Fuller Part 1

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 1

Authors Notes-
Geography-
Tappin County Texas is fictional and is based roughly on some of the geographic and social/economic characteristics of Hudspeth County, Texas. With a population of around 3,500 residents Hudspeth County is similar to many of the lesser populated counties in Texas that are on or in close proximity to our shared border with Mexico. The real Hudspeth County sits directly east of El Paso County which includes the city of El Paso. Both counties sit at the far western edges of Texas and border New Mexico. They also rest directly north of the US/Mexico border. El Paso’s sister city in Mexico is Ciudad Juárez which has had a terrible problem with cartel violence and has been repeatedly dubbed “the most violent city in the world outside an active war zone”. I’ve never visited El Paso, Hudspeth County or Mexico so bear with me since I’ve taken some liberties to add to the story's plotline.

Mexican Politics and the US Border Crisis-
The US Department of Homeland Security and other US Agencies estimate that Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) reap tens of billions of dollars every year off the smuggling of drugs and humans across our southern border. The scope of the problem in Mexico led Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón to crack down on the problem shortly after his election at the end of 2006, in an attempt to help bring the situation under control. Since that time over 35,000(estimates vary) men, woman and children have died in this brutal struggle between rival cartels and the Mexican Government. The pace of the murders is so frantic that it can often be hard to pin down the exact number of deaths that are cartel related in one form or another. Since there is no guarantee that the numbers from the Mexican Government are accurate, the numbers could be higher than generally thought.

Here’s some of what the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs had to say about the subject. I’ve picked only a few relevant paragraphs and if you’re interested you can go to www.travel.state.gov under International Travel for more information.

General Conditions
Since 2006, the Mexican government has engaged in an extensive effort to combat transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). The TCOs, meanwhile, have been engaged in a vicious struggle to control drug trafficking routes and other criminal activity. According to Government of Mexico figures, 34,612 people have been killed in narcotics-related violence in Mexico since December 2006. More than 15,000 narcotics-related homicides occurred in 2010, an increase of almost two-thirds compared to 2009. Most of those killed in narcotics-related violence since 2006 have been members of TCOs. However, innocent persons have also been killed as have Mexican law enforcement and military personnel.

The Mexican government has deployed federal police and military personnel throughout the country as part of its efforts to combat the TCOs. U.S. citizens traveling on Mexican roads and highways may encounter government checkpoints, which are often staffed by military personnel. You are advised to cooperate with personnel at government checkpoints and mobile military patrols. TCOs have erected their own unauthorized checkpoints, and killed or abducted motorists who have failed to stop at them.
Violence Along the U.S.-Mexico Border
Much of the country’s narcotics-related violence has occurred in the northern border region. For example, since 2006, three times as many people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez, in the state of Chihuahua, across from El Paso, Texas, than in any other city in Mexico. More than half of all Americans killed in Mexico in FY 2009 whose deaths were reported to the U.S. Embassy were killed in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana.
The situation in the state of Chihuahua, specifically Ciudad Juarez, is of special concern. Mexican authorities report that more than 2,600 people were killed in Ciudad Juarez in 2009. Three persons associated with the Consulate General were murdered in March, 2010. U.S. citizens should defer unnecessary travel to Ciudad Juarez and to the Guadalupe Bravo area southeast of Ciudad Juarez. U.S. citizens should also defer travel to the northwest quarter of the state of Chihuahua. From the United States, these areas are often reached through the Columbus, NM and Fabens and Fort Hancock, TX ports-of-entry. In both areas, American citizens have been victims of drug related violence. There have been recent incidents of serious narcotics-related violence in the vicinity of the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua.
Source-www.travel.state.gov (Travel Warning)

Personal Viewpoint-
I empathize with the plight of all those that are adversely affected on both sides of the border by the ongoing Drug War in Mexico and other cartel violence. Many Mexicans and Central and South Americans believe that their path to a better life is through the US, accounting for the massive and uncontrollable influx of illegals that have or will seek opportunity in the US illegally regardless of penalty or hazard. I believe that the Drugs/Illegal Immigration problem has been mismanaged for years on both sides of the border and, like most problems, the longer it festers the worse it will become. Maybe now we are past the point that we should all say “enough”. Let’s curtail the drugs flowing into our country and address the millions of people that have gamed our immigration laws and safeguards by one method or another. If we, as a nation, don’t say enough, at some point it has the potential to negatively affect us even more than it already has.

And while currently the vast majority of the violence is centered over the border in Mexico, the sheer volume of money involved and the violence and corruption it has fostered in both countries staggers the mind. Unfortunately, the money involved has tempted a number of US officials to become part of the problem and accept payments for their cooperation in illegal activity. The US Department of Justice (www.justice.gov) recognizes the problem and is actively attempting to bring the corruption under control at the local, state and national levels. Part of me fears that if things went wrong, and I mean really, really wrong in the US we could see some similar types of rampant and uncontrolled violence within our borders.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the story.
alangator




Fuller
Part 1

The balmy September weather belied the thoughts rolling around in Tim Fields' head. Sitting in his family's kitchen Tim pondered the 10th anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy. His morning and early afternoon had been busy and he hadn’t had a chance to reflect on the importance of the day to his country or himself. But after an early dinner he flipped on the TV in the living room while his kids finished their homework at the kitchen table. He found numerous shows commemorating the anniversary and found one he became immersed in.

Watching the images again of that tragic day interspersed with the narrative reached into an emotional place inside of him. His eyes threatened to produce tears, so he quickly recorded the program on his DVR and went into the kitchen to see if anybody needed any help with anything. Of course the dishwasher had just quit running 20 minutes earlier and he was assigned the task of putting the dishes up while his wife Becky helped the kids finish up their homework. He tried unsuccessfully to put the thoughts and memories of that experience out of his head till the kids had gone to bed.


And while he was only partially successful in pushing those thoughts down, it was enough to keep from shedding any tears while the kids were up, therefore avoiding an uncomfortable explanation of why daddy was sad. Later his wife and he discussed the anniversary and both had shed a few tears at their memories of that fateful day that changed the way all Americans lived to some degree or another.


That night as Tim Fields climbed into bed with his wife Becky, he was still preoccupied with the 9-11 tragedy. He remembered that morning and the call that alerted him to what was happening in New York and Washington DC as if it had happened yesterday. Good information was hard to pin down that day and that added to the fear that infiltrated the minds of most, if not all, Americans as well as their friends and allies across the world. As he drifted off to sleep he hoped that the tragedies of that day wouldn’t infect his dreams in any way, shape, form or another. While he hadn’t been on the east coast at the time or lost anyone in the tragedy he had experienced a few nightmares over the years that seemed to be inspired by the events of 9-11.


The next day Tim Fields had just finished eating lunch as he looked over at the 16 inch flat screen video monitor sitting on the kitchen wall next to the phone as it started emitting a low pitched beep. Tim had seen a flicker of shadow cross the screen out of the corner of his eye and reacted faster than the high tech gadgetry had registered the event. The monitor was attached to the camera mounted beside the gate to the 30plus acre property and was equipped with a motion detector of sorts. The way it worked was that the Digital Video Recorder had software that activated when x amount of pixels were altered such as when a person or animal walked across the camera's viewing area or a vehicle pulled up to the family’s gate.

Only this time instead of a deer it was two newer looking black Chevrolet Suburbans outfitted with large brush guards and showing Texas license plates on their oversized front bumpers. As expected, the home phone rang since it was connected to the intercom that sat on a pedestal beside the entrance to the property.

As Tim watched the monitor to get additional clues about their visitor, his wife walked into the kitchen and stood beside him. “Who’s that? My mother is working today and isn’t supposed to be here till this afternoon.” Tim looked over from the monitor to his wife. “That’s a good question. Two newer Suburban’s just pulled up to the gate, maybe we should see who it is?” He reached for the phone before it had a chance to ring for a fourth time and picked it up. “Hello, can I help you with something?”

Over the other end of the phone from down at the gate a voice answered betraying a hint of a Texas accent. “I’m looking for Tim Fields; my name is Fuller R. Brown. I run a company called Brown Security Consulting in El Paso. Please feel free to look my company or myself up on the Internet. A Google search will also yield some stuff you can look at. I have a business proposition that I’d like to present to you and your wife. I’d be willing to provide a reference or two, if that helps you at all.”

Tim watched as the men at the gate sat without moving inside the trucks. He replied to the mysterious visitor to his property. “Mr. Brown, I need to check something out. Can you give me a minute?”

On the other end of the phone Tim could hear the smile on the man’s face.
“I understand, take your time.”

Tim hit the hold button of the business phone system that linked the gate and the house and turned to his wife shrugging his shoulders. “Ideas? What do you think?” He then turned back to watch the men at the gate on the monitor while he waited for his wife’s reply.

Becky, ever security conscious, looked at the monitor again and was trying to figure how many people you could hide inside the big SUVs. She turned to her husband standing beside her, “I think you should check his references. I’ll grab your pistol from the bedroom and go downstairs and bring your vest up. I’ll get my vest on and load the shotgun but I just don’t see being attacked in broad daylight. Those matching trucks look more like company or government vehicles than the ride of a home invasion crew.”

Tim smiled again, glad he had married a woman that got it. Becky had been taught that while you give people the benefit of the doubt there’s no use in acting stupid about it. In the ten years they had been together two things surprised and amazed him more than her other characteristics. The first was that his wife was aging like a supermodel. Every year as they grew older and even after giving birth to their two wonderful children she seemed to get more attractive than when they first met. In that way, being married and being a mother totally agreed with her. The second one is that in many ways she approached certain things in life like a man. Over their years together she had gained the ability to approach many problems or situations without the distraction of letting emotions dictate her reaction or viewpoint. As a rule, she was loving and supportive of her friends and family but could be shrewd and practical when the situation called for it.

Tim nodded his agreement with his wife’s plan of action and took the phone off hold. “Mr. Brown, I hope that you’re not offended but, I think if you don’t mind waiting, I’ll take you up on the search recommendation and I’d appreciate the references you offered. One in law enforcement would help.” Tim said as he turned back toward his wife and gauged her reaction to the exchange. She was nodding her head up and down slightly and gave him a thumbs up. Her face didn’t say everything was okay. It said this is strange and we need to be careful. She then turned and headed to the other side of the house to get the gear they’d need.

Over the speakerphone their mystery visitor replied. “Mr. Fields, I have no problem with that at all. The world isn’t the place it once was. If you have something to write with, we can get started.”


Tim rummaged around in the junk drawer under the gate video monitor for paper since he almost always had a pen on him. After 20 seconds he located a blank number 10 envelope that he thought should to the job. He spoke into the phone. “Sir, I’m ready when you are.”




“Of course, I’ll go slowly, and if I’m going too fast, let me know. My first name is spelled F U L L E R, middle initial is R and I spell Brown the same as the color. Sheriff Big Jim ‘Bear” Olsen in the Tappin County Texas Sheriff’s office will vouch for me.” He paused to make sure Tim was still keeping up. “Also talk to Head Judge Hiram R. Masters in Tappin County, Texas, he’s a close friend. If he’s out of his office somebody there can usually track him down for you. Also talk to Tusker, Texas Mayor Haney Todd, he’s also pastor of the Tusker Christian Church.” The references were dictated by the stranger in the cowboy hat sitting at their gate without the slightest hint of being offended or embarrassed by the process. In fact he seemed more at ease than when he had began the conversation over the intercom with Tim.


Tim walked across the kitchen and started feeding the information into his laptop. Becky returned from retrieving the equipment and handed Tim his 40 caliber Glock in an inside-the-waistband holster along with 2 loaded spare magazines and a sub-compact Glock without a spare magazine. She then swung his concealable vest off her shoulders and set it on their kitchen table. He’d need a plain white t-shirt to wear under his vest and she had remembered to bring one of those from the bedroom also. She had also brought him a denim work shirt to wear over his tee to conceal the Glock. Even with an untucked t-shirt the mid-size Glock had a tendency to print on him and if he wanted to be low-key he wore an unbuttoned shirt over everything.

Tim looked up and passed the envelope that he had written his notes on toward her.
“Can you look this stuff up while I get changed?”

Becky smiled and took the envelope from her husband, looking to be sure she’d be able to decipher Tim’s handwriting. “I think I can do that.”



She could type quicker than him and had the contact numbers written down by the time Tim had put on his outer t-shirt over the vest and put a denim work shirt over it. Tim also heard the printer whirl into action as he grabbed his cell phone from the charging cord it was attached to.

Becky started speaking to tell Tim of her progress as she walked into the pantry and grabbed the printed sheets the printer had just spit out. “OK, I got numbers for all these guys and some articles about Fuller R. Brown and his company. It looks like he runs a security company in and around El Paso that provides varied services including electronic security systems and monitoring, some investigation work and executive protection. Looks like their work is at the personal level and they aren’t listed as doing any event or site work. He grew up in a family with some cattle and maybe some oil in west Texas and entered the Marines after college at Texas Tech. He served 8 years as an enlisted soldier including two tours at the beginning of everything in Iraq. Made Master Sergeant and left the Marines Corps. I cannot find the reason why he left or what he did in the service. Few years later he starts his security company out of El Paso and is lured by the money to start finding guys to go work in the ‘War on Terror’ as security contractors. Local paper mentions charitable work and he has a training facility just east of El Paso in Tappin County. The website says that it offers a full range of training including everything from CCW courses to precision rifle and has some well-known guest instructors. One of the pictures of him on the internet shows him sitting at a desk and what looks like a pail of LTS food is barely visible in the background. Now the box could be empty but... This could be interesting.”

As she looked more carefully at the picture, she copied it and took it to the software she used to edit pictures. After playing with the pixel rate, resolution and image size for two minutes she smiled and looked up. “I enhanced the picture and it is LTS food and a company out of KC is listed on the pail. That picture might have been taken in a cave or underground storage facility. I noticed that the shadow is diffused and refracts off the back wall up top in a strange way. I messed around and I’m almost sure that the background up at the top is a cave or a mine.”

END
Part 1

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 2

Tim took the paper from his wife and dialed the first number. “Good catch; see if we can find out if the guy owns any underground space. He waited ten seconds till a dispatcher at the Tappin County Sheriff’s Office answered the phone. “Hello, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Sheriff Popt.”


On the other end of his phone the dispatcher paused. “Big Jim is on the other line right now. If you tell me what this is concerning, I can see when he’ll be done, if you care to hold? Or I can take a message and he can get back to you?” The dispatcher paused to hear his reply to the choices she had given him.

Tim hesitated. “Sure, tell him it’s concerning Fuller R. Brown. I’d prefer to wait, if that’s possible.”

The dispatcher clicked over and the gentle sounds of new age world music drifted from the other side of the call. Tim was surprised; he was expecting one flavor of Country/Western music or another. He also realized that the music was at a reasonable level unlike many of the places he had been put on hold at. Nothing worse than being stuck on hold and have music blaring at you over the phone, especially if the music playing wasn’t to your liking.

Tim didn’t have long to wait because Sheriff Big Jim Popt was on the phone in a matter of seconds. “Sheriff Popt speaking, how can I help you?” The man on the other side of the connection had that voice Tim envisioned coming from a big man and again he thought he heard a watered down version of an accent. Tim was no expert but it might have been a Texas accent, he just wasn’t sure.

Tim made his request short and sweet. “Sheriff Popt, my name is Tim Fields and I’m calling from Kansas. Fuller R. Brown gave you as a reference and I was wondering if you’ll vouch for him?”

On the other end of the line the Sheriff from Texas snickered slightly before answering Tim’s question. “Mr. Fields, I’m up to my hindquarter in fires so I’ll just tell you that I sent my family north with Fuller and his guys. As you can imagine living this close to the border right now is not the safest thing for a lawman’s family. Them cartels have a problem with cops, lawyers, politicians, soldiers, journalists and, hell, they got a problem and are willing to kill everyone. Instead of telling you I’d trust my life to him, I’ll tell you I trust the lives of my family to him. He’s golden and one of the best men I’ve met in my life. He asked a handful of his unmarried hands to stay here and help anyway they can. I deputized them and they are protecting the citizens of Tappin County the same way I am. One of those guys told me they are getting a hazardous duty bonus out of Fuller’s own pocket for helping out.”

Tim made a few notes on the flip side of the envelope. “Sheriff, I appreciate your input. I’ll let you get back to it and good luck with those cartel bastards.”

The Sheriff hung up without a goodbye and Tim dialed the next number his wife had found. When the phone was answered at the Tappin County Courthouse, Tim asked for Head Judge Hiram R. Masters. The court clerk transferred him to the Judge’s office where a surly sounding older woman relentlessly harassed him till she was satisfied that the reason for the call was important enough to go find the Judge. Tim explained to her that he was chasing down a reference for a man that had said that the Judge would vouch for him.


Tim waited while the Judge was chased down and when an obviously slightly drunk man answered the phone he explained what he needed and proceeded to hear a glowing report of the character of Fuller R. Brown. It was given by a guy that wouldn’t pass a breathalyzer test given on the side of the highway before noon on a weekday. Tim Fields hoped the Judge wasn’t hearing any cases or rendering any decisions that impacted anybody's life today since he was obviously drunk as a skunk or off his meds.

Fuller decided that the judge was a maybe and called the Tusker, Texas City Hall attempting to reach the mayor of that city. Again he asked for the Mayor and was told if he could wait that they would try to chase him down. The receptionist mentioned that the Mayor was liaising with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security to talk about the border crisis and address any glitches in their emergency plans. She went on to say that those federal agencies were helping allocate resources where they were needed. The Mayor had just finished listening to their presentation and the group was on a break. The receptionist then told Tim that she was about to go on break and if the Mayor didn’t pick up to wait 15 minutes and call back.



As Tim waited, he pulled a map on the internet and found Tusker, Texas. It was a very far suburb of El Paso and located right next to Tappin County. He glanced again at the big SUVs at his gate and decided that maybe he should skip talking to the mayor. Of course that was when the Mayor Haney Todd of Tusker, Texas located in El Paso County, Texas picked up the phone. “Mayor Haney Todd speaking, you the fella looking for information about Fuller?”

Tim jumped right in as he grabbed the pen rolling toward the edge of the counter. “Yes your honor, Mr. Brown gave you as a personal reference and I wanted to know if you feel comfortable vouching for him.”

Mayor Todd didn’t hesitate for a second. “Fuller is a good guy and a straight shooter. Before he left town a few days ago he assigned two of his guys to bunk at my house with my family and I to keep us safe. According to the Homeland Security’s Assessment from their ICE Investigations Office, mayors, judges, cops and politicians along the border are at a greater than normal risk for violence including kidnapping, torture and assassinations. One look at Big Tony and anybody with half a brain would find somebody else to try to kidnap, torture or assassinate. Those Feds need to get this thing cleared up quick. Big Tony is eating me out of house and home and my dog likes Big Tony better than he likes me.”

