Book 2 Chapter 21
At 0730 I was in Robert’s office with Andy listening to him explain yesterday’s intercepts and what he thought they meant. There was good news from my group assigned to the RV park at Harrisburg.

The group there had decided on several suspects in the mystery of Jaed. There was a vendor that was there three days a week. The service he allegedly worked for had the contract to repair the water park equipment and swap out all the parks rides as the needed.

Every time they came there were different individuals with him and he seemed to be explaining a lot of unnecessary things to them in Persian. My team there wanted specialized listening equipment as soon as they could get it. Andy agreed with their request and so did I, if it could be used without giving away their assignment.

They had sent pictures of the one they thought was Jaed along with all his different helpers. Yesterday he had made three trips into the water park but there had been no bikes brought in.

The good thing was we had a name of a business and a tag number on a truck. The good was only temporary. The bad thing was the name and phone number were fakes and went nowhere. The tag number was issued to a vacant lot outside Philadelphia.

The lot had over two thousand tags listed as their home address. Illegal’s used that address to secure IDs, drivers licenses, and tags. It was just inside the sanctuary city lines. The address was passed around like candy by activists and interpreters. It seems like everyone knew the game and profited by it.

At least the pictures were something to work with.

I also sent two GPS tracking devices. I was hoping that one of my agents could install one, if there was an opportunity to do so. The new ones we had were small and magnetic; small enough to fit inside the frame rail of the older Ford van they were using. It was a boosted antenna model, both on signal reception and in transmit mode.

In the other messages, Tiam demanded assurances that everything was on schedule. That could have only come from General Kedar.

Jaed promised that everything was progressing and would be completed two days before the celebration. Jaed asked if there were any more of the important ingredients available. There were several other sites that could be very productive the same night.

It was not good news that Jaed was looking to expand in one way. But in another; time was running out, he would have to move fast if his plan was to include more locations. He would need more bikes and more machine work. All of that could lead to mistakes that would give him and his helpers away and more importantly, where the explosives and bikes were.

Robert and his helpers had been working, trying to get into the Kadar’s server rather than just monitoring it. We had both become afraid that we could trip a safety and shut down that avenue of information. Robert shut down that effort for a while.

I did want one thing and that was to know everything that could possibly be known on General Kedar. I would call Ben-David on my way to Washington for their file on the General. The man had to have a weakness and I wanted to know what it was.

After a walk through the office and quick conversations with the girls, I donned the heavy vest to leave for Washington. Duke Justice and Clarence Hallworthy were just coming in to the lobby.

“I just wanted to let you know Matt Monroe has not only been fired, he is under investigation by the county prosecutor. We commissioners ordered an audit and his affiliation with the union and the school board weren’t the only things that were underhanded and illegal.”

“There was a fraudulent vendor account that paid for an apartment. His girlfriend and he visited there often as did several other people, sometimes all at the same time, according to video at the apartment complex. She is an employee of the union and married. To complicate matters, the union has also ordered an audit of its books. They are either covering their ass or trying to throw Matt under the bus,” Duke said.

“The school board has asked for a meeting; they are upset that they received a subpoena for their books for the last three years from the prosecutor. This could get nasty,” Clarence added.

“Usually when there is one snake in the hay, there are more in the barn,” I said before I turned to leave.

I went first to Section Twelve to share some of the information I had learned this morning from Robert.

Ben’s group and I had a discussion and while we were waiting for the pictures that I had from Harrisburg to run through the scanner. I made it perfectly clear there were to be no moves to arrest the culprits until we had a chance to identify all his contacts and helpers. That and possibly the explosives and bikes, it was going to take more time to do that and any moves could let most of them to escape unnamed.

Labor and OSHA had sent the names of the Harrisburg businesses by courier.

It was time for me to make the trip to the IRS building and see if they still remembered who I was, not that I was worried.

After I went through security and by the time I walked to the commissioner’s office, people walking my way with folders. The first in the door was Hapfield McCoy.

“I have the two lists you wanted – look them over and tell us how you want us to proceed. I have been trying to get something going for the last two years,” he said.

“I have the list from Labor and OSHA; I need all the names ASAP,” I said.

