by Bobby Cole
“The custodian’s name is Rosco Jones. We are running a background check on him right now, but he has access to almost every room in the building where you met with us. Including the artifact storage room.”
“Oh, wow, now I see what you’re saying.” Agent Haden finally sounded like she didn’t think he was a nitwit. “Have y’all talked to him?”
“No, not at all. Hoss has locked him out of the artifact room and told him it’s due to some key-card malfunction. I’m inventorying the artifact room right now.”
“You’re right. That’s an interesting connection, considering Walker’s alleged history with artifacts.”
“Let me tell you,” John Allen said, “if you can get him for selling stolen artifacts, ones taken from a federal Indian reservation, you could put him away for a while. They take that pretty serious.”
“That would be a step in the right direction, all right,” she said. “And it’d maybe help us put some pressure on someone to squeal on Winston for murdering Jim Hudson. I bet someone close to him knows or at least suspects something.”
“You should know that the chief was very emphatic that she wants this guy caught. It’s disturbing to her, and to everybody, not knowing what he and this Rosco have been meeting about. I mean, they could be plotting something even bigger, like robbing the cash room or the vault. It’s all in this building.”
“We need to make a plan,” Agent Haden said. “Ideally, the fewer people up there who know about this, the better. Those two could have others on the inside who could tip them off.”
“I don’t think Hoss has told anyone but the chief.”
“Great. Listen, let me check my schedule for a minute,” she said. There was silence, then she was back. “I can move some things around and be there after lunch. Can your team meet off-site at a private location?”
“Yes, I know I can, and I expect Hoss can, also.”
John Allen was a little embarrassed by how excited he knew he sounded, but when Agent Haden answered, there was a charge in her voice, too.
“I’ll be there,” she said. “I’ll call when I’m close, and you can tell me where to meet.”
John Allen stared at his phone when the conversation was over. He had just hung up with the FBI. They were going to be working on a case together. He took a deep breath and called Hoss, who quickly agreed to convene whenever she arrived.
As he slid his phone back into his pocket, John Allen’s mind raced with possibilities. The law-enforcement aspect of his job was all so new to him. Protocols, procedures, discretion, and attention to detail were all paramount to success, and the stakes were high. His adrenaline was pumping.
Checking his watch, he realized he needed to finish his inventory of artifacts and walked to the next aisle. The boxes were stacked neatly and looked as if they hadn’t been touched since they’d been placed there.
Opening the folded top of the first box and looking inside, though, he saw that it was empty.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, and quickly began checking other boxes.
Runt listened to Winston explain his plan. It sounded pretty feasible to him and a lot easier than working all night probing the soil and digging. He liked digging once they located a good site, but finding the site sometimes was drudgery. He also liked when Winston was desperate, as that meant there would be lots of incentives. Whenever Winston was in a bind, he would entice his crew with meth and the promise of extra money, which never failed to motivate them. Winston took an unusually long drag off his cigarette, and Runt knew he was approaching desperation rapidly.
“So,” Runt said, “how many boxes we talking about?”
“Several,” Winston said, then exhaled a stream of smoke. “Probably four to five.”
“They may miss that many,” Runt said as he nervously checked his text messages. His girlfriend hadn’t responded to his recent message, and he could all too easily imagine reasons for that. Like, that she was texting someone else. Or worse.
“He’s leaving the boxes, Runt. The rocks and stuff will be put into trash bags and hidden in the dumpster.”
“Sounds like a big haul.”
Winston smiled, and the cigarette dangled. “Oh, yeah.”
“You got a buyer lined up?”
“Hell, yeah. All I need is for you to back up to the dumpster and grab the garbage bags. The only worry is my contact is acting jittery lately. I hope he ain’t getting a conscience.”
Runt thought about what Winston wanted him to do. In the past their contact had just slipped the artifacts out in his lunch box. The volume Winston wanted forced a new plan that would temporarily expose Runt or whoever retrieved the stolen pieces. Their contact knew the routines of the building’s security officers, and there wasn’t a camera on the backside of the building. The unknown factor was the possibility of a random patrol by the Choctaw police. But Runt knew a good diversion could take most of them out of the way for a few minutes. It really didn’t seem that bad. Runt was used to taking risks, and the meth would make him fearless. The whole concept of stealing something excited him and made him feel alive.
“So what’s in it for me?” he asked, cussing his girlfriend under his breath. He knew she was seeing someone behind his back. He just couldn’t catch them.
Winston twisted the top of a cold beer and took a sip. He seemed to be thinking about his response. “I gotta pay my inside guy for stealing the stuff, and he wants more than last time. He’s getting greedy. So I am offering you twenty percent of what I sell it for.”
Runt lit a cigarette and blew the smoke straight up. “When?”
“Rosco said he would let me know. I expect soon. Might even be tonight. You in?”
The television played in the background, and neither paid it any attention. Runt again checked his text messages, but this time he did so absentmindedly, aware that his slow response was torturing Winston.
“What about some up-front cash?” Runt said at last.
“How much?”
“Thousand bucks.”
“No way.”
