Our Wednesday morning wake up was at three, so we were quickly up, showered, and dressed. A taxi dropped us at the station at three-thirty, where we met Larry coming in at the same time. I asked for, and was let into their equipment room, where I fit Wanda with a vest and found one in my size. I found two extra magazines for Wanda's Glock, then I checked out an MP5, five magazines, and a belt with pouches to carry the extra ammo. Larry almost started laughing when he saw us. "Jesus, Chuck, this is just a bunch of gang bangers, not anyone that's professional."
"Doesn't make any difference, Larry. You never know what you're going to run into and I'd rather be ready for anything. I'm interested in your snipers and the equipment they use. They may need to be very accurate today."
Larry nodded, "They are all good, and the equipment they use is the best."
Men continuously came through the door until Larry checked off the last man. As the men were eating their catered breakfast sandwiches, Larry said, "You all did good getting here on time and everyone is wearing their protective equipment. You know how we are going to take this place. We have practiced all of the accesses and approaches. We know how to catch folks that try to get out by the basement exits. The one thing we actually don't know is how many armed men are going to be in the main house, and how many will be awake and on guard. From the time you make entry, until the entire house is clear, don't take any chances. Protect your partner and yourself at all times. Deputy Johnson's assistant, Wanda, will be our checkpoint. Make sure you check in with her when your position is clear at the conclusion of this maneuver. Okay, good luck and be safe. Everyone go directly to your positions; when you hear the mike keyed and my 'Go, ' we start. Let's roll."
There were a total of thirty men. Five to go into each of the two side houses, five to go into the third floor of the main house, five for the front, five for the back, and five snipers. There were four snipers stationed around the house, observing now, but would come in later for additional mop up. Larry was to direct from his position and Wanda would be his sidekick contact. This was Wanda's first action and you could tell she was nervous. She would do a good job and I knew she would be safe. You have to let people learn.
Once in place, I was going with the five that were entering from the top. As a matter of principle, I would be the first up the rope to guard for the men climbing after me. Since we didn't know the strength of the railing no one would follow me up. When I knew the strength of the rail, I would signal 1, 2, or 3, as to how many men should climb at once.
I heard the "Go" in my earpiece and moved forward, leading my group. As soon as I approached the house, I noticed something strange about the windows. When I got up close there was a small sticker on the bottom of the window that said "Kevlar." I key my mike and said softly, "No flash bangs from outside. The windows are protected." I heard two clicks of the command mike, signifying he understood.
The rope man tossed the padded hook over the railing and pulled it tight without a sound. I pulled tight on the rope and immediately began the hand over hand climb to the third floor balcony. The railing didn't give at all on the way up and when I arrived, I saw that it was made of steel and was bolted into the deck and the walls. I quickly checked the window and glass paned door and turned, holding up three fingers.
As the five men were climbing the rope, I checked the door and gently turned the handle. It wasn't locked, but I didn't want to open the door until we were ready to enter in a group.
When all five men were on the balcony, I gave the motion we were going in. With the same hand signals, I motioned they should be sure to look in all directions and keep their heads down.
I pulled down the handle and yanked the door open. No alarm. When I stepped into the room, I almost stepped on someone's head. I knelt and covered the man's mouth, while the second man in cuffed him. We stuffed a T-shirt in his mouth and tied it in, using a pair of panty hose that was laying there. We pulled his feet together and used a giant tie-wrap to pull them together and to tie them to his cuffs. We had hardly made a sound. While this was going on, the other four men were all around the room making sure there were no other accesses.
A man entered the hallway and two men entered the first door then two more men entered the door farther down. The man that had helped me with our first capture went with me to the last door down. When I opened the door, a head rose from a bed to see what was happening. I used the butt of the MP5 to keep the person quiet, and had to do the same to another person in the bed. We quickly gagged, handcuffed, and tie-wrapped them before coming back to the hall.
When all six of us were assembled by the stairs, I motioned down and we went down the stairs as quietly as we could. The stairs were old and creaked all the way down. As I hit the landing, a door opened and a man was coming out of the door with a handgun. I said, "Drop it" as I steadied the MP5 at him. He tried to raise his hand, but he died from the silenced burst from my rifle.
By this time, the other five men were on the landing and I directed them to the four other rooms on this floor. Before we could get to the door we were taking, a shotgun was fired from behind it, blowing a huge hole in the flimsy wooden door. Thinking another round would probably be coming, we both let go two bursts into the room then stood to the side of the door waiting for the next blast. Behind us, there were a couple of pistols shots and the rattle of the noise suppressed MP5s.
I turned the handle on the door with the hole in it and pushed it open. I saw two guys laying up against the far wall with lots of blood on them. My partner covered the room while I checked for pulses. One had a light pulse, but it was irregular. Neither was going anywhere. I picked up a handgun and shotgun and threw them out through the open window.
As we went back into the hallway, one of our men was being treated for an arm wound, and another for a wound to the thigh. Once they were wrapped, it left four us to go down the stairs. We could hear a commotion down there, and some shouted directions. As I peeked over the banister, someone from below began firing an AK on full auto. Thank goodness for inexperienced shooters. All the rounds went way wide of me.
