by Trevor Shand
“Adrian, I’m on your side. I know what our objective was when we started and where we are now, but it is out of my hands. I am using up all my favors just keeping things open this long.”
“It’s pretty smart. Who watches the watchers?” Steve murmured.
“What was that?” Sam asked.
“Well, I was just saying, there is no IA for IA so they can do what they want. They also have no jurisdictional issues since they span everyone. So if you want to put some people in your pocket who can drive results, IA is a great place to start.”
Both Adrian and Sam stared at Steve for a long moment. Finally Sam continued, “Well, all admiration aside, you have days at best, get what you can. I can’t give you any more resources either.”
Adrian and Steve left Sam’s office dejected. “So what now?” Steve asked.
“I’m not sure,” replied Adrian, “It seems we’re out of options. I guess we keep following Carl, hoping for a break.”
“Hang on, why don’t we go talk to Carl?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean, let’s go to his house and knock on his door.”
“What?”
“Look, one of his corners has just been hit by an unknown group. His enforcers have just been wiped out. He is obviously off center because of this. Maybe he’s willing to work with us.”
Adrian stopped in the middle of the hallway. Finally he cocked his head and said, “I guess it isn’t going to hurt us. What’s the worst that happens, he increases his pressure internally and we are shut down in hours, rather than days. Let’s go.”
Adrian and Steve pulled up in front of Will’s house. It was a three story Spanish-inspired home with a roof made from curved red tiles. It was more than a little out of place in the Pacific Northwest but would have fit right in if it had been located in Southern California. They exited Adrian’s Crown Vic and casually walked up the footpath to the front door as if they were expected. Steve rapped on the door loudly with his knuckles. The man who answered the door as at least six and a half feet tall. His biceps were as big as Steve thighs and his head attached directly to his shoulders. He growled, “What do you want?”
“Sir, we’re here to talk to Carl Marfori,” Steve said, matter-of-factly.
“Is he expecting you?” the mountain of a man grumbled.
“In a manner of speaking. I would guess so,” Adrian chimed in with a smile.
“Who should I say you are?”
“Tell him it is the FBI,” Steve said. The large man slammed the door without a reply. Steve and Adrian looked at the door, at each other, then back at the door. “Do you think he is going to let us in?”
“I’m thinking this is not a good sign,” Adrian said, “Well, we gave it a shot.” The two men turned and started back down the path. When they were about twenty feet from the door they heard it open. They turned to look.
Carl stood in the doorway this time, dressed in a silk, oriental patterned robe and said, “Sorry for my man’s lack of manners, come on in.” Adrian and Steve started back up the lane. As they approached, Carl stood back and ushered them inside. Inside, the rooms were large and spacious. The large tiles on the floor were reddish-brown tones and the walls were a pale, earthy yellow. Paintings and expensive tapestries covered the walls, keeping sounds muted. Carl led the way into an expansive living room filled with chocolate brown, overstuffed leather couches. The far wall was dominated by an enormous fireplace.
“Please, take a seat,” Carl said, indicating one of the couches. He took a seat on another couch, facing them. Steve and Adrian sank deeply into the soft cushions. As they settled, the large man came into the room and Carl said, “Brad, can you get us some coffee?” The man nodded and left. Carl turned his attention to the FBI agents and said, “Now gentlemen, what can I do for you?”
“Well, we wanted to come by and introduce ourselves,” Adrian explained, “We heard you have recently had some, how should we say, ‘issues’ with one of your businesses on Colorado Ave.”
“One of my businesses? On Colorado Ave? Whatever do you mean?” Carl said.
Adrian knew this conversation would be a dance. He continued, “Let’s say, we have come upon certain information that some folks who work for you have gone missing, the last place they were seen in on Colorado Ave. Now others are doing business there.”
The large man entered the room and set a platter with a large carafe and three coffee cups on the glass table in between the two couches. The platter also contained a small bowl which held sugar cubes and a small creamer pitcher. Carl leaned forward, poured himself a cup of coffee, added a cube of sugar and leaned back. “I don’t think anyone I know works for me on Colorado Ave. I am the owner of a simple tire and wheel shop.”
Adrian countered with, “Oh I understand that. But a businessman such as yourself always has interests in a variety of enterprises. Anyway, your interest in Colorado Ave., it just took a hit. We can help.”
“I am not saying I have any interest in anything that on Colorado Ave. but if I knew someone who did, what could you offer this person?”
“Oh enough of this,” barked Steve, “Listen, we know you are a drug dealer. We know you are behind the corner down on Colorado Ave. We know you got hit hard and your reinforcements got hit even harder. Now we want to take those guys down and I think that would be doing you a favor. So let’s cut the chit chat and let’s figure this out.”
Carl sank a bit deeper into his couch. He slurped a sip of coffee and looked up at the ceiling. The silence stretched out until Steve thought he had made a major mistake by speaking up. Then just before Steve spoke up again in an attempt to fix things Carl said, “Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. What do you need, what do you want and what can you provide?”
