The Same End

by Gregory Ashe

  “So he stole it from the BLM.”

  “He had to have.”

  Jem considered him for a moment, the way Tean stared at the building with his bushy eyebrows drawn together. “Spit it out.”

  “What?”

  “The rest of it, spit it out.”

  “Jager was weird.”

  “The BLM guy?”

  “Right. He’s a special agent; he’s supposed to investigate federal crimes that occur on federal land. The fact that he would want to talk to us after we found that body definitely makes sense, but . . .”

  “But it was freaky as fuck.”

  “Yes. I couldn’t even tell you why, but it was weird. He was weird.”

  “Trust your gut.”

  After a moment, Tean nodded.

  “Now,” Jem said, “as a budding criminal mastermind, do you have a plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “You get us inside, and we search Jager’s office and the secured storerooms.”

  “That’s not a plan. That’s a wish.”

  “Does it help if I tell you it’s an order?”

  Grinning, Jem said, “Do you want to be the sneaky snake or the goody gopher?”

  “Please don’t tell me that’s a sex game.”

  “Hold on.”

  “Jem—”

  “No, I just need to savor this moment. That was the best thing you’ve ever said to me. I never want to forget this.”

  “Jem!”

  “No, it’s not a sex game. Yet. I’m talking about our plan. Sneaky snake and goody gopher team up to get inside the BLM. Just like in nature. In the real world.”

  “First of all, in the real world, snakes and gophers don’t team up. Snakes eat gophers.”

  “That’s a kind of teamwork. They’re both doing their part.” Tean opened his mouth, and Jem hurried to say, “See that truck? You’re going to knock on the front door of the BLM building until the security guard comes to talk to you. Then you’re going to tell him that you were walking by when you saw someone hit that truck with their car.”

  “Someone randomly drove into a parking lot at this hour, ran into that truck, and drove away.”

  “Yep.”

  “Nobody’s going to believe that.”

  “He’s a security guard who spent more than I make in a year on a truck, Tean. He’s going to believe it. Make your face right.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Simultaneously outraged and unbearably pleased with yourself. Like the time you caught me borrowing sugar packets from McDonald’s and you went back to pay the manager for them.”

  “You weren’t borrowing them; you were stealing them. Borrowing implies you were going to give them back.”

  “Not necessarily. I never gave you back that ugly hat I borrowed.”

  “It’s called a fedora. And I bought it because you told me I needed something stylish in my wardrobe. And that’s a perfect example of stealing.”

  “Well,” Jem said, “I did you a favor. Get into place, goody gopher. Keep him talking as long as you can, and when he goes back inside, walk around back.”

  Tean’s mouth opened in an indignant O as Jem jogged away.

  The BLM building had all the charm and verve and architectural panache of every government-designed structure, which was to say, in Jem’s opinion it was only slightly uglier than a cardboard box. A used one. That had already been broken down for the recycling bin. The building’s simple outline didn’t offer any convenient nooks or crannies for Jem to hide in, so he settled for taking up position at the corner of the building. He gauged the distance to the door as fifteen feet. He crouched and tightened the laces on his ROOS.

  Tean approached the door, but instead of knocking, he rang a doorbell. It sounded inside the BLM building. After a moment, Tean jabbed the button again. The guard, when he arrived, was a young guy, and he matched the mental profile Jem had started to assemble. He had his thumbs in his belt, obviously wanting to draw attention to the holstered gun, and he was sun-brown, a diet of beer and fast food already catching up with him. He said something through the glass.

  “I saw a hit-and-run,” Tean shouted back, pointing over his shoulder, movements and words exaggerated. “Somebody ran into that truck.”

  Inside the building, the guard bellowed something that sounded like “What the hell?”

  “Do you know who owns that truck?” Tean said.

  The guard’s answer was to push open the door and run out into the parking lot.

