Last Exit for Reality

Its now February 26 and what I thought would be easy turns out not that way at all. I'm now almost finished taking the pain medication but its been a long hard road. I still have some pain so I try to only take one every other day to help get through the pain.

My wife asked me the other day about a case I was working on back when we first got married. I have kept a log about the cases I have worked on or was involved with.

There was a case that took place in the late 80's where I was involved in the beginning but I was not there when it ended. The call came on a Friday afternoon that a truck from a base in Georgia had been hijacked. The two occupants, a drive and a passenger, both were hurt when the truck was taken.

I was told to meet other Agents just north of Atlanta to find the people who had hijacked the truck. I flew into Atlanta where I was meet by Agent Gary and two other Agents. We boarded a helicopter and flew to a small landing strip just outside of Cartersville.

Upon landing we were greeted by two men from the military and two FBI Agents. What ever was in that truck was very important to have this many agencies involved. We all got into cars and drove to a little town just off interstate 75 call Oakland Hts.

We were meet by the Sheriff and some of his men. The sheriff had found the truck near a rock pit. It was empty. When the Sheriff saw all that was involved, he started asking a lot of questions. No answers were forthcoming from us. In fact, he was put out of the loop altogether which he did not like at all.

We left the Sheriff and his town and traveled North on highway 441 until we reached a town call
Rydal. Agent Gary and I were told to stay there in case the perpetrators doubled back.

The other agents went back to Oakland Hgts. and caught a helicopter to Calhoun were they had been sighted. We stayed in that town for two more days waiting until we were ordered home. Two FBI guys had caught the perps and recovered three boxes of something that was not to be opened. So much for this case.

It's now January 11, 2010 and I've been clean from Oxy drugs for four days. The days are OK but the nights are another thing. The only way I can get to sleep at night and beat the withdrawal is to take Valium and wash it down with shots of Tequila. I hope this process doesn't last very long.

The year was early 1990 and I was on vacation with my wife on a boat going south through the islands. That's when I received a call that a CIA agent had been kidnapped. A military brief case was also taken. He had been inside a Tampa base on the west coast of Florida. The word was that they were on their way to the island of St. John. Since I was on my way to St. Thomas, which is the next island over from St. John, I was ordered to help.

My wife and I arrived in St. Thomas on a Monday morning. I was told that the CIA agent being held would arrive on St. John Wednesday by sea plane. I've been to St. John many times looking for and capturing killers and thieves so I knew the area pretty well.

I met six other agents at the docks in St. Thomas early Wednesday and we headed out towards the other island. We had a lead that they going to land on the west side of the island facing St. Thomas. Three of us went to that side of the island to waited while the other three split off and went to the south end of the island.

The sea plane landed just off the docks where we were. We watched the men be picked up by a large boat with more men and a few women on board.

I was watching the boat when I noticed that one of our agents, Tom, didn't look well. He was leaning against the wall. I moved over to him and asked him what was wrong. He told me he had cut his leg a few days ago and had taken some pain pills for the pain. Problem was he couldn't remember how many he had taken and when. This was not good news. He was not thinking clearly and the boat was coming in to land at the dock. I called the other agents. Thank God they had seen the plane coming in and would be there in two minutes.

The boat came to the dock very slowly and they tied the boat to the cleats. Two men came off the boat holding the CIA agent in front of them and headed towards the parking lot. I also noted three other men standing on the boat with guns. Two things were happening at the same time. I knew we couldn't let them leave with the CIA agent. Our other Agents were coming into the parking lot. I knew our job was to take out the men on the boat so the other Agents could rescue our guy.

I grabbed Agent Tom and the other agent and went out of the house to take out the guys on the boat. The other Agent and I went first with agent Tom following. We got a drop on the three men on the boat and they all dropped their guns.

Then I heard Agent Tom yell "gun". I turned around and saw Tom laying on the ground on his side and his automatic rifle firing into the side of the boat. He must have emptied almost a full clip into it. Then I heard automatic fire up at the parking lot. Then the yelling and women screaming started. I looked around trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

The other Agents had two men on the ground and the CIA Agent was rescued. We had two of the three men on the boat also on the ground. Agent Tom had shot one of the men on the boat as he fell to the ground.

