Yet another agent, who had flown in to Oakland to help out only this very evening asked, “Tell me more about the other side.”
Her patience wearing thin, Sandra began. “Someone is working with or through the Chinese to smuggle in drugs inside the grape juice containers. We don’t know if the Chinese government is aware of this. We have identified an ex-Yakuza named Shindo who seems to be at the center of this. The records we got out of Fresno show this to probably be one of the biggest drug smuggling operations in US history. Apparently, the drug smuggling side has a small army, and these other guys, who have compromised the Department of Homeland Security, are in a money dispute with the Chinese. Heck we just found out that they are also in the ports of Long Beach and Galveston! So, one of you geniuses needs to get on the horn to the State Department right now and brief them on a potentially huge diplomatic crisis. Another one of you knuckleheads has got to prepare a briefing for, guess who, the Director of the FBI! And Derek you damn well better be talking to the Director of the CIA about this. Our bosses are going to probably be briefing the White House before the sun rises this morning, which, in Washington, is about 3 hours from now! Oh, and by the way, another one of you better be thinking about getting several FBI SWAT teams in here to brief them in preparation for a small urban war, which could start at any moment. We also don’t know how deep some these guys have penetrated into the Department of Homeland Security, so, you guessed it, we can’t alert them!” Taking a deep breath, she added, “If these guys have penetrated the Department of Homeland Security, then they probably have penetrated the local police departments. We can’t inform the local police until we know more.”
Looking over at Alex, “I know that you are tired, but we have got to get back in with these people right away. Did they return your cell phone?”
“Yes, and my guns. Do you want me to program a series of panic buttons?”
“Absolutely. We may also need to activate a protocol we never had to, or wanted to use before.”
That got everyone’s attention; they knew what was coming.
“Alex, on my word, you need to be prepared to kill your contacts without provocation.”
Derek’s jaw dropped. “You mean execution!”
Her patience was now totally gone. “No, you dumb*%$, we may need to save lives.
We might be at a point where we have to stop these people cold. It is likely that Alex will be in situation where it will not be possible for him to arrest or hold these people. He may only have one option left. I will take full responsibility for the consequences of my orders.”
Shindo sat on a folding chair inside the steel building next to the helipad while he waited for the flight crew to prepare the Bell 430 helicopter. Next to him sat a short square framed man with jet-black close-cropped hair. “Grainger is trying to extort us into paying their new higher fee. If we pay these new fees, whose to stop him from raising them again? He is threatening to destroy our next shipment of goods. Jorge, I think they are bluffing, but if not, I need you to mobilize our assets to protect our goods. We have another container ship coming in tomorrow night.”
Jorge looked up at the marine layer that blocked the stars but reflected the city lights. “It looks like you have good flying weather this morning, that marine cloud layer looks to be at about 2,000 feet. Why do you think that Grainger is doing this?”
“Someone tipped him off on how much money we are making. He is getting greedy.
They all do, eventually.” Continued ...