Tim smiled at the comment and replied to the report that the Mayor of Tusker Texas was another huge Fuller R. Brown fan. “Your honor, I appreciate you clearing that up for me. I wasn’t aware that towns other than Tucson and El Paso were at risk.”

Since Tim had shown some interest, Mayor Haney Todd expanded his statement further for Tim’s benefit. “Actually Texas and New Mexico communities near the border are being told to be wary of problems from the cartels that control that part of the border. We are close enough to the border that we’ve gotten a visit from Homeland Security and some other government types. They have performed risk assessments on our community’s vulnerability. They also reviewed our disaster plans and gave us a briefing based on the intelligence they have gathered on the crisis to date. Hopefully this hoopla will die down and we can get back to normal soon. The Feds are worried about a private lake surrounded by high end housing down the road. It is 220 navigable acres and fed by a few good sized creeks and a series of springs. It acts as our emergency water supply for the town’s water district and provides all our fire hydrant water. Local CBP, sorry that’s Customs and Border Protection, has promised to increase air patrols in that area since it’s on a known smuggling route and some of the coyotes stop there to top off their water supplies. Two of Fuller’s guys are laid up out there and that should hopefully do the trick to keep that water safe and accessible to the community, if we need it.”

Tim shook his head in frustration as he listened to the Mayor and was again underwhelmed by the efforts and candidness of the MSM. Again the MSM wanted the story to reflect their own liberal agenda and had left out crucial information that brought the story to life and gave much needed perspective.

The news wasn’t saying much on the crisis and the threat to the sovereignty of the United States of America. Basically they talked about some vague cartel threats or problems in El Paso and Tucson areas and glossed over or ignored what was apparently happening all across the New Mexico and Texas border areas. If the mayor was right, the economic impact to the region could be staggering and, as a tool, economic terrorism could be pretty effective. Since so many legitimate goods were shipped across the border from Mexico into the US, the crisis could hamper the ability of US businesses to keep product on their shelves causing even more problems. As a tool to control people, threats, intimidation and violence had always been effective through the ages. Not many people wanted any more trouble in their lives than they already had. Between the ongoing violence based in Mexico and the threats of violence on the US side of the border it could also hurt tourism which Mexico desperately needed. All said, the situation was difficult.

Tim thoughts drifted to a gap at the beginning of the conversation. “Mayor, I didn’t mention to your receptionist who I wanted information about. How did you know it was Fuller R. Brown?”

The Mayor replied to the question. “Fuller called and told me that he had given my name to you, of course. Didn’t mention what was going on, just that he needed to do some business with you.”

Tim had enough to feel comfortable inviting the men on up to the house despite the judge’s boozy input and wanted to talk it over quickly with his wife before making a final judgment. “Your Honor I think I’ve got everything that I need and thank you for taking the time to talk to me. My family and I wish you and your community good luck down there. Anything you want me to tell Fuller?”

Mayor Todd laughed. “You tell him he won the pool and it was $20.00. He’ll know what it means and sorry to say I’ve got another call and I need to get going.”

With that the line went dead and the mayor was presumably off to his next phone call.

Tim turned to his wife. “Well the judge was drunk as all get out, but he and the others all say they trust this man with their lives. I say we invite them up to the house. We can ask them to leave their long arms in the truck and cover the pistols. Does that sound okay with you?”

Becky smiled, trusting her husband to make good decisions. “Bring them on up, I can’t see three pillars of the community leading us astray. I’ll be in the shelter if you need me.”

Tim picked up the phone and took it off hold so that he could speak to Brown and invite him up to the house. “Mr. Brown, you can come on up. I would ask that you and your men leave any long arms in the vehicles and cover all sidearms.”

Over the other side of the phone the Texan replied to the invite. “Appreciate it, see you in a minute.”

Tim hit the button on the intercom to release the gate and allow it to slide open. He watched the monitor as the gate swung open and the big SUVs made their way up the gravel drive. After seeing the gate start to close, he walked out into the garage, hit the switch for the opener and watched as both of the large SUVs slowly made their way up their drive. They both turned around to face the road and some of the men began to exit the trucks. All the men wore their shirts outside their pants and Tim didn’t see any weapons. They all wore the same plain button-up shirts and a variety of similar colored khakis and wore one form of hiking type shoe or boot or another.

He then turned to the refrigerator in the garage and began pulling bottled water and a two liter bottle of generic root beer out for his guests. He placed the cold drinks into one of those cloth bags that they sell at the grocery store so that you don’t need to use their plastic or paper bags to store the supplies, then quickly added a sleeve of disposable plastic cups to the bag from atop the frig.

As he stepped out the garage door, the man he assumed was Fuller R. Brown was exiting the truck from the front in the passenger seat of the lead SUV parked nearest the garage door. He was a little slower getting out than the other men had been and was shoving a cell phone into his pants pocket. He walked over to Tim and stuck out his hand. “Fuller R. Brown, it’s nice to meet you. Sorry about not calling first, but I place a strong emphasize on security and the NSA has increased the monitoring of cells out of Texas, New Mexico and the border regions of Mexico. I was hoping that we could have a chat just between us without the NSA tagging the call and passing it along to whichever nosy ass agency handles this type of thing.”

Both men released their grips and Tim replied. “Tim Fields, I’d be pleased if you called me Tim. It’s nice to meet you after hearing such good things about you. I was told by Mayor Todd that you won the pool and the pot was $20.00. He said you know what he was talking about. It sounds like a crazy time down your way.”
Fuller nodded, taking an inventory of the man standing in front of him and replied to the query. “That about sums it up alright. The government should have dealt with that problem a long time ago and now it’s going to be very tough to root it out. If D.C. sat on the border with Mexico maybe they would have understood the impact illegal immigration and drug smuggling was having on both countries. But, as always, for the people in DC to react, something has to hit them between the eyes and now it’s a mess. The thought of these criminals threatening the US makes me nauseous. But enough about that right now. I wanted to talk to you partially because of the crisis and how we might help each other.”
“We can step inside and you can tell me what’s on your mind. Your men can come in, but I do ask that they take their shoes off. Or, I brought some water and a 2 liter of root beer outside with me.”

Fuller R. Brown accepted the offered bag by the straps and held it in his left hand. He then smiled at the offered and accepted hospitality. “Mr. Fields, we appreciate the offer, but these are men used to being close to the rifles and being inside puts them too far away from them. We all know that the chance of something happening here is very, and I mean very, remote but we stick to good habits in times of crisis regardless of where we are. We’ve made some enemies within the cartels so we keep a watch as if we’re over in the sandbox doing our nation’s bidding. I’d say they will be fine in the yard if that’s okay with you and your wife. I’m sure they’d love to get a hold of that root beer; we mostly drink water or sport drinks when we travel. I’d guess that root beer will be very well received and we thank you in advance for the hospitality.” Fuller turned and stepped over to one of the men watching the road out front and handed the bag to him and spoke to him in a low voice. He stepped back to Tim. “Lead the way.”

End
Part 2

 

[BigRuss]

nice start! Of course now I'm curious who Tim is and why a security contractor is interested in talking to him.

Looking forward to reading more of this
Russ

 

[ejagno]

Okay, so you baited us, got us hooked and now what? LOL Please keep writing. This is going to be a great read. Thank you!

 

[sssarawolf]

Good start, and hey wheres the next chapter?

 

[Deena in GA]

I'm ready for the next chapter or two whenever you get them written. Very nice start!

 

[Doc Savage]

Nice story. We own property down that way in Brewster County. Hope to setup a retirement house there at some point. Beautiful area.

 

[OldArcher]

Yep, nicely done, alangator. I like your work, Sir, and am looking forward to the next installment... Please keep it up...

OA, out...

 

[tired-medic]

Hey I like this! Please keep up the good work.

 

[PAGE90LX]

Very good start I enjoyed.

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 3

As Tim Fields led the ex-Marine into his home, he mentally reviewed what they had found out about Fuller R. Brown, the CEO of Brown Security Consulting in El Paso Texas. From the quick research they had done they knew that Fuller R. Brown was an interesting man. His family had a little oil money and ran cattle in west Texas. After graduating college he served his country in the Marine Corps for eight years including time fighting overseas in the “War on Terror”. During his stint in the Marines he achieved the rank of Master Sergeant before leaving. Originally his company focused on selling, installing and monitoring security systems for the solidly middle class and up. The company expanded quickly and moved into doing investigative work as well as opening up a training facility. That led to recruiting and then training people to act as ‘security contractors’ in the ‘War of Terror. And that venture led to providing safety training to employees of larger multi-national corporations that did business in the unpredictable regions of the world on how to stay as safe as possible under less than ideal conditions. Fuller R. Brown was respected and well liked in the community near the training center and thought to be civic minded.

The men made their way inside and Tim invited Fuller to grab a seat at the families’ kitchen table. Fuller was respectful and very careful as he pulled the seat out and sat down. “Tim I want to assure you that the information that you share with me is considered private and I will not divulge it to anybody in my organization that doesn’t have a direct need-to-know. I’d ask that you and your wife grant me the same courtesy since I plan to talk about parts of my business that aren’t public knowledge. Is that an understanding that you and your wife can live with?”


Tim nodded anxious to hear what the man from Texas had on his mind. “Both my wife and I can agree to that. We understand the benefits of playing it close to the vest.”

Fuller smiled as he unconsciously rubbed his leg at the knee with his left hand. His face didn’t show if the joint itched, hurt or was cramping or if the movement was some sort of habit “Good, I was hoping that you’d say that. Moving on, as you see I run a Safety and Security business out of El Paso. Until recently we also employed men and women working for the Department of Defense and other US government agencies in the ‘War on Terror’ overseas. I realized as my company's business in Afghanistan and Iraq was booming there remained a possibility of an event that would destabilize or destroy this country while we as a country focused on the conflict overseas so I started making arrangements with clients of a certain mindset to weather that unlikely storm. With that in mind, I bought an old gravel mine and converted it to a combination office/warehouse complex across town. Since this area has a high number of underground gravel mines I was able to purchase it and upgrade the site without too many problems from the city. Word must have gone out because the city was surprisingly easy to deal and nobody had their hands out during the conversion. I’d like to think that the city had stamped out corruption, but more likely they understood that after the space was converted to underground office and storage space it would bring in much needed revenue in the form of property, sales and earnings tax. As the phases were completed I placed tenants that had businesses that would be critical after a major disaster stuck. I also started a few businesses that would benefit from the secure and rigidly climate-controlled environment. An example would be the food distribution company that we rented space to for their frozen line of entrees and snacks. Two of the start-ups that have found customers easily are the data storage facility and a climate-controlled storage facility that houses decade’s worth of records from various city, county and state agencies as well as companies large and small. The low cost of conversion and low operating costs mean we allocated some space to unconventional underground tenants like the automotive recycling business. They remove the gas tank and drain all the fluids and then remove all AC refrigerants off-site, then truck the body into their space to strip or store the vehicle and its parts. The space is easier on the vehicles that they store because it’s out of the weather. It is also shown to reduce employee accidents and thefts from outsiders. Scrap yards are notorious harbors of rodents like rats. They have combated that problem with an excellent pest management system. That means it’s better for the surrounding businesses as well as the yard. We also have a few private amenities like an indoor shooting range that our staff and various friends use from time to time. The seemingly coordinated chaos taking place along the US and Mexican border has alarmed many of my employees and clients. Five days ago I rented motor coaches and two days ago we transported employees and their families that wanted to vacate the area till things get better as well as a few select clients and their families to one of the motels I’ve rented out near my underground facility . What I need from you is space that is similar to my underground space for dire emergencies such as an NBC event. I know you have done work on the old mine on this property and was hoping to make a deal to lease as much room from you as you found acceptable. I tried to buy it back in the day, so I know it’s in good shape for this type of thing.”

Tim and his wife had hoped the work on the old mine was not very noticeable. Satellites saw everything, obviously lying was out. Jim relented and was almost forced to come clean. “Yes, the mine has had work done to improve the space in the event of a problem. I’d be willing to give you a tour and we’ll see what happens from there”.

Fuller nodded. “I’d love to see what you’ve done so far, maybe I can lend a suggestion or two. I know what we did at our mine is different from your efforts but the principles are or can be the same or similar. I also had access to some pretty good experts.”

Tim absentlymindedly popped his knuckles as he replied to the offer. “I think I’d like to hear your ideas. I just need to get my wife to join us and I’ll bring her up to speed.” Tim stood and walked over to the phoneset sitting in the kitchen, punched in two numbers and waited for his wife’s reply. He gave the password to Becky and asked his wife to join them in the kitchen. “I’d like you to meet my wife and then we can get going. Hope you’re not offended, we researched you, but I put her in the safe room just in case.”

Fuller smirked. “Tim I understand, it’s better to be safe than sorry. I also ascribe the philosophy that it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Your actions tell me that you take your security seriously and that tells me a lot about the way you think.”

The two men chatted for a few minutes about the process of converting the cavernous spaces while they waited for Becky to ascend the stairs and join them.

As Becky entered the kitchen Tim turned to introduce his wife. “Becky I want to introduce you to Fuller R. Brown, from Texas. He wants to talk to us about using some of the extra space in the mine in an emergency. I thought I’d give him a tour and see if it fits his needs, maybe see about working something out. If that’s okay with you, I mean. Fuller, this is my wife Becky, and most the time she thinks she’s the boss around here.”

Fuller extended his hand and smiled at the woman of the house. “Mrs. Fields, it’s nice to meet you and I apologize for showing up at your home unannounced. Tim I hate to say it, but my experience has been that the women usually are the boss whether we understand it or not.”

Becky immediately replied. “Mr. Brown, it’s nice to meet you. Sorry the house is a mess, I wasn’t expecting company. Tim, if you think it’s might be something we’re interested in, then I’ll wait here at the house till you get back. Mr. Brown, can you please ask your men to come inside? I’ll make some iced tea and lemonade and they can use the bathroom if they need to.”


Fuller nodded and smiled at the woman whose house he’d turned up at without calling first. He skipped the talk about his men being on alert since he thought that the effort would be overruled by her anyway. “Mrs. Fields, I’d consider it a favor if you and your husband called me Fuller. I’ll have my men leave their side arms in the trucks and I thank you for the hospitality. We’ve been running pretty hard for two or three days. If you have a wireless router, I’m sure sitting around your kitchen table might give them an opportunity to catch up with their emails to their families and friends.”

Becky smiled. “I’ll call you Fuller, if you agree to call me Becky. When you call me Mrs. Fields I feel like my mother-in-law. We are fairly informal around here.”

Fuller nodded his assent to the lady of the house. “Sounds like deal to me. When people call me Mr. Brown I think of my father and not myself.”

With the introductions done, Fuller made his way outside to talk to his guys and invite them into the house. While he was doing that, Tim Fields walked to the pantry and removed a dark blue backpack, carrying it outside with him as Fuller R. Brown was finishing giving instructions to his three men. Before he walked out he stuck his EDC flashlight into his pocket and headed out. Tim was waiting at the garage door as two of Fuller’s men filed past and entered their home though the garage. Tim watched as both men took their shoes off and set them beside the door before walking into the kitchen. “Ready?”

Fuller nodded having removed a backpack from his SUV and slinging it across his back. “Ready.”

Tim led Fuller to the small metal pre-fab building off the driveway toward the side of the property. As they approached, Tim hit the remote in his pocket and the overhead door began to rise. Tim walked into the well-lit building with Fuller behind him and walked over to a vinyl covered golf cart that had a decent understated camo scheme on it. Tim unplugged the charging cord and checked the condition of the golf cart’s batteries, then visually inspected the tires to make sure they looked like they were aired to approximately the correct pressure. Satisfied with the condition of the cart, he threw his backpack into a wire basket on the back of the cart that used to hold the clubs and had been modified to hold backpacks and long arms. A shortened bungee cord held the pack tightly in the basket and Fuller mimicked the action stowing his pack next to Tim’s. Fuller slid onto the bench seat next to Tim.

Tim looked over his shoulder and backed the cart out of the building; he slowed just long enough to reach into his shirt pocket and activate the remote to the door and zoomed off as soon as the door began closing. The men drove down a vague path toward the abandoned mine that Tim had converted to his family’s fallout shelter and workshop.

As Tim competently maneuvered the cart he confided to Fuller R. Brown. “Fuller, I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but when I called Mayor Todd the receptionist told me that he had been meeting with Homeland Security and other US government agency representatives. Seems like maybe somebody needs a better understanding of how dangerous this situation is, if people are picking up and leaving the area till it simmers down. Also, while I appreciate the references that you were gave us, all the principles gave information that might have compromised their personal safety as well as the community-s security.”

Tim glanced over at Fuller as he waited for his reply. The second he glanced away from the path almost made him miss seeing a startled buck dart across the path 30 feet in front of them. Tim had seen the deer before and noticed it looked as if maybe it was a year or so away from being ready to harvest.

Fuller replied, the concern evident in his voice. “Can you remember what everyone told you that you think might have compromised security?”

Tim maneuvered around a tree stump cut level with the ground in the path. “Sure, Sherriff Popt told me that his family was with you and that you had taken them north with you. He also mentioned that you had left hands with him to help out and that they had been deputized. The Judge was hammered and gave no information except that you were a great guy. Mayor Todd mentioned that you had two guys at his home including Big Tony and that Homeland Security had issued a warning for mayors, judges, law enforcement and politicians along or near the border. He also mentioned that you had two of your people laid up at the private lake that supplies the emergency water to the local water district and the water to the area's fire hydrants and that CBP promised to increase air patrols in the area to keep the lake safe. I made notes that are at the house, if that would help you.”

Fuller paused before answering. “I received the warning from a friend in government late and we had tons of logistics to work out. We took off as soon as we had everything set-up and everyone was loaded. I didn’t have time to brief Big Jim, Haney or Hiram and forgot to assign the task to anybody. I’ll get someone to do a basic security briefing with them and their people. Haney Todd knew who you were; I mean he knew somebody was going to call for a reference. I didn’t give your name to him since I figure that in this case less is more. But it sounds as if they just offered way too much information to a stranger over the phone. I’ve got people that can take care of this with them. You mind if I do a quick conference call before we go into the mine? I’d like to fix my oversight before it causes a problem.”

Tim replied to the request. “I have no problem with that, take all the time you need.”

Fuller looked at the man steering the cart. “Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. These guys should know better than to volunteer that much information.”

Tim gently slowed the cart in front of a 30 or 40 foot high rock face and stopped 20 feet from the face. Tim hopped out of the cart to clear some brush while Fuller got off the cart and walked 20 feet away to make his calls in privacy.


While Fuller talked to his friends on a conference call arranged by his people down south, Tim began moving a pile of brush next to the rock face that partially hid the entrance to the family's cave. You wouldn’t notice it from the outside, but the cave entrance was covered with an aluminum framed door that was big enough to allow a semi truck and trailer access to the space. The square tubing was expertly cut and welded and over that frame a layer siltarp had been affixed, then covered with material that was the same as was used for the set design of plays. While the texture of the covering wasn’t authentic looking and reflected light and showed moisture differently than the rock next to it, the color was similar enough to make it effective from a distance. The color and coloration of the fabric looked almost like the rock it was surrounded by.

