The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone #13)(65)

“Do you know Tom Oliver?”

She nodded.

“I was his secretary, for nearly thirty.”



She invited me inside where the air was thick with the waft of nicotine. She did not relinquish the rifle. I could tell she was wary of my presence. I told her again who I was, who I worked for, and why I was there. Her last name was different, so I asked, “You and Lael were divorced?”

“For a long time. My second husband died a few years ago.”

“Lael wanted me to come find you. Do you know why?”

“What’s in that backpack?”

“Classified files from Cuba that detail an operation called Bishop’s Pawn.”

She smirked. “Those are two words I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“Did you work for Oliver when it happened?”

She nodded, but studied me with a calculated gaze. This woman had apparently been a career civil servant. I decided to play a hunch and found a few of the memos that had been sent from Washington back to the field and showed them to her.

Her perusal was short.

“I typed those,” she said.

“You must have typed tens of thousands of things. How do those stick with you?”

“You don’t forget plotting to kill the greatest civil rights leader in the country.”

Hearing that admission shocked me. Everyone else had beat around the bush. Not this woman. “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?”

She shook her head. “Because when it happened I was a racist and a bigot. I hated every colored person in this country. My boss, and his boss, hated them, too.”

She glanced back at the memos in her hand.

“The summer of ’67 was full of race riots. So many people died. Black militants were on the rise, antiwar protestors were everywhere. We believed communists were behind it all. Who else could it be? Martin Luther King took his marching orders straight from the Kremlin. It made sense. Sure. Why not? Part of a national fear that people today just don’t understand. Back then, most of the country believed we had to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. When King publicly came out in ’67 against the Vietnam War, that made him even more of a danger. Mainstream white America became terrified of King. So when Hoover decided to kill him, I frankly could not have cared less. Good riddance.”

But I sensed something in her. “That’s not you anymore, is it?”

“A little, maybe. I’m still no flaming liberal. But I’m not a racist or a bigot anymore. Thirty years teaches you how wrong you can be. What did King himself say? The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. He was right.”

“And yet you’ve still stayed silent?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Her voice rose. “Nobody would believe a thing I said.” She motioned to the memos. “You’re the only one with written proof. What are you going to do?”

“Are you willing to come forward now?”

“And do what?”

“Corroborate what’s in these files. Like you just said, you typed some of them.”

“What are you, some kind of lawyer?”

“Not today.” I recalled what Oliver himself had told me about compartmentalizing, and how no one knew it all but him. “How did you know what happened? Oliver surely didn’t include you in the loop on the main goal.”

She tossed me a glance as she considered the obvious strain of incredulity in my voice.

“No, he didn’t tell me a thing,” she said.

I was puzzled.

Then I heard movement from another room and someone entered the den.

“I told her,” Bruce Lael said.





Chapter Thirty-nine


I came to my feet from the chair. “You look good for a guy torched in a car bomb.”

“Your visit interrupted my diversion,” Lael said.

“A bit dramatic, wouldn’t you say?”

“I actually got the idea from Oliver himself. He paid me a visit a few days ago. He and I have never seen eye-to-eye. He told me that it would be a shame if my car exploded one day, with me in it. So I decided, what the hell, why not?”

“And the point?”

“It draws a lot of attention, which will slow him down and give me time to disappear from both him—” He paused. “—and your subpoenas.”

“I’m going with him,” Cie said. “Tom Oliver is not going to let this lie. Valdez has opened a firestorm, aggravated by you.”

“I’m glad to see you got my message,” Lael said. “I was wondering if it struck home.”

“Contrary to what you called me, I’m not some dumb-ass rookie.”

“You keep telling yourself that. Confidence is good in the field. You’re going to need it.”

“There was no body in that car?”

Lael shook his head. “Nope. Just one big bang. It’s been a few hours so they certainly know by now I wasn’t inside. The locals are wondering what the hell is going on. Oliver is probably shaking his head. The idea was just to buy me some time and slow Oliver down.” He pointed a finger at me. “I made some calls right after Reverend Foster called me. The bureau has an active investigation going on Oliver. An internal corruption probe. But the Justice Department is involved, too, separately, headed by a lawyer named Stephanie Nelle. You work for her?”