Chapter 32

January 1998 – Los Angeles

"The less people at LAPD involved, the better."

The Lieutenant had said it without any further explanation, even after Inez asked if he was suggesting that someone in the department was involved or was leaking information. He hadn't committed to anything; hadn't told her anything she didn't already know - which only made her more focused in that direction. The look gave her was strange, like he knew something more than he was telling. She left his office at Major Crimes with more questions than answers.

Thompson was up to something, but she hadn't interfered with him investigating on his own – even though he'd been doing it behind her back. Someone had to do something – she couldn't. Someone else. Someone who had a vested interest in the truth, not just bagging a high-value target like Niki Lazzaro. The investigation seemed to be stalled. There were too many hands in the pie.

The videotape with Mollaret and Lazzaro couldn't be used in court unless accompanied by compelling forensic evidence or identifying the victim. A team of good lawyers, which Lazzaro had on speed dial, would argue that it could have been a home movie or faked to trap their client – and get away with it.

Identification of Frank Crum's body had just added another piece of a puzzle that seemed to be expanding with every new piece discovered. She had made sure Thompson was able to gain full access to the case file and the autopsy. It was all she dared do.

As long as her fingerprints weren't on the investigation, they might all be safe.

Those were the thoughts that consumed her while she drove home. Turning the key in the lock to her back door, she leaned into it and breathed hard, willing herself to go in.

When she was able to turn the knob, she was met with nothing more, or less, than she had expected. Except for the lights of the clock on the oven and the microwave, the kitchen was dark. That dark emptiness stretched through to the living room and up the stairs. A shaft of cold white from the security globes on a nearby electric pole slunk through the front door's window panels and cast spectral shadows into the foyer...

...into a house that was already filled with ghosts that wouldn't leave and gave her no peace.

January 1998 – Santa Monica

Turk Adams parked Enos's truck in the lot across the street from the address that Gordon Thompson had given him and took his service pistol out of the glove compartment. Rarely did he wear a suit to task force meetings, choosing instead to wear his uniform, but even the office casual he sometimes wore was a bit more than the low profile street clothes he'd chosen for tonight – more like he would wear to an undercover drug meet.

Texting took awhile with a mobile phone, and he avoided the arduous process whenever he could. 'Damnit. Somebody needs to find a better way,' he thought. But Thompson had asked him to signal when he arrived so they would expect his knock on the door. He kept the message short and with as few clicks as possible by pressing numbers for 'here.'

A skateboarder narrowly missed him as he crossed the street to ring the buzzer of #20. The young Detective, who Enos had said was 'a good cop but draggin' around some kind of millstone,' opened the door.

Ten minutes later, after introductions were made, Turk stood in front of the wall in Elektra's bedroom with his left hand wrapped around the neck of a Heineken. He flipped up one of the sticky notes with his right index finger and stepped back to take it all in again.

Despite his doubts that Thompson and his girlfriend could show him anything that hadn't already been done or thought of, he said, "Okay, I'm impressed. Explain it to me. I mean, I get the picture, but I want to know how you got...," he walked back to the wall again and peeled off one of the neon-red sticky notes that were scattered over the wall, "...here."

Thompson nodded to Elektra. "She's the brain behind this string art."

Rolling her eyes, she started out, "Tommy provided some of the detail to fill in the blank spaces in my original diagram."

"Believe me. You don't want to see the algorithms," Thompson interjected.

"As I was saying," she continued, "it started out very small, with just bits and pieces and some wild cards. Since then, we've expanded it to include more questions and more focused wild cards and investigation paths no one else has thought of. At least, that's what Tommy tells me."

"I checked, Lieutenant, none of the investigations have come up with anything close to this," Thompson confirmed.

"Walk me through the process...but you can leave out the algorithms," Turk said, taking a swig of the beer, "and you might as well call me Turk. Lieutenant seems a bit too official for what we seem to be doing here." He made a circle with his hand at the wall.

