War Party (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 2)

by Joseph Flynn

  “Yeah, okay.”

  The two men sensed Ellie watching them. She wasn’t only looking their way. With the Smith in her right hand, she held a small camera in her left hand and was using it to shoot video. John thought a visual record might come in handy, especially if the bad guys cleaned the slate. He didn’t object and the camera kept whirring.

  “For you feds,” Ellie whispered, as if she’d read John’s mind.

  But she was really thinking of the fortune Hugh Collier at WorldWide News would pay for the video. Might get a ton of gold from SportsCenter, too.

  Keeping his voice down, John asked her, “You followed me from the Marriott tonight, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Followed you all the way here. Didn’t spot me, did you?”

  “No. You’re quite the sneak.”

  Ellie beamed. As if she’d received a high compliment.

  Then Price cleared his throat. The hit squad had entered the stadium.

  John and Ellie held their positions and their fire. You didn’t hit targets at more than a hundred feet with a semi-auto or short-barrel handgun except by pure luck. John saw now that the hit squad did have assault rifles. The effective range of those weapons was measured in hundreds of yards. Given the disparity in armament, potshots would only tell the bad guys where to direct their fire.

  John was glad Ellie seemed to know that and held her fire.

  Price moved to the broadcast booth doorway on the right side of the space.

  He squatted with a comfort that came from years of practice. John saw he was repositioning his friends, based on the bad guys’ movements. The killers had gone to the far ends of the seating area, one of each pair climbing to the concourse above the top row of seats, the other working the walkway between the box seats and the grandstand.

  The killer on the upper concourse of the right field grandstand moved toward Tut Warren and Jack O’Grady, who were sheltering behind a refreshment stand on the same level. In less than a minute, the killer would cross in front of the players. If that happened, their only chance would be to have the bastard looking the wrong way when he got there.

  As the killer drew near, though, Tut followed Price’s signals and rolled a baseball down the stairway that led up to the refreshment stand. The thunk, thunk, thunk of the ball bouncing down the concrete steps drew the attention of the asshole with the assault rifle. He turned his back on the players’ position. O’Grady, in a crouch not seen since the playing days of Jeff Bagwell, swung his bat with all his might.

  Had he aimed for the guy’s head it might have come off. Instead, he went for the back of the SOB’s knees. The guy went down fast and face-first, his eyes glazed with shock even before he did his face plant. By the grace of the gods of baseball, his weapon didn’t discharge.

  Tut and O’Grady pulled the unconscious man into the lee of the refreshment stand.

  Each of them looked to Price to see what they should do next.

  He clenched a hand into a fist and then held it palm out.

  That was just what they did. Grabbed the asshole’s gun. Waited for further instruction.

  The other killers had all heard the baseball bouncing down the cement stairs. They tried to track it. Then came the heavy thud. All of them knew what that was. The sound of a body dropping. By the time they tried to pinpoint where it fell, the source wasn’t apparent.

  What was clear, though, each of them could see only two other guys.

  They were down a man, and an assault rifle, too.

  Things weren’t looking quite so easy as they did a moment ago.

  The ballplayers had struck first. What they didn’t know was, the killers were all members of the same family. They’d taken the job for money. Now, they had vengeance in mind, too. The three remaining killers opened fire on full auto in the general direction of where they’d last seen Cousin Bob.

  The air filled with a hail of death and noise.

  Tut and O’Grady thought it only fair to take shelter behind their victim. John, Ellie and Price pressed themselves into the floor of the broadcast booth, wrapping their arms around their heads. Shards of the structure around them turned into shrapnel and drew blood.

  As soon as the shooters ran through their first clips, John combat crawled over to Tut and O’Grady and took possession of the weapon they’d captured.

  Neither ballplayer thought to contest him for it.

  Price was back in action, too. He peeked over the remnants of the booth’s control board and signaled to four of the players who’d worked their way down to a point just outside the restrooms on the third base line. The four of them hurled baseballs high in the air.

  The killer closest to those players responded by ducking and diving out of the way of the misperceived threat. When he rolled over he saw four angry faces looking down at him. The athlete’s reflexes were better than his. Terry Foy, a third baseman with a cannon arm and a complete inability to lay off of pitches out of the strike zone, grabbed the assault rifle from the guy. Tony Theodore, the back-up catcher to Price who bounced throws to second base on steal attempts, dropped a knee on the killer’s chest, taking him out of the game.

  The two shooters on the lower level of the grandstand reacted to the balls in flight as if they were skeet. The fusillade they put into the air knocked down three balls. But now they’d burned through two clips of ammo, and when they looked back into the higher reaches of the seating area, Cousin Billy was gone, too.

  They had to assume their would-be victims now had two assault rifles.

  The desire for vengeance dimmed precipitously.

  The instinct for self-preservation began a steep climb.

  Even so, they were professionals. They cut and ran now, they’d never work again. There’d be a lot of explaining to the family to do, too. Leaving kin behind. The two remaining killers pulled together. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they charged up the stairway that led to the broadcast booth.

