by Jeff Gulvin
Byrne bunched his eyes at the corners. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘It certainly doesn’t now.’
Byrne leant against the radiator. ‘I’m going over to London with the Foreign Emergency Search Team, Tom. I want to take Chey with me, if you can spare her. She worked with me on Fort Bliss, and if she’s looking at this product from Idaho she might be just as useful to you over in London.’ He tapped the picture of the blond-haired Kuhlmann with a forefinger. ‘If they’ve got a Storm Crow problem in England—maybe we do too.’
Harrison replayed the message on the answerphone in his trailer at lunchtime. Outside it was raining. Fall was upon them. He walked to his truck where Chief was waiting for him. ‘What is it?’ Chief asked him.
‘Nothing.’ Harrison looked sideways at him. ‘Phone rang is all. Buddy of mine from Marquette. I gotta call him back.’
Harrison twisted the key in the ignition and turned the truck round. They rolled up the hill and then the few blocks to the lumber yard. Chief went back to the house kit they were setting up and Harrison stopped at the payphone. ‘Just got your message,’ he said when Scheller answered.
‘We need a meet.’
‘When.’
‘Tonight. Usual place. Usual time.’
Harrison put down the phone.
At five o’clock he got off work and went back to the trailer park. A large gathering of Mexicans were clustered outside Rodriguez’s trailer. He parked up and wandered over. The women were all chattering away in Spanish and the men were gesticulating. Harrison peeked through the crowd and saw Little T—Tony Vasquez Junior—sitting on the stoop in tears.
‘Que pasa?’ Harrison said to Margarito who was standing next to him.
‘Look.’ Margarito grabbed Harrison’s arm and dragged him over to the boy. Margarito turned him round and lifted his shirt. Harrison cocked an eyebrow: red weals lined the boy’s back, running below the waistband of his pants to his butt.
‘How’d that happen?’
‘Tate.’ Margarito spat in the dirt and the women started yammering again. ‘He say Poquito T was on Salvesen land. He say he was trespassing. Tate say that he catch any beaners trespassing on Señor Salvesen’s land, he shoot them. He cannot shoot this boy, so he whip him instead.’
Harrison pushed his hat higher on his head. The boy had taken a hell of a beating. His father stood slightly apart, in his black Wranglers and pointed Mexican boots. He was smoking his way through a pack of Basic 100s. Harrison touched his shoulder.
‘Ah,’ Tony said with a twist of his lip. ‘Gringo.’
‘Whoa, buddy. Time out.’ Harrison looked him in the eye. ‘You came to his country, amigo. You can’t stand the heat, then get outta the kitchen.’ Tony jutted his jaw and Harrison stared right back. ‘There’s good Americans and there’s bad, just like there is Mexicans.’
Tony looked at him a while longer, then laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Forgive me, amigo. I have much anger in my heart today.’
‘I understand that.’ Harrison placed a pinch of chew under his lip. ‘What you figure on doing about it?’
‘Maybe I teach Tate a lesson. A lesson in Spanish.’ Tony’s dark eyes flashed cold.
Harrison nodded slowly. ‘Well, I guess you’ll decide when you’re ready, but watch yourself, Tony. You gotta remember that nobody’s looking for a war round here and if one gets started, you’ll lose. You can’t fight the whole of Blaine County, which is what it’ll amount to. There’s a lot of good people in this valley, though Tate ain’t one of ’em. Not many white people like him. But you go to war with him and you go to war with them. That’s just the way it is.’
‘Si, I know it.’
‘Your boy’s hurt, but he ain’t hurt so bad.’ He looked across at him. ‘Pretty soon he’ll be bragging to his buddies about how he got on Salvesen’s land.’
Tony said nothing. ‘He is my son. You don’t have children, so you could not understand how a man feels about his son.’
‘No, I reckon not. But before you go into battle, you gotta make sure you’re in the right war. And I know about wars, Tony.’
He drove south on Highway 75, past the rest area and his dead drop and on down to Shoshone. He had to wait for a full ten minutes while a freight train crossed the lines in front of him and then he headed on, through Jerome and down to the intersection with 84. Once on the freeway, he drove more quickly. He had not had a meeting with his contact agent for a couple of months. They spoke on the phone a lot and there were the postcards. It was a five-hour drive from Salt Lake City to Passover, so they always met halfway at the Valley Hotel in Logan, Utah. It was big and inconspicuous and the chances of Harrison meeting anyone he knew were next to nothing.