Thompson knew about the close relationship, going back eighteen years, that Strate and Adams had. It was legendary, apparently. He, himself, had never formed those kinds of close relationships with his fellow officers. He'd heard it said that Strate would cut off his right arm for Adams, and vice versa. That's what he was counting on. The fact that he was beginning to understand it now was mind-boggling, considering that up until recently, all-things-Strate made him want to bang his head against the wall. They needed someone they could trust. Besides the fact that Adams had rank to access files closed to a lowly detective second class, he was in drug enforcement and could work outside the main investigation scope. Icing on the cake.

"Yep, got it." Thompson motioned to Elektra and mouthed, 'you're on.'

"We started," she said, pointing at various parts of the new wall, "with everything we know about the events, photos, interrogation notes, statements, phone records, police reports, and forensics. The red strings are obvious connections. And Enos seems to be the nexus of the greatest number of those, some of which may, or may not, be relevant or at least not be significant. Beyond that, some other events and circumstances are related to him, or Kate, that need to be eliminated. Those are the red stickers."

Turk took inventory of the red notes, some of which were in the form of questions:

*Kay Mun's brother's plane crash in Central Africa Oct 27, 1997

*Did Kate fake her disappearance?

*Was Kate doing something she didn't tell Strate until the night he was attacked and she disappeared? Loss of memory – only they know.

*What was Kate's prior commitment that kept her away from the Halloween Ball?

*Auto accident – Enos and Tommy Oct 29, 1997 – immediately following trafficking raid Oct 29, 1997 – potentially fatal for both

*Auto accident – Strate and De Pina May 14, 1988 – soon after Hebert investigation and disappearance April 29, 1988 – potentially fatal for both/nearly fatal for De Pina

*Strate shot on SWAT duty September 15, 1996

*Consistency with Kate Broussard's disappearance – only supported by Warren Underwood statement

*1988 Investigation and warrant for Hebert (Mollaret)

*Who killed Frank Crum, aka 2 x 4

*Who set the fire that killed Mollaret/Hebert?

*Where was Lazzaro in April to May 1988 and June to November 1997? Surveillance by FBI/GBI? Open investigations?

Beyond that, bright yellow string connected the trafficking raid directly to Mollaret and then straight to Lazzaro. Another joined the trafficking raid victims to both Mollaret and Frank Crum. Yet another connected Crum to Mollaret and then to Radmila Kozlova's murder.

"The yellow string indicates connections we want, cancel that, need to confirm," Thompson said.

After mulling it over for some time, during which Thompson brought him another beer, the first thing Turk did was take off the red stickies that said, 'Did Kate fake her disappearance?' and the one that read, 'Kay Mun's brother's plane crash' explaining that, "The first is ridiculous. The second, according to Enos's information through Interpol, the plane was brought down by rebels; and crash investigators determined that Doctor Mun was on that plane for humanitarian reasons that had nothing to do with the pilot smuggling blood diamonds. He got on the wrong plane at the wrong time."

Turk also ripped off the note about Enos being shot in '96.

"Ballistics determined the bullet ricocheted, and he was not targeted. Not even in the line of fire – just a freak incident." Seeing the look on Thompson's face and noticing the X scrawled onto the back of each, he added, "But...you had already eliminated those, right?"

"Yep. Just left them up there as control samples. Elektra's idea. To see what you would take down and what you would leave. What's left is what we think we need to pursue. For whatever the reasons, I don't think anyone else is, or at least not most of the more...wild 'wild cards.'"

Turk leaned up against a chair, crossed his arms, and breathed heavily. Then he asked Elektra, "You got some blank red ones?"

Ten minutes and five red sticky notes later, Mollaret/Hebert, Niki Lazzaro, two of the suspects arrested in the trafficking raid (Jared Sloan and Shane Blessing), and the owner of Downtown Movie Rentals had an additional designation: Overlapping Columbian Drug Connection. Turk also added two more names to the wall, with arrows pointing to Niki Lazzaro: Elias Malik (deceased) and D.E. Kincaid (deceased).

