Swap Out!

by M. L. Buchman

  The goons who’d taken Jeffrey. Then whoever had taken them down in the firefight outside the studio door. Not a hint of it made the news though she’d watched it from the end of the alley. The battle had been as ugly as it had been quiet. The remains had been cleaned up quickly by two black Ford Explorers’ worth of agents and a tow truck.

  Thankfully they hadn’t searched Jeffrey’s clothes, hadn’t stripped him until they reached their destination. She’d slipped the pin-sized beacon into his shirt fabric even as the crowd battered them apart for the last time. Everything had moved so fast, her people could barely follow the tracer as he was shuffled to Andrews Air Force Base and on to Chicago. She should have been better prepared, would have been if Phillip had told her anything. He always played his cards close at the worst moments. Actually, Phillip had always played them close.

  She wiped at her cheeks for the thousandth time in the five days since his death. And again her fingers came away wet.

  And now Special Operations Forces had joined the playing field. They’d probably been told they were on anti-terrorist patrol. The scariest, most effective warriors on the planet and they were hunting her. Even her old woods now seemed spooky and quiet.

  The moonlight lit the trail in dapples and shines. In her teens she’d sneak out of bed and follow it for hours, around and around the maples and oaks. She’d seen deer, coyote, fox, a couple of moose, and scared the daylights out of a small brown bear and herself. She’d levitated up a tree she’d never managed to climb before or since and the bear had pounded off into the darkness with characteristic smash and crash through the scattered undergrowth.

  Were the files also pieces in the game?

  It didn’t make sense. She wouldn’t throw the idea out, but could make no matching tab and notch of it either. No help at all in resolving the puzzle picture.

  Other players?

  Someone who could call on the resources to setup the operation in Chicago. Someone who could kill three chefs and make them look like accidents. Both of these acts had the stink of Special Operations Forces again, but why?

  Why kill off the other two chefs?

  It was a distraction. To make it look as if there was a pattern to the killings. They’d have succeeded too if she and Phillip hadn’t gotten in the way. Even then, if she hadn’t recognized the smoothness and strength of the men who grabbed Jeffrey, she might have thought the same as the police. Serial killer.

  But the killings had been too professional, too perfect. And more. All the evidence, right down to the bodies of Julio and the lady were gone. Cleaned up perfectly.

  Not a single hitch right up to the moment she’d smelled and recognized the bitter almond of potassium cyanide in a clean water glass.

  There was something else.

  She stopped and listened to the night. Even standing still, the pine needles crunched as she shifted her weight. Insect sounds returned. A quick flutter sounded of a bat out hunting late mosquitoes. And in the background, the leaves high up in the treetops talked to one another in quiet conversations that took days and no human would ever have the patience to hear.

  Something in the background.

  CHAPTER 39

  “Clarice. I want every inch of video you can get on the three cooking shows.”

  “Wha—”

  “I know. It’s two a.m. But now.”

  Clarice sat up in bed in the guest room blinking at the light shining in from the hall. She wore a very conservative floor-length flannel nightgown of soft green that shimmered beneath the light. She swung her feet clear of the sheets. Mandy had expected a scarlet teddy, or skin. Somehow this was all the wilder on the young girl for being so unexpected. Then she recognized it.

  “Hey. That’s mine.”

  “I know.” Clarice rubbed at her face and showed no signs of getting up. “Very square. I might keep it. Has possibilities. Cozy too.”

  Mandy dragged her to her feet.

  “It’s heating up. I don’t think we have much time.”

  That got Clarice’s attention. Even with a half-night’s sleep last night, less than an hour tonight after an exhausting move, and Clarice was headed to the office so fast Amanda could barely keep up.

  “You’re the best, Clar.”

  “This nightgown is now permanently mine.”

  “Deal.”

  Clarice slapped her keyboard and brought the computer screen back awake.

