Congratulations !
You have been awarded points.
Thank you for !
- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Politics / Power / Abuse of Power
- Published: 01/17/2021
Double Agent
Born 1934, F, from Silver Spring, MD, United StatesDouble Agent
Chapter One
“Another letter came today.” Sally said. Her hand trembled as she handed the message to Jeff.
“How many is it now?” He asked.
“This is the fifth one.”
He looked at the single sheet, this time the print was smudged at the beginning of the message.
“Did you call Lieut. Dolan?”
“I did, he’s sending someone over.”
“Five letters in five weeks. All words in an awkward arrangement of paper cut outs. This one is definitely a menacing threat. He’s ratcheting up the pressure.” Jeff said.
Sally decided to enter the race for State Delegate after the death of the incumbent holding the seat in her district. She had dabbled in politics as a volunteer with every Democratic candidate for the last eight years. In college she majored in Political Science and planned to go to Law school. Then came 9/11. She joined the National Guard and had been deployed to Afghanistan. Wounds from an IED left her blind in her left eye and with a pronounced limp. She was a local heroine which improved her chances to win, but the opposition was out to frighten her, and the pressure was increasing.
“At first I thought it was a joke but now I know he means business.” Sally said.
A knock at the door startled them both. Dude, their Yellow Lab, barked, leaping at the door and whined when Jeff told him to “Quiet”. Muffin, the tabby cat, blinked at the commotion and went back to sleep. Jeff checked through the peephole before opening it to a cop who looked like he was still in high school.
“I’m officer Whelan. I’ve come to take today’s letter to Lieut. Dolan.” Sally handed him the letter inside a plastic sheath.
“I noticed a man watching me from an upstairs window across the street when I got out of the cruiser.”
“Yeah that’s Leonard, he keeps to himself. We don’t know much about him.” Jeff said.
“Well, I’ll be getting along.” They watched the young man go down their sidewalk to the cruiser.
“Feel like taking a walk?” Jeff asked.
“Sure, I’d love to get out of the house.”
She wore a blue Shetland sweater, worn jeans with old running shoes. Her honey brown hair was tied back with a silver barrette. Her husband Jeff was in his usual green canvas button down shirt and chinos in his stocking feet, work boots were on the porch. His hair was in a buzz cut leftover from his Ranger days. He tapped his cell phone and spoke to his partner Alan. The two men had graduated from the police academy in the same class. Both were now detectives. Jeff’s hobby was flying drones in the meadow behind the high school. He needed to make a plan.
“Sally and I are going to fly my drone for about half an hour can you come over and house sit? Key in the usual place, come in the back way. I’ll explain later.”
“Okay, this sounds mysterious.”
Sally shrugged into her denim jacket and grabbed the house keys. “Why did you ask Alan to come over?”
“My gut tells me the anonymous writer is going to strike when we aren’t home."
They watched Jeff’s drone cruise in the meadow. His cell vibrated. “You were right, a few minutes after you left a man wearing a hoodie dropped off a box on your front porch. I left it where it was but called the Lieut. He is sending over the bomb squad to take the package. He said he will be making changes to give you more protection. You need to meet him at the office later. Meanwhile I’m in the backyard and you both need to come in the back way.”
Sally and Jeff waited with Alan in the backyard until the investigators gave the okay.
The last letter warned “We have names and addresses of your campaign workers; watch out, we are the ones carrying the big guns.”
Lieut. Dolan met Sally and Jeff in his office. “I’m raising the level of security after reading this." He told them.
The next day he took the case to the U.S. Attorney. Sally and Jeff were now under twenty-four-hour protection. Dolan told them to move into a safe house temporally until the letter-writer was apprehended.
The yard sign urging voters to elect her had been slashed in half. Sally decided to leave it that way, use it as a symbol of Cabot’s type of campaigning. Other supporters reported the same damage.
Three weeks before the election the Maine weather turned cold; Sally was planning to hold a rally in downtown Portland but was advised not to by Lieut. Dolan. “This is going to give Dan Cabot an advantage.” She said.
Lieut. Dolan announced “I’m holding a press conference this afternoon. I’m telling everyone that threats have been made on your life and you will only be using Television ads from now on.”
“How can we pay for TV ads?”
“Watch what happens.”
