Broker and Kit watched the blue single-engine Piper Saratoga II HP cruise the Langdon strip at 500 feet then go into a standard landing pattern: flying counterclockwise, making a series of left turns around the strip, and finally lining up on approach and setting down. When the prop stopped moving, two men emerged: Doc Harris, the pilot, and Lyle Torgeson, a Cook County deputy. They greeted Kit and shook hands with Broker.
Harris, a tanned, well-preserved seventy, a retired general surgeon, asked Broker about his hand. Broker lied and said it was no problem. Lyle said, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what’s going on here? Your mom had us lined up to pick up Kit before you called.”
Broker just smiled, clapped Lyle on the shoulder, and said, “I really appreciate this.”
Lyle said, “I figured that’s about all you’d say. Watch yourself.”
Kit, still in a huff from their minor tiff leaving Shuster’s equipment shed, remained distant and stoic. Broker wondered if she’d acquired the old army trick of picking a fight with loved ones before shipping out, to make the parting easier. But climbing into the small door aft of the wing, she turned and grabbed him in a bear hug and he had to pry her arms from around his neck as she shouted, “I want you and Mommy to come home together.”
Then she climbed into the plane, pressed her face up against a passenger window, and nagged him with her teared-up eyes. The prop revved up but the engine noise didn’t quite drown out the echo of her words.
Broker’s marching orders were getting more complicated.
Then the plane taxied down the strip and flew away. Kit’s face, framed in an aircraft window, faded into a blur as Doc climbed and banked east.
Broker stood awhile watching the plane disappear. He reminded himself that the Saratoga was a first-class high-performance aircraft. And that Doc Harris was a veteran pilot. But as he walked back to the Ford he was mindful of the moody clouds hanging overhead. And that JFK Jr. had taken his last flight in a Piper Saratoga.
He got in the Ford, pulled up to the highway, and looked right and then left. The entry road to the airstrip was about 300 yards from the bar and the equipment shed. He could just make out Dale Shuster and another guy walking across the highway and going into the bar.
Broker had dismissed Kit’s strange comment about Dale Shuster’s toilet, but he’d noticed something else at the shed that got him thinking. So he decided to pay another visit. Making no attempt to hide his approach, he drove down the highway and pulled into the weedy lot in front of the shed. There were two vehicles in the lot, both pretty beat up-a Grand Prix with a filthy windshield and a brown Chevy van.
Okay, he thought as he got out of his truck, so I’m being a little obvious. He threw a glance across the road at the bar’s brick facade. Maybe he wouldn’t mind a rematch with that Gordy guy.
Broker walked around the back of the shed to where the lone piece of earth-moving equipment was parked. Something about the Deere had caught his attention: on the left rear end, one of the counterweights was missing. A solid hunk of yellow cast iron two feet square, six inches deep, and weighing perhaps 500 pounds, a counterweight was the ultimate blunt object. Huge bolts held it to the machine’s frame. Its purpose was to offset the load in the bucket. It was not something that got damaged under normal use.
Broker cocked his ear when he heard a motor start. He peeked around the edge of the shed and saw the brown van pull onto the highway, caught a glimpse of the driver-the scarred-up dude he’d seen with Dale Shuster this morning. The van accelerated back toward town. He waited a few moments, heard nothing else, and moved off ten yards into the damp weeds along the side of the shed. Looked around to get his bearings. Right about here he’d seen a flash of yellow on his first visit. The ground was disturbed, dug up and refilled. Okay. He moved deeper in the weeds and found it. A corner of yellow cast iron peeked from the ground. The rain had washed away the top layer of dirt.
Broker stooped and rapped his knuckle against the dense iron. Now who in the hell would bury a counterweight? He got up, walked back to the Deere front-loader, and began to study it like a puzzle.
“Morning,” a voice said behind him.
Broker turned and saw the husky deputy-Jim Yeager-watching him. Yeager was in uniform, tan over brown.
“Hi,” Broker said.
“What’s up?” Yeager asked.
Broker held up a red Bic lighter. “Was by here earlier looking at this Deere. Dropped my lighter. Just found it.”
