“I second that, Marjorie,” responded Edwards as Ruck left the room.
Edwards returned his mind to the next item sitting in his inbox. In another half hour, he would receive a courtesy call from HE Stephens Rowley III, USA Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. Would Ambassador Rowley be aware that Dr Lewis was missing? Unlikely, so he would not tell him.
Edwards had sufficient time to call his fellow Central Bank Governor in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on another matter before Ambassador Rowley arrived.
***
Vickers now had what he considered to be the back-story to events prior to the non-appearance (he preferred to use that word rather than disappearance) of Dr Lewis. A visit to Mrs Lewis for her side of the story would further help him. Due to the importance of Dr Lewis’ position at CBOB, and of him being one of the Government’s main financial advisers, it was decided to keep this issue under wraps for as long as possible, certainly from the media.
Vickers hoped Dr Lewis would turn up shortly, ideally before day’s end and could explain his absence. If he did so, this would all quickly go away and become ‘yesterday’s news’, though it would never be forgotten by his family or employer.
***
Chapter Nine
Breakout
Incidents of attempted prisoner escapes in Barbados while being transported by law enforcement agencies between the prison and court for appearances were far and few between. Successful escapes just did not happen.
Ten minutes into today’s journey out of HMP Dodds, this would all change.
Just after the leading RBPF escort vehicle had rounded a slight corner, two loud noises were heard. Gunshots. Nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds until, almost as if in slow motion, the prisoner transport vehicle swerved across the road before slamming into the ten-foot high rockface through which the road had been cut fifty years earlier.
Randolph Perch, the BPS officer driving the prisoner transport vehicle, felt the steering wheel escape both of his hands. He could do nothing about what was happening to his vehicle. Clarence Rouse, the senior BPS officer on the day’s PR was sat in the front passenger seat. He screamed an obscenity that should never be repeated in front of children but was acceptable given the circumstances. He was sure that Perch had not hit anything on the road. As the vehicle hit the rockface, Perch’s head smashed into the side of the cab. He also received several cuts from fragments of glass emanating from the shattered windscreen and driver’s side window.
Perch and Rouse started to gather themselves, but quickly became aware of further imminent danger. There was the noise, then through Rouse’s window they saw a six-wheeled truck heading directly for their vehicle. It appeared to Rouse that the truck coming their way had been specially rigged for the task it was set to perform. Both men screamed and looked away just before the truck slammed into Rouse’s side of the prisoner transport vehicle, driving it into the rockface for a second time before reversing. A few seconds later, the now badly damaged prisoner transport vehicle righted itself by falling back onto what was left of its wheels.
Perch, now in agony, was slumped over the steering wheel and recognised blood on himself and around the cab. He did not know what to do next and so did not move. Rouse on the other hand, wanted to exit the vehicle and get away from the vehicular carnage as soon as possible. He soon realised that movement was impossible for him. His left arm felt broken and his feet had somehow gotten tangled up with the shattered door on his side of the vehicle from the truck’s impact. Swearing even more loudly again, Rouse could only look over at Perch. They pitied each other.
They could hear their passengers, three fellow BPS officers and the five prisoners shouting and banging the vehicle’s sides for help in the back of the prisoner transport vehicle. Just a few minutes ago, all ten occupants of the vehicle had been travelling safely (if not comfortably). That now seemed an eternity ago.
***
Leading the three-vehicle PR convoy was the RBPF vehicle. In it were three officers. Their vehicle had already rounded and cleared a slight corner in the road when they had heard what to their experienced ears were gunshots. Checking his rear-view mirror, driver Paul Reece noticed that the prisoner transport vehicle travelling behind them was not there.
“Heard that?” asked Sergeant Malcolm Holder. He was the senior RBPF officer on today’s PR.
“Sure did, Sarge. Something’s up,” responded Reece, slowing down the vehicle.
“Okay. Stop. Better still, let’s get back there quick to see what’s going on, Paul,” ordered Holder.
Rather than turn the vehicle around, Reece put the vehicle into reverse. The weapons of Sergeant Holder and the third RBPF officer were already drawn.
