by DB Carpenter
His breath smelt of the grave – as if he had gargled with dirt and worms and rot.
Suddenly, as if someone turned on the lights in a dark room, Ricky saw his father. He started to wail.
"He did this to me, Ricky," Allen said, pointing to Pell.
Ricky's howl rose to the roof of the Garden, growing louder and louder until it eclipsed all other sounds. Pell looked around frantically. Everybody else was still celebrating the goal. Just he, Allen and Ricky were not. Ricky started pounding his eight-year-old fists into Pell's chest.
"Why did you kill my father," he cried. "Why?"
Pell jerked awake and fell out of his chair. His forehead was covered with sweat. He got up on his knees and looked over at Chris, who was crashed out. He glanced at the communicator. They were still on-line. He went to his office, pulled out a bottle and raised it to his lips.
As the bottle came under his nose, he breathed deeply. The pungent smell of the vodka made him suddenly and violently ill. He barely got his head over the wastebasket before he vomited. His stomach heaved until he thought he was going to wretch up some internal organs.
"Jesus Christ," he said as he leaned back in his chair, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Four o'clock in the morning and trying to get drunk. That was the story of his life. Every day he woke up and made a commitment to himself that he would lay off. Give it up and turn his life back around. But every day, before he had even showered and dressed, he had inevitably given in to the liquid demon. He looked at the bottle, picked it up and pulled out the other bottle he kept in his desk drawer. He walked to the men's room. Unscrewing the tops of the bottles, and before he could talk himself out of it, he poured them down the toilet.
Once he had emptied the second one, he put his hand on the flush lever and had to look away as he depressed it. The swirling water-booze mix disappearing down the drain was an apt metaphor for his life to this point. He started to cry.
Day 3 – Tuesday, June 30
1:14 am Unorganized Township T8 R4, Aroostook County, Maine
Seth stood hidden in the bushes as Bert's car rolled to a stop at the top of the hill that led down to the lodge. He watched Bert study the hustle and bustle of activity below. He must know that the jig is up. As Bert reached for the shift lever to put the car in reverse, he slipped out of the woods and pressed the cold steel of his rifle barrel against Bert's temple.
"Evening, Bert," Seth said. "I figured you'd be curious about what was going on."
"What do you mean?"
Seth laughed. "You know what I mean. Why don't you put your hands up where I can see them."
Slowly he placed both of his hands on the wheel.
Seth reached in, grabbed a shotgun from his lap and removed his pistol. "Planning on doing some bird hunting?" Seth asked sarcastically.
Bert stared straight ahead, not responding.
"Now, you're going to do exactly what I say, or I'm going to pull this trigger. Understand?"
He nodded as he glanced at Seth without turning his head.
"I want you to put the car in drive and move it down the road real slow. I'm walking, and if the end of this gun barrel leaves your head, I'm pulling the trigger, so don't do anything rash."
Seth pressed the barrel into his head. "Let's go."
They started creeping slowly down the road. In a couple minutes they were in the driveway of the lodge.
"Shut off the car and get out."
Bert opened the door and stepped out. He gritted his teeth as he looked down at the much smaller Seth. But Seth had the rifle, the ultimate equalizer.
"So what's going on?" Bert asked, as if he didn't know.
Seth backed away, keeping the rifle pointed directly at his chest. "I'm tying up loose ends."
"And I'm a loose end?" Bert said as he stepped away from the cruiser.
"One more step and you'll be a dead end."
He stopped. "What about all of the times I've covered for you? Hell, I've never been anything but loyal to you guys."
"That's true. You've always been loyal, there's no denying that. But don't make it sound like you did it because we're buddies. You did it because you're greedy – just like everyone else in the world. You saw your chance to make some easy money and you took it. I bet if you could sell us out, you'd do it in a heartbeat."
"Why would I do that," Bert asked. "This doesn't make sense. I'm not a traitor like David. I'm part of the team. I'm not a risk for you today or tomorrow."