The women on board the boat were still crying and yelling. Two agents went into the boat to check out the commotion. I went over to Agent Tom to see how he was doing since he was still laying on the ground. He had tripped over some iron bars on the dock and hurt his injured leg so badly that he couldn't stand up.

I looked over at the boat and one of the Agents came out shaking his head saying oh shit over and over. When Agent Tom fell and his rifle opened up he had killed a women and her child hiding inside the boat, not just the man who was getting ready to shoot us.

When things like this happens it's something you think about for a long time. You think to yourself if Agent Tom wasn't on drugs would he have slipped and discharged his rifle? Would those two innocent people have been killed? If he hadn't fallen and shot the guy on the boat would we be here? Were the innocent mother and child just in the wrong place at the wrong time? And why were they on the boat in the first place? A few hours later I flew back to St. Thomas to be with my wife.

Its almost Christmas and I'm still trying to get off my pain pills. Its been a long and emotional battle. I'm now off the morphine completely but still taking Oxycodone daily. I was taking 10/650mg of Oxycodone along with 60 mg of morphine three times a day. After three months I'm now down to only taking 5/325 mg of Oxy three times a day.

Some days now are hard to get through with this dose, the pain and drug withdraw come often. I always thought that I could get off these drugs in a couple of weeks. I guess I was kidding myself. I've been on the drugs now for about 2 years. I tried cold turkey and that lasted two hours. The chest pains and withdrawal were too much for me to handle.

I was told by both of my doctors that doing cold turkey would probably kill me because of the open heart surgery less than 8 months ago. Those who know me knew that I would try it anyway.

I now have to deal with withdrawal and serious bouts of depression. When the dose of medication runs out or I forgot to take the next dose all hell breaks out. First withdrawal comes within an hour then comes anger, sometimes beyond my control. So far I've been able to deal with it and understand whats going on and realize it's my medication.

I have been dealing with depression for the last 20 years, it has had its ups and downs. It's taken me over 10 years to get it under control. My depression started getting worse again with the introduction of the pain pills. Over the years I have learned the signs and know what might be causing it and how deal with it. Now that I'm trying to get off the pills the depression is becoming harder and harder to deal with. I can be reading, watching TV, listening to music and the depression comes over me.

The doctor has now given me Valium to deal with the depression. The drug sorta works but I only take it when the depression is already happening. It's just another drug I will have to deal with later. I know there are lots of other drugs on the market to take for depression but I have tried most of these over the past years. Mnny cause me serious side effects. Side effects ranging from feelings of suicide to wanting to hurt people.

Many years ago I had a partner who had very similar problems. He had killed a woman and her child by mistake and suffered a serious hip injury during the altercation. I will post this case after the holidays.

I decided about two weeks ago to start some therapy on my back. I had back surgery this past July 20th. I have been feeling fine but my back seemed tight when I twisted side to side. Today while in rehab I was doing some stretching exercises when my neck started to hurt. I guess I had that look of pain on my face when my trainer asked me what was wrong with my neck. I told him I was hit across the neck in the late eighties with a steel rod.

I was working on a case with the USCG in Miami that involved stolen boats. They were being used to bring drugs into the states. Since I hardly ever worked on cases that involved anything other than military interests this kind of case was new to me.

It was a real challenge to me since I was involved in meeting the people whose boats were stolen. It turns out that some of these high speed boats cost up to 800K to buy. The problem was that most of the owners of the boats didn't live where they stored the boats and hadn't notice them missing. After about a weekof working the case I noticed that some of the boats were built by the same company. The company was located in North Miami by the Inter-coastal waterway.

It seemed strange that nobody else had figured out that angle before I did. I went to my boss and he gave me a number to call about the case. I called it and an Agent with the DEA task force answered. I was told that yes, that company had sold many of the stolen boats and one of the managers was an Agent working with them on the inside. I was told there was another company making the same kind of boats in North Carolina.

I hadn't hung up the phone ten minutes when my boss called. I was on a plane to North Carolina the next morning. I landed a couple of hours later and was met by Agents Frank and Ken who were going to assist me.

The agents drove me to a motel about an hour away from the airport. There they laid out the case to me. We drove out to the company that made the boats. We were hoping to find the owner of the company but that was not to happen. We next drove to his home only to find him and his wife both dead. We were running out of leads and going nowhere.

The next day we received a call from the manager that use to work there. He wanted to meet with us right away. We were to meet him at a motel just outside of town, about ten minutes from where we were staying.

