Blue Wolf In Green Fire (2 page)

In the short time he had worked with the captain, Service was continually amazed by his superior's memory for names and details. “Yessir, Griff's a bait-and-wait man, no dogs.” And every year Griff's clients took a couple of five-hundred-pounders because he was a consummate woodsman, knew the animals' behaviors, habits, and their likely locations. “Griff hates cheaters,” Service added. “He says he's found a dead bear he wants me to see. He found it last night and he's camped on it to preserve the site.”

“What about the animal?” Grant asked.

“He wouldn't say. I'm meeting him at noon north of McMillan.”

“A bear isn't a deer,” the captain reminded him.

“Things can link together in peculiar ways,” Service said. “I like to keep all options open.”

“Keep me informed,” Grant said with a forceful nod. “A major poaching ring sends out ripples and upsets the balance. It's one thing for one person to poach to feed his family or because he can't resist temptation, but it is another thing entirely for someone to organize the endeavor for profit.”

In the world of fish and game law, most sins were relative.

Service promised to keep his superior in the loop and headed for McMillan with plenty of time to get there. At 9:20 a.m. he was just east of Munising when his cell phone squawked.

It was Nantz, her voice tight and cracking like thin ice. “Have you heard?!”

“Heard what? Are you okay?”

“I felt it this morning,” she said. “In my bones.” He heard her sob, catch herself, trying hard to check her emotions.

“Felt what?”

“Grady, about fifteen minutes ago an airliner struck the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City and a couple of minutes ago another airliner hit the south tower. I saw the second plane hit on the TV, Grady! It was horrible, honey. Terrible, like some sort of movie special effect, only this was real. The talking heads on TV are calling it a possible terrorist attack.”

He tried to get his mind around her words. Terrorist attack, New York City? “Are you all right?”

“No,” Nantz said. “I'm sick. I
felt
something coming, honey. I
felt
it. I had the heebie-jeebies all night.”

Service let her talk. He understood the power of instinct and intuition. It had taken all of his nearly fifty years to learn to trust his own gut.

“If terrorists did this . . .” she said, not finishing her thought. “I'm going to keep watching,” she said. “I love you.”

When she was off the line he tried to call the captain, but got a busy signal. Instead he checked his voice mail and found a message from Lorne O'Driscoll, the DNR's law enforcement chief in Lansing. The chief's message informed all law enforcement personnel that in the wake of the morning's tragic events, they should go about their business; if they were needed for special duty they would be contacted directly by the Michigan State Police Emergency Management Division.

Terrorist attacks on the United States. How did you go about your business in the wake of that?

The phone rang again. It was Nantz, sobbing. “There are going to be thousands of dead, Grady, thousands! Another plane has crashed into the Pentagon, Grady.
My God!
”

She hung up before he could speak.

2

Commercial radio stations had abandoned their computer-fed formats for call-in chaos. Jocks were yapping about Pearl Harbor, pounding the war drums and talking to anyone who would add a shrill voice to the hype and hysteria, all without a single shred of evidence of a crime, much less a suspect.

Service fiddled with his tuner and switched to the National Public Radio station out of Marquette, and listened carefully to a retired defense intelligence analyst, now a professor at the University of Michigan, discuss the possible involvement of Muslim extremists. The professor ended his report by warning listeners not to jump to conclusions, reminding them that the Oklahoma City bombing was reason enough for such prudence. That disaster had been spawned by homegrown terrorists, whom he described as fundamentalists in their own right, there being zealots and extremists in all cultures and religious faiths.

Then NPR had opened its phone banks and even the station's liberal callers were expressing a desire for justice and payback for the perfidy in New York, though only if the government could clearly identify the perpetrators.

Service heard shock in callers' voices. He could feel it himself and in Nantz's calls. Surely something being seen as Pearl Harbor would demand national political action, and he had no doubt that given what George Bush Senior's administration had done to mobilize public opinion in favor of liberating Kuwait, President Bush Junior's crowd would do no less in pulling public opinion into their corner, for whatever lay ahead. You couldn't use military options without public support.

