by Mark Alpert
“Haven’s in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, John. It’s separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lake Michigan with Lake Huron. To get from the Lower Peninsula to the U.P., you have to cross the Mackinac Bridge.”
“So what’s the problem? The bridge doesn’t shut down at night, does it?”
“There’s probably a roadblock on the bridge by now. Sullivan has contacts in the FBI and the Michigan state police. He’s used them before to pursue our people when they’re on assignment outside Haven.”
“On assignment?”
“Sometimes our Elders ask us to perform certain tasks. For instance, every year they assign our botanical experts to go to the Amazon to collect rare medicinal plants. The experts travel with forged documents, so no one can trace them back to our community.” Ariel shifted in the backseat, grunting as she repositioned her legs. “Sullivan gives false information to the authorities, telling them that our people are drug dealers or terrorists. Over the past year three people from Haven have been killed in gun battles with the police, and two more died in prison after they were arrested. Sullivan was behind all those deaths.”
“But we changed the license plates on the car. How will the police know to stop us?”
“I’m sure Sullivan told them what to look for. A tall man driving a beat-up Kia, a redhead with injured legs.”
John slowed the car. He was wondering if they should turn around. “Is there another route we can take?”
“We could go through Wisconsin and take one of the highways running across the Upper Peninsula, but Sullivan has an outpost near Seney. His Riflemen keep watch over all the roads in that part of the U.P.”
“So what are we gonna do?”
Ariel extended her right arm, pointing at the road ahead. “There’s the left turn. We’re going to rest for a few hours, and then we’ll figure something out.”
She spoke in a firm, commanding voice, and John was too tired to resist. He turned left onto a country lane that rambled through pitch-black woods. Then Ariel pointed to another left turn, which put them on a narrow, rutted dirt road. After jouncing on this trail for a couple of miles they reached a clearing in the woods, a thirty-foot-wide space overhung by pine branches. “This is the place,” Ariel said. “We’ll be all right here. Even if someone comes down the trail, they won’t see the car.”
John maneuvered the Kia into the clearing. Then he shut off the engine and headlights, and utter darkness descended upon them. “Whoa. That’s spooky.” He reached for the switch on the car’s dome light and flicked it on. “I’ll turn this off when we’re ready to go to sleep.”
“I’m ready right now.” She pulled off her new sweatshirt—a simple gray thing John had purchased at the convenience store—and folded it to make a pillow, which she placed at one end of the backseat. Then she lay down and made herself as comfortable as possible.
John sneaked a look at her. She wore a T-shirt and gym shorts, also bought at the convenience store, and her legs were wrapped in bandages, but she still looked great. He remembered, with sudden vividness, how she kissed him in the hotel room in Brooklyn last night, how she shivered in his arms and led him toward the bed. Although sex was out of the question now, for a million good reasons, he still wished he could climb into the backseat with her. With great reluctance he turned away from her and focused on the lever for the driver’s seat, tilting it as far back as it would go. This would be his bed for the night. Then he reached over his head to turn off the dome light. As he flicked the switch he glanced at the passenger seat, where he’d put the Pennsylvania license plates he’d taken off the Kia. The last thing he saw before the light went out was IVY4EVR.
“Thank you, John.” Ariel’s voice was softer now, a whisper in the darkness. “Thank you for everything.”
He should’ve just said “You’re welcome” and left it at that, but he was too agitated. Over the past twenty-four hours he’d been tricked, seduced, and ambushed. He’d nearly been killed by assassins carrying assault rifles, and now he was fleeing across the country with a modern-day witch whose family might execute him to protect their secrets. But oddly enough, his greatest worry wasn’t Sullivan or the Elders of Haven. His thoughts kept circling back to what Ariel had told him this morning: Meeting you wasn’t an accident. I chose you.
“Can I ask you a question?” He turned toward the backseat, even though he couldn’t see a thing. “About the news story you saw on the Internet? The story about me?”
“Certainly. What do you want to know?”
“Was it the article that ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer?”
“Yes, it was.”