Runt was thinking, which for him could prove dangerous. “You gotta do something for me. I need some money.”
“How about I’ll kill you if you don’t?”
Runt raised his eyebrows. He knew what Winston was capable of doing when he was feeling pressured. He’d seen it several times.
“I’m in. But I need a favor.”
“I don’t usually do favors. What is it?”
“I wanna get my girl a big diamond ring. Maybe that will make her quit running all over town and settle down with me.”
Winston grinned. He knew Runt’s girlfriend intimately. When she needed drugs, they traded favors, and she frequently needed drugs. Runt had no idea.
“I need somebody that knows about rings and diamonds,” Runt pressed. “You know about these kinda things. I don’t have a clue.”
“Yeah, I’ll help you. The money you make on this haul, you can get her something really nice.”
Runt was pleased. His girlfriend was making him crazy, and he thought a ring might warm her cold heart. He held out his fist, and the two degenerates bumped fists.
“You can buy her a big rock,” Winston said, “but that ain’t gonna make her love you. Trust me, I know.”
“This one’s different.”
Winston chuckled, shaking his head. “You just gotta hope she don’t pawn it when she needs some money.”
Chapter 14
Hoss and John Allen appreciated the agent’s idea to meet someplace off-site. There was no doubt that multiple visits by an FBI agent to the admin offices would attract interest, and try as they might to keep it quiet, someone would find out.
They decided to meet Agent Haden on the backside of the bleachers at the Choctaw High School baseball field. No one would be there, and they could freely discuss everything. John Allen called her with directions and again admired the energy in her voice. The modern sports annex was a half mile from the school. They were
guaranteed to be able to talk without an audience. The only motion was a sprinkler system watering the grass.
The day was well on its way to being the hottest so far of the year. From now through September the temps would climb high into the nineties and occasionally jump to triple digits. An outside meeting wasn’t ideal, but Hoss had insisted on it, and Agent Haden hadn’t questioned the venue.
She pulled into the parking lot in her government-issue silver sedan, parking next to John Allen’s Porsche, and he noticed she looked it over as she exited her car. She was dressed fashionably, and John Allen looked for a bulge indicating her firearm but didn’t see one.
Hoss wore mirrored Ray-Ban sunglasses and was sweating like he’d sprinted to the meeting. He had a bandage wrapped around the knuckles on his right hand. When John Allen had explained to him that three boxes of artifacts were missing, he’d slammed his fist into a wall in his office. He had wanted to go straight for Rosco Jones and beat the truth out of him. John Allen had been able to calm him down, but it had taken a while. It infuriated Hoss that his people’s sacred artifacts had been violated again.
“Agent Haden,” John Allen said as he extended his hand. “We’ve been anxious for you to arrive.”
“Good to see you two,” she said as she shook his hand. As she reached to shake Hoss’s hand, he declined, pointing at the wrapping.
“Anger issues,” John Allen explained.
Agent Haden nodded, clearly curious, then glanced around, wincing a bit at the intense sunlight.
“We needed someplace to meet that wouldn’t raise suspicion,” Hoss explained. “Right now I don’t know who I can trust.”
“You don’t have a room with air-conditioning?”
Hoss shrugged, obviously in no mood for humor after the news he’d just received about the artifacts.
“Let’s go sit on the bleachers in the shade,” John Allen suggested, trying to be accommodating.
Hoss immediately turned and started walking in that direction while John Allen fell in beside Agent Haden. He’d dressed up a bit, but she was dressed more casually than he’d expected.
“Where’s Agent Garner?” he asked.
“He had to testify in court today.”
“So you guys don’t have to wear dark suits every day?” John Allen asked as they walked. “You’re not really dressed like the agents I see on television.”
“You watch a lot of TV?” she asked, looking like she was trying not to smile.
“I guess maybe more than the average guy.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you see on those shows. The FBI is more progressive than it’s portrayed as being.”
Hoss arrived at the shade first and wiped his forehead with the back of his uninjured wrist. “Thanks for meeting us here,” he said, which for him was a big effort at civility.
“No, I understand,” she said. “It’s smart.” She glanced to John Allen, then turned back to Hoss. “Tell me, what did you guys find out?”
Hoss nodded at John Allen and folded his arms.
“Since we talked earlier,” John Allen said, “we found three empty boxes in the artifacts room. We think the two men may have already been working together. Our guy Rosco being the inside man, and your guy buying and probably reselling.”
“Let me get this straight. These items or artifacts were stolen from the tribal administration building, and it’s sitting on federal land, right?”
Hoss again nodded his head.
“That makes all this federal.”
“Yeah,” Hoss said. “We catch him, and you can burn his ass. There are actually several federal acts that this can fall under, like the Antiquities Act that is meant to protect historical artifacts. It carries a stiffer sentence than just stealing, say, a computer.”
“Do you guys know the value of what he stole?”
“It’s hard to say,” Hoss replied. “Value to who? To us, they’re priceless. On the open market the pieces they have would probably fetch twenty-five to forty thousand dollars. It just depends.” He shrugged. “We just learned the pieces are missing. There may be more.”
