Sugar & Spice (20 page)

I asked, “If prison is so liberating, why are you willing to die, rather than go back?”

“Because we've outgrown that kind of freedom,” Jerry said. “Prison would be a setback for us now. Out here, we've had the freedom to pick a new captive at will. We've had the freedom to drive nice cars, live in a nice home, eat good food. No. We could never go back to Norrell. Never! It's too limiting. No variety. No spontaneity. No makeup. No perfume. Just hardened prison women. Who wants that? Besides, they might try to enslave us.”

“So where's Alexis Connelly now?”

“Right under your nose.”

With that, they hung up.

The Temperton House
Fairfax, Virginia
September 5, 2001 8:30 p.m.

A strong breeze had cooled off the blistering summer in mere moments, which was accompanied by an unrelenting thunderstorm that dumped recycled water on our vehicle by the bucketful. The rain sounded like small pieces of hail pelting the van. Lightning flashed and lit up the darkening sky. The Temperton house was growing darker as time passed. We would be going in soon.

It had been a little over a month since we began our investigation and we were just a hundred feet from two of the most ruthless killers I had ever crossed paths with. I couldn't help wondering why the media was rehabilitating them. The Temperton twins had dismembered people while they were still alive, yet the media kept talking about how they were raised by an absentee father and a crack-addicted mother. Maybe there was something wrong with me. Perhaps being reared in another culture had taught me to punish the guilty.

I had given the order to cut power to the house a few hours earlier. It was approaching nine p.m. My cell rang. It was my husband calling. “Hello.”

“How's it goin'?” Keyth said.

“It won't be long now. We'll be going in when they fall asleep.”

“Guess who came into the office today?”

“Who?”

“Sean Bellamy.”

“Oh really? What did he want?”

“He wanted to hire the firm.”

“Hire the firm to do what?”

“He came into the office today with two bodyguards. Two brothas. Bruisers, both of them. Clean-shaven. Looked like ex-military to me. Anyway, he wants us to find Victoria Warren.”

Surprised, I said, “Why?”

“Says he plans to marry her. He found the contract she signed a few years back. Apparently his mother forced her to sign it with a number of different threats.”

“Are you sure, Keyth? You sure it isn't some trick. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

“He seemed sincere enough. Said he was going to be runnin' for president.”

“And he thinks marrying a black woman is going to help him win?” Everybody in the van stopped what they were doing and looked at me. I didn't mean to say that, but it slipped out. “So are you going to San Francisco, Keyth?”

“No. I'll just put somebody on it. Somebody I can depend on to do a good job.”

“So he thinks she's going to marry him?”

“Yep.”

I looked at the tech. He had his headphones on, listening to Sugar and Spice. I wondered what they were saying that was so interesting. I picked up the thermal scanner and looked at the house. I could see the body heat of the two women in a sixty-nine position. I frowned. Were they doing what I think they were doing? If the look on the tech's face was an indicator, they were. I swear I'll never understand why men find two women together so alluring.

“Keyth, let me call you later.”

Three hours later, the two sisters had fallen asleep on the floor after a short session of vigorous lovemaking. We could hear them snoring. The tech had listened gleefully to the entire interlude. He wanted to use the thermal scanner to complete his voyeuristic adventure but I wouldn't let him. For all I knew, we were going to kill these two women. If they wanted to use their last hours on earth to do something perverse, so be it. But someone had to listen just in case, and I wasn't interested.

It was time to go in, but I was still hesitant. I knew that when they went in, no matter how careful the team was, if the women were able to grab a weapon, the assault team would have to shoot them.

Reluctantly, I picked up my handheld radio. “All units, move into position.” I looked through the tinted glass of the van. Twelve agents wearing night-vision goggles, dressed in fatigues and flack jackets, ran across the street through the torrential downpour. Puddles of water splashed when their combat boots landed hard against the pavement underneath. Six went to the front door and six to the back. A minute later both units checked in.

“Unit one in position.”

“Unit two in position.”

