“BRUNO, YOU HELP get me the drone back and I promise you the FBI will join you in that little game of crimes against The Sons, and they will wish they’d never heard your name. Tell me.”
“On the phone tap, you heard me mention Jumbo?”
“That’s right, John Ahern. We did a quick work-up on him. He’s into dope: coke and meth. Midlevel stuff, trying to break into the bigs, but he doesn’t have the brainpower or the muscle to do it. We couldn’t find any affiliation with Bobby Ray or any thefts in his background. None. Especially large, organized thefts like the one it took to grab a drone of that size, take it right off a moving train.”
“Put a team on Jumbo, twenty-four-seven.”
Dan went back to typing rapidly on his phone as he spoke. “Why? Talk to me.”
“Two, almost three years ago, I did train heists for Jumbo. Several of them.”
Dan looked up from his typing and whispered, “You’re kidding me. That’s good, real good.”
I nodded.
Dan gave up on the typing and dialed. “Listen,” he said as soon as someone answered, “I want to make this very clear. Pull Team Alpha and Baker off their targets and put them full-time on the target I just sent you in the text message. Tell the team leaders if they lose the target to go ahead and pack their bags, they’ll be on a midnight transfer to North Dakota. That’s right. Yes. Also, I want wiretaps on him with a pen register and a trap and trace. I’m on my way in with the probable cause for the wiretaps.”
He looked at me when he hung up. “You’re sure, Bruno?”
“Remember that train heist a few years ago, the entire train car loaded with computer chips?”
“That was this guy?”
I nodded. “He planned it, and I executed it for him.”
“Beautiful. You’re right, it’s got to be him. Though I can’t believe a pinhead like that has the brainpower.”
“Wait, that’s not all of it. That heist went down on the grade just outside of Barstow.”
He shook his head in wonder. “Yes, yes, I agree with you, this has got to be our guy. But what does the ATF agent have to do with it? And if Jumbo took the drone for Bobby Ray, why was Jumbo making the pickup for the fifty-thousand-dollar payoff?”
I shrugged. “Jumbo told me that he got popped trading some guns for dope and was working the case off. That is, if he’s tellin’ the truth. But you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. I want to talk to Jumbo again.”
“Not with McCarty,” Dan said. “He’s a straight shooter, and we checked into him. He’s not involved.” Dan glossed right over my comment about talking to Jumbo. I could get more out of Jumbo than Dan could. I didn’t have to follow the Miranda decision and read him his rights or play nice.
“Try the name Larry Gerber,” I said. “Put another couple of teams on an agent named Larry Gerber.”
He typed some more notes into his phone as he said, “I’ve had the whole damn LA office working on this for the better part of two months and we get zip. You roll into town and in one day you—” He stopped abruptly and instead said, “Hey, I know it’s asking a lot, but I need you to stay with this thing, get close to Bobby Ray.”
He waited for me to agree to do it. I couldn’t, not with a baby on the way. It would be irresponsible and unfair to Marie.
When I didn’t say yes, he continued. “Bobby Ray’s too savvy to tail. He does countersurveillance all the time, even on days we’re not on him. And he’s good at it. Once he makes one of us on his tail, he just shuts down for the day and tries again later.”
Dan had just made another slip, a small one. How could he know Bobby Ray did countersurveillance even on days the FBI wasn’t up on him unless he had someone on the inside of the Goths?
“You Lojack his car or bike?” I asked.
“Won’t do any good, he never drives the same vehicle. He’ll pull eight cars with tinted windows into that factory of his, close the doors, open them ten minutes later, and have them all leave at once. He really knows what he’s doing. From the conversation I heard this morning, it sounds like you’re in tight with him already, at least for right now anyway.”
I again caught something in his tone. “What?” I asked. “What’s goin’ on?” My paranoia continued to eat away at me. Paranoia and guilt are not great bedfellows.
He didn’t answer the question. He took a smartphone out of his pocket and said, “Here, use this to contact me anytime day or night.”
I didn’t take it. “I haven’t said I’d do it yet. I can’t, not now, not right now.”
The yet part of me must’ve given him his true answer. He continued as if I’d already said yes. “This phone’s all set up to look like a regular phone, with contacts, apps, previous calls, the whole thing. I can also track where you go. If you get in over your head, there’s a panic button right here on the side.” He pointed to it. “Press it down once, let off, then press it a second time and hold it for ten seconds. But only do it in dire circumstances, because I’ll be rolling in hot with two teams to pull you out. We don’t want to burn this op too soon, not unless we absolutely have to. I don’t need to tell you how important this is.”
“I guess it won’t do any good to say it again, I don’t wanna do it.”
He didn’t answer. He just gave me the Dan Chulack look that said you don’t want to mess with the FBI.