Agent Haden took off her jacket and folded it over the bench-style seat. John Allen couldn’t help but notice her firearm and her figure. The bureau must require them to work out, he thought. He hadn’t noticed a female in a while. A quick look at her left hand revealed no ring, but then she had no jewelry on her hands at all. Maybe she just didn’t wear a ring while she worked.
He forced his mind back to the matters at hand. “We don’t know if they’re planning anything else,” he said, “but it’s a good bet that since they were successful once, they’ll want to do it again.”
Hoss nodded. “Greed.”
“Right,” Agent Haden said. “Have you told anyone about this yet?”
“Just the chief. She was upset.”
“I’m sure. You know, we should quietly dust for prints and secure the area, if only for a brief time. You said you blocked his access?”
Hoss nodded.
John Allen was enjoying watching her analyze the situation. She gazed at the horizon while she appeared to weigh options. “It may take some time, but I think we should set a trap.”
“We just don’t want to lose any more artifacts,” Hoss said with absolute certainty.
“Oh, I agree. Don’t want that at all. He just needs to feel like he’s gotten away with it, then either we need to let him think you guys have acquired something really valuable or we try to go and buy something from him.” Again she paused, her expression pensive. “What’s Rosco’s schedule?”
“Works at night from six to after midnight, five days a week,” Hoss said.
“We gotta keep him thinking everything is okay. Your plan to make him think you’re having problems with the keyless entry is a good one. Maybe even have a fake repair crew appear to be working on the system while he’s there one night. I have a couple of agents that could use some overtime and would help us. You’d be surprised what they might learn in the break room over coffee.”
Hoss scowled. John Allen knew he wasn’t excited about having more people in his building, but he apparently couldn’t come up with any strong reason to deny them access. “As long as you vouch for them, we can make it work.”
“Do we need to put Rosco under surveillance?” John Allen asked.
Agent Haden gave him a quick but thorough once-over. John Allen wasn’t sweating as much as Hoss, but he was plenty hot. “We don’t have that kinda manpower available,” she said. “Do you guys?”
“No,” was all Hoss said, then for John Allen’s benefit added, “It takes a lot of men to watch someone twenty-four hours a day.”
“We can get a search warrant when the time comes,” the agent said, “but I suspect the artifacts have already been moved. When is the last time anyone saw them?”
Hoss sighed. “We don’t know. It could have been weeks, maybe months.”
“So we really don’t know that he stole them, but I’ll bet we’ve stumbled onto an ongoing crime,” Agent Haden stated.
“Yeah, I was afraid of that. This could have been going on a long time,” she said, then stared off into the distance again. John Allen and Hoss looked at each other, then back at her. “We have to bait Winston out,” she said, finally. “That’s probably the surest way. A trap.”
As the group stood silent, John Allen thought about what had been discussed. He knew they all wanted to catch the criminals, but if they were going to catch the whole group, they needed to make good decisions.
Agent Haden studied John Allen and said, “Do you think you could act as an undercover agent with us? You look more civilian than any of my team.”
“I’m glad to help.”
“We’ll be close by. You’ll be wired. Anything gets fishy and we’ll rush in.”
John Allen nodded, feeling his heart pound. “Anything I can do.”
“Have you ever done anything like this before?”
Hoss snickered. “He b
ought some arrowheads off a college student last week.”
John Allen rolled his eyes. “No, but everybody has to start somewhere.”
“I’ll work with you. I haven’t lost an agent yet,” she assured him.
“All right, then,” he said, and they smiled at each other.
Then John Allen turned to study Hoss, who clearly appeared to be uneasy. John Allen didn’t know for sure what the head of security was thinking, but he was probably trying to acclimate to the idea that this project would have the two of them working together closely. Hoss was a loner, and John Allen was an outsider as well as a law-enforcement rookie in clear need of some support. It didn’t help matters that John Allen was pretty sure Hoss didn’t think much of him.
“Sorry to say it, after us sweating out here in secret like this,” Agent Haden said, “but I’d really like to see the basement. Discreetly, of course. Think you can slip me in there?”
“We’re pros at that,” John Allen said as he wiped sweat from his forehead.
Hoss thought for a second, then nodded. “We should be okay. You don’t exactly look like a typical federal agent.”
“I’d just like to see what this room looks like,” she said. “I may get an idea that will help us.”
As they walked toward their vehicles, John Allen’s mind was racing, thinking about going undercover and trying to trick Winston Walker. Could he do it? He didn’t know, but he knew he would try.
“Will the chief allow us some freedom to work a sting?” Agent Haden asked. “I’m sure she’d like to search Rosco’s house and try to find the artifacts, but I really feel that would be in vain.”
“She’ll do whatever I recommend,” Hoss said, wiping his forehead as he moved toward an unmarked sedan similar to her own.
“That’s good. I like her,” Agent Haden added, then turned to John Allen as he headed over to his Porsche. “Is that yours?” she asked. “You got some kinda midlife crisis going?”
Hoss laughed out loud.
“It’s part of my cover,” John Allen said sheepishly.
She chuckled. “Really? I love it. That’s going to be perfect for Winston Walker.”