He got to the hotel first and ordered an MGD. He’d stick to two or three; the last thing he needed was an over-zealous cop and a DUI to deal with on the way home. He sat at the bar and watched the slim black girl serving. She was pretty and young and probably very firm. Her arms were bare and the skin full and rich. He noticed the set of her collarbones and the way her neck arched when she laughed. He thought of Guffy then and how much of a woman she was. Youth was nice for a night or so, but not the kind of thing to take home.
Scheller came in at eight-thirty. Harrison slid off his stool and shook hands. He had expected maybe Jackson and Brindley as well, but Scheller was on his own. Buying a fresh round of drinks, they went through to eat dinner.
‘Bruno Kuhlmann,’ Scheller told him. ‘The guy you photographed in the compound.’
‘He ain’t been back.’
‘I know.’ Scheller looked left and right and leaned across the table. ‘He’s dead, JB.’
Harrison stopped chewing.
‘Somebody killed him. In England.’ Scheller went on to explain what had happened and when he had finished, Harrison sat back in the chair. He had left half a prime rib on his platter.
‘England?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t get it, Max. What was he doing in England?’
Scheller clasped his hands together on the table. ‘Who knows, Johnny, but right now we got Louis Byrne on his way to London with a FEST. Kuhlmann was making some sort of chemical device, very worrying to the Brits. The latest in a series of events, apparently. They think they’re dealing with Storm Crow.’
Harrison narrowed his eyes. ‘Storm Crow. That is one motherfucking sonofabitch. So that’s why they’re sending Byrne, huh?’ A thought struck him then. ‘Max, that deal in Texas in ’95. Drugs, right?’
‘Twenty million bucks worth of nose candy.’
‘We sure about that?’
‘What d’you mean?’
Harrison leaned across the table. ‘That was right about the time the militia were panicking over Joint Task Force Six. Right?’
Scheller nodded.
‘Kuhlmann shows up in Salvesen’s compound two years later, then dies in a Storm Crow incident in England.’ He opened his hands. ‘Maybe there was a connection.’
‘With the militia?’ Scheller shook his head. ‘DEA Intel confirmed the coke hitting the street.’
Harrison sat back again. ‘Then it don’t make fucking sense.’
‘I know.’
‘Are the Brits sure about Storm Crow?’
‘They know their terrorists, Johnny. They’re positive.’
Harrison stared beyond him then. ‘Salvesen’s getting ready for something, Max. But it’s got nothing to do with England.’
Scheller made a face. ‘He still got militia men in the compound?’
‘They come and go all the time. Tom Foley of the New Texas Rangers was the last one.’
Scheller ordered coffee. ‘What I haven’t told you yet, and what the British haven’t told anybody except us, is that Kuhlmann was murdered. He was wearing a mask, you know, a breathing respirator. Whoever he was working with punched holes through the filters. He breathed in fumes and croaked.’
Harrison stared at him. ‘That makes even less sens
e.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Scheller said.
He sat back and sighed. ‘There may not be any connection with Salvesen. Hell, probably isn’t. We haven’t seen Kuhlmann in the compound before.’
‘Coincidence though, eh.’ Harrison sat forward and scraped the end of his cigarette round the lip of the ashtray. ‘I went to his church,’ he said.
Scheller lifted an eyebrow.
‘You hear him that night, Max, just the other Sunday?’
‘I listened to your tape.’
‘You figure what all that shit was about?’
‘Nope.’
‘Me neither. The fourth kingdom, Roman Empire and all that stuff.’ Harrison thinned his eyes, then looked back at Scheller. ‘He ain’t like the rest of them, Max. He’s not going on about the conspiracy or concentration camps or black fucking helicopters. But he sent out a warning that night.’
For a few moments neither of them spoke. Around them the restaurant was busy. Harrison sipped at the last of his beer. ‘What d’you want me to do right now?’
