Ground Zero

  “They are in a missile silo marked number six,” Ali said. His face showed the slightest hint of dissatisfaction, which meant Ali was in a thundering rage. “We cannot enter, Mahdi.”

  “You cannot enter?” Muallah asked, incredulous. Ali, fail? This was impossible.

  “The doors are very thick. We checked number five after three grenades failed to open number six. I cannot enter.”

  Muallah looked silently at Ali, who paled and lost his look of dissatisfaction. Ali smelled sharply of gunsmoke and sweat. The breast of his jacket was splattered with a few drops of the Russian soldier’s blood. His hair was disheveled and flopped over his forehead. Muallah frowned.

  “Can you lock them in so they cannot escape?”

  “I have already done so, Mahdi,” Ali said.

  “Then they are rubbish. Assad, you must make the coffee,” Muallah smiled at Assad to take the sting from the demeaning task, one fit only for a woman. Assad nodded and left immediately. Ali waited in silence as Muallah glanced at Ruadh. Ruadh was buried deep in the missile manuals.

  “How long, Ali?” Muallah said softly. “Until they get a team together that can attempt an assault?”

  “Perhaps a few days. No less than twenty four hours.”

  “Ah, good. And bombers?”

  “They could attempt a bombing but we are well protected from anything but a nuclear strike, which of course they will not risk.”

  Muallah knew all this but he was jittering from nerves and excitement. He needed Ali to confirm his flawless plan.

  “Excellent,” Muallah said. He stretched back on the pillows and Persian carpeting they had brought on the Hind. “Now all we need is coffee.”

  Colorado Springs

  Joe Tanner opened the door.

  “Well hello,” he said, and smiled at Eileen.

  “Hello back,” she said, absolutely convinced she was looking at a murderer and absolutely convinced he was innocent, all at the same time. Joe was wearing a plain white shirt and jeans. His hair was just washed, thick and brown and bristly, like a mink. His eyebrows were thick and arched over his green eyes. He’d cut himself underneath the chin while shaving.

  “Shall we take my car again?” Joe asked, turning away to lock his door.

  “Sure,” Eileen said. “Where are we going? You said it was your choice?”

  “The Broadmoor,” Joe said with a wicked grin. “My choice.”

  “Oh, no, we can’t go there,” Eileen protested. “Its too--”

  “Expensive? Of course,” Joe said. “I’m loaded, Detective.”

  “Not expensive,” Eileen replied, trying not to laugh. The income from her portion of the cattle on her parent’s ranch was more than her yearly salary as a detective, and that wasn’t half bad. Money was not the reason she’d never been to the Broadmoor. “Snooty, Joe. That place is a five-star resort hotel. They’re snooty. Look at me?”

  “You look ravishing,” Joe said. “Don’t you know that?”

  “I’m wearing pants,” Eileen explained, feeling her face start to flush.

  “I noticed,” Joe said dryly. “Why would you wear anything but pants? You look like a young Katherine Hepburn, only in color. You should always wear khakis.”

  “Thank you,” Eileen murmured, inwardly amused at her own reaction to Joe’s flattery. She wasn’t that young or foolish, to feel warm over a compliment.

  “I like the Broadmoor,” Joe continued, taking her elbow in a warm grip and leading her down to his car. “It’s the Gamer’s place to go after a successful War Game. A four star place is snooty. A five star place is just like home, only better. They’ve got this huge patio overlooking the lake, with the mountains just above it. It’s the best place in Colorado Springs. I can’t believe you’ve never been there.”

  “Well, I’ve been there, professionally,” Eileen said, settling into the car and pulling the seat belt across her lap. She got a sudden, vivid image of the gorgeously appointed room 104, with the view of Cheyenne Mountain through the windows and the sprawled sad legs of Suzanne DeBeau, lady golfer and cocaine addict, making a sloppy X on the plush green carpet.

  “Yikes,” Joe said, getting into the driver’s seat. “A murder?”

  “Accidental death,” Eileen said, “but let’s not talk about work.”

