Monday December 4 2006

Central HQ Boulder

12:09 MT

Daniel Grissom pushed his meal tray along the shelf in front of the serving area, looking for his next selection. The food in the canteen was unusually tasty and varied for an eatery that served cafeteria style; his decisions here were usually centered, not around finding something fit to eat, but what selections he would be forced to skip. His meals here were generally better than he got at home on weekends, unless they went out or he cooked himself; Adrienne had many talents, but she had never been a cook. Though, he had to admit, she seemed to be making an effort to improve.

A man sidled up beside him, bumping trays: Brad Gerick, one of Director Colby's bodyguards. "Hey, man. Feel like stepping out tonight?"

Dan pointed at a pasta side, and the server dished up a portion and set it on top of the counter for him. "I thought Nicole was out of town." In truth, he no longer felt threatened by the Genactive interrogator's interest. She had shown no inclination to take their acquaintance past chance meetings and friendly talk, and besides, it was rumored that she'd fastened her attention on someone else. The nightly chaperonage of Colby's men had begun to wind down shortly after his split with Caitlin, though they did still go out to a local watering hole from time to time.

"She is." Brad met his eyes. "Maybe there are other reasons to get out of the complex once in a while."

Dan knew that Colby still maintained some sort of contact with the Lynch Mob, as Dan did. Like Dan, he worked to keep Lynch and his people safe. But, aside from keeping Dan and his secrets away from Nicole, they had never actually worked together. To Dan, it sounded as if that might soon change. "Sure."

Boulder

16:30 MT

"Evening, Frank. Are you home? Did you have dinner yet?"

Holding the phone tight against his head, Colby looked up at Cheryl, who stood watching him from the foyer. Beside her stood a large wheeled airline bag, its handle extended. He nodded to her, and the girl grasped the bag's handle and towed it down the hall.

"I just got in," he said. "It's just four-thirty here."

"Mm, two hour time difference, right." To Colby's ear, Nicole sounded rather subdued. Tired, perhaps? "How was your weekend?"

"Calm," he said. "Spent it in the office, catching up, but taking my time." He squeezed the phone a little tighter. "What about you?"

"Work," she said. "I thought I'd be on my way home by now, but this is turning into one of those jobs that keep getting bigger the farther along you get. I won't be back until next week at this rate. Is Cher with you?"

He hesitated. "Yeah. She's hanging up some things in the spare room."

"Good. I was afraid she might be stubborn about it, just because it was my idea."

"Apparently, my opinion on the matter doesn't count for much."

"Oh, Frank. You know you like having her close. I don't know why you're so nervous about taking her to bed."

"Maybe I'm afraid my girlfriend will get jealous." The words simply slipped out. Girlfriend? What the hell am I talking about?

She's two time zones away. This can't be I-S. Unless hers can travel over phone lines.

Could it be something in her voice?

"Nicole?"

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend, Frank."

"I don't," he said. "I'm just messing with you."

"Hm," she said."Only fair, I suppose. But, you know, if you wanted to do a threesome, I wouldn't mind giving it a try. I'd just like to meet her first."

Cheryl leaned out of the bedroom doorway, looking at him. He said into the phone, "I need to go now."

"Me too. Room service just arrived. I think I'm headed for bed soon. Let's talk tomorrow. Tell Cheryl hi for me."

Greenville Alabama

19:30 EST (17:30 MT)

Nicole lay naked on her still-made hotel bed, staring up at the patterned and moulded ceiling. The hallway door closed softly with a click as her 'room service' departed.

The fancy ceiling reminded her of the mansion she had visited a few days before. It had been rather pretty, she thought. But she traveled all over the world, and had been in houses far finer. What about it had made such an impression that it kept coming back to her? The idea of buying it was silly. What would she do with it? How often could she even visit a house two thousand miles from headquarters? It was right in the middle of an urban area, a bullseye on the map where her every coming and going would be noted by a hundred strangers. The utilities and mechanicals were probably ancient, and would have to be ripped out and redone. Maintenance would likely strain even her income, and the taxes on five acres of land just a mile from the city's business center would be crushing – though, come to think of it, there were probably ways around that, at least for IO. But it was still a ridiculous notion.

