by Gavin Reese
“What time was the driver supposed to deliver the money?”
“8-30, so Franklin might expect something’s up, may not accept the delivery.”
“Did the driver say what his take was gonna be?”
“Ten grand.”
“I’d say we’re in the wrong line of work, Sarge, but that only comes out to about a thousand a year for the prison sentence.”
“I like your optimism, Landon. The D-A’ll probably plea this out to misdemeanor possession.”
Alex chuckled at his sergeant’s cynicism. “Driver ever tell you what he’s so afraid of? I didn’t think a lot of money couriers turned informant.”
“Yeah, Franklin’s weed source in the Santa Lina cartel is some guy called El Cuchillo, driver’s terrified of him. Doesn’t give a shit about Franklin, but apparently El Cuchillo put the fear of God into this guy. So, Melner wrote a search warrant for the house and faxed it off to the judge, just waiting to hear back from her, should be in the next fifteen or so. Just thought I would keep you company for a bit.”
“That’s sweet, Sarge, I heart you too.” Alex looked at his watch and saw it read 2130. “Hey, you guys ask for a nighttime service exception?”
“No, Franklin doesn’t have any priors for weapons offenses, so there’s no way the judge’d grant it. We’re just gonna hafta move fast to breach the front door before 2200. Stay awake and I’ll hit you back when we’re headin’ over.”
“Thanks, copy that.” They better hurry, Alex thought as he settled back into the sweltering, renewed boredom, and contemplated donning his gear now. Might be worth saving a few minutes just in case this thing does go off tonight.
Movement. From the front, south-facing door of the target residence, a tall, thin white male emerged to interrupt Alex’s thoughts. He quickly wiped what sweat he could from around his eyes and lifted a pair of binoculars to them. Through the magnified lenses, he recognized the main suspect, Jesse Franklin, and saw that he looked antsy. Based on his appearance, Alex concluded that Franklin desperately wanted street credit as a legitimate gangster. He wore red-and-white K Swiss sneakers, sagging baggy jeans, “wife beater” undershirt, red bandanas in his right rear jeans pocket and on his head, full-sleeve tattoos of nude women and pit bulls, and a Cincinnati Reds flat-brimmed hat. He certainly doesn’t want to be confused with an accountant, Alex surmised, and he musta thought the muscles came with the shirt.
Alex watched Franklin repeat the same nervous behavior he had seen several times over the previous five hours: Franklin emerged from the front door while talking on a cellphone, walked south into the unfenced front yard, and looked at the area around his house in an apparent search for any sign of the missing truck or police surveillance. “Relax, young Jesse,” Alex whispered, “the truck’ll be along shortly.” If the driver’s terrified of El Cuchillo, Alex thought, what’s Jesse gonna think about the consequences of losing almost a million dollars of cartel drug money? Franklin’s presence reminded Alex to stay alert and cautious; despite his amateur efforts, the felony suspect was actively conducting counter-surveillance. “Desperate people do desperate things,” Alex quietly stated aloud.
After watching Franklin return inside the home, he calmly retrieved the clipboard from the front passenger seat to jot more shorthand notes for the supplemental report he would have to write later:
2132 hrs // f/door // cell call // chckd strt 4 trfc // back in <1min
Franklin’s behavior and clothing had not changed since he last emerged from the house eighty-one minutes earlier, so Alex decided not to broadcast his roundtrip to the other detectives. No reason to distract the other guys with that, he thought, but it feels good that Jesse’ll soon realize his paranoia’s justified.
BEEP BEEP BEEP The Nextel alarm went off again.
“Alex, anything new?”
“No sir, nothing out here but a bad man missing his truck.”
“Good, warrant’s signed. SWAT units are headed there now in a few unmarks to set up on the east and north sides of the house. We’re going forward with the controlled delivery, but our wire is dead and we can’t get a loaner here in time. The driver’s wearing an audio recorder, but we can’t hear what’s being said. Can you see the front door and the entire, and I mean the whole, front yard?”
