by Gary Noesner
“Hurry up.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Just hurry up.”
When I had communicated with the command post about an hour before, the situation had been stable and the prognosis for an eventual peaceful outcome seemed good. How was I going to explain what we had just experienced? How could I convey how close we’d come to having the situation blow up in our faces? I rang them up on the mobile phone and, standing in the far corner of the family room, speaking in a hushed voice, I explained the situation to Virgil Young, the on-scene forward commander. I told him that the only reason Cheryl was alive was that she had blurted out a desire to get out of the house, and that Charlie had seen the helicopter. Now our subject had this notion that he could fly away. “If I give Charlie a negative response,” I said, “there’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll carry out his threat.”
Agent Young listened carefully and thoughtfully, accepting nothing at face value. “What exactly did he say?” he asked. “How angry did he appear?” He challenged me to back up each and every one of my recommendations.
I asked his express permission to engage in a dialogue with Charlie about going to the helicopter. Getting his approval was important, because if later he said we couldn’t make the offer, I would be caught in a lie. Not only would that destroy my credibility with Charlie, but it would probably trigger the murder we all wanted to avoid.
I then did something that is extremely rare in the negotiation business. I recommended that I be given permission to lure Charlie out of the house by negotiating with him for access to the helicopter, and that we prepare to have a sniper take him out as he left the house.
I could see the look of surprise on some of the SWAT team members’ faces, but I really had no other choice. I am not a self-questioning kind of guy. This was an explosive situation and mollification had just about run its course. I saw no other way to keep Cheryl alive.
I also knew that commanders don’t like deadlines, and that this was a serious request that would require some time to consider. Still, I added, “I need a response very quickly.”
Waiting for an answer, I went back and reengaged Charlie in discussion. I told him that I had made the request and that I was waiting for the answer from the boss. Again I asked him not to hurt Cheryl. Again, no reply. Yet I sensed I had purchased some time.
There was nothing to do now but wait. I tried to maintain a calm appearance, but inside my mind was running at full speed. I was trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, and the lives of a young woman and her son depended on making the trick work.
A half hour later the field telephone rang; it was Virgil Young. He told me that his boss, Special Agent in Charge Terry O’Connor of the Richmond Field Office, had given us the green light. His wording was characteristically dispassionate. “The Special Agent in Charge has authorized you to proceed with the plan you have recommended,” he said.
He told me nothing about the specifics of the plan HRT had worked out for dealing with Charlie; I didn’t need to know. My job was simply to get the subject out of the house and walking toward that helicopter. I walked back to the stairway and directed my voice upstairs.
“Charlie,” I said, “this is Gary again. I told my boss about you wanting the helicopter. He didn’t understand why you don’t just put your weapon down and come out. But I also told him you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Based on that, my boss has agreed for you to take the helicopter. He didn’t like it, but he’ll go along if it will keep people from getting hurt.”
Once again I was trying to establish myself in Charlie’s mind as his advocate. I was also trying to make our position seem credible. If I just blithely said okay, Charlie might think we had given in too easily and might become suspicious.
This is when I asked Charlie if he had ever flown in a helicopter before. The question seemed to brighten his mood, so I followed up by asking where he wanted to go. He said he would tell the pilot to fly them over the mountains and they would land when he spotted a place that looked good to him.
It was then that I asked him not to harm my friend Tom Kelly, the pilot.
The tension seemed to be easing as time passed by, enough so that after an hour or so Charlie and I began to talk more casually, first about the farmhouse. Though relieved that we had stepped back from the brink, I was aware that any misstep could set him off. He told me that he had seen the beams down in the basement when they had gone downstairs to use the washer and dryer. He told me how much he admired that kind of solid construction, far better than what was built these days. I asked Charlie about the cabin he had built in Connecticut, and he seemed to take pride in talking about his craftsmanship. We then moved on to talking about camping and the outdoors. I told him that I had an old motor home and that I wanted to take my family camping in New England this coming summer. I asked him about some places we might go, and he gave me some recommendations. Our conversations were becoming more relaxed.
For the first time I also mentioned to Charlie that I also had a four-year-old son. We talked about how fascinating it is to watch kids grow. Again I tried to push Charlie toward thinking about the future in a positive way. I reminded him how important it was for a father to show his son the woods and outdoors, to help him grow to be a man.
Suddenly he said, “I’ve got some stuff in the lean-to. Some favorite toys for the boy … and some other stuff. I want to take it on the helicopter with us.”
This was a complication we could do without, but I had to play along. “Can you tell us where the shelter is in relation to the farmhouse?” I said. “We’ll go get your stuff.”
Charlie’s directions were a bit vague, but we dispatched agents to recover the items.
“You must be a pretty good woodsman,” I said, “to have gone so long in the mountains without being found, especially with so many people looking for you.”
He seemed to relish the compliment. “Nobody’s going to find me if I don’t want them to,” he said.
