The Wild One

by Nick Petrie

  44

  Tom Wetzel stood at the window of the crowded hotel bar. He was tempted to look at the talking heads on the television—with all the talk of war, they had some five-star testifying about military preparedness in a closed session—but kept his eyes focused on the street, waiting for Ash. Somehow, the man had gotten much farther than Wetzel had expected.

  He’d stayed in contact with a few carefully selected Marines over the years. He hadn’t seen Ash in person since that deployment in Iraq, but they knew some of the same people and Wetzel made a point to keep in touch. A regular background check helped fill in the details.

  Ash was a classic example of the kind of man who thrived in combat but failed at life afterward. He’d been a recon platoon commander for eight years, one of the most demanding jobs on the planet, but showed no evidence of employment since he’d mustered out. He didn’t own a home, in fact appeared to have no permanent address. His parents’ address was listed on his driver’s license, but it had expired years ago. His credit report showed no debt, but no income, either. Taken together, it painted a picture of sporadic day labor, post-traumatic stress, and likely drug addiction.

  In other words, like so many veterans, Peter Ash had fallen off the edge of the world.

  A sad, sad story.

  Of course, these same facts explained why Wetzel had kept track of the man, and why Wetzel had chosen him for this particular job. His history of violence and high probability of failure.

  Because even Jerry Brunelli, with all his powers of persuasion and coercion, couldn’t talk Catherine Price out of sending somebody to Iceland when her grandkid’s backpack had washed ashore. There was too much at stake, especially now, to leave it to chance. So Wetzel had dipped into his list of losers, men on the margins, and found the right man for this job.

  A man without a home.

  A man who wouldn’t be missed.

  That was the original plan, anyway. Wetzel had a new plan now, one that made him look like a genius. Ash would be blamed for all kinds of things.

  Because people would accept the obvious explanation. That Peter Ash, a broken man, had gone off like a bomb and innocent people had died.

  Such a tragedy.

  * * *

  —

  As Wetzel watched, a tall, gaunt figure appeared out of the snow and angled toward the hotel entrance. He wore a hooded black coat, but his head was bent and the hood was up and Wetzel couldn’t make the ID until the figure straightened and turned to look through the bar window.

  When he saw Ash’s pale, grim face under the tangled beard, despite his own certainty of the rightness of his path, Wetzel felt the fear tighten like a noose.

  The fear had been with him as long as he could remember. Fear of his father’s anger, fear of a bad grade. Fear of not getting into college, fear of flunking out. At bottom was the constant, grinding, and relentless fear of falling through the cracks, like his own parents did. Wetzel was nine when the mine that fed their town shut down. With five kids and only minimum-wage jobs left, his parents had blown through their savings, lost their house, and landed in a third-hand single-wide with a leaky roof on borrowed land, every day disguising desperation as hope.

  Wetzel had thought college and ROTC would be a way out of all of that. Becoming a Marine Corps officer would take away that ungrounded feeling, that fear of falling.

  And it worked, at least for a while. He was a motivated student midshipman, and graduated with honors. At The Basic School, he was an exemplary leader of men. He passed every test they gave him.

  Until Iraq, when the tests gave way to the ugly realities of war and Wetzel saw things clearly, maybe for the first time. He could die here for real. Or worse, be grievously wounded and permanently disabled, turned into a complete waste of space, and for what? For men he’d just met, men he barely knew? Men who’d barely made it through high school, who had no future in the world. Not like Wetzel’s future, which he now saw was so very bright, if he could just survive this deployment.

  War didn’t make Wetzel fearless. Instead, it made him ruthless.

  He sent other men to fight outside the wire, using every reason he could muster to minimize his own risk. He told himself he was more valuable as an officer than a casualty, and that he was building up his squad leaders, but he knew neither came close to the truth. The real truth was that preserving his skin was more important than men he was assigned at random, far more important than his country, which saw Wetzel only as cannon fodder. Securing his future was more important than anything else. Nobody else mattered. He had to save himself at all costs.

