A timid cough sounded from the doorway. Aunt Evelyn and I looked sharply up at each other. I knew who it was, and I felt awful that I hadn’t remembered her earlier. She was a prisoner just as much as I had been, yet had dared to help us. I owed her a lot.
Not wanting to scare her, I called out softly, “Please . . . come in.”
Dead silence. The silence of someone scared off, or the silence of a mind being made up, we’d have to wait and see.
“Please? I want to thank you. We wouldn’t be alive without you.”
The door swung slowly open, and there, revealed, was our young friend. I knew she was the one responsible for giving us clean water to drink, not the drugged water probably intended to keep Roarke and me drowsy and weak. Her hands were clasped, the thumbs nervously at war with each other. Her big gray eyes looked up at me, and I felt that perhaps she was younger than I had thought, maybe fourteen or fifteen.
I slowly stood up, my eyes and face smiling as kindly as possible. I had waved Aunt Evelyn down, as I knew her dear heart would make her leap up and throw her arms around the young thing. But that might just scare her to death.
I walked toward her carefully and said, “Thank you. I know it was a risk to give us the clean water.” I could tell it took her some courage, but she smiled a little. I took her hand and held it. Then her bravery melted, and she suddenly grasped me around the waist like a drowning victim grabs the sole life jacket thrown to her. I stroked her straggly head, which came to just under my chin, and held her tight.
Then Evelyn could contain herself no longer and she came over, her loving heart apparent in every ounce of her generous being, and the girl slowly let go of me and looked up at her.
Aunt Evelyn cocked her head and said gently, “What’s your name, dear girl?”
The girl’s eyes looked indecisive for a moment, but after she carefully considered the genuine spirit of Evelyn, giving her a brazenly thorough look up and down, she said in small voice, “Morgan.”
Aunt Evelyn smiled with a closed mouth and nodded. She said, “I had a best friend named Morgan when I was fourteen. She had a wonderful gift for making me laugh. And you know? I bet you’re about her age when we were best friends.”
Morgan nodded slightly, and Aunt Evelyn held out her hand. She took it tentatively, and they walked over to the couch to have a good chat. Evelyn asked if there were any other girls here.
She said, “No, I was the only one for now. Just about a week ago, I was caught by those two big guys and brought here to be a sort of housekeeper.”
“I’m surprised the meat loaves were quick enough to grab you,” I said, with a grin.
“Meat loaves?”
“Yeah, you know, the beefy guards, the Meat Loaf Twins.” They really were the exact shape of a good meat loaf, and just as sharp. She smiled and murmured, meat loaves. Then a real, live giggle came out of her. I didn’t think it was possible; she looked much more mature and seasoned than her years. Her solemn face turned into a fourteen-year-old’s for a split second. I sighed in relief, knowing what we had rescued her from; her duties in this horrid house would certainly have escalated in the near future.
I went back to the bar and poured a large water, still thirsty from the whole adventure of the past couple of days. My mind was racing over all the details, thinking hard about anything I might have missed.
I heard a car pull up, and I went to look out the window. I was ready to vacate the place now that we knew there weren’t any other girls around. I didn’t want to linger any longer than necessary. Outside, Roarke jumped out of the car and pelted up to the house. His footsteps slapped against the stairs and then he burst in the door.
“Roarke! Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s fine, Lane. Sorry to scare you,” he said, with his hands out like he was trying to calm a rampaging bull. “There doesn’t seem to be any action at the Triborough Bridge. We’ve had it shut down. The police and police dogs are scouring it, looking for anyone or anything suspicious. But . . . there’s something nagging my mind that won’t stop, and I have to figure it out. There’s something wrong. Very wrong.”
“All right,” I said, my adrenaline kicking in yet one more time. “Any specific part of this that’s bothering you that we could go over? Maybe we should sift through the details again, but this time without a gun to our heads.”
“Yeah, good idea.” He sat down on the edge of a large chair, away from Aunt Evelyn and Morgan, who were having a good chat.
“Okay. So let’s go over the day.”
