Chapter 14
“Not much,” Duane said after several minutes of silence. “I had never met him before, so when I found out he requested me, I questioned him. He only said he had heard I was good at undercover work, and he wanted the best for this operation.”
“Where in the Bureau did he work?” When Duane turned his head to the side with a confused frown, Jason elaborated. “With Grayson? In narcotics?”
“Oh, honestly, I don’t know. Before that particular assignment, I had never heard nor seen him before in my life.”
“Who introduced the two of you?” Ilsa asked. At Duane’s confusion again, she also elaborated. “Did Grayson introduce the two of you? Larry Mason? Did you see any credentials from him stating he was FBI?”
“Huh, Mason was the one that told me to get dressed for this undercover assignment, and to meet Olsen at a certain place at a certain time. I have no idea whether he was FBI or not, I assumed he was.”
“Did Olsen come to Colorado with you and the guns?”
“No, he told me part of the undercover was to stick with the guns.” Duane sat there in silence for several moments.
“What do you think this all means? Oh, wait, I don’t know whether this is important or not, but before we met with Royal for the first time, Olsen and I met at least four times, alone, before we met with Royal.
But he told me to take the face prosthetics off before meeting Royal.
You don’t think they were trying to set me up by allowing Royal to see my real face, do you? ”
“I don’t know, is there any way you could draw a sketch of him?” Kevin asked. “We’re wondering if this Olsen person was one of the people associated with a gang that Grayson coerced into working with him, or if he really was an FBI agent.”
“Shit,” Duane said as he hung his head. “Let me think about it. I might be able to come up with something. It was almost two years ago, however, I’m pretty good with remembering faces.
I have a program on my computer I can look up.
I’ll first do a background check to see if there’s a driver’s license or something.
If I see him, I’ll immediately recognize him. ”
“Why do you say that?” Jason asked.
“I forget what it’s called, but he has one brown eye, and one green.”
“Heterochromia,” Ilsa said.
“Oh, whatever, but he did have two different colored eyes.” Duane shrugged, but also sighed heavily. “I don’t know whether it was natural, or if it was contacts to throw me off, you know, like I had disguised myself with the face prosthetics. I’ll look into it. Is there anything else?”
“Not at this time, and thank you, Duane. I know I don’t have to tell you this, but as far as I’m concerned you have nothing to worry about, you were doing your job.
If somehow Grayson’s lawyer tries to tell everyone that you need to be arrested for helping Royal bring guns across state lines, you’re safe because you were an active employee of the FBI, and working a case to see where the guns would end up, and how they were going to be used.
Don’t worry about it, but could you also come up with a list of the other agents that were with you on that mission? ”
“Yes, I have all my notes over at my house.” He stood and shook his head slowly. “Don’t ask me why, but ever since I started undercover work, without revealing incriminating information, I always took notes of my cases when I got home.”
“Good for you. I won’t need them for now, because I don’t think they will be helpful in taking Grayson down, but maybe when it’s time to take on Royal. Erin asked me if we would be willing to be her attorney, since hers only does family law.” He looked at Ilsa with a raised brow.
“I have nothing to go back to in California,” Ilsa said.
“Maybe when it comes time to take Grayson down, the three of us can stay in my house. Once the arrests are made, I may stay and downsize to put my house on the market.” She shook her head.
“I know it won’t sit for long. I’m not bragging, but I live in a prominent neighborhood.
Besides, Katherine’s here, and I don’t think she’s going back to California anytime soon.
Not that I don’t blame her, but there’s nothing there for either of us. ”
“Where would you go?” Duane asked out of curiosity.
“Probably back here, I’d ask Erin if she needed a permanent lawyer, then if I wasn’t doing law for her, maybe I could get in touch with her lawyer to see if he was hiring.”
“Or,” Jason said after a long silence.
“Or what?” Ilsa asked in confusion when he didn’t speak.