“SAC, this is the team leader. We are in position and good to go. Awaiting further instructions.”

“Standby, team leader,” I said. I looked at the tech, who was still listening. “Are they still asleep?”

He nodded.

I picked up the thermal scanner and looked at their body heat silhouette. No movement.

“Team leader, you are a go. Be advised, the suspects are still sleeping, still in the front of the house,” I said.

“Team leader to all units, we are a go on my command. Remember, we need them alive if possible.” He paused. “Go!”

I heard both the back and front doors being kicked in. Suddenly the lights in the house switched on and loud music began playing.

“Oh, no,” I said.

The lights blinded the agents. Paul McCartney's “Live and Let Die” blared and the loud music disoriented them. The twins had played possum. They had faked everything. They hadn't made love, and they definitely weren't asleep. They had lain perfectly still for over an hour, fully clothed, wearing flack jackets of their own. Then at precisely the right moment, Terry hit a switch that was connected to a portable generator that turned on the lights and music.

The twins picked up their weapons and fired. The agents jerked in response to the armor-piercing bullets that tore through their flack jackets and riddled their unsuspecting bodies. They screamed loudly as each bullet ripped through flesh and bone, hitting arteries, lungs, and other vital organs. Their blood flowed freely and covered the floor.

We heard gunfire! They had tricked me. I knew something was wrong, but this was the furthest thing from my mind. Good thing DCPD was there backing us up. Kelly and I hopped out of the van into the pouring rain, wearing our FBI wind-breakers—weapons drawn. We were carrying 9mms. No match for the automatic weapons we heard being fired inside the Temperton house.

Suddenly the lights were off again and the music stopped playing. As the police converged on the house, the twins came running out with a Tec-9 in each hand. When they squeezed the triggers, the barrels lit up the front yard. Bullets whistled past us and hit the surveillance vehicle, the police cars, and several of the media vans. Kelly and I took cover behind a couple of abandoned squad cars and returned fire.

Several officers were down. Others were in severe pain. I could hear them crying out for help. It was difficult to see in the rain, but the flashes of light from the automatic weapons made it easier to spot the twins. Kelly grabbed the 12-gauge out of the squad car and squeezed off a couple of rounds.

I changed clips and waited. I knew they would have to reload soon. That would be my best chance at taking one of them. In the back of my mind, I knew I needed them alive but they had superior firepower. It was us or them. And I wasn't ready to die.

I heard a clip ricochet off the cement. I looked at Kelly. She heard it
too. We nodded at each other. We both stood up and fired. We hit the same twin. She went down.

The other twin had run to a car and started it. She was backing up. The twin that we shot was on her feet, running toward the car. We shot at them again. The twin behind the wheel stuck her weapon out the window and shot at us. We took cover again.

I grabbed the hand-held radio off my belt. “All units, be advised, the twins are going east on Vermont in a late-model Ford Focus. Do not let them through. Protect yourselves, gentlemen. Even at the risk of killing them. They're wearing vests.”

We fired round after round into the car while we pursued the twins on foot. Up ahead, I could see officers in the middle of the intersection behind their squad cars. They were firing also.

Suddenly I could hear the constant sound of the horn blowing as the car swerved off the street onto the sidewalk and over a fire hydrant. Water shot into the air and splashed down like an oversized drinking fountain. The car continued rolling at a slow pace until it rolled into a tree.

When I got to the car, I saw Geraldine Temperton sitting in the passenger seat with a Tec-9 under her chin, squeezing the trigger. I grabbed the weapon out of her hand and pulled her out of the car. I held her face down in the rain-drenched street and cuffed her. I looked back into the car at Theresa Temperton. Her face had been blown off. I cringed when I saw her. Bits of the windshield were buried in her face.

The situation had gone real bad, real quick. But we had gotten a gigantic break. A break that would save jobs after this fiasco. We had caught one of the killers. Geraldine was still alive, which meant we still had a chance to apprehend Alexis Connelly.

