been changed to protect the innocent. The author leaves it to you to determine the reasonableness of the views expressed. If we have established the statutory requirements, we will be well pleased.
I was on a stakeout with my partner, G., in a car – a standard midtown sedan, gray. Standard police issue – but she was never in my car. Nevermind the lurid hush-hush tales you hear on on the nets. Bring me documentary evidence. Bring me oral histories or verbal reports. She’d just flown back into town a few days ago. Always needed a fix – but she wouldn’t talk about it. And anyway, I never met her outside of the office, outside of business hours.
These are the questions that needed answers: Who was here when she was here? Who was paying for it all? Her attorneys were asking the same questions – but with their budget, I’d bet that they were getting better answers than we were. Who’s being unfair here? It’s a hell-storm, shit-show of our own creation, duly authorized and fully approved by officials of the highest caliber. Receipts showed three hundred and fifty thousand in this year alone.
So we waited and we watched. We would find an answer. G. cleaned and oiled his gun while I sipped old coffee from a paper cup and worried the crossword puzzle in the paper. Code No. 0075 from Room 40 stumped me. I couldn’t work a miracle. Filings and collations on all the intercepts – rows and columns of numbers and letters. 9000 range in the last group, last row. This kind of thing was usually reserved for double encoded names. I thought I might be on to something here.
On the street, in the cold, war and diplomacy, drug deals and stock exchanges. Take me through from A to B to C. The police will come and consequences follow – at least that’s how it’s supposed to operate. Marijuana. Heroin. Codeine. Hide the circumstances. These back room, street corner deals are usually conducted in secret. But, no sir. Not here. Not in America. Twelve thousand of General Pershing’s troops in Mexico would beg to disagree.
The call came over the radio: “Calling all groups: Pry meaning from action and locate the missing explosive materials. Photos to follow.”
“So we wait.” G. said and I agreed. “We wait and watch. Nothing’s changed. Not deadly peril. Not possible miracle.”
We had the telegram. We had the purloined snapshot showing the suspect on vacation with two buxom beauties (neither his wife). We had pages and pages of decoded documents from the state department. But over all of this we still had questions: Why?
The call came again: “You have one minute to make up your mind. Move now or suffer.” The bosses had enough – they thought – to demand immediate action, but we were not convinced. The liar lies. It’s what he is. It’s what he does.
“Should we go?” G. asked me, his voice already fading into the cold.
“The Terrible Silence of God is coming,” I answered. “And we will, come what may, do what we must.”
No comments:
Post a Comment