Chapter 10

We were up by six and John was in our suite, having breakfast, at six thirty. We went over the e-mails from yesterday and anxiously waited for the call from Ken, as we were kept from calling until too late yesterday. At seven thirty, we called Ken knowing he was an early in the office guy.

"Good timing, guys," Ken said. "I've just finished checking my e-mails. The New York group has some Ruskies tailing our investigators, so we have some of New York's finest picking them up for bullshit throughout the day. Every time we pick up one that's on tail, we get another. We have found out that they are Bratva people. So far, we've connected Forest and twelve others all to the New York group, let's call it the training center. They all spent varying periods of time learning to speak with no accent. Some of the imitators are English and Irish, a couple from France, a couple from Italy, and so far, three from Russia. The school must really be good."

"Now the news, some deputies, three, and some agents, four, have quit. We've apprehended three of the seven so far, trying to board international flights with fake passports. Of course, they could be their real passports. We have a sighting of one who went into the Russian embassy and hasn't been seen since. I'm thinking we've just about cleaned up the field. I have one of my investigators on sick leave, and he's not at home. The man has been in my group for right at two years. My Bureau counterpart says he has an investigator that resigned last week as he had a better job offer. That guy is missing, too."

"According to some of the offices, there are escapees that are unaccounted for, with some never even put on a detail. Ah, Chuck, your hunch to check out relocations has turned up eleven missing. Two have the wives still around, but the other nine are just gone. We are working the missing persons' reports on them right now. All of the missing relocations are witnesses to Russian mob activities. I think we need to relocate all other witnesses we have as soon as possible. We need to get them back into protective custody quickly. I think we now know how the witnesses for the slave trade trial in Chicago were found. That cost us six witnesses, an agent, and three deputies. The police department up there still thinks it was some guy going berserk, but I think we have a better idea of what was behind it now."

John said, "We're not going to tell all today. When we finish up tomorrow, we'll either give them the whole thing or promise them a top-secret file next week. I'd like to bring all our relocations back into protective custody first. I think we can place some agents and deputies to look like the relocations and possibly catch some of the assassins."

Ken said, "I'm keeping my info close to the vest. Only my most secure people know what's going on. The field is a buzz of activity with everyone investigating everyone. In some ways it's good. When this is over, the men will all trust each other."

John added, "I'll be visiting all of the offices over the next couple of months to get everyone relaxed. I'll try to get the senior agent to go with me. The Secret Service is running their own investigation, but they won't tell us whether they've found any moles. Keep up the good work, Ken, thanks."

With a final word Ken said, "Good luck schmoozing all that brass. I wouldn't want your job for anything right now."

Bobby and Jan had listened to the call. Kenisha had curled up on the couch for a nap. She had said, with a smile, that John had kept her up late last night.

We were ready for the day, so we got Kenisha up so she could begin her day of being pampered again. We dropped her off on the way to the meeting room. We were surprised that a few people actually showed up around eight thirty. There were Danish and donuts to snack on before the meeting, and we gave them the first day's handouts.

I gave Bobby and Jan one last chance to back out, but they said we had prepared so well that they knew the material backwards and forwards. They practiced with the projector and readied the first PowerPoint file and put the welcome screen up.

At nine sharp, whether seats were still empty or not, we started. Bobby clicked off the welcome, and the next screen was red with the word "Danger" in the middle of a exploding balloon. Bobbie had the intro, "All of you know that we have found infiltrators within our organizations." The picture of a person, highlighted in a large group of people shown, morphed into a photo of Forest Harding.

Jan spoke, "This man gave us a reason to investigate his background which we discovered was totally fabricated."

The presentation continued with the background until the half-hour break time arrived. Most of the people hustled to the bathroom, then came back for more snacks and coffee.

The second half-hour was more background about how we began back tracking Forest through San Diego and Chicago. There we included an FBI agent that we had discovered had a fabricated background. With his picture on the screen, the girls began telling of the investigation of the agent.

During the second break, all of the attendees were back in their seats ready for more information before the break time had ended.

