Thank God for Irish Women Ch. 12

"Nancy said that Pat was hurting. He had a significant number of transactions detected, and the funds confiscated. He was losing millions. This went on for more than a year, according to Nancy, before they figured out that there was an undercover agent in their network. He called for Jackson to move out there and see what she could find within the Bureau. Imagine the total shock when Jackson found out about Keira. She was one of Pat and Nancy's close friends and neighbors.

"They didn't want to kill a Federal agent and bring the wrath of the FBI down on their heads. So they tried a misinformation campaign and had their sympathizers feed misleading and incorrect information to Keira. That worked for about six months but she was still finding some of the money laundering accounts.

"Pat had an idea. He introduced Darren to Keira to see if a relationship developed. Darren was a womanizer and romantic, just full of that Irish blarney. Keira fell for him. They got married, as you know, in 2004.

"Pat could keep a close watch on her through Darren. He regularly hacked into her laptop to keep track of her analyses. Pat never thought Keira would figure out Darren's role and even if she did, she would never turn in someone she loved."

"Why did they kill Mom?"

"According to Nancy, she did find out and confronted Darren with evidence of what he was doing. He denied it, of course, but told Pat and Agent Jackson. That's when they decided they had to kill her; she knew too much and had become a major threat to their entire network.

"A couple of their dealers followed your mom for a few days to keep track of her movements and try to find a way to cause a deadly accident. They decided the best opportunity for that was when she was leaving that scheduled party and driving down the mountain. The dealer used a large van the same color of your mom's car to force her off the road. When her car stopped rolling down that ravine, it was impossible to tell that she had been forced off.

"Jackson knew exactly where the accident would be and managed to get there within minutes of it happening. Keira was still alive, but Jackson killed her. Since Jackson was put in charge of that investigation, nothing incriminating was found.

"Jackson found Keira's cell phone and saw the message on it to you. She called Darren. He knew that you and your mom had some sort of communication code since he overheard you two practicing it one time. He knew when the accident was scheduled and that's why he disabled your phone for that day by changing some of the settings. He didn't want your mom to warn you that something was happening. It had to look for certain like an accident."

Emily said, "So he had my phone the entire time and when the message came in, he erased it before giving the phone to me the next morning saying AT&T had fixed it."

"That's right, except he had forgotten something. When Darren put your phone in your bedroom after the accident, he saw your laptop. He remembered that your mom occasionally used your laptop rather than hers and it occurred to him that she might have put incriminating evidence on it. He had already scrubbed your mom's computer."

I guessed, "But, he didn't have time to thoroughly scrub Emily's so he disabled it."

"That's right. He thought Emily would just throw it away and that would be the end of it. He knew she was broke and couldn't afford to get it fixed. He didn't think about it showing up as part of a related investigation years later."

Emily asked, "Was Patrick's love for me real or were they trying to keep me under control?"

"We don't know for sure, but they wanted to make it easy for you to stay with him. That's why they had Darren ask you to sleep with him. They knew you would get out of the house and Patrick's apartment was the obvious place for you to go."

"Why those buttholes! But, why did Patrick tell me he was involved in drugs the day before he was killed?"

"He probably didn't think it'd matter at that point because you'd never tell on him anyway. You had been living together for two years at that point and he knew you had no other place to go. What he didn't know was that his parents had a whole new set of problems.

"When Pat and his distributors moved some operations to South Carolina and set up shop on the East Coast, it was a challenge to one of the Mexican cartels since they were claiming the same territory. There were several hits between the IRA cartel and the Mexican cartel and the conflict was getting out of hand. Pat was warned that if he didn't pull out and go back to California, Patrick would be killed."

"That's why they wanted us to spend the summer with them."

"Yes. The Mexicans installed the GPS device that the Atlanta Police found in his car. They could see exactly where you were at all times. When you and he got to Atlanta, they were waiting for him. That was where the cartel was based, and they wanted Pat to know for sure that they'd killed him."

"You mean that was a hit and not a simple kidnapping and carjacking?" I asked.

"That's right. The bank robbery was to make it look to the police like that was the objective, not a hit. The Atlanta Police Department had been cracking down on drug gangs in the city, and the Mexicans didn't want to throw more gas on that fire. The two guys who killed Patrick were hit men for the cartel.

"That same week, Pat had his guys kill three Mexican dealers in Atlanta plus one distributor's wife and teenage daughter. All were killed execution style. These were serious people."

I responded, "I remember when that happened. It was all over the news."

"That probably means that somewhere along the line I was going to have an accident," Emily conjectured.

"We don't know that. It's possible they were going to pull you into the family business, and a marriage to Patrick would do that. Maybe Patrick really did love you, but who knows?"

I asked, "When your people found the laptop and the note on it, did that set off the chain of events in early June?"

"Actually, the local police found the laptop. Had Jackson found it, it would have disappeared. She would have known it might be trouble. The locals had already issued a receipt for it before Jackson knew it. It then became official evidence.

"When our geeks recovered the note, Jackson saw it and learned there was a safe deposit box with records in it for me. That was her worst nightmare.

"The only thing they could do at that point was to stage a robbery as soon as you told us which bank had the box. They didn't think Emily and Brad would already be there and that Brad would fight back."

"It's funny, in a way, that the key was in my old room in the plastic teapot the entire time. That's why Mom wrote in her note for me to take the tea set when I moved out."