  “Okay. Here’s what I grabbed earlier.” She flipped a few switches and her screen was projected on the wall against the framed pictures of a hundred years at the farmhouse. The “Start” menu flashed over Granny James riding a horse in her teens, astride, in man’s pants. Greatgrump changing the sugaring buckets on the maples was punctuated by various icons. Herself running around a sprinkler without even diapers, heading straight for the projected “Recycle Bin.” That was far too appropriate on many levels.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Clarice hit another switch and a projection screen Amanda had never seen before scrolled down out of a slot in the ceiling she’d never noticed. Engineering had done his usual excellent job.

  “Okay. Here are the three shows. First the moments right before the deaths.”

  She started a video. Chef Julio-Julio and bee-you-tiful Jennifer danced their last dance. A heckler, who could have been Clarice but for the wild haircut and dye job, heckled their final challenge. “Breathe!” They collapsed and the camera held for four or five more beats before swinging wildly. The Steadicam operator was clearly on the move, battling the crowds around him to move in closer. The video cut off abruptly in the movie classic ending, a yelling face, and a dark, monstrous hand reaching out to cover the lens.

  The video of Maggie Hadderly’s Pyrrhic finale was, by contrast, rock steady. Fixed camera position. Beautiful for one brief instant, clothed only in fire, then horror. Others rushing in. Fire extinguishers of gasoline aimed. Massive conflagration. Abrupt end, probably when the camera melted.

  And finally the last moments of Phillip’s life. The trademark bravado of the thumbs up. She couldn’t watch this, but forced herself to continue. The same bravado as he chugged the glass he thought was vodka, he hadn’t been there when Jeff filled the bottle.

  Had Jeffrey killed her brother? Tried to kill her?

  “His face. Give me a closeup of Jeffrey’s face.”

  “It’s there. A few more seconds.”

  She moved around the desk and closer to the screen.

  Phillip’s final downward slide in profile as he crashed and bashed his way to the floor. Jeff knocked the camera askew as he leapt over the counter. In a wild swing, it captured his face.

  “There. Hold that.”

  Clarice did whatever her magic was and the image held.

  She knew every line of that face. Had recorded every show or competition he’d been in through the years and watched them avidly, her guilty pleasure. Some women read romance novels, some remodeled their homes, or their bodies. Amanda watched Jeff the Chef from his first major victory at the Pillsbury Bake-off taking home the million dollar grand prize, right up to the star-struck moment when she first sat on the stool at the studio counter. If Phillip hadn’t insisted they sit there, she would have found the nerve somewhere to ask.

  On screen was the face of a young man she’d loved for a few years. Jeff was now a man aged, wiser perhaps. He was also a man aghast.

  “Okay. Run it ahead slow.”

  Fear replaced surprise, then shock replaced fear. And ultimately helplessness as his fingers tested one side of Phillip’s neck pulse, while she’d tested the other. She didn’t remember doing that. Rubbed her fingertips together but could feel no memory of her brother’s failing heartbeat.

  The camera jostled and bounced but the trio continued to be the primary center of focus. They were bumped apart and then together one last time.

  She s
lid the homing beacon pin into the seam of his shirt pocket, his chest warm against her palm. That she could remember, could still feel.

  And he looked at her, with her own tears wetting his cheek, with a look she’d not seen in thirty years. Not since the moment he’d knelt on one knee before her by the hearth of this very house.

  CHAPTER 40

  Shelley slapped a hand against the center of his chest stopping Jeff in his tracks at the edge of the running lanes. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected here on level three of her silo, but this wasn’t it. A seriously equipped gym filled the center of the room. Machines of every description, weights, rowers, steppers, and spin cycles. There were rings, climbing ropes, parallel bars for gymnastics and even a vaulting horse. It was all surrounded by a banked, four-lane running track that hugged the circular perimeter that was the silo’s wall.

