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

  “One last vote,” he said.

  Eight-zip against doing the last bank robbery.

  “Driving back here from Seattle,” Price told the others, “I just couldn’t accept that the Lamar Dekker I’ve known for ten years is smart enough to pull off all the shit he’s done on his own. He’s got somebody else behind him, and that’s what really worries me. We don’t know who the hell that is, but I don’t think whoever it is gives a rat’s ass about us.”

  O’Grady asked, “What’re you saying, Corey? We not only forget about doing the last job, we walk away from the money we already stole?”

  Price shook his head. “No, we risked our asses for that money; it’s ours. What I think we do is take the money Dekker says he’s holding for us — say a prayer he hasn’t stashed it in some foreign bank — and take Dekker’s share, too. Then we leave all this stuff behind. Never say a word about it to anyone. Be careful we don’t flash the money we stole. Spend it slow and easy.”

  O’Grady asked, “What about that problem? Ridin’ off on our bikes with all that money.”

  “Well,” Price said, “what I was thinking is we’ll need another big truck. One we rent. Anybody here know how to drive one?”

  Harris, a pitcher with a big arm and control problems, said he did.

  Price smiled. “Good. That’s one problem solved. Now all we’ve got to do is get our money back, rip off Dekker and do one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” Tut asked.

  “Beat Tacoma these last two games. Go out winners.”

  J.W. Marriott Resort & Spa, Las Vegas, Nevada

  Once John learned the robbers were professional baseball players, he made the very short intuitive leap to think that Lamar Dekker, the guy he felt sure had trucked off their stolen loot and motorcycles, could well be a member of the same fraternity.

  He called the campus police at the University of Arizona, where Marcellus Darcy had told him Dekker had taken classes. At that hour, he figured they’d be the only ones at the school picking up a phone. He was right. Now, he’d have to persuade the cop on the line that the BIA was indeed a part of the U.S. government and he was a federal officer.

  He caught a break, though, when the call was answered by a voice saying, “University police department, Sergeant Tall Elk speaking.”

  John had heard that name before, in Goldstrike, California. He’d worked a case there with Chief of Police Ron Ketchum, who had gone on to become the town’s mayor. A guy named Tall Elk had been a cop there before leaving for another job.

  “Sergeant, this is Special Agent John Tall Wolf of the BIA.”

  “No kidding. Ya-ta-hey.”

  Diné — or Navajo — for hello. Ya-at-ééh in the original iteration.

  John asked, “Are you the Tall Elk who worked on the Goldstrike PD?”

  “Yeah, that’s me. How’d you know that?”

  John told him he’d worked a case there and had heard his name mentioned.

  “Yeah, it was a good place to work, but I was ambitious and I knew Sergeant Stanley would be running the day-to-day operations as long as he wanted. So I came here. What can I do for you, Special Agent?”

  “I’m wondering if you might have access to a database that can give me some information about a former student, Lamar Dekker.” John spelled the name.

  “He do something bad?”

  “Looks like something real bad.”

  “In a way, that’s good. For me to find him, I mean. If we have him on record as a troublemaker here, we might have imported his academic standing. A kid on probation for poor classwork, he’s closer to getting a fond farewell if he screws up than a good student who steps out of line just once. Give me a minute while I look, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  John finished the last of his packing while holding the phone to his ear. Sad to say, DeWitt had taken his plane back, and John would have to fly commercial. He was booked on the first flight out in the morning.

  Sergeant Tall Elk came back and said, “Got him. He’s in our records for creating a public disturbance. His only offense and he got off with a reprimand. His high spirits were excused because he’d just found out he’d been drafted by a pro baseball team. You’ll like this, it was the Cleveland Indians.”

  “No kidding?” John said. “Were you able to see what kind of student he was?”

  “Yeah, straight-C average.” Matched the GPA that Marcellus had found on the guy. “Respectable for an athlete. He left school after his freshman year and then came back twelve years later for one semester. After that, he finished his degree online.”

  “What was his major?”

  “Physical education. Thought you might have guessed.”

  “Did he have any math or science classes?”

  “Rocks for jocks and … I don’t believe this. Computer science?”

  “You have a grade for that last one?”

  “Yeah, he got a B in it. Looks like his high-water mark.”

  “But it’s an introductory course, right?

  “Uh-huh, that’s just what it is. Don’t see any follow up. Does any of this help?”

  “I think it does, helps fill in a picture for me. Thanks for your help, Sergeant.”

  “Glad to do it. Us tall guys have to stick together.”

  With the information Sergeant Tall Elk had provided, John was able to go online and with a bit of sleuthing find Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia. The eighth edition was the most recent, published in 2004. That was good enough to cover the six years Lamar Dekker played in major league baseball. From his stats with the Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners, John could see that he’d started out as a good glove, weak bat second baseman.

  He was respectable enough to make the big leagues, but he didn’t stand out enough to stay more than two years at any one club. Both his batting average and fielding percentage dropped year by year. A note at the end of his stint with the Mariners said his rights had been traded to a team in Osaka, Japan, the Orix Buffaloes, as the player to be named later.

  Regarded as an afterthought at the end of his career, Dekker had been sent into exile.