  “Let’s not,” Joe said, and smiled over at her again. “There’s lots to talk about besides war games and murders. I want to know what herding cattle is like.”

  Eileen laughed. “It’s hot and stinky,” she said. “But if you really want to know, I’ll tell you all.”

  When Joe turned onto Lake Drive a few minutes later Eileen looked doubtfully at the enormous hotel at the end of the street.

  “There used to be a railroad that went right up Lake Drive, did you know that?” Joe said. “This whole city was founded as a resort community. The Broadmoor was the first Hotel, and it's the grandest. I always feel like I’m going back in time when I come here.”

  He looked up with a kind of familiar pride at the facade as they pulled into the parking lot. The stone was painted a dull putty color and the roofs were red slate. The flower beds were impeccable and their scent filled the air. A little fountain played by the entrance. It should have looked European and out of place, but it didn't. The building had been designed by someone who knew how it should look against the setting of Pike's Peak and Cheyenne mountain.

  “It is beautiful,” Eileen said grudgingly.

  “This'll really be a treat,” Joe said greedily, and rubbed his hands together.

  Just as at Joni’s, a kind of bubble surrounded Eileen. Nothing existed beyond the present moment. The sun was setting slowly behind the Front Range as they were seated in the enormous dining room. Eileen ordered seafood fetuccini. Joe ate a filet that was smothered in asparagus and crab and he insisted that Eileen have a bite. She took the beef from his fork, and the meat was so tender it was like butter in her mouth.

  Nothing was said of the murders during the dinner. They spoke of college days, of Joe’s family, the latest movies. The topic rambled easily from one subject to another.

  “You can't brand cattle when they're wet,” Eileen explained at one point, waving a chunk of crab at the end of her fork. “If you do then the whole area just kind of scabs up and falls off, so you get this big round scar instead of a nice clean brand.” She stopped and Joe started laughing.

  “That's disgusting,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said, and ate the piece of crab. She grinned over at him. “But who was telling me about the road rash from that bike crash, huh? A whole leg of scabs for a month?”

  “I've got an iron stomach,” Joe explained. “Nothing bothers me. My aunt was a nurse and she lived with us for a summer when she first got divorced. Her and her kids. What a great summer. She'd come home and shower up and talk to my mom about her day in the emergency room. We'd be eating supper and she'd be telling mom about the gunshot wounds and the car wrecks. We'd listen with our mouths hanging open as they'd laugh and talk.”

  “How many cousins do you have?”

  “She had three kids, all boys, all right around our ages, me and my brother and sisters. We had such fun! There were a couple of ponds and we would go fishing for sunfish and crappie. The moms signed us all up for swimming lessons, too, so we'd all troop off in the morning for those.” Joe shook his head. “I miss the guys to this day, I do. Aunt Rachel moved out but she was still close by. We still visited together all the time. We used to take our summer vacations together.”

  “We didn’t take many vacations,” Eileen said. “One to Disneyland. Of course.”

  “Of course,” Joe laughed. “Everybody goes to Disneyland, don’t they?”

  “I almost got kicked out. I sneaked away and went over the fence at Jungle Safari, because I swore those were real crocodiles in the river. So I get three steps and I’ve got one of the Disney Secret Police holding me by the scruff of the neck.”

  “You went over the fence at Jungle Sa
fari? In Disneyland?”

  “I was interested,” she said, trying to put on her best wide-eyed innocent look. She was rewarded by a burst of laughter.

  “You talked your way out of it? I don’t believe it.”

  “My mom did,” Eileen said. “She could sweet talk the birds out of the trees. They let us stay. As long as she was holding me by the hand.”

  “We went, too,” Joe said. “When I was seven. Pretty exciting, even for a big city kid.”

  “Rapid City was the big city to me,” Eileen said dryly. “And Laramie, Wyoming. Wow, that was such an adjustment.”

  “Belle Fourche,” Joe said in a marveling voice. “I can't imagine what it would be like to go to boarding school.”

