A day passed. A long drive, a stop at a hole-in-the wall gas station for fuel and one of those phone cards, then another, longer drive to an even more remote place out in the boonies, and now I was standing in a weathered old phone booth, listening to the ringing of a distant telephone. Come on. . . . I grimaced to myself. Would be just my luck to go to so much trouble just to find out he managed to get himself killed somewhere. . . .
"Y'ello?"
A great weight seemed to lift from my heart when I heard that gravelly, cocky voice on the other end, and I felt a broad smile stretching its way across my face. "Deebs. It's been awhile."
There was a pause on the other end, then "Max? Hey, it's the Max! How the hell you doin' man? Haven't heard from you in a long while!"
"Probably because I've retired since last we spoke."
"You? Retire!? You're pullin' my leg, right?"
"Nope; afraid not. Still getting into trouble, though. How about you?"
"Me? Hell, if I ain't kickin' up a fuss and pissin' people off it's 'cause I ain't breathin' any more." The boisterous voice subsided, then paused. Finally, "This isn't a social call, is it?"
A statement, not a question. Deebs knew me too well. "Wish it were, but I need some stuff. Still have your connections down south?"
"Yeah, still got 'em," Deebs sighed. "Kinda figures, the only time you ever drop me a line is when . . . ah, never mind. What kinda operation are we talkin'?"
I paused, licked my lips. "Black op, Deebs. Real black."
"I see." Another pause. "Think it's gonna get wet?"
I stared out through the grimy glass of the old booth at the yellow, orange, and blood-red autumn foliage of a nearby grove of trees as I drew in a long breath, then let it out. "Yeah. Probably."
There was about three seconds of silence, then a sigh. "Okay, I'll get right on it. Got your list?"
"Yeah. Ready to copy?"
"Ready to copy."
I gave him the list. There was a full minute's pause at the other end, then, finally, "Got it. Call me in . . . three days at this number. Same time. I'll tell you then how much of this I can get hold of. I'll need a place for delivery when you call back."
"Okay." Pause. "Deebs, thanks."
The voice on the other end snorted, a trace of its earlier humor resurfacing. "Well, we'll see just how thankful you are after you see my bill! Take care of yourself, buddy."
I smiled again. "Later, Deebs."
I really hate the cheap vinyl covers some joints put on their seating. I know why they do it, of course; lay something nice down and it wouldn't be five minutes before some slob figured out a way to wreck it. Still, sitting on the stuff for more than twenty minutes always reminded me of trying to remain seated on a hot frying pan. Not very fun.
I squirmed slightly upon my little skillet, but Schmoo didn't notice as he swilled down another gulp from his wine glass. "I don't get it," he continued as he put down the glass "what in the world would you want that old barn for? The floor's nothing but dirt, the roof leaks, and we're all just waiting for a stiff wind to put it out of its misery. And you want to rent it from me?"
"Yup," I simply replied. The door's lockable, it's a long way away from anything on your little plot 'way out there in farming country, and the nearest neighbor is too far away to be able to see anything strange going on there. "Need to store some stuff for a couple months. I'll pay in advance, and I'll even patch the roof. How much would you like for rent?"
Schmoo gave me a long look over his glass, and I could just about see the wheels turning. Schmoo wasn't rich by almost any stretch of the imagination; when he wasn't working in the library he was mopping floors at the local elementary school just to make ends meet. The money was extremely tempting, but that temptation warred with his knowledge of my background, and, worse, a streak of curiosity as wide as the Amazon. "What kind of stuff, Mike?"
"Supplies, equipment, some tools," I hedged. I really needed that place; nothing Stefan could come up with on short notice was suitable.
"What kind of tools, Mike?" Schmoo bored in relentlessly, his usual happy-go-lucky air fading noticeably. "I happen to know what you military-types call tools, you know. Is this something that'll piss-off the cops?"
