Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) Read online

  I said, “As I have already said, you should think of me as someone who doesn’t like guns pointed at them.”

  Mustache said, “I asked you who you are.”

  “None of your damned business.”

  “I like to be the one who decides on my business.”

  I said, “I bet you do.” I turned back to the window. Willets was getting to his feet. I said, “I think your friend will live. I can’t guarantee how long.”

  Willets coughed. He said, “That was a sucker punch. I’d like to see you in a fair fight.”

  Just then, a dark-haired thin guy walked into the room from further back. He seemed startled, like he had just woken up. “What’s going on?”

  The mustache man put up his hand like a stop signal. Didn’t even look at the guy. “Get back to your room, Jerry.”

  Jerry backed off. I heard a door close down the hall. Mustache didn’t say anything for a moment, and I could almost smell him thinking hard, like he was burning out the clutch. He looked at Willets. Willets looked at him. He shook his head, as if he were sad. Willets said, “What?”

  Mustache lowered the pistol. He said, “No, this isn’t happening.”

  Willets said, “What isn’t?”

  Mustache said, “This is one of Mister Lawrence’s crazy soldiers." He looked at me. “You look like a dumb fisherman, but you’re not just a dumb fisherman. Why didn’t you just say you work for Mister Lawrence?”

  I said nothing. I had no idea who Mister Lawrence was. But it looked like a light bulb had gone off in the guy’s head. He’d decided on something and had convinced himself that it was true. I took a stab in the dark.

  I said, “Did you expect that we would just let an asshole like you get on with it by yourself?”

  He was scratching his head. Like something was really puzzling. “Why the scuffle with the East Coast guy just now? Mister Lawrence said to keep them in check. How does you messing with them help anything?”

  I said nothing.

  Mustache shook his head ruefully. “You can go back and tell Mister Lawrence that everything’s cool and under control. We’ve got that under wraps.”

  I figured I could play along. I said, “Doesn’t look that way to me. That’s not what I’m going to be telling Mister Lawrence.”

  He was confused. He said, “Look, you could’ve said something. Mister Lawrence is a good client and I’m fulfilling the task as requested. Okay?” He looked at Willets. Mustache said, “And no hard feelings huh? We’re just doing our job here. What would you do if some special operations-looking guy was creeping up on you?”

  I turned and walked to the front of the house. A stack of unopened mail was piled up on a floating shelf near the door. I picked up a couple of envelopes. They were addressed to a Mister Deckart. I looked back at the mustache guy.

  “Deckart.”

  He didn’t say anything, but it was his name. The other guy was standing now, forlorn next to his superior.

  I said their names slowly. “Deckart and Willets.” As I spoke, I gave each of them a good look, like a facial recognition machine scanning and memorizing. I went out the door without bothering to shut it. Then I walked down the steps and into the front yard. The gravel driveway tilted to the asphalt road twenty yards away.

  I walked down the road, thinking. Mister Lawrence. A bunch of hard guys in a house in Port Morris, Alaska. Another bunch from the East Coast, according to the hard guys. Now was the right time to get out of town before things actually got interesting. It was time to walk away.

  Which I did. Down to Water Street, and then hooked a left.

  This was Port Morris, Alaska, not New York City. The taxi office was a ramshackle building that looked like it had only barely survived the winter, and the next one was going to be a close call. The office was up a rickety scaffold of worn exterior wooden stairs. The dispatcher was a big guy in a chair eating boiled crabs. He asked me where I was going. I said, the airport. He nodded and pointed outside. Said the car would be along in a minute.

  A minute and a half later I was in the backseat of a yellow cab on the way up to the airport. The driver had thoughtfully placed a box of tissues in the elastic net behind his seat. I took one and carefully cleaned the nose blood from my knife blade. The flight down to Seattle wasn’t for another couple of hours, but I figured I’d pass the time at the cafe. I yawned and pictured myself asleep in a chair.

