I WAS DREAMING something about my dad finding me in a dress while holding Saige when all of the sudden I heard a scream, "HELP, HELP!!!!"
I jumped out of bed wanting to cry. Someone must have found us. I heard it again, it sounded like a woman – maybe Gloria was crying out! 'I should get Mom!' I thought and hurriedly opened my door and ran across to her door. I looked around but didn't see her! I had just turned around and walked back into the hallway when I saw her.
"Mom, something's wrong. They must have found us, they're torturing Gloria or something!!! I can hear her screaming!"
Mom grabbed hold of my shoulders and said, "No she isn't."
"Well, someone is!" I was sure of it.
"Looks like someone really is her mothers' daughter." I heard a laugh behind me.
"It's not funny, someone's being hurt!"
"No sweetheart that would be the peacocks outside."
"Peacocks?" I asked, wanting to believe it, but I was so ramped up it was hard to calm down.
"Peacocks," Gloria said as she came down the hallway and knelt down in front of me. Even kneeling I was shorter than her. "That's the sound they make in the mornings, and it's fooled a great many people over the years." She paused and smiled, "including your mother."
"Oh," I said, feeling really embarrassed. I started crying then without any good reason why and felt Mom close her arms around me.
"It's okay baby, I don't think they'll find us here - not for a while anyway."
"It's just I was dreaming that Dad found us... And then I heard that sound..."
"I know sweetheart, it's okay." Mom said gently to me.
I eventually sniffled and looked up at Gloria, "Do they make that sound every morning?"
"Unfortunately, but you do get used to them. We've had a flock of them here since before I was born and I just can't convince myself to get rid of them. They do have really pretty feathers that fall out though, you might be able to find some later if you want."
I just nodded, not wanting to go through that again each morning.
"Why don't you throw some jeans on and you can help me feed the chickens?"
I gave her a look that probably said all I was thinking right then, You have birds that sound like people crying for help, it's early in the morning too, and you want me to go feed chickens???
"Come on, it'll be fun!"
"Really?" I asked.
"Well, the first time it probably will. My rule is that as long as someone stays as a guest here, they help out with the chores. I think feeding chickens is a good start for you, and we'll add some others later probably."
I looked at Mom, "What's she doing?"
"Well, I thought she could help me milk the cows this morning. I assume you remember how?"
I felt my Mom sigh, and she said, "I sure do. Think I can do it without being kicked the first time?"
"We'll see. It's not quite the same setup, since we've had to add some modern milking equipment the last few years, but it's not too hard. We only have thirty dairy cows right now. I'll show you how after I show this young lady how to feed the chickens and find eggs."
I felt a light pat on my rear as Mom shooed me into my room to find jeans and a t-shirt. I had wondered at the time why she insisted on buying me three pairs of jeans, but now I knew. I liked the Princess shoes for the most part, so I put on the Barbie ones... figuring if I was going to get a pair ruined - that was the one to do!
I reappeared at the door to my room and found Mom ready to go as well. She looked down at my shoes, "Well I guess we'll have to go buy a couple pairs of boots later, huh?"
"Might be a good idea," I agreed. "But I won't be sorry to see these go," I told her with a smile.
"I wondered if you'd think about that!" She giggled.
Gloria was waiting downstairs and walked with me out to a yard they had setup with a big chicken coop. "How many chickens do you have?" I asked.
"Oh... Probably about fifty or so... We use the eggs around here and I have a guy who picks most of them up once a week to sell at the farmers market in town. We usually slaughter a few going into the winter for special meals. For the most part though the turkeys are what we'll use for Thanksgiving and such."
"You raise your own Thanksgiving turkey?" I asked in disbelief. "That's kind of cool."
"There are usually no qualms in killing them either... They get rather mean. You'll need to watch yourself in their pens." She showed me where to get the feed and how to throw it out. "While they're eating go ahead and go into the coop like this and pick up the eggs..." Gloria got me started pointed me towards the turkeys next, and then went off with my mom.
