by Myke Cole
“I’m a Senator,” Hodges said. “I’ve got a lot of other jobs.”
“More important than this one?” she asked.
Hodges stammered for a moment before sighing, “No.”
“Good. I’ll keep you posted and vice versa. Constant comms. Both ways, I promise.”
Hodges nodded. He squinted at the image of the facility squatting dark and silent in the feed projected on one of the trailer’s screens. “Those fuckers. They would have taken my body if I’d let them.”
“If I’d let them,” Schweitzer said.
“They’re going down,” Hodges said. “I swear.”
Ghaznavi laughed. “What the hell are you going to do? You’re a Senator, not an operator.”
“Yeah,” Hodges sighed, “I am. You’re the ground-pounding shadow warrior. You go on the secret mission. I’ll make sure it smells sweet back at home.”
She stared at him.
“I’m agreeing with you,” Hodges said. “Accept it before I change my mind.”
She nodded and tapped Schweitzer on the shoulder. “What do you think of all this?”
“You suddenly care what I think?” Schweitzer asked.
“Of course I care what you think,” she said. “You’re the only one with firsthand experience in all of this.”
Schweitzer thought for a moment. “I feel like we can trust Desmarais, if that’s what you’re asking. And that picture isn’t photoshopped.”
“You know that from your magic super vision?”
“That helps, but it’s not the thing here. Being alive is . . . noisy. Being dead helps you to focus in ways you couldn’t before. You can pick out details. I don’t think that photo was doctored.”
“I’ll have it analyzed just in case,” Hodges said. “I still remember my way around CIA. Photo unit in the same spot?”
Ghaznavi nodded to Hodges, turned back to Schweitzer. “All right. Let’s get this row on the shoad. How do you like cold weather?”
Schweitzer opened the trailer door and stepped out into the dark. “I’m more worried about you. I’ve got antifreeze for blood.”
“I’ve got coffee for blood,” Ghaznavi said. “We’ll see who cries uncle first.”
CHAPTER IX
RESOLUTION
Mankiller and Yakecan hiked the remaining miles to Fort Resolution in silence. Mankiller kept running through what she had just seen in her mind: the helicopter, the cage full of gray-skinned, flame-eyed people, the hard-bitten men with guns. It couldn’t be real. She had to have been hallucinating. But she heard Yakecan puffing alongside her. If it was a hallucination, then it was one they both shared. The life of a small-town sheriff had its dangers, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this frightened.
Bob Earl was pointing his rifle at her as she stepped out of the tree line and onto the frozen track that was Fort Resolution’s only real road.
“Early Bird,” as she called him, had been failing to surprise her for her entire life, and she wished she could say she was surprised now. “Jesus, Sheriff,” Early Bird slurred, his purple nose peeking out over his scarf like a Christmas ornament, so swollen she wondered how his tiny, close-set eyes could peer around it. “I almost shot you.”
“Jesus fuck.” Yakecan shook his head, started forward. Mankiller was faster. She reached Early Bird in two steps and yanked the barrel of his .375 Ruger Alaskan down.
“What the hell did I tell you?” she asked.
“What’re you yellin’ at me for?” Early tugged on his rifle, immediately saw the futility of the act, and let the weapon drop. “You were makin’ the trees shake. Thought maybe it was a deeb . . . bar.”
“A what?”
“It’s drunk for a deer or a bear,” Yakecan offered.
“I speak fluent drunk, thanks,” Mankiller said, ripping the rifle out of Early’s hands and working the action, sending the rounds tumbling into the snow.
Early went scrambling after them. “Aw, Sheriff! Those are Partition Golds! You know how much those cost to . . .”
“I know how much they’d cost me if you went and put one in my gut, you damned idiot. You count yourself lucky I ain’t puttin’ cuffs on you right now.”
“All right, Sheriff, all right.” Early patted the air. “No need to get so angry.”
The words made Mankiller even angrier. At least three different retorts rose to her lips, all dismissed in an instant. At last, she settled on shaking Early Bird’s rifle at him. “I’m keepin’ this!” She spun on her heel and stormed off toward the station, Yakecan hurrying behind.
