Levon Cade Omnibus

by Chuck Dixon

  “You better take those pills, Mac. You catch every fucking bug.”

  “Remember that time in Herat? Pukin’ and shittin’ at the same time?”

  “Projectile shitting! Never saw that before.”

  “What was it? Raisins?”

  “Dumb fucker buying raisins at a souk. You know they weren’t washed.”

  “Shit. They probably weren’t raisins.”

  Levon stowed his bag in the overhead and waited for a lull. He introduced himself, taking note of each man’s name. Handshakes and nods all around. Their hands were rough and their eyes were hard above the open smiles. They assessed him and found him to be cool until proven otherwise. He was one of their breed and that was enough. He returned the nods and retreated to a seat a few rows forward. The talk picked up again after the pause. Jabs, counter jabs and dry laughter.

  The jet was an older model due for a refit, showing signs of years of wear and thousands of hours in the air. The upholstery was crushed and stained. The carpet in the aisle was worn down the middle. It still beat military transport all to hell. Quiet ride, snacks and ice-cold beers.

  The co-pilot came along the aisle assuring them take-off was imminent as he made his way aft to draw the hatch shut. Levon watched workers at the tiny municipal airport roll the steps away from the jet and back to the hangar. The cockpit hatch was open and he could hear a muted exchange of radio back-and-forth. The engines spun up to taxi speed. He watched the flat landscape roll past his window, grass dotted with scrub pines. They broke free of the tarmac with a jerk. Within seconds they were banking east, the rooftops and parking lot of a strip mall soaring by below the wingtip. Then neighborhoods of spiral-wound roads and baseball diamonds. Trees took over from there and the plane tipped out of its cant to fly level through a nearly cloudless sky.

  “This your first private sector gig?”

  Levon turned from the window to see a guy holding out a Coors tallboy to him. Soldier fit and surfer tan. A tattoo in the shape of Helmand province in Afghanistan visible on the inside of his right forearm. The image was bound in loops of barbed wire. His smile was friendly even as his eyes studied Levon with keen curiosity.

  “Yeah. Pays better than Uncle Sammy.” Levon accepted the beer. The other man dropped into a seat across the aisle and reached out to clink the neck of his own beer with Levon’s.

  “Bryson Tac takes care of us. Good pay, benefits. And there’s plenty of work for us.”

  “I’ll see how I like it,” Levon said.

  "Marine, right? You have the walk." The guy leaned on the armrest, nodding.

  “Didn’t realize there was a walk.”

  “It was a bullshit guess.”

  “You nailed it. I’m a jarhead.”

  “How many times you been down range?”

  “Two deployments to Iraq. Three to Afghanistan,” Levon lied. He’d lost count of all his deployments and ops to those countries and a dozen more in both hemispheres.

  “Hector Ortiz. Call me Hec.” He offered his hand and Levon took it.

  “Warren Teller,” Levon lied again. Duck Withers’ papers were immaculate. Passport, driver’s license, social security. Warren Lloyd Teller died in a chopper crash off Coronado Island two years ago. His resurrection would draw no notice since Levon would never be cashing a Bryson Tactical check.

  “Nobody calls him Hector!” one of the men in the rear seats called out.

  “His name’s ‘Butterknife’!” called another.

  “Fuck you,” Hector said. A wincing grin. He turned back to Levon.

  “We were on a roadblock on Highway One in Helmand. We were searching through the back of a truck and I got a little too handsy with some haji mama. I found the brown heroin cakes she was hiding under her burkha.”

  “He found everything!” one of the men shouted.

  “But her knife!” the others sang out in chorus.

  Hector lifted his polo shirt to show a jagged line of scar tissue across the flesh under his ribs. He smiled crooked and shrugged.

  “What happened to her?” Levon said.

  “Shit, I hope she’s still sitting in Pul-e-Charkhi. I was down for close to a year before I got back. I almost needed a colostomy bag, for Christ’s sake.”

  “What’s the duty like when we land? What’s our job?” Levon wanted to move off war stories. He wasn’t ready to share any of his.