“Uh-huh,” Yeager said. “Mr. Broker, would you mind following me into town?” Polite but firm.
“I could do that,” Broker said. He walked back to his truck, pressed the lock remote, opened the door, and got in. As he turned the key in the ignition, he instinctively checked under the seat with his left hand.
Shit. After a fast inspection he noticed his window open a crack. And now the badge and gun were missing. Yeager? The brown van? Okay, so it was getting tricky.
Broker decided not to mention the missing pistol and badge as he followed Yeager back to town. He’d just watch and see if Yeager gave anything away. He pulled into the parking area in front of the motel, next to Yeager’s Crown Vic. Yeager got out and leaned against the cruiser’s front fender, hatless, smoking a Marlboro Light that looked like a white straw in his thick fingers. He could have got those arms lifting free weights, but you don’t lift iron for hours on end. Throwing hay bales, more likely.
“It’s Yeager, right?” Broker said.
“Yeah.” Yeager took a drag, exhaled. The steady breeze bled the smoke from his nose and mouth. “Kinda figured you’d be on that plane that took off.” Inhale, hold, exhale. “Guess not.”
Broker did his best to look attentive. He pointed to the Explorer and said, “I’ll be driving.”
“When?” Yeager asked.
Broker mugged a tight smile, looked away.
Yeager was mellow, totally relaxed. He was, after all, completely in control here. He raised his chin inquiringly. “So how’s the hand? Heard you tagged Ace Shuster with a left. Musta smarted some.”
“Some.”
“Uh-huh. And I noticed that you and the little girl dropped in on Dale Shuster this morning. I don’t think he’s going to sell that old Deere, do you?”
“Not likely,” Broker said.
Yeager looked away for several seconds. “You know, there’s this Air Force radar base east of town. Real sophisticated stuff. Tracks all the space junk, is what they say. Can spot a beer can at eight hundred miles.”
“Really.”
“Really. Got private security, though. Local guys man the gate. They stay on orange alert there. The rest of the country is on yellow. But they know what’s going on, and one of them tells me this helicopter showed up last night. One of those Black Hawks, like in that movie that just come out.” Yeager paused and watched Broker’s face for a reaction.
“No shit,” Broker said.
“No shit. The story is, the chopper was en route to Grand Forks on a routine flight and had to stop for minor mechanical repairs. Six guys plus the crew. ’Cept they all wear civilian clothes and keep strictly to themselves. This guy told me four of them are, like, in real good shape. Regular animals. The other two are kinda nerdy looking. Just hanging out, playing basketball next to the hanger. Thought you might be interested.”
“Well, maybe they just had minor mechanical trouble.”
“Yeah, probably. Another thing…Your wife? Nina?
“Yeah…”
Yeager watched him come forward through his cool act, alert.
“Yeah, well, thing is…Her and that Jane Singer”-Yeager hooked his fingers, making air quotes-“the overt lesbian? Army doesn’t know anything about them. Where they are. What they’re doing in North Dakota. Said they’ll get back to us.”
Broker smiled his unhappy smile.
Yeager went on talking in a steady, friendly voice. “And the old guy in the beach shirt who was hanging around the swimming pool when you showed up?”
“You been following me, Deputy Yeager?”
Yeager shrugged and smiled. “Not me.”
“Somebody else maybe?”
“Maybe. Well, after Jane checked out of the Motor Inn yesterday, the old dude drove out of town behind her. Just take a wild-ass guess where they spent last night.”
Broker stared at him.
Yeager smiled. “My buddy the security guard at the radar site heard that Jane has a mean hook shot.”
Broker saw that Yeager wasn’t going away. So, effectively agreeing to dance, he said as much. “You ain’t going away, are you, Yeager?”
“Hey, Broker, I live here. See-after the spooks and the black helicopters and the feds finish creepy-crawling around and have their moment, then they’ll leave.” Yeager studied the coal of his cigarette, put it back between his lips, and calmly placed his hands on his hips. “Then, well…I’m still here in this county. Me and, basically, three other guys.”
Broker withdrew the tinfoil pouch of Sweets from his back pocket, dug out one of the rough wraps, put it in his mouth, and waited while Yeager took out an old-fashioned Zippo and thumbed the wheel.
