"Nope, just him."

"Too easy," Jane said.

"You sound disappointed," Broker said.

Jane did not answer. Nina turned back to Broker and then to Yeager and said, "Whatever it is, it's on the rails."

Ace slowed, made the turn, and parked to the rear of the Lexus. He left his lights on so they could see to make the transfer. He got out and so did George.

"How you doing, George?" Ace said.

George Khari slapped his solid middle. "Too much baklava. Need to get back in shape." They shook hands.

Ace had known George from a distance, ever since Dad got the bar. That's how long George Khari had been selling whiskey and beer to the Shusters.

"Quiet night," Ace said.

George raised his chin slightly and asked, "Anybody in back of you?"

Ace looked back down the road he'd just driven and shook his head. "Not even a deer crossing the road, just me out there."

"Good," George said. He was a muscular man of medium height with a strong square face. Another hairy guy, like Gordy, with a perpetual five-o'clock shadow on his chin and cheeks. The headlights gave his olive skin a yellow cast and pocketed his brown eyes in shadow. His thick black hair was carefully groomed, and there was more hair on his forearms. And, like Gordy, he liked to show off the chest, leaving the top two b.u.t.tons of his short-sleeved shirt open. Ace remembered him wearing gold chains. Not tonight, though. Tonight this little silver medal glinted now and then in Ace's headlights. A religious medallion, like Catholics wear. "I appreciate this, Ace. Just an extra touch, you know, a favor for my regular customers." He had a soft voice with the barest foreign tug to the syllables. Born in the old country.

"This is the last time we do this, George. We pretty much cleaned everything out."

"You going to Florida with your dad?"

"Nah, Dale probably is. I thought maybe Montana, look into raising buffalo." He c.o.c.ked his head, heard engine noise to the south, a helicopter maybe, over by the PAR site. Something taking off.

"It's funny," George said, looking at the fenced compound. "This place is deserted but they still come in and cut the gra.s.s."

"That's the government for you. Pop your hatch and I'll load up this beast."

George raised a hand. "In a minute. I just want to look around first."

Ace shrugged, stretched, and took a drag on his cigarette. "Go ahead but there's nothing left here but stories." He gestured with his cigarette toward the ditch on either side of the driveway. "Like, they built this control bunker in a peat field. Dug a couple stories down into it, ran the cable out to the remote sites. One night this air-baser who worked here was walking the perimeter, having a smoke, and he flips the b.u.t.t into the ditch." Ace paused, then said, "Next morning they smell smoke."

"No kidding."

"Yeah, set the d.a.m.n peat to burning. Well, they tried everything to put it out. Nothing worked. Sucker burned down, way underground, for two years, got under and around the control bunker, the electrical conduit. This site controlled ten Minutemen! Can you imagine if a peat fire short-circuited everything and launched a f.u.c.king ICBM at Russia."

"But it never happened, huh?"

"Nope, but no thanks to our high-tech..." Ace took a last drag on the Camel, then bent back his index finger against his thumb and shot the b.u.t.t in an arc of sparks into the weeds along the ditch. "What the h.e.l.l...let's see if we can set her going again..."

Holy s.h.i.t!

The cigarette came streaking back from the darkness. Along with this real loud no bulls.h.i.t voice: "n.o.bODYf.u.c.kINGMOVE!"

The night puckered up tight. Real tight. Real fast.

They rose out of the ditch, four shooters in black watch caps, black vests, blackened faces. They pointed stubby M-4 carbines and moved with strobelike intensity, hyperalert to the slightest movement.

Fingers on triggers. For real.

"What the..." George's hands started to ball into fists.

"I think you better get your hands up where they can see them, George," Ace said slowly, doing the same himself, showing they were empty. Already bending his knees. Going down. He knew the position.

"Down on the ground. Hands on your head." The men approached in a stylized walk, hunched over their weapons. The men approached in a stylized walk, hunched over their weapons.

Like in the movies.

Ace and George dropped to the ground. Rough hands moved over them, frisking them for weapons. Off to the right Ace heard this whole new order of sound and motion. Turned his head.

"Don't f.u.c.king move!"

Ace froze, cheek on the gravel. George raised his head, "What's that?"

Ace saw it materialize out of the dark: snout-nosed and hump backed, it was lowering to the highway with praying-mantis menace. s.h.i.t, that was one of those Black Hawks.

Cops didn't rate s.h.i.t like this.

The helicopter settled down under the loud fan of its rotors and landed on Highway 5. The prop wash beat down the crop on either side of the road, bent over the taller shrubs. Three guys jumped from the helicopter. Unlike the shooters, they wore regular clothes. And, okay, uh-huh-Ace recognized the older one, with the white hair. The guy with the lifer eyes who'd been in the bar when Nina showed up. A second guy carried some kind of recorder thing, with a mike on a cord. The third looked wildly out of place in a white shirt, a tie, flak jacket, and a face like a hunk of raw beef. They ran toward the parked cars. Now other cars showed up-a van from the east and a Ford Explorer from the west.

