At the appointed time, all four friends gathered back by the fire. Robert called the meeting to order. "It's nice to be back," he told Jax and Brenda. "Everything went according to plan, for a change. The collaboration between the different agencies involved in the drug bust was tighter than anything we've organized, and we've certainly proved one thing,"
"What's that?" Brenda wanted to know.
"We believe we've failed in the past because there has to have been a leak somewhere. This time, control was from the field. The only people who knew the entire plan were Sean, Frisco, Anna and myself. Everyone else was either excluded or on a need to know basis."
"Have you any lead on the leak?" Jax asked.
"We believe we've narrowed it, but the problem is still there. The difficulty is that this one bust, and the one in the Pacific that came out of it, significant as it was, is only a tiny drop in the ocean of the drugs that are coming into the country.
"There's a major drug problem on the streets and it's killing people, children. A few years ago, the heroin out there was about 10% pure, extremely expensive and it might be cut with almost any poison you can imagine. Today, heroin is really cheap, available to almost anyone, and it is more like 90% pure. The result is that kids are not even sticking needles in their arms any more, they are inhaling it, ingesting it, you name it. Make no mistake, it's a terrible problem, on every street in just about every town and city of any size in the country. In several countries for that matter. The problem is gigantic and it is international."
Looking grim, Jax asked if Corinthos is involved.
"No hard evidence was found. However, given that he is the crime boss in the area, it is hard to figure how he could not be, one way or another. One thing for sure, the $11 million in cash seized in Miami was packed, ready for pick-up by UPS, believe it or not, and addressed to a numbered company in Syracuse. We know he is part of that company, probably owns it, but we're not moving in on that target yet."
"Where do we go from here?" Jax wanted to know.
"First, I think, should be a review of his known or suspected activities right now, based on facts we have in hand so far. There's so much information that we had even before we left a few days ago, and it's spread out so far and wide, the decision is that we pick the easiest, most accessible targets, and begin to chop away at them. At the same time, we continue the investigation and try to get the complete picture."
"Any ideas?"
"Yes," Robert said. "Something is already in the works. Jax, you've met R.J. Barker, haven't you? He was in Montana last year at the Cattlemen's convention?"
Jax thought for a minute. "Yes, I believe I remember him. He spoke at the convention about interstate hauling of livestock and the perils involved for the animals. Is that the guy?"
"That's right. At the moment, R.J. who, by the way, is a WSB operative not unlike yourself, is a current, working, member of the Florida Truckers' Union. Frisco Jones is riding north with him and, together, they have started the ball rolling on the highways. It should get Corinthos's attention within the next week or so."
"I'm all ears," Jax responded. "Me, too," Brenda added.
"We told you before we left that Corinthos's trucks were somehow piggy-backing on the unionized trucks in and out of Florida and generating a certain hostility among the unionized truckers. They need to be inconspicuous at all times, so if they can appear to be convoying with known transport lines, they hope not to attract attention on the road.
"R.J. has identified every one of Corinthos's trucks that operate in and out of Florida. They specialize mainly in LTLs (less than truck-loads) which is big business. Many companies need to ship small loads and the big haulers with the big trailer trucks will not handle small shipments. It's a specialized business.
"That's where Corinthos comes in. With LTLs, he can always leave room in his trucks for contraband. As long as the trucks are not stopped, as long as nobody weighs the truck or inspects the manifest to checks it against the actual load in the truck, whatever is being hauled can get from any location to any other, without question. There are no borders, remember."
"So, what can be done? I doubt if there is the manpower to stop and inspect every non-unionized truck that uses Florida roads. Besides, wouldn't they need a warrant?"
"Yes they would. Search and seizure at this point is not practical." Robert agreed. "Corinthos's organization is very tight," he told them. "it's got tentacles everywhere. Its strength is that the branches rarely if ever intertwine. Their weakness is that, no matter how shrewd a scheme may be, the outcome is always determined by the inevitable and the unexpected. For Corinthos, the unexpected is about to happen and the inevitable will follow."