  A guy could become bitter about something like that, John thought. Especially if he came back from overseas hoping for redemption only to see his baseball future die in the minor leagues. Where he met more guys who were just scraping by and had never gotten a chance to see the big time.

  All of which was speculation, John knew.

  He dug farther, hoping to see if he could find out anything about Dekker’s days in Japan. An hour later, he found a story about Dekker in The Japan Times, a newspaper published in English. The sports section ran the headline Glory at Long Last above a photo of a smiling Lamar Dekker in a dirt-smeared uniform.

  Dekker had been named the MVP of a three-game exhibition series, leading his team to a 3-0 sweep. He’d hit .455, made several spectacular plays in the field and had scored the winning run in the final game by stealing home. Hence the dirty shirt.

  What especially interested John was where the series had been played: Taiwan.

  The Chinese fans had idolized Dekker for his unlikely heroic performance. So much so that he was hired to do TV commercials for a local beer, a gig that lasted five years and paid Dekker far more than his baseball career ever had. None of which prevented him from coming home and giving American baseball one last try.

  As John had suspected, his career fizzled out in the minors, double-A ball.

  The story in the Japan Times concluded that no one should feel sorry for Lamar Dekker because he still had friends in both Osaka and Taipei. Any time he wanted to come back to either city, he’d be warmly greeted and well compensated.

  John closed his laptop and went out onto his balcony and stretched his muscles. He took out his cell phone and looked at the time: just after one a.m. If Deputy Director DeWitt was anywhere in the country east of Las Vegas, it would be even later for him.

  He made the call anyway.
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  DeWitt picked up on the first ring and asked, “You have something good?”

  John stepped back into his room. He had the team roster Officer Lathrop had given him at Cashman Field open on the desk he’d been using. He’d scanned the pictures of the players and sent them to his mother. She’d picked out the guys John wanted.

  “Thought you might like the names of the eight bank robbers and the guy who’s in cahoots with them.”

  “What I remember from law school, cahoots is a serious crime,” DeWitt said.

  “Generally is, yeah. I can tell you the city they probably intend to hit next, too.”

  “Special Agent, you’ve made me glad I didn’t turn my phone off.”

  “One last thing,” John said. “This ninth Indian?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He played baseball in Taiwan.”

  “Hot damn, a Chinese connection,” DeWitt said. “I do believe you’ve earned an attaboy from the vice president.”

  — Chapter 30 —

  Lincoln Park, Seattle, Washington, Sunday, August 25th

  John’s flight from Las Vegas landed at nine-fifteen a.m., ten minutes after DeWitt arrived from Los Angeles. The deputy director had gone to the City of Angels to meet with Vice President Morrissey who was in town to raise campaign cash. Never having been married to a billionaire, as the president had, Jean Morrissey needed to raise her own funds, and three years ahead of the next presidential election was not too soon to start.

  DeWitt had called John en route to Seattle and the two men met at the car the local FBI office had provided for the visiting bigshot. John dumped his suitcase in the trunk and got in the back seat. The deputy director asked him, “You feel like stretching your legs a bit?”

  “Always.”

  DeWitt had his driver take them to Seattle’s Lincoln Park, a green space on Puget Sound not far from the airport. They strolled down the paved walkway alongside the beach. Though the sky was blue and the air mild, the park was uncrowded. The good people of the town might have been sleeping off their Saturday nights or bending their knees in the hope of salvation. In any case, the two feds were able to speak openly without fear of being overheard.

  John explained how he put things together to find out the robbers’ identities.

  “Your mom strikes again,” DeWitt said.

  “She’s never let me down.”

  “I think you’ve got someone else in your corner, too. After we spoke last night, I took the chance of calling the vice president. She was still up. Plotting with her brother, Frank, to make certain she’s the next president.”

  “You sure I need to know this?” John asked.

  “I think you’ll be interested. When I told her what you’d come up with, she asked me what I thought of you. I said you’re smart, self-assured and not worried about your next career move.”

  John nodded. He could live with that assessment.

  DeWitt continued, “Madam Vice President told me you don’t have to worry about your career because she has plans for you.”

  John stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

  DeWitt came to a halt and turned to look at John. “Those were her exact words.”

  “I like the job I have.” Something he’d never admit to Marlene.

  The deputy director told him, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness —”

  “I don’t want anything thrust upon me,” John said.

  DeWitt held his hands out, then let them drop. “You’ll have to find a way to elude the plans of the mighty, if that’s the case.”

  John looked at the deputy director for a moment and said, “You’ve faced this kind of situation, haven’t you?” Off DeWitt’s nod, he asked, “How’d you avoid it?”

  “I managed the feat only up to a point. I told my betters I’d stay with the Bureau only if I could keep a foot in each world. I do my share of the administrative grind, but I work cases, too. I use my perks, like the personal aircraft, to lighten my psychic load. I also put up a serigraph of Mao Tse Tung in my office as a caution against any future promotion.”

  That made John smile. “Maybe I could get a print of Crazy Horse. Use that as a totem.”

  “Whatever works. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  The two men resumed their walk.

