Chapter 36

Wednesday morning 0330

When we tied up at the U.S. Coast Guard dock and debarked, we were met by our excited, although half-asleep family members. “What should we do with your boat?” the local U.S. Coast Guard commander asked, grinning.

“Use it for target practice, let your men use it for fishing on their days off, or sell it and donate the money to the U.S. Coast Guard retirement fund,” I teased back. “Seriously, though, sell it and donate the money to a good cause,” I insisted.

“I heard about the punishment for the smugglers,” he whispered, chuckling. “Why did you leave the lifeboat?” he asked. I explained which sent him into a laughing attack.

Our families had both Gulfstream C-20s here, one for my family, and one for the families of the other nine troops on the boat with me. The other troops, handlers, and dogs had returned home yesterday.

By the time we returned home, the head of the Bay St. Louis drug smugglers had been captured and was in jail, and the ATF and DEA had cleared out the cache of drugs and weapons from the barn. Once again, my chopper pilots did most of the work transporting everything. The government figured it was cheaper to use my choppers since I didn’t charge for their use except for fuel. While it didn’t offset the cost of maintenance, we would eventually get most of the weapons that we had seized. I only grumbled a little for appearances when my troops wanted to keep the RPGs. I figured that they would be good weapons to keep aboard the Pickup Truck.

Friday February 15

I managed to get through the interviews announcing my sponsorship of the three truck teams without any screw-ups. One of the commentators asked how the government could justify sponsoring a racing team in the midst of all the budget cuts. I quickly corrected him, explaining that I paid for the sponsorships that we rotated amongst the five federal agencies to promote the work they did every day protecting the citizens of this country.

Thursday February 21

As much as I wanted to be at all the races, I had a ranch to manage. About half the people in the box watching the time trials, practices, and races were bigwigs from the five federal agencies that would be sponsored on the two trucks. Even Dieter made it to some of the races. The others came from the ranch and were absolute NASCAR junkies.

I made it for the obligatory TV shows and interviews the day before the Truck race, having barely returned from searching for a kidnapped girl late the night before. Fortunately, we found her before anything bad happened to her. I can’t say that nothing bad happened to the kidnapper. When he turned his hunting rifle towards the FBI agents, he met a fusillade of bullets. Among them was one of my .50 caliber anti-sniper rounds that pierced the vest he mistakenly thought would protect him.

Friday

During the pre-race talk shows, there was lots of discussion about the various services, all good. I was wound up tighter than a drum when the green flag flew Friday night to start the race. Two hours later, I was nearly hoarse from screaming during the race, much to the amusement of everyone in the room with us. At the end of the race, I had to be in the infield of the racetrack because my driver won. His teammates came in second and third.

Fortunately, being hoarse kept me from having to do interviews aside from whispering one-word replies, although most of the interviewers laughed at me.

I slept in until almost 9:00 the next morning, an exceedingly rare event for me. We hadn’t gotten home until 2:30 in the morning, and I was still tired from the manhunt the previous day.

The rest of February was just as busy as the first half. Connor and Ryan started advertising for help in Alabama and Louisiana. With the economic hits the country was taking from sequestration, more and more people were desperate for the work. Connor supervised the greenhouse construction and construction of the additional or expanded farm buildings we would need, as well as more worm and compost beds. Ryan supervised the housing construction.

For now, we expanded the housing by bringing in more manufactured homes, and even mobile homes. Every time a slab was fully cured, a manufactured or mobile home went in the next day. As the people from the manufactured home company did the installation, part of Ryan’s much-enlarged crews poured more slabs, and the rest of his crews framed more houses. I had to laugh because that part of our property was beginning to look like one of the subdivisions going in on the site of my original place in North Carolina. I’d been to the site more than once just to see how things were progressing.

Dad bought yet another property. This one was at the south end of the wooded property. It ran behind our properties on the opposite side of the road from the creek. The timber cutters returned and began clearing land for more housing. Ryan graded roads for the timber cutters to use and their trucks rumbled by carrying felled trees all day long. Those lumber roads would eventually become our roads into the next housing area. Dad also bought fifty beehives since we wouldn’t have nearly enough once the new fields started flowering.

