Victory Tour (Part 220) (Patreon)

The removal of the trailers went fairly quickly. They'd been parked with the fifth-wheel connections all facing the same way, meaning at least two of them had to have been backed in by the long-gone delivery drivers. Good thing there was enough space out there for a rig to turn around and get into position for such a maneuver.

The trucks Mr. Patterson had ordered hadn't exactly arrived within his time limit, but they had a good enough excuse to satisfy me. The federal agents at the headquarters — I never was clear on which agency was responsible — had blocked the county road at the headquarters entrance. There was an ongoing investigation and they would brook no interference, no matter how minor.

That forced the truckers to backtrack to the state highway and go around to the farm-to-market road that lay to our west.

I thought the lead trucker showed some smarts when he said he told the feds they were on their way to pick up four loads of cattle from the McMasters place a few miles farther down. They didn't know nothin' ’bout no hidden drug labs out here.

Of course, I have no idea if there was a McMasters place anywhere nearby or if it had any cattle. But I'd only owned my property for a couple of days now. Hadn't had a chance to get out and meet the neighbors yet.

It was only after they were gone that I noticed the next thing that definitely would have interested the feds. Much like Grandpa, shoulda kept my damn mouth shut.

One of the trailers had been parked with all eight tires on one side resting atop the patched spot I'd noticed last week when we were out here. Whoever did the patching did a piss-poor job. The weight of the trailer caused the patch to crumble into pieces.

I picked up a chunk almost the size of a dinner plate, exposing some kind of sheet metal.

"Uh, guys," I called out, picking up another piece and exposing more metal, "somebody might oughta take a look at this."

"Whatcha got, kid?" Sarge asked as he ambled over, followed by others.

"Looks like some kinda hatch," I said.

"Burt! You got a sledgehammer in that pickup?" Sarge called out, getting everyone's attention now.

"I don't think we'll need that," I said. "This layer's pretty thin. We can probably just pry it up."

"Burt! You got a crowbar in that pickup?" Sarge called out.

"How about I just pull it in here and we can have whatever we need handy," Burt, the one who'd claimed the old Dodge and gotten it running, said.

As he went to get the truck, the others gathered around. I continued to pick up loose pieces and tossed them out onto the gravel. It wouldn't take much traffic to break them up even more.

Burt pulled in to park at one end of the hatch, forcing some of us to move to get out of his way, and got to work with the crowbar. Within minutes, we'd exposed a piece of metal that was easily big enough to hold a vehicle, like one of those hydraulic lifts at a parking garage or something.

"Who the hell puts a basement in a barn?" Mr. Richards snorted.

"I dunno," Al, the bomb guy said, "but with this kid's luck, we'll find a harem of dancin' girls down there."

"I don't think he needs another one," Dr. Ensberry snarked.

Hey, I do not have a harem of dancing girls. Just a lot of girls I've taken to dances.

Besides, I didn't want to think what condition a person would be in down there. This thing had been sealed up for some time now. At least eight weeks if it was done in time to avoid the drug raid the night of the dance at the Cedar Springs FFA barn.

One corner of the hatch had what may have been a keyhole or housed a button that would activate whatever mechanism. I could see nothing but darkness.

"Lanny," Gen. Rackham said.

"On it, sir," the computer guy said, stepping in with his laptop and bag of gizmos.

Lanny set his things on the hood of the Dodge pickup and pulled what I thought was a long power cord out of the bag. He plugged one end into the laptop, typed a few commands and turned to me.

"Smile for the birdie, kid," he smirked, sticking the other end of the cord in my face and hitting a command.

My image filled the screen of the laptop. It wasn't a power cord. It was one of those flexible cameras — an endoscope, I was told — military and police used to look into places when they didn't necessarily need or want to open a door.

Lanny typed another command, bringing up what looked like a control board on one side of the screen. A couple of bars were slid back and forth as he adjusted contrast and brightness. Satisfied with what he saw on the screen, he stuck the free end through the hole and hit a command that made the camera pan around.

"General! You're not gonna fuckin' believe this shit!" Lanny said excitedly.

The screen showed racks — a whole fuckin' lot of racks — of automatic weapons. And crates — a whole fuckin' lot of crates — marked in Chinese and Cyrillic characters. There was all kinds of shit that would definitely go BOOM! That'd damn sure get the feds excited! Homeland and BATF would just be the start.

