twenty-four-hour pass to Pequod.”
“Makes you want to re-up,” I said.
“But whose army?” Hawk said. “Who these guys in the dappled threads?”
A hundred yards up the road I stopped the car and we sat looking back at the complex.
“What Rachel say they have government trouble about?” Hawk said.
The big metal roll-up door at one end of the nearer cinderblock building opened and a forklift truck bearing several stacked crates beetled from the door and across the open mill yard and into the next building.
“Federated Munitions Workers tried to organize the place. Transpan did a lockout. Federated sued, the NLRB got involved in mediation. Transpan brought in non-union workers. There was some violence. The thing’s been in the courts since 1981.”
“Security look excellent,” Hawk said. “See the dogs.”
“Yes.” Inside the perimeter of the chain link fence a guard in mottled fatigues walked with a German shepherd on a short leash. The guard had an automatic weapon slung on his shoulder.
“There’s three more,” I said.
“Yep, walking so that one is always along each side of the square.”
“And the watchtowers on the corners,” I said.
“And you want to bet they got the fence wired,” Hawk said. “Rachel say what they doing in there?”
“No. Arms manufacturing. But what arms, and what the assorted doughboys are for, she doesn’t say.”
“What you want to do,” Hawk said.
“Figure there’s no place else around here. If these guys are going to drink they’ll have to come into Pequod. Maybe we can hang around the bar there and see what we can learn. Unless you want to shoot our way in.”
Hawk grinned. “Not yet,” he said.
A dark blue jeep came out of the front gate and drove up the road toward us. Hawk slid his handgun out from under his warm-up jacket and held it down beside his right leg between the seat and the door.
The jeep stopped beside us and two men in blue coveralls and blue baseball hats got out and walked over to the car. One stood behind our car, the other came around to the driver’s side. Both wore army-style flapped holsters on web belts. A patch on the sleeve of the jump suit said TRANSPAN SECURITY. The guard leaned down and looked in the car window. He wore reflecting sunglasses and a dark beard and very little of his face showed under the down-pulled bill of his hat.
“Excuse me,” the guard said, “may I ask why you gentlemen are parked here?”
“Gee,” I said, “we didn’t mean any harm. We were just wondering what this place was. Is it an army base?”
“I’m sorry,” the guard said, “but this is a restricted area and I’ll have to ask you to move on.”
“This area? I didn’t know. I thought it was a regular public road.”
The guard shook his head. “I’ll have to ask you to drive on.”
“Sure, officer,” I said. “We’re from out of state. Is there anyplace good around here to get a steak and a few beers?”
“Pequod House,” he said. “Go down here, cross the bridge, and about five miles east you’ll find it.”
“You go there?” I said. “Is it good?”
He grinned, his teeth suddenly bright in his beard. “Good, bad, doesn’t matter. It’s the only place in fifty miles.”
“Oh,” I said, “I gotcha. Okay, thanks. We’ll go there then. You guys Army?”
“No, private operation. Turn it around now and move out.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Thanks for the tip.”
I U-turned and we drove slowly back down the way we’d come. The jeep followed us, past the Transpan complex and all the way to the bridge.
Across the bridge Hawk slid the magnum back under his coat.
“You kept your dignity,” Hawk said. “You didn’t jump out and kiss his ass.”
“Humble but proud,” I said. “And we know where the guards hang out off duty.”
CHAPTER 28
HAWK AND I GOT A ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR of the Pequod House, dumped our luggage in it, and went down to the bar.
It was a big square room with a bar along one wall and tables filling the rest. There were three men at the bar and one middle-aged couple at the far end of the room sitting at a table having early supper. The waitress had stiff blond hair and bright pink lipstick. She was thin and her brown waitress uniform was too big for her. She put two mimeographed menus down in front of us.
“Specials tonight are chicken pot pie and calves’ liver with bacon,” she said.
“You have steak,” Hawk said.
“Yes, sir,” she said, “best in the Valley.
