Mistletoes and Murder

By Robert Kammen

A detective thriller set in the Twin Cities. 
The plot takes place in three days leading up to Xmas Eve, has a variety of crimes in it. 
The Holidays are the season of crime and violence and for many as the years ends. 
It starts out in Canada, then down to Minneapolis.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Longhorn Publishing
• Release date: May 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227311009

Book preview

THURSDAY  

...76:21...76:20...76:19...

The Glacial Ocean upon which Natook traveled showed clearly the tracks of the killer Polar bear. The ice was frozen thicker than a man is tall, and it was carpeted with a thin layer of snow, with here and there, patches of open water. A stiffening wind kept whipping the snow into a translucent current against a pale and lowering sky.

The yellow glaring eyes of the lead Husky picked out something as yet unseen far to the North, a strange scent that the wind had blown into its flaring nostrils, an alien scent of something that had lain long dead, in those frozen wastes beyond the Beaufort Sea. It barked a warning, its pace faltering, slowing up the other Huskies harnessed fanwise to the sixteen-foot Komatik. Ignoring this, the Eskimo crackled a whip over their heads, but continued to sing to them. The huskies would pull their heart out for a man whom they loved, and they loved Natook. Even so, they must pull very hard and he would test that love in his hurry to catch the killer. 

For three days behind at Fort Churchill, Northwest Territories, was the mutilated body of an only son. Somewhere ahead in these frozen white wastes was the Polar bear with the black scar on its shoulder. Natook’s only concern was that the unusually marked bear must not reach the more open waters of the Beaufort Sea and escape into its chilling depths. His hate fanned by the wind, he increased his efforts. 

Natook consulted his watch, one of the technological gifts from his murdered son. The face showed temperature, pressure and altitude, and it had a calculator. And wonder of wonders, it even showed the time. White Men, they seemed irresponsible and foolish to Natook. They knew the time to the millisecond but couldn’t make good use of any of it.

The bleak and deceiving landscape ran past him as he pondered over all of this, giving the Huskies their head. He ignored the passing terrain, but not quite, since he knew it so well. For up here, at the Crown of the World, the Ice Diamonds in Earth’s Coronet of Power required attention, or they would kill you without remorse. 

Natook knew that he must give up the chase for the day and create shelter for himself and his dogs, or the night would kill them. An Igloo didn’t take long to build, but he had to start soon. 

He couldn’t be far behind the bear, and his hatred for the rogue animal knew no bounds. Raven circled overhead, ignoring his plight, or was he reveling in it? With Raven, one never knew. Innuit gods were incomprehensible at times, even to the Innuit.

Natook swung his head slowly as he sped along, looking for the right ice, a combination of snow and ice easily carvable that would make a good Igloo. He spotted a large hump just ahead that looked good. He slowed the dogs to a walk to cool them down. They had done so well, and he was proud of the dogs his son had trained. 

Natook stopped the sled and patted all the dogs and all the while, sang to them, while giving them a small portion of meat meal that he kept for them to eat while they were on the ice. Not too much, they wouldn’t understand being overfed. This was a harsh land and the animals as well as the people knew how to survive and being greedy wasn’t the way.

Reaching the hump, he began to carve out the first of many blocks of snow and ice that would comprise the traditional shelter of his forebears. The first block was hard and then it would get easier further into the hump, then harder again as he got further down. Then his knife met resistance from the second block and a metallic scraping took his immediate interest. He began to dig instead of carving and in a few seconds had made an opening in the sheath of ice covering the small Russian Cargo airplane. Similar to a small Cessna, the Russian Sukoy was able to cover thousands of miles and had been used for years to smuggle in spies and contraband. Flying low under radar, it would evade detection by the American and Canadian authorities. The Innuit people had watched them for the last decade or so and ignored them most of the time. It was not their business, though they didn’t like the invasion of their skies. Neither would Raven.

Natook reached the door which was crushed in an open position and allowed the snow to enter and fill the forward compartment. He scraped out as much as he could and found the bodies of the pilots still in their seat belts. The uniforms of the Red Air Force still intact and not very rumpled from the crash. They almost looked peaceful. Raven still circled overhead.

