Takedown, page 28
Hess knew the words. He understood the meaning. He also understood that he had just spoken the same words in English while complaining to God on his boat. Jesus had had the same complaint just before He died. And after the complaint, He was resurrected into a new life… just as now he was being resurrected into a new life. As the vision continued he heard another word he understood.
“Shadahd,” yelled a voice next to him. No, not next to him… his own voice. The vision faded. He felt different… new… energized. God had given him a new gift—a new power to continue as never before. He jumped to his feet and looked toward the harbor a few miles away. He stretched and breathed deeply, then laughed heartily. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so loud. He was now excited to continue his mission. He quickly found his field scope and clamped it to his transom mount.
The shock of having seen his face on network news was gone. The ensuing panic that had torn through his mind after hearing his life history lied about and misrepresented by past neighbors and clients had miraculously subsided. Anger, fear, and hate had been replaced by a determination and strength that could only come from one place. What more confirmation did he need that he was doing God’s holy work?
From the middle of Long Island Sound, Hess peered through his field scope. Boats were filling historic Hempstead Harbor for the fireworks show scheduled for that evening. Senator Bruce Sweeney would be speaking in a half hour. The authorities certainly had their hands full. Their job was virtually impossible: allow everyone to enjoy their constitutional right to celebrate the Fourth of July while keeping an eye open for a terrorist that might be anywhere and capable of doing the unexpected.
Hess imagined every harbor to be on the same high alert, but he was surprised at the number of patrol boats and even a helicopter overhead. He could remember how just days earlier he’d been tentative before derailing the train. Now he was fearless… in fact, excited at the prospect. So excited he could hardly contain himself, as if he were his own newest toy.
Working quickly, he readied his scuba gear and kept it convenient for escape. He then found a baseball cap, put it on backward, and slid on a large pair of dark sunglasses. So much for a disguise. He now looked like half the other people tooling around in their boats. He even had fireworks. The only difference between his and theirs was that his were bigger… and way more fun.
Moments later he was cruising full throttle into the harbor.
Gavin lowered the marine binoculars and rubbed his tired eyes as he and Chris motored slowly through Hempstead Harbor in— what else?—a Chris-Craft. It was a white twenty-footer that, according to Chris, he used mostly for… well, boating, whatever that was. Gavin was not a boat enthusiast. In fact, he didn’t like boats. And he especially didn’t like being on them. The last time he’d been on a boat, two and a half years ago, was the most memorable and stressful hour in his life. But none of that mattered. Not today. Not as long as Amy and his little baby girl, Violet Lynn, named after Gavin’s grandmother, were both safe in the hospital… resting finally.
“Anything?” Chris said.
“He’ll be here. I know I would.”
“You mean, Sweeney?”
“Can you think of anyone you’d rather shoot with a fifty BMG?”
“No comment. And besides, he’d need an antitank missile to get through the steel podium he’s standing behind.”
Gavin nodded and said, “That’s what bothers me. He’s planned everything else down to the smallest detail, and by my scorecard, the only two mistakes he’s made were the pack of cigarettes and underestimating the captain of the Sachacus’ ability to think on his feet. I figure Hess knows everything we do and has figured an out-of-the-box solution for it.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong.”
Gavin pointed as he saw the Millennium, another jet ferry similar to the Sachacus, leave the dock. “They check the hull of this one?”
Chris snorted. “As a matter of fact, they checked the hulls of every ferry within fifty miles of here and who knows where else? And they also instituted random route changes between destinations.”
Gavin heard a loud explosion and turned quickly toward it.
“Another M-eighty,” Chris said. “How will we ever know which one is really the Barrett rifle?”
“Sweeny will let us know,” Gavin said, glassing an ocean racer headed toward the peninsula where Sweeney was. He picked up the radio and notified the harbor patrol, which had already been notified by the helicopter.
Chris shook his head. “Somehow, I doubt Hess will come blazing in here with an ocean racer after his face has been plastered on every screen and this place is crawling with police and Feds. If I was him, I’d drift in with the high tide while sitting back with a beer and a fishing line tied around my big toe.”
