The Guild, Secretive U.S. Intel Operatives
Chapter 14 - On Finding Leads
Kate had left the main group of people attending Vaughan's Boat Excursion of the harbor.
This harbor cruise set to demonstrate the ease of operation and maneuverability of Vaughan's new production yacht. Kate had removed herself from the crowd and had been doing her own exploration of the boat. She had learned from the deck crew of a 'special' room on the vessel where Vaughan 'entertained' his select female guests. Dubbed as 'The Play Room' by the Vaughan boat crew.
Playing a hunch Kate goes to that room looking for items that could be used against Vaughan and his associate Jon Carter for a take down of their nefarious corporations. These dubious organizations had supported terrorism and had manipulated geo-politics to advance their own interests and goals. Kate's Guild Team the one agency that worked clandestinely to oppose these groups. The Guild sanctioned to do what it took to destroy them but with the liability, if comprised, that they would be denied by U.S. officials who would claim no knowledge of them.
When Kate gets to said room, she finds it is locked. She goes for her clutch bag tucked under her right arm and kept in place by the small strap wrapped around her shoulder. From it she retrieves her lock picking tools, items of her trade, and quickly disables the door lock. She enters the room and closes the door behind her.
The room appearance was as she had envisioned it in her mind. Erotic pictures adorned the walls. Miniature facsimile sculptures of famous nudes, male and female, are displayed on shelves. There is a single king sized oval bed with satin sheets….a playground of sorts, set for seduction. On an end table by the bed are a pair of hand cuffs covered in a soft lacy material, a rope, whip, mask, and other such more sinister looking items. Kate though not naive, shivers at the thought of how these 'toys' are used to entertain female guests.
Kate pulls out her cell phone and uses a secret military app to scan the room for specialized electronics. Around the oval bed were ceiling lights that when turned on showered the bed in radiant light. An effect she knows used often to enhance video taking. Her cell is beeping as she scans and the beeps get louder coming upon one particular ceiling light. Kate checks it out and finds a camera lens protruding from the base that is aimed at the bed. Seems Vaughan recorded his play time activities with his female guests he 'entertained' here.
'Where are those videos?', Kate wonders. If nothing else, they might be good for gaining some leverage with Vaughan.
Then she sees that the end table, upon which Vaughan's 'play toys' rested, had a drawer with a lock. She uses her tools once again to hack the lock. Kate finds there micro memory chips like those she used on her cell phone to record and store data. She uses her cell phone to view one of the memory chips which she had inserted in her phone slot for such chips.
Bingo, these are the video files of Vaughan's erotic exploits.
"I have data to transmit to you from my cell", she says over her comm link. A brief pause then Kate hears.
"Ready to receive", Castle acknowledging over her hidden ear piece.
There are five such memory chips in that end table drawer. Kate downloads all of their video files to Castle using her cell.
Further inspection of the other items in that drawer reveals pictures of Vaughan's conquests posing for him. Some of these pics even offended Kate's sensibilities and she certainly was no prude.
As she looks further for more items in that drawer, she comes upon a notebook. Reading thru the notebook Kate finds entries describing cargo shipments to and from various global ports. As she reads further, she comes upon descriptions of the cargo, and is shocked! The cargo descriptions are of females of various ethnicities and with a rating of 1 to 5. Most of the ratings are 4's and 5's.
So Vaughan is dealing in human trafficking and apparently had his pick of the best of the cargo. She takes photo's of each page of that notebook and transmits them to Castle in the command center. Just as Kate finishes her transmissions she hears Kwan speaking softly over her ear piece.
"Beckett, head back, your absence has been noticed."
She quickly returns everything to the drawer as they had been when she opened it. She looks around the room making sure she left nothing that would show the room had been entered and perused. She had taken a photo of the room previously so as to return it to original condition as when she had entered. Kate then exits the room and heads back to the yacht's Excursion guests.
"We seem to have lost Ms. Beckett", she hears Carter say from a small discussion group of three, Carter, Vaughan, and Tan née Kwan.
"There she is", she hears from Vaughan.
"Your absences was noticed by these two", says Tan, "seems you have their attention."
"We simply wanted to enjoy the company of two beautiful women."
"Sweet talker", replies Kate, "bet you say that to all the girls."
"Only to the really extraordinary ones", Carter clarifies.
"Good you returned Ms. Beckett", says Tan, "their charm offensive was starting to wear me down."
"Thank you for the comment, that is our intent, to have the two of you spend the rest of the day and the evening with us", Carter says suggestively. It is a seductive remark and both women realize the situation.
Over their ear pieces both women hear, "Don't go for it until the items that Beckett acquired are analyzed."
"Thank you", Beckett replies, "but I have to get back and edit the material I have from this news event. This, to meet the deadline for a full page article we are doing on Mr. Vaughan. I will be spending my evening putting that together to transmit to my newspaper."
"Likewise, I too am in the same situation", says Tan née Kwan.
"Shame it could have been an interesting night with the present company", responds Carter, "but you are right, Eric here needs the PR."
"Well", says Tan née Kwan, "I don't know about Ms Beckett, but I'm here in the area for a while, so I can take a rain check for this evening's invitation."
"I will second that notion", Kate says coyly.
"Excellent", responds Vaughan, "perhaps we shall contact the two of for a weekend cruise."
Both agents leave their business cards with their cell phone number and hotel room number written on the back. This allows both to continue their ruse should it be needed at a future time.
On Further Investigation
"Well it looks like Vaughan is into human sex trafficking, based on those pages you transmitted Kate".
