Red Carpet Ransom

By W.F. WALSH

Could a major Hollywood star be kidnapped on Oscar night in a drug war of revenge against the United States?

Enrique Vega is one of the most notorious drug kingpins in the world and controls a family whose powerbase spreads across Mexico, Central and South America. As the godfather is to the mafia, Vega is to the drug world. Cartel Este controls drug trafficking, money laundering, prostitution, and politicians. Vega is powerful and untouchableor so he thought.

A joint drug task force of United States and Mexican authorities track his movements and strike at the throat of Cartel Este. Vega is arrested and flown to an American military jail to await trial.

A new drug war of revenge is unleashed! Special Agent Jake Stein of Homeland Security Investigations/ICE is back, and this time, hes up against a life-and-death struggle. Cartel Este keeps turning up the heat and kidnaps a major Hollywood star on Oscar night to hold for ransom until Vega is returned or the actor will die.

The clock is ticking in a life-and-death race against time in a drug war of revenge!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503528826

W.F. WALSH

W.F. Walsh is a two-time Emmy Award-winning television personality and has spent over twenty years in television news and entertainment. As a producer, Walsh has been awarded five Telly Awards for his work on various programs, from news to reality. He is also a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve and has served on military missions to both Iraq and Afghanistan, among many other locations around the world. He has been awarded two Meritorious Service Medals, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, among others. Walsh holds a master’s degree in military operational art and science from the United States Air Force Air University and a bachelor of science degree from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from Rhode Island, Walsh now makes his home near Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Janet, and their two children, Frank and Amy.

Book preview

cover.jpg

Copyright © 2015 by W.F.WALSH.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014922342

ISBN:      Hardcover            978-1-5035-1524-6

                Softcover              978-1-5035-1525-3

                eBook                   978-1-5035-2882-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/23/2014

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

695503

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Feliz Navidad

Chapter 2 Six Months Later

Chapter 3 Tension

Chapter 4 Principals

Chapter 5 Chain Of Command

Chapter 6 Soldados

Chapter 7 Growing Pains

Chapter 8 Tentacles

Chapter 9 Tough Love

Chapter 10 Independence

Chapter 11 Eye For An Eye

Chapter 12 Blueprints

Chapter 13 Pecking Order

Chapter 14 5:00 A.m. Pacific

Chapter 15 Multiple Pings

Chapter 16 Buying In

Chapter 17 After-Party

Chapter 18 Orders

Chapter 19 Apb

Chapter 20 Outconus

Chapter 21 Tick Tock … Tick Tock … Tick Tock

Chapter 22 Breaking News

Chapter 23 Loyalty

Chapter 24 Paparazzi

Chapter 25 Beautiful Snake

Chapter 26 Payback

Chapter 27 Exclusive

Chapter 28 Tradecraft

Chapter 29 Exfil

Chapter 30 Back Channels

Chapter 31 A Lister

For

Carleen, Karen & Christine

amazing sisters

For

Rod, Andrew & Adam

amazing brothers

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following for support of this project:

Xlibris Penguin Design & Editing Team

Shapiro Media Management Los Angeles

Litton Entertainment

Raycom Media

Panera Bread Company

United States Department of Homeland Security

United States Customs & Border Protection & ICE

Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences

Bethany Crawford, Spanish language consultant

Janet Walsh, copy editor

Amy Walsh, artistic contributor

Chapter 1

FELIZ NAVIDAD

CHRISTMAS IS A special time for people all over the world, as was the case in the Mexican city of Chihuahua, the capital of the state bearing the same name. The city of over eight hundred thousand sits almost in the center of Mexico and has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous in the world because of drug trade and brazen lawlessness, both of which have spread like a virus across the countryside. Even in December, the weather was hot and dry with clouds of dust moving in waves across the urban landscape.

On the northern edge of the city just off Carretera Federal 45 (Federal Highway 45) sat a gated residential neighborhood known as a fraccionamiento, looking like many of the others that had been built to provide a more secure place for families to live. This one was different. It was more of an isolated compound and had only one family living inside. At the gate were six heavily armed guards checking in guests who were arriving for a party just one week before Christmas day.

