by Jack Ambraw
“The first one was sent 1314 local time,” Lee said. “The second one was 1319. Which means it couldn’t have been Pinto. He was having lunch with me.”
Hack leaned back in his chair. “Then who sent them?”
Lee looked around the office, her eyes beginning to tear. “He promised me he’d stop.”
“You keep saying that. Who are you talking about?”
“It’s complicated,” Lee said. She grabbed the phonebook on her desk. “Let’s call the investigator who you said came to the ship.”
“I have no idea what his number is. I lost the business card he gave me.” Hack walked over and knelt in front of Lee. “What’s going on? You’re beginning to scare me.”
Lee ignored the question. “Okay, let me call my supervisor. He needs to know about the requisitions anyway.”
“You sure it’s okay to call him at home?”
“I have before,” Lee said. “He doesn’t mind if it’s important and this is important.” She picked up the phone and paused before dialing and turned to Hack. “I also have other news.”
“What is it?”
“I got my official orders today. I’m leaving in three months.”
Hack stood and kissed her. “Let’s not think about it now. We still have three months to be together.”
Lee put her hand on Hack’s face. “Okay, I just wanted you to be the first to know.” She turned to the phone. “Now let me make the call. He’ll be interested to know that the Harvey ordered two of these parts today. It’ll raise some huge red flags.”
“It won’t raise anything,” a voice behind them announced. They turned and saw Commander Doerr standing in the doorway holding a .45 pistol in his right hand. “Put the phone down, Lee, and back away, Wilson. I hate to have to do this. You’re good sailors, but I’ve recently become aware of the black market scheme you’re running.”
“You’re crazy, Bob” Lee said. “Don’t point that thing at me.”
The commander shook his head. “I have all the evidence. Bogus requisition messages. Lists of missing parts. Eyewitness accounts of your boyfriend visiting known black market operators in Olongapo.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” Hack said. “The police know about you.”
“I don’t believe you,” the commander said. He pointed the barrel of the gun towards the office door. “Now we’re going out the back way. Lee, honey, you go first since you know the way. I’ll be right behind you with a gun on you guys in case you think of trying anything stupid.”
“Honey?” Hack looked at Lee, but she just turned and walked quietly out of the office, leading the trio single file through the maze of pallets and boxes of supplies arranged in orderly rows.
“It’s dark in here,” Hack said. “I hope you know where we’re going.”
“I usually have the lights on,” Lee whispered.
“Shut up, you two,” the commander ordered.
They continued walking through the aisle, cautiously making their way across the deserted warehouse. A few feet from the end of a row of supplies stacked nearly to the ceiling on pallets, the commander stopped abruptly. “Hold up. And be quiet.”
They listened intently. Only the sound of a distant crane moving along a pier broke the silence of the warehouse.
“It’s just your imagination,” Lee whispered. “Or a rat running wild in the building.”
The commander exhaled. “You’re probably right. Keep walking.”
When they reached the end of the aisle, the commander halted in a spot that was lit by pole lights shining through the windows. He pointed the gun directly at Hack. “The way I see it, I have two choices,” Suppo said. “One, I could turn you guys in. It will be obvious you were the ones behind the black market business. Who are they going to believe? A commander or junior enlisted sailors? Or, two, I could shoot both of you right now. Either way I’d be in the clear.” He pulled a small revolver out of his back pocket. “I’ll plant this gun on you. I’ll tell the police I knew you were involved. I came here looking for you. You threatened me. ‘I had to shoot, sir. It was self defense.’ They would all believe me.”
Through the dim light, Hack watched as the commander began laughing nervously, dropping the gun to his side. Hack saw an opening. He lunged towards the commander who instinctively put his shoulder into the sailor, knocking him to ground. The commander smiled at Lee and then at Hack on the deck, pointing the gun at Hack’s chest, his finger slowly squeezing the trigger. “I told you to cooperate, but you didn’t listen.”
