When Randolph arrived back in the states, he contacted Hartley Proctor on a burner cell phone per their pre-arranged signal. He had put an ad in the Washington Post personals reading: “Homeless man seeking information on his family. Contact Ephraim at the Holy Bible Shelter.” The ad ran two days, and at five p.m. sharp on the second day, Randolph dialed Proctor’s private office number. He called from New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Proctor picked up the line, but said nothing.
“It’s me,” Randolph said. “Were you able to make all of the arrangements?”
“Yes, except for a few loose ends. The deputy U.S. attorney already had a meeting scheduled for a week from now with the ATF agents involved in your case—the ones who may have committed felonies—and their attorneys to establish positions and to determine whether or not to move ahead with a grand jury or indictments. As you may already know, one of the agents has copped a plea and has been granted immunity. I think the U.S. Attorney’s Office has its sights set higher; so, it seems to me to be the opportune for you to come in. We can take advantage of the government’s and the public’s shift of focus away from you. The deputy U.S. attorney suggested that you participate in that meeting, and I concur. I believe the attention is going to be on the bad cops, and you will be more or less an adjunct in that meeting. I also think it is our one chance to find out what else the government has in mind.”
“Where is that meeting scheduled to take place?”
“I presume at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Justice Building in D.C.—on Saturday. Wherever, I can let you know at the last minute. I think you need to come in a day or so early to let us complete our plans and defense.”
“I can get there only one day early. I’ll get a hotel room in the city and give you a call then. We can meet in my hotel. In the meantime, I have a lot to do.”
“All right, be careful. I will expect to see you next Friday, then.”
When Randolph rang off, Proctor called Gwen Chambers at the paper and told her that the meeting was a go for the following Saturday. He then called Daniel Hernandez at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to confirm that his client would be available for surrender and to attend the meeting, but all parties had to keep the matter sub rosa until then. Hernandez told Proctor that it was likely to be one of the most memorable meetings of either of their lives, if the two of them could pull it off.
Daniel Hernandez weighed his options. He could conduct the meeting and then convey the results up the chain of command like a good appointee. He knew full well that spin doctors at each level would manipulate, frustrate, and procrastinate the ends of justice. It was always the job of presidential loyalists to protect their client no matter what the cost to themselves, to the public, or to the truth. Hernandez knew that he could simply weigh the evidence like the prosecutor he was; and, in all likelihood, enter a bill of indictment against the two low men on the totem pole. No one would be critical of him for doing that. It was the prudent thing to do, the way a good party loyalist would do. Or, he could go with his gut in opposition to everyone who might advise him—his wife, his colleagues, and his bosses—and involve the potential major culprits from the beginning and let the chips fall where they may.
He shrugged. He had been at this long enough anyway. He made up his mind. First, he called the presidential switchboard, then the Attorney General’s Office, and arranged for a conference call among himself, the personal lawyer for the president, the attorney for the AG, the White House counsel, and the Attorney General’s Office counsel. Had he left anyone out? No one he cared about.
The lawyers were by nature curious and by profession defensive. They were all intrigued at the arrangement for the call, coming as it did from a deputy U.S. attorney with something of a reputation for being a maverick. Hernandez had not informed any of them of the nature of the business to be discussed. He had played this one so close to his vest that he had no even used his administrative assistant in the process.
Secretaries informed their principles that everyone was in attendance on the line.
The White House Senior Counsel, Vera Trimble, said, “We’re anxious to hear what you have to say, Mr. Hernandez. Please proceed.”
“For the record, this conversation is being recorded, ladies and gentlemen. You will hear intermittent beeping noises. That is to alert you to the recording. If any of you objects to being recorded, you may be excused; but I strongly advise you to hear me out before you make up your mind.”
“Is this necessary—the recording—I mean?” the president’s personal counsel asked.
“Abundantly so, counselor. From this point on, everything I say or do in regards to the matters for discussion today will be reproducible for a court of law. It might be wise for you to do the same. Eight days from today, on Saturday, the fifth, at ten in the morning, I will convene an informal inquiry into certain aspects of the Randolph Kennedy Affair. I will be acting in my official capacity as a deputy U.S. attorney. I have two ATF agents in my custody who, along with their attorneys, will be present to give testimony. The reason I have called you is that both of them have indicated an involvement—a conspiracy, if you will—on the part of the collection of politicians belonging to the President’s Final Battle in the War on Drugs and Illegal Weapons Task Force, including the president and the attorney general.”
