Supposedly a group of suspected low-level terrorists with tenuous links to fundamentalist Shias were planning on smuggling something in that we were told was a potential bioweapon. No details provided, of course, which makes surveillance a bitch and largely a waste of time. When we (meaning us cops) tried to ask them (meaning the big shots from Homeland) what we were looking for, we were stonewalled. Need-to-know basis. That sort of thing tells you everything about why we’re not all that safe. Truth is that if they tell us then we might play too significant a role in the arrest, which means they get less credit. It’s what got us into trouble with 9/11, and as far as I can tell it really hasn’t gotten much better since.
Then this past Monday I caught a little back and forth from a cell phone we were spooking. One name popped up-a Yemen national named El Mujahid, who was a pretty big fish in the terrorist pond and was on Homeland’s must-have list-and the guy talking about him spoke as if El Mujahid was somehow involved in whatever the crew in the warehouse were cooking. El Mujahid’s name was on all of the DHS lists and in that van I had nothing to do but read, so I’d read those lists over and over.
Because I rang the bell I got to play when the takedown was scheduled for Tuesday morning. Thirty of us in black BDUs with Kevlar body and limb pads, helmet cams and full SWAT kit. The whole unit was split into four-man teams: two guys with MP5s, a point man with a ballistic shield and a Glock.40, and one guy with a Remington 870 pump. I was the shotgun guy on my team and we hit this portside warehouse hard and fast, coming in every door and window in the place. Flashbangs, snipers on the surrounding buildings, multiple entry points, and a whole lot of yelling. Domestic shock and awe, and the idea is to startle and overpower so that everyone inside would be too dazed and confused to offer violent resistance. Last thing anyone wanted was an O.K. Corral.
My team had the back door, the one that led out to a small boat dock. There was a tidy little Cigarette boat there. Not new, but sweet. While we waited for the go/no-go, the guy next to me-my buddy Jerry Spencer from DCPD-kept looking at the boat. I bent close and hummed the Miami Vice theme and he grinned. He was about to retire and that boat probably looked like a ticket to paradise.
The “go” came down and everything suddenly got loud and fast. We blew the steel dead bolt on the back door and went in, yelling for everyone to freeze, to lay down their weapons. I’ve been on maybe fifteen, eighteen, of these things in my time with Baltimore PD and only twice was anyone stupid enough to draw a gun on us. Cops don’t hotdog it and generally neither do the bad guys. It’s not about who has the biggest balls, it’s about overwhelming force so that no shots are ever fired. I remember when I went through the tac-team training, the commander had a quote from the movie Silverado made into a plaque and hung up in the training hall: “I don’t want to kill you and you don’t want to be dead.” I think Danny Glover said that. That’s pretty much the motto.
So, usually the bad guys stand around looking freaked out and everyone bleats about how innocent they are, yada yada.
This wasn’t one of those times.
Jerry, who was the oldest man on the task force, was point man and I was right behind him with two guys at my back when we kicked the door, hustled down a short corridor lined with framed inspection certificates, and then broke left into a big conference room. Big oak table with at least a dozen laptops on it. Just inside the door was a big blue phone-booth-sized container standing against the wall. Eight guys in business suits seated around the table.
“Freeze!” I yelled. “Put your hands above your heads and-”
That was as far as I got because all eight guys suddenly threw themselves out of their chairs and pulled guns. O.K. Corral, no doubt about it.
When IAD asked me to recollect how many shots I fired and who exactly I fired them at, I laughed. Twelve guys in a room and everyone’s shooting. If they’re not dressed like your buddies-and you can, to a reasonable degree of certainty, determine that they’re not civilian bystanders-you shoot and duck for cover. I fired the Remington dry then dropped it so I could pull my Glock. I know the.40 is standard but I’ve always found the.45 to be more persuasive.
They say I dropped four hostiles. I don’t notch my gun, so I’ll take their word for it. I bring it up, though, because one of them was the thirteenth man in the room.
Yeah, I know I said that there were eight of them and four of us, but during the firefight I caught movement to my right and saw the door to the big blue case hanging loose, its lock ripped up by gunfire. The door swung open and a man staggered out. He wasn’t armed so I didn’t fire on him; instead I concentrated on the guy behind him who was tearing up the room with a QBZ-95 Chinese assault rifle, something I’d only ever seen in magazines. Why he had it and where the hell he found ammunition for it I never did find out, but those rounds punched a line of holes right through Jerry’s shield and he went down.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled and put two in the shooter’s chest.
Then this other guy, the thirteenth guy, comes crashing right into me. Even with all that was going on I thought, Drug addict. He was pale and sweaty, stank like raw sewage, and had a glazed bug-eyed stare. Sick bastard even tried to bite me, but the Kevlar pads on my sleeve saved my gun arm.
“Get off!” I screamed and gave him an overhand left that should have dropped him, but all it did was shake him loose; he blundered past me toward one of the other guys on my team who was blocking the door. I figured he was making for that sweet Cigarette outside, so I pivoted and parked two in his back, quick and easy. Blood sprayed the walls and he hit the deck and skidded five feet before coming to rest in a motionless sprawl against the back door. I spun back into the room and laid down cover fire so I could pull Jerry behind the table. He was still breathing. The rest of my team kept chopping the whole room up with automatic fire.
I heard gunfire coming from a different part of the warehouse and peeled off from the pack to see what was happening, found a trio of hostiles in a nice shooting blind laying down a lot of fire at one of the other teams. I popped a few of them with the last couple of rounds in my mag and dealt with the third hand-to-hand and suddenly the whole thing was over.
In the end, eleven alleged terrorists were shot, six fatally including the cowboy with the Chinese assault rifle and the biter I nailed in the back-who, according to his ID, was named Javad Mustapha. We’d just started going through IDs when a bunch of Federal types in unmarked black fatigues came in and stole the show, kicking everyone else out onto the street. That was okay with me. I wanted to check on Jerry. Turned out that none of our team was killed, though eight of them needed treatment, mostly for broken ribs. Kevlar stops bullets but it can’t stop foot-pounds of impact. Jerry had a cracked sternum and was one hurting pup. The EMTs had him on a gurney, but he was awake enough to wave me over before they took him away.
“How you feeling, dude?” I asked, squatting next to him.
“Old and sore. But tell you what steal me that Cigarette boat and I’ll be feeling young and spry.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll get right on that, pops.”
He ticked his chin toward my arm. “Hey, how’s your arm? The EMT said that fruitcake bit you.”
“Nah, didn’t even break the skin.” I showed him. Just a bad bruise.
They took Jerry away and I started answering questions, some of them for the Feds in the unmarked BDUs. Javad hadn’t been armed and I’d drilled him in the back so there would be a routine investigation, but my lieutenant told me it was a no-brainer. That was Tuesday morning and this was Saturday morning. So why was I in a car with three Feds?
They weren’t talking.
So, I sat back and waited.
Chapter Four
Easton, Maryland / Saturday, June 27; 11:58 A.M.
THEY PUT ME in a room that had a table, two chairs, and a big picture window with a drawn curtain. An interrogation room, though the sign outside had read Baylor Records Storage. We were somewhere in Easton off Route 50, more than seventy miles from where they’d picked me up. Buckethead told me to sit.
“Can I have a drink of water?”
He ignored me and left, locking the door.
It was nearly two hours before anyone came in. I didn’t kick up a fuss. I knew this routine. Park someone in an empty room and leave them to stew. Doubt and a guilty conscience can do a lot when you’re alone. I didn’t have a guilty conscience and no doubts at all. I simply lacked information, so after I did a visual on the room I went into
