Whack Job (6 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Hogan”

Excited barking cracked the silence. Loud, joyful barking, getting louder. Stella looked. A furred missile ran toward her tail wagging. Stella sat on her heels arms wide to receive 120 pounds of German shepherd. Steve knocked her over and furiously began licking her face. Stella laughed and laughed, half-heartedly warding the dog off with her arms.

“Well hello,” Otto said appearing minutes later. “What a surprise.”

Stella pulled the chunk of jerky from her pocket and gave it to the dog. She stood, blushing and brushing the hair out of her face. What do you say to an old lover whom you last saw in the psychiatric ward?

“Otto.”

Walking around the tank trap Otto went up to Stella and hugged her and Stella found herself hugging back, remembering the warmth of his hard body, that aftershave he wore. Even here in the wilderness. A little flame flared. She tamped it down.

Business, girl
.

She stepped back a little breathless and looked at Otto. He had a military haircut and the tanned lean body to go with it. He wore a fishing vest over a white T-shirt, blue jeans and heavy leather boots. He wore an Aussie bushman’s hat with one brim pinned up and a pair of Foster Grant sunglasses. He looked like the host of some survival show.

“How long have you been here?” he said.

“Just got here.”

“Well come up to the house. I’ll show you around. Steve and I just got back. I haven’t even been in the house yet.”

“Where were you?”

“Just walkin’ around. We saw a pair of eagles wipe out an unkindness of ravens.”

“An ‘unkindness?’“

“That’s what you call a bunch of ravens.”

Steve running circles they walked toward the long low structure. The horizontal windows looked like they’d been taken from a lab. In a clearing at the far end was Otto’s Road Warrior Power wagon looming over the landscape on tractor-sized tires.

It was cooler inside the hogan-like structure. The hardwood floors were made of recycled bark beetle timber and bore that species’ unique pattern. Otto had finished them himself and put them in using tongue and groove. Navajo rugs covered the floor. The east-facing side had all the windows. A great room combined kitchen, dining, and living, two skylights shining on the painting over the mantle . Beyond that a hall led to the master bedroom, a full bath, and a spare bedroom. There was dog hair everywhere. Tufts formed into balls along the baseboards. A set of kettlebells in increasing size were lined up on the floor like a set of Russian nesting dolls. A lava lamp blobbed red on an oak end table.

The back wall was mostly built-in bookshelves holding tons of books, miniature Egyptian sarcophagus, and a perfect 1/25th scale model of Otto’s truck. Stella stared at the model from a half meter. A tiny gold crucifix hung from the truck’s rear view. The hi-fi system consisted of a Transcriptors turntable, a Harmon Kardon amp, and Bose speakers, all ancient by modern standards. There was a Count Basie record on the turntable. Stella looked at the two-foot shelf of vinyl: Ellington, Basie, Miles, The Rascals. All retro as befitting a man digging his heels in against the future.

On the north wall a crucifix hung above a framed print of Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child. There were three framed Ansel Adams black-and-white photographs of the mountains. Several cardboard boxes labeled EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPLIES were stacked in the corner.

Otto took off his hat and shades. He removed two Mason jars from his hand-built cabinet and opened the olive green refrigerator. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

“I’d love one. You have electricity?”

Otto nodded, closing the door. “Put the line in last fall. My requirements are nugatory. I’ve mounted 120 solar panels to a frame that goes up tomorrow. All my water comes from the sky or the mountain. I’ve got basins all over the place.” He handed her a Mason jar filled with iced tea. Stella sat on the weathered brown leather sofa. The cushions creaked and something hard dug into her ass. Working her hand between the cushions she retrieved a Grendel P30 .22 automatic. She looked at it for a second as if it were a turd, then placed it carefully on the wood end table with a
thunk
.

Steve came over and licked her knee.

“Stop that,” she said without conviction.

“Don’t lick the knee, Steve,” Otto said.

“Otto, when you said you would build a tank trap I thought you were joking.”

Otto sat in a big leather creaker angled toward her around the free-form mahogany slab coffee table. He shrugged and the corners of his mouth turned down.

“This is private property. I can do whatever I want.”

“Actually, you can’t. Although it’s private property, you would be responsible if someone trespassed and hurt themselves because you did not take reasonable precautions to remove an obvious hazard. What would have happened if I’d stepped on that thing?”

“Nothing. It’s strong enough to support a few people.”

“How would anybody even get a tank up here?”

“That’s their problem. You didn’t hike up here to give me grief about my tank trap.”

“No. I don’t suppose you know what’s going on.”

Otto smiled and stretched. “Not the slightest.”

Stella was practiced at concealing her emotions, partly through Sam’s example, partly through her work. She struggled to say it in an even tone. “Two days ago Sam died. He burst into flames at a rural Virginia resort.”

Otto’s demeanor did a U-turn as he leaned forward, arms on knees, face creased with concern. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Stella! I’m so sorry!”

