In Desperation (15 page)

Phoenix, Arizona

“S
ir, can you confirm if the people are still in the unit?”

The Phoenix police emergency operator listened for the caller's response through her headset. Pumped with caffeine for her night shift, she concentrated amid a multibutton telephone console, radios and monitors with colored geocode maps, her fingers poised over a keyboard.

“Sir?”

“Yes, they're there.”

The operator resumed typing.

Her rapid-fire staccato updates shot across computer screens in patrol cars, alerting them to a report of a possible kidnapping/hostage-taking in Unit 28 of the Sweet Times Motel.

Immediately procedures were set in motion for a rescue operation. Radio silence was maintained in case the subjects were monitoring emergency traffic on scanners. All communication was made through secure cell phones or by text, as police cars took up positions just out of sight of the motel. More units were dispatched to the area with orders not to use emergency lights or sirens.

“Sir, can you see the room from where you are now?”

“No, not from the office here.”

“But you saw them?”

“Yes, half an hour ago, maybe. I was at their room talking to one of them about their outstanding bill. Then I turned on the news and seen another report on that kidnapped girl, then I realized what I seen in the mirror. At first I thought it was a woman—it was dark—but there was a guy holding his hand over her face. I seen a bitty piece of them in the mirror. I heard a chain, like a dog's chain, and the guy at the door looked like the police sketch on the news. And later it hit me after I watched the news report—oh boy, that's them all right.”

The operator's supervisor stood over her workstation. He was also wearing a headset and listening. He had another line going directly to the FBI. The supervisor pressed a button that let the FBI and Hackett's team in Mesa Mirage listen in on the motel caller to the 911 operator.

“Sir?” the operator continued. “Sir, I need you to listen to me carefully. Did you see any weapons?”

“I think I saw a knife.”

“Can you describe the vehicle belonging to the subjects?”

“No, they parked around the side. Want me to look?”

“I need you to stay on the line. Can you do that, sir?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good. We've got people rolling.”

“Hey, there's a reward for this, right?”

 

Forty-five minutes after the 911 call, the heavy-duty van used by the Phoenix Police Department's Special Assignments Unit creaked to a halt in the Golden Cut Processing Plant's larger shipping lot behind the plant. The lot was near the Sweet Times Motel but not visible from any unit.

A dozen SAU squad members stepped out, equipped
with rifles and handguns, each wearing helmets, armor and headset walkie-talkies. They huddled around the hood of an unmarked patrol car. Tate Halder, the squad sergeant, switched on his headlamp, unfolded a large sheet of paper and sketched a map of the motel property based on an attachment emailed to him by the records department.

“Listen up, people. Unit 28 is here, north of the pool—”

As the squad crafted its strategy, police cars choked off traffic at all points around the motel area. Officers with photos of Tilly Martin fixed to clipboards recorded plates and checked vehicles leaving or attempting to enter the zone.

SAU Lieutenant Chett Gibb and negotiator Rawley Thorpe had entered the motel office. After interviewing the 911 caller, motel manager Percy Smoot, Gibb took no chances, despite Smoot's booziness. Gibb sent plainclothes officers to escort all guests, with the exception of Unit 28, from their rooms and quietly lead them out of the line of fire.

When FBI Agents Earl Hackett and Bonnie Larson pulled into the Golden Cut parking lot, they were directed to the motel office. They shook hands with Gibb and Thorpe, who acknowledged Smoot's condition.

“All right, what do you have?” Hackett asked.

“Mr. Smoot here is convinced Tilly Martin is being held hostage by two men who fit the description,” Gibb said.

“Did you talk to her?” Larson asked Smoot.

“No, ma'am, but I saw her in there, even though it was dark. I think they got her chained.”

“Have you had anything to drink today, sir?” Hackett asked.

“Couple sips for medicinal reasons. But I am telling you, I know what I seen a little while ago.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hackett said, pulling Gibb and Thorpe aside. “What's next?”

“Halder's squad makes a dynamic entry, kicks the door, goes in with flash bangs.”

“You've ruled out calling in?” Hackett asked.

“Can't risk them grabbing the girl, using her as a shield.”

