Chapter 17 Alternate.
On Monday morning Captain Johnson said our Pelican case conversion would be available sooner than planned and we'd have to take ours to WSMR (White Sands) to have the explosives guys assemble the case with the new weapons. That was great news. I told the Captain I hoped they took my suggestion and made us cases that were white and pink with Hello Kitty faces on the outside. He said he saw photos and all they looked like a regular black canvas backpack, with three straps and two canvas handles, but inside they were custom Pelican cases with a smaller list of stuff due to the new launchers and munitions. He also said we'd get two of the new cable cutting spiders but they'd be in the case and the case would be three pounds lighter than the old ones since they eliminated two launchers. That also created empty space, room for new technology some day, like maybe a drone or a cell sniffer.
I asked if general law enforcement in the USA had been advised of the new cases that look like backpacks outside and he said he didn't know but would find out today. He said that since a couple other small services also started to use the cases there was a full time office devoted to the technology. Their office was in a building south of the Pentagon on Clark Street, in the same building as the US Marshall Service.
Four days after Tulsa we got a large tan envelope in the mail, hand addressed and marked as coming from a photo studio in Tulsa. It contained a large photo of all the boys we rescued in a group photo taken at the Tulsa Botanical Garden. Each boy signed below their image as they stood in line, arms over shoulders, in front of a large display of tulips. I got teary eyed and told David I'd run to the store for a frame tomorrow.
So far nobody knows how long or how many boys had been kidnapped from the USA, some died horribly within months of arrival while others were used as sex slaves in palaces and could have survived a decade or so depending on how well they served. From what we heard none of them were able to escape and make it back to the states. In Arab countries sodomy was illegal but that didn't mean it wasn't widespread.
Six days after we got back from Tulsa we received word that the two outstanding warrants in the kidnapping ring were served and the last two were in custody. Their interrogations provided information that identified the specific freighter used to transport children to Yemen and the people involved, as well as a few names in Yemen, one of them had been on the Interpol wanted list for the past eleven years.
I researched the freighter and was told it was outside the jurisdiction of the US, so I asked how hard it would be to track. We knew there were international marine agencies that monitored all commercial freighters over 100 feet long, just like how semi trucks are satellite tracked in the USA. It took a few days before I finally got access to their system online and brought it up on the computer at home.
There was a big learning curve to use the system but I finally got a map of the one particular ship and mapped its previous ten months, it ran back and forth between Corpus Christi, Texas and Muwassam, Saudi Arabia, a border city with a long commercial pier, on the border with Yemen.
I learned they transported their human cargo inside a shipping container with water and raw fish to eat. We decided there was no way the people that owned and crewed the ship could not know they were hauling smuggled humans so I decided to make it my goal to sink it. The ship's crew fed and checked on the people being smuggled. The container they used had tiny cells inside it like a ten room prison.
At work David pointed out that in our office at the reception desk the bottle of Tylenol was gone and a vase full of brand new tooth brushes was in that spot now. He suggested adding travel size tubes of toothpaste too. We decided that the boss's wife must have visited.
The Captain walked up with a smile on his face, we got into a discussion about toothbrushes. David said he preferred a stiff bristle brush but none of the stores sold them anymore. The Captain said he should search online for a smoker's toothbrush, they usually had stiff bristles. Then he told us our case was ready to swap out, we should drive to White Sands later this week so they can swap ours for the new one. We'd be there for several hours so we agreed to go on Friday.
He said Pelican made custom cases for us that were rounded on one side, shaped sort of like an old headstone from the 1800s where the top was rounded. They used the biggest black backpacks, off the shelf, but had custom high impact cases built to be glued and riveted inside the backpack. The new shape required new foam rubber inserts, those had to be trimmed by hand and glued in place.
With the new cases you unzipped the backpack and flipped it open, then released the clamp and the partial cover opened like a cabinet door and laid on top of the backpack cover.
Since I was one of the case consultants I reminded him I was pushing to get a cell phone tracker installed inside the case and maybe a small drone too. The backpacks had external zipper pockets so there was room for a small drone and controller. I felt a lot of people just hated drones and didn't see how useful they could be for surveillance and carrying small items and dropping them on command. A tiny drone could greatly increase the range of our spiders.
On Friday we drove north to White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) to the weapons research center and set our case on a large open table and watched them unload it. The new cases were not yet mounted inside the backpack. They took advantage of that to cut the foam rubber that held the weapons and left space for the battery and communications boxes.
The antennas on the outside attached like stickers, peel and stick then run the wires through holes already drilled in the case, then seal around the cables. All the antennas went on the top side but since they were very high frequencies none of them were very large.
