by James Phelan
“We find him.”
“You think?”
“Bet your ass,” Menzil replied, looking out his window as they sped south. “These NCIS agents will lead us right to him. And I tell you boys what: twenty-grand bonus to the guy who caps either Murphy or this Walker dude.”
30
“Nope. Uh-uh,” Squeaker said. “No way.”
They sat in Gus’s Tahoe. The engine was running and the heat was on low. The leather seats were warmed too, a button that Walker had found in the dash and subsequently thought someone deserved a Nobel for inventing. They were parked just down the road from O’Halloran’s, having gassed up the tank to full.
“This place,” Squeaker said, tapping the map. “It’s just beyond a hornets’ nest that you don’t want to disturb.”
“The northern crew,” Walker said. “The guys that Murphy cut some kind of deal with?”
Squeaker nodded and ate a strap of truck-stop jerky.
Walker glanced at the map and drove off. Out of town, onto another sealed road that was too narrow for modern American SUVs. It held no painted lines, just headed north, toward a sign that said: Mountain View, 24 miles.
“I never said he cut a deal with these folk,” Squeaker said defensively. “It’s just that it was counter to what Barb was running. So, it could just be by default, see, that he’s having to live up there? It could just be that he had to move north.”
“And it could be that he did make a deal with these guys up here,” Walker said. “I mean, if I were some meth operator, or running a crew of guys, cooking meth and selling it on, and I heard about a guy like Murphy—an ex-SEAL who had issues with those meth runners bordering on my business interests interstate—I’d go out of my way to get him onside. A guy like him would be an asset too good to let pass.”
“It’s not that simple here,” Squeaker said. “It’s not like business-is-business, like it might be in the cities. Round here, it’s blood all the way. At least, it’s blood until you’ve pushed it too far—then you might as well not be a blood relation at all.”
“Right. Well, we’ll soon see,” Walker said, picking up the vehicle’s speed once they’d cleared town. “Hopefully.”
They drove in silence for nearly twenty minutes, just the sounds of the car and Squeaker sucking and chewing her jerky.
“Walker . . .”
“Squeaker . . .”
“Do you really think they’ll kill Murph? These guys you told me about?”
Walker checked his rearview mirror. “Yes. I do.”
“Not just rough him up or somethin’?”
“Nope. The crew that’s targeting him—they’ve already killed eight SEALs. Eight, Squeaker. That’s no mean feat—tracking them down, killing them. I mean, SEALS are good, yeah? They’re among the best-trained hardened killers on the planet, yet eight of them are dead.”
“But he’ll be okay out here.”
“No, he won’t. They’ll find him. If we can find him by asking, this crew can find him by being even more persuasive.”
“Huh?”
“They’ll demand rather than ask. Maybe torture the family members; it’s more effective. When they’re here—and we must be ahead of them, or we’d have heard by now—things will happen fast. They’ll be fast. They’ll catch up. It’ll be ugly.”
“Okay.” She was quiet for a while, then said, “And if we don’t get to Murphy first, and save him—there’s no chance that we can stop a big terrorist attack from occurring, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Shit. Okay. And here’s me—I just wanted to see his stupid face, and his wife and kids, to say hi, because it had been too long since I’d heard from them, and because of what I’d heard, about him having to move out of our area, because I worry. But I had nothing to worry about, right?”
“Squeaker,” Walker said, gripping the wheel and staring straight ahead, “we’ve all got our worries.”
31
“Tell me,” Director of the United Nation’s Special Investigations Unit Bill McCorkell said. “Tell me what you’re worried about.”
“Well,” FBI Special Agent Fiona Somerville replied. “Where to start . . . It all started when I was nine and realized that Santa wasn’t real and that unicorns were extinct.”
McCorkell cracked a smile. He was in New York. Meetings. Updates. Reports.
Somerville and fellow Special Agent Andrew Hutchinson were in San Diego.
“We’ve got nowhere on those SEALs,” Hutchinson said. “I checked with old buddies, we tried back channels, cash changed hands, we’ve traveled some two thousand miles by air and road. Nothing. Nada.”
“Then they’re well protected,” McCorkell said. “That’s good news, right?”
“Well,” Somerville said. “That’s what we thought too.”
“But? I sense a big hairy ‘but’ around the corner.”
“I’m concerned—we’re concerned,” Somerville said, “about how tight this is.”
“They’ve been hidden by the NCIS,” McCorkell said. “They could be on the beach playing volleyball in Diego Garcia for all we know. Whatever—they’re safe.”
“That’s what we thought too,” Somerville repeated. “But then we checked with the families again.”
“And?” McCorkell said.
“And we’re not the only ones checking on them,” Somerville replied.
“Who?”
“We’re not sure. But they had visitors.”
“Last week,” Hutchinson added. “All of them. They were told it was a routine security audit of the protection. Whoever it was said they were from the Secret Service. Two guys. From the description it sounds like we’re dealing with military types.”
“We compared the times of the visits,” Somerville said. “Fourteen families, all covered in one day.”
“And all of them asking at some point about Charles Murphy . . . Any news from Walker?”