I managed to make it through the chickens pretty easily and left the cartoned eggs where Gloria told me. I was more than a bit nervous as I went in to feed the turkeys. I could see there were about a dozen of them and started throwing out the feed the same way. That's when one of them charged me and I screamed!
Closing the pen right behind me I managed to get out just as it tried to peck me. "What was that?" I asked aloud.
I heard someone laughing behind me and found Gloria checking up on me.
"That would be George. He's a major pain in the rear, and he is destined to be on the plate at Thanksgiving. Most of the time I go in the pen I carry a shovel; it gives you something to whack him with if he decides to charge you."
The problem was I could barely hold the shovel and the feed, so she helped me find the handle from an old broom. "Go away George," I said to him as he tried to come at me again. Having something to push him back helped a lot! While I was feeding the turkeys, I also spied the peacocks for the first time. They were kind of pretty really, but I still had a major grudge against them for the way I woke up that morning!
Gloria had gone back to help my mom right after I finished so I took the feed buckets back to where they were kept and decided to go find Mom. I found her in a barn a little way away attaching some weird gizmo to a cow. "That looks weird," I said aloud.
"Yes, it does," Gloria said, surprising me again. "You finished with the poultry?"
I nodded, "What would you like me to do now?"
"Well, there's a limit to how much I can have an eight-year-old girl do," she told me.
"Oh," I said. "Well, what should I do now then?"
"You can watch, or if you want to pet the cows or something that's fine, but be careful. You are pretty tiny," she told me.
I blushed and said, "Okay..."
I spent the next hour hanging out with them while the two of them finished rotating the cows through the milking process. I even managed to build up some courage to go up to the animals and pet them a little. They didn't really seem to care about me one way or another though. When they finished up Mom and Gloria were just starting to wash down the milking shed when we heard, "Morning Gloria!"
Gloria just turned around briefly and kept working, "Hi Hank, how's it going?"
"It goes well. Who are these two lovely ladies?" He asked.
"Well, this is Amber, and the cute princess over there is her little sister Ashley."
"Pleased to meet you," he said with a tip of his hat.
I giggled - it was so much like a cliché movie.
"Hi, nice to meet you too," I said with a smile.
"What brings you ladies to the ranch?" He asked as he started helping to clean up.
"I'm working on finishing up a degree in agriculture, and my mom suggested we come stay with Aunt Gloria for a few weeks for some experience."
"So, Ashley's your sister?"
"Yep," she said and then stage whispered, "she was the oops child."
"I heard that!" I was laughing though, so everyone knew I thought it was funny too.
"And how old are you Ashley?" He asked.
I debated on my answer, but if Mom was sticking to the story I was too, "I'll be eight next week!" I noticed Mom nod to me like that was the right story to say.
"Wow, you're going to be all grown up before no time at all aren't you?"
I nodded.
"Hank do you have the rest of this in hand?" Gloria asked.
"Yes ma'am, I'm guessing you're going to go get ready for breakfast?"
"Yes sir, Consetta will have it on at eight, let the guys know please."
I nearly froze for a second, 'How many others work here?'
"Come on Ash," Mom said as she tried to reach for my hand.
I saw hers though and said, "Uh-uh, not until you wash them!"
Gloria laughed, "You are such a city girl!"
RAY LOOKED AT his watch impatiently. He was at a safe house that no one from the organization in Vermont knew existed. It was a place that he and his father had bought through other people fifteen years ago and kept it supplied for anytime they needed to keep their heads down, or have a quiet place to take care of business. He watched the long dirt road for a long time before he finally saw the dust cloud flying down the road to him. The rumbling engine of a diesel truck grew louder as he waited. The cabin was in the hills and not easy to get to. The nearest neighbors were two miles away, and that made it ideal for business.
As the black truck came to a stop, he opened the top of the bed cover and was satisfied to see two people gagged and bound. He wrinkled his nose at the smell though, one or both had soiled themselves on their two-hour trip out there. Trigger was the driver and he came around and shook his hand.
