Five hours later, the two trucks pulled into the Marion Motel parking lot. Freddy Masterly pushed against the rear seat of the truck Scott drove.

‘Man, I’m glad we’re finally here. I’m too old to be stuck in one position for a long time.’

Jumping out of the open door, he stretched and yawned. They were exhausted from the trip. However, there were a lot to do. They needed to get busy checking out the town; someone had to find out where the U-Haul truck and the dope were stored, and figure out how to get the boys out of jail. But, the first thing was to rent some rooms and get something to eat. Scott strolled into the lobby of the quiet motel and rung the bell on the desk.

Silvery haired Martha Melton walked to the front desk. Her family owned the motel for generations and she took over ten years ago after her father and mother became too old to continue to run it.

‘Good evening, how may I help you today?’

‘Yes, Madam, I need to rent four connecting rooms.’

Scott wanted to make sure everyone was together so no one got lost.

‘Well, I got two rooms that connect and two more that is right next to them, would that be okay?’

‘That will be great.’

‘The price is sixty-nine dollars per night. How long will you be staying?’

Looking outside at the trucks, she slid the registration card across the counter.

‘So, you have family here or are you coming for the fishing tournament over at Lakeland Farms.’

As usual, Scott lied to the woman as he filled in the information on the cards.

‘Yeah, we’re here to fish. We’ll be here for a few days; I’ll pay for three days, then I’ll come back and pay some more if I stay longer.’

Martha rang the rooms up on the old cash register on top of the check in counter.

‘Ok, the total for all four rooms for three nights each will be eight hundred and ninety eight dollars and thirty-eight cents. Will that be cash, check, or credit?’

‘I’ll pay cash.’

‘Whose name will these rooms be registered under?’

‘Well, you can put them all under my name.’

Scott replied while pulling a large wad of crisp hundred dollar bills out of his Levi jeans pocket. He carefully counted and laid ten bills on the counter and gave her the fake ID he brought with him.

She looked at the Id and checked it against the name on the registration card.

‘Ok, Mr. Wilkerson. The rooms are numbers 120, 121, 122, and 123. Now room 121 and 122 are the connecting room. Let me get your change.’

She counted the cash.

‘You gave me too much money.’

She returned the change and the extra one hundred dollar bill. Scott pushed it back towards her.

‘That is for your troubles and for some information. Where can we get some good food in this town?’

Martha smiled as she gladly accepted the tip. Pointing across the parking lot to Martha’s Kitchen, she quickly and proudly replied.

‘Oh, Mr. Wilkerson, that is easy. I got the best food in town right there at Martha’s Kitchen right here at the motel.’

She handed him the blue plastic door cards. Pointing at the map of the property on the desk, she instructed him how to get to the rooms.

‘To get to the room, just turn left and drive around the main building to the rear. The rooms are right in the middle the building you’ll be looking at. The restaurant opens at six in the morning and stays open until eleven at night. I hope you enjoy your stay here in Marion.’

She put the cash in the cash register and watched Scott leave.

Scott and the gang of hired killers arrived in Marion less than a week after Chief Hogan arrested the two drivers and confiscated the large shipment of marijuana. Three days later after scouting the town and getting familiar with the everyday routine of the tiny 15 person police department, the heavily armed and military trained gunmen opened fire on the police building in a violent clash that left three police officers badly wounded and most of the rest hospitalized. Around 4:30 a.m., the first attack took place at the fire station as the gunmen retrieved the shipment.

The four hooded men approached the front of the fire station as the corporal stood outside front smoking a cigarette. As they got closer, Freddie suddenly put his hands in his pockets, retrieving a gun.

‘Hold it and raise your hands.’

“Wow, cool it; you know this here is police property. Are you crazy?’

“I ain’t crazy; now where’re the drugs.’

‘I got some aspirins in my shirt pocket. You want one? But if you need something stronger than that you’ll have to go to the Hill because I ain’t got anything on me. No narcotics, no contraband, no drugs.’

He started to list off all the things he didn’t have on him, trying to stale for time or a chance to signal someone for help.

“Okay, funny guy, we didn’t come to listen to your jokes. We heard that ya’ll had a whole shit load of drugs locked up here somewhere, now where the fuck is it.’

Pulling back the trigger, Freddie shoved the barrel of the gun hard into the corporal chest.

‘I told you I ain’t got nothing on me; no narcotics, no contraband, absolutely nothing.’

The corporal was obviously getting nervous by the way his legs started to uncontrollably shake.

‘Slowly reach in your pocket and give me the keys to the door.’

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, griping the key ring tightly, but didn’t comply. Surprisingly, he threw the keys across the pavement into the bushes. As one of the men ran to retrieve them, the other masked assailant frisked the corporal and removed his weapons while the fourth man held the corporal in a military style choke hold.

