“Can you climb out of it?”
“No, sir. I had it up to the ceiling a few minutes ago and came down because it is too windy up there.”
Mello leaned closer. “Gardner, with this storm, you are our only eyes. Can you keep it on station and follow the target, even if it means pushing the safety limits?”
“Sir,” she said bluntly. “I am already exceeding the normal safety limits. I know this bird, I know what she can do. But this weather is just too damn much. She’s not designed for it. I almost lost her a minute ago and the winds are getting worse, not better.” She tore her eyes off the screen to look at him. “I’m going to lose her if I don’t land soon. Very soon.”
Mello sighed and straightened, looking at Honeycutt. “If we lose it, it’s another $50,000,” he said simply.
Honeycutt shook his head. He had already dipped into the agency’s slush fund once to replace the first drone they’d lost. The auditors would raise holy hell if he did it twice within one week.
“Can’t do it, sorry. Bring it home and get it on the ground,” he said regretfully. Then, to Captain O’Brien: “Big Eyes, can you monitor them on radar?”
“Sure,” she replied immediately, “as long as they stay in open water. But if they go into the archipelago, or into North Harbor, I’ll lose them in the clutter of islands and crap.”
Commander Mello spoke up. “What about visual? Can you close in on them enough to follow them visually?”
Captain O’Brien thought for a moment, weighing the risks. “I can close in, but will almost certainly get spotted by them in return. They’ll just dump the goods and sail into harbor.”
“Not an optimal solution,” Honeycutt grumbled.
“I’ve got an idea,” Finley said, “but it is going to stretch us out.” He opened the map of the North Harbor-Stonington area on the small table. “We send the men out with binoculars. If they turn into the North Harbor area, they have to go past certain points. So,” he pointed to a peninsula with his finger, “we put a guy here, at the end of Indian Point. He’ll see anything that goes into Webb Cove, hopefully. And if he doesn’t, we put a guy on the docks, just across the street from this trailer. He can see anything that gets past the first sentry and can tell us if it stays in Webb Cove or goes through the narrows towards Kiahs Island.”
Honeycutt studied the map. “Okay,” he said slowly.
“Then,” Finley continued, “we send another guy to the very eastern edge of North Harbor, right here at the end of Fire Lane 32. There are some houses there, but chances are they won’t be occupied this early in the season. He can spot anything that is rounding Coles Point and coming up into Southeast Harbor.” He straightened. “If they see anything, they call us on their cell phones and we try to close the net.”
“What if they go up Eggemoggin Reach?” Honeycutt asked.
Finley shrugged. “Harder, but still doable. And the Vigilant should be able to follow them better up there, more deep water.”
“I agree,” Captain O’Brien confirmed.
Honeycutt and Commander Mello exchanged a speculative look.
“Makes sense in terms of monitoring where they’re going,” Mello said thoughtfully. “The Vigilant can handle this storm okay.”
“Unless we have to go up into the island archipelago,” O’Brien broke in. “If we do, then all bets are off. Too many shallows and rocks up there for safe passage at night in this weather.”
Honeycutt wagged his head back and forth. It meant sending out three of his men, and he didn’t really have them to spare, but he could get them back fairly quickly if he needed to. And most importantly, they had to locate the drop point if this was going to work.
“Okay,” he said briskly. “I agree.” He pointed to three of the DEA agents. “You three are the chosen ones. Get binoculars and go where Frank Finley tells you.” He rattled off his cell number. “I want reports every ten minutes, and immediately if you spot something. Go!”
Honeycutt looked around the command trailer sourly. From this command trailer he had access to ships, drones, helicopters and computer databases of every size and flavor, but he was reduced to sending men armed with binoculars out into a storm.
“Goddamned Maine weather,” he muttered.
Chapter 52
Hide and Seek
Tommy Duffy was one of Chief Corcoran’s favorite bully boys. He knocked on the Chief’s door and then entered. Corcoran looked up in annoyance, but his expression changed to worry when he saw who it was.
