Hitting the Fan
Thomas and I sat on that boat for a long time, rocking hard in the storm. He sat with his back against the hull, staring off into nothing. I felt bad for him. It was a lot to keep inside for twenty years, and the truth was, he was just a simple guy who hadn’t asked to be put in the middle of this mess. Come to think of it, neither had I. Outside, the wind howled and waves crashed over the deck.
“Caleb tell you to come out here to the boat?” I finally asked him.
“Yeah. He said a cop was asking about me. He figured it was something about the Stone murder. You been asking a lot of questions. A lot of new faces out here the last couple of days asking about you, too.”
“Is that right?”
“You should have let it be, Mr. Walker.”
“And let Earl Stone be the next President of the United States? Not on my watch.”
“He couldn’t have done what you said. He’s not like that.”
“I read Casey’s diary, Thomas. He’s exactly like that. And he killed Anne.”
“Why? Why would he kill her? It was an accident…”
“We’ll let the FBI ask him that one. Where’s Caleb?”
“I don’t know. He took the dinghy back to the dock. Told me to stay put out here until he came back.”
A crack of lightning lit up the sky outside, and the rain started harder again, this time so intense it made the bilge pumps kick on. The rolling roar of thunder that followed sounded like a B-52 strike.
“Thomas, the storm is getting worse. We should move this boat back to the dock and get off it.”
“Caleb said to stay put.”
“Thomas, you have to help me move the boat. I don’t know shit about boats. You hear me?”
There was another crack of lightning followed by what sounded like artillery. I stood and pulled him to his feet, but the boat was rocking so bad that I had to use the walls to hold us up. We staggered together through the galley, and half crawled up the stairs to the rear deck. When I opened the door, it was like stepping out into Hell. The waves were breaking over the rail, and the rain was coming down in sheets. When the lightning lit up the sky and we could see the storm waves, it was so terrifying that I preferred the dark. We’ve all heard that expression, ‘the roar of the ocean’. Now I truly knew the meaning, and I was petrified.
“Come on, Thomas! We gotta move!” I was screaming as loud as I could, and I could barely hear my own voice over the wind.
We stumbled over the deck to the wheelhouse, barely keeping our feet, and closed the door behind us. We were both soaked to the skin.
“Turn the engine on, Thomas! How do I pull up the anchor?”
Thomas bobbled across the room to the controls and pressed the button for the engine. He was so calm that it helped me maintain my composure. He was either the world’s bravest sailor or just that drunk. I could hear the powerful diesel kick in and said a quiet ‘thank you’ to God Almighty.
Thomas flicked another switch and told me the anchor was being winched up. I tried to look out, but all I could see were waves crashing over the bow in the lightning flashes. I remembered why I hadn’t joined the navy.
Drunk as he was, Thomas did okay in the captain’s chair. When the anchor was up, the boat immediately started moving in the current, but Thomas cut the wheel, gunned the engines and headed back to the dock. He stood, holding the wheel with his game-face on, all business. He hit a few other buttons and powerful spotlights kicked on overhead, aiming ahead of us as we chugged through the waves. The boat might not have been fancy, but it was just what anyone would want in this kind of weather.
We were back at the dock within minutes, and I ran topside to cast a line at the piling once we pulled alongside. Thomas came out and threw the rubber bumpers over the side, then helped me tie us off. For a drunk old-timer, he was impressive. Guess he could do this in his sleep. When he was satisfied that we were finished, he turned off the lights and cut the engine.
“Now what?” he asked.
Excellent question. I thought for less than a second, standing in the roaring wind and rain. “My house. Come with me.”
Back on the dock, and I again thanked God. If I’d had more time, I would have gotten down and kissed the wooden planks of that dock. I grabbed Thomas by the shoulder and we ran through the rain to my car. It felt like the wind might just pick us up and carry us away, which might be the safer option.
It was my turn to operate heavy machinery while almost totally blind. The storm was relentless. When we slid into my driveway, I pulled off my rain slicker and checked Ice, taking him off safety. Thomas’ face showed his surprise at the shotgun.