I gazed at him silently for several long moments. I knew it would come to this; Schmoo had a wife to consider, after all, so I'd carefully worked out a cover story in advance, close enough to the truth to be plausible, but not so close that Schmoo would end up in security-paranoid Stefan's gunsights. "There are some kids, newborns, actually, that are in the middle of a custody dispute. If I don't get them away from the people who have them now, there's a good chance they could get hurt or killed before everything's all over."
Schmoo blinked at me through his thick glasses. "Whose kids? Who're these people? Why can't the cops or the FBI handle it?"
"The first and second questions, I don't think I can safely answer. As to the third, the people in question are not citizens of the United States, and by reasons of power and other factors are effectively immune from prosecution," I replied, slipping back into the old patter with disturbing ease. "The kids are currently at a location not all that far from here, though that could change quickly. It's possible they could be taken out of the country soon, and out of our reach."
"Wait; let me get this straight. These people might kill these kids?" Schmoo was getting agitated. He'd always had a soft spot for children.
"No; these people wouldn't do anything to harm the kids, but where they're headed, though, it's a sure bet they're going to get chewed up," I answered as best I could, packing as much intensity as I could into my voice. "Schmoo, please. If the kids stay with these people, sooner or later they're going to get splattered all over the walls. I've tried reason, but they won't listen, so now I have to go bust some heads." I sighed, gazing at, then blinking away could-have-beens. "And, just maybe, make up for some things."
I paused for a moment, staring down at the tiny, not-too clean tabletop, then reached inside my jacket and pulled out a bulging envelope. I placed it on the table and slid it towards my librarian friend. "It's in twenties. Don't deposit it, keep it in a safe place and use it for small expenses. That way, nobody'll be able to trace or prove anything," I advised, watching Schmoo's face.
My friend stared at the envelope for almost a full minute. Finally, he shook his head. "Keep the money. Go ahead and use the barn. Save those kids; that'll be payment enough."
Slowly I retrieved the envelope, then quickly reached for my wine glass and took a sip, more to hide my eyes than anything else. My honor is dust upon the wind. "Thanks, Schmoo," I mumbled.
"Ahh, let's not talk about it anymore, okay? Let's talk about something else."
It was one of the last really warm days of the year, and the battered old lawn chair creaked as I leaned back in it and soaked up the sun's radiant heat. I longed to shift to my proper form; the stretch of soft earth in front of Schmoo's old pole barn would have been a wonderful place to bask in the sun and snooze the day away, but, unfortunately, I was here on business. Deebs had contacted me the day before, telling me that he'd received the funds he needed, and a rental truck was headed my way containing most of what I had asked for. "I'm workin' on the rest of the stuff," he added. I gave him the delivery point, and he gave me the ETA. "Be seein' you soon, Max," he ended with.
I blinked, then took a tighter grip on the receiver of yet another remote phone booth. "Deebs, this isn't a sanctioned op. Maybe you should let someone else—"
"Bullshit," he replied succinctly. "You need my help, you got my help. All the way. See you soon, buddy." And with that, the line went dead.
I grimaced, my memory of the conversation casting a pall over my enjoyment. Once I took delivery of Deeb's stuff, I would just have to usher him out of the A.O. just as quickly as I could. Stefan's own words when we had first discussed the operation haunted me. I had seen the ex-Stasi agent kill with about as much emotion as a man stepping on a bug, and I was quite certain he would have no compunction when it came to 'dealing' with any human he considered a security risk, friend of mine or not.
I sighed, then let my head sag back and closed my eyes, letting the sun beat upon my eyelids until the whole world was one big ruddy glow. This stuff just gets too damned complicated, sometimes. . . .
The sound of a laboring engine woke me from my doze. I opened a slitted eye, to watch a yellow Ryder truck, much like that used for that sordid little scene in Oklahoma City, waddling its way up the slope along the faint dirt track. I grimaced slightly at the ill omen, and then straightened in my chair, making a point to not glance at the M4 carbine laying concealed in the tall grass next to my seat.
