The Vulture (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-six

Analysts at the FBI received a heads-up by their sister service in Langley suggesting that Jack Brattan might be posing as a naval NCO on one of the East Coast bases. They did not act on that information. They believed that there were too many naval installations and they preferred not to squander scarce resources to cover them all. They passed the information on to the local LEOs and turned their attention to other, more pressing matters. Charlie assumed they would. He dispatched a few agents, between deployments and getting bored with desk duty, to Norfolk and Philadelphia on the off chance he'd guessed right about what Brattan would do. There were other ports with active naval personnel he knew, but if one were looking for Jack Brattan, he figured those two would be his most likely landing places.

At the same time, Billy Sutherlin drove his pickup to Norfolk and connected with his brother Danny at his apartment outside Little Creek. Danny was happy to see him until he heard why he's come.

“Billy, you have to be nuts. Do you have any idea how many sailors there are in this part of the world?”

“Nope, don't care.”

“You should care. There are something like eighty thousand men and women on active duty. Then there is a hundred thousand plus family members with them and maybe thirty thousand civilian employees spread out all over the area. I ain't counting all the retired Navy guys, who by the way can still wear their uniform under certain circumstances. Finding one chief petty officer, real or fake, in that mix is like finding a needle in a haystack. I take that back, it's like finding a nickel-plated needle in a stack of stainless steel needles. It's impossible.”

“Right, and a really big stack of needles, I bet. I believe you. So, with that in mind, if you were going to look for the nickel-plated one anyway, where would you start?”

“You're serious?”

“Danny, this guy shot a cop in cold blood. He's connected to the bomb that…that blew up Ike's car. He's a certifiable bad ass. He can lead us to the people that have been after Ike and Ruth, and God only knows who else, come to think of it. We need to nail him, and do it before the Feds or some other police department does. If they find him first, we miss our chance to interrogate him. It's real important that don't happen. If he's here, I want him.”

“You mean beat the crap out of him 'til he talks?”

“No. Come on. I just want the chance to remind him what could happen if someone else gets to him first if I was to cut him loose. If he thinks about it, he will want to deal. The other thing is, cops aren't the only folks looking for him. He's got himself some hard people who are for sure going to shut him up permanent because they know if he talks some real important people is going down and they won't want to let that happen. They get him first and he'll disappear. Danny, this is real important. If I can, I need to find him and put him away. Will you help me or not?”

“Okay, but it's a waste of time.”

“A waste of time? Suppose your SEAL team was assigned to go into some raggedy-ass place and take out a terrorist. Do you calculate the odds and decide it's ‘a waste of time' or do you go in and get the summabitch?”

“Okay, okay. Tell me more about this guy. Maybe if we can narrow the target area a little we might get lucky.”

Billy showed him the file. Danny read it and sat for ten minutes drumming his fingers on his kitchen table. He sighed and called in a half dozen of his teammates. They arrived and debated, then asked their lieutenant for a few days to run an “undercover exercise” on the base. The object, they said, would be to see if they could infiltrate various restricted locations without being detected. They said they needed to keep their “escape and evasion” skills sharp. The lieutenant gave them a “who do you think you're bullshitting” look and said “Okay.” They didn't mention that the locations they intended to infiltrate were motels, service men's clubs, massage parlors, bars, and brothels. They didn't have to. The lieutenant was not born yesterday.

***

Ike had the Vulture disassembled and ready to ship back to Charlie. Sam watched him fit the pieces into the crate. She did not appear pleased.

“Do we really have to give it back?”

“We do. Get your stuff together, too, Sam. When we pull out of here I don't want any loose ends. Ms. Silver and the Gottleibs need to be in the wind as soon as we bust those guys. When the smoke clears, there will be nothing to prove we were ever here. Not a scrap of paper, a bar of soap, and certainly not this great lump of a fake bird.”

“Because?”

“Because we owe it to Charlie to make sure there are no CIA fingerprints on this operation. He's done a lot for us. We can't let him take a beating from some Congressional oversight committee for it. We disappear and resurface as ourselves as if we just spent a week at the beach.”

“What about the surveillance equipment we planted around the ranch?”

“Well, I hope no one will ever notice, but if they do stumble on them, they're all marked, ‘Made in China,' and could have been put there by anybody, anytime. Given the paranoid disposition of ninety-nine percent of the membership, they will assume the worst about everything and everybody and that one or more of the organizations they obsess over put them there. By the time they get done trying to figure which agency, police department, NSA, CIA, FBI, ISIS, whoever, was watching them, the batteries will have gone dead and the memory chips erased. We'll leave them.”

“So, what now?”

“Now we wait 'til the motion sensors are triggered and we record what happens. Then, if our luck holds, we gear up and tomorrow we go in there and bust some chops.”

Ruth walked in from cleaning the kitchen. “Chops? What kind of chops?”

“Not what, whose.”

“Ike thinks that we will have the goods on Pangborn—”

“You mean assuming you're right about what goes on over there after dark and we can sneak in. That's it, isn't it, Ike? You will go after them.”

