The Clause (20 page)

Forty-eight

EUROPEAN ORGANIZED CRIME TASK FORCE

MEETING MINUTES

900 EDT WEDNESDAY AUGUST 11, 2010

ATTENDANCE: LOG ATTACHED

RE: KURAC GEM THEFT
RING—RECENT DEVELOPMENTS RE: G. UNDERWOOD

1. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors on Monday evening’s operations. Grand Central Banana Republic exchange of Britany-Swindol gems a feint by G. Underwood, who attempted the actual exchange with the Nee Fat Tong at JFK airport one hour later. Intel Surveillance Section was unable to provide adequate data to indicate there was another exchange planned at approximately the same time. The result of the second exchange was a shootout between the Kurac and the Nee Fat Tong and car explosion. Intercepts indicate G. Underwood was in possession of military-grade explosives that forensics say were used in the explosion. It is believed G. Underwood used the car explosion to escape. Britany-Swindol gems not recovered at that time. Only two survivors of the car explosion and shootout, both Kurac, both at Queens County Hospital under guard. See attached list of dead and injured. One lookout was arrested and detained, Bobo Dismic, armed with a SIG Sauer P229. He was on the Homeland Security special interrogation list by the CIA and transferred to their authority.

2. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance countered the assertion that their section was unable to provide adequate data. The Kurac were pinged after the feint exchange at Grand Central and could have been followed. A cell phone intercept from approximately 1600 EDT was posted indicating jeweler Doc Huang placed a call to Nee Fat Tong underboss Jimmy Kong requesting a meeting in Flushing to “finalize the deal” and also asked if his men were ready to follow and intercede. Had operations checked the posted data at that time they could have acted appropriately. Agent Kim referred to previous meeting in which Intel Profiler warned of a possible feint.

3. Intel Profiler Agent Laurenta confirmed that in previous meeting she had advised of the possibility that G. Underwood would engineer the double exchange option as a way of dividing his enemy’s forces.

4. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors that the coordination protocols with NYPD task force and National Guard at Grand Central delayed operations following the feint exchange, to include securing a briefcase discarded by the Kurac that posed a significant danger to the public. Records indicate the posted information was accessed at approximately 1630 and operations team was en route to the airport when reports of JFK car explosion were broadcast. The car explosion overloaded the agency’s resources coordinating with counterterrorism forces convinced explosion was terrorist act. Emergency protocols enacted by Homeland Security diverted operations forces to counterterrorism duties. Underwood escaped the failed JFK exchange due to Port Authority police unable to enact their emergency protocols completely and in timely manner.

5. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer advised agents that a review of operations and surveillance procedures would be enacted by internal review section to determine how future operations might function more efficiently and what personnel assignments need to be adjusted.

6. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer requested update on events of Wednesday, August 11th at 100 EDT in Hudson County, New Jersey.

7. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors that that morning’s operations in Hudson County, New Jersey, successfully recovered a portion of the Britany-Swindol gems. Intercepts indicated G. Underwood and T. Elwell had arranged with Roberto Guarrez, reputed Cuban syndicate chief, for a car to be delivered for their use in flight to Mexico with the gems. Operations mobilized and were in place well in advance. An attempt was made to intercept the targets before they drove out with the car from a parking garage, but data posted by Intel Surveillance was in error as to the location of the target vehicle—it was on the upper level of the garage, not the lower level.

8. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance section countered the assertion that their section was unable to provide accurate data. A review of the records indicate the transcripts were correct regarding what was said between G. Underwood and R. Guarrez regarding the location of the car.

9. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta apprised superiors that contingency measures were enacted to seal off all vehicular exits from the building. At approximately 100 EDT gunshots were heard inside the garage on the upper level. Two agents were deployed to investigate, when the target vehicle exited the garage at a high rate of speed almost injuring the two agents. Undercover vehicles boxed in the car and disabled it according to standard procedures. Agents began an approach to the vehicle when an incendiary device ignited within the vehicle before the occupants of the dark car could be identified positively.

10. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance referred to their transcripts indicating that G. Underwood intercepts suggest that he had a “trunk full” of military-grade ordinance.

11. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta indicated that the immolation function of the ordinance precluded standard field tests, but that observations at the time of ignition suggest male and female occupants in the vehicle, age and identity still unconfirmed, contents of vehicle unconfirmed. An unregistered .38 caliber nickel-plated handgun was recovered from the wreckage. Ballistics confirm that this weapon was discharged just prior to the exit from the garage, where the body of a male victim was located. The victim was identified as Dragan Spikic, suspected leader of a Kurac syndicate trying to exchange stolen Britany-Swindol gems with the Israelis. On his person was a M70 handgun. It is assumed that G. Underwood arranged a last-minute exchange and the deal went bad. Circumstances suggest that G. Underwood shot and killed D. Spikic with the nickel-plated handgun found in the remains of the burned vehicle. The gems recovered were in the fuel tank and thus not destroyed by extreme heat. Presumably they were in the gas tank for the purposes of smuggling them to Mexico.

12. Intel Profile Agent Laurenta suggested that the circumstances may have been carefully engineered by G. Underwood. Of concern is the reason for both the type and use of incendiary ordinance.

13. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta indicated that briefings by Intel Profiler Agent Laurenta suggested that G. Underwood was unstable and might act violently. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance had posted data suggesting that G. Underwood was in possession of military ordinance of this type and was unable to dispose of it before his departure. Operations were using available information provided by other departments in accordance with procedure. Suicide is listed under guidelines as possible function of violent behavior prior to capture. Operations enacted standard protocol to apprehend G. Underwood but did not have the opportunity to intercede in his suicide.

14. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer asked why Tito Raykovic’s wife was accompanying D. Spikic to an exchange, and if so, what became of her.

15. Agents Kim and Bola of Intel Surveillance section referred to intercepts indicating that she had left her husband after the theft of the Britany-Swindol gems from T. Raykovic and had taken up residence with D. Spikic at the Plaza Hotel. Intercepts with T. Raykovic indicate the couple was estranged.

16. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer rephrased his question as to whether she was at the exchange, specifically, noting that criminals don’t commonly bring their girlfriends to exchanges.

17. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta indicated that it was possible she was along as insurance that things would not turn violent. I. Raykovic was witnessed entering the building with D. Spikic. The garage surveillance camera system had been sabotaged and did not capture data of the actual encounter with G. Underwood or where I. Raykovic went after the encounter. Other area surveillance data might reveal her escape. Pings on her phone are nonresponsive.

18. Intel Profiler Agent Laurenta suggested the possibility that G. Underwood attempted to coerce D. Spikic and I. Raykovic to drive from the garage in a car rigged to explode with an incendiary and half the gems. The incendiary would make identifying the bodies difficult except that they matched male and female like G. Underwood and T. Elwell. The original intent was to have them drive the car out and make it look like G. Underwood and T. Elwell were dead, and that instead G. Underwood and T. Elwell may have escaped.

19. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta posed the question that if G. Underwood did not drive the car out of the garage, then who did, and why?

20. EOCTF Supervisor Palmer tabled the discussion until such time as forensics delivers more information on the car and its occupants. In the meantime the file on G. Underwood will remain inactive and prosecution against the two Kurac by the Justice Department should be initiated once the suspects are deemed medically fit to stand trial or extradited under warrants posted by other countries.

21. EOCTF Agents Brown and Acosta cited an instance in which a prisoner extradited abroad had found European security lacking and managed to escape and return to the U.S. to commit more crimes.

22. Before adjourning the meeting, EOCTF Supervisor Palmer announced that he had accepted a promotion effectively immediately, and that an acting supervisor would soon be installed to head the EOCTF.

******************MEETING ADJOURNED******************

Forty-nine

FairfaxAdvance.com

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Crash Kills Local Man

by Kerry Wells, Staff Writer

Police responded last night to reports of a vehicle that had gone off Ridge Road and flipped. The driver, William Lee, was returning to his home on Laurel Lane in Reston when apparently he lost control. The impact of the crash proved fatal. Investigators confirmed that he had a single drink with a friend just prior to the accident. While Mr. Lee was apparently not impaired, police speculate that he may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Mr. Lee was a career intelligence director with the Defense Intelligence Agency, a Rotarian, and a longtime resident of Reston. He leaves behind a wife and five sons.

Fifty

Fishing for bonefish is
a little like golf except the holes move. The course is what’s called a flat, a vast expanse of ocean often no more than calf deep, or less. The caddy is the guide who tends the tackle, spots the approaching fish, and advises the angler on how to make casts. The cart is the boat that takes the angler from place to place looking for bonefish, poled from a raised rear platform by the guide. Unlike golf, casts are sometimes made from the boat as it drifts mile after mile over the flats. Other times you wade.

The fish themselves are really nothing much to look at. With olive backs, mildly striped mirror-like sides, and white bottoms, they have downturned mouths like a sucker or a carp. Their smallish eyes are set on either side of a pointy snout. These fish travel in groups, the size depending on the size of the fish. Larger fish the size of a forearm—or larger—travel singly or in groups of three. Smaller fish sometimes school by the thousands.

