During that summer he and Julie had learned the map of the whole cellar, had known the places of all the chairs and boxes, had explored all the hiding spots where they could not be seen by intruders, whether house servants, Marengo, or her parents. One rain filled day he was with her and the house was empty. They had come down here from the central hallway upstairs, down a torturous winding stairway that was surrounded with old plaster walls and alcoves that held the first electric lights, put in by someone about 1900 who was replacing the ancient candles that had lighted the way down for centuries. Even then the place reeked of mildew and wet as well as the dead carcasses of various rodents caught and dying in isolation, perhaps killed by traps before they could return to the outside free air.
He remembered touching the firmness of her breasts, as she lifted them from the top covering of her swimsuit, so perfect in his hands, breasts he had not seen or touched the like of since or before. As he reached the sofa, he knew she had not been here for all those intervening years. The imaginary scent moved from his mind as the reality of the dank mildew reached his nostrils.
He moved the garden door open slowly, careful to avoid squeaks from the ancient iron strap hinges that held its half rotten timbers. As the door opened Tench was reminded of the net over the hole in the tunnel and of the brutal death of Captain Bob as he felt the night air on his face. The fresh air tumbled into the interior of the cellar, the dust swirling up around him so much that he motioned his hand over his nose to avoid sneezing. Far out in front of him he smelled the boxwood and beyond that the chlorine water of the swimming pool.
That’s when he heard the voices. The mansion had a long porch, screened against evening insects, filled with chairs and rockers from the days when the aristocratic former owners, the Terments, had held their big parties. He and Julie had sat there many nights listening to her father’s stories of Africa. However, the voices tonight were not those of Strake and Julie. He brushed the cobwebs from his bare legs and chest and sat back against the brick wall of the porch underpinnings as he listened.
“Washington!” someone said forcefully, a voice that he recognized as that of Stagmatter. It was spoken as if he were toasting the city.
“Washington!” he heard Doctor Owerri say next.
Tench heard the stretching of a metal spring, the kind that mounted on a screen door to insure the door closed back to the door frame. Clacking footsteps moved across the porch floor above Tench, the noise of Doctor Owerri’s sandals pressing down on the porch floor and making the loose boards squeak.
Tench recognized Stagmatter’s gruffness. “The radar picked him up two weeks ago and warned him to change his flight plan. This time, he flew lower on a slightly different course coming in, and received no warning. He wasn’t seen. It’s a bit of luck, finding out about this air show for the old aircraft. Just at the right time.”
As Doctor Owerri sat down he could hear the rustle of a cloth seat cushion. “You’re sure he can be trusted?” she asked. “After all, he is one of their soldiers.”
Stagmatter replied, “His family were murdered like mine. His grandfather and great uncle were killed by the Communists. He can be trusted.”
She said, “This farm is getting unsafe. The men found signs of yet another infiltrator.”
“We took care of the first one. We’ll take care of this one too. We should have shot at some more children. That was the best warning we ever did. A lot more effective than posting signs,” said Stagmatter.
“That did keep them away,” she said. Her English was more clipped, more professional than that of the old African he was used to hearing, the soft voice of Marengo. This voice was that of a manager, of someone who was in charge.
“We only need a few more hours,” said Stagmatter. Tench could hear him shifting in his chair.
“Yes, my German friend,” she said.
“We are not friends. I told you that when we started,” said Stagmatter. “I have no friends.”
“I remember,” she said “We have come a long successful way from our first meetings at the camp in that jungle, surrounded by dead and dying fighters.
Stagmatter drank his beer. He could hear him savoring it and then tapping the bottle on the table or on a chair arm.
“We have,” he agreed.
She said, “We are strong so we will win, it is that simple. That night in the darkness, hiding our tiny lights from the enemy around us, I remember telling you the same thing even though we were surrounded with so many guns. Yet we escaped as I said we would.”
Stagmatter tapped his beer bottle again. “You spoke the truth. That is why I can work with you. We share the hatred.”
Tench heard Doctor Owerri’s voice as she added, “The weapon is surprise and fire, far more powerful than thousands of bullets. Our only need of guns may be to kill these hostages.”
He heard Owerri laugh, a high pitched sound. “The fools. The smoke bomb. That got us the publicity I wanted without bullets. ”
Stagmatter said, “Yes, you will be on the network talk shows next week. You’re your book is selling very well. Not killing anyone was a stroke of genius.”
“If we had killed, the investigators might have found this farm. Now all they do is read my book.”
The conspirators, sitting above him on the summer porch, continued laughing or what passed for laughing. Stagmatter was not able to do much more than chortle with grunts and Owerri sounded like she was a screaming hyena yelping at the leftovers of other animals.
Tench heard a canned drink being opened.
“You should drink some beer before you fly,” Owerri said.
“I don’t need that. The thought of bringing death keeps me going,” said Stagmatter.
“Washington!” said Owerri.
They clinked their glasses and beer cans.
