Patience County War (Madeleine Toche Series) (18 page)

“I’ll contact each person to get schedules and determine if any additional weapons are necessary. I think we should have two headquarters, the bunker and the ridge behind Sam’s house. Each person will be assigned a fallback position nearest to their homes,” John said.

“We can dig in on the ridge. I agree we need to draw any fireworks as far from the town as possible. The last thing I want is a bunch of yahoos from the tavern trying to help us by running around with shotguns and .22s,” Sam said.

“The ridge is fortified,” John said simply.

“So that’s what you do with your spare time Dad. I assume it’s provisioned as well?”

“Not the yummiest food ever, but I’ve got water, ammo, and communications gear.”

Sam smiled at the old warrior; one more time into the breach. It had been a long time since John Trunce had been in combat, but it was what he did best. He still trained as if a call to war was only around the corner. I suppose, Sam thought, that if you’d been called three times to big ones and who knows how many times to other operations, the call is just around the corner. It did not matter to Sam that John was pushing eighty years old. His mind was sharp and he was as deadly as ever, he’d shown that. Sam pitied anyone who went up against him and was glad to have him. They would be ready.

“Nathan, please call and tell your father I need him,” John said.

Nathan smiled and said, “He has been preparing also and waiting for your orders.”

“He is the best soldier I’ve ever known, you know.”

“He says the same thing of you, and that you taught him everything he knows about war.”

John smiled and was transported more than thirty years back in time to a dark jungle, trapped in an ambush by an unknown number of the enemy, alone with his executive officer, fighting for their lives. They should have both been dead and they knew it. They had escaped by diving down a ravine, something that only a crazy person would attempt. Neither man
had to talk the other into it, they just went. It was a day for miracles, and every day since, combat or no, had been gravy.

Joseph Harper sat in his kitchen and watched as his wife sharpened a stabbing spear in a methodical and intensely frightening way. He marveled once again that an old farm boy from Mississippi had pursued and won an African princess. She was as dark as night, lean and spare. Her body had no fat. She worked hard with her husband and son, living largely off the land. She took great pride in her life and could never understand why anyone would need to go to a gym. She would smile and say, “Dance more.” Harper had learned to love the life outside, from his years in the Masai camp and raising his son in the Missouri woods. His wife never complained. He had learned to read her, and knew when it was time to hop on a plane and go to Africa. She was the most spontaneous woman he had ever known. He had learned that planning was overrated and that being able to adapt was part of life. More than once he had taken her hand and led her to the car, driven to the airport, and jumped on a plane. Once Nathan had gotten older he just took care of their livestock and farm when his father asked him.

She looked up at her husband, smiled, and continued to sharpen the wicked looking spear. “The dogs who come for us will know we are Masai.”

No shit, Harper thought as he watched her, a princess of an ancient nation of pure warriors. No long distance anything. You looked your enemy in the eye when you killed him and he looked you in the eye when he tried to kill you. The Masai saw a beauty in that brutality. They always seemed anxious to get to it, and that was as scary as hell. Ua, he thought, a lovely name. What most people didn’t know was that in Swahili his wife’s name meant flower. It also meant kill. Joseph, remembering his history, recalled that when the British tried to colonize that area of Africa, now Kenya, they wisely went around the Masai.

V
irgil woke up with the worst hangover ever. He was lying in a cornfield next to his house. He didn’t even have the luxury of knowing what he’s done to end up that way. His head felt like an anvil, his stomach like a sewer. He was a nervous shaky wreck and now he had to go in and face his wife.

As he stood he thought, Oh just take me now Lord. He ambled over to the front door and tried the knob, and found it locked. Not good. He saw the wall clock through the kitchen window; it was ten to five in the morning. He never came home that late. Virgil reached into his pocket to see if by some miracle his keys were still in his pocket. He pulled out his keys and some snap shots. Holy shit. And what the damn hell? Strippers? His reaction was mixed; a little upset he couldn’t remember any of it, but mostly abject horror. These we burn, and right now. Virgil walked over to his burn barrel and destroyed the evidence. He began to formulate a plan, the old ‘ran into an old buddy routine.’ This time when he got to the door, Martha his wife was there, waiting for him. To his surprise she hugged and kissed him, put him in a shower, and put him to bed. No fireworks, no yelling, no questions. If he ever had to answer any questions on this one he
would sure as hell hold his water on anything he knew, but as it was, he couldn’t remember a damn thing. Who knew, maybe he was abducted by aliens. There had to be more than one husband or boyfriend out there who had played that card before. At least if he had been abducted it didn’t feel like the aliens had probed him. That would have been just too much. Man, he felt like boiled shit.

“Virgil, you were not abducted by aliens,” Sam said into the phone, glad to hear Virgil’s voice. At least the mysterious abduction had been resolved.

“Well, I have no idea what happened or where I went.”

“Nothing? Even when a guy drinks too much he has a clue where he started out,” Sam said.

“I went up to the sawmill near the house,” Virgil said.

“The meth lab, Virgil.”

