No Way Out Ch. 02

"My apologies, Mr. Mayor." said Weston. "But as I was saying, the charges might not be all Federal, and this Council needs to lead the way in taking strong and proper action in anticipation of State crimes possibly to come."

Ian McGhillie: "In response to some misguided comments about the TCPD, I'll say that the Police Force strongly supports Commander Donald Troy, they are inspired by him, and if this Council were to take actions suspending him before he's even formally charged with any crime would not be seen as taking pre-emptive action on their behalf, but as an attempt to deliberately demoralize the Police Force... which is what I believe some here want to do."

Edward R. Steele: "I agree with that completely, that this is an attempt to demoralize the Police. But I'm most concerned with the ease with which some here, including a former Police Officer herself, are willing to sweep aside the Constitutional rights of a man and suspend him with no charges against him, only the whispers of an allegation by possibly corrupt Federal Agents who have clashed with Commander Troy in the past, and based upon flimsy evidence which Commander Troy has accused of being false."

J.P. Goldman: "That's absolutely correct, and it's not surprising that some here are choosing to take cheap shots and try to get rid of Commander Troy in this despicable manner. Don't even try to tell me that you're doing this 'for the People' (air quotes) or that you give a damn about anything other than attacking a good man and outstanding Police Officer that has done more good for this County than you Democrats put together!"

There were no objections to Goldman's potty-mouth language nor his direct attacks. The Council Democrats sat silently, but they were openly smirking at Goldman as if they knew they had the upper hand.

John Colby wrapped it up: "I'll only say that if this Council were to suspend Commander Troy now, before any formal allegations are made or any real proof shown, and then it comes out that the charges are false, not only will we have egg on our faces, we'll have lost the trust of the People of this County to do the right thing in it's due time. So I make the motion to lay this upon the table."

"I second." said Dagmar Schoen.

"A motion to lay it on the table has been made and seconded." said Mayor Allgood. "It takes precedence and cannot be debated."

To some significant surprise, the vote was 2-8 to lay it on the table. "The motion to lay it on the table fails. Let's vote on the motion." That vote was 5-5.

"Before you vote, Mr. Mayor," said J.P. Goldman "if you don't vote, or vote present, the measure will fail."

"That's true, Mr. Goldman," said Mayor Allgood, "but I very much want to be on the record for this one. I vote 'nay', and the motion is defeated. And before we adjourn, I want to say that tonight shows we can debate rationally and in an orderly way, and I would really like to see more of it."

No one said anything. The Democrats looked like they still had something up their sleeve, while the Republicans just wanted to go home. It was Ian McGhillie who made the motion to adjourn, seconded by Edward R. Steele...

Part 8 - The Enemy Strikes!

5:00am, Wednesday, January 22d. Residents on the east side of the County and the University were disturbed out of their peaceful slumbers by the noise of two large, black helicopters flying low overhead in circles. The object of their attention was the home near the end of the mountain finger and nearly on top of it: The Cabin.

Drones also flew closely overhead, packed with infrared and radio-receiving gear as the convoy of six black vans drove up the road and the driveway. The shotgun-seat passenger of the first vehicle got out to open the gate by destroying the lock... only to find the gate already unlocked and partially open. Warily, he manually opened the gate the rest of the way, then waved the convoy through.

The invaders, wearing black clothing and armor with 'FBI' and 'ATF' printed on the front in very small letters and on the back in slightly larger letters, rushed up to the front door. Others ran through the open gate and along the side to the back deck, crouching in alert postures.

Two men came up, one carrying a large heavy metal battering ram. As the others crouched in their positions, the first man very quietly knocked and whispered 'Federal Agents' only loud enough for the cameras videoing the process to hear, then the man with the ram slammed it against the door. The door flew open too fast; it had been barely held in place at the point of the door jamb, and there was virtually no damage to the door.

The alarm began beeping, and a Federal Agent tapped in a code to turn it off. As twelve heavily armed Agents rushed in in a single file and began clearing the house, they were shocked when the lights of the house came on.

