Fallen Angel

by Chuck Logan

  “Hey, thanks,” Jesse says holding out the book.

  Janet, chatting with a colleague, one hand on the doorknob to the office door, just nods. “Drop it on my desk . . .”

  Jesse goes into the office and tosses the book down on the desk with a loud smack to cover opening—yes—the bottom left drawer. Then she leans toward the bookcase, fingering the car keys from the purse, and quickly strips off the Subaru key as she calls to Janet, who stands half-hidden by the ajar door. “Hey. You’ve got Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. It’s the first real helicopter book. Can I barrow it?”

  “Sure. C’mon, Jesse. I’m late for a meeting,” Janet says, getting impatient.

  Jesse hurries back into the hall and holds up the new book. “Thanks,” she says to Janet, who pulls the door shut and makes sure it clicks.

  One last thing to do. Can’t take a chance of being caught with Sam’s letter. Back on the ward, she enters the patients’ lounge, goes to the bookcase, and selects an ancient copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. No one is ever gonna read that, not in here. She inserts Sam’s letter deep between the pages for safekeeping and slides the book back onto the shelf. Anything goes wrong, last resort, she can always call Janet.

  Twenty minutes later she’s in Janet’s car expanding her horizons to include Grand Theft Auto. Thankfully it’s an automatic. Less things to think about while driving. Onward. With hula boy taped to the dash and her maps spread on the passenger seat, she sweats through the tangle of unfamiliar ramps and exits east of the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. She finds a St. Paul exit, then takes Sheppard Road along the Mississippi and finds her way past the city to Interstate 94 and heads east into Wisconsin. Checks the map. At Hammond, she’ll turn north on Highway 63 and take it to Highway 8, then turn right and ride it straight to upper Michigan.

  After the turn on Highway 8, it’s a straight shot east across Wisconsin, so Jesse puts aside her maps and tries to ease the tension in her hunched shoulders. Relax, she tells herself. Breathe deep through your nose. For now, don’t think, drive.

  The two-lane runs through rolling farmland that is reminiscent of home except the fields are cramped by tree lines, the sky somehow lower. She misses the horizon-to-horizon sweep of wheat, the summer oven perfume of yellow black-eyed Susans and lavender spiderwort and white yarrow and patches of bluestem scattered in the buffalo grass and a sky so freakin’ big, how could a kid not want to fly away into it?

  Just when she gets her shoulders to halfway relax, the dark wind is back, flattening her thoughts: What if Rivard’s not home? What if Janet goes to check her car before end of business? What if Sam did lose it and eat his gun?

  The drowsy fields humming with cicadas close in, and suddenly she’s lonely out here on her own hook. No tactical-op center, no mission commander; just a flash on a computer screen and Sam’s letter to navigate by.

  It’s a hot day, and even with the air conditioner it’s stuffy in the bulky sweatsuit. So she pulls off at a rest stop, goes into the women’s room, and changes into her shorts, halter, and flip-flops. Back in the car, she takes a moment to ask herself, What am I missing? What am I not thinking about?

  She stops at a Holiday station, fills the tank, and grabs a road atlas, some energy bars, and bottled water. Back on the road, getting toward twilight, and she’s crossing the state line into the Upper Peninsula. Long past the time Janet gets off work now. She imagines the moment in the parking lot. The 911 call. When will the staff on 4J start looking for her? She’s put Wisconsin between herself and Minnesota. How much time will that buy her?

  She doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to escape and evasion, but she can do something. She’s in scrub pine country, and the roadway is darkened with recent rain. So she pulls off on a gravel road and floors it, aiming for every mud puddle. After five minutes she stops and gets out to inspect the Forester’s chassis that is now splattered with mud and splash, dulling the blue paint, obscuring the license plates. Then she pulls back on the highway.

  Pitch black now, driving desolate Highway 2 across the empty U.P. Disorientation sets in. She’s blinking, having trouble seeing. Stuff going jittery at the edge of her vision. It takes a while, but she figures it out. It’s night-night. She’s used to green night. Night-vision goggles night. Adjusting is like wearing someone’s prescription lenses, and she feels the strain tug at her eye muscles.

