Chapter 16

“I assume you’ll want to lead the assault down the tunnel?” Walt asked. “Dwight told me you were usually the first in so you could determine threats,” he explained. Once he verified that everyone else was in position, and the trailer was ready to move out, we entered the tunnel for what I hoped was the final time. This time we dropped a glow stick every hundred steps.

We radioed in when we were in position--right after I padlocked the door with the ammo behind it using a different padlock from the house. During the time we’d been in the tunnel, Walt had been busy. They had a device with them to jam cell phones. Two of my guys set it up along the fence line, acting as if they were repairing a fencepost. It was radio controlled and could be activated from inside the house.

In the tunnel, we set ourselves up for the expected attack. Sylvia and I took prone positions with the other three kneeling behind us. Once we were ready, I used some foaming spray-on adhesive to mount a flashlight on the wall about ten feet in front of us and seven feet off the floor. If the bad guys shot at the lights, they wouldn’t be aiming anywhere near us. Having the lights ten feet in front of us would light up the last twenty feet of the tunnel without illuminating us or giving away our position.

We waited behind the shields listening to the radio countdown until the attack began. I was surprised when I heard a transmission in the background of Walt’s radio announcing the ETA of an inbound aircraft was two minutes. Then I heard Walt tell the tractor and trailer to slow down, their air cover was two minutes out.

I suppose it was only two minutes, but after spending close to two hours in the dark tunnel, expecting someone to show up at any second, those last two minutes dragged out into what felt like two more hours. Finally, we heard in the background of Walt’s radio, the broadcast announcement to the house for them to come out with their hands up. “Showtime,” I said aloud, the first time I’d used more than a quiet whisper in the tunnel.

We could hear the sound of gunfire over the radio and through the closed door in front of us. “Hurry up; we need those RPGs,” a voice shouted on the far side of the door.

“U.S. Marshals, drop your weapons!” one of the guys behind me shouted when the door opened, and two men entered the tunnel. I don’t know if a sub-par IQ was one of the requirements to join the group, but the five of us had trained our rifles on the door for long enough that raising a pistol in our direction was not only a bad idea, but it was also a fatal one.

Both bodies crumpled in the open doorway. Seconds later, a hand aimed a TEC-9 into the tunnel, starting to spray its twenty projectiles in our direction. Fortunately, they all went high. It’s hard to aim when you aren’t looking where you’re shooting. Taking careful aim, I fired a three-round burst at the hand. The firing stopped as the TEC-9 clattered to the floor, and the screaming and cussing started.

The gunfire upstairs was intensifying. “I’m going to move forward. Maybe I can get inside the basement,” I told the others with me. I didn’t feel any immediate threat from the basement. I stood, hiding behind my shield, hugging the left wall, and walked towards the basement door. By staying to the left, it made it harder for a shooter to hit me since he would be on the same side. Unless they stepped into the tunnel, their natural angle would be to the far side of the tunnel.

I felt him well before he reached the opening and ducked before another guy stuck his head around the corner and paid the price as three people behind me fired at him. His head flew backwards against the back of the door and he crumpled on top of the other two bodies.

As I got closer, I could hear someone talking in hushed tones. Then the leg of the guy on top was raised by someone in the basement and his body was dragged back into the basement. When they started to do the same thing to the second body, I realized that they were trying to close the door, but had to move the bodies out of the opening, first.

Signaling to the people behind me to warn them, I moved to the right wall to give me a better angle into the basement. I also switched to my Glock. About the time they had the second body halfway back into the basement, I was close enough to see them. “Freeze! U.S. Marshals!” I shouted.

One of the two men must have nearly failed the initiation to the club because he froze. The other one was on the same intelligence level as the others and was quickly prone on the ground with the others, piled atop the others who hadn’t listened.

“I’ve got this one for you,” Sylvia told me as she pulled out heavy zip ties to hogtie the man. I jumped, having been so intent on the door that I hadn’t even known she was right behind me.

Inside the doorway to the left was clear. Unlike my cellar which was filled with rows and rows of heavy shelving, this cellar was open. Workbenches lined all four walls, but the center was empty. I held my helmet in my hand and stuck it beyond the shelving unit. When nobody took a potshot at it, I turned it so the helmet cam scanned the room. “Anybody in there?” I asked over the radio, unsure who might be watching the live feed.

