"Joe, this is Martti."
"Martti? Sinulla on musta rupinen perse!"
I should mention that Joe grew up among Finns in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and learned to talk a little MichFinn as a kid—enough to play with—back when it was still spoken quite a bit. What he'd just said was crude bordering on obscene—totally out of character for him. It was also totally non sequitur. He was trying to tell me something was wrong, that he didn't trust his phone. Which meant I couldn't talk freely. Then he went on. "Do you know the police are looking for you?"
I wished he spoke enough Finnish that we could talk about my plans in it. Unfortunately he couldn't say much more than thank you, give me a beer, shut up, and a dozen or two other phrases handy for teenagers. "Yeah," I said, "I heard it on the police band. Look, I'm at Meredith's, in the Valley—you know Meredith—and I have to make this fast. What I want to do is spend a bunch of company money. Minä valehtelen." (It means I'm lying; I figured he'd catch that one. He knew sinä valehtelet—you're lying.) "Maybe up to the max for my working account," I continued. "I need to leave town, do some stuff in Mexico. Fight fire with fire, so to speak. Make it all right, will you? Authorize it. I'm short on cash."
"Now look!" he said, "I'm not financing you for setting any bombs in Ensenada! The smart thing to do is give yourself up. You know that, don't you?"
"There's a time and place for everything, Joe. I'm going to do what I do with or without your help."
"It's your ass, Martti. Minua on nälkä." Which means "I'm hungry," another total non sequitur. Hopefully he'd try to get in touch with me on a safe line.
"Thanks for the help, Joe," I said sarcastically. "And the same to you." I disconnected, then hurried out, got in the car, and headed back to the security office. I wasn't sure what he'd do. But he and I didn't have any mutual friend named Meredith. Meredith was the street the security office was on, a connection I was betting he'd made. If he didn't—well, we'd see.
While I drove back, another possibility occurred to me: What if it was Steinhorn monitoring the calls? If it was— He hadn't been with us very long, but maybe long enough to recognize the allusion to "Meredith's." The Burbank PD was independent, but the LAPD just might ask for their help, if they were worried enough.
When I got there, there weren't any police cars or barricades. Joe had already called from a shopping center and said he'd call back. About ten minutes later he did. I gave him a rundown on what I'd learned—from Myers, and about seeing Masters and Steinhorn together . . . all of it with him recording. Including where Myers was hiding out. And told him what I wanted to do. He was spooked by it—so was I—but he approved. If we didn't get Masters soon, the guy might cut out and we'd never see him again. That or he'd do something even crazier than he already had.
Then he talked to Wayne, among other things telling him to follow my orders. Before we disconnected, he told me "Martti, for God's sake try to avoid bloodshed."
Joe doesn't take the Lord's name in vain. He really meant it. "I promise," I told him. "No bloodshed if I can help it." That had been my dad's working principle, too. I'd try, but I wasn't sure how avoidable it would be.
34
AMBUSH!
After our talk with Joe, Wayne phoned off-duty personnel and occasionals until we had a team of twelve men, including ourselves, that he thought were up to the job. All of them were police or ex-police, and several were ex-military as well. We even had an ex-Ranger and an ex-marine. He made it clear there might be shooting, and got only five refusals: four claiming other commitments, and one because of the 4 a.m. check-in.
I'd have preferred more time to sleep myself, but operating considerations dictated starting early.
Then Wayne and I worked out our plan. Normally you'd plan first and then decide on team size, but our team had needed to be nailed down before it got any later. Besides, the plan was simple. The main thing was to go over it on paper and try to foresee all the potential problems. Wayne called a couple guys back, and arranged to hire their personal vehicles as well. Meanwhile he sent two on-duty standbys to corporate headquarters in West Hollywood, to pick up an unmarked sedan with my access card. All the vehicles in Burbank had the company logo, so they wouldn't do for this job.
We both stuck to drinking decaf while we talked. The security office has a bunk room for men on standby, and we wanted to get what sleep we could. But when I finally lay down at 11:30, my mind was full of the uncertainties. Our plan had some serious holes, but we couldn't see any feasible way around them. The last time I looked at the clock glowing on the wall, it was 1:10, and the guy on the desk woke me at 3:20. I took a quick shower, first with near-scalding water, then with water as cold as the L.A. Water Board provides in May. Then I dried myself with a rough towel and made the best of it. When the first of our team arrived, I was breakfasting on a Peanut Plank out of the snack machine, and a mug of sweet coffee fortified with instant to make it stronger. Actually I felt alert, even a little wired.
First we briefed our team on the mission, stressing that anyone could still opt out without prejudice. No one did.
The sun was barely up, and there was very little traffic when we left in two private vans. Plus Wayne's personal pickup, and the unmarked company car—with the locater off. Everyone but me had Glocks as side arms. In addition, there were eight twelve-gauge pumpguns loaded with buckshot, and two spare box magazines for each. Since they've come out with a good automatic tube loader, shotguns have regained a lot of favor for police work. Actually I couldn't imagine needing to reload—if there was any shooting, it would be brief—but it seemed foolish not to take them. Two men carried car killers—lightweight, 50mm, low-muzzle-energy rocket launchers, only twenty-eight inches long. They'd been designed after the massive civil demonstrations and street fighting during the Great Crash. Wayne brought along a Colt Suppressor, a police version of the old Colt Commando. It's a fully automatic .22 caliber carbine, also only 28 inches long.
On the road, the weapons were stashed out of sight. As for me, I carried only the Walther in my shoulder holster. I wanted to seem unarmed.
We didn't want to look like a caravan, so we strung out. I led off, and each vehicle kept only the vehicle ahead of him in sight. It was a short drive to the Golden State Freeway, then north to the Valley Freeway and west out of the city, out of the LAPD's jurisdiction. From there we took a state road north to Fillmore—a small town by southern California standards—where we broke up to eat breakfast in two different restaurants, in three seemingly separate groups. I was the only one of us who went to breakfast armed. If we'd met the SVI there, we'd have been in real trouble. From Fillmore, we drove north a few miles into the Los Padres National Forest, to a picnic area Wayne knew. At that hour, no one was there but two drifters sleeping in the back of their eleven-year-old Ford pickup. It was a beautiful May morning, and I hated to do it, but I hassled them out. I had leverage: the area was posted against camping, I'm built like a wrestler, and there were two other guys in the car with me. Then, consulting with our ex-Ranger and marine noncoms, we decided on our ambush locations. The wooded picnic ground was strung out along a nearly dry creek. We chose the down-road edge; that way, if any early picnickers arrived before things got interesting, they'd be farther up the creek, hopefully out of harm's way.
By the time all assignments had been made, it was almost 8 o'clock: nearly time to call Joe at the office. I was depending on the phones there being monitored by either the LAPD, or hopefully the SVI. My bet was the SVI, using access provided by the LAPD; their conspiracy had to minimize officer involvement. The more they involved honest cops, the more likely that questions would get asked. Questions without safe and convincing answers. Then someone would call Internal Affairs, and the fat would be in the fire.