After the Rain Part 39

While the two cops traded information, Broker felt the first delayed panic attack flap through his chest. He looked up into the blazing sun, shivered, lit another of Nina's cigarettes.

Eight.

They tried the front office door, found it locked and walked around back. The rear entrance was a tall, wooden, barn-type sliding door. Only rusty wheels on a rail resisted them. They pushed the door open and went inside.

The John Deere 644C front-loader sat in veils of heat and shadow like a giant yellow steel-and-rubber Sphinx. It stood ten feet tall to the roof of the cab and weighed fifteen tons. The bucket rested on the ground at the end of the lowered hydraulic boom and cylinder. Motionless, it mocked them like a deceptive, sleeping beast of burden with long yellow steel muscles and fat, four-foot-high Michelin tires.

A spray of white dots speckled the cab, the motor a.s.sembly, the huge wheels, and the bucket. Pinpoints coming in through birdshot punctures in the tin roof.

Broker imagined Ace or even Dale: country kids with their dad's shotgun, knocking down pigeons.

The left rear counterweight was missing from the cha.s.sis.

Holly leaned forward and rested his right palm against the hot metal where the missing weight should be. He closed his eyes-Spock in a Vulcan mind-meld. Abruptly he turned, walked from the pole barn, and went around to the right, into the weeds, generally in the direction of the buried counterweight.

Broker and Yeager walked around the machine, trying to puzzle out Dale Shuster's strange millwork. Then they wandered up toward the office area, which had been stripped clean. No phone. No computer. Just the chair, a desk, and the small refrigerator, unplugged, empty, with the door open. Yeager's eyes traveled around the empty structure, then his cell rang. He answered. It was his wife. He hunched the phone to the crook of his neck, took a notepad and a pen from his chest pocket, and jotted something down. Thanked her and hung up.

"We got Irv Fuller. He lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota," Yeager said. "Just a sec, I gotta take a leak." He went into the bathroom as Holly came back in the shed. Yeager flushed the toilet. Came out. He called to Holly. "We got a location on Irv Fuller."

Holly nodded, walked faster.

But something had Broker thinking. "I only met Dale once," he said. "Yesterday morning. With Kit."

"Yeah," Yeager said, momentarily distracted, yawning in the heat.

"Kit said he was weird. She used the bathroom and she said it was creepy because when she went in there she found blue p.o.o.p in the toilet..."

"What?" Holly came alert, pale eyes zeroing in as he moved closer. "She said what?"

"Something about blue p.o.o.p. I thought she meant that some toilet-bowl cleaner-"

"No." Holly bit off the syllable. "I spent five days with Kit." He waved his hands for quiet as he came closer, then he jabbed his finger. "She never made anything up. She was not suggestible at all. Not easily influenced. She was always very precise. If she said blue p.o.o.p, she saw blue p.o.o.p."

"Holly, man; slow down," Broker said.

"Slow down, my a.s.s. Blue p.o.o.p does not normally occur in nature. does not normally occur in nature. Blue p.o.o.p is one of the side effects of ingesting ferric hexacyanoferrate II, a mineral compound commonly known as the paint pigment Prussian blue. It was invented in Berlin around 1704." He took a step forward and tapped Broker on the chest. "Guys. Prussian blue has other uses. It's an antidote to radiation poisoning. It absorbs thallium and cesium 137 in the intestines. Then the radioactive isotopes are excreted." Blue p.o.o.p is one of the side effects of ingesting ferric hexacyanoferrate II, a mineral compound commonly known as the paint pigment Prussian blue. It was invented in Berlin around 1704." He took a step forward and tapped Broker on the chest. "Guys. Prussian blue has other uses. It's an antidote to radiation poisoning. It absorbs thallium and cesium 137 in the intestines. Then the radioactive isotopes are excreted."

Broker and Yeager stared at him.

Holly went on, "Blue s.h.i.t in Dale Shuster's toilet means he could have been working around something radioactive and taking precautions."

"Jesus. And he's drilling big hidey holes in construction machinery," Broker said.

"I think we gotta locate that machine fast," Holly said.

