Chapter 85

TUESDAY — SEPTEMBER 24

Later as Sheriff Tate merged onto the interstate headed for Denver, he resisted the urge to push the accelerator the rest of the way down, keeping his speed down near one hundred, instead.

Dammit. Why does this son-of-a-bitch have to do this now? If we only had another month, we would be in better shape. We have enough information, but I would be more confident in a month or so. Damn. Damn. Damn!

When he entered the Attorney General's headquarters, he was met by a young lady that he vaguely remembered seeing from time to time.

"Sheriff Tate. I'm to escort you straight in to his secretary's office. She said that you were in a hurry."

"Thanks. I appreciate it. I am in a hurry."

Shortly, they entered the secretary's office. The intern smiled at him and left.

"Frances, I appreciate the escort in. Saved time getting past all the bureaucracy."

"Well, you said this was time critical, so I did what I could."

"What did he say when you told him."

"Just frowned and gave me his lunch order. He's lucky if he gets out of here for lunch two days a week," she answered while she picked up the phone.

"Your lunch date is here," she said into the phone, a smile on her face. Then to Tate, "Go on in while the food is warm."

"Sit down, Tate. That's your food in the bag on the left. I was supposed to eat with someone a hell of a lot better looking than you, and I damn sure wouldn't have been eating out of a McDonald's bag. I hope whatever has got your panties in a wad is worth it," the Attorney General grumped.

Sheriff Tate picked up his drink and lunch sack before sitting in one of the comfortable seats in front of the big desk. Putting his drink on the floor, and opening his bag, Tate took out his hamburger, then raised one side of the bread to look at the contents of the sandwich.

"Will you quit fucking around with that burger and talk to me? What the hell is going on?"

"I think we have a leak," Tate said around the first bite.

The Attorney General, who had been leaning back in his big chair, suddenly leaned forward putting his elbows on his desk, staring hard at Tate. "We better not dammed have. Not as secret as we have kept this whole thing. There are very few people who know about it."

"Well, I told you that I didn't trust that fucking judge. I don't know who it is, but the DA is suddenly coming after me. And it is a serious thrust at my deputy, and you can bet he's going to the media with it. Hell, he sent one of his assistants who's a crackhead if I've ever seen one, to interview Deputy Cramer this morning..."

"Cramer? That's the woman who was shot a couple of days ago, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she's the one."

"Well, what the fuck is he doing? I thought that was open and shut. You have a tape of the whole thing, right? That's what they said on the news."

"Yep, and thank God I had called in a favor and had the FBI come out and take possession of the original. The DA has doctored the tape I gave him until it sounds like Cramer murdered the guy..."

The Attorney General held his hand up a little signaling Tate to wait. After a moment he said, "Let me speculate. You think the DA has gotten word of our investigation; at least enough to let him know that we're investigating something involving him. And he's seized this opportunity to hit you with a supposed cover-up for an on-duty killing. Cramer has already been in the news; still is. If he starts an investigation and goes public with it, the damage will be done long before this ever goes to court. By then, the election will be over and you will be out of a job. How close am I?"

"Dead-on as far as I can tell. About the way I see it, maybe with the addition that the next Sheriff will be one of the DA's cronies. The DA will be kingpin of the county as far as drugs are concerned, not to say anything about payoffs from dealers and other criminals who have some excess cash."

The Attorney General leaned back and put his feet on the corner of his desk, took a bite of sandwich and thought. Then, "We have the first cocaine deal that you brought me that we can trace back to the DA. Both he and two of his assistants signed off on the drugs supposedly having being incinerated after the plea was accepted by the court. We have proof positive that the drugs weren't destroyed, but sold to a dealer. Even so, he can always scream that there was a mix-up in paperwork, or that he just signed off on destroying the drugs, trusting his assistants' word."

The Attorney General took a sip of his drink, hastily grabbing a napkin and dabbing his tie. Then, "But I have something that I haven't told you, yet. I just got word this morning that the undercover agent has made the second buy. One of the ones that I personally inspected with your people before it was sent to the DA's office. They might get away with saying that your people lied about how much cocaine was in that bust, but I saw this one, and signed off on it myself. We've got them now for carrying a few grams to court, accepting a plea of a misdemeanor, then selling the rest. And I think a jury will believe my word.

"We also got word yesterday that the next marked shipment is on its way, but the dealer hasn't picked it up yet. I had still rather wait to gather more evidence, but these two stand a good chance of getting his ass, anyway. I was going to call you later today to tell you about the second shipment."

Tate grinned. "Yeah, that should be enough. And it's sure a relief. We have to move quickly. If he goes public with this supposed cover-up about my deputy murdering someone on duty with me hiding it, I can kiss my reelection in the ass. You know damn well that whoever gets the first licks in usually wins with something like this. Once the DA announces it, all I can do is defend. The damage will be done. The public will hear cover-up, and that's all they will hear. Cops are guilty until proven innocent, at least in the public's eyes."

Tate absently took a sip of his drink. "What about those other three incidences of only a small portion of the drugs actually showing up on the court paperwork. Six kilos and the guy was only officially charged with a few ounces? You know damn well why the DA suddenly changed his policy and his people are taking care of everything in court, telling my vice people that the dealer pled and they weren't needed for testimony when the cases come up. There's nobody to dispute the few ounces the DA says the guy had. 'Hey, that was supposed to be six kilos, not six grams.' Who's going to believe my people? Hell, the DA is being paid twice. Once for reducing the charge (most of the time to a misdemeanor) so the dealer isn't charged with a felony, then the DA gets paid again when he sells the drugs."

