After the Rain (20 page)

Broker leaned forward. “You have a reputation. Some terms got thrown around.”

Nina’s glower was frayed at the edges. She was exhausted. Playing barfly with Ace was eating up her reserves of control.

Broker raised his eyebrows, questioning. “So the sheriff asked me what the Purple Platoon is.”

“There is no Purple Platoon.”

“Of course there isn’t. How can there be? It’s part of Delta and Delta doesn’t exist.”

“Are you through?”

Broker shrugged. “Just saying, you should have gone to these guys, they probably have some real undercover resources—this being their turf and all.”

Nina shook her head and looked out the window. “If we don’t run out this grounder, there could be…” Her voice petered out, exhausted.

It struck Broker that he had not taken the time to really study her face in minute detail since he’d hit town. He did so now and saw that she had acquired the streamline of sheer necessity; hollow, driven, almost like a haggard statue of a woman who had been pretty in real life. But now her human touches did not survive the translation into metal. Not his wife anymore. Not a
mother. She’d turned into this fucking iron mask of…courage, duty, sacrifice…

Broker had seen that look on people’s faces before. People who were getting ready to die for something. It made him furious.

“So there it is,” Nina said.

Jesus, Broker, get ahold of yourself.
This was serious, he told himself. Not personal. He tried. “So what do you want me to do?”

“Tell Holly something’s staging up with this George guy tonight.” She shivered, hugged herself. “But it’s weird because this Indian guy named Joe Reed made a point of letting me know Ace and George are going to meet at some old missile sight east of town. This Indian is all screwed up—missing fingers, face burned to hell…”

Broker nodded. “I saw him at the equipment dealer across the road from the bar this morning.”
And I’m pretty sure he made off with my .45. But I ain’t telling you that.

“He’s real bad news. I get the feeling he’s been…trained. Then there’s Ace’s weird brother, Dale. God knows what he’s into. Gordy’s easy, he’s just a minor thug with delusions of grandeur. Holly needs to check them all out. There’s something about them as a group that doesn’t track,” Nina said.

It was crazy. Broker watched his rising frustration appear like some brain-dead clown dancing in front of his eyes. He couldn’t throttle it. Couldn’t find a way to tell her he was worried sick about her.

He smiled tightly and pointed at the broad back of the highway patrolman, up at the counter. “If I was you I’d ask him to check out your Indian. Probably knows him by his first name.”

Nina scowled. “I can do this, goddammit.”

Broker narrowed his eyes and it jumped up between them—their marriage, their personalities, the whole rolling ball of wax jammed full of razor blades…“No, you can’t. You’re going to screw up. C’mon, Nina. Admit it. You’re not a soldier. Not really. Armies are human systems that depend on cooperation. You’ve always been a prima donna. A lone wolf.”

“Oh, right, and when did you turn into Mr. Cooperation! You spent so long out in the cold that half the cops in Minnesota think you migrated to the other side.”

It was coming apart at lunch, in front of maybe a dozen farmers and one state highway cop.

“Just saying, you should listen to me on this one.” Broker lowered his voice. But it was too late. She was frayed, nothing but bare wires.

She stood up and jammed her finger. “Stop trying to tell me what to do.”

Heads turned in the restaurant as Nina walked out. An older guy in a feed-store cap removed the filter cigarette from between his teeth and said, “Now, that girl was ticked.”

Broker stared at the egg yolk on his plate. When he raised his eyes he saw that the state patrol cop had swiveled in his counter chair and was watching him. Patient, like Yeager. Waiting.

Broker looked out the window, saw Nina striding back up the road. He looked down at the numbers she’d written on the back of the business card. She could easily have made the calls.

But you want me in the middle of this thing.

“This is Jane.”

“How you liking that Air Force chow? As I recall, the zoomies always did have the best clubs…”

“Who is this?” Then. “Broker? Where the hell are you?”

“What a bummer. I know where you are. You don’t know where I am. What kind of show you guys running, anyway?”

He was pacing in front of the TV in his motel room hunched over with his cell tucked in the crook of his neck. On the Weather Channel, the green glob of precipitation was breaking up to the east over Minnesota and Wisconsin, still spotty over the Dakotas. Northern Minnesota, Kit’s destination, looked clear. Good flying weather. He clicked the picture off.

“I say again: Where the fuck are you?”

“On the job at the old Motor Inn, girlfriend.” Upbeat Broker. A tad raunchy, ramping up for it.

“This is not good. Where’s Kit?”

“Some friends flew in and collected her this morning. She should be home by now.”

