Operation Bayou Angel

by Margaret Kay

  They took their places at the long table. As Brielle listened to Landon’s prayer of thanksgiving, she realized that this team was really a big family. She was grateful to be accepted by them. She did truly feel like she belonged. She glanced at Bobby. She hoped that he understood that this was a family that Brian was a part of. She hoped he sensed the closeness these people shared. She knew that Bobby still didn’t like the job Brian did, and Brian hadn’t even been released to go back on active duty yet.

  The team would be leaving the next day on another mission. The pre-mission briefing was at ten hundred hours. Brielle wasn’t sure who else would accompany Delta Team on it. Six people was standard for a DEA Partner Mission. She knew that Brian was anxious to get back to active duty. He was nearly ready. He had been working out in the gym in the subbasement level of the Shepherd Security Building for two weeks now. Doc monitored him closely.

  A week and a half after Thanksgiving, the snow fell from the gray sky again. Brielle sat behind the wheel of her new car, a silver Jeep Cherokee. She gazed at Brian as he got into the passenger seat, after stowing his gear in the backseat. After the briefing, Brian would fly out with the team to Atlanta, the site of their next DEA Partner Mission. Doc had released him back to active duty the day before. Later in the afternoon, Brielle would drive herself home without Brian. She knew that she was going to miss him. She would also worry about him.

  The briefing went as all the others. Mexican heroin was the drug that they were going after this time. The DEA had a lead, but no proof, and so far, their surveillance had not brought any results. Cooper and Madison both were going on this mission, as was Garcia, with all of Delta Team. This mission was slightly different from the others Brielle had been a part of. In order to get leads, several of the team members, including Brian, would go in undercover as buyers at a dive bar in a seedy part of Atlanta. By the sounds of it, this wasn’t the first time they had done it this way.

  She felt edgy all afternoon. That edginess turned to anxiety as she drove home. Shortly after she entered the empty condo, her phone rang, startling her. Bobby was working the second shift that day. He wouldn’t be home till midnight.

  “Hello,” Brielle answered, seeing it was a call from Kaylee.

  “Hi. I’m heading over to Sienna’s for the night. We thought you might want to join us. We’re going to make some pasta for dinner and watch a movie or two.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Brielle replied.

  “With all three of our guys away on this mission, we might as well keep each other company.”

  “Yes, I’d like that,” Brielle said. “Give me the address and I’ll plug it into my maps app. And what can I bring? I can throw together a quick salad.”

  “Sounds good. Make it fast and come over. I’m just getting to her place now.”

  Brielle prepared a quick salad and then left the condo. Sienna lived just fifteen minutes away. She pulled into the driveway and shivered against the cool evening air as she walked up the sidewalk to the door. Kaylee peeked out of the blinds and then opened the door, relocking it behind Brielle. She took the salad from her.

  A chocolate lab greeted her with a wagging tail.

  “Her name is Bailey,” Sienna called from the kitchen. “She’s very friendly.”

  Brielle smiled. “She looks it.” She stroked over the soft fur on her head.

  “I’m glad you could come over,” Sienna said.

  “Thank you for the invitation.” Brielle glanced around. “You have a beautiful and inviting home.” The fireplace was lit, warming the room and casting reflections on the wall.

  “Thank you. Anthony and I are very comfortable here. It’s a three bedroom, so we shouldn’t outgrow it anytime soon. And I’ll tell you, with as much as Anthony works, the maintenance-free exterior is great. My first husband and I had a house, and he worked and traveled a lot too and I had to do it all, mow the lawn, shovel the snow. Let me tell you, I don’t miss that at all!”

  “Gary and I hope a unit will come on the market in this subdivision. I’d love to move into this neighborhood,” Kaylee said. “But until then, I’m very happy in Gary’s condo. It’s small, but that’s less to clean.” She smiled at Brielle. “I just started teaching this year and I will admit I spend a lot of time every night on my lesson plans. I want to do a great job and be invited back next year. I really love this job.”

  “You are doing a great job,” Sienna told her. “You’re a natural and the kids love you.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Kaylee said. She made eye contact with Brielle. “My life has changed a lot in the past few months. I’m a much different person now and I can honestly say I am really happy; in a way I haven’t been in a very long time.”

  “And you absolutely deserve that happiness,” Sienna said, giving Kaylee a hug.

  “Everyone deserves to be happy,” Brielle added. “I’m glad you love teaching. Kids need teachers who feel that way.”

  “And you have a new job too,” Sienna said to Brielle. “Do you like it?”

  “Yes, I love working at Shepherd Security. Of course, this is the first mission Brian is gone on. I’ll admit that makes me nervous.”

  “I remember that first mission Anthony went on after we were together,” Sienna said as she rounded the counter and returned to the kitchen. “You will get used to it.”

  “At least you work there and get to know where they’re going and how dangerous the mission is,” Kaylee said. “We don’t usually find out where they’ve been until after they’re home.”

