A Noble Calling

by Rhona Weaver

  Game on.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Both men held their hats to their heads as they walked the 180 yards down the street to the Justice Center in the blustery north wind. They climbed the granite steps and entered as an FBI agent buzzed the inner doors open. Trey and Win both greeted the Bureau guard and moved toward the elevator, passing Bill Wilson’s small security office. The older ranger stuck his head out of his office immediately. Win was struck by his quick smile and eager expression. He reminded Win of Shep, their cattle dog back home—mostly at rest, but ready to spring up at any sign of activity, needed or not. Bill Wilson would have been a pistol in his younger days.

  “What’s happening this afternoon, boys? Any action?” Bill was holding a piece of beef jerky in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other as he leaned against the doorframe of his office. If he had any regard for Trey’s higher rank, he didn’t show it, but Win was thinking that wasn’t unusual with the rangers. They seemed uniformly friendly to everybody.

  Win started talking. “Hate this weather, Bill, it’s May 10th, there should be flowers blooming. It’s spit snow all morning—wind is cold as ice!”

  “Just a little nuisance, be pretty before you know it. You boys had a busy morning!” Win wasn’t surprised he knew about the incident with Bronte and Ellie; even the locals were all over that by now.

  Win asked about Bill’s wife, Maddy, and Bill said she’d gone to visit relatives in Reno for several days. What passed for spring in Yellowstone wasn’t her favorite time of year, and she’d spend the rainy, snowy, icy days with the grandkids.

  Trey stood there looking bored at their conversation. He took off his hat and slapped it against his pants leg a couple of times before telling Win they needed to get up to the operations center and make their report ASAP. Win snapped back that they’d been working 24/7 and he’d stop and visit with Bill if he wanted to. Win moved toward Bill’s office, out of the hearing of the front-door guard. Trey hit the elevator button and told Win again that they needed to get upstairs now. Win waved him away and asked Bill if he had an extra cup of coffee. As Trey entered the elevator, Win stood inside Bill’s small office, unzipped his heavy coat, and leaned against the wall. He took off his felt hat and dropped it in the metal chair, rubbed his face with both hands, then ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. It occurred to him that he needed a haircut.

  “Man, I’m beat, Bill. Been a tough few days. . . .” Here we go.

  “Heard you were involved in the shooting the other day. Hard thing for anyone to handle. . . . Had to deal with that sort of thing more when I was a state trooper. You’ve got something big going on now?” He handed Win the last of the coffee from a small pot in the office’s corner and sat down on the front of his cluttered metal desk.

  Win realized his palms were sweaty as he took the Styrofoam cup. He felt his heart beating hard in his chest. He held his breath for a few seconds and tried to settle down before he answered. “Oh, yeah, yeah . . . this case is never-ending, and I’m so tired I can hardly stand. Hechtner keeps pushing. . . .” Win took a sip of the bitter coffee.

  Bill nodded sympathetically. “Know how that is. Spent many a damn week out on assignments that never went anywhere. Trey’s a good guy, but our Special Response Team folks can get a little full of themselves—intense as hell. You know it’s hard for me to just sit here, watching you come and go. Wish I was more a part of it. . . . What’s going on now?”

  Being from the South, Win was accustomed to nosy folks, but Bill Wilson had asked him twice about an operation they both knew was closed to personnel without top secret clearance. Maybe they weren’t barking up the wrong tree after all.

  “Well . . .” Win glanced over his shoulder at the door guard. He took another sip of the awful coffee and lowered his voice. “You mighta heard we had the Hostage Rescue Team come in earlier this week? They’re here helping run surveillance on some folks affiliated with the Arm of the Lord Church. Well, they’ve been ordered back to the East Coast tonight for some crisis that’s going down back there. What a screwed-up mess! After all the effort we’ve put into keeping tight surveillance on that bunch of yahoos at the church compound—all for nothing! So I’ve gotta go in and tell JTTF and SWAT to realign.”

  “You mean HRT is pulling out tonight?”

