by Greg Curtis
“Thank you gentlemen. Now you three men are being presented with an opportunity that doesn't come around often. But you've also inadvertently placed yourselves in the middle of an active investigation. As part of your duties in following up with the girl Katarinka Nelos you came into contact with Special Agent Garrick Hamilton of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I've read your reports of course, but I want you to tell me now what your impressions of the man were. Not just what was said and done, but what you thought of him.”
Agent Barnes looked blankly at his colleagues and they in turn looked blankly back at him. None of them had expected the question and all of them were wondering what this was about. But they all liked his use of the word “opportunity”.
“Well Sir, he might have been an agent of the Bureau but he definitely wasn’t helpful. He told the girl that she didn’t have to answer our questions. And he ended the interview before it began. Of course,” Agent Barnes continued, feeling duty bound to point out that he had reasons for his actions, “it seemed that he was acting in a personal capacity rather than as an agent. On behalf of the girl’s Aunt.”
The other agents agreed with him though were less inclined to think charitably of his actions. In their view the agent shouldn't have been there. He had stuffed up a legitimate interrogation and had poked his nose in where it didn't belong. And then he had delivered the suspect to a school where the headmistress was even more annoying and had repeatedly sent them away without even letting them see the girl. They couldn't bring the girl in as a suspect without a warrant, and they couldn't get that unless they had evidence indicating that she was more than just a casual associate of Armando Benedict. Evidence they had hoped to get by interrogating her. Unfortunately she'd got smart. Or the people around her were.
As it was, just to run a track and trace on her phone had required a very friendly judge and some judicious use of the word “terrorism”. She was only fifteen after all. To add to their woes they'd managed to get a set of fingerprints of hers off a drinking bottle thrown in the school trash, but it hadn't matched any others found at Benedict's recent crime scenes. They hadn't expected that.
“What really annoyed me Sir though was that we all knew she was guilty,” Agent Barnes added. “I mean, maybe we don’t know quite what she's done, but if she was innocent she would have talked. The fact that she clammed up so tightly could only mean that she was hiding something. And if that damned agent hadn't been there she would have run and we would have had her.”
“Thank you gentlemen.” The voice was at least polite, though he didn't sound too impressed with what they'd told him.
“What you've said simply adds to what we were already certain of. That Special Agent Hamilton is in fact one of Armando Benedict's confederates.”
The statement raised a few eyebrows around the table. But thinking it through Agent Barnes thought that it made sense. Hamilton hadn't been with the girl by chance, and he had had the right answer ready for every suggestion they'd raised. Certainly he had stopped them from doing their job.
“Unfortunately you've blundered into the situation by chance and exposed yourself to him. And I do mean blundered.” The voice suddenly sounded angry.
“Let's be honest here agents. None of you were high flyers. None of you were on the fast track for promotion. And absolutely none of you have the requisite experience or skills needed to deal with a suspect of Special Agent Hamilton's capability. Had you simply observed that Ms. Nelos was with a man and done a background check on him by – say – checking his plates before beginning the interview, we would not be here now. You would have been told to back off and above all else to not have made yourselves known to him. And above all else you should never have shown him your ID's.”
Now that wasn't fair, Agent Barnes thought. How could they possibly have known that she was with an FBI agent? Until he'd pulled out his own ID they'd assumed he was just a male relative. And now this man on the phone was suggesting that they shouldn’t have followed standard procedure when asked for ID? It was the law after all!
But what hurt more than the injustice of the man’s charge was his casual dismissal of their abilities. They were all trained agents. They had done everything they were supposed to do, just as they were supposed to do it. They had made no mistakes. But now they were being accused of being blundering fools who had made a huge blunder!
Of course there was nothing any of them could say. Not to someone who could simply have them pulled off their detail with a snap of his fingers. Nothing any of them could do except sit there and listen.
“Still, what's done is done. Now we simply have to pick up the pieces and hope we can reassemble our case. You will now have to play a role in that. And mostly that role will consist of background checks and remaining out of sight. Very much out of sight.”
“With his connections it's highly likely that Special Agent Hamilton will already know everything about you. Your names, details, assignments and so on. He may be monitoring you – reading your emails, bugging your phones. Even here. And because of that I cannot allow you to continue to be involved in the Armando Benedict task force. The chances are that whatever you’ve learnt has already gotten back to him.”
