Nantucket Five-Spot, page 26
“Flat on the ground, both of you,” she said. “Now.”
Daly eased himself off me and lay down next to Jack. I scrambled to my feet. I was winded, but I had landed on top of the big FBI agent, which cushioned the fall. I scanned the building. No one was running out here, no shots had been fired. Someone would notice the ruckus in the parking lot.
“Go,” Franny said. “I’ll cover for you.”
“Franny—”
“It’s your island, Hank. Save it. You’re the only one who can. “
I took off. I considered stealing Jack’s SUV for the space of a few steps—the motor was still running. But my chances were better moving overland on foot. Within half an hour, state and local police, FBI and National Guard units would be patrolling every road and street on the island. I had to get under cover fast and formulate a plan. I clambered over the chain link fence beyond the concrete apron and made my way behind the businesses that fronted on Old South Road. I scrambled over fences and clattered through backyards, construction sites and parking lots. I stood listening for a moment or two, catching my breath. No shots, alarms or sirens, so far.
I lurched forward again. I was running hard when I almost fell into a trench Toscana was digging for a new sewer line. I managed to jump it but that slammed me into a dense hedge with a wood barrier on the other side. I grabbed the coarse bushes to regain my balance. There was no way through. I took a few seconds to unlock the handcuffs, threw them into the open trench, and headed for the street.
I was in plain sight then, clothes torn, bleeding from my hands and scalp, panting. I was about as hard to miss as a snapping turtle on a shell driveway, and I wasn’t moving much faster at that point. A couple of cars had already slowed down to get a good look at me. Gossip traveled fast. The police chief was stumbling toward the airport, looking—as my mother-in-law loved to say—“Like he was dragged through a knothole sideways.”
I was about to make a break for the other side of the road when a red Ford 150 pulled over. The driver honked twice and craned his head out the window. Pat Folger.
“Climb in, Chief,” he called out. I sprinted to the truck. When I was inside and he was accelerating into traffic again, he took a good look at me and said, “Christ on a cracker! What the hell happened?”
I was still catching my breath. We slowed down behind a line of cars.
“It’s a bomb, ain’t it?”
We crawled forward.
“Yeah. You’re going to hear that I had something to do with this, that I helped Haden Krakauer escape, but—”
He cut me off with a laugh that turned into a wheeze. “Sorry, Chief. That goddamn cedar’s killing me. But you can’t use the shitty pine they sell any more, so you’re screwed either way.” He grabbed a tissue off the center console and blew his nose. “So what are you asking? Will I buy their bullshit and turn you in? Forget about it. I may look stupid but we know better.”
“How’s Rick doing?” I asked him.
“Good, he’s doing good. He knows antiques. And he got his business sense from me.”
“How about Doug?”
“One day at a time, right? I just wish he’d get off this goddamn island. It’s tough for the kids here, Chief. I’m telling ya. But at least you nailed those Bulgarian shitbags. Every little bit helps.”
We drove through the intersection, and I directed him to turn in at the Shoals parking lot. It was my best solution to the immediate problem of getting off the street. David Trezize would hide me. He had computers and telephones, so I could contact my family and keep up with what was happening. He even had pals on the force. He tried to keep his sources secret, but it was a small town, and he was Barnaby Toll’s godfather.
I climbed out of the truck.
“Thanks, Pat.”
He wagged a finger at me. “Go catch these assholes. That’s what we pay you for.”
Then he backed into a two point turn and took off.
I was lucky. The office was deserted in the late afternoon. But David would be there. He was always there.
The ground floor of the small building held the advertising and circulation departments. There were no presses. The paper was printed off-island. Downstairs, David had converted the basement into a brightly-lit office space with five desks, a microwave, a mini fridge and a two burner electric hot plate. David was on the floor fiddling with the tangle of computer wiring behind one of the desktop monitors when I came down the stairs and knocked on the door.
“Come in, Chief,” he called. “And tell me—why are you suddenly public enemy number one around here?”
I went into the cramped little bathroom and scrubbed the blood off my head, washed my hands and dried off. David was waiting with a mug of coffee when I got out.
“Fresh pot,” he said. “Jamaica Blue Mountain. Chemex. The coffee nerd’s holy grail.”
I took a sip. The coffee was strong but not bitter.
“So tell me the story. It can be off the record. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Small and pudgy, he looked like an alert otter behind his thick glasses. I felt like a fish in a stream, waiting for him to pounce.
“I’ll be happy to talk on the record when this thing is over.”
“And when will that be?”
I looked at the big clock on the wall above the Xerox machine. It was just before four thirty in the afternoon. The concert started at seven. The fireworks were scheduled for eight thirty, to coincide with the William Tell Overture finale.
“Around four hours from now,” I said.
He poured himself a mug of coffee, and swung his arm with it inclusively, as if he was showing me the office for the first time. “Look at this place, Chief. Here I have this amazingly efficient little news organization, single handed, in a place where nothing newsworthy ever happens! And what am I doing? The biggest story I’m following now is this Eastern European prostitution ring. Can you believe that? You know how the girls signify they’re available? They sit at a bar drinking scotch on the rocks or a martini—through a straw. That’s the code. That’s how the johns find them. Little details like that make my life worthwhile. Chief? Hello? Anyone in there?”
