TWENTY-EIGHT

Yates had become aware the black Chevrolet with the high rear antenna was following him just outside of Columbus, Ohio. He knew Columbus well, had served undercover there. Even on foreign terrain, Yates was unrivaled at losing a mobile tail. He had tried, in Columbus proper, shaking the black Chevrolet. Raced up and down obscure avenues, turned and reversed course half a dozen times. Each time he seemed to be in the clear, to have succeeded in losing the surveiller, the Chevrolet reappeared.

Yates had encountered only one man who had been able to stick so closely to him under these conditions, Vance Daughter during their training days. Since Daughter already loomed large in Billy’s thinking, he had relaxed, proceeded on down into Washington, D.C., at a leisurely pace, one which would make tailing him all the easier.

After talking to Tina Beth at nine in the morning, Billy went for a drive around Washington. The Chevrolet managed in capital traffic as well as it had on the open highway, was forever present in Yates’s rear-view mirror. Remained present all through the drive to Quantico, Virginia. Veered off and away only when Yates drove onto the U.S. Marine Corps base.

Classes were in session, and the casual hubbub Billy counted on prevailed at the FBI’s two-story training academy. He walked down the main hallway and into the basement without being stopped or questioned. The storage area for the registration office was right beside the empty bin designated for the papers of Orin G. Trask. Billy had noticed it when Barrett Amory had brought him down here months before.

Back attendance records for the time Yates had trained at the academy were easily found. So were those for most every class from 1963 through 1969, the years during which Orin Trask conducted his experimental seminars.

… And in these records, for those years, Yates was to find everything he expected he would.

“Call Frank Santi,” Billy told Tina Beth. He was in an outdoor phone booth watching the Chevrolet, which was parked down the block. “Santi’s the chief of police. Tell him everything you know. Everything I’ve told you about the investigation and everything else.” Billy checked his watch. “Tell him I’ll be going to Three Oaks … he’ll have to act fast and get hold of the local authorities. I’ll be there at eight o’clock. Have the police outside by then. Do you have all of that?”

“Yes—”

“And don’t worry, hon, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“You’re walking into the lion’s den, aren’t you, Billy Bee?”

“I think so.”

“Can’t you wait until I talk to Frank Santi?”

“Nope, they’re right on me.” He was still watching the Chevrolet. “Better I bring the fight to them.”

“What about Cub, shouldn’t I call Cub?”

“Cub sold me out, Tina Beth. He set up a trap for me in Carbondale. I love you, Tina Beth … love you like crazy.”

He drove through the afternoon, drove around greater Washington, D.C. The Chevrolet was prominent in his rear-view mirror throughout. At dusk it cut away. Nor did Yates spot it when, several hours later, he reached Three Oaks, the Virginia estate belonging to Barrett and Patricia Amory.

Barrett received him alone in the great hall beyond the dining room, didn’t seem surprised by the impromptu visit, offered him whiskey and water. Billy, who didn’t drink that often, accepted.

“Have you learned anything else about the Gents or Silent Men?” Yates asked.

“That’s what brings you popping over, young Yates, that nonsense?” Branch water was debottled.

“Yes.”

“I haven’t had time to look into it. Haven’t had time to do most anything since we spoke last.” Raising the tumbler to eye level, he added bourbon to the branch.

“I’ve had a good deal of time to look in.” Yates walked over and took the ready drink from the old man. “It’s all I’ve done.

“Sounds a worthless endeavor.” Whiskey poured into Amory’s own tumbler.

“If you call seven lives worthless, then I guess it is.”

“Seven lives?” Amory set the decanter on the sideboard.

“Seven people have died because of the Silent Men.”

“Tchin-tchin.” They clinked glasses and drank.

“Now for your saga, young Yates, what do you wish to impart?”

“It will be of as much interest to Missus Amory as to you.”

“Lady Pat is indisposed.”

“I know what went on, Barrett. All of it. About the Silent Men. Patricia should hear.”

“She is indisposed.” Amory was curt, which was not his style.

“Allow Mister Yates his say, Barrett.” Patricia, statuesque and stunning, dominated the doorway. “He has gone to great bother, no doubt.”