The tech was dead. So were at least ten agents and a few police officers. Several were hanging on to life by a thread. Kortney Malone had taken several bullets in the chest. She was hurt badly, but the rescue worker assured me she would live. For that, I was grateful. Malone would be good for the bureau.

I had known something was wrong. I could feel it. But there was no way to know that they had planned to ambush the FBI Nevertheless, I felt responsible for what happened. What made matters worse was that it was all televised.

Kelly tried to console me, but I made the call. It didn't matter that we all wanted to go in. I made the call. It was on me. Agents were dead. Fortunately, no civilians were hit with all the stray bullets flying around.

The only good thing to come out of the fiasco was that we had captured one twin, and killed another. Hopefully, Geraldine Temperton would help us find Alexis Connelly, who had mysteriously disappeared. We had to get a lead from Geraldine. Something—anything that would lead to her arrest and subsequent incarceration.

Mercifully, the thunderstorm that had soaked us was now over. There must have been eight EMS trucks in front of the Temperton house. I stood in the street watching one of them cart Kortney Malone off to Washington Memorial.

Kelly and I put on a pair of surgical gloves and went into the Temperton
house. We needed to find something that would lead us to Alexis Connelly. We would question Geraldine later. Hopefully she'd want to make a deal.

In the living room, on the floor, we found a battery-powered tape recorder. I pushed the play button and we heard the twins snoring. I shook my head. We had been seriously duped.

Next to the living room fireplace, there was a liquid-cooled Yamaha diesel generator capable of delivering up to sixty-five hundred watts of electricity. There were several lines of electricity from the generator to the lights and the stereo system. The Temperton twins were smart. They knew we would come in with night-vision goggles. Turning on the lights had blinded them and the loud music made it impossible to hear. My anger simmered.

As if they were left for us to find, two red and black bullwhips lay on the couch, coiled as if they were snakes ready to strike. Perhaps I should've been happy, but it was too little too late. Finding the bullwhips wasn't like realizing the receipts were the keys to the killings. Finding the bullwhips now was more like a consolation prize. Thanks for playing Bozo! Take this booby prize and go home.

I went over to the couch and picked one up. Flashes of what had happened to me at my dojo filled my mind. My face contorted when I saw myself being beaten. I can only imagine what the other women must have gone through. The coroner had said the savage beatings must have gone on for over an hour.

“Kelly,” I said, “we have to make them pay for this.”

The Connelly twins had watched the story break on the news like the rest of the country. Detailed reports had been given on how impossible it was for the Temperton twins to escape. They had shown all the roadblocks and had even talked to several uniformed officers. However, none of that would deter the Connellys from rescuing Geraldine Temperton.

They had waited all evening in a fully loaded Hummer with an extended bumper, monitoring the built-in television and police scanner. The WSDC helicopter had been providing aerial photos of the Tempertons' neighborhood all evening. They could possibly watch the vehicle that was taking Geraldine Temperton to FBI Headquarters.

From the drop-down, flat-screen television, they could see the vehicle that the FBI had put Geraldine Temperton into. The helicopter followed the vehicle as it drove away from the accident scene. The twins were moving parallel with the FBI vehicle.

Alexis floored it. She wanted to get several blocks ahead of the FBI so she could cut them off. The WSDC helicopter was still following—still filming the FBI car. Alexis parked the Hummer and turned off the headlights. She watched the television screen and waited patiently for the car to get closer. As the car approached the intersection, Alexis pressed hard on the gas pedal. The tires spun. Rubber burned.

The Hummer slammed hard into the side of the car and threatened to
topple it. The twins grabbed their Styer Aug rifles and hopped out of the Hummer. They stood point-blank in front of the FBI car and sprayed the agents with bullets.

Alexis reached into the car, fumbled through the driver's blood-soaked pockets and grabbed the handcuff keys. She reached for the door handle but the frame of the car was bent and the door wouldn't open. Using the butt of her Styer Aug, she smashed the rear window, stretched inside, and uncuffed Geraldine.