Yeager referred to his notepad and punched numbers in his cell. They huddled around him. His lips jerked in a disappointed expression. "Got an answering machine."

"Wait. Don't leave a message. End the call. If Dale's got Nina..." Broker said. "What if he's in contact with Dale? It would telegraph we're onto him." He asked Yeager, "Would people in town call Irv about the shooting and Dale disappearing?"

Yeager shrugged. "Possibly, but he's been gone quite a while."

"Broker's right," Holly said. "We want to talk to Fuller face-to-face. So where is he?"

"Lake Elmo, Minnesota." They looked at Broker.

"Little town east of the Twin Cities, just south of where I was working last week," Broker said. "I could call the county sheriff's department, they could track down Fuller."

Holly shook his head. "Same problem, might signal we're coming. We have to hit him cold. Just us." Holly was moving toward the door, reaching for his cell phone. "C'mon, Yeager, we need a ride to the PAR radar site."

They piled into the cruiser and Yeager wheeled onto the highway. Holly started talking fast into his cell. "Screw what they say. Northern Route is active again. So get the bird ready, file a flight plan to Lake Elmo, Minnesota...Okay, it's a direct order, I take full responsibility. Just get the bird ready. Lay on some ground transportation, location to come." Holly ended the call and smiled, back in the game.

"You borrowing another helicopter?" Broker asked.

"Step on it. We gotta get in the air before the pilots start having qualms," Holly said, leaned over the seat. "And, Yeager, you have to come with us."

Yeager's eyes went wide. "Where? To Minnesota? In a stolen Army helicopter. You're s.h.i.tting me."

"He's right," Broker said. "You know Fuller. We don't."

Yeager reached for his radio handset. Holly leaned over the seat and stayed Yeager's hand. "Don't call. Just go. Trust me."

"Jesus," Yeager said. "Gotta tell 'em something." He called dispatch. "Karen, this is Jimmy. Ah, I'm going to be outta the car for a few hours. Personal time."

Broker said, "The sheriff said he had enough bodies to handle the scene here. He told you to keep an eye on us, right?"

"If it's nothing, you'll be back in a couple of hours," Holly said.

Shaking his head, sweating profusely, Yeager drove the speed limit through town. He cast a pained expression at the county office building. "Norm ain't gonna like this."

"C'mon, punch it," Holly said.

Fifteen minutes later they hurried through the security checkpoint at the radar base and drove to the helipad. Following Holly's instructions, Yeager parked his cruiser in a hangar out of sight. Without consulting with anyone, they jogged across the strip and got in the waiting Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk.

Chapter Forty.

Dale crossed to the TV/VCR, pushed in a tape, and picked up a remote. to the TV/VCR, pushed in a tape, and picked up a remote.

"Electrics hooked into battery system. Shouldn't be a problem long as she's idling. Ah, I'm new at this, so the quality is uneven. Ours will be better. I just wanted you to see..."

Under the sheet, Nina took advantage of the darkness to test the slack in her bonds. She had to get control of her breathing, she had to gather her strength. She had to begin to resist.

The screen filled with scrambled gray static, then Nina was looking at a black-and-white photo of a young blond woman, pert, attractive. The length and cut of her hair appeared a bit dated. With a chill she remembered Dale's odd question when they met. I'll bet you went to the prom, didn't you? I'll bet you went to the prom, didn't you? When the camera panned, she saw she was looking at pictures from a high school yearbook. The camera zoomed in close enough to read the block of type: When the camera panned, she saw she was looking at pictures from a high school yearbook. The camera zoomed in close enough to read the block of type: GINNY WELLERStudent Council 4Cheerleading 1, 2, 3, 4G.A.A. 1, 2, 3, 4National Honor Society 2, 3, 4 Back to the jerky static, then to green. Too much lawn for a yard. It was a park, the trees not quite fully leafed out. White letters and numbers punched the date into the bottom of the screen: June 11.

Last month.

The camera picked up a running figure. A woman in brief running shorts, a sports top, and a Walkman: blond, in shape, tanned. The video was framed in black, some kind of window. Then it moved, unevenly panning across seats, a dashboard, a rearview mirror, and a windshield. The camera was shooting from inside a van.

