by Roger Hayden
Miriam tried her most bold move yet—antagonizing him. “You want to know what I think?”
“Not really, but go ahead,” he said.
“I don’t believe that you have her anymore.”
He chuckled on the other end. “Really?”
“I don’t know what happened to her. Maybe she escaped.”
“Or maybe I already killed her,” he added.
The comment nearly sent her over the edge, but she maintained her cool and tried to keep her voice from wavering. “Maybe you did… Either way, that explains the decoy, Allison.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Miriam. Maybe I’ll just go on and let you think that. But you’ll never know, will you?” He paused as his breathing became heavier. “You’ll never know!” his distorted voice shouted, crackling over the phone.
“Either way. It’s hopeless,” she said. “Why even try to find you if she isn’t there?”
“She’s here, all right. Maybe I’ll just have a little fun with her after this phone call.”
Miriam balled her fist as the agents observed her stoic expression and increasingly upset tone, trying to imagine just what kind of conversation she was having. Of course, they’d listen to the recording when it was over.
“Go ahead and make your threats. I’m done. The search is off.” Miriam held the phone away and mimed hanging it up. “Good-bye…”
“Wait!” he shouted on the other end. “Fine. I’ll suppose I’ll let you talk to her. Just hold on.”
She could hear his footsteps stomping off across a hardwood floor, the sound becoming fainter. A door creaked open as he attempted to muffle the phone with his hands. She heard more wood creaking. A hollow, echoing kind of sound told her he was going down the stairs. Miriam tried to visualize the place as best she could.
“Hi there, Ana…” he said in an enthusiastic and friendly voice, adding a feminine Southern drawl. “Your mom’s on the phone and would like to speak with you.”
The phone crackled some more as a distorted pop sounded. “You got five seconds…” a deeper, manlier voice said a short distance away from the phone. The many facets of Phillip Anderson were on eerie display.
“Mom?” a timid and distorted voice said.
Miriam’s eyes watered as she gasped in relief. “Ana!”
“Mom, help me!”
Miriam heard sounds of struggling. “Ana, where are you?”
“A cabin!” she shouted. “Mom—”
Then the call ended. Her bluff had worked, mostly. She set the phone down and rubbed her temples. She was sitting at her desk and feeling as if she was going to pass out. Hearing Ana had raised her spirits, but she also felt sick about bluffing and possibly jeopardizing the fate of her daughter in such a way. The conversation could have gone wrong in the worst possible way, but it was a risk that, for the most part, seemed to have paid off.
“You okay?” Lou asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah,” Miriam said, wiping her eyes. “Just need a minute.”
Lou pressed play on his digital recorder as they stood and listened to the conversation. The GPS had not picked up a location. Anderson apparently had his own gadgets as well. After hearing the recording, Nettles, standing at the center of the table, looked around the room, ready, it seemed, to share his observations.
“Agent Castillo did good work there. We found out quite a bit.” He held out his palm and began to count on each finger. “They’re staying in a cabin. Miriam’s daughter is being held downstairs. Probably in some kind of basement. The lawyer is in direct contact with Anderson.”
He stopped and pointed to Agent Willis. “We need to pull the records of that call. I want to hear everything they said. And who knows, Kershner could end up in prison next to his buddy.”
Willis nodded.
“It’s not clear why he called, other than to verify what the lawyer had conveyed.”
Lou stepped in. “He didn’t sound angry. He almost sounded disappointed.”
“Some part of him wants to get caught,” Nettles said. “We see it all the time, especially with fugitives on the run.”
Miriam joined the circle and offered her own assessment. “We can’t wait much longer. We have to strike now. He isn’t going to hurt Ana, not when he feels safe. But if he feels cornered at any point, that all changes.”
Willis said, “Even if we find this cabin, how the heck are we going to get close enough? He’ll see us coming a mile away.”
“We need a team to go to this abandoned building for starters,” Nettles said. His partner gave him a blank look, and he continued: “Either way, word of the raid is getting back to Anderson. That’s one hell of a distraction.”
Miriam looked game but was quiet as she stared at the county map ahead.
“You okay there, Agent Castillo?” Lou asked with a smile.
“Sure,” Miriam said. “About as okay as I can get. Trust me, I’ll be able to breathe easy once this is all over with.”
Lou touched her shoulder, offering comfort. She looked up into his eyes and touched his hand.
Nettles jumped in. “Ah! I have something for you.” He turned his back and went to a nearby desk where an FBI bag rested. He unzipped the bag and pulled out a black leather shoulder holster. “This is for your coronation as a probationary agent,” he said, handing it to her.
The group applauded, putting a fleeting smile on Miriam’s face. She slipped the holster on and wore it—it was a snug fit. She pulled the Beretta from her pocket and holstered it.
For a moment, everything felt as if it was going to work out. Miriam was in good company. But she also knew there was still a long way to go and a million ways in which it could go wrong.
***
Phillip threw Ana against the wall the moment she shouted into the phone, knocking her out. Somehow, she always managed to bring out the worst in him, starting with the shovel incident. As she collapsed on the floor, unconscious, he raised his foot, ready to stomp on her face. But he hesitated. Killing her would be pointless. She still served a purpose, and she would find that out soon enough. Usually it just took Phillip a couple of beers; then he’d have his way with her.
