Behind the Badge

Home > Mystery > Behind the Badge > Page 30
Behind the Badge Page 30

by David R Lewis


  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

  “I’m talking about holding up my end of the deal,” Crockett said. “You go on with this sale and give me some more information that I need and, when the smoke clears, you’re on your way with twenty-five thousand dollars in your pocket, free as a bird.”

  “C’mon.”

  “No shit, man,” Stitch said. “That’s the program, ya know? A course, if ya don’t wanna play, we got tapes a you and Crockett at his office, man, an’ audio and visual a you an’ the sale to me, an’ a full recording a us makin’ the deal here tonight, includin’ your cell phone call. Sorta makes that warrant outa Texas look kinda puny, doncha think?”

  Crockett picked up her purse and removed the cell phone. “What do you think would happen,” he asked, “if I hit redial and told whoever answered that you just gave them up, and then tossed your cute little ass outa here?”

  “Oh, Christ! Don’t do that.”

  “Remember what I told you in my office?”

  Stacy looked down at the tabletop. “Yes.”

  “Still applies, only now you’re in even deeper shit. You have a choice to make, Stacy, or should I say Katlyn. At least that’s the name you were using when you were hooking in Dallas.”

  “Oh, man.”

  “You can deal with us and go on your way bucks up, or you can enjoy your next quarter-pounder with false teeth and bifocals, if you live that long. My bet is, you won’t make it. What do you think?”

  “I think I’m screwed.”

  “I think,” Stitch said, “that you got a chance to climb outa a pile a shit with a wad a money tucked away in your bra. What the fuck is wrong with that?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Several things,” Crockett said. “But first comes the threat. I’d take this very seriously if I were you. If you fuck this up, if you blow the deal, if you do anything except what you are told to do, I assure you that the Cantral boys will be the least of your worries. Are we clear?”

  Stacy seemed to shrink a bit. “We’re clear,” she said.

  “Good!” Crockett said. “Getcha another beer?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The next two days were hectic. Crockett called Clete and the Texican headed down. Crockett was on the phone with Pelmore four or five times a day, met twice with Stacy, and he and Stitch flew over the sod farm and settled on procedures. Thursday morning he broke out the big M107 .50 caliber long range sniper rifle he’d used when Carson Bailey was in trouble, then he called Dale.

  “What now?”

  “I need your help. You know a lotta people around here. I need a place that’s kinda remote where I can sight in a rifle at around a thousand yards.”

  “A thousand yards?”

  Crockett smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “only a thousand. I don’t think I need to go any farther than that.”

  “A thousand yards.”

  “Yessir. I could use a spotter, too.”

  “And that would be me?”

  “If you don’t mind. All you’d have to do would be to set up a hundred yards or so from the target, off angle of course, and use a spotter scope to let me know where the rounds are going.”

  “At a thousand yards.”

  “We could go out to a mile or more, but then I’d have to take into account the rotation of the earth and stuff like that. I never was any good at math.”

  “Oh, hell. Lemme make a call. I’ll get back to ya.”

  *****

  Three o’clock that afternoon found the Crockett and Dale on the edge of a bean field less than a half-mile from the Missouri River, in southern Ray County. Crockett had hung a man-sized silhouette target on a large stump in front of a hundred-foot bluff and topped the stump off with two plastic milk bottles full of water. Dale watched the preparations from beside the road. Crockett walked back and handed him a spotting scope from the rear floorboard.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Smoot asked.

  “Walk down the road a hundred paces or so, and watch the target.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to drive back down the road around seven-tenths of a mile, lay down in the bed of the truck, and shoot for the X-ring on the silhouette hanging on the stump. I’ll fire twice and call your cell. You can tell me how I did.”

  “From over half a mile.”

  “Yep.”

  “With what?”

  “With this,” Crockett replied, sliding the big rifle out of its case on the back seat.

  “Jesus,” Smoot breathed. “Is that thing real?”

  “Oh yeah. This is an M107 LRSR or long range sniper rifle.”

  “What the hell does it shoot?”

