Dirty Money ARC Read online

  If she lived on post, you could argue she belonged to the Band of Brothers. In a voice charged with authority, Justice barked, “Hey, Sis! There you’re at! I been lookin’ all over town for you. Come on, let’s get on home. You forget tomorrow’s a school day?”

  The biggest of the three, twenty years of beer hanging over a John Deere buckle, took a step toward Justice, half-empty longneck in one hand, a fat collection of keys in the other. “Piss off, grunt, she’s with us. And we’ll get her home when she’s ready.”

  He tossed the bottle aside, put his palm against the smaller man’s chest, and pushed. Justice slipped on the gravel, went from five foot seven to flat on his back. The man laughed, turned away. “Git her in the truck, boys. Party time.”

  Justice considered going back in the bar for reinforcements. But they’d have her in the truck and be gone by the time he did that.

  Better to settle it, quick and quiet, right now. He climbed to his feet and pulled out his pocket change. “Hey, you dropped your rent money.” The man turned and Justice tossed three quarters and a dime in his face. Drawing the man’s eyes and hands.

  Justice kicked him in the shin, moved in close, and emptied the man’s lungs with a punch to the solar plexus. Then raised his knee as the man folded like a cheap jackknife. He felt the snap of the jaw bone against his thigh. He scooped the man’s keys and flung them into the night.

  Then took the girl by the arm, roughly, and spun her toward his car, before the other two could summon a scrap of courage from their confusion.

  He yanked the seat belt across her chest, clicked it in place. Punched down her door lock. A beer bottle bounced off the back bumper as they left the lot. She slumped against the door and closed her eyes.

  Ten minutes later they were back on post. He stopped under a street lamp, propped her against it, and started going through her pockets, looking for ID. That’s when the MP’s showed up.

  Half an hour later her father showed up. Franklin Roark, The Battalion’s Commanding Officer. By then Justice was cuffed to a bench, and the girl was asleep under a blanket on a couch in the watch commander’s office.

  Driver shoved the magazine back in his rifle, chambered a round, thumbed the safety on. “Colonel Roark? That tight assed West Point by-the-book son of a bitch?”

  “The one and only. Busted me back to Corporal. Meaning I needed a waiver from the first Colonel up my chain of command. Which was Roark. What they call a Catch 22.”

  “So how'd you pull it off? The waiver?”

  “I didn’t. That was my Papaw’s doing. Turns out, in the process of gettin’ hisself killed in ‘nam, my father saved some Second Looey’s life. And that Second Looey is now a two-star. A major general that slapped Roark upside the haid, got me my shot at Ranger School.”

  “So it’s not about his daughter, it’s some General gave Roark his hard-on for you?”

  “You got it.”

  “Maybe he’ll ease up, now that we put another X on the Most Wanted list.”

  “Riiight. And maybe ISIS will all go home, and live happily ever after.”

  Chapter 4

  Payday. Sergeant Cortez stuck his head in the doorway, said, “Sir, contractors are piling up outside, starting to drool.”

  Major Baer pushed away from his desk. “Then let’s feed the beast.” He followed Cortez through the outer office, down the hallway to the secure elevator, and descended two flights to the subbasement. To the former torture chambers of Saddam Hussein.

  A First Sergeant and a Second Lieutenant, MP armbands circling biceps that spoke of endless reps with free weights, guarded the locked gate in a floor-to-ceiling steel barricade.

  The officer compared Baer’s face to his ID, offered a clipboard. Different men from different units pulled guard duty each week. No chance of plots and plans, inside jobs. Not when millions passed through that gate.

  Baer remembered an incident from the fall of Baghdad, fifteen years ago. A pair of NCO’s with a backhoe stumbled across a stash of cash, tried to make off with a couple of hundred grand. Of course they screwed up, when they ran their mouths, trying to get it out of the country. Only thing leaving the country was the two NCO’s, on their way to Leavenworth.

  “Man!” Cortez said, watching the MP’s load stacks of cash onto a steel cart. “How’d you like to get hold of some of that, Major?”

  “Think like a bank teller, not a bank robber, Sergeant. It’s just bundles of paper. No different than loaves of bread.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’d sure like to make me some san’wiches.

