Authors: Sarah Andrews
Killer Dust (20 page)
Brad intersected me a few minutes later as I was walking across the lawn to Leah’s house. He gave me a mischievous grin. “So you’re Jack’s new lady.”
I nodded, even though I was no longer one-hundred-percent sure what I was agreeing to. I decided to deflect him. “Yeah … . So Brad, tell me about the mystery moves you and Walt were doing this evening. What kind of special training taught you to do that?”
“That was a little gag we learned as SEALs. So Jack-o didn’t tell you about his little pal Bradsky?”
“No.”
“I’m so insulted,” Brad said, pantomiming his heart being torn out. Then he gave me a knowing wink. “That Jack. He’s three years older than I am, and I guess I have always idolized him. We’d spend all day Saturday out on our bicycles, exploring the countryside—this is back when the countryside wasn’t so far away from here. We’d be collecting snakes, climbing trees, wading chest-deep through the swamps.”
“You waded through
swamps
?”
swamps
?”
“Yeah, you just have to know what you’re doing. But Jack did. He always knows how to handle himself, that boy. He taught me A to Z about reptiles, birds, plants. Hell, I followed him everywhere, even into the SEALs.”
“The SEALs. I take it that’s not just a merit badge you got in Cub Scouts.”
Brad gave me a sideways look. “No. So Jack’s holding out on you big-time! Oooo, not good, Jack. The Navy’s Special Ops unit. Stands for ‘SEa Air Land.’ Jack didn’t tell you about all that?”
No, he did not. He has not told me a great many things
. I had trouble forcing my voice out. “I knew he’d been in the service, but until I saw the picture on Leah’s mantel, I didn’t even know which branch.”
. I had trouble forcing my voice out. “I knew he’d been in the service, but until I saw the picture on Leah’s mantel, I didn’t even know which branch.”
Brad’s smile faded a notch. “Oh. So you’re just getting to know each other,” he said doubtfully.
Just then, I heard the sound of aircraft approaching low and fast overhead. Brad whipped his head around and quickly spotted them, catching a glimpse through the trees. It was a group of military jets flying in formation, heading east.
Brad grinned as he shaded his eyes to track them as they disappeared toward the rising sun. “Hey, Lucy! We’re proud of you, girl!”
“What are you talking about?”
Brad made a big gesture at the passing jets. He was all but dancing. “There they go! Won’t be long now.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“The astronauts. They always fly in from Houston in those T-38’s. Nice little jet trainers. They’re wasted on the Air Force, but at least they give them to the astronauts so they can keep their hours up.”
“Wait … that’s the astronauts arriving to go up in the shuttle? They come over Orlando?”
“Yeah. So does the shuttle, when it lands at the Cape. Makes a signature double sonic boom. Sets off the car alarms. But this is the crew of the shuttle arriving, big fanfare. They come in a couple days ahead. I guess that means the orbiter’s rolling back out of the assembly building. They rolled it back a week or more ago because of the winds off the hurricane that’s been nattering around in the southern Caribbean.”
“But that means they’re going up.”
“That’s what I just said. Hey, don’t worry. We got that thing out of the beach.” Brad squinted at me. “Oh, I get it. You’re thinking there might be a second one out there.” He gave me a friendly nudge with his elbow. “Don’t you think Jack would have told us?”
“What if there’s another one he didn’t know about?” I didn’t want to say what I was thinking, which was,
What if he’s the one who put it there?
Even as I thought that thought, I knew it didn’t quite make sense, because why hide something and then tell someone where you hid it?
Unless he did hide it, but then decided that he should tell Tom, because Tom’s almost like a father figure to him. Maybe he thought better of it when Tom argued with him, and
…
what am I thinking?!
What if he’s the one who put it there?
Even as I thought that thought, I knew it didn’t quite make sense, because why hide something and then tell someone where you hid it?
Unless he did hide it, but then decided that he should tell Tom, because Tom’s almost like a father figure to him. Maybe he thought better of it when Tom argued with him, and
…
what am I thinking?!
Now I was certain that I was not making sense. Had my doubts about Jack grown to the point where I suspected him of madness? Of violence?
I wanted desperately to ask Brad questions about Jack, but just then Brad opened the door that led from the carport into Leah’s kitchen and ushered me through. Inside, he turned his attention to Tom, who looked entirely out of his element, busy dispensing glasses of orange juice. The moment to pump Brad had passed.