The truck ground to a halt perhaps thirty feet away from me, and the engine stopped. There was a quiet pause, broken only by the wind sighing through the weeds, then a clunk as the driver's door popped open and Deebs slowly climbed down out of the cab.
"Jeez, that was a haul," he groaned, flexing himself this way and that. "My back ain't never gonna speak to me again." He chuckled, straightened, then walked to meet me as I rose from my seat, the rifle left behind. "How're you doing, buddy?" He asked, one callused hand gripping mine while the other squeezed my shoulder. "Been a long time."
"Yeah, it has," I replied, feeling my face stretching into a broad smile. "Too damned long." I took a good look at him. He hadn't changed much; same shoe-brush haircut, same straggly little moustache, same comically ugly face. I tried to think of something to say as I searched that face, about how much I'd missed having him around, but failed utterly. "Did you get the stuff?" I said at last.
Deebs hesitated at the abbreviated greeting, but then nodded. "Yeah; most of it." He gestured to the truck. "This where you want to unload?"
"No; better back her up to the barn door, first," I replied as I bent to pick up my rifle. "We're pretty remote out here, but no point in taking a risk."
"Hey, no problem," Deebs glanced at the weapon I'd tucked under my arm but said nothing as he turned and walked stiffly back to his truck "should have thought of that myself."
After a bit of seesawing back and forth on the narrow track, we had the truck in the proper spot. Both Deebs and I squeezed between it and the open barn door. Deebs went about unlocking the rear door on the truck and slid it upwards, revealing a stack of rough wooden crates.
Wordlessly we looked at them for a moment, then I leaned my rifle against the barn wall and clambered inside and inspected the crates more closely. They smelled of oil, and were stenciled with the words Machine Tools. Various cryptic part and serial numbers adorned the boxes here and there. I lifted my head to look at Deebs, my eyebrow raised questioningly.
"Yeah, I inspected it," he grinned back to my unspoken question. "The stuff on the outside's just for show." He disappeared for a moment, then came back and tossed me a sturdy pair of wire cutters. "Pop 'em open and tell me what you think."
I caught the cutters in midair, turned and snipped the steel strapping sealing one crate. A little prying with the cutter handles and a few good kicks dislodged the lid, and I flipped it back and reached inside, withdrawing a lengthy object wrapped in oiled paper. I tore the paper away, revealing the grim instrument that lay within.
The Heckler&Koch G3A3 looked to be unused; no scratches on the dead-black metal or the plastic grips. I extended the telescoping stock, brought the heavy assault rifle up to my shoulder and peered through the sights, then lowered it and ran the weapon through a function check. Everything worked perfectly. I set it down. "Clips? Ammo?" I asked Deebs.
"Over there in the corner, behind you," my friend replied. "Seven-six-two AP NATO's a little hard to find right now, but I got lucky." He gestured to the weapon. "H&K stopped making those awhile back; everybody wants five-five-six these days, but there's still some stock down south." He paused, then said with a trace of diffidence "Those babies pack one hell of a punch, especially with AP. Why'd you want them?"
"For something that will need one hell of a punch to make it fall down," I replied, evading his question as I finished prying open an ammo tin and pulled out a bandolier, examined the black-tipped armor-piercing rounds. "Get the two-oh-three?"
"Afraid not," Deebs sighed. "Got the ammo; most of the types you wanted are pretty standard cop issue, so that was easy. But the launcher's gonna take some doing." I looked up at him, and he shrugged. "I got some people looking. Give me another day or two. The Mark-Threes're in that box over there," he continued, trying to change the subject.
I stared at him coldly for a moment, then realized what I was doing and dropped my gaze, my cheeks growing warm with shame. "Okay, Deebs, no problem. I have to move pretty fast though, so let me know if it'll take more than a week, okay?"
"Hey, no problem; should be no more than three or four days, tops."