  John took the lead in the counterattack. He opened up with the captured assault rifle. He could have taken out both killers, no problem, but as he’d explained to Price it would be more helpful to take them alive. You can’t interrogate dead men. He’d fired his three-round burst into the infield dirt to the right of the oncoming killers.

  They responded logically, turning toward the direction of the incoming rounds.

  Looked desperately to find a target they might take out.

  No sooner had they swiveled their heads than a hailstorm of baseballs filled the air.

  The killer on the left took one smack on the skull and dropped like a dead man.

  John couldn’t fault whoever threw the ball.

  He might have been a pitcher sending a message to the other team.

  The remaining shooter emptied his final clip without doing any damage. That was all the ammunition he had. The killing crew had never anticipated needing more than three hundred and sixty rounds between them to kill eight people.

  The remaining bad guy dropped his weapon and ran toward the exit staircase on his left. He hadn’t gone ten feet before a loud boom sounded. Johansen, the faint-hearted security guard, appeared. He’d located his courage and a shotgun. He’d run up the stairway the killer had intended to use for his exit. Cut off from that avenue of retreat, the killer ran onto the playing field, clearly hoping to put distance between himself and everyone who was shooting at him.

  Johansen fired his second barrel.

  The killer cut across the infield in front of home plate, moving from the third base side to the first base side. John laid down a round to keep him in fair territory. The guy turned and headed back the way he came like a tin figure in a shooting arcade. Then he realized that wasn’t a good choice. He came to a dead stop, looking left and right.

  Then he turned his head and looked straight ahead.

  Directly at the still functioning pitching machine.

  He had but a split-second to try to figure out what he was looking at.

  Then a one-h
undred-mile-per-hour fast ball hit him right between the eyes.

  The players in the stands thrust their fists in the air and cheered.

  Ellie got footage that would wind up earning her an Emmy.

  John hoped he had at least two bad guys who were still breathing.

  — Chapter 34 —

  Twelve Tacoma cops and ten FBI agents had heard the battle taking place inside the ballpark, but had been unable to force their way into the stadium. They’d just brought in a guy with an acetylene torch to cut through the bars when they saw Johansen running their way, still carrying his shotgun. Everyone with a badge shouted at him.

  “Drop the weapon!”

  Some of them emphasized the order with profane adjectives.

  Johansen skidded to a stop and let his shotgun clatter to the ground.

  “Ballpark security,” he yelled back. “Lennart Johansen. I’ve got a key to let you guys in.”

  Johansen was told to approach slowly without his weapon.

  He did and allowed the forces of law and order to enter.

  The welder didn’t mind; he got paid just to come out.

  “Come on,” Johansen told the others, “I’ll show you where everyone is.”

  They let him take the lead but not pick up his shotgun.

  Ellie recorded Johansen showing the way to the cops and feds.

  John told her, “You might want to be discreet where you point your camera. Those guys look a little tense.”

  John saw Deputy Director DeWitt appear a moment after the others. He felt better immediately. He wore his BIA badge on his belt now. That didn’t mean it would be easily accepted by those unfamiliar with his niche of law enforcement. There might even be a yahoo or two, local or federal, who’d demand he remove his sunglasses.

  That would mean trouble.

  DeWitt’s presence would prevent that problem.

  The pitching machine had been turned off and the hit squad lay in a row on the infield grass. Two were conscious, two weren’t. All of them were still breathing. Corey Price and his teammates stood in a lineup behind the supine figures as if they’d just been introduced to the crowd before a ballgame. They’d been speaking quietly to one another, but fell silent when they saw the cops and feds approach.

  Price raised his hands in a formal gesture of surrender and the others followed suit.

  John waved that off and they lowered their hands.

  DeWitt made his way to the crowd of lawmen and took control of the scene.

  Then he walked over to John. He glanced at Ellie.

  “Would you mind giving us a minute?”

  She looked at John. He nodded, whispered into her ear. She thought about what she’d heard for a moment. She stopped her camera and stuck it in a pocket. Returned John’s Smith & Wesson to him. Moved ten feet or so away from John and DeWitt. Hoping John would fill her in on anything good.

  He’d just told her if she wanted to have a mutually beneficial relationship with him in the future, she’d play along now.

  There were cops and feds flanking both the hit squad and the ballplayers now. They’d allowed themselves to dial back their adrenaline a notch. The bad guys had all been disarmed; their weapons — assault rifles and baseball bats — had been piled at John’s feet.

  “You took down all these guys by yourself?” DeWitt asked John.

  He shook his head and told DeWitt what happened. Giving credit where it was due. Remembering to include Johansen’s late-inning appearance.

  He explained to the deputy director, “The ballplayers only recently became criminals and were never less than loyal Americans or honest foreigners. Once I told them how they’d been used, they were happy to help me put up a fight.”

  “You also told them they were targeted for death?” DeWitt asked.

  “Yes.”

  “No doubt that helped motivate them,” DeWitt said.

  “Sure, but their hearts were in it, too.”

  “They used to be the guys with the automatic weapons.”