“A line around your big toe?” Gavin said, still glassing boats and people at a distance as Chris looked at the closer ones.
“Yeah. This way you know if you got one if you fall asleep. Didn’t you ever read Huck Finn?”
“Hmm… what happens to Huck Finn’s big toe when a bluefish grabs the line?”
“They don’t have bluefish in the Mississippi.”
“Uh-huh. Let me know the next time you go fishing.” Gavin saw the harbor patrol quickly corral the ocean racer once the boat passed the “No Wake” buoy near the peninsula. Around the other side of the peninsula was a two-mile stretch of mirror-calm water coveted by water skiers at high tide and clam diggers at low tide. Beyond that was the Roslyn Viaduct and Hess’s storage container. Hess had not returned to the container and at this point probably never would.
The Millennium exited the harbor to the thrill of Jet-Skis and Wave Runners. Gavin figured Chris wanted a piece of the wake also. A ride with Vinny Randone would cure him of that, Gavin mused, flashing back to when the crazy man had helped him chase down Krogan the last time. The thought brought him to Amy and Violet. In fact, every thought was bringing him to Amy and Violet. He wanted to be with them right now. It occurred to him he didn’t even have a picture. He needed to get—
“Look,” Chris said, slapping Gavin on the arm.
“Where?”
“There.” Chris pointed to a small cabin boat that had passed the no-wake line without slowing down.
Gavin was instantly there in his binoculars. He could see two harbor patrol boats leaving the ocean racer. The cabin boat still wasn’t slowing but was actually veering toward the patrol at what appeared to be full tilt. Not an action that they were expecting from the stealthy Hess, but to Gavin, eerily reminiscent of another scene he remembered all too well.
“Go!” Gavin said, lowering the glasses.
“Us?”
The surprise in Chris’s face and tone was justified. They were supposed to slowly nudge around as one of a growing number of spectators and simply look for Hess, who was expected to do the same thing, and be in a position to assist if needed in their assigned area.
“Yes, us… now… go!”
“But what if—”
“It’s him, Chris… I saw him,” Gavin lied, knowing what he had to say to get Chris to act.
The Chris-Craft responded with authority. Chris had told him many a time about its powerful engine, but Gavin had never paid attention. Whatever, he couldn’t dispute the thing was fast, and in moments, Gavin was digging for his sunglasses to keep his eyes from tearing up.
“Goes pretty good, doesn’t it?” Chris yelled proudly.
“Very nice,” Gavin replied, acting unimpressed.
“I love this boat. Turns on a dime, too.”
“That’s great.”
“You should come out more. Bring Amy and Violet. I’ll let you take the helm.”
“Good idea.”
“Or now that you have some money, you should get one, too.”
“Look!” Gavin pointed. The cabin boat, heading dead on to the larger harbor patrol vessels, had managed to juke and outmaneuver one patrol boat while rounding the peninsula near the power plant. The helicopter flew over Gavin’s head on a straight course to the disturbance but would have to respect the high-tension wires to avoid being zapped like a bug on a blue insect light.
Maybe that was the plan, Gavin briefly thought. Get the helicopter to fly into the wires and crash itself and a tower onto Sweeny and his rally crowd. Not very Hesslike, though. Too much left to chance. No way. Keep thinking.
Moments later the Chris-Craft was rounding the peninsula. The first thing Gavin noticed was that the harbor patrol boats had backed off the chase. The tide was coming in, but it was still too low for the larger boats. The helicopter had smartly steered clear of the power lines and was flying two or three hundred feet over the cabin boat, which was following the channel markers.
“He’s still speaking,” Gavin yelled, noticing all the cars still in the parking lot at Bar Beach.
“Sweeney?” Chris yelled back as he blew past the harbor patrol boats with an acknowledging wave.
