by Jen Doyle
Putting the hat back on, Nichols gestured for Ian to get into the jeep. “Julie asked me to bring you out to HQ.”
Ian took a look down the road behind the jeep and then back at Nichols. “I’m guessing HQ isn’t exactly nearby.”
With a shrug, Nichols said, “Fifteen minutes, give or take.”
Right. “And the men I’ve got sitting back there in that helicopter?”
A slow smile came over Nichols’s face. “They’ll keep.” Then he got into the jeep.
Awesome. Not the start they’d been hoping for.
Because they’d been connected via the headsets in the chopper, Ian didn’t have the earpiece in that he’d normally have. He pulled out his PCD—the acronym for personal communication device, as was the Army’s way; essentially a souped up iPhone as far as anyone else was concerned—and called Matt. “Sorry to say you’re going to have to sit tight.”
Giving a sharp laugh, Matt said, “Knew I should’ve brought a book. Any idea on how long?”
Turning his back to the jeep, Ian said, “For longer than it really needs to be, I’m guessing.”
“Not sure why I expected anything different,” Matt said. “You think Lyndsey can do anything to help?”
That would be a fun car ride. Hey, Frank, since you’re obviously a fan, I don’t suppose you’d mind if my current-but-surely-soon-to-be-ex-again girlfriend and I have what promises to be a not-at-all-comfortable discussion while we drive?
On a more professional level, of course, Ian did have to ask, even though he was pretty sure the answer would be a big n-o given Langdon’s obvious resistance to ZSJ back in Boston. Then again, Langdon hadn’t exactly been happy with anyone. Maybe she’d like to spread the grief around.
“Uh, hold on.” Ian opened up the door and stuck his head in. To Nichols he said, “Lyndsey Daniels is with us, too. I don’t suppose that would help clear anything up with Ms. Langdon?”
Nichols took his hat off and put it on the seat in the back. Then he gave the same kind of laugh Matt had just given. “Not likely.”
Okay then. “That would be a negative,” Ian said to Matt as he climbed into the jeep. He wasn’t proud of the wave of relief that came over him—managing Langdon would be hard enough; having Lyndsey nearby would make it just about impossible. “I’ll be back in touch as soon as I have anything to tell you.”
Nichols started up the car and headed down the road towards town.
Atikokan, which was Ojibwe for ‘caribou bones’ apparently, was a town in the Rainy River District of Northwestern Ontario in an area originally settled by the Ojibwa. The town was established in 1899 because of plans to build a divisional point—i.e., a stop that was more than a lean-to—for what was then known as the Canadian Northern Railway. Drilling for iron ore began in Steep Rock Lake in 1937, and miners, mining companies, and more businesses came to the area, with its peak being from the 1950s through the early 80s, when the mines shut down. After the closing of the mines, the town suffered economically but didn’t die, thanks in large part to its location as one of the main entry points to Quetico Provincial Park. Now billing itself as the Canoeing Capitol of Canada, the town’s main industry was tourism.
Ian knew all this because Brady had spent nearly the entire helo ride reading off the various Wikipedia entries and other web pages. Brady’s overviews, though annoying at times, had also become a pre-op ritual of sorts, a way of getting a more public, albeit sometimes highly inaccurate, take on the various locales the team found itself heading into on a regular basis. When supplementing the much more reliable and targeted information that Emily provided in her briefing packages, it was actually a pretty well-rounded view.
What Ian knew from his own research—and what was borne out by the ride into town—was that it was a very small town in the middle of a very big forest. And, not unusual to towns with those characteristics, it looked like most people were barely getting by, doing whatever they could. Because of that, and because Ian knew Langdon and her staff were well aware how much was riding on the Task Force’s ability to take care of this highly sensitive problem, he was willing to give them a bit of leeway in terms of lashing out. If Langdon needed to play the power card, then he wasn’t going to make it any harder for her than it needed to be.
That said, it did require an effort to just smile when Nichols came to a stop in the parking lot and curtly said, “In here,” without any other explanation.
