Saltwater cowboy, p.18
Saltwater Cowboy, page 18
This next part shocked me and I will never understand it as long as I live.
As the FBI agents conducted their investigation of the crime scene, they came across a set of dentures that had been carefully laid on top of a row of safety-deposit boxes. A simple visual inspection of the teeth revealed a number stamped on the underside of the upper plate. That number was then traced back to the Bureau of Prisons. A printout of the records indicated that the dentures were in fact prison issue. Next to the same number that was stamped on that set of teeth was my old friend’s name, in bold ink. His long-standing routine of taking them out (and setting them on top of his locker) before opening a little metal door had betrayed him. Or had it? Did he leave them there on purpose? Did he want to get sent back to prison? These are the questions that will haunt me until the day I die.
I spent the next few days going in and out of the throes of grief and disbelief. I read the article over and over again, hoping that by some miracle the storyline would change. I now knew more than ever that I had to get the hell out of prison. There are ways to beat the system, but that’s not what usually ends up happening. The system always beats you back.
Dennis was one of these continuous pains in the Bureau of Prisons’ ass. He was notorious for carpet bombing them with dozens upon dozens of frivolous written complaints, and he knew the staff had to answer each one individually. This was his way of rebelling against a system he despised. I have to credit Dennis with having inspired a lot of us to tell our own stories. He was a one-of-a-kind man who gave out hope like it was candy from his pocket. From behind prison fences and walls, he wrote a novel called The Getbacks of Mother Superior, which was published by Arbor House in 1987. The story’s protagonist robs banks while well armed and dressed like a nun, hence the name. The book is an awesome tale of revenge. After getting caught, “Mother Superior” devises a most ingenious escape plan using new computers that empty out half the prison’s population. In retrospect, Dennis had come up with his own “getback” against the system. His frivolous written complaints wound up becoming a meticulously stacked pyramid of building blocks that the BOP simply knocked over. So just like that bastard redheaded, freckled-faced bully who occupies childhood nightmares, the Bureau of Prisons showed him how much they gave a shit. One chilly morning just before the holidays, Rolly and I reported to our work assignments, and as usual we were counted into the building first. This always gave us time to set up, but in this case we were told to pack up. Caught completely by surprise, which was the prison’s way of doing things, we were told by the guards to box up everything belonging to Dennis Lehman. Damn! After thirty-two years he was being shipped out and relocated to a new tighter-security prison that had just opened about sixty miles west of us in Marianna. When those hacks carried those boxes down the hall and around the corner, that was the last of Dennis I ever saw.
Back at my desk and with a renewed sense of urgency, I channeled all my effort and all that I had taught myself and that Dennis had taught me over the past three and a half years toward one goal: getting a reduction in sentence based on cooperation.
I leaned over my desk with my head in my hands. I looked to the left and saw a copy of Black’s Law Dictionary. That is the dictionary that lawyers depend on to define the wording used in the writing of any legal document. I casually flipped through the pages until I found the legal definition for the term “cooperation.” That was the key. Everybody who had gotten his sentence reduced had cooperated with the government in some way. I had not cooperated—or had I? Simply put, from a legal standpoint, if someone asks you for something and you give it to them, you have, by all accounts, cooperated. That’s all it took. I sat straight up in my chair.
“Holy shit, this is it!”
I handed the dictionary to my wide-eyed legal partner Rolly, who read it for himself and asked me a few questions.
“Did the investigators ask you for something?”
“Oh yes, they did!” I answered.
“And did you give it to them?”
“Hell yeah, I did!”
“OK, Tim, what exactly did you give them?”