Whoa!

The guy with the recorder thing went right for the back of Ace's Tahoe, like he knew. He opened the hatch and ran the mike all around the foot locker inside. Through all the commotion, Ace heard the ticking sound. Not a mike.

"What the f.u.c.k's going on?" George shouted. He was one of those b.a.l.l.sy short guys. Feisty when riled.

"Shut up," shouted one of the shooters holding a rifle trained on them.

"It's clean," said the guy with the Geiger counter.

The other cars stopped, the doors flung open. Ace saw Nina pile out. Jim Yeager, out of uniform. That Broker guy. Jane.

Ace started to laugh.

"I said shut the f.u.c.k up, shut the f.u.c.k up," snarled the shooter.

Ace tried to stifle his laugh as he watched a black dude get out of the van with another guy. n.o.body wearing uniforms, but that had to be a military helicopter. Ace smiled into the gravel. I was right. She wasn't a cop. Gordy owes me. A soldier girl! I was right. She wasn't a cop. Gordy owes me. A soldier girl!

Dumb s.h.i.ts. Now whatta you suppose they thought was in George's foot locker?

"Open it," the guy with the flak jacket ordered. One of the shooters shouldered his rifle and went to the foot locker which now, in addition to the dome light, had several intense flashlights trained on it.

The locker was secured with several bands of duct tape. The shooter took out a Randall knife and cut the tape. As he peeled it away, the others crowded forward, like holding their breath as he snapped the hasps up and lifted the lid.

Pure stunned silence.

Flak Jacket turned on the older white-haired guy and snarled. "Colonel Wood, you better be able to explain this."

"Check it. Take everything out and check it," Holly said in a tight voice.

Ace started laughing again. No one moved to stop him this time. He watched them remove the tightly packed wooden containers and stack them to either side of the foot locker. Open one.

"That's it?" Nina said in a strangled voice. "CIGARS? I took my f.u.c.king clothes off for a box full of cigars?" "CIGARS? I took my f.u.c.king clothes off for a box full of cigars?"

"Not just any old cigars," Broker said, trying to hold down his rising mirth. "Those are Cohibas, honey."

"Not just any old Cohibas, either," Holly said in a weary voice. "Looks like forty-two ring, seven inches. Those are Lanceros. What Castro used to smoke."

The shooters slung their rifles and motioned for Ace and George to get up. Ace turned to George and said, "Better let me do the talking." Seeing the small catlike smile play across George's lips, he said firmly, "George, hey man, this isn't funny."

George Khari immediately sobered.

The shooters moved off with Nina, Jane, Broker, and the two guys from the van. They all joined the white-haired guy and the guy with the Geiger counter. They stood in a little semicircle. Flak Jacket was doing all the talking, in a controlled shout. He waved his hands in tight circles. The guy was p.i.s.sed. Ace heard the word circus circus several times. several times.

Jim Yeager stood back from the harangue and then moved smoothly into the power vacuum. Hands on his hips, faintly smiling, he said, "Okay, Ace. Why don'tcha explain what's going on here. Like, who's this guy?" Yeager pointed at George, who was now furious, trying to dust the gravel stains off his shirt and shorts.

"a.s.sholes!" George yelled. "They put oil on the gravel, or something. Look-brand new, from Cabela's, f.u.c.king ruined." He shook his fist at the coven of military types and shouted. "You p.u.s.s.ies. You got nothing better to do? Is this because I come from Lebanon? I pay taxes, you know, G.o.ddammit, and so does my uncle. He was in Korea. First f.u.c.king Marines. He walked from Chosen to the coast with shrapnel in his knee, and you f.u.c.king Girl Scouts have fought-who, the f.u.c.king Panamanians? The Grenadians? The dip-s.h.i.t Iraqis? Some losers in Afghanistan?"

"George, calm down," Ace said. He turned to Yeager. "He's George Khari, an old friend of the family. He's a liquor distributer from Grand Forks. We kind of run into each other on the road."

"Uh-huh," Yeager said. "And what about that?" He pointed to the foot locker.

Ace smiled, enjoying himself. "Well, we were trying to figure out what to do about that. I found it just sitting there on the gravel north of town." Ace paused, relishing the moment. "Fact is...I didn't open it, Jimmy. didn't open it, Jimmy. You You did." did."

"Who are those f.u.c.kers?" George demanded, pointing at Holly and company. "I want all their names and their jobs. I want to talk to my lawyer!"

