The bas.e.m.e.nt was stripped.

Dale had not so much packed as given everything away to the Lutheran church his mom had gone to, mostly alone, for the last thirty years. Except for his computer, which he'd smashed into a pulp and dropped in Devil's Lake. All that remained was a desk, an arm chair, and ha.s.sock in front of the TV.

He still had the VCR set up. It was so old n.o.body would want one like that anymore. Just leave it when he...

No. He did not intend to move move. He was going to change change. Reappear as a totally new person. But first he had to do this favor for Ace. More of a favor than Ace had ever done for him.

Gordy. Dale smirked. Gordy had mocked and bullied him all his life. Well, Gordy was about to get his heads-up.

His barren desk set against the wall under an old Star Wars Star Wars poster. Barren except for his high school yearbook. Dale sat down and flipped the pages to the senior pictures until he came to the picture of a younger, smiling Gordy Riker, looking like a toothy, hairy werewolf zit. poster. Barren except for his high school yearbook. Dale sat down and flipped the pages to the senior pictures until he came to the picture of a younger, smiling Gordy Riker, looking like a toothy, hairy werewolf zit.

With a deliberateness of ceremony, Dale reached up to his chest pocket, moved the stubby Epipen aside, and grabbed the thick-nib Sharpie. His breathing came more rapidly, and a squeezy bubbly sensation started in his chest as he methodically blacked out Gordy's eyes with the pen.

Then he turned forward a few pages and studied Ginny Weller's picture. Her eyes, too, were blacked out.

Not so pretty now-huh, b.i.t.c.h?

Real funny. Ha ha. It was supposed to be a joke. For their senior trip, the whole cla.s.s went for the weekend to a hotel in Bismarck. To see a play. He should have figured it out. How come the prettiest girl in the cla.s.s all of a sudden started seeking him out, sitting next to him? Paying him attention.

It happened the second night, late; Ginny had dared him to go skinny-dipping with her in the hotel pool, which was closed for the night but she knew a way to get in.

Just the two of them. The naughty taunt in her voice.

"Come on, you scared? Don't you want to see me naked?"

At this point in his life Dale was considered shy; quiet but not that weird. He had a B-plus average. Played linebacker on the football team. Kept his turmoil carefully tucked away inside. Kept a certain distance from people, especially girls. He had this notion that if you kissed a girl-one of those open-mouth, slurpy French kisses-she might be able to see down your throat, right inside, all the way down to all your secrets.

Everybody left Dale alone because he was Ace's brother. But halfway through senior year, Ace hit Bobby Pease, over in the bar at Starkweather. Ace spent the next year hoeing beans down in Jamestown.

So why was Ginny Weller flirting with him? He knew it had to be some kind of a game. Maybe she was trying to make Irv Fuller mad. When her talk didn't work, she maneuvered him into a corner in the lobby and planted one of those French jobs on him, sticking her tongue between his teeth.

After that he couldn't resist. Though he was scared plenty, because the farthest he'd been with a girl was messy hand jobs with dumpy Margie Block up in her dad's hayloft.

He had to give it a try.

They met in the hall, at midnight. She showed him how she'd put tape on the lock to the door in the ladies' room that led to the pool. Taped it on vertical, up the inside edge of the door, keeping the lock bolt from engaging.

They slipped into the darkened bathroom. Ginny told him to go on in and undress. She'd meet him in a second and they'd go skinny-dipping.

"For starters," she'd said.

A chance like this would never come again. So Dale went in, stripped off his clothes, and waited in the darkness. There were little lights along the bottom of the pool that cast wavy shadows on the ceiling. It felt humid and smelled of chlorine. The longer he waited, the more excited he got.

And when he had become real excited, and no Ginny yet-that's when the lights exploded on.

And there was Ginny standing by the door with Irv and Gordy Riker. They pointed their fingers and rocked with laughter.

"Boy," Irv sang out, "that's what I call real hard."

"And real small," Gordy chimed in, moving forward and extending his hand. He wasn't just pointing. He had a squirt gun and proceeded to squirt Dale in the crotch. Dale covered up and ran to the other side of the pool, to where they kept the towels, but there weren't any towels.

To his chagrin, Dale discovered that Gordy's squirt gun had been filled with cheap perfume. And for the rest of the trip, and all during the bus ride home, people kept saying: "You smell anything? I sure smell something."

