Joe Ledger

by Jonathan Maberry

  “So it’s just protective custody?”

  “No. Homeland is cooking up some kind of scam thing where they’ll eventually use Burke as bait to lure the cockroaches out of the woodwork. Get them to make a run at him so we could scoop them up, take them off for some quiet conversation, say at Gitmo.”

  “Well…that’s pretty much what just happened, isn’t it?” asked Top.

  “I guess…but it wasn’t on a timetable. They wanted Burke completely off the radar for a year or so to let things cool down. Homeland wanted to scoop up high-profile hitters, not bozos with suicide vests. The plan was to start seeding the spy network with disinformation this fall that Burke was willing to sell his idea for the right kind of money. Let that cook on the international scene for a bit then set up a meet with as many buyers as we can line up. Then do a series of snatch-and-grabs. It’s the kind of assembly-line arrests Homeland’s been doing since 9-11. Doesn’t put all their eggs in one basket, so even if they put four out of twenty potential buyers in the bag they celebrate it as a major win. And, I guess it is.”

  Top nodded. “So what went wrong, Cap’n?”

  “He disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? Did he walk or was he taken?”

  “I guess that’s what we’re here to find out.” I told them the rest, about Burke going AWOL a few times; and about the cell phones and the buzz overseas.

  “Are we trying to find him and keep him safe,” asked Top, “or put a bullet in his brainpan. ’Cause I can build a case either way.”

  I didn’t answer.

  We’d caught up with the storm clouds, and the closer we got to Pine Deep the gloomier it got. I know it was coincidence, but I could live without subtle jokes like that from the universe. Luckily the rain seemed to be holding off.

  We passed through the small town of Crestville, following the road so that we’d enter Pine Deep via a rickety bridge from the north. Both sides of the road were lined with cornfields. It was the middle of August and the corn was tall and green and impenetrable. Here and there we saw old signs, faded and crumbling, that once advertised a Haunted Hayride and a Halloween Festival.

  As we crossed the bridge Top tapped my shoulder and nodded to a big wooden sign almost completely faded by hard summers and harder winters. It read:

  Welcome to Pine Deep

  America’s Haunted Holidayland!

  We’ll Scare You to Death!

  Somebody had used red spray paint to overlay the writing with a smiley face, complete with vampire fangs.

  “Charming,” I said.

  We drove down another crooked road that broadened onto a feeder side street, then made the turn onto Main Street. The town of Pine Deep looked schizophrenic. Almost half of the buildings were brand-new, with glossy window displays and bright LED signs; and the other half looked at least fifty years old and in need of basic repair. Some of the buildings had been burned and painted over, and that squared with what I’d read about the place. Before the trouble, Pine Deep had been an upscale arts community built on the bones of a centuries-old blue-collar farming region. Even now, with its struggle to create a new identity, there were glimpses of those earlier eras. Like ghosts, glimpses out of the corner of the eye. But the overall impression was of a town that had failed. It wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t quite alive either. Maybe the economic downturn had come at the wrong time, derailing the reconstruction of the town and the rebuilding of its economy. Or, maybe the memory of all those dead people, all that pain from the trouble infected the atmosphere.

  “Damn,” murmured Bunny. “They could film a Stephen King flick here. Wouldn’t need special effects.”

  “Town’s trying to make a comeback,” I said.

  Top’s face was set, his brows furrowed. Unlike Bunny and me, Top had read a couple of the books written about the town and its troubles. He shook his head. “Some things you don’t come back from.”

  “That’s cheery,” said Bunny.

  Top nodded to one of the buildings that still showed traces of the fire that had nearly destroyed Pine Deep. “That wasn’t the first problem this place had. Even when I was a kid Newsweek was calling this place the ‘most haunted town in America.’ Had that reputation going back to Colonial times.”

  “Since when do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Places can be like people. Some are born good, some are born bad. This one’s like that. Born bad, and bad to the bone.”

