Homefront

by Chuck Logan

  “What?” he yelled.

  “Phone,” she yelled.

  Christ, the phone was ringing in his hand. He fumbled with freezing fingers; neither of them were wearing gloves. Hit answer. Heard Nygard yelling:

  “Broker, it’s Nygard. Where the hell are you, man?”

  There was a jagged adrenaline surge to Nygard’s voice, but also a touch of deference. “Not sure,” Broker stopped, looking around, trying to get his bearings. “Somewhere north of the house, in the woods between the lake and the road. Where are you?”

  “At the foot of your drive. Tell me quick,” Nygard said.

  “We followed a blood trail from the house and found a body. Griffin fought…” His voice failed.

  “Broker, you still there?”

  Now stronger. “Griffin got the guy, he was following my kid, judging by the tracks, and he bled out.”

  “Where’s your daughter?”

  “In the woods, still running, We’re on her tracks, but the snow…” Broker stumbled. Nina was dragging him by the arm, trying to stay on the fading tracks.

  “I’m out of the car. I’m coming in,” Nygard said.

  “No. Give me lights and flashers north along the road. Maybe we can pick you up, talk you in. We need a search party in here.”

  “On my way. Stay on the phone.”

  Almost immediately they spotted the blue-red slap of lights blooming faintly through the ghostly swirl of trees and white.

  “Good girl. Good girl,” Nina yelled, pulling on Broker’s arm. “Look. See. She’d headed toward the road…the lights…”

  Moving at a jog, watching the lights move away up the road, Broker shouted into the phone. “Nygard?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You still going north?”

  “That’s affirm.”

  “Turn around, you’re about two hundred yards past where we’re coming out of the trees onto the road.”

  They broke from the trees bent double, trying to see the tracks. Nina was going back and forth, frantic, searching. “They end here. They end here.”

  With the snow and the wind, they couldn’t read the ground.

  “I’ll check the other side.” Broker crossed the road, peered along the shoulder into the impossible mix of descending night and flying snow. Nothing. They needed lights.

  Lights were coming, blue and red strobing the sides of the road as Nygard skidded the cruiser to a halt and jumped out. He paused for half a second, blinked once, seeing Nina standing oblivious to the cutting wind in the flimsy Army running suit, the big Colt hanging in her hand.

  “We came out on her tracks. She came out here,” Broker yelled.

  “Okay,” Nygard shouted, voice charged, swiftly walking along the far side of the road, holding up a service flashlight, scanning the shoulder. “We got people coming from all over. We got experts in this up here, winter searches. Take a breath…”

  More lights, really coming fast. Jesus, real fast, like ninety-plus on the snow. They all instinctively moved to the side of the road as a maroon Minnesota State Police Crown Victoria slewed sideways in a not quite controlled skid, tires crunching to a halt in a shower of snow.

  The female trooper bolted from the car; she was a powerfully built black woman, no hat, short-cropped hair like a woolly cap, no jacket. Service belt creaking with cold. Unfazed by the wild aspect of Broker and Nina, she shouted, “Keith, get on your radio, goddammit!” Electrified by the trooper’s manner, they rushed with Nygard to his cruiser. Nygard hit the speaker box, and Broker sagged, hearing Kit’s voice come through the static. Felt Nina grip his arm.

  “I don’t know where…” Kit was saying on the radio speaker.

  “Just a minute, honey,” the dispatcher said. “Stay with me, break, Keith, where are you?”

  “Right here, Ginny. You found her?”

  “Are her parents there?” the dispatcher said with obvious controlled intensity.

  “Right here.”

  “Put them on. All this new stuff we got, I have her patched into the net. They can talk. Tell them to quiet her down.”

  Nina immediately grabbed the mike. “Kit, honey, it’s Mom…Where are you?”

  “I don’t know. I ran out of the woods, and this lady put me in the trunk of her car. Uncle Harry gave me his phone, told me to call 911 before…

  The mike trembled in Nina’s hand, her chilblained knuckles blanched white, gripping. “Go on, Kit,” she said in a steady voice.

  “The car’s moving. It’s so dark…”

  Broker took the mike. “Kit, it’s Dad. Hold on, we’re coming. You have to keep talking on the phone. Even if no one answers you, just keep talking.”