“Or we could open our own law office, and maybe Kevin would want to be our investigator. I don’t know how much work we would have, you know, what clients we would have, but after being here for the last couple of months, I kind of like the slower pace.
Not that the intense investigation we’ve been doing isn’t anything to sneeze at, but the hustle and bustle of the city isn’t intruding on my thoughts.
I may be only fifty-two, but I’m sort of liking this smaller pace. ”
“It’s something to talk about after the arrests,” Kevin said quietly. “I sort of like the idea of being closer to Caleb. Not that I’m a helicopter parent, I could get a place to live in town, and if I’m not busy with your law firm, maybe I could help Jake out over at Brotherhood Protectors.”
“There is that,” Duane said with a nod, and quickly left to get his own investigation going.
He walked into his office at the barn, and with nothing pressing facing him, he got out the secure laptop he kept in the bottom drawer of a locked file cabinet.
Once it was fired up, he started doing his research in trying to find Greg Olsen.
It took him thirty minutes, and when he recognized the man, he swore, realizing he had been played all those months ago.
He printed out a copy of everything he could find, and instead of going over to Jason and Ilsa with it, he sent a text to Erin stating he had to run to his house for a few minutes.
He didn’t move until he received the text back stating it was okay.
He went to his house and immediately went to his office and started going through boxes to find the file he knew was there.
Armed with both files, he drove back to Erin’s Way, and other than sending Erin a text that he had returned, he went to Jason’s office.
“Hey,” he said by way of letting them know he was back. He had grabbed a bottle of water from a refrigerator that had been set up, and sat down heavily. “I’m such a fucking gullible asshole.”
“Excuse me?” Jason asked in shock. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ll deny this in the future, but I have an extremely secure laptop.”
“How secure?” Ilsa asked with a frown.
“IT techs from the Bureau set it up. Because it was my personal computer, I went to them to beef up the security on it. They also downloaded some programs I could use without anyone from the Bureau knowing.” He shrugged and sipped his water.
“It’s placed so I can search without getting into trouble, or anyone knowing I was in there looking around. ”
“And?” Jason asked as he held his breath for the answer.
“And, I’m a fucking stupid asshole. The guy, Greg Olsen, is a known gang banger.
I printed out everything I could find from the areas on the laptop, then I went back over to my place and dug out the file from the Royal mission.
” He laid the two files on the edge of the table, and gently shoved them forward.
“The Royal op is the only file I have, the rest I got off the computer and printed it today. You’re welcome to it if it will help nail Grayson’s ass to the wall. ”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, and if you need me to testify, I’m willing to do that.”
“I don’t think it will come to that, but thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do you need anything else from me?”
“Not at this time, but if I have questions, I’ll reach out to you.”
“Okay, I’ll get back to work now.” Duane rose from the chair, finished his water, tossed it in the recycling bin, and walked out the door. As soon as he walked out, he wrinkled his nose, and swore.
“Great, just great, fucking snow.” He trudged back to his office and got back to work on what he had stopped when Jason called him to his office hours ago.
He wasn’t very productive as his mind wandered back to what had happened when he had been asked by his former handler to meet with Greg Olsen.
The only thing that kept him from going into a downward spiral was that he knew he had done nothing wrong.
He had followed orders, and carried out the mission.
Thankfully, the outcome had been in his favor by arresting Royal and his cronies and no deaths had occurred. On a sigh, he went back to work.
“Jake,” Stone said quietly, but when the other man didn’t catch his attention, he called out, but louder.
“What?” Jake looked up and when he saw Stone’s expression, he sighed heavily, tossed his pen on the stack of papers and shook his head at his friend. “What was missed?”
“A lot,” Stone said, and instead of having Jake come to him, he rose to refill his coffee, brought the pot over to Jake’s desk to do the same, then returned the pot.
He knew he was stalling, but he didn’t know how Jake was going to react to what he had uncovered.
Without being asked, he took the seat beside Jake’s desk, sipped his coffee and shook his head.