I had never heard of a flat, and when I saw how big, sunny, and uniform they were, they reminded me of some deserts in the Middle East. The impression was reinforced by headgear anglers wear. Many hats have shrouds or cowls that cover the neck and face. I wore a bandana under my hat and across the lower half of my face. The rest of the outfit was light in both weight and color; the shirts and pants are made of quick-drying materials with a lot of pockets for gear. Flats boots are neoprene tennis shoes with thick soles made specifically for protecting anglers’ feet from sharp shells or coral heads.

Some flats are covered in drab turtle grass that looks like camouflage through the rippled water surface. Others are sharp brown coral heads. But mostly the bottoms are clean, almost featureless sand where small crustaceans live on what the tides bring. Of course, the tides also bring bonefish nosing the bottom, eating the shrimp and crabs. The fish shove their noses into the sand and blow to scare up their prey, leaving telltale blowholes in the sand bottom over large areas.

The cycle of life on a flat doesn’t stop there. A lemon shark’s favorite meal is a bonefish, and so they prowl the flats a little like the coyote after the roadrunner. Bonefish are fast, and when you hook one you have to let them run. Eventually the pull of the line and the bend of the rod slows a bonefish down, and you can play the fish out and land it before letting it go. If a lemon shark is around at that time it will chase down the bonefish and rip it in half. You have to keep an eye out for the sharks when you release bonefish—they’ll take them right out of your hand, and possibly take your hand, too. Wading can also attract them because the plumes of sand from your footprints look to sharks like bonefish blowing holes in the bottom.

One of the guides told me that the last thing you want to do is try to run from lemon sharks. The thrashing sounds like bonefish spooking, and the sharks target the commotion. He once saw someone bit on the ankle running from a shark on the flats, and it was lucky there was a boat nearby. The splashing and blood in the water would have drawn sharks from a quarter-mile radius in a matter of seconds. Most are only maybe three or four feet long. If you slap your rod on the water near them they will shoot away. Still, I wouldn’t want to be on a flat with a bloody nose. Like any other shark, they smell blood from a distance, and if you have a fish that’s bleeding when you release it, that bonefish is lunch.

People are sometimes floored that the bonefish are all released. Yet golfing is not about eating golf balls. True to their name, bonefish are so bony that the meat has to be completely picked through by hand before being made into cakes, and the taste is mild and unremarkable.

The tactics of bonefishing involve the angler or his guide spotting the fish and then determining where the fish are, how many there are, and what direction they are traveling. With some experience, the angler can see the fish once they come within casting range, and he can attempt to cast his shrimp-like fly three or four feet ahead of the lead fish.

I have no doubt that any guide would say the number one mistake anglers make with bonefish is how they hook them. The fish is following the fly, you strip, strip, strip—tug. That little tug should be answered with a long strip to hook the fish. The temptation is to raise the rod to hook the fish, but that doesn’t work for some reason. I’ve had guides explain that it is because of the way the fish’s mouth is angled down. I don’t get that.

Once the fish is hooked the angler has about two seconds to get ready for the fish to rocket across the flats. At first hooking, the fish runs some tight circles, which is the time when the angler needs to ready his line. Because reels are not used in the retrieve of the fly, there’s a lot of loose fly line on the deck of the boat or on the water. When a fish takes and zooms away, that line jumps into the air and races through the rod’s guides after the quarry. The angler has to manage how fast the line travels and in what direction so that it doesn’t wrap around the reel and halt. When that happens, the fish breaks off. Once the loose line whips through the guides, the angler lowers the rod and lets line peel off the reel. Now the angler is fishing from the reel, which has the capacity to put the brakes on a racing fish by controlling how fast it lets the line roll off the reel.

Then there are those sharks that will follow and seek out bonefish in ankle-deep water. When you see one chasing your fish the guide will usually tell you to lower your rod and let the fish run from the shark. That usually doesn’t work as well as snapping the fish off. Either way, the fish is tired and the shark is not and dinner is pretty much served. This doesn’t happen every day, but every week or so I’d reel in half a fish. Bernard’s Cay had a lot of sharks.

