After the Rain (8 page)

Broker and Nina’s marriage, conceived in high adventure, could not survive ordinary life. After Kit was born, Nina nursed her for six months, woke up one morning, saw the dishes in the kitchen sink, experienced a panic attack, and hurried back into the Army.

Some cops in Minnesota, who were not exactly fans of Phil Broker, saw a measure of poetic justice in the complications of his marriage.

Karma coming back to him, stuff like that.

So.

For a number of reasons, all of them having to do with airport security, Broker had decided not to fly into Grand Forks. And though he still had a deputy badge and ID, a routine phone check with the Washington County Sheriff’s office would elicit the friendly reminder that he should have turned the badge in yesterday. These minor details would complicate flying commercial with the .45-caliber automatic, the two magazines, and the box of ammunition he had tucked under the front seat.

The circumstances he was driving into struck him as very odd. Broker was familiar with Nina Pryce’s flaws. But those flaws ran to vainglory, arrogance, and compulsive overachievement. Quitting on any task or abandoning her people were taboos in her strict warrior code. He could not imagine Nina abandoning her daughter as long
as there was still breath in her body…Broker knit his bushy eyebrows and smiled an unhappy intuitive smile…But she was capable of using their daughter in some cockeyed special-ops ploy, if the stakes were high enough.

Goddamn sonofabitch!

But even angry, wounded, and full of painkillers, Broker remained focused. He took several deep breaths and let his eyes travel over the empty landscape.

He was driving through some of the least populated territory in the United States. So what was a Delta Force operator doing in Langdon, North Dakota?…His eyes drifted north, past the wheatfields to his right. For the second time he flashed his unhappy grin as a line from
The Magnificent Seven
time-traveled into his mind. He heard the sound track, saw Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen banter back and forth about something they had going…

“…
in this little town below
…

“…the longest undefended international border in the world.”

So. When it came down to it, he wasn’t in a mood to rely on other people to protect his daughter.

Twenty minutes later, two blue water towers, some grain elevators and a micro dish antenna rose out of the fields and he drove into Langdon, North Dakota. It was one-thirty on a Sunday afternoon, no sun, gray clouds like an overcoat over ninety-seven humid degrees. The air was heavy and sweaty, hovering over a million acres of ripening wheat.

The first thing he saw was the four new white Tahoes with Border Patrol markings parked at the motel. Okay…

The county building was low red brick on his right. A leafy main street nestled in shadow on his left. Keep going? Find the pool? Or talk to the cops?

Kit was waiting in the park two blocks away. Broker doubted that Jane was alone. Assuming Jane and company were Nina’s comrades, Broker figured his daughter was at this moment the most
well-defended child in North Dakota. She could last another half-hour.

Broker reverted to one of his basic commonsense rules, which in this case was the Waco Rule of Thumb. The WRT posited that in 99.9 percent of all cases the locals knew the ground far better than the federal interlopers, were less arrogant, and would return straight talk in kind.

So he ignored mysterious Jane’s admonition to check in with her first. He drove around the county offices until he spotted a small sign on a rear entrance by the parking lot:
SHERIFF’S OFFICE
. He parked, checked the note he’d scribbled to himself again. Sheriff Norman Wales. Then he went in through the door.

Something had to be up. Why else would the sheriff be in his office on a muggy Sunday afternoon?

Broker gave his name
and came under the intense scrutiny of a very curious dispatcher the moment he was buzzed in through the security door. She directed him through the radio room and pointed to two men, one in uniform, who appeared in a doorway. Then she immediately reached for a phone.

“We’ll walk you down to Norm’s office. Jim Yeager,” said the husky one in jeans and a T-shirt, extending a hard farmer’s mitt. “This is Barry Sauer, state highway patrol,” he said.

Broker shook their hands in turn. Sauer was obviously working today. He wore a dark brown shirt and tan trousers and had a full service belt strapped around his waist. He had the creased and spit-shined military bearing that the people who bossed state cops liked to see in their troops. Yeager and Sauer kept glancing at Broker’s bandaged left hand. But there was more to their curiosity.

They came in to look me over. Word’s out.

They were old-fashioned cops, like Broker’s dad had been. Two of the biggest, strongest guys in town. But they had quick eyes and were light on their feet and Broker decided that strong did not imply dumb with this bunch.

Stay alert.

Sheriff Norm Wales, like his deputy, Yeager, came in special today. He wore jeans and a golf shirt and stood waiting in his office doorway. He waved the two cops off and they retreated back down the hall. “That where you got shot?” he asked, pointing to Broker’s hand. The remark got Broker’s attention. Wales was letting him know he was up to speed. He had a soft, reserved voice, sad, blue basset-hound eyes, sandy brown hair, and thirteen-inch wrists.

“How’d you know?” Broker asked back as they shook hands.