The instant the flash of explosives erupted from the gun, a large beast shot out from behind the pallets to the left of the commander. Suppo caught a glimpse of the figure in his peripheral vision and flinched a half step to his right. Mo hit the deck with a thud, a perfectly executed belly flop on the concrete pavement.
Vega instinctively sprang into action. She sidestepped Decker and sprinted towards the commander, lunging towards him while he stared at Mo prone on the deck. She drove the full force of her weight into Suppo’s left side, sending his weapon careening across the floor.
The commander recovered from the body blow and kneed Vega in the ribs. She dropped to her hands and knees gasping for breath and crawling towards the weapon. Decker sprinted and slid face down across the concrete, desperately reaching for the gun. But Suppo was too quick. He pulled his spare revolver from his pocket a split second before Decker could grab the pistol.
“Don’t move,” the commander said, slowly standing, surveying the surroundings. He looked at Lee giving first aid to Hack. “Get away from him, sweetheart.”
“He needs help!”
“Just back away from him.”
Lee inched away, keeping her focus on Hack, while the supply officer aimed his pistol at her.
“Drop the gun,” a voice behind the commander ordered.
Suppo wheeled around. He stared at Biff and Dave with their guns drawn.
“Drop it,” Biff commanded. “You have no way to escape. The building’s surrounded. Put the gun down now!”
A stillness enveloped the warehouse. Everyone waiting on the commander’s next move. He started to drop his weapon, but instead turned towards Biff and the Dave, his gun still raised.
Two shots pierced the silence. The supply officer stumbled backwards three steps and fell to the deck with a thud.
Lee rushed to Hack’s side, kneeling to begin first aid.
“How’s he doing?” Biff asked, removing a small walkie-talkie from his pocket to call for an ambulance.
“I put pressure on the bleeding.” She lowered her head to Hack’s face. “And he’s still breathing.”
“Okay, good. We’ll take over first aid from here. You guys wait in the office,” Biff said. “We’ll get your friend to the hospital. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t call anyone. Wait for us.”
“Yes, sir,” Decker said, standing to look at Lee, Vega, and Mo. The three friends took one last survey of the scene, and then slowly walked down the aisle towards the office. Vega put an arm around a sobbing Lee.
“Looks like it’s going to be a long night,” Decker said.
Mo shook his head. “Great.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
1310, Sunday, March 2
She sat on the edge of the bed watching Hack breathe, then reached up and brushed the hair away from his forehead. “Hey, how’re you feeling? I hope you can hear me. I wanted to see you before the others get here. I feel really bad about what happened.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead.
The sound of Decker’s voice in the hallway startled her. Vega jumped from the bed and scurried to a chair a few feet away.
A moment later Decker strolled through the door with Lee and Agent McCoy, a.k.a. Biff, in tow, each one holding a coffee cup. “Hack, don’t tell me you have late sleepers again,” Decker said, finding a chair at
the far end of the bed.
Agent McCoy followed and sat in a chair next to Vega.
Lee walked over and stood next to the bed. She glared at the police officer. “What are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to the head?”
“I did use the restroom,” Vega said. “But I didn’t feel like waiting on you guys to finish eating. I decided to come up here, and the nurse said I could come on in.”
Lee sat on the bed next to Hack, watching his body twitch as he awakened. He slowly opened his eyes, startled that someone was sitting next to him holding his hand.
“Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?” Lee whispered.
Hack looked up at her and a smile spread across his face. “I’m doing okay.” He glanced around the room and focused on Decker. “Where am I?” And then at McCoy. He tried to push himself to a sitting position. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hey, don’t get up,” Decker said. “You’re hooked up to all kinds of stuff. You’re at the Subic Bay Naval Base Hospital. And this here is Special Agent McCoy from the Naval Security and Investigative Command.”
“We meet again,” McCoy said. “The guy you refer to as ‘Dave’ is my partner, Reed McGruder. It’s nice to have new nicknames. We’re usually called Old Mac and Young Mac. He’s on the Harvey now, but you’ll meet him later today.”
