Chapter 18: Hostiles

From the airport we drove back to the house, and I parked the minivan. We wanted to make everything look normal, so I hitched a ride into town in one of the unmarked cruisers. “We need to go over to Tractor Supply before heading back to the station.”

“You got it, Sarge.” He radioed the other cruiser and pulled out second.

“You both don’t need to do this.”

“The captain said we did, so where you go, we go.”

I shrugged. That would end soon enough.

At Tractor Supply I got a few odd looks when we walked in. I needed some supplies if I was going to be playing Cops and Robbers in the woods outside my house for a few days. The weather was wet and dreary and was forecast to become wetter and drearier. I picked up a camo-pattern insulated jacket and coverall pants, and a pair of camo waterproof tarps. I also picked up some energy bars, beef jerky, and candy; I had coffee at the house.

When we left Tractor Supply, we headed to the station, where I was to meet with Crowley and Jenkins. The desk sergeant sent me immediately upstairs; like everybody, he wasn’t sure what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t good and he knew I was up to my ears in it. I saw Hank first, and he said, “Good, you’re back. Let’s see the Chief. You get your family taken care of?”

Before I could answer, Crowley opened his door and pulled us in. He asked the same question. I answered, “They’re out of here. I got Tolley Hunter to send a plane and a security detail. They wouldn’t tell me where they were heading, but she has a half dozen places she could stash them in.”

“How do you want to handle this, Grim? You still think they will head to your place on the lake?” asked the Chief.

I returned a wry smile. “That’s what the Feds think, anyway. This isn’t some damn TV movie where they are going to invade the station house. They had my address and satellite maps of the house. I have no reason to think they won’t go there.”

“And?” pushed Hank.

“If we set up a fortress situation, we’re just going to scare them off. If we can get them to commit and approach the house on foot, I can stop them while the rest of the department climbs up their ass from behind. We need to keep up appearances like everything was normal. If we spook them, they are going to bug out and find some other place to shoot up. Or worse, they could split into smaller groups and hit multiple targets. We want to contain them, not divert them.”

Hank nodded. “So, how do you want us to crawl up their asses?”

I logged onto Crowley’s computer and pulled up Google Earth. From there it was simple enough to zoom to East Matucket and find my home on the lake. Our house was on Lakeside Drive East, and I printed out a copy of the satellite view of the property, and then zoomed out and focused on possible choke points on Lakeside. “I’ll be on the property, somewhere to the side. I can’t say more until I walk it. Place two unmarked cars, here and here,” I said, tapping on the printout. “They can stay out of sight. If these guys do show up, I will call it in. Then, when I am about to engage, I will let you know, and the unmarked cruisers can roll across the road and cut it. Lakeside isn’t that wide and the culverts at each side are steep enough that nobody will get past. That traps anybody long enough to bring in whoever’s available.”

“No way are you doing this, Grim! You’re too close to it. You’re going into hiding, too,” said Crowley.

“Chief, these guys are after me. It’s personal.”

“Precisely! It’s personal! No way!”

Hank added, “Take yourself out of the equation. I can have you walk the ground with us, and I can put two guys on site.”

“Listen, I know you mean well, but I’m the guy for this. We need a shooter, somebody who can take the shot without a problem and move on to the next shot and the next and the next. Face it, I’ve seen more combat than the rest of the department combined. For all that they’ve trained, the guys on TRT aren’t killers. I am,” I told them.

“This violates every rule imaginable!” said Hank.

I shrugged. “If this was New York or LA, where we had thousands of officers and the SWAT departments have shooters who have been in firefights and combat, I might agree with you. We don’t. Our guys are good and tough, and I would trust them with my life, but until you’ve put the crosshairs on somebody and squeezed the trigger, you’ll never know if you can do it.”

“Grim, there are six or seven of these assholes potentially, maybe eight. You shouldn’t be on your own out there. That’s bad tactics. You need a second person,” said Crowley.

I nodded and answered, “Maybe, but this way I don’t have to worry about coordinating with another person. I can switch locations and move, if necessary, without worrying about crossfire or friendly fire. This is combat. I have forgotten more about combat than anybody else here has ever learned. Just don’t approach the property unless you hear me give the okay. If you hear gunfire, stay away. If you don’t hear gunfire, but I don’t call in, then approach very, very carefully.”

“Grim...”, said Hank.

I smiled at my friend. “It’s like you said this morning, Hank. I’ve got them outnumbered.”

“Christ!”

“I’m going home now and setting up. I won’t be coming in or using the phone. Contact me through Dispatch. I’ll be sleeping in the house days. If the bad guys come, it will be evenings or nighttime. I’ll be setup outside then. If they catch these assholes somewhere else, let me know.” I gave them a few more ideas and then my keepers drove me home. I dismissed them and went inside to do my final preparations. I sorted out my supplies, made myself some coffee, and finished dressing. I pulled the camo clothing on over my uniform and armor and grabbed my weapons. I had my service Glock in my web holster, my off-duty piece in a shoulder holster, and my M-14. I left the MP5 in the gun safe; if I couldn’t handle the fight with my long gun, a submachine gun wasn’t going to help. I made myself a quick sandwich and wolfed it down, and then went outside. I left the lights on to appear normal.

