by Tom Abrahams
Deputy Vesper tugged on the prisoner’s left arm, stopping the shuffle as they approached the man with the MAC-10. He, too, was a deputy US Marshal.
“Stop here,” ordered Vesper. “Time for a pat down.”
This was the third body search in a matter of a few minutes. Procedure dictated each deputy was responsible for his own security when transporting a prisoner. Every deputy who touched a prisoner did his own search.
The deputy, his biceps straining the cotton of his US Marshal Service-issued short sleeved polo, put down the MAC-10 to begin the pat down. He pulled a pair of gloves from one of the thigh pockets of his battle dress uniform pants and slid them on his meat hooks.
“You guys can step back,” the deputy said.
Vesper and Sanchez backed away, and Vesper offered a piece of chewing gum to his friend of sixteen years. Vesper took a piece and popped it in his mouth.
Bill Vesper chomped on his Hubba Bubba as he spoke. His hands were on his hips, thumbs tucked into his belt.
“Was he a rapper or a singer?” asked Sanchez. “I never could tell the difference.”
“Rapper,” Vesper replied. “I think.” He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. All I do know is that he overdosed after a concert in Texas. Dallas, I think.”
“Houston,” corrected Sanchez. “It was Houston. I heard on the radio it was a mix of heroin and some painkillers.”
“Ridiculous,” said Vesper, almost inhaling his gum when he sucked in his gut. “I mean, all that money and fame wasted.”
“Man, you never know what’s really going on with those people,” Sanchez remarked. “They’ve all got demons, it seems like. Every last one of them.”
“I never much listened to that rap music,” Vesper smacked. “I knew that ‘Cleopatra’ song.”
“How could you not?” Sanchez laughed and then aped the lyrics, “Too, too good.”
“I’m good here,” the muscled deputy called out. “He’s clean.”
Vesper and Sanchez resumed their positions at the prisoner’s side and escorted him the short distance beyond the interior gate of the Federal Correctional Complex in Petersburg, Virginia, and to a three-quarter-ton Ford van. The van, painted white, was reinforced with steel plating around the doors, and all but the driver’s side window were protected by heavy steel grates.
“A one-way ticket to Chesapeake Detention Center,” Sanchez said to the prisoner. “Your carriage awaits.”
The guards helped 02681-044 into the van, positioning him on a bench seat in a secure area toward the middle of the cabin. Vesper took a seat in the front next to the driver. Sanchez rode in the back, behind the secure area.
“We’re one on one plus one,” Vesper said to the driver, pulling his seatbelt across his lap. He was referring to the USMS policy of one guard for every prisoner plus an additional guard for security.
“That’s not saying much when we’ve only got a single transport,” said the driver, also an armed deputy marshal. “Why aren’t we waiting until we have more guys going to the same place? It’s kind of a waste of Uncle Sam’s money to move a single guy, isn’t it?”
“It’s a priority,” explained Vesper, popping a bubble and offering the driver a piece of gum. “He was only here until space opened up at Chesapeake.”
“Why not keep him here until trial?” asked the driver.
“This is only medium security.” Vesper shrugged. “I guess they want him in a max facility. I don’t ask, brother. I do what I’m told.” He tipped his USMS ball cap at the driver.
“Why not fly him there?” asked the driver. “It’s an hour in the air instead of three and a half on the ground.”
“Again—” Vesper chomped “—above my pay grade.”
“Gotcha.”
“You check in with comms?”
“Yes,” said the driver. “We’re good with Petersburg Sheriff’s Department.”
“Secure radio?”
“Yes. We’re good.”
“Cell phone?”
“Full bars and central dispatch has us on satellite. We’re all good.”
“Let ’em know we’re en route,” Vesper commanded.
“10-4,” said the driver, picking up a handheld radio transmitter. “PSD, this is USMS JPATS, ready for transport. We have one prisoner aboard. Route is approximately one hundred seventy-seven miles. Over.”
