The Big Thaw Part 27

He was right. They probably could. For me, it was just a question of whether or not we could convince Cletus of that. I had absolutely no problem with giving him up, in exchange for getting Gabriel. We'd intended that all along.

"I'm not authorized to make deals," said Art.

"I am," said Davies.

"Not without the permission of the local prosecutor," said Art. Knowing full well that, as yet, there really wasn't one.

"We'll talk about that one again, after you've pa.s.sed the Bar." Davies kept his voice light, but there was no mistaking the fact that Art was being shut down. He turned, and looked at me. "I think you and I should do the interview, since you've established something of a rapport with Mr. Borglan."

"Yeah," I chuckled. "I make him puke."

"And that a representative of the FBI should also be present, to make the 'protection' offer." He smiled, brightly. "A gesture of good faith ..."

Volont, Davies, and I were in the "interrogation kitchen," as Davies referred to it, and Lamar was bringing Cletus out of his cell. Attorney Gunston was waiting to talk to Cletus before we did, in the secure room.

"Now, let me see," said Davies. "Paper ... pencil ... briefcase ... vomit bag ..."

"Give me a break," I said. "It was probably something he ate."

Volont said, "We don't ask directly about Sunday?"

Davies and I agreed. "How about the banks? How direct for details?" I wanted to have the interview parameters really clear on this one.

"Whatever you need on that," Volont said. "Don't forget that Attorney Gunston was at the Borglan farm before he knew Cletus was being charged. I don't like the possible connection here to the rest of that group."

"Right," said Davies. "We should have Cletus pretty nervous right now. Let's try to keep the edge on him as long as we can."

I leaned back in my chair. "What about Florida, and the call? More detail?"

"I do that one," said Davies. "Remember," he cautioned, "we have him on a solid aiding and abetting of a double murder. We don't want to forget that."

"By the way," said Volont, "you do know his real name is Jacob Henry Nieuhauser?"

"Nieuhauser?" asked Davies.

"Gabriel ... his full name is Jacob Henry Nieuhauser."

Davies wrote it down.

Cletus and Gunston entered the kitchen, guided by Lamar, who backed out, locking the door behind him. Our defendant and his attorney sat down at the long, old table. As far from the three of us as they could get.

We got off to a really good start, what with Blitek having been Exhibit A and all. Until Gunston said, "You have no direct evidence that Mr. Blitek was shooting at my client, here. He could well have been attempting to facilitate my client's escape, instead."

Weak. Stupid, really. Last try.

"He just told us his a.s.signment was to kill Cletus, here." Davies grinned across the kitchen table. "That would be your client. Make no mistake." He looked at his yellow tablet. "If your client can tell us some things about Jacob Henry Nieuhauser," he said, slowly, "we may have an offer we can put on the table."

"We'll entertain an offer," said Gunston. "Even though my client has done nothing wrong. But, if as you say, he was the target this morning, then you must guarantee him protection."

"We may make an offer, depending on what your client is willing to share with us," said Volont. "As for protection, we think he's safe in this building for now. If we move him at some date, you must understand that you will only be informed after the fact."

Gunston, still aggressively defending, looked at Volont. "And just who might you be?"

I love it when this happens. Especially with somebody like Volont, who can place a 600 lb. badge on the table.

"Special Agent in Charge Volont, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterintelligence Unit." I don't know, it just sounded so good. Gunston looked startled. Cletus looked like somebody had reached into his chest and grabbed his heart.

Gunston, who deserved much credit, managed to say, "I didn't know the FBI had jurisdiction in this kind of case."

"It's not the murder that particularly concerns him," said Davies, also obviously pleased to have Volont at the table. "It's what you might call collateral matters. Very large collateral matters."

Cletus didn't vomit. I was relieved. His face began to redden, though, as he looked at each of us in turn. His gaze kept moving back to Volont, and he finally said, "What do you want from me?"

"We should confer ..." was about all Gunston got out.

"No!" Cletus was scared silly, and getting p.i.s.sed off that his attorney seemed to be dragging his feet at his salvation. "Just promise me protection. That son of a b.i.t.c.h is a professional killer!"

We quickly completed what Davies later said was the "fastest, strangest" deal and information exchange he'd ever done.

Mercifully, it was also vomit-free.

Cletus was given federal protection, and his charge of two counts of Conspiracy to Commit Murder was reduced to Obstruction of Justice, to which he would enter a plea of guilty. Quite a deal, indeed. Until you consider that, if tried in Nation County, he probably would have gotten at least as good a result.

In exchange, he gave us Gabriel on a platter. Well, as far as I was concerned.

Jacob Henry Nieuhauser, whom he had known for several years, had come to him for a place to stay while he scouted "five handy little banks" that he intended to take off. These banks apparently had been part of his original plan back in June of 1996, when events in our county had conspired to thwart him.

What banks? Cletus didn't know. But the number five had been mentioned.

