Martin Vail 03 - Reign in Hell

by Diehl, William

  Gondorf leaned toward Parver and said quietly, “If you’re interested in the militia movement, I got what you want. Take my word for it.”

  “Good. And if you have something we can use, we’ll be glad to discuss some arrangements. And you can take my word for that. Sam Firestone is a U.S. Marshal. He’ll cover you.”

  Gondorf shrugged his shoulders, a nervous tic, and looked around. He wiped his mouth with his hand. “Sure seems a little vague.”

  “You’re the one who’s being a little vague, Ernie.”

  “What I want is to get in the witness protection thing.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “I got a tall story to tell.”

  “Look at it this way, maybe I think you want me to think you’ve got something so you can get off the hook for the other thing, whatever that was.”

  “Jeez, that’s kinda inside out.”

  “Like I said, it’s the best I can do until I know more.”

  “Well… maybe that’s, uh… that’s fair enough. Maybe.”

  “It’s give and take, Ernie. That’s how it works.”

  “I give and you take, huh? Heh heh.”

  Parver didn’t answer him. She just looked across the table and waited.

  “What the hell.” Gondorf shrugged again. “I just want you to understand this could get me killed.”

  Parver waited silently.

  “I mean, uh, there’s no doubt about that, okay? Just sitting here talking to you could get it done.”

  “I’m impressed with that fact. Can we talk about this event?”

  “It was an armed robbery.”

  “Armed robbery? What, you stick up a liquor store? All night jiffy? What?”

  Gondorf looked around and lowered his voice again. “Armored car. The take was almost four million.”

  Parver was startled. “Oh. Well… that’s armed robbery, all right.”

  “It gets worse.”

  “How much worse?”

  “A guard got hit.”

  “How bad?”

  “Totallyfuckinbad.” Gondorf looked around the room. “That makes me an accomplice or something, right?”

  “Or something. I take it you didn’t pull the trigger?”

  Gondorf shook his head violently. “I’m a thief, man. I wouldn’t kill anybody.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “Now, let me make sure I understand this. Two months ago you were involved in a four-million-dollar armored car heist in Seattle, Washington, in which one of the other perpetrators killed a guard. And you left some prints around. That accurate?”

  Gondorf nodded. “We were all wearing those plastic-type gloves— like doctors wear—and I snagged mine. It just kinda peeled off and I didn’t realize it at first and when I did, it was too late to go back and get rid of my prints. I, uh, I figured they aren’t on file anywhere so I got nothin’ to worry about.”

  “And now you’re on file and you do have something to worry about.”

  “That’s the news.”

  “Why are you telling me all this, Ernie?”

  Gondorf wiped his mouth again. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “I got snookered out of my end,” he said finally.

  “How did that happen?”

  “They conned me.”

  “They being?”

  “The guys I went into this with. I was in for ten percent. That’s four hundred large any way you cut it. They gave me twenty-five grand and invested the rest of it for me. Twenty-five lousy G’s for a four-million-dollar job.”

  “How many others were involved?”

  “Five. Five and the fixer. He wasn’t along for the ride, he, uh… he set it all up.”

  “You work with any of these people before?”

  “One of them. He brought me into the job.”

  “So you did two armored car robberies?”

  Gondorf nodded. “The first one was down in Modesto. That’s in California.”

  “I know where it is.”

  “I thought maybe there was another Modesto someplace.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Anyway, it wasn’t that big a deal. Two fifty, maybe. Hardly worth the trouble.”

  “What did you do? What was your job?”

  “I was the driver. I’m one helluva driver.”

  “You weren’t last night.”

  Gondorf smiled sardonically. “Pow, right in the kisser. One for you.”

  “So, you want to give up these five guys in exchange for a deal?”

  “There’s a little more to it than that.”

  “Oh… ?”

  “I told you, I want into that witness protection program.”