"So, what's with this note?" Turk asked as he pulled off the note that declared a WEAK CONSISTENCY between Enos's attack after the time they had isolated for Kate Broussard's abduction from her apartment. Turk had long ago stopped thinking of it as a 'disappearance.'

"That's all Elektra," Thompson said.

"I agree that his attack is directly connected to Kate's. But no one can explain why he's still alive, when nobody else is."

"Oh, Kate's alive," Turk said, emphatically.

"You don't believe it's wishful thinking on Strate's part?"

"Not at all. Man might be a cockeyed optimist about a lot of things just because that's who he is...a blessing and a curse...but...even Enos Strate wouldn't chuck everything he's worked for or put everything on the line to go after her if he wasn't stone cold sure she was alive. The ledgers referencing the same date as the date the cargo ship that carried Crum's body to Taiwan in the trunk of that Mustang cinch it for me."

Thompson nodded. "I was skeptical at first – about the coincidence theory. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea that something kept Mollaret from making good on his threats to take Strate out along with Kate makes sense. I'm working on finding out what that might have been – maybe we can find a witness that wouldn't come forward for some other reason – because he, she, or they had something to do with the actual attack. Somebody that can link Mollaret directly."

"There's something else," Thompson said. "We know there was nothing in Strate's phone records that was unexpected. However, Kate's cell phone records listed seven calls in the two weeks before she disappeared that no one's been able to track down. They were likely all from pre-paid phones that are no longer active, and tracking them to the manufacturer has been a dead-end...The phone records for the numbers are sealed. Not even a court order can unlock them. Makes them look...official," Thompson added.

"And that's why this cloak and dagger meet?" Turk asked although it was as much a statement as it was a question.

Thompson simply nodded.

"Agreed then. While you run down these leads, and your accident after the raid," Turk said, as he pulled off all but one of the wild card notes from the wall and handed them to Thompson, "and I'll work on the original '88 file on Hebert – and the accident," he said, pulling off the last red note, "with Enos and Inez. They never found the car, or the driver, that forced them off that cliff."

When Turk left the bungalow, he noticed a group of skateboarders still rolling up and down the beach walk. One of them was the same kid that had nearly knocked him down when he arrived.

January 30, 1998 (Korean Time) – Goyang-si, Republic of Korea

Of all the sights Enos thought he would never see, it was the view he had from the floor by their bed at four in the morning – watching Soonie pretend to sleep.

The first week, she had tried to get up with him, make coffee, and send him off with a kiss. Eventually, the morning sickness that she still couldn't shake had gotten the better of her and had worn her out.

He would be later than usual going in to work today. So many things were on his mind. He nearly reached over to ask her to stop pretending but pulled his hand back.

Soonie would be by herself with Gem this weekend, and he would miss spending time with the little bespectacled pixie. They had bonded over the weirdest thing. The breakthrough had come on a Saturday afternoon thirteen days ago. After two visits at her grandfather's house, he and Soonie had taken Gem to see Anastasia – in Korean, of course. 33

While they watched, with Gem in the seat between them, Enos silently thanked whoever it was that was responsible for adding English subtitles for the movie's Korean release. Nearly at the beginning of the film, that one song finally put context to the most beautiful thing he had ever heard a little more than two months before.

After the movie, Soonie was tired and afraid that she would not have the wherewithal to contend with her father's disapproval tonight, in case he should be there. So, Enos returned Gem to the house, only two blocks away. When they arrived, Mizz Baek confirmed that Mr. Mun was, indeed, not at home.

The economic crisis in South Korea was severe, and Mr. Mun's business was in jeopardy – that much he knew. He only learned much later that Soonie's father had been at some meeting with the merchant bank that carried his company's loan and that it hadn't gone well.

