D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“No, we didn’t get to him and that’s exactly why I’m saying go to plan B,” Seth snapped. “Do as I say and get things rolling now. I’ll be back there in twenty minutes. If Mark calls, tell him to come in as fast as he can.”

“No problem, Seth. But are you absolutely sure this is definitely what you want to do? There’s no going back once we activate, you know?”

Seth shook his head. God damned scientists could really get on your nerves.

“It is, Wendel. We’re going with Plan B and we’re all systems go. You know the drill. We’ve gone through what to do over and again if this situation arises. Make sure you follow it to the letter. I don’t want any fuck ups.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah, if Sarah calls, don’t tell her about this. I think that she should hear it from me. Tell her to call me or wait for my call. Understand?”

“No problem, Amigo,” Wendel said. “Better you than me.”

“Good. Get Curtis and get to work. I’ll be there soon.”

Pell pulled into a dumpy Chinese restaurant called Lo Maine.

“Cute name,” Chris said.

“These guys have the best boneless spareribs in the city,” Pell replied as he stopped the car and climbed out. “They’re third generation Chinese who stay true to their roots and recipes but know how to appeal to the American appetite and taste.”

They walked into the dimly-lit, tackily decored establishment and the host immediately greeted them. Two large, gold dragons sat on either side of an overly ornate carved wooden chair. Heavy red wallpaper depicting scenes from China covered the walls.

“Agent Pelletier,” the old Chinese man said in a thick accent, struggling to properly pronounce Pell’s name. “Will you be eating tonight or just sitting at the bar?”

“Give us a booth in the back, will you Chu.”

“Anything for you, my friend,” Chu said as he bowed to Chris and led the two men to a booth in the back of the restaurant.

“This is great, Chu. I’ll start with a vodka tonic – make it a double,” Pell said dropping down into the booth with a sigh.

Chris sat down across from him and said, “I’ll have a beer. Got Heineken?”

Chu nodded.

“One of those will do.”

Having drinks and eating Chinese food after almost getting killed back at the office was the last thing he thought they should have been doing, but Pell must have a good reason for bringing him here.

“So what are we doing?” Chris asked. “Shouldn’t we be calling in backups or something? Why are we drinking cocktails and ordering Chinese food? We’ve got too much to do to be thinking about using your expense account.”

“I need to make a few quick calls,” Pell said pulling out his phone. “I need to know if anyone saw or heard anything back there. If anything has been reported.”

Pell made various calls. It looked like nothing had been reported and the whole incident had gone unnoticed. Laying his phone down on the table Pell looked at his watch.

“I need some time to think,” he said, glancing around the restaurant, studying each of the few patrons before looking anxiously over at the bar. Then he grabbed a napkin and started to shred it as he asked Chris to repeat again everything that had happened – from the beginning.

Chris clenched his jaw. Repeating everything over and over again was getting them nowhere. Hell, he was no FBI agent, but he knew exactly what they should do. He struggled to keep his cool as he said, “I think that we should be finding out exactly who we’re dealing with here, Pell. You saw it for yourself. They killed David, hid the plane, tried to kill us – whoever they are, they’re serious about keeping this thing under wraps. Call in the Army if you have to. David Rose told me that it was going to happen soon, and now that they know that we’re onto them, you can bet that soon just got sooner.”

He stopped talking as Chu brought their drinks over.

“You eat?” Chu asked.

“Bring us a platter,” Pell said as he sucked on his straw. After downing a third of the drink, he set the glass down, pulled out the lime and sucked on it. Then he said, “What you just said makes sense to you, but to me there’s a lot more to it than just that.”

“Like what?”

“Like we know a plane went down, but we have no info about what type of plane yet or who this David Rose the pilot was. We saw the bullet damage at the scene so that backs up some of your story. That said, though, there’s nothing whatsoever to corroborate this wild virus story. I don’t have any evidence for that at all.”

“But we just had two guys storm the FBI building, and chase us through the streets of Bangor,” Chris said.

“That doesn’t prove anything about the virus.”

“It proves that someone is willing to pull out all the stops—”

“You don’t get it, Chris. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Without concrete evidence, if I don’t have answers or if I’ve missed something crucial, Moscovitz will be all over me. I have to tread very carefully or I’ll end up stuck here,” he paused briefly and glanced around before continuing, “In this godforsaken outpost in Bangor Maine until I retire. This could be the case that’ll finally get me out of here or it could be the case that puts the last nails in my FBI career.” He took another swig from his drink. Chris did the same.

“Why don’t you just transfer?” Chris asked. Pell had a story to tell. He had sensed that this morning, and now he was going to hear it – whether he wanted to or not, whether this was a good time or not.

Pell chuckled. “I wish it were that simple, Chris. But it’s not. I’m forty-two years old. I joined the Bureau right out of U. Mass when I was twenty-two. They recruited me on campus and, at the time, it seemed like the ultimate job. Travel, extensive physical and mental training, and most importantly to me, adventure. I started working out of the Boston branch, and in my second year I went undercover to infiltrate the mob. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they had recruited me specifically for this job. They had gone on a search for someone that matched their criteria, and I was the one they chose.”

It took three vodka tonics, a selection of Chu’s chef’s specials and the better part of an hour for Pell to explain the source of his demons. Back in the nineties, the Mob was on the ropes. There were still five families in New England that, while not the force they once were, they were far from sleeping with the fishes. They survived because of their persistence and ability to adapt. He had successfully infiltrated one of these five families, but an operation turned bad and he had been forced to kill a fellow agent to prove his devotion to the family.

Shoot him or we shoot you. He had made the hardest choice any agent could ever have to make; killing a fellow agent, Allen Jenkins, to save his own life and to continue the years of undercover work that they had gone through – plain and simple. If he had backed out, it would not just have been himself and Alan Jenkins at risk but all the other people they had on the job, not to mention the insiders turned informants.

Many lives were at stake in addition to the risk of blowing a complicated, multi-year undercover operation that was on the verge of bringing down the entire New England mob. He had made the right decision. Alan would have agreed. He had been just as dedicated as Pell. They had often talked about what they would do if push came to shove. Both of them had always agreed that the operation is greater than the individual. But if a man ever had a reason to hit the bottle, this was Pell’s reason.

“Listen to me, Pell. You got a bad break, but this is your chance to make amends. Think about it. If everything that David Rose told me yesterday is true, you have a chance to stop people who want to change the world. You can make up in spades for what happened. This is your shot. You can either crawl into that glass and stay there for the rest of your life, or you can pull yourself together and find out what’s really going on here.”