by Glen Carter
Burke looked like he’d swallowed swamp water.“What’s there to say? Nutcase commie got what he deserved.”
“A public execution?”
Burke looked smug. “Hats off to Ruby, I say. Putting a bullet in that piece of shit.”
Malloy shook his head. “Oswald had the answers. It would have been nice to hear some of them. Like why for starters.”
Burke gulped his coffee. “Because he hated us and loved the Russians. I would have wasted the prick too. Ruby’s a saint.”
“Maybe,” Malloy offered. “Just the same, Ruby wasted the only suspect we had. Unless Oswald wasn’t the only bad guy.”
Burke rolled his eyes. “Patsy, my ass. One man, one rifle. Case closed. Justice done.”
“JudgeWarren might have something else to say about that.”
Burke sneered. “Just a bunch of headline grabbing politicians. Goodman or no. Not gonna make a bit of difference at day’s end.”
“We’ll see.”
Burke stared into his cup.“We saw what happened. Christ, we’ve got the whole movie.What was his name?”
“Zapruder,” Malloy said.
“Pretty well shows the entire goddamn crime.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Malloy said. “Your open mindedness is what makes you so good at your job, Agent.”
“You got that right, cowboy,” Burke said. “What else it say?”
“Plenty. Bannerman with his bullshit about boots on the ground. Working round the clock because that’s the way the Bureau gets things done.”
“That’s us,” Burke said, smiling.
“He doesn’t actually mention us by name,” Malloy chuckled.
“But he says seasoned agents are on it.”
“He didn’tmention me?”
“Hard to imagine why not,” Malloy said, sarcastically. “Story says Hoover himself is overseeing the investigation and he’s promising quick results.” Malloy looked at his partner, grinning. “That means heads are on the block. I hear they’re considering you for Bannerman’s job.”
“No thanks.”
Malloy didn’t envy the SAC. He was at the centre of the storm, meaning likewise for the rank and file.They’d been beating the pavement for a week and no one was getting any sleep, especially Bannerman. Witnesses were being interviewed. But first, they had to be located, and while most were no problem, some wanted no part of it. If they could, they’d erase themselves from the newspaper photos and the film. Malloy understood their need to disassociate from such a horrible event, but the images of them sprawled on the grassy knoll or running for cover would never permit it.
“We’re all on the line on this one,” Malloy said, grimly. “Hoover is watching.”
“J. Edgar’s watching us?”
“Just you,” Malloy joked. “No Italian suits in Alaska, but I’ll bet you’d look good in bear skins.”
“Anything like horse leather?”
“How would I know?”
The waitress refilled their cups. “Pie’s fresh.”
Burke displayed pearly white teeth, which seemed tomesmerize her. “No thanks, darlin’. Gotta watch my boyish figure.”
She smiled.
Malloy looked at his watch. “Time to go, lover boy. There’s a deaf guy who says he saw something important.”
“Can’t hear or speak,” Burke chuckled. “Just great.”
Five minutes later, the two agents braced against a cold Dallas rain. As far as Malloy was concerned, the record would have all the witnesses.Whether they liked it or not.
BARK ISLAND, OFF NEW ENGLAND, 1963
The miserable conditions that were ruining Alvin Gumb’s day were part of an ocean fed swath of wet weather spawned on the Grand Banks. It beat a predictable path southward, picking up icy moisture from the North Atlantic, which fell in sheets of freezing rain on Bark Island.
Gumb stared sourly at the deluge through his bedroom window, a prisoner of his own body. He cursed the weather, which enflamed his joints, and then pointed his skinny nose at the ceiling. What in hell was that stench? A few minutes later, he twitched at the sound of the door opening. A tray was placed gently on his lap. “What is this,” he whined, as if a clump of shit had been deposited on his trousers.
Helena Storozhenko forced a smile. “You will like.”
“I don’t eat communist food,” Gumb barked. “Get this out of my sight. It stinks. Bring me something American.”
