Buried Secrets

No one else was in the dark, narrow alley.  Shielding her face with a stylish brown scarf and a pair of Chanel sunglasses, Paulette Carmichael quickly stepped from her black Mercedes Benz and entered an inconspicuous back door of the Carmichael Building, one of the many tall buildings towering over Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta.  If everything went according to plan, no one would ever know she had been here.  Because it was almost six o’clock, most of the employees had already gone home for the day.  Her husband, Hugh Carmichael, the high and mighty owner of Carmichael Airways, which was headquartered in the building, had flown to Las Vegas on business for the day.  His entourage of thugs had accompanied him.  Whatever kind of business they were conducting, Paulette was certain it wasn’t legal.  Hardly anything that went on around here was.

Anxiety rushing through her body, she walked briskly up the seemingly endless flights of stairs that led to her husband’s penthouse suite.  For a woman rapidly approaching the age of sixty-five, she was in relatively good shape, compliments of the personal trainer she employed.  Once inside the suite, Paulette marveled at her surroundings.  The opulence of the place never ceased to amaze her.  It consisted of two large kitchens, six lavishly decorated bedrooms, several plush offices, and an over-sized media room complete with three of the world’s most technologically advanced big-screen televisions.  She shuddered when she imagined what must go on in the bedrooms.  Throughout their marriage, Hugh had been a womanizer.  The action that took place here probably made the Grotto at the Playboy Mansion seem dull.

She began rummaging through her husband’s personal office.  Realizing that poring through these files might take a while, she sat down in his comfortable swivel chair.  She was careful not to make too much noise.  She couldn’t risk getting caught.  Her life depended on it.  No one had ever betrayed Hugh Carmichael like she was about to and had lived to get away with it.  Paulette was looking out for herself, though. There was no way in hell she was going to rot in prison.  The authorities were on to the scam that had been taking place here for almost forty years now, and they knew that since she used to be Hugh’s personal assistant, she had once played a significant role in carrying it out.  They had come to her secretly and offered her immunity from prosecution under the condition that she would testify against him.  She had been surprised they had been caught.  Who would ever have suspected that Carmichael Airways was a cover for one of the largest drug smuggling empires in the world?  Everything had always gone so smoothly.  An airline that transported freight was the perfect cover.  It was so easy smuggling drugs in and out of the country.  Almost too easy.  All of the insiders here at Carmichael had been laughing about it for decades.  It was a shame the game was up.  What other game would allow someone to amass a personal net worth of over three billion dollars?