Games of State o-3 Read online

  "Fine," Rodgers said sharply. "The backup personnel can drill at Quantico." "One thing more," Liz said. "It might not be a good idea for me to give anyone leave. A report ascribing AWL to even low-level bereavement like this can be pretty stigmatizing. It would be better," she went on, "if I got Dr. Masur to find something physically wrong with them. Something they can't check themselves, like anemia. Or maybe a bug some of them picked up in Russia." "Jesus," Rodgers said, "what am I running here, a kindergarten?" "In a way, that's exactly what you're doing," Liz said testily. "I don't want to get too heavy, but we relate a great deal in our adult lives to losses or hurts we suffered in our childhood. And that's what comes out in times of stress or suffering, the lonely kid in us. Would you send a five-yearold into Russia, Mike? Or Korea?" Rodgers wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  First it was coddling, now he was lying and playing games with his own people. But she was the psychologist, not him.

  And Rodgers wanted to do what was best for his team, not what was best for Mike Rodgers. Frankly, though, if it were up to him he'd spank a five-year-old who didn't do what he was told, and they'd be better for it. But then, that kind of fathering went out with the sixties too.

  "Whatever you say, Liz," Rodgers said. He looked at McCaskey. "Tell me something healing, Darrell." McCaskey said, "Well, the FBI's pretty happy." "The Baltic Avenue?" Rodgers asked.

  McCaskey nodded. "It went off perfectly. They got the Pure Nation group and their computer. It's got names, addresses, couple of bank accounts, right-wing subscription lists, weapons caches, and more." "Like what?" Rodgers asked.

  "The big catch was their plans to attack a Chaka Zulu Society meeting in Harlem next week. Ten men were going to take hostages and demand a separate state for black Americans." Liz snorted.

  "What's wrong?" Rodgers asked.

  "I don't believe it. Groups like Pure Nation aren't political activists. They're rabid racists. They don't demand states for minorities. They erase them." McCaskey said, "The FBI is aware of that, and they think that Pure Nation is trying to moderate their image to gain acceptance among whites." "By taking hostages?" "There was a draft of a press release in the computer," McCaskey said. He accessed a file in the power book and read from the screen. "Part of it said, " 'Seventy-eight percent of white America does not want blacks living among them. Rather than disrupt the white world with dead on both sides, we appeal to that great majority to petition Washington, to echo our demand for a new Africa. A place where white citizens will not be subjected to rap noise, unintelligible language, clown clothes, and sacrilegious portraits of black Jesuses.' " McCaskey looked at Liz, "That still seems pretty rabid to me." Liz crossed her legs and shook her foot. "I don't know," she said. "There's something not right about it." "What do you mean?" Rodgers asked.

  Liz said, "Hate, by its very nature, is extreme. It's intolerance pushed as far as it can go. It doesn't seek an accommodation with the object of its loathing. Hate seeks its destruction. That press release is just too— fair." "You call exiling a race of people fair?" McCaskey asked.

  "No, I don't," she said. "But by the standards of Pure Nation, that's downright decent. That's why I'm not buying it." "But Liz," said McCaskey, "groups can and do change.

  Leadership changes, goals change." She shook her head. "Only the public face changes, and that's a cosmetic alteration. It's so right-thinking people give them a little rope so they can hang the objects of their hate." "Liz, I agree. But some Pure Nationals do want black people dead. Others simply don't want them around." "This particular group is thought to have raped and lynched a black girl in 1994. I would say that they more than don't want blacks around." McCaskey said. "But even in hate groups, policies have to evolve. Or maybe there's been a schism. Groups like these always suffer rifts and breakaway factions. We're not exactly dealing with the most stable people on the planet." "You're wrong about that," Liz said. "Some of these people are so stable it's scary." Rodgers said, "Explain." "They can stalk a person or a group for months or more with a single-mindedness of purpose that'd shock you. When I was in school, we had a case of a neo-Nazi custodian in a Connecticut public school. He lined all the corridors, both sides, with plastique. Put it in behind the molding while pretending to scrape gum off the floor. He was found out two days before blowing up the school, and later confessed that he had snuck the plastique in a foot a day." "How many feet were there?" Rodgers asked.