The RBPF vehicle never reached the scene of the damaged prisoner transport vehicle. The six-wheeled truck had anticipated the RBPF vehicle’s return and so was ready to undertake its second destructive action. As the truck smashed into the RBPF vehicle, the sight and sound appeared to be even more fearsome than had been the case when the truck had hit the prisoner transport vehicle.
***
The RBPF vehicle, having been hit by the oncoming six-wheel truck, was rammed with such force that it toppled onto its side and rolled over a couple of times before ending up in the roadside’s ditch.
Holder was the first to react inside the vehicle. Though his nose was bloodied, he shouted at his two fellow officers.
“You guys okay? We’re in real trouble boys, so keep your head’s down,” he ordered.
There was no answer at first, so Holder looked around inside the overturned vehicle. Luckily, he was otherwise fine, but Reece had not moved since the vehicle had come to a halt. Holder suspected that Reece might have received a blow to his head during the collision and aftermath. The third and youngest officer started to moan.
“What’s your condition, son?” asked Holder.
“My left leg’s caught behind Reece’s seat Sarge and I can’t move it,” he responded.
“Okay. Stay still. I’ll see what I can do for you once I’ve assessed what’s happening outside. Remember, stay down,” he ordered again. Gun in hand, Holder poked his head out of the damaged vehicle.
What he saw confirmed his first thought and fear. This was a breakout. How many men are involved in it were unknown but Jesus, did it have to happen on my PR?
Just then, further explosions were heard. More gunfire. Where was it coming from, Holder wondered?
***
BIB’s Gold team was the third vehicle in the day’s PR convoy. As per protocol, JJ had driven thirty yards behind the BPS prisoner transport vehicle and so had seen it suddenly swerve and hit the rockface for no apparent reason. Alarm bells went off when they noticed a six-wheeled truck’s appearance and its first action.
“Something bad is happening team. Let’s get ready to respond. Where’s the lead escort?” JJ asked, slowing down his vehicle, only to observe the damage that was then done to the RBPF vehicle by the same truck.
“What the hell –” shouted Jayne as the RBPF vehicle ended up by the roadside’s ditch.
***
A car was also rapidly approaching the scene.
They were three masked persons in it. The car screeched to a halt where, in the blink of an eye, the person in the back seat opened his door. Jumping out and, he headed directly towards the prisoner transport vehicle. He had a metal-cutting tool in his hand which he used to completely open the prisoner transport vehicle’s back door which was already half-open from the earlier collisions. The man proceeded to cut away the inner metal door containing Power and also released him from the prisoner restraints that had secured him to the prisoner transport vehicle before giving him a stern directive.
“Run like hell to the open back door of that car.”
Power needed no second invitation to escape and so did as he was told.
The metal-cutting rescuer followed Power into the getaway car. Power was alarmed when the car did not move off immediately b
ut understood why when a fourth masked man joined them in the back seat. He appeared winded from his run to the getaway car, managing to drag his right leg into it.
Power, in true Bajan dialect, wondered to himself: Where de hell he come from?
“Hurry up, hurry up man. All in?” asked the driver.
The car door slammed shut.
“Yes,” said the fourth masked man breathlessly.
“Then let’s get the hell out ta here boys,” said the driver, moving the getaway car away from the scene.
It was now time to ensure its safe getaway from the scene. Those in the getaway car knew that neither the RBPF and BPS officers were able to stop their escape because they were incapacitated and had no working vehicles to pursue them with. The other agency was unlikely to pursue them, given the carnage that the getaway car’s occupants had left behind. There was one way to ensure that there would be no immediate pursuit.
“You know what to do,” said the driver to his front seat passenger.
“Yeah,” was the response as he would down his window and reached for his rifle.
Power, knowing the getaway car’s driver, engaged him. “Thanks for the rescue, man.”
“Just doing a job, Stabs. Be jolly now.”
***
It was Mohammed who spotted what turned out to be the getaway car.
As the Gold team pulled up on the confused scene, they were greeted by several gunshots which appeared to be coming from the getaway car as it started to speed away.