Eric Kammerman, the new guy sent to work with Adam and George arrived. Like George and Adam had previously, he had just finished rehabilitation for a serious wound he received as part of a CIA special operations team. The three men knew each other and were quickly swapping war stories. While they started showing Eric around, I called Dieter to let him know that Eric was hired.

Plans for the parade were finalized, and the newspaper did a front-page story about it. The story included the old Halloween picture Mom had taken of me dressed like Lucky Jim. Jacqueline had been conveniently cut out of the picture.

Saturday March 2

I was excited when I woke up today. As much as I dislike being compared to Lucky Jim and hate drawing attention to myself or things I’ve accomplished, something about representing my namesake today in the parade had me more excited than I used to get going to a parade when I was a kid. I had even found one of our horses to ride in the parade that could almost pass as Jim’s horse Lightning. Even being unable to find my morning paper this morning couldn’t ruin my good mood.

I got to town two hours before the parade, worried about traffic--and for good reason. Downtown was a freaking parking lot. When Eunice found me currying “Lightning,” she told me that she’d never seen a turnout like today’s. She also warned me that there would be a surprise for me once we captured the train station.

I don’t know how close to being historically accurate our depiction of the capture was, but the people and news crews that were close enough to see didn’t care and cheered. Then the cheering all around us suddenly began increasing in volume and coming closer as I started to get onto my horse.

My eyes bugged out once I was astride Lightning. Coming down the streets from the north, south, and west were Sioux warriors--real Sioux warriors--complete with Union Army jackets, war paint, bows, and antique Spencer Repeating rifles. Leading the column from the north was Robert Red Fish with a grin a mile wide on his face.

When he reached me, he introduced me to the Tribal Council of the Sioux Nation who had ridden in leading the other two columns. “The Sioux Nation recognizes and is honored to again ride with Lucky Jim,” the Chief Elder announced as we shook hands. Well shit, I was all choked up and had to fight back the tears.

Our quick meet and greet only delayed the parade for a few minutes before everyone mounted up again. It quickly became obvious that I was about the only person in the county who hadn’t known about this as the Sioux were quickly dovetailed in with the “Union” and “Confederate” troops and we began the parade, riding six abreast down the parade route.

At some point, the parade route had been extended from the original one-mile route to three miles when the organizers realized how many people were planning to show up. At each corner I reached after the planned original route, someone had a sign with an arrow to direct me which way to continue. We finally ended up at the high school, and horses quickly filled the football fields, the baseball fields, all the other athletic fields, and the parking lots.

Only then did I learn that my wives had also been invited to join and they had ridden at the back of the column wearing buckskins. I guess this morning’s paper had explained about extending the parade route, about the Sioux arriving to join the celebration, and about my wives riding in the parade. No wonder I couldn’t find the paper this morning. Somebody hid it, or more likely, the carrier didn’t deliver it since I’m frequently up before everyone else.

Robert was all excited when he caught up with me. He was the one who had called Libertyville and told them about me, and about the parade. Someone told the Tribal Elders, and they wanted to join the parade and contacted Eunice Norwood. Robert introduced me to his father and two brothers. His father carried the original Spencer rifle Lucky Jim had given to his great-great-great grandfather. Robert carried the Enfield that Chief Red Fish’s eldest son carried during the war, and Robert’s brother carried the Spencer Repeating rifle that the son had carried. Most rifles carried by the Sioux today were the original ones given to their ancestors by Lucky Jim.

From the high school, everyone broke up into hundreds of groups and began the actual raids. I was assigned to lead the raids on the homes of the most prominent citizens in Meridian. It was dark by the time we finished. I never realized that Meridian had so many prominent citizens. Of course, each one of them insisting on an official photo for posterity delayed us a great deal. Excerpts from the parade even made the state and national news.

When I finally got home, many from the Sioux contingent were there. The others were already on the way home, mostly to Nebraska. Their horses were being transported in huge horse trailers that had made their own two-mile-long convoy on the interstates from Nebraska to Meridian.

It was a good thing that Juwanna was in on the secret, and there was plenty of food ready for everyone tonight.

