Special Weapons and Tactics Ch. 06

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John - the Tuesday before Susan woke up in the strange bed:

Mid afternoon I received a call on my other cellphone, the one George Butler had given me.

"Hello?"

"Listen, sorry for the late notice but it looks like two Baldwin County Sheriff deputies have been dispatched to pick up your ex-wife today or maybe tomorrow. Some of our own surveillance is not real time and we just got the recordings and went over them."

It was Kevin Sandberg and he wasn't naming names and I determined to do the same. Guess everyone was a tad paranoid now that someone might be listening in - other than the NSA, of course - which was a given! But we'd make it as difficult as possible for them to figure anything detailed if generic data mining for some reason highlighted this call.

"Anything else of interest?"

"Yes. It's definitely who we thought it might be and it's time for another meeting at our place. Tomorrow morning maybe?"

"OK. 10:30 I'll swing by."

"Great. See you then. Hope it's not a problem with your ex..."

"Me too, bye."

Then I called Jenny to give her a heads up.

"It's OK, John - they came by and talked with Susan about Sam and wanted to take her back to Gulf Shores...but we all talked them out of it. I don't think they'll be back but Susan is pretty upset and you should tell her what's going on tonight."

"Ah, Jenny - thanks again for all you have done. I feel bad to have put you and your family in danger. If you want us to move out just say the word and we will. I wouldn't blame you at all and maybe we just should..."

"Nonsense, John! We both know it wasn't Susan's fault nor your's at all and if anything Frenchie and his hot headed friends stirred that whole pot too damn much! And if I thought Susan and your kids would be safer someplace else I'd insist you move - but that's the only reason. But given the nature of the enemy right now, I think this is maybe the best place for everyone for now. Especially with all our friends watching out for us all. Don't you?"

"I just don't know anymore. I wish I did and could get all this over with. The stress of worrying about so many people I love being in danger is a hard thing. I think I'm starting to appreciate just how Susan and the other wives feel about us and the dangers of our job."

"You should keep that in mind always, John. It's not easy for Susan or Gigi or even me worrying about my brother and other friends on the force I know, and now you too. You be real careful, OK?"

"I will Jenny. Thank you again. Let me call Susan and talk to her for a bit."

"Hello, John? Is everything OK with you?" Susan asked in a worried voice.

"Hi, honey. I'm fine. Are you OK? I talked to Jenny and she told me what just went down there."

Susan started sniffling a little.

"I don't understand it, John. I never filed any complaints or anything and I don't know why those deputies would want to take me back there. And I could care less that fucking little weasel is missing or whatever."

"It's OK. It's gotten a bit more complicated than just your - encounter - with Sam and other things are in play now. I'll try and explain it all tonight. We'll talk. For right now you just relax and let Jenny and her - our - friends take care of you. Don't go with cops or anyone else anywhere alone. OK?"

"OK, John. I still love you, you know?"

"I know Susan. I still love you - as the mother of our children. Let's just take the rest of it one day at a time. And it does mean something to me that we are now sleeping together."

The rest of the day passed pretty uneventfully, but the whole "not quite in control" low level stress never went away. I was able to leave on time and couldn't wait to get home and just SEE everyone was OK. The kids had watched the "old guy" with his gun "talk" to the cops from the upstairs window - but they couldn't really hear anything and didn't quite know what was going on and of course the adults weren't filling them in - so their imaginations were free to roam and speculate. And JJ and Joey did and so did Kimberley.

I filled in quite a lot of the blanks for Susan that night when we went to bed. The two key things I couldn't quite tell her was Sam's ultimate fate and that Sam's father just might have been the one responsible for the art theft and murders and now interest in talking with Susan. I just said it was a possible Sam O'Donnell "acquaintance" involved. Someone not quite on the level who might be very interested in just where Sam was right now. And those deputies may have been "bad cops." I also assured her I was NOT blaming her for any of this right now. Sam was ultimately to blame and/or other bad people - not Susan.

"Honey, you can't help it you're a beautiful woman and attract all manner of men, including me." I reminded her.

