by Matt Lincoln
People were watching us as they passed, but no one said anything. Kippy stood in front of me and offered her kind of supporting cover. “I told you to check it before you threw it away. But do you ever listen to me, Herman? No. You just do whatever you want to. Now we’re going to be late for our flight because you refuse to do anything online like a regular modern Canadian.”
She kept this up as a pretty good distraction until my hand came back up with the bag. It and my arm were covered in slimy milkshakes, red puff snack things, and tiny bits of paper.
“This had better be worth it,” I grumbled at her. “A regular, modern Canadian? What is the---?”
“I wanted it to be memorable.” Then she nodded at the bag. “I have no clue about that. Wanna wait until we get somewhere safe to check it out, though?” Kippy spied a cleaning cart a few yards away. “I’ll be right back. Hang tough.” I watched as she bought trash bags and a bunch of cleaning towels off of the custodian for a twenty-dollar bill. She opened the sack, and I placed the bag inside.
“Thanks.” We headed for a table, and together we got our first look inside the duffle bag, still sitting inside the trash bag. It didn’t surprise either of us when we found a cache of cell phones, packaged and loose thumb drives, some tangled up jewelry, and some other random junk and pill bottles.
“Well, I guess that solves that,” Kippy shrugged. “He was stealing her supply of information and communication. What do you want to bet that some of those flash drives have some naughty financial or political stuff on them?” Kippy was smiling, seemingly enjoying this.
The thought had crossed my mind, but I wasn’t going to voice that out loud. “I want Xavier to go through all of it. He’s the only one that I’ll trust to get the truth from any of this.” I zipped the bag closed and looked around to make sure that we weren’t being watched. I took the paper towels Kippy had offered me to wipe off what I could. I took this time to ask her what was with the stupid name changes back there with Montrose, too.
She was watching me intently, as she explained. “You didn’t really want them to run your real names, did you now?” Kippy shook her head and sighed. “They’re cover IDs, that’s all. I use them all the time to prevent detection. My boss insists on it, and he’s kind of a big deal, so…”
“Your boss? I thought that you were an independent contractor, Ozoa?” I should have known better than to listen to any of her ramblings with an expectation of honesty. “Do you ever tell the truth about anything?” I was already too frustrated with today’s outcome to feel anything more about this woman as it was. My question was merely rhetorical.
She nodded to accept that I wasn’t looking for a real answer. She eyed the bag in the sack and her smile twisted into her usual smirk. Then she announced, “Hey, I’m going to go use the head. I’ll be back in a minute.” Kippy headed off while I waited in this uncomfortably exposed spot. I held on to the bag in the sack until my phone beeped with a text. It was from Kippy.
Doc’s waiting for you outside. See you later, copain.
I began to walk for the doors leading outside, wondering how that was going to play out in the end. There was so much fallout to deal with that I was unsure of where to go from here. It was taxing all my strength. But, sure enough, Doc and Rosa were in the Mercedes and waiting in the loading lane for me. I slipped into the back seat with the bag and finally took a long, relaxing breath. I had so many questions and so much to figure out, but for right now, our mission was complete.
Chapter 34
Jake
We’d taken Arik to George’s place and asked him to look over and care for the young man until we decided on what to do next. I found George in a small isolation room in his private, underground clinic tending to Arik with diligence and care.
“How is he?” I stood on the other side of the young man’s bed, looking at the tubes pouring into his body, sending in the fluids and medicines that he needed to not only get better but to survive. Doc had mentioned on the drive over that Arik was in bad shape. I wanted to hear it from George as to just how bad it was.
“He is severely dehydrated, malnourished. He has a staph infection over a large part of his body. Also, he has a bladder infection, a UTI, and possible E. coli contamination. I hesitate to suggest just what this young man was living with until he is conscious and able to speak for himself. However, I will use my professional opinion and say that it was not good.” George sighed and looked to the monitors as if they would help explain this.
“He was only recently cleaned and groomed,” he continued, “most likely for his appearance at the airport. Given the amount of infection in his body and the sores upon his skin, I would say that Arik was living in his own filth and treated in a manner I have not seen by any civilized creatures.” He glanced at me, and I could see something dangerous growing in his eyes. “I understand him to be underaged by American law. Is that correct?”
I nodded. “He’s seventeen. He has a few months yet before he’ll be considered an adult. Until then, we’re obligated to contact his mother.” I looked away and shook my head. I hated to think about that. “There are rules. No matter how bad they may seem in certain circumstances, we have to follow them.” I was going to keep this under wraps as long as I could, but I didn’t know how long that was actually going to be.
George’s lips tweaked in a strange manner, and he looked like he was formulating a clever scheme to avoid contacting Judge Fu just yet. “What an amazing coincidence. My prognosis requires bed rest and supervised physical therapy for two to ten months. Isn’t that amazing?” He even wrote that down on the kid’s chart that no one would ever see. I guessed that made it official.
I knew what he was trying to say, and we’d all agreed that there was more to Arik’s story. As such, my team had decided not to contact his mother until Arik woke up and let us know what he’d seen and heard. We all had the feeling that Judge Fu wasn't and hadn’t been working toward her son’s best interest during his absence.
