Cahill

I could hear the din from the bar as I exited my SUV and I was still almost a block away. What a shame! I knew from long experience that would change as soon as my foot crossed the threshold. I tend to have that effect on people. I’m six feet six inches tall and I weigh an even 250 pounds—all of it broad shouldered muscle. My Body Mass Index at my last physical was less than four percent. My light brown hair is styled exactly the way it’s been for the past fifteen years—ever since I first joined the Navy. Sure enough, no sooner had I taken my first step into the bar than the noise died. When I turned left and stepped up to the bar the people there couldn’t back away fast enough. I took a stool in the middle of the empty space and sat down, waiting for the bartender to approach. “I’m not looking for any trouble.” “Good…neither am I. Give me a ginger ale.” He reached under the bar for a glass and some ice. Twenty seconds later he slid the glass in my direction. I pulled a fiver from my pocket and dropped it on the bar. He ignored it and walked away to draw a few beers and pour some wine. It looked to me like this was a pretty cheap crowd. Checking up and down the bar all I could see were longnecks and drafts. I reached into the lower left pocket of my cargo pants. Like almost everything else I was wearing they were a true deep navy blue. My heavy shoes were black as was my wide belt. My belt said as much about me as the bold white lettering across my chest. Just below the American flag over my heart were the letters that were my life—U. S. MARSHAL. On my right hip was my nickel plated .44 Magnum Colt Python, just behind two speed loaders in addition to the twenty-four rounds on the belt. On my left hip was my ASP Talon baton—every bit as deadly a weapon in my hands as the revolver. A pouch at the back of my right hip held my stainless steel handcuffs and its partner on the opposite side held my radio—my link to my backup team. I placed the photo flat on the bar as the bartender returned to me. “I’ll have another,” I said in a loud voice, continuing so I wouldn’t be overheard. “Don’t pick it up and don’t make a production of looking at it. I’ve been told that he comes here a lot. Is he here tonight? If he is and he escapes because you’ve given me away I’ll see to it that you’re arrested for obstruction of justice.” He gulped a few times but did as he was told, nodding slightly in response. I continued almost at a whisper. “If my nose is pointing to twelve o’clock, my right ear to three, the back of my head to six, and my left ear to nine, tell me where he is. Again, don’t point or do anything obvious and we’ll be fine.” He pretended to wipe the bar as he whispered, “About 4:30 with his back to you.” I picked up the reflection in the mirror then asked, “Red shirt with black and white stripes, looking away from me?” He nodded again. Now, in my normal tone of voice I asked, “Where’s the men’s room?”

Fredrick_Udele · Fantasie

Zu wenig Bewertungen

69 Chs

CHAPTER 53

On Sunday afternoon Max and I were invited to her parents' weekly party on their spacious patio where I noticed that the bartender was spending an awful lot of time down behind the bar." I heard a few chuckles then so I continued. "I can see that several of you also know what was happening. I told Lucy's father after dinner that he was being victimized and—sure enough—we found a bunch of empty bottles with all kinds of handwritten fancy brand labels on them. He was pouring the good stuff into the empty bottles and serving cheap junk to the guests.

"Now we get to the first good part. Once we were in the study he told us that he was working for one of the city's police officers and that his roommate at Memphis University had bought drugs from him, too. At this point I was still with the Marshals Service, but Lucy had asked if I might consider settling down there if I could get a good job. She told me I could interview for the Chief's position. Once I had the job I phoned Paul for advice. He steered me to a state attorney and the state police took over the investigation because I'd had a run-in with the cop in a restaurant and I didn't want to be seen when a drug buy was observed and recorded. That could easily have messed up the entire deal.

"The state police were able to get video and audio of the drug buy and from that they got a warrant to bug the house where the cop and his parents lived. They overheard plans for a major drug buy from a cartel in Mexico. The only problem was that there were a number of voices and they couldn't identify any of them. This led to the one part of the investigation that I really regretted. My wife has lived in the city all of her life and she knows hundreds if not thousands of people. She and I drove to Memphis on a Sunday morning with my lieutenant, Daryl Evans, to listen to the recording. That was the first time we realized how big this case was going to be.

