Barack stared at me. We don’t have much choice, he said with his eyes. It’s not just my life on the line. It’s Shaun’s. Do what the man wants.
It’s a lot to say with one’s eyes, but Barack and I had known each other for a long time. We didn’t need words to communicate.
55
I was led to the cabin, where the yacht’s captain was waiting. He was dressed in a white shirt, decorated with navy blue shoulder patches. His long blond hair was slicked back. I assumed he was Caruso’s man, and in the same position as the rest of us hostages.
“They’re telling us to follow them back to shore,” the captain said. He sounded Australian.
Through the window, I could see the American flag flying off the back of the Coast Guard boat. They were twenty yards from the yacht. Close enough that I could see several figures in black moving about the deck. They were getting ready to board us.
I picked up the CB radio. “This is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Who am I talking to?”
“Did you say ‘Joe Biden’?”
“That’s right. What’s your name, fella?”
He told me his name, which went in one ear and out the other. A nobody. He wasn’t with the Coast Guard—he was with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The Crook and the captain exchanged worried looks. The ATF weren’t your go-to federal branch for presidential welfare check-ups. The situation had suddenly become much more complicated. Thankfully, I’d taken an improv class at the University of Delaware.
“You need to listen to me, and listen carefully. I don’t know who sent you, but there’s been a mix-up. President Obama and I are fine.”
The CB squawked. “President Obama?”
“That’s what I said.”
The Crook was watching me closely. He’d left his rifle downstairs, but his hand was on the butt of a pistol stuffed into his waistband.
“Enough monkey business,” the ATF agent said. “We’re giving you one chance to comply: Follow us back to shore, or we’ll board your vessel.”
The Crook and the captain were looking at me, waiting to follow my lead. The ATF were here for the weapons cache. A firefight was imminent. Especially once they noticed the dead man on the deck. I needed to buy us some time.
“We’re not going anywhere,” I said. “And if you government thugs set one foot on this boat without a warrant, there’s going to be some serious consequences.”
“We’ve got a warrant,” the agent said. “We’ll need to board to show it to you—”
“That ain’t how it’s going to work. Fax it over, and we’ll take a look at it.”
“Fax?”
“You heard me.” I let my finger off the CB button and turned to the captain. “Do you have a fax machine on this yacht?”
He shook his head.
“Good,” I whispered.
I got back on the CB. “I’m going to give you a fax number. You ready?”
There was no reply. Only silence.
Then, the agent spoke up: “We don’t have a fax machine.”
“Then I suppose you’re going to have to find one,” I said.
56
Barack’s head emerged from the stairwell right as the Crook was escorting me back from the cabin. There was a moment of confusion on all of our parts—we knew the game had changed, but none of us were entirely sure who had come out ahead.
“Where’s Bento?” the Crook asked, waving his handgun around. One wrong move and somebody was going to get some ballistic therapy.
Barack ignored him. “We don’t have much time,” he said, stepping onto the deck. He reached back into the stairwell and pulled Shaun up. The kid was moving around well for somebody who’d taken a couple of slugs that morning. St. Paddy had come through with some luck o’ the Irish for him.
The Crook dropped his gun. At first, I thought he was just showing respect for our forty-fourth president, but then I saw what he’d spotted.
Barack held a grenade in his right hand.
“I bought us some time,” he said. He went to the railing and scanned the empty waters. “Um, Joe. Where’s the Coast Guard?”
“I also bought us some time.”
“You were supposed to keep the Coast Guard here to arrest Polaski and his crew. I picked up this grenade as we passed the open boxes of weapons to use as leverage to free Shaun. Right before you went up the stairs, we made eye contact, and I thought I made it clear that I had things under control. Instead, you sent the Coast Guard away—which was exactly what Polaski asked you to do.”
“You just looked at me and waggled your eyebrows. In what language does that mean, ‘I’ve got a grenade so hold the boat’?”
