The Cure

SPECIAL AGENT ANTHONY DEACON WAS ALWAYS a man on a mission. Whenever he was assigned a specific task, nothing got in his way, and he never let anything distract him from achieving his objective. He was like a guided missile; forever locked on his target until he made a direct hit or ran out of fuel, whichever came first. Some people in the department called him crazy for this ‘balls to the wall’ approach to his work, but when you bring in as many criminals as he did for the bureau, his superiors could not dispute the results he produced. Many of his co-workers called him ‘Tony D’ for short, and while he fought the nic-name at first, Tony eventually gave up and let it stick. It didn’t seem to matter as he strolled into headquarters wearing a new suit, carrying a warm latte as he was ready to take on the world. He was eager to get a new target and go back on the chase to run after whoever the FBI wanted him to fetch. Tony was returning from a mandated two week leave right after bringing in a big fish that had been evading the bureau for years. It was a big catch that had gotten a lot of good press for the bureau, so the higher ups gave Tony a long overdue vacation, something he hadn’t had in years.

After passing through security, Tony immediately bolted for his office hoping to at least get a half hour of peace so he could settle in before his next assignment came down the tube. He didn’t know what kind of chase he was going to get next but with another member of the top ten taken off the chart, a lot of agents were also curious to see which scumbag would be elevated to their decorated list next. Some divisions were even running office pools as debates about what criminals should get more attention was a hot topic around the water coolers. As Tony strolled into the office, he immediately pointed over to one of his co-workers that was already stationed at his computer, hard at work.

“Has it been updated yet, Wilson?” he asked without even giving his partner a chance to say hello.

“Not yet,” Wilson replied, aware everyone was anxious. “They’re saying it should be updated later today now that your boy has finally been indicted with his new charges and has pled out.”

Wilson raised his hands and looked around.

“No latte for me?” he called out.

“Last time I checked, your current tab remains unpaid.” Tony reminded him, “I do not run a charity here.”

Tony strolled past his partner and tossed his bag onto a chair beside his own desk, sat down on the one behind his desk and activated his own computers. Once they were booted up, Tony logged to start his own day.

“Did anything exciting happen while I was at the beach sucking down a lot of tall drinks with small umbrellas in them with scantily clad women?” he casually asked Wilson, aware how jealous it would make him.

“Not really,” Wilson admitted, “Nothing good has happened since you snagged that big whale a few weeks ago. Not that it’s a bad thing, really. Slow weeks here are a good because it means the bad guys are not bugging us or are possibly gunning for each other instead of us.”

“Ahhh, good times!” Tony called out, as he leaned back and relaxed. “Then again Wilson, could this just be the calm before the storm?”

“Leave it to you to piss on my parade.” Wilson said, sighing.

“It’s what I do best.” Tony confessed, rather proud of it.

“Forgive me if I take your word for it on this one Special Agent Deacon” A voice called from the other side of the room.

The two men turned and when the realized who was in the room, they both jumped to attention and showed respect for the old man as he sauntered into the room rather casually. They had no idea if he was there to just pay a pleasant visit to welcome Tony back from leave or if he was going to assign him some new work. Tony decided to play it safe and not assume the worst.

“Hey, boss!” he called out, “How’s it going boss!”

“It’s going,” His boss answered, “It usually does with or without any of us.”

“Is the world still in once piece since I left for paradise?” Tony inquired.

“We’ve managed to keep things together.” the director managed to comment with a sarcastic smirk as he crept closer to Tony’s desk. “I hate to put you back to work so quickly, but I’ve got a very tough assignment that requires your immediate attention. Turns out your recent success had caught the eyes of some people in high places, to the point where you were asked for specifically.”

“How high are we talking here boss?” Tony asked.

“Pretty damn big, kid,” His boss replied, “This prick has been eluding some of our nation’s finest trackers and marshals for the better part of three years. If you somehow manage to reel this fish in, you’ll be able to pick any job you want in the bureau... maybe even mine.”

“No offence boss,” Tony budded in, “But your job looks stressing.”

His boss placed the folder down on the table.

“This man is being elevated to the ten most wanted as of two this afternoon,” the old man added, “You are going to be assigned command of his ongoing manhunt. That means you’ll have the authority to appoint at least three more people to your task force.”

