Sensing movement in the small room we’re congregated in, I look out the window and see Megan Harper’s black Mercedes SUV pull in.
“Yeah. I hope this ends soon, too. Are you good?”
“I’m good, Jude. Just wanted to say good morning,” she says softly. I think about how I left her—showered, sated, and back asleep with her dog in that big ass bed wearing nothing but my shirt.
“It was a good morning, baby,” I say quietly. “Hey someone needs me, I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Oh, sorry. I’ll be here, not going anywhere. Anywhere at all,” she says with sarcasm.
“Goodbye, Gabrielle,” I say with a warning.
“Bye, Jude,” she responds with a little laugh and we disconnect.
I look back to the window to see Megan struggling with her young children, bags, and a stroller. Her movements are quick, agitated, even anxious. The kids have backpacks and the older one is trying to pull a suitcase while Megan has bags thrown over her shoulders, pushing a stroller with one hand while pulling another large suitcase with the other. It’s clear to see she’s packed as much as she could handle and is planning on being gone a while. She’ll throw attitude, but other than that, there shouldn’t be an issue taking her into custody. I hate it when kids are involved. We’ve got additional female officers here to help deal with them and hopefully we will be able to call family to take them, but it’s not going to be a fun couple of hours, that’s for sure.
Megan enters the small terminal with her kids and moments later I hear Megan start to scuffle, yelling at the agents. Kids are crying and the noise gets louder as I hear the agents directing them to our location. The doors open, the female officers go directly to the kids, moving them to the side while another female officer moves in to remove bags and frisk Megan.
“What are you doing?” Megan screams. “You can’t bring me in here! I’ve done nothing wrong!”
She’s agitated, you can visibly see her tremble and tears are starting to form and fall down her face. Signs of stress from the last three weeks are evident. She doesn’t look nearly as put together as she did that day at her house and she has dark circles under her eyes. Meanwhile, the two older kids are crying, calling out for their mom and the hysteria in the room is building.
The female officer attending to Megan tries to reason with her. “Ma’am, you need to calm down. You’re scaring your children. If you cooperate, we’ll get them out of here quicker, hopefully call family to come and get them. If you don’t have anyone who can make the trek to collect them, they will have to be placed with Child Protective Services. Now, no one here wants that, including you, so calm down and quit screaming.” The officer gives her a quick but forceful yank to get her point across.
“No! You can’t take them away!” Her panic reaches a new level. She’s looking around the room quickly, for what, I don’t know, until her eyes come to Mac and me. “You. You were both at my house that day.” The noise in the room continues to climb between Megan screaming and the baby is now crying with the older two.
I enter the fray. “Calm down, Mrs. Harper, if not for your children, then for yourself. It will only be in your best interest if you cooperate.”
“It’s you,” she barely breathes. “I talked to you on the phone. You’re with Gabby?”
Tensing, I do everything I can to control myself and my language in front of her children. “Don’t. Do not even think about uttering her name after what your husband did to her. Do you understand me? You set her up, informing your husband that I was with her. You’ve lost that right—you get me?”
Mac butts in. “Enough.” Looking to the female officer he instructs, “Mirandize her.” Looking back at Megan he bites, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I suggest you shut your mouth, woman. Look around—you’re in a room full of officers of the law and you’re just digging your own grave. Not to mention, you can save your voice for later when we’re the ones asking the questions.”
With that, the door opens and an ATF agent sticks his head in and gives the warning, “Plane’ll be landing any minute.”
Since Megan and her kids have been neutralized, I leave the room with Mac following. With our vests on and guns drawn, we walk to the wall beside the windows and see the plane circling. It’s a small jet, it can’t hold more than six to seven passengers. We watch them land and taxi to the small terminal.
The door swings open and a man dressed in black walks down the steps, straight to the building. This has to be the pilot, there were only three people on the plane from information recorded at Cherry Capital Airport and this isn’t Harper or his second in command. He enters the terminal, agents go directly to him identify themselves. Turning slightly to glance back at his plane he starts to realize what’s going on and follows the agent into another room immediately. The rest of the terminal attendants and workers have been removed in case shit goes down.
Then we wait. A few minutes pass and nothing happens.
I hear Mac next to me mutter, “Fuck. We’re gonna have to flush them out. That bastard isn’t willing to get off the damn plane to find his wife and kids.”
I turn to look at our supervisor, give him a chin lift and he shakes his head in resignation putting his police radio to his mouth and calls for SWAT to come in. A minute later, a large black armored truck with OPD SWAT written across the side pulls up on the tarmac right next to the plane. It strategically parks so officers can exit on the opposite side and use the truck for cover. In full SWAT gear, the officers file out and one is talking into a speaker, demanding they exit the plane. Another minute passes, another verbal warning comes over the speaker.
Nothing.
Three SWAT move in wearing helmets, holding shields and have long guns aimed at the door of the plane. One reaches out, tosses a tear gas canister into the plane and the officers retreat to their original positions. Smoke starts to seep out the door and through the haze we see movement. Harper’s second in command stumbles out first, coughing and sputtering, looking for clean air. Two SWAT officers rush in, each grabbing an arm, wrenching his forearms up his back, move him to the front of the plane and out of the way for the remaining officers to get to Harper.
More movement at the door and Harper comes out, tripping down the stairs with a gun in his hand. The arm with the gun is down to his side, pointed to the ground and his other hand over his face trying, unsuccessfully shielding himself from the teargas. He doesn’t get a chance to train his gun on anyone as he loses his footing and falls down the stairs, the gun falling from his hand and landing on the ground a couple feet from where he drops. A SWAT officer steps up to kick the gun away.
Not waiting another moment, I burst out of the terminal door and remotely hear Mac on my heels yelling for me to stop. Taking my last long strides to get to the jackass who put his hands on what is mine, I bypass the SWAT officer and put my boot into Trevor’s gut and he rolls over making a muted “humph” sound.
“How does that feel, motherfucker? Huh? It doesn’t feel so good, does it?” I ask as I bring a knee down hard to his back, roughly pulling his arms around as I reach for the cuffs in my vest.