Streeter wiped his mouth with his napkin and picked a bacon bit from the gap between his front teeth. “I need to know why the FAA put a clamp on that file.”
“I’m not on real intimate terms with the FAA these days, Deputy. Let’s just say we’ve had our differences.”
“But you did work in the intelligence community. You have a security clearance, correct?”
“Hypothetically, if I ever did hold a clearance, it would’ve been revoked when I turned in my resignation papers. That’s assuming I ever worked for the government, which I’m not saying I did or didn’t.”
The deputy’s biscuits and gravy arrived, smelling like I imagine heaven smells — the yeasty musk finished off with an irresistible hint of lard. I could feel my arteries congealing just inhaling.
“Enjoy,” Ruby said, reeking of tobacco.
Again, Streeter waited until she was out of audio range.
“OK, fine, so you don’t have an active clearance. But, assuming you did work for the government, like the newspaper said, you’d still have contacts, friends who could do you a favor, correct?”
“That’s a whole lot of assuming, Deputy.”
Two young men with brown skin and stylishly coiffed black hair walked in and hovered near the door, waiting to be seated. Busy chowing down, Streeter didn’t notice them. I did. Some may have mistaken the two for Arabs. I knew them to be Iranians who, I observed in my adventures abroad, are inclined to be taller and slightly lighter in complexion than their Middle Eastern neighbors. Iranian men also tend to be more fashionably attired and more attentive to personal grooming. These guys were all that. Pricey jeans and black leather jackets. No shortage of cologne. Not a nose hair in sight.
The taller of the two caught me looking and tried staring me down. I held my gaze. Dominant males, I learned with Alpha, reflexively maintain eye contact when confronted with what they perceive instinctively as other, socially aggressive males. It goes back to the time when we all swung from the trees by our tails: to see its prey, the hunter must always expose its eyes. When the hunted breaks eye contact, it’s a sign of submission that signals, in essence, “Do with me what you will; I won’t fight back.”
After a few seconds, the taller Iranian looked away, leaned closer to his companion and muttered something in his ear. Pretending to peruse the plastic laminated menu, his friend, a powerfully built fireplug, turned and glared at me. I glared back.
Streeter turned and looked over his shoulder, chewing on a strip of bacon, curious to see what I was seeing. The taller Iranian noticed him and nodded in a not friendly way. Streeter nodded in response and turned back toward me.
“The tall guy’s name is Reza Jalali,” he said. “Owns a couple convenience stores in town. The other guy, I’ve never seen before.”
“Something hinky about that dude,” I said.
“Clearly, you don’t trust your fellow man, Mr. Logan.”
“I used to. Then I read Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who said that if you’re too open-minded, your brains fall out.”
Streeter smiled. I watched him dip a piece of bacon in the gravy, stuff the bacon in his mouth, and lick grease from his fingers. Back at the Tranquility House Bed-and-Breakfast, the Kavitches, Johnny and Gwen, would probably be serving up organic granola with reduced-fat yogurt and fresh fruit because that’s what B&B owners do — try to convince you that there’s something inherently healthier staying with them than at the Comfort Inn, where you cook your own waffles with premixed cups of “batter” that looks a lot like baby spit-up.
Streeter salted and peppered his biscuits and gravy. “So, what do you say? You think you could put a call in for me?”
I told him I’d think about it.
“Either way,” I said, “it’ll cost you a strip of bacon.”
“Knock yourself out.”
He slid his plate across the table.
Elevated triglycerides never tasted so good.
Snow was coming down as I walked out of the restaurant. Big soft fluffy flakes that fell slowly through the pines, muffling all sound and washing all color from the morning. I used my arm to brush off the driver’s door on the Yukon, got in, started the engine and fired up the heater.
I figured there’d be little harm, making a call or two on Deputy Streeter’s behalf. I’ll admit, part of my motivation in helping him out was ego driven. I’d seen and done a thousand things in defense of my country. I’d been trained to compartmentalize those things, to keep secret from any and all but my fellow go-to guys the tactics, techniques, and procedures we exercised to do those things. But Streeter had been correct: I did know people in government who enjoyed access to restricted information, including Paul Horvath, an investigator with the FAA’s Flight Standards District Office in San Diego.
Horvath had been assigned to determine the cause of my near-fatal accident a few months earlier at San Diego’s Montgomery Airport. He’d concluded that an intentional act of sabotage had forced me to crash land the Ruptured Duck, and that the incident had been in no way my fault. That, however, hadn’t stopped the FAA from tormenting me for months afterward, what with the dozens of reports and sworn declarations I was compelled to submit just to keep my flight school certified and my pilot’s certificate intact.
I found Horvath’s card in my wallet and called him.
“Who?” Horvath said, yawning, half asleep.
“Cordell Logan.”
I’d forgotten it wasn’t yet 0700. It took him a few seconds to remember me.
“What time is it?”
I told him. Then I told him why I was calling.
“Let me make sure I have this correctly. You want me to give you confidential information from a restricted agency file?”
“Yes.”
“Without going through proper channels? Is that what you just asked me?”
“Proper channels could take weeks, Mr. Horvath. The information is needed in an ongoing police investigation, the murder of a young man in the mountains outside Lake Tahoe.”
“Mr. Logan, I’m as law and order as they come. I hope they find the killer and put him away. But what you’re asking me to do is to commit a crime, a very serious crime, not to mention jeopardize my career. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
I apologized for having called so early and signed off. Not without some reluctance, I then called my buddy, Buzz.
“This is not directory information, Logan,” Buzz grumbled over the phone. “Don’t you have any other friends who still work for Uncle Sugar? I’m busy. I have things to do, like saving the free world. Why are you always calling me?”
“Because we share a history, Buzz. Because I love you like the deranged, antisocial brother I never had.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
Buzz (not his real name) was an opera-loving, former Delta operator who’d been among Alpha’s initial cadre of go-to guys — a “plank holder,” as they were known. He’d lost an eye to RPG shrapnel on one especially gnarly op outside Benghazi. After the White House shut down Alpha as a potential political liability, he’d ended up working at the Defense Intelligence Agency, riding an analyst’s desk that kept him inside most days, an assignment he’d used to good effect. Buzz cultivated more intra-agency connections over the years and possessed more behind-the-scenes insights about the inner workings of the alphabet agencies than probably any member of the intelligence community who ever lived.
I told him how I’d happened to stumble upon the wreckage of the long-missing airplane, about the murdered kid, the crate from the Santa Susana Field Lab, and the FAA’s unwillingness to cooperate with a homicide investigation. Buzz asked me for the plane’s tail number. I gave it to him. He said he’d ask around and see what he could come up with. I didn’t even have to bribe him, which I usually did.