Natook pulled the bodies from the wrecked airplane thinking that this would be a better place to spend the frozen night. The long nights in Alaska during the winter were cold and deadly on the ice fields. The airplane would provide adequate shelter for both he and the dogs. A small fire would keep him warm and comfortable with a bearskin over the open door. He hacked a smoke hole in the top of the aluminum skin and made the fire from the materials that an Innuit always carried with him. To be unprepared was to die. Some of the dogs preferred to remain outside for the time being, but that would change as the temperature went to fifty below.

Now that he had gotten his temporary home in order, he began to search the airplane for the reason it was here. There was nothing inside but a few bags...one containing three music boxes and a lot of electronic wiring. The others, papers and invoices for different equipment, all in English. 

Also, few boxes of unmarked blocks made of a material that he immediately identified as Plastique were also scattered around the floor of the plane. He had used the explosive material in his time in the Alaska National Guard and was intimately familiar with it. He kept looking until he found that the boxes of explosive had been thrown clear of the Russian airplane and just outside the body of the small twin. They hadn’t exploded on impact and that didn’t surprise him much, Plastique took a lot of impact to set it off. But, what were they doing bringing in this type of explosive by smuggling? There was cause for more investigation.

A small bag in the cockpit area revealed a few more papers that hadn’t succumbed to the elements. One of them was an invoice in English to someone that the 22th of December would be the delivery date for their order of music boxes, and they apologized for the lateness of the delivery, this to someone, he went on reading, in Minneapolis, all else was in Russian and unintelligible to Natook. He was educated, but not linguistic beyond English, French and his own tongue.

This was very unusual, even for the White men and their constant battle for supremacy between them. He had lived with them and accepted their education, but they knew nothing about the Earth and his people. They knew nothing about Raven. He wished he didn’t.

Thinking about the music boxes, it came to him that this wasn’t another covert operation designed to get information in the great arms and political race of the two giant powers, this was something children would use. That offended his sensibilities. Even if he had to give up the chase for his son’s killer, he must get this to someone who could act upon it. This was the 21st of December the invoice had mentioned the 22nd...not much time. In the morning he would give up the chase for now and go to the White man’s town and find someone to help. In the morning for tonight belonged to the wind.

MINNEAPOLIS

Only Al-Karem Banyr, the man driving the vintage Monte Carlo, knew the Sicilian was going to die tonight. He passed slowly along a street curling through the University of Minnesota campus which was deserted at this late hour, an occasional light beaming out of a dormitory window, the windshield wipers flicking away a light snowfall. Snow fascinated Banyr; it was something alien to him in his home country of Iran. He didn’t detest it as the others did; it reminded him of a cleansing whenever there was a fresh snowfall. 

He kept tapping a finger against the steering wheel in time to the pulsing rock beat coming from the radio. While his dark brown eyes glittered with a psychotic fever in anticipation of what was to come. The cleansing of the snowfall would be mild in comparison with his plans for this country’s support for the forces arrayed against his countrymen and their righteous Jihad against the usurpers, chief among them the Jews. 

Revenge of a sort had come on September 11th, when those airliners had been flown into the World Trade Center buildings, to Banyr’s utter delight. A stab of fear like a cold rush of camel dung had struck the hearts of the Americans and their British allies. Compliments of Al Qaeda, and our revered leader Osama Bin Laden.

Here in the Twin Cities it had been necessary to deal with men that he wouldn’t spit on normally, the help he needed they could supply, but it was distasteful. He knew that sub-men like the Italian, Aldo Vercelli, couldn’t be trusted. He’d dealt with the same breed of Godless vermin at home in Tehran, soulless men who would betray you to the police. This Vercelli had to die after he served his purpose in Allah’s great plan; it was that simple. Allah wills it—-Insh’ Allah.

Al-Karem Banyr had never killed in the name of Jihad before, but soon, very soon! He slipped his unclean left hand into his parka pocket to wrap it around the sheathed stiletto. For a moment a cruel and rare smile lifted the corners of his wide mouth. He had curly thick black hair and a hooked nose in a swarthy face that had thinned out in the past few weeks, from fasting in preparation for his holy quest.

