The Sirena Quest

by Michael A. Kahn

  He’d just stared at her, struggling to parse her words. Could have been even worse?

  The nurses lips were moving, but all he heard that morning was Andi’s giggle and her whisper, But I don’t have my diaphragm.

  “Hey?” Gordie said. “You okay, Lou?”

  He was rubbing his eyes, his head down. He tried to say something, but he couldn’t. He shook his head, biting his lower lip.

  Billy found a handkerchief in the pocket of his robe and pressed it into Lou’s hand. After awhile, Lou raised his head. He tried to look at his friends.

  “Andi?” Billy asked softly.

  Lou nodded, pressing his clenched fist against his lips, struggling for control. He took a deep breath.

  “The hardest part,” he finally said, “was telling my kids.”

  He squeezed his eyes closed and tilted his head back toward the night sky.

  “I took their mother away for a weekend and brought her home in a coffin.”

  Billy was kneeling beside Lou. He put a hand on Lou’s shoulder and gave him a squeeze.

  The eastern sky was edging toward gray. The frog chorus began to fade. Lou sat there, his back against the railing, head down.

  He heard the creak of the wheelchair approaching. He looked up.

  Ray had a sad smile. “You’re a good man, Lou. We got your back, pal.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Lou pulled the cargo van into the stand of pines just to the south of the Hawthorn Airport runway. He turned off the engine and checked his watch. 7:46 a.m.

  There were five of them—Lou, Ray, Gordie, Billy, and Floyd Booker, the locksmith. Each had a Styrofoam cup of coffee. There was a sack of fresh doughnuts to hold them over. Ray was belted into a captain’s chair with his foot propped up, the wheelchair folded and stashed in back.

  Lou opened his door. “I’ll check things out.”

  He walked through the pine trees and across the grass to the edge of the runway. Beyond the runway he could see the two-lane blacktop road that led to the small airport. The road ran parallel to the runway. He turned back to study the pine trees. He could barely pick out their rental van through the trees. It would be invisible from the road or the airport.

  He headed back to the van.

  “How long will it take you, Floyd?” Gordie asked.

  Floyd scratched the back of his neck as he considered the question. He was short and wiry and bald, with a pointy red nose, spiky gray eyebrows, and a neatly trimmed goatee that made him resemble a schnauzer.

  “Shouldn’t take but a minute,” he said in his high-pitched Maine accent, “’less they got something on there I never seen before, and it’s been a heckuva long time since I seen something I never seen before.”

  So they sipped their coffee and ate their doughnuts and waited.

  At 8:15, a skinny mechanic slid open the large hangar door. Lou raised the binoculars. He could see Rocky inside the hangar in front of a single-engine biplane. She was peering around the bottom of the propeller and fiddling with something in the engine. The mechanic came over, and Rocky pointed at something. The mechanic bent down, peered at where she was pointing, stood, shook his head, and said something to her. She nodded. Then the two of them moved into position on either side of the lower wing and pushed the plane slowly onto the concrete apron outside the hangar.

  Rocky had on black leather pants, a black leather jacket, black boots, and a navy Boston Red Sox baseball cap. The mechanic moved around to the propeller with a small toolbox, and Rocky returned to the hangar out of view.

  At 8:51, while Gordie was out in front of the van taking a leak between two pine trees, he heard the heavy downshift of truck gears. He peered through the branches. A Brink’s armored truck was rumbling along the road toward the airport. Following directly behind was a red Porsche convertible with the top down. Gordie squinted. He could make out Frank behind the wheel and Reggie in the passenger seat. He quickly zipped up and hurried back to the van.

  The five of them watched from the van as the Brink’s truck swung around the bend and out of view on its approach to the airport. It reappeared a moment later, moving slowly down the paved lane along the outer wall of the hangar, turned onto the concrete apron in front of the hangar, and pulled up to the biplane. The Porsche parked behind it.

  Ray checked his watch. “So far so good.”