She flowed forth into the chamber, swirled and dipped into a chaise that was form-fitted to receive her elegance. A wall of leaded windows stretched behind her. Through the windows was a shimmering waterscape of lake and cloudy spring night. “Do begin, Mister Yates.”

“Thank you, Missus Amory.” Billy had begun to pace much as Strom used to pace. “What I’m about to provide is a reconstruction of the events leading to, and ending with, the corruption of Romor 91. In the worst sense of the word it is a conspiracy. A conspiracy of spirit as well as intent. If some of my early assumptions are slightly off, it makes no difference. The essence exists. A germination of deceit.

“We’ll have to go back a bit to get a clearer perspective, go back a year or two before the Mormon State robbery. The FBI and J. Edgar Hoover himself were in deep trouble with the public and on Capitol Hill. Time and the media were catching up to Mister Hoover. Catching on, as well. Deglossing the Bureau’s rose. Besmirching the Director’s person. Bright young prospects were shunning the FBI and hurrying instead to get into the CIA or State Department or other ‘hot’ organizations. The very bedrock of the Bureau, its funding support in the Senate and the House of Representatives, was eroding. The media, correctly or not, perpetuated the notion that the President would at any moment be curtailing FBI authority and jurisdiction. J. Edgar Hoover, who in the past could have handled each and every one of these problems with ease, seemed to be at a loss, seemed not even to be aware the peril existed, didn’t seem to realize that he and his beloved FBI had become, to many, an embarrassment.

“But there were Bureau partisans. And many of them searched for a solution to the dilemma. Most agreed that what was needed was affirmation of the FBI. A return to the glory days of old. One particular group decided it knew exactly how to do this … and possibly take over control of the FBI in the bargain. This group worked from the logical and simple premise that the easiest way to recapture the glory of the old days was by having the Bureau do what it had always done best in the past: solve and exploit a great crime … another crime of the century. Which came first, the exploiting or the solving, was immaterial … as it so often had been in the past.

“So this group started looking for just such a perpetration. Since some of them were strategically placed within the Bureau itself, they could monitor most anything that came into Washington headquarters and act on it. And they had another advantage … the specifications of exactly what was desired had been spelled out by Orin G. Trask in his so-called model crimes. In retrospect, it isn’t all that hard to figure out what those specifications were.” Yates held up six fingers. “There were a half dozen of them. Number one, the crime they were looking for must be spectacular in its perpetration. Number two, it should be a crime against property rather than persons, preferably a robbery of cash or gems or other valuables from a large institution. No one sympathizes with a large institution … with impersonal wealth. Number three, the perpetrators must make a clean getaway and for a time not be found. Number four, the public and the media must show an immediate interest in the perpetration and escaping felons. The public perceiving the unknown criminals are heroes and rooting for them not to be caught would be advantageous. Number five, the crime must appear to be nonviolent at the outset. Information that innocent bystanders or company employees were harmed by the criminals must be temporarily suppressed. This fifth requisite, the nonviolent aspect, is pivotal to the whole plan. It alone must provide the desired response at the most propitious time. It’s the ultimate opinion-shaper. And this fifth aspect is what went haywire in the Mormon State conspiracy. What brought everything tumbling down … Teddy Anglaterra.

“The sixth requirement is that the perpetration be record-setting in the worth of the valuables stolen. America is addicted to old records being shattered.”

Yates went to the sideboard, indicated his empty glass. “May I?” he asked Amory.

Amory did not reply.

Billy poured himself another whiskey. “So there they were, these do-gooder supporters of J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau, waiting for the right crime to come down the pike. A Trask-like model crime. They did Trask one better. They devised their own contingency measures in case a perpetration came along that was somewhat under specifications, one that might possess many but not all of the desired requisites. Don’t get me wrong. Trask was in no way denigrated by our schemers. The opposite was true. Trask, or the memory of Trask, was held in near-messianic esteem. They even named themselves after one of his favorite secret societies, the Silent Men.”

Yates was back to pacing. “How long the Silent Men watched and waited for a Trask-like crime to take place, I can’t say. Anyway, on Sunday, August twenty-second, the Prairie Port police responded to an alarm and found the vault had been looted at Mormon State National Bank. We, the resident office, sent our first reports back to Washington. The Silent Men read them and, sensing what they were looking for was at hand, dispatched one of their own members to Prairie Port for a closer look. Now they saw first-hand that Mormon State filled their bill, or at least met most of Orin Trask’s specifications.

