On the Bourbon Trail – chapter eleven

Miljana considered turning around and walking back out the door. The expression on Art's face at seeing her wasn't exactly inviting. He stood up abruptly, pushing his chair backward into the bureau behind him, and held out a hand, stop, and she stopped, and he stomped out into the bullpen to meet her.

"No," he said firmly, denying all evidence in a bid to rescue his day. "No, no, no."

"Art, I…"

"Goddammit." He cursed loudly, glared around the room to discourage rubber-necking. Nelson was too slow at finding something else to focus on, caught Art's eye and his frustrated bark. "Do you need me to find you something to do?"

"Uh, no, Chief. I'm… Do you want me to look after this?"

"God, no." Art turned so Nelson was no longer in his sight lines, scowled now solely for Miljana. "What's he done?"

"He…" She hesitated.

"He...? He's supposed to be on vacation. He's supposed to be drinking his morning coffee…leisurely. He's supposed to be putting a fine shine on his personal weapons collection. He's supposed to be with you. Now, Tim's been gone a whole day and half, but I don't think that's long enough for me to forget what he looks like." Art jabbed a finger at Miljana's companion, Tim Weaver. "I'm pretty sure that's not Tim."

Weaver held up a finger. "Actually…"

Miljana smacked Tim hard on the arm, cutting off the sentence he'd started. She aimed a look at him that was locked and loaded and when she was sure his mouth was well and truly shut, she traded threatening for pleading, bit her lip, wrapped her arms tightly around herself for a full portrait of vulnerability to appeal to Art's fatherly tendencies, turned back to the bureau chief and said, "Please, Art. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it was necessary."

The silent exchange between Miljana and Tim Weaver wasn't lost on Art. He didn't miss much, couldn't miss something that blatant. "Shit." He ground his teeth on the expectation of trouble and the knowledge that it was going to be his to deal with.

Miljana tried to conjure tears.

And that did it. Art dropped his head, sighed, put a solicitous arm around her back and steered her through the door to his office. He was way too soft on women, especially young women around his daughters' age, and especially any woman willing to take on one of his deputies and the life that went with it. They, including his own wife, Leslie, held a special place in his hierarchy of who to respect and who to ignore, a place near the top, just over the Director of the Marshals Service and just under God. Well, maybe just over God, too. "All right, let's hear it, but in here so when I start swearing I won't disturb the proceedings in the courtroom downstairs."

Frantically thumbing through the photos on her phone as she allowed herself to be propelled through Art's office door, Miljana stopped at a picture she had taken of a bottle of bourbon, the one Craig Franklin had on his desk the previous afternoon in his office in Lexington. It was a risk playing her best card first, but she wasn't certain how long she could hold Tim Weaver to his already broken promise of silence, and once he started talking she was certain Art would stop listening. She refused a seat, hoping to give the idea of urgency, and held out her phone for the chief deputy. He took it from her and studied the photo, then reached behind him and picked up his reading glasses and peered more closely at the display screen.

"Is that…?"

"Yes."

"And it's the…?"

"Yes."

Art gaped, staring at the photo. "Where'd you take this?"

"At Craig Franklin's office. He offered me a glass of it just yesterday."

"Who's Craig Franklin?"

"He runs a charity organization that I used to do volunteer work for. Tim thinks he's smuggling illegal goods." She continued quickly, setting the file that Tim had compiled on his personal most wanted on Art's desk and rifling through the papers, pulling them out one at a time and holding them up for Art. "He's been cited a few times for customs infractions but never charged, and he owns, at arms' length, an import-export business, and Tim just got something from a Frankfort court clerk about a case involving that company that was, well, he thinks the charges were dropped and that there was bribery in the mix. And there's a residence he owns that's…"

"Whoa. Slow down. Did you say 'charity organization'?"

Miljana nodded.

"If this is about that 'snipers are cowards' comment then I'm not going to…"

"Art…" Miljana put out a hand, palm up, and Weaver set his phone into it, and she passed it over to Art, the display showing another photo, this one of the mountain of bourbon in the smuggler's hole.