“Do you want me to remind you of the players?”
“Please.”
“Okay, I’m only going to use last names for now.
Three boys grew up in the same foster care system.
Royal, Biggins, and Miller. Miller Sr. and his wife went to jail for eighteen years because they tried to take Erin’s Way away from Erin.
Fraudulent banking practices, along with Mrs. Miller, again fraudulent accounting practices, along with lying on people’s taxes.
Their judge was new and wanted to make a reputation as being a hard-ass and threw the book at them.
I don’t know whether it’s because they wanted that rep, or if the charges were that serious.
Anyway, we have Biggins, who’s basically a thug, he’s a loan shark that works, or rather worked, out of a race track over in Wyoming. ”
“Where Naomi’s ranch was?”
“Correct. That’s how Benson Alcott became involved with Biggins. He had a gambling problem and got loans from Biggins.”
“Okay, who else?”
“Royal, it’s just as Pru said.”
“How?”
“He arrived during the tail end of the trial for the Millers. He didn’t post bail, but he bought a hundred-acre farm, not enough acreage to be considered a ranch.
He had one prize mare, and a few brood mares.
I’m not belittling any horseflesh here, but the brood mares didn’t have the lineage the prize one did.
He contracted with Erin to have one of her studs breed his prize mare.
It took, baby was born, and he went after the stallion that knocked his mare up. ”
“How? Why?”
“He was under the assumption that once he bought one round of sperm, then he owned the horse it came from, and could use it any way he saw fit.”
“I take it that it doesn’t work that way?”
“No, think IVF for humans. If the first round doesn’t work, you have to pay for the second round. However, if the first round does work, and a baby is born, then once the mare, in this case, is ready to breed again, you have to pay the same price. It’s a one and done.”
“Okay, and Royal thought because he had already purchased his one and done, then he had free access to the stallion?”
“Yes, and Erin rejected him from breeding his mare, because the foal was only three months old. She said the mare wasn’t ready to breed again, Royal got pissed, and that’s when he started his campaign to take her down. This is just my personal observation, but I believe it was an ego thing to him.”
“How?”
“I talked to Erin about this, and she told me that while her stallion was breeding his mare, Royal explained to her the difference between a gelding and a stallion.”
Jake had just taken a sip of his coffee and spat it out with a laugh.
He quickly grabbed some napkins from the corner of his desk and mopped up his mess.
“Really, someone who only had a few mares, one hundred acres, been in business for roughly a year, tried to tell Erin about horses. A woman that took over the operation of the ranch after her parents were killed, whose ranch had almost five thousand acres, and had been in operation for almost two hundred years?”
“Yep.” They shared a chuckle before Stone turned serious again.
“Okay, those three, Miller, Sr., Biggins, and Royal are just as Carter said. Miller was a banker that did shady stuff with other people’s money and property, and got caught.
He’s paying the price. Biggins is a thug and loan shark.
Royal was considered rich. However, again, just like Pru said, no one knew where his money came from.
It was like he was dropped here in Fool’s Gold.
No past, no information on him other than he grew up in the foster care systems alongside Biggins and Miller. ”
“Okay, now you have me intrigued.” Jake sat forward and took the papers Stone handed him. He read them and stared at the other man in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not really, I’m having both Carter and Hank look into this.”
“Call Hank back and tell him to reach out to Remy.”
“Who?”
“Remy Montagne. He’s in charge of the Bayou Brotherhood office, down in Louisiana.”
“Ah, and what would Remy have to do with this?”
“He has Larry Mason holed up somewhere down there, keeping an eye on him.”
“Oh, wow,” Stone said, then chuckled. “Let’s hope the gators didn’t get him.”
“Let’s hope.” Jake shook his head and handed the papers back to Stone. “When you hear back from Hank and Carter, we’ll head out and talk to everyone at Erin’s Way.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” Stone went back to his desk and continued with the investigation he’d started a few hours after Pru had left them days ago.