by P. J. Tracy
It's all right, Annie kept telling herself. He said the town was ours for the night, and he didn't know we were listening, so why would he lie? It wasn't a trick, it wasn't a trick, the soldiers really are waiting for dawn somewhere out there on the perimeter. It's safe to move. We have to move. We have things to do and places to go, and never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, and he who hesitates is lost. . . . Inane axioms crowded her thoughts in a traffic jam of words.
Finally Grace eased away from the tractor and moved quickly down the right side of the paddock fence toward the barn, with Annie and Sharon trailing her silently. They all kept their eyes averted from the ghastly things rising like a crop of horrors from the paddock's soil.
Annie glanced toward the open barn door once, caught a glimpse of moonlight laying a dirty glow on the oblong steel collars of the stanchions inside.
Horrible things, she thought, imagining what it would be like to be a cow and hear that brace snap closed around your neck for the first time, to try to back up and find to your amazement that what you'd put your head into, you couldn't pull your head out of. Probably not a whole lot different than what we're feeling right now, she decided.
They stopped at the corner of the barn. The setting moon washed the farmyard in a sickly crust of light that seemed bright after the shadowy recesses by the lake.
A few stones in the driveway reflected a dull gleam. Beyond that, the black windows of the house seemed to stare like the hollow sockets of a dead man's eyes. Shade trees stood in the yard like weary black sentinels, their leaves drooping and motionless in the still air. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, as if someone had pushed the pause button on the world.
And apparently, they had pushed the pause button on Grace as well. She'd stopped moving in mid-stride, scaring Annie to death.
Suddenly Grace turned toward her, her face clouded with an emotion that was impossible to read. She was frantically digging into her jeans pocket, pulling out her tiny cell phone, flipping it open. Annie's mouth dropped open when she saw the screen, miraculously aglow, the phone shaking a little as it vibrated in Grace's hand.
WHEN BONAR FOLLOWED Harley up the steps into the RV, a big, wirehaired Slinky was creeping up the aisle on his belly. It took Bonar a second to realize it was a dog, and then he was all over him. He hadn't had a relationship with a canine since his boyhood dog had tangled with the wrong end of a badger, but it only took sixty seconds for Charlie to remind him what he'd been missing all these years.
"I get the copilot's seat; I get the dog." It was Gino's voice, right behind him.
Bonar kept his arm around Charlie's neck and grinned as the big, wet tongue scraped at the blond stubble on his cheek. "You can have the copilot's seat. I'll fight you for the dog. Where'd everybody go?"
"Halloran went in the back with Magozzi and Roadrunner. You ought to take a look. They got an office back there right out of a James Bond movie."
Bonar found a seat on an upholstered silk sofa right behind Harley in the driver's seat. "I'm good here. Besides, this is my neck of the woods. I'll be the navigator."
Gino slid into the shotgun recliner and buckled up. "Hell, we don't need no stinkin' navigator. We got a GPS that'll knock your socks off."
Harley gave him a look. "You sure you got a handle on that thing?"
"Damn right. I spent the last two hours learning how, and I've got it down. You want to get out of the parking lot?" He pushed some buttons and peered at a screen. "Straight ahead sixteen-point-three-seven feet, turn right, bearing north-northeast oh-point-one-one-eight-four .. . Jesus Christ, where'd you get this thing?"
"Took it off a nuclear sub," Harley grunted.
"Seriously?"
"For Chrissake, Rolseth, of course not. They don't have anything this good. Now pull up Missaqua County and point me toward the center."
"Hold on a minute." Magozzi came striding up from the back with Halloran and Roadrunner. He looked paler than he had under the mercury lights in the lot, and his voice sounded like someone had wound it too tight. "Roadrunner just ID'd your three sinkers from those prints you sent."
Bonar, Harley, and Gino all turned to look at him.
"They didn't pop up on any of the databases because the Feds made sure they wouldn't. Those bodies were their boys-so far undercover they didn't even have names, just numbers."