“10-19, USMS JPATS transport,” a dispatcher responded. “You’re 10-1 to Chesapeake. Over.”
“Thank you, PSD. Over. Out.”
In the middle seat, locked to a bolt, Prisoner 02681-044 closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He listened to the inane banter and considered how clueless his three escorts were. They had no idea what was about to happen. A smile crept across his face.
*
TRIANGLE, VIRGINIA
It was too early in the morning for Doug Salas. He’d only had time for two Red Bulls before he got the call. He’d assembled his team, made the necessary arrangements, and hustled it to an abandoned Ramada Inn in Triangle, Virginia. He lowered the volume on his two-way radio, pressed the earpiece more firmly into place, and joined the others huddled together in the back of the parking lot where they were hidden from view.
“We’ve got ninety minutes,” he told them. “They left FCC Petersburg. They should hit us pretty quickly. What’s the traffic?” he asked his logistics chief, a compact but powerful man.
“It’s green,” the chief said after checking the screen on his computer. He had it perched on the hood of one of four black SUVs. “They’ll make good time up I-95.”
The team, which looked like a haphazard group of construction workers, consisted of twelve men. Salas was their unquestioned leader. He’d assembled the team, handpicked every one of them for their skill and their discretion. They were the ones of whom the men in the “mythical” black helicopters were afraid.
Salas rubbed his beard with his thick, calloused fingers. His right pinkie was foreign against his skin. The nerves were shot and the finger was permanently numb. Salas barely noticed it anymore. It was only the tension of the pending operation that made him sensitive to it.
“All right,” he said, his hands on his hips. “I need Green Team on I-95, diverting northbound traffic onto Joplin Road. I need Blue Team on Joplin, handling the detour back to I-95. Yellow Team takes the block at US1. Red Team is with me. We’ll handle communication diversion and extraction. Questions? Let’s go piss up a rope.”
The eleven men surrounding Salas grumbled their understanding of the operation. In threes, they separated and moved to their assigned SUVs.
Salas was unaccustomed to operating on American soil. Sure, he’d done it once or twice when the circumstances called for it, but it was rare and he didn’t like it.
A covert, extraordinary rendition in Ashgabat along the Turkmenistan border with Iran was preferable to operating in Northern Virginia. A fifty-kilometer hike to a black site in Somalia was easier to plan than a diversion and extraction on a freeway interchange.
However, he took the job, as he always did, because this was what he did. He delivered the impossible and would continue to do it as long as it was asked of him.
Thirty-six hours earlier, he’d received a coded message on a prepaid forty-five-hundred-dollar encrypted countersurveillance iPhone. The code contained a time, a drop location, and instructions to alert the sender if the drop was compromised.
Salas would pick up the physical mission instructions by himself. Only after he read through the specifications would he choose his team. Some operations called for light teams; others required a heavier hand. This was the latter.
Every man he contacted agreed instantly to participate. They never said no. They knew better than to turn down a professional like Salas. He wouldn’t call them again if they did.
Now they were briefed, armed, and ready to go. Salas rode in the front passenger seat, leaning forward on the leather without a seat belt. He was like Washington crossing the Delaware.
>
“This is gonna happen rick tic, fellas,” Salas told the three men in his vehicle. “We won’t have much time to think once they hit us. Every man needs to be squared away and good to go when I give the signal.”
The trio acknowledged their leader as the SUV reached its wooded location west of US 1 on Joplin Road. They’d wait there until their target was in range.
“Fisher,” Salas said, addressing the communications specialist in the back of the SUV, “you good with the comms? I’ll need you intercepting their cells, radios, and jamming satellite when they get within range.”
“Not a problem, sir.” Fisher nodded. “They’ll be talking to us without knowing it. I’ve already got a fix on the secure channel the local sheriff uses. I can ping the cells when they get closer. Satellite won’t be an issue.”
“Good.” Salas checked his watch. They had more than an hour to wait, hidden among the trees.
“Anybody got a Red Bull?” Salas asked. “I need another one.”