Fuller finished with his call and placed the phone back into his pants pocket and walked over to Tim. “Thanks for letting me take care of that.” He then slid into the cart's seat again and waited.

With Fuller now sitting beside him Tim reached into his pocket and produced the opener he had used at the metal building. Tim hit the button to open the heavy looking steel door. The opening was big enough to drive a semi into and it took a full one minute for the door open all the way. Jim explained. “The guy that owned the local concrete plant and I discovered that we both hated county inspectors and he was the one that blocked the entrance. Five weeks later he came back and opened the entrance back up and fabricated the door which has two speeds. The slow speed we use all the time however, if it is an emergency, it can close in 20 seconds but it strains the motor a little. The basic electrical is produced using PV panels and a small bank of batteries. The system can handle the door, LED lighting and the air handling system.”

Tim drove the cart into the dark space and stopped the cart. He exited the cart and stepped to the wall in the darkness that was broken by some light that filtered through the open doors and flipped a large switch. Fuller put his Surefire back in its holster on his hip as a series of efficient LED lighting lit the space up. While not as bright as daylight the lights did push the darkness into submission enough for Fuller to take in what he was seeing. The main tunnel they stood in was large enough to hold two tractor/trailer combos sitting side by side with some room to spare. The ceiling towered over them and was 15 feet or so high. Various areas were chiseled out of the tunnel area and made for an irregular rectangle. Fuller nodded to Tim. “Tim if I didn’t know better, I’d say this place looks bigger than when I looked at it back then. Like maybe a few additional blasts moved some rock here and there.”

Tim smiled knowing again Fuller had caught him flatfooted. “Fuller I could see where your memory of something that happened more than a few years ago might be faulty. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what these places look like without the general reference points we’re familiar with, if you know what I mean.”

Fuller looked at his host knowing what he meant. Any blasts done after the mine was closed could bring trouble from the county and the liability associated with the work. “I must be confused, let’s get moving I didn’t want to tie up your day too much. Obviously it’s much smaller than my mine, but everything looks like it’s ready to go should it be needed. Can I look at the systems?’ Fuller inquired.

“Let’s walk down this way and we can look at the systems rooms.” Tim said as he walked toward a cinder block room located at the tunnels end. Tim had put the wall in himself so, needless to say, the quality of the work looked better from a distance than it did up close. They made a product that was used to join blocks when they just sat on each other and at some point Tim would most likely cover his work with that product if it was priced reasonably. Or he might ask his friend to spray the wall with the Gunite like he had done with the others.

Tim entered a code into the pushbutton cipher lock and opened the door to the first room. “First up is the NBC air handling equipment, made by a Swiss company and rated for all nuclear, biological and chemical events. The intake pipe is concealed in the ground and can be used by raising the pipe which is connected to a tree stump like in that old show Hogan’s Heroes’. The tree stump raises only six inches and is almost impossible to detect unless you know it’s there. It’s kind of low tech but it was cheap and when we put it together I figured a better idea might present itself later. It’s been tested and works fine so it’s ready, just in case. The ducts next to it are everyday air filtration units or, should I say, huge fans with improvised HEPA systems. I took one inch furnace filters and use them as a pre-filter. Then the air is passed through five inch high performance furnace filters. This space runs about 60 degrees all year round. We mainly try to take humidity out and circulate the air to avoid mold and mildew. After the air handling system was operating properly we sprayed down the whole space with bleach to kill all mold and mildew. We had a mine engineer that did a modified air door test on the space and will recheck it every two years in exchange for a place to go during an extreme event. My engineer also did all the tests to determine the mine's condition and reviewed the modification plans. We wanted top shelf surveys and safety to make this the safest and most secure environment possible. The only recommendation of his that was out of reach was a sprinkler system. We have mounted a number of monitored smoke, CO and radon detectors; in fact the monitoring of those systems along with the house is handled by the only UL listed monitoring station in the country that is subterranean. Yours from the sound of it.”

Fuller smiled, “That’s part of the information that convinced me that this account was more than met the eye. As I mentioned, I tried to buy this piece of land in January of '06 from the heirs of the couple that had owned it since the 50’s. They had bought the land from the guy that had run the mine briefly in the 40’s after he returned from the war. Not too long after the mine opened, the owner was visited by two men that recommended that he close his business. Back then concrete was controlled by a guy from Kansas City that was at least half a mobster and he didn’t like competition, even if it was out in the sticks. That owner refused the suggestion and a week later all his equipment caught fire one night and he abandoned the venture. When I looked at the site, the heirs of the deceased owners were still at war with each other and didn’t agree on anything, including how much the land was worth or who should get what. Their realtor didn’t follow up with me after they cleared it up six months later. By April of '07 we closed on the project across town and eight months later started moving in tenants. When the problem of the Mexican narco-terrorists started getting bad three weeks ago, I had an associate start looking up information on this parcel. Public records, satellite photos, even checked the police to see if there was an alarm permit on file. I discovered that the alarm at this location is partitioned and dug a little deeper. After seeing the sat pictures I thought that the mine had been worked on and discovered that my company was actually monitoring this site for you. Small world, isn’t it!”

They stepped out and entered the next room; it housed the water infrastructure and a 48 inch metal culvert that was an escape tunnel. The tunnel had a small annoying leak that Tim hadn’t found yet and again he smelled that rusty metal smell that came from the trickle of water that leaked into the culvert.

Tim looked into the room and resumed the tour. “This room is set aside for water storage and purification. I’m a fan of rainwater catchment, however we have a problem with collecting water here. The only way to stay low-key is to feed the water from the house’s gutters to an underground storage tank that we can siphon from here. But right now that storage is a mere 600 gallons. If we had to, I have an old above ground swimming pool that could boost storage, but it’s not set-up currently. We plan to add more underground storage as money loosens up. We stock bleach and iodine but plan on using mostly standard and readily available filters and purifiers.”

Fuller looked over the room. “I can get you some information about a low cost fabricated filter stand that works well for these type of situations. Obviously if you had the power to spare, you could boil or distill the water to make it safe to drink. The problem I see is that anything that needs supplies or energy might be troublesome down the road.”

Tim watched Fuller looking around the room wondering what he was seeing. The sparse room had some bleach by the case in the corner and little else in the way of interest other than the piping that supplied water to the restroom next door. “Bathroom is next door, if you didn’t figure it out.”

Fuller smiled. “Just thinking, let’s move on.”

The next room was a fairly well organized workshop. The wall on one side of the room held sturdy shelves made of plywood and 2x4s. The shelves held various items salvaged off the curb. Tool boxes and pegboard held Tim’s tools and kept them organized. At 30 feet by 30 feet, the room was the biggest of the enclosed rooms. A set of shelves pivoted to reveal a vault type door that was used to prevent access to the armory. The vault wall was a layer of concrete block with six inches of reinforced gunite on each side; it had its own dehumidifier. The inside of the armory was bare except for seven matching older 30 weapon gun safes sitting along the far wall.

Overall Fuller was impressed with the shelter, he estimated that it would house 100 people in an emergency without much worry and the work was done at a reasonable cost since the owner did most the work. It seemed to be the answer to his needs, if they could work something out.

“Can I sit down with you and your wife and discuss me renting some space?” Fuller asked.

“Well let’s head up to the house and see what is what.” Jim answered as the men headed back in the way they had come into the mine.

 

[sssarawolf]

Oh nice thank you for the new chapter.

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 4

Tim guided the golf cart back up the path toward the house and the men who were strangers to each other chatted about the fine September weather. When they got to the outbuilding Tim again reached into his pocket and hit the button to raise the overhead door.

Tim steered the golf cart into the building and the smell of grilling food grabbed his attention. As the men walked out of the building and the door was lowering, he could smell the chicken being cooked outside on the grill next to the garage. It smelled is if it had a pineapple or some other citrus-based marinade or glaze and his stomach told his brain it was time to eat lunch, again. After all, lunch had been a small loaded baked potato and a glass of iced tea. Of course grilled chicken was healthy, assuming he took it easy on the mayonnaise, and ate it on a healthy bun. The men walked toward the house.

On the concrete in front of the garage door stood a 6 foot 4 inch solidly built 300 pound man. His hair was dark and cut in a military style buzz cut; it appeared as if his heritage was Hawaiian, Samoan or another Pacific Islander locale. Tim studied the man as he and Fuller walked up to the garage. Fuller’s man stood intensely watching the chicken grill as if this was the most important thing he would do all week. As they watched he took the temperature of the chicken with an infra red thermometer which he must have brought himself. The other hand held what looked like an old-fashioned stopwatch. If the look on his face and the fact that he traveled with his own equipment was any indication, then this was a man that took grilling very seriously. Becky had her own grill, a gas unit that had been pushed from its place in the garage to the corner. The man borrowing Tim’s grill was giving it dirty looks as if was the devil or some foul or mean-spirited god that he had the power to defeat with the use of charcoal. Being born in the Kansas City metro area and now living just outside Kansas City, Tim had to agree that while gas was convenient it was not in the spirit of the task and he refused to use gas to prepare any meal at home. His wife had a different approach to grilling, hence the gas grill in the corner receiving the dark stares.

Fuller smiled at what he saw and stopped to watch the grill master at work. “Mongo, how’s the Huli Huli Chicken coming along? It smells really good.”

The big native glanced over and met Fuller’s eyes for a second before he replied to the question. "Boss, it should be ready in...” He glanced over at the stop watch in his other hand. “Should be ready in eight minutes or so. We tried to call to tell you lunch was almost ready, but it went straight to voicemail. Becky said that the cave blocks cell reception and she’s almost never able to get though. If you work something out here you might want to add a cell booster to the equipment list.”

Fuller made a mental note of the recommendation and turned to Tim. “Tim, I’d like to introduce you to Mongo. He generally makes sure that we eat as well as possible. Mongo, this is Tim and this is his and his wife’s place.”

Tim stood a few feet from Mongo and could feel heat coming off the grill and the smell, the incredible aroma wafting off the beautifully grilled chicken. Tim also heard that slight sizzle that comes from the juices dripping onto the red hot coals. Mongo then looked up momentarily and leaned toward Tim with his hand extended.

The men shook and Tim noticed that Mongo had the biggest hands Tim had ever seen. Mongo broke eye contact and again turned to the grill. Satisfied that everything on the grill was going okay, he again met Tim’s eyes. “Tim, it’s nice to meet you. Thank you for letting us get in some downtime.” He broke the handshake and returned his gaze to the chicken on the grill. He then used a grill mop and spread the glaze in the bowl on the grill shelf and coated each and every piece of chicken. After the glaze was spread on all the chicken pieces he looked quickly at the stopwatch. “Oooh, did I mention that I love your grill. Your wife suggested that I use it. I don’t usually use a man’s grill without his explicit permission, but your wife assured me repeatedly that you wouldn’t mind. I promise to clean it bumbye and I’ll e-mail you the glaze recipe, if you like it”

Tim was distracted by the smell; he smelled ginger and garlic and replied to Mongo's statement. “Fuller says you guys have been running a few days now. I have no problem with you using the grill, as long as you clean it when you’re done with it and you cooked an extra breast for me. Actually I’d be happy with a breast and the marinade recipe and I’ll clean the grill.”

Mongo smiled and was fixated by the grill. “Brah, I’ll clean the grill super good. And I’ll leave some extra marinade and the salad dressing I made for you both. Might want to get cleaned up, lunch is getting close to being ready.”

Tim nodded at Mongo. “Appreciate the heads up; we’ll get on it.”

Both men turned to go inside to get cleaned up and Fuller followed Tim through the garage and into the kitchen. In the kitchen the other two men were sitting at the kitchen table working on their laptops or texting. Becky was busy working on making a salad at the counter. She looked over. “The guys said they hadn’t had lunch yet and I offered to make them something. I got some frozen chicken from the freezer and Tony offered to start the grill and prepare them using a special island recipe. Fuller, the other guys told me its good stuff.”

Fuller smiled amazed at how easily Tony a.k.a. Mongo made friends. “Yes ma’am, Mongo’s chicken is very, very good. I think you’ll enjoy it. He was born in Pago, Pago in American Samoa and mostly raised outside Hilo on Hawaii or what we call the ‘Big Island’. The Samoan influence of his youth combined with his eclectic take on Hawaiian cuisine means we eat very well even in the middle of nowhere. He flavors lots of food with things like coconut, pineapple or pineapple juice. Ingredients that are popular in those parts of the world now. We eat his chicken on a regular basis and watching him grill is an experience unto itself. As you might have noticed, he is not what I would call a big fan of gas grills.”

Becky smiled. “Yes he came in and asked if he could move my gas grill across the garage. Claimed it distracted him and he needed to stay focused while he was cooking. First time I’ve seen someone more disinterested in using gas than my husband. Tim claims its part of his Kansas City heritage.” She paused to add the hardboiled egg slices to the edge of the salad bowl. “Did Tony say how close we are to eating?”

Tim replied to the question. “The man said we had like 5 minutes to get cleaned up till lunch would be ready. Fuller, the bathroom is around the corner and you’ll find towels on the rack. Anything else you need?”

Fuller replied. “I’m good. Let me wash my hands and I’ll introduce you to the others.”

With that he turned and made his way to the bathroom. Tim heard the faucet running less than ten seconds later.

After the excellent meal the men returned to the driveway while Tim, Becky and Fuller sat around the kitchen table to hear what the man had to say. Fuller began by explaining his take on the unrest and danger at the border. Mexican narco-terrorists (drug trafficking organizations) had been increasingly involved in shoot-outs with Border Patrol agents and harassing and intimidating immigrants crossing illegally into smuggling drugs for them. Then a series of small bombs had been going off in border towns of both sides of the international border. The terrorist agenda was to spread anarchy to retaliate for the arrest of cartel members in Mexico and their extradition to the US to stand trial for various felonies. Five Mexican and one US Federal judge had been assassinated in the last two weeks. The problems were almost all centered on around the Texas border with Mexico. The Mexican army and local Mexican law enforcement had lost more members to cartel violence than usual during the recent dust-up. Mexico was almost begging for the US to do something to make it better. They even offered to actively discourage the "coyotes" that helped the illegals cross into the US, an offer that was unheard of since many cops received bribes from the cartels for their assistance in the smuggling process. While the illegals may be needed to do jobs that US citizens wouldn’t do in theory, the burden to the school and health care systems clearly should fall to the employers that so desperately needed the workers. Why should the average US citizen pay for the illegal worker that would do their job at a cheaper wage than they could and then reap the windfall of residing in the US illegally? The problem was further complicated by the arrest of a popular cartel leader that had ventured into the US and been shot and arrested.
“Tim, Becky, I’ve advised my family, employees and clients that the possibility exists that this has, in the short run, the potential to lead to an environment that makes everyday life dangerous to regular people. The attack on the US judge that was killed also killed three other people and injured two others including a 4 year old little boy. Those that can afford it are finding reasons to leave the border area and wait for things to be brought under control by the authorities. Realistically, since the amounts of money held by the cartels are huge, they can just keep on sending peasant boys and girls to die to make a point.” Fuller explained.

Tim was ready to hear the offer. “Fuller, what exactly did you have in mind?”

Fuller began explaining. “I have a number of employee dependants, including some families of men that have died working for my company. We try to maintain a relationship with these families and support them as much as possible. To pay their way, we also have some high rollers that are fearful and require ultra safe refuge. The clients and dependants are known to me personally and are not troublemakers. We do have a few with minor alcohol and prescription drug issues that we are spreading around to our different locations. For now, we sent these people to a motel I rented out near my mine. For obvious reasons I don’t want to expose my shelter to them yet, for fear they’ll share that information with the world. If the threat level gets worse or something happens, then they are housed close enough to walk to the shelter. For this location I’d do something similar and put them up at the closest motel that we could rent out completely and have the transportation close enough to help us if a problem arose.”

Becky smiled as she asked him a question, “Fuller, you're saying that you have people holed up now near your shelter waiting for the sky to fall? That can’t be cheap.”

Fuller nodded. “Yes we do, the problem is that if we moved them to the mine too early without a very good reason to be scared, then the employee dependants and the clients would start causing problems. I have a person inside the US intelligence community that has told me that they are picking up chatter from Islamic terrorists that this border crisis offers a prime opportunity for them to advance their cause with the use of a NBC devise. With resources flooding down south and everyone’s eyes focused on that problem, if they could get something big going, it would increase their chances of success. Making a move inside the US would help their cause, especially after Osama got taken out and their people overseas are getting killed on a regular basis. I’m told by people that should know that our modeling matrix supports this scenario. By staging the people I’m charged with protecting off-site, we can lead fairly normal lives if you don’t mind holing up in a two-star place with no room service and being 850 miles from home with restricted cell and texting and junky cable. To help make the place more like home, I rented a near-by catering kitchen and have a cook that prepares all our meals in shifts. The owner of the motel is fine with the seemingly weird ways that we do things and is enjoying renting the whole place out every night. We also have arranged for the group to do touristy things in the part of town that they are staying in to keep them from freaking out too much.”

Tim pondered what he had just heard. “Sounds like an expensive way of doing things, but its sounds twice as good as just running from the area and taking whatever you can find like the refugees do after a hurricane evacuation order goes out. After something like that happens, all of sudden the stores are out of bottled water, tuna and small generators.”

Fuller nodded his agreement. “I see a lot of very positive things about your location and your mine. I’d offer a whole list of upgrades and supplies for the space in exchange for a ten year option on a sub-lease, in the event I’d need it. Off the top of my head, I’d say we’d upgrade the air handling system and bathrooms, install a full-on fire system and bring in a few tons of supplies. Obviously water storage and purification needs some attention, and I think a separate clinic space would be useful, if we could spare the room. I’m thinking that you could handle 100 of my people. Roughly 50 employees or their dependants, 30 paying customers and 20 of my full-time employees including the security, medical and cook staff. Everybody would have a background check run on them and be tested for things like HIV and Hep C to insure the safety of everybody else. All luggage and personal bags would be hand searched and then re-searched with the assistance of drug, gun and contraband dogs. The only armed personnel would be my security contingent and yourself. I think my people are a good fit to do the work. My people have experience with this type of thing and could follow the suggestions of your engineer. Another option is that my people could design the upgrades and do the work, which might keep the site’s profile lower, how you wanted to handle that would be your call. I think stocking enough food and medical supplies for a 100 person group for a year on-site is a reasonable goal. After the ten years you own all the upgrades lock, stock and barrel, and I’d leave food for 40 people for one year. If our people ever actually sheltered here, I’d pay $10,000 down and $1,000.00 a night in gold, silver or supplies, your choice.” Fuller explained.

Tim had taken notes the whole time Fuller was talking and Becky reached over to the pad and looked at it a minute and added a few notes. She then asked another question as she jotted a note and slid the pad back over to Tim. “Fuller, what if for some reason, we sell the property? We hope that this will be the last home we ever live in, but sometimes it’s impossible to predict the future.”

