by Gavin Reese
Cleveland stood just inside the trailer, well aware the armored trucks and their trained tactical operators couldn’t be more than a few dozen yards from him while the .45 continued to shake in his hand. He took a deep breath and contemplated his decision while the unseen officer repeated commands over the loud speaker. Wait for ‘em to dismount. No use in shootin’ a fuckin’ armored truck.
Eighty-Six
Ned “Cleveland” Foster’s residence. Tonopah, Arizona.
Sergeant David Templeton, the Dry Creek Police Department Special Weapons And Tactics Team Leader, stood a dozen yards south of the trailer. He looked at the yellow, mound-shaped tarp spread across the ground near the trailer’s open doorway, and watched a slight breeze intermittently toy with its corners. The tarp concealed what remained of a human body, and the wind occasionally picked it up just enough to reveal that the corpse’s mangled left eye socket, and a fair portion of the back of its head, were missing. Glancing above the tarp, he saw the high-velocity blood spatter, arterial spray, and brain matter his sniper’s bullet had spread across the front of the trailer and into the interior living room. God-awful mess, he thought, but that asshole won’t ever raise a gun against the police again.
Templeton thought back to how quickly and quietly the two remaining suspects had given up after his sniper’s .308 boat-tail hollow-point round had penetrated their friend’s left eye and ended his life in a literal flash. Ironic that they’re so fuckin’ loud and obnoxious now, he thought as the sound of their seemingly endless ranting and verbal angst crept back into the forefront of his consciousness. Templeton felt no surprise that their confrontational demeanor had not begun until after they peacefully surrendered and had been handcuffed. Despite their apparent belief in the corruption of every government agent, the men had not been courageous enough to mount an opposition to their arrests until their detention in secure handcuffs further protected them from any physical force dispensed by the assembled SWAT operators.
Templeton walked around the SWAT team’s olive-drab, armored vehicle and saw one of the team’s Tactical Emergency Medical Technicians standing guard over the loud arrestees, who sat in the silty dirt at the back of the vehicle. “You wanna take a walk, Tim?” Templeton watched the medic turn without a word and leave him alone with the suspects. After the medic’s departure, Templeton moved closer and stood over the two handcuffed arrestees; at 6’3” and 250 pounds, his looming presence deterred and shrunk the smaller man from continuing his verbal assaults, but the bigger one, “Mikey,” didn’t seem to care what Templeton heard him say.
“Fuck you, murderer! You’re all fuckin’ murderers!”
Templeton looked at the sprayed and dripped blood streaks on the man’s face and hair, spit tobacco juice on the ground at his feet, and met his unblinking gaze. “Thank you for your sincere compliments, gentlemen,” he dryly stated, “it is a testament to my men’s lawful restraint that you feel no danger whatsoever in antagonizing us while you’re nearly defenseless. Your gratitude for preserving your physical well-being and Constitutional rights are duly noted. Now,” he paused to spit again, and then spoke so quietly only the suspects could hear him, “and I mean right now, you should feel free to exercise your right to shut...the fuck...up.”
“It doesn’t matter that you murdered an American in his own home without cause?” Mikey asked, as an apparently rhetorical question intended to continue his antagonistic protest.
“I imagine you boys have heard of ‘body cameras’ that all the cops are starting to wear now. You do know about those, right?”
“Fuck you, if you had ‘em, they’d show our friend was gunned down without c--”
Templeton interrupted the repetitive rant. “Well, our guys have taken that one step further.” He spit again, this time on the man’s right boot. “We got ‘sniper cams,’ you ever heard of those?” After a brief pause to read the recognition on their faces, he continued. “We got HD video feed from our sniper’s scope that shows your fuck-stick friend comin’ outta that hovel raising a .45 at the police, right before his head explodes in a pink mist and showers his brains and blood all over the two o’ you pussies. So, if you got any doubts about the legitimacy of his death, I suggest you find a better argument to make before you get to court, ‘cuz your current facts just won’t hold water.” Both men averted their gaze to the ground in front of them and apparently contemplated the blatant truth of his statements.