Four agents cleared the ground floor of the house, and two went down the stairs to the basement and cleared it. Six more went upstairs, followed by the two from the basement. "Clear!" chirped into the earbud microphones over and over, and eventually the "All Clear!" was given.

Among the Federal Agents were SAC Curtis Halsey, SAC Bob Rovers, and Special Agents Lindsey Black, Karl Coleman, Peter Page, David Rovers, Andrew Parsons, and Martin Nash. They were all wearing body armor, and were armed with their service weapons, M-4s 'assault' rifles, shotguns, as well as sledgehammers. Curtis Halsey was also carrying a black crowbar.

All of the Agents began trickling into the greatroom. "All right, Nash," said Curtis Halsey, "find the goddamn papers." A second later he was heard saying to someone on his radio: "It's empty. No one is here at all... Troy's cellphones are pinging from here, but we haven't found them yet..."

Nash rushed for the office area between the front room and the far garage. He saw that the trap door in the flooring was raised, exposing the hole to the wine cellar that had been dug into the mountainside. ATF Agents Lindsey Black and Karl Coleman, on loan to the FBI for this mission, had followed him into the office.

"Be careful, it may be booby-trapped." said Lindsey Black as Nash peered into the dark hole, then shined his light down into it. "Maybe we should get a team to clear it."

"No, I've got it." said Nash. He descended into the small cavern below. Agent Black saw a light flickering in the darkness, then Nash said "Come on down. There's nothing here."

"Cover me." Lindsey Black said to Karl Coleman, then she descended into the cellar. She saw the empty racks meant for wine bottles, and the rock walls of the mountain. She noted the wires that led up to the ceiling and into the house next to the ladder, where a computer server had been.

"Nothing here." she said. "Troy knew we were coming. Whatever he had down here, he took out."

"God damn it!" exclaimed an exasperated Nash. "All right, let's get some sonar down here, to make sure there's no hidden room where he could've hidden----" He stopped speaking.

"McGinty's Materials." said Lindsey Black. "If he ever had them to begin with."

"He did, I'm sure of it." said Nash. "Maybe they're at his other house."

As they got upstairs and went into the front room, other Agents went into the office. The plexiglass over the desk that covered the map of the Town & County was shattered, and the map itself torn to pieces. The desk drawers were emptied of their meager contents; office supplies and a few papers, mostly bills, littered the floor. The porcelain tea cups and tea caddy on the shelves were smashed on the floor, and broken into shards of worthless pottery. The frames holding the citations on the wall were smashed and the documents behind torn out in search of hidden papers...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FBI Special Agent In Charge Jack Muscone and Special Agent Julius Jefferson drove up the road and were admitted past the TCPD cordon on the express orders of Lieutenant Micah Rudistan. They parked and put on their armored vests, then went towards the driveway, unhindered by other Federal Agents.

As they went up the driveway, they heard the chants from the road below, somehow within the cordon. A number of young people, some black with red Antifa shirts and some scruffy and white with green PCGW shirts, were loudly chanting "Lock him up! Lock him up!" as they were being filmed by KXTC and KSB cameras.

"This is all a set up." said Muscone to Jefferson as they walked up the driveway towards the door. "Watch your back."

"Roger that." said Jefferson as they stepped up to the door.

*KERASSHHH!*

Going inside, Muscone saw David Rovers at the fireplace between the greatroom and front room. He'd closed the glass panels, then proceeded to smash them with the butt of his M-4.

"You trying to start gas leak?" Muscone barked at Rovers. Rovers looked surprised, but stopped. The damage was done; the glass of the fireplace lay in shards on and around the concrete base of the fireplace.

"What the hell are you doing?" Muscone yelled at Peter Page, who was swinging a sledgehammer as hard as he could at one of the back windows. Another Agent was cutting into the cushions of the sofas, pulling out the stuffing like children opening presents on Christmas morning, and with the same amount of glee.

"Looking for hidden evidence, asshole!" yelled Page as he swung again, smashing the sledgehammer against the glass.

"That glass is bulletproof... asshole." yelled Muscone. "And it's obvious there is no evidence hidden within it!" He looked over at Jefferson, who just nodded slightly; Jefferson had a videocamera hidden on his person, and it was filming what was going on.

