Chapter 2 — Dan

Dan Slater quickly crouched down in the brush, trying to suppress his rapid breathing, listening attentively for the enemy. The stench of rotting vegetation competed with the stench of his long unwashed body. He could hear movement around him, but there was always movement in the jungle. The trick was to filter out the random background noise and concentrate on repeating patterns, like the sound of footsteps as the Viet Cong bastards tried to track him down.

Rain began to fall, filling Dan’s ears with white noise, soaking his already damp uniform, nourishing the jungle rot that slowly devoured his flesh. He hunkered down lower, the uniform chafing tender skin. He would never hear Charlie sneaking up on him in a rainstorm. He just had to hope his camouflage was good enough to keep him out of a sniper’s gun sight.

Then he heard a noise off in the distance. It was definitely a man-made sound, a high-pitched wailing. He stood up and began to run through his father’s cornfield, jumping over the bodies of dead children who had been blasted apart by M-16 rifles. He had to get to the family shelter before the tornado hit. The siren screamed at him with increasing urgency. He could feel the wind picking up. Sand and debris began to pelt his face. Black clouds blotted out the sun like the smoke from a nearby napalm strike. Dismembered arms and legs began to fall from the sky, splattering him with gore. He needed to run faster. He needed to run smarter. He needed to get up and turn off his fucking alarm clock.

Detective Dan Slater lay in sweat-soaked sheets, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the alarm clock. If he could ignore it for a full minute, the freaking thing would stop on its own.

Dan slowly wandered into the bathroom. As he sat on the toilet, he calculated how long before he was forced to retire. Today it was three years and forty-five days.

He had no hobbies and no real friends. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to die, but without the job he would have no real reason to keep struggling through life. Three years and forty-five days left to live. He learned in the Army that it was important to plan, and found it comforting to know the exact day he was going to die.

Dan was thirty minutes late getting to work. His banged-up desk seemed like a giant toad squatting on his grave. He found a note waiting for him when he sat down. The new captain wanted to see him.

Captain Barr was a young guy with high ambitions. He was trying to impress the city council with his uncompromising management style. He dressed for success, spoke forcefully, and brooked no dissent. Unfortunately for those around him, his sweat smelled like cat piss when he got anxious—and he was frequently anxious.

Dan had partnered with him once or twice before Barr’s promotion to Captain and thought he was a slimy, backstabbing, glory-grabbing asshole. He had commented once, a little too loudly perhaps, that if he saw Barr lying in a ditch on fire he wouldn’t even stop and piss on him to put out the flames.

Dan dragged himself up and walked to the corner office, knowing it was too much to hope that the captain was on fire. When he entered the room, he noticed that the chairs facing the desk had been replaced with a shorter, smaller, less comfortable model. Looking around he also saw that Captain Barr’s desk had been raised; there were blocks of wood under the legs to make it higher. Barr still looked to be at the correct height relative to the desk, which was interesting because he was not a tall man. Dan wondered if the captain’s feet could touch the floor with his chair jacked up like that.

Captain Barr didn’t pull any punches in these one-on-one meetings. He prided himself on being straight forward with his subordinates. Today was no exception. “Dan, I’ll just come right out and say it. I am not at all happy with your work. You seem to think that you can just coast the last couple of years until retirement. Let me assure you that you’re not going to coast in my department.”

“Captain Jones didn’t seem to have any issues with my work ethic,” said Dan, the small chair squeaking as he sat down without an invitation.

“I am not Captain Jones. He may have let you just sit around and do other people’s paperwork, but in my department, every man does their own. I don’t care how much paperwork you file, or how many reports you fill out, or how many pots of coffee you make. If you’re not out there making our streets safe, then you are nothing but a worthless worn-out old fart taking up a desk that could go to someone more deserving. Do you understand me, Detective?”

Dan understood him but could really care less what the little turd thought. “Yes, sir.”

“We are all aware of the work you did on the soccer-mom kidnapping last year, and that you were disappointed with the final outcome. Get over it, already! You were hot-dogging outside of channels and weren’t even in our jurisdiction when you found her. We had crime going on right here in our town while you were off playing hero with your fishing buddy. You should have been here in Milford keeping our streets safe instead of butting heads with the federal government. If it were up to me, you would have been disciplined instead of getting a pat on the back.”

Dan knew that the captain wasn’t really worried about keeping the streets safe; what he was worried about was keeping his men highly visible to the city council. If the Feds hadn’t suppressed the news stories about the kidnapping and rescue, Barr would probably be kissing his ass instead of chewing on it.

The dressing-down went on for another ten minutes, but Dan just let the captain’s words slide past his ears, occasionally grunting consent when the captain’s expression indicated that a response was required. The captain had Dan thinking about Kim Ammar, the kidnapping victim. Considering how severely she was abused, Kim would likely carry emotional scars for the rest of her life. She probably woke up in sweat-soaked sheets sometimes, just like he did.