Max Collins - Target Lancer

Some of my best ideas are just too advanced.…

Bobby leaned back in the hard plastic-and-metal chair. “Nate, this has to be, ah, handled. There is so much at stake. We are close in Cuba, very close … we finally have someone next to Castro. Someone who can eliminate this problem without stooping to any of the more fanciful means our, uh, friends at the CIA have come up with.”

“Like using the mob?”

“Without using that kind of resource, yes. A lot of things have been set in motion in recent years, too many things, that seem, ah, in hindsight poorly judged.”

“Like exploding cigars? I always thought the CIA should try one of those trick lapel flowers. Squirt acid in the Beard’s kisser and see how he likes it.”

Bobby laughed lightly. “Well, I can top that. How about an exploding seashell? Or a poison-lined wet suit? The CIA says Castro enjoys skin-diving, you see. Well, we’re finally at the end of this comic-opera nonsense. But goddamnit, if we have to go the whole hog to take care of this thing, we’ll do that, too.”

I took that to mean mount or anyway fund a violent overthrow of Castro, of the sort the abortive Bay of Pigs represented; but I didn’t ask for clarification.

“You know that’s not my preference,” he clarified anyway, raising a hand as if being sworn in. “Jack and I much prefer to encourage counterinsurgency in these countries, and make use of spy operations.”

“You guys do know that Ian Fleming is a fiction writer, right?”

“Actually, he was a real-life spy before he became a fiction writer. Maybe you didn’t know that.”

Actually, I did.

Bobby was saying, “Subversion and sabotage, not all-out war, that’s our preference. I think you know that. You would be shocked, and I know you aren’t easily shocked, by the pressure Jack is getting to engage in a full-scale ground war in Vietnam. We want nothing to do with that kind of insanity. We’re going the other way.”

“Black operations.”

His shrug was a yes.

“Like Mongoose.”

He damn near winced. “Getting involved with … those people , I agree that was, ah, ill-advised. But Mongoose is still operational, Nate.”

“The curtain isn’t down yet on the comic opera?”

“Not quite. If all goes as planned, yes … but as of now, not quite. We still need options. We may yet need those … unpleasant resources.”

We had come to something that I had never understood, and could never get a good answer for. “Bob, these ‘unpleasant resources’ are your collaborators, on the one hand, and on the other, you’re trying to stick them in stir.”

“We made them no promises otherwise.” His eyes glittered and his bucktooth grin turned feral. “In addition to Hoffa, we’ve got Carlos Marcello in the crosshairs. We have him in a federal courtroom in New Orleans, right now . Finally, we will deport that slippery bastard.”

“That slippery bastard is part of Mongoose, too, Bob-through Trafficante.”

He was shaking his head. “We don’t need him. Doing something for his country doesn’t buy him a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. You don’t buy your way out of wholesale murder and dope-trafficking.”

Bobby had tried to deport Marcello before-notably when he had the FBI kidnap the don of New Orleans and dump his ass unceremoniously in a Guatemalan jungle.

“What I want from you, Nate, is to work with the Secret Service on tracking down these four suspects. Obviously, you have Saturday morning as a deadline-Jack arrives at O’Hare at eleven A.M.”

“That’s less than four days, Bob.”

“If I’m able to squeeze more information from Edgar on their identities, and the source of this intel, I will. And you’ll hear from me.”

“How will the Secret Service feel about taking on a slightly overage recruit?”

He reached into his suit-coat pocket and withdrew a small black wallet, skimming it over to me across the tabletop.

“These are your credentials. You’re a special investigator attached to the Justice Department on loan to the Treasury Department. I have spoken to Chief Martineau personally, and he’s been instructed to give you every courtesy.”

“Am I working for myself or Martineau?” I knew the guy a little, and wasn’t wild about the prospect of being under his thumb.

“You’re working for me,” Bobby said, “but give the chief his due respect. Work within the unit. Your job is to help find these four…” He pointed to the photos. “… but also to look after our interests.”

That “our” was vague as hell, but I understood it: his interests, his brother’s interests, and my interests … as collaborators in Operation Mongoose.

“We have made a lot of people unhappy, Nate, Jack and I. Sam Giancana, assorted Cubans, right-wing fanatics, certain elements within the CIA, and it’s possible-just possible-two or more of these groups are coming together on this … and taking some of the very tactics we developed to, ah, eliminate Castro, and turning them around on us.”

“Well, then tell Jack to stay away from cigars and seashells.”

Bobby was not amused. In fact, his expression turned grave.

He said, “There is a plan that includes taking Fidel out via high-power rifle with a scope from a high building while he rides in an open vehicle, a Jeep. That plan has never been attempted, never carried out, obviously … but it’s, ah, a scenario the various players in this little comedy did in fact develop.”

“Do you think the Cubans, if they’re captured, will spill about Mongoose? Will they use that knowledge to barter themselves out of captivity?”

The disaster that implied-not just politically but internationally-was staggering to contemplate.

“They might,” Bobby said. His tone seemed casual but expression remained grave. “That’s why I would recommend, if given the opportunity, considering your options.”

That was also vague, but I got it.

Kill the bastards, if you get the chance.

“How about the white guys?” I asked.

“That’s up to you, Nate. This kind of individual, young soldier or ex-soldier, doesn’t usually know much. They tend to have CIA handlers who manipulate them, control them. But if you, ah, don’t deal with them?”

“Yeah?”

“Their handlers likely will.”

Bobby rose, leaving the photos with me. “Martineau has copies of those. He’ll be handing them out to his agents. They have the names, too, Gonzales, Rodriguez. The only thing you know that Martineau doesn’t is the possible Mongoose tie-in.”

Should I tell him about Tom Ellison? His murder, and the strip club payoff that proceeded it? There was a Hoffa tie, and therefore an Outfit tie. But what the hell could a nobody like Jack Ruby have to do with something like this? He was a shirttail Mongoose connection himself, sure, but …

I kept it to myself-Bobby was already halfway out the door.

“I haven’t said I’d do this,” I said.

“Sure you have,” he said.

He went on out.

Me, I just sat there not drinking the cup of Coke, listening to the muffled roar of planes taking off without me, till Eben Boldt collected me. To drive me back to Chicago, where the mental patients stared at blank walls on sunny days.

And to my new job with the Secret Service.

Just catercorner from the Monadnock Building on Dearborn, between Adams and Jackson, the Federal Building was one of those massive, magnificent classical buildings designed to outlive the pyramids.

But this was Chicago, and the wrecking ball would be coming before long, to make room for another glass-and-steel Mies van der Rohe slab like the nearly completed federal courthouse across the street, already casting its thirty-story shadow on the Federal Building’s meager sixteen (counting the dome, anyway).