Dead Edge

by Jack Ford

  Cooper smiled, happy to see Levi. ‘Hell, when isn’t that man complaining about something?’

  ‘Yeah, but that something always seems to be you. Don’t know how you do it, Coop.’

  Not wanting to think about Granger anymore, Cooper changed the subject. ‘How’s Mrs Walker, by the way?’

  Levi kissed his teeth. ‘Dorothy. She’ll be the death of me. Can’t a man have a drink without being cussed and moaned at? She makes Granger seem carefree. I don’t know what you’re smiling at ’cos she’s not best pleased with you. You promised to take her to church, remember? Man, you should’ve heard her when you didn’t show up, she bitched all day. Couldn’t even slip out to go fishing, made me clean out the yard. You owe me.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘Shoot, Levi, tell her I’m sorry.’

  ‘Tell her yourself. Take the heat off me a bit. But perhaps you should wait a few days; she won’t be happy to see you looking like that. You know you look like shit, right?’

  Cooper stepped out of his truck. His six-foot-three frame towering over Levi. Touched his pocket to make sure his blister of pills was there. Put a cigarette in his mouth and gave a rueful smile. ‘Would it surprise you to know, you’re not the first one who’s said that… Come on, let’s go and see what Granger’s got in store for us.’

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  USA

  17

  g3Ndf6

  Teddy Adleman walked into the Oval Office with a cup of green tea which Joan, Wood’s secretary, had enthusiastically made him. It smelt bad and it tasted worse. ‘Mr President. You okay? You look a bit peaky,’ Teddy said.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘The Appalachian cheese still bothering you?’

  ‘Yep. Everything going through me like a Goddamn sieve. You?’

  Teddy winked and patted down his growing afro. ‘Yep. There’s fire below deck. Joan got me drinking this green tea. Don’t think it’ll do a damn lot of good though.’

  Woods’ secretary knocked before putting her head round the door. ‘Mr President? Naomi Tyler is here.’

  Woods sat on the cream, flower-patterned sofa. A new and welcome addition to the office. The last couch had felt like somebody had just taken it out of a dumpster, with its springs driving into you like you were lying on a corkscrew.

  Craning his neck to look behind him at Joan, Woods said, ‘Show her in… and Joan, you think you could make me one of those green teas? Oh, and I like your hair by the way. Short cut suits you.’

  ‘Mr President, I’ve had it like this for the past six months, but I appreciate the compliment.’

  *

  Naomi Tyler, an honors graduate and a former communications director of the Vice President, and one of the newest of John Woods’ senior advisors, clutched her phone. ‘Good morning, Mr President. Good morning, Teddy. Just to run down your out of towners for this afternoon. Shall I start?’

  Flicking a large crumb of toast on the floor, which had inexplicably got caught on the ankle of his sock, Woods nodded. ‘Sure. But if I’m not happy with it, Naomi, I’ll be canceling and heading up towards Martha’s Vineyard. I could do with some downtime.’

  ‘Mr President, I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to cancel anything at this short notice. I’d go as far to say it’d be impossible. Unless of course you’re taken ill, then…’

  ‘Naomi. Naomi. I’m joking.’

  Naomi Tyler, in a tone which could have been mistaken for the sound of a heartbeat monitor flatlining, replied, ‘Oh yes. I see. Very funny, Mr President. Very funny.’

  Woods raised his eyebrows, thinking the following:

  Naomi was brilliant.

  Sharp.

  Intelligent.

  Astute as hell.

  Could organize better than any military personnel he’d ever met.

  But as for a sense of humor? It was positively lacking. Nothing. Not one bone of funny.

  Teddy’s lips twitched at each side. ‘Don’t humor him, Naomi, we both know his jokes aren’t funny. But he likes to think it’s everybody else who can’t see the funny. Isn’t that right, Mr President?’

  ‘I know I’m funny,’ Woods said.

  ‘Not according to the Washington Post you’re not. What did they say about your jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner? Oh yeah, and I quote, Perhaps the President should leave the jokes to his professional speech writers, but if his politics ever become as bad as his sense of humor, America’s in trouble when it comes to next year’s NATO summit.’

