by Joe Nobody
The marshal didn’t strike Sebastian as a man to leave lodging to chance, especially when his body language indicated he felt responsible for the woman.
The answer came to him in an ‘ah-ha’ moment. “He’s a US marshal. He used one of their prisoner transport aircraft to sneak into town. He’s using one of the service’s witness protection safehouses.”
Drawing a box around a five-square-block area, Sebastian ordered up the utility records for each address in that area.
Three properties were identified on the tax rolls as residences that had registered unusually low electrical usage over the past few months. Another search identified that two of the three addresses were listed for sale with a local realtor. He had them.
Checking the county records of the third home, Sebastian had to smile. The name of the owner was Liberty Property Management, Inc. A little more digging revealed that the firm was indeed a front-company for the US Justice Department.
For a final verification, Sebastian scrutinized the electrical usage starting just a few minutes after the taxi dropped off its passengers. Sure enough, a sudden spike was recorded at just the right moment to fit the timeline. Now, he was confident enough to pull the proverbial trigger.
To say the dispatcher was harried would have been an understatement. Not only had there been a riot in her hometown, but a mass murder had also taken place just a few blocks from her workplace. Using a car as a weapon was something that happened in Europe, or the Middle East, not “Naptown,” as the Indiana capital was nicknamed.
With the violence came the national media; nosey, rude reporters now hovering outside police headquarters, pressing their microphones in everyone’s face, digging for department dirt. The intrusive scrutiny of the department, in turn, had resulted in her agitated supervisor demanding job performance perfection. Everybody from the mayor to her sergeant had suddenly become unqualified, dimwitted assholes.
Despite three days having passed since the protest incident, the citizens of Indianapolis were nervous, the number of 9-1-1 calls still double the normal level. People were frightened, paranoid, and constantly filing reports that proved to be baseless.
To make matters worse, hundreds of hours of overtime after the disturbance had left the department short-handed. Response times were down, the city’s hardened criminals having more latitude to execute their dirty deeds.
The console in front of her signaled another incoming call. With a sigh, she hit the button to answer. “Marion County 9-1-1, please state the nature of your emergency.”
“Someone has just broken into my house! They’ve got guns!” the agitated female voice panted. “I hurried out the back door. I thought they were going to shoot me!”
“Calm down, ma’am. Where are you now?”
“I’m running down the street to my friend’s place. They knocked on the front door and said they were the police. They even flashed a badge through the peephole. When I let them in, they pointed their pistols at me and told me to get out, or they would kill me. I ran for my life!”
Now the caller had the dispatcher’s attention. Armed robbery was serious enough, especially on a night like to this. But impersonating a police officer? That was an act that rubbed every cop the wrong way.
“What is your address?” the dispatcher asked.
The frightened voice rattled off the street and number, which the dispatcher entered into the computer, partly to record and dispatch, but also to verify that there wasn’t a real, ongoing operation in the area.
“Go to your friend’s house,” the dispatcher advised. “Give me that address as well, but you need to stay there until uniformed officers come and get you. I’m sending help now.”
The caller offered an address on the same street, which the dispatcher logged. She then scanned the computer display indicating which patrol cars were in the area. There were none close by, but then again, given the chaos as of late, that wasn’t surprising.
Any call associated with impersonating a police officer was always a tricky situation. Given undercover operations and the number of reassigned patrols, the dispatcher decided to bring the watch commander in on the call. This was above her pay grade.
It didn’t surprise Griffin that he couldn’t sleep. Given the multiple adrenaline dumps he’d experienced that day, coupled with the troubling circumstances of this investigation, the Sandman wouldn’t be visiting anytime soon.
Wonder if I could buy a new can opener on one of those 24-hour, home shopping networks, he mused, hitting the power button for the television. The blank screen failed to pull up a channel. Evidently, one of the federal bean counters had decided not to pay the cable bill.
Kit was sound asleep in the nearby bedroom, instantly crashing after her hot, soaking shower. He was envious.
For a moment, he considered leaving her a note and stepping to the corner convenience store for a six-pack, but he quickly dismissed the plan. He didn’t know where, or even if, such a shop existed, let alone if it would be open. No, he needed to be sharp and clean. He might need his A-game.
Checking around for a book, magazine, or anything else to occupy his mind, Griffin found a pair of rabbit ears in a drawer. Other than those telescoping metal tubes, his search proved fruitless.
He quickly discovered that the reason why the antenna was tucked away and not attached to the boob-tube was a frayed wire. “I can fix that,” he grumbled, remembering a haphazard toolbox he’d passed by the back door.
With the promise of a late-night movie now looming in his future, the marshal set the tools on the breakfast table, pushed the TV dinner trays out of the way, and got to work. He would have to strip the coaxial by hand and rework the connector. “Very doable,” he decided. “Besides, it’s not like I have a critical appointment to make.”
Responding to the 9-1-1 call, the first patrol car cruised by the safehouse, performing what the police called a “scouting pass.” Unlike most of the other residences at the early hour, lights shone through the windows of the bungalow.
