The Stickmen

by Edward Lee

  Garrett felt inclined to smack himself in the ear. Did I hear her right? Did she just express some confidence in me? Somebody pinch me.

  “All right, Garrett,” Myers gruffly consented. “You’ve got five minutes to convince me why I shouldn’t have you imprisoned.”

  Garrett rubbed his hands together, sweaty as they were. “Everything I’ve just explained to you about the Nellis crash in 1962 is directly related to several things that are happening right now. The DIA processes and analyzes intelligence for all of the military branches, so I’m quite certain you know about the atomic demolition device that was stolen several days ago from the U.S. Army Munitions and Redepositions Command in Edgewood, Maryland.”

  Myers pounded his fists on the desk, then stood up and shouted, “That’s hot off a restricted CID file! It’s an official EEi report that’s classified crypto/citadel! There’s no way you can possibly know about it!”

  Garrett stepped back as if he’d just had a trumpet blown in his face. “Um-hmm, and I couldn’t possibly know about the murder of a former JAG officer named Farrell, either, or the murder of former FBI agent name Jack Urslig.”

  “GodDAMN it!” Myer blew right up. “You’ve infiltrated a national security database!”

  “Actually, several national security databases,” Garrett corrected.

  Myers’ face was turning red as he reached for the phone. “The Marines are carrying your ass to jail RIGHT NOW!”

  “Forget about that for now,” Lynn calmly implored. “There’s something serious going on here, and I think it bears some investigation. Harlan didn’t actually hack into any databases. He was given the entry codes, he was following a lead under the directions of an Air Force general.”

  All at once, Myers’ rage siphoned out of him like a balloon deflating. Suddenly he looked perplexed. “An Air Force general? Not Norton T. Swenson.”

  “Hey, how’d you know?” Garrett asked in surprise.

  “Fuck.” Myers sat back down, his ass dropping into the seat like a dropped bag of cement. All at once he looked flustered, even troubled.

  “What gives?” Garrett asked.

  “About fifteen minutes ago, I got a classified FYI telex from the Interagency Branch.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Last night General Norton T. Swenson was murdered in his home in Bethesda.”

  “Oh no,” Garrett groaned. His spirit seemed to plummet.

  “And the thing that bugged me most about it,” Myers went on, “is that…those two other names you just mentioned?”

  “Judge Farrell and Urslig, the FBI agent?” Lynn said.

  Myers rubbed his face. “Yeah. They were both killed by the same m.o. as Swenson. Unforced entry, small-caliber handgun fired through a chambered silencer, elaborate security systems overridden.”

  Garrett couldn’t have been more morose at the news. Swenson was already dying, and he knew Sanders was gunning for him. But—

  For some reason, Garrett didn’t expect this.

  “Come on, boss,” Lynn edged. “How about giving this some consideration. I hate to say it, but Harlan isn’t always a total nut-bar.”

  Thanks, baby, Garrett thought. “You’ve got nothing to lose,” he addressed Myers. “If I screw up? Hey, it’s just me, the nut-bar. Nothing can lead back to you or Lynn.”

  Myers, very reluctantly, looked back up at Garrett. “What do you want?”

  “All I’m asking is for a simple cred pass, sir,” Garrett tried to make it sound nonchalant. “Give me a phony government ID that’ll get me onto Edgewood.”

  Myers pawed his gut as if he had an ulcer. “I couldn’t possibly—”

  “Oh, give me a break. You guys print out phony ID faster than Dark Horse Comics prints out copies of Buffy. I’m not asking you to for the key to Ellsberg’s office. Just call up the boys in the print shop and have ’em make me something that’ll stand up past a Class IV cred check.”

  Myers’ face creased; he squirmed in his seat. “You’re a private citizen, for God’s

  sake. I can’t just—”

  Garrett rolled his eyes. “Oh, and you’re telling me that the Defense Intelligence Agency has never contracted private citizens for shadowed intel operations? What about the plumbers you hired to case the new Russian Embassy?”