  “Yeah, can you believe that? Bad guys could scatter like quail and do Lord knows what all if they knew our surveillance was going down! We won’t have a solid surveillance perimeter for at least ten hours after eight o’clock tonight.” Win’s shoulders slumped and he sighed again. “Hey, thanks for the coffee and for letting me blow off a little steam. I’m just fed up with the whole deal.”

  “No problem . . . no problem. Take care of yourself, Win.” The older ranger seemed distracted.

  “Tell Maddy hey for me—looking forward to more of her good cooking.” Win said that and he meant that. He was praying Bill Wilson wasn’t the mole. But deep in his spirit he wasn’t sure anymore; that prayer might have come a little late. He hit the elevator button and met Trey in the hallway on the second floor. No one in the operations center knew the play was on to take down the mole. Everything was strictly need to know. He and Trey nodded to each other and stood there silently, checking their phones for five minutes. Then they took the elevator back down to the lobby. Win waved to Bill as they walked across the gray slate floor, past the guard, and out the front doors.

  Deb and Ramona were sitting in a white rental car across the street from the building, pretending to look at Yellowstone brochures. Win and Trey walked by without acknowledging them. The girls would cover the front entrance and Win and Trey would cover the back. Thankfully, the morning’s bad weather had discouraged most of the tourists, and the area was not as crowded as it could have been in early May. The fewer people to get in the way, the better. It was one of those rare times when Win wasn’t in the mood to be friendly.

  They climbed into the small rented SUV that was parked behind Win’s office, and he drove it to a gravel parking lot overlooking the rear of the Justice Center. He turned off the vehicle, called in their position, and played the recording of his meeting with Wilson for Trey. The ranger’s face was locked in a deep scowl. His eyes moved back and forth between the back doors of the Justice Center to Bill Wilson’s personal truck throughout the short recording.

  “Nice job of subterfuge, Win. Maybe I have you pegged wrong. You might have a future in poker after all.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. I kept my eyes down almost the whole time—played hangdog. I remembered what you’d said about my eyes giving me away. Just hate misleading anyone . . . even for the sake of a just cause.”

  “Ah, he asked you twice about the operation.”

  “Yeah, yeah, he did, but maybe that’s just him feeling left out. You know, feeling over the hill. Just standing around can’t be a good place to be for someone who was in the trenches in law enforcement most of his life.” Win moved the seat back as far as it would go and tried to stretch out his legs under the steering wheel. They obviously made these little SUVs for short people. He could feel air coming through the seal around the window. It was gonna get cold in here in a hurry.

  He and Trey were settling in for what Win hoped would be a long, uneventful wait for Bill Wilson to do nothing. Given the communications issues, the agents stayed off the radio except to call in their status and positions. All the disinformation plants had gone more or less according to schedule. Win had helped with numerous low-level surveillance assignments in Charlotte, but the Bureau had specially trained surveillance teams in every office. Those people were the pros. He was glad those teams were on three of the targets; he tried again to tell himself Bill Wilson was their least likely suspect.

  Trey dropped his field glasses to his lap after ten minutes and asked Win to take the “eye” for the next ten. They were into it for thirty minutes with no talking other than to swit
ch off. Win remembered how tedious and mentally exhausting visual surveillance could be. He was hoping one of the other teams would get a hit soon. It was now good and cold in the vehicle, but that kept him somewhat alert and Trey didn’t seem to mind. Win was glad Trey wasn’t big on idle conversation; he just wanted to focus on the distasteful matter at hand. The ranger seemed introspective and pensive. Win figured spying on someone in his agency had to be pulling him down.

  “Win, I need to talk with you about something. I’ve been—”

  They both jumped when Win’s radio suddenly came to life.

  “Delta One to Delta Two, subject moving to the rear. Copy?”

  Trey stared straight ahead and slammed his fist down hard on the dashboard. “Dammit, Bill!” Then he took a deep breath, turned his head, hit the button, and calmly reported into the handheld radio, “Delta Two, copy that, subject moving to the rear.”

  The planted HRT operator guarding the Justice Center’s front door had just reported to everyone that Bill Wilson was on the move and was heading for the rear of the building toward their position. Bill Wilson was the fourth suspect in the group—subject D, or Delta. They were designated as Delta team. Delta team was now in play.

