Chapter 8

The morning was nice. Bobby and I were in the gym working out when Jan came in wearing some shorts and a T-shirt. She used the bike while I was on the treadmill, then she switched to running on a steep incline while I did my weights with Bobby. When we were obviously done, Jan said, "Now I need a shower."

Bobby said, "We'll rinse off under the outside shower and let's do some cardio swimming to finish up. As we went out the door, Bobby was dropping her clothes on patio chairs while I loosened the straps on my leg. Jan hesitated a second then was bare, showering quickly and heading toward the pool. I hopped through the shower, and out to the pool. There I caught up with and passed Jan, swimming hard passing Bobby, pushing myself to get the maximum from the exercise. Bobby began catching up, but today I was able to stay ahead until I finally had to quit. I swam over to where Jan was hanging onto the side of the pool, gasping for breath. Bobby swam over to be on the other side of her asking, "How do you like our workout?"

"This is awesome. You two really work out, you don't play around."

Bobby said, "It's fun and it helps me stay a slim three hundred plus pounds."

Jan laughed and said, "There isn't an ounce of fat on you, Bobby, you're just big, that's all."

Bobby told Jan the story about her Mom and Dad as we got out of the pool and dried off, without being self conscious about our nudity. I put my leg on and we went into the kitchen where I had put on a pot of coffee before we started exercising. We sat at the kitchen table, naked, drinking our coffee for a few minutes before Bobby said, "We better get dressed and start breakfast, the duty guys are going to be hungry soon. Put some sausage on, Chuck, while you get ready. Jan and I'll put on some casual shorts and stuff since we're working inside all day."

Soon, we were finishing breakfast and the duty team was drinking coffee, joking about us trying to steal a Bureau babe. They kept kidding me, saying the reason I wanted her was that she was as good with a weapon as I was. Jan said, "I heard about your score from the other day with a new Glock. That was better than any of my times. I'm going to have to practice more to beat you."

"You're good competition, Jan. When I go down, I'll call to see if you're free for a half hour so we can get in our practice together."

"That'll be great, Chuck, no one ever wants to shoot with me."

As we all ate, Jan had to comment about the huge breakfast. The team guys said, "This makes duty out here so cool. What happened to the guests we thought you had."

"They were too suspicious to bring out here right away. If we can get a handle on them and they're still around, I'll bring them out, but the hotel is a good place for them right now."

"Since your relief is on the way, could you guys drop me at the office. It's either that or I drive the Mustang."

Bobby said, "Drive the Mustang and give it to Hank to play with. I think it's got a bad plug wire or something. It's missing sometimes. Tell him to take it home with him so he can drive it. He'll go nuts."

I left the girls to work at home and headed into the office, arriving at the garage at seven-thirty. I gave Hank the Mustang so he could cream his jeans for a couple of days. I told him I would check out a car or drive one of his cars to test. He said he had a couple that needed to be driven so to just stop in when I left. The garage at home was full with the Suburban and the CTX that Bobby was going to use for her duty vehicle while working with Sarg.

The briefing was short and sweet, and we had two transferees attending this morning. They were both widowers and had showed up yesterday, as soon as their transfers were confirmed. That helped as I needed a capture team for a pair that had escaped from the Miami holding cell. They were shorthanded and our office was the official tracking station. The new guys were happy to have work so fast. I told them that we had more air marshal work than we could handle. They both assured me that I would have plenty after the ad that was online.

Sarah had a stack of information on our quest to find out about Forest. She also had a stack of information on the new hires. She said, "This one is a fake. He's the one that's always poking around looking at everything. None of his college checks and none of his hometown stuff checks out. He's on hotel duty later today, and I don't think it would be good to let him near those two you have up there. This might be what he's meant to do. I can't think of a reason to infiltrate the marshal service except for something like that."

She showed me the other man and said, "This one's as clean as fresh snow. The guy has been a boy scout, good student all the way through college and was recruited by the D.C. recruiters. He'll go far, he just needs some seasoning. He's with an experienced man. You sent him on the Miami capture."

"Cool, make sure the other guy stops in the office before he goes to the hotel and make sure the downstairs relief comes in too, in case it takes two of us to subdue him. Call the Bureau chief and ask him if he wants the arrest or should we just hand him over to them for the federal prosecutor. Do it yourself from your new office, okay? Let's keep this between us until we've got the guy locked up."

The Bureau wanted the collar so they were going to have a couple of guys hanging out up here when the duty change came about before noon. Sure enough, our old guy, who was going to be the downstairs guy, showed up first, in time for a quick briefing by Sarah. Then our fake new guy came in with his usual swagger. He loudly announced his presence and asked what we wanted of him today.

I came out of the office and noticed that my guy and the two Bureau agents were walking up behind him. Sarah came out of her office smiling and said, "If you would, Greg, please carefully remove your weapon and hand it to me." With that, she brought her hand out from behind her dress, holding her Glock straight at the man's face.