“Then a seventh requirement, one which Trask had never anticipated, was encountered … bank cooperation. Wilkie Jarrel controlled Mormon State. The time had finally arrived when Bureau needs were more important than J. Edgar Hoover’s loyalty to Ed Grafton. J. Edgar himself probably made the first phone call to Jarrel. Whether the dumping of Grafton came up then or later doesn’t matter. Grafton was to go. J. Edgar left the details for this and other matters to his private spy in Prairie Port, the same agent he had recruited to watch and protect Ed Grafton, Jez Jessup. Jessup wasn’t a Silent Man. He never knew they existed. But the Silent Men knew all about him. Knew he was Hoover’s spy. The Men figured out a way to transmit direct orders to Jessup … orders which Jessup, to the last, believed had come from Edgar.

“There was a forty-eight hour delay between the discovery of the robbery on Sunday, August twenty-second, and J. Edgar Hoover’s announcement the FBI had entered the case on Tuesday, August twenty-fourth. Part of this time, these two days, was spent in negotiating with Wilkie Jarrel … getting him to go along with their plan. Other issues had to be tended to as well during this period, some of which included Jarrel, some of which didn’t.

“With Jarrel’s cooperation in hand, the FBI publicly launched Romor 91, launched it with Hoover’s Tuesday announcement. A planeload of equipment landed in Prairie Port. Support agents flooded into the city. And it all worked. Worked better than ever imagined. Worked so well the Silent Men had nothing to do now but sit back and watch. The Mormon State robbery and investigation, in and of itself, was seen as truly a crime of the century. The public ate it up. There wasn’t enough the media could say about it. And an occasional well-placed false item, such as letting it slip that millions of stolen dollars may have fallen into the river, thereby turning the lower half of the Mississippi into a gigantic treasure hunt, didn’t hurt the Silent Men’s cause either.

“Then something happened that wasn’t in the script … Mule and the gang. I believe the Silent Men would have preferred that no major suspect be found this early.” Yates turned to Amory. “After all, wasn’t the name of the game maximum exposure?”

Barrett Amory again did not respond.

“Whatever the Men’s preference,” Yates continued, “the body of Sam Hammond and the statements of his wife and mother forced the issue. We swooped down on Baton Rouge, followed three of the gang members hoping they would lead us to more, then when they got into a fight and took off, we began picking them up. If it had been Bicki Hale or some of the other thieves the media focused on, that might have been all right. But the problem was compounded. Unfortunately for the Silent Men, the press and public fell in love with Mule Corkel … Mule, the deviant sideshow attraction. No modern criminal had been given the kind of attention he was getting. And this was serious business for the conspirators. Beyond not being the image they preferred for a supercrook, Mule was a dark, unwitting clown. The public laughed with Mule but laughed at the FBI.

“The Silent Men decided they had to get rid of Mule and his two pals. To do this they reverted to an auxiliary measure prepared for just such an eventuality. First off, they needed witnesses who could provide new alibis for Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy. This could have been done through several safe houses other government organizations ran. But since Wilkie Jarrel was already part of the conspiracy, they prevailed on him to let them use facilities he controlled in Emoryville as fronts. The Silent Men now had ‘Freddie’ send orders to Jez Jessup in the name of J. Edgar Hoover. Jez, thinking he was carrying out Hoover’s wishes, went to Mule and Wiggles and Ragotsy offering them freedom in return for cooperation. They agreed, as anyone in his right mind would have. It doesn’t really matter who brought in criminal lawyer Harry Janks—Jez or the Silent Men. The point is, Janks arrived and did his job, and the FBI’s case against Mule, Rat and Wiggles fell apart.”