Okay, Ian thought, as the car door slammed. Fine. But he had cards to play too; he could be as passive-aggressive as the next guy. He took his time to put in the earpiece connecting him to the rest of the squad. Once in, he did the sound check and got confirmation back from Brady that his connection was live.
“Excellent,” Ian said. “Matt—you on?”
“Ready and eagerly waiting,” Matt answered.
Matt could charm the pants off a used car salesman but his preference was to work the operational end: making the trains run smoothly and on time. Their usual deal was for Ian to do whatever was possible for those wheels to be greased and ready to go—in other words, deal with the bureaucratic bullshit necessary to make it possible for the trains to move. Although it wasn’t particularly Ian’s favorite thing either, he was good at it. He had no idea why, but people tended to respond pretty favorably. Most people at least. Speaking of which…
“So while I’m busy getting my ass whipped here,” Ian said to Matt, “you mind not stirring up any more fires with Lyndsey?”
“Hey,” Matt protested. “She started it.” Then he laughed. “I’ll do what I can, but I think you’re gonna be on your own with that one.”
On his own. Yeah. That’s what he was afraid of. He got out of the car.
Nichols had already gone inside; he was at a counter in the room right inside the door, leaning against it as he spoke to the woman behind it. When Ian came in, he straightened up slowly. He seemed to be doing as much work at not showing his irritation as Ian was.
“Julie’s tied up right now,” he said. “Dot will get you started.”
“Dorothy,” the woman corrected, her lips a tight line. “Dot’s what my friends call me.”
Okay, then. So much for that Canadian friendliness thing. Looking at the nameplate, Ian said, “I’d be happy to go with Ms. Keller if you prefer.”
That earned him a glare although the twinkle in her eye indicated he might have scored a point or two. Half a point, at least.
“Let’s stick with Dorothy for now,” she said, as Nichols tipped his hat to the woman and walked back out the door. A few seconds later, the car door slammed shut and the engine started up.
And now Ian was stranded. Nice. He turned to Dorothy.
Dorothy was a fifty-something woman with leathery skin and spiky orange hair. Ian had a feeling the intention had been red, but she hadn’t quite pulled it off. Though from the lines at the corners of her mouth it looked like she laughed a lot, there weren’t any smiles coming Ian’s way. Instead, she deposited a stack of papers on the counter in front of him and said, “These will need your signature.”
The stack being a good two inches in height, Ian flipped through them and then asked, “Every one of them?”
“Just about.” With a curt nod, she gestured to a row of plastic chairs against the wall. “You can sit there while you wait.”
Ian considered sitting down a sign of defeat in the whole power play game. “I’ll stand.” He took a more concentrated look at the papers. The first bunch was a series of papers on each soldier from the team; several per person, it appeared—did they not believe in triplicate forms?—with each providing verification that that was, in fact, the person on the transport, and that Ian authorized each soldier to enter the country on behalf of the U.S. Army as well as for him to personally accept full responsibility should anything go wrong. From there, it seemed as though each weapon needed verification and serial numbers—again, even though all of this had been cleared the week before.
He was about h
alfway through the pile when Dorothy cleared her throat. “You can go in now.”
“Really?” Ian put the pen down and straightened out the stack. “Sure you don’t want me to finish these first?”
For the first time in the twenty minutes since he’d gotten here, Dorothy smiled. “I’d much rather you do, but no one around here cares much about what I think.” She lifted the counter so he could pass through to the back.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s true,” Ian said, grinning.
“Then you might be smarter than you look,” she replied. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He’d take that as another point in his favor.
He went through the door she pointed to and then, following her directions, took a right and then the third doorway on the left. The door was open, revealing a medium-sized office with reams of paper everywhere—on the desk, on the shelves, even a few on the floor. The office being empty, he just stood outside it and kept signing papers until he heard one of the other doors open; behind it was the unmistakable sound of a toilet flushing. As he looked up, he saw Julianna Langdon standing there, cheeks reddening.
