State of War

12

Junior didn’t like small towns. He’d grown up in one, and he knew how they worked. If somebody spit on the ground at ten o’clock in the morning, they’d be talking about it at the barber shop by noon. Everybody knew everyone’s business, and they paid extra attention to any strangers who came to visit.

This particular little town was exactly the kind of place where a man would get noticed if he wasn’t a local. In the middle of corn country, its people were mostly farmers, with the odd airline pilot or ex-military retired to the country thrown in, and maybe some weirdo artists who worked in stained glass. People like that.

This particular little town was also home to a United States senator whose family had owned property here since they stole it from the Indians. That senator was about to learn which way the wind blew.

Junior grinned. Senator David Lawson Hawkins, the upstanding Republican, was a buttoned-down widower with three grown kids and eight grandchildren, and none of that mattered. Senator Hawkins was either going to toe the line or he was going to get stomped.

Junior glanced at the GPS reader mounted on the rental truck’s dash. He had selected a pickup truck, one a couple years old, so he wouldn’t stick out as much. The truck was a big old Dodge Ram that looked like a dozen others he’d passed on the road here from Indianapolis, via the long way through Lafayette. It should buy him a few extra minutes before the locals took note of him, and that would be all he needed.

He didn’t have an appointment, and the senator’s bodyguard wouldn’t be thrilled to see him, but there was no question in Junior’s mind that Hawkins would talk to him. Junior had a conversation starter that guaranteed the man’s attention.

Junior smiled. And if the bodyguard gave him any crap? Well, maybe he would cook the sucker. Just like that cop.

He got another rush thinking about the shooting. It had been all over the papers and the news services for days. They thought it was gang-related, and that was fine with him. He’d changed out the barrels on his Rugers and used a grinder to turn the old ones into steel filings that he had flushed down a storm drain. He’d bought a new brick of ammo, too, and thrown out all the old rounds, just in case there was some way they might match the lead or something.

He was golden. They didn’t have a clue. He had bagged himself a cop and gotten away with it. One on one, mano a mano. And that feeling he’d had when he did it? He wanted it again. Soon.

Of course, you couldn’t keep going around zapping cops. Once was a skate, but twice was a pattern. If another cop turned up with a pair of.22 rounds in his head, they’d crank up the hunt for sure. As long as they thought it was gang-related, they’d bring in the usual suspects and he should be safe. But if he deleted another policeman somewhere else with the same MO, they’d start up enough steam shovels to move heaven and earth.

Shooting somebody out here would be even worse. There was only one main road in or out, and even in the blend-in truck, some fool with nothing better to do might remember it, maybe even the license plate number: Nossir, it warn’t Bill’s truck, warn’t Tom’s, warn’t Richard’s, it was a stranger’s Dodge, and yessir, I just happened to write down the numbers, kinda made me curious and all…

He had that part covered, of course. He had switched plates with a used truck on a lot in Indianapolis not far from where he’d rented the Dodge, and he’d switch ’em back when he was done. Still, it wouldn’t be smart to underestimate the cops even out here in the sticks.

Junior knew a con once who had swiped a bunch of computer gear, then put an ad in the local paper to sell the stuff. Junior thought that was crazy, but the guy hadn’t been worried. The cops wouldn’t think anybody would be that stupid, he’d said. They’d never look in the classified ads.

He’d been wrong. They looked. And they nailed him.

There were a lot of guys in cages who thought they were smarter than the police, especially the ones out in the middle of nowhere.

Junior knew better. He knew how they worked. If they were looking for a certain kind of truck, if they had that much, they might check every rental place for three states hoping to get lucky. And while he’d used a fake license and a credit card that couldn’t be traced to him, that old cowboy hat he’d worn pulled low might not be enough of a disguise.

He shook his head, letting go of his fantasy of shooting the bodyguard. He knew it was better not to get their blood up looking for him. Besides, bodyguards were like dogs, they did what they were told, and the man’s boss would tell him to stand aside. Junior was pretty sure of that.

He glanced at the GPS unit again. He had the coordinates for the farmhouse programmed into it. All he had to do was follow the map. It shouldn’t be much farther.

Ten minutes later, Junior came to the property’s gate, a large steel-frame swinger, complete with cattle guard. It wasn’t even locked. He slipped the cable off the gate post, opened it, got back into the truck, drove in, and then got out and shut the gate. No point in drawing any attention to himself. People who left gates open on property where there might be livestock stuck in your memory.

