Wrong Town: A Mark Landry Novel (5 page)

Eleven

Frank Tagala held the blinds of the window open with one hand and his binoculars up to his eyes with the other. After Agnes Landry’s son—or stepson, or adopted son, or whatever he was—had carried his last load of bags into the house next door, he lowered the binoculars and let the blinds snap shut. Frank was pretty sure he spotted at least one rifle case mixed in with the other suitcases and backpacks. But he also recalled that the kid was some kind of soldier, so he wasn’t very concerned. He had other things on his mind anyway. He turned around and made his way across the darkened family room and back into the kitchen.

He made one last review of his notes before collecting the multi-colored folders and random photographs scattered across the kitchen table and dropping them into a wide, hard-shell briefcase. He snapped the combination lock closed, placed the case in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, and tethered the reinforced handle to the pipes with a steel bicycle lock. Finally, he closed the door and secured the cupboard with a very old child safety lock.

Ten minutes later Frank emerged from his bedroom wearing a pair of black dress slacks, black Italian loafers, and a black polo shirt beneath a black sport coat. A stainless steel watch hung loosely around his left wrist, and he wore a matching stainless steel wedding band although he had not seen or spoken with his wife or daughter in years.

He patted his front pockets to make sure his keys and wallet were where they should be. Then he removed the .40 caliber Glock 27 pistol from the holster concealed deep behind his right hip. He pointed the muzzle of the gun at the floor with his right hand and used his left to slowly pull back the slide until he could peer through the ejection port and see the shiny nickel casing of a 155-grain hollow point bullet in the chamber. Then he rode the slide all the way forward and gave the rear sights a firm bump with the palm of his hand to make sure the gun was in battery. Satisfied, he returned the Glock to its holster. He had already verified that the two thirteen-round backup magazines attached to his left hip were full, and the snub-nosed Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver strapped to the inside of his left leg just below the calf didn’t need checking, so he stared at the bottle on the kitchen counter instead.

Frank’s mind weighed the pros and cons of having another drink before such an important and dangerous meeting, but his body had already made its decision. He sat back and watched as his left hand retrieved a chilled glass from the freezer and his right hand grabbed the large bottle of cheap vodka on the counter. He filled the glass to the brim and stood still for a moment. After a preliminary deep breath he lifted the glass to his lips and drained its entire contents down his throat and into his empty stomach. He contemplated another drink, but instead set the glass and bottle down on the counter and headed outside to his car.

At six feet three, Frank still had a commanding presence and impressive agility, but his once athletic build was starting to deteriorate. He looked gaunt and unhealthy. The dark bags of flesh under his eyes distracted from the elegance of his thick gray hair. He was fifty-six, but he appeared ten or more years older than that.

Frank started the car and checked his watch. It was 6 p.m. He should arrive in Boston by 6:45, in plenty of time for his secret 8:00 meeting on the water.

Francis Tagala’s grandparents, Virgilio and Angelica, knew only a few words of English when they arrived in the U.S. from Italy and settled in Boston’s North End. The decision to emigrate had not been easy, but the newlyweds felt that it was God’s plan for them to make the journey. They arrived with just one suitcase and a little under $300 between them. But what they lacked in wealth, they more than made up for in work ethic and optimism.

Within six months of their arrival, Angelica was pregnant with the first of their four children. She and Virgilio did whatever it took to give their children the best opportunities they could. Their kids, deeply grateful for the parents’ dedication, passed up opportunities to branch out and opted instead to stay in the North End, working alongside mother and father. But that instinctive obligation to stick around lasted only one generation. It changed with the first grandchild, Frank Tagala.

Like his father and grandfather, Frank spent much of his youth lifting boxes, stocking shelves, and busing tables. But he also dreamed of a different life and knew there were bigger and better opportunities out there than working his ass off in the North End for the rest of his life. Although he got in a lot of fights as a kid, he was also the first in his family to finish high school. After graduation he struggled for several years in a community college before eventually transferring to a four-year state school as a commuter student. It took him three more years to complete the last two years of study.

His entire family attended his graduation and cheered wildly as he walked across the stage with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, although nobody knew what the hell he could do with it. But the celebration and accolades had barely ended when Frank’s father, Virgilio Jr., dropped dead of a massive heart attack at age forty-four. Frank put his dreams on hold and rallied around his mother with the rest of the family. He suffered silently in tedious jobs for almost ten years before his mother took him aside one day in tears.

“Go, Francis. Go do whatever God calls you to do. Virgilio’s parents and my parents all came here so our families could have better lives. But we’re all so stubborn and focused on work, we’re letting it all fly by. Life is so short, Francis, so short. Please go soon or you never will. And always put your trust in God,” she cried.

Her blessing was all he had needed. Two months later he accepted a position with the U.S. Border Patrol. It wasn’t his first choice, but he would have taken almost any job in federal law enforcement just to get his foot in the door. He worked hard and bit his tongue during a two-year stint at different posts along the Mexican border that nearly drove him insane. He then leapt at an opportunity to transfer to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Academically, Frank struggled greatly in Special Agent training for the ATF. In his view, there was too much talking and not enough doing. But he gutted his way through the seemingly endless hours of lectures and reading and made up for his lackluster grades by excelling in all other aspects of the program. He thrived in weapons training and had an intuitive understanding of tactics. His instructors gave him the nickname “Gladiator” for his fighting skills and stamina. But what impressed his superiors the most was his ability to build rapport with just about everyone he met. Frank was tough as nails, but he also had a magnetic, disarming personality. Even though he graduated nowhere near the top of his class, he was still invited to choose his first field assignment. After listening to his instructors’ counsel and asking God for guidance, he decided on the Boston Field Office. Frank was going home.

