Beer, Bait, and Ammo

by Harper, Chap

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Stick gathered up his camouflage carrying case and loaded it into his new Ford 250 XL truck. He paid over $50,000 for it as he required a diesel power plant, crew cab, and four wheel drive. If there was an option available, he bought it or ordered it. He was headed towards Lake Ouachita and had no idea he was being followed. The tail was a professional one, consisting of three cars that pulled over as new tails pulled out. Some of the tails would pass him only to pull out again later. Stick was listening to a country station on satellite radio, oblivious to the elaborate spying being played out around him. He stopped at a grocery store near Mountain Harbor, grabbed a sausage biscuit, drove several miles, and turned onto the road leading to Ouachita Shores Marina. It was around seven in the morning, and he believed there was plenty of time.

  At precisely the same time, Lester pulled up to the Mountain Harbor Cafe and helped Susan from the rear seat of the Yukon. She had expressed her concern for the danger that Debi had been in during the airboat ride in New Orleans. Lester apologized and explained that after a few weeks, things should return to normal, once all these people were arrested. He told her that he was trying to get into law school the next year, and hopefully that would be a safe environment. As he exited the car, Adrian was waiting at the door for them. Debi introduced her dad to Adrian and then was intercepted by her mom who had moved in front of her to shake his hand.

  “My God, Adrian, you’re a John Wayne version of Lester. Debi said you were handsome, but you’re just not playing fair,” Susan said.

  “Ma’am, you’re awfully sweet to say that, but I see why Debi is one of the most beautiful young ladies I’ve ever seen—she looks just like her mother.” Adrian said this with a perfect smile.

  “You two are so full of shit! Let’s have breakfast, so Adrian can tell us about striper fishing,” Debi said and pulled her mom inside the cafe.

  The cafe smelled like bacon, coffee, and bread baking. Hanging on the wall were several large trophy fish, including a striper that may have weighed thirty pounds. Outside the windows at the side of cafe they could see the resort’s swimming pool, and beyond was the marina and the lake. Lake Ouachita sparkled in the morning sunlight. It wound in and out of coves, creeks, and rivers along a shoreline that was over 900 miles long. They found a table near a window and started fumbling through the large plastic menus.

  “Coffee for everyone? How ’bout some orange juice?” the waitress with “Georgia” on her name tag asked.

  Everyone ordered their breakfast and drinks. Tom said he was paying for the meal, and everyone thanked him. Adrian then explained the adventure.

  “Okay, can’t guarantee nothing but the shad are running pretty good. I didn’t have much trouble netting a bunch of them. Lake’s turning over a little as the thermocline is moving more towards the bottom and driving the fish to shallow water. We’ll be fishing mainly close to the surface and I’ll rig everything. Lester, you brought beer, wine, and snack stuff?”

  “Yes, sir! Your brand of beer, too!” Lester was almost embarrassed that long neck Budweiser bottles were all that his dad drank. No fancy crap for him.

  Their shopping trip on Friday produced different drinks for everyone. Three kinds of beer and two bottles of wine: one red and the other white. All sorts of cheese, nuts, and chips. Debi thought it was enough food stuff to stock a second Gilligan’s Island.

  “Adrian, do you have clients every weekend this time of year?” Tom asked.

  “It’s a beautiful time of the year to fish, so yeah, I stay busy most weekends. Dr. Woodward and Dr. Wright were out last weekend. I think you know them. I told them my son was dating your daughter. They said they both had worked with you. Even said nice things about you,” Adrian said, getting a laugh out of Tom.

  Stick carried his case to a hill near an area called Denby Point where there were no houses. He settled down in a cleared area and got down into a prone position and made what a sniper called his hide. Then he unzipped the case and slid a long Leupold spotting scope out and folded down the tripod attached to it. At that moment, without him having a clue, the cross hairs of three sniper rifles were aimed and focused on him. However, he never produced a weapon, merely a single-lensed and very powerful scope. He was familiar with where Adrian normally fished as he had asked the other striper guides. The three FBI guys kept observing but took no further action. One of them decided to call Lester.

  “Lester, this Larry Slater with the FBI. We followed Stick to a point where he has eyes on you with a spotter scope. Doesn’t seem to have a weapon, and we have three rifles on him if he tries anything. Just thought you might like to know you were being spied on.”

  “Hey, I appreciate you guys tracking him. He knows something is up since he found an explosive device in his hide by the warehouse. Thanks again,” Lester said.

  Lester was standing in the back of the boat while his dad was helping Tom and Susan fish the front of the boat. Debi got up from her seat and stood next to Lester as he placed his phone back in his pocket.

  “Debi, look over past the shore and up on the hill. Follow my lead.”

  Lester looked directly at the hill and raised a middle finger in the air. Debbie did the same. Next, he turned his rear towards the hill and dropped his pants and mooned in the same direction. Debi followed suit. As both of them pulled up their pants there was a yell from the front of the boat in Susan’s direction. “Fish on!” Adrian said and immediately started assisting a smiling Susan Green. No one had seen the mooning in the back of the boat.

