Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  Her eyes remained locked on the weapon.

  “Ma’am, I know that this is stressful and confusing, and to be honest with you, there’s a lot of it that I can’t explain. What I want you to understand-and the reason why I didn’t just continue to hide my weapon from you-is that if doing you harm were on my agenda, I’d be doing it, and with all respect, there’s nothing you could do to stop me.”

  “I could shoot you.”

  “And I could shoot you.” He said this in the most reasonable tone. “Or, we could shoot each other, but if it came to that, I one-hundred-percent guarantee that I would still be standing here unharmed when the smoke cleared. My point, though, is the very opposite of any of that. I have no intention of harming you or your daughter.”

  She lowered the muzzle to the ground. “Susan Shockley,” she said. “Call me Sam. Or call me idiot, because that’s what I probably am for doing this.” She turned and put her hand on Jilly’s shoulder. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you warm.”

  Jonathan wasn’t quite sure what they’d decided to do here.

  “Come on, Mr. Harris,” Sam said. “Do you like coffee?”

  They sat in the kitchen at a rectangular table that might have been hand-hewn from local hardwoods. At the far end, closest to the window that provided a sweeping view of the fields at the rear of the house, a place was set with nice china, complete with crystal stemware. Sam did not sit there, and she did not offer the place to Jonathan. She must have sensed his trustworthiness, because she’d returned the shotgun to its rack over the fireplace in the adjacent family room, where Jilly sat on an overstuffed chair, wrapped in her blanket and watching cartoons.

  While his hostess moved through the ritual of brewing the coffee, Jonathan set his ruck on the floor and opened the top flap. On missions like this, it always paid to have cash on hand, the more the better. He counted out thirty thousand dollars in banded stacks of Franklins and set the money on the table.

  Sam saw it as she was about to pour coffee into mugs, and she froze. “You were serious?” she said.

  “A deal’s a deal,” Jonathan said. “My word is my bond. I can do platitudes and cliches all day.”

  Steam rose lazily from the mugs. “Sugar’s on the table,” Sam said, pointing with her forehead to the bowl in front of him. “I’ve got milk if you need it.”

  “No thanks,” Jonathan said. Ordinarily, he did drink his coffee with cream, but he didn’t want her waiting on him. For today, black would do just fine.

  Sam took the seat across from Jonathan, and as she settled in, he pushed the stack of bills over to her. She made no effort to touch them. “What are you really about, Mr. Harris? Is that even your real name?”

  “It’s real enough,” he hedged. “And what I’m really about is a very important matter that I can’t discuss.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  Jonathan sighed. “Tell you what,” he said. “Rather than you asking a lot of questions that I can’t answer, let’s just stop at me being on the side of the angels.”

  “Did you rob a bank or something? That’s a lot of money. It’s a whole lot of cash.”

  “I don’t use credit cards for my work,” Jonathan said, again with the smile. “And most of what I need to buy costs a lot of money.”

  Sam looked at the stack of bills more closely. She picked up one of the packets and riffled it, perhaps checking to see if it was real. “This looks like thirty thousand dollars.”

  “That is thirty thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t owe that much on the truck.”

  Jonathan twitched a shoulder. “Keep the change. For the inconvenience.”

  Sam scowled deeply. “That’s almost six thousand dollars in change. I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can. I want you to have it. Surely you can use it. If you’re upside down on the car, then you must be upside down on other debts as well. Apply the excess to those.”

  Sam placed the packet on top of the stack and leaned heavily on her forearms. “This is crazy. Why are you doing this?”

  The real answer-the true answer-was that he felt sorry for her. That preserved place setting at the end of the table was testament to the sad, brave story that was being lived every day in tens of thousands of households around the world. Spouses and children waiting for their husbands and fathers to return from war. It pained Jonathan that this particular warrior would return to poverty, perhaps with only a few short months before his next deployment. Jonathan could afford to pay off every debt owed by thousands of such families, and this particular one happened to be within reach.