She remembered the sight of the planting beds all around the big house, and birds flitting among the trees, and the faint scent, how fulfilled and… comfortable she had felt as she took it in. That was what drew her to the place, she decided, the gardens, not the stonepile set in their midst. It had been so sweet and pleasant…

You smell like flowers. A garden.

After another minute she got up, took a second shower, and dressed for bed. When she came out of the bedroom into the living area, she saw her untouched meal on the dining table. The room was equipped with a small kitchen and microwave; she could heat it all back up if she wanted to. But her hunger had disappeared. Guess food wasn't what I was hungry for.

Her phone sat on the writing desk nearby, charging. She disconnected it from the cable, holding it in her hand for a long moment, then punched in a number from memory. When the party on the other end – an unfamiliar voice - said, "Hello?" she disconnected without speaking. She checked her call log and nodded to herself. The number she had just dialed wasn't on it.

Boulder

20:00 MST

The little drinkery on the western edge of town that Colby's men used as an after-hours hangout was quiet on a Monday night. Daniel, Mike and Brad were the only customers sitting at the bar, Daniel said in to his mug, "It wouldn't be as simple as writing down a number, or even making a call. Yeah, I've still got her number, and it probably still works. I haven't called her in weeks. We're not together any more."

"Dumped her for a stripper, right," Gerick said, ignoring Loud's dark look as he lifted his mug to his chin. "Just fucking with you, kid. I know you had reasons."

"She's still important to me," he said. "Special. God, did I just say that? I want to keep her safe. I need to."

Loud rested a hand on the young man's shoulder. "What better way to keep her safe than pulling IO's teeth? If we don't, they'll be running for the rest of their lives."

"Colby can't do this? I thought he and Lynch were in contact."

"Not anymore. Their meetings were always face to face, in one out-of-the-way place or another. He can't do that now. And if he ever had a number for Lynch, I bet it doesn't work now. He said Lynch always called him, and the number wouldn't show up on his phone. The last time they talked was just before Chula Vista, when he was tied to a fookin chair in Ivana's office."

"The last time I talked with him," Daniel said, "he Lethed me. Who are these people you're talking about? The ones who want his help?"

"Old friends of Lynch's, still working here. They're not in contact with him, but they've been working to keep IO off his back since he jumped ship."

"Does Colby even know about this?"

"Sort of. He knows they're working on something, but he doesn't have the details. It's how he wants it."

Mike thought it over. "I can't just write down her number and hand it to you. I need to run this by her."

"Sure." He lifted his mug, draining it, and lifted a bill to catch the bartender's eye. "If you're gonna do it tonight, you might want to do it soon. She always struck me as a girl who goes to bed early."

Dan slid a bill across the counter to the barman and asked for change, receiving a fistful of quarters. He stood, his limbs feeling leaden, and made for the hallway leading to the bathrooms at the back of the building – and the pay phone he had used every night to call his Genactive girlfriend unmonitored.

The little wall-mounted enclosure was gone, replaced by a pattern of holes in the drywall and a different-colored rectangle showing the color of the wall when it had been installed. He came back and asked the barman, "What happened to the phone?"

"Cell phones happened," the man said. "Used to be, you saw pay phones in every bar and on every street corner. Hell, even schools and grocery stores had em. Now, they get so little use they can't pay for themselves. Some yahoo yanked the handset out, cord and all, and after six calls the phone company came for the rest a week later."

"Is there another pay phone around here?" At the man's amused look he said, "How about someplace where I can get a" he almost said burn phone "prepaid phone?"

"Carryout a block down the street," the man said. "But it closed at eight, if the clerk isn't waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up."

He threw on his coat. When his companions slid off their stools, he shook his head. "It may be hard enough getting him to unlock the door for one person," he said. "The three of us together might look like a robbery attempt."

"It can wait til tomorrow," Loud said. "She said it needed done ASAP, but I don't think anybody's life depends on it getting done tonight."

She? "I'd rather do it now," he said. "It'll be harder tomorrow."

