by Joseph Flynn
No need to go there in that case.
Taking things a step farther, losing his BIA job wouldn’t be all bad.
He’d have more time to spend with Rebecca. Time to think about other career opportunities. Maybe the vice president could come up something for him to do. She’d seemed to like him.
The FBI, he was sure, flew out of the general aviation section of the airport. He got directions from an airline flight crew passing through the corridor. He hadn’t gone far when he got a phone call from his mother.
Serafina Wolf y Padilla told him, “Your bank-robbing Indians are Caucasian, African-American, Latino and Asian.”
“All of God’s children.”
“Just about.”
“Television news said they claim to be Native American, Red Nation Rising.”
His mother laughed. “Who are you going to believe, me or Brian Williams?”
“You, every time.”
“You’re a good boy, John.”
“Can you provide me with images of what they look like without their warpaint?”
“Check your email.”
“You’re the best, Mom.”
“So your father also tells me. Vaya con Dios, mijo.”
John was about to use his phone to look at the images his mother had sent when he saw Byron DeWitt standing at the entrance to the jetway leading to the FBI plane. Waiting for him? With further news? They’d have to catch each other up on the flight to D.C.
En Route to Washington, DC
A couple of special agents out of the FBI office in New Orleans traveled with DeWitt and John, but they sat at the back of the cabin. The rushing sound of the plane’s jet engines was quieter than on most commercial flights, but with the deputy director and John keeping their voices at a conversational level neither their fellow passengers nor the flight crew behind its closed cockpit door would be able to hear what they said.
John saw the aircraft for what it was, DeWitt’s private ride.
That perk made it clear to him just how high up the FBI food chain the deputy director was. His status belied the impression he gave of being just a regular guy. Not that he fit the button-down collar model of the Bureau. DeWitt came off as an easy-going surfer who’d given his long blonde hair a marginal trim and had added to his persona the polish that came with an elite education.
John kept his thoughts on the matter to himself.
It was DeWitt who broached the subject of personal appearance.
“You ever wear your hair long?”
John shook his head. “That was never my thing.”
“You were thoroughly assimilated into the post-‘60s mainstream culture?”
Hesitating only a moment, John told DeWitt of the circumstances of his birth. Single, teenaged mother ashamed of her pregnancy. Leaving him as an infant on a sepulture to die. Coyote trying to make a meal of him. The rescue by his adoptive parents.
He didn’t mention that his biological mother had tried to reclaim him after her domineering father had died. She’d wanted to bring him back to the rez to live with her. Mom and Dad had fought that in court and won. John had always had a relatively short hair cut. His dad had told him if he ever got into a fight he wouldn’t want to give the other guy anything to grab.
John took that to heart.
He also wanted to make sure Mom and Dad knew he loved them.
Never regretted for a moment that they’d adopted him.
As a boy, his haircut, much like Dad’s, symbolized being an inseparable part of his family.
As a man, he still held fast to the idea.
DeWitt told John that he had a second family, too. A scholar and his family who’d fled China after the massacre at Tiananmen Square came to America and lived with the DeWitts in California. The deputy director had come to love them as an extension of his own flesh and blood. He’d acquired a working fluency in their language and some knowledge of their culture. Enough of both for the FBI to recruit him after he’d graduated from law school.
Enough to rise quickly in the Bureau’s hierarchy.
Enough to get his own jet and an exemption from a regulation haircut.
It was amazing, the things people revealed to each other during air travel, John thought. Getting back to business, he told DeWitt about having Marcellus Darcy and Edmee LaBelle check the bank video to see if they could spot someone scoping the layout of the place for the robbers.
“Now, we can crosscheck to see if the gang used the same scout in Las Vegas,” John said. “Assuming the bad guys haven’t already been caught.”
DeWitt shook his head. “They haven’t. But they might have had someone inside each of the banks.”
“That wasn’t the feeling I got at Thibodeaux State Bank.”
“It is more of a reach. Subverting people in two different banks.”
John said, “It becomes a diminishing possibility with each new bank they hit.”
The deputy director smiled. “Makes me wonder if someone in DC has started a pool. How many banks do these guys knock off before we catch them.”
“Wouldn’t want my name attached to that kind of wagering,” John said.
“Me either. But I think you’re right. The more people you involve in a criminal enterprise, in this case bank insiders, the greater the chance somebody screws up.”
John said, “From what I’ve seen, these guys are cohesive and function efficiently.”
“Almost like they rehearse the jobs.”
“That’s possible, I suppose,” John said. “If their scout has a good eye for detail, a retentive memory and basic drawing skills, he could create floor plans.”
DeWitt nodded. “The scout might even pace off the bank’s dimensions. If the gang has a secluded hideout with a bit of room, they could do full-scale mockups.”
