Chapter 37
Special Agent Armando Martinez knocked on the Director's door. When he heard the command, “Come.” he entered the office.
“You wanted to see me, Sir?” Armando said, unconsciously taking a position of parade rest as he stood in front of his old army commander.
“Yes. Everything is in motion.” Ted Wagner, Director of Special Branch, Anti-terrorism Task Force said to the agent.
“Very good, sir. Do we know whether or not the mole has taken the bait yet?” Armando inquired.
“No. But, I have to assume that he has. Have you heard from Brad and Susan?” The Director asked.
“The last I heard from them they were playing cat and mouse with Alberto's goons. Frankly, I'm not sure who was the cat and who was the mouse. Susan put one of them in the hospital.”
Ted chuckled. “That young lady is deceptively dangerous – and smart.
“Okay, Armando, I want you to call the San Francisco office and have them send a team to Susan's house to extract the jewelry box, which, if we are at all lucky, will not be there.”
“They're going to wonder why you don't send a team from San Jose, which is much closer.”
“Yes, they probably will. But all they have to know is that the orders come from the Director. They're trained to follow orders, not question them. Especially when the orders come from me.
“Make sure that this is done right away, just in case our mystery man decides to check up on us to see if we are following protocol.”
“Yes sir.”
As Armando left Ted's office he literally bumped into Sam Levitt, Assistant Director of the agency.
Ignoring Sam's look of surprise, Armando said, “Excuse me, Assistant Director.”
Sam Levitt's face had a definite look of stress as he peered at the agent.
“What are you doing, Agent Martinez?” Sam asked with a touch of nervousness to his tone. Armando thought this curious and studied the man for a minute. Something was bothering him, obviously stressing him out.
“Is there something wrong, Assistant Director – something I can help you with?”
“Don't answer my question with a question, Agent. I asked you what you are doing.”
Armando paused before speaking. “Well, sir. I work here. The Director, your and my boss, requested that I come to office to discuss an operation.”
“What did you talk about?” Sam asked him nervously.
“I can't tell you that, sir. It's under a need to know blanket.”
Sam look at Armando, flustered. “Goddammit, Agent, I asked you a fucking question, and I expect you to answer it.”
“Yes sir. I did answer your question.” Armando responded calmly.
“You insolent prick.” Sam Levitt spit out from a contorted face. “I'll have your ass. Before I'm done with you you'll be looking for a mule back to Mexico.”
Armando moved so quickly that Sam stepped back in fear. He stood very close to the Assistant Director, their noses almost touching. “Listen to me carefully, Levitt.” Armando said with a chilling, quiet calm. “You just crossed the line with a subordinate. You made a racial slur. Do you want to know where I can go with that in internal affairs?” Not waiting for Sam to answer, Armando went on. “If you have noticed, Mr. Assistant Director, I have treated you with protocol respect. I do that due to you being of superior rank to me. So, I'm showing your rank all due respect, as you are suppose to do with me as an officer with this agency.
“Now, in reality, I don't respect you at all as a man. You've done nothing to earn that. As a man you're a back stabbing, opportunist, and I'd just as soon snap you like a twig as look at you.
“Oh, and by-the-way, my family has lived in the United States since the 1700's. Can you make a claim like that? I'm a graduate of UCLA, which means I'm not riding a mule anywhere, you racist asshole.” He paused and said, “Oh, excuse me. I meant, you racist asshole, sir.
“Now, if there's nothing more that I can do for you, and I'm pretty sure there isn't, I'll go back to work doing exactly what I am ordered to do.” He turned and briskly walked away from the shocked and shaken Assistant Director before he could respond.
As Armando returned to his desk he wondered what was going on with Levitt. The guy did move around like a nervous bird most of the time, but this was different. He couldn't control himself, which was out of character. He was obviously at a very high level of stress. Armando could think of only one thing that would be stressing an internal agent to that level at this moment, and asking about a private meeting with the Director like that was also out of character.
Armando picked up the phone and hit the internal line for the Director's office. When Ted answered Armando said, “I hate to toss this ball back to him, but I just had a very strange conversation with Sam Levitt, and I have a gut feeling that he may be our man.”
“I'll tell you the same thing I told him.” Ted responded. “Show me some proof of wrong - “ Armando cut him off.