  Myers frowned. “How the hell did you find out about—”

  “They were private citizens who you set up with phony State Department ID’s so they could properly blueprint the Embassy’s domestic water lines which you later traced with milliwave surveillance sensors, and the whole job came out of your shadow-op budget. And let’s not forget about that private ambulance crew you hired to contradict the testimony of the paramedics who first saw the White House Counsel’s body at Fort Marcy Park.”

  Myers abruptly pointed a finger at Garrett. “That wasn’t us, damn it.”

  “Hey, Big Brother by any other name is still Big Brother, right?”

  “List it as a statutory inquest and send me,” Lynn suggested. “I’m official, in case anything goes wrong.”

  “That’s even more out of the question,” Myers said. “With a freelance hitter out there? I can’t risk one of my most valuable operatives on something that’s probably just a wild goose chase.”

  “All the more reason to give me that cred pass,” Garrett reminded. “If I get killed, you’ve got nothing to worry about. And if I get caught, do what you Big Brother guys do best. Disavow all knowledge and discredit the source. Plausible denial and all that good shit.”

  Myers hesitated with more pained looks. His eyes scanned the piles of documents and photos lain across his desk. Then he shook his head. “It’s just too risky. This evidence just isn’t strong enough to justify something like this.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” Garrett winked at his ex-wife. “Lynn? Why don’t you show your dutiful boss the rest of the evidence.”

  Lynn placed the suitcase on Myers’ desk, withdrew the black plastic bag, and after unwrapping it removed the charred alien forearm.

  Its two black fingers pointed right into Myers’ face.

  ««—»»

  In the underground parking lot, Garrett leaned on the fender of his dented Malibu, grinning down at the new leather ID wallet in his hand. Lynn stood aside with her arms crossed.

  “You look like a kid at Christmas who just got a bag of Beanie Babies,” she observed.

  Garrett continued to look in awe at the opened wallet. On the left side was the ever-familiar crested silver badge, and on the right was a federal photo ID card identifying “Richard Odenton” as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All it had taken was a quick haircut in the Pentagon’s mezzanine barber shop and a quickly borrowed shirt and tie from the Ident Section’s wardrobe unit.

  “This is cooler than cool,” Garrett said, still grinning at his new ID. “I always wanted to be in the FBI. And I like the name—Richard Odenton. Has a nice black bag kind of ring to it, don’t you think? Good work on the driver’s license, car registration, and Social Security card, too. Christ, even phony license plates.” As an added treat, he’d also been given a cellular field phone with all the latest scrambling filters and a pager with a GPS direction-finding frequency. Man, I’m set! Garrett thought in a rush of excitement.

  “Congratulations, Special Agent Odenton,” Lynn joked. “It figures Myers would give you Bureau ID. They’re in enough trouble as it is, so if you screw up—”

  “—then it’ll just look like a typical day in the FBI. Hey, let’s assault a cult compound full of explosives, ammunition, flammable material, and children, and forget to bring a fire truck.”

  Lynn frowned at the comment’s poor taste. “Come on.”

  The Malibu’s twenty-year-plus bench seat springs groaned when they got in. Garrett drove out of the lot. As they drove up the exit ramp into daylight, Lynn kept glancing over at him.

  “What?” Garrett asked. “I got a tick on my neck?”

  Lynn sighed, opened
her mouth to say something, but then declined.

  “Come on,” Garrett insisted. “What are you looking at? You’re making me paranoid.”

  “You were born paranoid, Harlan.” Then she shrugged and just said. “Don’t take this out of context but…you’re actually a pretty decent looking guy with your hair cut short.”

  “Oh yeah?” Garrett exclaimed. “So when do you want to do lunch?”

  “Never. I was simply making an objective observation.”

  “And a damn perceptive one if I must say. And that geezer Myers said he doubted your sense of judgment. Ha!”

  “This is no joke, Harlan,” she reminded. “You better be damn careful flashing that ID; you could get yourself made real easy. You’ve got no experience as a field agent.”

  “No, but I did read Strasberg’s book on acting. Relax, I can play the spook game.”

  Lynn didn’t seem so sure. “I’d feel a lot better if I went with you. At least I’d be around to make sure you don’t step on your dick and make a complete asshole out of yourself.”

