Breaking Cover (Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn)

by J. D. Rhoades

  Kendra sighed and picked up the phone. She hesitated before dialing. In her mind’s eye, she saw an image. A plastic stick, sitting on the edge of the bathroom counter at home. The small plus sign in the tiny window at the end. It was such a small thing, to mean so much. Guess I wouldn’t have been able to drink the wine anyway, she thought ruefully.

  She owed Brett the truth—but right now, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the whole truth.

  THE VAN bounced and jolted its way up the pitted road, tires occasionally spinning in the mud left by a recent thunderstorm. Clay was at the wheel, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He was humming tunelessly to himself. It was making Johnny nuts, but he kept hold of his temper.

  “Fuck,” Clay said without heat as the van bottomed out in a particularly deep hole. The impact jarred Johnny’s teeth together, and he nearly overbalanced. He kept from toppling over only by grabbing the strap above the door. He glanced at the wheelchair in the back of the van. It was still upright, secured to the floor by bungee cords. Through the rear window, Johnny could see their escort: four Harleys, traveling two abreast. Johnny could hear the low rumble of their engines over the higher whine of the van’s motor. It was a sound so distinctive that the motorcycle company once tried unsuccessfully to register it as a trademark. The men on the bikes were helmetless, long hair and beards trailing in the wind. This part of the state, no one was going to stop a member of the Brotherhood for a pissant helmet violation.

  The road ended in a broad clearing surrounded by tall pines. A single wide trailer slumped at the far edge. A long, low, crudely built shed ran down the left side of the clearing, at a right angle to the trailer. The bare ground surrounding them was cluttered with old appliances, car parts, and unidentifiable pieces of scrap metal.

  A pair of chained mastiffs started barking wildly as they pulled to a stop, with the Harley riders taking up flanking positions on either side. The riders dismounted. After a brief exchange of words, the largest biker, a massive, cue-ball-headed man named Stoney, approached the door. The dogs’ barking and growling climbed in pitch. Stoney reached for something in the waistband of his jeans. Johnny rolled down the window. “Stoney!” he called. The man stopped and turned. Johnny could see his hand on the butt of the huge .357 revolver stuck in his pants. “The dogs’re tied up, brother,” Johnny said. “Leave ’em.” Stoney looked at the dogs and shrugged. His hand fell away from the gun.

  He turned and walked to the door. His huge hand pounded on the metal framed door once, twice. There was no answer. Stoney knocked again, harder this time. Johnny heard a voice from inside. Stoney’s answer was also inaudible, but there was no mistaking the command in the tone. After a moment’s hesitation, the door opened. Stoney’s hand shot inside the open doorway and hauled a figure out. The other man was about five-five, with thinning hair and a straggly Pancho Villa moustache. He wore ragged jeans and a T-shirt that tore in Stoney’s hand as he used his momentum to propel the man toward the van.

  “Hey, man!” the man from the trailer said as he stumbled and barely caught himself. “What the fuck—” He looked up and saw Johnny in the window of the van, watching him calmly. A look of shock crossed his face, and was wiped away as quickly. He straightened up with as much dignity as he could muster and walked the rest of the way toward the van under his own power. Stoney followed a few steps behind, his hand on his gun. He looked amused. The other three bikers fanned out around him. As the man drew near, Johnny could read the words on his T-shirt. daytona bike week, the shirt read over a stylized picture of a bugeyed drooling monster on a Harley. Underneath was the slogan: FIVE THOUSAND BATTERED WOMEN, AND HERE I’VE BEEN EATIN’ ’EM RAW.

  “Nice shirt, Eugene,” Johnny said.

  “Thanks,” Eugene said. He looked at Clay, who was getting out of the van. “Didn’t know you were out,” he said to Johnny.

  “Guess not,” Johnny replied. He gestured toward the shed. “Heard you went into business for yourself.”

  “Aw . . . naw, man,” Eugene said. “Weren’t nothin’ like that. Made a li’l extra for, you know, personal use. Nothin’ that would cut into you or your uncle’s business. You know.”

  Johnny drummed his fingers lightly on the door of the van. “Funny,” he said. “That’s not what your cousin Larry told us.”