  ‘Hey listen, Teddy, if people don’t get my jokes, I’d say that’s their problem, not mine. Anyway, sorry, Naomi, please carry on.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got the ceremony for the families of the servicemen and women in Delaware at fourteen hundred, and then there’s only a really tight window before you need to be in Baltimore for the start of the Wounded Warrior Ride to help raise awareness of our nation’s heroes.’

  ‘I need to see my speech for that, there’s a couple of things I want to change. Go on.’

  ‘Ok, then your sixteen hundred bilateral meeting with the VP and Prime Minister of Albania is cancelled because of the current code red situation. The VP will be doing that alone and he’ll bring you up to speed during your twenty-one hundred call with him. Instead of the meeting you’ll convene with the National Security Council at CIA Headquarters, Langley, no later than sixteen thirty. And of course it’s closed press then at eighteen hundred – I know it’s later than usual, and apologies for that – you’ll give the usual statement to the pooled press. Then at…’

  Woods put up his hand. Cut in. ‘Naomi. Don’t do this to me. I quit.’

  Touching her immaculate, slightly too-tight weave, Naomi frowned and, looking flustered, glanced down at her cell, then at Woods, then back down at her cell, then thought about glancing at Teddy but in the end said, ‘That’s a joke isn’t it, Mr President? That’s one of your funny jokes.’

  ‘Well, it was until you killed it.’

  Teddy Adleman grinned. ‘Naomi, can you excuse us? I need to run something by the President.’

  Naomi glanced at her watch. ‘But…’

  ‘Breathe, Naomi. I promise I won’t make him late. Give me five minutes and whilst you’re at it have some of Joan’s green tea.’

  Naomi said, ‘That’s funny.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘It’s not a joke, is it?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  *

  Woods stretched his arms above his head. Got a nasty twinge in his back as he did so. Gave a yelp of pain and decided he was getting old. ‘What’s up, Teddy?’

  ‘Something interesting. I wanted to run it past you.’

  Getting himself in a better position, Woods kneaded his back. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I had a call from an old colleague last night who works in the police department in Chatham. He’s been a cop longer than most people have stayed married. An all-round good type. Anyway, a couple of days after the coffee shop bomber – ’

  ‘You have to call him that?’

  ‘Nope. Not if it offends.’

  ‘I’d rather we stick to calling him by his name. Plain old David Thorpe. It just feels like the press are making it into a media circus by giving him a nickname – a kind of celebrity status. Takes away from the heinousness of the act, and helps to fuel the massive advertising campaigns terror groups like Daesh have. He’ll be on the cover of their magazine, Dabiq, before you know it, hailed as a Goddamn hero… I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.’

  ‘No, I’m with you there, John.’

  ‘Tell me something, Teddy. When did terror groups start to have such a slick propaganda machine? Have you seen that magazine? It’s like a glossy periodical, makes People Magazine look outdated.’

  ‘It’s just another piece of the jigsaw in their mass-radicalization drive. Make it look like anyone who joins will be part of some blockbuster Hollywood movie.’

  Woods picked up his green tea. Smelled it. Put it right bac
k down on the walnut table.

  ‘You know they named the magazine after a small town in Syria, because according to Islamic prophecies that’s where they’ll have their last battle, before the end of the world occurs.’

  ‘Got to give it to them, they know a great marketing angle when they see it. Makes it all sound appealing… Sorry, John, I’ve just become aware of the time – and aware Naomi’s probably on the other side of that door having some kind of panic attack, so let me get to the point. My guy got a call from this kid – well, when I say kid, the man’s in his twenties. Apparently he tried to tell the FBI that he had some information which might be of interest to them, but nobody would listen. He’s a bit of a loner, got some kind of learning difficulties, and has a history of calling up the police department telling them things like he’s seen a UFO, he knows who really killed JFK, the world is about to be taken over by an invading alien life force.’

  ‘Sounds like a movie tagline.’

