Soldiers of Fortune (5 page)

In other news, the cool weather still eludes us. The weather people keep teasing us with promises of a drop soon, but so far, nothing has panned out. How are things down on the farm?
 

I slumped back in my chair and blew out a breath. Harrison’s message would seem normal enough to anyone else, but I knew exactly what he was trying to convey. The attack on Morrow was intentional, and he was lucky to have escaped with his life. He might not be so lucky the next time. And with the car being stolen, there was nothing to go on. Which meant Morrow and Harrison would need eyes in the back of their heads until this whole ordeal with Ahmad was over.

Even worse, they still hadn’t found any sign of Ahmad. In the five years the CIA had been tracking him, they’d never lost sight of him for more than a couple of days. Either he’d gone deep underground or someone in his organization had taken him out. But if the second had happened, the CIA would have seen movement from the new ruling party. I shook my head. The far more likely scenario was that Ahmad had intentionally disappeared. But for what purpose? Was killing me really that important to him, or was he off pursuing a new business interest?

I drummed my fingers on the table and sat upright when a thought occurred to me. What if he’d gone underground for plastic surgery? That had happened once with a drug dealer in Colombia. He’d dropped off the map for weeks, then a new face appeared at the compound, giving orders like a general. Whoever had done the work had made such a difference in his appearance that none of us noticed the similarities until an operative who did clay sculpture of human heads as a hobby pointed out the bone structure. The facial recognition software verified her observation, and we were still able to get our man.

If Ahmad had done the same thing, he could be anywhere, looking like a totally different person. New facial features, colored contacts, bleached hair, and no one would be the wiser. I doubted he could approach me without all the hair on my body rising, but he could easily blend in a crowd and probably go unnoticed. I leaned forward and pulled the laptop closer to reply to the email.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

I was worried about your dad. Thanks for the update. I’m glad he is feeling better but frustrated that the police don’t think they’ll catch the responsible party. I guess your dad was too busy trying to get out of the way, so he didn’t see anything. Maybe he needs to take the bus for a while instead of walking. People have gotten so careless with cars. We’d probably all be safer if we got off of sidewalks.

Things at the farm are going good. Nothing is ever simple but things have a way of working out eventually. I’m sorry you still haven’t seen your cool breeze yet. Remember when we took that trip back in 2009 expecting cooler weather and it was nowhere in sight? Everyone says it’s global warming, but I figure things have always changed one way or another. Hopefully, things will improve soon.
 

I reread the message to make sure Harrison would understand. The first paragraph was a warning to both of them to watch their backs. I didn’t think he needed it, but it never hurt to reinforce an idea, especially with assassins, as we tended to fancy ourselves invincible. I hoped the second paragraph reminded him of the previous target and his plastic surgery. If it registered with him, then he could begin to think about how to track Ahmad’s movements differently. And he’d have everyone on alert for any newcomer on the scene.

Satisfied that I’d been as directly vague as I could be, I pressed Send, then reached for my beer. I was on my second handful of cookies when Ida Belle and Gertie arrived. I served them up requested sweet tea, put the plate of cookies on the table, and waited for the ideas to start rolling off their tongues. Instead, they both ate their cookies in absolute silence.

“Really?” I said, finally breaking the stagnant air. “If you guys don’t have any ideas, I’m not sure who does.”

Ida Belle put down the partially eaten cookie and sighed. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and Gertie and I talked on the way over to your house, but the bottom line is that we have never heard of a meth problem here.”

“Carter already said that,” I said.

“Yes,” Gertie said, “but Carter wouldn’t be privy to things people intended on keeping secret. Nosy old ladies, however, have ways of hearing about things that law enforcement doesn’t.”

“I see.” I considered this for a moment and frowned. Gertie was right. Unless they got careless, it was unlikely for the sheriff’s department to be unaware of the dangerous and illegal habits of residents, but it was a whole other thing completely for people like Ida Belle and Gertie to have no one on radar that might be involved.
 

“Maybe we’re losing our touch,” Ida Belle said. “Look at all the things that have happened the last month, and all of them going on right below our noses.”

“I don’t think so,” Gertie said. “I think criminals are getting smarter and worse is all.”

“They’re not that smart,” Ida Belle said. “After all, we’ve caught all of them eventually.”

“Yeah, but they’re getting smarter than the average Sinful mental acumen,” Gertie said, “or they wouldn’t have gotten away with things as long as they did. I think it’s more of an issue of lack of exposure on our account.”

“Gertie makes sense,” I said. “I mean, I’m new here, but based on what you’ve told me, the town never had big issues before now, at least, not that you were aware of. If it was a normal rash of poaching or theft or drunken idiocy, you guys would be all over it because that’s what you’re trained to clue in on, but this stuff…”

Ida Belle nodded. “You’re probably right. Gunrunning, murder, and now meth. I know plenty of people who smoke weed, but aside from the random few who’ve gone to New Orleans and gotten screwed up on the harder stuff, I don’t know of anyone from Sinful who has a problem, and certainly no one who lives here now.”

“Who do you know that smokes weed?” Gertie asked.

“I’m not telling you,” Ida Belle said. “You’d be silly enough to try it.”

Gertie shrugged. “I heard it was good for the eyes.”

“For glaucoma,” Ida Belle said. “It doesn’t cure nearsightedness.”

Gertie cross her arms across her chest. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not nearsighted. I just need reading glasses.”

Ida Belle rolled her eyes. It was an argument that the two of them would probably take to the grave, even though Gertie didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“If I had to guess,” I said, “drug problems would start here with the younger generation—probably in high school. You two aren’t exactly dialed into the youth of Sinful.”

“That’s true enough,” Gertie said. “Once I stopped teaching, I pretty much wanted the rest of my life to be child free.”

