Chapter 13

We settled into a comfortable routine, working at our jobs and our side project. Our contracts came up again, just when we were nominated for our third regional Emmy, as well as a national Emmy, for a story we did on corporate corruption. They knew the offers we were getting, and were desperate to keep us. I’d like to say the story came about from dogged investigative work, but it was dumped in our lap by one of the girls’ old friends. Needless to say, we got a significant bump in salary.

We came home one Saturday night after working on what we were turning into a documentary on homeless people to find a surprise waiting for us. We had filmed two young black guys doing a rap while Boom Boom and Tin Can provided percussion. I personally didn’t like rap but thought they had talent. Jen and I had decided to stop soon and start final edits. Even after that, we should have almost two hours of quality video we were going to try to market.

The surprise was Jasmine, their old roommate. She got out of her car warily, not sure what kind of welcome she was going to get. Lindsey was a little sharp with her greeting. “Jasmine! What are you doing slumming among normal people? Shouldn’t you be sipping champagne with your CEO in your private apartment, taking dictation or something?”

She surprised us by starting to cry. Not little sniffles, but full on gasping for breath between sobs crying. My girls immediately went into protective mode, taking her into the living room, sitting her down between them on the sofa and hugging her while she cried it out. I made myself scarce, going into the kitchen and putting water on for tea, A die hard coffee man, my time overseas taught me the value of a good hot cup of tea. I preferred mine plain with just a slice of lemon, but Lindsey liked cream and sugar, and Jen went heavy on just the cream. When the pot had boiled, I put it on a service with the cups and condiments, and went into the living room, prepared to put it on the coffee table and disappear again. Jen got up and took my hand, pulling me to my big rocker.

“You need to hear this honey. Jasmine may be in real trouble, and I told her if anyone could help her, it would be you.”

It was a sad, sordid tale, a young innocent seduced by the money, power, and lifestyle. Jasmine had gone from being personal assistant to mistress in less than a year. Incredibly attractive, he flaunted her as a showpiece on his business trips. He even got her to flirt with clients, to get better terms. Then one night three months ago he dropped his briefcase in a druken stupor, and it fell open. He passed out on the hotel bed, so she started sorting the papers and placing them back inside, in order. Naturally she read them, and was appalled at what she read. He was bribing contractors, federal inspectors, shuffling hidden money to his foreign clients, taking almost twice as much back for the clean money, and slipping the rest slowly into his business. He was literally making millions on this. What upset her most of all, though, was most of the clients he dealt with overseas, a part of his business she was never allowed into, were either out and out terrorists, or those sympathetic to their cause.

She panicked, shoving them back into the case until reason returned. Keeping an eye on her sleeping boss, she took every page out, captured it on her cell phone, and sent it into the Cloud. Closing it carefully when she was done, she placed it where he always kept it, on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Afraid to alter her routine, she slid into bed.

“It’s been two weeks, and I bet I haven’t slept three hours a night. I was wondering how to slip the information to you secretly, until he had a trip scheduled to Paris, to meet his customers. He wants me to go with him, and do more than flirt. His exact words were ‘You have to be nice to them. Give them anything they want and smile. The deal I’m working on will be worth billions. Your bonus, should you please them, will be 250,000 in an offshore account.’ I don’t know what pisses me off more, him expecting me to whore myself out for the company, or him offering me a measly quarter million for helping secure a multi-billion dollar deal. Either way, there was no way I would have done it. I don’t have a lot of pride left, but I have some, and the thought of putting American lives in danger nauseates me. I’ve got all the information with me. What should I do?”

They all looked at me. “Does he know you’re here?”

“No, he thinks I went shopping for new clothes to impress the clients. He even gave me ten grand to spend. I got on a plane to New York, caught a cab to a local rental agency instead of a national chain, and drove straight here.”

“So, we have a day or two. Girls, keep an eye on your friend, make her comfortable. I need to go into the Library and make some calls.” The library was just that, a room of dark paneled walls, comfortable chairs, and shelves of books. I checked, many were first editions and valuable. I asked the real estate agent once why no one took them and the other things we had found, and she said the last heir lived on the other coast, and had no interest in flying here to inventory the contents of a house and garage he had never seen. His instructions were to include everything, and make hauling away the junk my responsibility.