Night Road

by Brendan DuBois

  Someone stepped in front of him. He looked up at a state trooper, who said, “Someone needs to talk to you. Like now.”

  “I want a blanket.”

  “Now, no discussion, because—”

  “Please. A blanket. This man … he’s my brother. He’s so damn cold. Then I’ll come with you.”

  The trooper slowly nodded. “I understand. A blanket.”

  Duncan went back to gently stroking his dead brother’s forehead.

  Zach was lying down in mud and water, not wanting to think much of anything, when there was splashing about him. A voice from behind him. “Which one of you two fuckers is Zach Morrow?”

  He raised his head above the mud. “I’m Zach Morrow.”

  “Hold on,” the voice said. There was something tugging at his wrists, and then the handcuffs were undone. “Somebody wants to see you.”

  Zach got up, looked at the brightly lit scene about him, the dead truck, the Black Hawk helicopter off on the pasture, its rotors still turning.

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  Duncan walked slowly over to an area by the Suburban, where more portable lights had been set up. Luke was on his side, being treated by two State Police troopers for the wound in his leg. There was also activity up by the truck, but he didn’t care. An older man, dressed in a finely cut dark blue suit with white shirt and red necktie, stepped from around the side of the Suburban.

  “Duncan Crowley,” the old man said.

  “Gordon Simpson,” Duncan said.

  The old man looked around and let out a breath. “Not what we expected, eh? Thought this would be a relatively quiet operation, without all this gunfire.”

  “My brother’s dead.”

  Gordon shook his head. “My sympathies.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “The other matter?” Gordon asked.

  “The driver is down,” Duncan said. “You can tell his cousin that he can sleep better at night, knowing his wayward relative is gone.”

  “One bit of good news, at least,” he said.

  “How did this go so wrong?” Duncan demanded.

  Gordon sighed, his face wrinkled, old, fleshy. “From my shop, I’m afraid. Someone with burning ambition who didn’t know her limits found out about the truck. She came in with all guns blazing.”

  Duncan said, “Is she going to be taken care of?”

  Gordon ignored the question. “I’m afraid our earlier arrangement may have to be adjusted. There’s been too much … too much exposure tonight. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  Duncan looked over at the blanket-covered shape of his dead brother. “Don’t be sure of that.”

  A woman came up, tugged Gordon’s elbow. “Mr. Simpson? It looks like Miss Gibbs has reached the truck.”

  “Very good,” he said. As he turned to walk away, the woman caught Duncan’s eye, nodded, and joined her boss. It was Melanie Pope, the new police chief in Crowdin, confidential employee of the Department of Homeland Security. The one who had told him during that traffic stop that this trailer was coming across in two days.

  Tanya stood at the rear of the truck, her heart nearly singing with joy. Twice she had the health physicist conduct another radiological survey, and both times, the words came back.

  Gamma alert.

  Gamma alert.

  Gamma alert.

  Now there was a metal step ladder at the rear of the trailer, and a state trooper with a bolt cutter standing on top of it. But she waited for Gordie to finally stumble over here and see what she had done. This had been her op, one she had taken control of from the very beginning, and once the trailer was opened, she imagined all the crow that managers higher up the food chain would have to eat. They had pooh-poohed this trailer and she had proven them wrong. Oh my, the headlines, the stories … surely there was room over there in the pasture for Boston TV crews to come see this, the first bona fide interception of a nuclear device en route to the United States.

  She had done it!

  A flash of memory, of dear old famous Diana Dean of Customs. She had single-handily prevented disaster.

  And now Tanya had joined her rank.

  Gordie finally made his appearance, strolling over all relaxed, like he was on a Congressional junket or something. He had his wrinkled old hands in his coat pockets and even out here in the middle of the proverbial nowhere, he was dressed like he was going to lunch back in Boston at the recently reopened Locke-Ober.

  “Tanya, it looks like quite the situation you have here,” he said.

  Pride and happiness at what she had accomplished thumped along in her chest. “One that I have quite in hand.”

  “How did this come about, then?”

  “Earlier I had received intelligence that an attempt may be made to cross the border with a WME. I arranged a practice drill just in case the circumstances changed, which they did.”

  “I see. Let’s see, would that be the Mextel trailer, missing from a storage facility at the St. Lawrence Seaway, suspected of containing a Weapon of Mass Effect?”

  “The same.”

  She waited, expecting loud voices, fireworks, the whole enraged supervisor shtick, but he just nodded, pursed his lips and said, “I take it you attempted to inform me.”

  “I most certainly did. Via text and a phone message.”

  Gordon took one hand out, tugged at a long ear. “So what do you have?”

  “A health physicist from the state of New Hampshire has detected gamma ray radiation from inside the truck,” she said, trying to keep the triumph out of her voice. “He said it was off the scale.”

  She motioned to the state trooper with the bolt cutters, who leaned forward, worked the cutters, and with a loud snap, a length of chain was cut.

  Gordon said, “Don’t you think you should wait for the State Police bomb squad? Or perhaps a Federal NEST unit?”

