The Crusader Ch. 09

"The South Side belongs to the Deutschlanders," Rollie said. "They won't like the competition."

"Yeah, the Krauts are gonna be real put out," Calvin replied. "They'll put up a fight to keep their territory. I think that's what the busted gun deal was about. The SLRC can't outman the Krauts but they might be able to outgun them."

Rollie thought for a minute. "Tell me about the players."

"The leader is Ernesto Ruiz, aka Jorge Mendoza, and he's the real deal Rollie. He grew up in the barrio in East L.A.; got too hot for him so he came east to St. Louis to live with a cousin. Sometime after he got here he hooked up with Tyrone Jackson, Tommy Smith, and Chang; no first name, it's just Chang."

"I think I ran into Tyrone Jackson when I worked for the Department," Rollie offered.

"You probably did. He's been involved in a lot of stuff over his 25 years. Smith is a leg breaker from the North Side. Chang just sort of showed up. Don't know much about him except that he's a bad ass; knows Kung Fu and Karate and all that martial arts stuff." Calvin looked hard at Rollie. "Be careful with that one Rollie; from what I heard, he's a stone killer; likes to watch people die and stuff. If you go after them, take back up. No need to be a hero. Okay?"

"Thanks Calvin but this isn't my first rodeo. I know a little bit myself."

"Time for you to go young man." The nurse had returned and there was a security officer with her.

"Yes ma'am," Rollie answered with a grin at the officer. "Call me if you need anything Calvin. Thanks."

On his way home, Rollie called his friend Detective Frank Wendt. "Hi Frank. Did Ricky come up with anything on Tully?"

"Not a hint of any credit card usage or anything. Where ever Tully is, he's not using any of them."

"Can you run a few names for me Frank?"

"These guys involved with Tully?"

"Don't really know; all I've got is a feeling," Rollie admitted. He gave Frank the names

"Call you back shortly," Frank said.

********************

"I didn't mean to upset Jacob," Julie protested again to Jessica.

The two women were sitting at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living area in Rollie's apartment. Jessica poured another cup of coffee for Julie and gave her a sympathetic smile.

"I know," Jessica replied.

"I was just teasing him; I didn't expect him to get so angry."

"Tully hasn't had many relationships," Jessica continued. At the look on Julie's face she said, "He's been with women but he never formed a strong bond with any of them. Part of it was because he was always moving around with the Marine Corp." Jessica smiled again. "He told me once that he didn't want to leave a woman or family wondering if he was going to come back from a deployment; he also told me he regretted it."

"He never told me that," Julie said. There was just a touch of sadness in her voice.

"I'm a trained Psychiatrist; it's my job to get people to open up. Besides, he's sort of adopted me because of Rollie so I'm like talking to his sister or something." Jessica pointed at Julie. "You on the other hand are definitely not his sister and I'm sure he has other things to talk to you about." She smiled wickedly at Julie.

"Rollie and I have known Tully for a long time and believe me if he was angry he'd tell you in no uncertain terms." Jessica smiled again and added, "Tully's not much of a diplomat." She motioned and the two ladies moved to the sofa. "Where ever Tully's at, you're not the reason he's gone."

Julie chuckled. "I call him Jacob but you and Rollie call him Tully. Why is that?"

"Don't really know. He's always been Tully to us. The first time I met him he said 'Call me Tully' so I have."

Becoming serious again Julie asked in a small sad voice, "Where is he?"

"I think I have an idea," Rollie said coming into the apartment, surprising the ladies. "Or at least why he's not here."

"Where? What?..." Julie stuttered.

Rollie explained his feelings, his hunch, about the SLRC, Missouri Tactical, and Tully. "I think they've taken Tully and plan to use him and his security codes to steal weapons from the academy."

"Jacob's in danger then," Julie responded.

"Have you ever read a story by O. Henry called 'Ransom of Red Chief'?" Julie shook her head but Jessica smiled; she was familiar with the story. "Seems these two men kidnapped the son of a prominent businessman," Rollie continued. "They were going to hold the boy, whose nickname was Red Chief for whatever reason, for ransom. Turns out the boy was such a hellion and gave the men so much trouble that they paid the father to take him back."

Rollie chuckled. "In Tully, I think the SLRC has gotten hold of Red Chief, only on steroids. He'll give them a lot of trouble and they still won't get the codes from him." Rollie slid onto the sofa next to Jessica. "The security code is more than just a group of letters and numbers. There are a retinal scanner and a voice recognition system; the voice system requires numbers and letters. There are also parameters for the stress level in the voice being used. They'll play hell getting Tully to help them, even if he wanted to."

