by Tom Haase
For his failure to warn the heads of the trafficking group, an explosion in his house had killed him along with his wife. Eddie assumed the man’s demise resulted from him pissing off the organization to which he reported police activity. The police hadn’t been able to make a successful raid in a few years on the brothels, and that scumbag dutifully made sure the criminals escaped any pre-planned police raids. His predecessor supposedly failed to report in advance the devastating raid the police planned to conduct that destroyed the entire gang operations and neutralized the brothels. He then received the gang’s punishment for his serious omission.
Eddie opened the desk drawers and pulled the trashcan over. One by one he emptied the contents into the basket after taking a cursory look. Nothing of importance appeared in his examination. Most of the items were ancient. The man hadn’t ever cleaned it, and perhaps a handful of the material had been there even before Lieutenant Kent Grant had occupied the desk.
In the last drawer, he found a key. It occupied a place at the bottom of the drawer and had been placed in the back with tape holding it against the rear wood panel. He did not know to what it belonged but decided not to throw it in the trash. A sixth sense told him to discover the secret of the key.
At the door to the captain’s office, he stopped and looked in. The captain rose from his desk and started toward the door heading out. When Eddie entered, the captain stood ramrod straight and erect with salt and pepper hair. He displayed a no-nonsense aura at all times. Eddie believed him to be in his early fifties, and the man possessed penetrating gray eyes. When he looked up, he saw Eddie.
“What’s up, lieutenant?” he asked.
“I’m still getting used to being called lieutenant.”
“That’s why I addressed you in that manner, Eddie. Get used to it. You earned it,” the captain said. “Anything new on the drug trade thing?”
“Not yet. But I hope you don’t expect instant results. I’ve only been on this job a few hours.”
“I know. Just got to push you. Get me something soon.”
“I’m planning to do that. I cleared out the desk of my predecessor.” He decided not to mention his contact with Chuck McGregor.
“Good. Find anything there?” asked the captain.
“No, threw the old junk in the trash. Have a clean desk now. There’s one thing I found. It’s this key.” He held it for the captain to see.
“Oh, that. I forgot to tell you. Now you’re a lieutenant, there’s a locker downstairs, which you can use for things you need to store here. Check it and I’ll bet the key fits a lock there.”
“Okay, captain. Will do. Thanks.”
Eddie headed downstairs in the headquarters building. He found the area where a group of wire cages occupied a far corner in the basement. There were ten small-wired cages with locks. Eddie looked, and most had names on the front, but four didn’t. He tried the key in the ones without a name. The last lock popped when he inserted the key and turned it.
Inside, he found loose files in a cardboard box. On one sheet of paper he discovered a list of phone numbers presumably put there by his predecessor. The local numbers he recognized as belonging to the organization he had helped to destroy. No number appeared for Ramon. So, Grant hadn’t known about him nor obtained his cell number. That was good. The one number that caught his attention was the only one not local. The number had a Miami area code. The most probable explanation that came to his mind was that this could be the contact number for the people who ran the organization. It could possibly be the number he called to provide early warning before any raid.
Eddie didn’t know which, so he took time to consider his options. There were two that popped into his mind. These were counterintuitive in many respects and involved what anyone would consider double crossing scenarios.
On the one hand, if he could hook up with the Miami organization by taking the place of their deceased informant, he would, without doubt, reach his goal of early retirement a lot quicker. If he continued along that road, he would make sure no one, specifically the Miami group would ever find out who he was, and he would never let them find out his identity.
On the other hand, he could continue to receive the five percent he had worked out with Ramon for his help. Last month, he had been in the Cayman Islands on his yearly scuba diving vacation. While there, he set up an offshore banking account with money Ramon had sent with him to deposit into the new account. The money belonged to Ramon, but he controlled the access. Ramon told him he wanted it returned next month.
The situation appeared to be perfect, at least for the time being. Eddie might double dip if he set it up correctly. He closed up the cage and departed police headquarters. The phone call he contemplated had to be from a burner cell and made a distance from his office for safety, and just in case the NSA monitored the call. He remembered what happened during the last operation with the help of an NSA consultant.
Yes, he decided as he walked to his car, he could do it, and he would do it. After purchasing a new burner, he drove to a local park and dialed the phone number retrieved from the basement cage.
13
Tasha Alexandrovitch, the Tsarina, heard her cell ring. On checking the display, she didn’t recognize the caller. She assumed it was a telemarketer or the likes. She ignored it. After thirty seconds, the same number appeared on her phone as it rang again. Pesky little bastard, she mused. On the fourth ring, she pushed talk on her phone.
“Who are you?” she demanded. This would be a short call, and she would tell them to take her name and number off their list.
“You don’t get my name. I, however, have a proposition for you in Savannah, Georgia. Are you interested?” A male voice responded to her question.
“Interesting opening conversation line. Why should I even talk to you?”
