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"Well, you're looking mighty pleased with yourself this morning," Dan said as Gabe walked into the conference room.
"If you must know, Nora and I came to an unofficial agreement after I dropped her off at home."
"Unofficial huh, then I still have a chance?" Dan laughed.
"Not if you value your life," Gabe joked back.
"Okay, enough fooling around, Agent Baker went with Dan and brought their prisoners back this morning early," Agent Gina O'Donnell said. “Esposito will be in the hospital for a couple of more days.”
Baker and Dan were sitting at the table, notebooks open and waiting. "James, what did you find out from Tito? Was he able to tell you where the drug house is?" She took her seat at the table. Gabe noticed she had a paper coffee cup from the ‘By the Slice Diner’ down the street. Smart girl, he thought, as he suffered with the station coffee.
Montrose flipped a couple of pages in his note book, "Yeah, he said it was on the street behind the flying school office and down a couple. It's a faded blue house with white shutters. There are usually a couple of guards there now. Apparently, Santos wasn't taking any chances after we found the tool shop." He popped a pain pill for his bruised ribs.
"I'll get a couple of officers in plain clothes to locate the house and sit on it while we decide how to finish taking this down," Gabe said. He walked down to the front desk and asked Sergeant Alvarez to arrange surveillance at the Arcadia drug house.
“Hey, you planning a party and didn’t invite me?” Agent Esposito said from the doorway. His arm was in a sling to protect his shoulder.
“What are you doing out of the hospital?” Agent O’Donnell asked—looking him in the eye with motherly concern.
“I didn’t want to miss the finale,” Esposito pleaded.
“Okay, but stay down and out of trouble,” O’Donnell told him. Questioning of Tito Ramirez and Mateo Santos took the rest of the day. Tito told them everything he knew in exchange for Witness Protection. The District Attorney's Office would handle the details after Tito testified before the Grand Jury regarding Santos. Everyone agreed that putting him in prison would be a death sentence. The Cartel had a very long reach.
Santos was not cooperating. He refused to answer any questions and had “lawyered” up. He made his one phone call and was pacing a cell waiting for a lawyer to show up. He knew the Cartel had a couple of options for handling him. They could send him a lawyer to try and get him off. Even if he was sent to prison, they could arrange to have him killed. If, by some miracle, he didn't get convicted, they could still consider him a liability and have him killed.
Who was he kidding? No matter what angle he looked at, he ended up dead. Maybe he could make a deal and ask for solitary confinement in prison. Sitting on his bunk, he tried to figure out his best option. If he left it to the Cartel, he would end up in a coffin six-feet-under.
He made up his mind. Wrapping his hand around the bars of his cell, he called out, "Guard, guard, get me Sheriff McAllister. Now."
After listening to Santos and his decision to make a deal, Gabe called the District Attorney's Office again. Melvin Atwater's secretary informed Gabe that the DA was on a call and would get back to him shortly.
Sergeant Alvarez knocked on the door to Gabe's office. A distinguished gentleman behind Alvarez pushed his way past and introduced himself. "Sheriff, my name is Tomas Moreno. I am the counsel for Mateo Santos. I shall represent him with the charges at hand." He extended his hand to greet the Sheriff. Gabe reluctantly took it.
"Mr. Moreno, Santos has decided to talk to the DA about his case. I fear you have wasted your time." Gabe felt he had just shaken hands with a reptile.
Moreno answered in heavily accented, though perfect English. "My employer might see things differently." His suit was expensive. The gold rings on his fingers and the polished shoes led Gabe to believe that the Medellin Cartel had hired him. The Cartel did not want law enforcement to have any information that might be running around in Santos's head.
"I insist on having a word alone with my client," the lawyer demanded.
"I'll arrange that for you," Gabe said, leaving the room and indicating for Alvarez to come with him. "I don't like this, but we have to follow the rules. Have Santos brought to one of the interrogation rooms."
Santos was surprised to see Moreno sitting at the table when he was brought in. His hands were left cuffed as he took a seat opposite the well-dressed man.
"Mr. Santos, my employer and yours has retained me as your counsel. It is his hope that all this can be swept under the rug, shall we say. There will be a trial, and you will be proven innocent and be a free man once again."
"I don't believe that. Tito Ramirez will testify, and I will be sent to prison. There is also Nora Hollister. I kidnapped her, and she saw what I did to Ramirez. That alone will get me jail time."
"Have no fear. There will be no one to testify against you. It will all be taken care of." Moreno smiled, and
Santos thought he looked like the devil himself as a shiver went down his spine.
"I will have to think about it," Santos said. Knowing his choices were limited, he called for the guard to take him back to his cell. He was suddenly freezing—goose bumps covered his arms. He knew exactly what the lawyer meant. Tito and Nora Hollister were going to die. He had just met someone more ruthless than he, and it scared him. The Medellin Cartel had very long arms indeed.
Sitting at his desk, Gabe had a lot on his mind. "Melvin Atwater on the line, Sheriff," Alvarez called to him.
"Glad you could call me back, Mel," Gabe said. "We have a situation down here and need your help." Gabe proceeded to outline what he had proposed to Tito Ramirez and what he and Santos had discussed.
