Ingrams & Assoc 2: Retreat Ch. 01

When she'd gotten back, she'd made a vow to herself to make it up to Raph, to give him a few nights he'd never forget. She was even considering asking Megan to join in. And then they'd sat down for dinner and she could see it all coming to an end.

"Where do you see this going, April?"

She was sitting there, trying to decide how to answer.

"I don't know. Somewhere, I don't know. I mean, we are happy, right? What we have now?"

"See, that's just it. You won't look to the future because you know there isn't one. You go off on your secret little jaunts and do god knows what – April, you are a therapist, not the CIA. What are you doing for eight weeks? Where the hell were you? I understand there's stuff you can't tell me, but to getnothingout of you for weeks at a time? How am I supposed to deal with that? What happens if we get married? Am I supposed to have a wife who just vanishes for months at a time? What if we have kids? What then, April?"

April knew she had no answers. She'd deliberately not thought about this, or when she had, she kidded herself that the relationship would just chug along, as it had done, and everyone would be happy. This was her job. This is what she did. Why couldn't he accept that? When she was here, she was his, unreservedly. When she was gone, well, she had things to do. It was what her job required. He would never know, so what difference did it make?

But it did, and she knew it.

"Kids? You've got us married and with kids, and we've only known each other six months, Raph?"

"No, we've known each other three and a half months April. You've been gone for the rest of the time."

She knew it was done. She wasn't going to change her job. She liked Raph, but in a show down between her job and him, he was going to lose. And she knew that she'd have to do it, just like Dermot had said.

She took a deep breath and decided that she had to let him off the hook easy. This could go quite nasty and she'd rather it ended in a way that he didn't absolutely hate her.

"OK. I understand. I think you need more than I can give you right now Raph. I'm sorry, I just...I don't think I can give you what you need. I guess I was just hoping we'd maintain the status quo, but I can see why you want more. I get that for you, a relationship is a series of levels and you want to progress to the ultimate one. For me, it's more of a background thing. It's what it is, and it's there to support me in my goals and things I want to do." She acknowledged the elephant in the room.

"See, even that April, it's vague and unclear. 'Goals'? 'Things I want to do'? What are those? You've never shared anything like that with me. I have no idea what your goals are, what you want to do. We don't talk about stuff like that. And I don't think we can. I think that whatever it is that you do won't let you. I'm seriously starting to think you have some second life that needs to be kept separate from the first, the way you behave."

That alarmed April a bit, since he was pretty much spot on.

"So what do you suggest?" she asked, trying to pull the conversation back on track. If he was going to break up with her, might as well lance it now.

"I dunno April. What doyousuggest?"

She took a sip of her drink and said, "Mexican standoff, then?"

He laughed. It was a phrase with them – anytime she wanted to do something and he didn't, and vice versa, they had called it a Mexican Standoff. She'd even bought them big mustaches and sombreros one weekend and dressed up while making breakfast.

"I guess. I suppose I came here looking to see if there was a higher direction for this relationship to go in. You're right, I do want more. You are awesome and I want more of it. But from your demeanor and reaction, I don't think it's on the cards, is it?"

April bit her lip. "Raph, you are such a great guy. You really are. But this is what I do, and I love it. I trained hard for it, and now I have it. We don't have the kind of relationship that will enable me to give it up right now. I do see that this is mostly my fault though; I just wanted to say that. We can't have the relationship you want because it would mean me giving up what I do, and I'm just not there yet – in terms of our relationship, nor doing what I set out to do. I've only been at this eighteen months and I'm just getting into my groove. I see the catch 22 of this, but I don't really know what to do about it. I'm sorry."

Raph sighed and his eyes dropped to the table.

"I figured. Well, worth trying. No hard feelings April, ok? I hope that one day you find what you are looking for."

He held out his hand over the table to April who just looked at it. She pushed her chair back, got up and came round the table and grabbed Raph, pulled him and up and crushed him to her, kissing him hard.

"You are very special, Raph. There will always be a place in my heart for you. I'm here if you need me."