Enos couldn't have avoided knowing what was going on regarding the financial crisis even if he'd wanted to – first through Soonie, then, through the unrest that dominated both the news (English language and Korean) and the law enforcement community. The country was on edge. The fallout from the crisis impacted everyone.

None of that affected tiny Eun-kyung. That wasn't the problem. Gem didn't only have to get used to the fact that her father would never again walk through the door. She was now expected to act differently while she lived in her grandfather's house. Mizz Baek had confided to them that when Gem lived with her father, the environment was much different, much less formal, more...fun. It was the reason she believed that her beloved Jae-sung, whom she had raised since he was born, had left the care and upbringing of Eun-kyung to his half-sister.

When they arrived at the Mun house, Gem was keyed up by the experience of the movie. She retrieved the doll they had given her from her room and proceeded to show the husband of her father's sister a private part of the garden. Pretending the doll was the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, Gem hummed what she could remember of the melody for 'Once Upon a December.' 33

"Aunt Soonie can play that song, the one you liked," he whispered down to her in Korean and pretended to play the violin. He knew he had likely misused the Korean word for 'aunt,' but there were so many words that described specific family relationships that he got lost in them sometimes. He'd been in Korea a month before he realized he had addressed Soonie's aunt in San Francisco incorrectly. But bless her heart, she had never corrected him. Thankfully, Gem had gotten the idea and apparently also forgave his ignorance.

Gem curtsied, the way she had seen them do it in the movie, and Enos returned it with a royal bow, then he scooped her up in his arms and began dancing with her, the way they had done in the film. He made several circle-turns that made Gem giggle when he spotted Mr. Mun watching them – a stern, imperious expression of disapproval on his face. It was the same look he had used when first they had met.

He immediately put Gem down next to him, and they both bowed to the master of the house, which seemed to have no effect on Mr. Mun. The man said nothing and moved on to his study, without returning the bow.

Enos looked down at Gem, who came just a few inches above his knee, and said, in the best Korean he could, "I think we're in trouble." Apparently, she understood the gist of it because she nodded her head affirmatively, and they both had to stifle a laugh. When she reached out her arms up to his towering height, he grabbed her up again and finished the dance.

It was 4:30 now.

Although he hadn't told Soonie, he had started a quiet inquiry into Gem's mother and her family. If the mother could be located, they may have some insight into whether she left her child willingly or for some other reason. He couldn't bear losing Gem at this point but wanted what was best – for her.

The celebrations for Korean New Year had come and gone. This year, the year their baby would be born, was the Year of the Tiger. Soonie said it was fitting, considering. It was still too early to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl. Didn't matter which to him – he just wanted a healthy mother and baby. The first hint of a baby bump couldn't be seen through the blankets, but he knew it was there all the same and continuously had to pinch himself to believe it was all real.

All too real was what his job had entailed for the last month. At first, there had been training, or rather familiarization, with his role. His days had been consumed with the investigations within South Korea. That weekend's operation would be carried out jointly with the National Police Agency (NPA), the local division in Daegu, and their Daegu Special Operations Unit (Korea's version of SWAT). Although it would constitute his first full operation with Interpol, it would certainly not be the last over the three years of his contract with the organization. The op focused on U.S. military personnel's involvement, high on the clientele target list for those in the sex trade.

Each morning for the past three weeks, he had gone in three hours early to search for responses to the Yellow Notices issued about Kate to every foreign government and law enforcement agency that were members of Interpol. Those along the cargo ship route, their only real lead to her whereabouts, were the ones about which he was most interested. So far, only a few had surfaced. Follow up had led nowhere fast. He would be relying on Thompson and the FBI for more focused searches.

Outside their house at five o'clock, the air was frigid - too frozen to snow anymore. Just snow on the ground that wouldn't melt. Even though the floor was heated, he risked disturbing Soonie by putting another light blanket over her socked feet. She always complained about how cold her feet were, even if it was warm in the house.