Once the antennas were applied and the wires run inside the case the cables were glued in place and the holes sealed. The antenna wires were connected to the gear with tiny gold connectors then the boxes were mounted to the inner wall of the case: battery, satellite comms, local comms, and Whispernet. They all sat side by side against the inner wall of the case. It was simply a job of connecting all the cables, testing the gear, then peel and sticking them against the plastic inner wall. After that they had to cut the foam rubber around them.
They had photos and video how to cut the cavities for the weapons in the rubber foam, and they also had a long wire in a stand for cutting the holes like a band saw cutting wood. One of the guys said they had a few more cases to do aside from ours: the two for Omaha and a new Secret Service team out of Los Angeles and another at the SAC base in Duluth.
We sat on stools around the large work table and watched them work on our gear. Both of us heard clicks in our ears when power was re-applied to the Whispernet box. He showed us the tiny row of switches inside the case for powering on the electronics. This was the first time we'd be able to operate Whispernet without also powering satellite comms.
Someone removed a couple of our old munitions and replaced them with new ones. For the new case since all the rounds looked the same on the outside each one was clearly marked in large white letters what kind of round it was (EMP, THERMO, HELI, and GP (general purpose). We gained two proper slots for our glasses and a trench for holding three spiders in boxes. Spiders came in boxes that were a little smaller than a two inch cube. There was a round hole for the metal tube that carried our gas pellets. All the gas pellets were about the same size as an 81mg aspirin but these were brightly colored green and red. Red was essentially cyanide gas. Green tabs emitted a gas like they used in surgery years ago to sleep people. We called it Angelthane because about one in every hundred people was nearly killed by the sleeping gas.
When it was nearly done we both took turns reviewing the new hardware, which were almost the same as the old stuff except two launchers were gone and now all the rounds were fired from one telescoping tube launcher. They adjusted the straps and had us try it on like a backpack and it felt amazing. It felt weird knowing I had that much explosive power on my back. David noticed the new munitions in the case were better labeled now to reduce the possibility of grabbing the wrong device. Being authorized to carry and use those weapons was the second highest weapons authority in the country, second only to the people that could launch a multiple nuclear warhead missile. We were the only service that didn't require two keys to launch, it was a horribly awesome level of responsibility. That was why the government took case security very seriously.
After the foam rubber was cut and ready to glue inside the case they riveted it inside the backpack with rivets and black plated flat washers. Then the glue was applied and the foam installed inside. After it sat for twenty minutes they placed the weapons and closed it up (but left Whispernet still powered on).
We were almost ready to leave, I was standing beside the large work table with four guys standing behind me watching the technician adjust the straps, David was nearby. He patted the case firmly and told us we were done and ready to go. We left the lab and walked to his truck, the case felt fine on my back, it was well padded. David opened the back door while I took it off and started to toss the case on the back seat when something caught my eye: a six inch Hello Kitty medallion chained to the case!
I started laughing and David joined me, it was hilarious to see these serious and always solemn weapons engineers took the time for something so silly. David shut the door and we left for home. I turned around and looked at the 2nd floor window and waved at the guys upstairs, also still laughing. I hoped those bastards never put photos of me (on Facebook) walking out the building with a large Hello Kitty medallion on my back!
We left the medallion on the backpack. I told David I thought someone should print small round Hello Kitty stickers for every ballistic missile and warhead in the entire US arsenal. Maybe they should print something below the cat face like, Have a Nice Day.
The only reason why I ever mentioned having it on our case was to lessen the likelihood of someone being tempted to inspect the secret stuff inside.
Twelve days after Tulsa we were called on another optional situation. Trying to avoid another high school shooting they requested our help with a situation in Mississippi (which was outside our territory).
In this case a local high school boy with oppositional defiant disorder was the source of a town's problems. He had possession of his father's large gun collection. The kid was seventeen but still a sophomore and doing poorly in life and all his classes. He was also very large, about 6'4" and 295lbs. The report said he had fetal alcohol syndrome and learning disabilities. They advised us he said he was going to show up at school someday and kill his enemies. He'd been suspended repeatedly for outbursts in class and threatening people. A few times he grabbed people and threatened to kill them but always let them go with just a scare. The bottom line sounded like he was a large bully with nobody willing to stop him due to his size.
