Later in the night . . . it’s now a late night, well past midnight, actually it’s about 3 am inside Sal’s lonely little condo. He’s flipping channels with his left hand as he’s surfing the web with his right. A click here and a click there, searching for something to offer up a clue. He is actually one of the first people reading the Jackson, Mississippi morning newspaper at 4:00 am, hot off the presses. The online paper reports on how the bandits got somewhere over 150,000 grand, how he was dressed up in the security guard’s uniform, etc. Sal’s mind is racing and the article starts him to thinking again.
Now, talking again to the computer, “What is he, what are they using the money for? Hmmm?”In the background, as he flips more channels on the TV, he stops at the movie Stripes, where they are marching along and singing the “Do Wa’ Ditty” song, while Sal sips on a beer.
Still talking to the computer, “Hmmm? He’s got to be ex-military, with the strut . . . the walk. Probably, no, maybe . . . uh maybe a drill instructor, with that stride . . . they never lose the step, uh? No, no, probably nothing more than an officer from around the ’60s . . . maybe early ’70s era.” A commercial for the Applied Drug Rehab program comes on the tube as he carries on his one way conversation.
“No, no, I don’t think it would be drugs . . . can’t, it cannot be drugs—He’s too clean and smooth . . . got to be gambling or women . . . no, can’t be women, no one can blow that kind of money on the ladies . . . well then, I seem to have narrowed this one down . . . uh, this can only leave the gambling issue, as far as I can figure out.” He slowly drifts off to another fitful night of sleep on the old comfortable couch.
Chapter 6
Current Weather or current METAR: KLAS
22016KT 10SM skyclear 35/14 A30.34 or in plain language:
Winds are 220 degrees at 16KTS, 10 SM of visibility, sky clear, temperature is 35C, dew point 14 and the area altimeter setting is 30.34
Las Vegas, Nevada
A new day is followed by a new night here in beautiful Las Vegas, in the southern part of the hot state of Nevada. The famous Las Vegas Strip is all abuzz with tons of people moving about, this way and that way. All around are groups of tourists, mixed in with lovers and party goers, filling up the sidewalks, the streets, the taxi cabs, and the night. Most of the strip is in view as one glances north along the strip. How much has the strip changed over the last 25 years? Where did they all go? What happened to the Flamingo Hilton, the Holiday Casino, uh, uh the one that was shaped like an old paddle wheel boat, the Silver Slipper, The Stardust Hotel and Casino . . . they’re all gone now, passed on into oblivion. Bulldozed over, buried in the desert sands to make way for the new bigger, modern, and better hotels. They were all done in to make room for the mega-resorts.
A different night, a different casino, a new dice game is under way. Once again, the pair of red spinning dice fly through the air, bounce off the bumper rail, and come up six for Tom. Everybody yells and screams as the stickman calls out the winning number—as a hot dice game is under way.
“Winner, winner: six, the number is six, winner, winner, winner, just another front line winner!” barks out the stickman.
Everyone around the table is winning and winning big; lots of black chips, pink, and green chips on the numbers. All around the oblong dice table are rich men and their wives or girlfriends, smoking, drinking and having a grand ol’ time.
In the background, we can see John, decked out in a rather good quality dark gray business suit, sitting quietly at a 100 dollar black jack table with two rich looking women betting up to 1000 dollars per hand unnoticed by all around. He is betting four to five chips per hand and is winning quite a decent sum of money at this sitting, too.
An hour or so later, on top of the Stratosphere, two couples are being seated at a table a few feet over from where our boys are observing the view. A glance deep into and around the Stratosphere’s restaurant offers a view of John, Tom and the two beautiful ladies. The couples are having a wonderful dinner, joking and laughing. A good dinner, served up at a fine restaurant with a bit of steak and lobster and a nice bottle of 2008 BVV or Beau Vineyard’s Private Stock, Cabernet Sauvignon.