  Jem had worried that his own footsteps might be too loud, but the guard was making more than enough noise. As soon as the guard had gotten past Tean, Jem sprinted toward the door. Tean didn’t look at him, but he did catch the BLM door and give it an extra shove before taking off after the guard. That extra push kept the door open just long enough for Jem to grab it before it swung shut. He slipped inside, the door locking as it closed behind him. Out by the Silverado, the guard was shouting questions. The last thing from Tean that Jem heard was, “I didn’t get a very good look at them, but they were definitely teenagers. Hooligans, I mean. And I think they’d been drinking.”

  Rolling his eyes, Jem jogged across the lobby. It was your standard setup: molded plastic chairs, end tables covered with outdated magazines, a pile of Trident wrappers, a melamine reception desk with a plastic nameplate that said SURESH. A camera watched everything, and Jem resisted the urge to give it a wave. He knew—and Tean must have known—that they had no chance of doing this without getting feature roles in that night’s production of the BLM security camera variety hour, but if it ever went to court, there was no point in antagonizing people.

  The shouting in the parking lot had subsided by the time Jem followed the hallway behind the reception desk. A door stood open on his right. A copy of Bucks and Does lay open on a vinyl rolling chair, and either lady deer had changed a lot since the last time Jem had seen one, or the security guard was enjoying the company of his right hand during the shift. A camera showed a rotating selection of views from outside and inside the building, and Jem stayed long enough to watch until they repeated. Most of the cameras were placed outside; the few that were inside occupied access points, which meant the only tricky part would be getting out of the building without being noticed. The solution was probably going to be very simple, something along the lines of run like hell.

  Ahead he spotted a staff kitchen and lunchroom; the refrigerator was making a grinding, clanking noise that made Jem think Karen and Debbie were going to come in on Monday and find their tuna salad had gone over. Two more doors opened off the hall: one to a conference room that smelled like Fritos (or maybe like feet; Jem couldn’t decide), and the other locked, with a plaque that said Director. He left that for later, although he doubted they’d have time.

  A second hallway branched off, cutting across the width of the building. Bathrooms, a janitorial supply closet with bleach fumes that made Jem’s eyes sting—and a mop that fell and cracked him across the face—several shared offices, and then an unmarked door that was locked. Bingo, bango, bongo. He left it for the moment and kept going; he passed several more workspaces, these divided up by cubicles, and then, at the end of the hall, another office with a plaque that said SPECIAL AGENT JAGER. A crash-bar door opened onto a dark swatch of asphalt; Jem leaned into it with his hip, and cool, desert air and the smell of motor oil washed over him.

  A shadow came toward him, and Jem reached for the pocket containing the paracord with the hex nut.

  “Jesus, Tean,” he whispered. “Give a guy a heart attack.”

  “He was crying,” Tean snapped. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known it was going to upset him that much.”

  “His truck didn’t actually get hit by another car.”

  “He doesn’t know that.” When Tean tried to squeeze past Jem, he stopped. “What happened to your face?”

  “Nothing.”
/>
  “No, there’s definitely swelling. Stop it. Don’t you dare try to pull away from me.” Somehow, by that point, Tean had Jem’s head in both hands. For somebody who was always trying to squirm away from hugs, back-scratches, best-friend-completely-nonsexual cuddling, and anything even close to resembling physical affection, the doc seemed completely untroubled by Jem bucking and trying to twist his head free. “Gosh, you’re so darn fractious. You make petting Senator Poindexter look easy.”

  “I know that’s a cat and not your willy, but you should still try to be more careful how you phrase things.”

  “Who hit you?”

  “There was a second guard. I had to take care of him. Don’t worry; I think he’ll live. If you can call it living.”

  Tean was quiet for a moment. In the relatively weak light of the hall, his eyes were black, and the heat of his hands made Jem flush. Pine, sage, the dusty smell of high-plains grasses and all the wild, open spaces. How many people had ever cared if Jem had gotten hurt? How many people had ever held his head like this? How many had ever worried about him, fussed over him, held on and refused to let go, even though something feral in Jem raised its hackles whenever another person tried to take care of him? How many people had ever called him fractious and said it like it was half-wonderful and half-maddening? For that matter, what the hell did fractious even mean?