Broker puffed until he was lit and then pointed at the lighter. Yeager handed it to him. The case was nicked and rubbed smooth. Ditto the brass eagle, anchor, and globe on the side. Under the Marine insignia there were just two engraved words, one almost faded away, one newer:
IWO
BEIRUT
Yeager said, “My dad gave it to me when I went into the crotch. I had it in the ’Ruit in ’83.”
“The barracks?” Broker handed the Zippo back.
“I was on detail, hauling ash and trash, about a mile away when it blew. Three other guys in my room-they never found enough to fill one body bag.” Yeager paused, thumbed his smoke, set his jaw. “Nineteen years old. I handled a whole lot of dead bodies the next couple days. How many dead people you touched in your life, Broker?”
Broker looked past Yeager, scanning the scrolls of clouds that filled the sky, as if he’d find a list of instructions spelled out. Damn.
Yeager, ever patient, watched the wheels revolving in Broker’s eyes. “Okay. Tell you what. Instead of just standing around looking out of place, why don’t you hop in my cruiser and let me show you around. I’ll do all the talking. You just listen. Then, later, if you want to talk or get ahold of me-like, if something were to happen…” Yeager heaved his shoulders, let them drop.
“What the hell,” Broker said. The more he saw of Yeager, the more sure he was that it was the guy, the one in the van, who broke into his truck. Deal with that later.
“Get in. Your Ford’ll be just fine here.”
Broker got in, looked around. “No computer.”
“Nope, we got us a time warp going here when it comes to budget. So it’s old-style. Just the radar and the radio.”
They were easing east on 5 and came up to the flashing red stop. Yeager hung a left, looked across the seat. “So when’s the last time you worked patrol?”
“Jesus. Hadda be the eighties.”
“Goddamn. And I thought I was old. Things have changed, huh?” He paused. “Not here, maybe.”
Broker wished he still had Kit because the fields started to roll out like a scene from the Wizard of Oz, all green and yellow. Swirls of blue. Dizzy with the heat. But no contour to the crops. Flat.
“Yeah,” he said, “things have changed. The new breed of cops are a lot smarter than I was.”
Yeager grinned. “Got to be smart to drive, talk on the radio, type on a computer, answer your cell phone, and ding out messages on your Palm Pilot all at the same time.”
“Way too smart to rush into things the way we did,” Broker said.
Yeager leaned back and rubbed his chin with the knuckles of his right hand. “Something to be said for rushing in. I watched that Columbine thing live on TV. Those Colorado boys sure didn’t do any rushing in on that one.” He cut Broker with a frank look. “Just my opinion-but my gut read was if there would have been more dead cops, there would have been less dead kids.” After making his point, Yeager swung his eyes back on the road. Then he said, “Your wife and her army pals are old-style, when it comes to rushing in…”
Broker didn’t take the bait and so Yeager drove in silence. They passed two deserted farmhouses in as many miles, the driveways filled up with weeds, the white paint on the wood siding peeled back to gray pith. Stark as rib cages left to molder in the wheat.
“Looks like the real estate market is kinda depressed,” Broker said.
Yeager shrugged. “Some of it’s consolidation. Big ones eat the little ones. Cheaper to just plant around the abandoned houses than tear them down. But some of it’s just changing times. That last house, they still farm but they moved into town. When I grew up we had animals, an orchard, a big truck garden-enough stuff to keep a family busy. And a cushion to fall back on during a bad year.” Yeager twisted his lips in a cynical smile. “In addition to durum, we used to grow more of a certain kind of kid out here. Yeah, well-couple years ago they closed down the Future Farmers of America program at the high school.”
Yeager slowed as they came up to a long capsule-shaped white tanker on a wheeled gurney parked next to the road. He pointed to the hose coming off a coupling. “This is a dumb shit, leaving his hoses on the tank.”
“I don’t follow,” Broker said.
