Chapter 2
“Help you?” the front desk Sargeant asked Jason as he stepped up to the tall desk in the middle of the room.
“I’m looking for Detective Kevin Lassiter, please.”
“Let me see if he’s in,” the man said, and Jason waited. When the Sargeant hung up he nodded and pointed to a set of stairs. “Up the stairs, the bull pen on the left.”
“Thank you,” Jason nodded, and followed the directions. When he entered, he was again assaulted with memories from his earlier years, but shook his head to dispel them.
“Help you?” a man just inside the door asked.
“Detective Lassiter?”
“Over there, guy in the pale blue shirt, blue tie.”
“Thank you,” Jason said, then wove his way through the desks, and when he stood before the other man’s desk, it took several moments before he looked up. When he did, he scowled.
“Help you?”
“Are you Detective Kevin Lassiter?”
“I am, who are you?”
“I’m Jason Bla…” before he could even finish, Kevin jumped to his feet and had Jason follow him.
They went into a room that the police stood in while watching an interrogation.
“Sorry about that, as far as I know, no one here knows why you’re here.
Have you talked with Hank Patterson with Brotherhood Protectors lately? ”
“Not for at least a week. Have there been any new developments?”
“Not that I’m aware of, I’m assuming you’re here because you want to meet and talk with Ilsa Miller?”
“Yes. Eventually, I’ll also want to talk with a Miss Katherine Miller.”
“Yeah, I figured that. She’s not here, but I know where she is, and she’s safe. Eventually, I’ll take you to her. As I said no one here knows anything, and I didn’t know whether you wanted them to know or not.”
“Let me ask you this, how often does this office, or you in particular work with the FBI?”
“Not often. I’m a homicide detective, and have been with Seattle PD for twenty years. I can count on one hand how many times they’ve come here. They have an office here in Seattle, but it’s on the other side of town, and as far as I know, they do their thing, we do ours.”
“Okay, keeping city and federal apart. I like that. If you don’t mind, will you be helping Mrs. Miller and myself with this investigation?”
“I would like to. I’ll be honest here, Mr. Black.
Ilsa’s been living in my house with me for the last month or so.
You are more than welcome to join us, there is plenty of room.
I’m not one to tell you what to do, or how to do your job, but I thought that if we were all in the same location, then it won’t bring suspicions on us with the comings and goings of you and Ilsa. ”
“Your family won’t be upset about us intruding?”
“No. My ex-wife is in jail for the next eighteen to twenty years, and my son is living in a different state. I don’t know if I should tell you this now, or wait until we get to my place.”
“What’s that?”
“My son, Caleb, is protecting Katherine as best he can, but there are several other people in this location that have her back also. You know them. If not personally, then you know of them.”
“Who?” Jason asked in confused shock.
“What I’m about to say is all I know, just three words. I know nothing else about it. I’m intrigued, sure, but I know nothing.”
“Now I’m intrigued. What are the three words?”
“Operation Gold Rush.”
“Holy shit, are you telling me the men that did that mission have Miss Miller’s back?”
“Yes.”
“Damn, then I know she’s safe, that’s a relief.”
“Good, because also with them is a former FBI agent, I’ve done a background check on him and he’s the one that reached, indirectly, to Patterson. He said he also talked with you briefly.”
“Who?”
“Duane Manchester.”
“Ah, I remember him, good guy, so he’s wherever the others are now?”
“Yes, and I don’t know how much help he’ll be because he retired almost a year ago. You’ll have to get the entire story from him, but when his director decided to retire, it was the new director that started telling him he would ride a desk, and he would have to give up undercover work.”
“How old was he?”
“Mid-forties. He still had ten years left if he wanted to age out.”
“Had he met the new director before?”
“Only once, that’s why he was confused.”
“About?”
They paused when the door opened and another detective walked in on them. “Oh, sorry.” He nodded to the one-way glass and Jason and Kevin turned to see two police officers bring a suspect into the room behind the glass and attached his handcuffs to the bar on the table.
“We’re leaving,” Kevin said, and looked at Jason. “Can you stick around while I talk with my boss?”
“Is he a reasonable man?”
“I like to think so, why?”
“Why don’t I go with you and see if you can’t get some time off so you can help with this investigation. I’m not being a hard-ass, but if we need to jump on something, then I wouldn’t want to wait for you to get home from work to do it.”
“I understand. I did tell my Captain that I had something coming up that I might need to take time off for.”
“Good.” They walked to the captain’s office, and Kevin knocked on the doorjamb.
“Got a second, Captain?” Kevin asked when the older man invited him in. He walked in ahead of Jason, then shut the door behind them.
“Okay,” the Captain said. “What’s going on, Lassiter?”
“Sir, I need to request some time off, immediately, and indefinitely.”
“May I ask why?”
“Sir,” Jason spoke then. He had reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out his credentials and passed them to the older man.
“My name is Jason Black, I wear two hats, one, I’m a lawyer with the DOD out of Washington, DC.
Two, I’m a federal prosecutor. There are several of us out there, but no one is higher than I am.
” He withdrew a piece of paper and nodded as he handed it over.
“This is a letter from the President of the United States giving me permission to do what I need to do.”