  C’mon, you’ve never been afraid of the dark, even in Iraq. But then, you never were out in it alone, either. She dials down the window, reaches out, and lets her hand windsurf on the cool rush of night air. Bad idea. The darkness is a tangible touch of black Braille that spells out all the futility in the fucking world. Is this what Sam felt? Marge dying in his place, sent home to an empty house to stare at pictures of his wife? Too old to do his job?

  And what about you? Talk about driving off the emotional map, an AWOL polytrauma patient trying to make an argument that the CIA killed your crew? Now there’s a 911 call for the books. With aching clarity she recalls the exact moment she yanked the controls to evade the second RPG. Left. If she would have turned toward the threat, maybe her crew would still be alive. Maybe.

  Damn, it’s lonely out here in the dark.

  Jesse shivers and withdraws her hand, closes the window, and concentrates on the center line. Focus. How many hours has she been driving? Twelve maybe? Road sign: St. Ignace, 11 Miles. The Mackinaw Bridge coming up. Want to cross that in the dark, then grab a motel on the other side, and get an early start.

  After an uneasy night in a Mackinaw City Best Western and a buffet breakfast, Jesse is driving Highway 23 along the Huron shore. Cheboygan, Rogers City, and Alpena are behind her. She’s getting close and getting jumpy from drinking too much road coffee, sitting foolishly up straight every time she passes a cop car. At one in the afternoon she drives into Lakeside, Michigan.

  It’s a run-down summer town, the kind of place where people with boats live. Some nice brick houses, but along the shore there’s a deserted feel, like whatever was happening here moved on long ago.

  She pulls into a convenience store and searches for John Rivard’s listing in a local directory at the outside pay phone. There’s a Rivard Family Foundation but no residence number. Must be unlisted. She takes a deep breath and enters the foundation number. No answer. She passes on the voice mail.

  So she goes in the store and asks for directions. The clerk is an older, obliging, talkative woman. “Sure. The Rivard place. It’s on the National Register, a big house north of town on the water. Sits on two hundred acres. But it’s hard to find, trees block it off.” Jesse gets directions on how to find the private drive, thanks the clerk, and leaves the store. The clerk cranes her neck to see the car Jesse is driving, then picks up the phone.

  “Probably nothing,” she says to the switchboard at the Rivard County Sheriff’s Office, “but I just thought you might want to know. A young, kinda nervous blonde woman was just in here asking directions to the Rivard estate. Ah, she’s wearing gray shorts and, ah, a white halter top, and flip-flops. Oh, yeah. And she’s driving a muddy blue Forester with Minnesota plates. What with the big open house out there today—thing is—she had one of those hospital bracelets around her wrist, like patients wear . . .”

  Chapter Fifty

  Morgon needs a break. All morning he’s been supervising high school kids setting up banquet tables, shucking corn, and bringing in deliveries of ribs, chicken, and ingredients for tubs of coleslaw. Now the double-wide gas grill is fired up, the rental patio tables and their umbrellas have all been placed to Amanda’s satisfaction, and the coolers are filled with ice for soda and beer. Danny Larsen is waiting down the access road with the architect’s model hidden under a tarp on the snowmobile trailer behind his Ford F-250, awaiting Morgon’s signal to bring it in and set it up. John sits on the porch, and his vital signs are holding steady since the Senate hearing. He sips a mild gin and tonic and appears to have no clue about Danny’s surprise. Then Amanda briefl
y emerges from presiding over the packed kitchen to ask him to drive into town, go to the party store, and pick up the balloons. Halfway back, the helium balloons come untethered and fill his new SUV, and he drives the rest of the way home batting at bobbling colored bubbles. That’s it. He needs a break.

  Kelly, just as frazzled, readily accepts Morgon’s offer to take a run and grab some relief before the people start arriving. Quickly they change into Nikes and shorts and hit the old logging road that winds through the woods along the shore.

  “Get used to it,” Kelly advises. “She likes to throw parties.”

  “Yeah, well, next time you go get the balloons.”

  They circle back, sprint the last two hundred yards to the house, and then walk it off to cool down. Morgon realizes they are circling each other, which is Kelly’s way of inviting a go at sparring some mixed martial arts.

  “What?” Morgon feigns disbelief, “you feeling lucky?”