John took a deep breath. Several newspapers had published articles about the shootings on Kensington Avenue, but the Inquirer story was the worst. “It wasn’t true. None of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“All those things they said about me? All that saintly turn-the-other-cheek crap? It didn’t happen that way.” He clenched his hands. “I was ready to kill them. I was going to shoot every last one of those bastards.”
Ariel didn’t say anything at first, but he could hear her moving in the backseat, propping herself up to a sitting position. He stared hard into the darkness, and after a moment he thought he could make out her silhouette.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asked.
He wanted to. Very badly. But he’d promised never to tell. He’d sworn an oath on his daughter’s grave, just fifteen minutes after he’d lowered her coffin into the ground.
“No, I can’t,” he said. “I just want you to know I’m not a saint. I would’ve killed them. I was going to.”
She fell silent again. For the next ten seconds all he could hear was her breathing. Then he felt a caress on his cheek. She’d reached out and touched his face.
“It’s all right, John. I never thought you were a saint. Now go to sleep, okay?”
He closed his eyes. Her hand was so warm. “Okay,” he said.
She kept her hand on his cheek for another few seconds. He leaned toward her, pressing his face against her palm, luxuriating in her touch. By the time she withdrew her hand and lay down in the backseat again, he was calmer. He kicked off his shoes and reclined in the driver’s seat. Within moments he was asleep.
EIGHT
She was close. Sullivan could sense it.
He and Marlowe were riding their Harleys up I-75, about ten miles north of Bay City, Michigan. To the east was the dark expanse of Saginaw Bay and to the west was Gladwin State Forest, which looked equally dark at four o’clock in the morning. The forest was a good place to hide, and the girl was expert at hiding. She’d spent more time outside Haven than anyone else in the community, and she knew all of Michigan’s secret places. Sullivan knew them too, but he doubted he could find her now. Not in the dark, not in that vast tract of woods. No, he’d have a better chance of catching her tomorrow. The state police were already checking each car that crossed the Mackinac Bridge. Sullivan and his Riflemen would cover the other routes to Haven.
He gunned the Harley’s engine as the highway sloped upward. The night was cold for early September, and the frigid wind slapped his face. But at least it blew away the stink of the junkie. After interrogating Rodriguez, Sullivan had slit the wretch’s throat, and some of the blood had splashed on his jeans. Although Rodriguez told him plenty about John Rogers and the young redhead who’d been shot in the legs, the junkie didn’t know which way they’d fled. Sullivan dispatched his men to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the other interstate highways, and though they spotted many old, dented Kias, none of them was the car they were looking for. They had no choice but to regroup in Michigan and wait for their targets to approach Haven.
Still, the visit to Philadelphia hadn’t been a total waste. Before leaving Rodriguez’s house, Sullivan had placed the bloody knife on the floor next to the junkie’s corpse. He’d acquired this knife from one of the gang members he’d hired to ransack Rog
ers’s apartment. Its handle was greasy and covered with Rogers’s fingerprints, and Sullivan had been careful to use gloves while holding it. Afterwards, he called 911 and gave the Philadelphia police an anonymous tip. John Rogers, he told them, had just killed Gabriel Rodriguez, a North Philly junkie, because of a drug deal gone bad. And now Rogers, he added, was heading for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in a 2006 Kia.
Sullivan got a call from Agent Larson two hours later. As expected, the Philadelphia cops had gone to the junkie’s house and found the corpse and bloody knife. Then they’d gone to Rogers’s apartment and discovered the fifteen pounds of methamphetamine that Sullivan had planted there. And then, after learning that Rogers was wanted by the FBI in connection with the shootings in New York, the cops had called Larson and told him what they’d found. Larson, in turn, contacted Sullivan to find out why Rogers would go to the Upper Peninsula. Sullivan acted cagey at first, pretending not to know anything. Then he said he’d heard a rumor that everyone in Rogers’s gang was making a run for the Canadian border. His words had their intended effect: after another two hours, Sullivan’s men in the U.P. reported that the state police had set up a checkpoint on the Mackinac Bridge.
