The Drifter

by Nick Petrie

  “Take him to the truck,” said Lipsky. “Cuff him to a cargo ring.”

  Peter walked through the warehouse door, Midden two careful steps behind him. The loading dock door was rolled up, and the translucent roof panel gave him enough light to see the white plastic oil drums arranged in the Mitsubishi’s cargo box.

  They were cinched together with webbing, which was strapped to the cargo rings on the sides of the truck, so the load wouldn’t shift during travel. Each drum now had a small plastic junction box stuck to its lid, with the flexible electrical conduit leading to a central point like a spider’s web in the making. From the end of each piece of conduit came those blue and white wires, with a quick connector on each end.

  He stepped into the back of the truck and the smell of fuel oil hit him like a wall. The space was much smaller than the warehouse room, and mostly full of bomb. The white static was tired of waiting. Peter kept breathing, in and out. But it was harder and harder, and his chest felt tighter and tighter. The static began to spark up, heating his brain. Breathe in, breathe out. He could still look through the loading dock door, though, and into the open warehouse. When that truck door rolled down, things would get very bad.

  Come on, Lewis. Do it.

  “Take this,” said Midden, looking at him with a mild curiosity. He held out another plastic handcuff.

  Breathe in, breathe out. “You’re really doing this,” Peter said, turning to face him. Midden backed automatically, the coiled mechanism inside him keeping Peter at an optimal distance. “A truck bomb. Hundreds of people.”

  “Put one end of the cuff on you,” said Midden. “Run the other end through the top cargo ring, so your hands are over your head.”

  Peter looked the man in the eye, but it was like staring down the barrel of a sniper rifle. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you involved with these jokers? Why are you doing this?”

  “Take the cuffs,” said Midden. But maybe there was something else in his eyes.

  “Or else you’re just riding the fastest road to hell,” said Peter, and took the cuffs. He wrapped one strap around the midpoint of the cuffs already on him and tightened it with his teeth. “Trying to find something, finally, that you can’t live with. Is that it?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Boomer, pushing past Midden with his detonator box. “He’s gettin’ paid. We’re all gettin’ paid. Then we’ll live like kings. Like captains of fuckin’ industry.”

  “Sure,” said Peter. “And you only had to murder a few hundred people to do it. Or maybe it will be a few thousand.”

  That same look flashed across Midden’s face, clearer now. As if something hiding beneath the mechanism was peering out, just for a moment. But he just pointed at the side of the truck. “Now the cargo ring,” he said.

  So Peter slipped the loop through the metal ring at head level and cuffed himself to the truck. Hoping like hell that Lewis was out there somewhere and paying attention.

  Boomer took ten golf-ball-sized lumps of plastic explosive and stuck one into the bottom of each junction box epoxied to the lid of each drum. Then he jammed an electric blasting cap, a silver tube like half a shiny pencil, into each lump of C-4. Out of the end of each blasting cap came two wires, one blue and one white, with quick connectors on their ends. Boomer connected the blasting cap wires to the conduit wires inside each junction box, then screwed on the box covers, his face rapt.

  With the junction boxes secured, Boomer gathered the free ends of the conduit and began to attach their threaded ends to the central detonator box with plastic nuts, methodically snapping the quick connectors together, like any electrician getting the job done. The ordinariness of it made Peter’s skin crawl and the harsh white sparks sizzle in his skull.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Then Boomer picked up the cover to the detonator box and screwed that on, too. He took a double syringe from his pocket and snapped off the twin tips. On the box lid he squeezed out double pools of gel, then used the syringe noses to mix the two gels together.

  “There was one guy in Sadr City liked to do this,” said Boomer, and waved the double syringe. “Five-minute epoxy.” He dipped the noses in the mixture and dabbed it over the screw heads on the central detonator box. “Makes this shit really hard to take apart.” He reached over the spiderweb of conduit to the smaller junction boxes and dabbed more epoxy on their cover screws, too. “I always figured he wanted more time. If someone found his IED and called us to defuse, he had a few more minutes to get there. I figured he liked to watch.”

