Broker left the sheriff’s office pissed, but also experiencing fits of wonder and disbelief at what Nina and her crew were up to. He got back in the Explorer, continued down Highway 5, and found the city park sign and an arrow pointing north. Two blocks later he passed the elementary school.
Like Jane said, it was hard to miss.
Broker stared up at a perfectly restored Spartan missile at the edge of the park grounds. Looming fifty-five feet tall, the antiballistic missile was painted white with accurate black tail and fin markings and a vertical stack of uppercase letters spelling US ARMY.
He left the Explorer on the street and walked up to the missile and read the plaque at the granite base, which announced that the missile was given to the people of Langdon and Cavalier County during deployment of the Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile Facility.
Only then, looking at this memorial, did it finally dawn on Broker that he was in the heart of the old ICBM, ABM belt. He remembered back to the 1970s and ’80s, all the talk about the good life in Minnesota until some party pooper pointed out that the state was right in the path of the prevailing winds from the missile fields in North Dakota. In other words, if the worst happened, North Dakota would take the first hit, but Minnesota would catch all the fallout.
Nina had picked an interesting locale.
He crossed the park grounds and entered a low building that abutted the fenced-in swimming pool. He told the employee behind the counter he was here to get his kid and went out onto the pool area.
Summer squeals and splashes greeted him, kids in water wings throwing balls, riding on Styrofoam snakes. Parents sat along the poolside, a few dangling their legs, more of them at tables under umbrellas.
Broker spotted her in the pool putting serious moves on the water. Even in his wounded hand he felt the instant ache of absence, four months’ separation. Kit Broker, seven years old, in an apricot Speedo swimsuit, goggles, hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, was busting her butt, doing a fairly decent crawl, cranking out laps all alone in the right-hand lane.
A watchful presence who had to be Jane paced her up and down the pool. Broker recognized her voice from the telephone as he walked up:
“Long and strong, Kit. Long and strong. Short and fast won’t do it. Let’s try for twenty strokes on this next lap.”
She wore a plain black tank suit over a sleek coat of fast-twitch muscle. Dark short hair, the sides showing a flash of scalp, a touch of style to go with hoops of metal pierced into the edges of her ears. All together it added a glint of pagan wildness to her tired brown eyes. Not flashy and not subtle. And Broker disagreed with Wales. Jane didn’t look especially sexy or dikey. She looked exhausted. And, sure, she was sharp-as in sharpened to too fine a point. And just plain dangerous, the way someone strung out on speed is unpredictable.
As Broker came up to the edge of the pool he scanned the crowd of parents and watchers and settled on the older guy with sandblasted ash hair. He had the deep face and arm tan of a man who works outside. His muscular legs were pale in comparison. The leisurely wide shorts and oversized orange and red Hawaiian shirt didn’t go with the face, whose pale blue eyes, relentlessly tracking the scene, had forgotten how to relax over twenty years ago.
The moment Broker started toward Kit, Hawaiian Shirt uncoiled out of his chair with slow intensity. His large blunt hands, attached to thick-veined forearms, moved to a hover near his waist, eyes scanning.
Then the eye contact, the recognition, the easing back.
Okay. So Sheriff Wales did have excellent instincts.
Kit was swimming with the sharks.
“Dad-deee…”
Kit shot up, gleaming, out of the water, hoisted herself out of the pool, and ran to him, a blur of freckles and red hair. She jumped into his arms. Broker grimaced and grinned at the same time, hugging the happy squirm of his daughter as he got covered in wet kisses and chlorine. Taller by a good inch since he’d last seen her, Kit was starting to show some of the lean lioness density she inherited from her mother. Broker got thoroughly wet in the process and grimaced when her knee banged his injured hand.
“Kit, hey, look at you.”
She had her mother’s eyes and color. She’d acquired her mom’s scary habit of totally focusing her attention. The habit of picking up small details she got from both of them. “What happened to your hand?” she asked.
“Oh, I hurt it working.”
“Can I see it?”
“Okay. But later. So where’s Mommy?” Broker asked, managing to keep his voice cordial.