The first time I went out by myself bonefishing, I stepped out into a grassy flat with a large white sand area in the middle that was right next to shore. My plan was to eye the sand for fish coming in off the grass. I was only about ten feet from the beach—the water just topping my boots—scanning the sand, waiting. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement—three bonefish had come around behind me about a foot from shore. The water was less than six inches deep—
that’s
how shallow these fish can go. I froze. They swam by a couple feet from my legs, their eyes considering me, probably figuring I was an ugly piece of driftwood. They wandered away about thirty feet from me into the center of the white sand and began nosing the bottom. I flipped my fly next to them and one slammed it. That was the first fish I caught on my own.

By November, I used guides only a day or two a week. I’d gotten good enough to guide myself without letting the fish sneak up on me. I would bicycle to flats close to the island and wade them. Even with all the clothing and headgear, I was brown as a nut, and my feet were calloused and toes splayed. Full beard. Shaggy brown hair, with a gray streak. I’d gone native.

I had a lot of time by myself to reflect on everything that happened. In the evenings I would return to the lodge, where I had a room. Meals were served and there was a bar where the other anglers who came and went spent their evenings. I did too, sometimes.

A beer at my side, I was in the bar but at the fly-tying table off to one side. This is the setup for tying feathers, fake fur, and plastic fibers onto hooks to imitate the small shrimp and crab that the fish eat. I was working on a new pattern. There were four anglers at the bar swapping stories when the lodge owner came in. Her name was Tim, a handsome brunette with large blue eyes, business-like most of the time, but she knew how to swap stories and jokes with the men. And of course she could be seductive when she wanted to be. I first met her at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. She was one of the counselors. I got to Portsmouth two months before Trudy was admitted, and Tim and I hit it off. I suppose it wasn’t very professional, or discreet. No matter—I didn’t really know Trudy at the hospital, just knew who she was, so it wasn’t until later that we bumped into each other in Edgewater and fell in love.

Tim and I were friends first, lovers second. So I thought. I was the one who broke it off when I learned she was also my handler, and that I had been handled. Didn’t keep me from doing missions, though, once I got over it, once Phil Greene bought it. Or from coming in from the cold when things got too hot. She may have become a lodge owner and fly instructor, but she was also still a handler. I had no idea how many others she tended.

“Mike, you working on the permit fly again? I saw you wading Turtle Bight again.”

“The crabs out there are different near the mangroves than they are out on the flat.”

“You see your permit again?”

“I did.”

“He refuse your fly again?”

“He did.”

Unlike bonefish, a permit is a large, silver, disc-shaped fish with back, flowing fins top and bottom, a large eye, and a forked tail. They like to eat crabs and can be very hard to catch. When they feed on the flats their big forked tail waggles in the air as they nose the bottom.

I looked up from the fly I had just finished. “He showed up on the incoming tide and poked around those outer mangroves, the ones out by themselves. I cast a Merkin crab fly to him again and he turned and gave it a good look before wandering back to the deep water. So I went over to those outer mangroves and chased up some crabs with my foot. They’re a little purple, I think as camouflage around the mangrove roots. Gum?”

“Thanks.” Tim pulled a stick from the pack. “Give her a go. You might tie in some of that new synthetic material to the next one, the leggy stuff. Permit like that. I’ll have the guides stay away from there on the incoming tide until you and that permit work things out.”

“Thanks, Tim.” Put another hook in the fly-tying vise, and began wrapping thread along the shank with the bobbin.

“So how does San Diego sound? There are lots of apartments and condos with decks there, lots of money and jewelry.”

I paused. “West Coast, hm?”

“East Coast is done for you for a long while. We have people in San Diego who can set you up.”

I looked over my shoulder at Tim. “Is momma bird kicking me out of the nest?”

She stuck out her lower lip and looked at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t say that. But you can’t stay indefinitely. You know you have to redeploy sometime.”

And if I didn’t?

“What’s the fly fishing like there?”

“Just so-so. But you have the Pacific at your feet, plenty of places to travel pretty easily from there. Baja, Fiji, Vanuatu. There they go after other fish, bigger ones. And there are plenty of beautiful women there. I know Trudy was special, but you have to put that behind you at some juncture. I don’t think you need me to suggest that the next gal in your life should not join you in your missions. You can’t say we didn’t warn you last time. It isn’t in The Clause.”

“When were you thinking I should go?”

“I’ve got your tickets for next week.”

“I think I just fell out of the nest. Anything I should know?”

“About what?”

“This seems a little sudden.”

“Sometimes the decisions come down that way. There may be a mission coming up there in San Diego, I don’t know. Tie your flies, and go get that permit.” Tim stroked my cheek and went to the bar to chat up her angler guests.

I finished the fly I was working on, bought a bourbon, and took it to my room. I was asleep a half-hour later.