Chapter Two
Dolan made the announcement on the 6 o’clock news. Calls flooded the station and donations poured into Sally’s election fund. The threats made to scare her from her bid for the State representative seat had the opposite effect on her campaign. She was never one to run from a challenge and redoubled her efforts calling volunteers and thanking sponsors.
Cabot’s rally had him in a Sally look-alike face mask with a black patch over one eye and he walked with a limp around the stage. His campaign posters wallpapered store windows. He jeered at pictures of Sally wearing her uniform. He took off the mask when he made his speech and later sneered at the National Guard calling them Suckers and Losers when he thought the mike was off. “She lost an eye and now she limps, for what? They don’t make any money in the Guard. Why do it?” When several fans turned their back on Cabot and walked to the exits the candidate asked his Aides, “What?” They shook their heads in disgust. “They heard your comments about the National Guard.” He countered “Who left the mike on? He needs to be fired. You people are being paid to watch for mistakes and fix them before they’re blamed on me.” By now his face was an alarming shade of purple and his breathing was labored. His second in command signaled the brass band to blast out “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in an attempt to save the evening.
Sally’s TV ad came on during primetime news. The camera panned neighborhoods showing her torn election signs, some ripped up lying on the ground and graffiti sprayed slogans on some driveways. Her picture and voice over urging voters to vote for a return to civility and respect sounded firm and controlled. She mentioned her plan to lower taxes by raising tourist attraction fees and add a small increase in alcohol and cigarette taxes.
Technicians installed a small camera in a corner of her porch in a hanging basket of Ivy. As a diversion while this was being done two police cars, lights flashing, parked at the other end of the street. To divert attention away from the technicians two uniformed men spread a map on the hood and looked as if they were plotting some action.
After the fiasco at the rally Cabot’s redneck crowd formed a makeshift parade in Portland. Flatbed trucks roared down Main Street with blaring horns and their candidate’s banners decorating the sides. The men riding on the back of the trucks waved American flags, rifles and handguns roaring “Vote for Cabot! Vote for Cabot!”
The Portland Press Herald, the city’s oldest newspaper, always looking for a story, put the parade on the front page and not in a good way. “Cabot supporters hold an unlawful parade on Portland’s Main Street. Seven flatbed trucks were stopped by police after raising a ruckus Saturday night downtown. The Candidate was quoted as saying he didn’t know anything about it.” The paper questioned the truth of this, saying if he knew he should be held responsible, if he didn’t know then his campaign is out of control. Sally let the press have a field day and focused on her platform.
Lieut. Dolan telephoned Jeff and ordered him to come into the office and bring Sally. “The bomb squad opened the box and found this.” He lifted the cover and pulled out a dead cat and the head of a golden lab. Sally swallowed hard unable to make a sound. Jeff fisted his hands and muttered a curse.
“Cabot is getting desperate. Could there be something he is involved in undercover we don’t know about? That makes this election a matter of life and death to him?” Sally asked. “We have to find out. But how?”
“Think positive. We are going to put someone in your house, get you and your pets out, and blitz the area at the first sign of trouble. For that to happen Jeff, I’m going to ask you to lend your expertise. The two men put their heads together and Sally’s eyes widened in awe.
“We’ve had our first hit on the camera.” Jeff said. Sally looked at the picture. It showed a small kid maybe 10 or so leaving a letter under the front door. As he picked up his bike from the lawn a man dressed in black pulled him and his bike into a dark car. It took off and moved down the street with no lights on until it turned the corner.
Little Carlos Gomez had never been in trouble. Now as tears fell down his cheeks he struggled to get out of the car. “Let me out!”
“What’s your name kid? Who told you to put that letter in the mailbox?” The big man asked. The driver turned his head around and said, “Better wait ‘till we get to the station. We have to do this by the book. Don’t worry Carlos you’re not in trouble we just want to ask you a few questions.”
Carlos was drinking a coke sitting at the scarred interview table while the two detectives waited for Carmen Gomez to arrive. After an hour of questioning Carlos and his mother were free to go. Dolan had a description of the man who offered $5 for the boy to put the letter under Sally’s door.
He resembled Leonard, the man who lived across the street.
Jim Franken of the FBI met with Sally and Jeff. “We are looking at some illegal interstate activity that leads to this campaign, so you need to tell us if you see anything beyond the usual.”
“Could you be more specific?” Sally asked.