Before I could answer that question, though, I had to tell Rolly how the Saltwater Cowboys were finally brought down. That would explain my “cooperation”—which wasn’t really cooperation at all. But it might be a legal loophole big enough to drive a damn oil tanker through and leave that fucking hellhole.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In 1987 and 1988, the US government came after us hard. The Feds stepped up their so-called War on Drugs. It became increasingly difficult to smuggle our loads past them. By that time, they had stopped the flow of cocaine into Miami or at least reduced it to almost nothing in comparison to what it had been. The Cubans and the Colombians involved in the drug trade had been killing one another for years, not to mention anyone who just happened to be standing around them. Time magazine published an issue with the title “Paradise Lost” on the cover, naming Miami “the murder capital of the world.” Other than places that were embroiled in true warfare, Miami was the most dangerous place to be at the time. That article, along with pleas from the city’s officials and the citizens of South Florida, prompted our federal government to step in and help local authorities rescue the city.
Like a tsunami, a special task force, along with local law enforcement, flooded the Miami area and successfully achieved their objective. They then trained their sights on southwest Florida. They had been trying for years to catch us, and for years they had failed. Local authorities came close numerous times, but we always managed, one way or another, to elude their grasp. They captured the odd load here and there, but the load was all they got. They never caught the men. Each night, the evening news would report on the government’s success in terms of percentages. The report would go something like this:
“Drug trafficking in southwest Florida is down by twenty-five percent.”
I watched that crap and always wondered how in the hell the government came up with those numbers.
They seemed to be throwing out numbers to justify the billions of dollars they were spending each year to try to stop guys like us. Without a doubt, these percentages were horseshit! For every one load that they seized, fifty or more would get past them. The people running this war knew we were still getting away with it but had no clue how much was really coming in. I was sure that fact really pissed them off. We weren’t just a bunch of backwater inbred rednecks! Our crews had this operation down to a science. In order to counter their efforts, we were spending a lot of money on the latest technology available at the time. These items became the tools of our trade: color radar, starlight scopes, infrared scopes, parabolic dishes, VHF radio frequency scanners, two-meter multiple-channel radios, Polaris scanners, and other high-tech tools.
Hell, when the Polaris scanner was on, the law didn’t even have to talk on the radio. When a lawman pressed the key on his radio mic, a little LED light on our scanner would strobe around the degrees on a compass. When it picked up the law’s signal, the light would stop and reveal the direction of the transmission. We knew where the law was every step of the way.
Paying off an officer of the law now and then was also a useful tool. Payoffs weren’t really that difficult. Think about this: If you offer a guy ten times his annual salary in cash to look the other way, what the hell do you think he’s going to do? He’s going to take it and look the other fucking way! I even wore a personal radio-frequency detector under my clothing. If I got within ten feet of someone with a transmitter, the device would begin to vibrate.
All of that technology at our disposal coupled with the most powerful boats money could buy gave us a huge advantage, and that pissed the law off even more.
In early September of 1987, a job to bring twenty-eight tons of Colombian Red ashore was painstakingly planned out and ready to be executed. The sequence of events had been choreographed and was now set to be put into motion. The plan had a wrinkle, however. We were going to split the load and bring it ashore at two separate locations. Half of the fifty-seven thousand pounds would go to Everglades City, and the other half to Pine Island through Boca Grande Pass just north of Fort Myers.
I let Johnny handle our crew in Everglades City while I went north with Clark and his brother-in-law to meet up with the crew on Pine Island. I knew these guys on Pine Island but had never worked with them before. I sent my own chase boat and its crew alongside their load boat to make sure things went as planned. Their off-loading crew and I met at a hotel on Pine Island to wait for a radio call that would signal us to head out and begin the night’s work. Our half of the load would be packed into a large truck that would then be driven to Miami in the morning. We received the call and went down to the parking lot of the hotel, where two vehicles were waiting to take us to the off-load site. As we were leaving the parking lot, I noticed that a tan Bronco appeared to be circling the hotel. I passed it off as some Yankee who had gotten himself lost in the Florida backwaters. I didn’t give it another thought. We had about a fifteen-minute drive down a backcountry road to get to our spot out in the sticks.
