Chapter 41 - Traitors I

   I've been here before, and more than once. Big case. You're over the hump. Its downhill now, and picking up steam. Everything is finally working. Do you know every last little thing? No. But, enough. You feel it. Whatever comes up you don't have nailed down yet? You can just handle it. Momentum is on your side. The good guys, are finally winning.

   But I've been here before, and I'm here now to tell you and this is the voice of experience. You will get surprises. You don't expect surprises that big, but hey. That's why they call them surprises, go figure.

   The big surprise day? Never starts out like anything is amiss. We're on the down slope. We have the hit team tagged and released. We're basically just keeping an idle eye on them. I mean, if they disappear and we missed it? Not a big deal. The GPS on their boat will transmit a signal that JG can follow from anywhere, on a computer. As long as the navigation lights are on. And, their cell phones. They can be traced. Vladimir is likely right. Because who else but a Russian, is qualified to say he thinks its a Russian accent. And even if he's wrong about a Moscow accent? Okay, its somewhere else nearby in Russia.

   We're not getting lazy. But things are in our favor now, and we're enjoying predictability finally. And, that's when surprise hits you.

   Panic and Junior, are taking turns keeping a loose eye from afar on our favorite hit team couple, and... oh. They're getting a visitor. Hey, document. Might be interesting, but could also be no big deal. I'm sitting nearby? I can hear something in his voice.

   "Junior?"

   "Yeah."

   "Getting a visitor, it looks like."

   "Okay. Let me see."

   "Junior?"

   "Yeah..."

   "Just, brace yourself for this."

   "What the---"

   Junior stopped short, in mid-sentence.

   Panic finished it for him.

   "Hell, Junior. What the... hell."

   "But... what, I mean..."

   "Told you to brace yourself."

   "Maybe? You undersold that one, potato-nigger."

   "Maybe I did."

   Now I'm curious as all holy hell.

   "Let me see."

   Panic sighed.

   "Merry? Honestly. You... might not want to see this."

   "How bad could it be."

   I moved to look through the high powered binoculars on a tripod.

   Panic put his palm gently on my abdomen.

   "I warned you. Look? At your own risk. To your sanity."

   With a build up like that, I got to look now... and? Yeah. I felt like I got kicked in the gut. Hard. By someone that knew how to put the steel toe of their work boot right where it freezes and drops you.

   "But... it..."

   "Welcome to hell, Merry. Me and JG? Will be your tour guide."

   Like a train wreck? I can't look away. It just can't be, but it sure is.

   My handler. Uncle Mike? He's on that boat. He's not arresting anyone. He's sitting down, drinking something out of a glass, talking and it looks to be quite amiable. They're exchanging pleasantries, it would seem.

   Junior asked the obvious.

   "The hell do we even do now."

   Panic calculated out loud.

   "Junior, is the only FBI agent here. He's out of his jurisdiction. We can't get Bermuda detectives to arrest him. He's not breaking any laws, meeting people."

   Junior asked again.

   "So? What do we do."

   Panic reiterated and expanded.

   "Nothing. We do? Absolutely nothing. We can't. Just... anything we do? That's later. If these ass clowns met anyone else? We'd do nothing, and stick to our plan. When you don't know exactly what to do? Do nothing. You run the risk of fucking things up, if you do something just to be doing something. If we even can do anything? That comes later. If? At all."

   Naturally, we sat around trying to come up with something that made this legitimate. But, that's a tough sell. He's having a very pleasant meeting, with the two people that think they just killed Francois and his wife. Unless he's working them, to get to their paymaster? But, the hell is Mike going to do in Russia. Which is where we think this is headed.

   I feel like a little over the last ten years of my life? Has just gotten flushed down the toilet.

   This guy, is one of the most important people in my life. He's one of the greatest people I even know. I can try to swallow rationalizing him being the contact for General Suarez to run someone's jacket. I could maybe, and that's just maybe... do the same thing here. But, not both together.

   Mike? Goes back to the beginning. He's.. trusted family. I don't call him Uncle Mikey, as much of a joke. Our history is playing like a montage in my head, at high speed. This is the guy. Wizzy called in all his former MP buddies. Hey, got this huge case. Big plum. Got the inside track. They all jumped in. Worked it on their own time, over a year, then...

   Target, the FBI former MP. He brings in this guy one day. This, Mike guy. To... legitimize the case. Take it from personal, to official. Coordinated across all the agencies and jurisdictions.

   He kept coming back, to see me. After Wizzy was blown into my eyes and mouth, and I was shattered. A cold hardened crime victim survivor, that ended up a functional sociopath out of the experience. He asked me, over time. Did I want to make a difference, then maybe... FBI. Then? He pitched me. Go undercover. Special academy. Longer. I did it.

   He hunted dirty FBI agents, and he used my special unique hatred of dirty cops... as an asset. It turned into the Dirty Dozen case, because the dirty FBI agents he finally got onto? Were in bed with the city DC police, and... that whole thing blew wide open.

   It morphed smoothly? On my idea now, into me being a biker girl. The bikers trusted a girl that was hunted by dirty cops, and her boyfriend had greased a dirty fed. Then? I got some, but... Panic put them all on my tab, when he lured 16 dirty DC cops come to get me, and... my reputation with the bikers? Went through the roof. It kicked me and Mike's eavesdropping operation into high gear.

   He helped, when I had to get the felons in on the conspiracy for Wizzy's murder. They were released? And glad I was thinking of revenge, because watching them enabled us to get the drop on them. Gunning for Little Lightning. He mopped up that case at the end, too.

   He... just can't be... but how many more of these do I have to see and know, before I admit it. As good as Mike is to me, and Panic too. He's... something very dirty. Which is weird, because he's done so much good in his career at the FBI, I just can't believe this.

   I'm disgusted. I feel like I'm going to puke. I hold my cookies, though. Hell, I'd probably feel better, if I had let myself toss instead of biting down.

   What did Joan and Napoleon tell me. Its right in front of your face, you just don't see it. Joan doesn't hardly speak, but... she kept touching her right eye. Look, and see. Mike might be the big leak everyone is sure is there somewhere? And even if he's not, then he's something far far worse than a leak. Christ. Uncle Mike? Is in line to be the next big assistant director? And that's a very short list. That's how competent his resume and reputation is. He made a living? Of volunteering to handle every radioactive shit-storm that came along, that everyone else was afraid of. Career stalling and career ending situations? He walks in, handles things, and scoots. He's a legend for it.

   I feel so shocked and numb? I probably can't and therefore won't.. cry.

   Junior and Panic recovered. The digital binoculars were used to snap some pictures that we reviewed later. The smiling, cordial faces. The easy going poses. Mike handing over a large manila envelope, and them peeking in, and okaying the contents. The handshakes and waving for good bye's.

   Is he paying them off? Helping them with documentation, travel plans, what. Who knows.