Unhappily Ever After Bk. 01 Ch. 05

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Unhappily Ever After is a long, novel-length story that relates the story of a veteran who returns to civilian life and pursues a career path begun before joining the Australian Defence Force. He is forced to resurrect his 'stay alive' skills when he is betrayed by his wife, whose lover puts a hit order out on him.

---oooBJSooo---

As with many of my stories, this one started out as an idea for a short story. Unfortunately, the characters took control, and it became my version of War and Peace. In an attempt to encourage those with an aversion to long stories to read it, I have broken it up into two books. This submission is Book One.

Book Two has been written and is currently in the editing stage. Each book tells its own story, but I'd recommend reading Book One first to get a handle on some of the characters.

Hopefully, those who didn't like the absence of gratuitous retribution in my previous submission, Happenstance, will find Unhappily Ever After more explicit. Doncha hate it when you've got to work things out for yourself?

Be warned, however. If you start this journey, be prepared for a long ride. Book One contains ten chapters, which will be submitted in seven parts. All seven parts have been submitted simultaneously, with a request to the moderator that they be published on consecutive days.

I trust you will enjoy my offering, but I will be happy to receive your comments either way. It should be noted, however, that I have blocked anonymous comments. I know that might inconvenience a few of you, but my philosophy is that 'better one commenter be inconvenienced than ten trolls be allowed to spew their vitriol'.

Please Note: The right of Black Jack Steele to be identified as the author of this work - Unhappily Ever After - Book One - is asserted under worldwide copyright laws. All rights are reserved.

UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER

BOOK ONE

Copyright © Black Jack Steele 2022

CHAPTER FIVE

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

A Second Front Is Identified

"I'm so pleased you decided to bring me in on your little plan before you went ahead and fucked up the whole operation," Tommy said facetiously as we sat drinking coffee in his office. "I'm also pleased you complied with my request to come alone.

"How did you manage that, by the way?"

"On the way into town this morning, I told Charlie that if she was going to be able to successfully play the part of my PA, she should know something about the business. I left her in Shirley's care, telling her I was heading out to check on a couple of job sites. I'd driven my truck into town this morning, giving my story a bit of substance.

"She argued for a while but finally acknowledged that I should be safe enough with your men watching my back. Before leaving home, I'd texted Shirley with the message, "Go with the flow today", so I knew she'd be prepared for whatever happened.

"When we got to the office, I handed Charlie over to Shirley to give her a tour of our operation while I was out of the office, announcing that I'd be gone for at least three hours. I knew it wouldn't take long for Manyweather to discover that Charlie was roaming free.

"I left to do my site visits about half an hour after we'd arrived."

"It didn't take him long at all," Tommy said. "He caught up with them not ten minutes after you left and had offered to relieve Shirley of her arduous duty. After a bit of arguing, Shirley agreed that she had more important things to do and handed Charlie off to him.

"Half an hour later, he and Charlie were having it off in your meeting room.

"I'll give her her due. She resisted him for almost a minute before she was on her knees, giving him a blow job. By the end of the first hour, he had taken her in all three holes, and she was calling him 'Sir'.

"We've lost her, I'm afraid. Or, more to the point, anything you and she might have had is gone. We'll let today play itself out, and I'll call her after you've returned home this evening, asking her to come in for an urgent meeting. That, of course, assumes that 'Sir' doesn't call first.

"I've got video evidence supporting everything I've told you if you want to see it. But it's not something I'd recommend. The audio is quite interesting, though. Once again, I wouldn't recommend listening to it, but the short version is that in addition to denigrating you and your sexual prowess, Charlie has spilled her guts to him about what has been happening behind the scenes.

"I've loaded today's activities into your cloud vault just in case you want to punish yourself.

"It would appear that Todd Manyweather now knows as much about our operation as she does. I'm hoping you were smart enough to hold a few things back. I know I did. If so, it's a case of, "We taught her everything she knows, but we didn't teach her everything we know".

