Remodeling” printed on the sides. The directory just inside the front door had as many gaps as a Minnesota street had potholes. GameTech didn’t appear at all.
From somewhere above came the whine of a power saw. It lasted a few seconds, then stopped, but was repeated as Cork started up the stairway. The stairs were gritty from the sand and dirt tracked in on the bottom of snowy shoes and boots. Cork climbed to the second floor and walked down the hallway, which was uncarpeted brown tile long in need of a good waxing. Only a few of the office doors carried logos on their translucent glass, and fewer still seemed currently occupied. Cork heard a phone ring in an office somewhere ahead and the laughter of a woman involved in one side of the conversation that followed.
The address Ed Larson had given him was Suite 214. There was nothing on the door to indicate that it was the office of GameTech. The light was off inside, the door locked.
From above him the sudden cry of the saw came again. It drowned the sound of the woman on the phone for a couple of seconds, then stopped. Something-a severed board? — clunked onto the floor almost directly over Cork’s head. A few moments later the pounding of a hammer began.
Cork considered the locked door. The phone rang again down the hallway. The woman’s voice and laughter followed. She sounded as if she enjoyed her job. The hammering stopped. The saw took up its drowning whine.
Cork went back outside to his Bronco parked behind the van on the street, hauled out the ice spud, returned to Suite 214, and the next time the saw blade howled, punched out a chunk of glass from a corner of the window in the door. He reached inside and undid the lock.
The room was dark and he opened the blinds. The office had a nice view of the northeast. Beyond the bridge and the harbor opening, the ice of Lake Superior stretched away under the morning sun like the great salt flats of Utah. Cork took a good look at the office. It was small, one room, not a suite at all. The walls were bare. The carpet was beige, and either new or so little used as to still look new. There was a desk near the windows, an L-shaped affair with a computer and printer on the long part of the L. A white three-drawer filing cabinet sat in one corner, exactly the same kind of cabinet that had been in Schanno’s office.
Cork checked the filing cabinet. The top drawer was marked “GameTech” and held a number of hanging files: Budget, Finance, Lease Agreements, Personnel, Taxes. He lifted Personnel. Inside he found folders labeled with many familiar names and containing the originals of the documents that had appeared among the negatives he’d found at Lytton’s. Next he pulled Lease Agreements. The file contained contracts signed by Russell Blackwater for the lease on a monthly basis of gaming equipment. He set the file on the desk beside the other.
The middle drawer was labeled “Vendors,” and each hanging file was designated with the name of a company. Cork pulled the file for a company called Polaris Gaming and found invoices for the purchase of a variety of gaming equipment. He began checking the invoices against the prices on the lease agreements signed by Blackwater. After Polaris Gaming, he checked the files of two other vendors.
The last drawer, unmarked, held a single file: Partnership Agreement. The document had been prepared by the judge, and although it was long and involved, as Cork scanned it, he understood exactly what it was about.
As he stood hunched over the partnership document, the saw cut out above him, and in the abrupt stillness that followed, Cork heard a slight rustle at his back. He turned and found himself confronting the cold determination in Hell Hanover’s pale blue eyes.
Flanking Hanover on either side were Al Lamarck and Bo Peterson, two men Cork recognized from the pictures of the ranks of the Minnesota Civilian Brigade.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to invite me to go Christmas caroling,” Cork said.
Hanover carefully drew off his black stocking cap. In the light from the window, his bald head shone like an ivory doorknob. The left corner of his mouth twitched as if a smile had been stillborn.
“When you first started sticking your nose into all this, O’Connor,” Hanover said, “I told the men to discourage you. It didn’t work.”
Cork glanced at Lamarck and Peterson. They’d unzipped their leather coats. Both wore. 45s, military issue, holstered on their hips. Cork wondered if either of them had been present at Sam’s Place the night he’d been jumped.
Hanover limped forward on his artificial leg and studied the documents Cork had spread out on the desk. “When you persisted,” he went on, “I decided to let you go ahead, figuring that at worst you’d hit the same dead ends we had. On the other hand, it was possible you just might lead us to where we all wanted to be.”
“And let me guess where that is,” Cork offered. “At the source for funding the weapons stockpile for the brigade.”
Hanover moved around the desk to the computer and turned it on. He studied the screen and said, “What is it you think we’re all about, O’Connor?”
“I could guess all day, Helm. Why don’t you save us both a lot of time and just lay it out for me.”
Hanover hit the keys as he talked. “Do you remember your American history? Remember why the farmers took up rifles at Lexington and Concord? They were fed up being governed by a distant tyranny, living under laws made by men who had no idea or interest in what those farmers’ lives were all about.” He grew quiet a moment as he studied something he’d found on the computer. “Here in America, we’re right back where we started. You think those fat bastards in Washington, those lawyers, have any idea what it’s like to lose your job to an Indian because of affirmative action?”
“Or lose your business because some damn owl lives in the trees you got a lease to cut,” Bo Peterson added angrily.
“The goverment governs,” Hanover went on, “with the consent of the people. But what happens, O’Connor, when the people no longer give consent? And what happens when those in power refuse to acknowledge the people’s dissent?”
“The Minnesota Civilian Brigade,” Cork guessed.
“And the Viper Militia and the Freeman and the Posse Comitatus. All this is only a beginning. A prelude. We’re in touch with others like us all across the country. It’s coming. Lexington and Concord all over again. And we’re going to be ready.”
Hanover stepped away from the computer and looked more carefully at the documents on the desk.
“If you’d like, I’ll explain everything to you, Helm,” Cork offered.
“It would be interesting,” Hanover replied, “to find out just how much you know.”
Cork moved, and Lamarck and Peterson tensed, ready to spring. He held his hands up to show he meant no harm.
“Most of it’s pretty simple. GameTech supplies the Chippewa Grand Casino with all of its gaming equipment. GameTech purchases the equipment from a number of companies, then leases to the casino. If you compare the cost of leasing with the outright purchase price, you’ll see that within a very short time the casino has paid out far more to GameTech than the machines would ever be worth. Over several years, it could amount to millions. Quite a carrot to dangle in front of you wasn’t it, Helm?”
“What do you mean?”
“The judge was a son of a bitch. Power hungry. When he cut his own political throat, he started looking for other avenues. My guess is that Harlan Lytton was his connection with the brigade, and he offered you a partnership in GameTech, a continuing source of substantial income to finance arms for the brigade. In return, he wanted to wear a uniform and be saluted by men like Bo and Al, here.”
“Like we’d ever salute that old prick,” Lamarck scoffed.
“He wanted to share command, Helm?” Cork guessed. “That was part of the bargain?”
“Share?” Hell Hanover nearly spit. “The bastard wanted it all. He was a pain in the ass.”
“So you eliminated him.”
Hanover appeared to be truly confounded. “What are you talking about?”
“What I don’t understand,” Cork went on, “is why you killed him before you knew where he kept all the paperwork.”
“Are you crazy, O’Connor? What the hell are you talking about, killed the judge? He killed himself. The old shit was riddled with cancer. Everybody knows that.” Hanover stared at him, still looking puzzled.
From the hallway beyond the door came the thud of boots.
“Set’er up there, Roy,” a man said. “We can pull down those ceiling tiles and get to the ducts from here. Blueprints say there’s a junction up above.”