"Looks like somebody was getting ready to go to war," Gen. Rackham said as he peered at the screen. "Good thing the war came to them first. Get a look at the underside of the hatch. See if anything's rigged to blow."

Lanny typed, the little camera whirred and spun and the screen showed the side of the hatch underneath us. It also showed what looked like a breaker box and ladder attached to the end wall of the subterranean chamber. But no wires or suspicious looking contraptions. Also, no dancing girls that I could see.

"Let's get this open," the general commanded. "Al, give it a look and make sure. We can fly in one of the bomb teams if we have to."

Lanny made the camera look at the entire underside of the hatch. There were no hinges.

"Gimme that crowbar," Al said as Lanny retrieved the camera.

Getting one end of the bar hooked on the outside edge of the hatch, Al pushed hard and the hatch slid a few inches with a very loud metallic screech.

"They coulda at least oiled this sucker for us," he groused, digging a finger into an ear.

Another heave got a few more inches and another screech.

"Looks like it's gonna be a leg day," Al said, handing the crowbar to Burt. "Anybody wanna help?"

Al and another burly dude sat at the end that had opened a little. There was enough space for them to get the heels of their tactical boots a good purchase.

"On three," Al said. "One, two ..."

SCREEEEEEEeeeeeeech!!!

The hatch slid all the way open as the two security guys did a leg press. It didn't look like they had to exert much force once things got moving. Al was handed a flashlight and stuck his head through the opening.

"Jesus! This fucker's HUGE!" he said, his voice echoing in the space. "Goes dang near the whole length and width of the barn floor, near as I can tell."

"See anything dangerous?" the general asked.

"Other than racks of guns and crates of ammo?" Al smirked, withdrawing and raising upright. "Looks like there's some RPGs, maybe the Chinese version of C4. Never learned to read Russian, but it looks like some of their toys, too."

"If you think it's safe, go on down," the general said. "I doubt we'll ever know if something does go off."

That didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Al climbed down the ladder, which was just iron bars bolted to the wall, and stopped long enough to shine the flashlight on the breaker box, which had a little handle on the side. He gingerly opened the lid, showing an ordinary breaker panel.

"Welp, boys, been nice knowin' ya," he said before flipping the handle up.

Rather than a massive explosion that would have destroyed everything in this acre, there was just a low hum as fluorescent lights flickered on the length of the room.

"That wasn't funny!" Dr. Ensberry snapped as the security guys chuckled. "Almost made me crap my pants!"

"Bathroom's right over there," Buck snickered as he pointed.

The general ordered nine more of his men through the hatch to have a look. There were lots of "oohs" and "aahs" as they examined more weaponry than I ever hoped to see again.

"A Barrett .50 with all the add-ons!" Sarge said excitedly. "General, I'm callin' dibs!"

"Let's get it cataloged and delivered to HQ first," Gen. Rackham called back. "Then we'll figure out what to do with it."

The general then turned to me with a rather sheepish expression.

"That is, if you don't mind, young man," he said. "I realize all this technically belongs to you."

"I don't have a problem," I said. "Give it a fair appraisal and apply that amount to our bill. I have no use for that kind of stuff."

"Deal," he said, extending a hand to shake on it. "But you still have to stay away from Audrey."

"Deal," I grinned.

"Looks like we're going to need more trucks," Mr. Patterson sighed, pulling out his phone. "Gary, might I bother you for the use of your trailers once we get them unloaded? It would speed things along if we don't have to go rent more on a Saturday."

"My trailers?" I asked.

"The ones carryin' your cash," Grandpa said. "They were in your barn, they're yours."

"Uh, sure," I said, wondering what the fuck I was going to do with four 40-foot vans after this.

The security guys went all the way to the other end, getting a rough count of gunracks and crates. Then they stepped past the first row of munitions to find another one.

"Sounds like someone had a fetish," Mr. Richards said when the news came back to us.

Then they made it past the last row of guns, roughly halfway across the width of the room, and the real fun began.

"Help me move this tarp," I heard someone say.

"Whatcha got?" one of the guys up top asked, trying to look through the hatch.

"Looks like more crates or somethin,'" came the answer.