Sunday

I was up at my usual pre-4:00 hour this morning. Yesterday had touched me deeply. Seeing the respect the Sioux still had for my namesake made me proud to be related to him, and made me wonder if I would ever do anything as significant as he had. I wondered if my accomplishment would be limited to helping law enforcement reduce the criminal element in the country.

After breakfast, we loaded into pickup trucks and headed into Meridian. Rather than riding horses through the streets like we did yesterday, leaving road apples for some poor soul to clean up, we rode in pickup trucks. Three people rode in the back of each truck, having a dispensation allowing us the privilege. We did have to wear a harness to keep us from falling out, though. We drove up and down all the streets in our assigned area, honking the horns to let everyone know we were there. Even small children ran out to the curb, excited to drop a handful of change into the donation buckets.

Originally, I wondered why the collection area I received was so much smaller than others, but I quickly learned why. When they realized I was the one collecting donations, nearly half the people wanted their picture taken with me, so we had to wait for someone to come out with a camera or cell phone. Many of the pictures were teenage girls wanting a picture with me kissing their cheek.

When Eunice Norwood found me that evening, she was extremely excited. “It looks like we’re going to surpass the highest total we’ve ever collected,” she exclaimed excitedly. They were still waiting to hear from some of the collection teams, but the total currently stood at $614,000, less than two hundred thousand dollars below their previous best total, and we still had four weekends to go since there were five weekends this March.

I barely made it home before I got a phone call from California. I called the security office and quickly grabbed something to eat before heading for the Citation X. I was surprised to find the second Citation X in the hangar with someone painting the Lucky J logo on the tail. The second surprise was finding Robert by the jet waiting for me.

“Walt deputized me as a temporary Deputy Marshal for this case and will do so for any other cases you’re involved in. The team has assigned me to cover your six when you’re in the field,” he explained.

The gear I kept in the main armory was already aboard. Aside from my three guns, I had one set of gear for wilderness cases, another for cold-weather cases, another for desert cases, and another for cases involving swimming or hiding in rivers, lakes, or even the ocean. Still another included the fishing gear Charlie and I had used, although I wouldn’t be using that on this trip. The mountains of Northern California were still too cold for fishing--at least for me. The security office had called pilots in and loaded my gear.

Robert had similar sets of gear now. Once the team had appointed him as my shadow, he checked what I had and created his own sets of gear based on his SEAL training. I took a vector reading right before the plane started moving. The FBI office in Sacramento had sent me a file with the details of the kidnapping case. The kidnapper had grabbed a girl at an afternoon soccer game in northern Sacramento.

Witnesses got a license number of the car, and authorities were searching his home. There, they came across mention of a friend’s cabin near Lake Tahoe and thought he might head there. So far, the Amber Alert had turned up no credible sightings. My vector seemed to rule out Lake Tahoe. The angle didn’t go north of Sacramento until it was fifty miles west of the city.

I called Hector Rivas, my contact there and told him what I had found so far. He sounded discouraged that they had so many resources concentrating on an area that was probably wrong. He was heartened that I’d be there in less than four hours and promised to meet me at the Sacramento airport.

I slept on the plane, waking up to the cell phone alarm I set for two hours later. The new vector intersected the previous one several miles south of Sacramento, right near Interstate 5.

Yet another two hours later, as the jet’s engines spooled down, the Citation X came to a stop. Before unbuckling, I took another vector. This one showed our target to be about twenty-five miles southwest of the airport, in or near the same location as the first two vectors.

True to his word, Hector was waiting when I lowered the stairs and he shook my hand. “Thank you for coming,” he exclaimed excitedly. I showed him my latest vector that showed our target located in farming country, just outside the small community of Elk Grove.

I introduced Hector and Robert, explaining that Robert was along to cover my backside. We loaded our guns into the black SUV, eschewing the wilderness gear and cold weather gear. While we loaded our gear, Hector phoned in for additional agents, giving them the location I had pinpointed.

He was shaking his head when he got off the phone. “I’m sorry, but we’re it,” he sighed. “I took the call when Larry from our Raleigh office called and recommended using you. My boss thinks the stories about you are just that, stories. He told me I could try, but he won’t move any assets from where he already has them set up,” Hector apologized.