  “Now they know how it feels to be on the wrong side of that. It doesn’t excuse what they did, but I think they’re truly sorry.”

  “You didn’t make any promises to them, I hope,” DeWitt said.

  “Only that I’d testify how they helped me.”

  “So they know they’re going to prison.”

  “Yeah, but they should get some consideration at sentencing for what they did tonight. That and I’m going to request that wherever they get locked up they be allowed to play baseball to the extent possible. Who knows, these guys might help other inmates find a better way.”

  DeWitt nodded. “The baseball part sounds reasonable.”

  “They helped me take the hit squad alive. That should be valuable.”

  The deputy director stepped closer to John and lowered his voice.

  “We got Cheng Zou, too.”

  John smiled. “Where?”

  “Hawaii. Talking to people posing as tourists.”

  “The tourists weren’t so innocent?”

  “Our Honolulu office thinks they’re part of a ring snooping on military facilities in the islands. We decided it was time to bring Mr. Cheng in for a prolonged chat, which we’re able to do under the Patriot Act.”

  “He doesn’t have diplomatic immunity?”

  DeWitt shook his head. “He’s ours for as long as we want him. We’ll give him back eventually. Probably in trade for someone the Chinese are holding or some poor sap they arrest in retaliation.”

  “There’s something more you should hear about this guy,” John told him.

  He waved Ellie over. She told DeWitt about the Chinese gambler who lost ten million dollars in Las Vegas: Cheng Zou.

  John said, “If this guy was playing with money he’d come by illicitly and the people he answers to didn’t know about it … well, they actually execute people over there for committing economic crimes, don’t they?”

  “They do, indeed,” DeWitt said. “If we can hold all this over Mr. Cheng’s head, he might be a good deal more forthcoming. Tell us enough to earn permanent residency here. Nice work, Special Agent. Nice work, Ms. Booker.”

  “There’s just one more guy to grab,” John said, “the ninth Indian, Lamar Dekker.”

  Ellie said, “I have an idea where he might be.”

  “Where?” DeWitt said.

  “Alaska or on his way there.”

  John asked, “How do you know that?”

  “Turns out he was staying at the Marriott in Seattle, just like you and me. He checked out the morning before we checked in. I talked to a cocktail waitress at the hotel. Dekker chatted her up. Said he had this great piece of land up there. And a nice house. And his own little lake. And a float-plane to get there. The waitress wasn’t interested, but it sounds like a hideaway to me.”

  DeWitt wanted to know, “How did you find out Dekker had been at the Marriott?

  Ellie hesitated before responding, “It’s a crime to lie to a federal agent, right?”

  John and DeWitt both nodded.

  “Then I have nothing more to say.”

  In light of all the help she’d provided, neither fed pressed her on the matter.

  But John asked to have Price brought over to them.

  He asked the former ballplayer, “How well do you know Lamar Dekker?”

  “You’re looking for him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t ask what I can get in trade for this information. I’ll just hope that you’ll remember my cooperation.”

  “That’s fair,” John said.

  “Dekker’s from Alaska. There were a couple times we didn’t see things eye to eye. He said if I ever got it in mind to pound on him, that’s where he’d run. Out in the wilderness somewhere.”

  “Thanks,” John said.

  “The bastard was supposed to hold our share of the money we stole. Now, he’s going to keep it for himself.” Price shook his head in regret.

  John asked, “H
ow do you think he’d get up there?”

  “From here in Washington? His truck, no doubt about it.”

  “That would take him through Canada,” John said.

  DeWitt said, “I’ll call the authorities north of the border.”

  John told him “No need. I know a Mountie.”

  — Chapter 35 —

  Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Washington, DC, Monday, August 26th

  The question of why John Tall Wolf had remained on the case after the robbers were determined not to be Native Americans was answered the day after the culprits had been arrested.

  John and Marlene Flower Moon took a red-eye flight across the country in Deputy Director DeWitt’s aircraft to meet with Vice President Jean Morrissey in the capital. The vice president offered coffee to both of them. Marlene accepted. John was tempted. He could have used a stimulant given the few hours of sleep he’d had. But he decided to get by with a little fructose.

  He asked for and received a glass of orange juice.

  “I want to commend both of you for your roles in capturing the gang of bank robbers masquerading as Native Americans and, more important, helping the government to understand the defense posture it must adapt to deal with cyberwarfare. There will be changes made in foreign policy as a result of what has happened in the past several days. The result will be that our country will be better able to protect our critical infrastructure. The administration owes a debt of gratitude to both of you.”

  John expected to see Marlene smile.

  Instead, she regarded the vice president with a look of open suspicion.

  As if she might fall into a trap if she wasn’t careful.

  She said, “Madam Vice President, my part in this matter was all but negligible. The most that can be said of my contribution was that I recruited Special Agent Tall Wolf.”

  Jean Morrissey told her, “A sharp eye for talent is no small virtue. So is an undivided loyalty to one’s job. Tell me, Director Flower Moon, is your leave of absence concluded? You’ve helped Mr. Steadman make his movie and you’re ready to resume your duties full time?”