I glanced at the Crook backed up against the cabin wall. He was shaking in his gym shoes. He might not have seen a grenade before, but he knew what one could do. If Barack pulled that pin, in three seconds our limbs would be raining down on Lake Michigan.
“We’ll take the speedboat,” Barack said. “Why don’t we radio the Coast Guard, get them to turn back around. We need to make sure the Crooks don’t dump the guns. Where’s the radio?”
I motioned to the cabin door. I could see the captain at the controls through one of the portside windows. He was preoccupied with a bottle of whiskey.
“I’ll hold down the deck while you hop on the radio,” Barack said. “Rahm’s meat-head and the other Crook are still downstairs. I don’t know how long the rope will hold—he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” Barack said.
I nodded. “What kind of knot did you use?”
“There’s more than one type of knot?”
Where was Steve when we needed him?
Bento Box plucked the grenade from Barack’s hand. Like taking candy from a baby. “Move,” he said, marching us to the bow of the boat. The Crooks followed close behind.
“This boy needs medical attention,” Barack said. His arm was wrapped around Shaun’s shoulders. The more he moved, the greater the chance his wounds would reopen. There was a reason he’d been sedated in the hospital.
“Keep walking,” Bento Box said.
He marched us to the front of the deck, where we stopped. We’d passed the spot where Caruso’s body had been. Had they dumped him overboard?
“Keep going,” the fixer barked.
He wanted us to jump. Apparently the offer to bargain had been pulled. While the air had warmed today, it would take weeks of higher temps before the frigid lake caught up. The spray from the motorboat had been enough to chill me to the fillings in my teeth. If an expert swimmer like Steve could only last a few moments in the water, what chance did we have? Within thirty seconds, our limbs would be numb. Useless. There would be no treading water to keep ourselves alive. No swimming to shore.
I looked over my shoulder. Bento Box was five yards away, next to the wet bar.
“Move,” a hoarse voice said.
I spun around. Shaun, propped up against Barack, held a black pistol in his trembling right hand. He was struggling to hold his arm steady. The Crooks raised their guns in our response.
I was caught in the middle.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked Shaun.
Tears were streaming down his face. If we lived because Shaun pulled the trigger and took out the madman and his goons, would that make him a hero? Or just another victim who had succumbed to the same violent cycle he’d fought so hard to escape?
“This isn’t the way,” Barack said, cradling Shaun, trying to disarm him without discharging the gun. “This isn’t the way.”
Shaun relaxed his grip and Barack took the weapon. But instead of kicking it aside, Barack raised it in my direction. I was between him and his targets. Neither side could get a clean shot off with me in the way. “Step aside, Joe.”
Nobody breathed.
Bento Box plucked the pin from the grenade. His bodyguards, figuring out their new business partner was off his Cracker Barrel rocker, swiftly abandoned him, rushing below deck. I attributed the fixer’s erratic behavior
to the head injury he’d sustained earlier in front of Tribune Tower. Of course, I’d been knocked around some today, too. We were all trying to tough it out.
“Who wants to be the hero?” Bento Box said. He was grinning, taunting us. “Can’t pull the trigger, Mr. President? What about you, Joe—want to take a swing at me? Didn’t think so. This is where your white savior fantasy comes to an end.”
His sausage-like fingers were wrapped around the grenade. If he relaxed his grip, the spring-loaded striker would spark the cap. The fuse would burn down and the grenade would explode, sending fragments in every direction. Barack hadn’t been crazy enough to pull the pin—he’d been bluffing. This madman didn’t know the meaning of the word “bluff.”
I gritted my teeth and balled my fists. Using force was a last resort, but, in Barack’s own words, force was sometimes necessary. Using force is a recognition of the imperfections of man and the limits of reason, he’d once said.
We’d reached the limits of reason.
