Decker's Dilemma (26 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

1310, Sunday, March 2

She sat on the edge of the bed watching Hack breathe, then reached up and brushed the hair away from his forehead. “Hey, how're you feeling? I hope you can hear me. I wanted to see you before the others get here. I feel really bad about what happened.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead.

The sound of Decker's voice in the hallway startled her. Vega jumped from the bed and scurried to a chair a few feet away.

A moment later Decker strolled through the door with Lee and Agent McCoy, a.k.a. Biff, in tow, each one holding a coffee cup. “Hack, don't tell me you have late sleepers again,” Decker said, finding a chair at the far end of the bed.

Agent McCoy followed and sat in a chair next to Vega.

Lee walked over and stood next to the bed. She glared at the police officer. “What are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to the head?”

“I
did
use the restroom,” Vega said. “But I didn't feel like waiting on you guys to finish eating. I decided to come up here, and the nurse said I could come on in.”

Lee sat on the bed next to Hack, watching his body twitch as he awakened. He slowly opened his eyes, startled that someone was sitting next to him holding his hand.

“Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?” Lee whispered.

Hack looked up at her and a smile spread across his face. “I'm doing okay.” He glanced around the room and focused on Decker. “Where am I?” And then at McCoy. He tried to push himself to a sitting position. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hey, don't get up,” Decker said. “You're hooked up to all kinds of stuff. You're at the Subic Bay Naval Base Hospital. And this here is Special Agent McCoy from the Naval Security and Investigative Command.”

“We meet again,” McCoy said. “The guy you refer to as ‘Dave' is my partner, Reed McGruder. It's nice to have new nicknames. We're usually called Old Mac and Young Mac. He's on the
Harvey
now, but you'll meet him later today.”

“How long have you guys been here?” asked Hack. “I woke up this morning and no one was here.”

“We've been here all night,” Decker said. “We slept, or tried to sleep, in the waiting room. The nurse wouldn't let us visit you until now.” He pointed towards the door. “Mo's here, too, but he's working on seconds in the cafeteria. Or maybe it's thirds by now. He was complaining about me not letting him eat for the past three days.”

“Food sounds great,” Hack said. “Even navy food. You know what?” He looked up at Lee and squeezed her hand. “I just had the best dream. I was sitting with a beautiful girl and she was holding my hand and kissing me. And then I woke up and here you are. It's like my dream came true.”

Lee scowled at Vega. “A dream, huh?” She turned back to Hack. “I'm just glad you're awake.”

“What happened last night?” Hack asked. “I remember being at Cal Jam and the next thing I know I'm waking up here.”

“It's a common response,” McCoy said. “I've seen it a lot in trauma victims. You may never remember anything about getting shot.”

“It's for the best,” Lee said, patting Hack on the hand. “You shouldn't try to remember last night. It was awful.”

“But, let me fill you in on a few minor details,” Decker said. “As soon as you left Cal Jam, I realized what had been bothering me for the past couple of days. It was the dates.”

“The dates?”

“Yes, the dates. I remembered the date December 28.”

“Why is that important?”

“It isn't, but the following week Chief Fray was off the ship. As you may remember, someone placed a requisition order on January 2. And thanks to your inventory, we knew those parts never made it to the ship. Based on that information, I realized that it couldn't have been Chief Fray because he couldn't place an order if he wasn't logged into the system. It had to be someone else with access. And then you got the call from Lee, and we followed you. We reached the taxi stand and you were nowhere in sight, but we ran into Special Agents McCoy and McGruder, and long story short, the commander shot you, and McCoy and McGruder shot him. Suppo died this morning.”

“Wait! I got shot?” Hack looked up at Lee who glanced over at Decker.

“Bullet just grazed you,” Decker said with a laugh. “You'll have a real war wound now to show all the ladies.”

“Am I gonna be okay?”

“Good as gold. Captain'll have you back at work in no time.”

Hack relaxed back into his pillow. “How did you know it was the commander?” he asked. “We had another suspect or two.”

Decker sipped from his coffee. “I didn't at first. It was a hunch I got when I read a sign at Cal Jam.”

“A sign? What are you talking about?” asked Hack.

“After you left the club, Pong wanted to show me something in his office. A new WWII rifle he had purchased for his collection. As we were walking through the back of his bar, I saw a set of double doors with a sign in Tagalog that read
Gamitin iba mga pinto
. I'd seen the sign a hundred times before, but I never paid attention to it.”

“Use other door,” said Vega.

“Exactly,” said Decker. “That's what Pong told me.
Pinto
is the Tagalog word for ‘door.' And then it hit me. We thought Ponytail and Baldy were talking about Petty Officer Pinto, but they were saying, ‘Are they friends of Door.' It must've been a nickname they gave Commander Doerr. Then I remembered that Suppo told me he was going to go to the supply depot because some special parts were coming in, and since I'd already told him how much we knew, I deduced he'd start to feel threatened we were getting close. So Mo, Vega, and I tried to catch up with you to warn you.” Decker turned to Vega. “And some careful police work also pointed towards the commander.”

Vega nodded. “I knew there had to be a reason an American was involved. A good reason. When I saw the slip of paper Decker got from the commander's wife, I knew it was from gambling. The numbers didn't add up until I remembered I was looking at dollars on the commander's sheet of paper and pesos on the paper I got from Agana's. I did the math with the exchange rate and it worked out perfectly. The commander won $1,800 on December 27 betting on basketball games. But half of it, $900, went to Agana to fund his
jueteng
operation. 18,750 pesos. I also remembered Ducky had said Angelito Agana had a son, Lito Junior. I deduced he was the ‘L2' on the commander's note. And the ‘P' makes sense as the one helping fund the
jueteng
operation. It was ‘P' for Pinto, the nickname Decker figured they had for the commander.”

