PART ONE

CRIME

15 June 1840 Hours

Crossed wires. Not a good omen.

At one P.M. this afternoon, Divisional HQ pulled the plug on Ares. Two years of work, one agent’s life, my family’s sanity . . . all of them almost went right down the drain then and there.

Took almost three hours of Weeks massaging egos and making phone calls before they restored support to the op, gave us the green light again for tonight.

I heard about this only twenty minutes ago-a message Weeks left in my voice mail box. I don’t think he would have told me at all, but he had to make sure word hadn’t reached me some other way, that I knew we had a go.

What happened was this: OCB had sent a memo out, six months ago, asking all Tampa-based ops to clear everything through them. Protocol, pulling rank, whatever you want to call it-all we had to do was send them a note about what we had planned for this evening, and we would have been okay.

The memo never got sent. Weeks made noises about having delegated that task to Clark or Shannon, but that’s bullshit. It’s totally on him, totally his fault OCB had no paperwork about Ares. Something’s happened to him in the last year, since he settled in here as AIC. He lets things slide, slip through the cracks . . . he wasn’t like this before, God knows. Maybe it’s age-maybe it’s his divorce. I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter.

This afternoon, OCB was talking to the Tampa PD about something else, and our op got mentioned.

They, naturally, went through the roof.

Called Washington, faxed over their memo, and had all the support we’d lined up-local law enforcement, logistics, Justice Department-withdrawn. Said Ares had the potential to interfere with ongoing surveillance they were running.

Lucky Weeks was able to convince Washington that our op had to take priority-national security concerns trumping OCB’s attempts to get the dirt on a local dirtbag name of Howard Saint.

I’ve heard of him, of course-he is big down here, and getting bigger-but haven’t yet had the pleasure. Doubtful that I ever will-Saint and I travel in different circles.

On top of which, after tonight, I am out of Florida entirely, not likely to return.

Op is only a few hours away. Must prepare.

[Entry Ends.]