2-3-4 Challenge Book Discussions #2 discussion

When Chad is identified, the ATF agents tried to block the FBI from letting Truman know Mercy was in trouble. Did they have any justification at this point for taking that position? Your overall thoughts about the situation?

I was aggravated that her life was in danger and they were too secretive. I was concerned that someone in the alphabet groups was on the take, or otherwise corrupt.

The only reason I could think that they wouldn't tell Truman is the ATF was afraid the more people who knew about Mercy's undercover work, the more danger she was in.

Since he was law enforcement and trusted by the FBI, I think they should have told him without prompting.

The reason I assumed they didn’t want Truman is know is because they were afraid he’d be a loose cannon. He could potentially go off on his own and ruin their entire operation.

These people were nuts. Truman was her fiancé and deserved to know her life was now at risk. It didn’t matter that he might be a loose cannon...they needed to manage that. And, he was law enforcement and knew better than most the need to protect her identity.

Their behavior further reinforced their ineptitude. They’d lost an agent and didn’t even know it. They had a lousy system in place for contact with no regular check-ins for that purpose. Mercy wasn’t even their agent so they had no right to this decision. Kudos to Jeff and Eddie who ignored them.

I'm with you Jonetta. Truman is a fellow officer. He can be trusted.

The fact that they were trying to keep Truman out of the loop, is because they know they made a mistake. They left Mercy without any backup or escape route. If anything happened to her there was a good case for a law suit. It was a good thing that the FBI showed up.

Do you think it was a power thing ... mine’s bigger than yours!!!

Teresa, I think it was purely a CYA move. They’d mismanaged this thing from the start and even their efforts to fix it were flawed. Keeping Mercy’s family out of it gave them, in their silly minds, some time to find her before they had to tell them she was in trouble.

I'm not sure officially how this would usually work with agents and their partners. I guess because Truman was in law enforcement you would think he would have been told more but maybe there are protocols about that sort of thing.

The whole operation seemed pretty inept and not well thought out to be honest.