  He blamed what happened next on Ash, who’d been a new lieutenant in Alpha Company. While Wetzel made the rational and intelligent choice to step back, avoiding a bullet, Ash stepped forward to take it on the chest plate. The enlisted men loved him for it.

  Ash wasn’t one to point fingers or blow his own horn, but he didn’t need to. Wetzel’s captain had watched Ash’s platoon and the way his men responded and drawn his own conclusions. It made Wetzel’s rational caution look like weakness. His captain told Wetzel to get his ass outside the wire with his men.

  In the end, to save himself, Wetzel had to be ruthless enough to step in front of a mortar shell.

  The resulting wound got him sent back to Pendleton with a Purple Heart and metal under his skin that he’d carry for the rest of his days.

  No, Wetzel didn’t mind what would happen to Ash now.

  He didn’t mind at all.

  One of Tom Wetzel’s many talents was the ability to carry a grudge.

  * * *

  —

  Wetzel watched as Ash pushed back his hood, walked into the crowded bar, and surveyed the room. Beside the Euro-tourists with their well-bred cheekbones and flashy gear, the damaged Marine stood out like a winter wolf at a thoroughbred dog show. Wetzel was glad to see Fitzsimmons approaching through the snow, a dozen strides back but reaching for the door handle.

  “Hello, Tom.” Ash put out his hand to shake. “Where’s Brunelli?”

  Ash’s grip was strong, but Wetzel was pleased to see that he looked like shit, one eye bruised and swollen, face pale and glazed with sweat. Seamus had told Wetzel how bad things were, but his description hadn’t conveyed the reality, which was much better than expected.

  Wetzel smiled. “Sorry, I’m here by myself. Jerry’s still in Reykjavík, stuck in a meeting.”

  Ash still held Wetzel’s hand. His grip was getting tighter. Ash stepped closer and Wetzel could smell the man’s unwashed funk along with something else, an odor that reminded him of goat meat left too long under the hot Iraqi sun.

  Wetzel tried to pull his hand back but Ash wouldn’t let go. His grin was too wide and showed too many teeth.

  Wetzel’s fear had him now. He wanted to look for Fitzsimmons but didn’t. Instead he reminded himself that he was a principal in a major international consulting firm with a current net worth of 6.6 million dollars, an achievement reached only by being ruthless on his own behalf. His car was a Lexus, his watch was a Rolex, and his condo had a view of the Potomac. He was winning, and he was going to keep on winning, no matter what.

  Sometimes he told himself that in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep.

  Ash said, “What’s so important we had to meet in person?”

  “I’m just checking in,” Wetzel said. “Making sure you have what you need to finish the job.”

  “What job is that?”

  “The job you signed up for,” Wetzel said, faking patience. “Find the boy and deliver him to the police. So Catherine can take him home.”

  “What’s the boy got, Tom? Something in his head, that’s my guess. Something worth a lot to somebody. Óskar’s got a photographic memory, but I’m sure you know that.”

  How had Ash come up with that? Wetzel didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. “Du
de, what the hell are you talking about?” He put on a sympathetic look and kept his focus on Ash as the door opened and Fitzsimmons slipped through. “Are you all right?”

  Ash’s bony grip only got stronger. His eyes had a strange light. “You were never a great Marine, but I didn’t think you’d turn into a total piece of shit,” he said. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Wetzel ignored the pain and put his free hand on Ash’s shoulder to help lock him in place.

  “Nothing happened to me, dude. Working for Jerry is no different from being a Marine, except the pay is much, much better. I’m still a patriot, still doing the dirty work that nobody else wants to do. And right now, the job is to find Catherine’s grandson.”

  Wetzel was not, in fact, a patriot, but he saw things more clearly than ever. Working for Brunelli actually was like being a Marine, in that the entire Iraq war had been for the benefit of the politicians and the defense contractors. The job then, as now, was to advance the agenda of the powerful, to be their strong arm. Patriotism was bullshit. Altruism of any kind was bullshit. There was only yourself and what you could take.

