Cameron Andrews Box Set

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4It was toward the end of April. Six weeks of grilling and study had passed. Cam stood in the shadows near the street corner where she’d been told to meet her ride. A-block away, laughter erupted as two young men emerged from the quiet corner bar. The usual black unmarked sedan pulled up to the curb in front of her. Leaning down to look inside, Cam was surprised to see Craig there. Usually, it was Wendell who picked her up.

As she’d done for the past how many nights, on how many different street corners, she quickly slid into the passenger seat. Tonight, however, there was a hesitation. “Want to stop somewhere for a drink?” Craig asked.

“I thought you didn’t want to be seen in public with me.”

He laughed.

“It’s almost one,” she continued. “Everything’s closing.” She didn’t want to add that the quiet corner tavern he’d pointed to was a gay bar, the same bar Pauly had taken her to when it first opened.

“You’re right. Besides, there is a lot to do tonight.” He didn’t add that he’d spent the last eight hours going over her file with Wendell and Maggie and with Richard C. Deems, Head of Internal Covert Operations of the DEA. They’d read and discussed Maggie’s and Wendell’s reports on her progress and abilities and finally agreed with him that she’d be the perfect person to handle this assignment. It had been a hard discussion. Tonight they’d lay it all on the table and see if the pieces fit. In his heart he knew that Cameron could, should do this assignment, but he also knew that if there were any other way, he’d never offer this to anyone, let alone someone he knew and liked.

* * * *

Deems had been against it at first. He’d put up good arguments against her.

“Why’d she say she called you again?” Deems asked, going back over the transcript of the tape of Cam’s original interview.

Craig and Wendell looked at the man with scraggly grey hair and thick glasses. “You heard her. She’s bored. And she knows that the life expectancy of an undercover cop is limited.”

“You believe her?”

“Yes, I do. Cam’s always been square with me.” Craig was definitely on her side.

“What about her lesbianism. Did she tell you about that when she was working for you before?”

“No. She knew we’d have to fire her. But she’s never tried to lie about it. She’s been real good about sidestepping the issue.”

“She have a lover now?”

“No.” Maggie smiled. “She really hasn’t had time. We’ve been working her too hard.”

“Doesn’t she…date?”

“No,” Maggie answered. “Not seriously. A night out with the girls every now and then. There’s been no one steady for the last four years.”

“Is there any way she’d let your conversations slip to anyone else? You know how pillow talk can be.”

“I highly doubt it,” Craig answered. “Cameron has always been very, very good about keeping things confidential. You know how we always plant things with new staff just to check. Nothing we ever told her got back. She had a top priority security clearance.”

“I don’t know. This is highly irregular. Totally against policy.” Richard C. Deems closed the file in front of him. Wendell and Craig exchanged glances.

“You really think she can do this?” Richard asked, looking at Maggie.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “She works hard. I think she’d be very valuable. You read my report. And you know I wouldn’t recommend this if I had any doubts.”

“It’s a good idea,” Wendell interjected, “If we were trying to infiltrate a black neighborhood we wouldn’t send in a white man. We’ve tried a straight woman and look what happened, poor girl.” Wendell thought of the promising young agent who now sat staring into space in a mental hospital, her brain fried in a drug overdose.

“No saying that it won’t happen to this one, too.” Richard C. Deems didn’t want to be convinced.

“No, but she’s got a head start on the territory. She’ll better know how to handle herself there.” Craig offered, “Aside from that, I think this one’s a better agent.”

“She’s green.”

“No, she isn’t. I saw her work on that Baltimore bust. She was the front with Krakowski. Walked right up the dock like two star-struck lovers and got right into position to close up any back door escape. When everything busted loose, she kept her head, even when bullets were flying right around her. I saw a.48 hit the wall about two feet from her head and she didn’t even jump. She’s got a lot of street experience.”

Richard C. Deems still shook his head.

“It’s better than anything else we’ve ever come up with. It’s almost too good.” Wendell sat back.

Craig looked around the table. He knew that Wendell and Maggie were sold but this was, technically, Deems’ case. This was an internal, not an international, operation. This was the one flaw with the DEA: limbo land somewhere between the CIA and the FBI. Craig walked that line every day.

“Well,” Deems said slowly, pushing the files closer together. “If Maggie is for this and will agree to continue as counselor and control, I’ll go along. But,” he stopped, “the first thing I see that doesn’t fit, I pull the plug. Understood?”

Craig smiled. “Totally.”

* * * *

Cameron remained silent as they drove through the city. The last two months had been grueling. She’d been getting tired of answering the same questions or trying to find different ways to solve the same problems or proving her abilities in self-defense and marksmanship. She felt she’d done well but no one had said a word, one way or the other.

But tonight was different. It was Craig who picked her up. That must mean that something was about to change.

Craig broke the silence. “Look, Cam, if you don’t like what you hear tonight and you want to pull out, just say so. No one will look down on it, everyone will understand.”

Cam looked at Craig’s face in the dim light from the street and glow of the dashboard. “Why? What am I gonna hear tonight?”

