“I wouldn’t advise it, Janet,” he said.
“This is no time to look routine.”
Janet rolled her eyes and went back down to Farnsworth’s office, which was on the third floor. His secretary, a professionally unpleasant woman who hailed from Arkansas, announced that the RA was in conference with some Washington people. Janet patiently asked her to tell Farnsworth that she was there. The secretary sighed dramatically and buzzed this news into Farnsworth. He appeared at the door to his office a moment later and asked Janet to come in.
The two Washington visitors were sitting at the conference table. One was a large woman, whose fat face reminded Janet of a recent Russian premier. She was looking at Janet with undisguised suspicion. The other visitor was a man in his fifties, also rather large, almost completely bald, with a reddish face and a permanently scowling expression. Farnsworth made introductions. The woman’s name was Bellhouser; the red-faced man’s name was Foster.
“Agent Carter, these folks have driven down from Washington. Ms.
Bellhouser is the executive assistant to Mr. Bill Garrette, who, as I’m sure you know, is the deputy attorney general of the United States. Mr. Foster is the principal deputy to Assistant Director Marchand.”
Janet noted Farnsworth’s sudden formality. She knew that Marchand was the assistant director over Counterintelligence at FBI headquarters.
She had heard of Garrette, but only in the context of his being acting deputy attorney general without benefit of Senate confirmation for the past four years. She nodded, waiting for Farnsworth to invite her to sit down. Surprisingly, he did not.
“Agent Carter,” he said.
“You apparently made recent inquiries about a certain Edwin Kreiss. Ms. Bellhouser and Mr. Foster are interested in why you’re interested.”
Janet took it upon herself to sit down in the only remaining chair.
Farnsworth was acting as if he had never heard of Edwin Kreiss, so she decided to play along and speak directly to him, as if bringing him into the picture for the first time. She reviewed the circumstances of
her involvement with Kreiss. She glossed over the call to the Counseling Division as tying off a loose end before sending up the case file.
“Let’s dispense with the bullshit, Agent Carter,” the woman said when Janet was done. Her voice was as harsh as her expression.
“You persisted in asking questions about Kreiss after you were given specific instructions by the RA here to back off that case. We want to know why.”
Janet looked at Farnsworth as if to say, I thought I just explained that.
The RA kept his expression blank. She turned to Bellhouser.
“I wasn’t aware that I was indulging in bullshit,” she said coolly.
“I asked the original question before I was told to drop it. When Dr. Kellermann was courteous enough to call right back, I took her call. What she had to say didn’t add anything substantial. It is entirely standard procedure to question parents in some detail when their kids go missing. It’s also standard procedure to check them out. What’s the problem here, if I may ask?”
“The problem is Edwin Kreiss,” the woman answered.
“Mr. Kreiss was responsible for an incident that deeply embarrassed both the Department of Justice and the Bureau. Inquiries about him or what he did are not authorized, and, in fact, are cause for alarm.”
“Well excuse me all to hell,” Janet said, trying not to lose her temper.
“I
was investigating the disappearance of his daughter. He is just another citizen as far as I’m concerned, a parent who’s lost his kid. One more time:
What’s the problem?”
The woman sat back in her chair, her expression saying that she wasn’t used to being spoken to like this. Foster intervened.
“Part of the problem is that we did not know Edwin Kreiss’s daughter had gone missing,” he said.
“But—” Bellhouser held up her hand in an imperious gesture, and Foster stopped. She gave Janet a speculative look.
“Perhaps I should clarify a few things for you, Agent Carter. But I want your word that what I’m going to tell you will not be repeated to anyone.” She had changed her tone of voice and was now being a lot more polite.
“Is this something I need to know, then?” Janet asked.
“Because I’m willing to forget Mr. Kreiss, if that’s the order of the day. My interest in him was entirely professional, not personal.”
Bellhouser thought for a moment. Foster was strangely silent.
“I think it is,” she said.
“Do I have your word?”
Janet looked again to the RA, but his face remained a study in neutrality.
He’d told her all about Kreiss, but now he was acting as if he’d never
heard of the guy. She wasn’t quite sure what the game was here but if they wanted to play games, well, hell, she’d play.
“Whatever,” she said.
“Yes.
Fine.”
“Very well. For many years prior to the current administration, there was tension between the Counterespionage Division at the Agency and the Foreign Counterintelligence Division in the Bureau. This administration determined that it would be constructive to break down some of those bureaucratic barriers. Edwin Kreiss was selected to be sent on an exchange tour of duty with the Agency, and one of their CE operatives was sent to Bureau FCI.”
She paused to see if any of this meant anything to Janet, but Janet pretended this was all news.
“Kreiss’s assignment to the Agency represented a dramatic step toward defusing those tensions. He trained under and worked with some of the best man-hunters in the business. It’s fair to say that he participated in some operations that took place, shall we say, out on the less well-defined margins of national policy, with respect to who works where. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“I assume you’re talking about the rule that the Agency technically can’t work inside the country.”
“Yes, precisely, just like the armed forces can’t chase criminals inside the borders of the United States. Posse comitatus. The problem is that sometimes the bad guys take advantage of this.”
“And sometimes the good guys turn out to be the bad guys,” Janet said, just to throw some shit in the game.
Bellhouser blinked, looked at Foster, and then they both looked over at Farnsworth.
“Um, yes, well, when I received orders to back out of the Kreiss matter, I told her about the Glower case,” he said, looking uncharacteristically nervous.
“Correction: I told her what I’d heard about the Glower case—I, of course, have no personal knowledge of what happened there.”
Foster’s eyebrows went up.
“Really, Mr. Farnsworth. This is a surprise.
Assistant Director Marchand was of the opinion that you knew nothing about the Glower incident.”
Foster might be a principal deputy, but Farnsworth was still in charge of an operational office, and as such, he didn’t have to take very much static from headquarters assistants, especially when they invoked their boss’s power. He looked at Foster with an avuncular smile.
“When something gets fucked up as badly as that situation got fucked
up,” he said, “everybody knows a little something about it, Mr. Foster. You need to remember that if you ever go back to the field.” Janet felt a smidgen of relief that Farnsworth hadn’t been entirely cowed by these two.
“Let’s get back on point,” Bellhouser said.
“Which is: When Kreiss was forced out of the Bureau following the Millwood incident, he was given some very specific guidance in return for getting retirement instead of outright dismissal. And that was that he was never,
