Clifford quickly rode up beside Buck. “You didn’t tell me there were grizzlies,” he said excitedly.
“There haven’t been any grizzlies up here in years. I just wanted to scare the little jerk,” Buck replied with satisfaction. “Did you see that girl? She’s high on drugs. I’ve seen hundreds like her in Korea and Vietnam.” His expression suddenly turned sad.
“What were they doing back there?” Clifford wanted to know.
“Processing drugs to be sold on the street. I’ve run into a few camps like that while on patrol in the Army. Each with the same kind of jerks as those back there. They prey on the weak,” Buck replied with disgust. “Like swatting flies, we’d torch the camps and wouldn’t even feel bad…people like that are trash. Mind what I tell you Clifford, those who hang around people like that are losers and are bound to get hurt.”
Clifford thought about the guys he knew at school that sold pot, and how he admired them. After all, they were very popular, always had money and cool parties. Then he thought of the girl at the camp. Maybe Buck is right, he thought. Maybe that’s not where it’s at after all.
“What can we do about those guys back there?” Clifford asked.
“Not much right now, I’m afraid,” Buck answered, worriedly. “When we get back to town we’ll tell the Sheriff. Jim’s a smart man, he’ll know what to do.”
Clifford nodded in agreement, then followed Buck back to the main trail where they picked up the pack train and continued on. A short time later, Buck stopped the mules in front of a washout.
“You can probably do this one yourself while I go to the upper camp and pick up garbage,” he told Clifford. “Just do exactly what I showed you at the last one and everything will go smoothly.”
Clifford tied up his mule then removed a shovel, sledgehammer and some stakes from the pack mules. “That’s everything,” he said, walking over to Buck.
“All right, I’ll see you in a few hours,” Buck replied, then gave his mule a gentle kick and started up the trail. Clifford watched the pack train ride around the bend and out of sight before looking down at the washout. Rolling up his sleeves, he picked up the shovel, and got to work.
At that same time, in the DEA office in Seattle, Special Agent in Charge, Michael O’Leary, sat at his desk with a file folder open in front of him. He’d just finished his sandwich lunch and was sipping from his Coke-a-Cola, as he wondered what his family was doing. O’Leary, a forty-five year old red-haired, green-eyed man of Irish decent, was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He had the accent and stubborn Irish pride in his heritage to prove it. Though his childish freckles had long since faded and been replaced by streaks of silver in his receding hairline, his face lit up with boyish animation whenever he talked about his family.
Born to Patrick and Mary O’Leary he was the youngest of three boys. His father, known by family and friends as Paddy, was third generation Boston PD. Michael’s two older brothers were the fourth. He also had two uncles and several cousins on the force as well. This fact was the single most source of pride his family had ever known.
That’s why from a young age, he told no one that his plans didn’t include following in his father’s footsteps. When he was a young teenager, he remembered one of his cousins moved to New York and became a police officer there. It was a huge scandal. Everyone speculated on where the parents had gone wrong in raising such a rebellious child.
Michael gave into the unspoken family pressure to continue the family heritage and he went through the Police Academy, graduating with honors. He then married his high school sweet heart and tried the life the O’Leary’s had know for decades. But after a while, he finally admitted to his wife he wasn’t cut out to be a beat cop.
She was very supportive, but didn’t like the alternative idea he suggested. It just seemed too dangerous. He still remembered the looks on his parents faces when he announced at dinner that he wanted to become a Federal Agent. His mother almost fainted, and his father just about swallowed his fork.
Michael saw the eruption starting. His father’s shocked, pale face started to turn red in anger. From his collar on up, a blood red wave moved upward until his face was completely engulfed, then Boom! Out of his chair he rose rattling on about family and tradition. His mother could only muster the words, “What will the neighbors think?” before shuffling off to church to pray for her lost son.
After a few days of not speaking to him, his father finally came and apologized. He told his son he loved him very much, and if he wanted to be a Federal Agent, then he’d be supportive. He and Mamma would just have to learn to live with the stigmatism of having a black sheep in the family.
