The Big Thaw (34 page)

She did. I called Sue, and told her that I had to have company for dinner. She thought that was nice, and suggested I get home a few minutes ahead of our company, and tidy up my breakfast dishes. She was going out with a friend, anyway. I told her that I’d have to go back out about ten. She wasn’t too enthused about that, and reminded me about the dishes again.

“Can you please get home before your company comes? I left some homework on the dining room table … if you could move it to my desk… and there’s some really good rice in the freezer, if you need it.”

“Thanks. Do we have any potato chips or anything?”

“Some in the cupboard on the right. Use the good green dishes. Not the good china, but the good but not everyday things.” She thought for a second. “And the good glasses. Those other ones are just too old.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t eat too much. See you, Batman.”

By the time Nancy and Shamrock hit the house, I had cleared the table, set it, put a couple of condiments out, started a pot of coffee, and had remembered paper napkins. I was rather proud of myself.

“Jeez,” said Nancy. “You expecting company?”

We unwrapped the sandwiches, poured caffeine-free diet pop all around, and sat down to eat. I took a couple of bites, and then asked the question.

“So, what you got this time?”

Nancy took a drink of pop, and put her glass down. “You know anything about a bank robbery going to go down in Nation County on Sunday?”

I thought I carried it off rather well. “Sure. You too, eh?”

“You serious?” she asked. “You do know about that?”

“Sure.” I took a drink of my pop. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Just how in the hell do you find this shit out?”

She grinned happily. So did Shamrock. Nancy pointed at the blue-eyed little elf with the camera. “My girl Friday, here. You gotta give it to her, Carl. She’s good.”

According to the two of them, they were in one of the local bars on Wednesday night. Relaxing. One of the local denizens hit on Shamrock. Gently, to be sure. But a hit, nonetheless. Being bored, she played him for a while, with Nancy right at the table.

I asked who. Didn’t know his name, beyond Terry. They described him as about twenty-five through thirty, nearly six feet, and with “nice buns.”

“That’ll look good on a police report.” It had to be Terry Waterman. The only guy I could think of in the county with a strong ass.

“Be creative,” said Nancy. “Anyway…”

Terry found out that Shamrock was with the media. Trying to impress her, he said something on the order of “I just might have a scoop for you…”

“And I go, ‘Oh, right,’ like that,” said Shamrock. “And he goes, ‘No really, there’s something big going down on Sunday.’ And I go, ‘Oh, sure.’”

She must have said it sweetly, because, as the evening wore on, he got more specific. Apparently, with both details and proposals. After the second time she refused to go home with him, he really turned on the charm.

“So he goes, ‘You want to cover a bank job, sweet lady?’ and I go, ‘Maybe.’ So he goes—” and she lowered her voice about two octaves—“‘This is gonna be a record breaker. Five hits at the same time. Five. All close.’”

Five. There was the magic number again. And all close.

“No shit?” I took another slug of pop. “What else?”

Nothing. She’d still refused to sleep with him. So he got angry, called her a “media tease,” and left.

Shamrock was laughing so hard she almost fell off the chair. “Mmmedia teeeasse!”

I was glad to see the local boys were still as adroit as ever. I laughed, too, but it wasn’t easy. Five. Five.

When the gaiety subsided a bit, I pressed. “You sure it was five?”

“It was,” said Nancy. “Five hits, and all close together. That’s what he said.”

I excused myself, and went to the phone. Fascinating. I called the office, and got George and Sally looking for information on Waterman.

When I returned to the table, I popped the question. “So, what would you like in return? I suspect this little dinner isn’t going to cover it.”

As it happened, Nancy had a plan. All I had to do was tell her where the hits were going down, and they’d just “happen” to be in the area. Might even get a shot or two of the thing in progress. Scoop of the century. Hint, hint.

Or, as Shamrock put it, “That could make my whole career. Honest.” The eyes had it, so to speak.

“Look, you two. I only have fair information on one location. I’ll give you what I have, but you gotta promise to stay back where you won’t get into trouble.” I shrugged. “If it actually goes down. I’m not going to promise anything more than a fifty percent chance at this point.”

