The First 48

by Tim Green

  “Look for a truck,” Tom said, casting his eyes along the roadside. “The Russian said something about a truck.”

  He pulled into the filtration plant and drove up the road. They saw the gate and another guard. Tom took a deep breath and kept going on past. There was another building up on the left, an empty education center. Tom stopped in the parking lot and they looked out over the expanse of the reservoir.

  “He wouldn’t be here,” Tom said, “but maybe we can see something on the shore.”

  He rolled down his window and looked out at the reservoir. The dreary scene of water and pines was partially obfuscated by a thin mist. Raindrops pricked the water’s black surface, bringing it to life with an endless population of tiny ripples. He scanned the shoreline.

  As he did, an enormous cat’s paw crept across the water toward them from the north. The mist above it was roiling and turbulent.

  Tom narrowed his eyes and started to roll up the window. The gust rocked the truck. A bucket of rainwater hit the windshield and it just kept coming. The wind was moaning outside now. It was as if they were suddenly back on the island.

  “Now what?” Jane asked from the backseat.

  Tom sat and thought.

  “If he’s not right here,” he said, “I’ve got to believe he’s parked somewhere close. He’ll want to get a boat. Does that map show the exact location of the intake valve?”

  “Out there somewhere,” Mike said, nodding. He looked down at his soggy map, then up, pointing. “Right in the middle, where you get the least amount of turbidity.”

  “He’s got to be close,” Tom said.

  Mike kept studying the map.

  “If we go back to the road,” Mike said, “there’s a right up there that goes right down by the water.”

  Tom nodded. He put the truck in reverse and backed around. They turned right on the main road, then made another right. Soon they could see the water again. They passed the gates of a small pump house with a warning sign. They slowed down in front of every driveway they came to and craned their necks, looking for a suspicious truck.

  A woman in a Volvo pulled out of one brick driveway and eyed them suspiciously before heading for the main road.

  “This is crazy,” Jane said. “He could be anywhere.”

  “He’s got to be close,” Tom said for the second time. “He’s got to be.”

  Rain clattered on the roof. They rounded the bend and continued on, straining their eyes, willing the truck to appear. They came to a crossroads. Straight ahead was a dead end.

  “Now what?” Jane asked.

  “Go down there,” Mike said.

  Tom crested a small rise, and there it was.

  “Look,” Mike said, pointing ahead.

  The road ended in a turnaround that was surrounded by towering pines swaying in the wind. Tucked under their eaves was a white truck. Behind it was a sandy-colored Buick sedan. Tom whipped the Excursion around and pulled up alongside the truck. He rolled down his window. Rain danced on his cheeks and nose and spattered half his body.

  A green and blue Kale Labs symbol was painted on the door.

  “The Holy Grail,” he said.

  CHAPTER 65

  The drum fit nicely in the bottom of the boat. Mark tucked the edge of the cheap poncho he’d purchased between the black barrel and the gunwale of the aluminum skiff, hiding it from sight. The wind was rising now, gusting up and down. Rain spattered off the side of the boat and tore up the water’s surface. Mark placed the 12-gauge on the seat in the bow and lifted the front of the boat, sliding its stern into the reservoir.

  “Hey.”

  Mark’s heart jumped, and he spun around.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  It was an older man in a bright yellow hooded slicker. He scowled behind thick glasses and a long-brimmed Orvis fishing cap that was littered with fly lures. In one hand was a pole case, in the other a small tackle box.

  “I . . . I . . . my uncle told me I could use his boat,” Mark said.

  “That’s my boat, boy,” the old man said. He took two steps closer and stopped. “Who’s your uncle?”

  Mark stepped toward the man, slow and easy, but steady. He opened his arms and held his palms up to the dreary sky.

  “Carson Kale,” he said, forcing a smile. Small stones shifted underneath his feet. There was twenty feet between the waterline and the bank. Mark was halfway there.

  “I don’t know any Carson Kale, and I don’t know you,” the old man said. He raised his pole case, pointing like a schoolmaster.

