Guardians of the Night (A Gideon and Sirius Novel)

by Alan Russell

  “The two of us can talk hypothetically,” I said, “but you are still going to have to come clean about this Reluctant Hero thing.”

  Pullman stiffened, but I continued talking without giving him a chance to speak.

  “It’s the only way we can keep it quiet. I’m not the only one who has been trying to find your identity. The Times is on it, and so are two or three of the gossip rags. It wouldn’t surprise me if they identified you in the next week or two.

  “That’s why we have to beat them to the punch. That’s why I want to arrange a private ceremony with the mayor giving you the key to the city, along with controlled media coverage. Those media outlets at the ceremony will have to agree not to release your name for the reason that you are a member of an elite military unit and because the nature of your sensitive missions requires anonymity. I’ll see that they don’t even identify you as a Ranger. That way no one will be able to know if you’re a Ranger, a SEAL, or Delta, or Recon. We’ll make sure they pixelate your image and electronically disguise your voice. As for print media, photographers will have to sign a release agreeing to no face shots. At the ceremony, you won’t give a speech and won’t take any questions. LAPD Media Relations will read a prepared statement saying that you were taking R&R in Los Angeles and just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

  “If we don’t do this preemptive move, it will just be a matter of time before you’re found out. Doing it this way will secure your privacy. I can guarantee you that even the scandal sheets won’t reveal your identity because of the umbrella of national security, as well as not wanting to violate the Patriot Act.”

  While talking, I’d kept my eyes on Pullman’s face and watched his expression change from anger to doubt, to hope.

  “You really think that will work?” he asked.

  “I’m sure of it. And it’s the only way of controlling the media and getting ahead of the situation. Enough details will be provided for them to have their story while at the same time protecting your identity. What’s best is that the story we’ll be feeding to the media is completely true, even if it’s short some details.”

  “You’ll be in charge of all this?”

  “I will.”

  Pullman sat there thinking about it. I could sense a huge weight lifting from his shoulders. If I didn’t know better, I would have said his eyes teared up, but Rangers don’t cry.

  “Everyone’s still going to think I’m some kind of hero,” he said. “That’s a lie.”

  I nodded. “I understand your embarrassment. I felt the same thing when everyone was trying to make me the toast of the town, and the whole world was told I was this brave guy, all of which just made me feel like that much more of a fraud.”

  Pullman was nodding. “All I did . . .”

  He stopped talking, so I finished the sentence for him: “Was what any father would do.”

  Pullman took a deep breath. He looked tired. “What else you got figured out?”

  “You’re a good man trying to make the best of a difficult situation.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m not a good man.”

  “You’re in love with Kelley,” I said. “I suspect you’ve been in love with her from the moment you first met her. I saw how miserable you looked in the wedding photos. She was haunted as well. My guess is you both fell in love days before the wedding. The last thing either one of you wanted to do was betray your brother. And yet you couldn’t deny your love for one another. After the wedding, going to war probably felt like a relief from that impossible situation.”

  Pullman nodded but said nothing.

  “Matthew is your biological son,” I said. “Your brother doesn’t suspect, but you and Kelley know. I imagine you’ve been surreptitiously monitoring him ever since he was born. You’ve had to do that because all this time you’ve avoided seeing him in your brother’s presence. And it’s also too hard for you to be around Kelley. You’re afraid of what you might reveal. That’s why you were at The Corner School. You were watching from a vantage point where Matthew couldn’t see you. You’re good at observing without being seen. It’s fortunate you’ve also been trained to recognize danger and react to it.”

  Pullman looked down at the table, his chin supported by his hands.

  “My unit thinks I’m—kind of crazy—even for a Ranger. What others think is fearlessness is really my not giving a shit whether I live or die. I can’t have the woman I love, and I can’t have a family, so in the back of my mind I’ve accepted that it would be easier to die on a battleground far away. It seems to me that would be the best way to tidy up the mess that’s my life.”

  “Does your brother know you’re in L.A. now?”

  He nodded. “The other day we got together for lunch. You guessed right about me. I can’t do the family get-together thing. So I told him I’m in town with a few other Rangers and that we’re busy running around raising hell. I’ve even done some social media posting to make that seem true.”

  “But what you’ve really been doing is spending your leave watching Matthew and Kelley.”

  He shrugged. “It’s better for them not knowing I’m around. And it doesn’t hurt as much seeing them from a distance. It would be torture if I had to be in their presence. They’ve never noticed me spying on them.”

  “You said you spoke with Kelley about the Lakers jersey.”

  He nodded. “I’ve talked with her every day I’ve been in L.A. Supposedly we’re going to get together for breakfast or lunch, but it’s not going to happen. It would hurt too much, even after all this time.”

  “Does Kelley know you’re the Reluctant Hero?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think she’s made the connection. Maybe she knows better than to speculate. So far we’ve kept our secret without hurting D.C. and messing up Matthew’s life. I’m really glad Kelley’s pregnant, and I’m not just saying that. This time she can have a baby without all the turmoil that came with Matt.”

