by Chuck Logan
George Khari immediately sobered.
The shooters moved off with Nina, Jane, Broker, and the two guys from the van. They all joined the white-haired guy and the guy with the Geiger counter. They stood in a little semicircle. Flak Jacket was doing all the talking, in a controlled shout. He waved his hands in tight circles. The guy was pissed. Ace heard the word circus several times.
Jim Yeager stood back from the harangue and then moved smoothly into the power vacuum. Hands on his hips, faintly smiling, he said, “Okay, Ace. Why don’tcha explain what’s going on here. Like, who’s this guy?” Yeager pointed at George, who was now furious, trying to dust the gravel stains off his shirt and shorts.
“Assholes!” George yelled. “They put oil on the gravel, or something. Look-brand new, from Cabela’s, fucking ruined.” He shook his fist at the coven of military types and shouted. “You pussies. You got nothing better to do? Is this because I come from Lebanon? I pay taxes, you know, goddammit, and so does my uncle. He was in Korea. First fucking Marines. He walked from Chosen to the coast with shrapnel in his knee, and you fucking Girl Scouts have fought-who, the fucking Panamanians? The Grenadians? The dip-shit Iraqis? Some losers in Afghanistan?”
“George, calm down,” Ace said. He turned to Yeager. “He’s George Khari, an old friend of the family. He’s a liquor distributer from Grand Forks. We kind of run into each other on the road.”
“Uh-huh,” Yeager said. “And what about that?” He pointed to the foot locker.
Ace smiled, enjoying himself. “Well, we were trying to figure out what to do about that. I found it just sitting there on the gravel north of town.” Ace paused, relishing the moment. “Fact is…I didn’t open it, Jimmy. You did.”
“Who are those fuckers?” George demanded, pointing at Holly and company. “I want all their names and their jobs. I want to talk to my lawyer!”
Yeager said, “C’mon, figure it out. They’re people from the air base across the road. You’re on government property here. They probably scrambled to see why you’re creeping around the site. Like back during the missile time.”
“Yeah, right. Protecting the gophers who live here, huh?” Ace grinned. “You know what I think? I think you should get your ass out there and write a ticket to that fuckin’ helicopter. Looks to me like it’s blocking traffic.”
“Watch your mouth, Ace,” Yeager warned.
Broker gathered that the troubleshooter who’d flown in from the Office of Homeland Security was willing to break the rules for a nuclear event. But not for a box of smuggled cigars. They had nothing on George Khari-who was a Christian, for heaven’s sake, the guy said with a whiff of born-again indignance-not some Muslim fundamentalist crazy. And nothing really on Ace Shuster for possession of the cigars that a good lawyer couldn’t get thrown out of court. Jane and Nina were right. The guy was after Holly’s scalp. He used the words irresponsible, renegade, and rogue.
“You got till tomorrow morning to clean up this mess. Then I want everybody en route to Bragg by noon. Figure out a way to make it so that this didn’t happen. End of story.” The Washington bureaucrat took off his flak jacket, dropped it at Holly’s feet, and stalked back to the helicopter.
“Dry fucking hole,” Holly said, kicking at the dirt. “Rashid fed us a line of crap.” He circled his fist and pumped it. The guy with the Geiger counter and the four shooters trotted back to the helicopter. It lifted off and droned away to the south. The black guy and his partner got back in their van and drove off to the east. Holly gestured to Yeager to come over and talk. That left Broker, Jane, and a very pissed off Nina standing on the side of the road, illuminated by the lights from the Tahoe, looking at Ace and George.
“So this is your real life, huh? Some kinda soldier?” Ace called out to Nina.
“Ace, you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut your hole,” Yeager yelled. Then he went back to conferring with Holly. After a few moments, Holly motioned to Nina, Jane, and Broker. When they were huddled around him, he shook his head. “You heard the asshole from D.C. We’re outta here.”
“You mean just let them go?” Jane pushed out her chin and planted her hands on her hips.
“No choice. What’d they do?” Holly said.