  A bright orange bowling ball shot out from behind the stairwell, missed their toes by inches. It rolled, no, it raced along the banked running track riding evenly in the second lane the whole way around the room. Almost back to them, a small door opened in the middle of the lane and the ball dropped silently from sight.

  The door resealed and it was gone as if it had never been. He looked down at his toes. Less than six inches to the line in the floor, so light it appeared to be nothing more than a streak of dust.

  “Did I just imagine . . .?”

  “No, quite real. Snap your leg if you aren’t paying attention.”

  “Because?” You live an insane life? He managed to bite those words.

  “Training. Surroundings awareness.”

  “On your running track?”

  “Throughout the silo. Every level except the guest quarters and the pool. And I should warn you, not always at floor-level.”

  There was a pool in a missile silo. Of course. And he was inside a giant pinball machine with bowling balls and human bumpers. The woman was certifiable.

  On the plus side, it was also the most words she’d ever addressed to him at once. She must be starting to like him. As if in contradiction, she began stretching on a set of conveniently placed bars without another word. Gym shorts and an army green t-shirt. As fit as he’d imagined.

  A little daunting really. Not body builder muscled, just damn strong. He waited until she moved off along the track at a slow jog before starting his own stretches not wanting to appear too pitiful by comparison.

  A gym in her own, personal missile silo. “The latest fad, folks, everybody should have one!”

  The four-lane track had a springy, rubberized surface. The inner lane nearly flat, for slow-ass joggers like him. By the outer lane there was a sufficiently steep bank that it would be hard to stand still without tumbling sideways, but a fast runner would feel a flat track as centrifugal force pulled them outward. Sure enough, Shelley was up on the third lane and was running at a definite tilt to the vertical.

  As he jogged, he could see that the equipment in the center was all of the very best quality. Several large-screen plasma televisions were embedded strategically around the room. Even the moving runner had a view from a series of screens which hung down from above. They went all of the way around the circle.

  There was some serious money in this setup. Not only in the weapons collection, but in every single aspect of the place. Between his television shows and his collection of best-selling cookbooks he was doing very well, but this place required a whole other level of finance.

  Not wanting to be completely humbled by how often Shelley was lapping him, Jeff trotted into the center and chose a cycle. He punched up a moderate course on the LCD display. A little cartoon man on a cartoon bicycle tilted back and headed up a hill. The pedals dragged at his feet and he flipped to an easier gear. The display made a clanking sound at the gear shift and the little man’s feet spun in time with his.

  He’d been pumping for twenty minutes and was sweating well before he noticed that Shelley had settled in the rower beside him. Just the lightest sheen of moisture on her face. She might still be warming up and he was nearing the end of his workout.

  She rowed in clean powerful strokes that sent her seat rocketing back and forth. Twee-thack! The seat moving back, the row bar returning all the way forward. Twee-thack! The muscles on her legs bunched and released as she kicked hard and yanked the stroke bar back into her lap.

  The woman was a mystery. She knew more about weapons than Jeff had realized there was to know. She’d never fired outside of the tiny black inner rings of the targets during the entire day on the range.

  He’d rarely fired in the black, barely enough to convince himself it wasn’t random chance. Anything he’d learned in basic training thirty years before was long gone from his muscle memory.

  She rarely spoke more than three words in a row. If they were going to be living together, and she’d given no sign of that ending anytime soon, he should get to know her a little.

  “How many people usually work out here?”

  “One.” She grunted it out between strokes of the oar pull.

  “One?” There was room for twenty. Easily.

  “One. Occasionally,” She broke words into whole sentences between her strokes. “Grim joins me. Amazing runner. Only person. Ever needed. Outermost track. Bank set for. Sub-five-minute mile.”

  “Why do you live alone?” He bit it off, but it was too late. Smooth Jeff. Jump right into the really personal part. What a great way to build her up to a pleasant conversation.

  The rower slowed and he let the bicycle pedals come to rest.

  The silence stretched out as his little man coasted to a stop on the diagram.