  Liz said, "Eight hundred and seventy-two." Rodgers had not taken sides during the debate, but he had always believed in overestimating an enemy's strength.

  And whether she was right or not he liked the hard line Liz, Gordon was taking against these monsters.

  "Assuming you're right, Liz," Rodgers said. "What's behind it? Why would Pure Nation write a press release like that?" "To jerk us around," she said. "At least, that's what my gut tells me." "Follow the thread," Rodgers urged.

  "Okay. They set up a shop on Christopher Street, which is populated heavily by gay establishments. They targeted a black group for hostage-taking. The FBI busts them up, there's a public trial, and gays and blacks are openly outraged." "And attention gets focused on hate groups," McCaskey said. "Why on earth would they want that?" Liz said, "Attention gets focused on that hate group." McCaskey shook his head. "You know the media. You uncover one snake, they'll want to do a white paper on the nest. You find one nest, and they'll go after other nests." "Okay," Liz said, "you're right about that. So the media shows us other nests. Pure Nation, Whites Only Association, the American Aryan Fraternity. We see a parade of psychos.

  What happens then?" "Then," said McCaskey, "the average American gets outraged and the government cracks down on hate groups.

  End of story." Liz shook her head. "No, not the end. See, the crackdown doesn't end the groups. They survive, go back underground. What's more, there's backlash. Historically, oppression breeds resistance forces. The aftermath of this aborted Pure Nation attack— if there were, in fact, really going to be one, which we can't be sure of— will be a rise in black militancy, gay militancy, Jewish militancy. Remember the Jewish Defense League's 'Never Again' slogan from the 1960s? Every group will adopt some form of that. And when this widespread polarization threatens the infrastructure, threatens the community, the average white American will get scared. And ironically, the government won't be able to help because they can't crack down on minorities. They come down on blacks, then blacks cry foul. Come down on gays, Jews, the same thing. Come down on all of them, and you've got a goddamn war on your hands." Rodgers said, "So the average American, normally a good and fair person, gets drawn toward the radicals. Pure Nation and WHOA and the rest of them start to look like society's salvation." "Exactly," said Liz. "What was it that Michigan militia leader said a few years ago? Something like, 'The natural dynamic of revenge and retribution will take its course.' When word gets out about Pure Nation, and what they were planning, that's what's going to happen here." "So Pure Nation takes the fall," said Rodgers. "They get hunted, arrested, disbanded, and outlawed. They're the martyrs to the white cause." "And loving it," Liz said.

  McCaskey made a face. "This is like a surreal 'House that Jack Built.' " He said in a singsong voice, "These are the white supremacists who sent out a group of their own to be caught and sacrificed, to breed minority backlash, which scares the whites, who create a groundswell of support for others in the white supremacist movement." He shook his head vigorously. "I think you're both attributing way too much forethought to these degenerates. They had a plan and it got busted up. End of story." Rodgers's phone beeped. "I'm not sure I buy all of what Liz is suggesting either," he said to McCaskey, "but it's worth considering." "Think of the damage Pure Nation could do as decoys," Liz said.

  Rodgers felt a chill. They could, in fact, lead the proud, victorious FBI every which way but right. With the media following their every step, the FBI could never even admit that they'd been duped.

  He picked up the phone. "Yes?" Bob Herbert was on the other
end.

  "Bob," said Rodgers. "Alberto briefed me a few minutes ago. Where are you?" From the other end of the phone, Herbert said calmly, "I'm on a road in the middle of the boonies in Germany, and I need something." "What?" Herbert replied, "Either a lot of help fast, or a real short prayer."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Thursday, 4:11 P.M., Hamburg, Germany

  Hamburg has a distinctive, very seductive radiance in the late afternoon.