  Shock was the first emotion Stick felt. Abruptly, he looked around but couldn’t see anyone. He knew instantly he had been followed and observed. Lester had been tipped off that he was spying on him. Jamming the scope back in its case, he walked back to his truck and blasted down the road and back to highway 270. First, it had been the explosive planted in his hide near S.G., and now this. He wouldn’t bother Spider about this since she was in New York, but as soon as she got back they had to beef up security. As he drove back to town, one thing stuck out in his mind—he had seen Debi Green’s beautiful ass. Every time the picture of her dropping her pants flashed from his memory, he smiled.

  After the fishing trip, Susan and Tom couldn’t thank Adrian more. They invited him to dinner sometime soon where he could eat some of their catch. He had cleaned and packaged the stripers for them. They all had a good time, drank a lot, and everyone on board caught several fish. Debi had never caught a big fish, but on this day she had landed, mainly by herself, a twenty-eight pound striper, the biggest of the day. She had hoped her parents would have fun but never thought a fishing trip could be so exciting.

  Lester dropped Debi’s parents at their house. It was obvious that Susan had at least temporarily forgotten her daughter was almost killed in a swamp a few days before.

  Lester and Debi showered together when they got back to the apartment. She was talking non-stop, so excited about the fish. She had even talked about having it mounted for a while until her mother told her it would be expensive and thrown away quickly because she would get tired of it on the wall. Tom had had some ducks stuffed, and they didn’t last long around their house. Debi suspected it wasn’t her dad that got tired of them.

  When they got in bed and snuggled up close, Lester said, “Do you know what Stick is thinking about as he goes to bed tonight?”

  “No, what?”

  “Your beautiful ass he saw through the scope. It was something he will never forget.”

  “My little ass?”

  “Your beautiful little ass!” Lester reached behind her and pinched her lightly on a cheek. She laughed and snuggled up tightly.

  Stick was on the phone all the way back from his surveillance mission until he found one of the girls who was free to come by and service her boss. It was Saturday, and all the girls were booked at the massage parlor, and no one was free at the two strip clubs. He had all the call girls’ numbers and started dialing. He found one available in Litt
le Rock and he booked her, but not for free. He negotiated but got nothing off the standard price. He would write off the money that went to the house and pay her for a normal call but would try to make her spend the night. He would pay for a hotel for the driver.

  The sight of Debi’s exposed rear had him crazy with horniness. He had to have someone and all night. An hour later, the limo parked in front of his apartment. He had been drinking beer heavily during the wait, which sparked his temper. All his trouble with the law in the past had come from his drinking and smoking pot. The girl came to the door and introduced herself as Roxie Chang. She was a pretty Asian girl with a green dragon tattooed on the back of her hand. He brought her in and went out and paid the limo driver for a hotel room. He refused and said he would wait. Stick argued but got nowhere and angrily turned and headed inside.

  “What’s your charge without the fee for the house?” Stick asked, even though he knew the answer.

  “You know it’s five hundred dollars paid upfront. You’ll have to explain the other half to Spider. You know damn well she’ll make you pay for it if she finds out,” Roxie said.

  Stick was quiet, partly because he was drunk, and partly because he was seething inside. He went to a drawer and found his stash of hundred dollar bills and counted out five bills for her. She took the money and began to undress. She found a condom in her purse in the general area where she placed the money. She laid her purse nearby on the bed where she could reach it.

  Stick undressed and let her put on the condom. With Roxie on her back, he put her legs together and under his. By doing this he could place his feet on the outside of her lower legs for traction making his thrusts strong and penetrating. Once inside her, he slowly began to push his large erection into her and then he did it harder and harder and faster. Roxie had no control in this position since her legs were trapped under him. The position caused her pain and she felt as if she were being raped. She tried to push him off, but she was only about five feet tall and weighed a little over a hundred pounds. He was over twice her size.

  “Stick, you’re hurting me—please stop!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” he said and slapped her in the face, causing blood to run from her lip and her nose. He had his hand on her throat and didn’t realize how much pressure he was applying.

  “Please stop…stop…stop!”

  With one hand momentarily free, she found her purse, reached in and pressed a small electronic instrument that made a buzzing sound. She sensed a darkness come over her. She was going limp.

  “What the fuck was that?” Stick demanded. Within seconds someone was at the door.

  “Open up, or I call the police!” the limo driver on the other side of the door said.

  “Fuck you! Call anybody you want!” Stick hollered from his bedroom.

  Suddenly he heard his flimsy apartment door splinter and fall off its hinges. The limo driver, a black man about six foot three and weighing close to three hundred pounds, made the distance from the front door to the bedroom instantly. He grabbed the nude Stick Hennessey by his neck and hair and tossed him on the floor. Stick looked up to see a chrome Desert Eagle .50 caliber pressed into his forehead.

  “Tell you what, Stick. Since you’re the straw boss around here, another thousand dollars will make all this go away,” the limo driver said.

  Stick got up and pulled more bills from his dresser and handed them over. The gun was leveled at Stick again while Roxie was getting dressed. She went into the bathroom and wet a towel to wipe the blood from her face.