“Pretty much. Once I have what I need, we will slip in there and knock some heads together.”

“Metaphorically.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so. Ike, you are out of your jurisdiction. Also, even though you have never practiced it, you're the lawyer. You know damned well if you do anything out of line, they will have their seven-figure-a-year lawyers hand you your guts. If we go in, we go with the local police, or we don't go.”

“Ruth—”

“I mean it Ike. We have been shot at, blown up, and abused in an assortment of ways by that bastard and I don't want you screwing up his trip to the slammer by playing your version of
Die Hard.”

“Yippie-ki-yay.”

“Shut up, I mean it.”

Ike sighed. Being married to a person with conventional morality had its drawbacks, but Ruth was right. He was an ex-spook and not a lone wolf anymore. Maybe he never was. At any rate, he had to weigh whether he valued his freedom enough to forgo the luxury of splashing Pangborn's brains on the wall. It would not be an easy decision.

“Don't worry. If my hunch is right, I will have the State Police put on notice. Well, that's not quite true. ‘An anonymous source' close to the governor will suggest to the director of the State Police that he might make a SWAT team available for a possible raid on the New Star Ranch. It's funny how politics works. As conservative as the governor is, apparently he is not far enough to the right to satisfy Pangborn. Charlie tells me that a large sum of money which he traced to Pangborn ended up in the PAC that tried to oust him in the last election. The governor is still smarting from that. He will have no compunctions about bringing down Pangborn if he's given the opportunity. Frankly, I suspect he won't care much if we turn up anything or not. A well publicized raid by the State Police and the suggestion of a sandal is a publicity bonanza.”

“That's mean.”

“Do you care?”

“Not even a little bit. And if your hunch is wrong?”

“Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Keep digging. Now help me shove this crate outside for the delivery company to pick up and then I could use a nap.”

“A nap? It's nearly six o'clock. Some supper, maybe, but a nap? What's up with that?”

“I think he means a connubial nap,” Sam said and reddened.

“Oh, that kind of nap. Let me check my day planner to see if I can fit you in, Sheriff. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have supper?”

“Actually, I meant nap, as in sleeping briefly. Sam, you have been away from Karl too long and your mind is drifting. Get out of here. On the other hand, Ms. Gottlieb, maybe you should check your day planner. I'll grab some sandwiches and that half empty bottle of red and you can help me take care of both.”

“Like dinner and a movie, but without the movie. You are such a romantic, Marvin. But how about we take a rain check? It's been a long day.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

It was nearly midnight when Billy and Danny took a call from one of the SEAL team. He said he thought someone matching Brattan's description was leaving one of the motels they'd staked out over in Portsmouth after chatting with a “massage therapist” who for a picture of President Grant remembered a loud-mouthed chief. He'd spent some time on her table the day before, she said. Like the rest, it was one of those places where transients crashed between assignments, or while waiting for their RFAD. He said he had him in sight and he seemed headed to the Air Station. Danny told him to stay with him and try to make a positive ID. A few minutes later he called again and said he was ninety-nine percent sure this was the man they wanted and he was holed up at the CPO club. A check with the other watchers came up empty. Danny said he should hold his position. They would be there in a few minutes.

“Okay, Little Brother. If this is your guy, what do we do? You don't have jurisdiction way over here.”

“Let's say I am in hot pursuit. I'll arrest him and if he gives us any shit, we can call the Shore Police and they can hold him for impersonating active duty or something until we get us an okay to haul him off to Picketsville and jail. But hot pursuit ought to do it. Why'd you call them other guys?”

“Two reasons. First, he could be slicker that you give him credit for. He could, for example, have friends with him. You and me are good, but why take a chance we lose him? Second, the guys have been scouring the town looking for your dirt bag for, like, fifteen hours. They deserve to be there when we take him down. Also, we need a better plan than barging in and cuffing him. This is a Naval facility and there are things that need to be put in place.”

“Like what?”

“We need some official sanction, even if it is a fake. I have a friend assigned to the SPs. I'll call. There is just one other thing worrying me.”

“What's that?”

“It's been way too easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you show up late this morning, we spend a couple hours plotting what we need to do, and here is maybe eight hours later and we're done? What are the odds we found that nickel-plated needle? It's been too easy, Billy. Either we are stupid lucky, he is carrying a heap of bad luck, or this ain't him.”

“Let's go find out. Maybe, we're that good. Maybe it's both—we're lucky and he ain't.”

“Don't count on it.”

***

The trouble with truly arrogant people, Charlie thought, was they discounted the intelligence of those around them. Brattan was so certain of his ability to disappear it never occurred to him that anyone with an equally devious mind or even a modicum of common sense could figure out what he might do. How difficult is it to guess that and ex-Navy guy would consider hiding out as a sailor. True, there were other equally logical scenarios he might have pursued. He could have gone hunting in the north woods. Gone in for elk as one person, changed his appearance and come out as someone else. He could have headed to Montana with a fake ID. There is enough room out there to hide an army of Martians. He could have faked his own death. As it happened, none of that mattered.