  Kelly crouches into a fighting stance. “Feeling guilty. Taking advantage of an old guy.”

  Morgon curls his fingers into his open palms in a “gimme gesture.” “Bring it on, Facetube.”

  Kelly, who has two inches and twenty pounds on Morgon, is ten years younger, and has a longer reach, darts in, and they slap arms looking for a grappling opening. Morgon lets himself be thrown, hits the grass hard in an accelerated roll, pops up on top, and then slams his running shoe down on Kelly’s long ponytail, effectively pinning him to the lawn.

  “Check it out,” he says. “Alexander the Great had the Macedonian Army trim their long hair and cut off their beards so nobody could grab them in close combat, huh?”

  As he extends his hand to help Kelly to his feet, they see Amanda putt up on the golf cart. She is less than amused. “I’ve been looking all over for you guys. Danny Larsen’s been trying to find you. He wants to know where to put the display. And the first people are showing up.” She points back toward the house. A low stand of junipers obscures the view, but several red and blue balloons are clearly visible, launching into the sky.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The country road is hemmed in by trees, and the turnoffs come up fast. On her second try, Jesse slows and finds the address on a bronze plaque fastened to a boulder next to a sign that spells out: Private Drive. A batch of helium party balloons bobs in the breeze, anchored to the mailbox.

  Okaay . . . She keeps going and spots another sign—Public Access Boat Ramp—and turns right on a gravel road about a quarter mile from the driveway. Dense woods on her right, a cemetery on the left. She pulls into tall grass between some trees, kills the motor, and gets out.

  Her knees tremble and she blinks to get her bearings in a sudden lassitude of heat and summer sunlight. Okay, Jess, now what? The last twenty-four hours have been about getting here. Having reached her destination, she realizes that she hasn’t exactly thought through what comes next. Confront them. But how?

  So keep it simple. First, creep in and scope the layout. See if Rivard’s there and if he has security.

  Okay. Here goes.

  She takes a second to orient herself and then slips into the shadows of tall oaks and finds a game trail that runs parallel to the shore. Deer in here, she thinks. Almost immediately she hears music that gets louder as she comes to the edge of the trees. Squatting in the grass just inside the tree line, she maps out the property. To her left the trees thin out along the beach and end in acres of tended lawn that could be a golf course. She looks past the imposing Victorian house, when her eyes snap on a familiar marker, a windsock eddying next to a silver blue-pin-striped helicopter in front of a hangar and a fuel blivet. Automatically she identifies the chopper as a 206L Long Ranger, the stretch version of the military Kiowa.

  I trained on that airframe, she thinks.

  Then, Get serious Jess. She waves a hand to shoo bugs flitting in the humid, itchy grass and blinks away sweat and a frazzle of fatigue. Come all this way to stall in the summer heat. Dizzy. Shoulda drank more water. Feels like dehydration. She looks at her bare feet in the flip-flops. Shoulda wore my tennies . . .

  A bigger problem is, there’s a lawn party in progress in back of the house. Get closer. So she threads through the narrow strip of trees and foliage along the shore. The cover peters out, and now about a hundred yards of open lawn separate her from the house.

  Wiping sweat from her face with her forearm, she studies people gathered around a dark-haired woman in a red apron who wields long-handled grilling tongs at a grill. More of them stand around some sort of display set up in front of the tables on sawhorses. Then she squints to make out the old man seated in a wheelchair at a table next to the grill. He wears a wide-brimmed straw hat. That’s him; that’s Rivard. No sign of the other guy, Jump. No way you want to tangle with him just yet, but if you can catch the old guy alone . . .

  She scans the crowd. Security? Hard to tell with all the people. Some kids are setting up a volleyball net. A guy is throwing a stick for his dog to retrieve. Others toss a Frisbee. One of the Frisbee players, a tall, broad-shouldered guy in shorts and a ponytail, is hamming it up between throws, dancing to a sixties tune—“Proud Mary.” She’s figuring how to use the wood line to get closer to the house when she hears a crackle of brush behind her. Turning, she sees a police officer dressed in a tan-and-gray uniform stepping out of the deeper woods. He raises his hand, not exactly a greeting, and calls out, “Ma’am, could you hold it right there.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Morgon’s in the kitchen brushing barbecue sauce on a plate of ribs as he goes down a mental checklist. The county commissioners are here, along with people from the sheriff’s office, the school board, and the chamber of commerce. Danny Larsen is presiding over his three-dimensional cardboard display, complete with a blue mirror representing the lake. He’s having an animated conversation with the Reverend James Tindsdale, the pastor of the episcopal church. Morgon’s role is to look useful and play it low-key and let Amanda feed him slowly into the buzz about the waterfront project.