Sally Valpy was wrestling a log into the bed of her pickup, her parka studded with its perennial covering of splinters and woodchips. “Hey, Sheriff! ?édlánet’é. Where ya . . .”
“Not now, Sally.” Mankiller brushed past the older woman, ignoring the look of openmouthed surprise.
“Sorry,” Yakecan said. “She’s in a hurry.”
“I can see that!” Sally called after them, accusation ringing in her voice.
Mankiller’s stomach twisted at her tone. She took her duty to the people of Fort Resolution seriously, and she didn’t like being rude. The old wood carver only wanted to say hello. Mankiller would bring her a fruitcake later. Sally was batshit crazy about fruitcake.
Mankiller put on speed, concentrating on the burning in her thighs, the soft crunch of her boots over the snowpack, the bobbing gray shape of the station growing in the distance. She wanted only to concentrate on walking as fast as she could, but she soon heard Yakecan huffing along behind her. “Boss, where are we goin’?”
She whirled on him, ready to curse him for an idiot, to tell him he could damn well see where they were going when the station was right in front of his eyes. But Yakecan’s moon face was pale with fear, his eyes wide. He wore the dumbfounded half smile that meant he knew he was out of his depth, that he needed orders. That smile grew, his cheeks continuing to rise until they were obscured by the fur trim of his hood.
Yakecan made Mankiller mad every time he opened his fool mouth, but the man had a way that made it hard to stay mad, and no mistake. Mankiller found herself smiling back. “Gonna try to raise Yellowknife, talk to Superintendent White.”
“What’s he gonna do?”
“I dunno,” Mankiller said. “Call the RCMP, maybe. Maybe call the Army.”
“The Army?”
“Military helo just offloaded a squad of hard operators, didn’t it? Not more’n a few klicks out. They could be on their way here. That ain’t right, and we can’t handle it, the two of us. We need help.”
“Maybe they’re not coming here.”
“That don’t matter!” Mankiller swallowed her frustration. “We need help on this.”
“White’s a dick.”
“I know it, but he’s the guy we have to call, so let’s go call him.”
They trudged on, and the station rose out of the frost-choked air. It was little more than a double-wide trailer, the back opening into a low concrete pillbox that served as the cells. They were storage, more often than not. Mankiller preferred to let the drunks of Fort Resolution sleep it off in their beds unless they absolutely had to be taught a lesson. Given that there was little to do in Fort Resolution other than drink, it proved to be an essential policy.
“Boss . . .” Yakecan’s breathing was labored as he struggled to keep up.
“Yeah?”
“The . . . that cage. Can we talk about what was in it?”
Mankiller felt a shiver settle in her spine, work its way up to the back of her skull. “You and I saw the same thing, Joe.”
“You . . . uh . . . you gonna tell Superintendent White about that?”
“I dunno,” she said. “Probably not.”
“Yeah,” Yakecan said. “I don’t think he’d understand. Looked like magic to me . . . like
maybe the same magic your grandpa’s got.”
“You don’t know what it looks like, Joe, and neither do I,” Mankiller said. “And we need to slow down and be thinkin’ on it until we do know. Just keep it to yourself for now, okay? Hard enough to explain this as it is.”
Oliver Calmut met them on the porch. He was in his long johns, his feet just kicked into his boots to come outside. His pointed elbows shivered as he hugged himself. “Sheriff, been tryin’ to call you.”
“Jesus, Ollie, put some pants on.” Sometimes, the informality of her leadership style had drawbacks.
Calmut swatted at his stringy black and gray hair and ignored her, holding the door wide. Mankiller and Yakecan kicked the snow off their boots in what passed for the station’s foyer, a closet-sized mud room on the opposite side of the Plexiglas-shielded booth where Calmut sat beside the station’s only radio. “Was worried about you,” Calmut said, making his way around to his seat. “Couldn’t raise you for a radio check.”
Calmut’s snowsuit lay crumpled on the floor beside his rolling chair. Mankiller couldn’t blame him for taking it off. It was at least ninety degrees inside. “Jesus, Ollie. Didn’t I tell you to get the heat fixed?”
