Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

“Yeah?” Vince was looking around for a place to put the body. “They had you on the committee deciding if I was going off my nut?”

“Pretty much. We concluded you just… had enough.”

“You concluded right. There’s a hollow under that outcropping over there. We could shove him in there, block it up… Unless you think you can get the agency to discreetly come and drag him out.”

“Can’t be done discreetly. So you’re not actually joining these people?”

“Not for real.” Vince bent down and took Deek by the ankles and started dragging the body toward the outcropping. “Trying to find some stuff out. Personal stuff. Only it’s turning out to be not so personal. More like…”

“More like you’re concerned about treasonous sons of bitches planning mass murder?”

“Something like that. Hey — know how to get into the armory at the base?”

“No, it’s got a heavy-duty electronic lock. There’s a passcode.” She watched him dragging Deek. “You want me to take an ankle?”

“You can help me block him up in there. Rocks, whatever. You had to come out here to call your people?”

“The militia takes away your phone, out here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I did notice… Jesus, Deek, you’re a heavy bastard…”

“Anyway, this comm system is more secure… or it was till that asshole followed me out here. And I’ve got weapons out here. Gustafson doesn’t give them to ‘Shield Maidens’.”

Vince turned Deek’s body ninety degrees, dropped its legs, then knelt and rolled the corpse into the hollow under the granite outcropping. “Listen — you know a Bobby Destry?”

She handed him a couple of hefty rocks and nodded. “I met him. Seemed like a nice kid, for a Nazi.”

“He decided he wasn’t one — and then he vanished. Is he dead?” He set the rocks in place. He’d need more than a pile of rocks. He’d have to use bark, moss, whatever he could find…

“Last I heard, Bobby was in one of the cells in the basement under Wolf Base. He why you’re here?”

“Partly. You going to tell your bosses about what happened out here?”

“I have to. You’re not going to come off like a murderer, if that’s what worries you. You had to do it to shut him up. But listen — I didn’t actually tell you to kill him.”

“I kind of thought you wanted me to.”

“I kind of hoped you would. It would blow my cover if I arrested him.”

“Anybody ever consider…” He went to get a particularly large rock. “…that if you just let these pricks know you’re watching them, they’re not going to make a terror move? You know — preventative policing.” He shoved the big rock in place near Deek’s boots.

“Sure, we know that.” Deirdre handed him a couple more rocks. “But this organization is pretty good sized. It’s spread widely. There are all kinds of aspects we don’t know about. Things we need to know. And Gustafson might just take a warning as the cue to make his move… He’s a fanatic.”

“They’re going to wonder where Deek here went,” Vince observed.

“We’ll have to come up with a story. If you’re staying.”

“I’m staying. I’ll think of something to tell them. But you should blow this popcorn stand, Agent Corlin — give up the embed completely before you’re blown. They might start looking at you closer…”

“You know how long I’ve been on this? More than a year and a half!” She rubbed the wrist Deek had been squeezing.

“You’ve been at this base for that long?”

“No, I was undercover in the Brethren group in Illinois. Been here for more than a month. We got a tip from a local woman… Anyway, I’ve got one of these knuckleheads chattering to me a little now — I’m close to finding out what their Big Boogaloo move is. Something called Firepower.”

“That’s the big push?”

She nodded. “That’s all I’ve got, the code name — except it’ll happen in Washington D.C. But what exactly will happen… I don’t know. You hear anything else?”

“No. But I read between the lines that Gustafson isn’t thinking small… Okay, put those rocks down here, I’ll do the rest of this. You’d better get that basket and head back before they notice you’re late.”

“I’ve got to finish my call. I’ll make it quick. If you find out anything…”

“I’ll find a way to tell you.”

“I can’t make the same promise.”

“Yeah, I figured. Cops! What’re you gonna do?”

“We could have a dead drop in case I want to give you a message — or you want to give me some info.”

He thought it best she knew whatever he did. “There’s a Slavic/English dictionary in the library covered with dust, off in a corner.”

“Okay. If I want a meeting, I’ll move it an inch out from the rest. I run the library so I can be there at, like, nine o’clock at night. It’s usually deserted — these people aren’t big studiers. You can leave the same signal. We could sit in the corner and pretend to be discussing a text…”

“You got it.”

She hurried back to her satellite phone. Whistling an old Jimi Hendrix tune about a watchtower, Vince finished hiding the body.

*

The rain began soon after Vince returned to the base. A real gully washer. It was a piece of good luck, Vince reflected. It’d help wash away his tracks in the forest.

After supper, as Vince was heading to the showers, Marco called from the other end of the hall. “Bellator!”

“Yes, Corporal?” Vince noticed he had his pistol buckled on.

“The General wants to see you in his office.”

“No time for a shower?”

“Nope.”

Vince nodded. “Let’s go.”

Marco escorted him there. Vince found Gustafson sitting behind his desk. To his left was Gunny Hanson, the one-eyed crusty old anti-Semite and former Marine, who was