  Bunny opened his mouth to make a joke, but he left it unsaid.

  We drove in silence for a while.

  Finally Top seemed to shake off some of his gloom. “We going to check in with the local police? If so, what badge do we flash?”

  “That’s where we’re heading now,” I said, as I pulled into a slanted curbside parking slot. “The FBI has been the public face of this kind of witness protection, but Federal Marshals are also involved. We’re both. I’m FBI, you guys are marshals.”

  They nodded and Top dug out the appropriate I.D.s from a locked compartment. We have fully authentic identification for most of the major investigative and enforcement branches of the U.S. government. The only I.D.s we don’t have are DMS cards and badges, because the DMS doesn’t issue any. We only exist as far as the President and one congressional subcommittee is concerned.

  We got out and headed toward the small office marked PINE DEEP POLICE DEPARTMENT. There were potted plants on either side of the door, but both plants were withered and dead.

  Chap. 4

  Pine Deep Police Department

  August 16; 4:59 p.m.

  There were three people in the office. A small, pigeon-breasted woman with horn-rims and blue hair who sat at a combination desk and dispatch console. She didn’t even look up as the doorbell tinkled.

  The two men did.

  They were completely unalike in every way. The younger man, a patrol officer with corporal’s stripes, was at a desk. Early twenties, but he was a moose. Not as big as Bunny—and there are relatives of Godzilla who aren’t as big as Bunny—but big enough. Six four, two-twenty and change. The kind of muscles you get from hard work and free weights. Callused hands, lots of facial scars. A fighter for sure. He had curly red hair and contact lenses that gave him weirdly luminous blue eyes. Almost purple. Odd cosmetic choice for a cop. Little triangular plaque on his desk read: CORPORAL MICHAEL SWEENEY.

  He remained seated, but the other man rose as we entered. He was about fifty, but he had a lean build that hadn’t yielded to middle-age spread. Short, slender, with intensely black hair threaded with silver. He, too, had visible scars, and it was no stretch to guess that they’d gotten them during the Trouble. And, strangely, there was also something familiar about him. I felt like I’d met him somewhere…or heard something about him…. Whatever it was, the memory was way, way back on a dusty shelf where I couldn’t reach it.

  The older man wore Chief’s bars and a smile that looked warm and cheerful and was entirely fabricated. He leaned on the intake desk. “What can I do for you fellows?”

  I flashed the FBI badge. “Special Agent Morrison,” I said. The name on the card was Marion Morrison. John Wayne’s real name.

  His smile didn’t flicker. I also noticed that it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And your fishing buddies there?”

  They held up I.D. cases, too, but I introduced them. “Federal Deputy Marshals Cassidy and Reid.” Full names on the IDs were William Cassidy and John Reid. Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger. The guy at the DMS who does our IDs needs a long vacation.

  “Malcolm Crow,” said the smaller man. “Pine Deep Chief of Police.”

  He offered his hand, which was small and hard, and we shook.

  “So…again, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Missing persons case,” I said. “Confidential and high-profile.”

  “Which means what? A special agent and two marshals? This a manhunt for a suspected terrorist or a missing witness?”

  I
shrugged, hoping he’d take that as a ‘we’re not supposed to talk about it’ kind of thing. He ignored it.

  “Can’t help you if you won’t share,” he said.

  I said nothing, giving him ‘the look.’ It usually makes people squirm. Chief Crow merely smiled his veneer of a smile and waited me out.

  “Okay,” I said, as if answering his question was the hardest thing I was ever going to be asked to do, “I can tell you this much. We had a protected witness living in Pine Deep. He’s missing.”

  “Living here under what name?”

  “Peter Wagner.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah…what?”

  “The writer.”

  I stepped closer to the intake bench. “And how would you know that?”

  Behind Crow, Officer Sweeney stood up. He did it slowly, without threat, but there was still a lot of threat there. Unlike the chief, Sweeney’s face was unsmiling. A good-looking kid, but one that you’d take note of, especially if he wasn’t in uniform and you were both alone. Behind me I heard the soft scuff as Top and Bunny made subtle moves. Shifting weight, being ready.