“You’re out of touch, Broker. These white tankers you see all over. It’s anhydrous. Liquid fertilizer. There can be enough ammonia left in the hoses to cook a batch of meth. A gallon of anhydrous is worth less than half a buck to a fertilizer dealer. But it converts to two ounces of meth, worth a thousand bucks on the street in Grand Forks, Fargo…Minneapolis.”
They lost the asphalt and were driving on gravel now.
Yeager jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Those deserted houses we went by? Perfect sites for Beavis and Butt Head meth labs. Little assholes come up from Fargo, Bismarck. Road-trip around, assembling their cook kit, then come up here for the free anhydrous sitting all over the place. Then they find a deserted house to cook in.”
Broker nodded. “It’s just starting to hit Minnesota. Since they regulated the ephedrine, it’s harder to cook it down from commercial cold medications, like Sudafed. Can only buy two packs a pop.”
“Yeah,” Yeager said. “They have to cover a lot of territory to come up with quantity. Mostly it’s kids making it for their personal use. The real problem is the border.”
Broker saw a cluster of buildings. A flutter that could be flags.
“Maida,” Yeager said. “Port of entry.” He turned left on a less maintained gravel road. They bumped along in silence for a couple miles and then Yeager turned right into a rutted path. Just two tire tracks running off into the green, empty, treeless horizon. But they were well-worn tracks, no grass growing in them. Yeager drove slower now, the weeds swishing up to the windows of the cruiser. Finally he stopped the car. “Let’s get out, stretch our legs.”
They walked down the path. Yeager pointed to the ground that was damp enough to clearly show fresh tire treads. “Mulberry Crossing. Active.” They continued walking. A hundred yards further and the path turned and paralleled a slight road embankment. A yellow sign was set in the ground next to the tire tracks that climbed the embankment. It said: ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING.
“See how easy it is,” Yeager said.
Broker nodded. “This is Canada.”
“Yep. And in good weather this prairie road will support a tractor-trailer. Pick a no-moon night. Turn off your lights. From here to the road we came up on,” Yeager pointed back toward his cruiser. “Maybe twenty seconds and you’re across. Like we were talking before, less and less people living out here now. And them that do, hell, they all shop in Canada, because the dollar buys more. They see somebody coming through here at night, it could be their neighbor buying fertilizer at a forty-percent savings. Just come across, go east, in an hour you’re on the interstate.
“So,” Yeager went on, “ephedrine is still easy to get in bulk in Canada. Say, a case of seventy-five thousand pills might go for eighteen thousand bucks. Makes about eight pounds of meth that wholesales for around forty-eight thou. Figure a hundred cases of pills in a trailer. Adds up to serious money.”
Broker squinted back toward the customs station. “What about the border patrol?”
Yeager smiled. “They say they got sensors, but I don’t hear any alarms going off, do you? They started sending more bodies up after 9/11. Guys mostly with names like Martinez, from Texas. Right after they started showing up, that first October, it was about thirty-eight degrees out and I noticed them all out in front of the Motor Inn plugging in the tank heater on their shiny new Tahoes. So I go over and ask, ‘What’s up?’ ‘Getting cold,’ they said.” Yeager shook his head. “They come and go in thirty-day rotations, like R amp;R. Hell, I understand they need a break, they got some hairy duty down south. But the point is, they don’t stay long enough to know the ground. And they don’t patrol, anyway. They sit on the official crossings.”
Broker shifted from foot to foot. Thought of starting another cigar to keep his hands occupied. Clearly Yeager was laying foundation, leading up to something. Gamely, Broker tried to hold up his end of the conversation. “They just watch the crossings?”
“Yeah. Used to be, when the customs shut down the border and went home from ten P.M. to six A.M. they’d put orange plastic cones across the road. Of course, after 9/11 they geared up for heavy-duty action and built these little steel gates. Border patrol, they watch the gate. And, sure, there’s a few aircraft overhead from time to time.”
Broker decided to start that cigar. Yeager popped his Zippo, giving him a light.
“So,” Yeager said.
“So,” Broker said.
“Point is, the border patrol’s number-one priority up here ain’t to stop our meth problem. Not now. Like, say, take our friendly smuggler who usually drives a load of ephedrine pills, or kitchen cabinets, or flush toilets.”
“Toilets?”
