by Ed Teja
Somehow, the fact that she'd done her homework so thoroughly didn't surprise me. Not that I liked it—it gave her an advantage. I was already enough behind the eight ball. “Yes, I was, but I got better.”
“You know a lot about him, don't you?” Bill said.
“And you as well—” She paused. “You know, Mr…Hell, I'm going to stick with Ugly Bill. That's what you'd prefer, I'm sure. And yes, Bill, with the stuff we dug up our people could write books about you. In fact, I think some of our people have.”
Bill grinned. “But the need-to-know mania pervasive among our fearless leaders keeps them from ever getting published. That's a shame when you get down to it.”
She nodded. “Amazing, right? Letting all that good material go to waste is downright criminal.”
“Do I know any of this good stuff?” I asked.
“Doubtful.” He laughed. “Lady, I'm not sure how deep you dug, but I know some of the files on me are so complete they contain stuff that I'm not allowed to know. I find that lovely and deliciously ironic.”
“How can that be?” Hank asked.
Bill grinned. “I have no idea how it came about. A few years back, on a whim, I applied for my files under the Freedom of Information Act. I got a reply that my request was denied for reasons of National Security,” he said. “I thought that was pretty good. I wrote them a letter asking if I was in some kind of trouble for knowing who I was and what I've done.”
“What did they say to that?” Amy asked.
Bill shrugged. “In the end, I didn't mail the letter. Why give them ideas?”
“And how would you know what you've done?” I asked him. “If it was secret stuff, the way government works, they would require you do all the things you definitely didn't officially do with your eyes closed. These people want you to sign nondisclosures about signing nondisclosures.”
“Good point,” he said. “But we don't care all that much about how much whoever you work for knows about us. More to the point: As you noted, Hank never mentioned your existence.”
“Of course, he hasn't told us anything of substance yet,” I said. “Under the circumstances, so that we don't have to bust a gut dragging things out of Hanks, can you just tell us who you are?”
Bill snorted. “If you are feeling generous, you might toss in a little info on your role in whatever is going on as well.”
She held out a hand. Martin, Bill, I am Amy Pfeiffer. I work for the DEA.”
“Doing what?” Bill asked.
She smiled. “As—well, I guess I'm an agent.”
That made me laugh. “You guess you're an agent? I'd expect a person to know whether she was or not. It's not usually in question.”
“Ah, but I'm a special snowflake. They call on me to do a lot of things. It can make a girl lose track of what she's supposed to be. But I'm pretty sure 'agent' is my job official title. If they let me have business cards, that's what I'd be inclined to put on them.” She traced invisible lines of text across a business card in the air. “Amy Pfeiffer, DEA Special Snowflake Agent.”
“And why is she involved?” I asked Hank.
“Because we don't have a choice,” Hank said.
I didn't like the idea of getting involved with Hank and having someone from an alphabet agency tagging along made it worse. “Actually we do have a choice about the entire enterprise, Hank. We can say goodbye and go back to our ship.”
“Alternatively, we could just hang out here until Happy Hour,” Bill said. Hank glared at him. “I hate to interrupt my drinking. But before we decide to walk away, I'd like to hear the rest of her answer, the part about what her role is.”
A mischievous smile lit her face up. “My role? Oh, I'm just another tourist. I was planning on going along with you on Hank's little Caribbean island-hopping adventure.”
I looked at Hank, who was rubbing his face. “Is that what we are doing? Which islands?”
She took a breath. “You don't even know that?” She looked at Hank.
“Hank was too busy sending in an assault team to grab me. He didn't have the time to prepare a proper pitch,” I told her.
“What?”
Seeing Amy's surprise was delicious. “This is for real?” She stared at Hank as if she'd never seen him before. “You tried to abduct him to get him to go on a mission.”
Hank winced. “Our relationship is strained, and time was of the essence. The mission seemed reasonable at the time.”
“Fuck,” she said, looking at me.
The struggle to process the information showed in her face, in the way she hesitated, giving herself time to take it in.
“It didn't work out well for him,” Bill said. “Gazele broke one man's head, and we sent the rest home without dinner.”
Amy started to speak, but Hank held up a hand. “Even with our history, it was an ill-considered move—but no more reckless than what you are doing in order to be involved.”
“This sounds good,” Bill said.
“Tell them why you have to be involved and why I'm letting you.”
“Please do,” Bill said.
“And don't leave out the part about how you are blackmailing me.”
“Blackmail?” I was laughing now, something that earned me a dirty look from Gazele at the bar. “This gets better all the time. We have a Fed resorting to blackmail to force a naval officer to let her take part in some mission that he felt the need to abduct people to run for him. Do I have that right?”
Bill nodded. “Curious, huh? Impressive how these newfangled interagency cooperation schemes work. They are really something.”
The summary seemed to please Amy. She wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn't call it blackmail. For my own reasons, I was tracking some businesspeople that have been giving Hank fits lately. In the process I got wind that he was planning some kind of operation against them on his own initiative. That sounded too good to be true. I confronted him. I told him I wanted in on the fun. If he refused, I’d tell the teacher.”
