John headed toward the door, “These kids don’t have three days. If this pedophile club is expecting a delivery from Los Angeles on Monday, some kids are going to come up missing sometime today or tomorrow. That’s just the delivery we know about.”
John left and Roger looked at Paul, “I’m going to call Core. Core wants his family. He’ll work with us. We can’t secure Core’s family at the field office, and I need what’s left of our team on this sicko club. Call Mass and see how fast we can get Core’s wife and daughter in Witness Protection.”
Mass said he would start the process of getting Lisa and Jamie into the program. Paul asked Mass to send Simon Frost and Nelson back to the Star Ship to focus on Patterson. Paul’s phone rang.
It was Ray. “By the way, our dead guy, Devon, has been moving his money into Core’s corporate account over the last half hour. Got a bunch coming in from Patterson, too. All from the Caymans. I’m up to over 300 million and growing.”
Paul whistled and looked at Roger, “Core has been moving Devon and Patterson’s money to his corporate account. He has over 300 million there now, and it’s still coming.”
Roger had just hung up from talking to Core, “Core will be here in half an hour. Ellen will be here to help.”
Tourey hit print and pushed his chair away from his desk. He rolled across the room to grab a binder from his bookshelf and started flipping through it. Somewhere he had a code for the secure FBI database on missing children. He had hidden the code on the back of a photo of a missing child in what looked like a family photo album. He replaced the binder after searching about ten minutes and pulled another down. There. He found it. He rolled back to his computer, entered the FBI National Crime Information Center website, and entered his code. The site reported that in 2011 alone there were 780,000 children reported missing. An increase of 480 percent over 2009.
He filtered his search for missing children, last five years, and in the cities where the sicko club had branches. Tourey watched the revolving curser spin. Finally the search revealed 497,000 children still listed as missing. He filtered this data with the tag words ‘art contest’. This would only sort out those children missing where the investigating officers had entered the words ‘art contest’, but at least it was something. The cursor spun again. Three thousand six hundred and twenty. Shit.
Tourey searched for unidentified murdered children in the same cities. Twenty two thousand and ten. He moaned and rubbed his temples in frustration. Normally his CIA undercover position didn’t put him in contact with these statistics. It was a staggering growth in abduction numbers. What was happening? Now to figure out how to match a body found in one city to the missing kids of another. Unfortunately less than five percent of the missing children had DNA registered in the national database. Tourey shook his head. Certainly with today’s technology we could implement a better system. It was easier to find our pets with implanted chips, and an established, accessible national ID base.
Tourey’s cell phone rang. He leaned back in his chair, and welcomed the distraction from his computer. He looked at his caller ID and put on his Nawlens voice.
“Hey Spicey. What can I do for ya?”
Spicey answered, “‘Member you asked me if I knew anyone worked around that retired Senator Rolland Kenny or Judge Williams?”
Tourey answered, “Yeah.”
Spicy continued, “The lady that used to clean for Bernard Jacobs? ‘Member he torched his place over on Burgundy Street? She just got a job cleanin’ for Senator Kenny. Both his city place and country house. I’m thinkin’ she can do some spyin’ for ya as long as she don’t realize she’s doin’ it.”
Tourey liked the sound of that, but he was sure her access to the country house would be pretty limited. With what the sicko club planned on doing at the country house, they wouldn’t have people coming and going. Tourey asked, “When is she supposed to start workin’ at the country house?”
“Wilma said the Senator told her it would be a few weeks yet on that country house. Meantime, he paid her two weeks in advance, and she starts at the house in town next Monday. He’s havin’ his driver pick her up and take her home. Only has to do that country place once a week. City house’ll be most every day. We were thinkin’ bout taking a little ride out to that country place to just check it out some.”
Tourey sat up straight. William Patterson was hiding at the country house. “That’s a bad idea. Trust me. You stay away from there for now. I’ll tell you when it’s okay.”
