“Ah, Christ.” Finley rubbed his face with his free hand. “Calvin, do you know which boat he was supposed to work on today?”
“Yeah, sure, the Celeste, one of the LeBlanc boats. He told me he got a call to report early. He was happy about it because he needs the money.”
Finley stared at the phone in shock. “Jacob is on board the Celeste?” he asked, half incredulous, half resigned.
“Well, yeah, he is,” Calvin said a little defensively. “Dad, what’s going on?”
“Calvin, go to your uncle’s,” Finley said urgently. “The key is next to the sugar jar. Stay there, you understand. Stay there until I come get you.” He paused. “I love you, son.”
The connection broke.
Calvin stood there, staring at the phone. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew that his father could often be one of the most undemonstrative men he had ever seen. And yet his father just told him that he loved him.
A deep sense of dread stole over him.
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“Move! Move!,” Honeycutt shouted. “The drop is going to be at Elm Tree Cove, the same place the go-fast boat landed last week.” He snatched up a ballistic vest and an assault rifle. “All your gear and as much ammo as you can carry.”
Commander Mello stood beside him, speaking rapidly into his phone to someone at the Coast Guard Station. “Yes, yes, all the troops you can pull together, armed and in armor. And get the Jayhawk in the air. I want it in a circle pattern two miles inland, ready when we call it. I want the M24 on board with a gunner and a combat allocation of ammo. And the Barrett, with somebody who knows how to use it. Get Mayweather if he’s on base, and check the bars if he’s not.” The Barrett M80 was a .50 caliber sniper rifle which could be mounted in a steel triangle hung from the doorway to keep it stable.
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The Dominican team on the south side of Elm Tree Cove squatted beneath the pines and tried to stay dry. The wind was still strong, but the rain seemed to be lessening. The leader had walked about two hundred yards along the shore, carrying his night scope binoculars, but it was still quiet.
That would change. Or it wouldn’t. He had been on so many operations for the Cartel, many successful, many not, that he had grown fatalistic about them. He would always try hard to make an operation succeed, of course, but on some level he felt it was fated, out of his control. It was as close as he could come to believing in a higher power. He lived with the ambivalence.
High above him a tiny opening appeared in the clouds. And, just for a moment, he saw stars.
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Calvin tried to collect himself and think it through. It wasn’t easy. He knew something was going to happen at Elm Tree Cove. He knew his dad was involved in trying to prevent it, and that his dad was hunting drug smugglers. And he knew his dad was upset that Jacob wasn’t home.
And that his dad had been distraught when he learned that Jacob went to work this morning on the Celeste.
Calvin went to his grandfather’s computer, booted it up, then put in a “Where is my phone?” search for Jacob’s phone. The Apple map popped up with a bright dot on it, showing the phone was approaching the bend into the Inner Harbor. So, Jacob was still on a boat, probably the Celeste.
He couldn’t believe that Jacob had gotten involved with drug smuggling. Pot, maybe, but pot was legal now in Maine, so there was no need to smuggle it. Jacob’s other big vice was beer; plenty of that around.
Could Jacob not know what was going on? Calvin shook his head. The only thing he knew for sure was that Jacob was on the lobster boat and he was headed for trouble.
And Calvin was the one person who could get him out.
He spent five feverish minutes pulling together some hot coffee, a candy bar, and his cold-water swim gear, fished the car keys out of the drawer and headed for the car. But when he opened the door, he saw Stanley Curtis pedaling on the sidewalk on his beloved Big Moose. His dog, Huckleberry, sat in the basket, looking disgruntled in the rain, but wagging his tail in greeting nonetheless. Stanley saw him and waved. “Hi! Hi, Calvin!”
“Stan! Listen, I’d like to talk to you, but I’ve got to go help Jacob.”
