Baiting & Fishing

by Meredith Rae Morgan

Chapter 26

  One morning, Victoria called Ray at work and left a message asking him, in a strained voice, to come to her house just as soon as he could. He returned her call to make sure she was okay and, once he was sure she was alright, he told her he would be there by mid-afternoon.

  When he arrived, Victoria escorted him into the parlor and introduced him to her son, the newspaperman from Chicago, and another man, who by his accent, appeared to be British. They engaged in small talk for a few minutes while Victoria laid out tea. Ray noticed with amusement the Brit seemed very impressed that she took the time and made the effort to put out a “proper tea”. Ray knew that was simply the way Victoria did it. Ray wondered for a second where Victoria had learned the art of British tea-time. He knew he was allowing himself to be distracted because he had a really bad feeling about where this encounter was headed.

  He became even more concerned about what was coming when Victoria chose a seat next to him on the sofa and put her hand over his. That seemed to be some sort of signal for the ordeal to commence. Ray found himself holding his breath. Victoria must have noticed because she patted his hand and then held it very tight.

  Victoria's son, Hank, began, “Ray, I'm not going to waste time pussy-footing around. We are here today to give you some information about the woman you knew as Marcella Wilson. I don't know that what we have to tell you will make you feel any better, but you deserve to hear it.

  “This is Peter MacNeil. He is with British law enforcement. He contacted me the other day requesting me to put him in touch with you. This entire conversation, as you might already suspect, is not just deep-background, it has not happened at all. Do you understand?”

  Ray nodded.

  MacNeil said softly, “Please acknowledge that out loud.”

  Ray raised his eyebrows, “You are recording a conversation that is not supposed to be happening?”

  MacNeil nodded, “Yes, sir, we are.”

  Ray sighed, “Yes, I acknowledge that what is said in this room stays here.”

  MacNeil took over, “First of all, I am here today because the woman in question insisted we have this conversation. It is very irregular and, from the standpoint of normal procedure, it is highly improper. The only reason we are doing it is because she made it clear that if we didn't do it through channels she would do it herself, in person. Naturally, you will come to understand why that would probably not be a good idea. I will add here that the reason I am recording the conversation is not for any purposes of police business. The woman insisted we record the conversation so we could prove to her we have made all of the disclosures she wants us to make. For reasons you probably already can surmise, and which will become excruciatingly clear as the story progresses, the woman is not a particularly trusting sort,” he paused and sighed, “with excellent reason.”

  “I have actually two stories to tell you. The first is a sort of general outline of the events that were going on in the world that are pertinent. Then I will tell you how the woman fit in, and your role in the story.

  “As you are aware, Tonio Collonia ran a smuggling operation from the United States. He started small in the early 1950's but by the mid-1970's he had a worldwide operation moving jewels, art and small arms that would impress the people who run Federal Express. Every law enforcement operation in the world knew about the operation, but Collonia was so good, nobody could catch him. At a meeting in Paris in 1972 law enforcement from several countries decided that they would continue to try to catch Collonia, but they wanted to do it by finding out who his contacts were and trying to break up the whole operation instead of just arresting a mule now and then. The participants in that meeting decided to plant an operative inside Collonia's organization. They were in no hurry. It had to be the right person at the right time. All agents working on the case were urged to focus on finding a person who could be planted on the inside, or a person who was already on the inside whom law enforcement could enlist.

  “In 1975 they found the perfect person. More on that later.

  “In 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed, several nuclear warheads disappeared. Military and law enforcement personnel around the world have been looking for those warheads ever since. We put intense focus on the Collonia operation because we believed, rightly it turned out, that Aurelio Collonia, who had inherited his father's business (after murdering his father), had the only arms dealing operation sophisticated enough to move nukes. Collonia took his time and laid his groundwork perfectly.

