Chapter 26 - F=Freaking, B=Bloody, I=Inconvenient
“Nice costume!” someone from the crowd yelled out at Jake who was still standing in the middle of Serenity’s set, “Now get the hell out of the way!”
“What does FBI stand for? Freaking Bloody Idiot?”
“Feel my Bone’s Inches?”
“Free Beef Insert here?”
“Flog-me, Bind-me, Impale-me?”
“Fcuking Bitch gave-me-the Itches!”
Jake glared at the laughing crowd in their costumes. It shouldn’t have bothered him that they were rolling around in hysterics at his expense. In fact a lot of things shouldn’t have bothered him tonight. His fingers curled as they fought his control. His sidearm was loaded and one shot would be all it would take to silence these idiots.
“Look he’s got a friend, Inject Ramming Screw!”
“And the other guy wants us to Donate Ejaculation into his Ass!”
“Look the twins are Addicted To Fcuking! Who are you ATF? Each other?”
Jake glanced at Sam in his IRS vest, Alex who had DEA emblazed on his chest and Harley and Davidson with their ATF insignia. They all looked just as pissed off as he was. It was time he took control of this situation.
“They are superhero’s!” Some guy yelled out just as Jake raised his hands, “Fast Bang Immediate-release Man, Diseased Equipment Action-man, Instant Raw Scrotum guy, and the Atomic Testicle Friends!
“They are all wearing matching bibs! Maybe they came as a netball team! They aren’t coming anywhere near my balls!”
“Yeah, they’re sporting positions - Front Bits Interception, Defensive End Assault, Inside Rear Side, and Attack Thrust Forwards!”
“I’m from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and this is a raid!” Jake held up his badge, “The house is surrounded.”
“Do you have big weapons? Show us your guns!” a girl giggled.
“Look he’s made a badge out of tin foil - bless!”
“Serenity throws the best parties! First the fake wedding now this! Sweet!”
Jake felt his hand creeping again towards his firearm but then caught Harley’s look. It probably wasn’t the best idea to breach agency weapons protocol in front of two investigators of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He reclaimed his hand and ground his teeth instead.
“This is a real badge, I am really an FBI agent, and this is a real bust! Do not panic. There are agents ready to take your statements and your details.”
“You’re hot!” one of the cheerleaders purred, “I’ll give you my details personally, very close and very personally.”
“I like the blonde DEA one!” another girl yelled out, “His little agent can take my statement! I’ll be the one screaming as he takes it!”
“I’m calling dibs on the IRS one!”
“I saw him first!”
“We want the matching pair of ATF guys!” a group of five girls who were all dressed identically as girl scouts shouted out. “We’ll teach them how to tie knots! We need our BDSM badge!”
“I love a man in uniform!”
“You’re hogging all the girl action. The football team wear uniforms too! And our weapons are bigger and tougher than the plastic pistols you’re packing!”
“Great show boys,” The producer flapped around, “Would have been even better if we were filming! What have you done to the power? And what don’t you get about Live Show? Where’s Serenity? Ok, who took the host?”
They all turned to find a tail in the lawn chair but the mer-girl was gone. The twins took off in separate directions and Jake pressed a hand to his ear and said something that no one could hear over the buzz from the crowd.
“Typical, Serenity’s making a statement!”
“Aww! She’ll be first, that means she’ll get the hottest guy! So not fair!”
“Maybe she was abducted by space aliens? Or even non-space aliens!”
“Quick check the cellar! I bet they are holding her in the cellar!”
A weapon fired. The crowd screamed and ducked down as Jake turned to find Alex holding a gun above his head and GSR clouding around it. Jake raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t give a shit Jake. They’re pissing me off and you’re getting nowhere fast!” Alex growled.
Jake put his hands up, “Calm down everyone. This is a serious situation. This is not a prank. Do not run, do not panic, stay where you are. If you do not comply we will assume that you have something to hide. Don’t give us a reason to shoot you because at the moment, we’d be happy to comply.”
No one said anything this time. The reality of the situation was starting to sink in.