He half raised himself to go to her but something about Stella’s demeanor--hostile pheromones perhaps---queered the deal. She looked drained, like she’d done all her crying beforehand. The motion failed and he sank back into the chair. “He burst into flames?”

“He’s the sixth prominent American to die by spontaneous combustion this year. The FBI is trying to determine how far back they go.”

“Okay.”

“It’s for real. The President wants you to take charge of the investigation.”

Otto peered at her.

“Why me?” he said.

“They have a computer program that matches ops with jobs.”

“Who was number two? Get him.”

“Otto,” Stella said quietly. “We’re talking about Sam. You’re an arson investigator. You’re one of a handful of people who’s actually seen this happen. You understand special ops. I’m asking you.”

Otto sat perfectly still. He’d lied about his age to join the Army, partly to piss off his old man, a university professor who taught American history. Professor Jonathan White lectured on white privilege, institutional racism, and that the U.S. was the chief engine of war and poverty throughout the world.

As each generation rebels against its parents Otto rebelled against Jonathan’s relentless America-bashing and contemptuous atheism. Even as a child Otto was fiercely independent. He looked at his father and thought here was a guy who couldn’t pound a nail hauling down big bucks to teach kids that the United States was the root of all evil.

Otto instinctively shunned his father’s values. He came to doubt his father knew the value of hard work. Otto was a throwback to his Scots Irish forbears who fought for hearth and home. In Jonathan’s house the
Federalist Papers
were considered seditious so Otto read them. The
Declaration of Independence
and
Constitution
were considered outmoded and irrelevant so Otto studied them. Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder and libertine so Otto eagerly sought out his biographies.

Jonathan gave Otto Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn to read. It only reinforced his opinion that his father was out to lunch.

Otto’s mother left when he was fourteen upon learning that the professor had been carrying on an affair with an undergrad. Otto credited Babs with instilling in him a love of the Church, or if not the Church, God. She’d let her faith lapse during the Jonathan years in the face of his aggressive and pedantic atheism. Once divorced, she began attending church again and Otto joined her. At first it was just to piss off the professor. But he gradually came to accept not only the need for faith, but faith itself. Who was he to second-guess the Founding Fathers?

Otto joined at the beginning of Desert Storm. The Army assigned him to the Army Engineers, who in turn taught him all they could about investigating explosive devices and the results, which included arson investigation. The CIA recruited him after he figured out he was too crazy to be in the regular Army.

He touched the crucifix tat above his heart. He thought about what he’d seen in Libya. He thought about what he’d seen on the mountain.

“Of course I’ll come,” he said. “On one condition.”

“What?”

“Steve comes too.”

***

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“In From the Cool”

Stella waited while Otto battened the hatches. He spread an enormous tarp over his monster truck and tied it down to iron rings set in the rock. He came back in, grabbed the pistol off the end table and took it back to his gun safe. He fiddled with the model truck. Stella got up to refill her tea. She watched Otto strip off his shirt through the open bedroom door and noticed a tattoo on his left bicep too far to read.

She returned to the living room, sat down, and picked up a copy of
American History
from the walnut slab coffee table. Otto came out of the bedroom with a bulging black leather valise, which he set by the door. Stella looked around. There was no security system. Odd for a man who’d built a tank trap.

He disappeared into the spare bedroom and emerged moments later with a nine mm Ruger in a shoulder rig.

“Do you have a permit for that?” Stella said.

“Of course,” he replied. Stella wondered if whoever had granted the permit had access to Otto’s medical records. She doubted it. Those things were supposed to be classified.

It was three by the time they left the mountain, Steve filling the back seat. They would not reach Denver before six at the earliest. There was no point going to the FBI building where the agent in charge had prepared an ops center.

The old Cherokee jounced and rocked down the rutted trail. They pulled aside twice to let vehicles pass going upslope. Steve hung out the window.

“What have you been doing?” Otto said. “What’s going on?”

“Have you heard of the Below the Beltline Sniper?”

“Nope.”

“I’m defending him.”

“Whom did he snipe?”

“My client is alleged to have killed seven people. He is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation.”

“Wow.” Otto knew enough not to ask for details. “What else is going on?”

“The President is concerned that these spontaneous combustions are a new form of terrorism.”

Otto looked out at the ponderosa and aspen, wind-blow pine crawling from nooks and crannies. “It takes a lot of energy to incinerate a human body. If I had to measure it in units I’d say it would take eight to ten thousand Btus. You couldn’t carry enough batteries. Where’s that energy coming from?”

“The Army has been conducting experiments with microwaves. They’re working on a weapons variation that would cook human flesh from up to a mile away. You’ll be working under Director Yee.”

Otto had heard the name. That’s all.

