If he had been standing, he would have been taller than the cluster of young six-foot Scots pines in front of him. But he was crouching, peering through the green needles at the roaring four-wheeler doing figure eights in the desert sand. He wasn’t sure where he was. His best guess was about two miles from where the Euphrates emptied into Lake Huron. He watched as the giant beetle straightened, accelerated and soared over the top of a small dune, and splashed into the shallow waves. He couldn’t understand why nobody was shooting. The son of a bitch was running wild inside the perimeter. Frigging thing might be loaded with explosives. Why wasn’t anyone shooting? Skidding, spraying sand into the water, the fat treads of the Mud Wolf tires were ripping up a beach that had been unmolested for centuries.
He couldn’t see who was driving. It didn’t matter. He was going to kill him. Carve a deep red smile into his throat and let the blood spray out over the hot sand. The desert sand of the Holy Land has an unquenchable thirst for human blood. Yes, he would kill him and throw his body in the alley with the rest of the corpses that had welcomed his unit this morning in Fallujah. The religious and ethnic factions were engaged in fratricidal butchering of biblical proportions. Bombings. Kidnappings. Murder, because it’s the only thing you know and the only job you can find. Home invasions. Drive-bys. Sunni against Shiite against Kurd against Christian, tribe against tribe, clan against clan, family against family. The only good thing about that was that when they were busy killing each other they weren’t busy trying to kill the infidel invaders. And now come the Internet-savvy, joyfully murderous thugs of the self-proclaimed Islamic state — ISIS. He’d seen their black uniforms and black flags in the Alpena News and on the tube. It was only a matter of time until the butchers showed up here.
Josh Zuckerman didn’t see the lean, bearded, half-naked figure break from the pines like a jungle cat and sprint across the sand. He didn’t realize someone had jumped on his back until a strong hand grabbed his chin from behind and jerked his head back. The searing pain, the profound and final gagging, lasted ninety seconds. Like vanishing music, his strength and vision faded, his last image a lone magnificent cloud moving unhurriedly across an open blue sky.
He shut off the engine. Now the sounds were as they should be. The gentle lapping of the waves, the screech of a gull, the wind trailing through the towering white pines. He dropped from the Raptor and jogged back into the forest. The beach was quiet again... and all his.
A warm, breezy August night in northern Indiana. Joy Gunther and Hank Sawyer had opened all the bedroom windows of the old farmhouse that sat isolated about twenty miles south of South Bend. Hank was wrapped in Joy’s arms and legs with the wind dancing across his back. He had reached that wonderful state when the mind finally shuts down and all that’s left is warm, damp, exciting rhythm. That’s why Joy had to make a fist and pound him on the temple to get his attention, not exactly one of her usual playful moves. It hurt.
“Hey, take it easy.”
“I heard something. I think there’s someone at the door.”
“If you knock me out I won’t be able to check on it.”
She giggled. Together they became still, like someone had pulled the plug on a washing machine. Quiet, just the curtains rustling. Then Hank heard it too. A gentle rapping at the front door. He grabbed his snub-nosed Colt off the nightstand. Trouble usually doesn’t knock, but it was one a.m. and he was definitely a little dazed and confused, not to mention naked and aroused. With domestic violence a routine part of his work, he had noted the menacing glances the husband Joy was dumping had sent his way. Without turning on a light he tied Joy’s blouse around his waist and went out into the living room. He looked sideways out the bay window at the front door and saw a stocky white shape. He let his head clear for a moment. His heart was still beating fast. He called out through the screen.
“Who is it?”
“Hank, it’s Frenchie. Open up.”
It’s funny how people you were close to in your youth remain familiar always. You bump into them after years have gone by and start talking to them like you’d seen them only yesterday. Hank hadn’t seen Frenchie Skiba in five years, but somehow it seemed perfectly natural that he was at his door in the middle of the night. He flicked on the porch light and opened the door. Frenchie Skiba stood there in a rumpled white baseball uniform with navy pinstripes. ALCONA WILDCATS was emblazoned on a patch on his left shoulder. A black Alcona County Sheriff ‘s Department prowler sat in the driveway. Hank smiled. Even with all the windows open wide, they hadn’t heard the prowler pull up. They wouldn’t have heard the space shuttle land either.
“You here for the tryouts?”
“You gonna shoot me or invite me in?”
Hank glanced down at the Colt. “I’m on the fence.”
Frenchie pushed by Hank. “You never could hit shit anyway.” From behind Hank got the smaller man in a friendly horse collar and gave him a big hug.
“Jesus, if you’re gonna do that put some pants on.”
Hank laughed and led him to the kitchen that Joy was restoring and sat him down in the breakfast nook. He put the gun on the counter. “My girl is separated, getting a divorce,” he said. “Thought you might be her husband dropping by to cast his vote.”
“Husbands that knock you don’t have to worry about.”
Hank went back into the bedroom. “It’s Frenchie Skiba,” he said as he put on baggy khaki cargo shorts and a white T-shirt. Joy had never met Frenchie but she knew him as the stocky, somber, heavy-bearded black man omnipresent in photos from Hank’s youth. In the pictures he looked short, but most people looked short standing next to Hank.
“Why is he here at this ungodly hour?” she asked, rummaging around for something to throw on. “Some kind of emergency?”
“Don’t know, but I expect so. He’s driving a prowler and wearing a Little League uniform. I’d say he hit the road in a hurry.”
“He didn’t tell you anything?”
“Not yet. Frenchie tells you things when he’s ready. Come out to the kitchen and we’ll talk.”
She leaned into him. “This is just halftime, you know.”
“Not a good analogy,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no sport where both sides win. How about ‘intermission’?”
“Mmmmm... I like your logic.” Together they went out to the kitchen. Like the rest of the sprawling old farmhouse, the kitchen was in the middle of a transformation. About half the cabinetry was still covered by original blistering and peeling white paint. The other half was lovingly if sloppily painted light yellow with light green trim right over the old paint, no sanding or scraping done at all. Joy’s choice of colors was odd, but like everything else she did it exuded casual charm. It was that touch that made her the youngest vice president in South Bend’s biggest marketing firm. Clients loved her, were wowed by the pretty blonde with the purring engine and creative mind.