  “Fifty caliber Browning machine gun round. Same things some of the bombers in World War II used. The rounds I’ll carry will be armor piercing.”

  “That’s the most evil looking gun I ever saw.”

  Crockett grinned. “Wanna hold it?” he asked.

  Smoot shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  Dale studied the rifle for a moment.

  “I might like it,” he said.

  *****

  Cletus was sitting in the living room with Stitch, Satin, and Shelly when Crockett arrived home late that afternoon.

  “Clete. I didn’t expect you until later.”

  “How are ya, son? I come in to Kaycee last night. Stayed at the Marriott. Got out here just after you left to go sight in the monster.”

  “How’s your mom an’ them?”

  Clete grinned. “Everbody’s fine up in the northern tribe. Send their love an’ such. I gotta tell ya, Crockett, Satin took me out on that little pontoon boat a yours and gimme the tour. Your place here, the lake, Stitch’s cabin an’ all is just finer’n frog fur. Ya’ll have done a helluva job. Gotcha an oasis. ‘Bout as purty as anything a fella could ever want. Ya done good, pard.”

  “Thanks, Clete.”

  “I took a bunch a pictures with my phone to show to Ivy and Goody when I git home. They’ll love it. Stitch says he an’ me are goin’ for a helo ride tomorrow evenin’.”

  “Yeah. For the sake of cover, you’re the drug tester.”

  “Uh-huh. What I’m really gonna do is point a gun at some folks, huh?”

  “Probably. I didn’t want some state cop backing any of us up. Not that these guys aren’t capable, I’m sure they are or Pelmore wouldn’t have ‘em along. It’s just that…”

  “It’s just that,” Stitch interrupted, “ain’t no point in, like, screwin’ with what already works, ya know?”

  “What am I gonna do?” Shelly asked.

  “Pelmore and I talked about that,” Crockett said. “You’re gonna go to work just like always. You’ll get detained and questioned like everybody else. He doesn’t want to blow your cover.”

  “That’s a bunch a crap. I don’t even get to point a gun at anybody?”

  “Whore in the corps,” Stitch said. “Ooo-rah.”

  “Improvise, adapt, overcome,” Shelly replied. “Semper Fi, motherfucker.”

  “Mouths of babes,” Satin grumbled, and headed into the kitchen to refresh her coffee.

  *****

  Crockett and Pelmore talked twice more before he and Shelly had to go to work. Then, as planned, the four warriors met Pelmore in a room at the Super Eight motel in Richmond, Missouri at eleven the next morning.

  “Well, ladies,” Pelmore said. “It’s the big day. Anybody nervous in the service?”

  “How come I’m not in on this, Gunny,” Shelly asked.

  “You are in on this, Kiley. You been in on this longer than anybody else. You got two jobs. One is to stay close to this Shelia Graham woman if she’s on the floor. She gets froggy; take her down. Your other job is to just be the pretty little waitress you’ve always been, get your ass in a sling just like everybody else, and be released after questioning. Got it?”

  “Got it, Gunny.”

  “Non
e of my guys’ll know you on sight. How we gonna fix that?”

  “I’ll be wearing a yellow feathered hat band with a red rose dead center on the front of the crown.”

  Pelmore smiled. “You been thinkin’ ain’tcha.”

  “Now and then.”

  “Now you girls,” Pelmore went on, turning to Crockett. “These two misfits are in the helo?”

  “Yeah. Two is the agreed on limit. I’ll be ghillied up in a fence row about a quarter of a mile away to cover them.”

  “The question is,” Pelmore went on, “can you hit what you aim at?”

  Stitch bristled. “This motherfucker can shoot the taste out your mouth at a half a mile, sarge,” he said. “Ask anybody.”