The presentation showed a map of the U.S., with white stars for Marshal's offices, and green circles where FBI offices were. One screen after another appeared, with a red arrow showing where people with fake backgrounds had been discovered. Bobby and Jan described whether it was a deputy or an agent that was discovered at the location. Some had both. When D.C. got the last red arrow, there were gasps throughout the room. It was time to break again, but most just hustled to the bathroom and returned, getting a cup of coffee or Coke on the way back, and sat back down.

The last part began detailing the investigations, one office at a time. We didn't finish, of course, as this portion lasted forty-five minutes. Before breaking, we offered them the opportunity to ask questions to clear up any points that we had already covered, promising a lot more information in the afternoon.

The men were mostly too stunned to ask many questions and all were waiting to hear who we had discovered within D.C., as only a couple of people were aware of who we had under lock and key.

The girls and I quickly ate lunch and went to the conference room to lay out the variety of foreign made weapons that had been found and confiscated from the agents and deputies captured so far. We had multiple AK-47s of various models, including the sniper rifle from the original incident, plus a variety of handguns and several cardboard boxes that represented explosives that were found, but had not been transported for the meeting.

We weren't going to talk about the weapons today, but we wanted them to be in view to pique their interest.

After lunch, we continued detailing each office, with a picture of the office building superimposed on a state map for effect. It was while they were talking about Tampa that it hit me. I was out the door, calling the office instantly. I told Sarah, "Get every available person you can find and find out every last thing you can about the bellhop the sniper killed. Then when you're done, I think we need to run every worker in the hotel. We don't have to be security clearance perfect, but look for irregularities on their apps. As soon as you can't confirm their background, bring them in and take them apart. Charge them with jaywalking or being a street corner terrorist, but get them and keep them. Have the techs go over the rooms where our guests are, as we could be compromised right under our noses."

Sarah said, "Holy shit, I didn't even think about that. Why else would that guy have been targeted? It could have been meant for you though, if Forest wanted you gone."

"It could be, but let's check it out, pronto."

"I'm on it, Boss. Thanks for the confidence in me to handle this place."

"Shit, Sarah, you've been running the joint for years, you just never got the credit."

I went back to the meeting, sweating bullets, thinking how the guests in the hotel could be agents working with other agents that were hotel employees. It was enough to make even me nervous.

Bobby and John could tell I was agitated, so when the break came up, they cornered me and I confessed that I had overlooked an obvious connection and what we were doing about it. John just said, "That is an easy one to overlook. The bellhop could be an important early link before Forest got here. That could explain some of the big buck guys out looking for you when you were under siege."

Jan's eyes were about quarter sized, and Bobby was getting angry. She said, "We have to stop this, get to the bottom of it, and make a clean sweep."

The rest of the afternoon ended with the attendees worn out from the intensity of the information. We ended the day with me giving a short talk.

"Gentlemen, this investigation is still active and may only be in its beginning stages, so please do not discuss what you've learned until after everything is published. We are finding more areas to investigate by the hour, and I have to tell you, it's scary. We will clean out our mutual offices and strengthen our investigative services with better checks and balances."

We went up to my suite, while the attendees went to the bar for some tranquilizing medicine and to meet their happy wives. This should balance out the horror they were exposed to so far today.

Bobby went through e-mails while I returned a call from Sarah.

Sarah advised me, "Chuck, the bellhop was an illegal immigrant from Russia. He was arrested and escaped up in New York. Now you have to do the same research within Homeland Security as this guy apparently just walked out of the secure prisoner facility. He was charged with being a part of the slavery group that the FBI was trying to bust. Remember how Customs, or Homeland Security as it's called now, kept getting in the way of that one. That's how the marshal service got involved. They were trying to find out what agency was responsible for the screw-ups. The investigation was called off before anything conclusive was ever found."

She then added, "The hotel manager was run very quickly, and then I brought him over here so he would know how serious our situation is over there. He's spiriting out all the employment records for us. I'm having the Bureau and the Secret Service help to run all these people quickly. We should have more information by tomorrow afternoon."

Sarah took a breath, then said, "The techs said the place was lousy with bugs. They even had transmitters on all our cameras. A couple of guys are trying to track down the receivers right now as they have to be within five to six hundred feet of the transmitter. We'll find them. We're leaving the transmitters in place so they don't know we've discovered them. If we move these guests, we'll have to make them go through the same cleaning as before. So far, our investigation of them shows they are real witnesses."