The Attorney General waited to swallow a hurried bite. "Yeah, I know, but he can cast doubt on all that with paperwork showing that there were only a few ounces. Then it's your paperwork against his paperwork. It's easy enough to confuse a jury as it is ... I'm still reluctant to go. After this next buy, there will be two separate incidents that I've personally seen and signed off on that were sold by the DA. I want him nailed with this. I don't want them to be able to blow smoke up the jury's ass and make them believe it was just a snafu in the paperwork."

"I have one more ace in the hole," Tate said, desperate, his lunch forgotten.

The two men sat looking at each other. My dad always said if you don't ask, the answer is already no, Tate thought.

Staring the Attorney General in the eye, putting everything he had into it, Tate said, "I need you to get that warrant signed right now, and I need you to call out that entry team. If we leave in a few minutes, we can get there on time. How would you like..."

The Attorney General forgot about his lunch, too, as Tate brought him up to date with the latest from his informant.

An older lieutenant dressed in black BDUs stood in the Attorney General's office, his face lined, his body fit. Although he stood relaxed, a pleasant expression on his face, no one in the room thought he wanted to be there.

After the Attorney General outlined generally what he wanted done, the Lieutenant cleared his throat. Looking first at Sheriff Tate then back at the Attorney General, "Gentlemen, no matter how I try to sugar-coat this, it's going to come out about the same way, so I'm just going to say it straight out.

"We need to have an understanding. I run my tactical unit. I do this for a living, and have for years. Once, several years ago, I deviated from training at my Captain's insistence. It was an easy one, he told me over and over, and some of the people there would complain, and they had the ear of the city council. I finally let him talk me into not handcuffing the women."

The Lieutenant paused for a moment. "One of the women I didn't handcuff gutted one of my men. She was sitting on a couch. As he walked by, she stood and drove a six inch blade upward under his vest into his guts. One of my other people put a three-round burst into her chest a half second later, but the damage was done. He was lucky. He spent six weeks in the hospital, then wore a colostomy bag for six months before they went back in and put his guts back right again. It took him two years before he was physically able to be back on the team. He's sitting outside in one of my vans, and for some damned reason he trusts me. I'm not going to let him down, again.

"At least my Captain had balls enough to stand up and say that he ordered me to not handcuff the women. I think there are some of my people who still haven't forgiven me for caving in. I know that I damned sure haven't forgiven myself.

"We train almost every day on something — building entry, search and seizure, firearms, calisthenics. Plus we serve narcotics search warrants on almost a daily basis, sometimes more than one per day. I subscribe to a Search and Seizure bulletin that keeps me abreast of every court ruling concerning building entry and the serving of warrants. I know you're an attorney, Sir," he said, directing himself to the Attorney General, "but respectfully, this is literally my life. I know what I'm doing. You tell me where you want the warrant served and everything you can about the situation, then I'll make the decisions about entry and securing the people involved. And again, understand, Sir, we put everyone face down on the floor with their hands on their heads and their legs crossed. When that's done, we handcuff everyone — behind their backs. No exceptions, unless they're pregnant, or handicapped in some way, and then we have special procedures for securing them. If you can't live with that, Sir, respectfully, I'm gone."

Sheriff Tate spoke up, "Lieutenant, I've been on a swat team. My commanding officer was the same way. I would not have respected him if he had been any other way. You won't have any problem from me."

The Attorney General looked hard at the Lieutenant. "There will be clerks there — female clerks — probably even several members of the public that have nothing to do with what's going on — innocent people..."

"Yeah, that bitch that gutted my man was an innocent person."

The Attorney General didn't say anything and the silence grew long.

The Lieutenant sighed. "Sir, my people haven't received a complaint in two years. Someone might piss on themselves when they look down the barrel of an MP5. Some might get helped to the floor if they're slow to react, but my people are professionals. We're not in this to hurt people. We do this almost every day. You pussyfoot around and the likelihood of a citizen getting hurt goes way up because some of them will have time to grow balls and decide to resist. We stay safe, and the citizens that we serve the warrants on stay safe because of our speed, the element of surprise, our professionalism and aggressiveness. You can call the last anything you want, but if the people on the receiving end know that they will lose if they resist, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, they won't resist."

The Attorney General grinned a little. "Oh, hell. I know what you're saying is true. And if we were going to serve a warrant in a dope house, I wouldn't even blink, but if we fuck up in the DA's office..."

"Oh, shit," the Lieutenant said as he realized where he was to serve the warrant.

"Yeah, that about sums it up," the Attorney General said.

The Lieutenant sat in one of the comfortable seats in front of the Attorney General's desk. Crossing his legs, he leaned back and waited. Slowly, a smile crept across his face.

After a long moment, the Attorney General sighed, "All right. We'll do it your way, just don't..." He forced himself to stop. Sighing, he said, instead, "How long for you to be ready?"

"Both vans with my team are within two blocks waiting for me. One in an alley, the other on a side street. Where I go, they go."

"What type of vans do you have?"