” says Galloway, interrupting me.
I have noticed a good boss knows when to save you from yourself.
I gather my stuff and leave. Donnato, playing with his handcuffs, does not look up. He’s on the boys’ team now.
Exiting the intensity of the conference room to the quiet bull pen, I walk an aimless circle, lost in the desert. Rosalind, an administrative assistant who has worked at the Bureau for more than thirty years, gets up from her desk and pads over like a little engine, huffing and puffing with asthma.
“Hot in the kitchen?” she inquires gently.
“Like walking on coals. I think I’m out.”
I set my backpack down and unscrew a jar of oatmeal cookies, inhaling the calming scent of raisins and brown sugar. I suppose the two of us make a funny pair commiserating at the coffee machine — me all wired, down a few pounds, wearing scuzzies, Rosalind wizened and round, in a black dress with cheap gold buckles, sporting processed hair. She can hardly walk on her swollen ankles, but even the Bureau wouldn’t dare let her go.
“Don’t let them get to you, honey. The men like to pretend they know what’s going on, but it’s barely controlled mayhem. You should have seen them with their tails between their legs whenever the director came out.” “J. Edgar Hoover came to Los Angeles?”
“Oh, yes,” says Rosalind, fishing a vanilla wafer from a bag. “When the director was coming, you had to paint the whole office all over again.” “No kidding.”
“I got sent home one time because I was wearing pants.”
“You couldn’t wear pants?”
“Uh-uh. Ladies could wear a pants
