Sweepers

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Have you become a believer now?” she asked once the waitress had left.

  Train reflected for a moment. “Yeah, I think so. There are still some bothersome inconsistencies, but -his overall situation points toward a setup. His wife shot herself. God, there’s the ultimate”I’ll show you.’ She shivered. “That son definitely sounds like -somebody we need to talk to.

  Train nodded. “I’ll start beating the bushes tomorrow.

  Then maybe we both go talk to him.”

  “But do you think he would talk to us?”

  “Ve Germans haff our methods, madame,” Train intoned. She smiled. He returned the smile. It was the first truly personal smile she had seen, and she suddenly wanted to talk about something besides this baffling Sherman case.

  “So, do you live in Virginia?” she asked. He told her a little of his background, then briefly described his home on the Potomac, near.Aquia.

  She became increasin ly intrigued as he described the household setup, beginning to wonder why someone with obvious financial security and a law degree would be working for the NIS. He sensed her question.

  “I know it sounds a bit anomalous. But I think I’m making a contribution, and that’s been a big part of our family’s ethic over the generations. Can’t escape our Prussian heritage, I guess, although every time I’ve pulled the genealogical string, things get a little vague about exactly where the von came from in von Rensel. It may have been appropriated on the way over with von Steuben.”

  She stiffed her Chardonnay with a fingernail. “And why no family? Is that part of the master plan?”

  He looked discomfited, and she realized he was basically a very shy man.

  “Not my master plan,” he said quietly.

  “But, hell, look at me. Man Mountain Dean. Women find me-what’s the word? Exotic, I guess. I usually see two reactions from the ladies: downright fright at the thou4t of being with such a big guy, or salacious interest, for the same reason. I guess nobody ever wanted to take me home to meet the folks.”

  She smiled at that. “When I was younger, it seemed like lots of Navy guys wanted to take me home to meet the folks,” she said. “But as a Navy lawyer, I saw too many mamages like the admiral’s: women left alone to cope with tight budgets, disaffected kids who thought that their daddies went away because they’d done something wrong, or the fallout from the randy sailor types who had to have a woman in every port; sometimes including home port.”

  “Were there no civilians?”

  “Not really. You know, when you’re in the Navy, you tend to socialize Navy. You were in the Marines; you didn’t associate with civilians, did you?”

  “Nope,” he acknowledged. “Civilians were all hapless dolts who desperately needed the protection of the few, the strong, and the brave.”

  She hummed a few bars of the Marine Corps hymn and he laughed. “Stop, or I’ll have to stand up and salute,” he said. Their eyes met for a momenl “This is much better, Mr. Man Mountain,” she said. “I think we’re going to do okay.” He raised his beer mug in a grave salute as the evening’s entertainment, a two-man band accompanied by a twenty-piece orchestra in a computer, lit off in the comer and ended any Pope of further conversation.

  After dinner, they walked slowly out to the parking lot.

  She was wondering how he would tie off the evening.

  “I’m glad we did this,” he said when they reached their cars. He looked as if he wanted to say more but was too shy to come out with it.

  “So am I,” she replied. “However this Sherman mess comes out.”

  He smiled, and she almost invited him back to the house for a nightcap4 But the moment passed and he became all business again.

  “Are there any other signs that the JAG’s having second thouihts about our investigation?” he asked as he unlocked his car.

  “Other signs?”

  “Who else-but Carpenter would have the power to lock you out of a JAG archives file? That’s what I was talking about earlier. “

  “Oh. I never thought-you think he did that?”

  “He did or someone did on his orders. I was th4iking: Maybe tomorrow would be a good, day to call in sick. In case he’s waiting to call you up to the front office and tell you to go back to reviewing investigations. I don’t know, but I suddenly have this feeling that we’ve been switched off the main line here.”

  “Well, I suppose I could.” Once again, he had taken her by surprise.

  Carpenter?