“No, listen to me, Ted. I said a gut feeling.” Armando then relayed the encounter he had with Levitt outside the Director's office door.
“Hmm, that is strange. If he is the mole and he just passed the information along, he could be at a high stress level.” Ted said contemplatively. “Well, we don't want to shake any cages at this point. The sting operation is sort of an entity unto itself now. It's rolling under it's own weight. Let it roll and see who it picks up.”
“Yes sir.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The twenty minute wait for a table in the restaurant section of The Cat's turned into a forty minute wait, which inspired the ordering of a second round of margarita's. By the time they were shown to their table, Susan had a grin on her face that wouldn't go away. She took Brad's arm and held on to it endearingly as they were guided through the array of tables by the waitress to their own. The dining room had dim overhead lighting, giving the candles on each table an inviting ambiance. Salads and hot french bread waited for them at a neatly set table for two as they were seated.
Brad looked over at Susan, who looked back at him, still smiling. “You look almost unreasonably happy.” He said to her.
“Yes.” she said, taking his hand in hers. “I am happy. Maybe even unreasonably happy. I might be margarita happy, but happy none the less.
“I am having dinner in a nice restaurant with a handsome man who I am very happy to be with. I'm really enjoying myself. I don't usually do this sort of thing.”
“You don't?” he asked with a surprised tone. “A good looking woman like you? Interesting and smart? A woman with class, ignoring the fact that you are also dangerous.”
“You see?” she said, as if his words validated her position. “I couldn't ask for a more perfect man. You think that I'm interesting. I actually live a very boring life, which means I'm probably pretty boring. I work, and that's about all that I do.”
“I have to admit, I haven't seen that side of you.” Brad said with a grin.
“That's because I have decided to change my life – become who I really am, rather than who I think I should be for societies approval.”
“Ah! Points of self-truth. A moment of revelation. A cleansing of the soul.” Brad said.
“Yep. All of those.” Susan said. “How about another margarita.”
After their dinner, Brad took a doggie bag, literally, out to Recon, who was very happy to devour his own chopped up steak and wrapped it up with his favorite beverage – water, of which he showed his approval by dripping water from his jowls all over the ground.
“Not very tidy, is he?” Susan noted as Recon tried to wipe his jowls on Brad. “No, but he's smart about it. Watch him, he'll use you like a napkin.”
“Here.” Susan said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a wad of Kleenex. Brad wiped the dogs mouth, for which he gratefully wagged his tail.
“See? He is tidy.” Brad said. “He's just not well equipped to handle it.”
The direct line cell phone to Armando rang in Brad's shirt pocket. “I think this is the call we've been waiting for. He pulled it from his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “What's up?”
“Hello to you too.” Armando said. “What are you doing?”
“We're waiting for your call. So, did they take the bait?” Brad asked.
“I have to assume so. The extraction team has informed me that the jewelry box that I described is not there.”
“Glad to hear it.” Brad said. “Now, wouldn't that make Susan's house a location of absolutely no interest?”
“I would have to think so.” Armando said. “There should no longer be anything of interest there for us or the bad guys.” He pause before saying, “But still be cautious if you're thinking of going back there. We don't really know if there was any more elements to this. I mean, don't forget Eichmann. Just because he seems to have disappeared doesn't mean a thing.”
Brad laughed. “Eichmann. I forgot all about him with all this other stuff going on. I'm not too worried about him, but I'll keep an eye of caution open.”
“Don't take him too lightly, Brad. I know him.”
“Okay, okay. I'll watch for him.”
“By-the-way,” Armando said, changing the subject, “The San Francisco team said that Susan's house looks like it's been turned over thoroughly.”
“Yeah. I know. We saw it. We're probably going to spend the night there and we'll clean it up in the morning.”
“Okay.” Armando said, followed by a short silence. “Like I said, be careful. My, 'something isn't quite right', itch is itching. This operation is still in transaction. I know Alberto doesn't have the information yet, and the mole is still in place. So, I remain a little nervous until this is in the drawer.”
“You're a good cop, Armando.”
“You're an old friend.” Armando responded, “and I'd like you to remain so.”
All content - poems, posts & images - are ©2010 by John Evans. No permission is given to post, share, copy, print, e-mail, reproduce, distribute or link to. All Rights Reserved. Please contact John Evans at JohnEvansPoet.Com for licensing inquiries.
No comments:
Post a Comment