Vector

by James Abel

The layout here was classic, a lot in front, filled with domestic and foreign models to be repaired, or ready for pickup. A narrow driveway looped him out of view, behind the shop. More cars were parked here in a potholed dirt area, backed against a brick wall, in the storm.

  I can’t be seen from the street here. It’s Saturday night, and this place probably won’t open until Monday morning, thirty-six hours from now.

  The shop was locked. There was no way to know if there was an alarm or camera. But in the old days, in Colorado, lots of drivers left their keys in their cars. Also, he’d seen a small lockbox by the front door, chained to the brick. A sign above it said, KEYS.

  I need a car. But it can’t be one that will break down two miles from here. I need one that’s been fixed already, or needs something small.

  Tom backed the Subaru into a narrow space between a twenty-year-old Jeep and a new Toyota 4Runner. He stopped before his rear bumper hit the wall. The Subaru was now dwarfed, partially hidden by larger cars. Tom exited the Subaru, ignoring the rain that instantly soaked him.

  He opened the trunk and toolbox and removed a large Phillips-head screwdriver and knelt in the mud by his front license plate. The first screw he tried to turn was stuck.

  Shit.

  Tom applied pressure. Nothing. Rain blinded him. He hit the screw to loosen rust. He tried again. The screw moved a little. He tried hard. He got the screw off.

  Tom went around to the back of the Jeep and unscrewed its Mississippi license plate more easily. He affixed the plate to his Subaru. Now, if a police patrol came by, the officer would see a Mississippi plate.

  Hurry. Find a car to steal.

  The nearest car, a Smart car, tilted sideways due to two flat tires. Beside it was a Chevy Malibu, locked, and a blue Hyundai Sonata, locked, and then a Volkswagen Passat, locked. Forget looking for keys in the visor.

  Tom went back to the Subaru, froze at a loud cr-aack, and saw, above and behind the brick wall, a tree falling in the wind. He wiped rain from his eyes, and took a pry bar from the trunk. He strode to the front of the shop. There were no headlights on the road. But that could change in a moment.

  At the shop’s front door Tom listened for barking, in case there was a dog inside. He did not want to risk an alarm unless he had to. He knelt beside the lockbox. Like a lumberjack, he raised the pry bar and began slamming it into the padlock guarding the box. The back hinges of the box gave way before the padlock. He reached in. He found three sets of keys and more keys inside envelopes, along with notes from their owners.

  Floyd, she keeps stopping dead at lights, said the note with the first key. Forget that one.

  Floyd, it still makes that noise when I go more than 30 miles an hour. Ball bearings? said the second note.

  Not that one either.

  Change the oil.

  That one. The key chain said HONORING VETERANS. Tom stood with rain pounding his face. He went out back and pushed a button on the key fob and heard a loud beep from his left as headlights on a Ford flicked on and off.

  He needed five minutes to transfer the vectors and supplies: med kit, guns, golf bag, suitcase, from the Subaru to the Ford. Suddenly he saw twin lights stabbing into the lot. A car was coming. He crouched down between two vehicles. Had a patrolling cop spotted the smashed-in lockbox out front? Was it just a bored officer on routine patrol? Had someone seen him and called the cops?

  Tom pushed against the side of a Jeep as a car crunched and squished into the back lot.

  Allah, help me.

  The white searchlight showed rain sheeting down as it stabbed out, car to car. It illuminated the sliding twin rear doors of the shop, and the forms of cars on hoists inside. A car door slammed. Tom heard a grunt. He heard boots splashing in puddles. He saw the reflection of the cop and flashlight in the window of the shop. The cop stood still now, listening. But the only thing to hear was wind. The parked cars sat as still as animals frozen in fear.

  Tom realized that he had left the Sig Sauer in the Subaru. It would be visible, sitting on the seat, if the light stabbed that way.