The Monte Carlo fishtailed a little as he swung onto Essex Street and headed toward the lighted facade of University Hospital. For a moment he listened to the annoying chatter of his two comrades occupying the back seat. After the complex of buildings fell behind, along with the spectral image of a tall crane towering over the new addition to the hospital, he slowed even more, with all inside the car peering out side windows at a small brick-fronted building housing The Vanity, a combination bookstore and cafeteria frequented by the Infidels. They read too much and what they do read is blasphemous. Rushdie’s book was meat in their quest for useless knowledge.

It’s closed, said Mahrouss.

The other man occupying the back seat, Ahmed-Al-Famy, gave Mahrouss a reassuring pat on the shoulder. And then Al-Famy said, Our observant Palestinian gourd.

Al-Famy was the warrior son of a warrior father of a warrior people and looked it. He was of the Beni Sakhr Bedouin tribe, whose domain reached over six thousand square miles of desert west of Amman. Their name-—"Sons of the Rock’—-told much about him. A scar nicking close to the corner of his right eye seemed to accentuate his dark brooding looks, the smile he flashed revealing bony-white teeth.

In a few years, the Palestinian Mahrouss, who was a rather chubby Hydraulic Engineering student, knew he would have what the Americans called middle-aged spread. Even at the age of twenty, his stomach bulged over his beltline. He’d let his hair grow so that it lay over sloping shoulders. Mahrouss detested his leader’s peace overtures toward the hated Jews. Instead of the white dove of peace brought forth by the weak traitors at home, there must be instead a holy war, a sacred Jihad. The Jews claim only they are the rightful owners of the Holy Land. What they if instead is only the right to die. But in spite of how he felt about things back in Palestine, he was having second thoughts about going through with the mission as planned. It was much too risky. He didn’t care to die here in Minneapolis, nor any place in the name of the Great Satan, for that matter. But there was the blood pact—-anyone who wanted out must be killed. Though the car heater was set on high, Mahrouss felt a shiver rippling down his spine as of a jackal running over one’s grave. This horrible land is too cold.

They took their orders from Karem Banyr. It was Banyr who had approached them, and whose hatred for the Israelites eclipsed his budding career as an engineering student. Banyr’s father had opposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s bloody reign. Then one night the dreaded secret police came and arrested his parents—-he never saw them again. He fled the country after that insult, made his way to Nablus, the sprawling valley town on the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan, to find refuge with some Palestinian friends. He had met Mahrouss here. It was also here he began to participate in raids of atonement on the hated Jews. 

Soon the PLO took an interest in him and, after checking out his background, suggested that he continue his education in the United States. Once ancient Palestine was reclaimed by its rightful owners, engineers of all types would be needed, he was told, to reclaim the land, or to destroy the buildings of the Jews.

His three years in America had inflamed his hatred toward this country’s foreign policy. He could understand America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, everything was measured in Dollars. And also, he could understand, to some extent, the reason why American military and its allies had just clashed with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But Karem Banyr could never forgive nor comprehend the United States its continued support of Israel, the shipment of military hardware to that country, or the protection given Jews in every major American city including the Twin Cities of Minnesota. These were blasphemous acts that merited Allah’s punishment. The time had come to teach these demonic Americans a lesson. The sons of Ishmael would bring these sleepy cities on the northern Mississippi to its knees.

Anger lidding his feverish eyes, Banyr turned onto Ontario Street. Midway up the block he swung into an alley while switching off the headlights. To the sound of tires crunching over hard-packed snow he brought the Monte Carlo in behind the bookstore. 

Mahrouss said anxiously, There is the Italian’s car.

Around a grin Al-Famy said, Omar, maybe a couple of cheeseburgers would calm your nerves.

