by James Phelan
“Gas. In the ground,” Margaret said. “They dig it up, flush it out somehow.”
“Fracking.”
“What’s that?” Margaret said.
“They call it fracking,” Walker said. “I’ve heard about it wrecking underwater tables. You sure that’s causing earthquakes?”
“Can’t be nothing else,” Margaret said, continuing her slow stroll up the hall. “The whole Ozarks are full of caves and whatnot. Government built whole cities underground around here in that Cold War.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard rumors.”
“Not rumors, young Mark,” Margaret said, pausing at a closed door leading off the hall, opposite the sitting room at the front of the house. “I’ve seen it, when I could see good. As young’uns we used to play in the caves. In the fifties they started sealing them all up. Building things. The Air Force even sent down some monster drill—a tunnel maker, biggest machine I ever saw. I heard it tunneled from here to Ozark—that’s the town, near Springfield—then it goes all the way up to St. Louis.”
“That’d be a hell of a tunnel,” Walker said. “Hundreds of miles.”
“Country was crazy then,” Margaret said. “Building things we’d never need, preparing for a war against the communists—a war that never came.”
She opened the door. The curtain was drawn, leaving the room in darkness, but Walker could make out a double bed with a quilt, and dust-covered side tables. Cobwebs collected in the corners of the ceiling, but the room was dry and warm, and that’s what Walker looked forward to most.
Margaret let out another fart. “Aftershock,” she said, shuffling off. “Damn gas.”
38
Margaret offered them dinner of beef pot stew but Walker and Squeaker headed out. It was early for dinner, just on five, but the sun’s glow in the gray sky was almost extinguished.
“Walk into town?” Walker asked.
“Hell no,” Squeaker said. “I’ll drive us.”
Walker tossed her the Tahoe keys. She gunned the engine and took off in a cloud of tire smoke.
“Great,” Walker said, looking back at the twin lines of rubber she’d left out the front of Margaret’s house. “She’ll think we’re petrol heads with no respect.”
“It’s how everyone with a pulse drives around here,” Squeaker said, slowing at the stop sign but putting her foot down when she saw it was clear, sliding the back of the Tahoe out as she pulled onto the street running behind Main Street. “She was a character, no?”
“Yep.”
“You believe that, about the tunnels?”
“Maybe. Cold War they spent billions on stuff we won’t ever know about, let alone find a use for.”
“So, you’re a long way from Philly here, huh?”
“Yep. Have you been?”
“Nope. I haven’t been north of Missouri.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Ha ha.”
She stopped at the next stop sign to let an eighteen-wheeler blast by, headed south.
“What are you going to say to him?” Squeaker asked, taking a sedate right turn, looking at storefronts as she motored. “My cousin.”
“Just what I know.”
“That’s he’s in danger?”
“That. And that he has information that will help stop a catastrophic attack that’s coming—only, he doesn’t know that he knows.”
“Maybe the rest of the SEALs have already told whoever’s protecting them about what’s coming.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Squeaker slowed past a bar flanked by rows of motorbikes, all Harleys and choppers.
“Maybe another time,” Walker said, not wanting to get into yet another bar fight. “How about that place?”
He pointed up the road to a red neon sign that had a larger-than-life statue of a 1950s waitress in a short skirt and on roller-skates holding a tray that spun around.
Squeaker said, “I usually don’t eat at places with flashing lights and all.”
“Do you have many of those in Calico Rock?”
“Enough to know I don’t like them.”
“What’s not to like?” Walker said as she pulled the Tahoe next to a near-identical vehicle in the diner’s car park. “They’ll have cold beer and hot food.”
“That, for a start,” she said, pointing to one of the Sheriff’s squad cars.
“Cops need to eat someplace. And in my experience, they usually know where the good simple food is at.”
“Yeah,” she said, sitting with the engine running, her little shoulders slumped forward. “But you didn’t grow up where I did, did you, mister?”
She looked at him, her big eyes somewhere between playful and tired. He remembered her in the shower, her body firm and pressed tightly against his. He shook off the thought. One more night, find her cousin, and she’ll be on her way home.
39
The diner was packed. They sat at the counter, all the booths and tables full up. Men, mostly, either passing through town and stuck or cut off from where they lived out near the mining or logging operations.
Walker had a burger with fries and onion rings and a pitcher of beer.
Squeaker had a huge rib-eye steak, rare, with mashed potato and peas and lashings of gravy. When she’d cleared her plate, she picked up the bone and gnawed at the bits of meat she couldn’t cut off.
“What are you going to do, after we find him?” she asked. “After you stop whatever this thing is, I mean. After all this. What’s next?”
“I’ll move on,” Walker said, wiping his mouth and balling the napkin on his empty plate and pushing it forward. “To the next job.”
“The next attack.”
Walker drained his beer, nodded. “There’s more to be done.”
Squeaker watched him and drank her seltzer before she continued. “I could come with you.”
“Come with me?”
“After this. After we find Murphy, I mean. I could help out.”
Walker smiled. “You could drive me around?”
“Yep. And I can shoot.”
