War Party (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 2) Read online

  “You shot it. It’s on your video.”

  “I wasn’t looking at what I shot. Just pointed my phone. Trying to be real careful nobody saw what I was doing and shot me.”

  That was a point, John thought. But he still had a question.

  “You didn’t notice it when you looked at what you shot?”

  Louis shook his head.

  “Go back and look for it, will you? Tell me what you think.”

  “Okay. Is that it?”

  “You find out if anyone else is trying to sell a book about the robbery?” John asked.

  Louis slumped a bit in his chair, a posture of relief. “Nobody is, not that I’ve been able to find. I’ve still got people looking, though.”

  “All right. Just keep this in mind, if you help me crack this case, it’ll add to your story’s value.”

  “Yeah, I’ll remember that,” Louis said.

  Decatur Street, French Quarter, New Orleans

  John met Marcellus Darcy outside a small bakery. The postal inspector hadn’t had his breakfast yet, so he’d bought a bag of pastries and offered John one. He took an apple turnover and thanked his new colleague. Marcellus started his daily nourishment with an eclair.

  John told Marcellus the story of Carl Gugasian, the Ivy League bank robber.

  “Wait a minute,” Marcellus said, “the man went to one of the fanciest colleges in the country, got himself a master’s degree that could have landed him a real good job, and he still went out and robbed banks?”

  “Must’ve been what he liked to do,” John said.

  “Wonder what his mama and daddy thought about that.”

  “The FBI report didn’t cover that.”

  Marcellus grinned. “That’s another thing. Never heard a the feebs bein’ so cozy with anyone outside their own shop.”

  “Must be my winning personality,” John said. “That and the fact that I play nice.”

  John had sent off a long email to DeWitt, outlining his thinking and asking what he and his people might make of the bank robber’s hand signals.

  “So right now, it’s your idea the robbers hid their bikes in a truck, right?” Marcellus asked.

  John nodded. “I thought they might’ve put them on a boat at first.”

  “They did that, it could limit where they might hit next. Somewhere near another port city. You do think they’ve got more than New Orleans in mind, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Problem is, I don’t have any idea where. But I don’t think it’ll be a long time in coming. Something like what these guys do, they’ll want to grab everything they can and disappear before all us federal heroes catch up to them.”

  Marcellus bobbed his head. “Believe you’re right about that.”

  “So here’s what I’d like you to do while I’m probably off chasing them somewhere else.”

  The postal inspector listened and frowned.

  He said, “I know how dumb some criminals can be, bragging to their friends how they broke the law and got away from the cops, but I don’t think these guys’ll be like that.”

  “I don’t think they blurted out any public confessions,” John said. “What I’m looking for is somebody in a club, bar or restaurant who remembers a party of eight large guys in a very good mood who maybe left exceptionally big tips.”

  Marcellus brightened. “Yeah, I can see that. Dudes who maybe went so far as to tell some sweetie bringing their drinks that they just closed a real big business deal. Laughing to themselves about their little joke.”

  “I could see that,” John said. “If you find someone who served a party like that, maybe the place has security cameras and we can get some pictures of what these guys really look like.”

  Marcellus offered a fist and John bumped it with his own.

  “I like the way you think, Special Agent.”

  “Mostly, I just try to figure out ways people can mess up their own plans.”

  “And we all surely do that, don’t we?”

  John brought up the idea that the bank robbers probably had someone scout the premises for them. “I’m going to have the local FBI office look at the bank’s security videos for the preceding two weeks. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have you watch them, too. See if you can spot someone trying to act casual but studying everything he can about the place.”

  “You think the bank will let me do that?” Marcellus asked.

  “I already put a call in to Arnaud Thibodeaux, the bank president. He’s good with it.”

  Marcellus smiled. “Sure, I’ll see what I can see. I find someone who looks wrong to me, who do I call first?”

  “Me,” John said. “I’ll pass the word. Mention your name.”

  “Okay.”

  “You spot someone, we’ll see if he has any connection to the trucking business.”

  “Yeah, I like that. You know, I think you’re gonna bag these suckers.”

  “Let’s hope one of us does. Would it be all right if I ask you a personal favor?”

  Marcellus said, “I give you a pastry, you’re the next thing to family.”

  John smiled. “I have a friend. She’d like to visit New Orleans with me. Will you give us some recommendations? Places the tourists usually miss.”

  “Man, I’ll give you a list long as a bull ‘gator.”

  And Marcellus started citing examples.

  NOPD Headquarters

  John went to see Captain Edmee LaBelle at her office.

  He told her he’d be moving on later that day.

  “You’re leaving our fair city so soon? Maybe you got a new lead you’re following somewhere else?”

  John shook his head. “Hate to say it, but for the moment, I’ve about run out of ideas about how to catch the bank robbers.”

  “Huh, I hate it when that happens to me. Gives me an uneasy feeling I’m not as smart as I like to think I am. Even worse, I’m not as smart as some damn criminal.”

  “Doesn’t do a lot for a cop’s self-regard,” John admitted.