  Garrett winced behind the wheel. “Please, Lynn. Foul language doesn’t become you.”

  “Yeah, well you’ll hear plenty more if you fuck up.” Lynn noticed he’d taken the Shirley Highway exit. “Where are you going? Shouldn’t we got back to your place and plan this out.”

  “I’ve already planned it out,” Garrett told her, lighting a cigarette. “Up here.” He pointed to his head and grinned with the cigarette crimped between his teeth. “I’ll be going into the field, and in the meantime, you’ll be doing the follow-up here.”

  “Follow up on what?

  Garrett pulled to a stop around a plushly shrubbed service court. The long signed loomed just ahead of them:

  GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER.

  Lynn squinted. “Harlan, what the hell are we doing—”

  He tapped her shoulder. “Oh, and before you go, I need your piece.”

  “My what?”

  “You know, your gun.”

  Lynn gaped at him, then chortled a low laugh. “Yeah, right. You expect me to give you my government-register service weapon?”

  “Lynn, you’re the one who just told me I better not fuck up. How credible will I be impersonating an FBI agent if I don’t have a gun? You guys carry SIG-226s just like the Bureau, so hand it over.”

  Lynn just stared at him.

  “Come on, Lynn. No one’ll believe I’m Bureau unless there’s a piece printing against my jacket. I’ll be arrested in two seconds.”

  Lynn sighed long and hard. “I can’t believe the things I let you bamboozle me with. It’s almost like we’re still married.”

  Garrett’s brow did a jig. “We can be, hon. All you gotta do is nullify that absurd divorce, and we—”

  “Harlan, don’t even say it.” She reluctantly handed her pistol over to him. “There. You happy now…killer?”

  Garrett hefted the attractive black gun in his hand. “I like it!”

  “I’ve got more, Harlan. Just remember that.” Her blond hair tossed when she turned her head and looked back at the sign. “And would you please tell me what we’re doing at Georgetown Hospital?”

  Garrett hastily scribbled something on the back of an old credit card receipt. “This is a friend of mine, just say you know me, and get on with the workup.”

  Lynn took the slip of paper, but still looked cruxed. “A workup? On what?”

  Garrett reached into the back seat, pulled the black plastic bag from the suitcase. “A workup on this,” he elaborated, setting the parcel right into her lap.

  ««—»»

  Garrett knew that in order to effectively masquerade as a special agent of the F.B.I., he’d have to wear a decent suit. He also knew that he didn’t own a decent suit and hadn’t in years. Hence, the quick stop at Joseph Abboud Ltd. and another poke into Swenson’s charitable contribution. Garrett didn’t have to spend $1100 on a suit but— An agent’s gotta look good, he reasoned. Might as well look REAL good. What the hell, right?

  It made sense to him.

  When he was set and ready to go, he and the Malibu were heading out of the city. Up Route 50 to the Beltway, then change off onto 95 North; that would get him to Edgewood.

  Every so often, he’d catch a forced glimpse of himself in the rearview, and wink at himself, smiling in self-satisfaction.

  “Special Agent Richard Odenton… You know, I like the sound of that.” Another wink, then, and he couldn’t help the next observation. “It’s tough being this good-looking, but I guess it’s just a burden I’m going to have to bear.”

  Just then, however, even before he crossed the District’s official boundary, one last very essential priority occurred to him.

  He was running low on cigarettes.

  He stopped at a traffic light, then roved his gaze to the right. The high GAS’N GO flagged him. Garrett pulled in and parked. But just as he was about to get out of the car—

  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Some tall skinny twitchy kid with pimples and tufts of frizzy black hair sticking out of his head in stalklike braids was walking briskly toward the convenience store’s entrance. The kid couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and he was a dead give-away; he was wearing a long tacky black raincoat in spite of the heat. Garrett wasn’t surprised to see the kid whip open the coat and check the small pistol stuck in his belt. Then he pulled open the door and strode in into the store.

  Garrett was waylaid as his eyes registered the sight. “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” he said aloud to himself. “Don’t kids today have any brains at all?”

