Homefront. Part 19

"Don't sound like Jimmy. Day before last, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Day before last, I ga.s.sed up at the Amoco and the truck in front of me was that old beat-up Chevy Gator Bodine drives."

Hearing Gator's name, Griffin stopped in mid-motion, loading a gas can in the back of his Jeep. He turned, giving Teedo his full attention. "What time was this?" he asked.

"Ah, midafternoon. We quit early, remember. And I stopped before I went to Skeet's for a couple beers. Thing was"-Teedo paused for emphasis-"there was cross-country skis and poles in the truck box. With snow on them. And when Gator come out of the station carrying a bag, he was wearing those ski boots. And winter camos, like for bow hunting."

"Gator, huh?"

"Yeah. He's a demon for skinny skis." Teedo turned toward his truck, climbed in, started the engine, zipped down the window, leaned out. "Griffin, you're getting that look in your eye. Like when you first hauled me to an AA meeting."

Griffin shrugged.

Teedo paused to let Griffin appreciate the serious shadow that came into his quiet eyes. "I'd be real careful around Gator. He ain't true."

"C'mon, Teedo, what?" Griffin straightened up, prodded by the fast lick of danger in Teedo's expression.

Teedo gnawed his lip, looked away, and spoke into the distance. "Take a minute to think. You want to go into it, I'll be at Skeet's. You can buy me a beer, huh." Then he zipped up the window, covering the bare hint of an ironic grin, and drove away.

Alone behind the lodge, Griffin lit a cigarette and poured the last of the coffee out of his thermos, thinking about what Teedo had seen at the Amoco.

Gator. It tracked. Ca.s.sie's kid gets thumped. Gator always fought his sister's battles. And if the story about the meth house fire was true, he had a propensity to go insane deep into vengeance.

He ain't true? What was Teedo getting at? What was Teedo getting at?

Chapter Twenty-eight.

It was game time.

Nina sat on the back steps, smoking the one last cigarette allowed to the condemned. Except, in this case, to face the firing squad, she had to take off off the blindfold. For the first time since the veil of darkness had cloaked ordinary life, she didn't avert her eyes. She looked at her sorry a.s.s directly, like a tactical problem. the blindfold. For the first time since the veil of darkness had cloaked ordinary life, she didn't avert her eyes. She looked at her sorry a.s.s directly, like a tactical problem.

Among her talents was an unique ability to get inside an opponent's time, his intent and tactics. Disrupting them. Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. Boyd's celebrated OODA Loop. This reflex, which they now taught at the service schools, was hardwired in her synapses. It had made her military reputation.

Instinctively she understood how to defeat the depression. It required a simple trick of personal jujitsu.

All she had to do was face in the right direction, meet head-on the thing she dreaded more than her own death...

Admitting weakness. Admitting defeat.

She had been here before.

That summer in 1988, the Olympic swim trials were held at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, University of Texas at Austin.One of the fastest pools in the world.Nina Pryce had finished her soph.o.m.ore year in Ann Arbor. She had medaled in three events in the NCAA nationals, forcing herself through a grueling season, living on Darvoset to block the persistent bursitis in her shoulder. herself through a grueling season, living on Darvoset to block the persistent bursitis in her shoulder.Mind over matter. Make the cut. Next stop Seoul, Korea.She knew the shoulder was a time bomb, and she kept it from her coaches. h.e.l.l, they'd done a lot to create the problem-an absence of moderation in the weight room, when they threw the girls at free weights with the football team. A dedicated t.i.tle NineHari Kari, she held nothing back. Probably the bench press did the damage. Along with too much weight on the fly machine.Seeded second in the 200 b.u.t.terfly. Her best event.Only the top two would go.She ignored her coach's advice to go out smooth, stay with the pack for two laps, and make her move on the third lap. Then bring it home hard. Once she got up on the starting blocks and took her mark, she only knew one way forward-get out in front from the buzzer and stay there.The humid air is charged, drenched with chlorine. The tiled walls rock with applause from the sweating bodies in the stands. In the pool, the quiet blue world of racing water churns with silent screaming muscles. Bursting hearts. Leading the pack, going into the wall on the third lap, she felt the shoulder start to freeze. Ignore it. Ignore it.Don't quit, don't cry.Make the turn. Now. Bring. It. Home. In mid-lap the shoulder locked. She thrashed on, lame on one flipper. Finished third.Missed a seat on the Olympic plane by four hundredths of a second. Pride. Vanity. That last obstinate twenty-five meters did more to wreck her than all the previous wear and tear.Who she was.

