The Killing Collective

by Gary Starta

  “All right, Agent Carter, but Ah’m not gonna soft soap anythin’ those three devils did to me. Even Alison. She may’ve tried to call ‘em off at the last minute, but that’s all. If that motorcycle man came around the bend one second later or hesitated at all, he would’ve been too late.”

  Carter broke out in a sweat.

  Jesus! You idiot! She was almost beaten to death; she’s not ready to hear this yet.

  “I’m…” Carter cleared his throat. “I apologize. I was tactless and hurtful. It was wrong to give you a rude shock at exactly the wrong moment, Shania. I should have known better. Sometimes I forget that what I have to say is not as important as how it’ll make you feel when I say it. If there was any other way to do this, we would.”

  Deeprose looked out the window next to her bed and took time to think before she answered him. “Is that all of it, sir?”

  “That’s all of it, except that Mr. X is gone. I don’t know if he died at Admiral’s Row or just wants to retain his anonymity, but he won’t be around to help us wrap this up. The director of the F.B.I. is in custody, and he’s talking his head off. I heard Fischetti turned state’s evidence. I’m glad; it was his only hope.”

  “Where do we go from here, sir? Do Ah still have a job?”

  “Agent Deeprose, you did a hell of a job under circumstances I consider exceptional for any seasoned pro. No one can call you a rookie anymore. The Galatea Initiative is dead, or will be. For us, the case is closed. I’m sorry you had to pay such a high price for it, and I’m even sorrier that I left you alone with nowhere to turn for support. If you still want this job, you’ll always have a place on my team. We’re very lucky to have you.”

  “Agent Carter, Ah wonder if Ah could trouble you to sit down for a few minutes. There’s something Ah’d like to tell you while it’s fresh in my mind.”

  ***

  “Agent Carter, Ah didn’t see my daddy’s face when Ah thought Ah was goin’ to die. Ah always thought he’d be the last thing on m’mind when Ah died, but it wasn’t. Ah regretted not bein’ around to finish the job with you and Agent Seacrest. Y’all accepted me right away, gave me room to breathe, and regardless of what you think you might or might not have done durin’ this investigation, you were always there when Ah needed a soundin’ board. Ah can’t say my education this year’s had anythin’ to do with learnin’ procedure or even the rules…” She smiled. “…but Ah still want to thank y’all for givin’ me the opportunity to shine. And Ah did, sir, didn’t Ah?”

  “You sure did, Agent Deeprose.”

  “Ah’m stayin’, sir.”

  He left the hospital feeling so light he felt he could fly if he wanted to.

  ***

  Carter stepped into Fischetti’s office and fell heavily into a seat, bracing himself for what he had to tell him. It was time they came to an understanding. He looked around quickly and saw boxes everywhere, all half packed.

  “Sir, I cut a deal with the bodyguard. It was the best we could do in a no-win scenario. He goes free and his organization agrees to help us hunt the JASONS and keep a friendly eye on anyone we think might be the target of an assassination.”

  Matter-of-factly, he handed the deputy director a file containing psychiatric evaluations of the four perpetrators in custody. “We both know you manipulated this investigation, sir. I don’t know what the Bureau means to do about it, and frankly, I don’t care. But I’m here to make a deal with you. I’ll keep La Cosa Nostra working for us and back you up with the Feds as a lone hero hung out to dry if you’ll get Alison out of jail and into a psychiatric hospital.”

  “I don’t make deals, Agent Carter, but I’m prepared to do anything I can to make restitution.”

  “Three out of the four deserve anything they get. I have no issue with that. But I want special consideration for Alison. Read the file, sir. She has no history of any crime whatsoever. She’s been physically and emotionally abused her entire life. I think she was a sitting duck for every manipulator that came along.

