Chapter 49

Chuck (Monday)

When it rains it pours. That's the saying on the salt box, but it sure is true sometimes. Everything is happening at once.

Personally, the girls are all nuts about the new house being ready to move into this week. At least Lisa was able to get her momma and sisters moved into their new cottage quickly. She's so concerned that her momma is happy and getting along here, that she's totally distracted. Things should settle down for her soon.

The freaky five have gone over the hill lately. They have so many people working in the house that it's impossible for them to keep track of what's done and what isn't. I think Brandy divided up areas of responsibility to everyone and they're each just looking after their assigned section. I'm glad I have other things to do, a lot of other things.

John is in some kind of turmoil in DC and seems to need to constantly be out of there. He's asked if he could visit the house in Costa Rica. He was planning on taking his whole family, so he should enjoy his trip. The wives may be a little miffed at all the extra women running around, but the girls down there are pretty respectful. Who knows, perhaps John will partake of some strange down there. He wanted me to fly him, but I'm too damn busy to help. I did arrange for a charter and asked Beth to take John and family down. She loved the idea of being able to show off the place down there and to show John the yacht club and the boat.

A guy by the name of Mike Mahoney showed up to have a long talk with me about some of the activities I might be expected to help with. The biggest deal was his constant questioning of my political beliefs. I kept telling him that yes, I voted, but no, I was not involved in any activity that could remotely be construed as political. This was a time I was glad I had never registered as being a part of a political party. This was a good time to be an independent.

Mahoney went over the job Nightfox and I did in Hawaii in more detail than I would have expected. Then he brought out photos of the border thing that John and I did. He had some before pictures of the buildings, a couple of enhanced photos of the helicopter exploding, and then a photo of the wreckage, including the burnt down barn. He kept asking questions about the man we had encountered down there and then went on to talk about the other men that I had a part in terminating.

When he was done with our conversation, at least I thought he was, as he was putting things back into his briefcase. That's when he said to me, "I'm the staff psychiatrist and needed to interview you to be sure there were no adverse personality traits that could surface after the activities you've been involved in. You've handled them well and appear to be in control. The service needs men such as you for sensitive activities. Because of the demands they made from you, you probably won't get another job like that soon. There is no guarantee, but in all probability, you'll be used on dangerous activities, but not any direct sanctions such as you've been involved in."

He was just about to leave when he said, "I understand you have completed training to operate helicopters. Would you have any problems handling a mission that requires that ability from time to time? You've been on our equipment, would you like to fly them?"

I smiled and said, "Sounds like fun. I'm curious about the quiet helicopter we used in the southwest."

Mr. Mahoney said, "I think you'll be given the opportunity to check out in one of those soon."

He had some instructions about monitoring certain frequencies when I was flying, and if I should receive various text messages, a list of numbers I should call. He told me, "You'll probably be visiting us at one of our facilities soon, so be on the lookout for messages."

Then there was Bud Anderson and Jim Blake. They were following up leads in Texas and stepping on toes all over the place down there. They had chased some guy, a suspected escapee, back and forth across the border in El Paso and Juarez while trying to capture him. The problem seems to be that the Mexican police department is shielding the man even on our side of the border. The pair had run into some of the men that John and the Marshal had talked about that needed to be captured, but were heavily guarded by their own, and we now knew, by Mexican officials also.

Then this morning, Mercy is bombarding me with some kind of warnings that Steve could be in danger. What is that all about?

At the office, Wanda told me, "You're going to have to go to El Paso to help Bud and Jim. Homeland Security is having fits about your two superheroes capturing people on the other side of the border and dragging them back to our side. They've captured the same guy three times, and this last time, they won't even turn him over to the federal lockup because the guy keeps getting away. The local Marshal's office is in some kind of pissing contest with Homeland and the DEA because they think they should all be chasing the same bad guys."

I called the airpark to make sure the Phenom was available and ready. It took a few attempts to get hold of one of my girls to let them know I had to go out of town. Frieda said, "Please try to be back for Friday evening. Brandy really has her heart set on showing off the new place."

On the way home to get clothes, I was able to get hold of Maria to pack some clothes for me. She was so dependable and so sweet that I was going to miss having her around. You hardly knew she was there, but you saw what she had done. My clothes were always clean and perfectly aligned in the closet and in my drawers. To me, she was really worth a lot to have around.

I even loaded up my big gun case, since I had no idea what was really going on. I also packed my vest and some extra Glock magazines to be on the safe side.

When I parked my car and was hauling my suitcase and gun case to the plane, I saw a new addition to the exterior. There was a big cartoon character under the cockpit on each side. 'Deputy Dawg' was now painted on each side, but the dog had a Lone Ranger type mask on. Someone couldn't stand for an airplane around here to look like an airplane.

