Fooling Around in April (cont)
"No shit" said Bean as he and Shultz walked around the counter. They settled down in front of the small TV that Gerttie always brought to work with her in spite of department rules.
The News Commentator was summarizing his report by saying, "Once again, the latest that we have to report is that Willie Baker, Reno's Chief of Police and several other Police Chiefs on their way to a seminar in Las Vegas have disappeared without a trace.
"In each case, the disappearance happened between the airport and The Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. Each Law Officer was met at the airport by a chauffeur driven limousine; although, The Las Vegas Hilton disclaims any knowledge of providing limousine service.
"There have been rumors of organized crime involvement, but these are only rumors, and the FBI is not ready to make any statement at the present time.
"Local police are baffled and are not willing to discuss any details with the press at the moment. This is Barry Barton signing off for now. Stay tuned for live news updates on the hour."
"Wow!" cried Shultz, "talk about something to get your mind off your troubles. How about it, Jamie Boy, when do we leave for Vegas?"
"Charlie, Charlie," moaned Bean, "it isn't that simple, I work in California, and the only time that I'm allowed in Nevada is when my boss, Bob Wells and Willie Baker, the Chief in Reno both agree to my being there on loan. I can't just go charging into Nevada looking for Willie. The FBI would have me locked up, deported, or worse before you could say spit.
"You're right though, I sure would like to be involved in this one. It sounds quite challenging."
They went over to Bean's place, cleaned and cremated the fish, and sat down to eat. They shared the one fish, six beers, a couple of tall tales, and fell asleep dreaming of being the heros who saved Chief Willie.
The next morning, the phone started ringing before the rooster started singing. Bean fumbled for it, picked it up, and mumbled, "Huh? Bean here," into one end of it.
Bob Wells shouted into the other end, "Bean! wake up and get down here as soon as you can. Have you heard the news about Willie?"
"Yeah, I heard last night. What can we do about it?"
"Just get dressed and come on in. We'll talk about it when you get here," Wells replied and hung up.
Shultz was packed and ready to leave. He stopped, looked at Bean sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the telephone, and said,
"Buddy, I'm heading back to Reno. It looks to me like there will be a lotta excitement around town during the next few days, and there's no telling what kinda business I can stir up. So look me up if you get up my way, and thanks for the fishing lesson."
Out the door he went, and before Bean even got to the bathroom, he could hear Charlie's car disappearing into the distance.
On Bean's arrival at the station, Gerttie greeted him with his morning coffee and said, "Chief Wells is waiting for you in the conference room." Bean thanked her and quietly wondered when she ever slept? Did she live at the station?
Chief Wells was sitting at the head of the table. When Bean walked in, he motioned to a chair; and when Bean was comfortably seated and sipping his coffee, he started,
"Jim, I had an invitation to that seminar, but because of prior commitments I couldn't go. This thing has got me more than a little scared and mad as Hell."
"They got Willie, Karl from Vegas, Fred from Oakland, Sidney from San Francisco, Billy from Sacramento, and two that I don't know from San Diego and San Bernardino. This is big, and no one seems to know anything -- not even the FBI.
"We are waiting on Mitchell from the Reno, FBI office. I want you to get involved, but I'll have to have full FBI clearance and authorization. When Mitchell gets here, he will issue you the necessary clearances you'll need. They should get you in -- anywhere that you need to go. When can you be ready to leave for Las Vegas?"
Bean grinned across the table at his boss, "If I tackle this one with your blessing, and the authorization of the FBI -- am I free to investigate in the way I see as fit and proper?"
"Certainly, Why do you ask?"
" Well Boss, I have no intentions of going to Las Vegas. That place, by now, must be a three ring circus. Under every rock you'll find two cops, one FBI guy, and three news reporters.
"I don't think those men are still in Vegas, and I do think, probably, someone wanted them out of their own towns for a while. So my plan is to go to Reno and wait for any new developments."
"Play it your way then," grumbled Wells, and looked up as Agent Mitchell entered the room. Mitchell acknowledged Bean's existance only to the extent of handing him his paperwork, then turned and left the room.
"He don't like me very much." Bean told the stunned Wells as he got ready to leave. Bean went home to pack for an extended stay in Reno. When he left for Reno, he drove his own car.
