When he arrived on scene, he parked under the shade of a tree-lined street where he could see the traffic coming and going.
As he waited, he considered the options that might present themselves. He believed he was ready for anything.
101. STOLEN VEHICLE
Mark Anderson planned to make the best of a bad situation when he left his house that morning. His blueprint– go to work for most of the day, leave a little early in order to pick up the cake he'd ordered for his son’s twelfth birthday celebration. Frustrating enough that he couldn’t do all of the things he would've liked to do for Tommy’s birthday, but these had been difficult months since his separation from Linda. He was grateful that at least, she'd had the decency to include him in the party plan. He was happy to get the cake.
It wasn’t until crossing the yard to get into his truck that he realized it was gone. He didn’t know that he'd missed the act by only thirty-five minutes. Justifiably pissed off, within a few minutes, he tried to stay calm as he spoke with the police dispatch operator. She completed her intake sheet information and then transferred his call to the office where the details about his stolen truck report would be created.
After finishing the call to the police department, he made a call to his boss to let him know that he'd be delayed, and followed that with a call to his insurance carrier to let them know what had occurred.
They asked similar questions about whether the truck was locked, whether the keys were in it, and a few other questions that might allow them to get off the hook. Finally, they assisted him with what he needed so that he could make the arrangement to rent a car.
About two hours later, relatively back on track, he headed to work. Throughout that morning’s chaos, his brain ached about this personal affront, and he hoped that somehow, someone would find his truck.
The thought never occur to him, during the entire process, that there was any luck in the day’s events. Had he not called the police, his insurance company, or the rental company, and continued as possible with the routines of the day, he would have faced some very frightening and stressful hours by the end of it.
Instead, he shared in eating cake and watching his son at play with friends, celebrating the day, unaware until later that his potential stress was held to a minimum by his actions.
102. JAW’S TOOTHY GRIP
All three picked at the food in front of them, but none of them were terribly hungry, for different reasons. After Dan finished his share of eating and drinking, he left Tony to hold down the fort while he stepped out of the room.
He made a call to Faulkner’s secure line and informed him they'd be meeting in a different place. When the colonel balked, Dan said “Claire will be joining us.” That statement brought a momentary and heavy blanket of silence down over the Colonel’s protest. After a brief pause, he demanded “Hold on!”
◆◆◆
The colonel muted the satellite phone, selected a line on his desk phone and called his home number, then his wife’s cell, neither of which produced his wife’s voice. His facial tone was significantly more reddened by the time he returned to the call from Hardesty.
“If anything happens to my wife or my kids, I will peel your skin.” It was the first thing he said into the phone.
“Believe me, Colonel, we don’t want any harm to come to your family. Ideally, nobody will be harmed, but most of that will depend on your actions, starting this afternoon.”
Dan gave Faulkner an address and description of where they would meet, keeping the time to meet at 3 p.m., and encouraged him to "leave his friends at the office".
103. WEAPON HOT
Faulkner didn't usually carry a weapon. Easier to get around without such hardware, for even with his high security clearances, there were inevitable delays when one included a weapon on their person.
This morning, he checked to see that his Colt.45 was loaded, placed it into his car’s glove box under the folded papers. He drove to work as he normally did, parking in the slot reserved for him.
At 1420, he left the office, informing the Duty Officer that he would be out for the rest of the afternoon. He went down to the lot, got into his car, did a quick peek to see that his pistol remained in place, and drove through the gates and off the property.
His mind raced. Faulkner had decided that bringing anyone else along wouldn't be wise, but he'd certainly be armed and ready when he met Hardesty. He didn't notice the old truck that followed him down the avenue and proceeded to follow as he entered the beltway.
He located the restaurant complex in the Chantilly Shopping Center area and pulled into a parking spot near the main entrance. He shut off the engine, leaned over and withdrew the pistol from the glove compartment. Reaching behind his back, he tucked it into the waistband holster, got out of the car, and checked to be certain that the pistol was seated securely as he straightened his jacket and locked the car.
The bulk at the small of his back, even with this compact design, was a feeling he hadn't felt in years. He was acutely aware of it as he turned and walked between his car and the one next to it, then entered the parking lot’s thoroughfare. The lot was full and he needed to walk past a couple dozen cars before getting to the pedestrian crosswalk and building entrance.
His gait was the brisk, purposeful one of a man with a mission and his mind was less on the mission and more on the face of his wife and kids. When his ears took in the vibratory sounds and transmitted them to his brain, the relevant importance of those sounds did not make it in time to save him.
Before he knew he'd need to jump to safety, he was slammed from behind. The force first broke both of his femurs and tore a large amount of his pelvic girdle’s ligature, causing a scream to explode from his torso. The following trauma that occurred was without sensory pain, as is often the case with injuries of this severity, as endorphin release begins and loss of consciousness follows. The fracturing of multiple bones and tearing that occurred in large regions of soft tissue took place in tiny fractions of a second before his head impacted the asphalt surface. Life’s departure and death’s arrival were merely a measure of moments, later only defined as "immediate".
