Scone Island

by Frederick Ramsay

  The government Citation touched down gracefully on the tarmac—you had to admire those Air Force guys. They knew flying. The plane taxied up to the doors and dropped its steps. Charlie watched as the director descended and pushed into the building.

  “This way, Garland,” he snapped and led the way into a conference room. His aide started to follow but the director waved him off. “My patience is about gone and my temper near to boiling. This had better be good because I have a list of charges against you that could damn near put you in jail—never mind early retirement.”

  Charlie sat and waited a second or two until the director did the same. It took him a little over an hour to lay out the general shape of what he’d gleaned from the various hacked and purloined files.

  Sometime during the conversation Charlie thought he heard the Fifty-one Star helicopter depart to the opposite side of the ramp. Another fifteen minutes passed with Charlie answering questions fired at him by the director before the latter sat back and nodded.

  “You’re sure you have this right?”

  “Positive.”

  “So, he knew?”

  “Probably.”

  “And Ike?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “The others?”

  “Not them either, but no way we could find out now.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Do you know what or who the Fifty-first Star is?”

  “Some far right survivalist organization in Idaho. FBI’s problem, not ours, what about it?”

  “Martin Pangborn.”

  “What about him? Besides being one of the President’s supporters and influence peddlers.”

  “He has already bought three state governors, at least one Senator, and the President’s aide, Col. Brattan, is alleged to be in his pocket as well. Pangborn is busy seeding the federal bureaucracy with his people and, more importantly, he’s the brains behind Fifty One Star and its chief source of money.”

  “And?”

  “The Fifty-first Star is not just a bunch of middle-aged survivalists who like to talk big and wear camo. It’s an armed militia that started back during the California water wars when some in the north thought to separate the state into two. Anyway, Pangborn has a small army at his disposal.”

  “Again, Charlie, FBI’s problem. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Daniel Osborn is the man he wants placed in State. Also, Osborn brings new money to Pangborn’s cause. For both of them it’s a win-win. Pangborn gets money and Osborn gets a governmental post that could, if played right, make him a power broker in a continent that is about to play an important role in international affairs. There is just the small matter of Osborn’s past that needed to be put to bed, so to speak. As I said—win-win. But our more immediate concern is that the Fifty-first Star’s helicopter took off just now, and unless I miss my guess, it is headed east.”

  The director waved in his aide, then made a call to the local National Guard. Forty-five minutes later Charlie, the director, his aide, and four very tough young men and one equally tough woman were airborne in a Black Hawk helicopter headed to Scone Island.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Luckily for Eden, one of the Gotts had his boat moored in Bass Harbor. Had it left for Scone Island on time, she would have had to spend the night in the local Holiday Inn and travel to the island the following afternoon. As it was, she and one other passenger made the trip to the island as the sun started its journey westward.

  “Don’t you just love the salt air,” she said to the man by way of introduction.

  He nodded briefly and moved aft without replying.

  Eden had known many rude people in her life. As the wife of an academic, she had become inured to the type. Her only thought, one she later deemed unworthy, was that this extremely unprepossessing man could not afford to be rude to anybody.

  Her luck held as one of the LeFranc boys had just finished coiling some lines for his father and offered to cart her rather substantial luggage to Aunt Margaret’s, now Ruth’s, cottage. She remembered that the doors on the island were never locked which turned out to be yet another stroke of luck.

  “Hello, anybody home?”

  No answer. She wandered through the house and, seeing a fire laid, lit it, mixed herself a small pitcher of martinis, courtesy of the miniatures supplied by the airline, and settled in to wait for Ike and Ruth to return from wherever they’d gone.

  After a wait of an hour and the consumption of three martinis, she hiked her chair closer to the fire and fell asleep.

  ***

  Mary Smithwick believed it would be a mild spring, but once the sun set somewhere over Bass Harbor, the ambient temperature dropped at least fifteen degrees. Ike and Ruth huddled together in the shallow declivity behind the log he’d dragged to it to create the “lurk.”

  “It is hard to believe we elected to sit here and wait for imminent death. I have always suspected you were semisuicidal, Schwartz, but I had no idea it was contagious. Whatever possessed me to agree to this?”

  “If I am not mistaken, Ms. President in absentia, you chose to stay and experience the thrill of my company. It was I, if you remember, who wanted you on a fast boat to the mainland two days ago. As the saying goes, you made this bed. If I failed, it was not on insisting you go.”

  “Wouldn’t have worked. There is no turning back when I get a really stupid spell. Sorry about that.”

  “Charlie suggested I drug you and lock you up someplace safe until all this was over.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Couldn’t find the dope.”

  “Just as well. The thought of returning to a comatose state is absolutely last thing I want right now. Before you do that, just shoot me. Oops, bad figure of speech.”

  “Better dead than abed? Life is so unfair. Here, have some hot chocolate.”

  “If this were anywhere, anytime else, playing footsie in the woods with you under a blanket in the middle of night would be fun.”