“I can take Ace in for possession of contraband,” said Yeager, “but he has a point. It was a classified Army unit opened that box. If we charge him, that could bring this whole operation into court. A good attorney would try to subpoena you guys, take depositions, make you testify in court…”
“You heard the man,” Holly said and jerked his head in the direction of the fading helicopter rotors. Then he turned to Yeager. “Can you make it go away?”
Yeager heaved his shoulders. “I’ll try.” He walked over to Ace and George. Broker, Nina, Jane, and Holly followed.
“Okay, Ace, we’re going to offer you and George a deal, and if you’re smart, you’ll take it.” Yeager took out his cell. “I can call the SO, get a man out here in a cruiser and arrest you two on suspicion of smuggling…”
“Am I under arrest?” George asked, jaw thrust forward, truculent.
“Not at the moment, but I never want to see you in my county again,” Yeager said. “You understand, you little asshole?”
“Fuck this. I’m calling my lawyer,” George hissed.
“Wait a sec, George, let’s hear him out,” Ace said.
“Or,” Yeager said, “we do this little trade. Real simple. You forget what you saw here. We forget what we saw.”
“Who gets the cigars?” George stepped forward and narrowed his eyes.
“What cigars?” Yeager turned and faced the highway.
Broker smiled and said, “Maybe you could spare a few, for sweetener.”
George’s scowl evaporated the more he thought about it. “Sounds good,” he said quickly. He immediately started loading the cigar boxes into the foot locker. Ace helped him load it in the back of the Lexus. Then George shut the hatch and handed two boxes to Broker. “Best fuckin’ cigars in the world.” He turned to Ace, shook his hand, and said, “Say hello to your dad when you see him.” Then George Khari got in his Lexus and drove east, toward the interstate.
As the taillights receded down the highway, Ace turned to the people standing in his high beams and said, “So what’s out here that calls for military helicopters and guys in ninja suits? Do I get an explanation?”
Nina and Jane exchanged glances. “Sorry, Ace,” Nina said.
Ace set his jaw. “I deserve an explanation.”
“Just take off, and keep your mouth shut,” Yeager said. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I mean it.”
Ace decided not to push it. He ambled back to his Tahoe, got in, and drove west toward town. Soon he was laughing, shaking his head, and pounding the steering wheel. What a night. Sonofabitch! I almost got me some Green Beret pussy!
Holly walked off alone and stood staring down the highway at something in the dark. Probably his imminent retirement. Broker figured it was not the best time to talk, so he joined Nina, who sat on the ground where Ace’s Tahoe had been parked, arms drooped between her knees. She shook her head. “That Rashid guy back in Detroit just shined us down the road. And we went for it.”
“We had no choice. Had to check it out. Had to be something going on up here for him to come up with a name, a place,” Jane said, sitting beside her.
“If there was, we missed it,” Nina said.
“Hey, cut yourself some slack,” Broker said “You ran a fast, tight operation. Just didn’t pan out. Human systems are like that. Flawed…Pretty goddamn funny, though, you got to admit. Delta commandos popping out of ditches. Locking and loading on Communist cigars.” He was chuckling as he opened one of the wooden boxes and extended it to Yeager. They selected cigars, nibbled off the plugs, and sat down alongside the women.
A lighter flared as they lit the Cubans. The smoke rose in aromatic billows and sent the mosquitoes pinwheeling off in drunken circles.
Broker continued to l
augh softly.
“I don’t see what’s so damn funny,” Nina said.
“I’ll tell you what’s funny,” Yeager said, moving in deftly. “They built this bunker in a peat field, and one night an Air Force guy was having a smoke and he flips his cigarette butt into the ditch and…”
Ace pulled up to the Missile Park, turned off the engine, and got out. No sign of Gordy.
Okay. Just me and about five cases of booze left in this empty building tonight.
After what just happened, I can handle that.
As he started up the steps he sensed them before he saw them, two figures standing in the dark, back against the building, on either side of the porch.
“Hey,” he called out, putting a hard challenge in his voice.
“Take it easy,” Dale said, coming forward. “Just me and Joe.”
