by Andy Straka
“The falcon’s dead too.”
“But we thought there was a second person present at the murder scene.”
“I figure Goyne showed up right after to make sure Farraday didn’t screw it up.”
“And the others that were killed?”
“Farraday had to set the bombs on the trucks.”
“That’s what I figured too.”
“And the vet at the clinic … I don’t know. That was pretty sloppy. I’d probably have to say Farraday there too.”
“I can’t believe these guys might actually get away with this crap,” I said.
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You remember that job I told you about, the one up in Canada last year?”
“Yeah. You said you retrieved something, but you wouldn’t say what it was.”
“Right. Well, they were reinforced cylinders used to store chemical weapons. Empties. They were supposed to have been destroyed in a weapons incinerator in Utah, but I guess these bunnies somehow slipped through the cracks. Don’t ask me how they ended up on the bottom of the Straight of Georgia ‘cause I don’t know.”
“You said they were empties. Were they dangerous or something?”
“Not particularly. And they’d been in the water a long time. But we dove in hazardous-materials suits just in case.”
“And you did this for Goyne?”
“Right. That and for ten thousand dollars for six hours’ work, and what I thought was a legitimate black op.”
“Okay. Tell me about it.”
“It was like this: I was told the idea had two purposes. Identify potential terrorist cells attempting to acquire chemical weapons by offering to sell them to suspected targets. Provide them with extremely minute amounts—we’re talking almost microscopic—of the genuine article. Not enough to do any real damage. Then set up a big-quantity sale. Pump a bunch of genuine tanks full of a close, toxic but nonlethal chemical relative. Collect the money and either move in for the sting or let the terrorists get frustrated with their worthless weapons. Either dry up their money supply or arrest them or both.”
“But wouldn’t terrorists be suspicious and run some kind of tests to make sure they were getting the genuine article?”
“That’s what I said. But I guess most of these ideological types are not all that sophisticated.”
“Like Higgins and the white supremacist Stonewall Rangers.”
“Brains are not real high on the recruiter’s list of attributes. And anyway, contrary to what most people think, when it comes to these chemicals, the stuff is really a lot tougher to deliver effectively than most people realize.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Weather and wind conditions play a big role. Even with a big bomb or something, you can’t always be certain. Tests fail a lot of times or have mixed results. The inexperienced might manage to kill a small animal or something, but that’s a long way from wiping out an entire city, or even a crowd of people unless you really know what you’re doing. Those terrorists in Japan a few years back got lucky—and that was only because they managed to unleash a fair amount of the stuff in one of the most tightly packed places full of people on earth: a Tokyo subway.”
“Sounds like someone’s been feeding you the party line,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I bought it hook, line, and sinker.”
“Don’t feel that bad. Looks like the ATF and the FBI bought it too.”
“Right.”
“Is that why you didn’t contact me after you escaped from the Feds—I want to hear that story sometime, by the way—and why you’ve been acting so secretive?”
“That and one more thing.”
“I’m all ears.”
“My old man belongs to the Stonewall Rangers.”
“Felipe?”
“Um-hum.”
“How long?”
“A couple of years. He’s always ranted and raved in private, just to me, I used to think, about ‘the nigger and Jew problem’ he calls it. Says his father was with Mussolini. He’s actually proud of it.”
“But your mother, she was of mixed race, right? And you …”
“Only makes it worse,” he said.
“I can’t begin to imagine. Why did you even want to have anything to do with the guy?”
A long pause. Then, in a softer voice I’d never heard him use before, “He’s still my father, I guess. Besides, he’s mostly harmless. I don’t think most of these Ranger yahoos even know what Higgins and his little band are up to, even if they might applaud it. Probably wouldn’t have the guts to try to pull it off themselves.”
“So we don’t know whom, exactly, Goyne is working for, but we know he and Farraday are in it for the money.”
“Most likely.”
“Anyway,” I said, “right now we’ve got some more immediate concerns. Like how we’re going to get out of this tub.”
“I’ve been working on that.”
“You got a plan?”
“Yeah, I may. But something else you told me has me even more concerned at the moment. You said Farraday’s built a big ANFO bomb, right?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“What?”
“I think it’s sitting on this tug, right here over our heads,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I saw the huge containers and the charges when they brought me down here. It was still light.”
“Shit,” I said.
“What?”
“There is a chemical plant across the river. They’re going to drive this boat into it. I think one of these plants around here—I’m not sure which one—makes the same kind of stuff that killed all those people in India.”
“Methyl isocyanate. If a whole lot of it gets released and the cloud passes over Charleston we could be talking major fatalities.”
“But I thought you said chemical agents were a lot more difficult to deliver on a population than that.”
“I said could be. Wouldn’t matter if the explosion succeeded in killing a bunch of people or not if all they were after was the panic effect. And guess who ends up with the blame?”
“The Stonewall Rangers.”