Now, after riding his Harley halfway across the Midwest, Sullivan was less than two hundred miles from his destination. He glanced at Marlowe, who rode in the adjacent lane just a couple of yards to his right. Each man wore a backpack that held an M4 carbine and two hundred rounds of ammunition. Marlowe’s face was a mess, so bloodied and bruised from the beating John Rogers had given him that his spiderweb tattoo was barely visible. But he rode his Harley as steadily as ever, his eyes full of hatred. Sullivan had promised him a chance to get his revenge on Rogers if they captured the man alive.
In addition to his M4, Sullivan carried a Mauser HSc, a vintage German pistol. Ever since he’d started the rebellion against the Council of Elders, he’d been collecting Nazi-era weapons and regalia. At first he did it as part of his effort to disguise his men, to make the Riflemen look like the other motorcycle gangs that roamed across the country. Over the past year, though, he’d come to identify with Hitler’s Third Reich. Although the Nazis had committed some terrible crimes, at least you couldn’t accuse them of underreaching. Their goal was to change the very nature of humanity. And this was Sullivan’s goal as well. He was going to create a new race of men.
He kept his Mauser in a shoulder holster under his jacket. As he raced down the dark highway, the Harley roaring in his ears, he felt the pistol’s handle against his ribs. In just a few hours this gun would make history. He was going to use it to kill the Chief Elder’s daughter, the woman who’d opposed him more than any of the others, the woman he hated more than anyone in the world.
Ariel Fury. His sister.
NINE
The temperature dropped below freezing that morning—unseasonably cold, even for northern Michigan. They ate another meal of trail mix and Slim Jims, and then Ariel told John to drive to the nearest Walmart. He found one in the town of Alpena, and she gave him a list of items to purchase: a down coat, a scarf, a pair of slacks, a pair of sunglasses, and a makeup kit. Ariel waited in the car while he shopped, and then they drove across town to a medical supply store, where John bought an inexpensive wheelchair. Afterwards, while they were driving north on Route 65, Ariel explained her plan.
“It’s a disguise,” she said. “I’m going to bundle up and make myself look like an old lady.”
John couldn’t picture it. “You? An old lady?”
“I’ve done it before. When I’m wearing the scarf and sunglasses, only the lower half of my face is visible. That’s where I apply the makeup. Lots of lipstick and rouge.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “And you think this disguise will get us through the roadblock on the Mackinac Bridge?”
“No, the cops are checking the cars pretty carefully. And they’d be especially suspicious of anyone in a Kia. But we’re not going across the bridge.”
“How will we get to the Upper Peninsula then? By boat?”
“Exactly. We’ll take the ferry to Mackinac Island. Ever heard of the place?”
John shook his head. He was baffled.
“It’s Michigan’s biggest tourist attraction,” Ariel said. “Located in Lake Huron, between the Lower and Upper Peninsulas. It’s famous for its fudge shops. People come from hundreds of miles away just to buy a slice of fudge there.”
“I don’t see—”
“There are two ferries that go to the island, one from Mackinaw City on the Lower Peninsula and one from the town of St. Ignace in the U.P. We’ll take the Mackinaw City ferry to the island, then get on one of the boats that’s going back to St. Ignace.”
Now he began to understand. “So it’s like a detour? A way to get to the Upper Peninsula without crossing the bridge?”
She nodded. “There are no car ferries to the island, because they don’t allow automobiles on Mackinac, so we’ll have to take the passenger ferry and leave the Kia behind. But once we get to the U.P., I’ll find a car to hot-wire. And from there, it’s only a forty-mile drive to Haven.”
John thought it over, searching for flaws in the plan. “But what if the cops are watching the ferries, too?”
“It’s still better than going across the bridge. The ferries are busy this time of year, so we can blend in with the crowd.”
“Blend in? I don’t know about that. You can’t walk, for one thing.”
“I’ll be in the wheelchair. You’ll pretend you’re taking your poor old mother on a day trip to Mackinac Island. Perfectly ordinary.”
He was still skeptical but didn’t want to argue anymore. Instead, he focused on the road ahead, which ran straight as an arrow toward the lakeshore. Meanwhile, Ariel opened the makeup kit and started slathering rouge on her face.