"You want some help getting them in there?" He asked, pointing towards the brick shed.
"Please," Ray said. "You turned your cell phone off when you came out here, right?"
"Of course, I ain't stupid – took the battery out too! These guys were also searched really carefully, those aren't the clothes they were wearing when we grabbed them."
"Good."
Both men stayed unconscious all the way until Ray had them both chained to the wall in the basement of the shed. It was a pretty impressive trick of architecture in that you wouldn't guess at there being a hiding hole underneath there. A good thousand square feet of space was available for whatever they needed. All of it was covered in an easy to clean tile like in a hospital.
"Where am I?" Craig was the first to wake up and speak.
"In Hell," Ray stated through his mask. Gloves and masks were the required attire for this kind of work to him.
"I didn't do nothin," he tried to say.
"You sure have a guilty conscience for someone that didn't do nothin," Ray responded. He held up the SD Card, "Remember this?" He had the satisfaction of watching Craig's eyes grow wide in disbelief. Apparently, he never had a clue he might be caught.
"So, my only real question, is who you are working for. I'm guessing the FBI...?"
Ray had no doubt it was for the FBI. The SD Card had been encrypted, but one of his men was an expert on breaking encryption. They'd been fortunate in that the encryption hadn't been the state of the art that should have been used. If it had been it would have been a different story right now... But as of right now he knew that he had been telling his supervisors about the next big drug shipment over the border, who was involved, where they stored everything, and enough details about the operation to get every man in Vermont's operation in jail for years. Ray wasn't mentioned, nor was his father, so he suspected they might not have known about those details.
"I don't work for the feds, what gave you that idea?" Craig laughed nervously.
"Well, your memos on this card to start with."
"If I put that on there, I'd be sure to make it to where no one could look at it. There's no way there's something like that you've found."
"If you had been competent, yes. But you used too light of an encryption, idiot. Good for me though, now I know what you were doing of course." For good measure he took the taser in hand and shot a barb the ten feet into him. It was a brief shock though, and it just caused Craig to cry out in pain.
"God, don't do that, I can't tell you anything!"
The other guy next to him started to wake up and Ray was certain it was going to be an interesting day.
ASHLEY PUT HER wet hair up into a towel like her mom had done for her the other day and went back into her room. She wasn't sure what she was going to wear, but knew that she was supposed to be down for breakfast in ten minutes. The idea that she'd woken up at 6:15am on her own without an alarm clock just seemed really weird. The fact she had then spent an hour outside feeding chickens and turkeys was like science fiction.
'I need to pick something to wear...' Ashley thought to herself. Apparently, all of the ranch hands would be downstairs for breakfast and would be meeting her. They had come to an unspoken consensus that they were sticking to the storyline no matter what... 'So, I need to look like a cute almost eight-year-old city girl...' She smirked at that.
She found the pink and blue plaid dress, which she had a matching one for Kaitlyn, and matched it with her pair of white sandals. Kaitlyn was quickly changed into the same dress with a pair of sandals that weren't quite the same, but close. She was just getting ready to try and figure out her hair when there was a knock at the door.
"Ashley?"
"Coming," I said and opened the door.
Mom smiled brightly as she looked at me. "Good choice, it'll help convince them you are who you say you are!" She paused and then added, "That and you look really adorable like that!"
I blushed. "Can you do my hair?"
"I thought you might need some help. Watch though, as I really want my sister to start doing her own hair!"
"Well, I can do the same boy pony-tail if you want..." I told her with a smile.
She stuck her tongue out at me and motioned for me to follow her across to her room. Mom used her hair dryer to dry my hair and quickly combed it to match the new style I shared with Kaitlyn. Mom hugged me, "Come on, let's go eat before the food is all gone!"
I saw why she was worried when we made it to the large dining room downstairs. Ten men and two ladies made up the rest of Gloria's hands in addition to Hank. All were digging into food from a buffet that another lady, Consetta, had cooked up. I put a little bit of eggs, bacon, and potatoes on my plate before asking, "what's this?"