The activity at the gate looked more like a military checkpoint than a typical neighborhood security watch program. As each car pulled up, the individuals were asked to get out, searched, and verified for identities, while the car itself was inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs and giant mirrors the men used to look underneath. Once cleared, the gate would open, and they would proceed to the largest of three houses in the compound where yet another layer of security awaited.

There, after parking, the guests would proceed to the east wing entrance of the large Spanish colonial mansion only to be met by more armed men checking their identities and invitations once again.

At a little after seven o’clock in the evening, Guillermo Medina greeted his party guests inside the large ballroom just off the grand atrium entrance and invited them to food, drinks, and in the single gentlemen’s case, women. A small band played Christmas tunes while waitresses moved around the various first floor rooms serving hot food. Medina was one of the most notorious of the Central Mexican drug lords whose tentacles spread throughout the state and region. His youthful looks—dark black hair, moustache, and small frame—were disguising a very capable man once trained as a military mercenary in Honduras. It was rumored that the fifty-two-year-old was behind the execution style killings of many competing drug lords over a ten-month period, thereby consolidating his power in this part of the country and earning him second in command of the powerful Cartel Este.

The increased layers of security were because of his most special guest of the evening. Enrique Vega arrived at the party with his own protection detail and armored car, plus his people even augmented the gate guards while he was there. His entire security apparatus was handpicked and vetted. In history, there have been only a small number of drug kingpins who have stood out on the world stage like Pablo Escobar of Colombia or Arturo Beltran of Mexico. Enrique Vega was one of them and considered to be larger in scale with an estimated fortune of thirty billion dollars.

Vega was the boss and patriarch of Cartel Este. He ran most of the organized drug operations in northeastern, central, and western Mexico from his own highly secured compound just outside of the resort city of Acapulco on the Pacific coast. He was a heavyset, bald sixty-three-year-old who still ran three miles a day and bench pressed over two hundred pounds. With him was his only son, Raul, who at twenty-one was a college student and not part of the family business.

When Vega traveled, he didn’t stay in the same place very long, and his itinerary was always a closely guarded secret within his organization. This was a courtesy visit for his second in command who was impressed that the boss would be attending his annual Fiesta de Navidad.

45851.png

After Vega’s arrival and as he mingled with the other fifty or so guests, a satellite of the National Reconnaissance Office snapped a number of photographs and relayed them back to NRO headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia. There they were quickly analyzed, and the confirmation sent via secure satellite phone to a joint strike team made up of U.S. DEA, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), and Mexican Policía Federal Ministerial (PF) assembled fifteen miles away in the desert.

Coyote, coyote, coyote, said Capt. Stanley Lloyd into another radio which connected the team consisting of both air and land assets. Instantly, an operation that had been planned and rehearsed for months sprang into action as the still night air began to shake with the sound of vehicles starting to roll and two Blackhawk helicopters spooling up.

45860.png

As Guillermo and Enrique made the rounds, spending time and giving respect to the other senior members of Cartel Este inside the house at the party, outside the phones in the pockets of two members of the security team at the gate began to vibrate. One quietly pulled it out and read the text message. Coyote, the message said. Both of the security men who had received the message quietly cocked their Austrian-made Steyr TMP machine pistols and loosened the additional thirty round clips on their belts.

45862.png

The tactical team launching the operation twenty-two miles away was split into two groups. Team One, approaching on the ground, was charged with fire suppression and securing the objective. In the air, Team Two would use the Blackhawks for target apprehension and evacuation. At this time of the year, the sun had already set, and the darkness of night had descended over the Mexican countryside.

It took around twenty-five minutes for the ground team to reach the objective while the Blackhawks kept a low orbit just a few miles away. The only lights visible as the ground team approached were those coming from the compound and the mansion where the party was in full swing.

Three hundred sixty sweep, ordered Team One’s leader, instructing four of the six vehicles to surround the compound as the two largest turned off the federal highway and headed right for the gate. The guards looked up and saw the outlines of the vehicles approaching fast with no lights.

The two guards with the cell phones looked at each other and then raised their machine pistols, took aim, and fired a burst of bullets into the other four security men, clearly taking them by surprise. Before they even began to comprehend what was happening, the automatic fire put bullets into each one, ending their lives instantly.