  He opened his car door. “Look,” he said, “like I told Sherman, you need to be vigilant, too. Remember what’s been ha pening to people close to Sherman. Right now, I p from an outsider’s perspective, you qualify.”

  There it was, that big-brother attitude of his again, she thought. But this time, she did not resent it. She decided to flirt a little. “But I have you to protect me, Mr. Man Mountain, right?”

  He gave her a wary eye. “You want me to stay with you tonight?” he asked, keeping it light by giving her a barely visible grin.

  She felt a tingle of excitement, and she batted her eyes.

  “How The neighbors would talk.”

  “What neighbors are those, specifically?” he asked. But then, as if sensing this was getting a little too personal, he backed off. “Look, whoever’s doing this is pretty good at it. Something strikes you as being out of whack, call me.”

  He fished out a card and wrote something on the back of it.

  “Here’s the number for my car phone, and my home phone and fax numbers down in Aquia. False alarms are acceptable.

  She thanked him and then watched him drive out of the parking lot. She drove home, speculating on things and feelings long dormant, too long dormant. Once home, she started to lock up the house, then remembered the dog. She went back out onto the front porch and called. Nothing. The barn-the last place she had seen Harry. He had been trotting down toward his favorite sunning spot. I’ll bet he’s sound asleep. She walked across the front of the house and down toward the aisle of hedge between the yard and the barn. The night was cooler now, with clear skies and a sprinkling of stars. The loom of Washington’s lights permeated the southeastern horizon. She automatically searched for and found Polaris; Frank had made a fetish of fixing the North Star every time he went outside at night. She could hear small rustlings in the hedge as she passed down the shadowy aisle, taking care not to hang up a heel on a crack in the mossy bricks. A car went by out on Beach Mill Road, but the sound was dampened by the dense hedge.

  She came out into the barn enclosure and looked around.

  The horses were not visible, but there was a night-light on in the aisle. She called the dog again, but nothing happened.

  Funny. Normally, he would have been bounding out of the barn by now. She walked forward, into the isleway. The familiar smells of hay, straw, and leather reeking of One Step cleaner met her as she crossed the threshold. She looked down the aisle in the dim light and saw Harry, lying on his saddle pad against the door of the tack room.

  “Hey, beast, let’s go. It’s time to go in the house.” Harry didn’t move.

  Alarmed, she went over to him. The dog was not in his customary furry ball. He was lying against the door, breathing, but more crumpled than curled. “Harry?”

  she called, kneeling. The dog didn’t move. His breathing sounded ragged, shallow. Then she smelled something medicinal, like alcohol, but not exactly. Sweeter, almost sickly sweet. She remembered that smell. What the hell was it?

  Ether! That’s what it was, ether. She bent closer to the dog’s muzzle, and the smell was stronger. Some bastard had There was a loud crash as something hit the tin roof of the barn, something hard and sharp that rattled down the slope of the metal roof and fell with a small thud into the paddock outside. She nearly jumped out of her skin and stood up, flattening herself against the door, her breath frozen in her throat.

  Silence. The dog groaned softly at her feet,, his rear legs twitching.

  There was another n
oise, this time at the far end of the barn, like weeds or bushes scrabbling against the retracted aisleway doors—coming toward the doorway. She panicked and ran out of the barn, across the barn enclosure and up toward the house. But when she got to the hedge passage, she stopped abruptly, grabbing the post of the grape arbor to stop herself. The walkway between the hedges, which was nearly fifty feet long, was in deep shadow. She looked over her shoulder at the barn, but there was nothing coming or moving-yet.

  She looked back into the gloom of the hedge passage and back at the barn. There were fences on either side of the hedge passage. She was in her uniform skirt and low heels.

  That fence would slow her down-a lot. The hedge passage was a direct shot to the house-unless there was someone in there, someone who could reach through the hedge and grab her. A night breeze swept gently through the tree branches over her head. The barn remained silent.