“Yesterday morning,” McCorkell said. “He feels that he’s getting closer.”
“Bill, there’s no way those audit guys were Secret Service,” Somerville said. “Right?”
“Right,” McCorkell said.
“Right,” Hutchinson said. “I checked, because you never know. And it definitely wasn’t them.”
“But it’s a big crew, at least four guys, maybe more,” Somerville said. “Well resourced, well trained, good at coordinating a mission.”
“Military.”
“Serving, or ex,” Hutchinson said.
“Right,” McCorkell said. “Did you meet with Navy?”
“Just about to,” Somerville said. “We’re outside NCIS.”
“Do it,” McCorkell said. “Then you go to Walker. And Hutch, you head back to DC and stick with me. We’ll start rattling some cages in Washington and see what we can find out about this Murphy’s whereabouts.”
32
“Why are you doing this?” Squeaker asked. She used one of Gus’s pens to pick the dried mud from her boots. The legs of her tight jeans were soiled halfway up the shins. Her long-sleeve top was loose and puffy. Her coat was balled under her arm.
“You just wondering that now?” Walker said, driving the Tahoe. It was crap through the bends, at speed at least. The back end was too light, the front and engine too heavy, and the back tires where all that power transferred through slid out at the bends on the wet road. Everything seemed wetter and damper the higher they climbed. He knew once he got out of the car and its heat his knees would ache, thanks to all those years of high-school and college and Air Force Academy football.
“I’ve wondered it since I first heard you asking about Murphy in the bar last night,” Squeaker said. He could tell that she was watching him. “But I didn’t think to ask until now.”
“Why?”
“Because I trust you.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem trustworthy.”
“Yeah, well, score one for you. But be careful who you trust.”
&
nbsp; “Are you my dad now?”
Walker smiled, said, “You say that to the guy you startled half to death by coming into the shower all naked?”
“Right,” Squeaker replied, looking away with a smile. “Score one for you.”
“Call it even.”
“Yeah. Anyway, the why didn’t seem important. But now, what, twelve hours on? I want to know. All of it.”
“Fair enough.”
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the rumble of the engine and the coarse tires on the road and the heat coming through the vents.
“So? Out with it, Walker. Why you? Why are you doing this for my cousin and why isn’t it the Navy or Army or whoever?”
“The Army?” Walker looked at her sideways. “What have they got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking, who looks after the Navy when they’re in trouble? I mean, it can’t be the Air Force.”
“Because we’re all fags.”
Squeaker smiled. “Right. Score two . . . But if not the Army,” she continued, crossing her arms over her chest, “who does look after them? It should be the police or FBI, maybe even the Secret Service. So, why you? Why one lonely guy?”
“Who says I’m lonely?” Walker smiled. He saw that Squeaker was serious now, and wanted a serious answer. “Okay. It’s because . . .” Walker slowed for the bend and then powered out of it. “My father was involved in this. Still is. And then I got involved in it, over a year ago. This attack that’s coming, if we don’t get to your cousin and see if he knows how to stop it?” Squeaker nodded. “It’s part of something bigger. It’s the first of twelve.”
“Twelve? Twelve separate attacks?”
Walker nodded. “That’s it. We’re looking at a worst-case doomsday type of scenario. Twelve separate attacks, all around the US. Each attack triggers the next. And none of them are connected with the others—so it’s not like we can stop them all in one fell swoop. This is going to take time. It’s got to be methodical.”
“And how were you and your father connected with it?”
Walker paused, said, “You said you read the papers. You saw that attack on the Vice President, in New York?”
Squeaker thought a second, then nodded. “At the Stock Exchange. He nearly got blown up.”
“That’s it. That was the trigger that started all this.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. And who’s your dad?”
“Just a guy . . .”
“Ooh—I sense some history here.”
Walker shook his head to signify he wasn’t playing a game. “He’s just an old dude. Out there somewhere. Doing something related to this Zodiac stuff.”
“Good or bad?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Okay. Is he trying to stop this as well?”
“I think so. Maybe.”
“You think? Maybe? He is or he isn’t. He’s either like you, some kind of lone hero, or he’s what—a terrorist mastermind?”
“It’s complicated. But I think he’s trying to stop this too, in his own way.”
“And why you, Walker?” She held up her hand to the width of his face as though covering his eyes and said, “Wait—are you Batman?”
Walker choked on a laugh. “I was Air Force.”
“You said that.”
“Then I was CIA.”
“Cool.”
“Not really.”
“Did you have cool spy gadgets?”
“No.”
“What are you now?”
“I’m just a guy.”
“A lonely guy . . .”
“I’m not lonely.”
“An old dude . . .”
Walker smiled.
Then the speed sign up ahead signaled that the town of Mountain View was coming up. Walker slowed. Squeaker tensed.
“This is it,” she said. “This is where we don’t want to be.”
33
Walker didn’t see what the big deal was. The town looked like the previous three. Similar size, similar layout, similar-looking people. Half the stores were empty or boarded and chained up by banks. And banks there were aplenty. For every other store, there was a bank.