“Just stay behind me, Thomas. Seriously. Behind me, okay?”
“Your girlfriend here?”
“No, I told you. She’s pissed at me.”
He nodded, and we jogged up the walk to my front door, Ice leading the way. It was still locked, and the twig was still place in the door jamb. I breathed a sigh of relief at the twig, opened the door and we stepped inside.
“Jesus Christ!” said Thomas as he looked at my wrecked house. “She really was pissed!”
I realized he meant Amanda and smiled. “Wasn’t her.”
He could drive a boat wasted, but his stream of logic was questionable at best.
“Stone’s guys were here, looking for something.”
We walked carefully through the house, and once I was satisfied that we were alone, I pushed the safety on and slid Ice around to my back again. I went into the kitchen and saw the machine blinking. It was almost midnight. Amanda would have been home long before now.
I smiled and reached for the machine and hit play.
“Cory!” she was crying, hard to understand. “Cory!”
A man’s voice cut her off. “Mr. Walker, you have something we want. We have your girlfriend. A little trade is in order. You bring us that book and we give you Amanda. Call her cell phone and make the arrangements for the trade. You call anyone else and we’ll know. And I’ll mail you your girlfriend in ten different packages. Call the cell phone now!”
My breath had left my body and I thought my heart was going to come through my chest. A wave of nausea rolled through me. Thomas was standing in the kitchen next to me, stunned.
“They got your girl?” he said, almost to himself.
I could feel the room spinning. I thought I had seen it all, but that threw me off balance. My mind was racing with questions, trying to be rational and fight off the feeling of panic. I never played defense, only offense. There was no way I’d let these guys call all the shots, but shit! They had Amanda.
The phone rang. It showed Amanda’s cell phone. They must have been watching the house. I picked it up.
“Mr. Walker, you didn’t call. Don’t you want this pretty girl back in one piece, or did you want me to start cutting her up and Fed-Exing her to you in little boxes?”
“You fucking touch her and I’ll kill you.”
“No time for macho bullshit, Walker. You have Casey Stone’s diary. No one else is ever going to see it. You understand me? No one. Ever. You are going to drive to Cape Lookout now and bring that diary to the lighthouse in a waterproof plastic bag. We’ll see you. We’ll come get it. And if you’re smart, you won’t fuck around. You deliver the book, and we’ll tell you where to find Amanda.”
They must have done something to her at that moment because she started screaming in the background.
“No! You bring Amanda to the beach. We swap right there, otherwise I’ll have every news network on the planet asking Earl Stone questions he don’t wanna answer! You hear me?”
There was a hesitation on their end, probably a few guys working it out.
“We’ll bring the girl. You be on the beach at midnight or you’ll never see this pretty girl in one piece again.”
The line went dead.
I raced down to the basement, Ice in front of me, safety off again. The diary was where I’d left it. Thomas saw it an
d looked at me.
“That’s where it says things about Mr. Stone?”
I ran past him. “Thomas. Go home.”
“You’re gonna need help out there, Mr. Walker. You don’t think they’re just gonna trade and let you go, do ya?”
I hadn’t really gotten that far yet. “Thomas, go home before you get killed.”
I grabbed a box of custom-load shells for Ice and my old K-Bar combat knife from one of the strewn boxes on the basement floor.
“Do you even know where the beach is he was talking about?”
“Yeah, I do. By the lighthouse. I can be there in two minutes.”
“Uh-huh. Then what?”
I really didn’t know. I was being stupid to think they’d just let us go. I needed to calm down and get my head out of my ass. Damn it. I hated not being able to control my situation—think!
I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled through to Special Agent George Bauman’s number and hit send. To my relief and surprise, he picked it up.
“They’ve got Amanda! They’ve kidnapped my girlfriend! They want to swap her for the diary. I have to meet them in ten minutes!”
“We can’t be there that fast. We’re at least forty-five minutes to an hour away. We’re already on our way to you.”