And tonight I was the aggressor and made love to her the best I could, and she responded very, very well - like the Susan of old I DID fall in love with and married. But despite my assurances and rekindled feelings for Susan, there was a lump in my stomach at leaving them all the next morning and heading into work. Jenny was able to have a private word and assure me our guardian friends were still around right before I left. Susan saw us talking and gave me a funny look then, but I didn't want to worry her anymore about any abduction issues. It never occurred to me her own jealousy of Jenny might be a thought or issue. I admit it, I'm just your basic dumb guy and thought my actions last night would have indicated to Susan I basically HAD made my decision regarding which woman I wanted to be with right now.

That Wednesday morning was our early SWAT unit group run and exercise get together - and then also our weekly meeting. There was an update on Karen - good, as her recovery continued - but also a reminder we should ALL be on our toes and follow "the book" procedure wise in any situation. I didn't want any heroes in my squad. Well, no one looking to be a hero - just professionals doing our job. Then we all headed out to our other assigned duties for that day except I grabbed Frenchie and just said, "Come with me. Got an interesting meeting you should attend as well."

At 10:35 we walked into the Butler law offices and I asked for Kevin Sandberg. We were led right into what I had learned was their most private conference room - one actually swept periodically for bugs.

Kevin, and George Butler walked in and looked at Frenchie.

"This is Ben 'Frenchie' Francois. My own right hand man on this and he knows everything already and has his own personal interest."

They didn't look all that happy but they needed to trust me as much - or as little - as I actually trusted them. Frenchie had already saved my life a couple of times in Iraq and these guys hadn't. I'd let them figure that out.

"OK, glad to meet you, Frenchie. I'm George Butler and this is Kevin Sandberg," and everyone shook hands like Southern gentlemen.

George looked at Kevin and nodded.

"OK. We definitely have confirmation JFO - John O'Donnell - is involved in the heist. We got one partial recording of him reading the riot act to a "David" about the killings at the robbery. He wanted "Gettysburg" but had evidently been assured no one was going to be hurt. Not a guard and certainly not two cops. He also was starting to get paranoid about his son Sam missing and asked David if he had found out anything else about that - were these other turds involved at all? He said the deal was the deal and he was only going to pay the already agreed $5 million and that was that, forget anything else. And he wasn't paying the rest of the money until he got the painting. Where the hell was it?"

It was all that I could do NOT to look at Frenchie at this point. Dumb Cajun. But he was MY dumb Cajun and vice versa, I guess.

"David told him: 'it's safe enough right now. It's at the house on the bay and they can move it by van or boat. My contact in Robbery says they are all pretty clueless but a reminder is still there every morning to be "on the lookout" for anything suspicious regarding this major crime. So we are just not taking any chances on some bad luck burning them. But they are also going a little stir crazy and wanting to move on. Where do you want them to deliver the painting - and is the cash ready, they keep asking?'"

"The cash is ready and I want to do the exchange at my southern Alabama estate. You do the map and directions for them. Let's plan on the exchange this weekend. All the cops should be busy enough with regular weekend craziness by now," JFO replied.

Kevin continued, "The fact JFO owns a southern Alabama estate was a surprise. His main home and offices are in Montgomery - the state capitol. We have been trying to locate it but it was evidently acquired and kept secret thru several layers of well hidden proxies. We'll find it eventually but the clock seems to be ticking. Maybe JFO will lead us to it himself. We'll try following him with 4 teams of drivers starting Thursday. It will depend on how paranoid he is and how good his own counter-surveillance security people are. And if he drives there instead of flying. If the "country estate" is large enough it might have it's own small plane landing strip or he could helicopter there."

"So. What's the end game if you do find him and the painting together? What if it's outside our jurisdiction - going to call in local cops? Realistically, what are the chances JFO will actually face any legal consequences given his own wealth and political contacts?"

"Those are all damn good questions, John. I guess the honest answer is I just don't know at this point. We'll have to wait and just see if we do catch them all together and where. But also remember I have even more wealth and maybe even more political contacts than he has. If we catch him red handed he WILL pay - maybe not prison but it's going to cost him a lot of money and status to stay out of jail. And his own political career will be toast. I can promise you that."

