by Chuck Logan
Broker looked around. “This…is success?”
“Hey. Deal with it. You married a soldier, mister,” Jane said. Touchy.
Broker looked away from Jane and scanned the room. A fancy laptop on the desk along with a cell phone’s travel charger. His eyes stopped on a large equipment bag on the floor along the wall. He went over, grabbed the handles, and hefted the bag. He was lifting about thirty pounds of steel that shifted and slid like guns and ammo.
Jane watched him, then asked, “So? What are you thinking?”
“That I walked into a classified Army unit that’s wandered off the reservation. And you got a kid along. My kid.” Broker let the bag drop with a crash, then turned and studied her.
“You didn’t walk into shit. You were summoned,” Jane said.
Broker did his best deadpan, working hard to master a powerful resentment at the way this was unfolding. He changed the subject. “You and my daughter have been spending a lot of time together, huh?”
“Yeah.” Jane did a little provocative number with her eyes and eyebrows. “You got a problem with people like me?”
“You mean young, insecure, with a chip on their shoulder?” Broker said carefully. “One thing I do know, I don’t want my kid to have a chip on her shoulder.”
“Cut the shit, Broker. You been filling in the blanks. Tell me what you really think.” Jane folded her arms.
“I think you guys are flying by the seat of your pants and you’re out of your depth. I’m pissed that you put Kit in the middle of it.”
Jane shrugged. “We told her it was like a play at school. She even had some important lines.”
“I talked to the local sheriff.”
“That was a mistake,” Jane said in a flat voice.
“He said there was some kind of fight at a bar? A deputy took you and Kit off-site. Nina stayed with the bar owner.”
“So far so good.”
“Tell me, is Nina playing Little Drummer Girl a promotion or a step down?”
“Very funny. Look, Kit was onstage for less than five minutes. Nina wasn’t packing, but we had five guns outside that bar when it went down.”
“I only see two of you so far.”
“We had three more in a surveillance van.” Jane paused, then added in a dry voice, “They peeled off for now.”
“Sounds serious. Too serious to put my daughter in the way.”
“We disagree. But it’s moot. She’s out of it now.”
The phone rang. Jane moved to it swiftly. “This is Jane.” Pause. “Good, c’mon down. We’ll make the call.” She turned to Broker. “There’s somebody you got to talk to.” She smiled again. “What did you think? Kit just got lost between the cracks in some half-assed scramble and needed a ride home? There’s a plan. Kit had a part. And so do you.”
Goddamn you, Nina. “A part?”
“Yeah. There’s something Nina needs you to do.”
There was a knock on the door. Jane squinted through the security peep and opened the door. Hawaiian Shirt shuffled in.
“Broker, meet Holly,” Jane said.
Broker shook hands cautiously, circling slightly, sniffing Holly out. Too much sun and too much accelerated living had leached away all his excess body weight and emotions. About 180 pounds of callus and scar tissue remained. His pale bemused eyes impressed Broker, the way the dead spots and the live spots comingled.
Jane watched them do their signifying, amused. “Back before Cro-Magnon walked the earth…”
Holly had a voice to match his eyes, soft over steel. “She means back in the Nam.”
“They called him Hollywood because he was showy,” Jane said.
Holly smiled.
“Now we call him Turner Classic Movies,” Jane said, returning the smile.
“Eat your heart out, slit. You’re never gonna do twenty pull-ups, ever,” Holly said.
“And you’re never going to have a multiple orgasm,” Jane said.
“That’s ‘You’re never going to have a multiple orgasm, Colonel,’ ” Holly said with a hint of a growl.
Kit came out of the bathroom. She had one towel wrapped around her waist and another, turban fashion, around her head.
“Sorry, Little Bit, grown-ups gotta talk shop. Back in the tub,” Jane ordered. She handed Kit a Rubik’s Cube to play with.
Kit knit her brows at her dad. “Do I have to?”
“Just for a while,” Broker said.
Kit put the cube under her arm and held out her hands. “I’m gonna be wrinkled like a prune.” She returned to the bathroom.