Spicey was quiet a minute, then said, “I don’t see what harm there be in drivin’ by.” She waited for a response and then realized Tourey had hung up.
Spicey looked at Sasha, “Must still be trouble with some phones. I’ll put a call to Willie and see if he be willin’ to drive us out by that country house. Just a nice little motor ride. You call Wilma and tell her we gonna pick her up shortly. Ain’t doing much business today anyhow with all the police drivin’ around.” Sasha clapped her hands in excitement. Spicey walked over to the door, flipped the sign to closed, and turned off the neon light that said ‘House of Voodoo’. Ain’t no man gonna be tellin’ her where she can and can’t go.
Ellen asked us to meet her at the secured Navy yard where the confiscated boat was docked. When we arrived, she was sitting on a deck chair, sipping lemonade. She had the cutest short set on and a red sweat band around her forehead. “Well, your instructors said your mortal minds are messing with their equipment. They hope you guys are ready, but nobody is making any bets. The way I see it, we have a couple of things on our side. Most mortals have experienced dejavu.” Ellen chuckled, “I’ve caused my fair share of that! All that means is if you mess something up, freeze time and go back and fix what you can. Mortals will have a vague sense of familiarity to a situation but there’s no real harm.” We were all nodding like we totally got it. I was thinking, there are going to be a lot of frozen people in New Orleans. She was actually talking like we knew what she meant!
Ellen frowned at me and continued, “Also, most mortals believe that animals can sense things humans can’t. You may need to present yourself to a mortal for any number of reasons. The use of animal images may help you.” Ellen looked at me, “You have to be very aware that your imagination may affect the others. Especially when deciding to turn into animals. At least try to keep your animal choices limited to animals that make sense to the mortal’s current environment.”
Ellen smiled, “If you HAVE to communicate with a mortal you must go through Kim but you can show yourself as an animal. Like I talk to Roger as a cat. I’m not sure you are going to need this skill, but Granny thought you might. The memory gaps are the most serious skill you were given, and I want you to think very hard before you use them. If you point your watch at a human and touch that top gold button, they are going to forget the most recent three thoughts they had. It would help if you tried to read their minds before just zapping them.”
Ellen leaned in to talk to us, “You guys are going to be on your own for a while. Even Betty questions her skills being of any help from here on. I will be very busy with Roger and the Director. I’m thinking that if I run into a problem I don’t have time for, I’ll just call on all of you.”
I didn’t like the sound of this.
Mary had a very thoughtful look on her face and was twiddling her thumbs. Finally she said, “I can’t think of any reason we would ever need to turn into animals.”
Teresa offered, “Maybe we would need to scare a mortal away from danger or something.”
Ellen looked surprised, “You know, I can see that being useful! Just be sure your animal choice is appropriate.” Dang. I was starting to think this was the skill I would have the most fun with. Maybe I could pop into Kim’s house as a giraffe. That would crack her up! Everyone was staring at me. Oops.
Linda asked, “What do you want us to do now?”
Ellen answered, “Other than Patterson, retired Senator Rolland Kenny, the gallery owner Theodore Cha
in, Andre Baton from Loyola University, and Judge Harold Williams are the remaining members of this pedophile club in New Orleans. Roger needs a lot of information fast if he is going to capture them before any children are harmed. They have already arranged for five children to be kidnapped and delivered by Monday.”
We were all shaking our heads at how sick some mortals could be. Ellen continued, “Remember the cameras you wore on your heads to record the guns and ammunition at the docks?” We all nodded. “Now I want you to wear them all the time in case there is something you need to record for Roger.” Great. Now we are going to look like a bunch of flying miners.
Ellen frowned, “I need you to search their computers for where they store their club information. You can download to your watches and get that info to Roger. These guys communicate with the other branches of this club somehow. Maybe we can get those names to Roger too. We actually need the network of people who are taking these kids. A list of the kidnappers.” Ellen stood and stretched, “I really need to get going, but I also want you to visit the country house where Senator Kenny told Patterson he could hide. Remember?” We all nodded.