There had been no such mobilization of public opinion by Washington during Vietnam, and by the time politicians understood the need, it had been too late. But this was different from Vietnam. If this truly was terrorism, America had been attacked and citizens would demand both justice and revenge. Without a draft, war now would fall only on the shoulders of a few, all of them volunteers.

In McMillan, at the intersection where he intended to turn north, he saw a silver Lexus SUV nosed against a telephone pole, which looked ready to topple. A battered gray Ford pickup was jammed into the trunk of the Lexus, and a white Luce County sheriff's cruiser was hanging over the curb of the parking lot of the Shanty Bar. The bar's sign was in bright red letters several feet tall. Underneath there was a motto:
where good times and old friends meet.
A crowd of people milled around, looking agitated, not exactly the atmosphere advertised on the sign over their heads. Service thought about driving past to get to his meeting, but instinct and a sense of duty to a fellow officer told him otherwise. He pulled over and got out of his truck.

A deputy stood with three men in suits. Another man hung back from the fringe of the four. One of them had a sleeve ripped off and was holding a handkerchief to a bloody nose. The other two looked equally disheveled.

Service looked at the deputy and nodded. “Got a problem here?”

The deputy was unfamiliar, a short emaciated man with thinning hair. His black baseball cap was on the ground, his bony face flushed.

“Idiots,” the deputy said. His metal nameplate read
telemansky.

“This is patently unfair,” the man with the bloody nose grumbled in pain. He was of average height, with a dark complexion, silvering black hair, and scraggly beard. “We were passing through and trying to stop to get coffee when that
animal
rammed my vehicle and drove us into the pole.” He pointed to a man in a faded and threadbare green plaid wool jacket.

“Fucking terrorists!” Green Jacket shouted, surging forward, but Deputy Telemansky blocked his way and pushed him back. “
You're
the animals, towel head!” Green Jacket screamed in rage.

“I am
American
,
” Bloody Nose said forcefully.

Service saw more vehicles arriving, people drifting into the parking lot, a gawking crowd growing restless.

“Camel-fucker!” Green Jacket shouted, shaking his fists. “We liberated fucking Kuwait and this is the shit we get in return? How many Americans did you murder this morning?”

Bloody Nose turned to Service and fumbled, trying to reach into his suit coat, and Deputy Telemansky tried to stop him, but Service blocked the deputy's hand. The man brought out a crumpled business card and handed it to Service. It read
judge samir baaz.
The address was Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. “My friends and I are going to Marquette for a meeting. That
man,
” he continued, pointing at Green Jacket, “rammed us.”

Service passed the card to Telemansky, who looked at it and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you all right, Your Honor?” Service asked.

“My nose isn't broken.”

“Did that happen in the vehicle?”

“No,” the judge said. “After the collision I got out to see what this fool was doing and he attacked me.”

“I'll do worse, you don't get the fuck out of America,” Green Jacket said with a snarl.

Service stared down the loudmouth. “Did you ram this man?”

“Fucking eh,” Green Jacket said proudly. “Pieces of shit like this don't belong in our country.”

“I was born in
Marquette,
” Baaz said, his voice breaking. The judge's companions remained quiet and looked frightened.

“Your blood ain't ours,” Green Jacket snapped back.

“Telemansky?” Service said.

“Yah, I got 'er.” He turned to Green Jacket. “Verlin, you asshole, you can't be trying to kill people.”

“I didn't want to kill him, just run his sorry Arab ass out of town.”

Telemansky took out his handcuffs. “You're under arrest, Verlin.”

“Fuck off, Deputy Dawg,” Green Jacket said, earning a laugh from a few of the onlookers.

Service reached over to the man called Verlin and pinched a nerve in his neck. The man's knees buckled. “Stick out your hands, Verlin.” The man tried to resist, but Service tightened the hold until the man relented and stuck out his hands so that Telemansky could cuff him.

“This ain't over,” Green Jacket said.