  Six

  The airport cafe was warm. Two picture windows faced west toward the sun, hanging halfway up in the late afternoon. Between the horizon and the windows was a single strip runway, empty for now. The cafe was a glorified waiting room. Next door was the only other enclosure on the site, a desk staffed by a man with a walrus mustache. He was wrapped in a flannel shirt. It was a small airport. The guy said the flight was fully booked.

  The plane had not come in yet but was expected. The small airplane would land soon and disgorge its nineteen passengers from Seattle. Once they were clear, my backpack would go in the hold. I would go in a seat, along with eighteen others. An hour and fifty minutes later we would hit the tarmac, back in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and the girl would be waiting.

  I expected that we would head back to wherever she was staying. Maybe we would have some recreational activities right there and then. Afterwards, we might go out and find some place with live music, beer, and barbecue. Preferably a place with gender diversity and a good mix of beard to no beard. The following day I was planning to visit a barber shop and get a hot towel shave.

  End of one era, beginning of the next.

  But for the time being I was at a cafe counter in the Port Morris airport, one hand resting on the chipped formica, fingers curled through the handle of a coffee cup, fingertips resting lightly against the hot cylinder. The other hand was resting comfortably on my knee. The airport cafe had two big windows, one straight ahead to the runway, another downhill to the approach road from town.

  I was looking right out at the runway. A fancy private Lear Jet had just finished unloading its human cargo. A small group of middle-aged men and women. They were dressed in designer outdoor wear, pulling expensive hand luggage. Moving between the luxurious interior of the silver aircraft, and a waiting luxury mini-bus. It was a German twenty-seater, painted a glossy dark green with a white logo that read ‘Green Gremlin Tours’. A smiling Gremlin sat on the word ‘Green’.

  I watched as the bus loaded up and took off, tracked it carving downhill to the south, where it passed another fancy vehicle making the opposite journey.

  It was the black Chevy Suburban from earlier, making its way up the hill to the airport. The Suburban was big, shiny, and new, gleaming in the evening light. Like a secret service vehicle, or the personal car of an FBI official. The Chevy eased to a halt right in front of the cafe. The rear door opened and a tall woman came down off the cream leather seat. She was wearing dark aviator sunglasses and I had never seen her before.

  This woman was in her fifties and looked rich. The Chevy’s windows were tinted so it was impossible to see the driver. The Suburban rolled slowly away, and the woman disappeared from view as she entered next door. She came into the cafe about twenty seconds after that.

  The woman stood briefly in the doorway and took in the situation. Me at the counter looking back at her. Nobody else. Behind me, a coffee pot steamed. She was dressed like an important person on a Sunday. Jogging tights, fleece jersey, jogging shoes. But with the earrings and the hair management of a corporate executive.

  She strode toward me. “Where is everyone? I need some of that coffee. Now.”

  I said, “Everyone is using the ladies room.”

  She said, “There isn’t a ladies room. There’s only one toilet, so that makes it an everyone’s room.”

  “Gender neutral. They should paint a fancy sign.”

  “Could bring the tourists up from California.”

  “And then where would we go for coffee?”

  She said, “Good poin
t. Did she go to the ladies room a long time ago?”

  “About three and a half minutes.”

  “So she’ll be out soon, unless there are issues, in which case she might not be out soon. I think I’ll pour myself a cup.”

  The woman walked around the counter. She found a cup and poured coffee into it. She set it on the counter and came back around. She straddled a stool next to mine and extended her hand. “Jane Abrams.” Her hand was cool and the fingers were long and well cared-for. I liked her.

  I said, “Tom Keeler. But you already knew that.”

  Jane Abrams ignored that. She examined me. I knew what she was seeing. Worn Carhartt work pants, folding knife clipped to a side pocket, black ball cap with a Purse Seiner Association logo, the beard.

  She said, “Yes, but I haven’t seen you for myself yet. In person, I mean. Just the photograph of you looking surprised and heroic.”