“Did Dorothy…?” she said, glancing down the hallway at the door through which he’d come. Obviously flustered, she shook her hands dry and then patted them on her pants. “Dorothy! Paper towels. Please.”
From the tone of the, “Yes, ma’am,” from the other side of the door, Ian knew as well as Langdon did that paper towels wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.
Interesting. “You don’t get to call her Dot, either?” Ian asked.
Rolling her eyes, Julianna said, “She thinks Frank should have gotten this job instead of me.” Exasperated, she added, “So does Frank, so does just about everyone else.”
So maybe having him wait hadn’t been a power play after all. Or, at least, not on Langdon’s part. Ian stood aside so she could walk past him into her office. She took a stack of papers off one of the visitor chairs and dropped them to the floor. “Have a seat.” As she sat down herself, she added, “I’m really sorry, but I have two more phone calls to make. I wasn’t quite ready for you. Would you mind terribly if I did so?”
With a smile, Ian held up his own stack of papers. “Take your time.”
She laughed as she picked up the phone. “Better you than me.”
As soon as she started talking on the phone, Matt’s voice came over Ian’s earpiece. “You done flirting? I’ve got a platoon here who’d like to be somewhere other than this helicopter.”
It wasn’t the soldiers Ian was worried about, it was the one already pissed off civilian—who, incidentally, he hoped had not overheard Matt’s comment. Because, yes, the flirting was a part of it. Not entirely intentionally; Ian’s goal was and always had been to just start by establishing a connection—whoever he was working with, whatever he was working on. Common ground. He just wasn’t used to having to think about anyone particularly caring how he went about it—and he certainly didn’t need Matt to call attention to that fact. Unfortunately, however, Ian couldn’t say anything in response because it generally freaked people out when you started having a conversation with someone who they couldn’t see. So instead he tapped the button on the earpiece to shut off his audio. If he wanted the conversation to be two-way, he’d just tap the earpiece and whoever was manning the Communications Command Center, Command for short, would bring him back online. For now he was happy to let them just listen.
Listening was something he was doing as well, he had to admit. He didn’t feel too bad about it. He figured if Langdon had wanted her conversations to be private, she would have sent him out of the room. And although they weren’t confidential conversations, they were quite telling. The first phone call she made had something to do with Homeland Security—or, rather, the Border Services Agency as they called it on the Canadian side of the border. The second was to someone on the U.S. side of the park regarding fire jumpers. A forest fire had just popped up in the Southeast corner of the park, it appeared, and she was worried there would be some kind of territorial dispute over whose department was going to supply the water since the fire was going about its business regardless of international boundary lines.
“I don’t care about the money,” she was saying. “I just want to make sure the fire doesn’t get out of control.”
Ian finished signing just as she was finishing up the phone call. Flexing his hand—he’d been writing for nearly an hour straight—he said, “Sounds like you’ve had a tough day.”
With a look at the clock, she nodded and said, “And it’s not even 1:00 yet. Not a good sign.”
He handed over the stack of papers. “It doesn’t have to be all bad,” he said. “Have you already eaten? Can I buy you lunch?”
“Oh, God, no,” she laughed. “The last thing I need is for the entire town to think I’m cozying up to the man who brought in the U.S. Army. The married man, no less.”
Was that about Lyndsey? Was his heart that obviously laid out on his sleeve? “We’re, uh… We’re not married.”
Raising her eyebrows, Julianna glanced at his hand and then back up. “Sure looks like a wedding ring to me.”
Right. His ring. For all his issues with it, it was enough a part of him that he’d forgotten he had it on. He twisted it absentmindedly. “I’m actually…” Widowed. He hated that word. “My wife died eight years ago. I mostly wear the ring for my kids.”
Eyebrows going higher, Julianna leaned back further in her chair. Her boots went up to the edge of her desk. “So you’re not married, you have kids who want you to wear your dead wife’s ring, but there’s enough of a ‘we’ that whoever the woman is, she’s the first person who comes to mind.”
