Lately, I have experimented with being positive in the face of uncertainty. With saying an untruth, purely as a leadership gesture.
“We’ll find another C.I.,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”
A noise sounded then. First a pop. And then something that sounded like a sonic boom. The gas pipe must have ignited inside, because the fire shattered the mobile home’s windows and sent the two men onto their backs. The men from the second car got out and ran over. Pulled their buddies away from the burning structure.
I dialed 9-1-1 on one of Richie’s burners and called in the fire. Then I took the SIM card out and broke it in half, scattering the pieces among the greenery.
CHAPTER THREE
“You incinerated the body of a C.I.?” Craig Poulton asked, his voice spiking.
I was seated across from the director of the FBI in his office on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Ninth and Tenth. I had grabbed the first flight out of Miami. Showed up in D.C. without an appointment and waited an hour and eight minutes to get time with the boss.
“Our C.I. was already dead,” I said. “Nothing was going to change that.”
“So we burn them now?” Poulton asked.
Craig Poulton is fifty-four. He is six foot two with a muscular frame and dark hair spiked up with product. At its apex, his hair gel had crystallized into two yellowish peaks, exactly nine millimeters high.
Fifteen months earlier, I’d watched Poulton outplay and then succeed William Banning, the industry veteran who had run the FBI for over a decade.
At the time, I became one of Poulton’s direct reports, a move that offered me a front-row view of the new Bureau director—a man whobalanced average intelligence with extraordinary political skill and a keen understanding of pressure points and leverage.
“We were sixteen minutes and ten seconds from having a case blown,” I said. “One we’d worked on for three months.”
Poulton leaned back in his chair. “Why not take the body with you? Sounds like everything else from that mobile home ended up in your car.”
“There were corrupt local cops,” I said.
“You know that for a fact?”
“We’ve identified two men. Bryant and Lyle.”
Poulton had craggy features: a sharp jawline and a hook nose. When he cocked his head, small pockmarks on his cheeks took on shadows.
“Why hasn’t Justice stepped in with the locals?” he asked. “Had them arrested?”
“We haven’t yet determined the extent of who’s dirty and who’s clean.”
“So if locals opened the mobile home and didn’t find a body or the debit cards—” Poulton paused for me to finish his thought.
“The dirty cops would assume Pecos had turned,” I said. “Or run. They’d tell Sandoval. Who might get spooked.”
“But if they found him locked inside”—Poulton nodded—“his body and gunshot wound burned beyond recognition—”
“One of their own,” I said, “lost in a tragic accident.”
Poulton sat back, considering this.
His right eye was two millimeters larger than his left. Was he aware of this?
“And you grabbed the debit cards?”
“Nine hundred and eighty-one thousand worth,” I said. “I dumped the last two cartons in the bedroom. Created enough melted plasticfor the dirty cops to report back to Sandoval. They’ll figureallthe cards got burned.”
Poulton stared past me, his teeth biting his lower lip. He had a toy on his desk, a Newton’s cradle, with five small stainless-steel balls hanging from thin wire. He took a pencil and tapped the side of it, and the balls began clicking against each other in perpetual motion.
“You know, Camden,” he said, “after 9/11, we had to look differently at how we leverage informants. They’re a lifeline to our best intelligence.”