"Sounds...awesome...? I think... What do you mean?" Brenda asked.
"Simple," Robert told them. "We will target individual branches, or tentacles if you like, one at a time. The first, because it is the easiest, and we've already got a handle on it, will be the trucking business.
"A few well-chosen hints along the road to some rival criminal elements, and Frisco is convinced that half-a-dozen carefully placed high-jackings will look like independent coincidences. A few other trucks will fail mechanically, or have minor accidents in remote areas, so the Highway Patrol will be unavoidable. They will be ready to inspect truck contents and manifests. If everything is legal, then they will simply be delayed. Delays frequently carry high costs. Then, all Corinthos trucks will be pulled over at inspection stations, weighed, then checked against the manifests. If there's contraband, we'll find it. There are several other creative approaches to the problem, all of which are in the hands of Frisco and R.J. who are on the spot. We're looking at over 150 trucks, and want to target as many of them as possible before Corinthos realizes that this is an organized effort. That would be about a week, I should think. We have the advantage that most of the fleet is not registered directly to Corinthos. There is a series of phoney companies, numbered companies, other people fronting for him, and so on. What we are doing is all that's possible until we can link him to the entire fleet. He'll feel a growing financial pinch, though."
"You're sure this is going to work?" Jax asked Robert.
"It's already working. As we speak, R.J. and Frisco are on the road to make sure things are happening along the route. Frisco is aiming for Chicago where he will be giving some attention to Harry Silver, and doing what he can on that problem from there.
"That's it for the trucking side of things for now. There is another major drug shipment about to leave Columbia in a few days. We got that from Sean early this morning - I'll show you the report. Sean will leave South America this week. We need him here. Don't know who will replace him yet."
"Is that drug shipment going into Miami too?"
"No. It looks like this one might be headed for Buffalo, or maybe here to Port Charles. I think they've decided that Miami is too hot to handle and they'll try a smaller destination. We'll know better as soon as it lands. It will not get through, not if we have anything to do with it. But, it's still only a drop in the ocean of drugs."
"Well. At least there is some progress. That is good news. Why am I suddenly feeling tired? Is there no end to this?
"Jax, my man, be prepared to get even more tired. What we have here is a very bad actor on a major scale. His main front, as far as we know, is the Health Club network and the Beauty Salons and, now that we've started moving on the trucking front, that's the next easiest place where we can strike a blow for our side."
"I can contribute to that," Jax told him. "Before you left, we sent the information we had to the police forces involved around the country. We've had no feedback in here so far from their activities, if they actually took the information seriously, but we have managed to identify the bank accounts of almost all locations. The rest will come. I don't know what we can do with that little item though."
"Good work! I have had reports about maybe a dozen police jurisdictions who got our information and who decided to check with the CIA and the IRS to make sure they should act. They are working at it right now. There are several we know nothing about however. In addition, I'm happy to tell you that the PCPD has put somebody under cover over there. They've got a good man on the job."
"You were in Port Charles?" Brenda asked.
"Yes. We both were. We didn't go too far, actually. Once we'd made the contact with our liaison for the drug pipeline and made sure everything was going as it should, we just moved around to see what we could pick up.
"One Cyrus Birkenthorpe, (yours truly, may I add) accidentally-on-purpose, ran into this poor, demented, homeless Viet Nam vet who just happened to be wandering the docks. I knew him in New York, a casual acquaintance. He trusts me, so we talk. In my own "stupid, disturbed, self-absorbed way", I say things off the cuff, is it were, that he cannot fail to recognize as valuable information."
"Your alias is Cyrus Birkenthorpe! Why such a weird name?"
"Brenda love, I am a character! I present myself as down-and-out, demented, displaced, ex British pilot, several notches short of a full deck. Cyrus is forever searching for a runaway daughter who disappeared nearly twenty years ago. Nobody takes me seriously or expects that I will ever find her, but they take pity on me, they accept me, they think I'm crazy and harmless. They allow me to hang out, become part of the scenery. They ignore me and that's the point."
