“I’m okay. I just haven’t eaten today.”
“Okay. We’ll bring you a meal replacement bar.”
“Thank you.” One of the officers stood up and walked towards the restrooms where the lifeguard trucks were parked. “Did you mention a rescue?”
“Yes, the little girl.”
“Did the lifeguard make it in time?”
“He sure did. She wasn’t more than twenty-five feet from you when we performed CPR on her. She’s on her way to the hospital just to get looked at. Precautionary measures.”
“But she made it.”
“She sure did. Luckily that boy screamed as quickly as he did. It saved a few precious seconds. And the lifeguard was really on top of things. The undertow is starting to pick up with the tide. We already switched the flag from green to yellow.”
The second firefighter returned with the meal replacement bar and a small water.
“Thank you.”
“No problem. Would you like someone to look at you?”
“No, I’m okay. Thank you. I’ll just make my way into the shade and catch my breath.”
“Okay, we’ll keep an eye on you for a few minutes. If you need anything you know where we are.”
“Yes. Thanks again.”
Donna stood to go and then remembered her bag. She walked to the tower, picked up the bag, and made her way into the shade.
She was beyond embarrassed, and equally frustrated. How could the people of this town expect her to protect them when she couldn’t even protect herself?
As she sat in the shade she thought back. This was the same beach where Cain had his flashback. It hadn’t been the best of spots for either of them. But now there was no more them. She was back on her own. It added to the sadness of the afternoon.
She finished her meal replacement bar and drink, and walked back up to her apartment, stopping to pick up a coffee along the way. She decided the best bet was to work through the night. Burying herself in her work had worked for her all these years before. It should work for her now. She wondered why she ever thought differently.
CHAPTER 44
Donna settled into a long night of work on her laptop. There was just one thing that she couldn’t get out of her head. One thing that really annoyed her.
Cain had ended his note with no B.S., yet he was so full of it himself. Even locked up he seemed so sure of himself, like he knew a secret she didn’t. She thought about just what that secret might be and came up blank. Then it hit her … his whole life is still a big secret because she never got the information from the Navy Recruiter.
She searched her drawer for a burner phone. Nothing. They were all down at the office. She stopped and thought for a second. The last thing she did before walking away from her car in Santa Ana was to empty the few things she had in the trunk into a backpack, which was now sitting in her closet. Jackpot. She found a couple burners inside and hooked up the charger. Five minutes later she was dialing.
Voicemail.
She realized how out of it she was. It was past sunset in California so it was well into the night in Illinois. She’d have to wait until tomorrow.
She reconsidered working through the night, deciding to set her alarm for four o’clock knowing she’d probably pass out at her computer on the couch soon, that way when she woke up she could call Illinois again and if not she could get in some morning exercise. She might still have issues with water, but nothing prevented her from running up and down the over two hundred vertical steps at Thousand Steps Beach.
Her alarm came sooner than expected. She had dozed off just after setting it. Her laptop screen’s search query still blinking in her face waiting for the enter key to signal it to go and fetch any and all results.
She called Chicago and got an answer on the first ring.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you!”
“It’s getting deeper where I am. I’m sorry, I lost track of time when I got caught up in some other things.”
“You’re not the only one who’s getting caught up in some other things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seems there’s more to your mystery man than we knew. A lot more.”
“What did you find out?”
“Well, on the record of course nothing that I can share with you. I’d never compromise any type of personnel records, but I did stumble onto something huge.”
“Tell me.”
“Last week a potential recruit walks in. He has a prior from a drug charge. He’s looking for a waiver. He goes on for a while about other Naval personnel with waivers, so I call him out on it. Ask him what in the heck he’s talking about. He references some Navy SEAL ops down in South and Central America and how they’re in with the drug kingpins. Eventually I get rid of him and write him off as some sort of conspiracy theorist. But I have to admit, what the kid was talking about annoyed me. It got my attention. I put in a Freedom of Information Act Request on a few things in case that kid comes back. I wanted to shut him down right in his tracks. The information I requested comes back, and a lot of it’s not redacted, which I find extremely odd. So I’m reading it, and low and behold your boy was down in Mexico cleaning up the cartels. They don’t mention him as a SEAL, but they do mention him by name. They have him listed as a private contractor, which I’m guessing is in case something goes south on them in a hurry. You know they want deniability of course. Anyways the name is a match and some of the other information lines up with SEAL stuff. I’m pretty sure we’ve looking at the same guy.”
“Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”
“Yep. He was the lead on that busted op.”
CHAPTER 45
Donna stormed into the station, checking out O’Connor in the logbook, and moving him straight to the interrogation room. She went into the observation room and shut everything down, before hurriedly moving back into the interrogation room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you. I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“What are you talking about? I was the detective in charge of putting them away!”
“And I saw how that turned out.”
“Yeah, well, not much different than the result you got.”
“Don’t go there. I lost seven men on that mission, men who gave everything to make this world a safer and better place. Don’t you dare go there.”
“And you don’t think I lose innocent kids on the street every day? You think that hurts me less, somehow?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“Did you release his name?”
“No, all that’s ever been released was that he was a male and his approximate age. We still haven’t even been able to ID him.”
“That’s good.”
“How is that good?”
“You don’t know who he is do you?”
“No.”
“He’s the caller.”
“Who phoned in the tip?”
“Tips.”
“Why plural?”
“He called us before he called you.”
“Why did he call both?”
“Double his chances first and foremost.”
“And?”
“Like us … he probably didn’t know who he could trust.”
“So what happened?”
“I think I’ve got it, but I need to talk to someone first.”
“Someone where?”
“Same place I was headed before your guys picked me up.”
“Mexico?”
“No. Last stop is San Diego.”
“They thought you were going to try and cross.”
“I was going to cross, but not to Mexico.”
“Where?”
“To Coronado.”
“You’ve got somebody on base who has information?”
“They don’t know it, but I think they do.”
“What does that mean?”
“What money?”
“El Toro’s money.”
“We don’t know where his accounts are.”
“But his brother-in-law does.”
“Where are we going to find his brother-in-law?”
“Why do you think your suspect won’t talk? Won’t give his name?”
“That’s his brother-in-law?”
“Ask him for yourself.”
Two minutes later she was back in the interrogation room. With her was the original suspect.
“I’m sorry if we were rude to you at first.”
The suspect looked at O’Connor.
O’Connor nodded, signifying it was safe to speak. Letting him know Detective Davis could be trusted. She was one of them, one of the good ones.
“No problem. You can understand I needed to take precautions. Not only for my own life, but for my sister and her child.”
“Yes, of course.”
“And you are sure no one is watching us now. No recordings. Nothing?”
“Totally sure. I locked the entrance to the observation room, so no one can get in without a set of keys. One of which I have. The other is in storage.”
“Okay, as I told O’Connor, the money’s being deposited in amounts less than ten thousand dollars. The deposits will be somewhere around nine thousand.”
“Ever day?”
“With the size of his operation, I’m guessing at least a few times a day.”
“A few times?”
“It’s the biggest in the world and getting bigger.”
“So we see who’s depositing the money and to whom. Who’s washing it and where they’re washing it to?”
“Right. Once we see that we’ll know the next steps.”
“Why didn’t you want to tell me that before?”
“What if the money is going to you?”
“Me? I don’t even own a car.”
“The perfect cover.”
“Good point.” Detective Davis stopped to think. “Any idea if your brother-in-law has somebody official on the payroll in this area? Somebody on the inside?”
“First of all, please just call him El Toro. I don’t think of him as my brother-in-law.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. To answer your question, there’s no way of knowing. In Mexico it’s a certainty, so I’d think things would be the same here.”
“We do things here a bit differently.”
“Right. In Mexico they’re called bribes. Here they’re called contributions and donations.”
“That’s a fair assessment, unfortunately. Okay, here’s what we’ll do. For now, I’m going to leave you both locked up. I don’t want to alert anyone that might be involved. Let’s keep a low profile while I search for those deposits.”
Both men nodded in agreement.
“In the meantime, I won’t talk to or question you. We can continue on letting everyone think you won’t talk.”
“A good plan.”
Donna turned her head to address, O’Connor. “And give me a day to try and find the money before we reach out to your guy in Coronado. I’m guessing he won’t talk to me anyways, without you speaking with him first.”