It took a year with trainers to rebuild the inflamed muscles and ligaments around the shoulder. At a sobering meeting, the sports doctor stoically told her she had the shoulder of a thirty-five-year-old woman.

You keep pus.h.i.+ng like this, it'll only get weaker, not stronger.

Stubborn, she took her middle-aged shoulder back to swimming after rehab and was still fast enough to make the final heat. But she was never able to coax that extra surge from the shoulder-the surge it took to win. She never medaled again. Just outside lanes. After she graduated, she'd put the Olympic dreams away and joined the Army. There were other medals.

Not even Broker knew how far she'd stretched the rules. He thought the skull-and-crossbones tattoo on her right shoulder was bravado going into Desert Storm. The tat disguised the needle marks from years of black-market cortisone injections, as she trail-blazed through the Army.

Jump school. Ranger school. HALO. SCUBA.

Desert Storm. Bosnia three times. Cla.s.sified stuff in the Philippines. Undercover games in Italy, chasing the elusive Russian suitcase.

A triumph of will, steroids, and prescription-strength Tylenol.

After 9/11 she was invited into a clandestine Delta subset that eventually took the field as Northern Route. Before deploying, she discreetly met with an Italian physician in Lucca and wheedled a prescription for narcotics to control the pain.

Now she had the shoulder of a fifty-year-old woman. No cus.h.i.+on left. She bowed to the needles one last time.

Nina Pryce took a deep last drag on her cigarette and flipped it into the snow. Made a face. Kit would lecture her about littering. What would she say if she found out her mother, the steroid junkie, had been living a lie?

She didn't shy away from a nauseous wave of remorse, guilt, and shame. It was time to accept it, all her petty selfishness. Christ, she still had her arms and legs and fingers and toes. Men and some women were being blown to pieces in Iraq this very minute. Maybe people she knew.

After the nausea came the wringer of self-pity. Broken wing. You're never gonna fly again, girl; not like you used to. Never gonna get it back. Never rope out of a Blackhawk again in full gear. The f.u.c.king men always watched her for the slightest sign of weakness. They'd never let her back on the teams with a b.u.m shoulder. h.e.l.l, she wouldn't let herself back...They'd give her a desk for pasture. Training cadre maybe.

Forget that.

After self-pity, the bile of resentment. She whipped her head around, throwing a rueful glance at this rented house Broker had brought her to. Good for housework, maybe. He'd like that. Down deep she sensed he'd always wanted her to fail. Like all of them.

Finally the emotional binge dissipated. She stood up and dusted herself off.

No, he was different. He'd exhausted himself caring for her. More than father, husband, lover, and friend. Her buddy.

By midafternoon the sun had pa.s.sed overhead and had started to decline in the west. The darkness, which had been driven into the woods, now regrouped, emerged from hiding, and started to creep out from the tree line, to counterattack over the ground it had lost during the day.

Watching the clock, Nina showered, washed her hair, and drew it back in a clean ponytail. Then she dug in a drawer and found the clean, carefully folded sweat suit. ARMY ARMY in crisp black type across the front. Absolutely focused, she pulled it on, tied her running shoes, and went outside. in crisp black type across the front. Absolutely focused, she pulled it on, tied her running shoes, and went outside.

