by Margaret Kay
In Cooper’s room, Madison was already awake from the ringing of Cooper’s phone.
“Delta is on,” Lambchop said.
“We both are too,” Cooper added.
“Okay, here is what we’ve come up with, and Lambchop, you were right on with your guess that this whole thing was orchestrated by Gomez. So, four months ago, Troy and Diana Cummings were on a vacation in Arizona, Sedona and Flagstaff to be exact. Now remember, old man Berelli died a couple of months before that. His estate was distributed between all his heirs, between all the family involved in this little secret. It looks to me like the Cummings were targeted because Troy owns a carwash, the perfect business to distribute drugs, even though we could not get proof on it. But it goes back farther than that. Old man Berelli was into some pretty shady shit himself, flirting with the Juarez Cartel in some of his dealings. I suspect, the Juarez Cartel approached Troy and Diana Cummings and were turned down flat. Then two nights before the end of the Cummings’ Arizona vacation there is a traffic accident. A car matching the description of the rental the Cummings’ had is involved in a fiery crash, leaving two State Troopers dead. The Cummings’ report the car stolen after the fact. Cell phone records have Troy’s phone pinging from the hotel, but not Diana’s. Hers showed she was at a spa until late, and the road the crash was on would have been her route back to the hotel.”
“So, you believe Gomez set her up to kill the two State Troopers?” Cooper asked.
“Or they were already dead, but Gomez staged it to make her believe she killed them,” Garcia said. “Credit card records at the spa indicate Diana Cummings should have been legally intoxicated by the amount of liquor billed, but I don’t show her drinking alone. A little more digging and I found that our friend Juanita Alvarez from the yoga studio was there too, drinking right along with Diana.”
“Hum, now that is very interesting,” Madison said. “I’m wondering if Diana Cummings was even conscious to know what happened, or if she is taking someone else’s word on it that she was to blame for those two State Trooper’s deaths.”
“How does that get the rest of the family looped in though?” Sloan asked. “I love my brother, but I wouldn’t move drugs to protect him or his wife. I’d march them both down to the nearest police station to face the music. I sure as hell wouldn’t put my neck on the chopping block for either of them.”
“That, I believe is where old man Berelli’s illegal dealings come in. I don’t think the remainder of the family were squeaky clean to begin with. I think this shit just piggy backed on top of something that was already running smoothly,” Garcia reported.
“This is all great conjecture,” Sloan said. “I don’t see a smoking gun, nothing that is going to stand up in court.”
“No, but it’s enough to confront the family with, in separate interrogation rooms of course,” Shepherd’s voice came through the phones. And no one knew he was online.
“What’s the play Shep?” Cooper asked.
“During their morning meeting at the Cummings’ house, you’ll all go in and get them out quickly before they have the chance to even exchange a word. Transport will be to the regional Federal Building. Deputy Director Manning and I want each member of the family transported in a separate vehicle, kept separated at all times, and interrogated separately. Diana is first up, followed by Troy, Marty, and Isabel Mackey. Junior is last,” Shepherd ordered. “Warrants for Diana and Troy Cummings are already signed. They’ve already been pushed through to Mills and Chavez. We’re still working on the others but pick them all up. At the same time, Juanita Alvarez will be scooped up at her home.”
“We’re on it,” Cooper acknowledged.
“The DEA will probably cut you loose after they are all in custody and handle it from here out. You did good team. Execute the warrants safely and we’ll most likely see you by lunch,” Shepherd concluded.
They met Mills and Chavez, plus four other DEA Agents at the industrial park office. They planned the mission carefully and then converged on the Cummings house just in time to see Junior Berelli enter the home. He was always the last to arrive, so they moved in.
The Shepherd Security Team took point entering the house. They found the ten family members in the basement which was a fully functioning drug lab. There were vast quantities of drugs on the many shelves that lined the room. None of them or the DEA saw that coming. They thought the product was delivered to the family, who simply moved it. There were also stacks of cash.
After the family members were removed, a search revealed detailed records implicating many others in the manufacturing and distribution of the drugs. Juanita Alvarez was only one of the distributors. The bartender at the dive-bar Sherman mugged Troy Cummings behind, was another, as were a dozen employees at Troy Cummings’ carwash.
Uniform
‘Just landed back in Chicago,’ was the welcomed text message that displayed on Kennedy’s phone from Gary. ‘I’ll let you know when I’m leaving HQ and heading home. It could be an hour or so.’
A big smile spread over Kennedy’s face. She sat her laptop onto the coffee table. Sienna had brought it to her two nights ago when the girls all went out for dinner, Italian. It had been a fun night with the three ladies. And she’d been thrilled to get her laptop back.
‘I’ve missed you and am glad you’re home,’ she tapped out.