  “It wasn’t a boarding school, just a regular high school. But the ranch kids boarded with local families. You know, parents whose kids were gone or families with an extra room. I had a good time in high school,” Eileen said. “It’s lonely at first because you still want to be with Mom and Dad. But in high school we had a whole crowd of boarders that hung out together. The family I lived with, the Smithson's, they couldn’t have any children. They’re probably still boarding ranch kids. They had another boarder when I went to school, Owen Sutter. My buddy Owen. He couldn't figure out why I wanted to go into the Air Force. He wanted to work the ranch and be a cowboy forever.”

  “Does he do that now?”

  “He's sure does, and he's got three kids. He married Molly, we were friends with her in high school. Molly Williams, there's a girl for you. She could ride a horse. Still does, I imagine.” Eileen winked at Joe. “I'm glad Owen married her, actually, don't be thinking there's some tragic romantic story here. Owen was the brother I never had.”

  “What was it like when school ended for the summer?”

  Eileen looked at him doubtfully.

  “I really am interested. You are so different than I expected, so --”

  “Not cop like?” she said.

  “Exactly. Though I don't know any cops, personally. Until now.” Joe regarded her across the remains of their supper, now being whisked away by the silent, impeccable Broadmoor waiters.

  “I like listening to people’s stories,” Eileen said. “I like brain teasers and puzzles but best of all I like figuring out what makes people the way they are. Being a cop suits me.”

  “How about the gun? Doesn’t it feel strange, carrying a gun?”

  “Oh, yes, the gun too,” Eileen said, and patted her side affectionately. “I’ve carried a gun since I was ten. Mountain lions like to snack on calves and they’d be happy to snack on me too. Mom and Dad taught me to shoot. I don’t feel right without a gun.”

  “I don’t think I’d feel right with a gun,” Joe said. Eileen’s bubble fled as, for just a moment, she contemplated Joe Tanner sharpening a deadly screwdriver stiletto, humming as he shaved metal particles from the blade. Then she blinked, hard, and the image disappeared. Joe was not the murderer. He was not. Not tonight, anyhow.

  “Sometime I’ll take you shooting,” she said lightly. “You’ll be hooked, I bet. When I first took Joni shooting she’d pucker her face up and barely get a shot off, her hands would shake so bad. Now she can hit the x-ring half the time.”

  “Joni has a gun?” Joe asked in surprise.

  “She was carrying a gun when you met her, Joe,” Eileen said. “Concealed carry permit. Nobody is going to mess with Joni again.”

  “I like that,” Joe said slowly. “I don’t want anybody messing with Joni either.”

  “Time for coffee and dessert,” the waiter said with a grin, rolling a cart to the table that was packed with confections. “Don’t try to get away without dessert.”

  “We have to have coffee,” Eileen said, eyeing the cart.

  “But of course,” Joe said gloomily. “I’ll just run about twelve miles tomorrow to work this off, that’s all.”

  The night fizzed around her like champagne as she laughed, and Eileen understood in the cold and rational part of her that the danger was a part of the fizz. The danger that she might be falling in love with a madman and a murderer. Eileen knew with all her heart that Joe Tanner was innocent, that he was intelligent and good. But the tiny rational voice in her head stayed awake and aware, looking with cold lizard eyes out of her head and assessing every movement and nuance of Joe Tanner. The rational part of her, her lizard part, would not trust Joe Tanner until she had the real murderer in custody. No matter what her heart was telling her.

  The night breeze blew through the car windows and stirred Eileen's hair as they drove to Joe’s home.

  “That was the best dinner I ever had,” Joe said, after he pulled to a stop. “Do you want to come in for coffee or something?”

  “I don’t --”

  “Please? Just for a bit. I don’t want the night to end.”

  He leaned forward, and kissed her, and his mouth was as soft as she imagined it to be. His kiss was maddeningly gentle.

  “All right,” she said.

  His apartment was small and indifferently decorated, as she knew it would be. There was no particular style, just nice furniture and lamps and a couple of prints.

  “Let me fix decaf,” he said, “Or I’ll be up all night. I’ll probably be up all night anyway.”