I looked at Robert and shrugged. “I think we have plenty of help. What about you?”

“We might keep an ambulance on standby. Otherwise, we have plenty of help,” Robert replied.

Hector stared at the pile of equipment we shoved into his car. “Jesus, you guys look like you’re expecting a war,” he gasped.

“Expecting, no; ready, yes,” I replied.

Forty-five minutes later, we drove down a dirt road, past a singlewide mobile home set amidst several poplar trees. The closest house was a mile away and there were only two more houses down this road. Without slowing, we continued down the road until we were out of sight of the mobile home.

“The girl is still alive in there,” I told them. I didn’t tell them that she was scared shitless.

We parked near the tree and brush-lined slough that ran within a hundred feet of the mobile home. I didn’t feel that the .50 caliber AR-50 would be necessary against a target inside the mobile home. Nor did I think I’d need the XM2010 since we’d be within a hundred feet of our target. The MP5/10 would work just fine at that distance and would easily penetrate the thin aluminum or fiberglass sides of the mobile home.

By the time we got close to the trailer, I had a plan in mind. Neither Hector nor Robert liked it, but I did. Pulling off my windbreaker with U.S. Marshal emblazoned across it, I crawled around on the ground to get my hands and knees dirty. Having chased errant cows before, I made sure I was properly adorned with dirt and mud, and then wiped my hands off on my pants. I ran back to the SUV and drove into the driveway. I left the door open, which left the interior lights on so anyone could see that nobody else was inside.

“Hey, buddy, it’s Jim,” I shouted as I pounded loudly on the door. I could tell that he had heard me drive into the driveway, and was standing just inside the front door.

“My cows found a spot where the fence is down. I need to go onto your property to round them up,” I continued loud enough for him to hear through the closed door.

His alarm level receded and he opened the door slightly. “I didn’t know anybody had cows,” he replied with the door cracked open.

“Just had ‘em delivered today. I just rode the fence line yesterday and don’t know what happened,” I replied.

Seeing that he was checking out the dirt on my pants, I brushed them off. “Sorry, had to get the old post out so I can replace it once I get the cows back inside the fence,” I explained. When I straightened up from brushing my legs off, I saw the soccer uniform shirt of the girl on a chair behind him. He saw where I was looking and glanced back quickly.

“My sister’s kid is visiting,” he explained quickly.

“Been there, done that,” I commiserated, reducing his alarm level. “One more question and I’ll go,” I promised. He looked at me expectantly. “U.S. Marshal, are you going to come peacefully?” I asked as I pointed my Glock at him.

I felt the danger level jump and knew he was moving the gun he had hiding behind the door. Slamming my body against the door, I knocked him backwards and he stumbled over the chair with the girl’s T-shirt draped over it. His pistol went flying one way and he went flying the other.

I was standing over him with my pistol aimed at him when Hector burst in through the door. “You still haven’t answered my question,” I reminded the guy. “Are you coming peacefully, or do you want to rumble?”

“Easy for you to say, you have a gun,” he replied sarcastically.

Hector continued to the back to check on the girl after picking up the loose pistol. Robert came in and was covering us. Stepping back, I handed a stunned Robert my Glock. “Okay, Mr. Tough Talk, now what?” I asked the guy.

A vicious grin began spreading across his face. “I may be going to prison, but I’ll know that I beat the crap out of the puke that put me there,” he goaded.

“More tough talk, but I haven’t seen any action to back it up. I’ll bet the only way you kept that little girl from kicking your ass was by surprising her.”

“Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh,” he roared as he lunged at me. His face ran into my raised knee. I heard Robert snicker from behind me.

“Peacefully, or do you want to try again?” I taunted.

“Fuck you,” he spat as he rolled over and slowly got to his knees. He stopped to wipe the back of his hand on his nose and grimaced when he touched his bleeding nose. “You’ll pay for that,” he warned.

“Do you want the payment in black and blue, or broken bones?” I replied sarcastically.

Considering his first clumsy attempt, I was surprised when he tried a fast karate strike. I blocked it easily, and pulled a strike to his right bicep that was still hard enough to severely reduce his ability to use his right arm, but didn’t completely incapacitate it.