Chapter 56
The Deal is Cut
Levi Jansen, the District Attorney, met us at the reception desk, and ushered us to a no-windows conference room saying, “You understand all this will be taped and no promises about how, if ever, the tape is used, correct?”
“Correct,” Steve said.
And as we entered the room, Jansen continued, “and of course you understand, given what I know about your story, we need the FBI in on this . . . I’d like you to meet, Mr. J. L. Stover, head of the local Bureau.”
“Nice to meet you,” Steve said.
“Likewise,” said Skip.
Jansen and Stover were two different looking men, Jansen pudgy and Stover gaunt. (Later Skip joked, “I was thinking of calling them Laurel & Hardy if things started to go wrong.”) Things did not start well. After everybody made themselves comfortable, coffee, taking off coats, loosening ties (Skip sans tie – but he did remove his baseball cap), Jansen began with a sly smile, surprising us with, “I think I’ve heard about you guys – you’re the traveling Rumpkins, pulling antics all over the country – or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”
“Oh shit,” Skip blurted out, and continued despite Steve’s trying to hush him up, “Every god-damn thing I’ve done in my life – elected to office 18 years – and no one, not one goddamn person, has ever had reason to doubt my honesty or come to distrust me. Now look Mr. D.A., I’m going to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – choose to disbelieve me at your own risk.” At this, Steve gave Skip’s foot a tiny kick with a wink that said “that was good.”
After about ten minutes doing the outline part, without names and details, Skip stopped and Steve said, “Okay, next we provide all the information, evidence, witnesses, details, everything you need to know, to catch the bombers red-handed before the bombs go off, prosecute the hell out of them and anybody else you can implicate, but first . . . but first a little favor for me that you’ll probably really want to do . . .”
“What the fuck,” Stover jumped in with. “There’s a bomb going off somewhere in New York maybe today, this week for sure, and you want us to take time doing favors?”
“Relax,” Steve said. “It will take less than ten minutes.” Steve then proceeded to explain how Jansen and Stover should love the PR for taking down one of the nastiest international sex trafficking rings in existence. “Just a simple phone call to a Vancouver law office will do it.”
“You’re shittin’ me, right?” Jansen said. “This is the April Fool’s Day part, where you get your Rumpkin antics in, right?”
“Here’s the number,” Steve said.
Ten minutes later D.A. Jansen returned from his private office where he’d gone to make the call. As he swung himself into his chair, Jansen said, “You were right. The lawyer out there has a sworn statement from this Shadya Warsame fellow and the Vancouver Chief of Police got on the line and said Warsame’s statement checks out. So yeah, I told your lawyer buddy, I’d do the favor of placing a call to the British Columbia Ministry of Justice and recommend leniency for your man Warsame.”
“Okay,” Steve said with the utmost confidence. “We’re off to a good start. Here are the conditions to be agreed upon, before you get everything we know about the terrorist cell and the impending bombing – I don’t think there’s a one you’ll find a deal-breaker.” We then gave Jansen a copy of our neatly typed list of “demands.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right, no deal-breakers here,” Jansen said, “as long as everything else you’re telling us checks out. Maybe some details we’ll have to hash-out.”
“One more thing, Mr. Jansen,” Steve said with a smile, “you were right about there being a Rumpkin antic somewhere in this. Last thing before we spill everything we know: We have to be included in the media conference announcing the busts – and in whatever way we choose. You can have the first ten minutes, or however long you want, but then we get to finish it, and you just walk away, saying loud enough [this was Patty’s work] so the microphones pick it up, ‘These crazy Rumpkins – but God Bless Them!’ ”
“You guys are crazy, but I like you,” Jansen said. “It’s always nice to be in the company of a state legislator and a well-prepared lawyer. All right, let’s have it.”
Steve gave Skip the high five that was the signal for Skip to start in with everything that we knew, everything except Jane’s run for her life.
An hour later Skip and Sterve walked out of the D.A.’s office, leaped into the air, clicked their heels, and gave each other big hugs, exclaiming, “We did it; we did it; we did it!”
Enjoying a celebratory lunch at a nearby deli they found, both men breathed easier, and Skip’s conscience was finally starting to ease. It had now been two months since he felt right with the world. Ever since the night of the Dodger Stadium bombing, he had been having ghastly nightmares about him leaving a bomb somewhere, rendering children maimed and bloodied, screaming “Please God, let me die.” For two months, he had awoken every day in a quandary: “Should I turn Ken in? Should I turn Gordy in? . . . but . . . but if I do and those guys don’t come clean, the cops will have so little to go on – the bombing and carnage might actually happen – so maybe the best thing is to go along with their damned double-agent plan.” Well, that part is over, he thought to himself, enjoying his pastrami sandwich. “It’s out of my hands now.”
This despite the nagging feeling that he had waited too long, that he had over-trusted Ken, and, in turn, Gordy and Jane – Gordy, whom he hardly knew, and Jane, whom he knew not at all. One thing he did feel better about: tomorrow he could look himself in the mirror and no longer feel like a hypocrite every time someone mentioned the need for a united stand against terrorism.
Steve broke into his reverie, “You know we weren’t perfect. Kind of on purpose I think we forgot the part that Gordy wanted – no details on the time and place of the bombing until three hours before, so they don’t jump the gun on us and Jane loses her chance to escape.”
“I thought about that,” Skip responded. “They’ll start checking things out immediately, but I’m betting they’ll want the drama and PR of catching them red-handed minutes before the bombs explode.”
“You’re probably right. How do you think Ken and Gordy will take the news that Jansen said he couldn’t promise anything out in California, that he couldn’t speak for another jurisdiction, as to what charges Ken and Gordy might face?”
“I think we’re okay there too. Remember Jansen did say, ‘There’s generally always immunity for everything said on the witness stand’ – isn’t that what you call the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’? – the doctrine you explained to me yesterday: They can’t use what you say on the stand to convict you, nor use other evidence they follow up with from your testimony, to charge you with something.”
“And actually, I like the result we got for Jane,” Steve added. “You remember Jansen saying – while looking straight at Stover, ‘Not chasing down your Nancy Drew lady, I can’t promise that – but Stover here, he knows how to prioritize his limited resources.’
“Let’s head up to Westport – I think the others are already up there, or on their way. Phyllis can pack our stuff when she comes. Can’t wait to share our success story! Feel like we’re finally done with this all,” Skip said with a huge sigh.
“Well, yeah, but we’ve got to start preparing for tomorrow – another big day you know,” Steve replied with only a slight chuckle.
Catching the New Haven Line train leaving Grand Central station with a stop in Westport, they were musing together: “It’s going to be interesting to learn if our hypothesis proves correct: That the posse comitatus Proud Boys in Boulder found common cause sex trafficking with the Jihadis in Vancouver – for the purpose of making money, the Jihadis financing their war of terror selling girls to the posse. Then the posse decides to eliminate the middlemen – thus the killing of Abdul and the presence of the posse in Vancouver . . .
. . . but then what? The posse becomes copycat terrorists? Angry about what? The stolen election? There are still things we don’t know . . . ”