The Shack: The Milk Run

Delaney smirked at her. "Sorry, Tiffany, you're preggers. No booze for you."

Tiffany gave me a weary smile as she sterilized the wound. "Once this baby's born, I'm going on a week-long coffee and red wine binge. Eric can take care of the baby until I come out of it." She looked over at Delaney. "And you can help babysit. Get up there and help her; just hold her still the best you can."

Once Delaney settled in behind me, Tiffany taped the unpunctured end of the plastic tubing down into the water bottle, then opened a pack of surgical tools.

Tiffany looked me in the eye. "Okay, 'whoever you are' this is going to be rough."

I faded in and out of agonizing reality over the next several minutes as she probed. Delaney's grip never so much as wavered.

"There it is." I felt a sickening tugging sensation, and then she held her forceps up, gripping a deformed chunk of metal. "Got it."

I heard it drop on the table next to me with a dull thud.

She looked me in the eye. "Okay, I know that was bad, but this will be worse."

I laughed weakly. "You need to work on your bedside manner."

"That's part of the premium package; you get that when you show up at the ER and not in my kitchen. This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to hold your breath while I do this next part."

Searing pain flashed through me; by the time I managed to focus, she was thrusting the free end of plastic tubing deep into my chest; it felt like she was trying to drive it all the way through my body even though I could see she was barely moving it at all. She suddenly stopped, glancing down at the bottle. "There it is; just hold it for a bit longer."

She pinned the tube down with a looped strip of duct tape, then slapped a square of Glad wrap down and secured that with more duct tape. "Okay, relax."

Tiffany studied her work. I could see air bubbling into the water bottle. Despite the excruciating pain, it was easier to breathe. "We need to wait a bit, make sure this is working."

I managed to turn my head enough to look at Delaney. "Just how old are you?"

"Sixteen. Well, sixteen in a month or so."

"Must be one hell of a school you go to."

"The 'Life Skills' class is a real bitch. Pass-fail grading."

I shook my head weakly. "Sounds like it."

She suddenly gave a kind of odd, introspective smile. "I'm homeschooled. I study stuff I'm good at."

"Like what?"

"Welding, metal shop, auto mechanics. I'm better if I can do things instead of reading them."

I could see Tiffany's expression out of the corner of my eye. She looked sad and proud at the same time. She caught me watching her and pushed forward. "Let's check vitals."

She glanced up at Delaney. "There's a spare curtain liner in the upstairs linen closet, second shelf; put it on the recliner in the great room and cover it with towels. We'll move her there in a couple minutes."

After Delaney left, I caught Tiffany's eye. "Sister?"

"Half-sister by our mom. But she lives with Needles -- my real dad -- and his girlfriend."

Before I could ask, she shook her head. "It's even more messed up than it sounds. Mom and Dad absolutely hate each other, but Mom screwed up bad with Delaney. Dad 'gets her' better than anyone else. She'd be dead or worse if it weren't for him. We almost lost her a couple years ago; she was spiraling out of control, and nobody bothered to notice. She ran away and got into real danger; we would have lost her if it wasn't for Dad."

"You're caught in the middle?"

"Not really. My twin sister and I sided with Delaney after we found out everything Mom told us about their divorce was lies, and then some other stuff she did that caused problems. We still play along in public so that she doesn't cause any problems for Delaney and Dad."

"Sorry about getting you dragged into this."

She shrugged. "I don't think you had much choice. I know who you are. Deputy Director of the FBI, Maria Hawthorne. I watch the news, and you're all over it."

"You don't seem as shocked as you should at your sister bringing me here."

"Dad and Delaney have been involved in some pretty grim stuff. And... Delaney... he sends her to stuff besides welding classes. High-performance driving schools, some pretty serious first aid classes, outdoor survival. Other stuff. He has a friend in Texas who runs some kind of bodyguard training school, and she goes down there all the time."

The school had to be run by K2. I knew they operated out of Texas. That explained how the woman at K2 knew to contact her. "That sounds kind of risky."

"I see kids all the time in the ER who ended up a lot worse off. She's living a dream, doing things she loves doing. Some people are just different. Some girls go to the Olympics at sixteen. She's like that, in a way, doing what she's really good at. There are other issues, too. She really does need to know all this stuff." She stopped, obviously unwilling to say more about that.

"I can't argue with the results, but it sounds dangerous."