  “You’re not having fun?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Maybe you could sing some of those snappy camp songs you were so enthusiastic about on Pine Island when we were getting rained on while waiting for the—”

  “You needn’t rub it in. Oh, and speaking of Pine Tree Island and inasmuch as we have only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving this party, would you mind telling me now why I am buying it?”

  “Sure, why not? Do you recall the name of the Coast Guard commander?”

  “Gus somebody.”

  “Gustave Staehle, but I am only interested in the surname.”

  “So you said.”

  The name was spelled S,T,A,E,H,L,E but its pronounced, Staley, see?

  “See what?”

  “I think the late Frank Barstow thought the man he knew as Harmon Staley was a distant relation of Gustav and knew the secret.”

  “But he wasn’t Staley. He was your idiot friend, Archie.”

  “True, but Barstow wouldn’t know that. If he believed the name had been Anglicized to the simpler spelling, or if he hadn’t seen it spelled out, he might reasonably have assumed this Staley was connected to the other one.”

  “What’s reasonable about that? There must be a zillion Staleys loping around this part of the world.”

  “Probably not millions, but enough. How about one who bought a dilapidated house on a remote island in the ocean off the coast of Maine? What are the chances?”

  “Okay, I’ll bite, what secret? What do you think Barstow thought Staley, that is Whitlock, knew? Or was it the other way round? Who knew what?”

  “Neither of them knew but thought they were on to it. They both had detailed maps of the island. They both seemed to have a notion that there could be some major money made here if they could find it.”

  “I give up. Find what?”

  “Electricity.”

  “Electricity? Sorry, either the thought of dying in the next hour or so has slowed my corti
cal functions to dead stop or you are being obtuse. I’m voting for the latter.”

  “What is missing from this island that if it were in place would skyrocket the value of the real estate here?”

  “Okay, it has no phone service, no electricity, and no ready supply of water.”

  “Exactly, and both men had maps, including hydrological studies and topographical. I am no expert, but after inspecting the first there seems to be a decent aquifer under this rock. Phone service is only a tower, or a satellite away, and that leaves electricity.”

  “They thought they could bring it to the island?”

  “They thought it was already here.”

  “No.”

  “Yep, Archie assumed he’d find it and so did Barstow. Only they got it wrong. Barstow first thought it would be in the Coast Guard Station and then when he couldn’t find it there, believed that Archie bought Cliffside because he knew where it was. Archie thought he’d find it in the biggest house on the island.”

  “And?”

  “As I said, they were both mistaken. It’s on Pine Tree Island. The government, the Coast Guard, some World War II agency, laid a cable from the mainland to the island. It was never connected at either end, probably because the war ended and it, like the jeep and the artillery pieces now resting in the ocean, were abandoned and then forgotten. Do you remember the concrete box I told you about—the one with the Property of the U.S.C.G painted on it? Well, that cable terminates in it. I saw it. There is a stump of a utility pole next to it and evidence a small building was planned for the site. If we own the island, we own the power cable. All we would have to do is connect it at the front end and figure out how distribute it at this end. Got it?”

  “Wow, I could become a capitalist. We’re playing Monopoly and I landed on the electric company. Wait, what about the water works?”

  “A community well and pumping station would do it, I think. That was the reason to look for the hydrological survey. Remember I said I wanted to check out Cliffside and—”

  “And you found all that stuff, and now we are sitting in the dark inviting the Grim Reaper to our party.”

  “That wasn’t the original idea, but yeah, that’s the way it turned out.”

  “So, the sland could move into this century.”

  “Or the last one which would be near enough. The question is do we want it to?”

  “I’ll need to think about that. In any case, if we survive, we buy the island. Whether it makes the forward leap to modernity will be our decision, not some opportunists, like the late Frank Barstow.”

  “Spoken like a true ivory-tower liberal. Good for you.”

  “Knock it off, smart-ass. You agree with me and you know it.”

  “Shhh…”

  “Don’t shush me. I’m right and you are not the political Neanderthal you pretend to be and—”

  “Be quiet. Listen.”

  Ruth stopped speaking. In the distance they heard the faint growl of a turboprop engine approaching from the west.

  “That’s them?”

  “It must be. You remember what to do?”

  “Night-vision goggles down unless there is light. Up, if there is. Don’t aim at anything or anyone in particular, just shoot straight at them as fast as I can. Use a fresh piece rather than reload—do you really call them pieces? It sounds naughty, and—”

  “You got it. Okay, sit tight.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Do you really call your guns pieces, and isn’t that a Freudian thing? Guns that shoot bullets and—”

  “Hush.”

  “It’s getting nearer. How come I can’t see anything?”

  “They won’t have their running lights on. We’ll only know they’re here when they drop down over the houses or the trees. They may turn on their landing lights for a moment to check their spot. If they do—”

  “Night vision goggles up. I know.”

  The bulk of the aircraft, nearly invisible in the moonless sky, loomed over the housetops, its motor snarling like a very large and angry wasp.

  “That’s one hell of a helicopter. Jesus, these guys are equipped.”

  “I have to tell you something, Ike.”