  “I know you had no choice in a lot of what went down, but you were still willing to sacrifice Monty. I also know you tried your damnedest to protect me and the team, even to the point of dying for it, so I’m asking you to do the right thing by her. Alison needs to be placed in a facility – a good one – where she can get the intensive help she needs over a period of perhaps several years. I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to make it on her own, but she’s the only one of the bunch with a heart and a conscience. She was the only one tricked into everything. The poor kid believed every damn lie she was told by Silverman and those two snakes she thought were her friends.

  “She’s not planning to defend herself in court, sir, but prison will kill her. She deserves a break for once in her life. Let’s be the ones to give it to her.”

  Fischetti sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He squeezed them shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he opened them and sighed. “O.K., Carter, I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to get Alison’s sentence commuted to an indefinite amount of time served in a sanitarium with a first-rate reputation. I will present the evidence in this folder after I read it, of course, and meet with the prison psychiatrist to offer her diagnosis, prognosis, and professional recommendation. If she agrees with you, we’ll talk to Alison about it. That’s the best I can do.”

  Carter nodded and rose to leave. He’d said all that he had to say and had reached the only agreement he cared to make with the deputy director. Now he had to go home and decide what he wanted to do next.

  “Agent Carter, wait. Please. Sit down for one more moment. There is something I’d like you to know before you leave my office. I may never get the chance to say it to you again.”

  Damn! I was almost out the door.

  However, he sat.

  “I know you think I’m about to feed you a load of bullshit. Relax, I’ll spare you that nonsense. It’s far too late, and it’s over now anyway, but I’m not a bastard, and I do feel the need to explain myself to you. I’m far from innocent but not quite guilty, either.

  “Here it is in a nutshell. Whether you believe it or not, I have upheld my duties to the highest degree for three decades. I did not know the Bureau was rotten until these murders began, and apparently, I was just about the only one who didn’t. As it turns out, for the past sixty years, at the very least, Bureau superiors have all been working for the JASONS. That is why the powers that be view me in a different slightly differently light than they do the director and the rest of them.

  “I won’t try to say I didn’t know what I was asked to do. I did. As I saw it, there was nowhere to turn and no other alternative than to sacrifice Mr. Montgomery to save you. That’s not an excuse. It’s just the facts.

  “I had two choices: obey or disappear. But the world’s not a big enough place to hide in, anymore. I’ve already admitted to the boys upstairs that I intentionally steered your team in the wrong direction time after time during this investigation. That’s all of it, Agent.”

  “Sir, that’s not quite all of it. When push came to shove, you had to decide whether to save me and risk your neck or commit yourself to the other side. You knew the net was closing in on them, so it’s just possible you tried to make yourself look like a hero. Why should I or anyone else have any faith or confidence in you now? How can anyone ever trust you again? I really didn’t expect you to be here today; I thought I might be speaking to a temporary replacement. Aren’t you more ashamed to be talking to me right now than you might have been if you tucked your tail and just quietly slipped away into retirement?”

  “No, Agent Carter, I’m not, because I made the decision to face the music and to give you and everyone else the chance to tell me what they thought of me. You just had yours. I won’t try to change your mind, but I will always feel deep shame and sorrow that I lost your respect and trust.”

  He sighed and swung his chair around to the window behind him. “Whether I’m prosecuted or
not, I know I’m a traitor, because I feel like one.” Fischetti turned back to Carter. “That’s all I wanted to say, Agent Carter. If you want to go, you’re excused.”

  Carter got halfway out of his seat before Fischetti spoke again. “However, there are a few new developments I’d like to share with you, if you’re interested.”

  Carter raised an eyebrow and sat back down.

  Damn it! He knows I’m too curious to leave.

  “Well, sir?”

  “There are going to be some changes. I’m being promoted to director of the New York office.”

  “Excuse me?”

  What else are they going to do? Maybe Silverman should be the new deputy director!

  “It’s time for me to get out of the game, and I told them so upstairs, but they think it took balls to go against the director and stand up in front of that firing squad to protect your body and take custody of the bodyguard. I can’t believe no one searched you to make sure you were dead, but I think they were more afraid of Agent Seacrest than they were of facing the director.”

