A Long December

CHAPTER 17

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 12:21

The Federal Search Warrant for Jose Gonzales’s apartment arrived in our office at 11:55. We were divided into two teams, search and security. As the original case officer, I was listed on the search team. Hester got security. Everybody else was a federal agent. We were just on our way out the back door of the sheriff’s department, when I got called on my walkie-talkie.

“Coram, Three?”

I fished it out of my coat pocket. “Comm?”

“Three, return to the office immediately, authority officer One.”

That meant that Lamar had ordered it. There was no questioning. I caught up to Volont and George, who were with Hester. “I gotta get back to the office. Lamar needs something. I’ll catch up.”

As soon as I got inside, Lamar was waiting for me.

“What’s up? “I was as polite as possible under the circumstances, but I really wanted to go on that search.

“Quick,” he said, turning and leading me down the hall to his office. “I wanted you to get this first, before anybody else finds out.”

That was unlike him. “What?”

“Just pick up the phone,” he said as he shut his office door very firmly behind us. He sounded happy as hell.

I lifted the phone off the desk. It was obviously an active line, and Lamar hadn’t even put whoever it was on hold.

“This is Houseman.”

“Hey! Boy, have I got some good shit for you. You owe me dinner at Mabel’s for this one!”

It was Harry, from Conception County, Wisconsin.

“Harry, my man. What’s up?”

“You want one each Linda Moynihan and one each Yevgenny Skripkin?”

Hot damn. “We sure as hell want her, but who the hell is this, this Yevgenny whatshisname?”

“Ho ho, my boy. Da plot thickens. Your girl Linda is sitting in our jail, bawling her eyes out and screamin’ about some attorney she needs. You know anything about that?”

“Sure. She’s got some attorney in Madison who’s trying to arrange an immunity and protection deal for her.”

“Okay,” said Harry. “That’s about what she said to us. Shit, she’s about as safe as possible, she’s the only sad broad in the whole women’s cell block. I don’t know nothing about no immunity,” he added, laughing. “I can assume you still want her?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“She was shacked up with this Skripkin dude over in Blue Mound, where we found ‘em. The Whispering Pines Motel.”

“Maybe they’re just friends,” I said.

“They were in the sack together, naked,” said Harry, with some relish. “We used to call that shacked up, when I was a kid.”

“Yeah, we did, too. Okay, but who the hell is he? I don’t know anybody by that name.”

“You shittin’ me?” asked Harry. “You really don’t know who he is? Hell, Houseman, I thought you were one shit-hot investigator!”

“Get to the fuckin’ point, Harry,” I said. He found that uproarious.

“Okay, Carl. Okay. This Skripkin, a white male Ukrainian, twenty-six years of age, was with the guy who blew away this Rudy Cueva boyfriend of Moynihan’s the other day.”

“What?” Glib in the face of surprise, as always.

“You betcha, Norske. This Skripkin was right there when one Juan Miguel Alvarez, also known to his friends as Hassan Ahmed Hassan, stuck the shotgun in the back of your boy’s head and pulled the fuckin’ trigger. Makes no bones about it. Seems to think he’s part of the immunity deal or something. That’s why I thought you knew him.”

The white boy. Harry’d found the white boy.

“You still there, Carl?”

“Yeah, yeah, Harry. Just thinkin’. I don’t know this Skripkin. Whatever else, though, we got enough for an accessory to murder charge. I’ll get the paperwork started on that right away. I don’t suppose they’re gonna waive extradition?”

“I didn’t ask,” he said, “but I’d be willing to bet your ass that they won’t.”

“Me, too. How soon can I talk to ‘em?”

“You got a free pass to this facility anytime you want,” he said. “Should I put the coffee on?”

“You better put on about sixty cups,” I told him. “You’re gonna have a crowd. And Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Get a photo of this Skripkin over to me as fast as possible, okay?”

“Your e-mail up and runnin’?”

“You bet.”

“You’ll have it in less than a minute.”

I did, too. Printing it took about four, and then grabbing a half dozen photos of other white males out of our Jail files took another five. Sally did the picking, while I called Hester on her cell phone and told her what we had.

“Oh my God. You’re kidding!” She was as delighted as I’d ever heard her.

I left, and made a flying trip to the Heinman brothers’ farm, where I showed the photos to Jacob. He picked Skripkin out immediately.

“This one. This is the white boy. No doubt in my mind. Is he from around here?”

“Well, Jacob, kind of. In a way. I can’t tell you more right now.”

“That’s fine. Good job.”

Well, it would have taken too long to explain about Harry, and Linda, and…

“Thanks, Jacob. We appreciate it.”

The trip to the Heinman farm and back, plus the identification process with the photo lineup, took twenty-eight minutes.

We got the ball rolling with the county attorney, who we told to file a complaint and affidavit with the district court and get an arrest warrant out for Skripkin. Carson needed some help, so we told him to come on up. We then called a judicial magistrate, who was just wrapping up his morning traffic court tour, and he came up to the sheriff’s department with his sack lunch and dined at a desk while watching us with a look of bemused detachment. With me dictating, Sally typing, and Carson Hilgenberg signing it, it only took about thirty minutes.