  She made her decision: Get to the house; get to a phone.

  She took off again, straight through the hedge passage, staying low, bent over as she ran, grateful for every day of-her workouts, her right arm held up, her hand balled in a fist.

  She erupted from the other side of the passage and sprinted the remaining hundred feet to the front porch in about six seconds. She hurtled through the front door, spun around, slammed and locked it. She leaned back against the door as she recovered her breath. Phone. Get on the phone. Call the cops . No. Call Train. Where was that card? In her pocket.

  Call his car phone. Get him to turn around and get back here.

  Then she realized the house was dark. There was enough starlight coming in to see the furniture and the walls but not much else. Turn on the lights, hunny.

  They had been on when she left.

  She held her breath as she slowly moved her hand over to feel the bank of switches by the front door. Three of the four were up, in the “on” position.

  The power. The power’s out. Someone’s cut the power She swallowed hard and moved sideways into the living room, feeling her way through the familiar shapes of furniture. She stopped when she reached the phone at the far end of the couch, then listened carefully. She thought she Sensed a foreign presence in the house, then wondered if it was just her imagination. Her mouth dry, she settled into the couch and put her hand on the telephone.

  If he’d cut the lights, he might have cut the phone, too.

  Please, please let it be working.

  With Train’s card in one hand, she lifted the handset. But she couldn’t see the numbers in the darkened living room.

  This was no time to mess around. She couldn’t bear to see if there was a that tone or not. She took a deep breath and punched 911. Then she put the handset to her right ear and held her breath. Her heart sank when she did not hear a ringing sound.

  Commander Lawrence, a voice whispered.

  She nearly dropped the phone. Someone was on the line, and it sure as hell wasn’t the 911 operator.

  I know you’re there, Commander.

  The voice seemed disembodied, a hoarse, machinelike whisper with a faint echo, but it was unm istakably right there, right in her ear. Where the hell was he? Oh my God, the phone didn’t ring: He’s here; he’s in the house. She fought back another surge of panic, the overwhelming urge to bolt back out of the house.

  “Who is this? What do you want?” she said, her voice coming out in a dry croak.

  That’s not your normal voice, Commander. Funny how adrenaline can do that. Are you a fraid?

  She looked around the darkened room and swallowed again. If she just put the phone down and kept very quiet she could make it to the front door.

  Depending on where he was. There were extension phones in the study, the kitchen, and the upstairs bedrooms. Get out of the house. Get to one of the cars, and a car phone.

  Pay attention, Commander. Stop trying to figure out where I am or how to get help. I’m not here to hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have put a razor wire about neck-high between those hedges. I didn’t hurt your old dog, did I? I could have snapped his neck. But I used ether, right? So sit still. And pay attention. This is important.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice a little stronger.

  She eyed the front hall, gathering herself, and then thought about getting the door locks open, and about the distance to the garage.

  I think you know who I am. The voice definitely sounded as if it was machine-generated, not human.

  “Galantz?”

  That’s not my name anymore. Marcus Galantz is dead, remember? But here’s the deal: You’re beginning to interfere in something that doesn’t concern you. You and your friend Lurch there.

  She swallowed but said nothing.

  I want you to back out. Go back to being a professional second-guesser in room 4C646 in the Pentagon. There’s a future in that. There’s nofuture in what you’ve been doing lately. None at all. Do you understand me?

  Did you kill them?” she asked. “Elizabeth Walsh? Admiral Schmidt?”

  No. He did. Your precious pretty boy with the golden sleeves.

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “He’s not a killer.”

  Oh yes he is. You have no idea, Commander. He kills people, especially people who depend on him. He kills people who are close to him. And you are getting close to him.

  Dangerous place to be, Commander. Very dangerous, in my recent experience. Others would-agree-if only they could That silenced her. She tried to think, but that whispering voice was starting to mesmerize her-the repetitive phraseology, the short chantlike bursts of speech.

