Chapter 15


Garcia came walking up the driveway with two sacks in his hands. He held one up for Calvin who took a quick sniff of the air around the bag and then gestured to have it taken away, preferably by a hazmat team. Garcia laughed, "come on bro, you don't know good eating when you see it."

"Seeing isn't the problem," Cal then took a step away from his fellow agent and waved for him to leave.

Garcia ignored him and then motioned to the Deputy Marshall who was busy with some box on the side of the house, "what is he doing?"

"I have no clue," Cal told him.

Jake on the other hand replied, "you know I am standing in earshot."

Cal just shrugged, "you looked busy."

Jake dropped the metal cover back over the box and walked back to his men. He began sniffing and then mumbled, "must be another one of those armored things." After that he picked up the volume as he began wiping the dust off his hands, "you guys set a new record for primitive on this rock. I don't think I've ever seen a security system like that one outside of a museum."

As Jake walked around to the front of the house, with his guys in tow, he decided to give up on explaining the finer points of home security systems. It was pretty clear that the one he had just finished inspecting could have been disarmed by anyone with a minimal level of training. He walked past the busted front door and stopped in a position where he could see most of the lower floor.

Then Jake gave his synopsis, "this place has been like grand central station today."

Garcia actually laughed and then nodded to the broken front door. He sarcastically commented, "don't know what would give you that idea."

Jake was not amused, "those doors, the front and the back, were taken off by steel battering rams." When Jake just got a couple of shrugs he pointed out, "well if you're going to come in that way there really isn't much point in disabling the security system. Everybody in the whole neighborhood is going to hear you coming. You don't need an alarm to wake everybody up. Besides that, anybody that does that doesn't care if everybody knows they're here and, who does that?"

"Cops," Garcia replied.

Cal corrected him, "I was thinking more like the Wehrmacht."

"Exactly," Jake said as he pointed to Cal. Then he pointed up, "and whoever came in upstairs was a whole different crew. They're the ones who cut the security alarm off. Since the door breech didn't set off any alarm that means the upstairs guys were here first."

Garcia finally set down his take out food and then he commented, "this Sally chick is a popular girl."

"Oh it gets even better than that," Jake replied. He pointed to a banister rail between the kitchen and dinning room, "somebody was handcuffed to that pole. From the looks of the scrapes it was probably all morning. I'm guessing he came in after the Germans and that means we got two other sets of visitors."

Cal assumed a thoughtful pose before stating, "I'm not following."

Jake just shrugged, "somebody had to cuff him to the pole and he obviously couldn't get loose. He was blindfolded and gagged too."

Garcia was becoming skeptical, "now how can you know that?" After the look he got back from Jake, the agent back pedaled a little by adding, "sir."

Jake just shook his head and then pointed to the floor, "cause the duct tape is sitting right over there genius."

Now Cal was getting it, "which means somebody else had to come in and cut him loose." Cal sighed and then went on, "this leaves us with one tiny little problem deputy. The only home wreckers we've been able to identify, so far, are the ones we can't do anything about. You hit the nail on the head when you figured that Horst and his boys don't care if anyone knew they were here. They don't care because there isn't anything we can do about it."

"Unfortunately Agent Brandt," Jake replied. "Our German buddies may be the least of our problems right now." Both men waited for Jake to continue so he just said it, "whoever came in upstairs knew more about what they were doing than the Wehrmacht goon squad." It still did not seem to penetrate so Jake spelled it out, "your typical infantry grunt is a bulldozer. He goes right at the target with all the power he's got. It's as messy as that front door. A special ops unit is another matter."

Cal felt a shiver run up his spine, "so what you're trying to tell me is that whoever came here first was…"

"Special Forces," Jake replied.

Garcia's mouth dropped open and then he said, "we got a new player in town." Then he got angry because there was nothing else he could do. Then he went into denial and said, "that doesn't make any sense. What did you say this girl was, Cal? A fucking receptionist? What would some roger ramjet green berets want to go jacking up a glorified secretary for?"

Jake took another look around the home. There were some pretty nice things in here and that was not even counting the house itself. That sent him back up stairs to the bedroom where he began browsing around the room. Jake noticed that only Cal followed him this time. When Jake found some pictures on a shelf he handed one of them too Cal and said, "well there's the connection we already knew about."