"I might have accepted her denigration of you as a lover as sex talk and as a way to gain his confidence. But passing on operational information to the enemy is treasonous. The big question now is: What do we do about it?"

"As you suggested," I responded, "we let things play themselves out. Contrary to your advice, though, I think I should look at the footage and listen to the audio. I don't want to punish myself, but I'd like to gauge for myself just how much damage she's done.

"We'll catch up after I've viewed it."

Tommy steered me to a small soundproof cubicle where I could unload my laptop and connect to my cloud account.

---oooBJSooo---

I looked at my watch as I shut down my computer. The dial was difficult to see through the unshed tears that filled my eyes. It appeared that I'd been in the cubicle for two hours. It had been one of the most difficult two hours I'd ever experienced. But I'd learned a great deal, as the notes I'd taken attested.

I sent a text off to Tommy, telling him I was ready to talk. His reply came back, telling me that lunch would be ready in about ten minutes.

Before leaving the cubical, I called Shirley, telling her I probably wouldn't get back to the office until about four o'clock.

After filling me in on the morning's events, she told me that Todd had taken Charlie out for lunch. He hadn't said where.

I asked her to hold for a minute.

I then pulled out my number one burner and texted Tommy, asking him to get a fix on Manyweather's phone. He replied that he had his location. He was at the Hilton.

"Tnx," I replied.

After shutting my burner down, I switched back to Shirley and asked her to call Todd and let him know that I was delayed and my expected ETA.

"If, for some reason, he has his phone turned off, send him a text with the same information," I instructed her.

I could detect her smile as she acknowledged my instructions.

"You know it's probably already too late," she said.

"Just giving them enough rope," I responded. "They'll be working on the 'might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb' principle. I'll see you at about three."

She was still chuckling as I disconnected.

My eyes had cleared by the time I joined Tommy for lunch.

"I went through the footage a couple of times," I said as we ate a very tasty meatloaf and salad. "You were right. It wasn't a pleasant exercise, but I learned that she didn't give him anything he didn't already know.

"She didn't give up the blokes out on my property. And she didn't let on about my watchers; both facts she knows about. But she did elaborate on the events of Friday night - facts that I'd brushed over - and she talked about the threats to my life.

"She certainly didn't mention anything about a second battlefront; something I'd mentioned but not said anything more about.

"My feeling is that Charlie suspects that her lover may somehow be involved in that second front and that she's decided to go undercover without telling us about it or setting up communication channels. In American terms, I think she's 'gone off the reservation'.

"The dangerous part of that - assuming that was her thinking - is that she'll become so addicted to his dick and their Dom/sub scene that she won't be able to find her way back.

"I can't deny being disappointed in her, though.

"We discussed it last night, for Christ's sake!"

"What?" Tommy asked. "You warned her off Manyweather?"

"Not in so many words. No," I answered. "But we discussed commitment and what I would and wouldn't put up with in a relationship partner. She was left with a very clear understanding of the outcome should she ever cheat on me; not to mention what would happen to her if she ever offered herself to me with her body filled with another man's cum.

"She swore that would never happen, but she knew she was only kidding herself. Just as I knew I had lost her as soon as they met in my office yesterday. Would you believe she actually creamed herself when he walked into the room? Both Shirley and I smelt it."

"I'm so sorry, Stoney," Tommy said. "I thought she'd be just the thing you needed to get over Sam. That'll teach me to stick my beak in where it isn't wanted. Mother warned me that I was playing with fire. But I didn't listen. No. Bloody Prancer knew best."

"Don't beat yourself up about it," I said. "As I pointed out to Shirley as soon as she saw their connection, 'It's better it happens now than five years down the track'."

"I thank the gods that you have kept your knowledge about his operation to yourself," Tommy said. "It does mean we'll have to speed up our plan for MCL, however. If only so we can regroup and focus on Mister-fucking-Manyweather."

After deciding to let things run their course so far as Charlie was concerned, we turned our attention to the information we had both gathered in the past twenty-four hours.