He got a room at his favorite Bed and Breakfast, unpacked, called Shultzy to tell him the latest; and that he would be in touch. Then he checked in at the local police station; where he had put in many hours in the past as a `loaner detective'. The place was much quieter than usual -- even the procession of pickpockets, prostitutes, and drunks seemed more subdued.
He was given his normal temporary office, which he laughingly referred to as the broom closet, and settled in to read any and all reports of the Chief's disappearance. Bean was halfway through his reports when he asked for and got the method by which Chief Willie had confirmed his reservation at the seminar. His secretary had confirmed by phone, on the twenty-first of March.
Bean's call to the FBI in Las Vegas concerning the possibility of a phone tap on the Las Vegas Hilton revealed two FBI taps, three CIA taps, and one by a blackmailing security officer.
"Oh well," he thought, "it was worth a try anyway." When he finished reading all the available information about each disappearance, he called the airport control tower in Las Vegas, identified himself, and asked for the identities of any private aircraft that had requested take off clearance during the two hours following the disappearance of each police chief. He also requested copies of their flight plans, if one had been submitted.
They agreed to run copies and fax them to the Reno Police Station as soon as possible. The only other way the kidnappers could have made the limousine disappear was to truck it out. He was sure the horse was gone, and there was no sense in wasting effort closing the barn door.
While he waited for information from the airport, he decided to go out for a nice greasy hamburger and a bottle of suds. It might wash away the taste of burnt fish that had been lingering somewhere in the back of his mouth.
It actually took two beers to make the taste go away. But away it went and away Bean went -- back to work with a much brighter outlook on life.
When Bean returned to his broom closet, he was met by Chief Baker's secretary, Melba,
"Detective Bean, they told me to give you any help that I could. I haven't much to do since they kidnapped Willi.. Chief Baker."
She paused and tearfully wiped her eyes. "I sure hope he's alright. His wife cares for him at home, and I sorta look after him here at the office. That poor man don't know how to take care of himself. Who's going to make his morning hot chocolate? Wouldn't you like to use his office until he gets back? Really, there isn't room in here for the both of us to turn around."
Bean laughed, mentally agreeing that sharing closet space with the tall, buxom red-head with those tear-filled green eyes would indeed be enjoyable, but definitely counter productive.
"Melba, Willie is going to be Okay, we'll get him back somehow; and yes, I would be happy to get into a workspace where I could spread my papers out without having to sit on the floor." He gathered up all of his reports and followed her into Willie Baker's plush office where he spread everything out on the conference table.
Melba turning so Bean could admire her profile spoke,
"It's so good to have someone to do for again, can I get you some coffee?" She looked so eager that Bean couldn't refuse. He nodded and said, "Okay -- black, no sugar, and no cream."
While she was gone, Bean went over the records faxed in from the Vegas airport. Most of the departures were not unusual and involved aircraft of the size and type that did not arouse his interest, but two of them did.
One was a Learjet with a flight plan for Mexico City and the other was a North American Sabre Liner bound for Vera Cruz. Both were large enough to carry the captives and captors, neither carried United States FAA registration, and both were small enough to land on a much smaller landing strip than their proposed destinations.
He called Mitchell at the Reno FBI office and asked him to check on the ownership of the two aircraft. Mitchell asked him why he wanted to know; and when Bean explained, he said, "Damn! leave it to some `outsider' to embarrass us. Ok, Bean, I'll get right on it. When I get something, I'll give you a call. And thanks, Bean, for calling me direct and not those hotshots over in Vegas."
"No problem, I know what you mean," Bean answered.
Mitchell called back, just as Bean was going back to his room for the night. He had traced both aircraft, one was from a rental agency in Mexico City. It had been returned in good condition during the night. The night attendant only knew there was only the pilot, who took his gear and disappeared into the night. The rental had been paid for by cashier's check drawn on a local bank.
The other aircraft was registered to a local construction company in Vera Cruz and to the company officials knowledge had not been flown in over two months.