Inside the compound standing sentry just outside the ornate doors of the mansion, the security guards instantly looked up as they recognized the sound of gunfire in the air and knew some sort of attack was under way. Seconds later, the vehicles reached the gate which had just been opened by the two DEA agents who had worked undercover for over a year to infiltrate the cartel as security men.

Green LZ. Green LZ, Captain Lloyd said into his secure radio. He was riding in the lead vehicle, which was moving through the gate heading for the mansion. The two Blackhawk helicopters orbiting just a few miles away turned inbound to the coordinates on their electronic flight director showing where they would land.

Raul Vega was standing next to his father when three bodyguards who had been standing by the wall of the large ballroom came running over while pulling their Glock 9mm pistols out of leather holsters hidden behind their jackets.

Raid! shouted Lorenzo Diaz, Enrique Vega’s lead bodyguard whose training to cover and evacuate immediately kicked into action. As people screamed at the sounds of gunfire outside, he grabbed his boss and pushed him toward the door leading to a long tiled hallway running the length of the mansion. It happened so quickly that Raul was left behind. He followed Guillermo and his personal security guard out of the same door but in the opposite direction.

45867.png

The guards at the gate and the ones standing outside the mansion were meant to protect and buy time for their boss’s escape. On this night, they would not have a chance to do either because of the overwhelming force descending on the drug lord’s compound.

Outside, the two Blackhawk choppers touched down on the large quadrangle in the center of the compound. Each carried a team of four made up of both U.S. and Mexican soldiers. HUMINT (human intelligence) from the agents working on the inside gave them a blueprint of how Vega might try to escape. The air assault team headed for the door leading to the east wing of the mansion where the bodies of cartel guards lay crumpled on the doorstep after being shot dead by the arriving ground team.

45869.png

Inside, Lorenzo was running and looked back at his boss. This way, he said in a hushed tone. He led him off the main hallway, turning down a smaller, darker corridor toward what looked like a large floor-to-ceiling painting located at the far end of the hall.

Fuck me, said Enrique in a thick accent, looking at the dead end just ahead of them. They could hear the soldiers entering the house and spreading out along with sporadic bursts of gunfire. The team members who surrounded the back of the mansion were now breaching the locked windows after pulling themselves over the tall, black steel fence which surrounded the enclosure. Shortly, they would also be inside.

Lorenzo, his heart pounding, ran his hand along the bottom right side of the giant painting marking the end of the hall. Two seconds later, he found what he was looking for. He pulled a clear tab, which ripped into the canvas of the painting revealing a silver keypad. With the noise of soldiers approaching, he quickly punched in a four-digit code, and the sound of dead bolts releasing shocked Vega who smiled and quickly followed his lead bodyguard through the secret door and down a flight of stairs to what looked like wine cellar.

At the other end of the house, Guillermo, his bodyguard, and Raul had just begun to realize the amount of force being used in the raid. Most of that force was after one prize, and they themselves would be considered a bonus. The three men entered a bedroom where four women and an associate of Guillermo were half naked trying to get themselves dressed after hearing all the commotion and gunfire. Guillermo’s group of three went into the bathroom where a large window was next to an oval garden bathtub. The bodyguard pushed aside three large plants and unlocked the window that opened outward like a door for fresh air. The heat of the Mexican night hit them as they climbed into the tub and then out the window.

With the focus of the search on Enrique, all but three members of the raid team were spreading out inside the mansion. Outside, after climbing through the window and jumping four feet down to the hard ground, Guillermo’s crew crouched in the darkness next to the stucco house so close that they could smell the fresh paint, which had been put on the day before. Guillermo saw the two Blackhawks sitting with engines running on the quadrangle, their tails toward them and noses pointed in the opposite direction. For the helicopter pilots, the rear of the aircraft was a blind spot.

The only way out of here is to fly, Guillermo said to Raul as the bodyguard looked on in amazement.

Are you kidding me? Raul said with a look of shock on his face.

No one is watching the choppers. They’re all focused inside and out back. We have one chance, and it’s a long shot at best, Guillermo told the younger man while chambering a round into the Glock he always kept on his person. The bodyguard, Juan Fontana, did the same. Juan was about the same age as Raul.