"And this other guy is doing the same thing? In Port Charles?"
"Yes. While we both pretended to get roaring drunk, I was able to fill him in on all I knew about the Health Clubs and the Beauty Salons from here to Atlanta and down to New York. I started out being pretty vague, but by the questions he asked, I knew he understood that I knew something, and he made sure he got it all. He's good. I expect PCPD to do something about the local action. If they don't get the message, then we'll take some action. I also told this character, his alias by the way is Punchy Moran, I told him I had heard that there was a good thing in TVS, VCRs and other electronic equipment over in mid-town. Suggested he could make a few dollars, if he knew wanted to pass the word to potential customers."
"This is one of Corinthos's operations?"
"No. One of his loan and laundering efforts. There is a scam under way. Corinthos fronted the money to finance the deal, rented the warehouse to the con artist, contracted his trucks to bring in the merchandise and deliver the goods to buyers for cash. Everything is in place. On the face of it, it's legitimate. I believe I explained how it works?"
"I remember," Jax told him. "The guy who took the loan will take orders for whatever he's selling, deliver the goods to the buyers within hours of their arriving in the warehouse, and collect payment in cash. He will pay for the merchandise on delivery with a phony certified check, pay Corinthos off on the loan, and disappear. Have I got it right?"
"You got it."
"So, if Corinthos has made it look legal, how do we touch him?"
"We don't. We wait until the operation is over, but before the loan gets paid, and then we move in. We must get this operator before he pays Corinthos, seize the cash and whatever property he has. We should get him on sales tax evasion. Then, he will not be able to pay, so Corinthos loses."
"Brilliant! How many of these loans does Corinthos have?"
"At the present moment, we know of five active merchandise scams going on locally and we have a lead on at least two more. We have people on top of each of these. None of the loans will be paid back. From the trucking business and this, there will be no new income for our man Corinthos within two weeks. He will begin to feel the pinch."
"And we haven't even touched the research we've had done yet! Is there anything else?"
"There is. We're starting to target the Health Clubs and Beauty Salons. We know there are pushers in every one of them and we know they harbor known criminals who are either on parole, waiting for trial, at half-way houses, or just simply waiting for some action. They are an obvious target."
"What is being done?"
"Manpower is a problem. We've targeted four for now; one is directly owned by Corinthos and the other three are franchises."
"The local police are watching for money laundering, trafficking, and fencing. These are the main side activities of the criminals who hang out there. They'll be charged on parole violations, possession of stolen goods, drugs, whatever we can. We'll generally make life miserable, attract attention to the places, give them a bad name, whatever, until we can involve the IRS and let them do the real work for us in the end. And, of course, every arrest is one mob "soldier" less available for strong-arm activities or general mob manpower."
"What about the rest of them? There are hundreds."
"Yes. Well, we've sent information to all the affected police forces. Some of them will act on it and we'll keep an eye on the others. As soon as we get results from the selected four, we'll think about how to use the results - as long as it is a success, of course. Eventually, we'll get them all. We must count on the local police wherever we can. We simply don't have the manpower.
"Our target is Corinthos and his illicit empire, and what we're doing here and now is chopping away at his financial base. There's not much else we can do and stay on top of it without any solid proof. We'll continue to feed the information to the people who can be most effective. Local police are the front line troops in these cases."
"Is it legal, doing it that way?" Brenda asked.
"Confronting corruption is the job of every law-enforcement agency in the country. Sometimes we have to go around the problem as we're doing here. Call it what you will," Robert said. "It's up to local police to find and remove this kind of crime from their communities. Their problem is that, often, they don't even know it exists. When we obtain information through our undercover activities, we give it to them. That's legal. Criminals aid and abet one another all the time. It's time we did the same across jurisdictions, across territories. We must work together or the bad guys will simply take over. They can recruit a hundred greedy pairs of hands in any town in the land. We cannot increase the number of police anywhere. The cries of budget cuts are echoing from coast to coast. Lacking manpower, we must use our heads."
