The President said, “Don’t forget what we talked about. You don’t want to let me down there, Chief.” Alan Gergen play-punched the Chief in the stomach. “Good day, friend.”
Kind of strange to see the President use a party or locker room fake punch in the offices of the Bureau. He shouldn’t even be here from what I know.
The President walked off in the other direction as Whitney and Trent approached the Chief.
“What’s going on here? Something must be pretty damn important for him to come here,” Trent said.
“I’d rather not speak on it right now. I had to take the meeting; he’s the President, but we are supposed to be an independent department. I hope there weren’t too many agents that saw that. The leader of our country should not be doing that, completely inappropriate,” the Chief said.
The Chief’s face was bright red and he seemed to be seething with anger. Whitney had never seen him this fired up before. The normally easygoing and sociable man excused himself and slammed the door to his office.
“This gets stranger by the moment.”
“Sure does. If the Chief is the only guy in a high position that the President didn’t put there himself, that meeting might have been full of some useful hints on what should be investigated right now. I have a feeling he didn’t suggest to press further on what we are working on,” Trent said.
“This is insanity. We should stop talking about this until we are back in the office.”
“Agreed, Agent Powers,” Trent said with a slick smile and they went to lunch.
They enjoyed a great meal and waited as the server arrived with the check.
The young lady said, “Here is the check and that guy at that table right over there…” She pointed at an empty table. “Huh, he must’ve just got up, but I swear there was someone at that table that asked me to give you this.” The woman placed a triangular folded piece of paper on top of the bill.
“Thank you very much.”
“Thanks for everything,” Trent added as the nodding server scurried off to another table.
Whitney carefully opened the piece of paper and started reading.
Our friend with wings must see you again,
Don’t ask why or where but only when,
The time is now to seek the field,
More information you must yield,
Get in the car and do not stress,
I’ve already loaded the GPS.
Whitney and Trent went to the car and followed the directions to a deserted road with a field of wild grass past it. Whitney didn’t see anyone around. They got out and walked through the knee-high green field. She kept checking the cloudy sky for a sign of her friend but only a growling sound from ahead greeted her.
She didn’t see anything moving around in the high grass and grabbed onto Trent’s arm. The rabid tones made her skin crawl as the couple backed away in silence. Whitney almost fell from being terrified and trying to backpedal in the thick grass.
Whitney felt like her heart was going to jump from her chest as an enormous beast sprang from the verdant blades.
Trent pushed Whitney behind his back and screamed, “Run.”
Whitney started to scramble in the other direction until she heard Trent say, “You son of a gun. I oughta whoop your ass for scaring us like that. Hey, hold up.”
Whitney turned around to see her golden friend, Darominius.
The dragon shifter said, “I have to have a little fun every once in a while.” He looked down at the ground for a moment. “Alright I will be serious now.”
Whitney watched as the human slowly morphed into a dragon right before her eyes. His body started expanding in all directions as a long tail sprouted and wings extended from the middle of his back. Rows of shingled oval pieces of armor assembled over his body in a horizontal pattern from top to bottom. She watched as his gorgeous face slipped away and was replaced with lizard-like wrinkled skin. Long, silver whiskers sprouted from the tip of his chin and from both cheeks. The menacing dark eyes with molten-colored pupils stood out on the golden dragon.
Darominius signaled with his head for the couple to get on. Whitney broke out of the trance and climbed up onto the dragon’s back, near his shoulder and grabbed under the plated armor. She looked over at her fiancé as they rose into the air.
The sun jumped out from behind a cloud and the glare from the golden beast almost caused Whitney to go blind. They began to accelerate and Whitney’s head snapped back. She really dug her nails into the dragon’s soft, warm flesh as they descended. She started to feel dizzy and when she opened her eyes they had already landed.
Trent looked at her with wide eyes and Whitney wondered why they were on the tarmac of an airport. There was a plane ahead of them and another one coasting slowly along the runway.
The dragon spoke, “I must take leave to assist someone else in another dire situation. Remember, don’t get outside of a mile radius from where we are standing now. However, I do suggest you go in for a closer look. If it were me I would probably jump on that plane right there.” He signaled with his head toward a silver plane to the right.
The dragon lifted off and Trent and Whitney raced over to the silver aircraft. A red-carpeted staircase had been rolled out to board the plane and the two agents moved confidently toward the door. She looked at an empty cockpit to her left and a big, open cabin with a fancy table in the middle and chairs around it.
It was the strangest interior to a plane she had ever seen considering she had only ridden coach a few times. Two men sat at the table, the Vice President of Adoxia and one of the judges on the High Court. Whitney didn’t like the initial looks of this.
They moved behind the table toward the back of the small plane as more people started getting on. Two bearded men in foreign military uniforms walked up and shook the Vice President and Judge Ellerbee’s hands. Whitney recognized the military uniforms.
