Jackboot

by Will Van Allen

  After the dust had been dusted and the boxes had been moved, he had caulked the bathroom and installed the light fixtures while Katie painted the walls a Calla Linen, then wearily collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep, her paint-smudged face peaceful. He let her sleep a while, then carried her out to the truck and drove her home.

  Stumbling into her room and dropping onto her bed he covered her up, kissed her forehead and watched her from the doorway as she curled up in teenage exhaustion.

  Carrie shook her head as she walked him outside and lit up a smoke.

  “Guess there’ll be a parade.”

  “Every weekend. I mean it.”

  She exhaled smoke. “We’ll see. But you did good today.” She hugged him. “That Clive Cussler comment was good this morning,” she confessed over her shoulder as she went back inside.

  “Been saving it up.”

  “Imagine that.”

  CHAPTER 41

  AUGUST

  Spokane, Washington

  McConnell gingerly nursed a beer in the La-Z-Boy. He had added to the list of physical damage received from his Marathon Man run: more bruises, a spectacularly dark one running up his right arm where it had met with the barstool. His jaw still clicked when he chewed. But he would heal. In time. Unless his spiraling luck continued. But that was a mixed bag. He wasn’t in jail. Wasn’t dead. And though the choppy voice coming from the laptop resting on his sore thighs sounded like admonishment, he sported an unrelenting erection in his shorts. After Marissa’s call the damn thing just wouldn’t subside.

  “What…hell…thinking? Kings…marvel at…wisdom.” Mitch’s voice faded in and out.

  “Why’s there lag?” he said.

  “…testing a…. I don’t…hold…” A few moments later, “How’s that?”

  “Better.”

  “New relay algorithm compression needs work,” Mitch continued. “No fingerprinting, cheek swab, no booking? Jesus, you’re a lucky bastard. And an idiot.”

  He didn’t disagree on either account. It paid to have friends.

  “So Anj’s little sister.”

  “Don’t—”

  “She as hot as they say? Got a pic?”

  “Come into town and see her for yourself.”

  “You’re too violent. I’m a lover not a fighter.” Quiet a moment, Mitch finally said, “Thanks for…you know.”

  McConnell grunted. As he had twenty years ago. “Nothing on us getting paid?”

  “In motion. Back to Anj’s little sister—”

  “Nothing’s happened.”

  “Past tense noted. Is it going to?”

  He couldn’t say. And didn’t.

  “How long’s it been?”

  “A while.” But not nearly as long as for you, my friend.

  They both left that unsaid.

  “Damn. She’s a keeper. Checking out her Facebook now.”

  “I don’t use Facebook.”

  “Good. Don’t. Kids call it FB, that’s one letter from FBI. Trust me, the feds have total access. She looks like Anj a little. Is that weird?”

  “Life’s weird. So we’re in the clear?”

  “Parish threw them for a loop. It was a good, in more ways than one. Any regrets?”

  “Plenty, but none over that.”

  “What if Anj is looking down, you know, when you and Marissa are—”

  “Mitch.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Mitch.”

  “Right. Well. I’ve got blueberry-lime pie in the oven. Probably not much of a comparison.” The hacker abruptly logged off.

  McConnell set the laptop down, took a pull on his beer. He didn’t care for the overshare but the man had asked, and he had no other confidant. Pretty sure that went both ways. Problem was, he lacked the gab for engaging a man in arrested sexual development. He wasn’t going to solve that tonight. He finished his beer.

  Nothing to do but wait, stare at the perpetual tent of engorged ache in his shorts. Didn’t help that he kept wondering what it would be like to be inside her, would it be wrong, was the wondering itself wrong. The hacker did have a point, but killing, stealing, fighting or fucking, if the dead passed judgment they kept it to themselves.

  Waiting, aching and wondering. Seemed to be what his life was of late.

  Slipping in quietly through the front door she rolled her eyes. John McConnell, the only man I know that after I said, “Be naked in bed waiting for me” would not be naked in bed waiting for me. Fast asleep in his recliner, her eyes dropped to his lap. At least he’s not all asleep.