I needed to walk the property before setting up firing sites. Our property measured about 200 feet from the road to the lake, and not quite 250 feet from property line to property line. However, it wasn’t perfectly rectangular and there were enough oddities in the layout that the deed reported 1.25 acres. There was more to it than that, though. We were on the east side of Lake Matucket, which mostly ran south to north, formed when they dammed Matucket Creek north of us. South of us was some rough scrub and a ten-foot drop to the next neighbor’s property. North of us was a scrub-filled ditch separating us from that neighbor which ran from the road to the lake. Our driveway bisected the property and led straight to the house. There used to be a chain across the driveway, but we had pulled that when we built the house. We had a fair number of pine trees around the property, but not much scrub, because I had mowed and seeded it.

I walked down to the road along my driveway, looking around to see if I could figure anything out. I had walked my yard countless times, but it’s a different mindset than when you are playing with the kids or mowing the lawn. Nothing presented itself as a useful hide at either the road or along the southern edge; the road would let me fire from behind, but it was too exposed, and the scrub on the southern property line offered some useful hides but had lousy lines of sight. I walked across the property by the lake, but unless these guys were the Somali version of Navy SEALs, it seemed unlikely they were going to make an underwater approach. That left the northern edge of the property, where the ditch was. There were several useful spots in the ditch which gave me good firing lanes through the trees perpendicular to the approach down the driveway. The only problem was that the bottom of the ditch was wet and muddy. If it rained, which was probable, it would be cold and miserable.

I tossed down one of the tarps and rolled it out, and then laid down on it. The other tarp went over me. Unless these guys were trained soldiers, they weren’t going to see me unless they were right on top of me. I pulled out my cell phone and tested the final component of my preparations. A couple of years ago there had been a string of robberies in the area and Kelly had me put in an alarm system. Along with the usual door and window alarms and smoke detectors, it had a camera and loudspeaker mounted on a light, along with a motion detector, and a nifty little phone app that allowed me to see if somebody was approaching the house. If marauding hordes approached, I could tap my phone screen and turn on the lights and talk through a loudspeaker to tell them to go away. The system worked, so I put the phone back in my pocket.

By 2000 I had settled into my hide when Dispatch called me on my radio. I had my TRT headset on, so I could hear them in my ear and speak into a thin mike. “Dispatch to One-Six-Three, say condition.”

“One-Six-Three to Dispatch, condition green.”

“Dispatch to One-Six-Three, confirm condition green. Will expect your call at 2030.”

“One-Six-Three to Dispatch, confirm next comms at 2030, my call. One-Six-Three out.” We would alternate calling each other every half hour.

An hour later it began raining. An hour after that, it turned into a thunderstorm. Despite the drop cloth and tarp, by midnight I was cold and wet. Shortly after hitting the cold and wet stage, I hit the cold, wet, and miserable stage. I was silently cursing the FBI by the time dawn rolled round. The best part was when nature called, and I had to answer. I had heard that commandoes invented the phrase ‘going commando’ because they would leave their undies at home on a mission, so they could pee and poop in their pants and not move. I wasn’t dedicated enough for that. The terrorists could shoot me before I did that! I wasn’t sure how true that was, and I had never really bothered to ask a special ops-type. In any case, I had to move out of my little hide and go down the ditch. Nothing like squatting in the rain to make you feel warm and happy. Where the hell was a nice bit of global warming when you needed it.

At 0800 Tuesday, Dispatch called me, and I reported no action and the night’s exercise was over. We had already decided that if the nut cases showed up, it would undoubtedly be at night. During the day I would have enough visibility that if anybody unexpected came into the driveway, I would have enough warning that I could slip out the door to the lakeside and move into position down by the water.

I grabbed my crap and went inside. My first job was to strip down and take a hot shower. After that I washed and dried my clothing, catnapping in between wash cycles. I also took a few phone calls from the station, which came in right after I got to sleep. The only good phone call was in the late morning, when Kelly called on the special phone.

“Grim! I’ve been worried sick about you! I called last night, and you never answered! I had to call the station!”

I grimaced at that. I had left the phone in the kitchen when I went outside. “Sorry about that, babe. I left it in the house when I went out last night. I’ll check in before I go back out later.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And how did it go?”

I laughed. “It was cold, wet, and miserable! It reminded me of basic training down at Fort Benning. It was a good night to be snuggled up to somebody. Where are you?”

Kelly laughed. “Someplace a lot warmer and drier. They said I can’t tell you. We told Riley we were playing a game and she couldn’t say. You’ll have to try and guess with her. Hold on, here she is.”

There was some fumbling and then a little voice came on. “Daddy! How are you, Daddy?”

“Just fine, Pumpkin. How are you?”

She giggled. “I’m having fun! Want to guess where we are?”

“Do you see any polar bears outside? Is it the North Pole?”

She giggled some more and told her mother what I had asked. “No polar bears!”

“Camels! Maybe you’re in the Sahara Desert!”

“No camels!”

I made a few more outlandish guesses, all of which got her laughing. She did admit that she was on a big hill overlooking the ocean and they were going to the beach later.

When Kelly took back the phone, she gave me a bit more information, including the fact that Tolley was with them, along with her daughter and her father. Tolley had gotten married five years ago to another movie star, and in typical Hollywood fashion, the marriage had been measured in weeks, not years. She said the only good thing she had gotten out of it was a beautiful little girl. If they were overlooking the ocean on a big hill and going down to the beach with Tolley, they were probably staying at her home in Malibu. Kelly and I had stayed there once, and it was utterly beautiful – and secure! Short of an assault by Delta Force, nobody was going to get in.