“Wow,” Hack said, turning to McCoy. “How much did you know?”

“We obviously knew there was a black market operation going on,” McCoy said. “We also knew someone on the
Harvey
was coordinating it. We suspected someone at the supply depot was helping, but didn't know who. We'd been following you because it made sense at the time. You were on the
Harvey
and your girlfriend worked at the depot. The only problem in our minds was that you and Petty Officer Mansfield were junior and my bosses believed, correctly as it turned out, that it had to be someone at a higher rank.”

“Then why were you still following me if you thought I wasn't the suspect?” asked Hack.

“Two reasons. We thought you might have become involved somehow and we also found out from following you that you were up to something. We didn't know what, but we knew you guys visited Fortuno and Agana.” He chuckled. “You seemed to be everywhere we turned. At one point, Reed, or Dave to you, thought you guys might be undertaking some sort of investigation on your own, but dismissed it. Didn't think you had it in you.”

Decker leaned back and spread his arms expansively. “Ah, the little guy. Always underestimated.”

McCoy laughed. “Don't let it bother you. That's the way we operate.”

“Clearly a lack of training on your part.” Decker tsk tsked at him. “Maybe we could give you guys a few pointers.”

“Yeah right. I'll be sure to send that recommendation up the chain of command and see what they say. I'll sign it ‘Biff and Dave.'”

Hack blushed at the mention of the nicknames. “So what's everybody saying on the ship?” Hack asked.

“They can't believe it,” said Decker. “The commander was too smart to get involved in something like this.”

“Smart, yes, but also someone who needed money,” McCoy said.

“I thought officers made a good living,” Hack said, reaching for a glass of water.

“They do, but even with an officer's pay, a gambling problem can get you in deep trouble pretty quickly,” McCoy said. “When we talked with Mrs. Doerr last night, she told us it started when he was stationed in Nevada. He'd always been a social gambler, betting at casinos or putting money on a game here and there. But something triggered a bigger problem. I'm no psychologist, but I'd say he was addicted. She thought the move to the Philippines would help, but he found the casinos here and continued betting on sporting events.”

“Didn't she try to help him?” asked Vega.

McCoy blew on his coffee to cool it. “She said she insisted he get counseling in the States a couple times, but nothing seemed to work. He'd go cold turkey and then she'd notice the bank account dwindling again. And he did all that off the record. Didn't want the navy to know otherwise he'd be a security risk and future promotions would be at stake.”

“I'm surprised she stayed with him,” said Decker.

McCoy nodded. “He said he worried about her leaving.”

“You talked to him before he died?” Lee asked with a quick glance down at Hack.

“He woke up after surgery,” McCoy said. “We managed to talk to him for about fifteen minutes before he slipped into a coma. He never recovered.”

“What did he say?” asked Hack.

“He was deep in debt. And it's an old story with gamblers. The more they get into debt, the more they want to place that one last bet that will make a killing. He said he tried to quit but he never could shake it. And then he discovered the black market operation going on under his nose when he was stationed at the supply depot. Agana had a guy working for him there.”

“And he has since escaped,” Vega interjected. “But we know who he is. It's only a matter of time before we track him down.”

“The commander confronted Agana's man,” McCoy continued. “He told us he planned to turn him in, but, instead, they made a deal. Suppo needed the money and it looked like an easy way to pay off some gambling debts. I'm sure it started out with small stuff, but with a senior supply corps officer in the fold, Agana probably upped the ante. They moved into household items, stereos, televisions, stuff like that. Then it became parts for ships. From what we can tell, most likely going to Iran.”

“The ships we read about in the library,” Hack said.

Decker nodded. “The very ones.”

“Commander Doerr had the seniority to move the kind of material that other countries need,” McCoy said. “Circuit cards, valves, radar components. The kinds of things you can't pick up at the local hardware store. And then the commander's gambling problem resurfaced. He got into sports betting at one of Agana's casinos, which turned out to be an easy way for Agana's son to skim the winnings to help fund his jueteng empire.”

“I can understand, I guess, why Suppo was involved when he was stationed at the supply depot, but why didn't he quit when he transferred to the
Harvey
?” asked Hack.

“Agana threatened him. And then he became desperate. But the commander didn't have the same access and authority anymore to go over to the depot and make things happen. And when he knew Kippen was on to him, he turned to murder.” He glanced at Decker. “You almost ended up the same way. He admitted that he tipped off Agana about you. It was one of his men who chased you in the trike.”

“I'm glad he was a bad shot,” Decker said.

“The commander said he got scared after that,” McCoy added. “He convinced Agana to call off the hit on you, said he'd take care of it himself.”

“Was that all he said?” asked Lee, glancing at Hack. A glance Vega noticed.

“Yep, he started mumbling something else, then closed his eyes and never woke up.”

“I thought sure it was Chief,” Hack said, looking at Decker. “You had me convinced. We should've gone to him.”

“Easy to say that now,” Decker said. “But we had no idea whether he was involved or not. It would've been too risky. Apparently, though, Chief Fray was also conducting his own investigation.”

“How did he find out about Agana?” asked Hack.

“From his wife,” Vega said. “We talked to her last night. She has a relative involved with Agana. Chief told her about the inventory problem and she guessed it was a black market operation and told him about Agana.”