Night Road

by Brendan DuBois

  “But what if the Sox are losing?” Lewis asked.

  “Then you’ll get up tomorrow and check the box score, and you’ll feel good because you didn’t waste time watching them lose.”

  “And if they’re winning?”

  “Then you won’t miss anything, because they were winning when you went to sleep. Good try, Lewis. Ten o’clock and the television is off.”

  He got to the door before Lewis got to him. “Dad, I was talking to Coach Ronson today, after practice. He said you were the best pitcher he had ever seen in his years of coaching.”

  His hand on the doorknob, Duncan said, “That’s awfully nice of him to say. But remember where he’s coming from. Not many kids up in these parts are interested in baseball. So I think he was just being polite.”

  Lewis said, “Maybe so, dad, but he said it was a sin when you got in your car accident and hurt your leg, so you couldn’t get that scholarship and try out for the minors. Dad … do you ever wonder what it would have been like if you had made it in the big leagues?”

  Duncan turned and hating himself for it, easily lied to his boy. “Never, Lewis. Not ever. Now get back to the game, and make sure the TV’s off by ten.”

  His sleep that night was restless, with periods of wakefulness, hearing Karen’s soft breathing and the occasional creaking noise from the house, punctuated by light dozing where he had dreams of being chased and of having needed weapons in his hands crumble away like they were made of soft clay.

  Duncan suddenly woke up. A light was flashing in his eyes. There was a soft pinging noise. His blood seemed to ice right up and seize his heart. On the nightstand next to the bed, next to the tiny clock radio with red numerals, was a little black box that was connected to the perimeter alarm system for the house. Duncan had motion-detection sensors set up about the yard, extending a couple of hundred feet in each direction. They weren’t fancy, but they were designed to alert him whenever body masses of a certain weight were approaching the house.

  Like now.

  There was no alarms screeching or bells ringing. Nope, just the tiny black box next to him that made a soft pinging noise every thirty seconds, in addition to a little flash of light aimed at his side of the bed. Dear Karen could sleep through an earthquake, but in his years of work experience, he had learned to be a light sleeper.

  Ping. Flash. Ping. Flash.

  Duncan reached out, touched the top of the black box. The noise and the light stopped, but his work was about to begin.

  He quickly swung out of bed, reached between the mattress and box spring, where a .357 stainless-steel Ruger revolver rested. Weapon in hand, he got dressed in the dark and slipped out of the bedroom. He closed the door behind him and went down the hallway, ensuring the doors to the kids’ rooms were closed as well.

  In the kitchen, next to the gas stove and the stainless-steel refrigerator—which Karen had initially loved but now despised because the smooth surface showed every fingerprint and smudge—was small black-and-white television set. The screen on the set was divided into four quadrants, showing the front of the house and the driveway, the side yards, and the rear yard, which fell away to a wood line. The image showing the driveway was reasonably clear, because of a streetlight up the way, but the other views were pretty shadowy.

  Damn.

  Duncan slipped the Ruger into the waistband, went through the darkened kitchen and through a side door, into the garage, where his Chevy truck and Karen’s Toyota RAV4 rested, near his and her Harley Davidsons covered in cloths. The only light in the garage came from two nightlights, and that was enough. In a minute or two he went into a locked storage box underneath a tool bench, and emerged with a Kevlar vest, a set of night-vision goggles, and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun with an extended magazine. A semiautomatic rifle, like the H&K MP5 he and Cameron had borne earlier, would have more firepower, but at nighttime, the explosive burst and sound of a Remington shotgun was much more impressive.

  Duncan went to the back door of the garage, crouched down, and opened it slightly. He spent a few minutes like that, scanning the rear yard with the aid of the night-vision gear, revealing the night in a ghostly shade of gray-green. Nothing. A swing set, picnic table, and small above-ground swimming pool for the kids. To his left the rear deck with grill and table and chairs. No assassins in sight.

