[Tom Reed and Walt Sydowski 04.0] No Way Back

by Rick Mofina

  73

  Angel Zelaya was on the FBI’s list of suspected Texas buyers.

  Sources told them he was active. The FBI had obtained warrants to tap every phone owned by Zelaya, his wife, their children, his jewelry wholesale business, or any of his staff. Even the cell phone he’d donated to his church.

  The FBI didn’t know about one particular cell phone Zelaya used that was tied to a numbered company registered in the Caribbean with a subsidiary listed to a New Orleans post office box, until a sharp-eyed agent experienced in white-collar crime investigations uncovered it.

  Based on information from FBI informants, a federal judge granted a warrant allowing agents to search Zelaya’s house for the cell phone.

  The FBI had reason to believe it was the phone Zelaya used to conduct illicit jewel transactions and was the number being called by John Mark Engler and Delmar James Tribe. The men were dangerous fugitives wanted under a federal warrant charging them with multiple homicides in California.

  Fearing Zelaya’s home was under surveillance by Engler, Tribe, or their associates, two burly FBI agents wearing jeans, T-shirts, and tool belts arrived at dawn in a carpenter’s van. They pressed the doorbell of Zelaya’s 2,900-square-foot custom ranch house with the waggoneer’s porch that swept along the front. Zelaya was groggy when he came to the door rubbing his eyes as he studied the warrant.

  “I don’t own that phone anymore,” he said. “It was stolen.”

  An FBI agent reached into his tool belt, pulled out a cell phone, and dialed the number of Zelaya’s “stolen” cell phone. Seconds later a girl, who looked to be about seven years old, trotted to the door.

  “Daddy!” She had a ringing cell phone in her hand. “Your phone!”

  Zelaya kissed his daughter, took the phone from her, then said to the agents. “Permit me to call my lawyer.”

  “Sure, but we’ll hold this.” The agent took Zelaya’s phone.

  Her name was Conchita Flores. She pulled into the driveway in her BMW. She was a Harvard grad, tall and dressed in a tailored business suit. Upon arriving, she had a twenty-minute conversation with Zelaya behind the closed door of his large book-lined study, emerging with a yellow pad full of notes. “Gentlemen, please come in and close the door,” she said.

  The agents entered. Zelaya, still in his robe, was seated behind his desk. Flores sat next to him, studying her pad. “There’s coffee,” she said to the pad, then looked at the agents. “Has my client been charged?”

  “Not yet, but he faces accessory charges for starters.”

  “He’ll cooperate fully in exchange for dismissing them.”

  “No deals. You take yours black, Tim?” one agent said to his partner.

  “Then he’ll choose never to answer his cell phone again.”

  “We’ve got records of calls placed to the line from every location where the suspects have been. Milk, no sugar.”

  “Circumstance.”

  “He did time in Leavenworth. Shared a federal prison cell with one of the suspects sought in three homicides and one million in stolen jewelry. He flew to San Francisco before the heist. Your client is the buyer. See where this is going?”

  The lawyer stuck out her chin. “I don’t.”

  Her client did. “I’ll do whatever you want,” Zelaya said.

  “Where are they?” The agent sipped his coffee. It was strong. Colombian.

  “Somewhere out of Lufkin.”

  “The entire country knows that. Where are they headed?”

  “I don’t know, I blew them off in the last call, they’d drawn heat out of Oklahoma and I didn’t want to hear from them again.”

  “Are they coming here?”

  “No, they were going to call me with a meeting point, but I swear I blew them off. Look, I had no part in this, they called me—”

  “Angel.” His lawyer cautioned him in Spanish to be quiet.

  One of the agents requested Zelaya in Spanish to cooperate.

  Zelaya agreed to help.

  His wife made breakfast and the agents waited with Zelaya and his lawyer.

  They passed time watching news reports and staring at the phone. The agents called in updates to their supervisor; the lawyer and Zelaya’s wife discussed children, fashion, and upcoming social functions, indifferent to the fact that Zelaya was the thread holding Ann Reed’s life.