  Baer stared down at the little weasel. Good for supplying scotch whisky and Cuban cigars, but little else. “After we hand out this cash, we need to go square away another bunch of new assholes.” The Major checked his clipboard. “Exterminators, from some place called Shaleville, Pennsylvania. Go get the HUMVEE, Cortez.”

  —o—

  Back home in Pennsylvania the idea of killing bugs in Eye-rack sounded like a good deal. At least the seven hundred dollars a day did. Ten times what they made in Shaleville. Of course ISIS wasn't tryin' to kill you, while you done it.

  Mr. Tomczak, the owner of both the RoachMobile, and the franchise to spray a soup of toxic chemicals, didn't mention it was a gol dang war zone.

  To be fair, maybe it wasn't when he got the contract from their congressman. In exchange, Mr. Tomczak said, for a big campaign contribution.

  They loaded the old Ford truck with its thousand-gallon pressure tank, the HAZMAT suits , self-contained air packs, and other exterminator shit in a big-ass shipping container, and boarded a military charter at JFK.

  Eight time zones later Howie, Chick, and Bumpsy climbed on a military shuttle bus, its windows welded over with salvaged steel plate. The bus unloaded in front of a building without a roof, and a sergeant with a clipboard.

  An hour later they had laminated photo identity cards on color-coded neck lanyards, and a Chevy Suburban ride to a four-bay garage beside a mountain of twisted steel and broken concrete.

  Their rusty red MAERSK shipping container waited. Mr. Tomczak studied a print-out, and pointed to the second floor. “It says there's bunks and showers upstairs for you guys. I'm staying someplace else, with the other contractors.”

  Bumpsy used the wire snips on his Leatherman to cut the lead seal, and Chick dragged the door open, with a screech and a swirl of dust. A sickly sweet smell rose from the rubble next door, and Bumpsy lit a cigarette.

  The boss tossed the truck keys to Howie, who eased himself between the side of the container and the RoachMobile. His voice echoed from the interior. “Tighter than a bull's ass in fly season.”

  As he slowly backed the truck out of the steel box a Humvee pulled up, and an Army officer extracted himself from the passenger side. Taller than Bumpsy, and almost as heavy, he wore a Kevlar helmet and body armor, a pistol in a thigh holster, and ballistic sunglasses. Chick nudged Bumpsy. “You ever see Starship Troopers?”

  The officer surveyed the dusty courtyard. “I’m Major Baer, Civil Affairs. Which one of you is Tomczak?” The patch on his sleeve was a blue and yellow sword and shield, surrounded by the words ‘Bringing Order to Chaos.’

  He had work orders for fourteen buildings, a full week’s effort for the crew. The first job was getting rid of the fleas, roaches, and sand flies in his office. “Someone from my unit will be here at 0600 hours to escort you.” He looked up from his clipboard, aimed a scowl at the three men removing HAZMAT suits and drums labeled with a skull and crossbones from the shipping container. “Where the hell is your protective gear?”

  Chick held up a bright yellow suit with a hood and air pack. “Right here.”

  “No, asswipe, this!” The Major smacked his helmet, vest. “You armor up, 24/7. Eat, sleep, and shit in it. Goddamn! Didn’t anyone tell you?”

  Tomczak, bewildered, shook his head. “No sir. I got the impression, back in the States, this was a safe place.”

  “That was last week. Since then the situation has
become fluid. ISIS is moving out of Syria, towards the oil fields in Kirkuk, and we're in the way. We had a mortar attack last night. One of you assholes gets killed, I got a mountain of paperwork to deal with.” He turned to his driver. “Cortez! Get these people fitted out with vests and K-pots.” He glanced at the rubble next door, moved away from it.

  Sergeant Cortez returned in ten minutes, and dragged a pile of dirty and stained equipment from the back of his vehicle. “Grab some Kevlar and body gear quick, troop. I need to get Major Baer to another site.” After the Major climbed back in the Humvee he said softly, “The vests are eight hundred, the helmets four. Cash money.”

  Howie picked up a well-used Kevlar helmet, tried it on, lifted it off. “How come it says WAGGONER on this strap across the front? That some kind of Army job?”

