Witness Protection: Hide and Seek (21 page)

Each man held their positions and before long, Cole and the
others, saw that
 
their targets were on
the move.

"Holy Shit," Tanner said as he watched three men,
two short, and one tall, exit the last room on the first floor.

"Let's do this," Cole said. Within seconds, all of
the men were out of the car, guns drawn and moving stealthily towards the
targets.

With Cole in the lead, the others followed suit and when the
three men saw the stampede of agents and marshals charging after them, they
took off running.

Carlos followed Reggie and they ran in the direction of the
woods, while Cole and Faith quickly subdued Manny.

 
"GIVE ME A
FUCKING REASON!" Cole yelled, the muzzle of the shotgun jammed into the
back of Manny's head.

"You go," Faith said. "I got this."

Cole was already on his feet, heading into the motel room.

Gun at the ready, he pushed open the door, and stood back a
second before shouting out for Madison. Jay was dead on the bed, the blood
pooled around him. Cole did not bother checking him for a pulse, he knew that
Jay was dead. Alive or dead, at the moment, it was of no concern to Cole. All
that mattered was finding Madison.

He lowered his weapon, quickly checked under the beds, and
then made a beeline for the bathroom.

Seeing Madison's battered face brought him to his knees and
stunned him into momentary paralysis. He spoke into a mic attached to his ear
and summoned for an ambulance.

His hands were shaking as he pressed his fingers against her
neck. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he felt a low, but steady pulse.
He kissed her softly on her forehead as he peeled the duct tape away from her
mouth. When she didn’t flinch, he grew nervous.

"I'm here baby, and I'm going to get you out of
here," he whispered to her. He was gentle when he placed her head back
against the tub.

After several kicks to the piping, water burst out and he
was able to slide the chain from around the piping.

He couldn’t wait for an ambulance, he lifted her up into his
arms and took off running towards the car.

"Oh thank God. How is she?" Faith asked when he
saw Madison.

"Where the hell are you going? Ambulance is on the
way!" He shouted after his friend.

"Not going to wait. It's faster if I bring her
myself!" Cole shouted back as he ran.

"We'll meet you there," Faith said and tightened
the cuffs around Manny's hands.

Tanner, Spear, and the other agents spotted Carlos and
Reggie. Even though they had sprinted into the woods, years of smoking,
drinking and doing other things had gotten the better of them. Reggie was the
first to take cover behind a tree to catch his breath, and Carlos, not knowing
what to do, stayed near Reggie.

Reggie and Carlos contemplated a minute before coming out
from behind the trees with their hands up. Neither one wanted to continue
running, especially in the woods of West Virginia. Plus, they had no weapons,
their only choice was to surrender without a fight.

"Good job men. Three suspects
taken down and not one shot was fired," Tanner congratulated his men.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm
going to take Deputies Faith and Spear with me to the hospital."

Cole was pulling up to the emergency room doors when he
heard Madison mumble his name. She was coming to and the sound was music to his
ears.

"Just hold on baby," he said and pulled her
closer. "Now let's get you inside."

Madison was quiet as they put her on a gurney, then she
reached out and squeezed his hand.

Everything around her was still fuzzy, but she remembered
Jessica and the man holding a gun to her.

"Is Jessica all right?"

"Yes," Cole replied.

         
Then she said to the nurse,
"This is Cole Harding, my hero." Her voice was dreamlike and she was
on the verge of losing consciousness again.

"And your hero isn’t going
anywhere," he said to her as they wheeled her away.

****

Word spread fast around the small town of Summerbridge. Jay
was dead and a woman had been taken to the hospital. Everyone had heard about
it and everyone was talking about it, and that included Deputy Director Kirsch.
He was sure that Castillo would have taken care of Madison before he left for
the airport, but he was surprised to find out that Madison was still alive. It
was after all, the reason he'd let Castillo follow her to Summerbridge.
Offering up the whereabouts of Hernandez and West had been the specific terms
of the deal they'd worked out with Castillo. Kirsch remembered asking him if
that was all that he wanted. Castillo told him that it was. "All I want is
my freedom and the chance to take care of the two people who'd helped put me
away."

Kirsch was overjoyed. Hernandez wasn’t exactly a saint and
Madison West… well…
when you look at the
bigger picture
, Kirsch reassured himself.
Madison West was collateral damage.

He must have run out
of time
, Kirsch thought to himself and that presented a problem, a big one.

