The Rabbit Factory (38 page)

"You stupid fuck," Terry said to the TV. "A pilot would commit suicide by plowing the plane into downtown Burbank, not by blowing it up in midair."

"Let him talk," Brian said. "Ike needs idiots like thai obscuring the truth."

Brian tried to work, but for the most part Terry and I kepi distracting him. I picked up the double-sided picture frame on his desk. I pointed to the older couple. "Your Mom and Dad?"

He smiled. "Married when they were seventeen. Mom taught first grade. My Dad was a railroad cop for forty years. He's a hell of a guy. They broke the mold after they made him."

"They broke the mold with my Dad, too," I said. "Actually we're pretty sure it was cracked before they even started."

Curry laughed. "What did he do?"

H "He's devoted his life to bugging the shit out of me. He's still M ,11 il."

"[ hate to interrupt this fascinating repartee," Terry said, "but 11 if three of us are as useless here as tits on a bull. Let's go out tiiid get some lunch."

Curry shook his head. "I don't think we should leave."

"Why?" Terry said. "Because the FBI needs us? As far as they're concerned, we're the dummies that couldn't solve it. Explain it to him, Mike."

"Terry gets cranky when he's running on empty," I said. lome on, it won't hurt to run out and grab a quick bite. We've >t radios. They'll find us."

"Alright," Curry said. "Let me just check my e-mail."

"And I'll check my pee mail," Terry said. "Point me toward u urinal."

Curry didn't answer. He was preoccupied by whatever was on his computer screen. Terry and I were about to find a men's room on our own when Curry stopped us. "Don't go!" he ydled. "Get Ike and the Feds in here. I've got to shut down Hamona."

"Who's Ramona?" I said, my voice and my blood pressure kicking up a few notches.

"The Ramona Rabbit Parking Lot. I'm shutting it down. Those fucking maniacs just emailed me the ransom demands." f, Terry took off to get the others, and I scrambled to the other .side of the desk and scanned the screen. Curry grabbed a radio from his desk and pressed the Talk button. "Security One to Kamona Parking, come in Ramona."

The radio squawked back. "This is Ramona. Go ahead Security One."

"Shut Ramona down," Curry said. "Divert everything to Dexter. Now. You copy that?"

The voice on the other end was young and female. "Yes, sir. Shutting down Ramona now. Just a minute, sir."

I could hear the young woman yelling at the other parking lot attendants. "Yo! Julie, Melissa, we're shutting Ramona down. Divert those cars to Dexter. Yo! Jason, don't let that Mazda sneak in. Thank you."

"It's a little nuts here, sir," she said, over the sound of horns honking. "The guests are not thrilled that they have to divert, but we're on the case."

"How many cars in Ramona right now?" Brian asked.

"Rough estimate, maybe only three hundred, sir. We just opened this lot about ten minutes ago."

Brian turned to me. "We're in luck. Ramona holds six thousand cars, but we operate the parking sectors on a stagger system. We don't open one until the lot in front of it is full." He went back to his radio. "How many guests are waiting for the shuttle?"

"Fifty, sixty," she said.

"Get them back in their cars and send them to Dexter. Then tell shuttle dispatch no more service in or out of Ramona until further notice from me. This is Brian Curry, Head of Security Who am I talking to?"

"This is Caitlin Farley, sir."

"You're doing a good job, Caitlin. Over."

Ten minutes later Ike Rose and the six Feebies piled through the doorway of Brian's office. "They made contact," Brian said to Ike. "E-mail."

Rose sat on the edge of a chair. The rest of us stayed

standing. "It's from [email protected], sent today at 11:47 n.m.," Curry said checking his watch. "Fifteen minutes ago. Subject: payoff time. Message: Curry, pass this on to Ike Rose and the Keystone Cops who are bumping into each other as they hover around him."

Curry looked up to see if anyone wanted to comment, but nobody said a word. Not even Terry. Curry went on. "Send two men, unarmed and shirtless to the black Ford van in row fourteen, space nine, of the Ramona Parking Lot. Take the twenty seven duffel bags from the back and fill them up. Put exactly ten fnillion in hundreds in each bag, 6.4 million in the last bag. Put the bags back in the van by 5p.m." >

"Are they crazy?" Rose said, springing up from the chair. "They want us to make the payoff in our own parking lot? That's the dumbest fucking plan I ever heard of. That lot is filled with people going back and forth all day."