Yates thought he noticed the dark silhouette of a man standing outside one of the lakeside windows. He turned back to Amory and Patricia. “The Silent Men were at their best now, were thinking trigger-fast and with frightening precision. Realizing that the resident agents of Prairie Port were confused and depressed by the turn of events and could become even more demoralized, the Men decided to bring in J. Edgar Hoover to bolster spirits. Scheduled his arrival into Prairie Port’s metropolitan airport. At the last moment a snag occurred in the person of Wilkie Jarrel. Jarrel, directly or indirectly, was now a full partner in the plot. Not only was his bank cooperating and subsidiary operations producing false alibis, but he was responsible for the sheltering of Natalie Hammond and her baby at the maternity clinic of the resort where Ragotsy allegedly had stayed at the time of the robbery. Natalie Hammond was originally interviewed by Cub Hennessy. After deciding that Mule, Ragotsy and Wiggles were to be removed as suspects in the robbery, the Silent Men felt it wise to transport Natalie Hammond out of the range of inquisitive agents who might discredit their plan. Natalie had always told the truth and wouldn’t change her story. The Silent Men didn’t even bring up the matter. They simply enticed her away with promises of free medical and infant care for herself and her unborn baby. The facilities and services were excellent. It was no problem convincing Natalie to stay on after the birth.

“Wilkie Jarrel learned about J. Edgar Hoover’s impending arrival in Prairie Port at the last moment and demanded an immediate meeting with the Director. Knowing that no liaison between the two could be kept from the press after Hoover’s arrival, the Silent Men diverted the incoming aircraft to a nearby airport, probably Saint Louis, then had him helicoptered to Jarrel’s estate west of the city. It wasn’t enough for Jarrel that he had forced Hoover to replace Grafton as head of the Prairie Port office, he wanted the whole loaf. Once Jarrel had Hoover alone, he pressed for the expulsion of Ed Grafton from the FBI. Hoover said no. Grafton might have been better off if he’d agreed. Grafton’s probably in exile at the North Pole right now. Anyway, after leaving Jarrel, Hoover drove into the city and met with the discouraged resident agents. Even though their case had fallen apart, he praised them for their work.

“I’m not sure but I doubt that Director Hoover knew about the Silent Men … or that he could have comprehended the whole plan even if he did know. From what I’ve seen, Director Hoover’s mental faculties aren’t what they used to be … maybe this made it easier for the Silent Men to get him to replace Grafton at Prairie Port … get him to do all those other things he did for the conspiracy, some of them pretty ugly things.

“The Silent Men learned something else about Mule, Ragotsy and Wiggles … that they were going into the irrigation tunnels running under the western section of Prairie Port looking for the stolen money. Jez thought he was reporting this directly to Hoover, but the communication was actually with a Silent Man … with ‘Freddie.’ Jez even let Freddie know the three crooks had offered him a share of the take if he left them alone to look. The Silent Man told Jez he could do whatever he wanted so long as he kept an eye on the three actual robbers. Jez, I’m sorry to say, accepted Mule’s offer of a share, set up a secured system of communications with the thief and on occasion went down into the tunnels and caves to check on progress.

“When Otto Pinkny was arrested in South Carolina and identified, he didn’t demand to see the FBI any more than he was held in jail only three or four days. He was probably in jail some two weeks negotiating with the Silent. Men. It figures he was first identified by FBI handprints and talked to by local Bureau agents. But when the Silent Men in Washington found out, they sent down their own people to make a deal with Pinkny. Terms were finally worked out, and Pinkny listened to confession tapes Mule, Ragotsy and Wiggles had made as part of their freedom deal. When more details were needed, ‘Freddie’ called Jez and Jez arranged for Mule to go to South Carolina and brief Pinkny directly. Then Pinkny arrived in Prairie Port and stood up under the toughest interrogation our office could manage. Everyone but Brewmeister and Strom and myself was convinced Pinkny and his gang had done Mormon State. What’s more, the world had taken to Pinkny as it would to a matinee idol. Took to him exactly as planned. It was the Silent Men’s supreme moment. Pinkny fit their image as a supercrook. The final ploy, the masterstroke, was as good as assured. The price to pay had been a pittance, not more than a fib or two. But the price was about to go up.”