  Crow seemed amused by all of this. To me he said, “You take a guy as famous as Simon Burke, give him a bad dye job and color contacts, and you expect no one to recognize him? People in small towns do read, you know. And your boy is famous.”

  “Who else knows who he is?”

  “Most people with two eyes and an IQ.”

  Crap.

  “For what it’s worth,” said Crow, “people hereabouts know how to keep a secret.” As if on cue the thunder rumbled. It made Crow smile more. “Can I ask why a bestselling novelist is in witness protection?”

  “National security.”

  “Ri-i-ght,” he said in exactly the way you’d say “bullshit.”

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked. “Has he come forward and—”

  “No,” Crow said, cutting me off. “I don’t know where he is, but I suspect he’s in some real trouble.”

  “Why do you suspect that, Chief Crow?”

  He shrugged. “Because you’re here. If he was out sowing some wild oats or getting hammered down at the Scarecrow Lounge, his handler would be on it. Or at most he’d get a couple of kids right out of Quantico to help with the scut work. Instead they send you three.”

  “We are the team sent to locate our witness.”

  “Ri-i-i-ght,” he said again, stretching out the “I.”

  “Would you like to see our credentials again?” This guy was beginning to irritate the crap out of me.

  “Look,” said Crow, leaning a few inches forward on his forearms. I could see the network of scars on his face. “You’re about as close to a standard paper-pushing FBI agent as I am to Megan Fox. You’re a hunter, and so are your pals. I don’t care what the IDs say, because you’re probably NSA at the least, in which case the IDs are as real as you need them to be and I’m Joe Nobody from Nowhere, Pennsylvania. But here’s a news flash. Just about nothing happens in a small town without everybody hearing something. Our gossip-train is faster than a speeding bullet. If you want to find your missing witness, then you can do it the easy way, which is with my help; or the hard way, which is without my help.”

  I had to fight to keep a smile off my face. Guy had balls, I’ll give him that much. The big red-haired kid was hovering a few feet behind him, looking borderline spooky with his fake blue eyes and unsmiling face.

  “What do you suggest, Chief?”

  Crow nodded. “Cut me in on the hunt. Give me some details, and I’ll see what I can find.”

  I considered it. Thunder rumbled again, and the sky outside was turning gray. My instincts were telling me one thing and DMS protocol was telling me something else. In the end, I said, “Thanks anyway, Chief. If it’s all the same to you, we’ll poke around on our own. I doubt the witness is in any real trouble. Not in a little town like this.”

  I meant it as a kick in the shins, but he merely shook his head. “You read up on Pine Deep before you came here, Agent Duke? I mean…Agent Morrison.”

  Touché, you little jerk, I thought.

  “Some,” I said.

  “About the troubles we had a few years back?”

  “Everyone knows about them?”

  “Well,” he said, shifting a little. He glanced back at the redheaded kid and then at me. “Those problems were here long before we had our ‘troubles.’ I guess you could say that in one way or another we’ve always had troubles here in Pine Deep. Lots of people run into real problems here.”

  I smiled now, and it probably wasn’t my nicest one. “Are…you trying to threaten me, Chief Crow?”

  He laughed.

  Behind him the redhead kid, Sweeney, spoke for the first time. “Just a fair warning, mister,” he said. His voice was low and raspy. “It ain’t the people you have to worry about around here. The town will help you or it won’t.”

  Then he smiled and it was one of the coldest, least human smiles I think I’ve ever seen. It was like an animal, a wolf or something equally predatory, trying to imitate a human smile.

  Then Officer Sweeney turned away and sat back down at his desk.

  Chief Crow winked at us. “Happy trails, boys.”

  I stared at him for a few moments as thunder rattled the windows in the tiny office. Then I nodded and turned to go. Just as Bunny opened the door for me, Crow said, “Welcome to Pine Deep.”