“Yeah,” Gavin said, then picked up the radio and called the ground ops, informing them the confirmation was high on Hess driving the small cabin boat toward Roslyn, and that they’d better get Sweeney wrapped up. They promptly informed him the senator had no intention of stepping away from the podium, and the plan was now to contain and capture at a safe distance from the senator. And not to shoot unless being shot at. The guy in the boat, who had not been identified except at high speed with binoculars, was at the moment a suspect, nothing more.
“He thinks he’s going to seize the moment,” Gavin said.
Chris nodded and yelled back, “He’s got to prove he’s the man. What’s he gonna do, run away because a powerboat cruises by and keeps going? With all the Feds, secret service, and police around him on the land and sea, he’s in good hands… and what could be better for him than for Hess to finally be nailed with Sweeney standing right there, pointing the finger. Votes, baby, votes. Besides, how’s he gonna fire that fifty BMG from the water while being chased?”
“What’s he doing?” Gavin said as the cabin boat veered right and beyond the channel buoys toward the tall swamp grass and muck. Within seconds the white boat was sliding on the shiny-wet surface, carving a shallow hull-shaped groove until it came to rest in the tall grass.
Chris cursed. “I hope you don’t think I’m bringing my boat in there?”
Gavin frowned. Containment didn’t seem to be a problem. The boat was grounded and would stay that way for at least the next couple of hours, until the tide was high enough to float it out. Capture, in the meantime, was less certain. Most of the boat wasn’t visible through the grass.
The good news for the moment was that there was no clear shot from the boat to the podium over a half mile away through the tall grass. The road beyond the shoreline was lined with police and federal vehicles. The harbor patrol had sealed off the channel from behind, and in the distance Gavin could see more flashing lights on the viaduct. There didn’t appear to be a way out for Hess, but there also didn’t appear to be any easy way in. Anyone trying to get through to him on the muck would sink in and be easy targets. Two more helicopters had arrived, but with the threat of the Barrett rifle, they were also keeping a cautious distance.
Chris had slowed and was approaching the spot where the cabin boat had turned out of the deeper channel, which would soon be deep enough for the harbor patrol to creep in. The radio crackled with a helicopter sighting of a gun barrel sticking out the front window of the cabin.
Chris looked at Gavin. “What’s this guy think he’s going to do… shoot at someone he can’t even see, a half mile away, through grass?”
“Maybe he just wants to let us know to stay away,” Gavin said as he pocketed his sunglasses and picked up the binoculars. As he adjusted for the closer distance, blades of grass came into focus, and just beyond that the front of the boat, and then, yes, the rifle barrel, as reported by the helicopter. But what the copter didn’t report, apparently because of its elevated view, was that the barrel was angled upward.
“Big Dog, tell them the barrel is angled up. He’s looking to shoot a bird,” Gavin said as he followed the angle of the gun to see what it was pointing at. Nothing. The gun was pointed far above the political rally and under the helicopters. Gavin considered that if Hess shot the gun at that angle, he’d hit nothing until Connecticut. He lowered the binoculars and rubbed his eyes.
Chris radioed Gavin’s message and then asked if Senator Sweeny was still speaking. He put the radio down and said to Gavin, “The good senator is loving this. Like I said… votes, baby, votes.”
Gavin looked at Chris. “Volts!”
“Votes… I said. Not volts. What sense does—”
Gavin wasn’t listening as he fumbled to get the binoculars back to his eyes. He turned and focused on the high-voltage power lines coming from the Long Island Power Authority plant. He lowered his view to the podium where Sweeny was speaking. “Get him out of there, Chris. Get them all out of there. He’s aiming for the power lines,” Gavin yelled.
Chris screamed into the radio while Gavin followed the deadly wire with the glasses until he came to the stanchion. Then he saw it. The insulator. Not an easy shot from a half mile, but definitely doable, given the time needed to aim a Barrett rifle. Given the time.
“Rev this thing up, Big Dog… and get us over there,” Gavin yelled.
“Are you crazy?”
“He’s not going to shoot us. He’s got bigger fish to fry… literally.”
“But my—”
“So it’ll get a little dirty. Go!”