  “Security, mostly. We guard the SinoChem compound. Ride shotgun for execs and visitors when they visit the oil fields. It’s all in the Al-Muthanna, far away from the clusterfuck with ISIS. A pizza run, mostly.”

  “Why did a Chinese oil company hire an American security firm?”

  “The Chinese keep a low profile in the region. It’s like they’re not even there. No corporate logos visible. They like their gunhands to be Westerners in case there’s a fuck-up. No Chinese faces on CNN. No bad press.”

  “So it’s quiet.”

  “It’s boring. Drives in the desert and nights binge-watching Netflix. The Chinese have a nice gym on the compound though. But no need for the beard, brother. Nothing covert.”

  “I’ll shave when I get there,” Levon said. He ran a hand through the week-long growth already dense on his jaws and chin.

  Hector continued doing most of the talking for the next hour as they left the sun far behind them and the sky grew darker. He told Levon that he washed out of Ranger school once and the sniper school at Benning twice. He resigned himself to being an infantry grunt and pulled four deployments in Afghanistan before deciding he wanted to stop fighting for a bunch of ungrateful hajis and start fighting for himself.

  “Not much action though. Last time I fired my weapon was to scatter a herd of goats that were blocking a motorcade,” he said.

  “There’s a lot to be said for not getting shot at,” Levon said.

  "Hey, you probably want to get some sleep instead of listening to me bitch. See you on the ground, okay?" Hector pushed up out of the seat. He fist-bumped Levon and returned to his pals snoozing in the back.

  “Yeah. You can show me around the compound,” Levon lied once more.

  Once his boots hit the ground he'd be gone, bound for Mosul.

  9

  “Been gettin’ much rain this fall?” Ed Bowden said. He was talking to a girl behind the counter at a six-stool place called Fay’s in some blow-through town called Colby.

  “You a farmer?” the girl said. She was pouring fresh ground coffee into a paper filter.

  “Not so much these days,” he said.

  “Didn’t think so with those hands.” She smiled, not meaning it as a criticism.

  “Been in sales since I left home. Feed corn, machines. Still in farming in a way, I suppose.”

  “What brings you to Colby?” She was struggling to fix the coffee receptacle into an ancient drop machine. It slid home with a clank.

  “My wife’s niece, guess that makes her my niece too. We came down from Charlotte for her wedding. Staying all week.”

  “In Colby? Maybe I know her.”

  “Naw. Over in Haley. I told them I needed to gas up the car and slipped on out.”

  “Long way to come for gas.”

  “I had to get away from all those hens cackling.”

  She laughed at that. A high titter that ended in a sweet sigh.

  “Then stay for a refill,” she said. She tipped a coffee pot to top him off.

  Ed never thought he’d be in the field again. They’d shifted him over to a desk for his last eight years to his twenty. And here he was undercover again. Not the kind of undercover that had him waking up in a cold sweat like back in the day. He was Terrence Riggins now with a driver’s license, insurance, Legion card and Mastercard to prove it. Instead of meeting under the moonlight on lonely roads to trade dollars for whiskey, he was nosing around little flyspeck towns like this making small talk.

  There were a few thousand Cades in the state and a hundred or more in this county. He could spend what was left of his life a
nd never get a whiff of the man he was looking for. Chad Bengstrom worked up some search theories for him utilizing a system the US Navy used to hunt for missing submarines back in the 1960s and '70s. Chad looked at incidences of violent crime across the entire state of Alabama. According to what Nancy and her team told him about the man they sought, unexplained homicides followed this Levon Cade like fleas after a dog. Using his submarine search program, Chad found a dense cluster of possibly related murders, unidentified corpses, arson and theft in this county. The thickest collection of incidents were right here within a ten-mile wide radius of this little one-gas-station town.

  Hard to reconcile that with what he could see through the front glass of Fay’s. A two-lane with only the occasional pickup drifting past. A gas station and an ice cream place shuttered now for the winter. The sign out front read: CL SED TIL SUM ER.

