The Alberta Connection (19 page)

Ryce grinned. While he was luxuriating in the
jungles of the Philippines, he determined he could exist anywhere
with two items: a generator, and a refrigerator. No one was able to
discover how he acquired a flatbed trailer, a full-sized
refrigerator, and a 4500-watt generator. The refrigerator and
generator were permanently installed on the trailer with a large
fuel tank. The initial coat of olive-drab paint was soon replaced
with camo. The flatbed followed Ryce to Afghanistan, although it
had taken more than three months to catch up to him.

Ryce’s base commander in Afghanistan was
thrilled when the flatbed was off-loaded from the delivery vehicle.
Thrilled until he was informed that the recipient was Captain
Dalton. Ryce was quick to allow the base commander the opportunity
to install ice trays in the freezer compartment. The base was
paying for the fuel.

Ryce was checking car rental offices in Grand
Forks when the office door opened and Tanya walked through,
followed by Vince. Vince found the nearest office chair and pulled
some 3x5-file cards from his pocket. Ryce looked over at Tanya.

“It looks as if those file cards have gotten
contagious.”

Vince looked up. “O2 got me hooked on these
things. Everything is easy to find. I don’t have to turn on my
smart phone and go looking for the right file. My personal smart
phone isn’t very smart.”

Vince found what he was searching for on the
fifth card.

“We have been chasing a miss-spelled name. It
should be D-i-a-n-n-e, and not D-i-a-n-e. Dianne did not change
vehicles at the residence. They are still driving the Mercedes.
They left the man in the wheel chair at the house they visited. One
of the FBI agents recognized him. He is Frank Redding, the father
of Glenn Redding, the owner of the house. The agent recognized
Frank because he was on the town council.”

Vince pulled another card from the group.

“Here’s the best part. Frank is a retired
Army General. He was at the Pentagon to receive some award a week
before the laptops were stolen.”

Ryce looked over at Tanya and then at
Vince.

“Frank Redding was a Ranger. I remember the
name from one of the parade fields. What the heck is he doing tied
up with some laptop thefts?”

Vince chuckled and sorted through his cards.
“Glenn Redding is going to lose his house soon. Frank has several
investment properties that he took out second mortgages on to try
to save Glenn. It didn’t work. Glenn has a business in Grand Forks
that is also going into the crapper. Between the two of them, they
are close to ten million dollars in debt.”

Ryce shook his head. “A big haul at the
Pentagon would go a long way in getting some debts covered.”

Vince pulled another card from the pile. “The
lady in the Mercedes is the niece of General Frank. My new FBI
buddy in Grand Forks, Jack Taylor, knows all about the Reddings. He
almost married Dianne. There were six children at Glenn’s home when
the FBI stopped by. Jack thinks that three of them were
Dianne’s.”

After shuffling the cards several times,
Vince looked at Ryce again. “That seems to be all I have for now.
Are you following the audio in the Mercedes?”

Ryce shook his head yes. “We have gotten a
few things from it. Everyone is getting really tired of eating in
fast food restaurants. A couple of the passengers, we don’t yet
have any names, are rather upset with each other.”

Vince stood and walked out the door. Ryce
stared at his laptop screen. They had a lot more information about
half of the Pentagon thieves. Who were the other two men in the
Mercedes? And where were they going next?

Ryce clicked on the Google Maps tab. The
laptop screen was just too small. He walked to Suite 423 and
disconnected one of the 42 inch monitors.

Tanya rolled an office chair next to Ryce as
he connected the monitor to his laptop. She could see the display
from across the room, but next to her husband was a nicer
location.

Dianne and her two traveling companions could
go north or south on I-29. They could also go west on US Highway 2,
which would eventually take them to Minot. The only thing Ryce
could do was wait until the tracker revealed the direction. He
checked the system time. It was almost 4:00 PM. This late in the
day, Ryce’s best guess was that Dianne would find a motel in either
Grand Forks or Fargo, which was only an hour away. Ryce made a
mental wager on Fargo.

