Anna's favorite breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup and sizzling sausages, was on the table and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air. Robert and Anna were at the table and looked up as they came in.
"Good morning, you two! Come and eat!" For an instant, as she looked at Jax and Brenda, Anna thought she saw an halo of bright shining light surrounding them both, so bright that she could hardly see them! "Good heavens! I'm hallucinating!", she thought, and the moment was past. "They are so beautiful!", she added to herself.
As they came towards the table, Robert did not miss the almost trance-like absorption of these two people in one another. "Love like that warms the heart," he thought. "Makes one wonder if there is anything to the notion of soulmates! If there is, then these two seem to have found it."
"Grab some grub!" Robert told them. "We have work to do and only a few hours to finish what we started yesterday. We've got to get you out of here by 2.00 p.m."
Breakfast was soon over, and planning was back in full swing!
"Let's recap," Robert decided.
"We've made some seizures, and so far there is nothing to connect the various police actions with one another. However, we know here that the objective is to keep the local crime lord, Mr. Sonny Corinthos, as busy as possible, worrying about the various departments in his business empire, while concealing the fact that there is any connection between the various activities.
"We've been able to do this so far because the very nature of his empire, far flung as it is, has made it easy for us to make the actions appear random. I cannot honestly guess how long it will be before he makes a connection. So far, I can tell you there are no loose ends he can pick up to connect the events, but we never know how or when that could change.
"One of our weaknesses is that we have no real knowledge of the extend of his personal intelligence. It has to be reasonably good, given the widespread nature of his activities.
"Jax, your intelligence report will be in our hands in a few days, and that should tell a big story. Meantime, we have enough evidence from the current raids, and we expect to fortify that with considerable new evidence over the next two or three days. I can almost certainly assure you that we will have a global search warrant that will change everything for the side of law and order, by the time you are back in Port Charles this coming week-end. Are we clear so far?
"Very clear," Jax told him. "Is there anything new in overnight?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact! And this is a big bonus. In the process of investigating Corinthos, we did not neglect the other crime families, especially those on the East Coast which is our particular area of responsibility. I'm happy to tell you that our agents in the field, and the FBI and CIA working together on the Corinthos case, have also managed to build an airtight case against the Cortina family which operates out of New York."
"What does that mean for what we are doing?" Jax wanted to know.
"It means that the news of the arrests coming from the Cortina case will hit the sidewalks within twenty- four hours and there is a good chance that our target will relax, in the belief that he is safe. The Cortinas are known to be far less security conscious than any other of the crime families in the East. They will be seen as being careless, and while the others may beef up their security, they are also likely to see it as something that does not affect them. Corinthos, especially is likely to feel that way when you realize that his security systems are legendary."
"Are you saying that the downfall of this family is going to make him feel safe?"
"I think it likely," Robert confirmed. "He will probably do a security check to satisfy himself that all is well everywhere, and we will try our best to make him feel safe. We have enough now to get the warrant we want and what we expect to get in the next two days will only be icing on the cake!"
"Explain to me what's so important about this warrant," Jax asked. "And you also said I had to do something about Donelly's war room. What's that all about?
"Yes, indeed! First of all, Donelly is back in the US and he will be in Port Charles next week, in disguise, of course. Can you contact Addie this morning, before she arrives in Port Charles?"
"Yes, why?"
"Ask her, while she's in your office this afternoon, to contact the Superintendent of the Condominium where Corinthos lives, to ask if they have been advised by the owner of Penthouse No. 3, that it will be occupied shortly."
"Which is his penthouse?"
"He's got No. 4. When he took it, apart from the fact that it had been the Donelly home, one of the main attractions for Corinthos was the fact that the other apartments on the floor were not occupied. They are all listed as having absentee owners. No. 3 is side by side with No. 4. What is not apparent from the outside is that Donelly's WSB war-room is nestled in between the two places."
Robert and Jax shared a big grin, while Anna and Brenda watched. The significance of this was slowly dawning on Brenda.
"Right!" Robert said, with a laugh. "Right next door!"
"What can Addie's call accomplish?" Jax asked. "Where are you going with this?"
"Oh, sorry! I distracted you! Ask Addie to tell the Super at the building that you will contact him when you return to town next week. She should tell him that the owner of the penthouse is lending the place to a friend of your family for a couple of months and you will come in to inspect the premises before the new occupant arrives. That will give you a reason to enter the building freely, whenever you wish."
