Color of Blood(41)



“Your activity report shows you accessed the Garder folder several times, once for almost fifty minutes.”

Dennis stared, trying to concentrate on a small freckle Marty had on the left side of his nose. He had used that freckle before in similar circumstances.

“The Garder case is closed, Dennis. Didn’t Special Activities tell you that?”

Dennis stared hard at the little brown dot.

“Goddamnit, Dennis, didn’t we agree?”

“I suppose you said it was closed,” Dennis said.

“What the hell has got into you? Have you gone completely nuts? We sat right here, like we have a hundred times before, and I told you the case was closed. I told you those *s in the Special Activities Division are crazy and to close this one up. And I let you speak to them, even though I thought it was a bad idea. And they told you stop, correct?”

“I was just poking around. I don’t know why you’re so upset. It’s not the first time I’ve gone back into files on a closed case,” he lied. “Seemed innocent enough. Didn’t know Big Brother was going to be clocking my every move.”

“Don’t be a jerk.” Marty sat forward. “They don’t pay me enough to deal with your shit. For the record, I’m officially reordering you not to look into the Garder files again—though you’re locked out of those files now, anyway. I need to remind you, according to Human Resources—I’m being serious about this, Dennis—that you understand this is your first warning on this issue?”

Dennis nodded.

“I need a yes,” Marty said.

“Yes.”

“And by the way, the activity records show you’ve barely looked at the files on the Taiwan case. Were you planning on reviewing those before you head out?”

“Of course, Marty.”

***

There were already too many people in the room, but with Miles Hoogerwerf, the AFP’s associate director in attendance from Canberra, everyone was on their best behavior. There were also two senior officers of the Western Australian Police Department, the WA State Manager of the Australian Crime Commission, and an official from the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. Judy was one of three women in the room; the other two were administrators. There were fourteen men, and the smell of cologne and aftershave almost forced Judy to gag.

Miller had spent the previous twenty minutes in an exhaustive PowerPoint presentation that included close-up photographs of the letter Judy’s father had found on his windshield, as well as the results of a handwriting analysis, fingerprint analysis, and residue analysis.

Miller was now showing an organizational chart of the heroin importation crime groups in Australia.

“At the source we know the majority of heroin entering the country is coming from Chinese gangs. While some heroin comes from the Middle East, we believe the vast majority originates from the well-known Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia where Burma, Thailand, and Laos meet.”

Judy tried to remain attentive, especially in such an important meeting with the high-and-mighty from back east, but this presentation was shameless grandstanding by Miller.

She hazarded a glance at Daniel across the large U-shaped table and caught his eye; he widened his eyes in a flash of mock enthrallment and instantly returned his rapt attention to their boss.

Judy looked down at her doodling pad and twisted her face into stern concentration. She made a figure eight and repeated it several times as if she were taking copious notes.

Miller explained how the Chinese gangs were only interested in exporting, but did not prefer to get involved in distribution. It was a classic wholesale business for them, leaving the internal distribution and retail network to domestic organized criminal groups, including Vietnamese street gangs, Pacific Islander groups, motorcycle gangs, and numerous homegrown groups.

“One of the byproducts of this kind of business is the accumulation of enormous amounts of cash,” Miller said, vigorously circling a large dollar sign on the screen with his laser pointer.

“Laundering money is difficult for any criminal endeavor of this scale, and some time ago we stumbled upon a Malaysian businessman named Mr. Chenglei Wu who was observed meeting with someone under surveillance. We discovered that they met regularly at different restaurants in the Perth area and noticed a trend: Mr. Wu would return to Singapore within days of his meeting. Putting two plus two together, we suspected our Mr. Wu was moving currency overseas.

“On December third, we did an intervention at Perth International Airport—an impeccably well-organized plan, I must add—and Mr. Wu was found to have eleven thousand dollars on his body and another twenty-five thousand hidden in his suitcases. When he was apprehended, he spoke to Agent White and told her that she had made a ‘big mistake.’” Miller’s laser pointer now vigorously circled the words ‘big mistake’ beside two photographs: a mug shot of a scowling Mr. Wu and another showing the carefully stacked pile of one hundred dollar notes.

To avoid the gazes of the people in the room who were now examining her, Judy concentrated on the slide and watched the little red laser dot as it circled the words spasmodically.

“And then, in a completely bizarre twist, on December nineteenth, Agent White’s father was visiting a pharmacy, and when he returned, he found the threatening note which, as you could imagine, caused quite a stir in Agent White’s family, as well as the regional office of the AFP.”

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