by Chuck Dixon
“No. He found it in Maine in someone’s house. He said it’s important.”
“He wouldn’t be asking me to watch over it if it weren’t,” Gunny said. “Must be his ace in the hole.”
“What’s that?” Merry asked.
“It’s a card you don’t play until you have to,” Gunny said.
“That means it’s something someone wants. Someone could come looking.” Joyce took Gunny’s hand to drop the plastic lozenge in his open palm.
“I’ll make sure they don’t find it. I’ll hide it in a place only a blind man would think of,” Gunny said.
Levon called the following morning.
He spoke to Gunny first.
“The drive has bank account numbers and names on it along with passwords. The government will be looking for it for sure. I don’t know who else might be interested. That little thumb drive could be worth a billion dollars.”
“I don’t need to know what it is. I only need to know that it’s important to you,” Gunny said, standing in the morning chill with the sat phone to his ear.
“Only fair that you know what you’re hiding. That you know the value and the risk.”
“Roger that. Your little girl is here safe. She’s having breakfast with Joyce. What are your plans, son?”
“Break contact. Charlie Mike.” Continue mission.
“Good luck, marine.”
“Can you put Merry on, Gunny?”
Gunny and Joyce sat in the kitchen while Merry stood by the bay window in the great room and spoke in a low voice with her father. She was looking out at the crystalline wonder of the ice-rimed forest. The girl returned to the kitchen after a while. Her eyes and nose were red but she fought to keep a smile on her face. She placed the sat phone on the table by Gunny.
“My daddy wants you to hide the phone. Mine too. He said the next time we see him it’ll be in person. He’ll come for me when it’s safe.”
Gunny placed his hand atop Merry’s.
“And he will, honey. That man keeps his word. Come hell, high water or the wrath of God, that man only ever says what he means.”
"I'm not hungry anymore. May I go lay down?"
“You sure can. You’re still tired from that long day yesterday,” Joyce said, fighting to keep her tone light.
Merry left the kitchen to go to the den that Joyce had set up as a guest room.
Joyce made to rise from the table. Gunny took her wrist in his hand.
“I know you want to go to her.”
“She’s hurting, Gunny. She’s scared.” Joyce sat down and patted Gunny’s hand until he released her.
“And that’s not going to change until her daddy comes through that door. She doesn’t need to be babied. You just let her have a good cry.”
“She’s not one of your jarheads,” Joyce said, but she said it in a kind way.
“Sure she is. And she’s tough enough to make it through the Crucible on Parris Island. She’s got a lot of her Daddy in her blood,” Gunny said.
After coffee, Gunny took the flash drive and the pair of satellite phones deep into the woods. He didn’t come back until almost noon. Joyce had a fire in the fireplace and lunch waiting for him. Merry came out to join them.
Nothing was said about where he went or how long he’d been gone.
After wolfing down half a grilled cheddar cheese and sun-dried tomato sandwich, Merry asked, “Are there any books here I can read?”
“I have a Kindle you can use. We can download some books on there,” Joyce offered.
“Cool,” Merry said, setting to work on the second half of her sandwich.
Gunny beamed an “I told you so” smile in the direction of Joyce’s voice.
She aimed an exaggerated wince back at him. He couldn’t see it but she knew he could feel it.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Always have a plan. And always expect that plan to get fucked in the ass.”
26
Levon arrived at the address given him by Danny Safar. It was a music store in a pokey strip mall. The sign out front promised music lessons “taught by professionals.” The store was empty except for the gray-haired man in a ragged cardigan behind the counter.
“This way,” the man said and led Levon past racks of guitars to one of three doors in the rear of the store. He opened the door and gestured for Levon to enter.
The room was set up for music practice. A stand in the middle of the room and three chairs. The only feature on the walls was a faded print: a painting of a young girl playing the violin in an idyllic pastoral setting with woodland animals seated about attentively listening.
“Stand against that wall. I’ll be right back,” the man said and left the room. Levon removed his winter coat and stood with his back to the wall in a pale green work shirt.
The man returned with a camera and tripod.
"Smile if you want to," the man said, standing on his tiptoes to look through the lens level with Levon's face. Levon relaxed his face to appear as harmless as possible. He attempted a half smile.
A half dozen clicks of the shutter and they were done. They exited the room. The man went behind the counter to secure the camera and tripod somewhere out of sight.
“You have something for me?” the man said.
Levon handed over his wish list. Two different driver’s licenses under two different names. Auto insurance cards to match each. An immunization form for Merry. Two utility bills under a name matching one of the licenses. A working credit card to be used for ID only. Birth certificates for both of them. He included their vital information for those. Date of birth, hair color, eye color. He also indicated that they’d need these new identities to originate from locales somewhere well below the Mason-Dixon line. They could fake a lot of things but there was no getting past his and Merry’s southern drawls, syntax, and vocabulary.
The man in the cardigan looked over the paper, written on three sheets of Holiday Inn stationary in neat rows of block letters.
“An expensive list,” the man said, eyes lifted to look at Levon.
“Does my payment cover it?” Levon said.
“You’re covered. Were you expecting change?” A flicker of a smile. A joke. Or half a joke.