  “Collonia decided to use his dad's technique of running his crime business out of the back rooms of legitimate businesses. He looked around for an international company he could take over, but he could not find one. Instead, he decided to essentially create on from scratch after hearing Roland Wilson make a speech at a Palm Beach party they both attended sometime in the late 1980's. Essentially, Collonia decided to use Roland Wilson as a front for his arms dealing operation and an entrée into the developing countries where there were private militias, terrorist organizations or rogue governments who might be interested in buying nuclear weapons.

  “The next part was just an unholy disaster. Because we had people on the inside of Techtron, not just our deep plant in the Collonia organization, but a significant number of employees were plants as well. We knew in advance that Techtron would collapse. I can't tell you how many meetings were held between American authorities, the FBI, SEC, IRS and international law enforcement in the years immediately prior to Techtron's collapse. The Americans, rightly, wanted to move in, shut down Techtron and salvage the personal fortunes of its employees, who were virtually all American citizens. International law enforcement insisted that, as unfortunate as the personal financial fate of the Techtron employees was, the key thing was not to lose sight of the nukes. We knew by then that Collonia was offering nuclear warheads for sale to every manner of nefarious bastard in the developing world. A number of them had expressed serious interest. We believed he was very close to making a couple of deals.

  “One of the groups Collonia was negotiating with – that he thought was a terrorist organization – was actually a sting orchestrated on by an international team under the aegis of Interpol. By 2003, a deal was immanent and we were very close to recovering the warheads, but Techtron collapsed before we had a chance to complete the deal. We needed to buy a little more time. By then Collonia was very suspicious. He knew there was someone inside his operation, and he was nervous. The only way we had managed to keep our operative relatively safe was to keep her out in the open, in public. After Collonia murdered Roland Wilson, it became even more important to keep Mrs. Wilson out in the public eye until we could wrap up our operations.

  “I can tell you that recently all of the nuclear warheads have been secured. They are under UN control, and are now in Europe where they will be dismantled. You will not read that story in the press, and if either of you,” he looked pointedly at both Caruthers and Ray, “print it, there will be serious and dire consequences.”

  He continued, “The story you will read in the papers tomorrow is that Aurelio Collonia is dead. He was killed yesterday in his sleep while he was vacationing in Belize.” He chuckled. “Actually what you will read is that an 'American businessman with suspected mob ties' was murdered in an apparent robbery. The crime will be unsolved. What you will not read,” he looked at Victoria, “Mrs. Caruthers, I apologize. What you will not read is that his throat slit from behind one ear to the other by a small knife.” He paused. Ray thought he might vomit, but he managed to keep still and swallow furiously. Victoria gripped his hand like a vise; he was not sure if it was for his benefit, or hers.

  MacNeil leaned back and changed his tone. “That's the framework and background. Now I'm going to back up and fill in the details you really want to know.

  “The woman you knew as Marcella Wilson nee Marcia Pappas was almost a complete fiction. She was created for the purpose of making you fall in love with her. There is a whole area of intelligenc
e that works on stuff like that, roping people into helping us. It is sort of like Fantasy Island meets James Bond. They picked you to be the person who could keep Marcella Wilson in the public eye and away from Collonia on a daily basis while at the same time allowing her to continue the final stages of her assignment. She was so close after thirty years under cover she wanted to finish it. She was in grave danger every minute of every day and her handlers begged and pleaded with her to let them pull her out, but she insisted on finishing what she had started. With serious misgivings they agreed to allow her to do that, but she needed a new cover. She needed someone who would be able to keep her in the public eye but who would also at some point turn her in to the authorities. That was key. It had to be someone who would give her time to operate, but who would ultimately be willing to let her go.

  “How a team made up almost entirely of Europeans operating out of London and Paris came up with you, I don't know, but you were perfect. You were a prominent person in your field even though you lived in a small market. I won't go into detail with the factors they looked at. The key things were that you would investigate her background but not jump to conclusions too quickly, which would give us time to finish our operation, and you would, in the end, turn her in and be willing to let her go. That was key, of course.”

  Ray interrupted, “Did those people have anything to do with Deborah's visit?”