Daniel hurried down the sidewalk. It was starting to snow, the concrete already bearing half an inch of white stuff that made walking fast risky. In a few minutes, he reached the little store. Through the glass front, he could see that it was dimlit and empty, the attendant already gone for the night. Tomorrow then. He was halfway back to the bar when his phone rang. He glanced at the ID info and stopped.

The phone was still ringing in his hand. But there was no number or ID information on the screen. He connected and held the device to his ear. "Hello?"

"Dan?" The single syllable was all he needed to identify the voice.

"Kat," he said. "I was just about to call you."

"Did you call earlier? Not me, Anna."

"No," he said, bemused. "I don't have her number, just yours. Somebody called her?"

"Yes. Not a secure phone, but she didn't recognize the number. Whoever it was didn't talk, just hung up as soon as she answered. She already called Andy, it wasn't him."

"When did this happen?"

"About five, while we were fixing dinner."

Since when does Anne let anybody help in the kitchen? But before the thought found its way to his mouth, another crowded it aside. Five o'clock. About six here. It's almost eight-thirty now. Had she spent two hours working up the nerve to call? "Maybe it was a wrong number."

"Maybe," she said doubtfully. The numbers on the clandestine phone network were prefaced by an exchange not to be found in any directory. "She has the number – three-oh-three area code, so Denver cell network, not that that means much. It just seems risky to call back without knowing who's on the other end." An uncomfortable pause followed, one that seemed to stretch forever. The snowfall thickened, making his surroundings indistinct. She said. "Well, anyway. You said you were going to call?"

He suddenly realized that, being on the receiving end of the call with her, he was already speaking with Kat on the secure line he had been struggling to set up. "Yeah. Something's come up."

Boulder

20:24 MT

"Wow," said Colby, pushing back from the dining table. "That has to be the best meal I've had at home since I came to Boulder. Thank you, Cher."

Cheryl stood and began clearing away disposable containers. "Just a matter of finding a delivery service that comes out this far, and lists a restaurant with decent food. Want coffee?"

"I'll get it," he said. "I'm not a cripple, you know." He grinned at her sudden look of discomfort.

She smiled "Prick."

He followed her into the big kitchen. "Not the worst thing a woman's ever called me. Still, disrespect to a superior is grounds for discipline, you know."

"Show me that in the rule book."

"What rule book?"

"Exactly."

"Which means the rules are what the boss says they are."

"Fine," she said. "I'll do the dishes."

"Load the dishwasher, you mean?"

"There's nothing to wash but some forks and glasses."

"No matter. Run it anyway."

"Well then, I'll put a few things in the fridge, and we're done. What do you want to do now?"

He set up the coffeemaker. Against usual practice, he dumped a portion of decaf beans into the grinder with his usual blend; he didn't want to risk having trouble sleeping tonight. "Feel like setting up at the table and doing a little work?"

"What kind of work?"

"The Fort Worth op," he said. "And maybe a final look at the business in Detroit." He added, "Unless you'd rather do something else."

"Like read a book, or watch a movie? I'll get the files."

Hot drinks in hand, they looked over the intel and preparations for the Razor operation in Texas. Though it was staging in Fort Worth, the objective was actually twenty miles to the southwest, near Lake Granbury. A group of 'patriots' – homegrown domestic terrorists, in Colby's estimation and IO's – who called themselves the New Texas Rangers were set up in a bunker-like compound in the barren land outside of town. Their promotional literature – mailings, pamphlets, and an amateurish website – was protectionist, jingoist, and racist, and it disturbed Colby to see how fast the group had grown in the past six years the group had members from four states. Like all such groups, they styled themselves a 'militia,' stockpiling firearms and ammunition, conducting weapons and CQF training as well as small-unit exercises, mostly of the urban-warfare type. Said training was conducted in a rather well-built killhouse on the outskirts of the property, and from the sound of the remote observers' reports, the New Rangers had a pretty impressive arsenal.

They funded their activities as most such groups in this country did, through various petty crimes: burglary, theft, and stolen cars, supplemented by deals in street drugs and small arms. It was a sour joke around town that, every time there was an overnight rash of missing catalytic converters, the noise from the Ranger compound got a little louder.