  Fitzsimmons slipped easily through the crowd. Despite his bulk, nobody looked at him. They knew what he was and made space without conscious thought. Wetzel felt a flare of pain in his hand as Ash squeezed tighter. Behind him, the door opened again and the husband–wife team came in like hunting dogs who’d spotted their quarry. They split up to flank Ash on both sides. Soon they’d enter his line of sight, but by then it wouldn’t matter. In ten seconds, Wetzel would win again.

  Ash’s nostrils flared as he sucked in air. His pupils were dilated, and sweat gleamed on his forehead. His grip was strong but his eyes flickered like a failing circuit. It was a little disappointing to see him in this condition, Wetzel thought. He’d wanted payback, but this was almost a mercy killing.

  Fitz loomed closer, the syringe small and low in his fist, the uncapped needle gleaming. Ketamine was fast. The flankers were four steps away. Wetzel smiled wider.

  Then Ash moved, and Wetzel understood the depths of his miscalculation.

  He’d thought that Ash was crippled and broken, his postwar failures a result of permanent and significant damage.

  Now he understood that Ash wasn’t disabled at all, just different. Rewired, repurposed. Remade into something new.

  45

  Peter let the static build and watched Wetzel’s eyes. When they flickered over Peter’s shoulder, Peter slipped left and yanked Wetzel forward hard, propelling him through the now empty space where Peter had just been. As Wetzel passed, Peter spun and shoved him in the center of the back, crashing him into the arms of the lurker in the watch cap, who held something delicate in his outstretched fist, thumb raised like a suicide bomber with a dead man’s switch.

  Peter saw a slim needle and a clear plastic plunger. Still in motion, he grabbed the lurker’s thick wrist below the gray sleeve and used his momentum to force wrist and fist sideways, punching the needle into the meat of Wetzel’s hip.

  The reflexive clench of the lurker’s fist pushed the plunger down. Peter released the wrist and the tight fist jerked back in response, breaking the needle under Wetzel’s skin.

  Peter had no idea what kind of shit had just gotten pumped into Wetzel, and he didn’t care. He hoped it was no pleasure cruise. Wetzel had been ready to shoot that same shit into Peter.

  Wetzel clearly knew what had happened, because he froze in place as if waiting to see how bad it would be. The lurker in the watch cap was jammed up behind him, reaching for Peter around Wetzel’s torso. He had bright nailhead eyes in a face like a gravedigger’s shovel, the kind of face that made farm animals flinch and good citizens hurry across the street.

  Peter wanted to smash that face, but Wetzel was in the way. The static crackled a warning and Peter turned to see Ohio State coming fast. Peter sidestepped right and threw out a hard arm to catch the man’s neck in the crook of his elbow in a classic clothesline that left Ohio State’s boots climbing the air and his shoulders dropping to the floor.

  Two down. Peter spun again and saw Spatula Woman closing with a dreamy half smile on her face and her thumb unfolding an ugly knife. In his half-second’s hesitation over hitting a woman, she had the brutal blade open and her weight over her toes, looking far too comfortable for Peter’s liking. Behind her, Wetzel’s knees were mid-buckle and the lurker in the watch cap had a hand in his armpit to shove him aside.

  Adrenaline burned hot and the static filled his head. The world moved in slow motion, but Peter knew this was not the time. There were too many people. Some tourist would get hurt. It was time to go.

  Wetzel tumbled into a waiter, who tipped his tray of drinks. In the crash of glass, the crowd erupted into chaos. Spatula Woman’s dreamy smile sharpened as she advanced.

  Peter slipped behind the careening waiter and fled around the bar and through the dining room, where he shouldered open a swinging door with one last look at the lurker in the watch cap, nailhead eyes shining as he bulldozed through the packed people.

  The door flapped shut and Peter was in a long, narrow kitchen with a half-dozen white-coated cooks intent on their work and oblivious to the racket from the dining room. As he juked through the living obstacle course, a few heads turned to look at the tall intruder, but nobody said a word.

