by Gavin Reese
Back inside the SUV, he called Nick. “Got your pen ready?”
“Go for it.”
Donnie gave Nick detailed descriptions of Cleveland and his four associates, including his opinion that the fifth guy, Charles Sheen, didn’t belong there and might be “on the job.” Having decided there were too few vehicles in the parking lot to remain across the highway without looking suspicious, Donnie slow-rolled the Durango into the south end of The Watering Hole lot without turning on his headlights. He understood anyone who saw him would immediately believe, accurately, he was a cop, but Donnie felt confident there was no one within immediate eyesight and the benefits of moving momentarily outweighed the risk of doing so. Now hunkered down inside the Durango and parked facing the highway, Donnie held binoculars and a DSLR camera on his lap, waiting for the five suspects to leave.
Seven
The Watering Hole Saloon. Tonopah, Arizona.
The barkeep had spent almost ten minutes doing everything except delivering Jonathan’s beers, and had even set his two glasses aside to tend to another recently arrived patron. Upon her slow, exaggerated return, she collected his $20 bill, offered no change, and roughly set the two semi-frosty, mostly-filled glasses of heady brew on the bar in front of him. Jonathan chuckled, picked up the glasses, and walked back to Billy and the skinheads, who seemed to have just shared a joke at his expense.
“So, are you a cop?” The Napoleonic little guy, Mikey, smirked at him.
“What’s this about?” He turned to face Billy. “Seriously, did you bring me out here to fuck me up? I’m not seeing where this is supposed to be funny.” He set the beers down and turned to face the group. “If I’m here to get my ass beat, let’s get it over with, the anticipation is killing me.”
Amused at his frustration, Billy and the skinheads laughed aloud.
“Easy, Just Jonathan, the bartender’s name is Clarice.” Cleveland looked around as though to ensure they held a private conversation before continuing in a quieter tone. “She started dating this new guy who showed up out here ‘bout six months back, really got into him. She learned he was a fuckin’ D-E-A narc when he led a SWAT team in here to arrest half uh the bar. It was real sad, man, broke her fuckin’ stone-cold heart. So, my guess, she wants you to fuck the shit outta her, but she feels like she better make sure you ain’t comin’ back tomorrow and arrest all her customers still smellin’ of her sweet, tattooed pussy.” Cleveland smiled, tipped his drink at Jonathan, and took a healthy pull. “Good for you, man, we’ve all been after that bitch for years. Then again, I bet she probably asks that of most white guys with bad haircuts. So, you’re not a cop, right?” He smirked and took another pull.
Jonathan wasn’t sure whether to believe Cleveland, but he felt better about the bartender’s cold shoulder and the increasing probability of getting home with all his teeth. “So, Clarice, huh? Her parents not like her?”
“Nah, she reminded some old guy who used to drink here of a tattooed version ‘o that girl from the cannibal professor movies. The nickname stuck. Not sure what her parents call her.”
Jonathan only convinced Billy to take him home after two more rounds had been drunk, simultaneously too long for Jonathan’s wishes and shorter than he actually expected. No idea why Billy thought I would enjoy spending time with his racist fuckin’ friends, Jonathan thought at the end of the night, he still doesn’t know a damned thing about me.
Eight
The Watering Hole Saloon parking lot. Tonopah, Arizona.
Donnie had been isolated with his thoughts for almost an hour as he and Nick had only a few, essential communications to avoid revealing themselves to anyone walking in or around The Watering Hole’s parking lot. With that much time and very little to occupy his mind, Donnie had mentally worked his way through every conceivable reason Cleveland and his white supremacist friends might work with the Santa Lina cartel. Were they really that willing to abandon professed ideology for money? Was there a third party, a cut-out, who kept the two groups from knowing about each other’s involvement? Maybe that was Charles Sheen’s role? Hell, maybe this was all a coincidence and there was nothing going on between the racists and the cartel. Donnie chewed on that one for a while, and decided to label that possibility as “least probable.” What if they were after much larger objectives that allowed them to rationalize the partnership? He also knew such men could justify any means to reach a desired end. Among the possibilities, Donnie feared the two groups had found common ground against a greater, more threatening enemy. That could only be a federal target, he surmised, ‘cuz the only thing white supremacists hate more than non-whites, Jews, Muslims, and, well, everyone else, is the federal government.