Ryce checked his email. He was still waiting
for John to provide the access codes to the Air Force service
records. He grabbed Tanya and kissed her when he saw an email from
John.

The email contained the access codes for both
the Air Force and the Marine Corps. Ryce accessed the Air Force
database and started the photo comparison program. He hoped it
would not take long.

As he waited for a hit, he wondered aloud if
anything had been transcribed from the audio bug. He pulled Tanya
from her office chair and they walked into the conference room.
Three of his agents were wearing headphones and typing furiously.
One looked up and pulled off her headphones.

“I always wanted to be a court stenographer.
We are close to sending you the transcripts from the drive to Grand
Forks. There have been some intriguing conversations. I don’t think
the lady was thrilled about driving to Grand Forks.

“We got three names for the men. One is
Frank, one is Dennis, and the third man is Sam. Frank lives in
Grand Forks, and Frank has a gambling problem. He likes the dice
table. That is why they had to bring him back to Grand Forks. The
Army flew him first-class to the Pentagon for the award
presentation. However, he cashed in the return ticket the
government bought for him, and lost all his money in a casino. He
went to the casino to try to win enough to pay off his house. It is
in foreclosure.

“Somehow, the lady found out Frank was stuck
somewhere near the Pentagon and picked him up after they hijacked
the laptops. Frank is seriously pissed that they would take
government property. The woman told him the only way he could save
his business, her cousin’s home, and her investments, was to finish
what they had started. He told her he wasn’t going to Montana, and
she could just mail him the money. He shut up when she reminded him
that his piece of the action was three million dollars.”

Ryce heard the printer in Suite 424 start up.
One of the agents listening to the audio pointed in the direction
of the printer noise. Tanya strode from the conference room. She
returned a few minutes later with several pages in her hand.

She walked up to Ryce and handed him a page.
“I was reading the transcript as it was being printed. The audio
for the last page was received about five minutes ago. We know
where they are going.”

Ryce read the transcript. One of the men,
either Dennis or Sam, had declared he wanted to stay in a better
hotel. The last one they picked in Fargo had not been very good.
And, he was not going back to the Aliens place. The food was out of
this world, but it wasn’t a very tasty world.

Tanya giggled. “I know why he didn’t like the
Space Aliens Grill and Bar. I checked the ratings on the Internet
in the event I wanted to eat there some day. The service sucked,
and the food was the pits. One customer even dissed the lighting. I
don’t want to go near the place.”

Ryce and Tanya returned to Ryce’s office to
wait for the Renaults to find a better place to spend the night.
The wager board had been moved to the conference room but had been
cleaned. They no longer needed to guess where the laptop thieves
were stopping for the night. Besides, it was dinnertime, and Ryce
had seen prime rib on the chow hall menu.

Before he walked out of his office with
Tanya, Ryce checked the search program he had started on the Air
Force service records. The program was still crunching the records.
Ryce grimaced. The last time the program took forever, it did not
find anything.

Chapter 26

The family section
in the chow hall had been reduced to two tables. As he placed his
tray on one of the tables, Ryce frowned. He was going to miss this
place, although Ramona had assured him that the Annex had a decent
cafeteria. But, more than the chow hall, Ryce was going to miss the
people he had grown to love.

He looked around the table. He would
certainly miss Marge. Shortly after John and Jill were married,
Jill had been told she would never have children. She told John she
had a friend she thought would be good for a surrogate mother. Only
one stipulation: John had better not enjoy having sex with the
friend more than with Jill. John had wisely rejected the offer.

He would definitely miss O2. Although he and
Ryce were on opposite sides of Afghanistan, O2 had called during a
lull in the fighting, to suggest an inter-service wager. For a mere
one hundred dollars, Ryce could bet on when the Taliban would hit
next. As soon as Ryce agreed to the wager, O2 asked when he could
send the money. The Taliban had started shelling his base five
minutes before he called.

Ryce frowned again. He was going to miss
everyone. Tanya leaned over to ask what was wrong when she saw
Ryce’s expression. Ryce replied he would tell her what when they
got back to their apartment.