So my lover had been in the Navy SEALs, a macho group if there ever was one. Having grown up in a landlocked state, I knew next to nothing about the Navy, and nothing at all about its special ops unit. I had no use for water beyond drinking it and taking a shower, but it seemed that I’d gotten in bed with a man who knew how to just about live in it. I wondered what other little surprises Jack had in store for me. If and when he showed up again.
I felt Leah watching me. Our eyes met and locked for a while. I wondered if she could tell that I was thinking angry, suspicious thoughts about her son. At that moment, I would have paid any price to know what she was thinking, to know what she knew about him, but I was so far off my emotional balance that I lacked the nerve to ask.
Finally, breaking the silence of our interaction, she said, “Come eat, Em. You must be starving.”
Starving. Was that what I had been, to fall in love with a man who had told me so little about himself?
Over a breakfast of scrambled eggs and grits, we made plans.
Brad and Walt would make inquiries regarding the weapon. “We need to find out where it came from. Who bought it? Who laid the plan to use it here?”
“It may have been stolen from whomever bought it,” Tom said.
Brad shook his head. “These guys may be crazy, but they’re not stupid. They’re usually into low-cost options, like using somebody else’s equipment. This they would have purchased. They would notice if it went missing.”
Tom said, “You keep saying ‘they.’ Jack thought it was a solo act.”
Brad shook his head. “That’s some major money there. I’d like to meet the solo terrorist who can afford a SAM-7.”
Tom knit his brow in a particular way I had come to know spelled obstinate with a capital
O
. “Jack told me the guy was an errand boy for a hive of drug runners. But I’ll call in some favors, see who’s active in this area. Find out who’s got a beef.” It was strange watching Tom try to operate outside his expertise and jurisdiction—not that he had a jurisdiction anymore. It was half a year since he had turned in his badge. To me, he said, “Em, you’re in charge of forensic analysis of the geologic materials we found associated with the weapon.”
O
. “Jack told me the guy was an errand boy for a hive of drug runners. But I’ll call in some favors, see who’s active in this area. Find out who’s got a beef.” It was strange watching Tom try to operate outside his expertise and jurisdiction—not that he had a jurisdiction anymore. It was half a year since he had turned in his badge. To me, he said, “Em, you’re in charge of forensic analysis of the geologic materials we found associated with the weapon.”
I said, “Okay. There’s a protocol to this. I have to extract representative samples of the sand from inside and outside the bag. Then I need to split each sample into two. I’ll want someone to witness all this, because we’re talking evidence of a crime—lest we forget that we may need to cover our asses somewhere down the line, or need to make this stick
if we’re trying to get someone jailed—we should make up a chain-of-custody document to carry with the samples. I’ll then express one set of samples to the FBI’s forensic geology lab in Washington, D.C., for safekeeping. The other set I’ll take across to St. Petersburg and pull every string I can to get the provenance of the sand inside the plastic.”
if we’re trying to get someone jailed—we should make up a chain-of-custody document to carry with the samples. I’ll then express one set of samples to the FBI’s forensic geology lab in Washington, D.C., for safekeeping. The other set I’ll take across to St. Petersburg and pull every string I can to get the provenance of the sand inside the plastic.”
“Provenance?” Tom queried.
“It’s a fifty-cent geological term that means, ‘where it came from and what that means geologically.’”
Tom waved his hand in dismissal. “For once, spare me the intellectual frivolities and just give me an
X
on a map.”
X
on a map.”
Tom had a way of getting imperious when a job made him anxious, and that had a way of making me want to get just as arrogant right back at him. “What it means geologically and where the
X
is are one in the same, Tom. This is war, and war is one big game of geopolitics.”
X
is are one in the same, Tom. This is war, and war is one big game of geopolitics.”
Walt looked at Brad and said, “What’s she talking about?”
Brad said, “White girl angry.”
Walt grunted.
I said, “Walt, you’ve been trained to fight. What do you fight over?”
“I fight for justice.”
“I said
over
, not
for
.”
over
, not
for
.”
Tom said, “The slogan used to be, ‘Peace, freedom, and the American way.’ The current administration changed it to suit the times.”
I thought,
Uh-oh, Tom’s getting sarcastic. An even worse sign. The master of manipulation is not in control of the situation, and worse yet, it’s got him downright scared.
Uh-oh, Tom’s getting sarcastic. An even worse sign. The master of manipulation is not in control of the situation, and worse yet, it’s got him downright scared.
