Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(16)
“I was the first on the scene.”
“But is this raid connected to that incident?”
“The FBI is here for only one reason. I’m a Navajo cop.”
“So you are saying it has nothing to do with the recent terrorist attack along the Los Alamos Highway?”
Sergeant Pino pointed to the surrounding crowd and the FBI agents gathered outside the modest building that contained the Tribal Police headquarters. “Oh, it’s connected to the incident. But ask yourself one thing. Would the federal government have come into any non-native police station in this manner?”
A loud chorus of agreement from jostling bystanders momentarily drowned out Collins’ attempts at further questions.
“But why the search warrant? The FBI must suspect you of something.”
“Ask them.”
“I did. They refused to comment about an ongoing investigation.”
“And I’m sure they wouldn’t want me commenting either, so I will. An FBI agent showed up here a few days ago, asking me questions that implied I screwed up the crime scene. I took offense at his tone and sent him on his way. This search warrant sends a message. I’ll let you and your audience decide what it means.”
As the interview continued, Vice President Gordon's alarm grew. Not only did the tribal policeman make a damn good case that the FBI had overstepped its bounds with its heavy-handed intimidation tactics, but the man was a dynamic television personality. There he stood, tall, proud, and indignant, his long black hair blowing out around his shoulders in the stiff breeze. And all the while, the camera drank him in.
Great. Backdropped by the increasingly agitated and growing Native American crowd, the situation appeared to be rapidly spiraling out of control.
"God damn it, Carl!" Gordon's voice was loud enough to echo down the hallway outside his office. "Get me the FBI director. I want him on the phone now!"
Carl Palmer stepped out of the office without closing the door. In less than a minute, he returned. "He's on the line now, sir."
The vice president picked up the phone. "Bill, what the hell is going on in New Mexico?"
"Mr. Vice President, I'm looking into that right now," Bill Hammond responded.
"You'd better get a handle on this quick. When the president sees this, he is going to have someone's ass."
The pause before the FBI director answered made it clear he knew whose ass George Gordon was talking about. "As I said, I'm looking into the matter now."
"Well you'd better do more than look. You know what this looks like? It looks like another government cover-up of something related to the Rho Project. That's not exactly the type of press coverage the old man wants right now."
"Mr. Vice President, I know my job." Hammond's voice cracked with indignation.
Vice President Gordon smiled to himself. Now he had the man's attention. "Which is why I called you, Bill. I didn't want you to be blindsided when you get the call from the president."
"I appreciate that. Now, if you don't mind, I have some calls to make before that happens."
As he hung up the phone, George Gordon glanced up at his chief of staff, who stood awaiting the instructions he knew would follow.
"Carl, give Andy a buzz. The president probably already knows, but his chief is going to want to orchestrate the White House response to this incident."
Watching his chief of staff disappear down the hall, George Gordon shook his head. The moron who came up with the brilliant notion of rousting the Indian police was probably some FBI regional office director. Well, whoever it was would soon find him or herself in charge of the most out of the way shit-hole Bill Hammond could come up with. Of that, the vice president had no doubt.
15
Freddy Hagerman lurched in his seat, praying that the rusty undercarriage of his 1989 Subaru didn’t fall out on the rutted dirt road. It would make for one hell of a long walk back to the highway. But the old girl hadn’t let him down yet. It was why he had nicknamed her The African Queen, after the boat in one of his favorite old Bogart movies.
In an odd way, he felt like Bogey right now, lurching along this rough New Mexico dirt road as the sun sank toward the western horizon. He hadn’t seen any rattlesnakes yet, but surely they were out there waiting for him, coiled under bushes and rocks, every bit as menacing as the leeches that had awaited Bogey in that African river. His sense of isolation was heightened because Freddy hadn’t seen a house, car, or person since he had left the county road an hour ago. And Freddy didn’t even have a bossy Katherine Hepburn to keep him company.
The thought of bossy women reminded him of his ex-wives. Maybe solitude wasn’t that bad after all.
He glanced over at his satchel, sitting on the passenger seat beside him. Inside it, along with his Nikon camera, rolls of film, and his tape recorder, was the letter that had sent him scurrying to New Mexico as fast as the old car could carry him. Two days of hard driving had brought him to Taos. From there, it had taken a number of stops at courthouses to find the exact location of the spot he was looking for. Even with the GPS device, his one surrender to modern digital technology, it had taken most of the rest of the day to find the right set of barbed wire gates to get this far.
The letter had come via overnight mail. In all the years he had known the retired New York City medical examiner, Freddy had never gotten anything from Benny Marucci that wasn’t sent at the cheapest postal rate possible. Yet there it was: an overnight, registered letter, with its Little Italy postmark.