The Vulture (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

Jack Brattan had a friend in the Philadelphia Police Department, Jocko Mulloy. Actually,
friend
didn't quite cover it. An “acquaintance who shared mutual interests” would be closer. Neither man could be said to have a relationship with anyone that would qualify as a friendship as the term is normally understood. Mulloy joined the Fifty-first Star after two horrific tours in Iraq which involved several near-misses with IED and later a chance meeting with Jack in a local pub. Jack had explained to him that the best way to exorcize his simmering PTSD demons would be to associate with others who, like him, were “going to do something about it.” What exactly “it” or the “something they were going to do” was never surfaced, but it resonated with Mulloy's muddled mindset at the time. In addition, his continued tenure as a cop had become tenuous following several Internal Affairs investigations which looked into his alleged use of excessive force on three occasions, a suspicious shooting, and moonlighting as muscle at local concerts and other events. The moonlighting was not deemed to be counter to police regulations, but the particular events he'd worked caused some concern higher up. Jack's security company provided the needed manpower for all of the events in question.

Out of misplaced concern, or a response to a kindred spirit, Mulloy called Jack and that's how he found out about the BOLO. Also, that was how he managed to drop out of sight so quickly and well before the most local LEOs were even aware of it and could close in.

It had not been easy, but Jack had the instincts of a hyena and he knew that if the cops wanted him for murder, there was a better than even chance that Pangborn would be after him as well. He'd had a hand in the elimination of Felix Chambers and Jack reasoned that Pangborn might react similarly to him if he took it into his head that Jack might plea bargain his way off death row by giving up the name of the person who'd called in the hit. Would he? Maybe, maybe not.

He cashed out five Fifty-one Star credit cards at as many different banks for the maximum allowable withdrawal and then gave the cards to five homeless men he met on the street. He told them they were twenty-five-dollar debit cards and that they should get themselves something to eat and a place to stay. He was certain the recipients would try to maximize the card's utility by cashing them and then passing them along to others. Whether sold or discarded, they would circulate for days as they passed from one homeless guy to another. He knew that if they had the numbers, the police would track the cards. So would Pangborn the instant he learned about the BOLO. The cards should keep the trail cold for days, weeks even. He retrieved some clothes and one additional credit card he kept in the name of his ex brother-in-law, one Pangborn did not know about. He'd need to have some means to survive after the cash was gone and before he could come up with a long-term plan. His final stop was to his office where he cleaned out his safe and picked up a fake ID left over from an operation that had been cancelled a year ago and which he hoped no one would remember.

Later that afternoon he stole license plates from an Escalade parked in a suburban shopping mall, being careful to replace the stolen ones with his own. They weren't vanity tags so, unless the housewife who owned the Cadillac ran a red light or had an accident, it could be months before anyone would notice the switch. He headed south. He knew the BOLO originated from Virginia and was stunned when he discovered it came from Picketsville. How did those hick cops manage to find him? Of course they would still be pretty hot over losing their boss. In spite of that, heading south still seemed his best bet. The first place the cops would look would be Philadelphia and then either Idaho or Montana. They would stake out Pangborn's operation in Chicago as well and maybe the Wichita area where he grew up. No way would he head home. There were people there who'd be more than happy to save Pangborn and the cops the trouble of taking him in.

The last place they'd look would be somewhere close to them. That was his reasoning at any rate. The trick was to find a place where strangers are the rule, not the exception. Tourist attractions would be best. Did he have time to reach Orlando or New Orleans? Probably not. Williamsburg was close and might work, but the crowds there were thin this time of year and especially on weekdays. A man alone would be noticeable and he didn't have time to find a family. Virginia Beach and Norfolk were close by. Those places would be crawling with Navy, coming and going. His chief's uniform still fit. With a little planning and some good ID, he could disappear into the Norfolk area and no one would ever find him. He headed south on I-95 and cut east, south of DC.