Yeager said, "C'mon, figure it out. They're people from the air base across the road. You're on government property here. They probably scrambled to see why you're creeping around the site. Like back during the missile time."

"Yeah, right. Protecting the gophers who live here, huh?" Ace grinned. "You know what I think? I think you should get your a.s.s out there and write a ticket to that f.u.c.kin' helicopter. Looks to me like it's blocking traffic."

"Watch your mouth, Ace," Yeager warned.

Broker gathered that the troubleshooter who'd flown in from the Office of Homeland Security was willing to break the rules for a nuclear event. But not for a box of smuggled cigars. They had nothing on George Khari-who was a Christian Christian, for heaven's sake, the guy said with a whiff of born-again indignance-not some Muslim fundamentalist crazy. And nothing really on Ace Shuster for possession of the cigars that a good lawyer couldn't get thrown out of court. Jane and Nina were right. The guy was after Holly's scalp. He used the words irresponsible, renegade, irresponsible, renegade, and and rogue rogue.

"You got till tomorrow morning to clean up this mess. Then I want everybody en route to Bragg by noon. Figure out a way to make it so that this didn't happen. End of story." The Washington bureaucrat took off his flak jacket, dropped it at Holly's feet, and stalked back to the helicopter.

"Dry f.u.c.king hole," Holly said, kicking at the dirt. "Rashid fed us a line of c.r.a.p." He circled his fist and pumped it. The guy with the Geiger counter and the four shooters trotted back to the helicopter. It lifted off and droned away to the south. The black guy and his partner got back in their van and drove off to the east. Holly gestured to Yeager to come over and talk. That left Broker, Jane, and a very p.i.s.sed off Nina standing on the side of the road, illuminated by the lights from the Tahoe, looking at Ace and George.

"So this is your real life, huh? Some kinda soldier?" Ace called out to Nina.

"Ace, you know what's good for you, you'll shut your hole," Yeager yelled. Then he went back to conferring with Holly. After a few moments, Holly motioned to Nina, Jane, and Broker. When they were huddled around him, he shook his head. "You heard the a.s.shole from D.C. We're outta here."

"You mean just let them go?" Jane pushed out her chin and planted her hands on her hips.

"No choice. What'd they do?" Holly said.

"I can take Ace in for possession of contraband," said Yeager, "but he has a point. It was a cla.s.sified Army unit opened that box. If we charge him, that could bring this whole operation into court. A good attorney would try to subpoena you guys, take depositions, make you testify in court..."

"You heard the man," Holly said and jerked his head in the direction of the fading helicopter rotors. Then he turned to Yeager. "Can you make it go away?"

Yeager heaved his shoulders. "I'll try." He walked over to Ace and George. Broker, Nina, Jane, and Holly followed.

"Okay, Ace, we're going to offer you and George a deal, and if you're smart, you'll take it." Yeager took out his cell. "I can call the SO, get a man out here in a cruiser and arrest you two on suspicion of smuggling..."

"Am I under arrest?" George asked, jaw thrust forward, truculent.

"Not at the moment, but I never want to see you in my county again," Yeager said. "You understand, you little a.s.shole?"

"f.u.c.k this. I'm calling my lawyer," George hissed.

"Wait a sec, George, let's hear him out," Ace said.

"Or," Yeager said, "we do this little trade. Real simple. You forget what you you saw here. We forget what saw here. We forget what we we saw." saw."

"Who gets the cigars?" George stepped forward and narrowed his eyes.

"What cigars?" Yeager turned and faced the highway.

Broker smiled and said, "Maybe you could spare a few, for sweetener."

George's scowl evaporated the more he thought about it. "Sounds good," he said quickly. He immediately started loading the cigar boxes into the foot locker. Ace helped him load it in the back of the Lexus. Then George shut the hatch and handed two boxes to Broker. "Best f.u.c.kin' cigars in the world." He turned to Ace, shook his hand, and said, "Say h.e.l.lo to your dad when you see him." Then George Khari got in his Lexus and drove east, toward the interstate.

As the taillights receded down the highway, Ace turned to the people standing in his high beams and said, "So what's out here that calls for military helicopters and guys in ninja suits? Do I get an explanation?"

Nina and Jane exchanged glances. "Sorry, Ace," Nina said.

Ace set his jaw. "I deserve an explanation."

"Just take off, and keep your mouth shut," Yeager said. "I'll be keeping an eye on you. I mean it."

Ace decided not to push it. He ambled back to his Tahoe, got in, and drove west toward town. Soon he was laughing, shaking his head, and pounding the steering wheel. What a night. Sonofab.i.t.c.h! I almost got me some Green Beret p.u.s.s.y! Sonofab.i.t.c.h! I almost got me some Green Beret p.u.s.s.y!