"Holy shit." Art stared, then set Miljana's phone in the same hand with Weaver's, freeing his right to rub furiously at his head. He was torn between wanting to thwart Tim's ridiculous vendetta and wanting to be the hero of the Kentucky law enforcement community, the man who recovered the stolen Pappy van Winkle. But it wasn't a difficult or lengthy struggle for Art – he knew he was in now, no matter what motivated Tim, no matter what else Miljana or her tag-along had to say. She couldn't have used better bait to hook an Eastern District of Kentucky US Marshal. "Tim took this?"

She nodded quickly, glossing over Art's assumption about which Tim, not sure how he would react if she corrected him and confessed that Weaver had been at the property, too.

Tim Weaver had been annoyingly calm when he strolled into her office after lunch, understandably mistaken for a client by the young man working reception. Weaver's demeanor was immediately reassuring, a relaxed smile – that is until he started talking, laying out the situation, why her Tim hadn't arrived home yet. In almost a bored voice, Weaver had explained Tim's absence, slipping in details like assault rifles and patrols and Japanese organized crime like he was discussing the agenda at an insurance convention. "Don't worry," he had said. So she didn't, she panicked, canceled her afternoon, and dragged an amused Weaver to the Federal Court House to see the Bureau Chief at the Lexington Marshals Office. The situation scared her. She was eager to hand it all over to someone who knew what to do with it, someone who might muster the troops and bring her Tim home safely for the rest of his week off. Being bourbon and baconed to death was sounding good to her at this moment, better than hospital food while visiting her sniper in ICU. "Yes, uh, Tim…took that…yesterday."

"Where?"

"At Craig Franklin's country house."

Art peered over his reading glasses at her. "And did Craig Franklin invite Tim into his country house and willingly show him his collection of stolen bourbon?"

"Uh…"

"No." He answered his own question, huffed loudly and swore. "Shit. What does he think he's doing?"

Tim Weaver spoke up then, offering an explanation, happy to be helpful. "He's staying to keep an eye on them. Don't worry, dude – he broke in when the place was empty. Nobody saw him, not even the Yakuza security. Tim's good at picking locks, got a real talent for it."

"Dammit, Stella!" Miljana snapped another backhand at Weaver who dodged it, brought up his fists in a boxer's stance and started dancing like Mohammed Ali, dodging and weaving around Art's desk.

"Is that all you got, girl? Come on. I can take you. Watch me. I'm a butterfly."

"If Tim took this in an illegal search," said Art, watching Miljana try to get a slap past Weaver's defenses, "then I can't use this. It'll never be allowed as evidence, either in court or for a search warrant."

The news stopped the boxing match.

Art had a phone back in each hand at this point, looking from one to the other. He did a juggling motion without actually throwing them. "I could, however, use the picture you took of the single bottle at Franklin's office to get a search warrant for all of his properties, and we could, through some contrived luck, happen to search his country house first, but…" He aimed the next part at Miljana. "You might have to testify about how and where you got your photo."

She nodded. "Okay."

"Dammit, don't be so agreeable. This is Tim out for some payback. He shouldn't be dragging you into it."

"Actually, he'd probably say I dragged him into it. He didn't even want to go to that dinner party. And really, I should have listened to him. Hindsight, you know?"

"That's hardly the point, young lady. Do you think this is worth it – you getting caught up with judges and attorneys and…and…other unsavory elements just to mollify Tim's overblown sense of injustice about…?" He stopped, processing, looked at Weaver. "Did you say Yakuza?"

"Yep, Yakuza – Japanese, assault rifles and tattoos up the wazoo. It's not like they were wearing nametags or anything, but Tim said they were Yakuza and I believe him. They fit the profile. Though maybe they're just really hardcore collectors. We did see lots of other collector kinda shit squirreled away in that little hidey-hole the guy's got…in his garage." Weaver's voice trailed off, his enthusiasm dampened by the expression on Art's face; he cleared his throat. "Nice office you got. I like the glass walls. Screams 'accountability' to me, transparency. That's a good thing, very twenty-first century."

"Who are you exactly?"

Miljana's answer came like a bullet, shot across Weaver's bow as a warning. "He's a friend of Tim's."

