The Box

by Jeremy Brown

  Making a decision.

  “Hold still,” he said.

  Connelly heard adjustments and footsteps behind him, then large hands checked him for anything other than the remote.

  They didn’t find anything because he didn’t have anything.

  “Where is your phone? The one you used to call the girl?”

  “In the car, the cup holder.”

  The big one looked inside to confirm this, then stepped behind him again.

  “We’re going to check the bags,” the man in front said.

  “All of them?”

  He stopped after one step toward the car and looked at Connelly.

  “Do we need to?”

  “No, it’s all there. It would just take a long time to check them all. And I don’t want you jostling the explosives.”

  “Jostling?”

  “Fucking with.”

  The man glanced at the other one and said, “Where are the explosives?”

  “Packed in the trunk, buried under a couple of the bags. You know, for maximum damage.”

  “Just open the door. And the trunk.”

  Connelly did.

  The big one unzipped a few of the top bags in the back seat and stuck his hand in, pawing around to make sure the cash went all the way to the bottom of the duffels, then went to the trunk and looked in at the pile.

  He told Connelly, “Pull them out.”

  “Which ones?”

  The man pointed.

  “This one. That one. And that one.”

  Connelly pulled them out one at a time with his left hand and set them in the road.

  “Open.”

  He unzipped the bags—slightly difficult with the remote clutched in his right hand—and made a show of the bundled money inside.

  “See? No magazines, or newspapers, or whatever else we might have found to replace the cash. Soybeans? Who knows.”

  The two men were only half-listening, both of them peering into the trunk at the sliver of explosives showing between two of the bags. It was just a black satchel, but Connelly had pulled the flap open a bit to show some wires, knowing those had a tendency to freak people out.

  He waited while they silently freaked out.

  If Connelly had a weapon stashed on him, it would have been the perfect opportunity to use it and get rid of both of these clowns.

  But that wasn’t the plan.

  If these two went radio silent and Connelly showed up at the compound alone, he probably wouldn’t get the warm welcome Razvan had promised.

  So he waited for them to turn and acknowledge the money, then closed the bags and eased them back in the trunk one by one, playing up the possibility of the explosives accidentally going off, which was actually zero.

  The two men stepped away while he worked.

  He closed the trunk and back door.

  The one in charge said, “I’m driving this car. You’re riding with me.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want to be sure, if you decide to blow me up, you die too.”

  Connelly went around to the passenger side and got in. He looked over at the man, standing outside the open driver’s door, sweating.

  “Seat belt,” the man said.

  Connelly fumbled it into place with his left hand.

  “Now put your left arm under the belt, like that. Yes, tuck it in so it’s strapped against you. Your right hand, keep it up where I can see it.”

  Connelly said, “I’m not going to blow us both up just because we almost got into a bar fight. So come on. Hop in.”

  The man handed his rifle to the big one and pulled a flat black pistol from his waistband.

  He kept that in his left hand, away from but pointed at Connelly, as he got in and closed the door.

  “If you blow us up, the woman dies. You know that, right?”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  They led the way out of the intersection with the truck following.

  Connelly checked his mirror and saw the big guy was hanging back, just in case the Lexus exploded.

  He looked over at the driver, who had a drop of sweat hanging off the end of his nose.

  “You guys aren’t leaving anybody here?”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s just, I was kinda hoping you’d find my friends. Well, my former friends. They left me hanging.”

  “We’ll find them, don’t worry about it.”

  He glanced over at Connelly and didn’t say anything, but his face told the story.

  He was supposed to keep up the charade about Connelly and Nora being safe, reunited, allowed to go on their merry way once the cash was handed over.

  But the look told Connelly the Romanians were going to do whatever they wanted and needed to in order to find everyone responsible.

  “I hope so,” Connelly said.

  Then, knowing Bruder and the others on the other end of the radio had the information they needed, he said, “So you’re a soccer fan, huh?”

  Jim Thorensen watched the Lexus drive past his house, going north with its lights on, and frowned at it.

  His house was close enough to the road to hear and sometimes feel every vehicle that went past, and it looked like the Albrecht girl’s car, but there was a man in the driver’s seat.

  In addition to that oddity, nobody was supposed to be out driving around until this madness with the Romanian fellas and the sheriff and whoever the heck else was involved got settled.

  Jim almost called Sheriff Wern to report it, but decided it was a better idea to mind his own business and go back to trying to fix his chainsaw while listening to the boys on AM radio and their commentary about how the Hawkeyes were getting screwed once again in the national rankings.

  He wandered back into the dining room, a small space with a small table and four chairs next to a sliding door overlooking the property out back.

  The chainsaw parts were spread across the table on top of a few layers of newspaper.

  Carol was in the kitchen, just on the other side of a breakfast bar countertop.

  “I heard right,” he told her. “It was a car.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  Carol knew that tone and accepted the end of the discussion.