Of course they would. Went without saying. Nancy I could really believe, as she’d been in the crap before, and wanted no more. I felt I could rely on her to keep Shamrock from getting carried away.

I took a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. “Right. Okay, look, sometime on Sunday, we think there may, and I emphasize may, be a hit on the bank in Frieberg.”

“No shit! This Sunday?” Nancy was genuinely excited. It dawned on me that they hadn’t had any idea of the reality of the bank hits until I’d confirmed it. They’d been guessing. Maybe “hoping” would be a better word. But they obviously hadn’t expected anything so soon.

“Yeah,” I said, “tomorrow. Don’t make me sorry I told you…”

“No, no. But that’s the little bank just up the street from the
Beauregard
, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“Fantastic,” said Nancy. “You can see it from the boat. We’ll be able to do a phony shoot from the boat, and pick up the bank really good…”

“How far to the bank?” said Shamrock.

“Eight hundred feet? Right, Carl?”

“About.”

“Great! I’ve got a five hundred millimeter Schmitt-Cass in the car…” Shamrock, I thought, was going to be happy with this arrangement. Good. I didn’t want either of them getting in close.

“What time?” asked Nancy.

“For the hit? Don’t know. Sunday is all I have.”

“You trying to tell me that you guys are going to set up on it, full force, for twenty-four hours?”

“Yeah.”

“Good Lord, Carl,” she said. “You really like these marathon things, or you just have bad intel?”

“I’m just in this for the food. You decide.” I smiled. “Look, if you two get any more, let me know. But for Christ’s sake, don’t breathe a word of this to anybody else.”

“You mean, like, the competition? Get real.” Shamrock had that eager look about her. “They can buy my frames, man. Big bucks. Big, big bucks.”

“Take a deep breath, dear,” said Nancy.

Shamrock stuck out her hand. “Thank you, Carl. I mean it.”

I shook her hand, a little surprised. “Hey, it’s nothing definite. Just a chance, here.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “That dude Terry really wanted it, last night. He didn’t lie.”

“We’ll talk about evaluation as we get ready,” said Nancy. “Lust makes guys stupid, but it doesn’t make ’em tell the truth.” She laughed. “He was just stupid enough to let it slip.”

Because we were to be on duty for twenty-four hours straight, I tried to catnap after Nancy and Shamrock left. Right. Like I could just go to sleep. I did try. Sat there, watching TV. Dozed once, I think. Not for more than forty-five minutes.

I kept the Weather Channel on and saw that my favorite blue and pink segmented worm of a jet stream was making progress. Tomorrow would be much warmer. A real, sudden “January thaw,” in all its glory.

That was Iowa, for you. In eighteen hours, the temperature could change fifty degrees or better. Much better, in this case. It looked like we’d hit thirty degrees by 3 A.M., and go up from there.

God bless warm fronts. If we were going to have to be outside for any period of time, warm was so much better…

When I got back to the office a little after 2200, they gave me everything I’d requested on Terry Waterman. I would have liked to haul him in, but good sense prevailed. After Sunday, either way, Terry would pay us a visit. Beforehand would just tip people off. With his inadvertent contribution, however, the estimates on Sunday actually happening went nicely past the fifty-fifty level.

The main control point was designated as Hester’s DCI office at the
General Beauregard
pavilion, in Frieberg. It was just about on top of the main target bank, it was well equipped with communications devices, it had its own teletype and fax, and it was warm and comfortable with many creature comforts. I came drifting in about 2230, having picked up Sally at Volont’s request. He wanted a top-notch dispatcher with us. Hard to argue.

When we arrived, we established Sally with the radios, and a good land line to the Nation County Sheriff’s Department, and to the Conception County Sheriff’s Department across the river. Both were to be contacted on special phone numbers which were not to be used for routine calls until further notification.

She had the base station portion of the FBI scrambled radios, and a small base set with local police, fire, and ambulance frequencies. She was all set.

