The Dark Root Page 23

  Twenty minutes later, however, after we’d either talked up, run down, or reminisced about every mutually known name we could think of, Dan Flynn checked his watch and stood up. “Okay, time to meet the others.”

  He led us down the hall to a second conference room, this one obviously reserved more for ceremony than for function—with portraits instead of maps on the walls, and a polished wooden table replacing the coffee stained, composite-topped model we’d just left. Seeing who was there to greet us, however, I understood the urge for a little pomp. Seated around the table, chatting among themselves, were Walter Frazier of the FBI, Margaret Lanier from the U.S. Attorney’s office, Richard Gibbons, the state’s sole U.S. Marshal, and Colonel Jeremy “Skip” McMasters, the uniformed head of the Vermont State Police.

  This combination swearing-in and briefing had been arranged several days earlier, after Frazier’s bosses had given him the go-ahead, so having everyone here was not a complete surprise. Seeing them rise upon our entrance, however, and touring the table to greet each one, I was struck for the first time by just how big an operation I’d set in motion, and how many people had helped make it happen. Only now did I feel the weight of the cumulative faith they’d all put in me. Remembering also the Brattleboro Board of Selectmen, and Billy Manierre and Tony Brandt and Jack Derby, I realized that if my ambitions proved unsuccessful, I was not going to be the only one disappointed. Of course, that very fact carried its own built-in stimulus—I was obviously also not alone believing the job could get done, or that the effort was worth making. That, as much as the headstone that marked his grave, was a credit to what Dennis DeFlorio had worked for.

  The ceremony making Spinney and me Deputy U.S. Marshals was short and only moderately formal; afterward, Walt Frazier, removing his jacket and sitting at the head of the table, took over the meeting.

  “If anyone had told me a month ago that I’d be sitting here now, I would’ve told him he’d lost his mind. So I want to start this thing off by thanking you all for your cunning, your perseverance, and your willingness to take a chance. According to precedent, and maybe even procedure, we shouldn’t be here.

  “I’ve come to think that the reasons we are have less to do with blatant self-service—or the lost life of a colleague—and more to do with potential. This case lends itself to cooperation. From what any of us can tell so far, it is relatively contained and involves only a limited cast of characters, but the latter are spread out wide enough, and are mobile enough, to have frustrated any one of us if we’d chosen to act independently.”

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Technically, I’m running this show, so I wanted—just this once—to bore you with a little philosophy, to give you the pitch I gave to my brass in Washington, so I know we’re all on the same wavelength.

  “What we’re about to do here is an experiment of sorts—a limited, small-scale exercise in mutual aid. I just said this is a small, contained case. I don’t actually know that for sure. It’s just how it looks now. But if it is, and we deal with it fast and well, people will take notice. There’s a lot of paranoia about Asian crime, and I make no bones about being one of the paranoids. Not only do I think this particular criminal element is bigger and badder than anything we’ve seen before, I also think it has its own built-in booby trap. If Asian criminals are not brought up short at this early stage, not only are they going to make the Cosa Nostra look pathetic by comparison, but they’re going to make all Asians look like crooks, and that is a racist by-product that scares the hell out of me.

  “These folks are successful because they’re fluid, they’ve got a huge network, they’re not burdened by bureaucracy, and yet they respond to a chain of command. They’re also loyal to and trusting of one another, within their individual organizations, and that’s where we hope to have the advantage. Using the broader resources and connections within this room, I think we can beat this particular group at its own game, and maybe set an example that other law-enforcement people can learn from.”

  He made a small, self-deprecating gesture and concluded. “Okay—end of speech. Just something I wanted to get out.”

  I smiled at his style. In short order, Walt Frazier had just rallied the troops, established the theme of our cause, and declared himself our leader, all without becoming either domineering or pompous. And it was on that note that both Gibbons and McMasters took their leave—content to be periodically updated by the regular reports that we all knew were soon to regiment our lives—letting the rest of us get down to nuts and bolts.

  Dan Flynn began with the basics. “A couple of housekeeping notes. Since the point of this task force is to be as fast on our feet as the opposition, there is not going to be an official home base. There’ll be a central post office instead, and that’ll be me, or Digger, if I’m not around. We’ll coordinate the flow of information, and my secretary’ll make most of the paperwork neat and tidy. If something crops up in the middle of the night, nobody’ll be here, since we’re basically eight-to-five, but we’ll have open computers, phone machines, and a teletype. Digger and I always check them first thing every morning.”

  He pulled several business cards from his pocket and handed them around the table. “That’s got my and Digger’s home and pager numbers, just in case the shit hits the fan—not that we’d be able to do much about it till we got back here—but I thought you might like it anyway. The way we’re going to handle things from this end is to notify all the departments in VCIN that a special anti-Asian crime task force has been set up, but that it needs all the help it can get. Same rules will apply to them as before—they’ll retain their own information through the pointer-card system—but since this is a federal deal, any participants who give up jurisdiction will get a piece of any seized assets, along with official letters of commendation. That ought to encourage participation.

  “From our end, we’ll keep in constant touch with Lester and Joe, and anyone else you two recommend, so that anything we learn can be acted on immediately.”