Yates spotted two men standing outside the window, paid them no attention. “As brilliant as the plan had been,” he said, “as well as it had worked, now the opposite began to happen. Alice Sunstrom called the FBI hot line and told them, anonymously, that she saw Mule kill a man in Prairie Port at a time he was supposed to be in Illinois. Jez Jessup was the person who took her call and soon verified what she said. The Silent Men suddenly realized that they were conspiring with a known murderer. Like it or not, there wasn’t much they could do about it. They were tied to Mule. If Mule’s alibi was disproved, as Alice could make happen, their whole conspiracy could come tumbling down. But there was another threat to the conspiracy—Brewmeister and me. What we’d discovered was the biggest blunder the Men had made to date … dumping the corpse of Teddy Anglaterra into the Mississippi River. Anglaterra was a drunk who had nothing to do with the Mormon State robbery. He’d been killed in a drunken brawl a hundred miles away, and the Men found him there and brought his corpse down to Prairie Port and dumped it into the river. Then, with the connivance of the bank president, they added Teddy’s name to the list of people who had been at the bank the day of the robbery. What they intended to do, at the right time, was prove that Teddy was actually employed at the bank at the time of the robbery and was killed in the line of duty defending the premises. This was to fulfill Orin Trask’s fifth requirement … that the crime must appear to be nonviolent at the outset. Outset was the operative word here. Trask and the Silent Men knew that once violence was established, the public would turn against the perpetrators. Teddy Anglaterra was to be used in this fashion. The announcement that he was killed by the robbers, the Silent Men were certain, would make any suspect into a public ogre … and thereby elevate the image of the FBI.

“As things turned out, there was no need to use Anglaterra. The reason was two unexpected deaths. If the Men needed to trump up a dead victim of the crime they could always say Cowboy Carlson or Sam Hammond had been killed by the robbers. So the Silent Men tried to ignore Anglaterra, but Brew and I discovered him, or at least his records. And Brew tripped up the bank president on whether Teddy had been at Mormon State the day of the robbery. It was Teddy Anglaterra who made me remember hearing about the model crime that the Mormon State conspiracy was based on. You, Barrett, tried to warn me off by telling me about the Silent Men. Brew verified the Men’s existence and figured out how they operated. And figured out how many there were. Seven was the outside number he came up with, seven Silent Men.

“Either my visit here or Brewmeister’s discovery forced the Silent Men to make their worst blunder … a blunder that instantly transformed them from ill-advised crusaders into assassins … the murder of my friend Martin Brewmeister.”

Three men were now standing outside the window, revealed in silhouette. Yates sensed a fourth might be behind him, but he didn’t turn to confirm this. “Right after Brew’s death came the suicide of Alice Sunstrom, which was really another murder. The Silent Men had two scalps to their credit. Homicide had become a modus operandi for them.

“I was left to figure out the riddle Brew had already solved, who the seven Men were and how they operated. The prime clue had come from Brew, who said in his final phone call to me that the evidence had been sitting in front of us all the time. When I learned Brew had stolen Romor 91 files from the twelfth floor, the answer should have been evident, but I was a little bit dense. After all, the twelfth-floor files contained only out-of-town case reports. That’s what slowly dawned on me. The Silent Men had controlled Romor 91 by controlling the out-of-town investigations and reports. The plan was so brilliantly conceived that it really took only four men, all of them special agents of the FBI, to complete the operation, to control and alter the critical aspects of it.

“I said before, I was a little slow in realizing all this. And I did it in reverse order. What I figured out first was what Brewmeister had done with the missing files, where all the Romor 91 case reports he had stolen were. The answer, when it came, was as simple as pie … and it more clearly indicated who the Men were.”

“What was that answer?” the voice behind him asked.

Yates knew it was Denis Corticun before turning and seeing Corticun standing with a gun in his hand … a gun pointed at no one in particular.

“The answer, Denis, was that the files had not been stolen, at least not by Brew. They’d been removed by the Silent Men working on the twelfth floor and then returned. The files right now are where they’ve always been, with certain deletions.” Glancing off, Yates saw that the three silhouettes beyond the window were gone.

“What deletions?” Corticun said.

“Four names.”

“What four?”

“The four Silent Men who controlled four critical aspects in altering the investigation. When it was learned Brewmeister had been at the twelfth-floor files just before his death, the Silent Men had a pretty good idea what he had found, When he was killed, by them, they pulled reports they wanted and claimed Brew had stolen them. Once they’d altered the four names, changed them to those of friendly agents who would cover for them, they put the reports back into the files. I’d say this was among their worst moves. By now the Silent Men were falling apart—”

“Do you know what four names were deleted?” Corticun asked.

“Yes.”

“Who are they?”

