Текст книги "Black Wolf"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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3

Room 4, CIA Headquarters Campus (Langley)

McLean, Virginia

“Good morning, Colonel Freah. How would you like your coffee?”

Danny Freah turned to the ceiling as the elevator car plunged down toward its destination. “How do you know I want coffee?” he asked.

“You always want coffee,” responded the voice.

“I can’t break the pattern?”

“Breaking the pattern would be unexpected.”

The elevator stopped and the door opened.

“Colonel Freah, you did not answer my question,” said the voice.

“Surprise me,” said Danny, stepping out into the wide hall in front of the elevator. The space looked like the bottom level of a mall parking garage. A spider work of girders, beams, and pipes ran through it.

They weren’t for show, exactly, but the overall look was definitely intentional. The insides of the nondescript building—known only as Room 4—had an ambiance that mixed high-tech functional and blow-your-mind weirdness.

Case in point was the gray wall facing Danny at the far end of the room. He walked toward it, then straight through it.

Danny Freah was still so new to Room 4 and the high-tech gizmos associated with it that it felt eerily cool to do that. But he was too professional to admit it—or give in to the temptation to do it a few more times for fun.

The wall was not an optical illusion, exactly. It could keep someone out if the security system didn’t want them in. The barrier was a physical manifestation of an energy array—a kind of force field in layman’s terms, though the man responsible for inventing it, Dr. Ray Rubeo, hated the term force field.

Absolutely hated it.

Danny knew, however, that Rubeo did have a sense of humor, which apparently he’d programmed into the automated assistant that had questioned him about coffee in the elevator. Sitting in the beverage center at the left of the desk as he entered was a steaming cup of cinnamon herbal tea.

Pretty much the last thing Danny would ever drink.

“Very funny,” he told the computer. “Coffee. The usual.”

“The system still has some kinks to be worked out,” said Danny’s boss, Breanna Stockard, who was standing over a nearby desk.

“No—it’s my fault,” said Danny. “I should have known better than to try to outsmart something Rubeo rigged up.”

The coffee, very strong and hot, spurted through the dispenser into a fresh cup. While the automated assistant and the beverage center were a brand new addition to Room 4, their presence in the high-tech control area wasn’t a surprise. Back at Dreamland, one of the technology section’s proudest achievements was a zero-gravity coffeemaker, which could keep the crews aboard Megafortresses and other large aircraft pleasantly caffeinated no matter what the combat conditions were.

“I’ll meet you inside,” said Breanna, waving a hand to dismiss the computer screen that had been floating in front of her. “Everyone else is here.”

“Gotcha.”

Danny waited for the last drops of coffee to settle into the cup, then raised it slowly to his lips, cooling it with a gentle breath. He’d only been working for Whiplash—the new Whiplash—for two months, and things still felt a bit… different.

A full-bird colonel, Freah had recently been assigned to the Office of Technology, a special direct-report agency that answered to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On paper, he looked like just another pencil-pushing staff officer, paid for his advice and experience. In reality, he headed Whiplash, one of the most exciting commands in the military.

A joint venture with the CIA, Whiplash aimed to combine up-to-the nanosecond intelligence capabilities with a covert action team. It was modeled on the Air Force’s Dreamland program that had so much success a decade and a half earlier, under Breanna’s father, Lt. Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian. Breanna had recruited Danny specifically to head the military end of the program.

They’d had one success so far, on a mission that had stretched from Africa to Iran. For Danny, it felt good to be back in the mix again; most of his assignments since Dreamland had been administrative and supervisory. This post got him back on the front lines with gusto. But it was also a lot of work. He’d spent the weeks since returning home recruiting people and trying to smooth out differences between the two halves of the team—military and active CIA. He was still working on the training routines they needed and filling in his command structure. He was inventing, improvising, and even stealing as the need arose.

He’d tapped another old Dreamland Whiplash hand—Ben “Boston” Rockland, now a chief master sergeant—as his main personnel guy, dealing with young bucks and their egos.

Bucks and does; it was a coed force.

Boston was in Florida at the moment, putting their recruits through their paces. They had twenty-four newbie “shooters” or Whiplash troopers, drawn mostly from active military commands, each with different specialties and strengths. Eventually Danny planned to have some forty-eight troopers to form the core of a covert strike force. They could be deployed as a group, or work in very small teams, depending on the assignment. Whiplash technology would increase their effectiveness exponentially.

