Liam looked at Tanner. “We’re clowns?”
“You forgot to take off your red nose,” Dante said.
Casey sighed. “Enough. Back to business. Agents Vessler and Choi, this is OUTCAST.”
“OUTCAST?”
Tanner nodded. “It stands for Operational Undertaking to Counteract Active Stateside Threats.”
“Clever,” Vessler said in an annoyed tone.
“We tried to reach you before you moved in, but our plane was delayed and we landed an hour later than scheduled.”
“You’re the D.C. suits?”
Tanner shook his head. “We’re not D.C. suit types.”
“OUTCAST does jobs for the government that need to be done without bureaucratic roadblocks,” Casey simplified.
Vessler’s scowled deepened. “You’re a black ops group.”
“Let’s just say we don’t advertise our presence.”
“So, you’re here to trample all over my case in order to pick up a paycheck?”
“Vess…” Naomi said.
“Sorry, Nay. I’m not going to be jerked around by some special ops team more interested in running up a body count the following the constitution!”
“Vess,” Choi said quietly. “They did save our lives.”
“And I’m grateful for that. But I will not have my case against the Black Daos tossed out because some gun-happy crew violated their rights!”
“Are you finished?” Casey asked.
“I haven’t even started.”
Casey sighed. “Agent Vessler, due to circumstances beyond your control, the case is no longer DEA’s.”
“What?” Vessler shot to her feet. “What in the hell is going—”
“Sarah!” Glimsdale surprised everyone with his tone. “Sit down and shut up. Director Casey will explain.”
“Maybe one of your agents can brief my people on Operation Golden Carp first?”
Choi stood and turned on a projector. He slipped a thumb drive Glimsdale gave him into the computer and opened a file. “Lights please,” he said without looking up from his work. With an annoyed huff, Vessler got up and turned off the lights. Choi walked around to the table to stand near the projection, which showed an image of reddish crystals on a white background.
Choi pointed to the image. “About three months ago, we started getting reports of a new form of methamphetamine on the street. It’s purer and stronger than most forms of meth, and there’s an unknown chemical compound in the formula that gives the crystals a reddish tinge to them. The street name is Red Ice.”
“The DEA has classified it as a Schedule I Drug,” Glimsdale said.
Choi nodded. “There have been reports of it popping up all along the West Coast of the United States, as far north as Seattle and as far south as San Diego. But so far, most of the cases have been in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area.”
“How bad is this Red Ice?” Dante asked.
“As I said earlier, it’s much stronger and purer then normal street meth. This doesn’t have the common crap like drain cleaner and lye like you’d find in a back-room crank cook mash. Whoever made this stuff knows their chemistry. It’s also more expensive than normal meth — two to three times as much per dose.”
Choi pressed a button and another picture appeared. It depicted what looked like nicotine patches on a strip of paper. “What’s more worrisome is the new method of delivery. The first picture showed you the only Red Ice we’ve managed to seize in crystal form, and that was six weeks ago. Now, we’re beginning to see these patches show up on the street. Each patch has a half- gram dose of Red Ice that’s absorbed through the skin with no loss of drug strength.”
“What’s the body count?” Liam asked.
“So far, we’ve had twenty-three reported Red Ice overdoses in the last month, eleven fatal. Several of the ODs reported vivid auditory and visual hallucinations, overwhelming feelings of grandeur, obsessive behavior focused on a person or object and paranoid delusions. At least three of the ODs were first-time users.”
Choi changed the image again, this one of a pickup truck being pulled out of water. “The latest OD was William Dyachenko. Two days ago, he drove his truck, which had been targeted for repossession for lack of note payment, through parts of Fisherman’s Wharf, killing fourteen people and injuring fifteen. The autopsy showed he’d died from a massive cerebral hemorrhage brought on by Red Ice. The amount of Red Ice in his system was enough to get everyone in this room as high as a kite for most of the day.”
He changed slides again, this time displaying an Asian man in a tailored suit surrounded by bodyguards. “The DEA’s number one suspect in the manufacture and distribution of Red Ice is the Black Dao Triad. This is Billy Hong, leader of the Black Daos. He controls two-thirds of the drugs flowing through San Francisco.”
He cycled through more photos of Hong and other Asian men. “The Black Daos are an offshoot of the 14K Triad and have been active in San Francisco for the past twenty years. They deal mostly in prostitution, human trafficking, illegal weapons, and drugs. In the last six years, Hong has extended the Triad’s reach to cover most of central California. There have been a few clashes with the Mexican cartels, but nothing serious up to now.”
“What led to the ambush at the pier?” Tanner asked.
“We had developed intelligence that the Black Dao would be picking up a chemical shipment last night.”
“You were set up.”
“Hong doesn’t operate that way,” Choi said. “He knows that something like this will bring the heat down on him and his gang.”
“You’re assuming that Hong was behind the ambush,” Tanner said.
Vessler scowled. “If not him, who?”
“Nay, please get the lights.”
While Naomi got up and turned on the lights, Choi shut off the projector. Tanner stood and picked up several folders on the table, handing one to each DEA agent. “The full details are in these folders, but I’ll hit the highlights. American intelligence suggests the North Koreans are back in the meth business.”
All three DEA agents frowned. “I thought they’d stopped.” Vessler said.
“They had, but it appears that not only have they started up again, they’ve done so with a vengeance— establishing a network of meth labs world-wide.”
“They say half the North Korean population is hooked on the stuff,” Choi said, opening the folder and skimming the contents. “In a lot of North Korean homes, it’s offered to guests like it’s coffee.”
Casey nodded. “The Chinese dispatched extra troops to the North Korean border to crack down on a meth epidemic on their side of the border.”
“That’s not going to make the Mexican cartels happy,” Glimsdale said. “They dominate the West Coast meth market.”
“The North Koreans are preparing to deal with the Mexicans, one way or another.”
Choi frowned. “Why does that sound ominous?”
Tanner took a photo out of the folder he held and placed it on the table facing Vessler and the other DEA agents. “Because the North Koreans sent a man like this.”
The photo highlighted a scowling Asian man with short dark hair, a narrow face and dark eyes. He could have been anywhere from late twenties to early fifties, but regardless, he had the look of someone used to killing people.
Tanner pointed to the picture. “That is Major Rhee Kyu-chul of the North Korean Special Forces. He’s one of their best overseas operators, and has been spotted over the years in Iran, Syria, Venezuela, El Salvador, and South Korea. He’s suspected to have assassinated multiple North Korean defectors and critics of the Kim family. He’s devoted to the state, ruthless, and has a track record of success.”
“You think he’s involved with the Red Ice?”
Tanner took another photo out of the folder and laid it down next to Rhee’s picture. The image showed a pale and frightened woman surrounded by several hard-looking Asians, including Rhee. The major was gripping the woman by her arm.