by Thomas Scott
Thorpe shook his head. “There’s a spur that runs right to their facility. The shipment is loaded directly on the train…sort of like a major lumber yard or an automotive manufacturer. More cost efficient and more secure.”
“Any stops along the way?” Virgil asked.
“Never. Not when there’s nuclear material on board. This shipment goes straight to Purdue university.”
“Well that doesn’t make any sense,” Rosencrantz said. “You’re saying they have what? An engine and one train car that makes a run from Kentucky all the way up to West Lafayette?”
“No, no,” Thorpe said. “It’s a regular train. But for security purposes they simply schedule it so their first stop is at the university. It goes on from there up through Gary and into Chicago.”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,” Virgil said. “I’d like to put our SWAT team in place on that train before it ever gets to Radiology’s pick up. Stick them in an empty box car or whatever and let them make the entire ride.”
“You’re talking about putting state agents outside their jurisdictional boundaries.”
“You did say something about shredding the rule book on this one, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Thorpe admitted. “I guess I did. But what happens if something goes down right there at the loading point, in Kentucky?”
“What are the chances of that?” Virgil said. “They’re right across the river. We’d only have to worry about it for ten minutes. Once they cross into Indiana, we’re good.” Then another thought occurred to him. “If you’re on the train with SWAT, that makes it federal jurisdiction.”
Thorpe smiled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. By the way, I understand you’ve got someone on the inside at Radiology?”
Virgil looked at Thorpe for a moment before he said anything. “How, exactly, do you know that?”
“Don’t be so surprised, Detective. It’s your federal tax dollars at work. Simply put, it’s an HR function. Companies like Radiology who deal with nuclear material have to file a report of any new employees. Your man Lawless popped up the moment you put him inside.”
Virgil was impressed. “Huh.”
“Said never said anything to you about it?”
Virgil shook his head. “No, but I’m not surprised. He’s got a trainload of nuclear material getting ready to roll out of there. I’d say the man’s had other things on his mind over the last few days.”
Virgil’s statement turned out to be more accurate than he knew.
Becky walked up to the table and touched Virgil on the shoulder. “I’ve got that file you wanted to see ready to go.”
“Thanks, Becks. I’ll be right there.”
Becky turned to go back upstairs but Virgil had a thought. “Hey Becky, can you get me a map of train routes from Louisville up through Indiana that run through West Lafayette?”
Becky walked back over to the table. “Let me see your phone.”
Virgil handed her his phone. Her thumbs moved across the keypad in a blur and she handed the phone back. “Here you go. Anything else?”
Virgil looked at his phone. It showed all the train routes for the state of Indiana. He tipped his head up at her. “How did you do that?”
“Google, sharp stuff. I’ll be upstairs.”
Virgil stared at the map for a few minutes. “What are you thinking, Boss?” Rosencrantz said.
“Give me a minute, will you? There’s something I have to look at.”
Virgil went upstairs and sat down in front of the computer. Becky brought the video up. She pressed a button on the keyboard and the video began to play. They both watched it all the way through.
“I don’t get it,” Becky said. “What are we looking for?”
“I’m not exactly sure. It was something Murt said.” Virgil watched for a few seconds. “This is the wrong part of the video. I need to see it right from the moment Gibson and Cora got here.”
“That’s what we just watched, Jonesy.”
“No, no. Not from when they came up here. When they walked in downstairs. They weren’t up here yet, but we were still talking. Roll it back. There’s a point where Murt and I are both looking out the window.”
Becky reversed the video until Virgil said, “Stop. Right there. Play it from there.” Becky pressed the play button on the keyboard and they both watched the scene unfold.
They saw Murton walk over to the window and look out over the bar. Then they watched Virgil turn and look through the glass as well. Virgil heard himself say ‘What the heck are they doing here?’
Then they both heard Murton say, ‘It’s all connected, brother.’
“That’s it,” Virgil said.
Becky didn’t understand. “What?”
“What Murt said. ‘It’s all connected, brother.’”
Virgil…starting to put it together…
35
Virgil was so mad at himself he was having trouble getting the words out. “We never got a hit on Ralph Wheeler.”
“No, we didn’t,” Becky said.
“Except we’ve had the information all along, Becky. Little pieces here and there we simply didn’t connect to each other.”
“I guess I’m still not putting them together. What are you talking about?”
“What Murt said. ‘It’s all connected.’ And what Gibson told us, about Murt’s dad being a CI for DHS.”
Becky looked away for a moment, her mind racing. She tugged at her lower lip, exposing her bottom row of teeth. “Just tell me what you’re thinking, because I’m not getting it.”
“Ralph Wheeler did time at Sheridan. He had protection on the inside. But when he gets out he’s suddenly off the grid.”
“We already know that.”
“You’re right, we do. But Gibson put Murton inside the same facility with an alias.”
“Yeah, he’d have to. If they used his real name, he’d pop up as a former federal agent, not to mention a current state cop.”
Virgil nodded. “That’s right. So, two sides of the same coin. Gibson said there were guards at Sheridan that’d take a payoff. But he also said they had their own people inside as well. Essentially two groups working against each other at the same time.”
