Cold War

Chapter 21

Rasche had caught a cab from Kennedy to Police Plaza. He wasn’t on the force anymore, but he still had friends, and he was still in law enforcement, and law officers cooperated with each other; he had known that Police Plaza was the place to start.

He talked to Weston and to half a dozen other old friends and acquaintances and got the gory details of the bad bust that had left Baby, her two flunkies, and four good cops dead. On the basis of ballistics, Forensics had tagged one of the victims, Arturo Velasquez, with killing the four cops, but had no solid leads on who had taken out Arturo and his friends-none of the bullets matched any of Schaefer’s known personal arsenal or any of the weapons found at the scene.

Baby and Reggie had each taken a 9mm slug through the head, execution style; no 9mm guns were involved elsewhere in the incident, however. Schaefer owned several handguns, but none of them were 9mm.

No one mentioned the fact that most federal agents carried 9mm pistols.

The crime scene had been messy, but nothing like the slaughterhouses those creatures had left behind the previous summer; this carnage was clearly all the work of human beings, not monsters from outer space.

The guys who had been working in the comics shop had been interviewed-Rasche couldn’t keep straight who was who in the statements, since they all seemed to be named John, but it didn’t matter, since their stories matched. They reported seeing men in dark suits out front, but had no useful descriptions beyond that-they’d dove for cover as soon as the shooting started, and they had stayed down, out of the field of fire, until all the shooting had stopped.

And no one had any idea what had become of Schaefer in all this chaos. When the shooting had finally stopped he was simply gone, and the men in the dark suits were gone with him. The lab said that none of the bloodstains at the scene were Schaefer’s; all of them matched neatly with one or another of the known dead. That meant that Schaefer had probably still been alive when he vanished.

Rasche was pleased to hear that-pleased, but not surprised. He wasn’t entirely sure it was possible to kill Schaefer.

He was a bit less pleased that none of the bloodstains or fibers provided any leads on the men in suits. “Feds,” Rasche muttered at the mention of the dark suits. Everyone knew that federal agents generally favored dark suits. “Philips,” Rasche said.

As soon as Weston had mentioned the name Philips, Rasche had known that somehow Schaefer was involved with those things again, those sadistic predators from outer space.

Who the hell was Smithers, though? Rasche had never heard of any fed named Smithers.

Smithers was his lead, that was who Smithers was.

Rasche didn’t have legal access to the NYPD computers anymore, but his friends did, and they were glad to “demonstrate” the system for a visiting sheriff. Military records brought up 212 entries under “Smithers” for personnel on active duty; Rasche was able to eliminate most of them at a glance.

When he got to one of them he stopped looking. The match was good enough that Rasche didn’t see the need to look any further.

Smithers, Leonard E., age thirty-four, U.S. Army colonel, involved in CIA operations dating back to the Reagan administration, present assignment classified. Commanding officer, General Eustace Philips.

Philips. Philips and Smithers. That had to be the right one.

Smithers had an office address in midtown listed-and, Rasche decided, it was time for a certain Oregon sheriff to pay that office a visit.

Getting a cab was easy-that was one thing he had missed about New York. If you wanted a cab in Bluecreek you phoned Stan’s Taxi and waited forty minutes. You didn’t just step off the curb and wave. And you could just forget about buses or subways.

On the other hand, in Bluecreek he didn’t have to listen to Greek cabdrivers talk about how everyone blamed the Serbs, when it was the Albanians who caused all the trouble. It was a relief to escape onto the sidewalk and into the nondescript office tower.

The building had a military guard in dress uniform in the lobby; Rasche flashed his badge. “Rasche, Bluecreek sheriff’s department-I’m here on police business. Colonel Smithers, please.”

”Yes, sir,” the guard said, hauling out a register bound in dirty blue vinyl. “Room 3710. Please sign in, stating the reason for this visit.”

Rasche smiled and signed in; for his reason he scrawled, “To kick some ass.”

The guard either didn’t read it or didn’t care; he didn’t say a word as Rasche stamped down the corridor and boarded an elevator.