“Headquarters agents. And former students of Orin G. Trask. That was the common bond among the conspirators. All of them had been in Trask’s seminars. Were Trask disciples. Acolytes. Worshippers.”

“Name them.”

“Most are gentlemen I’ve never met—”

“Name them.”

“… Let’s begin with Matthew Ames, a Trask seminar student, circa 1968. Would you like to know what part he played in the conspiracy?”

“If you know,” Corticun said.

“Ames was the headquarters agent who went to talk to Otto Pinkny in South Carolina, the one who offered Pinkny the deal.”

“Who else?”

“There was my old classmate from the academy, Vance Daughter. That was Daughter standing outside the window a moment ago. I recognize his bowlegs. Vance was probably tailing me.”

“And what part did Daughter have?”

“He was jack-of-all-trades. He helped with Anglaterra, arranged for false receipts to be in the Carbondale garage files about the truck repairs, and most likely talked Natalie Hammond into having her baby in Emoryville. Next comes Alexander Troxel, Trask student, class of ’68. Troxel not only worked the Anglaterra ploy with Daughter, he controlled the reports dealing with the arrival of thirty-one million dollars at Mormon State. Troxel may also have assisted some with the alibis, but that was mostly the work of William Esper. Esper secured and wrote up the eleven alibi reports out of Emoryville for Mule, Ragotsy and Wiggles. Esper was in Trask’s final seminar in 1969. Those were the four field men, the workhorses of the conspiracy—”

“You said seven Silent Men,” Corticun pressed.

“There were seven.”

“What of the last three?”

“One was at your elbow all the way through,” Yates told Corticun. “Harlon Quinton. Quinton was in the very first seminar Trask gave in 1963. His job was to keep the investigation under review, which was no trouble when control of the files was on the twelfth floor. After Strom Sunstrom demanded the main files go down to the eleventh floor, it made Quinton’s job a little more difficult but not all that much. When the main files were directly under Quinton’s scrutiny on the twelfth floor, no one could get to them long enough to detect that certain agents’ names, Silent Men names, reappeared consistently on critical out-of-town reports. When the files were moved downstairs, it was decided by the Men that there was now so much material amassed, so many report pages to go through, that no one would be able to pinpoint their actions. Then the Men learned Brewmeister may indeed have gone through the files. That’s not what prompted Brewmeister’s death. I think Brewmeister was killed by mistake. Not that they wouldn’t have killed him later. I was the intended victim that day, not Brew.”

Yates turned to Barrett Amory. “At the time of my visit here to you the Silent Men had no way of knowing what Brew had discovered. It was me they were after. You may have warned me about the Silent Men, but at the same time you signed my death warrant. The Silent Men panicked when they learned I’d been told of their existence and tried to kill me for no other reason than that. The only way they could have found out you told me, Barrett, was from you. And you’re still alive and well. You’re one of them, Barrett. You may damn well be their leader.”

“Preposterous—”

“That accounts for six,” Corticun said. “What about the seventh?”

“You, Denis. Trask seminar student, class of 1966. Prime architect of the scheme along with Amory. Chief operating officer of the plot. You called the shots all along. And you had a ringside seat to do it from.”

“And what did you say our motivation for this so-called conspiracy was?” Corticun asked.

“I gave you my assessment, Corticun … why don’t you tell me yours?”

Patricia Amory began applauding. “Bravo, Mister Yates. Bravo indeed. You have bagged the scruffy lot at last.” Her handkerchief fluttered. “Mister Corticun, do make the introductions.”

Yates turned to see Vance Daughter, Harlon Quinton and two neatly dressed young men he didn’t know standing in a row along the wall to his rear. Corticun introduced the shorter one as Alexander Troxel, the taller as William Esper.

Patricia resettled herself on the chaise and posed in quarterprofile, her chin high. “There is, Mister Yates, one particular blemish in your otherwise brilliant and accurate reconstruction of the event and characters. Shall we say a fifty-percent error? There was indeed an Amory involved, but not dearest Barrett. Like most male-oriented associations, the Silent Men have also succumbed to the emerging feminist reality of our day. There are not, in fact, seven Silent Men … there are six, and one rather garrulous woman. Myself. You were quite astute in believing an Amory was the boss. I am. But of course you suspected that too, didn’t you, Mister Yates? Otherwise you wouldn’t have insisted I be present tonight.”