"My chemist has come up with some interesting findings," Tommy said. "The first is that the Methamphetamine taken from your car matches a batch that was confiscated in a raid on a kitchen a little over a year ago. Therefore, it should be in a police evidence locker waiting for the trial of the cook and anyone else who can be tied to him. Unfortunately, the cook isn't talking. He knows his life wouldn't be worth a brass razoo if he did.

"The second of his interesting findings is that both the cylinder and the plastic liner were big enough to hold a much larger quantity of ice than the slightly more than two hundred grams we received. In fact, an examination of the plastic liner indicates that it was filled to the brim in the very recent past.

"The only conclusion to be drawn from that fact is that somewhere along the way, someone has removed about three hundred grams of the drug from the cylinder. While he can't pinpoint the exact time it was removed, I'd be willing to hazard a guess that it happened between when it was placed in your fuel filler pipe and when it was passed on to my courier."

Tommy's assessment dovetailed nicely with my own. And I believed I knew why.

During the next thirty minutes, I told him about my recent discovery regarding Manyweather and his security team.

"My sources tell me that three hundred grams of Ice has a current street value of somewhere around three hundred dollars per gram," I said. "That would be ninety-thousand free and clear for someone who could get his hands on three hundred grams at no cost. In this case, it was not only cost-free but owner-free."

"Your Todd Manyweather has managed to keep himself out of the limelight," Tommy said. "He apparently prefers to lead from the rear. Fortunately for us, though, the same cannot be said of some of his people. He must have friends in high places to have managed to get security credentials for some of his team members.

"While none of them shows a conviction for anything other than the odd driving offence, a few in there probably should have been convicted of serious crimes. Suffice it to say that every man-Jack of them - and woman-Jill, come to that - has affiliations with either an outlawed motorcycle gang or a Neo-Nazi group.

"Manyweather's second-in-charge is a former military police warrant officer who served with his boss in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had a reputation for being a bully back then and has apparently escalated his bullying since returning to civilian life. He is the sergeant-at-arms for the Rat Eaters motorcycle club in his spare time. They're the mob that took over the Mongrel Bastards in a bloody coup a couple of years ago."

We agreed that I would have to replace my whole security team at some point in the not-too-distant future. Tommy said he'd talk to someone he knew about getting an interim team together and start work on finding permanent replacements.

"Just make sure you bill me for your work," I told him.

"Shut the fuck up," he responded. "I haven't had this much fun since being airlifted to Afghanistan. I should be paying you."

"Fair enough," I answered. "I'll send you a bill when this is all over."

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

"For your homework," I said to Tommy, "I want you to find out if there is any connection between anyone at MCL and any of Manyweather's people and any motorcycle gang members. The bikers must have had legal representation if they've been charged with anything. I'm wondering if we can use them as part of my retribution package.

"In the meantime, can you get your chemist to package up the Ice he has into baggies? I need fourteen pairs of personal-use quantity sachets. I want the people caught with them to be charged with possessing distribution quantities of Ice but have a chance of successfully pleading down to personal use; assuming they're able to access a half-decent lawyer, that is.

"I also want him to fill fifteen zip-loc bags with five or six baggies, each of which should contain a 'blind eye' personal-use quantity of Ice. I want the people caught with these drugs to be charged with distribution offences, with a reasonable chance of being convicted.

"It won't really matter whether they are convicted, though. Because their reputations will be in the shitter.

"All we need to make this happen is an honest cop or two to play the part of the bullet when we pull the trigger."

It turned out that Tommy knew someone who knew an honest cop who was senior enough in the hierarchy to play the part of the primer cap. He would be able to select the right people for the job. With the number of cutouts involved, it was unlikely that anyone would know where the anonymous tip-off had originated.

All Tommy and I had to do was to ensure that the stage was set when the curtain went up. Hopefully, we wouldn't even get a mention on the playbill.

---oooBJSooo---

"Before we finish up," Tommy said as I was preparing to leave. "I've done a bit more digging into MCL's finances.