I grabbed a second with Volont. “Do you know Harry over in Conception County?”

“No.”

“Okay, look… Harry uses some pretty rough language. He doesn’t mean anything by it, and he’s one of the best cops I’ve ever known. All you have to do is give it a few minutes, and you don’t even notice it anymore.”

“That sort of thing,” said Volont, “doesn’t bother me at all.”

“I know,” I said. “But I think you might want to, well, alert some of the other federal officers. You know. Like Hawse.”

Volont looked like a kid about to pull the wings off a fly. “Oh, sure. Thanks for the warning.”

That look told me that he wasn’t about to mention anything to his superior. I made a mental note to try to be out of the room if Hawse ever met Harry.

Fifteen minutes after that, arrest warrant in hand, the four of us left for the Conception County Jail, George and Volont in one car, Hester and me in another. We arrived there at 14:14 on the dot.

“For Christ’s sake,” said Harry. “It took ya long enough!”

Harry had run all the data on our Mr. Skripkin, and gave us a brief rundown.

“Three or four minor entries on his CCH,” he said. He was referring to the Computerized Criminal History check that is run on every prisoner upon being booked into jail. “One simple po; two traffic, both speed; and one public intox.”

“Okay,” I said. A first offender, then, in the felony world. “The simple po and the intox come on the same date?” I suspected that possession of a small amount of marijuana and being stoned could easily arise from the same incident.

“Damn,” said Harry, glancing at the dates. “You still got it.”

“Thanks. It’s not much of a rap sheet, is it?” I noticed that, while it would have been normal to just hand me the thing, Harry was keeping the sheet to himself. Knowing Harry, that was an indicator that there was something else lurking on that piece of paper. Like he said, I still got it.

“Well, maybe it’s more than you’d think,” he said. The familiar grin spread over his face. “The charges were all filed by the San Diego PD. Less than a year ago.”

Ah. “No kidding?”

“Yep. And when we inventoried his shit when we booked him, we found DLs from California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Kentucky.” He handed me the sheet, finally. “All with his name, but all with different dates of birth. All bright and shiny, and all ‘issued’ on 02/18/2000.” He looked very pleased with himself. “We ran ‘em all, just to see, but there’s no record of any of these except the California one. Like the others don’t exist, which they don’t.”

“Fascinating,” I said, looking at the sheet. “Just checking…the OLN on Iowa licenses is the same as the SSN. Just wanted to see if he was using a familiar number…but he isn’t.” I was just a bit disappointed.

“Any chauffeur’s licenses?” asked Hester.

“Oh, yeah,” said Harry. “All but California, as a matter of fact. Hester, you are one sharp lady.”

“Did any of them have hazardous material certification on them?”

That stopped him. “Shit. Shit, I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed out to the booking area to check the DLs.

George looked at Hester. “Nice one.”

It had become something of an indicator, the hazmat certificate on the fake chauffeur’s license. It looked like somebody high in terrorist networks figured that, in case they wanted to ship dangerous materials by road, if they had somebody with that type of license drive the vehicle, they could just breeze through any encounter with the cops. What they apparently didn’t quite grasp was that, with the additional testing for hazardous materials transport, nobody got those certifications just for the hell of it. Only those who did that for a living would have them, and they were able to answer any question a cop had about the proper procedures right off the top of their heads. Arcane questions like which letters on the diamond-shaped warning were required for particular materials.

Harry returned. “All the chauffeurs have hazmat certification. Every fuckin’ one of ‘em.”

Volont had been on his cell phone to Harriet Glee at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cedar Rapids during most of the conversation with Harry. Dirty Harriet had told him that there had been no agreement reached regarding the immunity or protection, but that she’d be talking to Linda’s attorney within an hour. In the meantime, she’d emphatically told him that the name Skripkin had never been mentioned, nor had any other individual. Period.

“So,” said Volont, “it looks like Skripkin’s fair game. That was a nice bit,” he said to Hester, “about the hazmat certification. Good job.” The way he looked at George when he said it meant that he thought that George should have caught that first. “You advised him of his rights? “he asked Harry. Fuckin’ ay.

“And he’s fluent in English?”

“Sure sounds like it,” said Harry. “He tells a mean story.”

“Okay.” Volont, who was sitting in a tipped-back chair with his feet on Harry’s desk, made a tent shape with his hands and tapped his chin with the tips of his fingers. I’d seen him do that before, and it told me that he was really being careful.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we do it this way? Carl, you’ve got this Skripkin cold as an accessory to murder, based on an admission against interest after being advised of his rights pursuant to Miranda.” He glanced at Harry. “He did waive those rights, didn’t he?”

“Of course, my man,” said Harry. “Here.” He handed Volont a rights waiver form, signed by Skripkin. “Black and white.”

“Excellent. Carl, here, owes you supper.” A satisfied smile appeared on Volont’s face. Things were coming together. “So, then, Carl, you and Hester interview him regarding the Cueva murder. Now, your witness is sure that this Skripkin was not the trigger man?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“Good. Okay, so let’s see what he says to you. Don’t let him know we’re anywhere around. Find out all you can about motive, and just why this Juan Miguel Alvarez is also called Hassan Ahmed Hassan. And remember, you aren’t allowed to even mention the possibility of an immunity agreement with Linda. It could look like an intimidation tactic, by making him believe he was being hung out to dry by his friends. It could contaminate the whole interview.” He looked over at Harry. “Do you have a room where we can view and hear the interrogation without being observed by the suspect?”

