Leon must be worried that the ransom call was a setup. Smart man. Though not smart enough to arm himself; his hands were empty. If Leon did possess a weapon, he didn’t have it at the ready, but he was probably more concerned with a police sting rather than a revenge-seeking killing machine. Leon stepped away from the car and headed toward Thorpe’s position.

Shit. He needed to act quickly. He could disappear around the house and hope if Leon noticed the recently constructed hole, he wouldn’t determine it was fresh. Or he could take down Leon now. Both options offered potentially disastrous consequences. Ultimately, Thorpe couldn’t take the chance Leon would see the hole for what it was. Thorpe gathered his equipment and, in a crouched position, ran toward the back of the house. When he reached the rear of the home, he dumped his bag and continued west where he found a gate. Thorpe quietly released the latch and walked to the southwest corner of the home. Peering around the corner of the residence, Thorpe barely caught a glimpse of Leon disappearing around the other side of the house. Thorpe took one quick look before sprinting across the concrete driveway. When he reached the corner of the house, he rounded it without pause, and spotted Leon looking through the hole Thorpe had just abandoned. Leon heard the footfalls and turned to find Thorpe closing in at full speed. Thorpe held a concealed knife in his right hand—handle in palm, blade behind forearm. As Thorpe neared, Leon raised both hands palms forward, above his head, in the classic “I surrender” stance.

Leon obviously thought he’d just been caught in a police operation. Thorpe stopped advancing and played along with Leon’s misguided belief.

“FBI, turn around.”

Leon complied immediately. This was going to be easy.

“Get down on your knees…cross your ankles…put your hands on the back of your head.” Leon executed every command, allowing Thorpe to approach from behind and place him in Flexcuffs. Leon began spouting his defense.

“Man, I didn’t have anything to do with this shit, they…”

“Shut up, you’re going to blow our surveillance,” Thorpe interrupted.

“All right, all right, man, it’s cool.”

Thorpe pulled his hoodie over his head in an effort to conceal his identity. He kept Leon facing the opposite direction.

“You’re going to fuck up this whole investigation, asshole. I’m the only one who has surveillance on this side. You’re coming with me.”

“That’s cool, man. I was just gettin’ ready to call you guys.”

Thorpe held Leon’s cuffs and grabbed the back of his neck. Directing Leon from behind, Thorpe retraced his route, picked up his equipment, and took Leon back behind the hole in the fence. He put Leon on his belly with his head facing away from him.

“Do they know you’re out here?” Thorpe asked.

“Yeah, I told them I was coming out here to look around, but I was really coming out here to call you guys.”

Yeah, right. Thorpe hadn’t even discovered a cell phone during his pat-down. “How long do they expect you to be gone?”

“Man, I don’t know. I said I was going outside to check things out. They just nodded their heads.”

“Remember we’ve been watching this place. Who all’s inside?”

“There’s Price and…”

“I want first and last names,” Thorpe demanded.

“…There’s Stephen Price, somebody Baker—I don’t know his first name, Thadius Shaw, Andrew Phipps, Corn Johnson, and another white dude I don’t know.”

Thorpe shook his head. Not counting the unidentified “white dude,” five of the men were, or had been, Tulsa police officers. All five had reputations for being dope chasers. “White Dude” and Brandon “Big Foot” Baker were white guys. The other three men were black.

Phipps served on the department’s Special Operations Team (SOT) as a sniper. SOT was the equivalent of most departments’ Special Weapons and Tactics teams (SWAT). Tulsa’s tactical team was a part-time assignment. SOT members trained twice a month but otherwise held regular positions on the department. Phipps once worked in SID’s day-shift narcotics squad but had been booted out after a year. The whole affair had been hush-hush, and Thorpe still didn’t know the circumstances behind the removal.

Corn, short for Cornelius, was Phipps’ best friend. Whoever said you can’t judge a book by its cover had never met Corn Johnson; a mouth breather, he wandered about with a perpetual look of confusion. He didn’t appear to be very bright, and he wasn’t. He’d once been a member of Gilcrease Division’s Street Crimes Unit. To avoid termination, he’d resigned from TPD after he was caught providing sensitive information to drug dealers regarding investigations into their illegal activities.

“Who else is inside?” Thorpe continued.

“No one, man. That’s it.”

Thorpe wanted to know who owned the house, but didn’t want to ask and sound uninformed. He still needed Leon to believe he was a federal agent on official business and if that were actually the case, he’d damn well know on whose house he’d been conducting surveillance.

“Who else is involved that didn’t show up?”

“Hey, man, I’m willing to cooperate, but I want a lawyer. I need something on paper.”

Leon was thinking about his future—he didn’t have one. “At least tell me this…is there anyone else involved who’s not here tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“What have you been talking about tonight?”

“They all fucked up. They think we been talkin’ because somebody knows what they done and is blackmailing Price. They trying to figure out how to handle a phone call from some ransom motherfucker.”

Thorpe continued with the FBI ruse. “Do they know we’re on to them?”

“Those niggas didn’t even think about that till I said something. Now they don’t know what to think.”

Thorpe decided he didn’t need to conduct surveillance any longer. Leon would provide enough information. But Thorpe needed to get him to a place where he could question him properly. Thorpe pretended to have a two-way conversation on his police radio.

“Copy…you want me to remove the prisoner? Ten-four…I have to walk him to my vehicle…no, I don’t think he’ll be a problem…we need to get his car outta here, or they’ll know something’s up. Okay, we’ll just take his car then.”

“Okay, Leon, I’ve got a replacement coming, so I’m walking you to your car. Understand?”

“Yeah, man, that’s cool.”

Leon was working so hard at appearing cooperative that it blinded him to the snake pit toward which he willingly walked.

“We’re going to stroll out of here like best friends. You try to run or shout a warning, and you can kiss any deals goodbye. Got it?”

“Yeah, man, I never wanted anything to do with this shit in the first place. I wanna help.”

Thorpe retrieved Leon’s car keys from his coat pocket. “If you do yell out or try to run, I’m going to knock the piss out of you. With your hands cuffed behind your back, you won’t be able to break your fall with anything but your face. Okay, you’re going to listen to my directions and walk in front of me. Let’s go.”

Thorpe easily lifted little Leon by the shoulders, pointed him west, and told him to move. The two men walked to the passenger-side door of Leon’s aging Cutlass with Thorpe keeping an eye on the target house. After stuffing his captive in the car, Thorpe leaned against Leon’s throat with his left forearm as he buckled him in with his right hand. Thorpe walked around the back of the car, made sure his hoodie covered his face, tossed his bag in the back and got behind the wheel. Thorpe turned the car around in the cul-de-sac and made his way out of the neighborhood.

Leon was talkative. “Where we goin’?”

“We have a mobile unit a couple miles from here where we’re monitoring this operation,” Thorpe lied.

“Man, I can’t have any TPD see me with you. There’s too many of those bitches involved in this thing. They’ll kill me.”