"On the tape we heard Jeremy Haynes, the patrolman I mentioned earlier; his father, Carl Haynes, the chairman of the city council and his wife; Gil Parsons, another city patrolman; Stan Irwin, a lieutenant in the P.D.; and Joe Wilson, the recently retired chief of police." I hesitated then because of the reaction of many in the audience. I even heard several say, 'Holy shit,' 'What the hell?' and 'Good God!' among other remarks of amazement.

"It was during this meeting that I first heard their plans and we began to plan our raid. There are several packets of paper on your tables. I'm sure that most if not all of you realize that. The top sheet shows an aerial view of the Bascomb Quarry. This is an old and obsolete mine that is enclosed by an eight-foot high fence topped with barbed wire." Using a red laser pointer I showed each feature on a large screen behind me. I described each step in detail and my audience must have found it interesting because there was total silence in the room.

I talked about arresting Stan Irwin first and taking him to the state police staging area. Then I described how Daryl and I had sneaked up on Parsons and then how we had sealed the entrance with the two huge ore trucks. "Everything about these trucks is huge; each one weighs more than 500,000 pounds and with their beds tilted back any attempt to ram them would just result in sliding up the ramps they made."

Next I described the actual raid, shooting the Mexican who had tried to kill me, capturing Carl and Mrs. Haynes and how Daryl baited Jeremy Haynes into a "fight." "It wasn't much, but it did get Haynes out of the warehouse and into custody." Once I was done I asked for questions. There was no shortage as I answered their queries for almost an hour. The final question was about the type and quantity of drugs.

"That's a good one. There were just over 500,000 tablets of Oxycontin and twenty kilos of pure uncut cocaine. There was also more than a ton of marijuana baled in plastic. We also confiscated the $1,250,000 in cash which was the payment for the drugs. I've learned that all of those charged in this matter have pleaded guilty in the hope of leniency. However, I have also been told that the minimum sentence will be twenty to fifty years plus heavy fines—millions-- and there is still the matter of income tax evasion to be resolved.

"That concludes my prepared comments, but I'd like to know if any of you were paying attention to Max while I was speaking. He knows that he is close enough to me that he can protect me, but he has never once taken his eyes off my wife since I pointed her out. He has been in lots of restaurants so he knows what servers are supposed to do, but if anyone were to hurt Lucy he'd be on him in a second.

"Thanks for your kind attention and if you should think of any additional questions I'll be around for the next four days and I'll be pleased to answer them for you. C'mon, Max." I walked off the stage to my seat next to Lucy who greeted me with a big juicy kiss before hugging and petting Max. There were a few remarks by the organization's president who thanked me again for an excellent presentation. He finished by commenting about Max. "I can understand why Max is such a good partner. Since you trained him while you were a Marshal I would have thought he would be government property."

I stood again to reply. "He was until I bought him. My commander told me to leave him in his office when I resigned. Unfortunately, Max refused to follow his orders. He wouldn't even move from the spot where I left him until the commander gave up. He came to me as soon as I snapped my fingers to call him. He will follow some directions from my lieutenant who he knows well and from my wife who he really loves, but that's it."

I held Lucy's chair as she rose and we walked out of the ballroom. I shook a lot of hands and received some pats on my back until one chief from a major city on the east coast asked if there was a moral to my story. "I guess it would be that you never know where even the smallest situations can lead so it's a good idea not to ignore them. In this case a little attention to an insignificant concern led to breaking up a big-time drug ring that had accumulated more than twenty million in profit over only four years. That money is in the Caymans, but it will be confiscated before we return home."

"Once again…great job." He shook my hand again and we went our separate ways.

PREV INDEX Next