The FBI and the CIA were flying down to go over both aircraft for clues, but he, Mitchell doubted if they were going to accomplish much. Probably wouldn't be able to talk the local Policia into impounding the planes. Bean agreed, hung up, and took his headache home and put it to bed.
The next morning, after a huge breakfast topped off with two cups of steaming hot coffee, Bean headed for work with a full belly and an optimistic view of the case. The kidnappers would have to make their demands known soon. Every day they kept their prisoners increased the danger of being caught. They had to move soon.
As he drove, he turned on the radio and tuned in the local morning news. He was just in time to hear Harvey Dullard of ABC say,
"Friends, out there in radio land, I don't know why that they selected me to receive and relay this message from the kidnappers to you, but they did. I am trying to comply with their instructions as closely as I am able.
"When I arrived at my home last night, I found that someone had broken into my back door, and on my kitchen table I found a package addressed to me. Inside the package was a VHS video.
"When I put it in my machine and started it, there was a brief message which read, and I quote, `Mister Dullard, the Committee for Law and Order, has abducted seven of your police chiefs. They are alive and well in our custody. If you follow our instructions to the letter, they will continue to be alive and well.
`If you do not, they will be immediately tried and punished for not keeping law and order in their respective cities, allowing many to suffer and die needlessly, and crime to run rampant in the streets.
`We want this tape played in it's entirety on ABC TV every three hours night and day. The other networks can pick it up if they wish. The text portions are to be broadcast in every ethnic language prevalent in that area, and all the newspapers serving those seven cities should also print the text portion of our message.
`The local police in those cities should get ready for doing much more business than usual.` end of quotes.
"Folks, I have the tape and will play it on ABC TV News at ten this morning. It has been duplicated and distributed just in case some government agency tries to stop me. The original will be given to the authorities at ten fifteen this morning. Harvey Dullard signing off."
"Well now," murmured Bean, "Things are starting to make sense. A wacko vigilante group, could potentially bring about a statewide bloodbath that would be almost impossible to stop. Just going to have to wait till ten and see what they want, I guess."
At ten, ABC News wasted no time with hype, commercials, or teasers. Harvey Dullard came on screen, introduced himself, and the screen filled with the message that Harvey had read earlier. Then it faded to a desert scene with blowing sand dunes, zoomed in on a large tent that looked Arabian although there were no camels in sight.
The camera went into the tent and inside, sitting cross-legged at a low table were the missing Police Chiefs. They were obviously in good condition and looked to be putting away a sizable mountain of food. The picture faded and the next screen message read,
"The Committee for Law and Order wants you to know this exercise is the first in a series. A series of efforts designed to return Law and Order to our cities.
"Forty years of liberalism in our schools, a permissive society, a supreme court more concerned with the civil rights of the criminal than the victim, the ACLU, and a criminal justice system that puts the criminal back on the street before the poor over worked cop even finishes the paperwork, has created an environment that is totally unacceptable.
"Our streets are war zones, no one is safe on the streets, and soon there will be more names of officers killed in the line of duty than there were men killed in the Vietnam War. It must stop and it will stop.
"We know that the police cannot stop it because of the current conditions under which they must work. Similar to telling Marshal Dillon to tame Dodge City, but don't hurt anyone and always be polite.
"We have been quietly preparing for this for several months in each targeted city. Now we are ready, and we are going to clean up Dodge City.
"We hope that the police do not try to obstruct justice. If they do, they will join their chiefs somewhere in the desert awaiting trial. We are sufficiently funded to be able to maintain a large remote penal colony.
"No citizen will be convicted without absolute proof. This proof will be in the form of a video tape of that citizen actually doing the crime. One copy to the police, one copy to the victim, and one copy to the TV studio.
The following are a few changes to your civil rights.
"And finally, here are some new laws and their punishments;
They want a safe place to raise their children, and we are going to give it to them."
The text burned it's way into everyone's brain and slowly faded to be replaced with the tail end of an old Keystone Kops movie. A movie with the very animated Kops jumping up and down and chasing a hook and ladder truck down the road and out of sight.
James Bean sat back in his chair, stunned, this nightmare couldn't be happening, but it was happening and there was damn little anyone could do about it. Who the Hell were these people, and how big an organization was it? Obviously, if they intended to efficiently police seven cities simultaneously, they were indeed well funded and probably had anonymous friends in high places.