She had been doing research on the nearby colleges. They all had teacher programs. So far, Northeastern Illinois University in a nearby suburb had the best admission requirements and tuition rates, that’s if all her credits somehow would transfer. She wasn’t sure what the Marshals would do about that. Even so, she was looking at two more years of school to earn her degree, a pretty depressing thought at her age.
She shook that thought off. Gary was home and she couldn’t wait to see how he liked how she decorated his place. She spent a lot of time on it and was very pleased with the bold colors she went with, a tribute to Melody and her love of color. She hoped he liked it too.
After they stowed their gear in the Team Room, the four members of Delta Team, plus Cooper and Madison, headed to Shepherd’s office for a debrief. Including travel time, they had been away on this mission for five days. It had been exactly one hundred twenty-six hours since Sloan kissed Kennedy goodbye and walked out his living room door. All he wanted to do was get home to Kennedy and take her to bed. He now understood why Alpha Team was becoming a part-time field team. If he missed Kennedy like this, he couldn’t imagine how he’d miss his child.
“Good job on this one,” Shepherd began after everyone was seated. “Gomez is untouchable until he steps foot in the U.S. While you were in the air, Diana Cummings gave it all up. It was pretty much as we suspected. She met Juanita Alvarez at that spa, drank too much, and only remembers the fireball explosion of the State Trooper’s car. She has no memory of driving away from that spa or hitting anyone or anything. She had no injuries either, not even a bruise, but Gomez showed her pics of her car causing the accident. The DEA is grateful for the job you did, so much that they want to contract us to repeat this mission at the locations of any other labs they don’t have enough on for a warrant and their regular surveillance is not yielding results. So far that’s six other locations.”
“The quantity of drugs that were seized is still being calculated, but it was substantial. Some of the arrests made were on known distributors, others were completely unknown to the DEA or any other law enforcement officials. This was a big bust and will disrupt operations for at least a little while,” Cooper added.
“Until another lab pops up and they call us back to hit that one too,” Sherman said cynically. “As long as there is demand, there will be supply.”
“The DEA is launching a new intervention policy partnering with local law enforcement and the courts. They’ll target sellers to arrest the buyers and get them into rehab rather than jail, provided there aren’t any outstanding warrants,” Shepherd said. “This was already somewhat in the works with th
e number of states legalizing recreational marijuana.”
“Are all six locations that we will be busting labs at, on board with that policy?” Cooper asked.
Shepherd nodded. “I’m told they are. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have a good revenue stream by partnering with the DEA on these missions. Count on one of these missions a week for the next six weeks, gentlemen.”
“When do we head back out?” Cooper asked.
“Correction, when will Delta Team head back out,” Shepherd replied. “Cooper, I need you here to continue to train the new Operators for Echo Team. Doc has just finalized his recommendation for the medic for that team, so Cooper, you and I need to hire him and then train him. And Miller, I need you to go meet with the engineer you were reviewing. You’ll leave tomorrow morning. You’ll fly out on commercial. See Angel after this meeting. She’ll have your travel plans.”
“Yes, sir,” Madison said.
“I’d like to have all decisions made, in person interviews conducted, and offers made by the end of next week. It’s an aggressive timeline, I know, but we are way behind on this one,” Shepherd said.
This hadn’t been the debrief content Sloan expected. He never minded DEA cases. If, for the next few months he’d be away five days out of seven, he could be happy with that. “One thing,” Sloan spoke up. “This really did work smoothly and safely with the six of us.”
“We’ll rotate Doc, Jackson, and Garcia in. Once Echo Team is up and running, with minimal support needed, we can rotate members of Charlie Team in on the DEA Project too,” Shepherd said. “That’s it. Delta Team, take tomorrow off, but be back at zero six-hundred on Wednesday.”
Chatter sprung up as they all rose and began to file out of the room.
“Stay, Sloan,” Shepherd commanded before Sloan took even a step away from the conference room table. “The Marshals approved the request to build Kennedy’s history as an experienced music teacher, complete with references. They will have the file over to me within a few days.”
“That’s great,” Sloan said. “Thank you, Shepherd.”
“She has to get the job on her own merit from the interview. This will just ensure she gets one. Make sure she does her research on what they will want to hear. Loop Sienna in on that.”
“Will do! Thanks!”
Sloan was excited to be home. More specifically, he was excited to be coming home to Kennedy and excited to be able to give her this news in person. They hadn’t been able to talk on the phone as much as he would have liked but the text messages they’d exchanged, had been nice. He felt he knew more who she was now, and he saw more glimmers of the girl he used to know and love.
