Death Across the Lake

by Lyle Hightower

  “This is Big G, Big G, requesting assistance, sector 7, Alpha, Quebec 36 dash 5. Again, Big G requesting assistance sector 7, Alpha, Quebec 36 dash 5, under siege.” She sat there repeating the same words over and over. Morty and I watched the door. She continued for what must have been nearly five minutes before we started to hear the sound of boots in the hallway. She motioned to her bag, and then pointed at me. I took her cue, and looking in her bag found two grenades. She nodded and motioned for me to use them.

  Holding myself against the doorframe, I waited until I could see them coming around the corner, and I started shooting with my handgun. It was just my service revolver, and didn’t have much of a kick. It wasn’t going to be of much use beyond covering fire. I pulled the pin in the grenade, and waited two seconds before lobbing it down the hallway. I threw it and it exploded, and I heard the cries of soldiers. There was quiet again, and I could still hear Irene talking into the radio.

  Then the power went out.

  “We have to get to a more secure location, somewhere we can wait and hold a defensive position,” Irene said.

  “They’re all over the building,” I said. “There’s nowhere to go but up.”

  “The roof,” she said. “We’ll get on the roof. There will only be one way onto the roof, and we can hold them from breaching the door, at least for a while. They won’t have grappling hooks, at least not until they get reinforcements. And they won’t fire mortars at their own building, at least I don’t think they will. We’ll have a chance.”

  We moved into the hallway. The smoke from the explosion hung in the air, and we ran into it, coming to the stairwell door.

  “They’ll be on the other side,” I whispered. Irene nodded, and I pulled the pin on the second grenade, opened the door, and threw it in and took cover. Seconds later there was another explosion and more pained shouting in the stairwell.

  “Now,” I called out, and I opened the door to the stairwell. Smoke hung in the air, but there were no militiamen in sight. A large assault rifle, dirty, patched up and stained with blood lay on the ground. I grabbed it. We ran up the stairs, coming to a small doorway at the top, which opened up onto the roof and the darkness outside.

  “We need to take up positions around the entrance,” Irene said as she closed the door. I ripped a length of pipe off the wall next to the door and jammed it under the door handle, blocking it.

  “I’ve got two more grenades,” she said, kneeling next to a ventilation duct. Morty stood, shaking, unsure of what to do. “How many rounds are in that clip?” she asked. I took it out and looked.

  “It’s full.”

  “That’s something,” she said.

  I took up a position not far from her, next to another duct, that I hoped would provide some cover. Morty was a few feet away from me.

  “Keep an eye on the perimeter,” I said. “Tell us if you see anyone climbing over the edge of the roof.” I tossed him my service revolver, and he scurried off to take shelter next to a utility box.

  We waited for what felt like an hour before there was any sign of the Militia again. Then there was a banging on the door. The pipe rattled against its restraints each time they threw their weight against it.

  “Be ready to open fire once the door is down,” Irene called over to me.

  Again and again someone threw themselves against the door. I wondered what must have been going through their minds. They must have known that the second they breeched it we would be waiting there, arms at the ready. Perhaps they had just accepted this fact, and given in to fate. Either way, they didn’t seem to be holding back, and within minutes the pipe was bent, and the door was open a crack. Then suddenly it swung open widely, and a large figure stood in the open doorway, before a voice behind him called out “get down!” I opened fire, and a volley of bullets hit him squarely in the chest. He fell, and further shots rang out as other Militia soldiers fired blindly into the night. I kept shooting, my aim steady, in short bursts. Irene fired too, and then we stopped. There was silence.

  There was a faint sound, like the air going out of someone’s lungs, and then a small dark object flew through the air, coming straight at me. The understanding of what was heading towards me came slower than I would have liked, and the grenade was nearly at my feet when a dark figure whisked past me, snatching it out of the air. It was Morty. Jumping, he twisted in the air and threw it back at the doorway. It flew back where it had come, and Morty seemed to float in the air a second. Then there was a loud ‘pop’, a flash of light, and Morty was blown backwards, landing ten feet behind me. From the doorway could be heard cries of agony. I looked over my shoulder, and Morty was there, groaning softly, and Irene ran over to him, inspecting his torso for shrapnel wounds. There was a growing red patch on his stomach, but he seemed to be conscious.

  I turned back to the doorway, firing single rounds every now and then. They pinged off the metal of the stairwell. There was no sound coming from the Militia, but I knew they’d soon try again.

  “We can’t hold out for much longer,” I said to Irene.

  “If we try to get off this roof, we’re dead,” she said. “We have to hope that help is going to come. It’s our only chance.”

  “Help from where?” I yelled, almost incensed.

  Just then I heard a faint whistling sound. It grew into a scream, and then suddenly there was a loud explosion, not thirty feet from the building. We were under mortar fire. The sound repeated itself and there were more explosions, all around us. The mortars fell around the building in a circle clockwise, six explosions in all, and then there was silence. Then the gunfire started. From several directions I could hear automatic weapons, breaking glass, and men and women yelling. Hand grenades were going off. The building was under siege.

