Off the Grid (18 page)

40

A
fter Claude and the Chief had stumbled off to their respective bedrooms, Magozzi called Agent Dahl to tell him they wouldn’t be back tonight, asked him to pass the word to Chief Malcherson, then he and Gino refilled their glasses and plopped into down-filled chairs by the fireplace.

“What did he say?”

“He wasn’t happy.”

“Well, neither am I. Man, I feel like crap about tonight, Leo,” Gino sighed, listlessly swirling the ice cubes in his lowball. “I mean, Claude and Chief come to pick us up at the airport, feed us great food, and then we tell them their best friend was a murderer. And after we slap that pile of sorrow on them, we stay the night and drink their booze.”

“I know. But we did what we had to do.”

Gino grunted, lifting and stretching out his legs to greet the ottoman in front of him. “I told you we should have driven up here. But, oh no, you had to take a plane.”

“We couldn’t drive in this crap either, Gino.”

“We could go real slow. As it is now, we’re stuck here sitting on a hot computer and a freak show terror plot which could be moving forward by the second.”

Magozzi stared into the fireplace that still held the dying embers of the earlier fire. He could envision himself living in a place like this one day, old and retired and bird-watching with little binoculars as he drank his morning coffee. Not a bad place to get snowed in.

Gino stretched and yawned. “Man, I feel beat up. I think I’m going to hit the rack. How about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you. I’m just going to give Grace a quick call to check in first.”

“Where’s my briefcase?”

“Still in Claude’s truck.” Magozzi tossed Gino the keys. “Don’t slip on the ice. If you’re gone for more than five minutes, I’ll come out to make sure you didn’t get mauled by a bear.”

Gino went pale and unholstered his weapon. “Shit.”

While Gino went to retrieve his briefcase, Magozzi pressed speed dial. Grace’s cell phone didn’t even ring, just rolled straight over to voice mail. He paused, wondering if he should leave a message, remembering Grace’s admonition not to call any phone but her throwaway cell.
That’s the only number you can call, Magozzi. I’ll keep it on twenty-four/seven. Someone will always answer.

Magozzi closed his eyes and thought about it for a moment. Grace never messed up; never failed to follow through. If she said she’d answer the phone, then she’d answer the phone . . . unless something was wrong.

He felt his heart skip a beat and the hair on his arms stand up. He scooted to the edge of his chair, put his cell down on the coffee table, and stared at it. Take it easy, Magozzi. Don’t jump off the edge here. She could be in the bathroom. She could have left the phone downstairs when she went to bed. The battery could be dead. It could be any one of a million things.

Someone will always answer.

“Screw it.” He jumped to his feet, snatched up his cell, and called Harley’s landline in the Monkeewrench office. Again, no answer. He felt tiny roots of panic form in his stomach, then spread and grow when he tried Annie’s cell next, then Harley’s, then Roadrunner’s.

Gino straggled back in, lugging their bags. “Man, you should stick your head outside and listen to the owls. Sounds like they’re having a rave and I think one tried to . . .” When he saw the look on his partner’s face, he truncated any further conversation about owls. “What’s wrong, Leo?”

Magozzi’s hands felt hot and sticky on his phone. “I can’t reach any of them. All their phones go to voice mail.”

He watched Gino put his bag down and return calmly to his chair. That was something uniquely Gino—high-strung and difficult as a purebred cat most times, unless there was a crisis looming in any arena of his life—then he turned into the Dalai Lama. “Did you try their home phones?”

“Yeah. I’ll try again.”

Gino watched him punch in number after number, then look up in dismay.

“Nothing. This is all wrong. Grace promised someone would always answer the burner phone.” He paused and looked straight at Gino. “For Christ’s sake, they killed Kardon looking for Smith. Maybe they’re spreading the net.”

Gino puffed out a long exhale and reached into his pocket for the monster bottle of Tums he’d been popping all during the plane ride. He took out two and passed the bottle to Magozzi. Chili had been a really bad idea. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I get where you’re going and why you’re going there. But remember, the marina was the first place anyone would look for John, and we haven’t heard a peep from any of the next logical places they’d go to—like the Feds in D.C. or the people at his condo. If they’re spreading a net, they’ve got a few other places to look before they jump all the way up to Minneapolis and Monkeewrench . . .”

Magozzi was breathing too fast. “Goddamnit, Gino. There’s a jihad on John Smith, and we’ve got a nationwide terrorist plot, and terrorist activity all over Minneapolis. You were the one who said we were in the middle of something. What if we are? What if John Smith is the catalyst?”

Gino looked down at his hands and tried to pull his scattered thoughts together. They’d been so focused on Joe Hardy and the Little Mogadishu murders, and that pesky new information about a group of assholes planning to blow up the country, that he’d never really tried to put it together. People trying to kill John Smith had been out there on the periphery; a totally separate can of worms that had crept in just because of Grace’s connection to John and how that affected Magozzi; but damnit, the people who had tried to slash Smith’s throat on the boat had been Middle Eastern, probably acting on the jihad. Hello, terrorists. “Okay. I’m with you, buddy. Take a breath, then do what you have to do.”

