Chapter 17

Wednesday and Thursday, I continue to let my girlfriends wake me up then I go back to bed as they go to school. When I get up, I go to work, and at night I accompany our spec ops team to recover the blackmail materials.

Wednesday night/Thursday morning, at the Jock’s clubhouse, we decide to focus on the blackmailers and forget the girls. We want to spend as little time as possible in their hideout. The victims have done nothing wrong, and there is no need to collect evidence against them.

Thursday night/Friday morning, we decide to stay an extra hour to collect the last of the material we have earmarked to copy. We are all in the van waiting for Jane when a car pulls up. A little bald guy in his late 40s, that I don’t recognize, gets out of the vehicle and enters the hideout. Paul immediately gets on the coms, “Jane, we have a problem. Somebody is entering the building through the main door. You need to find another exit.”

“No worries. I’ll just head out the back.”

I butt in, “No, wait. Detain him.”

Paul warns, “Going off script is never a good idea.”

“No worries. I planned for this, so it isn’t exactly going off script.”

I grab my backpack and head in after the mystery man. while Paul follows, complaining, “What if somebody else shows up?”

“It’s not likely. Besides, it isn’t like they can call the cops.”

“I don’t like this.”

I meet up with the stranger as he runs out of the office, onto the shop floor, with Jane chasing him. As he tries to run by me, I drop my pack, grab his arm and jump into an upside-down or inverted armbar. Essentially, I am hanging off his arm with my head to the floor as he stands there. I have one foot behind his head and the other under his chin as I hyperextend his arm against my leg. This stops him long enough for Jane to grab his other arm. In no time, we have his hands zap-strapped behind his back. The entire struggle, the guy keeps spouting shit like, “You can’t do this to me. I’m a lawyer, and this is my client’s property.”

Grabbing my bag, I pull out a prepared needle and stick him in the ass with it. Then I say, “Open the bay door and bring the van inside. There is no need to let anybody see us put him in the van.”

As Jane opens the bay door and Paul flags the van in, I tape the lawyer’s mouth shut. Once the vehicle is inside, and the door is closed, Paul helps me get the lawyer into the van, and Jane heads off to rewind the security videos again. We wait for her on the street. As soon as she climbs in the van, we head off to the Langford Lake property.

We get to the same house where we questioned the others and tie the lawyer to a chair. The guy is scared shitless, and we don’t even get to question him before he starts telling us everything he knows.

“I was just delivering Mr. Couture’s orders. I didn’t do anything. Mr. Couture is the one you want...”

I open his briefcase, and sitting on top is a typed letter. I read it aloud:

Finn Kearney is taking too long to decide to join us. To help him make up his mind, recruit Chloe as one of our girls. I want her rape video delivered to me by next Friday. Saturday, she is to attend my party. She will be at my place Friday night so she can be adequately prepared.

Somebody seems to have planted a camera across the street from the clubhouse. Be sure to close the door before entering the code to the alarm system.

Start locking the filing cabinets.

Install the blinds on the back windows and keep them closed. I do not care if you think they are needed.

How often do you drop off instructions like this,” I ask.

“Less than once a month. Sometimes it is two or three months before he sends a note.”

“Who’s Mr. Couture?”

“Philip Couture is one of the wealthiest men in town. I have been his lawyer for twenty plus years.”

“When and why did he start blackmailing little girls?”

“About ten years ago, he got sick of paying for whores. He figured it would be easier to extort young ladies to do it.”

“Why aren’t there any videos of him or any of the other prominent men in the clubhouse.”

“He keeps it locked up in his vault.”

The lawyer doesn’t need it for the interrogation, but I hook an intravenous bag to his arm. We still need to fill him with my brand of truth serum to program him with a plausible story of where he has been. I also want to be doubly sure he is telling us the truth.

Paul and I continue to interrogate him for the next hour, after which I let Paul continue with the interrogation, and deal with implanting a story. No more drugs are needed. My body is that of a growing boy, and I need my sleep, so I leave Paul with instructions and head home, stopping at the office to get my bike. John accompanies me as his shift to act as my bodyguard has begun.

I sleep in and don’t get up until just before school lets out. By intercepting the orders to entrap Chloe, we have saved her for the time being. The problem with that is we are now on a clock. If we are lucky, it will be a week before Mr. Couture discovers that his orders didn’t get delivered. With the story we implanted with his lawyer, it will likely be another week before he realizes it wasn’t the lawyer’s doing.

When I do come out of my room, my bodyguard for the evening hands me a sealed envelope with Paul’s findings from the interrogation. Like most millionaires in Victoria, our perpetrator is an American, and this is his second home. In preparation for winter, he spends most of his time in the US, only coming up here to tie up loose ends. His house is the mansion at the entrance to Loon Bay, which is also the Cordoba bay entrance. It is one of the most expensive homes in the greater Victoria area.

Reading through the info I was handed, I note that he is only in town until Monday. He will be back in two weeks, but only for a day, and then he will be in the US for winter. We have to find something on him before then, but we can’t spook him into not coming back for the day. More importantly, we need to find a way to keep Chloe safe until then.

I stop reading the file long enough to phone Yarrows and leave a message for Gramps to come here after work, instead of going home. He spends enough time at our place that he keeps clothes here to shower and change here instead of going home after work. If I didn’t need the office space, I would suggest he move in with us.

Once I hang up, I spend time in my home office, going over the file and working from home. I keep the office door open, not something I usually do when I am working. From the foyer, you have to go through the kitchen to get anywhere in the house, except for my bedroom and bathroom. The office door opens into the hallway across from the kitchen. With the door open, I can see the end of the foyer through the kitchen.