We could hear grunts of effort as the security fellows in the hole struggled to move the tarp. When they succeeded, a rather yellowish glow reflected off the walls.

"GENERAL! YOU BETTER GET DOWN HERE!!!" someone shouted.

"What is it?" he called back.

"Enough for the kid to buy his own damn country, looks like!" Al said excitedly. "And here I was hopin' for dancin' girls."

We were told to stay where we were and the general was helped into the opening. I waited impatiently, wanting to know what they'd found that would enable me to buy a country.

A few minutes later, he came back to give me the answer. I don't know if it was a good thing I'd already thrown up earlier. The dry heaves damn near killed me this time.

Gen. Rackham was assisted out of the opening and brushed his clothes, prolonging the wait.

Then he held out a gold ingot with "1Kg" stamped into it.

"I could get a lot of fillings out of that," Dr. Ensberry gasped.

"And there's more where that came from," the general smirked. "I think we found de la Vega's vault!"

"H-how many more?" Dad stammered.

"Well, they're stacked in trays," Gen. Rackham said, having way too much fun with this. "There's 10 bars on a tray. The trays are stacked 10 high and 10 deep. The guys are counting how many rows right now."

"Gold closed at $1,230.90 an ounce last night," Mr. Patterson said, doing some calculating on his phone. "There are 32.151 troy ounces in a kilogram, making each ingot worth $39,974.6659. Those fractions of a penny will be very important, young man. As in several million dollars."

So a tray of 10 bars would be worth $399,746.559. A stack of 10 trays would be worth $3,997,466.59. A row of 100 trays — a metric ton! — would be worth $39,974,665.90!

"H-how many rows?" I asked nervously.

"Hundreds," the general said, setting off my dry heaves, much to the amusement of the security guys.

I didn't find it the least bit funny since we were talking several billion more on top of the cash in the trailers. At least I didn't have to worry about the gold being counterfeit.

The final count came back at 500 rows! We're talking 500,000 kilograms of gold, here! Times $39,974.6659 would be ... $19,987,332,950!

Combined with the cash, if it was all genuine, would be ... $30,099,332,950!!!

The dry heaves were back with a vengeance.

"General," I groaned once I recovered enough to speak, "what would a $1 billion investment in Tri-Star Security get me? Two rows of those trays would just about cover it."

"What are you asking, young man?" he demanded. "My company's not for sale!"

"I don't want to buy it," I said. "It'd still be yours to run as you see fit and take all the profit. I just want to make sure none of those cartel fuckers get across the river again! If they were lookin' for me because of $50 million, what are they gonna do over $30 BILLION?!?!"

"And change," Grandpa snorted.

"What do you want, young man?" the general asked a little more calmly.

"To go after them," I said coldly. "Wipe ’em out if necessary. I'm not asking you to send your own people, but I bet you know how to contact people of a ... certain morally ambiguous nature who'd be willing to do the dirty work."

"Mercs," he snorted. "Sounds like you've been reading Orwell."

"Sir?"

"'People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf,'" he quoted. "I can call some people who know how to get in touch with such rough men. Anything else?"

"Lifetime protection for me and my family," I said. "That includes the ladies in my life. An extra billion in your account oughta be enough to hire more people if you need to.

"And if anyone finds another cartel stash like this, I'll split with you. A third for you for organizing operations, a third for me for financing them, a third for the boots on the ground for carrying them out. Think a shot at $10 billion would get anyone's attention?"

"You have a unique negotiating style, young man," he said grimly. "I won't say yes right now, but it is an intriguing offer."

"And how are we supposed to get all this out of here?" Mr. Patterson asked. "A few truckloads of weapons is bad enough. How am I supposed to get 500 metric tons of gold to Zurich without the wrong people noticing?"

"We can get you a C-130 Hercules," the general said. "Might take a day or two. We'll have to keep a guard on that gate until the federal boys go home."

"How about Chinooks?" Grandpa asked. "There's enough space to land one at each end. They could fly in low from the southwest so those federal folks at the headquarters don't notice. Deliver the goods straight to wherever you got that Hercules parked."

"How much will that cost?" Dad asked.

"Who cares?" Grandpa retorted. "Gary's payin' for it."

