It never occurred to Phil Broker and Nina Pryce -- still recoveringfrom their life-and-death struggle with a demented terrorist -- that a minor school-yard tussle could lead to this.
In the winter backlands of Glacier Falls, Minnesota, nobody knows a thing about the crucial roles Broker and Nina played months earlier in averting an act of terrorism. Nor does anyone know about the damage -- both physical and psychological -- that Nina, especially, suffered as a consequence. This is why they'd moved here in the first place: for anonymity, calm, and therestorative powers of a remote landscape. Also for the chance, maybe, to become a family again. Broker tells himself that if they just keep a low profile, stay out of trouble, and tend to their wounds, everything will work out fine.
But it doesn't take much to set off an avalanche, and one is triggered for them when a school-yard bully picks a fight with the wrong third-grade girl: Phil and Nina's daughter, Kit. She humiliates Teddy Klumpe, and so too Klumpe's parents, by giving him a bloody nose -- and thereby puts the Broker household in the crosshairs of a vengeful local clan notorious for violenceand criminal behavior.
Suddenly little things start happening -- a flat tire, footprints in the snow, garbage spilled across the driveway. Did Broker leave the door unlocked? Or was somebody in the house when he and Kit were out cross-country skiing?
Broker copes as best as he can -- monitoring Nina's mood swings, running interference for Kit at school, and keeping a wary eye out for whoever's engaging in the small-time guerrilla warfare, which grows increasingly malevolent. When his daughter's kitten disappears, though, he begins to fear for his family's safety. But Glacier Falls' tiny police force is already stretched too thin, battling the scourge of methamphetaminethat has extended even to this rural outpost.
That's when the ghosts of Broker's past begin reappearing -- question is, to haunt or to help? The good news is that Harry Griffin, whom Broker served with in Vietnam thirty years earlier, advises him on how to deal with the locals -- and so an old friendship is reaffirmed.
But the bad news is really, really bad. An ex-con named Gator Bodine (another Klumpe relative) discovers Broker's role, long ago, in an undercover drug sting that resulted in the death of a mobster's son. Seeking advantage in his own criminal endeavors, he gives Broker up to the mobster, who dispatches a hit man to confirm that Gator's info is accurate -- and, if it is, toexact vengeance on Broker and his family.
Homefront
By Chuck LoganHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Chuck Logan
All right reserved.ISBN: 0060570202Chapter One
It was another March surprise. Yesterday the kids were playing inlong sleeves and tennis shoes. Then the storm moved in last night,riding on serious cold that knocked everyone's weather clock for aloop. Now there was a foot of fresh snow on the ground. The airtemperature stuck on 18 degrees Fahrenheit, but the windchillshivered it down to 11. School policy put the kids out in the snow ifthe thermometer topped zero. Ten-thirty in the morning at GlacierElementary. Recess.
The new kid was a snotty showoff, and it was really starting to bugTeddy Klumpe. Especially the way a lot of third-graders hadgathered on the playground to watch her.
Just like yesterday, when she was doing skips on the monkeybars. Not just swinging, flying almost. And everyone big-eyed,checking her out, like wow. See that? Three-bar skip. Excepttoday it so was so cold -- ha -- that her gloves slipped on the icybars and she dropped off, the heels of her boots skidded in thesnow, and she fell on her skinny rear end. But then she got upand studied the stretch of steel bars over her head; studied themso hard these wrinkles scrunched up her forehead. Slowly, as herbreath jetted in crisp white clouds, she removed her gloves.
Boy, was that dumb. It was just too cold ...
But it didn't stop her. She mounted the wooden platform andcarefully placed her gloves on the snowy planks. She blew a coupletimes on her bare hands, took a stance, gauged the distance,bent her knees, swung her arms back, and sprung. Parka, snow pants, bulky boots. Didn't matter. Smoothly, she caught the thirdbar out.
Yuk. The thought of his bare skin touching that frozen steelmade him wince. Along with the fact he was too heavy to propelhimself hand over hand. But when she dropped back to theground. Then he'd show her. Skinny, red-haired, freckle-facedlittle bitch.
The Klumpe kid was almost nine. Naturally powerful for hisage, he packed an extra ten pounds of junk-food blubber in asumo-like tire around his gut and his wide PlayStation 2 butt.Biggest kid in the third grade. Most feared kid. Knew the mostswear words. King of the playground.
Screw her.
Teddy scouted the immediate area.
Mrs. Etherby, the nearest recess monitor, was watching thekids sliding down the hill on plastic sleds. The other monitor wason the far side of the playground, where some fourth-graderswere building a snow fort.
Ten of Teddy's classmates were standing over by the slide nextto the monkey bars, making a winter rainbow of fleece red capsand blue and yellow Land's End parkas against the oatmeal sky.All of them curiously watching Teddy and the new kid. Theyshould be watching him take his snowboard down the hill. Andrepairing the bump jump when he smashed it apart. Instead,they were watching to see what he would do.
The new kid swung from the last bar, landed lightly on herfeet on the far wooden platform, and blew on her chappedhands. Teddy eyed the gloves she'd left on the opposite end. Asshe leaped up and grabbed the bars for the return trip, Teddywalked over casually, snatched up her gloves, and stuffed them inhis jacket pocket.
"Hey!" the kid yelled, swinging hand over hand.
Teddy ignored her and kept walking, around the back of asmall equipment shed near the tire swings.
"Hey," she said again, dropping to the snow and trotting afterhim. "Those are my gloves." Her breath made an energetic white puff in the air. Two brooding vertical creases started between hereyebrows and shot up her broad forehead.
Teddy angled his face away from her but let his eyes roll to theedge of his sockets. Kinda like his dad did when he was gettingready to get really mad. He took a few more steps, drawing herfarther behind the shed, out of sight from eyes on the playground.Then he spun.
"Liar," he said.
She balled her cold hands at her sides and narrowed hergreen eyes. The creases deeper now, pulling her face tight."Thief," she said in a trembling voice.
Teddy saw the tension rattle on her face, turning it red. Heheard the tremor in her voice. Little bitch is scared. Encouraged,he surged forward and pushed her chest hard with both hands.She went down on her butt in the snow. Then he yanked hergloves from his pocket and tossed them up on the roof of theshed, where they stayed put in a foot of snow.
"Yuk," Teddy wiped his own gloves on the front of his jacket."Now I got girl cooties all over me."
She was starting to get up, working to hold back tears."Now you're gonna cry. More girl cooties," Teddy said with agrin.
"No, I ain't," she said in a trembling voice as she drew hard,pulling the tears back inside her eyes. She pushed up off thesnow.
"Crybaby girl cooties," Teddy taunted, and he rammed herwith his shoulder and hip. Ha. Hockey check. She went downagain.
"Leave me alone," she said in the shaky voice. "I mean it,that's two." This time she was up faster, bouncing kinda . . .
Two? Teddy laughed and shoved her again. "Loser," hetaunted. It was one of his dad's favorite words. Then he blinked,surprised because this time she surged against him, kinda strongfor a girl, and kept her footing. Doing this dance thing on theballs of her feet.
"That's three," she said, still moving away from him but her small fists swinging up; tight, compact miniature hammers. Redwith cold.
"Oh, yeah?" Teddy sneered, opening his arms, palms out,elbows cocked to shove her again. As he charged forward, herealized she wasn't moving away anymore.
Continues...Excerpted from Homefrontby Chuck Logan Copyright © 2005 by Chuck Logan. Excerpted by permission.
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