“Shit, yes,” said Harry. “Where do you think you are, Iowa?”

I wanted to come back with something snappy in defense of my state, but Harry’s jail was three years old, and ours was over a hundred. The only way we could have done what Volont wanted would have been to hide somebody in a closet.

“Go get ‘em,” said Volont to Hester and me.

“Just a sec,” I said. “If this guy asks if he’s covered under some sort of immunity deal…”

“We tell him he’s not,” said Hester. “But only if he brings it up. He has to introduce it himself. You gotta be truthful. He asks, you tell him. Then, if he chooses not to talk, at least we give him something to think about while he waits for his court-appointed attorney.”

“Good enough,” I said. “Okay with you?” I asked Volont and George.

It was.

Hester and I stashed our handguns in individual lockers and gave a jailer the keys. She gave us each a number to be used to repossess our weapons when we were leaving.

As Harry led us back to the interview room, he said to Hester, “This Skripkin is one worried dude.”

“I would be, too,” said Hester.

I noticed how busy and noisy it was in the halls. Lots of staff. In our jail, you could clap your hands and get an echo.

We entered a room without windows, about fifteen by twenty-five feet, a mirror on the wall, and a long table with four chairs, arranged two to a side.

I knew the mirror was one-way, but it still could have fooled me. “Holy shit, Harry,” I said. “This looks like a movie set.”

He chuckled. “Strange you should mention that…the video camera is up in that corner there,” he said, pointing, “and the real video equipment is behind the glass. Great sound, so don’t say anything to each other in a whisper if you don’t want Skripkin’s attorney to hear you. That mike system picks up everything. It’s all digital.”

“You have popcorn on the other side of the glass? “I asked.

“I ain’t tellin’,” he said.

There was a knock on the door, and a uniformed jailer ushered Skripkin in. “I’ll be leaving you now,” said Harry, and meaningfully picked up the fourth chair and took it with him. Now, in order to obtain a weapon, Skripkin was either going to have to ask Hester or me for our chairs, or stand up and use his own. Not too bad an idea.

My first impression of Skripkin was that of a tall, very thin young man, with large blue eyes, blond hair, a large and narrow nose, and a very pale complexion. He was about two inches taller than I was, making him close to six feet six. He had very long fingers, with the nearly round nails you sometimes see in an ectomorph. He appeared pretty calm to me. Like they say, always take your cue from the suspect.

“Hi,” I said. “My name’s Carl Houseman, and this is Hester Gorse. I’m a deputy sheriff over in Nation County, Iowa, and she’s a special agent of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. We’d like to talk to you about the murder of Rudy Cueva.”

“Sure, no problem. What do you want to know?” Although he spoke pretty slowly and did have a Russian accent, his English was pretty damned good.

“Have a seat,” I said. “We need to explain a few things to you before we go any further.”

“Sure, whatever you need.” He sat, and so did we. I was rather surprised at his seemingly relaxed demeanor. I’d expected more tension, especially since Harry had told us he was worried.

“Okay, your first name is…” I said, wanting him to say it so I had a pronunciation guide.

“Yevgenny Ilyavitch Skripkin,” he said. “I am U.S. citizen since July 23 of this very year.”

“Excellent,” I said, and meant it. It was nice to be on familiar territory. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“First, let me advise you that you have the right to remain silent, and that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court or courts of law. You have the right to an attorney, and to have him present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you at no cost to you.” I said it slowly, and with as little expression as possible. “Do you understand those rights?”

“Yes, I do.”

“With those rights in mind, do you still wish to talk with us without the presence of an attorney?”

“Sure, why not?”

I hate it when suspects append things like that. An attorney can have a field day, asking why you didn’t explain to him why he shouldn’t really talk to you. All over what is essentially a figure of speech.

“Okay. You know that you have been charged as an accessory to the murder of Rudy Cueva, is that correct?”

“Please explain this ‘accessory’ to me. Please.”

“In this case, it means that you were there when Rudy Cueva was killed, and you either helped to kill him or did nothing to prevent him being killed.”

He considered that for a moment. “I did not think Hassan was going to kill him, okay?”

“By Hassan, do you mean a man who calls himself Hassan Ahmed Hassan?” asked Hester.

“Yes I do. I mean, too, a man who calls himself Juan Alvarez. This person is the same.”

“That would be ‘Juan Miguel Alvarez,’ as far as you know?” asked Hester.

“As far as I know.”

He looked at us for a second, digesting Hester’s use of Alvarez’s middle name. He was smart enough to have picked up on it, but did he realize the implications? It had definitely dawned on him that we already knew something about Alvarez. I wondered if he realized Hester had done it deliberately.

“Can I ask here a question?”

There might be a time when you say something about being the one doing the questioning, but we wanted Yevgenny relaxed and as comfortable as possible.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Do you think truly that I wanted Rudy to be dead?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I don’t have enough information.”