“Yeah, we had a run on full-capacity flush toilets a while back. You know, we got all these environmentally correct toilets now that use less water-you gotta flush two, three times. They were bringing truckloads of the big five-gallon jobs down, some of them right through where we’re standing. Any rate, point is, one night our driver hauls a different cargo. Maybe he don’t even know what’s in his trailer.”
Yeager squinted down the rutted track back toward his cruiser. “Like, say, a full load of Stinger missiles. Or those Russian SA-18s. That’d play some hell with the air traffic pattern.”
“So you guys been brainstorming scenarios, huh?” Broker said.
“You bet. Your wife’s caper has a terrorism angle all over it. And we wouldn’t have had a clue if she wouldn’t have used your kid as a prop. I don’t know if that was brilliant or just plain cold-but once your sheriff buddy called and asked us to get tight on the kid, we got onto you, and then we started getting pieces of the whole picture.”
“Look, Yeager. Nina and her crew are cowboying, way out ahead of something. I got a feeling the big-footed feds will roll into your shop any day with the official word.”
“I don’t think you’re hearing me, Broker. What good is some fancy helicopter full of commandos gonna do? Hell, they don’t know what it’s like out here on these prairie roads at night. Me and the boys grew up here. We can keep track of Ace and Gordy. It ain’t like they’re going to do anything with Nina along. Or didn’t she think it through that far?”
Broker thought about it. Yeager was right. But so was Holly. Once the words nuclear device were put into the mix there was no telling how even steady-looking dudes like Yeager would bounce.
“Yeager, I just came up here to get my kid.” Broker didn’t sound convinced and Yeager sure wasn’t.
Sensing that Broker was weakening, Yeager remained patient. “Okay, come on. Back in the car. We got one more stop.”
They got in the cruiser and backed out of the trail and drove the roads on the American side. For Broker the empty monotony of these fields now took on a sinister sweep. There was just no way to stop a simple suitcase coming across.
After a mostly silent ten-minute ride, Yeager wheeled his cruiser into a weed-thick driveway and drove up to yet another deserted farmhouse. A windmill tower stood beside the house with just the gears up top, no blades. A collapsing barn leaned off to the side, and a rundown Quonset hut out back. This house had a narrow front and a high-pitched roof, its two upstairs windows empty of glass and the front door, torn away, looked like gaping eyes and a mouth.
Yeager leaned back in his seat and lit another Marlboro.
“This is where Ace Shuster lived when he was a kid.” He pointed south. “Our house was about two miles that way, and it’s in worse shape than this place.”
“What are we doing?” Broker asked.
“Figured I’d bring you up to speed on Ace, since he’s become the object of all this intense interest.”
Broker had to grin at Yeager’s style-laid back but relentless.
“What? You got something better to do?” Yeager grinned back.
“So you’re going to take your time, give me the county tour. Spend half the day out in the tullies and maybe my cell phone will ring and I’ll have to go somewhere and you’ll just have to take me there.”
“Hey, Broker, you got a suspicious mind. You should be a cop.”
“I already met Ace.”
“What’d you think?”
Broker thought about it. “At first he seemed like this aging hell raiser, and then…”
“Yeah?”
“His eyes. His eyes were…sad.”
Yeager nodded. “The whole family is just a little bit”-Yeager gently waffled his hand-“off center. His sister, Dorsey, was the one who showed it most. And then, I guess, the kid brother, Dale. The dad, Gene, he was crazy but disciplined. Always cooking these wild schemes to get rich, but always worked like hell. Now, Gene’s dad, Asa-he had the outlaw gene. A regular bomb thrower, back in the days of the Nonpartisan League…”
The term bomb thrower got Broker’s attention. He’d been sitting back, hands crossed in his lap. He came forward, opened his arms, draped one back on the rear seat. Put the other hand on the dash. More attentive now, he said, “Sounds like some family.”
“Yeah. I think their mom, Sarah, she just checked out and went on automatic pilot. Like one of those women you read about back in the old days: too much work, too much prairie. The wind gets to some people. The winters…” Yeager chewed at the inside of his cheek, looked off across the fields. “Ace, he was the oldest kid. Thing I respect about Ace is the way he fights to keep that outlaw gene at bay. Gets up every morning and has to choose twenty-four hours of not breaking the law. That’s a tough one. Another thing, he pretty much looks after everybody.”