He hit the ground running and quickly made a name for himself in Boston as a dependable partner with natural street smarts. He volunteered for the toughest assignments and led the way in dangerous maneuvers without ever losing his cool. He worked undercover and developed a network of informants across the city that bewildered his superiors. Got a problem with the Irish criminals in the South End? Talk to Frank. Need information on Latino gang leaders? Talk to Frank. Wondering who was responsible for last night’s drive-by shooting? Ask Frank. If he doesn’t know already, he will soon.

Frank’s intuition and reliability were showcased early in his career, on a Saturday afternoon in Boston’s Chinatown district. He and his partner had been working undercover on an arms deal with some Asian gang members when Frank sensed that they had walked into an ambush. When one of the gang members pulled a large revolver, Frank drew his pistol and dropped him along with two other would-be assailants before they could access the rifles they had hidden under their long trench coats. The other three opened fire from across the street and a fierce exchange followed. Two of the assailants were killed; the third got away after putting two 9mm rounds into the midsection of Frank’s partner. Thanks to Frank’s crucial first aid, the injured officer survived, although the physical and psychological impact of the incident caused him to retire.

Frank was commended for his performance under fire, and the incident became a case study for agents across the country. ATF instructors started seeking his counsel, and he was often asked to visit other field offices to talk about the incident and about crisis response strategies. The director knew him by name and his place in bureau history seemed solidified. That was the first half of his career. The second half was much different.

Like all organizations, over time the bureau began to change. The senior agents and deputy directors who knew Frank by name left, replaced by a younger crop of leaders who, as Frank later reported to the retired brass, “had absolutely no fucking idea how the real world worked.” As a consequence, the rulebooks got thicker and the wide discretion that agents once enjoyed gave way to bureaucratic checklists and pussyfooting. These so-called leaders seemed much more concerned with protecting their own rear ends than the bureau’s actual mission.

What exactly is our mission?

After the September 11 attacks, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms tacked the word “Explosives” onto the end of its name; the addition made sense, but the agency’s responsibility for alcohol and tobacco regulation was shared with other federal institutions. The identity crisis was intensified by tremendous overlap and territory disputes with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals, the Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as well as local and state police.

To make matters still worse, the new generation of leaders to whom this bureaucratic redundancy all seemed normal could barely contain their disdain for the old-school agents like Frank, viewing them as loose cannons who needed to be closely managed. Frank was accustomed to getting evaluated solely on the results of his labor; now the neatness of his reports and strict adherence to regulations took precedence, and every action was questioned and second-guessed.

Frank handled the cultural shift grudgingly but adequately until his actions in the Chinatown shootout came into question. In a series of training memos, the firefight was dissected and picked apart by several agents who didn’t even have driver’s licenses when the episode occurred. The younger agents questioned Frank’s reflexive actions and posited that perhaps the fight could have been deescalated or avoided. Frank contemplated answering the revisionist history with memos of his own, but a colleague talked him out of it. “Don’t bother, Frank. You’ll just come off looking defensive and it’ll start a feeding frenzy with these assholes. The people who matter know you did the right thing. That’s enough. Let it go,” the colleague said.

So Frank decided to be the bigger person and ignore the Monday-morning quarterbacking. But six months later the most vociferous of his critics, an Ivy Leaguer named Ashton Brown, became the new Director of the Boston Field Office, Frank’s direct boss. Frank briefly considered requesting a transfer, but his stubborn Italian upbringing and sense of personal pride overrode the impulse.

Why should I leave? This is MY home. Screw him.

He thought back to his mother’s advice about always trusting in God and decided to stick it out. Besides, he had only a few years left until retirement.

Ashton Brown made Frank’s life uncomfortable from his first day as the bureau’s youngest field office director. He ranted and raved at every available opportunity about how the bureau needed to undergo a fundamental transformation if it was to meet the demands of the twenty-first century and how they couldn’t afford to teach old dogs new tricks. Brown listened to no one and typically ended meetings with provocative, morale-killing expressions like “Get on board or get out.” The environment had become toxic to all but a few agents who silently agreed with Brown while trying to play both sides of the fence. The rest of the staff criticized Brown behind his back. Frank tried to act prudently, but eventually his impatience and dissatisfaction began to get the better of him.

When Brown intimated his support for a failed bureau operation known as Operation Fast and Furious, Frank almost lost his mind. During that operation, ATF agents allowed illegal firearms to fall into the hands of criminals with known connections to Mexican drug cartels. They intended to track the weapons but ended up losing track of them, and one of them was later used to kill a U.S. Border Patrol agent assigned to a checkpoint that Frank had guarded years earlier. As Brown explained the story and the rest of the agents sat silently, Frank dropped his forehead onto the conference table with a loud thud.

“Is there a problem, Tagala?” asked Brown.

He answered without raising his head from the table. “Yeah. Our mission is to take guns away from bad guys. Our mission is not to give guns to bad guys. There was a time when this very simple concept was well understood.”

“Well, the world is a lot more complex these days, Tagala. Maybe too complex for someone as simple as you.”

Frank raised his head and forced a smile. “It makes no sense to me, but I barely graduated from a state school. I guess you need an Ivy League degree to understand why facilitating the transfer of guns to narco-terrorists is a good idea.”

All but a few managed to stifle their chuckles, but the humor was quickly replaced with semi-horror when Brown doubled-down.

“The only problem with the operation was a lack of proper planning and field leadership. And while the concept may seem like a bad idea to the creatively bankrupt, it’s an excellent example of thinking outside of the box. We need more bold operations like Fast and Furious, not less.”