Michael was able to get in the DEA training program, and soon he and Genna were uprooted and moved to the Northwest. It took some getting use to, but they grew to love the Seattle area. Genna, however, never got used to the long hours of an undercover agent. He was never home, and she was constantly worried.
She was amazed they were together long enough to have their twin girls. This type of work is hard on relationships, Michael knew. Divorce was an occupational hazard more prevalent than anything life threatening. Genna wanted him to change jobs, to get off the streets into a desk job so he’d be home more often.
He didn’t like that idea. Being a desk jockey just wasn’t his forte. He did, however, promise to look into the possibility but continually put it off. The accident that happened just a little more than a year ago changed all that. He called it an accident because no matter how hard you try, you can’t plan for everything that could go wrong. Throughout his entire career he had planned countless raids where no one under his command had ever gotten shot or injured in anyway. He’d always been proud of that fact, but knew someday the odds might catch up to him.
Last year his luck finally ran out during a raid on a methamphetamine lab. O’Leary led the assault through the front door, and the suspect was waiting for them. The instant O’Leary kicked in the door a shot gun blast hit him square in the chest. His body was thrown backwards and he collapsed into a motionless mass.
He thought he was dead. Just before he passed out, a vision of his family came to him along with the horrible feeling he had wasted too much time away from them. He didn’t want it to end that way, and prayed for a second chance.
The next thing he knew he woke up in the hospital feeling like he’d been hit by a Mack truck. Genna was there holding his hand, and looking as if she had been up all night crying. His body armor had stopped the shot gun blast, but the force of it managed to break most of his ribs and cause massive internal injuries.
After he’d recovered enough to go home, Genna informed him she was leaving. This lifestyle had taken its toll, and the accident was the last straw. She told him if he got a transfer to a desk job in Boston, they could be together again. With that, she packed up the kids and moved back to Massachusetts.
He was devastated. From that moment on, his goal was to get promoted off the streets and transferred back east. He had a distinguished career, but promotions and transfers were hard to come by. He desperately needed a large high profile bust to bring him to the attention of his superiors.
The Kingpin case was just what the doctor had ordered. Kingpin was the west coast arm of the Chicago mob—drugs, prostitution, gambling. You name it, if it was illegal, they were into it. It was the single largest crime organization on the west coast.
As Special Agent in Charge, O’Leary had worked the case for more than a year. They finally got a break when O’Leary was able to identify Kingpin’s largest drug supplier. After countless hours and stakeouts, they’d been able to put an air tight case together against the supplier. Unfortunately, they couldn’t prove a connection to Kingpin.
O’Leary decided to try a different tactic. The supplier was just a small fish in a large school of criminals. If they could get the supplier to cooperate and turn State’s evidence against Kingpin, then they woul
d reduce the charges.
He confronted the supplier, showed him the evidence against him and offered a deal, but the supplier refused. He said he would rather go to jail then double cross Kingpin. If he was caught making deals with the Feds, Kingpin would have him hunted down and killed.
That’s when O’Leary came up with the plan. Kingpin wouldn’t hunt him down if he thought the supplier was already dead. After listening to the plan, the supplier finally agreed to the deal. The supplier would feed O’Leary information and set Kingpin up to take a fall.
O’Leary thought he had the perfect plan, one that couldn’t go wrong, but he found out otherwise, however, when months of preparation went up in smoke because of the blundering of a complete idiot. While O’Leary’s team hid, waiting for Kingpin to arrive on the scene, Alan Bradley had rushed in and apprehended the supplier with his shipment of illegal drugs. The commotion spooked Kingpin, just moments prior to his arrival, allowing him to escape. The thought of it continued to burn him up, and his Irish temper made his blood boil as he sat at his desk.
But that would all soon change, he knew, as the thought of his plan calmed him. Tonight he had another stakeout. After which he hoped to have enough information to put the final touches on his master plan. Then he could sit back and watch the Kingpin Empire come crashing down.