As the dinner ends, a team of waiters appear briefly, clean up in a flash, leave and reappear, almost like magic as they produce fresh cigars, coffee, and cognac. Tom carries on as he is exhaling. He grins at John, “. . . good, this is good. I could get used to this.”
John offers rather snidely, “Having a good outing today, my friend?”
“Yes . . . one might say so,” comes back the response as he takes a big long drag of the illegal Cuban cigar.
The small eight piece orchestra starts to play an arrangement of a great oldie, Isn’t It Romantic. The musical notes of the melody, these notes arouse something deep down inside of Tom’s date, his companion for the night, and now she wants to dance. A bit drunk and a bit tipsy, she gently tugs on his white shirt sleeve as she is getting up from her chair. In good spirits, grinning in her best sexy smile, she speaks.
“Come on, let’s dance, please.
“Please, please, I love this song, please,” she begs again and again.
Tom, getting up, offers a simple, “Let’s.”
Soon, they are all joined on the dance floor by the others as the tune plays on into the night. The view from the top is amazing; the night is clear and you can catch a glimpse of the ends of the horizon. A bright red, tourist EC-130 helicopter seems to glide by a mile or so away from the tall tower making its assigned circuit before turning back to the south toward the McCarran Airport helicopter ramp. Gazing out into the evening’s night everyone seems to carry a smile as they look down upon the Las Vegas strip.
* * * * *
Across the country, in the FBI Headquarters way over on the east coast of United States, a new day brings a clear sky to the Washington DC area. The head Agent in Charge, Special Agent Bill Smith, is in a cubicle with two other senior agents and a computer, kicking the facts of the case around.
The lead agent, Special Agent Bill Smith starts with “Hey guys, this has got to stop. These guys are tearing us up and I can start to feel the heat building up under my little ass.”
In harmony, a laughing response came, “Little ass?”
“OK, OK, that’s enough.”
Agent Lynn sitting at the desk and typing, almost pounding on the keyboard continues, “Here’s what we’ve got. As we were talking about earlier, these guys are keying on the south, more specifically the southeast. Our quick and brief computer analysis indicated a hit in either South Carolina or Florida, but we missed and they hit in Mississippi.”
Special Agent Rivera picks up the conversation, saying, “Since that time, the data now indicates a hit in either Florida or either of the Carolinas, North or South. What we’ve worked up with our IT and software guru is basically a crude computer program . . . ,” pointing to the computer, “to block out all the large banks, savings and loans, all unrelated kinds of stuff. However, this still leaves us with somewhere over 5000 banks to watch.”
Holding up his right hand in a stopping motion, Rivera gestures to the two other men to halt, to stop, to listen to what he is trying to say, to imply. “Now, now, before you say anything, we all realize how there’s no way to actually watch each and every one of them, but let’s figure we at least have four weeks before they hit again. I know this is a bit of a long shot, but the team figures that we can at least warn all the branch banks to keep their eyes open . . . I mean wide open.”
Agent Rivera continues on. “. . . you know to be aware of these guys, to get some pictures and facts out to all of them. We can fire off a priority—one memo to all the bank branches . . . to make sure every one of our field agents call upon all the bank managers. I mean, literally go and talk to each bank manager and fill them in. Hell, he always hits on either Monday or Tuesday right after opening up. Ya
’ never know we may . . . we could get lucky and catch them in the act of casing one of the banks.”
Then Agent Lynn joins in, “Another thing we came up with was to try to get to every single bank, physically recon—have our people do a look-see, a recon of all of the smaller banks we can get to. By doing this, we may be able to rule out literally hundreds of banks and at the same time pick out the possible target, the type of target they like to hit. Furthermore, by doing this, we can also eliminate the kinds of targets they don’t like.”
“Good, good, yeah. I like this,” comes back the response. “Yes, I see, but I don’t think that we can get it down to a workable number.”
