Page 27 of Operation: Reckless Angel

“You’re welcome. Just sit tight for a bit and once I know we’re safe, you can get up and sit on the bed. It’ll be more comfortable and still keep you out of sight.”

Briana pulled into a gas station right before the on-ramp to I-75 south and she pulled around to the back of the building as planned. “Stay here. I need to pull the fake plates from the van.” She got out and easily removed the Michigan plates that were held in place to her real plates with magnets, and she stowed them under her seat.

When the van emerged from behind the building, a Michigan State Police cruiser sat facing her. Her heart stopped in her chest. Her eyes flickered to the clock. It was ten forty. It was way too soon for a police report to have been made. It was highly unlikely anyone saw her van. And if they did, Janet had not committed a crime by leaving the church with her children. She was their mother.

Briana smiled and waved at the officer seated in the cruiser, who stared in her direction. Then she calmly pulled back onto the street and merged onto the on-ramp. “I’m Lisa, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thank you so much,” Janet repeated. She had finally stopped shaking.

“Did you have any problems?”

“No, it went as planned. I’m afraid he’ll suspect Sonia helped us. I fear,” her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to say too much more in front of the kids. She knew there’d be the opportunity to talk with this unknown rescuer when the kids were asleep later.

“I understand,” Briana said. “Her plan is in place. She’ll be fine. I made sure of it.”

“Yes, she was good with the arrangements,” Janet seconded.

“Trust me. I’ve done it this way more than a few times. All the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed. You can all get up and sit on the mattress now. I have my iPad there with movies for the children loaded and ready to watch. Oh, and after you get the kids settled, can you let my cat out of her carrier? Her name is Miss Mittens, and she likes to snuggle.” Briana knew petting Miss Mittens would help relieve the anxiety the kids were likely to feel.

Juliette

On Monday morning, after the pre-mission briefing, Roth helped to load the two SUVs he and the five members of Alpha Team would drive to New Buffalo, Michigan. It was another CIA Referral Case, and he was grateful to be assigned to work on it with Alpha Team. He appreciated the rotation, working with the different teams to gain experience on these types of mission.

This time they were investigating Jonathan Burlington, the owner of The Shores, a newly opened casino resort on the banks of Lake Michigan who had exchanged coded messages with someone in Dubai and was being investigated by the FBI for sketchy financing of his resort. That was all they had. No info on why it was sketchy or who in Dubai the emails were exchanged with. It was assumed that person was who the CIA was investigating.

Without anything concrete to investigate, they were on a fishing expedition, or as Cooper put it, they were there to shake the trees and see what came falling down. December in Michigan, Roth was sure all that would fall from the trees was snow, and a lot of it.

He was stationed in the car, watching the front of the resort for anything suspicious and hoping to catch a glimpse of the owner entering. It was cold, even with the heater running full blast. As the minutes stretched to hours, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from wandering to Briana Woods. He wondered where she was. And if she was some place warm. Damn, it was cold! He shivered. But then he remembered those kisses they’d shared, and a warmth momentarily surrounded him. It had only been a few days since he’d said goodbye to her. Was it too soon to message her?

His thoughts were interrupted by the team’s chatter through his comms. Onsite tonight besides him, were Cooper, Madison, and Jackson. He added his two cents, wondering out loud why the owner opened this place in late November, rather than the beginning of summer. One large snowfall, which happened often along the lake, would shut everything down for days. And the amount he had to be spending on heating the place had to be obscene. Not to mention the fact that there was an amazing outdoor waterpark space built that would not pay for itself with revenue for five or six months.

The one thing he’d learned from the team was to apply logic and rational thought to the cases. When there was a deliberate crime involved, nothing was accidental. Everything was planned. So, if something didn’t make sense, there was a reason for it.

The parking lot was filled with cars, but the team inside reported that the casino floor was practically empty. So where were all the people? Roth wasn’t surprised when Cooper called him to come inside. The four of them would conduct a search of the resort to find the guests. Doc and Garcia were asleep at the nearby hotel where they’d got rooms, as this resort had no rooms available. Four hundred guest rooms and not a single one was available, was hard to believe.