"That's green chile sauce," Mom told me.
"Is it hot?" I asked.
"It's not too bad," Gloria said. I wasn't sure I trusted her though with the smirk she had on her face. "Try a little on your eggs."
I decided I was going to regret it, but I put a little bit on my eggs, not even a spoonful, and then sat down across from Hank and next to Gloria. When Mom sat down Gloria stood up.
"Everyone, we have two guests that are going to be staying with us for a few weeks. This is my great-niece Amber. She's finishing up her agriculture degree. Her mom suggested she come out here for a few weeks on an internship and so she's here!" She came and put both hands on my shoulders, "And this little princess is her sister Ashley. She's going to be feeding the chickens for us while she's here!"
I blushed a bit, but smiled and said, "Hi."
They all introduced themselves, but I couldn't keep track of their names. The two girls were Annie and Rachel. Both girls apparently had been working the ranch for years and I suddenly worried they would recognize Mom.
I wrinkled my nose a bit as I tried the eggs with the chile on it. I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted good! That was until my tongue started burning and I had to put it out with the Orange Juice. Gloria smirked at me and I gave her a dirty look back. I ate the rest of the eggs in answer to her unspoken challenge though.
Breakfast as a group was a pretty tame affair for the most part, and before I knew it everyone was done and heading off to do their jobs. "Would you like some help cleaning up?" I politely asked Consetta.
"Wow, you are a polite little lady aren't you mija?"
"Mi-haw?" I asked.
"Well, it means daughter, but we use it when we like sweet little girls," she explained.
"Oh, thank you!"
She handed me an apron, "We wouldn't want to get that pretty dress messed up, would we?"
I shook my head, "Nope!"
"Why don't you help by loading the dishes after I rinse them?" She suggested.
I showed her that I wasn't a clueless little girl and was able to load the dishwasher as she handed me the things and started it going. "Ashley?" I heard from the other room.
"Coming!" I said and walked into the dining room. Mom was sitting there talking to Gloria.
"I think you're being a little paranoid by keeping your story going, but I don't blame you. Everything you told me last night freezes my blood! You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to, but I would like you to talk to my friend Roger who's a lawyer."
"I don't know..."
"One way or another you're going to have to find some identification... maybe he can help you get your birth certificates changed?"
Mom sighed, "Yeah, I guess that'll be a good first step. I'm just scared senseless." I climbed onto the chair next to Mom.
"So, what now?" I asked.
"Well, you two ladies probably should go get you some good work boots. Your sister here is especially going to be working her tail off here. I think I have enough riding gear in both of your sizes so you won't need that. You might also want to go get some swimming suits to use in the swimming hole."
"Swimming?" I asked.
"Yes, I'm sure next week you're going to be spending a lot of time doing that too with Madison here. She loves the swimming hole."
"Do you think...?" I asked Mom.
"We'll figure something out sweetheart."
"Okay. And you said riding?" I paused, "Like on horses?"
"Yep! I think this afternoon before dinner would be a great time for you to get your first riding lesson!"
I couldn't deny that sounded really cool, "Cool!"
"Well, you two had better go if you're going to get back for lunch and then to talk to Roger."
"Are you sure you trust him?" Mom asked.
"I grew up with him and I've watched him over the years. He only takes cases on that are worthwhile, and I know he doesn't have a crooked bone in his body."
"I just hope you're right," Mom said quietly. We walked upstairs where Mom grabbed her purse and repeated the now familiar ritual of getting into the car.
"Let's go to town!" Mom said with a smile to me.
"POPS, THIS IS Raimondo," Ray said into the line, "are you secure?"
He knew his dad was checking his phone screen on the other line. "Secure."
Just because it was secure though, didn't mean this wouldn't be in the open. "What we discussed as a possibility of happening is real. A yellow bird was in the shipment instead of a blue one. I've spoken with the manager and they claim it'll be some time before they are able to ship a new one."
"That's too bad, well, you've done what you can. Did you find out why they shipped the wrong type?"