  “I think our help arrived,” Irene said. She ran over to the edge of the roof. She slowly peeked her head over the edge, and then stood up suddenly and waved. She ran back.

  “They’re here!” she cried.

  “Who?” I said, consternated.

  “The Rangers. I called for them and they actually came. I didn’t think it would work!”

  “How did they get here so fast?” I said. “From across the lake.”

  “They didn’t,” she said. “Oh, Bailey, didn’t you at least suspect? They’ve got sleepers all over the north east.”

  A grappling hook flew over our heads, and then pulled back against the gravel, hooking itself to the edge of the roof.

  “We have to leave now,” she said. “Morty, can you hold on to Bailey’s shoulders?”

  My grudging respect for the Rangers grew suddenly to something approximating esteem. Esteem, and a little bit of worry. I understood finally that my home town was the centrepiece in a fight for the region that was far bigger than I had ever imagined.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  They bundled us into the back of a pickup truck when we got down to the ground. We lay there, wrapped in blankets, while two Rangers sat up front and drove us away into the night. I’d seen a few of the others, ten or twelve of them, but as soon as we were off the side of the building, Morty holding on to me for dear life, Irene deftly repelling down the side of the building after us, they had melted away into the night, one of them remaining behind on an electric off-road buggy to lay down covering fire while we escaped. We were barely past the tree line when I heard the sound of his engine revving, and he was away as well.

  “How did you know that would work?” I asked Irene, almost angry with her for holding onto this crucial piece of information.

  “I didn’t. I had to hope,” she said.

  I got out of my blanket and unwrapping Morty from his I applied pressure to the most serious looking of his wounds. He smiled appreciatively through gritted teeth. He seemed alert, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “How did you know there was even anyone to call?” I asked Irene.

  “When I was embedded with the Rangers, in Vermont, I went through the same basic training that they
all do. The entire region is mapped out into sectors. One can call for help at any time. I wasn’t sure they would come, or that they had any people left on this side of the lake, but it was our only hope. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Bailey. It’s a sensitive issue. The Rangers don’t really trust us, the Vermont State Troopers, I mean. They cooperate with us but they see us as the puppets of the State Legislature in Montpelier.”

  “I can’t really blame them,” I said. “I don’t really trust those people either.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. Morty winced at every bump, but it seemed like he was going to be okay.

  A short time later we ducked off the road and the truck’s lights cut out. We were still moving, along an old forest road that had since been abandoned. After another ten minutes we stopped, and the two Rangers up front got out of the cab and came around to the back and pulled down the tailgate. They helped Morty out of the truck bed, while Irene and I hopped out. It was a moonlit night and we could see our surroundings pretty well. There was a darkened hut some distance away, and another vehicle, a dilapidated looking hatchback with huge tires and jacked-up suspension. A an older man, perhaps fifty years of age, wearing gaiters and a long-skirted coat–the dress uniform of a Ranger–emerged from the hut, and started barking orders at the other two rangers. Three more came out of the hut and looked at him, waiting for him to say something else.

  “So?!” he said, almost seeming incredulous. “What happened?”

  “These three were on the roof of the Militia building at the west end of town, under attack.”

  “I don’t supposed you asked them who they were before you brought them here?”

  “She identified herself as a State Trooper,” said the taller of the two rangers who had driven us there.

  “Vermont State Trooper?”

  “Sub-Commander Irene McGill,” Irene said, stepping forward.

  “Oh, you’re that attaché that Captain Roundtree used to pal around with. What in the hell are you doing here? And who are these two?”

  “This is Detective Benny Bailey of the B.P.D.”

  “What’s a B.P.D. when it’s home for the weekend?” he said, starting to look angry again.

  “Burlington Police Department,” she said. “And the other one is Morty, a hired safecracker. Old associate of Detective Bailey’s.”

  “I’m Major Ramsey Cantwell,” he said. He exhaled loudly, turned around to look at his hut, and then turned back to us and sat down on a log.

  “Sorry if I was cranky just now. There’s been so little to do here lately, and then suddenly there’s all this excitement, and now that it’s over I feel a bit deflated. You wanna tell me what happened, Sub-Commander?”

  Irene carefully went through the story, careful to dance around what it was exactly we had been in the building to retrieve. Cantwell seemed to take this in, though he surely must have noticed the missing details.

  “So just your basic daredevil reconnaissance mission. And I presume it was a success?”

  “We think so,” Irene said. “Is that hut the extent of the whole camp,” she added, changing the subject.

  “No, we’ve got the usual tunnel system under ground. The shack looks like a forest man’s dwelling, and the entrance to the caves is concealed. It’s basically a stockpile, but I used to have eighty Rangers here, half of them from over the lake, the rest were local. Now I’m down to forty or so. How many actually showed up?” He looked past Irene at one of the Rangers who’d driven us.

  “Close to two dozen sir, including Milligan and Jones with the mortar.”

  “Not bad,” Cantwell said. “Not bad at all, considering.”

  “Considering what?” I asked.

