The Shack series

Chapter 33

One of the reasons he liked his job was because his uncle always gave him time off to attend the inevitable funerals and celebrations of life.

I hoped whatever happened, he didn't get burned by this.

*****

Meetings and Options

*****

Delany had pretty much pushed Mooky out the door the night before, making him promise not to come back for at least three days if she didn't contact him. She also told him to bring the sheriff if that happened.

She growled about keeping amateurs out of the way, but I knew what she was really doing; she was protecting him as best she could. Making contact with other, unknown entities is one of the most dangerous things an operative can be tasked with.

Too many unknowns. Too little certainty. And almost no trust at all.

It was just at nightfall when the car pulled up in front. Right on time, but that doesn't necessarily mean a damn thing, as my aching injury reminded me.

The door slowly opened, and I could feel relief as I saw the white-haired form of Pogo lean in. "Thank God."

He nodded to me. "Maria."

"Passphrase." Delaney's voice was flat and emotionless. I looked over at her.

She was holding the automatic she'd taken from the hitman leveled at Pogo's chest.

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous; she obviously knows me."

"I obviously don't. What's the f*****g passphrase?" The g*n didn't waiver the slightest bit.

I tried to head everything off. "Delaney, I know him. If he's compromised, we're screwed no matter what."

She ignored me. "Passphrase. Asshole."

The worst thing I could think of happened.

A grin split Pogo's face. He was finding this funny, and Pogo's sense of humor was decidedly dark. "So you're seriously going to shoot me if I try to come in?"

"Step in and find out." Nothing in her voice even hinted that she might not shoot him.

I tried again. "Pogo, she's serious as hell; just give her the damn passphrase."

His grin widened. "Oh, no, this is just too funny. I'm being held at gunpoint by a munchkin."

He looked back at her. "Okay, so what's your plan? That's what...?" he paused. "A Glock 43?"

She gave an annoyed sigh. "So it's a Glock. I didn't buy the damn thing; I just took it off the last asshole who pissed me off."

Pogo laughed quietly. "Glocks are reliable as hell, and it's a more-than-decent g*n for close work like this, but you've probably got six or six plus one rounds there. You might have time to get another magazine in, if you've got one, but what if I've got four more guys with me, and they have vests?"

Delaney shrugged. "That won't matter to you."

"I believe you, but I'm curious. What happens when you run out of rounds?"

"Imma pick up a fuckin' rock." She spat it out with narrowed eyes, her patience getting low.

Pogo squinted at her, then shook his head slowly. "You're Needles' kid, that's for damn sure." He suddenly seemed very serious. "Crash test dummy. Fourteen minutes 34 seconds."

"Black rum." Delaney gave what I assumed was the countersign and lowered her g*n but didn't take her guard down.

Pogo stepped in, and another form filled the doorway. The man, Hawaiian or Samoan from what I could see, had to be six-and-a-half feet tall and probably weighed about as much as a small truck. A wall of muscle and odd geometric Polynesian tattoos.

Delaney looked at his enormous form and then down at the g*n in her hand. "s**t. I need a bigger f*****g gun."

She glared at Pogo. "How the f**k did you even fit Shrek in a car?"

Pogo just chuckled while the man-mountain did a poor imitation of looking hurt. "Hey, for your information, kids love me."

He glanced around the grow house and nodded slowly, grinning. "Nice. Apakalolo house. At least the FBI probably won't look for her here."

"Derek, get what you need and get out of here." Pogo's voice held a little gravity. He turned to me. "This is Derek Keawe; he's going to be your lawyer of record. He's covering Kim's office for a month, she said she had to leave. Some kind of emergency. Sign the forms, and give him a retainer. Attorney-client privilege, he can open a line of communication with the FBI and Justice."

I shrugged. "He'll be taking a big risk. Whoever is after me will probably try to get to me through him."

Derek shook his head. "I have a two man protective detail on me. I also have a full set of K2 phones for comms, so we should be good."

"They aren't shy about it; two men won't be enough."

Pogo shook his head. "Monster will be with him. Derek is married to his daughter."

That ended that. If Monster was watching over Derek, anyone unwise or ignorant enough to go after him would probably be dead before they even realized a fight had started.

"Jesus. They'd need a f*****g elephant g*n anyway." Delaney eyed Derek and gave an exasperated shake of her head.

I held my hand up. "I don't exactly have access to money right now. Kind of hard to pay a retainer."

Delaney pulled a kitchen drawer open and rummaged around for a bit. "There, seventy-three cents and a Dave & Buster token." She stopped abruptly and looked him over suspiciously. "Seriously, you're a f*****g lawyer?"

Derek peered down at her. "You have a problem with that?"

She scrunched her nose. "A couple of them have tried to have me killed."

"Didn't work?" Derek gave her a slightly twisted smile.