Fuller nodded. “I thought of that and the best idea way to deal with that might be to give me first right of refusal at a percentage over the county’s most recent evaluation. I think we could negotiate a number we can both live with. Since the mine is seen by most people as a liability, we’d just use the county’s numbers and go from there.”

Tim paused and then started asking the list of questions that they had. “That makes sense, I’d be surprised if we ever move, but you never know. We can address that later after our other questions and concerns are satisfied. First what is the make-up of the people on your list in regards to race, religion and economic stature? I’m trying to figure out how you put that many people in a confined space and have them get along. Let alone fostering the spirit of cooperation that would be needed. ”

Fuller reached into a small portfolio and handed Jim and Terri a folder each. “This is the basic outline of the list of people that are traveling with me now and would need space. It has breakdowns by race, background, economic position, religion, health status, criminal histories and personality characteristics that are germane. You can look at that and I’ll give you a rough overview. The page marked Medical includes all medical conditions including drug or alcohol concerns. All these people are US or US territory born citizens with the exception of two naturalized Canadians and an 80 year old naturalized Mexican. She’s the retired mother of a paying client and makes some of the best real Mexican food I’ve ever eaten. She started with a tamale cart 40 years ago and ended up with 15 Mexican restaurants in Texas that her sons run now. I assume that mainstream Christians and Jews are acceptable, since the War on Terror lots of people would prefer not to risk Muslims being who we think they are. My leader is an ex-special forces Colonel and a practicing Jew. As you can see, we have some DUI’s and misdemeanor assault and speeding violations. One of my employees was accused of child molestation charges after he started working for me overseas. His wife was messing around on him while he was overseas and wanted to take his money and be spared the inconvenience of a custody dispute. We had the child evaluated and researched the wife and found out that the boyfriend was the culprit. He was a registered sex offender. He’s doing seven years in a federal prison and my employee has full custody.” He reached back into the bag and removed a 4 inch thick file and set it on the table. “These are the personal files of each applicant, please respect the fact that they contain sensitive information and only discuss their contents with me or the Colonel. I would also ask that they not be shared with anybody without my approval and be secured when not being used.”

Tim leafed through the papers. “I think we’ll peruse this tonight and give you an answer tomorrow by early afternoon. To be honest, the upgrades and supplies appeal to me, but we are close to a family that has a business nearby. Part of our plans for the end of the world includes working very closely with them. Would you have a problem with us bringing them into the fold since they would be working with us?”

Fuller looked at Tim. “I assume that you’re talking about Coleman Smith and his family?”

Tim nodded his head up and down to indicate his answer but wasn’t surprised that Fuller had puzzled out the name of his friends.

Fuller shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t know for sure that you knew him and that he was your friend. I talked to Cole and his wife this morning and they are considering an offer I made them. Not as robust as your offer but that mine could be useful in bad times. Different type of space, anything major happens there might be a problem with locals just showing up. I think it’s more likely it would be taken over by politicians for the greater good or commandeered by local law enforcement. Talking to Coleman Smith and his family is not a problem at all. Maybe your families could work something out and we all get what we need.”

Tim understood Fuller’s lack of disclosure. Many preppers have never been accused of being the most open people. Imagine guys that run security companies are even worse. “Well we’ve talked to them in broad strokes about a casual type of arrangement but never formalized anything. We’ll get with them and see what we can figure out.”

Becky spoke up, “Fuller, can I get this information on a flash drive so I can use my dedicated laptop? It’s our storage laptop and never gets hooked to the internet and is stored in our gun safe. I’d make it easier for us to split the material.”

Fuller reached into the bag and pulled out a red flash drive and a red disc and handed it over to Becky. With the offer on the table, they all said their goodbyes and Fuller and his men left in their black Suburban’s.

Becky watched the gate close behind the big SUVs. She glanced over at her husband pondering what had happened and what was happening with the border crisis and dropped her hand and intertwined it in Tim’s. The news that terrorist were more likely to try something along the lines of another 9-11 was shocking to her and she was fearful for the health and welfare of her family and friends. She pushed all those concerns aside. “Well, I think a meeting with Cole and his family is in order for later tonight. Can you figure out what you want me to review and I’ll get started while you review the disaster book and figure what we need other than money and more time.” Becky paused. “This may be an opportunity to acquire some expensive items that we cannot afford, like radiation detecting equipment and thermal scopes. Also, with the amount of material we’re talking about, it seems likely that at least one, if not two, forklifts are going to be needed to move the mountain of supplies it takes to care for 100 people. Maybe we should add a forklift to the wish list!”

Tim squeezed his wife’s hand. “That’s my girl, practical under pressure.” With that said he spun her around and placed his other hand on her hip and kissed on her lips. The kiss was intimate, but they had work to do so they broke apart still holding hands.

Becky looked into her husband’s eyes. “You taste like Huli Huli Chicken.”

.

 

[Deena in GA]

Good to see another chapter! Nice work! Thanks!

 

[sssarawolf]

Nice to see and read a new chapter, thank you.

 

[223shootersc]

thanks for a great new chapter, need more soonest

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 5
Notes-
This story has some offensive language. F---off is used once, pi--ed off is used once and bulls--- is used once. If this language is offensive please skip this chapter.
The language is used in context and is not used to shock or offend but to add depth to the storyline.
Thanks,
alangator

STAG

Location- New Mexico Desert

The specialist was eager to go to work and watched the ground as the 8 year old Bell 430 helicopter prepared to descend 5 miles outside of the very small town in central New Mexico. As the forward movement slowed and the pilot next to him began gently lowering the craft toward terra firma the specialist saw a high pressure spray of water arch out of the trio of partially hidden sprinkler heads wet the landing zone down with water to reduce the dust kicked up by the powerful helicopter’s rotors. The specialist didn’t know if the sprinkler, water hitting the brush or the sound of the aircraft startled a rabbit and it bolted from the area, he watched as it darted into a bush 100 feet away and disappeared.

He shifted his focus to the clear desert skies using the blank canvas to help focus and calm the mild outrage that had been like a splinter under his skin for the last 8 hours. He and the team had been working in a Mexican border town for over 3 weeks gathering intelligence and getting the lay of the land for the team’s current project. This morning at 5am on the 10th Anniversary of the tragedy of 9-11 he received a call telling him that he and his team were being reassigned. 2 hours later they started making their way back into the US to begin the journey to their new base of operations in New Mexico. He hadn’t been told of this project’s existence until 8 hours ago and in his book that was a major snafu.

Unfortunately for him prior to 5am this morning their target had been the cartel that currently operated in and around the Laredo border area. That cartel was very active and was thought to be one of the most efficient groups of smugglers of drugs and illegal’s into the US. With the problems being caused by a different cartel that used the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez corridor as a base making news it stood to reason that somebody needed to get a better understanding of that organization’s business structure and disrupt it, hell the organization needed to be decimated. The shift in interest to the violent cartel that controlled all the routes in and around El Paso and 75 miles in each direction quickly negated the work they had done over the last few months. Some or most of that intelligence wouldn’t be very useful by the time and if his team worked its way back to the area surrounding Laredo. Simply put somebody had guessed wrong and tasked them to work in an area that had a high volume of smuggling and hadn’t seen the possibility that the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez cartel would resort to violence against anyone and everyone that stood in their way. They had been working the wrong part of the border area and were pulled from that assignment just as he was making some serious progress.

But his skill sets and the skill-sets of his team would allow him to use their special talents again to keep his country safer from the scourge of the Mexican Drug/Human Smuggling Cartels that made their living smuggling drugs and humans across the US/Mexico border. The volatile nature of the situation around El Paso promised to be one of the most challenging missions for his team to date. They might even be able to play dirty enough to send a message to the psychopaths that ran the various cartels that the US is tired, so very tired of their method of doing business and intends to make them suffer greatly for their temerity.

The helicopter gently touched the ground and the pilot sitting next to him spoke to him thru the headset. “Hey you guys have fun and be very careful. I’m 30 minutes out give or take so just call me when we got something going.”

The specialist replied in his typical unemotional manner. “We’ll do that.”


As he stepped down from the helicopter a pleasant wave of heat engulfed him, the dry desert air had to be over 90 degrees with very little humidity. To him the air felt like home, he liked the desert heat more than most. In fact he felt more comfortable in a desert than in any other environment that he had operated in and he had operated in them all. From the cold snowy reaches of the mountains of Afghanistan to the brutal desert heat of various locations in the Middle East and Africa. He had even worked for 6 months in the jungles of central and South America and 2 months in the jungles of Asia. As a soldier the one thing he had never really liked was being in areas where there was an abundance of cover and concealment options. He also appreciated the openness of the desert and preferred an environment where if a sniper was going to take a shot it would have to be from distance. Most poorly trained soldiers didn’t have the basic skills, equipment or resources to make an accurate shot over long distances.



While the heat might slow men down that weren’t acclimated to it the specialist felt much more comfortable in hot environments rather than the hell that was the cold and wet. His body and mind were more attuned to the heat and low humidity of the desert than the cold or rain. And he always would pounce on an advantage when it was available. Over the long run that adaptability and appreciation of his environment led to less injuries to the team and allowed them to complete missions successfully.

As the other men stepped out of the million dollar plus EMS configured helicopter behind him and began unlatching the baggage and gear in the passenger compartment he could almost feel their bodies slowing down to conserve their energy. They all had extensive Special Forces or covert intelligence backgrounds and in hot climates they always were drinking water, maintaining the military’s hydrate philosophy. The Specialist was like a desert animal instantly able to access his bodies need for water. He was able thru experience to determine when and how much water his body required to stay healthy and function at his highest mental and physical peaks.

The men hoisted their luggage and gear from the passenger compartment and onto their shoulders, one of them handed the specialist his single large duffle and then closed and latched the door before turning and facing the other men. They all crouched over as they walked straight away from the pilot’s window. The men all made sure that the pilot could see them the whole time so he could determine when it was safe for him to take-off. After they were clear of the rotors danger zone the specialist turned around and gave the pilot the thumbs up indicating that they were clear and that he could take off. The pilot smiled and returned the gesture and did a final visual check around the landing area. Satisfied everybody was clear and no other hazards were present he powered up the aircraft and began to rise back into the clear afternoon desert sky.

A dark grey Suburban SUV that was waiting 50 yards from the landing zone held a single occupant in the driver’s seat. As the chopper began to rise back into the sky and the dust began to abate the vehicle rushed into action covering the 50 yards in a cloud of hot dry dust that trailed the big SUV like the tail on a comet. The vehicle quickly drained off speed as it pulled up and came to an abrupt stop on the barely discernable gravel path 5 feet from its passengers. After the vehicle stopped the driver sat while the men loaded their belongings into the back of the 3 ton vehicle. Without a word the men jumped in and as soon as the doors were closed they were moving. The drivers executed a quick 3 point turn and pointed the vehicle back in the direction it had come from. Since they had all worked together before no introductions were made and none were needed.

The driver expertly drove down the dusty trail and emerged onto a poorly maintained 2 lane highway that took them the 6 miles to their new home. The old gas station was in the middle of a town that consisted of 6 abandoned buildings and didn’t have any residents. A re-routing of the highway had effectively made the small town obsolete over 35 years ago and the town’s former resident simply moved to where there was more opportunity. The road in front of the garage was now more of a market road than anything else and reflected the lack of State funding since the State’s highway budget was spent on roads that served more traffic.

As they approached their new base, the farthest overhead door of the run down, windblown and sand scoured building rose on brand new freshly oiled rollers. The door arose smoothly and before the door quit moving they were inside the building. Low powered bulbs barely illuminated the interior of the space with the door closed but with the outside light of the desert landscape entering thru the overhead door the white painted room was almost too bright. The men all piled out of the vehicle as the door was quietly making its way back down the tracks. They moved to the back of the SUV and retrieved their luggage and gear and walked toward the door that connected the garage area to the interior of the building. As the specialist reached for the doorway the overhead door came to rest against the concrete floor again leaving the room in semi-darkness.

Once inside the doorway their driver flipped a switch on the wall. The room had been blacked out and now it was as light as day inside their command center. “You guys ready to go to work?” he asked. The specialist nodded, his face showing no emotion. “I’m ready, how are we set?” The driver smiled excited to be back at work after his 1 month vacation in the Caribbean. “We’re in good shape, we start in 2 days and everything you asked for is here and I checked out it twice. They also sent spare equipment this time like you requested.”

The specialist let a seldom seen smirk of approval pass briefly across his face as he replied to the information the driver had conveyed to him. “Good, I have the feeling that we are about to get very busy. Stash your gear and let’s hit the mats and work the kinks out.” The materials he had requested were for another base of operations on the other project but he was glad to hear that this space had been set-up as he had requested for the other operating base. It wasn’t uncommon even in this type of operation to have equipment that was requested missing off the final inventory. Between the thefts in the system and supply problem they occasionally had to buy what they needed of the civilian market when it was available.


The rest of the metal building had been outfitted to accommodate the teams’ needs in 3 different rooms and an old restroom. The kitchen area was located in the back of the building behind the office area that had once housed lockers and storage for spare parts and equipment. The workout area with weights and cardio gear and a 15x15 foot area covered with rubber mats for close combat and hand to hand training was in two of the 4 bays in the garage. The old bathroom was 6x10 feet and at one end a shower head had been attached to the wall with a bracket and the other end housed a toilet and a sink.
A drain in the floor allowed the water to drain out of the bathroom and an exhaust fan fought to keep the humidity under control. A stack of buckets and 150 pounds of kitty litter would allow the men to void their bowels in the garage or outside if they had to.
The old front desk and waiting area had the wall between it and the office knocked out to join the two areas. That area had been turned into a communications center and housed their extensive array of communications and surveillance gear along with their weapons and gear. An obsessive contractor had organized all the wires and cords snaked all around the room. They would sleep in the garage on wooden cots that were better than sleeping on the ground but not by much.

The old busted down deserted looking building hosted a few special features that had been added recently. The buildings rear door in the garage had a straight line of sight down along the improvised 500 yard shooting range that was equipped with an portable automated target system. That meant they could practice their marksmanship without having to actually go outside and risk being seen. The Heater/AC unit on the roof was a new low profile unit and had been enclosed in the shell of an older unit to keep from gaining any attention. Flexible plastic ducts like you sometimes see in commercial buildings crossed the ceiling at irregular angles. All the work had been done by government covert contractors that specialized in keeping secrets and working without being noticed by local authorities. The land surrounding the building had been outfitted with state of art detection devises including cameras linked to DVR’s, a thermal imaging system, seismic sensors, and radar backed up with real-time satellite coverage. That system was capable of detecting anything larger than a jackrabbit below, on and up to 25 thousand feet above their clearly defined perimeter which was miles of desert that was surrounding by hills in the distance. This high tech equipment assured that when they pulled into the building they weren’t spotted but also that they didn’t have anybody moving toward their ground or airspace without their knowledge.

The landing zone was no different and had been outfitted with a commercial sprinkler system and hidden underground water tanks that were used to keep the dust down in a 75 to a 100 foot area depending on the wind. They were used during a helicopter take-off or landing to reduce wear on the expensive aircraft.


Working for the government in a covert capacity inside the US had its perks and on an assignment like this one privacy was one of them. They worked for a part of the US intelligence apparatus and the covert group was tasked with a secret mandate to do 2 things. The first objective was to obtain detainees with either knowledge of extensive criminal activities or participation in said networks and extract useful actionable information from them concerning their activities, planning, communication, finance and participants. The targets were terrorist’s cells and huge multi-national criminal organizations that had plagued the US for long enough. By kidnapping and extracting information from key figures they had essentially been given an inside look into the world of greed, violence, hate and depravity seldom seen by either US law enforcement or the various US intelligence agencies. That task allowed them to undertake their second objective much more effectively. They were able to track and re-direct the tide of money escaping from the US that was the profits of these immoral and soulless organizations and the people that ran them. That dent in the flow of money would help reduce the misery of the people affected by these men and women and help curtail the violence and misery they spewed into the fabric of our society. The specialist wouldn’t be surprised if their mandate was altered in light of recent events to include more of an offensive solution to the ongoing problems posed by the very well funded Cartel menace. Time would answer that question for him. He had seen enough that he figured it was time to quit screwing around and put some people into shallow unmarked graves or dump some bodies in a furnace. The nature of the criminals business made an occasional disappearance a not uncommon occurrence so they generally blamed each other. Sometimes that mistrust and paranoia led to shifts in power that hampered the organizations ability to be effective. A few times it led to swift, violent and bloody power struggles. In the past that tornado of chaos the team had been even more effective.

This snatch as they called the kidnapping would be the second time in recent years that their target was detainee was in a State Maximum Security Detention Facility convicted of a serious felony. A man named Santiago Antonio Carlos Guzman aka ‘Banc’ was their target. The Mexican National was doing 30 years to life for the grisly Murder of one of his employees in a New Mexico restaurant parking lot. Guzman was a highly trusted upper mid-level wholesaler linked to the Mexican drug cartel that was based out of the area around El Paso. This cartel was supplied with high potency cocaine by the remnants of a Columbian Cartel hunted almost to extinction by the Colombian authorities in the 90’s. The marijuana they smuggled was mostly from grows inside Mexico using modern cutting edge techniques or grown inside huge indoor spaces and was of very average quality. The illegal’s they smuggled and enslaved came from around the world but generally hailed from Mexico, after that Central and South America or the Caribbean region supplied the humans they moved into the US.

Santiago Antonio Carlos Guzman had spun a tale of growing up on the streets of Mexico City in a house with 6 kids and no father. 2 months ago before his trial the CIA and Homeland Security had figured out that he was actually named Marco Carlos Guzman aka ‘Trey’ and he was the son of a Judge killed by kidnappers when he was still a small boy. Not the kind of guy that the Mexican Cartels welcome into their organizations and entrust to carry out their criminal activities. Guzman was surely a cold-blooded psychopath, having been arrested while taking a piss on the lifeless corpse of an employee he had stabbed 23 times for being 30 minutes late to a cash drop.

Guzman was unfortunate to have killed the employee while he under close surveillance by the DEA. Their surveillance van was parked 1 block away and they had placed cameras at the meeting spot so they had a high-res video of the crime. They sprung into action 30 minutes after the murder had taken place due to a delay in getting authorization for the arrest. Two helpers had just pulled up to the murder scene in a white Ford work van. The van had a sign for a butchers shop and the back was tarped and contained 5 gallons of gas, 8 pounds of homemade thermite and 5 road flares. The helpers were quick to their weapons and managed to fire a few rounds before the SWAT trained DEA surveillance team ruined their day.

Guzman pulled his weapon as the team fell upon him and his men and tried to fire before realizing he had a misfire. Before he had the opportunity to tap, rack and bang a DEA 5.56 bullet tore through his leg and he was down unable to go out in a blaze of glory like so many of his associates. The DEA team had handed him a lengthy convalescence to arrange a more than suitable defense for the crimes for which he would stand trial.