He thought again. “Okay. I understand. I did not want to die, this Rudy, at all. I will explain to you why I mean that.”

“Fine. What happened that day? “I asked. “What were you doing there in the first place?”

According to Skripkin, he had come to the Midwest with his friend Hassan Ahmed Hassan, also known as Juan Miguel Alvarez, back in August. They lived in Harmony, Minnesota, for about a month, and then moved to Iowa City, Iowa. They were unemployed but Hassan always had cash. Skripkin claimed that he had no idea where the money came from. That seemed to be the first lie.

He then claimed they would drive around sometimes, and on one of those little drives, they came up north to Battenberg, and that was where he and Hassan met with Rudy Cueva for the first time.

“You came up specifically to meet Rudy Cueva?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t think that a hundred-mile drive without knowing who you were going to see was a little…strange?”

“How would I know that? I think…no, I am guessing that Hassan he knew Rudy already. Is that right, guess?”

“Could be. Why do you say that?”

“That was my guessing when we got there, because he…just a second, I reach for word… recognized him. That is it, recognized.” He looked genuinely pleased.

“How do you know that?” I asked. “That he recognized him.”

“Because we were driving around looking for address of Rudy and Linda, and we went by the Casey’s store, and there was a man filling gas into his car, and Hassan turned in the driving place and said, ‘That’s him there.’ That is why.”

“Does it for me,” I said. “So, you two came up to see Rudy and Linda, then?”

“No, just Rudy. I did not know both of them, and I think Hassan, he also met Linda that night for first time when we went to the apartment.”

“So,” asked Hester, “why did you come up to see them?”

Skripkin leaned a bit forward. “It was business, lady agent.” And he winked.

Lady agent. I suspected that the troops on the other side of the glass were going to have a good time with that one.

“Narcotics? “asked Hester, not missing a beat. “Drugs, dope?”

“No. No drugs. No.”

“What for, then?” She was pretty insistent.

“This makes me frightened,” he said. “I do not know what to say.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

He thought. “I tell you, because you have my fingerprints. You will know soon, if you do not know already.” His whole demeanor had changed, just like a switch had been tripped. He became much more confident, and more assertive.

“My real name is truly Yevgenny Skripkin. I am wanted in Ukraine for murder, which I did kill that man, because I am hired to do that. I do that for a job. I was brought to this country in 1996, arrangement from my old boss with the boss of Hassan. I come to this country from Canada, then to Chicago. I had job, and pretty good visa and not so good green card. I was cook at restaurant there.” As I started to speak, he held up his hand for silence. “No, I do not know boss of Hassan. I do not know that Hassan knows boss of Hassan.” His prominent jaw muscles clenched. “It is good for me not to know those things. I know this.” He appeared to relax a bit. “So, I am wanted to become hard to find in Ukraine, and this is good deal for bosses. I am to help the boss of Hassan whenever he asks. Otherwise, I am to be a U.S. citizen as soon as I can, so I keep my nose pretty damn clean.”

I thought I heard a muted thump from behind the one-way glass, and imagined that Volont had just sent George scrambling to run Skripkin’s prints through AFIS.

“What’s the name of your old boss? “asked Hester.

“Vladimir Nadsyev.” He said it very freely, which surprised me.

“And you don’t know the name of Hassan’s boss?”

“Of course not.”

“But you would tell us if you knew it? “she asked.

“Of course not,” he said, with a big smile. “I am not stupid.”

“Then,” she asked, “why did you tell us the name of your old boss?”

“He is husband of my sister,” said Skripkin. “Everybody knows I work for him for years.”

“Then are you really a U.S. citizen?” I asked. I thought I could get away with the question because I was asking it for verification purposes for a prior statement.

He sighed. “No, I am not U.S. citizen.”

“Okay.” Lies were piling up. Now we had to determine if we were actually getting closer to the truth of the matter, or if we were just getting more lies. Filtering can be a real pain in the butt. I looked at my notes. “So, back to this Hassan and his boss…”

“This is first time boss of Hassan asks for favor. I am to come with Hassan and be his guard, and be his strong right arm if there is to be trouble.”

“And this is the first time you met Hassan?”

“To be truthful, yes. I never met Hassan before then.”

It’s amazing how many times the people we interview say things like ‘to tell the truth’ or ‘to be truthful.’ It’s a dead giveaway that they’ve been lying to you. That’s the easy part. The hard part is determining just where and why.

“Just what was it that this Hassan was supposed to be doing? “asked Hester.

“He did not tell me, so much as I figure it out.” That’s how Skripkin began, but I thought he’d figured it out very well, indeed.

First, he said that Hassan was supposed to do some “contamination” in the meat plant. Skripkin had thought, originally, it was to “make the meat bad,” and to force a recall.

“Why did he want to do that?”

“To hurt the jews who run the plant,” he said. “This is what I think. This is the…impression I get. From him. He tells he hates Jews. I figure it out.”

He said then that as time passed, and things happened, he began to think that something more was being planned.

“You know, of course, that Linda, she and I are lovers.” It was a statement, not a question.

“When did that start?” asked Hester.