Since he had never been arrested for anything and everyone in town was afraid of him things were out of control but nobody wanted to kill him. They felt it would take their entire little police force just to take him into custody. His mother was recently put in a nursing home and his father was in prison, the sister had already been removed from the home. They had enough evidence to charge him with weapons violations (and threatening to shoot people) but nobody would risk their life by confronting him and taking him into custody. They wanted us to put handcuffs on his wrists and ankles, they could handle him after that. Their plan was to take him to the hospital and have him evaluated, they needed us to come quickly. Our boss said the DOD crew that handled Florida and the southeastern USA declined the case.
The situation reminded me of dialog in one of the Harry Callahan movies when his new partner asked why the other officers called him Dirty Harry so he explained it was because he got all the dirty jobs nobody else wanted to take. The same thing was true for us, especially considering all the times we took calls outside our territory.
We asked if this warranted us taking the jet so the boss called to explain the situation and the transport office agreed to fly us to Jackson and back home. The kid lived in the town of Crystal Springs, about 25 miles south of Jackson on I-55. He called the town police and said we'd handcuff him if they met us at the airport in Jackson. The chief agreed and told us to call when we knew our arrival time, they'd have a unit following the boy too.
We learned that most of the police in Crystal Springs were retired old men and women, they had nobody capable of capturing the kid and the county sheriff wanted nothing to do with it because this kid had badly beat cops in the past and his father was also known (and currently in prison) for shooting and assaulting police.
They discussed shooting him with an animal tranquilizer dart but he'd probably pull it out before it could inject the drugs. And their city attorney said that would be against several laws unless he was actually in the process of attacking people.
Almost everything was set, the transport was called and en-route. Even though this was well outside of our territory we were the only crew in the country willing to get involved and take the risk. David felt we stood very little risk of injury from this kid, sooner or later he'd have to stop walking and sit down. If he was as fat as described he probably got short of breath easily and might even be a little hypoxic all the time anyway. He said sooner or later the kid had to stop and take a shit, he could be grabbed then too.
Forty five minutes later our ride landed at El Paso and got refueled and got clearance to fly to and land at Jackson, Mississippi. When we left El Paso our desk man called the sheriff in Crystal Springs and told them the crew was on the way, their ETA was 59 minutes, but he declined to explain how we'd get there that quickly. They already ordered refueling in Jackson but the plan was for the jet to wait for us since this trip was expected to only take a few minutes at the scene.
We landed at Jackson early because the jet stream had moved further north during the flight.
A police car was waiting outside the general aviation terminal as promised. Inside the car sat an old white-haired man in uniform. He spent the next half an hour telling us all about this kid, the boy's name was Nelson Purvay. They thought he also might be schizophrenic or even borderline personality disorder. Either way he was supposedly a threat to himself, his family, and the town. He said Nelson was violent and huge and nobody wanted to touch him, and oh by the way, he also stunk and never bathed.
They intended to take him to the hospital then to the state psychiatric hospital, they already had a 30 day order signed by the judge but no way to get handcuffs on him.
They wanted to wrist and ankle cuff him so he could be taken to the hospital and seen by the doctor and a psychiatrist to verify the report of him being untreated, and a threat to safety. Prior to our arrival he refused to cooperate, he was having too much fun being the big bully on the school campus and his outbursts (and stench) in class disrupted everything.
Half an hour later we arrived in town, they already had four sets of extra long handcuffs and an ambulance crew ready to transport him to the hospital.
The kid was at home, he'd been trailed by the police all day. They deputy drove us with the extra long and large cuffs to his house, which was not much more than a shack with dirt floors, no electricity and no plumbing.
Our ride parked out front, a moment later the ambulance arrived, and just behind them was the volunteer fire department truck. The ambulance crew handed David a syringe with an adult dose of Haldol, told him to use the entire thing if needed. It had the needle attached with a cap covering it.
We walked up to the front door (standing wide open) and walked in without knocking. On the front door were stapled two old condemnation notices. We silently entered the small front room, Nelson was on an old sofa that was full of holes and the place stunk like an outhouse, he was seated with his head back against the wall, his mouth wide open, snoring loudly.
We silently lifted a small table and moved it away from him. David stepped beside his enormous left knee and very gently latched one hand cuff around his left wrist, Nelson just sat there snoring. Then I gently raised his right arm so David could close the other loop around it. I gently set his arm down while David uncrossed his ankles and very gently cuffed his ankles. In a couple more seconds David had the syringe full of Haldol out and ready to stab in his thigh then the boy started to wake up. At first he seemed confused, then he realized his hands were cuffed and pulled hard at them. The ambulance crew and fire department walked in and with the nine of us we wrestled Nelson up to his feet, turned him and got him down on the gurney and strapped in place. Everyone left as they rolled him out the door towards the ambulance.