"You don't think Corinthos will get suspicious if I show up in his building?"
"Of course! That's why your reasons for being there will be established even before you return from your vacation with your wife. Who more logical to make the arrangements than your secretary? That way, it's totally impersonal and you only enter the picture before your friend arrives?"
"Who's my friend?"
"Jax, it's well known you cover a lot of territory. This friend is actually a friend of your father, someone to whom you are obliged to be courteous, for family reasons. You will show up out of duty, not too often, but enough to establish that you can be expected to appear from time to time. That's why the initial arrangements by your secretary, the personal inspection you will make at the right moment, all form part of getting you into the building, with a reason for your presence."
"OK! It's reasonable. But what will I really do once I am in there? And, by the way, who IS this temporary resident?"
"You don't know? You will have access to the war-room, of course! And your friend? Why, he's none other than yours truly, the famous palaeontologist, Dr. Roberto Augustini, and of course, my wife, the equally famous Dr. Anna-Maria D'len Augustini! We will give a series of lectures at the Port Charles University during the coming months! But of course we will also be traveling, so we will only use the penthouse from time to time.
"The Superintendent of the building will know all this, but not much else, All that will be known is that you have been asked to make sure their Penthouse is ready for the Doctors Augustini who are something to do with your family, and you will be bringing Brenda along to help you put food in the refrigerator, stock the wine - the sort of thing any friend might do in similar circumstances!"
"And if the Super gets curious?" Jax asked.
"Be open, friendly! They are friends of your family! They visit the family from time to time and your parents asking if you would take care of them while they're at the University. You're looking forward to seeing them again, but you don't expect to see a lot of them really. They're your parents' generation after all!
"They travel a lot, using wherever they happen to have a major assignment as a home base, and you know little of their current plans until they arrive. You're just happy to oblige for your family's sake. No big thing! However, when they get here, you are counting on the Super to keep an eye on them, and let you know if they need any assistance. They're not young people and your parents expect you to look out for them."
"I see," Jax said. "Another of your incarnations!"
"Fits right in for us," Anna confirmed. "We will be the perfect slightly eccentric, almost doddering, harmless generational friends of your parents. We will speak with great affection of you to the Super, tell him what a "Good Boy" you are and what a delightful girl you have married. We will bore him silly!"
"You think Corinthos will hear all this?"
"We have every confidence that he will check out his new neighbors!"
"OK! So what will you and we be doing in the meantime?"
"We will be moving back and forth between there and here as long as the weather permits. When negotiating the river is no longer possible, we will stay in the Penthouse, or move around the area doing whatever we have to do at the time. We have a little pied-a-terre on the Docks, too! What's important is that your right to be there will be established, and you can enter the penthouse and the war-room at any time. If it proves necessary, there is also a direct private express elevator access to the war-room. The entrances are on the second and fifth floor. You will be shown where they are. You will have with you a hand-held monitor like the one we use here, so you will know when you need to go to the war-room."
"Will there be a problem with sound? Can any sounds from the war-room be picked up in Corinthos's apartment?"
"None! We keep the sound level up here during the day because it suits us, but the whole thing can also run silently. It is recorded, after all, and can be downloaded as we need. There is something else much more important we must do. We will have a warrant for surveillance of Corinthos in our hands before you get back to Port Charles and the war-room and Penthouse No.3 will play an important role in that."
"How so?"
"That entire floor is wired for sound. Corinthos does not own Penthouse No. 4. He has it on a long- term lease. The entire floor is owned by the WSB, fronted by the holding company that pays the taxes, utilities, and so on. Soon, we will be moving another temporary resident into one of the other two places on the floor, and the war-room will be the center of electronic surveillance."
"How will it be done? I imagine the walls there are thick?"
"They are," Robert confirmed. "However, there have been strides in technology that can render the obstacle of thick walls to be as nothing!" Robert advised. Then he went on to explain that, as soon as the warrant was issued, there would be a hive of activity during periods when Corinthos's apartment was empty.
The plan was to remove a section of the war-room wall on the median wall between Penthouses 3 and 4, replace it with sound-proof, shatter proof glass for an entire section that would give sound access to the Corinthos apartment. Using a series of laser beams aimed into the apartment, all sound would bounce off the glass and be captured as voice recordings.