*
“There’s no detour marked on our map,” Bill Vesper said to the driver when traffic slowed near State Highway 619 in Triangle, Virginia. “And I don’t recall one being a part of the itinerary. Get the Prince William County SO on the radio.”
“Prince William dispatch,” the driver said into the handheld transmitter, “this is USMS JPATS requesting information. Over.”
There was static.
“Prince William dispatch,” he repeated, “this is USMS JPATS. Do you copy? Over.” The radio crackled again; then a voice on the other end answered.
“This is Prince William dispatch,” said the voice. “We hear you USMS JPATS. Over.”
The driver held the transmitter to his mouth. “We’re stopped at a detour off I-95 north. We didn’t see this on our itinerary. Over.”
“There’s an integrity issue with the overpass,” replied the voice. “You’ll need to proceed to the off-ramp with the rest of the traffic. Over.”
“We need to get around this backup,” said Vesper. “Ask him about alternatives.”
“What alternatives do we have?” asked the driver, slowing to a stop a few feet from the exit. Up ahead on the shoulder there were a pair of safety-vest-clad men directing traffic. “We need to get a move on. Over.”
“Can’t help you there,” replied the voice. “There’s a deputy there who might be able to help you. He’s positioned on Highway 619 past the exit. Over.”
“Thank you, Prince William. Over.” The driver hung up the transmitter on the dash and edged toward the exit ramp.
“I can’t get the GPS to work,” said Vesper. “My cell phone isn’t working.”
“Bad signal,” said the driver. “We’re in the middle of nowhere Virginia.”
The driver inched the van down the ramp, following a half dozen other cars and trucks past the men with the safety vests. A few yards ahead was a man in a deputy’s uniform. He was helping guide the traffic across Joplin Road and onto a cut through that ran north, parallel to the interstate. The van stopped at his side and the driver rolled down the window.
“Deputy,” the driver called, “we’re transporting a prisoner, and we’re on a tight schedule. Is there a way around this mess?”
The deputy, with a thick beard likely not Prince William County regulation and a pair of reflective sunglasses straight out of Smokey And The Bandit, pressed his hands against the open window frame. He leaned in and looked back at the prisoner in the middle compartment.
“It is a mess, ain’t it?” He grinned, his teeth almost visible beneath the scraggle of his mustache. “Who you got there in the back?”
“High-value prisoner,” said Vesper, leaning toward the open window. “Gotta get him up north. Any ideas?”
The bearded man in uniform rapped his fingers on the sill before taking a step back and pointing across the roof of the van. “You can take a right here onto 619. It connects with US 1. They’ve got it blocked down there to stop traffic from coming up this way and making the congestion worse. Tell them I said it was okay.”
“Your name?” Vesper narrowed his eyes, straining to read the brass nameplate on the deputy’s chest.
“Smith.” He rapped on the hood with his fist. “Deputy Smith.”
The driver pressed on the accelerator and the van lurched forward. While the rest of the traffic continued north, the deputy marshals and prisoner 02681-044 headed east on Joplin Road/SH 619. The road was narrow and shrouded by trees on either side, and the morning sun cast shadows that hindered the driver’s vision, so he slowed his speed to compensate for the relatively poor visibility. They’d traveled about a half mile when they saw a roadblock up ahead. In the distance, maybe one hundred yards past the roadblock, was the intersection with US 1.
“My GPS still isn’t working,” said Deputy Vesper. He was holding his phone up above his head and out in front of him, searching for a signal. “I can’t get a signal.”
“The guys up here will know where to head,” said the driver. “Plus you do have a map.”
“As a last resort.” Vesper chuckled.
One of the three uniformed men at the roadblock walked toward the driver’s side of the van. The window was still down.
Wearing a uniform and glasses identical to the one they’d met a moment ago, the deputy was approaching with purpose. He was waving his left hand, indicating he didn’t want the van approaching any further.
“Go ahead and stop,” said Vesper. “He may not see the markings on the van.”
The deputy strode alongside the van, trailing his hand along the hood as he approached the window.