Freddie took a few steps back and violently struck him near the base of his rib cage hard enough to knock the wind out of the corporal, making him fall down to one knee. The masked man reached down and grabbed the back of the downed policemen’s collar roughly standing him up again.

‘Get up; we aren’t going to ask you again.’

Freddie slammed the butt of the gun against the corporal’s head; this time breaking the skin and drawing blood. At this point, the other man returned with the keys that the corporal tossed into the bushes. He walked back to the corporal, and punched him hard in the mouth with his fist, knocking him completely to the ground.

‘Where is the dope?’

‘There’s no dope! I didn’t have any narcotics, no contraband…..’

The corporal voice slowly dwindled down to a whisper as he repeated the list of drug he didn’t have on him. One of the men took the keys and after some time turned one in the lock. The glass and metal framed door came open.

‘Hey, where are you going? You can’t go in there! That’s official police property.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t listen. Now, get up and let’s go, NOW!!’

Roughly pulling the corporal up off the ground and shoving his face hard against the metal edge of the opened entry door, Freddie and the other two men followed him while the last man stood guard outside. Carlos started to plea for his life, informing them that his wife was pregnant with their first child. A crimson stream of blood trickled from the gash on his head and mingled on his chin with the blood from his displaced and broken nose.

‘It’s okay cop, I don’t want to hurt you. As a matter of fact, you can go as soon as you show us where the dope is kept.’

‘You are making a big mistake. Let me go now and I’ll forget about this. I haven’t seen any of you guys face so no one has to ever know.’

One of the men slapped the corporal on the back of his head then pushed him roughly inside of one of the almost empty office rooms. Retrieving an office chair from one of the other rooms, the men forcefully sat Carlos in the chair and strapped his hands together behind his back.

‘Hello? The man asked a question. Now tell us where the fucking dope is.’

This went on….and on…and on….for another ten minutes. Finally, Freddie shot the corporal in both knees with a silenced twenty-two automatic pistol and he finally told them where to find the drugs. Leaving the young wounded corporal tied up, gagged and bleeding on the floor of room, Freddie and two gunmen rapidly drove the two trucks to the rear of the old fire station, opened one of the bay doors and pulled the trucks inside the building. After closing the bay door again, they hastily put the stacks of marijuana into the bed of the dual cab trucks.

Ten minutes before 5:00 a.m., Scott and David Bristol, a well trained explosive expert, quickly approached the rear of the police station from the alley. Since they knew the routine of the police officers, they waited outside for the shift change. During shift change, the officers met inside the small police station to exchange notes, get updates, and to receive the daily shift assignments. This would be the perfect time to strike. Scott decided to sit up in front of the police station across the street in an abandon building on East Lafayette Street. He broke into the rear of White’s General Store and took position on the roof of the building while the other man attached twelve explosive charges to the station. From up here, Scott could see everything, the police building, the fire station, and David doing his job crawling around the outside wall strapping the bombs in place. Scott held his raised hand in the air to signal him that he was in position.

At 5:10 a. m., approaching from Martin Luther King Avenue, Mitchell Davenport and two of the men ran up the hill toward the jail house. It was located down the street from the police station on the corner of Monroe and Pickens Street. This early in the morning, Marvin Orland was only jailer on duty. Dressed in a stolen police uniform, Mitchell tricked him to open the door, shot him in the chest and the men quickly retrieved the two drivers from the confinements of the cell.

‘Man, I’m glad to see you guys. I knew Mr. Frank wouldn’t forget about us.’

Mitchell immediately placed his gloved hand over Adam’s mouth. He and Billy followed closely behind the gunmen as they ran toward the fire station. By 5:40 a.m., most of the team, except for Scott and David, had returned to the fire station and now were finished with loading the trucks. They piled into the two running trucks and anxiously waited for the signal to move out.

After hiding ten of the C4 bombs around as well as under the building by crawling through the crawl space and attaching them to the support beams, David glanced at the face of his watch. It read 5:48 am. Quickly, he strapped one bomb onto the bottom of the large propane tank in the back of the building and the last one to the communications antenna then took cover. The first officer usually arrived at 5:50 a.m.; then the rest would trickle in later. The shift meeting started at 6:00 a.m. on the dot every morning. Because of the small weekend crew, six officers arrived for the shift meeting. David remained motionless in the bushes as Scott counted the police cars as they parked in front of the station. The watch dial read 5:59 a.m. and Chief Hogan’s cruiser, the last car to arrive, pulled into the front parking lot. He parked and quickly walked inside. Suddenly, David cell phone flashed a text message. That was the signal; it was time to get to work. He gripped the detonator, waited for a few seconds; then squeezed.