Judas Horse ag-3

by April Smith

  “Of major proportion.”

  “What is the Big One, Julius?”

  “The end of arrogance and superiority.”

  “That could mean the Yankees. Come on, give me something to work with.” “Funny girl.”

  “What’s going on, Julius? Are we — the people at the farm — are we involved in something a lot more violent than I think?” He smiles slyly. “I wouldn’t want to freak you out.” “I can guess.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to blow something up with a blood bomb.” Somehow, this flatters him. He settles back in the seat. “A long time ago, before I switched careers to filbert farming, I firebombed a power tower.” “Really? Cool! Where was this?”

  “Ski resort.”

  “Why? You didn’t like waiting on the lift?”

  Stone chuckles. Today he is allowing me to tease him. It’s like scratching a pit bull behind the ears.

  “The neat part was that all we had to bring the thing down were a couple buckets of fuel, a kitchen timer, and an igniter they use for model rockets. You should have seen that thing keel over — power lines, trees, man, that was a tangle — tipping, tipping…tipping… into twelve feet of pure virgin snow.” “Because?”

  “Somebody was pissed off about endangered cats. I can’t remember what kind.” Caution. No, it’s okay. Darcy, the activist, would know.

  “Were they lynx?”

  He looks pleased. “That’s right.”

  Ecoterrorism. Vail, Colorado. A wave of unsolved fire bombings the Bureau has been chasing since the early nineties.

  “That was impressive. Nobody ever took credit.”

  He slaps my thigh in a friendly way. “Now you know.” I can get anything I want from him now. What a feeling! It’s exciting. Tremendous! This is the good thing about penetrating without an informant: Nobody can snitch off you; nobody can compromise you. If we had tried to flip Megan, I’d never be where I am at this moment, confident and relaxed, riding up front with Stone. It’s as if you’ve stepped through the danger and you’re actually being sheltered by the source. The real source, which is Stone’s mind, a mandala of private symbols and pulsing hurts, in which the figure of Darcy DeGuzman has come to stand as a trusted ally. I see why guys like Angelo are addicted. It’s the greatest high in the world, to carry the shield you swore upon, to be representing the good people of this country, and the innocent, to be their emissary, to have the ability to talk with somebody who actually wants to harm you — talking to that person’s heart.

  “This was in your badass revolutionary days.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Who said they’re over?”

  I can barely control the eagerness. Everything seems so close. So possible.

  “Does Toby have something to do with all this? You seem hell-bent on seeing him today.” “He found the kind of boat I need.”

  “For the Big One? Tell me.”

  Now he is teasing. “Mmm, I’m not sure you’re ready to know.” “Why not?”

  Another trial of fire and ice?

  “You promised to do something for me.”

  “Off Herbert Laumann? I said I’d do it and I will.” He assents in a fatherly way. That’s all for now.

  “Be at peace and know that everything is unfolding as it should.” “Swell. I’m in nirvana. When is lunch?”

  When do we get approval from FBIHQ for the hit? What will it take to get the accountants off the dime? Because that’s the way it always is — the criminal side of the house versus the bean counters, leaving undercovers stranded on a seductively beautiful road like this one, guessing which fork leads to paradise, and which one to perdition.

  We are edging along the Lewis and Clark Trail. In pictures you always see the explorers pointing, and with good reason. Imagine if you had discovered this plentitude of lumber and the riches of the salmon run. Not anymore, as Dick Stone vehemently points out, since a chain of hydroelectric dams has displaced the chinook’s ancient pathways to the sea.

  “Look at those monstrosities, totally fucked the river. They are everything that’s wrong with big business and the U.S. government.” “Without ’em, we wouldn’t have electric lights.”

  “Fascist pigs,” Stone growls. “Monuments to ego.” I stare at the dams going by — colossal concrete bunkers crested by powerhouse electric grids — remembering the surveillance photo of Megan, aka Laurel, confronting Congressman Abbott somewhere along this river, and that Dick Stone would have been there, too, but there is no credible way to bring it up. Below the spillways, where tons of water empty downstream from the dams, colorful windsurfers flick about the anthracite surface of the water, scraps in the bottom of a chasm.