It was a picture of five girls at some bar. One of them was most obviously Danni. Cal put it back on the shelf and just silently watched the new boss. The man was just staring silently at yet another picture. Just before Cal was going to ask him, he volunteered the information and tossed the other picture over, "I think that answers the question of how she paid for this place."

This picture only had two people in it, if you did not count the guy in the giant chipmunk suit. It was a young blond headed girl and some middle aged guy. Cal actually recognized where the picture was taken. It was at a resort about three islands over. Cal actually laughed when he thought of it. When he got a look from Jake he said, "oh it's nothing. I just always told my wife I was going to take her to this place one day."

Jake raised a brow, "I thought you lived in the barracks?"

"I do," Cal replied as he put the picture back up, "divorced." Then he volunteered, "probably because I never actually got around to taking her there."

Now Jake had his thinking face back on, "what do you want to bet the guy in that picture is her boss. Didn't you say she worked for some doctor?"

"Yeah," Cal nodded, "one of the top plastic surgeons on the island too." That struck a note with Jake but Cal was not sure why, "I've never heard anything about Cashton being dirty. What are you thinking?"

Jake just shrugged, "I don't know. We don't have a lot here to go on. It's just that this doctor guy has enough money to have a wife and a girlfriend, at least I'm assuming he's married. I know that Nguyen kept saying, back in the hospital, that Sally called her but, it didn't sound like Sally was the one who wanted to do the talking."

Now Cal was a bit befuddled, "to Cashton?"

Again Jake just shrugged, "maybe he got in some trouble. His girlfriend knows a cop and so he gets this Sally to hook them up."

Cal just shook his head, "and this brings down the green berets and the SS goon squad? I don't know deputy. That sounds pretty ridiculous."

"The problem here is," Jake told him, "we don't know everything so sure it's going to look ridiculous. Look at it from the point of view of what we do know. Somebody shot Nguyen and it's looking more and more like it was because she stumbled into something. Whatever that something is, has caught the attention of the Germans and, I can assure you, guys like Horst don't get theirs hands dirty unless they're getting some serious goodies out of it."

"So it's big," Cal added. He just shrugged, "so what? That doesn't help us very much."

"Yeah it does," Jake replied. "For one thing it narrows down our list of suspects. The only people who are playing in this ball court are pros and there aren't that many of them around. We also know," he pointed to the broken window, "that they all want this Sally pretty bad. That gives us an advantage because they don't know where she is ether."

"Now wait a minute," Cal came back with. "How do you know she isn't already fish food. You're the one saying we're dealing with some kind of military black ops unit. How good is a secretary going to do against that," as an afterthought he added, "and Horst too, while we're at it."

"Not much of one but," Jake replied, "you see this nice expensive house this girl's got. I guess she must have an expensive car to go with it. What kind was it?"

"How should I know?" Cal thought about it and with some agitation he said in an almost accusing tone, "wait a minute the drive way is empty. How would you even kn…" Suddenly it hit Cal and he saw Jakes face light up when it did. Cal let out a short laugh and said, "she wasn't home."

Jake nodded in appreciation and then said, "and the logical place to check next is her job."

Cal bowed in an appreciative way and gestured to the stairs, "after you sir."

When they reached the front door they found Garcia standing in the splinters of wood and looking out. He pointed to the curb and asked Jake, "friends of yours?"

Jake let a silent but audible, "oh crap." Then he walked on out to meet Frank Moss who was standing with two other black suited men with sun glasses. Moss actually took his shades off when Jake stopped in front of him. In an easy and friendly kind of way, Moss commented, "well you've had a busy first day, Major."

Jake got right to it, "is there a point to this little visit, Moss? Did Whitman forget to have me sign some papers or something?"

"Actually Jake," Moss replied, "I'm here to keep you out of trouble. It seems we might have a little scandal brewing and Consul Whitman has ordered me to come and save your ass. It just wouldn't look good for the United States if our newest treaty guy winds up in hot water when he hasn't even presented his credentials yet."

Jake sized up the right and left hand man. Then he asked the simple question, "and if I say no?"

"You won't Jake," Moss replied. "I think you're going to want to see what I have to show you."