Third Eye Watch (A Serena Shaw Mystery) (18 page)

Sam shook his head in amazement; then he turned on his cellphone flashlight and examined her go-bag wondering what else he’d find. He saw the usual Quantico recommended items such as bullets, radio, two pairs of handcuffs, etc. Then he did a double take and pulled out a pair of boob earmuffs; arching his eyebrows at her.

“Oh, I won those at a bachelorette party.” She shrugged.

“And this?” Sam held up a neon pushup bra.

“Oh, that’s where it is. I thought I had lost it.”

“How do you lose a bra?”
He rummaged some more, the put the bag away when he found another sex toy, and said, “Your mind is a scary place, partner.”

“And you better stay out it,” she drawled, “Partner!”

He chuckled, and got comfortable, scooting down in his seat, inclining it just enough to allow him to look outside the front of the vehicle without having to crane his neck, and lifted the night vision binoculars that he had removed from Audrey’s go-bag to his eyes.

He could see two bouncers at the front entrance, collecting cover charges, and checking identification of the people who waited in line. Most of the customers were young male, but there were some couples too.

Audrey muttered in disapproval at the clothes the women were wearing.

Sam settled himself lower in his seat. He didn’t mind stakeouts. Audrey, on the other hand, hated them because she liked to be in motion all the time, so he knew she’d find something or the other to grumble the entire time.

He kept the night vision binoculars glued to the entrance, but let his mind wander.

He had dated many women, and once or twice had even thought it was love. But what he felt for Serena was different; it wasn’t just attraction, it was so much more that he. He remembered how his heart had thumped the first time he had seen her, and how it still thrummed whenever he saw her.

He could tell that Serena cared deeply for her friends and family; her affection for her family was obvious in the way she talked about them.

She was smart and funny and had an incredible, self-deprecating sense of humor.  And, she was stubborn, and defiant, and impulsive, and; she had the power to infuriate him like no other person on earth, he thought wearily.

The only thing that surprised him about her was that she didn’t know how to cook, and didn’t want to learn, preferring to carry out most of her meals. He chuckled thinking that if he didn’t want to turn into a blob of three hundred pounds, he’d have to be the cook of the family when they were married.

Whoa. The binocs fell out of his hands, and he sat up so abruptly that his head hit the roof of the car; startling Audrey so badly that the camera bounced out of her hands and landed on the floor at his feet.

“What the hell, Raina?” Audrey punched him in the arm, flashing her eyes at him. She only “Raina’d” him when she was really, really annoyed.

“Oww.” He rubbed his head and his arm alternatively. Then he picked up the camera and handed it back to her, grinning madly at her.

“What?” She bit out, narrowing her eyes at him.

But he shook his head and raised his binocs.

The M word! He tried to wrap his head around it. Obviously, he had planned to marry. His siblings were happily married, and he knew that he would too, someday. But that someday hadn’t been defined; he just knew that when the time came, he’d be ready for it. Unlike other men, he had never worried about losing his “bachelor” status.

And it looked like the time was coming closer. Serena was his and he, Samvir Raina, was going to marry her. He just hoped she agreed with his plan; he chuckled wryly.

“WHY are you grinning like a loon?” Audrey bit out, even though her eyes were trained on the Criket Club.

“I’m going to marry her.” He lowered his binocs and waited for her reaction; and wasn’t disappointed when it came. She whipped her head and turned towards him so fast; the car shook.

“WHAAATT?”

He grinned boyishly. “I know, right?”

She shook her head in disbelief; then lifted the camera back to her eyes. But he noticed a broad smile played on her lips. “Now look who’s grinning like a loon.” He teased.

“I get first dibs,” she broke the silence a few minutes later.

“First dibs at what?” he asked, puzzled.

“Being a godmother to your first born.”

Children. He exhaled loudly. Children, with Serena! He couldn't contain the huge smile that spread on his face, his mind imagining little girls that looked just like their mom, running around him, calling out “Papa, papa.” Five, he thought, five girls and two little boys, yes; that would do nicely. He’d always wanted a large family.

“Check this out.” Audrey’s voice broke into his daydreams.

He brought the night-vision binoculars back to his eyes and saw a black Escalade entering the parking deck, adjacent to the Criket Club’s rear parking lot.

“Damn it! I can’t see the license plate”, Audrey banged her hand on the dashboard in frustration as the Escalade disappeared from view.

They waited for its reemergence, and their patience was rewarded three hours later when the Escalade exited the parking deck and purred away softly into the night.

This time, Sam operated the camera, while Serena used the dashcam manually to click as many shots as they possibly could. One of the images clearly showed the license plate and they high-fived, planning to run it the next day, and get an answer to the obvious question, why was an Escalade entering and exiting a parking lot adjacent to the Criket Club, in the middle of the night?

It was almost dawn when Sam got dropped off at Serena’s and drove his car home.