“No. When can I expect all that?”
“Give me two days. Someone will contact you.”
The brass bell hung above the door tinkled a merry tone. A woman entered ushering a child with a guitar case ahead of her.
“Okay then,” Levon said and left the store.
The burner cell charged and in his coat pocket, Levon was free to roam. Spending all day at the hotel was a bad idea. Staying in one place was not an option. Safar’s crew knew where to find him. That had to change.
He'd paid three days ahead for the room at the Holiday Inn. That's where they'd expect him to be. Early the next morning, he left the hotel unseen and made his way down the Parallel Parkway to a Motel 8 and checked in using cash. A week in advance and no housekeeping. The clerk, a woman with limp yellow hair and sad eyes, didn't ask questions.
From there he walked to a strip mall anchored by a Kmart. Most of the stores weren’t open yet. He ate breakfast at a Bob Evans and waited.
At the Kmart he bought sweats, a pair of running shoes and a bag of socks. He stopped by a Mail Boxes Etc. and paid in cash for a mailbox large enough to receive parcels. He paid two months in advance. He also bought a book of stamps and some padded envelopes.
Back at the Motel 8 he changed into the sweats, sneakers and his hooded jacket and went for a run. He moved at an even pace along the parkway shoulder. His run took him past churches, a hospital and car dealerships. At the entrance to Schlitterbahn he hooked a left to run the ring road around the massive water park, now closed for the season. Signs, starkly colorful in the gray winter light, promised a reopening in May.
He ran along the fence, pushing himself to a sprint. Sucking down the chilled air. Feeling the blood fill the muscles of his legs and shoulders. His world
became the run; the long stretch and shallow curves ahead of him. This was a place he could count on to remain constant. No matter where he found himself in the world, the mountains of Helmand, the desert of Iraq, the jungles of Colombia, the run was the same. His endurance against the elements, fatigue and age.
A flat out run up the entrance road brought him back to the parkway, muscles burning and lungs ablaze. He slowed to a jog and continued west, only slowing in the shadow of the 435 overpass. He paused there, jogging in place. Gradually sloping concrete banks lined either side of the roadway leading up the supports that held up the span and the traffic thundering by above. Set in the banks were lengths of steel hoops that served as handholds for road maintenance workers or inspectors to reach the understructure of the bridges.
Levon turned then and jogged back the way he came, falling to a walking pace for the final three miles to the Motel 8.
27
“Your friend isn’t answering,” the geek behind the Holiday Inn desk said with a simpering smile.
“He’s still here, right?” Jerry Safar said, going red in the face.
“He’s paid through Friday.”
“Probably in the shower. I could just go up and knock on his door.”
“It’s against Holiday Inn policy to give out our guests’ room numbers,” the geek said and gave a little shoulder roll in apology as he replaced the phone in its dock.
“Shit,” Jerry said and stepped away from the counter to make way for a family of four dragging luggage across the lobby.
He slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes S-Class he’d left running at the entryway.
“Shit,” he said again and gunned from under the portico.
The sign out front of Glitters promised “all-naked girls.”
Inside a single dancer moved out of time to Carrie Underwood. She was certainly all-naked if a number of years past being a girl. Even low lights and some skilled surgery failed to conceal that fact. But it was early afternoon and the place was mostly empty, the seats around the stage entirely so. The customers in the booths were here to drink not ogle.
Jerry came to do business in the private booth he called his “office” when it wasn’t being used for lap dances. He coaxed Taz Uzon away from the door for his pitch. Taz was a bouncer and some relation to the owner of Glitters, a Turk named Big Stan. He was working days because Big Stan heard about him pressuring free blow jobs off the girls at night. Not that Big Stan begrudged that service to anyone so long as they paid. Taz knocking off freebies was bad business.
“What’s so important?” Taz said, lounging back against the pleather upholstery. The air inside the room was rich with the stink of disinfectant from a recent cleaning.
“I want to move on somebody. I need two more guys. You and a guy like you,” Jerry said.
“Like me how?”
“Like you. Like big. Like somebody that can fuck a guy up.”
Taz nodded, eyes half-lidded. Guilty as charged.
“I’m serious. This is real payday,” Jerry said.
“How real?” Taz said.
“This guy just dropped ten kay in diamonds on my Uncle Danny. And that’s what my uncle got for them. Probably closer to fifty kay retail. The guy has to have more.”
“I know shit about diamonds.” Taz’s attention was waning.
“I’ll move them. The guy is bound to have cash too. And he’s all by himself. He’s hiding from the police, I think.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow maybe. I’ll call you. Can you get another guy?”
“Sure. We splitting even?” Taz said, standing.
“Yeah.”
“The diamonds too.”
“Yeah, Taz. Trust me.”
“Because if you fuck me you know what will happen,” Taz said, parting the sequined curtain to depart.
“Yeah. You’ll fuck me up,” Jerry said, his sweating face parting in a nervous grin of what he hoped was fraternal ball-busting.
“Uh huh. And after I fuck you up I tell your uncle you fucked him and he’ll fuck up what’s left,” Taz said as an adios and shifted through the curtains.