Donnie hoped his assessment was wrong, but he imagined few other viable causes to allow the union of such ideologically-opposed criminals. White supremacists are our original domestic terrorists, he told himself, and we’ve had a wicked-hard time stopping motivated zealots.
“Movement.” Nick’s voice brought Donnie’s mind back to the parking lot and his surveillance detail.
“Got ‘em,” he replied as he saw the two unknown white males descend the front steps. After making a quick note, hang arounds leave 2235 hrs, Donnie snapped a few photos of Charles Sheen and the other un-neck-tattooed white male as they walked to and entered an old Ford truck. As the rust bucket backed out toward the highway, he shot a quick photo of the rear license plate, but couldn’t read it through the camera at that distance. After trading the Nikon for his binoculars, he read the license plate to Nick just before the truck departed northbound on Old US 80. He knew Nick, in turn, would feed the vehicle description and direction of travel to mobile DEA agents waiting on nearby roads who could, hopefully, follow the suspects to their house.
Only a few minutes later, Donnie saw the two unidentified, tattooed white supremacists exit the bar and start up two beat-down, v-twin motorcycles. He worked the Nikon and grabbed the closest-focused images he could. Damn, the motorcycle plates are too small to read. Almost immediately behind them, Cleveland emerged onto the bar’s porch and descended the steps toward his Bronco, just as the motorcycle throttles opened up and quickly propelled the bikes out onto US80. Cleveland’s Bronco roared to life, and Donnie soon watched it drive away as well.
Donnie activated the push-to-talk. “You get the vehicle descriptions and directions out to the team?”
“Yep, info’s out and all the other agents are on the move,” Nick immediately replied.
Donnie didn’t expect to gain much new intel tonight. With a general absence of vehicles on the empty desert roads at this hour, he understood his fellow agents couldn’t easily follow their prey without making them suspicious. We might have nothing more than a new license plate. Although he’d initially requested a police helicopter to aid with tonight’s operation, his Supervisory Special Agent wouldn’t approve it until they first tried to gather the necessary intel without expensive air support.
Donnie and Nick waited several minutes to leave the nearly abandoned parking lot, just so no one watching would think they had any interest in the recently-departed vehicles. Soon after they’d finally done so, Donnie got word over the encrypted DEA radio that the last of tonight’s suspects had ditched the mobile agents trying to covertly follow them. Almost no new intel, another six hours of wasted effort, man-hours, and lost sleep, Donnie thought, gotta get approval for that helo.
Nine
McDougal residence. Dry Creek, Arizona.
Colleen sat at the kitchen table with Saturday’s morning paper and a cup of sweet, creamed coffee spread before her. The aromas of freshly baked banana bread and strong pinon coffee filled the kitchen and dining room as bright, midmorning sunlight shone through the east and south windows. Her favorite Van Morrison record played softly from the living room and a slight breeze quietly toyed with a melodic, homemade wind chime hung near the backdoor. Even my back’s having a good day, she thought, the constant pain’s not yet into
lerable.
Colleen had enjoyed the day’s quiet beginning; after they had prepared and eaten breakfast together, Michael played by himself in the backyard sandbox and Jonathan, seated nearby on their faux suede couch in the living room, read a spy novel and drank black coffee. It’s already returning to normal, she thought, and I’m grateful for every minute of it. The sound of their ringing home phone interrupted her euphoric calm, and she saw Jonathan reach over to the coffee table, pick up the phone without looking at the caller ID, and answer it.
“This is Jonathan.”
