Holding Their Own: A Story of Survival

by Joe Nobody

  As she watched today’s news bulletin, the current mayor of Cleveland was unsettled by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. As an eight-year-old girl, she had been terrified when the 1968 riots were in progress. She watched the events of the afternoon unfold, and one consistent thought kept running through her mind – “NEVER AGAIN.” When the pictures of a burning car reached the city hall conference room, she turned to the chief of police and said, “Stop this thing. Stop it right now!”

  Cleveland was one of the few metropolitan areas that still maintained a mounted police force. Primarily used for parades and crowd control at sporting events, there were 48 officers trained and equipped to use horses in the line of duty. At the football stadium parking lot, the entire force was marshaling in preparation to enter the fray. The plan was simple; the mounted police would form two lines and enter Public Square from different directions. Behind the 24 horse-wide-wedge would be another 75 officers on foot, many equipped with riot shields. They would push the crowd back, causing them to disperse. Behind the horseflesh battering rams would be officers equipped with tear gas and masks. They would gas the cleared area to keep the crowd from reforming behind the wedge. All over the city, officers were pulled from numerous stations to supplement the small army gathering at the stadium.

  A few miles east of downtown Cleveland, Bob Spence sat in his run-down one bedroom apartment watching the news unfold. Spence, as everyone called him, had been a Cuyahoga County deputy sheriff, but had been let go almost a year ago due to budget cuts. After an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, he had joined the ranks of local law enforcement, thinking this was a good direction for him. When informed that he and dozens of others were being “reduced,” it was a complete shock to both him and his family. He began drinking a lot and started hanging around with the wrong crowd. It had been in a neighborhood bar where he had met a small group of men who referred to themselves as “The Force.” If they had been aware of them, the FBI would have classified The Force as a neo-Nazi Class Three Organization – meaning they talked a big game and sported a lot of ink, but were essentially innocuous. The Force was neither radical enough, nor large enough, to be on the FBI’s radar and was practically unknown to law enforcement.

  Spence’s wife had divorced him some months before. His unemployment benefits had run out, and between strings of part-time jobs, he had started selling drugs in order to eat. His latest swastika tattoo had caused what family he had left to disassociate from him. He was a bitter, angry man who had little hope for the future – with the exception of a single plan. Spence had a scheme to relieve some of the local banks of their excess holdings. He and The Force had been working on it for several weeks, but they could never figure out how to implement it without considerable risk of being caught.

  The Force was the only “family” he had left. Since he had considerable inside knowledge of police procedures, he quickly rose to power as The Force executed numerous petty crimes for pocket cash. He observed the riot unfold, and he realized this was the opportunity they had been waiting for to execute their plan. He knew that the size of the crowd would dictate a concentration of officers in the area. He had participated in numerous emergency drills involving everything from terrorist attacks to the Browns winning the Super Bowl and the subsequent celebration getting out of hand. It was understood that the outlying police stations would be sending reinforcements to help downtown. This would mean a shortage of manpower in the suburbs, providing the necessary reduction of risk in their plan.

  This was just the situation The Force needed to make their plan work. After a few quick phone calls, The Force was assembled in Spence’s apartment. A quick discussion, and all agreed – it was now or never.

  Each man went over his specific role in the plan. Spence’s military training had taught him that simple was always best in any operation. Stress, unforeseen events, and the fog of war would derail a complex plan. Everyone should know his job forwards and backwards. After an hour of reviewing times, locations and responsibilities, the group allocated the necessary equipment to execute the plan, and headed to their jump-off points.

  The first step was to acquire a bulldozer. One member knew where several were parked on semi-trailers at a construction company. Construction was slow because of the depression, so the lot always had several units idle. Having been laid off from the construction business, he knew how to operate both the truck and the dozer. It was also known that the keys to the truck and the bulldozer were carelessly kept above the visor. Within 20 minutes, Spence’s cell phone rang, and the voice on the other end said, “I have a D8 CAT on the way.”

  The Shaker Heights suburb of Cleveland remained an upscale address, and many of the streets were still lined with the residences of Cleveland’s old money. These families had worked together over the years to everyone’s mutual benefit and profit. After his “reduction” Spence had been able to land a job here as a part time security guard. He had discovered that a local synagogue had an investment club. These Jewish businessmen determined some time ago that gold was the place to be and had converted a significant sum of money into bullion. Spence’s Security Company had been hired to escort a rather large shipment of lockboxes to a neighborhood bank. He estimated that there were almost 400 pounds of .999 pure gold sitting in those boxes, all stored in the vault of the Shaker Square Branch, 2nd National Bank. Typical Jews, he thought, too damn cheap and too damn paranoid to keep their money in a more secure downtown bank.