  He paused. “We knew she was sick. Someone who knew someone who knew her husband gently suggested that closure in your relationship might be a good thing. That may have been somewhat manipulative, but I have to tell you that the result of that appeared to have been beneficial on both sides. It served its purpose of priming you for an encounter with another woman, but I think it also had the added side benefit of accomplishing something for you and Mrs. Bashears that was necessary.” He shrugged, “Or perhaps I am simply rationalizing to avoid feeling guilty for the way we manipulated you both.”

  Ray nodded and said impatiently, “Go on.”

  “They completely invented Marcia Pappas for your benefit. She was the bait they used to hook you. No such person ever existed, I am sorry to tell you.” Ray sighed. Victoria took his hand in both of hers.

  MacNeil continued, “Her real name was Brenda Neiser. Her mother did in fact die when she was very young and her father was a fishing boat captain operating out of Galveston, Texas. She grew up on the boat and learned to fish in the manner you witnessed. I have never seen her fish, but those who have seen it tell me it is incredible.”

  Ray nodded and murmured, “Incredible is hardly the word for it.”

  MacNeil continued, “Her father was nothing like the sort of benevolently clueless Christopher Pappas. In fact from the time she was about twelve or so, her father actually rented her out along with the boat to clients who were interested in that kind of thing.” Ray felt his gorge rise again, but he forced himself to listen. He had wanted to know the whole story. Here it was. She had lived through it; the least he could do was listen to the story.

  “When she was sixteen or seventeen, Tonio Collonia chartered her father's boat. Her father threw Brenda in with the deal. Collonia apparently liked her, or saw something in her, anyway. He offered her father $10,000 to keep her. Her father demanded twice that and Collonia wrote him a check. Brenda was present when that deal was made.” Victoria and Ray both started to cry.

  “Collonia took her to Chicago and apparently availed himself of her body for a while. At some point he realized how smart she was and he decided she had some potential uses in his organization, so he sent her off to boarding school, first to a convent school in Chicago where she learned the rudiments of manners and deportment. Prior to that, she had apparently hardly ever gone to school. She had taught herself to read using the newspaper, but she could barely write her name. The nuns at the boarding school worked with her and in less than a year they had brought her up to the level of a senior in high school. One of the nuns who was her teacher told one of our people that Brenda was the most brilliant student she had ever seen.

  “Collonia next sent her to finishing school in Switzerland. She went as his niece. It was one of those boarding schools where the super rich send their daughters mainly to get them out of the way. Brenda took full advantage of the opportunity. She tore through the curriculum and while she was at it learned to speak several languages from the various co-eds in her dorm. After that, she spent two years studying international finance at the Sorbonne.

  “When she was 21, Collonia brought her back to Chicago and married her. Very soon after that, he put her to work in his business. He reserved her for the jewel and art deals that required someone who could fit in with the rich and cultured people in many countries. She could do that in spades. She could pass for a 'lady' from any one of perhaps seven or eight different countries and even fool the real deals.” He looked at Victoria, “Am I not right about that?”

  Victoria nodded, smiling at the compliment, and said, “That is correct.”

  “What Collonia did not know at that point was that Brenda was already working for us. Shortly after Brenda arrived in Switzerland, European law enforcement sent in a couple of teachers and planted a couple of students. The teachers mentored her. The students befriended her. By the time she left the boarding school at only nineteen years of age, she was a fully trained intelligence agent.

  “At the Sorbonne she studied international finance in the daytime. In the evenings she studied about international crime, weapons, art, jewels and martial arts.” He laughed. “Again, all of her teachers and trainers claimed she was a brilliant student. The only teacher who ever expressed any reservations about her was one of her martial arts teachers who was not affiliated with law enforcement. He reported his concern that she could be dangerous; he thought she harbored a deep well of anger that would make her capable of killing. That was, of course, simply another jewel in her crown as far as her intelligence handlers were concerned.

  “She came back to the U.S. and buried herself deep in Collonia's operations. She only rarely connected with her handlers. One of them posed as a regular client of Collonia's. Brenda made periodic deliveries to that person, and usually stayed for a few days of R&R at his home.”

