Night Road

by Brendan DuBois

  Duncan gave a wry smile, extended his right leg, where he rapped the lower shin with his fist. “Bit of titanium stuck in there to keep things together. I was in a car accident just before I left for college, banged up my leg pretty badly. Even pitchers need two good legs to run on. So good-bye scholarship, good-bye college, back to Turner to find another path.”

  “Hope it wasn’t too bad an accident.”

  “The guy driving went through the windshield, splattered his head against a two-hundred-year-old stone wall.”

  “Sorry to hear about that.”

  “Don’t be,” Duncan said. “He deserved it.” He raised a hand, and the same waitress as before quickly came by. “Drink?”

  “Sure,” Zach said. “That’d be fine.”

  “Carol, whatever he’s drinking, and just an ice water for me.”

  The drinks came to the table in under a minute, and after they both took a healthy swallow of their respective beverages, Duncan said, “What about you, Zach? What have you been doing since high school?”

  “Joined the service, did some time, and now I’m on my own.”

  “Army? Marines?”

  “Coast Guard,” Zach said, wondering what kind of sneering remark was going to be tossed back at him, and was pleasantly surprised at what happened next.

  Duncan looked impressed. “Really? Did you put in twenty years?”

  “Close enough.”

  “What did you do? SAR?”

  Zach shook his head. “No, not Search and Rescue. Obscure little unit, assisting in port and river security.”

  “Retired?”

  “Out, but not on my own accord. Was forced out.”

  Duncan eyed him for a moment. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

  He took another sip from his Budweiser. “Kind of complicated, kind of classified. Let’s just say I went on a mission with a clear and distinct set of orders, and along the way, exceeded my orders.”

  “Hell of a thing,” Duncan said. “Any regrets?”

  “Let’s see, got a dishonorable discharge, loss of pension and

  benefits.”

  “Didn’t answer the question.”

  “It’ll do for now.”

  Duncan gingerly took another sip of water. Zach found it hard to wrap his mind around what Tanya Gibbs had told him about Duncan, about his illegal activities, about mobsters from Providence and Boston disappearing on this high school hero’s watch, a mild looking guy who read the Wall Street Journal and ate a salad.

  But Zach was also one for recognizing facts when they were slapped right in front of him. Like those four beaten and pissed-off bikers, who were now glumly playing pool instead of coming over here and trying to take him apart like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. No, those large, hairy guys stood back with one hand motion on Duncan’s behalf. That meant power, respect, and some serious mojo on Duncan’s part.

  Duncan said, “So what brings you back up to Turner?”

  “When the government boned me, I decided to take a break, evaluate my options. But time and poor construction doesn’t wait on options. I had a place down in Purmort. Came home yesterday to find the damn place burning down.” He gestured to the front door. “Out in your parking lot is my truck with two duffel bags, containing my worldly possessions. I thought I’d come back to my home turf, poke around, see if I could do better.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Don’t know,” Zach truthfully said. “I was thinking of the Golden Bough Motel, out on the Crowdin road.”

  Duncan shook his head. “Not your day for fires. Place burned down five, six years ago.”

  “The Blue Harbor then, is that still open?”

  “Yes, but you shouldn’t go there,” Duncan said. “Pretty dirty place, some of the rooms rent by the hour, if you know what I mean. Hold on.” He took a pen, scribbled something down on a paper napkin, slid it over to him. “There. Rogers’ Bed and Breakfast. About the best place in the area. I’m sure they’ll treat you right.”

  He took the napkin, folded it, put it in his pocket. “Sounds pricey.”

  “Mention my name, they’ll take care of you,” Duncan said.

  “Appreciate that.”

  Zach finished off his beer and was planning on how to diplomatically remove himself from the table, when Duncan stared out across the room and the problem was solved for him. The door had opened to the pub and a bearded, long-haired man dressed in dungarees, gray turtleneck and the colors of the Washington County Motorcycle Club ambled in. Cameron Crowley, the older brother. Looks were exchanged and Duncan said, “Zach, it was fun to catch up but if you excuse me, I need to see my older brother for a second.”

