Off the Grid (17 page)

37

I
n a tiny house on the backstreets of Little Mogadishu, a tall, dark man clicked off the burner cell he had activated only this morning. He had boxes of them stacked in a corner of the kitchen. He used them for only one day, then disposed of them in the nearby river.

“Who was it?” a heavyset man asked from the stove. It was shameful for a man to prepare food, but the woman who normally performed this task had been barred from the house for the past week. At this critical time, a third pair of eyes, no matter how trusted, could not be permitted to witness their activities.

“The Monkeewrench partners have left the city.”

“The phone call to their office?”

“Perhaps. Someone was listening. How many men do we have ready?”

“At least twenty immediately. More within the hour.”

“Contact them. Use a clean phone, then dispose of it.”

“Where should I send them?”

“Northwest on I-94 to begin. Further directions to come.”

“We don’t know their final destination?”

“It doesn’t matter. They stopped once and picked up John Smith.”

The heavyset man smiled.

38

A
pparently little planes could fly, but they couldn’t land for shit.

“Sorry for the bumps, Detectives.” Fuhrman’s voice came over the tinny speaker. “Bad crosswinds today, and we had to one-wheel it a couple times.”

Gino closed his eyes and pictured the plane skidding along on one wheel, then tipping over, the wing snapping off, the fuselage cartwheeling, and then the explosion. “Thank God,” he whispered down at his lap, then thought maybe he should hold off on the gratitude. Just because they hadn’t crashed and burned this time didn’t mean it couldn’t happen on the way home.

Gino knew he had legs. He could see them filling out his pants, but they didn’t want to stand up, and he didn’t blame them. They’d had a long, scary plane ride, a really stressful time, and they deserved a chance to just lay there for a while and recover.

“Up and at ’em, buddy.”

Gino glared at Magozzi. “My legs are asleep.”

“Then you should stand up, get the blood moving.”

Gino muttered a very bad word, grabbed the seat back in front of him, which nearly broke in half, and pulled himself up. His legs did that pins-and-needles thing as he shuffled into the dinky aisle. “Go ahead, but go fast. I could collapse at any moment.”

Magozzi raised his brows in one of those expressions he always wore when Gino went off on some rant of exaggeration.

Gino thought if he could only balance on his cramped legs, he might punch his partner in the nose. “Don’t give me that look, you bastard. And you know what, Mr. Smart Alec? There are more potholes in the sky than there are on a Minnesota road in spring. I think I cracked my tooth on that last bump when my head hit the ceiling.”

“You were very brave.” Magozzi punched him in the arm, then headed for the door of the pretend plane and shook hands with the rotten pilot.

Bracing his hands on the few seats in front of him, Gino made his way forward. The pilot smiled at him. “Thank you for flying with us, sir.”

“Fuck you.”

“Happy to oblige, sir. I look forward to seeing you on your return flight. I’ll show you what this baby can really do.”

Gino looked down at the teeny-weeny steps that led to blessed, stable land, so close and yet so far away. He figured he’d stumble and fall and crack his head open on the concrete and die a horrible death. He looked around for his faithful partner, who was nowhere to be seen.

There wasn’t an actual terminal—just a steel building with a single glass door. Magozzi was inside, collecting their luggage, chatting up some Indian-looking dude behind the counter. Gino walked up to stand beside him and nodded toward the door. “Those are the two in that hunting picture in Joe Hardy’s house, right?”

Magozzi turned his head and saw two older men walking toward them. One was tall, rangy, and had bright blue eyes that age hadn’t dulled. His companion was a little shorter, and much broader, with a long black braid shot with gray.

“Detectives.” The taller man grabbed their hands and shook them hard. “I’m Claude Gerlock, and I’m very pleased to meet you.” The man breathed out Texas and alcohol. “This jack pine savage here is Chief of Tribal Police Bellanger, but it’s been so long since anyone’s called him anything but Chief, he can’t remember his own name.” He wrapped an arm around the Chief’s shoulders.

“Nice to meet you, Detectives,” Chief said. “Beth told us you wanted Joey’s computer.”

Magozzi nodded. “That’s right. Did you bring it with you?”

“We figured we’d take you back to the cabin and give you a meal since your return flight doesn’t leave for a few hours.”