"Let's get Ramirez moved to Corrections in Hillsborough as soon as possible. We can keep him in isolation until the Grand Jury convenes. I'll set it up." Mel paused before he continued with a warning, "Gabe, anyone who might testify against Santos is in danger. The Cartel will not allow him to make a deal or go to jail. He knows too much."
"I agree. Call when you're ready to move Ramirez," Gabe said. He hung up the phone and thought of Nora. She would be in danger, too. He picked up the phone to call her when Alvarez appeared at his door again.
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"Sheriff, there is movement at the drug house. It looks like they are getting ready to move the drugs out of there."
"Tell O'Donnell and her bunch to be ready to roll," he called.
By the time Gabe reached his car, the agents were out and loading up. The afternoon traffic was light for a change, and they arrived on the back road near the house in record time. Parking down where they could watch and not attract attention, they saw two black vans being loaded up with boxes. Armed guards stood watching.
"How do you want to do this?" Gabe asked Dan and Gina.
"Montrose, how are your acting skills?" Dan asked. Montrose was looking a bit scruffy. He hadn't shaved, and his clothes were rumpled.
"Why, in heaven's name, do you want to know that?" the agent asked—his eyes questioning.
"Because you are going to be a drunk and distract the guards," Dan said.
Montrose didn't like the plan, "Why me?" he asked.
"Esposito can't. He's been shot. I'm a woman; Baker is too young; and you're almost scruffy enough to pull it off," Gina said.
"I guess I win by default," Montrose shrugged—stripping off his suit jacket and tie. He loosened his shirt from his pants and with the help of O'Donnell and the others got downright dirty and disgusting. A convenient mud puddle helped to mess up his hair. A discarded beer bottle completed the masquerade.
The officers watched as Montrose wandered down the unpaved road towards the blue house where the drugs were being loaded into the vans under the watchful eyes of the guards.
"He's doing it," Esposito elbowed Gina. Montrose’s acting was convincing. He had the guards coming down towards him.
"Get out of here ol' man," one of them called.
Tipping the empty bottle to his mouth, Montrose shouted, "Another beer. I have to find another beer. You got some beer? Give a guy a drink." As he got closer to the guards, he pretended to stumble and grabbed the shirt of one of them to keep from falling. "Wow! Guns," he slurred. "Are you going hunting?" He laughed like it was a big joke. "What are you hunting? Is it hunting season?"
Dan and Gina signaled for Gabe and Baker to go around and come in from the back. Esposito was to stay put and watch for trouble. With his arm in a sling, he couldn't do much. His shoulder was aching, and the pain pills had stopped working. He had failed to tell Agent O’Donnell that he had left the hospital AMA, against medical advice.
Using what cover they could find, Dan and Gina managed to close the distance to the guards. Gabe crouched and ran to the far side of one of the vans. Keeping the guards in sight, Baker followed and slid up to kneel beside the front door of the
house, gun drawn and ready. He could hear voices inside.
Gina held up her hand and with the guard's attention on Montrose, she counted down, three, two, one, “Go”—then signaled the agents and Gabe to take them down.
Montrose took one of the guards by surprise and ripped the gun from his hands. Using the butt of the gun, he rammed it into the man’s jaw and sent him crashing to the ground. Gabe had his gun to the other guard's back and quickly disarmed him. Dan and Gina rushed to put cuffs on them both. That done, Gabe joined Baker and stormed into the house, "Hands up! Don't move!" they both shouted to the men packing up the cocaine.
Three men were led out of the house in cuffs. "I think we did it," Gina said breathless, leaning over with her hands on her knees. In the excitement, she had forgotten to breathe. Her heart was pounding. Montrose was grinning and clapping Gabe and Dan on the back.
Esposito stood up and using his good arm, pumped his fist in the air and shouted “Yeah!”
"Let's head back to the station. Gabe, let them know we're coming," Gina said.
The small police station was not built to deal with so many prisoners. Gabe called the DA's office; Dan called the DEA in Washington. Arrangements were made to move the prisoners to Hillsborough Correctional while charges were filed.
Gabe called Nora to tell her they had the dealers in custody. "Can I come over?"
"Of course. Are you hungry? I could fix something," she offered. "We haven't eaten yet, and Rosita is visiting a cousin in Myakka. Maybe I should try and call her and see how she’s handling all this?"
“Good idea. A friendly voice might be what she needs right now,” Gabe said. Until that moment, Gabe didn't realize he hadn't eaten all day. “I’d like something to eat, but don't go to any trouble."
"No trouble, I'll have something ready when you arrive," she beamed. She hung up the phone and did a little twirl in the middle of the kitchen.
"I guess that was Gabe on the phone?" Gramps asked from the doorway.
Nora blushed. "Yes, they got the drug dealers and the drugs. It's over Gramps. It's over."
Skipping across the kitchen she gave the old man a hug.
“Careful tiger, old bones here,” he laughed.
She sat heavily in a chair and breathed a sigh of relief. "Gabe is coming over, and I need to make him something to eat," she said, jumping up and rummaging in the fridge.