Rasche didn’t like seeing the military involved in Schaefer’s disappearance. Schaefer’s brother Dutch had disappeared without a trace years before, when he’d been on some secret rescue mission and had run up against the alien hunters; he’d lost his squad but come out of the whole business alive, and then he’d vanished. The last thing anyone admitted seeing of him was when he’d gone in to be debriefed, for the umpteenth time, by the military.

Maybe the U.S. Army had taken a hint from the old Argentines or Salvadorans and had disappeared Dutch. And maybe now they’d done the same thing to Schaefer.

Or whatever had happened to Dutch, maybe it had happened to Schaefer.

Except that Rasche wasn’t about to let it, despite what the U.S. Army might want. Yeah, he was all in favor of a strong military, but there were limits, and he intended to point this out to Colonel Smithers.

Room 3710 was a small office located halfway down a long, drab corridor. The windowless, off white door was ajar, and Rasche pushed it open.

A big, short-haired man in a dark suit was sitting on the corner of the desk, holding the phone. “… got a tee-off time at six,” he was saying as Rasche entered. “We can…” Then he spotted Rasche and stopped in midsentence.

”Colonel Smithers?” Rasche asked.

”I’ll call you back,” Smithers said into the receiver. He hung up the phone, then turned to Rasche and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

”Concerned taxpayer,” Rasche said. “Got a minute?”

”Hell, no.” He started to say more, but Rasche cut him off.

”Think you could find one? It’s important.”

”Listen, mister, whoever you are,” Smithers said, “I’m not a recruiter or a P.R. officer. Was there something you wanted?”

”As a matter of fact, yes,” Rasche said. “My name’s Rasche, Colonel. Maybe you can guess what I’m after.”

”No, I…” Smithers began. Then he stopped, and his tone changed abruptly from annoyance to uncertainty. “Did you say ‘Rasche’? Detective Rasche?”

”It’s Sheriff Rasche now, actually,” Rasche said, shrugging diffidently. “I don’t want any trouble, Colonel. I was just wondering whether you could tell me where my old partner has got to. Detective Schaefer.”

”Get out of here, Rasche,” Smithers said, getting up off the desk. “You don’t want to be involved.”

”Oh, now, don’t be too…” Rasche began as Smithers approached him.

Then Smithers reached to grab Rasche’s shoulder and shove him out of the office, and Rasche made his move.

In all his years on the NYPD, Rasche had always left the tough-guy stuff to his partner as much as he could. One reason he had liked being partnered with Schaefer was that Schaefer was so good at the tough-guy stuff. Schaef was about six and a half feet tall, classic buzz-cut Aryan with big broad shoulders and visible layers of muscle; he looked like he’d been carved out of stone by a sculptor with a body-building fetish. Schaefer didn’t have to hit people much because one look at him convinced most folks that they weren’t going to win if it came to blows-and they were right, too, because Schaefer was at least as tough as he looked.

Intimidating people just by looks saved everyone a lot of trouble, and Schaefer did it better than anyone else Rasche had ever met.

Rasche, though… Rasche was about average height, with a potbelly wider than his shoulders, with bony arms and a Captain Kangaroo mustache. He looked about as intimidating as one of those inflatable clowns with the weighted bases that kids used to punch.

That had its uses, too. He couldn’t intimidate anyone with his looks, but he could catch them off guard. In fact, he’d made it his specialty. Tough guys always underestimated the fat old cop when he smiled and shrugged and talked in that polite, vague way he’d worked so hard to perfect.

Smithers was just one more. He reached out for Rasche’s shoulder and made no attempt at all to guard himself. Rasche’s hands, locked together, came up hard and fast and took Smithers in the side of the head with most of Rasche’s two hundred pounds behind them.

Smithers staggered sideways, caught off-balance, but he didn’t go down until Rasche kneed him in the groin and then rammed both fists down on the back of his head.