“I understand. You have waited so long,” Stagmatter said.
“The yacht is prepared to leave,” a new voice said, a heavy voice that sounded like the way he had heard the African mechanics speak English. They spoke as if they were partly saying the words in their own dialect.
Laughter broke out. “The gasoline has been loaded?” she asked.
“It is almost completed. The men have thought of everything,” said Stagmatter.
“They are good workers.”
“I am glad the famous Snake approves and that we were able to serve your purpose,” Stagmatter said. “They have been with me for a long time.”
“Yes,” she said. “The whites are so afraid of snakes, aren’t they?”
More laughter. “The people here are as easy to kill as the ones at home,” said Stagmatter.
“Your home or mine?”
“Africa,” said Stagmatter.
“When do we depart?” the mechanic asked. He was apparently waiting for further orders.
“We will leave on schedule,” said Stagmatter, looking at his watch.
A realization of what he was hearing suddenly came to him, Tench stood up straight. That motion almost caused him to hit his head on the frame of the cellar doorway. He stopped, not willing to think of the horror that these people must be planning. The people in Annapolis or Washington were going to get a terrible surprise attack, from a boat in the river near their cities. This must be what they called Black-eyed Susan, the code name for their plot. If it was going to take place in hours, as they said, he and Smote were the only persons who stood a chance to prevent it. That is, they could if he could find Smote or free him and get him to help.
“Try this wine as a better celebration of our success than common beer. It’s a simple country wine, made here in River Sunday. Not as good as the ones we know.”
“All right,” said Stagmatter.
Tench could hear the liquid being poured.
“I must admit when you first came to me,” said Owerri, “I thought the plan was an impossible dream.”
“Why did you support me?”
“You had the same look in your eyes as I, the des
ire to kill the enemy, and that was worth the support,” said Doctor Owerri. Her voice was as steady as when she spoke to the United Nations, but now Tench realized it was also as steady as if she were looking down the barrel of a rifle ready to kill. Snake was a good name for her.
Chapter Seventeen
1 AM Saturday August 21
The night air was warm and humid causing sweat to trickle down Tench’s face and neck. He was not afraid although he surprised himself that he wasn’t. After all, these Africans meant business and had guns. Tench knew his life wasn’t worth anything if they caught him.
The boxwood garden grew out for the mansion about one hundred yards on an uplifted plateau of grass covered ground. It was built centuries ago to look like the raised gardens in English country estates. Tench rested at the bottom of the plants, looking out over the pool toward the long lawn. Below him halfway down the open space from the mansion to the shoreline, the bulldozer lights had come on again. The machine seemed to be going back and forth over the lawn but did not appear to be pushing up dirt, instead the blade was lifted in front and stayed up as the tractor moved. As he watched the machine began another trek directly across the lawn. He was leveling, Tench thought, leveling the rough spots with the weight of the treads. The noise was muted not only by distance but by the grass and the treelines on both sides of the great field.
He turned his face and looked upward behind him at the mansion. The porch was still in darkness and quiet with only the tinkle of glasses from time to time. He knew they were still there. He moved slowly. To the right of the porch he saw the large steel building where the cars were stored. Here a light was on in a second floor window and he could see figures moving behind the window panes.
He went out of his cover and into the courtyard. Between the mansion and the car barn was the open space that he had seen when he arrived to collect the invoice from Stagmatter. Here had been parked the gasoline tank trucks. The space was dark now, stretching as before about two hundred yards between the house and the barn. The ground was level with no bushes or trees. He paused as he smelled the spilled gasoline near the underground filler pipes. Smiley had been right. This was a lot of fuel for a farm, even a farm with an automobile museum.
He inched around the mansion moving slowly to avoid detection by the men on the porch or by any guards who might be patrolling in the darkness in front of him. He passed the side door to the mansion and then low brush from a side garden. He reached the open back yard, and moved out from the mansion and the car building toward the back structure.
When he got to the far building he realized that the light was coming from a single crack in one of the upper windows on the façade. All the other windows across the top were covered tightly with plywood and showed no light. Across the bottom were great sliding doors that were sealed so that nothing could be seen inside.
He looked around to find something to get higher so he could look in through the crack. To his left lying on the ground was a wooden rung ladder. He went to the ladder noticing that it smelled of gasoline. He brought it to the side of the barn and after looking around again and seeing he was still alone, climbed to the crack. Inside he saw a partition which came down to the floor from a point just short of the ceiling. He could see nothing over the top as he was not high enough at his perch. He could see along the front wall and the back of the sliding doors that opened along the front. They slid from side to side on rails in the flooring. Also he could see the bodies of two large Ford four wheel drive pickup trucks with cable winches mounted in their beds and cables stretching behind them to something that he could not see. They looked as if they were ready to haul something large forward and out the doors.
He came down from the ladder and carefully put it back in its former position along the bottom of the wall. At that moment he heard voices inside the barn and knew he had to get out of sight if someone came outside. He moved to the side of the building where heavy growths of weeds existed growing up against the corrugated steel panels, some of the fronds as high as his shoulders. He crouched down at the far corner looking down the back and the side and listened. He heard nothing.