"Mom would have stuck her in a private mental ward if Tara and I hadn't threatened to go ballistic and ruin everything. She'll barely even say Delaney's name anymore."

Tiffany paused, then fixed me with a stare. "Whatever is going on, make goddamn sure if anything happens to her, you don't live through it. Needles will burn the Hoover Building to the ground just getting started. You really don't want to know what that man is capable of."

She was dead serious, and if Delaney was any indication, he might just be able to do it. "I'm not sure I wouldn't help right now."

Tiffany shifted and stretched, then started looking me over again. "So...murder?"

"I know how weak this sounds, but I've been framed."

She gave a chuff of a laugh. "That does sound pretty damn weak. So who did you supposedly kill, anyway?"

"Michael Sandaman. He was my...close friend."

She looked at me sharply. "From the way you said that, 'friend' might not be the right word."

I took as deep a breath as I could, flinching from both kinds of pain. "He was a lot more than a friend."

"So, what happened?"

"I don't know. I wasn't even in town when he was killed, and I'm not sure why I was accused. I got a cryptic voicemail from Michael about a something he needed to give me, then I found out he was gunned down when the DA's office called." My voice caught at that.

"I told them I was coming in to see what was going on. I was ambushed before I even got to my car. I killed one, and the other was unconscious when I left. They both had FBI credentials. Then more cars started showing up, shooting. So I ran. I heard my name on the radio less than 10 minutes later as wanted for Michael's murder."

Tiffany looked curiously at me for a second. "The second agent died in the hospital. They've started talking about treason too."

That didn't make any sense at all. "Who?"

She thought for a moment. "Some tool on C-SPAN, named 'Reasoner' or something like that."

"Reisner?"

"She nodded. "That sounds right."

"Thomas Reisner. He's the Assistant Attorney General for National Security."

"You know him?"

"Standard issue corporate drone, he moves back and forth between private industry and government." Reisner had always struck me as a typical bureaucrat.

"Well, he doesn't seem to like you very much. He's been on a lot."

I puzzled over that. Reisner was kind of a bland bureaucrat nonentity, but before I could say anything, Delaney came back into the room. "All set up."

It took about a century for them to get me to the great room and the waiting chair.

Delaney looked me over, then looked at Tiffany. "How long before I can move her?"

Tiffany shook her head. "We need to get..."

"I'm not getting you and Eric into this any more than I have to. I need to get her out of here, but I don't want to kill her. If you kill the principal, you don't get paid."

"Eric has another twenty hours on shift, so give her at least 12 hours of rest, and we can monitor her. That keeps Eric completely out of it. I've worked with the government; they don't move that fast."

I shook my head. "Not everybody after me is government. The guys that kept catching up to me before I found the trackers weren't. And they don't want me in custody; they want me dead."

Delaney nodded. "I talked to K2 and sent them a picture of the ID I took off the guy I whacked over the head."

Tiffany shot her a glare, and Delaney held her hands up helplessly. "What? He's alive. Just has a concussion."

"This isn't the movies. You don't knock people over the head without doing serious damage. Concussions kill people all the time."

I held my hand up. "He was going to kill me."

The wind seemed to go out of Tiffany's sails, but she gave a low look at Delaney before looking back at me. "I hear that an awful lot. You really wouldn't believe how often."

Delaney rolled her eyes and looked very, very sixteen for a second. "Jesus. The fucker's alive, okay? Anyway. The... uh, contractor ID'd him as a mercenary, former Spetsnatz, who used to work for the Volkov Group. He had a 'falling out' with them."

I let my head fall back. "Damn it."

"What's the Volkov Group?" Tiffany was lost.

"It's technically a mercenary group." I squeezed my eyes shut. "But they pretty much only work for the Russian government, so if they're involved, it's the Russian government."

Delaney shook her head. "Ki...K2 doesn't think so; they think he's working for some transnational company." She paused. "I was told to tell you they think this is about 'Reinhardt.' Whoever that is."

I don't use foul language, it just isn't my thing, but sometimes nothing else will do.

"Fuck, I'd rather it was the Russians."

I closed my eyes and let the mix of excellent bourbon and even better pills carry me away, thinking about what that likely meant.

*****

Refuge...and Gardening

*****

I blinked awake and stared up into Delaney's eyes. She put a finger to her lips. "Shhh. We need to move. I know Tiff wanted us to stay longer, but you're my problem. You've had eight hours. I don't want her involved any more than she has to be."