  “Larry?” Eugene scoffed. Johnny could see a thin sheen of sweat on the man’s brow. “That fucker wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ’im on the ass. Shit, he tells lies just to hear himself talk.”

  Clay spoke up for the first time. “I don’t know,” he said. “Larry was pretty anxious to tell us the truth.” He walked past Johnny and unlatched the van’s sliding door. “After a while, that is.” He pulled the door open and reached inside. He pulled out a round object and tossed it on the ground. It took Eugene a few moments to realize what the object was that lay at his feet. In that brief interval, four bikers drew their weapons: two giant hogleg revolvers, a sawed-off shotgun in a shoulder rig, and a Glock 9 mm automatic. Finally, Eugene recognized what was left of his cousin’s face on the severed head in front of him and screamed, a high, keening sound of terror and despair.

  The door to the trailer slammed open, and a woman appeared. She was short and chunky with disheveled dirty blond hair. She was carrying a shotgun. She fired once, wildly. The bikers ducked as the shot whistled past overhead. The four men fired at once, the blasts reverberating across the clearing. None of them hit their target. The woman screamed and racked the slide on the shotgun. The barrel was on its way down, coming to bear on them, when Clay pulled a stubby Uzi machine gun from the cargo compartment of the van. In a smooth, practiced motion he raised the weapon calmly to his shoulder and fired off a three-round burst. Then another. The first round caught the woman in the belly and hammered her backward. The barrel rode up with the recoil so that the second burst smashed her in the chest and upper throat. She fell against the trailer, then slid sideways and toppled. The dogs were going insane. Clay tracked the weapon toward them, then grinned. “Woof woof,” he said. He giggled. He turned back to Eugene, who was on his knees on the ground. The man was dry heaving, having thrown up the entire contents of his stomach onto the muddy earth. Some of it had spattered his late cousin’s head.

  Eugene looked up at Clay. He saw no hope there. Then he looked imploringly at Johnny. “Please, man . . . brother . . . We rode together. We flew the same colors. That ought to count for something.”

  “That’s over now,” Johnny said evenly. “For a lot of reasons.” He looked over at where the woman had fallen. “Pity,” he mused, then shrugged. “Least the dogs won’t starve.”

  “Please!” Eugene shrieked. He tried to spring to his feet. Stoney shot him through the left kneecap from behind. Eugene fell to the ground, howling like his dogs. Clay nodded to Stoney and one of the other bikers, an enormously obese man called, of course, Slim. He pointed at a nearby stump. “Over there’ll be good,” he said. They dragged the sobbing, pleading man over to the stump and threw him over it, facedown. At Johnny’s order, they arranged him so his head was facing Johnny in the van. Slim grabbed Eugene’s head and pulled it up so Johnny could look him in the face as Clay approached, holding a burlap bag. He had pulled a cheap yellow coverall over his clothes.

  Johnny had to raise his voice to be heard over the snarling of the dogs. “I got a chance to do a lot of reading when I was inside,” he said. “You know how the Vikings used to deal with traitors?” Clay took a hammer and chisel out of his bag. “They called it the Blood Eagle.” Clay grabbed hold of Eugene’s shirt and pulled. The flimsy thing ripped away easily. Clay straddled Eugene’s body from behind, his weight bearing down against Eugene’s futile squirming and bucking. He placed the chisel just to one side of the helpless man’s spine, probing gently beneath the skin. He found what he was looking for and raised the heavy mallet. When he brought it down, there was a loud crack, followed by a renewed shriek of agony from Eugene as the chisel plunged deep, separating the
rib from the backbone.

  Johnny went on, heedless of the fact that it was unlikely anyone could make out his words over Eugene’s screaming and the baying of the dogs. “When all your ribs are cut away,” he said, “Clay will reach in.” Another crack, another scream. “He’ll pull your lungs out from behind and spread them over your shoulders like wings.” Eugene hardly sounded human by this time. His eyes were full of madness. Johnny was disappointed in that. He wanted the traitor to feel every bit of his suffering with a clear mind, so he knew what he was being punished for. Still, it couldn’t be helped. Johnny went on. “That’s why they call it the Eagle. I hope you don’t die before that.”

  He didn’t. It was only when Clay reached into Eugene’s chest cavity from behind and started clawing that the man expired. It proved harder than anticipated to actually pull the lungs out, however, and Clay gave up after a few minutes.