Stanley’s forehead wrinkled in disappointment. “That’s okay, Calvin, that’s okay.” Then he brightened. “My dad always told me that if someone needs help, you should always bring some rope. That’s what he says. Rope’s good. And a knife to cut it with.” He frowned again. “I don’t really know why, but that’s what my dad says. Bye, Calvin!” He turned and pedaled his tricycle down the street through the rain.
Calvin stood for a long moment in the driveway, then sprinted to the basement where he kept his warmest wetsuit and gear. He added a five-inch knife on a belt and fifteen feet of rope. He paused then, weighing his next move, then walked to the bedroom he was using and fished under the bed for his 9mm and a spare clip of ammunition.
“Think!” he muttered. “Are you ready?” Abruptly, he realized he was going about it all wrong and tore off his shirt and pants, then pulled on the thick wetsuit, neoprene boots and hood and put on the knife belt. He got a ziplock bag and put the gun in it, then scrunched the top of the bag and tied it tight with a length of twine. The pair of neoprene gloves went under the belt, the rope went around his waist, and he grabbed the bag with his flippers, mask and food and ran for the door.
Three minutes later he was on Oceanville Road, driving too fast and headed north.
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Agent Walter Mullins made it to the end of Fire Lane 37 in record time, doused his headlights and walked past the empty summer home to the shore. It looked like a nice house, the kind some rich doctor or lawyer from Bangor or Portland might own. Past the house the land jutted out into the estuary in two fingers, each the length of a football field. The one on the left was mostly bare, exposed rock, while the one on the right was covered with pines. He opted for the right and walked through the trees, stumbling constantly because he didn’t dare use a light. At the end of the trees there was a rocky shelf about twenty feet wide, then the water. Waves curled over the rocks, the spray dampening everything as far as the tree line. The rain was lessening, thank God, but clouds still scudded across the night sky, racing with the wind like sailboats.
Mullins hefted the binoculars and trained them east southeast, but visibility was limited and his line of sight was cut off by a bulge in the Oceanville peninsula. He dialed Finley and when he answered, told him he was in position, but the boats were not yet in sight.
“Great,” said Finley, obviously distracted by whatever he was doing. “Call back when you see them.”
Mullins grimaced and raised his binoculars once more.
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On the Samantha, Robert St. Clair motored northwest. He could see Cats Cove coming up on his port side. Just beyond that there were two fingers of land that stuck out into the water, and just beyond them he would turn southwest and head into the Inner Harbor, and then into Elm Tree Cove. The drop point was down there somewhere and, presumably, the guys waiting for them would make themselves known when he got there.
St. Clair hadn’t even thought about being the lead boat, it had just sort of happened. His uncle was getting older and St. Clair thought he might be just sliding by on his reputation from his younger days. In any event, his uncle hadn’t complained, and St. Clair sort of liked the idea that he would be the first boat in…and the first boat out.
The sailing was getting easier. The rain was noticeably lighter than it had been, though the wind was still strong. Water in the channel would stay plenty deep until he went into the Inner Harbor, then it would get patchy. Plus, there was a good-size rock ledge that stuck out of the water right in the middle of the entrance to Inner Harbor, but he’d been in the Inner Harbor before and he was confident he could pick his way past it without mishap. He hummed a popular tune, eyes roving left and right, taking in anything that might pose a threat.
The Samantha growled its way p
ast Cats Cove, then past the two fingers of land and came up to the turn to Inner Harbor. St. Clair thumbed his radio mic. “Turning in now,” he told the others.
Then he noticed the flashlight on the shoreline below the second finger. Taking his binoculars, he saw a man running by the shoreline, then stopping and looking toward the Samantha with binoculars of his own.
“Shit!” he cursed. “Davey, you got your rifle back there?”
One of the sternsmen straightened. “Yeah, I do!”
“You see that guy on the shore, about ninety degrees off the port bow?” St. Clair asked.
Davey squinted, then finally saw the guy a little over one hundred yards away. “Yeah, sure, I can see him.”
“Can you kill him from here?” St. Clair cut back on the throttle, slowing the boat to a little over three knots. He’d need a steady platform for this.