The nickname "Needle-d.i.c.k" became common usage.

Dale smiled, took the videotape from his desk, and fed it into the VCR. He pushed the play b.u.t.ton on the VCR remote. As the screen flickered into focus, he settled down into his chair, raised his hips slightly, and unb.u.t.toned his jeans.

Chapter Twenty-six.

"This is Jane."

"Game over. Ace just gave me the boot," Nina said.

"Not to worry. You got all your stuff?"

"Yeah, I'm doing my famous walking-down-the-highway-to-town."

"Did you keep your legs crossed?"

"Turns out he wasn't that kind of guy."

"Nina, they're all that kind of guy."

"Well, what have we got?"

"We got movement on your tip. Khari, the liquor dealer in Grand Forks, is planning a road trip tonight. Bugs got a parabolic mike on his house. Overheard a call to Shuster about the special pickup. It tracks with what you told Broker. Distinctly heard him say they'd meet at the RLS on 5. That's missile talk for the deserted Remote Launch Site east of Langdon. So Bugs will be tailing him. Holly is standing by with the bird if we need him. We'll follow Ace, in case the meet on the highway is a diversion."

After her awful scene with Ace, Janey's upbeat voice was a blast of relief. Nina's knees trembled, a little weak. "Great," she said, "where do you want me? I'm out here all alone, walking down a country road half-dressed."

"Hey, I thought you liked that dress. And I got a feeling you won't be walking alone for long."

Before Nina could ask Janey where she was, the call ended. Nina kept walking, looked back once. Okay. A deserted pole barn and some trees broke the line of sight to the Missile Park. If Ace was watching her she'd be lost in the roadside clutter now. She was almost to the airport. From Janey's remark, she figured they were close. But where? She squinted down the road: patches of sunlight alternated with muggy afternoon shadows.

Then she caught movement to the right, a figure stepping from a grove of trees, an arm whipping in a tight circle. About forty yards off the highway, standing in the thick stuff behind an abandoned Quonset. Hand signal: Rally on me. Rally on me. She hefted her travel bag and started up the rutted trap rock driveway. When she came closer and entered the trees, she saw it was Janey. She hefted her travel bag and started up the rutted trap rock driveway. When she came closer and entered the trees, she saw it was Janey.

"What's going on?" Nina said.

Janey stood casually in jeans and a dark pullover, one hip thrust out, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, like a B-movie moll. She said, "Watching Ace. He's talking on the phone, to George. Like I said. I doubt he can see out the window and through this building. On the other hand, if you climb up top this Quonset you can get a fair view in through the living room window. With these." She held up a pair of binoculars. "Quite a little striptease going on for a while there." She handed over the smoke. Nina took a drag and handed it back.

"How long you been here?" Nina grimaced.

"We been here all afternoon. Since you and Ace rolled back in."

"We?"

Janey yanked her thumb over her shoulder and said, "This way, darling. We is now a combined task force combined task force. Ad hoc, mind you."

"Ad hoc, huh?" Nina glowered, then said, "Sounds like..."

Broker was standing deeper in the brush, spraying mosquito repellent on his arms and face. He handed the cannister to a husky man with short-cropped brown hair. He was wearing jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt over a T-shirt. The shirt did not quite hide the dull twinkle of a pistol holstered on his belt. Broker's truck was parked in the tall clump of Russian thistle.

As she approached, Broker softly clapped his hands in a lewd take-it-off rhythm. Jane left them and scrambled up a makeshift ladder made of several old air conditioners stacked together. She leaned over the top of the building next to the boxy capola of an exhaust fan and trained her gla.s.ses on the Missile Park.

Down on the ground, the guy standing next to Broker extended his hand. "Deputy Jim Yeager, Cavalier County Sheriff's Department. It's a real pleasure to see special ops in action."

Nina dropped her bag and shook his hand. Broker took a step closer and said, "We concluded the man is very fast, considering the brief amount of time elapsed from when you first showed some skin to when he booted you out the door," Broker said with a straight face.

"Fast on his feet, as it were," Yeager said.

"Right, strictly a vertical encounter. No reclining going on that we could see," Broker added.

Nina's glare was wasted in the shadows. Broker and Yeager, however, were like two Cheshire cats, gleaming teeth floating in the gloom.