“I know, I’ve seen you do both.”
“I’m tough.”
“I believe it.”
The waitress cleared their plates. Squeaker ordered a whisky, double.
“Want one?” she said to Walker.
He saw the single brand that they had and shook his head. “I’ll stick with beer.”
The waitress nodded.
A ruckus erupted in the corner behind Walker. Two table-loads were arguing. A guy stood. A big guy, with one of the thickest beards Walker had ever seen. He had his fists forming.
“Hey,” a voice called. Walker saw Chester, sitting alone at the counter, shaking his head at the guys. They seemed to get the message.
Walker felt a hand on his shoulder. Heavy. He turned, slowly, prepared for action, shifting his weight on the vinyl-topped stool, keeping his arms loose.
Sheriff Lincoln. His right hand rested on the butt of his service pistol. The clasp was undone. Jones was a few paces to one side of him, between them and the door. The diner quieted.
“Jed Walker,” Lincoln said.
Walker didn’t react.
“You’re under arrest for murder.”
40
Levine walked out of Barb Durrell’s house. Woods could tell she was pissed. Even with his woolen overcoat and gloves, he was freezing. The house was full of activity. The Sheriff’s car was parked out in the driveway, along with a dozen others, all shiny new pick-ups, American makes. The house was a veritable palace of bad taste. Levine’s breath was fogging.
“How’d that go?” Woods asked her.
Levine shook her head and moved to the passenger side of their car.
“Told you,” Woods said. “They’re not going to talk around here. Badges just make these folk clam up tighter than a fish’s butt.”
“Mixed metaphor much?”
“Well, a leopard can’t change his stripes.”
“What?”
&nb
sp; “I’m tired.” Woods said, throwing his coat onto the back seat before settling behind the steering wheel. “And I’m just saying, around here, they don’t even know the outside world exists. They don’t care about it. They don’t give a shit beyond what’s happening in their lives right now.”
“You make them sound like they’re all backward yokels,” Levine said, unclipping her holstered Sig and putting it into the center console before buckling up and raking her seat back. “Head north. Fast.”
“Got it,” Woods said, taking off, watching the house in the rearview mirror before heading toward Route 63. “Nope. They’re smart. They’ve got what they need and aren’t putting their hands out to get any more.” Woods was silent a moment, then added, “It’s the kind of quiet life we all wish we had.”
“You reckon?”
“Damn straight.”
“Well, I’m going to disrupt their quiet little lives right now. The next people we question, no more Good Agent.”
“You’re the good agent?”
•
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about this?” Walker said.
Lincoln said nothing as he locked the cell door.
Walker was right about the cells being out the back of the station. There were three of them, eight-by-eight-by-eight cubes made up of half-inch steel bars. He was the only guest. Each had a single cot bed bolted to the concrete floor, and a stainless-steel toilet with a faucet and basin set into the top of the cistern. At the end of the room was another door, which led to a kitchenette and staff toilets.
“Cuffs,” Lincoln said, holding his keys out.
Walker put his cuffed hands through a gap in the bars and Lincoln undid them. Jones watched from two paces away, his hands on his hips and a shit-eating grin on his face. Chester emerged from the kitchenette with a cup of coffee.
“We knew you was trouble,” Jones said.
“Was, past tense,” Walker said. “I’m all grown up now, no trouble to no one.”
“Save it, smart guy,” Chester said.
Lincoln looked at his deputy as he squared his cuffs away on his belt.
“Sheriff, it was self-defense,” Walker said to Lincoln’s back as the Sheriff headed for the door to the main station. “He drew a knife on me. A big one.”
“Witness says otherwise,” Lincoln said. “Same witness whose car you stole. That’s another charge right there.”
Walker rubbed his wrists, said, “You spoke to him? Gus?”
“Yep. He’s headed up here right now, with some business associates,” Sheriff Lincoln said. “As a matter of fact they’re going to be staying the night. I’ll be taking their statements first thing in the morning, unless you wanna just confess, save me some paperwork?”
“Okay, I confess. I borrowed that truck to save a life.”
“And the guy you killed?”
“Self-defense.”
Lincoln smiled, said, “Save it for court.”
“Court?”
“Jones will take you to Springfield tomorrow, soon as the road is clear,” Lincoln said, turning away again and heading for the door.
Walker said, “What about Squeaker?”
Lincoln paused, turning once more.
“Chester’s dropping her at Margaret’s. She’ll find her own way home, whenever.”
Walker said, “She won’t be safe if she goes back there or home.”
“She’s a big girl,” Lincoln said with a smile. “She knows how things work themselves out around here.”
Lincoln departed.
Jones went to the kitchen, made himself a coffee.
Walker watched them, his mind elsewhere. She knows how things work themselves out around here. And he knew that Barb and Gus wouldn’t ordinarily involve the law like this—why would they? That would just bring a world of hurt down on them and their business operations. Something was wrong here. Business associates? Does that mean Lincoln knows what business Barb and Gus are in—and does he condone it? A guy like that, on the take, no one around to call him out on it . . .