Maintain silence, Banyr muttered as he pulled in alongside a black Caddy and turned off the motor. He sat there for a moment, knowing that when his stiletto sliced into the Sicilian’s ribcage, he would study the reaction of his comrades. Of Al-Famy he had no doubts. But Mahrouss might not have the stomach for this kind of work. Opening the door, he eased outside, than he reached back for the black attaché case. Banyr went ahead to rap on the metal storm door. He was about to batter his fist on the door again when he heard the snapping of a lock and the door opened a few cautious inches, the beam of a flashlight playing over Banyr’s stoic face.

About time you ragheads got here, groused the bent nose holding the flashlight. He swung the door open. Mr. Vercelli don’t like to be kept waiting. You got the money in there?

He received a nod from Banyr.

Now, are any of you punks heeled?

Heeled?

Guns, you stupid raghead... minga, Carmine Rizzo said, smirking. He was a burly-shouldered man clad in black. Come on, come on, get in here. Once he’d closed and locked the door, he switched on the hallway light and went ahead to open a door leading into a large storeroom.

Karem Banyr went in first to saunter toward Aldo Vercelli seated behind a desk cluttered with books and paperwork. A flickering overhead light beamed down upon Vercelli’s balding head, and at Banyr’s approach, he gestured with a hand bearing two diamond rings at the metal folding chairs.

Did you have second thoughts about our deal, Mr. Smith? He took in Banyr’s apologetic smile. He had pudgy fingers and there was a towel tucked into his shirt collar. Picking up the fork, he thrust it into the plate of spaghetti and sauce, hungrily.

As Mahrouss and Al-Famy settled onto chairs, Banyr took in the open drawer at the Sicilian’s right elbow, and he lifted the remaining chair to that side of the desk. Turning the chair around, he sat down and put the attaché case by his feet, then he hooked his elbows over the back of the chair. Ill-concealed contempt flashed in Banyr’s eyes at the way the Sicilian was wolfing down his food, strings of spaghetti dangling from his mouth, and for the red stains on the shirtfront and towel. Both hands immersed in his orgy of consumption. 

Through a burp Vercelli gestured at the bottle of red wine. You guys want some?

He received a polite declining nod from Banyr.

Around an indifferent shrug he filled his own glass. I see you brought the money.

Banyr nodded as he glanced down at the attaché case.

Basta, Vercelli muttered. He picked out a book from those strewn carelessly on his desk and tossed it over to Banyr. There, an English-Arabic dictionary. You guys ’ve got a communications problem with all this bull crap nodding of your heads. It looks like someone cut the muscles in your necks.

We are taught to listen to the wisdom of our elders.

Aldo Vercelli laughed up at his bodyguard keeping watch on the proceedings from where he lurked in a nearby storage aisle, the smoke from his cigar drifting toward an air duct. Vercelli said, That’s a helluva lot more than I can say for the punks in this country. They don’t respect nothing or nobody. I am a man of respect, capish? I like that, Mr. Smith, but, I ain’t old. Shoving the plate away, he began wiping his hands on the towel. I got the plastic explosives and the Claymores, over a hundred of them, satchel charges, forty or so and grenades. Also, the detonators you wanted, electric, electronic and fuse, but no dice with them special submachine guns.

His eyes narrowing, Banyr said, When I called you told me everything had been arranged.

Like I said, I couldn’t get some of the weapons you wanted. But, no problem, capish? The babies I’m gonna sell you make them other guns look like water pistols. But, Mr. Smith, for these babies I gotta up the ante.

You mean you want more money?

Hey, these babies are top of the line. Another five grand should cover my expenses.

Al-Famy blurted out, You are a man of little honor.

At the outburst, Carmine Rizzo dipped a hand under the folds of his suit coat, but a disdainful flutter of Vercelli’s hand held him there, and as Vercelli said fawningly, Hey, paisan, I’m the middle man. That’s the American way. To get these babies I hadda grease a lotta palms—-capish? Like you guys come here acting like you’re on the up and up, like you’re respectable citizens. I hear all this street talk. Could be you’re the guys who’ve been knocking off these banks and supermarkets. The boys from immigration find out, the ball game’s over. Hey, basta, that’s your business. Now, you want these weapons or not? He could feel the nervous sweat trickling down his armpits, wondering if he had gone too far. He also knew these ragheads had no other place to go to get what they wanted here in the Twin Cities. He picked up his cigar and inhaled the sweet aroma into his lungs, the silence building.