Brad matched Tom’s tone. “As I recall, that change had something to do with jets full of people flying into big buildings full of people. And if you’re calling me a patsy, maybe you’re right. I joined the Navy to follow someone I admired, and his name is Jack Sampler. But when I had become a soldier—and I mean fully trained as one—I began to see that I had a job to do, and that was to protect people who can’t protect themselves.”
Tom lost his cool entirely and said, “You’re talking about a warrior. A soldier is some poor slob who’s been trained to follow orders. Em’s right, this is all a game of geopolitics. Those assholes didn’t care if we caught Bin Laden, they just wanted to get their grubby hands on Afghanistan so they could run a damned oil pipeline from the Caspian down to the Indian Ocean. They’re a bunch of opportunists.”
Brad stood up and planted his feet as wide as his shoulders. “Bullshit. The secretary of defense was on our brothers’ asses every day to chase that SOB down. Whatever you say, boss. If being worked over by politicians means we get to roust a few terrorists into the bargain, so be it. Tonight, we disarmed a terrorist on our own shores.”
Tom stayed in his chair, but his face was getting red. I’d never seen him this worked up before. “Right. We’re talking about an antiaircraft missile. Now, how do you suppose that shit head got hold of the thing in the first place? Oh, yeah, it was our brilliant Reagan administration sent about 900 of the goddamned things to the Mujahideen so they could shoot Russian helicopters out of the air, and surprise, a good number of them turned up missing. The problem with arming those jackasses is that we don’t seem to have the same ideas about how they’re supposed to be used. Imagine that, they shake down Uncle Sam for something to harass the Soviets, and now we’re finding them right back here buried two feet under a place where our children are playing. If you don’t think that’s totally fucked, you’re
insane
!”
insane
!”
Brad leaned toward Tom and spoke through his teeth. “Tom, you’re a former G-man, and I suppose you think you’re different from me, but you guys have violated peoples’ civil rights left and right, and as we speak you have big-time problems in the Bureau. My comrades and I are warriors. If we don’t care, or we quit and walk away, who is going to do the job? And who is going to keep the powers-that-be honest? I’m just a reservist these days, but some of us are staying in for careers, and those few that
reach the top hope to make a difference someday, because just like you, we believe in protecting the Constitution and the freedoms that we still enjoy in this country.”
reach the top hope to make a difference someday, because just like you, we believe in protecting the Constitution and the freedoms that we still enjoy in this country.”
Tom turned his face away. For once, he offered no comeback.
By the time I had collected my samples and rigged a crude chain-of-custody documentation for them, it was seven A.M. I was ready to head straight back to St. Petersburg, but Tom was still off somewhere talking to Brad and Walt, so Leah insisted that I try to get some sleep. But when Leah showed me to her spare room, I was jolted into full wakefulness again as I surmised that I was in Jack’s boyhood bedroom.
Feigning fatigue, I closed the door and greedily got to work snooping. Here was a trove of personal treasures collected by the boy who was to become the man. Here were relics that had given meaning to his young life. The shelves were filled with field guides, snakeskins, animal skulls, rocks, game balls, and sports trophies, an eclectic mix that suggested both a loner who liked to explore and a team player who liked to compete. He had books on electronic surveillance, code breaking, and weaponry. There were several volumes on military history, primarily eighteenth- and nineteenth-century naval battles. A corkboard was shingled with jokes cut out of newspapers, wise and witty sayings from Kipling, funny pictures of himself and pals horsing around making faces in four-poses-for-a-dollar booths. On the walls were posters of coral reefs, sailboats, and what the well-dressed medieval soldier is wearing. There was one very sweet photograph of him and Brad, ages approximately nine and twelve, out fishing on a boat in the ocean, not a spec of land in sight. Brad had caught a mackerel, and Jack had an arm around him in congratulations; a couple of good-looking boys out having the times of their young lives. In all, it was a calm, friendly room. Yet something was missing. What could that be?
Certainly it was not Jack that was missing from the
room. The essence of his searching, mischievous character was here just as certainly as he had been with me ten nights earlier, when we had consummated our love. He was here in force, in layers and details I had not imagined existed. And yet there was a blank spot in the chain of information.
room. The essence of his searching, mischievous character was here just as certainly as he had been with me ten nights earlier, when we had consummated our love. He was here in force, in layers and details I had not imagined existed. And yet there was a blank spot in the chain of information.
I lay down on the bed, but the sensation of Jack’s presence was so acute that there was no hope of sleep. My neck was rigid with stress and my eyes would not close. I kept staring at the ceiling, trying to read words I imagined that Jack would have etched there with his eyes.
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