“Bags don’t just appear in front of American embassies, Tucker. Especially not in this Islamic hell-pit,” replied St. James nervously.
Tucker could tell that St. James had been away from South Carolina too long. He had been edgy for the past three weeks. He’d had a “premonition,” he said. A “premonition of doom.” And maybe this was it. There had been rumors yesterday about stolen Semtex being taken from that crazy situation in Libya. Maybe a couple hundred kilos were now sitting here, less than 100 feet away, with some crazy Paradise-obsessed Mohammed ready to push the button. “Maybe we should use the Rover,” he suggested.
“Yo. Good idea. I’ll radio it in,” said St. James.
A few minutes later, two Marines showed up with a contraption that looked like a cross between a miniature excavator and R2D2. It was the Rover 3, the latest robotics toy from Raytheon. It came with a sophisticated remote control panel, and had two video eyes at the end of cantilevered, multi-jointed arms. It had two other arms with rotating pincers that could pick up, lift, and turn objects. It came on a set of crawler tracks. High tech all the way. Langley was in the process of equipping every embassy with one of these devices.
“I want one of those for my house,” said St. James. “You could get a beer while watching the Super Bowl. Never have to get up again.”
“That’s what wives are for,” joked Tucker.
“Yeah, dream on, I guess. This puppy cost half a mil. We’re po’ boys,” St. James said.
“No way. It’ll be $49.95 at Future Shop within three years. Now, let’s see what we have,” said Tucker, as the Rover 3 approached the gray, shapeless bags.
“It is a bag… I mean a couple of bags,” said St. James. “Tucker, see if you can pull it back a bit. Use one of the pincers, like this…” St. James grabbed the controller from Tucker. “Here, let me do it. I have more experience with it than you do.”
“What the hell?” asked Tucker, giving up the controls and moving over to fiddle with the focus on the screen. “That looks like… Jesus, it is. Ronnie. It’s part of a body. It’s an arm. It’s a body. It’s… oh Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed, showing St. James the small video screen.
“Shit,” said St. James. “Damn good thing we’re Marines. A Navy guy would be puking by now.”
“Yeah, never mind some tech at Langley.”
As if on cue, another Marine yelled at them from the front doorway of the compound. “Hey Tucker. Some big shot asshole’s on the line from the Pentagon. He’s saying something about some guy standing right outside the front gate. Needs to talk to you.”
“Well,” said Tucker, “we’ve got news for him. Nice to know it’s a guy, but the poor bastard sure as hell ain’t standing. He’s not going to be standing ever again.”
16
Indy’s face grimaced in a silent scream. He had just come from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of “E” division, British Columbia. It was the highest RCMP command in the province. He had hoped that the Deputy Commissioner would go to the Commissioner and take steps to pry open the Cayman account. But no such luck. “Procedures are procedures, Indy. They’re there for a reason. You need them in any organization. This is bigger than you. You can’t get at it right now.”
So Indy did the next best thing. He took a week of vacation. He threw some things in a battered suitcase and tossed it in the back of his old Chevy pickup truck. He pointed the truck eastward, along Highway 1, and took the highway toward the southeastern portion of the province, referred to by the locals as “the Kootenays.” After eight hours of driving through what he thought was some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet, he found himself sitting at Tim Horton’s donut shop with Corporal Catherine Gray. It was early evening, and she was off shift, but did not complain.
Indy was flipping through the criminal records of the Hallett/Lestage clan. “How many of them are there, anyway?” he asked.
“Thirty maybe. Forty. Not sure. Most of them are into petty mayhem. Small-time drugs. Assault, wife beatings, shoplifting… you know, the basic stuff. Most of them aren’t around most of the time, which might support the smurfing theory.”
“Sure it would,” replied Indy. “They would be going from city to city, like a roving band of gypsies. All expenses would be paid for in cash. If there are enough of them, and they travel enough, say throughout all of western Canada, you could place an awful lot of cash into the system. It doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to do that.”
“For the record,” replied Catherine, “none of them are overloaded with brains, except maybe Leon.”
Indy arched an eyebrow. “Leon?”
“Yeah, Leon,” said Catherine, taking a sip of coffee. “There are rumors going around that he’s a bona fide Hell’s Angel with one of the Vancouver clubs. We’ve never been able to verify that. We have confirmed that he has a residence in Vancouver. He’s lived there for awhile; worked on the docks as a longshoreman. He quit that a few years ago and now just seems to travel a lot. He’s also got a run-down place just north of the Flathead-Boundary Range, near Akamina Park. In fact, his property is the closest there is to the park, and to the Montana border. He owns a gorgeous Harley. Out of the whole clan he’s the cleanest. No record at all, other than a few marijuana convictions 20 years ago.”
“What about Benny Hallett?” inquired Indy, recalling his visit with the pathetic kid two days earlier.
“Well, he might just be the dumbest of the clan, which is really saying something. IQ of three above a head of lettuce, I’d say.”
“Who do you think torched his truck and put him in the hospital minus a leg?” asked Indy, working on his second donut.
Catherine paused a moment to sip her coffee before answering. “We have no evidence at all on that. Zilch. But my gut says it was Leon. I’ve thought about what you said yesterday. About the Scotia Bank account. I have absolutely no doubt that we’re talking about drugs. Large quantities, with a basic brute force laundering scheme, the oldest in the book. Just send people smurfing away from town to town making small deposits. I’ve had a look at the printouts you faxed me. I absolutely believe that temptation did it for our friend Benny. All that money. He just had to spend some of it. The leader of the clan reprimanded him. And I’m pretty sure the leader is Leon.”
“You know, Catherine, if we’re right about this, there could be dozens of accounts just like this one. All the other Halletts and Lestages could be cruising around western Canada, making these deposits. If you multiply this account by 15 or even 20, we’ve got a big-time operation going. What frustrates me is that the Force doesn’t have the manpower to deal with this.” Indy sighed in exasperation. “The Force” was how insiders referred to the RCMP, and had nothing to do with Star Wars. “I’m going to end up getting ulcers.”
Catherine looked out the large window at one of the many stunning mountain ranges in the vicinity. “What do you want to do, Indy? I’ll help in whatever way I can. I might be able to squeeze some manpower out of Nelson and Castelgar.”
“Not yet,” responded Indy. “You said they have some kind of tourist business going in the summertime. Tell me about that.”
Catherine snorted. “Yeah that. Kind of a joke. The fabulous Akamina-Kishinina Bicycle Tour Company, Ltd.”
“Joke?”
“Yeah. Joke. They own one run-down, beat-up tour bus. They never show up on time. They never come back on time. The Fernie Town Counsel wants them out of business. Not good to have a group of Japanese tourists with big bucks stood up. Not good to have a bus break down 20 miles out of town.” She continued looking out the window. “I can’t figure out why they do it. If they have this much cash floating around, why run this idiotic tourist service? Makes no sense, unless…”