Rich wiped the blood off his pistol with a rag on the floor. He was careful not to touch Frankie’s blood. He could only imagine what diseases Frankie had. Rich calmly re-holstered his pistol and looked at Frankie, who was crumbled up on the floor and unconscious.
“I guess he’s about done,” Rich said calmly. “Tell Tim to come in, but not waste his supplies.” Rich just walked out.
So much for Rich as the role model of constitutional professionalism, Grant thought. But good for Rich. Frankie was the worst of the worst. If anyone in Pierce Point deserved this, it was Frankie.
Chapter 142
Lessons Learned
May 14
There was a lot of activity out at the tweaker house following the raid. People were coming to see what had happened. The crime victims were keeping people back from the house because there was a dead body and it was a crime scene, technically, sort of. Plus, no one needed to see little Crystal in that blanket. She’d been through enough.
Grant wanted to go off and be by himself. He didn’t want anyone to see him if he threw up or cried. He threw up once, out of anyone’s sight, and managed not to cry, although he had tears in his eyes. He kept thinking about all the evil in that house – Frankie and Josie – and all the trauma little Crystal had suffered that would last a lifetime. He thought about the dead man, who no one really seemed to know. That man died without anyone caring. He was someone’s son, but his parents would probably never know what happened to him.
Grant also kept thinking about how they weren’t traditional police, but they had to go in and do this. He couldn’t understand why it was that a lawyer, insurance salesman, hospital tech and all the others were now suddenly the ones who had to protect everyone from people like Frankie. It felt so weird. There are no authorities, so we need to do their job, he kept thinking.
Grant felt guilty about his next thought because it was so selfish given all the horrible things that had just happened. He thought about whether the Team would be prosecuted by the authorities for this? Was this murder? It seemed absurd, and Grant kept remembering how there weren’t really any police left, but what if things got back to normal in a few months or even years? There is no statute of limitation on murder, Grant kept thinking. At any point in the future, even when he was an old man, he could be hauled into court and charged for about a dozen felonies he knew he’d committed about a half hour ago.
It was hard to tell if the other members of the Team were having the same reactions. They were quiet. Very quiet. Pow was his usual high-energy and confident self. He was coordinating things, but speaking in an unusually soft voice. Scotty, who was quiet in normal times, was absolutely silent now. Wes seemed OK. He kept looking in on Frankie, presumably because he wanted to see him die from his injuries. Bobby was focused on making sure the curious people coming to the tweaker house weren’t threats. “Bad guys travel in packs,” he remembered Special Forces Ted saying, and maybe the tweakers in the house had friends who were pissed that the Team had just killed their friends – and suppliers. Rich seemed remarkably calm, and so did Ryan. They’d seen this kind of thing before. They were rattled, but weren’t showing it much. They wanted to project calm to the Team and the residents.
As the shock wore off, Grant could concentrate on what was happening at the crime scene. Frankie was still unconscious, so they got a neighbor with a pistol to guard him and another neighbor to guard Brittany and Ronnie. Crystal was over at the neighbor’s house, dressed, and hopefully watching cartoons – they were still on TV – or something else that a nine year-old girl should be doing. That freed the Team for a quick meeting. “Let’s go over what happened now, while it’s fresh,” Rich said.
They gathered in the front room containing the dead man with the blown up torso against the wall. Bobby, Scotty, and Wes were a little shocked when they walked in and saw it for the first time. Right about then, Grant started to have a terrible headache and felt weak. It was the after-effects of adrenaline. He was embarrassed to be the weak old guy, but he felt so faint that he had to sit down on the couch.
“OK. What went right?” Rich asked. He wanted to keep the guys’ minds on business instead of dwelling on the death and destruction in that house.
“The answer is none of us are dead,” Rich said, answering his own question, “and no innocents are dead. That was a decent take-down, gentlemen.” The Team started smiling.
“But not perfect,” Rich said. The smiles went away. “You guys are way better than a bunch of hillbillies storming a house. Way better. But you’re not up to a professional SWAT standard. This raid was a learning experience, so let’s learn,” he said.
They started from the beginning and discussed what went right and what they’d do better next time. They went in chronological order, starting from the report of the thefts. They would not have reports come in during open meetings where people could tip off the bad guys. That made them rush off to do this raid without nearly enough planning. It went OK, but they got lucky on several things. “Taking down a handful of tweakers is one thing. But wait until the bad guys aren’t high and have defenses in place,” Rich said. “That will make this look like a cakewalk.” The Team knew he was right. Suddenly they didn’t feel so good about themselves. This could have gone much worse.
They agreed that next time, they’d have a “go kit” with a sledgehammer. Grant gave his suggestion about Paul making a handheld battering ram; they agreed that this was a good idea. The lead guy needed a shield of some kind. Maybe Paul could make one out of steel, if that wasn’t too heavy to carry.
They agreed they would like to have radios, but they didn’t have any. “Should we do these at night?” Bobby asked. They talked about it and decided that if they had a real opponent, they should do a raid at night, especially if the occupants slept at night (though tweakers never slept). Then again, all the confusion they experienced would be even worse at night. The odds of shooting each other went up, too, in the dark. They decided that they’d try to do daytime or, preferably, dawn raids, if possible.
They needed to observe the area before they did this next time. Pow had a bolt action rifle and was an amazing sniper for a guy who had no formal training. He could watch the area before they went in and find out all kinds of important details, like whether there were dogs, how many people were at the place, and a wealth of other information. However, that would probably mean that Pow would have to stay in his sniper position during the raid so he could continue to observe things and take a strategic shot, if necessary. The problem was that they couldn’t spare a man by having Pow watching the area through his sniper scope while the raid went down. Maybe they could get one of the gate snipers to do this. But, would they know the tactical things they needed to know, like when to shoot someone or not? Relying on gate snipers—hell, relying on the amateur Team—wasn’t exactly ideal. They were making do with everything out there. Perfection was in short supply in Pierce Point.
This brought up the fact that they didn’t have enough men. They barely had enough to handle a handful of tweakers. They would need to recruit more guys for the constables; at least double. They probably couldn’t train new guys to the level of the Team, but they could use them as a second wave to secure the grounds while the Team was in a building.
The Team had approached the tweaker house by walking in. They would try to drive next time, if possible. Ideally, they would come crashing into the yard. That would require practice, especially on the dismounting. It’s harder than it looks to jump out of a vehicle with a rifle and full kit.