There were several audible sharp inhalations that came in over the telephone lines.
“While there is no obligation for you or your principles to be present, you are hereby invited. Because of other considerations I cannot divulge, only you attorneys and your principles, if they should so choose, may be in attendance.
“I will give you fair warning. A member of the press will be in attendance and will have ad libitum privilege to communicate the story to the media. This is expressly to avoid shrouding this procedure in the usual cloak of mystery. There have been far too many secrets in this matter already, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Now, look here, Mr. Hernandez,” protested the president’s personal counsel.
“Mr. Harrelson,” Daniel Hernandez said sharply, “there will be no control by any other agency in this matter. There will not even be the appearance of influence. It will be public. You can be there and act, or you can react; but the light of day will shine on these proceedings.”
“We’ll see about that. Your superiors will have a say. If I had a crystal ball, I would predict that you will be out of a job before this grand stand meeting of yours ever takes place. The proper order of things is to submit an outline of the meeting and the anticipated testimony, and we can assess the need for a meeting. The president cannot tolerate blatant displays of disloyalty in her administration, and no law requires her to do so. Stand down, sir. Let us all have a chance to review the propriety of this meeting of yours.”
There were three faint beeps on the line.
“And stop the recording this instant.”
“I believe I have made my position clear, and I’m done except for telling you that any leaks about this will come from you, not me. I suggest you keep this under wraps until the actual meeting. A word to the wise—I believe it is in the best interests of your clients to keep this quiet. I am acting in accordance with my sworn duties as a legal officer of the United States. No one is above the law, ladies and gentlemen. The law will not be shunted aside. The meeting will proceed as outlined in eight days. Good day.”
He paused long enough to avoid an accusation of disrespect or discourtesy, then hung up, conjuring in his mind’s eye the consternation that now undoubtedly reigned at the other ends of his call.
In less than five minutes, the chief U.S. attorney was on Hernandez’s line, politely suggesting that he reconsider any rash action. Hernandez asked if the chief had been contacted and if he had considered the propriety of accepting calls from the White House regarding matters that involved an investigation of their activities. The chief said that he wished only to assure Hernandez that he would allow no interference or taint of influence to fall on his department in the pursuit of its sworn duty. He backpedaled with alacrity. Hernandez smiled into his telephone hand piece. He knew that he held one nearly invincible trump card at this point—the implicit threat that if his meeting did not take place, then the matter might rise to the full attention of Congress, and a political “independent counsel” might be appointed. It was always good to be the lesser of evils.
Randolph watched the mid-morning Fox News Channel in his unassuming room in the International Motor Inn located at the junction of the major 5 and 805 Freeways in San Ysidro, a couple of miles from the Mexican border at Tijuana. He kept only half his mind on the news that the Gay Pride parade was to take place that morning and the details of the parade route and the incredibly diverse participants lined up for the event. He chose the motel because it was extremely busy and was located in an extraordinarily high motor traffic area. It was a little down at the heels, not the sort of place where guests struck up conversations with other guests. Mexican nationals used the motel regularly when they came across on San Diego shopping sprees or for business. The motel was very accommodating to the Mexicans, who constituted the life’s blood of the place. He had eight days before he had to be in Washington for his all important meeting with the U.S. attorney, and he knew that he had to use that time very efficiently.
Randolph’s identity as Jaime Hidalgo Cortez and his choice of paying his bills in cash did not excite the slightest interest. That he looked like a Nordic was of no interest either. He was automatically assumed to be one of the haughty ten percent of Mexicans who had retained the purity of their European Spanish heritage. His middle name, Hidalgo, was a contraction of the older “Hijo de Algo”—son of someone, the ‘someone’ being one of importance. He was careful to be generous with the help at the motel to reinforce that image.
He had to be mindful of several pitfalls of using this old fake identity, one he should have discarded long ago. First of all, this identity was on record with the Utah State Police for a traffic violation, and the feds had found it and had spread his ID picture around the nation. Second, he no longer looked anything like his ID photos. It was obvious that he could not use the phony ID for more than a few days. He went about as little as possible, ever mindful of the possibility of being recognized or followed by police. He made it a point to pay cash for anything he wanted to avoid use of a credit card which might require him to show ID.