  But he’d share none of that with this young mother, lest his altruism come off as creepy. Instead, he explained, “I need to buy time. I need you to feel fairly compensated so that you don’t pick up a phone and call the police as soon as I leave.”

  Sam considered that. He could see that her defenses were weakening. “This must mean that you’re intending to use the truck for a crime. I don’t want to be any part of that.”

  “It doesn’t mean that at all. If someone comes and asks, tell them that you sold the vehicle to a stranger who offered you full price. If push comes to shove, you’ll have the record from the paid-off repo guy that he got his money. The paper trail will work for you.”

  “Until you get caught and testify against me.”

  Generally, it wasn’t this difficult to give a generous gift. “I never said that I was going to do anything illegal. You assumed that I was, and I gave you a good cover. Hypothetically, though, if lawbreaking were on my mind, the last thing I would do is throw you under the bus.”

  Sam clearly had no idea what she should do.

  “Think about it, Sam,” Jonathan said, closing the deal. “Is there really much choice to be made here?”

  Turns out there wasn’t.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The faded sign, no doubt handmade with what appeared to be a child’s wood-burning kit, had been nailed to a tree, and likely would have been invisible if they’d arrived in the dark. The sign read NATHAN BEDFORD FOREST MOBILE HOME PARK. A cluster of rural-style mailboxes teetered underneath it.

  “Aren’t there supposed to be two Rs in Forrest?” Gail asked, leaning forward in the backseat, so that her head was between Boxers and Jonathan, who occupied the driver and shotgun seats respectively.

  Jonathan chuckled. “I guess it depends on whether you’re talking about the person or a place.”

  Boxers asked, “What person?”

  “Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Gail said. “Father of the Ku Klux Klan.”

  “Charming guy to name a neighborhood after,” the Big Guy grunted.

  He piloted the big Dodge down a narrow wooded road until it opened up on a cluster of sad, aged house trailers, probably dating back to the 1960s. Jonathan could almost smell the mildew from all the way out here. He counted seven units altogether. Despite their weatherworn appearance, most appeared to be well cared for. Each of the mobile homes sat on what appeared to be a half acre of land, and showed the remnants of gardens out front. Two had already put up Christmas decorations, the most elaborate of which involved red foil and a wreath on the door.

  “Which one belongs to Stacy Phelps?” Gail asked.

  Jonathan said, “I’ve got the address one one seven, but I don’t see any house numbers.” He relayed the question into his radio, and Venice answered right away. “All the way to the end on the right,” he repeated. “By the way, Mother Hen, anything on ICIS about our borrowed vehicle?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’ll keep monitoring and let you know.”

  Jonathan had considered dropping the Dodge off somewhere and stealing a second vehicle, but he’d gotten a good vibe from Sam.

  “So how are we working this?” Gail wanted to know. “Are we just going to knock on her door?”

  “That’s my vote,” Jonathan said. “Box?”

  Boxers shrugged. “It’s a little boring, but it’ll do. I think we should kill the ph
one first.”

  “Agreed.” Jonathan turned to Gail. “I’m going to badge her when she answers the door, but I want you to do the talking.”

  Gail made a motorboat sound in her throat. “I hate it when you use the badge,” she said.

  Jonathan and Boxers exchanged looks, but they didn’t comment. Their FBI credentials weren’t as false as most of their kind. Fact was, the Bureau occasionally found itself in positions where they shouldn’t be, with a requirement to go where they shouldn’t go. When those occasions arose, Security Solutions was always on the short list of contractors to clean up the mess, and the creds came in handy. In return, the people who counted at Bureau headquarters agreed to look the other way when Jonathan needed them for his own purposes. It wasn’t as if they had a lot of options, after all. No one relished the idea of Jonathan Grave speaking in open court about the things he knew.

  The ultimate irony, of course, was that Gail had actually been a sworn agent of the FBI, but she had no credentials, and refused to allow Jonathan to have some made up for her.