  “And you like to watch,” said Peter.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Boomer, eyes gleaming. “The best is when you’re close enough for the pressure wave to just about knock you on your ass.”

  “Oh,” said Peter. “That’s where your brain damage came from.”

  “That’s enough.” Lipsky stood in the loading dock door. “Midden, you’re riding in the back until we get to the site.” He jerked his head at Peter. “I want to make sure this guy stays put.”

  “What about Dinah and the boy?” said Peter, the clamps on his chest getting tighter and tighter.

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Lipsky. “Don’t worry about anything. In less than an hour you’ll be dead.” He nodded at Midden. “Unless you mess with this guy, in which case you’ll die whenever he wants you to.”

  Peter heard the rumble of an expensive engine, the crunch of tires on the driveway, and the slam of a car door right beside the truck. Lipsky had his pistol out so quickly that Peter didn’t even see it happen.

  “Is the party still happening?” Skinner’s pale, aristocratic face peered through the gap between the truck and the warehouse, his white-blond hair stylishly unkempt. “I wanted to see the device before it was too late.” He put a foot on the bumper, climbed up onto the loading dock’s bumper pad, and peered into the truck, his eyes wide. “Wow! That is really something, gentlemen.”

  His face was flushed. He wore an off-white summer-weight suit, a money-green tie, and a feverish grin. The finger that Lewis had broken when he tore the gun from Skinner’s hand was set in a cheap drugstore splint. Peter hoped it hurt like hell.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” said Lipsky, truly angry for the first time that Peter had seen. “You’re supposed to be on a plane.”

  Skinner waved him off. “Private charter, direct to the Caymans,” he said. “They’re on my clock.” He dipped his hand in his pocket and came out with a little knife that he opened with his thumb. “But I have something to settle with this guy first.” He started toward Peter.

  Peter held hard to the cargo ring with both hands and prepared to kill Skinner with his feet, but Midden took a step to intercept.

  “Ow! Hey,” said Skinner, holding his wrist. “Give me that!”

  “Jon, control yourself,” said Lipsky.

  “He wrecked my Bentley! That was a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car!”

  Lipsky put a hand on his arm. “I’ll buy you another one. Okay? Whatever color you want. But you need to be on that plane. Now, don’t touch anything else, get in your car, and go directly to the airport. When you get to the hotel, destroy your suit and shoes and replace them from the hotel shop. Do you hear me?”

  “Come on, he’s going to die anyway. Why can’t I kill him?” Skinner sounded like a child. Something was definitely not right in there.

  Peter said, “You know he’s slipped his leash, right?”

  “Shut your mouth, or I’ll give him his knife back.”

  “Look at his eyes, Detective. What if he decides to stab a stewardess? Then you’re really screwed.”

  Lipsky pivoted and swung his pistol into the side of Peter’s head, which flared in a bright burst of pain. He closed his eyes against it and kept breathing, in and out. Kept the static from rising up completely.

  Lipsky’s voice was a little farther away no
w. “Keep an eye on him, Sergeant. I’ll come for you when it’s time. We’re almost there.”

  “Can I hit him?” Skinner’s voice was eager.

  “No,” said Lipsky, calm again. “You’re leaving.”

  “What about the nigger? The one who was with him when he wrecked my Bentley?”

  “Wait,” said Lipsky. “There’s someone else?”

  Felix walked past to slip out the loading dock door. Boomer followed with Dinah and Miles.

  Lipsky rolled down the truck door with a clatter. Then the clank of the latch. Peter was trapped in the back with Midden and the bomb.

  Waiting for Lewis.

  He heard Boomer talking faintly through the aluminum skin of the truck. Then Lipsky, and maybe Dinah.

  Breathe in, breathe out. The white static rose.

