The Vulture (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

Danny's friend, Chief Petty Officer Lucy Vandegraaf, was assigned to the Shore Police. The CPO Club at the Air Station was not exactly within her unit's area of responsibility. It didn't matter. The uniform would gain her admittance to the premises and that's all she needed. Danny, with Billy as his guest, strolled in behind her and took a booth across the room from the bar. From that point they had Brattan in view. That is they did if the man seated on a stool midway down its length was in fact him. Billy glanced at the photo spread he had and nodded. The next step would be initiated by Lucy. She draped her jacket over her arm and sidled up to Brattan.

“Say, Chief,” she said, “you're new here aren't you?” She waved to the bartender and ordered a beer. A light one.

“You drink that piss?” Brattan asked. “Here, belay that order and bring the lady a real drink. She'll have a sidecar with something that isn't colored water.”

“I'm good with this, Chief. Thanks anyway.”

Brattan should have known better. This would not be the first mangled pick-up in his career. Unfortunately, like many men of his age and inclinations, he harbored the moronic notion that he was a desirable commodity where women were concerned. He was wrong, of course, but at that moment, the possibility of a sexual conquest short-circuited any cognitive functioning and, as they say, his brains migrated south.

“Little lady, I need to teach you some lessons. Like, when a man offers you a real drink, you say, ‘Thank you' and jump at the chance to learn from a master.”

“Do they? Gracious! What sort of a thing are you a master at, besides baiting, of course?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, you remind me of my ex and that sometimes makes me grumpy. So what's your name there, Chief?”

Brattan had to think. After three bourbons, neat, remembering his alias did not come easily to him. Then he had it. “Bart…Bart Hallihan. What's yours, Sweet Cheeks?”

“Lucy Shirpoleze. You on leave?”

“TDY, waiting for reassignment to a destroyer.”

“Which one?”

“Umm…not sure yet.”

“So, you're a senior chief waiting for a tin can. Wow. I don't meet too many of them in a month. Where were you stationed before?”

“Here and there. Say, you ready for another? A real one this time?”

“Not yet. Where, ‘here and there'?”

“You ask a lot of questions for a skirt.”

“For a skirt? Yeah, I just love that. Let's just say before I start any kind of a relationship with a guy I need some background. Like where he's from, what he does, where he's been, stuff like that. Don't you agree that's important?”

“Hell, I don't know. I say drink up and see what happens.”

“Right. So, your ribbons. Top three, right?”

“Right. There's more where these came from, Honey. You could come by my place and see them if you want.”

“Tempting. Maybe later. There's just one thing. If those are the top three, what have you been doing for the last fifteen, twenty years, Chief, lying in a coma somewhere?”

“What?”

“The latest ribbon you're showing looks like Desert Storm era. A lot has gone down since then.”

Brattan slid off his stool and stepped back to put some distance between them. “Who the hell are you?”

Lucy slipped on her jacket— blouse, actually—which displayed her badge. “I told you, I'm Lucy, Shore Police. Did I not make that clear? Sometimes I mumble, sorry about that. I need to see some ID, mister, and a copy of your orders.”

Brattan pushed away from the bar and started to leave. “Screw you. You ain't getting nothing from me tonight or ever, cop-bitch.”

Lucy nodded to Billy and his brother who stood and started toward Brattan. He saw them, guessed why they were heading his way, turned on his heel, and ducked toward the side exit. It was blocked by two beefy SEALS.

“Make a hole,” he yelled. Nobody moved. “Get out of my way, sailor, or…”

“Or what, old man? You ain't going nowhere but to jail, I'm thinking.”

Brattan pivoted and headed back into the club. He found himself surrounded. “Who are you guys? Let me by.”

Billy stepped up and poked Brattan in the chest with his index finger and grinned.

“Jack Brattan. I have a warrant for your arrest pursuant of a BOLO issued by the Sheriff's Office, Picketsville, Virginia. You are the prime suspect in the shooting death of Police Deputy Thomas Frieze, Rockbridge County Sheriff's Department. Under the rules regulating ‘hot pursuit,' I am arresting you. If you have problem with that, Chief Petty Officer Navy Policewoman Vandegraaf will book you into the brig for identity theft. If that don't work, we'll think of something else. In any case, you're busted, Brattan and I'm thinking there's a whole lot of folks who want to have a chat with you and your buddies out at the old Five One Star ranch. You up for that? Don't even look cross-eyed at me, dirt bag. You are a cop killer and I'm one second from hoping you make a break for it so I can shoot you right here and now. So, we are going quietly, right? And after you've had a think, you will fall over yourself to help us because otherwise we might just cut you loose and let your friends have a go at you.”

