The Storm Protocol (11 page)

11
th
May 2011 – The morning after the Storm.

A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes
.
–
Claude Bernard.

He started awake, his head banging off the desk in front of him. For a second, his befuddled brain didn't know where it was. His eyes opened and focused slowly on the trail of drool across his notepad. He saw heavy, ink-filled doodles and it was only then that he remembered his location.

He slapped his cheeks a couple of times and then clicked on the stereo.

While the music played, you worked by candlelight.

He smiled; twilight more like.

He rummaged around in the desk drawer behind him, his hands coming up with a packet of Lucky Strike and a lighter. Lucky strike, there’s a laugh. He was just about to spark up when he realised where he was; tobacco free workplace.

Dale was a secret smoker; so secret that the entire office knew about it. He, of course, had no idea that he had been rumbled almost from the start. He thought the level of his subterfuge was amazing; worthy of the CIA itself. He went to complicated extremes so that he wouldn’t be spotted, little realising that the reek of tobacco on his clothes and on his breath gave it away instantly.

Half the problem of course, was that he had never wanted to give up in the first place. He had done it to impress an old girl friend; a relationship that had been built on lies and half truths, and which had perished in the dying embers of half heartedness on both their parts. But the inescapable truth was that he loved everything about smoking. It seemed no matter how hard he tried, neither his mind nor his body were ready to capitulate.

He took the fire escape to the ground floor and rounded the corner to the smoking hut at a fast walk. As he sat down heavily on the single bench that ran along the back wall, he flicked the lighter to life. The flame danced and flickered in the still night air and wisps of smoke curled towards the roof of the hut. Just like my career, he thought; straight up in smoke.

He dragged his way through the cigarette in about five pulls. He ground it out savagely under his foot and went back up to his desk, taking the stairs two at a time. He slipped his bounty back to its rightful desk, not his own, and then retrieved the toothbrush and toothpaste from his top drawer. Even though there was nobody around, he still liked to keep up the pretence.

His mouth was full
of toothpaste, when he felt the iPhone vibrating on his hip. At least this time it was an actual phone call. He hated these so-called smart phones, with their e-mails and their apps and their texts. All he wanted to do with a phone was talk to someone. He spat out the toothpaste quickly.

‘Foster,’ he answered briskly.

‘Agent Foster, its Ryan,’ replied a disembodied voice.

Ryan was about the only one of Dale’s informants left, proving there was
some shred of loyalty in the criminal fraternity. He had always been regular and reliable with information; small time stuff mainly, but just about keeping Dale in a job for the present.

‘Hey Ryan, what can I do for you?’
asked Dale, suddenly animated.

He liked Ryan.

‘Can we meet, Dooley’s downtown, in about an hour?’

Dale looked at his watch. Four
thirty; that would make it at least five thirty in the morning before he could get there.

‘Sure,’ he said to Ryan. ‘Sleep is overrated anyway. I’ll be there by five thirty
, no problem.’

He retrieved his car from the multi-storey car park and stopped at a coffee shop a couple of blocks from the office. As he waited for his normal order, a large black coffee, he smiled to himself. He knew it was a broad generalisation, but the place was filled with uniformed patrolmen. To a man
, they were ordering coffee and doughnuts; different flavours of coffee and different shapes and styles of doughnuts maybe, but coffee and doughnuts nonetheless. Maybe there was something in that urban myth, after all?

Walking back to his car, he felt the first few drops of rain. It was not the normal drizzle, but an absolute thundering downpour; rain that could actually hurt when it hit you. And even though he sprinted for his car, a distance of twenty yards or less, he was completely soaked to the skin
, when he finally wrestled his key into the lock. It was like someone had pushed him into a swimming pool, fully clothed. He pulled out onto the road, turning the heater up to full blast to try and stop the shivering.

As he slowly dried out in the warmth of the cabin, he strained to remember when he had last had a full night’s sleep. He counted back for seven or eight days, and then realised he didn’t even know what day of the week it was.

He really needed to get a life.

Pulling up outside the diner, he noticed with a vague kind of disinterest that the torrential downpour had stopped. It eased back as suddenly as it had begun
, into a soft misty spray. He grabbed his jacket from the back seat and shrugged it on, struggling to pull the dry material over his wet clothes.

The old fashioned bell-push jangled loudly
, as he turned the handle and pushed open the door. There were only a handful of customers in the diner. They looked up as one, as he entered. He brushed the sheen of drizzle from his jacket and returned their stares. All of them turned back to what they were doing; all that is, except one.

Ryan Howard was the
caricature of a drug addict. He was impossibly thin, with an acne riddled complexion. His unkempt hair was long and unruly and it sprawled in a dank and tangled mess down the back of his neck. His teeth were black and irregularly spaced and his lips were thin and bloodless, giving him a permanently unimpressed look.

The surprising reality was that Ryan had never taken drugs in his life. His had been a tougher fall from grace. He had lived the American dream and lost. An investment banker by training and trade, he had gambled everything away by the early eighties. A few bad investments followed by a messy divorce
had seen him completely wiped out. Consciously or unconsciously, he had opted out of society for a while. It was easier to drink his share of hard liquor and do his share of stupid and pointless things, than face the awful reality.

There were a myriad of broken promises behind him; debt
ors and creditors, countless things he was ashamed of. But in all his years of hard uncompromising living, he had never done drugs.

