Badger Games (7 page)

“This time we didn't get back. We started smoking on the climbout. We probably got eighty miles south before we had to eject. Only what's-his-name didn't eject. At least none of the other planes saw his chute. I never saw it. He must have ridden her down.”

Joe didn't say anything about “what's-his-name.” Either the colonel had forgotten the kid's name or he didn't want to think about it. “So, you were captured?” he asked.

The colonel didn't answer the question. He took a big drag off the cigar. “I landed in a rice paddy,” he said. “I was lucky. You don't want to come down in those trees. I ran for high ground as quick as I could get rid of the chute. We had a radio transmitter on us, so the ResCap people could keep track of us. The militia was out, looking for me, of course. It took me the better part of an hour to get up on this hilltop, up in the woods. I found a clearing. The ResCap guys—F-4s—kept cycling back, off the tankers, strafing the militia. They could see their flashlights. I could hear the militia troops calling to each other, coming up the hill. I figured I was about due for a long stay in the Hanoi Hilton. They got pretty close. Then I heard the chopper. He came in just above the trees, turned on some big lights, and down came the ladder. I jumped on that thing and held on for dear life! Away we went! The bastards didn't haul me up into the chopper until we were away from there.

“Jesus!” The colonel shivered. “You ever ride through the treetops at a hundred miles an hour, clinging to a ladder? My God, I thought they'd kill me.”

“But they never found wh—your backseater?”

“No. They ran missions out there for days, but no sign, no signal. He must have augured in. They could see where the plane went in, but finally the Vietnamese carted it off.”

“Did you go on the missions?”

“The ResCap? Oh, no. No, I was back up on the run the next night, new plane, new backseater.”

“They didn't send you home?”

“Eventually. But I wasn't hurt, just a little bruised. No, we couldn't spare the pilots. We had something like a thirty percent loss rate in that squadron. No, I went downtown on my regular rotation.”

They sat silently for a few moments, Joe mulling this story over. The previous telling had been different, with no mention of the backseater, and there had been at least a strong suggestion that the colonel had endured some heavy time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. He had no idea how much of it was true, if any of it, although he believed that the colonel had flown in combat. But why was he being told it in the first place? The last time, out in Salt Lake City, the story had been part of the colonel's cover. But that situation had long been superseded.

Finally, the colonel said, “Yeah, the rescue guys, they were pretty thorough. They looked every day for … I don't know … weeks, I guess. The air force must have spent thousands … well, hell, maybe a million, on that operation. The kid never showed up at Hanoi. We didn't forget him. But eventually, you know, it was clear: he hadn't gotten out. There was a formal hearing. I testified.”

Joe had found some beers in the boat's refrigerator. The colonel hoisted his, saying, “Here's to fallen comrades.”

Joe drank. This was it, he thought. He was right.

The colonel was very direct, after this long prelude. “So, what happened to Pollak?” he said.

“I told you about Pollak,” Joe said.

“Tell me again,” the colonel said.

Joe told the story. He and Pollak had gone up Lake Huron, in this boat, to an island off the Bruce Peninsula, in Ontario, a
few weeks earlier. They were after an escaped mobster who had faked his death. When they found the man, Humphrey DiEbola, he was dying—ironically, he'd caught a stray bullet in his escape. Joe had argued with Pollak that they should leave the guy to die. Their mission was simply to make sure he was dead. Evidently, Pollak had believed that “making sure” meant shooting the mobster. But DiEbola, according to Joe, had enough life in him to shoot Pollak first.

“The old devil had a gun under the covers,” Joe said. DiEbola had popped Pollak, who was leaning over the bed. Joe had fled. A Detroit police detective, Sergeant Mulheisen, was on the island and was expected to show up any moment. Joe hadn't had time to remove Pollak.

It was a simple story and Joe stuck to it. The colonel obviously didn't buy it.

“The inescapable fact is,” the colonel pointed out, “that Mulheisen didn't find Pollak there. If he had, we'd have heard about it. But nothing. He found DiEbola, dead, as you say. But Pollak hasn't reappeared, dead or alive. So where is he? It's been weeks. Your story isn't acceptable, Joe.”