“What did you see?”
“Well, I, uh, drove by the Holt Pond, the overpass, um, just like you asked. Didn’t seen nothin’ there. Um, then I drove around a bit. You know, over to the quarry.”
Corcoran sighed inwardly, but then, he had not hired Duffy for his eloquence. Duffy’s talent was that he followed orders. Any orders. Also, he could shoot the balls off a mosquito at two hundred yards.
“What did you see at the quarry, Tommy?” Corcoran prodded.
Duffy seemed startled by the question, then recovered. “Well, um, there was a trailer pulled up under the trees, and maybe five or six other cars parked off the road. I didn’t stop, like you told me, but I took a picture with my phone.”
Corcoran took the phone and looked at it. The trailer was in the shadow of some pine trees. It definitely was not a construction trailer, no construction trailer ever looked that clean. There were several other cars, also parked well off the road. At least two of them looked like government issue sedans.
As he was starting to hand the phone back to Duffy, something caught his eye. He wasn’t even sure what it was. Holding the phone near his desk light, tilting it back and forth, he thought he could see the shape of a man in the trees, but the picture was just too damn small to be sure. Well, that could be fixed. He emailed the picture to his work address, then opened it on his computer and examined it on the larger screen. The picture was grainier than on the phone, but there was the picture of a man, wearing some sort of military uniform, standing between two trees.
Holding an assault rifle.
Corcoran leaned back into his chair, chewing through possibilities.
Duffy shuffled his feet nervously, worried that he might have done something wrong, but not sure what it could be.
Chief of Police Corcoran came back to himself and smiled reassuringly at him. “You did good, Duffy. Now I want you to call the others. Tell them to bring all their gear: rifles, vests, night scopes, the works. Got it? Oh, and at least three sniper rifles. Four, if you can find them.”
“Sure thing,” Duffy answered, relieved at having something to do. “What are we doin’?”
“We’re going hunting, Tommy,” Corcoran told him. “We’re going hunting for big game.”
______________
On the Celeste, Jean-Philippe LeBlanc frowned at the radar screen. The storm was making a hash of things, of course, but he could swear there was another ship out there, perhaps five miles behind them and keeping pace. The radar kept getting a faint, stuttering return, fading in and out. Whatever it was, it was not an immediate threat, but he didn’t like it.
He looked at the GPS again. Another twenty minutes to Coles Point, then he’d start moving northwest, following the shore along the Oceanville section of North Harbor and towards the Inner Harbor. If it was the Coast Guard behind him, they’d hesitate to follow him past the turn.
Keeping a wary eye on his radar display, he continued plodding through the storm as the darkness deepened.
______________
While Honeycutt’s men were fanning out with binoculars and Chief Corcoran was gathering his forces, the eight Dominican gunmen took Rte. 15 south until they crossed the bridge dividing Holt Pond from Elm Tree Cove. As soon as they were off the little bridge, they pulled the cars into the trees on the east side, retrieved their equipment and walked through the woods to where they had a clear view of the Cove and the beaches on the north and south sides. There was a small house on the north side
– Ralph Cudworth’s, although they had no reason to know that – but on the south side there was nothing but woods for a thousand feet.
The storm had pushed the tide into the Cove, flooding the outermost trees, so they set up a few feet back. When they were ready, the leader of the group spoke softly into his radio.
“In position,” he reported.
In a moment, the voice of Bruno Banderas came back, “About forty minutes. Slow going out here.”
The leader clicked the radio twice in reply.
Then the men settled in to wait, hunching in their ponchos against the downpour and the wind and trying to keep their weapons dry. One of the men lit a cigarette and inhaled greedily, anxious to smoke as much as he could before the rain put it out.