In response, Mohammed and Jayne exited JJ’s vehicle with their weapons drawn. They knew they could not save this situation. But they had witnessed what had gone down and picked up that the last person who had ran from the truck to the getaway car’s back door had a problem with his right leg. Did he get hurt during today’s prisoner rescue or was he carrying a more long-term injury which made him run so gingerly to the getaway car? They filed away this nugget of information in their minds in case it helped them later on in any investigation tracking down the persons responsible for today’s event.
The six-wheeled truck used to ram the prisoner transport vehicle into the rockface and push the RBPF vehicle off the road now stood, engine still running where it had been abandoned at the scene. It was the starkest of reminders of what had just taken place.
Why had JJ’s Gold team not responded to the getaway car’s gunfire or even gone after it at speed? That was not their primary goal during any PR exercise. This was to secure the prisoners that they were charged with escorting. It was also time to check on their law enforcement colleagues on the scene.
Given all that had transpired, JJ had a good idea which one of the five prisoners would not be here.
***
The breakout had come as a shock to the three law enforcement agencies involved in the convoy. It had taken place quickly, efficiently and successfully, though it had not been as clinical as its executors had anticipated. Nevertheless, it had been a carefully calculated and yes, vicious event.
During the assault, the RBPF officers in their escort vehicle had all been hurt. Their vehicle had also been badly damaged if not destroyed. A bloodied Sergeant Holder was shaken up but had managed to exit his vehicle to return fire at the gun-toting rescuer sitting in the front seat of the getaway car. Holder’s shots had not prevented its escape.
The five BPS officers were also hurt, though they had no injuries that would not heal over time. Sensibly, the three officers in the back of the prisoner transport vehicle had made no attempt to prevent the removal of Power from his segregated area in it. Maybe they were afraid of getting hurt. Senior BPS officer Rouse had no way of doing this given his physical state. This situation was a first for them.
Investigations would later reveal that the prisoner transport vehicle’s front and rear left sided tyres had been shot out, causing it to leave the road and crash into the rockface. Everyone inside of the vehicle had been thrown around. The BPS officers and remaining prisoners all had a few cuts and bruises.
Whereas Jessica Lynch, Franchesca Moradi and Orrin Foulkes had been able to stumble away from the much-damaged but now right-sided prisoner transport vehicle and now sat close together on the ground, Warren Field had taken the opportunity to make a run for his freedom through the deep brush that lined both sides of the road not far from the rockface.
***
Once the shooting had ended, JJ reported immediately to Colonel Burke on BIB’s communications system what had just taken place. Colonel Burke agreed to inform Jeremie and Innis immediately and to send appropriate back up personnel to JJ’s location forthwith.
The Gold team checked on the status of the prisoners. They confirmed that of the five prisoners they had left HMP Dodds with, Power was gone. So too was Field. The three remaining, Lynch, Moradi and Foulkes were accounted for, had no life-threating injures and were obviously not keen to go anywhere.
Next, the Gold team checked on their RBPF and BPS colleagues. While JJ would normally have expected the senior officers from both agencies to have already contacted their superiors through their respective communication systems about the incident, given their respective conditions, this had not been possible on this occasion. JJ’s team did what they could to assist and comfort their injured law enforcement colleagues in the knowledge that ‘back-up’ and medical help was on the way.
JJ had just finished his second update to Colonel Burke when an old man came down the road in his donkey cart. Approaching them somewhat curiously, he looked at the confused scene.
“What’s going on here? Need some help?” he asked.
If JJ had not witnessed this incident for himself, he’d not believe it. It could have been a scene from one of those Hollywood movies he’d seen more than once before.
***
Superintendent Innis and George Telford, his deputy, were in their mid-week senior BPS management meeting for officers responsible for running each cell block at HMS Dodds. None of Telford’s colleagues thought much about it at the time, but would later recall that during their meeting, he had frequently looked at his watch and had seemed somewhat distracted when once asked about the maintenance contract for the compound’s security fences, providing an initial incoherent answer before pulling himself together to respond appropriately to Innis’ question.
