Knave's Gambit

by Deforest Day

  She liked his profile. It reminded her of marble busts in museums; Plato, Cato, long gone Greeks and Romans. Classically handsome, but chipped around the edges. “So, help me out. How to shoot from a car. Because Geneva, Major Machler, says it’s not as easy as it looks in the movies.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it. But I can see what she means. A sniper has to eliminate as much movement as possible. Which means lying prone, using a bipod to hold the rifle steady.” He looked over at her. “Kind of hard to do, while you’re driving.”

  “Right; that was the major’s argument. Then I thought, suppose it’s two people?” She turned away, watched the Washington Navy Yard flash past. “They didn’t like that, either. Am I totally off base?”

  He drove for a full minute before answering. Long enough for her to wonder if she’d displayed enough real world ignorance to end a friendship that had hardly begun. “Yes,” he said. “It could be done. And the best part about your idea is you wouldn’t need trained shooters. Long range sniping is like any other skill, be it playing the violin, or playing tennis. For every minute of action there are endless hours of practice. But what if you had one guy behind the wheel, and a second guy back there?” He threw his thumb over his shoulder. “Bang. Even you could hit a gas tanker.”

  “Thanks for the fulsome praise. But wouldn’t other drivers notice someone shooting a gun from the back of your truck?”

  “Probably. Hey, it’s your idea. You work out the details. We’re here.”

  —o—

  It was bound to happen, sooner or later. With six pickup trucks driving around the nation’s Interstate Highway System, shooting the drivers of gasoline tankers in heavy traffic, someone, somewhere, was bound to notice something.

  The first someone was five years old, strapped in his carseat, and was ignored by his mom.

  The second was an Illinois State Trooper in an unmarked cruiser on the Dan Ryan Expressway, south side of Chicago. In the next lane a man who called himself Big, Bad Leroy Brown was behind the wheel of an equally large red and yellow Shell tanker.

  Trooper Lawson was about to pull a pickup over for an unsafe lane change. A lane change that brought the old pickup truck directly in front of the Shell tanker. The Trooper was too late to prevent the rifle bullet from finding the shaved head of Big, Bad Leroy, but not too late to upload the dash cam video, moments before he and the Crown Vic were incinerated in the conflagration.

  —o—

  Every parking space was filled on both sides of Cushing street, and Nick backed into the only open spot. Kat noticed the fire hydrant. “I guess the tow truck guy is like the eight hundred pound gorilla. Parks where he pleases.”

  “Not exactly.” Nick dropped the tailgate, then squatted next to the yellow hydrant. He hooked his elbows under the outlets, linked his hands, grunted, lifted. Two steps, and it was in the back of his truck. He pulled a tarp over it.

  “Oh, wow. Kind of like the sword in the stone. If you’re man enough to move it, you’re man enough to claim the space.”

  “Nah, the old hydrant is just my way of reserving a spot. Neighbors know they better not park here, fire plug or not. It’s the strangers you got to watch out for.”

  That stung. Then she remembered reading his file, guessed he had good reason to be suspicious. She swept her eyes over the brick row houses; originally built as a single unit, but over the decades each had acquired a personality. Different colored trim, a few dormers announcing an attic bedroom, hand wrought railings on the four stone steps. “Cozy.”

  He led her to the front door. “Well, ain’t that a polite way of saying small. These houses were built at the same time as the Cannon Works.” Nick keyed the lock. “For the guys who worked there.”

  Inside they found Patty standing in front of the TV, and behind the ironing board, working on her niece’s school blouses. Kat judged her a good bit older than Nick, but maybe it was just the weight. She was a five by five; sixty inches tall and sixty around, looked like a can of Sprite in her green and yellow house dress. A narrow staircase led to the second floor, and Kat glanced past the living room to a large kitchen; the first floor footprint of the small house was one big room.

  “Jeez, open a window, Pats; Liz will be home any minute. Ms. Sinclair, this is my sister-in-law. Currently between domestic partners, and taking some time off to set a bad example for my daughter.” Kat thought the aroma of marijuana wasn’t any stronger in here than it had been in the truck, but she kept that to herself.