Davey sucked in a deep breath. “Well, I, uh…”
“Yes or no, Davey, and make it quick!”
Davey sucked in another breath. In fact, he was a very good shot. At one hundred yards, with his 3-9x scope, it would be an easy shot. “Yeah, I’m good,” he said. It never occurred to him that he was thinking only of the logistics, not of the morality. But that’s who he was.
“Okay, get ready,” St. Clair told him. “This guy’s scoping us right now and I want him down before he can call in the cops.”
Davey went to the side locker and pulled out his rifle, a bolt-action Winchester Model 70, .30-06. It had been his father’s and he loved it. He slid the magazine into place and removed the protective hood from the scope. On the deck, he pulled over a lobster trap and sat on it, resting the barrel of the Winchester on a towel he’d thrown over the ship’s railing. He scanned the shore left and right until he spotted him, then worked the bolt to chamber a round.
“Ready!” he called out, centering the scope on the man’s head. On shore, the man turned off the flashlight. But it didn’t matter, Davey had him.
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As the three lobster boats sailed by him at the end of the finger of land, Walter Mullins realized he had made a serious error. He was on the right outcropping, but the left outcropping was a bit longer, and as the boats sailed further northwest, he wouldn’t be able to see if they went straight into Brays Narrows or turned left into the Inner harbor.
Cursing his foolishness, he turned and ran as fast as he dared back through the woods. When he emerged near the summer house, he turned and ran southwest, gasping for air and deeply regretting the second slice of pizza he’d had at the trailer. He needed to intersect the shoreline below the second finger of land so that he would have an unobstructed view of which direction the boats were going.
Once he reached the shoreline, the ground changed abruptly from hard dirt and sand to bowling ball-size rocks that threatened to break his ankles. Mullins fished in his coat pocket for a flashlight and shone it on the ground, picking his way to the edge of the water.
There, just a bit more than one hundred yards away, the first lobster boat was rounding the second finger of land. Sighing with relief, he tucked the flash under his arm and pulled out his binoculars to get a better look.
It was them, all right. He turned off the flash and dug out his phone. Finley answered immediately.
“They’re turning!” Mullins said excitedly.
“What?” Finley said. “Repeat that, Wally, I couldn’t hear you.”
“They’re turning! Inner Harbor!” he shouted.
And then, oddly, he was lying on his back, on top of the uncomfortable rocks. His neck was wet and cold, and one foot seemed to be in the freezing water. The wind howled above him and he shivered violently.
“Wally? Wally? Was that a shot?” a distant voice called.
He hated the name Wally. Why didn’t he ever tell people that? He should…he should... What?
There was something wrong with his neck. It felt wet and it stung. He tried to reach up and touch it, but his arms refused to move. That was odd, too.
Another violent spasm shook him. Crap, this isn’t good. His eyelids fluttered; he had to concentrate to keep them open.
“Shit, I think that was a shot. The fuckers shot him!” the voice on his telephone said.
Lot of odd things, tonight, Walter Mullins thought distractedly. So hard to focus.
Far above him, the clouds swirled as if spun by a giant hand. An opening appeared and, through it, dozens of stars shone brightly.
Huh, stars, he mused. Never thought I’d see stars tonight. Pretty. His mind drifted away, then drifted back. The stars were still there, warm and almost…beckoning.
Then the stars seemed to reach down for him. Everything grew whiter and brighter. His neck suddenly stopped hurting and even the rocks felt softer. Walter Mullins felt himself rising up…and up. One last thought came to him, a little tongue-in-cheek, a little whimsical.
Are there mosquitoes in Heaven?
Chapter 54
A Meeting in Inner Harbor
Commander Mello was on the radio to the Vigilant.
“Captain, I want you to cork the bottle, do you understand? Come up the inlet enough so that they cannot sneak around you on the way out.” All around him, men were grabbing guns and ammunition and running for the door, but the Commander spoke calmly and evenly. Finley, feeling his pulse race and the sweat under his armpits, could only envy the man’s composure.
