by I A Thompson
She sighed. “But gang life is something like a family tradition around here and even kids as young as eight and ten years old get sucked into the world of drugs and violence. When Jay-Jay was nine, he came home and told me that the Kendall Boys started using him as a drug mule. The next day, when he was at school, I went over to the Sheriff’s office and told them everything. They came out in full force for one of the biggest raids ever in this town and for a while, things quieted down while the main culprits were behind bars. The police regularly patrolled the neighborhood and the thugs moved to other areas of town where there was less scrutiny.” Her lips curled up as she chuckled slightly. “It was the biggest cat and mouse game I had ever seen. And as sad as it is, the police were on the losing end. They had no idea, how far and wide the tentacles of the drug trade went; all the way to the most respectable citizens and highest offices. When the big recession hit us, the money for the police dried up and the patrols stopped almost entirely. The gangs came back with a vengeance and a lot more fire power than before. My Jay-Jay began making a name for himself with the Kendall Boys and I grew more and more worried that I might lose him as well. On July 16th, 2013, I decided to become a police informant.”
“What was significant about that date?” Zach asked.
“It was in the late afternoon hours of that day, when I heard sirens, more sirens than I had heard in years. I looked out the window and could see fire and smoke in the parking lot in between buildings G and H. It looked like a car might have caught on fire, but it turned out that a group of teens had pulled Stan, the boiled peanut vendor who always came through the neighborhood around that time, from his peanut stand, doused him with lighter fluid and set him on fire. For no other reason than because they could; Stan did not survive.”
Ella took a deep breath. “Something died in me that day. I had always hoped that one day things might change for the better. Right there and then, I came to the realization that it would only get worse, unless someone spoke up, and now that this cheap cocaine with the Japanese name is showing up everywhere, I fear that we’re on the brink of a drug war, like we’ve never seen before around here. We now have more than twenty suspected gangs, more than any other city in the region. Our rivers and bayous are perfect hiding places for smugglers and there are plenty of people who want to get rich quick. Many of them live right here.”
“Don’t you fear for your safety, Miss Jackson?” Regina asked.
“Sometimes,” Ella replied. “And that’s why Nick is the deputy visiting me. I’ve been friends with his mama for most of my life; we go to the same church. She used to come visit with him before she and her husband decided to move to Atlanta. Now, it’s just him, and since he’s not in uniform and not known around here as a cop, nobody pays any attention to him.”
“Do you think your grandson is involved with these drugs?” Zach asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. He doesn’t associate with the guys I’ve pegged as dealers, and now that he’s out of school, he’s gotten himself a good job with Rutherford Motors, working on cars. As far as I can tell, he’s staying on the straight and narrow. He’s been in trouble with the law a few times when he was younger, but not lately. I sure do hope those days are behind him.”
Zach got up, sat down next to Ella and took her hands. “Miss Jackson, I can’t thank you enough for opening up to us and sharing your story. You are one brave and courageous lady.”
14
Regina looked up from her computer, unable to get the conversation they had with Ella two days ago out of her head. After she and Zach left Kendall Arms, she called her mother and told her about finding Ella. Eleanor didn’t waste any time and got in touch with her childhood friend and the two women met for lunch the following day, spending the afternoon catching up on all the years they had missed.
Regina couldn’t help but imagine what her life would have looked like if the roles had been reversed all those years ago. If it had been her mother who had become a ward of the state, instead of being a radiant debutante, graduate of the University of Alabama’s accounting program, bride to one of the most eligible bachelors in three counties, mother of two successful children and a pillar of the community.
Would she be where she was now if she had to grow up in a place like Kendall Arms? Or would she have gone down the path of so many girls growing up in a such an underprivileged environment? Working dead end jobs to provide for children she couldn’t afford to have, always feeling guilty for not being able to give them everything she wished she could have had?
She turned her attention back to the information on her computer. While Zach had been shadowing Brad Manning to get a feel for the drug related activities in Santa Rosa county, she had been analyzing the data she had received from the HIDTA program.
She had to admit she was surprised to find out that there were over 300 international, national and regional drug trafficking organizations operating within the Gulf Coast HIDTA program boundaries. Marijuana steadily held on to its top spot on the list of drugs encountered. Over the last years, methamphetamine labs had been on the rise. Heroin use markedly increased, especially in the larger metropolitan areas, but by far the biggest impact on violent crime, the economy and society was caused by the dramatic increase in powder and crack cocaine.
Even before the first appearance of ‘Niseko’ in the region, Cocaine had posed a significant drug threat, but now, the ratings had gone through the roof. There was a strong and stable supply that kept law enforcement scrambling to maintain even a semblance of containment and drug treatment facilities were at capacity with ever growing waiting lists.
Regina consolidated her findings into a neat, non-descript report that she uploaded to Interpol’s I-24/7 system, then logged into her team’s Ghost Coms network to check her encrypted email, finding an unread message from Lena.
She opened the message and looked at a long string of garbled letters, numbers and special characters.
Pulling up her cypher software, she copied the message, entered the password of the day and pressed the decrypt button. A split second later she looked at clear text.