Raph hugged April tight, then gently disengaged himself, stepped back and said, "We could have had it all. I just don't think you are ready for that. Be happy April. See you."

And with that, he turned and left, not looking back. April sank back into her seat and then the tears did flow.

*****
A week later, April was sitting in her office, finishing up the expense reporting from the last mission, when Dermot knocked on the doorframe.

"Knock knock," he said, smiling in on her.

"Hey Dermot. What's up?" said April, looking up from the mess of receipts on her desk.

"Got a live one for you." He held up a folder bulging with documents.

April sighed internally. Since her break up with Raph, she just didn't seem to have the same zest for life. She knew she'd made the right decision – she simply didn't have the feelings for him that he had for her - but in doing so, it had made her face some realities in a way she'd never had to before.

It's one thing to sit in a meeting and be told, "This will destroy your social life", while you are still very excited about the opportunity being placed in front of you. In that situation you generally aren't thinking about what you are giving up, just what you are gaining. But eighteen months later, when the true cost of what you have given up is made clear to you, it sucks more than most will admit.

April knew she was feeling sorry for herself, and she also knew that perhaps a new mission was what she needed. If she did have to give up a normal relationship, perhaps what she needed was a reminder of what she gave it up for.

"OK!" said April, artificially brightly. She could see Dermot pick up on it as a cloud covered his face.

"You ok? I know that break up must have been tough..."

"Yeah, I'll be fine. You were right. I just...need something to focus on, you know? What have you got for me?"

Dermot came into the room and sat down in the chair opposite on the visitor side of the desk. He put the folder down on the desk and pushed it towards her, trying to avoid all the little clumps of receipts April had arranged.

"Interesting one. South Pacific seas. Know much about Fiji?"

April made a face. "Coconuts? Diving? A volcano?"

Dermot laughed and said, "Not far off it. But I'm jumping ahead of myself right now. You are going to need a bikini for this one, but let me get back to the beginning. Ever heard of Northwestern State Bank?"

April thought hard. "No, I don't think so. Should I?"

"No real reason you should. They are based around the Pacific Northwest – Seattle, Portland and so on. They were originally a merchant bank who then got into regular banking when a bunch of banks went bust in 2010 in that area. They have about sixty or so locations now, which is fairly big. Lots of expansion in the past two years. Anyway, they do this...thing. It's a reward thing for the managers of the top eight performing branches. They've been doing it for the past four years.

"The CEO and majority owner of Northwestern has his own private island down in the south pacific. It's anchored in a bay at Kadavu Island, which is just south of Fiji. So once a year, he lends it out to the top eight performers to go down and spend a week soaking up the rays, do some snorkeling and so on. The island itself – it's built by an Austrian company called Osoros – has four levels, houses eight luxury cabins and five cabins for the staff. There's a cook, a butler, two maids and a masseuse on staff. This thing is awesome – the details are in the packet. It's got solar power cells all over it, batteries in the bottom for storage, a backup generator – it's even got its own desalination plant built in, so there is no lack of fresh water."

April pursed her lips, sitting back and listening to the details. "Sounds awesome. What's our involvement?"

"I'm getting to it. So basically, this get away has pretty much devolved into a sex free for all over the past couple of years. All the managers there know what goes on, and there's fierce competition to get on the island."

"Ahhh," said April, starting to see the angle. "But ok, what are we fixing? What is going wrong?"

"It's complicated. There are two things. The first is that several of the marriages of people who've been on these jaunts have disintegrated. I mean, to a certain extent, you go to a sex orgy on a private island and you aren't prepared, well, that's to be expected. But coupled with that, several of the branches of this bank have been robbed over the past two years. There's a large overlap of those banks being robbed and those where marriages of the managers have disintegrated. The CEO - Tom Patterson – is convinced there is something going on at the event at his Island in connection with the marriages breaking up and banks being robbed. He's convinced that these are inside jobs – all of the robberies went smoothly, the robbers knew exactly where everything was, how much money was on hand and so on."

April was slightly taken aback. She said, "Well I guess I can buy that, but this isn't really us, is it? We fix relationships, not hunt down bank robbers."

