by Chuck Dixon
It was all bullshit anyway. Whoever Tex was, he was a loner. Except for the little girl, of course. But Bill had a gut feeling this guy was more dangerous than a whole compound of survivalist crazies.
When Nancy Valdez called, he shared this with her over the car phone.
“Look at the way he’s played us. Slipped the knot like a pro. Add that to the shit pile of corpses he left in Maine and whatever he got himself into with that Baltimore crew,” Bill told her as he drove north toward the beltway.
“He’s trained and he’s smart. And if the former Mrs. Blanco is right he has the keys to the national debt of Bolivia,” Nancy said from the speaker on the dash.
“I don’t hear office noise.”
“I’m not in the office.”
“Are you home?” he asked.
“Next you’re going to ask me what I’m wearing.”
He could hear her smile when she said it.
“I’m guessing a Glock.”
“Fuck you. It’s a Sig. I wouldn’t touch a Glock with your dick.”
“Whoa, lady! This is a government line you’re on.”
“So, where you heading next?”
“Just did my last interview. They called me back to Quantico. Due diligence and background with the task force,” Bill said.
“That’s where they have me. I’m heading out the door right now,” she said, her voice bright.
“I’ll see you there then.”
“See you.”
Bill tabbed END CALL on the dash monitor. A car honked its horn and flashed high beams as he passed it on the right. He looked at the display. He was doing ninety-two in a sixty zone.
13
“You’re going to make me fat, woman,” Gunny said, pushing himself away from the table.
“Don’t blame that on me, old man,” Joyce said, standing to clear the dinner plates away. Dinner was pan fried perch with her signature rice pilaf.
“Let me help with that.” He lifted his own plate from the table.
“Put that down,” she scolded, playfully slapping the back of his hand. “You’ve broken enough of my dishes.”
“Should buy plastic ware like I been telling you.”
“Both of us have spent enough years eating off plastic. My table will have real china and real silver,” she said, and elbowed him from the table.
“You’re treating me like a helpless old blind man again,” he said, stepping back as she brushed by him.
“I’m treating you like a clumsy old blind man. If you want to help you can dry. But I’ll put them away.”
“You want the news on?”
“I’m sick and tired of the news. Put on some music or something.” She placed the dishes in one sink and the silver in another and turned on the water.
Gunny made his way into the great room, piloting down three steps and between furniture with practiced ease, to the Bose. He snapped it on to let the liquid tones of Buddy Guy's six-string fill the cabin. He was returning to the kitchen to help with the drying when a two-tone beep sounded under the opening bars of "Sweet Little Angel."
“What the hell is that?” he said. He heard dishes splashing into soapy water. Joyce’s footfalls approached.
“It’s that satellite phone that came today,” she said, walking past him, a hand brushing his arm.
Joyce picked the phone off the charger.
He heard her greet the caller then listen in silence for a beat or two before telling the caller that Gunny was with her.
“Levon,” she said, and took Gunny’s offered hand and placed the phone in his palm.
“Talk to me, Slick,” Gunny said.
“You don’t have to do this,” he told her.
“You’re going to drive to Memphis? I’d pay to see that, Gunny,” Joyce said.
They were out on the gravel drive. The night was cold under a sky sprayed with stars against velvet black. The cabin was a half day’s ride from anywhere so the nights were true dark. Gunny had no need of light and Joyce was used to using only a minimum of illumination. She wasn’t sure why but it made her feel closer to him.
Joyce took the overnight bag from Gunny’s hand and placed it in the back seat of their Dodge Ram’s crew cab.
“When I get back I’ll drive Levon’s truck way up the deer road and leave it there,” Joyce said. The truck was an Avalanche with Alabama plates left here by Levon Cade over a year ago. He’d received Joyce’s tired old Range Rover in trade.
“I still wish you’d let me go with you,” Gunny said, running his hand down her arm.
“You think I can’t handle a drive to Memphis and back?”
“It’s not that.”
“You get car sick anyway.”
“Didn’t used to. Started driving when I was fourteen. My daddy’s tractor, my uncle’s Dodge truck.”
“And you walked five miles to school, uphill both ways. Next you’ll be telling me war stories. Why don’t you just say you’ll miss me?” She pulled him close.
“It’s just that it’s a lot to ask, is all,” he said, his arms about her, crushing her to him. His rock, his anchor.
“For you?”
“For me. For Levon. That boy’s in trouble or he’d never ask.”
“He means a lot to you so he means a lot to me. That’s all I need to know. There’s oatmeal for breakfast already made in the fridge so you don’t make a mess of my kitchen. And use the micro to warm it. You burn down my kitchen and it’s your ass, old man.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” he said, breaking the embrace and taking a step back.
“And don’t you ever forget I outranked you.” She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek before getting behind the wheel.
“Thank you, Joyce,” he said, closing the rear door for her.
“I’ll be back by lunch tomorrow. Mind your toes,” she said and pulled away.
He stood listening to the crunch of the tires on gravel until the sound faded away to be covered by the swish of tree branches swaying on the night breeze.
