Chapter 6

Frank joined us at breakfast, looking sharp and alert as ever. Disgusting! While we ate, he filled us in on events.

Norm had quietly gotten help from the phone company and put taps on all the lines in the DEA office. He had his other pigeon cold. A middle-aged secretary, recently divorced, had sold out. She was presently in solitary confinement in the county jail, as a federal prisoner. Her initial interrogation had been productive-completely broken, she was expected to spill everything she knew.

Most of the raids in the Portland area had gone well, although only two yielded anything of significance. A lot of petty crooks had been rounded up-most being held on outstanding warrants for probation violation, etc. At any rate, they were all being held, for now.

Norm had a tip on the supervisor of the Portland DEA office and a team arrested him. He wasn't talking, but Norm felt they had enough on him to charge him for conspiracy to commit murder, along with a number of other crimes. He'd be in the slammer for a while! (Former cops, especially 'narks', usually don't last very long in prison. Norm took some satisfaction in this.)

The efforts in San Francisco and other parts of California had been very successful, except that Guiterrez had not been caught. With the warrant from Portland, he would be on 'Most Wanted' lists within a week. He couldn't get far.

Having brought us up to speed on the 'peripheral' stuff, Frank grinned and told us about the trap he'd set with Sandy.

Seems he had a couple of Portland police detectives, one a lady with hair similar to Sarah's, on the fly bridge, pretending to be us. Inside were two Coast Guardsmen and three Secret Service agents. One of the 'Coasties' actually ran the boat from the main helm in the salon.

Running upstream in the Columbia, they spotted the runabout I'd described just as they passed Kelly Point, at the mouth of the Willamette. They added power, but not enough that the runabout couldn't catch them. When it did, one of the three guys in it called through a bullhorn for Sandy to stop. All three waved pistols. The Coastie cut the power abruptly and the agents in the cabin boiled out into the cockpit and the forward deck. Suddenly the runabout was alongside and a half-dozen machine guns and shotguns were pointed at them. One of the druggies tried his luck with his pistol. The lady in the fly bridge blew his brains out with a carbine. Needless to say, the other two tough guys became instant pussycats!

They were being held in solitary confinement in jails in Columbia and Clark counties and were being closely interrogated by specialists. One asked for a lawyer and wouldn't be questioned until he got one. But he wouldn't get a lawyer for at least another day-let him stew!-and he'd also be kept from much sleep and continually watched.

Frank wouldn't give us the details of his other trap, except to say that it involved another police 'couple' masquerading as us, going into a restaurant near our home. They picked up a guy trying to wire our car and another staked out with a sniper rifle. Because they thought this was local 'talent', they'd shipped them off to a federal jail in Seattle, to keep them off balance and remove them from their home turf. All these prisoners were being kept isolated. They would not be allowed any phone calls. If they asked for a lawyer, one would be supplied. But their communications would be restricted.

From preliminary interrogation reports, Frank felt he'd bagged them all and that, for now, we were safe. Frank was pretty proud of himself. His little traps had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. With a grin, he said Sandy had suffered a black streak on the starboard side, where the rail of the runabout had rubbed her. But the coasties assured him they would get it off with a little rubbing compound. And they asked that we be told Sandy needed a wax job soon. (Cocky wise guys... I loved them!) Their point, of course, was that no harm had been done to our wonderful boat.

Our car was downtown at the Federal Building. Frank would have one of his people drive us home in it, followed by another car. He wanted his people to give our house a thorough check before we settled back in.

We were glad because they found that, in spite of the security system, both of my phone lines had been tapped and there were listening devices in several rooms-all of which were removed. There were no booby traps or lethal devices.

After thanking everybody profusely, we looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. I wandered into my study, to check for urgent messages. When I came back out, Sarah was standing in the window, staring at the river, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Coming behind her, I put my arms around her, holding her against me. "What do you think, honey? Should we leave and find some new place, where we can really start over again?"

She just leaned into me, affirming her need to be held. Then, turning in my arms, she held me, too. She said, "No. Wherever we go, we take ourselves with us. We take our problems with us. I love it here. I want our children to be born here and to know the beauty of this place, the freedom of the river, our wonderful friends, just as we've known it. Tomorrow you could be run over by a truck. Or I could be stricken with some disease. Love me today, darling Mike. What does the bible say, 'Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof... '? Let tomorrow's evil come tomorrow. Just let's love each other today!"

