The Standoff Read online

  Widow pictured a warm, sandy Florida beach in the winter and smiled. That was his destination, he figured. Warm Florida weather, a sandy beach, and surfing all sounded great.

  A few moments later, he found himself yawning, the first time during the entire trip so far. He could stop and check into a motel, but he didn’t.

  He just passed the first exit to a small town with a funny-sounding name—Fancy Gap, Virginia.

  He had never heard of it, and he had been down this way before but never paid attention to that particular exit sign. He never noticed it. If he had, then he was certain he would’ve remembered it.

  Not much farther, he saw a second exit to the same town. This one was more like a pit stop with a single gas station in view from the interstate.

  He stopped and filled up the car’s tank and grabbed a doughnut that claimed to be fresh at the counter, and a cup of coffee, which also claimed to be fresh. He bought the doughnut and the coffee to fill up his body’s tank.

  From the drive down the exit ramp to the short distance to the gas station, Fancy Gap hadn’t struck him as much of a place to stop and hang out. Nothing he saw was very appealing, and he didn’t want to dig deeper to discover its treasures.

  After he filled the car’s tank, he leaned on the hood and ate the doughnut and drank the coffee.

  At the last sip of coffee, he yawned again, which he attributed to the long drive and the doughnut.

  He looked around, gazing up the road and down, looking for any sign of a motel. He saw nothing.

  After putting the paper the doughnut came in into a trashcan, Widow went back into the station to get a refill on coffee and an answer to a question.

  He had to pay for the refill. It was a dollar. Actually, it was ninety-five cents, but what’s the difference? The nickel he got back went straight into one of those charity coin slots to help starving kids from somewhere else.

  The answer he sought was free of charge.

  He asked the gas station attendant where to find the closest motel. The guy told him it was back at the exit he had already passed.

  Widow didn’t want to go back; he never did. He told the guy this very thing. The guy got a little irritated, a little protective of his small town. He replied that Charlotte was to the south in the direction Widow was headed. Then the guy said that Widow might be more comfortable in a big city. And then he added that it was only a hundred more miles on down the road.

  At that point, Widow politely, but aggressively noted that it was a hundred seven miles on down the road.

  The gas station attendant said nothing to that.

  Widow yawned again, rudely, and thanked the guy, and took his fresh refill of coffee and hit the road. The coffee sat in a cup holder and Widow’s ears tuned back into the Chuck Berry station and the guitar sounds.

  One hundred and seven miles later, Widow didn’t stop. He didn’t get a motel in Charlotte because during the drive the caffeine from the coffee had kicked in. He felt awake. He felt alert. And he decided to go forward and see what lie ahead. He should’ve stopped. He should’ve turned back, but Widow never turns back.

  Chapter 5

  T HIRTY-NINE MINUTES after four a.m., two black, unmarked helicopters hovered over the perimeter of Abel’s compound. They kept a wide enough berth and spread and altitude to remain hidden.

  The sounds of rotors could be heard on the ground, but they didn’t care about that. Sounds might raise suspicion, but they would confirm nothing.

  At one gate into the compound, ATF agents wearing body armor were torching through two sets of thick, bolted locks on a metal gate. Getting through the gate was important. It meant the difference between raiding the compound by driveway or choppering in, which would’ve required an entirely new plan.

  As the ATF agents burned clear through both locks, they stopped and retreated to the back of one of three black SUVs. Then the first SUV burst through the gates, followed by the other SUVs and South Carolina State Police cruisers.

  The three SUVs blasted blue flashing lights embedded in the vehicles’ grilles. Ten police cars followed behind them tight, all loaded with more ATF agents, heavily armed with assault rifles, sidearms, and riot guns loaded with tear gas.

  The ATF and police stormed the compound.

  The helicopters closed in overhead, circling, covering vast snowy areas outside the main building. The sounds of the rotor blades echoed over the treetops.

  WHOOP! WHOOP!

  Remaining leaves on trees scuttled off the branches. The branches and trees swayed heavy under the helicopters’ rotor wash, kicking up loose snow. Snow washed and spiraled up into the air like slow-moving, white twisters as the helicopters lowered to the ground, first one, then the other. Multiple ATF agents hopped out of the helicopters and scattered into their unit formations.

  The helicopters rose back into the air, resuming their circling patterns.

  On the ground, gravel and snow kicked up violently under speeding tires. The SUVs’ tires tracked over a long, snow-shoveled driveway and then broke off their course to head in separate directions, covering all likely escape points from the compound.

  The leader of the raid, and Dorsch’s boss, was in the front SUV, on the passenger side.

  The driver skidded the SUV to a stop, one hundred feet from the compound’s main building, where everyone should have been sleeping.

  The ATF agent in charge was a woman, but the leader of the SRT team was a man. The ATF’s SRT stands for Standard Response Team, which is a team of tactical operators with SWAT skills, training and duties.

  Officially, the show belonged to the agent in charge, but only after the raid was over and arrests had been made—her investigation, his operation. But the raid was the SRT’s turf. The SRT’s leader was a typical former military hard-ass, like many guys she knew.

