by Chuck Logan
“What’s the deal?” Nina asked.
“Yeager is guide. He knows the roads,” Broker said.
“But how do we follow a guy in the dark on a deserted road without being seen?”
“Trust me,” Yeager said. “Let’s go.”
Jane put them on onto the road, following the tiny red dots of Ace’s running lights. Then he hit his break lights and turned left just before he came to the town limits. North.
“Keep going, past where he turned,” Yeager said.
“We’ll lose him,” Nina said.
“We keep going,” Jane said.
“I don’t know about this,” Nina said. They drove for minutes, too long. Ace was gone.
“Take the next left,” Yeager said.
They swung left and accelerated down a two-lane blacktop. Yeager pointed to the left. “We’ll parallel him. See? Those are his headlights.” A mile away across the black fields they saw his beams cut the night.
Nina looked around, noticed they were losing the light from town, headed into total blackness. “He’s speeding up. We can’t keep pace with our lights off,” she said.
Jane reached down. “How soon you forget. Remember? We own the fucking night.” She reached for a set of night-vision goggles on a webbed elastic headband. In a fast, practiced move, she yanked them over her head and adjusted them to her eyes. Broker made out her profile in the dim spill light from the dashboard—part insect, part unicorn.
Yeager said, “That’s what I need, a pair of those…”
Then Jane dialed the dash lights down to a bare flicker, stepped down hard on the gas.
“Ohhhhh shit!” Broker and Yeager reached for the handholds above their doors as the Explorer bucked, hurtling forward through the rushing darkness. No road in front of the car. No center line. No shoulder. No control. Lots of stars, though.
Jane glanced to the side, her head and the protruding goggles grotesque and alien in the faint glow of the dash. “How we doing, Yeager? Better than lights and sirens?”
Yeager, his feet braced, leaned back and grinned through clenched teeth, enjoying the carnival ride of his life. The headlights to the left fell off behind as they pulled well ahead.
Oh, Jeez. Broker didn’t like this. There were going sixty, maybe faster. Maybe seventy. Three, four minutes of it, more…
“In about two miles we take a left. We should be able to beat him to Richmond Corners. There’s a tree line we can pull into. When he goes by, we’ll fall in behind,” Yeager said.
“He won’t see us?” Nina said.
“Don’t think so,” Yeager said. “He’ll kill his lights when he hits the gravel. What they usually do is creep up to their pickup point. Since there’s hardly any moon, he can’t spot landmarks, so he’ll be going by his odometer. He won’t be scared off by anything but headlights.”
“Not bad,” Nina said. Yeager knew his stuff. Never could’ve done this on their own. And if they’d gone through channels, there’d be a mob of cops and feds out here cluttering up the road. But this, so far, was just right. She reached over, found Broker’s good hand in the dark this time, and squeezed it.
“What do you want?” he feigned wariness.
“Hold your hand, asshole,” she said.
He returned the squeeze. Felt good, too. After all this time. Then Jane stabbed the gas and Broker tensed, pressed back in his seat by imaginary G-forces.
Jane, her augmented eyes fixed on the road, had an adrenaline frog in her throat as she shouted over her shoulder: “Don’t get your hopes up, Nina. Holly ran this Khari guy through all the databases. His dad was with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But that was twenty years ago. Khari immigrated here to live with his uncle after his folks died in 1982. He comes off pretty clean. And his uncle was a decorated Korean War vet.”
“We’ll see,” Nina said.
“It gets worse. Homeland Security sent a honcho in to watch over us tonight. One of those serious prayer-breakfast types. Same old same old. He wants to shut Holly down for exceeding his authority.”
“Aw, Christ,” Nina said. “It’s Afghanistan all over again.”
“You got it,” Jane said.
“What happened in Afghanistan?” Broker asked.
“Holly and some of his regular Army pals tried to commit a couple U.S. battalions on the Pakistani border to seal the routes out of Tora Bora. Washington was afraid of taking U.S. casualties on the ground. They nixed the plan and relied on the B-52s and the Afghan warlords. Holly got in a lot of trouble and bin Laden got away,” Nina said.