"That could make it hard on Tully," Jessica offered.

"Yeah, it could. But Tully and Ray decided that was the best way they could protect the armory with all of its weapons and ammo."

The landline rang and Jessica answered it. Handing the phone to Rollie, she said, "Frank Wendt."

"Hi Rollie; got some information on those names. Let's see." Rollie head Frank hit computer keys. "Okay, Jorge Mendoza is a recent addition to our fair city and to our records; lots of little stuff here, but nothing serious, at least not so far. I'm waiting for a report from L.A.

Tyrone Jackson is a graduate of our juvenile system. He was first arrested at age 13 for vandalism and he's just been getting more serious as he got older. Arrest for theft, breaking and entering, robbery, and Grand Theft Auto; all while he was still considered a juvenile. Now he's an adult."

"That's a pair to draw too, isn't it," Rollie offered.

"Tommy Smith and this Chang aren't in the system; although Chang has been questioned about some strong arm incidents lately. That's about it. Call me when you find them Rollie. You're not a cop anymore; let the Department handle them." After a few quiet seconds from Rollie, Frank laughed and added, "Never mind. I forgot who I was talking to. Just be careful."

********************

"Chambers is askin around about you and the SLRC," Jorge told Tully.

Tully thought for a second about not answering but decided there was no reason to fight that battle. "Yeah I figured he would. My lady and his are really good friends. I've been out of touch for a couple of days now and Julie probably asked for his help."

"He'll quit looking now," Jorge said. "We had a talk with his man Calvin who was asking all the questions about us. Chambers won't bother us if he doesn't want the same thing to happen to him; or to his lady."

Looking at Jorge for several seconds, Tully got an idea. "Were I you, I'd just leave him alone and for God's sake don't bother his woman. You don't have any idea about this guy. If you go after him or his lady, all you'll do is piss him off. Chambers will be after you like a dog on a bone."

"He's just one guy. What can he do?" Jorge asked with a disbelieving look on his face.

"You heard what happened to Tommy Jackson, the drug dealer?"

"I did," answered Chang. "He tried to strong arm some guy and his woman. The guy and a friend went after Jackson and damned near killed him. Scared him so bad he pissed his pants." Chang snorted. "If Jackson ever gets out of stir, his street rep is destroyed." The Asian looked hard at Tully. "That was Chambers?" Tully nodded and Chang said, "And you were the friend I guess." Tully nodded again.

Jorge watched Tully's eyes get hard as he talked about Jackson. "Chambers and this man are hombres peligros, he said out loud. Chang looked puzzled and Jorge explained, "Dangerous men." He walked over to a covered window, pulled the curtain aside, and looked out.

Before the curtain fell back into place, Tully saw the pillars of a bridge that spanned the Mississippi. He also saw a smoke stack on one of the tugboats on the river go past. I was right, he thought. That's the Eads Bridge so we're on the waterfront north of downtown.

After several minutes he turned away from the window. "I think you should call your friend, this Chambers, and tell him you're okay," Jorge said. "Tell him you're takin a few days vacation." He turned toward Tully. "Do this right and nobody gets hurt; including your friend and your lady."

Tully locked eyes with Jorge for several seconds and then slumped back against the wall. "Okay Vato, whatever you say." Tully looked down, not wanting Jorge to see the hate and anger in his eyes.

Jorge walked over to Tully and cut the rope that bound his hands. Tully rubbed his wrists to restore some circulation and took the cell phone that was held out to him. "Call Chambers now," Jorge ordered.

Tully punched in Rollie's number. After a few seconds Rollie answered. "Hey Chambers; its Jacob Tully. Yeah, I'm okay. No, nothing's wrong; just wanted a few days by myself. Well, if you must know, I'm not real happy with Julie right now. She told me about her old boyfriend coming to town and that she wanted to see him. I can't adjust or adapt to that so I thought I'd take a break. You know, get my head on straight."

Tully listened for a few seconds and continued. "I'm gonna stay at the apartment over the office at the Academy for a week or so; going out there tonight. Tell Brian not to freak out if he hears someone moving around up there." Tully hesitated and added, "Do me a favor and don't call me please. I need to overcome Julie wanting to date another guy. Okay, talk to you later."

