Time to change the subject, he thought. He asked her, “Where’s your van and your bikes? What about your apartment, all of your stuff?”
“I don’t have much ‘stuff’, not after my house was burned down. Phil’s going to have somebody pick up the van and the bikes and stash them. Edith’s going to clean out my apartment after all this is over. I told her to give everything to the Goodwill Store. Everything I need for sailing is in the bag I brought back to Guajira.”
“How long is your passport good for?”
“It’s new, four more years. But I thought we’re not going to use our real passports?”
“It all depends…we need to be flexible.”
“Oh, I’m very flexible. Very. What time’s dinner?”
Brad checked his watch. “We’ve got an hour.”
“Why don’t we go back inside then? I want to show you how flexible I am.”
“You can’t get enough, can you?”
“I’m making up for lost time. But if you can’t handle it…”
“I can handle it.”
48
The Molly M rounded Smith Point as dawn broke behind them on the unobstructed eastern horizon. The ten mile wide mouth of the mighty Potomac River was at first indistinguishable from the rest of the bay, but the Maryland shore gradually became visible in the spreading daylight. Chuck the realtor’s Baycruiser could be seen through binoculars as one of several white dots two miles ahead of them. Archie and Edith were somewhere off to their west, shadowing them on the Virginia side. They were ready to meet the Molly M at a series of marinas, if Tony, who was up ahead on Chuck’s boat, called back to warn them of security patrols on the river.
Barney Wheeler prepared a Spartan breakfast of coffee and oatmeal on the galley’s two burner propane stove. Brad and Ranya took theirs outside and sat on white plastic lawn chairs between the transom and the engine box, staring back at the V-shaped wake bubbling and churning behind them as the diesel drove them along. They’d talked through the pre-dawn hours in the same two chairs as the Molly motored up the bay, until the stars faded and the horizon returned. Now they ate in silence, still looking southeast. Facing the unbroken horizon behind them, it was easy to imagine they were already on the open ocean, and to forget that the land was closing in around them like the narrowing jaws of a trap.
After they finished, Barney Wheeler came out of the pilothouse carrying a white five gallon bucket with a short rope tied to the handle. He was wearing long khaki pants and a green flannel shirt. “The cook doesn’t do the dishes. That’s one of the laws of the sea.” He put down the bucket, and sat on the flat transom board facing them.
“I’ll show her how to catch seawater,” said Brad. “She’ll need to know how to do the dishes when we’re on the ocean.”
Ranya shoved an elbow into his side when he said this, but they were both laughing.
“You know,” he continued, “catching a bucket full of seawater from a moving boat’s not as easy as it looks. Do it wrong, and you’ll lose your bucket, or maybe even get yanked off the boat. Imagine how stupid you’d feel, treading water and watching your boat sail over the horizon.”
“Don’t worry, Brad; if you fall overboard I’ll bring Guajira back around and pick you up,” she said, kidding him back. She was wearing her new black nylon warm-up suit; the breeze was flicking strands of hair from her ponytail around her smile.
“Gee, thanks! Seriously, you might be able to turn the boat around and get me if you’re awake and on deck, and you saw me go over. But it can take a long time to get a big sailboat stopped and turned around on the ocean, especially in big waves. By then…”
“So, don’t fall overboard?” she said, mocking him playfully.
“That’s the general idea. If you fall overboard on the ocean, you’re dead. You’re lost out of sight in the waves in a minute. So no matter what, don’t fall overboard.”
Wheeler asked, “Where are you two headed after tonight? Not to be too specific, mind you…” They hadn’t been very talkative during their two days at the halfway house, not with Chuck and Tony around, but Guajira’s existence wasn’t a secret from Barney. He’d seen the boat and talked to Brad on it when it was still up the Nansemond River.
“We’re not sure yet,” answered Brad. “South America, eventually. Someplace warm, someplace out of the way.”
“Preferably without an extradition treaty,” added Ranya.