It was Adrian’s turn to pause, but not thinking, simply taken aback this direct approach worked. Then he stammered, “Um, well, we need people, man hours. But your influence in IA is getting us fewer resources right when we need more.”
“What else, let’s put it all on the table at once.”
“Your supplier, we’re not the DEA, we’re not after you. Your supplier and any others you know of - We can grant you immunity for that information. We also need anything you know about the guys who came in and took over your corner. Finally, we need to know what other corners we should be watching to see if these guys spread,” Adrian stated. Steve was impressed that Adrian thought on his feet quickly or, more likely, Adrian had put a bit more thought into this than he let on.
Carl nodded and sipped his coffee again. He held out his hand and studied the back of his fingers as if Adrian and Steve were not in the room. Leaning forward he placed his cup on the table, placed his elbows on his knees and replied, “Tell you what, if I do have any influence in the FBI, I’ll get you some people. I will not be giving up my supplier, but I understand, you’re not the DEA so short of a supplier with insight into how our borders are weak, this case is a bust for you so I will help you find and source the supplier for the new guys. If I can’t get you that, I might be able to aim you at a competitor’s supplier. I still need to live in this city so I can’t hand them to you but I should be able to do enough that you can source it from there.
“As for corners, drive downtown. If you see gang bangers, they aren’t the people you’re looking for. I’ve seen pictures of what the corners look like now. There seems to be one, maybe two guys there, but if anyone tries to storm them, they know they are coming and they are not just out gunned, they are out classed.”
Adrian sat forward, mimicking Carl’s position and pondered for a moment, then said, “Okay, agreed. So what are our next steps?”
“Next steps? Go have a drink, take the afternoon off. Then tomorrow go to work. You might find a new environment there in the morning,” Carl said, standing up, “Now if you don’t mind, I have a few calls to make.” Adrian and Steve stood. As they did Brad appeared and indicated toward the front door. The two
men proceeded down the hallway and out the door.
Once out the door Steve said, “So we are allowing him to keep being him in exchange for help with others?”
“It seems that way,” Adrian confirmed, “Sometimes that’s how it is.”
“I guess,” Steve lamented, “But the up side is, we can go get a drink.”
Russ sat at a table for two in the hotel bar, the FedEx box was in a backpack sitting at his feet. He tried to act casual knowing there were three kilos of uncut cocaine just lying on the floor where it could be stolen or used as evidence to lock him up for a very long time. He played the image of someone acting normal in his head and tried to repeat the moves himself but had no idea if he was at all successful. He lifted his beer and pretended to take a long drink but only sipped the beer. He thought the act of drinking was casual but did not want to get drunk. Suddenly Russ worried if people were noticing that the level of his beer was not going down in accordance with his presented drinking.
“You look stressed,” came Johnny’s voice from behind him. Russ turned and looked up at him. He began to stand and Johnny said, “Stay seated, you’re fine. Besides I am afraid you might fall over if you tried to stand.”
Johnny sat down, as he did he subtly reached below the table and moved the backpack over to his feet. Then he leaned back in his chair and motioned for the waitress. She came over and Johnny ordered a beer. The two men sat in silence until the beer arrived and the waitress had left again. “So I’m guessing this is the product, not your laundry,” Johnny laughed.
“Yeah, it is,” Russ said, pushing the bag a little closer to Johnny with his foot.
“Man, you look like hell,” Johnny noticed, “We’re the ones who’ve been up around the clock, maintaining the distribution point. You should be sleeping like a baby, counting your money in your sleep.”
“Well, I haven’t been sleeping well. Did you know I just started this because I liked to party a bit and couldn’t find a job? All I wanted to do was get a nice quiet job in an IT department, like I was trained for in the Army.”
Johnny was taking a sip of his beer and nearly choked when he laughed. “The Army didn’t train you to be in IT, the Army trained you to kill people.”
Russ protested, “No I was trained as an IT administrator at Fort Benning--”
Johnny cut him off, “Over the last few years, how much IT-ing have you been doing and how much killing have you been doing?”
Russ paused, but for only a moment, “I did work in the field, but I have the training, and only did what I did because I had to, my country needed me.”
“Your country needed you.” Johnny sounded disappointed, “You buy that? More like the politicians needed you. That’s why I have no problem doing what I do, both then and now. The politicians need the spectacle to keep the masses in line, to keep them polarized. There is always a war on something, against something, for something. Otherwise the populace might wake up and realize those in power are only serving themselves. Well if they are going to serve themselves, I might as well serve myself.”
Resolutely Russ replied, “No, I served my country and in exchange, they gave me skills I can use to be a productive member of society.”
“You’re a funny man Russ. How are those skills coming in handy now? Are employers banging down your door? Or did the Army lure you with promises and now couldn’t care less about you, now that you have served your purpose.”
Russ opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again and closed it again. Johnny took a slow sip of his beer letting Russ take his time. Finally Russ said, “So who are you getting to join you?”
“Anyone we can, we’re not the only ones out here who need to make money,” Johnny said.
“Anyone? So you don’t have guys lined up?”