Danny took a sip of the coffee—it was perfect, naturally—then walked down the hall to the conference room.

“Colonel, good morning,” said Jonathon Reid. Reid was the CIA director’s liaison to the project, Breanna’s equivalent in authority. As the lines of responsibility went, Reid was in charge of operations for the specific missions, while Breanna’s ultimate say was over strategic and funding issues. But as a practical matter, their responsibilities were shared. Reid had the immediate access to intelligence as well as the people who commissioned the ops. Breanna, as a member of the Pentagon, held sway over most of the personnel, and thus the means for completing the mission. Though in many respects they were opposites, they worked together remarkably well.

Danny took a seat at the conference table across from Nuri Abaajmed Lupo, nodding at him as he sat down. Nuri was a CIA officer who’d preceded him into the program—the first and for a short time only member of Whiplash. He was young but extremely capable, as he’d shown in Africa and Iran. Nuri did, however, have some difficulty dealing with the fact that Danny was the one in charge. He was also used to working alone.

“Now that we’re all here, we can begin,” said Reid. “Screen.”

A screen appeared above the center of the table. It was another projection.

“The man on the ground in a pool of blood is the deputy defense minister of Poland,” said Reid. His voice was dry and raspy. “You may remember seeing something about it in the daily intel briefings. That’s the ministry behind him. Yes, this murder was carried out in broad daylight, inside a secure facility.”

Danny studied the images as the screen changed, showing first the surroundings, then the autopsy photos. Finally he had to look away—something about seeing death treated that clinically turned his stomach.

“You’ll note that the deputy minister was shot in the forehead,” continued Reid. “That wasn’t a sniper shot. It was at close range, with a very distinctive bullet. Something like this.”

Reid reached down to his briefcase and removed a manila envelope. Holding it upside down, he shook out what looked to Danny like a model of a bullet, with a rounded top and in an unusual shade of brown.

“This is a bullet?” said Nuri, picking it up.

“Carbon composite,” said Danny. “Right?”

“Yes, Colonel,” said Reid. “There’s no metal. We imagine that it was fired from a weapon that also had no metal, as whoever fired it had to get past a metal detector.”

Nuri passed the bullet over to Danny.

“This killed him?”

“That’s not the actual bullet, no,” said Reid. “That’s something one of our labs was working on. The actual bullet is in Poland. This is another murder, more recent,” Reid went on, changing the slide. “Yesterday as a matter of fact.”

A new image appeared on the screen. A man lay on a sidewalk, blood around his face and mouth. This time Danny couldn’t see the bullet wound. The picture had been taken at night, and the flash glinted off an unseen window just to the right of the image area. Two other bodies lay on the ground nearby.

“The dead man is named Helmut Dalitz,” continued Reid. “MY-PID, please display Herr Dalitz’s professional dossier.”

The computer complied. MY-PID stood for Massively Parallel Integrated Decision Complex, and referred to the network of interconnected computers and data interfaces that were at the heart of the Whiplash project. Not only did the network of computers provide an integrated database and security system for Room 4, but it also could be used by field ops, who connected via a tiny interface device that looked like an MP3 player.

“This one is a businessman,” said Nuri. “And he’s German. What’s the connection?”

“The only hard connection is the bullet,” said Reid.

“So they were murdered by the same man,” said Danny. “I mean, person.”

“Maybe not the same person,” said Reid, as Breanna slipped into the room and sat down. “But it’s a good bet that the organization is the same. This image was captured by a surveillance camera near the Polish base. We think it’s the killer, or one of the people working with him.”

Danny looked at the photo. It wasn’t exactly much—a figure, estimated by the computer to be six feet one inch tall, approximately 220 pounds—stood sideways in the grainy distance. His face was covered by shadow.

“I don’t even see how you can tell if that’s a man rather than a woman,” said Nuri.

“Wait,” said Reid.

The computer began peeling away the layers, modeling what it thought the man looked like based on the shadow it had seen. It was a generic image, something like the computer-generated models used on online clothing sites when you wanted to buy semitailored clothes.

“So who is this guy?” asked Danny. “Or guys?”

“They’re called the Wolves,” said Breanna. “They’re murderers for hire, and they operate in Europe. The murder in Berlin was an anomaly. It was ordered by a mafia chieftain in Italy. His compatriots wouldn’t authorize the killing, and so rather than cause trouble with them, he reached out to friends in Russia. They have a business arrangement selling stolen vehicles there—he exports them, they sell them.”