"Not any more sir," Brian said. "I just shut it down."

"What if people want to get their cars back so they can drive home?"

"There are only three hundred vehicles parked there now," Brian said. "If it were up to me, I'd get a bunch of tow trucks mid flatbeds and move them all except the black van. But I'm not in charge here." He looked over at Church.

"Good call locking up that parking lot," Church said. "I lree that we should move every single vehicle, but I don't give II shit about people getting their cars back. I just want to isolate I the van."

"Put the bags back in the van by 5 p.m.," Brian said, (returning to the e-mail. "A few minutes after that, we'll be picking it up." ,

"And then what?" Rose said. "They just drive it off the pr< > > erty? Would they like us to provide them with a police escort/"

Terry could no longer resist. "I doubt if they're going in want us Keystone Cops fucking up their getaway, sir," he said

Sometimes Terry pushes too far, but this time even the Fill guys laughed.

"Let me finish," Brian said, quieting the room down. "Thciv are video cameras on, in, and around the van. We're watching every move you make. Any tricks and the first ones to die ntv Rose's family."

Rose's shoulders slumped. He was only five-foot-four, and now, surrounded by a room full of six-footers and beaten down by terrorists who invaded his home and threatened his family, he looked even shorter than usual.

"Get the bags," he said. "I've got the money downstairs." i

IT

' 'we got the money downstairs' was an understatement. Six stories below the fun and the fantasy was an impen.etrable steel fortress where an army of bean counters pi<>cessed the millions that poured into Familyland daily.

"We call this place Little Switzerland," Brian said, as he took J)lf and Terry on a tour of the facilities. "Every dollar, franc, and :aii spent in the park is counted, recounted, and accounted for. Bvfry credit card receipt is authenticated, substantiated, and valiťted."

We stopped in an area where four workers wearing rubber (iprons were dumping bags of coins into sudsy water. "And this lust be where the money gets laundered," Terry said.

Brian shook his head like he'd heard that one before. "We jliave thirty-two fountains on the property. We encourage fople to toss in a coin, make a wish, and help a child who Cian't be here. The money we collect goes to Ike's favorite larity, Vitamin Angels. Then he personally matches it. He's a ood guy."

I, nodded in agreement. He sure seemed like one.

1 We finally arrived at the room where the ludicrous sum o $266.4 million was being prepped for delivery.

Until the e-mail arrived, nobody knew for sure how the ransom would have to be paid out. But Church's gut instinci told him that the killers would ask for cash. So Ike had a Wells Fargo armored truck with the $266.4 million standing by. Now, the Bureau's mad scientists were in the Familyland subterranean bank deftly doctoring random packets to send out electron It tracking signals. Our job is to follow the money, Church had said repeatedly.

ŚŚ-ŚŚ Terry and I had the honors of being the unarmed shirtlesN bagmen who would carry the duffel bags from the rear of the van. We had volunteered as soon as Ike left Brian's office.

"That money is pretty heavy," Church said. "I got youngei, stronger guys who can do it."

"C'mon, Boss," Terry said. "This may be the only chance Mike and I get to work topless."

A slo-mo grin spread across Church's face. He didn't say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. You waited for Ik' Rose to leave the room, before you volunteered. If you had askorf while he was still there, you would have put me in an embar rassing position, because he's your new rabbi and he would have pushed me to give you the job. But you didn 't do that. If you did, you 'd be back at LAPD complaining about how the fucking Feds cut you out of the loop.

"Okay," he finally said, loud enough for all his agents to Śhear. "Lomax and Biggs will be the bagmen."

Once again Aretha was right. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Ramona was the smallest of seven parking lots on the Fain ilyland property. According to Brian it only held six thousand

Pars. The north and east ends were open to allow the free flow i if traffic. The southern and western perimeter was surrounded hy trees, which were being carefully combed by a team of Mgents.

Row after row of uniform parking spaces were neatly painted and numbered. The lot was dotted with stainless steel columns that rose sixty or seventy feet in the air. Each pole rilded in a cluster of floodlights. It was still broad daylight, but I got the impression that darkness never fell on Ramona.