The fire department guys seemed angry that David didn't use the Haldol, it would have been much easier/safer to get him to the ER if we'd medicated him.
"I'll kill you!" He shouted over and over. David patted his arm and said, "Calm down Nelson, nobody's gonna to hurt you."
He wrestled against the straps and the handcuffs the entire way and even after he was inside the ambulance.
We watched the ambulance rock side to side during his struggle while we stood in the trash strewn yard, we heard Nelson yelling obscenities. David walked to the ambulance and handed the syringe back to the paramedic. We got in the back seat of the car and told him to take us back to the airport. Slowly, the crews got Nelson secured inside the ambulance for transport to the hospital while we waited to leave for the airport. I asked the cop to call his dispatcher to call the control tower at the airport in Jackson and tell our pilot we were on our way back. Then we had him light up the car and drive 90mph up the interstate to get us back to the airport a little quicker.
The white haired deputy in the car also was upset that we didn't medicate Nelson, but David explained if we had, when he arrived at the hospital they were going to evaluate if he was a danger. If he'd been medicated he would have been so groggy and calm it would ruin any chance of him being committed to the mental hospital. The driver simply said, "Oh." He realized he needed to appear out of control when he arrived in front of the two doctors needed to sign that he truly was dangerous, and not just loud and stinky.
In the jet I asked David why it went that way, and he said that really obese people often got sleepy due to lack of oxygen, sooner or later he'd have to sit down and nap, that was an ideal time to gently slip the cuffs on him and medicate him too. End of problem!
"One more example of why I married you. You used creativity instead of violence, nobody got hurt, end of problem. There was really no reason one of them couldn't have done the same as us had they stopped and evaluated the situation."
"Its gonna take two days to get that stink out of my nose."
"Yeah, me too. It was like six cats and one liter box that hadn't been changed in weeks.
Once again we saw that sometimes for difficult situations like Nelson all it needed was another set of eyes that weren't emotionally involved. David said that at his age and with his disabilities in an actual fist fight he'd easily lose because he probably wasn't coordinated or able to sustain much physical activity.
We got back to El Paso at 8:10pm and went to our office to file our report while it was still fresh in our minds (and noses). On the down side there was no reward on this case but I felt we did a good public service. It surprised me that they didn't have anyone in that county that was willing to face this kid.
David wrote in our report that when he bent over and slipped the first hand cuff around his wrist, he saw his ineffective breathing/snoring pattern and thought he'd be very slow to respond, which would give him enough time to get the handcuffs on his wrists and ankles. He said anyone could have done it, but they're all afraid of him. I hoped they got that kid straightened out. I hoped the police confiscated his firearms while he's locked-up.
We got home at 12:15am, took showers and went to bed. David said he bet that house mysteriously caught fire soon.
Our next call came four days after Mississippi, and came from the governor of Montana, he wanted someone removed from their state, but the guy was unwilling to leave without lots of money. We heard a partial back-story, it was nearly impossible to believe.
Supposedly the townspeople elected someone that claimed to be the former #1 County Sheriff in Florida ten years running. The man won the election by ten votes and became sheriff and that's when trouble started.
He reduced patrols and laid-off two cops then gave himself a big raise. Crime went up in the county and response times to 911 calls grew dramatically. All the while he boasted he was doing an excellent job, crime was down, and criminals were leaving the county due to his excellent leadership. Does that story sound familiar? I told David, "Yes, it sounds very familiar, was it Broward County?"
The governor said none of what he claimed was true but the newspapers still printed his lies, the man was clearly dishonest and probably also mentally ill. The governor said he wanted the sheriff removed as soon as possible, and he didn't care how it got done but do it soon. We learned this was the cop they blamed for a Florida high school shooting and felt it was inaction by the sheriff that lead to over ten deaths, but despite that he refused to quit until he was fired by the governor and then sued to keep his job but lost the case, so he moved far away from Florida and tried to start his life over where nobody knew his name.
David took the phone off speaker and spoke privately to the Governor, he told me later he asked what he wanted done, and the governor said he didn't care as long as it was permanent. David asked if we could drive up there, it would take 2-3 days and the governor said that would be fine. The bottom line of the conversation was he wanted this cop permanently gone.
Our boss agreed so we went home and packed, took our gear, got into the truck and drove to Montana. Our route started at home then on I-10 to Las Cruces, then onto I-25 north across New Mexico and Colorado. We stopped that night in Casper, Wyoming. After a long nap we got back in the truck and continued north on I-25 to Billings, Montana, then west on I-94 to Bozeman. After that it was two-lane state highways to the town of Four Corners, the center of the county where our target reportedly stayed at a motel at the edge of town.
