“Son of a bitch!” Arthur exclaimed. “Anything else?”
“Not yet but I’m sure we’re going to connect more dots shortly.”
Arthur pulled out the case file and flipped through it for a moment as he considered what Cecil had just told him. It was all circumstantial, nothing concrete but he had been in this business long enough to know that sometimes you had to run with what you had and this was undoubtedly one of those times.
“Excellent work, Cecil.”
“Thanks.”
“I need you to put everything together and get it to me immediately. I want all of these coincidences documented.”
A knock on the window brought Arthur’s head up and he turned to see who it was. Carl Moscovitz. Arthur held up one finger and said, “Let me know the second you have that all together.”
“Will do.”
Arthur disconnected and stepped out of the car.
“Thank you for coming, Arthur,” Carl said as the two men shook hands. “I’m sorry about the short notice, but he says that he’ll only talk to you. I don’t think we have much time.”
“No problem,” Arthur said as he followed Carl inside the building and toward the elevators, still trying to digest what he had just learned. It was incredible but he had to compartmentalize the different threads of this for now. Perhaps agent Pelletier could give him additional corroborative details that would be useful. People stepped aside as they crossed the busy lobby. Arthur popped a breath mint as he walked.
Irving followed the two men into an empty elevator. A woman and her son tried to follow them in, but Irving stopped them. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Official business.”
The woman scowled at them as the doors slid shut.
“Has anything else happened since you sent down this report last night?” Arthur asked.
“Not much. Pell came around for a while early this morning, but all he would say was that he’d only talk to you.”
“That’s it?” Arthur asked.
“Actually, there’s one other interesting bit of information.”
“What’s that?”
“Chris Foster, the civilian who saw the plane go down up in Maine, has disappeared. We’ve been trying to find him since yesterday. He took a plane to LA, rented a car and then disappeared.”
“Any ideas?” Arthur asked.
Carl shook his head. “Could be he’s just freaked out by the past few days. We talked to his wife and she says they’re having big marital problems so that could be contributing to him taking off.”
“Is that what you think?” Arthur asked.
“It’s doubtful,” Carl said. “More likely it has something to do with this case.”
“Like what?”
“Something he learned from agent Pelletier?”
“Could it be Sarah Burns and her people?”
“Perhaps but, personally, I’d go with the he-learned-something-from-Pell theory. He very well may have important evidence. He was hanging around with that piece of shit since he reported the plane crash incident. Those two had a weird relationship, like Pell had suddenly recruited him as his partner or something.”
“Really?”
“Isn’t that how you saw it, Irving,” Carl said to Irving who nodded then Carl continued, “We just don’t know where he is. He simply vanished overnight.”
The elevator doors opened, and the three men stepped out into the hallway of the ICU. Arthur noticed the unnatural silence of the floor – as if the patients’ struggles to cling to life somehow muted the normal sounds of the busy urban hospital. Doctors and nurses moved about purposefully, but the actual noise-to-activity ratio was out of whack.
Carl strode toward Pell’s room. He had a cocky swagger for a little guy.
Agent Strange stood outside the door. His gaze darting from man to man as they approached.
“Anything?” Carl said as he walked past Steve.
“No,” he replied.
“Can we go in?”
“No, the nurse buzzed Dr. Epstein while you were on your way up.”
“Is he on his way? Arthur doesn’t have all day,” Carl said.
Arthur peered into the room at Pell asleep on the bed. He was a calm man, but the one thing that sent him through the roof was when an agent went bad. It didn’t happen often but every once in a while it did. Agents were human beings just like everyone else – they suffered from the same personal problems, insecurities and weaknesses as the average Joe. That was ok. As long as they didn’t let it affect their job or their loyalties. The Bureau tried to create strong character but people are all wired differently. His method of dealing with the ones that did turn bad had varied – jail was okay, but generally he liked a more quiet, permanent approach. Something out of the public eye – an accident while they were in the field, drug bust gone bad, heart attack, something that could really happen on any given day on The Job. They could make it look like a person died any number of ways. To him that was justice. Anyone who endangered his fellow agents, or was feeding the wrong people information, deserved the harshest punishment.
His days as a SEAL taught him many things – he could, and had, killed people in any number of ways and he was an expert in both explosives and covert ops but most importantly, he had learned the true meaning of “I got your back”. His team members had been what it was all about – the ability to trust someone beyond any doubt, to trust them with your life. This was a concept that most people would claim to understand but they didn’t. Not unless they had a friend – a guy whose kids and wife you knew, who you drank with, who you sweated in the muck and shit of the jungle with – take a fatal one for you. Go through that and you learn about loyalty, honor and trust.
He placed his briefcase on a chair outside the room, opened it up, and pulled out his case file. Then he sat down, crossed his legs and relaxed as he flipped through the report and waited for the Doctor.
“Maurice Andleman, the retired professor in New Hampshire, died this morning,” Carl said.
Arthur nodded. “That’s too bad.”
“It certainly is. We don’t know if he told Pell anything or not.”
“We’re going to find out soon enough,” Arthur said. “I still don’t understand why you talked to those doctors, Carl.”
“They had already heard some of it with their own ears.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s still a clear breach of protocol. You know what type of trouble there could be if word of this got out. We could have pandemonium in the streets.”
“I thought that if they completely understood the urgency of the situation, they’d brush their Hippocratic Oath under the carpet for a bit and help us.”
“It still wasn’t a good idea,” Arthur said. “There’re always other ways. Less dangerous ways.”
Carl nodded as the two doctors appeared at the nurse’s desk then approached them.
“Gentlemen,” the older one said as he walked confidently up to Arthur and held out his hand, ignoring Carl.
“Doctor Epstein?” Arthur said standing up. “I’m Arthur Kent, Assistant Director for Criminal Investigations. I believe you’re already acquainted with my colleague SAC Moscovitz.”
“Yes, we’ve met. This is Lasu Mogisha,” Dr. Epstein said pointing to a wide-eyed Indian intern.
“Nice to meet you,” Lasu managed to say through chattering teeth as he feebly shook Arthur’s hand.
“You know why I’m here,” Arthur said as he stepped closer to Dr. Epstein. Arthur was one of those men whose very presence demanded attention and he found that being in someone’s personal space always got it. It’s all a game – people are, for the most part, all the same. The outliers, the unpredictable nonconformists were the ones that worried him. Dr. Epstein didn’t appear to be one of them.