Jerry sank back into the tufted back of his chair and sighed. Then he straightened up, his hands leaping from the sticky pleather surface like fluttering birds. He imagined the genetic soup of fluids imbued into the furniture, carpet and walls of this place and shuddered. He practically leapt from the confines of the booth to charge past the dancer now slowly swaying, off tempo, to an old Spinners song. He was out of the lot, wheels spinning, back to the warehouse. He needed to be there to keep an eye on Uncle Danny and the Wasem brothers.
He wanted out of here. Out from under this uncle’s thumb. Out from piss pots like Glitters. Out from running thankless errands for unimaginative men. And out of fucking Kansas.
By as soon as tomorrow night he’d be spreading wings for LA or Miami. Somewhere it wasn’t cold. Somewhere where the only kind of snow you saw came lined up on a mirror at three hundred bucks a gram.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“You walk into the lion’s den you better expect there’ll be lions. Only guy who had a fix in the lion’s den was Daniel. Don’t expect God to come bailing out your sorry ass.”
28
In his room at the Motel 8, Levon sorted the bills from the gym bag. He made three piles atop the bed covers. One was worn bills that had seen circulation. Twenties and fifties. Another was lightly circulated bills. All hundreds. The first and second piles were from different series, different years, with varying facility numbers.
The third pile was all crisp bills in fifty and one hundred dollar denominations. They looked and felt fresh from the mint even though the series marks claimed they were almost twenty years old. Though the serial numbers varied, they all bore the same facility mark. The district numbers identified them as coming out of Dallas. Those facts alone weren't enough to cause suspicion. It was likely enough to find newly minted bills together in a bundle straight out of the Federal Reserve.
More troubling to Levon was the plate position letter. This letter denotes where each individual bill was situated when it came off the plate. Letters could run from A1 to H4 on older bills. A1 to J5 on newer ones. For this stack of bills to be genuine, one would have to accept an epic coincidence since each bill was marked with B3 for its plate position.
He'd seen bills like this before. In Tikrit. A room the size of a two-car garage concealed behind a false wall. Rows of plastic wrapped pallets stacked eight feet high — billions of dollars in bills much like the ones on the bed before him.
The suspect currency was all from the stacks he took from the vault back in Lake Bellevue. The rest were a mix of bills taken from the back room of the bar in Baltimore.
Levon put aside a little over one hundred thousand in bills from each of the three piles. He placed the remaining cash, a rough count of four hundred thousand, along with the envelopes of diamonds, in the gym bag and zipped it closed. He laced his sneakers, threw the gym bag over his shoulder and went for a run in the pre-dawn light.
The cell phone was jangling by the sink when Levon stepped from the steaming shower. He was back from a six mile run down the parkway and back.
It was Danny Safar.
“We have your goods. I’ll send my guys over to you.”
“There’s a Chili’s east of my hotel. I’ll meet them in the parking lot in two hours.”
“Two hours. If you have any more of those diamonds you need to move . . .”
“I don’t.”
“Two hours then,” Safar said and broke off.
Levon dressed and packed the overnight bag with everything in the room that he’d brought with him. He checked the room twice and left. He wouldn’t be back.
A service road at the rear of the Motel 8 ran behind several other businesses fronted on the parkway joining one parking lot to another. Levon followed this. There was an open dumpster behind a Burger King.
The seating area outside the Starbucks
offered a clear view of the parking lot of Chili's. He was an hour ahead of the meet time. Levon ordered a tall black coffee and sat alone at a table under an ice-crusted umbrella. The line of cars snaking around the building toward the drive-thru offered him cover while not obscuring his view. He could see the entire front lot and entry drive to the Chili’s set well back from the road. He sipped the hot coffee and watched the lot through the blue haze of exhaust from the cars creeping past.
The wait wasn’t long.
The same Mercury that picked him up two nights before pulled off the parkway onto the empty Chili's lot. The same woman was driving with the bearded Wasem brother in the front seat. The woman's head was bare, and her hair brushed back from her face. They drove around the Chili's twice before stopping in a slot at the rear of the restaurant.
They were thirty minutes early.
Both Wasems got out of the car and stood a while stamping their feet against the cold. They smoked and watched the lot. The woman sat behind the wheel of the running car, eyes wary, a cigarette hanging from her lips. The lean one spoke to the beard, gesturing toward the Starbucks. The beard trotted away from the Mercury toward where Levon was seated.
Levon hunched forward, head lowered to a USA Today, take-out cup to his mouth. The beard hustled into the Starbucks without noticing him. The store windows were misted over by condensation. Levon waited until the beard shouldered his way out with his hands full. Three tall cups and a pile of Danish in a cardboard tray.
Beard pulled up short when Levon turned to face him. He looked down at the steaming cups in his hands. Behind him, a couple of young guys were exiting the Starbucks, laughing at something one of them said.
“Tell them to come over here. The woman too. I’ll take a table for us,” Levon said.
Beard nodded and moved away as fast as he could manage without tipping the tray. The woman killed the motor and all three marched over to where Levon sat. The men took seats. The woman stood at the curb, smoking, with her back to them.