We got a motel room at a place at the edge of town too and paid cash in advance for two nights. While I carried in the suitcase and our equipment David was on the computer looking at very rural roads and remote fishing spots. We drove to a sporting goods store and asked what river spots were the best ones to avoid because nothing was in season. He suggested not using the Gallatin River, it always sucked this time of year but watch out for bears anyway. He said fall was best for the Gallatin during the fish runs.
We ordered dinner at a sports bar in town but ate in our motel room. David said he discovered there was a secret club house at this motel the locals liked to use to play cards, drink, gamble, and sometimes get hookers to entertain them. Then he said, "Guess who plays cards there?"
"Oh, I don't know. Anyone we know from Florida?"
He just smiled and nodded yes. So I got into my shorts and got in bed to watch TV and eat supper.
David sat by the window to watch the pedestrian traffic at the private clubhouse and saw our target leave his room and walk down to the clubhouse and walk inside (it was in the room beside the motel office).
I helped David get into his batsuit and he left with his machine gun, a zombie slasher knife, and four pairs of plastic handcuffs but no other gear. He moved his truck and parked directly in front of the room where our target stayed, then he sat in his truck and watched. Two hours later I woke up to the sound of his truck. I heard it start and drive away.
Two hours later David came back and got out of his suit and took a shower and lay on the bed beside me. I nuked his dinner and watched him eat and waited to hear what he had anything to say.
When he was almost done eating I said, "Well?"
"I gave them the permanent solution they wanted."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes, and he cuffed himself, but I added two extra ones just in case."
"How's that?" I asked.
"He put handcuffs on his ankles. He's sort of laid out between two trees face down on the ground."
"Why can't he take the cuffs off himself?"
I secured him between two small trees with plastic cuffs, with two extra sets just in case.
"No way to escape?"
"Nope, and he's too far in the woods for anyone but the bears and the coyotes to hear him scream."
"Huh, I wouldn't have been as nice."
"Either way, some bears or a pack of coyotes will get him if the cold doesn't. He's lying on the gold ground, face down in a t-shirt and jeans and it's supposed to get down to around ten degrees tonight."
"Sounds permanent."
"Yep, someday they might find some bones. If coyotes finished him off there might never be any traces found. They love to chew on bones."
"Were we supposed to get something for our public service?"
"Probably not, but who knows what might appear in the mail some day."
"Huh!"
While he ate he told me he grabbed his neck from behind outside his motel room and cuffed him, then had him sit in the back seat and hauled him out of town near the river where the bears fished every day. He walked him at gun point into the woods and had him sit on the ground beside a tree and cuffed his ankles. Then they sat there and talked about his time as Sheriff in Florida and the school shooting he let happen and how he falsified state records and lied to the news people for years. He said the douche bag freely admitted it, but said he was only there for the money and hated Florida.
David described the guy's attitude was one of arrogance, greed, and that he talked like a sociopath. He cuffed his hands around another tree then put on the two extra cuffs. He said the guy cried and begged to not die that way, he begged David to shoot him. David told him this was being done on behalf of all the kids that were shot in that school during his excellent service.
While he was eating David mumbled that he saw a lot of fresh bear shit on the ground in that area, that would be a possible cause of death. It was more likely he'd die of hypothermia long before the bears ate him.
He finished dinner then we went to sleep. The next morning we drove home but I insisted we stop at Moorcroft, Wyoming to see Devil's Tower Monument. I told David there were other rock formations like that (Chimney Rock) scattered around the area. They're all volcanic plugs.
We got a motel room in Moorcroft and left early and got home at 8pm the next day.
Four weeks later we got an unsigned card in the mail with a key inside, it was marked: "Gate 9, # 27" stamped into the body. Just for fun we drove to work that night and using our regular employee entrance we went upstairs to the normal west concourse to Gate 9, locker 27. I inserted the key while David kept watch. I opened the locker and found a paper bag inside. I grabbed the bag and we left through the nearest employee's door down to the first floor then out to the employee lot and drove home.
"I'm afraid to open it." "Here, give it to me." He turned the wheel and stopped by a gas pump, put the nozzle in and told me to go pay. I went inside and gave them twenty bucks. David stepped back to the door and opened the bag and looked inside. He reached inside then looked at me through the gas station window and smiled at me.
The pump clicked off at twenty bucks. I bought us a six pack of beer and got back in the truck. Back at home we went back to bed, the bag was on the dresser still folded/rolled shut. It was a plain white bag about the size they use for a burger and fries to go except this one had no oil stains.
Contact the author: borischenaz gmail