Free Frozen by Jay Bonansinga Page B

really gotten to Grove on that job.
    Was Grove too sensitive? Was he inordinately touchy about such things? He wondered sometimes if this tenderness was formed at an early age.
    Â 
    Â 
    Ulysses Grove came from a place of clashing cultures, a place of dislocation. Raised in a working-class neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, he was educated in the public schools, and tossed in with the general population who valued conformity over individuality. But it wasn’t easy for young Ulysses to fit in. His Jamaican father, Georges Grove (né Groviere), had become nothing more than a bad memory by the time Grove was born, and Grove’s mother, Vida, was not exactly Carol Brady. She would dress her son in multicolored kitenge tunics and dashikis, and send him to school with tribal adornments. And on the rare occasion that one of Grove’s friends would visit the Grove household, Vida served traditional Kenyan cuisine and instead of providing silverware would make all the kids use the traditional injera —a doughy flat bread the consistency of human flesh—to pick up their food. Grove was teased unmercifully. But Vida was too proud to assimilate, and kept draping her reluctant son in African beads and sweet potato sacks.
    All this cultural angst had much to do with Grove’s estrangement from his mother. Now in her late seventies, the woman still lived alone in the same modest bungalow in Chicago, surrounded by her gourds and beads and tribal charms. But Grove hadn’t seen her in years. He said good-bye to that life in the late 1970s when he left Chicago for the University of Michigan. And as his assimilation deepened—first in the army, and later at the FBI academy—his resentment toward his mother’s stubborn ethnicity only festered. Nowadays he tried to think about it as little as possible.
    Which was why he was currently clicking nervously through the radio presets in his rental car as he cruised south on Highway 3 on his way to Anchorage International.
    All he could find was either shrill country-western music or annoying right-wing talk radio, so he finally turned off the radio and concentrated on driving the Nissan Maxima through the canyons of granite rock-cuts that bordered the outskirts of Anchorage. The spring sun had broken through the clouds a few hours ago, and now the rugged landscape seemed to be thawing before Grove’s eyes. The highway teemed with traffic, and Grove had to squint against the glare in order to see the exit signs.
    A symbol of an airplane loomed on an oncoming sign, and Grove took the next exit ramp.
    Ten minutes later he was pulling into the short-term parking lot adjacent to the terminal. He parked and took the underground walkway into the building. An escalator brought him up into the bustling noise and light of the terminal, and he consulted a piece of notepaper on which he had written Terry Zorn’s flight number and arrival gate.
    Grove found the Texan standing next to a phone booth, a suit bag thrown over his shoulder, his cowboy hat cocked at a jaunty angle on his bald head. Zorn was on the phone, making notes. His eyes lit up when he saw Grove approaching.
    â€œOne second, Tom, hold on,” Zorn said into the phone, then thrust his free hand out at Grove. “There he is!”
    â€œHey, Terry,” Grove said and shook the man’s hand. Zorn’s grip was firm and dry.
    â€œBe right with ya,” Zorn said to Grove, gesturing with a single finger, then he murmured back into the phone, “I understand what you’re saying, Tom, don’t you worry, we’ll get it minty fresh this time.” Zorn laughed then, a conspiratorial sort of chuckle that, for some reason, made Grove look away. “We’re already at the damn airport. All we gotta do is hop a commuter down there. All right? Sound good? We’ll call ya from the scene. So long, Tom.”
    Zorn clicked off his cell phone and turned to Grove. “You