  Ray asked, “Was that the man in Portugal?”

  MacNeil nodded and continued, “As I said Tonio Collonia married her. Shortly thereafter, Aurelio and his father got into a dispute over both the direction in which the business was headed and the person of Tonio's wife. Aurelio felt that his father was not taking advantage of the full potential of either. So Aurelio killed his father, took over the business and married Brenda.

  “You should know that Brenda rather liked Tonio. He had rescued her from a sordid childhood and given her an education and a future as something other than a hooker on the docks of Galveston. He was apparently fond of her and treated her well. Brenda never forgave her father for selling her, but she did not hold the transaction against Tonio.

  “To say that Brenda was not fond of Aurelio, who modeled himself more after the Central American drug lords than the traditional Old World Mafia, would be a serious understatement. In fact Brenda hated Aurelio, but she married him and continued to work in the organization, reporting, whenever possible, to her handlers from Europe. She did that for more than thirty years.” His voice expressed a combination of amazement and admiration. Tears continued to course down Ray's cheeks. Victoria was trembling violently.

  “In the late 1980's, Aurelio pointed her at Roland Wilson, and created an alter ego for Wilson's benefit. That created a crisis for Brenda because she was already living a double life. She was very nervous about adding a third layer of complexity. Interestingly, one of her biggest issues was that Collonia was asking her to become a bigamist. I never understood that. She hated Aurelio. She actually rather liked Roland Wilson at first, until she found out what a spineless and selfish weasel he was.

  “When Techtron began to devolve, everyone of her handlers at one time or another
tried to pull her out, but she wouldn't go. There had never been any doubt in anyone's mind that we would never arrest Aurelio. Once we got the nukes, Aurelio was to be eliminated. Sometimes I think that the only thing that kept her going at times was her hatred of Aurelio and her determination to be the one to take him out.

  “Unbelievably, somehow she hung in there. Collonia knew there was a plant somewhere in his organization and when the FBI never zeroed in on Marcella Wilson during its investigation of Techtron, Collonia began to suspect her. That started the final stages of the dance. She had to stay close enough to him to allow her to have access to his operations, but not so close that he could get her alone.”

  Ray interrupted, “I'm lost. She told me Aurelio was married and had a family.”

  The agent laughed, “Yes. After Brenda, who was going by the name of Marcella Johnson, married Roland Wilson, Aurelio married his long-time mistress and in subsequent years had three children. And, yes, that means that both Mrs. Wilson and Aurelio were bigamists, but I guess in the big scheme of things, that is one of their more minor crimes.” Ray leaned over and put his head in his hands. The agent said, “I know it's insane. Don't try to make sense of it.”

  He went on. “After Techtron collapsed, Collonia killed Roland Wilson in Miami. What did not make the press was that he also left a clear warning that Brenda would understand to the effect that he was after her, too. That information was not made public, but Brenda knew about it. We were so very close to the nukes, we absolutely could not risk either pulling her out at that point or letting Aurelio kill her. So, we brought you in to keep her safe until we could finish the deal on the nukes. We pulled Brenda out the minute we had them, by kidnapping her. That was several weeks ago. We took her to Europe and kept her in isolation. Somebody else was supposed to finish off Collonia.

  “Brenda had not been an undercover operative and international smuggler for thirty years without learning a few things about escape and evasion. She got away from us. We knew where she would go. She finished her assignment yesterday. Then she returned to the protection of law enforcement who were waiting for her outside Aurelio's bungalow.”

  Ray swallowed hard and whispered hoarsely, “Where is she now? Will she be prosecuted?”

  “She will not be prosecuted. The murder of Aurelio Collonio will never be solved, or if it is, someone else will go to jail for it. She is out now. Out of the smuggling business and out of the intelligence business, too. She's officially a retired spook. I, personally, don't know where she is. She made it clear she does not want to ever be contacted by anyone from my organization again.