When they could finally talk to him he was granted access to his experienced high profile Lawyer and an interpreter. When he was offered a deal he laughed and told the DEA agents to ‘**** Off’, in English of course, he didn’t have an accent. In fact previous wiretaps had shown that he spoke English like a native speaker and Spanish with an upper middle class Mexico City accent which is why the DEA and homeland security took the time to look into his past and ferret out his little charade.

His conviction was less than 5 days old and he was in isolation in Desert Hills Prison less than 45 miles from where the team was planning his fake death and escape. The word in the prison was that Guzman was targeted for payback for owing the Mexican Cartel $400,000 and as a security precaution for being careless enough to get caught red-handed standing over a dead body with blood dripping off his knife. He had dropped the machete he used to remove the couriers hands at the wrists while he was waiting for his clean-up team to arrive.

The specialist’s job was to infiltrate the prison and get Carlos out, while making the majority of the prison’s officials and the drug cartel think that he was dead. Then the team needed to extract information about the Cartel’s operations and start the process of dismantling the operation and seizing assets and information that might help slow or stop the violent actions the cartel had recently embarked on. As a side benefit the cartel was known to be a high volume smuggler of illegal’s and thought to be involved in music and movie piracy, prostitution, money laundering and the smuggling of counterfeit goods.



End Part 5

 

[sabretech2001]

Very Nice, thanks!

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 6

Tim Fields sat and thought about what Fuller had told them and realized he been distracted for over 30 minutes according to the clock on the stove. Maybe it was simple? Since Fuller was using his underground facility and looking to rent more space it seemed he felt very strongly that the problem on the border could trigger a chemical, biological or radiological event carried out by Islamic Terrorists. If Fuller had the contacts he claimed to have in the US Government that was a pretty significant concern. Properly modified mines represented a fairly effective way of defending against such an occurrence. The surrounding rock and earth shielded the occupants from a nuclear blast and gave a high protection factor to the space against fallout. The mines also provided a way to ensure that only properly filtered air was introduced into the space thereby guarding against biological and chemical attacks. If any of the worst-case scenarios happened a mine was low key and fairly easy site to defend against the average looter or refugee. That was double true if nobody knew you were there and that the mine had a lot of safeguards built into it.

The proposal did have a snag or two. Tim and Becky’s young children had never been told about the mine or the preps that they as husband and wife had made to insure their family’s safety moving toward an uncertain future. Tim had even installed a basketball goal and painted lines just inside the front door for when they were old enough to be told of the mines purpose. The leveling of the basketball area had taken almost as long to accomplish as it did to run the electrical in the underground space. The parents always planned to tell their children when they were old enough to keep the secret no matter what. They didn’t really know when that age might be but understood that they would know when the time was right.

The other problem was observation from satellites or even Predator drones. With the availability of sat photos on the internet it seemed unlikely they could upgrade the facility, sneak in 100 people and their supplies and not end up exposing their mine to public officials or somebody else that would be a pain in their ass. The other concern was the US Military’s use of Predator Drones being tasked with Law enforcement activities on US soil that had nothing to do with Border Security. A story recently in the news told of a Sherriff in North Dakota requesting the use of a multi-million dollar hi-tech Predator Drone to deal with a family that failed to report 5 or 6 cows that wondered onto their property. The family that was spied on without a warrant was alleged to be frequently armed, anti-government and some reports referred to their property as a compound.


Between Tim and Becky and Fuller and his men they met the criteria for being well armed. Unless he missed his guess Fuller was like him and almost everyone he knew and was less than impressed with the way Government was running things from the local school boards to the White House. Which of course meant that they would qualify for special treatment if someone that didn’t like their politics found out what was going on? Also the criteria for classifying any piece of property as a compound were in the eyes of the accuser. It all added up to they could brand him and his family this or that and do essentially whatever they wanted to him and his family without fear of too much public or legal backlash. Not exactly the role of Government the Framers had in mind when they determined how their new country should be governed those many years ago.

Tim and his wife assumed that Fuller had the means to deny their location to the proposed inhabitants. By blocking out GPS on their phones and blacking out of bus they might be able to limit knowledge of their location to a few members of the security staff. Some employees would have to be aware of their position so the risk of exposure was always there. Maybe they should e-mail for a complete list of those key personnel and really go through those files with a fine tooth comb.

It wasn’t long after Fuller had left that the phone rang it was Coleman “Cole” Smith their friend that had worked on their cave and owned a smallish cement plant 4 miles down the road. Cole had stumbled on the preparedness mindset in the Fields’ by accident while bidding on some concrete work and the Fields and Smith families had become close in a relatively short amount of time.

“Tim, this morning I spent some time with a guy named Fuller R. Brown from Texas. Have you spoken with him by any chance?” asked Cole in his characteristically slow cadence.

“Yes Cole I have and he told us he had talked to you and Rita. How about you and your wife bring your notebooks and come for dinner, say around 5:30. I know it’s earlier than we normally eat but there’s work to do. We told Fuller that we’d let him know what our decision was by tomorrow.”

Cole paused, “OK Glitter see you then, we’ll bring pie.” Cole Smith hung up without the formality of saying good bye. The man was no slave to etiquette.

Tim turned toward his wife on the other end of the kitchen and told her about the dinner plans. “Cole and Rita Smith are coming at 5:30 for dinner to talk about their visit from Fuller. I was thinking something simple, maybe spaghetti with the veal meatballs and I’ll heat up a loaf of that generic frozen garlic bread they seem to like. Or we could do steaks on the grill with a salad and garlic bread.”

Becky smiled at her husband amused that he had offered two meal choices for their guests and both were accompanied by the frozen garlic bread. She also felt that he was leaning toward the steak option since a stranger had used his grill and he almost felt as if he had been violated in some strange way. “I think they’d like steaks if you have something in the freezer that will work? Pasta seems a little casual for company, almost if we didn’t really want to make too much effort.”

Tim smiled at what his wife said, pleased to hear that she was on board with having steaks for dinner. It wasn’t everyday that they talked about their preps with anyone except each other and the Smith’s were very much of the same mind as they were. “Steaks it is then. I’ll need to run into town and pick up the meat and a few heads of lettuce. Anything else we need?”

Becky took 15 seconds to frame her response to the question and held up one finger to indicate for him to hold on a second. She pulled out her smart phone to update and transfer her grocery list. Then she had their wireless printer print it for her husband. The printer was whirling on the background as she answered his question. “We could use a few things and I printed a copy of the list.” She then walked over to her purse on the counter and pulled out a small notebook and opened it up. “OK, let’s see what is on the prep list that you can pick up. Right, here it is.” She handed the small notebook size piece of paper to him and pulled the printed list from the printer’s tray and handed it to him. There we go, shouldn’t be too bad.”

Tim looked down the list and discovered to his chagrin that the grocery list was their weekly shopping and that the 5 things on the prep list would run $100.00 or slightly more. Beans, bullets and band-aids added up. “I’ll take care of it. This thing that is highlighted, can you do without it till the next time you go to the store? I hate picking that stuff up it makes me feel embarrassed.”


Becky let out a laugh as she realized what item he was trying to weasel out of picking up. “Tim Fields, its organic Ultra Max Fiber Granola cereal with dried prunes for Christ’s sake. What so embarrassing about buying cereal?”

Tim blow his breathe out in exasperation. “The last time I bought it the cashier regaled me for 3 minutes about what a great job that cereal does in keeping her regular. Talk about TMI, I seriously thought about abandoning the groceries and making a run for the truck. It was very uncomfortable for me. As I was scurrying away she told me to let her know what I thought about the cereal. If I didn’t know better I’d swear you called and convinced her to do it.”

Becky again chuckled at her husband’s discomfort and shook her head for dramatic effect. “I wish I would have seen that, that’s hilarious. Tell you what Sherlock, make sure you don’t get in her line if she’s working and you don’t have to worry about it happening again or continuing your last conversation with her. Easy peasy.”

Tim looked at his wife a sheepish look crossed his face since he had forgotten that he would be able to pick the checkout line that he used. “You win, you win. Your wish shall be my command.”

With that he went to their bedroom and geared up. Tim was in the habit of carrying what most would call EDC gear also known as Everyday Carry Items that he liked having on him just in case he needed them. He now was usually seen in public wearing one type of khakis or another that had an abundance of pockets for the items he carried. Loaded up he walked to the garage and pulled the truck out for the trip to town. Before he left he placed a marine cooler in the backseat of his truck and pulled 3 frozen gallon milk jugs from the freezer and placed them in the cooler. It was a very good cooler and the milk jugs were enough to keep some cold in the cooler for the trip back home. He had never had a problem with something thawing but better safe than sorry.

The Smith’s came to dinner and enjoyed the marinated and well prepared steaks as always and appreciated the garlic bread that it was served with the meat. As a special treat Becky had prepared a pan of sautéed mushrooms and fried a few onions to heap over the steaks and they were a hit. After dinner a video was put in for the kids and the adults cleaned up the kitchen and laid out their preparedness notebooks and the files Fuller Brown had left. Both women got out their notebook computers and plugged them into the wall and sat ready with paper and pen.

Tim started off the business portion of the evening. “As we all know Fuller R. Brown talked to us earlier today and is interested in using our mines to house his group from Texas. Fuller talked about using our mine to house around 100 people during a NBC event. As he might have mentioned to you he is concerned that Islamic Terrorists could use the Border Crisis to carry out plans they’ve had in the works for a while. He told us he was contacted by a friend in the intelligence community of the concern. He’s converted a cave across town and has experience with the upgrades our places would need. He offered upgrades and food for 40 people for a year at the end of the 10 year term as well as $10,000 if they ever needed to use it and $2,000 a night in gold, silver or supplies. I like the thought of having a well designed shelter but there are some negatives we need to consider. Well, there are some big negatives for us. We’d be worried about security. If one of the Texas tourists or anyone on the security team blabbed that is very bad. Inconvenience and lack of leadership is our second concern. I’d hate to lose any control at all over something we own and have been planning for years to improve. Our third concern is privacy within our own home. The kids aren’t old enough for this type of stuff and we’ve never told them anything at all about our emergency plans. Becky and I wouldn’t want them finding out accidently and possibly telling someone they shouldn’t. They are too young to be expected to keep this kind of secret. Terri did I forget something?”

Becky watching a screen on her laptop open up replied, “Well, I think maybe not knowing the people to be located with us is a problem. Also, of course is the fact that leadership is going be somewhat out of our hands. For us the leadership question poses a huge cloud over the possible benefits and probably makes the offer not feasible unless we could work something out that we’re very comfortable with.”

Cole paused and looked up from the notebook he was reviewing while Terri was speaking. ” Well we feel the same about the leadership question and the vetting process, security is less of concern for us since any idiot with the internet can find us and the business is listed in 5 places with the county as well as the various Government databases that deal with our business. The business site is well known to Government entities like OSHA and the IRS. The opportunity to gain supplies and having a well-trained security force is a plus and unlike you our children understand that if anything weird happens to come to our place and wait it out. That being said, we talked about helping each other out even to the point of offering shelter space to each other’s families. What about we rent our mine out and shelter here, we split the money and keep your profile low while still providing a secure covert location for both families to use. Our count is a solid 15 and we can feed ourselves for 6 months easy. Dr. Drake our family doctor is from Texas, not too far from the border and when I saw him a few days ago he was worried about his family’s safety in Texas. He also happens to run a non-profit that ships used medical equipment and supplies into Mexico. I knew because he has been storing the equipment in our mine for 10 years. Once a year we help him load the equipment and supplies into a container and it is trucked to take to the shipping company and sent by rail. I think there’s enough equipment and supplies to outfit 3 clinics so maybe we let him loan us some of it and let Fuller rent some and offer space to his extended family in exchange for it.

Tim replied. “Our site is pretty low profile. We search the internet from time to time and cannot find a single reference to our mine, the company’s name or the people that ran the mine in the old days. Sure some people are going to know about it but if we upgraded the camouflage on the face of the mine we might just slip under the radar. I’ve also tried looking for history of the property at the library and they also have nothing on it. The county has officially recorded the mine as being closed under the supervision of County employees and that information will filter its way to any master database they might keep for emergency purposes by FEMA or the County’s Emergency System.”

Becky chimed in. “Hey I’m concerned about security also but we’re talking about getting the place fully operational with equipment we’ve only dreamed about and a pretty substantial food reserve. If nothing happened in 10 years and we walk with the food and the upgrades and then something happened we’d be very and I mean very well off. When we talked to Fuller we didn’t really talk about firearms or ammo. We’d need to see specifically what he was offering and get an idea of his level of commitment before I’d want to make a final determination. Also might not be a bad idea for us if we did the deal with Fuller to construct another smaller shelter just in case the shelter was compromised or things went bad with his management team. I’m thinking something buried on the edge of one of the properties or better yet on someone’s property we all trusted. If we did get run out or taken over we still have another option, it just wouldn’t be as roomy as the mines.”

Rita Smith stood a tad over 5 feet tall and if you spent time with the slender brassy blonde you’d understand that she was very much a force to be reckoned with. “So you’re saying that having a back-up site is important enough to you that you’d not consider Fuller’s proposal without one?”

Becky looked back over at her neighbor and friend and considered the question before coming to a conclusion about how she felt. “Since you put it that way I think that is exactly what I’m saying. We bought this property for the old mine and the possibility of making our family as safe as possible in an unpredictable time. If you told me 12 years ago I’d be living out here and have an abandoned mine as a fallout shelter I’d have laughed at you. Truth is now I don’t know if I’d sleep well without knowing it was there. We all understand that nobody can guarantee our safety anymore and that each and every one of us needs to do what we need to do to sleep at night.”

Cole looked over to his wife who gave him a barely perceptible nod. “Actually we have another place ready to go as a fallback shelter. It’s small but it gives us another bug-out option. Long story short is that when we got married my father-in-law wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of Rita marrying a Catholic from Indiana that wanted to be a farmer. This is ranching territory so he thought I was going about it all wrong and as I looked for a job out here he put the word out and I ended up working in the city as a concrete truck driver. The guys at the plant were very happy with my work and within 3 years I was running the place. Of course when I say concrete company in the city you’re thinking organized crime and you’d be correct. Big Al was the nicest boss of anyone that I know ever had and I was never privy to anything illegal and never had anyone on the payroll that didn’t work as hard as I did. In the 80’s there was a scuffle over control of the City’s illegal businesses and some of those people were killed or injured in car bomb attacks. I was outside the realm of targets but our trucks were vandalized a few times. I asked Al if he could find someone to replace me and he agreed to me leaving and starting my own thing so we moved back to this area to be close to Rita’s folks. By this time Rita’s father was older and maybe wiser because we got along great till the day he passed on. Rita’s mother died first so when he died he left Rita a 120 acre piece of ground that included the house and a good sized barn. We leased it out short term till we’d need to decide what to do with it and 10 years ago we deepened the basements of both buildings. The next year we dis-assembled the barn for the old growth lumber and stripped the house and then demolished it. Told the County on the permits that updating the wiring and HVAC was too expensive and he roof was damaged and needed to be replaced. Then over the course of two weekends we formed and poured the roofs and let it cure, after that we pushed soil on top of the sites. The house has an 800 square foot footprint and the barn is close to 2400 square feet. We even got a connecting tunnel to join the two.” Cole looked slightly relieved sharing the information and letting his friends know they had other options for their family.

Becky wrote something down and looked up at her husband and their guests. “How about this? If it goes to hell the Smiths and their family along with the Doctor hole up here under the watchful eyes of Fuller’s security staff. We recommend that the shelter be run by a committee. One representative from our house, one from the Smiths, one for the Texas tourists and one for the security staff. If then it goes bad we bug-out to the farm and ride it out. We stash food, equipment and supplies there. Then we offer access to the concrete plant and see what we can get for it.”

Cole Smith looked at his wife. “Obviously your site is far more valuable to him than ours. Seems that would balance out getting access to our bug-out spot and means we’d be staying in the best prepared location. We’d also like living with professional security assuming that they were reasonable and didn’t treat us like prisoners or fools. We would need to be armed if it was called for and I don’t think my family would give up access to their weapons.”

Tim Fields looked at his friend and neighbor. “No man with an iota of brains ever gives up his guns or he risks becoming a slave or worse. We keep the guns or no deal.”

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you it was wonderful to find another chapter ths morning.

 

[223shootersc]

thanks for the new chapter, been too long though

 

[RCSAR]

Good story.
The time lag in posting these is a killer though.

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 7
STAG
New Mexico Dessert
- - - - - - -
Grimm swung his legs over the side of his cot and paused a second before raising this feet. He was a tad sore today as he stretched and let out the gas that had been trapped in his intestinal tract all night. The other men still slept across the room and he absently mindedly adjusted the waistband of his boxer to reign his guy thing back in. He stood and headed to the refurbished restroom to pee, void his bowels and brush his teeth. As he used the restroom he put the final touches on the plan that he had decided to alter last night 3 minutes before he drifted off to sleep. Faking the targets death had too many risks and Grimm was unwilling to expose his team to the fallout. With that in mind he had made the decision to walk him out the front door while he and his team posed as U.S. Marshals assigned to JPATS, the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System.

The movie ‘Con Air’ was loosely based on the JPATS model and the movie did get the fact that the U.S Marshall’s Service ran the ground and air transportation system that scheduled and moved Federal Prisoners in the Federal Bureau of Prisons custody from place to place for court appearances or when they were re-located to a different detention facility. The agency also aided in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) efforts in transferring non-US residents to hearing, court appearances and detention facilities. They also transported deportable aliens to international destinations for deportation.

15 minutes later he pulled the name brand workout gear from his duffle and quietly slipped into his shorts and a plain white t-shirt. Dressed for the task he headed to the garage to get a sweat worked up and take out some of his lingering aggravation about losing the other project.

10 minutes into the punishing workout his men ambled into the workout area ready to begin their day. As leader he tried to set an example and almost always allowed at least an hour for weight, conditioning and agility training. An addition to the workout they tried to get at least 30 minutes of firearms practice in every other day. With their constant activities and crazy schedule it was sometimes difficult to make the time for the firearms portion of the training and yet that training was essential to keep their firearms proficiency up to the high level needed in the small unit.
The men all finished their workouts and sat at the table to enjoy healthy cereal with organic skim milk and yogurt. Grimm used the time to brief them on the altered plan and give each man a list of tasks they were responsible for. The last minute change didn’t seem to bother Grimm’s team. They knew that he had done the homework and the plan had an excellent chance of succeeding without any complications. With the discussion of their new plan out of the way they all shaved, showered and dressed in their pseudo US Marshal outfit for a final time to make sure they looked right and then immediately changed into store bought camouflage regularly used by hunters. Sparks changed into a pair of work jeans and a short sleeve shirt that resembled the shirt that the service people for the local phone company used and they were ready to get the operation under way.
As they climbed into the Suburban they all hung their suit travel bags from a bar across the rear cargo area. They used the travel time to visually re-check for the fifth or sixth time their forged ID’s and went over the plan and their background. They headed to the Prison where they hoped that the fake ID’s, bogus e-mails and forged transfer paperwork would allow them to walk out the sally port with their man in handcuffs and leg restraints, and without last minute theatrics or any drama.