Everyone agreed that law enforcement faces tough choices which call for new and creative solutions. Anna went to get a pot of coffee and, after a short break, she took over the discussion. "Jax, what's the feedback from your investigators and from the Canadian authorities. What have they found, so far?"
"The Health Club/Beauty Salon information went to every major police agency in Canada. They moved very quickly on it. Several reports have come in - very interesting. The major hotels, especially in the big centers there, all have at least two different health club facilities. Then, there is at least one in almost every community. The same goes for the Salons. They are making real headway with identifying the foreign-owned establishments, all numbered companies without exception, and, apparently, all connected.
"We should know if they are linked to the operation here within a couple of days."
"Excellent," Anna commented. "What about the investigation?"
"It's difficult, apparently, but a picture of the off-shore activities is emerging. There are multi-millions of dollars involved. Even if we locate the banks and the account numbers, that gets us nowhere. That may not get us the details we need.
"Actually, I've had some thoughts about how we might accomplish that," Jax told them. - "not too legal, to be honest, but if we get the actual information we may be able to use it anyway."
"Care to give us details? Rules can be bent, but, in principle, it's best if we avoid breaking them altogether!"
"I'd rather not comment until the investigators do all they can," Jax decided. "What I'm thinking about is on a par with using hypnosis to recover forgotten or buried information from the minds of witnesses. It's not admissible in Court, but it often opens up new and important lines of enquiry."
"Let's wait first to see what we need," he continued. "One bridge at a time looks like the best bet right now."
"Will the Canadians be moving on any of the clubs up there?"
"They're in the same boat as we are. They have to target the most likely ones, put manpower on it and see what happens. They're taking it seriously, though. They run several specialized task forces in Canada, mainly focused on drug operations. The significance for us is to learn if it's actually tied to Corinthos and we will not know that for several days yet. There may be nothing at all in it for us. We'll just have to wait. I've given the Canadian data to the investigators as well. It's irrelevant who brings us information, as long as we get it."
"Right!" Robert and Anna both agreed.
"So, we make headway." Anna said. "Now, with only a few days left here for the four of us, we need to make some plans. Our original arrangement was that you two would leave here, go to Alaska for a few days and return to Port Charles, and take up business as usual."
"Is that still on?" Jax asked.
"You have an aircraft at the PC Airport?"
"Yes. The jet moved out when we did, but the DC-9 is there, and we could get the jet back at a moment's notice."
"How about having your secretary fly in on the jet and go to your office to pick up or file some documents, or both. While she's doing that, we can get you on the plane, say four days from now. That way, the flight will be logged, you will be on your way and you can be back in town a week from now. I need you there then."
"Easily done. Sounds like a plan," and Jax made a note to arrange things when the discussion was over.
"Our next step has to be surveillance of Corinthos's activities in Port Charles," Anna remarked. "For that, we'll need a warrant - not just a local one, but one that allows a wire tap, surveillance of his penthouse, Luke's club, and wherever else he hangs out."
"How do you propose to do that?"
Robert thought for a minute. "It's not going to be long before we get results from what's under way now. We need only to connect a few of the dots, show without a doubt that Corinthos is heavily involved in several criminal or crime related activities, alert the IRS and the Bureau, and we will get all the warrants we want. It will take a few more days though, which is fine. I want Sean back in the States by the time we have warrants in hand. I would like you back in Port Charles then also. Are Sean, Tiffany and the baby coming back to Port Charles? Brenda wanted to know.
