Courier - Sample Chapters

“Nope.”

“Well, then you’ll have to do both runs. Come on up.”

Rick hung up the phone. “Sorry, we’ll have to resume your inevitable defeat later.”

Larry laughed. “Bullshit. It’s been weeks and we’re still dead even.”

“I’m just taking it easy on you. Make you feel like you’re all safe and secure and then… blam. You’ll have more holes in you than the point man in a snuffie jungle stroll.”

“Yeah, like the Marines didn’t have to save your sorry GI butts about once a week.” Larry was the only other Vietnam veteran in the building, and even though they didn’t talk about their war, they quickly dropped into the familiar joshing banter.

They walked together to the center hall, and when Larry turned left to his post at the back door, Rick headed right. He opened the rear door, crossed a narrow alley that lead to the courtyard where the courier bikes were kept for the night, and continued into the next building.

The ABN bureau took up the bottom floors of two buildings back-to-back and stretched all the way across the block between 18th Street and Connecticut Avenue.

This side was the old news bureau, built when ABN had just begun, running a distant third to the other two networks. Rick walked through a dusty studio with outmoded equipment and an equally antique control room with a picture window that looked out onto Connecticut Avenue.

More to the point, people on Connecticut Avenue could look in. Rick supposed that it might be entertaining to watch the news being produced, but he knew that the sunlight made it difficult to see the monitors, so the directors usually closed the curtains. That and they