Kit knit her brows-the brooding expression came from her dad. “Mom’s at work,” she said. Then she brightened. “I helped. We were in a play.”
“You were, huh? So who’s watching you?” He hefted her in his arms, settling her weight on his hip. She laid her cheek along his neck and nestled in, molding into his hollows. She raised her eyes and said:
“Auntie Jane and Uncle Hollywood.”
“Uncle Hollywood?” Broker nodded, turned, and stared at the gaudy Hawaiian Shirt. “And this must be Auntie Jane.” Broker turned to face the woman in the black swimsuit.
She extended her hand. “Jane Singer. How you doing?” Her grip was a little too firm. An edge of challenge in her eyes was ambiguous and sexually nonspecific. Like a dare to guess where she was really coming from. She’s young, overtrained, and very very tired, Broker thought.
Kit interrupted their mutual inspection, squirming from his embrace.
“Daddy, can I show you something?” She scrambled from his arms, looked to Jane for a second, and then crouched in racing-dive position at the end of the pool.
“Swimmers, take your mark. Get set. Go!” Jane said.
Kit sprang forward into the air, swept up her arms for more loft, clasped them over her head, and cleanly cut the water with nary a splash.
“All right!” Broker said, impressed.
“She has talent,” Jane said simply.
Broker briefly watched his daughter go down the pool. She was a strong swimmer. She was also the only kid in the pool not playing. And that was probably as much his fault as Nina’s-poor kid, condemned to a life sentence with Broker’s and Nina’s genes. He turned and stared at Jane.
She met his eyes in a level gaze and said, “How’s your hand doing? We heard you got dinged yesterday.”
Broker decided not to ask her how she got her information.
“You gonna tell me what’s happening here?” he asked.
“Sure. Let’s put Little Bit in the shower back at the motel and talk.”
Broker waved to Kit. When she scrambled out of the pool he bundled her in the towel that Jane held out. Four months ago when he’d done this he’d thought of her as a baby. Something different now. It had to do with the way she used her eyes, how she held herself. She’d changed into a miniature woman. When Broker started to lead his daughter to his truck, Jane gently intervened. “We have a system. Follow us to the motel.”
Broker decided not to fight the system just this once. He followed Jane to the famous red Volvo, pointed to his Ford. She nodded, got in with Kit, and drove away. A dusty gray Chevy truck pulled in behind her. The Old Man And The Sea was at the wheel. Broker came last.
They parked at the motel, went up a flight of stairs to the room.
“Go take a shower and wash your hair. And use the conditioner-you gotta get the chlorine out or it’ll turn your hair green,” Jane told Kit.
“Okay.” Kit gave Broker a hug and raced into the bathroom. A moment later the water started running.
“She seems to be holding up pretty well,” Broker said.
“She’s very on-task and mature for her age. Plus, she understands what her mom does for a living,” Jane said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“At the very end in Vietnam, you were in MACV-SOG with Nina’s dad. Everyone was leaving, but the two of you went back in to bring out your Vietnamese agents…”
“I knew Ray Pryce,” Broker said simply.
Jane studied his face and said, “Only one of you came back out. For most of Nina’s childhood, her dad was deployed in forward areas. Nina was raised by her mom back in the States.”
“So?”
“So, the shoe’s on the other foot and you don’t like it. You should be big enough to handle Nina’s success…”
Broker looked around. “This…is success?”
“Hey. Deal with it. You married a soldier, mister,” Jane said. Touchy.
Broker looked away from Jane and scanned the room. A fancy laptop on the desk along with a cell phone’s travel charger. His eyes stopped on a large equipment bag on the floor along the wall. He went over, grabbed the handles, and hefted the bag. He was lifting about thirty pounds of steel that shifted and slid like guns and ammo.
Jane watched him, then asked, “So? What are you thinking?”
“That I walked into a classified Army unit that’s wandered off the reservation. And you got a kid along. My kid.” Broker let the bag drop with a crash, then turned and studied her.
“You didn’t walk into shit. You were summoned,” Jane said.