  Nygard grimaced, said, “Maybe you should reassure her…”

  Broker shook his head, “No time.” He turned back to the mike. “Kit. Leave the phone on. If they take you out of the car, hide it, look for something. A sign, anything at all. Try to talk when you can.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” The signal faded.

  “Kit. Can you describe the car?” Broker asked.

  Static.

  Nygard took the mike. “Ginny, stay on her, keep talking. I need this radio free for a while. Then I’ll put her folks back on.” He turned to Broker and Nina, who had stepped back from the cruiser to give him room. “She’s close. If we keep hearing her, she’s within nine miles of the towers. They go at nine-mile intervals between Highway Two and Little Glacier, remember, the skeleton house?” He looked up to the state trooper. “Ruth. You got the best radio, you gotta handle the traffic on the state net. Soon as I talk to my deputy and EMT, I’m going to keep mine open for the parents to talk.” Nygard removed his hat and scrubbed at his thin brown hair with his knuckles. “All the roads in a fifty-mile radius, then work in. Let’s shut it down. Gotta stop anything moving. We’ll need everybody. I mean everybody.”

  “I’m on it,” Ruth said. Starting for her cruiser, she gently started to put her arm around Nina. “How you holding up, ma’am? Maybe you should get in the car with me.”

  Nina looked right through the trooper, shook off her hand. Sergeant Ruth Barlow pursed her lips, observed the butt of the pistol stuck in Nina’s waistband. Broker’s shotgun. Drew herself up. “Keith, these people are armed; you on top of that?”

  Keith jerked his thumb at Broker, “He’s a cop, ex-cop. She’s…okay. C’mon, Ruth.”

  “You say so,” Sergeant Barlow said, continuing to her car. She got in and grabbed her radio mike. Nina thrust the Colt deeper into the waistband of her sweatpants, took out her cigarettes and lighter. Cupping her hands against the blow, impossibly, she lit the cigarette.

  Keith Nygard watched her, red hair streaming, smoke tearing from her mouth and nostrils. Like some Celtic war priestess he’d seen on the History Channel. He turned to Broker, sagged briefly, clicked his teeth. “Harry, Jesus. Got a body in the woods, you say.” Nygard shook his head, looked up. “How am I doing?”

  “You’re doing good. Call BCA in Bemidji, have them get the feds. It’s a kidnapping. Find out the status of the Troopers—”

  “State patrol helicopters, right,” Nygard said.

  “Get something in the air that can whip a radio direction finder on a cell signal,” Broker said.

  “Got it. Okay. Jesus, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, goddammit; somebody got my kid,” Broker said. His voice caught. He was accumulating a list of people whose names he couldn’t bring himself to say. Holly, now Griffin…

  “Okay. Later we’ll talk about the why. Right now we’ll work the problem,” Nygard said. “Let me make a few calls, soon’s people arrive, we’ll start some searching right here. Then we gotta move back to the house. Secure the scene…but if she’s in a car, moving—” Then he nodded at Nina.” You tell her. One of you got to stay on the radio, talking.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Sweat was dripping down Gator’s freshly shaved jaw. It was all coming apart. Shank, the big shot from the Cities, had trippe
d on his dick. Sheryl said the kid said the man chasing her had shot Uncle Harry? And where the fuck was Shank? Wandering, lost in the woods somewhere? If he was out there in this, Gator hoped he was getting tired, that he would lie down and go to sleep. And die. See. This is what happens when you rely on other people.

  That meant Broker was still on the loose out there. Knew his kid was missing.

  Gator pounded the steering wheel as he drove. Shit. One minute he was winning. And now…He caught himself when he saw the blue flashers light up the blowing snow a block away, heading out of town, toward 12. Okay. Think. He contained his rage long enough to figure out he didn’t want to drive his normal route home. Highway 12 in front of Broker’s house would be jamming up with Keith, Howie, probably the volunteer firemen who had an ambulance and were EMT certified. Lost kid in a storm. Cops would be coming from other counties, piling on.

  He swung the truck in a U-turn on Main Street and headed west out of town, turned north on Lakeside Road. Cut over the top of the lake. Pick up 12 above Broker’s place.