  “He’s a great kid.”

  Pullman smiled. It was almost the smile of a proud father.

  CHAPTER 20:

  THE K-9 PRAYER

  As we walked to my car, I again made sure Pullman was helping me of his own volition.

  “Before this goes any further, I need to know you’re good with this. It’s not like I’m deputizing you. This is all unofficial, and like it or not, in this operation your capacity is that of a civilian observer. But that doesn’t mean things might not get dangerous. And if you’re volunteering because you think you’re obligated to me or have this idea that you need to give to get, you need to think again. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “You’re doing me the favor,” said Pullman.

  “How so?”

  “The whole time I’ve been in L.A. I’ve been jonesing like the dude in that ’Nam film with Brando.”

  “Apocalypse Now,” I said.

  The Sheen character of Captain Willard needed his mission. Apparently Pullman did as well.

  “You know things aren’t right in your life when you look forward to going back to war,” he said. “With this hero thing hanging over my head, I kept thinking about bugging out, but I was afraid if the shit hit the fan and I wasn’t around, Kelley and Matthew would be thrown under the bus.”

  “When are you being deployed again?”

  “Two weeks,” he said.

  He was used to going into the heart of darkness, I thought. Unfortunately, so was I.

  Pullman had brought with him what he called his “AWOL bag.” It was lucky for me that he seemed to think it was his duty to always be ready for combat. Only after Pullman met my partner did he begin to loosen up. Humans can try to forge connections for hours that dogs can establish in mere moments.

  “You got yourself your own war dog,” he said. “War dogs kept me sane over there, or at least close enough for government wor
k.”

  For the first time since I’d met Pullman, there was a relaxed smile on his face. He scratched just under Sirius’s ears and seemed to know the spots to apply magic fingers.

  “On one aerial insert we were up in a Hercules transport, about to be dropped into another goddamned hot spot,” he said, “and who should be jumping with us but a handler and a soldier dog. We were doing a HAHO—a high altitude high opening—way up, and the dog was wearing his own oxygen mask. I remember he looked cool as a cucumber. I know he was a lot less nervous than I was. He was strapped to his handler, and the two of them didn’t slow up the line for even a second. One moment they were there, and the next they were out the chute with an open parachute. I never thought I’d see a sight like that. I kept my eye out for them as I was dropping. What I saw will always stay with me. The dog’s fur was being blown back, and he looked as pleased as if he were in an open convertible, cruising down the blacktop with his fur flying.”

  The image Pullman painted made me laugh. One of the things Sirius loves best is sticking his head out an open window.

  “I didn’t know the dog’s name at the time, but later I learned it was ‘Astro.’ Hell of a name, eh?”

  “It’s a good one.”

  “In the Army most of the handlers say their dogs outrank them. The handlers tell everyone they’re the grunts, and their dog is the NCO.”

  I nodded. “It’s the same way with this partnership. I tell everyone that Sirius outranks me. The toughest thing for me is when I have to send him out knowing I’m putting his life on the line.”

  I added a confessional of my own: “A few years ago he got shot and burned because I told him to go into a fire after a bad guy.”

  “Is that how you got your scar?”

  My hand moved to my face, and I nodded. “I got shot too, but my wound wasn’t life threatening. His was.”

  “That comes with the territory when you’re a war dog. They go where they’re told, even if it’s to the gates of hell. When SEAL Team Six got Bin Laden, they took a war dog on the mission.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  The lovefest between Pullman and Sirius continued while I drove; the Ranger scratched, and my partner happily received.

  “I probably would have died over there if not for the soldier dogs,” Pullman said. “I’ve watched them sniff out dozens of IEDs. And there’s no better early warning system when you’re on patrol.”

  “You’ll get no argument here. This one might have saved my life last night.”

  “You got two of us watching your back tonight,” he said.

  “I hope that’s enough.”

  “You ever hear the poem ‘Guardians of the Night’?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Most cops I know call it the K-9 prayer.”

  “Last month we had a memorial for an explosives dog named Ruger. His handler just missed buying the farm and blamed himself for Ruger’s death. He said he missed Ruger’s signaling an IED and kept walking. Ruger ran forward and put himself between the handler and the IED. The handler said Ruger died to save him. Talk about raw grief.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be that handler for anything.”

  “There’s no good bag and tag, but this was one of the worst I’ve seen. The handler tried reciting the poem, but he couldn’t, so we all took turns reading it. There wasn’t a dry eye at the ceremony, and we’re talking about a group of guys that would sooner lose a nut than be seen bawling.”

  “Been there, done that,” I said. And then I recited:

  Trust in me, my friend, for I am your comrade.

  I will protect you with my last breath.

  When all others have left you and the loneliness of the night closes in,

  I will be at your side.

  Pullman nodded and said, “Go on.”

  “It’s a long poem,” I said, “and I only know parts of it.”

  “It’s the ending that always gets to me. Do you remember that part?”