  He slipped out, making sure the door was shut behind him. Staying low, he moved across the lawn and took a spot near the swimming pool, .357 Ruger firm in his waistband, shotgun in hand. Back and forth, back and forth. Nothing. There was the sound of night birds, insects, and far away, coming from the state highway, some brave or foolish soul who was out riding a motorcycle in this frigid night air.

  But nothing here, in the yard of the Crowley residence.

  He didn’t like it. Didn’t like it all. Something had tripped the damn alarm system.

  From the swimming pool, there was a low, decorative hedge work, where he scurried next. It was cold and he wished had grabbed a coat before getting all gung ho out here. Too late now. He knelt in the dew-wet grass, again scanned the property. The alarm system was good but had one weak spot: it didn’t tell you where in the yard the trespasser was coming through, only that he was out there, somewhere. Sure, he could have spent the money for a larger upgrade, a more complicated system, but hell, it was always something on the famed “to do” list.

  An owl hooted out there, the noise deep, bone chilling.

  Another scan.

  Nothing.

  He went to the other end of the hedgework, chest pounding, mouth suddenly dry. Gunplay had never bothered him much but he was hating every second of this. His family was in that house behind him, safe and warm and asleep. They were depending on him for safety, for protection, for so very much. Any other normal father in this valley wouldn’t be out here if he feared for his family’s safety. No, that normal father would call the cops and let them take care of it. But Duncan wasn’t under any illusions.

  At this time of night, the sole chief and patrolman for the town of Turner were in bed. Any 911 call would go to a central state dispatch, and from there, to the State Police, and from there, to whichever lonely State Police cruiser was roaming around this empty part of the state. Which meant that if there was real trouble out here, chances were that the cops and others would arrive in time to take crime scene pictures and liver temperatures of the deceased.

  But not here, and not tonight.

  Something moving, down by the tree line. Duncan flattened himself out on the wet grass, cursed himself for not upgrading the alarm system, and for not upgrading his night-vision gear. There were better night-vision sets out there that had telescopic capabilities, but they were pricey.

  Idiot, he thought. If he could mortgage the house right now to have that kind of gear in front of his face, he’d do it. As it was, all he could see was a shape out there, moving slowly. Couldn’t zoom in to see who it was or what he was carrying.

  Took a breath. Shotgun firm against his shoulder. Waited, running possibilities through his mind. If it was a kid or something, just a warning shout out to the yard that he was trespassing and needed to get the hell out of here would do. If it was a man, same message. If it was a man approaching his house, armed, then he’d wait until he was close enough to hear him breathing and with one pull of the trigger, he’d take the son-of-bitch out at the knees.

  A noise from the approaching figure.

  What the heck?

  The figure seemed to drop, like he was coming to the house on his hands and knees, lumbering along, looking like a … .

  Like a damn black bear.

  Duncan let out a breath, relaxed against the cold and wet grass. A black bear. That’s all. The surveillance system was supposed to be sensitive enough to tell the difference between a person or a deer or a black bear stumbling along, but obviously, it needed to be tuned up.

 
; Still. Good to know.

  He rolled over on his back and an armed figure was looking down at him.

  nineteen

  In his luxurious bedroom at Rogers’ Bed and Breakfast, Zach Morrow is wide awake, and remembering.

  Remembering his last mission in the employ of the Federal government. A hot, humid night, about five miles away from a small container ship that was heading up the west African coast, traveling to Lisbon. The ship had halted off the coast of Sierra Leone, supposedly to make temporary repairs to a faulty boiler. During that time, he had slipped off the stern of the boat in a specially designed Zodiac craft with muffled, high-speed engines and a low gunwale, allowing it to move stealthily among the boat traffic coming out of the Sierra Leone River. Years before, this type of mission would have been tasked to a Navy SEAL unit, but now the SEALs were busy in the deserts of Iraq and the high mountains of Afghanistan. So it had gone down the food chain to the US Coast Guard and Chief Petty Officer Zach Morrow, who had gone in from the Atlantic to the capitol city of Freeport, and up the river.

