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  Copyright Information

  Night Road: A Novel of Supsense © 2016 by Brendan DuBois.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2016

  E-book ISBN: 9780738747255

  Book format by Teresa Pojar

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Cover Illustration by Dominick Finelle/The July Group

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (pending)

  ISBN: 9780738747255

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

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  Midnight Ink

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to extend his thanks and appreciation to his fantastic editor, Terri Bischoff, as well as Beth Hanson, Teresa Pojar, and other members of the Midnight Ink publishing team. Thanks, too, to my wife and first reader Mona Pinette, as well to my friends and relatives in my state’s true North Country.

  This novel is dedicated to my brother Stephen,

  who knows and traverses many night roads indeed.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. There is no Washington County in New Hampshire, nor is there a town called Turner. There is no resemblance between any characters or locales in this book and the good people and towns of New Hampshire’s North Country.

  partial summary transcript

  Daily Threat Assessment Task Force Teleconference Call

  April 10th

  Homeland Security representative: “… could you repeat that again, Jerry?”

  CIA representative: “Yeah, our counterparts in Canada report—”

  State Department representative: “Canada has counterparts? Who knew.”

  [[Laughter]]

  FBI representative: “Some fucking diplomat you are. Go on, Jerry.”

  CIA: “Like I said, our friends in the Security Intelligence Services up north received a tip-off that there was a shipping container coming in at the St. Lawrence Seaway that might be of potential interest. Said to be identified as a Mextel Lines container, off-loaded from an Algerian-registered vessel.”

  FBI: “Potential interest like smuggling maple syrup to avoid duty fees, or something more explosive?”

  CIA: “The latter. They got intel via cellphone intercepts and the usual chatter. Thing is, they located the shipping container. Next day, they went back to tag it so they could track it … it was gone.”

  [[Cross-talk]]

  FBI: What now?”

  [[Cross-talk]]

  Homeland Security: “… we’ll take the lead in notifying the appropriate authorities, once Jerry can get us a better description of that shipping container and what might be in it.”

  FBI: “That’s it?”

  State Department: “What else, then?”

  FBI: “Christ, if the Canadians think this is a threat, once we get an ID on what the damn thing looks like, let’s go public. Let the people know. Do it that way, we’ll get the damn thing in twenty-four hours.”

  [[Cross-talk]]

  CIA: “Plus letting our jihadist friends know about the SIS’s techniques. No, I like the low-key approach. It’ll work better.”

  FBI: [[Expletive deleted]] “Thought our job was to protect civilians, no matter what.”

  Homeland Security: “One would think that, wouldn’t one.”

  one

  Forty-five miles south of the Canadian border, Andre Ouellette checked the hip holster underneath his leather coat to make sure it was in place. His driver, Pierre Bisson, maneuvered their black Lexus into the dirt parking lot of the Flight Deck Bar & Grill in Turner, New Hampshire. His piece, a Sig Sauer 9mm P226 with a 15-shot extended magazine, was where it belonged. Good. It had been a long drive from west of Montreal. When they left this crappy joint later tonight, the guy they were meeting was either going to roll over and present his ass up for a good reaming, or was going to get his brains blown out.

  The guy’s choice. Andre was just here to deliver the message and get it done, one way or the other.

  Pierre put the Lexus in park, switched off the engine. The place looked like somebody’s creaky one-story wood frame house that had two or three additions tacked on, satellite dishes on top, with motorcycles, pickup trucks, and a couple of shitbox cars with rusted out fenders and bumpers parked in two rows. Pierre draped his beefy arms over the steering wheel. “My uncle, he was in the biker wars, ten years back, you remember? When the Hells Angels tried to take over our territory in Quebec? Was ex-Army, expert in demolitions, rolled a couple of homemade bombs into a clubhouse and a motor home, took out a couple of the Hells Angels. Told me he was just helping ’em go to where they belonged, that being hell.”

  Andre said, “Were they IEDs?”

  “The fuck is an IED?” Pierre asked.

  “Improvised explosive device,” Andre patiently explained.

  Pierre snorted. “Shit, weren’t nothin’ improvised about them, like I said, he was an expert. Thing is, I’m looking at this shitbox and wish my uncle was here. We could toss a couple of loads into the windows, take care of business without any bullshit talk going back and forth. Be back home before you know it.”

  Andre reached for the door handle. “Too much of a bang, Pierre. Don’t want to bring outside attention to what we’re involved with.”

  Pierre opened his door first. “Hell, look at the dump. Pretty much could blame anything blowing up on the propane tanks back there.”

