The new Agent, Agent Fred, works from time to time with Agent Bob on some of the local bank robbery cases. Fred just came along tonight for the free food and drink. Hell, a free meal is a free meal, but crap, free booze is . . . well something special. He clears his throat and speaks. “You know how the Bureau is . . . we find out most of what is going on from the national news . . . just like you boys at the city.”
Det. Roberts chimes in, “Yeah, yeah. We see it all the time, some bullshit bureaucratic new policy on the six o’clock news and two weeks later, we get a department issued memo covering some new policy.”
Det. CW comes back with, “Yeah, Bob, but don’t you guys at least possess something on this . . . uh, uh, like copies of the surveillance photos or some decent captured video?”
Agent Bob continues the conversation. “Oh sure, every division or bureau office in the country gets an info-pack on all the serial hijackers, serial perverts, mass murders . . . you know in the country, but this guy is good . . . I’m telling you, he’s smooth as silk. Not once has he ever gotten his picture taken where you can see his face. He is not some punk amateur. He knows full well what he is doing and is NOT going to get his photo taken. Hell, I don’t think he ever looks up; maybe he’s got a crick in his neck.”
Special Agent Fred then adds. “No shit! We’ve got some magnificent snap shots of the tops of his hats and the back of his head, but not one single good photo of his face. I think maybe he is perhaps a bit camera shy,” he wisecracks with a light chuckle.
Sal next asks, “What about any of the uniforms he wears? Anything turn up on those?”
Responding, Agent Bob answers, “Nope, they’re merely army surplus or over the counter garb that can be purchased at any uniform supply store, anywhere.”
Continuing on, Sal offers, “I’m telling you, this guy’s a fucking ghost! He definitely disappears.”
Senior Agent Bob spits out, “No, his driver is the real ghost. They both absolutely seem to vanish into thin air.”
Sal offers with a sigh, “Yes, there’s got to be a driver somewhere stashed around the corner while he pulls these jobs . . . hmmm.”
“That is a given,” quips Fred.
Bob adds matter of factly to the conversation, “Well no one ever saw a hint of a get-a-way car; no one’s ever seen even remotely what might appear to be an accomplice or anyone tagging along with him . . . but again, all the jobs are at small little neighborhood banks, with only two female employees. They are always scared shitless and I don’t think either one of them is going to run out the door after our bad guy. Especially, I mean, especially run out and try to get a license plate number with a possible bomb or a hand grenade tapped to their front counter.”
Old CW, getting a bit serious now, states, “Well, we’ve all worked robbery cases for over fifteen years a piece and every hijacker I’ve ever worked on had some type of Achilles heel somewhere. All’s you got to do is locate it, key on it, and then exploit it.”
Clearing his throat, he then says, “I’m telling ya’ nine out of ten jackers do the deed ’cause of drugs. Some do it for gambling losses to pay their debts . . . Occasionally, they rob for women or a sick kid, but it’s usually the drugs or gambling that pushes them.”
Det. Roberts finally decides to add something to the conversation, “. . . and to all my gathered friends, these guys are not trying to get rich. These crooks are not greedy and never have been. If these jackers wanted . . . man, they could just hit two or three times a month and get away with it. Further, they never go into the vault and still not get caught . . . I’m telling ya’ these guys are very, very good . . . maybe the best we have ever seen . . . my money is on gambling debts. Hell, I might take up jacking banks when I retire . . . just follow their model . . . their model damn sure works for them!”
Agent Fred quips, “I hear you . . . maybe I’ll join in with you.”
Special Agent Bob replies, “Look, if you three robbery experts want to take over our cases and catch this guy or guys . . . make a run at them . . . uhh, go right ahead. Believe me . . . you could save all of us a lot of aggravation in the long run. Every time the National Bank Robbery Task Force gets involved in a big case, they usually end up, no we . . . the Bureau usually end up with egg on our faces before the deal is all over.”
Agent Fred continues, “Yeah, it is a sad thing to say, but they usually fuck things up and make us all look bad. Look, why don’t ya’ll come over to the office Friday after five. You can bring some beer and we’ll let you guys peruse all the photos, files, and videos on this joker if you want to.”