Bonar had the kind of sigh that could make a grown man ache just listening to it. "Undercover agents. Damn me. It's the one thing that makes a little sense-why they snatched the bodies so fast, took over our crime scene, and shut us out-and it never once occurred to me."
"Or me," Halloran said.
Magozzi was standing rock-still, all his body parts quiet except for his brain. "You said it looked like an execution, right?"
Halloran nodded grimly. "Looked like they were lined up in a row, nearly stitched in half. Doc Hanson was thinking an M16."
Magozzi tried to pace but couldn't find enough room with five big men cluttering up the place. "So they were undercover and into something big-something worth killing three Feds over-and got caught." He was thinking out loud now. "Probably just dumped in Kingsford County, a good distance away from where they were operating, since all the Feds want there is the crime scene at the quarry. Missaqua has to be the source."
"Which is where we were headed for anyway," Gino complained. "We may have another piece of the puzzle, but it doesn't tell us a thing about where to start looking. Doesn't do us a damn bit of good at all."
Magozzi almost smiled. "It might. It might make all the difference. Roadrunner?"
"Right here."
"I need an off-the-books FBI number. Far as I know, it isn't listed anywhere. Think you can manage that?"
Roadrunner's grin was his answer.
Gino was on his feet in a second, brows cocked at Magozzi. "You old dog. Don't tell me. You're going to call Plastic Paul."
"That I am."
"Who's Plastic Paul?" Bonar asked.
Gino was already following Roadrunner and Magozzi toward the back. "That would be Special Agent in Charge Paul Shafer, back in Minneapolis. He and Magozzi have a special relationship."
Halloran stumbled behind them, frowning. "That guy we met when we were in Minneapolis on the Monkeewrench thing? I thought you hated him."
"That's the special nature of the relationship." Gino smiled as the four of them clustered around a communications console. "Come on, Leo, have a heart, you gotta put this on speaker."
It took Roadrunner thirty seconds to find the number. A sleep-thickened voice came through the speaker before the first ring was completed. It was the kind of phone the owner answered instantly, twenty-four-seven. "Shafer here."
"Paul, it's Leo Magozzi, MPD."
There was silence for a moment. "How the hell did you get this number?"
"Information."
"Bullshit. This is a closed Federal line, Magozzi, and you just bought yourself a world of hurt. I'm hanging up now."
"Good idea. After you hang up, you can write your letter of resignation, or shoot yourself in the head. Your choice."
Silence again. And then, "You have thirty seconds."
Magozzi took a quick breath. "One of your agents is missing in an area where three other agents were found murdered."
There was a lot of noise coming through the speaker then-covers being thrown aside, feet hitting the floor, a little static. "Okay, you got my attention, Magozzi, but if this is bullshit, I will personally see to it that you get your first glimpse of sky in about forty years."
Gino watched Magozzi's face redden and his chest swell, and wondered if he'd just blow up. You could almost smell the testosterone shooting right up to the satellite. "Bullfight." He nudged Harley.
But Magozzi's voice was deceptively calm when he spoke. "Sharon Mueller's missing."
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Magozzi, she's not missing. Is that what this is about? She went to Green Bay with those Monkeewrench women to do some profiling on her
own time."
"She never got that far." Magozzi let that register, then went on to tell him about all the missing people, the dead undercover agents, the FBI taking over Missaqua County. "We think Sharon and the others are somewhere in the middle of whatever the hell is going on, but it's a huge search area. We're on-site, or close to it, but we need your people to narrow it down so we know where to start looking, and they aren't telling law enforcement over here shit. She's your agent, Paul, not theirs. You have enough pull in that organization to get something done that might save her life? Because that might very well be what's at stake here."
Shafer answered quickly. "You have a secure line wherever you are?"
"We're on it."
"Then give me the number and fifteen minutes."
They'd only gone ten miles toward the Missaqua County line when Shafer called back. "Do you know where Beldon is?" he asked without preamble.
Halloran nodded at Magozzi.
"Yes."