“I called Freddie,” he said.
“And?”
“And he’s busy.”
“Busy with what?”
Calmut shrugged. “Anyway, Sally Valpy was around lookin’ for you. She got into it with Denise Unka over some trees Sally was takin’ for her carvin’. Sally says Denise threatened to set her shed on fire.”
“Denise’s been threatenin’ to burn Sally out since I was a kid.” Mankiller shrugged out of her parka. “Can you open a window?”
“Been openin’ ’em,” Calmut said, turning to crack the window beside his desk. “It’s good for about five minutes, then it’s freezin’.”
“Anyway, I saw Sally on the way here. I’ll deal with that in a bit.”
“Fine by me,” Calmut said. “Only, you need to answer your radio. You had me worried.”
“We mighta been outta radio range,” Yakecan said, already sweating. “We were playin’ snow snake up on the pond.”
Calmut looked at Yakecan accusingly.
“We can take a break, Ollie,” Yakecan said. “Anyway, why didn’t you call us on our phones?”
“Tried,” Calmut said. “Both of yous. No love.”
Yakecan glanced down at his smartphone. “I should have signal out there.”
“I shouldn’t,” Mankiller said. “Satphone?”
“Well, that’s for emergencies,” Calmut said, “but I was gettin’ to that when you showed up.”
“All right, well, we’re here now.”
“Yup, so I can call Sally and—”
“No,” Mankiller said. “I need you to call Superintendent White in Yellowknife.”
Calmut looked up at her, his basset hound eyes incredulous. “Why are we callin’ him?”
“We saw somethin’ up on the pond,” Yakecan said, paused, looked to Mankiller for permission. She shrugged and he went on. “Guys with guns and a helicopter.”
“Like hunters?” Calmut asked.
“Like soldiers,” Mankiller said.
“Canada’s bein’ invaded?” Calmut’s wattles shook.
“Hell if I know. Raise up White and maybe he can tell us.”
“Yeah . . .” Calmut made no move to pick up the phone. “He’s a dick, boss.”
Yakecan snorted laughter, and Mankiller bit back her impatience. “Just call him, Ollie.”
Calmut shook his head, sighed, reached for the phone. “He’s gonna make a snide remark, and I’m gonna hang up on him.”
“If he makes a snide remark, it’ll be to me,” Mankiller said. “You just talk to Darla and get him on the phone.”
Ollie held the receiver to his ear, a slow smile dawning across his face. “Somebody up there likes me.”
Mankiller sighed. “You didn’t even dial yet, Ollie.”
“Can’t.” Calmut set the phone gingerly in its cradle, grinning so hard that his eyes nearly vanished in a chasm of laugh lines. “No tone.”
“Whaddya mean, no tone?” Yakecan asked.
“Phone’s dead.” Ollie tapped the hook switch. “Got nothin’.”
Mankiller snatched the receiver out of his hand, held it to her ear. The silence made the plastic seem heavier, as if she held a dead thing, the corpse of her connection to the outside world. Ollie was staring up at her, eyes wide. “Easy there, Sheriff, you don’t gotta—”
“Hand me the radio, Ollie,” Mankiller interrupted. She knew she was being rude, but the urgency rising in her gut wouldn’t be denied.
Calmut recognized her agitation, knew from long experience that there was nothing for it but to do as she said. He handed her the radio. She thumbed the switch, heard the familiar static. “Joe, it’s Wilma for a radio check, over.”
Static from the radio. Otherwise, silence.
Yakecan laughed. “C’mon, boss, I’m standing right here.”
“That’s my damn point,” Mankiller growled. She thumbed the radio switch again, spoke into it. “If you’re standing right here, how come it ain’t workin’?”
Yakecan’s smile slowly melted. He pulled his radio off his belt, thumbed the switch, checked the volume knob. “Looks okay . . .”
“’Cause it is okay,” Mankiller said, pulling out her smartphone. “Check your phone.”
Yakecan did, shook his head. “No signal.”