“You might want to give a look at Brazil then. You know, extradition laws don’t mean much any more. If the feds really want you, they’ll just send a snatch team down to grab you and bring you back. No problem. They do it all the time now. The courts say it doesn’t matter how they bring a fugitive back. But Brazil and Washington aren’t getting along too well these days, so I don’t think the feds would send a snatch team there. Too risky; their snatch team could wind up in the slammer if it was operating without local permission, and Brazil wouldn’t give permission.
“But you’ll have to be on your toes watching out for bounty hunters, even local ones. Sometimes the feds pay bounty hunters, and then they pretend they’re surprised when their fugitive’s dragged back to the states. And I’d be very, very careful in the smaller islands. There’s no place to run and hide, and their governments are afraid to stand up to Uncle Sam. Tourism and foreign aid are all they’ve got, so they’re easy to strong arm. They’ll do whatever Washington tells them to, including putting you right on a plane for Miami. So don’t get too comfortable on any small islands. Once word gets back to Washington…”
“It’s definitely something to consider,” said Brad.
“Ranya, do you know how Brad and I met? Did he tell you that story yet?”
She laughed. “You mean how he spilled the beer and passed you a note in Lester’s Diner? At the last meeting of the dreaded Black Water Rod and Gun Club? Oh yeah, I’ve heard it. ‘Read this note!’ I think we’ve basically told our life stories a few times now.”
“It sounds funny today,” said Brad, “but it sure wasn’t funny at the time.”
“If you’re heading south, aren’t you worried about hurricanes?” asked Wheeler. “This is just about the most dangerous time of the year for being out on the ocean.”
“Not as dangerous as hanging around in the states, especially after tonight,” replied Brad.
“Well, that’s true. I can see your point there.”
“I’ve got a single-sideband radio and a laptop, so I can get the weather fax. If a hurricane’s coming, I’ll see it days out and get out of the way.” He almost added, “Unless we get clobbered by a pop-up hurricane,” but he didn’t see the point in worrying Ranya unnecessarily. They had more than enough to worry about already.
Ranya asked Wheeler, “Do you think it’ll work? I mean, if we catch Malvone and make another confession video, do you think we’ll be able to get anybody to believe it?”
Wheeler sucked in his breath and looked up, as if he was searching for an answer in the clouds. “Probably, if we do it right. And if we can catch a few breaks too. Hey, if I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be here. And besides, and don’t laugh now…it’s our duty.”
After a moment to digest that, Brad said, “I’m not laughing.”
“Neither am I,” said Ranya. “You know, I think about this all of the time, and I still don’t understand why any of this happened to us. Fate, karma…something. But it just seems like everything’s been a lot more than just a string of accidents.” Brad reached across and held her hand, nodding as she continued. “Somehow, we all got caught on this train wreck, and now we’ve been given a chance to do something about it. And if we won’t try when we have a perfect opportunity, who will? If we just took off and left the country, when it’s heading straight into a civil war, when we could have done something to stop it… Well it just seems like we’d be running away from our duty, like you said.” She shook her head slowly in wonder. “And a month ago, I was just starting my last year at UVA… Every single day I sti
ll can’t believe what’s been happening, but it’s happening.”
Brad was watching her closely, absorbing her serious intent, and said, “I agree, I guess. It does seem like this thing was dropped onto our laps for a reason, for us to do something about it. And now here we are. But I don’t think Malvone’s going to just be sitting around waiting to get hit. Not with Hammet and Garfield missing.”
Wheeler heard his trepidation and answered, “Hammet’s not going to be missing much longer, if they haven’t found him already. But they won’t be able to fix his time of death, at least not today they won’t, so Malvone won’t know how long he’s been dead. Malvone’s logical assumption will be that he’s been dead since Monday night. That he was forced to call Swarovski under duress, just before he was killed.