  The setting sun sprinkles light across the surface of the two lakes, raising a glow like a thousand phantoms. To Paul Hood, it looked as if someone had turned a bright light on beneath the city. Ahead, the trees in the park and the buildings to the sides were positively iridescent against the deepening blue of the sky.

  The air in Hamburg is also different from other cities.

  It's a curious mix of nature and industry. There's the taste of salt, which is carried from the North Sea by the Elbe; of the fuel and smoke of the countless ships which travel the river; and the countless plants and trees which thrive in the city. It isn't noxious, Hood thought, as in some cities. But it is distinctive.

  Hood's reflection on the environment was brief. No sooner had they left the building and began walking toward the park than Hausen began talking.

  "What has made this day so strange for you?" Hausen asked.

  Hood didn't really want to talk about himself. But he hoped that by doing so he could loosen Hausen's tongue a little. Give and take, take and give. It was a waltz familiar to anyone who had lived and worked in Washington. This just happened to be a little more personal and important than most of those other dances.

  Hood said, "While Matt, Bob, and I were waiting for you in the hotel lobby, I thought I saw— no, I could have sworn I saw a woman I once knew. I ran after her like I was possessed." "And was it she?" Hausen asked.

  "I don't know," Hood said. Just thinking about what had happened made him exasperated all over again.

  Exasperated that he'd never know if it were Nancy, and exasperated because that woman still had a hold on him.

  "She got into a cab before I could reach her. But the way she held her head, the way her hair looked and moved— if it wasn't Nancy, it was her daughter." "Has she one?" Hood shrugged but said nothing. Whenever he thought about Nancy Jo, he was upset by the thought that she could very well have a child or a husband, could actually have a life away from him.

  So why the hell are you dwelling on it again? he asked himself. Because, he thought, you want to get Hausen to talk.

  Hood took a healthy breath and blew it out. His hands were deep in his pockets. His eyes were on the grass.

  Reluctantly, his mind went back to Los Angeles, nearly twenty years ago.

  "I was in love with this girl. Her name was Nancy Jo Bosworth. We'd met in a computer class at USC in our last year of graduate school. She was this delicate and vivacious angel, with hair that was like layers of golden wings." He grinned, flushed. "It's corny, I know, but I don't know how else to describe it. Her hair was soft and full and ethereal and her eyes were life itself. I called her my little golden lady and she called me her big silver knight. Man, was I smitten." "Obviously," Hausen said The German smiled for the first time. Hood was glad he was getting through; this was killing him.

  "We got engaged after we got out of school," Hood continued. "I gave her an emerald ring that we picked out together. I landed a position as an assistant to the Mayor of Los Angeles and Nancy went to work for a video game company designing software. She actually flew north, to Sunnyvale, twice a week just so we wouldn't have to be away from each other. And then one night, in April of 1979— April 21st, to be exact, a date which I tore out of my datebooks for the next few years— I was waiting for her outside a movie theater and she failed to show. I called her apartment, no one was there, so I rushed over. I drove like a crazy person, in fact. Then I used my key, went in, and found a note." Hood's pace slowed. He could still smell the apartment.

  He could still feel the tears and the thickness that filled his throat. He remembered the song that was playing in the apartment next door, "The Worst That Could Happen" by the Brooklyn Bridge.

  "The note was handwritten, quickly. Not Nancy's usual careful penmanship. It said that she had to go away, she wouldn't be coming back, and I shouldn't look for her. She took some clothes, but everything else was still there: her records, her books, her plants, her photo albums, her diploma. Everything. Oh, and she took the engagement ring I gave her. Either that or she threw it away." "No one else had any idea where she was?" Hausen asked, surprised.