  He quickly took the hint. Zach got up and after a quick shake, said, “Sorry for the blow-up earlier. Sometimes my temper gets the best of me.”

  “No worries.”

  “Thanks for the beer. You sure I can’t pay for it?’

  Duncan waved a hand. “On the house, to a fellow grad of good ol’ Turner Regional High School. And I seem to recall that you kicked my butt in wrestling only twice, not three times.”

  Zach said, “If you say so, Duncan. See you around, all right?”

  Duncan picked up his newspaper. “Absolutely. See you around.”

  Zach walked out of the pub, feeling the four sets of eyes watching him, and he wondered about Duncan and his hold on these guys as he went out into the parking lot. Without a weapon on him, he felt uneasy, and the back of his neck and hands tingled as he strolled across the dirt lot. But no one followed him, no one called out threats, no one ambushed him as he made his way back to his truck.

  Which meant that Duncan was very secure, and very strong.

  Something he couldn’t afford to forget over the next several days, as he worked to take Duncan down.

  Fellow grad or not, the man was his ticket to make everything right, and Zach intended to punch that ticket hard indeed.

  twelve

  Tanya Gibbs was home at her East Boston condo, resting and remembering. She was sitting on an outdoor deck, a checked red wool blanket around her legs, looking out at the lights of Boston and the parking lot beneath her. When she had first gone through this renovated mill building after being transferred to Boston, the realtor had tried to steer her to a unit that had a view of the harbor and Logan Airport.

  The thought of looking out of her windows every morning and evening, seeing the place where American Airlines Flight 11 and United Flight 175 had left that fateful Tuesday morning … she had almost run out of the room in a panic. So instead of the harbor and airport view, she got a stirring view of a parking lot and the city of Boston.

  Which was fine. She sipped from a hot cup of cider and crossed her legs underneath the blanket, thought she could see the lights of Simmons College. Untrue, of course, but the thought comforted her. That’s where she had met Emily Harrison, who had been from Manhattan and had, as she had said, been exiled to an all-women’s college in Boston by her alpha personality father. Unlike her roommate, Tanya had come from a small town in New Jersey, had been shy, and hadn’t liked big cities that much. But a laughing and confident Emily had taken her under her arm, brought her to nightspots throughout Boston, helped her navigate the tangled mess that was the MBTA, and had also taught her the fine art of passing over fake phone numbers to goofy male suitors.

  After graduation, the friendship had continued, Tanya becoming a police officer in her own hometown, then entering the State Police and getting to Trenton, working as a sergeant for the New Jersey State Police Intelligence Services Section. For her part Emily started making oodles of money at Colby Consulting, the company that had been started by her father. Although Tanya had started off as a street cop, she found she enjoyed being behind the scenes, collecting bits of information on gangs or Mafia families, passing along intelligence rep
orts upstairs to be evaluated and used by other State Police units.

  She and Emily met for lunch every month or so in Manhattan, Emily sometimes taking her to the Windows of the World restaurant in the South Tower for a good long meal, and while Tanya was a good girl and never had a drink, Emily would stretch out a Long Island iced tea. Their next lunch, in fact, had been scheduled for the second Tuesday that September morning.

  Then, like reliving a vivid clip of a horror movie, Tanya Gibbs recalls that Tuesday morning at her office in Trenton. She had just grabbed a second cup of coffee and was heading back to her cubicle to look over a statistical report for her section commander when she heard some voices coming from a nearby conference room. She walked in and joined a huddle of men and a couple of women, grouped around a television set in one corner, squatting on a high metal stand. Her first thought at seeing the footage was that her State Police co-workers were watching a thriller movie, something with Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Smoke and flames were licking up and out of one of the World Trade Center towers. Damn good special effects, she thought, thinking maybe a couple of the guys in the room had worked a security detail when the movie was made, and that they were watching a sneak preview.