Gibb raised his walkie-talkie and checked with Halder.

“What's your status, Tate?”

“Good to go.”

 

Without making a sound, two squad members scouted the hot zone surrounding Unit 28. The motel had been cleared of life and the night held an eerie quiet, conveying a false sense of calm.

Tension filled the air, as if a shotgun had been racked.

Using a stethoscope device, they heard the sound of Unit 28's TV and air conditioner. No other movement, as they waved in their team.

Pressed against the chipped exterior walls, the squad inched toward the door with one member leading as point, another as rear cover.

For an instant, Halder recalled how a barricaded gunman shot a squad member during an arrest at a school shooting last year. The officer survived; the gunman didn't. Checking his grip on his weapon, Halder forced his thoughts back to the operation.

His squad was made up of battle-tested veterans.

Each one was ready.

 

At that moment, Jack Gannon and Cora arrived in Cora's Pontiac Vibe at a police checkpoint at the outer perimeter, far from the motel.

They got there without Hackett's blessing.

Indifferent to their pleas at the house, Hackett had
refused to give them information on the motel tip, again, because he didn't want them at the scene. It didn't matter. Gannon had been alerted by a WPA photographer who was among the press pack keeping vigil outside Cora's home. The photographer was standing near a patrol car when he'd overheard two officers discussing the dispatches they'd read on their terminal.

As Gannon expected, the breaking news was not exclusive to the WPA. Other media outlets had also learned of it through their sources and once they spotted Cora at the police line, they moved in for her reaction. Microphones were thrust at her and news cameras closed in as reporters fired questions.

“Is your daughter in the motel?”

“Are these the kidnappers?”

“Cora, please tell us, what thoughts go through your mind at this time?”

Her heart racing she glanced at Jack, who gave a little nod.

“I'm terrified,” she said. “I can't take it anymore. I want Tilly home, safe.”

 

Beyond the motel's pool and across the courtyard, SAU sniper Paul Mulligan lay flat on his stomach in the shadow of a trash bin, one eye squinted behind his rifle.

The window and door of Unit 28 filled his scope.

Mulligan's accuracy was rated at ninety-eight percent.

The room's curtains were almost completely drawn. Concentrating on the dark interior, Mulligan detected no movement and whispered his report to Tate Halder and their lieutenant, Chett Gibb.

After a last run-through, Gibb green-lighted the squad.

“Go!” Halder said.

The battering ram popped the door, followed by the deafening
crack-crack
and blinding flashes of stun
grenades as the tactical team stormed the room. Flashlight beams pierced the fog as the heavily armed team swept the rooms in choreographed tactical maneuvers to detect and neutralize any threat.

Bedroom number one: empty. Bathroom: empty. Closets: empty. Bedroom number two: empty. Bathroom: empty. Closets: empty. The ceiling, floors and walls were tapped for body mass.

They found fast food take-out containers heaped in the trash.

“What the hell?”

Halder and the others looked at a long silver chain fixed to an open handcuff near the bed.

“We just missed them, Tate.” Hawkins, the squad's point man, touched a take-out coffee cup. “It's warm.”

Halder reached for his radio.

Less than half an hour after Halder's squad cleared Unit 28, the FBI's Evidence Response Team began processing it. Time passed at an excruciating pace before Cora's cell phone rang.

It was Hackett. After learning Cora and Gannon were at the tape, he advised them to proceed to the motel.

“Need you to look at something.”

Cora passed her phone to a Phoenix officer, who nodded a few times and said, “Right away.” Then Cora and Gannon went to the Sweet Times office. Hackett showed Cora a photo on his cell phone of a small shirt.

“They found this on the bed,” he said, zooming in, enlarging it.

Cora and Gannon studied the shirt's unicorn pattern.

“Oh my God, that's Tilly's pajama top!”

“There's no mistake?” Hackett asked.

Cora touched her fingernail to a small tear on the cuff. “I did that on the dryer door. That's hers,” Cora said. Looking at Hackett, her eyes filled with anguish. “Did you find her?”

Somewhere Near Phoenix, Arizona

H
ail Mary, full of grace…pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death…

Can God hear me in my dark coffin?
Tilly asked.