Magozzi stared down into his glass and smelled the peaty fumes as they rose upward to his nostrils, beckoning him to be a real man and drink up. He liked the cinematic notion of downing a drink with steady hands before taking on an important, possibly destiny-altering task. The only problem with that scenario now was that adrenaline was screaming through his blood with the intensity of lava and his hands were shaking like a Chihuahua in a snowbank. Not exactly movie hero material.

His paralysis wasn’t lost on Gino, who finally said, “Call McLaren. He’s at the office holding down the night shift. He’ll take care of it.”

Magozzi finally mobilized, downed some whiskey, because that’s what John Wayne would have done, and made his call. McLaren answered after two rings. “Johnny, this is Leo . . .”

“Hey, Magozzi! I heard you and Gino had to trek it up to Siberia . . .”

“Johnny, I need a favor, and I need it fast.”

“Sure, anything. Sounds serious.”

“It is. We think somebody’s after Monkeewrench—presumed armed and very dangerous. They should all be together at Harley’s, but none of them are taking phone calls. I need you to send some men over there to check it out. They’ll need ladders, lights, flak jackets—I want every floor looked at from the outside and if there’s any sign of foul play, tell them to break a window, knock the goddamned door down, whatever they need to do.” The words had tumbled out in a fast rush of panicked breath, and he hoped they’d made sense, because there wasn’t time to explain any further.

“Jesus. Do you want me to send SWAT?”

“Whatever manpower St. Paul can afford to give. They need to cover Grace’s house, too. Have Minneapolis handle Annie’s and Roadrunner’s places.”

“Got it. I’ll make the calls and get it to Dispatch ASAP, then head to Harley’s myself. You want me to call you back at this number?”

McLaren was a guy who didn’t like to be taken seriously on his downtime, but when the chips fell, he was the best man for any job because he always got it done. That gave Magozzi some peace to cling to in the midst of this particular shit storm. “Yeah. Thanks, Johnny.” He hung up and put his head in his hands.

“What?” Gino asked.

“Johnny’s taking care of it.” Magozzi finally looked up. “They’re gone, Gino. Or they’re dead. Like Kardon.”

Gino shook his head. “Give that up, Leo. Monkeewrench knows how to protect themselves. There might be a houseful of bodies down there, but I guarantee none of them are theirs. Come on. You know Grace. You know the rest of them. No one’s going to catch them with their guard down.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Magozzi desperately wanted to believe it, almost had to believe it.

“Leo, don’t go to the darkest place right now,” Gino said firmly, reading his partner’s face. “Just try to figure out how you’re going to survive until McLaren calls back with an all clear. And it won’t take long—Johnny knows what this means to you. He won’t leave you hanging.”

Magozzi survived the gap in time by drinking the rest of his whiskey while he built and stoked a new fire over the waning coals in the grate. And Johnny didn’t let him down. True to form, he called back within the hour, as soon as he had news to share.

He put him on speaker so Gino could listen in, and possibly take over if the news was bad. There was a lot of background noise—men, squawking police radios, and whoops of sirens, which made it hard to hear, so Johnny had to shout.

“I’m at Harley’s along with some squads, off-duty SWAT guys, and a couple fire departments. Law enforcement loves Monkeewrench, so when I put out the call, anybody who was free showed up. It’s clear.”

Magozzi swallowed a lump in his throat that went down like a bag of cotton balls. “How clear?”

“The place is empty, no sign of foul play, and the doors are locked. Alarm systems armed and uncompromised.”

Magozzi and Gino breathed a collective, tentative sigh of relief.

“What about their other places?” Gino asked.

“Same,” McLaren said. “Nothing bad happened down here, but just in case, Minneapolis and St. Paul stepped up patrols for the night. Nothing suspicious now, but we’re covered, and I’ll plant myself in front of Harley’s until I hear anything different from you, or until the Homicide desk lights up and I have to scoot.”

Magozzi leaned forward and took a deep, shaky breath. “Thanks, Johnny. You’re the man.”

“Of course I am. And I damn well better get a full report on what the hell is going on when you get back.” He paused, and an anxious sigh emanated from his end. “You’ll let me know if you hear from them, right?”

“You’re our first call.”

41

A
nnie was not pleased with the back roads. Not one bit pleased. They were narrow, bumpy, and very dark, because towering pines started to crowd the road the farther north they drove, choking out what little light the moon cast through the growing cloud cover. It was like driving into a black hole, and it reminded her of a very scary time not so long ago when an army had tried to hunt her down and kill her in a similar, ghostly pine forest in Wisconsin.

There were reasons why certain places remained mostly uninhabited, and she had absolutely no desire to discover those reasons for herself. “We’re just as likely to find a Tiffany’s as we are a phone if we stay on this bridle path to nowhere, Grace.”