He was roused out of his musing by the voice of Harvey Dullard. Harvey was saying, "That is all that was on the tape and it will be re-broadcast in English and Spanish per the instructions.
"However, I do have a message containing more detailed instructions for the law enforcement departments of each city. I am turning this over to Brad Simons, The Director of the FBI."
"Mister Simons will select one representative from each city to attend a meeting at the California State Capital Building, at which time, strategy and procedures will be outlined.
"This is once again, Harvey Dullard, ABC News. Tune in at One P.M. for the next update."
It was noon sharp when Agent Mitchell called Bean. He started with,
"Now Detective Bean, we know you are not officially part of the Reno police department, but with Baker kidnapped, and Lieutenant Wilson in the hospital, you seem to be the proper one for the job. The mayor requested and your boss, Wells, concurred that you are the logical choice. You, I, and the Mayor have a one o'clock flight to Sacramento.
"I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes, and don't worry, you can get lunch on the plane."
"But -- " spluttered Bean.
"No BUTS!" said Mitchell and hung up. Bean looked at the phone in exasperation, deciding whether to destroy it or not.
Finally he just grinned, shook his head, and went over to tell Melba to hold all his messages. He told her to call Gerttie in Gainesville and let her know that he would be out of town for the rest of the day at least. Even though he was on loan, he felt that his primary obligation was in Gainesville, and Bob Wells should know where he could be reached.
When Mitchell and Bean boarded the city's Learjet, they were joined by Tom Sloan, the Mayor of Reno. Bean had never met Sloan before, even though he had been in Reno many times.
Sloan wore an understandably worried expression, but he had such an easy relaxed manner about him, it wasn't long before the three of them were chatting like old friends.
"Tell me, Jim, have you got any theories about this situation?" Sloan asked. "They tell me that you're the mystery solver we import from California, when we get a really difficult case."
Bean didn't know for sure if Sloan was pulling his leg or was serious, so all he answered was,
"I have a few ideas, but until we find out what specific instructions these people have for the law enforcement people, everything I have is pure conjecture. A bad guess is much worse than no guess at all. I do have the gut feeling though, that we are dealing with a large well organized group with plenty of money to spend. Time will tell."
They were washing down the last crumbs of a hasty lunch, when the pilot announced that it was time to buckle up because they were in the landing pattern for Sacramento Airport.
Sloan glanced at his watch and said, "Right on time, it's one thirty eight, and when I phoned the Governor's secretary, I said we would land at one forty." The plane landed and taxied to where a State Limousine sat between two CHP escorts.
"Sorta makes you feel important, don't it?" Bean mumbled to Mitchell out of the corner of his mouth. Mitchell lost no time in puncturing his balloon, "Yeah, but if Sloan wasn't with us, we'd be taking a cab."
A uniformed CHP driver held the door for them and said he thought they were the third group to arrive. He closed the door and they drove off.
After about five minutes of smooth freeway riding, Bean tried to smother a huge yawn, rubbed his tired eyes, and thought to himself how unusual it was for him to be so sleepy in the middle of the afternoon. He blinked a couple of times and felt something heavy on his shoulder. He looked over and saw Sloan, sound asleep.
Suddenly warning bells started going off in his head, but his head was too tired to care. "Aw Shit!" He thought, "They got us too... how sad."
He awoke to what sounded like a dinner gong, that kept ringing until he groaned and sat up in bed. In bed? Suddenly, he remembered and became instantly alert. He looked around. He was in a small room. It contained nothing but three beds and three bodies; his and Sloan's and Mitchell's.
His was sitting up and theirs were slowly achieving the same position. "Where are we?" Asked Sloan. "I don't know where, but I believe that we have been kidnapped," said Bean.
"Correct, Mister Bean," said a voice, coming from a hidden speaker. "We thought rather than have our demands read to you at that dull meeting scheduled at the Capitol, We would present them to you in person, so to speak, and in doing so in this manner, we would be further illustrating our ability to do with you whatever we wish, whenever we choose.