“Yessir, everything but the far, east end, maybe only about ten or twelve feet of grass out of view, but I got the whole front of the structure.”
“Okay, time to step up from the bush league, so pay attention…copy?” Jones’ tone revealed his typical impatience as the investigation approached its sixth hour.
“Yessir.”
“Templeton is going to pull himself out of the stack to call the bust for his SWAT guys. If he can’t get into a position to see Franklin accept the delivery, I need you to do it. The driver understands what we need Franklin to say to satisfy our charges against him, and after he does that, the driver will take off his ball cap and wipe his face with a shirt sleeve to signal that Franklin accepted the load.”
“Copy. Bust signal is the driver taking off his hat and wiping a sleeve across his face.” Damn, Murphy’s fuckin’ with us tonight. Stay alert, he told himself, this is when shit goes south.
“The driver said bad guy is supposed to meet him near the truck, so they should be well away from the front door when he calls the bust. That bust signal and the audio recorder the driver’s wearing will lock down the case against Franklin, so just don’t fuck up calling it out. SWAT’s divided into two smaller tactical elements that will converge from unmarked cars parked east and north of the house, so, if Franklin runs, he’ll probably go south toward you. SWAT’s gonna detain and handcuff the driver just like the suspect so no one thinks he’s an informant. Get your vest on, piss in Chris’s water bottle again, and get ready. E-T-A less than ten. Copy?”
“Yes, sir!” I’m almost outta this shitbox, Alex thought, and dropped the Nextel into the Neon’s cup holder. He reached onto the front passenger seat and retrieved his police radio to await word from Sergeant Templeton, a.k.a. “Zulu-2.” Having worked previous investigations and SWAT callouts with Templeton, Alex knew the sergeant would do everything possible to avoid leaving the responsibility of calling out the bust signal to a junior detective like himself. He also understood that Templeton calling the bust signal like this was also unusual, as his normal position as the Special Weapons And Tactics Team Leader was to be fourth in the “stack” whenever the SWAT team entered a residence. From there, he served as their quarterback, and effectively called audible play changes whenever the environment or circumstances in which his team found itself varied from what they planned or expected. Alex deeply respected Templeton’s work ethic and his tendency for assigning himself the most dangerous and accountable roles; in Alex’s brief career, he had already seen several supervisors who delegated responsibility away to their employees.
After confirming his police radio was set at a reasonable volume, Alex placed it by the Nextel, cautiously collected his ballistic raid vest and gear from the front passenger floorboard, and even donned the equipment without noticeably rocking the small car. Fuck yeah, Alex thought as he affixed his external ballistic vest carrier straps in place, Jesse’s going to jail tonight.
“Zulu-2, radio.” The sound of Sergeant Templeton’s voice on his police radio gave Alex pause, and he intently waited for the team leader’s transmission.
“Go ahead, Zulu-2.”
“All involved units en route to the SWAT destination. We’re taking our traffic over to Tac-3.”
“Copy. All units involved in special operation, move your radio traffic to Tac-3.” Alex pinched the tall channel dial between his right thumb and index finger before twisting it two clicks clockwise to reach the desired frequency. After several silent seconds, he picked the radio up to look at the digital display despite being certain his muscle memory had not failed him. Satisfied with its settings, he now secured the radio in the front left pouch of h
is external ballistic vest carrier and strapped it down with a Velcro fastener; he then depressed a small black button on the center of his vest, just below the neckline, which turned on his Bluetooth headset, and slid the attached silicone stem into his left ear canal.
booDOOP
With his earpiece and mic activated, Alex mentally rehearsed a series of “if-then” scenarios to prepare for the most likely outcomes and visualized the impending delivery. The truck rolls in, he imagined, Franklin comes out, looks around for cops, sees none, gets lippy with the driver for being late, whips out a stack ‘o benjis to pay the man, SWAT steamrolls in, Franklin ruins a pair of pants, and nobody gets hurt. Alex then played through various threat scenarios and preplanned his responses to them, which, should one of them come to fruition, would save critical seconds and potentially mean the difference between life and death.
