Stolen Lives : The Lives Trilogy Book 1 (18 page)

“What the . . .” the man said. 

He stared at George, then down at his hand, then back at George.

“You little Mother Fucker!” the man snarled.

He took a step towards George and swung at him with his left hand.  George stepped deftly to the right, under the man’s swinging arm and sliced his inner thigh, high up towards the groin.  He danced back to his left and sliced the man’s other inner thigh, again up high.  The man stopped, felt the pain and understood the danger, then blindly, stepped forward once again, swinging wildly with both arms. 

George danced first left, then right, and in two quick moves, sliced the man’s right armpit.  George knew that the groin was one of the more delicate and vulnerable spots for any opponent, especially men, but the armpit controlled the arm.

The man stopped in his tracks, then staggered backwards, reaching for the side of the house with his left hand to brace himself.

“What the fuck did you do?” the man asked.

George knew the man was in shock, and his thinking would get less clear as time went on, coinciding with the loss of blood.

“You’re bleeding to death,” George said softly, not gloating, but just stating a fact, much like one might comment on the weather.

The man looked down at his hand, then at his groin, which was now throbbing with pain and slick with blood.  His right arm hung uselessly at his side.  He noticed the gun and his fingers on the ground.

“Don’t,” George warned.

The man smiled, staggered forward, and bent to reach for the gun with is left hand.  George stepped forward and swung, slicing through skin and bone as if nothing was there.  And in fact, nothing was there as more fingers fell to the ground next to the gun, and like the other hand, what was left pulsed blood.

The man stared first at his left hand, then at his right and then at George.  He seemed to want to say something, perhaps to scream, but nothing issued forth.  The man staggered backwards, fell against the house and slid to the ground among the mini-rose bushes that had been planted there.  George stared at the man, lowering the knife to his side.  He heard a car break to a stop out in front of the house, and then heard the heavy footfalls of men running.

“George, are you okay?” Jamie asked.

“Yes, Sir,” George said, then pointing at the side of the house with his knife, he said, “He’s dying.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

As Jamie and Pete ran up to George, Jeremy came racing out the back door calling George’s name.  No one had time to answer before he rounded the corner and spied him with the two men.

“George, are you alright?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Jeremy gripped his shoulders and gave him the once over, noticing the bloody knife.  He dropped his hands off the boy and took a step back.

“What the . . ?”

Neither Jamie nor Pete said anything, but both turned towards the man slumped over in the rose bushes.

“He’s gone,” Pete said.

“George, what happened?” Jamie asked.

He explained about not sleeping well, getting up and sitting on the back steps.  While Jeremy talked with him, he noticed the man hiding in the hedge row at the left side of the yard.

“Jesus, George,” Jeremy said, taking hold of his shoulders again.  “You scared me to death.  Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, Sir . . . I’m okay,” George said, hanging his head.  “I’m sorry.”

Pete approached the boy and said, “Start at the beginning, George.  What happened?”

George stared at the ground as he told the story, minus the vision of and conversation with his grandfather.

“Where did you learn to use a knife like that?” Pete asked.

“My grandfather taught me.”  George showed them the knife and said, “He gave me this when I turned twelve.  We practiced every morning.”  Lowering his head again, he added, “I’m sorry.”

Jamie called O’Brien and told them what had happened.  O’Brien had actually started over to the Evan’s house with Summer, and said they’d be there in less than ten minutes.  Pete told Jamie to send for Skip Dahlke to run the forensics.

“We’ll need the ME,” Jamie said to his boss.

“Let us get there before we decide exactly what to do,” O’Brien answered.

*                                                        *                                                        *

George sat at the kitchen table, hands in his lap and his head down.  Randy and Billy tried talking to him but had given up because George didn’t answer.  So, Randy and George sat in silence, while Billy watched through the kitchen window that was over the sink.  O’Brien, Jamie, Pete, Jeremy and Summer had huddled together in the backyard.  O’Brien and Summer did most of the talking from what Billy had seen.

When the adults started for the backdoor, Billy quickly sat down across from Randy and said, “They’re coming.”

The group entered the kitchen through the back door, and Jeremy asked the twins to go to their bedroom while they spoke with George.  Randy gripped George’s shoulder as they got up from the table.  George looked up briefly at Jeremy, eyes brimming, and then back down at the table.

“George,” O’Brien began, “What you did was incredibly dangerous.” 

George nodded just once.

“It was also incredibly brave.”

George didn’t agree or disagree, but wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands before replacing them in his lap.  The men looked at each other and then at Summer.

“George, can you tell us one more time what happened and don’t leave anything out, okay?”