“And you decided to stick around? This is not in the plan. You’re cluttering up the board.”

“Be advised, your plan is made out of Kleenex.” Broker walked to the end of the room, pulled the drape aside, and watched the raindrops start to splatter below, on the asphalt. “And, if you listen carefully, you’ll notice that it’s starting to rain.” He reflected that Jim Yeager’s T-ball game might be rained out.

After an interval of silence, Jane said, “So what do you want?”

“I just had a talk with Nina. She says to tell you it’s getting sticky, like something’s going to happen tonight between Ace and some guy named George. She also wants you guys to take a look at this Indian dude, Joe Reed.”

“Why am I getting this from
you
?
She
should call me.”

“But then I wouldn’t be in the loop, huh?”

“Aw, man, look—her Indian will have to wait. We’re more interested in Ace and George Khari. What else?” ”

“I want a meet with Holly. Face-to-face.”

“Holly’s busy.”

“I can imagine. Smoothing things out with the front office, huh?”

No response.

“You’ll do, then,” he said. He could practically hear her hackles snap to attention.

“Why should I?”

“ ’Cause I just went on a scenic tour with one of the indigenous personnel. And he ticked off some items. Like you and Holly hanging at the radar station down the road. And this Black Hawk landing there with a gang of knuckle walkers and some nerdy tech types. Oh, yeah, and he hears there’s this hoop by the hangar and you got a fair hook shot.”

“Shit.”

“Why are you surprised? It’s their turf. And there’s more, girlfriend.”

“Don’t call me that. More what?”

“Let’s meet.”

“Shit. Where?”

“Somewhere midway on the road’s fine. You still driving the Volvo?”

“The Volvo’s been seen in town. I’ll go for a run. I’ll be coming west down 5, toward town.”

“In the rain?”

“I won’t melt.”

“I’m leaving now. I’ll keep an eye out for a moving cloud of steam.”

“Fuck you, Broker.”

“I don’t think so. Your heart’d give out.”

Broker grinned as she abruptly ended the connection. He was getting past the deadlock in the café with Nina.
Which was what she wanted.
Uh-huh. Because he’d do the ground work with the locals. Goddamn her, anyway—playing coach, getting him warmed up and in play.

Broker pushed the Explorer through the light rain, east down Highway 5. The geography had become a fixture: the wall-to-wall slab of sky, the perspective of two-lane blacktop shooting a plumb line through the green flat, thinning down to nothing. The most common things that grew over four feet tall were the telephone poles, power lines, and cell-phone towers.

He was leaning forward over the steering wheel, juices starting to stir. Past his initial frustration, he guessed why Nina wanted him to stay on here. She knew he’d naturally find an in with the locals.

And he could feel the same frenzy to do something that gripped Nina, Holly, and Jane. But doing
something
does not mean doing
anything
. If their tip was real, they would have only one chance.
And it wasn’t Ace Shuster or Gordy Riker they were after. It was the people who were picking up from Shuster and Gordy. This George maybe? The Indian?

And Nina’d only have one chance, if they showed themselves.

And if that happened, he wanted in.

Like Yeager did. And his buddies.

He saw her motion before he got her outline. A flicker of white and gray, and brown skin. Smooth energy pulsing down the shoulder, on the right side of the road. He pulled over, put it in neutral, and waited. The rain moderated, then slowed to a few drips and he watched the cloudburst trundle away in the flat gray sky, trailing dark tatters.

As Jane ran closer, Broker compared her to Nina. Younger of course, and…he searched for a word and settled on Nina’s—
trained.
She had learned that smooth stride to eliminate excess motion. Jane didn’t seem to come by it innately, unlike Nina, who had these lazy fluid kinetics. Nina made everything look so easy. Almost slow, you thought, and then she was on top of you in your face, or past you and it was too late.

Broker suspected that nothing had ever been easy for Jane, and most likely men were the reason why. Not a trifling insight for a man who had a daughter.

She came in close now and he saw she was wearing a scissored-up white T-shirt with
Cancun
printed across the front, dark shorts, and worn New Balance shoes. She also had a fanny pack slung around her waist on thick webbing, sturdy enough to keep it from bouncing. Big enough to accommodate a cell phone, and probably a Beretta nine. As she yanked open the door and hopped in, he noticed she wore no metal. Just raindrops today. The ear piercings, the nose stud, the ax thing around her neck. Gone.

He handed her several of the motel towels from the backseat and waited while she scrubbed some of the rain from her face, neck, and
shoulders. In that moment, as she leaned forward, arms raised, chasing the rain from her short hair with the towel, she looked disarmingly feminine and unguarded.

