Helix of Cole Page 8

  “Most people haven’t. Our leader was part of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the guys that snatched Patty Hearst, but he got kicked out. We were Marxist misfits. Made a lot of speeches, shoplifted a lot, and smoked a lot of dope. One of the guys robbed a liquor store to liberate the cash and a bottle of Wild Turkey. He shot the clerk, got $86, and dropped the bottle on the sidewalk. When the cops caught him an hour later, he started making Marxist speeches, all about how the ‘man’ was oppressing the workers and the black man, stuff like that.” Paul paused for another bite of sandwich.

  “He told the cops how they would never solve several burglaries and catch the people who did it, because the blue house we lived in on Park Street was filled with committed soldiers who were armed and very dangerous. When the police raided the house, I was in Golden Gate Park playing Frisbee with my dog. Everyone was swept up in the raid except me. How’s that for a divine plan starting to work its way out?

  “Anyway, the house was locked up. I lost all my stuff, such as it was, and was on the street. In true revolutionary style, I bummed off friends, tried to hook up with another radical group, and finally fell in with a bunch of musician, street vendors, and drug addicts off Haight. I was lost.” Cole was taking as few notes as possible so as not to distract Paul.

  “Then another part of the plan unfolded. One Sunday night, the band guys went to a gig, and I was left in the house alone. I smoked up all my grass and was feeling sorry for myself. I turned on the radio. In those days, KSAN broadcast the Glide evening celebrations live. At first, I thought it was some kind of a concert or something. Then Cecil Williams took the microphone. He started talking about love.

  “If there’s one thing a former radical hippie bum down on his luck didn’t want to hear about, it was love. The summer of love was a long time ago, I thought. Haight wasn’t about peace and love anymore; it was dope, sex and rock-and-roll, light on the sex and real heavy on the dope. I was too lazy to switch the station, so I just lay on the sofa and listened to Cecil.

  “He wasn’t talkin’ about hippie love, free love, or flowers-and-beads love. He was talking about unconditional love. The kind of love God has for mankind and how no matter how bad we thought we were or how far gone we were, God still loved us. He said that Glide people didn’t judge like the world ’cause they were trying to live God’s love.

  Cole shifted his weight on the step. As he looked out at the street before him, the plight of humanity in the deflated down jackets, and plastic and canvas coverings of the shopping cart army, gave Paul’s story a truth that was sharply focused through the lens of San Francisco’s reality.

  “Around here we say, ‘Come to a place where unconditional love changes lives every day, and hope triumphs over sorrow. Everyone is welcome.’ Of course, I didn’t know that back then. But I digress.” Paul took a deep breath. “This will sound farfetched, but you know what I did? I got up off the sofa and caught a ride from the guy next door who was pulling out of his garage, and he dropped me off about three blocks from the church. Mind you, I had never been in a church before.

  “First thing, this guy gives me a hug and says ‘come on in.’ I had never seen anything like it. There was everybody you ever saw in your life who should never be in a church all under one roof. That was the point. Those were exactly the people who needed to be in a church. I sat near the back and was just groovin’ to the music when this little black woman got up and told the story of how she had come to Glide and how she was on dope and selling herself on the street and, oh man, I thought if she could turn it around, maybe I can.

  “I started crying like a baby. I didn’t even hear her stop talkin’. The music was playing and people were singing and I knew I couldn’t leave. Towards the end of the celebration, Cecil came back up and said if anybody needed help for addiction or was hungry or just needed somebody to talk to, to stick around and there were people who loved you and wanted to help you.

  “That’s what I did. Now, I know it was God leading me here. He has held my hand every day since. I got clean, got trained as an electrician, my spirit has been fed, and I have a family here at Glide that loves me, peanut butter in my turkey sandwiches and all. I’m not perfect, and I’ve fallen down a few times, but my family here loves me and lifts me back and helps me get on the right track again. I been clean and sober more than 30 years now. I have taught classes, cooked meals, shared God’s love with people who think nobody cares and, in my small way, have tried to give back what this old place gave me. Thing is, I can never give back enough to pay for my being saved from what I was on my way to.”