“And as his attending physician, you would not only know best but would probably be the best person to oversee this, isn’t that correct?” I watched Arik sleeping comfortably. We might be able to make this work out, after all. “And Florida is a wonderful place to recover in, isn’t it? I’ve always enjoyed the fresh air, sunshine, the gators…”
“That’s one of the main reasons that I have my practice here.” Then George realized what he’d said. “Not the… gators, but the rest of it. I’m so glad that you concur. Now, shall we discuss what exactly has become of your team’s expectations going forward? I was led to believe that you salvaged a cache of valued items in connection to young Arik’s abduction. Is that true?” George gestured for me to leave the room and that he would follow. I knew that Arik needed rest, and there was nothing we could do for now. “I would be most interested in hearing more about this.”
After hoping never to return here, I found myself, Eve, George, and my team back in that aquarium walled sitting room from so many days ago. Rosa and Doc sat at the table, leisurely chatting until I walked in. Xavier was sitting on the couch, leaning forward and looking pensive. Eve was reclining beside him and trying to get comfortable. That probably had something to do with her attack earlier today. I wondered if she’d gotten her injury looked at yet.
I went straight for a chair at the table. I, too, was feeling a little sore in the torso, now that I thought about it. I needed to get one of these doctors to look me over later if I had the time.
I winked at Eve, getting her attention and a smile from her. She had been amazing today, and I had to make sure I told her that. If not for her, I didn’t think we’d be gathering around to have this conversation.
Once we were all assembled, Xavier jumped up and started to deliver his news and findings. “So, about that bag…” He shook his head, almost comically. “It was full of women’s jewelry, cell phones, a couple of tablets, and some prescription pill bottles. Most of those were sleep aids, and there was a selecti
on of anxiety medications. The jewelry was heirloom stuff, I think. I’m not a jeweler, and I know almost nothing about any of that kind of stuff, but Doc looked at it and said that most of it was real.” Xavier nodded to Doc, who nodded back before speaking.
“Real means they’re not costume pieces,” Doc clarified. “Not commonplace, either. Most of it was genuine gems, hand-cut, and possibly made to order.” Doc conceded that we might not all understand what that meant. “One-of-a-kind items. Very traceable and most likely registered and immensely insured. There would be no way for them to be sold on the open market if that helps explain it. It also means we need to find a way to give it back without implicating any of us.”
“What he said,” Xavier then continued on. “So yeah, the tablets have all been wiped and reset. I don’t even know if they’ll be usable again. But as for the phones…” Xavier paused for dramatic effect. “There were fourteen cells. Some burners, some even real weird one-time use types. Those aren’t going to be too helpful to us, as they still have the block on them, and you need the code they came with to unlock them. Besides, if they weren’t used, there’s no data on them.”
“Why would someone buy a one-time use phone?” I asked, not sure that I saw the potential or purpose to it. “And why would they have more than one, and then, why not have the code to activate them with the actual phone?” It all seemed unnecessary to me.
Eve was looking uneasy as I asked this, and I caught her and George as theyexchanged a knowing glance. She saw me watching her and so she answered for Xavier. “Drop phones. No traces, and they bounce off of other networks. If you’re skilled enough, you can steal a ton of info off just one call. And if you have the right hardware, it can ping off of someone else’s number and sim. Making it look like they placed the call and not you.”
“That’s… not good.” I could see the awful potential for that for sure. We all could. “Did you find that kind of hardware in the bag, Xavier?” That could be a game-changer for this whole thing.
“I did not. Like I said, the code to unlock it wasn’t in the bag, either.” Xavier shrugged. “They look like regular phones. Someone could have picked it up by accident and may not have even known about the codes. They would have just thought that they were typical burners and the instructions to those are all pretty much the same.”
That sounds like a possibility, considering Arik’s background, Rosa added. He wanted something to sell or trade, or to even give away to one of his friends. Sadly, Rosa was right. That all made sense knowing what we knew about him now. The kid could have grabbed anything on his way to the airport, just something to get quick cash for later.
“Anyway, the burners are what are really interesting, though. All of them have the same pre-stored numbers in them. I’m running a check on them, or more accurately, a reverse check, but that is going to take some time. Now, I know a little about this, and I also consulted our lawyer friend here,” Xavier motioned to Eve, “and we both agree on what these could be.”
“Key word being could,” Eve interjected. She was looking nervous about this now, and I wondered if there was some nasty compromising information Xavier had been about to spill on the Judge. I felt sorry for Eve at that moment. I hadn’t taken into account just how much uncovering all of this would affect her and her future.
“Xavier, we all know what they might be.” Doc was getting tired of all this. “If the Judge and Nace were in on running the drugs with the Yabut, even as a scam with the knowledge of the US government, they sure wouldn’t be using their personal or work phones to coordinate with drug dealers and smugglers. All we need to know is if that truly is what they were used for. When can you tell us that?”