“As I have your private number, you must assume certain facts. I wouldn’t call unless I have something to offer. I believe you would be willing to pay for my information. I will never give you my name or position as that fool Kent Grant did. On the other hand, I can give you the same information he could. I can do it in a more responsible way. No screw-ups corresponding to the one he made on the night you lost your entire organization in this city.”
The man didn’t speak for a good half minute. It gave her time to think. She positively needed a replacement for Grant in Savannah. This was a fortuitous call, and she might want to take advantage. This one was a lot cagier than the previous. She needed more information.
“How am I to trust who you are what you say you are?”
“You can’t, and we will never meet. I’ll promise you equal or better information than you received previously. I want the same terms and conditions Grant got before you bombed him out of existence. I’m looking at his records, so I know what you paid them.”
He said it, so he was in possession of a document that gave him the information, about both the officer and his wife. Stupid Grant must have written the numbers and payments down, and this man now had them. No problem as long as it remained a long distance arrangement. He ostensibly had figured out a system to ensure he would stay veiled. She would probe him.
“Say, I’m interested. You will provide information on any police moves against my interests there. Can you do that?”
“I can.”
“I also want you to get information on the new gang attempting to set up here. They attacked my shipment from the Bahamas, and that cost me. I don’t want to have it happen again. Get one of those gang members and interrogate him. Find out about their organization. Everything about it.”
“I’m not in the enforcement mode. I can’t deal with them for you,” Eddie said to cut her off before she ordered him to do something he wouldn’t do.
“No, you misunderstand. I have assets that will handle the gang. I only need the whereabouts and who to take care of. You do this in a week, and you’ll get double for your first payment. How do we communicate?”
“I’ll call
you with a new burner I’ll get every few days. On the next phone, I’ll text the bank number to use for me. Then I’ll get another one and text you the account number at the bank and so on.”
“You are being super careful. I respect that. It means you understand what you are doing and I can trust someone who does.”
There was a long silence. She broke it after a minute.
“What about my drugs?”
“They ended up inside a man’s house when the boat your man used crashed there. The occupant had nothing to do with the assault on your goods. I believe I can find out who did this to you, but it will be dangerous. By the way, if you don’t know, the man turned the drugs over to the police when he found them in his house. I tried to keep them, but there were reporters outside who saw the case of drugs going into my car. No way I can make them disappear just yet.”
“By yet, you mean it might be possible? And thank you for the information on the shipment.”
“Yet means possible, but unlikely. I tried to take them, but when the papers reported on the drugs, I had to put them in the evidence room. They are in police custody right now. I’ll be watching to see if it can be done without leaving a trail.”
“What’s your name?”
“Scipio.”
“A clever code name. You call yourself Scipio after the great Roman general who defeated Hannibal. Okay, Scipio, I’ll call you that, and as of now, you are on the payroll. Send me the account and your first funds will be there tomorrow. Goodbye.”
After she hung up, she had a smile on her face. This was the serendipitous event she needed. She now had an asset in Savannah to replace the old one, and this one sounded like he was on the ball. She understood his need for secrecy and would only identify him if needed. He had to be a police officer. No doubt about it in her mind.
Eddie almost shouted with joy as he placed the burner back on the seat in the car. He had held back on telling any more on Ramon’s operation and the way he had helped in intercepting the Bahamian shipment. Not a good thing to tell your new employer you assisted in intercepting her first shipment to Savannah and having her speedboat attacked. They had bungled it, or he might not have made this call. Ramon was a small-time operator, and this Tsarina was big time. He decided he would go big time, but play both sides for the present.
He had overheard two druggies speaking in a holding cell a week ago. One had been hired to pick up the shipment and needed to get out to pick it up. He specified that he was getting involved in a new gang and needed to retrieve the load in two days. He mentioned the time of its scheduled arrival at the Savannah River docks. That told Eddie it was coming in by boat on that date and time, resulting in a quick calculation for intercepting the boat by Ramon’s men. They had royally messed it up and had failed to retrieve the drugs.
At this juncture, Eddie thought the lady must be pleased. She now had acquired a new asset to replace the lost team with a new mole inside the police force.
14
Eddie departed Chuck’s place carrying the box containing the drugs. At the moment he exited the house, a reporter from the Savannah Morning News confronted him. She monitored the police frequencies and learned about a shooting event. She had arrived when he did to investigate the circumstances.
“Officer, who was involved in the shooting here? Was anyone shot or killed?”
“I’m Lieutenant Gordon, and I received a call to come here to take possession of drugs the homeowner found. A boat hit his house the other day. A shooter in a boat killed the driver of the crashed boat. The homeowner found this package and called in the possibility of it being drugs. I came over to investigate and have taken possession of what I estimate is a million dollars’ worth of heroin.”
“What happened here tonight with shots reported?”
