Ashes (10 page)

“No problem. Business is always slow around here at that time anyway. Talk it over with Brandy or Tracy. Just make sure you’re back here for New Year’s. Don’t want to miss the big party, eh?”

“I’ll be back for it.”

“Great.” He grinned at her. “Come on, Jenny. Smile. It gives your face something to do.”

* * *

S
he rang Suzanne’s doorbell after dinner, the travel iron she’d borrowed in hand. Suzanne greeted her, took the iron, invited her in. Jennifer declined, said she had to get back to her house, needed to make a phone call.

Suzanne looked Jennifer up and down for a moment. “Jen? Are you OK? I mean, you just look kind of...” She didn’t finish.

Kind of...what? Jennifer didn’t know. How could she? There was nothing wrong. Nothing at all. “Must be a little tired,” she replied with a smile. “Everything’s fine.” She even believed it.

T
he geography of America might be, as the song said, amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties, but Sean thought of American life as the surface of the ocean. Static yet always in motion. Sometimes peaceful and glittering in the sunlight; sometimes tempestuous and roiled by storms. But even on its calmest days, deceptive — for he knew about the undertide, the current of discontent and anger below the surface. It was always there, sometimes weak, sometimes strong. The current slackened, went deeper after Oklahoma City. In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, of the flag-waving and newfound patriotism, that undercurrent was all but forgotten. But it was always lying beneath the surface, biding its time, keeping its danger hidden.

He had the sensation, as he drove north, that he was diving into deep water, that as the weather grew cooler he was actually going deeper, searching for the undercurrent. Seeking out the darkness.

* * *

N
orth. Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

Sean attended gun shows, perusing the wares and taking the handouts. Sat in the middle rows at church hall meetings about avoiding federal taxes. Stood in the crowds at auctions of bankrupt farms, listening not to the auctioneer’s gabble but to the disconsolate mutterings of those around him. He eased his way into conversations, a remarkably simple task, for so many of the discontented simply wanted to talk and he gave them that chance, offered an easy smile and a receptive ear. He joined men outside to smoke (he hated having to take up the habit again, but it was a necessary evil) and make conversation. He commiserated about lost jobs, easily spinning lies about his own disenfranchisement at the hands of the government. Countless hours he spent in diners, over bad coffee and good chicken dinners, nodding and making proper noises of sympathy as they told him of family farms lost forever, the garbage kids were being taught in the schools, the tax audit, the gun laws, the thousand grievances real and imagined, trivial and true. He offered a light for cigarettes, paid his fair share of the diner meals, plugged quarters into jukeboxes.

They talked, and most of the time talk was all they had to offer. Some few made noise about teaching those in the government a lesson. But he had learned years ago to distinguish between mere venting and a dangerous level of discontent. He listened, as he had to, for he had no strong leads. All he knew was what Robert had been able to tell him: The group responsible for the Los Angeles bombing was probably based in the north Midwest, most likely Michigan or Minnesota. The members — or at least the leadership — were men of intelligence, able to not only pull off something like Los Angeles, but to keep from getting caught.

More than that Robert did not know. The intelligence team assigned to domestic terrorism had its funding cut drastically several years back, its forces routed to foreign assignments. What was left of the domestic force had been sawed off at the knees, discredited by a lack of results and a botched assignment in Arizona. They were now little more than a token force; even if he had still been inside, Sean doubted they could have offered him much help.

So he navigated the currents on his own, frequenting the places the discontented were likely to gather. He went to libraries and Internet cafés, searching out the gun nuts and the hate groups, lurking in chat rooms and reading online newsletters. Time passed, and he did not find anyone willing to claim responsibility for Los Angeles, or even to hint at approval. This was annoying but not discouraging; he had enough faith in Robert’s intel and his own instincts to know he was on the right track. It was going to take time, that was all. He had funds and time in abundance, and he had dedication. His loyalty to his superiors was forsworn, given instead to a woman he had never met, whose picture and plight still had power to touch him. Every morning he looked at the pictures, the one of Jennifer in the arms of the firefighter and the one of her with her head down and moving boxes in hand, preparing to flee. Looked at the pictures and felt resolve strong within him. Time, and watchfulness, and casting the net out. They would bring him results, eventually. Given enough time, they always did.