Broker did his best deadpan, working hard to master a powerful resentment at the way this was unfolding. He changed the subject. “You and my daughter have been spending a lot of time together, huh?”
“Yeah.” Jane did a little provocative number with her eyes and eyebrows. “You got a problem with people like me?”
“You mean young, insecure, with a chip on their shoulder?” Broker said carefully. “One thing I do know, I don’t want my kid to have a chip on her shoulder.”
“Cut the shit, Broker. You been filling in the blanks. Tell me what you really think.” Jane folded her arms.
“I think you guys are flying by the seat of your pants and you’re out of your depth. I’m pissed that you put Kit in the middle of it.”
Jane shrugged. “We told her it was like a play at school. She even had some important lines.”
“I talked to the local sheriff.”
“That was a mistake,” Jane said in a flat voice.
“He said there was some kind of fight at a bar? A deputy took you and Kit off-site. Nina stayed with the bar owner.”
“So far so good.”
“Tell me, is Nina playing Little Drummer Girl a promotion or a step down?”
“Very funny. Look, Kit was onstage for less than five minutes. Nina wasn’t packing, but we had five guns outside that bar when it went down.”
“I only see two of you so far.”
“We had three more in a surveillance van.” Jane paused, then added in a dry voice, “They peeled off for now.”
“Sounds serious. Too serious to put my daughter in the way.”
“We disagree. But it’s moot. She’s out of it now.”
The phone rang. Jane moved to it swiftly. “This is Jane.” Pause. “Good, c’mon down. We’ll make the call.” She turned to Broker. “There’s somebody you got to talk to.” She smiled again. “What did you think? Kit just got lost between the cracks in some half-assed scramble and needed a ride home? There’s a plan. Kit had a part. And so do you.”
Goddamn you, Nina. “A part?”
“Yeah. There’s something Nina needs you to do.”
There was a knock on the door. Jane squinted through the security peep and opened the door. Hawaiian Shirt shuffled in.
“Broker, meet Holly,” Jane said.
Broker shook hands cautiously, circling slightly, sniffing Holly out. Too much sun and too much accelerated living had leached away all his excess body weight and emotions. About 180 pounds of callus and scar tissue remained. His pale bemused eyes impressed Broker, the way the dead spots and the live spots comingled.
Jane watched them do their signifying, amused. “Back before Cro-Magnon walked the earth…”
Holly had a voice to match his eyes, soft over steel. “She means back in the Nam.”
“They called him Hollywood because he was showy,” Jane said.
Holly smiled.
“Now we call him Turner Classic Movies,” Jane said, returning the smile.
“Eat your heart out, slit. You’re never gonna do twenty pull-ups, ever,” Holly said.
“And you’re never going to have a multiple orgasm,” Jane said.
“That’s ‘You’re never going to have a multiple orgasm, Colonel,’ ” Holly said with a hint of a growl.
Kit came out of the bathroom. She had one towel wrapped around her waist and another, turban fashion, around her head.
“Sorry, Little Bit, grown-ups gotta talk shop. Back in the tub,” Jane ordered. She handed Kit a Rubik’s Cube to play with.
Kit knit her brows at her dad. “Do I have to?”
“Just for a while,” Broker said.
Kit put the cube under her arm and held out her hands. “I’m gonna be wrinkled like a prune.” She returned to the bathroom.
There was a table and two chairs in the corner. Retro etiquette bred into Broker’s bones prompted him to offer one of the chairs to Jane. She rolled her eyes. Broker and Holly sat.
“So what do you have in mind?” Broker asked.
Holly gave a perfect Gallic shrug and said, “Wait one.”
Broker waited while Jane punched in numbers on her cell phone. Holly said, “It’s easy. All you got to do is get mad at your wife for leaving home and deserting your kid in the middle of nowhere. Think you can handle that?”
“Oh yeah, but why should I?”
Jane held out the cell phone. Broker put it to his ear. A voice he hadn’t heard in more than a year said, “Hey, Broker, how you doing?”