"True," replied Dermot, "it's kind of complicated though."

"Where did this come from? Who's hiring us?"

"The CEO I mentioned, Tom Patterson. But it's come to us via Pinkerton."

There was silence as they both considered the impact of this statement.

Pinkerton, the famous private detective agency, knew of Ingrams existence, of course. They could hardly fail to. However there was a distinct lack of inter agency good will flowing from Pinkerton to Ingrams. Pinkerton regarded themselves as the premier agency and looked down on Ingrams as amateur bumblers. There was no love lost between the two agencies, and every time they had encountered each other professionally, things had not gone smoothly or well.

The first time they had come across each other in the middle of a mission had been when April's friend Megan was working a case, where the wife of a prominent author was cheating, but in the course of her affair, no one involved could figure out who with – much less the wife. The man always used a different mask. Eventually, after investigating the situation, Megan had settled on a particularly new friend of the husband, who was acting suspiciously and whose background story did not check out.

After picking him up and pumping him – literally – for information, it became clear that the individual concerned was, in fact, a Pinkerton agent. While Ingrams had been engaged by the husband's management team, Pinkerton had been engaged by the man's publisher. Both working on the same case, but independently.

After some back and forth, the two agencies had agreed to work together, only for Megan to find that the agent she had encountered was not overburdened with experience, smarts or basic field craft ability. In the end, Megan had figured out who the mysterious interloper was – in fact it was three people, swapping in and out, using a new pheromone spray to induce a lack of awareness in the wife – and she was forced, at the end, to turn them over to the Pinkerton agent.

Pinkerton had taken all the credit, not mentioned Ingrams at all, and Megan was pissed beyond belief. As Dermot had said to her, "You knew we'd never get credit. You know we are secret. It's a pisser, but get over it."

About the only revenge Megan could extract was that she managed to slip into almost every communication with anyone from Pinkerton the fact that the agent – one Jason Conrad – had a very small penis and was possibly one of the worst lovers she'd ever had. It was all she could do, but she did it with gusto.

"Oh," said April.

She was about to open her mouth to ask more, when Dermot said, "Well, to be honest, I think Pinkerton is better for this job, but it's not within their jurisdiction – they are purely US based. They are above board and have to get all sorts of clearances, and us...well, we don't. They can't do anything about it if they do discover what is going on – not that we can do a lot either, but, in terms of the skills required to uncover what is going on, for this specific situation, I think we are probably not a bad group to come to.

"But, and I have to say this upfront, I am a little uncomfortable with this. You'll be out of touch, in the South Pacific. There won't be any help around you – we'll put a support team on Fiji, but it's at least three hours away. And these are people who rob banks. They haven't hurt anyone, but people probing into this stuff...well, it could go pear shaped."

April considered what Dermot said and then, after a while, replied, "Let me read the mission profile first. I gotta admit, everything you just said is the first thing that occurred to me, too. I mean, this isn't what we do. I'm a little uncomfortable about it too."

Dermot sighed and then said, "Yeah, well, it kinda gets worse. The fact is, if we do this – and our illustrious leader, Jessica Ingrams very much wants us to – then the only way we can put you in there is as the masseuse. And that means..."

April's shoulders deflated. "Let me guess. The masseuse is the fuck toy, right? For everyone?"

"That's about the size of it. That and the two maids. The bottom line is that for the past two years, they've basically been the entertainment for those managers who get invited. Managers do bring their significant others, by the way, too."

"So, let me get this straight. I'm going to be gang fucked over the course of a week, while trying to find bank robbers among a bunch of bank managers. I'm going to be out of contact and backup will be three hours away, if I can contact them and they hear me? Is that about the size of it?"

Dermot nodded unhappily, but then said, "On the plus side, we'll have handled something that Pinkerton could not."

"Oh great," replied April, "assuming I survive it. And no one will ever know."

She sighed again.

"I need to read the mission report, look at what they actually want us to do and I'll get back to you, ok Dermot?"