  The light shut off. He heard the police car roll away.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later he was on the road again, driving back toward the highway. The Ford’s fuel gauge indicated a full tank of gas, enough for the four-hour trip. The sky ahead lit up with an awesome display of lightning, troposphere to earth, an inverted, bare tree of electricity, electric trunk and branches, snaking down like a trident at anything living in a flash of white that left its imprint on his retinas. Frozen in the glare were swaying trees and rooftops and bouncing power lines. Tom felt chilled from the rain. He coughed suddenly and violently.

  Was he getting sick?

  “Just a few more hours,” Tom said to himself. Normally he would have fed the insects by now, but he wanted them hungry. He wanted them to feed when he released them tomorrow at a very specific place.

  When he found an all-news station, Rush was gone from the airwaves. But Rush had, tonight, recruited a hundred million people to help him find Tom.

  In Islam, Tom knew, the story of the biblical flood was regarded as real. That was the feel here, now; of punishment, of rage and revenge.

  Tornado warnings . . . get inside, the radio said.

  Trees had snapped or bent sideways, a branch tumbled across the road like a tumbleweed, a bird flew past at eye level but backward, a cardboard box sailed toward him and away as if sucked into the air by a spaceship. He hydroplaned through a lake in the road. Had there been a tornado here? He traveled inside a ghost corridor of smashed pine trees, trunks snapped like toothpicks, debris rolling in the road, a flapping metal sign, ERNIE’S BAIT & AMMO, unattached to any shop, just sitting in a tree.

  And in the next flash of lightning, the accident he was about to plow into. The cypress tree lying three quarters across the road, blocking it unless he went around on the grass. The sparking power line, writhing and snapping. The silver sedan must have collided with the overturned semi. The truck lay in a V shape, cab going one way, container the other, driver’s door open, body lying half in and half out, as the dome light strobed and buzzed in the rain.

  He saw smoke or steam rising from the long trailer in back. Dry ice? Liquid oxygen? Something explosive?

  Tom didn’t know and did not want to find out.

  He needed to get around the damn thing, but he did not trust the soggy median strip to hold up the car. He slowed, tapping the spongy brakes, risking the road edge. A figure stood in the rain ahead, waving at him to stop. It looked like a boy. Tom needed to get around the kid without forcing the car into the ditchlike median strip. He didn’t want to run the skinny kid over but saw he had no choice. There was no other way around. He hit the accelerator, but the wheels spun the car sideways. He was sliding into the ditch. Then the wheels caught at about the same instant that there was a violent smacking sound on his window.

  A man loomed there. A man with a gun, shouting at him, to stop. Right now. NOW!!

  There was no way to speed up, to get away.

  Tom took his foot off the accelerator, heard thunder, heard his own breathing, heard the stupid ad for a comedy show on the radio, heard the kid open the back door as the man opened the front one. The gun was now two feet away, pointed at Tom’s face.

  “You were going to goddamned drive away and leave my family here.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Shut up. Get out. Get out now and help Wayne carry his mom into the backseat, you hear me?”

  The man was at the breaking point. He must be from the car that had collided with the overturned truck. The boy would be his son. The injured woman would be his wife. They’d been standing here waiting for help, and Tom had tried to drive past them. Tom had no illusions. This man was on the verge of firing.

  “Sure, sir. Sure. Let me help your boy there.”

 
; Tom. Good Samaritan Tom.

  “I ought to shoot you, mister,” the man said.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I really am. I didn’t see you.”

  “Don’t give me that!”

  “She’s hurt. Let me help. Let me get her into the backseat, sir. She needs medical attention.”

  “You’re damn right she does. You’re taking us to the hospital, in New Albany.”

  Back where I just came from, Tom thought, dragging the semiconscious woman through the storm by the arms. Tiny thing. Cotton dress. One shoe off. Blood on the chest. She wore a hijab, a soaked head scarf, so she is a Muslim. An American Muslim. What a joke.

  “Just get us to the hospital” the man said. “And keep this car steady. And pray that my finger doesn’t squeeze down, because I know you are the asshole who was ready to drive right by my wife and boy.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The FBI contingent rushed in as the press conference was ending. Ray Havlicek—still in Chicago—must have called his New York office when he heard what I was doing. Stop Rush right now!

