by Harper, Chap
“What’re you clowns up to over here?” Mike asked.
“Sheriff, we have our annual picnic each year and as chairman of that committee, I have decided we’ll rent a houseboat. It’ll be free, of course, since there’s still money left in the gun fund, plus the extra money from the sale in New Orleans. Maybe rent it for two or three days since we’ll have to party in shifts. I can tell by the look on your face that you really like the idea,” Lester said.
“You two are full of shit! Those houseboats probably cost a couple hundred dollars a day. You need to concentrate on the raid about to take place so you don’t get your asses blown off,” Mike said. He stepped back as the ATF team leader walked in front of him to address the group of police officers.
“Gentlemen, I’m Special Agent Supervisor R.J. Owen with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. First, I would like to thank the Garland County Sheriff Department’s exemplary work in exposing these suspected violations to our attention. A special thanks to Lester McFarlin for turning an ordinary domestic shooting into a two-state investigation of organized crime. But now the dangerous part takes place right down the road from here. A bait store has built an extension on the rear of the building and shipments of weapons have been going out in the last few weeks. We don’t know what’s in there, but we’ll prepare for the worst. Also, there’s a female employee that works in the front of the store, and we believe she’s clean and must be protected at all costs. The plan will be to circle our patrol cars end-to-end, surrounding the building as best as possible. The two medic teams will set up their ambulances on each side of the building at least two hundred feet out and remain behind the vehicles for cover. The two elements of the Hot Springs Police SWAT team will stand by the ambulances as backup. Each of my Special Agents and the other police officers will use their wheel wells for maximum protection. If the suspects are using green-tipped, armor-piercing .223 ammunition, you need to know it will penetrate your vest. Use your metal plate inserts to full advantage. When we arrive on site, I will try to talk them out with a speaker. If they fire on us, then you can return fire, but not until then. Good luck and may God be with you.”
Lester looked around and saw some of the men whispering prayers. He had never been in combat, but heard it was very common to pray before patrols and firefights. He didn’t spend a lot of time at his church but still felt at peace.
In about ten minutes, the officers’ cars started jockeying in place to form a circle. Everyone bailed out of their vehicles and quickly moved to the opposite side of the cars.
Special Agent Owen turned on his bullhorn with a screech that made several people cover their ears.
“Those of you in the building need to come out with your hands up where we can see your palms. You are surrounded by federal and local police officers. You will not be harmed.”
On the side of the building, directly across from where Lester and Rich were parked was a small window, more like a wooden flap with hinges at the bottom and a catch of some sort on the top. A hand reached out and slipped the sliding clasp out of the holder and let the small wooden door drop down, slamming into the side of the building. Nothing happened at first, then a multi-barreled object was pushed out that window. Lester recognized it immediately.
“It’s a Gatlin gun! Take cover now!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sherriff Jake Thomas was secure in his camouflaged cherry picker, adjusting the height with his onboard control panel until a downward angle pointed two-hundred yards away directly at Stick’s hide. Jake had the best view of the raid at S.G. Crystals.
First, they cut the power. This is common practice for police who enter a residence or building, as it creates problems with security cameras and lighting, and causes overall confusion. However, they only had about 20 seconds of outage when the emergency generators kicked on. Stick was looking at a video screen which showed the gate entrance free of traffic. The screen went black, then flickered back on in a few seconds. Now the screen was filled with men in black body armor and helmets running through an open gate carrying automatic weapons, and Stick’s guards were with them.
The generators ran essential electrical items such as lights, office equipment, and communications but didn’t power up the electrified fence or the power fans in the meth-cooking area. The people below the warehouse floor began to pour out of the underground operation since the poisoned fumes would kill them without the huge fans pulling the fumes out of the production facility. They didn’t surface empty-handed; each carried an automatic weapon. Stick immediately ran through the warehouse, out the rear door and through the fence toward his tree stand. On the way, he instructed his warehouse supervisor to take charge of the workers and prepare to take out the attackers.
