The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria
A Political FictionBy JACK WALKERAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Jack Walker
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4567-2972-1 Contents
PART ONE: ABDUCTION.....................................................1Chapter One: Not Yet Busted.............................................3Chapter Two: Roommate and Soul Mate.....................................9Chapter Three: Perfect Timing...........................................15Chapter Four: I Call Him Godfather......................................19Chapter Five: My 9/11...................................................25Chapter Six: The Stellar Class of 2001..................................31Chapter Seven: The Justice Is Not Dead..................................37Chapter Eight: Zero Leverage............................................41Chapter Nine: You Want My Source?.......................................45PART TWO: DISCOVERY.....................................................49Chapter Ten: The Skunk at the Garden Party..............................51Chapter Eleven: The Other Shoe..........................................57Chapter Twelve: This Is So Over.........................................63Chapter Thirteen: There Was a Deal......................................69Chapter Fourteen: Roger's Rage..........................................79Chapter Fifteen: But No Joy.............................................87Chapter Sixteen: Main Source of Entertainment...........................93PART THREE: SECLUSION...................................................97Chapter Seventeen: Wake Up Slowly.......................................99Chapter Eighteen: Figure It Out.........................................105Chapter Nineteen: The Hammer............................................109Chapter Twenty: Torture Tapes...........................................115Chapter Twenty-One: New Netherlands.....................................121Chapter Twenty-Two: Her Eyes Only.......................................125Chapter Twenty-Three: There Was No Contract.............................131Chapter Twenty-Four: Penny..............................................137Chapter Twenty-Five: Kissing the Dragon Lady............................145Chapter Twenty-Six: A Spectacular Night.................................153Chapter Twenty-Seven: New Year's Resolution.............................159Chapter Twenty-Eight: You Deserve a Little Hell.........................163Chapter Twenty-Nine: Nightingalesong311.................................169Chapter Thirty: Nothing on the Ground...................................177Chapter Thirty-One: Put It on My Tab....................................185Chapter Thirty-Two: Guardian Angel......................................191PART FOUR: RETURN.......................................................197Chapter Thirty-Three: We Are Very Glad to See You.......................199Chapter Thirty-Four: Above My Pay Grade.................................207Chapter Thirty-Five: Fox News...........................................213Chapter Thirty-Six: I Knew You Would Come...............................217Chapter Thirty-Seven: A Bronx Postmark..................................227Chapter Thirty-Eight: No Interest in Your Politics......................237Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Line We Draw Today Is Fine.....................247Chapter Forty: Moving Parts.............................................255Chapter Fifty-One: Vipers Eating Vipers.................................261Chapter Forty-Two: This Thing is Working................................267Chapter Forty-Three: A Stew, a Swamp....................................273Chapter Forty-Four: Get Used to Anger...................................283Chapter Forty-Five: You Have To Be Joking...............................291Chapter Forty-Six: How He Broke My Heart................................297Chapter Forty-Seven: Potato on Fork.....................................305Chapter Forty-Eight: Traitors!..........................................315
Chapter One
NOT YET BUSTED
July 2011— I-80 West, Nebraska
The siren shattered his dream. Patrick O'Connor jerked awake in the passenger seat and then slid back down.
"Christ, what's that? Cat? Are we ..."
"Busted? No, not yet, Shag. Settle down." Dr. Catherine Mehlman, who was driving the truck, used nicknames out of a habit formed when she was a rookie spy in the National Security Agency (NSA), listening to the world's phone calls. She called O'Connor Shag because of his mop of hair. Her husband of thirty years, Doug Nachtigal, a former CIA agent who was driving the SUV fifty yards ahead, was Dawg.
"Some jerk just blew by us doing one hundred plus, and I bet that trooper's going to dispense some justice. We're in the right-hand lane at the speed limit, following the laws," she said, smiling. "You're a little jumpy."
"Course I'm jumpy!" O'Connor rubbed his broad Irish face and looked out at the dark night. "Where the hell are we? What did that green sign say? I was in the middle of a bad dream."
"You're still in the middle of a bad dream, my friend. We're on the interstate, middle of Nebraska now. That sign said Grand Island." She glanced at the GPS. "Grand Island's up here." She tapped the nav screen with her bright red nail.
O'Connor glanced at the monitor. "Nebraska? What kind of grand island is in the middle of Nebraska?"
Cat laughed. "Who knew? How're you feeling, Shag? For a lawyer, you've been pretty quiet since we left Fritz's house."