Turning off of the main road into an overgrown gravel driveway, our driver stopped and let us off; then he backed out and drove away. Walking farther down the gravel road through a tall pine forest, we came to a dock that stuck out into one of the back bays of Boca Grande Pass. This rickety dock peeked out just about three feet beyond the mangrove branches. The balance of its fifteen-or-so-foot length reached back to the bank where we stood. The tops of its once hearty posts were weathered and worn down like ancient cypress stumps. Rusted nails protruding from the spars and slippery moss-covered planks were the only things holding it together. But it had enough life left in it to service us one last time. This is where the mullet skiffs and the T-Crafts would come to unload their bales. Each boat crew would arrive and toss their bales onto the dock, then go back for more. The shore crew would then carry the bales to a box truck that had been skillfully backed into position through the pine trees.
The first of more than a dozen boats showed up with its bundles and tossed them off. We began to fill the truck as the second set of boats came in, and those pieces were tossed and loaded. The boats all took off across the bay and out the pass to reload. This was perfect; everything was going smoothly. Typically they would make three or four trips back and forth to the load boat until all the bales were safely onshore. The boats never showed for their third arrival, however, and they didn’t respond to my repeated radio call signals. Something was not right.
Thirty minutes passed before I got a call on the radio, but it wasn’t from the boats; it was from our watchman out on the main road.
“A car just pulled in here, then backed out and took off down the road again,” he said.
That sounded unusual, considering we were out in the middle of nowhere. I decided at that time to walk out to the main road and check it out for myself. There was still no word from my missing boats. When I reached the road, my watchman repeated what he had said to me over the radio. Looking around, I noticed that Clark and some of the guys who were supposed to be back at the dock were standing right behind me. Seemed that they, too, were suspicious and a bit apprehensive over what was happening.
We heard what sounded like waves breaking steadily on the shore, but the sound transformed into the rumble of cars and trucks roaring down the road to our right. My cry to withdraw trumped the noise of squealing rubber as their tires gripped the pavement.
“Hit the woods, boys! We’re fucked!”
When the vehicles got close enough for their headlights to illuminate the road in front of us, everybody scattered like roaches in the kitchen and took off running in different directions. Those who fled to the left had a thick pine tree forest to aid in their escape. Those who ran to the right had a thick field of three-foot-tall palmetto bushes that provided no cover at all. Unfortunately, I hightailed it for the palmetto bushes, as did a Colombian asshole who had come here illegally on one of the boats. With no time to rethink my choice of direction, I kept running. When the first vehicle came into sight, I had made it only about thirty feet into the palmettos; then I squatted down among the branches. The first vehicle to pull in was that damn tan Bronco that had been circling the hotel. That’s the only one I saw before I ducked down out of sight. These guys were on us like flies on a turd. I could only assume that these pricks had been watching us from the beginning.
Even though it was dark, I could see their feet through the branches by the light coming from the other cars. All the while that damn Colombian was crunching his way through the palmettos. I winced with every crunch and crack. All I could think was, Stop and get down, you fuckin’ moron. If these guys hear you or see you, they’ll trip right over me to get to you!
Finally he stopped moving. I didn’t hear anything now except the cops, or whoever they were, shouting:
“There’s a few of them over there, running through the trees!”
“Get in there, boys … Go! Go! Go!”
Several of them took off running after my crew while others got in their cars, backed out, and took off down the road. Squealing its tires, the Bronco took off, too.
As I sat there, listening silently, I could still hear the sound of a car motor running. It was coming from out on the main road, but I couldn’t tell if there was anyone in the vehicle. My legs were getting numb because I was still squatting. Somehow I had to get the feeling back in my legs. The palmetto branches were dry and—just as they did for that Colombian dickhead—they made a crunching sound every time I tried to move. So whenever one of those guys talked, closed a door, or made any kind of sound at all, I would move my legs little by little out from under me. Eventually, I managed to sit down on my ass and get the feeling back into my legs. I stayed right there for hours, all night until daybreak. I knew that if those bastards came back after sunrise, they would sure as hell see me sitting there. I was right there next to them. They could have spit on me, I was so close.