“That’s our Holly—fighting a two-front war against terrorism and Washington. Then there’s the hawk,” Jane said.
“The hawk?” Broker asked.
“The Black Hawk at the radar base,” Nina explained. “The people trying to shut us down are saying Holly stole it.”
Hearing this, Broker smiled in the dark. I’m starting to like this Holly guy…
“Wait a minute,” Yeager said nervously. “You guys stole a helicopter?”
“Whoa, hold on,” Nina said. “It’s this gray area. Justice and the FBI want to arrest people and charge them with civil crimes, right? But if these guys are the real thing tonight, we’re going to snatch them as enemy combatants. Naturally, they’re a bit more sticky about procedure. We didn’t ask permission, we just took the bird and went.”
“Uh-huh,” Yeager said, sounding unconvinced. He turned in the front seat. “What do you think, Broker?”
“I think they probably borrowed the helicopter…”
“Yeah, borrowed. Along with a Delta team and an NBC response tech,” Jane said.
“NBC?” Yeager said. “Christ, we got televison in on this?”
“That’s a nuclear, biological, and chemical responder from Department of Defense,” Jane said with a twist of humor in her voice.
“Oh shit!” Yeager said.
“Yeah, see? Now you know who you’re running with? No wonder they’re so strung out,” Broker said.
“Hey, people. Turn should be coming up,” Yeager said.
Jane slowed the Explorer, pulling up hard on a gravel road. They completed the turn and she accelerated again. Off to the left the headlights were almost a mile away.
Several minutes passed. The headlights drew closer. “You should see a clump of trees on your right, and the road intersection,” Yeager said.
“Got ’em,” Jane said.
“There’s a shallow shoulder and a dip, just ride it into the trees and stop,” Yeager said.
Jane didn’t respond, intent on driving. The tires left gravel, then bit into dirt and vegetation. Weeds and shrubs snapped against the chassis, whipped in the dark through the open windows. Broker still couldn’t see anything but an orange glow back toward Langdon. A big clump of brush hit the door. Milt’s Ford was going to need a visit to the body shop.
“Good…stop,” Yeager said.
They stopped, killed the motor, and held their breath as the night air turned loud with insect buzz and the cooling ticks of the engine. The headlights came closer and they only caught the barest flicker of a vehicle a hundred yards away as it passed. Then Ace turned off his lights.
“It’s him all right—a new Tahoe,” Jane said.
“Okay, give him another hundred yards,” Yeager said. Jane did. “Now get on the road.” She drove to the intersection, turned right. Much closer now. “Okay, when he turns off, you turn off into the fields, but the minute he stops you stop. And kill the motor. We play dead. He’ll probably shut down, too, and listen before he does the pickup.”
“Christ, this is like a submarine movie,” Broker said.
They all giggled to break the tension.
“Oh shit,” Janey said. “He just turned again.”
“We’re cool, he’s just turned on a prairie road that runs toward the border. Get ready. Won’t be long now,” Yeager said.
Jane followed the Tahoe through one last turn and they all breathed in sharp whe
n she cranked the wheel and drove into the waist-high field. Damp splatters pelted the sides of the Ford and a heavy, pungent scent came in through the open windows. Tiny wet blossoms tickled Broker’s face.
“Canola,” Yeager said. Then: “Kill it, now!”
They jerked to a halt and the motor stopped. Dead quiet. Just the oily reek of the crushed canola, the engine ticking down, and the whir of mosquitoes.
Jane leaned out her open window, straining her body into the night.
“He’s out, he walking. Walking…Barely see him, more’n a hundred yards. Shit, now he’s walking around in a circle, like he’s lost. Ah, wait. Okay. He stopped. Oh boy, he’s bent over and he’s dragging something heavy, dragging it back to the truck.”
“All right,” Nina said. Sitting next to her, Broker could feel her shift gears as a wave of exhausted tension drained out of her. And the adrenaline afterburners kicked in.
“That’s it, he popped the hatch and he’s manhandling it into the back. He’s done. Hatch is down,” Jane said.