  They both watched him with binoculars from 190 yards away. Win started their vehicle and tried to focus on Wilson’s demeanor as he exited one of the gray metal doors at the rear of the Justice Center. The man had to grab his flat hat to keep it from sailing off in the wind. His dark-green uniform jacket was blowing open. Win couldn’t help but notice the bright-gold embroidered Park Service law enforcement shield on the coat. He saw Wilson’s handgun as the coat blew back again. The man’s face looked flushed, his mouth was set in a hard line, and his movements were hurried. He fumbled with his keys before he was able to get his older Chevy pickup started.

  As soon as Win could tell which direction Wilson was moving in the gravel parking lot, he dropped the field glasses and hit the radio call button: “Delta Two to Delta Three, subject in a light-blue Chevrolet pickup, extended cab, silver toolbox . . .” Trey held up notepaper with the license number. “Wyoming license: Serra—Charlie—Alpha—one—three—zero. Moving onto Highway 89 North out of rear parking lot. Copy?”

  “Copy that, Delta Three,” Deb responded quickly. No one else was on the radio. They were a little over thirty minutes into the sting and they were the only game in town. Bill Wilson turned out of the parking lot onto Highway 89 headed down the mountain toward Gardiner. Win watched two carloads of tourists pass, then Deb and Ramona’s white rental car. He and Trey took the second position behind more tourists another hundred yards back.

  “May be nothing, Trey. . . . Maybe he needs a little fresh air.” But Win knew better now; he had a terrible feeling about it. It was about five miles to Gardiner. Wilson was scheduled to work until six o’clock tonight. Win was thinking the guy had to be going somewhere close so he could get back to work before his typical fifteen-minute afternoon break was over. Where is he going?

  That got answered pretty quickly. “Zulu Three to Delta Three, Bearcats Four and Six are southbound on 89 in a silver Trailblazer, cleared park entrance at Gardiner. Zulu Three following. Copy?”

  Trey swore softly and covered his eyes with a hand. Win pulled a faded Razorback ball cap down lower on his face and glanced at Trey. Zulu was the call sign for the HRT operators who were surveilling a few of Prophet Shepherd’s most dangerous guys during the sting. Two of their subjects were in a Trailblazer coming this way from Gardiner—it was looking like Wilson had a little meeting planned.

  Bill Wilson pulled his vehicle into the Boiling River parking lot at the bottom of a barren mountain about two miles north of Mammoth. Deb radioed that they were pulling in as well. Win doubted that two women dressed like tourists in a rental car would grab much attention from Wilson or the bad guys. There were four other carloads of tourists in the lot as Win passed it by. He watched Trey from the corner of his eye and saw him pull his coat over his uniform jacket and an old cowboy hat down over his face. They met the bad guys’ Trailblazer just as they turned on their signal light to enter the lot. Trey set his jaw and drew a deep breath as Win drove past the lot’s entrance. There wasn’t any doubt now.

  Deb and Ramona were good. The HRT guys were good. They all got plenty of photos and video of Law Enforcement Park Ranger Bill Wilson welcoming two domestic terrorism suspects into the passenger seats of his blue Chevy truck. Win turned down a service road another mile closer to Gardiner. He drove over a low ridge, out of sight of the highway, turned around, and waited. Neither he nor Trey said a word. The clandestine meeting took less than three minutes. Wilson and the subjects headed back the way they came. The FBI electronic surveillance plane flying overhead picked up a phone call from the guys in the Trailblazer to Ron Chandler within seconds. It always helped when someone got a little careless, and they were careless that day. The Bureau now had a recording of a cell phone transmission from one of the bad guys that said in part, “the boys from Virginia will be leaving tonight. . . . It’s wide open after eight,” before Chandler cut him off.

