Chapter 52
The two men stood with the postcode held up in front of them, comparing it with their current view, "This is definitely the exact spot," remarked the detective, "so what does he want me to do now that I'm here," Danny slowly turned around taking in the view from all angles, "on the surface, there's nothing of any importance that I can tell." Steve started at that comment, it was almost exactly the same thought process that he went through with Wo Fat when they were contemplating the mysterious coordinates,
"Well maybe it's something below the surface, then?" Steve walked under the trees, examining the ground carefully. He could see patches of grass that were a little uneven and hadn't quite knitted back in with the grass around them, "These clumps of grass have been dug up and then replaced, why would you want to do that?" Danny quickly picked up on his train of thought,
"It's something you'd do if you wanted to bury something but not make it obvious. In a few more months, these patches would have merged into the rest of the grass and no one would be any the wiser."
Steve slapped his partner on the back, "Well, it looks like it's my turn to help you dig for something. I'll just grab the shovel from the back of the truck." Danny shook his head in wonder and shouted after the ultra-prepared man,
"You have a shovel in your truck, just in case? What, you might need to bury a body at any given moment? Are you a closet psychopath? Should I be worried?" Steve returned with the handy-looking garden tool in his hand, smiling at Danny's mini-rant,
"You can never be too prepared, Danno," his features rearranged into what Danny immediately decided to dub the 'super-smug-I-know-what-I'm-talking-about' face. The detective fleetingly wondered how many distinct 'faces' he was up to now, as he might need to start cataloguing them in a notebook to keep track at this rate. He was pulled from his musing as his partner continued with a mini-rant of his own, "We live in a place that gets battered by hurricanes and storms with little warning. I've got an extensive first-aid kit as well as emergency supplies and ropes in my truck, even a saw if I need to cut through a tree that has come down and is blocking the road. Now, if you find yourself caught out in a storm you'll be up shit creek without a paddle."
Danny snarked back, "That's where you're wrong, my friend. For a start, the only place I'd be in the face of an incoming storm is safely indoors. And I most certainly wouldn't be venturing up any creeks, either with or without a paddle." The SEAL grinned and gestured for him to give him some room to dig,
"Right, stand back – I'll have this dug up in no time."
Steve started with the grass patch that was nearest to them, carefully removing the top layer of grass first and placing it to one side. He started to dig and had only removed about 10 shovelfuls of dirt when he felt the metal blade hit something soft. A little more digging revealed a dark-colored holdall. Steve snagged the handles of the dirty gym bag and pulled hard to release it from its burial place. Danny had come and crouched next to his partner and they both just looked at the bag for a minute. Finally, the detective reached for the zip and slowly opened up the bag, shaking off the remaining dirt as he unzipped it. The bag was stuffed full of money, a lot of money. Steve let out a low whistle, "Shit, Danny. What the hell was your brother into?" Danny had no answer to that and just sat back on his haunches and looked at the bag. He turned to Steve,
"We'd better keep digging, there are quite a few disturbed patches of grass under these trees." By the time they had finished, the multiple piles of soil looked like a family of moles had run amok. Steve directed Danny to start moving all of the bags to his truck while he filled in the holes and carefully replaced the divots of grass - no one would be able to tell that they had even been there. Steve started the engine and they set off on the long drive back to Honolulu. He didn't need to check their destination with his partner, driving straight to his house with the bags of money. They brought them all into the living room and between them began the laborious task of arranging the money into piles and counting it. It was in the early hours of the morning when they finished and had a tally that they both agreed upon.
"I make it $13 million exactly," declared Steve. Danny had the same figure,
"Yep, me too. That's a lot of cash. I wonder who it belongs to 'cos it certainly doesn't belong to my brother." Steve sagged back into the sofa, they couldn't just ignore this,
"We need to find him, Danny. Someone's gonna want this back at some point and they're not the sort of people you mess with . . ." he trailed off but his partner knew what he wasn't saying,
"I hate him so much right now, but he's still my brother. Can you help me find him, get him safely into FBI custody? I'd rather he was in prison than 6 feet under." Danny got a bit choked up at that thought, "We can contact those FBI agents who were tracking us when Mattie came to visit, tell them what we know." Steve reflected on this for a minute before replying,
"Yeah, that's one option. But if Matt is tangled up with Colombian drug lords like we think he is, the FBI is not the right agency to handle the situation. I know you hate it every time we get a case involving the CIA but they have the resources to help us find your brother. Plus, Director Thompson promised to link me up with the field office here on Oahu – let's take her up on her very generous offer." Danny sighed in resignation,
"Yeah, it makes sense. Doesn't mean I have to like it." Steve just gave him a sympathetic half-smile and then the two friends called it a night, having first secured the money in Steve's large locking gun cabinet.