  “I mean, this place is fifteen thousand square feet or so in each silo. That’s a big home. And living underground. Isn’t that a little bit . . .” Odd? But he managed to finally clamp his mouth shut.

  The cartoon rider on the display stopped and placed a foot on the cartoon sidewalk. Then it turned to him and began to tap its foot impatiently.

  “Sorry I said anything.” He started spinning the pedals. The little man leapt on his bike with a smile and began spinning his feet once again.

  The rower started its slick twee-thack, twee-thack again. Slower though.

  Twee-thack.

  “Don’t get along. With many people.”

  Twee-thack.

  He’d ridden his last three miles and was slowing before she spoke again.

  “Like my family.”

  CHAPTER 41

  “I can’t eat another one. These things are nasty. Who are they kidding?”

  Jeff flipped through the box of MREs on the black marble, kitchen counter reading the labels on the brown plastic bags. The wrong shade of brown. Gravy-too-thin brown. Overage-hamburger brown. The stark halogen lighting from under the cabinets didn’t make them look any better. It was a guy’s kitchen of black and stainless steel. There should be some soft woods, gentle prints, something. There should also be some food other than cases of Meals Ready to Eat.

  “Pork Rib. Beef Ravioli. Sloppy Joe. This isn’t food. How can our soldiers eat such crap?” Shelley sat on a bar stool at the kitchen’s central island and looked at him as he might inspect a roux where the flour had lumped in the butter.

  “We eat millions of these meals a year, in much worse conditions, and with a whole lot less whining.”

  Jeff didn’t miss the “we.” There was “us” and there was “them” and he belonged solidly planted in the second category in her mind.

  “But they’re nasty!” Okay, America’s number one cooking show host should perhaps be a bit more erudite. It was his fourth meal in the silo. He’d had chicken fajitas, two cheese and vegetable omelets, and something else that he’d managed to block out.

  She reached out for a package and didn’t even bother to look at the label. With a slash of her knife, she split the brown outer plastic. The pieces of a Mea
l Ready to Eat dumped out onto the counter.

  The slender brown box entrée: Beef Enchilada in Sauce. That was the fourth one he’d eaten. The worst of them all. A tortilla swollen past recognition by a flavorless sauce, flavorless until Shelley had told him to dump in the tiny bottle of picante sauce and the red pepper packet. Then, at least, it had tasted like picante and burned his tongue with red peppers. Actually a marginal improvement.

  Another flat box of cold refried beans in a plastic pouch. “Crackers, Vegetable” and “Cheese Spread, Jalapeno” for a side dish, and two cookies that had seen better days, well, maybe they had. In a former life, in a different century, in another country, back when they were hardtack wafers choked down by British seamen dying of scurvy shortly before their ships sank beneath the weight of a passing albatross.

  “Well, you can heat them up. I never bother.”

  “Heat them?” He’d been choking these things down cold because she had a beautiful kitchen with no pots, pans, or dishware. Top brand, restaurant quality appliances without so much as a tea kettle. A huge, side-by-side SubZero refrigerator that hummed church-quiet to chill endless bottles of water, and not even a lousy Hot Pocket. Her cupboards were bare except for more cases of MREs and the largest bag of Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips he’d ever seen, presently a third empty. He could cook a gourmet dinner for forty in this kitchen, if there was a single thing to cook with.

  “Heat them?”

  She pulled out a thin greenish bag from the pile that looked as if algae had died in it. He unfolded it and read through the instructions. Slip in the sealed foil pouches, add a little water, and eat a hot meal in ten minutes.

  “These work?”

  “Makes it about two hundred degrees. Near enough like dunking them in boiling water.” She made a negligent gesture toward one of the drawers. “I toss them over there.”

  He clasped the bag in his hands and looked at the ceiling. “Thank you, God.” A hot meal. He could dance.

  Jeff grabbed the box on the counter.