Randolph lost himself for the rest of the morning in the crowds of onlookers at the gay and lesbian art exhibits, watched the gay rights parade while sitting between a doctor from Fresno and a flaming transvestite who had come down from the Tenderloin in San Francisco. He blended into the crowd by wearing tough-guy leathers including a black leather cap slouched down over his forehead.
He ate lunch with a commune of women who invited him to join them to prove that they were as tolerant of Deviants—heteros—as they wished the rest of the population would be towards them. The woman next to him had bared breasts with rings in her nipples, and her look dared him to comment. He and she shared a few bottles of Dos Equis beer, foie gras with pineapple and cinnamon, chicken breasts with hijiki seaweed, and for dessert, a shiitake and garlic Napoleon. The meal seemed as foreign and diverse as the company, but they both served to cloak Randolph in anonymity, the purpose of his venturing out.
On the way back to his hotel, he stepped out of the plague of locals swelled with the influx of Gay Pride Week revelers and into a gay bar called Spike to use the bathroom. He used the opportunity to look over his shoulder to see if he was being tailed. That was unnecessary as it turned out. No self-respecting policeman or woman—even the gay ones—would have dreamt of stepping foot in to the notorious hang out. It only took Randolph a trip to the bathroom to be convinced. He opened the door, stepped in, then stepped smartly back out. He did not want to allow into his memory bank any further images of the activities between four or five consenting adults that he saw in his glance into that “Gentlemen’s Comfort Room” as the sign said. No bladder pressure was worth another peek inside.
He returned to the International Motor Inn at two in the afternoon and changed into a pair of impeccable white linen trousers, huaraches without socks, and a guayabera shirt. He suspended his valuables inside a wallet attached to a stout string around his neck and tucked in under the guayabera. It had been no trouble to buy a used car in San Ysidro or to find Baja California license plates. He bought Mexican insurance from the car dealer.
Randolph chose to cross the border in mid afternoon, the busiest time of the day. The examination of his Mexican passport was perfunctory since he was going in the direction of Mexico, and who cared? It was the other direction of travel that he could expect scrutiny of Mexican documents.
Randolph knew exactly where he was headed. Half a year on the lam had provided an education in the jargon and about the haunts and practices of people who wished to conduct their lives with a minimum of scrutiny. He made his way slowly through the heart of Tijuana. His progress was impeded by the activities of a fiesta. Ahead of him ran a person in a paper mâché figure costume of a chicken being chased by a dreadful, long-clawed lizard-like monster. When his car ground to a stop at an intersection, he asked an American tourist what was going on.
“It’s a Chupacabra festival!”
“What’s it about?” Randolph asked, intrigued.
“The Chupacabra is the Goat Sucker!” the American reveler explained with a note of finality.
Randolph raised an eyebrow.
“The Chupacabra is the beast that drains blood from its victims—mostly goats and dogs, but sometimes people.”
That made the whole thing clear—a salute to a monster that sucked blood from animals. Randolph pushed ahead without joining in the general merriment of the populace. Maybe it was like opera; the audience wasn’t supposed to understand it.
He drove straight through Tijuana on Mexico Highway 1—the Ensenada Cuota or toll road. Beyond Tijuana, the highway rambled on south past Rosarito Beach—which was little more than an extension of San Diego for middle-class Americans who wanted to live rich. The beauty of the coast road was interrupted by billboards and banners touting—often in fractured Spanglish—the condominiums, resorts, and restaurants along the way. He passed through Ensenada, stopping on the wharf to eat tapas, fish tacos, and natilla Española. He ate his delicious lunch seated beside a kiosk advertising “attorney for tourist protection”. Big-eyed peninsulare children sat staring at him unabashedly.
Satiated from his meal and still savoring the taste of cinnamon sugar from his dessert he made his way on down the west coast of the Baja Peninsula. The road was excellent, and he made good time. He drove the 200 kilometers from Ensenada to San Quintin in three hours. It was quarter to seven when he passed through an area of strange cirio trees, called boojum by locals. In the growing dusk, the long, slender, sinuous, spiny branches of the trees—some of which were 600 years old—looked like tentacles of a giant landlocked squid. South of those trees, he consulted his Fonatur map, then turned onto a newly paved side road to Bahia de los Angeles. He stopped at the lone motel, “Domingo’s MotorMotel for Tourists”, and entered the unairconditioned lobby.