“It is for you, Verlin,” Telemansky said.

“Break it up,” Service said to the onlookers. “This show's over.”

The crowd began to disperse, and several people came forward and put blankets over the shoulders of the judge's companions. “Don't judge our country by the actions of a few,” an elderly woman said.

“I am
American
,
” the judge growled in exasperation.

Service stayed until Verlin was in the back of Telemansky's county cruiser and a tow truck summoned from Newberry to haul the damaged SUV there for repairs.

The judge's nose had stopped bleeding by the time arrangements were made. The owner of the bakery across the street from the bar escorted the men inside and gave them coffee and cinnamon rolls, the Yooper equivalent of chicken soup.

Service told the judge and his companions that their vehicle would be towed, another Luce County deputy would drive them to Newberry, and a room would be arranged until their vehicle was repaired.

“Or,” he continued, “we can get someone to take you on to Marquette so you can make your meeting.”

Judge Baaz looked at Service. “The meeting can be rescheduled to tomorrow,” he said, adding, “I never expected to be rescued by a game warden. Thank you.”

“You were in good hands with Telemansky,” Service said. The deputy had been bewildered by Verlin's attack, and though Service didn't know the man, he wasn't certain he would have reacted any better or faster than Telemansky in quelling the situation.

“All I know is that the situation was not getting resolved until you arrived,” the judge said. “This tragedy in New York . . .” He didn't finish the thought. “Thank you.”

Service nodded.

“This is the start of a terrible chain reaction,” the judge said.

Service nodded again, and thought the judge was right.

“I never felt like a foreigner until today,” Baaz said with sadness in his voice. “Never.”

Service patted the judge's arm. When their escort arrived he made his good-byes and headed for his meeting with Griff Stinson.

The old hunting guide was sitting in his truck at the end of a two-track, listening to the radio when Service pulled up behind him.

“Have you heard?” Stinson asked with a nod at the radio.

“Yah.”

“Sometimes it seems like this bloody world wants to pull itself apart,” Stinson said.

He took Service to a green tarp. When he lifted it, Service saw a large black bear with coarse, matted fur. Griff got down on one knee and lifted the animal's front left leg to show its chest cavity. “One round put her down. All they took was the gallbladder,” he said.

They both knew what it meant. There were several cases a year of the same thing. The gallbladders were shipped to agents on the West Coast for sale to Asian customers who believed that powders from the organs had aphrodisiac powers.

Griff poked at the entry wound and rolled the bear over. The bullet had torn a massive exit hole. Stinson had fought in Korea and been decorated. “I'd say a fifty-caliber. Not your usual poaching weapon.”

Not just unusual, Service thought, but unprecedented. Still, he reminded himself, people up here loved their guns, so no doubt there were some strange and illegal weapons floating around, or somebody had bought himself a single-shot fifty-caliber from one of the many specialty manufacturers who played to male fantasies about being mercenaries or soldiers of fortune. One kill didn't amount to anything, but it was something to file in his memory. Something related might pop up down the road. First thing tomorrow he'd put the word out to U.P. COs and tell them to keep a watch for a fifty-caliber weapon.

“Thanks, Griff.”

The old guide touched the bill of his faded Red Wings hat and took out his pipe. “You think this world will ever get to the point where there are no more wars?”

Service didn't answer.

“I guess a cop has to think that way,” Stinson said. “Thanks for coming over.”

When Service called Nantz, she was sobbing. “Come home, honey,” she said. “
Please
.” It was a one-word order disguised as a plea.

Just east of Seney there was a portable marquee propped on a flatbed trailer in front of a church. The sign said pray:
god answers knee-mail
.

Grady Service doubted God answered anything. He probably sat in heaven shaking his head at the shit he saw back on earth. All the way home he noticed that American flags were sprouting in front of homes. They hadn't been there on the way to McMillan. If the intent of the people who'd attacked New York City and Washington, D.C., had been to arouse American emotions, they had succeeded. Maybe this
was
another Pearl Harbor, he thought, shuddering at the implications.