I'd better hurry up and graduate before my grandfather spent all my money. The idea of buying an NFL franchise was so three hours ago. I was almost to the point of being able to buy the whole damn league!

"We'll need a hoist to get that stuff out," Mr. Patterson pointed out, sounding like he was more than willing to help Grandpa spend my money. "And a forklift or two. We'd better get to planning."

While Grandpa, George and the general — if Kacie, Kinsey and Kirsten were the K Squad, these gentlemen could be the G Squad — discussed the logistics of how to transport the loot, Dad sidled over for a word.

"Got any idea what you're going to do with all this?" he asked.

"Try to make the world a better place," I said. "I was already thinking of a scholarship fund for the high school. Looks like I need to start one of those philanthropic foundations like you see funding PBS programs and such. 'This program was brought to you by a grant from the Harold G. and Millicent T. Robinson Foundation.' Fund some medical research, annual donations to Red Cross, Salvation Army and the like, maybe a few other projects."

"Like what?" Dad snorted. "The Gary Robinson Home for Future Unwed Mothers?"

"Not funny," I snapped, staring daggers. "In fact, it'd probably be best if my name wasn't even associated with any of it. How does The 320 Foundation sound?"

"And how are ya gonna explain its funding?" Mr. Richards asked. "The government's gonna want an explanation."

"An anonymous donation," I said. "Just found $30 billion sittin' on the doorstep one day. No idea who it could be from."

"Yeah, that'll work," Dr. Ensberry said sarcastically.

"Like they'd believe the truth?" I shot back. "I stole it from a Mexican drug cartel? In case you haven't noticed, we're all in deep shit here. Just being here makes us all accessories to more crimes than I care to think about. Those weapons alone'll be worth a long vacation in Club Fed."

"We couldn't even hope for Club Fed," Mr. Richards snorted. "They'd just send us straight to one of those PITA prisons."

"What's a PITA prison?" Dr. Ensberry asked.

"Pounded In The Ass," Mr. Richards said. "And believe me, I'm a lawyer. I've seen it happen for less than this."

"We shoulda just stayed at the golf course," the dentist gulped.

"Looks like we'd all better keep our mouths shut," Dad said.

"As your attorney, that would be my advice," the lawyer said.

The G Squad reached some kind of agreement and came over to see what we were up to.

Mr. Patterson was on his phone again, revising orders he'd given earlier. The need for trucks wasn't urgent now, but we needed at least two forklifts out here as soon as someone could make it happen. Four would be better.

Gen. Rackham was on his phone, arranging for a couple of Chinook helicopters and a C-130 Hercules to get here soonest. He had connections with an airfield not too far away that was solely used for cargo flights. The plane would be parked there and the choppers would ferry the goods from barn to plane.

It all sounded like this was going to cost me almost as much as I'd been worth when I woke up this morning. God, that'd been so long ago.

"Who's ready to eat?" Grandpa asked, getting nothing but positive responses. "What say we hit that barbecue joint we ate at last week?"

And at least a couple of times since then, if I understood correctly.

"Not a word to my wife, boy," Marv growled from behind me.

Might oughta brush your teeth before kissin' her this time, I thought. Or at least take her something. She'd more than earned a treat today just with the way she was dealing with Lupita.

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said.

Not everyone could go, of course. The general detailed six men to stay here at the barn and supervise the loadout when it began. A team would deliver enough camping gear tonight to get them through after the original stuff was lost in the house. They'd also rotate with the two now at the gate until the feds ceased being a nuisance. That'd leave six vehicles to get the rest of us around, but there'd be some tight squeezes.

It was finally decided two would stay here for now with the other four under orders to bring back enough grub for them and the gate detail. Enough for everybody to have two meals.

Burt volunteered to stay, saying the old Dodge would be enough to get them to and from the gate as well as check out the rest of the headquarters parcel this evening. Lanny also elected to stay, saying he wanted to get a look downstairs once the space was empty. I think he found that underground bunker he wanted.

With everything decided, we loaded up and slowly headed back down the rutted trail toward the gate. The first thing I did was hand Buck my phone to put on the charging plate. It was already down to 30 percent after the workout I'd given it these last few hours.

"Have you heard from anyone about building a road out here?" I asked my grandfather as we bounced along.