  They exchanged their first brief smile of understanding since Carter had come to work there.

  “They hardly even bothered to look for Montgomery. They had what they came for. Everyone figured, I guess, that I’d get it in the back on the way home, and that would be the end of that - killed in the line of duty. I rode to the hospital with the prisoner, though, and somehow I’m still alive.”

  How can they consider him for anything else but the glue factory? And he’s getting promoted to the big office?! There absolutely can’t be any such thing as divine justice or this man would be shitting bricks in a federal prison right now.

  “There’s no one who can fill in for the director from any state bureau because of, well, you know, they don’t know who’s clean and who’s dirty. Until they sweep the house and vet new agents, the top brass decided they’d rather keep an eye on me than someone else.

  “They’re giving me a chance to show them I am what I say I’ve always been, and I’m taking it. Then, as you suggested, one of these days, I’ll slip quietly away into retirement. I’m a very lucky man, Carter. I should have been shot like I was supposed to be.”

  Damn straight, sir.

  Carter knew he was expected to say something to the contrary, but he didn’t say a word. He just sat there, waiting.

  Fischetti turned scarlet and forged ahead. “Yes. Well. I’m moving into the new office this afternoon, and I’m bringing Liz with me.”

  “Who’s your replacement, sir?”

  “The top brass hand-picked Natalie Rodgers for deputy director. She bleeds Bureau blue. It’ll be at least a month or so before she can transition and be brought up to speed on our cases.

  “In the meantime, I want you to step in as the acting deputy director. I’d give you time to think it over, but I need to know now if you plan to stay on here. There’s no one else I can trust, and I do trust you, even if you don’t trust me. Will you take it? It would be a great opportunity to make your mark in the executive office. With experience as acting deputy director from time to time, especially in New York City, you could eventually write your own ticket.”

  Carter looked more than a little dubious.

  There are three possibilities here: He’s doing this for me because he believes in keeping his friends close and his enemies even closer; the brass is intentionally putting him there expecting that I’ll be able to keep tabs on him to see where he leads us; or he really is a straight arrow career man who got in way over his head and the Bureau is giving him the chance to prove it. Maybe he really does want me watching his back.

  “Look, Carter, I’m asking you to do what you’ve always done unhesitatingly and without fail. The right thing. So?”

  “An office chair actually looks pretty good to me, temporarily. If I accept your offer to be acting deputy director now and again, I want the power to give Agent Deeprose a special commendation and a promotion for bravery above and beyond the call of duty. Agent Seacrest risked her life to test a drug that might have killed her. I want her to be named Lab Director. I don’t care what you do with that jerk down there now, but I want him gone and I want Jill to have the authority she deserves. She’ll take it anyway, you know.”

  They both broke out in broad smiles and shook their heads.

  Fischetti described the entire scene to Carter who couldn’t believe his ears. “She really is something else, isn’t she, Agent Carter? Her anger is worse than the wrath of God. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of it. She scared the living hell out of every man at Admiral’s Row. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wet their shorts on the way out of there.”

  Liz came in and offered the men coffee.

  Is she actually smiling at me? Without foaming at the mouth? The only time I ever saw her smile was to show her fangs to some poor intern who came running past me in tears. I guess miracles really do happen.

  The two men sipped coffee in silence for a while as they both pondered the choices they’d made over the course of their careers.

  Director Fischetti raised his eyebrows as a stray thought raced back to him. “Agent Carter, if you don’t mind telling me one small detail, just who the hell blew the back door off Admirals Row? And how’d you manage to get your hands on C-4?”

  “I didn’t, but I was very glad to discover that Mr. X did. Now there’s someone I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.”

  “Neither would I, Agent. Just think, I could have had him on my side the whole time, and I thought he was just an old crackpot.” He shook his head and chuckled. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “You won’t be able to, sir. I’m fairly certain he never made it out of the building.”