  She and Jim weren’t farmers and never had been, unless you counted Jim’s endless harvesting of firewood for their stove. The fields around their home were owned and managed by the Schillers, the next house to the north, and while the Thorensens knew of the Romanians and the sketchiness around them, their lives had never directly crossed.

  “Chicken and green beans for dinner,” she said.

  Jim grunted and went back to being miserable about his chainsaw and a bunch of college kids playing keepaway with a football.

  Razvan led Nora into the house, which smelled like fried food, beer, and wood smoke. She’d taken a tour of a fire station in Minneapolis once, and this place looked and felt like a contaminated version of it.

  The living room just inside the door was large and square with wood paneling and a massive television on one wall.

  A black wood stove in the far corner glowed with embers, and next to that was a ragged stack of wood piled right on the shabby carpet.

  Mismatched couches and chairs all faced the TV, which showed a movie with the volume off.

  The kitchen was to the left. Dirty pots and pans covered the stovetop and a commercial-sized trash can overflowed with paper plates, dirty napkins, and food boxes. Another can held empty beer bottles, with more empties stacked in cases and six-pack boxes around it.

  Razvan said, “Can I get you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  She shuddered at what that room must look and smell like.

  “No.”

  “Fine. Sit down then, the remote is right there. Find something you like while we wait for your boyfriend to—”

  His phone rang and he looked at the screen
, then grinned at Nora.

  “Let’s find out if he’s behaving so far.”

  He switched to Romanian while he spoke into the phone, then listened.

  Back and forth, watching Nora the whole time.

  Nora didn’t blink, trying to glean anything she could from this end of the conversation.

  Was Adam okay?

  Was he alive?

  Was he really coming?

  And where the hell were the other three men?

  Razvan hung up and put the phone away.

  “Good news. You’ll see him again in a few minutes. He’s being very cooperative. Except for the explosives, but I can’t blame him for it, I suppose.”

  “When he gets here and gives you the money,” Nora said, “we leave. Right?”

  “Sure,” Razvan said. “After we count the money, of course, to make sure it is all there. I’ll need your help for that part.”

  “I’m not counting your money.”

  “No, no, of course not. But to count the money, we will need to move the explosives he put in there.”

  Nora frowned, still not sure what he was getting at.

  Razvan said, “So when the time comes to move them, that will be your job. Pick the bomb up and hold it while we count the money. You can do that, right?”

  Connelly had given up on conversation and rode in silence as they took the turn on Pine, angling northwest away from the highway.

  Traffic was normal now, no more checkpoints necessary, and he felt slightly miffed about how everyone else in the world just went on with their lives while Nora was out here in the growing darkness with a Romanian thug and his men.

  But they didn’t know, or didn’t care, and it didn’t do any good to hold out hope for a posse of townsfolk finally ready to drive the invaders out.

  When they approached the tunnel, Connelly saw the tarp on the southern side was still there, pulled up and to the side to let traffic through.

  The armored car was gone, but the Lexus’ headlights showed fresh scorch and gouge marks in the battered asphalt.

  The driver looked over at Connelly as they bumped along the ruts made from the wrecker dragging the armored car out.

  His hands flexed on the steering wheel.

  Connelly stared straight ahead, not wanting to antagonize him any more than he already was.

  They came out the other side and the man pushed the Lexus to what Connelly felt was an irresponsible speed, given the possibility of ice and wildlife, but he kept his mouth shut and they survived to make the left turn onto the dirt road leading to the compound.

  Connelly saw the silos far ahead, lit from below by harsh white security lights.

  He glanced over his left shoulder at the following truck, which also made the turn, and used the motion to check the stretch of Pine they’d just covered.

  No other vehicles, headlights or not, that he could see.

  But they wouldn’t be that obvious about it, would they?

  Assuming they were coming…

  It was all technically still a coin flip, but he didn’t feel that confident anymore.

  Jim and Carol had a compost pile that was really just a mound of stuff for the possums and raccoons to eat, and when he carried the bowl of green bean stems and chicken skin around the back corner of the garage it took him a few seconds to realize something was wrong.

  It was almost full dark, but part of the driveway was visible off to his right and there was too much space over that way, too much peripheral view of the road and harvested field beyond.

  He turned to frown at the driveway.

  The Cherokee was gone.

  He stood there with the empty bowl dangling from his hand, sorting it out.

  Did Carol pull it into the garage?

  No, she couldn’t have, the table saw was set up in there on sawhorses, like it had been for the past four months.

  Did she move the saw?

  Shaking his head and grumbling, he went over and peered through the garage window.

  In the green light from a battery charger, he could see the sawhorses were still there, taking up enough room to block both parking spots.

  “Well, what the hell then?”

  Jim walked around the front corner and stared at the spot where the Cherokee should be.