  Cortez glanced at it. “No, that was the previous occupant. Just use a Sharpie to black it out.” He tossed a vest to Bumpsy, shook his head. “They don’t make them in your size, Bubba. I think you need to diet some, PDQ.” Then, to Chick: “No, no, sport, you putting it on backward; that tab goes in the front, protect the cojones. Unless, of course, you value your asshole higher than your manhood.”

  He walked back to his Humvee, shaking his head. “Damn; talk about assholes!”

  —o—

  Ten days later the three assholes were hot and tired, but a lot richer as they climbed the stairs to their bunk room. Sleep came easy—Until three am, when an ISIS rocket shattered their dreams.

  Flames flickered outside their second floor windows. Chick danced on bits of skylight littering the floor, yelled, “Ow! Son of a bitch.” Under his mini mag they glittered like diamonds. He found his boots, made it to the top of the stairs, hit the light switch. Nothing.

  Bumpsy rubbed sleep from his eyes, and cupped his hands against a dirty window, peered down at the courtyard. “Generator got hit. Them fuel drums are leaking. We gotta get the RoachMobile out of here.”

  They pulled on pants and boots, grabbed their K-pots and vests, and clattered down the wooden stairs.

  That’s when the final rocket and its forty pounds of high explosive hit the building. The warhead tore through the roof, then the bunk room, before blasting a hole in the garage floor. The concussion threw them against the wall, and they tumbled down the stairs, landing in a tangle of arms and legs on the concrete.

  The acrid smell of destruction clawed at their nostrils. Feet, hands, and elbows scrabbled on the floor.

  “Damn! That’s my hand you’re stepping on.”

  “Then quit grabbing my leg, Howie.”

  “Jeezums, it feels like my ear’s tore off. Can you see if it’s bleeding?”

  “I can’t see jack shit. Gimme the flashlight.”

  Ears ringing, lungs aching from the explosion, the three exterminators stumbled to the RoachMobile and its thousand gallons of toxic chemicals.

  The truck sat in the midst of a blizzard. Burning embers, sparkling like fireflies on a summer night, swirled up from a gaping hole in the garage floor.

  Bumpsy reached out and snatched a fragment of paper in mid air. He held it in front of the flashlight, saw Franklin’s wry smile and the letters ‘ONE HUN’. He passed it to Chick. “Money.”

  They edged past the truck, coughing from the smoke. A ten foot hole was the source of the cyclone. Inching closer to the broken concrete and twisted rebar, the trio peered down into a bank vault filled with aluminum boxes the size of picnic coolers. Half a dozen had burst open, and their contents was a fiery carpet of cash. “Jeezums,” Chick said. “It’s a freakin’ money pit.”

  Bumpsy, six feet tall and a nickel shy of three hundred pounds, took the initiative, clamped Chick’s flashlight in his teeth, and clambered down through the hole. He yanked the top off an intact box. Saw stacks of bills, shrink wrapped like fish fillets in the freezer section. He tossed two up into the garage.

  Howie and Chick, backlit by the burning diesel fuel in the courtyard, tried stuffing them into their cargo pockets, but found the bricks of cash too big.

  Bumpsy realized this underground room had been a part of the building next door. And the only people who knew about the vault, about all this money, were now the source of the road kill smells coming from that pile of rubble.

  This was a chance to get ahold of some major green. If they could get it out of the burning building, before somebody showed up. He took the flashlight out his mouth. “Hey, assholes! Hide them in the Roach's tank.”

  Chick snatched the keys from the ignition, leaned across the bench seat of the old truck, and a grabbed flashlight from the glove box. He jumped out, climbed atop the tanker, and popped the padlock on the filling hatch.

  Bumpsy saw time was not on their side, and he began heaving entire boxes up to the garage. Howie hoisted them up to Chick, who pulled off the tops and spilled their contents through the foot-wide filler hole. He aimed the light inside. Shrink wrapped treasure ships bobbed on a toxic sea of bug juice.

  Diesel fuel crept across the courtyard and flames licked at the walls.

  Chapter 5

  Justice operated on the child outside, under an overcast sky brighter than the flickering oil lamps in the filthy building. He'd been trained to perform ten-minute surgeries, then medevac the results to a field hospital, followed by an airlift stateside. His MOS was 18 Delta, combat medic; the reason deaths are down, and Walter Reed is overflowing with blind amputees.