Jorge took the phone back. "Very good old man. Now do as you're told and you'll make it through this."

Tully nodded and hung his head again. We'll see who makes it through this, he thought.

********************

"Okay, bye Tully," Rollie said and closed his cell. Turning to Julie and Jessica he said, "That was Tully. He's okay," Rollie said before Julie could start asking questions. "He's in trouble but now I know where he is, actually where he will be, and we can help him."

Julie wouldn't be put off. "Where is he? What kind of trouble?"

"I'm going to call Frank Wendt and get him over here," Rollie said instead of answering Julie's questions. "I'll explain my thinking while we wait for him." Both Julie and Jessica nodded. "Okay first, I can't see Tully not meeting a problem head on," Rollie said. "Can you? If he had a problem he would tell you and discuss the situation; not run away and hide. Ergo."

Ergo what Rollie?" Jessica said. "Don't tease us; Julie's not up to it."

"A group or gang or whatever, calling themselves the SLRC, had a gun deal go south and I think they are the ones that took Tully. I found a brochure under his coffee table, with a section on machine guns underlined. I think Missouri Tactical and the full auto weapons they have in their armory vault are the reason for Tully's disappearance." Julie started to ask something but Rollie cut her off. "Don't ask me to explain why, but it just feels right to me that this bunch of punks is involved."

He waited for the ladies to nod that they were with him. "Now, Tully calls and tells me it's Jacob Tully; he's always been Tully since the first day I met him. He also called me Chambers instead of Rollie. Then he says he can't adjust or adapt to Julie seeing an old boyfriend. He said he can't overcome his jealousy about that."

He turned to look at Julie with a grin. "Remember when I was in your hospital Julie and you came in reading Tully and I the riot act for messing up your schedule?" Julie nodded with a puzzled look. "Tully asked you out for dinner when you got done chewing us a new one. What did Tully say when you said something about him being sure of himself?"

Julie thought for several seconds and returned Rollie's grin. "He said he was a Marine and had been trained to adjust, adapt and overcome."

Rollie nodded and continued his description of the phone call. "Then Tully said he was going to stay at the apartment over the office at the Academy and to tell Brian not to freak out if he heard someone up there tonight."

"What's wrong with that?" Julie asked.

"There is no apartment over the office at the Academy," Jessica answered. "It's a secure file room."

"And Brian doesn't work at night," Rollie continued. "I think Tully mentioned him because Brian is in the middle of this somehow."

The doorbell rang and Rollie said, "That's Frank. Go let him in will you Jessica?"

When Detective Frank Wendt came into the room, Rollie quickly explained his thoughts. "I'm going out to Missouri Tactical and talk to Brian," he said. "Then I'm going to wait around for Tully to show up."

"I'm going with you; I like Tully too."

Rollie shook his head. "I don't want the Department involved in this yet Frank." Wendt gave him a surprised look and Rollie said, "You know how those guys are. They'll sound boots and saddles and send a SWAT team to handle it. Tully could get killed while those guys play John Wayne."

Frank slowly nodded his head. "I didn't say anything about the Department; I said I was going with you. Maybe between the two of us we can get Tully out of trouble. If not, we'll give the SLRC a hell of a scare. We can always call SWAT." He smiled at Rollie and walked toward the door. "You coming?"

"Yeah, I'm coming." Rollie answered. He kissed Jessica and as he joined Frank at the door he said, "You're as crazy as me."

********************

Missouri Tactical Academy was about 10 miles outside of Wildwood, Missouri and about 40 miles from downtown St. Louis, situated on 100 acres surrounded by National Forest on three sides. It was an abandoned farm that Tully had bought at a tax auction. The property had a ten foot high chain link fence with a roll of tangle foot razor wire across the top of the barrier.

The fence and razor wire were a great deterrent to trespassers. The site had outdoor pistol, rifle, and long rifle ranges. Snipers could train out to 1000 yards with state of the art controls. There was also a combat range with pop up targets and tactical situation ranges for pistols and shotguns.

The Academy was an innovative shooting facility. The main building was two stories built over a full and very deep basement. The building was poured concrete and looked like a World War II bunker. The basement had down angled steel plates embedded in the rear walls that deflected bullets harmlessly into a sand pit.

It also contained the indoor shooting ranges. There were 3 pistol ranges, with 10 bays each, which allowed shooting to distances of 25 yards, a small rifle and shotgun range with six bays, which had targets out to 50 yards.