104. MEETING TIME APPROACHES
Tony handed Claire a cell phone. Within a minute, he could hear that she had a voice on the other end. "but Susan, I can't tell you now... You know I do, but... I'm sorry, Susan. Please! I promise, we'll talk about it later... Thank you, thank you so much!... Okay. We'll talk soon."
She ended the call and handed the phone back.
"It worked out? She'll have your back?" Tony asked for confirmation.
"Yes. She'll pick up the girls and take them to her house. Thank you."
◆◆◆
At 1430, Dan and Tony walked out of the motel room with Claire walking between them. She was unrestrained, wearing the sunglasses and calm. The three walked to where the car was parked and Dan opened the back door behind the driver’s seat. Claire got in and fastened her restraint and when it was set, Dan opened the driver’s door and got in. Tony had once again gone around to the other side and he slid in next to Claire where he buckled his own seatbelt.
A twenty-minute drive later, the car turned off a small artery that served parking lots of the Chantilly Shopping Center. It pulled into a spot near a gas station and restaurants. A tree on the lot's perimeter offered dappled shade and the windows were down. The canopy offered thin respite from the sun's rays, but the humidity was inescapable. The shade did offer a variegated pattern in the surrounding landscape of baked asphalt and concrete.
Tony propped his camera on the seatback. He watched vehicles approaching the local burger fast food site, through a telephoto lens, looking at faces. Five minutes before the hour, he spoke up.
"Here he comes." He followed the car's progress through the camera, watching as it pulled into the next lot, parked toward the back, away from the building.
Dan turned in the seat to look at Claire.
"I'll go over and meet your hu
sband. As soon as I can, I'll call Tony, have him bring you over, okay?"
She nodded, a small, nervous dip of her head.
Tony got out, walked around to stand by Claire's door. From there, he’d use the camera, watching his partner's progress.
Right then, their attention was distracted by the high-revving sound of an engine across the way. Dan was facing that direction and his eyes were able to quickly focus on the movement of a pick-up moving fast between two rows of parked cars. Tony had to turn his head and by the time he found the source, the sound that followed was a human scream and squealing tires.
They both watched an older Ford pick-up truck skittering out of the driveway across the street and continue speeding as it left the area. Tony's fast finger on the button worked the camera.
With a glance toward Tony, Dan sprinted across the road and could hear a high-pitched voice begin to scream and saw a couple people running toward the front entry area of the building.
A few moments later, when Dan got there, he saw two people huddled at the ground out in front and saw that they were kneeled next to someone in uniform. Dan continued forward until he was able to see the mangled body and bloody head and face. It was Colonel Faulkner. It did not look like he was going to survive this accident. It looked like he was already a dead man.
Dan jogged back across the street and into the parking lot. He approached the passenger door behind the driver's, and caught Tony’s eyes, shook his head. He proceeded to open the door, helped Claire out of the car and turned her to face him.
“Mrs. Faulkner, I'm so sorry. There was an accident out in front of that building across the street and it looks as though it involved your husband.”
“Wha…?” She partly completed the word, and her knees buckled, but Dan watched her as she almost instantly regained some composure and balance.
"Okay... okay." She pulled against his arm, straightened her legs, stood upright, looked into his eyes. Hers were rimmed with tears, but none of them descended her cheek.
"Is he de... is he gone?" Dan could see in her eyes that she already guessed the answer.
"I need to go." Her words were soft, a whisper.
He signaled Tony to wait while he started to walk her in the direction of the street. As they got to the curb, Dan kept a hand on her elbow and reached up with the other hand, removed the sunglasses. She was looking ahead and as she stepped forward, Dan released his grip on her arm.
She broke into a run as he did so and she was across the street in a moment, running toward the group that was growing around the heap that used to be her husband.
Dan watched as she knelt down, fading into that group, then he turned back and trotted to the car where Tony was standing, watching. They didn't want to leave now, here, in this way, but they had no choice. Dan got into the car, and Tony followed suit. They drove out, away from the area.
While Dan stared forward through the windshield, Tony faced the side window, the scenery flickering by without detail. The rolling thunder in both men's heads crashed against the painful silence in the automobile. Finally breaking the hush, Dan asked, "Who pulled that trigger?"
A moment later, Tony replied, "I might have a photo."
105. 911 CALL - HIT AND RUN
Zeke was a recent graduate of Herndon High. He planned to enter college eventually, but the current plan consisted of building up some savings and buying a better car than the one that was barely getting him around. While waiting for that, he knew that it did get him to his job where he worked in the kitchen of a restaurant in the Chantilly Shopping Center.
He wasn't expecting this evening’s shift to be any different from ‘the usual’, but his expectations would be shaken up and in two different ways. He was already giving a whole lot of thought to and about Tanya, who worked as a food server in the same restaurant. Mainly, he tried to figure out how to convince her to go out with him. He hadn't asked her yet, but he was working on it, building up his courage.