  ‘Well, exactly, the kid’s clearly a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He’s been marked down as a timewaster by the Feds, and newspapers got wise to him a long time ago – one media outlet had to get a civil restraining order against him because he was making up to two hundred calls a day. He’s spent time in the slammer for breaking other orders against him. Spends most of his time hauled up in his apartment surrounded by all this equipment which tracks and monitors hurricanes, earthquakes and stuff, no doubt trying to track down aliens as well. Like this is his hobby. But here’s the thing, his place is located only a few blocks away from where David Thorpe’s truck exploded. Anyway, he’s got this junk set out all the time. Apparently you can’t move for it.’

  ‘I take it from the word junk, you mean equipment.’

  ‘Exactly… So one of the things he had was a seismograph. Go figure. But basically, I guess you know, a seismograph records earth tremors and the propagation of electric waves and the like. Says he never turned this thing off, and this is where it gets interesting: kid swears blind there were two unusual recorded tremors that evening.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, his seismograph picked up the tremor of the bomb, but a split second later, it also picked up another tremor. He’s convinced there were two blasts.’

  Woods shrugged, slightly distracted by Teddy’s moustache, a new but not necessarily flattering addition to his face. ‘Yeah, one would be the bomb, the other tremor would be when part of the building came down.’

  ‘That’s exactly what the FBI said to him, brushed him away like he was some kind of bug, they’re not interested. But he kept calling the station where my friend’s based, almost got himself arrested again. That’s when my guy went to see him just to check he’s okay. Like I say, the kid’s got issues.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The kid’s adamant there were two bomb blasts and the actual building coming down is recorded on a different seismic wave. This buddy of mine, the one who’s been a cop forever, who’s had to listen throughout his working life to that gut that cops have, he feels the kid’s genuine.’

  ‘Not that I’m taking this seriously, but it’s easy enough to prove. Get an expert to study the readouts.’

  ‘Well it would be easy, if he had them.’

  ‘I’m not following.’

  ‘The night before my buddy decided to go and see what this kid was all about, turns out his apartment was broken into. And you can guess the rest. The seismograph along with all the recordings were taken.’

  ‘What? Oh come on, Teddy, like you say this kid clearly has issues. He’s a fantasist. I can’t believe – in the nicest possible way – you’re taking up my time telling me this. I mean, who in Chatham is going to break into his place for seismograph readings? You said yourself he’s got a history of calling up the police department with all kind of crazy stuff. It’s sad. He probably didn’t even have a seismograph. Did he report the break in?’

  ‘No, didn’t bother.’

  ‘There you go. It’s obvious. He didn’t have anything to report, but had to make something up when your friend went to see him, because how else was he going to explain why he didn’t have a seismograph in his apartment? He probably never thought anybody would ever visit and when they did, he had to lie to cover up the fact he didn’t have one. I get that.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Maybe he didn’t report it because he really did figure no-one would believe him.’

  ‘Is he saying anything else was taken?’

  ‘No. Place wasn’t even trashed and the lock wasn’t even busted.’

  Woods raised his eyebrows. ‘So how did they get in?’

  ‘Well, and hear me on this, if anyone really did get in, it must have been an expert job, not some bum breaking in and looking for a few bucks. It was a straight in and out job.’

  Woods rubbed his face and absentmindedly reached for the cold cup of green tea, and immediately regretted it and pulled a face and put it down and said, ‘This all sounds like a load of baloney. I wouldn’t give it a second thought… but I’m picking up you’re giving it some credence.’

  ‘I trust my buddy and he seems to trust the kid, even with his history.’

  ‘You’re not making this easy for me, because if what he’s saying is true then…’

  ‘Then we’ve got a problem.’

  ‘And you really believe it?’

  ‘Part of me says, this kid is just looking for some kind of attention and the whole thing is bull. That’s the rational, reasoning side of me but the other part of me – and it’s speaking loudly – says to go along with my buddy’s instinct; this kid is for real.’

  ‘Did your friend tell anyone else about this?’