"This is starting to catch up with me." He looked at the clock on the dashboard: 3:12. "So Fritz, I guess, is dead by now. Forty-one years old. Cremated. Like he wanted."
"Probably so," she said.
"I feel shitty."
"You're entitled. Two of your best friends, one dead, the other kidnapped, drugged up in the back of this ugly truck, on his way to God knows what." The truck she was driving was small, square, and white, the back cabin purpose-built, sitting on a Ford E-350 chassis. The purpose was kidnapping. The logo on the cabin doors lied: "James & Co. Construction Services."
O'Connor was silent.
"You need some cheerleading?" she asked.
"What?" He was still groggy. "Like what?"
"Well, like your young Fritz Grosz is in a better place. No more pain. Maybe his death serves a purpose. Maybe saves the United States Supreme Court."
"It still hurts," he said.
"It does. And your old friend Justice Dellamaria in the back."
"I don't know about `friend.' I don't know what he is to me."
"Whatever. Justice Vincent Dellamaria, friend or foe, is on his way to a new beginning, if he plays his cards right." Cat looked over at O'Connor. "Now don't go south on me, Shag. This kidnapping was your friggin' idea." "I know, I'm good. But I can still feel shitty."
"When's the last time you had sex?"
"With a woman?"
"With a woman," she said.
He smiled grimly and shook his head. He reached into his pocket. "All right to plug in the recording now? Doug loaded it into my phone at the pee stop."
"Sure," Cat said. "He wants us to listen to Fritz spilling the beans. I don't see the point. We shouldn't have a recording. Dawgie is still pissed at you for bringing Fritz into this. Me, I think it was genius. Anyway, got to do what General Dawgie says. Maybe it'll keep me awake."
"Am I putting you to sleep?" he asked.
"No. The adrenaline is running out." She shook her head once. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Shag. I don't have the energy."
* * *
At 8:00 p.m. on the previous night, five people kidnapped Supreme Court Justice Vincent Dellamaria from Professor Fritz Grosz's house near the University of Iowa campus. These people were now driving the sedated justice to a secret compound in northern Arizona. Grosz stayed back, drugged in his bed, to die in a fire ignited by a timer mechanism hours after the snatch. The fire would trump the aggressive blood cancer that was killing him.
The kidnapping team rolling west was divided between two vehicles. In the lead was a silver SUV, driven by Doug Nachtigal. Sleeping in the reclining SUV passenger seat was Tony Chieffo, also former CIA. Cat's white truck followed at a distance. In the rear of the truck, Buck Danner, former U.S. Marine, former CIA, and trained EMT, watched over Justice Dellamaria, who was lying unconscious on a custom pallet.
O'Connor looked over his left shoulder through the small window in the partition. He couldn't see Danner or Dellamaria, but he saw highway lights zipping through the justice's IV pouch like little tracer bullets.
Cat yawned. She was a psychiatrist as well as a career spy—smart, tough, blonde, blue-eyed, and still pretty in her young sixties. With over thirty years' experience in United States Government Psychological Operations (USG PsyOps), she was in charge of the "rendition" part of this plan—transforming the justice from a corrupt politician into a good judge. She figured it would take a year—if it worked at all.
"Sleepy?" O'Connor asked. He snapped his cell phone into a dock in the center console that was connected to the radio. He wanted to hear the voices of his friends Justice Vinnie Dellamaria and Professor Fritz Grosz one more time. O'Connor and Dellamaria had been college roommates forty years ago. O'Connor, formerly the dean of the Iowa Law School, had hired Fritz Grosz to teach at Iowa five years ago.
"I'm fine," she said. "So this first part is them talking in the car, and then the rest is in the house before the snatch? We heard the tail end of this, right? Can you get a butterscotch for me?"
"Yep." He opened the glove box and unwrapped a hard candy. "You and I could hear the very last part in the house right before Vinnie succumbed to the drug. Doug listened to all of it with the earphones. Listen." The radio hissed and clicked.
"God, that's pretty. That color, with the blue sky. Fritzie, what do you know about corn?"
"Vinnie," O'Connor whispered to himself.
Someone coughed on the tape. "No earthly idea, Vin. I drive by here all the time and never see that corn. But we're from Queens, so what do we know?"
"So what did you think of my talk? Too pushy?"
"You weren't very effective today, Mr. Justice. You lost the whole room. These people should be your natural constituency."
"Fritzie, I am who I am." There was a minute of silence.
"Is that a traffic light? Boy, you folks are making some progress out here. You know, you seem a little edgy today, Fritzie. Everything okay?"
