The Spirit Survives (34 page)

I thought I accomplished my goal. I understood that they might try to kill me now, but my intuition told me that I didn’t have much time to get to Leah. I was willing to take any gamble to find her.

I drove back to the Presidential Towers and went straight to my apartment. I got myself a Diet Coke and poured it over ice. I decided to make a childhood favorite sandwich for a snack. I put a banana in a bowl and scooped a tablespoon of peanut butter in it and mashed the two together with a fork until it looked like a paste. I spread the mixture on two pieces of soft white bread. I sat at the dining table and enjoyed my snack. I have read that Elvis loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He toasted them in butter. I like them plain.

Just as I finished my Elvis sandwich, my cell phone rang. I answered it immediately.

“What in the hell have you done?” Rex’s agitated voice boomed over the phone, “Do you know what a hornets nest you’ve stirred up? Sergey Inanova is extremely well connected in this town. His wife heard the commotion and came running in the room just after you left. She got there in time to see Sergey’s assistant being rushed to the hospital. She called her father, thinking you were a policeman. He called the mayor, who called the police chief. I got my ass reamed out for not keeping up with you. For some unknown reason Sergey refused to press assault charges against you.”

“The reason he didn’t press charges is because he’s involved in this thing up to his eyeballs. He faked outrage, but I could tell he was lying. I think he’s the key to finding Leah.”

“Don’t go near his house again!” Rex commanded, “If you’re spotted near his property, you’ll undoubtedly be arrested. You can depend on that. I’m trying to help you, but you’re making it difficult.”

“Listen to me carefully,” I said. “I’m going to do what I have to do to find Leah. I appreciate your help to this point. You’ve been the best friend a man could want. I’ll play this out with or without your help.”

“Okay, I’ll continue to help, but keep me informed on anything you find out and don’t get me in trouble with the chief again.”

I thanked him and promised to keep him up to date. I finished my Coke, sat on the couch to think of what to do next, when my phone rang again.

“This is Ben,” I answered.

The now familiar anonymous female voice who had given me the information about Ivanova said, “They’ve taken her to Houston. You don’t have much time until she’s out of the country.” There was a click and the line went dead.

“What in the hell am I going to do now?” I recognized the desperation in my voice. I thought my head would explode.

I immediately called Special Agent Gerry Stewart in Houston.

“Gerry this is Ben, I received another call from the mystery woman. She said that Leah was being taken to Houston and may be sold in the sex slave business. She’s been spot on in everything she’s told me so far, so I believe her.”

“Listen Ben, I’ll get right on it. If she’s in Houston, I’ll find her. You can depend on that my friend.”

I took a deep breath and replied. “Thanks I knew I could depend on you. I’ve booked a flight to Houston in the morning. I’ll call you when I arrive.”

“My wife is out of town so you can stay with me if you want to.”

“Thanks, Gerry but I need as much flexibility as possible, and I’ll be coming and going at odd hours. Could you get your assistant to get me reservations at the Omni Hotel, just off Interstate 610? I know the manager and the hotel is ideally located for my needs.”

“Certainly,” he said.
 

After hanging up, I called Continental Airlines and made reservations for the 10:00 a.m. flight from O’Hare to George Bush International Airport. After confirming my flight, I called Assistant Chief David Burford of the Houston Police Department and updated him on the situation. He promised me the full support of the department.
 

Once again, I was proceeding on a blind, wild goose chase with little information. However, this time I had the full power of the Houston Police Department and the FBI aiding me.

The night was, nevertheless, filled with tossing and turning, and remarkably I dreamed about the wolf, the cave and the fact that my spirit survived the nightmare.

I promised myself that when this ordeal was over, I would go back for the wolf.

Chapter 73

As was typically the case, the Benefactor’s plans were coming together. His scheme to destabilize the Mexican drug cartels by having Veronika Ivanova killed and pinning the death of the Russian Mafia boss’s daughter on the cartels worked perfectly. He had skillfully worked Bastone into the plot and manipulated Macy to murder him. It was necessary for Bastone to perish because he knew too much of the Benefactor’s plans, and he suspected that Bastone knew his true identity. Sooner or later he would deal with Macy, which would be a pleasure because her beautiful brown eyes would be a prized addition to his collection.

In the previous two days Sergey had begun a full-scale war on the cartels to avenge his daughter’s death. His men in Houston had entered the Mexican restaurant where Elezar Fernandez and Salazar were eating dinner and murdered them with a Remington 550 semi automatic rifle. Three innocent customers were wounded. The Russians wore ski masks and were not recognized by anyone. His men were following the top two men in the Flores cartel in Chicago, and it was just a matter of time before he eliminated them.

The Benefactor had his men in place in both cartels to take over as soon as the leaders were out of the way. When he held full control of the cartels, all he would need was control of the Russian Mafia. With this power, nothing could stop him.
 

To execute the goal of taking over the Russian Mafia would require killing Sergey Ivanova. He had put into play his plan for this to occur. He had established contact with Macy and, through her he was guiding Ben Harris to be his assassin to murder Sergey. There was one further step in his plan to manipulate Ben’s rage to the point of killing. That step was currently in motion.

The Benefactor had labored long and hard for this moment. He had placed his men in both the Selazar and the Flores’ cartels three years before. He meticulously selected the men for their ruthlessness and their desire for power and money. One came from Mexico City and the other came from Guadalajara. He had paid both men a fortune and both had performed brilliantly, climbing the power structure of the cartels. He would consistently provide them with confidential police information for them to share to build their credibility. On several occasions in the past three years, he told them of pending key drug raids, and they were credited by the cartels with saving millions in illegal drugs. Both men were independently poised to take control when the present leaders were out of the way.

