Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [135]
That said, things got difficult. We didn’t know when, how, or with what he would act. Hell, we couldn’t be positive he’d act at all. That makes readiness a little tedious. What we needed was information, and of a sort that would give us at least a little warning. Trip wires.
Volont wanted to scatter several of his people around the town in critical positions, such as restaurants, bars, motels, etc. To be alert for Gabriel and his people. Basically a good idea, except, as I said, ‘‘it’s gonna look like a CPA convention.’’
That was a problem. In a city, perhaps, FBI agents can blend. Not in the rural areas. They aren’t from around here, and it’s very obvious.
He sort of agreed, and suggested Iowa DCI provide the people.
‘‘So,’’ said Hester, ‘‘just how many agents we talking here?’’
Volont figured, given ten positions, thirty would do it.
‘‘Sorry,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Even I know we’re way too thin on the ground for that. Two, maybe four, but for no more than a week.’’
The legislature continued to refuse to fund Iowa DCI at a reasonable level. Some of us suspected it was because the legislators feared DCI would establish a vice unit.
We thought. ‘‘You know,’’ said George, ‘‘there’s a really good chance that some of the people used to come for Nola will be the same people who killed Kellerman in the woods.’’
We could live with that.
‘‘No,’’ said George. ‘‘You miss my point. Nichols wants those people at least as badly as we do.’’ He beamed. ‘‘His people can pass for just about anything.’’
The preliminary call to Nichols got his fullest cooperation, and an estimate of fifteen agents almost immediately, for two weeks.
Volont shook his head. ‘‘I always knew DEA was squandering our tax dollars.’’ He carefully stacked his note pages on the desk in front of him. ‘‘That takes care of the trip wire.’’ He kept stacking. ‘‘Now we need something to make damned sure that, one, we can take them, and, two, that they don’t get Nola.’’
‘‘Don’t look at me,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m just an idea man.’’
‘‘Well,’’ he said, ‘‘first things first. How soon do we want Nola up here?’’
‘‘Friday would give us a couple of days, Gabriel might still be a little off balance, and it is a court day,’’ I said. ‘‘That give us enough time?’’
We needed a formal request, either from our county attorney or from the State Attorney General’s office, to have Nola transferred. I tried our county attorney. He got right to the point.
‘‘Why in the name of God would you want to do that?’’
‘‘We need to talk to her,’’ I said.
‘‘I’ll have to consider this’’ was the answer I got.
It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but it did bring up a very good point. Legal believability. Hester took care of that for us. She called Nola’s local appointed attorney. Told him that we were going to have Nola back in the county on Friday, the 2nd of August, and if he wanted to proceed with any motions, he’d better hurry, as we didn’t want to transport her twice. Then she called the county attorney and told him that Nola was going to have to come back up on Friday, for a hearing on a couple of motions her attorney was filing. He, assuming that I and DCI weren’t communicating, told Hester that Nola was coming back anyway and not to worry about it.
Hester hung up, and smiled all over herself. ‘‘That’s just about how I got Mom and Dad to get me my first car.’’
The icing on the cake came about two minutes later, when the county attorney’s secretary called the Sheriff’s Department and told us to expect Nola Stritch back in the jail on Friday. Not five minutes after that, a ‘‘friendly’’ employee at the Clerk of Court’s office called me. She said that Nola’s attorney’s secretary had called with a request that someone stay in their office