Madison West was still alive and could identify Castillo, a
man who was supposed to be locked away in prison. Leaving a loose end like this
would not be good for his career. Not to mention the fact that there was a
federal prosecutor who had his eye on a political future. There was too much at
stake and he and his office had gambled it all for the sake of catching Guzman.

They'd made the deal with Castillo years prior and even let
him plan, or at least think that he planned his own escape. They were willing
to do anything for him in exchange for information that would take down the
Guzman cartel. After all, this would be the biggest take down since the 90's
when the Medellin cartel was dismantled.

As far as Castillo knew, the plans had gone unchanged; he
was on a plane to Bolivia to meet with Guzman himself. But before that, he was
to meet with agents from the DEA and FBI. They were to outfit him with a small
wire. The wire was to be attached to his scalp and covered up by his own hair.

It was cutting edge technology, designed by one of the
nation's top engineers, the director told him. And it would be completely
undetectable.

Castillo had promised to get them everything they needed to
take Guzman down.

For several years now, Guzman had been dominating more and
more of the drug and sex trafficking trade. He copied the techniques of
terrorist groups by separating his workers into cells, and each cell knew very
little about the other employees.

He also managed to hire very illustrious lawyers to study
the moves of the DEA, FBI and the U.S. prosecutors.

And now, with the help of Castillo, Guzman's reign would
soon end.

"I can't have Madison West running her mouth about
this," he told his agents. "We did what we had to do in order to take
Guzman down and I will not be made a fool of by some silly-citizen who was in
the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What do you want us to do?" One of the agents
asked.

"I want you to go to the hospital and question Miss West.
Find out what she knows and make sure to remind her that it would be in her
best interest and that of her family and friends if she keeps her mouth shut.
And if that doesn’t work, tell her that we'll put her back into the program.
Given her history, I doubt that she'd want to go back in."

"What about Tanner and his raid on the motel sir?"

Kirsch gave a small shake of his head, as if to say what
happened at the motel was not important. "I'll think of something,"
he said.

"Probably have the police chief over there issue a
statement that what happened was nothing more than a drug deal gone bad. That's
not my main concern right now gentleman. Now get over to the hospital and talk
to Miss West."

****

The hours melted into one another as Cole waited to hear the
status of Madison. Each time he asked about her, he was given the same
response, "the doctor will be with you shortly." That was hours ago
and his patience was wearing thin.

Deputies Faith and Spear showed up with Tanner and while
they waited to hear news about Madison, William Tanner filled in the gaps. He
told them all about Castillo and his deal with the feds.

"Almost immediately, after he was put away, Castillo
began working out a deal with the feds. You see, after Castillo was arrested,
Guzman starts to break down the cartel. Now by break down, I mean he started to
fragment. Some of the other lieutenants realized that the larger organizations
had been more vulnerable to attack by the United States and the Bolivian
authorities.

So in order to combat that, Guzman formed smaller, more
controllable groups and began compartmentalizing all of their
responsibilities.
 
For instance, one
group smuggles the drugs from Bolivia to Mexico. Another group just controls
the labs. Yet another, deals with transportation of the coca base from the
fields to the labs.

There are well known links between the Bolivian rebel groups
and the cocaine trade. Rebels protect the fields and the labs in remote zones
of Bolivia in exchange for a large tax that the traffickers pay to the
organization.

"Its big business, but I don’t have to tell you
gentlemen that." Tanner looked around at the small group of men.

"Why not just go after Guzman from the beginning. Why
waste time going after Castillo?" Cole questioned.

"Look fellas, a lot of politicians are involved with
this. And we all know that dealing with a lot of politicians, especially
crooked ones is never a good thing. I mean, these past few years alone, Guzman
invested heavily in political protection both here and in Bolivia. Not to
mention, that there are hundreds of Congressmen and Senators who have been
accused of accepting campaign financing from the Guzman cartel."

"I bet the feds are salivating over this take down,"
Faith said.

"You bet they are, and I'll tell you another thing.
They're willing to let Castillo take over the business. Start it from scratch
just so they can indict Guzman."

"It's the classic
Class
One Arrest
, isn't it?"

"Class One?" Spear asked. "Isn't that a DEA
thing?"

"That's what they want you to think," Tanner
replied.

"There's a lot of pressure on agents to make as many
Class One
cases as they can, for one
simple reason, federal agencies rationalize their budgets with statistical
reports to Congress, and Congress loves
Class
Ones
.