I picked up the scrambled walkie-talkie I’d been given. FBI issue. Looked a bit older than I’d expected. Almost as old as my new one for the Sheriff’s Department. “What’s the range on these?”

“Couple of miles, line of sight,” said George, clipping his inside his jacket.

“Totally secure?”

“Absolutely. Programmed to a different code every time, downloaded before each operation. No duplicates. You can even say ‘fuck’ on these and the FCC won’t ever know.” He grinned broadly.

I was sorely tempted, but decided not to push my luck. I’ve always hated being first.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but in a law enforcement crisis situation, there are cops at two general locations. One is for management, and it always has the same general features: warm, dry, and a place to take a leak. The other is for the nonmanagement folks at the pointy end, and tends to be cold, wet, and a mile from relief. It’s just the way of things, I guess. There’s an added dimension with long-term situations. Management always manages to find chairs and couches. The pointy end gets to stand in the rain, or lie in the snow. As we were setting things up in Hester’s office, I thought about that.

“You know, guys, I sure feel sorry for those poor bastards gonna be out in the weather…”

Anyway, we all moved into the area of the
Beauregard
in ones and twos, over a period of a couple of hours. Easy to do, since the gambling operation produced the only consistent, large crowd in the county. By midnight, we’d been set for nearly an hour.

Everybody checked in on the scrambled radio, and we sat down to wait for Gabriel’s Operation Just Cash to begin.

In a leap of originality, the call sign for the Command Post was “CP.” Well, you want everybody to be clear, and we hadn’t had time to do any better. At the CP were gathered Volont, George, Hester, Art, Sally, and me.

We had designated the five likely banks as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. Keep it simple, like they say. The observation points were numbered for each site. Very easy, as Frieberg was designated “Alpha,” and was the only one with more than one observation point.

Alpha 1 was located on the roof of a two-story commercial building across the street from the Frieberg bank. There were two FBI TAC people there. The advantage of this location was that it provided a clear shot down the alley behind the bank. They had been instructed to vacate their location at first light, and to return after sundown. They could be seen from the bridge approach in the daylight, and we didn’t want them compromised. They would remain in the building, and if something went down, they could be back on the roof in less than a minute.

Alpha 2 was in a vacant second-floor apartment, in the rear of a building diagonally across the alley from the bank. There were four TAC officers there. They had the best view through the drive-up teller’s glass booth, and were able to see about a third of the interior of the bank, with a partial view of the bottom of the vault door. They could also cover part of the alley. If something started, two of them would exit the building, and take up positions behind a four-foot concrete wall that divided the alley from the rear lawn of the building, and enabled them to engage the general area of the bank from ground level.

Alpha 3 was in the residence of a Frieberg police officer. The two TAC officers assigned that location were in a bedroom on the second floor. It was about half a block from the bank, and in an elevated position about ten feet up the bluff that paralleled the river. Access was via a steep stair. Their view was of the front of the bank, and they were only able to see a small part of the interior due to their height. If necessary, they could reposition themselves, but it would take time, and they would be out of sight of the bank for a period of time before they could reach the secondary position along a retaining wall. That was a bad location, anyway, as they were exposed on their left.

Alpha Mobile was an older van, parked at the edge of the lot belonging to the convenience store across the street and to the west of the bank. Again, two TAC officers were there. Plainclothes, they were considered critical for daylight operations, as they could see much of the interior of the bank, and both exits. They looked to have a very long day. Movement was to be at their discretion, but was presumed to be done only to block access to the bridge ramp.

Alpha Chase consisted of two unmarked cars inside the Frieberg Fire Department. They were in a vehicle bay vacated by a pumper that we had persuaded the fire chief to park outside. We hid them because we felt that Gabriel was likely to pick up on them before they were aware of his presence. Four TAC officers were assigned here.

Last, but not least, was Alpha Foot. One male and one female TAC officer, plainclothes, were available to stroll by any location we wanted, to double-check and get a ground view of any situation. They were currently upstairs in the Frieberg Public Library, which was a full block removed from the bank, and where they’d be able to enter and leave without being observed by anyone in or around the bank.