"I'm afraid you are very much a liability my friend." Seth replied. "You are the only one doing this for money and not for the Cause. Once the money stops coming in, you'd happily tell all if someone offered up the right reward. We can't leave any lose ends or have any risks whatsoever and so it's time Bert. Time to say goodbye."
"So what are you going to do with me?" Bert said as his gaze flitted around the busy compound.
Seth pointed at the barn and said, "There's going to be a little fire here in the compound. You stumbled on to it and, unfortunately, the fire got the best of you. You'll be remembered fondly by your peers, I'm sure. Maybe they'll even build a monument here, memorializing their fallen hero."
A loud crash came from across the parking lot. Wendel had the lift raised too high and had slammed something into the roof of the trailer.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Bert sprang forward – lunging at Seth, who had instinctively turned his head momentarily toward Wendel. Seth pulled the trigger. The heavy slug caught Bert squarely in the chest, stopping him in his tracks.
Seth looked at him coolly. "Sorry, Bert," he said as he jacked the lever-action and squeezed the trigger a second time. "It's just business."
The second bullet knocked him over – his feet anchored to the ground as his body fell like a tree, landing with a lung-emptying thud. Timber! Seth smiled.
"Hey, Wendel," Seth called. "Take it easy with that lift, will you?"
Wendel waved an acknowledgment as he continued his work.
Jerry and Curtis came out of the main lodge and walked slowly over to Seth, who stood over Bert's body. "Did you really have to do that?" Jerry asked.
Seth glared at him – his narrow lips pressed tightly together, squeezing the color out of them. The jaw muscles visible under his sharply angled cheekbones flexed as he clenched his teeth. He stepped toward Jerry who backed up. He hadn't wanted to do it. He had done it for the mission – for Sarah. Bert knew too much, plain and simple, and he had to make a decision – kill him, or live nervously because he had left a major liability walking around.
"No. I just felt like killing somebody today," Seth said. "Of course I had to do it." He placed his hand on Bert's chest, and ripped open his shirt. "Besides, he's not dead. He's wearing a bullet-proof vest."
Jerry and Curtis leaned over and took a closer look. Sure enough, his chest moved up and down as he breathed.
Seth smiled and said, "Let's get him into the lab before he comes to. This'll work out perfect."
He was very pleased with this bit of luck. Now, even if Bert's body managed to survive the upcoming blaze, it would be smoke and fire, not a bullet, that would be the cause of death. Maybe things were finally starting to go their way.
As the three men dragged his huge, limp body into the lab, Bert slowly regained consciousness
"You could use me, Seth," Bert pleaded. "I can help you."
Seth leaned down close to his ear and said, "I'm sure you could, but this is all happening because I trusted one too many people. I'm sorry that it turned out like this; I really am. I actually liked you."
Seth walked over to Jerry and handed him the rifle. "Keep an eye on him. We can't afford to have anything else happen."
"How did Sarah take the news about Foster?" Jerry asked.
"Not good," he shouted over his shoulder.
As Seth walked toward Curtis and Wendel, who had finished with the large ticket items, Curtis cried out. "Jesus Christ, Wendel. Be careful with that thing."
Seth b
roke into a trot and got to the two men just in time to see Wendel picking up the radio detonator that would set off the incendiaries from the ground.
"It was an accident," Wendel said. "It slipped out of my hands."
Seth snatched the device from him and said, "Give me that before you incinerate all of us, you idiot."
He never hid his dislike of Wendel. If it were up to him, they would have lost this guy a long time ago, but Sarah liked him. She said that they needed grunts as well as geniuses.
"Will you guys get back to work?" Seth said. "Anybody heard from Mark? He should have been here hours ago."
Seth placed the transmitter on the hood of the pickup. Incompetent fuckups aside, things were moving nicely, way ahead of schedule. He jogged back to the lab with Curtis and Wendel following close behind. The sun would be rising in another couple hours to what was supposed to be a beautiful day – their last in Maine. He noticed Bert studying them from his position on the floor. He would be scheming a way to get out of this predicament but with Jerry's rifle pointed at his head, wasn't going anywhere.