  Andre stepped out onto the dirt lot, stretched his back, felt the pleasure as muscles popped back there. About the only joy he had experienced in the long dull drive south through the farmlands in Quebec, through the main border crossing in Derby Line, Vermont, and now over here to New Hampshire. Pierre ambled over, a large fellow whose arms were so long he could almost scratch his kneecaps without bending over. But he was also a fast shot when you needed your ass covered. He and Pierre were dressed alike: black sneakers, clean blue jeans, and short black leather coats. But there the resemblance ended. For the past five or six years, Andre kept his head bald—no fag Rogaine or drugs rubbed in his scalp once his hair retreated north�
��while Pierre had a permanent five o’clock shadow and had a thick unibrow running across his sloping forehead.

  Andre went up wide wooden steps and checked his Tag Heuer watch. Five p.m. Windows were on either side of the pub’s front door. A handwritten sign, black marker on cardboard, said: NO COLORS WORN INSIDE. Beside him Pierre said, “We’re an hour late. Think it’s going to make a difference?”

  “Going to do something,” Andre said. “You remember the set?”

  “Yeah,” Pierre said. “You tug at your right ear, first clear opportunity, I cap the guy.”

  “Yeah, but this time make sure I’m far enough away. Last time my sneakers got splattered, had to buy a new pair. You know how hard it is to get sneaks in my size, my feet being so damn wide.”

  Once Pierre opened the door and they walked in, Andre gave the place a quick scan. It was another dreary roadhouse joint, like so many he had been in before. It was like there was some central distribution center that dumped places like this up and down rural roads and forgotten intersections throughout this part of the world: bar in the back, short-order cook working to the side, two pool tables with rectangular lampshades hanging over them, three hi-def televisions suspended from the wall showing a Red Sox game, a NASCAR race, and a golf game. The men and women inside gave them a look as he and Pierre walked in. Photos and prints of warplanes and ships hung on the cheap paneled walls.

  The guys were all of a type, too. Dirty jeans or green work chinos, sweatshirts, a couple of fellows playing pool and wearing colors despite the warning sign outside: cut-off jean vests with big emblems on the back showing a mountain peak with the letters W.C.M.C. underneath. One squirrelly-looking guy, better dressed than the others, was sitting in the corner, reading a newspaper. The girls had jeans on as well, some of them rough looking, most with tattoos on their arms or tits. Andre remembered when girls with tats got his rocks going. Now he liked going to the pubs outside of McGill University, where sweet tight young things enjoyed being with older guys who knew their way around and didn’t put up with any bullshit. Maybe Andre didn’t know the latest American Idol star but he knew how to spend money and make pretty college girls feel special, especially when they got the extra thrill of being around somebody dangerous.

  He and Pierre went up to the bar and sat down on round cushioned stools. Before they could order a beer, one of the scraggly guys wearing colors and carrying a pool cue came up to Andre, his beard down mid-chest on his Harley Davidson T-shirt.

  “You’re late,” he said, his brown hair long. “Plus, I don’t like your look.”

  “Can’t do anything about the time,” Andre said, swiveling around on the stool. “And my look is the way it is. Are you Duncan?”

  The biker shook his head, pointed his pool cue to the guy reading the newspaper in the corner. “There’s Duncan,” he said. “Go on over.”

  Pierre gave Andre a look, and Andre shrugged. Slid off the stool and went to the corner of the bar, Pierre pacing him. The guy in the corner seemed to be in his late thirties, with a folded-over newspaper in his left hand, his right hand holding a fork. A half-eaten salad was in front of him. He was bulky about his shoulders but he had a funny little smile, like being here was one big joke. He had on a tight-knit blue sweater and his black hair was cut short. Reading glasses were perched at the end of his prominent nose. Andre scoped him out, thought he really didn’t need Pierre to put this little fuck down, but Pierre was a good driver. Andre hated driving long distances, except when he was on his bike, but it was still too damn early in the season for long hauls on his Harley.

  Andre sat down without an invite, and so did Pierre. The guy said, “You two gentlemen are from the Iron Steeds. I’m Duncan Crowley. And you are …?”

  Andre just stared at Duncan. This was going to be easy. He kept on with the look and said. “I’m Andre. This is Pierre. This is how it’s going to be. We’re gonna come to—”

  Duncan speared a little cherry tomato, popped it in his mouth. “Must have been a long drive from Montreal. Need something to drink? Nice selection of drafts on tap, not much of a menu, but before he got hooked on smack, Tony in the kitchen used to—”

  Andre scraped his chair closer to the table. “Don’t need a drink, don’t need a fucking cheeseburger. This is how it’s going to be. You got a nice little deal here in these north woods. Some weed. Some loan-sharking. Little cross-border smuggling. But you got something big stirring up in our neck of the woods, coming through our turf. You haven’t shown us the proper consideration. So you’re going to have to pay us a toll.”

  “A toll,” Duncan repeated.

  “That’s right. A tribute. A levy. Call it what you want.”

  Duncan considered that for a moment, put his fork down. “Just to make sure I got this straight: the whole border up here, that’s your turf, anything to do with Quebec. So if I was moving stuff through Ontario, maybe go through upstate New York, you guys would be fine with that?”

