Night Road

by Brendan DuBois

  Zach folded his arms as the briefing went on about weapons and options and how long the evening should last. Although he had never been here before, the room was a familiar place. A locked environment, the smell of gun oil, weapons on display, topo maps on the wall, and the nervous energy of a small group of men planning their excursion into the dark woods and along night roads. He had done it so many times in bunkers in Iraq, aboard ships in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans, and at an airbase in Afghanistan. The only difference here tonight was geography, and, of course, the outcome. Zach knew what the outcome was going to be. Everyone here in the room would either be arrested or shot, the shipping container seized, with a lot of people in this county losing their protector and savior. A hell of a thing, to go out on an op like this, where the ending was already predetermined. If he had been back in the Guard, he would have stormed out of the briefing room in disgust.

  Still … a weapon coming across the border? A dangerous weapon that could kill thousands? He still could not believe what he had earlier heard from Tanya Gibbs.

  Duncan clapped his hands together. “All right, that’s what we got, kids. Any questions?”

  Zach thought, oh, what the hell, let’s see what happens. “Yeah,” he said. “The shipping container. What’s in it?”

  It was like he was at a Temperance Society meeting and had suddenly asked everyone for his or her favorite cocktail recipe. Save for Duncan, everyone’s faces seemed to be set into granite. Duncan, though, was grinning.

  “Really?” Duncan asked. “You want to know what’s in the container? Is that it? Guys, does anybody else here want to know what’s in it?”

  Nobody said a word. Even in this small room in the basement of a home in New Hampshire, Zach felt as exposed as he had ever been.

  Duncan shrugged. “Looks like you’re outvoted.”

  “Didn’t think this was a democracy,” Zach went on. “Way I see it, I’ve already had a run-in with two armed fellas who were intent on doing grievous harm over what’s in that container. I figure something causes that much animosity, I might want to know what’s inside, so I can tell if it’s worth running into a couple more better-armed fellas.”

  Duncan’s voice, though quiet, was tinged with menace. Zach could see how such a quiet-looking guy could run such a show up here in these north woods. “You want out?” he slowly asked.

  “Not looking to leave, not looking to go out,” Zach said. “Just looking for information.”

  “Cam,” Duncan said, turning to his brother. “I think Doctor von Braun has the answer Zach’s looking for.”

  Cameron smiled, leaned back against the wooden table with the weapons. “Not my department,” he said, and then he laughed.

  Zach looked at Cameron and then his younger brother. “Sorry if I’m dense, guys, but I have no idea what that meant.”

  Cameron said, “Tom Lehrer, the folksinger, did a song about Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who came over to the Americans after the war. He was pretty slippery when it came to his wartime guilt and what he did. Lehrer’s song said something about the rockets went up, but where they went down wasn’t his department, said Wernher von Braun.”

  Duncan added, “That’s what I’m saying, Zach. It’s not my department, not your department. All we care about is getting that trailer safe over the border from Canada. So right now, no fooling, no time: are you in or are you out?”

  Zach didn’t hesitate. “I’m in.”

  Duncan looked around at his rather small band of brothers and said, “Okay, we head out in about thirty minutes. Last chance for a piss break or to grab a drink of water. No booze, goes without saying. Cam, you want to hang back for a second?”

  The other men went out and Nat, the last one, said, “Thanks for the kind words about the pie, I’ll make sure to pass it on to Dora.”

  “You do that,” Duncan said. When the door closed he said, “Well, Cam, what do you think of Zach? You concerned?”

  His older brother shrugged. “Guy’s ex-military. On the outs. He’s agreed to work with you, and don’t take offense, but you’re not exactly the straightest guy around. So I’m not surprised he’s asking questions, maybe getting cold feet.”

  Duncan scratched at his chin. “See what you mean. But still

  … sometimes I think there’s something a bit off, like he’s observing me from a distance, judging me. Like when he first came by the Flight Deck. He did something odd there, something I’ll tell you about later.”

  “What does Karen think?”

  “She thinks he’s fine, that he’s on board. But then again, she’s biased.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He’s the first guy she ever slept with, back in high school.”

  Cameron pondered that. “Think he’s doing it again?”

  Duncan headed to the door to go back upstairs. “Cam, I’m generous, but I’m not that damn generous.”

  Upstairs Zach saw Nat and Luke go into the living room, talking and joking like the neighbors and old friends they were. Both sat on the couch and got involved in a tale concerning the local road agent, an improperly installed drainage ditch, and how a farmer’s pile of manure was washed out during a heavy rainstorm and ended up in the driveway of his neighbor. The neighbor was a recent refugee from the Socialist Republic of Massachusetts who had escaped up to Washington County to get back to nature. However, the recent refugee was complaining that half a foot of cow shit distributed on his driveway wasn’t exactly the kind of natural encounter he had been hoping for.

  Zach went into the kitchen, where Karen was washing up the last of the dinner dishes. Unbidden, Zach grabbed a dish towel and started drying. Since he didn’t know where anything went, he carefully wiped each pot and dish dry, and then stacked them on the wide counter.