  “So, you volunteer.” Cole smiled.

  “Full time. Nice thing about being a volunteer, your only boss is the man upstairs. And I don’t mean Cecil.” Paul laughed at his own joke and looked for Cole’s response. “There’s so much to do, you know, so many people who need help that I always have something to do. Even if it is just sweeping the sidewalk.” Paul flicked his thumb toward the broom.

  “So, where did all that revolutionary zeal go?”

  “Oh, there’s still a revolution going on. Difference is, this revolution is happening in people’s hearts. And you know something? Sometimes I think that’s a harder war to win. It breaks your heart sometimes to see people turn around and walk away from the love we offer to go back to a life of addiction, abuse, or living out of a shopping cart like that old lady down there.”

  “So, in one sentence what’s the secret of Glide?”

  “Simple: Unconditional love changes lives every day, and hope triumphs over sorrow. That’s it. Are you really going to put me in the paper?”

  “I can’t see any way around it.” Cole smiled. “One last thing. Do you think that unconditional love always works?”

  “Nope, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, some people are so full of self-hate that they hate everything and everybody around them. They just don’t want to be saved. And that’s a fact.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Reed drove 18 hours straight, took two short naps, and stopped for hamburgers twice, then did it again before he reached Chicago. Within an hour of his arrival, he connected with a militant Native American group called the Geronimo Brigade.

  Reed was well known to the group. Two years before he spent a weekend session instructing two men from the Brigade and a bone-thin woman with a missing foot on how to assemble nail bombs without blowing themselves up. The woman without the foot claimed to have lost it as a child when federal agents stormed her home to arrest her father and another man. She was shot as she came out of the bedroom to see what all the noise was about. A jumpy federal agent’s shotgun discharged, hitting the six-year-old in the ankle and taking her foot off. In appreciation for Reed’s training, the woman offered him sex, but he declined because the thought of her naked repulsed him.

  The group was more than happy to give Reed 12 sticks of dynamite in exchange for the lesson in how to assemble a backpack nail bomb. One tall Indian, who claimed to be from the Chippewa tribe, giggled like a schoolboy at the idea of the detonator being hidden in the zipper of the backpack.

  “Zip, zip, dead, dead,” the tall Indian repeated over and over as he made an up-and-down motion, mimicking the opening and closing of the zipper.

  When Reed was finished, there were three backpacks sitting on the kitchen table in the small apartment. Blue, green, and pink canvas—leather and nylon hiding terrible death and mayhem.

  Reed peeled off $60 from a wad of bills in his pocket and tossed them on the table. “Here, this is for the kids to get new backpacks. Tell them thank you. School’s important.” He pointed at a man with red eyes sitting in a chrome chair from an old dinette set. “Don’t let me find you spent it on whiskey, either. I said the money is for backpacks. I’ll know.”

  The red-eyed man nodded. He had no doubt that this strange white man had ways of knowing. Even in his blurred alcoholic state, he knew this man’s implied threat would bring great violence.

  In a smooth, sweeping gest
ure, Reed looped his arm through the shoulder straps of the backpacks and turned for the door. “Don’t go to any baseball games for a while.” With that, he was out the door.

  * * * * *

  “Chicago Sentinel. How may I direct your call?”

  “Listen closely. I need to talk to Cole Sage. No voicemail, no secretaries, no on hold. Cole Sage only and right now. Anyone or anything else, bad things are going to happen.”

  “Just what is that supposed to mean?” Olajean said with a snap. She was having a bad day and had no time for foolishness.

  “Just what I said. Something bad will happen.”

  “Right.” Olajean pushed the blinking light and cut off the caller. Even before her morning break, she already got three nutcase calls.

  Seconds later, the line lit up again.

  “Listen, bitch. I have a bomb. The people’s blood will rain down on you. Is that what you want? Now, put me through to Cole Sage the writer, right now. I’m not a patient man. I have a bomb, and it will go off in 30 minutes if you don’t put my call through.” The man’s tone was stern, clear and deliberate.