“You saying Ace has real psychological hang-ups?”
Yeager shrugged. “Hard to tell with German farm stock. Everybody keeps it in. Then they get behind with the bank, have a couple bad years, and we get a call from an anxious wife with supper cold on the table. Sometimes find the guy’s body out in the corner of a field with his shotgun next to him. Ace? He ain’t exactly your Prozac kind of guy, so he maintains with alcohol.”
The question was on his face so Broker went ahead and said it: “Not the bomb-throwing type?”
“Ace? Is that what they think?”
Broker decided to take the chance that Yeager was waiting for. “Okay, here we go…”
Now Yeager was sitting forward. “Yeah?”
“They got a picture of Ace standing near McVeigh at Waco.”
Yeager rolled his eyes. “They’re basing this whole circus on a fucking picture?”
“I didn’t say that. But they have a picture.”
“Hey, man, these people gotta do their homework,” Yeager said, getting more animated. “Remember I mentioned his sister, Dorsey? Well, she was wild as hell in high school and then did one of those come-to-Jesus flip turns. She started chasing religious cults. Word got back she was hanging out in this wacko compound in Texas. Turned out to be Koresh’s operation. So Ace went down there, just about the time the ATF did their famous ninja walk in their pretty little black suits.”
Broker braced himself. “So?”
“Once Ace got down there, he found out that Dorsey had been there but split a month before. Ace eventually found her in Seattle, working in a Starbucks coffee bar. Married some guy and is still there, as far as I know. A happy ending.” Yeager squinted at Broker. “If I was you, I’d put a little more faith in what people say over coffee at Gracie’s diner and less in the people who breeze around in black helicopters.”
“Okay, maybe he doesn’t want to blow up federal buildings-could he be the kind of guy who would run anything across the border for money?”
Yeager kind of sidled closer, on the scent. “Anything? Like something real dangerous?”
“C’mon, Yeager…”
Yeager wagged his finger in Broker’s face. “No. Ace wouldn’t do that. But that little creep Gordy Riker would. In a fucking heartbeat.”
“Why you so sure Ace wouldn’t?”
“ ’Cause I’ve known him all my life. Look, we played Legion ball together. Jesus, could he hit. He was eighteen and people were saying he was another Maris. He had a shot at the majors, hurt his knee in a tryout camp, and never went back. Just bad luck. That’s the story of Ace’s life. Nothing ever worked out right for him.” Yeager shook his head.
“He killed a guy in a bar fight.”
“More bad luck. Goddamn loudmouth Bobby Pease down in Starkweather. Came at Ace with a beer bottle, and Bobby musta been loosey goosey flatfooted when Ace hit him. Broke his neck. Ace did eleven months on the state farm for involuntary manslaughter.”
“What about Dale, the equipment dealer?”
Yeager shook his head. “Jeez, I don’t know. Parts to that guy are missing. Like, the key to the ignition. Guy is gonna live and die in his folks’ basement. He’s gonna follow them to Florida.”
“And Gordy?”
“Cunning little fucker. And greedy. I been trying to catch him running meth precursor for over a year. He has grandiose dreams of being a big dope dealer.”
“Violent?”
Yeager grinned and eyed Broker. “You tell me. Story going round is he knocked you on your ass.” He paused, still grinning, then said, “That’s how we know you’re in on this thing. We figure it was for show. No way in hell a guy like you’s going to let a Gordy Riker put you on the ground, shot hand or not.”
As Broker was composing his comeback, the car radio squawked: “Two-forty, where are you?”
Yeager keyed his mike. “Six north.”
“Your ten-seventeen just showed up at the SO.”
“Ten-four.”
Yeager quickly wrote his cell phone number on the back of a card and handed it to Broker. Then he put the cruiser in reverse and backed out of the driveway. “We’ll have to finish saving the world later,” he said. “My wife just dropped my son off at the office. I gotta coach T-ball.”