“Anything or anyone who seems out of place, who looks like he/she doesn’t belong and is active promoting Cabot. In other words, outsiders who are hired to push against you and for your opponent. We have our own people watching but they may stick out since some of them are out-of-state.”
“So, what you’re saying is that this is a big deal what’s happening here in Portland. Big enough for the FBI to send agents in to support whatever you’re looking at.” Jeff said.
Jim nodded. “I can’t say more. The MDEA is involved. The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.”
Jeff, having time off during the investigation, decided to work with his drone. Lieut. Dolan wanted him to fly it around Leonard’s house see if the camera could find anything suspicious. He would have to wait until Leonard left.
Chapter Three
Ellen Pelletier worked in the MDEA central office. She was aware of all the activities the drug enforcement team was planning. Ronald her husband was a Maine Forest Ranger. One night their quiet life changed with a phone call. Their son Tim was on his way by ambulance to Mercy Hospital. He was skiing at Sunday River when a patch of ice sent him careening down the slope. Now Tim was wheelchair bound and their medical insurance was maxed out. He needed corrective surgery to walk again. Ron and Ellen were desperate to figure a way out of their dilemma.
A man wearing a Vote for Cabot tee shirt approached her at Blueberry Inn lunch counter.
“Ellen Pelletier?”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“It’s the other way around. It’s how I can help you. Not here, let’s talk outside.”
“You and Ronald are having trouble with Tim’s medical bills and I have a way to help with that, all you have to do is make a phone call now and then.”
“How could you know about our insurance problems?”
“Don’t ask questions. It’s my business to know. You want to get those bills to go away?”
“What do I have to do?”
Chapter four
Franken was charged with planning drug busts along the hidden coves along Maine’s coast. After failing several times to catch the smugglers, the team believed someone was warning them; an insider was suspected.
Ellen had confided in several women who worked at MDEA about their insurance problems. It didn’t take Jim long to figure out who might be susceptible to taking a bribe. The stress of making secret phone calls to tip off the smugglers wore down her conscience. When confronted by Jim she burst into tears and confessed. “Now I’m going to lose my job on top of everything else.”
“If you are willing to cooperate, we can lessen any charges. You wear a wire the next time you meet with Cabot’s man. I’ll be listening and at the right moment I’ll move in and get him. I’m betting he will sing like a canary to save his skin.”
Ellen was numb with fear waiting at the diner. Her coffee was cold, but she took a sip anyway. The woman officer who fixed the wire had helped her relax but that was hours ago. Sweat ran down her shirt. it was a good thing she had on a heavy fisherman’s sweater over it. A burly man entered the diner. she only knew him by Joe. He was on time and over fresh coffee he told her what “the boss” wanted her to do next.
“That’s not what I agreed to do.” Ellen objected.
“Do what I tell you. You got your insurance problem taken care of for the time being but that can change.” Joe said.
“Why do you want the names, addresses and members of the agent’s families? It sounds like you want to hurt them. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Don’t think too much about what’s going on.”
“Who is your “boss” anyway? What’s he getting out of this?” She asked.
“Just do what I said.”
Ellen still had a bit of the actor in her from high school days. “Now don’t get angry about it, I’m only wondering.” She pleaded. “These are people I work with. Some are my friends.”
“Questions only lead to trouble. Maybe later if we think you can be trusted you’ll learn more. For now, just get the information.” Joe said.
Ellen didn’t think she could get anything more out of Joe, so she excused herself. Before she left, Mickey, the owner, pulled her aside out of sight, “You don’t want to mix up with that fella, he has some bad friends. I’ve seen him in the Alibi; them are rough characters.”
Ellen’s eyes teared up at Mickey’s concern. “I know Mic, thanks for the warning.”
The next morning, she met with Jim, he smiled. The drug runners must be getting nervous to ante up the stakes. This should be enough to get a court order to get phone records. Threatening a drug enforcement agent is serious. He called a meeting of his team at a secret location. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter Five
The details of the next drug raid were kept from Ellen. She didn’t warn Joe because she didn’t know. When a huge shipment was confiscated, he demanded she meet him in his car parked in the lot of Blueberry Diner. She was wired and showed up right on time, taking her coffee break.
“Do you know how much this cost us? Why the hell didn’t you call it in?” He shouted.