"Starting at the top of the food chain, your wife's boss, beau, lover or master - whatever label you want to pin on him - is living way beyond his means. Not only is he a slimy snake, but he's also a gambler. The thing is, though, that he's a very lucky gambler. When he wins, he wins big. But when he loses, no one seems to care.

"At the moment, he is into his bookmaker for almost two hundred thousand dollars. But no one seems to be putting any pressure on him to repay it. The other funny thing is that he has an offshore account in the Cayman Islands, which is currently holding better than five times that amount; all of which is apparently attributed to his extraordinary gambling skills.

"The other four senior partners are also gamblers - although not in the same league as their managing partner. While all but one of them is living within their means, they all have large deposits in offshore banks.

"Except for the two females, none of the junior partners appears to have any income stream outside their earnings - salaries and bonuses - from the firm. However, the two female junior partners, the two female associates - which, up until last Friday, included Sam - and a few paralegals are earning way above their pay scales. Sam and one of the female junior partners have offshore accounts holding amounts even higher than most of the senior partners. The deposits into those accounts appear to coincide with the timing of the events recorded on the DVDs; although Sam's holdings are much higher than any of the others.

"I'm still trying to find out why that is. It could be that she is earning a much higher rate than her coworkers, or it could be that she has made some wise investments since she started swimming in the deep end of the pool.

"Because nothing is showing up for the other females and the gay paralegal we know are involved in these orgies, I can only assume they are being paid in cash. Those who aren't shipping their money out of the country must be stashing it in shoeboxes under their beds. ...or maybe they're ferreting it away in safety deposit boxes."

Tommy made a note to check into that possibility.

"Once I picked up the link between the dates of the events and the payments into the offshore accounts, I went back and checked the bank accounts of the male partners - both senior and junior. Snap! A day or two before each cruise, conference or training retreat, each male participant - of which there are twelve, including the senior partners - withdrew five thousand dollars from their private savings accounts - supposedly as their contribution to the cost of the conference or seminar.

"The truth, however, is that the cost of those events is covered by the firm; which I've been able to confirm by diving into their holy-of-holies. That means the additional sixty thousand dollars contributed by the fuckers goes into the prizemoney pool. And it's not just the sixty thousand dollars entry fees that the MCL partners put in that makes up the pool. There are also an additional six invited guests on each cruise or seminar - guest lecturers, whose fares are covered by the firm - each of whom kicks in another five thousand, bringing the total prize pool to ninety thousand dollars.

"From what I've been able to ascertain, each of the fuckees receives ten thousand dollars for each gathering as a participation fee, which at the two major events consists of the female junior partners and three or four associates and/or paralegals, one of whom - up until last Friday night - was Sam, and another is the gay male I mentioned earlier. The remainder of the entry fee pool - thirty thousand dollars - is distributed as prizemoney for the various events held during their little get-togethers.

"It seems that Sam is very good at what she does and is in high demand at those events. From the records I've been able to access, it appears she returns home from her seminars and conferences with the bulk of the prizemoney. Her take-home from the 2016 cruise, for example, was sixteen thousand dollars. She must have outdone herself this year because she came home with twenty thousand.

"From what I've seen on the discs, the mystery-destination seminars - although land-based and of shorter duration - are the same format. It appears to have taken Sam a year or two to get into the swing of things at those events, but she eventually adapted to her environment like a duck to water. And it didn't take her long to start earning her participation fee. By her third year, she was returning home with five-figure rewards in her handbag. It surprises me that it took her so long to be invited on the cruises.

"Whether mystery seminar or Pacific cruise, though, one rule applies. Participants - including invited dignitaries - must provide an up-to-date clean bill of health before joining the fray. But that rule appears to have been broken during their 2016 cruise when someone - and it can only have been Kingston - apparently allowed a couple of the senior crew members to join in their orgiastic fuckfest. That little faux pas resulted in a few of the participants - including Sam - acquiring an STD; gonorrhea, I believe. Not only was everyone benched after that cruise, but all further sexual liaisons were put on hold between the cruise and the next March seminar until they had all received HIV and other long-incubation disease clearances."