  “Angel does tell us a little bit about their missions, most of the time. It’s usually just enough so we don’t worry too much,” Sienna cut in.

  Brielle knew she couldn’t say where they were or what the mission was. She was surprised that Angel would tell them. She doubted Mr. Shepherd knew that.

  “Can you at least tell us if they’re in the United States?” Kaylee pressed.

  Brielle considered it for a moment.

  “Gary hasn’t gone out of the country yet, since we’ve been together, but Sienna and Angel have both told me that they do go to the Middle East, South America, or to Africa once in a while.”

  “They do?” Brielle asked. This was news to her. “No, they’re not out of the country.”

  “Thank you.” Kaylee pointed at the barstools that lined the counter. Brielle took a seat. Kaylee held up a bottle of red wine. A poured glass was on the counter.

  “Yes, thank you,” Brielle said.

  “I’m making spaghetti with meat sauce. I hope you like it,” Sienna said.

  “It smells wonderful. I’m sure I will.”

  Kaylee handed her glass over. Then she held her own up. “To new beginnings at new jobs and new lives.”

  Brielle smiled. That toast was so appropriate.

  Brielle had a great time with the girls. Angel and Elizabeth even stopped over for dessert. She learned that Angel lived across the street and Elizabeth just up the block. They never got to a movie as the conversation flowed effortlessly. Brielle was surprised when Angel did tell them that the mission was in Atlanta.

  It was nearly midnight when Brielle left to go home. Bobby would be home from work soon, and she was looking forward to talking with him about her night. She really liked the other women. She felt accepted by them and felt like she belonged here. She wouldn’t admit to Bobby how worried about Brian she was. She knew he was, too.

  The next morning when she went to the office, she was informed the team had gone into one of the dive-bars the previous evening. Mission footage was recorded, waiting for her to watch. Seated in her office, she pulled the feed up on her computer. The quality wasn’t the best. Between the dark bar and the fact that the cameras were small and concealed in clothing, some of what was going on was hard to make out.

  What she did see was Garcia and Brian going into a bar. There was no way they wore bullet-proof vests under their clothes. They sat at the bar, ordered beers and shots, and then very quietly Garcia asked th
e bartender, a rough looking man, about buying some H. Garcia flashed the bartender cash. The bartender reached for it. Garcia grabbed his hand and twisted it until the bartender screamed out. A menacing look was on Garcia’s face. Jeez, he was scary!

  “Not till you hook us up,” Garcia warned in a low, threatening voice.

  “Don’t fuck with us, and it better be some quality shit,” she heard Brian add.

  “Okay, okay,” the bartender agreed.

  Garcia downed his shot, seen in the camera worn by Brian. Then he took a pull from the beer bottle. Through the camera mounted on Garcia, Brielle saw that Brian watched the bartender. He raised his shot glass to his lips and slowly downed it, his eyes never leaving the bartender who was now at the far end of the bar on his cell phone.

  The bartender came back over. “Good quality in the amount you want is going to cost you two bills.”

  Garcia nodded. He motioned to his shot glass. The bartender refilled both his and Brian’s. Then Garcia laid money onto the bar. A few minutes later another man came in close, filling the small space between Brian and Garcia. The exchange went down. Cash for drugs. Brielle was shocked. It took less than thirty seconds. The seller moved away, a fresh beer in hand, placed there by the bartender.

  Through Brian’s camera, Brielle watched the seller move away and disappear through a door at the back of the bar. Garcia and Brian finished their drinks, left cash on the bar to cover them, and then left through the front door. They immediately went across the street and into a little motel. The team was set up there in two connecting rooms. Madison was inside the room they entered, watching monitors that were set up on the desk.

  Garcia tested the drugs. It tested positive for an opiate. Then the recorded camera feed cut over to cameras worn by Danny and Gary. They had been in the bar at the pool tables. Brielle was relieved that they were in there. The entire exchange was caught on their camera feeds. It struck her how smooth it was, nearly undetectable. The seller looked like he had just poked his way between the two men to get a beer.

  Another camera feed queued up. It was from the camera worn by Landon. He was in a dark corner of the bar. She saw that he followed the seller through the door which led outside into the alley. The man got into a black pickup truck, which Landon walked past. He kept walking down the alley. When he was far enough, he spoke, reciting the license plate number.

  “Running it now,” Yvette’s voice came over the recording.

  “Returning to home base,” Landon’s voice was heard. The visual feed showed him exit the alleyway and enter the same motel room.

  Cooper was the last to enter the motel. His camera feed showed that he had been in position in a car across the street from the bar. Brielle was very relieved that they all had been nearby, covering Brian and Garcia. She listened in, intrigued as they discussed tailing the dealer to follow the drug trail upstream. Danny and Gary would return to the bar; they’d be the next to buy. While the dealer was inside, Brian would plant a tracker on his truck. Landon and Cooper would be inside. Garcia would be in the car in front of the motel. Then she watched them carry it out. It went just as planned.

