April Smith - Judas Horse

“Let’s go around back.”

They have dressed down for Oregon — polo shirts and jeans — but I’ve been up here long enough to make them for out-of-staters, by their clean shoes and precision haircuts. We swing our legs over the seats as they set their supersize coffee cups on the weathered redwood table.

“Dick Stone just about buried the kid alive!” I am still incredulous. “And he sets it up, the bastard, so I almost run over the kid’s head.”

“Was Megan part of this?”

“No, she was in the car with us. Sara and I were just bringing her back from the airport. Mom leaves, and Stone runs amok. She was panicked. Even she couldn’t calm him down. I’m feeling completely degraded by this guy. No matter how much backup and surveillance you provide, I still have to live in that house and play by his rules, and he keeps changing them.”

Donnato: “No control.”

“Over what Dick Stone is going to do? You can’t predict his crazy shit.”

“Okay, hold it.” Angelo leans forward on the picnic table, Mr. Stability and Reason. “Remember the scenarios in undercover school, where they kept on changing the framework, so you didn’t know if it was day or night, or what was real and who was on your side?”

“Yes, the counterfeiters turned into drug dealers, shot a couple of their own — very convincingly — and held a gun to my head.”

“What’d you do?”

“I did the cocaine. Just like I smoked the weed when we were out having some fun with a Colt.45 at Herbert Laumann’s in-laws’ house.”

“You survived and Laumann survived,” Angelo says. “That was the lesson learned. ”

“Living inside the criminal mind…” adds Donnato. “The best we can do is stay with it, and you did.”

I exhale deeply and fluff through my hair with both hands, trying to release the tension in my scalp.

“Right.”

“Try to put a finger on it. Why is this different from training?” Angelo asks.

I think about it. “Because this wasn’t me, a paid U.S. government agent, who was put in harm’s way. This was a seventeen-year-old boy, who’s already suffered unbelievable abuse in some awful state-run institution, and on the streets, and now he’s been traumatized to the point where he might never come back, because we screwed up.”

Angelo looks puzzled. “How did we screw up?”

“We should have had a covert team sweep the house for electronic surveillance devices before I even moved in.” I look at Donnato. “Am I right?”

“Peter Abbott vetoed the expense,” he says quietly.

“What is in his head?” I exclaim.

“That’s a management issue,” Angelo cautions.

“When I get off this case, I’m writing a complaint about—”

“You sound bitter.” Angelo’s observing me with that cockeyed look.

“I am bitter. Peter Abbott swoops in from headquarters like some kind of god, doesn’t know the first thing about life on the ground, in the real world, and, as far as I’m concerned, has already made some ill-informed decisions. You have to ask yourself what Abbott’s doing commanding this operation. He’s about to retire and become a political honcho.”

Angelo’s got his cop face on and fingers laced with deceptive calm on top of the table.

“Are your feelings about Peter Abbott making it difficult to continue in the undercover role?”

Donnato shoots a look toward Angelo. His eyes tell me: Warning.

I got that.

“I don’t have feelings for Peter Abbott, I just want the latitude to do my job. Look, Angelo, I want to nail Dick Stone. After what he did to Slammer, more than ever.”

“Because you’re sounding awfully bitter,” Angelo repeats.

I glance at Donnato. “Just blowing off steam.”

“Talk about it with the shrink,” he says.

“Do I have to?”

“You’ve been under almost three months.”

He is talking about a psychological evaluation with a therapist when you’ve been undercover a certain amount of time. It’s required. No way out. Just like critical-incident training. I’m looking forward to it about as much as a body scrub with a vegetable grater.

“I am committed to the operation, and I’m fine,” I say. “But I’ll tell you what I am worried about. The satellite phone. Stone is talking to someone inside the Bureau, and we have no way to trace it.”

The moment the words are out, the world begins to waver with vertigo and distrust. Have I said too much? What if the spook inside is Angelo? Or could it be Donnato? No, not possible. I wish I had said nothing about satellite phones, that I’d waited until I had more information. Or gone straight to Galloway. Can I trust him, either? How alone can you be?

“No way to trace it,” Angelo agrees, “unless we involve NSA, and that’s a whole other thing.”

He stands and tosses his coffee cup into the trash.

“We should at least put it on a three oh two to headquarters,” Donnato suggests.

But I object. “What if someone at headquarters is involved?”

“Okay, let’s not go further with this until we have something solid,” Angelo says. “Ana’s intel is noted.”

Is this a reasonable conversation, or are they covering up?

I focus on the reality of what I can actually see, at the rest stop, here and now. Nobody else is around except a couple of red squirrels, squawking on a swaying branch. The noonday forest radiates a lazy, sun-filled, pine-scented heat. Beyond the parking lot, the highway is a searing blur of semi-trailers and logging trucks rattling along at eighty.

They could shoot me in the rest room and be back in L.A. for dinner.

Donnato: “We haven’t addressed the problem. Ana has breeched Dick Stone’s security system. He has pinhole cameras hidden everywhere — in videocassettes, in pencil sharpeners, in the clocks. What if he’s made her, and he’s just waiting?”

“Nah,” counters Angelo. “If he suspected she was FBI, he’d have blown her to bits like Steve Crawford.”

“Always a comfort.” My partner sighs.

Angelo shrugs. “You want me to lie?”

Okay, stop. Collect your mind. These are your buddies.

My head clears. “Why don’t we arrest Stone now?”

“We don’t have the whole picture. Especially if he’s talking to someone else. We get much more if we wait.”

“It’s hard to read this guy,” Donnato agrees. “Stone’s been running his game so long, he’s lying when he says hello. We’d pull you out if we thought you were in danger. You do know that?”

“It’s not my personal safety. It’s about blowing the operation.”

It is a fear I have been carrying, not of physical danger, but worse — the fear of total humiliation. That you have ruined the operation— you, single-handedly responsible for destroying everything everyone has worked for, like dropping the fly ball on the third out of the last game of the World Series.

Angelo pauses in his pacing, standing against a backdrop of pines. Sunlight pours on his slick wavy hair and tiny gnats pinwheel the shimmering air.

“There are contingencies. If Dick Stone gets too close to you.”

He sits back at the table and we follow.

“Does Stone still have that schmuck Herbert Laumann in his sights?”

“Yes, he does. To get Stone off the kid, I promised I would murder Mr. Laumann. I hope that’s okay.”

Donnato raises an eyebrow. Angelo frowns.

“What is his state of mind?”

“ Laumann’s state of mind?” echoes Donnato, as if it were obvious. “Scared to death. Terrified for his family. He’s had enough of being a rock star. He wants out of the spotlight.”

Angelo: “Then let’s take him out.”