  From their cover in the pine trees, they had a side view of the truck and the Porsche. Reggie and Frank got of the Porsche and walked into the hangar. A moment later a uniformed guard stepped down from the passenger side of the Brink’s truck, came around the front of the truck, and walked over to the plane. Inside the hangar, they could see Frank and Reggie greeting Rocky.

  “You sure about this pilot?” Ray asked.

  Lou shrugged. “I’m not sure about anything. We signed the agreement last night and I gave her the check.”

  Frank, Reggie, and Rocky emerged from the hangar, Rocky in the middle. They walked over to the Brink’s truck, and the uniformed Brink’s guard joined them. Frank and Rocky spoke with the guard while Reggie trotted back to the Porsche. He returned a moment later carrying what looked like a big bolt of shiny gold fabric bound with rope. He stopped at the tail of the plane, and Frank and Rocky joined him back there. Frank helped unwind the rope, which appeared to be connected to the bolt of fabric. Rocky tied the rope to a metal hook on the bottom of the plane’s tail.

  “What’s that?” Billy asked.

  “A banner,” Ray said.

  The guard moved to the rear of the Brink’s truck and rapped on the door. The door opened from the inside and another guard poked his head out. From his angle in the van, Lou couldn’t see what else was in the truck.

  Rocky walked toward the front of the biplane as the two guards talked with Frank and Reggie at the rear of the truck. On her way to the cockpit, Rocky pulled open the cargo door on the side of the plane. She walked around the front of the plane to the other side, stepped up onto the lower wing, and climbed into the cockpit.

  A moment later the engine coughed and the propeller lurched through a half-rotation. It stopped for a moment, jerked through a full rotation, slowed again, and then the engine caught, immediately transforming the blades into a blurred circle. The engine coughed, vented several bursts of dark gray smoke, and then roared.

  The two guards had climbed into the rear of the truck and were sliding a large gray strongbox onto the elevator ramp at the edge of the truck. The strongbox was at least six feet high and four feet wide. Once it was on the ramp, the two guards lowered it to the ground.

  “That has to be her.” Lou handed the binoculars to the locksmith. “Check it out, Floyd.”

  The guards slid the strongbox onto a large dolly. As they started to tilt it back, Reggie came over and had them stop. He knelt by the container and inserted a key into the large steel lock that hung from the latch on the hinged front panel. He opened the lock, slipped it off, and swung open the door of the strongbox. Although Lou couldn’t make out what was inside the container from that distance, it was clear that Reggie was satisfied with what he saw. He closed the front of the strongbox, slipped the lock through the latch, and clicked it shut.

  “Well?” Ray asked Floyd Booker.

  The locksmith lowered the binoculars and nodded solemnly. “Don’t think that one should be a problem, boys.”

  The guards rolled the strongbox over to the side of the plane and then, with Frank’s help, slowly lifted it into the cargo hold. Frank closed the cargo door and checked to make sure it was firmly shut. Then he backed away from the plane and gave Rocky the thumbs-up signal. The engine revved higher, and the plane started to move forward.

  Frank scanned the airport road as Reggie watched the biplane taxi slowly past the hangar toward the runway, its wings vibrating. The plane turned into position at that end of the runway. The engine whined loude
r. The plane was shuddering now, straining against the brakes. Rocky pushed the engine speed one notch higher and then released the brakes.

  The plane started rolling down the runway, picking up speed. The bolt of gold cloth attached to the tail bounced along and unrolled until it trailed flat behind, skimming along the concrete.

  Halfway down the runway the plane’s wheels lifted off the ground.

  After the plane cleared the trees across the highway, Rocky banked it back toward Frank and Reggie in a big, easy turn. They waved as the plane passed over the runway, climbing into the sky. The banner had fully unfurled. It was gold, with bold red letters spelling out the message:

  WELCOME HOME, SIRENA!

  Rocky dipped the wings in a salute and then banked the plane south. Down below, Reggie and Frank slapped each other high fives.