  It was early afternoon when the cell phone rang.

  Everyone exchanged glances. The agents knew the tap should pick up the conversation, but the senior agent acted fast and reached into his tool belt for a microcassette recorder and an ear-jack microphone.

  “Angel,” he said, going over what they’d advised him, “remember, agree to meet them, get details of their location.” The phone rang a second time. “Here, like I showed you, this goes in your ear, like an earplug, it will record the call.” The agent plugged the jack end of the device into the recorder and switched it on.

  “Hello,” Zelaya said.

  “It’s me,” Engler said. “Let’s deal tonight.”

  Zelaya nodded.

  “I don’t know, you’ve drawn too much attention. Your numbers are too high. I told you it was off.”

  “The price went down. Emergency clearance rate. Two hundred.”

  “That’s still high and the risks are now too great.”

  “We can do it tonight.”

  “Where are you?”

  Engler took time to consider his answer.

  “Are you alone, Angel?”

  “Yes.”

  “How safe is this phone?”

  “Safe. Tied to a numbered company. Not even registered to me.”

  “Have you noticed any new vehicles parked near your house or business? Like repair vans, utility vans, or trucks?”

  “Nothing, man. I’m at home and it’s all quiet. This phone’s untraceable.”

  “Let’s do it then. Two hundred?”

  “Too much.”

  “Come on. You were set to go five.”

  “That’s before you became a celebrity.”

  “Two hundred, Angel. That’s a big cut.”

  “I can go one-fifty.”

  “All right. One-fifty, cash. But you got to come with a small RV.”

  “What?”

  “A small RV. This is good fishing country, you’ll blend in and the RV’s good for travel. One-fifty and a small RV.”

  “Where can I get one?”

  “Rent it, buy it, I don’t give a damn, just get one or kiss one million in product good-bye.”

  The senior agents nodded for Zelaya to make a deal. “Okay, okay. One-fifty cash and a small RV.”

  “Come alone, tonight. Here are the directions...”

  74

  It was an island on the Pacific side of Costa Rica with white sand beaches, nodding palms, and forests fragrant with orchids. Engler had read about it in prison. He imagined how he could lose himself in one of its villages, start a new life where the past couldn’t touch him, where he could live free.

  He carried that dream every moment of every day. It got him through the long haul. Got him past the pain Tom Reed had caused. Engler’s hatred for Reed had never died. He had fed it to fate. Whatever happened, happened. He’d decided to work on getting to his island.

  Engler needed one clean score. It all came together in C Yard where he’d met Tribe. Partnering with a sexual predator was a risk, but Tribe’s connection to the job was Engler’s ticket to the island.

  They were patient old cons, taking their time to develop their plan when they got out, working on Caesar, on Carrie, on Angel. It all came off until fate went to work at the jewelry store and gave Engler a divine gift. Tom Reed’s wife, Ann. It blew his mind. Wife for wife. Life for life.

  Tribe could never grasp the cosmic importance of such an event because he was a subhuman twisted being who was a slave to bestial forces.

  It wasn’t personal, Del, but you were a liability.

  The universe had entrusted Engler with t
he duty to right a wrong. Tribe understood few things. His animal needs, and that they’d agreed to leave no one alive who could identify them.

  No one, Del. No witnesses. That was the deal, partner. That’s what Engler had told Tribe before he slit his throat, disemboweled him, then dragged his body to the swamp.

  “That’s just the way it is,” Engler said aloud, peering through the cobwebs covering the filthy cracked glass of the window.

  Still no sign of Zelaya.

  It was a small farmhouse built just before the Second World War, hidden deep amid thirty acres of pinewood forest in the corner of an East Texas County northeast of Huntsville.

  “Belonged to my grand-pappy who kept his still there. Been overlooked by county surveyors,” Driscoll had boasted one night in the garage he’d rented in San Francisco where they’d planned the heist. Engler insisted he draw him a detailed map to it.

  Floor planks creaked as Engler left the window for the dust-covered table to inspect the gym bag filled with jewelry. It glittered in the twilight.

