Six Degrees Ch. 04

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"What the hell is this?" snarled Bond. "Are you holding us against our will?"

"If you want to play it that way, Agent Bond," said the Sergeant, "we will definitely arrest you."

"Like hell you will!" snarled Bond again. "We are agents of the FBI! I demand you bring Commander Troy to me NOW!"

"Ohhhh, I wouldn't be making any demands around here, now." said Sergeant Rudistan, coming around the corner, wearing a protective vest over his uniform. "Gentlemen, this is not some coward's home that you can just bust into and shoot dead without a warrant... this is a Police Station. And it's the law of this State that you are to follow a Police Officer's instructions, or you can be arrested. Now what will it be? This room over here? Or a prison cell?"

"Let's get out of here." said Staffeld, but he found the SWAT Officers blocking his path to the front door."

"Ohhh, that wasn't one of the choices, Agent Staffeld." said Rudistan with great joviality and a big grin on his face. "Now why don't you just step into that room so that we can bring this to a... peaceful conclusion."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"They must be jamming our cellphones." said Bond. "I'm not getting any signal." By now, Staffeld had figured it out, and was sitting silently. Bond was furious. His personal loathing for the Iron Crowbar had grown by leaps and bounds in the 20 minutes he'd been sitting at the table in Interrogation-Alpha.

Then the door to the Police side opened and in walked the man himself, the Iron Crowbar. He was brandishing his trademark red crowbar, and his face easily gave away his strong desire to use that weapon. With him was a woman in her late 30s, dirty blonde hair, a nice hourglass figure, and a great pair of legs accented by her tight skirt and high heel pumps.

"Commander Troy, we demand you submit to an interview with us-----" started Agent Bond, but he was not permitted to finish. Commander Troy did not speak; the woman did all the talking.

"Shut up." she said, her authoritative voice cutting through the air like a miter saw. "Agents, I am Bernadette Gillem, and I am Commander Troy's personal attorney. I am representing him here and and in any future encounters with you. Commander Troy will not speak with you. I am advising him to not meet with you at all and to answer none of your questions at any time. I do not appreciate attempts to entrap my clients with bullying interrogation tactics."

She was not done: "If you wish to compel Commander Troy to be interrogated by you, you must get an arrest warrant based upon good probable cause and explained fully to the Judge, and in a real and legitimate Court, not some kangaroo FISA Court. I am seeking a restraining order prohibiting you from attempting to contact Commander Troy again and from conducting any surveillance upon him without a legitimate and legitimately obtained warrant. Any attempt to contact him again will be met with legal action against you, and I believe I can find a great many Police Officers around here that will enforce those legal actions against you."

With that, we turned and left. A moment later, two people walked into the room. They were Deputy Directors of the FBI and CIA, respectively.

"Gentlemen," said the FBI DepDirector, "you heard the man's attorney. And now I'm following up. Any attempt by you, or anyone else, to molest Commander Troy in any way, will result in your suspension and also your arrest. Do not even try to contact him, do not try to follow him, do not try to send others to molest him or his family... or I will snap your heads back so hard it will sound like a sonic boom going off. Do I make myself clear?"

Neither man answered. The DepDirector said "One more time, and you damn well better answer me. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir." said Staffeld, the more pragmatic of the two.

"You can arrest me if you want." said Bond defiantly. "But this isn't over. We will have our interview with Troy, and he'll be forced to admit to treason or take the Fifth. This is going to go higher than you, Director. A lot higher."

"I'm done here." the DepDirector said, to Laura. "They're yours. Bond's toast, he just doesn't realize it yet." With that, the DepDirector opened the door to the anteroom. He admitted another person first, who would be Laura's bodyguard, then he left.

This person was dressed in SWAT-like clothes, heavy armor and a helmet, and a black silk mask with only slits for her eyes. She had an automatic shotgun, and she had it pointed levelly at Agent Bond's head. She had a badge on her belt; a closer examination would reveal it to be a C.I.A. badge.

Laura held up a gold disc and pressed a small button on it. It was a bug-killer, even more sophisticated than her husband's or the one Cindy had but she didn't know about. Laura then looked at the two FBI Agents, fire in her eyes.