"A few excuses, nothing major."
"Well, why don't you head on back once you take care of your end there. We'll talk tomorrow at dinner."
"Sounds good Pops," Ray shut the phone off and looked up at the two men. Both had broken way easier than he would have expected. He almost wondered if they'd lied to him, but it didn't really matter. The area underneath them in the wall was going to have to be cleaned up, but he figured he'd get Trigger to do it. He could do that in exchange for the pleasure of finishing the two.
"Trigger, can you finish up with this mess?"
"Sure thing, boss. You want me to use the enzymes like last time?"
"Yeah, I don't like flesh and bones being available. It worked well last time."
"Sounds good to me boss, it's one-time TV almost got it right... wrong type of chemicals though," he said with a smirk. "They're still kicking down there for now?"
"Barely, I figured since I'm asking you to cleanup, I'd let you have the pleasure."
"Mighty thoughtful of you."
"I'm heading back into town to talk to Ryan. We're going to need to clean things up for a while up here."
"Sad to hear it, but I think that's smart."
"Yeah."
Ray drove off a few minutes later unconcerned that two men were about to die from the lethal dose of drugs they had with them. He and Trigger both preferred to kill with as little blood as possible. It was just about impossible to clean up some spills.
AGENT KLINE PICKED up the noisy phone on his desk, "Agent Kline... Oh hey Jake... What did you find?" He began scribbling some notes, "No one has seen them for a couple days?" He wrote a few more notes. "You think they ran? Or do you think he took care of them?" He put the pen in his mouth and chewed on the cap for a moment while he listened. "No, I agree Giovanni probably wouldn't let him hurt the boy either. The mom though..."
He talked to Jake for several minutes and decided that it would be in their best interests to quietly put out some feelers on her car, credit cards, and everything else. "Let me know what you find out."
He had just hung up the phone when a knock on his door alerted him to one of his other Agents, Kelly O'Hare, walking through the door. "Good afternoon sir, I thought you would need to look at this report right away..."
She handed over the folder and he began looking through it. "Son of a bitch!" He said allowed, "The kid must have gotten sloppy. Just a couple of days of Raimondo being up there and they identified our agent and his supervisor..."
"Are you sure of that sir?" She asked him.
"You never got a chance to work with Elliot I'm guessing... Elliot never missed a report, ever. If he's not reporting, and there's no communication, he was compromised. I think we should probably go ahead with a raid on the operation in Vermont now. Even if we can't get the family, we can at least get some of their material."
"Won't they be closing up shop?"
"Probably, but maybe we can beat them to it."
He immediately picked up the phone and dialed three agencies to assist in raiding the building in two hours. The toughest to get in place was the lead FBI SWAT team. They excelled at hits like this and he really wanted them there. Hopefully two more hours weren't enough to clean up!
MOM HAD DRIVEN us to a western store that Gloria recommended, and I couldn't help but feel like I was in some cliché novel the second we stepped inside. Mom seemed comfortable though as she walked amongst the racks of clothes, boots, and gear. We looked for a pair of boots for me first. She was sorely tempted by the pink ones that lit up like the shoes I had on earlier, but went for my preference of a pair that had brown leather on the bottom and pink up the top part. They had some pretty flowers tooled into the leather and a couple of glass rhinestones attached on the top that helped appease Mom's need for them to be girly. She also found a pink cowboy hat that I would definitely die if anyone who really knew me saw me wearing!
The store sold jeans too, but Mom decided Wal-Mart would be a better choice for that. We began looking for a pair of boots for Mom and I was amused that we ended up finding a pair that looked like mine almost, without the rhinestones. "If anyone asks, I want you to say that you made me pick these because they were like yours." Mom told me.
"Okay," I said. She found socks to go with the boots and some other things she was sure we would need before driving to the mall.
I was a bit surprised that Santa Fe would have a mall, since it felt kind of too old and small for that. She made a point of driving through the old part of town and promised we'd come shopping there sometime too. At the mall we found all of the normal stores and she headed straight towards a directory.
