The names, characters, places and events in this story are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. All characters are over the age of 18. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Spanked in Church Ch. 04
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Hebrews Chapter 12, verse 11.
George Vasilakis put down the buff file onto his desktop when he heard the knock at his door.
"C'mon in," he called out. Immediately, his door opened and two of his field agents entered his office. He gestured at the shabby leather chairs positioned in front of his desk.
"Coffee?" he asked with a smile.
The woman placed a cardboard tray onto his desk. It held three large coffees in Styrofoam cups together with a selection of donuts and sachets of sugar. Working for the government, the office coffee was too lousy to drink so most people picked up coffee from the deli on the other side of the square. It did a roaring trade.
Vasilakis pushed himself away from his desk and wheeled himself over to the window where he adjusted the blinds against the morning sun before returning but sadly shutting out Philadelphia's magnificent skyline. He'd never worked with this couple before but their evaluations had both been excellent and they were assessed and trained for undercover ops.
As he wheeled his chair back to his desk, he saw them both watching him. They were doing their best not to let their faces reveal anything.
"Whatever you've heard about me, it's all true," Vasilakis said with a grin. "Well, except the one about me being a professional cage fighter!"
The couple smiled, looking a trifle more relaxed. They saw a big Greek in his late thirties with a shaved head and intelligent brown eyes twinkling behind his glasses. He wore a white shirt and dark pants over his wasted legs.
"If you're wondering how I got this chair, I was part of a raid on a cartel's compound down in Oaxaca. There were us ATF, DEA, bunch of army Ranger guys for the muscle, a suit from the CIA as well as the usual Mex police and army. We were gonna clear out that compound; take control of a huge amount of drugs and money and loads of firearms smuggled from the states. It was supposed to be a slam-dunk but some rat must've tipped off the cartel so they were ready and waiting for us. It all got noisy real fast. In the firefight, I took a bullet to the spine so that was that for active service. However, I'm still good for desk duties."
"I'm sorry," the woman said. Her mouth turned down.
"Don't be. Sure, I was cut up about it at first, felt really low and even thought of biting the bullet but then God showed me his purpose. One of the other guys at rehab was into wheelchair basketball and suggested I give it a go. So I thought I had nothing to lose so went along and, well, look at me now. It's like I found my true calling..."
Vasilakis gestured at one wall of his office. It was covered with photographs and framed newspaper stories of Vasilakis's wheelchair basketball team. There were several pictures of him grinning widely holding aloft various trophies for his league's as well as the state's wheelchair basketball team. Pride of place was one photo showing him shaking hands with the Vice President.
"Could've maybe gone to the Olympics but my job here takes up too much time and I couldn't afford the time away. My job here with ATF is too important; the bad guys don't give us a minute's rest."
He smiled again and the couple felt themselves warming to their new supervisor. "It's like God gave me a left-handed compliment. He took away my legs but gave me so much more in return. Praise the Lord."
The couple nodded assent but Vasilakis could tell their hearts weren't really right with God. He hoped that wouldn't be a problem. Since his accident he'd become closer to God and went with his family to the Orthodox Church every Sunday.
He'd read their files earlier and thought this pair would be suitable for a tricky but hopefully not too difficult undercover operation.
The woman was Laura Schulten, 26, from a small town outside of Milwaukee. Physically, she would fit in perfectly looking like a typical corn-fed Mid-West girl who'd been raised in a small town in the country. She was, if not chubby, then pleasantly rounded with full breasts and childbearing hips. Vasilakis thought she was the kind of woman who would have difficulty losing any baby weight after she had one. He had a sudden vision of her in her sixties, plump with gray hair, baking in her kitchen surrounded by noisy grandchildren. But now her hair was a light brown with maybe a hint of auburn. She had clear gray eyes and smiling lips. She would fit the demographic of the target area to a T.
Her undercover partner was to be a man called John Leandro, also 26, from Cincinnati. Despite his surname, there was little Italian in him except for his dark brown eyes and hair and a tendency to tan deeply. Although only of average height, he was broad shouldered and had been a decent middleweight boxer at University. He wore a brown sports jacket and slacks.
"As you can imagine, I've got lots of plates spinning in the air. And the plate I'm focusing on most is this one. I don't want to be known as a Greek plate-smasher so, let's get down to business, folks. This is your target and I want you to get close to him and his operation so we can get enough evidence to shut it down. We have it on good authority that he's running guns down from those white supremacists up in Washington State to anyone with the cash to buy. He's the middleman so the neo-Nazis don't have to dirty their hands dealing with their so-called racial inferiors. So he sells not just other Ku Klux Klan types but to black gangs, the Mexican cartels as well as ordinary stick-'em-up men."
Vasilakis passed over a manila file holding several photographs.
"Here he is. Deacon Jedediah Stearns. Ex-biker, done some serious times in some serious jails. Used to run with the Aryans but claims to have found God in the slammer. As so many assert they do. Picked up some mail-order certificate to call himself 'Deacon' then founded his own church in the back of beyond in Adams County, Ohio."
The photos showed that Stearns was a big, broad shouldered man of about fifty with tattoos snaking up both muscular arms and a biker's mustache. Even in the photo, his gray eyes seemed to pierce them through. Laura shivered slightly.
Vasilakis went onto explain that Stearns seemed to be using his church as a front for picking up and dropping off weapons and money. "And it's a perfect front for money laundering. All those handy cash donations." he added. "Also, from a courier caught in a motel with a load of gear who we got to flip, we're sure he's linked into the Russian Mob out of New York."
Laura frowned. "Wasn't there something really odd about that bust? I seem to remember reading something..."
