by Marty Steere
But the police officers who’d responded to the call had not gotten anyone to come to the door. One of them had finally gone around to the back of the house, where he obviously gained entry, because a minute later he appeared at the front door. And then it became apparent that they were too late to save Patricia’s mother.
From the back seat, Peter asked, “Tell me again why we don’t just talk to the police? Let them know what’s going on?”
Matt shook his head. “The people we’re dealing with are too sophisticated for the police. And too connected. We’d actually be putting ourselves in jeopardy.”
“And you think we’re better able to deal with them? On our own?”
“Well,” Matt said slowly, “in a word, yes.”
Peter turned to Nate. “What does he think he is, some kind of super secret agent?”
Nate shrugged. “Something like that.”
Peter looked from Nate to Matt, a dubious expression on his face. Finally, he sat back. “Ok, Batman, where to now?”
Matt smiled grimly as he started the engine. “That,” he said, “is a good question.” He glanced at Nate. “You got any ideas?”
#
In a driving rain, they crossed over a narrow causeway onto Mount Desert Island and followed the signs directing them to the town of Bar Harbor. Nate, Matt and Peter had each taken turns at the wheel, and they’d made the drive from Minneapolis in just under thirty hours.
Nate had found driving the SUV an interesting experience. It had plenty of power and was reasonably nimble. But it felt heavy as a tank. When Nate queried Matt about it, Matt simply shrugged and said, “I made a few modifications.”
Peter never mentioned anything about it.
North of Chicago, they took a short detour and visited a bank less than a mile from O’Hare Airport, where Matt maintained one of what he called his “safe drops.” Matt spent twenty minutes in the bank and emerged with a small satchel containing, he explained, “a few things that might come in handy.” Apparently, one of those “things” was a substantial amount of cash, which they’d used to the exclusion of credit cards on their cross-country journey.
They stopped for a few hours at a motel outside Syracuse, New York. Before resuming the drive in the morning, Peter and Nate walked to a nearby copy store, where Peter was able to print out from his laptop the research he’d accumulated for his Apollo 18 project, including the voluminous documentation he’d obtained in response to the Freedom of Information request.
When he wasn’t taking his turn at the wheel, Nate had begun a review of Peter’s research. By the time they reached the craggy coast of Maine, he’d made a substantial dent in the paperwork, but he’d yet to find anything he considered particularly noteworthy.
When they’d left Minneapolis, they’d been unsure of their next step, knowing only that they needed time to digest what they’d learned and to formulate a plan of action. It was Peter who suggested they pay a visit to the home of the third member of the Apollo 18 crew, Steve Dayton. Neither Nate nor Matt thought there was much likelihood they’d learn anything of value there, but they liked the idea of getting away to a relatively remote place, and they decided that, in any event, Dayton’s survivors had a right to know what they’d discovered.
Dayton’s widow, Peter explained, had passed away six years earlier, a victim of breast cancer. His only child, a daughter named Margaret, who’d been an infant when Dayton died, had returned to care for her mother when the cancer spread so much that she couldn’t care for herself. Margaret now lived in the home that had apparently been in the Dayton family for generations.
Though Margaret Dayton would have been too young to have any memory of her father or the events surrounding the Apollo 18 tragedy, Peter informed them that he had nevertheless intended to contact her at some point to talk to her about her mother and the years following the loss of her father. He just hadn’t yet gotten to that point.
Out of an abundance of caution, they’d made no attempt to warn the young woman they were coming.
Patricia Gale had seemed to shrink into herself. She said very little during the trip and did not have much of an appetite the few times they stopped to get a bite to eat. At one point she offered to drive, but it was a half-hearted effort, and Nate and his brothers immediately declined, suggesting that she take it easy. She’d not put up a fight.
When they reached Bar Harbor, Matt spent several minutes casually steering the car up and down the water-logged streets of the small seaside town as the rain pelted them. He drove at a leisurely pace, his eyes nevertheless watchful. Nate found himself staring suspiciously at every parked vehicle. Finally, Matt said quietly, “I don’t see anything that jumps out at me.”