"Missaqua County Sheriff's Office is there. They're setting up a command post. Talk to Agent Knudsen. He'll share what he can with law enforcement. Who do you have with you?"
"Rolseth and I are here, Sheriff Halloran, and Deputy Carlson"- he hesitated for only a second-"and a couple others out of Kingsford County."
"I'll give them the heads-up, then. Call from there if he gives you any trouble."
Magozzi released a breath. "What's going on over here, Paul?"
"I don't know yet, but I sure as hell am going to find out. And I want to hear from you people. You're riding on my rep now, and I want to know every step you take before you take it, understood?"
"You got it."
Gino went back up to the copilot's seat and brought Harley and Bonar up-to-date on the word from Shafer. Harley was doing hands-on, eyes-on driving along a tar road that looked about six feet too narrow to accommodate the RV's width. "So punch Beldon in on the GPS and take us there," he told Gino. "Shit. Saturday night with the FBI. I haven't had this much fun since I got mugged and Tasered during Carnival in Rio a few years back."
Gino took a quick sideways glance at the size of the man behind the wheel, and marveled that a Taser would actually bring him down. "One of these days, I'd like to hear the rest of that."
Harley shrugged. "It's an okay story. Nothing epic. Hey, Bonar, grab me a carton of OJ out of the fridge, would you?"
Bonar was still planted on the sofa; Charlie happily sprawled all over him. He turned his head to browse a kitchen area that was bigger than Margie's. It was all wood-teak, if he wasn't mistaken-and not a hint of enamel anywhere. "You don't have a refrigerator in here."
"Third drawer to the right of the sink," Gino said without looking away from the GPS readout. "We've got another two-point-seven miles on this one, Harley, then right on some road-County pee-pee is what it says, but that's gotta be wrong."
Bonar eased Charlie off his lap and went to find drawer number three. "That's County Double-P. All the county roads in the state used to be letters. Great idea back in the 1800s. Sort of went to pot when they built too many and ran out of alphabet, so they just started doubling up."
Gino shook his head. "I am a stranger in a strange land."
Bonar was in deep reverence once he found the refrigerator drawers, completely concealed behind the polished teak fronts. A whole slew of them. One for liquids, one for produce, one for meat, and a big one that held more wine bottles than the cast-iron display rack down at the Municipal Off-Sale. "Amazing," he murmured, snooping without shame, finally grabbing an OJ for Harley. "You mind if I grab a cherry soda for myself?"
"Anything you want, buddy," Harley said, downshifting for a mean curve. "You like the kitchen?"
"Are you kidding? Haven't seen anything this beautiful outside the pagesof Bon Appetit."
Gino rolled his eyes. "Ah, Jesus, next thing you know, you two guys'll be trading recipes and watchingOprah together."
Harley glowered at him. "I loveOprah."
In the back office, Road runner was running multiple programs full-blast, digging as deep as he ever had into closed Federal sites, looking for the tiniest piece of data on whatever operation the dead undercover agents had been running. So far he hadn't found a scrap, which was extraordinary.
Halloran and Magozzi were planted at a small booth next to the windows, alternating between looking over at Roadrunner when he cursed at the keyboard and looking out at what Halloran saw as a quiet country night, and what Magozzi saw as a black landscape of nothingness. "Christ, somebody turned the lights out in the whole state."
Halloran smiled a little. "It's pretty empty up this way. The Silver Dome should be coming up soon, though."
"What's the Silver Dome?"
"Supper club. Dining, dancing, tablecloths and everything."
Another half mile around a long curve, and Magozzi saw what looked like a dollhouse-sized Vegas in the middle of a black hole. Christmas twinkle lights were strung all over a dirt parking lot jammed with pickups, and a pink-and-green sign with neon letters as tall as he was blinked on and off, announcing, "Fine Dining, Dancing, Entertainment." The sign was attached to a Quonset hut.
"What's the entertainment?"