  “Bomb squad and Nuclear Emergency Search Team would take too long, Gordie. You know that. I think we should find out immediately what’s in there.”

  Another tug of his ear. He sighed. “What can I say? It certainly looks like you have everything under control. Go ahead then.”

  Tanya moved the trooper aside, went up the step ladder, and opened the door. Never in her life had she ever been so excited, so filled with anticipation. It was like every past Christmas morning and birthday, wrapped up in this one minute.

  “Light,” she called out. “Somebody give me a damn light!”

  A lit flashlight was put in her hand. Her mouth was dry, and her hand was shaking. But the light worked well enough, showing that the near half of the truck was empty. Up ahead were bundles of … cloth? She slowly stepped forward, flashed the light down. Plastic wrapped packages of cloth. She tore one open, pulled out a T-shirt. Blue, red, and white, promoting the Montreal Canadiens hockey team.

  Damn.

  She kicked the T-shirts away, saw a large cardboard box, easily five feet to a side. The T-shirts were just cover, that’s all. On top of the box was a loose piece of tape. She tugged at and it ripped away, and she tore open the box, revealing—

  Boxes upon boxes, piled upon each other.

  Black & Decker smoke detectors.

  Scores of them.

  It was like the temperature inside of the truck had gone up twenty degrees, as if hidden infrared heat lamps had suddenly been switched on over her. She was sweating. She was flushed. Her mouth was so dry she felt like she had to chew her tongue to get it moistened.

  Footsteps behind her. She whirled around, holding up the flashlight like a weapon, ready to crack it over the head of whoever was disturbing her.

  Gordon Simpson, walking in, small flashlight in his hand. Beams from both of their lights reflected off the walls illuminated the interior of the truck.

  He was smiling.

 
Smiling!

  He pointed his own flashlight at the smoke detectors. “Funny thing about these smoke detectors, Tanya. Each one contains a tiny bit of Americium-241, which emits gamma radiation. One detector, eh, not that much. But a large number of smoke detectors, in one place, well, enough to make the surveillance equipment from a state health physicist go off the scale. Even if it is harmless.”

  Tanya stood there, like her feet had been spiked to the floor of the truck. She worked her mouth, felt it moisten. “Why?” she finally said, and she was humiliated at how squeaky her voice sounded.

  Gordon shrugged. “This little confidential drill was set up weeks ago, on my orders, just to see what kind of parameters would be exploited by various domestic law enforcement agencies if word about this trailer was leaked out. First, to test security procedures. Second, to see what would happen if agencies and personnel received unauthorized classified information. When I learned that you had found about this drill and had come to the spectacularly wrong conclusion of what was happening, well, it was in my interest to let you take it for a ride. As I’ve said before, Tanya, I may not know the latest in technologies—as you so graciously pointed out to me—but I know people. I know ambition. I know you.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She felt like an insect pinned to a board. He went on. “Remember that GAO audit I was telling you about? Investigators from the GAO like to have trophies. Once an audit is completed, they don’t like to go away empty-handed. So when they do leave, Tanya, their hands will be filled with your ass—an administrator who went so far off the reservation she ended up in the ocean.”

  The light in her hands wavered. She heard additional helicopters overhead, their searchlights illuminating everything she could see from the open end of the truck trailer. Gordie turned for a moment. “Ah, yes, right on schedule. Our so-called independent news media. Television stations from Portland and Boston, all here to record and report on your utter and complete disgrace.”

  Tanya’s legs started quivering. Her mouth was so very, very dry. She now held her flashlight in two hands. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  Gordie said, “Do go on.”

  “Doesn’t make sense for all this effort and energy to humiliate and cripple me, an unknown government worker … Days ago you could have brought me into your office and fired me, with just cause. You didn’t have to take it this far.”

  It suddenly came to her, something dark and blossoming inside, spreading out like an approaching and threatening thunderstorm. The trailer seemed to quake about her.

  “This was never about me, was it,” she finally said. “You’re after my uncle. The senior senator from Ohio. Warren Gibbs. The presidential candidate.”

  Gordie stayed quiet, those reptile eyes of his unblinking. Her voice growing stronger, she said, “You bastards. You couldn’t quite figure a way of kneecapping Senator Gibbs and driving him down in the polls. So you did all this”—and she motioned the light so it illuminated the roof of the trailer—“to humiliate me, and by extension, my uncle.”

  Gordie shrugged. “I won’t say that, but I’m sure others eventually will. They’ll say both you and your uncle share the same paranoid vision of what we should do as a country, what the proper role of Homeland Security should be. It’s going to be reported shortly that you, a mid-level government official, caused this enormous waste of resources and loss of life, acting irrationally and without proper authorization. Shortly thereafter, the names will be noted, and the dots will be connected. Like niece, like uncle.”

  “That’s damn unfair and reckless, and you know it, Gordie.”

  “That’s life and politics, and you know that, Tanya.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment as tears filled them, as the bitter taste of humiliation overpowered her. All this work and effort, long hours and harsh actions, all to avenge Emily and the thousands of other victims, and for what? Utter and complete disaster. Instead of a victory, she had ended up strengthening the same officials, the same close-minded politicians and bureaucrats who had allowed 9/11 to happen.