“All clear,” Walt replied. Seconds later, I was inside and rechecked to make sure nobody else was there.

“Suspect’s cellar is secured,” I announced. The other four quickly joined me, carrying the hogtied prisoner with us. His wrists were bound behind him; his ankles were bound, and his wrists were secured to his ankles.

Less than a minute after we were situated in the basement, the door from the kitchen flew open and two men hurried in. “U.S. Marshals, drop your weapons,” Sylvia shouted. True to form, both men tried to turn their hunting rifles on us. Too bad for them as we were ready and they weren’t. The first guy did an end over. He’d been running and his momentum carried him forward. He fell, landing on top of his head near the bottom of the stairs.

The second guy just fell in a heap on the stairs. Someone upstairs had the bright idea to shoot at us through the floor. Fortunately, their first several shots missed and gave us time to cover ourselves with our shields. I decided that turnabout was fair play and returned fire. The difference was that I could extrapolate the position of the shooter based on where I felt the threat coming from.

Even if they did the same thing, my shield should cover me. Besides, I moved as soon as I fired and heard a scream and a body hitting the floor. Several more guys tried firing at me through the floor. The others with me joined me in returning fire. Each time, we heard one or more screams of pain and/or a thud when a body hit the floor.

I crept to the front of the basement where I calculated the front of the house was. “Walt, are there any agents in the house?” I asked over our radio.

“Negative, just your team,” he replied.

Estimating where the shooters were based on the direction of each threat I felt, I emptied a full magazine up through the floor and then ducked under my shield. The return fire wasn’t nearly as heavy as I had expected, but return fire from the others down here with me was heavy. I think each of them emptied a magazine.

“Should we try that again?” I asked.

“Yeah, most of the remaining firing seems to be in the corner behind you,” Sylvia said. Keeping my shield mostly above me, I crawled about thirty feet.

“Now I know how a turtle feels,” I grumbled, getting quiet laughter from the others with me, as well as from the other end of my open radio. When I was in position to shoot at the threat I felt above me, I fired another magazine up through the floor and ducked under the shield. This time there was no return fire, and the firing upstairs stopped altogether.

“They’re surrendering,” Walt announced excitedly. “What’s your status, tunnel team?” he asked.

“No friendly injuries. We have six hostiles down and one prisoner,” Sylvia reported.

“Good job. Stay put until the upstairs is cleared,” Walt ordered.

Sylvia was eyeing me appraisingly.

“What?” I asked.

“Even after reading your file and all the comments and evaluations in it, seeing you in action was still surprising. Even after they fired at us through the floor, I wouldn’t have thought to get beneath the heaviest concentration of gunfire and shoot back at them through the floor,” she explained.

“Lucky shot,” I shrugged it off. Her laughter caught me by surprise.

“You call it luck; I call it good instincts. Either way, I don’t mind following someone like that into a situation. Dwight told me that he called you any time he had a ‘big ugly’ to deal with. Those are the cases that look like they could easily become a FUBAR. He told me that just knowing you were there made him less apprehensive. He said you were the best birddog he’s ever seen. No matter where you were, you caught something that would have been missed, or stopped a bad situation before it could become a serious problem.

“It’s like finding the weapons cache. If they had gotten to those, it would have been really ugly,” she said.

“All clear tunnel team, you can go upstairs now,” Walt advised, thankfully derailing the conversation we’d been having.

The upstairs was a mess. Broken glass covered every horizontal surface and a lot of angled surfaces. Bodies and blood added to the mess on the floor. It was curious seeing all the different items that had been hit by gunfire. A laptop was open with a bullet hole through the screen. A plastic pitcher that had been full of some beverage was on the floor with a hole through it. The beverage smelled like beer, and had splashed all over the table, chairs, and floor when the pitcher was hit and sent flying. The table and chairs were perforated by bullets, as was the refrigerator.

Near the front windows, white powder formed a thin layer over everything that hadn’t been moved yet. I realized it was plaster dust from all the holes in the walls and the ceiling. There were dozens of holes in the ceiling. Footprints showed where agents had already been as they checked each of the bodies for a pulse.