57
Before I could move or Barack could take a shot, Caruso came charging from out of nowhere, armed with a folded deck chair. He let out a Ric Flair “Woooo!” as he struck Bento Box across the back with a wicked chair-shot. The grenade popped out of the fixer’s hand and skittered away, still live. Compared to my younger days at Archmere, I wasn’t so explosive out of the gate.
Before I could reach it the grenade veered off to the left, coming to a rest underneath one of the reclined sunbathing chairs. Nowhere near its intended targets. Not that it mattered. When it blew, it would tear through everyone on deck just the same. Like Pa Biden used to say, Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
I’d never played around with explosive munitions, but I had plenty of experience with horseshoes.
I also had plenty of experience with another sport: football. Back in high school, they called me “Hands.” I could catch anything thrown my way. Offense or defense. Less well known was that I could also throw the ball. I didn’t just have hands; I had arms, too.
“Joe!” Barack shouted, shielding Shaun from the imminent explosion. His voice was far away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bento Box staggering around, hands to his own throat, face purple. He was choking on something. A Werther’s. He must have swallowed the hard candy when Caruso hit him. There was no time for the Heimlich, however.
The soles of Barack’s dress shoes hadn’t been made for ten-meter dashes on decks slick with rain. I skidded to a stop, tipping backward and landing on my unpadded keister. I felt under the chair for the grenade. It was like unhooking a bra one-handed at a drive-in. Only difference was that the coming explosion would be of a very different sort if I failed.
There. I had it.
Only one way to do this. No time to stand and set my feet properly. I had to throw it from my knees, like an NFL quarterback desperately trying to rid himself of a ball he’d fumbled and recovered. Although I wasn’t trying to reach an open receiver, I still needed to throw a Hail Mary. Get it all the way to the end zone from deep in my own territory.
I reared back and chucked the grenade into the sky, aiming for the stars and praying I could hit the moon.
Maybe that was a bit too much to ask from an arm that hadn’t seen much action in the past five decades besides backyard touch-football matches at Biden family gatherings.
The grenade barely cleared the railing.
I heard it plunk into the lake and—
KA-BLOOEY.
The boat rocked back and forth, flinging me from side to side. Water shot up in a geyser, high into the air. It rained down on the deck with a terrifying splash, drenching me. Chilling me to the bone.
When things had settled, I made my way over to Barack. Shaun was leaning on the railing. Struggling against the sedative in his system. Caruso was on his back. Legs elevated. Not nearly as dead as he’d appeared to be when we boarded the yacht. This was a very good thing because Caruso and Shaun had been the heroes of the day—not Barack Obama, not Joe Biden. My ears were ringing, but I was in one piece. “Which way did Bento Box go?”
“He went overboard and never surfaced,” Barack said. “We’re close enough to shore. He’ll wash up later this spring.”
I shook my head. I’d been trying to prevent more bloodshed. I didn’t know if Barack had planned to pull the trigger, or if the only thing that stopped him was Caruso’s intervention. I didn’t know if even he knew. All I knew was that we would never talk about it—not with each other, not with the ATF or the police. Not with anyone.
Barack limped to the railing and peered over. “I don’t want to alarm you, Joe, but you blew a hole in the side of the yacht.”
“How big of a hole?”
“You ever seen Titanic?”
“We’ll take the speedboat.”
He shook his head and pointed toward the shore in the distance. The speedboat was being piloted by the drunken Australian captain, his long blond hair flowing behind him.
I looked over the railing on the other side, where Bento Box had tumbled overboard while choking. The water was black, impenetrable. Except for the white caps lit up by the moon, there was nothing bobbing on its surface. Nobody crying out for help. Nobody but the dead.
“Do you hear that?” Barack said.
My ears were still ringing, but I could hear something else now. A dull roar. My tie whipped to the side. We looked up to see a rope ladder unfurling from the sky…
58
The police helicopter dropped Barack and me off on shore. Moments later, the ambulatory chopper flew overhead with Shaun and Caruso, en route to St. Bernard’s. Caruso would be in surgery soon but had told us it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot. He’d live. Shaun, too. The kid would undergo several more days of intravenous antibiotics, but he was a fighter. I knew now that Pastor Brown had been right. It wasn’t his time.