I quietly held her, kissing away the tears, which fell slowly from her eyes. "Honey, I've got to do a little work today, just to let everyone know I'm still working on their projects. But... would you be interested in a little trip up the river tomorrow?"

More tears, a strong hug and a sloppy, wet kiss were answer enough. If she wasn't pregnant yet, we'd sure work on it tomorrow!

Right after lunch, Tom called and said he was FAXing over the list of trustworthy people the senator had sent him. The reason was, one of them would be stopping to see us shortly. We should be prudent, but could probably trust this person.

In a half-hour, a car pulled up in front and a youngish lady got out. When I answered the door, she identified herself as a Secret Service agent, showing us her photo ID and saying that she understood we were friends of Frank's. "Good acquaintances, maybe. And we owe him a lot. I don't know that 'friend' would be appropriate," I answered.

"I know what you mean. Frank can be a crusty SOB at times," the agent laughed. Clearly, she and Frank were friends. "You know, the federal government can't provide bodyguard service, except to Presidents and those mandated by law. But you're a bit of a special case. So there will be some extra security on you two. You still have to be very careful. It's not like we can have you under observation all the time, or anything like that. We will do all we can. And we'll check out your house, cars and boat regularly for a while.

"Now, we're going to do some elementary police work. I want the two of you to look at some mug shot books, to see if you recognize any of the faces..."

Really boring! Most were obvious police booking photos and didn't show the subjects at their best, to be charitable. One picture looked like a cousin I hadn't seen since I was a kid. And another looked a lot like my dad, who died 30 years ago!

Sarah, however, struck gold. I guess her eye is sharper than mine. Within five minutes, she exclaimed, "I've seen him!" Working hard to remember where, she said, finally, "He was in a boat, that day we had the picnic. Remember, Mike?" I couldn't place him, though I had placed the boat, which led to Frank's trap. Ten minutes later, she turned another of the boat's occupants. They were both suspected hit men from the St. Louis area. Her real coup, though, came an hour later, when she was getting as bored as I was.

"Oh! I know him! He's that nice, but very persistent reporter from Newsweek!"

Well, he wasn't. He was Guiterrez' chief lieutenant, from San Francisco. The first two she'd tumbled were already in custody. Now they'd be held without bail. The other gave us the first direct link between us and Guiterrez' organization. We felt the U.S. Attorney would like to know about it.

Gary was interested and had us relay all the information to Cindy, who he directed to issue a warrant for the lieutenant, just like the one for Guiterrez.

We weren't aware of it at the time, but the noose was really tightening around Guiterrez and his mob. Other very large drug organizations, both within and outside the country were aware that he had really pissed off the A.G. While in normal times, they might have been amused by that, in this case, the results were so devastating to the organization, the message was received loud and clear: "Don't mess with innocents. It's not polite... And you'll lose your heads."

So contracts were let on Guiterrez and his top henchmen, on a 'dead only' basis. For a few days, certain parts of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Los Vegas were extremely dangerous places. Every hood with a gun was trolling to see if he could spot and 'off' one of the guys on the list. With federal advice, local police turned to saturation patrols of the affected areas, just to protect the citizens.

To no one's surprise, about a week later, Guiterrez was found floating in San Diego harbor. Two of his top people had been found a day earlier in a bloody cold-water apartment, apparently having shot each other. Forensic experts said that wasn't possible. But they also said the crime scene was such that they had no clues as to who might have actually killed them.

And the day after Guiterrez' body was found, the New Jersey congressman found a discreet occasion to whisper into the A.G.'s ear that his message had been delivered and was understood. And, to underscore the message, though he said he had no idea what it meant, he was supposed to say, "The guy from Colorado can sleep well." Or was that, "rest easy?"

The would-be assassins Frank's people had picked up eventually ended up in various prisons, for other crimes. Once the FBI had good names, prints, pictures and bullet samples from their weapons, there were several unsolved murders they could be tried-and convicted-for, without getting us involved.