After another half hour they approached Mackinaw City. John was amazed to see the calm, blue surface of Lake Huron stretching for miles and miles to the east and north. He’d never visited this part of the country before, never imagined that the Great Lakes could be so huge. In the distance he saw the Mackinac Bridge arching toward the wooded shore of the Upper Peninsula. Squinting, he glimpsed flashing lights at the far end of the bridge. This was the roadblock, obviously. Then he glanced to the right and spotted a smallish, green island about ten miles away. A ferryboat was scudding across the lake about halfway between the island and the docks of Mackinaw City.
“Make a right,” Ariel said. Without lifting her head from her makeup kit, she pointed at a parking lot next to one of the motels on the lakeshore.
“We’re still pretty far from the docks.”
“If the troopers are at the ferry, they’ll be looking for an old Kia. So we should park as far away from there as possible.”
John made the right turn and parked at the far end of the lot. He gathered all their remaining cash and stuffed it in his pockets. Then he looked at Ariel again and did a double take. Her face was caked with beige makeup. She’d already wrapped the scarf around her head and zipped up the down coat. When she put on the sunglasses she looked like an old woman, an ailing, shriveled, sallow biddy dressed against the cold.
“Wow,” he marveled. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks, sonny,” she said in a quavering voice. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”
Shaking his head, John retrieved the just-purchased wheelchair from the trunk and helped Ariel into its seat. Baggy pink slacks covered her bandaged legs, and a pair of cheap Walmart tennis shoes completed the outfit. She thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her coat, as if she were freezing, but John knew she was hiding her Glock in the right pocket and could draw it out at a moment’s notice. In the left pocket she hid the small, leather-bound notebook.
He locked the car and spent the next twenty minutes pushing the wheelchair toward the docks of the White Star Ferry Line. As Ariel had predicted, the place was busy. John didn’t see any state troopers as he headed for the ticket booth, but hundreds of t
ourists were lined up at the wharf, most of them shivering and stamping their feet to keep warm. He bought two tickets, then parked the wheelchair at the end of the line.
He bent over so he could whisper in Ariel’s ear. “So far, so good.”
She nodded. “Just keep your eyes open.”
Five minutes later the tourists started boarding the ferry. The name OJIBWAY was painted in big black letters on the boat’s hull. The ferry was maybe thirty yards long, with a dozen rows of hard plastic seats on the lower deck and another hundred seats behind the pilothouse on the upper deck. As John pushed Ariel toward the gangplank he saw two people shepherding the crowd: a pudgy woman taking the tickets and a man in a green uniform eyeballing the passengers. He wasn’t a state trooper—the uniform was the wrong color—but he was clearly an authority of some kind, maybe an officer with the Harbor Patrol. He had salt-and-pepper hair, cut short and neat, and his eyes were cold blue. He looked like a real hardass.
John tried to act natural, but he could tell that the officer was scrutinizing him. The hardass narrowed his eyes as John handed his tickets to the pudgy woman. Then the man stepped forward and moved in front of Ariel’s wheelchair, blocking their way. John braced himself, getting ready to tackle the guy. But Ariel calmly kept her hands in her pockets and looked up at him. “Can I help you, young man?”
To John’s surprise, the officer smiled. “No, ma’am, I’m here to help you,” he said. He pointed at the nubbly steel of the gangplank, which was wet in some spots and icy in others. “It’s a little slippery here, and I don’t want you to go sliding. Is it all right if I grab the front of your chair and help you across?”
“Why, certainly.” Ariel didn’t miss a beat. “That’s very kind of you.” She twisted around in her seat and looked at John. “Isn’t that kind, sonny?”
His pulse was still racing. “Yeah, definitely,” he managed to say. “Thank you, sir.”
As the officer guided the wheelchair across the gangplank, John got a closer look at his uniform. The stitching on the left side of his shirt said CAPT. BURT DUNN, WHITE STAR FERRY. The guy didn’t work for the Harbor Patrol after all. He was the captain of the Ojibway.