  Boxers parked the Dodge out front of Stacy Phelps’s mobile home, its bumper nearly touching the trunk of her eight-year-old Celica, blocking her ability to drive away. All three climbed out together, but Jonathan and Gail hung around the vehicle while Boxers went around back.

  Thirty seconds later, the bud in Jonathan’s right ear delivered Boxers’ report that the phones had been disabled. He’d hang around back there to cover the black side of the building, just in case.

  The steps to the stoop were too narrow to accommodate both of them, so Jonathan led the way and rapped on the door. He did it heavily, using the heel of his fist rather than his knuckles. When you’re pretending to be a law enforcement officer, the last thing you worry about is stealth. For them, it’s all about intimidation, and it begins with the knock on the door.

  When the door remained unanswered thirty seconds later, he pounded again. A moment later, he heard movement, and then two locks slid and the door opened a crack, revealing the sleep-puffed face of a woman in her twenties. “Who do you think-”

  Jonathan held his badge in the open door crack. “Special Agent Harris, FBI,” he said. “Are you Stacy Phelps?”

  Stacy’s anger morphed to confusion. Maybe to fear. “I’m Stacy Phelps. What’s wrong?”

  “May we come in?” Jonathan asked.

  “Why?” she asked. Then, as an afterthought: “We?”

  Jonathan pivoted his body so that she could see Gail at the bottom of the stairs. “That’s Special Agent Nichols.”

  Gail gave a curt nod, but otherwise didn’t move. She had her game face on. “You don’t look like an FBI agent,” Stacy said.

  Jonathan acknowledged his woodland cammies with a glance. “Never judge a book by its cover,” he said. “Out here, all respect, might as well wear a target on your chest as wear a necktie. I’d really rather talk inside,”

  Stacy stepped aside and left room for the two of them to enter. “I’d offer you some coffee,” she said, “but I don’t have any made. I work nights and I was sleeping.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gail said. “We know you do.”

  Stacy paled. She had an undernourished, overworked look to her-long, stringy black hair that needed a wash-and why wouldn’t it after a long night at work? What Jonathan noticed most were the dark circles under her eyes. They didn’t impress him as the transient variety that would go away with a night’s sleep.

  “Y- you know I work nights?” she stammered. “Why would the FBI be interested in knowing my work schedule?”

  Rule one of negotiations: Control the conversation by asking all the questions. Gail said, “You received a phone call during your last shift from a young man who reported a kidnapping. Do you remember that?”

  Stacy physically reeled at the question. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped a little. Her lips seemed to want to say something, but no words came out.

  “Let’s sit down, Stacy,” Jonathan offered, gesturing to her living room with its sofa and two chairs. They no doubt had been sold as a set, all three of them sharing identical beige fabric that reminded Jonathan of an old sport coat in his closet back home.

  He led the way and she followed, with Gail bringing up the rear. She chose the sofa and seemed startled when Gail joined her on the adjacent cushion.

  Jonathan said, “In answering Agent Nichols’s questions, please remember that it’s a felony to lie to a federal officer. If you do that, I won’t hesitate to put you in handcuffs and take you out of here.” Since he was playing the bad cop-another gambit that always worked, despite the cliche-he figured he might as well get into character early.

  “We have no interest in arresting you, Stacy,” Gail said. “But Agent Harris is right. We’ll do what we have to do. Now about that phone call.”

  “Who told you?” Stacy looked as if she was living her worst nightmare. Exactly as Jonathan had hoped.

  “You need to ask less and answer more,” Gail said. “A young man named Ryan Nasbe called at roughly one-twelve this morning asking to be rescued. Do you remember that?”

  Stacy’s head twitched.

  “Please answer verbally for me,” Gail said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember.”

  “Thank you. What came of that call?”

  Stacy broke gaze and shifted in her seat. This was a woman who should never play poker. “What do you mean, what came of it?”

  “Is this the way it’s going to be, Stacy?” Jonathan said. “You’re going to make us re-ask every question so that you can buy time to make up a lie?”