  Pelmore chuckled. “As you were, flyboy. I’m just checkin’. I got a small pac-set for you Crockett. Already set to my freq, and the channel is secure. When the deal starts, you let me fuckin’ know. Right then. We’ll have two cars, make that trucks, within two miles of the site. When you yell, they’ll be on their way to your 10-20. At that time, another squad will move on the car wash, another on the nightclub, another on Jack Cantral’s office, and another on his home. A two man team of uniformed troopers will also hit the Graham woman’s apartment, and the apartment where this Ray Peterson lives. I got no-knock warrants for everyplace and arrest warrants for everybody. I got five team leaders here in the motel now. I’ll brief them in a few minutes. Twelve more of my guys are comin’ in this afternoon, and around a dozen and a half troopers in two-man marked cars.”

  “Jesus,” Crockett said. “That oughta do it.”

  “It should. Never know for sure. You guys set?”

  “Yeah. Got two-way communication for us also. We’ll be on site in the field early for set up and so we can make them come to us. I’ll be ranged out. Clete and Stitch will both be armed.”

  “Try not to shoot anybody, especially each other. I fuckin’ hate to write reports. All right. You’re all commissioned for this event.”

  “We’re honored,” Crockett said.

  Pelmore turned to Clete. “You ain’t had a lot to say this morning,” he said.

  “Couldn’t get a word in edgeways you an’ ol’ Crockett jawin’ so much. Tired a listenin’ to ya’ll.”

  “Then get out,” Pelmore said, getting to his feet and picking up a black duffel bag from the floor. “In this bag,” he went on, “are eight thousand one-hundred-dollar-bills banded in stacks of ten thousand dollars each. I would like to have this back. If, for some reason, I don’t get it back, you ladies are gonna have a lot of community service to perform. Also in the duffel is the pac-set I mentioned. Anything changes, I’ll call and give ya a sit-rep. You do the same. See ya for the debrief after the mission. Go away.”

  *****

  Back at the cabin Satin had a light lunch ready. Nobody ate very much. At the end of the meal, Crockett walked down to the lake and fed the fish a while. Around two he disappeared upstairs for a few moments, then returned in camo coveralls with thigh bags, carrying a rolled up ghillie suit and the big M107 in a drag bag.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m gonna need at least two hours to get position and settle in.”

  Stitch looked at Cletus and grinned.

  *****

  Stitch and Clete dropped Crockett at the edge of a steep hill populated by underbrush and scraggly trees about two miles from the sod farm. An hour and a half later Crockett was ghillied up and invisible on the sod farm side of an overgrown and weedy fence row. The sun was low enough he was in shadow as he looked east into the field, and the grassy surface sloped gently away from him at a slight angle. According to his range finder, it was four-hundred and eighty-three yards to the distant road. With the exception of the gravel drive, the place appeared to be the biggest yard he’d ever seen. The lush grass was no more than three inches tall, as manicured as a fairway and nearly a mile square. He checked his watch. Five-fifty-eight. He turned on the pac-set Pelmore had given him.

  “Crockett to Pelmore, Crockett to Pelmore, over.”

  “This is Pelmore. Gotcha five square. Go ahead, over.”

  “I am in position. Expect the helo almost any time. Over.”

  “Roger your last. Keep me advised. My guys are on site. Pelmore out.”

  Crockett limbered up the M107, deployed the bipod, and checked the range to the road. The scope called it at four hundred and eighty-nine yards. Close enough. He kept his sight and let the automatic reticule to settle in. The wind was light from the south. He allowed about four inches for drift, and laid the rifle down in front of him after slipping in a magazine containing eight armor piercing rounds and jacking one into the chamber. As he put Pelmore’s pac-set in the grass to the right of the rifle, he detected the distant sound of a helicopter rotor. In a moment he could see Stitch’s little yellow helo skimming over the trees to the south. His earpiece crackled to life and Stitch’s voice filled his left ear.

  “Baby Banana to Ground Hound, over.”

  Crockett grinned. “Gotcha five by five Banana, over.”

  “Roger on the five by five. I’ll drift up the road, you tell me when to set it down, over.”

  Crockett let Stitch get directly across from him nearly a half-mile up the field before calling him to land. Stitch did and left the rotor on idle. The range was good and whoever showed up would have to get reasonably close to the helo, leaving him a clear line of sight.

  “Fuck man, nobody here but us chickens.”