“Correct.”
“Anything I’m forgetting in the meantime?”
“Any chance I can get a pillow?” Miguel asked.
Five minutes later Miguel had a pillow and Donna was on her way back to her apartment.
CHAPTER 46
Donna returned home and went straight for her backpack. In the sleeve she found her old laptop. She powered it on and connected to the Internet. It was too late in the game to take chances on her work computer. If she was going to get a second chance to take down El Toro, she was going to make the most of it.
The first thing she did was cross-reference El Toro with charges of international terrorism. The situation involving Cain’s team should easily qualify, but she didn’t know if it was on the books or not. She searched Interpol and found one of the charges he was wanted for was indeed international terrorism. That was the key to the door she wanted to open first.
Under Section 358 of the Patriot Act, Title III, Subtitle B she could now go after information regarding his financial accounts, as he was classified as an international terrorist.
She went back to the station and checked out a car. It was still before nine o’clock, the time when most banks opened, but she wanted to be prepared. She went back to her house and printed out a map of all the major bank branches in Laguna Beach and the surrounding areas. Most were right downtown, just a few minutes walk away. A few more required a twenty to thirty minute drive up the canyon to the city of Irvine. To save time she’d start there first and work back.
By noon she had finished with the last branch. She pulled into Whole Foods to grab a sandwich. As she came out she got the first call from a branch up in Irvine. They had ran through their database and there were no matches. They apologized.
She didn’t expect a hit on her first try, but a lead right off the bat would have been nice. She sat in her car, eating her sandwich. When she was finished she decided she’d take advantage of the parking spot she had at Whole Foods and walk just over to Laguna Drug to refill her prescription. She felt a headache coming on and driving around in circles for public parking wasn’t going to help improve the situation.
She entered Whole Foods on her way back through and bought a juice. It was only fair since she was still parked in their lot, and it would help wash down the meds. She could eat a sandwich in three minutes, so she figured all in she was there under ten minutes, and the lot wasn’t full yet. She hadn’t held anyone up, which was good.
As she twisted the cap off her bottle another call came through. It was the bank just across the street. They confirmed there were no deposits in those amounts with such consistency. She asked them to clarify and they assured her there was nothing remotely close. Nearly all their customers handled their business online, not with physical currency in hand. Another call came in on the other line so she thanked them and answered the next bank. After she finished that call she was zero for three. She took a sip of her juice and washed down her pill.
Then something occurred to her. Of all the banks she visited, two of the three that have already called back were right across the street. The last ones she entered. The branch manager in Irvine told her a search of that nature takes at least thirty to forty five minutes to run through their database. She assumed other banks would be about the same. The last bank she entered was the second one to call. She had been sitting in her car less than ten minutes, so she left that bank no more than fifteen minutes prior. It was literally across the street. She was staring right at it.
Either they just checked with their tellers, they didn’t check at all, or they were hiding something.
Donna noticed a spot on the street in front of her was about to open up. She fired up the engine and slid into the spot. After feeding the meter for an hours worth of time, she slid down in her seat and began watching the bank. She felt the excitement of surveillance come back to her and then she laughed. She always remembered surveillance as one of the most boring tasks an officer is asked to do.
An hour passed and all she had to her credit were a few more confirmations that no one knew anything. She still felt suspicious of the bank she was watching and fed the meter for another hour.
Just under ten minutes later a large SUV with the side and rear windows tinted black pulled up to the bank. In a part of the country grossly overrepresented with SUVs it didn’t really stand out, until three men simultaneously exited the vehicle.
They were all about the same age, and each carried a small backpack. If she didn’t know any better she would think they were headed for the gym. And maybe they were, but why would they risk getting a ticket or being towed for parking at the bank?
Most banks, including this one, had a man who watche
d their lot. He was getting paid to keep non-customers from parking in the lot, but he also was required to greet customers and show them which parking stall to take, things of that nature. It was a common practice that any local would know. The greeter did his job as usual, but didn’t seem to mind when all three men walked in different directions, and not one of them inside his bank. Either he was taking bribes for people who wanted to park and go to the beach, or this was a red flag.
SEAL's Secret: A Navy SEAL Romantic Suspense Novel (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 24) Page 12