______________
On the north side of Elm Tree Cove, Ralph Cudworth stood inside his screened-in porch. When he saw the two cars drive slowly past his driveway, and then turn off just on the other side of the bridge, he’d walked to the porch with his binoculars and started watching. Wasn’t long before he made out several shapes on the south side of Elm Tree Cove, standing just inside the tree line. Then one of the dumb bastards even lit a cigarette, giving off enough light so that Cudworth could see he was carrying a weapon.
Cudworth retreated slowly off the porch and into the house. He spent a minute finding Frank Finley’s phone number, then picked up the phone.
______________
Calvin Finley sat at home alone and confused. Actually, he was not at his house – that was an active crime scene – he was at his grandparent’s house. His mom and grandmother were still at the hospital, sitting with his wounded grandfather. And he was home, wondering where his dad was and what he could eat for supper.
Then the phone rang. Calvin could tell from the ring that it was a call to his house – his real house – that was being forwarded to the grandparents’ house. He picked it up.
“Hello, is Frank Finley there, please.” It was an older man’s voice. Gravelly and bit rough.
“I’m sorry,” Calvin told him. “He’s not here right now and we don’t expect him for some time.”
The man on the phone grunted or muttered; Calvin couldn’t tell which.
“Can you pass him a message?” he asked anxiously. “This is very important.”
“I think so,” Calvin replied, a little warily, wondering what this was about.
“Tell him that Ralph Cudworth called. Tell him that there are at least seven men with guns in the woods on the south side of Elm Tree Cove, and that it looks like they are waiting for something. Got that, the south side?”
Calvin was hastily scribbling notes. “Yes, sir, I’ve got it. He may want to talk to you. Can I have your number?” Cudworth gave it to him.
“And tell him that the men are not cops,” Cudworth added. “Be sure to tell him that.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
They cut the connection and Calvin dialed his father.
______________
“The targets have just turned west and entered the radar shadow of North Harbor,” Captain O’Brien reported. “Looks like they are going in now and not going to Eggemoggin Reach.”
Honeycutt turned to Finley. “Frank, warn your lookouts to keep their eyes peeled.”
Finley stepped outside to call the lookout when his phone rang. Glancing at the display, he saw it was Calvin, then declined the call, sending it to the answering service. He dialed the DEA agent who was watching from the end of Fire Lane 32.
Calvin heard the phone ring twice, then roll over to the answering service. He swore under his breath. His father had declined the call! He knew because he had helped his dad set up the call answering program, which normally required four rings before it activated.
Frustrated, with a knot in his stomach, he redialed.
______________
DEA Agent Walter Mullins stood, cold and shivering, on the rocks at the end of Fire Lane 32. He’d been there for about thirty minutes, mostly crouched behind a pine tree, hiding from the ocean wind that howled up the inlet, lashing everything with stinging rain.
He hated Maine.
He hated the short, buggy summers, the voracious black flies and mosquitoes big enough to carry off small children, the grey skies, the constant fog, the goddamn wind, the lemming-like tourists, all of it.
He loathed the interminable winters that began in October and finally slunk away at the beginning of May. He hated the snow, the ice, and the bottomless slush that made Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow look like a Sunday walk through the park.
On his honeymoon, he’d gone to Arizona. And fell in love. It was so hot and so dry that his eyeballs parched and his skin cracked. It was wonderful. He’d been looking at Arizona real estate advertisements ever since, but his wife wanted to stay in Maine because of her family.
It was worse than that Kafka play they’d made him read in high school.
His phone rang.
“Wally? This is Finley. Keep your eyes open; we got word three lobster boats passed Coles Point and are heading up the coast of North Harbor. They should be passing you any minute. Call me as soon as you see them.”
He hated being called ‘Wally.’ Made him feel like a sniveling brat from Leave it to Beaver.
“Okay,” he said, pulled out his binoculars and stepped forward from the lee of the tree so that he could scan the coastline.
