by Ed Kovacs
I’d completely forgotten I’d called Decon and told him to meet me at Scrap Brothers. I wanted him with me tonight, not Honey, because he was the best B&E guy I’d ever seen. I expected serious security systems at Michoud Building J-19 and figured Decon was the one guy who might be able to get past them.
Building J-19 was a remote, stand-alone structure at the edge of the swamp in the sprawling facility in New Orleans East. We parked just off Old Gentilly Road and jumped the chain-link and barbed-wire fence. We had to slog a couple hundred yards through swampy overgrown bottomland until we emerged at the dead end of Pluto Drive. We stood sweating, mosquitoes dining on our blood, as I checked my battered old Garmin GPS handheld unit.
“That’s the building right there,” I said, staring at the moonlit cinderblock structure with a flat roof. The building had to be more than fifty years old and didn’t look well-kept. I removed a special monocular from my backpack and scanned the area. The device would indicate the presence of cameras, even very small lenses. “Don’t see any security cameras, either.”
“Non-existent lighting, no sentries,” considered Decon, out loud.
“Motion sensors?” I wondered.
We both used night-vision monoculars to carefully study the building and the expanse of open ground surrounding it. We took our time and performed a 360-degree sweep. One end of the structure served as the shipping area. A small forklift and a couple of pallet jacks sat out in the open. Amazingly, the double steel doors near the forklift stood wide open.
“What do you make of the open doors?” I asked.
“This is either a set-up or you got some bad information, if you catch my meaning. On the other hand, it could merely be a reflection of the poor work ethic instilled in the federal work force. These people are well-paid, get generous pensions and benefits, but they can’t be bothered to lock the frigging door when they leave. Do you know how many paid holidays a federal employee—”
“Set-up doesn’t make sense. This is the right building, though. Look at those big-rig tire tracks in the dirt where a driver went off the pavement while backing up. And the forklift and pallet jacks confirm it.”
“Then after you,” said Decon.
I slowly walked up to the building and right in through the open double doors with Decon a few steps behind me. I used my SureFire to light up the large windowless room, packed to the rafters with weapons, ammunition, electronics, and other military gear whose function I couldn’t determine.
“Close those doors in case a security patrol wanders by.”
As Decon secured the doors, I checked the stock. I saw cases of experimental ammunition. There were super-small drones—the type deployed at platoon level. How could these be surplus? I knew them to be in short supply for army units on the ground in Central Asia. I kept looking. There were racks and racks of exotic electronics. I saw rugged communications sets, laptop computers in hard cases. Stacked in a corner were shallow wooden crates with rope handles on the ends. They held landmines. Mines that resembled butterflies, identical to the one found in my refrigerator. I helped myself to one and stashed it in my backpack.
I continued a cursory search and found boxes of devices that looked like pagers but I didn’t dare press any buttons.
“Hey, I got some strange-looking grenades over here. In rainbow colors, like Baskin-Robbins.”
“What do you make of these ink pens?” I held up a black ink pen from a cigar-box-sized steel case. It was identical to the pens I had seen in the Jefferson brothers’ file cabinet.
“Exploding ink pen. I wouldn’t mess with that, if you know what I mean.”
“How would you know what they are?”
He walked over and joined me. “Just kidding man. But think about it; what the hell else would it be? This ain’t Office Depot, this is an ammo depot, if you get my drift. Careful with the pen; who knows what it will do.”
I put the pen back, and we entered a big adjoining room full of folding chairs and tables. Samples of all the items we had just seen in the stock room were carefully displayed on the folding tables that ringed the room. Brochures accompanied some of the items. I found the black-ink-pen display, and sure enough, it was an explosive device. Twist the cap, and if it’s not twisted back in thirty seconds it will explode with the capacity to kill anyone holding it. I took one and dropped it into a cargo pocket of my 5-11 tactical pants.
“Some black-bag job this is; we could have brown-bagged it. We could have brought snacks and played Parcheesi, know what I’m saying?”