When I picked up the logbook from DeDe, she said, "Shawna thought your personal aircraft needed some distinction. You've really got her interest up with your crazy bunch out there, so she has to mark her territory in some way. You've been tagged, Chuck. Are you going to be gone long?"

"Don't know, DeDe, a bunch of craziness is going on, so who knows. If I have an idea, I'll let you know."

I was soon heading across the gulf at warp three. For me, that's only about 400 miles per hour, but it's faster than walking. I needed something faster, but everything faster, like the Citation X, required that second pilot. If a Citation CJ4 came around, I wanted that because it carried six passengers and could cruise a hundred miles an hour faster than this aircraft.

After setting down in El Paso, I rented a car and headed straight to the Marshal's office in the city. When I entered the office, Bud and Jim were sitting at desks, obviously writing some kind of incident report. The Deputy Marshal in charge was sitting on the corner of a desk, lecturing the guys about not being able to just cross the border at will, that they needed diplomatic permission to cross, and definitely could not drag prisoners back across the border.

The two men were busy and didn't see me, so I motioned for the Station Chief to come out to the hallway with me so I could talk to him.

As soon as we were in the hallway, he began, "Christ, Chuck, those two have broken so many laws, it's just nuts. They've kidnapped two men now, and have them stashed and won't tell me where. They say that they have these escapees, and I even know who they are, but I can't do anything because I don't know where they are. You have to get them to turn over the two men, Chuck."

I asked, "Isn't the one man they have the guy who escaped twice after they brought him in?"

"He didn't escape, we let him go because he was captured without a warrant and probably captured in a foreign country."

Holding up both hands, I said, "You don't need a warrant to apprehend an escaped prisoner. They are fair game. If you suspect they are armed, say goodnight, Gracie, because they can be shot on sight."

The man paled and said, "You can't do that. You can't just shoot someone. If you were to do that, the Mexican crazies would be shooting up El Paso in a matter of hours."

I said, "It's a good thing I'm not here helping, as I wouldn't hesitate to shoot if someone from across the border shot at me. We are charged to bring in escapees and to protect federal property and federal employees' lives. That's our job, that's what we get paid for."

The man said, "Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not bringing in any drug lord or cartel chief who might be threatening federal property. I'll shoot back if they shoot at me, but I'll try to be where they won't shoot. Now get those prisoners for me so I can get them home to their boss."

I told him to go back in and I would join him in a few minutes.

The regional office was now in Houston so I called to speak to whoever was in charge. Everyone of importance was in DC, so I called the Marshal and advised him of my problem. He promised to get the Deputy Marshal in charge of El Paso to make some quick changes so we would be doing the job we were supposed to be doing.

Inside the station, I greeted Bud and Jim and told them to get their stuff together, as we had to be leaving. The Station Chief was getting perturbed, but I told him, "Look, we'll just shoot them and put them into a dumpster some place. Don't worry; it'll just be a couple fewer guys we don't have to chase."

The man was on the phone, probably to DC, as we walked out the door. I told Bud, "Let's get your two men and fly them to the secure pen in Colorado. The prosecutors can do anything they want, but we will have brought in a couple of escapees."

Jim said, "Can that plane of yours handle one more? There's another guy that we really need to get. With the three of us, we should be able to take him. The guy has a half dozen guards around him all the time, but they're not too swift. Can we? It would be a good thing."

We stopped at their hotel, picked up their clothes, and drove down close to the border crossing. Bud said, "We'll park right up here where the car will be safe while we try to pick this guy up. If we have to shoot, use a silencer and be careful of all the people. Most are bad guys but some are just civilians caught up in the problems of these guys."

I put my silencer on the Glock and tucked it into my waistband. Bud and Jim had done the same thing and led me through a six foot wide opening in the border fence. There were no guards around, but there were a lot of people going back and forth. The only difference between here and the nearby border crossing was there were fewer questions asked here.

When we came to a group of buildings with a tall adobe fence around them, Bud said, "The guy we want is in there right now and should be coming out soon because he goes back across the border to see his girlfriend every day near this time. He'll come down this narrow alley with six bodyguards. Just put those guys down and we'll try to capture the escapee."

I asked, "That's it, just shoot them and try to capture the guy?"

Jim said, "They will all be carrying guns in their hands, so I don't know what else we're going to do. I don't want to shoot the escapee but it would be easier. Uh oh, here they come, and there's more than six today."

I said, "Jim, go ahead to the border and try to capture the guy when he crosses. Bud and I will try to take out the guards from the rear forward. That will keep the escapee in front of us. Hustle so you have time to set up."

I said to Bud, "You know the trick, no sound, no gun, just silence the ones from the back to the front. If they see us, start shooting."