There was an undercurrent of fierce loyalty to all of Howard's associates, no matter how far removed from him they seemed to be. I nodded in agreement. "I know."

We slowly, painfully slipped out through the kitchen, and she settled me into the car, every movement agonizing until I was fully strapped in.

It was at least an hour before I asked the obvious question. "Where are we headed?"

"Gotta get you somewhere until I can hand you off. Somewhere nobody would ever look for you."

"Sounds kind of grim."

She snickered. "I don't know about grim, but it sure as hell won't be what you're used to."

There was no way I was going to try to pry any more information out of her. She was having too much fun, obviously very entertained by whatever the hell she was up to, and I didn't have the energy for those kinds of games. I just closed my eyes.

At the edge of my mind, I tried to fit things together. Reisner. Evelyn. Reinhardt IG. Michael.

It was a good two hours before we reached our destination, a small, neatly kept mobile home in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere.

When Delaney had me up to the door, she banged loudly and shouted in a harsh voice. "Open Up! FBI!"

Her air of authority was immediately destroyed when she fell into a squeaky laughing fit at the sound of somebody inside scrambling in panic.

The door yanked open, and a pale young disheveled blond guy leaned out, his face unevenly red and blotchy. "C'mon, man, that's not funny!"

Delaney descended into soft giggles. "It's good for you! Besides, you fall for it every fucking time, Mooky."

"It's not funny, Delaney."

"You weren't busy anyway." She stopped and cocked her head and eyed him suspiciously. "Wait, were you skeezin' with a ho in the back?"

Mooky's eyes widened in shock. "I'm not..."

He trailed off to an exasperated head shake.

Delaney made a mock sad face. "Too bad. We gotta find you a girlfriend. Help me get her inside; she's been hurt."

"Ooh, sorry. Is it like an accident of some kind?" He jumped down, clumsily helped me up the stairs into the trailer and awkwardly sat me in a rather careworn easy chair.

"Um, no, she's been shot."

The guy leaned over and looked at my face for a second, then backed away wide-eyed, holding his hands up defensively. "No, no, no, nono nooo! She can't be here!"

"Where's your sense of adventure, Mooky?"

"She's on the news, she's, like, the F.B.I. In here!" He gestured behind him, and I realized that most of the trailer was a collage of lush green marijuana plants, grow lights, and an overly complicated drip irrigation system.

As soon as he saw me looking past him, he jumped up, waving his arms frantically trying to block my view, sending Delaney into a paroxysm of giggles. I might have even given a weak laugh or two.

Delaney clutched his arm. "It's okay. I'm pretty sure she isn't going to call you in. She's wanted for murder."

"Mur...murder?" Mooky stumbled back until he ran into the kitchen counter.

"And treason, I think."

His jaw dropped open. Then he shut it with an effort. "Treason?"

Delaney nodded eagerly. "This is perfect. They'll never look for her here. She can't report you to the police and..."

She trailed off for a second and twisted her mouth in puzzlement. "Okay, it is kinda hard to find a part of it that works for you, but I'll figure something out."

"Needles is cool with this, right?"

"Ummm, yeahhh...sure."

Mooky suddenly looked far more frightened than when he thought his biggest problem was the FBI kicking in his door for accessory to murder and treason. "Aww, dude, tell me he's good with this."

Delaney shrugged. "I'll tell him I made you do it."

He weakly grabbed at the countertop, missed and slid down to sit on the floor. "He doesn't know?!"

Delaney gave a "mea culpa" shrug with a half-smile and shook her head.

He buried his face in his hands. "This isn't happening."

"This isn't your fault. I know he talked to you about not getting me involved in stuff, but..."

"Talk? Talk is kind of a two-way thing. Needles pinning me up against a wall threatening to kill me is not talking." Mooky rubbed his eyes for a second. "I'll be lucky if the dude just shoots me."

Delaney held her hands up helplessly. "You didn't do anything. I showed up here. He'd be a lot more pissed off if you didn't help me."

"You are NOT making things better."

"Look, this is gonna take a few days, but I'll try to get her out of here as soon as I can. You'll want to be out of here sometimes. Some guy is going to drop by to try to figure out how to help her, but I don't know when."