  “You pulling a lame ‘I’m too tired,’ are you?” She unbuttoned her pink blouse, revealing a pink-frosting lace bra. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, her lips glossy wet; last she checked her luminous eyes were electrified with rapacious brilliance.

  He roused. Did a double take. Pretty much her intended effect.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Cancelling regular Sunday dinner with her mother on account of long overdue sex wouldn’t fly but usually she got out of there by eight-thirty. Of course tonight her mother had splashed brandy in her coffee, more gregarious as the evening lagged, ensnaring her in a mix of rapt daughterly attention and fidgety female lust as her brain (and more sensuous parts) hummed with desire. The ache between her legs that had developed the previous night had only intensified throughout the day as she waited impatiently, wondering how he would feel inside her.

  Aching, waiting and wondering. Seemed like a lot of that going around.

  Not bothering unzipping she just wiggled her skirt down her hips, revealing matching pink thong.

  John managed a monosyllabic “Wow.”

  She pulled him to his feet, bypassed a kiss and led him directly into the bedroom. She shut the door with her foot as Geronimo tried to nose his way in. “Not tonight, G-man.”

  She lit the candles she had placed around the room that morning, hit the CD play button—Paula Cole, Feelin’ Love—pivoted on her toes, unhooked her bra and let it slip to the floor. His eyes flicked to her liberated breasts, the French coin hanging above them. She rubbed it between thumb and finger as she assayed him in return; he stood at almost-comical sexual attention in his cereal-eating blue shorts, no shirt, the muscles in his chest rising in the flickering candlelight. She could hear his breath, feel him breathing into her, his eyes gliding longingly over her skin. She felt sexy. Had never felt sexier in her life.

  She raised her eyebrows at his erection. “Quite the Boy Scout.”

  “Marissa—”

  “Don’t say anything stupid.”

  “Your sister—”

  She gave him a look. “Jesus! Like that.”

  “I just think—”

  She nearly leapt over and kissed him hard on the lips. “No. Don’t think. You suck at thinking. Tonight, we’re just going to do. Like the rest of the world.”

  His lean, strong body smelled of warm sunshine and she wanted that light wrapped around her and deep inside of her at the same time. She kissed him again. He returned it, with vigor, and she fell on top of him on the bed.

  He hissed and half-rolled over.

  “Oh. Your back.” She rolled and pulled him on top of her.

  He held back reluctantly.

  “I won’t break,” she promised.

  He gasped as her hand slipped into his shorts and her fingers wrapped around him, hard and hot, her own ache a harmonizing urgency.

  “You know,” she breathed, “you’re so easy…One date and—”

  “Shut up already.” His mouth stopped hers as he ripped her panties down her hips.

  She did the same with his shorts. They were of one mind now. Hands locked together, his need found her ache, pressed inside, her turn to gasp, shudder, glaze over as she brought her knees up. She wanted more of him, as much as possible. All of him.

  One last skirmish with John McConnell. And sweet surrender.

  Elk, Washington

  Queuing up Firefly, check. Mountain Dew, check. Pie, che
ck. He was in a mood most black, and the camaraderie of the Serenity usually put him on a trajectory back to a more normal melancholy orbit.

  “He’s probably having sex as we speak,” Mitch said to Ms. Kitty. She declined to answer. Declined to be bothered in any way.

  “I bet he is. I bet…he…is.” He wasn’t jealous, not exactly, it was just Frustrated Incorporated had come to an end as he had always known it would. McConnell was of the world, and, well, he was McConnell. Their friendship shiny but brutally double-edged.

  When he had his island, he would make up for it. Maybe more than one a night, heck, maybe more than one at a time. Absent McConnell’s physique, his cool, piercing eyes, his I-can-do-anything-even-if-it-means-I’m-an-asshole rugged smile, money would be his lure, a most powerful aphrodisiac, and he was acquiring more of it every day. Money made a man interesting if not loved. Maybe he would be loved. Maybe he would meet a nice girl, she would fall for him, it wasn’t entirely out of the question. He thought that reporter was probably a nice girl. Elise, that was a nice girl’s name. But if not, if no nice girl ever happened, well, there were always the not-so-nice girls. Seemed to be a lot more of them in the world. And they loved money.