Not realizing he’d been holding it, Nate released a lungful of air and took another steadying breath. “Ok, let’s do it.”
They drove back up Main, the wipers working overtime, and Matt turned down one of the small side streets they’d been on a few minutes earlier, pulling up in front of a tiny wooden building with a weather-beaten sign on the side advertising “Dixon’s Wharf.” It was the only address they had for Margaret Dayton.
Matt turned the car around and parked it across the street from the building, facing back in the direction from which they’d come. Nate didn’t need to ask why. Matt gave him a sober look and nodded. Nate zipped up his jacket and glanced back at Peter, who also nodded. Next to him, Patricia Gale seemed to have rallied. She was sitting up and alert. In her lap, Buster panted softly, his tongue lolling out to one side.
Nate slipped out of the SUV, and, lowering his head against the downpour, crossed the street and made his way around to the opposite side of the building, facing the ocean. He opened the front door and entered.
The small vestibule just inside the door was separated from the rest of the space by a narrow counter, behind which an older man sat on a tall stool, a lit pipe clenched in his teeth. In one hand he held a dog-eared paperback book. With the other, he was in the process of turning a page. He appeared to be the only person in the place.
The man glanced up as Nate entered, appraising him with a look of mild curiosity. Then he slowly folded over a corner of the page he’d just turned, set the book down on the counter, and pulled the pipe from his mouth, expelling a cloud of smoke. “Can I help you?” he asked with a thick Maine accent.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Ayeah?” the man said, making a show of peering around. “If he’s here, he sure is quiet.”
“It’s not a he. I’m looking for Margaret Dayton.”
“Ah, then you’ll be waitin’ on the Sarah Lynne. Should be in soon. You a buyer?”
“I beg your pardon?”
The man studied Nate for a moment. Then he said, “You’re not here for lobster, are you?”
“No,” Nate said. “Just looking for Ms. Dayton.”
The man took another puff from the pipe, then said casually, “Well, you’re in luck.” He tilted his head toward the window. “Here she comes.”
Nate turned and peered back out the window in the indicated direction. Beyond the wooden jetty that jutted out into the harbor, all he could see was flat gray water and slanting rain. Then, as he watched, a boat materialized out of the mist, headed for a spot near the end of the pier.
“If you’re of a mind,” the man said from behind him, “you might want to go out and help tie her up. That is, of course,” he added, “if you don’t mind getting a little wet.”
There seemed to be an almost playful challenge in the statement. Nate looked back at the man. He’d set the stem of the pipe back between his teeth and sat casually regarding Nate, crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
Despite the tension he was feeling, Nate found himself chuckling. “All right,” he said, pulling the zipper of his jacket up the last inch and turning up the collar. “I will.”
If anything, the rain was coming down harder as Nate walked out the short pier. He reached the end just as the boat did, her captain easing her
up against a series of fenders wrapped in rope and mounted on the side of the dock. Though Nate knew next to nothing about boats, he realized that this one was a fishing vessel of some kind. Probably lobster, he thought, remembering the man’s comment. To the side of the bow, just below the gunwale, was the name “Sarah Lynne.” About a third of the way down the length of the boat, a wheelhouse spanned the width of the vessel. In it, Nate saw a solitary figure standing behind water-streaked glass. Aft of the wheelhouse, the deck was open.
“Here,” he heard a woman’s voice call out over the sound of the rain. The captain had stepped out of the wheelhouse and was holding a length of rope. She tossed the rope to him, and he caught it instinctively. “Tie us off up there,” she shouted, pointing to a short vertical post sticking up from the surface of the pier. “I’ll get the one back here,” and, with a nimble motion, she jumped from the boat onto the slick dock, holding the end of a second line.
Uncertain exactly what he should do, Nate looped the end of the rope around the post a couple times and tied what he hoped was an acceptable knot. Then he straightened and watched as the woman tied off the rear line, turned and walked toward him in the downpour.