There was a table and two chairs in the corner. Retro etiquette bred into Broker’s bones prompted him to offer one of the chairs to Jane. She rolled her eyes. Broker and Holly sat.
“So what do you have in mind?” Broker asked.
Holly gave a perfect Gallic shrug and said, “Wait one.”
Broker waited while Jane punched in numbers on her cell phone. Holly said, “It’s easy. All you got to do is get mad at your wife for leaving home and deserting your kid in the middle of nowhere. Think you can handle that?”
“Oh yeah, but why should I?”
Jane held out the cell phone. Broker put it to his ear. A voice he hadn’t heard in more than a year said, “Hey, Broker, how you doing?”
Broker took a moment to focus. Then he said, “Lorn Garrison?” Several years ago Broker had helped Garrison, then an FBI agent, penetrate the Russian Mafia. Garrison had left the bureau and was now a sheriff in Kentucky. If they could casually phone up Lorn and get him on board, then Broker was being seriously handled—which meant that Holly, Jane, and Nina were into something big-time real. He relaxed his voice but his mind raced. “Not bad. How’s yourself?”
“Can’t complain. Down here tight as a tick in all the good things Kentucky’s famous for: whiskey, tobacco, racehorses, and hot browns.”
“This ain’t a social call, is it, Lorn?”
“Nope. All about street cred. Some real serious folks you’re with. They’re hanging way out there ’cause they might have caught a piece of The Big One.”
“Are you mixed up in this scene in North Dakota?” Broker asked.
“Uh-uh, just some heavy people in D.C. wanted me to give you a heads-up.”
“What heavy people?”
“You heard how CIA took off the gloves and is putting covert operations back together? Well, Pentagon doesn’t trust CIA or FBI for squat, so they put together their own black bag of tricks out of Bragg with a domestic agenda. And let me clue you, to this aging G-man it all sounds illegal as shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s who you’re running with. Some bunch from Delta. Put together real fast. The operation is called Northern Route.”
“Do I get to know what they’re after?”
“Sure. Your wife is trying to go undercover and get next to a guy they think is a contract courier for Al Qaeda. The intell says this guy’s bringing something into the country. Hold on to your ass, Broker—they think it could be one of those fucking suitcases we were so worried about.”
Broker paused to let the word cycle through his brain.
Nuclear.
“A tactical nuke. No bullshit?” he said. Maybe he didn’t hear right.
“No bullshit. So they want you to perform one small service and then get out of Dodge. Naturally, the usual threats are implied—you don’t help these guys, I suspect the feds will start messing with your bottom line. You know, all that bullion you and Nina pirated from Vietnam.”
“You know me, nothing but public-spirited,” Broker said, staring at Jane and Holly.
“You got it?” Lorn asked.
“I got it,” Broker said. “Check you later.” End of phone call.
Holly handed him a black-and-white photo that showed a man holding up an open briefcase. The inside of the briefcase was cleaned out to make room for a metal cylinder and a bunch of gadgetry, computer boards, wires. “Worst-case scenario,” Holly said, “they r
eally have got their hands on a Russian KGB suitcase. A one-kiloton, 105 tactical nuke round, configured in a suitcase. Put it in midtown Manhattan, it’ll kill a hundred thousand people, easy.”
Jane stepped forward. “Two days ago we acted on a tip from one of our squirrels in Lahore, Pakistan. We took down an Al Qaeda financial officer in Detroit. He talked. He gave us the name of a courier for something nuclear. And a location. Shuster in North Dakota. We ran ‘Shuster slash North Dakota’ in every computer we could think of.”
Holly held up a mug shot of a young blond guy with chiseled features. His hair was on the long side. The date was 1992.
“This is the target. Ace Shuster is a second-generation smuggler—”
Broker held up his hand. “I talked to the sheriff. He’s got you figured out, up to a point. He already told me about this guy.”
Holly scowled. Broker ignored him, got up, went to the desk, opened a drawer, took out the local phone directory, thumbed to the S’s and read: “Gene and Ellen Shuster; Asa Shuster, Dale Shuster. I come up with three, four counting Ellen.”