Karem Banyr knew he had been right about the Sicilian. And more, that the man’s veiled threat only affirmed Banyr’s decision to see that when he left here Aldo Vercelli was dead. Carefully he said, What is so special about these weapons, Mr. Vercelli?

These babies fire fourteen hundred rounds a minute. The magazine holds somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred bullets, which you can empty into your target in six to ten seconds.

It sounds extremely interesting. Banyr bared his teeth in an appreciative smile.

Reaching for a slice of bread, Vercelli broke it in half. Here’s the interesting part. This baby has a miniature laser sight, a very powerful red beam of light centers on your target. Then bam, the bullets go where the beam points. Accuracy you’d never believe. So, we got a deal?

Only if we see one of the weapons first.

Irritated laughter bubbled out of Vercelli’s mouth, and he shook his head in dismay. You ragheads are all alike. Sure, what the hell.... you wanna sample the merchandise? Carmine, get one out of the back room. He chomped on the bread, washed it down with some red wine.

As the bodyguard swung around and vanished down a dusky aisle, Banyr dropped his eyes to the bottle of wine. I believe I will take that drink now.

Ahmed-Al-Famy came alert, knowing that Banyr did not drink, a sure instinct telling him something was about to happen. He snaked a glance at Mahrouss sitting slumped on his chair as Banyr asked, Where are the explosives being kept?

Grasping the bottle, Vercelli replied, Some of it’s in the trunk of my Caddy. Then he handed the bottle to Banyr. Wouldn’t that be something, five hundred pounds of explosives in my Caddy, wha’cha think, I have it all downstairs, don’t worry about it, I deliver.

The young Iranian brought the bottle to his lips and let some wine trickle into his mouth, and then he tossed the bottle toward Al-Famy. Of their own volition Vercelli’s dark brown eyes watched the bottle arc over his desk, taking his attention away from Karem Banyr springing out of his chair. Too late Aldo Vercelli felt the pressure of an arm hooking around his neck, the pressure of Banyr’s forearm cutting off his cry for help. A silent scream came out of Vercelli’s eyes when he saw the stiletto coming toward his bloated stomach as Banyr slid his arm up. Then he grunted in shock and pain, as Banyr slid the needle-sharp blade across the belly and then plunged it again to the ivory covered hilt before the Sicilian went limp in Banyr’s arms.

Eat, pig, he said savagely, to shove Vercelli’s face into the plate of spaghetti. He sneered at the gurgling noise coming out of his victim’s mouth, and spat out silently, There is no difference in him, dead or alive. It is better that he died he only used up air belonging to his betters.

Banyr took in his comrades, Al-Famy’s face registering no emotion; Mahrouss’s face had gone pale and the dull eyes filled with uncertainty. He pulled out the stiletto and wiped the blood away on the Sicilian’s shirt. Next, he reached into the drawer, the automatic he lifted out he tossed over to Al-Famy.

In a practiced movement Al-Famy levered a shell into the chamber and wheeled away to slink down a dark aisle after the bodyguard. Coming uncertainly to his feet, Omar Mahrouss heard Banyr whisper, Omar, it had to be done.

I, he responded shakily, I’m in this to the end, Karem. The loud barking of a revolver came from the back of the large room, and Mahrouss turned to bang his shin against a chair. 

Now Al-Famy cried out triumphantly, We have taken command, comrades!

Stepping around the desk, Banyr said, Go out to the car, Omar, and call in the others. He held there until Mahrouss had passed into the back hallway, then Banyr hurried up an aisle lined with storage bins. Al-Famy was waiting for him by a stairwell, a short distance away from the bodyguard’s body. Banyr looked at the dull-gleaming submachine gun held by Al-Famy, who said, Down in the basement there are a few more of these...and all the other armaments. Come. The short stubby weapons were favored by the quick response forces and Swat teams throughout the world.