Soon after, two other patrol cars met up with the first, a quick huddle occurring three blocks down the street. “It’s been absolutely crazy today,” noted the senior man on the scene. “Let’s do a quick check around the exterior before we knock and barge.” His fellow officers thought the plan provided a reasonable course of action.
They parked, two of the cops heading off on foot. Soon entering the front yard, they stepped onto the wide porch to peek inside. All the blinds were drawn tight.
Pointing to his partner and then making a circular motion with his finger, the senior man indicated they should walk around. Both lawmen drew their weapons and readied their flashlights.
Peering in from the side window, they spied an empty living room in the dim light. So far, so good.
Next, they approached the kitchen window. The opening for it was higher off the ground since it was located above the sink, and when the taller officer hopped up to get a look, he noticed Griffin sitting at the table working on something.
His second bounce brought the wires and tools into focus. The third fleeting glance allowed the officer to see Griffin’s pistol resting on the table.
Waving his commander back toward the front yard, the junior described what he saw. “One male. Glock on the table. He was working on some sort of wiring with a pair of pliers.”
“Wiring? What kind of wiring?”
“No idea, Sarge. He was using tools, some sort of tin foil, and wire.”
“And you’re sure about the weapon?”
“I know a Glock when I see one, sir,” the younger man sneered.
“Who works on wiring at this hour?” the older cop grunted, remembering a rumor about a bomb at the recent protest. “I don’t like this one little bit.”
“The guy that killed all those people with his truck claimed that he’d seen a bomb. Maybe that wasn’t pure bullshit?”
The sergeant considered the supposition for a mo
ment. “I’m not going to take any chances,” he responded. “Let’s bring in a SWAT unit. Close down this street but do it quietly.”
Another 20 minutes passed before Griffin gave up in frustration. He didn’t have the right tools to work on the connector, and realized he was wasting his time.
The good news was that the effort brought a series of yawns, and he thought sleep might be possible. “Who knew fixing a TV could be so exhausting?” he whispered.
After checking on Kit, he decided the living room couch was a good mix of comfort and tactical position. Laying his pistol on the modest coffee table, he arranged the pillows and switched off the lights.
He was just drifting off when a board on the front porch issued a telltale creak. In a flash, Griffin was on his feet, Glock in his hand. “Did you really hear something, or is the lack of alcohol playing tricks on your brain?” he groaned, slipping toward the door.
Bending low, he gently separated two blades of the wooden blinds, providing a quarter inch peephole. Griffin inhaled sharply, a pants leg and heavy boot clearly visible just outside the window.
Weapon high, he moved toward the front door.
The SWAT team was already on the porch, the eight-man unit equally divided left and right on each side of the threshold. They, like the other law enforcement officers in the city, had been working double shifts, were exhausted, short-tempered, and not on top of their game.
The battering ram splintered the door jamb with ease, the solid-wood barrier flying inward just as Griffin reached his position.
Marshal Storm had taught breaching. He knew the tactics and methods and was ready.
He caught the brunt of the door’s momentum on his shoulder, his arm going numb from the impact. He pushed back with every ounce of muscle he could muster.
The first officer through had barely gotten his foot inside when the door flew into him with almost as much force as generated by the battering ram.
Propelled by Griffin’s weight, the door slammed against the cop’s boot and knocked him backward. The breaching man lost his balance, the barrel of his M4 carbine crashing hard into his left kneecap. With a yelp of excruciating pain, the officer crumpled in a pile just as his finger squeezed the trigger.
Hearing the weapon fire, his brothers in blue thought he had been shot.
SWAT teams were trained to get inside as fast as possible, to use speed, surprise, and overwhelming force to gain the upper hand. Griffin’s efforts slowed the first man and partially blocked the threshold.
A traffic jam ensued at the same instant that Marshal Storm concluded that another attempt on his life was in progress.
No one had shouted “Police!” No law enforcement team would have fired off a shot given the current circumstances. Why wouldn’t the local badges have merely knocked? Used a bullhorn? No, in that thousandth of a second, Griff decided to fight like hell, positive that the same criminals who had set the Diablos onto his trail were again at work.
On both sides of the threshold, inside and out, everyone started screaming at the same time. From the porch, a chorus of voices shouted, “Police!” at the exact moment Griffin was yelling, “Federal Marshal!” Convinced that their lead man had been ambushed, two of the SWAT team raised their weapons and started punching rounds into the front door.
Griffin dove for cover, sliding across the varnished wood floor and landing in a heap against the far wall. Lead zipped and hissed through the bungalow’s living room, splinters of wooden shrapnel exploding inward. Within seconds, a choking, hazy cloud of drywall made it difficult to breathe or see.
Without hesitation, Griffin shot through the opening, two rounds at the door, two into the wall left, two more to the right.
More incoming fire ripped through the safehouse, one of the officers on the porch taking a 40mm slug right in the chest, another of the marshal’s bullets cutting a painful trench across a cop’s calf. Now, it was personal. Now it was a gunfight. The rules, rights, and procedures were thrown out the window. All bets were off.