Agent Bob finishes with, “Let us take care of it, the beer and the pizzas . . . and your check books . . . no make it cash . . . you’d probably write me a hot check.” He chuckles, “Bring cash, we can’t take a check from you bums for a little poker game after we show you guys our home movies.”
Agent Fred continues with a simple little question, “Hey, Sal, I heard the Chief say you were a good boy and how you never killed anyone. How did you do 25 years and not get in a single shoot-out especially working in the robbery division for so long?”
A burst of laughter spews out from the gathered lawmen. Obviously Agent Fred doesn’t know all of Sal’s interesting past.
Sal’s best friend and partner CW, has to answer this one. “Well, my boy, Special Agent Fred,” he starts, “You must understand, what the Chief of Police said was actually true or technically true . . . yeah, it IS true old Sal here did not kill any bad guys outright, but . . .” with a laugh, “according to me, the official record keeper—he was a bit wrong.”
“You know how politically correct the Chief of Police has to be these days. Let me ponder . . . I think the official count is four shot and none officially killed,” he said with another light chuckle, placing his arm around Fred’s shoulders.
“See, Agent Fred, the first one was way back in 1974,” CW continues, “when our boy . . . my Paisano here, was a wee rookie street officer working on the night shift. He had only been on the street about six months when he pulled this drunk driver over for suspicion of DWI on the Pierce Elevated part of the Gulf Freeway, right close to downtown here. Understand please . . . it seems this drunk didn’t like being pulled over and came out fighting. They, these two got into one hell of a fist fight that spilled out into the middle of four lanes of traffic, mind you . . . freeway traffic.”
“Remember now, this was in the 70s, way before everyone had cell phones and even way before officers had walkie-talkies strapped to their sides. I mean, back in the old days, you were on your own, especially on the night shift. I mean folks stopped, but no one offered to help the wee young lad out.
“I’m telling you, cars were skidding here and there, slamming on their brakes, trying to avoid these two men fighting in the street. This big ol’ hippie looking country boy, I’m sure this jerk had at least 50, 60 pounds on old Sal . . . back then . . . he, he got Sal pinned down like in TV wrestling, right on the Gulf Freeway.
He continues, “Finally, our boy Sal here had enough of this big brute using his head for a punching bag, so he somehow managed to pull out his 2” .38 caliber back-up pistol and popped the guy twice in the side. Hell, my boy, a gut shot was the only shot he could take . . . see this big brute was sitting on top of his chest.”
The gathered lot of lawmen chuckle and then Sal takes over. “Here, here, I popped this guy twice and then he just jumped up and tried to run back to his truck. He was stoned cold silly, high on the wacky weed and drunk on whiskey, now bleeding like a stuck pig. He ran back toward his truck and OH Fuck! . . . I figure he’s going for a gun, and I could barely see from my busted up face, so I opened up with my Colt .45 pistol. I unloaded my eight shots before I could even catch a breath. I mean, I was wheezing and winded, trying to fuckin’ breathe man . . . hell my nose was broken. I had blood running down my face and in my eyes. I mean
this guy was one tough SOB.”
“Finally, some older, big ol’ black man—must of been close to 70, but he’s an Ex-Marine, came out of the crowd and offered to stand with me. All’s he had was an axe handle in his hands, but I was damn happy for the help. We approached this fool’s truck and he was nowhere to be found. We looked under the truck, in the bed, even under the seat, before we finally figured out the fool had jumped off the side of the freeway. He dropped some 45 feet to the concrete street below. Well needless to say he was pronounced DOA by the ME’s office . . . and we found a small .22 caliber cheap-ass Saturday Night Special pistol under this puke’s front seat next to a large bag of illegal wacky-weed.
CW takes back over the storytelling, “Now, here is the good part. The Medical Examiner’s Office rules the official cause of death as blunt force trauma—the friggin’ fall killed this puke before the two gun shots had a chance to!”
“Ha! What a lucky stiff, here. No Grand Jury investigation or anything because of the ruling by the ME . . . what a lucky stiff he is.”