Chris cursed as he threw the throttle forward, made a small circle, and went through the buoys. The shallow path the cabin boat had carved out had filled in with water. The Chris-Craft was faster and lighter and—
A deafening blast was followed by a flash flame that lit up the front of the cabin boat. Gavin turned to see an explosion where the insulator had been. The huge tension wire dropped but then caught, sparks gushing from it like a Roman candle. The wire was shaking, but apparently, the hit wasn’t direct.
“He’s gonna take another shot,” Gavin yelled. “Keep the throttle pinned.”
“We’ll hit him!” Chris shouted.
“I know,” Gavin yelled, then motioned to Chris and jumped overboard.
He heard Chris scream, “My boat!” just before he hit the slimy muck at about forty miles an hour. As he skimmed across the top of the slippery black clay, the Chris-Craft stayed on course and crashed into the cabin boat. Gavin continued his slide through tall grass as if on ice, and then splashed into another water channel—a vein not large enough for a boat but deep enough to have to swim to keep from drowning. A second later, Chris, completely black, shot off the top of the muck and landed right next to him in the drink. Gavin grabbed him.
“Chris?” he said, trying to keep Chris’s head above water. “You okay?”
Chris was gasping, his eyes white, the entire rest of him caked black. “I hate you,” was all Gavin heard before another explosion sent both him and Chris under the water, swimming for their lives. When they resurfaced, the two boats, some hundred feet away, were in flames and small debris was falling from the sky around them.
Gavin started swimming toward the flames and Chris followed. The channel led to within a few yards of the boat and kept going behind the grass. The heat of the flames kept him back. Nothing could have survived the explosion, but maybe nothing had to, he thought, seeing tracks in the muck leading to the water.
“You owe me a boat,” Chris muttered.
“Don’t be ridiculous… you’re a hero. You saved Sweeney and his rally.”
“Hess?”
Gavin jerked his chin toward the tracks.
By the time they climbed their way out and were picked up by a harbor cop in a small boat that looked borrowed, the tide was substantially up, the flames were out, and Gavin had agreed to buy Chris a new Chris-Craft. And though a search was under way, Hess was still missing.
46
One month later
I’ll be at the house,” Gavin called into the kitchen, then took his hot cup of morning java and newspaper and stepped out the front door of his new home—the old Johnson place that used to be next door. A short walk took him to his old home, where he found a small patio table and chair on the front lawn, in the midst of a major construction project, mostly paid for by his reluctant homeowner’s insurance company.
He walked around an orange plastic construction fence that surrounded a huge hole, twenty feet deep, filled with eight-foot-diameter precast concrete septic rings. This would become a dry-well for the leaders and foundation drainage for the water that had plagued him in years past. If he was going to do it, he was going to do it right, especially now that he had a little money, compliments of the WWX. Taxes had taken almost half, and his newly acquired residence took most of the rest, but he would owe nothing to a bank, and his old house would bring in rent, which would help nicely with the new expenses that came with parenthood. And Amy could be the mother she was capable of being… a new job she loved.
Gavin sat down at the round table, arranged himself comfortably, and took a shallow slurp of his hot coffee. “Mmmm.” Without the sound, there was not as much taste. Nothing like the first half of the first cup. He opened his paper, just as he had been doing every day for the last month. Today was Saturday and the framers— not Chris and him, thank goodness—were off and the place was quiet. He felt for the alert device under his shirt, and of course, the necklace was still on him. Just checking. “Giant Asteroid Just Misses Moon,” was the news heading that first caught his eye. It was nice to see normal headlines again. The article went on to describe what would happen to the earth if the moon were suddenly gone. Nothing was mentioned about the increase of arrests and births that occur during a full moon. He wondered for a moment if—
Gavin’s attention was grabbed by the sound of a truck coming down the block. The first thing he noticed was that it wasn’t a cement truck… but it was a carting truck with a Dumpster on the back. He couldn’t think of anyone doing construction in the immediate neighborhood besides himself, and he already had a Dumpster that wasn’t even half full. He set the paper down and stared at the truck, which was going faster than it should on a residential block. He strained to see into the windshield, but the glare of the sun made it impossible to see the driver. Just then, the throttle let up and the truck began to break for the corner. He watched it come to a stop, then turn and drive away.