  “Then again, you said you’re about out of ideas. Means maybe you’ve got one or two left.”

  John told her about Marcellus Darcy looking at the bank’s security videos to see if he could spot whoever it was that scouted the premises for the robbers.

  “The local FBI office will probably be doing the same thing, but even with a push from Washington, they might find a way to procrastinate. You know, thinking they’re too good to follow the lead of some BIA guy. I asked Marcellus to look into anyone he finds suspicious. See if that person has any connection to the trucking business.”

  It took Edmee just a moment to see the connection.

  “You think those motorcycles got trucked out of town.”

  John told her the story of Carl Gugasian.

  Edmee shook her head and gave a mirthless laugh.

  “Good Lord, that’s —” She brought herself up short. Looked closely at John. “Is that where you’re going? Pennsylvania? To see if maybe the Thibodeaux State Bank robbers had some connection to that Gugasian fellow? That university up there?”

  “I thought a trip to Philadelphia might be in order. Ask a few questions. See if one unlikely criminal had any protégés who wanted to expand on his methods. Failing that, I thought I might talk to the vice president, see if she knows any ways to track down library records of people who took out materials on Gaugasian.”

  Edmee’s eyes got big. “You think the government can do that?”

  John said, “I’ve heard there are some people on the rez back home who think the feds are tapping their smoke signals.”

  He had Edmee going for a moment. Then she laughed.

  “You can get away saying shit like that, can’t you? Being an Indian and all.”

  “Only when there are no Native Americans in the room.”

  “Listen,” Edmee told him, “you tell Mr. Marcellus Darcy to bring his video over here and we’ll watch it together. Maybe I’ll see something he doesn’t. And if the
FBI drags its feet, I’ll see what NOPD can do to look for a trucking connection.”

  Exactly what John had hoped for. Better being offered by Edmee than asked for by him.

  “Thank you, Edmee. I’ll do that.”

  John was about to say goodbye when a cop poked his head into the office.

  “Boss, turn on your TV. News about the bank robbery.”

  Edmee took a remote control out of a desk drawer and pointed it at her office television. A picture came up quickly and the set was tuned to a news channel. A local anchorwoman was speaking above a crawl that said, Responsibility Claimed for Bank Robbery.

  The news anchor told them, “To repeat the news that came into our studio just moments ago, a previously unknown militant Native American group has claimed responsibility for the robbery of the Thibodeaux State Bank. They said the money will be used to finance what they call the ‘reclamation of our land.’ The statement said more banks will be robbed, but did not specify whether those banks will be located in New Orleans or elsewhere.”

  John and Edmee looked at each other.

  They turned back to the television in time to hear the anchorwoman say, “The group calls itself Red Nation Rising.”

  — Chapter 18 —

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  The city and adjacent unincorporated areas hosted one hundred and twenty-two casinos. Fifteen of the twenty-five largest hotels in the world, each of them featuring a lavish gambling emporium, called The Strip, Las Vegas Boulevard South, home. Downtown on Fremont Street, traditionally known as the place where the locals gambled, there were still more hotels and casinos.

  Beyond those two wagering fantasylands were any number of other registered gaming establishments, many of them closer to mom-and-pop bars than pleasure palaces. When the cascade of alarms flooded police headquarters, reporting robbery attempts or other interruptions of the orderly separation of money from the the suckers who so eagerly brought it to town, they came from the high-end properties.

  All of them.

  The big casinos had their own well trained and heavily armed security forces, of course. Still, the cops were expected to haul off the miscreants to the Clark County Detention Center. In the unlikely event that a number of wily criminals, thinking they were Clooney or Pitt, managed to slip their own firearms past security, the cops, their SWAT teams and maybe even the National Guard would reinforce their private sector counterparts in large numbers.

  Gambling revenue was the lifeblood of the city.

  It wasn’t to be trifled with, much less pillaged.

  So when the blizzard of alarms lit up metropolitan police headquarters — conveniently located near The Strip — like a casino marquee, the sheriff himself became immediately involved. The metropolitan police had devised plans to deal with any imaginable assault on a casino. What had never occurred to anyone was the idea that all the major casinos in town would be ripped off simultaneously.

  Metaphorically speaking, there were more fires to put out than men and women to do the job. The sheriff, wisely, got on the phone to the governor’s office immediately to request that troops be mustered. Only the governor was on vacation, out of the country, that fine August day. The lieutenant governor was in Hawaii.

  The head of the department of public safety was on the job and promised to send all available Highway Patrol units immediately.

  To add to the confusion, and the idea of fires needing to be doused, the Clark County Fire Department experienced alarms in every district it covered. The department’s chief knew immediately that someone was fucking with him. False alarms were a fact of life for any fire department. It was just one way some morons got their giggles.

  The only way all the alarms could be legitimate would be if the North Koreans had napalmed the whole city.

  Still, there could be real fires or other life-threatening emergencies among the false alarms. With no immediate way of separating the wheat from the chaff, the chief had to prioritize. The places that provided the most tax money to the county and kept his people employed would get the first looks. That meant The Strip and Fremont Street.