  He glanced at the monitor and saw spots. He really needed to clean his glasses. Spatters of brandy cream sauce from making petti di pollo hardened from earlier. He should just get damn Lasik. Maybe, now that McConnell was around, he might find the time to drive him to the eye clinic. When he wasn’t screwing Anj’s little sister.

  There was a new email from S8Nt8_Sp3rM:

  wat u lookn 4? found @ dutch govt consp grp. last code whacked-cleand it 4 u. enjoy:)

  Hacker lingo, that mixed blessing. Efficient at circulating laziness, most modern technological advances were. He loaded up the code, nodded approvingly at an unusual snippet of a variant observed in buffer overruns on cold-boot RAM-Flash captures but never in a real-time environment. Interesting.

  Glancing at the second attachment, the code was forgotten. An archive file, PanPith_0001. The Pete Jackson archive had been named PanPith_0000. More interesting. He cleaned his glasses.

  The previous file had required a password to download. Different protocol here, it required a password to open. Trying the same password as before did the trick. PDFs, docs, spreadsheets, JPGs. Much more detailed data than the first.

  By the time Mal, Kaylee and crew had discovered Jaynestown he had downed two Dews, a quart of water, three slices of blueberry-lime pie with whip. All in, probably a distant second to Anj’s little sister.

  But the new archive file? Borderline orgasmic, if you were into that kind of thing.

  “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” the hacker whispered to the darkness.

  La Jolla, California

  “Something ain’t right,” Duffy said, his pants around his ankles.

  “You ain’t right. Answer my question.”

  He put out his cigarette, sighed. “Put in an appearance if it makes you happy.”

  Abbey leaned back against the porch railing, offering him a splendid view of her body silhouetted against the midnight ocean. She slipped on his aqua blue Oxford. It hung to her knees. “You want to keep the Wonder Twins in Stockton, put them on the pedophile angle?” The downy, black V of her pubic region was stark between the unbuttoned shirt and he found it alluringly distracting, even after she had just worked him over.

  “The pedophile angle’s more bullshit.”

  “Probably.”

  She sat on his lap and they listened to the surf crash on the beach below. He supposed someone with good night eyes might spy them up here among the ivy but he was too old for caring and she didn’t seem to mind either. Abbey’s cottage just above the cove was her guilty pleasure—she couldn’t afford it but that’s what made the guilt so pleasurable. It was a sight better than the cupboard he called home. Alimony was hell. But his ex-wife had earned every penny of it.

  “Clear it with Grohl first. We’re already stepping on toes up there.”

  She ran a finger along his Harry Potter scar. “I’m excited to meet your son.”

  “Me too.” Excitement not quite the right word.

  “I’m off to the shower. Join me soon? And no more cigarettes tonight.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She left him to his mind. Kicking off shoes, pants, he pulled up his boxers and when he heard the water running did a quick look around the corner, double-tapped the pack and lit up another Raleigh. He fished his notepad out of his jacket pocket, went over his notes of his first call with Warrant Officer Chad Lucas a few days ago:

  Lucas: You’re sure it was Pete Jackson?

  Duffy: You interviewed him four times in the last two years, Mr. Lucas, and cleared him of all allegations.

  Lucas: Our AO covers all of western United States and Asia. We’re pretty busy, lots of names, lots of faces.

  Duffy: So you don’t remember Pete Jackson?

  Lucas: Not that I recall. I’ll get you what notes we might have. What isn’t classified. By the way, thanks for Lind and Monty, their interviews of Jackson’s associates on and off the base. A lot of hours put in by those two, you should know that. Unfortunate it didn’t pan out.

  Duffy: Well, that’s what we do until it does. Think whoever shot Jackson and Pincer Parish three days later from a roof five hundred and twelve meters away was military?

  Lucas: Possible but unlikely. Military snipers are well disciplined, well trained and don’t snap like that.

  Duffy: Ex-military, perhaps? The DC sniper, he was Army.

  Lucas: Not likely. But you never know.