The supervisor was Harlan Antoine, a war buddy who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had been a great soldier before getting hooked on heroin and pain killers after being shot in the back. Stick rarely saw him when he wasn’t either stoned or drunk. Usually both. Today Stick didn’t care because he knew combat would overcome any of his issues.
Jake could see blurry images of Stick running through the heavy brush and trees toward the stand. He saw glimpses of his tan shirt with a black collar as he climbed up the tree. He let Stick position himself over his rifle and move his scope downwards towards the invaders who were now under fire from the front of the office through windows. He saw one DEA agent fall. Jake took aim at the side of Stick’s head. The rain made splotches on his scope and the wind picked up when it came down hard. The old sheriff tried to make his shot between heartbeats with a pull on the trigger that was so slow it surprised him when it went off.
The wind blew across the bullet’s path as Jake squeezed off the round and hit Stick’s rifle right above the trigger housing on the metal part of the Remington 700. Part of the bullet fragment took off most of his left ear and drove pieces of metal above his right eye. A large fragment took off his middle finger on his left hand. Blood covered his face and hands. Stick quickly ducked down in his hide and pulled off his T-shirt to make a bandage and wipe the blood from his eyes. Pulling the bolt back and checking the rifle, he saw visible damage to the metal receiver and the wood below it, but it still functioned. The rugged Remington 700-.308 caliber had been in worse battles.
Teeming with anger, Stick found an area through a leafy branch he had taken into the blind. Slowly and carefully, he moved the scope and hunted the treetops until he saw the outline of the cherry picker. Then he saw Jake and the burlap rags that covered him and his rifle. Nice hide, Stick thought to himself.
Rain continued to pelt the area, and he marveled at the shot the other sniper had made in those conditions. He would just have to adjust, adapt, and compensate. Jake was higher than his tree stand, so Stick’s shot was elevated. That meant bullet drop, but not much at two hundred yards. He took a bead on Jake’s head right above his scope and between two large pieces of iron propped against the side of the cherry picker cage. As Stick pulled the trigger, Jake fired again, just a millisecond before Stick. This bullet caught Stick in the jaw and exited his neck. He stuck his t-shirt in his mouth to control the bleeding and moved down in the stand.
Jake, too, was hit and thought he was dead, but he woke up after a few seconds. His head was bleeding profusely. Blood dripped into his eyes and made it impossible to see. The bullet had gone a little bit high since Jake had fired at exactly the right time to elevate Stick’s round. It hit Jake’s helmet and then tore through his head, digging into his skull just above his brain. He wanted to shoot again but couldn’t see for the blood. He couldn’t be sure if Stick was lining up another shot, so he reached up and touched the big piece of flat iron and pulled himself behind it. Stick couldn’t shoot what he couldn’t see.
Suddenly a roar filled the air. Jake wiped his eyes enough to see a helicopter edging its way towards Stick’s tree stand. There was a shot and a man dropped out of an open door of the helicopter onto the roof of the warehouse.
Bright orange and red streaks filled the distance between the hovering Apache helicopter and the deer stand high in a white oak tree. The 30 mm chain gun took down several trees and undulated like the red tornado it is often called. It was certain and instant death for Hunter “Stick” Hennessey.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Red flashing fire shot out the small opening in the wall in a violent stream. A few police officers froze in terror and were shot in the process. The pattern of fire started from the shooter’s left and moved to the right in a tremendous downward motion, slicing patrol cars into pieces like a machete slicing a watermelon. The firing stopped abruptly one car past Lester and Rich’s patrol car. As Lester tried to shove his entire body into the wheel well of the patrol cruiser, metal, glass and bullets showered him and Rich with pieces of what used to be their car. Rounds also struck the ambulance parked some distance away.