“I had this little sheriff’s convention to get the book on you. When I heard you were coming I talked to Jeffords in Cook County again. He handed me off to Eisenhower in Washington County, who says, by the way, you forgot to turn in one of his shields.” Wales paused and cleared his throat. “In case you were thinking of flying any false flags. We seem to have a rash of that going on last couple days.”

Broker shifted from foot to foot. This prairie cop had done his homework.

Wales indicated a chair in front of his desk. “Go on, sit.” He closed his office door, went around behind his desk, sat down, and said, “Your daughter is just fine. She’s up at the municipal pool, swimming laps. We’ve had people watching her ever since this started. But the fact is, looks like she’s running in some pretty heavy company.” Wales gave Broker a very direct look. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“I just got here,” Broker said, as he dropped into the chair.

“Your kid got very strangely abandoned in my town and suddenly I got sheriffs coming out of my ears. Gets a guy to thinking. So I took a flyer, had the county attorney call somebody he knows who works in the Minnesota AG’s office,” Wales said.

“Who?”
Uh-oh.

“Tim Downs. My guy met him at a seminar at the University of Minnesota. I believe you’re acquainted.”

Shit.
“Sure. Downs and I worked in St. Paul together some years back. We were never what you’d call close.”

Wales tugged an earlobe. “Right. Downs had a knack for Internal Affairs and you had a knack for undercover. Not exactly compatible assignments. And, well, Downs did go to law school…”

They let it cook between them for a few seconds and then Wales resumed: “Downs says some people back in your state think you’re one of the bad guys. Eight years back you dropped out of police work, showed up in Vietnam. The story goes you dug up a shitload of lost gold bullion. To hear Downs’ version, you’re a cross between a mercenary and a pirate.” He paused. “You want some water or something? You don’t look so hot.”

Broker held up his hand. “Infection.”

“Uh-huh. So—are you some kind of freelance pirate, or what?”

Broker defaulted to his basic operating persona. He maintained strict eye contact and kept his voice flat and steady. “Wales, I own this little resort up on Lake Superior. We got pretty good walleye and lake trout fishing if you’re ever up that way.”

“Yep. Downs told us. He also told us you’re married to Nina Pryce, a gal in the Army who’s stirred up enough controversy that Downs says she got her name in
Newsweek
a couple times. Saturday, I got Nina Pryce showing up in my county. Sunday, I got you.”

Broker watched Wales furrow his forehead, the sheriff thinking he might try to stare Broker down. Wales decided not to and nodded. “Okay?” He opened his large hands in a reasonable gesture. Broker noticed he wore a copper bracelet around his right wrist. “I’ll make this simple. The federal undercover population of my county has just shot up considerably in the last two days. All I want to know is—are you part of the problem or part of the solution?”

Broker was exhausted from the drive, his hand hurt, his head hurt. All the unflappable reflexes he’d cultivated over the years failed him utterly. He was an angry dad whose kid had been deserted.
Fuck a bunch of feds. “Goddamn bitch,” he muttered. “All I know is, I came to get my kid,” Broker said hotly.

Wales sensed a chink in Broker’s surface and his demeanor toughened perceptibly. “You and your wife are broke up, right?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Well, just what is it that your wife does in the Army?”

“Last I heard she was in Italy.” Broker hoped that was general enough.
Goddamn you, Nina, I’m going to wring your neck.

Wales squinted at Broker. “She’s a long way from Italy now.”

“Guess so. We’ve been out of touch.”

Wales leaned back and steepled his fingers. He stared briefly at a county road map that hung on the wall. “How do I say this?”

“Try straight ahead.”

“Straight ahead it is. Nina showed up with this Jane lady and they put considerable effort into looking, ah, like they were
involved
together.”

“Say again?” Broker came forward slightly in his chair.

“Traveling as, ah, a quarreling couple,” Wales said.

Broker stared at him.

“Actually, we don’t have a whole lot of experience with this sort of thing out here…” Wales talking slower now, deadpan, drawing it out and studying Broker’s feverish face for a reaction.

“C’mon, Wales. You don’t strike me as a guy who talks sideways,” Broker said.

“Alternative lifestyles. I believe that’s what you call it in Minnesota, ain’t it?”

“Wales?”

“Out here I guess we’re less kindly disposed toward…alternative lifestyles, but naturally we’re working on it,” Wales said.

“What exactly is it you want to tell me?”

“This Jane lady Nina’s traveling with works real hard at looking sexy in a strident way that excludes men. She comes across queer.”

“Ah,” Broker said as a jagged fever spike flared up through the roof of his mouth and jabbed into his brain.

Wales continued his careful scrutiny. “Gotta give them an A for effort. You worked UC, you know how hard it is to put an agent into a small community. I didn’t buy it at first look, but there’s some who did. Like maybe their intended target. Or maybe not. Maybe he’s just bored and this gambit amuses him.”

“You might as well tell me the whole story,” Broker said in his best neutral voice.