“You’re a stupid little bitch just like your mom,” he said, staring down at her.
Her eyes were closed, and she was unresponsive. Phillip held on to his burner phone, breathing heavily, and then noticed something out of place on the floor next to her single dirty mattress. The plate of food he had brought her only hours before was missing. He saw plastic utensils sitting on a napkin, but no plate.
Curious, he knelt down and began searching around, slipping his hands under the mattress and then stopping. There was something there. He peeled back the mattress and made an interesting discovery: her glass plate had been broken into sharp, blade-like pieces, grouped together and hidden. He placed the shards in his hand and stood up, smiling.
“Clever…” he said, turning away.
He walked back up the stairs and exited the basement, closing and locking the door behind him. There were five men—hired guns—in the living room of his small cabin, all lounging around on chairs and talking or messing with their phones.
“It’s time to act, gentlemen,” he said, gaining their attention. The early morning sun was coming through the windows. The men were unshaven and dressed in green camouflaged gear. A line of AR-15 M4 rifles rested on a small table near the kitchen.
“The FBI are closing in and closing in fast,” he said.
One of the men jolted up from the couch, rubbing his eyes. “Here?”
“No, on one of my properties in Homestead. I don’t know what the fuck they’re thinking, but I got a lead about the raid.”
“Fuck ’em,” another man said, scratching his beard. “Let them go on a wild goose chase. We’ll kick it back here.”
The other men laughed in agreement.
“This isn’t a joke. How long do you think it’ll be before they find out about this place too?”
>
The room went silent.
Phillip looked at his watch. “Just twelve more hours, and me and my relatives will have all the documents we need to flee the country and start new lives.”
“You should be safe,” the bearded man said. “They’ll never find the cabin in time.”
“They’ll never find the cabin because they’ll be dead,” Phillip said, silencing the room once again.
“What are you talking about, Mr. Anderson?” a young, disheveled man asked, leaning forward in a recliner.
“I want two of you to load up the truck with explosives and rig the building within the next hour. Might even get a fat insurance check out of it.”
The men looked at each other with concern. Livid, Philip walked into the room and stood in the center of a circle rug. “Need I remind you that we’ve already lost five men? Five good men! Colleagues of yours, I might add.”
“Yeah, but—”
“That’s all there is to it!” Phillip barked. “Now you each are making, what? A million, a million and a half each? It’s the least you can do.”
Phillip looked around the room. “Any volunteers?”
Kershner had told him he was working on getting the Anderson family out of protective custody and then taking them to the cabin. From there, they would flee the country via private plane and start new lives. Somewhere they could start again and not have to face the risk of extradition. So far, everything was going to plan. Perhaps Phillip’s biggest mistake was giving Miriam a chance. He loathed her but also believed in leaving some things to destiny—it was one of the many paranoid facets of his personalities.
No one was quick to raise his hand. Phillip turned around 360 degrees with his arms out, waiting, as his anger mounted. “Okay,” he said, stopping. “I’ll make it an even two million.”
Still no one would volunteer. Phillip felt his power quickly fading. Money seemed to do little to quell the men’s fears. He stormed out of the room and told them that they were on their own.
***
Another FBI team had arrived on-site at the Miami-Dade Police Department. In the meeting room, Miriam, Nettles, and everyone on their team monitored a large, angled screen displaying satellite images of the Southern Glades area at a fifty-mile radius. They had zeroed in on the property marked as Anderson’s. It was a wide-ranging area that would take perhaps all day to search on foot.
By air, however, it was a different story. Through the satellite imagery, Nettles was able to find what looked like two structures—cabins possibly. They were approximately ten acres apart from each other. The question remained—which one was Phillip Anderson hiding in, if any? The plan was laid out. The newly arrived FBI team would raid the office building, providing a distraction while the other team would survey the Southern Glades property and ambush each cabin.
“We’ll be in constant communication with each other,” Nettles told both teams.
Miriam listened to his instructions with a sense of renewed hope. They were close. She had twelve hours left, with no idea what would happen to Ana if she didn’t find her in time. Anderson was erratic. He was unpredictable. And he was insane. The meeting ended and both teams assembled outside, behind the building, out of view, where they were able to draw equipment and ammunition from an FBI van. Lou handed Miriam a heavy FBI flak vest.
“This doesn’t feel too heavy,” he said.
As she put it over her shoulders, she begged to differ. She filled the slots in her shoulder holster with full magazines as the other agents geared up and got ready. Nettles went over everything again and asked the teams to check their communications.
Each member had a small earpiece connected to a high-frequency radio. Team A would take the van to the Homestead building to conduct a raid, while Team B—Nettles, Willis, Lou, and Detective Belmont—would take the helicopters. Their two FBI pilots, Cassie and Douglas, were suited up and ready.
Nettles and Willis were going to ride in the first copter with two SWAT team members while Miriam went into the second helicopter with the other detectives and two other SWAT officers.