Ellen smiled, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I trust your judgment. Call me after you have all the information. Then we will get it to Roger.” Ellen disappeared. We stood looking at each other.
I had a thought, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t want to go off snooping on my own.”
Linda smiled when she said, “You’re just worried you will get lost.” I started to protest and decided what the heck. She’s right. I am going to get lost. Oh well. They can just spend their time trying to find me! Good luck with that. I could be a bird…a plane…a
Teresa frowned, “I think she forgot we can read her mind.” I did.
Mary asked, “Why don’t we break into teams? That’s faster than hunting down Vicki in New Orleans.” Oh crap. I’m going to be the last one picked again. They’ll probably do rock, paper, scissors. Mary said, “I’ll take Vicki and we’ll start with the judge.” Huh. Linda and Teresa said they were going to the University dude’s house.
Flying to the courthouse, I asked Mary, “Why did you pick me? I thought I made you nervous?”
Mary started laughing, “You do, but you also get some good ideas. If we get in a mess, I want your devious mind on my team!” I think that was a compliment!
The Director of the FBI pulled on his face with his hands and then pressed the intercom button on his phone. He had just spoken with Roger and was now ready to meet with Thornton. “William? Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your call. I can meet with you now.”
Less than five minutes passed. Thornton tapped on the Director’s door and sat down heavily in the visitor chair. The Director looked up from his papers and offered up a forced smile. It took all of his control to keep from leaping across the desk and punching Thornton in the face. The day he would be able to tell Thornton he had proof he had poisoned him, arranged the delivery of ninety tons of weapons shipped from Algiers in an FBI protected ship, and had connections with Thomas Fenley and two drug Cartels would be the best day of his career.
The Director leaned back and decided to have at least a little fun with Thornton. “I am at liberty to tell you now that martial law was declared in New Orleans last night.”
The Deputy Director nodded, “I heard that. One of the reasons I wanted to meet with you was to find out why I hadn’t been advised of this in advance. What brought this about anyway? Martial law? What happened?”
The Director tapped his pen on a file folder, “CIA and OSI got the martial law thing done. Roger stumbled into more stuff at the port than your little gun sting with Zelez Cartel. I guess everyone decided it was as good a time as any to expand the trap. Roger is working on a plan to not just catch whoever picks up these guns but to break the entire Zelez Cartel.”
Thornton was rubbing his chin, “Really? Roger Dance is going to bring down the entire Zelez Cartel? Just how does he propose to do that?”
The Director almost started laughing, he knew how his next comment would register with Thornton. “The real reason they declared martial law was to implement a communication sting. All calls, including government bands, have been monitored since eight thirty last night. We have over one thousand communication techs from four agencies picking through captured calls based on our key word triggers. This is the most comprehensive communication sting ever initiated by the United States government.”
Thornton actually went pale. The Director didn’t say any more, and Thornton eventually asked, “Why include secure government bands?”
The Director continued, “Roger wanted to follow any money coming and going and needed those federal banking codes. I guess at some point these bands all go through the same security filter, and it was just faster and easier not to separate them. We thought. It appears there has been some kind of breach of some security code that directly affected the accounts at French Quarter Bank, and well….it’s a mess.”
Thornton was noticeably uncomfortable. He wanted to find out what the Director knew without asking too many questions. “Well, when will we know what he found out? What are we supposed to do now? Just wait for Dance to let us in on his plan?”
The Director forced himself not to chuckle. Thornton was coming unglued. Those calls he made to Fenley and Core didn’t look good at all and would be impossible to explain. “Well, like I said, some of this didn’t go exactly like we expected. Something interfered with the central information system (CIS), specific to the bank, and managed to corrupt a lot of account numbers. That has to be fixed. We probably lost some valuable call information from the early hours of the sting.”