Joe shrugged. “I have no idea.” This was not true. Pollak was, at least for the time being, at the bottom of Lake Huron. Joe had shot him and carried off the body, with the help of DiEbola's bodyguard, Roman Yakovich. It hadn't been a very good plan, disposing of the dead man at sea, so to speak, but Joe couldn't very well afford to have the body autopsied. So far, it hadn't washed up, or been found if it had.

Joe's plan was to avoid seeing the colonel ever again. That hadn't worked out. He'd dropped Roman Yakovich off at Port Huron. He should have walked then, himself. But he'd taken a chance that the colonel wouldn't be expecting him back so soon. With any luck, he'd thought he could slip into the St. Clair Shores Marina, park
the boat, and get away in his car. Unfortunately, the colonel and his friends were waiting for him at the mooring. Joe had made his report and then he'd hung around, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The meeting tonight looked like it might be the occasion, but instead they'd had dinner and then the others had gone.

“Joe, we just can't overlook this,” the colonel said. He tossed his cigar into the dark water. “You know the nature of our group. Pollak wasn't on an official assignment with us. Hell, we don't even exist. He was in town, officially, with Immigration. That's what I'm doing here, officially. We weren't on any assignment that can justify or explain Pollak's disappearance. So far, nobody knows he's missing. But that can't be sustained any longer, Joe. Eventually, somebody will come asking. They'll come to me. That will threaten the Lucani.”

The Lucani was the amusing name that the colonel and his people had dubbed their organization. It was based on the origins, in Italy, of DiEbola's family. The rationale behind the group's existence was their dedication to ridding the world of people like DiEbola. The members were made up of agents in various federal crime-fighting agencies who had become disillusioned by official policies. They had decided to take matters into their own hands.

That was the story Joe had been told, anyway. It could be true or it could be crap. He had thought about this on the long trip back across Lake Huron. Maybe they were acting officially, after all. Maybe the Lucani gag was just that, a cover story they had concocted to convince him to help them get DiEbola, who had been his one-time employer. He had no idea how many agents were involved—assuming the Lucani pitch was more or less true—but they seemed to have plenty of resources. His initial impression was that it was just five or six disillusioned agents. But others kept popping up.

“Joe, the guys have put themselves at risk, for a purpose,” the colonel said. “It's a purpose we believe in. It's what we got into
the service for, but found we couldn't—weren't allowed to—do. They got you out of that hospital in Denver. You were looking at years in a federal pen—if the mob didn't have you hit first. They put themselves out for you. If it was you missing, we'd be looking. We wouldn't leave you hanging—pardon the allusion.”

Joe shrugged. “Maybe Mulheisen's got him. Maybe the Mounties, or the FBI. Maybe they've got some reason not to talk about it.”

“All the more reason,” the colonel said. “We can't ignore this. We've got to know. Maybe you dumped him.”

“And if I did?”

“We'll have to deal with that, Joe. I don't know what the group would decide, but at least we'd know. Maybe they wouldn't do anything. It depends on the circumstances. Pollak can be a difficult man. If you felt for some reason that you had to take him out, the group might decide that you were justified. But we have to know.”

Joe wondered: Was “we” the Lucani? Or was it just the colonel? If there was such a group as the Lucani, every member's ass would be equally at risk. Yet it was always the colonel who did the talking. And there were other disquieting factors. Joe was confident, for instance, from some things that Pollak had let drop, that one of his missions was to get rid of Joe. Whose idea was that? Fortunately, it hadn't worked out that way. Joe didn't have any bad feelings about having popped Pollak. The way he saw it, it was him or Pollak.

Joe was content to believe in the Lucani: they had helped him escape. But now he was a fugitive. With their resources they could keep him more or less safe from the law. He had done an earlier job for them, getting rid of a Colombian drug dealer. It was like making your bones with the mob, he thought. In return, they had promised to remove him from the national police computer system. And there were other ways available to them to keep him on the loose. But if they chose to expose him, he'd be in a tight corner, he
knew. At best, he'd find himself forced deep underground. That prospect didn't delight.