The young man parked at the far side of the lot as company policy dictated, and knowing he was early, sat for a few minutes, sent a text message to Tanya with ‘work’ being the excuse. He got out of his car as she responded and began a reply text, walking toward the building.
As he neared cars parked ahead of him, a truck accelerated past. He didn't pay any attention, didn’t see what happened until it was too late. He looked up from the cell phone just a split second before a scream or maybe tires squealing or some combination of those sounds shrieked, up ahead. He had time to see the pick-up truck as it impacted a soldier who'd been walking in the direction of the building. The truck’s sound could have been brakes, but the truck was accelerating, rather than slowing, and Zeke watched in horror as it ran over the soldier, peeled out of the lot.
Zeke shoved his phone into his pocket as he ran forward. At about the same time of his arrival at the soldier’s side, three other people nearby had approached and they all seemed at a loss of what to do in those traumatic few moments. Then one woman began to check the soldier for a pulse and yelled.
“Someone call 9-1-1!”
Zeke pulled his phone, activated his dialer and called, and was soon speaking with the operator. She asked if he'd seen the vehicle and he did his best to identify it, though he hadn't seen a license plate in the chaos of the moment. He was able to ID it has an older, dark blue Ford F-150. He informed the operator that he was certain, as he'd been looking at similar models when thinking about a replacement set of wheels. After providing his name and address for future contact purposes, the operator asked that he remain online until paramedics arrived, and he agreed.
It was at that point, when he was beginning to feel a bit nauseous and wondering how long he could manage to hang out there, that he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and looked up to see Tanya looking down at him, with furtive glances at the body laying nearby. Zeke rose up and was greeted by Tanya’s arms as she threw them around his shoulders.
“My god, Zeke. What happened?” She spoke into his ear and Zeke began to tell her what he'd seen. All the while, she held onto him and Zeke began to flush at being so close to her, even in this moment of emotional wreckage.
They stood watching the turmoil at their feet, then noticed another woman who'd arrived, knelt at the man's side, crying and talking to the soldier, who she kept calling Sam. Zeke was going to stay, but Tanya looked at him and pleaded, “Zeke, can we go?” and that was all he needed.
“Yes. Let’s go inside. I need to sit down.” They walked into the building with their arms around each other’s waist.
106. ASSIGNMENT ACOMPLISHED
Robbie returned to the neighborhood where where he'd stolen the truck, found a quiet side street nearby where he'd left his rental car, and two blocks from where he'd found the truck. He parked, disconnected the wires under the dash and proceeded to wipe down the steering wheel and controls he'd touched, then left the truck and walked back to his rental car.
As he drove out of the area and headed toward the airport, he placed a call to Gerald Moore.
"Gerrie, Robbie here. I can only report that the gentleman I came here to see is no longer accepting visitors.”
"Very well, Robbie,” Moore replied. “I hope you were able to take care of your concerns and business in whatever way possible.”
"Absolutely, Sir. Everything is squared away and complete.”
“Excellent, Robbie. I’ll see you when you get back to the office.”
The call was terminated.
107. BETHESDA PATROL
Patrolman Rawlings started his shift two hours earlier. He'd received the normal updates and APBs in preparation for the evening. There were several robberies and assaults along with the ubiquitous shoplifting and stolen vehicle reports, but he'd been especially disturbed by the hit and run info he and fellow officers had received during start-of-shift report. That had occurred in nearby Chantilly, so he didn’t really expect to hear more about it, but the vehicle description was dissemin
ated to neighboring communities, so he had it in his mind.
When he spotted the dark blue Ford pick-up, parked on a side street, his mental indicator light blinked on in his brain. He didn’t make a radio call right away, but stopped his Crown Vic, turned on the strobes and stepped out of the cruiser to give it a closer look.
After seeing that there was nobody in the truck, he went around the front and immediately noticed what looked like blood on the front bumper. Closer inspection produced more, dried blood and a piece of torn clothing that sure as hell looked like camouflage material.
His radio call took twenty seconds, and dispatch assured him that his back-up would be there soon. The accidental death or murder of a colonel in the U.S. Air Force by hit and run was the hottest topic in the area.
Within an hour, the entire block was cordoned off and personnel were canvasing every house in the neighborhood, hoping to find witness to anything related to the truck.
Registration indicated ownership by a Mark Anderson who lived two blocks away and within a short time, he answered a knock on his door. As soon as he acknowledged his name and that he owned a dark blue Ford F-150, he was handcuffed and escorted to the back of a patrol car, and driven to headquarters.
His questions about them finding his truck went un-answered at first and it took about five hours into his evening before the inquiries into his report of a stolen vehicle, his discussion with his insurance carrier, his presence at work as well as his presence at his son’s birthday finally allowed him to be released, with assurance that there would be more follow-up to come.
Predators and Drones Page 24