“Get out of my house,” Loyal stepped out of the crowd to stand in front of Jake. “I’ve had enough of you five! I don’t care what my mother says, we are divorcing you! I’m going to rip up the adoption papers and disowning you as a brother!”
Loyal was glaring a Jake but Jake was looking at something that was happening behind Loyal. Jake’s eyes hardened and his jaw tightened even more than it was before. Loyal turned as two men in matching FBI vests man-handled Patience and Josh out of the house. Patience was half dressed, clutching her wedding dress to her chest, and Josh only had his suit pants on. They both looked like they had been wrenched out of bed mid-consummating. Loyal moved quickly, handing his shirt to Patience. She pulled it over her unzipped dress and Loyal cringed. She now looked like a ravished half dressed woman with ‘I Only Suck Dicks’ in big letters across her chest.
“What the hell are you doing?” He flung the words at Jake.
“Patience Lee Mancini,” Jake frowned as he said her last name, “You are under arrest. You have the right to be silent, but anything you say could be used against you, you have the right to a...”
“What the hell!” Loyal yelled, “Why are you arresting my sister? She’s your sister!”
“I thought I was divorced?” Jake laughed then he continued his monolog of her rights.
“What are the charges? You can’t arrest her just because she chose me not you! Don’t say anything Patience. I’ll call my dad.”
“You can do that with you one phone call Josh,” Jake turned to him as they took Patience away. “Joshua Camerota and Loyal Mancini I am taking you in for questioning, pending charges. If you so much as struggle I will add resisting arrest to the many charges hanging over your heads, do you understand?”
“You will regret this,” Josh spat through his teeth as the guy holding him steered him off towards the road.
Loyal glanced up at his friends who were all watching on with expressions of confusion and shock. He didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what was going on. What had they done that deserved this sort of attention? Sure he might have plagiarised his last history essay, he hadn’t been entirely honest when the cash register girl handed him the wrong change last week, and he might have slept with a girl who wasn’t quite sixteen a couple of weeks ago... but this? Why was the house, the yard and the street teaming with Federal Agents and the Riot Police Squad?
Loyal looked back before he and his escort rounded the house. Jake was yelling to someone over his intercom and was clearly furious. He gestured at the tail and yelled something about having the house surrounded and one girl in her bikini.
There were several dark unmarked cars parked in the middle of the road. The neighbours were all peaking out their curtains as they were loaded into separate cars and Loyal had a suspicion that this would not look good on his college application.
The cars idled waiting for something. They must have closed off the whole road because there was no concert of horns or yelling of insults as they sat there taking up the whole of the carriageway.
Patience was chomping down on her finger nails and glancing back to Josh’s car when Jake swung himself into the front seat and nodded to the driver. She blinked at the back of his head. Then she carefully straightened the wedding dress and tried unsuccessfully to pull the zip up to the top. She was wearing Loyal’s shirt but that didn’t hide the fact that she didn’t have time to put on a bra when ‘that man’ barged in on her and Josh. She had never been so embarrassed in her life but and that was before she found out that Jake was somehow behind this and that was before Jake arrested her half dressed ass. Now she was not only dying of embarrassment but also pissed as hell.
She pulled an orchid out of her hair and pinged it a Jakes head. It bounced off and landed at her feet. She pulled another one out and flicked it a little harder. It hit his ear, fell to his shoulder and sat there. His hand came to his ear and as it did the small white flower fell off his shoulder. She had the next one at the point of flinging when he turned around. The flower hit him right between the eyes. Patience smirked a satisfied smile as the man next to her tried unsuccessfully to swallow his laugh.
Jake’s face remained impassive. He looked at her. He inhaled and as he did his eyes narrowed. Then he slowly turned forward again.
Patience pinged another orchid at him. This one hit the top of his head, rolled forward before falling onto his lap. The back seat shook as the agent next to her was coughing to hide the laugh.
“What do you want Patience?” Jake said without turning to her.
“Is an explanation too much to ask for?”