The person that was the key to successfully pulling the operation off was the average sized Hispanic man they called Sparks. That non-descript exterior housed an over-qualified nerd that understood radios and communications and was also their resident computer and technology expert. Sparks had been the nickname of radio operators for a 100 years and their Sparks was crazy good at his job. Sparks mapped out an extensive plan to take over the phone lines to the prison and spoof the system of the State Prison Bureau’s main office phone and data network and receive any calls that came from the prison. The Prison’s data infrastructure for voice and data and their software was hopelessly outdated and the security was a bad joke. Sparks was amused that with all the money being poured into the War of Terrorism and the push to shore up many aspects of Homeland Security that the system they still used was a generation out-of-date and even when it was current it was a very average system. Sparks anticipated that they should have no problem gaming the bureaucratic maze and assured Grimm that he expected no problems and was actually quietly whistling while they drove through the desert. Grimm was almost positive he was whistling a ‘Hey Soul Sister’ by Train. The upbeat song stuck in his head and as he adjusted the camouflage shirt that was still stiff from being brand new and not being washed for the first time. Yet as he tried to gain relief from the chaffing under his armpits Grimm found himself humming the song under his breath so the other men couldn’t hear him. It was difficult for Grimm to not like a catchy song with a ukulele in it. He had once shed a tear at hearing Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow.
The fiber optic trunk line that carried all the voice and data for the prison sat beside the road a ½ mile from the facility on a railroad right-of-way. Sparks slid from his seat and grabbed his equipment and tools from the back of the roomy SUV and got to work on the clearly marked pedestal. The pedestal sat on a concrete pad and as Sparks opened the cover he smelled either rat or mice urine. As usual the safety of the whole place depended on this junction box and the people in charge had failed to protect it even from common rodents that were known to gnaw on wiring.
While Sparks configured his hack and takeover of the data infrastructure that served the prison the Suburban drove down the road and dropped Grimm off and he faded into the scrub bush on the side of the road. Unless you had seen him walk into the bushes you’d have no idea he was there watching the road for trouble. Luckily for the team nobody used the road while Spark’s hacked into the system and used the equipment and techniques that allowed him to control every bit of data that came in or went out of the Prison facility. To insure that they didn’t have a problem with people using cell phones from the Prison their next stop was the local cell tower that carried the cell traffic for the area. At that site he was in and out of the small shed that housed the equipment in 15 minutes and they were all now ready to do their thing. Sparks had fixed it so that the cell tower would be down for as long as they needed to get their Mexican Cartel member and clear out of the area.
Sparks had spoofed a series of e-mails and the other paperwork that JPATS, the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transport System (managed by the U.S. Marshal’s Service) used to request that a prisoner be made ready for transport. Since JPATS moved dangerous people all over the country and around the world their system relied on doing things without too much advance notice which was perfect for Grimm and his team of specialized personnel. Doing transfers without long drawn out schedules kept prisoners from being able to arrange escapes or cause any other trouble.

As they pulled up in front of the administration building to the older prison facility it reminded Grimm of something he had seen in an old movie from the 30’s. Forbidding stone walls soared 25 feet above them and the administration building screamed go away. The prison was more fort than anything else down to the manned guard towers wedged into the corners and stern faced men watching them and the prisoners that were on the other side of the thick stones walls. Grimm slid effortlessly out of his seat and the men all headed inside now dressed as pseudo US Marshals complete with dark blue US Marshals raid jackets with gold lettering and .40 S&W sidearm’s.

The spacious reception lobby housed 2 guards manning a metal detector and as the men saw the US Marshal jackets they smiled and waved the men through.

The older guard, a sergeant smiled at them as he made his request. “Gentleman may I please see some ID? Please remove and make safe your firearms for storage”


The men all reached into their pockets and produced the fake badges and holders that identified them as US Marshals. They then slid their respective firearms out of the holsters and set them on the counter.

Grimm smiled and if a person that knew him saw that smile they would have called it a crocodile smile. “Sergeant anything good going on today?”

The sergeant handed their ID’s back and returned the smile. “No Marshal, it’s all the same as it was yesterday and the day before that. I envy you guys getting to fly around all the time, at least the scenery changes and you don’t have to worry about someone slipping on a mopped floor. Guess I should have tried harder to get out of here and get on with the Sheriff’s Department?”

Grimm looked the man in the eyes. “Sergeant today we have the prestigious honor of spending half the day flying in a noisy turboprop with boxed lunches, no restroom and a Mexican murderer as a seatmate. Today I’d gladly trade you jobs, I’m not what you’d call a big fan of flying to begin with and those little turboprops are like riding in the back clown car. I can never get comfortable in them.”

The sergeant looked mildly confused. “I thought you guys requested JPATS duty and that it wasn’t assigned.”

Grimm purposely didn’t answer the question since he didn’t know the answer and quickly altered the conversation to a safe topic. He just studied the man’s face for a second before replying. “Last fall I was in a McDonald-Douglas 83 that took a lightning strike southwest of Kansas City. We had to turn around and make an emergency landing in Kansas City and it was by far the worst flying experience I have ever had. Thought for sure I would die in a fiery pyre of aluminum, plastic, wire and jet fuel. Every since that incident I’m not big on flying on the puddle jumpers. But, the show must go on and this prisoner needs to be someplace else and quickly. If you’re looking for some excitement and don’t mind working in a Sherriff’s Department surrounded by controversy I can put in a good word for you in Maricopa County in Arizona. Sherriff Joe will keep you busy and he has some interesting initiatives. Not everyone agrees with the way he does things and I heard the Feds are investigating him but it beats letting the illegal immigration and drug problem ruin that part of Arizona.”

The Sergeant nodded as he considered the proposal. Sherriff Joe Arpaio was famous or infamous depending on whom you asked and the Sergeant had seen a special on TV about the tent city that Sherriff Joe had erected to house a portion the County’s inmate population after he was elected Sherriff. His attitude was that if tents were good enough for the men and woman serving in the military then it was good enough for prisoners that had burdened society. “Marshall I’d appreciate the opportunity to talk to them out there. I’ve heard lots about Sherriff Arpaio and saw some series about Maricopa County on cable. Might be just the ticket to get motivated and move on from here. Can I give you my contact information and you can contact me if you hear of any openings?”

Grimm nodded and waited while the detention officer jotted his number and e-mail address on a sheet of paper from the notebook in his breast pocket. “Give it a week or so and I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

The Sergeants handed the page from the notebook over. “Appreciate the help Marshal Giggs. I better let you get you guys going, I imagine your pilots have a schedule to keep. The transfer office is straight up the stairs on the right. Your sidearms will be waiting for you when you are ready to leave and I’ll see you guys then, have fun.”


Grimm was about out of small talk which he was notoriously weary of. “We will Officer, stay out of trouble.” With that the 3 men all headed up the stairs and found the administration office and within 45 minutes were escorting their prisoner out the front door of the administration building and into their Suburban.

As soon as the front door closed the prisoner Guzman became agitated and was bitching till they put him in the seat and fastened his seat belt. “I demand to know where you are taking me. I have rights you know. Tell me now or my attorney will sue you ass off GOD DAMN IT!”

Sparks smiled at the convict shackled beside him as the Suburban took off. “Sir we are US Marshals assigned to JPATS. The Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System moves people throughout the United States and delivers them to their various Federal Court appearances and when a prisoner is transferred to a different Federal Detention Facility. We are also tasked with deportation flights for deportable illegal aliens and return them to their home countries. Now unless you have information that we can use we are going to put you back in Mexico. We are scheduled to land at a military base outside Ciudad Juarez in 6 hours and turn you over to the Federal Police there. Well we think they are Federal Police but in Juárez you can’t always be sure. They might be Federal Police or they might be cartel members dressed as Federal Police of course they could be corrupt Federal Police that will deliver you to the cartel. They seemed happy at the possibility of having you back in Mexico and made the request the same day as your conviction though our State Department. The feds said they were OK with you serving your time across the border. It’ll be less of a burden on the US taxpayers that way. Hope that you don’t owe anyone in your Cartel money or you’ll be dead by the time I get to bed tonight. Unless they are really mad at you and then it might be a few days before they finally kill you and dump your headless corpse in front of your mother’s house. You got anything we might be interested in Trey?”

The prisoner swallowed and the thoughts of being tortured for days and killed leap across his mind. He wasn’t a weak man but anyone that thought the Cartel had mercy was a fool and he wasn’t a fool. He had some money set aside maybe he could trade his way out of this colossal mess he had gotten himself into. It was at that moment that he realized that the Marshal had called him Trey. Being called Trey wasn’t good at all. He had spent 10 years inside the cartel as Santiago Antonio Carlos Guzman and everyone called his by his street name ‘Banc’. When they had cleared the doors of the prison he was indignant and now he was uneasy because some Fed know who he really was which meant they could find his family. If that information got back to his cartel it might mean that the rest of his family was in danger. “I know almost everything about the Trio organization that is bombing and killing Judges on both sides of the border and I would be willing to exchange that information for acceptance in the Witness Protection Program. I do have some money stashed and of course I’d need to get access to it. How about you put me in touch with the people that make those types of decisions and can grant me US citizenship and acceptance in the WITSEC program in exchange for my full cooperation?”


Grimm who was riding shotgun turned around and smiled knowing that the chances of the operation be successful just went up significantly and pushed away his frustration at being pulled off the other gig. “I’m Giggs, and I’m in charge so how about you give us something we can confirm just to make sure you’re not jerking us around here. I’d hate to delay your trip back to your home for bogus information and the Federal Police are waiting for you and wouldn’t be happy if you don’t show up. I hear Juárez is pleasant this time of year except for the uncontrollable violence and the massive corruption that permeates every level of Government. I also heard that you owe the cartel almost a half million dollars.”

Guzman hesitated for 15 seconds before he replied to the comment wondering who these people were. They sure as hell weren’t US Marshals. They could be anyone from Homeland Security to the FBI, DEA, CIA, and NSA, DIA or even some US intelligence agency he had never heard of. He hoped they didn’t work for the cartel because if they did this day would be the longest and most painful of his life. He tried to keep up the appearance of being under control and felt he was doing OK. “Well, that’s only 300,000 Euros or so.”

Grimm genuinely smiled and stared straight ahead as he spoke. “Riddle me this genius. To the best of your knowledge what is the smallest amount of money your cartel has killed over. Now tell me what type of party do you get for owing $400,000 US and getting convicted of murder in the US?”

I sense of unease flowed over Guzman and he answered the question. “My direct boss shot a young boy on the street that miscounted his change and was off by 10 pesos. The boss had bought 4 bottles of orange soda for himself and his bodyguards and the change was right the kid was just terrified and counted it out wrong. Screwed up his knee real bad, I’ve seen the kid around and he has a bad limp. Boss gave the kid a $20 for the orange sodas and instead of letting him keep the change we waited while the kid ran across the street and got the boss his change. Kid comes back and counts the change and bang the kid is on the ground. He did shoot him with the little .32 derringer that is part of his belt buckle or it would have been much worse for the kid and he might have lost the leg.”

The driver spoke to Grimm his eyes constantly scanning the area around them for danger. “We need to go to the airfield or base?”

Grimm considered the question for barely a tick. “Head to base. Someone cover his head please.”

Sparks reached into the seat pocket in front of him and pulled out a canvas hood. He unceremoniously placed the hood over Guzman’s head before he had the chance to object. Keep quiet; mind the boss and everything will work out fine.” Sparks understood the lie he had just told and felt no guilt at his lack of honesty. Honesty was earned and as far as he was concerned Guzman was getting off easy. With that he reached around the back of his seat and pulled 4 waters from a cooler and handed them around to the men he worked with.

 

[223shootersc]

thanks for the new chapter, been to long

 

[alangator]

Sorry for the wait I was caught up with the holidays and distracted. I've also been more focused on some of the shorter stories that I'm working on and plan on posting them soon.

Thanks,
alangator

 

[BigRuss]

pleased to see this story continuing. Definitely worth the wait!

Russ

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you for the new chapter.

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 8

At 10:30 the next morning Tim and Becky Fields sat down at their kitchen table with Cole Smith, and his wife Rita. Coffee had been offered and accepted and the 4 were ready to get down to brass tacks before their scheduled 11am meeting with Fuller R. Brown. The Smith’s with Fuller R. Brown’s permission had been given the information on the people that made up Fuller’s refugee group and the Smith’s had promised to go through the list the night before.

Tim started the pre-meeting off by addressing the refugee list. “Did you two have a chance to look at the list Fuller gave us to make sure that the people on it seemed like the type of people that we could live with sharing space with?”

Rita Smith Cole’s wife nodded. “We looked at it and from the list and what Fuller told you I’d guess that they would be OK. I’d guess the more difficult members of his group would be diverted to his shelter so that they could be micro managed if they caused any problems. It would be easier to keep them away from trouble in a bigger facility. The problem individuals with the group he’d send here are manageable, heck we know people with DWI or DUI arrests and even Cole has a non-felony assault arrest in his record. Maybe sometime if you’re lucky you can convince him to tell you the story of how he defended my honor and was arrested for the effort?”

Cole blushed slightly while he added to his wife’s statement. “I’ll save that story for another time. Moving on, the list looks like what we’d get if we were careful and randomly picked out 100 people we know from around here. There was one guy that we are a tad worried about. He is suspected of having PTSD and a prescription drug problem but he’s one of Fuller’s guys that might have been messed up from his service so we’ll take him and work it out. But the rest of them look pretty manageable and the security staff looks competent and is very experienced.”

Becky Fields smiled that the Smith’s had come to basically the same conclusions after reviewing the security and refugee files that Fuller had given her. “We agree that the group seems OK. We noted a few possible prescription and alcohol problems but Fuller mentioned yesterday that we needed to think about adding an isolation room just in case any problems came up. If anyone gets out of hand we can house them there till the problem passes and if we can convince a Doctor or someone with medical experience to shelter here we could medicate them if it was required.”

Rita added. “Well the guys in combat all have very good training in first aid. Maybe one of the people has more extensive medical treatment and we missed it. If that was the case they might be able to safely administer meds. On the civilian side of things nurses give medications so that should be doable.”

Tim nodded trying to remember if he and Becky had seen any likely candidates with more extensive medical training and was drawing a blank. “That’s a good point but the applications we checked didn’t indicate any advanced medical training and I don’t remember seeing anyone that had anything but basic life saving training. We can ask Fuller about that when we see him.”

The small group had only 20 minutes to discuss everything because Fuller and his driver were 10 minutes early. The Fields welcomed him into their house for the second time in two days the group sat down to have a serious discussion.

Tim started the meeting with a brief run-down of the arrangements he had made with Cole & Rita Smith and explained to Fuller that they would be acting as a team if anything really weird happened. The plan was that the Smith family would shelter at the Field’s cave since it offered a better equipped space as well as having a smaller chance that it would be taken over by either civilian or law enforcement authorities. With that in mind he explained that the first concerns that the group had was access to their firearms and leadership should using the shelter become necessary. He explained that they were looking for solutions and had came up with a committee type of arrangement they thought they could live with and paused to wait to hear Fuller R. Brown’s thoughts about that and how he was thinking they could handle the firearms question.

Fuller paused and for not the first time mulled the idea of how to govern the shelter he had developed himself as well as the shelters he had arranged to lease in the event they were needed. The people that would be under his protection had certain expectations and had entrusted him to see to their safety. “I agree that teaming up with people that you can trust makes more sense than trying to go it alone. I think that having people around you that you can depend is very important. It would help if the people are also open to an altered state of things and can adapt to a ‘new normal’. It definitely might be the more the merrier after a serious event. I agree that governing the shelter in under less than ideal circumstances has more than a few problems and here’s what I’m thinking. The overall commander would be responsible for any and all day to day security matters as well as fulfilling any tasks that board has deemed appropriate. I’m fine with the board being comprised of one representative from each group. That would mean one committee member from the refugee group, one committee member from your group and one committee member from my security group. For my group the most likely committee member would be the second-in-command of the site. I know there will be some grumbling because your smaller group will have a seat at the table. I’ve considered the question of leadership and I’d be reluctant to allow majority rule to govern a shelter, there is just too many things that the majority wouldn’t understand that made them unqualified to act in their own governance. Without the shelters acting as a sanctuary there is no shelter to govern and eventually the refuges will get it and will understand why a committee is in their best interest. The committee members would have to be very careful to foster a good relationship with the majority and help them understand the various factors that shape even a seemingly simply decision. Now the firearms question is slightly more complicated and we need to come to an arrangement that insures that your groups having firearms doesn’t pose a risk to anyone in the shelter. I’d feel comfortable with concealed carry and ask that we keep that information restricted to only your people and the security staff. It makes sense and your other arms need to be kept locked up and kept an eye on. With this in mind I think maybe if your groups had separate rooms with secure firearm storage that might decrease the likelihood that the refugees would be upset about a different standard between them and your group and keep the possibility of theft relatively low. Of course I’d expect a higher level of firearm proficiency within your group and I’d make one of my people available to help you out with that. The other reason I’d recommend private quarters is that the last thing we want is refugees thinking they should be running things and stealing or taking guns from you and turning them on the people that have made their safety possible and are guarding them from the danger outside their rock castle. Some of the refugees will bring firearms and other weapons and we need to construct an armory for those weapons. An armory could also house the extra or special weapons for the security staff. I’ve drawn up some plans for that possibility and I’d be happy to let you see them and get your feedback. I believe in the scared right to bear arms and feel bad about denying that right to the refugees but they are the sheep that need protection. On the other hand your families are in much better shape to survive whatever happens and have the basics of marksmanship and firearm safety. With these factors in mind I also feel that it would be a good idea to house security staff in separate quarters away from the refuges. That will also guard against supply and equipment pilferage. If we arrange the housing for the security staff near the center of the cave then it can act as a strongpoint if the entrance was overrun. But honestly if the entrance is breached we are in a heap of trouble and recovering will be very problematic. ”

Cole nodded to Fuller. “I’d like to see those drawings and see what you were thinking. The opening to the cave is just big enough and we can get our concrete trucks in here. If we’re going to add private rooms and an armory I’d feel more comfortable using concrete than wood or block. We’ve had good luck using the shotcrete method and the concrete is a good barrier. We cannot afford to donate the concrete but we’ll work something out and you’ll pay our hard cost for it if you can live with that.”