“Okay, smart-ass,” Holly said. “What about this?” He handed Broker another photograph that showed a muddy road, parked cars, and a crowd of two dozen peoples, mostly men, standing around, low rolling scrub in the background. Two faces in the gathering were circled. Jane tapped one of them. “Ring any bells?”
Broker exhaled. Everybody in America now recognized that lean shovel chin. “Tim McVeigh.”
Holly’s finger moved to the other circled face at the opposite end of the picture. To help Broker out, he held the mug shot from Shuster’s dossier next to the photograph. It was him, a little older but the same guy.
“Ace Shuster and McVeigh standing on a road, with a bunch of people in between,” Broker said. “So?”
“So, what they’re looking at is the Branch Davidian Compound. They were in the gallery of Koresh supporters.”
“Are you saying this Shuster knew McVeigh?” Broker asked.
“We know their paths crossed at least once.” Jane shrugged. “It sure got our attention.”
Broker squinted at Jane and Holly. “Al Qaeda in Detroit to militia nuts to petty crooks in North Dakota? I didn’t think Islamic fundamentalists had truck with nonbelievers.”
“Yeah, well, we ain’t gonna sit around and find out on CNN again,” Holly said with absolute conviction.
“Not after the way those desk pricks in CIA and FBI fumbled warning signs on 9/11,” Jane said.
“You know what you guys look like? Like you haven’t slept for days,” Broker said. “The local cops are onto you. Probably this Shuster guy is onto you…”
Holly put his hands on his narrow hips. “Look, Broker; we don’t have the luxury of playing cop. If a cop’s bad guy slips by, that’s cool, they’ll catch him later on something else. Cops can afford to wait and let the system grind along. Protect and serve. Life, liberty, and so on and so forth. The guys who wrote the Constitution thought in terms of threats being a British fleet taking weeks to cross the pond. A nuclear event is an entirely different order of magnitude.”
Broker studied him. How exhausted and wired he was. “What if the local sheriff hauls you in for questioning?”
“What’s the charge?” Jane said. “We’re just citizens. None of us are carrying any military ID or equipment.”
Broker pointed at the bag next to the wall.
“Nope,” Jane said. “Everything in there is available in the economy.”
“And what are you taking to stay awake?” Broker said.
Jane and Holly exchanged fast looks. Holly shrugged. “A little speed now and then. We been on one hell of a road trip…”
“Flush it. These local cops might be Andy of Mayberry, but I get the feeling they are seriously underemployed, highly trained, and itching for something to happen. Plus, they are very wired into their history. The sheriff gave me a lecture on Gordon Kahl.”
“Kahl was a wacko,” Holly said.
“Yeah, and the feds botched the job, pissed all over the locals, and got two of their own killed,” Broker said.
Holly glowered. “We ain’t the goddamn federal marshals.”
“Right,” Broker said. “The marshals are trained to uphold the law. You guys are trained to blow people away. Get rid of the dope. The locals just might shake you down for the hell of it. If they find drugs, you’re no good to Nina sitting in the county jail.”
“Point taken,” Holly said. “But if the sheriff makes a phone call, no one, nowhere, will admit to our existence.”
“No one,” Jane underscored.
Broker understood her emphasis. They were expendable. Nina was expendable. He wondered, too, if, push come to shove, Kit would have been expendable.
“Whose idea was this?” Broker asked.
“Nina. We just got in the van and drove and made it up on the way. We stopped in St. Paul to pick up the car,” Holly said.
“The Volvo from central casting,” Broker said.
“Nina again. We found the car and staked it out, then practically mugged this walking liberal cliché near Macalester College in St. Paul. A serious feminist type, you know—got a housekeeper, nanny, personal trainer…But she took a pile of money for the car.” Jane dropped her eyes, looked up, almost catty. “Outfitting Nina at Victoria’s Secret, however, was my idea.”
“Oh Christ,” Broker said.
Jane shrugged. “This great pair of cargo harem pants and this really foxy rib tank. She’s way past being cute, but, hey, she can still look pretty damn raunchy if you put a few shots of booze into her.”