  The thwip-thwip of the helicopter’s rotor blades hacking the air and the deafening rumble of its twin motors drowned out any possible communication.

  “I love you,” she yelled.

  “What?”

  “I said I wanted you to know—”

  “Goggles up, they’ve switched on the landing lights.”

  “Ike!”

  “Heads down. Here they come.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  The helicopter wobbled, steadied, and then settled with a barely discernible thump a dozen yards in front of them. Instinctively, Ike put his hand on the top of Ruth’s head, forcing it well below the edge of the log which provided their only protection from a rain of bullets which he assumed would come the instant the new arrivals piled out of the chopper and discovered them. And that must come sooner or later.

  “Ow, Ike, have you forgotten, I broke my neck once already?” Ruth howled and twisted away.

  Ike did not hear her both because of the engine noise and because his focus had shifted to his next move. He picked the Very flare gun from the ground, opened the breech, grabbed a cartridge from the bag of supplies and aimed in the direction of the helicopter. The rotors were still whirling but the engines were disengaged and idling, that is, they were idling to the extent turbo jets could be said to idle. He pointed the muzzle upward and squeezed the trigger just as the chopper’s door slid open. The gun popped as the powder used to propel the missile went off.

  Instead of sailing skyward, the projectile was drawn by the rotor’s wash into a low arc and leaving a trail of bright orange sparks straight toward the chopper. Rather than lighting up the area and the machine as he hoped, it sailed straight into the passenger compartment. A split second later, the interior of the helicopter was engulfed in flames. Men poised to dismount were silhouetted against the fire. They scrambled to the door and leapt up and away like puffy stick figures, some with their clothing alight. Ike dropped the flare gun and raised his pistol.

  “Oh shit!” he said.

  “What just happened?” Ruth yelped.

  “Tell you later.”

  He began firing at the men scrambling on the ground in front of him. Ruth crouched next to him, holding her pistol two handed and calmly squeezed off rounds spaced a half second apart. Like a metronome, she swung her weapon right and left. Fifteen shots each from the heavy clips. When the clips were empty, they dropped their weapons and picked up another. Before resuming fire, they paused to take in what they’d done.

  “What do you think?” Ruth said.

  Before Ike could answer her question, the blast of a louder explosion created a shock wave that nearly knocked them off their feet. A ball of fire that might have been seen in Bass Harbor, had anyone been looking, mushroomed skyward.

  “Holy cow, Ike, what the hell is going on?”

  “Short answer—I wanted to light a flare to cancel their night vision goggles and give us a clear view. I didn’t look to see what I grabbed from Archie’s bag and I must have loaded one of his incendiaries.”

  “You lit up the chopper.”

  “Yep, and the flames reached the fuel tanks and kablam. Judging by the size of that fire-ball I’d guess they were carrying a full load of gas.”

  These last words were drowned out by a second roar as the port side tank blew, which sent the rotors pin-wheeling off into the trees. The hull lurched forward on it nose, folded in half, and collapsed on its side. If the pilot had not joined the others at the door he could not have survived. Except for moaning, cursing, and the crackling of the flames as the hull of the chopper slowly crumpled from the heat, all was quiet.

  “Wowzer, you really know how to show a girl a good time, Schwartz. That looked like the old movie of the Hindenburg blowing. So, what do we do now?”

  �
��We secure these birds before they recover and get organized. Then all we do is wait for the cops or whoever answers my call first.” He opened the sat-phone and called Stone and Charlie.

  Neither one answered.

  ***

  Eden’s fellow passenger had already disengaged Tom Stone from any possible support he might have provided. One round from a silenced automatic had dropped him on the beach. Stone did not receive the coup de grâce from his assailant. The exploding helicopter spun his assailant around and directed his attention elsewhere. The man hesitated, guessed that the tide would soon take the policeman out to sea, and raced away toward the flames. No one, he thought, could possibly have missed that blast, and only a fool would not expect it to trigger at least a call from the storekeeper to the police on the mainland. And if the fire meant the chopper had blown, he’d need to use his alternate exit from the island. The boat should be pulling up to the cliff steps about now. That is, it would if the blast hadn’t sent its crew packing. That was the trouble with hired goons—no loyalty. He would have to take care of that later. Right now he needed to eliminate Schwartz if he was still alive and any other witnesses, including any from the helicopter who weren’t already dead. There must be no way anyone could trace this back to him. He dashed up the road to the path and then slowed. He had no idea what had happened or who had survived, and until he did, he thought it best to stay well out of sight.

  Just outside of the ring of flickering light he stopped and surveyed the area. More importantly, he saw a man and a woman moving back and forth, bending over, shoving inert figures around, and then dragging them to a central spot. It took him a few seconds to realize what they were doing. The man had to be Schwartz and the woman, his fiancée. How had they managed to destroy a fully functional helicopter and truss up the surviving crew like that? If the authorities arrived before he acted, the whole operation was in the toilet.

  He moved up behind the two who stood, arms akimbo, watching over the men lying at their feet.