"Bowling." Halloran kept his eyes on Magozzi, who didn't even crack a smile. He liked him for that. He looked back out the window and sighed. There was nothing left to see for miles after the Silver Dome, just trees that blocked the moon and an occasional piece of empty land that didn't. "I don't mind telling you, this is one of the few times on the job I've been seriously scared."
And that, bizarrely, was when Magozzi smiled. "Who are you kidding, Halloran? We're not on the job. What we really are is a couple of frantic guys chasing a couple of skirts. Saving our women. Caveman stuff."
Halloran put his big hands on the table and sighed again. "You, maybe."
Magozzi raised a brow.
"Sharon isn't coming back."
"To you, or Kingsford County?"
"Neither."
"Well, Jesus, Halloran, she took a bullet in the neck. And like it or not, you and the job are all wrapped up in that. That kind of thing shuts you down for a while, makes you afraid to get back out there."
Halloran was quiet for a long time, and then he said, "I should give it some more time."
"Damn straight. You know what, Halloran? Come to think of it, the last time we were together, we were busting into a gunfight, chasing after the same two women."
Halloran blinked. "My God. You're right."
"Maybe we should get together a couple of times between catastrophes, break the monotony."
Suddenly the shriek of an alarm blasted through the back of the rig and Roadrunner exploded out of his chair and stabbed a button on the console. "GRACE!?"
Magozzi was halfway out of his seat, frozen, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. And then he heard the sound of a dial tone buzzing through the big speakers. "What just happened?" he asked, his voice shaking.
"GODDAMNIT!" Roadrunner stabbed another button, and the sound of numbers dialing filled the rig. "We had a sat line rigged on auto-dial to rotate every five minutes on all three of the women's cells. Someone just answered Grace's cell, and then I lost the signal. ... CHRIST, THERE IT IS AGAIN!"
The speakers hissed with white noise, then an earsplitting shrill tone, and then, by God, Grace's voice, garbled and fuzzy and broken, coming through the speakers: ".., need help .., four . ., people dead . . . Roadrunner... ?"
And then, abruptly, nothing. The speakers went silent.
TWENTY MINUTES after hearing Grace's disconnected message, the atmosphere inside the Monkeewrench RV was supercharged, almost electric.
Even working together with all the legal and illegal computer resources they could muster, Roadrunner and Harley hadn't been able to reconnect with Grace or pinpoint the tower that had picked up the call from her cell. Not one of the cell-provider sites they'd hacked into had registered any activity from Grace's cell in the past hour. After fifteen frustrating minute
s on the side of the road, Harley was back behind the wheel, driving toward Beldon at an alarming clip on the dark, twisting road, praying that this trip to hook up with the Feds wasn't taking them in the wrong direction.
Bonar was riding shotgun, holding Charlie in his lap with one hand, manipulating an outside spot with the other, supposedly lighting the road beyond the headlights to spot deer. A useless venture at this speed, he thought-they'd never be able to stop in time-but it never occurred to Bonar to suggest that Harley slow down. The call from Grace had been chilling.
Gino was in the back office, poring over a map of Wisconsin cellphone towers that Roadrunner had printed out. As far as he could tell, there wasn't a single one anywhere near Missaqua County. After ten minutes of working the map and abusing his haircut, he was absolutely convinced that they were way off track, and almost afraid to say it aloud. Roadrunner already looked insane, attacking the computers, spewing profanity like a Marine, and Magozzi and Halloran both seemed so brittle that it was a miracle they hadn't snapped into pieces. Gino went back to the map, looking at the sites marked for upcoming cell-tower construction, wondering how current the map was.
Halloran was monopolizing one sat phone line, trying to find the tower that had picked up Grace's call the old-fashioned way, by calling all the cellular providers in the state, pushing his badge on sleepy flunkies on weekend duty, trying to get some help from part-time workers with an average IQ in the single digits who thought they could coast through the late shift. He'd finally connected with someone who seemed to know what he was talking about, who proceeded to tell Halloran how it was possible that no one had a record of a call that had obviously gone through. The explanation gave Halloran a headache. He hung up and tried to rub the lines out of his forehead.
