Chapter Ten

Ah, good. DEA Agent Darryl Watkins was glad to find that the coffee pot that was brought in to the meeting room was fresh, and likely very strong. He liked his coffee strong and black. After all, if you wanted a cup of cream and sugar then why were you getting coffee? He need a boost this evening to get through a long day that started with a briefing and was ending with an entirely different level of briefing. He didn't know all of the participants in this group, which worried him a little bit. But, at least he didn't have to speak at this one tonight, so he could just relax. He heard that somebody had just arrived from Washington DC at the Peoria airport in Bartonville and would be here shortly, but he wasn't sure who. He did not much like surprises and definitely not after hours. He took a slice of Hawaiian pizza with the most pineapple on it and took a seat at the small conference table in the center of the old classroom.

Information was still coming in from his boss in the Chicago office about the activities that he had spoken about to the law enforcement group. He had worked with Chief Halsey and his officers before during the many phases of Operation Snakebit. They were a professional bunch for a mid-size town downstate, with impressive facilities in their new Justice Center. They were up to the task of taking down their own bad apples in the county that were engaged in the small time of Meth cooking. It was basic leg work following tips and knocking on doors. It could be dangerous, he knew, and he gave them big props for knocking on the doors that they did where there could be armed bad guys behind them. It wasn't a glamorous job and it didn't pay what he and his colleagues got for the federal gig that they did every day. Of course, they got to go home to a nice house with warm clean beds while his small team was holed up low-key in the weekend vacancies in the Coal Miner's motel. He would get substantial grief from his team for that one. But, it was functional and didn't attract much attention from the locals and that was critical to their success in stopping the dope dealers that were the underbelly of this nice town.

I guess that is the reason for meeting in this old boarded up builded, Watkins thought as he looked around the classroom. The original furnishings had been taken out already, in preparation for tearing the whole thing down some day. He heard from Sheriff when they had driven by it today that the town was getting close to just tearing it down finally. A citizen's committee had formed to try to save the school, like they had saved the park across the street that a store had wanted to build on. This building was unsaveable, though. Insurmountable odds, given the laws and regulations and codes of 2013. Was that truly progress? Bulldozing a town's history was progress? Well, that was not his problem. He was in and out of this town over the years, and not totally invested in its history like Chief Halsey was. He counted the Chief as a friend, though, and could see the pain that it caused him.

Watkins slid his aircard into the slot on his laptop and started the application from the desktop icon. He checked the signal strength and was pleased to see several bars. He hadn't been sure that he would get a signal inside this massive brick structure, but there was a repeater tower at the stadium up the road and it was doing the job. He synced his email and read a few messages from his boss in Chicago, including several that had been forwarded on from headquarters in Washington. The DEA was facing cuts from the last budget impasse in the Capitol, and was under pressure to do more with less. The bad guys weren't facing budget cuts, and were expanding operations in his territory. How was he supposed to cut into that growth with the staff reductions that he had and resources dwindling? Maybe whoever was coming out tonight from Washington had news on that front. He could use some good news to give to his team.

Emails answered, Watkins took the opportunity to surf the internet a bit. Nothing inappropriate. He was an all business guy, and he knew that his laptop had keystroke monitoring software on it. It was an accountability feature of a government owned device issued to a leader in the field. He could be compromised in his line of work, and his bosses wanted to know about that sooner rather than later. There was big money floating around in the drug trade and agents in his position were not immune to temptation. More than one had flipped and begun providing cover for the importation of drugs into the USA. It could be lucrative to look the other way. But not Watkins. At least not yet.

Some web surfing was allowable though, as long as it was job related. Keeping abreast of news stories from the standard news aggregators was allowable. Darryl browsed his way through the top headlines of the day. There was more Congressional infighting over the budget and the debt limit. Default on the debt seemed to be a real possibility, the stories said, and that would certainly be a bad thing though he didn't think that would actually happen. There was a celebrity in drug trouble that was making a fool of herself, but when wasn't there. He saw a story about China meeting with the BRICS nations to discuss America's debt and the possibility of establishing a new currency between them. He read down the article to see who BRICS was. Oh, yeah. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Well, that was a formidable group of adversaries. If they got some traction against us, that would be trouble certainly. But, they weren't the major players in the drug war, and not on his radar screen, so he moved on. There was an article about what court cases the Supreme Court might take up when they resumed deliberations next month in October. Four more service men had been killed in Afghanistan by an Afghan police officer they had trained that had turned on them. Why did we still have men in Afghanistan, he wondered? That war would never be “won” in the traditional sense, and they would return to savagery five minutes after our troops left. What had we gained there? The stories from the MidEast were not positive, as the Arab Spring had seemed to turn to a radical Winter.

That's enough bad news for now, he thought, and Watkins was shutting down his laptop when he heard voices coming down the hall. Late, but at least they could get started now. He was surprised to see two military officers walk in the door ahead of taller man in a dark suit. “Stay seated”, said the suit – who seemed to be in charge of the group. The three of them followed suit on getting coffee and a slices of the cooling pizza, and shook hands with Watkins as they found places at the table. They wouldn't need a projector or a whiteboard for a presentation, and there would be no PowerPoint slides tonight. This was an informal meeting of a small influential group. There would be no records of the meeting either, as there was no one inclined to take notes.

“Well, alright then. I guess I'll set the agenda for our discussion here tonight”, said the man in the suit. “I'm Colonel Skip Breen, US Army retired. I wish that I was actually retired on a late night like this and on the road at that. My present role is with the Department of Homeland Security. I work for the Undersecretary of Domestic Terrorism Preparedness and I am here tonight in Pekin, Illinois in that capacity. I will let the two uniformed gentlemen here introduce themselves, and then I can lay out for you why I am here.”