“Now Malvone won’t know what to think, but he’ll be relieved that Hammet’s dead. It’s much better for him than wondering when good old George is going to show up, and maybe start talking about the stadium, start going for an immunity deal. Hammet showing up dead is going to be great news for Malvone; he’ll just have to wonder about the details. He’ll probably think somebody screwed up, and one of you grabbed a gun and turned the tables. That’s what I’d think. It’s much more believable than what really happened, that’s for sure! So I think Malvone’s going to be thrilled to hear that Hammet’s dead, and that’ll make it easier for us.”
“But even so, there’s only five of us, against at least five of them,” said Brad.
“But they’re just thugs, they’re just goons,” said Ranya. “They don’t train for defense. They just train to shoot people in their sleep, and ambush people crossing their yards in the dark.”
“She’s right, Brad. If we can keep the element of surprise, we’ll take them. I don’t care who they are, they all bleed when they get shot. Of course, we’re assuming that Malvone’s there at all.” Wheeler rapped his knuckles against the wooden transom board.
Brad said, “Phil calls you the ‘Rev.’ Is that just a nickname, or are you really some kind of a minister?”
Wheeler laughed. “Yep, it’s true. I’m an ordained minister, or at least I was the last time I checked. But then, I haven’t really checked in a while… I’m not too sure how the Man Upstairs sees me anymore. I guess you might say I’m a shepherd who’s lost his sheep, lost his staff, lost the whole darn thing just about. Why’d you ask? Any particular reason?” He looked back and forth between the two of them, Ranya looked confused but Brad sat forward purposefully.
“Well,” said Brad, “I was just kind of wondering if you had your Bible handy, the one from the kitchen at the river house.”
“Sure, I’ve got it around here somewhere.”
“And maybe you remember some prayers for special occasions?”
“Special occasions? Such as…what? Baptisms? Funerals? What did you have in mind?”
Ranya was squeezing Brad’s hand so hard that it almost hurt. She was turned sideways staring hard at him.
“Actually, I was thinking maybe of something in between those two.”
“Between a baptism and a funeral? Let’s see, Holy Communion perhaps? Or Confirmation? Not Ordination?”
“Not exactly.”
“I see. You want to get married. Did you have anybody in particular in mind?”
“Actually, I do.”
Tears began rolling down Ranya’s cheeks. “Brad, why? You don’t have to, I don’t…you didn’t…”
“Bradley, do you mean you haven’t even asked her yet? Isn’t that customary? Why don’t you two talk this over a while, and we’ll discuss it again some day.”
“Barney, we don’t have another day; we only have today,” he said. “I mean, after today, we’ll be sailing south.”
“Well then, are you both really sure it’s what you want?”
“Yes.” said Ranya, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
“I’m assuming you’re both baptized Christians? I’m not choosy, but I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement, at least as far as my jurisdiction extends.”
“We are,” replied Brad.
“I don’t need any time to think it over,” said Ranya, facing Brad, holding both of his hands in hers. “I’ll marry you, right now.”
Wheeler said, “Eventually, you’ll have to get a license from the state, some state anyway, and make it official. Government-wise I mean. But in the eyes of the Lord, you’ll already be hitched fair and square, till death do you part. Now I wouldn’t normally go along with something like this, not in a million years, but under these circumstances, wartime you might say…well I’ll marry you right now, if that’s what you want.”
Ranya was crying again, and Brad held her against his chest as she buried her face in her hands. She had no family, and no home. There would be no church, no white wedding dress. No priest, no bridesmaids, and no reception. No father to walk her down the aisle. Just this one day, out on the bay on a workboat. But she couldn’t afford to be picky, because time was not on her side. Not with tonight’s deadly job awaiting them up the river.
Fifteen minutes later they were married, standing in the Molly M’s pilothouse, with Phil Carson and Captain Sam as witnesses. The skipper provided a small pair of stainless steel circular cotter rings from his spare parts box, and these two silver bands were the total extent of their wedding accoutrements. The mood was somber and reflective as Barney Wheeler read the passages, with no forced attempts at wedding ceremony humor. Brad and Ranya said their “I do’s,” they kissed as man and wife, and it was done.