  Parver stared at him for a moment. “That’s a little more difficult than—”

  Gondorf cut Parver off. There was genuine fear written in the lines on his face. “You don’t understand, Miss Parver. I’m a dead man already just talkin’ to you. I gotta be buried somewhere. These people are everywhere. Every… fuckin’… where. One of them could be standin’ outside that door right now.”

  “Just who are these people, Ernie?”

  “You’re interested in the militias, aren’t you?”

  “You pulled an armored car robbery with members of the militia?” “Shhhh. Hold it down.”

  “Which one?”

  “Ever hear of the Zaccariah Division? Call themselves the Sanctuary of the Lord? Huh? That’s who you’re interested in, ain’t it. I saw it on WWN.”

  “You’ve still got my attention.”

  Gondorf nodded slowly. “My deal was ten percent of the take. It was an inside job. I mean, we knew this was a multimillion-dollar job before we ever went into it. After it was over, we drove back to Montana with the loot. We were all spooky, that much money and all. Went in four different cars, we were carryin’ about a mil apiece. We drove like little old ladies all the way back. When we hit Montana, the fixer hands me twenty-five grand and says they’re investing the rest of it in the division. The fucking division. They expected me to go back, go into training with them. We were a great team, he tells me. We’ll do other jobs. And in the meantime, I can be a patriot for freedom. Four hundred grand worth of patriotism? My ass. Like I wanted to join up with that bunch of Bible-beating Jesus freaks.”

  “This fixer have a name?”

  “We got a deal?”

  “Maybe. Did the fixer say how they were going to invest this money for you?”

  “He didn’t have to. It’s weapons. Ammo, explosives. Gear. Use it for training, summer bivouacs, shit like that.”

  “You just said, go back into training. You trained for this robbery?”

  “Are you kidding? It was like a military operation. It wasn’t their first, either. They had a mock-up of the truck and everything. I spent two weeks in the Montana mountains. Survival training and learning the armored car trick by the numbers. The plan was to do four or five of these jobs. Only the take was so big everybody got a hard-on and wanted to get back to Montana, get rid of the money, and celebrate a little. Also, killing the people wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “People? What do you mean people? How many were killed?” Gondorf shrugged again. “It was, uh, it was four.”

  Firestone had been chomping at the bit for the past five minutes. Finally he spoke up. “You took down the Pacific Armored Transport.”

  “You heard about it, then?”

  “We’re in law enforcement, Ernie. It’s unlikely we would have missed a four-million-dollar armored car robbery that made all the front pages, particularly when four men were killed.”

  “They ain’t got a clue. We were outta the state before noon. Only thing is, if they happen to run another check on the prints, I’m road kill.”

  “That’s a fair assumption.”

  “I been worrying about those prints ever since the heist. Then I go out, put a load on, end up against a tree in the city park. I don’t remember nothin’ until I wo
ke up in the drunk tank. My fingertips were still black from the ink. Christ, my heart stopped.”

  “That was this morning?”

  Gondorf nodded.

  “You didn’t waste any time.”

  “I figure I come to you, I’m a lot better off than if you come to me.”

  “That’s sound thinking.”

  “I been seeing about this new guy who’s looking toward the militia. Vail. On TV.”

  “You know General Engstrom?”

  “I met him. He talks a lot. Thinks he wrote the Bible, for Chris-sakes.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “So… Miss Parver, can you do something for me?”

  “I’d say that depends on what you can do for me.”

  “I can ID the whole bunch.”

  “You’ll have to testify, if we can make a case. Are you willing to stand up in court?”

  “Hell, why not? I’m so deep in now I got nothin’ to lose. The minute I split I was on their list because they know I was pissed that they screwed me outta my end.”

  “What happened to the four million?”

  Gondorf shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. I mean, I ain’t got the first notion.”

  “When you first got back to Montana, what happened to it?”

  “We went straight to the fort. We met up there, took the loot into one of the buildings, and then they took us over to the mess hall for something to eat. That’s when they gave me the twenty-five.”