  “I just wanted to do a little fishing,” Mark said. “This is the weather for it, right?”

  “You stay right where you are, boy,” the old man said, his voice rising. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll wrap this pole case around your head.”

  Still smiling, still gliding, Mark said, “Easy, old-timer, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He coiled his body and surreptitiously drew back a fist. He was almost—

  Without warning, a nasty rainsquall hit him hard, spattering his face. He lost his balance. His foot slid on the slick mud bank. He staggered. The old man whipped the hard plastic case down on his head. His feet went out from under him and he landed heavy. The sound of a seashell sang momentarily in his ears. His mouth opened and closed.

  In a whisk of color, the old man took off into the woods. Mark sprang up and went after him. He slipped on the bank, went down, and sprang up again, cursing. The old-timer was moving fast.

  Mark leaped over the tackle box and sprinted hard. The soft path of pine needles wound upward through the high trees. A big boulder, pale with lichen, marked a bend up ahead. The yellow form darted around it. When Mark rounded the corner, he tripped over the prostrate figure of the old man and went sprawling into the scrub brush, gashing his face and hands. His palm split open on the sharp edge of a mossy rock.

  The old man had fallen in a heap in the middle of the path, but he was scrambling to his feet now and staggering toward the road. Mark whipped a leg out, hooked him at the knee, and lashed back with all his might. The old man went up and down. Mark rolled onto him, sunk his hands deep into the flaccid skin of the thin old neck, and sucked in a breath. The smell of Old Spice made him want to heave. The old man was wriggling his hand beneath the slicker. Mark tightened his grip. The old man’s eyes began to bulge. His throat gurgled.

  Mark felt a sudden electric shock in his arm, then another. A distant part of his brain realized the old-timer had a fishing knife. Mark let go of the old man’s neck and rolled away just as the knife plunged for his chest. He shot his hands out, gripping the old man’s arm and twisting it hard and fast. A bone snapped.

  The old-timer shrieked, and the knife fell to the ground. The old man turned and scrabbled away. Mark lifted the long thin knife from the ground. He dove for the old man, and got him by the legs. He worked his way up the old man’s back, grabbing his arm, then his shoulder, and finally his neck. Mark grasped the man’s forehead, yanking it up and back. With his other hand, he licked the blade across the old man’s neck.

  The old man lashed his legs out twice. The third effort was a feeble lurch. Then he went limp.

  “Stupid son of a bitch,” Mark said, blowing the rain from his lips. “Stupid.”

  He took hold of the old-timer’s green rubber boots and dragged him off the path into a bed of ferns. Then without looking, he turned and headed back for the shore.

  As he walked, he examined the crimson blade of the bone-handled knife. His blood. The old man’s. He wiped the blade on his pants and slipped the knife into the back of his belt.

  When he got to the shore, the aluminum skiff that held his drum was gone.

  CHAPTER 66

  You stay here,” Jane’s father said, turning back to her as he looked up from checking his pistol.

  “Keep your phone on,” he said to Mike. “I’ll take the path on the right. You take the one in the middle. When you get to the shoreline, check in. We can start w
orking our way to the north. That’s left.”

  “I know north,” Mike said. He snapped a shell into the chamber of his gun.

  “Lock the doors and just keep down,” her father said. He got out and turned to her. “If you see anything, just lean on the horn and we’ll be back here in twenty seconds. Why don’t you sit up front?”

  Jane bit down on her lower lip and nodded. She got out and stood there in the rain, watching them.

  “Ready?” her father said to Mike.

  Mike looked at her father, the younger man’s small dark eyes aglow despite the pallor of his drooping skin. His thin ginger hair was plastered to his skull. In his meaty hand the gun he carried looked tiny and almost comical.

  “Yeah,” Mike said. He turned and trudged off down the middle path, disappearing amid the undulating tangle of pine branches.

  Tom started down the path to his right. He turned back.

  “In the truck, Jane,” he said. “I mean it.”