Reenergized over what the next few minutes held, Alex surprisingly felt no additional misery wearing the vest and its heavy ballistic rifle plates inside the still-broiling Neon. Despite having done so several times over the course of the evening, Alex rechecked his most critical gear: two sets of handcuffs, handcuff key, nitrile gloves, flashlights, Taser, police ball cap. He drew his Glock 17 9mm handgun, the one he couldn’t easily access to point at Murray, from its holster on his right hip and slid his right index finger over the protruding chamber indicator on the slide’s right side. Yep, he thought, Roscoe’s still locked and loaded, just like always. He similarly checked the Glock 19 back-up gun inside his front waistband, although he already knew the condition of that particular weapon.
Several anxious minutes passed before Alex recognized the dilapidated work van driving south toward him on Center Avenue. Despite being a mechanically sound vehicle, the van appeared dangerously unroadworthy, which helped prevent civilians and criminals from associating it with law enforcement. As it reached 17th Street, the van made an unsignaled turn east, continued past Franklin’s house, and drove beyond Alex’s field of view.
A tan, unmarked Suburban next drove south on Center Avenue, but its driver parked against traffic on the east curb just south of 16th Street near the old, blue Chevy truck, and only one house north of Franklin’s. Almost immediately thereafter, northbound headlights approached and passed Alex and the Neon, at which time he recognized the white Cadillac Escalade. NEU had seized it from a meth dealer last year, and it presently served as Sergeant Templeton’s unmarked police vehicle whenever he required it for SWAT operations. The Escalade slowed and parked facing north on Center’s west curb across from Franklin’s house, its driver-side tires up on the sidewalk.
Alex’s long-silent police radio came to life and Sergeant Templeton’s voice sprung into his left ear. “David-33, Zulu-2, I have eyes on the front and will call the bust.”
Thankful to be finished with the Nextel for the time being, Alex clipped it onto his vest’s right epaulet. He depressed the police radio mic button, this time to transmit, and dropped his chin a bit toward the device’s microphone. “Zulu-2, David-33, I copy, sir, standing by.” Alex hoped he sounded calmer than he felt. The last few minutes before an operation kicked off were always the tensest for him. Is it strange that I feel calmer in the middle of a raid than I do in the minutes leading up to it?
“Zulu-2, Sam-9, we’re now two minutes out, just behind the delivery truck. I’ll stop north of the first team and let the truck go the last block on its own.”
Alex fought against his body’s sympathetic nervous system to remain as calm as possible despite the potential impending danger. Two minutes, he thought, combat breathing, in for four, hold, out for four, repeat. It felt like an eternity, like the last two minutes of a hotly contested basketball game.
Relax, Alex told himself, and run through the ‘if-thens’ one last time. Suspect runs toward me, I confront him, shout “POLICE! DON’T MOVE!” loud enough for him and the neighbors to hear it, let him dictate the outcome, get a cover officer, and take him into custody. Suspect runs with a gun, use the engine block for cover, cover him with the fuzzy front sight, yell commands. If he raises the gun, find my clear front sight, squeeze, assess, and repeat until he’s no longer a threat.
A cargo truck turned south onto Center Avenue from Jefferson Street and started the last four blocks to Franklin’s home. Alex saw Sergeant Jones’ red Ford Expedition, which had also been acquired courtesy of a drug seizure, followed closely behind, which immediately confirmed the conspirator-turned-informant drove the cargo truck.
“Go time,” Alex quietly told himself, then watched the cargo truck approach and turn east on 17th, and lawfully park on the south side of the road across from Franklin’s home. Directly in my fuckin’ line of sight, Alex thought, at least Templeton still has a view of the front yard to call this thing. Alex sought to hear what happened on the other side of the truck and slowly turned the manual control to lower the driver’s window a few inches. A slamming vehicle door announced the driver had exited the rented truck, but, Alex knew he would hear little else because the driver left the truck’s diesel engine running. “Nice work, jackass,” Alex said aloud, no longer concerned about being overheard.