“We’d like to buy you dinner if you’d let us. We’re on Hennepin County’s dime tonight, and we really appreciate your help with the computer.”

Chief chuckled low in his throat. “Son, there isn’t an open restaurant for about twenty miles, and we’re just a hop from the cabin. We’ve got great food, really great whiskey, and we’d be grateful for the chance to learn what happened to our Joey. Besides, it’s the least we can do. Beth told us you’ve been really kind to her. Claude’s ride is just outside.”

The night air this far north had a fierce chill to it when they walked outside to the parking lot, and Magozzi buttoned up his overcoat, wishing he’d brought some gloves.

They all piled into a high-end SUV, Claude behind the wheel, with Chief as his copilot while Gino and Magozzi took the backseat. Once they’d left the lighted parking lot of the airport and got on a skinny black ribbon of road that wound through thick pine forest, absolute blackness swallowed them. Even the halogen headlights of the truck seemed pathetically ineffective against such pervasive dark. Magozzi stared straight ahead at the twin paths of light they followed, trying to ignore the rising uneasiness of claustrophobia.

Gino, on the other hand, seemed enchanted by it all. “Man, I’ve never seen a night this dark before in my life. And look at those stars, Leo. Unbelievable. It’s like somebody threw a bag of powdered sugar up there.”

Chief seemed to like that, because he let out a low chuckle. “No ambient light from any city up here to wreck things.”

“Well, you’ve got it good if you see stars like that every night. Are we on the reservation yet?”

“You were on the reservation the minute you stepped off that plane.”

Gino mulled that over for a moment. “You have your own airport?”

“Sure. Doesn’t every Indian reservation?” Claude and the Chief shared a chuckle.

“So you’re rich?”

“Nope. We just do our piece and get by like everybody else. But it wasn’t always like that up here.”

“Hell, no, it wasn’t,” Claude agreed. “First time I came up here in ’74, it was wild as hell, just like all the movies and documentaries you ever saw about reservations. Gut-rot drunks with guns, rusted cars on blocks in front of rustier trailers on blocks with no plumbing.” He took a turn onto an even skinnier strip of road, this one almost as bumpy as their plane ride. Magozzi dared a look into the ever-thickening forest and thought he caught a glimpse of some glowing yellow eyes. “So it’s different now?” he asked, hoping the answer would be yes, because he was looking forward to a hot meal at some point.

“Way different,” Chief said. “We still have our struggles, no question about that. The wounds of history run deep, and you still see the fallout on reservations all over this country, including this one. But Elbow Lake’s done well, and for that I’m thankful.”

“What changed it?” Gino asked, his face still pressed against the window as he gazed up at the amazing clutter of stars.

“Billy Eight-Toes,” Chief explained. “That young brave came home to the reservation two toes short after sloshing through the hot jungles and swamps of ’Nam, and suddenly life up here seemed like paradise compared to what he’d seen, even though it wasn’t. And it just so happened that a few hundred acres of pretty spruce forest on the northern edge of the rez went up on the block for back taxes the week he came home. When was that, Claude?”

“In ’75. And the state had no interest in a little bitty few hundred acres of wilderness that backed up to a bunch of crazy Indians with a lot of guns and bathtub gin. But Billy hadn’t seen it that way. If it was paradise to him, he figured it might be paradise to a lot of other folks and weekend warriors, it just needed tidying up a little bit. So he started thinking on a hunting camp, because the game was plentiful. Still is.”

Chief nodded, smiling at his memories. “So Billy and his brothers built the lodge, plus a bunch of cabins with native timber. Then the crafty son of a bitch started advertising, in the back of a few sportsman magazines, a hunting camp with genuine Indian guides. Outsiders weren’t one bit put off by the proximity of the reservation. Billy thought some of them came up just for the sheer adventure of it, as if a settlement of impoverished Indians added an element of danger to their all-boy vacations. Billy didn’t care much what they thought as long as their money was green and they kept telling their friends about the place.”

“Sounds like a smart guy,” Magozzi said, keeping a lookout for more spooky eyes.

