D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

Arthur nodded, “Of course.”

“I can point you in the right direction and, all I can say is that this is bad, very bad.” Pell raised his bushy eyebrows as his bloodshot, glossy eyes met Arthur’s unrelenting gaze. “Bad for the Bureau and certainly bad for you.”

“You need to tell me more before I can commit to a deal. But if what you have to tell me is what you are indicating it is, I’ll do everything I can to see that you get a fair break. You have my word.”

“I hear that your word is as good as gold,” Pell said.

Arthur led by example. That in itself was rare enough in Washington, but he was also honest. If he said something, take it to the bank. He knew his reputation and continually refined and exploited it – grew the legend. He could afford to keep his word because he was upfront with people. Tell the truth, not just what people want to hear and you get the luxury of the Honorable Man title. He nodded.

“You’ll want what I know, Arthur. If you are giving me your word, right now, that if I’m right, and you’ll know that I am, you’ll give me what I want.”

“I can’t do that. Not that I don’t want to, if it was worth it, but things like shooting a cop are too politically charged. It’s not as easy as saying ‘all right, I’ll do it.’ There’ll be repercussions. You have my word that you’ll get a fair break. That’s the best I can do.”

“Cutting me this deal is a non-issue for you, Arthur. You’re the number three guy, for Christ’s sake, and you didn’t get there by not knowing how to get things done.”

Arthur crunched down on another mint. Decisions, decisions, decisions. This one was a gamble – a roll of the dice. He didn’t have enough information but at a gut level, he believed Pell might have something important, something that he needed to know. “Okay, okay, you’ve got my word. But this better be good.”

Pell smiled, “It is, Arthur. It is.” He took a slow drink of water.

Arthur stood up, extracted a mini digital recorder from his briefcase and placed it on the tray table in front of Pell. He pressed the red record button and said, “Let’s hear it.”

Pell took another sip, grimaced as he squirmed to get comfortable and said, “I’ve got proof there’s a cell within the FBI selling arms, potentially to terrorist organizations.”

Arthur folded his muscular arms across his thick chest, stared down at the floor and paced. This was not what he had been expecting to hear today but if it were true, he needed to act on it quickly.

“Selling arms?” Arthur said. “No way. I don’t believe it.”

“You will believe it when I show you what I’ve got. And what’s more, we know at least one senior person under your command who’s involved and I find it hard to believe he’s acting completely on his own. He would need some cover from somebody. They’re working with a couple guys in the Reserves. Maybe others.”

“How the hell did you, of all people, get this information?” Arthur grabbed onto the bed rail and squeezed it hard for a long moment before looking up at Pell and saying, “You have to tell me what you have and where you got it?”

“It doesn’t matter right now where I got it.”

“The hell it doesn’t! Do you realize what you just said? What it means to the Bureau? It’s explosive.”

“Maybe so but since I’m taking you at your word, you need to take me at mine. There are others who can corroborate what I’m telling you,” Pell replied. “In due time, of course.”

“Due time is now, Pell. What have you got?”

Pell reached under his blanket and pulled out the brown envelope that Steve had given him.

“What’s in here is absolutely explosive but this should be plenty for you to get started on,” he said passing it to Arthur.

Arthur looked at Pell gravely before emptying the contents of the envelope out onto the table next to the bed. Photographs, a USB drive and a number of printed documents landed on the table.

He picked through the photographs silently. After a few minutes he plugged the USB into his notebook – documents, audio and video files. He attached his earpiece and played back several recordings. One was of Carl and a man sitting in a café. The video was from outside but the audio was clear, obviously surveilled by a pro and it was damn incriminating. He turned off the notebook, turned to Pell and considered him for a long moment.

“How confident are you in this information?”

“Very,” Pell replied.

“It seems like a remarkable coincidence that this evidence suddenly appears after you claim Carl has been targeting you,” Arthur said.

“I hate the prick, no doubt about that, but I don’t need to make things up about him. I frankly don’t see how a piece of shit like him has moved up through the ranks of the Bureau undetected. He’s your goddamn direct report, Arthur.”

Arthur shook his head at the accurate dig. This would be a scandal all right. The Northeast Region SAC involved in illegal arms trading. Scandal didn’t even begin to cover it.

“The worst part is that he’s potentially selling to fundamentalists, could be ISIS, Al Qaeda, any, or all of them for all we know,” Pell said. “The bastard’s a double traitor.”

“We need to prove it. We need to work out what’s going on, who the buyer is and if this is true, we need to take him down quickly.”

“Get some of your people up here and see what they find. Did you ever notice his suits and ties? A bit too nice, even for a SAC.”

“We look at the finances of everyone at Carl’s level yearly. I would have been told of any anomalies.”

“He knows what they look for. He’s not going to give himself away that easily. You need to dig deeper.”

“You don’t need to educate me on how to handle situations like this, Pell. I know exactly what to do and I will get to the bottom of this, believe me.” He stuffed everything back into the envelope and locked it away in his briefcase.

“So? Is that good enough?”

“I’ll look into this and if it looks like what it smells like, as I said, you have my word. We have a deal,” he replied. His earlier enthusiasm for this diversion to Boston was gone. Now he had two major problems to deal with. He dropped into a chair, leaned back, tilted his head toward the ceiling and pressed his hand over his brow.

What a fucking mess. He’d get a couple of agents doing a deep dive on Carl immediately but he also had to work out what to do about this would-be virus. So far they had nothing substantive. All they had was a bunch of circumstantial situations which were undoubtedly odd and quite potentially connected but nothing definitive. He also had Pell’s hunch and the man had been an up and comer in the Bureau back in the day before the Jenkins affair, so he was undoubtedly skilled but was his hunch worth anything?

“So, you haven’t told me yet about Andleman. What did he have to say?” Pell was about to explain about Camilla Haywood when there was a light knock on the door and a nurse stuck her head in.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Kent, but there’s a man from the State Department on the phone, insisting to talk to you. He says that it’s urgent.”

Arthur raised one of his eyebrows. “The State Department?”

“That’s what he says,” she replied in a quivering voice. Her gaze danced around the room, looking at anything but Arthur.

“What the –” Arthur started to curse, but caught himself. “Can I take the call somewhere private, please?”

“Of course. You can use our office. Follow me,” she said as she jerked her head out of the crack in the door and scooted back down the hall. Arthur collected his briefcase and coat and followed after her without a word.