We talked through all the details of arriving here, seeing Roxy, getting Eliza to talk, my slap from Eliza. Finally, we got to the part where Finn had come in, and both of us knew we were drawing closer to some black crumb of a detail that we’d missed. My heart was frantic, but to get to the truth, we had to walk through each bit, studiously scrutinizing one piece at a time or we might miss it.
I was saying, “Then Eliza whispered to Donagan. Then Donagan said he thought they should test the mettle of Finn. Then Finn said, ‘Sorry, love, I have to stick with the plan.’ Then he pulled the trigger—”
“Wait!” exclaimed Roarke, with wide eyes and all the urgency of telling someone to slowly back up from a cliff that dropped a mile to a rocky oblivion. “Wait,” he said, with a more tempered tone. “What did Finn say exactly?”
“He said, ‘Sorry, love. I have to stick with the plan.’”
“No, Lane. He didn’t say that. He said, ‘I have to stick with Plan B.’”
“He said ‘Plan B’? I thought I heard, ‘the plan.’”
“Yeah! That’s it! I know it! When you were reciting to the group what had gone down, I heard you say, ‘The Plan.’ But I know beyond a doubt he said ‘Plan B.’ What do you think that means?”
My mind was reeling and pawing through the possibilities, frantically searching. I knew he had said ‘plan’ and that word meant he wasn’t really going to kill me, it was part of The Plan . . . Plan B, Plan B. What could he be trying to tell us?
“Roarke,” I said urgently, smacking my hand down hard on his knee. “They must’ve changed the plan and Finn was trying to tell us.”
I gulped, realizing what this would mean.
“It’s not the Triborough Bridge.”
CHAPTER 37
If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now.
—ML
Roarke stood stock still. His face went ashen as he whispered, “What do you mean?”
“I mean Finn was trying to tell us they switched the plan. It’s not the original plan. It’s not the Triborough Bridge.”
“Well, does that mean we’re back to the beginning?” he asked, sounding as desperate as I felt.
“No. No, it can’t,” I said. It was not bearable to think that.
“Okay, okay, let’s think,” he said, harshly running his hand through his hair as he started pacing.
“Well, they have all the tools, the know-how, and the personnel to handle a bridge. To go and do something completely different would take too long. It has to be another bridge,” I reasoned.
“Well, any bridge, frankly, would be a disaster for the city. But what’s another bridge that would do just as much collateral and political damage? Are there any other events coming up that would make one bridge over another a better target?”
“Well, the Brooklyn Bridge is an enormous monument to the city, but it’s so solid, so huge, it would take a vast amount of dynamite to do the kind of damage that they’d want to do, but I guess it’s not impossible,” said Roarke, processing out loud.
“Let’s see, the biggest event coming up that comes to mind is the World’s Fair,” I thought out loud. Then it hit us both at the same time.
“The Queensboro,” we said, in unison.
“That has to be it. It leads to the World’s Fair arena, and an attack on that bridge would have a double impact. That bridge leads to the main causeway to the fair, so it would damage the main rout
e, and there is no way we could repair that kind of damage to the bridge in time. But more importantly, politically, it would make Fio look weak, and the committee would probably take the World’s Fair from New York,” I said in a rush. “The loss of jobs and finances, not to mention the psychological blow, could cripple the city.” I remembered the long line of hundreds of men looking for work the day we broke ground at the site of the World’s Fair.
What do we do?
I turned a determined face to Roarke. “Let’s send Evelyn to the police; she’ll hunt them down and get word to Pete and Fio. Then, I think you and I have to get to the Queensboro Bridge.”
“Feels like the Randall’s Island deal, huh?” he said knowingly.
I let out a rush of air. “Sure does.”
We quickly filled in Aunt Evelyn, and she was ready for action immediately. She, of course, would be taking Morgan with her, Morgan being too shocked about everything to do anything but acquiesce. However, I could see a flame of stubbornness and resilience beneath her sharp gray eyes and stringy blond hair that made me wonder just how long she would stick around.