On her head, she wore a hat with a wide brim that caught the rain and directed it off her shoulders and back. A faded yellow rain slicker topped baggy overalls. A pair of black boots completed the ensemble.
Her hair was a vivid scarlet that stood out against the yellow of her rain gear. Pulled back and tied behind her with a piece of blue cloth, it fell in a long wavy pony tail midway down her back. When she reached him, he saw that a light sprinkling of freckles dotted her nose and the tops of two prominent check bones. She sported an easy smile, her teeth impossibly white. But, for Nate, what really stood out were her eyes. They were an extraordinary emerald green, and the contrast with her red hair was mesmerizing. She planted herself in front of him, oblivious to the rain, and considered him.
Nate was suddenly at a loss for words.
After a moment, she looked behind him at the mess of a knot he’d managed to tie on the bollard and laughed. He felt his face flush, and it drew another chuckle. Laughter, he noticed, seemed to come easy to her.
“Oh, don’t take it the wrong way,” she said. “I think it’s cute.”
She stepped around him, leaned down, took a firm grip on the mooring line and pulled it toward herself, creating slack. Undoing the knot, she re-tied it in a practiced motion, then turned and gave him a frank look. “So, now that we’ve established you have no nautical background, maybe you can tell me who you are and what you’re doing here. You don’t look like a tourist.”
Despite his embarrassment, he smiled. The rain was soaking through his clothes, but he no longer cared. “You don’t know me. We’ve never met. But our fathers knew each other.”
“Really. How?”
He swallowed, then took a deep breath. “They served together. On the Apollo 18 mission.”
She looked startled. Then she studied him more carefully. After a long moment, she asked, “Are you Nate?”
Surprised, he nodded.
She smiled, but it came with a touch of melancholy. “My mother thought the world of your father. Apparently, so did my dad.” She paused, and there was a momentary distance to her eyes. “She told me once, Honey, if you’re ever in a real pickle, track down Bob Cartwright’s boys. Start with Nate.”
That also surprised him. And it pleased him. A lot. He wasn’t sure what to say in response, though, and there was an awkward silence. Finally, he ventured, “So, you never found yourself in a real pickle?”
She laughed at that. “Oh, I’ve had my share.” She shrugged. “I guess maybe I wanted to hang onto that ace.”
That pleased him as well, and he realized that something about this woman made him feel like he’d never felt before. He also realized with a start that he’d forgotten about the beeper in his pocket. Fortunately, it had not gone off.
“You seem a bit distracted.”
He hesitated. “There’s something going on that you should know about.”
She looked at his eyes, alternating from one to the other. Nate had the odd feeling that she was trying to read his mind. After several seconds she said, “Looks like you might be the one in a pickle, huh?”
Again, he nodded. “It’s kind of a long story.”
She smiled. “I’ve got time. And you look like you could stand to dry off.”
#
Krantz passed through the metal detector at the main entrance to the Russell Senate Office Building, retrieved his folio from the adjacent conveyor belt, and stepped into the rotunda. It was an impressive space, encircled by Corinthian columns and topped by a coffered dome. A glazed oculus in the center of the dome flooded the area with a natural light. On the far side, a small group of tourists congregated around the statue of Richard B. Russell, Jr., the building’s namesake, while listening to a uniformed tour guide give a brief history. The space teemed with men and women in business attire coming and going.
Old habits dying hard, it required him only a couple of seconds to take it all in and register that there were no apparent threats. He turned and made his way to the elevators. Though he was running a couple of minutes late, he did not rush. He was in no hurry to meet with the man he’d come to see. And the man, he knew, would wait. There were very few people in the world the man would wait for. But Krantz was one of them.
His appointment today was with Harrison Burton, the senior senator from North Dakota and one of the most powerful men in the world.