“From the moment she sees my eyes,” he said, with a completely straight face. “We start to be with the other that same time, only one day after we meet.”

That surprised me, but considering where Harry said he’d found them, it did fit.

“You started bagging her the day after you met her, then? “I asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, okay,” I said. “So you’re sleeping with Linda almost right away, then?”

“We never sleep together until last night.” He smiled in a friendly way. “That is how we find ourself caught. Never sleep together, just screw together. Hard to catch you.”

I imagined Harry was rolling on the floor by now. I tossed one in for the audience when I said, “I’ll make a note of that.”

“So, then what happened?” Hester brought us back into line.

As it happened, Linda, at some point, had told Skripkin that Rudy was getting worried about just what was up, and that Hassan and company were asking him to do something he objected to.

“Why didn’t he just walk away? “asked Hester.

“Agent lady,” said Skripkin, “Rudy had been bought like me. They had…hired him, out of Colombia, to do a job for them, and he had agreed to do it. This man who was boss of Hassan? He was, too, boss of Rudy, but Hassan was boss of Rudy too. Same man. Do you understand? Very important man.”

“Okay,” I said. “So you have this boss, and under him you have Hassan, and under him you have Rudy, right?”

“Absolutely correct,” he said.

“So…?”

“Rudy got very mad because Hassan and me, we also…ah, recruit…the Orejas man who is friend of Rudy. Rudy cannot get to the right place in the processing line, okay, to put the stuff on the meats. Rudy said he would not take a-what do I want to say-lesser job to do that. You know many Colombians? No? They are that way. I do not know. But Rudy was higher than the meat carrier, and he also said that there would be suspicion if he asks for a lesser duty. So, then, we do not ask Rudy, we ask Orejas. Orejas carries meat into trucks, and is very often having privacy for a several seconds as he is in the truck. He is in right place to do this deed.”

Ah-ha. “Just what deed?”

“He was to use this substance, this white stuff, and…what is this word…place it on, like butter you place on bread. Only this it was on the meat. Spread! That is it, spread. At first.”

“At first?”

“Yes. We do experiment for spread, we see it cannot be done…well…with a plastic bag and a rubber spreading tool. Hassan telephones his boss, and a few days later, the ups,” he said, pretty clearly meaning United Parcel Service, “they deliver a very nice package, and in the package we have cans that spray.”

“No shit?” I said.

“No shit, yes. And we give cans to Orejas, and Rudy gets very mad.”

“Why was he so mad? “asked Hester. “Orejas worked for him, didn’t he?”

“Rudy says that when this Orejas was very small, he gets very bad injured in his head. Orejas is made to be very easy to persuade. Rudy takes care to see Orejas stays out of trouble from that day. Rudy says that Orejas, he is ‘too fucking dumb to know if he wants to do it or not,’ and Hassan should leave Orejas alone.” Skripkin shrugged. “I know for a fact that Orejas, he is not smart. He does it because Hassan tells him that it will help Rudy. I was there.”

“Okay…”

“Then Rudy finds out that Orejas is supposed to use a mask and gloves, and he gets a lot worried. He says that Orejas cannot do things like that the right way.”

“Just a second,” I said. “Orejas just wasn’t quick enough to follow the procedures?”

“That is correct. Rudy is very mad, and Rudy is making talk like he is going to tell Orejas to stop. So we take Rudy to the old farm, and we have talk with him.”

“Who’s we?” I asked.

“That would be me, and Hassan, and the one they call Chato, and Rudy.”

“Chato? “Another unknown.

“Yes. Chato, he was the driver. He works at the plant, he knows Rudy and Orejas, and everybody there.”

Hester and I exchanged glances.

“You know his real name?” asked Hester.

“I do not, lady agent. I swear.” And he gave her another wink.

“So, what happened? First, why did you pick the old Dodd place? “I asked.

“What is this ‘old Dodd place’? I do not know it.”

“Sorry. The old farm where you took Rudy.”

“Ah. Dodd? That is funny name, Dodd. We take Rudy there because we know where it is. We go there sometimes, to do private meeting and talk about plan. Hassan, he is very worried that FBI listens in at walls of apartment.”

“How did you ever find that place? “I asked.

“I do not know this. This Rudy would know.”

“Okay. But you’d been there before?”

“Oh yes,” said Skripkin. “Four, five times.”

“Okay. So, when you got to the farm, what happened?”

“I am sorry to say that Rudy knows by then about Linda and me. He is very angry at that. Hassan is very angry. He is angry at Rudy, and he is angry at me. We start to beat up Rudy a bit, you know. To make him to listen. But my heart is not in my work, because I feel bad about Linda. Hassan gets mad at me again, too. I tie Rudy’s wrists, and Hassan hits him many times. Rudy falls down and starts to kick Hassan. It was very bad.”

“Why was Hassan so mad? “asked Hester. “Did Rudy talk to Orejas and tell him to stop?”

“No. Rudy came to us first, I think. Me and Hassan. He never had a chance to talk to Orejas about it after that.”

“So why was he so mad at Rudy?”

“Because, Rudy, if he go to Orejas and tell him to stop, the experiment cannot be done, and the boss of Hassan will get very angry at Hassan.”