Roth went with Cooper to the elevators. Two were out of service, which they found odd in a brand-new hotel. The plan was just to walk each floor, take a looksee, and then go to the next floor. They ran into very few people who were all dressed to the nines. That was odd. They caught a break when they happened along one of the out of service elevators opening to let off guests. Another guest came, swiped his special black card with a silver swish on it, and the elevator descended to the second sub-basement level where the illegal casino greeted them. It was packed!

Cooper tried to transmit their status to the rest of the team. The transmission was blocked. Trying to blend in, they stepped up to the bar, but the bartender needed their black club card in order to serve them. They faked they’d left them in their rooms and were immediately intercepted by security.

Roth wasn’t worried about the two security members questioning them. They didn’t appear to be armed, but he and Cooper were. And these two mall cops were not going to make a scene in front of the other guests. Cooper told them his wife had his club card. He said she was in the bathroom, which Roth saw was on the far side of the room.

Just then, Cooper and Roth saw Madison and Jackson step into the casino from the hallway near the bathrooms. “There she is,” Cooper said. He took his phone from his pocket and brought up a picture of the two of them together. He showed the security guard. “Me and the missus.” He smiled.

The man viewed the picture and then his gaze went back to Madison. “Sorry to have bothered you, sir. Please do go to your room at your convenience and retrieve your black cards.”

“Sure will, sorry to have accidentally broken the rules,” Cooper said. Then he and Roth made a beeline to Madison and Jackson. Upon arriving at their location, he wrapped an arm around her. “Great timing, honey. Glad you’re here, but it’s time to go.”

The four of them walked back to the elevators and rode it until they opened up on a guest floor, having been called by another guest. They switched to another elevator to ride it to the ground floor. There, they all retrieved their coats from the coat check station.

Once out in the frigid night air, Cooper took Jackson and Madison’s report on the entrance they’d used to access the illegal casino. It was in the kitchen area of the resort. Cooper pulled his phone from his pocket and called in to Ops. He made his report that Shepherd would forward to the proper agency, so the illegal casino would be raided and shut down by the proper authorities. Not bad. Three days on the ground and they’d wrapped it up. More than likely, they would head home the following morning.

Roth loved these types of cases. The skills needed for them were different from what he learned in SEAL training and even different from what was needed to work the DEA Partner Missions. And working with Alpha Team, seeing first-hand how fast they think on their feet was something he wouldn’t learn from anyone else. He knew he had more training in these different types of cases than Bravo Team did at this point. Michael Cooper was very worried their return would have them assigned to the PGP Project more often. Roth disagreed. He had a leg up on them as far as training went.

Alpha Team met with the FBI, the Attorney General, and the Michigan Gaming Control Board at zero nine hundred the following morning and detailed out their findings at The Shores Casino. Shepherd was dismayed when he’d spoken with Leonard Whiting, the Deputy Director of the FBI, his contact, the previous evening. Whiting took the information from him and when he reached back out, he notified Shepherd that the Michigan Attorney General would not act on the FBI’s report without speaking to the team that discovered the illegal gambling operation. And he would not see the members of Alpha Team to receive their report until the next morning. Shepherd found this delay unacceptable.

On the schematics for the casino, Cooper and Madison showed the authorities where the second sub-basement was accessed from the ground floor. They also described the elevator system and the black cards with the silver swish on it for guest access. Cooper had managed to capture a few photos on his phone of the basement gambling area in the few moments he had his phone out, showing that security person the picture of Madison and himself.

The Attorney General sanctioned a raid on the casino sub-basement level as only one gaming floor of a specified square footage, a discrete number of tables, and an exact number of slot machines was licensed. In Cooper’s pictures, it was clear that the number of tables in the photo exceeded the number of tables the casino was licensed to operate. The raid would not take place until that evening, when the casino would be the most crowded. The team was asked to remain in town to consult during the raid.

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