“So this is where they hold the actual auction,” I said. “They display the items, customers can look and touch, read a brochure, and then Brandt or an underling starts the bidding. The orders are filled in the warehouse room, trucks probably standing by to haul the stuff away. I still can’t get over those doors being wide open just now.”
“I was in the military, once upon a time,” said Decon. He paused for a moment to appreciate the surprise that must have shown on my face. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before, especially with Special Operations. Many times. It’s arrogance. Michoud is a secure facility. They know local crooks won’t trudge through the swamp. So the guys running this yard sale here, they just got lazy. They think they’re so special, nothing can happen to them, if you know what I’m insinuating.”
“We’ll see about that.”
It took about half an hour to plant a few pinhole-video cams with audio in both of the rooms, then Decon and I beat feet. We slogged back toward the white Yukon and stopped at the chain-link fence.
“You told me once that you had been incarcerated, but not by law enforcement. ‘A prisoner of conscience,’ you said. Was that when you were in the military?”
“Yes, sir. I spent quite a bit of time in the brig. Then I was given a medical discharge, but you won’t find any record of that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s been expunged. All of my records have been purged. You see, I don’t exist. Never have, if you can appreciate the contradiction in that remark.”
I couldn’t.
“Did you have a chance to talk with any of those Chinese TDF drivers?” I asked. Computer software had recorded the calls Decon had made on the cell I gave him and I’d carefully listened to those calls, so I knew if he’d be lying to me.
“I planted the seeds, just as you ordered, cap. I pretended to be in a hurry to move the merchandise, and I hinted I might take a bus to Houston to visit the Russian, German, and French consulates to solicit their interest. The Chinese have the number of the cell phone you gave me. Let’s see what happens.”
What he’d just described was exactly what he’d done. I didn’t completely trust Decon—he was a crook, after all—but I had virtually eliminated him from my murder-suspect list. I suspected Harding had taken Decon’s rabble-rousing threats too literally. Decon was a burglar and thief; few such criminals ever became physically violent. I handed him a hundred-dollar bill. “For your time.”
“I didn’t do a thing tonight, no locks or alarms; I almost feel bad taking this.”
I reached to take the hundred back, but Decon stuffed it into his pants pocket.
“I almost feel bad,” he said, with a smile, “but I know that you do feel bad.” His face turned serious. “You’re hurting, I can see it. But I said this before: redemption is within your grasp. Find a mirror tonight, look into it, and tell yourself that you forgive yourself. Look into your own eyes, and see what happens. Maybe even tell yourself that you love yourself. Say it out loud.”
“Thanks for your concern, but that sounds like some woo-woo hippie shit. That doesn’t sound like the guy who was talking to me the other night about the necessary application of extrajudicial extreme prejudice against your garden-variety dirtbag.”
“I’m a complex guy, full of dichotomies, if you can appreciate the incongruity.”
“What branch of the service were you in, the namby-pamby navy? You suffer from PTSD due to some bad liberty in Thailand, s
ailor? Maybe the chilies were a little too hot and when you took a dump your ass burned so you put in for a Purple Heart? Let’s delete any future discussions of my personal life so I don’t have to rip you a new dirt chute, okay?”
Decon laughed out loud. “Yes sir, macho man. So how you dealing with the emotional roller-coaster? Couple of extra whiskeys every night? Maybe you should try absinthe. It opens up a whole new world.”
“If I ever start sleeping in a tomb, I promise I’ll take up absinthe.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The 8 AM meeting Honey summoned me to in the office of NOPD Police Chief Harold Pointer marked the first time I’d ever been invited into the hallowed chamber. And hopefully the last. Ask any police officer in any big-city department and you will learn that usually the brass don’t climb the ladder because they were good street cops or well-liked by the rank and file or even remotely competent at basic managerial skills demanded in the private sector.
