Whirlwind

39

Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Texas

The window and door of Unit 21 of the Tumbleweed Dreams Motel filled the viewfinder of Mark Danson’s Canon camera.

With his face clenched behind it, Kate noticed the fan of wrinkles around his eye as he rolled his long lens to focus. They were over a hundred yards from the unit in a small park. Dallas police had sealed the area and were setting up for the SWAT team to make an entry.

Kate’s pulse was still pounding as it had been since the news broke on the scanner.

By the time Danson had picked her up at the bureau, Tommy Koop had sent them the address for the motel in the southeast.

“I know that place,” Danson said as he keyed coordinates into his GPS then adjusted his portable police scanner so they could listen to updates.

Kate had watched the Metroplex blur by her window as Danson’s Jeep Wrangler sailed along the expressways to the scene. Marked Dallas patrol cars had moved into the area without lights or sirens and had set up an outer perimeter a few blocks from the motel. They stopped traffic from entering the hot zone. Danson drove along the boundary before coming to a park, which offered a line of sight on the motel.

He’d tucked his portable scanner into a pocket of his photographer’s vest, connected an earpiece to monitor transmissions. Then he’d crouched at a park bench, where he was now, using the backrest to steady his lock on Unit 21.

“They’re still setting up,” Danson said. “Take a look, Kate.”

He held the camera as Kate drew her eye to the viewfinder. The image of the door and window, with its drawn curtains was powerful; close and crisp, silent and ominous until-

“The curtains moved!” she said.

“Yup,” Danson said. “Someone’s definitely in there.”

Kate kept her face welded to the camera as her pulse continued its steady pumping.

Is that them? Is the baby in there?

Out of sight a block north of the motel, the Dallas SWAT team set up a command post in the parking lot of the Diamond Lake Flooring Depot. Team leader Mitch Osweiler used the hood of an unmarked Dodge to unfurl a map of the motel property and the floor plan, while outlining the inner perimeter and developing an entry and arrest strategy for Unit 21.

At the same time, plainclothes officers knocked on the doors of all occupied units, then quickly and quietly escorted guests to a safe zone beyond the perimeter.

While preparations got underway, the SWAT team commander Steve Elling and negotiator Andre Kuper joined FBI Agents Phil Grogan and Nicole Quinn in the motel office to talk to the manager, Shelby Nix. After quick introductions, Grogan said, “Where are we at with this?”

“Mr. Nix thinks our targets are guests in his motel,” Elling said.

Grogan glanced at the FBI flyer that Elling had already placed on the counter before Nix.

“You’re certain, Mr. Nix?” Grogan asked.

“I’m pretty sure, yes. They’ve got a baby and they made a heck of a lot of noise yesterday, arguing. People complained. It’s Unit 21, Luke and Ashley Johnson, from Houston. They paid in cash.”

“We ran the names with Houston PD,” Elling said. “No hits, nothing.”

“An alias, likely,” Grogan said. “Got a vehicle and a plate?”

“Mr. Nix here says that he thinks the vehicle’s a Ford pickup, but the plate came up for a 2010 Toyota in Fort Worth. Fort Worth PD confirms the owner reported the plate stolen from a mall parking lot.”

“We see you have a video security system, Mr. Nix. Would you volunteer the recordings for the FBI to analyze?”

“I’d have to check with the owners. But I gotta say, it’s not a good system.”

“We can always get warrants,” Grogan said, turning to Elling. “Okay, we’re ready if you are.”

“Hold it,” Quinn said. “When’s the last time you actually saw this couple, Mr. Nix?”

“Yesterday. I saw the guy get into his truck. Then later I saw the mother on the street like she was taking the baby for a walk.”

“How would you describe the baby’s condition?”

“I don’t know. I heard it crying pretty good the other day. Aside from that-” Nix shrugged “-okay, I guess, but I didn’t get a good look at it.”

“Okay,” Elling said. “But you told the dispatcher you heard activity in the room less than an hour ago. The TV was on?”

“Yes.”

“All right, if we’re good to go, let’s call into the room and our negotiator, Andre, will ask them to step out and we’ll do this peacefully. First, I want to make sure our SWAT folks are in position.”

Commander Mitch Osweiler directed his SWAT team to establish an inner strike zone by first sending in scouts to determine the line of fire and safety points. Once they were good to go, squad members wearing helmets, armor, headset radios and equipped with rifles and handguns began taking positions. Sharpshooters took key points while the utility man, the breacher and other team members lined up on the unit. The squad pressed against the motel’s blistering walls as they inched toward the room from either side. Across the courtyard, sharpshooter L. C. Stonewood used a concrete planter as cover.