“You don't know what you're yammering about. I'm, uh…Senior Chief Bart Hallihan and you better get the f—”

“Shut up, you idiot. You're going to the nearest set of cells I can find and good luck getting a lawyer this time of night. 'Specially since we'll start you in the drunk tank where you won't be offered the opportunity until tomorrow a.m. After that, a couple of hours marinating in cuffs and shackles in the backseat of a police cruiser and then, maybe, we'll let you call your lawyer. Only I ain't so sure you want to do that right now. You remember what happened to the last Fifty-first Star employee who was in custody? Hell, we always did have problems protecting our cell windows. So, you might think twice about letting anybody know where you're at. Okay, police person Lucy, let me Mirandize this mook and then we'll haul his ass off to your brig.”

***

Nothing good ever comes from a call received after midnight. Consequently Charlie made a habit of putting his phone on silent and disconnecting his land line except during those times when staying connected seemed truly important. Unfortunately, that occurred more often than not. It was after two when he received the call from his man in Norfolk. The police, he heard, had picked up Brattan. It was less clear which police had made the arrest. On the one hand the local Shore Police seemed to be involved with the initial apprehension, but then a civilian cop took over. He's emailed a picture of the event. Did Charlie need him to step in?

Charlie opened the attachment, recognized Billy, and smiled.

“No worries, Harry. Shut it down and come home tomorrow. The right people got our man.” Charlie rubbed his eyes and figured the time difference between DC and Idaho and hoped Ike would not mind a midnight call. Ike was still up.

“We have Jack Brattan.”

“Who?”

“Oh yeah, we haven't had time to discuss the other half of this operation. He's the guy we think killed the cop who set you up so the bomb could be put in your car.”

“Short fat guy? County cop?”

“That's the one.”

“I wondered about that. So you got his killer and you're hoping he can finger Pangborn?”

“I do and he can. The question is, will he? Actually, it's your deputy who has him. Somehow your people guessed, as did we, that Brattan would go to ground at a Naval facility. Billy Sutherlin has him in custody. I have to hand it to you, your people are good, Ike.”

“They are.”

“Are you ready at your end?”

“We'll know in the morning. The tape is rolling and either something will show up there, or we're stuck with Brattan if we want to bring Pangborn to trial. I'm not happy with that prospect, by the way.”

“Where's my drone?”

“On its way.”

“Will you need any more help?”

“I want to erase you and your people from this op, Charlie. You have enough
tsoris
already for helping us. You can stand by, though. I might need some help persuading the local State Police into running a raid on the ranch if I'm right about what they're up to.”

“I can ask the director to call. Governor, or go directly to the police?”

“I don't know. Protocol would suggest the governor first. He could then push on the State Police, but if he doesn't…”

“Maybe both?”

“Governor first. If that doesn't work, tell him the FBI will be notified. I'd guess he would not want the Feds messing in his sand pile and then call the state cops anyway.”

“Okay, that's it until tomorrow.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

Sleep had been slow in coming. The possibility that Ike was correct in what he believed happened nightly in the ranch's bathhouse forestalled any chance for an easy slide into unconsciousness. So, well before the sun had struggled above the horizon, Sam and Karl, Ike and Ruth, coffee cups in hand, gathered and squinted at the tiny screen as the recording of the previous night's activities in and around the ranch and specifically in the bathhouse unfolded.

A single lamp set in a corner augmented the dawn sunlight as the four figures leaned in to view the screen which flickered sooty images in eight separate sectors. Each square showed activity which took place in front of the surveillance cameras positioned around the ranch the afternoon before. The image quality was not good, but better than they'd expected, given the sacrifices the hook manufacturer had to make in order to squeeze in a video camera. The lenses, no more than a large pinhole somehow managed to capture whatever moved within its cone. One by one, blank sectors brightened as motion triggered them into life. Shadowy figures moved ghost-like from one place and to another. Finally, only two sectors remained lighted as all movement ended elsewhere and whatever happened remained focused in the remaining two. Martin Pangborn and Senator Connors could be easily identified. The others could not—that is, not yet.

And maybe never.

“I can't watch this,” Ruth muttered. “I don't want to see it. Jesus, Ike, what are we going to do? We can't just sit here.”