“Rotterdam informant disclosed large Niseko shipment appeared to have been transported aboard a Royal Dutch Freight Lines cargo ship.”
Regina ran a full search on the shipping company and found that Royal Dutch Freight Lines was a large, multi-national conglomerate, headquartered in Rotterdam. They owned over a thousand cargo vessels of various sizes along with fifty-two oil tankers. They maintained offices in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Shanghai, Jebel Ali, Los Angeles, Jakarta, Tokyo, Mumbai, Vancouver and Sao Paolo in support of their global operations.
In their 140-year history, the company had built a stellar reputation for punctuality, quality of service and above-board behavior. Regina was unable to find even a hint of impropriety connected to the company. She didn’t want to dismiss the only lead they had gotten from Europe so far, but at the same time, she had serious concerns about its credibility.
She skimmed through the Customs and Border Patrol and ICE feeds for the Gulf Coast in the hope of picking up some ‘Niseko’ related news but found nothing. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t right, it was too quiet. Given what she and Zach had heard from the HIDTA team, she would have expected more communication across the dark web and other communications channels. The level of stealth with which these drug traffickers operated was pointing to an extremely well organized and tightly run operation.
Regina looked up when Zach walked into the room. “Hey, how was your day? Anything good?” she asked.
Zach shook his head. “Not really, just a lot of dead ends. We spoke to a few low-level street dealers and they unanimously stated that it’s near impossible for them to get their hands on ‘Niseko’. South American cocaine of almost any denomination is easy to come by, but not this stuff. It appears to have its own distribution network and if you’re not part of it, you don’t even come close to the merchandise.”
�
�Don’t you find that a bit weird?”
“Yes and no. I’ve seen this before in Southern California with one of the Mexican cartels. They didn’t allow any of their drugs to be distributed within a fifty-mile radius of their drug smuggling route to keep it protected. They were right under our noses the whole time; we had no clue until we tripped over it by pure luck.”
“What was the lucky break?”
“We were looking into an alleged sweat shop operation involving illegal immigrants. We had staked out a warehouse in an industrial park, when we noticed an unusual traffic pattern around a slaughterhouse. What kind of vehicles would you expect to see?”
“I guess livestock transports, refrigerated cargo trucks, biohazard waste trucks, private vehicles, health department inspectors and so on. Am I close?”
“You are. That’s about what we expected to see as well, and they did a good job at keeping the illusion up. To the casual observer, nothing would have stood out as unusual. However, if you’re ordered to sit still and watch all day and all night, depending on what shift you’re on, you start seeing patterns where you otherwise wouldn’t. Such as, a waste truck only showing up once a week, when day in and day out, roughly two dozen cooled trucks roll in and out. What kind of processing went on in this slaughterhouse that would generate that much traffic with that little waste? And, how do you reconcile that with only five private vehicles parked at the facility. Even if these workers were master carpoolers, that would only account for roughly twenty workers. Way too few for that type of output.”
“Assuming you all took them out, how did they do it?”
“They had a highly sophisticated tunnel system, capable of transporting a ton of drugs into the U.S. every day. The workers at the slaughterhouse broke the shipment up and hid the drugs in the animal carcasses that were brought in and then shipped back out. The meat was moved from the trucks to a freezer, stuffed and moved back into the trucks. Within an hour, the cargo was on its way across the South West.”
“Do you think that’s what we’re dealing with here? If so, how the hell are we going to find these jerks?”
“As boring as it sounds, we have to continue doing what we’re doing. You do your research, I do mine. Eventually, something is going to pop up; it always does.”
“Hey, nothing I’m not used to. It’s literally all I do at my normal job; hunting for clues and waiting until the puzzle pieces turn into a picture,” she shrugged.
“While we’re waiting, we might as well make the rounds through the local hang outs and see if we can find some loose lips. There’s always someone who knows something.”
“You sound like one of those TV shows where any mystery is solved within an hour, minus commercial time.”
Zach laughed. “Yeah, I know. Terrible simplifications. A far cry from all the hurry-up-and-wait we’re dealing with, but honestly, I’m more than anything looking for an excuse to have a beer and relax for a while. After all, who knows how long we’ll get to stay here.”
“Sounds good to me. May I suggest ‘The Breakers’? It’s been a staple of the island bar scene for decades. This early in the season, you’ll mostly find locals there, so it won’t be that busy."
15
‘The Breakers’ was built on stilts to protect the structure from flooding during hurricanes, and overlooking one of the marinas on the island, it had a spectacular view of the gulf and the sound separating Pensacola Beach from the mainland. It was a big light-filled room, decorated in a beach motif with a long bar made of polished mahogany that dominated the room. Out back was a large deck that was perfect for partying.
Only a few patrons were sitting at the bar when Regina and Zach arrived, with happy hour still a good thirty minutes away. The slender, toned and bronzed bartender was smiling at them; a poster child for the benefits of beach life.
“Hi guys, “she beamed. “Welcome to ‘The Breakers’. My name is Jolene and I’ll be taking care of you all night. What can I get you?”
They each ordered a bottle of locally brewed craft beer, Regina choosing a white beer brewed with raspberries, and Zach a porter aged in whiskey barrels.
