Noble Warrior (8 page)

“Did he go over any aspects of how to execute this mission, any strategies, plans or directives?”

“No.”

Puwolsky rubbed his chin. “And you don't find this odd?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Stanzer either shows one-hundred-percent support or none at all,” M.D. said. “He's an all-in or not-in type of guy. This is my thing.”

Dickey Larson sniffed. “A man of principles, huh? I eat fuckers like that for breakfast.”

“Kid, meet Larson, my partner in the narcotics division,” Puwolsky said. “Larson, be nice and try not to foam on our friend. He's on our side, remember.”

Dickey Larson stood six foot three inches, two hundred thirty pounds, and sported trapezius muscles the size of meteorites. With his hulking upper body so exceptionally disproportional to the
size of his calves and a wild, revved-up look in his eye, it took McCutcheon all of two seconds to get a bead on Puwolsky's partner. The distended stomach, the immense lats, the red-speckled
acne traveling around the side of his neck and most assuredly down his back, all were telltale signs.

'Roid monster. No doubt.

“So this little twig is the fucking legend I've heard so much about?” Larson scoffed. “Gotta say, I'm sort of disappointed.”

Larson circled M.D., sizing him up. He sniffed, unimpressed.

“With all the shit I've heard about you I expected you to be about seven feet tall with a thirty-inch dick.”

“You were misinformed,” McCutcheon said. “My penis is only half that size.”

Larson took a moment to do the math and then his glower turned into a laugh.

“Aw, lemme have a go at the smart-ass, boss,” Larson said to Puwolsky. “Before we drop him in. A beast like me deserves a crack at the champ, don't ya think?”

Larson flexed his sixteen-inch biceps like a bodybuilder showing off a championship pose and then got right up into M.D.'s face. The two locked eyes. McCutcheon had no idea who this pit
bull was, but steroid users were notorious for erratic, crazed behavior. Whacked-out body chemistry plus overinflated egos, mixed with too much time staring into mirrors, wasn't
psychologically healthy for anybody, and this guy Larson proved no exception to the rule. But M.D. had dealt with this kind of nonsense before. Many times. People had been challenging McCutcheon
for years to fights for no other reason than they wanted to measure up against a guy with a huge rep. Most of the time, the challengers were idiots with big mouths who turned out to be all bark and
no bite.

Yet occasionally M.D. would have to, like a lame horse, put a guy down. His rules about when to do so were simple: Talk all you want, but touch and you pay.

“Get yer head out of your ass, Larson, we're doing business here.” Puwolsky clicked his key chain and beeped open the door to a white Cadillac Seville. The car sported a
high-end enamel paint job and special edition silver rims. “Get on in. I got no time for this shit.”

Larson reached for the door handle.

“Not you,” Puwolsky said. “Just him.”

“I thought I was goin'?”

“Negatory.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Puwolsky said. “Nothing personal, Larson, but sometimes you act like a brain-dead meathead and I don't want you to mess any of this up. There's too much
riding on it.”

“That's bullshit.”

“You have other talents. Important ones, too,” Puwolsky said. “But going for long, uneventful car rides is not one of them.” Puwolsky nudged his head as if to say,
Trust me, I got this.
“And that's what I need this to be,” Puwolsky added. “An uneventful car ride.”

It took a moment but Larson let go of the door handle, stepped back, and did as he was told.

McCutcheon climbed into the Caddy and glanced around. A black-and-cream interior. A polished wood steering wheel. An all-digital panel and stitched leather seats.

“My wife's,” Puwolsky explained. “She owns a waxing salon. You wouldn't believe how much women pay for their fucking eyebrows.”

“I bet I wouldn't.”

“You don't believe me?”

McCutcheon buckled his seat belt and waited for the car to drive away. Stanzer had lobbied, made his case, made a great many arguments to try to change McCutcheon's mind about taking this
assignment, but when all was said and done, M.D. remained unmoved.

“I'm going in,” he had told Stanzer.