  Even with a reduction in the number of local police, Spence knew that their chances of being caught robbing a bank were high. The local station would still have at least 10 radio cars in the area. State police and county reserves would be on the way to fill the void left by diverting resources downtown. To increase The Force’s chance of success, he had purchased an eight-pound container of Winchester 748 smokeless gunpowder at a local sporting goods store. Typically used to reload rifle and pistol ammunition, the substance was legal, readily available, and would not draw attention. He then purchased a length of steel pipe at Home Depot and proceeded to construct four rather large pipe bombs. He added in a little gasoline, Vaseline and cannon fuse to create a highly effective bomb. Over a period of a few weeks before the riot, his crew had stolen four common trashcans, the same type as typically used outside of any bank branch.

  Each fuse had been carefully measured and timed. The trashcans were numbered and painted with the name of the bank to which they were to be stationed. One member of The Force owned an old panel van that the group had used for a few previous crimes. It came equipped with a large magnetic sign that referred to the fictitious “North Cleveland Facility and Landscape Maintenance Company.” Members of the team had a uniform shirt, complete with a patch showing the word “Service” printed under their fabricated logo. Fake name badges and pairs of worn work gloves rounded out the disguises. The four bombs, complete with trashcan facades, were loaded into the van.

  Two blocks away from the 2nd National Bank branch, code named “Fort Knox,” the truck carrying the bulldozer parked in an empty lot. Wearing hard hats, reflective vests and carrying “Caution” flags, the bulldozer crew started the enormous machine and backed it down from its trailer. Spence’s cell phone rang again, and the voice delivered its coded signal, “Ready 5 at Fort Knox.”

  The van made its way to one bank branch after another, spread over almost a square mile of suburban Cleveland. As the crew parked in the lot of each closed branch, they would light the long cannon fuse and place the new can near the front door of the bank. Each man wore a baseball hat low over his eyes and was careful not to look up at surveillance cameras. Spence knew the cameras at the bank branches were not monitored, but were simply recording video tape. He knew the picture quality was low and that if his men were careful, they would not be identifiable, even under close scrutiny. They had also picked four bank branches that all used the same alarm monitoring company as Fort Knox. Their logic was that while one alarm would cause stress in th
e control room, five alarms would cause complete anarchy.

  As each can was delivered, his cell phone rang, and a report would be made indicating, “Easter egg in place.” The cannon fuse was a very reliable, slow burning method of setting off a bomb. Each trash can bomb was timed to explode in sequence a few minutes after its predecessor. Easter Egg One would explode in one hour, with the rest following in ten-minute intervals. When the last bomb had been planted, Spence looked at his watch and smiled. Right on time, he thought. He dialed the bulldozer crew and simply instructed, “Go,” and hung up.

  As the dozer left the nearby parking lot, the first bomb exploded. The trashcan had been placed to the side of the main entrance of the bank, and the blast shattered both sets of doors at the entrance. A fireball ensued that could be seen rising over 100 feet into the air. The alarm was immediately engaged.

  At the ABT Security Center five miles away, a yawning operator was half watching one of several computer screens in front of him. He was monitoring the commercial alarm cluster, which was typically boring as compared to the residential center down the hall. At least down there, he thought, a cat sets off a house alarm now and then. His computer began making an annoying beeping racket, and he clicked the mouse to see which alarm had been tripped. He saw that it was a bank branch and looked at the time on the display. It was clearly after closing time, so he clicked on “Notify Police of Alarm.” The computer connected to the closest known police station in proximity to the alarm and the downtown police headquarters. An automated message was sent to both stations. As per procedure, he picked up the phone to call the station just in case the computer system failed. After talking to the special police operator, he called his supervisor.

  The dispatcher keyed her microphone and announced a bank alarm and possible robbery in progress. She identified four specific cars in the area and requested they respond. Three of the cars acknowledged almost immediately and began heading toward the address with sirens wailing. Spence was standing outside his car about four blocks away from Fort Knox. He had barely heard the explosion almost a mile away, but saw smoke coming from that direction. What he had no problem hearing was the radio car a few blocks away when it turned on its siren and sped off toward the bank The Force had just attacked.

  The police were just pulling up in front of the now burning bank branch when the second bomb detonated. It was about one mile away from the first bomb, and the responding officers did not even hear or notice it. They were busy establishing a perimeter around the first branch and calling for the fire department.

  The ABT operator heard two new alarms and then saw confusing alerts on his screen. He first noticed that the smoke detection alarm had triggered at the first bank branch. Was the bank on fire? A moment later, the computer flashed a second door alarm at a completely different bank.

  “What the hell? Sir, could you please look at this,” he said to his supervisor. It was quickly determined that there were now two banks involved, and again the police were notified.