One of the men was King Raddman of Olodomo who had taken power of his country with a military coup and proclaimed himself King. The tall, pale man looked sinister with his narrow face, beady eyes and long, pointy nose. The country of Olodomo was widely understood to support state sanctioned terrorism and Adoxia had considered it an enemy for the past fifty years, which made the meeting even more inappropriate.
Whitney got an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach because no government officials of Olodomo were permitted in Adoxia. Olodomo was located in Europe.
The men all sat down at the table as the Vice President, Frank Mooney, started. “I want to welcome the King to our great country and we hope to start a great new, lasting relationship.” Frank spoke slowly like a polished politician, pausing to accentuate certain words.
The other man from Olodomo translated for the King. He relayed back in Adoxian, “The King appreciates this gesture and would like much of the same.”
The Vice President said, “Great. Now that we have that out of the way, we understand your time is valuable so we won’t waste any of it.” The translator interpreted as Mr. Mooney continued, “We are prepared to give you fifty billion in defense weapons but we will do this through the private sector. We don’t need our silly governments taking away from our hard-earned ventures.”
The translator waited for his superior’s response and said, “The King agrees again and wants to make sure his demands are met for the distribution of weapons. He didn’t receive assurances on the fighter jets and ICBMs.”
Whitney looked at Trent and commented, “Holy shitballs.”
Trent said, “Please say no, please say no. Don’t do this Mr. Vice President.”
Frank Mooney spoke in a soft tone, “We are willing to include those in the deal. Make sure this doesn’t get out anywhere. Do you have the good faith payment as promised?”
The translator waited for the King to answer. King Raddman nodded his head and the translator pulled a phone from his pocket.
The man spoke in Olodomon into the phone for less than a minute. He put the phon
e back in his pocket and said, “The payment should be arriving any moment.”
Trent said, “I can’t believe what we are seeing now. Coordinating with other countries to steal the election is one thing, but giving these kinds of military capabilities to a country of terrorists is bonkers. I mean absolutely insane.”
Whitney just stood in silence as another man in a military outfit walked in awkwardly with a black briefcase in one hand. He dropped the heavy sounding case on the table. The Vice President and High Judge leaned forward, looking like they were about to drool on the table as the man opened the case.
Whitney thought she would go blind from the intense gleam. She looked at the biggest diamonds she had ever seen in her life and got even angrier. Olodomo had claimed all the diamond mines for the King after his hostile takeover and seized all existing mining equipment, which had got it diplomatically exiled from over one hundred countries. The fascist state used slave labor practices to mine the fields and keep all the profits.
The High Judge, Raymund Ellerbee, finally said something. “So that’s what a billion dollars worth of diamonds looks like. I had always wondered.”
The King said something and laughed. The translator said, “The King says let them try to trace this money.”
The men from Adoxia shared in the humor. Whitney and Trent looked at each other in disbelief.
“I feel like we’ve been taking crazy pills since this whole thing started with the dossier. This stuff isn’t even in there. I mean, what else don’t we know about?”
“I would guess a whole hell of a lot. This has to be the worst thing that has ever happened to this country. Our elected officials are selling weapons to terrorists essentially. We’ve lost our moral compass as a country it sadly appears,” Trent commented.
The High Judge shuffled through some papers on the table. He said, “Here it is. These are the men who have accounts set up like we had talked about. Make certain these amounts go to each person please.”
The translator grabbed it and explained to the King. He interpreted back to the men from Adoxia. “He says just make sure the weapons arrive on time and the money will arrive on time.”
Trent ran over to get behind the translator and read the names. He pulled out a pen and pad from his inside pocket and started to jot down the people listed.
Trent said, “There’s like twenty names here and almost all are from the Bull Party. It’s dated five days after the election win. Most of them are going to get at least a billion out of the deal. Talk about who wants to be an instant billionaire?”
Trent flipped the page on his little notebook and kept feverishly writing down names. He had to twist his body around to follow the list until the translator tucked it under a few other notes.
“I think I got almost all of them down. This runs deeper than I ever imagined,” Trent told her.
The men from Olodomo got up and shook hands with their new partners again before deplaning. As soon as the guard by the door gave them a thumbs- up signal, the Vice President and High Judge looked at each other and started laughing heartily.
The Vice President could barely contain himself and said, “That’s the easiest eight billion dollars I’ve ever made, how about you?”
Judge Ellerbee responded, “Easier than taking out wrapping paper garbage after Christmas. Woo hoo.”
The Vice President spoke in a more sober tone, “And to top it all off, we’ve got everyone we need in the sauce. We own those meatballs now. They get out of line, we’ve got this to hold over their heads. That was a great suggestion from Goldera; I don’t know why we are enemies with all these nice countries that want to give us diamonds.” He laughed and the judge joined him again.
Whitney thought she was going to be ill from all these disgusting actions. They hurried to get off the plane and looked around for Darominius. He was in human form and began changing back into a dragon when he spotted the couple.
Their winged friend took them back to the Capitol and they went to their car. Whitney’s hip started to buzz and she checked the text message.
“Oh wow, this is awesome. It’s someone from the Financial Crimes Division and they want to talk to us.”