The brass primarily become brass due to favoritism, blackmail, brown-nosing, political connections, nepotism, large campaign donations (as in a sheriff’s department), and by having avoided making career-gutting gaffes, decisions, and comments—meaning most of them were spineless sycophants who could only be relied upon to put a knife in your back in order to cover their asses, but not to watch your back when the chips were down. This didn’t apply to all the captains and lieutenants at NOPD, but generally it was a good rule of thumb for higher-ranking officers in many police departments.
Sometimes a person, male or female, who had clawed their way to the top truly understood how to wield power, truly understood what the outer limits were at having an armed mobile force at his or her beck and call, and was truly an unprincipled libertine whose finely honed sense of survival cut every which way, including loose. And such persons, knowing their days were numbered, numbered with small figures not large ones, could be a spectacle in action. Chief Pointer was now such an individual.
I was the last one into his office and looked like a turd on a plate: I still had scabbed cuts and bruises on my face from my original altercation with Ding Tong; I wore yesterday’s clothes and hadn’t showered or shaved; dark half-moons hung under my eyes from lack of sleep. I sat down next to Honey. At least she could use makeup to semi-mask her fatigue. Honey and I had caught up over the phone early this morning and brought each other up to speed. The big news item for me being that the TDF Shipping offices had burned down overnight in a suspected arson fire. One body found inside was thought to be that of the owner, Eddie Liu, since his car was in the parking lot. Nightshift detectives were still on scene. If Chu was eliminating potential witnesses, he was doing a pretty good job.
Honey and I both held paper cups of nasty coffee as the chief read a report on his desk that Honey had just turned in. She’d been briefing him several times a day, which was highly unusual even on a Five Alarm high-profile case, as they were known. He’d granted her special status in the Homicide Section which I knew was causing some problems with her immediate superiors and coworkers. Pointer had taken her under his wing, ordered her to report directly to him, and that was that. But I’d advised her to copy reports to, and seek advice from her supervisors in the Homicide Section—Detectives Mackie and Kruger—as a matter of courtesy and to try to mitigate blowback. Since just before she’d made detective six months ago, she’d brought nothing but good press to the department: the most recent being the young quadruple murderer she corralled in his FEMA trailer. She was a golden goose and Pointer made it clear to all and sundry that you don’t mess with his golden goose. It behooved him to give Honey what she needed, because he was fully expecting another golden egg.
The two FBI CI-3 guys sat silently on the opposite side of Pointer’s desk from us. The shorter one had a black eye, recently installed by my cuddle-buddy. They both looked like their hemorrhoids were acting up. Pointer’s two bodyguards, huge black plainclothes officers in nice threads, leaned casually on either side of the closed door. The entire department referred to these two guys as Heckle and Jeckle and, in spite of my long war with the chief, I liked both of them because they had both been tough old-fashioned coppers before being assigned to the chief. The fact that the chief had his personal muscle in the room for this meeting suggested fireworks might be expected.
Everyone waited for the chief to finish reading Honey’s report. Pointer was an average looking black man of average height and average weight. He had average intelligence and had been an average detective when he first befriended and covered up for a local politico who would later become mayor, a man with a penchant for high-school girls. That friendship was eventually rewarded by the position the chief now held. That the friendship had frayed badly was merely a testament to the finite quantity of loyalty one can expect to get in this town, especially when the winds shift.
“Saint James,” said Chief Pointer, “the FBI CI-3 gentlemen here, Agents Minniear and Gibbs, have just threatened me with losing federal funding for the department if I don’t turn over the murder investigation of five local citizens to them, along with all of the evidence, including the two-point-five million dollars you and Detective Baybee found in Del Breaux’s home. They’re claiming some national security bullshit. What do you say to that?”
“I think their investigation will be the cover-up, Chief.”
“Don’t they know that TDF burned down with Eddie Liu inside? Shouldn’t it be six murders they’re trying to cover up?” asked Honey.