"Now, gentlemen, our meeting will start in fifteen minutes. You have slept for six hours, all are now present, and the meeting will last as long as you deem necessary. Just follow the arrows on the floor, and if you have a question just speak. You will be electronically monitored at all times."
The three very angry and equally puzzled prisoners opened the door and went out into a hall. They spotted the arrows inlaid into the floor; and as they started down the hall, they were joined by six other groups of angry citizens. At the end of the hall the doors opened automatically as they approached, and the first live human in evidence was a man dressed as a doorman.
He told each group to take a seat at the long conference room table. Each seating had it's own video monitor, a notepad mounted on a clipboard, and several ballpoints.
There was a steadily rising drone of speculative conversation going on in the room until there was a sharp rapping for attention at the head of the table.
The room grew quiet and all eyes turned in that direction. The man sitting, holding a small microphone, was an identical twin to the doorman standing by the door.
"Gentlemen," he began, "I know you have not eaten for some time, and we could be here for most of the night. So, if you would please give your dinner order to the waiter, you will be able to nourish your bodies while I feed your minds.
"I am sure you have many questions you need the answers to, and I have many things to tell to you." The waiter entered the room, and to Bean's amazement the waiter was an absolute identical to the speaker and the doorman. He took all the dinner orders and left the room.
The speaker continued, "You will notice I have a mic. and you do not. Each video monitor has a built-in mic. and speaker, so everyone can hear each question and answer.
"Some of you are probably speculating on who the traitor is? Who betrayed you by letting us know where and when you would arrive? Put it out of your minds.
"The truth is, our electronic surveillance division is quite capable of keeping us informed about almost everything. The cost of installation is probably more than the California annual budget. While we are waiting for dinner, why don't we take a tour of the capitol building, including restrooms."
At that point the monitor screens lit up, and the first scene was the Governor's office. He was on the phone. He was obviously angry, and the camera zoomed in to within four or five feet, switched around to a behind view, and then the speaker asked if anyone would like to hear the other side of the phone conversation or both or a video tape as a souvenir.
His request went unanswered as the scene changed to a quick journey from room to room, hall to hall, and finally even the rest rooms. Then it displayed a huge room filled with fax machines and many large machines that Bean didn't even recognize. The speaker explained this was one of their centers where over six thousand fax machines ran parallel to those in various offices throughout the world. The only difference was these machines didn't generate paper, they were connected directly with a mainframe computer.
The next scene was of a large room in which were, by quick calculation, two hundred and forty monitors. There were forty banks of six each and in front of each bank sat a person, very intently, watching his monitors.
The speaker spoke as the picture faded, "Well Gentlemen, I believe that dinner is served. We will pause until each of you have been served and then, while you are eating, I will elaborate on what you have seen thus far." The waiter silently served each `guest' that which he had ordered, and seemed to smile as he noticed each person looking closely at first his features then at the speaker's and then swiveling around to take another look at the doorman. When he had taken his leave, the speaker continued,
"Gentlemen, we are not wild eyed radicals, we are not terrorists as you would define terrorists, and this is not something that is just starting. Years ago, it became apparent to some of our country's leaders that the continued trend of permissiveness and lack of respect for law in our society would eventually lead to anarchy.
"There was an element that was using the Bill of Rights to destroy the Democracy that had created it. And they were right."
"Today the police are powerless to perform the service that they were hired to do. That is to enforce the law; however, our judicial system does not support enforcement.
"And so these leaders, political, financial, and industrial contributed and caused to be formed, The Committee for Law and Order.
"We are probably the best trained and equipped vigilante organization in the history of man. We have industrial contracts with one country that constitute sixty percent of their gross national product, and all they supply is electronics.
"Those surveillance cameras are state of the art and we have over twelve million installed and nine crews installing more at all times. The first twelve million are located in high crime areas, they identify, they record, and they kill.
"Any attempt to remove or tamper with them will be interpreted as obstruction of justice and punished as such.
"We know that you as representatives of the system as it exists today, cannot condone or support what we do. We hope that you utilize your energies to change the system, so that we are not needed rather than waste them opposing us. We expect you to conduct business as usual, and if we provide you with absolute proof of a criminal's guilt, we expect you to insure that he is punished to the full letter of the law.
