Captain – Brothers At Arms #6

Gary grunted as he came around and opened his eyes to find a wall of bikers on one side of him and his colleagues standing on the other side looking more than a little nervous. “What the hell hit me?’ Gary groaned as he reached up to cup his jaw.

Just then, the front door opened and more Marshals walked in.

This time, Zeus knew at least one of them as he had been here before. He was the one that took Vincent into custody. Zeus nodded at the man and introduced him to the others, “Travis Kent, meet other Marshals from Kansas City.”

Travis nodded. “We’ve met.” He looked at Gary and shook his head. “What the hell happened to him?”

“He ran into my fist when he insulted another agent.” Captain growled. “An agent that did nothing wrong and that he owes an apology too.”

Travis shook his head and announced, “After you left my office Gary, I called your superior and told him what was going on, and he told me to tell you and your men to stand down. Apparently, you haven’t made many friends in KC and he’s about to reassign you all. He feels you all would make better agents if you weren’t working together. So he sent the warrants to my office and I’m here to take the Raggetti’s into custody as our offices already have Vincent in custody. You guys are supposed to go back to Kansas City in the next twelve hours.”

Gary stood up so fast his chair went sliding out from under him. “That’s bullshit Kent and I’m not doing it! I’m here to arrest Barrett Raggetti and I’ll be taking him home with me.”

Travis shook his head. “No you won’t. Captain Markus Ballard told me to tell you to call him if there was any trouble with this arrest.”

Gary growled and then he turned to Captain. “Then I want him arrested for assault on a federal officer.”

Gina stepped up and snarled. “If you arrest him, I’ll turn over the evidence I’ve been collecting for the last year of your questionable arrests and releases. You are on the take and I can prove it.”

Gary scoffed. “What are you talking about? I’m not on the take and you don’t have any proof.”

Gina crossed her arms and then rattled off a series of numbers.

No one in the room knew what they were but Gary went pale. He went to sit down again only his chair wasn’t where it was supposed to be and he ended up on the floor.

Gina looked up at Travis Kent. Then she turned her head to glare at one of the other men standing there.

The other man couldn’t or wouldn’t hold her gaze and he dropped his head for a moment. When he looked up again, he looked at Travis and said, “Gary and I are on the take and we have facilitated more than one client to escape jail time by fudging the numbers and stealing the evidence from the evidence lockup.”

Travis shook his head and growled. “You two are a disgrace to the uniform, you know that right?”

The other man, Grady Wallace nodded. “Yeah, I know it. I should have turned him in when he came to me with his big plans but I didn’t. I went along with it and now, I’ll be sitting next to him in a cell in a federal prison.”

One of the agents with Travis took out his handcuffs and handcuffed Grady’s hands behind his back while another one grabbed Gary off the floor and handcuffed him as well. They then read them their rights under the law. The cuffed men were sat down at a table to await transport.

The rest of Gary’s agents stared at Travis.

He gave them a nod. “Get back to your office and report to your superior.”

The four men nodded and went out the door as well.

Travis shook his head in disgust. He turned to look at Gina then Zeus and asked, “Do you have the prisoners here?”

Zeus nodded. “Yeah, they are in our cells.”

Travis shook his head. “You know for as long as we’ve been looking for the Raggetti’s hoping to keep them in prison, I never expected it to come to this. When we got the email with Alfredo’s statement on it, I was floored. We watched the newspapers for their comments and some of them were brutal. Crime after crime was listed and they are being verified. Those guys don’t stand a chance of breathing fresh air again. They will all die in prison.”

Alfredo got to his feet and stood by the table. He looked at Travis and said, “Si, but they did the crime and they need to do the time. My name is Alfredo Raggetti and I am Barrett’s father. I wrote that article and I turned in my own son. Barrett and his boys listened to the words of my own father Alfonzo Raggetti. He used to tell them stories of the old days when he belonged to the mob on the east coast. This was many years ago, back in the days of Al Capone and his crews.” He looked around the room and told them all, “He built this house as a safe house for when he needed to leave Chicago until the heat died down. He built many tunnels and safe rooms in this building and of course, I didn’t know any of this at the time. I was just a boy when we started coming here and he wouldn’t tell me why we came here so often. It was only when he grew old and senile that he began to tell his stories about this place. He used to tell my sons and my grandsons all kinds of wild tales about how he would just take what he wanted and then he would hide it here in different places. He promised them it would be here waiting for them when they needed it but he lied time and time again. Oh, we searched this place and we did find some of my father’s treasures but it wasn’t anything like what Barrett was expecting. We even found Barrett’s hiding place. We found the money from the bank he robbed and from the jewelry store he hit and we will turn that over to you when you take him into custody. Although he’s already been convicted of those crimes, I’m sure you can find something he did. We have uncovered a number of crimes my son and grandsons did that you can bring up and we can supply you with the evidence you’ll need to convict them.”