“And you and me.”
“Lovely. And we’ll be dead with no way to refute that we weren’t involved. … But I don’t get it. Goyne is in this for money, right?”
“Yes.”
“And the Feds think Goyne and Farraday are working for them to entrap the Stonewallers.”
“They do.”
“The Feds know about everything—the birds, the chemicals, the money coming through Warnock—except they don’t know about Goyne’s plan to bolt with the cash and about this big bomb we’re sitting on. Is that right?”
“Yup. Of course the ATF now knows a lot more about the bomb, thanks to you.”
“But they’re still suspecting the Stonewallers.”
“Unfortunately.”
“But why would Goyne or Farraday want to incinerate a chemical plant and possibly murder thousands? Why not just take the cash, leave the Stonewallers to be arrested by the Feds, and flee?”
He said nothing for a moment. Then I heard him take in a deep breath. “I can’t prove any of this,” he said. “But I’ve got an idea.”
I waited.
“I told you about the op in Canada. Well, a few weeks after that, I was talking with one of the other guys involved. He’s dealt with Goyne a few times in the past too. He said he’d heard that Goyne was hooked up with a group of insiders, some in government, some who used to be, and that these people came with a pretty screwed-up agenda.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have things they want to keep quiet. Such as illegal development of chemical and biological weapons, and deals made with foreign terrorists in order to win elections or advance their platform.”
“Which is?”
“This guy didn’t know exactly, but apparently they’re n
ot too thrilled with the way things are going and the current war on terrorism.”
“Party affiliation?” I asked.
“This would be beyond politics, Frank.”
“You’re saying these folks might employ Goyne and Farraday to stage an actual terrorist attack and attempt to pin the blame on the Stonewallers?”
“I’m saying it’s possible.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re hoping to stir up criticism of current policy or deflect attention from something else, or maybe there is a score to be settled.”
“Well, that might explain Farraday’s involvement and why they used the ATF to spring him from jail. If he’s some kind of ecoterrorist, blowing up a capitalist chemical plant is right up his alley. Pinning it on the Stone-wallers would just be the icing on the cake.”
“Yeah. But I’ll bet he’s cut in on the money too. This kind of thing takes cash. And here we were thinking poor Damon was just Chester’s falconry apprentice, a plumber.”
“He must have seen getting involved with falconry as good cover for what he was doing. And who knows? Maybe the ATF, not recognizing his real motives, even helped him out with that too?”
“Like I said, pretty slick deal if they manage to pull it off.”
“Have you told anyone else about what the guy said to you about Goyne?”
“Nah. I didn’t think too much about it at the time. You hear these kind of crazy conspiracy theories all the time.”
“If there’s any truth to it, we might not know what we’re up against. There might be FBI and ATF people involved.”
“Could be, but I doubt it,” he said. “At least not the ones here on the front lines.”
“Why is that?”
“Just like the false flag—Goyne’s method of operation. He’s been pretty much a lone wolf for a long time. Once the directive was given, there would be a hands-off policy and maybe a dozen degrees of separation between him and the people he might actually be working for.”
“Easier to stay above any suspicion.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So we really don’t know for sure what the overall agenda is.”
“That’s right,” he said. “We really don’t know.”
“Welcome to our own little war on terrorism. Shoot first and ask questions later. Because if we don’t, we’re all liable to end up dead.”
“That’s the way I figure it.”
“How long do you think we have?” I asked.
“Not long. You said they’ve got their money, right?”
“Right.”
He said nothing.
“Nicky’s here,” I said. “After she heard what happened to you, she insisted on coming. She drove down and met me at your place earlier.”
“You went to my place?”
“That’s right. Saw Priscilla.”
“She and her baby okay?”
“They’re fine. She’s a little concerned about you though.”
“And the birds?”
“Fine.”
“So Nicky’s here, huh?”
“Yeah, and if she figures out what’s happened, hopefully she’ll go to the cops and the Feds. I called her when I was outside the hotel to let her know exactly where I was and what my plan was.”
“Wait a minute. You told her if something happened to you to go to the cops or the Feds?”
“Right.”
“Now I’m really worried.”
“You thinking she might try to make a run at this on her own?”
“Got too much of her old man in her.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute or two. The roar of the fan motor outside droned on, vibrating through the bulkheads. The darkness felt like a cold hand calling me to sleep, drawing me to places I wasn’t ready to go just yet.
“So how are we going to get out of here?” I asked. “You said you’d already been working on something.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
35
We were only going to get one shot.
Footsteps reverberated on the deck overhead. At their first sound, I could also hear the soft shuffles and scrapes of Toronto making his move. I could no longer make out the time on the hands of my watch but I was pretty sure I’d been accurate about the timing of their return.
We’d spent a good deal of the last two hours planning and preparing. Everything depended on our captors opening the hatch to the hold again. We were betting that they would, in order to make sure their prisoners were still in their cell before they launched us on what looked like our first and final voyage.