I was confused. “You said you were coming down tomorrow?” I blurted out.
“That was before we started checking on your story and found out that Arthur McDade was killed tonight. His hunting buddies found him beaten and murdered.”
“Jesus, they got to him, too? I just talked to him tonight.”
“We can’t get a chopper up in this weather, Mr. Walker. We’ll be there before one a.m. but not much before. You’re going to have to stall them as long as you can. I have to advise you… If you meet these people with that diary, they’re not going to just give you Amanda and just let you leave. You both know too much.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“I’m afraid the local police may not be your best bet, either. Stall them. That’s all I can tell you. What do you look like? I have night vision with me.”
“Look for the pissed-off looking motherfucker with the Mossberg lighting up Harkers Island. Cape Lookout. I gotta’ go.”
I saw my old boonie-hat lying in a pile of clothes on the floor and slapped it on my head. When I turned around, I realized Thomas was gone. It was just as well. No sense in both of us getting killed.
I grabbed my old sidearm out of my duffle bag and way too much ammunition. I retrieved the diary and ran upstairs, the shells jammed into my pockets making them look so fat that I looked ridiculous. Fuck it. I wasn’t going down without a serious fight.
I grabbed a plastic bag from the kitchen, wrapped up the book and shoved it into my waistband in the small of my back. Ice was strapped on, ready to rock and roll. I ran out to my car, threw it in drive and tore up my lawn as I roared away down the dark, deserted street.
It was miserable out. Full-on hurricane. Good. Maybe they didn’t have night vision either, and we’d be up close and personal in the dark. That was nothing new to me and Ice. In fact, it was just how we liked it.
Chapter Forty-One
Combat
I slowed down and killed my lights as I approached the east end of the island. The east end of Harkers is mostly federal land and completely undeveloped, except for the lighthouse, the little duck museum and a few old buildings.
I pulled over by some trees, got out and started jogging through the dune grass toward the lighthouse. In the ominous night, the beam of the lighthouse was the only thing visible. A hundred years ago, that beam had represented safety and hope for sailors in a dark storm. I was praying it would mean the same thing for us.
Slowly, I started moving—controlling my breathing and using every nerve ending in my body to feel danger. I moved and stopped, moved and stopped, picking my way through the dune grass toward the lighthouse. When I got closer to the actual beach, I spotted a narrow beam from a flashlight.
Going prone, I crawled silently across the cold, wet sand in the direction of the light. What I would have given for binoculars or a sniper rifle. A crack of lightning conveniently showed my two enemies on the beach, holding the flashlight and weapons. I scanned as far as I could, trying to find their buddies. How many were out there? I scanned the lighthouse. If I were them, I’d have a sniper up there. If he was up there, he was hunkered down pretty tight, and I couldn’t see shit.
Knowing where the two guys were on the beach, I circled around them and worked my way to the rear approach of the lighthouse. It was slow going, and I was barely moving when I heard a man’s voice whisper, “Any sign of him?”
A radio crackled, “Not yet.”
I crawled so slowly that I was part of the sand. I eased the K-Bar out of my waistband and slithered toward the guy hiding in the scrub. The dune grass gave me excellent cover, and unlike him, I wasn’t sitting up high trying to watch the beach. I came up behind him and slapped my left hand over his mouth while my right hand shoved the K-bar into his kidney so deep that it almost came out his front. I hung on hard to his mouth, yanking his head back, pulled the knife out and shoved it back in two more times into his neck, twisting and tearing as hard as I could. I couldn’t remember feeling so much hate killing another human being.
I dropped him slowly and gently into the grass and slipped his radio from his belt, listening while I went through his gear. He was carrying an MP5 submachine gun with a banana clip and scope. These guys weren’t fucking around. The scope made me very happy. I slipped the weapon on over my shoulder so it hung behind me, and kept Ice up in front of me. The radio chirped.
“Anything?”
“Shut up. Stay off the radio until you see something,” said a second voice.