  He paused a moment, as if to shift gears. “From my viewpoint, it’d be nice if all information was routed through here, but I realize you might have to do things differently in a pinch. If so, all I ask is that you let me know as soon as you can.”

  He was looking directly at Lester Spinney as he said this, a small ghost of resignation in his voice, which told me that Spinney’s renegade reputation was still intact.

  Spinney smiled and gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head. Flynn accepted that response at face value and yielded the floor. Next, Margaret “Maggie” Lanier passed out business cards. “The same holds true for me, only you don’t have to wait for the shit to hit the fan, or until morning for me to act on your request. If you need a search warrant at 2:00 A.M., either call me at home or on my beeper.

  “Now, first off, have either one of you worked on the federal level before?” Spinney and I exchanged glances. “Nope,” I answered for us both. “I’ve had some training in procedures.”

  “Me, too,” Spinney added, “but not much.”

  Maggie smiled. “Then you’re in for a treat. It’s a liberating experience.” She pulled her briefcase up onto the table and extracted two thick folders, one for each of us. “These contain some of the basics. We made them up for occasions just like this, where we don’t have the time or the leisure to send you to Washington or wherever for the standard crash course. Basically, they’re a kind of question-answer primer consisting of the most frequently encountered differences between what you’re used to and how we operate.

  “You’ll find ours is a more pro-prosecution system, with fewer constraints, more flexibility, and total mobility. If you have any doubts or questions along the way, though, especially given your inexperience—and nobody’s available to advise you—just act according to the state rules you’re used to. There’s no way you can screw up. Vermont is so pro-defendant, and your regulations so restrictive, I’m amazed you people put anyone in jail.


  “Anyway, if you think you have probable cause at any point, call me and I’ll help you write up the warrant application. You can give me the facts over the phone, send them in a fax, or deliver them in person, but whatever method you use, at some point you’ll have to appear in the flesh to sign at the bottom. I can’t go to a magistrate without that signature.”

  Spinney looked at her quizzically. “What if I’m sitting on a house in the boonies behind Lunenberg?”

  Lanier didn’t relent. “Find somebody to do the sitting while you get to me in Burlington. If Walt gives you a federal vehicle, most of them have car phones with scramblers. You can call me on the way, give me what I need to know, and I’ll have the application ready and waiting when you arrive.” She paused to address his skeptical expression. “The good news is that you can get a warrant at the drop of a hat—probable cause is not what it is at the state level—and in some instances you don’t even need a warrant where you did before. Also, you don’t have to ambush a judge in the men’s room during a break in some trial. I can roust a magistrate just like you can roust me.”

  “Well,” Walt cautioned, “don’t get carried away, either.”

  Maggie shook her head impatiently. “All right, all right. But you’re still going to hate going back to the state system after all this is over. I’ll guarantee you that. Another big item I should mention: When you want to interview someone who could’ve told you to take a hike in the old days? Now you can hit them with a subpoena to appear in your office for a deposition. They don’t want to do it, they’re in contempt and it’s off to jail. Same thing with documents. If you think they won’t cooperate, you can walk in with a subpoena and seize what you’re after. And if push comes to shove, you also have the grand jury, which sits on alternating Thursdays in either Rutland or Burlington. If a witness refuses to talk to you, you can haul them in front of the grand jury and then I’ll be the one asking the questions. If they still refuse, the judge can find them in contempt and jail them for the remainder of the term. Since grand juries are convened for up to two years at a time sometimes, that can be a convincing threat.”

  “Of course,” Walter weighed in again, cautioning against Maggie’s brisk optimism, “I would tread carefully there. Just because that particular tool is available, doesn’t mean it should be overused.” I could sense the sweat of his distant masters, and wondered if Maggie Lanier—usually the more conservative, as a prosecutor—was using this opportunity to indulge in a little playful chain-pulling. Politics, I knew, ran hot and heavy among the various federal branches, and you never knew who might be sore about someone else—and who might use you as a convenient, if unwitting, cudgel.

  My suspicions were surprisingly addressed by Frazier’s very next statement, delivered with obvious discomfort. “Actually, this brings up a point that I don’t want to overemphasize—it’s a kind of last-ditch loophole, in a way, but I think I ought to get it out in the open, just so you all know…”

  “An escape clause?” Maggie asked incredulously. Spinney lifted a single eyebrow and gave me a tired smile. Walter shifted restlessly in his seat. “That’s not its intention…”

  “Oh, come on, Walter,” Maggie interrupted again, drawing out his name, “that’s exactly its intention.” She turned to us. “They’ve written themselves an out if this whole thing gets sticky. They’ve done it before—they’ve all done it before. In exchange for footing the bill and giving you locals a little extra clout, they reserve the right to either close down or kidnap the case, whichever suits them best.”

  There was an embarrassed silence. Frazier cleared his throat, caught between the policy makers behind him and the people he’d committed to in this room. It was palpably obvious now why he’d been called down to Washington to fine-tune this deal. I could also tell from his expression that he’d been victimized as much as we.

  “There’s a snowball’s chance in hell it’ll be invoked,” he said stiffly. “And given that, it’s not such a bad deal, considering the risk the Bureau’s taking.”