  Eileen didn't answer. She was looking at a framed picture of Harriet Sullivan. Eileen felt a withering rage and jealousy of this dead woman, for the second time. She couldn't help it, even though she knew it was useless.

  “It was two years ago,” she said.

  “It feels like yesterday,” he said, his face abruptly as expressionless as stone.

  “I've heard a lot of stories about Sully,” Eileen said. “Sharon told me what she did when she thought she was going to lose her job. I think --”

  “You think I killed Terry because of Sully,” Joe said sharply. He was clenching the coffee grinder in his hands. He looked furious.

  “I don’t know,” Eileen said, from the lizard part of her. Then she folded her arms and bowed her head. “No,” she whispered from her heart. “Not you.”

  The coffee grinder thumped to the counter with a clatter.

  “Not me, Eileen,” Joe said. He walked to her and took her in his arms, as naturally as though he’d done it a thousand times. “It wasn’t me.” Eileen could feel his heart beating under her ear, and she put her arms around him and held him tightly. Lost, she was lost, and she didn’t care.

  “I know it wasn’t you.”

  Great Falls, Virginia

  “Lucy, Lucy,” Ted called to her.

  Lucy could hear her husband's voice, but the smoke swirled around her and she couldn't see. There was a frantic crackling sound that had to be fire. There were sharp rubble and rocks under her feet. She looked down, in the queer fishbowl vision of a dream, and saw that her feet were encased in stout boots. Underneath her feet were brick shards and shell casings and white tiny sticks that she understood were children's bones.

  “Ted!” she screamed, but the scream came out of her throat as the tiniest of whispers. She tried to look around, but the smoke was choking and thick and studded with particles that glistened like crystals. The smoke was shimmering but the taste was foul, like death.

  The smoke haze lifted and she saw the Tower of London, broken, one part of the spire sticking up like a brutally sharpened pencil, and then the shimmering clouds swirled it away again. She’d visited London as a college student on spring break and never forgotten her first breathtaking glimpse of the Tower. Now it was destroyed.

  Lucy felt the scream sticking in her throat, and knew she was walking through radioactive clouds. Then she realized she was carrying a child, and knew that the worst part wasn't that she was dead, but that her child was, too.

  That broke the scream free and sent her up and out of the nightmare and she opened her eyes in the darkness and Ted was there, holding her. There was no smoke.

  “Lucy,” Ted said. He was near tears. “Don't scream, Lucy, don't.”

/>   Lucy put her arms around his neck and sobbed, feeling her sweat running down her body and soaking her nightshirt.

  “Oh, Ted,” she said, “I had the most horrible nightmare.”

  “It's okay now, baby, it's okay, it was just a dream,” he soothed, and held her.

  But it was a long time before Lucy fell asleep again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Oklahoma

  “Have you finished Chapter Twelve yet?” Major Stillwell asked Richard, the pilot. They were sitting in a Greyhound bus stop in Oklahoma. The bus stop also served as a gas station and liquor store. The bugs swarmed around the light at the front of the station.

  “Almost done,” Richard said absently. Richard was bringing home a romance novel for his wife, a gift. She loved romance novels. This was the only reading material anybody had. They'd split Richard’s book into chapters and were sharing the chapters around as they read. They’d tried reading it together but Gwen was too fast and Stillwell was too slow. The gas station's one video game had an “Out of Order” sign on it that was so sun-faded as to be illegible.

  The friendly broken-legged farmer's wife had fed them some terrific fried chicken for lunch and some cherry pie for dessert that Stillwell thought he might remember forever, it was so good.

  After the lunch -- the farmer’s wife called it dinner -- there was a long, boring wait for the farmer to return from the fields, and a long, boring drive to the nearest town, and then a long, boring wait for the bus.

  The bus tickets weren't that expensive, but all three groaned when they found out the next bus didn't pull into town until 2 a.m. that morning.

  “I was supposed to be in Colorado Springs tonight,” Stillwell said.

  “We all were,” Richard said gloomily.

  Richard finished his chapter and handed it over to Stillwell. Stillwell set his chapter carefully on the growing stack by his chair. Gwen, the quickest reader, was the first in line.