She approached the somber western woods.

Egged on by the lowering sun, a ragged phalanx of shadows now extended from the trees and lengthened across the snowy lot. Pointed toward the house.

She lit a cigarette, paced, then walked right up to the farthest extension of the shadows and placed her foot inches from the tip.

Waited as it slowly, relentlessly crept toward her.

The shadows would cross the yard, mob the house, and penetrate the walls. They would fill the air, bleeding black, and finally find their way into her flesh and drain their darkness into her blood.

Not today.

"f.u.c.k you," she told the shadows.

Okay, she'd come halfway back. Now for the rest. Get real, Pryce. Listen to your body. Her body told her she had turned into the thing she feared most in her life.

She was weak.

She saw it in her daughter's eyes. In Broker's. A mix of pity and shallow empathy. Nina had raised Kit to be strong and compa.s.sionate toward the weak-to an extent. But the fact was, as Nina had now discovered, that the strong, even as they vow to protect the weak, do not understand them.

Nina took a deep breath and said aloud, "It's over."

She opened her arms and walked forward, and as she embraced the shadows, she felt the last weights sloughing away. Unenc.u.mbered, she tilted up her face and felt the fading sunlight sink into her like an invigorating current. Lightly, she walked into the deep snow and the close-packed trees, breathed in the cold dark air. She turned, came out into the deep black hedge of shadows, and twirled; then, arms spread behind her, she ran in circles. Like Kit might do, enjoying the sheer kinetic thrill of motion.

No more medals. Just outside lanes.

Her soldier days were over.

It was time to come home.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Broker sat in his truck in front of the school, showing no expression as Kit moped out to the truck, sagging under her book bag. Then she climbed in the backseat and squealed when she saw her bunny propped up in the corner, its stubby arms arranged around a taboo Snickers bar and a plastic bottle of Gatorade. of the school, showing no expression as Kit moped out to the truck, sagging under her book bag. Then she climbed in the backseat and squealed when she saw her bunny propped up in the corner, its stubby arms arranged around a taboo Snickers bar and a plastic bottle of Gatorade.

"Dad! Where was she!"

"Way under the front seat. I told you, nothing gets lost in the house."

"She was in the truck truck, Dad; not in the house house," Kit announced.

"Well, I was close," Broker said.

Kit sat back, hugging her battered toy as the fleet of yellow school buses receded behind them and they headed out of town on County 12. The afternoon punched up clean and sharp under a blue sky. The welcome sun hung in the west and stamped crisp black shadows on the softening snow cover.

Broker slouched back, one hand draped over the wheel, actually feeling pretty good. For a change. Nearing the lake, they drove past the busy Mexican carpenters who were now putting down the underlayment on the roof of the new house-Keith Nygard's original meth bust. Until that meth lab blew up in his face. Probably the biggest thing ever happened up here. And he had, what, one full-time deputy...

Thinking how Nygard had mentioned taking Griffin along to help out. Didn't know if he approved of that. Once Griffin got started, he only had one forward gear...

Broker glanced around. Great scenery, superb fis.h.i.+ng, and not a lot of backup. Broker didn't hold with most city cops who rolled their eyes at their rural counterparts, making cracks about Andy of Mayberry operating mostly solo out in the boonies.

h.e.l.l, he'd spent seven years undercover operating without a net-The train of thought switched abruptly. Suddenly he was remembering the old continuing fight with Nina; his angry sarcasm at her uphill gender war with the military. Xena the Warrior Princess syndrome. A Joan of Arc complex. She countering, pointing out that his undercover police role was his his flight from reality, called him a frustrated actor... flight from reality, called him a frustrated actor...

Got that from his mother.

Christ. That's what had been missing these last months.

The fights.

They'd be apart for most of the year while she ran around saving the G.o.dd.a.m.n world, and when they finally did get together for a birthday or Thanksgiving or Christmas, the brawl started. Kit at five, six, seven-standing with her hands over her ears.