Robert showed them two watches, with all the appearance of standard watches used by divers or people who traveled across time zones, but they had the capability to pick up finger-prints or voices, when their special laser functions were invoked. Robert explained that the surveillance technology they would use to listen in on Corinthos, after the warrant was granted, was a more sophisticated version of the same thing.
The benefit was that they did not have to put "bugs" in the apartment, which Corinthos would be sure to find anyway, as he swept the place for bugs regularly, and would be likely to be even more careful as soon as he found he had neighbors. Every sound in that apartment would be captured. Robert told them that they already had laser-captured enough of Corinthos's, Jason's, Luke's and several other people's voices to have done voice printing on them and there would be no question about whose voice would be picked up.
Robert then told them that Sean Donelly, in disguise, would soon come into town and he would activate the equipment in the war-room. He had shut it all down and was the only one with the necessary passwords who could set it up again. When that was done, all the advanced modifications they had here in the Catacombs would be incorporated there as well.
Then, when that was settled, Robert suggested to Jax that it would be wise also to have another war- room in another location, but they would wait to set that in place until the present caper was concluded.
Next, they checked incoming reports to the Catacombs system and found that the raids on the Beauty Salons had proceeded without a hitch. Several people were caught in possession of drugs, paraphernalia, and stolen merchandise. Several of the salons were completely shut down, to be seized by the RICO people, and there was no connection to be found between these operations and those that had already taken place. It simply looked like a severe case of police efficiency in several areas of the country.
From Canada, the news was excellent. The RCMP had moved in Toronto, Windsor, Banff, Lake Louise, in Red Deer and Vancouver. Entire operations were busted and there was not a word to indicate that the operations were connected with one another or with the Americans. So far, the plan was working like clockwork!
Jax had a question for Robert. "Corinthos spends most of his time away from his penthouse. Is there any surveillance on his activities at Luke's place? You know, he is part owner there again, and he is certainly conducting most of his business from there."
"I realize that," Robert told him. "Not to worry! There is something in the works for that situation. I hope to have something to report to you when you get back to town."
"I think we've covered everything," Anna said. "How about we have lunch together before you leave? There isn't much time left and we've done all we can for the time being."
"Right you are!" Robert agreed.
"O.K. with us," Jax and Brenda said together.
So it was that the next two hours were spent in quiet conversation, friendly banter, and good food was enjoyed by the friends, as they waited for the PIC guides to arrive and escort Jax and Brenda out to the van that would take them to the airport and their journey to Alaska.
"So, when you return, I hope you will have a welcome at your table for Drs. Roberto and Anna-Maria D'Len Augustini, Mr. and Mrs. Jacks?" Anna joked.
"We sure will," Brenda assured her. "What's your specialty, by the way?"
"Specialty? We're palaeontologists, aren't we?"
"Yes, I know," Brenda explained, but "in what?"
"Oh, I don't know? What do you think, Robert? Dinosaurs, I think? Should be all right, don't you think?"
"Dinosaurs it is!" Robert agreed. "If we have the opportunity, it should be interesting to converse with Mr Corinthos on the subject of recovering dinosaur bones from the earth, one by one, searching, inch by careful inch! Our last trip was in Saskatchewan, I believe! There are acres of dinosaur bones there, aren't there?"
Suddenly, it was time to go. Elizabeth and Suzanne just arrived, and in a short few moments, after hugs all around, Jax and Brenda disappeared into the passageway following their guides. They were on their way to Alaska. They promised Robert and Anna they would call them on arrival, just to say hello, tell them they had arrived, and maybe get the latest news on the caper and any developments in the field.
At that same moment, over in Port Charles,
Father Edwin Walsh, (alias Mac Scorpio), dressed in his priestly garb, was leaving the Salvation Army Mission. He had spent the night there with the local Commander, Brigadier Arthur Camdon, and had listened to any of the poor folks who took shelter there, doing his best to make them feel at home, encouraging them to get off the streets, or the bottle, promising he would help them in any way possible, if they would just ask their own Chaplain, Father Bill McCurdy.
The evening before, under cover of his priestly function, which he had really filled to the best of his ability, knowing that Bill McCurdy would honor any promises he had made, Mac had met and spent time with resident-for-a-night, Punchy Moran.
Punchy, (alias Detective Conn O'Flaherty) told Mac that there is a powerful force behind the growing drug traffic on the streets of Port Charles. He could not confirm that Corinthos was directly involved but said he had reason to believe that he was deeply involved in the resulting need for money laundering. He had no definite information at present, but he had high hopes of being better informed in a few days.