Another good laugh permeates the boys.
“Yea, certainly it was a good call by the ME’s Office, as far as I was concerned,” said Sal. He continues on, “I shot three more felony hijackers over the next 25 years. I put two more in wheel chairs and one guy lost a leg. Said crook died of a heart attack in the county jail three days later . . . and yes, the ME ruled the cause of death on said dead guy—a heart attack. So once again, I don’t need to mess with the Grand Jury or any other inquiry . . . and the other two are still in the Big House serving out life sentences,” he says with a grin.
“And I’ll be damned, I plugged each one of those guys at least twice, but somehow they lived. They all dropped like a wet dish rag when those .45 slugs hit them, but somehow they still lived. See, uh yeah, therefore, like the Chief said, I officially did not kill anyone in the line of duty. I did shoot a few, but he did not mention that part . . . I thought he did a good job with the speech.”
“Ha!” They all have a good laugh and chuckle as the conversation slows down. How do you follow that kind of a crazy story?” Det. Roberts promptly decides to jump back into the conversation now. “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be a party, a fun sort of retirement party? Enough with all this damn shop talk; let’s talk about something other than police work—baseball, girls, kids, ex-wives, I don’t care, but something else. I’m thirsty boys, I’m runnin’ on empty.” He turns and heads back to the bar for another drink, another tall Jack and Coke.
Chapter 3
Current Weather or current METAR: KLAS
26014KT sky clear, 36/19 A30.12 or in plain language:
Winds are 260 degrees at 14KTS, clear sky, temperature is 36C, dew point 12 and the area altimeter setting is 30.12
Las Vegas, Nevada
Just another day up in the stratosphere . . . up in the clear blue sky. In their somewhat tiny aluminum office, our two fly boys are soaring along on a heading of zero nine zero, cruising at a bit over 500 mph at 35,000 feet. Inside the ten foot wide cockpit, Captain Tom today is in the left seat and Captain John is in the right. Our Co-Pilot/Captain is in the other seat because in today’s world, there are too many high seniority captains to go around after the last round of airline furloughs and layoffs. Therefore, SouthEast Airlines is forced to fly many days with two captains, two senior captains on board. Rumor among all the employees is that the next quarter may see more furloughs coming. The current economy creates a tough world right now for the airline industry overall.
This little start-up airline, like so many others, is trying to make it in the airline business. It’s barely hanging on in these tough economic times, like all the other US flag carriers, such as American, Delta, or United Airlines with pilots and other flight crew members out on furlough. All those poor folks are hanging onto hope, faint hope that the country’s poor economy will turn around soon so they can get their flying jobs back. They all owe bills, car notes, house notes, credit cards, and have kids to feed, too.
John is going over their bid sheets, their monthly schedules for the upcoming three months. Tom is reading a morning newspaper, U. S. A. Today. It’s a good thing the auto-pilot is working and flying the airplane. Even possessing the day’s newspaper is against all the airline’s policy and rules, but, in reality, Tom doesn’t care. He has always been a bit of a rebel. Thank God for auto-pilots and locked cockpit doors—the less the poor passengers in back know, the better off they almost certainly are.
The conversation starts with John asking, “Where do you want to go next month?”
The response from Tom comes without him looking up from the sports section, “Well, I’d like to end up in Las Vegas near the end of the month. Hey, did I tell you I learned a new card trick?”
“By the way,” John continues, “I was able to figure out much of that last one on my own . . . Pops . . . what’s your game plan, huh?”
He leans forward and places a small piece of duct tape over the CVR—the Cockpit Voice Recorder to block out any of their conversation. Above the CVR is a small black and white placard which clearly reads, “Cockpit Voice Recorder, Keep Clear, Do Not Cover.”
Tom, in a soft low voice replies, “I sort of was thinking . . . uh, we perhaps might bid Florida . . . we could probably do Sarasota, Panama City, and even Key West, but I want to check on our little item in Jackson, Mississippi one more time before next month’s job.”