  Eddie quipped as I left the podium that Ray had not moved this fast on anything, ever, so I should be proud. I’d finished answering the last question, so it was too late for Ray to stop the alert from getting out. The reporters—sensing conflict—looked like hungry animals, watching prey. The lead agent, a tall blond man, led the police commissioner into a back hallway as his staffers spread out like security guards at a rock concert.

  Their faces were expressionless, but their posture and coordination screamed of disapproval. This was a polite raid.

  “Hey, Dr. Rush, I see that the Bureau and NYPD are getting along just great,” quipped the wiseass NBC reporter, Vicki Ponte, grinning, in the front row.

  Temperatures in the room had been turned down to discourage mosquitoes. The usual New York–crowd odors of sweat, perfume, or cologne had been replaced by DEET or Avon Skin So Soft. Insecticides floated through office and prison ventilation systems throughout the city, and the effect had accelerated the draining away of repellent supply elsewhere across the country. If the terrorists hit another city, casualties will be astronomical, I thought.

  The NBC reporter sidled up to me. “Anything you want to share, Colonel, before they shut you down?” She gave me her card. “Coordinated investigations? Give me a break!”

  I sensed the worst when I reached the police commissioner, still huddled with the lead agent, nodding in agreement, steadily and unhappily. The agent turned to me, disgust on his face, cell phone extended. “Mr. Havlicek wants to talk to you, sir.”

  Ray’s voice was dead, flat, enraged. “You couldn’t wait even a few hours, could you, Joe?”

  “I’m not sure we have a few hours to wait, Ray.”

  “You’re out,” Ray snapped. “Hand in your credentials. Clear out of Columbia. Go home to the woods and take Eddie with you.”

  “I’m working in New York, Ray. I’ll stay in New York.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll find that your new friends feel otherwise,” Ray said. “They’d prefer to keep their federal aid. Because it all disappears: roads, schools, cops, too . . . if you stick around in any capacity. Also, on a personal note, you should be ashamed. You had Aya sleep at the FBI? Work around the clock? Christ, she’s sixteen.”

  “That was her idea. You ever try to stop Aya?”

  “Pshaw! You don’t pay attention to the President. Or to me. But a teenager leads you by the nose? Give me a break.”

  “If you did your job, I wouldn’t have to.”

  “You think this is personal,” Ray said. “You’re wrong. There’s no denying you made a big contribution. You found Brazil. You ID’d Fargo. I’m not blind to it. But there are other considerations. Tell you what,” Ray said, and for a moment I thought he was reconsidering. “You want to stick around? Then help out on the tip line. It’s important? You diverted detectives for it? Great. You and Eddie work the phones. Tip line! Joe Rush here!”

  When I said nothing Ray made a mocking sound. “Oh? NOT so important anymore? I didn’t think so. Let other people do the shit work. It’s all bright lights for Joe. And if you want to tell everyone I didn’t back you up in Brazil, be my guest. Also, Izabel Santo is going home, on the nine P.M. Varig flight out of Kennedy.”

  I swallowed my pride and said, “Aya loves being an intern. Don’t take it out on Aya because of me.”

  “Oh, I’ll keep her on. Just not you.” Ray sighed. “Besides, if I hindered her getting into college, her mother would kill me.”

  “You’re covering up something.”

  “Go back to the woods. I’ll say you’ve gotten sick. You’re taking time off. You’ll stay a hero, Joe. See? Don’t worry. I know what’s really important to you.”

  He clicked off. The police commissioner was a good man, and he looked mortified, furious. He’d conferred with the Mayor while I was being chewed out by Ray. “I feel lousy about this, Joe. You have our gratitude. You saved lives. You’ll always have a friend at the NYPD, and in my home. But for the moment, you won’t be working with us. Anything else you need? Ever? Please let me know.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “You’re out? I won’t work with Ray!” Aya Vekey snapped at me over the phone. “I hate him!”