“You’re losing me here, Jonesy.”
“If Murt couldn’t use his real name but still needed to be known as Ralph Wheeler’s son, we shouldn’t be looking for Ralph Wheeler.”
Becky covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my god,” she said through her fingers. “We should be looking for someone named Weller.”
“That’s right. Remember at the meeting when Gibson asked me about Jonas?”
“I remember you knocked him on his butt.”
“Yeah. At the time it went right past me, but I think he was telling me the same thing Murt was. That it’s all connected. My knee-jerk response was he was threatening my family…my son. But the more I think about it, I’m starting to believe he said what he did because he wanted me thinking about fathers and sons.” Then Virgil thought about what his father had told him and when he spoke again, it was more to himself than to Becky. “But why would he say they aim to take everything away from me?”
Becky didn’t understand the last part of his statement. “What was that? Take everything away?”
Virgil waved it off. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I’m working with limited information on that.”
“From who?”
Virgil didn’t answer. “Let’s go talk to Thorpe.”
He went back to Thorpe. Becky was right there with him. They’d had the entire month to figure it out and it had been staring them right in the face the entire time. When Virgil spoke, the frustration in his voice was evident. He looked at Thorpe. “You said you’ve been working this with Gibson for months?”
Virgil was standing over him and Thorpe had to crank his head sideways and up to answer. “That’s right, why?”
“And how exactly did Ralph Wheeler make contact with Agent Gibson?”<
br />
“You’ve got it backwards. I’m sorry, I thought you knew that. Ralph Wheeler didn’t make contact with Gibson. Gibson made contact with Wheeler.”
“That’s not what he told us,” Becky said.
Thorpe visibly swallowed. “I’m not sure why he’d do that.”
“Is there any reason to believe that Agent Gibson is compromised?” Virgil asked Thorpe.
“None that I’m aware of.”
“I’m not sure it matters,” Virgil said. “Murton was trying to tell me something. Gibson was too. Murton’s father…he’s using the name Weller, right?”
Thorpe nodded. “Yes. Ron Weller. Why?”
Virgil looked at Becky. “Go run it. Murt’s dad spent his entire life doing one thing. He worked for the railroad. I’ll bet Ron Weller comes back as a railroad employee.”
Becky ran back up the stairs.
Virgil pulled out his phone and made a call.
The phone was answered on the second ring. “I’m Cool,” Cool said. “What’s happening, Jones-man?”
Virgil didn’t beat around the bush. “Where are you?”
“Sitting on my back patio, enjoying my day off.”
“That’s about to change. I need you standing by and ready to go.”
“Where?”
“Hold on a second.” He took the phone away from his ear and looked at the railroad map again for a few minutes.
Virgil brought the phone back up. “You still there, Cool?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Where we going?”
“South. How many people can you fit in that chopper?”
With Cool set to go, Virgil was getting ready to make another call…this one to Sandy to tell her what was happening and that it would most likely be late by the time he got home that evening. He never got the chance. Becky came back downstairs.
“You’re right, Jonesy. Ralph Wheeler, aka Ron Weller works as a maintenance supervisor for the Jeffersonville rail yard. It took about thirty seconds to get the hit.” Then her phone buzzed at her and she said, “Huh.”
“What,” Virgil asked.
“Not sure yet. Give me a minute.” She turned and ran back up the stairs.
Virgil turned back to the table. “Okay, here’s how this is going to go.” He started to lay out his idea and how they would position themselves at the Jeffersonville train yard when Becky came out of the upstairs office and yelled from the top of the steps. “Jonesy. I need you guys up here. We’ve got a problem.”
Ralph Wheeler’s job at the yard was almost finished. He’d put in for the time off over a month ago, but it was only for appearances. He didn’t want to be on the schedule when the shipment rolled through. With a little luck, he wouldn’t even see Reif or the rest of his crew ever again. Those boys were in for a little surprise, they simply didn’t know it. He checked the routing schedule and saw that the next train through was the one out of Louisville. He took a section of the main track off line, sent the notice to central dispatch then left the yard.
He got in his car and headed toward Louisville. He had a busy day ahead. He spent the time thinking of the final question Reif had asked him. It wasn’t the question itself, but what it represented: The downside, Reif had called it. Ralph Wheeler knew what the downside was and the bottom line was this: He didn’t care.
Ralph Wheeler blamed his entire adult life situation on exactly four people: Two of them were his long dead wife who didn’t know how to keep her mouth shut, and that asshole former sheriff, Mason Jones. He’d finally gotten his wife to shut the hell up, but her death—in Ralph’s mind anyway—had been an accident. Yes, yes, he’d smacked her around a little. How else were you supposed to keep a bitch in line? Was it his fault she didn’t know how to take a fall? Hardly.
Then when Mason Jones showed up and took his boy away and ran him out of town, it changed everything. He could have molded Murton into a real man. Someone like himself. Someone who knew how to kick ass and take names, not kiss ass with a pair of knee pads always at the ready.
He thought back to the night Murton had tried to take a hammer to him. No one fucked with Ralph Wheeler and walked away. No one. He had two in the box and by his score, there were only two more to go.