He eased into a position that would allow him to get to his feet when Soonie rolled over to stop him.

"Are you actually going to leave for three days without saying a proper goodbye?"

He hadn't needed any more encouragement than that. He was definitely not going to be early at work today.

Once he had finally, and reluctantly, torn himself away from his wife and was on his way to the NCB, he received a call from Turk.

"Are you crazy, Buddy-roe?" he said into his phone. "This is an international call. It's gonna' cost you an arm and a leg."

January 30, 1998 – somewhere in Turkey

Her life would never be whole again – maybe it never was. She had always known that and had made a soupçon of peace with it. Mignon still had a chance – somewhere, she still had a chance at a life. That hope was all Kate lived for now – the one thing she hadn't f***ed up.

Her thoughts were of Mignon...and the girls whose screams were now only whimpers as they acceded to a fate they never would have chosen. Had they not made that one mistake, had they not trusted that one wrong person...had their families or caretakers not dehumanized them long before the traffickers ever got to them.

She had become close with a few of them, especially the young ones. They weren't abducted from privilege, or taken from their mothers' loving arms. They were the forgotten...the expendable. Most would never survive the year. Those who did would likely only do so for a few more years until they had been used up, worn out, and thrown away. By then, even the instinct to survive would be gone.

The men who held the guns and the keys to the locks on the doors were at the end of the guilty line. The young girls...children...in the other cells were victims of the righteous that looked the other way because they didn't want to see the ugliness, or upset the status quo, or disturb their delicate sensibilities. They were victims of the users with no conscience that sold them like meat – or worse – like tools that could be replaced.

They were victims of law enforcement that made assumptions about them. Only nice, privileged girls are victims; only the clean and virginal. She blamed the hotel managers who took their cut, the cop who was on the take, the business owner who saw but didn't report the van load of women unloaded at the nail salon every day and then picked up every night. She blamed the pop-up modeling agency and the only-in-town-for-the-day modeling photographer who did just enough legit shoots to keep down suspicion.

She blamed the good people who averted their eyes because of how a girl was dressed, assuming she was just trash, never wondering what her story was – or how she got there.

She blamed the enablers and their customers: the school teacher, the church youth leader, the coach, the store owner, the local minister with a wife and two kids, the kindly neighbor, the Senator, the local Councilman...bodies with no conscience that thought of their victims as something they could buy on a Friday night at the convenience store and absolve themselves of come Sunday morning.

A doctor had given her medicine to treat the yeast infection and the UTI. Doctor!...the thought made her shudder...Joseph Mengele, the Angel of Death, was a doctor.

Tonight, they would come for her.

January 30, 1998 (Korean Time) – Seoul, Republic of Korea

As he drove into Seoul, Enos listened, without much comment, to what Turk had to say about his plans to go to New Orleans on his way to the GBI office in Atlanta. Turk had synopsized the story as much as possible. Still, the gist of it was that they suspected someone in the department was behind a cover-up or was manipulating the investigation.

The last thing Enos said to him before they ended the phone call was, "Don't go to New Orleans or Atlanta without talkin' to Daisy first. Trust me on this. You need to talk to Daisy before you go anywhere."

When Enos walked into the NPA operations staging area, he was clearly shaken by Turk's call. When his supervisor, Officer Park, asked about his wife's health, Enos assured him she was 'okay,' using a term Koreans had adopted and used frequently, especially when conversing in English with Americans. They used it when speaking Korean as well, but with less frequency.

"Are you positive you are okay for this?" Park asked.

"Yes, Sir. Just got some worrisome news from back home. But my buddy's handlin' it. We got a job to do here."

If there was anyone he trusted to 'handle it,' it was Turk; but that trust wouldn't stop the worry from tangling itself around the edges of his mind - always there, pricking at him like a briar. He had signed up for this, knowing he couldn't do it all. That kind of thinking had nearly destroyed him once. He wouldn't let it force him into a knee-jerk reaction now.

