The Line Between Here and Now

“We’re all back here,” Ryan said. “I’m putting you on speaker, and putting down the phone so I can rewind the video feed.”

Casey waited impatiently while Ryan reversed the feed and backed it up about three minutes. Then, he shifted back into play mode.

“Yup, that’s Morano,” Marc identified. “Sitting at his desk.”

“Keep watching,” Casey instructed. She listened as her other team members watched and heard what she had.

“Holy shit.” Ryan reacted first. “I thought Morano was a victim. That must have been a setup. He’s one of them.”

“One of whoever’s keeping Paul Everett away,” Marc clarified. “It could be the mob. It could be law enforcement. We just don’t know.”

“We do know that it’s Paul Everett on a flight,” Claire inserted. “His energy has been in transition since I got to Amanda’s. I kept walking around her apartment, going from room to room, trying to understand what I was sensing. But this is it. He’s on his way home.”

“Which means he’s flying into JFK from somewhere,” Casey said. “We don’t know where and we don’t know when. All we know is that it’s a thirteen-hour flight, that it’s landing at JFK sometime today, and that whoever they are, they intend to stop him from getting to Amanda and Justin.”

“We might not know any of the details,” Marc said in a hard tone. “But Morano does. We could confront him. But that would only backfire. He’d shut down and refuse to tell us a damned thing. We’re better off sticking close by and monitoring him. Eventually, he’ll be having a follow-up chat.”

“I agree,” Casey said. “You three stay out there and keep a close eye on Morano. Call me ASAP if you see or hear anything before I do. I’m contacting Patrick and getting him to call in security relief. I want him at JFK’s International Terminal. Thirteen hours means the flight is originating overseas. Marc, you’ve done the most international traveling. Come up with a list of potential origins. In the meantime, Ryan, you search for flights about thirteen hours in length that are landing at JFK. The two of you compare notes to find the most likely time and terminal.”

“Done,” Marc said.

“In the meantime, Patrick can pick me up and we’ll go to JFK together. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Until we get your text, we’ll check out the arrival schedule and figure out some possibilities on our own. And, if either one of us spots Paul Everett, or anyone tries to detain him, we can act.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The large fifth-floor conference room at FBI Headquarters was filled to capacity.

Patricia had met with the team from the New York Field Office, together with the Assistant U.S. Attorney, before Richard called the CUORC meeting to order.

CUORC consisted of Richard, the Committee Chairman, plus a dozen FBI Section Chiefs and an equal number of Unit Chiefs spanning every division of the FBI, in addition to a Department Of Justice Director and a dozen DOJ division chiefs. It was up to CUORC to assess the benefits and the risks of the Undercover operation and the sensitive circumstances that existed.

Waiting in the wings to answer any questions their respective Section and Unit Chiefs might have during the meeting were SSA Robinson of the Public Corruption squad and SSA Camden of the Vizzini family Organized Crime Squad, along with the Assistant U.S. Attorney who was working with the New York Field Office.

Frank Rodriguez, Section Chief of Integrity in Government, spoke first.

“This investigation was initially ours. It began over a year ago. The Long Island Resident Agency got a tip from the original owner of beachfront real estate on Shinnecock Bay. He wanted to build a hotel to capitalize on the business opportunity created by the construction of the nearby Shinnecock Indian Casino. He sought all the appropriate permits from the Town of Southampton. Evidently, Lyle Fenton, using his position on the Town Board, was extorting him by withholding permits, zoning variances, road improvements, environmental approvals-you name it-unless he was guaranteed a portion of the hotel profits. Fenton was already on our radar, and we had reason to believe the corruption extended beyond Southampton to Washington, D.C.”

“Are you speaking of Congressman Mercer?” Richard inquired.

“Yes,” Rodriguez replied. “The problem was, there was no hard evidence against Fenton or Mercer. So when the case was referred to the New York Field Office, I approved the Public Corruption Squad’s request to aggressively pursue the case. We made arrangements for the landowner to sell his property to an FBI shell company with the understanding that, once our sting was over, we’d sell the property back to him at the same price.”

“And the new owner of the property became Paul Everett,” Richard stated, repeating the facts for the benefit of the CUORC members. “Or rather, Special Agent Paul Evans of the Philadelphia Field Office. Everett was his UC name.”

“Exactly. Paul was the ideal candidate for the job.”

“Not so ideal,” Richard said drily. “Getting romantically involved with Amanda Gleason was a colossal mistake- one we’re all paying for now.”

“Agreed.” Douglas Sawyer, Unit Chief of Undercover and Sensitive Operations, nodded, taking full responsibility for the case-altering snag. “But none of us, Paul included, anticipated that complication. Paul was the right choice for the assignment. He’d done UC work before, and he had a background in real-estate development, so creating his legend was easy. What happened afterward, his involvement with Ms. Gleason-that was a lapse in judgment we tried to correct. Paul refused.”

“Let’s stay on point,” Richard said. “What was your plan?”

“Our plan was for Paul to make himself very visible and to play ball with Fenton. Only Fenton got smart. He wanted to size Everett up before he showed his full hand. So he softened his tactics by simply delaying the permits and waffling about Fenton Dredging taking part in the construction project. No extortion, not for the time being.”

Sawyer paused to drink some water.

Rodriguez continued. “Where Fenton left off, the Vizzini family took over. Their leverage was the unions. So now we had two targets-Fenton and the Vizzini crime family.” He gestured toward James Kirkpatrick, Section Chief of Criminal Enterprises for the Americas. “We brought in CE. Together, we arranged for Everett to make his payments to the mob and to strike up a working relationship with Fenton. We hoped to bring them all down, including those in Washington, D.C., who were involved.”

Rodriguez went on to explain that their investigation had revealed that Congressman Mercer was Lyle Fenton’s son, that he was in his pocket, and that they intended to find out how deeply.

“The problem was budget constraints,” Kirkpatrick said, taking over from Rodriguez with the Criminal Enterprise point of view. “We had limited funding. And the PC unit had already overextended itself with the land purchase. Paul was frustrated, and right on the brink of nailing Fenton. He took a weekend off and went to Boston, where he ran in a law enforcement charity 10K marathon. Evidently, he did this every year. Should have been no problem. Except that he ran into a buddy of his, Ron Pembrooke, his former roommate as a New Agent Trainee in Quantico. Pembrooke’s now a backup media specialist at the Boston Field Office. Even that would have been okay, if Pembrooke hadn’t placed in the damned race, if Paul hadn’t gone over to slap him on the back, and if a local photographer hadn’t snapped a shot of them together right in front of the Law Enforcement Officer’s charity banner-a photo that later appeared in American Police Beat magazine.”

Everyone in the room nodded, as the sequence of events became clear. Paul had compromised the investigation-not only by getting involved with Amanda Gleason, but by failing to maintain anonymity.

“We had to pull Paul out,” Sawyer said. “We were planning on scrubbing the entire UC op. If Kirkpatrick’s people hadn’t come up with their proposal, and if the ADIC and CE hadn’t approved the funding to support it, we’d have been dead in the water.”

“Which is how you made it look like Paul Everett was,” Richard commented.

“Yes,” Kirkpatrick confirmed. “We faked Everett’s death and made it look like a mob hit. We got the cooperation of the local State Troopers, who closed the murder investigation ASAP. CE bought the shell company from the