Normally, a group like the New Rangers would be beneath IO's notice. But preparing for the collapse of the government wasn't the limit of the Rangers' ambitions. They had some ideas about helping it along.

Two months previously, the Border Patrol had found a group of nineteen illegals shot dead and left in a gulley just south of Quemado. The investigation revealed that they were three families who had crossed the Rio together three months prior, doing various ag work in the area before they went missing. A few weeks later, a bus full of dead migrants was found on a dirt road south of I-20 near Bard. The rifling marks on many of the bullets in the victims matched ones found in the Quemado group. There was no physical evidence linking the Rangers to the murders, but their website had made veiled allusions to both incidents, in statements applauding the unknown perpetrators for 'stemming the brown tide' and 'defending our state from invasion'. And the last such post, a lengthy piece regarding the bus murders and the 'insidious program of job theft and economic destabilization by America's enemies to the south,' had been made just minutes after news of the incident had been released to the media.

Again, such activity wouldn't normally have rung any bells at IO headquarters. In truth, it scarcely rang any in state offices. But the Rangers had recently targeted a number of local and county officials whose opinions didn't match their interests and whose jobs might cause them some inconvenience. The usual harassment ranged from threatening calls to vandalism and arson. A tax assessor had come out his door one morning to find his dog dead on his stoop. But one official, a man in the state prosecutor's office with an interest in gang crimes of the sort that provided the Rangers their income, had had his car blown up in the lot while he was at work. In Colby's experience, public officials were never so motivated to act as when their own lives and livelihoods were at risk. And the prosecutor whose car had been bombed was in IO's pocket, and had proven useful more than once. The New Texas Rangers had ended up in the crosshairs, not for their crimes or their agenda or their methods, but for unknowingly having fucked with the wrong people.

"This is going to end up all over the news," Cheryl shook her head over the t paperwork spread out on the table between her and her boss. "Jesus, Mount Carmel's just fifty miles away. They're still printing stories about that one," she said, referring to the infamous 'Waco Siege' ten years before. "Conspiracy theories, mostly, but still."

"Which is another reason we're doing it, and not the local law, Texas National Guard or the ATF," Colby said. "Deniability. The New Texas Rangers will appear to have been wiped out by another paramilitary, one they've traded weapons and information with in the past. These homegrown brownshirt groups have begun networking and cooperating all over the country. It would be good if they suddenly trusted one another a little less." The misdirection had been Colby's main concern; he trusted Ben Santini to handle the job of quietly snuffing out this pack of coyotes, but fixing the blame for their deaths on all the wrong people was at least as important a consideration for the success of the op.

Quietly she said, "What about their families?"

"These people aren't Branch Davidians," Colby said. He tapped an aerial photo of the compound, a dusty flat on which stood several utilitarian buildings of various sizes, an outdoor shooting range, and a parking area half full of disreputable-looking vehicles, all surrounded by a crooked barbed-wire cattle fence. "This isn't a residence. It's more of a clubhouse for thugs who like to pretend they're revolutionaries. No doubt some of them will leave behind widows and orphans, but I expect they'll be better off." He signed several documents, put them in a large envelope with the rest of the operation's paperwork, and set it aside. "Original to Ben, copy for our files. Let's take a look at Detroit."

For the half-dozenth time, he went over the reports from the botched pickup on a pair of Genactive runaways discovered in Detroit. He felt a secret pleasure that Leon Carver and Rachel Goldman had gotten away clean, and that the pickup team was clueless as to how it had been spotted. "Well," he said as he returned the thick file to its folder, "I really can't see anything Ivery's people did wrong. Maybe it was just bad luck. Or some Genactive talent we don't know about yet."

In truth, he suspected that the surveillance team had been burned by its own caution. It was understandable, given the unpleasant surprises the Specials had handed IO nearly every time a team had tried to apprehend them. But two weeks was an unreasonably long time to shadow someone as closely as they'd done with these two. Colby guessed they'd been noticed by an unmarked observer; the neighborhood was crowded and difficult to surveill from a distance, and while casual neighbors in such communities made poor witnesses, nosy ones made excellent watchdogs.