  He checked on the propane camping lanterns Driscoll had supplied in the van. Engler hid the truck in a far corner, deep in the forest. Lanterns looked fine. He checked on his arsenal: three assault rifles, a Mac-11, an AK-47, and an Ml6, four handguns, semi-automatics, two Glocks, a .45 Smith & Wesson, and a Beretta, grenades, a bag of ammo, trip wires. He tore into a pack of beef jerky and paced.

  “Come on, Angel.”

  Engler could make it to the gulf tonight. He had a connection there where he could buy his way onto a Panama-bound cargo ship, then make his way to Costa Rica. Then to the West Coast. He was so close. He just needed Zelaya’s cash and the RV to get him out of here.

  Engler shrugged. If Zelaya didn’t come to him, he’d go to Zelaya in Houston. Zelaya had children. One way or another, Engler would see to it that Angel held up his end.

  It was coming up on the hour. Engler turned up the radio and gnawed on his jerky, waiting to catch the latest news updates. He scanned the stations.

  “Unconfirmed reports have identified the victim as Delmar James Tribe, one of the two fugitives. The national manhunt has led to a dragnet in East Texas involving the FBI and scores of law officials from across the state. Tom Reed, husband of the abducted woman, arrived at the Lufkin mobile home park where his wife was seen pleading for help. He spoke to reporters there. WTTX’s Melody Honeycutt was there. Tom Reed, a crime reporter from San Francisco, made an emotional appeal for his wife. ‘I just want to say to the men who’ve taken my wife, Ann Reed, please let her go. She’s never hurt you—’”

  Engler rubbed the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson across his lips, then heard the sounds of grass brushing against moving metal, then the low squeak of brakes, prompting him to switch off the radio and go to the window.

  An RV had stopped in bushes at the far end of the property. No one moved from the driver’s door. The light reflecting on the windshield made it impossible to see if Zelaya was inside the cab.

  Little chickenshit. Afraid to get out. To hell with him. Engler had no time for games. He shoved his handgun in his waistband, grabbed his assault rifle, then stepped from the farmhouse.

  75

  Captain Vern Stinton, commander of the Department of Public Safety SWAT team, was a bumpy-faced big man, whose eyes lit with anger upon seeing Reed.

  “I own this damn scene. I don’t like him or you being here. It’s not the way I do things.” Stinton nodded to Reed. “Just keep the hell out of my way and we’ll get along.”

  McDaniel and Sydowski nodded.

  Stinton went back to studying sketches and rough maps of the property. His crew had set up in an abandoned barn, shielded naturally by a hill a hundred yards from the farmhouse where Engler was.

  Once the FBI had obtained directions to the site from Zelaya, no time was wasted. DPS Aircraft Section dispatched a single-engined 206 Cessna from Region One out of Garland near Dallas. It conducted covert surveillance, flying so high it could not be heard or seen, but was able to pinpoint the site with high-powered telescopic equipment and guide Stinton’s SWAT team.

  Some sixteen members, most of them Highway Patrol troopers called in from Madisonville, Crockett, Lufkin, Groveton, Huntsville, and Tyler, rolled to the command post where they were briefed.

  They suited up in camouflage gear, crept up to the building, which had dense forest cover. In silence they’d set up an inner perimeter on the farmhouse. Stinton assessed the updates first from the scouts on the best points; then the other team members took positions, reporting by radio to Stinton and his commanders who directed the operation from the command post.

  “We’re sending the RV to the extreme edge, where he can see it, to draw him out for a takedown,” Stinton said.

  Reed, Sydowski, McDaniel, Ira Doyle, and a small number of federal, state, and county emergency officials observed.

  The Highway Patrol had sealed an outer perimeter, setting up roadblocks to keep back the press and the rubberneckers who were gathering at the far boundaries, straining to see something.

  Inside the barn, where temperatures were nearing ninety degrees, the SWAT radio crackled with a report from one of Stinton’s scouts.

  “We see him inside.”

  “What about hostages? See anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  Stinton shook his head.