Broker took a moment to focus. Then he said, “Lorn Garrison?” Several years ago Broker had helped Garrison, then an FBI agent, penetrate the Russian Mafia. Garrison had left the bureau and was now a sheriff in Kentucky. If they could casually phone up Lorn and get him on board, then Broker was being seriously handled-which meant that Holly, Jane, and Nina were into something big-time real. He relaxed his voice but his mind raced. “Not bad. How’s yourself?”
“Can’t complain. Down here tight as a tick in all the good things Kentucky’s famous for: whiskey, tobacco, racehorses, and hot browns.”
“This ain’t a social call, is it, Lorn?”
“Nope. All about street cred. Some real serious folks you’re with. They’re hanging way out there ’cause they might have caught a piece of The Big One.”
“Are you mixed up in this scene in North Dakota?” Broker asked.
“Uh-uh, just some heavy people in D.C. wanted me to give you a heads-up.”
“What heavy people?”
“You heard how CIA took off the gloves and is putting covert operations back together? Well, Pentagon doesn’t trust CIA or FBI for squat, so they put together their own black bag of tricks out of Bragg with a domestic agenda. And let me clue you, to this aging G-man it all sounds illegal as shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s who you’re running with. Some bunch from Delta. Put together real fast. The operation is called Northern Route.”
“Do I get to know what they’re after?”
“Sure. Your wife is trying to go undercover and get next to a guy they think is a contract courier for Al Qaeda. The intell says this guy’s bringing something into the country. Hold on to your ass, Broker-they think it could be one of those fucking suitcases we were so worried about.”
Broker paused to let the word cycle through his brain.
Nuclear.
“A tactical nuke. No bullshit?” he said. Maybe he didn’t hear right.
“No bullshit. So they want you to perform one small service and then get out of Dodge. Naturally, the usual threats are implied-you don’t help these guys, I suspect the feds will start messing with your bottom line. You know, all that bullion you and Nina pirated from Vietnam.”
“You know me, nothing but public-spirited,” Broker said, staring at Jane and Holly.
“You got it?” Lorn asked.
“I got it,” Broker said. “Check you later.” End of phone call.
Holly handed him a black-and-white photo that showed a man holding up an open briefcase. The inside of the briefcase was cleaned out to make room for a metal cylinder and a bunch of gadgetry, computer boards, wires. “Worst-case scenario,” Holly said, “they really have got their hands on a Russian KGB suitcase. A one-kiloton, 105 tactical nuke round, configured in a suitcase. Put it in midtown Manhattan, it’ll kill a hundred thousand people, easy.”
Jane stepped forward. “Two days ago we acted on a tip from one of our squirrels in Lahore, Pakistan. We took down an Al Qaeda financial officer in Detroit. He talked. He gave us the name of a courier for something nuclear. And a location. Shuster in North Dakota. We ran ‘Shuster slash North Dakota’ in every computer we could think of.”
Holly held up a mug shot of a young blond guy with chiseled features. His hair was on the long side. The date was 1992.
“This is the target. Ace Shuster is a second-generation smuggler-”
Broker held up his hand. “I talked to the sheriff. He’s got you figured out, up to a point. He already told me about this guy.”
Holly scowled. Broker ignored him, got up, went to the desk, opened a drawer, took out the local phone directory, thumbed to the S’s and read: “Gene and Ellen Shuster; Asa Shuster, Dale Shuster. I come up with three, four counting Ellen.”
“Okay, smart-ass,” Holly said. “What about this?” He handed Broker another photograph that showed a muddy road, parked cars, and a crowd of two dozen peoples, mostly men, standing around, low rolling scrub in the background. Two faces in the gathering were circled. Jane tapped one of them. “Ring any bells?”
Broker exhaled. Everybody in America now recognized that lean shovel chin. “Tim McVeigh.”
Holly’s finger moved to the other circled face at the opposite end of the picture. To help Broker out, he held the mug shot from Shuster’s dossier next to the photograph. It was him, a little older but the same guy.
“Ace Shuster and McVeigh standing on a road, with a bunch of people in between,” Broker said. “So?”
“So, what they’re looking at is the Branch Davidian Compound. They were in the gallery of Koresh supporters.”
“Are you saying this Shuster knew McVeigh?” Broker asked.