"No," Robert told her. "We need Sean on this for another reason entirely. Bringing him into Port Charles at this time would create waves we don't need right now. We'll go into that later. I also want to talk with you, Jax, about setting up a link with this war-room here from wherever you think is the best place to have it in town. Anna and I will make this our base for a while after you've left," Robert said. "Soon, however, it will be difficult to get in and out of here, once the winter settles in. We'll need an alternative, a remote location where we can download reports and link with this base. The hand-held monitor we're using here will work in Port Charles, it's well within range and will give the alert just like
now. We'll know when information arrives, but we must be able to link in and pick it up.
"Another thing, Jax. As soon as we get the warrants, we'll be in a position to put some pressure on ELQ in regard to Corinthos's shares. This myth that he's legitimate because of ELQ is about to explode. How will that affect you? The shares will certainly drop."
"I'll weather it, don't worry. As soon as it's sorted out, they will recover. And if they don't, then there is sure to be an opportunity there anyway."
"OK, then. That's that! By the way, Jax. how's the new satellite working?"
"It's great. The range and speed are incredible. Covers the entire globe. I'd like one for my own use! I'd like to show you what it can do later, if you're interested."
"We both are," Anna told him. I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do, and to using it."
Robert stood up. "Well, ladies and gentleman, I think we've made progress. Things are happening, we have alerted people all over the country, R.J. and Frisco are on the road to taking care of the trucking business, we have a line on the money laundering, the network of fronts here in this country is under serious investigation, and maybe the same is true for Canada. The loan business is about to suffer a serious setback, and things will happen very soon."
"And, along with all that," Anna added, "we have the nucleus of a plan for the future."
"I really feel that we are accomplishing something. At last! Robert, Anna, I cannot thank you enough for letting me be part of this. It looks as though it might work.!"
"It will," Anna told him. "I'm hungry, not to mention exhausted" she continued. "What about a nice snack and some sleep Robert?"
"It's only mid-afternoon. When did you guys get in? I forgot to ask in the excitement of seeing you this morning?" Brenda wanted to know.
"Around 6.00 a.m. Didn't want to get Martin out of bed any earlier, and before dawn is the best time to get in here. Nobody around."
"I'll go get something to eat," Brenda offered.
"I'll come with you," Anna said and they both went together, leaving Jax and Robert to catch up on the past few days.
Some time later, Robert and Anna, really tired out, decided they had to get some sleep.
Jax and Brenda sat quietly, chatting together for a while, until Jax pulled her close in his arms, kissed her cheek, turned her to face him and asked, "Do you have any problems with this Brenda? Now that this ball is rolling, there will be no holds barred until Corinthos is either arrested or, at the very least, discredited."
"No, Jax, I do not. I just wish there was something real that I could do to be part of it. I want that as much as you do," she told him. "I know Robert and Anna, and of course you, are professionals at this and I am useless, but I wish there were some way I could help."
"Sweetheart, you are helping just by being here, by loving me, by letting me love you. I simply couldn't have been here all this time without you! Each day, Brenda, I think I have reached the limit of the depth of my love for you, and each day I discover that it is never ending. I need you, more and more every day of my life. You are part of my very being, my wife, my partner, my friend. Words are not enough for what I feel! We are linked soul to soul, heart to heart, one mind, one body, one spirit for all eternity. I love you, Brenda! I love you so very much!"
"I know, Jax," she whispered, as she held his face between her hands, looking deeply into his eyes. "Words are not enough for me either. But you show me, and that is so much better. When I feel you close to me, when you hold me, when you love me, then it is almost enough, but I know there will always be more. Love is so precious Jax. So very precious. Do you ever worry that we are just too happy? That we love one another too much?"
"No, Brenda! Never think like that! We are meant to be happy. We found one another, we love one another, and we have a right to happiness. Our love is a blessing from God. Let us never forget that, never forget to be grateful and know, my darling, know that there is never too much love."
They kissed deeply, passionately and long. Then, still clinging to one another, they too
moved out of the living area and took their love to their bed chamber where they could
shut out the world, and Corinthos, and crime, and mobsters, and everything and celebrate
their joy in one another yet again.
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