“I thought it would be more of a load,” Yeager said.
“There’s some small packages that pack a hell of wallop,” Nina said slowly.
“Jesus—NBC, huh?” Yeager said.
“Yeah,” Nina said.
They all saw his brake lights as he backed up.
“What do we do?” Janey said.
“Give him some room. We know where he’s going, don’t we?” Yeager said.
“Fine with me.” Jane flopped back in her seat and took a few deep breaths. Then she got on her cell. “Holly, this is Jane. We have a confirmed pickup.” That’s all. She put the phone down.
“Let’s take a minute to work out the ground rules,” Nina said, her voice exploring the darkness in Yeager’s direction.
“The way I explained it to Yeager, he wants in, he accepts that the rules are pretty fluid,” Broker said.
“Yeager,” Nina said, “you got your badge and gun on you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And this place they’re planning to meet, it’s in your county?”
“Yep.”
“You aren’t thinking of like—arresting anybody, are you?” Janey asked.
“How far would I get?” Yeager’s voice was respectful but with just an edge of testing.
Broker joined in. “There’ll be other people where we’re going, people who work with Jane and Nina. I got a feeling that Jane and Nina, they’re the nice ones.”
“What? You’re saying I could disappear?” Yeager said evenly.
No one answered.
“Okay, at least tell me what I’m not a part of here.” Yeager said. “Is Ace Shuster meeting some terrorists? ’Cause that’s what you’re putting out between the lines.”
“This is just my gut read on him,” Nina said, “but I don’t think he knows if he is. I don’t think he has any idea what he just dragged into his car.”
“So what did he just drag to his car?” Yeager said.
“They can’t say,” Broker said, “ ’cause they ain’t here, are they? But I can speculate…”
“Like, you mean, just you and me talking,” Yeager said.
“Just you and me talking.”
“And?”
“They have some pretty good intelligence it could involve a tactical nuclear device.”
Another interval of silence.
Then Nina said, “Yeager, if you or me disappear, well, that’s not cool. But if a big chunk of Chicago or Kansas City disappears…”
“Start the car,” Yeager said, his voice trembling with excitement.
Chapter Thirty
After a tense half hour sneaking around out on the gravel, Ace was relaxing, leaning back, one arm draped over the steering wheel of the Tahoe. He cruised east on Highway 5 with the windows open, enjoying the rush of the summer night in his hair and listening to Linda Ronstadt singing what could be the story of his life—“Desperado,” on KNDK. His other hand came up and he sipped from a bottle of Moosehead Ale. He wondered if Gordy had encountered any hassles. It had been dead quiet on his end.
The easy pickup and a day of drinking had hammered down his spikes and he was sinking back toward mellow. Another day, another dollar; rolling the old boulder up the hill. Ole Camus said we must imagine Sisyphus happy. Ace wasn’t sure about happy, but he did have a moderate buzz going, enough to be charitable—like, maybe they’d been wrong about Nina. Maybe she was just another woman coming up hard on forty in a marriage that didn’t fit.
Woulda been nice to roll Nina Pryce up the hill just once, find out who she really was. Ah well…fact is, she was already starting to fade…
He raised up off the seat slightly, turned on the dome light, and looked over his shoulder at the old-fashioned footlocker in the backseat. Didn’t even weigh much, maybe sixty pounds. He didn’t know a whole lot about George, his dad’s crony. Mostly, Dad and George had played it legal, then every once in a while George would come up with volume he had to move fast, off the books, no questions asked. And everybody made a lot of money.
Sometimes there were small favors, like tonight. Again, no questions asked.
He pushed in the lighter and took out a Camel. When the lighter popped, he lit up. Three drags into the Camel his high beams reached out and caught the crisscross of the chain-link fence that surrounded the old site. He slowed and saw George’s new silver Lexus parked in the driveway. Old George did all right for himself.
“Hey Bugs, Nina. How’s it going?” Nina was on her cell.
“We’re following Khari. He’s in a Lexus RX300, driving west on 5. He’s all alone, no passengers, no other cars.”
