The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [65]
There was a brief flurry of footsteps, and the suspect came flying around the corner, fleeing from the line of sight of the Maitland officer.
“Freeze!” From both Gary and myself, same instant.
The suspect turned toward the sound, looked down the barrels of two handguns, tried to stop, skidded, slipped, waved his arms, and hit the ground on his back with a loud thump.
I love Iowa winters.
“Don’t fuckin’ move!” thundered Gary, as we approached the supine figure.
“Comm, Three, I think we got him,” I said, into my mike.
“Way to go!” came from Sally. “It’s on tape!”
“You okay?” I heard Gary asking. I looked down, and saw that the suspect was gasping like a landed fish.
“Fall knocked the wind out of him,” I said. “He’ll be fine.”
Just then, Ira Tully, part-time Maitland PD officer, came huffing and puffing around the corner. “We get him?”
“Got him, Ira. Thanks for comin’ up.”
“No …” puff “… problem …” puff “… Carl.”
Ira had just turned sixty, and worked one night a month. As reliable as the seasons, and a plumber in real life.
“Well,” I said, “let’s get on with it.”
Between the three of us, we lifted the gasping suspect to his feet, and slowly and carefully frisked him.
“Don’t puke on me, buddy,” said Gary, consolingly.
Beneath his dark blue parka, we found another .40 cal. Glock. No knife. No bulletproof vest. I felt the Glock was plenty.
When we got him inside, we sat him down at the kitchen table. I didn’t want him to be in contact with the other prisoner, who I assumed was an associate of his. He stopped gasping, and was merely breathing hard. He had a desperate air about him, not threatening, but sort of actively unhappy.
“So,” I said, in a friendly tone, “who are you?”
No reply.
“Name?”
Silence, except for the heavy breathing.
I was getting a little tired of this approach. “Strip him,” I said to Gary. “I’m getting sick of this shit tonight.”
“James Hernandez,” he said. He shook his head, and shrugged in a resigned way. “Special Agent James Hernandez, Federal Bureau of Investigation. My ID is in my back pocket.”
“No shit? The real FBI?” said Gary.
I glanced at Gary. He’d missed the wallet. He shrugged.
We let Hernandez very slowly reach back, and produce his ID wallet. He opened it, and showed it to me. I reached out and took it, although he resisted for an instant. It looked real enough, just like the last one I’d seen a few minutes ago. I laid it on the table, while I wrote down the information. “It won’t leave your sight,” I said.
Sally stuck her head in the room. “Carl, George for you …” She had a huge grin.
“Right.” I followed her back to dispatch.
“This is just so cool,” she said, bubbling over. “I got the whole thing on tape, him falling, you guys pointing your guns at him, the whole thing …”
Dispatchers hardly ever get to see what happens as a result of their efforts. This was quite a treat. Not only for her.
“I’d like to see that sometime.” Cops don’t get to watch, very often, either. “We’ll have to bootleg a couple of copies…”
I picked up the phone. “George?”
“Carl, I’m afraid that Norman John Brandenburg is a real agent.” He sounded very worried.
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. I hate to complicate your life like this, but he really is one of us.”
“George,” I said, “you ain’t heard the half of it. We just bagged a fellow named …” I looked at my note. “James Marteen Hernandez. Out trespassing behind the jail.”
“Oh, no …”
“Yep. You guessed it. His ID says he’s one of your special agents, too.
“Oh, no,” he said, again. “You’re right, that’s who he is. He’s assigned along with Brandenburg … I was supposed to contact him as soon as I could find him …”
“I know where you can reach him,” I said, smiling.
“Look, Carl, I’ll get back to you, but expect me there within an hour or so. I’ll be coming up on this one. But keep it as quiet as you can.”
“I’ll try,” I said,