“How long have you guys been here?” asked Hack. “I woke up this morning and no one was here.”
“We’ve been here all night,” Decker said. “We slept, or tried to sleep, in the waiting room. The nurse wouldn’t let us visit you until now.” He pointed towards the door. “Mo’s here, too, but he’s working on seconds in the cafeteria. Or maybe it’s thirds by now. He was complaining about me not letting him eat for the past three days.”
“Food sounds great,” Hack said. “Even navy food. You know what?” He looked up at Lee and squeezed her hand. “I just had the best dream. I was sitting with a beautiful girl and she was holding my hand and kissing me. And then I woke up and here you are. It’s like my dream came true.”
Lee scowled at Vega. “A dream, huh?” She turned back to Hack. “I’m just glad you’re awake.”
“What happened last night?” Hack asked. “I remember being at Cal Jam and the next thing I know I’m waking up here.”
“It’s a common response,” McCoy said. “I’ve seen it a lot in trauma victims. You may never remember anything about getting shot.”
“It’s for the best,” Lee said, patting Hack on the hand. “You shouldn’t try to remember last night. It was awful.”
“But, let me fill you in on a few minor details,” Decker said. “As soon as you left Cal Jam, I realized what had been bothering me for the past couple of days. It was the dates.”
“The dates?”
“Yes, the dates. I remembered the date December 28.”
“Why is that important?”
“It isn’t, but the following week Chief Fray was off the ship. As you may remember, someone placed a requisition order on January 2. And thanks to your inventory, we knew those parts never made it to the ship. Based on that information, I realized that it couldn’t have been Chief Fray because he couldn’t place an order if he wasn’t logged into the system. It had to be someone else with access. And then you got the call from Lee, and we followed you. We reached the taxi stand and you were nowhere in sight, but we ran into Special Agents McCoy and McGruder, and long story short, the commander shot you, and McCoy and McGruder shot him. Suppo died this morning.”
“Wait! I got shot?” Hack looked up at Lee who glanced over at Decker.
“Bullet just grazed you,” Decker said with a laugh. “You’ll have a real war wound now to show all the ladies.”
“Am I gonna be okay?”
“Good as gold. Captain’ll have you back at work in no time.”
Hack relaxed back into his pillow. “How did you know it was the commander?” he asked. “We had another suspect or two.”
Decker sipped from his coffee. “I didn’t at first. It was a hunch I got when I read a sign at Cal Jam.”
“A sign? What are you talking about?” asked Hack.
“After you left the club, Pong wanted to show me something in his office. A new WWII rifle he had purchased for his collection. As we were walking through the back of his bar, I saw a set of double doors with a sign in Tagalog that read Gamitin iba mga pinto. I’d seen the sign a hundred times before, but I never paid attention to it.”
“Use other door,” said Vega.
“Exactly,” said Decker. “That’s what Pong told me. Pinto is the Tagalog word for ‘door.’ And then it hit me. We thought Ponytail and Baldy were talking about Petty Officer Pinto, but they were saying, ‘Are they friends of Door.’ It must’ve been a nickname they gave Commander Doerr. Then I remembered that Suppo told me he was going to go to the supply depot because some special parts were coming in, and since I’d already told him how much we knew, I deduced he’d start to feel threatened we were getting close. So Mo, Vega, and I tried to catch up with you to warn you.” Decker turned to Vega. “And some careful police work also pointed towards the commander.”
Vega nodded. “I knew there had to be a reason an American was involved. A good reason. When I saw the slip of paper Decker got from the commander’s wife, I knew it was from gambling. The numbers didn’t add up until I remembered I was looking at dollars on the commander’s sheet of paper and pesos on the paper I got from Agana’s. I did the math with the exchange rate and it worked out perfectly. The commander won $1,800 on December 27 betting on basketball games. But half of it, $900, went to Agana to fund his jueteng operation. 18,750 pesos. I also remembered Ducky had said Angelito Agana had a son, Lito Junior. I deduced he was the ‘L2’ on the commander’s note. And the ‘P’ makes sense as the one helping fund the jueteng operation. It was ‘P’ for Pinto, the nickname Decker figured they had for the commander.”
