I want to thank all those who sent private and public comments. This was going to be a fairly straight forward story, but I loved some of the suggested directions for the story and changed course. I especially want to thank Sue, she has given me a world of ideas and a couple scenes were inspired by her exploits. As a result this chapter had to be rewritten and took a lot longer than I thought. Sorry about that, but I hope you enjoy the results.
As always, the characters in this story are purely fictionalized and products of my wild imagination. The sex is between consenting adults over the age of 21. Thank you for reading, voting and as always comments are not just welcome, but encouraged.
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The case had pretty much fallen apart because anyone that had been either a witness or defendant was either dead or missing. Agent O'Connor and Patrick met at their favorite diner, oddly enough called The Diner. As Patrick came inside he saw O'Connor slumped in a booth with his head held in his hands. Patrick slammed his hand down on the table as he slid into the booth opposite his friend. O'Connor jumped in his seat with his hand reaching beneath his jacket for his FBI issued sidearm. His hand relaxed when he saw Patrick in the seat across from him.
"You ass hole, I could've shot you." As he looked at his friend across the table O'Connor's face slowly morphed from his startled expression into a wide grin. "You look like a man that is getting wildly fucked by a very beautiful submissive model."
Patrick's Cheshire grin got even bigger as his friend confirmed some of his feelings. "Well buddy, you got part of it right, she is wild, crazy and incredible woman in bed, but she is so much more than that. Hell man, I think I'm in love with her and you know that never happens to me."
O'Connor slapped him on the shoulder and laughed. "You mean the hardhearted dungeon master has finally met someone that can make a dent in the shell around your heart. Even the mighty must fall at some point. It's about time and I'm very happy for you. I hope you guys can be as happy as Denise and I are."
Both their smiles started to fade the same time as their minds started to go back to the case. O'Connor shook his head and lamented, "They're cleaning up their messes faster than we can make a case. We don't have anybody left to indict, they are either dead, missing or in hiding, but the end result is the same, we're dead in the water."
Patrick stayed silent for a few minutes watching the aching disappointment and hurt in his friend's face. Over the years as he had gathered information he had passed most of it to O'Connor, but he never told him how he came by the information. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell him now, but he felt sorry for his friend and slaver network needed to be dismantled.
"O'Connor, haven't you ever been interested where I dredge up all the leads I get for you?" Patrick said slowly to his friend, while staring into his eyes.
O'Connor slowly came out of his stupor and light began to shine in his eyes again. He knew Patrick had some trick up his sleeve and was about to help him in ways he never imagined. His morose quickly faded away only to be replaced by the intense inquisitive cop, ready to fight injustice wherever he finds it. O'Connor stayed silent waiting for his friend to reveal where he was going with this line of questions.
Patrick looked at him and then began slowly. "You already know that I'm very heavily involved in the BDSM community and that I do seminars, as well as, training sessions worldwide. What you don't know is that every session I do I cultivate a web of spies and informants. I have someone in almost every slaver organization or at least the ones I know about. However here's the rub, my old friend, you have multiple leaks in your organization and I will not risk anyone's life giving you information."
O'Connor started to object but Patrick held up his hand saying, "You know you have leaks as well as I do. All of these people have entrusted their secrets, their very lives to me and I will not put any of them at risk. Too many have already died or been enslaved. You saw it yourself with Dr. Swartz's takedown, someone in your own organization tipped them off. You know how ruthless these people are and I can't risk anyone's life by giving you information that could compromise them."
O'Connor and Patrick stared into each other's eyes and you could almost hear the wheels turning as both trying to find a way out of this dilemma. Patrick started speaking slowly, "You conduct a mole hunt in your organization and don't forget these people are very well-funded so include your higher-ups. Share your findings with me when I'm convinced no one else is in danger I will begin giving you the additional information."
"We will begin domestically but most of the funding and most of the clients comes from overseas so you're going to have to do the same thing with any of your overseas contacts. We need to make sure that my sources will not be put in danger and until I'm convinced you don't get the information. So Interpol and your overseas operations are going to have to conduct mole hunts as well. Do you concur?"
O'Connor was already in the zone trying to figure out how to uncover the moles and shook his head slowly up and down. Patrick continued, "Obviously you need to go through the bank records of anyone on the task force and your higher-ups and I'm sure you'll get a couple of people this way. However, that's not going to get those that are smart devious ones that covered their tracks well. I also have a huge list of spotters, people like the photographer who find an unwitting victims. Once you've cleaned out the obvious moles via their bank accounts, we can selectively use the slave spotters as traps to find the other moles."
"When I'm convinced we finally rooted out all the moles, then we can start going after the big fish. O'Connor you see how these people work, so there's a good chance none of these people will ever go to trial, but instead will just disappear. I think both of our goals should be to make it very painful and dangerous for the customers. If there are no customers there is no reason for the slave trade. Unfortunately, all of these customers are very wealthy and influential so you are going to need high-level by sponsors both domestically and internationally."
O'Connor stared at Patrick with an intense focus gaze, forceful with hard determination. Just then the waitress came and took their order. As the lunch came and they went to work on a plan to make sure that everyone feeding slavers information would be incapacitated. Patrick gave O'Connor a list of 100 spotters to use in his mole hunt and Patrick gave them six months to complete the task. Only when Patrick was convinced the slavers sources of inside information had dried up would they move to the next phase.
He knew it would take a long time, but now they had a plan. If they kept it between themselves Patrick was convinced that they could pin the slavers back on their heels and keep them there. This would not be a fight that ever ended because as soon as they took care of one boss another would take his place. However, he was convinced they could save lots of lives and their efforts were worth the cost.