  I said, “I saw your vehicle earlier. Who was the blonde girl last night in the bar?”

  She said, “What you did last night took courage.”

  I said, “Not really. You see a smaller person attacked by a much larger person, you do something about it.”

  “From what I heard it was you who did something, and not anybody else.”

  “And then what? On that basis you decided I could be useful?”

  “Yes. On that basis I asked my team to find you so that I could have a conversation with you. It looks like they found you, but you didn’t enjoy being found.”

  I said nothing.

  She moved her eyes lazily to look at me again. “Listen, Mister Keeler. You’re here, right now. Right place, right time. Let me pay you three hundred dollars for a private conversation. I’ll explain what I want, and you get paid regardless of the outcome. Then you take the plane and go on down to Seattle if you like.”

  I said, “Not interested in money.”

  She said, “Money is the only universal truth.”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t mean I want yours.”

  She said, “What do you want then?”

  “Nothing.” I looked at her and drained the coffee cup.

  Abrams shook her head. She was beginning to get pissed off, which was a tell right there. A woman who was used to getting her way. But then I saw her relax and control herself. It was like watching the conflict of one personality over another, with the most sensible winning out. I liked that. A couple of early passengers came into the cafe. Abrams looked out the window. The fancy private jet had taken off. The runway was lonely.

  For a while we looked at the view. Abrams started to speak, but her voice was drowned out by an approaching aircraft. The sound hit us suddenly and we turned around to watch. The new plane was a small commuter, a Cessna or a Bombardier. The engine roar washed through the window glass, and speaking was impossible until the pilot shut the engine down fifty yards from the terminal. A minute later a guy from the airport walked over and pulled down the stairs. The paint was chipped on the door. The aircraft looked like it had been working hard these last couple of decades. Passengers started to come down off the plane.

  Abrams said, “My son is missing and I’m here to find him and bring him back.” Abrams pulled a photograph from a zip pocket. It was a picture of a guy in his twenties. Smiling, blond, with a Harvard sweatshirt.

  I thought, Harvard, East Coast.

  Abrams said, “My son’s name is George. Will you help me find him?”

  “You already have a quite a team. Did you hire some kind of private detective agency?”

  She said, “No of course not. These are friends who have known George and who care about him. I asked them to help me.” Abrams looked at the glare coming through the window, like she was struggling to contain tears. “And now you saw, we’re being intimidated. If I can’t find anyone to help us protect ourselves I think we’ll have to leave. I’m afraid of what might happen. But it’s my son, Keeler. It’s George. I can’t just walk away.”

  I looked at Jane Abrams. She was not even aware that her team had been followed by Deckart and Willets. There had been other intimidations. She was completely clueless, in way over her head. Her eyes were wet. Good acting, or real. No way of knowing.

  She summoned her courage. “Please, Mister Keeler, let me tell you about George. He is a scientist. He came here on a research project, part of his doctorate. But it’s been a month since I heard from him. We’re close, it isn’t normal that he breaks contact for a month. I became concerned. So, I tried the police, the university, everybody I could think of, but nobody’s interested, nobody knows anything.”

  “What do you expect me to do about that?”

  “We need protection while we figure out what’s happened.”

  I said, “You need to go to the police.”

  She said, “I’ve already done that. I’ve gone through the hoops. I have filed a missing persons report but they won’t act on it. They said that George is an adult and has every right to go missing.”

  I said, “And you think there’s something else going on.”

  “I do.” She was nodding vigorously. “I came up here, and from day one we are being bullied. So yes. Now I most definitely think that something else is going on.”

  “Why would your son be in trouble? What was he researching?”

  She shook her head. “The only thing I get from George is ‘Mom, you would never understand.’”

  I said, “Not even a ballpark guess.”

  “From what I gather, physics isn’t a ballpark game. There is no wide general research, it’s all extremely specialized. Last I heard from George he was working on acoustic modeling of seismic fissures, whatever that means. But that was when he was doing his masters, and the research was in Kazakhstan.”