"If he is freed, then the one responsible for freeing him will in turn be captured and will do the time in our penal colony. I sincerely hope that this is understood and taken seriously."
Fred Smiley, the detective from Oakland interrupted, "You people can't be serious about this! You can't dictate terms to the whole country, as if you owned it. The FBI will have you out of business in no time for violating people's civil liberties. We may die, but they'll get you, I'm sure!"
The speaker smiled tolerantly and said, "Mister Mitchell, you have worked in the Pentagon and have visited the Oval Office in the White House on two occasions, I believe. Would you identify what you see, and then answer Mister Smiley's question for him?" The monitor screen changed and showed a large room filled with wall maps, a three dimensional map on a long table and several video screens and computers. The room was shown from five different angles.
"That's the War room," said Mitchell, "how the hell did you get cameras in there?" The screen changed and zoomed in on the President sitting at his desk in the Oval Office.
Then from a different angle it zoomed in even closer until everyone was looking at a mole with three hairs in it growing in the President's ear. "Would you like me to make his phone ring?" asked the speaker.
"Mitchell spoke with despair in his voice, "Fellows, I'm afraid that these people can do what they claim, and negotiations are in order. Is there anything that we can do to get back our police chiefs and get you to give up this crazy plan? What is it that you want?"
The speaker stood up and said, "I'm going to take a brief recess, but before I go -- I'll tell you what we want. How you go about it, we don't care. But we want the people in your cities to obey the law, which they no longer respect.
"That includes traffic laws, civil laws, and laws having to do with persons and/or property. If you can't do it, we will. Thank you, Gentlemen, I will return in thirty minutes." He turned and disappeared out the far end of the room.
The room exploded with seven conversations going hot and heavy all at the same time. Sergeant Giles of Sacramento and Otis Danvers the Mayor walked to the head of the table. Otis rapped for attention and spoke into the mic.,
"Hey Fellows, I'm Otis Danvers, the Mayor of this town, so I claim the right to chair this little round table. If we all talk at once, we'll get nothing settled and a half an hour from now that guy will be back, telling us what we're going to do and we still won't have a consensus or a plan.
"First off, do we all agree that it would be foolhardy to refuse to cooperate with these people at this time?" He looked down the table and received unanimous nods. "Then the next order of business is to figure out how to enforce the law to their satisfaction, while we are figuring out a way of defeating them.
"I personally don't want to waste away in some penal colony because of some liberal judge."
There was some mumbling then Mayor Dirk Harper from Vegas said, "Just temporarily, why don't we try to talk a trade. We could give them a list of our lenient, bleeding heart judges and trade them for our Chiefs. That way our departments would be back intact and more efficiently combat crime."
Karl Boyer from NBC News Service chimed in, "You people must be out of your minds! To even consider cooperating with these `Born Again Nazis' is unthinkable. Anything you people decide that could or would restrict the personal liberties of the individual will, I guarantee you, be denounced by this reporter. And I further guarantee that each and every one of you will pay for your decision dearly."
"Aw shut up, Karl," Dirk Harper drawled, "You always were a windbag. If you don't keep your mouth shut, you're liable to get us all killed; and what damn good would that do?"
The Speaker returned to the room and said,
"Don't waste your time putting it to a vote, gentlemen, because it's not going to happen. Why should we give up your Chiefs in trade for some lenient Judges? When all we have to do is go snatch the Judges and anyone else we want.
"Don't you understand? You are powerless to stop us and you, Mister Boyer, will write or say whatever you are told, or you will spend the next ten years in our penal colony for obstruction of justice."
"Now, back to business, You may have noticed that the representatives of the Committee for Law and Order you have met are identical. This is not by accident, it is the result of cosmetic surgery. The organization is made up of many teams each team has six identical members, no fingerprints, same blood type, almost identical voice prints, and each member gets the same training.
"The reason you are being allowed to see us is that we are not assigned to the West Coast, and you will never see us again.
"Imagine what would happen if one of us walked up to a recently arrested criminal, who had been caught in a bank with an AK47 and the arresting officer didn't kill him on the spot.
"Our man kills the criminal, another team member walks into the police station and reports the shooting, while another member of the same team has lunch with the Governor, and all six mill around in the courtroom while member number one is being tried by a very confused jury.