  He was holding his weekly clinic in the local warlord’s mountain redoubt, dealing with infections, sprains, and what they called ‘female troubles’ back home.

  The Taliban forbade doctors to treat women, and he was glad for the time he had spent in the labor and delivery suites at VCU. He was listening to the strong heartbeat of a child a few days away from entering the world when General Sayaaf interrupted his work.

  The crowd parted for the man carrying a small form wrapped in a blanket. Justice unfolded the rough cloth. A child with a stomach wound, perforated bowels.

  He used pidgin and sign to get the water boiled and the table scrubbed. He needed Davy to deal with the lingo, but his partner was off somewhere, so he pulled on fresh gloves and went to work.

  As he operated on the unconscious child he recalled a conversation he’d had with a Cobra door gunner. Back when he’d been a virgin, had yet to take part in creating his own collateral damage. He’d asked how can you kill old women and children, and the dude had laughed, said, “Easy, man; you don’t lead them as much as a regular target.”

  Four hours later Justice unsaddled his mount, watered and hobbled it, then left it to graze beside Driver’s mare on the sparse ground cover. He rubbed his hands together. It was cold; there’d be frost tonight, and more snow in the higher elevations.

  He paused to scan the rugged terrain for any telltale changes. Situational awareness was a better defense than body armor, and weighed a whole lot less.

  Justice removed his native headgear and fashioned a ponytail with a strip of leather, then finger-combed his lengthening beard.

  After the first few days into the mission he and Driver had exchanged their camo BDU’s for local clothing. Standing apart, they quickly learned, drew targeted fire. Now, at greater than conversational distance, he was one with the natives. Natives who were wary of these latest invaders, and reserved judgment of the foreigner’s intentions.

  Today Justice hoped they had made a small step toward acceptance. Or maybe not. It was now in the hands of Allah. He shook off the dark cloud; no need to inflict his pain on Davy.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he sang, stepping over the Claymore tripwires and the shielded cable connecting the uplink dish to Driver’s laptop. He entered the shallow cave, once a Taliban munitions dump, now their current bivouac. He stowed his meds kit, made a mental note that he needed to hook up with U.S. Forces, replenish his supplies. Lately he’d been doing more surgery than sniping. “What’s for dinner?”

  Driver, his back to the entrance, was on an ammo box, and bent over his co
mputer resting atop a wooden crate of 122 mm rockets. Justice watched his friend’s fingers fly over the keyboard. Most likely writing another e-mail to his sister. Penny. Had the dang headphones on, as usual, and was moving in time to some tune. Justice didn’t like that; if he could march into the cave without challenge, then someone interested in more than chow time could do the same.

  Now that the initial confusion of combat had settled into the boring routine of waiting for CENTCOM to select the targets, Davy appeared to have lost some of the edge that kept you alive in rough company.

  Driver looked up at the figure standing in front of him. “Well, well; Doctor Bob, back from his rounds.” He dug inside his shirt, produced an MRE. He tossed the green package to Justice, saying, “Fries, Big Mac, and a Yuengling Black and Tan.”

  Justice sniffed the foil pouch. “Mmm, and my favorite spice. Yankee armpit. What’s a Black and Tan? Like a Twinkie?”

  Driver pulled his headphones down, and Justice could hear a man goin’ on about how he shot a sheriff, but did not shoot the deputy down. Evidently a song about target selection.

  “It’s a beer, you hick. From Pennsylvania's coal country, up where Penny's teaching school. Where you been all afternoon?”

  “Workin’ on our tribal chieftain’s granddaughter. Nailed by an old munition she come across. Thought it was an HDR. Who in God’s name had the bright idea of making the food packages the same color as cluster bombs? She’s purt near gone, Davy. Ten years old, and she’s gonna die.”

  “Die? These kids lose a few fingers, a hand, which can’t be fun, but it’s not fatal, is it?”

  Justice stared down at the food pouch, shaking his head at the insanity of it all. First they taught him to hit a target from out beyond hollerin’ distance, then sent him off to school so’s he could save the ones he didn’t kill outright, and deliver babies in his spare moments.