“Shadahd,” yelled a voice next to him. No, not next to him… his own voice. The vision faded. He felt different… new… energized. God had given him a new gift—a new power to continue as never before. He jumped to his feet and looked toward the harbor a few miles away. He stretched and breathed deeply, then laughed heartily. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so loud. He was now excited to continue his mission. He quickly found his field scope and clamped it to his transom mount.
The shock of having seen his face on network news was gone. The ensuing panic that had torn through his mind after hearing his life history lied about and misrepresented by past neighbors and clients had miraculously subsided. Anger, fear, and hate had been replaced by a determination and strength that could only come from one place. What more confirmation did he need that he was doing God’s holy work?
From the middle of Long Island Sound, Hess peered through his field scope. Boats were filling historic Hempstead Harbor for the fireworks show scheduled for that evening. Senator Bruce Sweeney would be speaking in a half hour. The authorities certainly had their hands full. Their job was virtually impossible: allow everyone to enjoy their constitutional right to celebrate the Fourth of July while keeping an eye open for a terrorist that might be anywhere and capable of doing the unexpected.
Hess imagined every harbor to be on the same high alert, but he was surprised at the number of patrol boats and even a helicopter overhead. He could remember how just days earlier he’d been tentative before derailing the train. Now he was fearless… in fact, excited at the prospect. So excited he could hardly contain himself, as if he were his own newest toy.
Working quickly, he readied his scuba gear and kept it convenient for escape. He then found a baseball cap, put it on backward, and slid on a large pair of dark sunglasses. So much for a disguise. He now looked like half the other people tooling around in their boats. He even had fireworks. The only difference between his and theirs was that his were bigger… and way more fun.
Moments later he was cruising full throttle into the harbor.
Gavin lowered the marine binoculars and rubbed his tired eyes as he and Chris motored slowly through Hempstead Harbor in— what else?—a Chris-Craft. It was a white twenty-footer that, according to Chris, he used mostly for… well, boating, whatever that was. Gavin was not a boat enthusiast. In fact, he didn’t like boats. And he especially didn’t like being on them. The last time he’d been on a boat, two and a half years ago, was the most memorable and stressful hour in his life. But none of that mattered. Not today. Not as long as Amy and his little baby girl, Violet Lynn, named after Gavin’s grandmother, were both safe in the hospital… resting finally.
“Anything?” Chris said.
“He’ll be here. I know I would.”
“You mean, Sweeney?”
“Can you think of anyone you’d rather shoot with a fifty BMG?”
“No comment. And besides, he’d need an antitank missile to get through the steel podium he’s standing behind.”
Gavin nodded and said, “That’s what bothers me. He’s planned everything else down to the smallest detail, and by my scorecard, the only two mistakes he’s made were the pack of cigarettes and underestimating the captain of the Sachacus’ ability to think on his feet. I figure Hess knows everything we do and has figured an out-of-the-box solution for it.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong.”
Gavin pointed as he saw the Millennium, another jet ferry similar to the Sachacus, leave the dock. “They check the hull of this one?”
Chris snorted. “As a matter of fact, they checked the hulls of every ferry within fifty miles of here and who knows where else? And they also instituted random route changes between destinations.”
Gavin heard a loud explosion and turned quickly toward it.
“Another M-eighty,” Chris said. “How will we ever know which one is really the Barrett rifle?”
“Sweeny will let us know,” Gavin said, glassing an ocean racer headed toward the peninsula where Sweeney was. He picked up the radio and notified the harbor patrol, which had already been notified by the helicopter.
Chris shook his head. “Somehow, I doubt Hess will come blazing in here with an ocean racer after his face has been plastered on every screen and this place is crawling with police and Feds. If I was him, I’d drift in with the high tide while sitting back with a beer and a fishing line tied around my big toe.”
“A line around your big toe?” Gavin said, still glassing boats and people at a distance as Chris looked at the closer ones.