  I gave it a little thought, and the words came to me:

  And when our time together is done,

  And you move on in the world,

  Remember me with kind thoughts and tales.

  For a time we were unbeatable,

  Nothing passed among us undetected.

  If we should meet again on another street,

  I will gladly take up your fight,

  I am a Police Working Dog,

  And we are the guardians of the night.

  Pullman was nodding. “That’s it,” he said, “except I’ve always heard it recited as ‘A Military Working Dog.’ ”

  “The author is unknown, so I don’t know if he worked with police dogs or military dogs, but when you’re out there, and that loneliness of the night closes in like he wrote about, I don’t think there’s a dime’s worth of difference.”

  “Guardians of the night,” said Pullman.

  The Reluctant Hero got the poem as few others would. For a minute or two we drove in companionable silence. I don’t think either one of us trusted our voices.

  Mulholland Drive is one of the most famous streets in Los Angeles. Movies, songs, and books have incorporated the name. It is part of the L.A. lore. In one form or another, Mulholland stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway into Hollywood. For the most part the road follows the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Hollywood Hills.

  We exited the 405 and headed west. Elle’s suggested meet-up spot was in the Encino Hills, and I played the tour guide with Pullman.

  “I’ll be parking next to an area known as Dirt Mulholland,” I said. “It’s an eight-mile-long unpaved fire road that winds above the western San Fernando Valley. Because the overlook and Dirt Mulholland are officially closed at night, expect it to be dark.”

  “It’s a good thing I ate my carrots,” said Pullman.

  I could see his head moving to the right and the left as we traveled up the winding road. As close as we were to L.A., it still felt as if we were out in the country. The road followed along a canyon that was for the most part undeveloped, probably because of the steep drop-off. On the other side of the road was a high embankment. Up on the ridge, but not within sight of the road, were some McMansions.

  It was fewer than two miles from the freeway turnoff to the overlook, but it felt longer.

  “If we continued on the paved road, it would take us to suburbia,” I said.

  I turned left and started up the dirt road. We went slowly out of necessity. The road was rutted, and it was even darker than I had thought it would be.

  “I’ve been up on the fire road a few times,” I said, “but I haven’t hiked its length. It lets out in Woodland Hills. You can drive from there to the 101. If the bridge there looks familiar to you, that’s where the opening to the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers was filmed. It was there that Kevin McCarthy went running around screaming, ‘You’re next!’ ”

  “Sometimes I wonder if the pod people didn’t already take over,” said Pullman.

  “You have any doubts?”

  We drove by a few scofflaws violating curfew who were parked on the side of the road.

  “During the day this is mountain-bike Mecca,” I said. “It’s also popular for the dog set. I’m surprised Sirius hasn’t gotten me to take him for a hike around here. If you want to get a glimpse of what the Cold War looked like, you can take the fire road to San Vicente Mountain Park and see an old Nike missile command post. In the fifties there was a whole defense system ringing Los Angeles. Those missiles were supposed to keep the city safe from the Soviets.”

  “Been there, done that,” said Pullman.

  We reached the top of the road. To our right and left were barriers preventing vehicles from traveling along the fire road.

  “This will be where I end up parking,” I said.

 
“I’ll need to take a quick look around,” said Pullman.

  Before I could reply, he exited the car and disappeared from view. Sirius wanted to go with him, but the two of us had to wait. He reappeared a few minutes later.

  “Drive back down to the paved road, so I can get the lay of the land,” Pullman said.

  There was still plenty of time before I was supposed to meet with Elle, so I did as he asked. While Pullman studied the streets and the terrain, I advised him of potential targets he should be aware of.

  “I’m fairly certain the GPS tracker on my car was put there by a man named Novak who is the security director for OZ. If the stories about him are true, Novak’s previous employment was in intelligence, and more specifically black ops. He shouldn’t be underestimated. It is possible Novak was involved in a potential homicide I’m investigating. I also suspect he set the fire on my roof.

  “I expect the GPS tracker he attached to my car might bring him to us. I want you to spot the spotter and see what he’s up to. Be on the lookout for a white male, around five eleven and very fit. If you get close enough to see him, he has salt-and-pepper hair, blue eyes, and a Dudley Do Right cleft in his chin.”

  “Who?” said Pullman.

  “Just look for a chin dimple,” I said, and dug my index finger into my chin.

  “So you’re kind of dangling yourself as bait?”

  “It’s more like I’m hoping to bring him out into the open,” I said.

  I had given a lot of thought as to how I had been set up. Novak had put the tracking device on my car while I was visiting with Corde. After reconstructing my visit, I had remembered the silver minivan parked next to the garage. That wasn’t a vehicle Corde or Elle would ever drive, but it was the perfect surveillance vehicle. It was anonymous, the kind of car you wouldn’t look at twice, with tinted windows that made it difficult for anyone to see inside. You could store lots of electronics inside. And with the sunroof open, you could do things without ever leaving your vehicle—like use a wrist launcher to send balloons filled with accelerant atop my roof.