  On the far end, he found stairs down into darkness, a walk-in cooler, and a steel door with a crash bar. Peter slammed through the door and found himself standing at the bottom of the steps to the church parking lot.

  He jogged upward, looking over his shoulder. When he saw the man in the watch cap bang through, followed by Spatula Woman and a wobbly Ohio State towing Wetzel by the collar, he picked up speed.

  He made sure they got a good look at the Defender before he popped the clutch and roared away. But he never took it out of second gear on the hill road, and before he got to the main highway, he detoured into the big municipal parking lot.

  The black Dacia and Bjarni’s Skoda were gone, along with the police car. The pale Mitsubishi was there, though, the cabin dark but diesel exhaust floating from the tailpipe. At the far end of the lot, Peter finally turned onto the Ring Road, but kept his speed under the municipal limit of thirty kilometers per hour and one eye on his mirror.

  After a minute, the Mitsubishi pulled out behind him.

  Two minutes later, another pair of headlights bounced into view. The lurker and the grad students in the red Jeep, Peter hoped. He’d done all he could to let them catch up.

  He passed the sign for the city limits and accelerated. The road ahead was dark and empty and mostly clear, despite the heavy snow falling. There would be a plow truck up ahead somewhere, rumbling through the night.

  He wanted to find a spot to take them before he caught up to the plow. He needed speed and decent traction and a tight, blind curve.

  46

  The road ran straight through kilometers of silent winter farms and homesteads. The headlights stayed steady in his mirror, a half kilometer behind him.

  As the world turned white and empty, the static softened and the adrenaline began to fade. With the absence of that gasoline in his veins, he felt the crash coming like a black avalanche. His head throbbed and his bad eye itched. He was sweating under the coat. He unzipped it and peeled it off his shoulders with shaking hands.

  Despite Spatula Woman’s ugly knife, he didn’t think they’d meant to kill him in the hotel bar. If they’d wanted him dead, they’d have tried to take him on the patio outside. Fewer witnesses, and more room to use a weapon. No, the syringe had a purpose.

  Maybe it was meant to control him, make him seem drunk or passed out. They could haul him out of the bar, laughing the whole time, and kill him later.

  After they’d found Óskar. Because Óskar must be alive. Otherwise why go to all this trouble to stop Peter?

  Suddenly Peter remembered the
black credit card. Catherine had given it to him, but the card had Brunelli’s company name on it. Brunelli had tracked every purchase Peter had made. His ticket to Iceland, the Defender he drove, even the Litla Guesthouse, where Seamus had found him again.

  Shit. Peter fished it out of his wallet, cracked the window, and pushed the black card out into the darkness.

  Wetzel the Pretzel had been playing him from the very beginning.

  * * *

  —

  Now the headlights crept up behind him. He thought of how the Mitsubishi had run the Norwegian’s Volvo off the highway from behind, and stepped on the gas.

  The road came to a long hook around a broad rocky headland. He pulled ahead of his pursuers, but found no driveway or other wide place that would allow him to turn and face them head-on. So he pressed forward, using his forearm to wipe the sweat from his eyes. His head began to throb again.

  The headlights came up behind him again, following closer this time. He was running at 130 kilometers per hour, too fast for the narrow road and the falling snow, his wipers flapping frantically. He understood now that he might not get to choose the ground. He might have to fight them as they came, four on one.

  He wished Lewis was with him, or Manny Martinez, or Big Jimmy, or any of the other men he’d known, his wartime brothers. He’d been an idiot to do this alone. He’d been an idiot for many reasons. He still didn’t know anything about what had happened to Sarah Price, or why.

  In his rearview, the headlights came still closer. Ahead, the road curved sharply to the left. Fuck it, he thought, there’s more than one way to do this. He downshifted hard to shed speed without flashing his brake lights. Behind him, the headlights bounced and lurched as the other drivers braked too hard and too late. They’d either slam into his rear bumper or steer away and fly off the curve. He was trusting the Defender to stay on the pavement.