“Yeah. This way you know if you got one if you fall asleep. Didn’t you ever read Huck Finn?”
“Hmm… what happens to Huck Finn’s big toe when a bluefish grabs the line?”
“They don’t have bluefish in the Mississippi.”
“Uh-huh. Let me know the next time you go fishing.” Gavin saw the harbor patrol quickly corral the ocean racer once the boat passed the “No Wake” buoy near the peninsula. Around the other side of the peninsula was a two-mile stretch of mirror-calm water coveted by water skiers at high tide and clam diggers at low tide. Beyond that was the Roslyn Viaduct and Hess’s storage container. Hess had not returned to the container and at this point probably never would.
The Millennium exited the harbor to the thrill of Jet-Skis and Wave Runners. Gavin figured Chris wanted a piece of the wake also. A ride with Vinny Randone would cure him of that, Gavin mused, flashing back to when the crazy man had helped him chase down Krogan the last time. The thought brought him to Amy and Violet. In fact, every thought was bringing him to Amy and Violet. He wanted to be with them right now. It occurred to him he didn’t even have a picture. He needed to get—
“Look,” Chris said, slapping Gavin on the arm.
“Where?”
“There.” Chris pointed to a small cabin boat that had passed the no-wake line without slowing down.
Gavin was instantly there in his binoculars. He could see two harbor patrol boats leaving the ocean racer. The cabin boat still wasn’t slowing but was actually veering toward the patrol at what appeared to be full tilt. Not an action that they were expecting from the stealthy Hess, but to Gavin, eerily reminiscent of another scene he remembered all too well.
“Go!” Gavin said, lowering the glasses.
“Us?”
The surprise in Chris’s face and tone was justified. They were supposed to slowly nudge around as one of a growing number of spectators and simply look for Hess, who was expected to do the same thing, and be in a position to assist if needed in their assigned area.
“Yes, us… now… go!”
“But what if—”
“It’s him, Chris… I saw him,” Gavin lied, knowing what he had to say to get Chris to act.
The Chris-Craft responded with authority. Chris had told him many a time about its powerful engine, but Gavin had never paid attention. Whatever, he couldn’t dispute the thing was fast, and in moments, Gavin was digging for his sunglasses to keep his eyes from tearing up.
“Goes pretty good, doesn’t it?” Chris yelled proudly.
“Very nice,” Gavin replied, acting unimpressed.
“I love this boat. Turns on a dime, too.”
“That’s great.”
“You should come out more. Bring Amy and Violet. I’ll let you take the helm.”
“Good idea.”
“Or now that you have some money, you should get one, too.”
“Look!” Gavin pointed. The cabin boat, heading dead on to the larger harbor patrol vessels, had managed to juke and outmaneuver one patrol boat while rounding the peninsula near the power plant. The helicopter flew over Gavin’s head on a straight course to the disturbance but would have to respect the high-tension wires to avoid being zapped like a bug on a blue insect light.
Maybe that was the plan, Gavin briefly thought. Get the helicopter to fly into the wires and crash itself and a tower onto Sweeny and his rally crowd. Not very Hesslike, though. Too much left to chance. No way. Keep thinking.
Moments later the Chris-Craft was rounding the peninsula. The first thing Gavin noticed was that the harbor patrol boats had backed off the chase. The tide was coming in, but it was still too low for the larger boats. The helicopter had smartly steered clear of the power lines and was flying two or three hundred feet over the cabin boat, which was following the channel markers.
“He’s still speaking,” Gavin yelled, noticing all the cars still in the parking lot at Bar Beach.
“Sweeney?” Chris yelled back as he blew past the harbor patrol boats with an acknowledging wave.
“Yeah,” Gavin said, then picked up the radio and called the ground ops, informing them the confirmation was high on Hess driving the small cabin boat toward Roslyn, and that they’d better get Sweeney wrapped up. They promptly informed him the senator had no intention of stepping away from the podium, and the plan was now to contain and capture at a safe distance from the senator. And not to shoot unless being shot at. The guy in the boat, who had not been identified except at high speed with binoculars, was at the moment a suspect, nothing more.
