“Hello, Munro,” I said. “It’s good to see you. Although I have to say I didn’t expect to.”
He said, “Likewise.”
“Did Stan Lowrey call you?”
He nodded. “But a little too late.”
“Three guys?”
He nodded again. “Mortarmen from the 75th.”
“Where are they now?”
“Tied up with telephone wire, gagged with their own T-shirts, locked in my room.”
“Good work,” I said. Which it was. One against three, no warning, taken by surprise, but a satisfactory result nonetheless. I was impressed. Munro was nobody’s fool. That was clear.
He asked, “Who did you get?”
“An anti-aircraft crew.”
“Where are they?”
“Walking back from halfway to Memphis with no shoes and no pants.”
He smiled, white teeth in the dark.
He said, “I hope I never get posted to Benning.”
I asked, “Is Riley in the bar?”
“First to arrive, with his dad. They’re holding court big time. Tab must be three hundred bucks by now.”
“Curfew still in place?”
He nodded. “But it’s going to be a last-minute rush. You know how it is. The mood turned out to be pretty good, and no one will want to be the first to leave.”
“OK,” I said. “Your job is to make sure Riley is the last to leave. I need him to be the very last car out of here. And not by a second or two, either. By a minute at least. Do whatever it takes to make that happen, will you? I’m depending on it.”
With anyone else I might then have gone ahead and sketched out a few alternative ways to accomplish that goal, like suggestions, anything from puncturing a tire to asking for the old guy’s autograph, but by then I was beginning to realize Munro didn’t need help. He would think of all the same things I could, and maybe a few more besides.
He said, “Understood.”
“And then your job is to go sit on Elizabeth Deveraux. I need her to be under your eye throughout. In the diner, or wherever. Again, whatever it takes.”
“Understood,” he said again. “She’s in the diner right now, as it happens.”
“Keep her there,” I said. “Don’t let her go out on traffic patrol tonight. Tell her with the senator behind them the guys will behave.”
“She knows that. She gave her deputies the night off.”
“Good to know,” I said. “And good luck. And thanks.”
I squeezed back between the Cadillac and the Jimmy and crossed the open lane and threaded through the rearmost rank of cars and walked out of the lot the same way I had come in. Five minutes later I was just past the railroad crossing, hidden in the trees on the side of the road that led to Kelham, waiting again.
Munro’s assessment of the collective mood turned out to be correct. No one left as early as ten-thirty, because of the weird dynamic surrounding the senator. I had seen similar things before. I was pretty sure no one from Bravo Company would have pissed on the guy if he was on fire, but everyone seemed fascinated by his alien presence, and no doubt everyone still had the base commander’s instructions ringing in his ears.
As did ten thirty-five.
Ten-forty, likewise.
Then at ten forty-five the dam broke and they came in droves.
I heard noise like a muted version of an armored division firing up and I saw exhaust smoke and crisscross headlight beams far in the distance as they all started jockeying for position and funneling out of the lot. Lights swung toward me in an endless chain and thirty seconds later the lead car thumped over the crossing and sped on by. It was followed by all the others in sequence, too many to count, each just yards from the one in front, like stock cars on a racetrack straightaway. Engines roared and wheezed and worn tires pattered over the rails and I smelled the sweet sharp tang of unleaded gasoline. I saw the old Cadillac and the GMC sport utility I had squeezed between, and I saw Chevys and Dodges and Fords and Plymouths and Jeeps and Chryslers, sedans and pick-up trucks and four-wheel-drives and coupes and two-seaters. They kept on coming, an unbroken stream, heading home, relieved, exuberant, their duty done.
Ten minutes later the stream was thinning and the gaps between cars were lengthening and in the distance I could see late stragglers moving out. The last dozen vehicles took a whole minute to pass me by. None of them was a flat green staff car. The final tail-end charlie was an old Pontiac sedan, scarred and sagging. I watched it approach.
I stepped out of the trees and faced east and saw tiny red tail lights disappearing into the darkness. The noise faded behind them and the exhaust smoke drifted and cleared. I turned the other way and far in the distance and right on cue I saw a lone pair of headlights click on. I saw their beams bounce and swing, side to side, up and down, and I saw them lead the way north, out through the lot, and then I saw them swing toward me and bounce twice more as the wheels behind them climbed up off the dirt and onto the blacktop.
The clock in my head showed one minute to eleven.
I walked west, back over the railroad crossing, ten yards toward the town, and then I stopped and stepped out to the crown of the road and raised my hand high, palm out, like a traffic cop.
Chapter 86
The headlight beams picked me up maybe a hundred yards out. I felt the hot light on my face and on my palm and I knew Reed Riley could see me. I heard him lift off the gas and slow down. Pure habit. Infantrymen spend a lot of time riding in vehicles, and many of their journeys are enabled or directed or otherwise interrupted by guys in BDUs waving them through or pointing them left or pointing them right or bringing them to a temporary standstill.
I stayed right where I was, my hand still raised, and the flat green staff car came to a stop with its front bumper a yard from my knees. By then my eye line was high above the headlights, and I could see Riley and his father side by side behind the windshield glass. Neither one looked surprised or impatient. Both looked prepared to waste a minute on a matter of routine. Riley looked exactly like his photograph, and his father was an older version, a little thinner, a little larger in the ears and the nose, a little more powdered and presentable. He was dressed like a jerk, like every other visiting politician I had ever seen. He was wearing a khaki canvas Ike jacket over a formal shirt with no tie. The jacket had a United States Senate roundel on it, as if that safe and insulated branch of the legislature was a combat unit.
I stepped around to Reed Riley’s door, and he wound his window down. His face started out one way, and then it changed when he saw the oak leaves on my collar. He said, “Sir?”
I didn’t answer. I took one more step and opened the rear door and got in the back seat behind him. I closed the door after me and shuffled over to the center of the bench and both men craned around to look at me.
“Sir?” Riley said again.
“What’s going on here?” his father asked.
“Change of plan,” I said.
I could smell beer on their breath and smoke and sweat in their clothing.
“I have a plane to catch,” the senator said.
“At midnight,” I said. “No one will look for you before then.”