Frowning, Helena removed the plate from Gumb’s lap and carried it back to the kitchen. Rummaging through the cupboard she grabbed something that had potatoes and meat on its label. She opened the can, gripped a large spoon, and plopped the fatty mess into a hot frying pan.
Ten minutes later, Gumb shovelled themeal into hismouth and whenHelena couldn’t watch any longer she slipped quietly from the room. Once downstairs, she tossed the kasha varnishkes into a bucket.The rich sauce and onions already sour.
Alvin Gumb was a cantankerous ass. Stuck in that room with his joints twisted up like the knotty birch trees that Helena climbed as a child. Those years were a blur, but the important memories were still strong.Helena thought about her father. In his hospital bed with a great book on his lap. “The jaws of power are always opened to devour,” her father had recited weakly. “To destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.” The words, by a man named John Adams, had meant much to him. A week later her father took his last breath. He was finally free. She would be too. There was no one left but her uncle and she was certain that what she needed from him was impossible.
“I knew you would come,” Petro had said. “Your father, too. It’s already arranged.”
Helena had hugged him, crying.
Captain Storozhenko smuggled her aboard his ship a week later. “You’ll get used to the smell,” he said. “Besides, a stowaway doesn’t get to complain about the accommodations.”
The Yeny-Dunya was laden to her waterline with sugar beets and potatoes and when she sailed into the Black Sea, Helena thought the rusty old ship smelled glorious. Her small suitcase had everything she owned, including her father’s great book which she read by flashlight in a utility room where the KGB political officer would never discover her.
The jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out…
Helena Storozhenko considered those words carefully as the ship carried her towards the new world.
3
PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA. THE PRESENT.
There it was again. That sound. Kind of a knocking on the upstroke that Malloy heard whenever he eased the throttle below a thousand rpm, which he was doing now to reduce his speed before he cleaved into Joe Pickman’s thirty-six-foot Carver. Pickman was on deck, watching Malloy like a hawk as he wheeled hard to port.
“Mornin’, Joe.” Malloy said, with barely a wave.
“How’s the fishin’?” Pickman said, frowning. “Not so good by the looks of it.”
“Had something big on,” Malloy lied. “Then the line busts. Go figure.”
Pickman studied him doubtfully. “Need better line,” he said. “Or a better feel for the fish.”
“Next time,”Malloy replied, easingGee-man neatly into her slip.
Malloy jumped to the dock and tied her up. He stood there, wiping his brow.The deck needed teak oil and the fiberglass needed a good coat of marine wax, but he was in no hurry to do either. Malloy looked at his watch. It was still too early for a beer. He looked over and saw Pickman hunched over his radio, shoulders pumping.
“What’s so funny?”Malloy called over.
Pickman twisted around. “Babowski’s lost his lower unit on a
shoal over by Peterson’s point. It’s an insurance claim and he wants to know if he can leave the scene of the accident.”
Malloy shook his head.
“I’m gonna get on the radio…tell him to get out and walk.” Pickman brought the mic to his mouth.
Chuckling, Malloy turned away and stomped up the dock, past a
forest of aluminum masts swaying gently atop gleaming sailboats. Squadron flags snapped in the wind. Rigging pinged off metal, reminding Malloy of countless hours on the shooting range. He flexed his old gun hand, pulled himself up a steep gangway, and sprinted through a security gate towards the marina office.
Buck Kelly was on the radio when Malloy walked in.
“Say again, over.” Kelly swivelled his chair to face Malloy. He thrust a stubby finger in the direction of a bottle of rum half buried in soiled bills and work orders on a grey metal desk.
Malloy scanned the desk for a clean glass, but saw none. He shook his head and sat.
“Babowski needs a tow,”Kelly said, rolling his eyes. “He’s taking on water.”
“I heard,” Malloy groaned.
A minute later Kelly keyed the radio to dispatch a towboat. He grabbed the bottle. “I didn’t know lawyers were so goddamn stupid,” he said, pouring. “Justice really is blind.” Kelly leaned back, smiling, and with a boom dropped both legs to the top of his desk. “Catch anything?”
“Not a nibble,”Malloy said. “Guess I’m using the wrong bait.”