  “Fuck it,” he said eventually. “We made our point.” He looked up at Johnny and grinned. The front of his coverall was soaked in gore. His sleeves were scarlet to the elbows. “This’ll put you back on the map for sure, cuz,” he said. “Don’t think any of the dealers are likely to feel froggy after this.”

  Johnny nodded. He gestured toward the shed. “Burn the lab,” he said. “Get the money out of the trailer. Then burn it, too.” “What about the bitch?” Stoney asked.

  “Throw her in with the dogs.”

  WELL, TIM,” Sheriff Henderson Stark drawled, “seems to me this is the sort of thing I depend on you to take care of.”

  Buckthorn gritted his teeth, then relaxed them again by a sheer effort of will. “Yes, sir,” he replied, “but I figured with something this important . . .”

  “I understand,” Stark said, with the indulgent tone of an uncle humoring a favorite nephew, “and I do appreciate you keeping me informed. Let me know if anything else develops, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Buckthorn said. He walked out of the sheriff ’s office, followed by Blauner and Ross.

  “Not what you’d call a real hands-on type of manager,” Ross observed. Buckthorn didn’t answer. He knew that Stark’s talents were all political, which was why he’d won the last five elections for sheriff. No one even bothered to run against him anymore. Buckthorn knew he was the one who handled all the actual law enforcement duties, which suited both him and the sheriff of Gibson County just fine. However, Buckthorn felt no real need to explain that to these outsiders.

  “So,” Buckthorn said. “What do we do now?”

  “We don’t do anything right now,” Blauner replied. “We’re waiting for instructions from SOG.”

  “SOG?”

  “Sorry,” Blauner said. “Seat of government. Washington.”

  “I don’t get it,” Buckthorn said. “I thought you guys would be happy to find one of your own people is actually alive. Unless he really is dangerous and you two are blowing smoke up my ass.”

  “I assure you, Lieutenant,” Blauner said, “he’s no immediate danger. At least not that we know of.”

  “Great,” Buckthorn said. “Not that you know of.”

  “It’s . . . complicated,” Blauner said. “We’d like to be able to tell you more. And I hope I’ll be getting a phone call any minute now telling me that I can tell you the whole story.” Buckthorn still looked unconvinced. “Look,” Blauner said. “If it makes you feel any better, put someone on him. Just keep an eye out. Let us know what he’s up to. Where he goes.”

  “Agent Blauner,” Buckthorn said, “my people aren’t trained in any kind of covert surveillance. They’re uniformed officers. They’re good at it, don’t get me wrong. I make damned sure of that. But the cloak and dagger stuff is up to you guys.”

  Blauner just shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but right now, we’re waiting for instructions.”

  “What about the kidnapping investigation? Did this guy—whoever he is—have any kind of role in the—”

  “I would be very, very surprised if the subject in question had any kind of role in any kind of kidnapping or child molestation.” He raised a hand as Buckthorn started to speak. “And no, I can’t even tell you why I’d be surprised.” Buckthorn growled an unintelligible reply, turned on his heel, and walked out.

  He stepped into the tiny cubicle that held the dispatch center. The young woman on duty was surrounded by computer screens and radio gear. She wore a small flimsy-looking headset. “Hey, Tim,” she said distractedly. “Forty, be advised.” She spoke into the headset mike. “Ten-twenty-six that missing person, subject advises his grandmother didn’t wander off, she was next door having a cup of coffee.” The voice on the other end acknowledged. She looked up. “What can I do you for, Tim?”

  “Tina, who’s working sector three?”

  She glanced at a clipboard hanging on a nail. “Ollie. He swapped with Lewis so Lewis could go to his cousin’s wedding.”

  “Get him on the line for me, will you?”

  “Sure,” Tina replied. She keyed the mike. “Two-seven, this is County, stand by.” She took the headset off and handed it to Buckthorn.

  “Two-seven, this is Buckthorn. I need you to keep an eye on the old Jacobs place.” He searched his memory for the correct address. He squinted up at the map hanging on the cubicle wall. “1104 State Road 4507.”

  There was a pause, then the voice of Ollie Arrington came back. “Ten-four. Anything in particular?”