  Through the window over the sink he can see Amanda in a loose light-green cotton dress under her red apron. Barefoot in the grass, she’s flipping racks of ribs and chicken on the grill. Smiling, she’s making small talk with a fastidious slender gent who’s out of uniform in a loud Hawaiian shirt and a rakish straw Panama hat. David Handsvale is a second-generation accountant, who, like his father before him, oversees the Rivard Foundation finances. Amanda has the tender job of preparing him for the huge outlay the waterfront will require.

  Like the accountant, John also wears a wide straw hat but, seated in his wheelchair at a banquet table, he takes it off and uses it to fan his face.

  People drift in, and the women bring hot dishes and salads. The men haul coolers. Some guests are starting to gather at the grill. Others crowd around Danny’s display. Cars park haphazardly on the lawn. Bursts of laughter erupt from kids who tug on lines and pound stakes, erecting a volleyball net. Kelly is showing off, making gonzo Frisbee catches.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, he catches movement—a flash of pale skin. Bronze hair. Finds it. A long-legged young woman in shorts and a halter pops out of the woods and dashes across the lawn. No sign that it’s a game of tag or a mother worried about a child. Then he sees a Rivard County deputy jog out on the lawn pursuing her. Kelly abandons his game of Frisbee and is already in motion, on an intercept course.

  Jesse, running, favoring her bad knee, knows it’s dumb and ultimately hopeless. The dog barks. Faces turn. The cop is behind her.

  “Whoa, hold on there!”

  Her head jerks right, and she sees the guy with the shoulders, the dancer, running directly at her. His right hand hovers at the ready over a fanny pack that’s spacious enough to hold a couple sandwiches or a pistol. And he’s gaining on her like a freakin’ gazelle.

  “Hey, take it easy,” he says as he easily runs her down and grabs her arm.

  Jesse skids, loses her flip-flops, and pitches facedown on the
slick grass. She finds her palms and knees and starts to get up.

  “Just stay put.” A wheeze of breath, and that’s the cop who flushed her from the tree line coming up. Now a third man—tanned, husky, older—jogs over from the crowd by the grill. A small radio mic is clipped to his shoulder epaulet. Jesse sits up and wipes a tickle of damp clover from her face.

  “We got her, ” the older man says into the radio. He wears a blue yachting cap, and now she sees the leather cuff on his belt with the gold shield. “Could we see some ID, ma’am?” he says in a polite but even tone.

  “Sure.” Jesse digs in her own fanny pack, brings out her wallet, and hands over her military ID and North Dakota driver’s license.

  “Okay, get up and explain yourself,” the dancer says, calmer now, extending a hand to help her up.

  Figuring her only chance is to bluff through it, Jesse says, “I need to talk to Mr. Rivard.”

  “Concerning what, Captain Kraig?” asks the cop in the boating cap, perusing her ID. Then he points to the band on her left wrist and the other cop fingers it and looks up.

  “Ft. Snelling Veteran’s Hospital,” he says.

  Shit, Jesse thinks. That’s what I forgot.

  “Snelling,” says the dancer conversationally, but his face hardens. “Nice place. I was there in ’05. You, ah, okay, ma’am?”

  Jesse starts to tremble, exhales, gets it under control, and looks past her interrogators at John Rivard, who is being wheeled toward them by the slim, dark-haired woman in the red apron. “What have we here, Brett?” Rivard asks.

  “We have a Captain Jessica Kraig from the North Dakota National Guard coming over the transom,” the cop says, holding up Jesse’s military ID. “And she’s wearing a medical bracelet from the Ft. Snelling Veteran’s Hospital. Apparently she drove a missing car here from Minnesota. Left it over there,” he nods toward the woods. “Says she wants to talk to you.”