“No one in the office knows when the agents are planning a hit. They meet somewhere else and set things up. Rumor has it an insider is passing on information.” Joe’s face turned a deep shade of scarlet. “Do they suspect you?”
“Never, I’m the most loyal employee in the agency. I even was honored last year as Employee of the Year.” She smiled, proud of the memory.
“Cabot’s not going to like this, not going to like this at all.” Joe pounded the steering wheel of his car. Ellen ignored Joe’s slip. He said, “Wait for further instructions. I’ll get back to you in a day or so.”
She walked in Jim’s office “Did you get it? Did you hear him say Cabot’s name?”
“Yes, I heard; this is brilliant.” Jim smiled and gave Ellen a pat on the back. I think you just put another nail in his coffin.”
“What do I do about the names and addresses of the agents?” Ellen asked, a worried frown on her face.
“We are going to make life so miserable for Cabot and his thugs they won’t have time to go after our agents.”
“I’m so glad it’s all over.”
“Ellen, you’ve done a superior job. The state compassion fund is going to cover your son’s medical expenses. There’s just one more thing we need you to do.” Jim said.
She stiffened her spine and tried not to show her reluctance as she smiled and said,” What would that be?”
“Sit down and I’ll explain.”
Chapter Six
A week later Sally could hardly believe the headlines of the morning edition of The Portland Press Herald. Cabot’s ties to organized crime and drug smuggling were in 2-inch print. The campaign was as good as over from her point of view. She would be elected, yet she hated to win by default. Jeff looked at it differently. “Think of it this way, you get the seat; Cabot’s and his thugs are gone. It’s that simple.”
What Jeff and Sally didn’t know was that not all of the crooks were gone. When the roundup of Cabot’s men was complete one player was unaccounted for, Joe, the man who contacted Ellen.
“This is the last time we will ask anything of you. We have to get this guy who calls himself Joe. He’s gone underground but we think he may contact you again. When he does you need to alert us.” Jim said.
Ellen nodded she understood, but she wasn’t happy. “I'll do it because I got myself into this mess and I feel responsible to see it to the end. I’ll be so glad when it’s over.”
The FBI agent understood. He laid out his plan.
Jim was right, within two days of the massive arrest Joe called Ellen. "I need your help with something. This will be the last time I contact you."
Ellen wore a wire and recorded the conversation. "What is it?" She said.
"I want you to drive me to Martin's Cove tomorrow night. I need to be there by eight pm. Don't tell anybody. Pick me up at the back of United Methodist Church at seven pm." Ellen agreed and hung up.
She made a trial run in the morning. The trip took exactly 30 minutes. Jim told Ellen not to pick up Joe at seven pm but twenty minutes after seven. He didn't want her waiting half an hour in the car with Joe. He also wanted time to put his team in place after sunset. The Coast Guard were standing by near the cove, boat lights turned off. If everything went as planned, they would get Joe and some of the men connected to the other end of the smugglers network. To explain Ellen’s delay, the police staged an accident on Main Street.
"Sorry for the delay, a car accident on Main tied up traffic. I was lucky to get here as fast as I did."
Joe got in her car carrying a small gym bag. "It's a good thing we don't have far to go." He grumbled. "No one knows you're here right?"
"Of course, no one knows." She said. "Let's get this over with. We don't want to delay your departure."
Joe said nothing on the drive over, Ellen was too tense to try small talk. Martin's Cove was in complete darkness as she drove down the asphalt lane. She didn't see any sign of agents hiding in the woods. The purr of a small engine carried over the water; two flashes from a light on the boat penetrated the darkness. "They're here." Joe said. He opened the door and told Ellen to get out too. She hesitated. "I said get out." He pointed a handgun at her.
The light flashed again twice. "Why are you pointing a gun at me? I did everything you told me to do." Joe looked at the boat for a minute then glanced back at Ellen. She took the opportunity to put the car in reverse and tear back up the lane. Joe hesitated, watched her go and jogged down the pier toward the getaway craft.
Ellen didn't wait to see what happened next, she went straight home.
She drove into the garage closed the door and sat in the car for a few minutes to calm down.
Ron and Tim had questions and it was time to answer them.
The news of Sally's election victory was all over the TV. Ellen was given a promotion and Cabot and his thugs were locked up. Everyone went back to the quiet life they knew but Ellen wondered what it would be like to work as an undercover agent again. What if...
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
COMMENTS (1)