Agent Rivera then adds, “We know that, but we might get a break if everyone from the bank tellers, to the local beat cop, right down to the local county sheriff is put on alert. See, see . . . furthermore, if we can get them all to key on the target hours between 10:00 am and 11:00 am, we at least might get a license plate on the get-a-way car . . . I know this deal is not great, we know it isn’t much, but this is better than we have now.”
“Sounds impressive to me,” replies Senior Agent Smith.
“Sounds real good to me, offers Agent Lynn, “we need you to authorize a memo to get every field agent on the street, cruising from location to location looking for these guys, looking at their MO, checking on their pattern and so on.”
“Good, I’ll get right on this . . . anything else?” asks FBI Agent Smith. The others shake their heads in unison, “No.” They are all content for the time being.
* * * * *
Up high, another day and another airplane flying along. The bright shiny silver DC-9-30 airliner is at altitude; today she’s spewing out two beautiful condensation trails, dodging thunderstorms and towering cumulous nimbus clouds. She’s trying to make it to her intended destination. The tall puffy clouds surround the jets, the cumulus buildups . . . the beginning part, the updraft of the warm air, the parts of a thunderstorm on a typical spring day all across the US. All around the sky are huge cloud formations and stormy dark dreary skies. Off to the southwest at a distance, rain is falling . . . coming down rather hard; lightning is popping from the clouds to the ground below. The streaks of electricity are extremely beautiful, but dreadfully dangerous at the same time.
Peering out from the cockpit, the crewmembers observe numerous clouds; rather dark shapes with a few gaps between the towering cumulus clouds. The ship’s radar is painting a wicked picture as the airplane bumps along at altitude. Even over the two jet engines, the sound—the rumble of the thunderstorms—can be heard lurking around the airliner. In the cockpit background noise, other flights are talking with the Air Traffic Control asking for radar vectors around the mean nasty weather outside.
John offers a quip in a bit of a kidding voice, “Another fine spring day.”
Tom’s reply comes back, “Yeah, build ups and thunderstorms every friggien where”, pointing to the left side of the aircraft. “There’s a gap over to our right . . . you want to start down now or wait till they hand us off to the approach controller?”
John leans forward and reaches out with his left hand, adjusts the tilt and contrast controls on the radar screen, followed by a pause for a few seconds. After twenty or so, he finally decides . . . but since this is a crew airplane, he offers up, “Yea, I don’t think this is gonna’ get any better later today, unless we turn around and go back . . . but I don’t think the company would be too happy with us.
“What do you think?” inquires John in a serious tone.
“I agree,” replies a serious Tom. In pilot terms, that is called CRM or Cockpit Resource Management. Basically, this is how, in today’s world a professional flight crew is trained to make or to arrive at a good and proper decision rather than one party making all the decisions. With such a dialogue, input is obtained from each highly experienced crew member. Then, and only then, a combined, mutually agreed on decision is made in the best interest of safety for all involved.
“Why don’t you tell ’em in back to button up the cabin, grab up all the drinks and stuff so we can start down,” replies John as his statement finishes up this little conversation.
Selecting the small black Motorola microphone, Tom prepares to make his announcement. Keying down the microphone button, the overhead speaker crackles out loud. “Ladies and gentlemen, the ride is going to be a little bumpy on the way down, so please make sure you’re all buckled up; we should have you at the gate on time; flight attendants prepare the cabin for arrival—and be seated.It might be a wee bit choppy going in.”
The flight crew starts to run their appropriate checklists as they set the descent power setting on the powerful twin Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7 engines. As time progresses, the pilots complete their in-range callouts to their dispatch office. A moment later, some key switches are flipped here and there; the back-up hydraulic pumps are turned on. After a few minutes, an updated in-range call is made on the proper company frequency.
With rain showers and strong storms all around, the 90,000 pound DC-9-30 breaks out of the low cloud deck flying in a bit of a sideways crab. This is normal piloting technique, in an effort to correct for the strong cross winds. The plane lands a bit hard, exits the runway, and taxies off toward its assigned parking gate.