Satisfied that his message had been received, Templeton turned from the two suddenly-silent arrestees, called the medic back over, and walked alone into the trailer house to confer with DCPD investigators.
“You guys finding everything you need, Jones?”
“I’m sure there’s more here, but we only needed about five minutes to find irrefutable evidence that Foster and The Chosen Few are tied to the American Bank Tower bomb plot, and had ambitions to overthrow the federal government.”
“Got something in here!” Templeton followed Jones toward the sound of Detective Lindsey’s voice and into the back of the trailer.
“Whaddayagot, Lindsey?” Jones stepped through the doorway and into the small room, which allowed Templeton to follow him inside.
“It’s an I-E-D manual. A copy, anyway, and it looks like the same one Jonathan McDougal reported stolen.” The female investigator thumbed through the stapled pages with nitrile-gloved hands. “There’s even a page near the front that has his name and contact info written on it. Gotta be the same one, right?”
Eighty-Seven
Duke’s residence. Maricopa County, Arizona.
Sergeant Bradley Schultz, the Team Leader for the City of Buckeye Police Department’s Special Weapons And Tactics team, along with both of his two-man sniper teams, had baked in the desert’s early morning heat to maintain watch over the Sunvalley trailer and outbuildings while detectives from Dry Creek PD and Phoenix PD searched the abandoned Alero and composed the search warrants necessary to give Schultz’s team lawful entry to knock down the doorway into the isolated desert property. Schultz checked his watch and felt assured the rest of his team would certainly be ready and awaiting orders to leave the station and meet him to serve the warrant.
His phone vibrated inaudibly in his left chest pocket and he answered without bothering to check the caller ID. “Schultz.”
“Landon. We got enough evidence from the first search warrant, and the judge just signed the warrant for the Sunvalley property. I’m emailing you a copy now. Entry’s on you and your boys, just as soon as you’re ready.”
Eighty-Eight
Mobile Command Post, Grant Rd/1st Street. Phoenix, Arizona.
Franklin Tubbs, the Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Phoenix Field Office strode inside the police perimeter and toward the Phoenix Police Department’s Mobile Command Post, a converted forty-two-foot-long RV, which had been set up for their now-joint investigation with Dry Creek Police Department. With two Special Agents and their messenger-sized duffle bags in tow, he ascended the steps, opened the modified RV’s door, and entered without knocking or stopping to ask permission.
Once inside, Tubbs addressed the first uniformed officer he saw, and displayed his federal badge and credentials. “Who’s in charge here?” His accent immediately revealed his Kentucky upbringing.
The Phoenix Police Lieutenant looked at the FBI badge and identification, and pointed to a black, uniformed official near the front of the vehicle. “Deputy Chief Hazer. Good luck.”
Tubbs didn’t wait for an explanation of why he needed luck and met the Deputy Chief in front of a small folding table.
“Can I help you?” The Deputy Chief spoke in the tone of a man overburdened and underpaid for the task at hand.
“I hope so, Chief. I’m Franklin Tubbs, the Special Agent in Charge of the F-B-I’s Phoenix Field Office. I’m here to get help from you and your people.”
“You’re here for our help?”
“Yessir.
Jus’ this mornin’, there’s been anothuh fiiive attempted bombing attacks like the one here today, in San Diego, Portland, Vegas, Seattle, and San Francisco, and I need the local expertise and manpower of you and your people, if you and your people’re game to help me out.”
“If we’re not, then you’re game to just take over this investigation and push us out anyway?”
“I don’t see it like that, but I’m sure that’s how it’d feel if it came to it. Chief, I don’t want to run your people off and take credit for your work, I need your help and I think you can use my resources.” Tubbs held out his right hand as a token of peace. “Whaddayasay, Chief?”
“I have to get the Dry Creek Detective Sergeant in here since we both jointly own the scene and investigation,” he replied and shook Tubbs’ hand, “but I don’t see we oughta have any problems.”
“Great. Now, we gotta get you folks sworn in as federal agents so we can get down to brass tacks.”