"Agents," she said quietly, "the FBI Deputy Director was being too generous, too kind. I'm going to make this emphatically more clear to you. If I even have a thought that you or anyone associated with you, including Casey B. Walker, are bothering my husband in any way at all... I will have you 'terminated with extreme prejudice'. Oh, I know that's a cliché, but it's very true and very, very real... I have the power to order both of you to be exterminated, to be killed... and you will be. I don't know what kind of bull shit you are trying to do to my husband, but I will have no more of your games. Now go back to Washington, and stay the hell out of my way."

With that, Laura turned on her heel and walked out of the room. The masked bodyguard kept her shotgun carefully trained upon the agents, then darted out the door, which closed behind her.

"Well," I said in the anteroom, "I owe some people lunch."

"Not at all, Commander." said the DepDirector of the FBI. "We're all on the same side against these bastards. Why don't we go to your office for a moment, though."

"Heh heh heh heh." said Chief Moynahan, who'd watched it all. "We never had this much fun in Midtown. We only had slimy State politicians down there. Okay, Mr. Crowbar, I'll have our SWAT Team stand down while you talk with our Federal friends, here." He exited the anteroom, and we followed.

Laura told her bodyguard to sneak out while the sneaking was good. I looked into her eyes as she left, nodding my thanks. She nodded back then swiftly went out the employee's parking lot door nearby.

I did not have to ask; I knew those eyes. For eight years I had gone to sleep and awakened looking into those eyes. Of course she was my ex-wife Melina...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Nice office." said the DepDirector, looking around. I had him and Laura sit down. The SWAT team had 'escorted' the FBI lawyers to the door, then were dismissed to their regular duties by the Chief.

"Thank you, sir." I said. "And thank you both for that. If that doesn't scare them off, then 'termination with extreme prejudice' may just be our only remaining option."

"We'll see." said Laura. "I don't need to tell you that we had our Directors' solid approval to do that. We're also asking this State's U.S. Senators, Richard Nunn and Samuel Russell, to begin investigating Walker, and what we believe to be the illegal 'Operation Beekeeper'."

"I hope this office is not bugged, and Internal Affairs not listening in." I said. Laura flashed a smile; her anti-bugging device was full on.

"Again," I said, "I do appreciate it."

"Oh, I know you'll be paying me back," said the Deputy Director of the FBI, "when you help me utterly destroy Superior Bloodlines and those other filthy racist groups... beginning with your Shadow Man."

"No doubt he is the start and end of it all, the Alpha and the Omega of it." I replied. "Six degrees of separation always come back to him."

"That leads me to one question, Don." said the DepDirector. "Do you think Casey Walker is in league with your Shadow Man?"

I sat back as I contemplated it. "I'm not sure." I said. "Walker and his intentions towards me.... I think that's something my lovely and brilliant wife will have to unravel."

Part 22 - In Black and White

"So, what do you want to do?" Jack Muscone said.

"I'm the wrong person to ask." I said.

It was Friday, February 25th. We were sitting at the Cop Bar, eating lunch. Jack needed a double cheeseburger to make himself feel better. I had a ground beef patty and eggs and some trimmings.

"All we need is to show there's a baby factory going on in State Women's Prison." said Jack Muscone. "Then we can arrest Linda Farris for that. And then we can make an offer to drop the charges if she gives us Louise Belfort and her Badge Gang. That'll stop the pool of para-military gangs from being so easily recruited, and it'll give you a huge inroad to your Consultant of Crime."

"How are you going to get that?" I asked. "Likely as not, the prison is keeping absolutely no records of these women that might've agreed to carry a baby and give it up in exchange for money."

"We've got a few records of past women getting $9900 each deposited into their bank accounts. They get paroled a few months later, and have that money when they come out. We checked a few of them out, even talked to a few, and none of them would say anything. We had to let them go; nothing to charge them with, to hold them."

"This is a near-perfect crime." I said. "And I'm not sure how much of a crime it is. The women get money, the babies get a good family... think of it, anyone able to pay six figures for a baby is going to be able to raise it well... and whoever made the arrangements gets paid big. Yeah, I know, some women may have been coerced, some didn't even know the babies were put on the black market. But stopping it?"

"Les Craig in Southport thinks if we expose it and arrest the Prison System people involved, like Lockhart and maybe Bryce now," said Jack, "then it'll stop. But we need evidence. What would you think about us sending someone undercover?"