Now the woman was closer, the camera picking her up out the pa.s.senger window as she jogged on a path. The path wound along a wall of shrubs.

A man Nina recognized as Joe Reed stepped from the bushes in front of the jogger. Powerful. Confident, his arms wrapped her up as he quickly stabbed an object into her thigh. Not a knife. One of those needles Dale stabbed her with.

Dale hit the pause b.u.t.ton and explained in the patient tone of a tour guide who liked his job, "Epipen. Same thing I hit you with at the bar." His patient profile was sidelit by the flickering screen. "Joe took out the epinephrine and replaced it with ketamine."

Nina went back over the struggle in the Missile Park. How long had it taken the drug to take effect after he jabbed her thigh? Several minutes to put her completely out.

Dale hit a b.u.t.ton. "Play," he said in a dreamy voice as the tape resumed and showed Joe hauling the woman back into the shrubs. Quick, efficient. The s.n.a.t.c.h had taken less than five seconds.

The camera went to static, then focused again. This time on a box of Coco Puffs cereal, a used bowl, a milk spill on a tabletop, and the front page of a newspaper. As the camera panned, it caught a sweep of sunlight and shadow and a feel of kitchen windows open to a summer morning. The sound of a lawn mower. Now the paper came into focus. The Grand Forks Herald. Grand Forks Herald. It zoomed in on a color photo below the fold. It zoomed in on a color photo below the fold. LOCAL WOMAN MISSING LOCAL WOMAN MISSING.

Some of the sharpness had mellowed on the face but it was the same girl in the yearbook picture. Older now. A grown woman. Nina braced for nausea.

All this time Dale stood next to the bed, his left arm folded across his chest, and his right arm c.o.c.ked up so he rested his chin in the palm of his right hand. In his left hand was the remote. Dale was absorbed.

The static blipped away. The video came on.

At first it was a confused jumble. The camera swinging over a bare mattress on a filthy floor. The light bouncing off blue cinder-block walls.

Ginny Weller startled up from the darkness, squinting, hands up defensively, starting to scream. She had backed herself into the corner. Her tank top was soiled, as were her arms and legs. An advancing shadow fell across her face, blacking out her image. Joe Reed's cold, clipped voice gave direction in the background: "Go on, Dale. Show her who's boss. Don't take any s.h.i.t."

Ginny put up a fight and Dale had to wrap her in his thick arms and smother her down. He jabbed her with one of those pens. The picture ended.

Dale turned and spoke in a bland voice, "I couldn't stand to touch her when she was all squirmy and sweaty and dirty. The thing was, she wasn't ready for me. So, the way it worked out, I had to prepare her."

Prior to 9/11, Nina traveled back and forth between her posting in Lucca and the Joint Special Ops Task Force in Sarajevo. JSOTF targeted Serbs wanted by The Hague, and some of the pickup raids required covert female operators. During these operations she became acquainted with a Ranger captain named Jeremy Stahl. They had in common that both were the same age and both were going through career-related strife in their marriages. They were alone and attempting not to be lonely. Their flirtation was chaste and did not go beyond a few good-night kisses.

One early fall evening they went to a bar in Measle Alley. The street took its nickname from the Bosnian practice of commemorating their dead by painting red dots the size of large dinner plates on the street or sidewalk where they had died from sh.e.l.l or sniper fire. It was hard to walk a straight line anywhere down Measle Alley without stepping on a dot.

They drank beer in a bombed tavern that was missing most of its roof. They could watch the stars come out as they ate bad Bosnian pizza.

Jeremy was a beautiful man, much as Nina imagined Broker must have been when he was young, still in uniform, and standing in the close shadow of death.

Shawing more bravado than good sense, they drank and discussed the worst things in the world. What had she said? Something about never seeing her daughter again.

Christ. What good were words or thoughts? Nothing got you ready for this.