  Evidently, this one didn’t.

  I really shouldn’t do this, he thought. No, I’m not going to. I’m NOT. That would be crazy… Then he made some further considerations. Oh the other hand, that punk could be killing people in there any minute…

  Garrett frowned and whipped out his own pistol—Lynn’s pistol actually—then got out of the car.

  Dumb, dumb, dumb, he was thinking. The little bell on the door jingled when he entered, and—Fuck, he observed. The were several customers in the store, more people to get killed if shooting started, and—fuck! he thought again. There was a woman scanning the diary products toward the rear, and she had a baby slung to her in a harness.

  The punk kid stood just before the register; he was bending over a waist-high magazine rack, pretending to be interested in the variety of tabloids. Garrett winced, in spite of the situation’s gravity: one of the tabloids—The National Reporter—Garrett had freelanced for several years ago.

  The kid was obviously working up his nerve.

  “Hey, son,” said the old duffer at the register. “You wanna read that crap, you gotta buy it. This ain’t a library.”

  The kid stood up, glaring. “Yeah, well it ain’t a bank either, you old fuck, but I’m gonna make a withdrawal.” When the kid had stood up straight, he was pointing the gun right at the old man’s belly.

  The woman in the back screamed, dropping a bottle of Gatorade. The baby started bawling. The other customers started yelling, ducking for cover.

  Garrett, his own gun drawn, managed to slip around the potato chip aisle and creep up from behind. “Federal agent!” he shouted. “Drop the gun and put your hands in the air!”

  Garrett was impressed by how well he done it. But the punk just stood there, as if calculating.

  “Hands up!” Garrett repeated. “Drop the gun! Do NOT turn around!”

  The kid turned around very quickly.

  Garrett winced again. Now the two of them were facing each other, guns aimed. Christ, I can’t shoot this guy! I’m carrying a phony FBI badge and a handgun registered to someone else!

  “The fun’s over, Pimples,” Garrett said.

  The kid grinned, his dredlocks shaking. “No it isn’t, it just started. Drop your piece.”

  “No, you drop your piece, crank-head,” Garrett replied. “What’s that you got there anyway? A Taurus .22? Gimme
a break, buddy. Your gun’s bottom-heavy, has no sights, has no recoil compensation, and is notoriously inaccurate. If you pop caps at me, you’ll probably miss, and even if you hit me with that pea-shooter, I guarantee I’ll

  have three 9mm Q-Loads in your face before I go down. So go on. Show all these

  people here how stupid you are.”

  The kid stared Garrett down. “Son of a bitch fuckin’ federal pig.”

  You’d be surprised, Garrett though. “Your move, Pimples. You can die right here or you can drop the gun. Use the brains that God gave you. If you drop the gun, you’ll go to joovie hall because you’re a minor, and you’ll probably be back on the street in thirty days playing Bad Guy again. Think about it. Drop the gun…or leave in a body bag. It’s your choice.”

  Garrett cocked his pistol.

  The kid tremored, gritting his teeth. His eyes focused to pinpoints of hate. Then he cursed under his breath and dropped the gun. He slowly put up his hands.

  Garrett let out a long, allaying breath, wondering just how close he’d come to wetting his slacks. The customers and the clerk began to applaud, and the woman with the squalling baby kissed him. “You saved our lives!” she blubbered. “All in a day’s work, ma’am,” Garrett said.

  A few minutes later, the metro cruiser arrived. Now came the really hard part. Garrett tried to seem as casual as possible when he flashed his badge and ID card to the muscle-bound cop who entered. A second cop took the kid away in cuffs.

  “Special Agent Odenton, FBI,” Garrett said. “I scoped the rock-head checking his piece outside, then followed him in and took him down.”

  The big cop looked impressed as well as grateful. “That kid’s Spaz Coleman. We’ve been trying to nab him for a year. He’s knocked over eight convenience stores since November. Good work, Agent Odenton.”

  “Piece of cake,” Garrett feigned.

  The second cop came back inside, laughing. “Hey, FBI, you’ll love this! The kid pissed his pants when you drew down on him!”