  Jem did it without knowing he was going to do it. He turned his head and kissed the heel of Tean’s hand.

  Tean yanked his hands away and held them at his side, fists clenched.

  Explanations unspooled in Jem’s head: that was just a friend thing, that was just because you’re such a nice guy, a laugh, a smirk, God, you make it too easy. He couldn’t crack open his jaw.

  Instead, Tean spoke first, his voice tight, with a tremor he must have been trying to hide. “The guard was calling his mom when I left, but he won’t be out there forever.”

  “Ok,” Jem said.

  Tean stepped inside, and Jem let the door swing shut. He pointed to Jager’s office and they kept moving. In his hurry, he grabbed the wrong door, and the mop clipped him across the side of the face again.

  “God damn it,” he whispered.

  “A second guard,” Tean said drily.

  Shoving the mop back into the closet, Jem pointed a finger at Tean. “Not another word.”

  Tean mimed zipping his lips. But his eyes were full of something Jem didn’t want to read, even if he could, so he closed the closet door and went to work picking the lock on the next one.

  “Really?” Tean asked after a moment. “You’re going to be able to pick that?”

  “This lock is one step up from the privacy locks that people have on their bathroom doors.”

  “For the closet where they keep guns and ammo?”

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. It’s the only locked door besides the director’s, though, and this is the BLM Moab Field Office, not Fort Knox. Although if we find any of those gold blocks, I get to keep them.”

  “Bullion.”

  “Bullion yourself. I called them.”

  “No, that’s what the blocks—”

  The door swung open, and Jem stood and followed Tean into the room. Tean found a light switch, and exposed bulbs flared to life. It was a storeroom, as Jem had guessed. And it looked like the BLM wasn’t particular about what they stored. The air smelled a little bit like the barns that Jem had been inside of—something like grass or hay, and a nauseating chemical smell, but without the accompanying animal stink. He saw a few spare tires, a spool of braided fishing line, two aluminum jerrycans—something sloshed inside when he kicked one—and boxes, bags, crates, and more. A wire cage at the back partitioned the room, and on the other side of the cage, he could see banker’s boxes, tactical vests, rifles, shotguns, and boxes and boxes of ammunition. Tean was already picking a path through the maze, so Jem moved to examine the cage.

  A heavy padlock hung on the gate, and when Jem checked the construction—as much of it as he could reach, anyway—it all seemed solid.

  “There’s no way I can get through this. Not with the tools I have.”

  Tean was examining something and didn’t look over, but he waved for Jem to join him. When Jem reached him, he saw why: a black metal cabinet against one wall held two of the injection rifles, CO2 cartridges, and boxes of darts.

  “Do I need to worry about fingerprints?” Tean asked.

  “Well, they’ve already got both of us on camera, so I’m not sure it matters.”

  “Perfect,” Tean muttered as he began opening boxes. “I’m going to get sodomized to death by Biggie and have my skull used to make toilet wine because we got caught on camera.”

  “First of all, I silenced our only witness.”

  “Don’t say the mop.”

  “The mop. Second, I’m going out on a limb here and assuming Biggie is your cellmate.”

  Tean was shuffling boxes, checking each one in turn.

  “And third,” Jem said, “if they make the wine in your skull, isn’t it technically skull wine and not toilet wine?”

  “Go do something productive,” Tean said. “Go fight that mop. Best two out of three.”

  “You are very mean to me sometimes.”

  With a long exhalation, Tean removed a dart from the final box and held it up. “Notice anything?”

  “Are you going to stab me with it if I point out that you keep caressing the tip? Before you do, glasses.”

  Tean caught them just as they reached the tip of his nose. As he pushed them back up, he said, “These are all single-use darts, which fits what I saw at the medical examiner’s office. The construction is plastic, and the tip of the dart, which is technically a needle, is thinner and cheaper than reusable ones. That’s why it broke off when it caught up against Andi’s rib.”