“We do have guys lined up, guys who want the job but we need to vet them since I don’t know them all personally,” Johnny said.
“So, mercenaries?” Russ clarified.
“That’s a name for them, but then we’d be mercenaries too and I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider myself a mercenary. I consider myself an American, a veteran who needs a job.”
Russ scowled. “Mmm.” Russ’ tone contained disdain and condemnation.
“OK church lady, I gotta go. Condemn me all you want but keep spending the cash we hand over,” Johnny said, swallowing the last of his beer. He stood then reached down and grabbed the sack.
“Hey, before you go, something has made me curious. Why haven’t the guys you took the corner from come back? Where’d they go?”
“You don’t want to know,” Johnny said.
Russ knew he was right. He had a suspicion and he wanted to leave it at that. To let himself believe that his darkest fears were just that, fears. But as much as he wanted not to know, he knew sticking his head in the sand was not an acceptable solution for him. He had always wanted all the information, even the bad stuff, because he knew it would always fall to him to fix things. On occasion he envied those who could sit back and let others solve the problems. But he knew in most situations he was either the best person to solve the problem or, more often than not, the only person who would solve the problem.
“Yeah, I do,” Russ said resolutely.
“Really, Russ, do you? Really?”
“Yes,” Russ’ voice carried an edge he usually reserved for giving orders to new recruits.
Johnny sat back down and leaned well across the table. He hissed, “We killed them. We killed them all. We used all the US government taught us and killed them. We couldn’t have them coming back on us, so we killed them. Got it? We killed them.”
Russ laughed a humorless laugh and leveled his gaze on Johnny. Johnny stared back. The two men sat locked in each other’s eyes for more than a minute. Finally Johnny broke the gaze and chuckled. “You’re cute when you’re angry. Listen, I am going to go now, go make us both some more money. You still like that don’t you? Of course you do.” Johnny stood back up, grabbed the backpack and left without looking back. Russ let him go then ordered another beer and two shots.
Brad entered the book-lined study. Carl sat in a high backed chair reading “The Leadership Challenge” by Kouzes and Posner. Brad waited for a moment then asked, “You wanted to talk with me?”
“Yes,” Carl said, “I want you to have Charles and a couple of the other minions follow the hitters from the corner. I want to know where they go, what they do, et cetera.”
“Sir, don’t you think we’ve lost enough guys?”
“No Brad, I didn’t say I wanted them to engage them, just to follow, from a distance. Charles and his boys are from the street, they should be able to blend in and follow these guys without being seen. Let’s understand where they are coming from and where they are going. If nothing else maybe we can figure out who their supplier is.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll get on this.”
“Thank you, that is all.” Carl went back to his reading.
Chapter 8
Steve arrived at FBI headquarters at nine the next morning. As he approached Adrian’s desk he saw a small cluster of people surrounding it. They broke up as Steve got closer and scurried to other cubicles and down hallways. Steve said, “What? Do I smell?”
Adrian made an exaggerated sniff and said, “Yes, but that’s not why they all left.”
“Oh really, then why’d they all leave? And better yet, what were they doing here in the first place?”
“Those my dear man are our support team,” Adrian beamed, looking around as if looking for them.
“What do you mean?”
“Well it seems our new ally Carl came through. This morning I had a message to come see Sam. When I did, James was there--all smiles and sunshine--telling me there is something to our case and he wants to make sure we have everything we need. He starts assigning me people like tic-tacs. I’m not sure where he is getting his authority from but I am not questioning.”
“Excellent, so what is the plan?�
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“Well, I have them out tracking the new crew. We need to identify how many there are, where they go, what they do, how they operate and anything else we can get on them.”
“And we need it fast, before anyone changes their mind. See why I like being a contractor here rather than a fully-fledged FBI guy?”
“Didn’t you apply to be a full time FBI guy only we turned you down?”
“Only because I was too awesome. I’d make you guys look bad,” Steve smiled, “So what do we do?”
“I was thinking about that, let’s approach this from a different angle, let’s go street up. Let’s find some users and see if they know anything.”
“Where are we going to find users? I mean I’m not saying I don’t know people who use, I’m just saying what are the chances they get supplied from that corner. And how do I ask them that?”
“Then let’s go watch the corner and roll up on someone who just left it,” Adrian said, seeming to pout as Steve was not overly supportive of his idea.
Steve proceeded as if he did not notice Adrian’s attitude, “Yeah, some guy we pull over is going to be a great source of information.”
“We can hold it over him, tell us or we’ll bust you, sort of thing,” Adrian said defiantly.
“Listen, I like most of your ideas, but I don’t think this one is going to work.”
“OK, fine do you have any other bright ideas?”
“Not really, but I tell you what, I’ll reach out to Sarah, see if she has anything for us. Maybe the SPD has a CI or something that can help us out.”
Adrian seemed somewhat placated, “It’s something. You try your avenue, I’ll try mine.”
“Fair enough, want to take bets on who is more productive?”
“You would bet on our job, what we are supposed to be doing?”
“Yeah, you’re right, if I had your idea I wouldn’t bet either.”