This time, George told them about his dream, then sitting on the porch, seeing the rabbit hop from the hedges, smelling the cologne, and then finally, seeing the man hiding in the hedges.  He told them about the vision and the conversation with his grandfather.  He never looked at them.  He never lifted his eyes off the table.  He didn’t move but once or twice to wipe tears from his eyes.

“That man came here because of me.  I could not let him hurt Mr. Jeremy or the twins.  I think my grandfather understood that.  I think that is why he came to me.  I did not mean to kill him, though.”

“George, no one . . . and I mean
no one
, thinks you killed that man on purpose,” Summer said.

“I had to make sure he would not use the gun,” George sobbed.  “He was reaching for it with his left hand, and I warned him.  I said, ‘Don’t.’  He knew what I meant, but he had a kind of sick smile,” George sobbed again. “I could not let him get the gun,” he repeated to Summer, and then to Jeremy. “I could not let him hurt you or the twins.”

“George, look at me,” Summer said reaching for his hands.  “Look at me,” she said again softly.

George looked at her but kept glancing at Jeremy, who remained unreadable, arms folded across his chest.

“What you did was self-defense.  You defended and protected Jeremy, Randy, Billy and yourself.  If you wouldn’t have, he most certainly would have killed you and everyone in this house.”  She paused to let that sink in and then repeated, “Self-defense.”

George dropped his eyes back to the table and wiped them with the back of his hands before he did so.

“What you did was very, very dangerous,” Summer said.  “But like Captain O’Brien said, it was also incredibly brave.”  She paused, took his chin in her hand, so he was looking at her.  “Just please, don’t ever,
ever
do that again.  Okay?”

George nodded, but stole a glance at Jeremy before looking back at the table.

*                                                        *                                                        *

With all the noise, cars, ambulance and people milling around the Evan’s house, Jon Lane had phoned to ask if everyone was okay.  Jeremy had assured him that all was fine and that he’d explain in the morning.  A story had been concocted by Jamie, Pete and O’Brien that someone was thought to have been in the backyard, but it was a false alarm.  Still, given the circumstances of the evening, it had to be checked out thoroughly.  Fortunately, none of the police nor the ambulance used sirens or their light bars.  And luckily, Mary Schuster and her son had been out of town, while the rest of the street had simply slept through all of it.

Before transporting the body back to the basement of Waukesha Memorial Hospital, the ME and Skip Dahlke had photographed, printed and catalogued the fingers of the man, hoping to use them to identify him.  It was gruesome picking up fingers from the ground swimming in a pool of blood.  The ME would put together the meat puzzle, matching the fingers to the placement of the hand back at the coroner’s office.

The man was carrying an Arizona driver license with the name Graham Porter, but Summer thought it might be a fake.  She had taken a picture of the license with her cell and sent it to Chet, and then waited for him to do some digging on it.

Skip Dahlke worked the scene, asking George to walk through it with him.  Still in bare feet, George pointed to the side of the house where the man stood, then at the ground where the fingers had been, where the gun was, and where the blood still appeared like thick, chocolate syrup on the ground.

He and George walked through the backyard backtracking, looking for any signs of where the man might have walked.  Finally they walked slowly through the hedges shining the little flashlight James held.  When all the evidence had been collected and there wasn’t much left other than the scene of the knife fight, the gun and the blood, Skip said good night and drove back to the station, and George went into the house.

A light was on over the kitchen sink, and the rest of the house was dark.  George tiptoed up the stairs to the hallway bathroom and cleaned himself up and then went to his bedroom and crawled into bed.  He lay on his stomach with his arms under his pillow and wept, feeling more alone now than ever.  The way Jeremy had backed away from him, had looked at him, had barely spoken to him seemed to tell him that Jeremy didn’t want anything to do with him.  Jamie had taken the knife his grandfather had given him, because it was evidence, and George hoped he’d get it back, but was afraid to ask.

Jeremy said he was welcome to live with them and while he hadn’t even had time to think about it, he knew there was no way they’d want him to live with them now.  Not someone who had murdered some guy, self-defense or not.  A man was dead because of him.  Yes, he did it to protect himself, Jeremy and the twins, but a man was dead. 

He felt guilty and ashamed.  He had been taught from little on to respect life.  Yet, his grandfather had woken him up and had led him out to fight the man.  Clearly, his grandfather had wanted him to protect himself and the others.  It was confusing, but the confusion didn’t help remove the shame or the guilt.

He heard the door open and knew Jeremy had waited up for him.  He didn’t know what Jeremy would say, but George was afraid, sad and lonely.  It did no good to pretend to sleep, because he was crying quite heavily.  Jeremy sat down on the side of the bed and gently rubbed George’s bare back and shoulders.  George didn’t move nor speak and seemed to cry harder.

