chapter 47
THE TWO NORTHEAST Mississippi Drug Task Force officers were working overtime preparing for the meet and sting, as they now referred to it. They discussed it only with those who absolutely needed to know. One of the officers had an old high school buddy who was a police officer in Tupelo, so he had called him in to help put together an undercover squad who could pretend to be concert attendees.
The plan was to use the Hilton Garden Inn, which was adjacent to the BancorpSouth Arena, the concert venue. The task force had reserved the Hilton banquet room and paid an outside caterer and party planner to make the setting seem authentic. An undercover police officer acted as DJ, spinning Rascal Flatts’s hits to set the tone. Officers from several agencies played various roles, from road manager to groupies. Wearing an Ohio State ball cap, one sheriff’s deputy actually looked like Gary LeVox, the lead singer. They couldn’t find an officer thin enough, however, to portray Joe Don, so the play was that the other band members had yet to arrive. The meet and sting appeared to be authentic. Everybody had been briefed extensively on the target. Hopefully by the time Tam walked into the room and discovered the festivities were a fake, the trap would be sprung. The deception was on.
Inside the BancorpSouth Arena, a legitimate meet and greet was under way behind the stage. The genuine members of Rascal Flatts were there, safe. The band had beefed up their security as a precautionary measure. The state and local police had also increased their covert presence and added additional video surveillance. Coupled with the seventy-five stagehands, there was no shortage of testosterone.
For the task force, this sting had a different feel. They knew something good was going to happen when they read a Tweet on Alexa’s Twitter account saying: “Headed 2 meet Rascal Flatts w/my sweetie !” They had taken the bait.
Finally, after two relentless years, they would get to cuff the drug kingpin of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Both men worried, however, that they were understaffed because they couldn’t risk divulging the scope of the operation, since they were confident that they had a leak within the department. They were mitigating their typical staffing levels because they assumed that Tam wouldn’t have his typical security contingent, since they were several hundred miles away from home and this was Alexa’s deal. The cops expected two, possibly three, in Tam’s security detail. The two officers went over the plans, trying to think of any base left uncovered. Thirty minutes earlier they had slipped on their bulletproof vests and radioed the team to get into position. Music blared, and the lights were dimmed. They had all listened to “Life Is a Highway” so many times they were sick of it.
“And Oprah likes these guys? Over,” one officer commented into the mic hidden inside his shirt collar.
“She loves ’em. You don’t? Over.”
“Stand by. I see a big-ass black Mercedes pulling up. This could be them.”
“Places…everyone! Game time!”
“I can’t see the plates, but the driver’s checking the place out. Hang on.”
Sixty seconds crawled by while the music played and two female undercover officers acted as if they had just seen Elvis—the young, hip-swinging version—live and in person.
“What are they doing now!”
“They just pulled off…headed toward the concert hall. Must not have been them.”
“Damn!”