  He knew that the real heart of this place was the hills that rose up either side of the road and the hollers and deeps hidden down between the ridgelines that marched away to the horizon. It was all changed from his day. His job was all administrative now. Making sure the proper forms were applied to the proper cases. But it still brought him in frequent contact with active ATF agents and U.S. Marshals.

  When he walked hills like this, the same damned hills in a different state, he sniffed the air for mash or looked for runs of PVC pipes up from crick beds that drew the water to thirsty stills. Even the sound of a chainsaw could mean someone had a thumper close by. Stills needed a steady supply of firewood too.

  Now, so they told him, it was mostly meth being cooked in these woods. In his time there were some bad actors who distilled with ingredients not meant for consumption. Pine needles, sawdust. One fella he caught was using pig shit to speed the process. Liquor that would make you permanently blind. But most of the old boys up here took pride in their product and used only the freshest water and clean mash.

  Not the same for meth. There was no wrong way to make that shit and almost all the ingredients were lethal. It was just evil stuff. Made anyone who used it bat-shit crazy and that included the assholes making it. Ed met very few shiners who were drunks. But all these drug folks were tainted by their product.

  He reminded himself to step lightly. The old suspicions of outsiders still lingered over these hills. He'd been out driving these roads, stopping at roadside BBQ wagons, Legion halls, feed stores, and anywhere else locals might be found. In the past few weeks he'd gotten nowhere — either blank stares or a sly change of subject. Lots of times whoever he was talking to would simply walk away.

  “So, are you Fay?” he said. The pretty girl behind the counter was busy at the sink washing cups. Not too busy to offer another of her smiles.

  “That was my mama named the place. But I’m Fay too.”

  “That would make you a junior if you were a boy. Not sure what that makes a girl having the same name as her mother.”

  “Well, she’s gone now so it’s just me.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Bet she’d be proud of you keeping this place up so nice.”

  “Maybe.”

  She set the cups on a tray to dry. Ed took a sip of coffee. Fay broke the silence.

  “What’s your niece’s last name? I mean her maiden name. I might not know her but I bet I know her family.”

  “Cade. Elizabeth Cade.”

  Fay’s smile returned.

  “I know some Cades live close by here.”

  Gunny Leffertz said:

  “They say a jarhead has no home. Not so. A Marine is home anywhere he can dig a hole and point a rifle.”

  10

  The sun had sunk below the faraway horizon hours before. Baking heat still radiated from the runway surface despite the fresh chill in the air.

  Levon joined the other men in an MRAP vehicle waiting at the edge of the field. They loaded in their luggage and climbed on board. The big transport truck bore no markings. Levon noted it was Chinese made.

  “Thought you said it was quiet here. Why all the armor?” Levon asked Hector as they took seats on the benches lining either wall of the MRAP’s interior.

  “The Chinese play it safe. You know what it’s like here. One minute everything’s cool and the next the kid who sold you a Coke yesterday is firing an RPG at your hotel room,” Hector said.

  Levon nodded.

  Away from the lights of the airfield the only breaks in the pitch darkness were the winking red marker lights atop the slant drill rigs set far off the road surface to either side. The road away from the airfield curved up an incline toward a false green-hued dawn of halogen lights that illuminated SinoChem’s employee compound.

  The armored transport slowed to pass through a gap in a ten-foot earth berm that ringed the compound. The MRAP wormed through a maze of Jersey barriers before coming to a full stop in front of a guard bunker fortified with sand-filled HESCO barriers. The HESCO was a wire mesh and heavy duty fabric box the size of a refrigerator. They could be filled with dirt, sand or gravel to make quick-fix bunkers and embrasures. Uniformed men came out. After a few words shared with the driver, they waved the transport through.

  Levon looked through the slit of a viewport, a view distorted by the inches of angled ballistic glass. He noted that all the guards appeared to be Westerners. They wore no unit markings though their BDUs and web gear were of uniform issue. The compound itself bore no identification other than a white steel sign that announced this place as Site A-9 in English, French and Arabic. Missing was a translation in Chinese characters.

