Judas Horse

dangerous.

I wonder if Dick Stone felt the same strange dissociation when he first checked in as an undercover agent, with long hippie hair and a stud in his ear, having seen things and done things with nubile hippie chicks that would cause straight-arrow agents to fall on their knees and pray for his counterculture-corrupted soul.

It’s not easy to assimilate back.

“You miss the long-timers?”

“We were young,” Rosalind says. “We had fun with the agents. Well, you had to call them ‘Mr.’ They called us by our first names, of course, but I had a lot of respect for those young men. And they all smoked like chimneys! But they were good family men,” she pronounces. “They were nice.” She clucks her tongue and sweeps a dismissive hand. “Not like now. You can keep that Peter Abbott.” “Tell me about it. He’s the one who grilled me.”

“Back in the seventies, when we were into the security stuff, he was a supervisor, yes, on the beard squad. That’s what we called it. The young agents who went after the draft dodgers and the hippies. You should have seen Peter Abbott when he first came out to the West Coast. Green as the grass and twice as bristly.” “Why bristly?”

“Acting like he’s royalty. Never let us forget his dad was on a high committee in the Justice Department. Congressman Abbott he calls his dad, Congressman Abbott decides what toilet paper we get and how the Bureau wipes its behind, so you-all keep in line. When the truth is”— she lowers her voice—“Congressman Abbott was investigated for taking bribes.” “Anything come of it?”

Rosalind scoffs. “Too well-connected. His son comes out here and gets a free pass right to Hollywood. Well.” She chuckles. “You know how they love G-men in the movies. The stars like a fella who carries a gun. And there was that show on TV about the FBI back then. The movie people wanted their favors and privileges, and they came to the new guy, and young Peter Abbott, he was so excited, he just went off on a tangent.” I laugh. “Who was it?”

“Not like an actress in particular. It was poker games with entertainment lawyers. Tennis games with the famous movie directors. He got on great with the big shots but had problems managing the gentlemen working underneath him,” she recalls. “The street agents.” “Like Dick Stone?” I ask quickly. “He was on the beard squad.” Rosalind’s large watery eyes show recognition. “I remember him. He was straight as an arrow until he started working on that squad. Comes back to the office all scuzzy, with a scarf around his head, and the agents, they didn’t know what to do with him.” “Why?”

“He was bitter. He would sit on the floor, like the hippies used to do? Staring up at us with a cockeyed look, probably high. I believe they wanted to bring him out, but like a lot of them, he had a hard time accepting the FBI philosophy. I’ve seen some of those guys; they were so lost, they would cry.” She clucks, remembering. “Oh Lord, he used to sit on the floor and chant ‘Hari Krishna.’ No wonder they sent him away.” “To a drug program?”

“Nobody knew about drug programs. No, honey, back to the street. They just turned him around and spun him out of here. Out of Los Angeles, to Santa Barbara, Berkeley — they had him on something called ‘Turquoise’ in the Southwest, I believe.” “Was it concerning the Weathermen?”

“Everything was a radical conspiracy. If you sneezed, it was the Weathermen.” The door to the conference room opens and the players start filing out.

“Ana?”

It is Donnato, indicating I should take a walk with him.

“I’m off it, right?”

“No. You’re in. They want to amp up Operation Wildcat. Get you into Stone’s face. ‘Up his ass’ is the way Abbott phrased it.” “Really?”

It’s like hearing you’ve been designated the leadoff hitter.

“He agreed to the sting at the BLM corrals,” Donnato says. “You got the nod. Big-time.” “I was shocked the assistant director even knew my name.” “He was very familiar with your background. I get the feeling he was waiting to meet you to seal the deal. You got the part, kiddo. You go up there and get yourself arrested. It will be a controlled operation using SWAT, the county sheriff’s department, every redneck lawman in the West.” “I like it.”

“Good.”

“Mike?”

“Yes?”

“What else went on in there?”

“Sports talk. Dirty jokes.”

“What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing. Go. They’ve got you on the six-forty-five p.m. flight to Portland.” “Do something for me? Take Rosalind to lunch.”

“Why, is it Mother’s Day or something?”

“Ask her about the beard squad and a case called Turquoise. She knows where the bodies are buried.” As we head toward the stairwell, Rooney Berwick is coming out. He wears the same black jeans and black shirt as at the off-site when he fabricated Darcy’s driver’s license. His boots ring off the floor and the keys and tools and stuff on his belt still clatter, but the arrogance is missing. He looks thinner and gray in the face.

“Rooney!” exclaims Rosalind from behind us. “How you doin’?” She trundles up and hugs him like a favorite nephew, two long-timers who have been through it.

“I miss you, friend. We used to run into each other all the time when the lab was in this building,” she explains. “Didn’t we?” “They keep me in the rat hole,” Rooney mumbles. “Never see daylight.” The truculent techie can barely look at her.

Rosalind’s eyebrows pinch. “Something wrong?”

“My mom just passed away,” Rooney says, and my heart squeezes tight.

“Just?” she asks, alarmed.

“Last week. The funeral was yesterday. It was nice, but not too many people came.” I feel a pensive guilt, as if, absurdly, I should have been there.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Now that just makes me mad,” says Rosalind.

Donnato and I murmur awkward condolences. The queasy shock of it is very like the moment Rooney first disclosed his mom was terminally ill, out of the blue, in the midst of disassembled laptops and humming spectrograph machines, a hermit enthroned by the power of gizmos; how he poked down the barrel of a gold-plated assault rifle as if to impress me, as if to say he could handle anything. As if the world he had been pushing away all his life had not just collapsed in on him.

Rosalind chides him gently. “Can’t you reach out, just a little? Don’t you know we are family? My Lord, this young man has been here since Stone was,” she adds, turning to us.

Rooney: “Who is that?”

“Dick Stone,” Rosalind prompts.

“You’re talking about him?” Rooney asks with surprise.

Donnato and I stiffen. Our interest in Stone is privileged information we do not want to spread.

“His name came up in a meeting,” I say abruptly.

“I remember Dick Stone. He always liked my pugs.”

Rosalind smiles kindly. “How are those pug dogs? You still raising ’em?” “Third generation.”

Let’s cut off this discussion now.

“Did you have something for Operation Wildcat?” Donnato asks.

“Yeah, the phone.”

Rooney opens a palm to reveal a secure phone that looks like a mini Oreo.

“There are a couple of settings.” He rotates two black disks. “One direct to your case agent and one to the supervisor. It works on a scrambled signal, almost anywhere in the world.” The thing is weightless. I ooh and aah at Rooney’s genius and pocket the device, telling him how we appreciate his work, especially with things being so tough with his mom. As he and Rosalind move toward the bull pen, Donnato steers me out the secure door, the very one Steve Crawford walked me in.

“You be careful,” Donnato says. “Dick Stone is smart. How he survived, he probably created several false ID