Mooky looked up at her for a second. "I'm working all the time right now. Chris' brother opened a surf shop in Florida, and he moved there to help."

He stared through the wall for a minute. "My uncle needs me to work extra shifts until he can hire more help."

Delaney looked a little relieved. "As soon as I find out, I'll let you know when to be out of here."

"Yeah. I can't take any more guys like Needles in my life. It's, like, way too intense."

After several more minutes of discussion, Mooky eventually headed into wherever he worked, clutching a garish shirt and hat combo as he walked out.

After he left, Delaney carefully checked my dressing, tubing and the water bottle, snapping pictures on a cheap phone. "Still looks good. I'm sending pics to Tiffany. I left her a burner phone when we left."

"So you think Mooky is safe? He won't talk?"

Delaney shook her head. "He won't say a word. He kinda owes me, and besides..."

She paused as she looked over a response on her phone. She sent another flurry of texts and looked over the answers.

"He doesn't want to piss off Needles, right?" I watched her reaction to the texts she'd received.

She shrugged. "That's just common sense. Like not stepping in front of a train...Tiffany's a little pissed off at me for leaving, but she says the wound looks good, and she told me how to take the tube out." She looked at it again. "She even sent a video. Cool."

"So when does the tube come out?"

"Three days or so depends on if your breathing is still good and nothing else has gone wrong. We pull half the tube one day, the other half the next."

I looked at her. A fifteen-year-old talking about field surgery like it ranked with fixing a sandwich. "Maybe we should go back to let her take it out."

She shook her head. "No. I can't do that. We're staying away from her. Besides, I can do simple medical stuff; I help Needles at the clinic all the time."

I didn't have many options, and Tiffany seemed like she thought Delaney was pretty competent. And she'd said something about advanced first aid training.

Delaney pulled up another text and looked at it, her eyes widening suddenly. "Do you like vodka? I need to see if Mooky can get us some vodka or something."

"Why?" I had a bad feeling I knew what she was going to say.

"Cause Tiffany says this is gonna 'hurt like a motherfucker' and she doesn't ever say things like that."

I decided Delaney was a bad influence on me. Foul language just isn't my thing, but... "Fuck."

*****

I watched through the window as Delaney pulled up in yet another non-descript compact car. She seemed to have an endless supply of them. She'd apparently shelved the armored powerhouse she'd originally picked me up in.

She walked in scowling. "They aren't planning to extract you when they get here. My K2 contact said the problem is a lot bigger than just you. They need some time."

"How long?"

"Maybe ten, twelve days." She frowned. "I want to get you out of here before Needles and Sheree get back."

"When is that?"

"A couple weeks, right before Christmas. They had a reservation for a place on the beach in Mexico earlier this year, but Needles sort of... got hurt. They delayed it as long as they could without losing the deposit so he could enjoy it."

She gave a slight smile. "They normally time the vacations with my trips to Texas."

I took a stab. "For training."

She gave a slight shake of her head and a sardonic twitch of a smile. "If you hadn't worked that out by now, I'd be real fucking worried about the FBI."

"They've put a lot of work into training you."

She ignored that probe. "What do we have to work with?"

"Not much. Michael said he left files for me where we first met."

"That's it?"

"That's it. But knowing Michael, it's significant."

"You know where it is?"

I sighed. "Yes, I do. That is the problem. It's a park bench on the Smithsonian Mall, just a few blocks south of the Hoover Building."

"The FBI?"

"Yes. The FBI. If I were them, I'd be watching the FBI."

"We'll just have to get in and get out before they catch on. After you heal enough."

*****

The second half of the tube coming out hurt like hell, but it was easier on Mooky than the first half. I drank a lot more vodka, and Delaney tied my hands to the chair before doing the second one.

I wasn't sure what Mooky would tell people about how he got the black eye when she pulled the first half out. He pretty much refused to talk to me for a couple of days.

He was still eyeing me suspiciously whenever I moved around the trailer. Delaney was out again; she was in and out more than I'd have expected. I was concerned until I realized she was spreading out her communications patterns, changing cars constantly. Fifteen or not, she'd had some serious training.

Either way, Mooky was always nervous whenever it was just the two of us in the trailer, and I didn't need him completely losing it, so I decided to try to get him to relax. "You could really make your lighting more efficient if you could get several old mirrors. You're losing a lot of light here. You can use mirrors to reflect your lost light back onto the plants."