  “What did you do before you blew up that tower?”

  “I was in the FBI.”

  I just about eject through the roof of the truck.

  “And I was in the CIA,” I say calmly.

  “Don’t believe me.”

  “You’re just playing.” Pause. “Am I right?”

  At that moment, two sheriff’s cars pass at normal speed. What is this? A signal?

  This can’t be happening. He can’t be telling me this now.

  Dick Stone replies amiably, “What’d you think? Can you see me wearing a suit, in the FBI?” “Suits with guns?”

  He laughs. “Guys in suits, with no sex life, who fight alien life-forms.” “Yeah.” I grin. “That’s you.”

  But Stone is deliberating something. “Do you remember the Weather Underground?” “That was a little before my time, but yeah, they were anarchists who were against the Vietnam War.” “‘Bring the war home,’” Stone says grimly. “That was the slogan.” “They set off bombs, right?”

  “Three of them blew themselves up trying to build a bomb in a town house in Greenwich Village.” “I vaguely remember.”

  Memorized the files.

  “What about the Weather Underground?” I prompt. “Were you part of it?” “Me?” He dismisses the thought. “Hoover’s gangsters really fucked those people. Destroyed their lives. Hard times comin’, no matter which side you were on,” he says. “Sad. Really sad.” The truck window is down and a river wind is washing Dick Stone’s commanding profile clean, blowing his long blond hair back over the built muscles of his neck, so a tuft of white in the honey-colored sideburns is revealed. In the deep lines of the forehead, and the clenched brows trying to grip whatever vision keeps eluding him at the far side of the journey, I see a middle-aged man asking if his life has been a fake.

  Then he attempts to discard it, the past thirty years of it, with a rapid shake of the head, but a long silence follows as the road climbs the dark pine highlands, and we exit, loop up and back toward a spectacular gleaming bridge that leads to the Washington side of the river, as if leaving one fairy-tale kingdom of spells and lies for another.

  From the bridge, a hundred feet above the Columbia River, the vault of space the water carved is enormous, enough to contain the talk of all this history and more; it’s as if you could lift off the railing and lie in the hammock of the wind, out of time, like the hawks.

  But as we cross the bridge, I feel the threads of my connection to the Bureau tug and unravel. Dick Stone’s aborted confession hints at more than what management has been telling me. I know this because of the transparency of the way we are together in the car. I know because he’s dropped the craziness he cultivates with Megan, as if he’s aching to find someone with whom he can come clean. For the moment, Dick Stone trusts me enough to take a brief ride on the violent currents of the past — entwined and gone, and constantly renewed, like the twisted air.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  We have crossed into the state of Washington, passing sunny fields of yellow mustard. Ahead we can see flashing lights and backed-up vehicles surrounding a traffic accident. I spot unmarked vans and the same cars from the sheriff’s department that passed us an hour ago, and wonder if it’s a trap.

  Stone’s paranoia is infectious. Have
the orders come through from Washington? Is a SWAT team waiting to rush the car?

  Not now. Not yet.

  “Let’s avoid this, go left,” I vamp, and we turn sharply, ending up on a long private drive that leads to a contemporary lodge of huge logs and flower-covered walkways, something out of a Swedish Western. We double back, avoiding the accident by a couple of miles, and take the first fork east.

  Not to perdition, or to paradise.

  To a river town called Stevenson.

  Where Dick Stone’s pal Toby Himes wants to sell a boat.

  Thirty-two

  We enter the town by crossing an old railroad bridge, which runs into a nostalgic street of local businesses — your time-honored pharmacy and coffee shop, picture gallery and independent bookstore — and stop for gas across the street from the Dough Folk bakery.

  Dick Stone sends me inside to get crullers. “Best in the world,” he says.

  I wait while a pair of elderly sisters, both wearing overcoats and high socks in the summer heat, order biscuits and gravy to go. Across the street, Dick Stone is putting gas into the white truck. Engaged in this most American moment, he seems to be an ordinary, slightly grizzled outdoorsman who takes his freedoms for granted.

  The sun is shining and someone has driven by towing six canoes.