When I got back on the phone with the command post, they described a four-phase plan that I would have to sell to Charlie. First, two FBI agents would carry the recovered personal items out to the helicopter. They would place black garbage bags filled with these items at the foot of the helicopter and walk away. Phase two called for the helicopter pilot, Tom Kelly, to walk to the aircraft, load the bags onto the copilot’s seat, get in, and start the engine. Phase three would have those of us on the ground floor exit the house. Phase four would have Charlie, Cheryl, and little Charlie exit, walk to the helicopter, board it, and fly away as previously agreed. At least that was phase four as we would describe it to Charlie.
I went back to my position at the foot of the stairs, and for the rest of the morning, Charlie and I went back and forth over the plan. I wanted to make sure that he fully understood what to expect. I also wanted to reinforce his belief that he was really going to fly away. If he sensed betrayal, this whole thing could blow up in our faces.
After a couple of hours our guys came back from their search for Charlie’s shelter in the woods and said they still couldn’t find it. Charlie tried to explain again, but even after a second try our agents still came up empty. I was growing concerned that Charlie might lose faith in this whole plan, so I asked him to really spell out the directions for us. He drew a crude map on a coloring book and threw it down the stairs. I gave the map to our agents and they went off to try again.
“We’re hungry,” Charlie said.
We sent a police cruiser to the closest McDonald’s, and when the food arrived the HRT guys covered me as I placed it halfway up the steps. A moment later, Cheryl came down to pick up the food. This was the first time she and I had a chance to look clearly at each other. She was a pretty girl, but frail and terrified. Earlier, the command post and I had discussed whether or not we should ever try to grab her. We weren’t sure if she would cooperate if it meant leaving her child, so we’d decided the most we could do was to hold up a sign asking if she was okay
, then stand ready to sweep her out of the way if she appeared to want to flee down the stairs. I held up the sign—Are you okay?—and she looked at it, but she made no response. She knew Charlie was watching her every move.
An hour or so later our agents returned. They had located the shelter and brought back the Easter candy and other items Charlie had requested.
Our four-phase plan was ready to begin. Then the command post called. FBI legal personnel wanted to clearly document that we had given Charlie every opportunity to surrender. They told me that I needed to ask Charlie one more time if he would come out. I explained that this might raise his suspicions and mess up our agreement. Still, I had to do it.
I gathered Bill Wang, who had relieved Gray hours earlier, and the HRT operators close around me and quietly explained what I was about to do. I told them they needed to listen carefully to my request for Charlie to surrender, because they needed to be able to describe in court not only what I said but what Charlie said in reply.
I wasn’t sure how to raise the issue, so I just forged ahead. “Charlie, we’re about ready to begin the process, but before we start, my boss wants me to ask you one more time if you’ll just put down your weapon and come down.”
“No way,” he said.
Then I uttered the dumbest thing I have ever said as a negotiator.
“Okay,” I said, “I won’t kick that dead horse anymore.”
I could almost see the words drifting up the stairway, and I wanted to reach up after them and pull them back.
Charlie didn’t miss a beat. “Dead horse? Is that what’s going to happen?”
“No, Charlie, it’s just a figure of speech. What I mean is that if you’ve made up your mind, then that’s the way it is, nothing more.”
The tension eased again, and I reported back to the command post this final attempt to get Charlie to surrender. We were now ready. The command post wanted to know from what door of the house they would exit.
“Charlie,” I said, “what door are you going to come out of?”
“Why do you want to know? So you can shoot me?”
“No. It’s just that we’re going to go out the back door and we’ll be waiting behind the house. I don’t want you to come out and trip over us.” Charlie never answered me.
On the phone, the command center asked where I thought he would exit. I said I was pretty sure he would come out the front.
Phase one began with the two agents carrying the bags of personal items to the helicopter. A short time later the helicopter engine revved up and the big rotor began to whirl.
“Charlie,” I said, “we’re leaving the house now. Remember, you said you wouldn’t harm the pilot.”
Silence.
“Good luck, Charlie. I hope you and Cheryl will be okay.”
There was another moment of silence. Then I heard him say, “Goodbye.”
The six or seven of us who had been on the ground floor now moved through the back door to the outside and hung close to the rear wall. We could not see the area in front where the helicopter was waiting. A tactical radio was within earshot, though, and I heard someone say that Charlie and his family had come out the front door. Minutes passed, then I heard an explosion. I edged to the corner of the house and looked cautiously around it. I saw Cheryl standing alone in the middle of the field, screaming. Lying at her feet were big Charlie and little Charlie. I feared the worst.
Someone yelled for her to start running, and Wayne Waddell went after her. Another agent, Terry Neist, picked up little Charlie and cradled him in his arms.
Before leaving the house, Charlie had tied the boy onto his back with the cloth belt from a bathrobe. Little Charlie’s head had been only inches behind his father’s—not much room for a marksman to find a target. Charlie had held Cheryl close in front of him, the carbine pushed into her back. The distance from the house to the helicopter had been about a hundred yards, perhaps a bit more. As Charlie moved forward, shielded by his captives, the snipers had called out over their radios, one after the other. They never had a clear shot. Then, when Charlie was about halfway to the chopper, the machine suddenly lifted off the ground. At that moment, agents tossed flash-bang diversion grenades at Charlie’s feet. The noise and bright light must have disoriented him, because he fell to one knee. He said to Cheryl, “This is it, Kitten.” But the fall had shifted little Charlie’s weight, opening up a space between father and son, and in that split second an FBI marksman fired a shot that entered Charlie’s right cheek and exited the rear of his head.
