No Man's Land

15

PAUL ROGERS STARED up at the sign taped to the door of a bar called the Grunt.

Not a bad name in an area with a huge military footprint. He could imagine it was filled every night with rank-and-file Army grunts looking to drink away their troubles and have a little fun in between dodging bullets and IEDs and getting screamed at by sergeants.

Bouncer wanted.

That’s what the sign said.

He opened the door and walked in.

At this time of day there were only a few people inside. He could tell most of them worked here and were getting the place ready for the nightly invasion.

He walked over to the bartender, who was stacking glasses behind the bar.

“I’m here about the bouncer job?”

The bartender looked him up and down. Rogers was rock-solid but he hardly had the heft one probably thought a bouncer should possess.

The bartender pointed at the other end of the room. “Office is back there. Knock on the door first.”

Rogers headed that way, gazing around and taking in the space in one effective sweep. Large dance floor, video game room, raised platform for a live band, lots of tables and chairs. And enough alcohol stacked behind the bar to sink an aircraft carrier with all hands on board.

Rogers thought back to the time he had been in a bar once. It had not ended well.

It had cost him ten years of his life, in fact.

A stupid mistake on his part. But the thing in his head had not let him make a better choice.

He walked down a short hall, reached a door marked Office, and knocked.

He heard footsteps and a moment later the door was opened by a man so large that he filled most of the doorway. He had a shaved head and was dressed in a black jacket, slacks, and a black turtleneck. He looked down at Rogers.

“Yeah?” he said gruffly.

“I’m here about the bouncer job.”

The man took a step back and looked amused.

Rogers could now see into the office. It was a large room, twenty feet square with high-end built-ins and furnishings. Behind a sleek mahogany desk sat a woman in her midthirties, dressed in a beige pantsuit with a white blouse underneath.

The big man looked at her. “He’s here about the bouncer job,” he said derisively.

The woman stood. She looked to be about five-eight, slender with long blonde hair that held far darker roots at the top of her head.

“You have any experience?” she asked.

Rogers nodded.

“You’re a little small for that line of work. And a little old.”

“I can handle myself.”

She came around the side of the desk and perched a hip on it. Rogers now saw that her heels bumped her height up several inches. Without them she was really about five-five.

She said, “You former military? You look it.”

“Something like that. I don’t want to fill out any paperwork. And I prefer cash. If that’s a problem, I can leave now.”

“You don’t get to make the preferences,” said the big man. “She’s the boss. She calls the shots.”

Rogers rubbed the back of his head, the sensation more a tingling than a pain. He looked up at the big man. “So why aren’t you the bouncer? You’re big enough. The boss afraid you can’t cut it?”

The man looked ready to drive a fist right through Rogers’s face. “Where the fuck do you get off-”

“Karl!”

The woman stood and walked over to them as Karl took a step back.

“Karl is my security chief. He stays with me.”

“You need security?”

“I’m Helen Myers, Mr.?”

“Paul. Just call me Paul.”

She looked at Karl. “He vets the bouncers. That’s part of his job as head of security.”

“Okay.”

“And we normally run a background check on potential employees.”

Rogers turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Myers.

Rogers turned back around.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“I had some trouble and I paid my bill on it. I’m a free man. And I really need the job. But I’m not going through a background check. No harm, no foul. Thanks anyway.”

“Just hold on for a sec.” She studied him for a few moments.

“Okay, Paul, I’m going to turn it over to Karl now.”

Rogers looked at Karl expectantly.

Karl stepped forward and gave Rogers a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Let me see how you do visual sweeps.”

Rogers turned his head to the right.

A second later his hand reached out and caught the haymaker Karl had planned to land on his chin.

Caught and held it.

Karl tried to pull free but couldn’t break Rogers’s grip.

“What the hell!” he exclaimed.

Next, Rogers gripped the fist so tightly that one of the man’s knuckles popped out of joint.

“Shit,” cried out Karl. “Let the fuck go, man.”

“Please release him, Paul,” said Myers.

Rogers let go and stepped back, putting his hands behind his back and standing at attention.

“Son of a bitch,” said Karl, holding his injured hand. “What are you, some kinda freak?”

Rogers looked at Myers. “How much does the job pay?”

Myers said, “Five hundred a night. Hours are eight to two in the morning. We’re closed on Mondays. We get a lot of soldiers and they can get rowdy. And none of them are lightweights. They all know how to fight. That’s why the pay is what it is. I can’t guarantee that you won’t get injured. That’s what happened to the last bouncer. You will have to sign off on that disclaimer.”