“Thanks for sharing that,” Broker said.
“You’re welcome.”
“So. That’s what’s happening,” Holly said. “We didn’t coordinate any of this with the FBI or Homeland Security. We don’t have time for them to hold a committee meeting and put it tenth on the agenda behind their budget requests. As the old Rum Dum himself is fond of saying, ‘We are leaning way forward.’ ” There was a definite edge of sarcasm in Holly’s voice.
“Shit,” Broker said.
Holly and Jane stared at him. Holly cocked his left wrist in a reflex gesture, checking his watch; but he wasn’t wearing a watch, and to Broker the mannerism had a chilling operational feel that brought back a lot of bad memories. Basically, he felt like a prong they wanted to plug into their socket, use one time, and throw away.
“Shit,” he repeated. Then, “Okay. What exactly do you want me to do?”
Chapter Thirteen
Nothing happened the way she expected. She woke after ten straight hours of unmolested sleep to the soft buss of sunlight on her cheek. A bare trace of buttery warmth managed to squeeze between the clouds, leaked through the window and teased across her face. She opened her eyes and saw the brief flicker on a faded poster curled on the wall. Roger Maris, the old Yankee hitter. Then it went back to shadow.
She smelled fresh coffee.
She’d got out of bed and tiptoed to the door, very carefully eased open the knob, and looked into the living room. He was sitting at his desk, his back to her. Already dressed. Then he turned slightly and she saw he was holding a pistol in his hand.
Oh boy.
But he quickly put the pistol in the drawer and shut it. He’d got up, went to the kitchenette, and returned holding two cups of coffee.
“I don’t know how you take it, so I got one of each: black or with half-and-half. You need an Alka-Seltzer?”
“The black’s mine, and I’ll pass on the seltzer,” Nina said.
“No hangover?”
“Just a little tired.”
“You slept in. It’s almost noon. Here, this’ll help.” He handed her the coffee and she took a sip. Her facial expression showed her approval.
“I order it special from a place in Bismarck. Use that plunger-dealie. Seems to work pretty good,” he said.
Some of the strangeness had worn off. They knew each other a little now.
“I’m
going to make some breakfast. Bacon and eggs all right or are you a granola person?”
“Over easy,” Nina said.
She took her time in the bathroom. Enjoying the hot water, the shampoo and conditioner, using his razor to shave her legs. She inspected the contents of the cabinet over the sink: maybe a little more aspirin and Alka-Seltzer than usual, but nothing prescription or illegal.
She dried off, finger fluffed her hair, and decided to skip the makeup. She stared at yesterday’s clothes as the smell of frying bacon drifted in the humid air. She decided to put the peekaboo T-shirt back on along with the change of underwear she carried in her purse. Then she inspected herself in the steamy mirror, twirled.
Five more good years, he’d said.
Get serious, you’re working, she reminded herself and went out the door.
Breakfast was eggs, bacon, cottage fries, and toast. He apologized: he was out of orange juice.
They sat at the small table in the kitchen nook. Downstairs they heard the door open, the heavy scuff of shoes.
“Gordy,” Ace said.
“You and him seem pretty different,” Nina said. “You know what he reminds me of? That movie, The Time Machine—those guys who lived underground, the Morlocks.”
Ace smiled at the reference and said, “You know, I seen that movie, they were cannibals.” Then he shrugged. “Gordy’s not exactly a walk in the park, but he ain’t as bad as he’d like to be. He came with the territory. My dad hired him to run the bar. He went to school same class as my brother. Works like hell.”
“So bar manager isn’t your regular business?”
“Big iron.”
“Come again?”
“I drove heavy machinery for Fuller Construction—crawlers, dozers mainly, belly loaders,” he said. “You name it, I ran it. Now Fuller’s gone, like my dad.”
Nina looked around. “I just thought…all these books?”
Ace smiled dryly. “Nina, this might come as a shock, but all the smart people don’t necessarily go to college.”
She frowned and ducked her head in mock fright.
He laughed and cleared away the plates, topped off the coffee, then sat back down and lit a Camel. “So,” he said, “what are we gonna do with you?”