14
The driver’s license was bargain basement. It was the best he was going to do for a thousand bucks in a small town. The watermarks were blurry at the edges and the embedded hologram of the state emblem was crooked. The laminate was too shiny. He scuffed it on the edge of a table, both sides, until the sheen was gone.
He was Oscar Bruckman of Tulsa. The age was close enough as were his height and eye color. Oscar was a redhead but lots of guys dyed their hair these days. It was one-time use. No one was going to be looking that close.
The man at the Amtrak ticket window needed a shave. He barely glanced at the driver’s license resting in the tray. He seemed more interested in the Band-Aids that Levon wore on the lobes of his ears.
“The wife got me gold studs for Christmas. Believe that?” Levon said with a crooked smile.
“Ah,” the Amtrak man said.
“They got infected as hell. A doctor had to cut them out.” Levon winced.
“You wife went someplace cheap,” the Amtrak man said with a sympathetic wince.
“Mall kiosk. But she was so happy, you know?”
“The things we do for love.” The man shrugged and bent to retrieve the printed ticket from a machine below the counter.
“Oh yeah.”
“Your little girl is traveling alone?” The man glanced over Levon’s shoulder to where Merry sat solemn on a long wooden bench in the waiting area. Her chin rested on the backpack resting on her knees.
“Going down to visit her grandparents in Texas. She’ll be there tomorrow morning, right?”
“Most days. You’re lucky we had a sleeping compartment free.”
“I feel better if she has a sleeper. She has a door she can lock, you know?”
“You can go down to the platform with her and meet the train. Talk to the attendant on her car. They’ll look after her.” The guy slid the ticket envelope through the tray slot.
“Thanks for your help.” Levon slipped
the ticket envelope into his coat pocket.
He took Merry into a small vending area off the lobby. It was lined with soda and candy machines. They were alone there. He took the silver chain from around his neck and draped it around Merry’s. He tucked the flash drive out of sight beneath her sweater.
“What do you do with this?” he said.
“Keep it hidden,” she said. Her eyes were still red from crying.
“And when you see Gunny?”
“Give it to him and tell him you want him to hide it.”
“And?”
“And not tell me or anyone else where he hides it.”
“Good girl.”
They walked together down to the platform. Dawn was an hour or more away. A wind blew snow across the open platform in gusts of powder that glowed silver under the lights.
He crouched to secure a name tag to the strap of her backpack and another to a button loop on the collar of her coat. The name and address were false.
“I’m not a baby,” she said, glaring with a baleful expression at the name tag hanging from her collar.
“It’s just to keep you and your bag together, okay?”
She sat on a bench. He stood watching the empty tracks for the train’s arrival. It was a whistle stop station and they were alone on the platform except for a couple of workers in reflective vests. They were joking and laughing as they brushed away a dusting of snow with push brooms.
The train thundered into the station to a stop. A few people exited the coach cars. Levon walked Merry forward to the sleepers and met the uniformed attendant for her car.
Her name was Daneeta, a heavy-set black woman who had a big smile for Merry. She took Merry’s backpack and read the name tag.
“You’re with us all the way to San Antonio, changing in New Orleans, Megan?”
Merry nodded.
“Megan, you’re a lucky girl. We’ll be serving breakfast soon and it’s included with your ticket.”
“I’m not really hungry,” Merry said, eyes lowered.
“I thought she could just stay in her cabin,” Levon said.
"Don't you worry, Dad. I'll look after Megan. And we have a one-hour layover in New Orleans. I'll stay with her until she gets on her next train. That okay?"
Levon nodded, eyes on Merry turned away from him.
"You're in ‘D,' sweetheart. Down on your left," Daneeta said and helped Merry up into the car.
Levon picked up the yellow steel step stool and held it up to the attendant. There was a pair of hundred dollar bills under his thumb.
“You sure, sir?” Daneeta asked.
At her response to the generous tip Levon felt a knot in the pit of his stomach unravel a turn or two.
“That’s my little girl. Don’t let her fill up on waffles, okay?” Levon said, smiling easy.
“Yes, sir.” Daneeta slid the door into place.
The train rumbled and jerked. Levon walked forward to watch it leave the station. He looked to the windows of the sleeper, looking for Merry. As the train pulled away he saw her in the corner of one of the windows. She met his eyes and flexed her fingers for a wave that offered a treaty between them.
He was making her grow up too fast, making her accept the kind of challenges he wished he could have protected her from. The train rolled on into the dark until it was just a triangle of lights vanishing around a turn under a pewter sky.
15
Levon took the overnight and gym bag out of a locker. He entered a cab outside the Carbondale station. He had to wake the driver. The cab dropped him off at a professional park he’d found in the phone book the night before. It was a collection of standalone buildings housing insurance broker offices, a pediatrician, four dentists, a weight loss center and a podiatrist. The parking spaces on the tree-dotted lot were empty at this hour.
He took a window booth at a Denny’s that sat road front on the same lot as the pro park. From his seat he could see cars pulling off the four-lane into the park. He ate breakfast and nursed a coffee. The sky reddened and the dark turned to blobs then streaks of shadows.