“Good. Our guy made his pickup and is driving east on 5 out of Langdon. ETA about five, six minutes to that old base.”
“Okay. We got people in position on site. Holly is standing by with the Hawk. We all roll in when the smoke clears.”
“Let’s hope there’s no smoke.” Nina flashed on a pile of Bosnian corpses and saw Ace Shuster sandwiched in the middle of them. Eyes open, smiling that smile. She remembered the .38 in his desk. She hoped he’d left it there.
“Ah, roger that.”
Nina ended the call. “No need to rush,” she said to Yeager. “From here on in we just watch. They belong to the Hardy Boys now.”
“Hardy Boys?” Yeager said.
“Delta slang for a tactical team in position at the meeting spot,” Jane said as she eased off the gas. They lagged far behind Ace now, driving the speed limit with their lights on. In a few minutes it would all converge on Highway 5 in the dark.
Broker suddenly became aware of his throbbing left hand. He held it up and placed it on his head. Seeing his awkward posture, Nina laughed, this happy release of nerves. “Hey,” Broker protested, “it gets the blood out of…”
“I know, silly,” Nina said. “Like when we met.”
“When you crashed my undercover scene.”
“Yeah, and that mean redneck almost bit off your thumb and we drove up north with you holding your hand up like that…”
“Hey, cut the lovebird crap,” Jane said. “Situational awareness, remember? Nina, how many in the car coming to meet Ace?” she asked.
“Just Khari, driving a Lexus SUV.”
“Just one guy?” Jane made a face. “Nobody else with him? Or on the road?”
“Nope, just him.”
“Too easy,” Jane said.
“You sound disappointed,” Broker said.
Jane did not answer. Nina turned back to Broker and then to Yeager and said, “Whatever it is, it’s on the rails.”
Ace slowed, made the turn, and parked to the rear of the Lexus. He left his lights on so they could see to make the transfer. He got out and so did George.
“How you doing, George?” Ace said.
George Khari slapped his solid middle. “Too much baklava. Need to get back in shape.” They shook hands.
Ace had known George from a distance, ever since Dad got the bar. Tha
t’s how long George Khari had been selling whiskey and beer to the Shusters.
“Quiet night,” Ace said.
George raised his chin slightly and asked, “Anybody in back of you?”
Ace looked back down the road he’d just driven and shook his head. “Not even a deer crossing the road, just me out there.”
“Good,” George said. He was a muscular man of medium height with a strong square face. Another hairy guy, like Gordy, with a perpetual five-o’clock shadow on his chin and cheeks. The headlights gave his olive skin a yellow cast and pocketed his brown eyes in shadow. His thick black hair was carefully groomed, and there was more hair on his forearms. And, like Gordy, he liked to show off the chest, leaving the top two buttons of his short-sleeved shirt open. Ace remembered him wearing gold chains. Not tonight, though. Tonight this little silver medal glinted now and then in Ace’s headlights. A religious medallion, like Catholics wear. “I appreciate this, Ace. Just an extra touch, you know, a favor for my regular customers.” He had a soft voice with the barest foreign tug to the syllables. Born in the old country.
“This is the last time we do this, George. We pretty much cleaned everything out.”
“You going to Florida with your dad?”
“Nah, Dale probably is. I thought maybe Montana, look into raising buffalo.” He cocked his head, heard engine noise to the south, a helicopter maybe, over by the PAR site. Something taking off.
“It’s funny,” George said, looking at the fenced compound. “This place is deserted but they still come in and cut the grass.”
“That’s the government for you. Pop your hatch and I’ll load up this beast.”
George raised a hand. “In a minute. I just want to look around first.”
Ace shrugged, stretched, and took a drag on his cigarette. “Go ahead but there’s nothing left here but stories.” He gestured with his cigarette toward the ditch on either side of the driveway. “Like, they built this control bunker in a peat field. Dug a couple stories down into it, ran the cable out to the remote sites. One night this air-baser who worked here was walking the perimeter, having a smoke, and he flips the butt into the ditch.” Ace paused, then said, “Next morning they smell smoke.”