  I said nothing.

  Abrams placed her palm on the countertop. She said, “It was a stroke of luck that Amber ran into you last night.”

  I said, “Last night. The girl took my picture. You ran some kind of search on it?”

  Abrams said, “Put a picture into the right computer, with a guy like Jason tapping the keyboard, out comes all kinds of interesting stuff.”

  She looked up at me, “Jason is the one whose nose you violated, by the way.”

  “He should have stayed away from me.”

  She shrugged. “Character building. Jason is a computer genius. He likes to go to the gym, so he looks the part, but he is not an experienced man. Not like you. We are desperate for someone like you.”

  I said, “Someone like me.”

  “Yes, Mister Keeler, someone exactly like you.”

  “And what am I like?”

  Abrams examined me critically. “You seem to be someone who doesn’t walk away.”

  I said, “If I were you, I’d go back to the police. Tell them about the intimidation, be insistent. Don’t take no for an answer. If you don’t want to go to the cops again, you should hire some real help. If you’ve got the money, they will come. Your computer genius can use his computer.”

  She looked out at the view. The cruise ship and the great ocean behind it. She said, “I don’t have time for that, Keeler. And I can’t quit. If you change your mind I’m at the Beaver Falls Lodge. I have the whole place.”

  I said nothing.

  She said, “Do you know it?”

  “Heard of it.”

  Abrams got up to go. “I appreciate that you are reticent to sell your services for money. It is even noble, or something. Unfortunately that does not help my son. If you insist, you can help us for free. And if you do decide to stay, I’ll refund the ticket and pay your expenses, of course.”

  The black Suburban was idling on the other side of the airport building. Jane Abrams walked over to it, climbed into the back and looked at me. She had the aviator sunglasses on again. The driver was the blond bearded guy I’d seen following me from the diner. His bandaged hand was resting on the steering wheel. I pictured the giant giving that hand a twist, maybe breaking a finger or two, Deckart laughi
ng in the background.

  Seven

  I watched the shiny black Suburban wind its way down the hill. I counted five minutes. New passengers had been collecting at the airport, not quite eighteen of them just yet. It was almost time to get on the plane. But there was an issue with that.

  I was interested.

  I needed to make a phone call, and I happen to be the last guy on the planet who refuses to carry a phone. A phone in your pocket is like a nagging parent. I loved my mother, but she’s dead and I’m not looking for a replacement. So, I dropped a couple of quarters into a phone in the airport building. Pay phones are hard to find and getting harder. Like animals facing extinction. But you can usually find one around travel hubs. Like airports and bus terminals. If that doesn’t work, phones can be borrowed from strangers. After all, everyone’s got one.

  The girl in Seattle answered after three rings. I told her I was going to miss the plane. She said, “Did you meet another girl?”

  I said, “Something like that, but not what you’re thinking.”

  She laughed. “You want me to wait or you want me to go?” Her voice sounded good down the line. Happy, unburdened by regret.

  “I guess you should go. I don’t know how long I’ll be, or what’s going to happen exactly.”

  She said, “Alright. You take care of yourself, Keeler.”

  I hung up the phone. A taxi pulled in and two guys climbed out. They had backpacks in the trunk. When they’d hauled their gear out, I stabbed a chin at the driver. He nodded and I got in. I paid him off ten minutes later, down at the Eagle Cove cannery. The boats were tied up on the other side of the factory. On my way to the waterside I had to dodge a forklift moving hot cans of pink salmon. Which brought me right up against a cluster of Japanese inspectors leaning over a cooler. I figured that was the last batch of sea urchins, or some other delicacy.

  There were two kinds of purse seiners in the fleet, the new kind and the old kind. The new ones were million-dollar fibreglass and steel jobs that looked like they’d been designed on a computer, which they had. The old ones were wood and paint and looked like they were held together by glue and screw, which they were.