“All right, I’ve had enough of this crap.” Agent Minniear, the one with the black eye, stood up in high dudgeon. “You were supposed to give us the two and a half million yesterday, Chief Pointer. You’re screwing with us, so D.C. is going to crawl up your ass.”
“Sit down, agent; you’re not going anywhere yet,” said the chief.
Minniear reluctantly sat back down.
“We need your case notes and all the evidence you haven’t turned in, and yes, that’s for six murders, to include all the documents you got from TDF yesterday, Detective Baybee,” said Gibbs to Honey. “We especially want Del Breaux’s DOD-issued laptop and a certain item that you have eight-by-ten photos of.”
“That item was in Tan Chu’s green cargo container at the port. Customs locked it back into the container, which Chu now has possession of. You guys know this; you’re his security detail,” I said.
“Bullshit,” said Minniear.
“Saint James, do you have the items they’re talking about?” asked the chief.
“The lab and the evidence warehouse have everything we developed on the case,” said Honey, answering for me. “Sir, you already have all of my paperwork, the reports, appropriate forms, my personal notes.”
This time both FBI agents stood and took steps toward the door. “Your officers are lying,” said Minniear to the chief. “And they’ll be going down, just like you.”
“Gentlemen—”
“We’re finished here,” snapped Gibbs. “If there’s any problem at the evidence room, I’ll get a federal warrant.”
“I said sit your sorry white asses down!”
The chief’s two bodyguards blocked the door with about seven hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Minniear apparently was unlucky or not too bright. He tried to force his way out and got shoved so hard he stumbled back and almost crashed into the chief’s desk.
Gibbs looked like he was ready to pull his gun. “Who the hell do you think you are, with your crooked little police department down here in Shitsville! I’ll put you in a federal—”
“No, who the hell do you carpet bagging pricks think you are, coming into my town and threatening me, because you made a mess with your crooked, illegal, gun-running spy shit!” yelled the chief, pounding his fist on his desk. “You take a crap in my backyard and then you come here and try and rub my nose in it? And threaten my funding? Uh-uh! No. You rolling tape, Saint James?”
“Um, yes sir, Chief.”
“Good.”
“That’s illegal!�
�
“Not in Louisiana,” I said. “One-party consent to record a conversation, and I’m the one consenting party.”
“Now you listen to me, agents. Detectives Baybee and Saint James are off the case. And his tape won’t go public. You get custody of any physical evidence as it exists and the six case files. And in return, my funding doesn’t get pulled, it gets doubled. Doubled! Starting now!” roared Pointer.
“You have to be kidding. Is it something in the water down here? Is it too much gumbo? The only thing that will get doubled, Chief, is the amount of time you will do in a federal pen,” said Gibbs.
“You know, Chief,” I said, “all of those TDF semi-trailer trucks pulling out of Michoud and going to the port, I bet there are all kinds of violations going on with that. Improper placarding, forged driver’s logs, equipment violations, mislabeling of cargo. Maybe some officers could look into that. You know, set up rolling checkpoints. A thorough search of every last truck that leaves Michoud. Be something if arms trafficking through the port went public, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s right,” added Honey. “Some of the documents I took yesterday from the TDF office? TDF picked up ‘crates of eggs’ from Michoud two weeks ago. Those ‘eggs’ were sent, unrefrigerated, by ship, to Mexico City. Then freight-forwarded on to Lima. Then to Singapore. Finally to Tianjin, China.”
“There must be a big demand in China for rotten Louisiana eggs,” I said.
“You didn’t know Michoud has a chicken ranch?” Honey asked.
Gibbs and Minniear stared hard at Honey and me.
“Even if my officer’s interdictions didn’t go public, any illicit cargo would get impounded and stored in our evidence warehouse for who knows how long,” added Chief Pointer, going along with Honey and me. “And we all know how much evidence disappears out of that warehouse. Or maybe you’re not aware of that, agents.”
The two FBI men looked at each other.