The lights had been conveniently left on in the basement, a quick check by Banyr revealing that the few windows were covered up. Down here he found more storage bins, realized that the Sicilian was dealing heavily in black-market weaponry. On a table near the stairs rested a black extruded plastic case from which the submachine gun had been taken.

Taking the gun from his comrade, Banyr said, This is the new MP 5 model. For once Vercelli did not lie, a weapon that will suit us fine. At least three of these have the grenade launcher hookups. See if you can find the launchers themselves.

They call it the super gun, grinned Al-Famy. This laser sight, won’t there be damage to the eye...

Retinal damage, said Banyr, would be the least of a person’s worries if he receives a hit from this weapon. However, try not to blind the scum as we kill them, I want them to see the results of their interference. He said passionately as he looked at the large pile of boxes littering the space in the storage-room. There is too much to load into the van. But what we can’t take we’ll destroy.

What about the bodies?

Grimly Banyr intoned, The infidel carrion will be left for the jackals.

They heard Mahrouss call to them from the top of the stairs, and then he came down into the basement trailed by a fourth conspirator. This was Haile Fassad, who had followed them here in his van, and like Mahrouss a Palestinian. But about Fassad was this aura of easy confidence belied by sad almond eyes. As Banyr pointed out what he wanted, the others began carrying these items up to place them in the van being watched over by a willowy brunette named Magda Kony, who looked out of place among the conspirators. She had sunken cheekbones and large olive eyes lightly shaded with green mascara. Magda Kony came from Alexandria, a seaport city located on the Nile’s upper delta. She was studying law at the University of Minnesota, and was a senior. Not a trade for a woman. Banyr had told her this when he had first met Magda.

...61:04...61:03...61:02...

By his watch it was approaching three-thirty, a little over a half-hour since the Sicilian had felt the taste of his stiletto. He went outside to tell Fassad to take the van to the safe house, as they were barely able to close the back doors for the amount of explosives and armaments, but they did manage to lock them securely. Then Banyr returned to the basement while Mahrouss and Al-Famy kept watch out back, Magda having gone with Fassad in the van. Quickly he set about molding the C-4 plastic explosive to some kegs containing palletized boxes of powder and dynamite at a point in the basement he calculated to be directly below the dead Vercelli’s office. He attached an electronic timer, set it to go off in exactly sixty minutes, at which time they would be at the safe house, or at least far enough away to avoid suspicion from the local police.

He hurried out of the basement and began turning lights out as he made his way to the back hallway. It was here Banyr paused to pull out of his shirt pocket an item he’d purchased on the way over to the meeting with Vercelli, a packet of condoms and two chemicals from the all-night drugstore on the street just over from here. An oxidizer (Potassium Permanganate) and Metallic Sodium which, when mixed in the condom with water, would cause a reaction that would blow up the tank of gasoline in the car. Outside, Karem Banyr opened the package and retained one of the condoms, stripping away the covering package. He filled it with the chemicals and then added a little antifreeze from Vercelli’s car in a gelatin capsule. The radiator on Vercelli’s car was a quick source of liquid, not quite water, but it would do. Tying the condom tightly, he would then lower it into the gas tank. If he had timed it right, the antifreeze would eat through the capsule in about twenty or thirty minutes and then the reaction would begin. The energy locked within the gasoline would then signal the end of the Infidel’s car and would signal the authorities. They would come and search the building and... they would die.

Though he could feel the chill of the cold Minnesota night numbing at his fingers and face, Banyr’s chilled thoughts brought him back to those hectic days in a much warmer Palestine and a German mercenary named Hauptmann. From the dangerous German he’d learned the dirty tricks of survival. Now he closed the hood and went back to unscrew the gas tank cap, using a small breaker bar to destroy the lidded protection spring and top out if the tank filler. This took five of the twenty minutes. Carefully he held on to the string tied to the end of the condom and let it down into the tank, beginning his count, knowing that the capsule would start the fire of retribution in a few minutes. He couldn’t be sure when, but at least fifteen more minutes.

Grimly he backed the Monte Carlo out into the alley, and began following the tracks made by the van. As Banyr did so, he glanced at his watch. And then, about ten blocks later, he decided to stop and eased his car to the curbing and keened his ears to his backtrail, as the others were also doing, waiting for the voice of their anger to erupt in the night. 