Conn/Punchy confirmed that the recent police raids on the Health Clubs was creating a panic in the underworld and that the raid that day on the "Salon Charise" beauty salon had rocked everybody. Dealers were getting really scared, but they were not yet scared enough to stop doing business. Nobody suspected that there was any connection between the different raids.
For Mac, at least, this was good news. He sort of wished he could have talked with whoever it was that had passed the tip to him in the first place.
He and Conn agreed that he should continue under cover for the time being, and Mac urged Conn to be very careful. He checked with him that he had his panic button cell-phone, and the locator planted on his person, so that if he got into trouble they would be able to find him. Once assured, Mac continued to spend time with the other residents, ensuring that he would be known when he returned to meet with Conn again in a week's time.
Meanwhile, at Luke's
Seated at the same table as yesterday, Sonny and Jason, drinking Gatorade, are looking worried. Luke notices and he is wondering if he should be worried too.
"What's up?" Sonny asks Jason.
"Another raid - Salon Charise!" Jason tells him.
"Salon Charise? What did they get?"
"A lot, it looks like. Everyone's arrested. The place is closed."
"Did you find out anything?"
"Nothing! I didn't want to seem to interested. Do they know you own it?"
"They shouldn't. It's under a dummy corporation, but the Manager is set up to appear to be the owner."
"Will he talk?"
"I doubt it! Not if he knows what's good for him!"
"Do you want him gone?"
"Jason! How many times do I have to tell you? I want you invisible! There will be no violence before, or until, we know for sure that it's needed. I don't believe he'll talk. He'll take his medicine if he has to. His family and his legal bills and everything else will be taken care of. He knows that. It's the deal and he knows I keep my word."
"Is it connected to the other raids, do you think?"
"I don't 'think'! I find out, and as far as I can find out, the police are making a big push on drugs and they got lucky. That means we got lucky too. They have no reason to suspect the places are connected. If they did, they'd be after us, you know that. I see nothing to point that way. I haven't seen Scorpio for days and if he suspected me, he'd be on me in a flash!"
"Mac knows he'd upset Robin if he came after you! He wouldn't do that!"
"He would! In a Port-Charles minute! Mac is the Commissioner and he'll do his job no matter what - or who. And you know well, Jason, Robin is a straight arrow and she would never approve of what's going on. Are you sure she knows nothing about your business?"
"Nothing! I told you that!"
"O.K. Well, keep it that way. She has no need to know."
"Right. Well..." Sonny seemed to be thinking out loud, "the way this is going down, it's costing us millions, Jason. I can't see how far it's going to go right now, and what's worse, I don't know how much more is likely to happen. Any of our places is vulnerable, as you know."
"We're losing big, right?
"Very big. Millions up to right now! And no way to recover from the same sources. Every one of those places is likely gone for good. We have two things to hope for, things we have no control over which is what is making me crazy!"
"What's that?"
"We get to hope that the raids will stop soon, and bigger than that, we get to hope that the cops don't find out that the places are one organization, AND, my friend, we'd better hope they don't connect the organization to us!"
"Could they?"
"Anything is possible! Luck has a lot to do with it. They are pushing to get drugs off the streets and that's likely what it's all about. They are having some success, so maybe they will leave it at that. From what I can find out, every single raid has been the result of local cop legwork. There's nothing to link anybody else to any of the raids."
"You can't find out?"
"Maybe there's nothing to find out! I can't afford to stir anything up. If I look interested, I could start a whole new ball game going. No. We sit tight for now, at least until or if there is something pointing at us! We have no other choice. Keep your ear tight to the ground and let me know if you hear anything at all, you understand?"
"I will! Count on it! Is there anything else I can do?"
"Yes, we have to think of replacement business and we have to do that right away. The natives will get restless if we don't have a place for them when they're out on bail, or when they get out of the Place, so we have to get busy. We'll talk about it!"
They both realized there was nothing more they could do, so they sat back, seemed to relax and looked around the club. Seeing that the tension seemed to ease out, Luke relaxed too. He made a note, though, to ask Sonny if there was anything going on that he should be worried about. He was beginning to get that old familiar feeling in his gut... Sonny was a great guy, his pal, his best friend in fact, but... There was his family to consider. Yes, he'd have to ask Sonny... at the first chance he got.
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