  He mashed his boot down on the gas, driving on pure adrenaline and instinct through the whiteout. Had the kid in the fucking trunk, Sheryl said. Tried to work it out in his head. Maybe strand the kid back in the woods. Make it look like exposure. Might work. I don’t know. He pounded the wheel with his fist. C’mon, Sheryl, don’t screw up. Gator leaned forward, willing the truck through the storm.

  His other cell phone rang. He checked the connection. Cassie. Shook his head. Dropped the phone. Kept driving.

  “Shit, hell, damn.”

  Kit huddled, fetal, trembling, in the rocking black compartment. Swearing. They were the only three cuss words she knew. Mom let her sit under the kitchen table sometimes in the Stillwater house and swear, to work out her heebie-jeebies, Mom said. If Dooley was here, he could pray. But he wasn’t. So she turned her face away from the phone and swore. Swearing, she’d discovered, helped keep her mad at the man in the woods and the lady driving the car. Helped hold off the smothering fear.

  “Shit, hell, damn.”

  Her only other comfort was the bluish green light on the cell phone in her hand. Voices cut in and out like a bad radio station. Sometimes the 911 lady, sometimes her mom.

  “Stay calm. We’re coming,” they said.

  Desperate, she felt around in the dark, looking for anything. She was lying on a crinkly plastic sheet, all folded. When she probed her free hand under it, she found a flat metal box. Like they kept art supplies in at school. It took a minute to fiddle with the hasp, but she got it open and clawed around in this cold metal stuff. Tools. She selected a long screwdriver and clutched it in her hand.

  “We’re com…ay calm….” the phone crackled in and out.

  “When? When are you coming?” Kit pleaded to the blue-green wafer of light.

  “We’re coming…”

  Kit gripped the screwdriver, clamped her eyes shut. She was gonna die and go to hell and burn forever because she never went to church.

  “Shit, hell, damn.”

  Sheryl hunched rigid over the wheel, staring in pure terror at the white freezing world that had materialized again out of thin air and battered the windshield. It was totally out of control. Any second it felt like the windshield would implode and this white wave would engulf her. Fuckin’ Nissan handled like a boat, heaving though the greasy snow. Ice clogged the wipers, making this disconcerting clack, like two bones scraping on the glass. Barely make out the shoulders to either side. Could see maybe twenty yards, max.

  Gator said, Take the kid to the farm, get her in the house, calm her down, give her some milk or something and find out what she knows.

  Yeah, right. That kid? Good luck.

  Finally, Sheryl saw a tiny smear of light in the blow, ahead on the right. Closer, she saw a red blur dancing in the white blast. The display tractor in front of Gator’s shop. For the first time since she’d wrestled the kid into the trunk, she relaxed her grip on the wheel.

  Slowly, she guided the Nissan off the road, past the tractor, orienting now on the yard light fixed to the barn. She jumped out and was momentarily stunned by the force of the wind. Leaning forward, she slogged to the barn, gripped the sliding garage door, and tried to yank it open on the creaky rollers. The heavy wooden door moved an inch and stopped. She didn’t have the strength to break the bottom free from the snow jam. Frantic, she turned to the second door, on the left, where Gator kept the Bobcat. Room in there to park. Sobbing with exertion, aided by a surge of panic, she managed to move the door a foot and a half. It wasn’t going to happen. She stepped back, panting, furious when she saw the seam split on the shoulder of her good leather coat, all this gunky paint rubbed off, abrading the sleeve. Let Gator open the fucking door.

  She turned and faced the Nissan.

  Gotta do it. He’ll be pissed if I don’t get her inside.

  She opened the driver’s-side door and hit the trunk latch, braced herself, and hurried around to the rear of the car. Lifted the loose lid.

  “Hey. C’mon. Let’s get you inside,” Sheryl yelled, seeing the kid in the vibrating glow of the yard light, curled in a tight ball, eyes wide, angry; the cut across her cheeks streaked on her face like war paint. The kid didn’t move. “I’m trying to help you, goddammit,” Sheryl shouted.

  The kid heaved up on her arms, looked around once, wild-eyed, then slumped back down. “Leave me alone!” she screamed.