Roarke and I left. A dead sort of muffled feeling in the air greeted us outside. It was that frustrating predawn time that can’t agree with itself if it is truly night or truly morning. There were no cabs to be found, and my eyes went to the van that was parked closest to us, probably the same one they used to bring us here.
“I’ve always wanted to know how to hot-wire a car,” I said.
“I’ll show you,” said Roarke, with fierce determination.
“You actually know how to hot-wire a car, Roarke?” I squeaked.
“I do. Come on!”
“Huh.”
“What? You sound like you don’t believe me,” he said, with a sardonic look.
“Oh, I believe you, just trying to figure out how and why you know how to hot-wire a car. . . .” I said, with a critical cocked eyebrow and a tiny bit of concern.
“Heh, heh, heh,” he chuckled as he proved his claim.
As we drove toward the bridge, we thought about possible places to begin a search, and the damn bridge was enormous, of course. I tried to pick at this knot, pulling it apart and figuring it out. The best way to handle this would be to find the bombers and persuade them to tell us how to dismantle the bombs. I wanted more than anything to catch Donagan and Eliza, the roots of the mess, but our first objective had to be saving the bridge. The bridge full of people going in and out of Manhattan, the bridge that, if collapsed, would also halt the East River barge and boat traffic. Thousands could be killed, and the city would be reeling from not only a physical attack, but a psychological one as well.
As we drove, getting closer and closer to the bridge, we sorted out our thoughts.
“We have to get on the bridge on foot, Roarke. They have to do something to make any work they’re doing look inconspicuous, right? And I bet they’ll be expecting any trouble to come from the Manhattan side, not the Queens side, so if we enter from Queens, they might not spot us as quickly. Plus, there’s that outer lane on the lower level. That lane is always shut down for one reason or another, so it could be a great way to disguise planting the bombs.”
“Yeah, that lane is awful,” said Roarke, making a valiant attempt at regular conversation. I hated that narrow lane, too. I wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, but there was something truly frightening about being on the outside of a monumental structure like a bridge.
“What exactly are we going to do if we find the culprits or the bombs?” Roarke asked.
I flashed my dagger. “I still have this,” I said. “And this.” I triumphantly pulled out the gun I had taken from the guard.
“I’ve got mine, too,” said Roarke, with a sly grin.
We had accomplished a lot this evening, but I still had a pretty decent grip on reality. Looking for some affirmation, I said, “Roarke, I know this is crazy. I know we can’t take down these professionals by ourselves, but maybe we can at least stall them until the cavalry arrives. Right?”
His smile straightened a little, and he focused, locking onto my eyes just for an instant. “Right. We’ll do everything we can, Lane,” he said. With a resolute look, we kept going, driving closer and closer to our goal.
We took the ramp from Vernon, the road adjacent to the river. We were right by one of the pylons that held up the massive bridge. It was enormous, staggering. It was hard to imagine men building this behemoth. Our van curved up the ramp, and at the point where the bridge began and the ramp ended, we pulled over to the side, with just a couple of horns honking at us. We got out and crouched down beside the metal railing and started to slink along.
A wide light blue sky awaiting the dawn arched over our heads. The east was looking lighter than I expected; I worried that it was later than I had thought. We might run out of time. And we would be caught right in the middle.
“Roarke,” I whispered as I beheld the soaring bridge, “this is even more monumental up close.... Are we sure this could be the target? How on earth could they take this thing down?”
“I know,” said Roarke. “But the Schmidt brothers have taken down entire buildings before. Enough dynamite in the right places can take down anything. And they’ve had time to work on this. The thing going for us is that Daley Joseph will not be far away. From what everyone has said, he will want a front row seat. They will have set up the wiring ahead of time, but they’ll have to set the explosives today; dynamite can be very unpredictable. They wouldn’t be able to set it weeks in advance and then come sailing in here to ignite it. No, they’ll be here.”
All our exhilaration in taking down those thugs back at Eliza’s house dissipated just as the night was dissipating into day. Our small victory looked especially insignificant in the shadows of this bridge and the horrific plan to tear it down. Already it was teeming with people. Hundreds of cars, thousands of people. And this bridge spanned not only the East River, but Blackwell’s Island. And the end ramps went quite far into Queens and Manhattan. There was no telling the kind of damage it could do if any part of it went down.