“What are you two doing, lurking?” Ace asked.
“Just talking,” Joe said. “Say…you ever meet up with George?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And?”
“Worked out just fine. Tell you about it sometime,” Ace said, pushing past them, getting out his keys. “But not tonight. I ain’t in the mood.”
“What about that redhead, Nina?” Dale asked.
Ace was feeling around in the dark, fitting the key in the lock. He laughed and said over his shoulder, “She’s gone, brother. So gone you could say she was never really here.”
Broker watched Northern Route come apart on a deserted North Dakota highway just as fast as it had been put together. And the.45 he had on loan from his buddy J. T. Merryweather was missing. He’d talk to Yeager about it. But not now. In the morning.
The Cohibas were the only good thing about the whole night.
Well, not entirely. Here he was again, reunited with one really worn out, pissed off redhead. Nina’s adrenaline crash left her numb, and he was careful not to indulge in any more sarcasm. When she hung her head, he put out his arm and she nestled into that cranny in his shoulder where she’d always seemed to fit so well. Amid the wreckage, a rapprochement of sorts was taking shape.
Holly told Nina and Jane to take a down day and rest. The backup team was flying east tonight with the suit from Homeland Security. The helicopter was slated to fly back to North Carolina tomorrow.
Broker drove Janey and Holly to the Air Force radar base across the highway and dropped them at the gate. Nina stayed in the car and they drove Yeager back to his house in town. Then they made a U-turn and drove to the motel.
“I should call Kit,” Nina said when they were in the room.
“It’s too late. Do it in the morning.”
The bed was suddenly irresistible and Nina lowered herself to it and rolled over and propped her head up with pillows.
“We should talk,” she said in a fading zombie voice.
“Yeah, we should,” Broker said. He was sitting at the small table in the corner, taking off his shoes. When he looked up, she was sound asleep.
As he gently removed her pistol belt, her shoes, and clothing, a lot of thoughts passed through his mind. They all came under a simple heading:
Married Life.
Chapter Thirty-one
Nina jerked awake as her cell phone buzzed on the table next to her head. Broker bolted upright on pure reflexes, eyes wide open but still asleep. “Wha?” he said.
“Go back to sleep,” she said, checking her phone display, “it’s Janey.”
“Hmph,” he muttered and flopped back down.
“Morning,” Nina said to the phone.
“How you doing?” Jane said.
“The sleep helps. Otherwise…it sucks.”
“I hear you. How you and Broker getting on?”
Nina studied him briefly. In less than five seconds he had started to snore. She leaned over and gave him an elbow in the shoulder blade. He grumbled, rearranged himself, and proceeded to breathe normally. Then she turned back to the phone and checked the time on the display: 7:39. Jesus. She’d slept for nearly nine hours.
“Don’t know. I crashed the minute I saw the bed. Now I’m up and he’s out cold.”
“I was thinking we could get some breakfast.”
“I’m for that. But I think I’ll let him sleep. Where are you?”
“On the highway east of town, in our trusty Volvo.”
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll meet you in front.”
Nina put the phone down, got up, and headed for the bathroom. After taking her first carefree pee in a week, she got in the shower. The jets of hot water were a good start, but it would take days for the booze and amphetamines to work out of her system.
And for what?
Don’t think about it.
She shampooed her short hair, worked in conditioner, and decided not to shave her legs. Janey was waiting. She rinsed off, toweled, and thoroughly enjoyed brushing her teeth.
She dug through her go-bag, found a pair of loose-fitting shorts, a tank top, and Chacos. Out of habit her hand went to her pistol belt.
Nah. Clothes were all wrong. And anyway…
Then she took a moment to study Broker, who was strangled in a twisted sheet, spread out, hogging the bed, as usual. And she remembered how, asleep, all the care lifted off his face. Except for the bushy eyebrows, he looked like a young boy. She smiled. A rough young boy who’d read too much Robert Louis Stevenson…
We will have to talk, she reminded herself. She kissed the tip of her finger and touched him on the forehead. She wrote a note and left it on the table. “Went out for coffee with Janey. Be back soon.” Quietly, she started to slip out the door. Then, on impulse she returned, dug in her cosmetic bag, found the lipstick, and applied it. She went back to the note and blotted her lips, leaving a full, open-mouth impression of a kiss.