  * * *

  Win watched it all unfold as if he were in an audience at a play; none of it felt real. Wes Givens gave Chief Randall the option of arresting his own man, and he chose to do just that. As the case agent, Win was technically in charge of the arrest and the interrogation, so he watched from camera monitors in the Justice Center’s second-floor security room as rangers discreetly sealed off the building. It was imperative the Arm of the Lord group not know Bill Wilson was being arrested. Less than twenty minutes after Wilson walked back into his little office, just as he was making himself another pot of coffee, the HRT guy guarding the front door pretended to trip and fall outside Bill’s office. When Wilson came out to assist the man, Trey and two of his guys were on him. Win watched Trey pull Wilson’s Sig Sauer handgun free with the same finesse he’d used to disarm him up on the ridge. Win winced as he remembered that moment of helplessness. The three rangers pushed Wilson back into his office, cuffed his hands behind his back, and frisked him. His back pocket held $3,000 in crisp new bills. The money went into an evidence bag—the bad guy’s fingerprints on those bills would be one more nail in the coffin.

  But Win’s focus was on Wilson’s face. Bill Wilson had folded even before his Miranda rights were recited. He was ghostly pale and his eyes were flat, as if he were suddenly relieved to have it over. Four of the HRT guys, in their blue-collar civilian clothes, rushed Wilson out of his office and up the back stairs to the U.S. Marshals’ interrogation room. This was a high-level counterterrorism case; a law enforcement officer had betrayed them and everyone was angry. In spite of the anger, there was no lack of professionalism in the arrest. Win felt a little pride in that, but it still couldn’t take away the sick feeling in his stomach.

  Win turned his attention back to the monitor’s view of Wilson’s office. The other rangers were filing out. Trey was still standing with pistol drawn, looking down at Bill’s desk. Trey took off his hat and wiped his sleeve across his face. His eyes came up and Win caught the fire in them. Win could feel the man’s fury even through the video feed. He made a mental note not to get on the wrong side of Trey Hechtner.

  * * *

  Win’s ASAC stepped in front of him as he moved down the hall toward the interrogation room. “You’re a little close to this—he may have put your life at risk.”

  Win raised his chin and his deep-blue eyes locked on Mr. Givens. “Just me in there. . . . I’ve got this, sir.” There was no hesitation, no timidity. It’d been ten minutes since the arrest—things were moving fast and he was on go.

  He saw Jim West, Deb, and Phillips farther down the hallway. He knew Chief Randall and Gus were already in the security room, watching the video feed of Bill Wilson sitting with his head in his cuffed hands in the interrogation room with two less than friendly HRT operators standing over him.

  Win
lacked confidence in many areas of Bureau work, but suspect interrogation wasn’t one of them. He’d done this job dozens of times in his Bureau career—long, difficult interrogations during the Brunson case. He was good at it and he knew it.

  Wes Givens seemed to consider him for a moment longer, then he moved aside and nodded for Win to pass.

  Win handed off his Glock and his jacket to his supervisor as one of the operators opened the heavy metal door. He entered the small, windowless room with a leather-bound notebook in his hand. He liked to have something in his hands, made it easier to steady them if need be. He asked the HRT guy standing over Wilson to uncuff him from the stationary table. The operator gave him a momentary questioning look—not standard procedure in a terrorism case, but the man did as Win asked. He took off the metal shackles and both operators left the room.

  They were alone. Or as alone as one can be with six video cameras focused on every angle, digital audio feed, and a troop of onlookers in the security room next door. Win leaned back against the stark gray wall and looked down at Law Enforcement Ranger Bill Wilson. The man hadn’t raised his head. Wilson’s gold badge was reflecting the fluorescent light down onto the smooth metal table. Win wondered at the psychology behind the design of these spaces. Everything had been thought out: very clean, very sterile, very quiet. All outside stimuli, all distractions had been stripped away. That’s what Win wanted too; that’s what he demanded. All insulating excuses or blame stripped away. The truth laid bare.

  He sat down directly across the table from Wilson in one of the metal chairs that were bolted to the floor. He began in a low, soft tone of voice—no emotion, no intensity. “You’ve been in law enforcement almost forty years, Bill, so you know the drill better than I do. The only good deal is the deal you’re gonna make with me right now. Agent Deborah Mills says you’ve signed a copy of your Miranda rights, you’ve waived an attorney, you’re freely talking to me. So talk to me.”