“That’s why you rewrote the report?”
He nodded. “My career would have been over. Hoover believed King to be an immoral, lying hypocrite. He hated the man. So everyone else within the FBI was required to hate him, too. I knew what he wanted to hear. Once a policy was set by Hoover, it could not be undone. You either played ball or went home. Your choice. I chose.”
“The whole ‘I was just following orders thing’ went by the wayside at Nuremberg.”
“This country was different then. The public supported the FBI. They loved Hoover. He was their hero. There was a respect for law enforcement that’s gone today.”
“All thanks to people like J. Edgar Hoover, who certainly did his part to make people distrust the police.”
“Again, I can’t disagree with those conclusions. Hoover built an empire. He worked mainly in secret and masked his actions behind a totally crafted public image that he went to great lengths to create. But you’re right, he waged a war on civil liberties and, unfortunately for Martin Luther King, by the time the civil rights movement came into existence, Hoover was at his zenith.”
My anger was growing. This guy was no moralistic saint. Repentant. I knew his type. Official vigilantes. Self-appointed Boy Scouts of the heartland with their perfect suits and brush-cut hair, possessed of values and beliefs that could justify anything, telling you precisely what you wanted to hear while driving a knife into your back.
“You personally knew there was no connection between communism and King, yet you went ahead and tried to destroy him.”
“We tried to destroy a lot of people. But Hoover and King’s relationship was different. King had the audacity to openly question the FBI’s own civil rights record. He pointed out there were no black agents and he leveled that there was a southern bias, on our part, with investigations. He was right on both counts, by the way. Hoover forbid the hiring of blacks and we did cater to southern law enforcement. We could not have functioned without good relationships with the local police. Those southern cops hated King and everything he stood for. When it came to choosing between civil rights protestors and the cops, that was no choice at all.”
I was going to enjoy kicking this old man’s butt. And I intended on doing just that. I was rapidly becoming real comfortable with a devil-may-care attitude. But the presence of Foster and the Perrys added a level of complication. So I decided to keep fishing while this guy was still nibbling at the hook.
“In ’64 King attacked Hoover again on the communist angle,” Oliver said. “His quote was that there were as many communists in the civil rights movement as there were Eskimos in Florida. That’s when Hoover held his famous press conference and called King the most notorious liar in the country. After that it was total war for Hoover. My marching orders were clear. Destroy King.”
“What was your role in COINTELPRO?”
“I was head of domestic intelligence. I ran the entire counterintelligence operation under Hoover. Then I headed its dismantling, after he died.”
At least I was speaking to the man at the top. “Only it’s not dismantled, is it?”
“That depends. As far as active and current? It’s gone. Times have changed.”
“Yeah. People actually try to follow the law now.”
“But as to guarding against threats from the past? We must remain vigilant to those.”
I motioned to the case. “Like what’s in there?”
He glanced at the waterproof case. “I truly believed that Juan Lopez Valdez was dead. He hasn’t been heard from in over twenty years. Instead, he’s not only alive, but went to the Dry Tortugas to meet with Benjamin Foster’s daughter and bring her documents that should no longer exist. I assure you, Lieutenant Malone, nothing good would have come from anyone seeing what’s inside there.”
“Then it’s lucky for you I came along and screwed everything up.”
He gestured with the pipe. “There is an element of fortuitousness in your presence.”
“Along with a pain in the ass?”
He chuckled. “Oh, yes. Jansen wants to kill you.”
“Let him try.”
“You’re an interesting man. A young naval officer. Fighter pilot. Law school graduate. JAG lawyer. Now a special operative with the Justice Department, whatever that means. And all before you turn thirty.”
“I’m having my résumé printed, can I include you as a reference?”
I could see I was getting to him. This guy was accustomed to giving orders, then people bowing as they backed from the room to follow them. But he’d heard two words that he hadn’t wanted to hear.
Bishop’s Pawn.
My lawyer sense told me he was now more than a little annoyed. Killing me remained a problem. Others knew about me, and he was no longer running with the big dogs. He didn’t call the shots. Instead, he was retired, living here in Shangri-la with his marble FBI emblem in the entrance hall floor, dependent on people still in positions of power to cover for him.
Those were the ones Stephanie Nelle was after.
The folks in DC whose strings this guy pulled.
So I decided to get with the plan and help her out.
“Why am I here?”
“I was hoping we could solve this problem together. I know what Foster wants.” He pointed at the case. “Those to be burned. I get that. People are motivated by a variety of reasons. Ideology, passion, duty, loyalty. Some by personal gain. What do you want?”
I nearly smiled. He’d brought me here to bribe me.
Something thudded into the door loud enough to grab both my and Oliver’s attention. He rose from his seat and rushed across to a desk, where he withdrew a weapon.
“Stay here.”
You wish.
He headed for the door.
I snatched up the coin from the top of the waterproof case and pocketed it, then I cut Oliver off, planting a solid right uppercut that sent the bastard down. I then relieved him of his gun and mocked him.
“You stay here.”
I opened the door.
Jansen lay on the floor.
Chapter Twenty-two
I bent down and checked.
Jansen was still breathing, but he’d taken a pop to his head, a fresh gash marking the method of attack. I came alert and stared down the corridor toward the entrance hall. The man in the glasses who’d escorted us inside lay sprawled on the terrazzo. Apparently, somebody unexpected had arrived.
But what about Coleen, her father, and her husband? I decided there was no choice, so I called out, “Coleen?”
“In here.”
I heard the voice, muffled, as if through a closed door, coming from ahead. Three doors down I found them, but the knob was locked.
“Stand back,” I said.
I pounded my right foot into the wood. Two more kicks and the jamb gave way.
I stepped inside.
“Something’s happening here,” I told them. “And it’s not good.”
Then I realized.
The waterproof case was back in the library.
“Follow me.”
We returned to the room to find Oliver still on the floor, the waterproof case gone, the French doors leading out to the terrace open.
“Get in one of the cars out front and get out of here,” I told Coleen.
“I’m going with you,” she said, then she faced her husband. “Take Dad and go. Do you have your cell phone?”
Nate shook his head. “The guy back there on the floor in the hall took it.”
I understood Coleen’s point, so I rushed back inside and searched Jansen, finding the unit.
“When you get away,” she told Nate, “call us on your phone.”
Nate nodded.
“Let those files go,” Foster said. “They’re not worth all of this.”
“I can’t,” Coleen said.
I agreed with her.
“I demand you listen to me, Coleen.”
“We’re way beyond that,” she told him.
I grabbed Foster by the arm and led him away, whispering into his ear, “Go, or I’ll tell her what you did to get us here.”
I could see the threat registered.
The older man nodded his acquiescence.
“You and I will talk privately later,” I muttered.
We all raced from the house, rounding one side and following the towering hedges back to the driveway entrance.