  The dispatcher had just requested a response from several units on the second alarm when the third bomb exploded. Unfortunately, two of the bank’s ATM customers had been walking up to the bank machine when the third blast occurred. Both were lying dead on the ground before the ABT operator noticed the new alarm. Something’s wrong he thought as he looked over his shoulder at his supervisor. The supervisor was a retired police captain and was now very suspicious. He instructed the operator to follow procedure, but pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to call an old partner who happened to be in charge of the dispatch that night. When his ex-partner and fishing buddy finally answered his third call, he said “Hey ....it’s kind of crazy right now, can I call you back?” The supervisor replied back with “No, don’t hang up. I’m watching all of these bank alarms. I think we have a diversion on our hands.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing. Hold on a second, I have a report coming in from the third bank.”

  A few seconds later, the report came in concerning the two bodies found in front of the third bank. Both the ABT supervisor and the dispatch officer concluded that the bank robbers had messed up on the third bank and blown themselves up.

  The delay on the fourth bomb was just a little longer than the first three. The CAT dozer was rolling down the alley behind Fort Knox at full speed, when the fourth bomb detonated some 10 blocks away. The driver pointed the 80,000-pound machine directly at the back of Fort Knox and applied full throttle.

  The resulting collision was impressive. The back wall of the bank gave way like cardboard. Two feet inside the outer wall was the back of the vault. Built in the 1940’s, the safe was a room with walls of 2-inch steel plate, surrounded by another 12 inches of reinforced concrete. For all of its imposing structure, the vault’s walls were no match for the kinetic energy released by the 5-foot high, hardened steel blade of the CAT. The back corner of the vault shredded like paper, hardly even slowing the big machine down.

  The dozer stopped once it was clear, and Spence’s men poured into the gap. With crowbars, they began popping the lockboxes open one by one. They emptied many into large canvas laundry bags while carrying out others intact. In less than four minutes, they were out of the branch with untold valuables and 300 pounds of gold. ABT did not even report the fifth alarm at Fort Knox until the robber’s van was leaving. By then, there wasn’t an available police car for over two miles. The Force drove slowly through traffic having to stop twice for speeding fire trucks on their way to bank fires.

  “Spence, which way are we heading?

  “I always wanted to check out Acapulco.” Spence replied with a wry smile on his lips.

  In addition to the four fires started by the bank bandits, two of which had spread to multiple structures, the Cleveland Fire Department was fighting no less than four large blazes started by the disturbance downtown. Two of the downtown fires were burning out of control because the riot prohibited moving in equipment to fight them.

  Cleveland was burning.

  A New Job

  Bishop watched the news reports on the Cleveland riots, and it troubled him. Why do politicians always stir the pot?

  He went to their pantry and checked the boxes of stored food and dry goods. Living along the gulf coast meant hurricanes, so having several days of food stored in the house made sense. As he looked through the big plastic bins, he noticed a few items that were missing or low. He made some notes to go over with Terri on the next trip to the store.

  Bishop was feeling much better physically and made up his mind that he was going to work out. He had decided a long time ago that he was not going to be a big muscle guy. As he had played an assortment of sports in high school, it became clear that he was never the best at anything, but was close to the best at almost everything. As a teenager, this circumstance had been difficult to deal with mentally. He had moved from sport to sport, working to be the school’s star at something, hell, anything. While he always made the team, someone else was always “the best.”

  He found this to be true with lifting weights and exercise as well. He was never going to be a power lifter due to his frame, and yet got bored easily doing countless reps to build endurance. He had settled years ago on a routine that did a little of both. He didn’t lift for personal image or appearance; he did so because it burned stress. He always felt so much better after using his muscles.

  Bishop went to his personal gym, which was actually a spare bedroom that Terri “let him use.” He set up one of the machines and started to warm up when the pain in his chest made him weak at the knees. After recovering, he decided he would at least do some pushups, but never made it past kneeling before his body told him in no uncertain terms – not yet.

  He wasn’t in the mood to reload, and everything in the gun safe was spic and span.

  Now thoroughly disgusted, he decided he would head to the company range and at least get a little trigger time. After all, how could shooting a gun possibly hurt his ribs?

/>   As Bishop drove to the offices of his employer, Hamilton, Burns and Root, or HBR, he mind drifted back to the way he landed this crazy job in the first place.

  After all of the reports and debriefing following the skirmish, Bishop and Spider went back to their original routine in Iraq. They were out by the pipeline one morning when a company truck pulled up. The driver got out and walked toward Spider, who was clearly on edge about the visitor.

  It was Spider’s boss, who was known as “The Colonel.” Bishop continued to inspect a pumping house when Spider and The Colonel approached him.

  “Bishop, this is The Colonel. He is the Global Security director for HBR,” said Spider.

  Bishop held out his hand, acknowledging the gentleman with a nod and a single word, “Sir.”

  The Colonel, as expected, shook Bishop’s hand with an iron grip. After the stern handshake, he began in a rapid fire, staccato voice, “Son, I had an unusual call from the Marine Corps yesterday. Normally, when I get a call from the Marines or the Big Army, it is to bitch about my guys getting drunk or trying to have sex with FEMALE enlisted personal who have zero fucking business in a combat zone.”