“Wow,” Hack said, turning to McCoy. “How much did you know?”
“We obviously knew there was a black market operation going on,” McCoy said. “We also knew someone on the Harvey was coordinating it. We suspected someone at the supply depot was helping, but didn’t know who. We’d been following you because it made sense at the time. You were on the Harvey and your girlfriend worked at the depot. The only problem in our minds was that you and Petty Officer Mansfield were junior and my bosses believed, correctly as it turned out, that it had to be someone at a higher rank.”
“Then why were you still following me if you thought I wasn’t the suspect?” asked Hack.
“Two reasons. We thought you might have become involved somehow and we also found out from following you that you were up to something. We didn’t know what, but we knew you guys visited Fortuno and Agana.” He chuckled. “You seemed to be everywhere we turned. At one point, Reed, or Dave to you, thought you guys might be undertaking some sort of investigation on your own, but dismissed it. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Decker leaned back and spread his arms expansively. “Ah, the little guy. Always underestimated.”
McCoy laughed. “Don’t let it bother you. That’s the way we operate.”
“Clearly a lack of training on your part.” Decker tsk tsked at him. “Maybe we could give you guys a few pointers.”
“Yeah right. I’ll be sure to send that recommendation up the chain of command and see what they say. I’ll sign it ‘Biff and Dave.’”
Hack blushed at the mention of the nicknames. “So what’s everybody saying on the ship?” Hack asked.
“They can’t believe it,” said Decker. “The commander was too smart to get involved in something like this.”
“Smart, yes, but also someone who needed money,” McCoy said.
“I thought officers made a good living,” Hack said, reaching for a glass of water.
“They do, but even wi
th an officer’s pay, a gambling problem can get you in deep trouble pretty quickly,” McCoy said. “When we talked with Mrs. Doerr last night, she told us it started when he was stationed in Nevada. He’d always been a social gambler, betting at casinos or putting money on a game here and there. But something triggered a bigger problem. I’m no psychologist, but I’d say he was addicted. She thought the move to the Philippines would help, but he found the casinos here and continued betting on sporting events.”
“Didn’t she try to help him?” asked Vega.
McCoy blew on his coffee to cool it. “She said she insisted he get counseling in the States a couple times, but nothing seemed to work. He’d go cold turkey and then she’d notice the bank account dwindling again. And he did all that off the record. Didn’t want the navy to know otherwise he’d be a security risk and future promotions would be at stake.”
“I’m surprised she stayed with him,” said Decker.
McCoy nodded. “He said he worried about her leaving.”
“You talked to him before he died?” Lee asked with a quick glance down at Hack.
“He woke up after surgery,” McCoy said. “We managed to talk to him for about fifteen minutes before he slipped into a coma. He never recovered.”
“What did he say?” asked Hack.
“He was deep in debt. And it’s an old story with gamblers. The more they get into debt, the more they want to place that one last bet that will make a killing. He said he tried to quit but he never could shake it. And then he discovered the black market operation going on under his nose when he was stationed at the supply depot. Agana had a guy working for him there.”
“And he has since escaped,” Vega interjected. “But we know who he is. It’s only a matter of time before we track him down.”
“The commander confronted Agana’s man,” McCoy continued. “He told us he planned to turn him in, but, instead, they made a deal. Suppo needed the money and it looked like an easy way to pay off some gambling debts. I’m sure it started out with small stuff, but with a senior supply corps officer in the fold, Agana probably upped the ante. They moved into household items, stereos, televisions, stuff like that. Then it became parts for ships. From what we can tell, most likely going to Iran.”