Fuller nodded. “Sorry I should have mentioned that I assumed we’d use concrete since you and your wife own the plant and it’s durable as all hell. I was also thinking that we might dig out and pour some fighting positions around the outside of cave if there is enough topsoil for it. After the concrete dries we’d fill them with gravel and cover them with soil so that they aren’t visible. Also I’d like to dig an anti-vehicle trench and fill it with gravel and re-plant over the top. I have a guy that makes knock-off Hesco barriers for us and they need lots of fill material but they are excellent barriers. All the US military forces are using them in Afghanistan and Iraq and they perform reliably and are reasonably cheap. You can fill the Hesco barriers with dirt or even rocks but I’d prefer to fill them with gravel if possible. We’d have extra if we filled the fighting positions and an anti-vehicle trench with it. And if we’d ever to need to uncover the fighting positions or the trench I have an ancient backhoe that is tough as rocks I’d keep on-site. I traded for it and have had it re-built to like-new condition despite its age. Also with the amount of supplies on-site I’d leave an all terrain forklift to make the job of moving stuff around easier.”

The group discussed the proposals for another 30 minutes. They then moved on to the next topic which was the money and supplies if things went terribly wrong and they actually needed to use the shelter as a shelter. Also they discussed the length of the lease which stayed at the 10 years that had been mentioned in their earlier talks of Fuller. After that they discussed the Smiths mine and the possibility of getting access to the medical equipment stored there by the non-profit and finding a Doctor to place in the shelter. Fuller made notes of that part of the conversation so that he could do some research and follow-up later on.

Tim thought they were at a point where they needed to discuss it among themselves. “Fuller I don’t want to be rude but I think we need to discuss amongst ourselves what we have covered here to be sure we can live with what we’ve talked about. If we’re honest, the money we’d receive after shelter gets used is less important to me than the shelter upgrades, supplies, security and peace of mind we’d get by being part of a larger group and having access to better resources. With that in mind I need to poll the group and see if they are thinking the same things I am and make sure that all our concerns have been addressed to everyone’s satisfaction.”

Fuller nodded and replied to the request for some time. “I understand it’s a big decision. Tell me what you need to help you get where you need to be.” Fuller waited intently.

It was Cole Smith that spoke up. “Fuller I think we need maybe an hour or two to discuss it if that works for you?”

Fuller was happy to hear that the decision was within a reasonable timeframe and not one of those don’t call us we’ll call you situations. “How about I take my guys to lunch for 2 hours and head back afterwards? You can call me if you have any questions and I’ll leave I copy of my drawings with you to study.”

The group made their good-byes and Fuller stepped outside and into one of his black Suburban’s. The driver started the engine and they were headed down the drive to the gate. The 4 adults watched silently as the brake lights faded and the dust the SUV had stirred up started to settle.

Cole laughed out loud for 10 seconds before coming back under control. “Holy crap, that was way better than I thought we’d ever do. Most everything we’d need and a forklift and a rebuilt backhoe to boot. I know we need to talk about this but that is like the deal of the century.”

Rita, Cole Smith wife looked at her husband as she scolded him. “Cole Smith you pray that we are never cooped up in that or any other cave waiting to hear news of how the end of the world happened. If it ever gets that bad many of the people we know will die or suffer greatly. More suffering than Americans have endured since the influenza Pandemic at the front end of the 20th century. Losses from the World Wars would pale in comparison. We’re really talking about the end of the world as we know it. Even if it was something manageable like a terrorists setting off one of those infamous suitcase nukes the world would burn. The American attitude has been that of a giant being pestered by a mosquito. The mosquito is annoying but isn’t hardly the force needed to bring the giant to its knees. If a bomb went off in the US and they tied it to Islamic Terrorists the only place in the Middle East I’d want to be is in Israel in a deep well-built shelter stocked with food and drinking water, with an up-to-date air filtration system and plenty of good books and my MP3 player loaded with all my favorite music.” The enormity of what she and Cole had been planning for all those years was like a crushing weight on her chest and filled her with dread. Then the focus of her eyes shifted and she looked as if she had just been punched in the stomach.

Cole Smith reached his hand down and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Honey I understand what you are saying. And I promise to pray that we never come close to having to use any shelter to preserve our lives or the lives of our family.”

Rita Smith looked down at her husband’s hand wrapped in hers and great felt comfort from that simple intimate gesture. “Thanks I appreciate that. Sorry for the outburst. It’s just so unnerving planning what to do if the world destroys itself. We should go inside and talk this thing through. The sooner we get done the sooner I can find a bottle of wine and get good and drunk.” Rita waited to see what they would say about the whole getting drunk thing. She was a habitual light drinker and if it was bad enough for her to threaten getting drunk the others all know the toll the day was taking on her.

They didn’t say anything instead all began laughing at her comments about wanting to get drunk.
Becky managed to quit laughing for a second. “Make mine white wine, I get a hangover when I drink red and it makes my breathe taste like a wet sock. Plus for some reason red wine makes me want to take my clothes off.”

Cole Smith added. “Becky I’ll personally find you a bottle of white wine from somewhere. The last thing we need is for any of us to get embarrassed about seeing you unclothed. After all we might end up being shelter buddies someday and I wouldn’t want it to be awkward.”

Cole’s awkward addressing of Becky’s comment brought the others into a second stage of laughter. Cole turned a tad red around the face and thankfully Becky didn’t say anything to further embarrass him. The laughing stopped and they all turned and went back to the kitchen table to talk things over.

Becky sat and immediately scanned over the list of equipment that Fuller was willing to store at their site and was amazed at the entirety of supplies he was willing to re-locate to their space. Even rough wholesale numbers put the value at over $100,000 if you included estimates for the upgrades that they would retain as part of their payment for access to the cave by Fuller and his people. The set-up was akin to building a small community underground to house and maintain the group in a spartan yet safe fashion. She turned to the Smith’s as they sat down. “Tim has a list of upgrades to the cave he deems prudent and next to the upgrade is the breakdown for cost, estimated time of upgrade completion and an assigned priority based on importance. The level of difficulties varies between projects and range from simple to parts or materials manufactured exclusively overseas and that are costly. I’d like to know from Tim what the minimum costs of the projects are and when if things stayed the same those projects could be completed.”

“Let me grab that and I can give you a number and a time frame.” Tim pulled a folder off the counter and walked over and sat down. He scanned the material inside before committing himself to an answer and re-familiarized himself with what was in the folder. “Actually can we break for snacks or lunch while I look over these plans from Fuller again? I want to get a better idea of what he proposed and how it fits in with my plans from before.”

Cole was the first to reply. “I could eat and we have a few hours to get this done. No reason to rush through it and risk making a mistake. On the phone I believe I mentioned that we were bringing taco salad and a container of home-made root beer. Let me get the crock pot and everything else we brought out of the truck and we can eat if that’s OK.”

Becky smiled happy that the Smith’s had offered to bring lunch and that all she was responsible for was glasses, plate and silverware. “Excellent suggestion, I’ll get everything we’ll need out. Rita can you help me and Tim and Cole can lug the food inside?”

Tim smiled at the way his wife effortlessly offered his services while she and Rita stood and began pulling things they needed from the cabinet. He then looked over at his friend Cole and saw the smile breaking across his face. “We’re on it.”

Cole nodded his agreement and the men both headed outside to get the crock pot and other lunch supplies out of Cole’s car. That morning Cole was driving the 5 year old Prius he had traded for. A guy that was broke and trying to get his house done had offered the hybrid in exchange for concrete. The hybrid vehicle was in excellent shape and had less than 50,000 miles on it when he had traded for it 6 months ago. The fuel efficiency of the vehicle was perfect as a going into town car because it sipped gas and while not a big hauler of stuff it was usually big enough for what it was needed for. Cole had once told Tim he had figured the possible fuel cost saving and his calculated saving was over $200.00 a month. Coupled with the fact that he had traded for the car at retail for both items meant he had acquired the vehicle at around half of its retail value.

The men pulled the food out of the car walked back toward the house. As they entered the garage Cole spoke. “My family and I really appreciate you and your wife including us in your shelter plans. It’s good to know that we can depend on you and your family. Having friends isn’t like it was 20 years ago and we’re lucky we met you and your family.”

Tim paused at the door to the house. “Becky and I feel the same way about you and your family.”

The mushy talk ended at the door to the house. The two couples had a pleasant working lunch discussing the shelter while stuffing themselves with taco salad and drinking the homemade root beer. While they all ate Tim did compare the upgrades list he had made since they had moved in with Fuller’s list and found that it would take the Fields 5 years to accomplish even the most basic upgrades. Because the space was so big properly outfitting the space with air handling, lighting, water storage and sewage handling would take a big chunk of change. So when Fuller returned they discussed some minor points and then signed an agreement and OK’d the work he had proposed.

Tim Fields had the best night’s sleep he could remember that night. He never did ask if Rita Smith got drunk that night and if she did he wouldn’t blame her. Worrying about the world ending can really mess a person up.

 

[DustMusher]

Thanks for the new chapter -- bedtime story for me.

DM

 

[223shootersc]

thanks for the new chapter, good stuff as usual, what happened with adding a Doctor

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you very much

 

[Doc Savage]

Glad to see this one still alive! Good story.

 

[nancy98]

Very good story. Thank you

 

[RCSAR]

Please keep this going.
I'm addicted now and if I don't get more I may start staking hostages.

 

[alangator]

Fuller
Part 9

STAG
New Mexico Desert

Authors Note- Aspects of this chapter were taken from and inspired by current events and other relevant data. However, directly linking them to the news stories could adversely impact another storyline so I’ve pushed the similarities to another political problem that has since been resolved to some extent in Northern Ireland.
The media has reported that Cartel related torture and beheadings have been broadcast over various internet sites but have never personally seen them. If they are indeed available over the internet it is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Mexico. Videos of Insurgent attacks in the Middle East where there is a War going on are likely available on various internet sites. I’m not an expert but assume what is purported to be authentic video of attacks of US and Coalition personal and equipment is authentic.
Thanks,
alangator
“‘An armed border is a polite border. Manners are good when one may have to back up their acts with his/her life.”

Part 9

The murderer who real name was Marco Carlos Guzman sat in the chair while Grimm’s technical guy Sparks attached the ankle monitoring devise to his left ankle. The anklet was a state-of the art model that had just recently been distributed to various U.S. Government Agencies that had need of them. Grimm had been using the devise for 6 months, it was yet another advantage of how working somewhat parallel to other agencies was beneficial. Grimm’s organization had a very decent budget and very little in the way of bureaucracy to deal with so they had equipment not many other agencies could get. That meant if a tool was available for a specific task Grimm could often order the equipment directly from the manufacture or distributor and have it shipped to one of the various shell companies that allowed him to make anonymous purchases of useful and interesting items.

Sparks finished tightening the last of the tamper-proof screws that held the anklet on and stood back up and looked at Guzman. “OK, this is a state-of the art personnel tracking devise that has been available to US Government based law enforcement less than 30 days. The battery is a new design to allow longer run times and the unit is waterproof to 15 meters. The manufactured has incorporated in it the latest in human monitoring technology and it is very tough to remove even with a room full of tools. The take away for you is that if it is tampered with it will emit a shock similar to a stun gun and drop you in your tracks. It is monitored by a special facility that links satellite telemetry to the area if the devise is tampered with or removed to help insure a speedy recovery. To insure your safety we have access to the information the anklet transmits and that information is just available to just 6 other people within the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies we are working with at this level of the game. The upside is that if a few truckloads of cartel enforcers came skidding up out front we could blanket the area with smoke fight them off and then use the anklet to retrieve you and bug-out. Obviously we are in a remote location and have the capability to monitor the area around us for miles. That includes underground, on the surface and in the air to 25,000 feet. The downside is that now that you are working with us we demand your loyalty and if you decide change your mind and somehow got away from us you’ll end up being entered into the intelligence databases as a priority target and it would just be a matter of time before we hunted you down and made you pay. Questions?”

Marco Carlos Guzman nodded. “I understand what you are telling me about the devise. Now to something more time sensitive. I could eat, I missed breakfast when they moved me and didn’t get anything this morning. Anyway, can I get something because I’m starving?”

Grimm stood up from where he was sitting at a table and walked toward Guzman. “Let’s review what’s going on while one of the guys gets something for you. Just to be sure I need to ask you if you have any allergies at all.”

Guzman shook his head to indicate no. “No allergies and I’m as healthy as a horse. Never been sick a day in my life.”
Grimm nodded satisfied with the answer. It was the same as in the paperwork he had for their new charge. “Good. Now about the anklet we are responsible for you from this point forward. You are a convicted murderer and I must encourage you to work with us to gain your life back. Don’t think for 1 second that you can skip out and not pay a heavy price. Moving on; we have bread, toast, peanut butter and jelly, yogurt, hummus and pita. We also have an excellent line of frozen dishes that we can nuke. I’m fond of the pot roast and one of the other guys eats the southwest tilapia every night. We also have spaghetti, tortellini, lasagna, and turkey pot pie.” Grimm thought it ironic that he was sitting taking the food order of a convicted murderer linked to the Cartel’s vast illegal operations.

Guzman decided on his meal as soon as Grimm finished speaking. His tone and cadence indicated that he was under control and not the one sitting facing deportation to his home country where he would likely end up tortured and dead within 48 hours. “The pot pie sounds like a good choice and maybe some juice or iced tea to go with it would be nice.”

Grimm looked at his man Sparks and nodded. Sparks stepped away from them to get their detainee’s meal and refreshments taken care of. Grimm sat across from Guzman who now rotated and faced him across the aluminum table. “OK Guzman, now you sing for your meal.” When he said it his face lacked any clue as to what he was thinking. In fact he almost looked sleepy to Guzman as Guzman noticed the dark circles under his eyes for the first time that morning.

Guzman nodded instinctually knowing that the man in charge was a hard man. His time with the Cartel had taught him that some men were not to be messed with and the man in charge here was one of those men. Annoying them, lying to them, crossing them or pissing them off was often fatal and the run-up to death could be very unpleasant and involve blood and lots of screaming. He didn’t think the man would risk killing him but wasn’t eager to test his theory out by trying to get over on him or feeding him bad information. He paused a moment to let his captors know he wasn’t scared of them and then started talking after adjusting the ankle monitoring devise. By the time Guzman’s meal arrived they had 2 significant pieces of information that they could pass on and let tech support use to find out if Guzman was being honest with them or just jerking them around to avoid being returning to Mexico.

Guzman talked for 3 hours straight before requesting a break and the team broke for an hour to re-charge their batteries and allow each of them to visit the restroom, grab a snack or something to drink. During the break Grimm looked at the updated project file and found out that a Sheriff 2 counties east of El Paso had been assassinated during a grenade attack while sitting in his car at a stoplight a block from the Sherriff’s office just hours earlier. He plugged in a set of ear buds to listen to the internet video released by the attackers on a laptop in the communications room. The people claiming responsibility had released the video within 50 minutes of the attack from a coffee shop in the El Paso suburb. The video of the attack was narrated in English and the male speaker had a vague British accent. Something clicked and to Grimm the video reminded him of the car bombs used during the ‘The Troubles’ in Ireland over the last 40 years. Theoretically that political/social morass was being worked out and a lasting peace was moving forward. If that peace stood the tests then some closure might be in the cards for that beleaguered and divided area of Ireland. The video ended with the standard warning to decrease the amount of personnel assigned to that area of the US/Mexican border or suffer further consequences. The video also chastised the US for butting into the affairs of Mexico. It ended with the tagline ‘Mexico is for the Mexican people. US stay out of our backyard’.

Grimm didn’t smile and understood that again the El Paso/Juarez Cartel was casting themselves in the role as benevolent providers of the people of Juarez and the surrounding area and not the people that contributed greatly to the over 40,000 cartel linked murders committed since President Calderon’s crackdown at the end of 2006. Grimm thought that the propaganda was aimed at the people in Mexico that were part of the cartel problem or those that were sympathetic to their cause. But others in the US Government would insure that the message would advance their anti-Cartel agenda and more of everything would be thrown at the Border problem. More than likely that additional attention would likely result in even more time, energy, effort and money was directed toward ruining the cartels and bringing their members to face US and international justice for their crimes around the world. The drug and human smuggling bosses in Mexico had long been helping communities in an attempt to win the people over. And while very few people in Mexico had access to Mexican leaders and politicians many of them benefitted from the largess of the Cartel’s building of hospitals, schools and churches in poor neighborhoods. In a Third World country like Mexico that effort was a powerful incentive to support the Cartels regardless of what they were/had doing or had done.

An attached e-mail from his boss had a list of questions for his prisoner to answer to help them gain some traction on the situation. Grimm wasn’t the only one that had seen similarities to the oftentimes unpredictable violence that had plagued Great Britain and Ireland over previous decades. Grimm’s boss wanted to know if it was possible someone from that conflict had been brought in as a bomb maker or as a propagandist. Grimm hadn’t been surprised the question had been submitted because he wanted the answer to the same question as soon as the video had ended. He was hoping that Guzman could answer that question for him or direct him to someone that could. The e-mail also had an attachment from a press release from the Governor of Texas. The Governor a man named August Mendez has requested that the lawmakers in Washington annex land from the Mexican side of the Border to set-up an exclusionary zone to help protect his state and the country in general. The Governors’ press release also wanted Federal officials to station armed military personnel on the Border authorized to fire on individuals that defied orders or brandished weapons in these areas. Grimm shook his head wishing that militarizing the border was that easy and that simply putting the military on the Border could solve the problem. To bastardize a somewhat famous quote from Robert A. Heinlein. ‘An armed border is a polite border. Manners are good when one may have to back up their acts with his/her life’.

The interrogation continued and as the information Guzman had given was checked by Federal Enforcement and intelligence networks for reliability and accuracy. Grimm tried to figure out what he needed to ask about 4 steps in advance. An interrogation sometimes resembled a chess match and no move should be made without a careful and complete understanding of each and every move that was made and how it could affect everything else in the game. The stakes here were higher since Grimm thought they needed information that Guzman had to curtail the violence that had seeped into the US.

It was clear that Guzman was no ordinary cartel minion always doing as he was told. The man had a quick and active brain and Grimm suspected he might possibly be a genius in his own right. The history they now had on him indicated that he had moved up the ladder much quicker than was normal and was an efficient business man. If it hadn’t been for his slip he was the type that it would take years to get enough evidence on him to convict him of anything. With Guzman’s type the testimony of others was one of his only weaknesses. Guzman’s management style was a classic drug dealer’s hands-off policy that helped insulate him from situations that could cause his arrest. Even the DEA commented on the fact that he never had given them any useful information on their warrants to listen to his calls. The other thing that Guzman understood more than many of the El Paso/Juarez Cartel members or its leadership was that information was a valuable tool and that it was in need of constant collecting, correlating and updating. Here he was, a convicted murder using that storehouse of information to skip out on the murder change and be given a new life. Or so he thought!

After another hour Guzman stopped and turned to Grimm. “Explain to me the process to be indoctrinated into Witness Protection Program.”

Grimm suspected that Guzman know more about the program than he did so he repeated the information that he had gathered about the Department of Justice’s Federal Witness Protection Program. He started with the history of the program and proceeded to explain that the program was administered by the US Marshals Service. He then regaled Guzman with tales of some of the semi-famous people that had been accepted into the program. He explained that placement was handled by someone other than him and that generally speaking Guzman should plan on being located away from the US/Mexico Border to decrease the likelihood of him being recognized by former colleagues.