Seth walked into the lab. The room looked like a hurricane had passed through. "I don't believe it," Seth said as he walked around. "We're ready to get out of here," he glanced at his watch. "Ten hours early."
"Great job," he said as he went down his checklist, confirming that everything that was supposed to go had been packed into the truck.
"You're never going to get away with it," Bert said from the floor.
Seth ignored the comment for a minute until he finally looked over the top of his papers and said, "You'll never know."
Bert's eyes narrowed and he involuntarily moved toward Seth.
"Don't even think about it," Jerry said as he pulled back the hammer on the rifle. All of them stared at Bert.
The lights went out. Darkness from outside poured into the room like water through a dam breach.
2:36 am FBI Field Office, Bangor, Maine
The voice kept repeating. 'Agent Pelletier, are you there, Agent Pelletier?' Chris rolled over and fell off the couch onto the dirty carpet. Lying on the floor in a semi-stupor, he realized that the voice came from the communicator on the conference room table.
He stood up groggily and looked for Pell.
"Agent Pelletier," the voice said again.
"He stepped out for a minute," Chris said. His voice cracked as he spoke.
"Who's this?"
"I'm helping Pell, let me go get him for you."
He walked out into the dark office space stopping in the middle of the lobby, overcome by fear. Maybe he wasn't alone? Where was Pell? He crept down to Pell's office – empty. He started a room-to-room search, calling Pell's name softly. The hairs on his arms stood straight up. Finally, he came to the bathroom. A slit of light seeped out from under the door.
He tapped on the door. "Pell?"
No answer. He rapped harder and called his name louder. Still nothing. Slowly he pushed on the door. It started to open but then stopped. He stuck his head inside the opening and saw Pell on the floor amidst several empty bottles.
"You've got to be kidding me."
He stepped back and rammed his body into the door, shoving Pell into the corner. He kneeled over and turned Pell's face so that he looked directly at him.
"Pell," Chris said. No response. He slapped his face a few times and repeated his name. Nothing. The double vodkas and whatever he had slammed down out of these other bottles had knocked him out cold. He turned on the cold water, cupped both hands under the frigid stream, letting the water overflow them and then splashed it onto Pell's face.
This woke him up instantly. He wiped furiously at his face, as if Chris had spilled acid on him.
"What the hell are you doing, Chris?"
"That's what I was going to say to you," Chris replied angrily, looking down at the empty bottles. He kicked one across the tiles and it slammed into the wall.
Pell looked up at him and then down at the spinning empty bottle that was coming to rest next him. Chris said, "Are you an alcoholic?"
"Who the fuck do you…" Pell's mouth froze on the next word. He looked longingly at Chris for a moment – his eyes pleading and watery. Then hung his head between his knees and ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair.
"Are, you, an, alcoholic," Chris said again.
Pell let out a low, slow sigh and said, "I am."
"Great. Fucking great," Chris said. "We've got people out there trying to kill me and wanting to alter the natural order of the world, and I'm relying on a drunk, resentful, oh-poor-me-I've-had-a-tough-time-of-it-and-been-treated-unfairly FBI agent who can't take it. Go ahead, Pell. Crawl back into your beloved bottle. That will solve everything like it always does, right? People like you make me sick."
He stormed out of the tiny bathroom and back to the conference room with Pell in hot pursuit.
As he was about to enter the room, Pell caught up and spun him around. His expression was intense, fiery – the weak, pleading expression remained back on the bathroom floor. This wasn't the look of a drunken man.
"You don't understand, Chris," he said. "When I poured those bottles into the toilet last night, I admitted to myself for the first time that it was all my fault. I'm responsible for where I am today. Booze had a lot to do with it, but ultimately it was me – all me. I took my last drink at the Lo Maine last night with you."