  “One other thing, Stick. Tell Roxie you’re sorry for the way you treated her,” the big black guy said as he leveled the pistol that could literally blow Stick’s head across the room.

  “Sorry I hit you, Roxie—I’m drunk.”

  “Don’t ever call me again, you asshole!” Roxie said as she headed out the door.

  Seconds later, the limo raced out of the parking lot.

  Stick tried to repair his door but knew it was going to have to be replaced. What had just happened? He could have easily killed Roxie! The black man could have killed him. Roxie could have had a gun in her purse and shot him. All sorts of scenarios and none of them good. He knew when he drank, bad things happened. Stick saw things were coming unglued all around him. People were tailing him and probably his fellow workers. He was tailed today and they knew about his sniper hide. His stand was compromised. Time to rig up a portable one in the woods. He had to get in control. He had to meet with Spider. Stick didn’t want to die. He had come close to death this time. As close as he had come to dying since he was wounded in Afghanistan. One thing haunted him: if the limo driver hadn’t come in would he have killed Roxie? He really didn’t know. Maybe. Probably.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hank Campanella started coordinating personnel in two states for the probability that the following Tuesday would be the day for raids. It was Sunday afternoon, and there wasn’t much time. He thought about the Chalmette operation first and had the idea of waiting until the UPS truck pulled up to load weapons. The back door would be opened, the truck would be partly loaded with illegal weapons, and the secret door on the vault would still be standing open. But there was a problem. The Arkansas locations wouldn’t be open at that hour. If they shut down Tony Evola’s huge automatic weapons empire operation suddenly, maybe no one would warn Spider.

  Jim Webb had filled Lester in on the vault and the likelihood of a Tuesday morning raid, but details needed to be squared away. On Sunday afternoon, an emergency conference call with Lester, Sheriff Mike Adams, and Sheriff Jake took place. He started with his sniper.

  “Jake, see if you can find out where Stick moves his tree stand. The explosives he found will cause him to move. I’m thinking maybe we can rig up a Texas deer stand mounted on the back of a pickup truck or a tall cherry picker. Put some steel around for protection and a huge camo drape. Then move it to the woods on the west side of the warehouse. If we do it early Tuesday morning, we might sneak it in and get set up, but we’ll have to take out the night guard at the gate. Your job will be to take out Stick before he takes you out,” Jim said, knowing sniper-on-sniper was a deadly game. Jake had a box of medals from Vietnam to match the box of medals Stick earned in Afghanistan.

  “My boys and I will work out the stand. Know a construction guy that has a cherry picker and think I can come up with camo and tree limbs. You take care of the guy at the gate. We’ll do our part. You guys may need to cut power to the place for a few minutes, so their security cameras don’t pick us up. Usually the guard at the gate is the only one there, but other times someone monitors from the inside too. We’ll know by the cars parked there,” Jake said with the knowledge that he had acquired performing surveillance on S.G. Crystals for a few weeks.

  “Who takes the lead on this S.G. Crystals raid?” Lester asked.

  “DEA first with backup from everyone else,” said Jim. “We’ll have them, plus ATF, FBI, state police, and sheriff’s department. One tenman SWAT team with a Lenco Bearcat armored response vehicle, which is close to being a tank. And probably fifty men.”

  “Against how many?” Mike Adams asked.

  “We don’t know how many will work tomorrow, but the inside camera gives a count between twenty-two to twenty-nine when Stick and Spider are there. We’ve counted as many as fifteen automatic weapons. There are three guards who work in shifts and they all have 9mm H&K automatics. The front gate guy is relieved at eight each morning. Usually just waves at the employees as they come through the gate—doesn’t even look at them. Mostly has his face in a magazine, security monitors, or TV set. Stick and Spider blow through there and never look at him. At night he leaves several times to go in for coffee or to use the bathroom. He’s the key to us getting set up,” Jim said.

  “Just a thought, Jim: why don’t we gas this guy with a drone—we do have drones, don’t we?” Lester asked.

  “DEA has some. Let me see if we can get one and some kind of gas that would allow
us to capture him and take his place. Maybe we can get someone over the fence if we can turn off the power, get the guard, and take him captive. Fence is electrified. Powering off is essential. We need one of our guys to take his place—open the gate and look the other way when employees come to work—should be about the same height and weight. If we have him gassed, we’ll need a ladder or two to get over the fence,” Jim said.

  “Mike, Lester, we need you Garland County officers to get the bait store and the massage parlor. Can you guys do that? Want to warn you, Stick keeps one or two guards sleeping at the bait shop. They stay in the new extension built on in the back. If both are there, you’ll see a Jeep and a Mustang parked in back. Assume they will have automatic weapons since they sell them,” Jim said. “Oh, ATF will be there for sure to be the lead.”

  “We’ll see if we can get the Hot Springs police department to take care of the massage parlor and fill them in on the call girls since some of the girls work out of there,” Sheriff Adams said. “We’ll take down the bait store and load up the guns. If we get done early there, we’ll come down the road to help you.”.