“So, what brings you to the island?” Jolene asked.
“Work,” Zach replied. “I’m a journalist doing research for an article.”
“And I’m just along for the ride,” Regina added with a grin.
Jolene smiled. “You all picked a nice time to come down here. In a few weeks, this place will be swirling with tourists. Right now, it’s just us. Ain’t that right, Bud?” she shouted towards the other end of the bar where an older patron was nursing his drink.
He looked up, a long-haired version of Ernest Hemingway with a thick gray beard and wavy hair that was pulled back into a loose ponytail. “Yeah, just us, trying to kill another day.”
Jolene dismissively waved her hand. “Bud is a bit of a curmudgeon,” she explained. “He used to be a real hotshot with one of the big oil companies. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, his company pulled out of the Gulf of Mexico for fear of facing a hostile economic climate. Bud was given a golden parachute and told to take a hike. Now he keeps me company almost every day.”
“I bet you see a lot of interesting customers come through here. Anyone that stood out to you over time?” Zach asked.
Jolene’s blue eyes glittered with excitement as she ran her fingers through her chestnut colored hair, pulling her braid over her right shoulder. “I’ve met politicians, two former astronauts, a whole bunch of actors and actresses, a supermodel and,” she lowered her voice, “a serial killer. Of course, at that time we didn’t know he really was a serial killer; that came out much later.”
“Who was that?” Regina asked eagerly.
“Craig Brenner, remember him? His name was all over the news about twenty years ago. He left a trail of death across the East Coast; used to come here, throw money around and pick up girls. His most successful pick-up line was ‘Hi, my name is Craig Brenner, like the serial killer.’ I swear to God; it worked every time. He was good looking, charming and always flush with money. It was my third summer here, but I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“Didn’t he get arrested in Pensacola?” Regina vaguely remembered the news coverage.
“Yes, right behind ‘George’s’ restaurant in Brownsville.”
“Wow, that’s pretty crazy.” Zach typed notes into his phone so he wouldn’t forget the details of what he just heard. Not that it mattered for their current investigation, but it supported the image he wanted to create.
Jolene was just getting started. “Oh, and then, of course, there was the big cocaine bust ten years ago. The FBI and DEA came out and locked down our stretch of the beach and grilled us for hours. Turned out, the previous owner of this place and his wife had been peddling drugs for years. They had a runner who would go down to Miami, pick up the drugs and bring them back; they were very selective on who they sold to, which is why they never got caught. They probably would still be at it today, had it not been for the police in Miami who took out the distributor down there. It just so happened to be that Steve, the runner, got caught up in that sting. The investigators followed him back to Pensacola Beach and took them all down.”
“Have there been any drugs or serial killers lately?” Zach said jokingly, trying to hide his interest.
“Hah!” Bud laughed a short sarcastic laugh. “Just wait a few weeks, Sonny. By Memorial Day, you’ll be able to get anything you want around here. Sodom and Gomorrah. Especially those kids from Gulf Breeze High School; all too rich, too spoilt and too entitled. You wouldn’t believe the orgies these kids arrange; our parents would have whooped us till Kingdom come if we had ever behaved that way.”
“Yes. They rent these beautiful beach houses you see on Ariola Drive,” Jolene added. “Limitless booze, drugs and sex, but it’s not just the Gulf Breeze kids. It’s kids up and down the Gulf Coast from Biloxi to Panama City Beach. It gets a little worse every year. Rumor has it that the drugs are c
oming from the Navarre area, but if I was a betting girl, which I’m not, I’d bet on Pensacola, easier to fly under the radar here.”
“And why would you do that?” Zach asked.
“Well, mostly because I know my regulars. They’ll be rolling in about an hour from now; you’ll recognize them as soon as they come in, they’re all flashy and full of themselves. Most of them work in Car City, although there are a few lawyers sprinkled in the mix. They love their coke and other performance-enhancing drugs if you know what I mean. They don’t venture far away from their car lots, worried they’ll miss out on a sale; so, someone in that vicinity is hooking them up.”
“Where would I find that Car City?” Zach inquired.
“Oh, it’s not really a city; just a section of Highway 29, mainly between Brent Lane and I-10. So, are you writing about drugs? What’s your interest in the topic?” Jolene lowered her voice. “Are you two trying to score?”
Zach laughed. “No, nothing like that. I generally write about social issues and right now, I’m working on an article about subsidized housing.”
“Then what the hell are you doing out here on the beach?” Bud inserted himself back into the conversation. “We don’t have any of that riff-raff out here. They’re mostly contained in Pensacola.”
“Sir,” Regina spoke very softly, but through furiously gritted teeth. “Please do not refer to the less fortunate among us as riff-raff.”
Bud gave her a dismissive look. “A little miss do-gooder here, huh?” he turned to Zach. “She’ll make you a good wife, pal. A fine, southern lady, with a kind heart and a desire to make the world a better place.”
Zach smiled and put his hands over Regina’s which she had balled into fists so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. “Yes, she is very special, my sweetheart. But you would be foolish to underestimate her. It is actually her job to make the world a better place; she works at UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.”