He pulled into the garage with anticipation to see what decorating she did. She wouldn’t tell him specifically what colors she painted or what decorations she purchased, but he knew she had done a lot and spent a lot. He had gotten an alert from his credit card company to verify an eighteen-hundred-dollar purchase to a home improvement store. He cracked open the door into the kitchen and was pleasantly surprised to see walls painted a pale beige. She had originally said she was thinking a sunny yellow, and he hadn’t the heart to tell her he hated the color yellow. With the black cabinets, the beige looked rich, elegant.
“Babe, it’s me!”
He stepped into the living room area, stunned by the richness of the dark blue walls offset by an eggplant purple color that made the room look huge.
“Babe, are you home?”
“In here,” her voice came from the bedroom.
He stepped to the bedroom door, which was half closed. Immediately he saw the eggplant purple color on the wall and braced himself. Within though, he found Kennedy naked, in bed, beneath a bedspread of all three colors, eggplant, beige, and dark blue. All three colors were represented in the room. Only one wall had the eggplant color, the three other walls were painted in that rich beige with dark blue accents everywhere.
“Wow!” He said. “I’m not sure what I like more, finding you waiting for me in bed, or all the great colors you painted this place.”
“Well, with all the work I put into decorating, I hope it’s the painting I did, but I really love that you like my little surprise.” She smiled wide. “I missed you while you were gone.”
“I like that you missed me the best,” he said, perching his butt on the mattress next to her. “I missed you too.”
He kissed her a weeks’ worth of kisses, never realizing how much he missed having a woman waiting at home for him, until now. And not just any woman, this woman. He wasn’t sure what to start with, making love to her till neither of them had any energy left, or telling her the Marshals were building her history as an experienced music teacher. He decided to combine both together.
He stood and sat his gun and phone on the bedside table. Then he undressed. He pulled the covers back to reveal her beautiful body to him. He stood there and let his eyes drink her in.
“What are you doing?” She pretended to grumble. Her cheeks blushed pink.
“Just looking at my beautiful girlfriend, experienced music teacher, and hopefully the next music teacher at Sienna’s school.”
“What?” She exclaimed. “Seriously?”
Sloan crawled in bed with her. “The Marshals are building your history as an experienced school music teacher. In less than a week, you can apply for that position at Sienna’s school.”
She embraced him tightly. “Thank you, Gary, thank you so much!” She kissed him, every inch of him and didn’t stop until they were both exhausted and fully satiated.
It was only after they took a nap that he told her about the mission schedule for the next six weeks.
“I can live with you gone five days and home for two, for the next month and a half,” she said. “I get the feeling that is much better than what it can be.”
Sloan pulled her closer to himself. They still laid in bed. “Yes, I’m afraid it can. We’ve been on missions that have lasted over a month. That’s why I need to be sure you are set here, have a job you like, friends you can rely on.”
“Agency wife friends,” she said.
“Yeah. Have I told you how proud I am of you for reaching out to Elizabeth this past week?”
Kennedy smiled wide. “You have several times, but I like to hear it. I really do like all three of those women. You were right about Elizabeth having lived an interesting life. A nun,” she paused and chuckled. “If you’d have asked me last year if I would count a former nun as one of my closest friends, I’d have said you were crazy. But I really like her.”
“You seem relaxed,” Sloan remarked.
“I am. And happy. I missed you this week, but it was nice to get together with the girls a few times, to decorate this place and just breathe. Elizabeth gave me the best advice, to think of this time as a vacation.”
“Sounds like a great approach.”
“Oh, and I forgot to mention to you, that if you get time off around the holidays, Sienna invited us to go on vacation with them to some tropical island. The other ladies are all planning time with their families, but Sienna said she and Garcia aren’t close to their extended families.”
“Hum,” Sloan said, thinking. “I guess that means the others aren’t planning to be around for our traditional Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations.” He was disappointed, but he guessed things had changed for some of their teammates.
“No, they’re planning to leave to go see their families on December twenty-sixth. None of them are planning to miss the Shepherd Security Christmas, which I find really weird.”
Sloan was relieved. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without everyone there. “You have to understand, because of the job we do, we’re closer to each other than we are to our extended families. We all came from the military, where many holidays were spent with the team rather than our blood families. I think Sherman and I have only spent one Christmas apart in twelve years.” He smiled with that realization.
“So, is that a maybe on
a vacation?” Kennedy asked.
“We’ll have to see what the work rotation looks like.”
“Both Madison and Angel said that Shepherd is trying to jam your cases through in the next few months so everyone can be granted some time off around the holidays.”
“I’m sure he is. We’ll see what happens. Something unexpected always seems to come up whenever Delta Team has a few days off. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, babe.”
Kennedy watched his eyes turn dark again. He had more on his mind, she was sure, but he wasn’t talking about it. She contemplated calling him out on it, like they’d talked about, but she decided not to. The afternoon since he’d gotten home had been too perfect.
“So, are you off tomorrow?” She asked.