Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Helia’s stomach lurched. “No,” she whispered even as she saw the possibility. Collin’s hand squeezed hers, and he pulled her tighter against him.
“How?” she managed to ask as she fought visions of her parents’ business imploding. Everything they’d worked for since retiring from the military could go up in smoke. They’d have the land, sure, but that wasn’t what they loved. Not to mention all the people who relied on the business for income.
“How is it at the center, or how did I come to that conclusion?” Scipio asked.
She’d meant the former, but the latter would let her postpone hearing the answer she didn’t want to hear. “The latter.”
“The timing,” Scipio started. “Everything started a little over six months ago. You said you noticed Flannery coming around four to five months ago, which means he probably cropped up before that. It would have taken you a little while to see the pattern.”
She nodded.
“Based on what K heard, whatever poison Kelly and Flannery were feeding Roger took some time to take effect,” Scipio continued.
“You think those two things are connected. That Flannery was setting up a relationship with Helia that would be in place when Roger died,” Lina said, nodding her head in understanding.
“But why?” Helia asked. “I saw Roger on occasion at events and things like that, but we never had dealings that weren’t professional.”
“We’ll get to that,” Scipio said. “First, I want to talk about Trish. Another person from your past, Helia.” Helia nodded for him to continue. He walked over and handed her Kendall’s phone. “Take a look at those pictures.”
She scrolled through Trish’s social media feeds, glancing at picture after picture.
Some with girlfriends, most with a man Helia assumed was her husband given the way the two touched each other.
In several, Trish sat perched on her husband’s lap, his hand tucked between her thighs.
In others, they were both caught laughing—genuine smiles of delight on their faces.
And in a few, he was kissing her. Deeply.
“Trish and her husband,” she said, handing the phone back. “And?”
“Do those pictures show a couple about to get divorced?” Scipio asked.
A rhetorical question, but she had to point out, “We don’t know how old those posts are.”
“We do,” Scipio said. “The last one was posted seven days ago, but we can get Leo to run a time stamp analysis on them.”
“Happy to, but not sure it’s needed when we look deeper at Mark Pena,” Leo said. “We didn’t include him in our initial scope, and we should have. He’s a well-known importer of high-end light fixtures. Handblown chandeliers from Murano, silver sconces from India, those sorts of things.”
“But,” Joey pressed.
“This is preliminary since I just started digging into him, but if the paper trail of his finances is right, he also appears to be part of the DKZ.”
“No shit,” Lovell—James—said.
Taking in the range of reactions to that information, everything from small frowns to raised eyebrows to disgust, several in the group knew something she didn’t.
“What’s the DKZ?” she asked.
“Stands for da khukhi zai. Pashto for ‘the happy place,’” Marley answered.
“Started about twenty years ago by a group of US soldiers,” Mantis jumped in. “Soldiers who lacked any moral compass and who decided that combat pay wasn’t cutting it.”
“They didn’t so much go into business with the local producers of opium in Afghanistan as bully and terrorize them into it,” Viper added.
“With the years of endless rotations into and out of that country, the group grew more powerful than they probably anticipated,” Mantis continued.
“And the allure of that kind of money is impossible for some people to resist, so many kept at it when they discharged. Growing markets in the US and Europe,” Collin said.
“The government knows they’re doing it, knows the origin of the group, but because they’re military…” James let the sentence hang.
Helia struggled to take everything in. Maybe it was the drugs she’d been given, or maybe it was because this situation was so far outside her reality that putting two and two together felt more like putting a round peg in a square hole.
“Was Mark Pena ever even in the military?” she asked. Not the most urgent question, but her mind wanted the baby steps.
“Served a single tour after college,” Leo answered. “Deployed to Afghanistan.”
“But Justin imported from South Asian countries, mostly Thailand and China,” she said. “And you said Kurt worked for a company that had criminal ties, but also to South Asia.”
“If you get a toehold in the drug world, expansion pays,” James answered.
She blinked. “So this DKZ started with opium from Afghanistan, terrorizing a population of people who were already being terrorized by circumstances, and has expanded to other parts of Asia?”
“And South America. America’s appetite for illicit drugs is unequaled. Europe’s not far behind,” Leo said.
“And Trish is involved in this, too?” she asked.