  Within minutes, every piece of equipment he had was rolling toward those locations.

  Sirens blaring.

  Just like those of the cops.

  All of them headed for the same places.

  Leaving the rest of the city unprotected.

  Desert Mountain National Bank, Summerlin, Nevada

  The Las Vegas bank the eight Indians hit was in Summerlin, a master-planned community developed by the Howard Hughes Corporation. It lay in the northwest quadrant of Las Vegas. Compared to the town at large, it had weathered the economic crash better than most of its neighbors. Where many parts of the city had suffered from droves of people simply abandoning their homes and the state, Summerlin had the second highest population growth rate in Nevada.

  Golf courses and country clubs abounded there.

  So did people who could afford memberships and greens fees.

  Desert Mountain National Bank on West Charleston Boulevard catered to the financial needs of a highly solvent depositor base. To keep the customers caffeinated, there was a Starbucks next door. If they needed investment advice, there was a well appointed office on the other side of the grande lattes bearing the name Rothschild Wealth Management.

  If a sports fan needed financial guidance, a storefront just beyond RWM traded in rare and authentic baseball cards.

  All of this conspicuous capitalism lay unguarded by the public forces of law and order when the bank’s electricity went out. Once again, operating with precision timing, the gang burst into the target premises before the bank’s security personnel could bar the doors. This time, though, a relatively younger guard, age fifty-four, got his hand on his sidearm and looked as if he meant to use it.

  Corey Price closed the distance between himself and the would-be hero quickly, feeling a tug in his right hamstring as he went. Ignoring the small jolt of pain and telling himself that it wouldn’t get worse, he slammed the butt of his MP-5K into the man’s jaw.

  The robbers had come prepared for such an eventuality. Tut Warren, who held the flash cards instructing the customers what to do held up one that announced a dire warning.

  Next hero gets shot.

  Everyone seemed to take the words of caution to heart. In moments, following further communiqués, every customer and staffer was prone on the floor. The seriousness of the situation was reinforced when a burst of automatic gunfire was heard from outside the bank. Now, people began to whimper and cry.

  Price saw one of the two guys outside watching the bikes flash him an okay sign.

  They’d discussed the possibility of people trying to leave one of the other adjoining commercial establishments. To prevent that, it was decided a brief hail of bullets would convince everyone to stay inside. Customers might try to make their escape through rear doors, but that was all right because they would have to flee on foot.

  Patrons of the businesses and the people who worked in them all parked out front. They wouldn’t get to their cars. They wouldn’t be able to block the gang’s getaway by using their motor vehicles. The robbers also collected the cell phones of everyone in the bank and turned them off so they couldn’t be tracked.

  The one eventuality for which they were unprepared was the size of their haul.

  They couldn’t fit all the available cash into their canvas bags.

  They had to leave money on the table.

  Well, in the teller drawers anyway.

  Once again, they were out of the bank in less than two minutes.

  Only one guy had been hurt. Nobody had been shot. Another short fusillade the robbers fired after stepping out of the bank persuaded everyone inside to keep their heads down. Customers in the other nearby businesses exercised the same precaution, but many of them were trying to call 911 on their cell phones. Nobody got through.

  All the circuits were jammed.

  Within fifteen minutes, all the r
obbers were off their motorcycles and back into their everyday clothes. The cash, the motorcycles and the Native American accoutrement were in a sixteen-wheeler on I-15 heading to Los Angeles. Lamar Dekker was driving.

  Corey Price was the only member of the gang with a complaint.

  His leg was getting worse not better.

  — Chapter 19 —

  Louis Armstrong Int’l Airport, New Orleans

  John Tall Wolf sat outside a gate waiting to board a flight to Philadelphia, home of the University of Pennsylvania, alma mater of master bank robber Carl Gugasian, when he got a call from Nelda Freeland.

  He was surprised that it had been more than forty-eight hours since he’d last had any contact with her. Marlene Flower Moon liked to keep a much closer watch on him. Maybe the younger generation just wasn’t as attentive as the old guard.

  Or, in terms of being Coyote, maybe Nelda was only a pup.

  “On my way to Pennsylvania,” John said. “I’ve done everything I could in New Orleans.”

  Nelda told him, “You’re coming back to Washington. On an FBI plane. The gang just robbed another bank in Las Vegas.”

  John took that in, thought about it.

  “So how come I’m not heading there?”

  “Just do as you’re told.”

  “Do I get a meal service?”

  The acting director hung up on him.

  John had to interpret what that meant. He could go to Las Vegas after all? He’d received his instructions and he’d better not screw around? Nelda only wanted to see him because she was going to accept his resignation?

  That last notion, if true, would mean Marlene was giving him the axe.

  Using the excuse that he hadn’t caught the robbers within the first few days of his investigation. That wouldn’t look reasonable to an unbiased observer. Unless the FBI or one of the spook shops had dropped a net over the bad guys in Las Vegas.