Stanzer both disagreed and disapproved, but finally relented. “I guess no man can save another from himself.”

“I'm the one who has to live with the decision. I'm the one who has to live in this skin.”

“
Live
being the key word,” Stanzer replied. “But I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.” The colonel extended his arm for a shake. “Good luck, son. You
know how to find me if ever you need me. My door is always open.”

Those were the last words Stanzer spoke to McCutcheon before he had walked away.

A little melodramatic, M.D. thought. Then again, good-byes were always awkward.

“You really think I'm lying about this car, don't you?” Puwolsky said.

“Ready when you are,” McCutcheon answered.

Puwolsky lunged and M.D. flinched, but the colonel's meaty hand passed over McCutcheon's lap and yanked open the glove box. “G'head. Check the registration.”

Puwolsky threw the car's papers into M.D.'s lap, and sure enough the registration proved the car belonged to a Ms. Madeline Vina on 13579 Sycamore Street.

“I tell the truth, kid. I ain't perfect by any stretch, but anyone who works for me—excuse me, works with me—knows I tell the truth.” M.D. put the papers back in
the glove box as Puwolsky threw the car in gear and got ready to pull away. McCutcheon turned his head and looked out the window. Larson flipped him the bird.

M.D. didn't respond.

“Your colonel,” Puwolsky said as they exited the parking lot. “Lemme guess. He doesn't think you should do this, does he?”

McCutcheon rolled his eyes, the answer too obvious for words.

“Did he tell you why not?” Puwolsky asked.

“'Cause you're a dirty cop with a history of being investigated by Internal Affairs.”

Puwolsky snapped his head around at the mention of Internal Affairs and opened his mouth to spit out a fiery defense of his actions. However, before any words escaped from his lips, Puwolsky
reconsidered his response and spoke in a subdued tone.

“Done some research, I see.”

“Always.”

“Then you've seen that nothing big's ever stuck?”

“That's because Detroit's too fucked up at the top to get anything right.”

“Exactly,” Puwolsky said. “And that's why sometimes we gotta break the rules. It's the only way to get shit done. Me and your colonel, we're not so different
like that, are we?”

McCutcheon ripped open a package of raw almonds. Getting some energy in him before entering the state prison struck him as a good idea.

“I gotta feeling you are,” M.D. replied.

“You're right, we are. We are very different, son.” Puwolsky sped down the highway driving like most cops do: as fast as he wanted, with little regard for the rules of the road
they expect civilians to follow. “I've burned through three marriages; your idol's never been hitched once. I got four kids; he's got zip. I coach a basketball team for
inner-city youth down at the rec center; he wouldn't know how to identify a volunteer if she lifted her blouse and waggled her bazungas at him.”

“What's your point?” McCutcheon asked.

“My point is that you've been played, son.”

M.D. shook his head. “Whatever.”

“Listen to me,” Puwolsky said. “You do not have to do this. I mean that. You are still free to say no. Just give me the word.”

They drove along in silence, each man thinking many thoughts, neither speaking to the other. Puwolsky turned the speed of the windshield wipers from medium to high as the intensity of the
rainstorm grew. Forty-five minutes passed without a word between them until a white sign, its letters written in simple black print, appeared on the side of the road.

“My offer still stands,” Puwolsky said. “'Cause once you cross through those gates up there, son, it's an entirely different world.”

“What do you mean, Stanzer played me?” M.D. asked.

Puwolsky exited the highway, turned left, and drove up the long, single lane service road exclusively used by the prison.

“I betcha he said you had to let the girl go, didn't he? Fucking people who have never opened their hearts to love, they just don't get it, do they?”

M.D. stared at the wipers zip-zapping across the windshield, throwing spray off the glass.

“Betcha he also said you needed to make your own decision about this, too. That he couldn't make 'em for you,” Puwolsky continued. “Guys like him, they get off on
getting in your head and making you feel like they really tried, but in the end, also making you feel like you have to make your own choices in this world. Thing is, all this guy has is his career.
No marriage, no family, no kids…his career means too much to him—it's his entire life—and now that his little experiment with you has gone to piss, he knows he might
fry.”