“A task force?” Tony repeated, “The last time I was given a task force…”

“I remember what happened with your last task force,” His boss recalled, fully aware of where Tony was going, “This case is going to be quite demanding, so you’ll have your pick of the litter. I assume you want Wilson here, so I’ve already had his paperwork put through.”

“Thanks boss.” Wilson called over, excited to work on the case.

Tony took the file off his desk and opened it. He looked at the file and then back at his boss with a confused look on his face.

“Xavier Carter?” Tony said, looking rather confused. “No offence boss, but this wasn’t the name anyone was expecting to see elevated to the most wanted list today.”

“I’m well aware,” his boss replied, “But there have been some very significant developments since you hit the beach, Tony. There are also a lot of details the media keeps pushing that just aren’t true. We’ve been slow to correct them because the truth could cause an outright panic. These developments have concerned some very powerful people, so if the details of this case were to leak to the media, it would cause a firestorm of mass hysteria. Let me make myself clear: Xavier Carter your only case. Anything else you were going to work on is being delegated to other agents. You have no other priorities except bringing Carter in. Are we clear on this, Deacon?”

Tony stood up and shook his boss’ hand.

“Crystal clear, Sir.” Tony said, his voice confident and determined. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure this bastard is brought in as soon as humanly possible.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” The director said, smiling back. “As usual, we do prefer you bring him in alive but either way is fine if you catch my drift. Read the files and the updates and you’ll see why he’s suddenly the bureau’s newest priority. I have a feeling once you get on board with what I know, you’ll be kicking things into fifth gear.”

With that the old man sauntered right back out the door and was gone before the guys had a chance to stand up. Before either of them said a word, Tony immediately grabbed the additional files that were lying on his desk and started to rifle through the papers, looking for the information that had upgraded this piece of pawn scum to the crème de la crème of the most wanted in his field.

“Holy crap,” Tony said to himself as he finally came across the part that stuck out like a naked man in a crowd with his hair on fire.

“What is it?” Wilson asked eager to be in on the new information.

“It looks like our boy Carter has been a very busy bee.” Tony answered, not taking his eyes off what he was reading. “His first few hits were car bombs and arson, starting with his former boss and the rest of his co-workers in a research lab. Now it looks like he might have evolved onto torture.”

“That would explain his bump to the most wanted list.” Wilson said, taking a few of the crime scene photos. “How bad are we talking here?”

“It looks pretty bad,” Tony replied, “Turns out before he was a plumber, Carter had a license to practice medicine. This detail has never been released to the media.”

“Lovely,” Wilson said, deeply sighing. “Nothing makes you more efficient at torture than the ability to know the human anatomy like the back of your hand. This would also explain his ability to avoid capture thus far: he’s far more intelligent than what anyone was willing to give him credit for.”

“It also explains why this hit my desk.” Tony added, as he knew how good he was and wasn’t afraid to admit it.

“Why is he doing this?” Wilson suddenly asked.

“That’s the sixty-thousand-dollar question,” Tony said, as he started to pace the room. “If we can find out his reasons, then we can get ahead of him and try to stop him by using his method of operation against him…”

Tony stopped talking while looking at some of the photos, and he seemed to notice something in one of them. He sat upright and grabbed a magnifying glass off his desk and stared a little closer into the picture he had in his hand.

“Damn, this doesn’t look good.” Tony dropped what he had back onto his desk. “I’m going out to assemble the rest of our team. Read the rest of this file and get up to speed while I’m gone. I want you to know everything about Xavier Carter and be ready to brief us all when we get back. Are you okay with that, Wilson?”

“Crystal clear, D.” Wilson said, giving him a half assed salute.

He may have been not too sincere with his respect, but he knew Tony enough to know when he was in the zone and ready to get back to work. Wilson quickly grabbed the dossier and started to file through it. He also determined that he was going to need a board and some thumb tacks to start putting together a strategic outline and was eager to get started on that as well. Wilson knew this was going to be one hell of a chase, especially with Tony D leading the way. He was going to do whatever he could to help because Wilson knew it was a team effort that brought the creeps in every time. Tony would never admit it, but he knew it as well.