Broker handed Nina her go-bag, which Nina s.n.a.t.c.hed from his hands. "a.s.sholes. How about you turn around."

"You'll need this." Broker handed her the can of OFF!. To their credit, Broker and Yeager let the ribbing die and turned around. Nina quickly sprayed a chemical bath, slipped out of the dress, and flung it at Broker's back. It draped over his head. He raised the material in one hand and sniffed it, but said nothing.

Nina opened her bag, pulled on a pair of loose jeans, a sports bra, a baggy gray T-shirt, and a pair of black cross trainers. As she strapped on her pistol belt, she took a deep breath and let it out. Beneath the raunchy banter and her gruff reaction she felt a palpable aura of relief. She was in and out unscathed, and something was up.

And she and her husband were finally doing something together. She smiled as she checked her .45 auto in the hideout holster, made sure that it was on safe. Not exactly dinner for two and theater tickets, but what the h.e.l.l...

She swatted at the bugs. "d.a.m.n critters are out in force."

"All the rain," Yeager said. "If you got a long-sleeve shirt in that bag, I suggest you put it on."

Nina, stooped to her bag and pulled out a slipover and put it on. The mosquitoes hovered in close, probing, like little pin p.r.i.c.ks of anxiety.

"So," she said, "does your boss know what you're doing, Yeager?"

"Let's say I'm staying flexible," Yeager said.

"He's flying by the seat of his pants, like you," Broker said.

"Anybody ever check out that Indian guy?" Nina asked.

"I called the BIA police at Turtle Mountain," Yeager said. "They got a Joe Reed on the tribal roll. But n.o.body's been in contact with him for two years, since he went up to work the oil fields in Alberta. Story is he got burned in an oil-rig fire."

Nina shook her head. "Those scars on him are a lot more than two years old."

"You got a point," Yeager said.

"So now what?" she said.

Broker toed the ground. "We wait."

Chapter Twenty-seven.

Dale ran the tape over and over until the light in the small bas.e.m.e.nt windows went from gray to black and then he watched it one more time in the dark. over and over until the light in the small bas.e.m.e.nt windows went from gray to black and then he watched it one more time in the dark.

Then he went upstairs and microwaved one of Mom's frozen suppers. Lasagna. A favorite. After his meal, he stacked his dirty plate in the sink, went into the garage, and took his bike off the hooks on the wall.

It had been a while since he'd been on a bike, but his plan for tonight made it necessary. He rode a little shakily through town and took a side street that paralleled the highway, following a round-about route to the Missile Park. Just as he was approaching the intersection with State 5, he saw Ace's Tahoe going east, toward town. He strained his eyes to see if she was in there with him, but the light was already too faint and he couldn't tell.

He continued on around back of the bar and saw Gordy's Ford F-150, then Gordy, girded in his back brace, standing in a cone of light and swarming bugs under the utility bulb over the loading dock door. Gordy spotted him, eased off trundling the four cases of whiskey on his dolly, and laughed.

"What's so funny?" Dale said.

"You on a bike." Gordy squinted. "Where's your car?"

Dale shrugged as he got off the bike, dropped the kickstand, and parked it next to the truck. "Little exercise can't hurt."

"You shoulda thought of that starting about ten years ago," Gordy said.

Dale gave him the finger, looked around. "So where'd Ace go just now?"

Gordy grinned. "Working, for a change."

"Where's the woman?"

"Gone. He kicked her out."

Dale shook his head. Uh-uh. That can't be. Uh-uh. That can't be. He fidgeted from foot to foot. Not part of his plan. She was supposed to still be here. "Maybe he took her along," he said hopefully as he trudged up the steps to the dock. The woman had to be there at the end of the night; without her, it was gonna be a long couple days of terrible work. No play. d.a.m.n. He fidgeted from foot to foot. Not part of his plan. She was supposed to still be here. "Maybe he took her along," he said hopefully as he trudged up the steps to the dock. The woman had to be there at the end of the night; without her, it was gonna be a long couple days of terrible work. No play. d.a.m.n.

"Don't think so." Gordy paused, yanked a red bandana from his hip pocket, and mopped sweat from his forehead. "We had this bet. I got a hundred says she's a cop. At first Ace wasn't sure. But don'tcha know it, I was right."

Dale shook his head, struggling to disguise his disappointment. "How did you find out?"

"It's not like she told me, man. All I know is she's gone."