"That was a close call. With the key and a warrant, the bank would have opened the box and Agent Jackson could have removed everything. We might never have known what was in it."

Emily asked, "Just how much money were they moving to the IRA?"

"Over $50 million a year, according to Nancy."

"Wow!" Emily exclaimed. "Who put the money in the trunk of my car?"

"That was a drop. You thought it was in your car when it was first searched. It wasn't. Agent Jackson had put it there the morning you arrived home for Darren to pick up overnight. You beat him to it."

"What was it for?"

"It was his monthly take. He was paid a percentage of the money he successfully moved during the past 30 days on that particular Friday every month."

"But how did they get keys to my car?"

"He'd always had an extra key to your car. He also had one made for Jackson."

"Did they always use my car as a drop site?"

"I asked Nancy the same question. She said that Patrick would usually pick it up in your car and leave it there overnight for Darren to get. When he left with you for South Carolina, Agent Jackson did it early that morning before she went to work."

"How did Nancy know that?" Emily asked.

"Darren bitched to Pat that he was stiffed and that he couldn't even find the car. Pat asked Jackson about it and she told him that the car was at the Staybridge Suites. You had just driven it there, of course, before you told Norris and Jackson about the box. Darren went there during the night, but the box wasn't in the trunk."

"We had put it in the room," Emily said. "That's why Agent Jackson was so surprised when we opened the trunk. She thought he had picked it up."

"Nancy said Jackson was pissed because she had to pay Darren out of her own pocket. That was the money we found in the trunk of Darren's car."

"Why did Pat kill Darren?" she asked.

"Darren knew too much and had already been fingered by Keira. They figured those details would be in the safe deposit box. Pat was just getting rid of a key witness."

"My mind is having trouble keeping up with all this," I said.

"It was very complicated but is a model of how to run a similar operation. This has caused us to go back and re-look at ourselves and others that could be operating like this. We found one in Chicago and another agent and banker have been arrested. One of Keira's research documents showed the Chicago accounts being used. Emily, your mother was a brilliant analyst."

I went to the kitchen to bring a second round. When I returned, I was surprised to see that Emily had moved to sit next to Agent Hennessey. They were whispering to each other and holding hands.

I stopped in my tracks. Emily saw me and smiled. "Matt, we need to tell you something very important. Agent Hennessey is my biological father."

"What?"

"It's true. I asked him to come here tonight so we could tell you together. I was as surprised as you are. One of Mom's letters told me the entire history of their relationship."

"Wow, now this is a shock!" I exclaimed.

"We've talked on the phone almost every day since I found out. I had to make sure David wanted a relationship with me. Dad, can you tell Matt what you told me?"

David began, "When Keira first moved to San Francisco, I met her and Sean at a concert one night. I was a young agent working undercover, and I was looking for young people we might recruit as undercover agents. She had the perfect access through the drug culture surrounding the rock bands. Sean was playing with several of them, and she always hung out with them.

"I managed to get a meeting with her while Sean was on the road. She was not into drugs and was open to helping Ireland control the flow of illegal money to the terrorists following the Remembrance Day bombing. We had always known that drug money from here was ending up there. We didn't know how, and we needed her help.

"Money was very tight for them and she agreed to work for us as long as we could protect her and Sean. We sent her to our computer training center every time Sean was away, and she was a very quick study... brilliant, in fact. She worked with our best Internet experts back when the Internet was young. We placed her at the Irish Consulate where she could watch the comings and goings of many IRA supporters. Her job at the Consulate was to manage the social activities and entertain the many visitors. She did that well. Only one person at the Consulate knew she worked for us. That person also worked for us. Of course, the Irish government was on board from the very beginning.

"Sean was thrilled when she got the job at the Consulate because it gave them substantially more money to spend. She continued to go to rock concerts and hang out with Sean's drug world friends. This gave her a priceless view of their networks, and the people involved.

"In 1988, she and I were working hundreds of hours together when Sean was on the road. They were not married at that time and neither was I. One thing led to another and Keira and I fell in love. That lasted for most of two years and she became pregnant with Emily. We couldn't get married as that would have blown her cover and could have easily led to her death.

"She refused an abortion our assistant director offered. Instead, she convinced Sean that he was Emily's father. The timing versus his travel was only off by a week so he never doubted her. That's when they married. He's still convinced that he's your father, Emily, but I know for a fact that I am.

"I was married in 1993, but I always loved your mom and you more than anything, Emily. Fortunately, you looked exactly like her. You were the prettiest little baby I'd ever seen.

"When Sean left her in late 1995, I wanted to get divorced so I could marry your mom and get her out of the underworld. I was planning to accept a transfer to Boston and wanted her to go with me. She refused because she was very successful and proud of her work that had disrupted many money transfers. I also think she didn't want to be the woman who broke up my marriage. This was long before Pat entered the drug business. I remained as her contact, and we had a great working relationship, but we were not lovers after that.

"When she was killed, I believed she was murdered and kept asking myself what I could have done differently. To this day, I don't know what I could have done. She was stubbornly committed to her work and totally committed to you. Emily, you were her joy in life and she was very proud of you.

"My wife Jill knows you're my daughter, and we both want to be a part of your life going forward. I don't know what you'll allow me to do, but I promise you, I'll do anything."

Emily leaned over and kissed his cheek. "You can start by walking me down the aisle next year. Between now and then, I want to spend time with you and Jill and get to know you. I've never had a positive father figure to look up to, but I do now."

The End of Chapter 12. One more to go.