Joe Dillard: Reasonable Fear Part 18

"That isn't fair."

"We can't use our phones?"

"I don't want to risk it."

"Jack and Lilly need to be picked up and taken someplace safe. Immediately. Can you make that happen?"

"Jack's in Arizona. Lilly's in Knoxville."

"I know where they are! Can you make it happen? You're the one who put them in danger. Can you get our children to safety?"

I didn't respond to the comment about me putting the kids in danger. On one hand, I knew she was angry and frightened and didn't mean it. On the other, however, I knew she was right. Allowing my anger to overcome my sense of reason had always been a problem for me. I'd tried to control it, but like with Sarah and alcohol, there were times when I just couldn't. And now, as Caroline had just pointed out, I'd allowed my lack of self-control to put my children not to mention my wife and sister and niece directly in the cross-hairs. If Andres Pinzon was right, we were already the targets of a group of foreign killers, something I would never have dreamed possible.

As soon as we got in the cab, I told the driver to take us to the corner of Highway 36 and Boring Chapel Road.

"Why are we going there?" Caroline said.

"You remember I told you about seeing Leah Turner? She's Leah McCoy now. She and her husband are both FBI agents. If anybody can get to Jack and Lilly quickly, it's the FBI."

It was midnight when we walked onto the McCoy's front porch, but there were a couple of lights on. I rang the bell and waited. A few seconds later, Leah was standing in the doorway in a pair of purple pajamas.

"What the heck are you doing here?" she said. "I saw you pa.s.s out cold on the news. They said you're in the hospital."

"Listen, Leah, I have a serious problem. Can we come in?"

As we were walking in, an extremely large man came walking down a set of steps that led to the second floor.

"What's going on?" he said in a deep baritone.

"Meet my husband," Leah said. "Mack McCoy, Joe and Caroline Dillard."

We all said h.e.l.lo and Leah led us into the kitchen. She made coffee while I listened to a quick bio from her husband. He was one of those guys that ooze testosterone, a true man's man. He was at least six-feet, five-inches tall, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and his neck looked as thick as a Brahma bull's. He said he'd been a Navy SEAL for six years, an FBI sniper and SWAT team member who was involved in the tragic and infamous David Koresh incident at Waco, had worked in both Bolivia and Colombia on anti-cartel task forces, was an expert in weapons, explosives, surveillance and counter-surveillance, and had played an integral part in the largest cocaine bust in the history of the United States. His closely-clipped, dark brown hair was spa.r.s.e atop a chiseled face, and his blue eyes gleamed like they'd just been coated with polyurethane.

Mack said he'd been following the news about the murders of the girls and the witnesses, and I filled him in on all the details, including Pinzon's revelation that Lips...o...b..wanted my entire family dead. I told him about Jack and Lilly and he was on the phone immediately. When he hung up, he said, "Done. They'll both be at a hotel with an FBI escort in less than an hour."

"Thank you," Caroline said. "Thank you."

"Anybody else?" Mack said.

"My sister and her daughter are at Caroline's mother's place."

"We'll grab them up too, just to be safe."

"What do you know about sicarios?" I asked.

"Vicious, efficient killers. A lot of them are trained by mercenaries, former British SAS guys. They're completely loyal to their employers and they don't give a tinker's d.a.m.n about collateral damage."

"How would they get in the country?"

"From what you've told me, this Lips...o...b..is rich, right?"

"Filthy rich."

"He can smuggle them in through Mexico pretty easily if the money's right, or he may just have them flown in on a private jet."

"Just fly them in? n.o.body will stop them?"

"It's a big sky, my friend. There's no way to police every private aircraft and airstrip in the world. Smugglers get billions of dollars worth of dope into the country every year. They're not going to have a problem getting a few guys in. Did this Pinzon give you any names? We might be able to track them through Interpol or NAGDIS."

"He said one of them is called El Maligno. He thinks his real name might be Santiago, but he isn't sure."

"Needle in a haystack. Lots of Colombians named Santiago. We'll run the nickname, though. Maybe we'll get a hit."

"So what should I do? Do you have any suggestions?"

"The first thing we need to do is sweep your house, find out if you're really being bugged, and if so, how sophisticated these guys are."

"The sooner the better," I said.

"Would now be soon enough? Hang on just a minute."

He picked up his phone again and I listened while he convinced someone to come out in the middle of the night. He hung up and said, "We're all set. One of the TTA's is a buddy of mine. He'll be here in half an hour and follow us to your place."

"TTA?" I asked.

"Technically-trained agent. Electronics geek. His name is Bernie Cole."

It was nearly one in the morning when we arrived at my house, just a couple of hours since Pinzon's visit to the hospital. Mack, Leah, Caroline and I rode with Mack while Bernie Cole, a light-skinned, black man who looked to be around thirty-five or so, followed in a green van. Just before we pulled into the driveway, Mack got a call on his cell.

"Everybody's safe, at least for now," he said. "None of them are too happy about it, but they're out of harm's way." I reached over and hugged Caroline, but the phrase "at least for now" echoed inside my head. When would we be safe again? When would this end? How would it end?

