Final Winter

by Brendan DuBois

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Vladimir went to the rear of the trailer, to the electronic lock. Opened up the small plastic door, keyed the combination. There was an audible click as the lock released. One of the jumpsuited men came up and looked over at the general. The tall man nodded. The door rattled up and Vladimir felt his chest tighten. Here we go. The great deception continues.

  By now floodlights had switched on. Insects were battering themselves to death against the bright clear glass of the lamps. The interior of the truck was illuminated, revealing rows and rows of black plastic cases, all held in a metal framework.

  ‘Well?’ the general asked.

  Vladimir stepped forward, undid the nearest case. Nestled in the gray foam was a green canister, with input and output valves on each end, and a keyed switch on the side, halfway up the cylinder. The canisters carefully prepared in Asia, carefully painted to match the specifications e-mailed to him by his unknown employers. He walked back to the general and his companion, thinking to himself, death, I hold death in my hands. Death for tens of thousands of people.

  He passed over the canister to the general, who took it and gave it to his companion. Vladmir said, ‘Simplicity itself, gentlemen. Two canisters per aircraft. One for each of the two air-conditioning exhaust systems. Input and output valves pre-set to the aircraft’s specifications. Here—’

  Vladimir popped open the switch. ‘See what I mean by simplicity? This is how it is activated. Pass this switch, left to right. Everything else is automatic. The radio altimeter arms the canister when the aircraft rises above three thousand feet in altitude. When the aircraft goes below three thousand feet, the canister releases its contents into the atmosphere. Aircrew has nothing to do except fly the aircraft.’

  The general nodded, while his companion looked on, his expression grave. Vladimir thought, poor people, you have no idea, no idea at all. . .

  ‘Very good,’ the general said. ‘I guess ... I guess we’re ready to begin, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vladimir said. ‘I guess you are.’

  The general nodded, and did something that almost caused Vladimir to collapse in laughter. The general stuck out his hand, and Vladimir stared at it. Then he extended his own hand and shook the general’s.

  ‘You ... you did good work,’ the general said. ‘You tell your people I said that, all right?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

  Vladimir turned on his heel, went down the steps, and then back to the truck. He got up into the cab and Imad said, ‘Everything fine?’

  ‘Everything is great. ‘

  ‘Amazing,’ Imad said.

  ‘The way of the world,’ Vladimir said. ‘If you have the right-colored vehicle, with the serial numbers and license plates, and the right identification, you can do anything in this country. Anything.’

  ‘All right. What now?’

  ‘How about you get us the hell out of here, all right?’

  Imad said, ‘You got it, Russki.’

  Vladimir rubbed at his tired eyes as Imad drove out of the hangar parking area and then retraced their trip, back to the gate. There were two exits at the gate: TRUCKS WITH CARGO and TRUCKS WITH NO CARGO. Imad went to the second exit and they were waved through, without stopping.

  ‘Made it,’ Imad said. ‘We made it.’

  Vladimir kept on rubbing at his eyes. ‘So we did, boy. So we did.’

  ~ * ~

  Monty Zane stretched out on a chair in a waiting area in a small outbuilding at Lakenheath RAF base in Great Britain, feeling troubled. His hours of work trying to contact Darren had failed. The NSA guy hadn’t answered his cellphone, his home phone, his office phone, or his pager. Monty had tried going through the on-duty NSA desk officer, trying somehow to get hold of Darren, and that approach had failed too.

  And Adrianna. No Adrianna either. So what in the hell was going on?

  He looked up at the digital clock. His flight to Aviano was due to leave in less than a half-hour. He was set to be on it, heading south, for another mission for his beloved land, another job for those like him who were on the shiny and pointy end of the spear.

  But what of the Tiger Team? And what of Darren? The guy said he was going to contact him with additional information about Final Winter and all that, but then his own duty pager had gone off and had sent him across the Atlantic. And in a few minutes he was set to continue his journey south. All the while waiting and not knowing what was going on.

  A female Air Force NCO came up to him, her nametag reading BOUCHARD. She said, ‘You’re on the Aviano flight, sir?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Time to board, then, sir.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Monty got up, slung his duffel bag over one shoulder, and looked back at the clock and at the flight desk.

  He didn’t like a damn thing that was going on.

  ~ * ~

  Adrianna stood in her condo unit in Maryland, looking around it for the very last time. Her luggage was at her feet. She was traveling light: just a few changes of clothes, some books, and yes, just one more thing. She gazed at the mantelpiece where her framed photo of her parents rested, hidden behind that Sears portrait shot of her and her auntie. Poor auntie. Another sacrifice made, when auntie began to ask too many questions about how Adrianna had gotten from Iraq to America, too many questions about what she intended to do once she was out of school. By then, she’d had a grand idea of what was ahead for her, and even at that young age she knew that auntie would never hold up against any background check from the FBI or CIA or NSA or wherever she intended to go to work.

  So her auntie had to die. So be it.

