Mark Gilleo - Sweat

Boxes filled the back half of the floor space, each box neatly labeled and stacked in separate piles, some twenty feet high. The concrete floor was swept and clean. A lone forklift was parked in the back, near an emergency exit with an intermittently flashing sign.

“What’s in all the boxes?” Hasad asked.

“Let’s see,” Peter answered, walking among the stacks. He looked at the labels and started the tour. “I believe we have some Civil War memorabilia going to a collector in India. The collection includes a set of rare cavalier sabers, and a few cannon remains. Not a big shipment, but we are still finalizing some documentation before it can be exported. We keep most of our large shipments in another location. Heavy items that can’t be moved as easily by forklift.”

“Things like Hummers.”

“Exactly. Your Hummers were retrofitted not too far from here.”

“They are great vehicles.”

“I am glad you enjoy them.”

“I do, I do. My friends and I enjoy them very much.” ***

Shawn looked through the window of the parked car, rain cascading down the windshield in sheets. He saw a figure in front of the car and hit the wipers. The swipe of rubber across the glass brought the leveled gun into perfect focus. The door was yanked open from the outside and Shawn looked out of the corner of his eye to see another gun—very real and very close.

“FBI. Don’t move,” Special Agent Ann Cahill said with glee. “Keep your hands on the wheel where I can see them.” The agent had fire-red hair and a personality to match.

The rain on the roof of the warehouse drowned out the pounding of heavy feet, fit bodies weighed down by thick bulletproof vests and rifles. Two teams in standard cover formation closed in on the warehouse exits, one team going through the front door, another team with a door-ram coming in the back.

Inside the warehouse, Hasad was enjoying the conversation, marveling at the breadth of interest of Winthrop Enterprises’ clients. It was Hasad’s turn to grease the wheels of politeness. A little business before his business. The tour was winding down and Hasad knew the neatly stacked boxes near the large rolling door were his shipment. It was the only section of the warehouse Peter hadn’t shown him. Hasad knew the American was saving the best for last.

The front door swung open a split second before the back door flew onto the floor, torn from its hinges.

“Don’t move motherfucker,” Agent John Tulloch screamed with six months of pent up anger. Six months of wasted time. Six months of the runaround. Six months of chasing leads that were nothing more than dead ends. Six months of putting up with his partner.

Peter Winthrop looked at Agent Tulloch, a five-foot-five Napoleon complex with a gun, and raised his hands. “Don’t you move,” Agent Tulloch repeated, dropping the vulgarity.

Hasad looked at Peter and put his arms straight up like a kid playing cops-and-robbers.

Federal Agents from the FBI and the Office of Export Controls swept the warehouse with guns drawn, each man covered by another as they made their way through the maze of boxes. Shouts of “clear,” echoed through the air as every corner of the warehouse was secured. Agent Cahill joined her partner in the warehouse, hair dripping on her FBI windbreaker, her pants soaked. Agent Tulloch was quick to notice the positive effect the wet outfit had on the little beauty his partner did possess.

“Peter Winthrop, we are placing you under arrest for the purchase of controlled goods with the intent to export,” Agent Cahill said, a large drop of water falling off her nose as she spoke.

“What goods would that be?” Peter asked.

“One thousand military-grade night vision goggles, for starters. They are illegal to own without a permit and they sure as hell are illegal to sell to foreign nationals.”

Hasad visibly squirmed.

“Without a search warrant, this arrest, and anything confiscated during a search, is illegal and invalid in a court of law.” Peter looked at the agents with the same smug smile he flashed when he last cleaned up at the high roller table in Vegas.

Agent Tulloch reached into his jacket, pulled out the warrant, and handed it to Peter. Peter quickly flipped the warrant to the back page and looked at the judge’s signature. Elizabeth Rubin. “Elizabeth Rubin,” he said quietly to himself, committing the name to memory.

“Something wrong, Peter?” Agent Cahill asked with sarcasm.

Peter shrugged his shoulders and ignored the agent’s comment, focusing his thoughts forty miles south to the Nation’s Capitol. ***

Peter and Hasad, now handcuffed, sat on the edge of the dirty desk near the door as the federal agents tore the warehouse and its contents to shreds. The cursing by the agents started immediately and didn’t stop until the last box was on the floor, opened. Two hundred and fifty boxes labeled with night-vision goggle tags were reduced to cardboard scraps. Two hundred and fifty boxes filled with over a thousand household items ranging from tea kettles to cookie sheets. All bought at Walmart. All paid for with a Winthrop Enterprises corporate American Express card.

Agent Cahill stood next to the CEO and Hasad, working over the piece of gum in her mouth like a beaver on a log. Her face had passed flush half an hour ago and now teetered on the verge of white, drained by anger and embarrassment.

Agent Tulloch called Agent Cahill over, pulling her gently by the sleeve of her jacket, turning her back toward their suspects.

“There is nothing here. No goggles, no guns, nothing illegal. He has paperwork for everything in the warehouse. Nothing in the boxes labeled ‘goggles’ but a household clearance sale from Walmart—the price stickers still attached.”

“How did he know?”

“I don’t know. Maybe his son had second thoughts and let his old man know we were coming.”

“But why?”

“Because he is his father.”

On the other side of the room, Hasad looked confused. “Peter, what happened? Where are my hunting goggles?”

“They are due to arrive in Istanbul this evening,” Peter said in a whisper.

But how? How did you know they were coming?”

“Because my son is just like his mother.”

Chapter 41

The van lurched over the speed bump that marked the edge of Saipan International Airport property and the beginning of the parking lot for the small general aviation terminal on the south side of the runways. Inside the small terminal, two rows of seats sat twenty plastic molded chairs that hadn’t been filled in a year since a U.S. military transport aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing after taking an albatross through the engine.

The general aviation terminal’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staffed exactly one person who rotated shifts and split their time working at the main terminal where most of the action was. A young local woman with a nose ring and geeky demeanor was the only non-government staff, spending her time organizing and coordinating the half-dozen charter flights that landed and took off on any given afternoon. On days when the employees outnumbered the number of flights, the lone baggage handler took naps in the back room while the young lady at the counter openly studied accounting in her third attempt at passing the course online.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, even on Saipan, was a serious bunch, and the doctor with the sedated Chinese girl in the wheelchair brought natural scrutiny. The lone CBP officer on duty in the general aviation terminal, a short man of nearly equal height and width, looked at both passports and then at the faces of the doctor and the girl. He checked the date on Wei Ling’s U.S. work visa and then checked the doctor’s visitor visa. He looked at the documents and the faces one more time and reached for a paper on his desk. He scanned the paper feverishly and then gestured with his hand toward the empty seats in the waiting area.