Chris huffed. He had a lot of personal experience with alcoholics, and knew how good at lying they become, but the look on Pell's face was different – it was look of a man with determination and hope.
"You're not just jerking me around? This is too important. You need to be one-hundred percent."
Tears ran down Pell's cheeks as he professed his new-found sobriety.
After a minute of silence, Chris patted him on the back. "You can do it, Pell. It's all in the mind."
"I'm sure as hell going to try. It's been too long."
At that moment, the voice on the speakerphone said, "Hello."
"Oh, yeah," Chris said. "They're on the line."
Pell pushed by him and into the conference room.
"This is agent Pelletier," he said. "What have you got?"
"Agent, Pelletier. This is third-shift supervisor seven. We have been trying to contact you for the last ten minutes. Where have you been? When you leave a secure line open you need to be available at all times. Particularly as I understand you have a member of the public with no security clearance there with you."
"Sorry about that," Pell replied.
"We've finished the query you requested, and I'm sorry to say that, after looking at what we came up with, I don't think you're going to get much out of it."
"That's okay. I'll decide if it's any good."
"I'm sending it over now" the faceless voice replied. "Are you ready?"
"Thanks for the help," Pell said as he pressed a button on his portable communicator.
"That's why we're here," the man said. After about thirty seconds, a piece of paper started to emerge from the front of the suitcase.
"Cool," Chris said, admiring the technology – nothing but the best for the government. I wonder what this set the taxpayer back?
After a few minutes it was done. The communicator beeped, and Pell shut it down. He leaned back in his chair, unrolling the paper as if it were a scroll. Chris walked around the table and looked over his shoulder.
At the top was a photographic quality picture. It was of a plain-looking young girl; obviously this picture was taken some time ago. Underneath were the words Sarah Burns and a brief biography. Garden-variety information. She was a real genius, full-boat to Harvard, the whole works, but other than the genius part, she could have been anybody except for the fact that she completely disappeared back in the late eighties. After finishing college at the top of her class she vanished – no tax returns, no FICA contributions, no parking tickets, nothing at all to indicate she was even alive.
"See that," Chris said as
he pointed.
Pell grunted and kept unfurling the document. The next part was about the northern Maine connection. Nothing. It actually looked like the whole state was lily-white. At the bottom of the empty section were the words: No Pertinent Data.
Pell unrolled the last of the paper, and they stared down at their final clue. This would have to be it because they had nothing up to this point. But it looked like Operator Seven, or whatever number he was, had been right – they didn't have a lot to go on. Engamy – most likely match Ngamy. A region of Botswana, north of the Kalahari Desert.
"What's this?" Pell said. "Africa. How the hell do you go from northern Maine to Africa? Talk about computer errors. This thing must have been programmed by morons." He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the middle of the table, obviously wishing he hadn't poured all of his booze down the toilet.
Chris sat down, grabbed the piece of wrinkled paper from the tabletop and smoothed it out. "There's got to be something here," he said as he started to read it a second time. Years ago as a developer debugging code he had learned that most complex problems required multiple passes. How many bugs had he found in routines that at first glance looked fine? Dig, dig and then dig some more. Christ, he should be the one in the goddamn FBI. He gnawed on his now non-existent thumbnail as he studied the document.
"I'm going to make some coffee," Pell said as he stood up. "Want some?"
"That'd be great," Chris replied. As he studied the paper he muttered, "There's something here. We just need to see it."
Pell was gone for a few minutes, and when he returned, he handed Chris a steaming cup of coffee that scorched his mouth with the first sip. Pell fell into a chair with a sigh, leaned back and dropped his feet on the table, shaking it enough to spill some of Chris' coffee. He started histling a mournful Irish ballad whose title escaped Chris.
"The cops and my partner are on the way," he said. "There's nothing there, Chris. Sarah Burns hasn't been seen in twenty years. She could be pushing up daisies for all we know. We're spinning our wheels."