Fellas, we've got DEA agents who pose as pilots, just so
they can fly cocaine from Bolivia to Madrid through American airports. The
agents with the highest percentage of
Class
Ones
are the people who get huge rewards of the monetary kind, and the big
promotions. Over the years the professional rats, who create more than 98
percent of all drug cases, have learned that selling a
Class One
to the government is worth a much bigger
"reward" payment."

"And let me guess, Castillo wasn’t a
class one
three years ago."

"He was up there, but he wasn’t a
class one
. Now we all know that the feds are already trained to be
duplicitous. But add to that the exposure to deceitful, lying, scumbag
politicians, and bureaucrats, then you come up with some agents willing to bend
the facts to their own favor. There are officials involved in this who simply
want results, not for the good of the country mind you, but for one simple
reason, to make themselves look good. They don't give a damn how the
class ones
are acquired, just as long as
you don't embarrass them by getting caught.

Some agents are even willing to write up a street-level
dealer as a
class one
based on
"evidence" supplied by a so-called confidential informant, or a
rat."

"It's all bullshit!" Cole shook his head. "I
don’t give a shit about Guzman, I want Castillo taken down for good. I'll go to
Bolivia myself, if I have to."

"No need to do that my friend," Tanner replied.
"I've got a much better idea and all it will take is a simple phone
call."

"I'm listening," Cole said.

By the time Tanner was finished, the men looked at one
another.

"You really need to think about this," Faith
stared at his friend. "I mean really think about it."

Cole nodded his head. Faith could tell that his friend was
sorting it all out in his head, but having a hard time.

A doctor swung open the ER doors. "Madison West?"

Cole and Faith stood up. "Yes. How is she doctor?"

"She's still out of it. But, we've screened her blood
so that we can find out what drugs are in her system. But it's going to take a
while. Now, once the drug or drugs are identified, we can monitor how fast they
are being cleared out of her body.

We've
 
also taken
urine tests to detect changes in her body's chemistry. It would save time if we
knew what she was injected with, but until we know for sure, we're going to
keep her here overnight. Now we think it was heroin, her pupils are small, her
breathing shallow, there's discoloration of the tongue and underneath her
fingernails.

"Then can't you give her some kind of anecdote? Or pump
her stomach or something?" Cole asked.

The doctor shook his head. "No. Pumping one's stomach
is a brutal process, one that this hospital does not do anymore. Plus, the drug
has already been adsorbed into her body, if she vomits while she's unconscious,
she could choke.

 
And like I said, we
aren’t sure and there's no guarantee that heroin is all that she was injected
with. For now, we need to concentrate on keeping her alive while the drug
courses through and out of her system.

So, we'll keep her here overnight, keep her stable, and give
her plenty of fluids. That's all that we can do for now."

"When can I see her?"

"She's pretty out of it, but she has had a few lucid
moments. So I'll let you see her one at a time."

****

Cole smiled and thanked the doctor as he led him into the
room.

"Remember," the doctor said. "Not too
long."

Cole nodded his head and stood in silence near the
footboard.

Except for the occasional beep and hiss from the monitors,
the room was quiet.

Madison slowly opened her eyes. "Cole?"

"I'm right here baby," he said and kissed her
gently.

She smiled weakly, glancing around the room and examining
the tubes in her arm.

"What am I doing here?"

"What do you mean?"

"How long have I been here?"

"Not long baby," Cole said, not able to say more.
She was still out of it and he didn’t want to add to the confusion.

"Oh, I remember now," she said matter of factly.

"I did this," she whispered. "This was all my
fault."

"No, this was not your fault." Cole stayed close,
his arms encircling her, gently squeezing.

"I should have listened to you. Everything you said was
true. He came after me and I couldn’t do anything. All the defense classes, gun
lessons, nothing helped. I felt so helpless."

Madison let herself shrink into his arms and let it all go.
As the tears left her body, so did the lucidness.

A nurse had tiptoed into the room to check her vitals.

"I'm so tired." Her words were now slurred and she
roughly pulled herself away from his embrace.

"Get out," she mumbled and closed her eyes.

The nurse could see the look of confusion on Cole's face.

"Don’t take it personally," the nurse said.

"The drugs are leaving her body and that's what is
causing the sudden behavior changes. Her body isn’t used to any kind of drug,
so her body will not have had the chance to become acclimatized to it. That's a
good sign though, it tells us that the drugs are ejecting themselves from her
body. She's going to be okay Mister Harding." The nurse reassured him.