Dombroski had said it was urgent. Maybe Warrant Officer Brodie was being promoted. Maybe he was being relieved of duty. Maybe Colonel Dombroski was in cahoots with the CIA, who were going to put ricin in Brodie’s happy hour nachos.
Well, it had been a while since anyone tried to kill him. That would at least be interesting.
CHAPTER 3
Annie’s Junction was in a strip mall just off the highway, between a Panera Bread and a T.J.Maxx. Brodie parked his Impala near the entrance and locked his M9 in the gun safe he’d installed in his center console. He left his CID jacket in the car, threw on a thermal vest, and walked in.
Annie’s had a typical sports bar vibe, with lots of flat-screens, a big horseshoe bar, and crap all over the walls. It was still early on a Sunday, and the bar was pretty busy.
Brodie didn’t see anyone who looked familiar. There were plenty of military hangouts in the area, but Annie’s wasn’t one of them, which was probably why Dombroski had picked it. Which raised the question of what this was all about.
Brodie spotted Dombroski tucked into a booth along the wall. On the table in front of him were baskets of fried food and a couple of pints of beer. Brodie was used to seeing the colonel in full uniform, but this evening he was dressed in jeans and a maroon sweater.
Brodie approached the booth. “Evening, sir.”
Dombroski looked up at him. “Scott.” He gestured at the seat across from him, and Brodie slid into the booth.
“You’re late,” said Dombroski.
“Yes, sir.”
Dombroski nodded at a basket of fried things in front of him. “I hope you’re not watching your cholesterol.”
Brodie took a fried ball from the basket and bit into it. A glob of scalding-hot cheese shot into his mouth, followed by a spicy kick. A jalapeño popper, one of the modern marvels of American food engineering.
Brodie washed it down with the pilsner in front of him and regarded his boss. A lot of senior officers looked out of sorts in casual civilian clothing, but Stanley Dombroski, stocky and overweight with hangdog features and a seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow, looked more in his element now than when he squeezed into any of his service uniforms.
Army officers didn’t have the same physical training requirements and testing as enlisted men. Colonel Dombroski probably hadn’t subjected himself to a PT test since the Obama administration, and his favorite machine in the gym was the vending machine. But officers were still expected to keep themselves in top shape, as both a symbol of self-discipline and a positive example to their men. Having a paunch was bad for your health—and your career.
Brodie wasn’t sure if Dombroski’s physical appearance was the reason he was still a colonel at the age of fifty-five. Maybe it happened the other way around, and after being passed over for promotion too many times he’d simply given up and reached for the corn dogs. Regardless, Brodie had a lot of respect for his boss, even if the idiots in the upper echelons would never grace him with a general’s star.
Dombroski asked, “How’s the Lansing case going?”
“The guy beat his girlfriend. Three witnesses on two occasions. So I guess it’s going.”
Dombroski nodded, took a drink. “And Hinckley?”
“We found what we expected to find. He’ll spend the night in a cell, have a long talk with himself. We’ll have the names of his co-conspirators by the morning.”
“Good. You and Evans are batting about nine hundred.”
“Keep lobbing softballs and I’ll look like Babe Ruth.”
Dombroski gave him a look. “You are administering justice, Mr. Brodie. I’d hate to think you were bringing your ego into this.”
Brodie didn’t respond, and Dombroski asked, “What do you want?”
“A cheeseburger.”
“What do you wantfrom me?”
Brodie looked him in the eyes. “I want my career back, Colonel.”
Dombroski had no response. He finished his beer and waved over a young male waiter. He ordered two burgers, some onion rings, and anotherround of beers, then turned back to Brodie and lowered his voice. “Has anyone been in touch with you?”
Brodie understood what he was asking. While working the Mercer case in Venezuela, Brodie and Taylor had stumbled onto a Black Ops program in Afghanistan that was run by the Central Intelligence Agency along with some involvement from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Joint Special Operations Command, and other practitioners of the dark arts. The CIA didn’t like individuals outside of their trusted circles to know about the things they did in the shadows, and Army criminal investigators Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor were definitely not in that circle of trust.
There were a few ways to deal with that. One was to stick Brodie and Taylor in a windowless room in the bowels of the Pentagon to be reminded by threatening bureaucrats of the oaths they’d taken and their obligations not to divulge classified information. The other way was to perform unscheduled maintenance on the brakes of Brodie’s Chevy.