* * *

I
ndiana.

Strange that he should find a promising lead there. Indiana, the place of Sean’s birth, a place he had fled thirty years ago, had never thought to return to. He had felt no omen crossing the border from Illinois. It was merely another state on his itinerary. It was where he found Henry Connolly.

* * *

H
enry Connolly, then. Henry to his mother, “that no-good slacker” to his stepfather, Hank to his friends and colleagues, Boomer to his drinking buddies. Henry “Boomer” Connolly, red hair and freckles, Tom Sawyer crossed with Alfred E. Newman and Charles Starkweather, “what, me worry” grin and cold green eyes. Eyes that, if you were to look into them, could give you the owner’s history entire. First five years of his life spent on the family farm in Iowa, until his father was killed when his tractor rolled over on him, and the farm was repossessed. Until his mother, the light in her eyes dimmed by her husband’s death and extinguished forever by the loss of the farm that had been in her family for four generations, went to Michigan to live with relatives, taking Henry and Henry’s two sisters with her. A year of a cousin’s charity, the cousin's resentment of the Connollys growing with every mouthful of food the family consumed and every noise the children made in the formerly quiet house. Another year, this one of happiness, when Alice Connolly wed Warren Smith and there was a house of their own and good times again. A happiness that ended more or less forever when the tides of commerce shifted and Warren Smith lost his job at the plant, watched his bosses sell the company overseas, drifted along with the jobs that he could and took his anger out on his stepchildren.

Henry had the seed of bitterness and resentment well-planted, nurtured by his stepfather’s rage. He drifted through school, performing adequately at best in his studies but more than making up for this — in his view, at least — on the gun range he visited after school and on the weekends. There he was a stellar student. After high school he went into construction, the flexibility of his schedule allowing him to join shooters’ clubs and frequent the region’s many gun shows, join a local militia. For a time he considered joining the military, but his lackluster grades would not give him anything more than a grunt’s position. He wanted more. Deserved more, he was a white American, God damn it, and don’t anyone forget it. Two years ago, Henry had cast aside his thoughts of the military as a career, becoming a soldier in a very different kind of war.

* * *

I
t was the day after a big military surplus show. Henry was in good spirits, having had a fine time at the show. He’d enjoyed the wares and demonstrations, bought the goods he’d been sent for, and found some new toys for himself. He’d even made a few friends. One of them was here in a booth at the Bang Bang Bar, sitting across from Henry. Sam was a nice guy, around the age of Henry’s stepfather but not a bastard like Warren Smith. Seemed happy to have someone to talk to. Was suitably impressed by Henry’s knowledge of firearms. Eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when Henry suggested Sam accompany him to the range sometime if he was up in Wisconsin, shoot off this bad-ass Spas 12 Henry’d gotten on the black market some years back.

“A Spas 12,” Sam said. “That’s a nice one.” He finished his beer. “You want another one?”

“I can’t let you keep buyin’, man.”

Sam shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. This show’s the first fun I’ve had in ages. Come on, another round.”

“OK, if you’re buyin’.” It would be Henry’s fifth beer. He failed to notice that Sam had only just now finished his first.

As they started in on the next round, Sam sighed and said, “It’s bad enough you can’t get stuff like the Spas 12 any more. I’m down to a .38 and an old shotgun. My Daddy, God rest his soul, left me a lot of stuff but I’ve had to sell most of it. Sold his broom-handled Mauser last year and that near broke my heart.”

“A broom-handled Mauser? Holy God, I hope you got good money for it.”

Sam shook his head, sadly. “I did but...you know, it’s almost not worth it. I felt like I was giving up a part of my Daddy’s memory, know what I’m saying? No man should have to do that.”

Henry nodded.

“But still, you have to do what you have to do. Especially nowadays. I’ve been out of work ever since I got banged up on the job. Fucking government says I’m not bad off enough for disability and I’m out of medical insurance so I can’t get a doctor to tell them I
am
bad off without it costing me an arm and a leg. And then last year, tax time... Oh, I’m sorry Hank, I shouldn’t be putting all this on you.”