  “Not going through Ontario, are you? You’re going through Iron Steeds turf.”

  “Once it used it to be Hells Angels turf.”

  “Long fucking time ago. Had a little war before your time to straighten things out. Wars are like that, you know? Give peace all the fucking chance you want, war tends to settle things permanently.”

  Duncan picked up his fork, stirred the lettuce around on his plate. “Funny thing, I thought our meet was going to be at four p.m. My watch is a bit off but it looks like you’re an hour late. What, a long line getting through Customs? Moose get in your way? Lord knows, I’ve seen moose wander on the road some mornings or nights, they’re hard to pass and—”

  Andre interrupted, “You not hearing what I’m saying? I’m saying, we don’t give a shit when you’re crossing cigarettes or Labatt Blue over the border, but this is different. We don’t know what you got, but it’s worth something. Even got the Canadian Security Intelligence Service sniffing around.”

  “Really?” the man asked, surprise in his voice. “I’m impressed that you found that out.”

  “Yeah, well, motorcycles don’t have boundaries, right? So the deal is, you pay a toll—ten percent of your load’s value, once we inspect it and figure out its worth—plus a couple of our guys go along as security. Paid details.”

  That seemed to get Duncan’s attention. “Security? Really? Will be they as nicely dressed as you two, or will they be in Iron Steeds colors, riding hogs, long hair streaming out, ‘Born to Lose’ tattoos across their chests? That your idea of security?”

  Pierre shifted his weight, causing the chair to creak. Andre said, “Not your worry. Your worry is, we come out of here with an agreement in the next five minutes, or there’s going to be some serious shit trouble.”

  Duncan took his glasses off, rubbed at his long nose. “Like Marlon Brando, hunh? Making me an offer I can’t refuse?”

  “The fuck you talking about?”

  “Marlon Brando. The Godfather. Good book, great movie. Making me an offer I can’t refuse.”

  “Yeah, sure, what the fuck ever. I’m making you an offer you can’t refuse. So what’s it going to be?”

  Duncan put his glasses back on and said, “Ask you a question first?”

  Andre felt his hands tingle. He wanted to throttle the little bastard, all this dancing around. He said, “Sure, yeah, ask me a question.”

  “Just how the hell did you fine gentlemen find out about my connection with this particular matter? Was it through the Security Services from your fine country? I find that very concerning.”

  Andre said, “The fuck this is, an interview? Look. We’re done talking. All right? We come to an agreement right now or we’ll take it another step further. You, your friends, your family. You think you can go through our turf and not show us the proper respect? Do you?”

  It was like an overhead light bulb had just flickered. Something seemed to shadow
Duncan’s face. Just for the barest moment, Andre wondered what was going on behind that odd man’s steady gaze. But a smile quickly returned and he said, “I understand. Proper respect. You’ve made your point. Several times, in fact. But I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. That shipment is of tremendous value for me. The only people accompanying it are going to be people I trust with my life. Not members of a Quebec biker gang.”

  “I didn’t come all the way from Montreal to be disappointed,” Andre said, glancing at his watch. “Looks like your five minutes are up, sport.”

  Duncan removed his glasses again. “What do you say we go outside and wrap this up.”

  Andre nodded firmly. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  As he got up Pierre looked over, and Andre tugged his right ear. Enough was fucking enough. He was tired of sparring, tired of wasting his time. A waitress came over, dropped a check on the table. She was plump, in a long black skirt and white blouse, black hair, and she spoke strange, like she had a mouth full of marbles. “Here you go, Duncan.”

  “Thanks, Tiffany,” Duncan said. “I’ll take care of it when I get back. Do me a favor, wrap my salad up, all right?”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, picking up the plate. She turned and Duncan said, “Sweet kid. She’s deaf. But she can read lips just fine.”

  Pierre laughed. “Bet she can do other things with those pretty lips.”

  Again, that little flicker across Duncan’s face. He joined Pierre and they went through the bar, out to the main door. Andre made sure that Duncan went first, followed by Pierre and then himself. He couldn’t tell what came next because something slammed into the back of his head.

  Cold water was thrown at his face and Andre coughed, choked, and shook his head. The rear of his head ached and his nose burned, like some chemical had been pressed up against him, ether or something. His mouth was stuffed with a rag. His wrists hurt. He flicked his eyes open, looked around. His wrists hurt because they were stretched overhead. He peered up, saw a length of chain going from his wrists to an eyebolt set in a wooden beam. The rest of the room was small, with cement floor, cement walls, a couple of storage lockers and a sink. In front of him was Duncan, who held an empty plastic pail in his hand. He was now dressed in white paper pants, jacket, and little blue booties over his shoes. His hands were also covered with bright yellow rubber gloves.