"Where are the cable and phone boxes?" Mack said as he climbed out of the car.

I pointed to the corner of the garage. "Right behind that bush."

"Is there an attic with outside access?" he said.

I shook my head.

"Crawl s.p.a.ce? Anyplace they could hide transmitters?"

"Yeah, I'll show you."

Mack, Bernie and I walked through the dark to the side of the house and I pointed out a crawl s.p.a.ce beneath the garage.

"Wait here," he said, and he and Bernie, flashlights blazing, disappeared.

I stayed by Mack's car with Caroline and Leah until Mack returned ten minutes later with Bernie right beside him.

"Bad news," Mack said. "He was telling the truth, and it's sophisticated equipment. Top of the line. Some of it may even be original design. Bernie thinks the guys who are watching you are probably ex-bureau or CIA guys, maybe even black baggers."

"Black baggers?"

"Black baggers are agents who are specialize in breaking into places and installing surveillance equipment. n.o.body ever sees them. Not many people even know they exist."

"They must be good if they got past my German shepherd," I said. "What about the phones?"

"The land line is tapped. If I were you, I'd operate under the a.s.sumption that they're good enough at what they do to listen to your cell phone calls. How do you want to play this?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are cameras and video transmitters, so if we go in, they'll know it. We can either dismantle everything or we can go back under the house and figure out exactly what's there without them seeing or hearing us and without disturbing anything. It just depends on whether you want them to know you're onto them. If they don't know you're onto them, maybe you can figure out a way to use the equipment against them."

"Leave it for now," I said, not really knowing why. I stood there for a minute while the four of them looked at me, waiting for me to say something else. Finally, I said, "What do we do next?"

"You need to figure something out," Mack said.

"What's that?"

"Where you're going to hide your family until this thing is over."

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Caroline and I took turns driving the van we rented, and I managed to sleep for a couple of hours. We'd picked up Sarah and Gracie and Melinda Caroline's mother and driven the rest of the night and the following morning. It took us just under eleven hours to get to O'Hare airport in Chicago. There we met Jack and Lilly, both of whom had been put on planes by FBI agents at the airports in Knoxville and Phoenix, and got back into the van. I explained what was going on while I drove east around the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Their reactions were what I expected shock followed by anger followed by frustration. The bizarre circ.u.mstances had caused them to drop their lives. The FBI agents who picked them up had asked them to throw their cell phones away and not communicate with anyone until we picked them up in Chicago. n.o.body knew where they were; it was as if they'd dropped off the face of the earth.

At Mack's instruction, we'd left town without talking to anyone. I bought two pre-paid cell phones at a convenience store just before we left, called Mack, and gave him the numbers in case he needed to get ahold of Caroline or me. He said the kids could use the phones to notify whomever they needed to notify that they would be gone for a while. I handed mine to Lilly, knowing she would want to call Randy.

"Tell him you're safe, and that's it. Don't tell them where you are, where you're going, or why you left. The less he knows the better. Just tell him you'll be back as soon as you can."

"I can't believe we're going to hide like a bunch of cowards," Jack said.

"You didn't see what was sitting in front of the house yesterday morning," I said, "and you don't know what we're up against. These people have their own set of rules. It's something I can barely comprehend."

"So we're just going to sit in the woods and wait for the FBI to call?"

"No. You're going to sit in the woods and wait for me to call. Once I get you settled, I'm going back."

The amount of equipment the FBI tech agents found was mind-boggling. I got periodic reports from Mack via the cell phone. Tiny, high-resolution cameras that were capable of transmitting to a laptop computer in real time had been installed in every room in our house, along with a dozen miniature microphones that were so sensitive that Mack said whoever was listening could hear the dog scratching himself. GPS trackers and microphones had been installed in my truck and Caroline's car. Mack called in more TTAs who swept my office and then went to Bates' home and office. Everything was bugged. They'd been listening to every conversation and watching every move Bates and I had made since Nelson Lips...o...b..was arrested.

The more the agents discovered, the more naked and exposed I felt, and the angrier I became. Whoever they were, ex-CIA, ex-FBI, ex-military, they had invaded Caroline and me completely. I could imagine them watching me change the dressing on her wound, listening to our most intimate words, amusing themselves at our expense and reporting everything to John Lips...o...b.. the master puppeteer. Lips...o...b..was probably plugged in himself, taking perverted pleasure in his G.o.d-like power. He'd used his money to kill three people including his own brother and effectively destroy the legal case against him. I had to do something to stop him.

I hadn't seen Bo Hallgren in five years, but I considered him to be my closest friend. Bo and I met at Fort Benning, Georgia, when we were just kids. Both of us had volunteered for the U.S. Army Rangers. We went through Ranger school and jump school together, were both a.s.signed to the First Battalion of the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, and roomed together at Fort Stewart for two years. We wore each other's clothes, ate each other's food, and drank each other's beer. When I jumped onto the airfield at Point Salines in Grenada in 1983 with gunfire blazing from the ground below, Bo Hallgren went out the door right behind me. We'd experienced the same hards.h.i.+ps and witnessed the same horrors, and I didn't think there was anybody better suited to watch out for my family.