Travis nodded. “I’m sure with your cooperation, we can all get through this with as little fuss as is needed here.” He looked over at Zeus and his boys and said, “The Brothers at Arms have been cooperating with us already and I don’t see why they wouldn’t again.”

Desi raised her head and claimed, “I found out Barrett Raggetti is my father and I came here to see justice done for my mother and my grandfather who he and his sons killed in cold blood. I didn’t find out my father’s name until I was fourteen and came home to find my mother laying in a pool of her blood and she gave me his name not only as my father but also as the man who stabbed her to death. Then a few years later, his son’s killed my grandfather.”

Emily joined her and said, “I’ve given Gina the security tapes of the night Romano and Alijala broke into my father’s bar and killed him when he wouldn’t give them the keys to his bar. I have everything on tape.”

Travis just shook his head. “Well, that just about cinches the case.”

Zeus spoke up again, “Are you aware of the fact that Barrett’s men are watching us from the woods? They might be armed and may start shooting at any time.”

Travis nodded. “We have men closing in on them as we speak. We saw them as we drove in.” He frowned and said, “Did something happen in those woods? It looks like world war three out there.”

Gina nodded. “We had to persuade them not to come in, guns blazing yesterday.”

“I see.” Travis just shook his head. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“Good call.” Gina nodded. “Also, when you take Barrett and his boys out you might not want to stand too close to them. There might be snipers out there just waiting for the time to be right to make their move. They really don’t like the Raggettis’ anymore.”

“Duly noted.” Travis gave her a nod. “Thanks for the heads up. Hopefully we can find them all and get the boys where they need to be without any harm to anyone.”

“When you take them out, we can be on the roof watching for trouble,” Diabolus assured him.

Travis nodded. “We can be up there too.” He signaled to 2 of his men.

“I’ll show you where,” Diabolus told them as he headed down the hallway.

Marty and Lindy also followed.

Zeus nodded. “You are more than welcome to watch over everyone. All we want is Barrett and his sons out of here, so we can get this over with.”

Travis shook his head. “Yeah, I imagine this has been quite an ordeal for you guys. This has been going on for some time now. With Vincent trying his best to run you guys out of town and all.”

Zeus snorted. “Yeah, that pissant had been up our ass for a couple of years now.”

“Yeah, about that…” Travis growled. “He’s been talking while he’s behind bars and I think that idiot thinks his family is going to bust his dumb ass out. I mean really?”

“Yeah,” Delaney joined them. “You see that’s how they did things back in the days of Al Capone, only those days are long gone, and they don’t seem to know it. They listened to the stories my great grandfather told them as young kids. Alfonzo had them enraptured with his stories. So enraptured, that they didn’t realize he was nothing but a lying bag of bones. He never told them that the men, who went up against the cops, usually ended up dying in the streets.”

Alfredo joined them and shook his head. “I honestly tried to tell my sons and grandkids not to take what he was shoveling as gospel but they chose not to listen to me. Instead, they listened to a crazy man who died screaming the names of all his victims, the very people he cheated and stole from in his life.”

“Can I ask why you disavowed them in the papers this morning?” Travis stared at him. “That was a bold move on your part.” Shaking his head he said, “A thing most people wouldn’t have done in any case.”

“My son Barrett is proud of his name,” Alfredo told them. “He thinks his name will get him into places most people can’t go. He knows the Raggettis had a long association with the Family and he planned on using that fact to worm his way back into favor. He didn’t see the damage his grandfather did to the Family and now those doors are closed to him once and for all. The Family has been closing doors all morning to him and the others. Anyone who’s ever done business with Barrett is now blocked from going forward. Barrett is going to find that out the hard way when he reaches out to his friends and acquaintances.”

Travis nodded “I think you are right. I’m almost surprised that Leon Vincinti hasn’t been here already, taking stock.” Then he held up his hand and said, “And if he has been, I don’t want to know. I hate paperwork and that knowledge would require tons of paperwork.”

Zeus nodded and glanced over at the others. They got the message loud and clear. Then he looked at Travis and asked, “Do you want to see the prisoners now?”

Travis nodded. “Yeah, I have to inform them of their rights and where they will be taken, also I have to tell them just how much trouble they’re in. Always the fun part. These idiots don’t think we have any idea just how many laws they’ve broken and how much evidence we really have on them.” Shaking his head he reiterated, “Dumb bastards.”

“Come on, I’ll show you where they are.” Zeus headed for the stairs to the cell area.

Travis and his agents followed him.