“I haven’t finished vetting him yet, Ms. Myers,” said Karl, glaring at Rogers.

Rogers glanced at him. “I’ll arm wrestle you, if you don’t mind a blown-out rotator.”

“I usually do a little boxing with the new guys,” snapped Karl.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” said Rogers. “It would not be a fair fight.”

“You little prick!”

Karl kicked out at Rogers, who sidestepped the thrust, clamped down on the leg, and effortlessly flipped Karl off his feet. An instant after Karl hit the floor Rogers straddled him, wrenched his arm behind his back, and put him in a chokehold that had Karl’s eyes rolling in the back of his head.

“Stop, stop!” cried out Myers.

Rogers immediately let go and stepped back.

“Do I get the job?” he said calmly.

Myers looked down at the barely conscious Karl on the floor and then lifted her gaze to Rogers.

“When can you start?”

“Tonight.”

“All right.”

She added a bit shakily, “Do you have a problem I should know about, Paul?”

“I have no problems. And I’ll do a good job for you.”

“Okay, but we don’t need you to kill anybody.”

Rogers didn’t answer her. He helped Karl to his feet and over to a chair. The big man wouldn’t meet his eye.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” said Rogers. “I just really need the job.”

Breathing hard, Karl waved him off.

Myers led Rogers out of the office and into what looked like a workroom at the back of the bar. She gave him a set of clothes and shoes to wear.

“This is what the bouncer wears. They should fit okay.”

“Thanks.”

She asked, “Do you have a smartphone?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have a smartphone and I don’t have the money to buy one.”

She opened a cabinet, pulled out a box, and tossed it to him. “It’s a Samsung, hooked to the Web and all ready to go. The phone number is on the front screen. It’s yours to use while you work here.”

Rogers stuck it in his pocket. “Thanks.”

“You’ll also wear a headset and comm pack when you’re on duty. I like my people to be in communication at all times.”

“You sound like you were in the military.”

“I’ll see you tonight. Get in two hours early so you can be shown how we do things, understood?”

“Yes.”

She glanced nervously at the door. “How did you do that to Karl?”

“I got a few tricks. And I figured I had to show him I got what it takes.”

“Okay, I get that. But he has nearly six inches and over a hundred pounds on you. He’s vetted a lot of bouncers a lot bigger than you, and none of them did what you just did. Karl usually had them on the floor.”

“I’m stronger than I look,” said Rogers.

“Obviously.”

He left her there staring uncertainly after him.

He walked back to his van and drove to a motel that offered a twenty-nine-dollar nightly rate. It was a firetrap, but after ten years in a prison cell he had learned not to care where he slept so long as he could walk out the door of his own free will.

He paid for three nights in cash and went to the room after parking the white van in a space directly in front.

Five hundred dollars a night, off during the days, and he would still have time after he clocked out at two to do what needed doing. It was a good scenario for him all the way around.

He locked the door behind him, dropped his duffel on the floor, hung his work clothes up in the closet and placed the shoes directly underneath.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the smartphone. He’d never used one before. They were only coming into vogue after he had gone to prison. But he quickly figured out how it worked.

He went online and did some more digging on CB Excelon Corp.

His searches becoming more advanced, he skipped from one site to another until he found something interesting.

Former CEO retires and moves to the Outer Banks.

The story was about five years old. Chris Ballard had founded and run Ballard Enterprises and its successor, CB Excelon, for many years. The “CB” obviously stood for Chris Ballard. He had subsequently turned the reins over to a new regime. Now eighty, Ballard was retiring to a more leisurely life on the sandy beaches of North Carolina.

The story went on to bullet-point some of Ballard’s successes and the work that his firm had done in connection with DARPA, the Defense Department’s research arm. The article also gave a thumbnail history of the agency.

DARPA, created in the late 1950s by President Eisenhower, had started out as the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It had come into being in response to the Soviets sending Sputnik I into orbit. The organization had changed its name several times over the decades, before settling on DARPA in 1996. With its new headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, it employed hundreds of people and managed a budget of $3 billion. Its mission was to nurture and support game-changing military technologies and to create surprises for America’s enemies, although some of its project outcomes had had significant influence in nonmilitary applications. It funded numerous areas of development in the private sector and was known to give long leashes, short time frames, and overly ambitious-some would say impossible-goals to its contractors. It had had many successes but also spectacular failures. An independent agency, DARPA reported directly to DoD senior management.

Rogers already knew this about DARPA and didn’t really care.

He found a mapping function on the phone and determined that the Outer Banks were only a couple hours from Fort Monroe.

His only lead to Claire Jericho was Chris Ballard.

North Carolina here I come.