  Patty rolled her eyes at Kat. “She’s fifteen, bro. We’re long past that stage of her innocence.” She offered her hand to Kat. “Hi. Ignore the parking gestapo. I’m taking over for my kid sister; raising my niece to be a productive member of society. Counterbalance to a certain jackboot centurion, disrupting innocent citizen’s lives with his tow truck.”

  The TV was tuned to FSTV. A gaggle of small, brown people in rags were throwing rocks at a phalanx of big, white people in riot gear. Patty muted the sound. “Besides, it doesn’t smell any worse in here than it does in your truck.”

  “Hey, that’s for medicinal purposes.” He turned to Kat. “I was taking this crap the VA gave me, but the side effects were worse than the ailment. A Vietnam vet turned me on, poor choice of words, to an alternative therapy.”

  Kat smiled. “Well, I guess that explains the CNS alert.”

  Nick and Patty looked at her, and Kat confessed. “We ran you through some data bases, after your trafficam caper. The government keeps track of people on certain medications. And alert us when they go off.”

  “What else did you learn?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. I mean, I didn’t pay atten—”

  “Come on, computer lady.”

  “Uh, well, you have a somewhat clouded military history; something about supplying arms to Islamic terrorists—”

  “What total bullshit.”

  Kat was surprised at his anger; until now he’d seemed pretty laid back. Maybe from his self-medication. “Well, sure, of course. I mean, who would do such a—”

  “They weren’t Islamic terrorists. They were Bosnian Muslims, being massacred by the Serbs in Srebrenica. After they raped the women and castrated the men. So when a Serbian artillery round blew a hole in the side of my armory, I told the few Muslims still alive to help themselves, and I got the hell out of Dodge.”

  “Huh. I guess the facts can be open to interpretation.”

  “People, too. So you’ve been figuring I was a mental patient with an al Qaeda connection?”

  “No. Not since we spent some quality time together, locked in that interrogation room.”

  Patty put down her iron. “Boy, you have been busy since I saw you last, bro.”

  “In more ways than you know.”

  Kat said, “Everybody has something to hide.”

  Patty came back with, “Except me and my monkey.”

  They heard a key in the lock and Liz came through the door. “Daddy! You didn’t come home last night.” She tossed her satchel on the sofa and hugged her father. Kat got a proprietary look; he’s all mine, stranger.

  “Sweetheart, this is Ms. Sinclair, Defender of the Homeland, and computer wizard. She’s offered to help you with your Linus project.”

  “It’s Linux, Daddy, and I’m doing just fine, thanks very much.” She stood next to her father, close enough so their hips touched, and her arm crept around his waist.

  It wasn’t all that many years ago when Kat experienced the same possessive feelings about her own dad. “Call me Kat, and of course you don’t need any help. Besides, your teacher wants you to do the work on your own.”

  “You really work for Homeland Security? Aunt Patty says they are all Nazis.”

  “Liz.”

  Liz kicked off her shoes. “Well, she does.”

  Patty hung another blouse on the mantle. “Well, they are. Reading our emails, setting up their FEMA concentration camps, Sending citizens out of the country for extraordinary renditi
on.” She gave Kat a suspicious squint. “Just like the Third Reich.”

  Kat thought about the morning pledge and prayer. She put her left forefinger across her lip and her right arm in the air. “Seig heil.”

  After they laughed Nick said, “Maybe she’s not so bad, after all. For a government employee. Tell us how you snooped in my closet.”

  Kat thought about it for a moment, a short one. Sure, why the hell not; she'd just signed some boilerplate loyalty oath, but she'd crossed her fingers as she held the pen. The way she saw it, loyalty to the Constitution trumped anything a bunch of political hacks could make her sign just to get a job.

  “Patty. It’s Patricia, right? What last name do you use?”

  “Just the one I was born with. Martin. No AKA’s, no Wants, no Warrants.”

  Kat pulled her laptop out of her carryall, hooked it to her cell. “What’s your address?”

  “Right here. I grew up in this house. 1236 Cushing.”

  “Oh. I figured—”

  Nick said, “It’s my father-in-law’s house. Liz and I are semi-permanent house guests.”