Colleen watched his reaction for any indication of who was calling, and, thankfully, she saw a broad smile break across his face.
“Hey, Chad, sorry to see your godless Yankees dropped another one to the Rays, you must be heartbroken.”
Great, Colleen thought, how much trouble was Chad in now? I swear we’ll never pay another dollar to bail that guy out again. She didn’t understand how a man as wonderful as Jonathan could be friends with someone like Chad. I wonder if Jonathan can barely tolerate any of my friends? Certain all of her friends were far superior human beings to Chad, Colleen returned to the Arts & Entertainment section and tried to ignore what she knew would devolve into a juvenile, locker room conversation.
“No shit? Well, that can’t be right, you know how the bullshit media spins war stories here. I’ll call my boss over there and see if he knows anything.” The change in Jonathan’s tone caught Colleen’s attention and she looked up again to see what was happening. She watched Jonathan stand up and turn around to search the couch and its cushions for the TV remote.
“No, I haven’t started work over there yet, but I’m only a few weeks out from being responsible for these kinda things. Thanks, Chad, gotta go. Hey, real quick though, fuck the Yankees.” Jonathan quickly terminated the phone call before Chad could respond and dropped the cordless phone onto the vacant couch. He picked up his cell phone from the nearby end table and scrolled through his contact list.
“Chad get in trouble again? We don’t have bail money.” Even if he wasn’t in trouble, Colleen was certain one of his equally intolerable cohorts would be.
“Funny, Colleen, one DUI four years ago doesn’t make him a career criminal.”
“No, it just means the cops aren’t very good at catching him yet.”
“Hardy-har-har. Chad, being a good friend, called to tell me a group of SecureCorp contractors just got into a gunfight in Baghdad.” Jonathan finally located the remote under the couch, paused “Someone Like You,” and turned on the news.
“…about an hour and fifteen minutes ago, word of a large-scale gun battle between SecureCorp private security contractors and alleged insurgents reached us here in Baghdad. The gunfire has stopped and Iraqi police have cordoned off the area, which now looks more like a battlefield than a market square…”
Annoyed, Colleen set the newspaper down on the table. Jonathan isn’t even on the SecureCorp payroll yet, she thought, and the company’s problems are already interrupting our morning. She overheard Jonathan call his soon-to-be-boss at SecureCorp, Jack, but the short conversation sounded tense.
“Fuck that guy, he won’t give me any details about the shooting, except that our guys are okay,” Jonathan loudly said from the couch.
“Well, Jon, he understandably has more important things to do right now,” Colleen offered. Clearly frustrated by a perceived lack of trust, Jonathan set his cellphone on the coffee table and flipped between news channels, searching for coverage.
“At least no good guys got hurt.”
Colleen went back to the paper. No deaths, at least that’s good news, she thought. She feared war and death may never be far from her kitchen table, even if Jonathan wasn’t in direct danger.
“Jack didn’t even seem to know if it was a good shoot,” Colleen heard Jonathan say, to no one in particular. In the absence of first-hand information, he seemed consumed with searching for news updates. “I’m not sure if he didn’t know or just didn’t want to say. I understand he’s in Virginia, but someone on the ground there knows what happened and he should have already reported that up the chain.”
Colleen had similar experiences with Jonathan when he’d occasionally been home on TDY while his troops remained deployed, but she had hoped, perhaps too greatly, that Jonathan’s departure from the Army would better allow him to be emotionally present in their home. Instead, she saw him just as fixated as if his own men had been in harm’s way. He hadn’t even met them yet, she thought, and this won’t be the last time this happens. He resigned his commission, so when do I get to stop being an Army wife?