The house was an old two-story place, recently painted and kept up real well. A half a mile from the gate, it sat at the end of a curvy road that wound through a section of cornfield. The corn stood about six feet high and looked as if it would be ready for harvest soon. Junior knew a little about crops. Though they’d grown mostly sugarcane and soybeans on his uncle’s farm in Louisiana, everybody had a truck garden — corn, tomatoes, carrots, pole beans, like that.

By the time he’d parked the truck under the welcome shade of a cottonwood tree, next to a GMC pickup newer than his, the bodyguard/chauffeur was already on his way across the yard.

He was a big man, six-three, maybe six-four. In shorts, T-shirt, and running shoes, Junior could see that he was also very muscular. A weight lifter, for sure, and probably a boxer or martial artist to go with the muscles.

He was wearing his gun hidden in a belly pouch under the T-shirt. Some of those were rigged with Velcro so all you had to do to access the piece was to grab it with one hand and peel it apart, going for the gun with the other hand. They weren’t as fast as a belt holster, but in the middle of the hot summer, it was hard to justify wearing a jacket or even a sleeveless vest.

Junior smiled. He liked his method better. He wore an unbuttoned denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his biceps and tails out, over a white T-shirt. It was a little warm, but you could get away with it. The little revolvers rode close to his body, and the shirt was enough to hide them as long as he didn’t move too fast and flare the tails.

Before Junior could open the door, the bodyguard was there. Up close, Junior saw a small tattoo on the man’s forearm. Junior nodded. It was a prison tattoo, blue ink, probably ballpoint, a little spider web, not bad.

“Hey,” Junior said.

“You don’t have an appointment,” the bodyguard said. It was not a question.

“No. But the man will want to talk to me.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Give him this.”

Slowly and carefully, Junior reached down to the seat and picked up a sealed 9 × 12 manila envelope.

The bodyguard took the envelope without looking at it. His eyes were still locked on Junior’s.

Junior glanced at the tattoo. “Where’d you do your time?”

The bodyguard frowned. “I printed validation stickers at Wabash Valley. Six years, man-two.” He looked at the envelope, just a glance, then back at Junior, his eyes hard. “You’re not going to cause my boss any trouble, are you? The man has been very good to me.”

Junior grinned and shook his head. “Not a bit. I’m just here to talk business.”

“Wait here. Don’t get out of the truck.”

The bodyguard backed away, keeping Junior in sight, then turned and went back into the house.

I can take you, Junior thought. You’re not fast enough coming out of that belly pouch.

Of course, he’d have to make the head shot. A.22 to the body wouldn’t even slow that bodyguard down. He played it out in his mind, smiling. Yeah. He could take him.

It didn’t take long. Five minutes and the bodyguard was back. “Leave any hardware you’re carrying in the truck,” he said.

Junior nodded. There was no point trying to pretend he didn’t have any, though he had already pulled the two Rugers out and stuck them under the seat.

He got out, stood there while the bodyguard patted him down, then followed the man into the house.

They went in through the back door and straight to a big paneled office — Junior thought it looked like pecan wood — with lots of bookshelves. There was music coming from hidden speakers, an old show tune. He grinned.

The senator sat behind a big desk made of the same kind of wood as the paneling. It had a burl to it. Pecan, he was sure of it, or maybe some kind of maple.

“Have a seat, Mr… ?”

“Just call me ‘Junior,’ Senator.”

Hawkins was sixty-something, leathery, tanned, and fit. He had salt-and-pepper hair cut in a flattop. He wore a plaid cotton shirt, jeans, and work boots.

Senator good ole boy, Junior thought, but this time he hid his grin.

“Wait outside, Hal,” the senator said to the bodyguard. “And close the door, would you?”

Hal nodded, stepped out, and shut the door softly behind him.

As soon as the door closed, Senator Hawkins turned back to Junior, his expression growing ugly. “Now you want to give me a good reason why I shouldn’t have Hal take you outside and stomp you into a pile of greasy hamburger?”

“Your call, Senator,” Junior said. “But you know I’m not so stupid as to come here with the only copy of that picture. You can also be sure that I have people who know where I am, and who have more pictures like it — and some a lot worse. Something happens to me, you know what comes next.”

“You son of a bitch.”

Junior frowned. “You’re a smart man, Senator, and you’ve been in politics half your life. How long did you figure to keep something like this a secret?”

“It’s been forty years so far,” he said.

Junior nodded. “The wife, the kids, the grandkids, they’re all good cover, but that doesn’t matter now, does it? What’s done is done.”

The senator sighed, and Junior could see him give up. “What do you want?” he asked. “Money?”

“No, sir.”

Hawkins stared at him.

“I need one thing, one time only. I need a vote. In return you get all the copies of all the pictures, and we never say another word to each other as long as we live.”