“I suspected you could be Freddie, yes.”

“The maker of phone calls to your Mister Jessup? I was indeed. He received his orders from me. All the gentlemen did.

“Where do we go from here, Mister Yates? You know about us, we know about you. We must assume you are intent on destroying us … we know your wife was instructed to contact police Chief Frank Santi. The reason you don’t see Matthew Ames here now is that he is in Prairie Port attending to our security needs. We have your wife, Mister Yates, but I assure you no harm will come to her if reasonable heads prevail.”

Billy winced and said nothing.

“Reason is your only salvation … and ours,” she told him. “Should reason fail you in this instance, should you in a fit of sublime duty decide to sacrifice your dearest Tina Beth, there is still nowhere for you to go. The only place you are safe is here with us. Or didn’t you know … as of late this afternoon you are being sought as a suspect in the murder of Martin Brewmeister. New evidence has been found at your home by none other than Frank Santi, the murder weapon and ammunition. It seems that Mister Brewmeister had discovered you were in league with Mister Marion Corkel in seeking missing robbery funds and was about to report you. You steered him to your car, set him up, as it were. More evidence will come to light as needed. Your wife has been advised of this, which is why she did not contact Captain Santi as you had asked. We told Tina Beth we would help you if she cooperated … told her we doubted if you would ever be convicted of Mister Brewmeister’s murder, but then again, who can know for certain?” Patricia lowered a regal finger. “Come sit down, Billy Yates. Let us chat as we used to.”

Yates stood where he was. “We never talked much.”

“That was because I disliked you. I still do. But we must try to get on together. There has been too much killing. Matters have gone amok. I wish no harm to you. Whatever our differences, we must reach an accord. Even the bitterest of enemies negotiate, the most barbaric. That is the only civilized way. If we become deadlocked, only barbarity gains. Hear me out, Billy Yates. Do hear me out.”

Yates came forward, sat down opposite her.

“Edgar Hoover is a great man gone atrophied, Billy,” she said, still keeping her profile to him. “You must have seen that atrophy for yourself when you were driving him. You know about it from your wife, whom he visited. Nonetheless, I love him very much. Had I no personal stake in him, decency alone would have told me he must not be abased, belittled. He has a right to the glory which was his. It is not so much a matter of saving the FBI as it is of restoring the honor of the man who is the FBI. This prompted our actions, Billy, as you suspected. Bestowing upon him, in the relative dimness of his sensibilities, a little bygone glory. If doing this meant helping the Bureau as well, so much the better. And we have helped, Billy, you see that. Mormon State will go down as one of the FBI’s crowning achievements.”

“At what price? Seven dead people, four of them Bureaumen and family.”

“Wars are fought for less noble causes. And it isn’t the lie or the truth that ever prevails, it is the idea. J. Edgar Hoover is a noble idea. He is the image of justice incarnate. And he had done grand work, great work. He is the hope of decency surmounting evil. He cannot be lost, what he represents must not be lost.”

She had swung around full-face to talk to him. “What difference does it really make whether Otto Pinkny or Mule Corkel is charged with the robbery? They are guilty of crimes against decency, let alone law. Mule Corkel and his cohorts have paid a far greater price for their venality than any court would have levied. Otto Pinkny is a convicted assassin who will never be executed. Is it so indecent for him to go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit if a greater good is served? If America benefits?”

“Can’t you understand, three FBI men and one FBI wife died because of this—”

“That wasn’t intentional.”

“How unintentional was gunning down Brewmeister?”

“I agree that matter got out of hand, but what would be gained by our confessing what had happened?”

“Justice, for starters.”

“What price justice? Would the public good best be served by Otto Pinkny being cleared of charges and a scandal within the FBI exposed? And a scandal of monumental proportions would result, Billy Yates. The overwhelming number of your good Bureau people would be as severely damaged as the few bad. Bad by your lights. Political enemies of J. Edgar Hoover would band together and try to wrest from him whatever power he has left. I assure you these enemies could control the Bureau for decades to come. That would not be wise for either law enforcement or the public good. J. Edgar Hoover may have engaged in politics more than he should have, but he also kept politicians out of Bureau affairs. Each of you has profited from that.