Reid picked up the thread again, explaining that the Italian state police had the mafia member under surveillance; their phone taps recorded a conversation with one of his Russian mafiya partners asking for the hit. The price was unusually expensive, but success was guaranteed—three million euros to take down the businessman, and another two million to kill some of his associates.

“Not so coincidentally, the sum coincided with money the Russian owed the mafioso,” added Reid. “He didn’t even try to haggle. He was very angry—in his mind, the businessman had caused his father’s death, and the reluctance of his associates to authorize revenge added insult to injury.”

The Russian had then contacted someone outside of Russia with details. Unfortunately, information had been sent in at least three different messages, all via e-mail. Only one had been recovered—and that was by accident, part of an NSA program aimed at Russian intelligence. But it was enough to connect the murder definitively to the Wolves, even if the bullet hadn’t been recovered.

The Russian contact was subsequently placed under electronic surveillance.

“Unfortunately, he is no longer with us,” continued Reid. “The Italian was not the only person to whom he owed money.”

“So we’re going after criminals now?” asked Nuri.

“The assignment is a little more complicated than that,” said Breanna. “The Russians seem to be hoping to disrupt the NATO meeting in Kiev set for ten days from now. The ministers are supposed to vote on Ukraine’s membership, and the thinking is that this group has been hired to kill some of the ministers supporting the addition.”

“Or members of the Ukrainian government who support membership,” added Reid. “It’s not clear. They have been used for some political assassinations before. Most notably, Deng Pu’s death.”

Deng was a Chinese foreign minister who had opposed a new trade agreement with Russia. After his death—an assignation at his country house outside of Berlin—the treaty was signed.

“We’re still working through the intelligence,” admitted Reid after turning the projection image off. “Simply disrupting the meeting may be the Russians’ primarily goal. And it’s possible they’re not after the entire NATO board. They may just want the possible Ukrainian representatives to it.”

“What do the Ukrainians say?” asked Nuri.

Reid shook his head. “I haven’t a clue whether they’ve been told. I suspect not.”

“Apprehending the Wolves would be beneficial for a lot of reasons independent of NATO,” said Breanna. “They’re pretty dangerous assassins. Think about whom they’ve killed—a Chinese minister, a Polish defense official, a banker. And those are the murders we know about.”

“So where do we start?” asked Danny.

“Berlin,” said Reid. “Find out what information they have on the shooter and see if it can be added to our data. Anything is potentially of use, but a DNA sample would be useful.”

“How unique is the bullet?” asked Nuri. “Carbon fiber has been around for a while.”

“It’s a carbon-based composite, not a fiber,” said Reid. “It appears to be unique. The design is reminiscent of experiments the Soviets were doing roughly twenty years ago.”

Reid clicked up a fresh slide of the bullets, showing close-ups of the bullets. He then proceeded to a series of cross sections, and finally comparisons with different types. Danny found himself starting to tune out due to information overload. The amount of data the CIA could gather on things dazzled him sometimes, but it was also frustrating—they knew all this, yet what they didn’t know loomed much larger.

“One guess is that the bullets were left over from this old project,” said Reid, his voice increasingly professorial. “That would fit with the theory that the Wolves are a group headed or sponsored by former Russian KGB or military, now on their own. But there’s no hard evidence about that. And some of the murders we think they participated in didn’t have these weapons. The choice would be made to evade metal detectors,” he added. “They’re a versatile group.”

They spent the next half hour discussing logistics. Intelligence gathering wasn’t Danny’s forte, so he had no problem letting Nuri take the lead in handling Berlin. Danny would work from the other end, concentrating on Kiev and the upcoming NATO meeting.

For him, the key question was how closely to work with the security apparatus in Kiev. Close cooperation—under the cover of being a State Department security team—would mean immediate access to whatever intelligence NATO and the Ukrainian intelligence forces developed. But they would also put themselves in a position where they could compromise their own operation.

There was also a subtle conflict between the goal of protecting the NATO delegation and capturing the Wolves. As Nuri pointed out, it would be easier to identify the Wolves once they made an attempt on the NATO ministers. Ideally, once an assassin was identified, they could follow him and gather intelligence on the rest of the group. That meant letting him survive and even escape—or at least think he had. Anyone charged with protecting the NATO ministers wasn’t likely to let that happen.

