John Case - Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

“…‘stop the motor of the world,’” she said. “That’s what he said: ‘there’s an American who wants to stop the motor of the world.’ Now I’m thinking – that sounds like an EMP. That sounds like Culpeper.”

“Andrea,” he gasped.

“Wait wait wait,” she said. “Let me just get through this before it all just… disassembles in my mind. Now the guy we picked up in KL – he’s the one who gave up the Qaeda operative in Berlin – the one who got shot.”

“Bobojon Simoni.”

“Right. And Simoni’s computer was the source of a list of bank accounts.”

Kovalenko’s heart was sinking. Not just sinking, hurting, a burrowing pain in his chest. This is the way it could happen: heart attack.

“And you got sent out to check on one of those accounts, am I right, Ray? Cadogan Bank, St. Helier?”

“Andrea,” he said. His voice had barely enough velocity to make it out of his mouth.

But the bitch kept talking.

“Didn’t you find out that account belonged to an American? An American, Ray… you see where this is going? An American who got money from Qaeda, who wanted to build an engine that would stop the world. Well, I think he’s made a start. So we have to talk to that American. Right away. Who is he, Ray? Where is he? Whatever you’ve got – gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Kovalenko’s mind was whirling. Stop the motor of the world. Straight out of Atlas Shrugged. “Francisco d’Anconia,” who once had an account in St. Helier, was the guy who did Culpeper – he had no fucking doubt.

And now his mind presented him with a scene in the Nightingale Arms where the man from the firm in Dublin was trying to give him the data he’d collected on d’Anconia. Biographical details. D’Anconia’s real name. What was his name? Bork? Burke. That was it – Mike Burke. He’d actually written it out for Kovalenko. On an index card. All he wanted was to have the restrictions lifted on his father-in-law’s firm.

And what did he, Ray Kovalenko, do with this gift of information? He’d glanced at the card, yes, but what did he do with it? He didn’t remember.

The information had seemed unimportant. He’d intended to send it to Washington, but… he hadn’t done that. The truth was, he didn’t remember doing anything with the card.

It must be in the office, he told himself. Or – what had he been wearing? Maybe it was in some pocket. The truth was he had no idea where it was. It was possible – no, he wouldn’t do that, would he? – that he’d thrown the card away.

At the Nightingale, Kovalenko remembered telling Burke that the information on the card wasn’t worth much. He remembered making Burke so mad, the fuck looked like he was going to head-butt him.

And now, unless Kovalenko could find that card, he was going to have to go crawling back to Mike Burke. Begging him.

“Ray?” Andrea said.

“I don’t have it. But I’ll get it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

He heard her shriek as he was putting the phone down: “Ray!”

By the time flight restrictions were lifted, fourteen hours after Burke’s arrival at JFK, the terminal was a wreck. People were surprisingly patient and cheerful, but there was no water or food and the restrooms were alarming. It was six more hours before Burke got a seat on a flight to Reno. By then he was willing to go anywhere within a thousand miles of his destination, but since this flexibility was shared by virtually everyone in the terminal, it did no good.

Once in Reno, though, he rented a car, intending to drive to Fallon. But when he started nodding out behind the wheel, he pulled into a Travelodge outside of Sparks, and collapsed into bed.

The next day, it took him two hours to get to Fallon, a time he spent rehearsing his spiel for Mandy Renfro. He was a reporter, writing a piece for Harper’s… Somehow it didn’t sound particularly convincing. But it was the best he could do, really, so he drove on, relying on the Mapquest directions to get him there.

The trailer and its setting were tidy and neat, surrounded by a low white picket fence. He stood on the doorstep, holding the wilted bouquet he’d bought that morning at a convenience store, and rapped on the door. It was opened by a very old woman in jeans and a gingham shirt. Her eyes were a startling pale blue.

“Help you?” she asked, but his reply was drowned out as a pair of navy jets roared overhead. He’d read in the guidebook that Fallon was the location of the Top Gun pilot training program.

Mandy Renfro smiled and held up a finger. “You get used to it,” she shouted. Once the noise died down, she asked, “Now, how can I help you?”

Burke told her that he was writing a story for Harper’s about the Invention Secrecy Act.

“I see,” she said, and frowned at the flowers. “Those poor things need help.” She gave him an assessing look. “You might as well come in. You look thirsty, too.”

She invited him to sit in the tiny living room. At one end of the room was a shrine to Jack: a shelf of trophies, a couple of photos, some certificates, and a Stanford pennant.

Mandy put the flowers in water, and came out after a few minutes with two tall glasses of iced tea. Only when she had stirred in the sugar with a long-handled spoon, and put their glasses on the coffee table, did she herself sit down.

Every minute or so, a jet put their conversation on hold.

“So who did you say you’re doing the story for?”

“Harper’s,” Burke replied.

Mandy Renfro gazed at him with her bright blue eyes. “Young man,” she said, “I don’t b’lieve you’re telling me the truth.”

“Well-”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, “I can’t help you with Jack anyway. I know he’s out of prison because I make it my business to keep up with him.” She glanced down at her hands. “But he does not make it his business to keep up with me.”

“So the last time you saw him was in the courtoom?”

“That’s right.”

“Like everybody else.”

She took a dainty sip. “You look awful tired. Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here? What’s your interest in Jack?”

Burke was tired of lying. He told her the outlines of the story, but left out the part about Culpeper. “I think he’s building a weapon,” Burke told her. “A powerful one.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Lotta anger in that boy, and why not? After all those years in that terrible place.”

Burke nodded.

“There’s two ways animals get when they been hurt bad – and Jack’s been hurt bad, you know. Some critters will curl up and pretend to be dead and just kind of keep a low profile and ride it out. The others? You hurt them and they want to hurt you back. They attack. Or they wait, and then they attack. Even dogs been known to hold grudges. Coyotes, too.” She took a sip of tea.

“You think Jack is going to retaliate.”

“Jack was done wrong. So, yes – I worry about what he might do, smart as he is, strong-willed as he is.”

“I worry, too.”

“What will you do if you find him?”

“I’m not sure,” Burke said. And it was true; he really didn’t know. “You think he’ll come here?”

“This little trailer was his special spot, but if he isn’t here by now, he’s not coming.” A sigh. She stirred her tea. “You’ve heard about it, I’m sure, that he was found in a box at the door to the hospital, with his name on one of those stickers.”