Forty-eight hours later, Telford’s BPS colleagues began to understand why he might have been distracted.
***
Vickers and Moss drove up to the well-appointed residence of Dr Albert and Betty Lewis. She stood at the front door, waiting to greet them once they had ascended the steps.
Moments later, Vickers and Moss sat down across from Mrs Lewis in comfortable chairs in the family room of the Lewis home. Mrs Lewis offered them tea, coffee or a cold drink. Vickers accepted the cold drink, Moss the tea. Ava Prescod, maid to the Lewis family, quickly brought the requested items and left the room, enabling them to get down to business.
***
The media in Barbados, like the media in most countries, listened in on all police radio frequencies. Efforts over time to stop this practice had failed, so toleration by the authorities had been accepted.
It was therefore no surprise that within twenty minutes of the prisoners escape incident, local media had descended on the area. Thankfully, within ten minutes of the event’s conclusion, the area had been secured by three joint four-member RBPF/BDF teams. They had been a couple of miles away on roving patrol as part of the ECC project. Media respectfully stood behind the RBPF DO NOT CROSS incident tape line that had been put in place by still arriving RBPF officers in their attempt to secure the entire area. The damaged BPS transport and RBPF escort vehicles were visible for everyone to see. Pictures were being taken of them by RBPF personnel, along with the broken glass, the remaining three assembled prisoners, and injured BPS and RBPF officers. The positions of spent gunshot shells were noted, photographed and collected. JJ’s Gold team had sought to prevent pictures being taken of the scene, injured or shaken-
up prisoners and law enforcement officials (including themselves), but they could not be sure that enterprising journalists, or anyone else at the scene with a phone which all have cameras, had not already done so intending to post captured images of the incident on social media. Indeed, this might already have been done.
Quickly on the scene to help out was Inspector Melanie Gray, the RBPF’s newly-minted public relations officer. She spoke first with Sergeant Holder, the senior RBPF officer responsible for escorting the day’s PR before speaking with Clarence Rouse, lead BPS officer before finally coming over to speak with JJ.
Gray and JJ had some history, she was the Station Sergeant in charge of Worthing police station when the attempt had been made to assassinate Motby and had accommodated JJ, Fred and Joe’s interrogation of Miles ‘Sugar’ Roberts, a well-known snitch.
“Not good,” stated JJ.
“Nope. My Commissioner is going to be pissed that all three of his men were hurt. The media will have all sorts of questions but let them wait awhile,” said Gray. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much more than what the BPS crew and your officers have already told you. It was a slick operation. We couldn’t stop the escape. It was well planned. Must admit, the execution wasn’t bad either.”
“Thanks. I better speak with these people before they write what they want to write,” stated Gray before wandering off to face the assembled media crowd.
The RBPF media podium had been set up by Gray’s support team. Microphones and mobiles were placed on it to capture her statement. Cameras took pictures of Gray as she started to speak.
“Good morning. I am Inspector Melanie Gray, Public Relations Officer of the Royal Barbados Police Force. This morning, at around 9:45 a.m., a Barbados Prison Service prisoner transport vehicle carrying five prisoners to District A Magistrates Court, was ambushed at this location. The BPS vehicle was escorted by RBPF and Barbados Intelligence Bureau personnel in their vehicles. It was a standard operation which happens on a weekly basis, sometimes twice a week. Three of the five prisoners are back in, or should I say never were out of custody, while another two have escaped. Details of the two escaped prisoners will be made available to you shortly on our RBPF website. Five BPS officers and three RBPF officers received various injuries in the incident. All are receiving medical attention as I speak. Please note that none of their injuries are life threatening. Two vehicles, one from BPS and one RBPF, have been badly damaged. That’s as much as I have for you now. There’ll be regular updates for you from RBPF HQ at we have and can release them, but at 5:00 p.m. this afternoon I’ll speak with you again from RBPF HQ. Now questions. Please identify yourself and your news organisation,” asked an authoritative Gray.
Hung Out to Dry Page 13