“A few hours.” Xavier’s face fell, and he looked as if Doc had stolen his thunder. “Once they all come back, we’ll know who called whom, how often, when, and where. That information is going to change everything, though. And I think that now would be a good time to discuss what to do with the intel once we get it, and if it’s what we are thinking it’s going to be.”
No harm in planning, I suppose. Rosa sneered. If the phones connect the Judge to any of the Yabut drug runners, what can we do about it, reasonably? Because listening to all of this, it leaves us with one very real problem, and I’m sorry to mention it, but it will be Arik’s word against his mother’s. That is not looking good from any angle that I can see.
That was the elephant in the room. “Yeah, that’s been my hang-up, too,” I admitted. “Like it or not, Arik’s own record puts him at a huge disadvantage, especially placed against his Judge mother. The kid won’t stand a chance of being taken seriously, and that’s if he even wants to speak up about it.” That was another thing I didn’t like thinking about. “No matter what, Judge Fu is still Arik’s mother, and whether it be forced through threats, bribes, or actual love and respect, will he want to speak out against her?” I looked to Eve, hoping for some direction there, but she was sitting with her eyes closed as she listened to us.
“That’s a very real consideration we’ll have to face once he wakes,” Doc added. “But what about those thumb drives? Do they have anything on them to back any of this up?”
“Oh yeah,” Xavier replied. “It's super encrypted and randomized on individual drives, but once I get it pieced together, it will give us a more finalized idea of what they were doing, and with who, and probably even when and where. I just need more time.”
I was unsure there was even a path forward with this. I knew that if it were up to any of us, we wouldn’t hesitate to implicate a corrupt Judge and DEA agent. But none of us were in the position that Arik was in, and our stake in it was far different from his.
“Planning ahead is good, but without concrete proof, there’s nothing we can do at this point,” I said as I turned to Xavier. “Xavier, continue to run your traces and whatever else on those phones and the drives.” I needed a break from all of this, even for a bit. “I’m going to… I don’t know. Go home, get a shower, take a nap, go for a swim… anything else just to make the time pass easier. Call me if anything else comes up, okay?” I waved to them as I turned to leave.
I made my way out of the room, down the corridor, and back to George’s garage to my Mercedes. I sat in the driver’s seat for a good ten minutes before I even started the ignition. What I wouldn’t give for a damn vacation.
When I got back to my condo, I showered, cleaned up, and tried to take a nap, but that wasn’t happening. So, I brewed some coffee and sat down with every intention of resting and checking up on emails, texts, and whatever else I’d been putting off. But my team had other ideas, it seemed. Xavier, Doc, and Rosa knocked at my door a little past eight that night, ready for whatever was coming next.
I welcomed the trio in, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they weren’t happy with the information they had with them. “Come on in. There are cookies someplace around here and help yourselves into whatever is in that fridge.” They all knew the routine, but it seemed weird to not offer it out loud.
Doc went straight for the coffee and creamer, and he sniffed out Eve’s cookies right away. Rosa joined me back in the living area, and while I claimed the chair, she took the sofa. I noticed then that her leg must have been doing better as her movements and reactions had almost returned to pre-injured standards. I was glad for her sake. I needed her back at full strength.
Xavier had his laptop, of course, but he avoided the table that he usually set up on and joined us by sitting on the couch. He left enough room for Doc when he made his way over, as well. Xavier’s expression was unreadable, and that could mean anything at this point. Since his intel on the situation was the focal point for the rest of us, it was up to him to tell us how to move forward.
“Those aren’t bad. Tell Eve she did a good job.” Doc maneuvered around our feet and positioned himself at the end of the couch as he munched on the cookie. He had a plate of them in one hand and his steaming mug of coffee in the other. He sighed as he got comfort
able, setting both of the items on the small table in between all of us.
“How do you know that I didn’t make those, huh?” I got three very unimpressed and extremely hard stares from my team. Then I started to see the grins grow on a few of their faces.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “I mean, yeah, I didn’t, but you never know. Someday, I might surprise you.” Rosa made a very rude and unflattering sound while Xavier and Doc tried to move the conversation ahead.
“The analysis on the phones came back, and it was pretty much as we all expected,” Xavier explained. “We can trace the pings off the cell towers at specific locations, but there’s no tangible way to say who the calls came from or why they were made. Without corroborating evidence, all we have are theories.” And there it was.
“And the only way to corroborate that is through Arik?” I was stating the obvious, and it made me sick. “And the truth is, no matter what he says, his mother can refute it by telling us that one of her aides or assistants are actually responsible for buying the phones. That, in turn, can imply that one of them is working with the Yabut drug ring and not her. Am I reading this correctly?”
Xavier nodded in confirmation. “Not only that, but she could turn around and say that person was actively trying to frame her or set her up to take a hit to her reputation, career, blah, blah, blah…” He also wasn’t saying anything that we hadn’t thought of before. This certainly wasn’t the first time we’d run into no-win situations.
“Then, at this point, what becomes our mission?” I asked pointedly. “Where do we go from here with a file of evidence that we believe to be true, but that we can’t prove to anyone with the power to do something about it?” I looked to each of my team, wondering if maybe they had answers that I hadn’t considered yet. I was really hoping.