****
Several local freelance reporters and various other busybodies with police scanners heard the park rangers call the Chesapeake police, and then heard their call for a tow truck to pull a car out of the Dismal Swamp Canal near Soyland Road. Of course, none of them heard the original telephone call from an unidentified “early morning fisherman” tipping the rangers off to the exact location of the sunken vehicle in the first place. Later on, nobody wondered how the anonymous fisherman had managed to spot the red SUV through ten feet of murky water, or why he didn’t come forward to bask in his fifteen seconds of local television news fame.
In any case, by 8:45 AM the big highway wrecker was in position and taking a strain on its steel retrieval wire. A police diver had already attached the heavy cable to the red Cherokee’s towing hitch, and then righted the vehicle on the bottom with empty lift-bags, which were inserted through the partially open driver’s window, and inflated from his air tank.
There were several television cameras aimed at the canal when the SUV emerged, with water streaming out of the half open window. More water flowed from the door edges and from underneath the chassis as it was dragged up the muddy bank onto the shoulder of Route 17. Police and rescue workers talked in small huddles, smoking cigarettes and drinking 7-11 coffee inside the perimeter of yellow tape. Another television station’s helicopter filmed the recovery for the “news at noon” from a thousand feet up.
A quick DMV check of the license plate, read through telephoto lenses and binoculars by the gathered reporters, revealed that the red Jeep Cherokee belonged to one George Hammet of Virginia Beach. Camera crews kept, behind the perimeter, captured the bloated remains being extracted from the vehicle and zipped into a gray body bag, but this grotesque footage would never air. Dozens of crabs were also in the car…
The rumor quickly spread among the watchers that Hammet was a cop of some type, and that an empty whiskey bottle had been taken from the jeep along with his crab-eaten body. “Closed-coffin funeral” was a phrase which passed from reporter to reporter. The corpse had almost no face left at all, it was said. Reporters with police contacts on the other side of the yellow tape said knowingly to their less connected colleagues that it looked like the victim had failed to negotiate the turn from Soyland Road onto Route 17 at a high rate of speed. They winked when adding that Hammet’s friend Jim Beam hadn't helped him keep his wheels on the road.
By the time the video earned its mi
nute on the local news at noon, it had been verified that George Hammet was an ATF agent working out of their Norfolk Field Office, and that he left behind a wife and daughter in Virginia Beach. The empty whiskey bottle was not mentioned, but it was euphemistically stated that “alcohol may have been a contributing factor in the fatal one-car accident.” No connection was made between the apparent accidental death of Special Agent Hammet, and the recent killings of other ATF and FBI agents across the region and the nation.
(The internet-generated Fed List was widely known of within the local media community but, in keeping with management instructions, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security and the FCC, it was never mentioned. The existence of the Fed List remained a rumor floating around on the internet.)
The ATF’s Norfolk Field Office was relieved to hear that Hammet’s Glock pistol and ATF credentials had been recovered from his vehicle. They were unaware that his STU-issued 10mm MP-5 submachine gun, along with its night sight and suppressor, as well as night vision goggles and other valuables were gone. The awkward fact that Hammet had been found dressed only in his underpants, with his clothes strewn about the vehicle, or that he had a blood alcohol level of .16, was kept within a select circle of the law enforcement community.
****
Wally Malvone drove his Lexus from his home on Tanaccaway Creek to the nearby Special Projects Division compound outside Waldorf, making the trip in ten minutes and arriving at 9:30 AM. The SPD was officially under the command of Bob Bullard, and he didn’t want to undercut his authority by becoming a permanent presence. The fact was, he could set his own hours, splitting his time between Waldorf and his office at ATF Headquarters.
He was pleased to see the uniformed and armed private security guard manning their gate; a prefab steel and glass guardhouse had been brought in overnight on a flatbed truck and deposited in position. The guard checked his credentials against a clipboard, and waved Malvone through as if he had been standing watch at that location for years and not only hours. The guard service had been arranged and contracted by their black-budget fixer, “Mr. Emerson.” The entire acreage of the light industrial park was already surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire, beyond which lay open fields.
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