I was staring past him seeing that tall blond guy at Cru the night of the first bombing, laughing with some gorgeous blonde, her scotch on the rocks through a straw. That guy was Zeke Beaumont. Another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. Now I knew how he’d found his little hit squad to attack me at the golf course jobsite. The Bulgarians were a full service operation.
I turned back to David. “When this is over I’ll give you an exclusive, David. But I’m running out of time, and right now I don’t have a clue.”
I sat down in front of one of the computers, thinking about Tornovitch and Beaumont. I kept coming back to the military connection.
How would a military assault on the area work? An artillery barrage to cover an amphibian landing. But you’d need a mercenary army for that, not to mention landing craft and some serious air cover. Haden had told me he saw someone selling a rebuilt World War II DUCK on e-Bay. Could these guys have gotten their hands on an Air Force surplus bomber, too?
No, they didn’t have that kind of money. They weren’t pilots. They weren’t mechanics, either. I was way off track. I went back. Something in that aerial train of thought resonated. Beaumont’s behavior at the AIDS benefit had convinced me he was a veteran—that rant about the fireworks, the way they simulated an actual attack.
The fireworks. Was it possible?
I jumped up and pushed into David’s private office. He was hunched over the computer. Behind him, on the poster from The Great Escape, Steve McQueen was still above that second fence, doomed to failure and not giving a shit.
“David.” He looked up. “Have you heard anything about the security arrangements for the fireworks barge?”
“Uh, yeah—they’re letting the locals take care of it. Drummond Brothers are doing the show, like always. The town’s been using them for years. They’ve been in business since the fifties. Old man Drummond served in Patton’s Sixth Armored Division in the Second World War. He was an artillery expert and I guess it felt natural to—oh shit. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I nodded. “That’s why Jack let the NPD handle the security. He thinks we’re incompetent.”
“Jack? Jack Tornovitch?”
I nodded again.
“Okay, what the fuck is happening here?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I bet you could give it to me in three sentences. I can give you Moby Dick in three sentences. Whale bites off ship captain’s leg. Captain goes insane and spends five hundred pages searching for the whale. He finds the whale and it kills him. The end. Three sentences. Look, I’m a newspaperman, Chief. Just give me the lead.”
I took a breath. “Okay. It’s a revenge story, David. Just like Moby Dick. Haden Krakauer killed Jack’s lover—indirectly, maybe. But the girl is still dead. So he’s framing Haden for the bombings. It was all leading up to blowing the Pops concert into the stratosphere, and Haden is on the loose now—perfect to take the blame for the attack. Everyone thinks I helped Haden get away, so I’m right up there on the Wanted poster with him.”
He squinted at me. “Tornovitch can’t be doing this alone. There has to be an accomplice.”
“There’s an accomplice. There’s an Iraq war drug scandal. There’s a military cover up. There’s identity theft, and infidelity, and murder. But I’m out of time to talk.”
“Tell me one thing. Did you actually help Krakauer escape?”
“Hell, no. I want him in jail. He’d be safe in jail. Jack pulled that little trick.”
“He sounds tricky.”
“He is.”
“And he’s winning.”
“So far.”
David took off his glasses rubbed his eyes. “What are we going to do?”
I smiled. “I’m going to stop him. And you’re going to write about it.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’m going home to get my gun.”
“Chief—”
“David, call Miranda. Tell her I’m all right. Tell her not to go to the concert. And tell her to spread the rumor that there’s a bomb at the beach. You too. There’s a couple of hours left. Tell everyone you can. There’s no way to get the word out officially, but we still have gossip on our side. Spread the rumor. And stay away from Jetties Beach tonight. Just in case.”
He shook my hand with an awkward solemnity. I went upstairs and slipped out the back door, across the parking lot, into the pine woods behind Valero’s garden store, and gone.
Chapter Twenty
“… the bombs bursting in air”
I checked the clock on my way out. Six forty-five—I’d been at the Shoals office for more than two hours. How was that possible? I had less than two hours before the fireworks began. I needed a car. I needed a Coast Guard helicopter. And I had nothing.
I thought of David’s Subaru, but I knew the emergency protocols. I had written them myself. With roadblocks at the Rotary and Fairgrounds Road you could close off all access to downtown from the east and south ends of the island, which included the airport and the inner harbor, as well as Squam, Quidnet, Polpis, ’Sconset, Shimmo, Monomoy, Madequecham…virtually the whole island. A single cruiser at the intersection of Cliff Road and Madaket Road would cut off access from the west.
If you were driving.
I was running, through the Naushop subdivision, behind the storage yards at Valero’s and the Emporium parking lot, into the strip of dense undeveloped scrub oak and pitch pine beside the bike path, and finally out between the water company buildings to Milestone Road.
A roadblock had backed up traffic. I had to cross the street, which meant being seen. I crouched in the bushes beyond the bike path. I couldn’t afford to choose my moment. Taking a deep breath I sprinted across the asphalt, dodging between the hood of one pickup and the tail gate of another and breaking for the trees, just ahead of a Yates gas truck heading out of town.
