His hotel room phone was ringing as Cash McCallister stepped out of the shower. He’d become addicted to scalding hot showers ever since that night he’d gotten soaking wet in that goddamned icy water after he’d blown the first transformer. The weather had turned warmer now, but he just couldn’t seem to shake the winter chill out of his bones. You could take the boy out of Texas, but …
Likewise this goddamned shithole of a town. He just couldn’t seem to shake it. “Yeah?” he growled into the receiver, making absolutely no attempt to disguise his foul temper.
He recognized the voice of his case officer back in Langley and simmered down a bit, intrigued almost despite himself. Very unusual to hear that voice over an open, unencrypted, line, which this was.
“Listen, we need your help up there.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Need you on a security detail. It’s urgent.”
“Security detail! For who?”
“Canadian ambassador. He’s there right now. Wants to meet personally with the union and the company over that strike, get a handle on what’s going on. Pentagon boys are twitchier’n ever over their nickel stockpile. We need you to go with him.”
McCallister rubbed his still-wet hair vigorously with a bath towel. “Huh! Why can’t you just send in the Marines?” The U.S. Marine Corps, he knew, were tasked with protecting U.S. embassies, and their personnel, the world over.
“Can’t. They’re stuck back in Ottawa, minding the store.”
“Uh huh. So whaddaya want me to do?”
“Contact Enders personally, find out his itinerary, and cover his every move when he’s out in public. He’s there right now. Staying at your hotel, actually.”
“Yeah, well it looks like this whole situation is almost over, anyway. Union’s got a new agreement and the voting on it starts any day now. Betting is they’ll go for it. After ten months out on strike, how could they afford not to?”
“Well, Big Tom is there to make sure it’s gonna end ASAP. Go see him, won’t you, and get set to stay close ’til you can put him on a plane back to Ottawa?”
McCallister agreed to the unexpected assignment, and began to liaise with the U.S. ambassador to Canada as ordered. The only place that really concerned either man was the visit to the Union Hall, where Enders was intent on having a private sit-down with the union President and strike leader, Jordan Nelson. Neither man had spent much time inside a Union Hall and neither knew what to expect. From what Cash had observed in his few months here, the strike had become a free-for-all, and the local nickel workforce hereabouts were about as alien, unpredictable and dangerous as the Wild Men of Borneo. The two men agreed to meet again in Enders’ hotel room toward the end of the week.