The positioning of a Russian in the Ivanova organization proved to be much more troublesome. Russian Mafia leaders were skeptical of even their own. The Benefactor, because of his power in the criminal element in the USA, had established extensive contacts both in Russia and Mexico. His most trusted contact in Russia had finally located a man who grew up with Sergey in the Jewish community of Mystichchi, Russia. Both boys came from agnostic families and were considered outcasts in the Jewish community, yet Sergey parents refused to leave their home site which had been in the Ivanova family for over one hundred years. His friend’s family was too poor to move. Sergey’s best boyhood friend’s name was Grigory Bleyakuva.

Grigory became involved in the mafia in his late teens with Sergey. They both performed grunt work for the local leaders. Sergey moved up and ended up in the United States as one of the most powerful leaders. Grigory remained in Russia and became an expert in assassination. He built a name for himself for his expert marksmanship and his ability to kill leaving no traces of evidence. However, Grigory’s family remained at the poverty level in Mytishchi, and he needed to get his hands on “BIG” money to move them to Moscow for a comfortable life in their remaining years. He also had a passion to enrich himself and live the good life in the USA.

Vladimir approached him with the proposition, at the behest of the Benefactor, to call Sergey and join his organization. Grigory was promised twenty-five thousand a month for his participation in the scheme. He would gain the complete trust of Sergey and position himself to take over the leadership role in the event of Sergey’s death. The money promised him would be sent directly to his parents in Russian rubles and would have no traces to him or his American benefactor. If any news of this arrangement was leaked to anyone by Grigory, he was promised that his parents would be dead by sunset of the day he talked. Of course when he replaced Sergey, his fortune would be immense and his power in the Mafia would be significant.

When Grigory called Sergey to ask for a position, Sergey was extremely pleased to have someone by his side that he could trust unconditionally. Sergey had contacts in the State Department and helped rush a work visa through for Grigory. The Benefactor also operated in the background to grease the path. Sergey set Grigory up as Vice President of one of his legitimate front organizations and his friend joined him first in Houston and then in Chicago. Grigory was expert in his service and soon was Sergey’s right hand man, and the entire organization recognized him as second-in-command. Grigory’s middle name was Bern and Sergey always called him that.
 

The Benefactor recognized that Bern was currently in position to replace Sergey when he was eliminated. A seething and vengeful Ben Harris should do the job nicely.

Bern had kept him informed about everything Sergey was doing. He told him about the torture and massacre of Bo Lopez and that the girl had been sent to Cheche in Houston to be sold into the sex-slave business. The Benefactor had fed some of this information to Macy to be funneled to Ben Harris. He was the puppet master, and they were the puppets.

The Benefactor often marveled at his ingenuity and brilliance.
 

He thought about calling Macy, inviting her to his private office in Chicago, and maybe getting a little sex before he became the most powerful criminal in the United States of America.

Chapter 74

The FBI Houston Division is the regional center for the Texas coastal bend area from the Texas-Louisiana border to South Texas. This region includes the cities of Houston, Beaumont, Bryan, Corpus Christi, Conroe, Texas City and Victoria. The Houston Division is one of the ten largest FBI divisions, covering a forty-county region with a population of about sixteen million inhabitants.
 

The top priority of the FBI is to protect the U.S. from terrorist attacks and from foreign intelligence operations. Special agents also perform various other tasks. They investigate organized crime, white-collar crime, public corruption, financial crime, fraud against the government, bribery, copyright matters, civil rights violations, bank robbery, extortion, kidnapping, air piracy, interstate criminal activity, fugitive and drug trafficking matters and other violations of federal statutes. Each field office is overseen by a Special Agent in Charge (SAC).

The SAC in the Houston field office was William Gerald Stewart. He had honorably served in this position for three years and was considered one of the top SACs in the nation. He worked with Houston Police Officer Ben Harris for months before they busted a plot to car bomb NASA.
 

In another case, with the help of Mexican authorities and Ben Harris, cocaine with an estimated street value of fifty-million dollars was confiscated and destroyed. He coordinated with Ben and the Houston Police Department and arrested the top three bosses in the cartel on American soil and functioned with Harris as the prime witnesses in their conviction. During the bust, he credited Ben Harris with saving his life. Harris was shot in the arm while disarming an assailant who had Gerry in his gun sites. Ben never mentioned it again, but Special Agent Stewart knew that he owed Ben big time.

When Ben called Special Agent Stewart asking for help, he knew that Gerry would pull out all stops professionally and personally to assist him. Special Agent Stewart had widespread contacts and informants through his long-time investigations of the criminal population in the Houston area. He was knowledgeable about all drug cartels operating in his region. He was also conscious of the sex-slave trafficking network in the greater Houston area.

He had recently been told by one of his informants that a Russian mafia operative with the street name of Cheche was operating a sex-slave ring. He had his informant imbedded, but didn’t yet have the evidence to bust the ring.

Special Agent Stewart had wasted no time in putting out word on the streets that the full force of the FBI would be used against anyone involved with harboring or harming Leah Hamilton. He furnished the picture that Ben had provided him to his contacts. He also told them to spread the word that he would personally destroy anyone implicated in the abduction of this girl. Stewart was respected and feared in the criminal community with the reputation of being indestructible and with virtually surreal powers. No mobster or drug dealer wanted him on their back. Stewart was additionally aware that the Houston Police Department had put out the same warnings, so it became clear quickly that, if you were involved with the Leah Hamilton kidnapping, you were going down hard.

When Ben’s anonymous female informant had called him and told him that Leah was, in fact, already in Houston, Ben informed Gerry and he decided to take extraordinary measures to help his friend. He had not taken a vacation for several years and Director Stancil had been pushing him to take some time off. His wife was presently visiting her relatives in South Carolina, so he decided to take a week off and devote all his time to help Ben. He owed it to him for saving his life.