Chapter 23: Complications

June,1985

[“Good Morning gentlemen, how long have you guys been here?”]

Sam chuckled, “Since about 6:30, I wanted to get the coffee going before you guys got here.”

Larry came in carrying a bunch of papers that he just finished photocopying. He told me we needed to make a copy of the signed plans because he was afraid the FBI was going to take them.

Many of them had ‘marks’ on them and we needed to have them to figure out what Jack may have done or was trying to do. Larry wanted to make sure we had something to work off of. We also found many ‘redundant prints’ of different pages in Jack’s desk and those we also needed to copy. I asked if we should re-search Jacks office, since once the FBI got there, it would be too late.

Larry said, “That might not be a bad idea Charlie; last night we were just looking for plans. Why don’t you go and look through all of his drawers and see what you can find?”

I went into Jack’s office and started rifling through his drawers. I found a spiral notebook that said ‘Stan’ on the front of it. I started looking through it and realized these were Jack’s notes from his first interview with Stan.

I discovered that Stan had wanted many things that Jack simply blew off. They were things like: escalators on the first three floors, elevators on each end of the building that he wanted encased in glass, a first floor atrium and things of that nature. Next to them Jack had written crude comments. They ranged from ‘stupid idea’ with regards to the escalators, ‘idiotic’ with regards to the glass-enclosed elevators, and ‘too much work’ with regards to the atrium. The list went on and on with 90% of things crossed out in red. It was very obvious that Jack had no intentions of doing ANYTHING that Stan wanted. I took the notebook over to the copier and frantically began copying every page.

Even if the FBI didn’t want this, I did. This was a clue as to how we could possibly get Stan to reconsider not shutting down the project if it were to come to that. I didn’t find anything else that had anything to do with this project.

I showed the notebook to Sam and Larry and told them what I thought. Sam started looking through it shaking his head the whole time.

“I never realized what a true ASSHOLE Jack Hoff was! I have to wonder if Stan even knew that Jack had no intention of building his building the way he really wanted.”

I just sighed. “The first three things on Stan’s list, while not easy to build, certainly would give character to the building. I don’t think any of them are unreasonable and I’d take it as a challenge if nothing else.”

Larry replied, “Designing an escalator isn’t much more difficult than a staircase. You just get the specs and layout dimensions from Otis or Kone or any of a number of suppliers and plug the numbers in. Glass-enclosed elevators are also no problem. This notebook actually proves, to some degree, that Jack never intended to do anything with this building except use the stolen steel. This also tells me that Charlie and I are probably going to end up having to redesign virtually the entire building.”

Sam said, “I’m going to tell you two right now, as far as I’m concerned, this is now YOUR building! You might have to use some of Jack’s structural layout due to the piers and footings, but you already have my full permission to do anything that you feel is necessary to try and make Stan happy. That might be the only thing that saves us.”

It was going on 8:00 AM and all the employees were beginning to file into the office.

At about five minutes after eight, two dark blue vans pulled up and about eight FBI agents came charging into the building telling everyone to put their hands up. Other than their dark blue jackets with FBI stenciled on them, no one bothered to show us their credentials.

This didn’t seem right to me and I quickly flashed Dad to tell him what was going on.

He flashed and told me that he was with Capt Gregory and for now I should just cooperate but to keep him informed. Dad flashed that somebody needed to ask for ID.

Sam looked beside himself, so I said, “Excuse me, but could we see some ID here? We fully intend to cooperate with anything you want. Why are you being so obtuse? The man behind this is already behind bars!”

The guy that appeared to be in charge really copped an attitude and told one of his men to handcuff me. I flashed Dad and he flashed that Capt Gregory was really pissed and that they would be there within 15 minutes. No one had showed me any ID yet or even given me their names.

I decided to mess with the guy that was trying to put handcuffs on me. As soon as I saw the handcuffs I made them fly across the room. The guy next to him pulled his out and I did the same thing. They both looked at each other nervously having no idea what happened. I again asked who was in charge and said that I wanted to see some identification and a warrant.

The guy giving the orders said his name was Agent Jones and that he didn’t need a warrant. He flashed something that looked like a badge for about two seconds and then put it back in his pocket.

Something about this just wasn’t right.

I said loudly, “Unless I woke up in Russia this morning, you DO need a warrant and I demand to see your credentials along with a photo ID!”

The guy calling himself Agent Jones came over and slugged me in the gut. “You’ll shut the fuck up and do what we tell you or we’ll start shooting.”

I flashed Dad what just happened and he said that no one knew anything about an Agent Jones. He said that Jim’s FBI friend said that only one agent was coming and that he knew the whole story. He told me that Jim’s friend said the agent that was coming DID have a warrant and that his name was Agent Fred Callas.

As I was getting up off the ground, I looked at the vans and noticed they did NOT have government plates on them.

I also noticed everyone’s shoes.

FBI agents ALWAYS wore black patent leather work shoes. Most of these guys had tennis shoes or hiking boots.

By now, most of the employees had been herded into a utility closet and locked in. One guy had grabbed the box that had most of Jack’s papers in it and was hurrying out the door with it. The rest of them were basically trashing everything in sight.

I flashed Dad about what to do next. He said that Agent Callas was enroute and that there were no other FBI agents in the area. These guys were imposters and were probably working for Jack.

That’s all I needed to hear.

The only ones left in the office were Sam, Larry and I.

Sam and Larry were both in handcuffs.