  One of the women, an admin aide from across the floor, suddenly bolted out, tears in her eyes, “Oh Christ, I hope John was late to work this morning. Oh Christ.”

  Tanya’s hands were empty. She didn’t remember dropping the coffee cup. She went up to a State Police captain she knew, a gruff Irishman named Callaghan. “What’s going on?”

  He didn’t turn away from the television screen. Tanya noted with a cold stillness in her heart that the news crawl on the bottom of the screen said, LIVE COVERAGE OF WORLD TRADE CENTER

  DISASTER.

  Callaghan said, “Looks like a private plane crashed into the North Tower. That’s what we’re hearing.”

  Tanya thought, South Tower. Emily’s in the South Tower. She’ll be okay. She’s in the South Tower.

  From one of the men near the television: “Must be the dumbest pilot in the world. Visibility is perfect.”

  “Maybe the son-of-bitch had a heart attack. Like that lame Charlton Heston movie, sequel to Airport. Guy in a private plane had a heart attack, crashed into a 747.”

  “Bullshit,” another voice said. “Looks fucking deliberate.”

  “What about that B-25 bomber, crashed into the Empire State Building back in 1945?” somebody demanded. “That was an accident.”

  Callaghan was chewing on his lower lip. “Sure it was. In the middle of a fucking fog bank.”

  Tanya was now at her desk. She didn’t know how she had gotten there. She picked up her office phone, was going to dial Emily’s number, and—

  Drew a blank. She couldn’t remember Emily’s number. Damn it! It was like one of those horrible dreams when you have to call the police, and you can’t find the phone, then you find the phone, and it won’t work, and when it does work, 911 goes to a busy signal and—

  She threw a desk drawer open, fumbled through pencils, paper clips, pay receipt stubs, and candy bar wrappers, until she found one of Emily’s business cards. She picked it up and then put it on her desk. Her hand was shaking. She dialed the number, and when she got Colby Consulting, she punched in Emily’s three-digit extension.

  It rang.

  It rang.

  It rang some more.

  Tanya was about to hang up and try Emily’s cellphone when it was picked up. “Colby Consulting, Harrison,” a familiar, breathless voice answered.

  Tanya sunk against her chair, almost burst into tears. “Emily! Sweet Christ, girl, what are you doing there? Get out!”

  Emily said, “Hey, it’s okay. Something happened over at the next tower. Looks like a plane crashed into it. We’re fine, but I think we’re going to have to reschedule lunch, Tanya.”

  “I don’t care how fine you are, get your ass out of there!”

  Emily chuckled. “Stop talking about my big ass. Besides, word’s just come over the PA system. Something about Building One being in a state of emergency, but we’re fine and to stay at work. Guess they don’t want us to get run over by fire trucks or something. So the boss just led us all back to our desks.”

  Tanya raised her voice. “Emily, leave! Stop talking, just leave!”

  From over the phone, she heard distant yells, screams, and Emily said, “Hold on, looks like—”

  The phone went dead. She heard shouts and gasps from the conference room. She ran back, pushing aside the other men and women, and up on the screen, she saw a blossom of flame and smoke erupt out of the South Tower.

  “Saw it,” Callaghan whispered. “Fucking saw it live. It was a goddamn airliner, it was. No fucking private planes. Fucking hijacked airliners. We’re under attack.”

  Phones were harshly ringing, strained voices were rising from the other cubicles, a few shouts from guys racing down the corridor. Tanya went back to her desk. Dialed and re-dialed the Colby Consulting number. No answer. Just rang and rang and rang. Same with Emily’s cellphone. Went straight to voicemail. Tanya took a deep breath, and then another. “Emily, it’s Tanya. You get out of there now. You hear me, girl? Get the hell out of there now!”