***

As if the Health Department pushing their way in wasn't bad enough, his man in the hunt reported that nobody could locate Jack Brattan. He had dropped off the grid, they'd said. A trace on the credit cards he'd been issued had ended in Philadelphia. They were still in use, but by street people. The accounts had been shut down, of course. They had bounced the bums around a little and none of them knew except that the cards had been circulating in the homeless community for a while and no one remembered where they came from in the first place. He said they'd also tossed Brattan's apartment and had come up empty. Brattan had cleared out. No one knew where he'd disappeared to. The last thing his secretary heard was that he'd been searching for the guys that got busted in Maine. Pangborn asked if anyone had contacted the Philadelphia cop. He couldn't remember his name. After some consultation, someone remembered Mulloy. They checked out Jocko. When they found him, He'd been drunk and uncooperative and grinning at them like a crazy man. It took three men to put him out of commission and then only after he had caused some serious damage to two of their kneecaps with a baseball bat. He said he didn't know anything. He said he'd been dismissed by the Philly PD and had been drinking for days. By the look of him, he had. They'd get back to him, they said, when he sobered up. If he ever did.

Pangborn forgot his own directive and began bellowing on the phone, overriding his institutionalized paranoia that his phones might be tapped. Perhaps he was careless. Perhaps he believed the encryption would be unbreakable even if the lines were tapped. Either way, he made a mistake. It would not be enough to put him away, but would add to the growing pile of evidence that might.

“Keep looking,” he screamed. “I want that idiot found before the police get him. Who knows him? Anyone? Dig through his file. There has to be something in there that will lead you to him. Where would he go? Where do people go when they have no good options?”

“He may have built himself a bolt-hole, boss. He was that kind of a guy.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. People like Brattan do not plan or believe they will be caught. It is their fatal flaw. Dig in the file and call me back when you have something.”

***

Frank understood Garland's annoyance at his issuing the BOLO without checking with him. He didn't care. The Agency, he'd said, had the capability to do many things far beyond that of the Sheriff's Department in Picketsville, Virginia. Frank agreed but reminded him that he was limited in that the Agency couldn't operate in the open. Furthermore, and more importantly, it didn't have the same psychological need Frank's people had to be engaged. Frank tried to explain to Charlie that his deputies needed to be doing something—anything. After all, they had traced the rental car to Brattan and it should be obvious to Charlie that the next logical thing for them to do would be to circulate a BOLO and go after the suspect their investigation produced. Not to do so would raise more questions than he cared to answer.

“Mr. Garland, we have an investment in this that we believe is as great as or greater than yours. With respect, sir, for us not to proceed with what we had would make no sense to them. Their response, if you were to ask them to stand down would be, to think you're saying, ‘Sorry, hick cops, but this is a job for the big boys.' My people wouldn't buy it.”

“That's not what I'm saying, Frank. You know that. It's just that by putting the BOLO out so soon alerted Brattan and his handlers. Now they know that we know something and it's just that we didn't want them to know it yet. Sorry, that's a little convoluted. Look, it's just that now they are as likely to pick up Brattan as we are. If they do, he will either have an airtight alibi and a phalanx of expensive lawyers, or he will disappear forever. Remember the bomb-planter? We need him to make a case. Worse, we have to scour the countryside. They don't. They know where to look. We needed a head start.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but just let me ask you this, WWID?”

“WWID? You mean WWJD, don't you? Not being a religious man, I have no idea what Jesus would do, Frank.”

“No. WWID…what would Ike do, or more properly, have done?”

“Oh. Ike. Got it. He wouldn't wait for me. In fact…never mind. Good luck.”

“We will keep in touch and, Charlie, we aren't a bunch of hillbillies, you know. Us all jes talk like 'em.”

“Okay, okay, I know. Never said you were. Listen, I'll send you what we have on Brattan. Maybe you can see what we're missing, like you did on the dash cam.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Brattan arrived in Norfolk early in the afternoon and negotiated a week-to-week lease at a motel frequented by Navy personnel between assignments. He told the landlady he was TDY while waiting for reassignment to a ship. It was a story she'd heard many times before. She took his money, jotted down the name he gave her, and handed him his key. She didn't bother to ask where he was assigned TDY. She didn't care. As far as she was concerned, if you've seen one beached sailor, you've seen them all and he paid cash. Brattan thanked her and made his way to his room.