Grace was beginning to think Annie had a point, her friend’s loathing of the wilderness notwithstanding. “I’ll pull off at the first place we can get out of view, then we can take a closer look at the map.”

“Out of view from whom? We haven’t seen a car in at least an hour.”

“Is that a sign up ahead?” John asked quietly from the backseat.

Grace slowed the Rover to a crawl and the headlights illuminated a faded, listing road sign that probably would have tipped over into the ditch long ago without the bolster of the thick, vining brambles that strangled the post. If there had ever been any lettering on it, time and the elements had erased it, but she could still make out two faded pictographs: the universal symbols for toilet and phone. “A rest stop.”

Annie felt her shoulders tense up into twin knots. “That beat-up ol’ thing looks like a post-Armageddon prop out of a doomsday movie to me. And there are bullet holes in that sign, Grace. Bullet holes mean people with guns, who obviously shoot signs for fun. What else do you think they shoot for fun?”

Grace considered the pockmarks on the old sign, which were rusty and most certainly an historical artifact left by bored kids from days past. Unfortunately, the wayside rest and its promised phone service were probably historical artifacts by now, too. Places like the one advertised on the decrepit sign used to be welcoming, scenic havens for weary drivers traversing the vast, unpopulated countryside; a peaceful and pretty respite where you could stretch your legs, eat a sandwich, and take in Mother Nature before getting behind the wheel of the family station wagon again. But that had all changed a long time ago, with freeways carving much faster routes to desired destinations. The off-the-path places had faded poignantly away, back into the fields and woods where they’d nestled so usefully for decades.

“It’s probably been abandoned for years,” John said. “But we have to try.”

Grace took the turn, and the tar abruptly ended. The Rover bounced along a dirt track for what seemed like an eternity, and she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. The trees grew thicker, and boughs started scraping the sides of the big truck that was at least a foot wider than the road.

“Oh dear Lord,” Annie murmured, her hands mounted firmly on the dashboard as she tried to stay in her seat. Even Charlie was whining.

The path finally opened up onto a small, overgrown parking area littered with empty beer cans. There was a pathetic cluster of broken-down picnic tables, an old water pump that must have sufficed as a drinking fountain way back in the last century, and a concrete block outhouse. An old pay-phone box stood like an unlovely museum piece right next to the picnic area and Grace felt the utter loneliness of the place seep into her bones.

Harley grunted. “No way that thing is going to work.”

Grace unholstered her gun and scanned the area, turning back and forth in her seat for a three-sixty view. John caught her eye and nodded.

“I’m going to check out the phone. John, you take over in the driver’s seat and keep it running. Harley, up front. Annie and I need some rest.”

“I’m coming with you to the phone,” Harley said, no leeway in his voice. Charlie beat him out the open door.

Grace got slowly out of the truck. The air was much colder this far north, and a bitter wind hissed through the pine boughs. Other than that, it was quiet and dark.

The phone wasn’t far from the Rover, and Grace stopped midpoint and scanned the woods, which seemed to rise up in the distance. Some kind of ridge. The flat topography of the farm country they’d been traversing was beginning to undulate in gentle swells, courtesy of an ancient glacier, she supposed. Clouds were moving in fast, but she could see a distant glow of light glancing off the cloud’s plump, snow-filled bottoms, just beyond the ridge. Moonlight? A house? Or a car? Maybe kids drinking the night away in this forlorn place.

“Do you see something?” Harley whispered tensely, his own sidearm out and ready.

She shrugged uncertainly and pointed to the light.

He relaxed. “Moonlight,” he said. “The woods play tricks. You have no sense of distance, no point of reference up here.”

Grace felt any lingering doubt melt away and closed the distance to the phone with three long strides.

Life was as random as the spin of a roulette wheel and held no miracles; there was no such thing as fate or destiny; Grace firmly believed that. And yet when she picked up the cracked plastic receiver of the phone and heard a tone, she felt like she’d just experienced divine intervention. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered to Harley. “The damn thing works. Give me some change.”

Harley scowled and started digging through his pockets. “Who has change anymore? I haven’t used anything but an ATM card for fifteen years.”

Grace looked at the ancient relic and remembered her days on the run as a child, when she’d make daily rounds of the city’s pay phones to scrounge up loose change left in the coin return slots. On good days, she’d collect enough to buy toast and a warm seat in a diner, where she’d steal coffee creamer and ketchup packets that she made into soup with hot water from the bathroom faucet.

She jammed her hand into the slot and withdrew it with a victorious expression—two quarters. Kids were obviously too lazy and privileged nowadays to even bother to raid a simple source of free money anymore.

“Good job, Grace,” Harley said in a hushed voice as she plugged the change into the phone and dialed Magozzi. She talked quickly, listened, and then felt Charlie push against her leg. After she hung up, she bent to pat the dog and felt the rigidity of his body. He was sitting down, pressed hard against her, but his eyes were turned toward the ridge she’d been looking at earlier, and the light in the clouds above it. He whined once, then rumbled a low growl deep in his throat.