He'd let Nieuhauser, a.k.a. Gabriel, use his home, while Cletus and his wife were wintering in Florida. Low-profile, no problem. He'd received the phone call, all right. From Gabriel, who had told him that he'd become aware that he was under surveillance by some cops for about a week or so, and had been preparing to "take measures to throw them off the trail" when the cops had broken into the house. He was certain they were cops, because they'd told him they were.

I thought that was pretty sad.

Cletus said that Gabriel had killed one, then tried to question the other. The second brother tried denying that they were cops, even though they'd originally said that they were. Since the young man was adamant about it, after a few minutes of questioning, he'd killed him, too. It had been "necessary." His cover was being blown.

Of course there had been no information. Neither of the poor d.a.m.ned Colson brothers could possibly know s.h.i.+t about what Gabriel wanted. Talk about terror. Especially for the second one to go. I tried to make that very clear to Cletus, but he was so worried about himself I don't think it took.

The computers were engaged in what was called "distributed computing," a network of over 100 machines, each working on a small portion of a project. But he didn't know of what kind. Where was Gabriel now? He didn't know, but he was sure that he was around. The banks were scheduled to go down soon, and he knew that Gabriel wasn't going to be put off this time around. The cause needed money.

We made Cletus disappear this way: We called for an ambulance to come to the Sheriff's Department. When they arrived, we told them that we needed a special favor. Volont and I accompanied Cletus and his attorney in the ambulance to the hospital. Volont had called for a chopper. It arrived, and we made all the right fuss to have Cletus look as if he were on his way to a major trauma center. Put him onboard in a stretcher and everything. Four FBI agents were in the chopper. Volont insisted that Gunston accompany him. Insisted by way of placing him in protective custody. No kidding. I never thought they could really do that.

As Volont said, it kept both of them out of the way for a good seventy-two hours.

He told me that the Huey took them to Waterloo, where they would be held at a National Guard facility.

We spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to prevent the bank robberies.

I enjoyed eating dinner in Lamar's office. Cheeseburgers delivered by Maitland PD and Judy. Being the only person in the room on a low-fat diet, to me they tasted fantastic. Somehow, I'd become convinced that, if I ate that stuff under these circ.u.mstances, it just didn't count. You know. Like when the waiter delivers the wrong thing to your table, and you get stuck with lots of gravy ... I think I burned off most of the fat calories with frustration, anyway. We had real problems.

Let me just say that the bank jobs fall into two possible categories. First, there are robberies, which by definition would have to occur while there were people in the bank. Second, burglaries, which would occur when the banks were not occupied. The second was the least dangerous for all concerned, but the first was a h.e.l.l of a lot more likely to get you into the safe. It would very likely be open during business hours. Open meant daylight. Closed meant night.

My point, and the one that stuck the whole operation together from our end, was just what Volont had always preached. Gabriel wasn't a "criminal" type, he was a soldier. There was a very big difference in approach.

I said as much.

"What?" asked Art, in rare humor. "Are we talking air strikes here, or what?" He was happier than h.e.l.l to have the double murder solved. Knowing him, I figured he was only giving us half his attention, with the other half trying to figure out how he could claim credit for the entire case.

I think the most difficult thing to do as a cop is to predict what robbery or burglary target will be hit, how the suspect will do it, and when. I've worked on Task Forces where some of the best cops around were trying, and just couldn't get it to add up.

I shared one with the group. I told about the time that eleven counties and the state were trying to bust a group that was breaking into implement dealers at night, stealing tools, chain saws, snow blowers, lawn mowers ... anything that could fit in the back of a pickup or a van. By the time the Task Force got involved, these boys had done almost thirty jobs.

We had drawn in the locations of each hit on an area map. Tried to find a center of gravity for the dots. One of the cops had an MBA, and did an a.n.a.lysis of the center of distribution that would have earned a promotion in the real world. We tried to determine which direction they would go by date of occurrence. We tried to determine how they would possibly scout a potential target. We did sort of a market a.n.a.lysis on items that were best stolen in particular seasons. We tried to find where they lived by correlating locations of burglaries. We skewed the maps by driving time instead of distance from possible origins. Then ...

We got information from a snitch as to who they were. We followed them, and on the third night, busted them in a dealers.h.i.+p. So much for pure "intelligence." Oh, yes. The kicker.

"We asked them how they determined what target to hit," I said. "Turns out that they'd buy a case of beer, put it in the van with the five of them, and start to drive aimlessly around. When the beer ran out, they'd just go to whatever implement dealer was closest, and bust in. No plan. Really skewed our maps on a couple of occasions when the driver had got lost, once in the fog." I chuckled. "We never thought to correlate the radius with driving conditions on a particular night."

"The point being?" asked Art, who had also been on that Task Force.

"Well," I said, "those were criminals we were dealing with. n.o.body knows criminals better than a bunch of senior cops. And we couldn't predict what they were going to do next." I looked at him. "And here we are, trying to second-guess a professional soldier. Like, what are the odds?"

He glared.

"Unless we have a professional soldier in our midst," I said, "this is going to be very interesting." I was hoping that Volont would call in somebody from the U.S. Army, as an adviser. I hoped that one for a long time.