Drenched with sweat, almost drowning in fear—
drowning, like when Lenny Griffin held her underwater.
Her heart was pounding with the
thump-thump
rhythm of the wheels on the highway.

Where were they going? What were they going to do?

She was buried in darkness.

The creeps had moved so fast after some angry guy had banged on the door. Tilly's first thought—her hope—was that real police had come to save her. The banging had surprised her kidnappers. Ruiz, the one whose English was good, told Alfredo, the dumb one, to hold her.

She had tried to claw off her gag, to scream for help to whoever was banging on the door, but Alfredo had one hand around her mouth and held a knife to her throat with the other one. The guy at the door sounded mad and from what she could glimpse through the crack, he had a bat or something.

Ruiz calmed him down.

But when Tilly saw the gun behind his back, she
thought,
“Oh no, he's going to shoot the guy at the door, then kill me, too.”
She got so scared she peed a little.

Ruiz gave the angry guy money and he went away.

Then—
bam!
They moved so fast.

They didn't even put on the phony cop uniforms, staying in their jeans and T-shirts as they collected all their stuff in travel bags. Then they unlocked the chain from her leg, cut the tape on her wrists, making her get dressed, go to the bathroom with the door open, all the while barking:
“Hurry up! Faster!”
Then Alfredo tightened her gag and retaped her wrists. But he didn't notice how she'd held them apart slightly, getting some play that allowed her to wriggle them a little.

Then she was forced back inside the big black suitcase.

My coffin
.

They zipped it shut, rolled her to their car, hefted her into the trunk and drove. Tilly couldn't make sense of her nightmare. Why were they doing this to her? She didn't really understand why they were so mad at Lyle. He was nice to her, he worked so hard at his business and her mom was in love with him.

Tilly liked Lyle a lot and hoped that one day they'd be a real family.

Why can't they just leave us alone?

Tilly missed her mom so much. She loved her so much and wanted to be home with her now,
so much.

What if the creeps kill me?

What if I never see Mom again?

Tilly tasted the salt of her tears seeping into her gag and held her breath when she felt the car slow down. As the highway noise decreased she heard the muffled voices of the creeps. They were fighting. The car continued slowing until it stopped dead and the motor shut off.

Tilly heard a door open and the car dipped with the weight shift of someone getting out. She heard more
arguing in Spanish. Then a small noise at the side of the car, the squeak of something twisting, the knock of metal against metal, the rush of liquid and smell of…
they'd stopped for gas
.

Yell. Scream. Make noise! Someone would hear and call police!

No!

What if no one heard? They were already angry.

Tilly did not move, except to brush her tears. That's when she discovered that her sweat had dissolved some of the adhesiveness of the tape. She wriggled her wrists and felt her bindings slip ever so slightly.

She worked her wrists a bit more.

The tape remained secure, but little by little Tilly could feel her bindings loosening.

Black Canyon City, Arizona

S
ome forty miles north of Phoenix, the white Ford sedan with Tilly Martin captive in the trunk exited Interstate 17.

Dangerously low on fuel, Tilly's captors had driven into Black Canyon City, looking for a service station. Ruiz was behind the wheel, concentrating on scanners and radio news reports, while Alfredo nagged him about their predicament.

“I don't like this,” Alfredo said. “We should call the bosses, end it now.”

“Shut up.”

“But it's not good, Ruiz.”

“You are like an old woman. Do you have any balls?”

Ruiz questioned the wisdom of the bosses in Mexico who'd selected Alfredo for this job. He lacked the ability to think quickly on his feet. If the jackass came within a hair of becoming a liability, Ruiz would remove him without hesitation, probably with the Glock-20 he had under his seat.

Black Canyon City sat in a valley carved out before the Bradshaw Mountains foothills. It used to be a stagecoach station. All seemed peaceful in the night as sleepy frontier storefronts flowed by. Ruiz focused on the scanners and
radio news. Hearing nothing on their motel, he resumed analyzing what had happened in Phoenix. Yes, they'd been caught off guard but Ruiz had kept his cool. Reading the unease in the stinking motel manager's face, he'd seized their only option.

Leave.