Nothing much happened the rest of the day. I got home on time again and everyone was in the now normal really good mood. Even Susan was a lot more relaxed and had recovered very quickly, for her, from her almost abduction. I was beginning to think my kids were not ever going to want to leave Mobile and all their new best friends forever. It was almost scary how many people were living together in this one house and so few conflicts, arguments, hurt feelings ever seemed to happen. The Chinese character for "trouble" is a little pictogram showing "two women under one roof" but here there were 3 women and a 13 year old girl all living under one roof and apparently all getting along just famously. I guess I should just count my blessings.

I made love to Susan again after we went to bed. It was just normal husband wife love making at bedtime. She came and I came and then sleep came very quickly and deeply. Life was starting to be good again.

The next day I received another cryptic phone call from Kevin. "We lost him. He's gone dark. He either found all our bugs or he's using some anti-bug technology that's really good. And the eyes we have around him - his main home and office where he HAD been dependably spotted - haven't seen him at all today. So - so much for following him closely starting tomorrow, I guess. I'll let you know if he shows back up."

Damn it.

Still too many unanswered questions. Butler wanted his paintings back and I wanted the perps who killed the guard and Jim Bast and also shot Karen, but I was also most worried about JFO wanting to abduct and interrogate Susan over his son Sam's missing status.

I called Frenchie and updated him as well and suggested he also alert our friends watching Jenny's house. Better to be safe than sorry.

I was also playing with the idea of holding a little training exercise and covert surveilling of some of the Bay front house neighborhoods. One thing learned from the T.W.O. training was that anchored boats were really no good for surveillance - they stood out like sore thumbs. OTOH, in busy waters fast moving boats fit right in. The answer was high speed insertion techniques - then covert swimming ashore and surveillance from there. There were literally thousands of houses over 10 miles of bayfront just south of the city of Mobile. That was probably where the stash house was. But it would take extreme luck to find the particular house currently being used. But maybe we could force a little action. By being less than fully covert in our training.

Mobile PD didn't have any observation UAV's - yet - but I was wondering about Butler's people?

So I called Kevin and asked, "Do you have access to any drones?"

"Anything large enough to be really useful is also pretty much illegal to fly in the USA by private individuals..."

"Yes, I know that. I am planning some training exercises near the bay shore south of Mobile Friday night. We'll be very visible as we work as much territory as we can. It might be nice to have some eyes in the sky to see if any nervous birds get flushed."

"Starting at dusk, maybe?"

"Yes. Hate to interfere with my guys Friday night relaxation - but it's time for some "emergency" training, I'm thinking."

"OK. Just let me know if it doesn't happen for any reason, from your end. I might be able to come up with something from my end."

I was pretty sure his "something" would be close to Predator grade optics - including infrared low light technology. We would be looking for 5 or 6 bodies leaving a house quickly in a van or truck large enough to hold that 6x10 foot painting not rolled up. JFO would want it as pristine as possible, no doubt.

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Friday night:

There wasn't too much grumbling from my team at the all hands training session. Lt. Michael Manning, in charge of the Mobile PD Marine division said his guys were OK as well as all 3 patrol boats - 26 footers with twin 200HP outboards each - were deployed. I had my 2 sniper teams with night scopes on 2 of the boats, with our 2 certified high speed insertion swimmers together on the third boat. That boat would make 25 mph passes between 50 and 100 yards offshore for the insertions. The swimmers would swim in as efficiently as possible, then look around with their own night vision equipment for 10 minutes then radio to be picked up. Then the boat would close to wading distance with spotlights blazing and our guys would reboard and we'd head to another spot and do it all again. Our swimmers might be pretty tired by the planned end of the exercise. About 3 hours worth. But they were in really good shape and proud of it, and were wearing 3mm wetsuits and were expert at staying just afloat with their buoyancy vests/weights, black snorkel masks, and fins. Even towing all their equipment - including MP5 carbines and night vision equipment in black waterproof low profile bags - it wasn't too big a deal for them. The other two boats would be out at least another 100 yards and our snipers would watch the insertions and make sure the swimmers didn't have any problems. These boats WOULD be practically static in the water observing the swimmers and also scanning the shore.