  Ray said, “Enjoy the moment, you preppie motherfuckers.”

  They watched Reggie and Frank shake hands with the Brink’s guards and get back in the Porsche. A moment later, there was a squeal of rubber as the Porsche pulled away. The guards got back in the Brink’s truck, turned it around in front of the hangar, and drove off.

  As soon as the truck disappeared around the bend in the road, Ray said, “Hit it.”

  Lou started the engine and backed the van out of the stand of pines and onto the road. Shifting to Drive, he accelerated down the road and turned into the airport entrance, scattering gravel under the wheels. Pulling the van around the hangar and onto the concrete apron, he stopped in almost the same spot the Brink’s truck had parked.

  Gordie was the first one out. Shading his eyes, he scanned the sky. Billy got out next, went around to the back of the van, and opened the rear doors to work on the final preparations. Ray waited in the van.

  Lou and the locksmith joined Gordie on the runway.

  “Where the hell is she?” Gordie asked.

  Lou scanned the sky, straining his ears for the sound of the plane.

  “How’s the time?” Gordie asked.

  Lou checked his watch.

  10:05 a.m.

  Rocky was supposed to fly over Remington Field at Barrett College at exactly eleven o’clock. While the plane could get there in less than twenty minutes, it would take them thirty-five minutes to drive there.

  Over the field by 11:00. Touch down at 11:05. Out of there by 11:15. That was the schedule. That was the deal.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes,” Lou said.

  “Come on, Rocky,” Gordie grumbled.

  “Gordie,” Billy called from back of the van. “I need some help with this thing.”

  “Hold your horses,” Gordie said. He shaded his eyes as he surveyed the sky. “First we need the damn plane. If that skanky bitch double-crossed us, I swear—”

  “Quiet,” Lou said.

  Lou pointed at a small dot near the horizon. “There?”

  Gordie squinted in the direction of the faint buzzing. As the dot grew larger, they could make out the two wings and then the banner.

  Gordie sighed. “Thank fucking God.”

  He turned toward Billy. “Coming, Bronco.”

  Lou watched the biplane bank into position and descend toward the runway, the wings tilting side to side, the banner fluttering at the slower speed. The plane landed, slowed to taxi speed, and puttered over to where Lou stood.

  He turned to the locksmith. “You ready, Floyd?”

  “Yep.”

  Lou walked with him toward the plane and yanked open the cargo door.

  He turned to the locksmith and checked his watch. “Let’s do it. We’re cutting this close.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Twenty-three miles southeast of Hawthorn Airport, the Barrett College sesquicentennial celebration is getting underway with all the pomp and circumstance befitting a distinguished New England college founded before the Civil War, ranked every year at or near the top of the U.S. News and World Report list of best liberal arts colleges, and whose alumni include one U.S. President, two Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, and four Nobel Prize recipients.

  It is a glorious day for a glorious birthday party. The sky is blue, the flowers are in bloom, and the birds are singing. The college band plays “Oh Gallant Barrett” at a stately pace as the Board of Trustees and honored guests walk in slow procession through the ornate cast-iron gates of Remington Field, down the cinder track alongside the football field, and onto the freshly mowed grass, where rows of chairs face the packed stands. Following the trustees and honored guests come the president and the deans and the members of the faculty, all clad in the special caps, tams, hoods, robes, and embellishments of their professional societies.

  The murmuring in the stands rises as the crowd recognizes the men and women scheduled to receive honorary degrees today. There’s John Updike over there—that gray-haired fellow readjusting his burgundy mortarboard as he takes his seat in the front row on the dais. And isn’t that Henry Kissinger—the third one from the left? Who’s the black woman he’s talking to? My God, it’s Toni Morrison. And that woman there, the one pausing to nod at the pack of photographers and cameramen—why, that’s Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

  Proud sons of Barrett—and daughters, too—fill the stands. All ages, including many future sons and daughters of Barrett. Most are seated by class, and many of the classes hold up banners and signs. There’s the Class of ’64, looking prosperous, well-fed, and in their prime. And over there, the Class of ’54—a gaggle of board directors and CEOs and senior partners of major law firms. And down near the front, squinting under their sun visors and leaning forward on their canes, are John Andrew Davis IV and Theodore Adams Worthington—the two surviving members of the Class of ’16, both of whom had joined the American Expeditionary Force right after graduation and served together under General John Joseph Pershing. Each man wears on his lapel the medal of valor he received for his role in the Battle of Château-Thierry.

