Page 45 of S.O.S. Mizzay

Del nodded, and Mizzay continued.

“He immediately understood that the ambushes in both the peacekeeping office and the hospital were professionally orchestrated. And when we got certain intel back from a half-assed investigation that HQ performed, we realized that Mr. X would continue to be in danger. So, with our suspicions, my agreement, and Chuck’s contacts, my career as an Army-lifer went into the dumpster.”

“You gave up what you’d worked toward to solve this problem that had been thrown in your lap.”

“That, and to keep Mr. X safe,” Mizzay confirmed.

“So, where did you go from there?” Del asked.

Mizzay shook her head. Her moves thereafter were even difficult for her to fathom.

“I still don’t know how Chuck separated me from the Army, but he managed it. Then he got me a job with the CIA. At the time the agency had top-secret offices in the US Embassy in Juba, which is right where I needed to be.”

“And your Mr. X?”

“Smalley had him declared dead, then smuggled him out of the country. He had the FBI put him in protective custody in the States. But we’re skipping ahead of ourselves here. I need to finish the first part of the story before we get to the rest.”

“Sorry,” Del apologized. “Go ahead.”

“I worked with the CIA for two years, uncovering a few of the minor players in the plot that we, by that time, knew was centered on gold smuggling. It’s a huge problem in the Sudan region because everything to do with natural resources is so unregulated.”

As Cobble had regained his memories, he’d been able to reveal that the word “gold” had been mentioned several times during the ambush, and it hadn’t taken much, after that, to find out there was a huge amount of smuggling money being made by dishonest factions.

Del nodded his understanding. Mizzay knew that in South America, Del had most likely butted up against some of the same problems.

“Unfortunately, every time we went to bring any of those lower-level smugglers in, we found them dead. Which as far as I was concerned, indicated that we had an informant in our ranks. All my hard work, and it was undermined at every turn. So, after gleaning all I could with the CIA, and discovering that the smuggling had long tendrils that reached back to the US, Smalley got me a job in the National Security Division of the DOJ to continue digging on the home front.”

“Impressive.” Del steepled his fingers, still absorbed in her narrative.

“I was employed strictly by the DOJ for five years, working every angle I could; finding that classified information therealsotrickled to the wrong people. Then I switched employment to join the FBI, undercover, for a stint of two and a half years while I was actuallystillworking for the DOJ.”

“Wow,” Del whistled. “Then… Wait. You came to us five years ago,” Del pondered. “Are you still with the DOJ?”

“No. I severed all ties with them when they decided to, at least on the books, close the case,” she said, wryly. “It had been nine years at that point, and the higher-ups had every reason to want to divert manpower to more current endeavors, but there was still the safety of Mr. X to consider. So between my bosses—Baskins and Cavateral—and me, I was given my walking papers, but clandestinely, they kept me on Mr. X’s security detail, and read in one or two additional trusted agents to keep digging into what had turned into a very deep hole.”

“Explain,” Del requested.

“Going backward, it turns out that Mr. X—when his memory of the UN attack began to come back—knew a lot about what had happened that day. He remembered the insurgents finding and taking some documents pertinent to the gold smuggling, and he saw faces. In specific, the face of the man in charge. It was enough sothatman, fronting the group, thought Mr. X—once it was determined he’d live—was too much of a danger to leave blowing in the wind. Which meant they had to kill him. An attempt was made at the hospital, but Smalley and I were able to thwart it. After that, we—Smalley and I—knew Mr. X needed to be hidden until such time as the case wrapped up and he could testify.

“Smalley took all the proper steps. He put Mr. X into what was considered a safe-house, complete with a new ID and an FBI constructed background. We both figured Mr. X would be okay. But that wasn’t the case. Within weeks, there was another attack on his life.”

“What the fuck?”

“Exactly what Smalley wondered. Mr. X himself was able to obstruct that attempt, then Chuck moved Mr. X again.”

“There was a third attempt?” Del guessed.

“Bingo. It was then Smalley knew there had to be a leak in the FBI, so the next time Mr. X was hidden, only Smalley and a few trusted agents knew where he’d been stashed.”

“Don’t tell me. The efforts to kill your informant didn’t stop.”

“They did not. And Smalley had no clue who he could really trust at that point besides me. That’s when he set me up with a job at the DOJ, so I could live stateside and help him out. After that third try at getting to Mr. X, we moved the man to a location only the two of us knew about.”

“And?” Del probed, totally into the story by now.

“And we found that whoever is at the top of the gold-smuggling food chain in the US, has the resources to track a lot of things; our phones, our movements, our correspondence. And Mr. X was found again.” She sighed. “Therefore, the job of hiding him had to go completely off the books, and I alone relocated Mr. X nine and a half years ago. Even Chuck didn’t know, for quite some time, where I had stashed him.

“Hence, Mr. X had been safe for a long time, but then circumstances I can’t discuss made it necessary for me to move him again. I remain vigilant, and with an abundance of caution, Istillmove Mr. X every two years to a new location.”

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