Dermot looked even more unhappy. "They need an answer by tomorrow. You are the only spare field agent we have right now, plus Jessica – and I – feel you have the ability to handle this. But I can't say I like this April, I really don't."

"You and me both Dermot, you and me both. How long we have before this little junket kicks off?"

"Five weeks. Should only take you a couple of weeks to get the skills you need to pull off being a masseuse, and we can spend the rest of the time doing profiles on the other people attending and coming up with plans."

April just sat there, staring at Dermot and wondering if he often had to ask field agents to do what he was asking her.

"If I do this, I want one HELL of a bonus."

Dermot grinned back at her, for the first time in ten minutes. "You'll get it."

*****

That night, April went through the information packet with a fine toothcomb, staying late to do it, since Ingrams had a strict policy of not allowing documentation like that off the premises. She ended up leaving at 2:30am, her mind swirling with everything she had read.

She had to admit, what Dermot had said about the Osoros Island didn't do it justice. The island was almost fully self-contained. All it needed was a self-propulsion system. .

It had a large freezer section – with storage space for enough food for a month. It even had a small workout room, with a treadmill and a multi-gym. Every room had a balcony, except those for the help. The kitchen was large enough to cook for everyone – it even had a media room, complete with 8 terabyte hard drive with every movie imaginable on it. The only thing missing was an Internet connection – it was apparently offered on this model, but the owner had specifically said he didn't want it. When you were on his island, you were cut off from the world.

The packet included details on how the lucky winners got to the island – they flew to Fiji, via private jet, then took a smaller puddle jumper down to Kadavu Island, three hours south. The island itself was moored in a cove in Ono Island, just north and east of Kadavu. Once at Kadavu, the visitors were taken via fast zodiac inflatable watercraft to the artificial island. Luggage was limited, and they were usually sharing space with food supplies. Everyone was warned to bring what they needed, because once they were there, there was no calling down to reception to get a new tooth brush or shampoo. In particular, they were told to bring sunscreen. The sun around Fiji was fierce and unrelenting and people got burned very quickly.

Ono Island, like Kadavu, was right on a barrier reef, which meant the snorkeling was amazing, and the island had three jet skis and a two outboard motorboats moored; there was no lack of things to do. The island itself actually boasted a very small village and resort, which meant there was a communications portal available, which was something.

But more interesting to April were the people, and the entire situation that she was getting involved with. In the past two years, there'd been five bank robberies at various Northwestern Bank locations, and in each case, the robbers had the good luck to attend on a day when the bank was most swollen from incoming monies.

The banks had a complicated schedule of moving money around and the days of the robberies just happened to coincide with when each bank was holding the most in liquid funds for weeks. This was obviously too much of a coincidence. Furthermore, the robbers knew exactly who had access to the vaults, where the panic buttons were – their attention to detail was staggering. They were in and out in about eight minutes. No one saw their faces because they were all wearing masks and only one man spoke. They carried weapons but had never used one. They were reported to be calm and collected.

April's investigative instincts were immediately aroused – cool bank robbers meant lots of planning for contingencies and also lots of inside intel. This was obviously a career choice for them, not a spur of the moment thing as lots of robberies actually were. She read the police reports, and noted there were no obvious clues – this was a new crew that even the FBI had no leads on.

But what was really interesting was the corresponding marriage break-ups there had been. In fact, over the last two years, almost 5 marriages had self destructed – all couples who'd been to the island over the years – and one single man had quit his managerial position and moved to Vermont, to live alone. All the marriages had dissolved under 'irreconcilable differences' and in some cases the managers had carried on their careers, although almost always at different banks. Some had just left the profession entirely.

All of the marriages, save one, that had ended, had been at banks where robberies had taken place. The implication was obvious.

The state police had interviewed and re-interviewed everyone involved, asked about the marriages and everything else and come up empty handed. Either the people who instigated this were very very good, or there really was no correlation. In each case, the ex spouses had pointed at the bank robberies as the reason for their marital discord – which was hardly surprising. The pressure of being a potential suspect for a robbery on your own bank would push anyone to extremes.