  “And you never saw the money again?”

  “Nope.”

  “Who else was there when you delivered the package?”

  “Three of us in the car, the fixer, couple of other guys.”

  “You know these people? You can identify them?”

  Gondorf nodded.

  “Was the General there?”

  “No.”

  “Any big shots? You know, top guns in the division?”

  “I’m deaf, dumb, and blind. I mean I got amnesia until we got a deal, Miss Parver.”

  “What were you doing in Des Moines, Ernie? That must be seven hundred miles from where you were in Montana.”

  “Makin’ tracks. Drove for two days, grabbin’ naps in rest stops. When I got to Des Moines, I figured I could relax. Checked into a motel, went out, had some drinks, lookin’ to pick up a friend for the night. Guess I was a little drunker than I thought I was.”

  “Why are you running?”

  “They bought me a car. Actually, the bank financed it and then they just signed the sticker over to me. That was because I was bitchin’ so much. They were gettin’ the idea I wanted out. I didn’t know it was in the game to kill those four guys. That never came up when we were rehearsing the job. Coming back, me and the guy I was driving are talking, he says they figured maybe I’d chicken out if I knew they were gonna waste them all. He says they planted some money in the driver’s bank account to make it look like he was the inside man. Actually, it was the shotgun rider. I think his name was Baylor… they whacked him too ’cause they were afraid he couldn’t stand up to the heat. Then he says to me now you’re in, you may as well stay in. I wanted out, but they owed me all that kale. So, we got a deal?”

  “We’ll take you back to Chicago with us,” Parver said. “We’ll keep you under wraps and you’ll get to meet Mr. Vail. He’ll make the final deal with you. Who was the fixer?”

  “I swear to God I never got his name. Somebody said he runs some banks.”

  “How about the show runner? Who was in charge of the heist, Ernie?”

  He shifted in his chair a couple of times and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Colonel Shrack. They call him Black Bobby.”

  CHAPTER 32

  CHICAGO, FRIDAY 10:00 A.M., CST

  Billy Hardistan spread the doctored photographs of Tunny and Jennings on the coffee table in front of Vail and Jane Venable. The age transition of the two men in the Vietnam photograph was amazing. There were six views of each of the suspects.

  “Floyd is distributing these to the media as we speak,” Hardistan said. “WWN will have it on the air by noon. The nets have promised to feature them on the six and eleven o’clock news. And we’ll get coverage in the print media by tomorrow morning.”

  “Great,” Vail said. “I just hope you aren’t flooded with calls.”

  “We will be,” Hardistan said. “I have six people fielding calls. They know what they’re doing. They can screen the nuts with a few well-chosen questions.”

  “I want this guy alive if possible,” Vail said. “So far we have a lot of strong circumstantial and corroborative evidence but very little hard stuff.”

  “I think you’ve done an amazing job in three weeks,” Hardistan said.

  “Thanks to the two years of data you provided,” Vail replied.

  “It’s your team that’s making sense of it.”

  Vail got up and paced in front of the picture window framing the sprawling lake and waterfront. He stopped and stared out the window. He quickly reviewed the case, such as it was, through his mind.

  “We have the Waller tape, which spills all the beans, but even if we’re lucky enough to get it in, it’s corroborative evidence at best. We have the thief Shana and Sam brought back from Des Moines. That connects the armored car robbery to Shrack and the Sanctuary, but he’s a turncoat witness and they’ll blow him off on the witness stand. We’ve got the numbers on the semi and the photo of Waller, but we can’t prove they were signatures left by the Sanctuary. What we don’t have is the money or the weapons. We don’t have a stick of hard evidence. We need a link, Billy. We need to tie all these crimes together. We find the link, we get the indictments.”

  “Then Sam and his crew have to enforce them,” Hardistan said, his voice harsh and tentative.

  “We have to lure the big guns off that hill somehow without starting a shooting war up there.”