  The urge to bolt was diminishing. Instead, she found herself wanting to talk to him, to pay attention to the whispering sound in her ear.

  You don’t believe me, do you, Karen-n-n-n?

  Suddenly, the whisper was much louder as he let the final syllable of her name linger in the earpiece, the echoing voice like a prolonged hiss from a large snake. Using her name now. Focus: He’s using a machine to do this.

  I do believe you. But she was thinking it, not saying it.

  Karen-n-n-n. Here I come. Karen-n-n-n.

  She realized then that she had stopped breathing and that she was holding the earpiece against the side of her head hard enough to hurt.

  No. Don’t come. I believe you. But she was still thinking it, not saying it.

  Karen-n-n-n. The volume was diminishing.

  Please. Don’t come. I believe you.

  He said her name again, the volume very low now, as if he had put down the phone.

  And was coming. I She dropped the phone and lunged across the living room, I knocking over a table and then a lamp, caroming off an I upholstered chair before reaching the front vestibule, her hands clawing at the dead-bolt handle, the door handle, and then she was out on the front porch and flying across the driveway to the garage, its right-side door still open, thank God, to the first car, any car, and then she was inside the Mercedes, batting at the switches for the door locks.

  Keys. Oh God, I don’t have my keys!

  She whirled around in the seat and looked back at the open garage door.

  The door transmitter was mounted to the dash. Close it? Or leave it open?

  Close it and be in total darkness. Open it and he gets in, if he wants to.”Men she remembered the car phone.

  She smashed down on the remote transmitter button and the big garage door started to lower behind her. She stabbed the power switch on the car phone. There was a tone, and the little screen lit up. Locked, it read, as if mocking her.

  She yelled and slammed her hand on the steering wheel, then remembered how to unlock it. The garage door settled to the concrete floor behind her with a thump as she punched in the last three digits of the phone’s number. An instant of silence, and then there was another tone, and then the blessed dashed lines of a full signal. She picked up the handset and then dropped it when the phone rang.

  She let it lie there on the seat, afraid to touch it. It rang again, then a third time.
Him. It had to be him. Finally, her hand trembling, she reached down and hit the Send button,

  then picked it up.

  Karen-n-n-n.

  She closed her eyes but didn’t reply. Just held the phone to her ear.

  Get clear of this. Get your largefriend clear of this. Don’t be there when I come for him I won’t warn you again.

  She squeezed her eyes shut to make him go away.

  I’m going now.

  The whisper grew weaker, overlaid with reverberations.

  I’m going now, Karen. Don’t make me come back Then there was nothing except the hiss of static in her ear. She hit the Clear button and let the phone drop into her lap as she slumped back against the seat of the car. Her stomach felt weak and fluttery. Her hands and even her legs were still trembling.

  She picked up the phone again to make a call, then stopped. A call to whom? The cops? And tell them what?

  That she was sitting in her garage, locked in her Mercedes, because there was some guy talking to her on a phone? She could just hear the cops’ response: Yeah, right, lady, we’ll be hustling right along.

  Another Great Falls Yuppie princess who’s overdone her meds.

  But for some reason, she felt that he was indeed gone.

  She reached for the remote transmitter button, then hesitated. What if he wasn’t? She turned around slowly in the seat and looked out at the side mirror. She could barely make out the inside surface of the garage door, but there was a thin line of dim light along the garage floor. She turned back around and unlocked the doors, wincing at the suddenly loud noise. She opened the door and slid out of the driver’s seat. Opening the door turned on the car’s interior light. Feeling exposed, she pushed the door shut, trying to make no noise.

  Standing by the door, she had to hang on to the door handle because her legs were trembling so badly. She stared hard at the bottom of the garage door. But now she could clearly see the crack of dim light visible along the bottom.

  She crept back to the leftrear fender, then slowly sank down to one knee to look under the door. She froze.

  There were two dim shapes that looked very much like shoes standing right by the door.