  “I can’t put your call through. He doesn’t work here anymore.” Olajean’s voice quaked slightly. She heard something in this man’s voice that sent a shudder through her.

  “Liar!” the voice on the other end of the line shouted.

  “Please now, let’s be calm here.” Olajean pushed the small red button and began recording the call. “Mr. Sage left the Sentinel a year ago. He lives—”

  “Listen close. Tomorrow noon I will call back, and Sage better be there. Otherwise, people are going to die tomorrow night, got it?” The line went dead.

  Olajean sat motionless. The lines on her phone console were all lit up. She didn’t move.

  “Olajean!”

  “What?”

  “Answer the phone! It’s gone crazy!” The woman hugging a small folder to her chest leaned forward trying to get a better look at Olajean.

  “Yes, yes, okay. Sentinel. How can I—” Olajean turned to the woman behind her. “I can’t do this. Take over.”

  She unplugged her headset, stood, and turned sideways to get through the small swinging door behind her receptionist desk. Across the room beyond the door was an empty desk. Olajean was half out of breath when she picked up the phone on top of the desk. Dialing a number from memory, she waited only a moment before it was picked up.

  “Mr. Roberson, we have a problem,” she began.

  Twenty minutes after her call to Mark Roberson, Olajean sat in a conference room with Operations Manager Roberson and Lieutenant Tom Harris of the Chicago Police Department.

  “Hey, you all right?” Harris patted Olajean on her thick shoulder.

  “Yes, lieutenant. I’m okay. I was just a little rattled, I guess. It’s just so strange to get a call like that, for Cole and all.”

  “Now, I need you to tell me as closely as you can what the caller said.” Harris’s normal interrogator’s tone was replaced with one of compassion for an old friend.

  Olajean took a deep breath and began. “He said he needed to talk to Cole Sage. He said if I didn’t connect him, bad things were going to happen. That’s what he said—’bad things.’ I may have done something stupid. I hung up. I thought it was just another crank call. I’ve had three this morning already. Then he called right back. This time his voice was different, harsh, fierce you might say. He said, ‘Listen bitch, I have a bomb.’ He said the blood of the dead people would rain down on my head. He said to connect him to Cole Sage or he would blow up the bomb in 30 minutes.” Without thinking, Olajean looked at the wall clock and pursed her lips tightly. “I told him that Cole was no longer here, and he screamed ‘liar!’ at me. I told him that Cole had been gone a year. That’s when he said people are going to die tomorrow night if he calls back at noon and Cole isn’t on the line. I started to tell him where Cole was but thought better of it.”

  “How would you describe the voice?”

  “White guy. East Coast, maybe. Boston? Not Southern or Midwestern. Didn’t sound young to me. No tellin’ age, though. There was something in that voice, Lieutenant. He meant business. I get crank calls all the time, and they have a certain—something, I don’t know—but this guy, he was different. I think he meant it.”

  “Is there anything else? Noise in the background? Anything?” Harris coaxed.

  “I hit the record button, so we have part of it on tape. I missed the first part, before he called back, I mean.”

  “That’s great. That will help a lot. Good thinking!” Harris smiled reassuringly at Olajean.

  “Is Cole in danger, you think? This guy sounds mean, vicious, you know. What do you think he wants with Cole?”

  “Old grudge, gripe, or something. Otherwise, he would know Cole hasn’t been here in a while. Cole pissed him off somehow, and he’s still carrying it around. Who knows? Mark, let your security people know about this. I’ll beef up patrols around the area for the next little while, just in case.” Harris rubbed his forehead and ran his hand down his face. “Olajean, are you sure he said ‘rain down on you’?”

  “Yes sir, he said the blood of dead people going to rain down on my head.” Olajean put her hands atop one another on her broad chest.

  “Can we monitor the elevators and stairwells on the video system?”

  “Yeah, what are you thinking?” Roberson spoke for the first time.

  “It just bothers me that he said ‘bomb’ and ‘rain down.’ Anything happens above the first floor…” Harris trailed off. “Any man that calls, hit the record button.”

  “Sure,” Olajean replied quickly.