Lester didn’t know a lot about the operation of the Minigun, but figured a complicated piece of equipment capable of firing so many rounds might take a while to reload. He took a chance and stood up and fired thirty-two rounds in about two seconds from the MAC-11 into that same window. He heard a scream and curse from inside. Every available officer also started firing into the hole. Rich fired tear gas and flash bang grenades. It must have awakened the men in the building since more machine gun fire came through the window, mainly striking Rich’s patrol car and the one next to it where Becca and the lieutenant were hunkered down by their wheel wells and flat tires. Lester could see that the two were bleeding, as were several officers along the row of busted up cars. Rich and Lester were no exception, but their wounds were mostly superficial.
The ATF forces lined up with their backs to the building and lobbed several flashbang and stun grenades through the opening. Tear gas followed, then two BARs with 91 round clips were stuck in the window and fired until they both just clicked. A team of five ATF forces used a battering ram on the back door. They crashed through the door and found Larry lying dead on the floor.
Special agent Owen followed his men through the door.
“Jesus H. Christ! There are rocket launchers and hand-held missiles in here!” Owen said.
Before he could say any more, there was a scream from the front of the bait store. Lester moved behind the circle of dilapidated and smoking patrol cars until he could see the front of the building. Once there, Lester saw Doug with a chrome model 1911 .45 leveled at the earhole of a short redheaded girl who worked in the store.
Sandy Woodward had come to work that day expecting to earn a paycheck to make payments on her car and apartment. The job wasn’t that great, especially when she had to count out crickets for fishermen. Once a box of red worms fell off the shelf and she had to pick them up and re-box about a hundred worms. Minnows weren’t much better. She did it because she needed a job and it paid more than most jobs in Hot Springs. Larry and Doug flirted with her, but she ignored them and was glad they were in the back most of the time. They told her to buzz them if anybody ever came in to rob the place. A button for the buzzer was placed under the cash register. She had only used it twice: once for a drunk that was falling all over the store, and the two boys tossed him out of the store. The other time was when a large snake was coiled up out front as she opened the front door. They came out and shot it several times.
“Copperhead. Poisonous. Took care of it for ya,” they told her.
She worried that some dope addict might try to rob her like Jody was robbed not long before. Having a gun stuck in the side of her head was never a work hazard she had imagined.
Lester noticed her hair was medium length. She was about five-foot-three or four inches tall, and Doug was about five-foot-eight-or-nine inches tall. He watched the rhythm and motion of their bodies as they headed toward the girl’s car parked about fifty feet away. Lester walked behind the police cars in perfect syncopation with the boy and the girl. He jerked an AR-15 rifle from the hand of one of the sheriff’s officers as he passed him. Instinctively, he watched the difference between the heads bobbing and the flow of her hair as Doug’s head moved slightly to the front of hers. They were only inches apart, sometimes fractions of a second where another separation existed. In Lester’s mind they were in slow motion.
Lester stopped and rose up above a patrol car. He pulled the trigger—the bullet entered her hair above her neck as it flowed backward and then crossed over between them and entered Doug’s brain right behind his ear. Doug collapsed on the gravel driveway; his gun landed beside him. The girl screamed and grabbed the back of her head and touched her singed hair. ATF agents ran and held her as she was shaking and crying. Lester handed the rifle back to the officer and walked over to where the ambulance had pulled up and started a triage to assess the worst cases.
After having his and Little Richard’s minor wounds treated, they wanted to go help at the S.G. Crystals warehouse, but someone would have to give them a ride since Rich’s patrol car was a pile of smoking metal. Hot Springs SWAT team was heading in that direction and agreed to let them tag along. As they walked over to one of the SWAT vehicles, Sandy, the clerk from the bait shop, ran over and thanked Lester for taking out the guy that was taking her hostage.
They drove toward S.G. thinking that it would all be over when they got there. They would soon find out differently.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Spider placed her heavily-creamed coffee down on Lester’s dining table next to her Beretta. Her cell phone was ringing to the tune of background music saying, “Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?” from some cop show on TV. She answered and pointed the gun in Debi’s direction.