I knocked on the door and someone answered and said come on in the door is unlocked. I drew my gun and entered. I was hit behind the head with something and passed out. When I woke up Agent Ken had been shot in the leg and arm and was laying next to me. Agent Frank was standing over the manager whom he had shot and was calling for help. I was bleeding from my head and passed out again. They transported me to the hospital where I stayed for a day and then flew home.

A few days later I call Agent Frank to see how Agent Ken was doing. He told me that Agent Ken's leg was in really bad shape and they might have to amputate it below the knee.

Then I asked him about the case that we were working on. He told me that they had found another boat manufacture in Atlanta, Georgia who was also making these boats. They had raided the place and found the guys who were involved in bringing in the drugs. He told me the raid had gone south. One Agent was shot and three of the bad guys were killed. The undercover Agent had been made and was killed before they could get to him. I listened to him describing the raid. To me it was done poorly with lots of mistakes. I felt both the agent and informer should not have been shot.

I call Agent Ken in the hospital the next day and he told me that they had saved his leg but he would need lots of rehab. Later that same week there was an inquiry in the shootings and they transferred Agent Frank to New York for retraining. As for me the case was closed so I took off the next week to do some fishing.

My vacation in Mexico came to an end about three weeks ago. My troubles started one week before I was to go home. I developed fever and stomach pains. I know in Mexico not to drink the water or eat some of the food. Somehow I picked up a worm or two eating something I shouldn't have. I was treated there but after a week in their hospital I checked myself out and headed home. I called my doctor and he placed me in a hospital here. It took about 8 days for them to get rid of the worms.

I have gotten worms a couple of times before in my travels so it isn't anything new for me to deal with.The last time I think was around 1987. I had taken an Air Jamaica jet from Miami International airport to Kingston, Jamaica. There I was met by six other Agents that had flow in about ten days prior from San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was told that three men had broken in and stolen tracking equipment manufactured in San Juan and taken it by boat to Kingston. They had a CIA stooge with them and they were to land their boat 50 miles up the coast from Kingston.

There were a few unknowns that we had to deal with, one was how big of a boat they were using and how long it would take them to reach Kingston. Second, did they have enough fuel on board or would they need to stop and refuel and where? My thought was if we knew where they were going we should stop them while they were refueling or at sea. I was told that the problem with that scenario was if the tracking equipment got wet or damaged it would be a loss of millions of dollars. So we were told to make sure that the tracking equipment was on land before we apprehend the equipment to prevent them dropping it over board.

Two days later the boat was spotted on its way up the coast to a place called Yallahs Point. Agent Moses and I headed up the coast to meet the boat in a very small 4 wheel truck. The other Agents and helicopter were stationed around ten miles away at and old landing strip used for drug running.

Agent Moses and I took up a position over looking the docks and the road out of there. Our plan was to let them off load the equipment from the boat then stop them on the road. We found a fishing shack where we could see both the dock and road. It also gave us cover. All we could do then was wait.

We had brought food and water but Moses was a very large Agent and had eaten most of the food by that afternoon. I watched through a window while Agent Moses went looking for more in the other shacks and boats tied to the docks. The idea sounded good at the time but I would pay dearly in next few days. Moses returned with some canned food and smoked fish he had found. I was hungry so I snacked on both.

I had just finished eating when the boat arrived with two men, not three. It was a really large boat. Within minutes a moving van type truck pulled up and they started to off loading lots of boxes. I made the call to the other Agents as they left the dock and drove down the road. Agent Moses and I jumped into our truck and followed them.

Thirty minutes later we had the van stopped and they were all under arrest and being held off to the side of the road. We open the van and searched the boxes we saw offloaded from the boat and placed then in the van. Inside the boxes were government issued guns and rifles but no tracking equipment.

We raced back to the dock and the boat was gone. The helicopter searched for hours and came up with nothing, the boat had vanished. Bottom line, was it really tracking equipment that had been stolen or was it guns or both? We couldn't get any answers.

I waited in Kingston another day to hear what was really going on but the CIA had no answers so I headed back to Miami. The following day I became sick and found out that the dry fish I had eaten probably had worms that were now in my body. I spent two days in the hospital and was given lots of drugs to rid myself of them.

I'm still sitting here on a beautiful Mexican beach watching the sun rise. This mini vacation has been what I really needed.