Less than ten minutes later, Al-Famy cried softly, at the sight of the rising fireball and a couple of seconds later, the impact of the wall of sound accompanying the explosion. There it goes.

That went well.

As it was supposed to, Banyr said calmly.

But there is still much to do.

Karem Banyr nodded back at the others just as a loud booming noise drowned out the car radio. They could still make out a fireball long after the noise abated. He then drove on, smiling inwardly, spelling out in his mind what would happen next. Someone would dial 911. Police and Fire Department units would converge on the bookstore. Once they were inside the store, the real carnage would be caused by the bomb planted in the basement. 

There will be more carrion for the jackals of Allah’s revenge, said Banyr under his breath. 

Sirens blasted closer and closer in the background of Banyr’s thoughts, We must leave now. He pulled away just as the squad car raced by him.

The detective driving the car skidded around the corner in the direction of the flames. Bunco Detective Stan Jepson saw the flames coming from the stricken vehicle as he wheeled into the alley, skidding to a halt in the best tradition of Cobra, or maybe Starsky and Hutch. They got out together, his partner of the moment, Steve Mallory, a Postal Inspector, walking a little ahead with his pistol drawn and eyes scanning the shadows for any danger. The ongoing investigation of Vercelli, the owner of the innocuous building, had so far revealed that he was heavily involved with black-market handguns that were probably being shipped in and out through the mails. It was a known fact that he trafficked in pornography and probably drugs as well. The Post Office wanted Vercelli very badly, but so far conclusive evidence had not been obtained. The stakeout had been going on for months and had finally been called off at the insistence of Lewis Bancroft, the new Inspector-In-Charge of the Minneapolis Region, citing a lack of funding and results, but something that didn’t set well with both the police and the Inspector Corps.

Noticing the back door of the bookstore was open, Mallory said, Shall we wait for backup, or shall we just handle it ourselves?

Hey, that’s Vercelli’s car, maybe he’s still inside. I don’t see anything in the fire that looks like a body.

Mallory turned to the open back door and said, I’m going to check it out.

Yeah go ahead, I’ll wait for Fire Trucks.

Closer came the sound of more sirens as Inspector Steve Mallory moved inside the building. Detective Jepson stopped for a second to give directions and instant information to the firemen pulling up in the alley. Mallory knows better than to go in alone, but he’s too impulsive. Was the last thought that Jepson had before the building exploded in flames and debris, knocking the firemen and Jepson down. The explosion had been so massive, even at this distance, it had almost gotten him. This can’t be a gas line explosion, got to be something else...

FRIDAY

...60:10...60:09...61:08.. .

Clay Rambeck gazed through squinting eyes at the monotonous march of the numerals on the Panasonic clock-radio. Brushing his unruly shock of brown hair from his eyes, it occurred to him he needed a haircut. The IC, Bancroft, wanted nothing more than to chew him out, anyway. He unconsciously felt the scar from an encounter with a badly aimed Claymore mine twenty-four years before. That wound and his NSA experience as a field agent had gotten him the job with the U.S. Postal Service when he left the Kansas City Police Department a few years back. He didn’t mind the scar, hardly even thought about it anymore, besides, now it helped with the ladies when he needed something to break the ice. He thought to himself, Need something. Old warriors never do get that pretty, just older. Wish I looked like VanDamme.

Moments ago, a worrisome premonition had roused him out of a restless sleep. In nearly ten years as a postal inspector and before, when he was a policeman and even as far back as the military, he had experienced eerie feelings of unease many times, but never this strong, this persistent.

The Christmas Rush would be over in three days. A span of seventy-two crazy hours in which many things could go wrong. It was the unexpected that Clay worried about, the things that only seem to happen during the Holidays. From bitter experience he knew this was the season of violence and crime and death. This fact seemed to escape the public, or maybe, it had become too accepted and therefore, ignored.

As if anticipating his worries, the phone jangled, and he brought a groping hand to the bed stand to switch on the lamp Picking up the French provincial phone, he barked, Rambeck?