After I was discharged from the Army, Bo stayed on. He spent twenty years in the Rangers. By the time he retired, he'd fought all over the globe, and he never received a scratch. He'd written to me occasionally and had stopped by to see me when he pa.s.sed through Tennessee a decade earlier. He'd moved to a two hundred-acre farm about fifty miles from Detroit, Michigan when he left the army, and Caroline, the kids and I had spent a night there five years earlier when we drove to the Upper Peninsula and stayed at Mackinac Island.

Bo was standing on the front porch of his white farm house when we pulled up. He was lean and st.u.r.dy, about my height, with short, reddish hair, a craggy face and brown eyes. A golden retriever was running around the yard.

"Howdy, hillbilly," he said when I stepped out of the van.

We embraced while the band of weary travelers climbed out. Rio and Chico headed straight for the golden retriever and while they spent a few minutes checking each other out, I looked around the farm.

"Still have the livestock?" I said.

"A hundred and twelve beef cattle, twenty-two pigs and one horse," he said.

"I thought so. No mistaking that smell."

The morning was crisp and clear, the sky a spotless blue. The house was surrounded by soybean and corn fields that had already been harvested. There was a pond that covered the better part of an acre a hundred yards to my left, and a large patch of woods that stretched over the horizon to the north and south about three hundred yards to my right. The dirt driveway that led to the house was a half-mile long. The place was quiet and isolated, perfect for an old soldier, and a perfect place to hide.

"These troops of yours have grown like garden weeds," Bo said. He was the perfect host, shaking Jack's hand, hugging Caroline, Lilly, Melinda and Sarah, and commenting on how cute Gracie was. "Come on in," he said. "Lucy can give your dogs the tour out here. I've got food ready. Hope you don't mind breakfast in the middle of the afternoon."

Bo lived alone he'd never married and the house was a monument to maleness and military order. It was spotless. There were weapons everywhere: shotguns, rifles, pistols, some of them obviously valuable antiques. There were also heads mounted in every room deer, elk, bear, and even a wild boar. The smell of bacon filled the place, and I realized I hadn't eaten in a couple of days. We walked into a dining room that had a table big enough for all of us to sit, and Bo started serving fried eggs, hash browns, bacon, ham, sausage, biscuits, gravy, even pancakes with maple syrup. It was a feast of fat and cholesterol, and tasted better than anything I'd ever eaten.

When we were finished, Bo offered coffee. I refused politely, went into the den, and sat down on an overstuffed couch. The next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and realized it was six o'clock in the evening. I'd slept for four hours.

I got up and looked around the house. Caroline, Lilly, and Gracie were asleep in a bed upstairs. Sarah and Melinda were watching television in the den. I couldn't find Jack or Bo, and the dogs were gone, so I went outside. I heard banging coming from the barn and walked down a small hill. Bo was beneath a huge combine beating on an axle with a ball peen hammer. The smell from the pigpen was strong and acidic. Jack, who was wearing jeans and a Peoria Javelinas T-s.h.i.+rt, was stroking the neck of a beautiful, black horse that was standing inside a large stall. He lifted his chin when he saw me but didn't smile, which was unusual for him. Jack was a good-looking, good-natured kid, dark-haired and dark-eyed, tall and thickly-muscled. He'd always been the kind of kid who was willing to stand up for both himself and what he believed in, and I knew hiding out at Bo's wouldn't sit well with him. But I wanted him there not only for his own protection, but to be there in case something happened and Bo needed some help. Jack was good with weapons he and I had shot a lot of skeet and done a lot of target practicing over the years and he'd always been fearless, sometimes even a little crazy. There wasn't much I could ever say about it, though. The proverbial apple fell right next to the tree.

Bo crawled out from beneath the combine. He was wearing a pair of camouflage coveralls and a military utility cap. He started wiping down the hammer with a rag the barn was almost as clean as the house and he put it in a toolbox by the stall.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"I think so, but I need to get on the road."

"So far all you've told me is that your family is in danger and you need a place to hide them," he said. "Give me some details."

I sat down on a bench next to the stall and told Bo everything, from the day the girls' bodies were discovered to our arrival at his place. Jack had heard it all, but I noticed he was listening intently.

"Do you have some kind of plan for dealing with these guys?"

"Not exactly, but I'll figure something out on the way back to Tennessee. We'll probably have to bait them somehow and then arrest them."

Jack, who hadn't said a word, came out of the stall and closed the half-door.

"I thought the man who came to the hospital, Pinzon, said the only way to stop them was to kill them," Jack said.

"I'm not a murderer."

"Let me ask you something," Bo said. "If you have good information that men are coming to kill you and your family and you decide to kill them first, are you really guilty of murder?"

"Pre-emptive self-defense isn't something the law recognizes as a defense to murder."

"So if you wanted to kill them legally, you'd have to wait for them to come to you."