The shortest range was for pistols and was only 25 feet in length. Tully, and most police instructors, felt the average distance a police office would have to use his gun was 7 yards or 21 feet. This short range had targets that turned face on to the shooters for a few seconds and then turned back on edge. It trained the officers to quickly recognize targets, aim and fire.

Frank had never been to the facility and was very impressed with the no nonsense approach taken by the owners. This was not a posh, California type, gun club. "Hell of a place," he said as he and Rollie parked in front of the main building.

"Hey, twice in one week," Ray Jenson said as Rollie and Frank walked into the offices of Missouri Tactical. "You looking for a real job or something Rollie?"

If Tully was a poster boy for retired Marine Gunnery Sergeants, then Ray Jenson was one for a Captain of the U.S. Marines. He was 6'3", with shoulders so broad he'd had to be careful going through the water proof hatches of the ships he often served on for 30 years.

Like Tully, his hair was a salt and pepper mixture; but unlike Tully, Jenson wore his long down his back in a pony tail. He always said he didn't have a chance to be a hippy because he was in the Marines so he was going to be one now.

"Hi Ray. This is Frank Wendt," Rollie said.

"Yeah we met once before," Ray replied. "You're a police detective, right?" Frank nodded and Ray asked, "What brings you out here this time Rollie? Is it something to do with Tully?"

"Not bad for a beat up old Marine Captain," Rollie answered. "Yeah it's about Tully. Let me tell you what's going on and then I want to talk to Brian." Rollie filled in Ray by explaining his 'hunch', what Calvin has found out, and Tully's phone call that morning. "Brian here?"

"Yeah, he's down in the pistol shooting bays, policing brass. Want me to call him to the office?"

"No, I'll go see him," Rollie replied. "Need to talk to him and I don't want to spook him." Rollie turned to leave and asked, "Indoor short range?" Ray nodded and Rollie took the stairs to the lower floor that held the indoor ranges.

"This should be good," Ray said. He turned and pushed a couple of buttons. On a large monitor sitting on the desk, a TV picture of the pistol range showed. "Like a good seat at the game," he said motioning toward the monitor.

"Close circuit TV?" Frank questioned.

"Yeah. We had a female student that claimed one of our instructors tried to teach her more than shooting techniques. After we took care of that we decided we'd keep every area under surveillance. That is in addition to the other security cameras and proximity alarms."

"Proximity alarms. What's that?" Frank asked.

"We have sensors on the fence surrounding the Academy and along the road onto the property from the main highway," Ray answered. "We can tell the minute someone comes onto the property or toward the complex."

"That's a bit of overkill isn't it?" Rollie asked.

"Yeah, I guess it is. We were gonna put in the cameras anyway and contacted Mike in Raleigh about buying them from his company." Ray chuckled. "Guess retirement didn't suit him; he opened a security hardware business about a month after he sold out to Tully and moved to North Carolina.

Anyway, he wanted to test out these proximity sensors. He was thinking of adding them to his inventory. Mike said he'd split the cost with us if we'd install and test them. A deal's a deal so we popped for them. Only place we can't see or don't have sensors is the office, the locker rooms and the bathrooms."

Brian Teller was an unimpressive young man. About 24, the only outstanding thing about Brian was how average he was. He was about 5'8" with dull brown hair, brown eyes and a slender build. If you looked in the dictionary under average, you'd see Brian's picture, Rollie thought.

Rollie walked into the shooting bays and waved. "How you doing Brian?" Pointing at the spent cartridges on the floor he said, "Hell of a lot of brass."

"Yeah, we had a beginning shooters class late this afternoon." Brian continued in a low voice so that Rollie couldn't hear. "Damn instructors could have swept up the brass. But no, leave it for Brian."

In spite of his whispering, Rollie heard Brian's complaint. "How long you been with Missouri Tactical now Brian?"

"It'll be eight months next week. Hope to stay on for awhile; maybe get an instructor's certification."

"I don't think you can get a weapons instructor certificate with a felony conviction on your record," Rollie said.

"What are you talking about? I've never had a felony conviction."

"You will when you're arrested for kidnapping, Grand Theft and whatever other charges I'll bring against you."

"Kidnapping?"

"Jorge and the others in the SLRC kidnapped Tully and they plan to rob the Academy; for full auto weapons I think. You're an accessory so you're just as guilty as they are."