My breath was rasping in my throat as I skirted the wetlands at the edge of the harbor, parallel to Orange Street, behind Our Island Home and Marine Home Center, over railings and walls, through backyards, smelling the ripe marshy perfume of the harbor, scraping my hands on the rough wood of the fences, listening for sirens, the black clock ticking down in my head.
Eventually the shoreline curved away from my route and I veered back toward the street, maybe fifty yards from the duck pond where Union Street hooks its sharp left for the straight run into town.
Traffic was light and I saw no pedestrians. Most people were at the concert by now or eating dinner. I crossed the grassy vacant lot at the corner of Union and started up Orange Street. I walked fast, looking down or turning away when a car came toward me. Running would draw attention. When I passed York Street I expected to see a police car or two parked in front of my house. But there was just a gardener’s truck with its trailer loaded with lawn mowers.
I didn’t get it. Why would Jack leave my house unguarded? I jogged back down the street and ran to Dover Street—the next one over. There was a dark blue state police cruiser parked far up the road, almost all the way to Pleasant Street.
***
I cut between garages, pulled myself over a crumbling retaining wall and crouched in the middle of my neighbor’s wild blackberry patch. I scratched up my hands picking a few while I studied my backyard. The berries were delicious, tart and juicy, and I was hungry. I ate some more. I felt like a character in one of the fairy tales I used to read to my kids, miraculously surviving on nuts and berries in some enchanted forest. But my forest had scraps of toilet paper caught in the privet and beer cans in the bushes.
The yard was empty, the street was quiet. I held my breath, listening. Birds in the trees, a distant radio, leaves rustling in the south wind. Two mopeds grumbling by on Orange Street. Nothing else.
As I pushed through the hedge, a neighborhood dog caught my scent and yelped out the alarm. It turned into a chorus, but no one came charging out of the house. I crossed the yard quickly to the basement entrance, let myself in, and crept up the dark stairs to the door that opened into my kitchen.
I could hear the television faintly from inside. I opened the door a crack. Someone was listening to the NFL network. Where else could you watch the famous 1990 Redskins–49ers NFC playoff game on a summer evening? Whoever got the inside duty was taking it easy. Probably drinking my beer, too. All the better for me.
I eased into the kitchen. Maybe I could time my dash to the bedroom with Montana’s big interception. One step inside and two men jumped me. They grabbed my arms while a third one put a gun to my head. He was young and eager, with the same storm trooper crew cut and heavy leather utility belt as the others.
“We got him, Captain Fraker! We got him!”
“Calm down, son,” I said. “We don’t want any accidents here today.”
“Step away from the chief,” Lonnie said, in his always surprising high-pitched nasal voice. It occurred to me that with a full head of hair and a baritone he could have been running the State Police by now.
The kid backed off.
“Do we take him in, sir? Should I handcuff him?” said the one holding my left arm. He smelled of Thai food and Old Spice cologne.
“Not quite yet. Let him go and stand down.”
“Sir?”
“Just do it, Humphries.”
“Are you going to read him his rights?”
“He knows his rights. Go inside and turn off the television.” He turned back to me. “Those dogs gave you away, Chief. Tough to sneak around a neighborhood with dogs everywhere.”
I massaged my arm where one of the troopers had grabbed me. “Four guys?”
“The order came straight from Tornovitch. Guys everywhere. There’s a Red Alert out for you. Armed and dangerous, mandated use of extreme force. Seems like you’re a regular terrorist now, Chief.”
“You believe that?”
He laughed. “Hell no.”
The kid came back from the living room and set the remote on the counter.
“Hell of a game,” Fraker said. “Too bad they didn’t have instant replay in those days. What a steal. Bad calls are the worst. Like today. The biggest asshole east of the Mississippi informed the whole JTTF that you and Krakauer are trying to blow up the island. You and Krakauer.”
“No one’s going to argue with Jack Tornovitch. If the war on terror goes on long enough, he’ll be running the whole show.”
“Ain’t it always the way. Assholes run everything.”
The clock ticked. A noisy crowd of kids passed the house, heading into town.
“Here’s what I think,” he went on. “You came back for your Glock—come on, why else? You don’t need your cuff links, Chief.”
“So?”
“So I’m betting against the assholes, for once. Go grab your gun.”
“Sir,” the big trooper blurted. “You can’t do this.”
Lonnie’s gun snapped in his hand, and his arm came up fast and precisely calibrated, like one sweep of a windshield wiper set on high. “I’m doing it,” he said. “Step away from Chief Kennis. Now.”
“But sir—that’s insubordination, abetting a fugitive, obstruction of justice—you could lose your job, you could go to jail, and—”
“But only if it’s true, Stallings. Only if it’s true. Set your guns down on the floor. All of you.”
He caught my eye and jerked his head to the left—get going. I sprinted into the bedroom, opened the gun safe in the closet, pulled out the Glock and a spare magazine. I pulled a knapsack from a high shelf and I snagged a change of clothes from the drawers—shirt and socks, pants and a sweater. I was going to be chilled to the bone by the time I finished my night’s work.