“It was pure genius,” Claude said. “Within a few years the lodge and cabins were full up most of the year with hunters, snowmobilers, and fishermen, and Billy employed over half the reservation’s population. The money was flowing, but the change to the reservation was slow as a one-legged armadillo in coming, I can tell you that.”

“Yes, sir,” Chief agreed. “You take a dead-broke, beaten-down people and give them income for real work instead of giving them handouts, they do funny things with money. If you live in a paper bag, a cardboard box is spittin’ rich. It took almost two generations to change the mind-set.”

“Is Billy Eight-Toes still around?” Gino asked.

“No. Poor old Billy never quite got the war out of his head—hell, nobody does—and he drank himself half to death one night and wrapped his new truck around a tree.”

“That’s sad.”

Chief shrugged as Claude made another turn, this one onto a dirt road so narrow, tree branches brushed both sides of the SUV. “Sad outcome for Billy, but he did a lot for his people. Left a legacy . . .”

“Uh . . .” Magozzi interrupted, tapping his finger on the window. “Uh . . .”

Chief turned around in his seat. “What is it, Detective?”

Magozzi continued to point out the window, but he couldn’t find his voice.

Chief’s eyes followed the direction of Magozzi’s finger and he smiled. “I’ll be damned, stop the truck, Claude. We’ve got ourselves a mukwa, making a special appearance for our friends.”

“I see him.” Claude stopped the truck and turned off all but the fog lights.

“Holy shit!” Gino whispered, staring at a monstrous form emerging from the woods right toward them.

“That is one big son of a bitch,” the Chief said quietly. “You got your bear gun in the back, Chimook?”

“Damn my soul to hell, I don’t. Figured it might spook the detectives.”

Magozzi and Gino stared silently out the window, their mouths hanging open as a huge bear lumbered up close to the side of the skinny road and started sniffing around, his big, black nose quivering, wary eyes never leaving the truck. Or maybe they were hungry eyes. Or homicidal eyes.

“That . . . that’s really close,” Gino stammered.

“It’s a beaut, though, isn’t it?” Claude asked, admiration in his voice. “Look at the coat on him. One fine animal.”

Well, Magozzi couldn’t help but agree—the bear was beautiful, impressive, majestic even—and then the goddamned thing stood up on its hind legs until it was about forty feet tall and made some really nasty sound he could only interpret as “Get the fuck out of my woods” in bearspeak.

“Oh Jesus,” Gino said, recoiling in his seat. “It’s gonna kill us. I lived through the flight, and now I’m going to get eaten by a bear . . .”

“He won’t eat you,” Claude said confidently. “You saved his life tonight, kept me from running over him. He owes you one.” Then he put the truck back into gear and started rolling slowly away.

Gino and Magozzi were both straddling a fine line between terror and thrilled fascination as they watched the bear in the glow of the taillights. He dropped down, walked into the middle of the road, and stood up again in final warning.

“That’s a special thing, seeing a bear up close like that,” the Chief said. “Hope you two enjoyed it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gino said, catching his breath. “Real special. Does that happen often?”

“Not too often. They’re mostly shy, and won’t do you any harm unless you’re in the way of something they want, or if you’re threatening them. At least most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“Well, you get a rogue every once in a while. No different from humans, except bears are a hell of a lot more predictable.”

“Amen,” Claude said. “But now you know, these woods are full of all kinds of things you don’t want to get surprised by, so if you get a hankering for a hike, make sure you’re prepared. Those little peashooters you two are carrying ain’t gonna do the job.”

39

T
he cabin wasn’t at all what Gino and Magozzi had been expecting. There was nothing rustic about the place, save for the extremely dangerous wildlife that was lurking in the woods, waiting to dismember unsuspecting tourists. To Magozzi, it looked like a pricey ski chalet, uprooted from Aspen or Telluride and plopped down in the middle of northern Minnesota nowhere. Not that he’d ever been to either of those places, but he’d seen pictures in those glossy celeb rags they always had in the dentist’s waiting room.

Claude and Chief led them to an impressive great room with lots of fieldstone, glass, and polished wood, decorated with an array of stuffed animal heads that stared down at them with accusatory glass eyes. Magozzi had never been a big fan of stuffed anything, unless it was a Thanksgiving turkey, but taxidermy aside, he could see himself spending time here. “Beautiful place.”