Brattan couldn't have known that the man he knew as the creator of better-than-good fake documents had also done some “off the books” work for the CIA from time to time. When the director of the CIA had heard about the arrangement at the time he'd been understandably upset.

“What the hell are you thinking, Garland? If he figures out what we're up to he can cause us a heap of hurt,” he'd said at the time.

“His work, Director, is as good as there is, better even. You should think of it as a symbiotic relationship, like the cellulose-dissolving bacteria in the termite.”

“I'm thinking more like the plague-bearing flea on a rat. You better not get caught.”

Charlie hadn't and now, grateful for the chance to serve his country, or perhaps not, but rather looking for another chance to call in a favor, he had called Charlie. He might be an artist who made IDs for anyone with sufficient cash, but at the same time, he was no fool. He knew the information would be worth something to the right people. He dealt directly with Charlie in the past and decided he'd call Charlie first. Brattan should have realized that he was not his only customer.

“I heard that this guy Brattan had a BOLO out on him and maybe he is on your Christmas list?” he said.

“He might be. What have you got?”

“I sent him some IDs, fake Navy orders, some other stuff. Is it worth my while to tell you where?”

Charlie agreed on a price which was measured in dollars and the vague promise of future business and the caller gave Charlie the address where the IDs were to be delivered. Once again, Charlie noted, arrogance will almost always displace cleverness. Brattan had had the materials overnighted to him proving that stupid is the sister to arrogance. It was then that Charlie had given the FBI the heads-up which they opted to ignore. Except Special Agent O'Rourke who would have made a call if he hadn't been on the wrong side of the table in an interrogation room in Quantico at the time.

The agent Charlie dispatched to cover Norfolk arrived at the address that afternoon as Brattan returned from a late lunch. Charlie told his agent to sit tight. He wanted to spring the trap only if and when Ike had collected his information. That is, if there was any information that would compromise Pangborn to be collected. Anyway, he said to wait.

About eleven-thirty the agent called in again. Brattan was on the move and he was following him. There was one hitch, he said. He was not the only one on Brattan's tail. Someone else seemed to have him in their sights.

“Can you tell who?”

“Charlie, I have no idea how to do that, short of stopping and asking. I would guess he's military, but then that could be a cover like Brattan.”

Charlie frowned and tapped his ballpoint on the scarred surface of his desk. Either the local law had picked up the trail or Pangborn's people had. He didn't believe the first. Most of the people targeted by a BOLO are apprehended at traffic stops or some minor, unrelated event that happens to turn up the wanted man, or someone ratted them out. Therefore, this must be some Fifty-first Star goons who needed to get to Brattan before he was caught and spilled his guts to the police.

“Okay, lay back but be prepared to intervene if you think it's someone from the Fifty-first Star. Wait at least until the Norfolk Shore Police can be called.”

Charlie called the Norfolk Naval Station and put them on alert. Nothing to do now but wait.

***

“Nothing to do now but wait,” Ike said. “Is there anymore wine?”

“Mumph?”

“Sorry, did I wake you? You're losing your touch, there Madam President. I remember when you could—”

“Shut up. It's late and please remember that back in those days, which you remember inaccurately, by the way, I had not spent the better part of a year in a coma, been shot at, and had my house blown up, and had to go on the lam in Idaho. Also, we are not getting any younger, Ike. You want me to be spry? Okay, I want some peace and quiet for a change. No more explosions, blood, and guts for breakfast. You realize that this past year or so I have spent as much time on a leave of absence as I have actually sitting at my desk? It has been jolly, but how long do you think my Board of Trustees is going to put up with it? I could go home and find I have no job.”

“Maybe we should both retire, remove ourselves from the line of fire. We could move into your house in Maine. We could live on lobster and clams and my ill-gotten gains from my years as a spy. You could write a book or something. Think of it. No bad guys, no whiney sophomores or their parents. Nobody to arrest, shoot at, or be shot by.”

“You do know it's as cold as a witch's whoosis in the winter up there? Like, there's a permanent Nor'easter blowing in off the Atlantic and the temperatures drop to flash freeze.”

“We could cuddle.”

“Uh huh, like, twenty-four seven. Even you would tire of that eventually. Write a book about what?”

“Oh, I don't know. You are a highly successful university president. You could write
University Administration for Dummies.
You'd make a fortune.”

“Been done. What else?”

“Okay, summers in Maine, winters in some nice warm place with white sand beaches and palm trees.”

“And write a book?”

“Exactly.
My Life as a Changeling in Picketsville
or
How to Turn a Mediocre College into a Passable University
or
The Vampires of Rockbridge County/My Years as a University President at the Turn of the Century
. Either should sell.”

“Very funny. And you will do what?”

“Take many more naps.”

“What's that noise?”

Sam had wired the surveillance cameras they'd planted at the range to the large-screen television. One by one eight separate squares lit up. A loud beep told Ike they were online. Someone had entered the bathhouse. The recording tape began to roll.

“Sam,” Ike yelled, “I think we're in business.”