At the back of the building he noticed a door that had been propped open. The small amount of light that came out on the ground illuminated stacks of empty paint cans that gave off the odor of airplane dope, the kind used to seal fabric over wings and to coat metal struts. He recognized the smell because he had experimented with it as a coating on his car surfaces. He got up from his hiding place and carefully moved along the wall to the doorway, the bare skin of his back rubbing against the vines that were growing high up the walls.
Inside the door he saw a corridor flanked on both sides by partitions that reached to a low ceiling, one of them probably the same one that he had seen from the front of the building. A single light hung on a wire and moths were attacking it, casting shadows on the walls. At the end was another door and this one was also ajar. Still standing outside Tench heard footsteps, and a door creaked open behind the partition on his right. The footsteps disappeared as the other door then slammed shut with a metallic clang.
He listened but heard nothing. He slipped inside. The smooth concrete floor felt cool on the soles of his bare feet after walking on the gravel outside. He moved quietly down the corridor toward the door. Then through the rack of the open door he saw the girders of the shed roof fifty or so feet above, their struts making shadows against the inside of the corrugated steel roof from the suspended lights between them.
From where he stood, the plane, painted a desert tan color, stretched out in front of him. To the rear were the rudders, great oval shapes with wide stripes of white paint across their breadth and several small numbers in black paint above, most of them faded beyond recognition. He approached the fuselage, towards the white star of the World War Two American forces and to steel steps that went up inside the open bomb bay doors. Then looking up at the nose side of the great machine above him, he saw its name written in flowing letters on the metal skin and realized what was happening.
In front of him were painted in white the words Black-eyed Susan and beside them the drawing of a flower with a black hub and yellow petals.
“My God,” he said to himself, and stood back, fear running through his body. He could only think of Annapolis forty miles by air from here, an antique air show for disguise, and the flight of a bomber capable of carrying God knows what kinds of bombs in the hands of these fanatics. This bomber was not too antique, too old, to carry enough bombs to kill a lot of people. Just like Smiley’s old Civil War handgun, it could kill. Black-eyed Susan, the ultimate aircraft name, once part of the colorful nose art of thousands of planes in the late war. Only this name would be more infamous, killing hundreds of innocent people in the city and suburbs of western Maryland. A glimmer of the irony hit him as he remembered a long ago lecture of his grammar school teacher about the beauty of the Maryland state flower.
As he looked upward at the big airplane he realized another fact. This machine looked like it was ready to fly.
Gasoline fumes were in the air. Strong fumes as if the old plane had a leak or was overfilled. He saw the stains of recently spilled fuel on the concrete floor of the hanger. The plane had been recently filled but strangely the spots were under the fuselage bomb bay not under the engines.
He decided to go aboard and see what the plane was carrying if anything. Two entrances existed. One was at the tail of the plane and consisted of a metal ladder going up into a small trap door in the body. The other was underneath the belly of the warplane where the whole bottom of the plane was open. This was also a metal ladder. He chose this one and climbed into the fuselage through what must have been the bomb bay. Its doors which were drawn up on tracks at the sides of the fuselage.
Inside, in front of him on both sides of the plane were huge rubber tanks, the flexible kind, used for ferrying large quantities of liquids. As he drew closer to them he realized these were the sources of the fuel smell. He
counted the tanks. Four. They were only partly filled. He thought about the trucks that had delivered gasoline. That was what they were doing, the drivers probably completely unaware that they were providing this explosive for such a terrible goal. All that had to be done was to finish filling these tanks, get the aircraft in the air on the prearranged flight plan and target the unsuspecting people on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay.
In the front cockpit Tench could see the instruments and the seats for the pilots. He moved in that direction. The little bit of light coming in from outside the old bomber did not allow him to see much around him. The rubber tanks rubbed against his body, the wet fuel smearing on his skin.
That was when he tripped on a filler pipe left on the deck of the plane. As he fell forward on his face, he heard Smote’s voice in the darkness.
“Move and I’ll cut your throat.”
Tench turned his head slightly, and said,” Smote, it’s me.”
Smote came forward into the dim light. He had a smile on his face as he put his knife back in his waist belt.
“What a hell of a mess,” Tench said to his friend as he climbed to his feet.
Smote reached for a fresh stick of gum from his pants pocket. “Want a piece?” he asked in a calm voice.
Tench said, “Have you figured out where they are keeping Julie?
Smote shook his head. He said, “We’ll look for her. First, Let me show you this stuff they have in here.”
“They are going to bomb Washington or Annapolis with this airplane,” said Tench. He related the conversation he had overheard.
“I figured it was something like that. My grandfather must have seen them preparing this plane. That’s why they killed him.” He grinned. “I get them back now.”
“You sound like you know something about these planes,” said Tench.
Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) Page 14