Thornton nodded. That explained why the Director didn’t seem to know about Fenley, Manio, and himself. They certainly didn’t know of their connection to LUCY. Also, it meant Dance was going to be busy working on something to take out Zelez. This could actually be good news. “I know I didn’t share the information about the weapons sting with you, but I really didn’t think it would be that big a deal. We had it covered well.”
The Director could feel the heat rising on his neck, “Just how did you arrange a deal with the Zelez Cartel anyway?”
Thornton answered, “We have used an outside guy for stuff like this for years. Mathew Core. Actually Dance has messed this up pretty well when you think about it. I had this all set. We would have taken out Zelez’s key man in New Orleans tomorrow.”
The Director cleared his throat and said, “Roger wants Zelez. Not his key men. He says he knows how to bring down the whole cartel. I don’t know if he will use Core or not. Roger likes to work with a tight team. His own.”
Thornton stood to leave, “I appreciate you bringing me up to speed. I don’t think it is a secret that I am not as big a fan of Dance as you are. You might start re-thinking your assessment of him in light of this fiasco. Messed up sting, messed up banking numbers, an entire city under siege. For what? Because Dance didn’t want someone else getting credit for a bust? Might be you’re getting played, buddy.”
The Director looked Thornton in the eyes, “Smart money says that’s a bad idea.” He knew damn well who was playing him. Thornton shook his head, gave a sneer and left the office. The Director pushed his chair from his desk and stood. He stretched his back and rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t wait to bring down that arrogant bastard!
Willie pulled in front of the Voodoo shop and hit the air horn he had installed on his car. It sounded like a cruise ship. Spicey jumped from the sudden loud sound and looked out the window. She saw a long, dark burgundy 1991 Fleetwood Cadillac waiting. Willie was at the wheel wearing a wide brimmed hat, smilin’ from ear to ear and wavin’. He said he had himself a new car he needed to test drive. Weren’t new, but sure was shiny!
Spicey yelled to Sasha who was in the back, “Best you move it girl. We got ourselves a real fancy ride a waitin’.” Spicey put her pistol in her purse and grabbed a few twenties
out of the cash register.
Sasha was all smiles when she walked into the room, “This was such a good idea to take a ride in the country. ‘Specially today with all this cop stuff goin’ on. Wilma’s all excited, said she’d be waitin’ on the corner by her house. She never seen this place ‘fore.” Sasha looked in the small mirror on the wall and fluffed her hair some on the sides. “You think I should get my colors touched up some? This purple stripe is startin’ to look like the pink one.”
Spicey gave her a good look, “Yeah. Getting’ so it’s hard to tell them are stripes. Looks like somebody done ran past ya with a couple of snow cones.”
Sasha giggled, “We don’t all have behavin’ hair like you. I need a little somethin’ extree so people don’t look at my ears.”
Spicey laughed, “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with your ears, ‘cept ya don’t listen with ‘em.”
Willie honked the horn again and Sasha jumped. “What kind of horn he got? Sounds like a big boat!”
Spicey waved Sasha out, locked the door, and pointed to the back seat. “You and Wilma ride in the back okay? I get car sick if I don’t have a front seat.” Sasha rolled her eyes, crawled in the back, and said hi to Willie.
“Hot dang, this here back seat like a whole couch! This leather feelin’ like a baby’s butt.” Sasha giggled, “You look like you sittin’ a whole block ahead of me. How big is this car anyway?”
Willie chuckled and waited for Spicey to snap her seat belt before he pulled from the curb. The car gave a belch and lunged forward. Willie hung on, and Spicey had her nostrils flared. “You been eating fried chicken? I’m smellin’ fried chicken.” Sasha was sniffin’ and lookin’ around the back seat.
Willie laughed, “This here’s my new ‘speriment. Car runs on fryin’ grease. I get free grease from Otis’s place. Little tinkerin’ here and there and I don’t need to buy no gasoline no more.”
Silent Crickets: A Shallow End Gals, Trilogy Book Three Page 3