  "No one. Not even the FBI, which came and asked me about her the next morning without telling me what she had done. I couldn't tell them much, but I hoped they would find her. Whatever she had done, I wanted to help. I spent the next few days and nights looking for her. I visited professors we'd had, friends, talked to her coworkers, who were all very concerned. I called her father. They weren't close; and I wasn't surprised that he hadn't heard from her. I finally decided that I must have done something wrong. Either that, or I figured she'd been seeing someone else and eloped." "Gott," Hausen said. "And you never heard from her after that?" Hood shook his head slowly. "I never heard of her either," he said. "I wanted to, out of curiosity. I didn't try anymore, though, because it would've been excrutiating. I have to thank her for one thing, though. I lost myself in work, made a lot of great contacts— we didn't call it networking back then." He smiled. "And eventually I ran for and won the office of Mayor. I was the youngest in the history of Los Angeles." Hausen looked at Hood's wedding band. "You also married." "Yes," said Hood. He glanced at the gold ring. "I married. I have a wonderful family, a good life." He lowered his hand, rubbed the pocket with his wallet in it. He thought of the tickets which even his wife didn't know about. "But I still think of Nancy now and then, and it's probably a good thing it wasn't her at the hotel." "You don't know that it wasn't her," Hansen pointed out.

  "No, I don't," Hood agreed.

  "But even if it was," said Hausen, "your Nancy belonged to another time. A different Paul Hood. If you saw her again, you would be able to deal with it, I think." "Perhaps," said Hood, "though I'm not so sure this Paul Hood is all that different. Nancy was in love with the boy in me, the kid who was adventurous in life and love. Becoming a father and a mayor and a Washingtonian didn't change that. Inside, I'm still a kid who likes to play Risk and gets a kick out of Godzilla movies and who still thinks that Adam West is the only Batman and George Reeves is the only Superman. Somewhere inside, I'm still the young man who saw himself as a knight and Nancy as a lady. I honestly don't know how I'd react if I saw her face-to-face." Hood put his hands back in his pockets. He felt the wallet again. And he asked himself, Who do you think.

  you're fooling? He knew damn well that if he saw Nancy face-to-face he'd fall for her all over again.

  "So that's my story," Hood said. He was facing ahead, but his eyes shifted to the left, toward Hausen. "Now it's your turn," he urged. "Did that phone call back in your office have anything to do with a lost love or mysterious disappearances?" Hausen walked in dignified silence for a short while, then said solemnly, "Mysterious disappearances, yes. Love, no. Not at all." He stopped and faced Hood. A gentle wind was blowing, stirring the German's hair, lifting the end of his coat. "Herr Hood, I trust you. The honesty of your pain, your feelings— you are a compassionate man and a truthful one.

  So I will be honest with you." Hausen looked to the left and right, then down. "I'm probably mad to be telling you this.

  I've never told anyone. Not even my sister, and not my friends." "Do politicians have any friends?" Hood asked.

  Hausen smiled. "Some do. I do. But I wouldn't burden them with this matter. Yet someone has to know now that he has returned. They have to know in the event that anything happens to me." Hausen looked at Hood. The agony that came into his eyes was like nothing Hood had ever seen. It shocked him, and his own pain evaporated as his curiosity intensified.

  "
Twenty-five years ago," said Hausen, "I was a political science student at the Sorbonne in Paris. My best friend was a fellow named Gerard Dupre. Gerard's father was a wealthy industrialist, and Gerard was a radical. I don't know whether it was the immigrants who took jobs from French workers, or simply his own black nature. But Dupre hated Americans and Asians, and he especially hated Jews, blacks, and Catholics. Dear God, he was consumed by hate." Hausen licked his lips. He looked down again.

  It was clear to Hood that this taciturn man was struggling as much with the process of confession as he was with the memory of whatever it was he had done.

  Hausen swallowed and went on. "We were dining at a caf‚ one night— at L'Exchange on the Rue Mouffetard on the Left Bank, a short walk from the university. The caf‚ was inexpensive, popular with students, and the air there was always heavy with the smell of strong coffee and loud disagreements. It was just after our junior year had begun, and that night everything was annoying Gerard. The waiter was slow, the liquor was warm, the night was chilly, and the collected speeches of Trotsky were only those he gave in Russia. Nothing from Mexico, which Gerard thought was an abominable omission. After paying the bill— he always paid, for he was the only one with money— we went for a walk along the Seine.