James Swain - The Program

His thoughts shifted to the FBI agents who’d participated in the sting, both here in Jacksonville, and down in Fort Lauderdale. They were probably mourning the rube’s death right about now. Crutch had never experienced feelings for strangers, but he recognized it in others. Displays of caring were how people coped with their own mortality and insecurities. It was weakness, laid out for all to see. He told himself that these FBI agents were weak, even though he’d never met them.

He went to the toilet and dropped his pants. He took a long piss while holding the cell phone above the bowl. He hoped they were all listening.

Early the next morning, Linderman checked out of his motel in the town of Starke, and walked to a restaurant in town. There, he began to write a chronology of the events leading up to the botched sting.

He sat in a booth by himself, drinking coffee as he wrote in a spiral bound notebook. Soon the restaurant filled up with workers getting off their shift at the prison. Many wore dreamy looks, their eyes half-shut from exhaustion. The restaurant catered to prison people, and had an electric chair sitting in the back behind a velvet rope. The chair, he’d learned from the hostess, was a spare from the prison, and had never been used.

A waitress refilled his cup. He sipped and continued to write. He had made a mistake with his handling of the sting, and hoped that it didn’t come back to haunt him. He had not used a scribe to record things as they occurred. Scribes were essential to keeping facts straight, and for establishing time lines. An innocent man had died last night, and there would be an internal review by the bureau to find out why. He needed to get his story straight while it was still fresh in his mind. Otherwise, there would be hell to pay down the road.

Wood entered the restaurant and slipped into the booth. He wore yesterday’s clothes, his rolled up sleeves exposing the array of tattoos he’d gotten while infiltrating the motorcycle gangs. Photos of Wood from that era showed a guy with long hair, a scraggily beard, and a crazy grin. The name Little Jesus had fit him just right.

“You sleep?” Wood asked.

“Couple of hours. How about you?”

“The same. I was glued to the Internet.”

“How bad is the fallout?”

“CNN picked up the story around three a.m. Then the rest of them joined in. They’re making us look like total morons.”

“Did you expect anything less?”

“I guess not. Who the hell is Detective DuCharme?”

Linderman put his pencil down. “A useless homicide detective with the Broward Sheriff’s Department. What is he saying?”

“I turned on the TV before I left the house. DuCharme was being interviewed on one of the early morning news shows. He’s claiming that Vick screwed the investigation up from the start. He said Vick was infatuated with the kidnaping victim, and let her feelings cloud her judgement. You and I both know that’s complete bullshit, but the news shows are loving it. FBI agent falls for teen victim.”

“Is that the angle they’re using?”

“Afraid so.”

A waitress took Wood’s order. Coffee and toast. She left, and Linderman flipped the notebook around and slid it across the table. “I need you to take a look at this, and tell me if I’ve left anything out.”

Wood did not look down at the notes. Instead, he continued to gaze at Linderman. He had an everyman’s face, which had made him a perfect undercover operative back in the day. What stood out were his eyes. Dark as coal, their gaze was unflinching.

“I’ve got more bad news,” Wood said.

Linderman drew back in his seat.

“We can’t go after Crutch,” Wood said.

Linderman slammed his fist on the table. The reaction drew an interested stare from a man eating breakfast at the next table. Linderman snapped his head at the offending party, and the man went back to his scrambled eggs and sausage.

“Why not?” Linderman asked.

“You’re aware that there was an atmospheric disturbance last night which caused the satellite to drop the volume on the transmission.”

“Yes. It was what tipped Crutch off to the sting.”

“It also distorted the sound quality of the voices. You can’t identify Crutch’s voice on the tape. He sounds like an alien.”

“But we know it was him,” Linderman said.

“Yes, we do, but we can’t prove it was him.”

“Have you talked this over with legal?”

“I called our lawyer on the way here, and discussed everything with him. The burden of proof is clearly on the government’s shoulders when it comes to eavesdropping cases. We can’t prove Crutch was talking to Mr. Clean last night. Hell, we can’t prove that he was talking to anyone.”

Wood’s toast was served burned. He slathered strawberry jelly onto it, and began to eat. Soon the table was covered in tiny pieces of ash. It was a perfect metaphor for what had happened. Their case against Crutch had gone up in flames.

“Have you talked to Rachel?” Wood asked.

“I called her last night to see how she was doing,” Linderman replied. “She sounded shell-shocked. I told her to hang tough.”

“Do you think she’ll survive this?”

“She’ll survive.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’m going to take the heat on this one. I set up the sting, and I sent her into that hornet’s nest. The blame falls squarely on my shoulders for what happened.”

Wood said nothing. They’d known each other a long time, and followed the same code of ethics. They did not blame others when things broke bad. They blamed themselves. “I feel responsible in another way,” Linderman went on. “This was Rachel’s first attempt to catch a serial killer. She’s always impressed me as being smart and competent. But she’s still young, and even though I had some misgivings, I brought her up too soon.”

They fell silent. The waitress brought their check, which Linderman settled.

“Rachel lied about her age when she signed up,” Wood said.

Linderman was stunned. “How did you find that out?”

“It popped up during a background check. She was born in “83 but put “81 on her application. She’s been doing it her whole life.”

Linderman glanced at the front door of the restaurant. An elderly couple waiting for the table were shooting him hostile stares. Ignoring them, he said, “I want to hear about this.”

“Rachel lied about her age when applying for a learner’s permit to drive a car when she was thirteen,” Wood said. “When she was fifteen, she lied on a job application to work in a department store.”

“Is her lying pathological?”

“I don’t think so. I got to know Rachel when she worked in my office. Her father was a strict Baptist minister, and was abusive. Rachel wanted to get out of that house as fast as she could. So she lied about her age. One Thanksgiving she came over to the house for dinner. My wife asked her what it was like growing up in a Baptist family. Rachel said that her father had frowned upon pre-marital sex because it might lead to dancing. I’d thought she was making a joke. She wasn’t joking.”

“How long have you known this?” Linderman asked.

“I found out a few months ago. I had her change her birth date on her application so it wouldn’t haunt her later on.”

“I wish you’d picked up the phone and called me. It explains a lot of things.”

“It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. The bureau signed up a lot of new recruits after 9/11 that they didn’t vet as thoroughly as they should have. Rachel slipped through the cracks.”

Linderman slid out of the booth and headed for the door.