  He had plenty of experiences with rivers, traveling up and down slow-moving, turgid streams, or navigating fast-moving rapids and whirlpools and eddies. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan … so many countries, so many rivers. Dropping off and picking up. Delivering weapons, supplies, gold ingots. Most river work was done at night, all missions a success, if you could call that, year after year. He was getting tired of doing work that didn’t seem to add much to the equation.

  And what was that? Damned if he knew. Once he thought the equation was doing good, but after all the shooting and misery and betrayals, he now thought the equation was just getting out alive.

  This particular trip was timed down to the ounce and the second, going up the river in another edition of Sierra Leone’s ongoing civil war, Zach being assigned to slide in and slide out, retrieving a two-man Agency surveillance group that had gotten its extraction process screwed up. Practically lying down in the boat before its controls, carefully navigating his way up the river—seeing tracers firing off in the distance, the thump of explosions, and the glow of villages burning—Zach only had one proverbial bump along the road, where the river narrowed and a powerboat overloaded with fighters from one of the local militia groups nearly ran him down. The militia boat swerved around and came back for a closer inspection. Flashlights from the craft lit up the river and Zach couldn’t risk being halted, discovered, or slowed down. Maneuvering close to the powerboat with his thumb controls—with the militiamen hanging over the sides of their boat, holding AK-47s or flashlights—Zach slid up next to them and tossed in a delayed time-fused MK-45 combination fragmentation and incendiary grenade.

  The subsequent explosion and fire were pretty impressive, and Zach was sure that any observers on the riverbank would probably think the damn thing hit a mine or was struck by an errant RPG round.

  Checking his timepiece, Zach was pleased to see he was a minute ahead of schedule. Checking the GPS coordinates and the timepiece again, he slipped on a monocular viewing device, started scanning the right-hand riverbank, with sandbars, low brush, and cypress trees. Something flashed, flashed again, and then began flashing in a regular pattern. An infrared strobe light, keyed to the same frequency as his viewing device. Anybody else out there on the river or on the opposite riverbank wouldn’t see a damn thing, and Zach definitely wasn’t anybody else.

  Slowing the engine, he slew the craft to starboard, aiming right for the strobe light. In a few seconds, the wide prow of his Zodiac bumped and ground against the sand. He clambered out, stretched, and a man approached him from the shadows.

  “Charlie Golf?” the man asked.

  “The same,” he said. “Ready?”

  “Christ, we’ve been ready for days.”

  From the brush, another man emerged. From his vision gear he could see they were tall, wide, and tough-looking, wearing jungle gear, heavy boots, and weapons strapped to their waists. They dragged out bulging duffel bags and hard-plastic equipment containers. Working quickly, they put their gear in the stern of the Zodiac, tied them down, checking to make sure they were secured.

  The second guy said, “Shit, just one of you?”

  “One riot, one ranger,” Zach said. “One covert river op, just me.”

  “Sounds fucked.”

  Zach said, “Anything bigger would bring attention. You’re about sixty seconds away from heading home. You want to wait for a Carnival cruise ship or something?”

  The first guy said, “Gary, shut up, will you? Christ, let’s get the fuck out of here, I don’t care if we’re riding on surfboards if it means—”

  A soft male voice. “Sir? Sir? Can you help? Please?”

  The two Agency guys whirled as one, pistols out, gripped in a two-handed combat stance. Zach was just as quick, pulling down his cut-down M4 7.62mm rifle from a quick-release strap on his back.

  A man appeared from the darkness, wearing a suit and necktie, holding the hand of a woman next to him, a child at either side. A family, out for a nighttime river walk in the middle of a civil war where some civilians were having their hands chopped off for fun. For Christ’s sake.

  Gary said, “Folks, just back away, all right? We don’t want to hurt you. Just go away.”

  “Please, can you help? My name is John Ernest Benjamin, and—”

  “Pal, I don’t fucking care if you’re Oprah’s uncle, move along,” Gary said, holstering his weapon.

  The other Agency guy said, “Lighten up, Gary.”

  Gary said, “You lighten up, Paul. We’re wasting time, and I’m not in the mood to play diplomat; I want to play going home.”