  She opened her eyes. “Gordie … how could you have done this? How?”

  Another slight shrug. “Your uncle wasn’t playing the game, wasn’t taking part in the proper narrative. There are people in power and influence who won’t let that happen.”

  “What’s the narrative, Gordie?” she said, bitterness in her voice

  Her boss said, “It’s been long enough since 9/11. We’re no longer going to overreact to whatever terrorist threat may be out there, we’re no longer going to profile people because of their religion and background. Homeland Security is going to do its job of worrying about immigration status and deportation arrangements and that’s it. No increased surveillance, no paramilitary teams, and no rogue administrators doing what they feel. Obviously you haven’t gotten the memo: The war on terror is over. We won. All that’s left are small-time losers like the Boston Marathon bombers, acting on their own.”

  Tanya said, “I have another story, by God, and I’ll say it.”

  Gordie smiled, his leathery skin stretching. “Go right ahead. The well-dressed men and women in those approaching helicopters know the narrative as well, and that’s how they’ll report it. Oh, they pretend they’re independent and above it all, but they know their role. They don’t want to lose access. Don’t want to be off the team, off the story. So they’ll report it the way we and their editors want it, and by this time next week, thanks to you, your uncle’s campaign will collapse.”

  Tanya said, “I quit.”

  Gordie said, “Too late for that.”

  Zach was taken to the front of the Suburban. Luke’s wounded leg was bandaged and he was sitting up, his hands cuffed behind him. Nat was sitting next to him, a temporary bandage on his hand. In front of the Suburban was Gordon Simpson, and he said, “Chief Morrow.”

  “Captain Simpson.”

  “Please,” Gordon said, “I’m not on duty tonight. How are you, Zach?”

  “Tired, disgusted, in the need of a hot shower.” He pointed to the truck. “What was in there?”

  “A collection of smoke detectors. Enough gamma source material to fool an initial examiner that a weapon of some sort was inside. Enough material to tempt someone to break the rules, go rogue, not follow procedures.”

  Zach gestured again to the lights, the disabled truck, and the bodies. “A fake, then. So was this all necessary?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I saw you talk to Duncan Crowley. It wasn’t the first time you’ve met, was it.”

  “So?”

  “So why was I here? Why did you recruit me before Tanya Gibbs popped into my life?”

  Gordon said, “Belt and suspenders, Zach. Belt and suspenders. I wanted to make sure the outcome tonight was in my favor. If I had to use both you and Duncan Crowley, with neither one of you aware of the other, then that’s what I did. No apologies.”

  “Didn’t expect any.”

  “Then I won’t apologize for this as well,” Gordon went on. “Due to the … public nature of this operation, I’m not sure if our earlier arrangement can be honored. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  Zach said, “Being tossed over the side? I understand it all too well.”

  “Don’t be so sarcastic.”

  “I’ll be whatever I fucking please.”

  Duncan Crowley was now handcuffed, and he watched as his brother’s body was placed in a metal litter to be hauled out in one of the helicopters that were joining the Black Hawk. There were so many floodlights being set up that when he tilted his head back, he could no longer see the stars Cameron had loved so much.

  He started to weep.

  Zach walked around as other helicopters landed near the Black Hawk. He was feeling that odd post-letdown that came after a mission was over, but instead of the usual sense of satisfaction and exhaus
tion after coming back in one piece, he felt out of place, insignificant, the sense of being a betrayer coursing through him. This mission was done, but there was no way he could call it a success.

  He walked by the infamous trailer, saw someone sitting alone at the base of a pine tree.

  Tanya Gibbs.

  Zach went to her, and she looked up. From the lights illuminating the area, it was easy to make out her features and her appearance. The first time he had met her, a few days and a lifetime ago, she had looked about sixteen. Now she looked about twelve, defeated, and crushed. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her hands were cupping her knees.

  “Chief,” she said.

  “Miss Gibbs,” he replied.

  She kept on looking at him, and he said, “My apologies, Tanya. I betrayed you about five minutes after we met. Every day I informed Gordon Simpson that I was with you, assisting you in locating that trailer. It was a setup, and you were the target.”

  Tanya shook her head. “No, chief, I wasn’t the target. My uncle was.”

  Zach felt like something off in the distance had blown up, something big, something important, that had just made the ground tremble. “I see. They’re going to publicize your involvement in this fiasco. Connect you with your uncle. Disgracing you, disgracing him. That was the whole deal, wasn’t it.”

  She rocked back and forth. “Some involvement. I haven’t talked to my uncle in a couple of years. He’s been too busy being senator.”

  Zach said, “When we first met, you said you had somebody who could help at the right moment. I thought you meant your uncle. Were you lying?”

  Tanya said, “I wanted that trailer. I lied, I cheated, and I threatened people, all to do that. So, yeah. I lied. I betrayed you as well. No apologies, though. Never any apologies.”