As usual, the real problem was that we didn't have enough information. Things like "five banks simultaneously" are worthless. We needed to know just who was working with him. How competent they were. How many a.s.sociates did he have? h.e.l.l, just which "five banks" would be nice! And the really big question: Why hit five mediocre banks and get little, when you could go to a metro area, hit one for the same effort, and get a lot? I secretly suspected that our lack of officers had something to do with it. George put it pretty well when he said, "Carl, nothing personal, but with two to three of you on a s.h.i.+ft, a bank robber could be fifty miles away before you could block very many roads."

"Frankly," said Volont, "they could be a long way before you could block this parking lot."

Art resented that, bless him. His face got kind of reddish, and he got a familiar, sour look on his face. I noticed that he didn't have a rejoinder.

Anyway, don't misunderstand. I love doing the map thing, drawing radii, plotting routes, a.s.signing units, all that good stuff. Wonderful board game. Delightful. But in this case, with the information we had, it was pointless. It was like doing a map exercise on a blank piece of paper.

Volont had resources at his disposal that, given a day or two, could accomplish virtually anything. Really. Somebody would come up with a miniscenario, mark a map, and Volont would start saying things like "We could put a team here and here ... a surveillance team here and here ..." Wow. Really. Resources like that just trip my trigger. He talked about "helicopter landing zones," with the solid a.s.surance of a man who utilized them all the time. But it was futile, having the resources and nowhere to use them. Like standing in front of a game machine that took only nickels, with a ten-pound bag that contained only quarters clutched in your little hand.

We stuck with it, though. We had nothing else to go on, or so I thought.

The intercom buzzed, and I answered. Judy, with a phone call for Volont. He took it out in the reception area. He was back in less than a minute.

"If you gentlemen will excuse me for a short while, I have some other business to attend to."

We did.

Just like so many other times, that little interruption broke the train of the meeting, and everybody just about simultaneously decided to take a break.

I took George aside out in the kitchen, when I went out to make a pot of coffee and he tagged along for the exercise. "What did you interview Nancy and Shamrock for?"

"Mostly to find out what they knew, and to tell them they couldn't use anything they had learned about a particular individual."

"George, d.a.m.n it, it's our murder. We can deal with the press if we want to." The coffeepot had stopped gurgling, and was in the hiss-and-steam phase, which meant the water reservoir had emptied. The flavor was best then, before all the water had dripped through. I turned the pot off, and pulled the basket.

He shrugged. "We mostly wanted to shut down anything about Gabriel. They seemed to understand. Including the film."

"'The film'?" I stood there with the pot in one hand, and a cup in the other, and nearly poured the contents on the floor.

"Shamrock's film. I asked her to let us keep the strip of negatives that contained the photos of Gabriel. Two frames."

I chuckled. "You mentioned Gabriel?"

"Volont specifically told me to. As Nieuhauser, of course. Not Gabriel. But this Nancy is pretty sharp. She picked up on it right away."

"Yeah." I poured my coffee, and put the pot down. "So, you don't think you p.i.s.sed them off totally, then?"

"Oh, no. They were very nice." He poured his own, adding fat-free milk and sugar subst.i.tute.

"How is that s.h.i.+t?" I asked.

"Awful. Milk and sugar are good, though."

"Thanks." I took a sip. "Doesn't Volont realize that he just drew Nancy's attention to Gabe?"

"I'm sure he does," said George. "I'm just not clear as to why."

He sipped his coffee, looking a bit worried. "Can I trust you with something?"

"You betcha."

He closed the door. "This is supersecret, and you never heard it. I'm deadly serious about this."

He sure appeared to be. "Fine. I'm good for it," I said.

"Okay ... here you go. Don't ask how I know this, either, by the way. I can't tell you." George took a deep breath. "Okay. First, Gabriel is supposed to be leading Volont to some 'big man' in the antigovernment movements. Really big man. Gabe was Volont's snitch. At some point in the past. For sure. Volont squeezed him a few years ago, over some arms sales or something. But Volont's lost control of him. As if you hadn't figured that part out."

I just nodded. I figured this was not the time to demonstrate ignorance.

"Volont's p.i.s.sed. 'cause now old Gabe is simply getting ready to make a hit to fill his own pockets, and run away to somewhere. Not for the 'movement.' That's all phony as h.e.l.l, now." George looked around, just checking, I guess. "None of this 'five banks' thing is for anything other than Gabe. All his a.s.sociates don't know this, but he's just using them for his own purposes."

"And Volont knows all this?" I asked.

"And a h.e.l.l of a lot more," said George. "He's got people on the inside, I'm certain."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned." I thought for a few seconds, wondering who that could be. "And he's probably known this for a while now, hasn't he?"

"You could say that," said George.

"I know what that Spook stuff's like, George. Are you sure Volont is right about him not doing this for the 'movement,' or anything like that? Could he have misled Volont?"

George grinned. "Wheels within wheels. Just know what I've been told," he said.