"Where's Halsey?" Muscone growled.

"Upstairs." said Page. He turned and smashed the sledgehammer against the wall. The sheet rock cracked, but the concrete behind it held. This house had been built to be fireproof, the Agents were just beginning to find out...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The FBI's attack on The Cabin was relentless. Every television in the house was smashed to bits. In the kitchen, every plate, cup, and serving item that could be broken was smashed onto the floor, and the metal utensils were flung everywhere. The drawers were smashed and sledgehammers taken to the countertops. Somehow, the kitchen sink and dishwasher avoided being damaged, but the oven unit was pulled out from the wall then taken apart.

The basement rooms downstairs where Molly and her boys stayed were ransacked and damaged. The bedrooms upstairs were in the process of being destroyed. The wall safe in the Master Bedroom had been found and forced open; it was empty. The mattresses and pillows in every bedroom were being slashed open, the drawers of the dressers taken out, dumped, and smashed into pieces. Sledgehammers were being taken to the lavatories, toilets, and bathtubs, and water had started spewing everywhere until someone mercifully turned the water off.

As Jack Muscone reached the attic floor, he heard the sounds of Lego City being smashed. He saw Curtis Halsey swinging the black crowbar he'd brought, laughing demonically as he swung at each building. Legos were flying everywhere, as were railcars and pieces of rail from the once-great model train system. Martin Nash was standing near the top of the stairs, watching.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Muscone all but yelled.

"Looking for evidence, Fat Boy!" yelled Halsey as he turned towards Muscone. Muscone was a bit barrel-chested, but he was by no means fat.

"No you're not!" Muscone yelled. "You're just destroying everything for the sake of destroying it!"

"You damn right I am!" yelled Halsey, coming up to Muscone. "What are you gonna do about it, fatass?"

Muscone was beginning to throw a punch when Martin Nash intervened, getting between them and fronting Muscone. "Jack!" he said loudly. "Don't do it! He's right and you're wrong!" Muscone looked at Nash with sheer disbelief... and the beginnings of hatred.

"Whose fucking side are you on, Nash?" Muscone gasped.

"This is his mission, Jack." said Nash. "Not yours. You'll only get in trouble if you try to stop him."

"You call this..." Muscone said, pointing at the toys, "... a mission? Are you out of your tree?"

"If you don't like it, Muscone!" Halsey yelled, his eyes practically bugging out of his head, "then you can shove a crowbar up your fat ass!"

To emphasize his point, he raised his leg and smashed his foot down... on a brown and beige toy train car. The car splintered, the middle crushed in to the floor, the sides bulging out, the the little wheels bent almost flat.

"This is not the last of this." warned Muscone. Then he turned to Nash and said "And if you ever call me by my first name again, traitor... I'll shove that crowbar up your ass."

"I'm doing the right thing---" tried Nash.

"FUCK YOU!" yelled Muscone. "You call that the right thing?" he said as he pointed at the smashed toys. "You go straight to HELL, Nash!" With that, Jack Muscone turned and descended the stairs...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Nothing." FBI SAC Bob Rovers said to Curtis Halsey as the Agents gathered in the destroyed greatroom, near the dining table that had been smashed into pieces by Peter Page's sledgehammer. "The papers are all just bills. There was a server up in the attic, but it only has school stuff on it; it likely was being used by his kids for their schoolwork."

"Have our cyber guys rip through it for coded data." said Halsey. "Anything in that wine cellar?"

"No sir." said Karl Coleman. "Solid rock, no hidden openings or passages, except for one covered vent, likely an air vent to the surface so no one down there suffocates if the trap door was shut, and there was nothing in it."

"We found two burner phones with duplicates of Troy's SIM cards in them." said Bob Parsons. "Enough to give us a signal that appeared to be his, but not enough to get any good data. I might add that something of this quality is not something one just picks up off the street. He had help deceiving us. Very good help. Maybe Professor Marvin Milton."

"More likely his uncle, Dr. P. Harvey Eckhart." said Martin Nash. "And you'll never touch him."