I motioned that I was going to go down the stairs and they were to toss flash bangs at the count of three. I started down the stairs counting, and at four I closed my eyes. We saw the flash through our eyelids, and since we all had ear plugs over our ear pieces, we heard the muffled bang, but were not disabled from it.
Almost sliding down the stairs, I was confronted with six dazed men. They had one hand on a weapon and the other trying to get their ears working. They were looking, but not seeing, from being blinded by the bright light. I was taking the rifles away from the men as fast as I could. The second man down finished up for me as I hit the nearest door to me. Nothing there, so I went to the next, nothing there either. I heard pistol fire behind me, followed by extensive silenced rifle fire that increased in noise level as it continued. Silencers lose their effectiveness as you keep shooting. The fine steel wool packed into the silencer to absorb sound tends to weld itself together from the heat, resulting in no remaining noise suppression. While two men were occupied doing that room, my partner and I entered the other rooms until they were all clear. The two men that had been firing came over to the front door, threw it open, and flashed a light out toward the command vehicle. The five men assigned to the front closed in.
We made it to the back of the house to find the five men assigned to the rear, entering the kitchen door. There was an open door with steps leading down, so those five headed down the stairs.
I keyed my mike and said, "Two on the second floor need med assistance, both non-urgent. Five men coming in from the front, go to the third floor, clear the attic, and bring down the prisoners. Original entry men go back and clear the second floor. Turn on all lights now."
I began turning on lights and looking in places a person could hide. I did find a scared young girl in a closet, hiding among lots of clothes and a bunch of probably stolen goods. I tie-wrapped her hands and led her to the door and pointed to the yard. "Go out there and sit. If you move someone will shoot you."
She almost ran to the small grass patch and sat quickly, looking around frantically. I radioed again, "We need a cleanup crew on the second floor, first door to the right. There is a count of probably five on the second floor.
A big prisoner van pulled up to the curb in front of the house, and the handcuffed prisoners were being pushed into the van after being searched. Most were in their shorts or other underwear. I heard the command calling for two more prisoner vans. There must have been a bunch in the other two houses.
Once the prisoners were in the vans and our wounded were being tended to, I sent crews to each floor to search every nook and cranny for drugs, cash, weapons, or other contraband. Chicago uniforms began showing up, along with their gang division and detectives. We asked them to wait outside while we cleared the three buildings.
We recovered a few hundred grand in drugs, and about fifty grand in cash. The big find was six full cases of new AK-47s, along with about fifty cases of ammo. The weapons and ammunition were all stored in the basement and had to be lugged up the stairs.
It was getting light as I was reminding men to be sure to check in with command so we knew everyone was accounted for. When the deputies had cleared the building, I released the crime scene to the locals to further tear apart.
Larry was smiling when I came up to him. He said, "You know how lucky we were? There were fifty-two armed men and thirteen women in those buildings. We have two minor wounds and only seven dead suspects. Jesus, we were lucky."
Wanda said, "The two houses on each side had people that just stuck their hands up in the air and gave up. The only resistance was from the men coming through the tunnels and the ones in your building. We didn't use up but two flash bangs, so our ordnance count is way down."
Wanda leaned over to Larry and asked, "I can forget this brass count, can't I?"
Larry smiled and nodded. "I'll just put in less than a hundred rounds. What do you think, Chuck, that about right?"
"I think so, two of the men with me each used a thirty round magazine and I used three bursts. My partner used two bursts. The other team used a couple of bursts, so it's still probably under a hundred."
I stretched, cleared the MP5, and accepted a cup of coffee from the Bureau's canteen truck that had pulled up. I looked around and asked, "Ah, did we get what we came after? Did we get our two escapees?"
"Both of them, plus we picked up a couple of guys on our "to do" list to bring in for federal warrants. We won't have to house the escapees though, they were the ones neutralized in the room where the shotgun blast came through the door. Make sure you mention you only fired a burst into the room as a defensive measure."
I yawned and reached for a glazed donut from the canteen lady. She smiled and said, "Take a couple, Honey, you need the energy."
The cleanup crews must be finishing, as bagged bodies were being carried out to coroner's wagons. Larry did another count and began releasing his men to return to the station to turn in the special gear. He said his goodbyes to the Bureau folks and the locals on scene before we rode back to the station so we could turn in our stuff.
At the station, I hung up our vests and went to the table that had the cleaning equipment on it. I cleaned the MP5, reloaded the magazine I had used, and checked everything back in. Wanda was doing a quick inventory to make sure everything was back in after a major adventure.
The Station Chief said, "I've already advised John's office we completed our mission and we only had two minor injuries. Thanks for helping on this, Chuck, I felt real good with you here on this one. I know you shouldn't be exposed like that, but this is our first hard bust in a couple of years. We have some more coming up, and now the men will have seen the way you are first in and just keep moving. They will follow and try to act like that."
Wanda came to me with an incident report that was pretty accurate, filled with a lot of bullshit about warnings and offers to give up. I mentioned to Wanda that it was pretty creative for this early in the morning.
"What do you think, Mr. Johnson, should I call the airport, or should we try for a nap before we return?"
