I think the most difficult thing to do as a cop is to predict what robbery or burglary target will be hit, how the suspect will do it, and when. I've worked on Task Forces where some of the best cops around were trying, and just couldn't get it to add up.
I shared one with the group. I told about the time that eleven counties and the state were trying to bust a group that was breaking into implement dealers at night, stealing tools, chain saws, snow blowers, lawn mowers… anything that could fit in the back of a pickup or a van. By the time the Task Force got involved, these boys had done almost thirty jobs.
We had drawn in the locations of each hit on an area map. Tried to find a center of gravity for the dots. One of the cops had an MBA, and did an analysis of the center of distribution that would have earned a promotion in the real world. We tried to determine which direction they would go by date of occurrence. We tried to determine how they would possibly scout a potential target. We did sort of a market analysis on items that were best stolen in particular seasons. We tried to find where they lived by correlating locations of burglaries. We skewed the maps by driving time instead of distance from possible origins. Then…
We got information from a snitch as to who they were. We followed them, and on the third night, busted them in a dealership. So much for pure "intelligence." Oh, yes. The kicker.
"We asked them how they determined what target to hit," I said. "Turns out that they'd buy a case of beer, put it in the van with the five of them, and start to drive aimlessly around. When the beer ran out, they'd just go to whatever implement dealer was closest, and bust in. No plan. Really skewed our maps on a couple of occasions when the driver had got lost, once in the fog." I chuckled. "We never thought to correlate the radius with driving conditions on a particular night."
"The point being?" asked Art, who had also been on that Task Force.
"Well," I said, "those were criminals we were dealing with. Nobody knows criminals better than a bunch of senior cops. And we couldn't predict what they were going to do next." I looked at him. "And here we are, trying to second-guess a professional soldier. Like, what are the odds?"
He glared.
"Unless we have a professional soldier in our midst," I said, "this is going to be very interesting." I was hoping that Volont would call in somebody from the U.S. Army, as an adviser. I hoped that one for a long time.
As usual, the real problem was that we didn't have enough information. Things like "five banks simultaneously" are worthless. We needed to know just who was working with him. How competent they were. How many associates did he have? Hell, just which "five banks" would be nice! And the really big question: Why hit five mediocre banks and get little, when you could go to a metro area, hit one for the same effort, and get a lot? I secretly suspected that our lack of officers had something to do with it. George put it pretty well when he said, "Carl, nothing personal, but with two to three of you on a shift, a bank robber could be fifty miles away before you could block very many roads."
"Frankly," said Volont, "they could be a long way before you could block this parking lot."
Art resented that, bless him. His face got kind of reddish, and he got a familiar, sour look on his face. I noticed that he didn't have a rejoinder.
Anyway, don't misunderstand. I love doing the map thing, drawing radii, plotting routes, assigning units, all that good stuff. Wonderful board game. Delightful. But in this case, with the information we had, it was pointless. It was like doing a map exercise on a blank piece of paper.
Volont had resources at his disposal that, given a day or two, could accomplish virtually anything. Really. Somebody would come up with a miniscenario, mark a map, and Volont would start saying things like "We could put a team here and here… a surveillance team here and here…" Wow. Really. Resources like that just trip my trigger. He talked about "helicopter landing zones," with the solid assurance of a man who utilized them all the time. But it was futile, having the resources and nowhere to use them. Like standing in front of a game machine that took only nickels, with a ten-pound bag that contained only quarters clutched in your little hand.
We stuck with it, though. We had nothing else to go on, or so I thought.
The intercom buzzed, and I answered. Judy, with a phone call for Volont. He took it out in the reception area. He was back in less than a minute.
"If you gentlemen will excuse me for a short while, I have some other business to attend to."
We did.
Just like so many other times, that little interruption broke the train of the meeting, and everybody just about simultaneously decided to take a break.
I took George aside out in the kitchen, when I went out to make a pot of coffee and he tagged along for the exercise. "What did you interview Nancy and Shamrock for?"
"Mostly to find out what they knew, and to tell them they couldn't use anything they had learned about a particular individual."
"George, damn it, it's our murder. We can deal with the press if we want to." The coffeepot had stopped gurgling, and was in the hiss-and-steam phase, which meant the water reservoir had emptied. The flavor was best then, before all the water had dripped through. I turned the pot off, and pulled the basket.
He shrugged. "We mostly wanted to shut down anything about Gabriel. They seemed to understand. Including the film."
"'The film'?" I stood there with the pot in one hand, and a cup in the other, and nearly poured the contents on the floor.
"Shamrock's film. I asked her to let us keep the strip of negatives that contained the photos of Gabriel. Two frames."
I chuckled. "You mentioned Gabriel?"
"Volont specifically told me to. As Nieuhauser, of course. Not Gabriel. But this Nancy is pretty sharp. She picked up on it right away."
"Yeah." I poured my coffee, and put the pot down. "So, you don't think you pissed them off totally, then?"
"Oh, no. They were very nice." He poured his own, adding fat-free milk and sugar substitute.
"How is that shit?" I asked.
"Awful. Milk and sugar are good, though."
"Thanks." I took a sip. "Doesn't Volont realize that he just drew Nancy's attention to Gabe?"
"I'm sure he does," said George. "I'm just not clear as to why."
He sipped his coffee, looking a bit worried. "Can I trust you with something?"
"You betcha."
He closed the door. "This is supersecret, and you never heard it. I'm deadly serious about this."
He sure appeared to be. "Fine. I'm good for it," I said.
"Okay… here you go. Don't ask how I know this, either, by the way. I can't tell you." George took a deep breath. "Okay. First, Gabriel is supposed to be leading Volont to some 'big man' in the antigovernment movements. Really big man. Gabe was Volont's snitch. At some point in the past. For sure. Volont squeezed him a few years ago, over some arms sales or something. But Volont's lost control of him. As if you hadn't figured that part out."
I just nodded. I figured this was not the time to demonstrate ignorance.
"Volont's pissed. 'Cause now old Gabe is simply getting ready to make a hit to fill his own pockets, and run away to somewhere. Not for the 'movement.' That's all phony as hell, now." George looked around, just checking, I guess. "None of this 'five banks' thing is for anything other than Gabe. All his associates don't know this, but he's just using them for his own purposes."
"And Volont knows all this?" I asked.
"And a hell of a lot more," said George. "He's got people on the inside, I'm certain."
"I'll be damned." I thought for a few seconds, wondering who that could be. "And he's probably known this for a while now, hasn't he?"