  The white truck pulls to the curb and waits.

  A hot breeze scented with cinnamon-sugar follows me as I hurry out the screen door of the bakery. Clutching a box of fresh fried crullers, I walk around the truck and slide into the front seat.

  “Aren’t these great?” Stone wolfs one.

  He smiles with pleasure at the old-fashioned taste of crisp dough and powdered sugar. We pass an inlet where a kayaker drifts in ripples of blue. Mountain buttercups are blooming in the new grass all along the road to Toby Himes’s house — an orderly house in a spick-and-span town.

  Northwest tidy, you might say, like the ubiquitous trimmed mustaches and khaki shorts: a clapboard cottage painted buttermilk with pumpkin trim, a concrete slab for a porch where a golden chow sleeps beside a pot of geraniums. There are two cobalt blue metal chairs, the Dodge pickup in the driveway, along with a small powerboat on a trailer hitch, and a muddy ten-speed bike, unsecured, near a vegetable patch.

  Toby Himes opens the door and the men embrace, Toby patting Stone on the back with thin, nervous fingers and calling him “Doctor.” He seems to match the clean and fluffy dog, and the neat yard. He is even more tailored than at the midsummer festival: a tall black man with glasses, white hair, and a neat white goatee, wearing a pressed shirt, slacks, and moccasins.

  Not your image of a wacked-out Vietnam vet.

  Toby Himes, who has an engineering job with the town of Stevenson, is still the only person of color I have seen. He must be Dick Stone’s age, but he is willowy and thin, whereas Stone has bulked out. The courtly manners and soft accent feel like the Old South, but in these austere bachelor chambers, there is no trace of a likewise genteel woman. One room is entirely bare except for free weights and Chinese drawings depicting the poses of kung fu.

  Stone has made himself at home in a recliner with a glass of orange juice. A golf tournament is playing on TV. Toby is reluctant to take his eyes from the screen. During the commercial he asks Stone what he’s been up to.

  “Messing with people’s minds again?”

  Stone grunts, satisfied. “We had some fun. Tell Toby how we got right into the face of evil at the BLM.” I describe the midnight raid on Herbert Laumann’s family as Stone’s buddy listens politely, big brown eyes alert behind the glasses.

  “This dude Laumann is a bureaucrat,” Toby concludes. “He’s got no say whatsoever over the wild horses — that’s policy out of Washington, D.C. He can’t do anything about it, so why are you busting his chops?” “Laumann is a symbol,” Stone replies testily. “Symbols are important in political work.” “To hell with politics!” Toby smiles and waves a spidery hand. “Right, Darcy? Tell me, what do you think of boats?” I used to live in Marina del Rey, California, with a view of three thousand sailboats.

  “Never thought much about them.”

  Toby slaps his knees conclusively. “Doctor? What do you say we initiate this young lady in the pleasures of cruising our beautiful river?” Death by drowning. In those rapids, all it would take would be a nudge over the side.

  “No thanks, Toby. I get seasick. It’s embarrassing.” Dick Stone stretches out his legs and leans back in the reclining chair. “The boat looks fine.” “‘Fine’?” Toby clowns, popping his eyes. “How can you tell?” “Saw it in the driveway. It’s fine.”

  Toby shakes his head. “Julius, my friend, you are full of surprises.” “Always.”

  I’m looking around, sniffing the air. It is a comfy masculine nest, with a worn leather couch in front of a river-stone fireplace, kindling neatly stacked in a brass pot, driftwood and candles arranged on the mantel. A homosexual liaison between these two is not out of the question. A maple bookshelf holds magazines in plastic holders: Western Gunsmithing and Guns & Ammo.

  “Quite a collection.”

  “I don’t like guns,” Toby jokes. “I love them.” “Well then, you’re the one to tell me — what kind of a gun would you use to shoot somebody?” “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because I’m going to kill that guy, Herbert Laumann. I said I’d do it for Julius.” Toby: “He’s one convincing dude.”

  “She can use my Colt.45.”

  To Toby: “Is that a good choice?”

  “It’ll do the job. Just make sure you’re close.”

  “Contact shot.” Stone nods, eyes closed.