“So Hassan pisses off his boss…so what?”

“Boss of Hassan is very bad man. Very bad. Very important in many places. Hassan would be killed in a slow way and the way will be full of meaning to others.”

“So,” I asked, “just how did Rudy find out that Orejas was involved in the first place? Do you know? “It wasn’t adding up.

Skripkin lowered his eyes. “I am afraid that I tell Linda after we are making love. She likes Orejas, he is like a little pet to her. So she tells Rudy. But she tells him everything, you know? About me, about screwing, about all these things.” He looked up again. “Women I do not understand very well. I think very hard that if Rudy did not have so much on his mind, he might not have done what he did.”

“Good bet,” I said. “Okay, now, back to you four at the farm. Rudy was kicking Hassan. What happens next?”

“Yes. Sure. So, after Hassan is kicked by Rudy, Hassan gets very, very angry. He says, ‘Okay you motherfucker, we will see how you talk to the boss.’ He says it just that way. You understand, they are speaking Spanish to each other most of the time, okay? I don’t understand Spanish. So I don’t know all that is said. But when he wants me to know, he speaks English. You understand he is not Arab person. He is Mexican kind of person. He calls himself Hassan because he says he has come to that religion. You see?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Good. Do not forget this, that Hassan is not Arab. So he tells me and Chato in English to put Rudy in the car, in the back, and he has me in the back, too, because I am so big to Rudy. Hassan and Chato, they are in front. Chato is our driver. Hassan gets the shotgun that is in the…back. No, trunk, in trunk, and has it in now with him. He tells Chato to go to Iowa City.”

“Iowa City?”

“That is where we can meet the boss.”

“And that would be…?” asked Hester.

“Pardon, lady agent?”

“What’s the name of the person you refer to as ‘the boss’?”

“I tell you before. This is something I do not know.” He gave her an intense look. “You must believe me, lady agent.”

“I’ll try,” said Hester, dryly.

“Okay,” I said. “Then what?”

“I am feeling badly about things, and not looking at anything but Rudy, but Hassan is starting to really talk loudly at Chato about going the wrong way. So Chato, he stops in a hurry, and starts to back up, and when he does this, Rudy opens the car door and he just falls backwards out of the car, and he gets away.”

We questioned him more closely, and established that he was on the left side in the rear of the car, and that Rudy was on the right side. As Chato started to try to turn the car around on the narrow, sixteen-foot gravel road, he pulled toward the left and stopped very close to the ditch on that side. Most of that was explained with hand motions, and I was very glad we were on video. When they were stopped for a second while Chato shifted into reverse, Rudy got out the back door on the right. Skripkin figured that Rudy’s hands, being bound behind his back, had been near the door latch, and that he had grabbed it when Chato braked hard. At that point, Skripkin was trying to get out on the left side and go after Rudy, but Chato apparently didn’t realize that Rudy had gone out of the car, and started to back up. That also slowed Hassan’s exiting down, and actually knocked him over when his open car door pushed him to the ground. It also made him even madder. Skripkin said that they both were delayed for a second or two, and that Rudy disappeared around the curve. He also said that for a moment, he thought Hassan might shoot Chato for being so stupid.

It had a ring of truth. It seemed to have been the sort of total screw-up that was typical in most crimes.

“So, then what happened?” I asked.

“We were running up this road after him,” said Skripkin, “and Hassan was in front of me, and then Rudy falls to the ground. And Hassan catches him and so do I, and Hassan is very, very angry. He yells at Rudy, and Rudy, he begins to cry. I do not know what was said, but I think it occurs to Rudy that life is over. And Hassan, he calls him a motherfucker again, and then he just shoots him in the back of the head, while he is kneeling on the ground. Bang. Just like that. Very quick.”

“Just the three of you, and then just the two of you, right?” I asked. I wanted to know if they’d seen old Jacob there.

He grinned. “Good way to say it. Yes. Three, then bang, then two.”

He never mentioned seeing anyone else, so I guess Jacob Heinman had been right with his theory about the cat and the mouse.

“I was not expecting the shooting,” said Skripkin. “I was taken by surprise. I said, ‘What do we do now?’ because we had a body to get rid of. And Hassan says, ‘We leave now,’ and I did not think it wise to argue as I did not have a gun.”

“So you just took off, and left the body on the road? “asked Hester.

“Sure.”

“And you thought you should, what, take it with you?”

“If we take it back to the farm, nobody would ever see it again,” he said. “Nobody would know Rudy was dead. Leaving it on the road is stupid mistake. I search for word…ah, no money for work…Olympics say this.”

“Amateur? “I asked. It sure fit what I was thinking.

“Yes! Amateur is a good word for it.”

“That sounds right,” I said. “But I think you’re pretty damned lucky.”

“Why is that?”

“If Hassan hadn’t left the body in the road, you and Chato would have been the only other persons who would have known where it was. I got a feeling that you’re both pretty damned lucky you didn’t help him hide it, because I think he would have shot you, too.”

He thought about that. “Probably.”

“Maybe not so amateur all the time,” I said. “Okay, now, why…”

“I have question,” said Skripkin. “Can I ask?”

“Sure. Ask away.”