‘We need to know what’s going on,’ Scheller stated. ‘He’s had a lot of activity so far, let’s see what happens after this. If there is a connection, we might get some kind of reaction. If somebody’s killed one of his men over there, then maybe he’ll want to do something about it.’ He looked again at Harrison. ‘What about a full week’s covert?’
Harrison twisted his mouth down at the corners. ‘Grandma ill?’
‘Gotta get back to Marquette.’
‘You want me to try and get inside?’
‘Can you get inside?’
‘I think I could, yeah. Compound at least, anyway. Fence is weak at one point, Max. If I can get by the dogs, then who knows. Might be able to site a transmitter.’
‘I’ll get you some T-17s.’
Harrison took a Merit from his shirt. ‘I’m running short of rations.’
‘We’ll drop some off.’
‘OK. I’ll talk to the lumber yard tomorrow.’
Guffy was in his bed when he got home. Harrison walked down the hallway and leaned against the doorway. She was propped against the pillows reading a book, breasts exposed, large and heavy with full red nipples.
‘Where you been?’
‘Running some errands.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. ‘I got to go away for a while, Guffy.’
‘Where?’ She put the book down and sat forward.
‘Home. Jeff called me up this morning. My grandma’s real bad.’ He sighed then. ‘Well, she ain’t really my grandma, but as good as. She brought me up when my mom and daddy got killed.’
‘Oh, baby doll.’ She reached over and laid a hand on his arm. ‘You want me to come with you?’
‘You can’t get the time, hon’. I gotta go see Eddie in the morning and ship out right away.’
‘You gonna fly?’
He nodded.
‘Want me to take you to Boise?’
‘That’s real sweet of you, honey, but I’ll take the truck. It needs a few things done and I can only get the parts in Boise.’ He stood up and peeled off his shirt. Lisa looked at the tattoo on his arm, the grinning rat with the whisky bottle, the gun and the motto in Latin underneath: Not worth a rat’s ass.
‘Will you tell me about that one day?’
He squinted at his upper arm. ‘I did tell you. When I finished with the Rats, I got shitfaced in Saigon and had it done. Regretted it ever since.’
‘Not the tattoo—the army, Vietnam, the whole thing.’
Harrison pinched up his eyes. ‘You don’t wanna hear about that. Shit, Guffy. It was thirty years ago. I’ve forgotten most of it.’
He went through to the refrigerator and got two beers, flipped off the tops and took them back to the bedroom. He handed one to her. ‘How’s Chief and Belinda?’
‘Just fine.’
‘What about Danny—you seen him tonight?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve been down here. Danny’ll be in the hotel tonight.’
Harrison nodded. ‘Needed to see him before I go. Never mind.’
‘You think Eddie’ll give you the time?’
‘If he don’t, I’ll quit.’ Harrison finished the beer and got another.
‘Udal got a DUI.’
He poked his head round the door. ‘Again?’
‘Yep. He’s got to go to meetings now three times a week.’
‘He taking the cure?’
‘I doubt it. He’ll do the meetings, but that’ll be it.’
‘Udal, huh.’ Harrison shook his head. ‘He’s too old to be driving, anyways.’
In the morning he went to work early, parked the truck and went through to the back office. Fast Eddie, the boss, so called because he could never make first base on the softball field without being thrown out, was in his office on the telephone. Harrison hung about outside till he had finished, then he went in and told him the situation.
‘No problem, Harrison. You wanna take some vacation time?’
‘Yeah. I ain’t took but a week this year.’
‘Is another week gonna be long enough?’
‘That’ll work, yeah.’
‘When you flying?’
‘This afternoon.’
‘OK. You got it. Call me if you need longer.’
‘Thanks, Eddie. I appreciate it.’
He drove south on 75 and then turned off on the mountain road. He stopped at the rest area and lifted the drainage cover on his dead drop. There were fresh food supplies and some T-17 transmitters left by the courier at some godforsaken hour this morning, no doubt. Harrison stuffed them in his bag and then got back in his truck. Two hours later he was in Boise. He parked at the airport and went inside to the luggage lockers, where he stowed his suitcase for one week. Then he took the truck to Matt Briggs who owned the classic Chevy shop on Orchard Drive. He knew Matt well, having watched him this summer in the Mud Bog Challenge, at the forty-eighth annual outlaw weekend in Richfield. Matt was a Chevy man through and through and drove a modified 454, cherry red with twin exhausts sticking straight up through the hood.