“Sure, I can do that. Yesterday around noon this soap opera rolls into town. We get a call, two women having a domestic in the parking lot of a virtually closed local bar. They got a little kid with them. So our deputy goes and cools them out. Various accusations pass back and forth. My cop separates them. Gets them to agree on a plan to diffuse the conflict. The plan is to locate you to come get your kid. Jane gives my guy a contact person to find you. Jane takes your kid and checks into the motel. Then Nina…”

Wales paused, massaged his right wrist where he wore the copper band. “Arthritis. Copper’s s’posed to help. Anyway, when Nina doesn’t show up at the motel, Jane calls my deputy as per the arrangement. He calls the contact person who turns out to be the sheriff in Cook County, Minnesota. Now, we get to wondering—why is a county sheriff involved?

“Then Sheriff Jeffords calls me and asks me, as a favor, to make extra sure nothing happens to your kid on account of you and him are buddies. Meanwhile, your Nina runs off with the bar owner. Seems they saw they had something in common from the git. To wit: a drinking problem.”

“Aw god.” Broker sagged forward, elbow on knee, face in his hand. “Go on,” he said. The fever had now divided into a lot of little spikes that started to seethe behind his eyes like flames, or maybe snakes. He struggled to keep a straight face.

Very casual, very sly, Wales hit Broker with his crack shot. “By the
way. Nina and Jane rolled into town in this broken-down Volvo.”

“
Volvo
,” Broker said in a strangled voice.

Wales grinned. “That’s how my guy read it. He said that underneath their bullshit, these two chicks had the look of folks who might arrive by Humvee, or in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, or by fuckin’ parachute…”

Broker held up his hands. “I give up. You’re right. The people she hangs with would turn Volvos away from her funeral.”

“And those people would be…”

“Nina never brought her work home.” Broker clicked his teeth together. “The fact is, she ain’t brought herself home, either, the last couple years.”

“You ever heard of the Purple Platoon?” Wales asked.

Broker shook his head. “Where’d that come from?”

“Your friend Downs, he’s got a photographic memory, I guess. From an article he read. What about the term
D-girls
?”

Broker stared at him. “Got me.”

“C’mon, Broker,” Wales said softly. “Try D for Delta.”

Broker slumped his shoulders. “Wales, man, I don’t know. I just come here to get my kid clear of whatever’s going on.”

Wales leaned across his desk and said, “Maybe.”

They stared at each other.

Slowly, employing a reasonable tone of voice, Wales said, “Look. The guy she took off with is named Ace Shuster. He did a bit for manslaughter ten years ago. Everybody, including me, believes it was self-defense and the jury stuck it to him. A case of personal and local politics. He drinks too much and considers himself a ladies’ man. And his dad had a moment of notoriety a couple years back as the biggest whiskey smuggler in North Dakota. But the way they do it, they haven’t been breaking any state laws. The dad split for Florida and left Ace behind to sell the family bar. And probably, from time to time, Ace ships a little booze north, like a thousand other saloons between here and Washington State. But his heart
ain’t really in it, because the truth is, Ace ain’t such a bad guy. We also believe, but cannot as yet prove, that the little asshole who runs Ace’s bar, Gordy Riker, is moving methamphetamine precursor, and anything else that pays the freight, down from Canada…”

Wales’ voice was picking up momentum. “I talked to people in Bismarck who never bullshit me. There is no state operation aimed at Ace Shuster currently in the works.”

Broker stared at Wales’ face. It was a rugged, compassionate face, like the perfect uncle or the perfect sergeant. Wales narrowed his eyes. “Let me tell you how it is. I got three full-time deputies for this whole county. There’s one state highway patrol copper…”

Broker interrupted. “I saw a bunch of brand-new Border Patrol Tahoes parked at the motel on the way in.”

“Right. After 9/11 they started sending guys from Texas through here on thirty-day rotations. We got three official border crossings in the county. They close between ten at night and six in the morning. The BP sits at the customs stations each night just in case Al Qaeda comes trotting down the road in platoon strength chanting the Koran.”

“I wish I could help you, Wales,” Broker said.

“Lemme put it to you this way, Broker. You remember Gordon Kahl?”

Broker nodded. “Tax resister, Posse Comitatus type. There was a shoot-out here in North Dakota, early eighties. They got him later someplace down south.”

“Arkansas. But the scene here is what I’m getting at. Feds came strutting into Medina and brushed the local cops aside. Dumb shits. Set up an ambush on the road. Two federal marshals were killed and Kahl got away. Lot of people think that wouldn’t have happened if they let the local sheriff handle it.”

Wales smiled tightly and paused to let his words sink in before he resumed talking. “I got two hundred miles of wide-open border, and, like I said, three official crossings under the watchful eye of the
U.S. Border Patrol.” He stood up, planted his wide knuckles on his desk, and enunciated very clearly: “And I got twenty-three prairie roads cutting through the fields that people been using for a hundred years. Some of them are graded and can handle a semitrailer.”

He paused and took a breath. Then he said, “So I only got one question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS ARMY SPECIAL OPS DOING IN MY COUNTY!”