Senator Hawkins glared at him. “And I’m supposed to trust a blackmailer.”

“It’s not like you have a whole lot of choice here, Senator.”

Hawkins thought about it. “What if I say no?”

“Then the pictures — all of them — show up on the web and tomorrow’s front page. You want your grandchildren knowing you’ve been sharing long weekends up in Pennsylvania with another man? The brother of an appeals court judge? That you’ve been swinging the other way since before you met Grandma?”

Hawkins shook his head. “No, I don’t want that.”

“Fine,” Junior said. “Then we can do business.”

There was a long pause, and Junior felt just a twinge of nervousness. You could never be sure in a situation like this. The guy might just lose it and go off, and with his guns in the truck, he didn’t feel real comfortable. Hal would stomp him like a roach. Sure, the senator would pay for it, but that wouldn’t help Junior any.

Finally, Hawkins said, “I don’t know who you work for, Junior, but let me tell you this. If this gets out, I’m ruined. If that happens, I won’t have anything left to lose. Hal out there has friends. They’ll find you, and you will tell them who sent you, before they put you out of your misery, and whoever your people are will suffer the same fate as you. You understand me here?”

Junior felt a chill. This man was dead serious, Junior had heard enough people calling it straight to know it when he heard it. The senator was telling him it was easier to do what Junior wanted than it was to kill him, but that if it went wrong, he could do that. Would do it.

He nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”

“All right. What is it you want?”

Junior told him.

“That’s it?” He looked stunned. “My God, you didn’t need to do this. You already had my vote.”

“The man I work for doesn’t take chances,” Junior said.

Junior left. After he was back in the truck, with his guns in their holsters, he felt a whole lot better. Hawkins would be a nasty enemy, and Junior was just glad to be done with him.

There were some good things about living in Washington, Toni thought. One of them was that news got old fast. The phone would still ring now and then with calls from the media, but at least the reporters were gone from the sidewalk. They were off making somebody else miserable, which meant that Toni’s life could begin to get back to normal.

She was even thinking about going into the office today. Alex needed her help, no question about that. Between the lawsuit and normal Net Force operations, things were getting a little thick.

Toni had lost a few steps, she knew. She wasn’t quite as sharp as she’d been before she quit to have the baby. Like silat, work was a skill, and if you didn’t hone it, it got a little dull.

That didn’t worry her, though. She knew she could get it back if she really wanted. The question was, did she really want it? And that question did worry her, at least a little.

A year ago, two years ago, it would never have occurred to her that she might not want to go back to work. Before Alex — and especially before Little Alex — her work was her life. She had never imagined that anything—silat, her parents or siblings, or any future family of her own — could ever replace her job as the single biggest focus in her life.

She had been wrong. She had found something that mattered more to her. And it was making her think about things in a way she never had before, to ask herself questions that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago.

It didn’t have to be that way, of course. She had known plenty of women who had done both, raised a family and maintained a career, but it had seemed to Toni that something always suffered, even among the best and brightest. It was a matter of time, not effort or ability. There were only so many hours in a day, only so much you could do, no matter how much you wanted to do more.

And that was the point she kept coming back to. There were other people who could do her job at Net Force. Other people could help with investigations and administration. But who could step up and be a mom to her son?

No one, of course. She knew that. Even Guru couldn’t replace Toni. Not when it came to her family.

The worst of it was, there was just no way to know. Not in time, anyway.

At Net Force, at the FBI, at most jobs, the results of your decisions showed up quickly. Oh, some investigations stretched out over months or years, but for the most part you made a decision and you knew pretty quickly if you were right or wrong.

Being a parent didn’t work that way. You made your decisions on how to raise your child. You figured how and when and why to discipline him and how to encourage him. You determined when to lead by example and when to give a lecture. And after each decision, after each opportunity to teach or scold or praise, you had no idea if you had made the right call. You wouldn’t know — couldn’t know — until someday in the far future when your son was grown and you saw the fruits of your labor.

But even then, really, how would you know? If your child turned out happy and productive and successful and loving and all the other things you hope and pray for him, how would you know how much was due to your parenting and how much was just luck, or genetics, or other influences?

You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. And knowing that made making parental decisions — and especially major parental decisions — that much harder.

She sighed. Why hadn’t anybody told her about such things before? How did she go from having all the answers to her life, to having things all planned out and comfortable, to feeling as if she were standing on a trail leading into an unknown wasteland, next to a sign that said, “Beware! Here Be Dragons!”

Being Mommy was a lot harder than being a federal agent. Or kicking somebody’s tail in a fight. Much harder.