“The owner defended his property when two men broke in and attempted to steal the drugs. A full report will be available once I have completed it,” Eddie said.
“Was anyone killed?”
“The homeowner killed the two men who broke into his house. That’s it for now,” Eddie concluded. It pleased him this journalist would report what happened here and it would get Chuck off the hook as far as having the drugs.
Eddie dialed Chuck as he headed back to his office. “No one will come after you again for the drugs. There’s always the possibility that men would come after you for killing their cohorts, but I considered that a slim possibility now the drugs are in police custody. You did well tonight, and your actions justified the shooting. My report will clear you on that score. Talk soon.”
He smiled inwardly and drove on to police headquarters. The drugs were in his care for now, but he had a new idea of how to solve the problem of getting the drugs to Ramon if he decided to do it. In his mind, the likelihood of doing that seemed to be getting farther away with each passing hour after the conversation he’d had with the Tsarina. He headed back to the station, and after the conclusion of his shift, he left for his home after he turned in the drugs to evidence.
Chuck found himself in a moral quandary. Those drugs had led so far to the death of two men inside his place and one on the river. They were likely to lead to many more if the people trying to establish a distribution center in Savannah succeeded. He felt the compass inside himself swing toward doing the right thing and not staying on the sideline as an observer.
The captain and the AG had asked for his help. He couldn’t stand by and let them destroy his house again. If this was the start of a new drug ring moving into his city, his sense of duty demanded he must assist at least as a private citizen with no police powers. He would get the information and let the cops do the heavy work. That appealed to him at this moment, particularly after experiencing the events of tonight. He had to deal with these people, and he possessed the skills to engage them in this limited type of combat but not in a full-scale drug war scenario. The cops had the proper weapons with the right firepower to conduct those operations.
Combat was something with which he had an intimate familiarity. Death always accompanied a battle, and he surely had his fair share of that in the hills of Afghanistan. He never felt guilt or anxiety when engaging enemy combatants on the battlefield, but drug dealers in his hometown were a different matter. He flashed back to his last combat patrol. An ISIS sniper almost ended his life. Fortunately, the bullet hit his rifle, and it deflected the round into his shoulder. The hurt instantly flamed through his body, and he collapsed. The medic on his team patched him up as best he could, and they medevac’d him to a field hospital.
During his recuperation, he concluded he’d lost focus and staying in the army would possibly get his men killed. The time had arrived for him to move on. He loved the military, but his men had to come first. He felt in his bones the urgency for him to start anew. He had served his time and done his duty. With great regret, but with a certainty of purpose and clarity of mind, he resigned and returned to civilian life.
A week after he separated, his father had died and left him twenty million dollars from the hedge fund he managed. The old man had always chided him for entering the military instead of coming to work with him at his business, but that would never happen now. In truth, that life held no interest for him. His father was never home and seemed to always be away on business trips. Chuck never heard where he went or why, but after his mother passed years before there was always plenty of money around for anything he wanted.
When he returned to the States, he wanted to strike out and find his path. The return to his hometown initiated the process for him. He felt he had made the right decision in returning to the city of his birth. In his heart, he believed he was setting up a new life and, so far, he liked his new civilian life.
When he separated from service, he had spent a week in Washington, D.C. seeing old friends and saying goodbye to many. He also used this time to collect a small arsenal of personal weapons he might need in the future. It’s always hard for a combat soldier to leave the instruments of his trad
e behind. This little stash of arms satisfied his needs to have the means to protect himself and his property.
Savannah contained many memories of his high school days, community college years and even the disastrous marriage to Sherry. He had spent the first week in Savannah in a drunken stupor, spending the days on Tybee Beach and the nights downing vodka. The only food he consumed consisted of cereals and milk. He knew he had lost his way and searched for a way to get out of his funk.
Then one day on the beach, he encountered two thugs pulling a young girl off the beach against her will. That started him on the road to recovery and on a mission to find the girl and possibly be able to help her. He managed to find her and eventually got her free of the brothel where she was held in captivity–forced to work in the sex trade. But then it went to hell. The human trafficking organization recaptured the girl. Their actions provided the incentive needed to turn his life around and get it back on a useful track. He led a group of former soldiers and marines that he assembled to help him destroy the trafficking organization. In so doing, he earned the respect of the AG and the police in Savannah.
Chuck realized the cops still needed his help as a person not wearing a badge, and he was someone not bound by constant oversight or regulations. That role fitted him to a T, and he felt he must follow his gut and help in discovering what was happening in his city regarding the drug trade. Maybe he couldn’t stop the people engaged in drug trafficking, but he felt a duty to try.
His tentative decision about not getting involved wasn’t final. His moral compass began to rear its head and to intrude on his thoughts about what he should do. As a result of this rethink, he would put off the final decision for a while.
Now, if he decided to get involved, and he believed he might, he needed a plan of action.
15