  She jumped out of her SUV, left the door open, and switched her rifle ‘s fire selector to single-shot, a precaution because her intel had reported that the compound was loaded with children and elderly people. They didn’t know for sure how many were living there, but they estimated that it was near a hundred.

  The team leader made the call to move in and stand by at tactical positions surrounding the main building.

  The helicopters sprang to life and huge beams of light flashed out of spotlights attached to their underbellies.

  The helicopter beams of light washed over the compound, the grounds, the trees, the snow, and the buildings, the barn, and the front and rear entrances of the main building. The lights shone over a little church off to the farthest distance of the cluster of buildings to the east. It washed over a large barn, over outer and inner fences that housed goats and sheep.

  The chicken pen lit up and then went dark.

  The chickens made no noise because they weren’t there. They had been moved into the barn because of the cold weather. So had the goats and the sheep.

  The state police cars and ATF SUVs drove around the yards, circling the compound like a group of outlaw bandits circling a wagon train of weary travelers.

  Several police cars pulled up the rear and drove over snowy hills to get as close to the sides and back as they could.

  One of the helicopters circled around to the back and washed its spotlight over the windows and the back doors.

  Police lights spiraled—fast, washing blue lights over everything.

  The agent in charge stood by her SUV. She was short, barely five feet tall. She wore business casual attire—black pants, black boots, black button-down top—underneath a Kevlar vest which read: ATF. Over that, she wore a black winter coat with a hood and wool lining.

  She stayed back behind the hood of the SUV. One of her agents handed her a megaphone. She took it and spoke into the radio.

  “Joseph Abel. Athenians. This is Agent in Charge Adonis of the Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco Agency. With us is the South Carolina State Police. We have warrants to arrest you and to search the premises. We want you to step out here. Slowly and wit
h your hands visible. We want this to be a peaceful exchange. Please comply with this demand. You got sixty seconds. If you refuse to obey, we will enter with force.”

  Most of the Athenians were farmers. She didn’t want to use force, but she had to find her guy. The Athenians were a part of a crazy, anti-government cult, but they were still farmers, no match for nearly a hundred ATF agents and police armed with assault rifles, shotguns, three SUVs made with reinforced steel and ten police cruisers, not to mention two federal tactical helicopters.

  The people inside would need at least sixty seconds to be woken up in the dead of night, put on their clothes, and shuffle outside to see what was going on.

  Abel would have to get out of whatever silk-sheeted, king-sized bed he spent his nights in. She imagined that he was not alone, either. He probably had two young girls in bed with him. At least, that’s what she pictured when she was learning about him. She tried to not let things cloud her judgment, but Abel’s file was of a man who was as despicable as they come.

  She had done the research on him. She had read stories about the Athenians too. They were hard to peg because like many crazy, religious cults, they were armed with crazy ideas and guns, and led by a sexual predator.

  Abel might not even be asleep. He might’ve been in the throes of passion with two under-aged girls or one of his wives or whatever young girl was the victim today. She had no proof of this, but it was the first thing that she imagined. She couldn’t help it.

  One thing that made Adonis a good agent was her ability to imagine the worst in people. It was a curse, really, but useful in law enforcement. She saw her negativity as a power that heightened her suspicion in people. Profiling is a useful tool, even if it is frowned upon by the public. But it only works for those who are gifted and well trained. Profiling is skewed by the user’s prejudices. If you have a prejudice against criminals, then it works fine. If you’ve got prejudices against short people, then it’s a corrupted tool.

  The other reason why she gave them sixty seconds was that she didn’t. It was a lie. They weren’t giving them sixty seconds. They were going to wait forty-five, no longer. At forty-five seconds, it wasn’t her show anymore. It belonged to the SRT team leader. Normally, he’d give the order to fire tear gas into the compound, forcing them to run out. But they couldn’t use tear gas. The windows to the main building were barred. There was too much risk of the canisters just bouncing outside.

  Before the team leader took over, she had instructed him to give a shoot-to-kill order on Abel, if the man resisted even a little bit.

  They were not to shoot any of the followers, unless necessary.

  It had been more than twenty-five years since Waco, Texas, and the standoff with David Koresh and his followers. It was still a black mark on the ATF’s history. They had learned their lesson back then the hard way.

  Adonis had no intention of repeating it.

  She lowered the megaphone’s receiver, and set it on the hood of the SUV. She raised her rifle and stared down the sights and waited.

  The team leader gave a command over the radio feeding into the agents’ earpieces. The SRT agents moved in and surrounded the main building. Boots shuffled through the snow to tactical positions over corners and against brick walls, some predetermined, others chosen on the fly.

  Trigger fingers slid into trigger housings, ready to shoot to kill. The ATF agents and the South Carolina State Police in rear positions stayed low, stayed behind the cover of thick metal SUVs and police cars.

  Snipers set up their rifles from back near the busted gate and from two adjacent snowy hills.

  Both helicopters had marksman shooters aiming from open side doors.