Craig hesitated, then smiled. “Your first assignment.” He pulled out into the flow of traffic and headed away from the center of the city.

Cam was suddenly wide awake. “Then I’m in? I passed?”

Craig nodded in the darkened car. “Yes.”

Cam smiled and mentally hugged herself. She’d suspected that that was why Craig was here.

Craig continued. “But, if you don’t want this particular assignment, there’ll be others. So don’t take this if you have any reservations. I want you to be assured that we’re not offering you a desk job.”

Cam rode in silence, hundreds of scenarios running through her head and excitement warming her blood. Yes! This was what she wanted.

At last, they pulled into the driveway of a darkened house that looked like every other house on that block. All had quiet yards surrounded by wrought-iron fences and hedges and all looked asleep, although one or two had soft glows of light coming from upstairs windows. This house had no lights, the drapes were all firmly closed. It was a typical residential house in a typical suburban neighborhood.

As they pulled in at the back of the house, Craig turned off the lights and motor. “Well, we’re home,” he said.

Cameron followed him up the back stairs which were lit solely by the light of the half moon, and through the back door into the kitchen of the house.

Three people were already there. “You know Maggie and Wendell,” Craig started. Cam smiled at Maggie and nodded to Wendell, grasping the hand he extended to her. It was strong and firm, almost painful in its grasp, but familiar and reassuring.

“And this is Richard C. Deems, head of Covert Internal Operations, DEA, your new boss.” Deems stood and shook her hand politely, much less firmly than Wendell. Cam had never considered that Craig might not be her boss and she suddenly wasn’t sure she liked the situation. Deems was just standing there, silently inspecting every part of her.

“Sit down and have some coffee.” Maggie was almost motherly. As a psychiatrist, she was trained to read people’s body language and knew that Cam was suddenly uneasy under Deems’ glare. “Don’t let these bullies try to intimidate you.” She gently pushed Cam into a chair at the end of the table. Everyone else sat as Maggie began to pour coffee into the five mugs that were already there. “Cream and sugar anyone?”

All three men declined but Cam said, “Sugar, please. Unless it’s laced with something.”

That broke the ice and Wendell laughed loudly.

Maggie made a big show of pouring two teaspoons of sugar into her own mug, and then pushed to bowl to Cameron as she took a seat to Cam’s left. Cam put one small spoon of sugar into her mug and began to stir slowly.

Deems looked at Cam. “Well, I say let’s lay the cards out. You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Cam stated without hesitation.

“Good. These three people have convinced me that you’re the person we need. I think it only fair to let you know that I’ve had, maybe still have, reservations regarding your…uh…lifestyle. I’m a “by the book” man and I don’t need to tell you what that means. I’m straight forward and at times brusque. I’m not easy to work with but I get things done and I like people who get things done. There’s too much bullshit happening these days. Too much pampering. Too much “making nice.” I’m not a diplomat. I don’t pretend to be. I’ll always tell you what I think and I expect the same from the people I work with. I won’t put up with brown-nosers. Enough said.

“Here’s our problem. There’s a big drug ring operating into and out of the women’s prison facility at Hagerville. We don’t know who or how but it’s happening. There’ve been three ODs in the last four months inside the prison and the women being released are so strung out that we’re overloading the detox centers. Whoever’s doing it is smart. They know we know what’s happening, we couldn’t miss it, but even though the warden’s given us her full support, we can’t find the key. There have been lockdown after lockdown, searches after searches, but they never find anything. No one will talk. Not the guards. Not the inmates. Either they don’t know or are afraid to talk. Which means there’s someone on the outside keeping tabs.” He stopped and took a sip of his coffee. “Yes, I know there’s always drugs in prisons, no matter what we do, but this seems out of the ordinary. There’s something more there. We can’t get a handle on it. This isn’t just a friend or a corrections officer sneaking a joint or a hit of coke in to a prisoner.”

Cam searched each face. They weren’t telling her everything. When had she ever heard the government worrying about what happened to women? Never mind women convicts!

Craig read her mind. “It’s not just the women inside. The drug traffic has escalated in that part of the state to such a high level that we know there’s something else happening. We suspect that it’s a pipeline, probably into Pittsburgh and beyond. We know there’s a lot of traffic in the western part of Pennsylvania but we can’t find where it’s coming in. At first we thought it was coming in across the lakes but Canada has really sealed off the border there. Then we realized how much traffic we had around Hagerville. We’ve scoured everything in a hundred mile radius of Hagerville but all the pushers we’ve arrested in that part of the state are small-time and none knew anyone else involved. Or at least, no one they’d roll over on. Whoever’s got the trade there has it sewn up real tight. The only connection that keeps popping up is the prison.”

Cam looked from Deems to Wendell to Craig. None of the three were looking at her but Maggie was watching her like a hawk hunting dinner.

“What else aren’t you telling me?” Cam asked looking directly at Deems.

He met her eyes strongly. “We’ve put two agents inside. One as an inmate. She’s in a coma at Walton. OD on coke and bad alcohol. She’ll never come out of it. Too much brain damage. We couldn’t get to her fast enough.”