“Why’d you stay?”

“You guys need all the help you can get.”

She glared at him.

“I was asked,” Broker said simply.

Jane narrowed her eyes, then slowly nodded her head. “Nina. When you delivered the suitcase at the bar and got knocked on your butt.”

“There it is.”

“So what do you have in mind?”

Broker said, “If something is on for tonight, you need the local cops. They know every stalk of wheat in the fucking county.”

“No way. The locals hear what we’ve got, they’ll shit their pants.” She paused and gave him an intense stare. “They haven’t
heard,
have they?”

“They didn’t have to. They already figured it out.”

Jane slumped back in the seat.

Broker pointed across the road, north. “I been up there. I seen the border. It’ll break your heart.”

Jane pushed forward, plopped her elbows on her carved knees, and stared into the middle distance. “Holly’s in deep shit. The pogues in Homeland Security are bitching to Special Ops at Bragg. Justice and Homeland Security are involved. They say we’ve exceeded our mandate. Fuckers. We weren’t supposed to have a mandate. We’re supposed to be totally in the black.”

“How long have we got?”

She held his eyes for a few beats and said, “We, huh?”

“Yeah, we. How long?”

“Holly’s arguing that right now. They want to pull our backup. But we might have something with this Khari guy. He’s Syrian-Lebanese, out of Grand Forks. Owns a warehouse and a chain of
liquor stores in the Dakotas. Turns out there’s a lot of Lebanese around here, especially in South Dakota…”

Broker nodded. “Ex-senator Abourezk.”

“Who? Never mind—this Khari guy was Ace’s dad’s liquor supplier. He’s an immigrant, born in Beirut. His father was active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Khari came here at nineteen, after his parents were killed in the civil war. He was raised by the mother’s brother in the Maronite Catholic Church. He’s not a Muslim. In fact, Lebanese Christians don’t even consider themselves Arabs. Just Lebanese. We got a team on him with a parabolic mike, trying to monitor his phone conversations.” She made a face. “It’s pretty thin. But it’s our only chance. Except now some honcho from Homeland Security is on his way to keep an eye on us.”

“If tonight involves something coming across that border, you better bring one of the locals,” Broker said.

“And you already got somebody lined up, huh?” Jane said.

“Just a cell phone call away. Deputy named Yeager. Because you guys won’t be able to find your butt up there in the dark.”

“What else did Nina say?”

“That the gig with Ace is pretty much up. It’s turned into a game. Gordy and Ace have a bet. Gordy bet Nina’s a cop. Ace took the bet. So he’s playing along for the drama.”

Broker smiled one of his non-smiles and continued:

“Sometimes undercover work is like the flip side of being a cop. The target knows you’re undercover, but he can’t prove it. Knowing how to play out that tension can be the trick that produces results. They’re playing a game, all right. A game of chicken.”

“You said that. I didn’t.” Jane folded her arms across her chest. Her arms came away sopping wet. Broker handed her a third towel. She draped the towel over her shirt, unzipped her fanny pack, and fingered out a Marlboro filter and a lighter. She lowered the window and lit the cigarette. After she blew a stream of smoke into the sodden air, she turned to Broker. “Doesn’t it bother you? What she’s doing?”

“Sure.”

With a burst of pique or frustration, Jane came forward in her seat. “Nina talked about you. How you screwed around when you did your UC stuff as a cop. How it destroyed your first marriage.”

Broker held up his hands. “
Chieu hoi.
”

Jane screwed up her face. “Holly says that. I don’t know what it means.”

“It means ‘I surrender.’ ”

“
Ana la takakalum Vietnameaziah.
”

“Come again?”

Jane smiled. “Means ‘I don’t speak Vietnamese.’ I’m the closest thing to an Arab-speaker in the group.” She squinted, poked her cigarette out the window. “Is that the sun?”

“No, just a lighter shade of gray. But it’s clearing.”

“Yes it is.” She opened the door and got out of the car. Broker opened his door, came around, and joined her. She puffed on her cigarette and stared across the flat green. “So do it,” she said. “Bring in the locals for tonight.”

“Just one.”

Then she turned to him and said, “Three days ago we were in Detroit with the hottest tip in the world. Now look at us. In the middle of nowhere with some suit on his way to pull the plug.”

Broker shook his head. “Not so. There’s a reason Shuster’s name came up. You gotta run it out. And there’s another thing. You only think you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. The fact is, right now you’re standing in the absolute center of things. Like the North American continent.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. That’s why they put all the missiles here.”