"Let's go back to the bank of video monitors we saw before lunch." He pushed a button and the room with two hundred and forty video terminals reappeared on the screens.
Then the camera zoomed in on a bank of six. Two of the screens showed what appeared to be the inside of banks and the other four displayed the checkout counter of any typical mom and pop convenience store.
The Speaker resumed his monologue,
"This is a typical work station for one law officer. For this demonstration, we will zoom in with camera three and focus on the proprietor." The camera zoomed and they were looking at a man in his sixties from about four feet.
"Notice the reticule in the center of the screen and the six small reticules inside the big one. The three small ones on the left are in green lines and the three on the right are in red lines, these are aiming devices for compressed air driven darts. The green are tranquilizers and the red are lethal quick acting poison. They are controlled from the operators console.
"Oh, wait a second, I think we have some action in another sector." The screen blurred, shifted, and zoomed in on a bank scene and there appeared to be a holdup in process.
Who ever the operator was, he was very cautious. He kept his camera zoomed to about thirty feet and swept it back and forth checking the entire area.
When he was satisfied there were only two armed robbers in ski masks, he zoomed in on the one carrying a shotgun. The other had a small revolver. He zoomed in until one small red reticule was covering the mans eye, then suddenly the man dropped the shotgun and grabbed his head with both hands. He must have screamed because the other man ran to him, waving his revolver at the terrified customers.
When he tried to keep his partner from sinking to the floor, the camera zoomed in and shot him in the throat. He slapped at the sting three times before he slumped to the floor and died.
A man entered the bank through the front door, walked to the dead men, positioned himself facing the camera, and held each one up facing the camera as he stripped away the ski masks. Then he turned and left the bank.
"When ever a criminal wears a disguise, we have to send in follow-up to insure that `the caught in the act` video tape which we send to the police, the news media, and the victims, contains irrefutable proof of their identity.
"By the way, that bank is in a crime ridden city in Canada, that actually asked for and is paying for our service. We've have been testing methods and equipment in Canada for two months. I'm pleased that you had the opportunity to see a real live example of the equipment in action."
"Now are there any questions? The fact that your seven cities will soon become law abiding and orderly is not negotiable but methods are. So I suggest if you have any questions or doubts, voice them now because this is the last time you will be seeing me."
He looked around the table and rose to his feet, "I gather from your silence, the meeting is over. Return to your rooms, arrangements for your return to your cities has been made, and you will depart in the morning."
Everyone stood up and quietly shuffled out of the room and down the hall. They were so shaken from witnessing the sudden death of the two criminals that they couldn't speak.
Each went back to his room deep in thought, and Bean's reaction; although private, was not so much shock as deep puzzlement. In fact, he was so deep in thought that he didn't notice the hiss of the escaping gas and the slow transition from deep thought to deep slumber.
They woke up in an empty motorhome.
"Where the Hell are we?" asked Sloan. Bean opened the door and stepped out into the impound lot for the Reno Police. The attendant was running toward them yelling, "What the Hell are you guys doing back there?."
It took all three of them and their identification to calm him down, and even then as they walked away he looked at them with questioning eyes. Bean could guess what he was thinking, but decided not to say anything.
Mitchell stopped at the office of the impound lot and used the phone to arrange transportation for the group. He came back out to Sloan and Bean, who were waiting on the sidewalk and started talking,
"While we're waiting for the car, I want to caution, no to warn you that this situation is deadly serious. The FBI will be in charge of the investigation, the strategy, and all proceedures. Do not under any circumstances undertake any independent action on your own. You will clear with me, any actions before taking them. That even includes investigatory phone calls. Do you both understand?"
Sloan slowly nodded his head, but Bean shook his and replied,
"Mitchell, get outa my face. This is the second time that you have tried to throw your weight around with me. It won't work, you're only an errand boy for Simons. If Simons wants me off of this case then he can tell my boss, Bob Wells, in writing, and then I'll go fishing permanantly and give up law enforcement. In the meantime, I'm going to do everything in my power to get Willie Baker back and put those bastards out of business."
(Continued in Part 5)