“I am General Jesse Rogers, and I have been the Commander of the Air National Guard units in Peoria and Springfield – recently appointed by the Governor of our fine state of Illinois. This is my temporary Executive Officer Major Brad Long, who is just back from our unit's deployment to provide airlift capacity in Afghanistan. We were requested to meet the Colonel here on his arrival at the airport and accompany him here tonight. I must say that we are most eager to hear what our possible involvement might be in a domestic criminal investigation. Unless we are called out by the Governor in a statewide emergency, I believe our role is confined to military applications as deployed overseas. Tell me that I am wrong.”

Three sets of eyes looked over at the agent in the windbreaker. “I am agent Darryl Watkins of the DEA. I have worked here in Pekin on several occasions assisting the local constabulary in their attempts to take down the Meth trade that is based here in service to the Peoria market through what they call Operation Snakebit. I met with the Sheriff a few hours ago to brief them on an escalation of operations in light of recent activities of the Porta Cinca Cartel in establishing a Chicago base. Our informants have tipped us that the cartel, which deals in Meth in addition to cocaine, has decided to see if their business model – if I can call it that – will “Play in Peoria” as the old saying goes. We need to jack up our efforts into the big leagues if the cartel is coming here as I think that they are.”

“Agent Watkins, you are on to something there and I commend you for being out in front of it. But they didn't tell you the whole story, and that is why I am here.” Colonel Breen slid a package of photos across the desk for agent Watkins to look at and to pass on to the National Guard officers. Eyebrows were going up. “The National Security Agency has presented evidence to our office based on cell phone intercepts from the Chicago area that indicate that the cartel did not come to Chicago alone. Oh no. They have even badder guys in tow. In addition to cocaine and Meth, the Porta Cinca Cartel is now trafficking in al-Qaida operatives into the MidWest. And they are coming here too. We have a credible threat of a terrorist attack in Illinois to be executed within the next week. I'm afraid that I know how that will “Play in Peoria”, as you aptly put it, and we are as the tip of a spear that is coming to stop it. We will need airlift capacity in support of that effort, General Rogers, and the Governor is being briefed as we speak and will provide the necessary orders for you to participate legally. Now, let's get to the plan.”

**********

Gus eyed the fading sun as he drove into Peoria after leaving Carlo at the gun range. Man, he thought, that had been a disturbing conversation with Carlo back there, though it was good to spend time with him and fun to shoot his guns again. How did Carlo get from where he knew him in school to the point where he was so pessimistic about the future of the country? Wow. He was really taking those things seriously. Too seriously. It was unhealthy to have those obsessions.

If he hurried, Gus had about a half hour left of Golden Hour sun, so he hurried down to the Warehouse District for an aspenglow shot of the low sun off of the red brick of these well-crafted buildings. He had a new photo editing app on his Droid phone, and was getting addicted to the quick post-shot editing that he could do from his phone, and then post them in the app. He had a growing gallery on InstaPic, and took a few shots with his phone that he would process later back in the motel. He also had his Canon T3i SLR camera slung around his neck and was looking forward to getting to work with it more extensively this week than he usually had a chance to. He wasn't as proficient with this camera, but he immediately appreciated the sharpness of image that the glass of the Canon lens was giving him.

Gus was playing with his polarizer filter on the end of the lens, rotating it to cut glare off of the windows to catch the sun's reflection just right in the lower windows of the building across the street as the light was fading. He was too close, he realized for the lens that he had on the camera, and did not have time to change the lens on the bayonet mount. He stepped up into the doorway of the building behind him and framed the whole building with room to crop it, and clicked his last frame as the sun dipped down below the horizon and glow faded from the building. Done, he thought. Most people would have kept shooting, but Gus had been doing this long enough to know that the interesting shot, if he had gotten one, was already gotten. The light was gone. Walk away.

As he started to step back out on the sidewalk, he heard a loud rumble echo off of the building across the street and stopped where he was in the doorway. Peering out, he saw three low-slung vehicles in military camoflauge paint rolling slowly in formation up Washington Street toward Peoria. Instinctively, he wanted to get a shot of them. He knew that the Canon would protrude out from the doorway stoop and he might be seen, so he surreptitiously grabbed his Droid out it's holster. It was still on, and in camera mode, and he hit the shutter button on the touchscreen to catch a quick picture. Dang, it was blurry. Right then the vehicle group stopped, and four military troops jumped out. They ran into an abandoned building and dragged out two guys in cuffs, threw them into the Humvees, and went on their way. Gus had kept snapping from his hidden perch, but didn't stay there to find out what he had captured.

Once safely back at the motel, Gus scrolled through his phone gallery to see what he had gotten. Most of it was un-useable in that low light, and he deleted them as he scrolled. Ah, there is one clear image. It showed the three vehicles, with some kind of decal that he couldn't read, and the four men stuffing the handcuffed men into the vehicles. Gus was startled. He had shot a lot of pictures in downtown Peoria, and had never seen anything like that. What should he do with this image? Would it get him in trouble? It was late, and he did the only thing that he could think of to do. He booted up his laptop, downloaded the image from his phone to the computer, opened Facebook, and attached the photo to a short Direct Message to his old Air Force buddy Robert Ellison – who was a thirty year man still serving and stationed in Southern California.

Had Robert seen vehicles like that in the Air Force, Gus wondered? He was too tired to think about it any further. He looked at his swollen tattoo in the motel room mirror, read the verse banner and sighed, and laid down on the thin mattress to get some sleep.