"A woman? Already pregnant?" I asked. "That's too dangerous, especially if the woman was found out. And if they put her in isolation, or otherwise 'disappear' her... that could be really bad. I suspect the women in this program are not expected to be paroled early, not expected to receive any family or visitors during their terms."

I continued: "The only other option is to have a woman go in that's willing to have sex for the program. Basically you'd need a prostitute. And again, if she's exposed, that'll be bad... and again... how to extract her?"

"Yeah." Muscone said. "It's good you're a Consultant with us and not a Consultant of Crime... you're too damn good."

"I have to be, if I'm going to take down the bastard who is the Consultant of Crime." I replied.

"What about sending a man in." said Jack. "As a guard or other prison employee. Maybe getting him to infiltrate the program. Maybe he gets laid, then we can extract him easily enough."

"That'll take a long time." I said. "I suspect they're only using people they trust. Lockhart hiring Bryce, for example. You'd have to recruit someone they would trust to bring into the system, and I suspect the aforementioned Consultant would be consulted... and like 'The Teacher' in the Tenderloin District, our Consultant knows who is on the 'naughty' list and who is on the 'nice' list."

"So... what can we do?" asked Jack. "Look, I understand you punching holes in my ideas, and it's a good thing... but how about some ideas for something that will work?"

"Okay." I replied. "Start putting together an airtight case connecting Linda Farris to Louise Belfort and Lockhart and their cronies. Look for financial transactions, follow the money. Once you have enough evidence, get a warrant, conduct a very fast raid, haul them all in at once, then start working them over to turn State's evidence. But don't do that until you're really ready to go, because it'll just let our Consultant know that we're hot on his tail. We really need to add him to our bag in the first go-round, or it may be for naught."

"Always back to him, eh?" asked Muscone.

"He's the big hub, radiating the spokes. He's the Spider at the center of the big Web." I replied.

"That's going to be one hell of a thing, proving all that to a jury." Muscone said. "We'll need Lindy and Sandra, the Mouseketeers, the Abacus, and everyone else with an Accounting degree to unravel it, and Paulina Patterson ten times over to spoon-feed it----"

*BRING! BRING! BRING!*

"Speaking of Paulina," I said as I checked the message on my phone, "Oh shit! We gotta go, Jack! Paulina's going into labor!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She was scrunched up like all newborns are, with a pink toboggan on her head. As I held my second daughter, I again contemplated the miracle of life.

"She's beautiful, just like her mom." I said. Paulina beamed. "What did you name her?" I asked.

"Just as we'd talked about before." Paulina said. "LaTasha Dionne Troy-Patterson. 'Tasha' for short."

"That's nice." I said. "So... is there any family I need to call?"

"No." Paulina said. "I don't think I ever told you the whole story. My father was in the Army, rose to Sergeant First Class. Then he beat the shit out of a Captain, and that was the end of his career. He was lucky to escape jail time, but there was some question of racism from the white Captain."

"Anyway, he got out, married my mom, who was half-white, half-black." Paulina continued. "And then he got in with the wrong people. He really was a good leader of people, and soon had a drug distribution gang going on. Made a good bit of money, too. But he started drinking, and he beat up my mom a few times after I was born. She got a restraining order against him, but he'd entice her back to him. The last time... he beat her to death."

"Ouch. Sorry to hear that." I said.

"I was extremely lucky." Paulina said. "My mom's mother took custody of me, raised me. I worked like a dog to become a lawyer, then a Prosecutor. My grandmother told me I had a brother, that my dad had knocked up another woman before hooking up with my mother, and that he was taken in by his dad's family. Anyway, my grandmother died a few years ago. I had some money in trust, which paid my college bills and gives me a little bit to supplement my income. I've been investing that."

"No idea who that brother is?" I asked.

"Not really." Paulina said. "No one I want to talk about, anyway."

"Does he know about you? That he has a sister?"

"I don't know, Don." said Paulina, her tone making it more than clear she did not wish to discuss it. "Right now all I got is you and Tasha. And I'm very happy to have Tasha." The baby made a sound and moved her tiny arms around.

"Dr. Fredricson said she'll turn lighter as she gets older, by the way." said Paulina. Tasha was not any lighter than her mother, despite having a white father, me. "And well she should: she's more white than black."

"Doesn't matter what color she is." I said. "She's beautiful and I love her." I gave her back to her mother as Nurse Jones came in.