‘Third gear keeps jumping out, Matt,’ he told him.
Matt rubbed his oiled hands on a rag. ‘Right on. Been that way ever since you bought her. You finally gonna get it fixed.’
‘I am, Matt. I am. Sick and tired of grabbing the gear all the time.’
Matt nodded. ‘How long you got? I’m pretty busy about now.’
‘A week?’
‘Oh right, no problem. You wanna borrow a truck?’
‘Thanks, man.’ Harrison shook his head. ‘I’m flying back to Michigan. My grandma’s not very well.’
Matt made a face. ‘Sorry about that, man. You give her the best from Idaho, y’hear.’
Harrison walked the short distance to the Alamo rental lot and hopped a ride on their bus to the airport. He had only his bag now and he went back into the terminal. He made his way past Delta and United and the Northwest desk and watched the Sun Valley Stages counter in the far corner of arrivals. The bus went at two-thirty. Harrison could see the driver, in his Texas-collared shirt and with his slicked-back hair, writing on a clipboard. He stood in the shop, reading while he watched who went up to the counter. Between one-thirty and two-fifteen he saw only three people, none of whom he recognized. At two-twenty he crossed the concourse and stepped up to the counter. The driver still had his head bent. ‘Be right with you, buddy.’
Harrison waited, watching. The man looked up and smiled. ‘You wanna take the bus?’
‘Which way you going?’
‘Mountain Road. Came through Shoshone this morning.’
‘Got many riding?’
‘Just three, so far.’
Harrison took forty dollars from his billfold. ‘You got four now,’ he said.
The Foreign Emergency Search Team arrived in London on Sunday 12 October. The following morning, they went to Scotland Yard. Webb and Swann came down to meet them. They sho
ok hands with Byrne and he introduced the team. ‘Larry Thomas,’ Byrne said. ‘Supervisory agent, Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit, FBI. Graham Ketner, CIA, and Bob Hicks, DSS.’ Swann was looking at the slim, elegant, black woman as yet unintroduced. ‘And this is Cheyenne Ortez Logan, special agent in our Domestic Terrorism Ops Unit.’
‘Cheyenne,’ Swann said. ‘Very nice to meet you.’
Webb looked at the ceiling.
They went upstairs and joined the briefing. The farm in Northumberland was going to be incinerated that morning. Two officers from Porton Down were there. John Garrod had left his meeting with the Home Secretary early, to hear at first hand what the scientists said. The duty officer was Dr William Firman and it was he who outlined exactly what they were facing. Colson quietened everyone down and then Firman stood up. He had a few slides to show them, the various stages of their testing, in order that should they come across it again, they would be fully aware of what they were dealing with.
‘Before I go into what we think we’ve discovered,’ he said, ‘I take it you all know about the all-clear round the contaminated area. Basically, we’re positive now that the leak was in that dirty room and there alone. There was a possibility of some contamination passing from the NBC suit found in the downstairs shower room, but the sewerage system has been fully tested and shows nothing positive. Over and above that, although it was never officially made public, the Derwent Reservoir was considered a potential problem: if that became infected, then so would the rest of the water supply. Mercifully, given the initial containment and wind direction, the reservoir water has again tested negative.’
‘Good news,’ Garrod said.
Firman looked at him then. ‘That’s where it ends, I’m afraid.’
Swann glanced at Webb who half lifted his eyebrows. Firman checked the notes in front of him and then flashed up the first slide, a piece of blue metalline crystal enlarged by a microscope. ‘Stage one, in terms of our recovery from the point of contamination,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, we think stage ten from inception.’ He stopped. ‘That’s not strictly fair. They began with a crystalline form and ended with this one. But between then and now, they have altered it at least ten times. They broke down the original crystal and then adapted its molecular dynamics with various chemical additives. It eventually came out in the form you see on the slide. Blue-white metal. If exposed to the atmosphere, it forms a browny black oxide. We believe it started life as pirillium E-7, a rodenticide first manufactured in the United States, similar in make-up, I suppose, to something like thallium.’