Retrieving the duffel bags was easy. The Feds set up a command post, a thirty-foot Winnebago parked half a football field it way from the van. Terry and I stripped to the waist, walked nlowly to the rear of the shiny black Ford, and opened the rear door. The inside was completely empty except for the driver's wat. I saw at least three tiny video cameras. One, perched on I lie dash, was pointing right at us. Two more fish-eye lenses covered the parking lot. They said they were watching every move we made and I believed them.

The bags were strapped together in four separate piles. Terry and I grabbed two piles apiece, shut the door, and 'frturned to the command center, where a second team took them to the underground bank to be filled with cash.

While the money was being counted, the car population of I he Ramona Rabbit Parking Lot was diminishing rapidly. Twelve It >w trucks, seven large tractors, five teams of horses, and four rlisphants were rounded up to drag a total of 288 vehicles to the Ś>oxter Duck Parking Lot a mile to the east. By 3:30, the black I'ord van in row fourteen, space nine, stood alone.

By 4:15, the duffels were filled, packed onto a flatbed, and ' rt'iidy to roll.

ft ŚŚ-- 441 --

"Should we strip down again?" Terry said to Agent Church.

"No, they said 5:00. I'm not giving it to them any earlier," hi' said.

Ike Rose was standing next to the truck, his hand resting on a bag that contained $10 million. "How the hell do they think they can drive off with a Ford van full of money?" he said.

"My best guess," Church said, "is helicopter. The e-mail saiil put the money in the van, then we'll be picking it up. I think they're going to swoop down with a cargo chopper and lift up the entire van."

"Then maybe we made it easier for them by clearing tho cars," Ike said.

"We also made it easy for us to see what they do," Church said. "And if they airlift it, those money wrappers will give off a signal we can track for miles. I've got our choppers standing by, We can tail them and still stay out of sight."

"And what if someone just gets into the van and drives oft?" Rose said.

"We'll still follow them from the air. Sooner or later the driver's got to deliver the money to whoever planned this whole thing. They're smart, but they're not that smart," Church said, "We'll get them."'

"From your lips," Ike said.

At 4:40, Church turned to me and Terry and said, "Show time, boys."

We took off our shirts. Terry got behind the wheel of the flatbed and I sat on top of one of the duffel bags. He drove at five miles an hour and pulled up behind the black Ford. I opened the rear doors.

Each bag weighed eighty pounds, so it was easier for us In.

m both grab a handle and haul it up onto the edge of the cargo I bi"d. "When I leave the job and go into stand-up," Terry said, as he climbed inside and dragged the first bag to the front of the Van, "this little drama is going to make great material. I don't know what's funny about it yet, but I'm definitely going to work ll into my act."

On the fourteenth bag, Church called out on the bullhorn. Pick up the pace, boys. It's ten to five."

My shoulders, arms, and back were feeling the burn, but nobody else had to know that. "We loaded faster. Also, as the 'an filled up, we didn't have to drag each bag so far. We finished at 4:56, jumped into the flatbed, drove back to the command post, and put our shirts back on. "Now we wait," Church said.

1

4

I

t

T "T "TT "TTe didn't wait long. At 5:02 Church got the first radio I jL I call. "Incoming chopper, two miles due west of the

T ? drop zone. He's at nine hundred feet."

"Positions," Church yelled, and most of the agents took cover in the tree line at the west end of the lot, just in case the idiots in the helicopter decided to pick off cops while they were picking up the money. Ike, Brian, Terry, and I followed Church and two agents into the Winnebago.

Inside, a technician sat in front of three monitors. One camera was locked on the black van; the other two were scanIning the sky. "Got him on Two," the techie said, but none of us turned to watch the monitors. We could see the chopper through the window. He was half a mile away and closing fast.

The sky was clear and visibility was excellent. "He doesn't care if we know who he is," Church said. "His BuNo is plain fts day."

Sure enough, the BuNo, the FAA's identifying serial number Cor all aircraft, was clearly visible on the underbelly of the blueind-white helicopter. "November, five, eight, two, niner, Charlie,"

Church said, reading it through binoculars.

The chopper was small, like one of those bubble-fronl traffic copters that zip up and down the freeways. "He's not bi enough," I said. "That bird could never lift that van."

"You're right, he looks like a Bell Jet Ranger," Church said. "They're fast, but they can't lift more than half a ton." Hi1 grabbed a radio. "Command One to Air Support. Air One, stand by to follow the chopper. Air Two, don't move till the van is rolling. It looks like they're going to drop a driver."