  “All right,” she said. She got in and sat down, closing the door behind her. When her father was out of sight, Jane got out. As she walked down the path to the left, she started to shiver. She was soaked and the rain was teeming down. The slashing wind bit right through the baggy clothes that Mark had given her.

  She took short gulps of air and tried to fight back the sick feeling in her stomach. She stumbled down the path, scanning the woods in front of her. Her foot with just the sock could feel the stiff slender texture of the pine needles. Even in the rainsquall, the swaying trees had a serenity to them that made Jane wish she could just lie down and go to sleep. Maybe she would wake up and be in the small warm hunting cabin, safe, with Mark Allen by her side.

  The foot with the sneaker suddenly slipped from beneath her, and she caught herself just before she hit the ground. She straightened up and flexed her fingers. Pine needles were stuck to her palm, but it was slippery with some substance, too. She raised her hand out in front of her and gasped. It was red and slick with blood. Pink rivulets dripped from her wrist as the rain quickly diluted the clotted gore. Jane gasped and swiped her hand against her dripping flannel shirt, smearing it with a dark stain.

  Instead of running back, she hurried down the path. The trees began to thin, and she could see the gray surface of the reservoir. As she neared the bank, she thought she saw a dark shape on the water’s broken surface. It was the head and arms of a man, flailing in the whitecaps. He was swimming toward her. Jane steadied herself on the trunk of an ash tree. She stepped down off the bank and crossed the stony beach to the water’s edge, wary for more signs of blood.

  The swimmer stopped. He dipped beneath the surface, then stood up in the waist-deep water. It was Mark. He waded toward her, pushing the water aside with his hands and gasping for breath. His clothes clung to his body, and she could see the strong shape of his muscular frame. Rain ran down his face. His mouth was open wide, his chest heaving. He came closer, to where the water was only ankle-deep, and put his hands on his knees.

  “Mark?” she said, her stomach falling and falling.

  He looked up at her with those glass green eyes and smiled.

  “It’s still okay,” he said, gasping. “I’m glad . . . you’re here . . . You can . . . help me.”

  “What do you mean?” she said. “What happened?”

  “Great men aren’t made, Jane,” he said with a misshapen smile, “they make themselves.”

  “Mark, I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said. “There was blood back there . . . please—”

  “All right, asshole!” a voice yelled.

  Jane turned. Mike Tubbs, enormous, water dripping off his beard, stood with his feet set wide apart on the stones where the beach met the woods. His mouth was a flat line, his little dark eyes nearly buried beneath his brow. The small pistol was pointed at Mark’s chest.

  “Mike,” she yelled, “wait.”

  Mike looked at her. His eyes softened. Jane’s did too. It was Mike. Everything would be all right. Mike always made things all right. Her throat grew tight, and she felt tears well up in her eyes.

  “Mike,” she said.

  In her peripheral vision, Jane saw Mark shift, then spring forward, his arm like a whip. Something hit Mike with a resounding thud. His eyes, staring into hers, suddenly lost their focus. His gun clattered to the stones, and he fell to his knees.

  He felt for the bone handle of a knife whose blade was buried in his chest, just below his neck. Mike’s mouth opened and closed. A trickle of blood drooled down the edge of his beard. He choked, tugged at the handle, then fell forward on his face.

  Jane heard herself shriek.

  She stepped forward. Mark swept his arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet and dragging her up the beach.

  “Mike!” she screamed, her feet moving beneath her, instinctively keeping her from falling to the earth. Mark had her by the arm now. He bent down and scooped up Mike’s pistol, barely breaking stride.

  He dragged her up the path. Jane threw herself from side to side. She dug in her heels.

  “Don’t,” he said. His grip was excruciating. One of his fingers tickled her bone, then pressed firmly down on a nerve. She shrieked and darted forward, wanting the pain to go away. He eased the pressure on the nerve.

  “Hurry,” he said, dragging her.

  “You killed him,” Jane said. She was sobbing now, but moving with him, quickly, through the rain and the swaying trees.

  CHAPTER 67

  Answer the damn phone, Mike.”

