Last Exit for Reality

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.