'Em fine. I'm fine."
After that he would come out of me building about every fifteen minutes and stare over at me.
At 6:10 P.M. the phone rang. I moved quickly and shut myself in the booth.
"Hello?"
"McGee?"
"Yes. Are you Max or Take?"
'~either. But I know what went on."
"Can you prove that?"
'If you can mink of a way, maybe I can."
'Y was with a friend. He stayed outside. We used a code."
"Hold on. I saw that in here somewhere. Here it is. The word hat. To mean a weapon. Bring your hat."
"Okay. I mink somebody better get here. I think Hey better get here fast. I keep kind of slipping off, in a funny way."
'~Where are you?"
"Near Ukiah, near an off ramp, near a Shell station. Ukiah, California."
'because you call, we should come?"
"I hope you're recording this, pal. Because I don't feel like going over it if you don't believe it. Brother Titus is dead. And Brother Persival and ten more of them. They're in a warehouse up in the hills. The warehouse is full of weapons, ammo, incendiaries, plastique, grenades, rockets. They were terrorists who trained all over the world and they "
"Hold it! Can you see a motel anywhere near you?"
I looked around. "Talmadge Lodge."
"You have cash?"
"Enough."
"Go there and check in. And wait."
'I'll use the name of Thomas McGraw. How long will I have to wait?"
"I'd guess until six tomorrow morning. Or seven. I want to get the two you met back in on this thing. They're... pretty far away."
There were nine of them, in three nondescript cars, and they did not want to waste any time sitting around chatting. They seemed to be under intense strain. I was in the lead car with Jake at the wheel, pointing out the way. Max leaned over from the back seat. "Why the hell did you come out here?"
"Why not?"
"People like you can screw everything up."
"So why didn't you get out here first?"
The Green Ripper
'It was way down the list. We'd have gotten around to it. We're understaffed. Jesus C hrist, McGee, each one of us is doing the work of three men. The government solution to a problem is throw money at it. So what do you do when you can't really mention the problem?"
"Why the big rush? Everything is still there."
Jake said, "We've gotten to too many places right after the moving men have cleaned it out."
I thought I had missed one turn, but I hadn't. I unlocked the gate, swung it open, and got back in. The three cars went barreling up the narrow steep road, sliding on the greasy turns. All the structures were there. The silence was there. I pointed out the building.
I unlocked the door for them and stepped back out of the way and let them go in. I went back and leaned on a car. In five minutes two of them came out, looking a little green. Max was one of them. After they breathed in some fresh air they went back in. Ten minutes later Max came out, another man following him with a notebook.
" and I want unmarked trucks up here, with secure drivers. The biggest that can make that last hill and the curves. They'll take the long way around from here to Fort Bragg and go into classified storage. Our people will look at the stuff there to see if there's anything new and different. Got that?"
"Got it."
Y want to sneak a helicopter in here big enough to fly out with eleven bodies. They should bring body bags and some graves registration people. Secure people, of course."
"Got it."
"I want them taken to Home Town fastest. I want a priority on those pix and prints they're taking in there. They should be about ready to give them to you, and then you can take off. Who's got that black tin suitcase?"
"It's in the trunk of Red's car."
"They'll fly back with us to Home Town, and when you're setting the other stuff up, make sure they get good people on E. and A. Take them off other stuff if necessary. Now read back, just the highlights."
"Mmm. Unmarked trucks, secure drivers, classified storage at Bragg. Bodies out on helicopter. Body bags and graves registration people, direct to Home Town. Priority on the pix and prints, and I take them in. Take black suitcase out with me... no, that goes with you. What I do is get Evaluation and Analysis primed to go when it gets there."
That was all. He went back into the warehouse. Max motioned to me, and we strolled across the flats. I told him I would show him where the airplane went in.
"So many of them," he said. "Jesus!"
"I know."
"Are you all right?"
The Green Ripper
'I don't know what the hell it is. Like some kind of combat fatigue. Look at my hand shake. It was a long time ago, and it an came back at once."
"You went kind of crazy?"
"No. Not like that. I was pretty calm, actually. I mean you go along and you figure the odds of doing this and the odds against doing that, and whatever you do, you make it sudden and final."
"You say three were in the Cessna? So you waxed eight of them."
"Nine. There's one buried over a week ago. Nicky. They gave me the gun and told me to shoot him and I did. That was what started all the rest of it. Like letting some kind of bad spell out of the bottle. I thought it was a fake execution, so I fired and killed him."
We got to the slope and looked down to where we could see bits of the airplane. 'I got all the records out of there I could find," I said. "And I looked everywhere for that goddamn missing arm. I looked high and low. I can't imagine how it hid itself so damn well." My voice was getting high and thin, but I couldn't seem to stop. "Somehow we've got to find that damn arm!"
"Hey," he said. "Hey, fellow. Take it easy, huh?" He turned me around and headed me back toward the cars. 'I'll have some of my guys go down there and find it."
We walked in silence.
"How'd you get them all?"
I used as few words as possible.
He gave me a strange sidelong look. I've seen people at the zoo look at the big cats that way, as if they are wondering if the creature could bang right through those bars if he felt like it.
"You're going to have to come back for debriefing."
"Debrief somebody who was never briefed?"
"It's just a word we use, McGee. I think they'll go at you for a week or more. It won't be bad. You'll get good food and rest. The motivation people will want to know just about every word those people spoke to you."
'lithe one they should talk to is Sister Elena Marie. She used to be Bobbie Jo Annison, the evangelist."