  Another glance around her condo. In the basement was her bubble and the stolen laptop. She had no use for it now. Archeologists from some future time could have an orgy of investigation, if they ever got here, to dig into the laptop and find the years of work that she had carefully documented and executed, all those years of clandestine work, to conceive Final Winter, to prepare for Final Winter, and now, just days away, to see Final Winter finally, finally happen.

  One more thing to pack.

  Adrianna reached up to the mantelpiece, to the photo, and perhaps she was nervous, or perhaps her hand was shaking, but instead of holding on to the photo she picked it up clumsily and it fell on the floor, the frame cracking.

  ~ * ~

  Now they were on a rural road, about a half-hour out of Memphis, following another set of directions. Vladimir had a small flashlight, was calling out left or right or straight on to Imad. The truck felt odd without the heavy trailer behind it, like a draft horse suddenly free from its wagon.

  ‘All right,’ Vladimir said. ‘Take a left at the dirt road, coming up.’

  Imad did just that, and the headlights illuminated the narrow dirt lane. Branches whipped at the fenders and windows as they surged ahead. Then the dirt road widened into an empty space in the woods. A dark blue Ford Explorer was parked at the far side. Imad said, ‘Once again, our secret bosses have pulled through.’

  ‘Yes, they have. Let’s hurry up.’

  Imad pulled the truck up to the Ford, left the engine running and the lights on as Vladimir jumped out of the cab. He went over to the SUV, went to the rear tire and felt up against the fender. There. His hand emerged with a key, which he held up so that Imad could see it. Imad honked the horn in response. Vladimir went to the Ford, unlocked the door, climbed in and started up the engine. Their instructions were to wait for a day, possibly two, to ensure that all was in place and that the final payments to their bank accounts were made. He came out as Imad shut off the diesel engine and emerged from the Freightliner, carrying his belongings. Vladimir watched him carefully as he put his belongings into the Explorer. Vladimir followed shortly, carrying his own bags. Imad made to go into the Ford when Vladimir said, ‘The truck. I forgot the paperwork. Could you get it? Please?’

  Imad shrugged, went back to the Freightliner. As he did that, Vladimir ducked into the Explorer,
looking, looking, looking, and there it was. The small leather case. He opened the case and grabbed what was in it, just as—

  Imad was there, a folder of papers in his hand. He looked confused.

  ‘What.. . what are you doing?’

  ‘Showing you that I do know how to kill, boy,’ Vladimir said. And he shot him three times in the chest with his own pistol.

  Imad fell back, the paperwork flying from his hand. Vladimir strolled over and, just to make sure, he placed the muzzle of the pistol against the boy’s forehead and pulled the trigger again.

  ‘And if you didn’t hear me before, fuck you,’ he said.

  Vladimir picked up the papers, walked around and picked up the four empty cartridge shells, and then went to the Ford Explorer, ready to leave this place, this state, this country.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Two days after flying back from Memphis, in the laundry room of his small apartment building in Rockaway, Queens, Brian Doyle walked back and forth, listening to the comforting sound of his Highland bagpipes, echoing among the quiet washing machines and dryers. The sound was good in the basement, the drones echoing off the thick plaster walls, the keening sound of the chanter cutting through the steady tone of the drones.

  He walked back and forth at a slow pace, going through some of his favorites, starting with the quick marches -’Highland Laddie’ and ‘42nd Black Watch Highlanders Crossing the Rhine’ and ‘Heroes of Vittoria’ - and then a few slowsteps, like ‘Skye Boat Song’ and ‘Blue Bells’ and ‘Sleep Dearie Sleep’ - and as he was getting ready to start another round, there was someone there, standing by the doorway, a grin on his face, slowly clapping his hands’.

  Brian let the mouthpiece fall from his mouth, snapped the bagpipes out from underneath his arm. Standing in front of him was his partner, Jimmy Carr.

  Jimmy said, ‘Welcome back to the world, partner.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Guess I missed you when you checked in at the house.’

  ‘Guess you missed me ‘cause I didn’t show up,’ Brian said.

  ‘Hah. Goofing off?’

  ‘Time I’ve had these past months, I deserve all the goofing off I can get. And then some.’

  Jimmy went over to a low-slung dryer, sat up on it, folded his arms. ‘So how come you’re not back on the job?’

  Brian shrugged. ‘Like I said, I needed the time.’

  ‘Time to heal? Heard you got cut in Cincinnati.’

  ‘How in hell did you learn that?’

  ‘I’m a detective. It’s my job to detect, to learn things. Like my partner, who’s been taken away by the Feds, found himself at the wrong end of a knife in Cincinnati. Jesus. Cincinnati. If you’re going to die, that’s a hell of a place to die in.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Next time be more careful, huh?’

  ‘Sure,’ Brian said. ‘Next time.’

  ‘Seen your boy yet?’

  Brian grinned. ‘Last night. And later today. It’s good to see him...But his mother, though…’

  Jimmy laughed at that and said, ‘So why in hell did you come back?’