“They originally wanted me there two weeks ago, and all the confidentiality paperwork is signed,” he continued, apparently speaking to the room at large, “What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing, honey,” Colleen offered, “there’s nothing you can do. Not today, probably not tomorrow.” She recognized the responsibility he felt to help the men on the ground. Colleen hoped to console her husband and chose her words carefully, despite the growing resentment she felt over her certainty that this shooting would dominate the coming weeks before Jonathan reported to work at SecureCorp. “If there was something you could do to help, I’m certain they would call and ask you to start ahead of schedule.” Colleen stood up from the table, walked into the living room, and sat on the couch next to Jonathan. She turned toward him, leaned forward, and clasped his hands in hers. “I know this must be incredibly difficult for you, but, honey…are you listening?” She saw him disengage from the television and meet her gaze.
“Of course, Colleen, I just don’t get being shut out like I’m some liberal reporter looking for an inside scoop.” Obviously annoyed and defensive, Colleen saw Jonathan immediately regretted his tone. He turned his body toward her and gripped her hands a little tighter. “I’m sorry, I just, I think Jack feels like he got overlooked for this job, and he’s just shutting me out while he can. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable, but, hell, maybe I’m the asshole.”
“Maybe he wants to strictly abide by his corporate security regulations, Jonathan, and you should consider that an admirable quality for your employees to possess.” Colleen hoped she came across as sincere as she was, sensing her statement could be erroneously taken as antagonistic. “I imagine, if the roles were reversed, you might feel the same way in Jack’s position.”
Jonathan smirked, as though conceding the potential accuracy of Colleen’s statement, turned down the television’s volume, and tried to move off the topic. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Colleen knew Jonathan was toying with her, and his mood shift announced he had succumbed to her efforts. “Maybe there should be, there’s a few boys down at the Emerald Isle who’ve been missing me since you came home.” Colleen winked at him and tried not to smile. She met his forward lean, they kissed, and smiled at one another.
“Right, a good Catholic schoolgirl gone bad. Red-headed-you in the plaid mini-skirt and heels. Gets ‘em every time, can’t blame the lads.”
Both of them turned back to the television as an overly-manicured reporter returned to the SecureCorp story. “…continued coverage of the engagement here in the Jameela market in Baghdad. Initial reports from Iraqi police sources tell us no weapons were found among the corpses and casualties of the alleged insurgents. SecureCorp spokesman, Kenneth Draper, told Fox News their contractors responded to enemy fire from within the heart of the market square as their vehicles passed by the market’s eastern perimeter. So far, that allegation appears to be unfounded, but, as I said earlier, this is in the very preliminary stages of investigation. It may be hours or days before more solid information is released beyond what amounts to the speculation we’ve gotten so far. David Spanner, reporting live from Baghdad for Fox News. Back to you, Bill.”
“Jonathan, you may as well go ahead and see if they still want you to start early. We could use the money to catch up on bills and they seem to clearl
y need the help. My mom can stay overnight with Michael when I work until he and I can move out to Virginia with you.”
“I know, Colleen, I just wanted to have a little more time with both of you without having a schedule and work hours.”
“And both of us appreciate that, honey, but you’re already getting wrapped into administrative problems that you’re not getting paid for, and we’ll all have some time together after Michael and I get there. It’ll take me at least a few weeks, or months, to get a job started and you should have some pretty normal banker hours. We’ll still have more time than any of us are used to. I just know you’re going stir crazy at the house and I get tired of explaining to American Bank that we’re going to pay them a few days late like always because of how my paydays fall. It would be nice to go more than a week without someone calling and demanding money from us, you know?”
“Yeah, okay, let’s figure it out tomorrow.” A long pause followed as he forced his attention from the gunfight. “Do you still think Michael’s gonna like the bike for his birthday?”
“Absolutely, you got it for him and you’re his hero! Even if it takes him a year to ride it on his own, he’ll probably go through three sets of tires pushing it around the block.”
“No doubt, thank God for training wheels. I just hope it helps him to feel a little more like a normal boy.”
“You mean, makes you feel like he’s a more normal boy, don’t you? I don’t think he’s really that self-aware yet. The pediatrician said it may be a while before we need to have that conversation with him.”