  I turned and met his eyes for a few long seconds. He neither blinked nor looked away. For reasons I can’t adequately explain, we nodded to one another, and then I followed Top and Bunny out of the office. As we walked to the car, I could feel eyes watching me.

  Chap. 5

  The Safe House

  August 16; 6:28 p.m.

  We got back in the car.

  “Okay,” said Bunny, “that was freaking weird.”

  No one argued.

  “Want me to run him through MindReader?” asked Top.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know him from somewhere.”

  “Cop thing?” asked Bunny. “You do a shared-jurisdiction gig with Pine Deep?”

  “No.”

  “Something social? FOP weenie roast.”

  “Cute. But no. I don’t think I’ve met him, but there’s something banging around in the back of my brain about him. Crow. Could be a martial arts thing.”

  “He train?” asked Bunny.

  “Yes,” Top and I said together.

  Top added, “Not karate, though. No calluses on his knuckles.”

  “Has them on his hands, though,” I said, touching the webbing around my thumb and index finger. I had a ring of callus there, too. “Kenjutsu, or something similar.”

  “Kid uses his knuckles, though,” Top said. “Hard-looking son of a bitch. Looks like he could go a round or two.”

  A few fat raindrops splatted on the windshield, and the glass was starting to fog. I hit defrost and waited while Bunny called the request in to Bug, our computer guru at the Warehouse. Bug did a search through MindReader and got back to us before we’d driven two blocks.

  “Plenty of stuff here,” he said. “Malcolm Crow grew up in Pine Deep. Medical records from when he was a kid show a lot of injuries. Broken arms, facial injuries…stuff consistent with physical abuse.”

  “Anyone charged for that?”

  “No. His mother died when he was little. He and his brother were raised by his father, who has a loooong record of arrests for public drunkenness, DUI, couple of barroom brawls. Sounds like he was the hitter. Wow…get this. His brother was murdered by a serial killer thirty-five years ago. Your boy was the only witness. Couple dozen victims total before the killer went off the radar. Possibly lynched by the townies, and the local police may have been involved in that.”

  “Lovely little town,” Top said under his breath.

  “Chief Crow was a cop for a while,” Bug continued. “Then was a drunk for a long time. He sobered up and opened up a craft and novelty store, and helped desi
gn a haunted hayride for a Halloween theme park. All of this was before that trouble they had there. Crow was deputized by the mayor about a month before the Trouble, and—here’s another cool bit—the deputation was because another serial killer was in town killing people. Thirty years to the day from when Crow’s brother was killed. Freaky.”

  “Damn,” I said. “What else you got?”

  “He’s married. Wife is Val Guthrie-Crow. Hyphenates her last name. And they have two kids. One natural—Sara—and one adopted, Mike.”

  “Mike? What was his birth name?”

  “Same as he’s using now. Michael Sweeney. Never changed it.”

  “What else?”

  “Crow, his wife, and Mike Sweeney were all hospitalized after the trouble. Various injuries. Their statements say that they don’t remember what happened and they claimed everything was a blur,” Bug said. “That more or less fits because the town water supply was supposed to be spiked with LSD and other party favors.”

  “Do we have anything linking Crow to the Trouble itself? Any involvement with white supremacist movements, anything at all?”

  “No. Couple other guys on the Pine Deep police force might have been involved, though, including the chief at that time.”

  “But nothing that would connect Crow to it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What are his politics?”

  “Moderate with a tilt to the left. Same for the missus.”

  “And Sweeney?”

  “Registered independent but has never voted. Oh…hold on. Got a red flag here. Looks like Sweeney’s adopted father—another asshole who liked to hit kids if I’m reading this right—was one of the men suspected of orchestrating the attack on the town.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “I hacked the Pine Deep P.D. files and it looks like the stepfather filed a report for assault. The kid decked him and ran away.”

  I glanced at Top. “You read the kid as a bad guy?”