“St. George Combined Hospital. You are in the civilian side. Prettier nurses. You’re welcome.”
“My people?”
“All out. All safe. All in Dallas for debrief. When you get better, that’s where you’ll be going.”
“If,” said Turnbull. “If I get better. I feel like shit.”
“The doctors say you’ll be fine. And you need to be fine. We need you.”
“Ha!” Turnbull began to laugh, but it hurt too much so he stopped. It wasn’t that funny anyway.
“I think I know what you want to ask me,” Clay said.
“Meachum could have taken the little bastard easy, Clay. The son of a bitch massacred two dozen people who worked for you.”
“You’re right on both counts.”
“So why not?”
“Because he’s compromised, thanks to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You. Not just bringing out the hard drive, but your little discussion with him about working for me. You compromised him. And we can use that. That was some solid initiative there, Kelly.”
“How do you know about that?” Turnbull asked. “I did it when everyone else was out of the room, so they couldn’t tell you. So how did you know?”
Clay smiled, proud of himself.
“You bugged me. You son of a bitch, you bugged me.”
Clay continued to smile.
“How? Not my clothes, I could change those. Something I’d always – my Glock. You bugged my gun?”
“Yes, and not just bugged. Tracker too. Fascinating technology. The transmitter is actually inside the metal of the slide, which acts as a microphone and an antennae. Funny thing, we assessed that it would keep operating only until you fired maybe nine, ten rounds. But we all thought, you know, what are the chances that he’ll even have to draw it? Then, of course, you reminded us that you are Kelly Turnbull. You fired a lot more, and it kept working. Out of curiosity, is there anyone you met in the blue who you didn’t shoot?”
“Give me a second. I’m thinking. Nope.”
“See, I know you and you will always, always have your gun. We followed you the whole time. And we listened in. By the way, I hope those intestinal issues from the food over there clear up. Sometimes we heard more than we really wanted.”
“That’s how you knew where we would be coming out.”
“Yes, we had to protect you and, since you gave us the opportunity to turn the future Director of the PBI, we had to protect him from you. So once you said where you were going, we vectored Meachum’s guys in to pick you up and bring you across.”
“So that little bastard gets to live because he’s useful.”
“Kelly, he’s more than useful. He’s critical, and I will own him. You know what’s happening over there. When the People’s Republic finally goes, it’s not just going to take the blues down the drain. It might well take us in the red too.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“We’ll approach him, let him choose between us exposing him or working for us. You got me his SIM chip, so I’ll probably just call him. What do you think he’ll choose?
“Whatever saves his miserable skin.”
“That’s our assessment too. He’s going to be very useful.”
“Useful for what, Clay?”
“Above your paygrade, Kelly”
“Is it above yours?”
“There’s not a lot above mine,” Clay replied. “Think of letting him live as a necessary sacrifice. I sure do.”
“How does someone get morphine around here? And maybe a cheeseburger?”
“I’ll summon one of the lovelies on the nursing staff,” Clay said, walking to the door. “Get well soon. We need you.”
“I’m retired, remember?”
Clay smiled again and opened the door.
“Of course you are,” he said. And then he was gone.
20.
It was about noon that the alert on Turnbull’s phone went off. There was a car coming onto his property. He had his Kimber .45, and despite the pain in his side – diminished but not yet gone – he could still be a helluva problem to anyone stupid enough to make him theirs.
From the porch, he watched a tan, late-model BMW 6-series roaring up the road and kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. It pulled in front of his house and stopped. The driver turned off the ignition and opened his door.
Turnbull looked down at his dog, who lay on its side on the wood slats.
“Nothing?” he said. “Really, nothing? Not a bark, not a growl?”
The mutt yawned.
Junior Ryan stepped out of his car, a white bag in one hand and a six pack of something in the other, and strolled around his ride and up to the porch. The limp was still there, but less pronounced. Junior was packing a Glock, just like the one he had carried into the blue. He stopped at the foot of the steps, looked up, and smiled.
“Shiner Bock, huh?” observed Turnbull.
“Yep,” said Junior.
“What’s in the other bag?” “Well, since there’s no Inside-Outside where I could get you a triple animal burger, I did the best I could.”
“That’s In-N-Out, and it’s a Double Double animal style. Oh, forget it. What do you got?” “Whataburgers,” Junior replied. “Double meat with cheese combos. After all, we are in Texas.”
They sat at the table on his porch, eating and washing it down with the Shiners. The dog finally woke up enough to beg for fries.
“I heard the kid’s getting adopted,” Junior said. “Orthodox family in Dallas.”
“Good,” said Turnbull. “So, how’s your sister?”
“She’s going into the Army.”
“You’re kidding. Going for citizen, huh?”
“Yeah. I pity the drill sergeants,” Junior said.
Turnbull chuckled. “That whole defection thing, that’ll probably keep her from being an officer. The security clearance problem.”
“I don’t know about that. She spent a lot of time with Clay’s people after she came out debriefing about what she knew. Apparently she had a lot of interesting stuff to say. Clay can work wonders for people who help him. He can make things that happened unhappen.”
“Like our little adventure,” said Turnbull. “That seems to have unhappened.”
“This is the first time I’ve talked about it except with Clay’s people. Not even with my dad.”
“Well, get used to it. Not talking about things gets to be a way of life,” replied Turnbull. He took a swig of Shiner. “I hear you’re working for Clay now.”
“You heard that, huh?”
“Yeah. You sure you want that life?”
“Somebody’s gotta have that life, right?”
Turnbull sighed. “Yeah, I guess with things how they are. The news says it just keeps getting worse over there, but it hasn’t fallen completely apart just yet.”
“From what I see, it could go any time.”
“What gets me,” Turnbull said, sitting back, “is that it didn’t have to be that way. The country didn’t have to choose to rip itself in two.”
“But it did,” said Junior. “I never really understood what it was like before the Split, not like you. I mean, I was just a little kid. But maybe I can help fix it, you know. Help make it like it was before.”
“Shit, I never took you for an idealist, Junior. Don’t you have rich kid shit you could be out doing?”
“Yeah, in fact I do. But I think I’ll do this instead.”
“Okay then” said Turnbull, raising his Shiner Bock. “To America. As it was. As it should be. As it might be again.”
Junior clinked his bottle and they drank. They didn’t say anything for a few moments. Turnbull took a bite of his Whataburger, then tossed his eager dog a fry.