The shiver in Mankiller’s spine settled in her stomach, the same vague illness she felt when she went outside the wire on convoy duty in Afghanistan. “Comms are cut. Someone don’ want us talkin’ to nobody.”
“Come on,” Calmut said. “I’m sure it’s just—”
“All three comms modes down at the same time?” Mankiller said. “It’s not a coincidence.”
Calmut’s expression was a mix of bemusement and fear. “You think it’s those fellas you saw up on the pond with the guns and the helicopter?”
Mankiller turned to Yakecan. “Get yourself an 870 out of the locker. Load up with slugs.”
Yakecan nodded, still vaguely smiling, as if he hoped this whole thing would turn out to be a joke. “Sure, boss,” he said. “You don’t want me to grab one for you?”
Mankiller looked down at Early Bird’s Alaskan propped against the wall where she’d set it when she’d taken off her coat. “Get me a box of .375. Early Bird was kind enough to lend me his rifle, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t put it to use.”
Yakecan paused. “Think we’re gonna be usin’ ’em?”
Mankiller shrugged. “Hope not.” She turned to Calmut. “Ollie, you keep tryin’ to raise Yellowknife. I don’t think it’s a technical problem, but get Freddie over here as quick as possible. If he says he’s busy, tell him I said to get unbusy and quick. If there’s a way to get comms back, get ’em back.”
“Okay, Sheriff.” Calmut had gone pale.
“We’re goin’ over to the municipal building, talk to Mayor Kettle,” Mankiller said.
“We are?” Yakecan asked, emerging from the arms locker with an 870 in one hand and a box of cartridges in the other. “You don’ wanna—”
“Joe, a helo full of operators just touched down in our backyard and our comms are cut. Now, maybe I’m bein’ paranoid, and that’s fine. I’ll be all embarrassed and say sorry later. For now, we need to treat this like a bona fide emergency, and that means we go guns up and talk to the Mayor.”
“If you’re right,” Yakecan asked, tossing Mankiller the ammunition and shrugging his parka back on, “what’re we supposed to do? We can’t fight all those guys, not to mention . . . the other stuff.”
“No, we can’t,” Mankiller said, zipping her parka back up and then loading the rifle, careful to keep the muzzle po
inting at the floor, “but that don’ mean we wanna be caught flat-footed, neither.”
She pulled open the door, shivered as the frigid air blew in. “Ollie, you clear on everything?”
Calmut was busy pulling his snowsuit back on. “I’m good, Sheriff.”
“Ollie, grab a pistol and keep it with you.”
Calmut looked up, shocked, but smart enough to nod. “Sure thing, Sheriff. I’ll load up a Glock and stick it in my waistband. Real gangster-style.” He grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth.
“Load up .357,” Mankiller said. “I got a Taurus revolver back there.”
Calmut’s grin evaporated. “That’s a lot of gun, Sheriff.”
“If you need it and don’t have it”—Mankiller shrugged—“you’re never gonna need it again.” She stepped out into the cold, the snowpack crunching under her boots. She didn’t look back, but Yakecan’s huffing breath told her he was following.
The municipal building was only slightly larger than the station and included the rest of the hamlet’s services from the court clerk to the fire department to the mayor’s office. It was distinguished from the squat, brightly colored houses only by its size, fresh coat of paint, and the three disk-shaped plaques displaying the seal of the Deninu Kue First Nation, the Akaitcho Territory Government, and the commemoration of Treaty 8.
Mankiller’s steps quickened as her feet found the firmer ground of the parking lot beneath the snow, the big double window of the mayor’s office bobbing in her vision.
“Sheriff!” Sally was quiet most times, but she could get a good screech going when she was angry, and she was definitely angry.
Mankiller stiffened, considered ignoring her and making the final dash for the front door. But years downrange had trained her ears, and she instantly calculated Sally’s distance and trajectory from her voice and the sound of her footsteps crunching in the snow. There was no way Mankiller would make the door without giving Sally a chance to snatch at her collar, which she didn’t doubt the older woman would do. She sighed, turned.
“Damn it, Sheriff!” Sally shouted, her cheeks shaking. “We voted you in to do a job! You work for the people of this—”