  I was in Izabel Santo’s apartment, sitting on the bed, watching her pack for her trip home. Men in their underwear look clumsy and half dressed to me, but half-dressed women seem provocative. Eddie was at Columbia, cleaning out our office. Jamal had shaken my hand, thanked me, and been reassigned. “You did good work, sir,” he said.

  “Aya, you’re only hurting yourself if you quit. You love this work. The internship will help you get into college.”

  “I’ll get in just fine, Joe!”

  “You need to get used to having Ray around. He’s marrying your mother whether you like it or not.”

  “Don’t tell me what I have to do. No one tells you!”

  When I sighed she softened. “Is it my fault this happened? Because I slept at the office? I started it?”

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Well, I don’t understand how you find out all these important things and helped them and instead of making you a hero, Ray fires you.”

  “Don’t quit as a favor to me.”

  She hung up.

  “I like her,” Izabel said. “Fiery.”

  • • •

  Tom Fargo was out there somewhere, moving around. He was out there and by now had probably heard my announcement, and might have gone to ground. But the news was now spread to every police department and federal agency in the country. I did not regret what I’d done.

  “Come to Brazil with me,” Izabel said, folding the last pair of jeans into her bag. “Help us track the people who set up that lab in the jungle.”

  “I don’t speak Portuguese, remember? You’re the one who said it. What kind of moron goes to another country and can’t speak the language?”

  She straddled my knees. She smelled great. Her arms went around my neck. Grinning, she said, “Hurt your feelings?”

  I laughed.

  “Come for a week or two, to a place where you’ll be . . .” she said, brushing my cheek with an index finger, “appreciated.”

  “After.”

  “Because you might be needed here? Because you might think of something? You won’t give up?”

  “It’s my nature.”

  Outside, it was hot, even for summer, and Riverside Park was still and green in the streetlights; Grant’s Tomb a looming edifice, and the tiny grave beyond it, the little fenced-off resting place of the Amiable Child, lay whitish in moonlight. At the window I looked out. A man and boy walked out there, with a dog. I imagined that they were the Amiable Child and dead general, eternally guarding the ground where they had been laid to rest. Still alert.

  Izabel
and I kissed and started making love. She’d just put on her travel clothes but slipped them off easily. But there was no lust to it, and no love either . . . it was just something to do. Our hearts were not in it, so we stopped.

  “Rain check,” she said, dressing again.

  Eddie and I would drop her at the airport and then Stuart and Allison had invited us for a late dinner at their apartment. I planned to go over my notes after that. Izabel was right. Even fired, I might think of something.

  When the doorbell rang I figured that it was Eddie, come to fetch us. But the voice on the intercom belonged to Vicki Ponte from NBC News, always the pest.

  “I got a phone call for you, Colonel. Can I come up?”

  “How did you know I was even here?”

  “Major Nakamura. The call I got? It was from a man who phoned the tip line but got the runaround. He figured I’d know where you were. He reached me by calling my boss. Get it? He had access at NBC. You’ll want to speak to him.”

  Annoyed but intrigued, I hit the buzzer. Vicki was probably still working the FBI/NYPD split angle, weaseling her way in here to try to get a sour grapes quote. But at the moment, I was not particularly busy.

  And when Vicki walked in she surprised me. She came alone, no camera. She did not mention the FBI. Her eyes went from Izabel to me. She said, holding up her smartphone, “I can reach him now. He told the tip line detective that he would only talk to you. The detective says no, tell me. But he’d seen the press conference. He’d seen the FBI take over. He was afraid to talk to anyone else.”

  “Why? Why afraid of the FBI?”

  “He’ll tell you himself, I guess.”

  “This man had your private number?”

  “I told you. He called our anchorman. See? He had Lester’s private number. And Lester called me.”

  “Meaning he’s important.”

  “Meaning let’s make a deal before I call him back.”

  “No,” I said, sounding like Aya.

  “Hear me out. If something comes of this, give me the story. That’s fair. If you meet him, I come along.”