I also knew that Pastor Brown was going to have to answer some tough questions. I wanted to believe that he hadn’t known what the kids in his church had been up to, that Bento Box had been lying. I wanted to believe he would continue to feed the community and be a guiding light. Ultimately, I didn’t have a place in the conversation. Barack did. Their friendship would be tested in ways that ours never had and never would, God willing.
Rahm parted the sea of cops and medical personnel who’d surrounded us. He welcomed us back to the land of the living. “Michelle reached me at home. Said she received a strange call from an ATF agent who asked if her number accepted faxes. They discovered pretty quickly what was going on, and how all the pieces fit. That’s when I put together the rescue operation.”
“You gave them Michelle’s number,” Barack said. “Good thinking.”
I grinned. I had a few tricks up my sleeve.
“I’m just glad you’re both safe,” Rahm said. “Michelle said that if something happened to either one of you in my town, I wouldn’t have to answer to the Feds—I’d have to answer to her.”
Barack smiled. “I married up, what can I say?”
“Did you run into the Secret Service agent we sent back on the tour boat?” I asked.
Rahm nodded. “He had a couple of guys giftwrapped for us. Said you might have some more presents out there.”
“Right now, the police were salvaging what they could from the sinking yacht. The two Crooks were in custody. If the serial numbers on the recovered weapons matched the missing guns, it was going to be a big coup for Chicago PD. There’d been an ongoing joint investigation into the burglary between the city and the ATF. The bust would give the city bragging rights over the Feds. Rahm told us he’d keep our names out of it, for what it was worth. That wasn’t for our benefit. His office would decide who got to take credit for the bust. It was another favor in a city built on favors.
“Now you can finally tell that leprechaun to quit following me around,” I told him.
“Leprechaun?”
“Little guy, green jacket. Green hat. The guy you put on me to keep tabs
so that I wouldn’t get into trouble.”
He shook his head. “The guy Benny put on you was a real grabowski. Had a mustache like a muskrat on his upper lip.”
“Mike Ditka.”
“That’s him all right.”
“He picked me up in a cab from the airport, and then I saw him again and…Dang it. I got snookered. So who’s the leprechaun?”
“Hell if I know, Joe,” Rahm said. He apologized for everything that Benny Polaski had put me through and promised to keep the police chief’s feet to the coals until they’d rooted out the web of corruption we’d uncovered. I believed he had no idea that his fixer had been running a clandestine criminal empire out of City Hall, but it was a tall order to kick over every rock in Chicago. If you did that, would there be a city left?
Rahm shook my hand and told me to keep in touch. We both knew that wouldn’t be happening. We finally trusted each other, though, and that was reason for mild celebration.
I turned to the city skyline. It was nearing two in the morning. The beat reporters would be tabulating the day’s body count right about now. With any luck, the snakes had been driven back into hiding by the storm. Tomorrow would be another day, though. Violence would again rear its ugly head. Crime was baked into the city’s DNA. The same was also true for the entire country. We could keep working toward a more perfect union, but there was blood in the soil. Blood of Native Americans. Blood of slaves. Blood of a war that had pitted brother against brother. We were still paying the price. Even knowing all that, however, I wasn’t about to throw up my arms. I wasn’t about to give up.
“Forward,” I said.
Barack looked at me sideways. “What’s that?”
“Our campaign slogan, from 2012. Forward. We keep moving forward, even if the current keeps pushing us back.” I paused. “I’m paraphrasing from The Great Gatsby.“
“I’ve read it.”
“I suppose you have. Ready to hit the hay?”
“I’m tired as hell, but I’ve got all this energy,” he said. “I feel like I could hit a rope line for an hour of handshakes.”
Hope Rides Again Page 19