The other day while I was walking down the beach I picked up an old, empty Maxwell coffee can. That reminded me of a case that started in the middle of Texas and ended near the border.

I got a call late one night to come to Homestead Air base to catch a flight to Texas. On my way I landed in Tampa and picked up a few other Agents. We were all briefed on what we were looking for and who we were after. The case was about the removal of certain missile tracking components. They needed to be found before they left the States. We landed in Wichita Falls and were picked up by helicopter and flown to Goodfellow AFB west of San Angelo, Texas.

The lead we got was about two days late. They had left by air from a small airport just south of San Angelo at Mathis Field. For some unknown reason they made a mistake and had filed a flight plan stating that they were heading towards Midland,Texas.

We followed them to Midland and got information that they were in a van headed towards Odessa, around 30 miles away. Two helicopters with lots of FBI and State police left for Odessa. That lead turned out to be false, these men were good.

I knew that the intell about the flight plan was too easy. What they had actually done was fly towards the border of Mexico and land near the city of Del Rio. The two helicopters followed suit and flew to Laughin AFB outside of Del Rio. Here we sat for almost two more days waiting and looking for more leads.

We finally got a break when one of the thieves was picked up for a traffic violation. The police found some papers with information about the components under the driver's seat.

We took him off their hands and brought him back to the base. After a little persuasion he told us they were in a blue van headed towards Eagle Pass. The plan was to cross at Piedres Negras, Mexico.

Our best hope was to catch them before they crossed the border. Dealing with the Mexican government is a job itself. The Mexican government and the local police are out of control and always looking for a pay off from us. The line we're always given is that the pay off is needed to cover their expenses.

After ten days on the road chasing these guys we finally caught up with them on our side of the boarder. They had stopped in a motel, biding their time for the perfect moment to cross the boarder at night.

The night manager did not like how these guys were acting nor the fact that they were traveling with a young girl with no other woman around. He called the police who contacted us. The girl was not known to us and had never been seen till then.

We moved in at three o'clock in the morning and raided the motel room. We caught them all without a fight. The missile tracking equipment was stashed in the shower stall with various pieces stuffed into old coffee cans.

I think it's time for another walk on the beach...

I decided to take a small vacation so I headed down to Mexico on the beach. Things are pretty
cheap here, in fact they gave me an upgrade to a large suite on the top floor. The hotel is about 500 feet from the water on a hill side. The coolest thing is that instead of a cabana at the pool side you have a choice of an new RV parked about 100 feet from the water, placed on stilts, or a simple cabana by the pool.

Being in a RV by the water reminds me of a case that was in Utah by a large lake. We set up in a trailer someone had dragged there. When we drove up to it you could see it had no tires. The outside looked old, with lots of mildew covering it. This was going to be my home with two other agents till we caught up with three men that had taken a working micro processor from a military contractor. The good thing about the trailer was that it was only bad on the outside. The inside was a different story. It was clean, had running water, a refrigerator and a real cold AC. The only draw back was the toilet, it had been shot at a few times and did work.

The three of us had stayed there for three days waiting for the men to show up to sell us the processor. On the fourth day we received a call in the morning that they were coming to meet us around noon.

I stayed in the trailer while the other two agents, Ron and Louis, went outside and hid. Agent Ron covered the back and Agent Louis went up the road about ten miles to watch for the men coming. I called the office and they sent more agents and a helicopter which was about 15 minutes away. At 12:30 Agent Louis called and said that a pickup truck was coming but only one person could be seen inside.

I walked outside to meet the truck. Agent Ron and four other Agents that had arrived by helicopter started to move in from around the back of the trailer to the front. When the truck pulled up the driver told me he had the processor and wanted the money we had agreed on. As I was talking to him I notice a tarp in the back of the truck.

I turned my back, fixed my cap and headed back inside. The fixing of my cap was a sign that something was not right and to move in. I was barely inside the door when lots of yelling and gun shots rang out. I opened the door slowly and saw the driver shot on the ground and another guy hanging out of the back of the truck, also shot.

I then got another call from Agent Louis telling me a white van was coming. We put both of the bodies into the back of the truck. I waited outside again for the other truck to arrived. He pulled up, stopped and got out to say something about where the other men were. I pulled my gun along with with five other Agents and the situation was over. The micro processor was found behind the driver's seat in a false bottom of the van. It was time to go home.