We still didn’t know all the details of what they were planning, but if we had at least the rough outline right, checking on us at least one more time would be the smart thing to do. And these folks were nothing if not smart.
Sure enough, the snap of the lock and the clank of metal against metal told us they were opening the hatch. Cooler air rushed down from above as the top was lifted. The sound of the roaring fan motor became even louder and was suddenly backed by a low rumble from the back of the tug as the boat’s main engines came to life. The entire vessel shuddered as a bright beam shot into the hold like a laser.
“Time to wake up, little girls. It’s party time.”
It was Farraday again. I said nothing.
The beam moved along the floor until it reached my arm, then was directed into my face.
“There you are, Frank. Been having a nice time in there, have you? Where’s Jake?”
I still said nothing. The beam left me and continued its search along the floor of the hold. “C’mon, Jakie boy. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The light stopped moving when it came to the bulkhead. A large compressor that had been standing there now lay on its side. The decking underneath had been rotting and after forty-five minutes of pushing and pounding and poking with pieces of the wood that came out, Toronto and I had managed to roll the heavy piece of equipment from its foundation, ripping open a decent-sized gash down into the bilge, almost big enough for one of us to fit through.
“What the hell’s that?” The beam ran back to blind me.
I stared at the floor.
“What’s going on?” Another voice. Goyne’s.
More footsteps. The beam of light moved back to the hole in the floor.
“He can’t get out through the bilge, can he?” Farraday asked.
“Not unless he’s got a welding torch. But he might cause us other problems. Get down there and have a look. Check everything out.”
“You got it.”
“We’re just cranking up the diesels and we’ve got a schedule to keep. If our friend Toronto wants to die slopping around in the stinking sewer of a bilge, I say let him.”
The same rope ladder they had forced me to crawl down before dropped into the hold. Farraday began to climb down carefully, his beam sweeping back and forth, along with the barrel of the weapon he was carrying. He had a little more firepower this time. A sleek black M-16 was cradled beneath his arm.
“So, c’mon, Frank. What’s going on? Jake decide to bug out on you?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Oh, yeah.” He stood at the bottom of the ladder now. “Where is he then?”
He moved his light all around inside the compartment. No sign of Toronto.
“How come you didn’t go too?” he asked.
“I’m not much of a swimmer,” I said. Actually, I wasn’t too bad, as long as I could stay on or near the surface, as long as I could remember how to find the surface.
“Hey, Colonel! Looks like Toronto decided to try to make a go—”
But the words had barely escaped his lips when Toronto dropped down on him from above, where he’d been concealed behind a bulwark, hanging like a trapeze artist since we’d first heard them opening the hatch.
His heavy boots crashed into the young man’s skull and Farraday went down in a heap. Toronto was on top of him and
had his legs wrapped around Farraday’s neck. I pounced on the light and the gun, but Farraday wasn’t through. His hand came out from under his jacket with the Taurus, pointing it at me. Jake pushed down hard with his arms and twisted his legs around Farraday’s head. Farraday’s neck snapped. The gun tumbled to the floor.
“Get up the ladder,” Toronto said. “Get up the ladder now!”
I was already climbing, the beam and the gun pointing toward the opening.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Farraday.” Goyne’s voice again. “Just bring the other one up and let’s get moving. I told you—”
Farraday’s head and the top half of his body appeared in the beam. He was wearing a gas mask. I squeezed the trigger of the M-16. It shook against my arms, almost causing me to lose my balance, but the masked face dropped away from the opening with a muffled scream.
All at once the boat shuddered even more and began to move out into the river. I could feel Toronto’s weight on the ladder beneath me. One more rung and I pulled myself out into the night. A round from an automatic weapon coming from the direction of the bridge struck the side of the hatch. I rolled to my side, squeezing the trigger to spray the area with bullets. There was a cargo container on the front deck and I scrambled behind it. Toronto began to hoist himself through the hatch. I sprayed another round of covering fire at the bridge, but the boat kept moving.
Toronto scrambled to my side. “Confucius say, Watch the firepower around big bomb.”
“Just trying to keep you from getting your face shot off,” I said.
There’d been no more firing from the darkened bridge, but the boat picked up speed. The tug only had its running lights on. The river all around us was dark, but we were definitely headed in the direction of the bright lights of the chemical plant. We were a little ways downstream, but the river was only about a quarter mile wide at this point. It wouldn’t be long before we would reach the other side.
A siren sounded from upstream and behind us. I peeked around the container. A brightly lit Coast Guard patrol boat, its American Flag trailing behind, was closing on us fast. But maybe not fast enough.
Toronto looked too. “What do you know? Here comes the cavalry.”
“Good deal. But it’s just the river patrol. Unless they’re packing a bazooka, they aren’t about to stop this guy.”