Ruiz was lucky Alfredo hadn't gone to the door. Alfredo would have shot the manager, because Alfredo was stupid. The jackass had left the tank empty. He'd shown his lack of professionalism by ignoring Ruiz's specific instructions to keep the car's tank full when he picked up take-out food, so they would be ready for emergencies like this.

Shaking his head, Ruiz pushed back his growing anger until he spotted a gas station, a one-story cinder block building with a towering cactus on either side. It had a small café, and a flickering neon sign that offered “Curios” and an invitation to See Our Rattlesnake Display!

Ruiz parked by one of the four pumps designated for self-serve, got out, twisted off the fuel cap, put it on the roof and began filling the tank.

As the gas flowed, he gazed toward the mountains silhouetted against the evening sky and tried not to think of the small human in his trunk. She was a product, nothing more. This was a job, but unlike the others, this one was going to give a brutal message.

Time was almost up.

Soon the
sicario
would be brought in and it would be over.

Like that.

Ruiz glanced at the pump's counter. A chill rattled up his spine when a blue-and-white patrol car for the Arizona Department of Public Safety with two DPS Highway Patrol officers eased up to the store. Ruiz cursed under his breath but continued filling the tank, thankful he'd told Alfredo to tighten the gag on the girl.

The officer who was driving opened his door.

Police radio chatter spilled from the car as he got out. He was a tall, well-built white boy, about thirty, trimmed moustache. He adjusted his utility belt, nodding at Ruiz. Ruiz returned his nod, then watched the officer head into the store.

The second officer was in the passenger seat, flipping through pages on a clipboard and checking the car's small computer.

At that moment Alfredo got out and began cleaning the front and rear windshields. Talking low in Spanish to Ruiz, he asked: “What do we do?”

“Pay for the gas and leave.” Ruiz had finished. “Get back in the car.”

Ruiz replaced the nozzle and followed the officer into the store to pay.

Alfredo watched the officer in the car. He was older, tense with his paperwork, writing, making notes, checking. Alfredo glanced into the store. Ruiz was taking a long time. The officer in the car halted his work and turned his face to the computer. Something grabbed his attention and he spoke into his shoulder microphone.

Inside the store, Ruiz was standing behind the tall officer waiting his turn to pay when the radio bleated: “Dan, you know that thing we were talking about with the girl in Phoenix? Something's up. They may have them.”

“Really?” the tall officer said. “Guess you owe me ten bucks. I told you that would pop.”

“They just sent a statewide.”

“Well, if your piece of crap unit hadn't blown the rad, you might have been up for some OT. Now, are you sure you don't want anything? Last chance.”

“Yeah, an orange soda and some of those spicy chips.”

The officer went to browse the chip rack and the thin, wrinkled man standing at the cash looked at Ruiz.

“Sir, I can serve you. Just the gas?”

Ruiz nodded.

“Thirty-five dollars.”

Ruiz put a twenty, a ten and a five on the counter.

“Would you like a receipt?”

“No.”

“Have a nice day.”

As Ruiz exited the store, he heard the tall cop's radio going again but could not make out the message, only that the tone seemed urgent. Ruiz just needed to get to his car. The officer paid for his food, then followed him out the door, watching him, suddenly noticing something about the white Ford sedan.

Alfredo saw concern in the cop's face as Ruiz got in the car.

Eyeing Ruiz and the car, the tall officer set his food on the ground and walked directly toward them. In a heartbeat, Ruiz turned the key, started the engine.

“Excuse me,” the officer said as his partner got out of his car to see.

Ruiz's mind raced as he gripped the transmission shifter.

“Hold on there, sir!”

The officer was almost at the car. Alfredo whispered to Ruiz to pull out as Ruiz dropped his hand between his legs to feel the grip of his gun under the seat.

“Don't move!” the officer said, going toward the trunk.

“Jesus. Just go!” Alfredo cursed Ruiz, who sat calmly, watching the officer reach above the trunk, then step to the driver's window.

He held up the gas cap.

“You forgot this.”

“Oh.” Ruiz smiled. “Thank you.”

“We wouldn't want you spilling gas all over the highway.” The cop replaced the cap, tapped the trunk to signal all clear. “Drive safely.”