“We know that Special Agent Hamilton has contacts in Treasury. That he can access records and even system messages. We know that he has used that information resource to remain several steps ahead of us for many years. And to keep Benedict ahead of us as well. We believe that the two are partners. Some even suspect that Benedict himself may only be a front for Hamilton. At least for the past decade anyway. An ageing thief thrown a few scraps and a good burglary plan every so often to divert attention from what Hamilton has been doing. Hamilton may actually be the one pulling the strings.”
“For that reason there will be no reports written of this meeting. There will be no discussion of it with anyone other than yourselves. Not with your families or your colleagues. Your supervisors are not in the loop. There will be no emails sent and no phone calls made on anything other than the secure phones you will be assigned. Is that completely clear?”
“Yes.”
The agents all spoke as one. After all, there was nothing else they could say. It had not been a question. But again it wasn't procedure.
“You are also being assigned to my task force. The Hamilton task force. But you will at no point acknowledge that with anyone. Instead you will be given assignments as if you were on general duties, and they will all be general duties just like those that would be assigned to a junior agent. This work will be assigned by me. And since we can assume that Hamilton will be watching, I will also dictate exactly what you will put in your reports. You will become counter agents providing misinformation for our suspect to spy on.”
“Is that clear?”
“Yes Sir!”
Again it wasn't a question, and they all answered exactly as they were supposed to. But none of them were happy. General duties! That was another term for grunt work. The sort of work that was given to probationary officers. And they had done nothing wrong!
“Good. Now I should warn you that this is a dangerous assignment. Special Agent Hamilton is a very dangerous man, and very resourceful. Because of that I would prefer to use more skilled agents but it seems I no longer have that choice. I must use you and at the same time take steps to protect you from the consequences of your mistake. If I am to investigate Garrick Hamilton thoroughly, I have to allow for the probability that at some point he will become aware of the investigation. And at that point he will naturally assume that it is you three who are investigating him. He will come after you.”
Come after them? Barnes looked at the others and they stared back at him, none of them quite believing what they were being told. They were agents, no one came after them. They were the ones who came after others.
“That limits me.” The special agent in charge carried on, unable of course to see the looks of surprise and alarm on their faces. “This man must be invest
igated, arrested, indicted and prosecuted for his crimes, something that will be very difficult and very dangerous. And that places you three in danger. Which leaves me with only three options for you. First I can have you placed in witness protection. As you know under that programme you would be given new names and identities along with your families and sent far away. Second I can have you transferred to our Alaskan offices for a few years. Or finally, I can involve you in the investigation and hope that you are or can become sufficiently capable to protect yourselves.”
“Do any of you wish to enter witness protection or travel to Alaska?”
“No!” The three agents all but screamed it at the phone. No one wanted to go into witness protection. Not if they could afford it. Because it was more than just getting new names and homes. It represented the loss of their careers, friends and lives. And Alaska? It was cold and remote and none of them wanted to spend the rest of their careers freezing their butts off.
“Good. But I cannot emphasise to you enough that Special Agent Hamilton is a very dangerous man. In fact he’s probably the most cunning and dangerous criminal you will ever face. There is a reason he managed to become an FBI agent. Not only can no one prove anything about his illegal activities, there isn't even enough to accuse him of it. But despite that he is suspected of murdering one Treasury agent as well as numerous other shootings and killings.”
“If you give him the slightest cause to believe that you are on to him you should expect him to respond with deadly force. And don't imagine that you can run or hide. His forte is hunting people. He hunts down serial killers across state lines and without so much as a name or a face to go on. And that is not an exaggeration. There is no question about what he does. He is the most capable man-hunter the FBI has, and it is a cover he goes to extraordinary lengths to protect. After all that cover grants him access to every criminal database we have as well as opening doors all over the country.”
“In your case he already has your names and has seen your ID's. That was why he asked for them. To know who to hunt if he has to. If he feels threatened he will hunt you down and kill you. He might well torture you for information. And the chances are that your bodies would never be found.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes Sir!”
Again they all answered as one, knowing it wasn't a question. But privately Agent Barnes just sat there wondering just what the hell they'd landed themselves in. It seemed as if Agent Thomison was telling them that they were living on borrowed time. That sooner or later the agent would come for them. But what he didn't understand was how that could be? How could an agent be a murderous criminal? Surely the FBI did checks on their people? He wanted to ask, but the voice was carrying on.
“Good. Now from this day forward you will all have a vest with you at all times. You will spend considerable time on the range every day. You will practice your counter surveillance techniques with every phone call you receive and whenever you leave the building. Even when you're in it. And you will report to no one but me. Is that understood?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Good. Now if you will each grab one of the boxes from the centre of the table please and open them.”