Beyond that, he felt like it was absolutely necessary to find Kate – something was telling him she was the key to making sure everyone was safe. Those nagging thoughts kept him up at night trying to remember, trying to recapture those few lost hours.

January 29, 1998 (Eastern Time) – Hazzard

In the tiny office of Hazzard County Classic, at the old Chevy dealership just east of the Sweetwater overpass, Bo hung up the phone after his call with Octavia Deacon. He had given her the specs for several hard-to-find parts for two of the classic GTOs he and Cooter planned for their first classic car restoration.

Annie's days off from the library, the hours she wasn't volunteering at the clinic or at the elementary school, were spent setting up Bo's office: computer, filing invoices, working on their advertising. And listening to Bo bemoan how dull life had been without Boss Hogg around - until he met her – or so he kept saying. She thought his lamentation was due more to the fact that it wasn't as much fun to run the Charger full out now that Rosco seemed to have other things occupying his oh-fficial time. Cletus slept through his speed trap duty and only came out when there was a legitimate speeder, and the sheriff spent more time just patrolling the area than he paid attention to where the General was at any given moment.

For anyone who didn't know the situation, Rosco managed to pass himself off as the same clueless Sheriff he'd always appeared to be. But he was different; hard-to-get-used-to different. Daisy had warmed up to the new Rosco for a while now. Bo was still getting used to it but had less of a problem accepting the new version at face value than Luke, who had assumed the role of patriarch since Uncle Jesse passed. It suited Luke, and neither Bo nor Daisy offered any real objections.

Last Friday, Luke and Sophie had returned from picking up Caleb at school after being called to the principal's office. He'd gotten into some stupid fight with a few of the other kids, and Luke had sent him to his room, with Sophie's full support, to think about what he had done. Later, while they were all in the barn, Luke worried about whether he would be any good at this responsibility thing.

"It's a big adjustment, Luke," Daisy had said, "but in some ways, you've been training for this your whole life."

Jesse Duke's passing was still being felt by everyone, especially Bo, who had been picking Annie up in Uncle Jesse's truck for the last few days.

Annie had arrived at the dealership a few days earlier to find the bright orange Charger at the back of the showroom under a car cover. When she asked Bo what was going on, he said matter-of-factly that, 'some things are better off in the past. Wouldn't be the first time we put him out to pasture. At least he's not a home for roosters anymore. Besides, Uncle Jesse was always remindin' us they put hinges on car doors for a reason.' 3

It had been slow going for the fledgling business. Bo still had to help out on the farm. But he had finally moved into town. He would have moved in with Annie if it hadn't been that it wouldn't be proper, 'them not bein' married and all.' The fact that she refused to marry him under the current circumstances had become a bit of a sore spot between them. She argued that it wouldn't even be legal since she was living under a false ID.

It still stymied Bo how Enos, as straight-arrow as he was, could have pulled off providing her with fake documents and hiding her in plain sight for nine-plus years.

Down the road apiece, Emma Tisdale had just arrived home to pick up something before heading back to the Post Office when the phone rang in her parlor. "Emma Tisdale, Postmistress here."

"Miss Tisdale, this is Lieutenant Adams from Los Angeles. I'm a friend of Enos Str–"

"I know who y'are, Sonny Jim. I remember you from when you were here before and lured our boy back to sin city."

Turk cleared his throat and said, "Yes, Ma'am." There was no use denying it or defending LA.

Miss Tisdale reminded him of his Aunt Olivia, who frankly felt the same way about the big city – both of them were soft as an Easter Peeps® and blunt as a brick.

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant? Nothin's happened to Enos or that precious new family of his has it?"

"No, Ma'am. They're fine. I was calling to talk to Daisy. Is she around? I haven't been able to reach her on her mobile phone."