O'Connor pulled the phone from the dock. "I'll scroll ahead. Doug wanted us to focus on their conversation in the house. I confess I find the whole thing interesting."
"You're a morbid sentimentalist. They both sound pretty beat to me."
"Yes. Well, Fritz had to be exhausted keeping up that façade with his friend Vinnie. And Vinnie—he had those two heart stents put in last year. Way overweight, too. We just learned about the stents this week."
"Doesn't mean the heart is sick, just the arteries are greasy. I can medicate that," she said. "And maybe we can help him get in shape. He'll have the time."
"He'll have the time," he repeated, snapping the phone into the dock again. "So here's the house part."
A door scraped open. Heavy steps. "You know, you don't look too good, Fritzie. Doing your exercise and everything? Right back." A grunt, followed by more steps, followed by two minutes of kitchen sounds. Then someone walking on a wooden floor. "Good to be here, Fritzie! Where's the scotch?"
"Right over there. Help yourself. We'll eat in front of the Yankee game—The they're playing the Orioles. Ta-da! Why am I being so nice to you after you alienated all my colleagues today?"
"Bah! But seriously pal, thanks for the baseball. What we got for dinner?"
O'Connor took the phone out of the dock and poked at it. "Doug told me the next part was just the ballgame and chit-chat," he said.
"Shag, isn't this where he talks about your death, or phony death, in Alaska? And how sad he felt about that?" She looked over as O'Connor worked his cell phone.
"We don't need to hear that." He replaced the phone in the dock.
"You don't want to hear it," Cat said.
"... never found a thing! What a crazy deal! Pat and I were just getting close again!" The tape went silent, except for the baseball play-by-play in the background.
"I'll scroll some more. You don't like baseball," O'Connor said, fiddling again with the phone. The recording started up as the Baltimore announcer was shouting, "... struck out the heart of the Yankee order!"
"All right!"
"Here, Vin, let me refresh your drink." Footsteps and TV commercials turned low.
O'Connor paused the recording. "So, Fritz now is on his way to the kitchen to put the drug into Vinnie's drink."
"A year ago, Dawg wanted to bet me that Fritz would never pull the trigger on his friend Vinnie," Cat said. "So here he is, pulling the trigger. I should've taken the bet."
O'Connor restarted the recording.
More silence. Someone walking on a wooden floor. "Thanks, pal."
O'Connor envisioned Vinnie drinking deeply. "Vinnie drinks a lot. It might be hard for him, not to drink for months on end."
Cat said, "The drug is strong. It just takes one sip. Fritz knew this, so listen to him cruise into his closing speech. This is probably what Dawg wanted us to hear."
"Dellamaria, I need to say something. Game's over." The television went silent.
"What? Game's not over. What are you talking about?"
"My game's over. I'm sick." Pause. "Dying of cancer. I have a month to live." Pause. "There's a lot of pain. Vinnie, I'm going to end ... my life. Tonight."
"Cancer? What?" There was a pause. "How long have you known this?" Vinnie was choking out his words.
"Eight months. Enough time to launch the plan."
"What plan? Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"
"My colleagues are here. Soon you're going to feel drowsy. The scotch had something special in it. You'll wake up in a different place. You won't remember this conversation."
"What? Fritz, I don't feel so good."
"They'll take you away for a while. Just sit quiet. They'll make you a better judge. The only sadness is you'll be away from your family."
"You a madman? You drugged a Supreme Court justice? You get caught—"
"Won't get caught. You're not listening. I'll be dead. And good riddance to this pain, which ... this is a horrible disease. The end is dreadful, and it's started. These people won't get caught, either. They're ex-CIA, most of them."
"CIA? I'm dizzy."
"It's okay, Vin. You'll be asleep soon. But I need to say something to you. You're the best and kindest man I know. You're just caught in a web. You need help getting back to where you should be. I love you as much as anyone I've ever known."
Someone, probably Fritz, cleared his throat. "You won't remember this conversation. Still, I need to say it, for my own sake. You've done a terrible thing. These people are risking everything to help you get back on track."
"I'm sleepy. Fitz. Hel me. I'm ... Fiz ..."
"Goodbye, old friend." The recording clicked off.
O'Connor pulled the phone from the dock sharply. "Whoof." He rubbed his face. "Why does Fritz have to make the big speech about CIA and risking everything? Christ, Fritzie, way too much information. Anyway, so here's where Fritz kisses Vinnie on his bald pate. I was watching from down the hall. Like Judas. I'm sure that's how he felt. Poor bastard."