"Both garages are empty." said David Rovers. "Troy's wife car is at their other house closer to Campus. That Green Hornet contraption can't be traced; it could be anywhere. But it's not here."

"Another P. Harvey Eckhart specialty." said Martin Nash. "The car may be down at 'The Vision' compound in Coltrane County. With McGinty's Materials in it."

"If so, that's it for your paper chase." said Andrew Parsons, who still deeply hated Martin Nash for the crowbar beatdown Nash had given him months before. (Author's note: Riverboat Gambler', Ch. 02.) "I'd rather invade Fort Knox than try to get into Eckhart's compound."

"We'll deal with him later." said Curtis Halsey, bringing Parsons back to the lure. "What else?"

"We found the secret staircases, too." said Andrew Parsons. "Nothing in them. But why that bastard has those in the first place..."

"If you had any brains," said Lindsey Black, "you would've read that the house that was here before this one was burned to the ground, and Troy and his family barely got out alive. He obviously rebuilt the place with fire prevention and fire escape in mind." Parsons looked at Black with hatred in his eyes, making his dumb-looking face look even dumber.

"All right, keep searching." said Halsey. "Use sonar on every wall of this god-damned house. What about the other house, Fredricson's house?"

"The CIA objected to the warrant for that house." said Bob Rovers. "Dr. Fredricson used to work from home when she was Deputy Director for them. We can't raid that until the CIA has Officers there to oversee the search."

"Goddammit!" spat Halsey. "No element of surprise, then. Okay, let's get over there... and if the CIA does't show up by the time we get there, we're going in anyway!"

"Sir, that'll violate the warrant." said Lindsey Black.

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." snarled Halsey. "What we can do is arrest anyone there..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

6:30am, Wednesday, January 22d. Some of the contingent of FBI were now in the driveway of the Mountain Nest as light began brightening over the eastern horizon. The helicopters and drones were still flying around, and KXTC and the young people had relocated to the edge of the driveway, continuing to chant "Lock him up! Lock him up!" in front of the very happy Media people filming them.

Two CIA Officers drove through the TCPD cordon and into the driveway. "About time you got here!" yelled Curtis Halsey.

"We don't punch in to your time clock." the CIA Officer fired back. "And we're only doing this under duress."

"I don't give a shit about your 'duress'." snarled Halsey. "Okay, Rovers, let's go."

They went to the front door as other Agents encircled the house, going around back. Halsey knocked loudly, and announced the FBI's presence loudly, mostly because the CIA was here, and because the Media was a lot closer.

"It's open!" came a voice from inside, a female voice. Lindsey Black led the way, opening the door. Other Agents poured in behind her, some going upstairs, others downstairs.

As they came in, the redoubtable Bowser, wearing his Police badge on his collar, began barking at them from the greatroom.

"Shoot that dog!" Curtis Halsey snarled.

"That's a Police dog!" Martin Nash warned.

"I don't care!" shouted Halsey. "I'm going to kill that dog!" He drew his service weapon and aimed it at Bowser.

"Noooooo!" yelled a child's voice. From seemingly out of nowhere, Carole Troy burst into the room, wearing her yellow pajamas. She got between Bowser and cradled him to her chest, turning her back to Halsey.

"Get away from that dog!" yelled Halsey. "I'm going to kill it, and I'll shoot you too, to get at it!"

"You leave my dog alone!" Carole yelled angrily... and fearlessly, keeping herself between the business end of Halsey's firearm and her dog.

"God damn you." Halsey said as he clicked off the safety and took careful aim at Carole's back...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"What the hell is going on here?" barked FBI EAD Dr. Robin Isley as she came up the driveway. With her was FBI EAD Owen Lange.

"Destruction of a man's properties," said Jack Muscone, "disguised as a search warrant."

"Go fuck yourself, Muscone!" growled SAC Bob Rovers. To Isley and Lange he said "We just began executing the warrant to search this home."

"Why didn't you do this two hours ago?" yelled Dr. Robin Isley angrily.

"We had to wait for the CIA, because this is officially Dr. Fredricson's home, not Don Troy's----"

*BLAM!*

To be continued.