They did as he ordered and swiftly found themselves staring at autopsy reports. Top of the pile was the very grizzly details of the murder of Treasury Agent Philip Ogden. It shook them all, knowing that those remains had once belonged to one of their brothers in Treasury. And then to see there were others as well. A lot of other bodies. How could an FBI agent do such a thing? How could he still be an agent? And how much danger were they in? Because it was hard to pretend that this was just idle suspicion or a precaution when the evidence was there in full colour right in front of him.
“Now gentlemen in these boxes you will find the main documents outlining the suspected crimes of Special Agent Garrick Hamilton and much of the evidence against him. I want you to be completely familiar with this material by the close of today. But absolutely none of this information leaves the room – is that understood?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Behind you, you will see a confidential documents destruction bin. When you have read these reports you will dispose of them properly. And you will not make copies. If you need a copy of anything it will be provided to you over secure phones that you will be issued with. Phones that even our target does not know exist.”
“You will also find copies of your orders placing you under my command, and detailing your activities including training requirements. Again these will be disposed of when you've satisfied yourselves that they are genuine. You will however, find copies of these on the phones you will be given.”
“After this conversation is finished I would like you to go through those documents checking the signatures and the numbers on the bottom of the letters to satisfy yourself that they are genuine. This is as I'm sure you've realised a black bag operation, but every agent should always know that every part of his involvement in it is authorised.”
And it was authorised. Agent Barnes knew that. He recognised the signature on his letter of appointment to the task force. It was the same one that was on his original appointment letter from when he first started working for Treasury. You couldn't go much higher than that. But still he decided, he would check out the number on the letter.
Now there is at least one piece of good news to go with the bad. Though you don't know and will not learn who the other agents are that are involved in this task force, you may be assured that they have been making steady progress. We are almost at the stage where an arrest can be made. So your situation will probably be resolved in a couple of weeks.”
“When that happens you will all be required to be there to give a verbal confirmation of identification of Special Agent Hamilton as the man you saw with Katarinka Nelos.”
“You also won’t be alone. When the time comes to arrest him it will be done swiftly, with overwhelming force and with the element of surprise. Special Agent Hamilton will not even know he is surrounded by our people. And he will be given absolutely no chance to draw a weapon. Is that clear?”
That at least was completely clear to Agent Barnes. He was implying that they should shoot first and not give Hamilton any chance to draw on them. He didn’t say it verbally of course. Such an order would be illegal. He was simply making sure that they knew what to do when the time came without having to actually say it.
And they did. No one questioned the orders. Not when they had the autopsy report in front of them. A report that said their fellow agent had been tortured before he'd been shot and his body dumped.
Even as he said yes Agent Barnes was already planning on putting a slug in the heart of Special Agent Hamilton if he so much as looked like causing him any trouble. The man would either surrender instantly or he would die even faster. Looking around at the others he knew they had the same thought running through their minds.
Anyone who could kill an agent the way Ogden had been killed was too dangerous to live.
Chapter Six
Katz sat in the middle school common area eating her lunch and wishing she were somewhere else. Anywhere else. She'd finished with school, or so she'd thought. And in truth school had finished with her even before then. They didn't get on. But now she found herself back in one and she didn't like it. She didn't understand it either. Not this one.
It was a strange school she thought. The buildings looked like they had come off the set of a horror movie, especially with all those gargoyles everywhere. Though she had been informed right from the start that they were actually grotesques – gargoyles sprayed water. Why that should matter she didn't know. The uniforms had come out of a Dickens book and they were every bit as uncomfortable as they looked. The rules were from a prison. But then the school was part prison as far as she was concerned. Strangest of all were the students and the teachers. It seemed like she was now living in some sort of circus.
She hated it. She hated it most because when sh
e had first begun to realise that she was different, that she could do things that other couldn't, she had thought she was special. That was important to someone raised in an orphanage with dozens of other kids who were all essentially abandoned children. All of them wanted to be special, but the reality was that all of them had actually been just unlucky nobodies. They weren't special at all.
But for a while she had been. She had had something which lifted her above the others. She wasn't just the child of a crazy mother and a missing father. She had been popular for maybe the first time in her life, when she showed the others how she could easily break in to the priest’s liquor cabinet.
But here she wasn't special at all. She wasn't popular. There were others who could do the exact same thing she could do. And there were many others who could do far more amazing things.