"You sure they didn't have a physical relationship?" Cat asked. "You know, Shag, what Doug is worried about is that the drug isn't perfect. A few subjects remember things after they take it. Anyway, roll your seat back and get some more sleep. You're gonna have to do some driving. And lose the recording from your phone. Erase it right now."
Chapter Two
ROOMMATE AND SOUL MATE March 2001—Iowa City and Washington, D.C.
The Dellamaria kidnapping took ten years to develop. It commenced in March 2001, when the new Republican president made his first appointment to the Supreme Court—Vincent Sylvio Dellamaria, son of immigrants, conservative Catholic, judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
As this brand-new administration was finding its footing, Patrick McCarthy O'Connor was losing his. By any objective measure, O'Connor's life was enviable. He was a striking, vigorous forty-eight-year-old man. His thick silver and gold mane flopped above his pale blue eyes much as it did in his youth. He was in his second year as Iowa Law dean, a high place in his beloved legal profession. He argued cases before the Supreme Court. Important people read his op-eds. The walls of his office spoke of accomplishments: the magna Yale Law degree; medals for valorous action in Vietnam; pictures with a president, a chief justice, and the commandant of the Marine Corps. The commandant is pinning a Purple Heart and a Silver Star on a gaunt, scar-streaked young man with his right leg in an elevated plaster cast. Low on the wall behind his desk was a fading black-and-white picture of a beaming Patrick O'Connor with his beautiful wife and young son at Cape Cod. Truth be told, he did not even have to work. As the only child of a prosperous Boston family, O'Connor was the sole beneficiary of a tidy trust.
But by his own measure, O'Connor was struggling. After twenty-five years, he still had vivid nightmares about Vietnam. Fifteen years ago, the love of his life, his wife, Molly, was struck dead by a New York taxi, leaving him alone with their troubled five-year-old son, Tommy. Four years ago, Tommy died of a drug overdose, a vagrant on the streets of San Francisco.
O'Connor knew he was depressed and needed therapy, but he wasn't going there. Meanwhile, his prestigious deanship was turning out to be a basket of pluses and minuses. He especially hated the fundraising and faculty squabbles, and he found Iowa City dull. On the excuse of selling the school, recruiting, and even fundraising, O'Connor spent considerable time on the road. He especially loved Washington. After Tommy died, he took a leave from teaching at Yale and worked two years as a Supreme Court advocate at the United States solicitor general's office in D.C. There he befriended Roger Allen, deputy SG, on leave from the prominent Chicago-based law firm Kirkwood & Black LLP. Since O'Connor came to Iowa in 1999, Roger had referred several Supreme Court case assignments to him. O'Connor loved that work.
It wasn't enough to make him forget his woes, though; and adding to them, he had to watch from the sidelines as the new Republican administration swallowed the federal government whole. Like most liberal lawyers, he hated the Supreme Court's decision to cut off the Florida recount process. That was bad enough. But today—he couldn't believe it—his breath caught when he saw the headline, "PRESIDENT NOMINATES VINCENT DELLAMARIA FOR SUPREME COURT." How in Christ could that happen?
Vinnie Dellamaria was O'Connor's roommate and soul mate for four years at Holy Cross College in the early 1970s. Their friendship was improbable. They cut such different figures: Vinnie was a child of Sicilian immigrants; O'Connor was Lace Curtain Boston Irish. Vinnie was hot, short, and dark—for him, issues were black or white. O'Connor was cool, tall, and blond—for him, issues were gray, nuanced. Vinnie made his bed every day; O'Connor's side of the room was a mess. Vinnie hustled, played every angle, cut every corner. O'Connor played it as it lay. Politically opposite, they argued about everything, but they listened. They shared two traits: high intelligence and intense curiosity, especially about each other. After graduation in 1974, long periods went by when they didn't speak, pouting about some unresolved hurt. Indeed, fifteen years had passed since their last bitter conversation, in 1986.
O'Connor felt the need to talk with someone pronto about the Dellamaria nomination. He was deeply disturbed. O'Connor knew seriously troubling things about Dellamaria, and he didn't know what to do with that information. But maybe it was more than that. He didn't trust his emotions.
O'Connor was scheduled to fly to Washington for a fundraising meeting at the end of the week. He called his friend Roger Allen. He would go a day early and bunk over the night before at Roger's elegant Georgetown townhouse, where he had a standing invitation. Roger would help him think it through.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamariaby JACK WALKER Copyright © 2011 by Jack Walker. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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