“I’m an undercover FBI agent, I thought that much was obvious. This was a joint operation between the FBI, the DEA, the IRS and the FTA which I co-ordinated. Is that what you want to know?”
“So this whole time you have been undercover?” Patience forced the words out as the back of his head spoke volumes.
“That is correct,” he said with no emotion.
She slumped into the seat and blinked back the tears of betrayal as the street lights blinked by. He had never loved her. He had never even liked her. He had been here for the sole purpose of arresting her and still she had no idea what charges she was facing. What had she done that deserved the attention of the FBI? She closed her eyes and silently prayed that this was a nightmare and that she would wake up safe in her room with Josh’s arms wrapped around her.
She bounced against the vinyl seat cover as the car turned off the road and into a small, poorly lit area. She opened her eyes, it was clear that this nightmare was nothing but persistent. The car was heading down a pot-hole ridden road between some industrial buildings. She slid back into the seat. This place was familiar, too familiar. She and Josh had been here only this afternoon. The storage facility that she used was just ahead. There was nothing else here, why were they here?
The car pulled up and Patience gazed out amazed. There were flood lights set up around the storage facility and several agents in FTA and FBI vests standing around. As the car came to a stop Jake jumped out and the agents all grouped around the car. She went to open the door but found it was locked. Jake was speaking to the men who were nodding. Despite everything she was amazed by the authority he held, these men clearly respected him and listened to him. This was a different Jake to the sullen bad boy who hardly spoke.
Her car door opened and Jake stood there holding a pair of handcuffs, “I will have to put these on you.”
“You’ve wanted to handcuff me since you kidnapped me. I don’t need them. I’m not that kinky.”
He pulled her hands forward and strapped them on causing her to cringe as the cut into the skin around her wrists, “I wasn’t asking Patience.”
He then walked away, leaving her to stumble after him. She didn’t really notice the other men as she was kept busy trying to keep her dress up covering her breasts and not trip over it, and just to make the situation even more perfect her bare feet found every rock and sharp piece of crap between the car and the storage unit.
“Patience Lee Mancini,” Jake seemed to still have trouble saying her last name, “Are these the crates that you own? Did you source the contents? Did you pack them? Does anyone else have knowledge of the contents?”
“Josh helped me pack them,” she said before she realised that she had just implicated Josh in whatever this was, “Where is my lawyer?”
“Just answer the questions Miss Mancini. Does anyone other than you have a key to this storage unit?”
“I gave the key to someone my mum knows, Captain Jack. He collects the stuff so he needs a key.”
Jake nodded as he turned to her and in a serious cold voice he said, “I’m going to offer you this once Miss Mancini, we are willing to give you a plea bargain. We will lessen the charges against you if you freely give us all the information regarding this shipment. I want you to help us catch this Captain Jack and all the links in this chain. You represent the first link but I want to bring the whole chain down.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Here is the search warrant,” some guy handed Jake a bunch of papers.
Jake looked at the documents, “We don’t need your permission to enter or search the storage facility Miss Mancini. If you want to make a bargain the time is now.”
“I don’t know...? What...? Why...? I think I need a lawyer.”
“Very well Miss Mancini,” Jake’s eye’s narrowed, “That’s within your rights. But we don’t have time to wait and we finally have a search warrant.”
Patience turned just in time to see a couple of agents cutting the padlock off with the bolt cutters. The roller-door clattered its way upwards and Patience flinched as it banged as it reached the top. The flood lights were turned onto the contents of the storage unit. Patience looked at the boxes that she and Josh had lovingly packed and done some other loving stuff on this afternoon. It was now an intimate place which made having a bunch on flak-jacketed men poking around all that much more invasive.
Jake pulled out a crow bar and took a long look at her as he pushed the bar under the first box. He seemed to be waiting for something. Patience had no idea what he expected from her. She had no idea why he was doing this at all. When she stared back at him in confusion he shook his head almost in disgust as he rammed the bar home and pulled it back separating the wood lid from the crate. She watched his biceps strain with the effort and had the situation been different she might have been impressed but it wasn’t so she didn’t allow herself the luxury of drooling over his physic.