“Look, what's done is done. Now…now we need to be sure. No, we don't want to either and wouldn't if I had another option, but God forgive me, I don't. The rest of you are excused. You've seen enough to know what comes next. I have to be certain. Beyond what you see here, the larger question is, how long has this been going on and who else knows?”

Ruth stood and walked to the kitchen table which held the whiskey bottle. She poured a stiff three fingers and drank it in a single swallow.

“Helluva breakfast you got there, lady.”

“Hey, I'll join you,” Karl said. “How about it, Sam?”

“I'm for pancakes. I need something to counteract the acid reflux this created.”

“Okay for you. I don't think I could keep them down.”

“What do you mean, who else, Ike? How about the cowboys who you could say delivered the goods?”

“Yes, but not just them. Family? Friends? Somebody had to know, had to have seen the signs. Do parents come with a special set of blinders that prevents them from seeing what their friends or relations are up to? It makes you wonder. Do people really not know this goes on, or is there some subconscious mechanism that allows them to deny what's happening right under their noses? Is the reality so frightening that they elect not to see it?”

“You're asking me or is that a rhetorical question?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Then you'd have to ask the people who watched the Nazis create the death camps and did nothing, or the wives who didn't see the incest in their homes, or spouses who were blind to their partner's infidelity. Sometimes the truth is too painful to face and your brain will simply not allow it to surface. I think it's called ‘resolving a cognitive dissonance.' It's that or they go crazy. Look, people want to trust those they love and/or admire, so they build filters in their minds that sort out all the things they don't want to know. People protect themselves from the parts of their existence that hurt.”

“Cognitive dissonance? Jesus.”

“Like that, anyway. All of which allows torture and genocide to continue everywhere from Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq, here, there, you name it. Ethnic cleansing is the
mot du jour.
Sorry, I get carried away, sometimes.”

“Got it. You're right, but this is a conversation for another time. Now all of you need to gear up. This afternoon, we will go in there and take the damned place apart and scatter the scum to the winds.”

“Jesus. That's it? We go in and…You did say ‘we' will? You, me, and what army?”

“By we, I mean the two of us, and Sam and Karl—he's FBI, don't forget. Karl, if this doesn't fall under some interstate criminal behavior statute, nothing does.”

“It does. The Mann Act will cover anything and anyone mixed up in this business.”

“What about our three fracking friends…? I said fracking, not…what you think I said.”

“Our ‘health department' officials? Probably not. I think we need to send them back home with the Vulture. Charlie has been a big help. Let's clean up this end so he doesn't get into trouble. We'll still have plenty of other help.”

“We will? Who?”

“Charlie will use some ‘friends in high places' muscle to prime the director of the State Police. With or without an urging of the governor he'll be only too happy to hustle over here to look at what we have. Unless he has a heart of stone or the IQ of a gnat, by mid-afternoon we will have an army of State Troopers in full riot gear on the ranch grounds and having a round-up of our own.”

“Did you say riot gear? Please tell me we aren't going in with guns blazing. I'm not sure I can take another shoot-out, Ike.” Ruth did not look happy.

“I hope the blazing bit won't happen. But don't forget, those bozos over at the ranch are seriously armed and primed by months, no years, of antigovernment rhetoric and, therefore, might be tempted to make a stand. So, ‘blazing' becomes a possibility.”

“I am aware of the possibility. Life is not about possibilities. It is about probabilities. Calculate the odds for me. Will they or won't they?”

“Can't give you the odds. All I can say is, if they do, it won't be nice. Cops, as a general rule, take a dim view of civilians who point guns at them.”

“Crap! And you? What does the sheriff of Picketsville think?”

“Believe it or not, I hope they stand down. Most of those people are merely delusional. They don't deserve taking a bullet for that. Having said that, there's a part of me that hopes they will force a confrontation. There are just too many folks with distorted ideas about what constitutes reasonable dissent who need to be brought up short. Then there is the question of acceptable provocation in the public domain. People need to understand that it is one thing to swagger around a supermarket or a Starbucks brandishing an assault rifle, and quite another to have to use it in the sure and certain knowledge they could come up on the hurting end of a fire fight. There is a tendency abroad to trivialize weapons and the carnage they create. There are way too many video warriors lurching around suburban malls with their AK 10s and too few real ones to explain why they're a menace. Once you leave a world defined by comic books and video games and actually face the reality of death at the hands of someone who pulled a trigger a fraction of a second before you did, you might want to rethink the path you took that got you there. But by then, it would be too late. You will become another senseless death. It comes as a shock to folks like those on the ranch to realize that people sometimes shoot back and police always do.”