Hmm-m. I chewed on that for a second. They had state-of-the-art weapons, but obviously hadn’t worked together before and lacked discipline and training. They weren’t the state police or local cops, which I figured was a good thing. I started working around toward the lighthouse again. The two guys on the beach started walking toward the area where I had left my car, maybe figuring I was coming in from the road, which I had.
The rain stopped, just like someone had thrown a switch. Between the bands again, I guessed. I went prone and froze, scanning in every direction. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, and I saw it was Amanda’s cell calling me. Damn it. I didn’t want to answer. I also didn’t want to get her killed. I pressed send but didn’t speak.
“You’re late, Walker. Where are you?”
“I’m close. It was a long walk in the rain. I should be there soon. Where are you? How will I find you?”
“Just walk up the beach, down by the water and we’ll find you. You have two minutes. I suggest you start running before I kill your girlfriend.”
He made her scream again, except this time I heard it live as well as through my phone. I was close. The fucker was near the small building by the lighthouse. I picked up the MP5 and scanned up at the lighthouse through his night vision. I knew there had to be a guy up there. I lay there in the sand, not moving, trying to find any sign of motion. Nothing. The guy was good—or he wasn’t there.
I moved toward the lighthouse and my stolen radio came on again.
“Everyone move toward the waterline. He should be coming down the beach any second. Nobody shoots until we get the book.”
Two men hopped up not twenty yards from where I was and started jogging down the beach. Jesus—in another ten seconds I would have crawled right into them. Must be getting rusty. I watched them through the scope as they approached a group of three other men. Damn—how many of these guys were there? Five on the beach, maybe one in the lighthouse, at least one with Amanda by the building. This was so not cool.
In a typical combat situation, I’d take out the group on the beach first and cut their numbers down before they knew what happened, but I couldn’t do that with Amanda being held by the house. I checked my watch. No help would be here f
or another forty minutes at least. I was fucked.
I crawled toward the building where I’d heard Amanda scream. My radio popped on again. “Rogers? Where the hell are you?”
I smiled. They called him again. “Maybe his radio’s out,” said a voice.
“I haven’t seen anything from up here.”
Ah, my little friend up in the lighthouse. I knew it. Okay, that would make it a bit tougher. I scrambled through the tall dune grass until it ended, about forty feet shy of the building. The sniper was in the lighthouse fairly high overhead, and I was so close now that he’d have to practically hang over the edge to see me beneath him.
I made a dash for it, sprinting across the sand as fast as my legs would move, and dove for the base of the lighthouse. I was now directly under the sniper and looking at the building less than twenty yards away where they had Amanda. The lights were off inside. My guess was they were shielding themselves behind the building, not inside it. I looked around. The sniper would be looking at the beach for my approach, not straight down the tower. My radio came on again, and I quickly decreased the volume until I could barely hear.
“You guys see that? What the fuck is he doing? Is he fishing at night in this weather? What the fuck?”
I looked out at the water. It was dark and hard to see in the waves, but sure as shit, that old fishing boat was chugging toward us. Thomas, God bless ya, you crazy old bugger! It had its floodlights on, bobbing like a cork on the choppy waves. The sea was so rough that the ship rocked to and fro. White foam blew over the bow, but the old diesel engine chugged on.
One of the guys on the beach jogged toward the fishing boat, probably in utter disbelief. The weather was better than it had been an hour ago, but it was still no night to be out in a boat. The water in the sound was wild, swirling and crashing from every direction. While they were distracted, I made a run for the building and hit the sand by the back wall of the structure.
Belly crawling to the corner, I peered around so only my eyeballs were past the edge of the wall. Sure enough, Amanda was seated with her back against the building, her hands tied behind her and a gag in her mouth. There was one guy with her. He was looking around the front corner of the building with his back to me. As much as I wanted to use Ice to blow him into a million pieces, I knew the MP5 was much quieter with its suppressor attached. If I got lucky, nobody would even hear it.
Blood from a Stone Page 17