“This immunity that Linda is doing. Am I included? She said I was to be included.”

It was time to set that straight. “No. As far as we know, your name has never been mentioned.”

“I see.” He shook his head sadly. “Women. They tell you anything to get you to love them.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “So, I can be taken to trial?”

“Yes. You can be charged, and I intend to do that.”

“So, good as it gets,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

“ I got to be in jail. Somewhere. I know this. I am in jail here or I am in jail in Russia. I will take here. Much better places in U.S.A.”

I thought that might depend on which definition of “better” was being used, but didn’t say anything.

The more I thought about it, the more something wasn’t quite right about Skripkin’s information regarding the boss, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I made a quick note, just a question mark and the word “boss.” I’d go back there later.

“Okay, now,” I said. “Just why was all this stuff being done? The substance on the meat, I mean. What was it intended to do?”

“It was intended to kill Jews,” he said. “Of course.”

17:03 AFTER THE SHADOWY FIGURE YELLED AT US, it got very quiet for what seemed a very long time.

When we looked back, later, and tried to piece together the moment when everything went to shit, we decided it was about now, when George’s, Hester’s, and my cell phones all rang at the same time.

There was a moment’s confusion, because nobody was really sure just whose phone was ringing.

Sally helped Hester with hers, while George and I tried to talk, understand the messages, and keep lookout at the same time.

“Yeah,” I said, after fishing mine out of my pocket.

“Carl,” said Lamar, “call the office. They just got a 911 call from somebody they think is up there at the shed area west of you. Caller says he has something to negotiate.”

“What?” I was totally surprised.

“Yeah. They’ve got a call-back number, and we got a federal agent who’s a negotiator, and he’s callin’ that number right now.”

“Okay…”

“And the CRPD chopper is gonna be makin’ a pass over you real shortly with the FLIR. So make the call to the office. Then contact the chopper on AID.”

The Forward-Looking Infra-Red viewer in the helicopter would enable them to see just about anything that would be visible in the daytime, and some things that wouldn’t be. It measured the heat differential to about a tenth of a degree, and that made for some very high-definition viewing, indeed.

“Sheriff’s Department,” said the harried but familiar voice of Patty Neuman. She wasn’t yet up to the standard we’d come to expect from Sally, but she’d do the job.

“Hi. It’s Houseman. Lamar said to call-”

“Jesus, are you guys all right? Is Sally okay?”

“So far. What you got?”

“Just a sec.” I heard her rummaging around on her desk. “God, Houseman, I got pictures of where you are on the TV in front of me. Okay, here you go… Okay, so the call came in at 18:22:09, from the Battenberg OMNI, and the caller said that his name wasn’t important, but that he wanted to arrange a truce so they could get a male subject treated for a wound.” She was reading the E911 printout.

“No shit?”

“Yeah, no shit is right. You want the number?”

“Can’t write it down just now. What is it, though?” I really wanted to know who the hell it was that had called.

“Okay…that’s area code 781, 555, 8811.”

“Where’s area code 781?”

“Minneapolis. For mobile phones.”

“Well.”

“I think the FBI is talking to that line now.”

“That’s what Lamar said. Okay, I gotta go, unless you have more on that…”

“That’s it. Oh, boy, you all be careful down there, now.”

“Oh, we will,” I said. “We will.”

After I terminated my call, Sally came over. “That was Hester’s boss. It looks like we might have a deal where we get an ambulance up here for one of the wounded assholes, and they’re going to try to get Hester out at the same time.”

Ah. “Not in the same ambulance,” I said. “We need two ambulances. And we load Hester first.”

George came over. “That was Volont. They’ve got a negotiator talking to one of them now, I guess. They want to get an ambulance up for one of their wounded.”

“That’s what I hear. DCI wants to get Hester out then, too.”

“That would be good,” said George. “She’s got to be wearing down.”

“I want to call Lamar. I don’t want her going out in the same ambulance with some terrorist. Too risky.”

“I agree,” he said. “Oh, and Volont says they didn’t get anybody in Michigan or Nebraska. He thinks something might have gone wrong… that the informant might have had the wrong date, or something. At any rate, it doesn’t look like the other operation is going until later.”

“Their informant a liar?”

“Possible,” he said. “But Volont and Hawse and Gwen are here. The HRT is in a helicopter right now, and on the way. We wait for them, then we go.”

The FBI Hostage Rescue Team was rightly considered to be the best tactical team ever invented. I was as happy to know they were on the way as I would have been to have the Marines. Well, close. HRT doesn’t come with artillery, tanks, and integral air support.

My phone rang. It was Lamar.

“Carl, it looks like we’re gonna have to get an ambulance up there in the next five or ten minutes. They insist, and the negotiator says it’s bad for us to play with the times for a wounded subject. The press is all over us. We gotta be prompt, I guess.”

“Okay. Make it two ambulances, though. We don’t want Hester in with them.”

Apparently nobody else in the whole damned world had thought of that. “Oh. Oh, yeah. We’ll do that.”

“Let us know when to move,” I said.