Cher stood and rounded the table. Standing behind him to collect the files, she reached over his shoulder, her forearm brushing his trapezius. Her hair brushed his ear, carrying the scent of her shampoo to his nose.

He glanced at his watch. "Wow. Ten already?" He stretched his arms over his head. "Though, now that I'm thinking about it, it feels later."

"Same here," Cher said, still behind him. "Been a long couple of days for both of us." Was it his imagination, or had her voice gone softer?

"I'm going to take a shower, set my alarm for seven, and go to bed. I think I'll do another day in the office." He backed the chair out and turned it, and she stepped aside. But he didn't roll toward the hallway leading to his suite and the spare bedrooms.

"Okay," she said. A pause. "Well, goodnight."

Another pause. "You're staying, right?"

"Yes. If that's all right."

"Of course. Do you need anything?"

"I'm good, thanks."

"Well, goodnight."

"We're going the same way," she said. "Want a push?"

"No, thanks," he said. "I'm a little stiff from all the sitting. Might have some trouble getting in and out of the shower." He grasped the wheels and gave them a little push, just to put the chair in motion.

"Do you-" She stopped.

He halted and looked back at her. "Do I what?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Okay." He grasped the wheels again.

"Frank."

This time, he turned the chair to face her.

"I'm not doing this because she wants me to."

"I know that," he said. "I'm glad you're here, Cher." He pivoted back around and sent the chair down the hallway.

His spare phone began vibrating before he reached the bedroom door.

At the door, he took a quick look back, and saw the door to the guest bedroom close. Once inside his room, he engaged his scrambler and checked the ID: blank. He connected. "Hello?"

Tuesday December 5 2006

08:14 MT

Tucson Arizona

Looking at the front of the building, Leon said doubtfully, "This is a restaurant?"

"Leon, it's a Cracker Barrel."

He eyed the tongue-and-groove board façade, its wide porch lined with wooden rockers, then back to the crowded parking lot, half its slots filled with pickups and motor homes. Half a dozen people had gone in and out the door while he and Rachel had approached: mostly white, with a couple of brown-skinned folk in cowboy hats, but no blacks. One of them gave Leon and his companion a quick glance as they passed by. "It's a 'cracker' something."

Tucson was the third layover on their flight from Detroit. This was their first morning in town, and Leon thought they might stay here another day before picking a direction. Their motel was a short walk from the Greyhound station, but there weren't many places to eat nearby. Their dinner had been prepackaged sandwiches from the convenience store a block from the motel. This morning, Rache had insisted on something different, and had put them on a city bus for a twenty-minute ride to this place.

"Don't know," he said. "I'm more a Waffle House kind of guy."

"If there's a Waffle House in this town, we didn't pass it on the way in." She hooked elbows and led him to the door. "Leon, it'll be fine."

"You ever been in a Cracker Barrel, Miss Manhattan?"

"No," she said, as they stepped onto the porch. "But I know people."

The area just inside the door was a sort of general store, or maybe a tourist shop, full of trinkets and clothing and old-timey junk. Rachel went down the aisles, picking up items and examining them while Leon followed behind. "Wow. An oil floor lamp, complete with shade. It's new. Who knew they still made this stuff?"

"This is probably the only place in the world that sells them."

"There are stores in Amish country, I imagine." They approached the counter and the entrance to the restaurant with its waiting hostess. "Hey," Rachel said, "check this out. A lending library of audiobooks on CD. 'Return to any Cracker Barrel."'

"We don't have a CD player."

"I know. It's just a neat idea. Kind of a throwback to more trusting times."

"It's a slick way to get people to come back to Cracker Barrel," he said. "Bet the ones that never get returned don't cost the franchise near as much as they make from people who bring them back."

"You're a kind man, Leon, but you have no faith in human nature. Ooh, fudge. I'm getting some of that when we come back out."

As they were led to a table, Leon scanned the nearly-full dining room. The only other black face belonged to a girl taking orders.