The second floor wasn’t torn up as bad. There was still broken glass everywhere, but most of the shots from outside were angled upward and struck walls or the ceiling. Surprisingly, the study was nearly unscathed.

The sound of helicopters arriving drew me to the study window. Search and Rescue/Medevac helicopters were arriving to transport the wounded. More helicopters were arriving and I watched them drop off more DEA and ATF agents. From here, I could even see a parade of vehicles arriving at my place, including two ambulances.

“Walt, is someone hurt over there?” I asked. “I see two ambulances.”

“Negative, they are here to evaluate, treat, and possibly transport any of the nine girls who might need it,” he replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. As I turned from the window, I kicked something. Looking down, I saw where a floorboard hadn’t been properly replaced. The gang’s leader probably had it open when the attack started and didn’t have time to replace the board properly. Inside the compartment was a ledger. It named names and dollar amounts paid for the girls, as well as who they were purchased from.

“Sylvia, are you busy?” I radioed.

“Nah, just looking around,” she radioed back.

“Can you find something like duffel bags, sturdy garbage bags, or even pillowcases, and bring them to the second-floor study?”

“Sure, give me a minute,” she replied.

Two minutes later, she and Janelle entered the room expectantly, each carrying two pillowcases that had somehow survived unscathed. I was crawling around the floor tapping, just like I’d done at my place not long ago. I pointed to the open floorboard and the girls wandered over.

“Holy shit,” Janelle exclaimed. The loose floorboard had revealed a puzzle of sorts. Removing one section of flooring allowed the removal of a second, which allowed the removal of a third, until five sections had been removed.

One section was filled with various sized ingots of gold. Another was partially full of small gold bars and modern gold coins. A third section was full of coins and various sized ingots of platinum, as well as small bars and coins of metals that weren’t identified. The fourth section held blue velvet bags.

Two bags each held a double handful of diamonds. Knowing next to nothing about diamonds, I couldn’t tell if they were real, fake, good quality, or industrial grade. Another similar bag held red gemstones from the size of a pencil eraser to that of a nickel. Two more bags each held blue and green gemstones in the same sizes. The final section of the floor was filled with more bundled hundred-dollar bills, just like the ones we had found in the tunnel’s cell in the duffel bags, just not nearly as many.

“Okay, Mr. Expert,” Sylvia, teased, “How much is all this worth?”

“I estimate somewhere between five and a half to six craploads,” I teased back. I knew roughly how much gold and silver were worth, and had even noted the price of platinum when I was looking up the value of the old Double Eagle coins. What the other metals were, I had no idea. All I knew about buying gemstones was that I was going to have to buy rings with pretty gemstones in the near future, and that they would be expensive.

While I was answering, I found another spot in the floor that sounded hollow. When I finally lifted the board, I found a floor safe. Searching the desk provided no clue as to the combination. Neither did the journal. Using my cell phone, I called Jan and had her check the ledger I had taken home earlier.

“Next to last page,” she finally exclaimed excitedly. “3L-23, 2R-14, 1L-37, R-9,” she read slowly as I tried the combination.

“Bingo!” I cried out as the handle clicked. “Oh, fuck,” was my next exclamation as I slammed the safe shut and spun the dial.

“Walt, you need to clear the house and get a Haz-Mat team here with a lead containment vessel,” I advised as I began shooing the women out of the room. We did stop long enough to gather the eight pillowcases the women had filled when they emptied the other hiding places beneath the floorboards. I guessed that they had gone and found more pillowcases once they filled the first four.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“It’s in a lead container, inside of a floor safe,” I replied.

“You should be okay, but we’ll get you checked out anyway,” he said.

The girls had tied the pillowcases shut, and enlisted other agents to help carry hundreds of pounds of loot out of the house. I called Ramón and asked him to bring over five of the ATVs or a pickup truck. Five minutes later, he managed to get my pickup truck past everyone guarding the front gate. Once we loaded everything into the back, we joined the loot in the back, even though it’s technically illegal to ride in the back of a pickup truck. We could always claim that we didn’t want to expose Ramón if we’d been exposed to radiation, not that I expected any local police to come down our road.