Prone, on his back, and barely under the incoming fire, Griffin emptied his handgun as a wave of hot lead shredded the cottage. Just as his weapon locked back empty, a second weapon sounded from inside the house. Kit was awake. She had joined the skirmish.
Slamming a new box of pain pills into his Glock, Griffin began firing low, his instincts telling him no one on the front porch would be standing upright. His finger had never worked the trigger so fast.
Kit’s joining of the fray changed the cadence of the clash, her rounds contributing just enough to convince the men on the porch that they didn’t want to enter the home. The commander had two men down, another holding his chest where Griffin’s round had impacted on a ballistic plate. “Abort!” the commander screamed. “Abort!”
Griffin, fishing for his third and last magazine, heard the shouted command. “What kind of home invaders or hit men use the word, ‘Abort?’” he hissed.
“Kit? Kit, you okay?” he yelled toward the bedroom.
“All good,” she replied, barely audible over the ringing in her ears. “Who the hell are those guys?”
Belly crawling, Griffin moved toward the front door, his progress slowed by having to cover the opening despite the awkward movements. “US Marshal!” he screamed once close to the entrance. “Hold your fire!”
“Police!” came the screaming response. “Throw your weapons outside.”
With a dialogue started, Griffin chanced going to his elbows and scanned the street outside through one of the now-shattered windows. From his angle, he could identify police cars two blocks down, closing off the intersection.
Before he could react, the flashing lights of an ambulance passed around the two blocking cruisers. “Oh, shit, I’ve killed a cop,” Griffin whispered.
“Kit, they’re really police. I think I’ve hit one of them,” he turned and shouted at the bedroom. “Stay put. Stay low.”
“I ain’t going anywhere,” the federal prosecutor sarcastically replied.
Withdrawing his ID, Griffin took another chance and flung his credentials through the glass-less window, toward the sidewalk. “That’s my ID. Check it out,” he snapped and then dove back to the floor.
The anticipated sniper rounds never came. Rising slightly to peek out again, Griffin spotted a shadowy shape rush forward and retrieve his credentials.
It was a few minutes before the next exchange. “Okay, Marshal Storm… if that’s really who you are. How many are inside the house?”
“Two. I have Assistant United States Attorney Carson from El Paso with me,” he shouted back.
“Come out on the porch, walking backward, with your empty hands in the air,” sounded the next order.
Taking a deep breath, Griffin suggested to Kit, “We better do as they say.”
“No kidding,” she agreed.
Griffin stood, leaving his Glock on the floor. As instructed, he opened the front door and yelled, “Coming out. Unarmed. No weapon. Hold your fire!”
Several bright flashlights illuminated the bungalow’s shot-up verandah as Griffin stood, turned around, and backed out the door.
“That’s far enough!” a nearby voice warned. A second later, Griffin was thrown to the ground, his arms pinned behind his back.
Roughly hauled away from the door, it was Kit’s turn to suffer the indignation next.
Griffin found himself facing a captain in tactical loadout, the local officer clearly so pissed he was on the edge of losing control. After comparing Griffin’s photo with his prisoner, spittle flew from the commander’s mouth as he started barking at the marshal. “And just what the fuck are you doing in my city, Inspector Storm? Some notice of your presence here would have been a professional courtesy, sir. And since when does a federal marshal have the right to start shooting at my men?”
Griffin didn’t like the man’s attitude, “Your people were sloppy, Captain. They did not identify themselves properly and thus
endangered lives. They made entirely too much fucking noise… hell, I thought somebody was having a party on that front porch before they came in!”
The local commander wasn’t about to back down, having had the worst week of his career as a peace officer.
Back and forth the two men barked, both roaring at the top of their lungs, much to the entertainment of the onlooking throng of cops. “I’ve got three wounded men, thanks to you, Storm!” the SWAT commander protested.
“As badly as that breach was executed, you’re fucking lucky they’re not all destined for pine boxes,” Griffin shouted back. “Who do you think you are, assaulting a federal property without a warrant, anyway?”
It was Kit’s voice that finally interrupted the fracas, “That’s enough! Both of you, chill the hell out, or I’m going to file charges on both of your asses!”
In a second, her slender frame maneuvered between the two Neanderthals squaring off for battle. With all her might, she pushed against Griffin, trying to get him to back away.
Taking her queue, a couple of the local SWAT team members decided to join her on the high road, moving in behind her to separate their commander from the El Paso visitors.
After a few moments, the combatants were apart, both men pacing up and down opposite sides of the street and mumbling curses and insults about the other.
Remaining beside Griffin, Kit tried to walk the fine line between supporting her friend and keeping him away from the local captain.
Just then, two patrolmen arrived and rushed up to the still-grumbling SWAT commander. After listening to their report, the captain pointed at Griffin and commanded, “Go inform Marshal Storm of this development, please.”
With a bit of trepidation, the pair of cops approached, “Sir, we drove to the address given to our dispatcher by the homeowner who called 9-1-1. It is an empty lot. The call was a setup. You were a victim of ‘swatting,’ it appears.”