  Duffy: We don’t know until we do.

  Lucas: Right. Well, whoever it was, helluva shot. Both of them.

  Both knew Lucas couldn’t officially come out and say he believed there was a military sniper loose in California even if he officially believed there was a military sniper loose in California. The DC sniper had been a black kook, not to mention a fan of the Koran. If a Christian white boy off the farm had been trained to kill and was out and about assassinating folk, well, the fit would certainly hit the shan then, wouldn’t it?

  Even if this hypothetical rogue sniper was Army, Lucas avowed that they couldn’t be faulted. They screened intensely to weed out the nut-jobs, but every outfit has a few bad seeds, even Jesus had his Judas. The Army’s not perfect, you should know that.

  Special Agent Oral Duffield did.

  He closed his notepad, recalling their second conversation. Duffy had been mulling over a cigarette in the designated smoking area, the August sun smacking him like a sonic boom. He could just make out Maria’s store shimmering in the heat.

  Lucas called to share the disappointing discovery that Pete Jackson, who they believed had served the country so admirably in a civilian capacity,was not only into kiddie porn but had been stealing small amounts of non-lethal military provisions and selling them on the side. Jackson was a much darker character than anyone thought.

  “Can you believe the sick fucks in the world today?” Lucas blurted.

  Duffy could. He’d met his share.

  The news spun. The irrepressible Elise Hutchens ceased using the word sniper, replacing it with the not-so-clever but catchy “vindictive vigilante,” which he thought a bit redundant. And damn if the people were not praising the killer who had brought down not one pedophile but two, one of the sick bastards an unpatriotic, cowardly sonofabitch stealing from our troops, no less. Inciting cable news pundits proclaimed it about time some good soul cleaned the streets of “perverts,” “sickos,” “demons,” and “vermin,” and those were the kinder words.

  With unheard of military cooperation Lucas sent along a file of some of the more incriminating evidence, including redacted documents detailing Jackson’s theft of night-goggles, boots, wet-gear, MREs and a Panamanian bank account with fifty-thousand dollars in Jackson’s name. Didn’t that beat all? An American so despicably traitorous in a time of war?

  It sure did, Mister Lucas. But
only fifty-K? Small net for the risk.

  “You know an Agent Goldwyn?”

  Duffy did.

  “He’s been inquiring into Jackson’s travel, possible mosque relationships. I’m not sure why he’s not working through you.”

  “One last thing Mister Lucas. The shooter’s rifle. A Schneider barrel with a one by twelve twist. That’s the same as the new Marine M40A3, isn’t it?”

  “I’d have to get back to you on that.”

  “You’re a busy man, as you said.”

  “Crime doesn’t take summers off, as I’m sure you know.” Lucas referring to the two dead Mexicans two years ago? “You like what you do, Special Agent?”

  “Keeps me in Padres tickets. You like the service, Mister Lucas?”

  Lucas chuckled. “What’s not to like?”

  Killing peasant-soldiers in a faraway jungle, shitting yourself from fear and dysentery for two years, that was something not to like.

  Stubbing out his cigarette, stopping by the fridge for another beer, a glass of Chardonnay for Abbey, pleased to still hear running water, he was going to call it quits for the night when the bedroom TV caught his eye. Hutchens standing in front of his building in the daylight. He killed the mute.

  “…Not only does the revelation of child pornography add more mystery to these murders but an FBI source has confirmed that a sniper rifle, used exclusively by the United States Marine Corps, was the weapon used to kill both men.”

  “Goddamnit!”

  “What is it?” Abbey asked from the shower.

  “Hutchens named the rifle. Said it was an FBI source.”

  He heard her turn off the water. She stepped from the bathroom in a towel, shaking out and drying her long dark hair with another. “Whoops,” she said.

  “Whoops? Whoops?”

  She stood in front of the TV, shrugged. “Oops?”

  He made an effort to see around her. There would be some explaining to the ADIC in the morning. But it was more than that. This case was going to outlast him.

  “Goldwyn’s a pinhead. The bunch of ’em are, chasing their pinhead dicks, fabricating Ali Baba boogiemen while—”