“Hey,” offers John. “Yeah . . . it’s fine with me. I like the Jackson locale the best out of all the ones we’ve looked at thus far. Believe me, it’s obvious to me—as far as I am concerned, there are simply, too damn many FBI offices to cover the whole state of Florida.”
A grinning Tom adds, “Yea, but there are a couple of mighty fine beaches and night clubs in the city; who knows, we may meet up with some of the lovely ladies for a bit of fun.”
“Here,” pulling out a deck of playing cards, Tom does an extremely good, pick a card, pick any card trick. John bites and selects a single card from the fanned out deck. Following Tom’s instructions, he then places the lone card back into the deck and the cards are then shuffled numerous times on the flight deck console. Tom subsequently deals out nine cards, counting them one at a time in a slow deliberate manner before he turns over John’s red seven of hearts with a big smile. Joyfully, he says, “Ta-da,” as he waves his right hand over the deck. “What do you think . . . pretty good ’eh?”
“Ah, crap, now how in the hell did you friggien’ do that,” questions a mystified John.
“Magic . . .
It is magic my good man.” Thank God for auto-pilots and locked cockpit doors.
* * * * *
Some 1100 nautical miles east of Vegas is the fourth largest city in the USA. It’s TGIF for many folks because it’s finally Friday night here at the Houston office of the FBI buried deep inside of the Houston’s Federal Building located at the corner of Travis and Texas Avenue. Outside is a light drizzle of rain hitting on the windows, offering up a little, tap, tap, tap sound if you choose or wish to listen.
You can peer far inside the now empty squad room area. Metal desks are all evenly spaced out inside the Special Investigators’ work room, two by two facing each other, each set nice and neat, one lamp per desk, because that is the official company policy. All have a basic issue 21” computer monitor dead center with the computer body itself on the floor underneath each person’s desk. Take a quick look toward the rear section of the area—in the far distance are some interrogation rooms. The space is vacant of people and an eerie silence, a lack of background noise permeates the room at this time of day, unlike the distant conversations or ringing phones that make up the daily noise.
Off to one side is a small employee kitchen area. Inside the break room is housed one basic white 14 cubic foot fridge, a heavy duty Bunn commercial grade coffee pot, along with a peti
te table and five chair set. Twenty feet past the kitchen on the south wall are the interrogation rooms. Above the door of one of them is a lit red electronic sort of open/closed sign indicating that it is occupied.
This would usually mean to all that someone . . . some bad guy, was being interrogated, being grilled by the good guys. Not tonight, though . . . ha! yeah . . . right, occupied. A quick glance inside the 12 by 16 foot deep room, we make out our five lawmen, our three city detectives along with Agents Bob and Fred playing poker. Not only are they playing card games, they are even drinking beer and eating pizza. Not exactly the proper use of a state of the art FBI interrogation room—room number four. I’m rather sure the headquarters brass in Washington DC would not be too happy if they only knew. Thank God for locked doors.
The three city detectives and the two FBI agents may as well be at a local university frat house having their Friday night poker game. Carefully attached on the wall is a state of the art soundproofing material and on one is a 32” LCD color TV and VCR/DVR setup on a side table. Up high on the far wall is an eagle-eye security camera used during official interrogations. Settled on top of the device’s black aluminum housing is a few years of dust. In between hands, Agent Bob is playing a few distinctive surveillance videos of the many different bank robberies.
Agent Frank is in the middle of a poker hand, when almost on cue he says, “Here, look here guys. This is about the best video clip we have of this jerk . . . it’s only about 15 seconds though.”
At this, they all stop and watch the surveillance video tape for a moment. Next, they play it back and forward a couple of times, back and forth, back and forth, looking for any little clue. This particular video is of the hijacker in the army dress uniform and basically just shows him standing at the counter followed by him walking out. As he does, the male figure just keeps his head down low and never looks up. He is well disciplined, he’s good at his bank robbing job.
As he walks out of the picture, we can note that the teller’s hands are taped to the counter with the fake package bomb, a gift wrapped package bomb, under her hands; she’s looking out into the lobby with somewhat of a scared daze.
Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured Page 4