Greg went absolutely white. He handed us his gun and Sarah asked for his badge wallet. When that was complete, a Bureau agent told him to drop his coat and he did. They used a waist chain and cuffed him, saying he might be in cuffs a long while today, so he might as well be comfortable. The other agent was snapping on ankle cuffs when he found an ankle holster with a back up. "My, oh my, you were prepared today."

I told them, "You need to search him, probably a strip search. Make sure you use gloves, you don't know what he might have on him."

I said to the agents, "Thanks guys, make sure you read him his rights and call the prosecutor. He's charged with falsifying classified material so he comes under the terrorist act, plus a bunch of other things. We need to keep him here for a while and no outside contact whatsoever."

I turned to George and said, "You take the upstairs duty. We probably don't need a downstairs guy till later. If the guests get friendly, let them lead the conversation. Let them ask you for whatever it is they may be looking for. They may not know what our boy Greg looks like. You might even want to answer to Greg if they say something."

The office cleared out and about five minutes later, the current duty guy called and asked me if I wanted him to stay over. I told him no, to go home and get some sleep. We should be fine for right now. I might worry about this evening though.

I had a box of clothes for the guests, so I took it across the street. They were happy to have regular clothes, but asked about their valuables. I told them they would get them back as soon as they were relocated or the items were cleared. I told them they could use the swimming pool upstairs if they wanted to, but had to ask for permission from the duty person.

When I returned to the office, Sarah showed me more information we had just received from San Diego, and a stack from Chicago. Both locations had arrested deputies with faked backgrounds.

I called Ken, "How are you holding up, Buddy?"

"Not worth a shit. I am using my four oldest and most reliable deputies to run everyone in this office before another day goes by. One of these people here has to be in on this. We're checking all the clearances of the fake guys from San Diego and Chicago. I've told John all about this, but we are not mentioning it to the political guys yet. We might need to run them before we say anything. What do you think this means, why do you think we're being infiltrated?"

"I have a hunch, but I'll talk to John about it on the secure phone. Transfer me and I'll set it up." When John answered, I said I was going to call him on the secure phone and hung up.

Since the secure phone is in the station chief's office, I coded in the remote phone while knocking on the window between Sarah and I. I waved her in and when John answered, I told him, "Sarah is here with me and I want her to listen in to comment."

"Okay, Chuck, this situation is getting a little out of hand, tell me what you think."

"It's not what I think yet, John, but what we have to do. I'm thinking that we need to check out all of the guest relocations that have occurred during the last six months, maybe even a year. I'm curious if there are many missing, or have had accidents, and whom we were protecting them from. I have a hunch, but I want to hear what's real rather than give you a reason to only look in one direction. Use only older deputies, and make sure they really know how to investigate. They should all be careful as I'm concerned too. We had a fake guy here this morning, if you haven't heard yet. He's in custody and is being arraigned later this morning. There will be no bail. You should be telling the other locations to do the same or I'm sure these guys will vanish."

"I'll follow your lead, Chuck. Call me if you have any more direction on this thing. I think I'm thinking the same as you, but we'll let it come to the surface for us. Be careful down there, our lab is having a field day with the electronics you picked up last night. That's some special equipment and the men you let the Bureau take into custody are all real jewels. I'm sure that's why we're thinking in the same direction."

"Help Ken all you can, John, he's way over his head on this and I think he's getting scared. Keep him settled down as he has a good head for this stuff. He's just not used to it being in his face."

"I agree, Chuck, I'll keep him settled. Talk to you later."

We coded in the stop signal and the call was over.

Sarah said, "I'm not going to ask you what you think. I'll wait for the big answer. Dave's back and on his day off. He'll want to be in on anything big and he would be an asset if there was anything heavy to go down."

"I wanted to ask you about the gun thing from this morning. You just stuck that thing in his face right away. I think the surprise was enough to take him without a struggle. What made you do that?"

"It's my job. I'm an assistant station chief and acted like one. I've been on the range almost every day. The range officer is making me pretty proficient. He said he's proud that I'm getting so good. I can't wait to show Dave."

"Let Dave be for now. He had a tough one. If he's rested, he'll be of more value when we need him."

The rest of the day was fairly boring, until about three when Bobby called. "Jan and I are on the way out the door to help Sarg. He has both escapees in a motel room. We're on our way to finish it. They're out in Brandon. We're taking the CTX in case you have a guest pickup."

I barely had time to tell her to be careful before she hung up. I asked Sarah if Sarg had called for backup, and she said he had called in that he had called his side kick for backup and should be okay. It makes me nervous when someone else is doing something dangerous. I think I should be there.

Sarah and I were getting ready to leave as a couple of duty guys came by after being out at the house. They were doing their reports when the tactical radio began chattering. It was Bobby calling for techs and a cleanup crew. I answered the call, requesting status. She said, both escapees were down, but one only had a slight wound. I should call the paramedics too. She said all the good guys are present and accounted for. She gave me the address, and while I was still on the phone, Sarah and the duty guys were making calls, getting things out to them.

I was getting really nervous when Sarah said, "You can't be out every time something goes down. Relax, it's under control. Sarg has thirty years experience and Bobby has her shit together. Little Jan is coming right along. I think it's great that we're working so closely with the Bureau."