  They rolled along a paved road through a collection of buildings that looked like a modern college campus transported to a desert. The transport deposited them before a row of modular buildings set back off a road across a yard of raked sand that was enclosed by a border of white-washed stones. All very chickenshit G.I. and orderly.

  The unit off the plane were met by a company employee, the first Chinese national they encountered since beginning their journey. In his slacks, boat shoes and windbreaker he looked like the entertainment director on a cruise ship. He introduced himself as James and spoke flawless English tinged with an Oxford accent.

  He gave them a short introductory orientation, welcoming back anyone returning, even making a joke about round eyes all looking alike. A few of the guys chuckled politely. The rest had heard the joke before. He cautioned them not to drink alcohol this evening as they would be on duty at first light. He wished them a good night and departed.

  Inside the modular building the air was comfortably dry. There was a great room with steel cages for their gear lining the walls. Full complements of weapons, web gear, body armor and ammo. All either new or reconditioned. Each man was assigned his own dorm room with a bunk, dresser and wardrobe. Flatscreen TV on the wall and a mini-fridge. Inside the wardrobe were two sets of clean BDUs, ball caps and boots identical to those worn by the guards. No insignia. The labels inside read Made in China.

  The whole structure showed signs of previous occupants, remnants of tape where photos were placed on paneled walls, but every surface was recently wiped clean. He set his bag atop the bunk and sat down on the edge of the mattress. It was the most comfortable billet Levon had ever seen. He almost regretted that he wouldn’t be staying.

  Hector appeared in his doorway.

  “We don’t get orders till the morning. The rest of us are going over for pizza and Cokes. You coming?” he said.

  “I’ll be along,” Levon said. “I just want to square myself away here.”

  "Sure. The Pizza Hut's kitty-corner from here. Just head right to the main road. It's along on the left at the back of the parking lot."

  “Roger that,” Levon said.

  Hector was gone from the door, calling out to someone down the corridor.

  Levon waited until he heard the voices retreat and the door to the outside slam. He could feel the quiet all around but for the hum of the air-conditioning. He was alone.

  In the floor of his gear bag was a false bottom. Inside was a p
acket of documents sealed in plastic. Duck Withers had provided it. Marching orders and the ID that would get him off the base with transport. After that he was on his own. After that it was terra incognita.

  He slit the packet open with his clasp knife. He read the specs on his new ID, memorizing the data. He stuffed the papers into a pocket of his jacket. In the great room he found the call-out cage with his name on it. Or Warren Teller’s name. He found a heavy canvas gear bag and loaded it with an oil-shiny M4 rifle, twenty magazines, a Browning automatic and three magazines, a half dozen frag grenades and a med pack. He left behind the body armor and boots and the rest of the web gear.

  He transferred plastic-wrapped bundles of cash from the false bottom of his carry-on bag into the pouches of his new ruck. A desert tan Orca backpack. The rest of the contents of his carry-on—change of socks, underwear, clasp knife and butane lighter—went into pouches on the backpack. Before stowing the bundles of cash, he slit a pack open and drew out a stack of twenties he folded in half and stuck in his shirt pocket. He humped it all outside, backpack, rifle and gear bag.

  Instead of turning right as Hector suggested, Levon made his way left toward a dark lot where a row of cars waited. One of them was a ten-year-old 4Runner with a sun-bleached paint finish that was once pewter. The windshield was cracked down the center. He opened the driver door and lifted the floor mat. An ignition key lay in the dust just as Duck promised. The Toyota whined to life and he steered it back the way they’d come toward the gate.

  At the gate the guard examined the papers Levon offered him. The guard was an Aussie who narrowed his eyes to study Levon’s face.

  “You lot just got here, mate,” he said.

  “No rest for the wicked. The home office called. I got to run this errand ASAP.” Levon managed a smile and a shrug.

  “You know the way?”

  “I’ll find it. Just follow the road, right? Not like I could get lost.”

  “Nothing but wall-to-wall fuck-all out there,” the Aussie said and waved him through.