With everything in motion, the teams split up and proceeded with the plan. Miriam climbed into one of the helicopters with Lou and the two Lee County detectives, who looked eager to be a part of the mission.
“This could make us all famous,” Detective Belmont said as the helicopter’s blades began whirring. Each passenger had a helmet with a microphone on it so they could hear each other once the engine started and they were in flight. Nettles could communicate with them from the other copter as well.
The pilot steered them up off the ground while gravity pushed them to their bench seats. Miriam couldn’t remember the last time she had been in a helicopter. Her heart raced with anticipation as they jetted past the police station and across town, headed south.
“I want to make sure we’re all on the same page here,” Nettles’s voice said through Miriam’s headphones.
“So first, everyone do a check, starting with Miriam—I mean Agent Castillo.”
“Check,” Miriam said.
Everyone followed as Nettles went down the list. The lush, green world below passed them by at twenty-five-thousand feet. They flew over dozens of large, blue bodies of water—Miriam had never realized how many lakes there were in the area. It was just past nine in the morning. The sun was out in full force, lighting the thin, transparent clouds. Then below, there was just flatland, untouched—it seemed. Acres of trees, swamps, sawgrass, and flowing water as far as the eye could see.
“We’re about ten minutes out from his property,” Nettles said over the comm. “Everyone keep a careful eye out.”
Lou surveyed the land below with a pair of binoculars. A crackle came over Miriam’s headset. Detective Belmont gave her a curious glance. After a pause, Nettles’s voice came over the headset. “No stone unturned, people. Time to bring a career criminal to justice.”
An impasse. For a minute, everyone was quiet until Lou, binoculars in hand, suddenly pointed toward the ground. “Structure sighted!”
Everyone turned to look. A small, abandoned-looking cabin was in the distance, open and exposed. Her heart jumped, but then something was strange about how easy it was to spot. There were no vehicles or people around it either.
“Keep going,” she said to the pilot.
“What are you doing?” Nettles said.
“That’s not the cabin,” she said.
“Looks like a cabin to me,” Willis said.
“Take it down,” Nettles said.
“You guys search that cabin, we’ll get the next one,” Miriam said.
“Just like we planned, right?” Lou added. He looked at Miriam and shook his head, covering his mic. “Damn Feds.”
“We heard that!” Nettles said. Miriam looked out the window as the first helicopter swooped low and touched ground. She then searched out the window for the next cabin, or something resembling it. Lou kept careful watch as they flew over a large patch of trees and brush, perfect cover. Miriam remained plastered to the window when a shiny flicker of light caught her eye.
“There!” she said, pointing.
Lou turned and moved to the other window, crouched down, and looked out with his binos.
“What do you see?” Miriam asked him.
“I don’t know. Nothing but trees.”
“It’s there,” she said. “I know it.”
“There’s nowhere to land,” the pilot said.
“Find something!” Miriam said. “I saw something silver and shiny back there. You have to turn back.”
He made a turn and they circled the forest once again. Lou finally zeroed in on whatever it was that Miriam had seen.
“It’s a vehicle!” he said.
Detective Belmont lifted his mic. “Agent Nettles, what’s your status?”
Faint crackling came over their headsets, followed by Nettles’s distant voice. “Surrounding the cabin now. Doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”
The pi
lot turned to Miriam and pointed to a clearing, which seemed to be as close as he could get to the area they had identified earlier. Miriam looked closer and could see what looked like an enormous camouflaged tarp hanging from the trees, obscuring the view of whatever was under it.
Bravo Team landed with a jolt and rushed out, leaving the pilot with the copter. About one hundred feet ahead, Miriam saw an old cabin hidden under a camouflaged canopy with a vacant air to it, though she could feel Anderson’s presence. Her legs picked up steam as she rushed ahead, driven by sheer instinct.
As the team rushed forward, Nettles reported that their cabin was clear, all but solidifying Miriam’s hunch. When they were twenty feet from the cabin, shots rang out from the inside, blasting from the windows, shattering the glass and hitting the trees all around them. Detective Jade took a shot to the leg and fell to the ground.
“I’m hit!” he yelled.
Miriam pushed forward, moving in between the trees with her Beretta drawn. After a brief pause, more rapid gunfire surrounded them. Lou directed the team to take cover and advance cautiously. Was Ana still inside? Miriam could hardly prevent herself from running ahead to the cabin. Just when it looked as though Bravo Team was going to be pinned down for the long haul, the shooters ran out of the house and toward a muddy Ford F-250, fleeing the scene.
Miriam rushed forward and shot the tires out, taking cover on the side of the cabin. She didn’t know how many of them there were, but she saw three in the truck. They turned and started firing back. She dropped to her knees and took cover as wood chunks flew all around her. As soon as the engine started, she turned and fired at the truck, striking the driver in the head.
He slumped over the wheel as the others jumped out of the truck and tried to run. She raised her gun but couldn’t bring herself to shoot them in the back. At that moment, a hail of gunfire blasted from behind her, taking the two fleeing men out. Their backs exploded as their heads jerked back and their hands flew into the air. They dropped to their stomachs, motionless and contorted. Miriam turned around, shocked, to see Detective Jade behind her with his rifle aimed.