She jumped with a small squeak of a scream as the wooden lid hit the floor. Jake pushed aside the foam packaging and pulled out the first computer.
“Old computers?” Jake raised an eyebrow, “That’s ingenious. Let’s crack these open boys and see what hardware you have stashed in these old boys.”
“No! Stop!” Patience shied away as they raised the crow bar up to crack open the casing.
The agents all took a step backwards. Jake didn’t move. The crow bar slowly lowered and he turned to her, “Is there something you want to tell us Miss Mancini?”
“Don’t...” Patience cringed, “They can fix them. If you hit them with that thing... they won’t be good for anything.”
“What are we talking about here, plastic explosive, mortars, what sort of explosive is packed in here Miss Mancini?”
“Explosive?”
“Do I need to bring in the bomb squad?”
“What?”
“If I open these,” Jake pointed at the computer case with his crow bar, “Will it explode? I will remind you Miss Mancini that if you say no and any deaths occur as a result you will be charged with first degree murder.”
“Murder? But...? There is a power supply in them...”
“Electric weapons? Are we talking rail guns or detonators?”
“What?” Patience looked at Jake like he was insane. She raised her handcuffed wrists to throw her hands in the air, “What the hell is going on? There are no weapons in there! It’s old computer hardware! I’m sending old computer hardware to Africa for them to learn on. Why are talking about weapons?”
“Nice try,” Jake laughed a cold chuckle, “Alright boys bring out the screw drivers let’s open these things up - slowly.”
Patience screwed her face up and gawked at Jake. Who was this guy? What the hell was his problem? The agent who stood next to Patience pulled her inwards as the box slid off. There were several agents cringing on the outskirts like they were expecting the whole warehouse to spontaneously combust, others leaned in and whispered excitedly. Somewhere in the middle was Jake, Patience and the agent that fastened her there.
“Nothing,” the guy kneeling in front of the computer shook his head, “I’ll have to analysis the circuitry but there are no obvious weapons in here.”
“What?” Jake growled, “Search the crates! They are hidden in here somewhere! Open up everything!”
“You thought I was shipping guns?” Patience asked incredulously, “What sort of person did you think I was?”
“I don’t evaluate the person, I follow the evidence and that all points to this,” Jake pointed at the boxes.
“What evidence?” Patience shouted back, her fists were clenched and she was pulling against the guy who was gripping her arm. “You came into my house, pretended to be someone who cared, ate our food, slept in my bed and you lied to us. That’s the only evidence I can see, evidence that you are an asshole Jake!”
“You entered negotiations with Spike, a known arms dealer. You collected your shipment from Mr Wong, the head of the local triad, in exchange for Uranium Ore - Yellow Cake - which we suspect your mother smuggled in from her recent trip to Australia. And your deal with the local police for decommissioned arms has sparked a massive internal investigation. We have voice recordings of you discussing the shipment, you knew that you were supplying arms to fight off rebels and you knew the risks. I was hoping that you were being blackmailed by Marcus Camerota but that doesn’t seem the case now, does it.”
“Are you insane?” Patience gawked at Jake.
“Look, tell me where they are, I can make a plea for lenience if you co-operate,” he pleaded but she was still staring at him like a fifth appendage had sprouted out of his forehead and was saluting the world, “Shit Eth! This whole operation is starting to smell like ten day old curry. Help me out here! We are going to find them.”
She gritted her teeth as several colourful names escaped, “Don’t ever call me that name again, you don’t have that right anymore!”
“Get her out of here,” Jake said to the man holding her, “She might be ready to talk after she’s had a night in the slammer.”
Patience was numb as the agent led her back to the car. She glanced back to where the men were ripping into the crates and throwing foam chips everywhere and wondered how this happened, why this happened?
She looked to the sky searching for a guy in tights with his underpants on the outside to come to her rescue but only the stars winked back at her. No superman was going to save her. She was going to have to accept that a superhero didn’t steal her knickers - no, it was the pervert next door who swiped her underwear from the clothes line. She was on her own.