“Like you did,” O’Farrell said carelessly.
“Got unlucky, is all,” Rodgers said, equally careless.
Shithead, O’Farrell thought. He said, “You ever think about what you were doing; worry about it?”
“Why. the hell should I?” Rodgers came back. “I was making big bucks; free enterprise, the American way. You ever worry about what you do?”
As soon as he’d posed it O’Farrell had regretted the question, but he regretted the response even more. Yes, he thought; increasingly. Every day and every night I worry about what I do. “Cuadrado ever say anything more specific about the arms suppliers? Any names?”
The shoulders went up and down. “I told you already, they were using a lot of different suppliers. I never heard no names.”
“There must have been some lead about London,” O’Farrell insisted. “Some lead to who it was.” If Rodgers could provide it, then this was his moment of commitment, O’Farrell acknowledged; his stomach felt loose.
Opposite him Rodgers sat with his chin on his hands, leaning forward on the chair back. His brow was creased and O’Farrell wondered if he were trying for genuine recall or trying to invent something that might help him get the special treatment he was seeking. “Not really,” the man said emptily at last.
“What does ‘not really’ mean!”
“We were eating, time before last … we kinda got into the habit of going out together every time. Some guys are like that, they get a buzz out of hanging around sky jocks. I didn’t mind, what the hell—”
“What happened!”
“It was when Cuadrado was talking about electronic equipment,” Rodgers said. “Said it was going to be high-class stuff, the best. Fixed up by whoever was handling it in London. And then he says, ‘He’s a real hotshot but that don’t matter.’”
“‘A real hotshot but that don’t matter,’” O’Farrell echoed. “What’s that mean?”
“No idea,” Rodgers said. “Just thought it was a funny remark.”
Would a Cuban in his country’s export ministry consider an overseas ambassador a hotshot? Maybe. And then he remembered Petty’s description during that theatrical briefing in the Ellipse. Glossy son of a bitch. Similar, but still not a positive enough connection, not positive enough for him to carry out the sentence with which he had been entrusted. He said, “That all?”
“That’s all,” Rodgers said. “You satisfied?”
“Not by a long way. We’re going to need to meet again.”
“When?”
“What’s your hurry?” O’Farrell said, intentionally bullying. “You got all the time in the world.”
Before leaving the building, O’Farrell requested material he wanted from Washington and received the immediate assurance that it would be provided the following day. He ate, early and without interest, in the motel coffee shop, and afterwards went directly to his room. By coincidence a segment of “Sixty Minutes” was devoted to Nicaragua, with a lot of footage of American troop exercises in neighboring Honduras. Cut into the report was film of protests throughout America against the United States’s involvement. O’Farrell was curious: How many Americans were already in-country, “advisers” or “aid officials,” working with the Contras? There’d be quite a lot, he knew, despite congressional objections and protest marchers with banners.
After “Sixty Minutes” O’Farrell turned off the television, wishing he’d bought a book or a copy of the Miami Herald at least. He’d noticed a liquor store two blocks away on his return from the interview and determinedly driven past. It meant he hadn’t had even his customary martinis. It would be a five-minute walk, ten at the outside; not even necessary to cross the highway. Nothing wrong with a nightcap, hadn’t had anything all day. Well, just those on a plane on the flight down. Only three. Long time ago. Hardly counted. O’Farrell stretched out both arms before him, pleased at how little movement there was.
Determinedly—as determinedly as he’d driven past the liquor store—O’Farrell undressed and put out the light and lay in the darkness, sleepless but proud of himself. He didn’t need booze; just proved to himself that he didn’t need booze.
The file arrived the next day as promised. There was confirmation that a Rene Cuadrado held the post of junior minister in Cuba’s export ministry and a sparse biography putting his age around forty. He was believed to be married, with one child. He was said to live in Matanzas. There were three photographs. The file upon Fabio Ochoa was far more extensive and obtained mostly, O’Farrell guessed, from Drug Enforcement Administration sources. There were five photographs of the Colombian. O’Farrell chose the best picture of each man and intermingled them among fifteen other prints of unnamed, unconnected people shipped at his request in the overnight package. In addition to what had been sent down from Washington, local authorities confirmed the three abandoned aircraft landings Rodgers had talked about. So he’d told the truth there; but then he’d had no reason to lie.
Rodgers sat correctly on the chair this time, sifting through the photographs, laying out each print as he’d studied it as if he were dealing cards. He made a first-time, unequivocal identification of both Cuadrado and Ochoa.
“You sure?” O’Farrell persisted, nevertheless. That was what he had to be, sure; one-hundred-percent sure.
“You think I don’t know these guys!” He extended his hand, forefinger against that next to it. “We were that close!”
There was something he’d forgotten, O’Farrell realized. He said, “Just you? Or were there others?”
The question appeared to disconcert the other man. “There were others,” he conceded dismissively. “But I was the one.” The fingers came out again. “We were that close, believe me!”
So Rodgers’s seizure hadn’t stopped the traffic. Stuff that makes you feel funny. O’Farrell collected the photographs and said, “All right.”
“What now?” Rodgers smiled, knowing he’d done well.
“You wait some more,” O’Farrell said, slotting the prints into the delivery envelope.
“Hey man!” protested the smuggler. “I’ve cooperated, like you asked! How about a little feedback here! How long I gotta wait!”
Man. O’Farrell felt himself growing physically hot. “As long as it takes,” he said. Maybe longer, he thought.
Both encounters were recorded, on film as well as tape, and Petty and Erickson considered them, comparing them with the earlier transcripts of Customs and FBI interviews.
“I think he was too aggressive,” Erickson said. From his spot by the window he could see the protestors against something, but could not hear their chants to discover what it was.
“I don’t know.” Petty pointed to the film. “Look at Rodgers; pimp-rolling son of a bitch. He needed to be knocked off balance, and O’Farrell certainly did just that. And by doing so he got more than anyone else.”
“Anything particular strike you?” Erickson demanded pointedly, looking back into the room.
“‘You ever think about what you were doing, worry about it,’” quoted the section leader at once. “Of course I noticed it.”
“So?”
Instead of replying, Petty fast-forwarded the video, stabbing it to hold on a freeze-frame at the moment of O’Farrell’s question. Petty said, “There’s no facial expression to indicate it meant anything to O’Farrell himself.”
“It didn’t have a context,” Erickson said.
“It might have produced an angry reaction; got the bastard to say something he was holding back,” Petty suggested.
“I’ve got an uneasy feeling,” Erickson said.
“I’ve always got an uneasy feeling until an assignment is satisfactorily concluded,” said Petty.