Yeah, he supposed that about covered it. Well, except for the fact that there probably wouldn’t be a ‘we’ for much longer given his overwhelming reluctance to carry through the conversation Lyndsey wanted to have. But that was neither here nor there right now.
“Are you always so direct?” he asked.
She smiled. “You’re the one who asked me to lunch.”
“Not in the cozying way,” he said. Damn if he wasn’t blushing. Now it was his turn to sit back in his chair. Even without the audio, he could practically hear Matt laughing his ass off. “It wasn’t, uh…”
“Wasn’t a date?” she finished before he could remove his foot from his mouth. Then she laughed and stood up. “I’m the very new girl in a town of 3000 people who know each other very well.” She grabbed her hat off its hook and put it on. “And, like I said, they pretty much all think Frank should have gotten the job. I’ll take what I can get, Colonel Fox. Let’s go.”
“Ian,” he corrected as he stood up. Then he grinned. “I thought the whole point was that you couldn’t be seen with me.”
“Well, then, it’s Julie,” she said, leading him through the door. “And to be specific, I said you couldn’t buy me lunch. There’s a difference.” Rather than head towards the front of the building, she hung a left down the hallway. “I’m heading out!” she yelled.
The door they went out this time led to a parking lot on the back side of the building. She walked over to a jeep very much like the one Frank had driven Ian to Park Headquarters in. She’d already unlocked the doors and gotten in by the time Ian settled into his seat; she started the car and then picked up the radio. “Dorothy—I reviewed the paperwork. Colonel Fox has provided the necessary documentation. Please tell Frank that, per Ms. Cain’s orders, the U.S. team is good to go.”
She put the radio transmitter back on its hook and glanced at Ian as she pulled out of the lot and onto the road. “I can’t apologize officially, as I hope you understand, but I truly am sorry for the hold up of your team.” Then she shook her head and frowned. “I like the outdoors, and I like being a ranger. I knew this job meant I wouldn’t be doing much of what I liked; what I didn’t know, was that it would mean being border services, fire warden, and airport security, all while generally kissing ass. And sometimes I have to do
things I don’t particularly want to do.”
Well, yeah, Ian was well aware of those kinds of challenges. He shrugged his shoulders; no big deal, as far as he was concerned.
Within a few short minutes they were driving through pines so thick and tall it was hard to believe life existed outside of this car. “As long as we’re being honest…” Ian said.
“Where am I taking you?” she said with what started out as a smile, but then turned into an even grimmer frown than before. “I don’t like having your team in my park. But as long as you’re going to be here…”
She turned off the highway onto a dirt road that winded its way through more tall pines. About half a mile in, they pulled up to a cabin in a clearing. A deck almost as big as the footprint of the cabin surrounded the structure. As they got out of the car, three massive Rottweilers appeared in the window. “Larry, Curly, and Moe,” she said. “They’ll only bite if you try to hurt me.”
Ian gave her a look. “How confident are you about that?” he asked, wishing Tasers hadn’t been among the outlawed weapons. He’d feel a lot better if he had one at hand.
“About seventy-five percent,” she said, walking forward. “It’s better if we go in the back.”
They walked up the deck’s steps. Ian stopped short as they came around the side of the cabin. From the approach they’d taken, there was no way to tell that it sat perched on rocks, about twenty feet above a lake. If he wasn’t mistaken, a bald eagle soared over the cabin and into the trees.
“Not bad, huh?” She unlatched a screen door and walked into the enclosed area. Waiting until Ian was inside the porch as well, she said, “Stay here,” before disappearing into the cabin. Less than a minute later, she came back out and handed him three dog treats. “Ready?”
No sooner had he nodded than the three dogs were sitting in front of him, clearly wanting to pounce but staying true to her command to sit. “Larry?” she said, and the first dog inched a little forward. She smiled at Ian. “Hold it flat in your hand. Pet him after he eats it and he’ll be your friend for life.”