That’ll mess with his mind.
She grabbed her purse, eased out the door, gently closed it behind her, and walked down the stairs, through the lobby, and outside. Whoa. She squinted her eyes and took a step back.
After living for a week in half-shadow, the sun was doing double time and had turned the sky into one vast blue flame. She looked around. No Janey yet. So she ducked back in the lobby, flipped open her cell, and called Broker’s folks in Minnesota. His dad, Mike, picked up.
“Hi, Mike, it’s Nina.”
“Hey, kiddo, how you doing?”
Nina scrubbed her knuckles in her hair, blinked several times. “Looks like I’ll have some leave. I wanted to tell Kit I’ll be coming home.”
“Home?” Mike Broker said.
“Yeah. Is Kit there?”
“Irene took her down to the beach to pick cobbles. They’re set up to paint them. If you wait…”
“No, let ’em go. I’ll call back after breakfast.”
“Okay. Ah, Nina-what’s my kid up to?”
Nina thought about it and said, “Tell Kit her dad and I will be coming home together.”
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Mike said quietly, “We look forward to seeing you both.”
Nina ended the call and went back outside as Janey pulled the Volvo in front, looking like someone hiding a hangover behind Ray-Bans. Nina came around and got in. Janey wore an old baggy Take Back The Night T-shirt, gray shorts, and sandals.
“Where’d you get the shirt?” Nina said.
“I found it in the trunk, washed and folded in a Goodwill bag. So I figured, what the hell, goes with the car.”
Nina fished a pack of American Spirit filters from her purse. “I gotta start working on quitting,” she said, reaching for the lighter in the dashboard.
“Why? You thinking of taking up a different line of work?”
“I thought maybe counterterrorism analyst for Fox or CNN,” Nina said.
“Not housewife?” Janey looked pointedly at the motel.
“Hey, fuck you.” Nina gave her the finger.
“I wish. But then you’d never go back to him,” Janey said with a coy smile. “Okay,” she said, shifting back to work mo
de. “There’s the place by City Hall or the one back down the road.”
Nina blew a stream of smoke. The taste of nicotine reminded her of something. On impulse, she said, “I’m going back to the bar. Just for a second. I need to tell Ace something.”
“Not smart.”
“C’mon. Two minutes.”
“You sure?” Janey said.
Nina nodded her head. “Look, you don’t have to come. I’ll drop you off, you order breakfast. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Jane put the car in gear, steered onto the highway, and headed west. “No way. I go along to keep you out of trouble.”
Dale’s eyes were red from lack of sleep as he stood in the office of Shuster and Sons and kept looking out the window, across the street at the Missile Park. He could feel Joe’s equally tired eyes burning a hole in his back. They had passed a fitful night in the office, grabbing snatches of sleep punctuated by arguments. Joe had been on his cell regularly to George. George had started out pleased as could be over last night’s successful diversion. His self-congratulations fizzled, however, when Dale refused to budge from Langdon. Now George was stuck at the abandoned gas station at Camp’s Crossing. He’d waited there all night. And George didn’t like waiting. Dale didn’t care how pissed they were; he’d made up his mind: he wasn’t leaving without her.
He turned to glance at Joe, then returned to the window. Joe and his gun didn’t scare him that much anymore. Not after Gordy. He continued to stare across the road. Where was she?
“Hey,” Joe said, shoving the phone in Dale’s face for the third time in as many hours, “talk to George.”
Dale took the phone. As usual, George remained calm; even without his morning coffee. “She’s gone, Dale. I saw her last night. They all got in a helicopter and flew away.”
Dale didn’t believe that. He could just tell. He knew things. So he told George, “I’m going to give it another hour.”
“Okay. An hour.” Patient George, teacher, mentor, puppet master. He chided gently, “Did you make the follow-up call to Irv Fuller? It’s very important to make that call.”