“Hillfolk,” Walker said as he slowed to cruise through town. “I can tell. By how they’re walking. Less rickety up here. Hillfolk are the worst, am I right?”
Squeaker was silent.
Walker said, “I was joking.”
“Ha ha.”
“You really don’t like this place.”
“Nope.” She craned her neck to do a double-take at a guy who came out of a sports store carrying a heavy bag to his pick-up. She looked forward again. “I don’t like it, not one little bit. It’s the wrong state, for one. And you’re right. They’re different people.”
“I thought the Ozarkeans didn’t much care for state borders.”
“Everyone cares about state borders,” Squeaker said. “What is this, the 1930s? We all gotta work, pay taxes. We all know what state we’re in. We all know what counties we fall under.”
Walker nodded. “You know Old Pelts Road?”
“Nope.”
“It’s not on maps. I’ll have to ask.”
“We could have asked that last barman,” Squeaker said as Walker slowed to pass a tavern.
“He wasn’t the talkative type.”
“Right.” She looked at the note the barman had written. “I wonder if there’s a New Pelts Road?”
“Old Pelt is probably some old guy,” Walker said, passing a bar that could have been the last one that they’d been in, but he decided it looked too busy, too dark. Down the road he saw a sign that would surely be of use. He kept the Tahoe pointed at it, kept the speed on thirty. “Or his hat. Made of the pelt of some critter that was road kill.”
Walker pulled up to the Sheriff’s office, a yellow-brick building built in the sixties, the roof boasting an eighty-foot-tall antenna held upright by dozens of cables pulling it every which way. The device could probably pick up chatter from the moon landings. The car park was host to one cruiser and a big pick-up with chunky tires and spotlights all over.
“Really?” Squeaker said to him.
“What? If anyone knows the roads around here, it’ll be the cops.”
“Cops here aren’t like in the cities.”
“What are they like in the cities?”
“All, like, helpful and stuff.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what they are,” Walker said, unclipping his seatbelt and leaving the engine running. “You wait here. I’ll go find out what I find out.”
Walker got out of the truck and headed for the door.
•
The United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service—NCIS—investigates criminal activities by or against United States Navy personnel. Half of the workforce are civilian Special Agents trained to carry out a wide variety of assignments at locations across the globe; they are the Navy’s police and FBI all in one.
“Calling it early,” Hutchinson said as he walked to the NCIS office of the San Diego Naval Station. He was wearing an oversized jacket, so that he could pull the sleeve over his cast, which was still in a sling. He walked with the gait of a guy who’d played a lot of pick-up basketball as a scrappy player, given he was just pushing six feet, and he’d spent way too much of his adult years stuck behind a desk and adding weight around the middle. “I don’t like these guys.”
“Because they get paid more than we do?” Somerville asked.
“What? They don’t, do they?”
Somerville announced their arrival to the Assistant Director’s secretary, who picked up her phone, spoke for a moment and then pointed them to a door on which a plaque read: Assistant Director of Special Investigations Luke Grant.
Somerville made the introductions, and Grant didn’t bother getting up from his desk or shaking their hands.
“I know why you’re here,” Grant said.
Grant shook his head. “Like I said to McCorkell on the phone, this is a Navy issue. Compartmentalized. Sensitive. You’ve got no place here looking into it. So there’s really nothing for us to talk about.”
“With due respect,” Somerville said, her hands on her hips, “this is a Homeland Security issue, and we have the authority to track down terrorist activity. So, we’d appreciate any and all information you have on Charles Murphy.”
Assistant Director Grant stood and pointed at his door. He was a short man, his head around shoulder height for the two FBI agents.
Somerville and Hutchinson looked to each other.
“That means,” Grant said, “meeting’s over.”
34
Inside the Sheriff’s office two deputies sat at desks behind the counter. One was reading a mess of newspapers and drinking coffee, the other was working on a computer that might have come with the building’s original fit-out.
Walker waited. The cop reading the papers glanced at him, then went back to his article. The other cop typed, using only his index fingers. A solid brick wall ran down one side, to Walker’s right. In the middle of the back wall was a steel door, leading either out the back of the building or to holding cells. Or maybe the bathroom. To Walker’s left was a frosted-glass wall with timber framing that formed two offices. One was marked “Sheriff,” and Walker could make out two man-sized blurred forms inside. The other office was labeled “Restricted”—probably the radio room, admin supplies and all kinds of stuff. Or the bathroom, and they didn’t want outsiders using it.
Just when Walker considered tapping the brass bell on the counter, the door behind him opened. Squeaker, the Tahoe keys in her hand, joined him at the counter. She looked at him silently. Walker shrugged and turned to tap the bell—
“Help you?” The cop at the computer had slunk over, and he moved the bell from under Walker’s falling palm, his eyes on Squeaker.
“Yep,” Walker said, and before continuing he waited for the cop to look at him. The gaze didn’t last long. It was a measuring glance: Walker’s eyes, then his bulk, then back to Squeaker. He looked her up and down, her scruffy hair pulled back in a ponytail, her pale skin rosy from the Tahoe’s heater, her lips red and pouty now that she had warm blood and plenty of food and drink running through her.