Guzman stood and stretched his back before speaking. “I understand that everything that I tell you is now being cross-referenced and checked for accuracy so that you can determine my level of truthfulness and quantify the quality of my information. Since we still haven’t established a bond of trust I’m going to give you some information as a bonus that you can follow up on as you see fit. The man I killed at that restaurant was not a man that I wanted nor had reason to kill. There is a man named Rojo that acts as a collector of the profits in my area and funnels that money back to the cartels in Mexico. He also acts in a way similar to an efficiency expert for the people at my level. Rojo has risen quickly and has the fearsome reputation for his acts of savagery. I did that killing because he ordered it and defying Rojo can result in death. I was told how many times to stab him and where. The pissing on the body was to impress him with my cold heartedness. I fear Rojo more than I fear either prison or death. Many people say he takes pleasure in acts of barbarity that are some of the worst in our business. The other families fear him for he occasionally has been known to kidnap & ransom, torture and kill their people as retaliation for some perceived slight or another. He enjoys torture and killing, I have seen him do things to men and woman that defy humanity.

Grimm nodded. He had heard stories of Cartel members blaming others for actions that they had themselves committed. This Rojo might be a real person or he might be one of the urban legends that surrounded the Cartels and their activities. “Tell me about this man? Do you have a picture of him that we can use to identify him?”

Guzman nodded. “I have a file that has every bit of information that I have gathered since I began working for the Cartel in Juarez. And while I’m not prepared to share that file with you now I can tell you where to get video of him in El Paso. As careful as he is and he is one of the most careful men I have ever met. He travels in an armored SUV and is never without 2 or more bodyguards. He also has a group of people that gather information for him and do surveillance and counter-surveillance on members of our family as well as law enforcement people he hopes to corrupt. The two men killed by your associates in the shootout at the restaurant were working for him and I was on the Bluetooth with him following his orders. He told me a month before I was arrested that he had a few CBP employees on the payroll. He never said what they did or where they were located but he is getting literally tons of cash back into Mexico. As I mentioned I don’t have a picture of him but Rojo has a thing for a Tex-Mex place in El Paso called Rudy’s Cantina near Fort Bliss. I have eaten there with him a few times and he always orders the Monterrey Milanese with extra guacamole, green onions and sour cream. He drinks two or three Lowenbrau’s with his dinner and leaves a 100% tip for the server. Each time we have left he has pressed a hundred dollar bill into the hand of the owner to replace the beer they drink. The owner stocks the beer as a favor and no one else is allowed to drink it as far as I know. In the fall Rojo switches to drinking the Bock Beer that Lowenbrau produces. He and his men drink from the bottle so find that beer bottle and the man sitting behind the bottle is the man you need to find. Or you could lift the bottles and pull DNA from it and see what pops up. If you’re very careful and capture him instead of killing him he can help you dot some of the Is and cross some of the Ts. He has told me on more than one occasion that he had a way to weaken the enforcement efforts in our sector but that it was the nuclear option and would have far reaching consequences. Maybe he was talking about what is going on now and maybe not. I cannot see the leadership allowing these killing and bombings to take place on US soil. The American people will not stand for it and that means that the politicians cannot stand for it and stay elected. This insanity draws unwanted attention to our business and that is very bad for business.”

Grimm took in the story he was hearing. The offer of the information seemed too easy and he considered now that maybe another Cartel was organizing the violence and pointing the finger at the organization based out of El Paso/Juarez that Guzman had worked for. Like most organized crime organizations the cartels wanted to keep as low a profile as possible in the US. A higher profile equaled more attention from every branch of law enforcement and that had far reaching and unpredictable consequences. The Cartels were becoming aware that the days of not having to work very hard to get drugs across the Border and the easy crossing of illegal’s had come and gone. The American people were starting to question the wisdom of the practice of accepting what was happening on the Border and were starting to ask questions of their leaders at every level. Guzman could be feeding him the information of a business rival or a member of another Cartel. “Guzman I’ll pass the information along and see what happens. In the mean time tell me what type of information you’ve compiled and what you want for it.”

Guzman set his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers and began talking. For 2 hours straight he talked and at the end of the virtual monologue Grimm had a headache he was so desperate to get at the information that Guzman claimed to have. The man had intimate information about all his peers throughout Texas and some of the boss’s that were involved in the drug side of the business. He claimed to have GPS coordinates and surveillance pictures of the stash houses, safe houses and the places the people in charge sleep on both sides of the Border.

Grimm took a drink of water making sure his face was impassive and didn’t let Guzman understand how much he wanted the information he had just had dangled in front of him. No wanted was the wrong word, they needed that information that Guzman might or might not really have. To show too much interest raised the cost and slowed the process down. For Guzman’s sake he hoped the files really did exist because if it was a lie then Guzman would suffer as much as he would have if the cartel had gotten to him. The man that handled their version of enhanced interrogations was a sadistic bastard raised on the crappy streets of some Middle Eastern hellhole. Grimm stayed as far away from the reprobate as possible and dreamed on one day ending the interrogator’s life. While the master interrogator served his purpose he was a man that shouldn’t be left alive to walk any street in any civilized society. Grimm also didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him and the interrogator might just know his real name. Grimm used their previous time together and had gotten his picture, prints and DNA from the interrogator when he wasn’t aware of it. Getting the indentifying markers from a man as paranoid as the interrogator wasn’t easy. Three copies of the file that included the pictures, prints and DNA were spread over 3 continents along with instructions of what to do with it if Grimm ended up dead for any reason.

Satisfied with the day’s progress Grimm called an end to the integration and talked to the team about what to do with Guzman for the night while Guzman was given a chair and locked in the bathroom. The consensus was that Guzman was a liability in their secret operations center and should be re-located to a more appropriate location for the night. The team had a list of possible locations that might serve as a good place to house their murderer overnight. Grimm was thankful that the boss had allowed him to keep the man overnight and had no illusions about keeping Guzman more than another day. While management wanted to drag information from the cartel member Grimm anticipated that 48 hours was the limit to their understanding. After those 48 hours things would become much more real for Guzman in incremental degrees. By the time Guzman realized it was too late it would be too late

 

[223shootersc]

thanks for the new chapter, a little different turn

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you.

 

[alangator]

Fuller Part 10

Fuller
Part 10

As Tim prepared his breakfast at the stove his cell rang and he answered it quickly before it woke the kids and his wife up. “Tim speaking.”

On the other end of the line Fuller R. Brown replied. “Hey Tim it’s me Fuller. Sorry to call so early but you told me you were an early riser and I wanted to send the truck and my guy out first thing this morning. I wanted to be sure that works for you?”

Tim careful slid his eggs over while answering the question. “That works for me just have them come to the gate when they get here. I’ll be working in my office from home all day. Anything else I need to know about?”

Fuller paused. “That’s all for now. I do have something I wanted to show you but it can wait till later day when I get by to see you. See you then.”

Tim replied to the end of the conversation. “See you then.” Tim disconnected the call wondering what Fuller wanted to show him and put the idea off in favor of concentrating on plating his 3 eggs, 2 pieces of toast and 4 link sausages. His questions for Fuller would be answered later now it was time to eat.

Tim ate his breakfast and the kids and his wife wondered down for breakfast. Since he had already eaten he served as a short order cook and put together everybody’s meal for them. The consensus was pancakes and sausage which was always a crowd pleaser in the Field’s house. As he watched the pancakes for signs of the right amount of bubbling that would signal it was time to flip them he found himself excited to see what Fuller’s people were bringing out this morning. Between that and the thing Fuller wanted to show him he was distracted as he rinsed and set the mornings dishes in the dishwasher.

Becky was off to take the kids to school and then go to work so Tim showered and got dressed. He then walked down the hall and into his version of the home office. The room was 10x12 feet and an old metal desk almost covered one wall. Another wall was floor to ceiling shelves and held all his books, office supplies, catalogues, sales materials and family pictures in frames that ranged from ornate to the homemade ones the kids had made for him and Becky. His favorite picture was of the family all standing shoulder to shoulder dressed in blow up sumo costumes at a local Oktoberfest celebration last year. The foursome looked so ridiculous that words didn’t even begin to describe the picture. Every time Tim saw the picture out of the corner of his eye he smiled on the inside, were it counts.

2 hours went by and then the phone rang and Tim picked it up and let Fuller’s guys in thru the gate at the street. Tim walked through the garage and saw the small dump truck coming up the drive. A heavy duty trailer carried a nice looking older backhoe chained to the decks. The driver waved and Tim waved back. It was a few seconds before Tim realized that the driver was Mongo from a few days earlier. Mongo pulled the truck up and cut the engine before climbed out of the cab. Before Mongo did or said anything he placed wooden chocks behind the rear tires of the truck. To perform the safety precaution took but a few seconds as Mongo expertly slid the pieces of wood underneath the wheels to keep it from rolling.

Mongo turned and smiled at Tim. “Mr. Fields it’s good to see you again. I’m dropping this off and going to get the other one. Even with traffic it should just take 2 hours or so. If you are home today I can make the Huli Huli chicken for lunch. Of course that would mean I’d need to use your grill again if you can live with that.”

Tim smiled at the big Pacific Islander’s segue from greeting to discussing lunch. “Mongo it’s good to see you again too. How about you call me and my wife by our first names. I’m Tim and she’s Becky. Can you live with that?”

Mongo stared at Tim momentarily struggling with the familiarity of addressing them by their first names before answering. “Tim and Becky it is then.”

Tim nodded accepting the fact that he had just crossed a barrier and was willing to let the big friendly Pacific Islander use his grill. “Mongo, Huli Huli Chicken for lunch sounds perfect. Did you bring your equipment with you? If you did I’ll put a bag of chicken in the refrigerator to thaw.”

Who could resist Mongo’s enthusiasm? The large man smiled. “Excellent I can almost taste that Huli in my mouth already. Can I borrow you in 20 minutes to help me back the machine off the trailer?”

Tim nodded. “That’s a plan just come get me when you’re ready. You thirsty I can get you something to drink? I have some instant coffee if you want some and I have some biscuits from a can left over from breakfast I could butter them or put some jelly or jam on them.”

Mongo’s face went from neutral to interested as soon as Tim had mentioned the biscuits. “A few biscuits with strawberry jam if you have it would really hit the spot. We might end up eating closer to 1 than noon.”

Tim nodded. “Biscuits and strawberry jam coming up in 2 minutes. Do you want the biscuits heated or room temperature and do you want them buttered?”

Mongo tilted his head as he considered the question. “I think buttered and warm sounds perfect. I have coffee from back home. You want a cup? It’s almost Kona? My auntie lives just a mile from the Kona District so technically it’s not Kona but it tastes the same as Kona. She has some trees and sends me a few pounds a few times a year.”

Tim shook his head back and forth indicating he’d decline on the offer of coffee. “I’m good thanks. See you in a few minutes.”

Tim was back outside in 10 minutes carrying a nice paper plate with Mongo’s snack on it. While Tim was inside Mongo had released all the chain that secured the machine and as he walked up Mongo dropped one of the trailer’s massive ramps. Tim thought he felt the ground shake when the ramp to the sturdy trailer hit the ground. He watched as Mongo did the same thing to the other side and again thought he might have felt the ground tremble slightly. “Breakfast is served.”

Mongo turned and smiled eager to dig into the biscuits. “Ah, food for my weary body. Hang on; let me get my thermos out of the truck.” With that Mongo walked to the front of the truck and climbed back into the cab. Quickly he hopped down from the cab cradling a large stainless steel thermos. When his feet touched the ground he removed the cup and twisted the cap off. Steam wafted from the vessel and Mongo leaned over and inhaled deeply and then poured a cup. “My auntie has a few trees that I swear make the best coffee I’ve ever had. A few years ago I sent her some of my Army pay and asked her to plant some bushes for me so this coffee is from a cultivated from a tree I own.” With that he gratefully took the paper plate and sat it on the trailer and began eating.

Tim stood smiling while watching the big man eat. “Looks like you’re about ready to unload the machine. Mind if I slip inside and grab my water bottle real quick?”

Mongo chewed for another moment, swallowed and replied to the question. “Sure, grab whatever you need. We can unload as soon as I finish eating.”

Tim turned and headed back inside to grab his water bottle. On the way back out he realized he had forgotten his cell phone and grabbed it off the countertop in the kitchen as he headed outside. The 2 men made quick work of unloading the backhoe and within 20 minutes the machine sat to the side of the outbuilding and Mongo had climbed back into the truck and was heading back down the driveway waving out the open window.

Tim set a bag of frozen chicken into the refrigerator and went back to working on the research he had been doing before Mongo had shown up. He and Becky had talked about maybe home schooling their children and Tim’s job was to determine what information they needed to make a decision. It was an activity that he took very seriously, the decision to home school was a huge step and likely one that they weren’t ready for.

Time slipped away and again the home phone rang and Mongo greeted him on the other end of the line. Tim buzzed the gate and went out to greet his oversized visitor and see what this trip had brought to the property.

The trailer had another backhoe on it that looked like the same model as the one already on-site. However, this machine looked like it had been around the block and was missing a door, the paint looked like it was original to the machine and one of the tires was partially flat.

Mongo climbed from the cab of the truck and again employed the chocks. This time Tim watched as Mongo quickly stripped the chains off the machine. Mongo asked him to hop in the older backhoe and strap in so that he could use the other backhoe to gently maneuver the heavy machine to the edge of the trailer while Tim worked the brakes of the disabled machine and held onto the steering wheel.

Getting the disabled machine off the trailer took 20 minutes of careful and methodical maneuvering and it rested on the ground behind the trailer.

Mongo stood looking to see if he had forgotten anything that might have been missed while they had moved the machines around. Satisfied with what he saw Mongo pushed the heavy ramps back into place, secured them and was again off for another load.

Tim returned to his task and again was disturbed by the phone. This time Tim was surprised to hear Fuller voice on the other end of the phone. “Tim it’s me Fuller and I have another delivery for you.”

Tim released the gate and again headed out to the drive. Fuller’s big SUV was pulling a 16 foot trailer with what Tim thought might be a generator had been strapped to the deck. Tim thought that if it was a generator that it was a good one. The bright yellow painted metal enclosure said ‘CAT’ on it and that confirmed to Tim that it was likely a nice machine.

Mongo was right behind him in another of Fuller’s trademark black Suburban’s with brush guards pulling a 20foot long travel trailer. Both men stopped near the house and exited the cab of their respective trucks.

Fuller smiled as he walked toward Tim. “Hey, look what I found in my equipment tunnel. We had my mechanic rebuilt it a few months ago and we haven’t done anything but run it for a few hours to help break it in. Those CATS 3 phase generators are tough as nails. I thought the guys staying here could use it and when we get done it’s going to stay in the shelter permanently.”

Tim nodded since he understood that the generator on the trailer was a serious power producing workhorse. “That looks like it can do the trick. How are we going to keep it in fuel?”

Fuller smiled. “That’s a good question and one that I had so I’m bringing in a small fuel/lube truck in tomorrow along with an extra tool trailer. The truck holds around 1200 gallons of diesel, 150 gallons of oil and 55 gallons of grease. It’ll be a nice truck to have around and should be enough to get us started.”

Tim nodded curiously trying to figure out when they were going to need to go ahead and move all the equipment to the mine. “You did plan to move this stuff inside before someone sees it or a freaking satellite picks it up didn’t you?”

Mongo moved to where the men were talking sipping out of a travel cup. “We move at night to reduce the chance of being detected. An hour or so after dusk will be good enough. The other backhoe will take some time to get moved since it’s missing its engine and doesn’t run. Right now if the sats picked us up it just looks like you’re getting some dirt work done. However there is a chance that with Homeland Security so concerned with Terrorism that they have the computers set to monitor the movement of large equipment including stuff like this.”

Fuller added. “Also the cartels are stealing tractor trailers, construction equipment and other big stuff and re-VINing it. Then it’s just a matter of forging documents and sneaking the stuff down south to be used in their businesses. This far north I’d guess there is no chance of that type of coverage but they are working the problem pretty hard and darkness is our friend. The guys will rig a system of camo netting in the trees near the mine and after that is up we can move everything inside. This is all we bring in during the day, the rest will come in at night and we should be OK.”

Tim nodded his understanding trusting the men in front of him. “Hey you’re the pros we trust you. It looks like you getting everything here pretty quick. Is there anything else I should know?”

Fuller looked somber as he spoke. “Sheriff a few counties over from us was killed in a grenade attack while driving his patrol vehicle a block from his office. Within an hour an internet video was up and showed the attack and the message was to reduce interdiction efforts at the border and stay out of Mexican politics. I didn’t personally know the man but I’d guess that Big Jim knew him since the counties are pretty close to each other and I’d think that their paths crossed from time to time. This attack is really bad for Law Enforcement in that part of Texas and all along the Border. This nation cannot afford to let narco-terrorist dictate US policy in any way, shape or form and while I want the Government to work the problem I just hope they keep an eye on the other threats that face us.”

Tim was again surprised at the audacity of the Cartels attempts to seed chaos in the US since it would obviously bring their organizations to their knees. These were clearly attacks on the sovereignty of the US and someone someplace would answer for these despicable acts in one way or another. “Is Tappin County still unaffected by what’s going on or has it spilled over? That attack seems a little close for comfort.”

Fuller nodded at the comment. “So far there haven’t been any problems but the Cartels have an extensive intelligence network and they might have picked up on the fact that extra well armed and well trained men have been tasked with protecting Tappin County. The Cartels are very good at sensing and exploiting weaknesses and Tappin County has fewer weaknesses then many of the neighboring counties so they might be OK for now. Reports show that since this thing blew up that activity in Tappin County by human smugglers and the drug mules is down. But they might be probing and might have found someplace where the work is easier. Or they understand that the men I loaned Big Jim Popt are bad-ass ex-military guys that are up to the challenge and then some. Going into the Mexican Military or one of the Police agencies and defecting is one thing when they are threatening, torturing and killing regular people. But tangling with battle hardened American service people that have served in the Middle East is a whole different ballgame. The Cartels are unsure and don’t know what to expect if they cross us in Tappin County and cannot be sure we will not go after them in their homes and seek vengeance. My hope is that they bypass the area and look for an easier area to cause problems in till the Government figures out how to deal with them.”

Tim considered maybe it was time to change the subject. “Hopefully the violence will stay out of Tappin County. Did Mongo tell you that we’re having Huli Huli Chicken for lunch?”

Fuller turned to the big man standing beside him. “Yes he did and I could eat a bear. You want to help me unload and we can let Mongo get busy with lunch?”

Tim decided that the idea was a good one. “Sounds like a plan.”

With that Fuller and Tim headed back over toward the trucks and Mongo headed inside so that he could do his grill thing.

 

[goinpostal]

Pretty good story going!
"MORE"Please!!
Matt

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you for another chapter .