“Federal agents?”
“Yessir, the Director has expanded our local Task Force, called Willie Pete, into an interstate operation, and we’ll need everyone involved sworn in under federal law to make things run a bit smoother. We have a press conference scheduled in thirty minutes to officially announce the scope of the investigation and ask for the public’s help, so we gotta get a tipline set up before then.”
“Agent Tubbs, any of those other devices detonate?”
“No, sir. So far those dumb sunzuhbitches are striking out, so let’s pray there’s no more we haven’t found yet.”
“Damn, that is lucky. What’re the odds that none of them would’ve gone off?”
“I chalk it up to Divine Intervention, Chief. Divine Intervention. By the way, Chief, I’m not as formal as most of my colleagues. My friends call me ‘Banjo,’ and I hope you’ll do me that honor.” Tubbs then addressed the CP’s other occupants, whom he saw were already exclusively focused on his conversation with the Deputy Chief. “Now, everyone turn and look in here, raise your right hand, and repeat after me.”
Eighty-Nine
Northbound Interstate-15. Utah State Border.
Driving northeast on Interstate 15 just south of St. George, Utah, Duke reflexively reached up with his left hand, grabbed and tugged the bill of his generic blue baseball cap down a bit lower, and held his left hand there to conceal his profile as a Utah Highway Patrol cruiser passed him in the southbound lanes. Unnerved after his apparent failure, Duke subconsciously held his breath and alternately glanced between the car’s side-and rearview mirrors until he felt certain the state trooper showed no intent to turn north and pursue him. He exhaled a deep sigh of relief, despite recognizing the emotion’s lack of permanence or longevity.
Each passing minute had allowed Duke’s sedan to bring him closer to the northern Idaho panhandle and the sanctuary it held for him and his compatriots. Although the failed bombing had certainly altered his timetable, Duke still believed he could hide out in the panhandle’s relative safety and plot efforts to manipulate what he hoped would still be a renewed, although lessened, public paranoia. We can still do this, it’ll be harder, and take a lot longer, he told himself, but I know we can still get there from here.
Duke understood the logistics of all operations had to be rooted in money; although he inwardly swore at himself for fleeing Phoenix without retrieving the hidden cash from his rented storage unit, he almost immediately conceded that its recovery shouldn’t be prolonged or difficult. There shouldn’t be any problems with keeping the unit’s rent paid by mail, and I can easily drive back to pick it up after the place cools off a bit. There’s just too much heat right now, even to get my four-hundred-grand. No amount of money’s worth risking my freedom. He smirked as a bit of his self-assurance returned. “Ain’t none of them feds gonna be looking for my face, anyway.” A bit calmer and more confident, he pushed a button on the center console to reactivate the sedan’s AM radio; he expected to find only continued evidence that he had successfully eluded authorities and his concerns remained unjustified.
“So, I know we’ve been putting this out about every, I don’t know, like twenty-or-so minutes,” Duke had listened to the same Las Vegas talk-radio host offer his take on the news de jour since he’d passed through Kingman, Arizona, “just to make sure our new listeners, or the old listeners who’re just joining us, have the most updated information to help investigators find this vermin.” Within five hours of the attempted bombing, Duke had first heard the radio host begin discussing photographs and a description of the Chase Tower suspect investigators released to the public. The DJ had encouraged his listeners to view images of the “portly white male” on the radio station website, which he’d explained had come from American Bank Tower video surveillance footage, and report relevant information to an established FBI tipline. Duke expected investigators would eventually commence a public search for him, but he’d hoped to be closer to sanctuary when it began.
“You might have a rough description, but it ain’t me,” he stated to the radio console, “and you sure as hell don’t have my new car.” Duke felt a sudden rush of fear and anxiety. “Goddamnit, were there cameras in the parking garage?? Fuck, I don’t remember checking. I mustuvh,” he tried to reassure himself, “I mustuvh.”