“You were going to run an operation off the books, Hank? Shame on you. And Amy, would you really tattle on him?”
Amy grinned. “Sure. Hank is a big deal admiral and not used to talking orders from anyone with less braid. I have no braid at all and had to make it impossible for him to say no.”
I nodded. “I'd call that blackmail.”
“Okay, call it that. Is that a problem for you?” she asked.
“No, it's rather nice. But why would he care if you tattled? They'd shut down his mission and make him take a time out.”
“Ah, but it's a mission on foreign soil without permission from the host country. I think that's also why he didn't tell me about your involvement. He said he was putting together a team but recruiting civilians. That makes his venture even more illegal, unethical, and immoral than it was in concept.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Shit, Hank, telling it that way makes it sound more like a mission I'd set up than anything you run. How did that happen?”
“So he gives in and lets you into the inner sanctum or you see that he gets his hand slapped?”
“Oh, we are well past that. I get to participate in this little hoedown, or I make sure that everyone knows what he plans before he has a chance to execute it. If I do that, it will get him crucified in the press and prosecuted in the courts.” Her pleased smiled belied the gravity of things. “It's a pretty straightforward bargaining chip, really.”
“And mean,” Bill said. “A serious club.”
She shrugged. “Some dogs respond to a whistle and a pat on the head; others need more stern measures. I didn't have any luck getting Hank to respond to pleasant entreaties.”
I had to admit that the woman's intrusion into the discussion had improved my mood. Not only was she making Hank incredibly uncomfortable, which I found amusing, she was also hot.
“I'd like to hear more,” I said. “Like maybe what the mission actually is. Clearly, you know more about wha
t Hank has in mind than we do or he's willing to tell us.”
“This really isn't the place. In Exuma—” Hank started.
“Shut up, Hank,” Bill said. “You had your chance. Pretty Amy, you must tell us all, for as we said, although we managed to finagle an invitation to the party, we still have no idea whether formal wear is required, or even where or when it is. You seem to have several advantages over us.”
She sat back, grabbed the rum bottle and refilled Hank's glass—for herself. “To be clear: You aren't joking? You don't know what the mission is?”
“Not a clue.”
“Okay, the admiral won't put his cards on the table. so I'll shuffle and deal a fresh hand. The basic, simple answer to your question is that Hank was inviting you fellows on a party to kidnap a foreign national within the sovereign territory of another nation and smuggle him to a secure location for interrogation,” she said.
“Serious shit, that,” Bill said.
“Could be fun, though,” she said.
“And here I went and left my CIA credentials back on the boat,” Bill told her after a bit. “Worse, my kidnapping skills are a little rusty.”
“You won't need any kidnapping skills,” she said.
Bill looked offended. “Why would I allow you to make me miss out on all that fun?”
“I told you he wouldn't like that,” Hank told her.
She looked at Bill. “Stand down, Bill. It's just that the best approach is for two people to go on the island, with a third running a boat, so you won't be on the island doing the kidnapping.”
“What island?” Bill and I both asked.
“I do believe that is another of those pesky details Hank hasn't gotten around to explaining. The mission involves a black ops invasion of a private island. Lee Stocking Island, just off Exuma. That's where the target lives.”
“Why?” I asked.
Her fingers tapped a tattoo on the table. “You know, I'm thinking it might be easiest if you just tell me what he has told you, and I can work from there.”
“What we know?”
“Everything.”
“According to Hank, some guy has a business working with smugglers. He's gotten into doing money laundering, and Polly's legislative efforts threaten that. He also has mercenaries and he's decided to take her out. Somehow, ways he hasn't gotten around to telling us, we are supposed to stop them from killing her.”
Amy sat waiting, then looked at Bill. “Can you add anything to that?”
Bill pursed his lips. “Not much.”
“That's it?” she asked.
We both nodded.
“That's all he's told you?”
We nodded again. “Why?”
She drank the rum, then put the glass down and glared at Hank. “Because none of that has anything to do with what he told me. We might as well have been watching different movies.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Before we move on, would you mind answering one question about your story?”
“Not at all.”
She sighed. “Can someone tell me who the fuck this Poppy is?”
7
In the quiet that descended over the table after her question, Hank sat up straight, staring nervously—first at me, and then Bill.
My father always said it was a bad idea to discuss business at meal times. He proposed the theory that it could ruin your digestion. He wasn't usually available to talk to at other times, so I used to think he just didn't want to talk to us about anything important. But maybe he was right. I know the food in my stomach was unhappy about them.
Amy tapped the table. “You were going to tell me about Poppy.”
“Polly,” I said.
She made a face. “I need information here. What does Pauline have to do with Vermeer and why would Hank think you would care enough about this woman to risk war with The Bahamas, as strange as that sounds?” She folded her hands.
“That question needs some serious unpacking,” Bill said.
“The woman's name is Polly,” Hank said, sounding tired.
“Vermeer?” Bill asked. “Like the artist?”