The window and door of Unit 21 filled his scope.

A tense silence hung in the air.

“Good to go,” Osweiler said into his headset.

“Ten-four,” Elling responded into his radio in the motel office. He nodded to Andre Kuper to make the call.

Kuper dialed the room number, but the phone rang unanswered. A minute later he stepped from the office and, using an unmarked police SUV as a shield, spoke through his bullhorn.

“To Luke and Ashley Johnson.” Kuper’s voice cracked across the small courtyard. “To Unit 21. Luke and Ashley Johnson in Unit 21. This is the Dallas Police Department. We want to talk to you. For your own safety, would you exit now with your hands raised and your palms forward, please.”

Several long, silent moments passed.

Kuper tried calling in again, then repeated the police order through the bullhorn.

No response.

After several more minutes had passed, Elling made a decision.

“You’re good to go, Mitch.”

Osweiler spoke into his headset to his team. “Go! Go! Go!”

The entry team popped the door and rushed into the small room, sweeping it with their weapons, checking the closet, tossing the mattresses, the sofa bed.

Nothing.

The room was empty.

The TV was on. The bathroom door was closed.

A soft noise could be heard coming from the bathroom.

“Dallas Police! Exit the room with your hands raised now!” the squad leader shouted.

Movement was heard from the inside but nothing happened.

The order was repeated.

Nothing happened.

The team popped the door and a member with another behind him entered, guns at the ready, finding a woman crouched on the floor of the shower stall crying. Team members searched her for weapons then secured her wrists with handcuffs.

“Room clear. One female in custody,” the squad leader reported.

“Got an ID on her?” Elling asked over the radio.

A few seconds later Osweiler responded: “She says she is Daisy Culpepper. She’s intoxicated.”

Elling repeated the name to those in the motel office.

“Daisy?” Nix, the manager, was surprised. “That’s Daisy, from housekeeping. I fired her for missing too many shifts.”

In the park, Danson’s camera whirred with rapid-fire speed, clicking as he shot frame after frame of the action. He’d captured dramatic images of a distraught woman with bound wrists being escorted across the complex by the imposing, heavily-armed members of the SWAT team.

“Let’s go, Kate.” Danson yanked his earpiece from his ear, adjusted his camera’s strap and trotted toward the motel.

“Hey! You people, hold it right there!” a uniformed Dallas police officer ordered from his car, some thirty yards away.

Kate froze.

“They just gave the all clear!” Danson shouted to the cop. He held up his press ID and pointed to a TV news crew and a news photographer who’d also emerged from concealed positions and were hurrying to the motel. “Come on, Kate!”

Standing there paralyzed, Kate looked at the cop, then Danson, then the other newspeople who were ignoring the order and running to the motel office where the SWAT team was taking the woman.

I’m not going to be the only one left out on this, Kate thought before running with Danson and the others toward the motel.

They were halfway to the office when Kate noticed several people stepping out to receive the woman. Among them, she’d recognized FBI Agents Grogan and Quinn.

Suddenly Kate heard the loud cry, slurred the way a drunk makes a self-pitied plea, and she realized that the arrested woman was yelling at one of the people in the group.

“Don’t fire me, Shelby! I came in to work! I cleaned that room! I cleaned every damn corner, every damn inch! Twice!”

As Kate got closer, more newspeople had materialized along with police officers who blocked them from getting near the office. Photographers continued shooting pictures. As the growing pack swarmed the area, Kate noticed several new figures who were not press: Jenna and Blake Cooper, along with Jenna’s sister and brother-in-law.

“Where’s Caleb?” Jenna yelled at the woman. “What did you do with my son?”

Jenna then saw Grogan.

“Agent Grogan!” Jenna shouted. “Where’s my son? Did you find him? You knew this was happening- Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It’s the parents,” someone in the pack said.

The news photographers, including Danson, shifted their attention to Jenna and Blake.

“PLEASE!” Jenna shouted. “Somebody tell us something. Where’s our baby! We have a right to know! Why did we have to find out from the TV news? HE’S MY SON!”

Grogan spoke quickly into the ear of one of the senior Dallas cops, who dispatched uniformed officers to shield the Coopers from the press and get them into the office. As that happened, Jenna found Kate.

“You knew, too, and you never told us!” Jenna yelled. “But you want me to tell you everything and I did!”

It was true.

Kate burned with shame at Jenna’s reproach. The call had come in so fast, she’d had to move so quickly, she’d forgotten about her promise to keep the Coopers in the loop. Jenna’s words tore at her as they echoed from under the motel’s canopied reception area and over the courtyard.