At the bottom of the rustic trail Stella waited while Otto checked his mail and unlocked the gate, returning to the vehicle with a stack of magazines and letters. He flipped through them on his lap. “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” he said, tossing the unopened envelopes on the floor. There was no phone bill. There was no gas bill. There was no cable bill. There was a credit card bill. The magazines included
Guns & Ammo
,
American Sportsman
, and
The American Spectator
.

They turned east on 14 and headed down the mountain. A pair of cycles passed them going the other way, straight pipes reverberating off the canyon walls. Otto turned into himself. He never was the life of the party. Stella turned on the radio, got lucky and found a Denver jazz station playing Sonny Criss. It waxed and waned with the canyon walls.

Stella drove the old Jeep with verve and precision, slowing down before the hairpins. She slowed way down at one hairpin and some flatlanders in a Toyota came around straddling the middle line. Stella waited patiently for them to pass.

As they passed Mishawaka Otto turned in his seat to look at the American flag painted on the roof. “That’s new.”

“Yeah. Some artist gets five thou a pop to paint the American flag on roofs, barns.”

“I’m just grateful it’s not a picture of the Virgin Mary fellating Jesus,” Otto said.

They stopped in Fort Collins where Stella exchanged the Jeep for her rental. Mercifully, Crystal was not at home.

“How’d it go with Crystal?” Otto said when they were underway.

“Same old, same old. She was pleasantly bombed by the time I arrived. She’s got a new boyfriend. Tom Blaine the amplifier king. He’s invented an amp/speaker combo the size of a cigarette pack that’ll blast a stadium. Perfect for that garage band next door.”

“You could mount one on the roof. HEY DOOFUS! GET OUT OF THE WAY!’“

Stella laughed. It sounded like gold coins falling into Otto’s hands.

“Tempting.”

“So Sam was seeing a lobbyist. You think Pendragon has anything to do with this?”

“I don’t know.”

They arrived in Stapleton at six-thirty. Stella booked two rooms at a pet-friendly Best Western several blocks from FBI HQ. They entered the Pike’s Peak Lounge with Steve wearing a leather harness with a green banner that said Service Dog.

The young hostess cooed over Steve and showed them to a corner booth. Stella ordered red wine and Otto ordered a beer. Steve lay beneath the table out of sight.

Stella took out her iPhone and dialed someone. A few minutes later she said, “Margaret, it’s Stella. I have him.”

She listened, then handed the phone to Otto.

“Otto White,” Otto said.

“Mr. White, this is National Security Director Margaret Yee. Thank you for serving your country.”

“My pleasure, Madame Director.”

“You will be operating directly under NSA auspices. You will report directly to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You understand the mission?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. We are calling this ‘Operation Flameout.’ Stella will give you my contact information. I look forward to meeting you soon. Let’s talk again tomorrow after you’re set up out there.”

The director hung up. Otto handed the phone to Stella, who slid a piece of notepaper across the table containing the director’s private number.

A sulfuric stench rose from beneath the table.

Stella covered her nose and mouth and turned away. “Oh my God I forgot about Steve’s farts.”

Otto removed a pack of matches from a pocket, lit several and waved them around.

“I have a seven-forty flight,” Stella said, “so I probably won’t see you in the morning. Can you get yourself to the Feds in the morning? It’s two blocks west.”

“I think so.”

“Ask for Special Agent Lon Barnett.”

Otto removed a small spiral pad and pen from his cargo pants pocket and made a note. “What’s your number?”

Stella gave him both her numbers. Otto was not a talker. He ordered two buffalo burgers, gave one to Steve under the table. Occasionally Stella caught him looking at her with such longing it was a stab to the heart. But one thing she could always count on with Otto. He was a practical man. He lived in the real world, at least in so far as having no illusions. She had often thought Otto would have been happier living two centuries ago where he could carve his destiny from an as-yet-untamed land.

Otto set down the remnants of his sandwich and finished off his second beer. “What’s going on? Seeing anyone?”

“I’m seeing Gabe Winner.”

“Not the actor,” Otto said.

“That’s the guy.”

“No shit. He’s one of the few actors I can stomach. He makes decent action flicks and he keeps his mouth shut off camera..”

“I have all his films if you’re interested.

“Did you buy them?”

“He gave them to me.”

Otto grinned. “Maybe I’ll get a DVD player. I did see
The Detonator
. What’s that like, dating a Hollywood personality?”

“Gabe is very grounded. We’ve only been seeing each other three months.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Otto said.

A sharp retort perched on Stella’s lips but she held it back. Otto was probably right in his assessment that her affair with Gabe Winner would result in no long-term relationship. Just look at her record. Two separate careers in two different locations. Hollywood.

Stella insisted on paying. They paused awkwardly outside her room.

“You coming back out?” Otto said.

“I doubt it. I was lucky I could work this in. Thank you for doing this, Otto.”

She unlocked her door.

“No problem,” Otto said.

Stella gave him a peck on the cheek, went inside and shut the door thinking she might never see him again.

***