  “Quite honestly, I think she hates us as much as she hated Aurelio Collonia, for much the same reason, and, in my opinion, with absolute justification. Both Collonia and the law enforcement organizations that were trying to catch him took over her life when she was too young to have developed any psychological protection mechanisms. We both proceeded to manipulate and control her ever since. Law enforcement was as responsible as Collonia for screwing up any chance she may ever have had for a normal life.

  “She has plenty of money.” He laughed. “Probably a whole lot more than we know. My guess is she was skimming the profits from the work she did for Aurelio from the beginning. She has her pension from British law enforcement, plus whatever she accumulated on her own. She's gone, and we have agreed not to try too hard to find her. My guess is that somebody in my organization will discretely look after her, but only from a distance, if he knows what's good for him.”

  He looked at Ray and said, “I know this has been hard for you to listen to, but she insisted we tell you. She wanted you to know first of all that you played a role in a significant event, but more importantly, she wanted you to know that you did not betray her. Your turning her in to the FBI was the signal. The unit making the buy of the nukes was feeding information to your researcher. The signal that the deal was done was the incriminating evidence against Marcella Wilson. If you had turned her in too soon, it would have been bad. If you had decided not to turn her in, she would be dead, because Aurelio knew by then that Brenda betrayed him.

  “You played your role perfectly because you were honest, true and principled, exactly as everyone expected you would be. You did not betray her. You saved her life.”

  He handed Ray an envelope. Ray opened it and read it.

  Ray,

  I doubt you will never be able to forgive me for all the lies I told you and the way I, and so many others you did not even know about, deceived you. I am accustomed to living in a world of lies and deceit. Until I met you, I don't think I had ever met a totally honest and decent person. For all the lies I told you, I want you to know that it was true was that I trusted you. I trusted you with my life. My trust in you scared the living hell out of me.

  You behaved exactly as they expected you to, and your integrity saved my life. For that I am grateful.

  You planted the seed of trust in my heart. It scares me to have it, and I don't know if it will ever sprout. Frankly, I am not sure I would know what I would do with it in any case, but it is there where it never was before. Given the life I have lived, that is more than I ever could have hoped for.

  Thank you.

  Ray noted there was no signature. It was no from Marcella Wilson. The person who wrote the letter was a woman he had never met.

  He remembered the recording device and said softly, “She forgave me in advance for doing what I had to do. How can I do less for her when she was walking such a fine line between doing a service for humankind and saving her own life? Forgiveness is not really an issue, but if it is what she wants, I forgive her.”

  He lowered his head in his hands again and tried not to sob loud enough for the tape record it. Victoria put her arm across his shoulders, and said to the agent, “Are we finished here, sir?”

  He nodded and said, “Yes, madame, I believe we are finished here.” He turned off the tape and reached out to take the envelope from Ray's. Ray held onto it. The agent shrugged and allowed Hank to show him out. Mercifully, Hank went into the kitchen and left Ray alone with Victoria.

  Victoria continued to hold Ray's hand. She asked, “How much of that did you believe?”

  Ray shook his head and said, “You wouldn't know it by my recent behavior, but I'm a skeptic. I believed almost nothing of that tale, except for this.” He held up the envelope. “Somebody went to a hell of a lot of trouble for her to let me know she's okay. I don't know, or care, why. I have to tell you, I appreciate it more than I can say.

  “Now I can go on with my life without holding my breath every time I read the newspapers expecting to see stories of her arrest.”

  She patted his arm as she walked him to the door. He walked down the stairs, blinking in the afternoon sun, and headed back to work.

  The End

  Meredith Morgan is a pseudonym for an author who grew up in the Midwest and now lives in Florida.

  Born at the apex of the Baby Boom wave in the mid 1950's, every time she thinks of some great new, original idea or plan, she knows that next week it will show up on the cover of "Time" Magazine as the "Next Big Thing." She exhibits all the narcissistic Boomer neuroses, plus a few extra just to make things interesting, all of which she pours into her writing.

  She enjoys walking the beaches, cooking (in theory if not in actual practice), and collecting odd, unusual and utterly useless bits of knowledge.

  Visit her blog at: https://meredith-morgan.blogspot.com/