Opting out of life had enabled him to slip into a way of existing. He never again had the drive or ambition to drag himself back into so-called civilised society. He preferred to live on the outskirts; on the periphery, looking in
, but not belonging. He was not judgemental; he made and kept good friendships. It made him sad to see so many of the people around him slowly try to kill themselves.

He
hated drugs and those scumbags who dealt them, but he was not an idiot. He had developed a healthy sense of self preservation, living on the margins as he did, but he liked to think he had a small social conscience, too.

So
, he became an informant; nothing too serious, nothing too big, nothing that could really come back to bite him in any painful way. In fact, he was never specific at all, which was why he liked working with Dale, who understood his conflict and co-operated with him. He didn’t try to make him feel guilty. It was enough for Ryan to know that he was doing his bit, without drawing undue attention to himself.

Dale slid into the booth and settled
his rump onto the leather bench opposite Ryan.

‘Good to see you, man,’ said Dale. ‘You’re looking good.’

‘No I’m not, but thanks for the compliment anyway, Agent Foster.’

Dale picked up a menu and glanced over.

‘Do you mind?’ he asked. ‘It’s just that I haven't eaten in about twenty hours.’

‘Knock
yourself out,’ said Ryan.

Dale scanned the menu, before beckoning the waitress over.

‘I'll have two helpings of the pancakes with bacon and maple syrup,’ he said. ‘Oh, and a large coffee too, if I can?’

He looked across at Ryan
and raised an eyebrow.

‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Ryan.

The waitress nodded
, and dropped the cheque on the table.

‘It
’ll be about five minutes, love,’ she said.

She looks tired, thought Dale to himself.

She looks like I feel.

‘Are you still living in that hotel?’ he asked, facing Ryan again.

‘No, I moved out of there about three months ago,’ answered Ryan. ‘I’ve got my own place now,’ he said, a little proudly.

‘That’s great,’ said Dale enthusiastically, finding that he actually meant it.

‘I got a job too,’ said Ryan. ‘Cleaning dishes in a place called Rudino’s. The pay’s not great, but it keeps me out of mischief, and gives me some spare cash after all the bills are paid; enough for a few beers at the weekend, anyway.’

Ryan sat back as the food was deposited. He watched with interest
, as Dale dug into his pancakes with gusto.

‘Jesus, Agent Foster,’
Ryan exclaimed. ‘You weren’t kidding, were you? Slow down, you’ll give yourself heartburn!’

‘That was good,’ said Dale
, about two minutes later, throwing his knife and fork onto the empty plate with a clatter.

He grabbed his coffee, took a sip, sat back and eyed Ryan levelly for a few seconds.

‘So Ryan,’ he stated again. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m hoping we can do
something for each other,’ replied Ryan. ‘You know, a little bit of back scratching.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Well, you know I told you that I had a job,’ said Ryan.

‘Yep’

‘Well, it turns out the place is connected,’ said Ryan.

Dale looked blankly at him.

‘Made, connected, do I need to spell it out for you?’ said Ryan.

‘
You mean Mob?’ asked Dale loudly, causing a few heads to swivel in his direction.

‘Christ, Agent Foster, I didn’t
propose that you should actually shout the word out in a crowded diner, but yeah that’s what I mean,’ said Ryan exasperatedly, keeping his voice low. ‘For a clever guy, you can be awfully dumb sometimes.’

‘Sorry,’ said Dale, suitably chastised. ‘Anyway, go on.’

‘You know the way I always listen out for anything interesting; any little titbits. Well, there are a couple of waiters; general dogs-body types working in the place. They can’t keep their mouths shut. About a week ago, one of them told me that something big was about to go down.’

Dale’s heart sank. It was just what he needed; the next fucking big thing.

‘That's what I thought at first,’ said Ryan. ‘It’s okay Agent Foster; I saw that look on your face. You think,
this guy is bullshitting me
and to be honest, that’s what I thought too. I said to myself, these guys are trying too hard. They just want to impress me; to show me what big, connected men they are.’

Ryan paused for a few seconds.

‘But here’s the thing. They were adamant, both of them. Their stories never wavered. And then I started hearing little snippets all over the street. Some of my Junkie pals are nearly salivating at the prospect.’

‘Prospect of what?’ asked Dale.

‘Nothing concrete, Agent Foster, but the word is definitely getting out. In fact, there are two words getting out; it’s going to be big and it’s going to be new.’

‘I don't think there's much there I can use,’ said Dale.

He sighed.

‘There’s too much conjecture and nothing really concrete of any description.’

He looked at Ryan.

‘But do you know what? It’s been good to see you.’

He drained the last of his coffee, and made to stand up.

‘That's a pity,’ said Ryan. ‘I thought it would give you some pointers. Especially when they said it was going to be so big; like a hurricane, they said.’

Dale was halfway out of his seat when he heard the word
hurricane
. He sat back down heavily.

‘What did you say?’ he asked slowly.

‘Which bit?’ asked Ryan. ‘That something big was going down.’

‘No, no; after that,’ replied
Dale. ‘What did you say after that?’

Ryan thought about it for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and then his face cleared.

‘Now I remember. The words he used were
there’s a storm coming
. Both of them used that phrase. I remember, because I automatically associated it with Desert Storm. A lot of my street buddies are veterans of the first gulf war.’

‘Are you sure about the words?’ asked Dale. ‘This is important now.’

‘Yep, absolutely, they both used the word
Storm
. To be honest with you, it didn’t strike me as odd, until you mentioned it just now,’ answered Ryan.