“No problem, I have a team of agents ready to pull the information from the files for you,” Hapfield replied as he took disc from my hand and walked out the door.

While he was gone I looked at the list starting with the one that listed the most owed with the highest amounts first. There was plenty to look, at with plenty of documentation. I was astounded at who some of the biggest debtors were to the government. They were not poor- by any means – the first fifty pages were some of the wealthiest individuals and companies in the USA.

Even more disturbing was how old some of the taxes owed were. One was 20 years old and the tax bill was a billion dollars from an international industrial and investment company that was worth almost two hundred billion. Why weren’t they collected? A closer look at the names may answer that question.

With Hap sitting at my desk he tried to explain why, “They took deductions and write offs they were not entitled to by law and tried to pass them off as gray area tax rules and got caught.”

“With lots of lawyers they challenged the amount owed, taking years for each challenge. When it comes to the point a settlement says they have to pay, the lawyers are replaced. The new lawyers want to start at the beginning, dragging it out for years again.”

“They have done this five times. The case is at that point again – the lawyers canceled the last hearing where the final amount was to be agreed upon: the original one billion with no interest. In a phone call to reschedule the hearing, we found the lead attorneys are no longer on the case.”

“They can do this because this type of challenge is done through the IRS appeals court system. Once the IRS final appeals judge rules against them they can then carry the case to the regular courts. None of the delaying tactics work in the regular courts. And each appeal gets more expensive and the decisions can be the final word,” Hap said.

“What has to happen to seize funds from a delinquent taxpayer?” I asked.

“The agents on the case determine there is no effort on the payer to satisfy the tax due and request seizure. The forms go the IRS judge for his signature; on an amount that large the commissioner [currently that is you] also has to sign off. Once signed the funds – if available – are seized immediately or other assets, if they can be found to fulfill the amount of the seizure,” Hap replied.

“How would the taxpayer get his funds back?” I asked.

“Well, he has to prove that he doesn’t owe the money for one thing and then go through a process that can takes months,” Hap replied.

“OK, here’s what you do. Go back to the original tax return due date and calculate the taxes due with interest and penalties compounded as you normally do. Get the judge to sign the papers today and seize everything at 0800 tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Interest and penalties will make it three times the amount,” Hap replied.

“Good, make sure it takes years for them to get any funds back. Make sure the agency attorneys are booked and the court dockets full to drag it out. Use the same tactics they used. After a year or so they will be ready to accept your original offer,” I said.

“The judge will not sign for seizures of the wealthy or influential people,” Hap replied.

“The agent, you and I will appear before the judge for his signature. After yesterday I have a reputation that now precedes me – bigger than life – based on rumor. The judge may not want to challenge that reputation today,” I said.

“Are the agents here to be able to work on that today?” I said.

“I can find plenty,” Hap replied.

“In that case, let’s flag more for seizure,” I said.

When I finished we had flagged 450 individuals and companies for asset seizure over the next few days. We still had not touched anyone owing less than ten million.

Hap, senior agent Helen Wescott and I knocked on the door to the judge’s chambers and walked in. IRS judge Murray Kline was straightening his robe as his rear office door clicked closed.

“I have here one hundred seizure files that we need signed. New commissioner Ambassador Jones is aware that because of the dollar amount that she needs to sign them as well,” Hap said.

He looked though the files then said, “I’m not signing these! We traditionally do not seize the property of clients like this, never more than one or two a year,” he said.

“Well traditions were changed yesterday and they will be changed again today by whatever means necessary,” I replied.

“Just leave them here and when I get time I will look through them and make a decision,” Judge Kline said.

“That’s not good enough – everything is ready to go and I am here to sign them as you do,” I said.

“Like I said, when I get time,” he said.

“According to the organizational tree of this agency you report to me and I say you have time NOW. Start signing,” I said as I signed the first one and moved the file to him and reached for the next one.

He just looked at me like I was from outer space.

“There are four things that can happen here; one – you sign the papers. Two – you resign effective today. Three – you retire today. And four – the one I actually prefer – is I fire you today for a list of things that start with insubordination and an explanation of what that court clerk was doing in here that you needed to straighten your clothes,” I said.

He started signing off on the files as I did the same.

As I was leaving Robert called, “See me as soon as you get back to the office.”

Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.