“Hey, I—”
Thump!
The driver never finished his sentence.
The deputy raised a nine millimeter handgun, reached through the open window, and pressed it against his forehead. He never felt the bullet shot into the side of his forehead.
Bill Vesper tried to scramble for his service weapon, but only managed to unsnap the strap across his Taser when a second bullet tore through his neck and a third into his temple.
Thump! Thump!
A black SUV pulled up behind the van and stopped perpendicular to the rear door, its tires squealing against the sudden pressure from the brakes.
Inside the back compartment of the van, Deputy US Marshal Mario Sanchez was trying not to panic. His heart was thumping against his chest, making the bulletproof vest feel even more constrictive than usual. He tried to remember his training, the countless drills and scenarios he’d experienced. The adrenaline and fear were clouding his memory.
Think! he told himself. Think!
He checked his cell phone. He had no signal. Still, he dialed 9-1-1 and pushed the speakerphone button. He left the phone on as it searched for a signal and set it on the floor.
Deputy Sanchez pulled a MAC-10 mounted to the interior wall of the van and checked it. It was loaded and its thirty-round detachable box-magazine was primed to unload heavy fire at eleven hundred rounds per minute. He ran his sweaty hand across the threaded barrel and checked the suppressor. Sanchez turned to face the rear doors of the van, bracing his legs and leveling the MAC-10 at the thin joint between the two doors.
From the floor, he heard a faint voice through the speaker on his phone.
“9-1-1. What is your emergency? Do you need police, ambulance or fire?”
“All three!” he yelled as loud as he could. “I’m a federal agent and I’m under attack.”
*
Doug Salas unbuttoned the top button of his Prince William County uniform. The shirt was irritating his neck. He stood on the passenger side of the van, the van’s keys in his hand. He was waiting to slide open the door until the dude in the back was handled.
“Let’s go,” Salas said to the five men standing at the rear of the van. “We don’t have but another three minutes and we need to be on our way.”
“Less than that,” Fisher emerged from the rear of the van. “The cell jammer failed. They’ve probably signaled fo
r help.”
“Do I have to do everything myself?” Salas huffed and marched to the rear of the van.
“We’re ready with the SLAM, sir,” said the operator in charge of explosives. “I think we’re good.”
“Set it then,” Salas rolled his eyes. He’d lost his patience. They should have already been in their SUVs and on the road with the target in custody.
“Everybody clear,” said the operator. “We need some space. Detonation in thirty.”
Five men ran to the southern edge of the road and found safety in the dry draining culvert. It was a perfect bunker. The sixth man got behind the wheel of the SUV and drove it west toward I-95 and stopped about fifty yards from the van.
Attached to the back of the van was an M2 Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition, a SLAM, which could deliver an effective explosion needed to enter or destroy an armored vehicle.
“You know this is probably overkill,” Salas said to the explosives operator.
“Probably, sir. It’s all I had with me on short notice.”
“It better not frag the target.”
“It shouldn’t. It’s at the rear of the vehicle. The lethality is only a couple of feet at the set charge. I’m at 20mm.”
Salas braced himself for the explosion, lowering his head to the ground. Instead of the concussive force of the SLAM, he heard the repeated crack of an automatic rifle.
“What the—?”
The cracking MAC-10 was buried under the explosion of the SLAM against the back door of the armored van.
Inside the device, the explosive material lodged inside of it rapidly decomposed the instant the timer hit zero, releasing nitrogen and carbon oxides that expanded at more than twenty-six thousand feet per second. After the initial blast, those gasses rushed back to the center of the explosion, causing a second wave of energy.
That second wave pushed the blasted doors inward, and incalculable amounts of shrapnel ended Deputy Sanchez. He’d unloaded the entirety of the thirty-shot magazine to no effect.
He never knew what hit him.
Somehow, the van stayed upright. The explosives operator did his job well, having measured the right amount of RDX and polyisobutylene to accomplish exactly the right amount of destruction.