"Well, it's clear you haven't spent much time here in the rural routes. Reception's not real good everywhere, and Daisy complains about dead zones on the way. Not sure why they call um that. Seems to me they should call um no-signal areas if they were gonna' be precise. That's why we still have payphone boxes out in the middle of nowhere."

"Sooo, she's on her way to...?"

"Oh, sorry. I got off at the station and forgot to get back on. She's over at the farm for supper tonight. I expect she'll be there by now."

"Thanks, Miss Tisdale. I'll call her there."

"You want the number, Hun?"

"I have it. Thanks."

Daisy dried her hands on a towel and answered the phone on the kitchen wall.

"Hey, Turk. Didn't expect you to be calling me here on a Thursday."

"I called..." he started to say. "Sorry Daisy. Thought I'd have time to talk but just got a message on my work beeper. Call you later."

When the phone went dead, except for the usual static, Daisy looked at the receiver as if she'd never seen it before, then, shaking her head, hung it on the hook and went back to peeling potatoes. By the time she had peeled another three, her mobile phone received a text.

Hearing both static and a high-pitched humming on the line when Daisy answered the phone, Turk immediately ended the call, laboriously picking at the numbers over and over again on his Nokia® to send Daisy a text.

'think your phone tapped call me from safe line'

He stopped for only half a second, silently thanking Miss Tisdale for getting off at that station, and added:

'payphone not cell'

January 30, 1998 (Korean Time) – Daegu, Republic of Korea

It was 6:00 pm. in Daegu. Enos had arrived at the NPA office at five to provide the most recent intel available and to suit up for the raid.

"Officer Strate?" said a voice behind him.

Enos had been staring into the distance through the glass wall that seemed to be the architectural benchmark for official buildings in Korea. He couldn't argue with the reasoning. Palgongsan, in the same mountain range that boasted the Yeongnam Alps, loomed in the distance, lit in a purple and magenta haze.

"Can't spit without hittin' a mountain in Korea," Kaminski added, "but they sure are pretty." Sergeant Rose Kaminski had an unmistakable South Carolina drawl and was dressed in full military tactical gear.

Interpol officers weren't armed. Enos would only have a vest that identified him as INTERPOL.

"Hey, Sarge. Didn't see you come in," Enos said, extending his hand.

After shaking Enos's hand, Kaminski pulled a clipboard out from under her arm.

"You got somethin' new from the Army we need to know b'fore rollin' on this?" Enos asked.

"No. Just need a signature. More red tape so you can sit in on the interrogations. Once we get the three of them in custody, we'll give you a heads-up on schedulin' those around whatever others you need to do."

Kaminski referred to the three servicemen who had been surveilled and identified as conspiring with traffickers to transport Korean prostitutes to other countries. Enos perused the paper on the clipboard, turned it over to read the fine print, then scrawled his signature on the bottom line under his preprinted name. He looked at his watch and noted the time next to his signature.

Raids on the Jagalmadang red-light district were usually handled by the local police branch alone. Tonight's foray targeted drugs being traded for women, ostensibly for international transport, and involved U.S. military personnel in facilitating the transaction. It was the first step of an ongoing joint operation that would span the next month. By the time Operation Dragon was finally concluded, he would travel through three-quarters of Korea on Interpol's dime.

After Sergeant Kaminski moved on into the planning area to consult with another MP, Enos grabbed his vest and headed out the door to the van. He only had a fifteen-minute window to call Ginny Shivers before he had to go active. It would be three in the morning in Atlanta, but that was nothing unusual for Ginny. He'd thought long and hard, since talking to Turk, about making the call and had aborted the attempt several times.

"Ginny," he said into his phone.

There was a short pause before she said, "Enos? Enos Strate?"

"Yes, Ma'am, it's me."

"Thought I recognized your voice...It's been a while." There was an unmistakable note of caution in her voice. For her protection, he never contacted her unless he had a 'situation.'