KNOW THY ENEMY

Two hours later, showered and changed, he entered his office to find it was already occupied.

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t go home? I could have done the same.”

“And good morning to you too, Special Agent Grumpy,” Audrey said without glancing up.

She had bought muffins, walnut cranberry for him, and chocolate for her. He went to the break room and gave silent thanks to the person who had started a fresh pot of coffee. It would still be vile, but at least it would be freshly-made-vile. When the coffee finished brewing, he poured two fresh cups of it, and walked back to his office, handing one to Audrey and drinking from the other while eating his muffin.

“Here are all the photos from our stakeout. I called already telling Soo to expect you.” She handed him a flash drive.

“Must you?” he asked her with a frown.

“I’m waiting for a call from Ed Weiss. So yes, I must, and you must.” Then she mouthed “GO” and pointed at the door.

He finished his muffin and went.

Soo Yun was twenty-nine years old, and their department’s lead crime tech. She was a third generation Chinese American who had graduated from Harvard at the age of fourteen, and who possessing mad hacking skills. She was forever being requested to assist on FBI projects nation-wide, but she left only on the condition that she would spend no more than two nights away from her home. 

She loved rap music, Taco Bell food, and bad jokes, in that order. She was an army brat and had spent three years each in; Spain, Germany, and China before permanently moving to the United States resulting in her being quadrilingual. She spoke Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, English, and German like a native.

And she had a crush on Sam, and everyone in the building (probably the city) knew.

Hence, he became the errand boy, especially in urgent situations.

“What took you so long?” she asked him, perched on a chair, numerous computers and other electronic paraphernalia spread out all over the large conference room that she had commandeered when she had first joined, and no one had asked for it back.

I’m not the only Grumpy around here, he thought, handing her the flash drive Audrey had given him, and pulled up a chair, looking around the room at the various monitors flashing and blinking.

“I see you’ve redecorated.” He said as he pointed to the stack of empty crates behind him.

She giggled; then explained that they were doing a refresh of all the computers in the building, and the empty crates were there to collect the old computers and transport them to FBI electronics recycling centers located across the country.

He stood looking over her shoulder as she connected the flash drive to one of the computers, and clicked on the “download” icon.

“Pulled an all-nighter?” Sometimes he wondered who the psychic was around here.

“Yeah. So how soon will you have something for us?”

“I told your partner two hours, but since you stopped by personally, an hour,” she winked at him.

He laughed, then saluted her and walked back to his office.

xxxx

Sam was on the phone and Audrey was dozing, when a knock sounded and Soo entered their office. It was exactly one hour since he had dropped of the flashdrive with her.
Sam hung up and Audrey sat up, rubbing her eyes as she tried to chase sleep from her eyes. Soo closed the door behind her, then walked up to their desk and handed them each an envelop.

“The Escalade is registered to a local company called AT Freighters; an import-export business owned by Arif Thaqi and Hashim Rudaj. In addition to the import-export business, Thaqi and Rudaj co-own several businesses including pizzerias, mobile phone repair shops, massage parlors, and clubs all across Michigan.”

“Strip clubs?” asked Audrey, sitting up straighter.

Soo looked at her notes and nodded. “Yes, strip clubs.”

“Is the Criket Club one of them?” Audrey asked.

Soo glanced through her notes quickly and replied, “Sure is!”

“In the envelopes, you will each find a copy of the intel I have gathered, and prints of photographs you took last night.”
“Thanks Soo.” Audrey murmured absently as she opened the envelope and began reading.

Soo nodded, and quietly left the room.

Thaqi and Rudaj were Albanian men who had been smuggled into Detroit through Canada, around 2001. They worked side by side at a restaurant and lived in Hamtramck with five other men who had also been smuggled in a few months earlier. Once the were walking home from their night shift at the restaurant, when two black kids jumped out in front of them, brandishing guns. The two had grabbed the guns, and beat up the black kids, running them off. Over the years they worked in various jobs; cleaning office buildings, organizing events, and later working as freelance muscle men, extorting businesses to pay them money in exchange for protection from other gangs in the area.

As their reputations grew, so did their extracurricular activities, and they began hanging out in coffee shops owned by Albanians; terrorized people by sticking guns into their mouths and making them beg for their lives, and getting into turf wars with rival gangs.

In 2007, they suddenly disappeared from the Detroit mob scene.

They resurfaced again two years later, this time as owners of two clubs, one of them being the Criket Club. They had expanded their empire over the years, and now owned more than fifty pizzerias and a total of thirty-nine strip clubs and massage parlors across the State of Michigan, from Hamtramck to Grand Rapids.

Since 2014, they’d been subjected to intense federal investigations for various crimes including; running a racketeering enterprise, witness tampering and intimidation, execution-style murders, and car-jacking; however, they remained free due to lack of evidence and witnesses who keep vanishing or showing up dead.