It was frightfully hot, and Randolph knew he was in for a miserable stay. Out of the car for even the few minutes it took to walk to the motel lobby, he was covered with a profuse sweat. California was named by Hernan Cortez. When the conquistador first saw the broiling landscape, he called it “Cali fornia”—the hot furnace. Lower California was the hottest furnace. Randolph registered, got fuel at the one service station, paying twice the price of gas as he had in San Diego, bought a strawberry Popsicle at the Conasupo store, and walked along the beach looking at the calm waters of the bay. He could see the tiny Isla la Raza with its hordes of birds. The only other building in the area besides the motel, the small national grocery store, and the gas station, was a tiny bait and boat rental shop. The hamlet’s isolation was conducive to relaxation, and the heat made him sleepy; so, he returned to his room and tried to nap in the bake oven heat.
At eleven that evening a quiet rap came on his door. He cautiously looked out. A forbidding looking Mexican man stood holding his hands palms open to show that he did not have a weapon. Randolph bit his lip thoughtfully, took in a deep breath, and let the man in. The man’s voice was soft and melodious in contrast to his fierce demeanor. He introduced himself.
“I yam Pedro Otero.”
His cousin in the International Motor Hotel in San Ysidro had referred Randolph to him.
“I yam a Californio, a beduino, Señor. I come. I go. Today, I yam here to serve you.
Neither man’s grasp of the other’s language was adequate for small talk; so, they got down to business immediately.
“What you need, Señor?”
“Tres pasaportes with mi own photo. Tres diferentes addresses.”
Pedro gave him a look that signified a failure to communicate. Randolph looked up “address” in his phrase book.
“Dirrecciones,” he said.
Pedro nodded his understanding.
“Y driver licenses, tambien?”
“Si.”
“Y birthaday certificados?”
“Si, todos.”
“Estara my costoso!” Pedro said with emphasis.
It was Randolph’s turn to look blank.
“La costa este espensiva.”
Randolph had no difficulty understanding that. It was no more than he expected.
Pedro went out to his truck and returned with some simple photographic equipment, He posed Randolph for digital pictures; and when he was finished, he took Randolph’s money and left, promising to return on the next evening.
Randolph got up early in the morning and got out of the sweltering motel, took time to rent a panga—a small fishing boat—and with the help of the local fisherman/boat renter, he caught three yellowtail. He gave the fish to the man’s family. He ambled about the desert floor among the cholla, creosote, and mesquite, and watched out for the red rattlesnakes common in Baja. The motel owner’s wife—a Paipai Indian named Tressie, one of the line of original people not exterminated by the diseases brought in by the Jesuits and their missions—made him meals of lobster tacos, fried agave, leche, queso-stuffed Anaheim chilies, empanadas stuffed with curried goat, frijolitos, and Oaxacan stew spiced with hoja santa.
Pedro met Randolph as the fugitive was walking in the relative coolness of early dusk that Saturday evening. Two hours later, Randolph departed Bahia de los Angeles with three new United States identities. He destroyed his old Jaime Hidalgo Cortez passport; it had outlived its usefulness. The workmanship on the new IDs was flawless. From San Quintin, he called Vanuatu and spoke with Jorge Joachim Rodriguez long enough to find the names of several discreet banks in Mexico, D.F. and to inquire how Rodriguez’s Sphynx was getting along.
He learned that select Mexican banks were the financial havens for Hispanic drug lords because the banks in question loved cash, and they did not ask a lot of questions. They hated nosy gringos. Randolph left his car in Ensenada and flew on Mexican Airlines to Mexico City that night. The next morning, Sunday, the Mexican banks accommodated Randolph by helping him open accounts in several banks in American cities and by establishing “correspondent” relationships with the banking corporations involved.
The hand of Jorge Rodriguez was evident in getting the banks to do business on the Sabbath. He had paved the way with a glowing account of Randolph’s riches. Randolph opened accounts in the correspondent banks in the names of his new identities, using the new name only and obtaining a code number of his choice. Randolph made it simple to remember; his code number was the numerals of his birthday in reverse. Mexico did not have strict disclosure laws. He had only “correspondent” accounts at those American banks—courtesy of the solicitous Mexican clerks—adding another layer of complexity for U.S. financial probers to penetrate. With that done, Randolph destroyed all of his remaining false IDs, hid the new ones that Pedro Otero had created in a false pocket in his valise, and flew back to Ensenada.