The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [113]
I just love resources.
As a gesture to goodwill between departments, our county officers would be assigned as roving patrol near each of the banks. Iowa State Patrol units would be assigned to each area as well, with the majority being around Frieberg.
Each local police department in a town with a “targeted bank” would be notified, and would have an officer on duty, but not obviously around the bank.
I held my hands up off the table, palms toward the TAC man. “That might be a problem …”
“Oh?”
“Uh, well, you see, of the six ‘possibles,’ only two are in towns with police departments.”
The TAC man seemed somewhat taken aback. “Just how big are these towns, anyway?”
I pointed to them on the map, and told him the population of each town as I did so. “Three hundred, two fifty four fifty two hundred, eighteen hundred, and twenty-six hundred.” The last two were Maitland, the county seat; and Frieberg. “Maitland and Frieberg have local departments.”
“Gonna be difficult for the surveillance teams not to stand out,” he said.
“Let me tell you,” said George. “Rush hour consists of three or four cars …”
The TAC commander gave me a quizzical look. “In such small places … how much money do you think they’ll get?”
“Twenty-nine ninety-five,” I said. “Hey, don’t ask. Reliable informant says, ‘five banks.’ Volont says, ‘five banks.’ All in the same area. We figure that’d be here.”
“Same area … same time?”
“Yep. That’s what they said.”
“Well, then, that’s what we prep for.” He grinned. “Good exercise. We can get inconspicuous here, we can hide just about anyplace.”
“If you can hide in these little towns,” said George, “you can hide on a gym floor.” He looked kind of sheepish all of a sudden. “Nothing personal, Carl.”
“You never can tell about these little places,” said the TAC commander. “They’ll surprise you.”
As our plans developed, it became painfully apparent that “Sunday” was a period twenty-four hours long. We had no idea when on Sunday they were going to hit. If they hit at all, of course. Consequently, it was decided that we’d be up and running for the full twenty-four hours. Lovely. I thought I’d probably go home for supper, get a nap in, and be back out around ten or so. It looked to be a long time before we got much sleep.
It was almost time for dinner when the intrepid Nancy called.
“Not on the phone. How about dinner? Just you, me, and Shamrock. It’s pretty good stuff.”
Where do you meet for dinner in a small town with two restaurants that were bound to be filled with either cops or press? Not the office. I couldn’t afford to have them see any of the prep people who were beginning to arrive. Too cold for a picnic. Which left one place. “Can you pick me up a fish sandwich? Bring it to my house … You know where I live, don’t you?”
She did. I called Sue, and told her that I had to have company for dinner. She thought that was nice, and suggested I get home a few minutes ahead of our company, and tidy up my breakfast dishes. She was going out with a friend, anyway. I told her that I’d have to go back out about ten. She wasn’t too enthused about that, and reminded me about the dishes again.
“Can you please get home before your company comes? I left some homework on the dining room table … if you could move it to my desk… and there’s some really good rice in the freezer, if you need it.”
“Thanks. Do we have any potato chips or anything?”
“Some in the cupboard on the right. Use the good green dishes. Not the good china, but the good but not everyday things.” She thought for a second. “And the good glasses. Those other ones are just too old.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t eat too much. See you, Batman.”
By the time Nancy and Shamrock hit the house, I had cleared the table,