Ginny Weller lay on a white sheet that spread like a puddle of clean snow in the grubby bas.e.m.e.nt. Her chest rose and fell softly. Drugged. Except now she was nude. She had been washed clean of dirt. The white bikini patches of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and crotch gleamed against her smooth tan.

Dale's shadow preceded him as he approached the mattress. He performed an awkward shuffle, some personal dance of discovery and joy in his nakedness.

He knelt, then got on all fours. Nina watched the limp spiral of Ginny's arms and legs as Dale tried to position her beneath him.

Nina forced herself to watch everything. He might reveal a pattern, a weakness. The flicker from the screen clubbed her steady eyes. After his second toadlike o.r.g.a.s.m, Dale crawled beside the still figure and experimented with touching. Caresses. A kiss.

Helpless, Nina found herself sinking into a corner of perfect grief and hatred. No escaping the single thought that smashed her again and again: Kit. Kit. Kit.

Seven years old. She didn't know things like this waited out in the world, in the shadows. Just that single thought crashing down like a bludgeon, over and over.

Dale paused the video and explained: "I must've got the dosage wrong, or maybe she had a lot to eat before we took her. Because she aspirated-that's what they call it-threw up and choked her airway. Got a little snuffy there toward the end." He hit the play b.u.t.ton.

His last robotic climax was complicated by the onset of his victim's rigor mortis. When it was over, Dale rewound the tape and opened the curtains. Just as the daylight flooded in, a fist slammed the side of the camper, echoing deep through Nina's body.

"C'mon, for Christ sake," George Khari yelled. "Finish up in there."

Like they were working. Like they had taken a break.

"Yeah, yeah," Dale yelled back. Then he turned to Nina and grinned. "I'm going to be real careful with you, so you last all the way to Florida."

"C'mon, Dale, we gotta get on the road," George yelled again.

"Coming," Dale said, moving forward. He stopped as he pulled the curtain aside, turned, threw her a last exultant grin, and held up his right hand, like in a Boy Scout salute-thumb to little finger, three fingers extended. "You see that? Three times. I bet even Ace couldn't do it three times in a row."

Chapter Forty-one.

Point to point, the distance from Langdon to Lake Elmo stretched the outside limits for the Black Hawk's fuel range, even adding in its emergency thirty-minute reserve. The pilots arranged for a refueling stop at the Minnesota National Guard training ground at Camp Ripley, just outside of Brainerd. the distance from Langdon to Lake Elmo stretched the outside limits for the Black Hawk's fuel range, even adding in its emergency thirty-minute reserve. The pilots arranged for a refueling stop at the Minnesota National Guard training ground at Camp Ripley, just outside of Brainerd.

The flight plan took them over the Red River Valley, then south toward the Twin Cities. Estimated flight time: two and a half hours. That would put them on the ground in Minnesota between 3:30 and 4:00 in the afternoon.

Broker had never flown in the Black Hawk. Times had changed. As soon as he climbed in, he saw that this bird was special. None of the old noise, or death-on-the-highway reek of av gas, or exposed raw electrical circuits that he remembered from the bare-bones Vietnam Hueys. The cabin was carpeted and lined with two rows of bucket seats that faced in, like a conference room. There were even pockets for drinks in the chairs. Fabric dressed the walls to cover the soundproofing. The pilot and copilot were screened off behind a c.o.c.kpit door. The crew chief tried his best to make himself invisible, squirreled back in a forward nook.

After they were airborne, Holly talked briefly on a headset, then pulled it down around his neck. "The crew is not happy, but they'll get us there." He leaned on his elbows over a complex communications console and rubbed his eyes.

"This is all pretty fancy," Broker said.

"It's the MDW." Holly allowed himself a grin. "Military District of Washington model. Got the VIP package. Everything but a shower. Probably one of the reasons they're p.i.s.sed at me. Technically, this bird is a little over my pay grade, but I took it anyway."

Yeager pointed to the radio. "Who can you talk to on that?"

"Anyone in the world," Holly said. "But we ain't breaking radio silence, because if we do, somebody is going to tell us to like, ah, land immediately." Then he pointed to the cell phone on Yeager's hip. "Keep trying to reach Fuller."