He stopped talking as the Captain read the letter, and passed it back with his brows raised. “Can you tell me what case you’re prosecuting, and how my detective is involved?”
Jason drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m about to take down one branch of the FBI, or at least half of the members of that office. I don’t know how big this is, or how wide. I need Mr. Lassiter to be my run around man to gather information if I need it.”
“Sir,” Kevin said as he nodded to Jason. “Remember when I went to Colorado for my brother-in-law’s wedding, but I returned earlier than planned?”
“Yes, you said you’d tell me why when the time came.” He looked between the two man standing before him. “Shit, you’re telling me the time has come.”
“Yes, see when I went to Colorado, there was a young woman there, she was on the run from her step-father and his boss. Without getting into great detail, the boss is a Director of the narcotics division in the Los Angeles branch of the FBI. His son was dating a girl, an accident occurred, the girl was tried for murder, but she was exonerated of all charges.”
“Holy shit, that’s huge.”
“Yes,” Jason took up the tail. “It’s my understanding that during this girl’s trial, some evidence was put into court that clearly pointed fingers at someone else.
That someone else was charged for the same crimes, and he was found guilty in a court of law.
He was also sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. ”
“Oh, wow, but that’s not that unusual.”
“No, however, the gentleman that had done the accusing of the girl, then later was tried and convicted is the son of the FBI director of narcotics out of the Los Angeles office.” Jason shook his head and gratefully accepted the bottle of water from Kevin, they settled in the seats, and he continued, “After the sentencing of the young man, the father showed up at the girl’s house.
He went there to get the girl’s step-father, who happens to be one of the people that work for him in the FBI. ”
“Why were they going after the girl? She was exonerated, her case was closed.”
“Correct, they can never try her again, however, the director was out for blood. It scared the girl’s mother so much that she had set up plans to get her daughter out of Los Angeles and to safety.
I have no idea what transpired. I only know that she’s safe now, and I have a heavily redacted copy of both trials.
The girl’s mother is a lawyer, and her boss was the one to represent the girl.
The boss was the one to get her out of town.
Now, I am led to believe that the girl is safe, however, I’m here to get the original case files. ”
“Why here? Why not Los Angeles? Also, where is the son imprisoned?””
“Because the mother has been staying in my home for the last six weeks,” Kevin said. “The son is in a maximum security prison. I believe, but don’t quote me, but I believe he’s in Victorville.”
“Holy shit, that’s bad. What were his charges again?”
“Attempted murder, and murder. Along with some other minor charges, but those two were what sent him away for life.”
“And the girl’s mother is in your home?”
“Yes, when I went to Ryan’s wedding some things were uncovered and it was in the works to get Mr. Black here to prosecute. I went to find the mother and brought her to my home.”
“Out of the line of fire?”
“Correct, and she has all the original, unredacted files.”
“And you need those, Mr. Black?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a minute,” the Captain said as he swung to his computer, tapped the keys, and in three minutes he looked over at Kevin with a nod.
“I’m not saying this to be mean, but with all the overtime you clocked in when you were still married, your current vacation, and PTO time, I can give you six months. ”
“Really?”
“Yes, because your anniversary date was last month, you’ve completed twenty-two years, you’re now eligible for six weeks of vacation a year. Do you have any open cases?”
“No, I’ve just been researching cold cases the last week. All my paperwork is caught up, and I’m not up for rotation for being on-call until Monday.”
“Well, then today is your lucky day. You can leave now, take your six months, if you need more let me know. Also,” he said as he held up his hand and stopped them after they rose to their feet.
“Yes?”
“If you need help from this office contact me directly. I’ll be your research guy.”
“Do you have federal access?” Jason asked.
“I do. I worked a case a few months back, they haven’t revoked the clearance they gave me yet.”
“Good,” Jason said, then walked back over to the desk. “Thank you. I’m not a coward in any way, shape, or form, however, I think I’m going to hole up in Mr. Lassiter’s home and go over all the files first before I make my next move.”
“I understand, just one more question.”
“What’s that?”
“What happened to bring this on?”
“Oh,” Kevin said, and looked at his boss sheepishly. “When I was in Colorado, a friend of my brother-in-law showed up and there’s was a new case with the FBI asking for the whereabouts of the girl we mentioned earlier.”
“About?”
“She was a murder suspect.”
“Shit, so you’re telling me that this Director, the father of the man accused, put out a BOLO for a woman that was exonerated?”
“Yes, it’s also been tossed around that this same director, and the step-father of the girl are shaking the big dealers down for cuts of product and cash.”
“He’s dirty.”
“Extremely, I’m here to get to the bottom of it and toss this asshole in jail right beside his son.”
“Good, let me know how or if I can help.” He waved them away, and it took Kevin only ten minutes to clean up his desk, and without saying a word to the others in the bull pen, he nodded to Jason and they left the police station together.
As they walked down the stairs, Kevin asked where he had parked, and gave him the address of his home.
Twenty minutes later, they both pulled into the driveway, and Kevin had Jason pull into the garage, while leaving his car outside.
“Nosy neighbors,” was all he said as he helped unload the luggage and take it into his home.