I picked up the guy with the box and threw him about 50 feet onto the top of one of the vans. I then picked up the guy calling himself Jones and began swinging him around, using him like a battering ram to knock down all of the other guys. As I expected, they all started freaking out thinking that Jones had gone crazy. One guy still had his gun out, so I ripped it out of his hand and smacked him over the head with it, knocking him out cold.

Two guys went to pick up weapons on the floor. I pushed one far away and picked up the other one and used it like a club to knock those two unconscious.

Everyone was out cold, so I searched in Jones’s pocket and found the key for the handcuffs. I quickly freed Sam and Larry and grabbed the badge that he had in his pocket. It was from some security company. Dad flashed that they were just pulling into the parking lot. I flashed that all the fake FBI agents were unconscious.

Before I knew it the parking lot was full of cop cars and a North Aurora police officer was pulling the unconscious thug off the top of the van and putting him in handcuffs. Capt Gregory and Dad came busting in the doors.

Jim started laughing uncontrollably.

“Charlie, you’re a one-man wrecking crew!” Jim exclaimed.

I asked him to go and let the rest of the employees out of the closet and I would tell him everything that happened.

Sam and Larry were just shaking their heads having seen what I did firsthand.

I was watching the guy outside being put in handcuffs when a dark blue sedan pulled in. His clothes looked very similar to the eight guys that I had knocked out. His car DID however, have government plates and the first thing he did when he came in the door was show me his badge and photo ID.

He began assessing the situation and I was starting to explain what happened when Capt Gregory and Dad came back in the room.

Capt Gregory said, “It appears we have eight FBI imposters who tried to make our friends here give them all the evidence that they had against Jack.”

Agent Callas snickered, “Just who knocked all these guys out? This is like the aftermath of a Chuck Norris movie!”

“That would be my son, Charlie ‘Norris’ Swenson!” Dad smirked.

“And he is FEARED throughout the land,” added Jim, laughing.

Sam and Larry were fighting hard not to break out laughing themselves. I winked at them so they would know not to say anything. They both grinned at me, biting their lips.

I chuckled, “I told them that they were pissing me off and I was getting angry. I warned them that they wouldn’t LIKE me if I became angry!”

Agent Callas said, “NO SHIT! Remind me not to piss you off! Now I have to find out who these clowns are and who hired them. I take it that box of stuff strewn all over the parking lot is what you were going to give me?”

“Yes sir, I’m sorry we’re gonna have to round it all up again. We did have it all in one place for you!”

Agent Callas suddenly looked serious and said, “Shit! I need to use the phone, QUICKLY. If this happened here, I need to warn the agents in Pittsburgh, because it might happen there, too.”

Sam led him to the receptionist desk and got him an outside line. Capt Gregory was giving orders to the Police Sgt who was rounding up the rest of the unconscious scumbags.

I heard him ask the Sgt if Jack was still in jail. The Sgt got on his radio and confirmed that he was sitting in his cell, smiling.

Capt Gregory said, “Now tell me that NO ONE let him use the phone last night!”

The Sgt inquired and a solemn look came over his face. “It seems that he demanded his phone call and the night desk clerk granted his request.”

Capt Gregory was furious. “Dammit, I gave EXPLICIT ORDERS last night that he was NOT to get a phone call!”

Jim looked at Dad and said, “I need you to find out everything you can from that guy that Charlie said was the leader.”

I took Dad out and showed him who it was. They had to give him smelling salts to wake him up. Shortly after he came to, Dad grabbed his arm and immediately went back inside to talk to Jim.

“The guy’s name is Jonas Skaggs” Dad told him, “and he got a call last night around 2 AM from Frank Hoff. He’s part of the Aryan Nation gang. He’s local from Chicago and was promised $10,000 if he could get his hands on all the evidence that we had against Jack Hoff.”

Capt Gregory said, “SHIT, that means that Frank is probably in the wind.”

He went over to Agent Callas and told him what had happened.

Agent Callas was still on the phone to Pittsburgh and was nodding and frowning. He put his hand over the phone and said, “It appears that Frank cleared out his office after everyone went home last night. We don’t even know where the steel is.”

Dad said, “Oh yes we do, we found a receipt last night for Acme warehouse in Pittsburgh. We know that’s where they’re hiding the steel!”

Agent Callas broke into a grin and read the address to the agent in Pittsburgh that he was talking to. After a minute he hung up and told us what was going on.

“We’ve got an APB out on Frank and a crew has been dispatched to that warehouse.

Dad was grinning. “Let’s go see Jack and see what he has to tell us!”

Capt Gregory was smiling but Agent Callas obviously didn’t have a clue.

“He’ll just lawyer up and we won’t get anything out of him.” Agent Callas said.

Capt Gregory just grinned. “Oh, he’ll tell us all right, he just won’t KNOW that he’s telling us! Sam, would you mind if we borrowed Charlie for about an hour?”

“No problem, although I’d feel SAFER if he was here next to me! ... Just joking, go ahead and go, Charlie.”

When we got outside Capt Gregory told the locals that he wanted all eight of these guys transported to the Elgin lock up. They were in even more trouble than Jack.

I followed Jim, Dad and Agent Callas to the North Aurora precinct house. The Sgt that we met last night was getting his ass reamed for allowing Jack’s phone call.

The North Aurora Capt apologized to Jim and led us to an interrogation room. Jack was already there.

Dad and I each grabbed one of Jack’s arms as Agent Callas screamed at Jack, “Tell us where your brother is or you’re NEVER getting out of jail!”

Jack said, “I want my lawyer, dammit and tell these two homo’s to let go of me! You don’t have any evidence against me and I’ll be out of here in an hour!”