“Seems probable,” Scipio said. “She was responsible for a large portfolio of imports for Mark’s business. And with her showing up out here…”
Helia leaned forward, rubbing her fingers across her forehead before running them through her hair. Collin’s hand splayed warm and steady across her back.
“Okay, so you think Roger, Kelly, and Justin were part of a distribution channel for drugs that Mark and Trish imported into the US,” she said.
Scipio nodded. “Two questions, no, three. First, how does that involve Sundaram? Second, how does Kurt come into this? And third, how can we keep Sundaram as clean as I know we are?”
“And fourth, why did someone try to kill you today?” Collin added.
“Yeah, that, too,” she said.
“The second question ties to the first,” Scipio said. “You said Kurt Fisher worked for a company owned by Wei Zhao?” he asked Leo, who nodded. “Wei Zhao competes for market with DKZ.”
“Three months ago, Sundaram imported several food items from them for a large wedding,” Leo said, looking at the computer she’d logged on to with the Sundaram vendor database.
“That, in and of itself, isn’t interesting.
But what is, is the fact that for the past four years, you’ve used a different provider for the same goods. ”
“You think Kurt and Wei Zhao were trying to horn in on the DKZ market here in the valley and the DKZ killed Kurt because of it,” Callie said.
“No absolute proof yet, but yeah,” Scipio said. The former FBI agent held his gaze, then nodded, whether in agreement with the process or his deduction, Helia didn’t know.
“So Sundaram is being used, as what, a sort of receiving center for the drugs that Kelly and Justin then distribute?” Helia asked, again feeling like a bottle of turpentine was swirling in her stomach.
Scipio nodded. “Food shipments, especially frozen ones like Sundaram receives, are rarely searched, and the dry ice it’s packed with can impact scent detecting that the packages go through. It’s a good place to hide drugs.”
“Someone at Sundaram would have to be involved then,” Helia said, wanting to cry. She wouldn’t, but to say she hated the idea of her parents’ business being used in that way would be like saying Mount Everest was a little more than a molehill.
“Someone in the kitchen, most likely,” Scipio said.
Callie rose and started pacing the room in front of the whiteboard. “I agree,” she said. “It’s someone in the kitchen. Someone who can receive the packages and remove the drugs before anyone else notices. Which is also where Marcel, the former intern, comes in.”
“What?” Helia asked. This kept getting worse and worse.
“I’m guessing he saw something in the kitchen that he shouldn’t have. Then he disappeared to Vegas, hid in the shadows, maybe waiting to see if anyone came after him, before leaving the country.”
“But he never made it,” Helia said, a wave of loss rolling through her. She’d liked Marcel and didn’t want to think about his body being somewhere in the desert, never to be found, because he’d stumbled upon something criminal at Sundaram.
“We should see if any of our players made a trip to Vegas around the time Marcel stopped working as a dishwasher,” Callie said. “They probably sent someone to do their dirty work rather than get their own hands dirty, but it’s worth a look.”
“I’ll show Kendall how to look for that while I keep pulling the other strings,” Leo said, beckoning her over.
Helia was hard-pressed to question Leo’s decision as she watched the girl practically skip to his side.
If he thought it was okay for her to be poking around whatever HICC systems had access to flight records, that was his call.
She was an exceptionally bright child, and she’d need new things to keep her focused and challenged and out of trouble.
Helping to catch a killer or killers might be well and good for now, but they shouldn’t make a habit of it.
A conversation she and Collin would need to have at some point.
“So the drugs come into Sundaram through food deliveries, then the inside man or woman collects them, and Flannery and Kelly feed them into the market?” Hawkeye said.
“Yes,” Callie said, having picked up on whatever pattern Scipio saw. “Only six months ago, things changed. When both Roger’s and Flannery’s behavior changed.” She paused, studying the board. “They were planning a coup.”
“What?” Helia said again, feeling like a fish as her mouth formed the words.
“Prior to six months ago, the ring ran like a well-oiled machine. Drugs came in, the insider collected them, handed them over, Flannery and Kelly put them into market.” She paused.
“But Flannery got greedy. He wanted to cut out the Sundaram insider. Or maybe the insider wanted out. For whatever reason, he was preparing to take that job over. Not by being hired by Sundaram—”