  “Well then, no problem.”

  “How do you know so much about guns?”

  Toby grins charmingly. “I’m an old soldier. A tired old soldier.” He sits slowly on the leather couch. “Hear those old bones crack?” Dick Stone gets up and goes into the kitchen.

  Toby leans forward and confides: “He doesn’t like me to talk about Vietnam. He flips out, like he’s back in the jungle with us, which he never was. Julius has a way of appropriating other people’s stories.” “What do you mean by ‘us’?”

  “Me and his little brother, Colin. The boy died over there.” “Julius has a brother who died in Vietnam?”

  Toby nods. “There’s a park back east, named for his brother and his battalion.” I fumble, trying to assess what this means. Stone must have joined the FBI at the same time Colin enlisted. Both young men were patriots — too young to imagine such a thing as death by idealism, or the bitter, vengeful burden for the one who survives.

  I need air.

  “Nice view of the river.” I crane toward the windows. “Mind if I go down and look?” “You go on. I’m gonna see what our friend is up to in the kitchen.” I smile nicely and pull on the back door a couple of times until it becomes unstuck. Outside, the breath of the river is humid and fresh. My shoulder blades are tight as screws. Despite the coziness, there is a stale repression in Toby’s cottage. I look back at the pumpkin trim and perfectly pruned impatiens. What is going on in the kitchen? A gravel walk leads to a garage. There’s a stylish lantern mounted above a side entrance, indicating use. I open the door and wander in.

  The sharp smell of cordite grabs me like an old friend. I am back in the basement shooting range at Quantico; in the gun vault at the L.A. field office. Toby’s shop is basically a Peg-Board and a bench, but at a glance, it has everything the recreational gun owner might need, including the wardrobe, all the clothes neatly hung: camo jacket, wind vest, rain togs, and polished black patrol boots.

  There’s a rack of common hunting rifles—7-mm ones and.308s, like the one Sterling McCord was using on the shooting range. The bench is organized for reloading cartridges — bright red cans of rifle powder, a mounted powder measure, a fancy single-stage press, and sets of dies, punches, lifters, wad guide, drop tube, the whole extravaganza for making your own bullets. The dies are organized according to size. A quick glance reveals.30
-to.40-caliber ones, neatly stacked. God bless Toby’s obsessive-compulsion: at the bottom of the pile, exactly where it belongs — except it does not belong — is a die for making.50-caliber bullets.

  A highly unusual size for your average hunter.

  The same-size bullet that killed Sergeant Mackee.

  The same-size bullet that matches Dick Stone’s rifle.

  Toby appears at the door.

  “I see you found my love.”

  He offers me a glass of iced tea.

  “I didn’t mean to pry. It just looked so interesting in here.” Toby picks up a shotgun and handles it well. “I hope you weren’t touching anything.” “Of course not.”

  “Accidents do happen with firearms.”

  His big brown eyes are soft and slightly insane.

  “I’m getting some weird vibes, know what I mean? Like you’re prancing around in here, trying to pretend to be something you’re not.” “I’m not pretending anything.”

  “You’re not some prissy white girl,” he says. “What are you?” “Half Salvadoran. Got a problem with that?”

  “Yes, I do. My problem is this: What’s a homegirl doing way up here, no brown faces in the whole damn state?” I hold his look.

  “I could ask the same question.”

  “I got a job with the town,” says Toby Himes.

  “And I’m on a visit with Julius.”

  “You gonna shoot someone, just for kicks? Just because Julius says?” “For the movement. For the sake of animals.”

  “If you’re the Man,” he says, “I’ll kill you.”

  The chow is barking. Outside, there is commotion and the sound of voices and heavy boots on the gravel walk.

  “Whenever.”

  “You tell me.”

  Mr. Terminate crashes open the screen door of the ammo shed and marches through, along with another squinty two-hundred pounder with a full beard and red-checked shirt I call Mountain Man.

  “…You can use it underwater,” Mountain Man is saying.

  “Why in hell would anyone care? Hey, Toby.”

  “Afternoon.”

  “Hi, John.” Mr. Terminate ignores me.