Only Frenchie and I were aware of the drone on overwatch and the real purpose of the exercise.

It was a pretty long 3 hours for everyone. The only thing observed of note was our intrepid swimmers spotting one couple having sex outside on their deck with their stealthy approach and night vision scopes. Just being polite they waited until it was finished before calling in the retrieval boat with it's spotlights blazing. The naked couple did scurry inside and everyone couldn't help but laugh a bit. The guys prick looked unnaturally large but that was probably just an artifact of the goggles - where more blood and therefore heat was, made it seem larger than real life. Maybe. Grins. We all missed Karen and what her reaction would have been.

She had taken such ribbing as the "token" female in our unit very well and gave as good as she got. I am sure I wasn't the only one having that thought and it motivated everyone to suck it up and not complain of this wasted Friday evening.

Still, it was a pretty long night and several of the officers involved were still doing their normal shifts tomorrow. At least the OT pay was authorized for them. Money doesn't always make up for time taken away from family though. I certainly understood that better now, myself.

It was almost 12:30 and I was on my way home when I received the phone call.

"I think it might have worked. About 11:15 we spotted 6 people leaving a bay front house and they seemed to be in a hurry. They left in two identical large van type vehicles, 3 people in each. One headed North and one South when they hit I-10 and split up. We followed the one headed North but they stopped at another house just off I-65 still in Mobile. I'll text you a screen shot of the house and exact GPS co-ordinates. We maybe followed the wrong van. I just thought the one heading North was the one most likely headed to the estate. Now I'm not so sure."

"Can you keep an eye on the house?"

"I've got some people on the way. The drone's only good for another hour on-site before heading back for refueling. It's going to be close whether my guys get there first. They probably won't be heading anywhere else tonight, anyway."

"Well, it's your money, your call. Crash the drone or lose 100% coverage contact?"

"I know. If we had another one it would be an easy decision - but we don't and may need it tomorrow for additional follow capability. We are only going to have minimal on the ground people. What are you going to do if they don't move tomorrow?"

"We'll go in tomorrow late afternoon if they are still there. Can't let Robbery know before we are on site since they have a contact there. I think I can trust the lead Homicide detective though. I'll handle this part of it. If I don't hear from you by 2PM tomorrow then I'll assume it's a go for my team's takedown."

At 11 the next morning I met with Fred Aames, the Homicide detective, for a private chat.

"Look, I've been working with the Butler people on the murder robbery and I think we have a very good hot lead. How soon could you get a warrant for this address - based on a "confidential informant" tip? I think it's really serious enough I can have my guys ready to go this afternoon with one hour's notice. If it IS these guys with their serious firepower, we want to be prepared for the worst, right?"

"Jesus, John - I didn't realize you had any investigative mandate or authority?"

"Yeah. Sorry if it seems like maybe I'm stepping on some toes. This all just sort of fell in my lap suddenly. I know I am asking you to stick your own neck out a tad with a CI warrant. But you can go in as slow and polite as you want to. If it's all some big mistake and just a suburban family at home, that should become apparent real quick. And then I'll be the one stepping on my own dick with my guys ready to dance - and no music after all."

"OK. I'll do my best. With any luck at all shouldn't take more than an hour. I'll let you know as soon as I get the warrant, OK?"

"Thanks Fred. Even if this is a bad tip I'll owe you one, big time. Oh - uh, I would suggest you not let anyone in Robbery know about this until we are all on site, minimum."

"Fuck. OK. I hope you know what you're doing."

"I know. Me too. I'll need an hour, don't forget."

He called me at 12:30 and said he had the warrant. He and his partner were going to serve it with a couple of uniforms at 3PM. That was perfect for me and I put the call out to all my guys at 1:30. Now, if only Kevin did NOT call and say they had already moved out...

At 3 we were all in place. Two of my guys and a uniform covered the back and sides. Fred and his partner knocked on the door but there was no answer. He shouted out "police" and one of the uniforms sledged the door open. Fred looked in and then waved at me.