"Okay, Penney's will be first, but then I want to hit Children's Place too..." she said mostly to herself.
She was walking pretty quickly so I had to almost run to keep up with her. Once in Penney's she said, "Let's look at jeans first, that'll be the easiest thing. We each need three more pairs."
Mom and I looked in the girls' section first and found three pairs of blue jeans that were boot-cut style. She carried them with her while she searched for jeans in her sizes in the junior's department. Within five minutes we were both sharing a changing room stall.
"Come on sweetheart, don't be shy, I need you to try on all three pairs."
I made a point of not looking at my mom while she changed and quickly changed into the first pair. I figured out I could leave my dress on and just pull them on underneath. "This okay?"
Mom did the thing with the thumb on the waist and said, "Those will work! Next!"
"Okay, now for the tougher mission. Let's find you a swimsuit!"
I think she was just as nervous as I was about this one. I had been able to hide my extra part pretty well so far, but this was probably not going to work as well. Mom and I picked out two one-piece suits and two bikinis to try on.
"Well, let's try this one first," Mom said while holding out a pink one piece that had a shoulder strap only on one side with a ruffle flowing down. "Try pointing it down or something," she whispered to me as I tried it on.
I blushed bright red then.
"Can you see it?" I asked her.
She frowned, "Not much, but a little. Madison is supposedly pretty smart too... I guess you could wear a tight pair of panties on underneath..."
She had me try the others on too and had similar problems. That was when she saw the shorts next to the racks and had me try on a pair over the bottoms. "That'll work!"
"Won't she think it's weird though?"
Mom shook her head, "It's a style right now. I really wish this were like a few years ago when all of the suits had skirt attachments that would have been even easier. Oh well."
Mom ended up getting the two one-piece suits for me to emphasize I wasn't 'old enough' yet for a bikini. Mom also found a couple bikinis for her to have just in case. It was a quick check out and then we were on down the hall.
"Let's run by here really quick," Mom said towards Children's Place. She spent her frantic twenty minutes in there picking out outfits that were pretty cute, having me try them on, and then checking out.
"I think I have enough clothes now...?" I asked somewhat hopefully.
"Maybe..." Mom allowed.
"Maybe?!?"
The two of us headed out of the mall and into the car. "Leave the clothes other than the boots in the trunk for now," Mom said as we pulled up later at the ranch.
"Why?"
"I want to make sure that people don't see us carrying a bunch of bags inside like we had to buy new wardrobes. The hands all go home after six, and they won't know then."
"Oh," was my only response. Mom and I carried our boot boxes upstairs.
"Why don't you put on those socks and change into them?" Mom suggested.
"They don't really go with the dress... Do they?"
"Anywhere else? No, but here? Definitely!"
"Oh, okay..."
I put them on and immediately noticed that the boots had that heel I remembered being odd when I was trying them on. Now that I was walking it was even weirder. The two of us found our way downstairs and found Consetta in the kitchen.
"Well look at you!" She said to me, "Such pretty new boots!"
She looked at Mom and said, "And you too! Glad to see you match your daughter."
"Little sister," Mom tried correcting, but there was something in Consetta's gaze.
"I'm not going to say anything to anyone else, but even with your red hair I would recognize you Megan."
Mom looked petrified, and I was pretty sure my own face reflected that a little too. "I really need you not to say anything to anyone else. No one but Gloria can know we're here." Mom insisted.
"I won't say a word, but I wanted to let you know I knew so you could talk to me if you needed to."
Mom's eyes were wet and I could tell she was the same nervous wreck that I was.
Consetta moved in to her and said, "Mija, whatever you're running from I guarantee you're safe with us."
While Mom was wiping her eyes Consetta looked at me. "So, I'm assuming Ashley isn't your real name?"
I shook my head, and terrified by what she would say I just said, "It's Tony."
"Well that is a bit of a switch of names, isn't it. The jump to being a girl probably is more though?"