  Karen smiled, revealing a dimple on one side of the cheek. “Thanks for volunteering,” she said. “Most of Duncan’s buds are okay, but I think they’d rather tear apart a motorcycle transmission than lend a hand in the kitchen.”

  Zach said, “Rather be in a kitchen than on a motorcycle, tell you the truth.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Motorcycles are scary.”

  She chortled at that. “Seeing what you did the other day when Duncan and I were in trouble … and motorcycles scare you? You’re a funny man, Zach Morrow.”

  He carefully polished a wineglass. “Don’t mean to be funny. What happened yesterday, and other things I’ve been involved with, I’ve always felt like I’m in control. On a motorcycle, unless the road is empty, I’m not in control. An oil patch, a rough piece of pavement, a teenage girl driving and texting … boom, you’re down on the ground, without a ton or so of metal wrapped around you to protect you.”

  Karen opened up a top cabinet, reached up to stack some wide light blue plates. From a corner of his eye, Zach saw the top of a red thong panty. He didn’t avert his gaze. Karen closed the cabinet door. “True enough. I have a cousin, she works in the ER over at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, outside of Hanover. You know what they call motorcyclists who don’t wear helmets?”

  Zach finished off another wineglass. “Organ donors.”

  “Naughty boy, you heard that already.”

  He picked up a serving spoon. “I’ve been around some, Karen.”

  She gently nudged his hip with hers. “So you have, so you have. Ask you something?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “You’re not married, and I gather you don’t have anyone steady. Why’s that?”

  Good question, he thought, one he had asked himself before enough times. He said, “Not something I haven’t thought of, I’ll give you that. Best answer is that in my line of work, I moved around a lot. Didn’t have time to settle down and look around for a life partner. Made some friends, had some relationships, but nothing permanent.”

  Karen sta
rted putting silverware away in a counter drawer. “You said that was the best answer. Was it a truthful answer? Or do you have a better one kicking around in that mind of yours?”

  He looked to her, recalled again with stunning force the memories of their brief time together, the whispered vows, the new and raw passion, the sheer erotic vibrancy of being with a woman for the very first time. Karen looked back with a comfortable expectation, like she wasn’t judging, that she would accept anything he would say.

  Zach let out a breath. “Sometimes I think it’s the way I was brought up. My dad … he cheated on my mom. A lot. That was my role model for what a married man did. What he did to my mom was disgusting. I’ve often thought that’s why I’ve stayed away from the whole long-term relationship question. Because of my dad.”

  Karen gazed at him for a moment, and then laughed and snapped a wet dish towel at his butt. “Hah. Blaming your dad. Sounds like an easy excuse. No offense.”

  Damn, he so enjoyed being in this kitchen with her. “No offense taken.”

  “Glad to hear it. Do me a favor?”

  “Name it.”

  She surprised and thrilled him by dropping the dish towel on the counter, stepping forward, grabbing his ears forcefully with her strong hands, and kissing him firmly on the mouth. “You be safe tonight, Zach Morrow, and you take care of my husband. I’m trusting you. Do you understand?”

  Hating himself for saying it, knowing the phone call he would have to make shortly, Zach said, “Understood, Karen.”

  After they were dropped off, the Bell 427 helicopter lifted off from the dairy farmer’s field in southern Quebec—Francois Ouellette not knowing and not particularly caring what town they were in—with he, Michael, Johnny and Phil trooping across a spread of pasture, avoiding cow shit in the process, carrying their equipment bags. They went through an open gate by a dirt driveway next to a collapsing barn where a muddy light red Jeep Cherokee was parked. The two front doors of the Cherokee opened up and a man and a woman stepped out. The man was short, squat, and wide, wearing jeans, knee-high boots, and a dull yellow farmer’s coat. He had a navy watch cap pulled over his head and his black goatee was streaked with gray. The woman was much younger, wearing tight jeans that had slits cut away in the thighs, and a white hoodie sweatshirt that couldn’t hide her impressive chest. Her brown hair was long and wavy, and her eyes were brown as well, laughing, like she half hoped the fierce men approaching her would take her someplace fun for some serious partying.

  The man walked up, extended a hand. “Guy LeBlanc, of the Knight Stalkers, glad to help.”

  “Francois Ouellette,” he said, not bothering to explain who he was. That didn’t need explanation. “What do you have?”

  Guy said, “The truck you’re looking for just stopped going in circles. He’s refueling now and we got him in view, at the Pont du Louis truck stop. We’re thinking he’s prepping for his next stage. We’re about ten, maybe fifteen minutes away.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Guy motioned to the Cherokee. “My wheels, at your disposal. Sherry here, she’s gonna be your guide once you pick up the trail of that truck. Nobody else knows the woods, paths, and roads down there like my Sherry.”

  “Sherry your wife?” Francois asked, and Sherry put her hands in her hoodie pockets and laughed.

  “Not damn likely,” she said. “Guy is my uncle, aren’t you, Guy.”

  Guy grinned like he was hiding something naughty, something special. “That I am, Sherry. I want you to take these gentlemen and take them wherever they need to go. They need food, drink, you pay it and I’ll reimburse you, got it?”

  Sherry smiled again. “Whatever you say, uncle.”

