After the Rain

easy. Almost slow, you thought, and then she was on top of you in your face, or past you and it was too late.

Broker suspected that nothing had ever been easy for Jane, and most likely men were the reason why. Not a trifling insight for a man who had a daughter.

She came in close now and he saw she was wearing a scissored-up white T-shirt with Cancun printed across the front, dark shorts, and worn New Balance shoes. She also had a fanny pack slung around her waist on thick webbing, sturdy enough to keep it from bouncing. Big enough to accommodate a cell phone, and probably a Beretta nine. As she yanked open the door and hopped in, he noticed she wore no metal. Just raindrops today. The ear piercings, the nose stud, the ax thing around her neck. Gone.

He handed her several of the motel towels from the backseat and waited while she scrubbed some of the rain from her face, neck, and shoulders. In that moment, as she leaned forward, arms raised, chasing the rain from her short hair with the towel, she looked disarmingly feminine and unguarded.

“Why’d you stay?”

“You guys need all the help you can get.”

She glared at him.

“I was asked,” Broker said simply.

Jane narrowed her eyes, then slowly nodded her head. “Nina. When you delivered the suitcase at the bar and got knocked on your butt.”

“There it is.”

“So what do you have in mind?”

Broker said, “If something is on for tonight, you need the local cops. They know every stalk of wheat in the fucking county.”

“No way. The locals hear what we’ve got, they’ll shit their pants.” She paused and gave him an intense stare. “They haven’t heard, have they?”

“They didn’t have to. They already figured it out.”

Jane slumped back in the seat.

Broker pointed across the road, north. “I been up there. I seen the border. It’ll break your heart.”

Jane pushed forward, plopped her elbows on her carved knees, and stared into the middle distance. “Holly’s in deep shit. The pogues in Homeland Security are bitching to Special Ops at Bragg. Justice and Homeland Security are involved. They say we’ve exceeded our mandate. Fuckers. We weren’t supposed to have a mandate. We’re supposed to be totally in the black.”

“How long have we got?”

She held his eyes for a few beats and said, “We, huh?”

“Yeah, we. How long?”

“Holly’s arguing that right now. They want to pull our backup. But we might have something with this Khari guy. He’s Syrian-Lebanese, out of Grand Forks. Owns a warehouse and a chain of liquor stores in the Dakotas. Turns out there’s a lot of Lebanese around here, especially in South Dakota…”

Broker nodded. “Ex-senator Abourezk.”

“Who? Never mind-this Khari guy was Ace’s dad’s liquor supplier. He’s an immigrant, born in Beirut. His father was active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Khari came here at nineteen, after his parents were killed in the civil war. He was raised by the mother’s brother in the Maronite Catholic Church. He’s not a Muslim. In fact, Lebanese Christians don’t even consider themselves Arabs. Just Lebanese. We got a team on him with a parabolic mike, trying to monitor his phone conversations.” She made a face. “It’s pretty thin. But it’s our only chance. Except now some honcho from Homeland Security is on his way to keep an eye on us.”

“If tonight involves something coming across that border, you better bring one of the locals,” Broker said.

“And you already got somebody lined up, huh?” Jane said.

“Just a cell phone call away. Deputy named Yeager. Because you guys won’t be able to find your butt up there in the dark.”

“What else did Nina say?”

“That the gig with Ace is pretty much up. It’s turned into a game. Gordy and Ace have a bet. Gordy bet Nina’s a cop. Ace took the bet. So he’s playing along for the drama.”

Broker smiled one of his non-smiles and continued:

“Sometimes undercover work is like the flip side of being a cop. The target knows you’re undercover, but he can’t prove it. Knowing how to play out that tension can be the trick that produces results. They’re playing a game, all right. A game of chicken.”

“You said that. I didn’t.” Jane folded her arms across her chest. Her arms came away sopping wet. Broker handed her a third towel. She draped the towel over her shirt, unzipped her fanny pack, and fingered out a Marlboro filter and a lighter. She lowered the window and lit the cigarette. After she blew a stream of smoke into the sodden air, she turned to Broker. “Doesn’t it bother you? What she’s doing?”

“Sure.”

With a burst of pique or frustration, Jane came forward in her seat. “Nina talked about you. How you screwed around when you did your UC stuff as a cop. How it destroyed your first marriage.”

Broker held up his hands. “Chieu hoi.”

Jane screwed up her face. “Holly says that. I don’t know what it means.”

“It means ‘I surrender.’ ”

“Ana la takakalum Vietnameaziah.”

“Come again?”

Jane smiled. “Means ‘I don’t speak Vietnamese.’ I’m the closest thing to an Arab-speaker in the group.” She squinted, poked her cigarette out the window. “Is that the sun?”

“No, just a lighter shade of gray. But it’s clearing.”

“Yes it is.” She opened the door and got out of the car. Broker opened his door, came around, and joined her. She puffed on her cigarette and stared across the flat green. “So do it,” she said. “Bring in the locals for tonight.”

“Just one.”

Then she turned to him and said, “Three days ago we were in Detroit with the hottest tip in the world. Now look at us. In the middle of nowhere with some suit on his way to pull the plug.”

Broker shook his head. “Not so. There’s a reason Shuster’s name came up. You gotta run it out. And there’s another thing. You only think you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. The fact is, right now you’re standing in the absolute center of things. Like the North American continent.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. That’s why they put all the missiles here.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Nina needed the walk back to the bar to get herself back under control and stop swearing. Goddamn marriage like a goddamn broken jukebox-get every goddamn song in the box at once.

All of them variations on him always trying to lord it over me.

At moments like this she had to take the time to center herself back in her job. She always used the same image: a room full of Kits-Kit at two, at three, at four, and five. A couple dozen Kits. That’s what that day-care center in New Jersey was like the night of 9/11. She wasn’t positive the story was for real, but it had gone around the teams so regularly it had acquired the force of truth. According to the story the staff became so distracted with shock that nobody really told the kids why most of their parents wouldn’t be coming home from the Towers.

She saw those kids waiting, caged in the seconds and minutes and hours, until slowly they started to cry. Maybe one of those kids would have taken it upon herself to go beyond her own fear and doubt to stand up, go over and help the other ones, comfort them.