"Good." We went through the rest of the inventory, then dragged the heavy crates out of the truck and onto a set of old pallets inside the barn. I finished up by tossing a dusty old tarp on top, then closed and locked up once Deebs got the truck moved clear. "Feel like getting something to eat?"
"Man, I thought you'd never ask!" Deebs grinned. "Haven't had anything since breakfast this morning. Hop in and let's go find something. Anyplace around here with some decent beer?"
After wining and dining Deebs and fending off his occasional fishing expeditions, I got him situated in a comfortable motel a number of miles from our storage site, then headed home. When I got there, there was a message on the answering machine from Stefan. I gave him a quick call, then headed over to Dithra's place.
As I watched the rusty iron gates swing aside, I noticed a large For Sale sign hung on the perimeter wall a little further down the road, and frowned. Selling? Why? I tossed a few possibilities around in my head as I continued up the winding road to the huge stone house, finally concluded it was none of my business. I parked my little car, soon finding Stefan at the front door, waiting for me.
"My Lord, thank you for coming," Stefan said, a slight smile on his normally impassive face. His expression made me optimistic, but he would not speak until we were safely within Dithra's study.
Finally he turned to look at me, the smile broadening and a look of triumph in his eye. "My Lord, we managed to get someone in."
I blinked, suddenly feeling a bit lightheaded. "My family?"
"They are indeed there, my Lord, and in good health."
I closed my eyes and slowly slumped down upon the sofa, head lowered. For a moment, just a moment, I felt the weight of the world lift from my shoulders. There was a stinging sensation in my eyes; I kept my head lowered until it went away. Control. Control. Finally I looked up. "Defenses?"
"Formidable, my Lord; just as we suspected," the agent replied, his smile fading somewhat. "My agent reports he is trying to gather detailed information on them for us. Perhaps he will find a weakness."
"Perhaps," I nodded, but I knew better than to hope. "This agent, is he the one who followed the groceries?"
"Yes, my Lord." Stefan paused, his eyes briefly growing distant, then refocusing on me. "He's the best I have."
I studied his face for a moment, then continued. "If we survive this, I'd like to meet this dragon. Even if he does nothing more for us, I already owe him a lot."
"We all owe him, my Lord," the ex-Stasi agent replied "I pray that we have the opportunity to tell him that, someday."
I pressed my lips together as I contemplated the life of a deep-cover agent, and gave a heartfelt sigh. "Yeah. . . ." I fell silent for a moment, my innate paranoia stirring uneasily at the timeliness of this windfall. But no; Stefan was too good a spook to fall for a trap, or a doubled agent. I changed the subject. "Most of the hardware is in. What's the status on the mercs?"
"I have two possible leads, my Lord. Nothing solid as of yet, unfortunately."
I felt my lips thin. "You know, it would be just my luck that by the time we pull this together they'll have moved, and we'd have to start all over again," I sighed again, then looked up at Stefan. "Wish we'd had something set up beforehand."
"I'm sorry my Lord, but we have covered this," Stefan replied, a trifle defensively. "We do not have the resources our opposition has. To keep a professional unit ready, secure, and able to deploy on short notice is simply beyond us. I still have no idea as to how even the Council did it without garnering a substantial amount of risk."
"With Ksstha one of the guys running the show? Oh, they did, and hang the risk." I scrubbed at my forehead with the heel of my hand. "I have absolutely no doubt every one of those goons would have been dead five seconds after handing over the goods." I looked up at Dithra's agent and gave him a lopsided smile. "We just sent them to Hell a little sooner than expected, Stefan," I chuckled grimly, then changed the subject. "Any word from Lady Dithra?"
"A short message, my Lord. She has been delayed, but has been apprised of the situation. She will return as soon as possible."
I felt a twinge of concern touch me, but I shook it off for now. "Anything else?" Stefan hesitated, but then signaled that he had nothing further to add. I stood. "Well, keep me informed. I'll be out putting the last of the gear together. Give me a call when Lady Dithra gets back, would you?"
"Of course, my Lord."