“He thinks he’s going to seize the moment,” Gavin said.
Chris nodded and yelled back, “He’s got to prove he’s the man. What’s he gonna do, run away because a powerboat cruises by and keeps going? With all the Feds, secret service, and police around him on the land and sea, he’s in good hands… and what could be better for him than for Hess to finally be nailed with Sweeney standing right there, pointing the finger. Votes, baby, votes. Besides, how’s he gonna fire that fifty BMG from the water while being chased?”
“What’s he doing?” Gavin said as the cabin boat veered right and beyond the channel buoys toward the tall swamp grass and muck. Within seconds the white boat was sliding on the shiny-wet surface, carving a shallow hull-shaped groove until it came to rest in the tall grass.
Chris cursed. “I hope you don’t think I’m bringing my boat in there?”
Gavin frowned. Containment didn’t seem to be a problem. The boat was grounded and would stay that way for at least the next couple of hours, until the tide was high enough to float it out. Capture, in the meantime, was less certain. Most of the boat wasn’t visible through the grass.
The good news for the moment was that there was no clear shot from the boat to the podium over a half mile away through the tall grass. The road beyond the shoreline was lined with police and federal vehicles. The harbor patrol had sealed off the channel from behind, and in the distance Gavin could see more flashing lights on the viaduct. There didn’t appear to be a way out for Hess, but there also didn’t appear to be any easy way in. Anyone trying to get through to him on the muck would sink in and be easy targets. Two more helicopters had arrived, but with the threat of the Barrett rifle, they were also keeping a cautious distance.
Chris had slowed and was approaching the spot where the cabin boat had turned out of the deeper channel, which would soon be deep enough for the harbor patrol to creep in. The radio crackled with a helicopter sighting of a gun barrel sticking out the front window of the cabin.
Chris looked at Gavin. “What’s this guy think he’s going to do… shoot at someone he can’t even see, a half mile away, through grass?”
“Maybe he just wants to let us know to stay away,” Gavin said as he pocketed his sunglasses and picked up the binoculars. As he adjusted for the closer distance, blades of grass came into focus, and just beyond that the front of the boat, and then, yes, the rifle barrel, as reported by the helicopter. But what the copter didn’t report, apparently because of its elevated view, was that the barrel was angled upward.
“Big Dog, tell them the barrel is angled up. He’s looking to shoot a bird,” Gavin said as he followed the angle of the gun to see what it was pointing at. Nothing. The gun was pointed far above the political rally and under the helicopters. Gavin considered that if Hess shot the gun at that angle, he’d hit nothing until Connecticut. He lowered the binoculars and rubbed his eyes.
Chris radioed Gavin’s message and then asked if Senator Sweeny was still speaking. He put the radio down and said to Gavin, “The good senator is loving this. Like I said… votes, baby, votes.”
Gavin looked at Chris. “Volts!”
“Votes… I said. Not volts. What sense does—”
Gavin wasn’t listening as he fumbled to get the binoculars back to his eyes. He turned and focused on the high-voltage power lines coming from the Long Island Power Authority plant. He lowered his view to the podium where Sweeny was speaking. “Get him out of there, Chris. Get them all out of there. He’s aiming for the power lines,” Gavin yelled.
Chris screamed into the radio while Gavin followed the deadly wire with the glasses until he came to the stanchion. Then he saw it. The insulator. Not an easy shot from a half mile, but definitely doable, given the time needed to aim a Barrett rifle. Given the time.
“Rev this thing up, Big Dog… and get us over there,” Gavin yelled.
“Are you crazy?”
“He’s not going to shoot us. He’s got bigger fish to fry… literally.”
“But my—”
“So it’ll get a little dirty. Go!”
Chris cursed as he threw the throttle forward, made a small circle, and went through the buoys. The shallow path the cabin boat had carved out had filled in with water. The Chris-Craft was faster and lighter and—
A deafening blast was followed by a flash flame that lit up the front of the cabin boat. Gavin turned to see an explosion where the insulator had been. The huge tension wire dropped but then caught, sparks gushing from it like a Roman candle. The wire was shaking, but apparently, the hit wasn’t direct.