“Maybe we should ask Ally,” I said. “She’s young and may have picked up on something at the café.”

“True,” Ida Belle said, “but that means telling her about Carter’s suspicions, which means getting her involved in something that can’t possibly end well.”

I sighed. “There is that. Maybe I can figure out a way to broach the subject without asking her outright.”

Gertie laughed. “You want to try to coax the information out of her through general conversation…without letting on that you’re fishing? You have a lot of skills, Fortune, but lack of directness isn’t really one of them.”

“I can be vague and indirect,” I said. “Sort of. Maybe. Fine, I won’t ask.”

“Probably best,” Ida Belle said, “but your point about taking a harder look at the young people in Sinful is a good one. I just don’t know how we go about it.”

“There’s always the dance,” Gertie said.

I frowned. Dancing sounded awful enough. Dancing with a lot of teenagers sounded like some form of hell that was just asking for a Wikipedia page. “What dance?”

“The Fourth of July dance,” Ida Belle said. “It’s always held on the fifth because of the fireworks show on the night of the fourth. Teens started getting together the night after probably fifty years ago, and the tradition stuck.”

“And they dance?” I asked.

“Oh,” Gertie said, “there’s probably some of that twerking going on, but I doubt many go to dance.”

I glanced over at Ida Belle, who gave me a slight shake of her head. Clearly “twerking” was lost on her as well, but since the word originated with Gertie, I felt it best to leave off asking for an explanation.
 

“Mostly,” Gertie continued, “I think they sneak their dad’s beer in and stand around a bonfire.”

“And what good does that do us?” I asked.

“It’s against the law for more than two teens to congregate in public unless they’re with an adult or it’s a sponsored event,” Ida Belle said.
 

“Or unless they’re fishing or hunting,” Gertie added. “People think teens just hanging out are looking for trouble.”

“But teens carrying fillet knives and guns are not an issue,” I said.
 

“Of course not.” Gertie looked confused.

“The point is,” Ida Belle said, “the town requires adult chaperones for the event, so if we wanted a good reason to mingle among teens without looking suspicious, the dance is it.”

“Aren’t the chaperones already in place?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Ida Belle said. “No one wants to spend their night sweating around a bonfire in July. The mosquitoes are so thick they can carry you off.”

 
Gertie nodded. “That’s what they say happened to Lucy Franks back in ’84.”

Ida Belle sighed. “Sixteen-year-old Lucy Franks ran off with the forty-year-old school janitor who used to be her father’s fishing buddy. Her father’s a deacon, so he opted to go with the mosquito story.”

It seemed reasonable. “So we volunteer for this torture and what? I can barely communicate with adults. How am I supposed to get information out of teens?”

“I don’t know that we can,” Ida Belle said, “but it’s worth a shot.”

I blew out a breath. “This is the thinnest line of investigation we’ve ever had. What about the location of the lab? Surely that would give us something to go on.”

“Maybe,” Ida Belle said, “but we need a way to get there. Right now, we’re completely out of boats and the only one we could easily steal, we already sank.”

“What about Walter’s boat?” I asked.

“Walter locked the boat keys in his safe after we borrowed it last time,” Gertie said.
 

“And you don’t know the combination?” I asked Ida Belle. “That seems like something that would already be in your bag of tricks.”

Gertie laughed. “Despite the fact that Walter’s been in love with her since grade school, that doesn’t mean he trusts her any further than he can throw her.”

That’s because Walter was a smart man, but I wasn’t about to say so. “Ally’s boat is small but doesn’t go very fast. I’m sure she’d let us borrow it, but I’m not sure it’s a great idea. I mean, if anything happened while we were out there…”

“We’d be sitting ducks,” Gertie said. “No speed and no place to hide in a boat that shallow.”

“There’s got to be something,” I said, feeling frustrated.

“Let me work on it,” Ida Belle said. “I might be able to come up with something.”

A knock on my front door had us all straightening in our chairs. I glanced at my watch. It was only 7:00 p.m.—too early for Ally, and besides, she had a key. And Carter wasn’t supposed to be there until dark.

I headed to the front of the house and swung the door open, surprised to see Carter standing there smiling and holding a bottle of wine. “If I had to spend another minute with my mother watching me rest, I was going to shoot her,” Carter said.

I grinned. Emmaline had almost lost her son just days before, so she was doing the required hovering, but I knew that to Carter, it probably felt like someone slowly squeezing the air out of him. I’d feel the same way. “Come on in,” I said. “I was just having some of Ally’s incredible chocolate chip cookies with Ida Belle and Gertie.”

Carter frowned as he stepped inside. “You three aren’t up to anything you’re not supposed to be, are you?”

“Of course not,” I said as I headed for the kitchen, glad that he couldn’t see my face when I answered. I was an expert liar, but lately, I’d found that my feelings for Carter made it harder and harder to keep a straight face when I was telling him something untrue.

Carter stepped into the kitchen and gave Ida Belle and Gertie the once-over. “Ladies. Fortune assures me you’re not up to no good. Since you’re awake, I’m not convinced.”

“Jeez,” I said, “sit down and have a cookie. It will probably improve your mood. And if you must know, the only thing they’re ‘up to’ is wrangling me into helping them supervise some kids’ dance tomorrow night.”

Carter raised one eyebrow. “You two are supervising the dance?”

“It’s our civic duty,” Ida Belle said. “Everyone’s got to take rotation sooner or later.”

“What’s the matter?” Gertie asked. “You think we can’t handle a bunch of kids?”

Carter shook his head. “I’m more worried for the kids.”

“Damn straight,” Gertie said and rose from the table. “Let’s make ourselves scarce. If three’s a crowd, then four is an invasion.”