  Weird family dynamics. Kat opened her Ph.D. thesis, software she'd yet to share with DHS. Her fingers flew across the keys, and after a few seconds her laptop slipped in a back door at HomSec. She entered Patty’s name and address, touched a dedicated Function key, and put the laptop on the ironing board. “Recognize any of your friends?”

  They gathered around the screen as Kat scrolled through dozens of crowd shots. Patty was the featured player, a highlighted face, surrounded by actors and activists, vets and cops. George Clooney was in one. Susan Sarandon was close enough in another for Kat to ask, ‘Want me to print that one? Maybe she’ll sign it for you.”

  “How the hell did you do that?”

  “Name and address finds you in the Motor Vehicle database. I linked your driver’s license photo to Facebook's facial recognition algorithm, then hacked into an imagery database we use at HomSec, and constrained the search parameters to DC anti-war rallies. I could have used my iPhone to take your picture, but I wanted to show off.”

  “This is some scary shit.”

  “You have no idea.” They didn't need to know her AI software turned Patty's digitized face into a search engine, or that was how she'd found Secretary Edgerton's association with the Weather Underground. Two days on the job, and she was having doubts about sharing her software with her employers.

  Nick said, “I’m going to grab a quick shower. Liz, why don’t you show her where you are on your Linus project?”

  Kat and Liz shared a grin. Liz opened her satchel, and opened her laptop. “The school has these creaky old Dells. Can we write a program to do what you did? Find pictures of people, just from their name?”

  “Hey, I would have killed for a machine like yours. All we had were a few hard wired Blue Meanies. And, no; I don’t think your dad would want you prowling the hallways of my world.” Kat shut down her system, stowed the computer and the cell phone with her newest lethal weapon. “Boot your assignment, show me what you have.”

  While Liz booted Kat walked over to the table in the corner with the photos and the military paraphernalia. So, that’s the family secret. She picked up the guitar, a nice old acoustic, also a Martin, and she slowly plucked the strings. It hadn’t been played in a while, and she tuned it. She was as rusty as the instrument; wished she had a pitch pipe.

  “Busted flat in Baton Rouge”, she softly sang, clearing the cobwebs from her throat, her fingers. What had Nick said on the ride here? Tennis and the violin took practice. The road to Carnegie Hall.

  Second time through the chords she felt it coming back, and she jacked her voice up, settled it in the back of her throat, found that Texas twang, and sang about freedom being just another word.

  Her voice filled the room, and the guitar, in the small space, sounded bigger, felt bigger, than it was. “nah na na nah, NaNaNa, yeah, me and Bobby McGee-ah. Come on, Patty and Liz. Let me hear it now.”

  They joined in, as everybody does, because everybody knows the words, and besides, you can’t help it when you hear it, and then Nick came downstairs, damp and freshly shaved, his mouth open.

  “It’s O.K., Daddy, really,” Liz said, running to him, taking his hands. She turned to Kat, said, in a rush, “It’s Mom’s guitar, and we don’t, nobody’s played it—”

  Nick hugged her, shushed her, said, “It’s all right, honey, she didn’t know, she’s a guest, and besides, it’s time somebody played that damn thing.” He let go of his daughter and faced Kat. “Or were you just showin’ off?”

  “Well, shiiit, as The Rose would say. We had a cover band, me and some girlfriends, back in high school. J. J., of course. Mama Cass, Grace Slick. I can do a mean White Rabbit. We were good enough to keep the boys hanging around the bandstand.”

  Liz came closer, reached out, ran her fingers across the sound board of her mother’s guitar. “Where did you learn to sing like that?”

  Kat ran through the chords, fingers remembering old moves. “In my Granny’s kitchen. She went to Woodstock, dropped acid, tuned in, turned on, and like they say, dropped out. I used to hang at her house, listen to her LP collection. Starship, The Dead. Man! They made music back then.” She looked at Patty, sang, “Truckin’, like the doodah man. Sing it with me, Patty, you gotta know this one.”

  The back door burst open, and Kat watched an old guy come into the kitchen, toss an equally ancient briefcase on the table. “What the hell’s all that racket? Did I hear singing? I must be in the wrong damn house.” He came through the archway, into the living room. “No, there’s my skinny little granddaughter, my big fat daughter. Oh, and the worthless son-in-law decides to grace us with his presence.”