Three members of the strike team were standing near the entrance of the mansion over the bodies of the guards who had been taken out when the raid began. Guillermo, Raul, and Juan were just out of sight beyond a corner of the house. Once they move past the corner, they would likely be spotted. In the darkness of the night, the lights illuminating the house were confined to the main entrance and surrounding fence line.

We will stay in the darkness and come up from behind the choppers. If they fire at us, fire back, ordered Guillermo. Raul was not armed and would stay between the other two when they crossed the thirty yards toward the first Blackhawk. On three. One, two, three …

The three men ran crouching in the darkness toward the idling helicopter, smelling the fumes of Jet A burning as they got closer. Amazingly, the three soldiers standing near the entrance to the mansion around fifty yards away did not see them. Guillermo was first to reach the back of the chopper. He silently pointed out the spinning tail rotor to Raul and Juan who were just steps behind him. He stayed close to the fuselage of the Blackhawk and edged toward the cockpit where the two pilots were waiting for their team to return. Each pilot had night vision goggles attached to his flight helmet. The center of the craft was empty with open doors. Guillermo climbed inside and was spotted by the left seat pilot who saw movement in the mirror they used to see in the back. Before the pilot could react, Guillermo fired a bullet into his throat; and in a split second, he put the barrel of his gun to the throat of the copilot and yelled, Fly!

At the same time, Juan and Raul climbed into the back. The copilot had no choice. He thought about using the Beretta strapped under his arm, but it took two hands to fly, and he could feel the barrel of Guillermo’s gun to his neck.

The Blackhawk began to power up. The three soldiers over by the entrance to the mansion looked toward the helo and wondered why it was getting set to take off. In less than a minute’s time, the hijacked Blackhawk lifted off and headed into the darkness as the crew of the other helicopter called over the radio to see what the hell was going on.

45871.png

Inside the house, Captain Lloyd led his team toward where the intel said the entrance to a series of tunnels and basement was. They knew approximately where the entrance was but not exactly. Once they entered the small hall with the painting at the end, Lloyd could see the ripped canvas and the keypad. Not knowing the code, he signaled his teammate who quickly took out a C-4 door charge, attached it just above the keypad with a thirty-second timer, and retreated, yelling, Fire in the hole! Just like in training, the charge blew the door open and off its hinges. Quickly, Captain Lloyd and his team went down the stairs and into the basement where they found leg irons, chains, and what appeared to be some sort of torture chamber. Dark stains on the wall looked like dried blood, and the smell of rotting corpses filled the air. Vega was nowhere in sight.

Two dark tunnels led away from the small room. Lloyd split his team, and each group of men went after their prey. The tunnel was only big enough to allow a grown man to crouch down. He moved slowly and methodically using his night vision to guide the way. The tunnel was cold and dark, and the smell was getting worse. Thirty feet down the tunnel, Lloyd stopped, cold. The men behind him in single file did as well. Before him was a pit where corpses had been dumped—no doubt after torture. The team members were doing all they could not to vomit. Even the most seasoned veterans among them were having a hard time with this one. Some of the corpses were headless; others were missing limbs, and all were in various stages of decomposition. It appeared that when one pit was full, they would simply tunnel down and dig a new one. The cartel was known for street violence, which sent a very public message. This, though, sent a private message to elected officials, the other cartels and enemies that Cartel Este was in control.

Captain Lloyd’s radio began to squawk through the earpiece he was wearing. We found a dead end with a pit full of bodies. All mostly skeletons, said Lt. David Freeman who led the second team.

Copy, stand by, said Captain Lloyd who was also looking into the pit before him wondering where Enrique Vega and his bodyguard could have escaped to. There were no other ways out. It was still, dark, and the smell of rotting corpses filled the tunnel. Lloyd took out his LED tactical flashlight and shined it down into the pit. There was quite a bit of water in the hole where at least five dismembered bodies had been dumped. For a second, he watched the water. Then Lloyd saw what he suspected in the back of his mind.