  Reed shut his eyes. What did Engler do with her? They’d found Tribe, the chain around the tree, the blood, the clothing strewn about. Jesus. Reed stepped out of the barn and ran a hand over his sweating face. Sydowski followed him.

  “Tom, we don’t know anything until we can get in there.”

  The soft radio talk of Stinton’s team leader spilled from the barn. Sydowski and Reed listened as one of the scouts said, “Okay, the RV’s just edged up to the far end.”

  Stinton waited. His team relayed more whispered updates.

  “There’s movement. He sees it. Hasn’t drawn him out yet. Wait, there’s movement. Yup, here we go. He’s stepping out to meet the RV. He’s armed. Looks like an AK. Repeat, suspect is armed.”

  “Head’s up, everybody.” Stinton told his snipers to line up a clear shot.

  76

  Engler couldn’t take his eyes from the RV. A white twenty-five-footer cab-over bed, roof AC. Looked like a rental. Tinted glass.

  The tall grass and overgrowth reached his waist. He grew weary as he walked, resting the AK-47’s barrel on his shoulder, thinking how Angel was such an asshole sitting out there.

  “This is Sergeant Paul Harris—”

  The bullhorn shattered the quiet. Engler dropped to the ground.

  “—of the Texas Department of Public Safety—” Police. Goddammit. Angel set him up. The farmhouse was some thirty yards away. Engler began crawling back on his stomach as fast as he could, cursing Zelaya.

  “Halt! Release your weapons and raise your hands—” Engler’s sweating fingers tightened on his AK-47. He rolled and fired several rounds toward the sound of the cop’s voice. Engler was twenty yards from the farmhouse when police returned fire, rounds whip-snipping through the grass, thudding into the earth, soil erupting near his head.

  “Halt!”

  Fifteen yards now. Engler heard the RV’s engine start. More gunfire. The truck pursued him. Engler rolled to his back again and let go three staccato bursts, the RV’s windshield blossomed, chrome peeled, the engine growled as rounds plunked into metal, popping headlights, shattering windows.

  Engler crawled five yards more as the RV’s engine roared and it retreated, vanishing backward into the forest.

  “You mothers!” he screamed into the dusk. “You son-of-a-bitching mothers!” Engler squirmed in the tall grass, unloading a spray of automatic fire in all directions, before returning unscathed into the farmhouse.

  Stinton ordered his team to cease firing and called for status reports.

  They came back fast. No hits. No casualties. Stinton puffed his cheeks and exhaled, embracing a degree of relief
that was short-lived.

  “Sir,” a scout said over the radio, “from here, it looks like he’s got the place trip-wired with grenades. We can’t get tight on the house.”

  Damn! Stinton rubbed a hand over his spiky brush cut. Damn!

  His squad leader’s voice came over the radio: “Gas him?”

  “Not yet. Everyone get comfortable, make sure you got cover. Get the negotiator on the bullhorn. Let’s try talking to him.”

  Reed paced just outside the small barn, his jaw dropping at the RV limping back to the command post, bumping along flattened rear tires, remnants of punctured glass tinkling from metal dangling like war wounds. The vehicle stopped and half a dozen heavily armed SWAT members in camouflage and body armor stepped from it.

  Near the farmhouse a bullhorn crackled from the forest. “John Engler, this is Sergeant Ralph Langer. Are you hurt, John? Can we get you anything?”

  Inside, Engler was panting, shaking his head as if hearing a joke. His hands trembled as he loaded his weapons, strapping them to his body, stuffing his handguns into his waistband. Let’s see, I’m good for homicides in California and Texas. Death penalty states. Just fired on police. What could they possibly offer me? A cheeseburger and an execution date.

  “John?” Langer called. “Why don’t you come out, son?”

  Son? The guy sounded twenty and he was calling him son. Christ. Engler had spent more time in a cell than this guy had spent on the planet.

  “Are you hungry? We can send in some food. Why don’t you release anybody you got there with you? How about a trade, John?”

  Engler stomped toward the window.

  “I’ve got Ann Reed with me! The next shot fired at me means the second one goes into her head! Understand?”