  “It’s a little early, Banana. Still got about ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, well, Texas is so nervous he blew chunks twice. Bummer, dude. Cat thinks Charlie’s in the elephant grass an’ shit, ya know?”

  “Banana?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Roger on the shut-up.”

  After a long five minutes, a lone Toyota SUV came rolling down the road from the north and stopped about a hundred feet in front of the helo. The passenger got out while the driver remained behind the wheel. Crockett didn’t recognize the man who left the vehicle. He couldn’t see the driver’s face because of a reflection on the window. The passenger walked toward the helicopter ten feet or so and stopped. Stitch clambered out of the helo and did the same. Crockett heard his side of the conversation.

  “I know I ain’t in the middle a the field, shithead. My instructions were to come up the road. I came up the road…What’s the matter…You want me to move? You got the shit? What… Nobody said anything to me about waiting for a fuckin’ plane, man...I called for a two-man limit...All right, but if that asshole behind the wheel gets outa the car, man, he’s a dead motherfucker. Get back in your ride an’ fuckin’ stay there, dude.”

  Stitch got back in the helo before he spoke again.

  “Waitin’ on a plane, man. These fuckers are pretty careful, ya know? Cat said he’d be here any minute.”

  “Okay,” Crockett replied. “I got a good sight and plenty of light. We wait.”

  “All right, dude, waitin’ it is. Oh, wow, man! There’s the plane. Fuckin’ righteous. It’s about a fifty or sixty year old Piper Super Cub, man. Got them big ol’ fat tires an’ shit. This is a bush plane, Crockett. Land damn near anywhere, an’ take off in three hundred feet. That little fucker can be up an’ gone before ya know it Watch his ass, man. We could lose him easy.”

  The tiny plane nearly fell out of the sky, bounced once, and quickly taxied to a stop on the far side of the SUV about halfway between it and the helo. Its tires were three or four times the normal size. They reminded Crockett of a cartoon. The pilot got out carrying a dark brown suitcase and walked over to the other man. Stitch and Clete left the helo, Stitch carrying the duffel. The four men approached to within thirty feet of each other. Stitch appeared in Crockett’s ear.

  “Yeah, I got the money, man. Wanna see it? Do a rough count if ya want. Just don’t take all night.”

  Crockett keyed the pac-set. “On site, Pelmore. Buster! Buster!” Without waiting for an answer, h
e got his attention back to where it needed to be.

  Stitch walked forward and put the duffel on the ground, then backed away. The driver stepped forward and riffled through the bag for a moment, then removed a bill, studied it, shined a light on it, and tore a bit off a corner.

  “Damn right it looks good,” Stitch went on. “It is good. Let’s do this. Show me the dope.”

  The pilot carried the bag to beside the money and opened it, then turned away toward the plane.

  “My guy’s gonna test it, man,” Stitch said.

  As Clete came walking forward, the pilot got back in the plane and revved the engine.

  “Take ‘em, Stitch!” Crockett yelled, and touched off the M107.

  The armor piercing round was traveling at around three thousand feet per second when it passed three feet in front of Clete and went through the right side tire of the Piper. The little Super Cub, just starting its take-off taxi, lurched dramatically to the right, turned a half circle and stopped. The pilot dropped out of the cockpit and began to run. Just as Clete shot him in the right buttock, two pickup trucks came roaring up the road. The guy from the SUV took one look at Stitch’s Desert Eagle pointed at him, laid on the grass face down, and waited. The driver stood on the gas and cut a donut. Crockett put a round through the driver’s door. The Toyota swerved off the road entirely, inscribed half a large circle out into the field and rolled to a stop.

  Trembling a bit, Crockett slipped the big rifle back into the drag bag, the metallic taste of adrenalin in his throat. He hoped he’d settle down by the time he reached the helo.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It took Crockett several minutes to get up, strap on the drag bag, and schlep his way across the field to the scene of the buy. The Ghillie suit, thirty-five pounds or so of rifle, drag bag and ammo, and the downside of the adrenalin rush nearly had him on his knees. Clete met him fifty yards from the helo.

 

‹ Prev