"Call John and ask him to buy a couple of thermos of coffee and a bunch of sandwiches. Let's go home."
Wanda said softly, "Thank you, I'm ready for home."
We had a duty man drive us to the hotel to get our stuff, then take us to the airport where we met John. It was only ten, so John said, "We'll take about six hours to get home over the route I want to take. I understand you're sleepy, but between flying up here and back, you'll get about fourteen hours of time in. That's the equivalent of seven days of flight training. We'll quickly get your twenty hours of dual instruction this way."
I asked John, "How come you didn't have me take a physical. That was part of the ground school info and I don't have one of those temporary student certificates?"
"I just used your last physical from the base. Your doc is a flight surgeon, so he signed off on it for you. I'm a certified trainer and your personal FAA designated pilot examiner. Your student certificate number and card is in your logbook where I log all the various instructions I give you. Today will be quiz day. While we fly, I'll be asking you questions all along the way. You know the answers, I'm just going to make sure they are at your fingertips or in your mind's fingertips. Let's get this baby in the air."
John had me do the flight planning and file the VFR flight plan. We did land at four airports on the way home. Two were full stops and turn around and take off again, while two were for fuel and potty breaks.
We landed at home long before dark. John had me taxi right up to my car so we could transfer our luggage. As we got off the plane, Wanda said to both of us, "I didn't want to say anything, but we have to go to Oklahoma City for a station change. You need to figure out whether to fly in this little plane or a faster charter. You actually could take a commercial flight on this one. You won't need me and it's just a retirement station swap."
John said, "Hey, I'm retired. I can do anything I want and teaching is fun to me. You can damn near finish your dual time and I can check you off on some of the other requirements too. If we go up at night we can get some of your night requirements in."
"Okay, I'll work most of a day in the office and meet you out here about four. As I remember I have to do a bunch of night landings and takeoffs, so let's see what we can get in. I don't need a ton of sleep, but I should get to bed by say, three, to get back up at seven."
"That's great. I'll work your butt off. You'll be ready for your flight test soon."
Wanda and I went home and were greeted by hugs from Bobby, Jan, and Marie. Millie was visiting, along with Tiani from the next block. I said to all, "I'm happy to be home, but we've been up since three this morning. I need to work out, so if anyone wants to chat, come to the gym room."
I changed and was surprised when I came into the gym room. There were two more treadmills lined up side by side at one end of the room. The other machines and weights were pushed closer together a little, but there was still plenty of room.
Bobby said proudly, "I got a deal from the Shapes people. They closed the store on the east side of town and sold a lot of their equipment. Now everyone can do more at a time. I have this other Nautilus multi-use machine too."
"You sure did get a deal, Honey. We'll have to look for one more bike and we'll have a gym big enough to take memberships."
I only did fifteen minutes on the bike, then twenty minutes on the treadmill, and fifteen on weights real fast. I told Millie and Tiani, "If naked people bother you, stay in the house. We have to swim. As Wanda and I hit the water, little Tiani dove into the water, started doing laps, surprisingly swimming really fast. I couldn't even begin to keep up with her, but I was still swimming after twenty minutes while she was hanging onto the side.
When I quit and drifted up to the side on my back, little Tiani jumped on my middle, almost drowning me. With a laugh, I picked her up and threw her about fifteen feet out into the pool. She squealed loudly and swam back fast, "Again, Daddy, again." That cracked everyone up, but I did pitch her back out and made my way to the steps.
Wanda helped me to the shower, where we washed off the chorine, followed by a mutual drying session.
Tiani was exclaiming, "This is so open, so much fun. Chuck, your girlfriends are the best. I came over last night and they not only fed me, but kept me laughing all evening. I hope you don't mind if I make a pest of myself, but I like to visit you guys."
Wanda said, "Chuck didn't tell you all, but he has to leave for Oklahoma City tomorrow. It will only be a one night trip, but that's what will happen sometimes."
Marie said, "Wanda, you're so lucky to get to go with him all the time."
"Not this next trip, Marie," Wanda answered. "It's just a station change so it's an in and out. If he were not taking flight lessons and could take a charter, he'd only be gone a day and not a night."
Jan said, "I signed up for flight lessons and took my free flight last night. I'll start taking flight lessons after the two weekends in that ground school. I've always thought it would be fun to fly, and now I am making enough to pay for it."
We had some good steaks that I was able to cook out on the grille. After a salad, we had mashed potatoes and broccoli with the steaks. I started to make myself a drink, but thought better of it, as I was flying the next day. I really didn't know how a drink of liquor would affect me almost twenty-four hours later. I did have a beer with my meal. It washed the steak down very nicely.
My eyes were drooping by ten, and I nodded off a couple of times. Tiani said goodnight, and I got a hug and kiss from the others before crawling into bed. I didn't get a chance to close my eyes before Bobby was all over me. We hugged and kissed, then kissed and hugged, until she lifted me up and placed me into her cradle, fitting me into her in the process. We very nicely made love until her insides squeezed the juice right out of me. We kissed for a long time as she held me to make sure I fell asleep on top of her, cradled in her thighs.
Primary editing by Pepere
Proofing by Sagacious