  “Kat, this is Poppy Martin, my father-in-law. Pops, meet Ms. Sinclair. She also spies on people.”

  He was a small man with a big handshake and a million wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes. “Yeah? The only spying I do is from a traffic helicopter.”

  Fresh out of flight school and too young to vote, Poppy left for Vietnam. He grew up fast, flying AH-1G gunships, OH-6A observation helicopters, for the 9th Cav. Second tour he was inserting Aero-Rifle Platoons, calling in artillery, extracting long-range reconnaissance patrols under fire.

  Two years later he came home, older and wiser. He went to work for the local NBC affiliate, flying their Eye in the Sky. A hell of a lot less exciting, and paid a hell of a lot more.

  Kat said, “I thought your voice sounded familiar. You’re the man who tells me how to avoid the traffic jam I’m stuck in.”

  “Guilty as charged. My son-in-law says you're a spy?”

  “Not hardly. I’m an analyst, at HomSec. A data sifter. Or garbage picker, depending how I feel at the moment.”

  Liz said, “Can I show him Aunt Patty’s pictures?” Kat opened the file, let Liz scroll through the crowd shots.

  Poppy looked over his granddaughter's shoulder. “Hey, I bet I took some of these pictures.” He turned from the screen to Kat. “If you work at HomSec, I guess you know the NSA sweeps up everything as I download. Stands to reason; my camera is a hell of a lot closer to the action than their Keyhole sats.”

  Someone banged the back door, and Poppy headed for the kitchen. “That’ll be Howie and his famous dry rub ribs. The Natural Born Killers are about to play some poker. Ms. Sinclair, I hope you’re staying for supper. We need new ears for old lies.”

  Kat watched a big black man, followed by a pair of smaller whites and a diminutive Asian, pour through the door, bringing food, beer, and noise. Poppy orchestrated the chaos with humor and a love of life that made her think of her own dad, and his Friday night poker games in the township garage. Five old guys who had known each other forever, and were forever bound by their shared experience of war. Which one didn’t really matter, they were all the same.

  Chapter Seventeen

  FEMA's Chicago Fusion Center hastily coordinated a Joint Task Force of the Chicago Police Dep
artment’s Hostage Rescue Team, the Illinois State Police’s Sniper of the Year, and an FBI unit flown in from Quantico, because a high rise might be involved, and they were experienced in rappelling.

  The convoy headed for the address of José Martí, the purchaser of the pickup truck bearing the temporary Illinois tags seen on Trooper Lawson’s video.

  After three trips up and down Greek Town’s Peoria Street in six unmarked but heavily armored black Suburbans, they determined the address did not exist. An encrypted teleconference with Washington ensued. The decision was made to put out an APB for the truck, and hand the ball to the highest ranking non-political appointee they could find. They called Levon Longstreet.

  —o—

  “Dealer bets fifty.” Poppy Martin tapped his finger on his pair of kings. “There’s another one, face down. I’d advise you gents to fold, while you’re still wearing shirts, and have car fare home.”

  Howie, provider of the dry rub ribs, used a paper towel to wipe sauce from his fingers. “Bulldookie. You sure they’s all kings? Way they dressed, it’s hard to tell. I think you might have you a queen there. And my flush has got 'em beat.” He checked Kat, see if she appreciated his performance. “Or will, soon as I draw two more clubs. So I’ll see your fifty, and raise it another.” He dropped a dollar bill on the pile of change in the middle of the kitchen table.

  They had carried the table into the living room, in front of the TV, because a high school football game was coming on, and a grandson was the starting quarterback.

  The four Vietnam vets were connected to Poppy by his various helicopters. Howie was a DC native, a draftee, a door gunner. He and Warrant Officer Martin had gone through three AH-1G’s in five months. Now he owned a ribs and beer joint, and had brought both tonight.

  Jack was a Navy Corpsman, attached to Poppy’s unit for SEAL insertions/extractions in the Delta. He and Howie had pulled Poppy out of one of those helicopters, loaded him onto another slick, and back to Cam Ranh Bay.