  Brian went over to an idle washer, gently placed his bagpipes down. The bag collapsed a bit, making a sighing noise through the drones, sounding like an old dog trying to relax. Brian said, ‘I guess I got tired. Guess I got fired.’

  ‘So. What were you working on before you got fired?’

  ‘Classified.’

  ‘Boy, am I surprised to hear that. Did you like it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then how come you’re not back on the job? Hey, remember that car-chopping case we were working on, before you left? The Sanchez brothers?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, it’s been to court and back. Their mother gave them up. Can you believe that? So much for maternal feelings.’

  Brian leaned back against the washer, said nothing, Jimmy watched him. Jimmy said, ‘All right. So you don’t want to talk about the job. And you can’t talk about your new job. Classified and all that crap. So what was going on with your Fed job that you can tell me, partner?’

  Brian folded his arms. ‘Thing is, on the job, you know that most of the people you meet out on the street, they’ve got an agenda, they’re slinging bullshit, not telling you the truth, hiding stuff from you, all that. That’s part of the job. But the Fed job ... it’s something when the people you’re working with, they’re the ones slinging bullshit, they’re the ones you can’t trust. Hell of a thing.’

  ‘That why you left?’

  Brian thought about what he had been doing in Cincinnati, unearthing all those questions about Adrianna, about her past, about the death of her aunt, about the payoffs to her neighbors ... A lot of questions to be answered. But when he had been offered the chance to leave, he had jumped at it.

  Like a tired and scared rookie, seeing his first body.

  Running away.

  ‘Good question.’

  Jimmy said, ‘Years with you, I think I can figure out what’s going on.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. I think you’ve got unfinished business back there. I think you wanted to leave but something’s back there, calling you. True enough?’

  Brian looked at the cocky face of his partner, thought for a moment, and picked up his bagpipes. ‘Request time. What do you want to hear?’

  “‘Amazing Grace”,’ Jimmy said, grinning.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Brian said.

  ‘Didn’t know that was a bagpipe tune.’

  ‘Lots of things you don’t know, for a detective.’ And he started playing ‘Teribus’, trying, just for a moment, to ignore the truth that his detective partner had been slinging his way.

  ~ * ~

  At 11:05 p.m. the night before the scheduled departure of the canister-loaded aircraft, on a catwalk above one of the three maintenance hangars that AirBox leased, Alexander Bocks stood with Randy Tuthill, looking down at the organized chaos below them. Off to the left and right, MD-11 cargo jets with the yellow and black AirBox markings - and, a secret to all in the company save for a few, it was dear Clara, his wife, who had come up with the colors and logos, back when the company was two old 707s, rescued from an Arizona boneyard - and people were hard at work underneath all of them. People. His people! Scaffolding had been set up mid-fuselage, to gain access to the air-conditioning packs, and it had been an amazing process to see. The big jets had been towed in with the small tractor carriers, and machinists and maintenance workers had swarmed around them like the proverbial ants on a sugar cube. And when it was finished, each jet was wheeled out the other side of the hangar, and another jet, parked outside on the tarmac, was wheeled in.

  Bocks slapped Randy on the back. ‘I’ve seen the work orders and routing sheets. Your folks are an hour ahead of schedule! An hour! Christ on a crutch, Randy, they’re doing a hell of a job.’

  Randy folded his big hands, leaned against the catwalk railing. ‘Treat your people right, and give them an impossible job to do, and nine times out of ten they’ll pull through for you, General.’

  ‘Damn glad to hear it.’ Bocks checked his watch. ‘At this rate, we’ll have the right amount of aircraft ready for the mission, and we’ll be ready by the time for first flight. Two a.m. If nothing screws up.’

  Randy didn’t reply, so Bocks repeated himself. ‘Like I said, if nothing screws up.’

  His friend and machinist said, ‘Sorry to tell you, General. Looks like a screw-up is approaching.’

  Bocks turned and saw his CFO, Frank Woolsey, coming towards them, face red with anger, one hand tightly clenched around a business-sized manila envelope.

  Bocks said, ‘Hold onto your balls, Randy. This isn’t going to be pretty.’

  ‘Holding my balls don’t sound too pretty, either, but I’ll do what I have to do.’

  ~ * ~

  In her hotel room at 11:10 p.m., Adrianna Scott put the picture of her family - still hidden behind the poorly repaired f
rame — on the small round table in her hotel room. She had spent just a few minutes looking at papa and mama, remembering. Her favorite collection of books was lined up next to the quiet television, on a low shelf next to a sliding glass door that led out to a waist-high balcony. For the past three days, while she hadn’t been over at AirBox checking on the progress of the canister installation, she’d spent most of her free time on the balcony, looking over Memphis, seeing the aircraft take off and land at the airport. Watching the daily waltz of aircraft movements, feeling excited at the stage she had set for the wonderful event that was going to take place in just a few hours.