When Grandpa arrives, I say hi and flag him over to join me in the office. He asks, “What is so important?”

“More trouble with our extortionists and some good news about our neighbour.”

“Give me the good news first.”

“They have been trying to recruit Finn. It turns out he has a backbone and moral compass. He has been able to avoid it until now.”

“What has changed?”

“They are going after Chloe. That is why I need you. I wasn’t thinking. I should have had you go home. I’ll meet you there.”

“I take it that you have a plan to save her.”

“Yes, she only needs to leave town for three weeks.”

“How are you going to get her out of town?”

“That is where you come in. Shower, change and go home. Phone Mr. Kearney and tell him to come over as soon as possible because you have something of importance that you need to talk to him about. Make sure he comes alone. I don’t need Finn spilling the beans and screwing everything up.”

Our conversation pretty well ends there. Gramps showers and changes faster than I ever saw him before. I intended to leave before him, but he is too quick. I wait three minutes after he takes off, then follow behind as one of my bodyguards drives me in the SUV.

When I arrive, Gramps has already phoned Mr. Kearney and is patiently waiting. I grab an OJ and place a piece of paper face down on the kitchen table. Gramps and I just sit and socialize until Mr. Kearney arrives. When he does, Gramps answers the door, brings Mr. Kearny into the kitchen and offer’s him a coffee.

“Only if you have a pot already made. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“You might want to phone and change your plans,” I inform him.

Mr. K looks at me funny, and asks Gramps, “What is this about anyway?”

“I think it is best if Trent explains. He has a better grasp of the problem than I do.”

Gramps hands Mr. K his coffee, and I tell him everything that has happened, from the time I saw the jocks drugging a girl at a school dance until the time they tried to kill me. I don’t go beyond that because I don’t want to admit to doing anything illegal.

“I continue to do things to help the girls at school, but things have gotten worse.”

“What does this have to do with me.”

I flip the paper over and slide it to him.

“We intercepted this note from Mr. Couture’s lawyer to the extortionists.”

It is the letter telling the boys to drug and rape his daughter because his son refused to join them. As he reads it, his face turns red, with anger. There is a pause before he crumples the paper and stands to leave. To me, it is obvious. Mr.K is out for blood. Thankfully, Gramps is standing at the kitchen exit, so Mr. K can’t leave.

I advise, “You need to calm down before you do something that will get you thrown in jail. Where would your family be then?”

“What the hell else do you want me to do. The sick fuck was going to ruin my baby.”

“Leave town with your family for three weeks. By then, all those sick fucks should be in jail. I just need a little more time.”

“You want me to leave and just let them get away with coming after my children.”

Gramps intercedes, “That isn’t what he is asking. Trent is giving you an opportunity to save your child while the perpetrators are dealt with. Let’s say you go over to Mr. Couture’s, and you somehow manage to kill him. The boys will still rape your daughter. If you fail, she will likely live a life of constant sexual abuse, and your son will be forced to participate. The only way your family is safe and those who need to are punished is if you leave town. If you don’t have a place to go, I will gladly lend you the cabin.”

Gramps owns a cabin up island, that he uses for the odd fishing trip.

“That cabin is good enough for a few guys, fishing, but it is too small for the women. I don’t like it one bit. I’m a coward, taking off with my family. I should be here to deal with things directly,” says Mr. K

I reply, “Leaving is how you deal with it. You can tell your wife, but don’t you dare tell the kids what this is about. I don’t need Finn saying the wrong thing and getting me killed.”

“I guess I have no choice. Thanks for coming to me. I better go and tell my family we are leaving.”

I nod in acknowledgement, and Gramps steps aside for Mr. K to leave. As soon as he is gone, Gramps asks, “Do you think he will leave town without letting it slip.”

“I hope so. It was worth the risk. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to save Chloe. I kind of feel guilty for a few of the girls they got, but I either warned the girls or I had a truce that the bastards broke. It was out of my hands. If I didn’t say anything and they got Chloe, it would eat at me a lot more.”

The following day, Saturday, I get a call as soon as I am done showering from the weakly cycle training session/bike ride.

“Hello, Mr. Brown.”

“Speaking”

“This is Master Seaman Hobbs, Admiral Cub’s secretary.”

“Yes.”

“Will you be free this afternoon.”

“I can be, why?”

“Oh, good. It seems as though nobody has gotten a hold of you. There are a few higher-ups that are coming to town to speak with you. Would you mind stopping by at 1300?”

“I would have thought that giving you the key to making your ships far more fuel-efficient would have earned me some concessions, such as you coming hear, so I wouldn’t be torn from my work for as long.”

“That is what Admiral Cub told them you would say. The wardroom staff will bring in the food at 1130 to serve it in your conference room at 1200. I expect the motorcade to be at your Langford Lake location at 1200 plus or minus 5 minutes. Will that do?”

“It will do just fine. I will let everybody else in this building know to take a long lunch, so we will have an hour and a half of privacy to talk.”

“Thank you, Trent. I should warn you that it is the top brass this time. I saw The Honourable Bill McKnight and Director Reid Morden.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I always hate dealing with morons that know nothing. At least you gave me a warning to get my head in the game and didn’t blindside me.”

Hobbs always keeps it professional and doesn’t socialize, so the conversation ends there.

I am supposed to meet with my Spec Ops team to brainstorm ideas to deal with Mr. Couture. Instead, I phone Paul and let him know to proceed without me and set up an appointment to talk with him Sunday morning.

When that is done, I page Moira and let her know that everybody in the doublewide is to take an extended lunch, Leaving at 11:45 and not returning until at least 1:45, 2 pm at the latest.