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The CIA Director was true to her word and Steve found himself meeting a man from the 'State Department' and a lady out of DC who purported to be from 'Cultural Affairs'. They had chosen a creepy parking garage with no CCTV for the meet and Steve almost smirked at the cliché, the whole thing couldn't have screamed 'spook' more if they tried. But he needed to play nicely as they had something that he wanted, a potential lead on Mattie Williams' location. They had clearly been instructed to provide full disclosure, as what they told him next was highly classified. Agent Anna Douglas spoke first, "I was lined up to be Wo Fat's handler from inside the CIA. Turns out that the agency brokered a number of arms deals with the man many years ago," at Steve's horrified expression she quickly clarified her position, "you have to understand, Commander, international policy is akin to trying to navigate through shifting sands – our friends become enemies overnight when faced with regime changes in countries of strategic importance to the U.S. He was useful in arming certain factions, but then quickly became a liability and we severed all ties. Before your team took him down, there was concern that he might expose our past dealings and cause embarrassment to the agency. That's where I was to come in, should he ever be captured alive." The older man, who had introduced himself as Agent Kendricks, chipped in with his intel at that point,
"One of the deals was in Columbia, where we needed to shore up the position of a drug lord there by the name of Marco Reyes. He's now head of the third most powerful drug cartel in Columbia." Steve jumped in at that point with a very Danny-like snarky comment,
"You have a ranking system, like a points-based league of bad guys?" The agent stared him down for a moment and continued,
"This is highly classified, Commander – you cannot share what I am about to tell you with your team." Steve nodded his understanding, after all he couldn't share much about his Navy ops with his team either and told the CIA agents exactly that. The other man carried on, "Operation Sandpiper was implemented in a rush, without sufficient foresight, to prevent a potentially devastating stock market crash. It turns out that Wall Street investors poured money into the expanding housing market in Columbia, but one of the too-good-to-be-true investments was actually a legitimate-looking cover for a cartel money-laundering scheme. Everything was fine until the authorities stepped up their enforcement efforts and suddenly all these U.S. financial institutions are taking a big hit. The CIA helped Marco Reyes seize power from a far less reasonable cartel member and now he keeps a steady stream of cocaine and money flowing and the banks are making a profit from their investments again." Steve took a minute to digest the intel. Christ – this is exactly why he never wanted anything to do with the Company. Bad decisions from the past were always coming back to haunt you. He sighed and asked the two agents a question,
"Do you know where Matthew Williams fits into all this? He left something behind when he fled the island. Quite a lot of something, actually." Anna let her boss answer.
Kendricks cleared his throat and continued, "Yeah. Williams has been quite useful to Reyes on the money laundering side of his business, the man's got quite the flair for the financials. We've been working on him getting close enough to Reyes to get a look at his books – in particular the account that details all the pay-offs that the man has to make to keep his business running smoothly. We don't care about the ones to the Columbian generals, the politicians and government officials . . . what we want is the name of an American that is on the take, a CIA Agent that has gotten a tad too cosy with the cartel. This order comes from the Director herself, she wants to weed out the dirty agents – they're a risk to national security and the agents around them." Anna chipped in,
"Just look what happened with that dirty rat, Jonathan Kray. Greer was a friend of mine. We're all at risk while people like that are on the take."
"I know it is murky at times, Commander but we're the good guys here. Sometimes we just have to make the best of a bad situation . . . wait, back up a bit - are you implying that Williams took money from the cartel?" Steve nodded sadly,
"We've recovered $13 million, but he could have taken more. After all, he did flee the country on a private plane – that costs money to arrange." Kendricks looked at Douglas and cursed,
"Shit, this changes things. If Reyes finds out, then Williams is as good as dead. The man's one vengeful SOB, no one who crosses him lives to tell the tale. Williams needs to be pulled out, I don't want his death on my conscience."
Steve deliberated on this, "But he's gonna go after him, or his family, if he's as bad as you say. Let me work on a plan to get the name of your dirty agent and extract Matt from this mess without alerting Marco Reyes – then everyone goes home happy," he took in the doubtful expressions on the faces in front of him, "just give me 24 hours to come back to you with a plan. I'll need some backup on this, I'll have to loop in my team but I won't disclose anything about the CIA and Operation Sandpiper. They'll only need to know the details of the extraction plan." Kendricks gave a decisive nod of his head,
"24 hours, Commander. We'll maintain radio silence on this, so as not to alert the mole in the agency."