“He’s gonna take another shot,” Gavin yelled. “Keep the throttle pinned.”
“We’ll hit him!” Chris shouted.
“I know,” Gavin yelled, then motioned to Chris and jumped overboard.
He heard Chris scream, “My boat!” just before he hit the slimy muck at about forty miles an hour. As he skimmed across the top of the slippery black clay, the Chris-Craft stayed on course and crashed into the cabin boat. Gavin continued his slide through tall grass as if on ice, and then splashed into another water channel—a vein not large enough for a boat but deep enough to have to swim to keep from drowning. A second later, Chris, completely black, shot off the top of the muck and landed right next to him in the drink. Gavin grabbed him.
“Chris?” he said, trying to keep Chris’s head above water. “You okay?”
Chris was gasping, his eyes white, the entire rest of him caked black. “I hate you,” was all Gavin heard before another explosion sent both him and Chris under the water, swimming for their lives. When they resurfaced, the two boats, some hundred feet away, were in flames and small debris was falling from the sky around them.
Gavin started swimming toward the flames and Chris followed. The channel led to within a few yards of the boat and kept going behind the grass. The heat of the flames kept him back. Nothing could have survived the explosion, but maybe nothing had to, he thought, seeing tracks in the muck leading to the water.
“You owe me a boat,” Chris muttered.
“Don’t be ridiculous… you’re a hero. You saved Sweeney and his rally.”
“Hess?”
Gavin jerked his chin toward the tracks.
By the time they climbed their way out and were picked up by a harbor cop in a small boat that looked borrowed, the tide was substantially up, the flames were out, and Gavin had agreed to buy Chris a new Chris-Craft. And though a search was under way, Hess was still missing.
46
One month later
I’ll be at the house,” Gavin called into the kitchen, then took his hot cup of morning java and newspaper and stepped out the front door of his new home—the old Johnson place that used to be next door. A short walk took him to his old home, where he found a small patio table and chair on the front lawn, in the midst of a major construction project, mostly paid for by his reluctant homeowner’s insurance company.
He walked around an orange plastic construction fence that surrounded a huge hole, twenty feet deep, filled with eight-foot-diameter precast concrete septic rings. This would become a dry-well for the leaders and foundation drainage for the water that had plagued him in years past. If he was going to do it, he was going to do it right, especially now that he had a little money, compliments of the WWX. Taxes had taken almost half, and his newly acquired residence took most of the rest, but he would owe nothing to a bank, and his old house would bring in rent, which would help nicely with the new expenses that came with parenthood. And Amy could be the mother she was capable of being… a new job she loved.
Gavin sat down at the round table, arranged himself comfortably, and took a shallow slurp of his hot coffee. “Mmmm.” Without the sound, there was not as much taste. Nothing like the first half of the first cup. He opened his paper, just as he had been doing every day for the last month. Today was Saturday and the framers— not Chris and him, thank goodness—were off and the place was quiet. He felt for the alert device under his shirt, and of course, the necklace was still on him. Just checking. “Giant Asteroid Just Misses Moon,” was the news heading that first caught his eye. It was nice to see normal headlines again. The article went on to describe what would happen to the earth if the moon were suddenly gone. Nothing was mentioned about the increase of arrests and births that occur during a full moon. He wondered for a moment if—
Gavin’s attention was grabbed by the sound of a truck coming down the block. The first thing he noticed was that it wasn’t a cement truck… but it was a carting truck with a Dumpster on the back. He couldn’t think of anyone doing construction in the immediate neighborhood besides himself, and he already had a Dumpster that wasn’t even half full. He set the paper down and stared at the truck, which was going faster than it should on a residential block. He strained to see into the windshield, but the glare of the sun made it impossible to see the driver. Just then, the throttle let up and the truck began to break for the corner. He watched it come to a stop, then turn and drive away.