  Teddy shook his head and stood up and spoke all at the same time. ‘No, and he told the kid not to say anything either until he got back to him.’

  ‘So, if we go for a minute with the idea he’s telling the truth – and that’s a big if – the next question is, do we know who else apart from the FBI this kid called about the recordings on his seismograph?’

  ‘That’s the problem. There were a lot of people, I think. He was obviously pretty determined to get somebody to listen. But the main people were the FBI, Chatham police department and, oh yeah, get this: the CIA. Counter terrorism. Chuck’s department. But not only his department, Chuck himself.’

  SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

  USA

  18

  c5 Bd7

  ‘Who drank all the Mountain Dew? You never heard of restocking? What is it with this place?’

  Levi sat in the kitchen of Onyx. Feet up and grinning. ‘Don’t look at me, Coop. Never liked the stuff myself. Too gassy.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘Straight up?’

  ‘Straight up, Coop.’

  Cooper grinned. ‘Let me tell you some…’

  ‘Well if it isn’t Thomas J Cooper, returning from the dead – though to look at you the jury’s still out on that one.’ With Levi’s conversation cut short, Cooper turned towards the sound of the thunderous voice. Not that he had to look. This was Austin Rosedale Young. ‘I heard you were back. But I say, for how long? How long till you run off this time, boy? Come on, Thomas, why don’t you save us all the trouble and turn your sorry ass round and go back to wherever and whatever you’ve been doing? What do ya say, sugar?’

  His strong Texan accent filled the small room but Cooper said nothing. Just stared. Stared at the figure dressed head to toe in denim, refusing to let Rosedale get to him like he’d let him get to him before.

  ‘You lost your tongue, boy? Come on, Thomas, I’ll pack your bags for you now.’

  Since his military days, Rosedale had always been Cooper’s nemesis, though in fairness to Rosedale when they’d been in the chaos of the DRC last year, in the depths of the rain-soaked forests amongst pain, murder and witchcraft, Rosedale had come through for him. Stopped him falling off that edge he was so often on. They’d found an understanding. A friendship? P
erhaps… Maybe then. But now? Never.

  He’d seen Rosedale a few times since the DRC investigation. They’d been fishing. The three of them. Levi, Rosedale and Cooper, putting the world to rights amongst the lakes of Michigan. But he’d been struggling to hold it together. And Rosedale had struggled not to be his obnoxious self. But that had been then. And now? Welcome home.

  Standing his six-foot-five frame, with an additional two inches of cowboy boot, in the kitchen doorway and chewing on the oversized, unlit cigar in his mouth, with a delighted look in his eyes and a wind-tanned face and his previously dyed black hair now brown, Rosedale winked.

  ‘Get off my back. And if it’s alright with you, I’d like to pass…’ Cooper said.

  ‘Pass on what, sugar?’

  Cooper blew out his cheeks. Felt the packet of pills in his pocket. Felt his temper rise. Felt his fists tighten. Untighten. ‘Just get out of my way. What’s your problem?’

  Austin Rosedale Young, a one-time American sniper, a one-time fellow SEAL, a one-time CIA clandestine agent and now a fellow employee of Onyx, leant towards Cooper. ‘My problem, Thomas, is that despite your promises to stop doing crazy, you’re still doing the pills – and don’t try to deny it, you’re a campaign boy for opioids. A pharmaceutical company’s dream and, as such, you’re a liability to us and this job.’

  ‘I told you before. I’m clean.’

  ‘I know you did, and I told you before… bullshit. But I tell you what, why don’t we put this baby to rest once and for all? You turn out those pants pockets of yours and prove me wrong, ’cos we all know you’d like to do that… Well?’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘What’s the problem, Thomas? You got something to hide?’

  ‘When I have to answer to you, let me know.’

  ‘Maybe not me, but what about to your daughter? Don’t you think you should be answering to Cora? Telling her why Daddy is never around?’

  Cooper stood back. Two steps. Made it three. Tilted his head. Straightened it up. Shook it a little. Shook it again. ‘What the hell has my daughter got to do with you?’