Debi and Angel Gambini had talked about purses, shoes, manicures, makeup, and boys. If things were different, they may have been friends—but they were from alien worlds. One was a productive member of society, and the other was a cunning and successful criminal. She smiled as she glanced at the name on her phone screen.
“Vander! Are you here yet?” Angel asked.
“Be there in thirty minutes. Go through the private hangar gate at the airport—at the far end by the big white hanger. Ashley will be waiting for you to unlock the gate and let you in. Anybody with you?” Vander Usterhoff asked.
“A girl, but she won’t be going with us. She’s a catch and release. When you see her you you’ll want her to go with us,” Angel said.
“Let’s bring her.”
“She’s Lester McFarlin’s girlfriend. We don’t need the heat.”
“He’s the reason this whole thing is going down. You know that, don’t you, Spider?”
“Only too well. See you there.”
“Oh, got your ‘go’ bag?” Vander asked.
“Yep—passports, money, credit cards, toothpaste and a change of panties.”
She hung up the phone and turned to Debi. “Debi, you’re going to give me a ride. Let’s take my rental since no one has figured out that it belongs to me.”
“We’re going where?”
“Just drive,” Angel said and handed Debi the keys for the minivan. Debi pushed a wrong button and both center sliding doors started to open. Spider took the keys away from her and closed those doors and opened the right ones. Once in the car, Spider put the keys in the ignition and started it for Debi.
“Out to Airport Road.”
Debi turned on Central until she came to the bypass and took it to the Airport Road exit. Spider motioned to her to turn right. She kept the gun leveled at Debi the entire trip.
“How did this Vander guy get back in the states? I remember Lester telling me he went to a country without an extradition treaty with the US—Venezuela, maybe?”
“Well, it seems the crack professionals with the FBI and City Police never filed charges against Vander. The call girl never gave him up since he sent money for her defense fund. She told the cops she never met the man she worked for and was told his name was “Sugar Man.” Of course, the business had a zero paper trail. He’s a model citizen and free to come and go i
n the US, but he is no longer welcome in Venezuela. You see, they don’t allow dual citizenship. When they gave him a deadline to officially denounce his US citizenship in writing, Vander became patriotic. ‘Fuck you, and the banana cart you rode in on,’ he told them.
“He left the country and brought his girlfriend Tammy back as well. You see, Vander is a Jew, and many of his relatives died in Eastern European Nazi death camps. He loves America, and he loves to run whorehouses. That skill and flying are all that he knows.”
“I don’t guess you’re going to tell me where you guys are flying off to?”
“I doubt if he knows. Unfortunately the countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the US are shit holes. Better than Federal prison, but not by much.”
“You’ve got clean panties so you can afford a little time to shop around for a country,” Debi said.
Spider smiled and directed her to turn into the Hot Springs Memorial Field. Then she pointed to a gate on the other side of a huge white hangar building, where a pretty blond girl wearing aviation overalls was standing. It was obvious to Debi the body under the loose work clothes was anything but ordinary.
Parking by the curb, Spider took the keys from the ignition and told Debi to follow her inside. The girl in overalls led the way to a private hangar leased by Vander. She explained Vander had gotten her out of some trouble. He let her live in the hangar, look after his belongings, and service his plane. She stopped short of explaining any other duties required of her.
“Vander just called. He’ll touch down in about five minutes. I’ll have him refueled and out of here in twenty minutes. He’ll fly visual flight rules, so I don’t have to file his plans,” she said.
Debi looked around the hangar and could see a woman’s touch. Everything was clean and in place. A small window on a back wall sported bright yellow curtains. It was doubtful Vander had a hand in that project. There were metal stairs leading upstairs where Debi assumed the girl’s living quarters were since the stairs were covered by bright yellow carpet. A sound in the distance signaled the approach of Vander’s twin engine plane. He set it down with only a small burst of smoke from the tires on landing. He abruptly pulled around and nosed the plane toward the hangar. A fuel truck pulled up next to the plane as soon as it stopped. Vander exited the plane and ran to Ashley and kissed her.