The motel had been built decades before and clearly on the cheap. He liked that. His unit stood well to the rear of the second story. He liked that, too. Ten minutes inside convinced him that the non-support walls had been built with twenty-four inches between the studs. Cheap and convenient. He went into the bathroom and removed the medicine cabinet by backing out the two screws that held it in place on one side only and wrestling it free from its inset in the bathroom wall. As he suspected, the hole created by the builders to accept the cabinet had been cut along one stud and the opposite side contained only insulation. Even that came as a mild surprise. Truly cheap would have left out the insulation. He had his place to hide the cash and weapons he'd brought with him. After a half an hour and with the judicious use of Velcro and some flat Tupperware, he'd concealed everything that might get him into trouble. If someone, well anyone but an expert that is, were to search his room they'd find nothing. All the cash, guns, ammunition, and miscellaneous papers had been safely stowed between the walls in the space conveniently provided by a builder maximizing his profit. Battan thought that Pangborn would have been impressed. The medicine cabinet he replaced snug back in the wall, but with Velcro to hold it in place, not screws. Next he turned his attention to his car. He'd need a new set of tags.

The parking lot two blocks away had several vehicles covered with dust. He guessed their owners would be deployed at sea, maybe for a good while yet. He switched his tags again, but only after searching for a Pennsylvania car on the assumption that this owner, like the housewife in Philly, would not notice the switch right away. That done, he drove to the local Goodwill store and purchased more appropriate clothing. Then he used his old Navy ID to enter the Naval base and the PX. One hour after that he had uniforms, a new name plate with his ex-brother-in-law's name engraved on it. He could comfortably use the credit card now. He dug out his old ribbons, remembered that SEALS and sailors with combat experience usually wore only the “top three.” That evening he was in uniform and having a beer at the CPO Club. During his shopping, he'd realized that more than a few years had gone by since he last wore the uniform and a chief petty officer his obvious age might raise an eyebrow or two. He decided he had better give himself a promotion to senior chief. That wouldn't earn him much in the club, but around town, it might produce a little deference.

One of the advantages he'd enjoyed while still in Martin Pangborn's good graces was that the latter did not like to get his hands dirty. What that meant, in practical terms, was Pangborn did not want to know where “the bodies were buried,” as he'd put it. As importantly, he didn't want to know where things used in transacting his business came from, like, who supplied what, or how things got done. “Deniability,” he'd said. “I want results, Jack, just results. I don't need to know the details. What I don't know can't hurt me, right?”

Certain it would be safe, Brattan called on one of his contacts to make him fake IDs and a set of phony orders indicating when and where he was to report for duty. A phone call, a cash transfer and an address and the job was done. So, because Pangborn had scruples, he knew that Pangborn would never be able to trace him. It might be true that what Pangborn didn't know could not hurt him, but in this case what he didn't know couldn't help him either.

He intended to settle into an ersatz Navy life for a long time. Well, as long as it took for the heat to be off and he could make his way to South America and visit some of Pangborn's money he had stashed away over the years. What kind of idiot trusts numbered accounts with their employees?

***

Frank had Brattan's file copied and distributed to the five men he thought would have the best insight respecting its contents. Since he also believed the new kid would benefit from observing the process, he included him in the distribution. He called them into his office.

“Read this through. Take your time. We need to find Jack Brattan before anyone else. See if you can come up with any ideas where he might have gone to ground from the report.”

After they'd had a chance to read and think about it he cleared his throat. “Okay, what do we have?”

“All I see is a guy who needs to be tuned up,” Billy said. “We need to bust this guy's balls.”

“Yes, we know that, Billy, but that is not what I'm asking. What do you see that might make finding him easier?”

“I got nothing.”

