Page 21 of Made of Steele
He chomped a bite of fried chicken and had to work hard not to grin in delight. He swallowed. “Otis’s mama would be hard-pressed to make better chicken than this.”
Teagan swallowed her bite and grinned. “Told you so. I will totally understand if you have to put our discussion on hold to eat.”
“I can talk between bites.” He took another one and savored the crispy skin and crunchy breading. “Our operation—Operation Oasis—began nearly a year ago. Started when a DEA agent working undercover in an international drug smuggling investigation caught wind of the Conti brothers, and the word on the street was that they were into antiquities too.”
She paused, her fork of rice midway to her mouth. “They’re into drugs?”
He nodded and stabbed a bite of his coleslaw but held his fork over his plate to continue the story. “Heroin from the Golden Crescent. It’s one of Asia’s two principal areas of illicit opium production. That includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Almost three thousand tons of heroin is produced in Afghanistan, and a rough estimate says above a million people are involved in drug trafficking there.”
“Wow.” She dropped her fork and sat back. “Just wow. I had no idea it was such a huge problem in their country.”
He tapped hot pepper sauce onto his collard greens. “Which means it’s a problem here too, though most of our heroin comes from Mexico these days. But I digress. Our CI on the drug investigation brought the lead on antiquities to the agent’s attention, and my SAC sent me undercover.”
Teagan took a few bites of her rice while the waitress topped off their tea glasses, and he took his first bite of the greens. The tangy vinegar sauce melded with the greens, and he had to resist moaning again. He’d been eating so badly for the past year and having something that was similar to home cooking was special. He’d missed out on so much.
The waitress departed.
“This confidential informant you mentioned,” Teagan said. “Is he reliable?”
“I mean, yeah, if you ignore our number one rule of undercover work. Never trust a CI.” He laughed, but he was dead serious. If he wasn’t, he could find himself dead. “The Contis are using their shipping connections and acting as a go-between. Importing drugs and antiquities for another person and taking a cut of the money. That’s the person I’m after.”
“And you’re close to finding him or her?”
“Him. Getting closer. Our CI introduced me to the Contis and vouched for me, but it still took months of meeting with them. Shooting the breeze. Talking business. Letting them think I’m one of them.”
“And how do you do that?” Her fork hung in the air, her rapt attention fixed on him.
“We created a bogus import/export business. Rented an office. Looped an agent in as the assistant for the business and arranged the backstopping.”
“Backstopping?”
“A back story with false documents to support the UCO. We have offices in the front of the building and one-way glass in the back. Video monitors and listening devices behind it.”
“Sounds like a big undercover operation.”
“Actually, as far as the feds go, it’s not. But I have a good case agent running it, and we’re making progress. Recently, I gave each Conti brother a Rolex watch that I said I’d gotten from a contact with more of them that he wanted to move. I told them it was a token of my appreciation for taking me under their wing and making me a part of their crew. That finally made them warm up to me. Then this week I made the awkward jab.”
She stabbed a large hunk of sausage covered with red sauce. “I have no idea what that means.”
“Right, yeah, why would you? You mention an illegal subject and do it in a blunt, straightforward way. Get them off the fence and to commit. In addition to stopping the antiquities pipeline, our goal is to have them launder ICE funds. Reverse money laundering. To put them away for longer and close down the pipeline. I told Sal I had connections with an international heroin trafficker—a guy named Monty who is in reality our UCA.”
“Undercover Agent,” she clarified.
“That’s right. Sal seemed interested, so I asked if he could help me launder the proceeds from my buddy’s drug sales.”
She leaned closer, eyes wide. “What happened?”
“He played dumb. Like he didn’t have a clue what heroin was. Okay. Fine. I had to do more. I had a brick of heroin in my office for a prop. I got it out, telling Sal I was holding the stuff for Monty. Hoped that would solidify my relationship to Monty. Told Sal that Monty needed to avoid the DEA’s scrutiny. Plus, paying taxes to the IRS? No way.”
“And Sal went for it?”
He caught her enthusiasm for his story. “He did. Suggested we draw up a dummy contract between my fake company and another he would have his sellers form out of the country. I would wire the money to them to reroute through their overseas accounts, and then send the money to a second company in the United States that I would establish. He got a twenty percent commission, which would be outrageous if I really was in the business, but it was something he couldn’t refuse and made getting him on money laundering possible.”
“Then why haven’t you brought him in?”
“The operation kept expanding as we went along. We want his antiquities supplier too. The big fish.”
“So what’s the plan?”