The escapee and nine men walked past us fairly quickly. The alley was narrow enough that the men were single file. The last one through quietly fell with a broken neck as Bud let him down. The next one up had the same consequence, and Bud stepped up to the third man.

As I pulled the fourth man down, the next guy in line was saying something and turned in time to see his compadre fall from my hands. He yelled, but died from Bud's first silenced round. Between the two of us, men five through nine never got off a shot, but the escapee grabbed for one of the fallen men's Mac 10. There was no way out of it, and both Bud and I had to put rounds into the guy.

Bud said, "Quick, pick up all the hardware so it doesn't get back into the hands of more dealers and smugglers. I'll go back for the other four." Jim had seen the demise of the escapee and came running to help pick up the hardware strewn around on the ground.

While we picked up the guns, I cleaned the escapee's pockets of ID so we could write him off the wanted list. As we crossed back into Texas, people were going through the other bodies to get any money the men may have had. You could bet that their bodies would be stripped bare before the policia were ever called.

We dumped all of the guns into the trunk and went across town to a warehouse area. Bud and Jim had rented an air conditioned storage building to stash the two escapees. We brought them to the car and drove straight to the airport. We loaded everything into the plane while I made arrangements for ground services to fuel the plane.

While we were waiting for the fuel truck, I called to Steve who said there were possible escapees working in his Las Vegas and Reno stores. I told him I would get Bud and Jim to come up there to help him out.

Our first stop was Denver where we were met by a couple of Deputy Marshals who gladly took our two prisoners and took them to the nearby maximum security prison. I refueled again and headed to Las Vegas.

We were setting down, when I received a call over the frequency I monitored. "Eyes, this is Mother." I didn't reply quick enough and the call came again, "Eyes, this is Mother."

I replied, "Eyes."

"Upon landing, call the texted number for instructions, confirm."

"Call texted number for instructions, Eyes out."

"Mother out."

Shit, I needed to help Steve and Mercy, but something must be up. Damn, when it rains, it pours.

I had Bud go rent a car real quick so we could dump all of the guns at the local station. We would have to come up with some kind of incident report to account for the guns. Jim just grinned, "We'll be very creative. Those two characters we just dropped off will have some federal gun charges tacked on as well."

The two men took their bags and the guns while I explained that I had something else to do first. Hopefully, I would be back later today or tomorrow.

I called the texted number and identified myself. I was transferred to Mike Mahoney. He said, "I'll give you to the welcome committee when we're through, but we would like for you to come out today since you are nearby. You're moving around pretty fast, so you might be handy to handle a problem where you will be anyway. I'll transfer you to the welcoming committee."

A very husky female voice asked, "Do you have the uniform of the day with you?"

I laughed and said, "I've been carrying it since I needed it the last time."

"Good. Please turn off your transponder and take off from Las Vegas VFR and radio us five minutes after takeoff. When you land, change clothes so you'll be in uniform before you disembark from your aircraft. You'll be transported for a briefing. You may see an escort. Mother, out."

Instead of waiting to change, I changed in the aircraft while waiting for the fuel truck. I turned off the transponder and left Las Vegas, staying at about thirty-five hundred feet. Five minutes out, I did the "Mother, Eyes" and they did the "Eyes, Mother, go to heading such and such and turn to frequency such and such. Maintain four thousand feet until you are notified."

An F-16 was out over the left side, but no one was on the other side. I waved, he waved, and I was soon contacted with landing instructions. This time, the fighter landed behind me and followed me into the big hangar.

Inside, I shut down and opened the door. A man in fatigues greeted me and asked if it would be all right to inspect the contents of the aircraft. I said, "Sure, but I'm going to be with you."

He said, "Wouldn't have it any other way. Can I see your primary sidearm?"

I pulled my Glock, dropped the clip and ejected the round. It was then that I remembered I had not reloaded after the skirmish in El Paso, so I reached into my bag and traded magazines.

The inspector took the old magazine, pulled the remaining rounds from it, counted them, then put them back in. He said, "That was one of the items I was supposed to check. Here's your sidearm back."

While he looked through my clothes and other gear in the rifle case, I reloaded my Glock and chambered a round. I dropped the magazine and filled the round back into the magazine and re-seated it. The inspector watched my every move, probably to see whether or not I was safety conscious.

He said, "All done. It's interesting that you had fatigues with you this time. How come?"

"Since I don't know when I'll be seeing you guys, I thought carrying them would be smart. See, you called and I'm prepared."

"Yes, you are. You don't remember me, do you?"

I asked, "Should I?"

"Probably not," the inspector said, "I was on the team that was ahead of you when you got caught in that little community in Iraq. We couldn't get back to you right away, and by the time we got there, you had dragged that other man back to the vehicle and were able to get back to base. I'm sorry about your leg, but glad you lived."