Henry spread his palms out in commiseration. “Hey, we’re in this together.” He downed the beer, started in on another one. He was getting pretty buzzed, but what the hell. It had been a good weekend, he was feeling pretty righteous. And he felt sorry for Sam. He’d heard plenty of stories like Sam’s and they never failed to burn him up. He took another deep swallow of beer.
Seriously
buzzed now! He’d have to sleep it off a bit before he drove back up north with his haul from the show. “In it together man, and we can show the G where to stick it, like we did in —”

Henry stopped, conscious even through his alcohol haze that he’d said too much. He glanced at Sam quickly, to see his reaction. It was not that he suspected Sam of anything. Hell, he liked him, liked him a lot. Still...

But Sam was not even looking his way. He had a palmful of change in his hand and was poking through it. “You have a quarter, Hank? I’m fresh out and I wanted one for the jukebox.”

Henry sighed inwardly, relieved. “Sure thing. Listen, you got the beers, I’ll get the tunes.”

Sam smiled. “Thanks, Hank. Thanks a lot.”

* * *

A
n hour later. Henry Connolly walked out of the bar. He was still weaving from the beer but that didn’t bother him. He’d driven further when he was drunker than this. As Henry left the bar, he did not notice that Sam was no longer in the booth. He did not hear the back door of the bar open and close quietly, did not see Sam slip around to the side parking lot. He did not see Sam’s shoulders straighten or his gait change to a predator’s stealthy tread; did not see Sam take a small bottle and a cloth handkerchief from his pocket. In fact, Henry had nothing more on his mind than wondering if the convenience store was still open so he could buy some cigarettes. He was reaching into his pocket for his keys when an arm locked around his throat, a hand clamped a wad of cloth over his mouth and nose. He instinctively drew in breath to yell, inhaled an acrid chemical stink, and everything went dark.

* * *

A
plastic tarp covered the van’s floor. Three feet in front of Sean, Connolly sat in a wooden chair, completely bound to the chair by duct tape that shone a dull silver in the light of the camping lantern. Only Connolly’s head was free to move, and his fingers, which dangled off the ends of the chair’s armrests. He waited for Connolly to come out of his ether doze, and when Connolly began to make feeble motions toward consciousness, Sean took his gun out of its holster, and checked his back pocket to make sure the cable cutters were at the ready.

Nothing in his world was exact, nothing was totally predictable. He’d seen men live through gunshots to the head, seen explosives go off long before they should, long after they should, and everywhere in between. That was just the technology. People were even less predictable. He had seen people sacrifice their lives for persons they didn’t even know, seen people endure torture and death for a lost cause. Not all the unpredictability was noble. Once he had seen a woman blow up herself — and the infant in her arms — with a grenade rather than submit to capture. No, after all these years, people still had the capacity to surprise him.

One thing was predictable, though. Everyone had a breaking point.

He wondered idly when Connolly’s point would come.

Even as Sean thought this, Connolly’s eyes fluttered open; he stared for a moment, tried to move. Connolly’s mouth was taped shut, but Sean understood Connolly’s grunts as clearly as if they had been words. First, confusion.
Where am I? What the hell is this?
Then a sort of querulous protest.
Let me go! This isn’t funny, man!
A brief flare of anger —
Son of a bitch, let me go!
— and then, what Sean was waiting for. Fear. Connolly sitting there silent, sweating, eyes wide. Not showing whites all the way around the irises, but wide enough for now.

“Hello, Henry.”

A questioning grunt that might have been
Sam?
was the reply.

“You have something I want, Henry. Any idea what that could be? No? I think you’re lying. You’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want. You knew when you made that little slip of the tongue back in the bar.”

Anyone, Sean thought, could just pummel the information out of Connolly. No, the key to a truly professional interrogation, he’d always believed, was in making it last. And not just the physical part. You could wear down plenty by words alone. By making them wait for when you would stop talking and start in on other things.