  Terror. “No, I swear. I’m not doing that.”

  “Stacy, look at me,” Gail said. “Just tell us what happened.”

  “I-I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Of course you don’t. Neither do we. All we want to do is gather information. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “I-I suppose not.”

  “There’s no trouble to be caused by the truth, is there?” Gail pressed. “The truth will set you free.”

  “And a lie will get your butt thrown in jail,” Jonathan said, drawing an impatient look from Gail. Okay, maybe he was laying it on a little thick.

  “What happened after you received that call?” Gail asked. She gently touched Stacy’s knee to draw attention away from Jonathan and signal that she was trustworthy.

  Stacy’s lip trembled. Her hands, too. Tears balanced on her lids as her eyes searched the room for something to look at other than her visitors.

  “Stacy?”

  She bolted to her feet, startling them both. Jonathan’s hand moved toward his. 45. Right away, though, it was obvious she meant no harm. She just couldn’t sit. “I knew this would happen,” Stacy said. “I am so sorry that I ever got involved in any of it.”

  Gail shot a quick look to Jonathan that said, Now this is interesting.

  “Please sit down, Stacy,” Gail said. “You make us nervous when you jump up like that.”

  “I knew it, knew it, knew it.”

  “Knew what, Stacy?” The rule book said it was important to use the other person’s name as often as possible in a negotiation. It was a trick that salesmen have known since the beginning of time. “Tell us what you knew.”

  “What do you think?” she spat. She brought her hands to her head, her fingers lost in her twisted hair. “I knew that someone would catch on.”

  “Catch on to what?”

  “What do you think? To the Army.”

  Gail checked silently with Jonathan to see if any of this made sense to him. It didn’t.

  “Sit, Stacy,” Gail said, more forcefully this time. It was the command you’d use for a dog. “Sit, settle down, and start from the beginning.”

  Stacy just stood there, her right hand in her hair, the other on her hip, staring out the front window. Jonathan recognized it as a posture of angst. She was trying to decide between doing right or wrong. Gail started to say something, but Jonatha
n raised a hand. They needed to give her a minute.

  Her right hand dropped to her hip. “Screw it,” Stacy said. “Fine. This is long overdue anyway.”

  As she started back to the sofa, she froze in her tracks and craned her neck. “There’s a huge man in my backyard,” she said. “He’s armed.”

  “He’s with us,” Jonathan said. He pressed the transmit button that was located just out of sight up his left sleeve-his non-gun hand. “We’re secure here, Big Guy. You can come in.”

  “You’re secure?” Stacy repeated. She seemed aghast. “Secure from what?”

  “Focus, Stacy,” Gail said. “Come. Sit. Start from the beginning. What is it that is coming apart?”

  Stacy retook her seat next to Gail. Exactly per the plan, she was hopelessly confused. None of her world made sense right now, and confusion always played to the benefit of interrogators.

  “You said something about the Army. Are you talking about the United States Army?”

  “The Army of God. It’s a nutso group of paramilitary types here in the county. They’re like all the groups you hear about in the news. I don’t know that they do any harm, but they’re just creepy. Every now and then, one of the soldiers-that’s what they call themselves-tries to get away. Not often, but occasionally.”

  Boxers entered the home without knocking, and effectively filled the opening. Stacy drew an inch or two closer to Gail, who again put a reassuring hand on her leg. “Really, he’s okay,” Gail said. “So what happens when they try to get away?”

  “If they call us, we’re instructed to tell the sheriff right away.”

  Gail produced her speckled composition notebook from a pouch pocket in her cammies and opened it. “What is the sheriff’s name?”

  “Neen. Kendig Neen.” She brought her hands to her face. “Oh, God, I’m going to be in so much trouble for this.”

  “And what does Sheriff Neen do with the information?” Stacy wiped away a tear. “It’s not as if he reports to me, you know? I mean, it’s the other way around.”