As soon as they walked into the apartment,
Tanya wrapped her arms around Ryce.

“OK, what’s going on?”

Ryce looked around the apartment. “I guess I
am sad because I am going to miss this place and the people
here.”

Tanya gave him a long kiss and then said,
“Well, you are the Director of the Joint Border Task Force. You can
always move your headquarters here. That would save you getting
your butt kicked by Pen. She has all her girls come back to Idaho
when they have their babies. She said the last one had to fly from
Morocco.”

Ryce pulled Tanya into his arms, but was
rudely interrupted by his cell phone. He checked the ID and pressed
the speaker button.

“What do you have, Vince?”

Vince chuckled.

“Wasn’t life much calmer when we didn’t have
caller ID? We could get yelled at by a perfect stranger. I got some
new stuff for you.

“The Grand Forks FBI followed the Mercedes to
the outskirts of Fargo, where the tail was switched to the Fargo
FBI office. The Mercedes drove to the rental car line at Hector
International Airport. Dianne was let out at the Enterprise rental
lot, and one of her companions drove the Mercedes to Hertz.

“As soon as the agents saw that Dianne was
renting a car from Enterprise, they contacted the manager. They got
the rental sequence slowed down enough to put another tracker and
two audio devices into a maroon Dodge Grand Caravan. The Enterprise
agent mentioned that the female subject had become very upset when
she was that told no dark blue or black Caravans were
available.

“The female subject drove to the Mercedes,
and the occupants unloaded the vehicle. They then drove to
Candlewood Suites and checked in. Two of the FBI agents are parked
on them as we speak. I have spent some time in Fargo. There are
some nice places to eat near the airport.”

Tanya began to giggle.

“Did I say something funny?” Vince asked.

Tanya giggled some more. “We got the
transcripts of the ride from Fargo to Grand Forks. One of the
passengers was extremely upset with where they ate last night. He
didn’t like the Space Aliens Grill and Bar.”

Laughter was heard over the cell phone.
“Well, shucky darn, I guess I am not the only one who didn’t like
that place.”

Vince paused for a moment and then continued.
“I also got a report from the forensic guys at the FBI. They put
names on the other two sets of prints in the car. We knew about
Dianne and Frank from my friend, Jack, in the Grand Forks FBI
office. The other prints belong to Dennis Blaine and Samuel
Karrigan. Dennis and Samuel are two of Frank’s Army buddies. All
three joined at the same time, and all three retired at the same
time. I have requested the service records of all three men, but
Doug said you should be able to pull them up with John’s
program.”

Vince paused. “If the Army gave John the
passwords.

“It appears that Samuel and Dennis invested
in Frank’s office complex, the one that went bankrupt. That would
answer the question of why they were tagging along with Frank. As
soon as I get the documents, I will bring you up to speed.”

5:00 AM came too early, but Ryce wanted to be
in Suite 425 before Dianne and her two friends departed Fargo. He
thought they had two choices. They could go west on I-94 or south
on I-29. Travelling west would eventually take them to Montana. If
they drove south, Ryce had no idea where they might go.

He also wanted to check his laptop. He had
left the Air Force search program running when he and Tanya had
departed the office the previous evening. He said a silent prayer
as he clicked the mouse.

Ryce let out a cheer so loud that Tanya came
running from the conference room.

“You certainly sound happy.”

Ryce cheered again. “I have a reason to be
happy. We have a name for the third man at the cabin.”

Ryce paused as he read the service
record.

“He is Tony Matlock. He was a captain in the
Air Force, but got busted out in 1994.”

Ryce highlighted the service record and
pressed print. “This Tony fellow was not a nice person. He got in a
fight with his ex-wife and impaled her with the handle of his
bar-b-que brush. He got life, but somehow disappeared during a
transfer between detention facilities.”

Ryce stood, walked into Suite 424, picked up
the service record he had just printed, and walked back to his
office.

“The photo with the service record looks like
the man I saw at the cabin. We have two dead guys and an escaped
convict who are killing people. Something doesn’t fit here.”