  Had Carol left while he was taking out the compost?

  No, she would have taken the Ford.

  He looked north, toward town, and saw nothing.

  He looked south and saw a tractor parked on the side of the road, about a hundred yards away, an angular lump in the settling gray of night.

  Well, that hadn’t been there before, when he looked out and saw the Lexus going by.

  He went inside and got the deer shiner, forgetting to put the empty bowl down.

  Carol was just putting the rolls on the table.

  She picked up on Jim’s focus.

  “Coyotes?”

  “The damn Cherokee is gone,” he said.

  She blinked a few times.

  “What?”

  But he was already out the front door and she followed him, across the yard to the south.

  She glanced at the driveway and sure enough, the Cherokee was missing.

  “Jim?”

  He got to the edge of their grass and hit the spotlight and put it on an orange Kubota tractor squatting in the field, just off the road.

  “What’s that doing there?” Carol said.

  “No idea. It’s the Albrecht’s, right?”

  “Oh, I think so.”

  Jim moved the beam to point toward the Albrecht property, much too far away to be seen, even in broad daylight.

  “What the hell is going on down there?”

  “Jim, the Cherokee’s gone.”

  “I know, I know. Where’s the damn phone?”

  The Romanian driving Nora’s car pulled into a short driveway blocked by an eight-foot gate.

  A pickup truck faced them from the other side, its bumper touching the gate.

  In case anyone tried to ram their way through, Connelly supposed.

  The driver opened the door and put one foot out, just enough to stick his head above the roof and yell something.

  Another man—Connelly thought he might be the one from the road, with the machine gun, but couldn’t be sure—came around the corner of a squat block and steel building to the right of the gate.

  He laughed and said something in Romanian, then backed the pickup away from the gate.

  By then the truck behind Connelly had arrived, and the bulky driver shuffled past to push the gate open.

  As they pulled through the driver pointed through the windshield.

  “You recognize those?”

  Connelly looked at the armored car, dumped next to the pickup truck they’d sent rolling across a field. The two bodies were still in the bed.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  No point in lying about it.

  They sat there while the other pickup came in behind them, the two men outside the car talking and glaring in at Connelly while they closed the gate and put the truck back in place against it.

  The driver pulled to the right and drove toward a bland house in the back left corner.

  He said, “You shot them?”

  Connelly shook his head.

  “No, not me.”

  “What about Claudiu? Did you kill him?”

  This, maybe he could lie about.

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “No?”

  The driver was getting antsy, pulling on the steering wheel.

  Connelly got the feeling the guy knew these were their last moments alone before Razvan took over, and he might be working himself up to get some shots in before it was too late.

  He turned toward the driver and scratched his chin with the hand holding the remote for the explosive charge.

  “No, who is Claudiu?”

  The driver glanced at the remote and gave a sour grin, knowing what Connelly was doing.


  “You’re going to be sorry, my friend.”

  “Sorry? Why? I thought we were doing a trade here, nobody gets hurt.”

  They stopped in front of the house, next to the truck Razvan had used to drive Nora away.

  The front door opened and Razvan was there, ducking down to look out at them.

  The driver said, “Sure, you’re right. Everything is fine.”

  He popped the trunk and got out.

  Connelly leaned over to unclip his seatbelt and said, just loud enough for the open radio, “Hurry hurry hurry.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sheriff Wern was eating a cold takeout dinner from Len’s in his office and thought he was at the end of a long, insane day when he heard Dispatch put the word out about Jim Thorensen’s Jeep Grand Cherokee going missing.

  Dispatch, currently a woman named Beth, went on to say, “Jim also told me he saw a man driving Nora Albrecht’s car, the Lexus, but she hasn’t reported that stolen.”

  Wern thought about that.

  Jim Thorensen, who lived next to Nora Albrecht, who seemed to be the focal point of Razvan’s efforts to get his property back.

  Wern had gathered that much when Razvan told him he didn’t need the checkpoints at the crossroads and along the highways anymore, and if anyone around the Albrecht property called in about noise, he should ignore them.

  “What kind of noise?” Wern had asked.

  “Just ignore them,” Razvan told him.

  And now Jim Thorensen’s Cherokee was missing, and some guy was driving Nora’s car around.

  Should he ignore that?

  They didn’t get many stolen vehicles around town.

  The ones they did get were almost always a misunderstanding or a dumbass kid trying to impress a girl or prove a point to their parents.

  But this was different, he knew.

  He got on the radio.

  “Copy that, Dispatch. One-two, what’s your twenty?”

  This was Officer Hennig.

  “One-two, I’m at the motel, domestic disturbance.”

  Again?

  If they weren’t careful, Ed and Barbara were going to burn that place down someday.

  He told Hennig, “When you’re done there take a drive out to Jim Thorensen’s and take a look at the Albrecht place.”