The arguments could start about almost any topic, but it always came down to, essentially, who was in charge of their marriage; like it was a f.u.c.king unit in the Army, and she, being a f.u.c.king major, outranked him.

It had taken unipolar depression to shut her up.

Now she was getting better, which meant they'd inevitably start fighting about something. Preoccupied with years of pyrotechnic flashbacks, driving on automatic, he wheeled around the last turn on the road, coming up on the long stretch about a half mile from the house...

"Dad!" Kit shouted, lurching forward so hard she hit the tension on the seat belt. Kit shouted, lurching forward so hard she hit the tension on the seat belt.

Broker instinctively toed the brake, jerked alert, scanned the road, the surrounding trees.

He caught a jerk of movement at the far end of the road, breaking in and out of the deep lattice of shadows.

"Deer?" he said.

"Runs like a deer," Kit said.

Broker squinted, put up his hand to s.h.i.+eld the glare of the sun. He couldn't compete with his daughter's 20/10 vision. Then. Well, no s.h.i.+t. It was was her, back at it, loping along. But not like a deer-more like a predator chasing a deer, more like a cougar. her, back at it, loping along. But not like a deer-more like a predator chasing a deer, more like a cougar.

"Dad, stop, please please." Kit flung off her seat belt and yanked the door handle. Broker braked the truck, but Kit had already leaped out as the tires stopped rolling and hit the slushy snow in a dead run. She opened up her stride, racing up the road.

Broker followed slowly, idling along the shoulder, and stopped by the mailbox. He could see Nina clearly now, red ponytail bouncing as she ran steadily, a little off her old gait. He could see the gray sweat suit, could read the hard-edged prophetic black type on her chest. Christ. Her lungs must be a trash fire. Three months of nicotine burn. She'd be a mess of cramped sore muscles in the morning.

He turned off the truck, got out, and waited, watching Kit bound, closing the distance, and then jump to hug her mother around the neck. Broker noted how Nina stooped to lift her, using her left arm. The right arm hanging back, guarded.

After the brief hug-fest they continued up the road, running now side by side. s.n.a.t.c.hes of girlish laughter carried on eddies of breeze, bounced off the trees, ringing in and out of patches of light and shadow.

Broker felt the stranglehold of the last three months release and fall away, like dropping a heavy ruck and gear at the end of a long forced trek. We did it. We did it.

Knock on wood.

But there it is. She was moving more like her old self. When he jogged to meet them, his feet were light, almost dancing.

"Wipe off that grin. You'll cramp your face," Nina panted as she stopped and leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees. No mistaking the flush of healthy sweat on her freckled cheeks and forehead, the gaunt energy steady in her eyes. Broker wrapped her in his arms, and as she buried her forehead in his chest, Kit hurled herself between them, joining the huddle. Then she tugged on Nina's arm.

"C'mon, Mom; race you to the house."

Nina rolled her eyes and set off after Kit, who was sprinting up the driveway. Broker got back in the truck and drove up to the house, collected Kit's backpack and the errant bunny, and went inside.

"Take off your boots," Nina admonished as he came in through the door from the garage. Broker grimaced and kicked off his boots, seeing the spotless maple floor, smelling the lingering scent of Murphy's Oil Soap. Nina had been busy this afternoon. The kitchen was more than spruced up, it was squared away like a barracks before an inspection. No cigarette smoke. No TV. Even the exhausted snake plant seemed to stand taller.

Nina leaned against the counter, drinking a gla.s.s of water. Straight ahead in action, she was forever indirect about intimacy. It always snuck up on them. But the signals were there in the way she stood now, head tilted a little to the side, eyes slightly lowered.

It always surprised him, the way the silent shadow of desire appeared, not unlike seeing a ten-point buck slip through the trees opening morning. Felt the movement quicken in his chest.

He smiled. Going on fifty, and he could still feel the excitement brand-new.