Rasche shook his head as he closed and locked the door; was this the best the feds could do? Smithers had recognized Rasche’s name, so he’d probably read up on some of what Schaefer and Rasche had done together. Had he thought that it was all Schaefer, with Rasche just going along for the ride? The hoods on the street had always thought so, which was just the way Schaefer and Rasche had wanted it, but the feds ought to know better.

It was almost enough to hurt his feelings, he thought as he hauled the moaning, semiconscious Smithers into the chair behind the desk. How the hell did Smithers think Rasche had ever made detective in the first place and picked up his several commendations?

Five minutes later Smithers was fully conscious again and tied securely into his chair with the cords from his phones and computers. Rasche smiled across the desk at him.

”Darn it, Colonel,” he said, “I thought this could be a friendly chat. After all, all I want to know is what happened to my friend.”

Smithers stared at him.

”You’ll go to prison for this, Rasche,” he said. “Assaulting an on-duty federal officer is a felony…”

Rasche cut him off. “Yup,” he said, nodding. “It sure is a felony, and a serious one. But are you really going to want to go into court and testify in front of a judge and jury and your superiors about how an over-the-hill small town sheriff caught you off guard and trussed you up like a Thanksgiving turkey?” He smiled again, and that walrus mustache bristled; his eyes narrowed, and he really didn’t look a thing like Captain Kangaroo anymore.

”Besides,” he added, “I have a hunch that your boss, my old friend General Philips, really wouldn’t care for the bright lights of a civilian trial, since if it came to that I’d be doing my best to turn it into the biggest media circus since O. J. Simpson.”

Smithers frowned uncertainly.

”Anyway,” Rasche continued, “that’s all beside the point.” He reached under his jacket. “I want to know what happened to Detective Schaefer, and I want to know now.” He drew the. 38 Police Special out slowly, and then, moving with careful grace, brought it out to arm’s length and aimed it directly between Smithers’s eyes.

”That gun doesn’t scare me, Rasche,” Smithers said scornfully. “I know you’re a cop; you wouldn’t dare pull that trigger.”

Rasche shook his head. “Yeah, I’m a cop,” he said. “And cops don’t go around shooting people who don’t answer questions-at least, good cops don’t.” He pulled the gun back for a moment and looked at it contemplatively. “So you know I’m a cop, Colonel, but are you ready to gamble your life that I’m a good cop? I’ve had a pretty bad time lately, you know; I left the force here in New York after that mess on Third Avenue, but that didn’t really end it. It’s still bothering me. I almost strangled my dentist the other day.” He aimed the gun again. “I’m not sure just what I’m capable of anymore. I’ve gotta say, though, that I’m pretty sure I’m not that good a cop anymore. Remember that I’m just full of surprises, Colonel-I took you down a few minutes ago, didn’t I?”

Smithers cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

Rasche leaned forward across the desk, bringing the. 38’s muzzle to just an inch or two from Smithers’s face. “I’ve heard about you military guys who get assigned to the CIA for their dirty tricks,” he said conversationally. “Special training, psychological counseling-you think you can handle just about anything, right? Well, I didn’t have all that. What I had instead was a dozen years on the streets, where I learned all about what people will and won’t do. Maybe you learned some of the same things I did in those fancy classes of yours.” He leaned closer, and Smithers pulled as far away from the gun as his bonds would allow. “I want you to look into my eyes, Colonel,” Rasche said, “and I want you to use that special training to see inside me, to understand exactly what I’m feeling right now and what I’m capable of. If you read my file, I want you to think over everything it said in there-I got some commendations, yeah, I got promoted, but I also got in my share of trouble, didn’t I? Insubordination, brutality… you think about that.”

Rasche’s voice had gradually dropped from a normal tone to a whispered growl, and Smithers had begun to sweat. “Think about all the things that make life good, Colonel,” Rasche murmured. “Oreos, moonlit nights, the laughter of friends over a few beers, the soft touch of a woman’s hand. You think about all that very carefully, Colonel, and then I want you to ask yourself a question.” Rasche paused and adjusted his grip on the. 38 so that there was no chance it would jerk out of line if he pulled the trigger.

”Ask yourself,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you really want to die today?”

And Smithers started talking.