THE SWORD AND SICKLE

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

Assistant Chief Detective Bastion, "You and I...plus a handful of other people, are the ones who are aware of this case, and we need your help. This is top secret, until the news conference, and I do not want you to tell anyone the assignment I will give you. I want you to find a connection between Ansell Bastion, Levi, and Venus Jackson. I am giving you unlimited control and resources to collect this data. When you find a connection, I want to know immediately, and you have four hours to do it. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir. Where do you want me to start?"

"Start in Jackson, Mississippi, and then see if you can find any correlation between Levi and Jackson. Do not leave a stone unturned. Well, what are you waiting for? Time's wasting."

She turned and left the office, and wondered how she was going to approach this task. When she reached her desk, she sat down and placed her head in her hands to think. She rubbed her face and ran her hand through her hair as she stretched back in her chair. Her boss, Chief Detective Wescott, watched her and knew something was up. He walked over to her and asked, "What did he want?"

"I am not at liberty to say."

Chief Detective Wescott became more frustrated. First Director Morgan had interrogated his wife, and when he asked her about it, she simply told him that it was top secret. Now, his Assistant Detective would not answer his questions, either. He always hated when the Director came and took over an investigation, but he knew this investigation never was his. Hell, he didn't even know why they were looking for this couple. He didn't know what to do as second in command in his own area. He felt like nobody, a bump on a log. He looked at Assistant Detective Greta and wondered if this was how she felt all the time. Maybe she feels she is nobody, waiting for the chance to be somebody. Well, at least the weight was off his shoulders and directly on hers. I will see if she likes it.

Director Morgan walked over to Wescott and said, "I have given her unlimited resources to do her job for today. See it, she has it. In the meantime, I am going to make myself at home.

"How long do you expect this to take, Sir?" asks the Chief.

"As long as it takes, and in the interim, I want the fingerprints' analysis on my desk as soon as possible. See to it. Oh, and see to it your agents interrogate that clerk."

"Yes, sir. I will head for the lab right now."

Before he had gotten the words out of his mouth, as the director headed back to his office, Wescott thought, damn, this is worse than I first believed. I am doing a gofer's job. He headed off to the lab and checked on the fingerprints. When he had passed the desk of agents Hartley and McNairy, he asked, "Has that clerk made it here yet?

They replied, "He just arrived, sir."

"Question him and report to me. I doubt if he will be of any use to us."

Assistant Chief Detective Greta finally decided on an approach for this assignment and felt she would need a private room with the best computers. Then she would call her aunt Lucy Bastion, the family historian, and see if she knew of any Levi Jackson connection to the family. If she could eliminate her family, then she could start the long process of crossing off all the others in the area, one at a time. She headed over to the computer specialist's Evelyn, to kick her out of her office for a few hours. She never knew why computer people had their own room instead of a lab. She knocked on Evelyn's door and walked in. Evelyn, I am taking over your office for a few hours as a matter of national security."

"You are not! That would be a breach of security, and you don't have the clearance."

"I do now." She pulled out a handwritten form from the Director giving her authority to do what she wished.

Evelyn said, "Well we will see about this, don't touch a thing, I will be right back."

Greta knew she would not be back, and she locked the door and changed the password to the room. She said to herself, "So, this is what it feels like to have power; so, no wonder the Chief Detective looked so down after the Director kicked him out of his own office. For an assignment like this, she was required to check for bugs or cameras in the room. She searched high and low, and toward the end of her search, she found a tiny video camera hidden within the shelf directly behind Evelyn's desk. She pulled out her needle-nose pliers and plucked it from its resting spot. She inspected the room closely and found only one. Shit, she thought, I am going to piss somebody off, big time. She had no idea that Evelyn was under investigation, but she could not worry about that now. She had a job to do. She sat down at the computer and entered her password, "Shit!" she said aloud. "I need a fuckin' master password." She stormed out of the office and found Evelyn. "Evelyn, you knew I would need a master password to log into the system!"

Evelyn turned around and said, "Well, la-tee-da. Now, who is so high and mighty? You're lucky the Director has instructed me to give you all the assistance possible. You will have to let me in, so I can type it in for you."

"No, you are going to write it down for me, and you can change it later."

"If you wish," and she scribbled down the password on a piece of paper, "have fun."

Greta was furious, and she hoped they fired her ass. She had already wasted ten minutes on this power play. "Fuck her," she thought, and walked into the room.

Chief Detective Wescott walked into the lab and walked up to agent Aseph Haman, their expert forensic investigator. "Hello Aseph, how is the job going on the memorandum on analyzing the prints on the bills?"

"Very well, chief. In fact, they are done, and JIM here is my pal. Would you like to take a look?"

"Sure, what do you have?"