Charlie Picket cleared his throat and gave him an “Um-er-ah.”

“Charlie, what are you thinking?”

“Okay, I don't know if this is what you were asking for or not, but if it was me looking to disappear, I would naturally head off to someplace where I would, you know, blend. See, if I needed to drop off the map, I would get on down to Atlanta or maybe head out to the southside of Chicago and get me a cheap room in the ghetto. Okay, we don't call it that no more, but you know what I mean. There is bound to be a brother in a place like that who could set me up with a job and cover. It might not last too long. Man on the run usually have a price on his head and probably somebody'd want to cash in on that, but maybe not. Anyway, that was what I was thinking.”

“I'd head to some big college town,” the kid said. “I have a cousin out in Arizona. He goes to Arizona State and that town out there where it's at has so many kids my age, I would never be found. I'd grow a beard and—”

“Not this year you wouldn't, Peach.” Billy said.

“Okay, so anyway I could sit around a coffee shop with a laptop all day and nobody would notice.”

“How'd you live?”

“Pizza places don't ask for ID or if they do, don't look too hard. You just need a car and a driver's license. Work a full shift in the right neighborhood, like the suburbs, and you can get by on the tips plus what they pay for part time.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you done that a time or two. I don't see none of them options open to me, though. I been a cop all my life. I don't reckon hiding out with other cops is much of a choice.”

“Not quite, Billy. You did a hitch in the Army, too. Now, this guy was Navy once,” Frank said. “With apologies to Charlie, here, but that's a little like being a minority. You know, you put on a uniform and who's going to question you?”

“Hey, that's right, Frank. I mean, look at all the ‘stolen valor' postings. Wannabes working the malls for dates, meals, drinks, and other shit. People don't ask questions, whether the uniform is real or not. They just assume you are what you seem to be.”

“Okay, so, if he thinks like Picket or the kid—”

“You all know I have a name,” the kid said and then realized he may have pushed too soon.

“Of course you do. Sorry, kid. Where was I? Oh, right. So, where would he go? This report says his last location was somewhere in Philadelphia. I'm guessing he's headed to a Navy yard.”

“For God's sake. Frank, there's, like, one of them in every port on both coasts, the Gulf, and most lakes—big ones, at least.”

“Yeah, yeah, but where is there one that's really big and full of sailors coming and going?”

“Wait a minute. We got no evidence he's done any of this. He's a crook, too. So why wouldn't he just dive into the underworld? That'd be a whole lot easier that playing sailor.”

“First, he wouldn't be playing at it. He's ex-Navy. He knows the drill. Second, because, like Charlie, here, said, he'd have a price on his head. He can't risk some snitch hoping for an AG to reduce a charge or go easy on him, or a payoff from one of his playmates afraid he'll sing. He'd never know if someone would maybe rat him out. Hey, I grant that this is a long shot, but here's the thing, we got nothing else. Every police department in the country has the BOLO. If he's in plain sight, if he's in the expected places, they will grab him. So, what do we do? See, I've been trying to think like Ike. Ike would play a hunch, wouldn't he?”

“Ike's hunches are on the money. I seen you play poker, brother, and yours suck.”

“Okay, they do, but trust me on this. We can sit back and hope this dirt bag happens to drive through Picketsville and we pick him up running a stop sign, or we try something. I am open to any other suggestions, but for my money, this is our shot. I'm saying he headed straight to the nearest, for him, version of the ‘ghetto' and I'm guessing that will be Norfolk Naval Station or thereabouts. Billy, how about you drive over there and have a look? You could bunk in with Danny over at Little Creek and check out the whole area. I'll notify all the other bases just in case. Hell, it's worth a try.”

“Who's Danny?” The kid asked.

“Our brother. He's in the SEALs and stationed at Little Creek, Virginia, kid. Sorry, um…Ken.”

“Oh.”

“This is crazy.”

“What else have we got?”

“Okay, I'll call Danny. You're going to owe me big-time, Frank.”

“Only if I'm wrong.”