The two of them were just spitballing. Could be they weren’t even close to how the robbers worked. Still, they both liked the way they could play off each other’s thinking. Because, who knew, they might have things exactly right.
And if not this time, maybe the next.
John told DeWitt about his mother’s conclusion that the robbers, despite the claim to the contrary, were not Native American.
“How did she arrive at that?” DeWitt asked.
“Let’s take a look.”
John brought out his phone and pulled up the file his mother had emailed him. It began with Serafina explaining that two social scientists in Scotland had developed software that allowed them to average the features shown in the photos of thousands of people from several countries around the world, creating an archetype for each nationality.
Then Serafina had outlined, pixel by pixel, and lifted out the warpaint areas worn by each of the robbers. Next step was to do side-by-side comparisons: the faces of the robbers and those of male archetypes from around the world. The robbers’ closest matches were to Caucasian, African-American, Latino and Asian individuals.
Under those generalized archetypal headings, Serafina refined the identities to specific subgroups of nationalities. At each step she measured how well the robbers’ warpaint fit the features, like a mask being tailored for an individual.
Then she showed how poorly each of the warpaint patterns looked on the archetype of a Native American male.
At the conclusion of the presentation, DeWitt gave Serafina’s work a round of applause.
“Brilliant,” he said.
“Yeah, but knowing my mom, she’s not done yet,” John said.
It took just a moment for DeWitt to see what John meant.
“Your mother is going to show us what the robbers look like without their makeup?”
“Yeah, she’ll get close to their true skin color.”
“That’s wonderful. The government has to compensate her somehow.”
“She’d probably go along with that, but she won’t want money.”
“What then?” DeWitt asked.
“Probably license to conduct research the government might ordinarily fr
own upon.”
The deputy director thought about that. He bobbed his head.
“Anything I can push for in good conscience.”
“That’s reasonable,” John said. “Now how about you tell me why we’re going to Washington?”
DeWitt said, “The spooks think they found a foreign connection to the robbers.”
Tulane University, New Orleans
Louis Mercer sat in his cubbyhole of an office going over his teaching assignments for the coming term. The professor for whom he labored was a really decent guy. He did his own stints in the classroom, something a person with his seniority and publishing history didn’t have to bother with anymore. He gave credit to his research assistants, including Louis, when it came to including names on his scholarly papers. He even threw two or three memorable parties during the course of the school year.
All in all, he was as accommodating a boss and mentor as a grad student could want.
Being a bit of a greedy prick, though, Louis wanted more. He wanted fame and fortune. In the words of the late Jim Morrison, he wanted the world and he wanted it now. His decision to risk his precious backside had brought him an unexpected measure of approbation among the faculty and administration.
Most academics experienced the world at a safe distance, their feet firmly planted in libraries and laboratories. Interaction with the larger world did occur, but most disciplines didn’t require venturing near the brink of mortal risk. Those who did put their skin in the game were the ones whose books found large general audiences with the sales advanced by appearances on morning news programs.
Louis had already made his major media debut. Had been congratulated by people he was sure hadn’t known his name a week ago. He’d even detected hints of envy from his peers. Being a celebrity academic was one thing; achieving the status of a famous grad student was unheard of.
Perhaps best of all, he’d learned that both sections of the class he taught had reached their maximum number of students and both had a waiting list in case someone dropped the course. More than two-thirds of the students enrolled in each class were girls. He’d had a bit of undergrad fawning from coeds in the past — he wasn’t a bad-looking guy — but now he could imagine … all sorts of things.
Louis Mercer groupies. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Then, not twenty minutes ago, his agent had called.
Told him the damn Indians had robbed another bank, this one in Las Vegas.
“Are you sure it’s the same people?” Louis asked.
There was a moment of silence, then his agent said, “You know, that’s a good question. But even if they’re not, it’s still a problem. You had a great story, being a witness to an extraordinary robbery, but now it seems like you were just the guy who saw the opening act. The real story will be told by the guy who’s there for the finale.”
John Tall Wolf immediately popped into Louis’ mind.
That sonofabitch.
Hey, now, wait a minute, he thought. Could a working federal agent profit from doing his job? Hardly seemed fair. It’d be like double dipping.
It took barely a second for Louis to answer his own question.
Still, if the payday was big, a fed would have to be stupid to keep his job.
He’d quit and take the money while he could.
“I’m sorry about the way things worked out,” the agent said, “but, hey, you did make out in a small way, didn’t you? The Wired story, if they decide to run it, and the TV appearance.”
It had never occurred to Louis that Wired would spike his story.
As for being on TV, he wanted that to be a regular thing.
“What if I help catch these assholes?” He said it without realizing where the idea came from.
After another pause, the agent asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean …” It took him a moment to figure it out. “I mean, what if I come up with the information that gives the feds a way to arrest the robbers.”
“How would you do that?” the agent asked.
