Fatal Dose (27 page)

“Who is this?” Dennis asked.

“That’s not important. I’m just a good citizen. Don’t forget, Friday night at ten-thirty.” Melbourne hung up and sat back in his chair.

The loss of this shipment would spell the end of John Pierce’s ten-year reign as head of the Midwestern region. The FBI would close down the Atronen facilities until they concluded their investigation. That would be more than enough time for Melbourne to take over control of the region and set up operations at another facility. The hit would be an enormous blow to the mob, but just collateral damage as far as Clifford Melbourne was concerned. This move meant personal power and hundreds of millions of dollars for his personal accounts offshore.

It was essential to his success to know what the FBI was doing with respect to Atronen, the central processor, repackager and distributor of pharmaceutical drugs in the region. Years earlier he recruited a Special Agent on the FBI’s Pharmaceutical Drug Squad at their Cleveland office.

The Special Agent had served with the FBI for over six years when his sister came down with a rare form of ovarian cancer. Several large pharmaceutical companies were conducting trials of what they claimed were promising drugs to cure this particular cancer. The agent attempted to use his influence to get his sister into one of the trials, but to no avail. He appealed to several officials at the FDA, but was told that they couldn’t intercede on his sister’s behalf. The pain relief medicine his sister received was inadequate to lessen her pain. One day she pleaded with her brother to help her kill herself; he refused. The next day she managed it by herself. She was only thirty-eight.

The Special Agent took his sister’s death especially hard. He turned bitter and was ordered by his boss Dennis Peterson to take time off. It was during this period that he was contacted anonymously by Clifford Melbourne, who took advantage of the agent’ grief to enlist his cooperation in “getting even” with the Bureaucratic hierarchy at the FDA and the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies that he convinced himself could have eased his sister’s painful death.

Melbourne had chosen the ideal candidate, one who has served him well for the past two years. He had no personal contact with the agent; all communications being made via a private, highly encrypted telephone network. His spy was above reproach with the agency and because of his standing with the PDS was in a position to pass on everything that the FBI office was planning with regard to preventing the manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit prescription drugs. Although there had been no personal contact between the two men, Melbourne felt that when Atronen went down the agent would be excess baggage. He added his informer to the list of the loose ends that needed to be taken care of.

On several occasions he ordered his informer to meet with Marco Vennuti to work out details of special shipments. They used a cabin in a deserted area for their personal contacts.

When the FBI intercepted the drug shipment and shut down Atronen, Melbourne would need a high level of disarray at the Bureau while he jockeyed for position with the cartel. What better diversion could there be than the exposure of the traitor in their ranks, especially one with unimpeachable credentials?

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Alex Norbett, the owner/operator of Investigative Findings, had a busy schedule. It started with a call from his new client, Marco Vennuti.

“How’s the surveillance of Ms. Farrell coming along?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. She pretty much sticks to a daily routine.”

“I’m glad to hear that. We’ve got some important business going down later in the week, so if she changes her routine at all, meets with somebody outside of her office, anything different at all, give me a heads up right away.”

“You bet.”

An hour later, Mel Tarkington, aka Walter Simmons, showed up at Investigative Findings.

“Ed said you would be expecting me.”

“Yes, come on in Mister Simmons. I have been expecting you. Can I get you something?”

“Sure, a gin and tonic would be fine.”

“Great, I’ll have the same.”

They sat down on a sofa in the corner of Norbett’s office.

“Let me start by saying what a great job you did finding Mark Matthews. I was very impressed.”

“Well, thank you Walter. I have a complete file on Mark Matthews that Ed asked me to put together for you. It has his home and office address, land and cell phone numbers, recent pictures and his itinerary for the past week. He seems to be pretty much a creature of habit.”

Mel took the file and spent a few minutes checking through the contents. “This looks very thorough. Your agency did a great job getting this much detail.”

“Well, that’s what we do. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“As a matter of fact, there is. I’m looking to pick up a rifle and some ammo.”

“Do you have anything particular in mind?”

“Yes, a Panther Mark 12.”

“Whoa! That’s a powerful piece. You really know your weapons.”

“I’ll also need four 30-round mags, a Hi-Lux medium-close range scope and a nylon sling. Can you get it all?”

“I’m sure I can get everything, but it’ll run you ten grand.”

“Ten grand? That’s five times more than it costs at a gun store.”

“Take it or leave it, Walter. I’m not buying from a federal firearms dealer, you know. If you want to go that route, be my guest. Fill out forms and wait a few weeks. It doesn’t bother me any what you do, but if you want the stuff tonight, then show me the money.”

“Okay, okay.” Mel counted out ten thousand dollars and handed the bills to Norbett.

“Come back here at ten tonight. I’ll have everything ready for you. I’ll reserve some after-hours time for you at a local range if you feel that you need practice. That’ll be on me.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ve used the Panther before, but it’s been awhile. See you at ten.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

“Get in here right away,” Dennis barked into the phone. He disconnected the call then made three similar calls. He sat back and waited for them to arrive.

Chuck Wesson slammed down his phone and ran down the hall to his boss’s office. Elsewhere in the building, three others did the same.

“What’s the matter?” Chuck asked.

“Wait until the others arrive.”

Milt was second, followed quickly by Wendy and Mark.

“Close that door,” he said excitedly. “I just got an anonymous phone call that the cartel is making a huge shipment from Atronen on Friday night.”

Chuck offered, “That jives with information we received about an hour ago from Paul Snyder that the regular production crew was being sent home early this Friday. We better get cracking on setting up our response. This sounds like the break we’ve been waiting for.” He rose as if to leave.

“Slow down, Chuck. We have to handle this carefully. Milt, have you heard back from Washington about any investigation that they may be conducting involving Antronen?”