Jeremy didn’t speak for quite a while, but when he did, he said, “George, I want to thank you.”

George said nothing.

“Like they said, what you did was dangerous, but it was also very courageous.  You saved our lives as well as your own.”

Still, George said nothing.

“I was so frightened that something had happened to you or that someone had taken you. You were entrusted to my care, and I was afraid I had failed you.  I was angrier with myself than with you, angry that you had confronted that man instead of me.”

He was silent again.  He stroked George’s soft, long black hair, moving it away from his face, pushing it behind his ear.

“George, I don’t know how I can ever repay you.  You saved Randy’s and Billy’s life, as well as yours and mine.  I can’t ever repay you for that.”

George snuffled and wiped his eyes with the sheet.

“George, can you look at me?”

George rolled over onto his back and blinked back tears, trying to hold eye contact with Jeremy.

“I meant what I said earlier tonight.  We’d like you to live with us.”  Gently, Jeremy wiped tears away from George’s eyes with his thumbs. “Please consider it, okay?’

George nodded, and Jeremy bent down to kiss his forehead.

“The boys and I would like that very much.”

George nodded again, tears welling up in his eyes.  Jeremy kissed his forehead again, got up from the bed and left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

About the same time Jeremy and George had fallen asleep; two charter planes took off from Mitchell International Airport.  One plane carrying Patrick O’Connor, Paul Eiselmann and George “Charlie” Chan flew to Los Angeles where it would land in Long Beach.  The three officers would then hook up with Gavin Reilly who was already there doing recon on the building holding twelve boys as prisoners.

O’Connor could be described as non-descript.  He wore his brown hair longish, had a narrow, hawk-like look about him, was of medium height, thin build and was made for undercover drug work, which is what he did for the Waukesha County Sheriff Department.  His best friend since high school was a red-haired, freckle-faced guy named Paul Eiselmann, who was a head shorter than O’Connor and built like a fire hydrant.  His looks made it impossible for him to work undercover. So instead, he was muscle on the gang task force and usually took point on SWAT work.  “Charlie” Chan, of course worked technology, usually a camera, but was good and dependable to have on your side during a fire fight.

The other charter carried Earl Coffey, Tom Albrecht, Ronnie Desotel, and Paul Gates to Kansas City, Kansas, where they would hook up with Nathan Kaupert at the sleazy hotel where four of the boys were held as sex slaves.  Coffey kept his words as short as his dark hair, wore a perpetual smirk on his face and had a laugh ready.  When he put on a SWAT jacket, he was all business ready to kick ass.  Tom Albrecht and Ronnie Desotel were as good of friends as O’Connor and Eiselmann were.  Like O’Connor and Eiselmann, Albrecht and Desotel were Waukesha County Sheriff Deputies.  Albrecht was a stud athlete in high school, started smoking sometime afterwards, and usually had one hanging out of his mouth unless he was working SWAT.  Then, he’d tuck a plug of chew in between his lower lip and his teeth.  Desotel, dark, short with a quick wit and a very smart mouth, constantly rode Albrecht to quit.  So far, Albrecht hadn’t listened.

As the two planes took off from Mitchell Field, two vehicles drove in a caravan to Chicago, about an hour and a half south and east of Waukesha.  One vehicle, a dark panel van driven by Jamie Graff, carried Pete and Skip Dahlke.  They would hook up with Gary Fitzpatrick, undercover as a homeless man outside the building where thirteen boys were held captive and forced into prostitution.  The other vehicle, a non-descript, four door driven by Jack O’Brien, carried Summer and Chet.  They were headed to a Sheraton in downtown Chicago.

Chet had pleaded to go with Pete and Jamie, but Summer had held firm, knowing he would be needed at the Sheraton.  Like ‘Big Brother’, Morgan Billias was on stand-by from some undetermined location monitoring cell phones and locations of several of the players.  Sulking in the backseat, Chet had dosed off.

Each of the teams would have wire microphones that would fit unobtrusively on the inside of a shirt collar.  They would also have matching wireless ear pieces in order to hear one another.  One member of each team would have a small, but powerful camera that would fit onto a shirt button.  These cameras would give eyes to the backup entry team who would let them know what was taking place inside.  They would wait on the outside for a predetermined signal from the team member who entered the site before they entered to free the kids, and then arrest whoever was on the inside stupid enough to put up a fight. 