Honeycutt, meanwhile, was on the phone with his contact at the Maine State Police.
“No, an hour from now is too late,” he barked into the phone. “We’ve already lost one man. Yes, I know your SWAT teams are tied up, but I need you to scrape together anybody you can and send them right now. I will grovel at your feet and beg forgiveness once this is over, but right now I need help and I need it now!” He paced the room like an angry lion and Finley, for his part, was happy to stay in the corner, out of the line of fire.
“No!” Honeycutt shouted. “I didn’t alert the North Harbor police because we have reason to believe they’re dirty. For Christ’s sake, Bill, I’m not going to go into that now. I didn’t call them and I stand by that. No, no, I would prefer you not call them either. What I would like is for you to send any available units you’ve got to the north side of Elm Tree Cove. Got that, the north side of Elm Tree Cove. As soon as they are there, they should call me at this cell phone number. Watch for my men; they’ll be on the north side, too. And warn them there are armed men on the ground to the south and three lobster boats in the local waters, also with armed men.”
He paced back again to stand in front of Finley and covered the phone with his hand. “Frank, take all the men you can and get over there. You’re in tactical control until I can get there, but my best advice is to go in on the north side. You’re going to be in a gunfight and you don’t want to be mucking around in the woods on the south side. Stay on the north side and call in the Coast Guard helicopter if you have to.”
Then he turned his attention back to the State Police. “Bill, for the love of God, send your men and then clear it up the ladder. If you dick around, I will have more dead agents and I will call a press conference to say that the State Police couldn’t get off their asses to help us out!” He paused, listening. “Yes, I know I owe you big. Trust me, this is one night I will be delighted to owe you big. Just get your guys on the road.”
Finley went out the door, signaling to the other agents to follow him.
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In the woods on the south side of Elm Tree Cove, the leader of the Dominican squad cocked an ear. “Shit, was that a rifle shot?” The other men stopped whatever they were doing and listened intently, but whatever it was, it did not repeat.
The leader motioned to one of the men and handed him the binoculars. “Go over there and see if you can spot anything coming in. Hurry!”
The man scurried off, leaving the leader to listen intently for a noise that didn’t come again.
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Elm Tree Cove
was only two miles from the command trailer. At first the driver of Finley’s car floored the gas and sped down the highway, but Finley told him to slow down. “Hey, now, easy, easy. We’re going to go right by them. If we go roaring by them, they’re going to know we’re cops and they’re going to light us up. Understand? So instead, we are going to look like local traffic, like a couple of guys on the way home. Got that? Normal traffic, just goin’ home.” He turned around and faced the two men in the back seat. “You guys lie down on the seat. I don’t want them spotting four men in a grey sedan, makes us look like Feds or some wannabe SWAT team. So get down, out of sight and stay there until I tell you.”
Then he called the second car and told them to drive normally, but to wait for a few minutes before they crossed the bridge. “Once you’re across the bridge, drive past the first righthand turn. That’ll be Fire Road 498, but do not turn down it. Drive by for a couple of hundred feet and pull over on the grass and walk back. Bring all your gear; you’re going to need it.”
And that’s what they did. As they approached the bridge, they saw some cars parked off the road, near the copse of trees that started fifty feet away. They kept driving, and Finley could feel eyes watching him from the woods.
Then they were on the bridge, then over it.
“See, nice and easy,” Finley said to the driver, then wiped his sweaty hands on the knees of his pants.
Finley pulled his small band together and they walked in the dark to the other side of Ralph Cudworth’s house. “Stay in the trees,” he told them, his voice low and urgent. “Set up the floodlights and aim them across the Cove to the south shore, but don’t turn them on until I tell you. No noise! I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Then he walked over to Cudworth’s house and knocked softly on the door. He heard someone approaching the door. “Ralph, it’s Frank. Don’t turn on a light,” he whispered. The door opened and Cudworth stood there, an old Army .45 pistol in his hand.
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