Turned out he really didn’t need the binoculars. There, no more than five hundred feet away, a white lobster boat loomed out of the storm, heading west. Three minutes later, a second lobster boat passed by, then a third. He could actually hear men talking on the boats, they were that close.
He fumbled with his phone and called Finley.
“Wally? What’ve you got?”
“They just came by my position,” Mullins told him. “All three of them, in line. Not moving very fast.”
On the other end of the line, Finley closed his eyes and sighed a deep sigh of relief. The boats were bottled up. Whatever else might happen tonight, the boats were bottled up.
“Wally? Listen carefully,” Finley said slowly. “I want you to drive to the end of Fire Lane 37, right at the junction of Southeast Harbor and the Inner Harbor. Make sure they don’t see you, but tell me when they reach you and what direction they’re going in.” Finley cut the connection.
The problem, Finley reflected, was that even though the boats were bottled up, there were still ten or more smaller inlets they could go to, beach the boats and escape overland. He called the other two DEA agents, redirecting one of them to Osprey Point Drive and the other to the bottom of Fire Road 506A. Both positions commanded a good view of the northern part of the large inlet the lobster boats were cruising through.
This way, he hoped, Agent Mullins could tell if the boats turned southwest into the Inner Harbor, or went north through Brays Narrows and toward the northernmost part of the large inlet. And if they did go north, then one of the agents he’d just sent up to the northern edge of the inlet would spot them.
Finley grinned ruefully. A dark and stormy night, ruthless drug smugglers, and only three scouts to watch the rough and ready Maine coast. What could go wrong?
______________
Agent Mullins jogged dispiritedly back to his car, located Fire Lane 37 on the GPS and headed out, windshield wipers on high. Under his slicker, he felt cold and clammy all over his body.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow he would apply for a transfer to the Arizona bureau of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
______________
As the lobster boats turned the corner northeast, they settled into a new line, with the Samantha in the lead. Bobby St. Clair kept a close eye on his fathometer and his radar display. There should be plenty of water under his hull, but it never paid to take chances. The waves were calmer now and the land blocked some of the wind. He picked up his radio handset.
“Increasing speed to eight knots,” he told the other boats, and inched the throttle fo
rward. He could feel the Samantha surge under his feet.
It was a good night.
______________
Finley put his phone away and stared at the map of North Harbor. Another half an hour or so and they’d know where the boats were going to make the drop. He turned to Commander Mello.
“Can your chopper fly in this weather?”
Commander Mello checked the weather readings. “Wind gusts are still a little high, but we can bring it on a course over land and then right to the inlet.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “Let me check, but I think so.”
“Good,” Finley said. “We’re going to need it soon. And, Commander, I think you’d better arm it.”
His phone rang again. The readout showed it was his son, and that it was the fourth time he had called. He stepped outside the trailer.
“Cal?”
Chapter 53
Stars in the Sky
“Dad! Jesus, it’s about time! I’ve been trying to reach you,” Calvin shouted.
Finley sighed. “What is it, Calvin, we’re sorta busy here.”
“You got a call from an older guy, Ralph Cudworth.”
Finley’s eyebrows raised. “Ralph Cudworth?”
“Yeah, he said it was important that I give you this message: There are men with guns on the south side of Elm Tree Cove. And…and they’re not cops. That’s what he said.” Calvin felt a little breathless, but he didn’t know why.
Finley was quiet for a long moment. “Calvin, is your mother home yet from visiting grandpa at the hospital?”
“No, not yet. She called and said they would be pretty late.”
“Son, are there any State Police at the house?”
“No, Dad, they went with Mom.”
“Okay, listen, Cal, and do exactly what I tell you,” Finley said sternly, trying to keep the panic at bay. “I want you and Jacob to go to Uncle Paul’s house. Got that? The two of you-”
“Dad, Jacob isn’t here,” Calvin broke in. “He left a message last night that he wouldn’t be home, then I got another message this morning saying he was on his way to work.”
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