Give me your Taser, he ordered DEA Special Agent Brandon Kelly crouching behind him while holding the flashlight on the spot where he saw bubbles forming. There was little room in the tunnel, and the men had to be in single file. Captain Lloyd took the Taser from Kelly, pointed the red laser target dot into the water where the bubbles were and pulled the trigger.

In a flash of a second and with a scream heard through water, Lorenzo Diaz came rising out of the pit, pushing bodies aside to get air as Taser probes stuck out his right arm.

Freeze, said Lloyd, now looking at Enrique Vega who came up behind his bodyguard. Both had cheap-looking snorkels around their necks. This was a crazy back-up plan Guillermo’s security chief had given to Lorenzo in case Vega needed a place to hide, knowing the chance it would actually be put to use was miniscule.

Captain Lloyd looked at the two men who were only able to crouch under the low ceiling of the pit. They were dripping with the filth of the water mixed with fluids from the rotting corpses. Both men raised their hands.

Santa in custody, say again, Santa in custody, said Lloyd into the microphone strapped to his right shoulder connected to the radio on the back of his tactical belt. He wasn’t even sure the signal would be able to transmit out of the small, horrible cavern he was in. Because Christmas was close, the assault team used the codename Santa for their prize—Enrique Vega. All of a sudden, the combination of the shocking sight before him, the adrenaline rushing through his body, and the awful stench caused him to step back and vomit on the floor of the tunnel. When he climbed out of the tunnel and found out what was happening outside the house with the Blackhawk, he wanted to vomit again.

45873.png

Guillermo Medina had one hand on the pistol firmly pressed against the helo pilot’s neck, and with the other, he pulled out his iPhone. He handed it to Raul. Rancho Sahara, he told the younger Vega. Quickly, Raul used Google Maps to pull up the address and, more importantly for the current situation, the coordinates.

Got it, Raul said as he handed the phone back to Guillermo who showed it to the chopper pilot who just wanted to get out of this alive. The pilot quickly put the numbers into his mission computer and seconds later, turned the helicopter about forty degrees to the right. The coordinates were for an abandoned bull ranch that Guillermo owned just outside of the city limits. The ranch had been used as a safe house for the cartel many times and occasionally as a distribution and drug preparation center.

With night vision goggles, the pilot was able to eye a decent landing zone just to the left of what looked like a large house or barn. The Blackhawk slowly touched down, kicking up clouds of dust and rock across the fields. Guillermo put his iPhone away. With his free hand, he reached into the holster the pilot wore under his left arm and removed the government-issued Berretta M-9. Shut down, Guillermo ordered loudly while using his hand to signal the same with the cut-off signal.

Once the Blackhawk was shut down, Guillermo ordered Raul and Juan out of the helicopter, now sitting silent in the dark of the night. The only light was coming from the inside of the helicopter cabin. Get the flashlights, Guillermo ordered. Juan dutifully took two of the military-issued flashlights and jumped out of the crew door onto the dusty ground. Time was short. Soon the army would descend on this location and spread out like a fan looking for them. Guillermo had been mixed up with the cartels his whole life. He was twelve years old when he committed his first murder. In his kind of work, killing was more of a tool to be used to get a job done. He moved his index finger from the ready position on the side of the Beretta to the trigger and pulled it twice, firing two 9mm bullets into the base of the head of the right seat pilot, ending his life instantly. Seconds later, he was out of the chopper, and all three men walked quickly to a garage where a dusty Volvo sedan had been sitting unused for months.

Get in, Guillermo said, hoping like hell that the keys were where they were supposed to be and that the battery would crank the engine. Sure enough, the escape vehicle started up. He put the car in drive, pulled out of the garage and onto a dark, dusty road, picking up speed as the safe house grew ever smaller in the rear view mirror.

Chapter 2

SIX MONTHS LATER

THE DEA, LIKE other federal agencies, was a bureaucratic maze that even the most experienced civil servants had trouble navigating. Patrick Dean was a political animal who grew up in Boston and had a major hand in getting John O’Connell elected as mayor, then senator, and ultimately president of the United States. His reward for years of loyal service to his president and friend was a top job in the administration. He was appointed head of the DEA after being given the choice of either that or the chance to run the Environmental Protection Agency, which he had always despised.