"Ranger?"

Weaver shook his head. "I was in the Marine Corp."

"Close enough. You two know each other from…?"

"Sniper school. We hit it off."

"I'll bet. And he took you breaking and entering with him, good friend that he is?"

"Yeah, it was fun. A bit like work, you know, but when it's not your work, it never seems as boring."

Art blinked, once. "You're talking to a federal law enforcement officer. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I checked you out when Tim transferred here."

Art didn't often find himself at a loss for words, but there were none to be found to follow up that statement.

Miljana had a few tucked away, filled in the blanks, reluctantly. "He's CIA." Then she made the dreaded introductions.

"CIA? Terrific. He's CIA." Art seemed to take the news in stride.

Miljana smiled absently, nodding again, thinking she must look like a bubble-headed bobble-head. "Like I said before, he's a friend of Tim's, the other Tim…your Tim…well, my Tim, I guess, really." She closed her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I'm getting the picture. CIA, huh? And what exactly does the CIA have to do with this?"

"Absolutely nothing. I'm on vacation."

"You and Tim are vacationing together? Jesus. I can tell just five minutes in a room with you that that's a recipe for disaster."

"That's what I said," said Miljana.

Art ignored her. "And this is your idea of vacationing? Breaking into people's houses? That may be the CIA version of a holiday, but it's not legal in the US and Tim should know that. I'm pretty sure they cover B and E at Marshals school."

"Hey, dude, relax. No one knows but us."

"But I don't know you."

"No need to worry. I can keep a secret." A brimstone grin spread under the new beard sprouting. "I think God is the only one above me for knowing shit that a person just shouldn't know. Even POTUS doesn't have my security clearance." He zipped his lips with a finger.

"Did Tim call you in to help?"

"No. She did," said Weaver, a thumb in Miljana's direction. "I didn't know Tim was on vacation – that was just a lucky coincidence. I tried Disney last year." Weaver's face scrunched into distaste. "But there's too many people in costume there. I hate not being able to see their faces – gets me edgy."

There was an awkward silence; Miljana tried to keep up a poker face.

"It must be something in the name," said Art eventually, with a meaningful look at Miljana. "You said he's a Tim, too?"

Weaver answered, "No, Tim's the Timtoo. You can call me Stella, or Hadadezer. That's my name on my driver's license this week." He pulled it out and held it up, looking very pleased with himself.

Art took it, studied it, scowled at it. "Hadadezer? That's the stupidest…"

"Art, please." Miljana was running out of patience for the meet and greet. "Please – warrant, assault rifles, Tim?"

Art repeated her list. "Warrant, assault rifles, Tim. Do you hear yourself? You really want to get involved in this?"

"What else can I do?"

"Well, I've got Raylan chasing this thing from the other end. With any luck he'll find something. He was going to see Wynn Duffy before lunch, said he'd call." Art checked his watch. "That was almost five hours ago." Time hung itself on the dwindling possibilities. "You might have to take the stand at a full-blown trial. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

"I don't care at this point." Miljana's frustration let loose, as close as she would ever come to yelling. "Look, I don't know anything about criminal investigations or trials, but ask me if I think you're all crazy bourbon-abusing alcoholics and I'll give you an expert opinion on that."

"I don't think I want to hear your expert opinion on that."

"I don't think you do, either."

Art narrowed his eyes at Miljana and she opened hers wide, beseeching. He handed back Weaver's phone, but kept a tight hold on hers, dialed Raylan from his own, hoping for an easier route to bringing the Old Pappy home safely. It went to voice mail, and he left a short and gruff message then huffed out a breath. "I know a bourbon-abusing alcoholic judge that will happily sign off on this. Follow me." He led the way out into the bullpen, barking orders. "Nelson, keep calling Raylan until he answers, then find out where the hell he is. Rachel, get a team together, well-armed. Tim Hadadezer here will tell you where we're going and what we might be up against, and how many locals to call in on it. I'm going downstairs to talk to Reardon to get a search warrant. Be ready when I get back. And you, young lady," Art pointed at Miljana, "you get to meet The Hammer."

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