"Gonna be at least a week before they can get started, but it's been taken care of," he said. "That'll give us time to clean out the barn. Tom thinks the Chinooks can be here tomorrow with the C-130 flyin' in tomorrow night or early Monday. Oughta be able to get it all moved by Tuesday mornin' at the latest if nothin' goes wrong."

Like federal agents asking us what we were doing.

"I guess we should tell Grandma she can get started on a new house," I said. "How long will it take to clean up that mess?"

"At least a week, but we'll need to let the feds clear out before we start," Dad said. "I'll call one of the contractors to arrange things when we get back. Might make things easier if the same one does the cleanup and the construction. Depending on how extravagant Mom's gonna get, might be ready in three months. I was budgetin' two just for demolition and cleanup."

"Gonna take time to put a new foundation in that spot unless ya want to build a few hundred feet away," Grandpa said.

"I don't have a problem with that," I said. "I was thinkin' maybe we should put in a bunkhouse for the security folks. I'd like to keep a team out here at all times if I can, at least until this all dies down."

"I can get a manufactured building out here for that purpose in the next week or two," Dad said. "Probably cost around $100,000, more to get one big enough for more than four men, but that'd include delivery and setup. You can build something permanent later if you want."

"We'd appreciate it if ya did," Buck snorted.

"Let's go with that for now," I said, finding it hard to believe I was just casually agreeing to spend six figures on what would be a short-term solution. Maybe not even six months if the construction crew had good weather most of the winter.

But I had just offered a man $1 billion to take out cartelistas until they quit coming after me. I think I may have mentioned this before, but having money was changing the way I looked at things.

"What happened with the Mercedes?" I asked.

"Got that outta the hayloft last Saturday night while you were out cuttin' a rug," Grandpa said. "George didn't want to risk it. Took it straight to Dietrich's. Ol' Hans offered a five-percent stake in the business if we'd let him have it. I think he wants to take it to Germany so he can drive it on the autobahn."

"How are we going to handle the title?" I asked.

"Remember what Tom said about that little gal's birth certificate bein' real?" my grandfather replied. "Them cartelistas can't have the best forgers in the world because he does. Or at least the best in the Western Hemisphere. It'll be taken care of."

I guess that beat asking Morgan to forge another signature. It also got me thinking.

"If they can do that, maybe we can get a few more documents signed by the late Señor de la Vega," I mused, adding conspiracy to commit fraud to my growing rapsheet.

"What are you up to, now?" Dad asked suspiciously.

"Think it'd be possible for GDR, Inc. to purchase all his holdings in the U.S.?" I asked, causing Buck to break out laughing. "I'm not interested in anything in Mexico, but if we're going to get that media division in the lawsuits, why not get it all? We've already got possession of his private jet. What else is out there?"

"The general's right, kid," Buck snorted. "You do have a unique way of doin' business."

"Well, in addition to the real estate we've already identified," Grandpa said, "there's a luxury yacht that was recently purchased by one of those shell companies docked at Port Isabel. I think that might be somethin' de la Vega bought with another cartel's money. Supposed to be capable of a transatlantic crossing, but I think Tom's got his eye on it.

"Just like he does that Bentley that was abandoned at the airfield. Got a few bullet holes in it, but a good body shop can fix that. Tom said he wouldn't argue about the Mercedes if he could have the Bentley."

Yeah, the Bentley wasn't quite my style. I would like to get a look at that yacht, though. Be kinda nice to sail right up to my estate in the Caymans. It'd just be hard to do that from the middle of the prairie.

We eventually reached the gate a little after 3. I was more than ready to go eat now that my stomach had settled down some. So, of course we had to take a few minutes to ask the guys manning the gate what they wanted.

Lanny and Burt would relieve the two on the gate after eating, maybe in about two hours. That shower in the barn was gonna get a workout tonight. I was glad to learn it had a tankless water heater. Be a bitch to have to wait for a tank to recharge just to avoid a cold shower. Well water comes out of the ground at 62 degrees.

I looked toward the headquarters as we pulled onto the county road, but couldn't see any activity. There wasn't even any smoke rising from what remained of the house. I took that as a good sign.

Now, it was time for food and, hopefully, a nap. I wasn't going to be much use to Staci tonight without some rest.