“Okay. I’m thinking DEA. I’ve got a good connection there.”
“It’s your call,” Johnson said. “I’m just in it for the dogs.”
—
VIRGIL’S MAN WITH the DEA was named Harry Gomez, and he was now working out of Chicago. He’d directed the biggest shoot-out Virgil had ever seen, and one of the biggest he’d ever heard of.
Back at the cabin, Virgil called Gomez, who was a modest-sized big shot, and had to talk his way through a protective secretary. “Just tell him who’s calling,” Virgil said. “He’ll take it. I’ve saved his life on many occasions.”
She didn’t believe him, but Gomez took the call. “Hey, Virg. Please, please don’t tell me you found another meth lab.”
“I was calling to shoot the shit for a while,” Virgil said. “I’m not doing much, and I was wondering, what’s Harry Gomez doing? I mean, other than blowing some higher-up—”
“Really?” Gomez sounded almost hopeful.
“No. I found another meth lab. A big one.”
“Ah, shit. Why do you keep doing this, Virgil? It causes a lot of trouble for everyone. Couldn’t you just shoot the cook and call it a day?”
“That would be unethical,” Virgil said. He explained how they’d found the sheds, and about the dogs. “Anyway, they’ve got three fifteen-foot metal sheds hid out in the woods, along with an ATV trail to haul the stuff out. It’s nothing like the first one we hit, but it’s substantial.”
“All right. They cooking right now?”
“Not at this very minute, but they were at it not long ago. I could smell it yesterday. . . .”
Virgil told him about the layout, and Gomez said that he’d move in a six-man team to do surveillance, and then fire off the raid when the cooking began again.
“When do you want to start?” Virgil asked.
“The team can be there tomorrow morning. They’ll go in like you did, from the top. We can stash them up in Winona, so nobody’ll know. You stay out of there until we do this: don’t go chasing the dogs through there.”
“All right. Tell your guys to call, and we’ll hook up.”
“We’ll bring maps . . . and, Virgil? Thank you. Really. We could use a good one. The budget’s being parceled out and most of it’s going down south.”
“Thank me after no one gets killed,” Virgil said.
When he’d rung off, Johnson asked, “What about the dogs?”
“They’re gonna have to wait,” Virgil said. “The DEA is going to swat that place in the next few days, and they don’t want a lot of cops running through there beforehand.”
“Well, Jesus, Virgil, the dogs could be gone before that happens.”
“Johnson—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a big operation. But you know what, Virgil? You’re never going to stop it. Meth’s too easy to make, and there’s too much money involved. But the dogs . . . we could get the dogs back, and change some lives.”
“You know what we’re gonna do?” Virgil asked. “We’re gonna organize a posse.”
Johnson was confused: “What?”
“You got all those hunters with their dogs, let’s stick a few of them in the trees on the other side of the highway, watching everything that comes out of Orly’s Creek—twenty-four hours a day, until the DEA raids the place. I’ll be on standby, right here in the cabin, and if anybody sees more than two dogs in a car coming out of there, I’ll pull them over. That good enough?”