“I need to make a phone call,” Walker called to Jones as he was nearing with two coffees, one for him and one for his boss. “Andrew Hutchinson. FBI. I’m working with him.”
Jones walked by without stopping. He put the coffees in the other room and came back to close the door.
“FBI?” Jones said, his head in the cold cell block. “Hell, why would we want to involve them in a little thing like this?”
•
“Walker’s phone’s switched off,” Hutchinson said to Somerville as she drove them into San Diego Airport. He was about to board a flight to DC, and she was headed for St. Louis.
“Might be out of reception,” Somerville said. “All those hills and mountains and whatnot out there.”
“Maybe,” Hutchinson said. He dialed McCorkell.
41
Walker was tired but he couldn’t rest, let alone sleep. It wasn’t the lumpy plastic-covered mattress nor the damp cold sucking through the concrete floor. It wasn’t even the thought of his overarching mission, nor the fact that every minute he stayed here kept him a step away from finding Murphy.
It was Squeaker.
She was there, by his side, an accessory to murder, and they didn’t arrest her.
She knows how things work themselves out around here.
So, Walker paced. He checked the cell. The cage was sturdy, at least in the case of man against steel. The welds were tight and true, as were the bolts into the concrete floor and ceiling. The lock and hinges on the door were strong. There was some wriggle and wobble to them, but there was no way he was going to bust out of here by hand.
He’d need help.
The closest help was the police. Either the Sheriff or his deputies. One of them would do.
He started to bang the bars.
It took five minutes.
“What?” Chester said.
“Hungry prisoner,” Walker said.
“Breakfast’s a long way off.”
“How about a coffee?”
Chester hesitated, then got him a paper cup of coffee from a percolator in the kitchenette and put it on the floor just outside the bars. Walker bent down to pick it up. Warm, not hot. He drained it in a gulp.
“You’re in luck, Walker,” Chester said. “The road’s gonna be closed another day. That means no court tomorrow.”
“How do you know that?”
“Crew working from the other side just updated us,” Chester said.
“How big is this mudslide?”
“Quarter-mile, in two spots,” Jones replied. “It’ll take them a day and a half with heavy equipment to clear it all out.”
“The town can’t rally from this side with backhoes and snow plows?”
“Tried that, before my time. Takes a week. Relax. A day or so’s nothing here. Enjoy your cell time.” Chester smirked and turned to leave.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Is Squeaker still in town?”
Chester hesitated. “Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Walker saw something in the way the deputy was behaving. “Why—what’s happened to her?”
Chester looked to the door to the station, hesitant to share information. Walker could see the wheels turning in the deputy’s head as he was getting to the thought that, what the hell, this guy’s in a cell and going to be shunted to court the day after tomorrow, why not.
“She made hell outside the station here an hour ago, demanding you be released,” Chester said. “And same again twenty minutes ago, saying that the world would end if you weren’t released. Sheriff cuffed her and drove her back, both times, to Mrs. Coulter’s.”
“Margaret’s?”
“Yeah.”
“You have to look out for her. She’s not safe. Not if those guys from Arkansas are headed there.”
“And why would that be?” Chester asked.
“She’s in
danger. She was there when I had to defend us.”
“You mean when you murdered that man.”
“Semantics.”
“She’ll be fine,” Chester said. “Susan ain’t there no more.”
“Ain’t where?”
“Mrs. Coulter’s. She made another ruckus. Neighbors called us, so Sheriff Lincoln went out and picked her up.”
Something in Chester’s tone made Walker watch him carefully. “Where is she?” he asked, slowly.
“Safe.”
“Nowhere’s safe.”
“Yeah? How about the Sheriff’s own house?” Chester said, then smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. She’ll be looked after real good. I’ll probably head out there later on, look after her for the morning shift.”
Walker said in a low voice, “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Chester walked closer. “Is this part of your mission—to save the world or something?”
“Yeah, about that,” Walker said, his voice quieter. “Listen, it’s up to you now, Chester. You hear?”
“What?”
“You have to be the hero here,” Walker said. He turned from the bars and looked away, whispered, “I guess you’ll get all the accolades, not me. They’re gonna give you awards, medals. Might even get a handshake from the President.”
“What’s that?” Chester asked, leaning on the gate, his hands through it. “What’d you say?”
Walker moved faster than Chester could react. One pivot, one step, and he had the deputy’s wrists. The next second he pulled, hard. Chester’s head hit the steel bars. A loud clang rang out. Chester slumped. Lights out; two vertical dints in his forehead. But his weight was held by Walker against the bars.
Walker stripped the deputy of everything of use—all of it in his utility belt. Gun. Cuffs. Keys to the station. He let the unconscious man fall backward and then unlocked the cell and dragged him into it.
He locked it, Beretta in hand, and headed for the door.
42
“Who’s the guy?” he asked Squeaker. The barn off Sheriff Lincoln’s house had been converted to a garage. An old 1970s Corvette sat in the middle half-rebuilt. It was cold in the barn, and the concrete floor was damp where she sat. A couple of powerful lightbulbs hung overhead.