Inspector, a voice rasped weakly, This is Vercelli.

Look, Mr. Vercelli, I told your lawyer...

Been...knifed, he gasped.

Clay tightened, Where are you?

My store...some students...they got...got bubble gum...they...

Plastic explosives? questioned Clay Rambeck as a loud shocking noise and then a squeal pulsed from the receiver, and then finally the phone went dead.

Quickly he mentally assessed what they had on Aldo Vercelli. From his bookstore, Vercelli had been trafficking in pornographic material, among many other things. The Postal Inspection Service had stepped in when Vercelli began sending this material through the mails. Now it was obvious that Aldo Vercelli had been dealing in arms as well, as the Twin Cities had its share of the criminal element. Pondering over this, Clay broke the connection and began punching the lighted dial.

Postal Inspec...

Ray, he cut in urgently, I just got a wakeup call from Aldo Vercelli. Said he’d been knifed. After you notify the police, get Baker on the horn. I’ll pick him up in fifteen minutes.

Dropping the phone into its cradle as he tossed the covers aside, Clay grimaced at the twinge of discomfort radiating away from his stomach. He had been fighting a case of ulcers for a year and a half; after the Holidays he was scheduled for surgery at Veterans Hospital, if indeed he went through with the operation. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack of Camels, lighted it, to follow its glowing tip into the bathroom, where he fumbled for the light switch. From the medicine cabinet he lifted out a bottle of Riopan and unscrewed the cap. Then he gulped down some of the white-milky liquid while gazing at his reflection in the mirror. He rubbed his eyes for a second, there was that double or triple vision again, sometimes when he looked in the mirror, it seemed as if his reflection was slightly out of focus, like there were a lot more of him looking back. The tunnel like effect went away and then his vision cleared as it always did.

At forty-seven, his rumpled hair was greying at the temples. He was a lithe five-eleven, with the long sinewy muscles of an athlete, which, so far, were not showing his age. He had, in fact, played football for Penn State, a million years ago, as attested to by the small scar cutting across the bridge of his nose. He looked like a cop, had been one in Kansas City before hooking on with the Feds as a postal inspector. He put the bottle back and brushed his teeth before splashing some water on his face instead of taking his usual shower. That and a shave would have to wait. However, thank God for Right Guard. Probably prevents two or three murders a year.

A dozen minutes later he was shrugging into his brown suit coat on his way to the hall closet, automatically feeling for the assault shotgun hanging just inside. That unconscious little duty over, he took down a snap brim hat and the lined overcoat and left his three-room apartment in the Live Oaks Condominium complex. He rode the elevator to the lobby and unthinkingly found the door passing into the connecting garage. He looked around suspiciously, as he entered the garage, a habit retained from years of facing Bad Guys who were trying to get him for one thing or another, and now, in another almost unconscious habit. As he drove his unmarked government car up the exit ramp, Clay’s first thoughts were for the weather.

Just before he swung the Ford out into the street, his headlights picked out something he hadn’t seen in a long-time fluttering onto a tree branch in the park opposite the hotel, and he lowered the side window while slowing.

A raven? Generally, they keep further north. The glittering eye stared right into Clay’s and at first, he shuddered, then a feeling of something alien came over him. He shrugged it off and returned to his first thought.

Inwardly his worry increased as he sped up, staring now past columns of smoke hanging stiff as icicles at a black sky studded with icy chips, while closer to the horizon the Northern Lights shifted in bands of green and pale red like draperies waving in the wind.

In this City of Lakes, as it was called, the wind was a constant factor, and its conspicuous absence for the past few days troubled Clay Rambeck. Four years ago, and just about this time, a storm had hit the Twin Cities—-in the days before there’d been no wind. The Northern Lights had staged this same spectacular aerial display. He hated to think a storm was on the way. But he knew that all of the weather signs pointed to that, even if the TV weathermen didn’t say so. If only that raven could speak.

He followed Central Avenue southward toward downtown St. Paul. In the middle of the fourteen hundred block Clay pulled up before an apartment building, to have a man push outside and hurry up the walkway. When Inspector