"So we can add yet another crime to the list."
"At least for Vaughan, we have but to tie Carter to the same activity."
"These last pages you photographed show the Ship Yards used to manufacture Vaughan's new yacht line", says Kwan's.
"Yes it does, why? Did you come up with something."
Kwan is looking on her cell at the video she took of Grant Pierce's opening introduction to the news conference.
"Pierce said 10 production hulls are due out by spring, but the note book shows three other yacht's being made in the Philippine's Cebu Shipyard, bringing the total to 13 yachts. 10 of them being fabricated at Thailand and Vietnam ship yards and three unaccounted for at the Philippine ship yard."
"Why did you catch on to that piece of intel? What does it mean to you?"
"We have known that The People's Front warships were acquired from Russia and others stolen from the CCP Navy by rogue factions. But we know now that these numbers are less than the total inventory of Front warships that have been detected. There has been an effort by CCP intelligence to find where the rest of the numbers come from, it might be from these shipyards, which are also producing Vaughan's commercial yacht production line."
"That would be a good cover to disguise the making of warships", replies Castle to Kwan's statements.
"At which ship yard should we start?", asks Beckett.
"Let's start with the Cebu shipyard, that's gives us a good excuse to do more Island Hopping and take in the beautiful sites as we conduct surveillance."
"Thailand and Vietnam are along the way to the Philippines, maybe we should check them out as we make for Cebu?", suggests Ryan.
"Seems logical, I was wanting to get back quickly to the Philippines so as to have more time to take in all that natural scenery. But you are right Ryan, those shipyards are along the way so should be checked out en route. That will confirm for us that the Philippines is the one site for The Front's sole manufacturing location of their warships if the two other sites turn out negative.."
Both Castle's boat and Kwan's prepare to get underway by the next morning. Castle's crew will head to Thailand to check that ship yard out, while Kwan's crew heads to Vietnam to check out that facility. Both crews will then join up at Cebu, Philippines to check out that location jointly.
Before they make the trip both woman inform their hotel to say they had been recalled to their headquarters for new assignments, should someone ask for them, especially Carter and Vaughan. This ploy to explain there sudden departure from the extended tour.
Underway
The trip to Cebu will a couple weeks of travel with quick stopovers at the other boat yards they will check out. As they get under weigh, on a couple of days into travel, Castle has a midnight watch relieving Beckett on her watch to take control of the boat.
"Kate, you did well on getting that intel on Vaughan."
"Well thank you boss man, any thought on what we may find at that Cebu shipyard."
"Hopefully The Front's war ship production facility."
"And if it is, what's your plan?"
"We will take the ship out and deny the Front it's warship."
"And how will we do so and not let it get out that we were responsible for the destruction?", asks Beckett.
"I am thinking some unfortunate industrial accident that takes out the ship."
"And what kind of accident would it be?"
"Thinking hard on that, any suggestions?"
"I will let you know if I come up with an idea, but should not that be your task as team leader?"
"Participative leadership is certainly welcomed here."
Kate gives Castle a small giggle to his remark.
"Kate you should realize that we all appreciate what you have done well this mission."
"Thank you, let's hope this next op goes well."
There is a pause in the conversation as both look intently at the other. Rick comes into Kate's personal space and then gives her a kiss to her lips spontaneously.
"Rick", Kate responds after the kiss, "are we crossing a line here?"
"I crossed that line in my mind some time back."
"As did I", Kate responds.
"So what do we do now?"
Rick once again enters her space but this time pulls her into a tight embrace and gives her an even more passionate kiss with lots of tongue.
"I have simply fallen for you Kate, and can't get away from it."
"I too have similar feelings."
So it comes out openly, each declares the feelings they had tried to hide.
With that reveal, Rick relieves Kate from her watch duties as each takes in what had just happened. Kate heads back to her room trying to wrap her head around the event. She had not wished for this, but apparently it was a mutual reaction between the both of them. They now had clearly declared their feelings for one another. They had not held back.
Still Kate is reminded of what Sophia Turner had told her, that she,Sophia, and Rick had denied their attraction to each other for so long, until they could not. Was Kate repeating the same fate that Turner had endured? Was she to wind up like Turner? Where would this all lead? That was yet to be determined but Kate was going to make it a different outcome this time. Kate was not about to suffer the same destiny that Turner had been thru.
Kate knew in her heart that if she just let things develop between her and Rick, it would turn out better for them. Sophia's loss had opened the door to Kate getting more involved with Rick, but also, Sophia's failed union with Rick also served as a cautionary note for Kate to not rush it. To take it slower and just let this budding romance follow it's natural course. But Kate knew the dangers of her job and with the loss of Sophia, she had to be prepared to also give up her life for the greater good.
With that thought, despite attempting a slower approach in her growing relationship with Rick, she also knew her time with him could be limited. So there was a relentless sense of urgency that she needed to commit before it might be ended by her untimely demise. There was now a constant emotional battle going on in her heart. She needed to be more cautious but also not lose what little time she may have left with Castle if her number was called. The outcome of Sophia's relation with Rick was there as a reminder to Kate. She hoped this would not happen to her as it had with Turner. But it also was there on her mind along with her goal to make it thru this mission. She now was doggedly determined to make thru it for a better chance with Castle free from constraints of their jobs. She knew of the worse outcome but was hopeful for the best outcome. It was a constant battle to reconcile in her mind and heart but the angst of it all gave her additional impetus to come out ahead.