Page 34 of Fall of the Trident
“What was he charged with?”Trevor asked as they entered the building.
“A long list of UCMJ violations.Bottom line, peeping Tom.The kicker is, he caught Admiral Abrams, back when he was only a one star, fucking a deployed SEAL lieutenant’s wife.That’s why you had to handle his trial, and probably why he’d gotten the book thrown at him.”
Trevor remembered Marta’s comments about Admiral Abrams.He was such a sleaze bag she’d called him Admiral Asshat.How men like him ever got promoted, Trevor would never know.
Commander Gallagher stopped in front of an interrogation room.“His name is Joseph Rippe.I never promised him that I would get hold of you.I simply told him that I’d see what I could do.I checked on him a few minutes ago when the guards put him in this room.Would you like me to go in with you?”
It only took Trevor a second to decide.“No.I’ve got this.”
“Vice Admiral Maddox,” a female voice called from down the hall.Director Kam Hood trotted toward him with her hand outstretched.“Thank you very much for taking time from your busy day to come here.I wouldn’t have asked, but there’s something about this man.He seems to know so much more than any of the other guards.We’re hoping he’s going to turn over information that leads us to Big Daddy.”
Trevor shook her hand then pulled her in for a half hug.“I’m so proud of you, Kam, kicking ass and taking names all across the United States.I’ll do what I can to get as much information out of him as possible.”
“Thank you, sir.We’ll take anything we can get.”She stepped back next to her fiancé in front of the glass and stared at the handsome man in his late twenties cuffed to the table.Even with a two-day old beard, he looked approachable.
Trevor strode through the door but did not sit in the provided chair across from the man he now recognized.Instead, spread his legs shoulder length apart and crossed his arms over his still powerful chest.He knew he looked formidable.“Mr.Rippe, I’m here and so are my stars.Whatever the fuck you have to say to me, you’d better make it fast or I’m walking right back out the door.”
Rippe tried to stand but was shackled.“Vice Admiral Maddox, thank you for coming.You’re probably not going to believe what I’m about to tell you, but I have proof.You’ll see why it had to be you that I told.”
“Let’s hear it.”Trevor was waiting for a line of bullshit.
Letting out a deep breath, Rippe blurted, “Rear Admiral Finger is Big Daddy.”
It took everything Trevor had, years of interrogation training, not to react.He wasn’t sure if he believed Joseph Rippe, but something deep inside of him didn’t doubt it.FX Finger was one of the few senior Navy officers who Trevor disliked.He’d known him for years and was another high-ranking officer who kept getting promoted without ever really performing his job.It certainly wasn’t his winning personality either.More than once he’d wondered, half-jokingly, if Finger had some kind of dirt on an officer more senior than him, or perhaps the chief of Naval operations himself.
“That’s a very serious accusation, Mr.Rippe.Prove it.”This should be interesting.
“They took away my phone.I have pictures and video.”He looked at the mirrored glass.
Trevor gazed that direction, also, and nodded.“Why would you tell me that Rear Admiral Finger was involved in the sex trade?”Trevor had to determine if it was a lie before they brought his phone.Perhaps he was trying to get back at Rear Admiral Finger for something that happened while on active duty.
“Because it’s true.He helped me get out of the brig early.I had to promise to go to work for him, and I did.I’ve done terrible things, I know, and I’ll have to pay for that, but I want you to bring down his organization.I want to help.”Rippe didn’t sound like he was lying, but the question still remained, why.
“So, you want to negotiate your punishment?”Trevor needed to get to the bottom of this reversal.
“That would be great but something else is more important.”Rippe stared at the mirrored glass.“I want to talk to the lady from Homeland Security.The one who was on TV.”
The younger man must’ve known that Trevor couldn’t negotiate.When Kam walked into the room, he decided to stay.
“I’m here.What do you want?”Dressed in black utilities and the black boots, her duty belt with a stun gun and a Smith & Wesson forty-cal, strapped to her waist, she exuded power.
Rippe’s back straightened and his gaze held hers.“When I let you capture me, I had a little girl, blonde pigtails, big blue eyes, the sweetest little thing.Her name is Sigrid.Her English is pretty good.”He smiled just a little.“I’ve been teaching her, and she watches a lot of Sesame Street and little kids’ programs.She’s just a kid.”His eyes pleaded.
He took a deep breath.“I was the admiral’s hunter, that’s why he called me Hound.He’d tell me what kind of a little girl he wanted, usually for a customer who was going to pay him thousands, and I go and find one.Sometimes it took me several countries.”Rippe looked down at his chained hands.“I can be very persuasive when I want to be.I promised these girls they could be actresses, models, whatever worked.On the plane, we let them drink, smoke weed, and eat as much as they wanted.They were always hungry.The first few times, the private jets we used belonged to his clients.It didn’t take long until he was able to buy his own jet.The pilots were pedophiles and more than happy to accompany me on the hunt.”
Looking up, his gaze bounced between Kam and Trevor.“Sigrid was different.We were in Sweden picking up blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls.Usually, we got kids off the street.We were in that section of Stockholm, and she offered me a blowjob for five bucks.She said she hadn’t eaten in three days and looked it.She was a bit on the younger side, but her eyes, they’d seen too much.I felt like I was looking into my own.”
Taking a deep breath, he looked away at the blank wall.“I broke the rules.I took her hand and we walked to a fast-food place about two blocks down.I bought food for both of us.Her English was pretty good.She told me that her parents had both been killed and she’d been sent to her mother’s brother.She said he was a bad man and into all kinds of bad things.He’d get drunk and make her touch him sexually.When she told her aunt about it, the woman just laughed and threatened that when she got a little older, he’d do a lot more than that.
“I had to help her.”He lifted his hands as far as the chains would allow.“She kind of understood insurance because the lawyer told her that she’d have money to go to private school and a good college when she got older, but until then she needed to live with her uncle who would use the money for her.That’s why she stayed with him.But he didn’t send her back to the private school she’d been going to, and he didn’t use the money for her.He beat her if she didn’t do exactly what he said.”
Rippe shook his head.“Big Daddy doesn’t let the men smack the girls around.They get tossed out for that.But nobody was there to protect Sigrid when he smacked her so hard she fell on the floor and hurt her wrist.I’m pretty sure it broke because she holds it weird, even now.That night, she ran away.She’d been living on the streets ever since.Some of the teenage girls took her under their wing and showed her how to survive.She’d heard that we were in the area looking for young girls to be models and put on TV.She hoped that we would take her far away from her uncle.”
Pleading, he begged, “Please don’t send her back to Stockholm.I brought her home on the plane then took her to my house.I’m not a pedophile.”He dropped his head.“I’m a voyeur.I like to watch but I don’t want anybody to touch me.”His head popped up.“I never touched Sigrid.She’s like a sister to me.Until Halloween night, she’d never been to the club.I never took her to the training camp.I don’t know how, but Admiral Finger knew that I had her.He forced me to take her to the club that night.I didn’t know how, but I was going to get her out of there before he was able to sell her virginity.”
Kam’s face blanched before it reddened.“That fucker.”
Joseph Rippe chuckled.“Actually, no he doesn’t.He’s not a pedophile, nor did he fuck any of the girls.Not even once they grew into women.He hated it when the girls grew up.A few years ago, he started an online auction for them, selling them as fully trained.”He looped back to his original statement.“Big Daddy prefers adult men, the more masculine the better.He also likes little BDSM but never keeps a lover.Use ’em and lose ’em was his motto.”