George’s phone rang next. It was Volont. The FBI negotiator had tried to delay the pickup of the wounded terrorist until the HRT arrived. No such luck. Whoever was on the other end of that negotiation was aware that there were two or three ambulances stacked up on the gravel road south of the farm. Volont suspected it meant that the bad guys had a vantage point that was pretty high up.

After George told me, we both looked in the direction of the silo. Even money said there was somebody up there, although we couldn’t see anyone.

“I told Volont that we thought the terrorists were trying to block us, not the other way around,” said George, never taking his eyes off the area around the silo.

“What’d he say to that?” I asked.

“He thinks it’s possible,” said George. “But he said that they might just be so fanatical that they just want to sucker more of us up there to be killed, before they die for the cause.”

“You think they’re that fanatical? I haven’t seen any of that.”

“Not particularly, no,” said George. “But Volont would tend to think they were. That sort of thing appeals to him, I think.”

As we were talking, my walkie-talkie announced, “Nation County Three, 918.”

Just from the background noise, I could tell it was a helicopter. I twisted the knob on the top of my walkie-talkie to channel 4, the AID channel, and cut off the scan function. I didn’t want any interruptions at this point.

“Nation County Three, go ahead 918,” I said.

“Stand by for one, Three. TAC Six from 918?” TAC 6 answered, and I recognized Marty’s voice. “Yeah, Three and TAC Six, we’re just about overhead, now. We can see two people moving behind the shed closest to the barn. Two people near the base of the silo, on the ground and stationary, and one on the ladder on the west side. He’s stable at about three-fourths of the way to the top. All those are stationary, repeat, stationary. We have a strong IR signature in the other shed, the one more northerly, and it looks like they’ve got a car running in there, possibly to keep the injured subject warm. Three, maybe four subjects in that immediate area. We’ve got a strong glow in your barn itself, and four individuals. Do you guys have a heat source in there?”

“Ten-four,” I answered. “We do.”

“Right. We got the TAC team members spotted, and one, no, two deer in the wooded area to the northeast about a hundred yards.”

“Ten-four. Can you tell if that’s a car in the shed, or is it a van?”

“Nope, not a van. That’s definite. It’s a warm enough target to give us an outline of the vehicle. Wrong shape all the way. It’s a confirmed passenger car, mid-sized, maybe.”

“Ten-four.”

“We’ll be working the area, but we’re gonna avoid being overhead. Advise when you want close watch. Understand you have a 10-52 that’s going to be coming up that lane toward the barn?”

“Ten-four,” said Marty. “Last I heard, two of ‘em. Go up on Orange for a minute.”

That was a signal to change to a scrambled, restricted access frequency, so that TAC 6 and the helicopter could discuss something that wasn’t for just everybody. They were being careful, and I liked that.

Sally was holding up her fingers. “Shit. That’s at least eight of ‘em,” she said. “Eight.”

“Yeah. With the two, that would have been ten.”

We all looked at one another in the faint orange glow of the heater.

“That’s just too many,” I said, “for one fuckin’ car. Where the hell’s Hector’s van with the Nebraska plates, then? “A van made more sense, although it would have been pretty crowded with ten people in one. The van plus the car, on the other hand, would just about fit.

Sally held up her walkie-talkie, “It’s Lamar for you on Ops.”

I switched my frequency to channel 1, and said, “Three.”

“Okay, now everybody listen up.” Lamar must have called a radio conference. “Here’s the deal. Two ten-fifty-twos go up. They take their crews and one officer each. They stop in the yard, right in the middle. Nobody, I repeat, nobody goes outside the circle of the yard light.” There was a brief transmission break as he organized his thoughts. “Okay, everybody listenin’? They will bring their wounded man into the light, and the EMTs from the first ambulance will go to them with a stretcher. Both officers in the ambulances go to the stretcher with them. Nobody else. Repeat, nobody else.”

Another transmission break, followed by, “While they do that, 1-388 will come out to the other ambulance. 1-388 can walk on her own. She will get into that ambulance. Both ambulances leave at the same time. Nobody else moves into the area. It goes smooth and quick. If you’re ten-four on that, sound off in order, starting with Three.”

“Three’s ten-four,” I said. That was followed by acknowledgments from eight or nine team-leading officers, and both ambulances; Battenberg 51 and Maitland 52.

“Okay,” said Lamar. “We go in ten minutes.”

It sounded like a plan, all right.

As Lamar finished, my cell phone went off again. This time it was Marty.

“Carl, look. The HRT is going to be here really soon. The plan is, as soon as the ambulances clear the area on their way out, the HRT goes in, and then we go in. Get ready to move, because when HRT reach the barn in good shape, you guys will leave with us. We take you out, down to the road, and then move back up. The HRT will advance on the suspects. They want you out of there as soon as you can get out.”

“What about the people at the silo?”

“They’ll neutralize them.”

I wondered just how to neutralize somebody two-thirds of the way up a silo. I hoped he was right when he said they could do that. “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

“We call you one more time, just before we come to get you.”

“Got it.”

“Should be within fifteen minutes or so. If the HRT gets here while the ambulances are still up at the barn area, we wait until they clear.”

“Right.”

“The word is, if anybody tries anything with the ambulance, we take ‘em out.”

“Good.”

“Okay. See you soon.”