"...Nearly four years," he said, hovering out of the cold as much as possible on the south side of the van, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. Several Daegu NPA officers having a conversation in Korean passed him on their way into the building and reminded him of the time, which he acknowledged in Korean.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Long way from Georgia, Ginny. That's why I might need your help."

Jack Cole's daughter, Ginny, had provided her own unique brand of assistance four times over the past eight years. Service only she, her brother Matt, and their family partnership could provide. Help he would use only under dire circumstances when all other options had failed, a resource of last resort and not one he wanted to entertain...but if push came to shove, it might be the only way to keep Mignon safe. 34

He didn't know how far back their involvement went, and he never asked, but he knew it had started with Ginny's work at a women's shelter in Atlanta.

In the Fall of 1985, Enos discovered Jack Cole's underground railway while still a deputy in Hazzard County.

He'd been on mind-numbing speed trap duty that night when he heard the APB. In her thirties with long, dirty blonde hair, a woman was being sought in the kidnapping of her two children, a ten-year-old boy, and a three-year-old girl. After he got off-duty, he switched from Hazzard #2 to his own beat-up truck, the one that replaced the beat-up station wagon that Frank Scanlon had blown up in '83, and took his usual ride out to guard-dog Daisy while she closed up at the Boar's Nest. That night, he didn't make it that far.5/35

When he spotted the Fulton County license plate, he radioed the sighting into dispatch and followed them for two miles before taking the turnoff and cutting them off before reaching the Hazzard County line. He figured they must have taken the route through his county to avoid the 'real' police, which irked him no end. He'd already had just about enough of Hazzard's reputation for ineptitude and his duplicity in furthering that notion.

Being past midnight and moonless, he couldn't see into the car, and there were no interior lights to show who he would be dealing with. When he got on his loudspeaker and told the occupants to get out of the car with their hands in full view, only one woman exited, pleading with him not to hurt anyone and that she had kids in the car. The woman didn't have long, dirty blonde hair. It was only later he would come to know her as Ginny Shivers. Her brother Matt stepped out through the passenger door, illuminating the back seat enough to see one terrified woman holding two very scared children.

Forty minutes and a frightening inventory of old injuries and fresh cuts and bruises later, he logged the sighting as a misidentification. And thus, became a boxcar in a long transport train for battered women and abused children who had run out of options.

Without revealing her name, he acquainted Ginny with Mignon's situation and asked if they could be ready at a moment's notice.

"It might come down to that," he said. "I wouldn't ask if I could think of any other way. Can't get her into WITSEC. She doesn't have any testimony to give, and I won't risk the feds decidin' to use her as bait."

"We can be ready, Enos," Ginny assured him. "But it'll take at least a week to set up."

"That'll do. Thanks, Ginny. I hope we don't need your help. But if we do, I'll be forever grateful."

Mignon seemed happy in Hazzard and didn't deserve the hand that she'd been dealt. Neither he nor Kate had expected her not to establish some kind of a life in hiding. That Bo had developed deep feelings for her was something Enos had never even entertained as a possibility.

Acknowledgments:

(35) Jack Cole, his daughter Ginny, and son Matt, as well as the underground railway, are the original creation of WENN9366 for her DOH fanfic Halls of Stone and Iron and used within the context of this story, with only slight variations, with her permission. In case you aren't familiar with the author or her DOH fanfic, I highly recommend them. You can find links to her stories in my profile or check out hers.

Enos guard-dogging Daisy is a habit established in her DOH fan fics by WENN9366

References:

(3) In DOH: Reunion!, the General Lee had been saved from the scrap heap but had turned into a rooster home when the boys and Cooter finally located the car.

(5) Frank Scanlon and incident from DOH series S6 E10 titled "Enos' Last Chance"

(33) 1997 animated feature-length film, Fox animation Studios and 20th Century Fox. The song, 'Once Upon a December' written by David Newman is one of my favorites – it was released in South Korea, fittingly, December 20, 1997