The four of us just sat speechless, listening to Sarah. I let her go and called Ken.

His first words were, "We got another one here who gave us a guy over in Homeland Security who gave us a half dozen of their field people. I've already had a heart to heart with the head of HR over there and he has requested some Bureau and marshal help, double checking everyone hired within the last two years. That's a lot of people. The New York team is starting to run into walls. There's been several gang related killings up there that appear to be the Red Mob. Those guys are the crude group while the Bratva has a better organization. All of our activity has found three groups of imported women that are really slaves, plus a cache of weapons you wouldn't believe. Apparently they are all destined for Mexico to trade for drugs. NYPD said to pass on a thanks for the tips. I'll have more in the morning as I have to go over all the reports that are being e-mailed in. There is just too much for me to get organized yet. I'll e-mail you later and talk to you in the morning."

John said, "Sounds like we're getting to the heart of the mess. We just have to clean up the agencies. We have to have clean agencies. That's how we protect the citizens."

Jan contemplated, "It's hard to believe all these people were able to be passed through because I was recruited while still in school. Then the Bureau investigated me so thoroughly they actually knew what my cycle was and questioned me why I wasn't using any form of birth control. I told them straight up that if they had checked me thoroughly enough, they would know I didn't go out with men, and that women were not prone to impregnating another woman. It didn't even bother them that I preferred women. It bothered them that I didn't use any form of birth control."

Bobby and I looked at each other with an "Oh shit" look.

Bobby had sorted all the e-mails noting some additions to the presentation to be added tomorrow. We were going to have to give the folks the bad news about Homeland Security. We discussed a solution to the investigation of new people and how we could make sure they were real. If two people did it from two different offices it could be possible to let someone sneak through, but if three people did the investigation from at least two different locations it would be almost impossible to sneak someone through. That was added to the last part of the presentation for tomorrow.

Dinner was wonderful, but tonight was a little more somber. We had some fun entertainment that we were going to escort the group to, but they all agreed they would prefer to stay in the resort lounge and just visit among themselves.

That night while we were lying in bed, again exhausted from the day, but obviously all three of us were horny. Bobby asked Jan, "You said today that you didn't use any birth control, yet you have had Chuck make two very nice deposits toward populating our home area."

Jan giggled and said, "Wouldn't that be neat. The guys in the office would be so stunned and would be kicking themselves that I might have been available, but they never tried. Don't worry, Bobby, I'm smart enough to know when my cycles are and I'm perfectly safe. As a matter of fact, if I'm going to get much more of Chuck, it's going to have to be by tomorrow, as I'm going to be plugged day after tomorrow."

Bobby kissed Jan, saying, "I think I'm happy to hear that. It would almost be neat to get a little critter from our man. I can't have kids or at least that's what I was told ten years ago. I might have myself checked out some more to find out if the problem can be corrected."

"I'll give you one, Bobby. I can do that for you. I don't think I'm ready to be a mom yet, but I'd have one for you if you wanted."

Bobby was stunned, looking at Jan. "I've never thought of letting someone have a baby for me. Both of my younger sisters said they would do it for me and only my one older sister has kids. Millie, my next older sister, can't have kids just like me."

"My turn to say something," I said, raising my hand. "I'm still pretty young and it might not be time for me to be a dad yet. Let's be real careful until we are sure we want to raise a child. I will not begin a child and abandon it. When we get a child among us, whoever is the mom will raise the baby, period. The other person in our lives, if she is there, will be a special aunt, a second mom."

Both girls gave me some kisses for that declaration. The kisses were augmented by touches that were excitedly transferred to other forms of kissing that ended up with me thumping Jan very thoroughly, depositing a gallon or so of baby juice, then enjoying all of Bobby and making an equally large deposit there. Both girls helped me with the other, making it a very sweet loving between all three of us.

We went to sleep kissing.

While we were getting ready in the morning, Jan came out of the bathroom, happily displaying the Tampax box. She said, "See, told you. I didn't get pregnant from my first adventure with a horny guy. It sure is fun to practice though." That I got a loving kiss, and a light bite on the lip, disproved that all women are bitches before and during their periods. Jan was acting absolutely horny.

Bobby thought it cute the way Jan was as carefree as she was.