She grinned at him. “Actually, Brad Vermeer is a direct descendant of that gentleman, but his art is money. He's a venture capitalist who moved here a few years ago and started a company called Vermeer Tropical Property Development. Not that he develops anything.”
“And who is—”
She grinned. “I will get to that, after you tell me everything there is to know about the perils of Pauline. Who is she and why do we care?”
Bill cleared his throat. “This is one question I can actually answer. So, if you will allow me to unravel this tiny bit... after all, it's the only part of this conversation I've understood. This could well be my only chance to contribute to the group's enlightenment.”
Amy nodded. “I'd be delighted to be enlightened.”
He held up a finger. “Then, if you will follow the bouncing digit and pretend you understand clown logic, I can help make some kind of sense out of both who she is and why some of us might be expected to care, although I take no responsibility for such assumptions.”
“Proceed,” she said.
Bill pointed his finger at the center of Hank’s chest. “The Polly in question is Senator Polly Jeffries—Hank's wife.” The finger moved to highlight me. “Polly was once Junior's wife, but when he dumped the military, she dumped him. It seems he lost his allure along with his commission. Ex-wife and wife Polly, aka Senator Polly Jeffries, is the head of the Senate Banking Committee.” He paused, then put up another finger. “According to the Oracle of Exuma here”—again, he pointed at Hank—” Polly has her sights set on clamping down on a lot of shadowy financial shit, making Senator Polly a person the bad guys have accordingly anointed the kill of the day. To the best of my knowledge, the exact day is not known. Assuming this is true, allegedly these two care on both the personal and patriotic level.”
“Decent summary,” I said.
“Shit!” Amy rolled her eyes.
“To elaborate on the second part of Bill's answer and backtracking slightly: Hank got Bill and me to this lunch to learn why she was in danger—something that remains murky and unclear even with what we've heard.”
“And because he was going to pay,” Bill said.
“Even murkier are the reasons Hank thought we might be able to stop the threat and why he can't.”
Bill coughed. “If I can offer an observation—apparently, the mission statements Hank is passing out are ripe with bullshit and tailored to the individual. That makes it hard to talk about as some coherent situation. I'm guessing he hoped the three of us would never have a chance to compare notes and take this one for totally different reasons.”
“It's not like that at all,” Hank said. “It just happened. Amy arrived on my doorstep knowing about the mission, but she didn't know anything about the threat to Polly. She was going to help make the mission happen, so I never saw a reason to mention it until we could all sit down in my office and go over the entire thing.”
I put on one of Hank's scowls. It didn't fit well. “That's a stupid justification for not providing important pieces of the puzzle. In fact, it stinks.”
Amy gave Hank a sullen glare. “Please explain to me why Vermeer wants to kill this senator?”
I nodded. “Apparently this Vermeer objects to her legislative agenda. She became unpopular at his house,” I said. “Unpopular enough that he decided to kill her.”
Hank cocked his head to one said. “When you say it that way, it sounds stupid. But it’s true.”
Amy sat, just breathing for a moment, then glared at Hank. “Really? Brad Vermeer, king of keeping a low profile, suddenly decided it was in his best interest to orchestrate the assassination of a high-profile US senator?”
“He needs to stop her legislation on money laundering and controlling cryptocurrency.”
“And for th
ose crimes against organized crime, he has put out a hit on her?” Bill asked.
Hank shook his head. “Unfortunately, it isn't something that simple.”
“A hit is simple?” Bill asked.
Hank shrugged. “If it was just a hit, we'd notify her security, and they'd coordinate with Homeland Security to take care of it.”
I grinned. “Great, then there is no problem. Everybody drink up and we can go home.”
Bill grinned. “We are home.”
Amy was waiting for Hank to elaborate. He took the time to groan first.
“Vermeer has spent the last year buying and expanding a legitimate security operation.”
Amy snorted. “Get serious, Hank. I know all about that and it doesn't represent a threat. The company he bought does maritime protection.” She looked at Bill and me. “He bought a company that provides various kinds of security for tankers and freighters operating in the Malacca Straits, down near Singapore, or in the Red Sea—they put well-armed forces on ships that have to pass anywhere pirates are a problem. They have helicopters for air surveillance and cover and some armed patrol boats.”
“He's been expanding their operations,” Hank said.
“And?”
“He's made a lot of acquisitions and new hires.”
Amy made a face. “News to me.”
“He's been sneaky. He told the government here that he was expanding the business in a variety of directions. He asked for and got permission to increase the infrastructure on his private island—Lee Stocking Island. And he hired and trained local people to offer private security for the rich and powerful who own islands here. And then, recently, he bought a Maryland-based private security company.”
“Ambitious lad,” I said.
“But he staffed the US office with a select core group that is loyal to him. They are mercenaries. The plan is to make an armed assault in the Capitol. The goal is to assassinate Polly.”
Amy's face registered disbelief. “I haven't heard a peep about any of this. How is that possible?”
“He didn't make a big splash about the acquisitions. It is a private company, after all. I just got the info myself.”