  “How about the banks? Have Flaherty and Meyer come up with anything?”

  “Theories. It takes time, wading through miles of records looking for the paper trail. Flaherty’s convinced the link that ties all this together is the banks. That’s what cracked the RICO case downstate. But it could take six weeks or six months.”

  “I don’t know whether I can give you even six days,” Hardistan said. Vail had sensed an edginess in Hardistan since he arrived at the penthouse.

  “What else is eating you?” he asked.

  Hardistan looked at him through cold eyes and finally said, “I’ve got some disturbing news.”

  Vail smiled. “That seems par for the course, Billy,” he said.

  “This is personal, Martin.”

  “It’s all personal.”

  “This is different. We know who Abraham is.”

  Vail and Jane both looked at him intently, their eyes bright with curiosity. With everything else happening, Vail had almost forgotten about Abraham.

  “Hell, that’s good news,” Vail said.

  “Yes and no,” Hardistan said. “According to the IRS, his name is Elijah Wells, born in Albany, Georgia. Thirty-six years old. Made a name for himself as Brother Transgressor, a snake-handling evangelist preacher, until last summer when he suddenly dropped out of sight. He was reborn as the Prophet Abraham.”

  “What’s so disturbing about that?” Vail said.

  “According to the records in Albany, Elijah Wells died two days after he was born.”

  Both Vail and Venable had been attorneys long enough to know what that meant.

  “So who is he really?” Vail asked.

  “We took several sets of prints from his van and ran them through the HITS network. And we scored. I hate to ruin your weekend, but it’s a name from both your pasts. Abraham is Aaron Stampler.”

  Vail and Jane were visibly shocked by the news.

  “Aaron Stampler?” she said. “How could that be?”

  “No chance there’s a mistake?” Vail said shakily.

  “His prints were all over the vehicle
, Marty.”

  “Jesus! Stampler!” Vail walked to the window and stared out across the lake for a minute or two, then turned back and said, “I don’t know why I should be surprised. He’s as close to the living Devil as anyone I’ve ever met.”

  He looked over at the black eye patch on the woman he loved.

  “Do we know where he is?” Vail asked. And now his voice was solid steel.

  Hardistan nodded. “He’s up on that mountain in what his chauffeur calls the ‘bunker.’ The chauffeur’s name is Jessups. He’s never seen this bunker but he says it’s a full-scale communications center. Also has a small radio studio, which is where Stampler taped his shows.”

  “How the hell did he get out of that coal mine?” Venable asked. “Maybe he rose from the dead,” Vail said. He stared at Hardistan and added, “I want the son of a bitch alive. I want him to face a jury for the people he killed here.”

  “You don’t mind if we wait until Monday, do you?” Hardistan said. “I’d rather not send somebody up there looking for him this weekend. We’re looking at several square miles on Mount James with six or seven hundred armed men, mines, and razor wire. And God knows where the hell the bunker is.”

  “Can the AWACS help locate it?” Venable asked.

  Hardistan shook his head. “They can’t read through solid rock,” he explained. “But we’ve got several surveillance aircraft up there shooting profiles of the mountain. We’re getting as close as we can without provoking them. The Sanctuary has weekend maneuvers once a month. Hopefully, most of them’ll go back to work Monday. Which will leave the command staff vulnerable, and they’re the ones we want.”

  “I hope we’re that lucky,” Vail said.

  “I hear that,” Hardistan said.

  BAD RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, FRIDAY 1:19 P.M., CST

  One hour after WWN ran the first photographs of Jennings and Tunny, the phones started lighting up in the special room set up in the Chicago FBI office. The first few calls were duds. But the release of the pictures paid off quickly.

  Agent Lincoln caught the first significant call.

  “Hi,” a woman said nervously. “This is Mrs. Libby Dove. I’m from Bad Rapids, Michigan.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Dove?”

  “I saw the pictures of the man on the television news, the one you’re looking for.”