Chuck Logan - Homefront

The female trooper bolted from the car; she was a powerfully built black woman, no hat, short-cropped hair like a woolly cap, no jacket. Service belt creaking with cold. Unfazed by the wild aspect of Broker and Nina, she shouted, “Keith, get on your radio, goddammit!” Electrified by the trooper’s manner, they rushed with Nygard to his cruiser. Nygard hit the speaker box, and Broker sagged, hearing Kit’s voice come through the static. Felt Nina grip his arm.

“I don’t know where…” Kit was saying on the radio speaker.

“Just a minute, honey,” the dispatcher said. “Stay with me, break, Keith, where are you?”

“Right here, Ginny. You found her?”

“Are her parents there?” the dispatcher said with obvious controlled intensity.

“Right here.”

“Put them on. All this new stuff we got, I have her patched into the net. They can talk. Tell them to quiet her down.”

Nina immediately grabbed the mike. “Kit, honey, it’s Mom…Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I ran out of the woods, and this lady put me in the trunk of her car. Uncle Harry gave me his phone, told me to call 911 before…

The mike trembled in Nina’s hand, her chilblained knuckles blanched white, gripping. “Go on, Kit,” she said in a steady voice.

“The car’s moving. It’s so dark…”

Broker took the mike. “Kit, it’s Dad. Hold on, we’re coming. You have to keep talking on the phone. Even if no one answers you, just keep talking.”

Nygard grimaced, said, “Maybe you should reassure her…”

Broker shook his head, “No time.” He turned back to the mike. “Kit. Leave the phone on. If they take you out of the car, hide it, look for something. A sign, anything at all. Try to talk when you can.”

“Yes, Daddy.” The signal faded.

“Kit. Can you describe the car?” Broker asked.

Static.

Nygard took the mike. “Ginny, stay on her, keep talking. I need this radio free for a while. Then I’ll put her folks back on.” He turned to Broker and Nina, who had stepped back from the cruiser to give him room. “She’s close. If we keep hearing her, she’s within nine miles of the towers. They go at nine-mile intervals between Highway Two and Little Glacier, remember, the skeleton house?” He looked up to the state trooper. “Ruth. You got the best radio, you gotta handle the traffic on the state net. Soon as I talk to my deputy and EMT, I’m going to keep mine open for the parents to talk.” Nygard removed his hat and scrubbed at his thin brown hair with his knuckles. “All the roads in a fifty-mile radius, then work in. Let’s shut it down. Gotta stop anything moving. We’ll need everybody. I mean everybody .”

“I’m on it,” Ruth said. Starting for her cruiser, she gently started to put her arm around Nina. “How you holding up, ma’am? Maybe you should get in the car with me.”

Nina looked right through the trooper, shook off her hand. Sergeant Ruth Barlow pursed her lips, observed the butt of the pistol stuck in Nina’s waistband. Broker’s shotgun. Drew herself up. “Keith, these people are armed; you on top of that?”

Keith jerked his thumb at Broker, “He’s a cop, ex-cop. She’s…okay. C’mon, Ruth.”

“You say so,” Sergeant Barlow said, continuing to her car. She got in and grabbed her radio mike. Nina thrust the Colt deeper into the waistband of her sweatpants, took out her cigarettes and lighter. Cupping her hands against the blow, impossibly, she lit the cigarette.

Keith Nygard watched her, red hair streaming, smoke tearing from her mouth and nostrils. Like some Celtic war priestess he’d seen on the History Channel. He turned to Broker, sagged briefly, clicked his teeth. “Harry, Jesus. Got a body in the woods, you say.” Nygard shook his head, looked up. “How am I doing?”

“You’re doing good. Call BCA in Bemidji, have them get the feds. It’s a kidnapping. Find out the status of the Troopers-”

“State patrol helicopters, right,” Nygard said.

“Get something in the air that can whip a radio direction finder on a cell signal,” Broker said.

“Got it. Okay. Jesus, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, goddammit; somebody got my kid,” Broker said. His voice caught. He was accumulating a list of people whose names he couldn’t bring himself to say. Holly, now Griffin…

“Okay. Later we’ll talk about the why. Right now we’ll work the problem,” Nygard said. “Let me make a few calls, soon’s people arrive, we’ll start some searching right here. Then we gotta move back to the house. Secure the scene…but if she’s in a car, moving-” Then he nodded at Nina.” You tell her. One of you got to stay on the radio, talking.”

Sweat was dripping down Gator’s freshly shaved jaw. It was all coming apart. Shank, the big shot from the Cities, had tripped on his dick. Sheryl said the kid said the man chasing her had shot Uncle Harry? And where the fuck was Shank? Wandering, lost in the woods somewhere? If he was out there in this, Gator hoped he was getting tired, that he would lie down and go to sleep. And die. See. This is what happens when you rely on other people.

That meant Broker was still on the loose out there. Knew his kid was missing.

Gator pounded the steering wheel as he drove. Shit. One minute he was winning. And now…He caught himself when he saw the blue flashers light up the blowing snow a block away, heading out of town, toward 12. Okay. Think. He contained his rage long enough to figure out he didn’t want to drive his normal route home. Highway 12 in front of Broker’s house would be jamming up with Keith, Howie, probably the volunteer firemen who had an ambulance and were EMT certified. Lost kid in a storm. Cops would be coming from other counties, piling on.

He swung the truck in a U-turn on Main Street and headed west out of town, turned north on Lakeside Road. Cut over the top of the lake. Pick up 12 above Broker’s place.

He mashed his boot down on the gas, driving on pure adrenaline and instinct through the whiteout. Had the kid in the fucking trunk, Sheryl said. Tried to work it out in his head. Maybe strand the kid back in the woods. Make it look like exposure. Might work. I don’t know. He pounded the wheel with his fist. C’mon, Sheryl, don’t screw up. Gator leaned forward, willing the truck through the storm.

His other cell phone rang. He checked the connection. Cassie. Shook his head. Dropped the phone. Kept driving.

“Shit, hell, damn.”

Kit huddled, fetal, trembling, in the rocking black compartment. Swearing. They were the only three cuss words she knew. Mom let her sit under the kitchen table sometimes in the Stillwater house and swear, to work out her heebie-jeebies, Mom said. If Dooley was here, he could pray. But he wasn’t. So she turned her face away from the phone and swore. Swearing, she’d discovered, helped keep her mad at the man in the woods and the lady driving the car. Helped hold off the smothering fear.

“Shit, hell, damn.”

Her only other comfort was the bluish green light on the cell phone in her hand. Voices cut in and out like a bad radio station. Sometimes the 911 lady, sometimes her mom.

“Stay calm. We’re coming,” they said.

Desperate, she felt around in the dark, looking for anything. She was lying on a crinkly plastic sheet, all folded. When she probed her free hand under it, she found a flat metal box. Like they kept art supplies in at school. It took a minute to fiddle with the hasp, but she got it open and clawed around in this cold metal stuff. Tools. She selected a long screwdriver and clutched it in her hand.

“We’re com…ay calm….” the phone crackled in and out.