"Why so jumpy?" Rachel asked as they sat down. "There couldn't have been more than a dozen black students at Darwin."

"Fourteen."

"Fourteen, fine. Out of ninety kids. You didn't act like this back then."

At Darwin, we barely spoke. How would you know how I felt or acted? "Anyplace we go now is enemy territory, Rache. We don't want to do anything or go anywhere that gets us noticed. You know that. Got to keep a low profile." Rachel was plenty smart – scary smart, about some things. But she had been sheltered and wealthy her whole life. She had never been to a school where gangs sold meth in the parking lot, or shared classes with kids whose granddaddies had once paraded down Main Street in white sheets and hoods. And he was sure she had never been pulled over by policemen who approached the car from both sides with their sidearms already half out of their holsters, because they thought she was driving a car that looked too nice to belong to her.

She gave a heavy sigh. "Guess I'm just tired of being on the road already." She picked up her menu, and said from behind it, "I miss our apartment."

Not home. Our apartment. He remembered looking at places in the rundown apartment complex that the Man in Black's contact had directed them to, a complex whose owner took cash payments and didn't demand credit checks. They'd checked out three two-bedroom units, growing more dismayed with each one: broken doors, filthy furnishings and appliances, scarred floors and walls. One reeked of piss and animal stench, despite the building's no-pets policy. He'd been about to say something stupid to the man showing them around, when Rache had asked him, "What do the one-bedrooms look like?"

"Better shape than this, generally," the man had said. "Same floor space, bigger rooms. They don't get trashed as bad when there aren't as many people packed into them."

Leon had opened his mouth to speak, but she had laid a hand on his forearm. "We can make it work," she had said in a low voice.

And they had. They'd settled on a unit on the top floor that wasn't too bad, and set to work. The little rich girl from Long Island had got down on her hands and knees with a putty knife to scrape the crud off the floors. She had washed the walls and ceilings, spackled the holes, and painted everything. She had replaced broken wall plates and light fixtures. Once, he had come home from work to find her, clothes soaking wet and her hair in strings, mopping the flooded kitchen floor, and a new faucet installed at the sink. "Well, now I know what the little knobs under the sink are for," she had said.

The apartment had gradually taken shape, decorated and furnished to her cultured taste, albeit from thrift shop and garage sale purchases. He would have liked to curl his lip at her choices, which leaned heavily toward antique pieces made of real stained wood, without a Sauder's or IKEA item anywhere – but the durable and beautifully-made pieces had made the shabby rental the most elegant and comfortable place he had ever lived, and sharing it with her had made him feel special, a person of worth. The idea of a shared bedroom had bothered him at first, even with twin beds, but they had made some adjustments and followed a few unspoken rules, and before long it had been actually pretty nice.

He said into his menu, "I miss it too."

The food wasn't too bad, if a little bland. Salt and pepper and a bit of hot sauce took care of that. The grits were instant, but you couldn't expect different from a place that didn't serve them to every other customer. Their server was a white girl, but she was attentive, and he saw no indication that she was treating them any different from her other customers. He sipped his second cup of coffee, midway through his meal, and began to relax a bit.

Rachel forked a bit of fruit and brought it to her mouth. "I've been thinking about our IDs. It would be good to have another set."

"Where would we get them?" He didn't argue about cost, though IDs good enough to be good for anything more than buying beer at a grocery would be expensive. When it came to money, cost and value, Rachel was always right. She had insisted on buying a second set of IDs from their contact as soon as they were settled in with jobs and a place to live, before the apartment was even fully furnished. That set had been the one under which they had purchased bus tickets out of Detroit, and was what they were running on now, since the original set must surely be burned. A spare set had saved their asses once; it would be prudent to maintain that bit of insurance.

"I still have that guy's number. Maybe he can put us in touch with somebody where we're going."

"Well, then, we'd better decide where we're going. California's a big state."

"South," she said firmly. "I'm tired of being cold in the winter."

"Another big town? LA, San Diego?"

"Maybe. Let me grab a prepay and make the call, see what we can do." She lifted another bite of melon to her lips. "After fudge."