  Francois looked to his three men. “Okay, let’s pile in.” He looked up at the sky. “Would like to get a lead on this fucking truck before the sun sets.”

  Michael—still unsmiling—brushed past with his gear, followed by Johnny and Phil. Sherry went to the front of the Jeep Cherokee, opened the door and got in, and then started the engine. Francois shook Guy’s hand again. “This works out, you and the Knight Stalkers, you’ll get a cut of our meth traffic in this part of the province. Plus you’ll all be comped for life at our club.”

  Guy nodded in satisfaction. “Does that include blow jobs for me and my guys?”

  Francois picked up his equipment bag. “Don’t push it.”

  In an underground staging area north of Concord, New Hampshire, where the governor of the state and his staff would retreat if the Russians, Chinese, or Canadians ever decided to wreak havoc upon the Granite State, Tanya Gibbs sat in a small, stuffy conference room, with a frowning Major Carl Kenyon of the NH State Police sitting across from her. Carl didn’t look very happy, and Tanya could hardly blame him. He had scratched together a team for this unannounced drill—a health physicist from the Department of Public Health, about a half dozen members of the somewhat-secret State Police Rapid Response Unit, and an equal number of deputy sheriffs from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, who seemed pathetically eager to prove themselves tonight—but so far, all they were doing was waiting.

  And waiting.

  Tanya wasn’t about to tell them that she was waiting for a phone call from Zach Morrow, so they sat and talked and drank coffee as each minute oozed by. She sipped at the awful cup of coffee—New Hampshire being New Hampshire, they probably reused the same coffee grounds two or three times as a cost-saving measure—when her government issued cellphone started ringing.

  Tanya picked it up. It didn’t have any cutesy Top Forty hit music or Broadway musical or comedian’s voice as a ringtone. It was a phone, damn it, so it had a real phone sound.

  “Gibbs,” she said.

  “This is Zach Morrow,” the tired voice announced. No jokes, no wisecracks about being a super dooper secret agent or anything like that. No, Zach sounded tired, defeated, and depressed, a trifecta victory that should have cheered her but instead made her feel glum. She felt like it was a hell of a thing to turn that cocky and confident Coast Guardsmen into someone so submissive.

  “Go on,” she said, drawing a yellow legal pad near her. “What do you have?”

  Zach said, “The meet is on for ten p.m. tonight, in the northern part of Washington County, on a remote access road. All I know is that there’s a Hydro-Quebec right-of-way extending through there, and they’ll be meeting at mile marker 112. I’m sure you and whatever smart folks you have will figure it out.”

  She wrote quickly. “Besides yourself and Duncan Crowley, who else will be there?”

  “A man with trucking experience to take over the driving once they cross the border, Duncan’s brother Cameron, and a biker named Luke Munce. The last two, in addition to me, are providing security.”

  “I see,” she said. “Are you and they armed?”

  “Heavily.”

  “What are the rules of engagement?” Tanya asked, her writing hand firm but cold, as Carl hungrily looked at her, intrigued at what she was doing.

  Zach breathed. “Rules of engagement, near as I can figure, is to safely escort that trailer through the border and shoot anyone who gets in the way.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  Zach said, “No. Gotta run, don’t want to make the Crowley brothers suspicious.”

  “Very well, see you later tonight.”

  She put the phone down on the pad, took a deep and satisfying breath. This was about to get very interesting. “Carl,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “This is no longer an unannounced training exercise. I’ve just been informed that a shipping container carrying a possible Weapon of Mass Effect will be transiting the Canadian border at this point, up in Washington County.” She scribbled out the directions Zach had provided to her, passed it over to the major, who quickly picked it up.

  She went on. “Under Confidential Pro
tocol Four of the Renewed Patriot Act, Amended, I am now taking control of your State Police unit, as well as the sheriff’s deputies from Washington County, and the state health physicist. I now have complete command over your men, as well as those deputies. Our mission tonight will be to seize that trailer and arrest the driver, and anyone else that might be there. The information I have is that there will be about a half dozen heavily armed men in wait. You will have tactical control of your forces. But bottom line, I want that trailer seized at the border, and any opposing forces either arrested or neutralized.”

  Carl stared at the piece of paper in his hands, his knuckles pale. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  A flash of temper flared through her. “No, Carl, when I’m joking, I show off my tits. Do you see any nipples?”

  He looked up, anger burning in his eyes. “I need to run this by my Colonel, I need to contact your Regional Administrator, I can’t —”

  Tanya looked at her watch. “We have just over two hours to get everybody up there in place to intercept a Weapon of Mass Effect, to save thousands of innocent lives. If you want to play safe and secure bureaucrat, so be it. It won’t be my wide and hairy butt sitting at a future Congressional hearing, testifying on why he was instrumental in letting a deadly weapon pass through our border unmolested.”

  Carl kept on staring at her with hate in his eyes, and Tanya gave it right back to him. She thought of those days and nights as a safe college student in Boston, her best friend Emily at her side, both of them confidently planning their futures, their lives, in the certain knowledge that they would remain close friends for the rest of their lives.

  That last part was true, but neither of them could have ever imagined that one of them would die in an act of war. Some things were just beyond imagining.