Adriane: The Sequal to A Taxi Romance: Chapter Eight, Family Connections

CHAPTER 8:

Family Connections

Detective Ryan was at his desk when he got a call on his cell phone from an acquaintance in Langley. He looked perplexed but he answered the call, “Yes, Judge, how’s the family?”

It was chit-chat… he knew what the call would be about; he wasn’t quite ready for this.

The Judge, Marcello, was once an O.S.S. officer during WWII, working with, and utilizing the resistance to Hitler in southern France, throughout the war. He was never a judge in any official sense of the word but people had been calling him the Judge for so long very few knew how he got the name. Harry Baker, Nick’s dad, was also a young agent in the Pyrenees with the Spanish Maquis, helping with the French Resistance to drive the Nazis from Southern France altogether. Later they had been sent to work after the pact of 1953. That pact allowed the US to have the Rota U.S. Naval base and, as part of the deal, the Eisenhower administration covertly sent CIA personnel to help Franco’s forces in the Pyrenees to hunt down the infamous Spanish Maquis, Gotson. This was before the Basque separatist movement had blossomed by the late fifties and there were only small bands of anti-Franco resistance groups scattered in the mountains at the time. Ironically Nick’s dad had long experience fighting alongside of Gotson before. But he had little or no problem when assigned to his new role. Ryan was still a pimply kid on his paper route at that time but the link was there.

Ryan was a good cop. He wasn’t corrupt but he was older, wiser and way too close to retirement to mess with the Judge. He had served with Harry Baker in Viet Nam and had heard enough of the Judge to regard him highly. The Judge was now a retired State Department diplomat who was with the American Embassy in Saigon back in 1968 during the Tet. Ryan had been a Marine intelligence officer working with the, by then, seasoned C.I.A. officer. He mostly knew of the legendary Judge as a voice on the other end of the line. The voice on the other end of the line counted on the bond, a bond that went beyond duty and patriotism. That bond was forged under fire and was nearly unbreakable. However, the strain of dealing with the peccadilloes of Nick Baker had stretched that bond to the limit.

Ryan found it especially distasteful when he found out that Nick had lied about Sean McKee’s role in Adrian’s beating. He was furious and cringed at the prospects of what he might be asked to do; wanting nothing more than to wash his hands of the whole business.

“You know Ryan, I didn’t call to talk about my grand-kids' kids,” as usual, he was not one to skirt an issue.

“Yeh, I know, I was just stalling.”

“I am fully aware of how distasteful this business has been; and, I assure you, we’ll make that up to somehow.”

“Nick has my hands full and I’m not sure how long I can keep his name out of the D.A.’s line of fire.” Ryan sounded exhausted. “We couldn’t get anything on McKee from his hard drive: a little porn, but hey.”

“We owe it to his dad. I promised and so did you.” The voice sounded resigned, “Just keep an eye on this Mick character. A guy like that might be useful to us.”

“Sure…,” Ryan waited for the Judge to say something more until the line went dead. It was a secured line, as usual.