  Tom held the phone out in front of him and squinted at the number he had dialed to make sure it was the right one. It was. He started moving down the beach toward the rocky point that he knew separated him from his friend.

  “Mike,” he said to no one, urgently now, starting to jog.

  “Mike,” he said, raising his voice, desperate, sprinting.

  “Mike!” he shouted into the wet trees. A spike of pain pierced his throat. His heart began to hammer against his ribs.

  “Mike!” he shouted up the beach. He leaped over a pale blue fishing boat that had been dragged up on the shore. Pebbles ricocheted off the aluminum sides. He rounded the brown sandy point. The torrent of wind and water hit him full in the face, the brunt of the northeaster squall. Caps of white exploded on the water’s surface.

  “God damn.” His chest began to ache. His throat was burning. He leaped over two more boats, pistol in hand, and saw something up on the beach by the dark dirt bank.

  Tom got closer and saw two sprawled legs. He raced up and fell to his knees, dropping his gun.

  He could already see the blood pooling beneath him in the stones and grit. Tom got his hands under one shoulder and rolled Mike onto his back.

  Blood coursed from beneath the knife’s handle. Mike’s eyes fluttered open. He saw Tom and smiled. Tom grasped his hand.

  “Hold on, Mike,” he said. Tom’s face crumpled with pain. His stomach rolled.

  He launched himself up over the bank and into the woods.

  Tom ran so hard and so fast that everything went from fire to numbness. He dialed 911 for an ambulance. He began to stumble, but the clearing of the road was coming into view. The foliage thinned. He could make out the shape of vehicles through the trunks of the trees. There was a flash of white, and a set of red taillights sailed off down the road. Gravel bounced off metal. The wet phone slipped from his hand. He kept going.

  Tom reached the turnaround and looked left. The white truck’s taillights, gleaming through the misty rain, suddenly winked out, disappearing around the bend.

  He nearly ripped the door off the Excursion yelling for Jane.

  She was gone.

  He threw himself into the truck. The engine raced. He mashed the pedal to the floor and jammed the truck in gear. In a grind of metal and a shower of flying gravel, the truck rocketed forward.

  “It’s like you’re supposed to be here,” Mark said. He smiled and glanced her way, his green eyes incandescent beneath t
heir long dark lashes.

  Using his right hand to hold the wheel, he wiped the water from his brow with the other. It left a bloody smear across his forehead. Jane inhaled sharply.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  He looked at his left arm, shrugged, and smiled.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s all happening. Don’t you see? Great corporations. Great people. Great soldiers. They’re forged in the hottest furnaces.”

  His voice was rising on a crest of excitement.

  “Think about it,” he said, glancing her way at brief intervals. “The old fisherman comes. He almost ruins everything, because my boat gets blown away by that squall. But then, there you are, and that guy. And he has a gun. If you weren’t there, I don’t know what would have happened . . .

  “It’s destiny,” he said. “I’m him, and it’s like you could be her.”

  Jane shook her head, and in a broken whisper she said, “You killed him, Mark. You killed him . . . You crazy fuck.”

  “Oh, no . . . ,” Mark said glancing at her with apparent concern, “no, baby, no. Don’t think like that. Don’t let that ruin it for you . . .”

  He reached out and touched her arm. Jane recoiled.

  “Carson always said it,” Mark said, “and he’s right. It’s like war. You have casualties. You have to. But if you look at the greater good . . .”

  The windshield wipers slapped wildly against the rain. Mark put both hands back on the wheel. Jane’s mind spun.

  “I’m actually saving lives,” he said, glancing at her. “Don’t you see? We’re not prepared, as a country. This bioterror stuff is everywhere. The Chinese are messing with it. What do you think SARS is? The Russians have it. The Koreans. Israel. We are so unprepared . . .

  “But this will get everyone’s attention,” he said. “Get them focused. And, in the end, lives will be saved, and the company will do it.”

  “You are stone-cold nuts. Oh my God,” she said. She shut her eyes. “You killed him. You crazy fuck.”