"All right, Commander, it's feeding time." said Nurse Jones. "And then we're going to shut it down, so you might as well go home until tomorrow morning."

"I'll do that." I said. I kissed Paulina goodbye, telling her I'd be back in the morning.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Pretty easy delivery." Laura said as we ate dinner. She had done the delivery. "By the time we'd texted you, that baby was coming out. Literally, 20 minutes after Paulina got to the hospital she was a mother."

"Well, that's good." I said. "She's a cute baby. I could see a bit of resemblance to Carole around the eyes---- Carole, what are you doing?" I'd noticed that someone was giving two dogs her carrots.

"I'm giving Bowser... and Bud-dy... my carrots." Carole said.

"Carole, that's people food, for you to eat." I admonished. "We'll feed the dogs later tonight with their food."

"Why can't dogs eat people food?" Carole asked.

"Because they are not people. They are dogs." I said. "They like dog food so they eat dog food. And we eat the people food because we're people."

"Why?"

Hoo boy....

Part 23 - The Witness for the Prosecution (with apologies to Dame Agatha Christie)

On Wednesday, March 2d, the trial of Jimmy Lawson began. I could not be inside the Courtroom, as I was being called as a witness. But I knew what was going on.

I had steered Krasney into the choice for the ADA to prosecute this case: Dwayne Gregory. Nerdish, with curly black hair and glasses, and a whiney voice, Gregory was by far the most inept of the District Attorney's staff. He was all but relegated to Staff duty and assisting other ADAs, and often forced to be on duty for Night Court. In spite of that, I'd suggested to Krasney that Gregory be given this shot.

Paulina Patterson was fired up angry about it. She and Tasha had left the hospital two days after Tasha's birth, and Laura and I had gone to Paulina's house to visit and help out with things. Laura's breasts still make milk, and she normally bottles the milk and gives to other women she knows with babies. So Laura breast-fed Tasha, and Paulina talked to me.

"Are you insane?" Paulina whispered to me. "Gregory can't successfully prosecute a jaywalking case! He's damn near getting fired!"

"That's why he's perfect for this case." I said.

"I get the feeling you don't think Lawson did it." Paulina said.

"I'm willing to let a Jury decide." I replied. What I did not say was that Jimmy Lawson's wife had been fired from her job at Target, not for doing anything wrong, and not because Jimmy was accused of murder. He was a striking EMT, and the Target management took delight in firing her for that reason alone.

She and their newborn child had nowhere to go, no one to help. Both their parents were deceased, they had no other relatives. They'd been struggling, now it was a desperate time. Not even the churches would lift a finger to help: her husband was a striking EMT.

They may not have had family... but I did. And when I told P. Harvey Eckhart of their plight, he wasted no time in bringing mother and child to 'The Vision' World Headquarters. She worked around the place like the other acolytes there, finally belonging. And now, her husband was on trial for the murder of what I knew to be a bad, bad man.

"Well, I hope you'll at least train Dwayne to ask you the right questions, so you and he can spoon-feed this case to the Jury." Paulina said.

"I always have believed that Juries are more intelligent than they might give the appearance of being." I said. "They'll make the right call."

In addition, many Fire Department personnel, led by Assistant Chief William Jefferson, were sitting in Court, in their uniforms with jackets, being sure to sit on the Prosecution side. Hearing this, EMTs had come out, in civilian suits and ties or whatever they could afford, to sit behind Lawson and give him moral support. Lawson's wife was sitting in the front row behind him, the first time she was seeing him in weeks, as he'd been denied visits while in County Jail upon Judge Harry 'Spud' Nance's explicit orders.

I'd heard that the Fire Department people were pissed that one Police Captain Cindy Ross had given Lawson's wife rides to and from 'The Vision'. A few even snarled vague threats at her. But that got stopped cold when Fire Chief Quinlin and other, more reasonable Fire Department people disseminated the word that the Iron Crowbar was taking any insults towards his Police Captain as a personal affront. They wanted no part of a Crowbar beatdown... especially one administered by a most very angry Police Commander...

Fortunately, nothing was going on. The FBI was trying to put together their case on Linda Farris and the Belfort Badge Gang. There had been nothing more from Casey B. Walker or his poodles Bond and Staffeld, which actually had Laura worried. Chief Moynahan, Cindy, and Teresa were taking care of Police business.