  Then he heard the bark of a dog.

  44

  TWO HOURS EARLIER

  Charlie

  Run. Charlie, run!” his mother screamed. Charlie froze. He’d never heard her sound so scared before.

  There was a loud noise and smoke in the room, and Lieutenant Ash’s two friends raced forward with guns in their hands. But his mom shoved him through the door to the basement stairs and closed the door behind him. He stood on the step in the dark with Mingus beside him and he couldn’t see anything.

  He put his hand on the door and felt the thunk as she threw the deadbolt.

  Mingus growled at the banging and shouting above them. People were shooting, Charlie knew. Shooting at one another. Maybe at his mother.

  Then Mingus bumped Charlie with his shoulder, nudging him down the stairs. Charlie reached out to grab his rope collar. Mingus pulled him onward through the dim, musty maze of the basement to another set of stairs with a faint rectangular frame of light at the top. Charlie climbed up into the kitchen of some kind of empty old restaurant that smelled like spilled beer and old people. He locked the basement door behind him, ran past the bar and the tables with their chairs stacked on top, opened the deadbolt on the outside door, and ran across the street, the dog hard at his heels.

  He watched from the shelter of overgrown bushes, Mingus crouched beside him, as two men put his mother and brother in the back of a plain white van and climbed in. Charlie felt a wave of relief seeing them alive, even if they did have what looked like old shirts over their heads. But the other two men, the friends of Lieutenant Ash, did not come out.

  The dog growled.

  “Mingus, quiet,” said Charlie. “Just wait.”

  He didn’t think anyone had taught the dog those commands, but Mingus seemed to understand. Charlie wished he had his baseball bat, but he knew better than to think it would help him against these men and their guns. He was angry and afraid in equal amounts. He wondered if that was how his dad had felt when he was off at war. Or back home.

  The white van’s engine started. Behind him in the bushes, leaning against the house, Charlie found an old ten-speed bike with curly handlebars. When the white van pulled out, Charlie hopped on and followed.

  Good thing he’d run all those sprints at basketball practice. He had to pedal awfully hard to keep up with the van.

  He was pretty sure that the two men had killed Lieutenant Ash’s friends.

  The van was pulling away from him, so Charlie pedaled harder. He was the man of the family, and he was going after his mother and his brother. Mingus was ahead of him, but the dog kept looking over his shoulder to make sure Charlie was still there.

  The white van drove like every other car or truck, no crazy moves. Nobody would know there were people trapped inside, maybe tied up. Maybe hurt.

  Still, the van drove faster than Charlie could ride on the old ten-speed, and he had trouble keeping up. Only three speeds worked. He felt bad about taking the bike, because stealing was definitely wrong. Not that he had much choice. But at the same time he wished he’d managed to steal a better bike, and wondered what Father Lehane would say about that.

  He was lucky that there were a lot of cars on the road, because when the van got stuck in traffic or at a light, Charlie could make up lost ground. And he knew he didn’t want to get too close. Even Mingus seemed to know he couldn’t do anything while the van was still moving.

  Eventually the van came up to a giant old falling-apart brick building. A big squat-nosed cargo truck, like the rent-to-own furniture trucks, only plain white with no markings, was backed right up against the building.

  “Mingus, come.” Charlie stopped in the street, breathing hard behind the shelter of a tan SUV, and got his hand on Mingus’s collar. He wished again that he had his baseball bat. He wanted to hit those men with the bat, hit them hard and make them pay. Mingus pulled to get away.

  “Mingus, stay,” said Charlie.

  He used his serious voice the way Lieutenant Ash told him to. He watched the van pull up to the building and wait.

  Mingus pulled at his collar again, like he wanted Charlie to do something. But Charlie didn’t know what to do. Maybe Mingus didn’t, either.

  Then a window hummed down in the tan SUV.

  A deep voice said, “Hey, kid. Where you get that ugly dog?”