  And then there are the members of the press. Lots and lots of members of the press. Far more and far more varied than one might ordinarily expect to attend the sesquicentennial of a fine old college, even with its lineup of distinguished honorees. There are plenty of other fine old academic institutions celebrating special anniversaries this June and conferring honorary degrees on notable jurists and artists and public servants. And while the presence of a Supreme Court justice and President Nixon’s Secretary of State might be expected to lure the New York Times and the Washington Post up to New England on this sunny day, it is safe to assume that the film crews from Entertainment Tonight and several news networks and the journalists and photographers from People and Vanity Fair and Newsweek are not here today crowding onto the cinder track just to catch a glimpse of the author of Rabbit, Run.

  The sesquicentennial speeches are a bracing mix of clichés. They allude to “bold plans of action” for the future and “blessed remembrances” of the past. Some of the speakers focus on the challenges facing Barrett College as it “stands on the threshold of a new millennium.” Others charm the crowd with anecdotes from the college’s first century and a half. In due time, honorary degrees are awarded, and those honored accept their degrees to polite rounds of applause.

  But through it all, through the speeches and the music and the good cheer, every pair of eyes in the stands—young and old alike—keeps straying from the speaker behind the podium to the fifty-yard marker on the far sideline. That’s where the Shield armored truck is parked. Everyone knows why it is here, and everyone knows to the dollar what is waiting inside.

  The truck had been parked in position when the early birds started filing into the stadium at 9:30 that morning. They had watched from the stands as one television crew after another set up in front of the Shield truck to tape a short stand-up. It makes a striking framing shot. Indeed, the live feed from the CNN film crew has the truck in the background with the dais in the foregro
und. And speaking of CNN, isn’t that Wolf Blitzer—the guy with the white beard and microphone over on the sidelines?

  As the speakers drone on, the armored truck bears silent witness to two other anniversaries on this date. One hundred years ago to the day, Sirena arrived at the college. Indeed, she had been presented to the college president as part of the school’s fiftieth anniversary celebration in 1894. So, too, this is the thirty-fifth year—to the day—of her final departure. Even for those with no interest in numerology, the numbers—150, 50, and 35—align this morning in near occult formation.

  For those in the stands who have followed the recent buildup, who have read the articles in People and Newsweek or watched the half-hour feature on CNN last night, there are two others present today even more distracting than the armored truck on the fifty-yard line. They are Silicon Valley billionaire Robert Godwin (’59), and Susanna Harkness, great-granddaughter of the sculptor Augustus Cromwell, whose most famous work disappeared thirty-five years ago. Godwin, through his foundation, and Harkness, through her family’s trust, represent the twenty-five million-dollar pledge—twenty-three million dollars of endowment funds for the college, two million for her rescuers. More precisely, twenty-three million in potential endowment money. The pledge is payable only if Sirena returns before today’s ceremonies end.

  Beginning two days ago, as the alumni started arriving for the big weekend, the air began to fill with news and rumors of the various Sirena quests. There has been more than enough speculation to keep that gray-and-black Shield Security Systems truck in everyone’s field of vision throughout the morning’s ceremonies.

  Which means that the crowd is fully primed when the show finally begins.

  Right on schedule.

  Henry Kissinger has just finished thanking the Board of Trustees for his honorary doctorate. As he heads back to his chair under the cover of polite applause, the biplane comes into view in the sky above the hills to the west.