Since they had already remotely shut down the elevators, they ran toward the main staircase and entered it on the run. Once inside, they rapidly climbed the stairs in step like a precision dance troop. They exited the stairwell one after the other on the fourth floor and stacked up single-file at the entrance of the ABC Security office. Instantly, the second officer in the line removed a door-breaching Thor Hammer strapped to the back of the first officer who then moved out of the way. The officer with the Thor Hammer stepped to the side and without a second’s hesitation swung the heavy hammer so that it hit the door adjacent to the doorknob with as much force as he could muster. With a shockingly loud splintering noise, the door burst open, allowing the next two men in the stack to rush into the room, sighting along their Colt submachine guns with fingers curled about the triggers as they shouted “police arrest warrant.” The first man took the right side of the room as his area of concentration, the second man the left as they executed a classic SWAT dynamic entry. Two more officers followed immediately on the tail of the first two while holding Glock automatic pistols out in front of them in both hands.
There were three totally stunned people in the room. George Marlowe was sitting on a couch to the right of the entrance, using a PC laptop. Keyon Dexter was standing at the window, gazing out over the Kings Chapel Burying Ground with his hands in his pockets. Both had removed their suit jackets and had their sleeves rolled up. Charlene Washington, a temp, was at a desk to the left.
“Down!” yelled the first officer into the room, keeping his Colt trained on George. He knew the second man into the room was doing the same for Keyon. “On the floor, now! All of you! Hands extended!”
George and Keyon recovered quickly, their highly trained military minds rushing through the OODA loop of “observing, orienting, deciding, and acting.” But it was to no avail. In the split second it took to recover their senses, there was no time to act. Resignedly raising their hands, they obeyed the repeated shouts to lie on the floor. It was different for Charlene, who was frozen in place, paralyzed by fear as she stared into the barrel of a Glock pistol.
The two officers who had been responsible for breaching the door and the last to enter the room now came forward and quickly handcuffed Keyon and George as they lay facedown. Once the prisoners’ hands were secure, the same two policemen removed the weapons from the prisoners’ shoulder holsters and their mobile phones and fake FBI badges from their pockets. Once that was accomplished, they hauled the two men to their feet. No one said a word. Only then did the officers with the Colt submachine guns remove their fingers from the triggers and lower their weapons.
The commander of the high-risk-warrant service team and the first person to enter the room stepped forward. He was also the only one not wearing a black balaclava. After handing off his Colt rifle to a colleague, he proceeded to pull out a tattered 3x5 card inscribed with the Miranda Rights. Stepping up to Keyon Dexter, he addressed him with his full name, and informed him that he was being arrested for the murder of Roberta Hinkle of Lubbock, Texas, kidnapping, and for impersonating a federal officer. Moving on to George Marlowe, he repeated the charges. When he was done with the arrests, he read both men their Miranda Rights.
Stepping back from the prisoners, the SWAT team leader purposefully fell silent while eyeing the two handcuffed men. As was often the case during an arrest, prisoners frequently said incriminating things as a normal reaction to the stress of the situation even after being informed of their rights to remain silent. But it wasn’t to be. Keyon and George were professionals and trained to remain silent, knowing full well that ABC Security would have formidable lawyers on the case within hours of learning of their arrest. They were not intimidated by being arrested, since they were certain they would be quickly out on bail.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The profession of medicine has always had a problem with charlatans, and there have been quite a number of infamous cases in which the perpetrators literally “got away with murder” after assuming the identity of a real doctor who had either died or moved to another state. Now that the world is engulfed in the digital age, the situation is getting worse and accelerating because of the vulnerability of databases, which make it possible to augment curriculum vitae or even create them completely de novo. Such hacking activities trump the old-fashioned need for identity theft. Compounding the problem is the easy availability of specialized professional knowledge on the Internet, as well as the training potential of virtual reality programs combined with modern simulation systems composed of remarkably realistic, computer-driven mannequins that precisely mimic human pathophysiology and response to treatment. The consequence is that the difference between the physician and the motivated non-physician in terms of apparent basic knowledge and know-how will progressively narrow, effectively blurring the line between the real doctor and the fake.
The origin of the term “charlatan” comes from sixteenth-century French, and it initially referred to a medical quack, although its meaning expanded to include all imposters. Today the word is garnering new significance and meaning. With social media exploding around the world (currently the number of people using Facebook alone is approaching two billion) and the fact that it is estimated that more than 75 percent of the people using Facebook lie to “airbrush reality,” there are a lot of new charlatans of varying degree. In a very real sense, being an imposter on some level is rapidly becoming the norm. Indeed, it is generally estimated that 5 to 10 percent of Facebook’s almost two billion accounts are “sockpuppets” or fake, online charlatan profiles. Others believe the percentage is significantly higher. Of course, such a situation is hardly surprising considering the attraction. Psychologists think of social media as a virtual-playground for a culture that is becoming progressively narcissistic. The inherent lack of the usual social restrictions of face-to-face interactions creates a dissociative anonymity devoid of any meaningful reprisal, while offering the potential of unlimited and continual egotistical affirmation and gratification. People can be whoever they want to be and say whatever they want to say for whatever reason with both harmless and not-so-harmless consequences even to themselves. It is a “brave new world,” and it is evolving rapidly.