“We know their paths crossed at least once.” Jane shrugged. “It sure got our attention.”
Broker squinted at Jane and Holly. “Al Qaeda in Detroit to militia nuts to petty crooks in North Dakota? I didn’t think Islamic fundamentalists had truck with nonbelievers.”
“Yeah, well, we ain’t gonna sit around and find out on CNN again,” Holly said with absolute conviction.
“Not after the way those desk pricks in CIA and FBI fumbled warning signs on 9/11,” Jane said.
“You know what you guys look like? Like you haven’t slept for days,” Broker said. “The local cops are onto you. Probably this Shuster guy is onto you…”
Holly put his hands on his narrow hips. “Look, Broker; we don’t have the luxury of playing cop. If a cop’s bad guy slips by, that’s cool, they’ll catch him later on something else. Cops can afford to wait and let the system grind along. Protect and serve. Life, liberty, and so on and so forth. The guys who wrote the Constitution thought in terms of threats being a British fleet taking weeks to cross the pond. A nuclear event is an entirely different order of magnitude.”
Broker studied him. How exhausted and wired he was. “What if the local sheriff hauls you in for questioning?”
“What’s the charge?” Jane said. “We’re just citizens. None of us are carrying any military ID or equipment.”
Broker pointed at the bag next to the wall.
“Nope,” Jane said. “Everything in there is available in the economy.”
“And what are you taking to stay awake?” Broker said.
Jane and Holly exchanged fast looks. Holly shrugged. “A little speed now and then. We been on one hell of a road trip…”
“Flush it. These local cops might be Andy of Mayberry, but I get the feeling they are seriously underemployed, highly trained, and itching for something to happen. Plus, they are very wired into their history. The sheriff gave me a lecture on Gordon Kahl.”
“Kahl was a wacko,” Holly said.
“Yeah, and the feds botched the job, pissed all over the locals, and got two of their own killed,” Broker said.
Holly glowered. “We ain’t the goddamn federal marshals.”
“Right,” Broker said. “The marshals are trained to uphold the law. You guys are trained to blow people away. Get rid of the dope. The locals just might shake you down for the hell of it. If they find drugs, you’re no good to Nina sitting in the county jail.”
“Point taken,” Holly said. “But if the sheriff makes a phone call, no one, nowhere, will admit to our existence.”
“No one,” Jane underscored.
Broker understood her emphasis. They were expendable. Nina was expendable. He wondered, too, if, push come to shove, Kit would have been expendable.
“Whose idea was this?” Broker asked.
“Nina. We just got in the van and drove and made it up on the way. We stopped in St. Paul to pick up the car,” Holly said.
“The Volvo from central casting,” Broker said.
“Nina again. We found the car and staked it out, then practically mugged this walking liberal cliche near Macalester College in St. Paul. A serious feminist type, you know-got a housekeeper, nanny, personal trainer…But she took a pile of money for the car.” Jane dropped her eyes, looked up, almost catty. “Outfitting Nina at Victoria’s Secret, however, was my idea.”
“Oh Christ,” Broker said.
Jane shrugged. “This great pair of cargo harem pants and this really foxy rib tank. She’s way past being cute, but, hey, she can still look pretty damn raunchy if you put a few shots of booze into her.”
“Thanks for sharing that,” Broker said.
“You’re welcome.”
“So. That’s what’s happening,” Holly said. “We didn’t coordinate any of this with the FBI or Homeland Security. We don’t have time for them to hold a committee meeting and put it tenth on the agenda behind their budget requests. As the old Rum Dum himself is fond of saying, ‘We are leaning way forward.’ ” There was a definite edge of sarcasm in Holly’s voice.
“Shit,” Broker said.
Holly and Jane stared at him. Holly cocked his left wrist in a reflex gesture, checking his watch; but he wasn’t wearing a watch, and to Broker the mannerism had a chilling operational feel that brought back a lot of bad memories. Basically, he felt like a prong they wanted to plug into their socket, use one time, and throw away.
“Shit,” he repeated. Then, “Okay. What exactly do you want me to do?”