Trent said, “We better get on over there then.”
They arrived at the building in about twenty minutes and had to pass through several security clearances to get to Rachel Ronnery. The short, freckled woman wore red-framed glasses. She had blond hair and flashed a welcoming smile as she greeted the couple and took them to her office.
She didn’t waste any time and said, “I appreciate the email you sent and I’ve noticed some pretty disturbing transactions lately. Unfortunately, nobody wants to hear about it. I keep trying to go to the proper channels but I keep getting stonewalled.”
“We’ve seen a great deal of disturbing activity ourselves. So what is so hard about finding a shell company?”
Rachel pushed her glasses up her nose and said, “Finding one shell company isn’t that difficult exclusively, but when you set up eight or ten in a row in a country that has lax banking laws, it gets a lot harder. For instance, someone will set up a shell account, which is just how it sounds, a hollow front for a company.”
“How is that even allowed?” Trent wanted to know.
“As I said, other countries care more about the money involved than the legality of it all. These banks take hefty fees to push the money through all the accounts. So the money will go in and start to pass through the fake accounts until it magically ends up at the last one which is connected to a real person of course. Trying to track down the information or misinformation as it more prevalently has been, can be a goose chase,” Rachel explained.
“It still doesn’t seem that hard to get to the bottom of it.”
Rachel said, “In theory yes, but the only way to get most of these money laundering countries to cooperate is to get an international subpoena. They do cooperate with other requests but it’s at a snail’s pace and then they will send the same information three straight times just to be cute and stall the process. So by the time you go through that process five or six times, most people just give up to avoid the hassle.”
Trent said, “Unfortunately, that makes perfect sense. They know they are guilty of a crime so the criminal and the bank aren’t going to hand over the evidence. I wish they would, but that seems like its many moons away from where we are now. Can you discuss any of the particulars of what you have found?”
Rachel answered, “Not really, especially not here. We might have to get together in private at some point to discuss more information of course.”
“That sounds like fun. Love your glasses, by the way. Please do me a favor and keep an eye out for transfers from Ivory and Tortoise Islands, the Belicans and Dustmore.”
“Ironically, I am already all over two of those countries in a big way. If anything of urgency strikes, I know where to find you. And thank you for the compliment.” Rachel said.
5
Whitney and Trent sat in the meeting room and waited for the Chief to start. They both sipped coffee as Agent Udanowitz sat down next to them.
The man with a thick, graying black mustache said, “Have you guys found any damning evidence in those emails yet?”
Trent answered, “Not a thing. Kept everyone busy for the last few weeks though.”
The Chief cleared his throat and everyone fell silent.
The leader said, “After careful and heavy deliberation, I have decided to shift most of our resources from the Lott Email Investigation to a much more pertinent issue. Up to this point, nobody has found evidence of anything remotely nefarious in that pile of emails and it has sucked up important resources. Jenkins, please pass these out.”
The Chief’s assistant handed out packets of information and Whitney started to read through it. The pamphlet appeared to be based off the dossier with some additional information she hadn’t known about. An increasing murmur started to go around the room until the Chief cleared his thro
at again.
He said, “I know this is shocking and I can’t stress this enough; this doesn’t get out anywhere. No leaking this to anyone. Being an agent is an incredible honor and it comes with serious responsibility. We cannot function if our trust is broken and that trust comes from within. The political ramifications of this are a complication that I know all of us can set aside.”
The Chief wiped some sweat from his forehead and continued, “We all took an oath to serve our country, not a political party, must we mind. We need to treat these people like any other suspect with the unstated obvious differences. We need to be a bit more delicate because of the stakes and scope involved. We can’t just start hauling people in and tip our hand.”
The Chief took a drink of his water and waited a moment. “We need to get all the evidence together before we interview anyone. I want an overwhelming amount of evidence before anyone is hauled in for questioning. The interviews should be just straightening out a bright red bow on top of all this, that’s how tidy I want this to be. I’m going to the Justice Office to ask for more resources on this matter to help us out with some of the international issues.”
All of the agents seemed to be in a daze as the Chief went on, “I have faith in this group to get this job done in a professional manner. This is an incredible opportunity for all of us. Let’s make our country proud. Dismissed.”
Everyone left the meeting room and most of the agents went home for the day. Whitney and Trent went out to dinner and then back to their apartment to review some more materials about the case. They sat across from each other at the rectangular table. Trent suddenly got up and went over to Whitney.
He started massaging her shoulders and neck with his firm hands. Whitney forgot about the reading and closed her eyes to enjoy the moment. Trent ran his fingers up the back of her neck and under her hair, sending sensual vibrations down her entire body. He used his short nails to lightly scratch down her neck and to the bottom of her back.
Whitney realized she was gripping the table and tried to stop by sitting on her hands. Trent worked his way up her back and slid his fingertips down her arms. He moved his magic touch to her stomach, up to the front of her shoulders and then to her breasts. Whitney’s body was on fire as Trent pulled off her shirt and kissed the side of her neck.
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