M.D. wrinkled his brow, the look on his face clearly saying,
What do you mean, gone to piss?

“The reason I am telling you this is 'cause I only work one way: I shoot straight, tell the truth,” Puwolsky said. “You're just a pawn to guys like Stanzer. Always
have been. He loses you, it's just another chess piece. He loses his job, however, and he loses his complete identity.”

To M.D., Puwolsky was a jerkhead whose words didn't add up. Stanzer had never been like that with McCutcheon. No, his colonel might not have supported this choice, but Stanzer had never
done anything to make M.D. believe he could not be trusted. “I know you don't believe me. If I were you, I probably wouldn't believe me either,” Puwolsky said as the vehicle
cruised up the service road and silver spirals of barbed wire fence appeared on the horizon. “But that's because you don't know all the facts.”

“What facts?”

“Me, I told you the truth from day one. I told it to you straight about the death of your gym buddies. I told it to you straight about the fact that your father sits inside those walls up
ahead. And I told it to you straight about the danger to your girl. But Stanzer, he's Mister Fucking Mind Game. Been lying to you since the beginning.”

“What beginning?”

“The very beginning. The get-go. What, you need a map?” Puwolsky said. “They had their eyes on bringing you in to do their undercover dirty work ever since that day Freedman
called in, playing the ‘
favor-for-an-old-friend
' card.”

“You know Mr. Freedman, my old high school science teacher?” M.D. asked.

“Me, no. But my department was looped in on the search for your sister when she was abducted, and I know that it wasn't just an accident that you got plunked into Wit Sec soon
thereafter. Usually it's the middle class or even the rich folks that get that kind of protection. Families from the ghetto? No offense, but we don't have the resources to protect all
the people from the 'hood who need an angel to look out for them. Your ticket got punched because they saw value in you.”

“Who saw value in me?” M.D. asked. For the first time, Puwolsky's words did make sense. When Gemma had been abducted, McCutcheon turned to the only person he could—Mr.
Freedman, his high school science teacher—and Mr. Freedman was the one who brought in the FBI.

That's how Gemma was saved. That's how Sarah was found. And that's how McCutcheon ended up in a white van bound for Bellevue.

“Lemme guess: not soon after you were taken away to some new city you'd never even heard of, they fed you that ‘Come fight for the red, white, and blue' shit. The
‘do your duty, higher calling, America needs your service' line. That how they get you?”

Puwolsky read McCutcheon's face, a furrowed brow telling him everything he needed to know about the answer.

“You were played, son. You were their target before you even knew they existed, an experiment to see if teenage operatives in the field of battle could work at a realistic level. Before
you knew left from right, I bet you were raced through training, told how great you were, and sent off on missions to see if your boat could float. The downside? Not you being wounded or even
dying. No one gives a shit about that. The downside has always been awareness. Notoriety. Recognition. A public knowledge that our government is willing to risk the lives of kids by placing them in
the line of fire.”

The prison's guard tower came into sight. Two men wearing green rain slickers carried high-powered rifles with scopes as they walked across a catwalk one hundred feet above the ground.
“But your boat did float,” Puwolsky said. “Which turned out to be great and terrible. Great because you kicked ass but terrible because word got out, and now some suits in D.C.
want to get one hundred more kids just like you up and running. But other suits in D.C. still believe in the Constitution. That second group went bat shit and now they need someone to flambé
for all this. Stanzer's career is on the doorstep of being a political piñata unless you never existed. Everyone is in full denial mode right now. No more missions, no more targets;
the program is going to be shut down.”

M.D. remained silent.

“That's why you're in this car now, son. Because Stanzer is cutting you loose. If he had any more assignments for you, do ya really think he'd have let you go? Your unit
is over, your papers have been burned, and your entire existence is being washed off the map.”