“Zulu-2, standby, two suspects walking out, white male matching description from briefing and an unknown black male wearing a red hat, red Cardinals football jersey, white pants, and white shoes.” Alex assumed the black male to be Jerome McGregor, Franklin’s longtime friend and a locally grown criminal. I never saw him come in, Alex thought, so he must have been in there all afternoon.
The juxtaposed loud, idling diesel and silent police radio captivated Alex’s attention and substantially increased his anxiety. He felt and heard blood pumping through his carotid artery. Come on, give him the money, he thought, there’s nothing worse than these last few seconds.
“Zulu-2, white suspect arguing with the driver, pointing at his watch, now at the driver’s head with a finger-gun, NO visible weapons, repeat, negative weapons, standby….”
Radio silence, idling diesel…
Alex couldn’t see or hear the commotion on the other side of the truck and fought to control his body’s physiological stress responses. He wanted very badly to throw open the driver’s door and rush the front yard. Deep breath, combat breathing, he told himself, in for four, hold, out for four, repeat…
“Zulu-2, Bust. GO! GO! GO!” Alex opened the Neon’s front door and pushed it wide open, leapt from the front seat, and drew his Glock 17 from its holster. He knelt several feet behind the door hinges to use the small engine block and burnt orange door as ballistic cover and elevated the pistol to a high-ready position. The Glock, held in both hands with his arms extended just below being parallel to the ground, barely cleared the Neon’s hood and Alex kept its front sight just below his field of view. He held his right index finger extended straight along the right side of the pistol’s frame, and, should the need arise, prepared to reflexively find the trigger in a fraction of a second. Deep breath, combat breathing, he repeated to himself, in for four, hold, out for four, repeat…
Due north of the Neon and apparently out of the suspects’ field of view, Alex watched the second tactical team pour out of the tan Suburban toward the residence. At a controlled jog, the team formed a tight, single-file column and quickly stacked up behind a ballistic shield as they hustled to a spot just north of the southwest corner of Franklin’s residence. Alex pictured the first team’s assumed, similar approach toward the southeast corner of Franklin’s front yard, which ensured the teams had a tactically sound “L”-configuration around Jesse and Jerome that prevented crossfire between the two stacks.
“Bang out,” calmly broadcast over the police radio and Alex prepared for the impending concussion.
BANG! merp merp merp ooahh ooahh merp merp merp
The “flash-bang” diversionary device immediately activated several nearby car alarms. Even though he expected it, the sudden, intense flash that accompanied the bang surprised Alex, and produced enough light that Fr
anklin’s front yard momentarily appeared as though in daylight. Alex saw the corresponding and equally momentary shadow the rented moving truck cast onto the street in front of him, and he reflexively closed his eyes and looked down despite the light having already passed. Designed to momentarily confuse and disorient the SWAT team’s adversaries, Alex knew from his own training and experience the effectiveness of the non-fragmenting, concussive device.
“POLICE! DON’T MOVE! POLICE! DON’T MOVE!” Alex recognized Officer Talbert’s loud, booming voice. He alone gave verbal commands to the suspects, thereby avoiding the din of fifteen officers yelling for compliance. Despite being almost a block away, Alex clearly heard Talbert’s directives and knew any honest witnesses nearby would, as well.
As he watched the second tactical team move southeast beyond his field of view on the other side of the truck, Alex’s discipline kept his feet planted behind the Neon’s open door. “GET ON THE GROUND! GET ON THE MOTHERFUCKIN’ GROUND!” Alex chuckled at Talbert’s characteristic vulgarity. Talbert’s got a good goddamned set of lungs in him, he thought, the neighbors fuckin’ definitely heard that shit! “HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK! DON’T MOVE!”
With most of the SWAT team now out of sight and apparently in control of the front yard, Alex blinked hard a few times to relax his eyes. He turned his head left and right to check his surroundings for any threats, and then returned his focus to the cargo truck and Franklin’s front yard. Alex heard only the idling diesel engine, car alarms, muffled verbal commands he assumed to be those necessary to handcuff the driver and both suspects, and a still-silent police radio.