  45

  Lewis

  The kid took a step back and looked Lewis right in the eye. “Mister, I don’t know you.”

  The kid looked more like Jimmy than Lewis would have thought possible. Lean, not grown into it, but he would get some size on him, you could tell. Big bony shoulders, and feet like a damn yeti.

  “Your dog knows me,” said Lewis, putting out his hand for the animal to sniff. “Name of Mingus. Peter found him under your porch. And you one of Dinah’s boys, supposed to be with your mom and Nino and Ray at my place.”

  The kid looked at him with a complexity of expression older than his years. “I think Nino and Ray are dead.”

  It hit Lewis like a stone, that crippling loss, but he made himself set it aside. Time for that later. “Tell me.”

  “Two other men came. My mom put me and Mingus down the basement stairs, and I made it out another way. I watched from the bushes while they put my mom and little brother in that van right there.” He pointed at the white Dodge van that had pulled up right before the kid. “I took this bike, and followed them here.”

  Lewis looked at the boy with new respect. It was no small thing, what he’d done. But he couldn’t be out on the street, not now.

  Lewis said, “Put up that bike and get in here.”

  When the kid opened the passenger side, the damn dog jumped in first, crouched down on the center console, growling at the white van and tearing up the leather with his claws. Breathing down Lewis’s neck, that big fucking dog.

  Lewis didn’t like dogs. He’d never liked dogs. Would never like dogs. Then again, to have a four-legged assault weapon was maybe not such a bad thing. Although he didn’t think this particular dog could actually be controlled. This dog had a mind of his own.

  The guy with the scarred face got out of the white van and looked around like Mr. Magoo trying to spot a tail. Very subtle. Then he walked to the rear doors and opened them up, the doors blocking the view. Lewis caught a glimpse of a blank-faced man in a black jacket, with his hand on someone’s elbow, and maybe a fourth person, who must be the little brother, as they walked behind the big Mitsubishi to the loading dock and disappeared.

  “Shit,” said Lewis. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  He’d been there all night, waiting for Peter to come back. The jarhead was supposed to meet the cop at eleven and set things in motion from there. But something had gone wrong, because Peter hadn’t come back and hadn’t answered his phone, either.

  Lewis had decided he would stay put, watch and wait. Do nothing without word from Peter, unless the big Mitsubishi tried to leave. Then he’d trigger the charge they’d rigged under the Mitsubishi’s engine block overnight, and use his shotgun to take out the
driver and anyone else he didn’t know. Lewis was looking forward to it. The cops would come soon enough after that.

  But this was new information. Dinah taken. This changed the plan. He could not just watch and wait. Hell, no, he could not.

  Not once Dinah got taken inside.

  Seeing her, it was like he was fifteen again.

  He wanted to kick the door down and do some damage. Do it old-school.

  But Dinah’s oldest boy was under his care. Lewis couldn’t leave him, at least not yet. He’d watch and wait a few more minutes, see what happened next.

  He wondered if the kid knew how to drive. It would be a help. Twelve was old enough to learn.

  But Dinah was inside. He couldn’t leave her, either. He looked at his watch. He would give it fifteen minutes. Then call the cops and go in.

  “Aren’t you going to go get my mom?”

  The kid was looking at him. Lewis couldn’t get over how much he looked like Jimmy.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I am. But not yet.”

  He heard the faint tick of the second hand and kept both eyes on the truck. He thought about what these assholes were up to. It had to be about money. It was always about money, one way or another. So how could a man make a profit by putting a big bomb together with a hedge-fund asshole?

  Lewis had been thinking about it since last night. He was pretty sure he had it figured out.

  He didn’t think the target even mattered.

  It probably didn’t even matter if the bomb actually went off.

  A bomb found at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, or at any regional headquarters of a big commercial bank, would send the markets into the tank. If Skinner knew when that would happen and planned ahead, he would clean up.