“Well … just about every asshole in the world uses social media these days. Terrorists sure do. They have their own websites. They tweet. They use email. So why not these guys, too?”
“That would be …”
Louis thought the agent was going to say absurd.
Then the guy thought about it, saw the possibilities.
“Your tracking them down would be something I could get a bidding war going on in a heartbeat. Can you really do that?”
“I’m writing my dissertation on social media’s real world effects.”
“All right, no skin off my wienie. Go for it.”
That was when Louis had an insight. Maybe the robbers were old school. If they wanted to publicize their activities and ambitions, they might focus on traditional outlets for notoriety. The idea dovetailed with a question he had for the agent.
“Did you ever check, like I asked you, to see if anyone else submitted a book proposal on the bank robbery here in New Orleans?”
“It was on my calendar, but this news about the robbery in Las Vegas happened, and —”
“You didn’t. Thanks a lot.”
“Hey, you want to work with me or not?”
Louis said, “I want a list of every nonfiction book proposal in New York.”
“Are you crazy? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of proposals all the time.”
“That’s okay. I know how to sift through large amounts of data to find what I want. The nugget of gold. But if you’re not interested, I’ll ask someone else.”
“Wait a minute. Just a damn minute. You … you actually think these robbers might try to peddle their own book?”
The idea was originally John Tall Wolf’s, but Louis didn’t have to tell the agent that.
Besides, the fed had been thinking more a magazine story than a book.
Louis said, “Why not? These days, even assholes want their moment of fame.”
The agent said, “You got that right. I’ll send you every nonfiction book proposal I can find. I’ll keep my fingers crossed you find that golden nugget. But if you don’t … I hope you go blind.”
“A pleasure doing business with you,” Louis said, ending the call.
Turning his thoughts to finding some way to ingratiate himself with Tall Wolf, he remembered the big fed asking him if he’d noticed the way the robbers had communicated. Hand signals or something like that. He hadn’t noticed, but he’d said he’d review the video.
He’d do that now. Hope it led to something.
— Chapter 20 —
Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Washington, DC
Vice President Jean Morrissey told the group assembled in her conference room, “The CIA has received word from an outside asset that the bank robberies in New Orleans and now Las Vegas have been used as covers to test our country’s abilities to protect its critical infrastructure. The asset is less clear on who is behind this probe. The suspects include the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, other Middle Eastern factions or a Balkan crime family acting as a front for one of the aforementioned sovereign nations.
“All these possibilities are being investigated, but that raises its own concern.”
DeWitt said, “Maybe the asset has been turned, if he was a real friend in the first place, and we’ll be spreading our resources too thin to be successful.”
Seated opposite from the FBI deputy director, John had thought the same thing.
Only he’d decided to wait to be asked for his opinion before he spoke.
As it was, DeWitt’s interjection had drawn everyone’s attention.
“That’s exactly right, Mr. Deputy Director. Given that the Chinese are your particular area of expertise, do you think they are behind these attacks?”
“I do, Madam Vice President. The approach used in these robberies is to build a step-by-step sense of insecurity. A strange crime happens in New Orleans? Well, it’s a strange place and everyone knows about
its infrastructure problems. It’s a local concern. But now, in another part of the country, the strange crime is repeated. Again, Las Vegas isn’t your typical city, but now there’s a much broader awareness among the American people that something is going badly wrong. Of more concern, if something scary can happen twice, there’s no reason it can’t happen a third time. Maybe in some town that looks closer to home to most Americans. If the robbers do that, people might start to panic.
“They might worry about the air traffic system being sabotaged with planes crashing in midair; they might fear that natural gas pipelines will explode; people who trade stocks and commodities might fear to make deals because the markets might be sabotaged by false buy or sell orders. Any of these things by itself could cause the economy to stall; in combination they might cause a full-blown crash.
“At the same time, the overt purpose of these cyberattacks is to facilitate bank robberies, domestic crimes, of which there were more than five thousand last year. Any foreign actor we might accuse could simply point their fingers back at us. Say that if we can’t cope with our own thugs, don’t blame them.
“That would be a hugely appreciated strategy in China, winning on several levels: learn how prepared or unprepared we are; deflect blame from themselves; intimidate or at least embarrass us; have a good laugh in the bargain.”
“Quite chilling, Mr. Deputy Director,” the vice president said, “but couldn’t the Russians or others be just as devious?”
“The Russians wouldn’t be as deft; the others wouldn’t be as able.”
John saw the vice president was impressed by DeWitt’s insights.
So was he. Then, as if she was reading John’s mind, Jean Morrissey looked at him and said, “It would be very helpful if we had more than a shrewd analysis to pin on the Chinese. What we need to do is catch these bank robbers and see what we can learn from them. Special Agent Tall Wolf, you’ve heard the claim that the robbers are part of a radical movement called Red Nation Rising?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And what is your opinion? Are they Native Americans?”