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Christmas Eve

  Carter plodded into the apartment with disheveled hair and his tie askew.

  “Long day at the office, Carter?” Seacrest tossed a magazine onto the coffee table and yawned. “At least you’re on active duty again. I can’t wait to be cleared. House cleaning is not therapeutic, just in case you were wondering.”

  Her usual brand of sarcasm seemed so dear to him now that he laughed, and once he did, he couldn’t stop. He laughed so hard he had to sit down and hold his stomach with both hands to stop it from hurting. Seacrest knew she hadn’t said anything particularly funny, but being a woman, she recognized the final release of the burdens he’d been carrying around since well before they moved to New York.

  “Jill, I can’t even remember the last time I laughed. Oh God, my stomach!”

  “Carter, I’ve waited a long time for this.”

  He stood and held his hand out to her. Taking his hand, she stood and melted into his broad chest, inhaling his scent. He always smelled so damn good! Then she looked up at him for a long moment.

  “What’re you looking at?”

  “Nothing, Carter. Just looking.” She smiled into his chest knowing his heart was hers.

  Carter snapped his fingers over his head and commanded his voice-activated assistant. “Alexa, play Stardust. Dim the lights to the lowest setting, and show us some real stars while you’re at it.”

  A million diamond-white stars emerged from the ceiling and winked at them as soft music seeped into the room out of nowhere and everywhere. They began to move to the melody that had always meant so much to them.

  “This is spectacular, Carter! How are you doing it?”

  “That’s a trade secret, my girl.”

  They dipped and swayed and twirled their way to a new intimacy. She nibbled on his lower lip, the song forgotten. Carter felt it travel from his mouth all the way down to the pit of his stomach like a huge jolt of electricity. All at once, he grabbed her upper arms, jerked her away from himself and looked at her in a way he never had before.

  He looked savage and felt ferocious. Seacrest felt his electricity and masculinity all around her. She looked shocked but waited for whatever came next.

  He jerked
her back to him like a rag doll and planted a long, hard kiss on her mouth. A hundred years of pent up emotion passed away in that moment. Their hands travelled all over each other, learning each other all over again. They made love on an incredibly cushy carpet and obliterated the silence and sadness that had grown between them for several weeks. They were one again, each an extension of the other. Neither knew nor cared where one ended and the other began.

  ***

  Time drifted as they lay on the floor in comfortable silence, watching the stars. At some point, Seacrest returned to earth and turned to Carter, who had temporarily lost all capacity for speech and thought.

  “I do, too, Carter.”

  “Do too, what, honey?”

  “Love you. Play Stardust again a little later so we can actually dance to the end of the song this time, hmmm?”

  ***

  They sat together like two teenagers in their little kitchen, spreading butter and thick slabs of brie on French bread and sipped sweet, red wine with it. The atmosphere tonight was cozy and romantic, as if they were the only two people left in the world and were glad for it.

  “Carter, I saw something strange at Admirals Row.”

  Happily chewing away on his bread and cheese, Carter lifted an eyebrow and waited for her to continue.

  Seacrest blushed. “Don’t you dare laugh at me, but as much as I hate to admit it, I saw a sign in the sky. Right over your head.”

  “Really?” He did a lousy job of hiding a smirk. “And what exactly was this sign you think you saw, my love?”

  “It was…well, it was a big tree with a lot of branches.”

  He looked like he didn’t understand what she meant. “A tree?”

  “Yes, a tree, Carter, a tree. The stars made a crazy pattern in the sky right over your head, and it looked just like a big tree.”

  “And this was a sign because…”

  “Carter! Stop laughing at me! You know what tree!”

  He did become serious, though, because she was. “It was the tree of life. What do you think it meant?”

  “There was one star at the very tip of the highest branch that was brighter than all the others. I thought it meant that wherever you were, and even though you were gone from me, you were happy.