“I got a green light from them. We’re good to go as of this morning.”

“Wendy, let’s make sure our surveillance team is alerted to the possibility of a big shipment this Friday evening, but try to be as vague as you can with them. I don’t want anyone jumping the gun or having a chance to warn Vennuti or anyone else. To be safe, we’ll hold the specifics until the last minute. I’ll ask Chief Jacobsen to do the same.

“Chuck, we’ll need airtight warrants to serve on Atronen the minute we’ve checked those trucks. We’ll stop them on the way to, or at their destination, whichever will work best for us. If they’re carrying illegal drugs, we’ll have cause to shut down Atronen immediately.”

He stopped long enough to take a swig of water from a bottle. “Do you all realize what this means, guys? We’ve finally arrived at the point where our years of investigating are going to pay off. The fall of Atronen will be a big blow to the cartel. The flow of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in this area should dry up almost immediately. We’re bound to get enough on Vennuti to bring him to justice for all the killings he’s connected with. I’m hoping that in the process I will find out who in this office has been leaking information. Putting him or her behind bars will give me the most pleasure.”

“I’m with you on that, sir,” Chuck answered. We all want to see the traitor brought to justice. What do you want us to do now?”

“To start, keep this to yourself. We have a few days yet to put our plan together. Any information about this has to be on a strict ‘need to know’ basis.”

Wendy asked, “How much do I tell Vennuti?” The words no sooner left her mouth than she realized what she had said.

Mark looked at her. “What do you mean, tell Vennuti?”

Dennis looked at Milt and sighed.

A remorseful Wendy looked at Dennis; her face reddened. “I’m so sorry, sir.”

“Will somebody please tell me what is going on?” Mark asked as he looked around the room for answers.

Reluctantly, Dennis replied, “I guess there is no reason, now, that all of you shouldn’t know about this.”

“Know about what?” Mark asked. This time his demeanor was agitated.

“Okay, Mark, simmer down and give me a moment to put this in the correct order. You listen up too, Chuck.”

“I’m all ears.”

Dennis began, “It all started with Joan Paschal’s death and certain evidence that Milt dug up in his investigation. We know, without a doubt that Joan was being blackmailed into tipping off Vennuti about our activities. From her position here at the Bureau, she had limited access, but through her friendships with agents and staffers, she apparently gathered enough information to become invaluable to him.

“Milt got the idea about making one of our agents available to Vennuti to cover his loss of Joan. I don’t want to go into all the details, but Vennuti was persuaded that Agent Farrell was a prime candidate. He tested her with a phony drug run and apparently he was happy with the results.”

Mark looked at Wendy his eyes asking,
How could you do that and not tell me?

Wendy averted his eyes and concentrated on what Dennis was saying.

Dennis continued. He looked at Mark, and then at Chuck. “I made the decision that Agent Farrell would work on this special assignment. She and Milt were sworn to secrecy, so I don’t want anyone else getting upset because you were not in on it. That was entirely my doing. Needless to say, I expect the same secrecy from you both.”

Chuck and Mark reluctantly nodded their heads in agreement.

“Now we need to decide, among us, how much information we want to disseminate to our friend Marco Vennuti. Milt and I will coordinate everything else with Chief Jacobsen. The only exposure we will have is if this shipment doesn’t pan out.”

Chuck offered, “Well, I don’t see how we can tell him anything about what we know without blowing our chances of catching them red-handed.”

“I agree with Chuck,” Mark said. “The less he knows the more likely things will proceed according to tip we got.” Turning to Dennis he asked, “Do you have any inkling whatsoever where the tip came from?”

“None at all. The voice was garbled and the message was finished before I could get a tracer on it. It was probably from an employee of Atronen, though”

Wendy chimed in, “What if we go the other direction? What if we tell him that the Bureau has cut back on funds for surveillance and that Dennis cut the after-hours crew because they’ve gone six months without anything concrete to report?”

Milton agreed, “That’s an interesting approach. It might even make them overconfident and make our job that much easier.”

Dennis looked around the room. “Are we in agreement then, to go this route?”

Every head affirmed the decision.

“Okay, then. Wendy and Milt please stay behind and we’ll work out the details. The rest of you can get back to work. Let’s make it look like business as usual.”

Dennis, Wendy and Milt discussed the plan for a half hour, after which Wendy called Vennuti to give him the news. She made the call from Dennis’s office

* * *

Marco was in bed with Sarah when he received the call. He was skeptical at first, but came around to accepting the idea. “It’s about time the Feds stopped harassing us. This is good news, especially coming at this time. Keep your eyes and ears open the rest of this week, anyway. Call me if you hear anything at all about Atronen or me.”

Marco turned to Sarah to tell her the good news. “That was my new informer at the FBI. She tells me that they have some personnel cuts on the crew that has been conducting surveillance on us. I love it when budget cuts hit the FBI and the Police Departments. What do they call it; austerity, or something like that? It couldn’t happen at a better time.”

“How reliable is this new snitch. Is she pretty?”

“I put her through a test and she came through for us. Besides, she has an awful lot to lose if she crosses me. As for her looks, she can’t hold a candle to you, baby.” They resumed their lovemaking.

* * *

Wendy returned to her cubicle to find Mark waiting for her. “What’s up?” she asked, knowing full well what he wanted to discuss.

“How could you keep something that important from me? We’re not talking about a low key operation, here. You’re dealing with a psychopath.”

“You heard Dennis. I was sworn to secrecy.”

“That’s bull and you know it. You didn’t have to accept the assignment in the first place. You must have had a chance to decline it.”

“I did, but given what I know about Atronen and Vennuti and my involvement with the PDS, I could hardly say no. Under the same circumstances, you wouldn’t have, would you?”