“Whaddya using?”
“Cigar Minnows.”
“Try Greenbacks—but make sure your live well is in good shape first.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
Malloy looked around the small office. Old charts hung yellowed and torn. In one corner was a small desk with a coffee maker and a large bottle of chunky sugar. The coffee was like crude oil inside a grimy glass carafe. A calendar was tacked on the wall above Kelly’s desk. Miss May was wearing nothing but wading rubbers and a white toothy smile. It was July.
Kelly swallowed a mouthful of liquor, rubbed his bald head and turned to see what Malloy was looking at. “What can I say? She reminds me of my first wife.”
“First?”
“There were three. Lost my hair and got fat. Number three gets half my pension.” Kelly swallowed again. Then, work boots thumped loudly to the floor. “What can I do for ya?”
Malloy thought a second about Beth. She’d loved the boat and was perfectly content spending nearly all of their time on the water. He was a lucky man for that. “Got a knock in the engine I need you to look at,” he said.
“What kinda knock?”
“Something low on the RPMs. Might be water in the fuel or something, I dunno. Better to find the problem at the dock than ten miles out with the weather coming at me.”
“Smart man,” Kelly said. “Give me an hour. I’ll wander down and take a look.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there.” Malloy got up and started to leave.
“Almost forgot,” Kelly said, lifting an envelope from his desk.
“This came this morning while you were out chasing grouper.”
“Chasing whatever.” Malloy took the envelope and stuffed it into his back pocket. He asked Kelly to bring a couple quarts of oil, thanked him again, and walked out.
Ten minutes later he was working a coat of sealer into his teak— he’d worry about the fiberglass later. It took him another half hour to clean the galley and to tidy up the v-berth. He opened a topside hatch to allow fresh air in and paused amoment to admire her.
Buck Kelly ambled down shortly after noon pushing a cart that contained his tools, motor oil, and spare engine parts. He whistled at Gee-man’s shiny deck. “Nice job, skipper.”
“Thanks,” Malloy replied, and then cleared a spot for Kelly to access the engine compartment.
“Low on the RPMs, right?”
“Yeah, real low.”
Fifteen minutes later Kelly had the culprit in his hands.“When’s the last time you cleaned these spark plugs?”
Malloy looked at him, strangely. “You gotta clean ’em?”
Kelley shook his head. “Two broke when I pulled them. That means at least two of your cylinders weren’t firing. Ten miles out you lose your engine, you’d be in big trouble. Praying for a tow.”
“Pickman would love that.”
“You got that right,” Kelly said. “Pass me a half dozen plugs outta the cart.”
Malloy grabbed the new plugs and stepped onto the swim platform to watch Kelly work. Half an hour later he dropped the engine hatch with a boom, then collected his tools and stepped onto the dock. “They didn’t teach you engine maintenance in the FBI?”
“Maintenance for our weapons, Buck, not a merCruiser six pack.”
“A lot good a Glock’s gonna do when you’re dead in the water with a storm coming your way. Start it up.”
Malloy jumped to the helm and turned the key. In an instant the engine was purring. Malloy gave Kelly the thumbs up.
Kelly dumped his tools in the cart and started up the dock. “I’ll put it on your tab.”
“Thanks,”Malloy called after his friend.
Two hours later, when the beer had reached exactly the right temperature and the sun was conveniently positioned over the tonneau cover, Malloy leaned back and flicked on the radio. Another boat was aground. He twisted the cap off his beer and took a long pull. Life wasn’t bad, except when you banged up your prop. It was the kind of mistake he would have made not too long ago. What was a guy from Montana doing with a thirty-footer out of Panama City, chasing grouper with Cigar Minnows when Greenbacks were the only bait they’d swallow? Always been better with a Glock than a sixcylinder Merc. Malloy took a gulp of beer and belched. Nope. Life wasn’t bad at all.