  Zach looked at John Ernest Benjamin and recalled his briefing on the container ship, before heading out tonight. “You’re J.E. Benjamin, of the Peace and Liberation Party, correct? The presidential candidate?”

  The man smiled, nodded. His wife was quietly weeping. The children were wide-eyed, frightened. In the distance was the hard stammering of automatic gunfire, the glow of villages burning, screams of the tortured and dying.

  “Yes, yes, yes, I am,” he said. “Please, if I may. I received assurances from your embassy, a Mr. Koch, who said to me, many times, that if there were troubles, then my family and I, we would be taken care of. We were told to go to the Milamba Airstrip to be evacuated. Alas, no one arrived. Rebels came instead, burned the buildings, killed many. My children, they saw these two men here driving away. Knew they were Americans. We followed, the best we could. Please.”

  Gary said, “Sad story, but not our problem. Let’s screw.”

  Zach said, “This man and his family received a promise from the Embassy.”

  The other Agency man holstered his weapon as well, turned to Zach. “Bud, there ain’t no embassy there. The Marines evacuated everyone two days ago. Gary’s right, let’s get out of Dodge.”

  Zach stood in the river water, looking at the calm and dignified man, his wife, his two children. His hand was still entwined with his wife’s. Zach thought about all the other missions he had done, none of them particularly sticking out in his mind. Something sour seemed to grow in his mouth. “We can take them.”

  “The fuck we can,” Gary said. “Look at your boat. There’s no room.”

  Zach said, “We dump your gear, there’s plenty of room.”

  Gary laughed, started sloshing through the water to the Zodiac. “What are you, the goddamn tour director? Your job, pal, is to get us the hell out of here with our gear. No passengers allowed. So do your fucking job, all right?”

  The woman’s shoulders were trembling from her weeping. J.E. Benjamin started whispering in her ear. Paul came through the water, said, “Bud, I know how you’re feeling, but it’s not our problem, not our job. Sorry to say, it’s collateral damage. It happens during wartime. Unavoidable. We’ve got to get out of here, and—”

  Zach raised up his M4. �
��You and your friend there, dump your gear. Now.”

  Movement from the both of them.

  Zach said, “Gary, Paul, your hands where I can see them. I swear to God, your hands move, I’ll cut you down where you are.”

  Gary swore and his companion said, his voice soothing, “Bud, we can’t do that. This stuff is black ops gear, top-of-line surveillance, satellite linkage … we just can’t dump it in the goddamn river. In case you haven’t noticed, the whole place out there is blowing up. We got all sorts of nutcases roaming around out there, including al-Qaeda cells, and Chinese and Russian operatives. Our stuff is worth more than gold. We can’t just dump it here, have some moke pick it up and sell it.”

  Zach said, “Then it should sink pretty fast, hunh?”

  “Bud—”

  “We made a promise to this man and his family.”

  Gary said, voice low, “The hell we did. Some embassy flunky made the promise. Not us.”

  “No,” Zach persisted. “The United States made him a promise. I’m going to make sure it’s kept.”

  He moved to the stern of the boat, keeping his M4 up, hand going out, Paul saying, “You’re way the fuck above your pay grade bud … I’m warning you … this will goddamn sink you.”

  “I’m Coast Guard,” Zach said. “We don’t sink.”

  He grabbed the first case, Gary’s hand moved, and he moved quicker, firing a shot, Gary spinning around, “You fuck! You fuck! You fuck!”

  Paul said, “Did you just pop him? Did you?”

  Zach said, “No wonder you’re a field operative, you’ve got a stunning grasp of the fucking obvious. Now. Drop your weapon, do the same with your friend’s. I’m gonna be busy here for a second.”

  He grabbed the hard-plastic cases, hauled them off the Zodiac. It was hard going, but he looped a tie-down strap through the carrying handles. Taking another grenade, he set the timer for five minutes, then set the whole floating collection down the river. He pointed the M4 to the two Agency men. “We’re shoving off with this man’s family. If you’d like, take a moment to bandage Gary’s arm.”