A lighter flared as they lit the Cubans. The smoke rose in aromatic billows and sent the mosquitoes pinwheeling off in drunken circles.
Broker continued to laugh softly.
“I don’t see what’s so damn funny,” Nina said.
“I’ll tell you what’s funny,” Yeager said, moving in deftly. “They built this bunker in a peat field, and one night an Air Force guy was having a smoke and he flips his cigarette butt into the ditch and…”
Ace pulled up to the Missile Park, turned off the engine, and got out. No sign of Gordy.
As he started up the steps he sensed them before he saw them, two figures standing in the dark, back against the building, on either side of the porch.
“Hey,” he called out, putting a hard challenge in his voice.
“Take it easy,” Dale said, coming forward. “Just me and Joe.”
“What are you two doing, lurking?” Ace asked.
“Just talking,” Joe said. “Say…you ever meet up with George?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And?”
“Worked out just fine. Tell you about it sometime,” Ace said, pushing past them, getting out his keys. “But not tonight. I ain’t in the mood.”
“What about that redhead, Nina?” Dale asked.
Ace was feeling around in the dark, fitting the key in the lock. He laughed and said over his shoulder, “She’s gone, brother. So gone you could say she was never really here.”
Broker watched Northern Route come apart on a deserted North Dakota highway just as fast as it had been put together. And the.45 he had on loan from his buddy J. T. Merryweather was missing. He’d talk to Yeager about it. But not now. In the morning.
The Cohibas were the only good thing about the whole night.
Well, not entirely. Here he was again, reunited with one really worn out, pissed off redhead. Nina’s adrenaline crash left her numb, and he was careful not to indulge in any more sarcasm. When she hung her head, he put out his arm and she nestled into that cranny in his shoulder where she’d always seemed to fit so well. Amid the wreckage, a rapprochement of sorts was taking shape.
Holly told Nina and Jane to take a down day and rest. The backup team was flying east tonight with the suit from Homeland Security. The helicopter was slated to fly back to North Carolina tomorrow.
Broker drove Janey and Holly to the Air Force radar base across the highway and dropped them at the gate. Nina stayed in the car and they drove Yeager back to his house in town. Then they made a U-turn and drove to the motel.
“I should call Kit,” Nina said when they were in the room.
“It’s too late. Do it in the morning.”
The bed was suddenly irresistible and Nina lowered herself to it and rolled over and propped her head up with pillows.
“We should talk,” she said in a fading zombie voice.
“Yeah, we should,” Broker said. He was sitting at the small table in the corner, taking off his shoes. When he looked up, she was sound asleep.
As he gently removed her pistol belt, her shoes, and clothing, a lot of thoughts passed through his mind. They all came under a simple heading:
Married Life.
Chapter Thirty-one
Nina jerked awake as her cell phone buzzed on the table next to her head. Broker bolted upright on pure reflexes, eyes wide open but still asleep. “Wha?” he said.
“Go back to sleep,” she said, checking her phone display, “it’s Janey.”
“Hmph,” he muttered and flopped back down.
“Morning,” Nina said to the phone.
“How you doing?” Jane said.
“The sleep helps. Otherwise…it sucks.”
“I hear you. How you and Broker getting on?”
Nina studied him briefly. In less than five seconds he had started to snore. She leaned over and gave him an elbow in the shoulder blade. He grumbled, rearranged himself, and proceeded to breathe normally. Then she turned back to the phone and checked the time on the display: 7:39. Jesus. She’d slept for nearly nine hours.
“Don’t know. I crashed the minute I saw the bed. Now I’m up and he’s out cold.”
“I was thinking we could get some breakfast.”
“I’m for that. But I think I’ll let him sleep. Where are you?”
“On the highway east of town, in our trusty Volvo.”
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll meet you in front.”
Nina put the phone down, got up, and headed for the bathroom. After taking her first carefree pee in a week, she got in the shower. The jets of hot water were a good start, but it would take days for the booze and amphetamines to work out of her system.
And for what?
Don’t think about it.
She shampooed her short hair, worked in conditioner, and decided not to shave her legs. Janey was waiting. She rinsed off, toweled, and thoroughly enjoyed brushing her teeth.
She dug through her go-bag, found a pair of loose-fitting shorts, a tank top, and Chacos. Out of habit her hand went to her pistol belt.
Nah. Clothes were all wrong. And anyway…
Then she took a moment to study Broker, who was strangled in a twisted sheet, spread out, hogging the bed, as usual. And she remembered how, asleep, all the care lifted off his face. Except for the bushy eyebrows, he looked like a young boy. She smiled. A rough young boy who’d read too much Robert Louis Stevenson…
We
She grabbed her purse, eased out the door, gently closed it behind her, and walked down the stairs, through the lobby, and outside. Whoa. She squinted her eyes and took a step back.
After living for a week in half-shadow, the sun was doing double time and had turned the sky into one vast blue flame. She looked around. No Janey yet. So she ducked back in the lobby, flipped open her cell, and called Broker’s folks in Minnesota. His dad, Mike, picked up.
“Hi, Mike, it’s Nina.”
“Hey, kiddo, how you doing?”
Nina scrubbed her knuckles in her hair, blinked several times. “Looks like I’ll have some leave. I wanted to tell Kit I’ll be coming home.”
“Home?” Mike Broker said.
“Yeah. Is Kit there?”
“Irene took her down to the beach to pick cobbles. They’re set up to paint them. If you wait…”
“No, let ’em go. I’ll call back after breakfast.”