"Uhh..."
"How do you know about that one?" Mom asked in surprise.
"How could you forget the birth announcements you sent out?" She asked, "Gloria received one and she showed me. It took me a while to remember that though."
I just nodded.
Mom said simply, "I'll tell you more about it later, but we're running from my husband."
"He gave you that bruise that's starting to peek through your makeup?" She interrupted.
Mom nodded, "He's well... I didn't realize until I was married to him... the whole family is Mafia."
Consetta's eyes showed surprise for the first time. "So, you really are running."
Mom nodded, "If he finds us, he'll probably kill me. Ashley might get away with being beaten, but he might very well kill her too if he sees her in a dress."
Consetta shook her head at that and came over to give me a hug. "We aren't going to let that happen at all. So as far as anyone is concerned you are my adorable little princess helper in the kitchen who has her birthday next week on Tuesday when she'll be a big eight-year-old, and you," she said with a look towards Mom, "are a sweet grand-niece of Gloria's, and her older sister."
We both nodded.
"Now, you two get out of the kitchen before I put you to work." She said with a smile.
I gave Mom a hug and said, "She's awesome, and I know we can trust her!"
Then I turned back around and went back into the kitchen. "Can I help you with anything?" I asked and she smiled brightly back at me.
"HEY AGENT KLINE!" he heard as he walked up to the command post.
"Hey Jones, what's the word?"
"Well, I think we're probably pushing this operation with being underpowered, but any longer and I'm sure you'll lose whatever you're raiding."
"Definitely, if we haven't already. We know the agents disappeared sometime within the last fourteen hours, but it may have been earlier than that."
Agent Jones turned back towards his monitors and pressed on his radio. "All teams report!"
The five teams they had managed to crunch together all reported, including two snipers on the rooftops nearby. Agent Jones took a deep breath and said, "All teams go, all teams go for breach."
With that both agents watched the monitors as the feeds came in from the lead SWAT team they were linked to. As it was a dollar store, they were concerned about civilians. To try and mitigate casualties they had been counting for the last hour – making sure they knew how many were inside.
"We have all four civilians safe, and twenty-four suspects secured." A team commander reported in a short while later.
The drug dogs entered next to go through the warehouse behind the store. They searched every square inch for five hours before coming back and reporting to Agent Kline. "We found a couple guys with outstanding warrants, but even though the dogs indicated that there had been stuff there, the place was clean."
"Damnit! A year of hard work and we still don't have anything on them."
"Sorry sir," the agent stated.
"Not your fault. We were really trying to take the longer approach on this, but that didn't pay off this time. Any sign of our agents?"
"No sir, we are sending a team to triple check their apartments though."
"They won't find anything. Did you guys happen to have Raimondo Franchino or Ryan Franchino in there by chance?"
"No, neither of those suspects was present."
"Probably taking care of the move..." He sighed, "Back to the drawing board. Tell your men good work, it was a well-executed raid."
"Thank you, sir."
With that Agent Kline had to head back to headquarters to see what damage control could be done there. 'One thing is for sure, I doubt we ever find any signs of our two agents.'
TWO BLOCKS OVER Raimondo watched the takedown through a pair of binoculars from a hotel room. 'Just in time,' he thought to himself. An hour before the teams started showing up and forming up, he had all of the material smuggled out the front as normal purchases by innocent looking people. The half-ton of cocaine that had been being prepared for various shipments across the country took a lot of such trips, but laundry detergent bottles, boxes of diapers, and boxes of small appliances had worked out well for them. He had always felt a certain irony in the idea of laundering the drugs so to speak in the detergent bottles.
He knew he needed to report to his dad, "Hey Pops, scramble," with a confirmation that both phones were encrypted he said, "Just in time. I'm heading home."
A shorter transmission on something like this was always better. All in all, it had been a pretty good win for him; a mole, his supervisor, and no product loss. Yes, a few of his guys looked like they were being taken off somewhere for outstanding warrants, but they all understood Omerta. They wouldn't talk.
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