D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

Pell had been right on when he said they’d be in Boston by four. Their plane touched down at Logan just before three-thirty and they were standing in the impressive marble lobby of a building on State Street in downtown Boston at four o’clock on the nose.

They waited for an elevator to the twenty-eighth floor in silence. Pell vibrated with nervous energy as he pressed the already illuminated Up button again.

They were alone in the elevator as they rode up; most people were going down at this time of day, and Chris said, “Why are you so nervous?”

“I just don’t get on with Carl Moscovitz,” he replied through clenched teeth.

“Don’t worry about it. If we solve this case, you’ll be the hero.”

Pell smiled. “Always the optimist, huh?”

Chris chuckled, optimism was underrated. He could find a bright side to anything.

The elevator eased to a stop and the doors slid open. The two men stepped out into another ornate, marble-infested corridor that had a too-clean-for-a-high-traffic-area oriental rug running the length of it. They walked slowly toward the glass doors with the FBI logo.

“Sure beats your office, doesn’t it?” Chris said.

Pell stared at the door wide-eyed, as if he expected something bizarre to happen. The call to Carl Moscovitz to arrange this meeting hadn’t gone well.

Pell took a deep breath and swung open the door. The open, cubicled area behind the receptionist was a bustle of activity. Well-dressed professionals were hard at work as he said to the receptionist, “Agent Paul Pelletier. I have a meeting with Carl Moscovitz.” He glanced at his watch. “Right now.”

“He’s expecting you, Agent Pelletier,” the primped lady said as she looked at Chris. “And you are?”

“Chris Foster.”

“He’s with me,” Pell said as he flipped open his ID wallet.

“Are you an American citizen?”

“Last time I checked,” Chris replied.

“Sign your name here, please. You’ll have to initial his signature, Mr. Pelletier. Do you have ID on you please Mr. Foster?”

Chris handed over his driving license and after tapping into her computer for a minute, she handed Chris a small plastic badge and told him to wear it at all times while in the office. Then she got on the phone to inform Carl Moscovitz of their arrival. “You’ll be meeting in the west conference room. Have you been here before?”

“Sure, I used to work here. I know where I’m going,” Pell assured her.

As they walked to the meeting room, Chris noticed that some people were giving them queer looks.

“I think people are surprised to see you, Pell.”

They probably all had an opinion about what Pell had done. That sort of thing never died. People just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, forget – especially in an organization such as the Bureau.

In the conference room they found three men seated on the window side of the table, waiting. None rose as they entered the room.

“Gentlemen,” Pell said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. Chris sat next to him. “This is Chris Foster.”

Chris smiled at the men who didn’t acknowledge him, as if he were invisible.

Clad in a finely-tailored Italian suit, Carl sat between two agents. His hands were folded across his lean stomach as he tilted back in one of the expensive but incredibly comfortable Herman Miller chairs. Behind him, buildings partially blocked the view of Boston harbor but they were high enough to see the coming and going of jets at Logan. Carl introduced the two agents and said, “I must say that I was surprised to hear from you this morning, Pell. It’s been a long time.”

“Eighteen years.”

“That sounds about right,” Carl said. His pale blue eyes sparkled as he smirked, exposing fleshy gums that encased unnaturally small, pointy teeth, giving him a weasel-like appearance. “How’s Bangor, Maine?”

“It’s a great little city,” Pell said. “Look, let’s cut the bullshit. You know what happened. Whether you believe me or not doesn’t matter now. It was too long ago.”

“Al Jenkins’ kid just graduated from Yale,” Carl said.

“No one wishes that Allen Jenkins was alive today more than me.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “I’m sure.”

“Oh, come on, Carl. Your issue has always been with me, not what I did. For whatever reason, you didn’t like me the minute I walked through the door and you know it.”

“That’s bullshit. I didn’t like how you conducted yourself in the field. You were reckless and I just knew you were going to get someone killed. That was it and it turns out I was one-hundred percent right.”

“You would have done the same thing.”

“I would have never let the situation arise in the first place.”

“Give me a break. That’s a crock of shit and you know it. There was nothing I could do.”

“I would say that’s the real crock of shit.”

Pell looked at the two agents who sat stone-faced. Between their training at Quantico and being stationed in the office where it had all gone down, they had undoubtedly heard the story multiple times and from different perspectives. It would be interesting to hear their unfiltered take on the Allen Jenkins affair but that was an impossibility here and now or, probably ever, given their relationship with Carl.

Carl was about to say something when Chris interrupted, “We’re not here to discuss the past and Allen Jenkins. We’ve got a serious issue on our hands here and we need to move fast and, like it or not, if we want to stop these people we’re going to have to work together.”

The senior FBI agent finally acknowledged Chris with a cool stare. Pell kicked him under the table. Carl swiveled his chair square to Chris and put his manicured hands behind his male pattern baldness inflicted head. “Chris, was it?”

He nodded.

“Listen to me, Chris, and listen closely. This is an FBI office, and I’m the Special Agent in Charge of this office. I don’t want to hear a peep from you unless I ask you a question. I’ll debrief Agent Pelletier, and you’re going to sit there nice and quiet while I do it. Do you understand?”

Chris glared at him and then nodded. The room was silent for a moment until Carl said, “I read the IR, Pell. It sounds light. Why don’t you take it from the beginning?”

Pell shot Chris a quick glance, before starting in on their bizarre story. “It appears that a group of people have developed a virus that will change the face of the planet as we know it. I know it sounds far-fetched, but after some investigating, I’m convinced that what Chris told me is true and here’s why.”

Carl and his men sat stone-faced through the entire story. Pell would periodically have Chris either confirm or expand on something. Just after 5 pm, Pell finished.

Carl wore a bemused expression that Chris recognized as the same one Pell had when he first told him what he knew. Maybe they taught that look at Quantico – the official FBI raised eyebrow, pursed lips look – Facial Expressions 101.

“You weren’t kidding when you said that it was far-fetched,” Carl said finally. He looked at his agents who each shrugged in turn. “You’d think that we’d at least have heard some rumors or something, anything. Especially with all of the money we’ve dumped around the borders since 9/11, it’s hard to believe we haven’t picked up something. Someone would have made a mistake. They always do. Their blind ideology always makes them foolish.”

“Maybe so,” Pell replied, “But they’re a small, dedicated, tight-knit group, and one of them did break out – David Rose. That’s why we’re here now.”

“I have a theory about the Ngami thing –” Chris said.

Pell kicked him under the table, hard. “Don’t even waste their time with that.”