He wasn't there but a year when a story broke in the Los Angeles Times that the special agent in charge of the region, a veteran FBI man by the name of Skip Weaver, had been blocking the promotions of Hispanic agents in favor of promotions for less experienced, less qualified white agents. The paper quoted from a batch of highly sensitive internal personnel documents that it said it had obtained from sources familiar with the office. Shortly after that, the paper conducted a review of FBI arrests in the region and found that the bureau arrested Hispanics in greater proportion than any other racial or ethnic group.
This was enough to unleash a racial backlash the likes of which had not been seen there since the Rodney King riots. Black and Hispanic city councillors called for Weaver's immediate dismissal and presented the director of the FBI with a petition filled with 35,000 names. The city's race relations commission launched its own investigation. So did the FBI, but rather than investigate its personnel or arrest policies, it furiously probed into who had leaked the documents to the newspaper.
A federal grand jury was formed. Threats were made within the organization. Weaver virtually locked himself in his office, waiting for the culprit to be found. The reporter, a young man who thought his career had been made, was hauled before the grand jury. Next, he was brought into court and ordered to reveal his source. When he refused, the conservative-minded judge told him he faced jail time for contempt.
Federal prosecutors treated him nicely, but outside court, several FBI agents informed him he would be charged with receiving stolen property and thrown in prison. Unbelievably, he caved, and informed investigators that Kent Drinker had leaked him the documents. When he tried to explain that Drinker was only trying to repair a grave injustice, that a few good, qualified hardworking Hispanic agents were being discriminated against, no one was around to hear him.
So Drinker was immediately called back to Washington. He was told he could face dismissal for stealing government property. He was reviled by a large segment of the bureau. In law enforcement, there is the code of silence, and he had just violated it, he had trampled it. In many quarters there, he would never be forgiven. He was assigned a desk job, menial work, really. That was all nearly a decade before.
For several years, apparently, he committed himself to the pick and shovel work of rejuvenation, keeping a low profile, going along, getting along, as much as they would let him, doing whatever he was asked. Eventually he played a key role in helping to solve a terrorist bombing in Nevada. And his fortunes took their sharpest turn for the better about four years ago, when Hutchins came to the White House as vice president. From the depths of penance, Drinker was pulled to nearly the pinnacle of the agency, named assistant director-a move interpreted by the national press as a message that the new administration wanted an honest, open government. For the past four years Drinker had launched an increasingly successful campaign for approval among the rank-and-file agents.
So what did this tell me? Well, perhaps it explained why someone with as lofty a title as assistant director was helping with the street work of a major investigation, rather than supervising it from his office.
Maybe this was another example of him trying to curry favor among his underlings by working in the trenches alongside them. And perhaps it explained why he had been so quiet with me in the hospital room that day, why he let Stevens ask nearly all the questions. Because he had been burned by reporters before, perhaps he quite simply didn't like us as a breed.
The telephone rang, and I just about knocked it off my desk in my haste to pick it up.
"Hey, old boy. I have to get on a godforsaken jet airplane and fly all the way out to Fresno, California, just to bail your fat ass out one more time." It was Havlicek, and if Martin was apologetic to me about his assignment on this story, obviously he wasn't himself.
"Not what I heard," I said. "I heard there's an issue over your output up there in Boston, and they decided to put you on this story to work with the master for a while. They want you to kneel at my knee. Watch and learn. Watch and learn." Now that this macho turf ritual was over, I cut to the point. "What do you have?"
"Nothing yet," Havlicek said, his taunting tone changing to one of honest bemusement. "I'm on an airplane. I'll be on the ground soon.
I haven't worked in Washington for five years. Most of my people are gone from Justice. We're just trying to play catch-up with the Times for tomorrow. When are you on board?"
"Well, now. I have a couple of FBI agents coming over this afternoon, and I'm going to see if I can trade information with them, but it doesn't look real promising. I'll be working the phones all day, trying to find out anything I can on Clawson and the militia angle from here. If I get anything, I'll write it up, obviously, and we'll probably feed it into whatever you get. Otherwise I'll be in the bureau tomorrow."
"All right. I may give you a shout later today if I come across anything. Give me a call if you hear something worthwhile."
They arrived fashionably late for the interview, Stevens and Drinker.
After a day spent accomplishing frustratingly little from my dozens of phone calls spread around official Washington, they were an oddly welcome sight. Poor Baker was nearly beside himself at the concept of female companionship at home. What a miracle. So I invited them in and offered them what I had, which at this particular time was water.
"Hopefully," Drinker said, as we had taken our seats in the living room, "all of us are in a better frame of mind today."
That, I think, was the closest I would get to an apology from this duo, so I accepted it gracefully and said, "I'm sure we all are."
The brief informalities behind us, Stevens briskly took up where she left off the day before. "I talked to the president in-depth about this earlier today, and he assures me that he initiated the invitation to you. He said he is a fan of your work and had some specific things he wanted to talk to you about. So it appears we have cleared up those questions."
Her tone softened as she added, "I'm hoping you can run through with me just what it is you saw out there."
I regarded her for a moment. Her jet black hair had little wind-tussled wisps flowing in various directions, sexy, yet with a sense of casual innocence. It highlighted her translucent, alabaster skin. She was tall and slender, and her tan suit clung in some places and hung loose in others, making it appear that even when she tried being one of the boys, she was unmistakably a girl.
I began talking, and she scribbled furiously, turning the pages of her tiny notebook as fast as she could write, not even looking up at me or bothering to acknowledge my words.
"Very helpful," she said finally, when I had run out of things to describe. As witnesses go, I'm probably a pretty good one, considering that's what I do for a living. We met eyes a couple of times, and she never looked away. She even smiled once, when I did, when I talked about Davis screaming so loud that in the hospital, when I woke up, I had assumed that he had sustained some catastrophic injury, maybe even been killed. Drinker kicked in with a joke. "I talked to him yesterday, and he doesn't strike me as a real ruffian," he said.
We went over a few more points, though nothing big. The frost of the previous day seemed to be gradually melting away. In fact, as Drinker sat there mute, Stevens was adopting this odd air of familiarity; the banter growing easy, harmless. I didn't quite understand yet the difference in tone from the day before.
"Your house is beautiful," she said, looking around, in a signal that the interrogation had ended. "Great furniture. Great moldings."