  Three agents sported riot guns, loaded them with the tear gas canisters and waited.

  Assault rifles took aim at the possible points of escape. Eyes accessed the different possible escape routes from the main building, but also factored in the other structures as well, in case of an ambush, even though they knew that the Athenians were inside the main building.

  Still, they had to plan for unknown variables. The only intel they could go on was what happened outside and not indoors. They could only go on what they could see and not what they could not. They had no idea if the Athenians had built underground tunnels, which would mean a whole different set of rules of engagement.

  The SRT agents looked organized and strategic, as if they were prepared for anything, but the truth was this whole operation had been assembled the afternoon before. That didn’t hinder the SRT too much because they practiced entry and capture every single day in various ATF-owned properties. These guys lived for this.

  Adonis knew that. She had faith in them. Still, it was a last-minute Op, which happened a lot. Criminal enterprises usually run on tight schedules, just like businesses. The ATF had to maintain the ability to operate on a dime. They had to be adaptable.

  The official green light for the raid had come hours ago, followed by the team leader being brought up to speed, followed by a briefing of the intel with his guys on the compound’s layout, and then a plan was put into place. Now, they were executing it.

  Agent Adonis could’ve been angry with the agency for not taking her more seriously before. She was the one who had been pushing hard that Abel was bad news for weeks.

  Now, with a missing undercover agent, they took her seriously. She just hoped they weren’t too late. She hoped that Dorsch was still alive. For her, it was more than camaraderie. It was more than doing the right thing. It was personal. She was involved with him. They were more than friends. They were having an affair. She hadn’t felt guilty about it, but if he died; that would be a different story altogether. If she couldn’t get him out alive, it would be her fault.

  It took the potential death of an undercover agent to get the ATF to listen to her.

  The green-lit raid made that apparent because with official backing came more manpower, more guns, and more money than the tiny five-man team she had been given to investigate two weeks earlier.

  She had sent Agent Dorsch in undercover and kept four agents working support, but there wasn’t much they could do without blowing his cover.

  Agent Adonis stayed calm, stayed alert. She looked at her watch, a clunky, but reliable Timex piece. It had a simple digital face, with multiple functioning buttons and a black, rubber wristband. It was the same watch she had used as a teenager. It was the same watch she had had back in the Marine Corps, and it was the same one she still trusted. It was almost superstitious, like a ball player’s lucky pair of socks.

  Adonis looked back down the rifle and waited.

  The helicopters swooped around slowly, hovering like giant buzzards.

  Chapter 6

  I NSIDE THE COMPOUND, no one was asleep. Everyone was fully clothed and fully awake, as if they had been waiting for the ATF. They had already prayed, but that didn’t stop them from being stone-cold nervous. Some of them were more nervous than others, which was understandable. The more nervous Athenians had an important task, which gave them a sense of pride but also nearly paralyzed them with fear, both at the same time.

  Many of them shook and trembled and shuddered. They couldn’t help it. It was only natural. They were afraid. Some of them hid it. Some didn’t, but they all shared it.

  That’s why Abel had instructed some of them to stuff a slug of raw opium paste between their gums and cheeks. It helped calm them. It made them euphoric and more likely to follow through with their assignments. Belief would only take them so far.

  By the time the ATF showed up, they were high as kites, which was all a part Abel’s plan.

  They waited until Adonis made her plea over the megaphone. They waited for the beams of helicopter searchlights to wash over the barred windows before they made their moves.

  They all wore white: white slip-ons shoes, white pants with no pockets, white tops, white vests, white cotton jackets, and white skull caps.

  Their clothes were all starched and pressed and
neat as if they were gearing up for an event that would be the defining religious experience of their lives, something biblical, like the next great flood.

  In their minds, this was the rapture they had been promised. The dead would rise to plague the earth and they would ascend to heaven. It was all right there in scripture and Abel’s sermons.

  The children were spread out along the walls, holding hands, standing in lines—single file, waiting to head out to the grounds, waiting to meet with the “bad men.”

  They had been taught that outsiders were bad, until they were initiated.

  The children thought they were going to go out and be brave little warriors. They were taught that they were fighters for Abel’s teachings—for the ways of their saviors.

  They shivered from fear and confusion. The children weren’t given the benefits of the opium. They were fully aware. They were present.

  The older ones were more scared than the younger ones because they had a better comprehension of the events unfolding, more grasp of reality.

  Fear hit them hardest.

  They were also more steadfast because they had been preparing for this day most of their lives.

  The younger ones were convinced that the whole thing was a game.

  Half the Athenians stood at the front entrance and the other half at the rear.

  Adults stood in front of children like protectors from the “bad men.”

  In each group of Athenians, there stood one who wore all the same white garb, did all the same things, blending in with the rest, but was different.

  The different ones among them were the ones with the opium in their gums. But that wasn’t all that was different about them.

  On their persons, they possessed two additional items that made them stand out. They wore exploding suicide vests. In one hand, each held a small remote, like for a television, but with only a single button.

  The vests were suicide bomber vests. The devices in their hands were detonators.