  “Ok. And?”

  “And do you see a refrigerated unit where the immunocontraceptive is kept before it’s placed in the dart syringe?”

  Jem shook his head. “The only refrigerator I saw was in the staff kitchen, and it’s on its last legs. Macey and Kacey are going to be furious when they get here and find out their schmears have gone bad over the weekend.”

  “This is Moab, Utah. Nobody is schmearing anything on anything. Oh my gosh, please don’t say anything because I just heard it.” Tean took a deep breath while Jem fought a grin. “My point is that wherever they keep the immunocontraceptive, it’s not here, but there were traces of it in the needle lodged in Andi’s body.”

  “So either Tanner committed two separate thefts—one to get the rifle and darts, and another to get this immune stuff—or he committed one, but he stole a gun and darts that already had the drug in them. It has to be the second one. Tanner’s not above stealing, and he’d steal from two separate locations if he had to. But there’s no reason he would care about the drug. My guess is that he saw someone using one of these things, got a micro-boner for it, and took it right then. At least some of the remaining darts had the drug already in them, and that’s how one of them ended up in Andi.”

  Tean nodded. “Now let’s get the heck out of here, please.”

  “One more thing.”

  “We’re not checking the fridge for schmears.”

  “No, Jager’s office.”

  “No.”

  “A quick look.”

  “No, I’m putting my foot down. Jem, wait up, I’m putting my foot down.”

  Jem tested the handle on Jager’s office door; unlocked. He let them in. The door had a large window set into the upper half, so instead of risking the overhead lights, Jem turned on the flashlight on his phone. After a moment, Tean followed his example.

  The office consisted of a desk, two filing cabinets, and a tiny window. A ceramic tray full of succulents sat next to the window. Jem had Tean help him rock the filing cabinets back and forth, moving them a few inches out from the wall, and then Tean held each cabinet at an angle while J
em lay on his back and messed with the lock, which ran vertically through the frame. It only took him a couple of minutes to get each one opened, and then he put Tean to work examining the contents while he searched the desk.

  Tean found something first, letting out a low noise that made Jem look over. When Tean beckoned, Jem joined him. They stared at the small revolver at the back of the filing cabinet drawer. Its grip was decorated with a stylized American flag, and a silver chain was wrapped around the barrel. Jem worked the chain loose, but before he could examine it, Tean spoke.

  “Why does he have a revolver in a filing cabinet?”

  “That,” Jem said, “is a drop gun.”

  “A what?”

  “A drop gun. It’s stolen, or he took it from another criminal, so there’s no way to trace it back to him. Special Agent Jager shoots whoever he wants to shoot, and then he drops that gun next to the guy, gets the victim’s prints on it, and presto chango, now it’s a justified use of force.”

  Tean was silent for a long moment. “That’s horrifying.”

  Jem squeezed his shoulder before he remembered the awkward kiss, but Tean didn’t react. Then Jem went back to the desk. He took everything out of the drawer before removing it to check the underside.

  He was so focused on his search that he noticed the movement in the hallway too late. The door flew open, and Jager was there, his thin, dark hair messier than ever, the stubble on his face thicker than Jem remembered, verging on a genuine beard. He came into the room with two hard strides and kicked Jem in the head.

  The world shattered into white. Jem would have fallen, but he slumped against the desk, and it kept him upright. The hissing white static in his vision cleared slowly. The side of his head, his cheek, and his neck was warm and wet. Tean was saying something, and it must have been important because he sounded furious. Jem tried to focus on the words. Was it about the kiss? Was Tean really that angry about the kiss?

  Then a hand grabbed Jem by the hair, hauling him up. Jem moved with the hand, scrambling to support himself against the pain in his scalp, and then something sharp and cold settled against his neck.

  “Since when do cops carry knives?” Jem mumbled.