We started to skulk across the bridge. We went along the outside lane, thinking it was a good place to spot anything suspicious. That lane was on the lower level, so there were plenty of hiding places and shadows. We had to start somewhere and hope that Aunt Evelyn would be getting through to the rest of our crew.
We jogged a long way, finally making it to the point where we were over water, where it would be logical to place explosives. I felt ready, somehow. I got to the point where I’d had enough of fearing this big threat; I wanted to face it and get it over with. Then I stupidly looked down—way, way, way down—at the water. Roarke must’ve felt the same waves of fear, because he looked back at me with wary eyes and took my hand. We kept going.
Suddenly, he pulled me to a wall and we pressed up flat against it, trying to blend in. With one finger, Roarke pointed carefully up ahead. I saw them: the unmistakable outlines of the three Schmidt brothers. Two big guys flanking Weasel-Face.
They were in heated debate about something. It looked like Weasel was arguing with the other two. They didn’t have anything in their hands, I noticed, like guns or detonators. I liked that. We slowly started to make our way over to them. Roarke motioned for me to go behind the wall and get at them from behind.
I eased each foot out in front of me before I stepped, unsure of my footing in the relative darkness. I moved as fast as I dared and got to the other side just as I heard Roarke say with a cool and level voice, “Gentleman, show me your hands.”
“Hey, what are you doing here?” said a thin, oily voice. Roarke could see me now, but the others hadn’t heard me with all the traffic behind us.
“No, no,” said Roarke. “There won’t be any reaching for guns, now. Put your hands on your heads, thank you.”
I stepped out of the shadows, my gun leveled at Weasel. “I’d do as he says,” I declared firmly.
The big guy closer to me said
in a surprisingly high and juvenile voice for such a big fellow, “See, Rufus? I told you! I knew we’d get caught. You always ruin everything!”
“I do not!” snapped Rufus, aka Weasel. This was like a weird family drama on the radio.
“Rufus, it’s true,” said the muffled, dopey voice from the other big fellow, who had recognized me back at Chesty LaRue’s. “He did tell ya, and you do louse up all this stuff.”
“Arrrrrrgh,” choked out Rufus.
“All right, all right, fellas. I’ve had enough of this little show here. Tell me what’s going down today and you might be able to make some kind of deal with the courts. But we don’t have a lot of time. I want to hear you talking about your target, and I want to hear it now.” Roarke’s firm, stern voice of a mature adult helped snap the big guys to attention. He had more leadership skills in his little finger than their brother could ever hope to acquire.
Weasel made an attempt. “Don’t even think about—” But before he could finish his sentence, the other two started ratting him out.
“We didn’t know what it all meant!”
“Honest! We just like blowing things up, we didn’t know it was gonna be this big bridge!”
“But then Rufus says that we have to . . .”
“Enough!” yelled Roarke, as loud as he dared. “Sheesh! I get it, I get it! Where are the explosives, how do we stop the detonation, and where are the men who hired you?”
They quickly told us: everywhere, you can’t, and we don’t know. A helpful bunch. After a little more persuading on Roarke’s part, and as we tied them to the bridge with the ropes from their own equipment, they felt inclined to explain a little more fully.
Apparently, the bombs were strung along key places around most pylons and then underneath the upper level of the bridge, so as it blew, it would crash down and tear out both levels with it. There were three main charges that would start a chain reaction. The Schmidt brothers had used all the dynamite they could get their hands on, and it seemed as though it was a substantial amount. As far as their employers, they weren’t really sure where they were, but what they were certain of was that they weren’t too far away, as they had made it known that they wanted to see the action up close and personal. Oh, and the guy taking the lead on this demolition, they confirmed, was not Rufus the Weasel but Lyle, my slick friend from the country music bar. Weasel (I’m not sure I could really call him anything else) was middle management.
The Silver Gun Page 29