* * * * *
Back home in Sal’s Houston condo, it’s a bit past noon and all seems well. In his quaint but cluttered condo, Salvatore is once again asleep on his couch. As he stirs and starts to wake up, his head is buried in a good soft pillow . . . his pillow. Ever so slowly, his right hand reaches out from under the covers and fishes around on the coffee table searching for the remote control to the TV. The control is next to one of his two pistols, hidden underneath a stack of papers. Slowly raising the device and pointing it generally at the television set, Sal finally clicks on the power button to catch up on the latest news. With his head still buried under the pillow, he flips through all the channels, slowly, ever so slowly getting up to a sitting position.
He tries to rub the sleep from his tired eyes and his body craves coffee. The TV has stopped on CNN; the on-screen pictures are of the President as he is boarding Air Force One, saluting as he walks up the stairs. Sal, peeking out with his right eye, tries to focus on the TV as he watches the on screen image. “What a weak salute. What’s all this gonna’ cost us poor taxpayers?”
He finally gets up and slowly makes his way toward his kitchen. After a quick pit stop in the head, he fumbles around with a cup, a spoon and some sugar, makes some instant coffee via the microwave, and returns to his computer. As he signs on and checks his e-mail, he has one new message which he pulls up to read:
TO: Det. Salvatore A. Joseph, Retired H.P.D.
FROM: Vince Kelleher, First Century Insurance Co.
I understand you have been looking into the rash of bank robberies which have occurred in the past two years or so. I am referring to the cases the news media has dubbed The Dress Up Bandit. I was given your name by a mutual friend. Further, the people over at the Jackson, Mississippi Southern Times Newspaper told me off the record you were inquiring and probing into the cases. Therefore, I have decided to contact you about these serial hijackers. I would appreciate a phone call from you at your earliest convenience. I can be reached @ 1/888-555-1587.
Sal, again talking to his computer, rubs the sleep out of his right eye. “Hmmm? What’s this joker up to? How in the world did he get my friggin’ email address . . . Ahh, what the hell, maybe he’s got something for me on one of the bank robbery cases.
Yawning, he picks up the cordless phone and starts dialing the number. On the second ring, a female voice answers, “First Century Insurance, Co., Investigations Division, may I help you?”
Sal comes back with a matter of fact request, “Vince Kelleher, please.”
This is followed by the secretary’s reply, “Hold one moment please.�
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After a brief wait, listening to elevator music, someone picks up the phone and says, “Vince, this is Vince Kelleher, may I help you?”
“Vince, this is Salvatore Joseph—Sal, returning your call or should I say your email.”
“Good, great.”
“Thank you for calling back so quick. Sir, I won’t bore you, so I’ll get right to the facts. I retired from the Los Angeles Police Department myself . . . did 29 years in uniform. I retired a few years ago and now work for the insurance company—so here is what I’ve got for you.”
Salvatore responds with, “OK, go ahead.”
The conversation carries on, “as you probably know by now, the reward money is up to 150 grand. This is my insurance company who put up the cash, but we gladly pay the mula-mula to catch these fuckers before they clean us out or someone gets hurt and we get sued for 100 million. I’m sure you know the routine; someone gets hurt and the lawyers come out of the woodwork.”
Sal agrees and offers, “Yea, seen that many, many times over the last 25 years. Someone trips over their own two feet in a store, but they end up suing the store owner for a decent chunk of change.”
“Anyway,” Vince continues, “What I’d like to do is hire you for a couple of weeks to have you check over our files, our cases, and decide if you can spot something maybe my people have missed. Have you ever been to Chicago?”
Sal answers with a quick “No, uhh, why me?”
“Well, I did a little checking and everyone I talked to said you know how to catch a hijacker.”
Quickly, Sal asks, “Who told you such a lie?”
Continuing on, Vince provides a brief answer, “Well, I flew police choppers for my first six years out here with the Los Angeles PD and have made some connections with your people over the years.
Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured Page 8