All of a sudden the Bronco came back, pulled in, and stopped right next to me again. I stayed down, as low as I could, not making a sound. The driver got out and started to walk into the woods when a voice called to him.
“Where are you goin’?”
“I’m gonna walk back in there and see what we’ve got,” the Bronco guy answered.
“Hold on, man,” the other guy said. “I’ll go with you!”
Off they went into the trees toward the box truck. I couldn’t see them, but I pictured them vanishing into the woods. Maybe I could make a run for it. But there remained one problem. A car was in the road, and it was still running.
I debated with myself what to do. It was getting bright enough to see in the dawn light. I had to get the fuck out of there. But if I lifted my head to look above the bushes and a cop was in the idling car, I had three options. I was either going to run him over, get busted, or get shot.
I also knew that those guys who walked into the woods wouldn’t stay back there long, and I was afraid more vehicles would show up. I raised my head and peeked over the palmettos. I saw a police car—with nobody in it! I got up and ran like hell past the idling cop car, then across the road. I ran through a ditch on the other side, then ripped into a patch of thick brush and kept on going. Not once did I look back. My tunnel vision wouldn’t allow it. I don’t know how far I ran. I just ran like my ass was on fire and picked up my pace each time one of my feet hit the ground. Swatting at branches to keep them from hitting me in the face, I pushed myself harder and harder until my lungs were about to explode. After what seemed like miles, I stopped and dove under a patch of thick bushes, then covered myself with leaves, dirt, and anything else I could scrape up. I lay there beneath the dense jungle vegetation, trying to catch my breath and not believing I had just gotten away. My breathing and heart rate slowed as I remained there, as quiet as possible, listening for the sound of my pursuers. I didn’t hear a thing. That was the most beautiful sound I never heard. I was burned out, stressed out, and freaked out. Then I passed out.
I was awakened by the sound of a helicopter flying over my head. As it flew by, the beating blades gave way to the sound of branches breaking in the distance along with a hollow banging. They were towing my box truck with about one hundred bales in it out of the trees. I dozed off again, only to wake up later on in the afternoon to a different sound that crept much closer. Slowly opening one eye, I found myself face-to-face with a full-grown panther. A living, breathing, meat-eating Florida panther. That big bastard was crouched down and sneaking up on me like I was its next meal. After running and hiding out from the law for nearly a full day, I wasn’t about to let it all end in the jaws of some big pussycat. Of course, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get out of this precarious situation, but one thing I knew for certain was that I was tired and I was pissed off. I jumped up with my arms raised and roared like a lion. That damn cat leaped about six feet into the air and did a back flip. It landed on its feet, then shot off through the bushes like it had been fired from a cannon.
After that, there was no way I could go back to sleep because I really didn’t trust that cat to stay away. It was late afternoon now, and the activity I’d heard throughout most of the day had stopped. I needed to wait until dark before making my way out of the bush.
Now that all the events of the past night and day were behind me, I breathed a small sigh of relief and began to feel a little more relaxed. I could now think clearly enough to formulate my next escape. After dark I would walk along the side of the road behind the trees in case the law was still out searching for runaway smugglers. I knew of a fish house about five miles down the road, where I would find a phone and call someone to get me the hell out of there.
But first things first. I had to take a serious dump. I hadn’t relieved myself since the day before, and now there was an angry brown bear clawing at my back door. I did my business and realized that the only paper I had to wipe my ass with was the $4,000 in hundred-dollar bills I had in my front pocket. Damn, it cost me $500 to wipe my ass. That was one for the Guinness book, the most expensive shit ever taken. Of course, there was no way those bills were going back into my pocket, so I buried them right there and began to make my way back to the road.