“Neither should you,” said Reid. “Liaison with the security forces at the appropriate time. We’ll establish you as members of the State Department security team, assigned to guard the American delegates.”

“What’s our prime responsibility then?” asked Danny. “Protect the delegates or catch these guys? Which do you want us to do?”

“Both,” said Breanna. “We know it’s a hard job. That’s why you have it.”

“If these guys are so good, why don’t we just hire them over to our side and be done with it?” asked Nuri.

“As usual, Mr. Lupo, you have the logical solution,” said Reid. “Perhaps when you meet them, you will be in a position to propose it.”

4

Swamp Hill, Georgia

With Nuri heading to Berlin, Danny needed someone on the team with experience in Europe—preferably the Ukraine. Hera Scokas, a CIA covert officer who’d worked with him in Africa and Iran, had been in Kiev a few times, but couldn’t speak the language fluently and didn’t have a deep knowledge of the city.

Had this been a standard CIA operation, an officer or two or three could have been siphoned off from the station, temporarily assigned to help. But Whiplash was isolated structurally from the “regular” CIA, and Reid wanted to keep the partition in place. So he suggested they use an operative who was currently on leave from the Agency, but whom he felt might be talked back into active service for the job.

“Her name is Sally McEwen, and she knows Kiev very well,” said Reid. “She was stationed there for years. She speaks the language like a native, and I suspect she’ll be more than willing to come back to work for you. But you don’t have to decide until you meet her.”

“Can I get her personnel file?” Danny asked.

“I’d rather you drew your own conclusions once you meet her. She’s the sort of officer you really have to meet in person. She is the right choice, Danny. I’m positive. But of course it’s up to you.”

“All right,” he said. “How do I get in touch with her?”

“Ah, that is the problem,” said Reid. “At the moment, she’s not reachable by phone. And obviously we’re not going to trust an e-mail or anything that’s not encrypted. I’m afraid you’ll have to contact her in person. She shouldn’t be hard to find. I’ll give you her address.”

Sally McEwen lived in a small hamlet just outside the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in southern Georgia. The hamlet consisted of a few houses, a church, a restaurant that served only breakfast, and a small shop that proclaimed itself a Notions Store. All but the last were located on the old county highway, which had been bypassed in favor of a straighter route some eighty years before. From the size of its potholes, Danny wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the last time it had been paved as well.

The Notions Shop sat on the hamlet’s lone side street, a narrow, muddy street that dead-ended in a thicket of punk weeds and a murky pond after twenty yards. There were no numbers on the building, but since it was the only building on James Road, Danny guessed it had to be 19—McEwen’s address. Except for the large sign along the roof that read NOTIONS in five-foot letters, it looked like a small ranch house. There was no driveway, or lawn for that matter—judging from the tracks, cars pulled into the muck between the road and house.

“What do you think happened to one through eighteen?” asked Hera, who’d come down with him.

“Probably sank into the swamp,” said Danny.

Danny maneuvered the car into a three-point turn and slid the car into the most solid spot he could find.

“Cripes, Colonel—are you sure the car’s not going to sink? All I see here is mud,” said Hera, opening the door.

“Get out on my side if you want,” said Danny. “Bag the colonel stuff for now, all right?”

“Aye aye, skipper.”

A dog began barking as Danny got out of the car. A small patch of bricks marked a stoop at the front door. He went to the door, then rang the bell.

“It’s a store—you can go right in,” said Hera behind him.

“It’s polite to ring the bell.”

“It’s a store,” she said, reaching for the screen door.

The barking increased in intensity, then suddenly changed to a howling cry.

“Hush now, Brat. Hush now,” yelled a woman in her early seventies as she opened the door.

She was short—perhaps five-two—and wore an oversized cotton sweater over a simple black skirt. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a knot behind her head. She had the look of a slightly genteel lady who had fallen on more difficult times and had to support herself by muscle and ingenuity.

“Come on in, come on in, don’t mind the dog,” she said. “He gets lonely sometimes and wants to play.”

Danny stepped inside. The front room was crowded with tables featuring an assortment of items. Everything from handmade tobacco pipes to an old mechanics tool set was on sale, crowded next to each other in a mishmash. Most had small tags with handwritten figures. A few had two or three, each price different.