  “Mark, what are you thinking?”

  “I’ll put somebody on the loading docks and shipping platforms. We are pretty vulnerable to someone just slipping in down there. Are you going to call Cole?” Roberson’s stress was in his voice.

  “As soon as we wrap up here. We’ll arrange for Cole to conference from San Francisco. The guy will never know the difference. For now, I think it’d be a good idea if we keep this as quiet as possible.” Harris slapped his palm with the leather folder he always carried, signaling the end of their meeting. He turned and said to Olajean gently, “Good work. Don’t worry about Cole, either. He’s always the focus of some hothead or other. He’s still around, isn’t he?” Harris patted her shoulder, used the leather folder to give Roberson a salute, and was out the door.

  When Harris got back to his office, his first call was to the FBI. The relationship between the Feds and the Chicago PD was friendly, and they often gave each other a heads-up on cases that might cross the line into the other’s turf. Tom Harris developed a good working relationship with Carter Washington, and they’d worked effectively together on a couple of high-profile cases to both their advantages. Harris left a voicemail message summarizing the situation.

  The number for Cole Sage at the Chronicle was under the plastic cover on Harris’s desk. He dialed, entered the extension, and got Cole’s voicemail. Harris redialed and stayed on the line. He asked if Cole was in the building and said it was urgent. He identified himself, and the operator transferred the call to Chuck Waddell, Cole’s supervising editor.

  “Harris, Chuck Waddell here. I’ve heard a lot about you. Cole’s out of town. Flew out this morning for Washington.”

  “Do you know where he’s staying?”

  “I don’t. Maybe his secretary does. What’s up? Anything serious?”

  “Yeah.” Harris wasn’t going to tell a newspaperman about a potentially deadly situation. “Can you transfer me? It’s important I get a hold of him.”

  “Hold on.” Waddell’s friendly tone was gone. He transferred the call.

  “Cole Sage’s office.”

  “This is Tom Harris of the Chicago Police Department. It is urgent that I speak to Mr. Sage. Do you know where he’s staying in Washington?”

  “Yes sir, The Hay-Adams downtown. Do you want the—”

  Harris was off the line and
dialing the DC operator. He left two messages at the Hay-Adams, one for Cole for when he checked in and one with the concierge stressing the urgency of contacting Cole, just in case.

  Harris took the caller’s tape. In the car, he listened to the voice and message over and over. Olajean was right; there was a sober seriousness to the voice. There was no hesitancy, no nervous energy, just cool direct orders that expected an immediate response. His rage was like a switch, fierce and violent, then calm and back to business in seconds.

  They weren’t dealing with an amateur. What was the connection to Cole? This wasn’t some right-wing conspiracy nut convinced that Cole’s writing was bringing Armageddon, or a militant racist who hated Cole’s desire to bring educational equality to schoolchildren. They followed up death threats before, and most of the amateurs made a lot of noise and then backed down, fading into the fringes again. The cowardice of these people was surpassed only by their bungling of covering their trail. Once confronted, they usually feigned an apology and said they just flew off the handle. This was different. The threat wasn’t to Cole.

  The phone rang on Harris’ desk. “Lieutenant Harris, this is Mark Roberson at the Sentinel. We got something I think you better take a look at. Just after you left, Cole’s old secretary got a letter from the caller.”

  “I’ll be right there.” As he answered, Harris’s cell phone rang.

  “Tom, this is Carter. What’s up?”

  “I think you need to be in on this threat to Cole Sage. They just received a letter. How soon can you meet me at the Sentinel office?”

  “Just finished an interview. I’m about 10 minutes away.”

  “Meet me there as soon as you can,” Harris responded.

  “On my way.”

  The letter was from the caller, no doubt. After slipping the sheet of paper into a Ziploc evidence bag, Harris began to read aloud.

  “To Cole Sage, Master Deceiver,

  You have lied to the people. You are part of the government mind control machine. The leaders of the Revolution were convoluted and fattened by your fame machine. They did not falter so much as the fatted calves and harlots of your new Babylon seduced them.