Even though he’d set the sedan’s cruise control just under the posted seventy-five-miles-per-hour speed limit, Duke habitually checked his speed. He looked back up at the road ahead, checked the side-and rearview mirrors for approaching law enforcement, and decided to productively focus his anxiety to ensure he remained ahead of his pursuers. Big Brother and their cameras may soon connect this car with their suspect. “Time for a change,” he announced to the radio, “before you’re calling out my motherfuckin’ license plate.” Duke manipulated the in-dash GPS navigation system for several minutes and decided La Verkin, Utah, a minor detour from the interstate, could soon provide him with a second getaway vehicle unconnected to the attempted bombing.
Ninety
Northbound Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
With pitch black darkness surrounding the stolen white Toyota Corolla, Duke pressed the radio’s “Seek” button once again in search of updated news on the American Bank Tower investigation. The digital display ascended through the available frequencies, and, annoyingly, returned to the same AM station. Duke scoffed at his poor luck, having already listened to its redundant news coverage.
“…and what I can’t believe is that the Feds had no idea this was going on,” a caller named ‘Bill from Dillon’ railed against federal overreach. “What was the point of getting all the liberty-stealing provisions of the PATRIOT Act passed through Congress and signed into law, if they can’t even abuse their authority for the right reasons, Tom? I mean, really, they’ve basically got one job, and this botched bombing attempt is proof of their ineffectiveness as both intelligence gatherers and investigators.”
“Now, Bill, you said earlier that you’re a retired auto mechanic, right?”
“That’s right, Tom, I ran my own shop for forty years, right outta my own garage.”
“So, just to play Devil’s Advocate with you, Bill, so I’m not trying to pick on you, but, just to keep the conversation on task, I gotta ask what qualifies you as a critic of the federal investigators, especially this early in their case?”
“First off, Tom, I’m an American. That gives me a right to be a critic, regardless of anything else. Second, I’m smarter than they are, Tom, you know why?”
“That’s what I’m waiting for, Bill, hit me with it.”
“I know what I don’t know. I understand the boundaries of my understanding, and I’m willing to admit my ignorance. The feds, they ain’t got a clue about what they don’t know, and this proves it. Well, I shouldn’t say that, Tom, it just adds more evidence to the overwhelming case against federal supremacy that the Washington cartels have been promoting since World War II.”
“So, who do you think did it, Bil
l, and why?”
“I dunno ‘who,’ Tom, exactly, I can’t give you a name or point out a face in a crowd, but I can absolutely tell you this: the S-O-B who done this hates America. Anyone who’s willing to kill thousands of innocent American civilians has nothing but hate in his heart. We’re the kindest and most compassionate people in the history of the world, Tom, and there’s gotta be a special place in Hell for someone willing to put together a murder plot like this one.”
Duke had hoped the AM disc jockeys would unwittingly provide ample warning if the cops identified him, but he found sitting through their broadcasts even more frustrating than those of their television counterparts. “At least TV anchors talk to so-called ‘experts,’” Duke mumbled to himself, “these assholes are giving their soap box over to the proletariat.” Despite both his need and intent to manipulate the emotions and votes of folks exactly like “Bill from Dillon,” he placed no value in the opinion or will of the individual American.
After leaving La Verkin, Utah, nine hours ago, Duke had driven the stolen Toyota Corolla north on I-15 and road signs now declared he drew near the small town of Dillon, Montana. He would have relished in his successful avoidance of police contact since leaving Phoenix, but he had not even seen a cop car since Salt Lake City and only a half-dozen before that. I can’t take credit for pure, dumb luck, he thought, but I’m more than willing to hope it continues.
With nothing else to occupy his mind during the tense and lonely drive, Duke had switched between radio news broadcasts until reaching the sparsely populated areas of eastern Idaho and southwestern Montana. These guys are no different than all the other media outfits, he told himself, it’s nothing but speculation, especially after ten-p.m. Duke reached up and pressed the volume dial-button to turn the radio off and drove onward in relative silence. Having heard no further unexpected developments for hours, he resigned himself to measured confidence and looked forward to an early afternoon arrival at his new home in the northern Idaho panhandle.