  “It didn’t have to be this way,” Sheryl screamed back, and she meant everything plus the storm that was driving her crazy. She lurched forward, plunging her hands to grab…

  What? The kid rose to meet her, swinging something that gleamed. Ow, damn! Sheryl staggered back, clutching her left wrist, where it stung. Blood appeared in the white peeled-back skin between her glove and the cuff of her coat.

  “Leave me alone!” the kid yelled again, reaching up, pawing at the top of the lid. Found a handhold and slamming it shut on herself.

  “Suits me just fine, you little bitch,” Sheryl mumbled, turning, running toward the house. To hell with this. Let Gator get her out.

  “We stopped, we stopped,” Kit, hyperventilating, unable to control her runaway breath, yelled into the phone, which she’d hidden beneath her when the lid opened. “I see a red tractor in a light. A red tractor in a light.” Shouted it over and over.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Police tape clamored yellow in the fifty-mile wind. An ambulance sat halfway up the drive. Glacier County’s two police cars were parked at the foot of the drive. The state patrol cruiser was positioned at an angle across the road, to stop anyone driving by.

  Nygard, Broker, and Nina were observing a local moratorium on bringing up Griffin’s name. A BCA Crime Lab van was en route from Bemidji to work the scene. It was all about Kit’s voice, patched through the radio.

  They were hunched forward, holding hands, Nina in the passenger side, Broker in the backseat, listening to Kit’s voice cut in and out. Nygard stood outside, talking to a fire and rescue guy; his deputy was in the house with another fireman; State Patrol Sergeant Ruth Barlow sat in her car talking on her radio. Two more volunteer fireman in heavy parkas were tramping across the broad lot toward the woods with flashlights, poking the snow, marking the faint blood trail with Broker and Kit’s skis and poles from the garage. Going to locate the body.

  Nina keyed the radio mike, spoke in a slow deliberate voice, “Stay calm. We’re coming.”

  Just static.

  The door opened, and Nygard jumped in behind the wheel. Removed his hat. Dusted snow from his neck and shoulders. Methodically, he removed his frosted glasses, took out a small plastic bottle, and squirted antifogging solution on them. As he cleaned them with a handkerchief, he asked, “Anything new?”

  Nina shook her head. “Keeps cutting in and out. She’s still talking.”

  “What’s that?” Nygard grimaced at the speaker box.

  “She’s swearing,” Nina said, gnawing her lip.

  N
ygard glanced back at Broker.

  “Better than crying,” Broker said, his voice awful.

  Sergeant Barlow tapped on the window. Nygard zipped it down. She eyed Broker and Nina with restrained amazement. “I put out the APB with the description you gave me: Kit Broker, eight-year-old white female, red hair, four foot three, seventy-three pounds, cross bite on front teeth. Gave your names, said you were in contact with Kit by cell phone. Few minutes later the FBI in St. Paul called me back on my radio. Asked me if I’d met the parents and did the father have eyebrows. Was the mother in the Army. When I said, Yeah, about the eyebrows, the FBI guy says, in the clear: ‘Prairie Island Broker and Nina Pryce, no shit.’”

  Sergeant Barlow bit her lower lip. “I don’t know who you people are, but the FBI outa Duluth is putting an Air Force Reserve Blackhawk up in this. Packed with electronics. BCA’s coming from Bemidji and St. Paul. Something’s going on in St. Paul, because half the troopers in northwest and central are shutting down the road—”

  Nina cut her off, her open hand shooting up in a blur, signaling silence.

  “…stopped…red…I see…” The faint voice crackled in the speaker box.

  Nina and Broker leaned forward, desperate.

  “Shit,” Nina said. “Can’t—”

  Then the dispatcher’s stronger signal stepped on the static. Yelling with excitement. “Keith, got good copy on her last. She said, ‘We stopped. I see a red tractor in a light.’ You copy?”

  “Copy. Ruth, saddle up!” Nygard shouted, slamming the Vic in gear, wrenching the wheel, and fishtailing the cruiser in a wheely, sending Sergeant Barlow jumping back out of the way. Nygard righted the vehicle and pointed it north up 12. Stepped on the gas.