“Edgar is unaware of any of this, as you pointed out. He has never heard of the Silent Men. They were, after all, my invention. At least the modern ones were. The few times he participated on our behalf, he was tricked into doing so.”

“Tricked how?”

“Edgar depends on me, relies on me. He comes every Thursday afternoon to sit and chat with me. I am his one and only confidante. I do things on his behalf. Often official things. Make official phone calls and afterward tell him what was said. He values my opinions … and my advice. I induced him to go to Prairie Port and console all of you and your wives after the real thieves were provided alibis. I convinced him Mister Marion Corkel was in fact an ally of the FBI … was being maligned by enemies of the Bureau. Everything that Edgar did or thought regarding Romor 91 was me!”

She rose slowly and with majestic aplomb. “So what will it be, Mister Yates, your pound of flesh or the FBI?”

“Someone must pay for Brew and Strom and Alice and Jez,” he told her.

“As I suggested, why not Otto Pinkny?”

He shook his head.

“Mister Yates, you are asking us to atone for these tragic deaths at the very moment the Bureau needs us most. Don’t you comprehend? J. Edgar Hoover is aged and ailing. He could die at any moment. With him gone, there is no one to save the Bureau but us. Reconsider, please reconsider.”

“And if I don’t, will I be shot down on the spot and the police later told that I was a wanted murderer trying to escape arrest? That would make it all legal and tidy, wouldn’t it?”

“Join us now,” she urged. “We need you. Be with us for the great victory. I swear to you once the Bureau is secure, the Silent Men, and their single distaff member, will disband.”

“Even if I did agree, would you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“And dissolve the Men?”

“Of course.”

“You can’t dissolve them,” he told her. “You never intended to, not after Wilkie Jarrel had joined the cause.”

It was Patricia who did not answer.

“You and your Men have the Bureau, Lady Pat, why give it back? I doubt if Wilkie Jarrel would let you give it back.”

Corticun spoke up. “You’ve said enough, Yates. For once in your life be quiet and smart.”

“I was always loud and dumb, Denis. Why change now?”

“I’d like to hear about Wilkie Jarrel,” Patricia said.

“Of course, Lady Pat,” Yates said. “Jarrel consolidated your conspiracy, made it real and to the death. A high-rolling power-broker like Wilkie Jarrel didn’t come along with your plan merely to get rid of Grafton. Didn’t force his son-in-law to commit perjury, didn’t tolerate homicide just for that. No, there were bigger stakes for Jarrel, there had to be. Lady Pat, you promised him the Bureau … he promised once you were in charge of the Bureau he would use his wealth and political clout to make sure you hung onto it.

“Hoover’s helicopter landed at Jarrel’s estate in Prairie Port and Jarrel did try talking him into drumming Grafton out of the FBI. But there was another reason for the meeting. You, Lady Pat, talked Hoover into seeing Jarrel so Jarrel could judge for himself that J. Edgar was senile … that you and the Men were in control of him as you had claimed. Controlling J. Edgar Hoover was synonymous with controlling the Bureau. And taking over the Bureau, if this was true, might be easier than anyone thought. You could have Hoover name his own successor. A successor whom you picked and who was a Silent Man, like Denis here. You could even make Hoover clean house at headquarters, get rid of most all the brass you didn’t want and replace them with more of the Men. The Director then, at your prompting, could step down and retire. Your Capitol Hill allies, along with Wilkie Jarrel’s, could make sure Congress kept the Men in charge.

“And Wilkie Jarrel met with Hoover and saw that what you said about him was so. Jarrel threw in with you. From there on in, the game was for real. Now you can’t get out of bed from one another. You’ve murdered together, deceived together, are bound together.

“So what possibly started as a ploy to bolster J. Edgar Hoover’s image and prestige blossoms into a full-fledged conspiracy … a murderous power grab. Who knows, you may still pull it off, may go on from there.”

“You still won’t join us?” Patricia asked.

“You’d never trust me,” he replied.

She smiled at that. “Perhaps not … well, good-by, Billy Yates.” With a sigh and a toss, she glided off.

Corticun and Quinton moved in beside Yates, stripped him of his gun and started leading him away. Billy stopped at Amory. “Will you be hurt because of this? Because you tried to warn me?”

Amory looked down at the floor. “I’m afraid not.”