Each team was armed with a federal warrant signed by a judge in Milwaukee.  Summer had made a phone call to a number in D.C. while standing in the living room of Judge Robert Packwood at 2:34 AM CST.  She then handed the phone to Packwood standing impatiently in his pajamas and bathrobe, who listened to the voice on the other end and without another word, signed the four warrants allowing No Knock searches and Force As Necessary with dynamic entries even though minors were present.  The thought was that a Knock Search might put the kids and the officers in more danger.  The signed warrants also allowed the officers to seize any and all electronics, including thumb drives, cell phones, floppy disks, CDs and DVDs, as well as any papers or documents that might be found on the premises.  Summer also obtained arrest warrants for three individuals, two of which she knew by face and name.  She looked forward to reading them their rights.

The teams were heavily armed.  Besides .350 Magnum side arm they would also have at their disposal Springfield M1A semi-automatic .308 caliber rifles using 168 grain bullets.  Ironically, this weapon was identical to the weapon used to kill George’s family.  Fitz, in Chicago, preferred a pump action shotgun, and he always carried it on SWAT detail, as did Earl Coffey, who was on the plane to Kansas City.

The fact that Graham Porter had driven to Waukesha under orders to kill George and perhaps Jeremy and the twins, forced the four teams into action sooner than they had planned.  And purposely, they did not tell Musgrave or Rawson they were moving forward that soon. 

On a hunch and on advice from Chet, Summer used Porter’s IPhone to send a reply to a text message Porter had received that gave him Jeremy’s home address.  She had taken it with her when she left the Evan’s home and after the body had been removed from the premises. 

Her message simply said, “Job completed.”

Moments later, Summer received a message back that said, “Meet us in Chicago in the morning.”

Summer smiled as she read the reply out loud to O’Brien and Chet.  She was looking forward to meeting them in Chicago and couldn’t wait to see the expressions on their faces as she walked in on them. 

Morgan Billias phoned Chet to confirm that the message was received and then sent by one of the phones he was monitoring and that the location of this phone was the Sheraton in downtown Chicago.  Summer, O’Brien and Chet thought the sending of the message and the reply bought the four teams time, as well as an element of surprise.  Everyone was exhausted.  There had been very little sleep and only a quick bite to eat from a brown sack that held more grease than food.  At least, it was warm and filled the stomach . . . sort of.

The three assault teams had planned their penetrations and tactics based upon the recon provided by eyes and ears on the ground, as well as information given to them by Rodemaker.  No one deemed Rodemaker’s intel very reliable because of the pattern of lies and deception earlier that evening.  Even the carrot of a ‘deal’ in ‘exchange for cooperation’ didn’t make anyone believe Rodemaker.  Still, any information was better than no information.

*                                                        *                                                        *

Fitzpatrick ambled two blocks to a dark alley, took off his green army jacket and his scruffy gray wig, walked back to the street and climbed into his tan Ford Taurus and drove five blocks to a small all-night diner.  He studied his rearview and side mirrors as he did so.  In the parking lot, he sat quietly watching for passing cars or anyone following him and when satisfied that there was no one or nothing out of the ordinary, got out of his car locking it behind him and went in.

He took a few steps in and waited until his eyes adjusted, then spied Jamie and Pete and a young skinny kid with short blond hair, a pointy nose and Harry Potter-like wire rims.  He slid into the booth next to Jamie.

“Hey Fitz,” Jamie said as he shook his hand.  “You remember Pete?”

Fitz said, “Nice seeing you again,” and shook his hand.

“This is Skip Dahlke,” Pete said.  “He’s going to run forensics for us, videotape if need be, and be an extra gun.  You and he will take the alley entrance, the one with the garage door, while I enter from the front after Jamie gives the all clear.”

“I’ve not seen anyone leave that didn’t go in.  I sent the pictures to Chet with my phone, but it’s almost dead.  I’m charging it.”

“How many guards do you think?” Jamie asked.

Fitz shook his head, taking a sip of the hot, black coffee Jamie had ordered for him.

“No way to tell.  Could be three . . . could be five . . . could be fifteen.  No way to know until we’re inside.”

They stared at each other and drank their coffee in silence.

*                                                        *                                                        *

Similar conversations took place in Kansas City and in Long Beach, with similar answers.  It turned out that Kansas City might be the easiest to take.  There were only four rooms, one for each of the boys, and two others on either end of the four that served as bookends for the guards.  One had two men in it, while the other had one.  The office manager would have to be taken, since he had to know what was taking place in his motel.  In Long Beach, the situation was very similar to Chicago.  There was no way to know how many guards were on the inside.

It was decided that one person from each team would have to pose as a paying customer.  In Chicago, it would be Jamie.  In Long Beach, it would be Pat O’Connor.  In Kansas City, it would be Tom Albrecht, minus his chew.  That would be a first.

The three teams readied themselves a block away from their targets.  They were silent and grim-faced, but determined.  They knew the stakes were high, and they knew that the odds were stacked against them.  It wouldn’t be easy, but somehow, some way, they had to save those kids.