His idiot son, Murton, and Virgil Jones.
The thought of it, what he was doing didn’t scare him. The truth of it was, it was supposed to have been done for him. Lipkins was supposed to take care of everything, but he’d screwed that up so bad you’d need a spreadsheet to keep track of his mistakes. And now the people who’d protected him in the joint expected him to come through…to finish the job that started months ago. They offered him everything he needed: A job at the rail yard, help from Reif and his crew, a backwater fed who thought he had the governor under his thumb, a payout he could retire to the islands on, and best of all, a chance to get even with his past.
There was, Ralph thought, a certain symmetry to it all…yet another Jones had taken another man’s son away, like it was open season on young boys with a sad story. So. It was time to cut the cord. The Russians had made that much clear. They didn’t care how he did it, but they wanted that land opened up for fracking. And given Ralph Wheeler’s history, all the way back to that night his nut job wife tried to tell him that some perv had tried to smoke his kid’s bone, he finally knew his path was clear, his choices practically preordained.
Virgil spun around and said, “What?”
Becky gave him a look, one he could read all the way across the bar. Virgil and the other men went upstairs. Once they were in the office, Becky puffed out her cheeks and said, “I took a little initiative and sent a piece of computer code to Lawless.”
“Code for what?” Virgil asked.
“Code that would give him access to Radiology’s mainframe. Everything he’s been looking at is tied directly to shipping. But he wasn’t getting anything because his access was restricted. I thought maybe if we had a little room to maneuver we might be able to dig around and figure out who altered their records and why.”
Virgil made a twirling motion with his hand.
“Please don’t do that,” Becky said. “Anyway, we don’t know why, but we now know who altered the records.”
“Who?”
“It was Said.”
Virgil couldn’t quite believe it. “Said? Why would he do that? It’s his company.”
“I already told you I don’t know. But I’ve got full access to their system.” She pointed to her computer. “There are clearly two sets of records.”
“Where’s Lawless?”
“Still at Radiology.”
“Better pull him out, Boss,” Rosencrantz said.
Virgil was nodding. “I know.” He looked at Becky. “Get him on the phone, right now.”
“There might be more information to be gained,” Becky said.
“As a member of the MCU, he’s a sworn officer, Becks, just like you. But as a crime scene technician he’s in over his head. And Said knows who he is. If he finds out that we know who altered the records, Lawless could be in real trouble. He’s not armed.”
“Becky’s face went pale. “Jeez, I never thought of that.” She reached for the phone and punched in Lawless’s number.
36
After Sandy had Wyatt fed, she bathed him and got him dressed, then put him down for his nap. She made sure the baby monitor was on, then closed the door to his room and went into the kitchen for a snack. The breastfeeding zapped her…left her feeling depleted. She rooted around in the fridge for a few minutes, but didn’t find anything that appealed to her.
What did appeal to her, she thought, was motherhood. It suited her. She’d decided that the first moment she woke in the hospital four months ago and saw her beautiful baby boy. Then she thought, no, that wasn’t quite right. It was decided the moment Jonas had entered their lives. Wyatt had simply solidified the feeling.
When she looked out the kitchen window, she saw Jonas and Huma down by the pond. Huma was sitting in one of the chairs
and Jonas stood between her and Mason’s cross. He kept turning back and forth between her and the monument, moving his arms in an exaggerated manner. Though Sandy couldn’t hear what he was saying, she had a good idea what was being said. He was in all likelihood telling her yet again of the night he got to say goodbye to his parents, Ed and Pam Donatti. When he knelt by the cross then slowly raised his arms and mimed a big circular motion, she was sure of it.
She was about to go out and join them for a few minutes when she remembered she was supposed to sign a fax and get it back to the Co-op. She went into the office, picked up the papers and looked them over. She read the cover letter and in doing so discovered much of what Cal Lipkins had told Virgil earlier. There was, it seemed, a stack of papers that needed her signature, and by the tone of the cover letter, sooner rather than later. She signed where indicated and then fed the paper back into the machine and sent it on its way.
Then another thought, one she’d been unwilling to address with anyone, much less herself. Had she been focusing too much of her attention on Wyatt and not enough on Jonas? Huma was doing a fine job, no one could deny that. But a new baby is a new baby, and the older child sometimes got inadvertently set aside, something the What To Expect bible had warned them about. Had she been doing that? What’s more, had she been letting Huma be a mother by proxy? She thought it over for a few minutes and decided not, but then she also thought there was nothing wrong with getting ahead of the curve. She made sure the fax had gone through, then grabbed her car keys and walked down to the pond.
Huma could take care of Wyatt for the day. She and Jonas would go get a bite to eat then take a drive down to Shelby County and kill two birds with one stone. She could sign the forms Lipkins needed and Jonas would get a first-hand look at his inheritance. Maybe get a ride on a tractor or something.
Lawless used the code Becky sent him. In truth, he thought maybe the whole thing had a whiff of bullshit to it. A little busy work to make him feel like he’d accomplished something when clearly he hadn’t.