  “No,” Buckthorn responded. “Just let me know if anyone comes or goes. And try not to be too obvious. Don’t park at the end of the driveway. Just cruise by a few times.”

  “Ahhh . . . ten-four” was the reply.

  “He sounds a mite puzzled,” Tina said.

  “That makes two of us,” Buckthorn muttered.

  “HUH,” howard said. He reached down and adjusted the volume on the news van’s police scanner.

  “That’s weird,” Gaby added. “Why would the chief deputy ask someone to keep an eye on a house, without anything more?”

  “That Buckthorn dude’s knee-deep in this kidnapping investigation,” Howard said. “Wonder if—”

  “Me, too.” Gaby grabbed the county map off the dashboard. She ran her finger across the map until she located the address. “Let’s go take a look.”

  “You got it,” Howard said as he started the van.

  “YOU’RE sure about this?” Deputy Director Paul Dunleavy said.

  Kendra felt rather than saw the eyes of everyone in the room turn toward her. She kept her voice level. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m sure. It’s him.”

  “Well,” Dunleavy said, “you would know. He was . . . I mean is . . . your husband, after all.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kendra said.

  Dunleavy turned to SAC Pat Steadman, seated at Kendra’s right. “So tell me, Pat,” he said with deceptive mildness. “Just how do you manage to lose an agent for four and a half years?”

  “Sir,” Steadman said, “I don’t think that’s quite fair . . .”

  The mildness in Dunleavy’s voice evaporated. “I really don’t give a fuck if you think it’s fair or not, Agent Steadman,” he spat. “I want to know who fucked up this situation, why they fucked it up, and how we’re going to unfuck it. I suggest you start at the beginning.”

  Steadman kept his face expressionless, but Kendra could see the muscle in his jaw twitching with the effort. Steadman opened a file folder. “Tony Wolf was one of our best undercover assets,” he said. “Former Green Beret. Top of his class at Quantico.”

  “Yes,” Dunleavy said. “If I remember correctly, Agent Wolf here was one of his instructors.” He looked at Kendra, who stared straight ahead.

  “We’ve been through that already, sir,” Steadman said. “They were never, ah, seeing each other until after his graduation. And he was never in her chain of command.” Dunleavy just grunted, as if he didn’t really believe it but didn’t consider it worth arguing about. There was a brief, uncomfortable pause; then Steadman went on. “Back to Wolf. The guy was absolu
tely fearless.” He took out a picture and slid it across the desk. It was a much clearer portrait of the man in the surveillance photo.

  “Wolf was working an operation in western Kentucky,” Steadman went on. “We had word that an outlaw motorcycle gang called the Brotherhood was moving into more serious crimes. They started as another bunch of rednecks with loud bikes and bad attitudes. Back in 1987, though, they elected this man as club president.” He took out another photo and slid it to Dunleavy. It was a mug shot of a young man in the inevitable beard, long hair, and glower. “His name is Nathan Trent. This is what he looks like now.” Another photograph. This one was taken outdoors, presumably with a long lens. It showed the same man, somewhat older. This time his beard was neatly trimmed and he was dressed in a suit.

  “Moved up in the world, I see,” Dunleavy observed.

  Steadman nodded. “Trent saw the potential of having a small army of highly mobile foot soldiers who’d sworn loyalty to his organization. When methamphetamine started coming into the picture, he was ready. Club members became producers and distributors, working out of the bars and strip clubs they frequented. Before long, Trent branched out into prostitution, which he used as both a profit source and a means of keeping his people in line.”

  “Explain,” Dunleavy said.

  “Loyal members who’d done well were rewarded with ‘freebies,’ ” Steadman said. “But people who got out of line, owed them money, whatever, might find their wives or girlfriends, sometimes even young daughters, forced into ‘working off the debt.’ ”

  “Trent’s a nasty piece of work.”

  Keen grasp of the obvious, Kendra thought. Steadman just nodded. “And he was getting bigger every year. So we decided we’d put someone on the inside to take him down.”

  “And you picked Wolf.”

  “No, sir,” Steadman replied. “He volunteered.”

  Kendra spoke up. “He’d been working in CACU,” she said, using the acronym for the Crimes Against Children Unit. “Trent was starting to branch out again, this time into pornography. We believe some of the subjects he was using were as young as ten years old.”