“So, where are we?” Joe asked.

The colonel stared at him. He was a pleasant-looking man, but he didn't look pleasant at the moment. He had a hint of a military manner, but it was the easygoing, practical manner that one associated with pilots. Otherwise, he had the appearance of a worldly, intelligent, and competent middle-management type. He could be an executive of a large corporation, a director of a research group, perhaps a scientist. He seemed to be something between fifty and sixty years old, a trim, fit, weathered fellow.

“Where we are, Joe, is at one of those crossroads,” the colonel said. “Whether we go on from here is up to you. We can't continue … you can't continue with the Lucani until we resolve this issue.”

“And if I can't resolve it for you,” Joe said, leaning forward, his voice dropping, “what do you do?”

“Why, we'd have no choice,” the colonel said. He didn't seem tense, despite Joe's manner. “We'd have to pull the plug.”

“Pull the plug? On me, you mean?”

The colonel didn't answer, just gazed at Joe.

“Blow the whistle?” Joe said. “Sic the dogs?”

The colonel sat back in the tall seat and sipped at his beer. “Joe, you understand the nature of this group. We really can't afford to turn you over to the police.” He gazed calmly at him. “No, I think we'd have to consider other, more permanent measures.”

“If I thought you meant that,” Joe said, “you'd never get off this boat, Colonel.”

“Nor would you, Joe.” The colonel didn't move, but he seemed somehow to be larger to Joe, as if he had acquired a host of hidden backers, squads of shooters waiting in the night.

It didn't faze Joe. “I don't care,” he said. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket. It was an all-weather jacket with large
pockets. There had been some talk at the table, folks saying it was warm, why didn't he take off his jacket. But Joe hadn't taken it off.

The colonel shrunk, at least in Joe's eyes. He looked a little bleak. They stared at each other for long seconds, then the colonel nodded.

“Okay, you don't know anything about Pollak.”

“That's right,” Joe said.

“We'll just have to accept that, I guess. Until further information comes to light.”

“So … now what?” Joe said.

“I'll have to think about that, talk to the others.” He stood and handed his empty beer bottle to Joe. Joe ignored it. After a moment, the colonel looked about for a place to set the bottle. He set it in a holder next to the instrument panel, one of those devices designed for holding the driver's drink. “Ah,” he said.

As he prepared to leave, he remarked, “I suppose that one question in my colleagues' minds would be, What to do about Miss Sedlacek?”

“Really?” Joe said. “Why is that?”

“Well, she inherits the mantle of DiEbola,” the colonel observed. “And it won't be clear to us what your relationship with her would be. That is, are you with us, or are you with her? Something for you to think about, eh, Joe?”

“I haven't had a chance to discuss it with her,” Joe said. “But my impression is that she's getting out of the rackets. I don't think she's cut out for that kind of activity.”

“Well, I hope so, for her sake. But I'm not so sure I believe it. It's not so easy to get out, as Mr. DiEbola found. And Joe,” the colonel said, “it might take a while to see whether it's true. But you could find out.”

“Yeah, I could.”

“And if she wasn't out …” The colonel let that hang for a
moment, then spoke what was on his mind. “Her father was in it. She's pretty well positioned. She could even take over. If she did, or if it looked like she might … she might be a good way for you to prove …”

Joe laughed. “You guys never give up, do you?”

The colonel managed a smile. “No. No we don't, Joe.”

“Are you speaking as a federal agent, Colonel? Or as a Lucani?” Joe was interested.

“In my experience,” the colonel said mildly, “the feds do let people go. That was the problem, as we saw it. No, it's the Lucani who can't afford to let things drop. Too much at risk, you see.” He turned to go.

“One minute,” Joe said.

The colonel stopped in the act of climbing onto the dock. He looked back. “What is it?”

“Aren't you forgetting something?”

The colonel looked blank. “What?”

“The money. The ‘fee.' I think we said one hundred thousand dollars.”