  Through the next confusing hour, she kept on dialing and re-dialing Emily’s cellphone, as her own phone rang with information requests, reports on latest terrorist threats, and even one sobbing man, mistakenly connected with Tanya, looking for his wife, who worked for the Port Authority. Their building went into lockdown, sirens echoed from the parking lot, and word was spread that the State Police were setting up a Forward Command Post at Liberty Park in Jersey City.

  She was trying to prepare for an emergency 10 a.m. status meeting when her cellphone rang. She glanced down at the phone and froze when she saw the incoming number: it was Emily’s.

  By now the office area was so noisy that she got on her knees, underneath her desk, pressing the phone against her ear. “Emily? Is that you? Emily?”

  A burst of static. “… help us …”

  “Emily? What is it? Where are you?”

  She pushed the cellphone against her right ear, pressed her left hand hard against the other one, hoping to block out the noise from the office area. “Tanya? We’re on floor one-oh-four … ten or eleven of us … help …”

  “Emily, can you get to a stairway? Or to the roof?”

  Two men were standing next to her cubicle, loudly arguing over how best to get off-duty State Troopers recalled and where they should go. Tanya wanted to stand up and scream at them to shut the fuck up! But she was afraid of missing what her friend was going to say next.

  Coughing, choking. Static. “… somebody broke one of the windows with a chair … we can’t breathe … Tanya, help us, God, help us …”

  She was clenching the cellphone so hard she thought the plastic case would break. “I’ll make sure you get rescued, hon. I won’t let you down.”

  “… .so fucking hot, Tanya … smoke so thick … helicopter … can you get a helicopter to rescue us … oh God, Tanya, I’m so scared …”

  She started crawling out from underneath her desk. “I’ll do it, Emily. I’ll do it. Hang in there, Emily, you stay there and I’ll get you saved.”

  “… so fucking hot … God, the fire, the fire!”

  The cellphone cut off.

  Tanya got up on her desk, started flipping through her Rolodex, frantically looking through the card, until she got to the one marking the Aviation Unit.

  The line was busy.

  Damn it to fucking hell!

  She tried again.

  Still busy.

  Tanya pulled out a State Police directory, started working through the listings, dialing number after number, and—

  “Ramsay, Aviation.”

  She nearly fainted at her desk. “This is Sergeant Tanya Gibbs,
Intelligence Services Section. I need to get a helicopter up to the World Trade Center, South Tower. There are civilians trapped on floor one-oh-four.”

  “Shit, Sarge, what the fuck do you think we can do?”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Don Ramsay. I’m a goddamn mechanic and everything’s already up in the air.”

  “I don’t care. Get word to somebody.” Her voice started rising and she couldn’t help herself. “We’ve got people trapped on floor one-oh-four.”

  “What the hell do you expect them to do? Drop a rope or something? There’s no way we could get a chopper close enough!”

  “I don’t fucking care!” Tanya dimly realized that people in the office were looking her way. “Get a hold of somebody up there or I’ll get your ass fired!”

  There was a muffled gasp and groans on the other side of the offices, and Tanya said, “Do you fucking hear me? Do you? I want a helicopter sent to the South Tower, floor one-oh-four, or—”

  Somebody reached past her, pushed down the handset. The phone was disconnected. She whirled and Callaghan was there, his face pale. He gently took the phone from Tanya’s hand and put it down. She said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Callaghan didn’t say a word. He just took her elbow and brought her to the conference room, where the television was still on. The room was filled with State Police officers, men and women both, and all were silent, staring at the television. One of the World Trade Center towers was still burning furiously. But something was wrong. Something was wrong. Where the other tower stood, there was only a thick plume of smoke and debris.

  Callaghan said, “Tanya, I’m sorry. There’s no more South Tower.”

  Ah, yes. No more tower, and a while later, no more World Trade Center. Then just over a year later, when she told her section chief that she was leaving her career at the New Jersey State Police to join a new organization called Homeland Security, he said, “Just one question, Sergeant. What do you think you can do there?”