  Cantwell looked at me for a long time, sort of squinting like he couldn’t quite see me.

  “We got orders from on high, maybe four months ago now. Half the camp was ordered back over the lake. Some redeployment of resources. They told me that the rest of my people, except the minimum needed to keep the stockpile running, needed to move into town, get jobs, try to blend in. In emergencies like this, we have radio signals we use, coded, but not everyone is next to a radio when a call goes out. It’s a useful arrangement for intelligence gathering, but it’s the worst for operational coordination.”

  “Why the change?” Irene said.

  “That’s above my pay grade,” he said.

  “I haven’t heard from my Ranger contacts in months,” Irene said. “All over Vermont it seems like they’re in retreat. Or regrouping. Something is happening.”

  “Ahhh,” he said. “Well, I’m sure they’ll tell us sooner or later. Something’s cooking. Now what are we going to do about the three of you. I’m assuming whatever it is you’ve gotten your hands on has some value. Am I correct in assuming that the two of you need to get out of New York State as quickly as possible?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s nowhere to go right now. Best thing is to stay here tonight and through the day tomorrow. Then you’ll probably have to walk up to the Canadian border. We can drive you part of the way, but by the time you get to Highway 3 things are a bit dicier with the Militia patrols. You’ll have to take the backroads, a good day’s walk, and then you can hook around the lake and cross back over on the Vermont side. We can supply you, maybe get you some new shoes if you need ‘em, give you enough food.”

  “That’s very gracious of you,” I said.

  Cantwell’s face had a crafty look on it, suddenly.

  “Can I convince you to tell me what it is exactly you got your hands on that makes it such a hot potato?”

  “I don’t think you can, but I can answer you with a question,” Irene said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why do the Green Mountain Continental Rangers have a covert base here, in New York?”

  “For intelligence, and in case we ever need to mount an offensive for the defence of the State of Vermont.”

  “You think the Empire State Militia ever had the same idea, in reverse?”

  He scratched his head for a minute, and then said “ahh” and nodded in understanding.

  “Well then, I’ll show you to your quarters. This way.”

  With that, we went into the shack, down into the ground, into barely lit tunnels, and Cantwell opened a door for us, into a small room with six cots jammed into it, and bade us sleep well.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It’d be hard to explain to someone who’d never been there what it is that just feels different about being in Canada. It’s not how it looks; sure, the Adirondacks give way to the open plains of the Saint Lawrence Valley, but it’s not a sudden change, and there isn’t one moment when you can suddenly say, “we’re in Canada.” The border is porous, for one thing, with no clear point of demarcation, save for a few of the old border posts at the highway crossings, if you go that route.

  If you walk over the border into Canada along any of the smaller roads or forest trails, you start in New York or Vermont, and then, over the course of a few hours, things start to change. Any people you come across on the road look healthier, for one thing, their houses aren’t nearly so mean looking and dilapidated as the average dwelling back home. They smile more, speak more softly, and largely keep to themselves. There’s something almost lulling about the small towns of southern Quebec. And then there’s the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, who are kind of like Canada’s State Troopers, except there are a lot of them about, and they aren’t a secret.

  It was precisely because of them that we didn’t worry too much about being followed over the border by any Empire State Militia. The border was a hard stop in the bad old days when the United States of America was a more recent memory and refugees clamoured to get into Canada, desperate for food, jobs, stability. But as things got better at home, the infrastructure the Canadians put up to keep Americans out was left to crumble, and now the only defence that was needed were patrols by the RCMP, platoons of tall, healthy and happy looking fighters, w
ell trained, and very well equipped. New Yorkers, Vermonters and Canadians crossed the border more or less unhindered, but any military incursion would have been met with wave upon wave of elite troops the likes of which no one on the American side of the border had the strength to match.

  But despite this coiled power simmering under the surface, the place felt free. It wasn’t my first time over the border, but I started for the first time to wonder what it would be like to stay. I wondered too about Montreal, Toronto, and windswept Halifax, none of which I’d ever been to, enclaves of civilization that from what I’d heard could still give you a taste of what it was like to live in a city in the 20th century.

  We stayed a night at an inn in a small town called Bedford. Our landlady, an old woman named Audette who didn’t speak much English, fed us a roast chicken, one she had bought from her neighbour just that morning. When we protested that the dinner was worth more than the entire cost of our room, she waved us away, saying “I eat ‘hole chick-enn bye mye-self? It taste bett-ur bee-cos I share wid yoo.”

  The room was small and dusty, with two ancient, creaking beds, but I don’t think I’ve slept better in a long time than I did that night.

  Irene, and Morty, who was able to walk despite his wounds, seemed to relax as well. We were finally safe, after days of tension, and we carried with us information that might change the course of history in the Republic of the Green Mountains.

  We just had to get it home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  We made it back to Vermont the next day, and that old feeling in my gut, the feeling of rot and unease crept back into my consciousness. We were home. Morty looked happy. I don’t think he’d ever imagined he’d be able to return home. I hadn’t forgotten the promise I’d made him about having his record expunged. I hoped I could convince someone at State to do it.