A few cars entered the lot, their headlights making a nimbus glow then dying when the drivers found parking spaces. He waited until a dozen cars had arrived before paying his check and cutting from the Denny's through a line of low hedges onto the pro-park lot.
He picked out a Chrysler 200 parked across from a cosmetic dentistry office. The license plate read SMLE. He touched the hood. Still warm. The owner would be here until at least lunchtime, or more than likely all day. More than enough time. A thin band of tensile steel between the window and door frame and the lock post popped up. Inside the still-warm car, he defeated the alarm and hot-wired the ignition.
Piloting through a snarl of overpasses, Levon took a ramp for 55 and headed northwest for the two-hour drive to St. Louis.
The sky was turning pink over gray winter fields. Merry watched fence posts whip by through the window by her table. She sat in the dining car.
The waiter’s name was Leonard and he was very funny. “How would you like your eggs, miss? Scrambled? Over easy? Omelet?” He rocked with movement of the train, pencil poised over his pad.
“Scrambled is fine,” she said.
“Chicken, duck or ostrich?” Leonard said with a tilt of his head, eyes grave.
“What?” she said, looking up at him. Leonard was an older man with a shaved head and trim white mustache. He wasn’t smiling.
“We have penguin eggs, too. But not many people want them. They’re always cold,” Leonard said with a shrug.
Merry held a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
"That's what I like to see in the morning," Leonard said and beamed at her. "I'll bring you some fresh-squeezed orange juice to start."
He walked back toward the noisy kitchen area with a sailor’s gait. The car swayed side-to-side.
The tables in the dining car were empty but for an elderly couple seated behind her. Daneeta, the attendant, told her that the car would be full once the sun was up.
“This way you get to eat your breakfast in peace, sweetheart,” Daneeta had said before heading back to the sleeping cars.
The sun was clearing the horizon. The train passed through woods; Merry could see the sun flashing between the boles of trees. The table bumped under her elbow. In the reflection of the dark glass, she saw someone had taken a seat across from her.
“Hi, what’s your name?” the man said. He smiled, thick cheeks rising to turn his eyes to slits behind thick glasses. There was sweat on his forehead even though the car was chilled with morning cold.
Merry looked back out the window, pretending interest in the view.
“My name is Axel.” The man reached a hand across the table. Her hands remained on the table, holding her juice glass steady. He took the hand back.
“It’s lonely traveling alone. I’m by myself, too. No one to share the adventure with.”
She wished he would go away. From the corner of her eye, she saw him pick up a menu card.
“I think I’ll have coffee. Amtrak serves the best coffee. A lot of people don’t know that. You probably don’t drink coffee. Too young, huh?”
His voice changed. It was low now, meant only for her. The sound of a smile was gone from it.
“We could be friends, couldn’t we? Someone to talk to? It’s all right. I take the train all the time. I like meeting new people. You don’t need to be so shy.”
She shut her eyes, willing him to go away.
“It’s okay to talk. Be friendly. A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met. You ever hear that before?”
Merry opened her eyes. A swimming white shape appeared in the glass against the leaden dawn light.
“There are plenty of other seats, sir,” Leonard said. He set down plates in front of Merry. Leonard was smiling. But it wasn’t a real smile. His eyes locked on the man, lids narrow.
“I’m comfortable here. You can bring some coffee,” the man said, his smil
e fixed.
“I think you’d be more comfortable at another table,” Leonard said, hands braced on the edges of the table.
“I’m fine here.”
“Let’s ask the lady then. Would you like to have your breakfast alone, miss?” Leonard said, his smile gone.
Merry nodded.
“That’s it then. I’ll bring your coffee to your new table.” Leonard placed a hand under the man’s arm as though to help him from his seat.
The man rose with a last glance at Merry before allowing himself to be ushered to a table closer to the kitchen.
Merry watched from under her brows as she ate her eggs and toast. Keeping an eye on the man who called himself Axel, careful not to let him catch her. He was still eating his breakfast when she stood to return to the sleeping car.
She slipped a butter knife up her sleeve before sliding away from the table.
16
The Buick LaCrosse was practically family to Deborah Ianelli. When she found the car missing from the emergency staff lot, her first call was to GloboTrac, the firm that provided GPS monitoring for her car. Her second call was to the Roanoke police.
She was tired after a twelve-hour shift in the ER. She stayed on the lot to talk to the cops who responded to her call. She gave them her license and registration. One cop asked questions while another entered the car onto a stolen vehicle list on the computer in the cop car. They assured her that the car was as good as found. “Probably some kids joyriding.”
Another nurse gave her a ride home to her one bedroom in Vinton. Debbie wanted nothing more than a hot shower and bed. But she sat at the counter in the kitchenette and stayed on the phone with GloboTrac, working her way through an information tree until she reached an actual human being. Then she moved up the chain until she had someone who called himself “Larry” in a thick Mumbai accent.
“Where’s my car, Larry?” she said when he took a breath from his scripted greeting.