CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“In From the Cool”
Stella waited while Otto battened the hatches. He spread an enormous tarp over his monster truck and tied it down to iron rings set in the rock. He came back in, grabbed the pistol off the end table and took it back to his gun safe. He fiddled with the model truck. Stella got up to refill her tea. She watched Otto strip off his shirt through the open bedroom door and noticed a tattoo on his left bicep too far to read.
She returned to the living room, sat down, and picked up a copy of American History from the walnut slab coffee table. Otto came out of the bedroom with a bulging black leather valise, which he set by the door. Stella looked around. There was no security system. Odd for a man who’d built a tank trap.
He disappeared into the spare bedroom and emerged moments later with a nine mm Ruger in a shoulder rig.
“Do you have a permit for that?” Stella said.
“Of course,” he replied. Stella wondered if whoever had granted the permit had access to Otto’s medical records. She doubted it. Those things were supposed to be classified.
It was three by the time they left the mountain, Steve filling the back seat. They would not reach Denver before six at the earliest. There was no point going to the FBI building where the agent in charge had prepared an ops center.
The old Cherokee jounced and rocked down the rutted trail. They pulled aside twice to let vehicles pass going upslope. Steve hung out the window.
“What have you been doing?” Otto said. “What’s going on?”
“Have you heard of the Below the Beltline Sniper?”
“Nope.”
“I’m defending him.”
“Whom did he snipe?”
“My client is alleged to have killed seven people. He is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation.”
“Wow.” Otto knew enough not to ask for details. “What else is going on?”
“The President is concerned that these spontaneous combustions are a new form of terrorism.”
Otto looked out at the ponderosa and aspen, wind-blow pine crawling from nooks and crannies. “It takes a lot of energy to incinerate a human body. If I had to measure it in units I’d say it would take eight to ten thousand Btus. You couldn’t carry enough batteries. Where’s that energy coming from?”
“The Army has been conducting experiments with microwaves. They’re working on a weapons variation that would cook human flesh from up to a mile away. You’ll be working under Director Yee.”
Otto had heard the name. That’s all.
At the bottom of the rustic trail Stella waited while Otto checked his mail and unlocked the gate, returning to the vehicle with a stack of magazines and letters. He flipped through them on his lap. “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” he said, tossing the unopened envelopes on the floor. There was no phone bill. There was no gas bill. There was no cable bill. There was a credit card bill. The magazines included Guns & Ammo, American Sportsman, and The American Spectator.
They turned east on 14 and headed down the mountain. A pair of cycles passed them going the other way, straight pipes reverberating off the canyon walls. Otto turned into himself. He never was the life of the party. Stella turned on the radio, got lucky and found a Denver jazz station playing Sonny Criss. It waxed and waned with the canyon walls.
Stella drove the old Jeep with verve and precision, slowing down before the hairpins. She slowed way down at one hairpin and some flatlanders in a Toyota came around straddling the middle line. Stella waited patiently for them to pass.
As they passed Mishawaka Otto turned in his seat to look at the American flag painted on the roof. “That’s new.”
“Yeah. Some artist gets five thou a pop to paint the American flag on roofs, barns.”
“I’m just grateful it’s not a picture of the Virgin Mary fellating Jesus,” Otto said.
They stopped in Fort Collins where Stella exchanged the Jeep for her rental. Mercifully, Crystal was not at home.
“How’d it go with Crystal?” Otto said when they were underway.
“Same old, same old. She was pleasantly bombed by the time I arrived. She’s got a new boyfriend. Tom Blaine the amplifier king. He’s invented an amp/speaker combo the size of a cigarette pack that’ll blast a stadium. Perfect for that garage band next door.”
“You could mount one on the roof. HEY DOOFUS! GET OUT OF THE WAY!’“
Stella laughed. It sounded like gold coins falling into Otto’s hands.
“Tempting.”
“So Sam was seeing a lobbyist. You think Pendragon has anything to do with this?”
“I don’t know.”
They arrived in Stapleton at six-thirty. Stella booked two rooms at a pet-friendly Best Western several blocks from FBI HQ. They entered the Pike’s Peak Lounge with Steve wearing a leather harness with a green banner that said Service Dog.
The young hostess cooed over Steve and showed them to a corner booth. Stella ordered red wine and Otto ordered a beer. Steve lay beneath the table out of sight.
Stella took out her iPhone and dialed someone. A few minutes later she said, “Margaret, it’s Stella. I have him.”
She listened, then handed the phone to Otto.
“Otto White,” Otto said.
“Mr. White, this is National Security Director Margaret Yee. Thank you for serving your country.”
“My pleasure, Madame Director.”
“You will be operating directly under NSA auspices. You will report directly to me. Do you understand?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“You understand the mission?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good. We are calling this ‘Operation Flameout.’ Stella will give you my contact information. I look forward to meeting you soon. Let’s talk again tomorrow after you’re set up out there.”
The director hung up. Otto handed the phone to Stella, who slid a piece of notepaper across the table containing the director’s private number.
A sulfuric stench rose from beneath the table.
Stella covered her nose and mouth and turned away. “Oh my God I forgot about Steve’s farts.”
Otto removed a pack of matches from a pocket, lit several and waved them around.
“I have a seven-forty flight,” Stella said, “so I probably won’t see you in the morning. Can you get yourself to the Feds in the morning? It’s two blocks west.”
“I think so.”
“Ask for Special Agent Lon Barnett.”
Otto removed a small spiral pad and pen from his cargo pants pocket and made a note. “What’s your number?”
Stella gave him both her numbers. Otto was not a talker. He ordered two buffalo burgers, gave one to Steve under the table. Occasionally Stella caught him looking at her with such longing it was a stab to the heart. But one thing she could always count on with Otto. He was a practical man. He lived in the real world, at least in so far as having no illusions. She had often thought Otto would have been happier living two centuries ago where he could carve his destiny from an as-yet-untamed land.
Otto set down the remnants of his sandwich and finished off his second beer. “What’s going on? Seeing anyone?”
“I’m seeing Gabe Winner.”
“Not the actor,” Otto said.
“That’s the guy.”
“No shit. He’s one of the few actors I can stomach. He makes decent action flicks and he keeps his mouth shut off camera..”
“I have all his films if you’re interested.
“Did you buy them?”
“He gave them to me.”
Otto grinned. “Maybe I’ll get a DVD player. I did see The Detonator. What’s that like, dating a Hollywood personality?”
“Gabe is very grounded. We’ve only been seeing each other three months.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Otto said.
A sharp retort perched on Stella’s lips but she held it back. Otto was probably right in his assessment that her affair with Gabe Winner would result in no long-term relationship. Just look at her record. Two separate careers in two different locations. Hollywood.
Stella insisted on paying. They paused awkwardly outside her room.
“You coming back out?” Otto said.
“I doubt it. I was lucky I could work this in. Thank you for doing this, Otto.”
She unlocked her door.
“No problem,” Otto said.
Stella gave him a peck on the cheek, went inside and shut the door thinking she might never see him again.
***