Chapter 55

We were lead to, of all things a Washington DC taxi. "Where did you get this?" I asked.

"We have our ways," Andrew said handing Jeremy the keys. "You should be in DC in time for an early dinner. While you are on the road read the file and figure out how to scam the Good Father. Your equipment is in the trunk, don't worry, if you get pulled over there is nothing that looks like what it is."

"Thanks Andrew," Jeremy said. I knew what Andrew was doing, even if Jeremy didn't. He was trying to encourage Jeremy's influence in the team. He was insinuating Jeremy was in charge of the equipment and technical details. I didn't mind, since I hated that shit.

As we headed out on the almost ten hour drive, I was busy with the file and the computer. There were few hot spots along the way, so the file was pretty extensive. The Good Father had been dismissed from the church due to his political activism. He just wouldn't leave it seemed. He went to his homeless shelter everyday in his priest collar to meet with agents and immigrants alike. So said the file.

"The Good Father has lost his church's support so how is he living?" I asked out loud.

"My guess is he is a millionaire collecting money over the Internet from famous leftist," Alice said. She was reading her own copy of the file as we rode in the back seat of the taxi. "It says here he has a Facebook page which gives a Paypal account for supporters to donate to the good works. You did see his photograph?"

"Yes he is rather kind and humble, but it doesn't hurt that he is good looking. Well he is good looking in that hard life kind of way," I suggested. "So if he no longer has to conform to the church doctrine, he is free to pursue his more base emotions."

"The file does not mention any sexual proclivities," Alice said.

"It also doesn't say he lives a simple celibate life either," I said. "The address listed for him is a condo in the burbs. He does his good work with the poor from relative comfort," I commented. "Never heard of Alberta Va."

"According to this," Alice said waving the report at me. "It's a suburb of Washington like Arlington only smaller. It has a very large Hispanic population. Mostly illegals I would imagine."

"That would make the Good Father very popular with the lefties," I said.

"Did you read the forensic accounting report?" Alice asked.

"No but I will," I replied. I scanned the report quickly. "It appears the Good Father gave in to skimming. A charity is a good way to launder money as well. So it seems being a revolutionary pays well. His youth hostel, the homeless shelter and the comfort kitchen for the homeless all lumped together take less than 25% of his incoming funds. The rest just languish in the off shore account of the Good Father. So he is not keeping to his vow of poverty. He probably isn't keeping any of his other vows either.

"I've been reading the methods of the drug backed rebels. If they take the ambassador it will be to get something changed about the government's drug program. They have an incentive to return him relatively unharmed. That being the case, they will need a place to stash him. Somewhere the FBI won't look. They will also need someone to help them get around since they are strangers," Alice said.

"The Good Father," I suggested. "Unless the bad guys hire US talent. In that case they will have their own assets and safe houses. We can infiltrate the Good Father's operation. Then we will need to hope that Swamp Dog or Church Camp get the killer elite crew identified. No telling how long we will have to sit on this," I said.

"Okay so job one is to bug the shit out of the Good Father's operation," Jeremy said.

"No, job one is to locate the places to bug, then to find a central place to set up a listening post," I said. I recognized that I was beginning to sound like the crew from the Church Camp.

"So what do we need," Alice asked.

"Well several bugs in his condo for sure, the offices of his hostel and homeless shelter. The comfort kitchen needs a bug as well. We need to clone his telephone and put a GPS marker on his car. Those same places need as many camera's as possible," I suggested.

My cell phone rang. "Hello," I said. Since it was the burner, I knew it was from one of ours.

"Stop by the airport at 11 PM tonight and meet your computer genius in the general aviation waiting room. His name is Wilson and he will set up the computer system and then fly out again. He is not an ops guy," Sylvia Porter said.

"You are going for broke on this one," I suggested.

"We are going to be playing defense most of this game, so we need all the help we can get," she answered. Then she was just gone without a goodbye even.

"We are going to have a package at the general aviation desk at the airport tonight at 11 PM. So we need to find a cave in the center of things before then," I said to Jeremy and Alice.

"Okay," Jeremy said. "That isn't going to give us much time."

"Looks like drive thru food in the cab for the rest of the day," I said. We had gotten pretty far into the files by the time we stopped for gas and food at noon. Lunch was a not too awful hot dog and chips for me. Jeremy and Alice found a box of equally uninspired fried chicken at the deli counter of the convenience mega store.

