Traffic was light, and the Sheriff was able to turn off his siren and travel at a good eighty miles per hour, using only flashing warning lights. Thomas easily kept up with him.
When they turned onto State Highway T, they passed a group of cyclists. It was obvious that the bike riders were making the most of this glorious summer morning, and Thomas couldn’t help but envy them. An avid rider himself, he remembered well his last bike trip. It had taken place during the Memorial Day weekend, on his last full day off from work.
Brittany had joined him then for an invigorating, early-morning sprint on the bike path from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.
Their continued relationship turned serious last fall, shortly after he returned home from England because of his near brush with death aboard the QE2. Brittany felt responsible for forcing him to volunteer for the mission, and upon his safe return, there was an even tighter bond between them. From that moment on, weekends were spent exclusively together.
Lately they had been making plans to move in together, and Thomas was genuinely disappointed when she revealed that she wouldn’t be able to join them at the lake for the Fourth. Brittany couldn’t tell Thomas the reason that she couldn’t come to Branson.
She was beginning her last year representing the U.S. Navy as the Military Aide to the President. This was a job of vast responsibility. With an office in the East Wing of the White House, Brittany was one of five officers whose duties included maintaining the President’s emergency satchel — the infamous “football.”
She also provided a liaison between the White House staff and the Navy, and acted as the Commanderin-Chief’s aide-decamp.
As Thomas and the Sheriff continued speeding down Highway 1 and passed by the village limits of Labadie, the approach of an elementary school on the left side of the road caused the Sheriff to dramatically slow down. He also switched off his warning lights, and after passing through a single-lane, one-way tunnel, he activated his left-turn signal. Thomas did likewise, and followed the Sheriff’s vehicle onto the road leading to the Missouri River and the Labadie power plant.
A trio of police cars was parked across from a quaint country inn, where they drew up a hasty operations plan. Because of time constraints, Thomas knew it was essential that this plan be simple and basic.
He contacted his forward observer team by two-way and learned that the trio of newly arrived bikers had joined Conrad Whitten inside the farmhouse. The Ryder truck had been backed up to the front door. Its driver was a leggy redhead whose short shorts and skimpy halter top hadn’t escaped the notice of the aTF sniper watching her every move from the shelter of the surrounding bushes. Before entering the farmhouse herself, she had unlatched the truck’s back door, revealing an empty cargo hold.
“It’s obvious that whatever they’ve got going on inside that farmhouse, they’re about to transfer something of significant size into that truck,” mused Thomas to the seven men of his raiding team.
“My biggest fear from the start of this case was that the bomb maker would try to construct a real attention-grabber, like the ammonium nitrate fuel oil device that took out the Oklahoma City Federal Building. That Ryder could easily hold such an IED, and we could be getting there right when they’re prepping it. So use your weapons only if absolutely necessary, and if you are forced to shoot, pick your targets carefully and don’t miss!”
They decided to assault the farmhouse from the woods surrounding the backyard. One of the deputies revealed that he knew of a gravel road that would convey them to these woods without being seen from the main compound. The two highway patrolmen were tasked to block the main driveway near where it intersected Highway T. While they got in position, Thomas climbed into the Sheriff’s car, along with the other men of his raiding party, and they sped off for the gravel roadway.
They assembled in an abandoned apple orchard. Before moving in by foot on their objective, Thomas made sure that each of them had his body armor properly fitted. After doublechecking their weapons’ load, he contacted both the Highway Patrolmen and his forward observer team on the two-way to synchronize their movements. When one of his snipers reported that the bikers had just begun loading the truck with a variety of crates they were carrying from the house, Thomas said a brief, silent prayer, crossed his fingers and gave the assault order.
They moved forward in a modified wedge formation, with Thomas at the forward point of the inverted V. His own weapons were limited to a Winchester Model 12 shotgun, with six 12gauge rounds in its tubular magazine, and his Glock 17 9mm handgun. His five associates were also armed with a variety of revolvers and shotguns.
He took some solace knowing that his two forward observers were expert marksmen, armed with state-of-the-art Heckler & Koch PSG-1 semiautomatic sniper rifles. They fired specially selected 7.62mm Lapua Winchester match ammunition, put on target by times six magnification telescopes, and pity the poor biker whose wallet-chained ass ended up inside the illuminated crosshairs.
With his greatest worry being that they hadn’t had the time to properly rehearse this raid beforehand, Thomas completed his climb of the small rise that lay between the orchard and their objective. Upon sighting the gabled roof of the farmhouse, he immediately signaled the men behind him to halt and kneel.
Thomas knelt himself, before lying prone on the weed-filled rocky soil and slowly crawling forward.
The back of the clapboard farmhouse was directly in front of them, at the bottom of a gently sloping hill, a bare one hundred yards distant. He smiled upon noting that the sole window was boarded up, and slowly scanned the thick bushes that extended beyond the left side of the structure. Somewhere inside this cover, his ghillie-suited snipers were situated, and even though he knew the general area in which they were deployed, Thomas spotted not a trace of them.
Thomas crawled backward, stood, and signaled his party to stand and form a tight line behind him. This would be their assault train, and the strategy now was to rush down the hillside at the back of the house and utilize the cover of their snipers to move forward along the structure’s left side. Then, without hesitating, they’d sprint around the corner of the house with weapons raised, and hopefully catch their suspects by complete surprise while attention was still focused on loading the truck.
They initiated their movement and reached the back of the house without giving away their presence. The moment of truth was almost upon them, and as Thomas led the assault train around the structure’s left side, misfortune struck when the Sheriff tripped and fell to the ground with such force that his shotgun discharged. The element of surprise now compromised, Thomas had no choice but to lead the rest of his troops around to the front side of the house, where their destinies awaited.
“Federal agents!” he proclaimed to the shocked group of leather-clad longhairs standing alongside the partially filled rental truck.
The smell of marijuana wafted past his nostrils, and Thomas scanned the astounded faces of the four bearded men and one gorgeous woman who stood with jaws agape, staring at the assortment of weapons pointed their way.
“Conrad Whitten, I have a warrant for your arrest,” one of the deputies informed him.
“Aw, shit!” cursed the tallest of the bikers, a beer-bellied giant of a man with a full, bushy red beard and long, scraggly hair to match.
While the deputies moved in to frisk their suspects, Thomas peeked inside the back of the truck. A rectangular wooden crate sat within reaching distance, and he thought he could make out a light coating of black powder covering the lid.
“See something of interest in there, Mr. Pig?” asked a deep male voice from behind.
Thomas turned around and found himself staring into the stubby barrel of a chrome revolver. The muscular, tattooed biker who held this weapon had apparently been on the far side of the truck during their initial raid, and he called out loudly so that all could hear him.