The fingers on his left hand began to drum an irregular beat. Damm habit wouldn’t let go even though he hadn’t had a cigarette in a year and a half. It was the promise he’d made Beth while she lay dying, her insides eaten up by cancer. Malloy missed her badly, and for a moment, he considered pulling out the picture he kept in his wallet. Instead, he reached for the squelch knob on his radio and fidgeted a moment with it.They’d been married forty years when Beth keeled over in pain that first time and then the diagnosis that hit him like a ton of bricks—like he’d been the one told he had only three months to live. She took her last painful breath nine weeks later while Malloy sobbed at her bedside. He was long retired with a good pension that paid for the upkeep on his boat, where he was mostly content. Special agent Ed Malloy was a man who didn’t need all that much.
The beer tasted good, so he reached for another, opened it, and then picked up a pair of binoculars. He spied a catamaran coming in past the sea wall and thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t been bitten by the sailing bug. Too many important things to remember, like wearing a life vest all the time because a swinging boom could smack you hard on the head, drive you overboard and unconscious to the bottom. No booms to worry about on his cruiser, just the wheel, and a good merCruiser engine.
The radio crackled relentlessly. Malloy watched a pair of pelicans as they flapped their wings for a gentle landing at the end of the dock. Huge webbed feet dripping water onto sun-drenched wood. Stupid looking birds that were a lot better catching fish than he was. Malloy sniffed the salt air and made a mental note to pick up some Greenbacks before he headed out again in the morning.
It was Sunday afternoon and that meant most of the weekenders had already packed up and gone home. Malloy took another swallow of cold beer and thanked God he wasn’t one of them anymore. He’d done his duty and his time, and as Ed Malloy pressed the bottle to his lips, he realized for the thousandth time that he didn’t miss it. The guys, yes. The Bureau bullshit, no.
The smell of barbecue wafted toward him. Malloy was thinking about dinner, fried potatoes and an inch-thick steak that was already marinating down below. His slip came with cable TV, so he planned to stretch back and watch a flick before turning in for the night. He was looking forward to one of the old ones on the Classics Channel, maybe a John Wayne western or something with Jimmy Cagney. Those guys were the real deal, easy to tell where they stood. Black and white, like their movies.
Malloy leaned forward to turn off the radio when he felt a tug at his back pocket. He’d completely forgotten about the letter Kelly had given him. Malloy
reached back and grabbed it. He read the envelope and saw the letter had been addressed to Special Agent Ed Malloy, One Justice Way, Dallas, Texas. Jesus, someone was seriously out of touch. That address was scratched out. The marina’s address penned in.
Malloy ran his fingers carefully along the edges of the envelope. Some things you never forgot. No wires. He held it up to the sunlight and gave it a closer inspection. The front of the envelope was a mess of postage stamps, which Malloy didn’t recognize. He flipped it over. No return address. Malloy’s forehead wrinkled. He dropped the envelope then and there and went down below to retrieve a pair of latex gloves, which he kept for applying oil to his deck. On his way through the galley he also grabbed a steak knife. Once topside, he snapped on the gloves. Slowly, he slid the knife across the top of the envelope. Gingerly, he reached in and extracted a single piece of paper.
Malloy unfolded it. Stunned by what he read.
TALIBAN OUTPOST, HELMAND PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
Parched lips. His tongue like a sanding block. Poole was imagining iced vodka as he hoisted another bale from the back of the truck to his earthen bunker. Thirsty work, he thought,with a wipe of his brow.
Mahmud’s two men stared, cradling weathered AKs. Neither had offered to lend a hand. Poole hadn’t expected it.
Under the light of oil lamps, he began to count.The pile was getting higher and wider. The truck was nearly empty. Soon the two louts would be gone, back to their cave or whatever they crawled out of.
Kirill stopped next to him, brushing opium dust from the front of his shirt. He thrust his chin at the two Taliban insurgents. “Ugliest fucking human beings I’ve ever seen. Can you imagine their mothers’ disappointment?”
Poole smiled. White teeth against his darkly tanned face. “You better pray they don’t understand Russian. You’ll be into it, before you know, and begging me to your rescue.”
Kirill huffed. “Put an AK-47 in their hairy hands and they pose like warriors.They’re just a couple of goat herders, my friend. Light work.”