The room extended to the left, then to the back of the house in an el shape. The leg of the el contained an assortment of different paintings, watercolors and acrylic landscapes. Directly ahead of them was a small kitchen.

“Are you looking for anything particular?” asked the woman, her voice sweet with the old South. “We have many fine items for sale.”

“I wasn’t actually looking to buy anything,” said Danny.

“Well I’m sorry, suh, but the kitchen is closed today,” said the woman. A slight edge crept into her voice. “If you’re lookin’ for any liquid refreshment, I’m afraid you’ll have to move on.”

“I’m looking for a Sally McEwen.”

“Is that so?” answered the woman.

“You know her?”

“I might. Don’t touch any of those paintings, girl,” added the woman sharply. “Unless you’re fixin’ to buy one of ’em.”

“Sor-ry,” said Hera sarcastically.

“If you could tell me where to find Ms. McEwen, I’d be much obliged,” said Danny, borrowing one of his uncle’s South Carolina mannerisms and his accent.

“And if I did, who would be going to call on her?” asked the woman.

“Well, that would be me.”

“And you’re with what government agency?” the woman demanded.

“Well, uh, the Air Force.”

“The Air Force? Air Force? Not the Treasury?”

“Treasury?”

“I told you not to touch,” said the old woman, darting past Danny to Hera.

She was quick for an old bat, thought Danny. He followed her around the room to Hera, who was standing in front of a painting of a city.

“This is a very nice painting,” said Hera, who was holding the painting in her hands.

“Flattery ain’t gonna warm the skillet today, hon,” said the old woman. “You’re interested in buying, then you can put your paws on it. Otherwise, put it back.”

“How much?”

“For you?” The woman looked at Danny and then back at Hera. “Not for sale. I wouldn’t take money off a group of liars like yourselves. Pretending to be from the Air Force.”

“I’m not with the Air Force,” said Hera.

“Well, at least one of you values the truth.” She took the painting. “But I’m still not selling you the painting.”

“I was told that Ms. McEwen lived here,” said Danny. “I’d like to talk to her.”

“Well, you can’t. Who told you she lived here anyway?”

“Friend of hers named Jonathon Reid.”

The woman frowned, then put the painting back on its easel. She walked back to the front of the room, looking over the display of items.

“Did you hear me?” said Danny.

“Damn straight I heard you. Who the hell are you? Really?”

“I’m Danny Freah. I want to talk to Ms. McEwen.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. It’s kind of a personal thing. About a job.”

“A job?” The woman laughed.

“You’re her mother, right?” said Hera. “Or grandmother?”

“Whose mother, darlin’?” said the woman, laying her accent on thick.

“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you,” said Danny. He reached into his pocket and took out a business card. It had his name and rank, along with a generic Washington-area phone number that could not be traced. He took a pen out and wrote down his personal cell number. “If you could tell Ms. McEwen to give me a call, I’d appreciate it. Either number. My cell’s quicker. She could call or text me.”

“She don’t put much store in texting,” said the woman, taking the card. “And she don’t phone.”

“Whatever,” said Danny.

He reached for the door. The dog, which was somewhere downstairs, started barking again.

“I told you shut your trap, Brat,” yelled the woman.

She reached over and closed the door.

“I’m Sally McEwen, Colonel Freah.”

“No offense, but I’m afraid there must be a misunderstanding somewhere,” said Danny. “I, uh—I’m looking for somebody—”

“A lot younger,” said Hera.

“If Jonathon Reid sent you here, you’re looking for me,” she said. “He just neglected to give you all the details. Which is pretty much par for the course.”

Sally McEwen had worked in various jobs for the State Department and CIA for more than forty years before being eased out by the past administration.

Eased as in pushed, and none too gently. But she had not retired. She damn well was not going to retire, and in fact went to great lengths to keep her classified clearance in order. She was officially on leave.

The Agency allowed its officers to take leaves of absence for up to five years while they pursued interests in the private sector. The supervisors who had signed off on McEwen’s leave looked at it as a pleasant fiction for a field agent who was well past the freshness date but wanted to save face.

“I can have my bags packed in ten minutes,” she told Danny, who was still having trouble believing the woman was, in fact, the CIA op he’d come for. “We must be going to the Ukraine. It’s about the NATO thing, right?”

Hera whistled. “Good guess.”

“More than a guess, sweetie. Russia must be plotting to keep them out, right? Of course.”