As head of the DEA, he was assigned his own protection detail, which to him was more of a pain than anything else. They insisted on driving him to and from work and being around him twenty-four hours a day. On weekends, he requested that only one or, at the very most, two agents be assigned to his protection detail.

Weekends in Washington were usually just as crowded as weekdays because of the influx of tourists from around the world. Patrick enjoyed this time of year when the leaves started to change, as autumn would sometimes be cool enough to hint that winter weather was not too far ahead. As a daily runner, Saturday mornings were optional as he allowed himself the weekend days off from his usual workout. Dean had been traveling out of town for three days this week, so he wanted to get a run in to make up for lost time.

Good morning, he said to the one agent who would be running along with him in the cool weekend air.

Good morning, sir, answered Special Agent Ted Burnside. A little chilly this morning.

Sure is, Ted, but I like it. El Paso was hot and dry, replied the boss.

From his three-bedroom brick colonial house near Rock Creek Park, the two started off running toward the National Zoo, still a favorite route.

How’s Mrs. Dean today? Ted asked, making some small talk as they jogged slowly to get warmed up.

She’s well, thanks. Taking the kids to the Saint Leo’s Church Fall Bazaar this morning. I think she’s working the dunking booth or something like that, he explained.

Director Patrick Dean had three kids with his current wife, Sandy, and one with his ex-wife, Trisha, who now lived in Wisconsin.

Traffic on the roads was relatively light as noted by Special Agent Burnside as he scanned for threats while running with the boss. His government-issued Sig Sauer P-229 was tucked tightly in the small of his back inside a special running holster.

The sun was directly in front of them, low on the horizon as it rose on the cool fall morning. It was hard to see too far because of the blinding brightness. Up ahead, they could see the silhouette of two park workers sweeping the sidewalk in the path of their run. Director Dean slowed his pace as they approached the two workers with brooms. Suddenly, one of the park workers collapsed on the ground about thirty feet in front of them. Instantly, Special Agent Burnside took the lead and arrived to help the man a few seconds ahead of his boss and protectee.

Heart attack, Ted? asked Director Dean, now walking up behind Burnside. He was kneeling down to assist the fallen man who looked to be fairly young for a heart attack. As Ted assessed the unconscious man by feeling for his pulse, the other park worker, a woman, who had by now dropped the broom she was using to sweep the sidewalk, pulled out a Glock 23 pistol suppressed with a Silencerco Osprey 40 silencer and shot two .40-caliber bullets into the back of Special Agent Ted Burnside’s head. Before he could comprehend the horror of the murder happening before his eyes, Director Dean looked at the woman with the gun and the guy on the ground, now fully conscious and also brandishing a weapon. In a split second, both assassins fired their weapons, killing the director instantly. They quickly dropped their guns, walked about twenty feet, got into a waiting car, and then sped away as the blood from the two bodies started to spread on the pavement.

45875.png

Crime scenes almost always look the same to the people who spend much of their professional lives in or around them. This one was different. When a top administration official gets assassinated on the streets of Washington just blocks from his house, it’s instantly international news. Satellite trucks, live trucks, and reporters from across the globe stationed in Washington started to descend on what now would become a famous spot.

Brad Stanley of the Los Angeles Star newspaper was one of the first to arrive as DC police and federal law enforcement officials started the investigation into the death of the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was so fast to the scene that police had to ask him to back away so that they could put up the trademark yellow crime scene tape to keep onlookers and press back. Brad was one of the up and coming reporters at the paper. He was based in Washington, but the twenty-eight-year-old called Michigan home. A graduate of Michigan State University, Brad followed the careers of his journalism heroes Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. He took a newspaper job out of college in Raleigh where, after investigating a story on military sexual harassment in the army, he gained some national attention. He appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and others as the story he reported broke and caught the eye of Los Angeles Star investigative editor Rod Carlson. Carlson was also from Michigan, cutting his teeth as an editor at the Detroit Free Press before moving up to Los Angeles and one of the nation’s top five newspapers.

Tommy, is this a robbery gone wrong, and they didn’t know who they stuck up? Brad asked a friend on the Metro police who had been a good source for off-the-record information in the past.

Can’t talk about this one, Brad, Tommy said curtly, knowing that his bosses were