We held off on dinner until we arrived in Alberta Va. The GPS led us to the condo occupied by the Good Father. It turned out to be not the small condo we expected but a large townhouse style condo. It had to be either 3/4 or a million bucks easy. The Good Father was doing well for himself. That fact didn't make it into the website asking for contributions.

Still it was a fact and had to be treated as a potential crime scene. Someone was going to be helping the out of town pros. If it was the Good Father, no telling what other illegal acts might take place in his condo.

Two miles from the upscale gated condominium project was the city's little Havana district. The residents were from all over South America, even a few from Cuba. It was also the poorest of the poor, even for an area whose poverty rate was well over 16%. The good that the father did was needed, but he could have done more with the contributions of the bleeding hearts.

Unfortunately it wasn't my job to steal his money and redistribute his wealth. My job was to keep someone from being kidnapped by radicals. Actually it was the Swamp Team who were tasked with that chore. Mine was simply to gather information and hold it for a rainy day.

Jeremy went from the condo to the homeless shelter. It was in a historic looking building. "Alice you are better with the files than me, what is the story on the shelter?" I asked.

It took her about two minutes during which time Jeremy drove around so that I could see all parts of the building. I could see three exit doors in the building. It would not be easy to assault the building, if that became necessary. The building was about three times bigger than any shelter I had ever seen.

"The building was a catholic elementary school for the DC area from 1953 till it was closed in 2005. It was later sold to the charity that is really the Good Father," Alice informed me.

"They probably don't use the top floor. A good place to stash a kidnapped victim. Easy access through any of the three doors without going through the front. It would be a nightmare to bug it all. Maybe we can just put some cameras on the doors. They wouldn't be carrying anyone through the front, so we could save a camera there I thought with a chuckle. This was going to be a hell of an expensive operation, I thought.

The comfort kitchen was in the old lunchroom of the school. So that was one less location to bug. When I read out the address for the youth hostel it was the residence hall which faced a different street, but was on the same property. The kids were screwing in a former nunnery, I thought.

"Okay Jeremy we have one hour to find a place to bed down and get to the airport to pick up our hacker. Let's get a move on," I said.

"I saw one of those Greenwood Suites things about two blocks from the condos," Alice said.

"Okay let's drive right to it and get checked in," I suggested.

I used Andrew's prepaid card to pay a week for a two bedroom suite at the Greenwood. We got the key, but had to leave immediately for the airport. The small plane landed, taxied up to the terminal and the older man stepped down. From all the crap we see on TV I was shocked to see Wilson. I expected a hacker to be around twenty years old, but Wilson was almost seventy. I sure hoped he didn't have to run a mile or two. "Wilson?" I asked when we met.

"Yeah you Lillian?" he asked.

"Yeah this beautiful chick is Alicia and the pretty dude is Jimmy," I said.

"Right," so lets get this crap in the car and get moving," he said.

We loaded two large boxes into the trunk of the cab. It was a good thing we didn't bring anything much of our own. It was filled with tools nothing else. Wilson's tools required that we repack the trunk to make a little more room.

"So Jimmy, we need to go to Walmart and buy some clothes," I suggested.

"Wilson, you want to go with us. We won't take too long," I suggested.

"No let me get set up in the suite, while you guys do that. I have already gotten into their site and planted a piece of Spyware. I can access some of their security items remotely, so I can be set up by the time you get back," he said.

"We are going to go in with you just to check the place. Then we will head out to the store," I said when Jeremy pulled up in front of the suite. While they unloaded I took a quick look around.

"We need to hide this thing and get a plain car," I said about the taxi.

"I think you need to go back to the scooter like last time. It would be easy to maneuver and to hide when not in use. We can pick up one tomorrow," Jimmy said.

"That might work, but I'm thinking we need to get into the shelter somehow. The people who operate it will be suspicious, if they know what's going on with the Good Father," I said.

"I'm sure the Good Father doesn't trust them with that kind of information," he said.

"I think what you need to do is go in as some mid level government agency's bureaucrat," Alice said.

"That is an idea. I'm sure the charity is tax exempt. Wilson can check to be sure. If they are I can be an IRS inspector. They wouldn't refuse me access to anything, if they are legit," I said.