Burton had first been elected to Congress in 1958, at the astonishingly young age of 28. He’d been re-elected five times and had been serving as Minority Whip when he was appointed Secretary of Defense by President Nixon, becoming the youngest man ever to hold such position. Then, when the junior senator from North Dakota died in a plane crash three years later, Burton had been appointed by the governor to complete the senator’s term. He’d distinguished himself immediately, securing a position on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee and chairmanship of the key Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. He’d eventually become the ranking member of the entire Committee. He had now been in the senate for almost four decades.
At times referred to as the “Rasputin of the Senate,” he was respected - and feared - by almost everyone in Washington. It was said that Burton could make or break the political career of any man or woman. Because no one knew for certain how true that was, people, as a consequence, tended to walk on eggshells around him. Krantz was one of a handful of people who knew, without question, that the concerns were very well-founded.
In his position as chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Burton had stepped into the role of primary political overseer of The Organization. When he’d assumed chairmanship of the entire Armed Services Committee, he’d retained that oversight role. In those subsequent years when the Republicans were not in the majority, he’d shared it with the ranking Democratic Senator. When they were, however, he’d kept it for himself. He was no one to be trifled with, and The Organization was one of the most powerful weapons in his quiver.
At the large suite of rooms occupied by Burton’s staff on the fourth floor, Krantz was escorted to the Senator’s private office, a space dominated by windows that looked out across Constitution Avenue to the grounds separating the Capitol Building and the Supreme Court. It was, particularly by the standards applicable to government offices, an immense space. Krantz recalled being told that the room was several square feet larger than the oval office, a source of considerable pride for Burton.
The place practically oozed red, white and blue. Oversized American and North Dakota flags flanked the Senator’s desk. The walls and most horizontal surfaces were festooned with military memorabilia. They included photographs, paintings and models of warships, aircraft and other combat hardware. Though he’d always kept it to himself, it was a continual source of amusement for Krantz the way Burton carried on about the armed forces.
The Senator, Krantz knew, hadn’t spent a single day in uniform, and he doubted whether the man would know the difference between a canteen and a claymore.
Burton gave Krantz a cursory handshake when the latter was shown into the office. There was no bonhomie in the Senator’s makeup. He wore a perpetual scowl, and, even though Krantz had spent a lifetime exploring some of the darker sides of humanity, when he was in Burton’s presence, he felt as if he’d stepped into a chilly version of hell on earth. To his knowledge, the Senator had no friends. He knew that, somewhat inconceivably, the man had been married for several decades. Though Krantz had never met the late Mrs. Burton, he suspected that, when she’d passed away a few years earlier, it had probably been a huge relief for both husband and wife.
Burton waved Krantz to a chair near one of the windows and took a seat nearby. There was no small talk and no preamble.
“I understand one of your former field operatives has taken a shit in the punchbowl.”
Working hard to keep the irritation out of his voice, Krantz said, “Yes. We did such a good job wiping the man’s former life clean we didn’t realize he was one of Bob Cartwright’s sons until we were in the middle of the operation.”
“Somebody dropped the ball letting him in The Organization in the first place,” the Senator observed.
That was true enough. Krantz was thankful he’d been in the field when that little screw-up had happened. Still, as the director, he’d now catch the heat. He nodded, but said nothing.
The Senator’s scowl deepened. “This is the same guy who opened up that can of worms after the Miami hit. I was told that had been taken care of.”
“It was,” Krantz replied, evenly. “We had no reason to believe he’d do anything other than spend a quiet retirement. And, as I said, we hadn’t made the connection with the Apollo thing.”
“Well that was a pretty significant omission, don’t you think?”
That was also true. And, though he wasn’t about to admit it to Burton, Krantz held himself responsible. He’d assigned men to deal with the Cartwrights, but he’d never personally consulted the file on Peter Cartwright. If he had, he’d have immediately noticed the resemblance to Marek. Krantz, after all, was one of the few who had served with the man and knew what he looked like. It wasn’t until they were well into the mission - and had already lost the trail - that he’d stumbled onto it. He was still kicking himself for that. However, since there was nothing to be gained by raising any of it now, Krantz again just nodded and kept quiet.