Sold Short

'What the fuck am I running here, the Federal Bureau of Idiots? How does this shit end up in the paper?' Mike Garrison yelled at the three agents in his office as he threw his copy of the Boston Globe on his desk.

Appearing on the front page of the Boston Globe was the first installment of a three part spotlight series the Globe was running on the secret dealings between the FBI and organized crime leaders in Boston. The story unveiled how the FBI ignored the illicit activities of some of its informants in exchange for their services.

The story named Red Bartlett, the notorious leader of the Irish Mafia in Boston, as the primary beneficiary of this arrangement. Several years ago the Special Agent in Charge of the Boston office figured that befriending Red could be beneficial. When the FBI needed good intelligence on criminal activity, Red was always able to produce. Since Red headed the Irish mafia he often had high level meetings with the Italians, Asians and others. Red was able to plant bugs in places the FBI could never dream about getting into. The information directly and indirectly flowing from Red was invaluable and had led to several major busts over the years. The downside was that the FBI had to look the other way and flat out ignore most of Red's illicit activities. Garrison inherited the 'Red deal' from his predecessor. Red never trusted Garrison and the two never hit it off.

'I'll bet it's those fucking Justice lawyers who are leaking this shit to make us look bad. Bartlett would certainly never go to the press and he would kill anyone in his organization who did. I need some ideas here, people. I'm sure the Director and the Attorney General are meeting right now.'

'Why don't we arrest Bartlett right now and we can spin this to make it look like this was all part of a plan to take down his entire organization? Make it look like we lured him into trusting us,' one of the agents offered.

'Good idea. Let's go arrest Red. And during the course of the trial every fucking deal and conversation we've ever made with him will be on the front page of the paper. If you get some time later, will you wake the fuck up!' Garrison turned and looked out the window of his office.

'There are a lot of people who would like to see Red dead. I'm sure that number is growing by the minute as each of the people he sold out realizes that he was helping us,' the agent in the middle seat said matter of factly.

'I'm listening,' Garrison said intently.
'If Red were taken out, then we could say all of our dealings were part of a plan to bring down his whole outfit and we go in like gangbusters and bust up all of his people,' the agent said wryly.

Garrison continued to look out the window in silence. After a half of a minute he said, 'Get the word out how unhappy we won't be to attend Red's funeral.'
'The FBI can't order a death warrant,' the junior agent stammered.
'How dare you! No one here mentioned a bounty or a death warrant! The business these people engage in is very violent. And they have chosen their own line of work. A point was noted that Red Bartlett's death may have increased in likelihood based on the Globe's story. We need to be prepared for that outcome, and the fact that his death may avoid further embarrassment to the Bureau is merely serendipitous. We need to start preparing to take down Red's organization. These things take time and right now we have a little time to see how things shake out.' Garrison remembered the idealism he brought the Bureau as a new agent. She would learn in time that the real world too often gets in the way of such sophistry.