“She’s sharp,” said Hera.

It didn’t sound quite like a compliment.

“I, um—I have to talk to Reid,” said Danny.

“I don’t have a phone,” said McEwen.

“That’s all right.” Danny took his sat phone out. “I’m going to just make the call outside.”

The dog started barking again.

“Don’t worry about him,” McEwen told Danny. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

Outside, Danny went over and leaned against the car before dialing.

“This is Reid.”

“Jonathon, this is Danny Freah. I found Ms. McEwen.”

“Is she willing to help?”

“She’s more than willing. But she’s—old.”

Reid didn’t answer for a moment. He wasn’t exactly a spring chicken himself. If anything, he was several years—maybe even a whole decade—older than McEwen.

“Let me ask you a question, Colonel. Why do you want Sally on the mission?”

“I don’t want her, not her per se,” answered Danny. “I need someone who knows Kiev, who can talk the language like a native, and who can help make arrangements.”

“And you think she’s too old for that?”

“Yeah. And she’s a moonshiner.”

Reid laughed. “I don’t think that disqualifiers her. Assuming, of course, it’s true.”

“Seriously—”

“Who you choose is up to you, Colonel. You know that. But I wouldn’t have recommended Sally if I didn’t think she could handle the job. You’re not asking her to jump out of planes, correct?”

“No.”

“She could probably do that.” Reid laughed. “I know she’ll pass whatever physical the Agency offers.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Your call.”

Reid hung up.

Danny put the sat phone back in his pocket. He thought of himself as pretty old. In fact, he’d questioned himself several times during the last mission, wondering if he was still up to the rigors of an operation.

But McEwen—she was at least seventy.

He walked back into the house, not quite decided what to do.

Hera and McEwen were back by the paintings. Laughing.

Hera, laughing? That was a first.

Danny found McEwen pointing to a building in one of the paintings. He hadn’t looked at it very carefully before; now he realized it was a street in Kiev.

“They had rented the flat out to a prostitute,” said McEwen, continuing her story for Hera. “The prostitute got evicted, and we got it. Of course, we didn’t know about the previous occupant. So here we are, trying to set up a safe house, and men knocking at all hours of the night, asking for Olga. Ulll-ga.”

“Olga,” repeated Hera, laughing hysterically.

She must be pretty good with people, thought Danny, to get Hera on her side so quickly. He’d had a lot of trouble winning her over.

“So what did Johnny say?” asked McEwen.

Danny had never heard Reid called Johnny by anyone. Reid didn’t seem like a Johnny. He seemed like a… Mr. Reid.

“He said that you know Kiev better than I know the back of my hand,” Danny told her. “And that you can help me make some arrangements there.”

“Damn straight. Let me get my bag.”

“What about your store?” asked Danny.

“Ah, I don’t get but two customers a year, except for the ones what want some old-fashioned.”

She disappeared down the hall.

“That’s the local White Lightning,” said Hera.

“No shit,” said Danny.

“She just sells it for her father’s cousin. He lives out in the woods.”

“She told you that?”

“We bonded.”

“You think she can do the job?”

“What? Rent hotel rooms, find us rental cars? Hell yeah. God, she’s perfect—who’d expect her? Little old lady a spy? No way.”

McEwen returned with her bag.

“I’m gonna have to stop at the hardware store on the way out,” she said. “ ’Cause I gotta leave a message for Cuz, but he don’t read.”

“You’re not going to tell him where you’re going, are you?” asked Danny.

“Colonel—I’ve been in this business since before you were in diapers. Credit me with a little common sense.”

“Cuz won’t worry that you’re gone?” asked Hera.

“He’ll be a little sorry that he’ll have to go back to cookin’ on his own, instead of coming around and mooching off me every night,” said McEwen. “But he’ll be glad that he won’t have to go splits on the profits. And that no one’s yellin’ at him to get his teeth fixed. Don’t worry about him. He’s not a bad cook when he puts his mind to it. Especially if you like barbecue on Christmas.”

“It shouldn’t be more than two weeks,” said Danny.

“I hope we’re going for a long time,” said McEwen. “Much as I love this place, I’m done with it for a spell.”

“I got a question,” said Hera as McEwen put the Closed sign in place on the front door. “What does it mean that this is a notions shop?”

“It means I sell anything I have a notion to,” said McEwen, closing the door behind her.