In Desperation

30

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?”