"They're dead. I'm not." She looked steadily at him, daring him to challenge her.

"Well, I don't plan to have you killed, so we should be good."

She handed me her treasure, and I passed it on to Derek, then dutifully signed the forms.

He started to hand them to Delaney. "This would be better if it were witnessed."

I waved him off. "Derek, she's fifteen."

His eyes widened, and Delaney cut in. "Besides, I don't need to get dragged into court over any of this. I'm going to have to tell Needles about this. I won't lie to him, but I don't need to remind him a bunch of times and piss him off."

Pogo straightened up sharply. "Needles doesn't know?"

Delaney shook her head.

"s**t. I thought Kim had more goddamned sense than that. At least that explains the sudden desire to get the hell out of Virginia."

I finally had to ask. "Everybody I've run into is concerned with pissing him off. Why is everybody so worried about him?"

Pogo scratched his head for a second. "Needles..." He shook his head. "The man just has no sense of proportion. Piss him off, and the sky is the limit. Columns of fire and brimstone. Real Old Testament unto-the-seventh-generation shit."

I waited, then noticed Delaney listening with a smug pride as Pogo continued. "My team was called in to stop a m******e in Mogadishu. A small-time warlord had decided to rob a medical team."

Delaney looked at me. "Needles was a Special Forces medic."

Pogo nodded tersely. "I thought we were going to stop the warlord's g**g from killing civilians. But when we showed up, there were dead bodies everywhere. Bodies of gunmen. Seems the robbery was going fine until one of the gunmen shot a pregnant woman right in front of Needles for no reason. By the time we got there, the street was empty except for bodies, a deuce-and-a-half was literally parked on top of the warlord's car, and Needles was standing there with a.45 in one hand, a hatchet in the other and a foot-long knife sticking out of his face, looking for somebody else to kill. He had three bullets in him, but he only stopped because he ran out of bad guys."

He paused and looked at Delaney. "He tell you about it?"

"Not all of it, but Sheree found his medal and pried stuff out of him, so she told me. We're tight like that."

Pogo nodded. "It was either charge him with a crime or give him a medal with a classified write up and sweep it under the rug. I recruited him to our unit as soon as he got out of the hospital."

Derek looked over his papers. "I'd better get going. I won't be doing you any good here, and it's probably best if I leave before you guys start discussing anything else I don't want to know. Officer of the court and all that."

Pogo waited until Derek left, then turned to me. "Do you know why you're being targeted? The guy that tried to take you out in the mall used to work for Reinhardt IG security. Mostly off-the-books stuff."

"I think it's something to do with Michael. When he found out he had cancer, he said he had some things he had to 'finish,' took sick leave and disappeared for almost a month. He never said what it was. I got a voicemail from him saying I had files waiting in the place we first met."

Pogo nodded. "I'm sorry to hear about Mike; he was one of the good guys."

"He was." I paused, thinking. I know a bit of sadness crept into my voice, despite every effort I made to contain it. "Maybe he would have preferred this. Dying that way. The cancer was way past any treatment, and he was in more pain every day."

I sounded cold, even to me, but I knew that was me trying to suppress and deflect my feelings. It might have been true anyway.

Pogo gave a slow nod. "I didn't know him as well as you did, Maria, but he was the real thing. A real warrior. Dying in a hospital bed, wired to a bunch of machines...he wouldn't have wanted that."

We just waited in reflective silence for a few moments, and then Pogo shook his head. "We can't help much; there's stuff going on. Maybe it's related, maybe not, but we're sure there's some surveillance in place on Evie and Howard, maybe on the rest. I was already out here on family stuff, Derek was on a business trip, and Monster was wrapping up his semester before this started, but if I delay getting back and they're watching, it will raise alarm bells. They'd start looking, and I'd be a liability. We'll just have to risk Derek and Monster. It works anyway."

I leaned back. "This is just getting better and better."

"Donna can't do anything. This is too high profile; she can't expose her organization like that."

"I figured that, but I was hoping your people might be able to help."

"Derek can help on the legal end. We're pretty sure they weren't keeping tabs on him, so we got him the K2 phones, and they're not likely to have broken that."

Delaney shook her head. "If they could break the K2 phone crypto, we'd already be dead."

Pogo looked grim. "You're going to have to depend on K2 and whatever they can put together. Maybe Wendy can extract you."

"No. I need to figure this out and try to fix it. There has to be a reason for all this. Nobody would expend this level of effort for anything minor."

"That's a big risk; you can't hide out in Virginia forever."

"s**t. I was hoping to just hand you off." Delaney gave me a decidedly less-than-happy glare. "I think K2 can send my team up, but it's going to cost you."

"That's a little mercenary."

"That's a little mercenary, or she's a little mercenary?" Pogo grinned. "Actually, I have a pretty good line on Thugbunny and her team..."