Broker thanked Annie, accompanied her out to the street, and then they went separate ways. Briefly, he watched her walk down a line of parked cars and wondered who was worse for her, Harry or Drew. Then Broker turned away and went in search of his truck.
Not sure about the whereabouts of Merril Lane, he opened the glove compartment on a hunch and found a Washington County road map. He also found a black billed cap with a motto stitched in yellow across the crown: I Am Not Like the Others. And below, in smaller letters: 3rd Mar Div Force Recon. Broker consulted the map, and seeing that he was headed into the country-maybe for a walk in the sun-he put Harry’s hat on his head.
Broker drove northwest of town toward White Bear Lake into rolling countryside. He passed acres of long, white slat fences and horse barns. Overgrown gravel driveways wandered into the brush with signs that said things like Excellent Development Site. He found the intersection of Manning and Merril and saw only rolling empty fields. Probably the farmers had them in the land bank.
Nothing unusual there; more and more flags had popped up in the countryside since 9/11, flying from mailboxes or fence posts. This flag, however, was attached to a black Ford Ranger.
The truck was parked way out in a weedy pasture that was gated and fenced with barbed wire.
A tractor path meandered into the field, but the gate was padlocked. So Broker got out and climbed over the gate. After a few minutes walking through the knee-deep grass and thistles, and avoiding numerous cow pies, he was thankful for the hat because he had to walk toward the west into the lowering sun. As he crossed the field he saw that the truck had been parked with the hood facing east, the direction he was walking in from.
Clearly, this was Harry’s idea of a joke. He took out his cell phone and held it at the ready.
About one hundred yards from the truck, he caught a powerful draft of manure fermenting in the sun. He saw a pile of it dumped next to the truck.
A dozen steps later, he realized that some of the smell was coming from inside the truck.
Broker walked closer in and saw that the interior of the cab had been shoveled full of cowshit. A note was stuck on top of the crud with a downward-pointing arrow. The note said:
There was no sound except the buzz of insects and the faint rustle from the flag when it caught and released a nudge of steaming air. Instinctively, Broker backed off and started to circle the truck looking for some sign, tracks maybe. .
A flash of opaque gray stood out against the green of the grass and weeds. Approaching, Broker saw it was a plastic gallon milk container. It had been planted upended on a stout, sharpened sapling. Then it had apparently been pushed over. Dirt still clung to the stick’s sharpened end.
With a definite pucker contracting between his lips, Broker saw that it had been discarded after it served its purpose. Its purpose was obvious from the three bullet holes grouped in a two-inch radius in the middle of the container.
Harry had taken a few practice shots. Then he’d left the target in plain view.
Broker thought about it. . Harry’s finger out there attached to a nervous system drowned in Jack Daniel’s, caressing the trigger on the black rifle. A trigger with a pull so fine a sneeze could set it off.
So now what? Jump under the truck? Into the weeds?
He squinted to the west, because that’s where Harry would have set up his firing position with the sun at his back, in that tree line about six hundred yards away. Broker raised his right hand in that direction, middle finger extended.
Then he turned and noticed that the side-view mirror on the truck was cranked out and had some tiny writing on it in Magic Marker.
He took several steps forward and read:
Broker watched his own eyes freeze in his face in the mirror. Instinctively, he understood that Harry had planted the flag on his truck to keep track of the wind direction. He could even appreciate the twist of elegance in the way Harry had set him up, looking at his face in a mirror at the precise moment the.338 slug. .
The hot sizzle passed through the air where his shoulder and his neck formed two sides of an angle. Broker watched the image of his face explode in the mirror before he could react.
A tiny fragment of flying glass cut his cheek as he dropped to his knees in an involuntary reflex. Otherwise he was untouched. Most of the glass had been knocked from the mirror frame, and there was a small hole a little off the dead center.
Broker took a deep breath, turned, and fixed on the tree line about six football fields away. Far enough that he wasn’t aware of having even heard the sound of the shot.
He just had to go see, so he got up, started walking toward the trees, and began to count his steps. 1, 2, 3, 4, .
He mopped sweat from his face, squatted down, and thought about it. Harry had perfectly positioned him for the shot, down to the direction of the truck, even the angle of the mirror. And Broker had made the obvious assumption: the firing position had been in these trees, the best cover in sight.
Exactly the misdirected conclusion Harry had wanted him to reach. Like an opponent putting out counterfire would assume. Harry, meanwhile, would be somewhere else.
He got up, walked through the narrow line of trees, and climbed the gentle hill behind them. His truck was now obscured from view by the foliage.
Then he found the props Harry had left behind on a low hillside.
A small sandbag lay on a hummock of dirt. The kind used for prone support on rifle ranges. Broker walked over and found a dug-out area where Harry had made himself comfortable. Five Lucky Strike butts were ground into the dirt in a little circle. Squatting in the depression behind the hummock, Broker could clearly see his truck through a deceptive opening in the tree canopy.
Again plastic gleamed in the sun, bright transparent this time. Harry had left a liter bottle of spring water in the grass. Almost full. Like a diagram of insanity, the water bottle lay next to an empty pint of Johnny Walker.
Greedily, Broker twisted off the cap and drank the hot water in three long gulps. Only when he’d finished did he see the patch of bare dirt that had been scraped flat. Harry had used something pointed, a twig or pen, and had printed very legible uppercase block letters in the earth:
After he stopped swearing, Broker called J. T. Merryweather. Then he called Stillwater Towing. Then, as he walked back across the field to the gate, to meet the tow truck, he called J. T. again.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Angel glided at the edge of the group of parents who were putting down blankets and unfolding camp chairs on the grass next to a fenced-in baseball diamond. She wore a sleeveless blouse, clam diggers, and sandals as she sauntered across the steamy playing field.
Just another mom.
That’s what the prospect probably thought.