  She made notes on what she’d just watched. Then she sent Brian a text message telling him she’d just watched the feed from their operation the night before. She received a text back right away. They were surveilling the dealer from the night before. He’d already led them to where he slept, to a diner where he made early morning sales, and now they were trailing him to where they hoped he picked up his product.

  Brielle was notified later that morning by Jackson in Ops that the team had made progress and she should come observe. The young guy, Caleb Smith, was with Jackson in Ops when she entered. “So, what are they doing?”

  “Following suspects,” Smith replied.

  “We’ve identified the dealer from the bar last night as Tyrone Adams,” Jackson said, displaying a picture of him on the monitor. “He has one bust for possession from a year ago. He isn’t on anyone’s radar as a dealer,” Jackson advised.

  “He is now,” Smith added.

  “The team tailed him all night. He met up with this guy early this morning.” The picture of a second black man displayed on the monitor next to the first. “We ran his picture through the Atlanta DEA. They don’t have anything on him. They believe this new guy is Tyrone Adams’ supplier based on what they observed during the meeting, backpacks were exchanged,” Jackson said. “We’ve got that surveillance feed saved for you to review. I know you just got done with the feed from last night’s mission.”

  “He led them back to a unit in an upscale apartment building, that we believe he is living in. He was inside for just long enough to change clothes and come back out carrying what appeared to be a very full backpack, a different one than he’d gone in with. I traced the lease info on the apartment, and it came back to Dennis Leahy, a sixty-eight-year-old white guy.” Smith paused as he pointed back at the picture of the black man. “And he obviously isn’t that white guy. I’m still trying to find Dennis Leahy. There’s no death certificate filed, and his mail is still going to that apartment.”

  “The team got a tracker on his car while he was in the apartment,” Jackson said.

  “Why did our team get called in? Why couldn’t the local cops or DEA run this operation?” Brielle asked.

  “Two reasons,” Jackson said. “We’re unknown to everyone in this area. Just like the cops keep track of the bad guys, the bad guys keep track of their local cops and agents, many times, have moles inside the police department if they’re a big enough organization. The DEA went into that same bar and tried to buy drugs on multiple occasions. The bartender shut them down, no sales. It was like they knew who they were before they walked into the joint.”

  “Secondly, we’re good at this and don’t have to get warrants or follow the rules while we are getting the lay of the land and compiling our list of the players,” Caleb said.

  “There had been about a dozen raids in this area by a task force a few months ago. The local DEA believe these guys were newly recruited to fill the void,” Jackson said. “The top dog was never identified.”

  On the monitor, Brielle saw Garcia and Danny approach an apartment building. “What are they doing?”

  “They’re going to enter and snoop around mystery man’s place,” Jackson said.

  Brielle watched Garcia pick the lock in less than a minute. He was a lot better at that than she had been. Obviously, they didn’t have a warrant to enter the apartment. That was why their unit was conducting this operation. As Angel had said before, this unit didn’t color inside the lines. They used whatever methods were needed to get the job done.

  Inside, the apartment was filled with expensive furniture, professionally decorated, no doubt. She watched the monitors as both men conducted a methodical search of the premises. They found what they were looking for behind the locked door to the second bedroom. A six-foot-long table was littered with drugs, some packing materials, and a scale. Along one of the walls was a shelving unit, stacked with backpacks full of either money or drugs. There were no large quantities of drugs in bulk, awaiting packaging. The team suspected this man was a middleman between the major distributor and the street dealers.

  Over the next few days, the team tailed the middleman, investigating everyone he came in contact with. They identified a network of street dealers he traded backpacks with. But they didn’t get a break in who was supplying him until the afternoon of the fifth day on the ground.

  A delivery truck from a discount furniture store showed up outside of the apartment building. The delivery men wrestled the box onto a dolly and brought the large box to Mr. Mystery Man’s apartment door. The team could see that box was the only thing in the truck. Everyone agreed, there was no way that a professionally decorated apartment would also house another piece of furniture, especially from a discount furniture store. Cooper sent Madison in for a closer look.

  Brielle watched as Madison went into the building
like she belonged there. She walked down the hallway, checking each apartment number. Mr. Mystery Man stood in his doorway talking with the two delivery men who still had the box out in the hall.

  “Can I help you?” He asked her.

  “I can’t remember the apartment number but I’m looking for a Gil Haigh.”

  “Gil’s a lucky man,” he remarked. “I don’t know the neighbor’s names, but what does he look like?”

  “I don’t know, never met the man.”

  A smile spread over Mr. Mystery Man’s face. “You have now.” He presented his hand.

  “You were messing with me,” she said in a flirty voice as she shook his hand. “Maddie Hayes. It’s nice to meet you.”