“The what?”

“Your abduction was more like someone slipped you a mickey, drugs to make you forget.”

“They did the trick.”

“Let me know if you remember anything else.”

“Sam, can we not say anything to Martha?”

“That would be just too cruel, Virgil. Besides, I don’t want any discussion about drug dealers in Patience. I will take care of those bastards. They are starting to piss me off. If anyone is going to knock somebody out in my county, it’s going to be me!”

The more Sam thought about the Virgil situation the more he worried. Well, at least they’re not butchers, but they were able to pull that off pretty easily, and that means they are at least somewhat sophisticated. They understood that dead bodies complicated things and sent messages instead. Anything was possible. Leaving Virgil alive had been a tactical move. Dead bodies put people on alert, and gave them a chance to prepare. If the enemy had any plans for retaliation, they wouldn’t want anyone prepared. An old, raw feeling started in Sam’s belly. He had seen his share of clandestine combat missions. There always seemed to be some kind of ‘calm before the storm’. He didn’t think it would be long before everything went to hell.

T
racy Trunce sat in his office at NSA headquarters and reviewed a report that noted several intercepted reports going to and from Manny the Farmer, an individual who the DEA suspected had some involvement in drug trafficking into the US, but that was it. They had no proof, and the communications were in a code that so far the cryptographers and their massive array of computers could not crack. They knew that it was military, and Tracy did not like that at all. He wanted to find out what kind of network, if any, his brother was up against, not only from a local perspective but from a global one. Tracy knew how little incidents could become big ones. He picked up the phone and called Patience.

“Hello Tracy,” Moon said as he sat in an office tucked far back at the bunker that served as Sam’s sheriff station. He adjusted his lab coat over his slender frame and leaned back in his chair.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Very few people use this line. I like it like that. It’s kind of like the Bat phone.”

“Moon, while you’re manning the bat cave, I need you to do some research on a guy named, Manny the Farmer. He is a bad guy from Mexico
who might have some resources in Missouri to harass certain elements of regional law enforcement efforts.”

“I see. Do you have a triangulation point?” Moon said.

“I have a source server, but who knows where the actual origin is,” Tracy said.

“Send me what you’ve got, I’ll go hunting.”

Sam drove an old four door sedan down a street in East St. Louis, trying not to look too white. The car was a beater and wouldn’t attract any significant notice. It was like the old Sex Pistol’s lyric, “I look around your house, you’ve got nothing to steal.” He just needed a quick in and out. The man he needed to get a message to didn’t take calls, and sure as hell didn’t spend much time traveling the countryside. Sam pulled into the small parking lot of a southern-style rib joint. It was mid-afternoon, so there were only a few faces around, customers loafing around in the front of the store. The tables were old and bolted to the floor. Everything had that well-used but still useful look. There was a short menu on the wall and you could get cans of beer and soda. No bottles; best not to hand out weapons in a downright dangerous place like East St. Louis.

Sam walked into the restaurant in beat up jeans and a fraying old t-shirt, looking very un-cop like. He walked up to the counter and said, “Elmore in back?”

“Elmore,” the old man behind the counter yelled instantly, “lost white man to see you.”

“Fuck ‘em,” came back a snarly retort.

“He don’t have that ‘I think I’d like to get fucked by a scraggly old black man look to him.” Although Sam didn’t look like a cop, he looked like he could handle himself, and without a doubt had guns on him. Both assessments were correct.

“Well God damn, I’m cooking! Everybody thinks this meat falls from the damn trees! This ain’t no squirt some shit on a backyard grill and burn the shit out of everything deal here, I got food on!”

“You always got food on you mangy old picker!” Sam yelled.

A rangy old rail of a man came hurrying out of the back. He had a smile that few people got to see on a regular basis, but he always had it for Sam.

“Elmore Whitman Smith, BBQ king,” Sam yelled.

The older man rushed over and clasped Sam’s hand and clapped him on the back.

“Bad ass Sam Trunce,” he left out the crazy cop part. It just was not the place for it.

“Sit down, Sam. Iced tea?”

“Absolutely, but can I see the smokehouse?”

Another huge beam from Smith. “Sure, come on back. I’ll always show you what’s cookin.”

“Now I’ve heard you say that to the ladies back at Detroit Charlie’s a time or to.”

“God don’t mention that place. We both got out just in time, you with your ass, and me with my guitar and BBQ recipe and not much else. I ain’t never going any farther back up north than I am right now, never!”

Sam just nodded and put his hand on Smith’s bony shoulder. Sam had helped Smith’s grandson, saved his life in the very shootout that had almost taken Sam. When it was over, all the bad guys were dead and Sam lived. Smith had never heard of so many dead people in one room. Smith thought Sam was nothing short of the toughest man he’d ever heard of. Smith had rarely played his guitar in front of white people until he did it in Detroit as part of a blues band that got gigs in nice places. He had a following. Real blues people knew who Elmore Whitman Smith was. His guitar made you cry, but not so bad that you couldn’t eat his BBQ.