I hurried over to Terry and little Charlie and put my hand on the boy’s head.
“How you doing, Charlie?” I hoped the boy would recognize my voice and find it reassuring. He was shaking and very scared. Cheryl was brought over and took him in her arms. She looked toward the FBI emergency medical technicians, who were frantically trying to revive Charlie.
“My God, they’re going to bring him back and he’s going to do this to us again.” But this would not turn out to be the case—the shot proved fatal.
My wife later asked me if I’d formed any kind of bond with Charlie, and indeed I had. The moment of going so close to the brink was a kind of shared event, and I think it helped set up the positive interaction that followed. I don’t think Charlie ever would have walked out of that house if we hadn’t established some sense of trust in this moment. But despite this I felt no remorse about my recommendation that we use deadly force. I was convinced it was the only way to save Cheryl and little Charlie.
I realized I had left my jacket in the house and started walking back to get it; Steve Romano joined me and asked me if I was okay with what had happened.
“I’m fine,” I said. Then I added, “But I’m mad at that son of a bitch for making us do it.” It felt like such a waste of life.
By the time I reported to the main command post in Sperryville, Cheryl was sitting there calmly with little Charlie in her lap. She rose to greet me, then, with tears streaming down her face, gave me a hug. I did not, could not, say a word. Everyone in the command post was watching. It was a long time before my voice worked. I don’t remember what we said or what thoughts we shared. I remember only the incredible sense of relief I felt in seeing them both alive.
When I drove home late that afternoon, our neighborhood was as calm and serene as it had been when I left, only this time Carol was standing on the front porch. I parked the car in our driveway and got out, heavy with fatigue. She had been watching the television news and knew how the incident had turned out. With a big smile on her face she said, “Welcome home, Batman. Now take out the garbage.”
———
The following Christmas I received a card from Connecticut. It was from Cheryl, and this is what she wrote:
Thank you so much for all you did for little Charlie, big Charlie, and myself. Lil Charlie has grown so much since April. He seems to be doing very well with everything. He goes to counseling every six weeks just so they can keep an eye on him. I’d like to thank you for all you did in Virginia. When you kept on talking, even when Charlie wouldn’t talk or let me talk, your voice was so soothing to hear for me and for big Charlie. At one time Charlie was a very nice person and I know he ended up liking you and he had wished you could have met under different terms. I know for myself I will never forget your voice or you, for all your caring and help we hope you and your family have a great holiday season and that God will be with you always.
Thank you,
Cheryl Hart and LiL Charlie.
CHAPTER TWO
MY START
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.
—ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
I could not have had a more quintessentially American childhood. I was blessed with loving and supportive parents. I grew up three blocks from the ocean in Atlantic Beach, Florida, near Jacksonville. I spent my summers swimming in the ocean, rafting in a nearby lagoon, building forts in the adjacent
woods with my buddies, and later taking up surfing as that craze moved east from California.
I was a typical clean-cut child of the fifties and early sixties. At Fletcher High School I was captain of both the track and cross-country teams; I also worked afternoons and Saturdays at an office supply store and mowed lawns for extra money. At the age of twelve, I had an experience that would give me a sense of focus and a goal that I would pursue for the rest of my childhood. Believe it or not, it came while watching The Mickey Mouse Club.
For those too young to remember, The Mickey Mouse Club was a variety show with cartoons and skits involving a group of wholesome young boys and girls known as the Mouseketeers. I’d often watch it after school. One day not long after my twelfth birthday, the program went to Washington, D.C., to visit the headquarters of the FBI.
Those who didn’t live through the 1950s and early 1960s would have a hard time understanding the respect with which most Americans treated their government institutions at this time. This was well before campus protests and counterculture movements dominated the news, an era in which rock-and-roll stars such as Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers were in uniform, Jimmy Stewart starred as an FBI agent fighting the Ku Klux Klan in The FBI Story, and the Bureau was revered as our society’s first line of defense against both crime and subversion.
The Mickey Mouse Club’s producers reflected this, approaching the FBI with palpable, almost worshipful respect. What I remember most from that show was a segment in which a Mouseketeer spoke with J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director who had headed the Bureau since 1924. Seated on the steel-framed butterfly chair in our family room, I was utterly transfixed. Hoover looked the young host firmly in the eye and spoke about the FBI’s mission; he talked about the high caliber of its agents and told stories of these agents chasing gangsters during the Roaring Twenties and tracking down German spies during World War II. It was like a boy’s adventure novel come to life! But what really sealed the deal was when the host was taken to a firing range and allowed to shoot a Thompson submachine gun, the weapon of choice for both G-men and Al Capone. I was hooked.