“It’s a little slice of paradise, no question,” Claude agreed, stepping behind a granite-topped bar and lining up four lowball tumblers. “You gentlemen in the mood for a little fuel?”

Gino and Magozzi looked at each other, then Gino nodded. “That would be nice, thank you.”

Claude smiled his approval. “We’ll toast to Joey. He’d be pleased to know you both shared a drink in his honor. That boy loved his whiskey. At least when he could still countenance it . . .” His voice suddenly sizzled away like a drop of water on a hot skillet.

“Bring your drinks into the dining room,” Chief said, breaking in to fill the silence. “We’ve got chili, every meat you can think of for sandwiches, and a bunch of man salads Noya whipped up.”

“What’s a man salad?” Gino asked.

“Just the
p
’s. Pasta or potatoes, no green stuff.”

“Good deal. Who’s Noya?”

“She’s my wife.”

“Why isn’t she here?”

“Oh, she never comes to the cabin if she can help it. Too much testosterone, she says.”

They sat at the table long enough for Gino to make considerable craters in every platter, then went to the living room to sit by the fire. Gino frowned at the sporadic ping of icy pellets on the windows, already worrying about their ten o’clock return flight.

Chief settled himself in a leather recliner and cradled his full stomach in his hands. “Now, why don’t you tell us why you’re really up here. Planes aren’t cheap, and a last-minute trip to get Joey’s computer tells me there’s something more to this.”

“There is something more,” Magozzi finally said.

Chief nodded. “Appreciate you being straight with us.”

“This doesn’t leave this room. This goes beyond Homicide and we’re stepping on Federal toes right now, talking out of school.”

Claude shook his glass and smiled a little, stirring a couple ice cubes that were bathing in a whole lot of whiskey. “Chief and I were both Special Ops in ’Nam. ‘Cleaners,’ they called us. We know how to keep our pie holes clamped, so talk when you’re ready to.”

Gino stepped in and told them Joe hadn’t just killed the two men who’d killed him; he’d also killed another two Somalis in cold blood a day earlier.

Both men’s jaws sagged open, and the disbelief on their faces was genuine; it was the kind of absolute shock that couldn’t be put on like a mask.

“First thing, Joey wouldn’t do that,” Claude finally said quietly. “Second thing, he couldn’t do that. He was so weak, he could hardly walk from his car to the front door of the cabin.”

Gino didn’t like where this was going—he liked these guys. He respected the sacrifices they’d made to serve their country, but this was what happened in a homicide investigation. You had to put your personal feelings aside sometimes and push a possible witness past the point you wanted to go. “He took a silencer to the first house. He went there to kill. Those men were his targets. And it seems to follow that the men he killed the night he died were targets, too, especially since all four of them turned out to be major terror players, tied up with a very nasty plot that’s set to hit cities all across the country four days from now—a plot the Feds didn’t know about until we pulled evidence from our homicides.”

Claude and Chief had been relaxed in their chairs, but now they were both sitting, almost at attention, like two proud men taking a physical beating they couldn’t do anything to stop. “You’re sure?” Claude whispered.

“As sure as it gets.”

Chief looked like a tree that was about to topple. He braced his hand on the chair arms to steady himself.

Claude looked at his friend, then refilled all their glasses with a shaky hand. “What can we do to help?”

Magozzi looked down into his glass. “If Joe had information that somebody was planning a terrorist attack, was he the kind of man who would act on that information? Would he be capable of murder?”

Chief looked at him. “To save his country? Damn right he would. That’s what he was trained to do.”

“But he never told you what he was planning?”

Chief actually smiled at that. “That’s a pretty loaded question from one cop to another, Detective. And the answer is no. No way that boy should have been out on the mean streets alone playing hero, goddamnit. We would have stopped him.” He looked worriedly at the windows. The sound of ice pellets hitting the glass had intensified, and now the wind was howling. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Gino got up immediately and went to the window. The deck was already glazed with ice. “It doesn’t look good, either.”

Claude called the airport, listened for a long time, then replaced the receiver. “Sorry, fellas. Looks like you’re going to be stuck here for the night, at least. This little storm took a sharp turn north, and nothing’s flying out tonight.”