  John said, “The robbers are Indians in a way, San Bernadino Serranos. A triple-A baseball club.”

  “I’ve heard of the tribe but not the team,” DeWitt replied, “and I’m a California native.”

  “That’s part of the team’s problem. They aren’t much of a draw. This is their last season before they fold their tent.”

  DeWitt gave John a look. “Desperate characters?”

  “I ran their names through NCIC. Nothing more than a drunk and disorderly on two of them. The others have no criminal records at all. Going from a clean sheet to bank robbery makes me think they feel aggrieved at the least.”

  “Yeah. But are they far enough gone to shoot it out with us when we come for them?”

  John said, “Maybe a few of the younger players hold out hope they can catch on with another team. The older ones have to know the dream is over. Hell, the Serrano people themselves have enrolled in different bands of Native Americans: the Morongo, San Manuel and Soboba.”

  DeWitt mulled that over. “You probably couldn’t ask for men more ready to do something stupid.”

  John said, “Not all that stupid. They’ve gotten away with a big chunk of money from each of the two banks they’ve hit. We could arrest them in the next ten minutes, but getting convictions wouldn’t be a sure bet.”

  “So it would be better to … what? Catch them coming out of a bank? We’ve all been lucky so far that no one has been killed. Third time could be the fatal charm. I guess the best thing would be to intercept them going into the next bank. They resist, it’s all over for them.”

  John thought about that for a quarter-mile or so.

  Then he said, “It’s all over for them anyway, isn’t it? I don’t see the Chinese letting them live. It’d be much smarter to kill them.”

  DeWitt told John, “After I spoke with the vice president last night, I called a friend at one of the spook shops in DC. Passed along the information you gave me. What my friend said was the only chance for these guys to survive would be for us to arrest them. Because, yeah, he’s sure the Chinese will get rid of them. As a matter of housekeeping, if nothing else.”

  “So you’re working on some brilliant plan, right?” John asked.

  “To the best of my meager abilities, but superior minds are involved as well.”

  “Meanwhile, I’m good to keep going?”

  “Unless and until Acting Director Nelda Freeland says otherwise.” DeWitt grinned. “I wouldn’t worry about that, though.”

  “Good,” John said.

  J.W. Marriott Resort & Spa, Las Vegas, Nevada

  Ellie Booker showed up at the posh hotel that Sunday morning, uncharacteristically one step behind the events of the day. She lost more ground when she stopped to look around at the opulent decor and furnishings of the huge lobby. It wasn’t lost on her that the cost of a room there, subsidized by the casino, wouldn’t get you into a Holiday Inn in Midtown Manhattan. Still, if Tall Wolf wound up jerking her around somehow, she could see bringing a camera and a microphone back there and letting middle America see where a government employee working on their dime had lain his head to rest.

  The WorldWide News audience would scream that they couldn’t afford such luxury.

  They’d be right, too. It’d take a casino, an amusement park and a state fair to underwrite their visits to digs like this.

  Ellie walked over to the young supermodel-in-waiting working at the reception desk. She asked for directions to the nearest house phone. Said she’d like to speak with a guest.

  “If you’ll tell me the guest’s name, perhaps I can help you,” the sweet young thing said. Her name tag said Persephone, the goddess of springtime. That made E
llie wonder if the young woman’s mother was educated or had just heard the name in a beauty parlor and liked it.

  Given the proper spelling, Ellie had to concede a measure of book-learning. Then again, it was shocking the jobs even Ivy League grads had to take these days.

  Ellie said, “I’d like to speak with Special Agent John Tall Wolf, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but he checked out early this morning.”

  Ellie’s face turned red with an infusion of blood, heat and anger.

  The SOB was playing games with her. He’d conned her into doing his errands and —

  Ellie saw the young goddess was enjoying her discomfort. As stoically as possible.

  Then, just as Ellie was about to tear into her, she asked, “Are you Ms. Booker?”

  “I am.”

  “May I see some ID, please?”

  “Why?”

  “Special Agent Tall Wolf left a message for Ms. Booker.”

  Ellie almost reached for her driver’s license. Then she thought why show the goddess just what an old hag she was. All of thirty-seven. Instead she handed over her business card from WorldWide News. The one that listed her job title as Executive Producer followed by a parenthetical inter alia. Latin for: among other things.

  Ellie was pleased to see envy flash in the goddess’s eyes.

  And annoyed when the younger woman smiled, clearly having understood the Latin.

  Perhaps she had gone to a good school.

  “Your message from the special agent, Ms. Booker,” Persephone said handing Ellie a slip of paper.

  Ellie’s anger retreated. Tall Wolf hadn’t screwed with her.

  He’d gone to Seattle. Didn’t say why, but there had to be a new development in the case. She could call him on his cell or fly up and they could talk in person.

  So he hadn’t frozen her out.

  Probably still had ways to use her.

  She decided Tall Wolf was the slickest operator she’d encountered since James J. McGill. The special agent had earned her a hundred grand bonus when she’d told Hugh Collier, the network’s CEO and largest shareholder, that she’d not only scooped the rest of the media on the Indian bank robber story, she had a source inside law enforcement who’d give her details no one else would get.