  “I agree,” I said quickly and was relieved to see Spinney nodding his head next to me. “We knew going in this probably wouldn’t fly. That it has—even with a few strings attached—doesn’t bother me. I’d be nervous in their shoes, too.”

  Maggie merely smiled and shook her head. Dan Flynn remained perfectly circumspect. Maggie wrapped up her pitch. “Read through those folders, call me if you have any questions, and now that I’ve dumped all over Walter, I probably ought to ’fess up that my boss is having kittens, too. He’d appreciate it if you kept in touch.”

  Spinney looked at me and raised both eyebrows. “Makes you wonder why we don’t do this sort of thing more often, doesn’t it?”

  20

  THE BORDER BETWEEN VERMONT AND QUÉBEC is one of the few demarcations where a politically drawn line on a map has taken on a distinct and dramatic identity. From forests to farmland, near-wilderness to cluttered civilization, and from rolling countryside to flat plains, the contrasts extend beyond mere differences in language, culture, and architecture—they announce a separateness more pronounced than anywhere else along the American-Canadian boundary.

  Part of this is helped by the fact that the vast majority of Canada’s population lives along a hundred-mile-wide corridor paralleling the border. Another is that the greatest density of that population is divided between Toronto and Montreal, which is the largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris. Looking at a road map that includes both Québec and Vermont, one is struck by the disparity between a Canadian crazy quilt of highways, interstates, back roads, and towns, and the vast tracts of uninhabited, road-free timberland to its south.

  Smugglers of both people and products, of course, made the same eye-catching and profitable discovery a few hundred years earlier.

  Spinney and I were driving north in one of the cars Maggie had mentioned, a bland Caprice, neutral color, regular plates, no radio or air conditioning, but with a state-of-the-art mobile phone with a scrambler, tucked away under the dash. The kind of car that, for all its demure subtlety, could have had Undercover stenciled on its sides.

  On the seat between us was a blowup of the sales receipt that J.P. Tyler had found in the Trans Am in Brattleboro, marking the date, time, and place of purchase. Slim as it was, this was the nominal reason for the trip—to interview whichever clerk had produced that receipt, maybe get a description of his customers, and scope out the general neighborhood in the hope it might yield something. The futility of such a quest was virtually guaranteed, so the other incentive—less definable but more important—was to finally make the connection between what we had and whatever it was the Montreal police might be willing to share with us.

  Despite an hour’s worth of travel amid this foreign, crowded environment of villages, silos, gas stations, and a sudden explosion of churches, seeing Montreal finally thrust up into view on the far side of the Champlain Bridge—its massive bulk lording over the flat, vast expanse of the Saint Lawrence River at its feet—was a startling and intimidating surprise. Its shoreline cluttered with piers, breweries, warehouses, and ocean-going tankers, its horizon dominated by the seven-hundred-foot Mt. Royal, itself crowned with a five-story-tall Catholic cross, and with a towering downtown reminiscent of Chicago in between, Montreal presents itself as a huge, muscular, and oddly disjointed metropolis.

  “Jesus Christ,” Spinney murmured, “this place must keep ’em busy.” I swung left off Autoroute 10 and caught Notre Dame heading east, the river to my right screened by a drab succession of industrial buildings. I kept my eyes glued to the thick flow of fast-moving traffic, while Spinney rubbernecked beside me with an endless string of awestruck comments.

  “Keep a lookout for something huge,” I told him. “Lacoste’s office is right near it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He said it looks like the world’s biggest harp, anchored to the world’s biggest shower cap. It’s a leaning tower over six-hundred
feet tall.” I shoved the map I had draped across my lap toward him and tapped my finger in the vague proximity of where I was headed.

  But his eyes were glued to the window again. “Sure is ugly.”

  I took a quick glance at where he was staring and saw an enormous, thrusting, sharp-pointed object angling up above the low buildings nearby—so huge and overpowering and out of character with everything around it as to look faintly threatening, like something left over from an over budget science-fiction movie. Simulating the harp image, a row of taut steel cables fanned out from its peak to a bulbous, lumpy, awkward dome, all of which reminded me of the physical restraints they strap to straining madmen. I took a left up a side street and headed toward it.

  “What the hell is it?” Spinney asked.

  “The ’76 Olympic stadium—where the Expos play now. That tower holds up the roof. Supposedly, it cost ’em a billion dollars, doesn’t work worth a damn, is starting to fall apart, and is still being paid off. Lacoste was pretty eloquent about it.”

  I came up to Hochelaga—Montreal’s original Indian name, according to the homework I’d done—and turned right, feeling more than seeing the looming presence of the tower a mere block farther north. I then did a U-turn in front of the building we were after—an unprepossessing, two-story glass-and-steel shoe box with the MUC symbol outside its front door—the Montreal Urban Community Police substation Lacoste called home base.

  Spinney and I got out, stretched, locked the car, and headed up the broad cement stairs, to be met at the wide, double glass doors by a tall, thin, fashionably dressed man with a shiny bald head and a flowing mustache. “You are Joe Gunther?” he asked, a wide smile spreading across his face.