“So says my husband the cop.”

“There's more and I could go on, but you already know the rest by heart.”

“I think I wrote it. As you are always quick to remind me, it's what we lefty-liberals do. Make speeches about stuff like that. So, what about Pangborn? Will he make a stand with them?”

“Given a choice, I suspect he will slink off and hide behind a phalanx of highly paid legal types. That is, if he is allowed to. That's what people like him do when things get testy. But I hope we get there before he has time to rally his lawyers. If we're lucky we'll nail him
in situ
this time.”

“Did you really say,
in situ
?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. So, what are the odds we'll catch him off guard?”

“If he is totally unaware of what we are doing, as it seems he is, pretty good, but, whether he is or isn't, he's mine.”

“Then God help him.”

***

Jack Brattan was released into Billy's custody a little after eight in the morning. The Shore Police didn't want Brattan. They didn't have jurisdiction to do more than make an arrest. Also, they had no interest in the civilian case and were eager to have him out of their brig. Billy had him cuffed, shackled, on the rear seat of his black and white, and headed west within a quarter of an hour. Billy hummed a tuneless hum for the first fifty miles. Then he spoke.

“So, Brattan, how do you feel about saving what's left of your rear end by talking about your boss?”

“I got nothing to say.”

“No surprise there. Well, looky here, the speedometer just informs me that we just drove fifty-one miles. Now don't you think that's a omen or something? Fifty-one miles—Fifty-first Star?”

“Screw you, Barney.”

“Now don't go all personal on me there, big shot. I might turn out to be the only friend you got. Murder One is a capital offense, you know. I reckon you need to analyze your position. If you were to, say, give up Mister P, we might could wiggle that charge down a bit and get you life, maybe even with the possibility of parole.”

“You don't know shit, Deputy Hick. There is no way in hell that the person you think I work for will ever go down. He's, like, too big, too important. If anybody even tries to make a run at him, he'll have them for breakfast.”

“Mercy goodness. All that? That's why you were on the run. Afraid he might take it into his head to squash you like a bug 'fore you could talk to us? So, you're saying you won't talk to us even though you know that if they find you, your old buddies will send you off to La La Land.”

“I thought I told you to shut up.”

“You did. Okay, what's your feeling about water-boarding?”

“You threatening me with torture?”

“Torture? No, no, we wouldn't do that. I'm just making conversation, here. Since you ain't open to discussing your employer, I thought we might touch on current events, maybe. You know, politics, global warming, stuff like that. So, water-boarding?”

“You're an idiot.”

“Some say that. None with all their teeth intact, but they do sometimes say it. Okay, new topic, tell me about that outfit you joined up in, the Fifty-first Star. Is it a good bet? I mean, would a guy like me fit in? I'm just asking 'cause I am naturally curious. What is it they do, besides yahoo around in camouflage with big guns and such, pretending to be the country's saviors?”

“It exists to remove idiots like you from the formula.”

“Whoa, from the formula? What formula would that be? Cops? Just cops, or people in general, or just the ones who think differently than you all? That why you dusted Tommy Frieze? How about them other people who're not like you? Maybe it's people who are the wrong color or who go to the wrong churches. Is that the ‘formula'? See, I always assumed you all was just a bunch of losers who think carrying a loaded weapon and bullying folks makes you out to be tough and, like, important. Take you, for example. You could start a new group, a sort of ‘Bullies Anonymous' thing. You know, people who like to push people around get together and brag how they pushed a cripple down the stairs, fun stuff like that. No? Okay, let me ask you something else. What will you do when people finally get sick and tired of the crap you hand out and push back? Are you going to stand or run?”

Brattan opened his mouth as if to say something and then thought better of it and shut it with an audible slick.

“See, my guess is that the first time somebody says, ‘no' to you guys and makes a fist, you will be all running back to momma like little schoolgirls. Am I right?”

Brattan's face turned bright red and he jerked at his chains. Then he sank back in the seat.

“I know what you're trying to do, Huckleberry, and it won't work. Like, there is no way you're going to make me come after you.”

“No? Shoot. Well, I reckon it was worth a try, dirt bag. Okay, how about some music? You like country?”

“No.”

Billy switched the cars radio on and dialed up a local country music station. “Faith Hill, gotta love her.”