The Dark Root (37 page)

Spinney was once again in the lead car. “Zulu from Tango One. I don’t think he’s heading for the barn like we thought. He just cut across the interstate on 105, toward Enosburg. You boys handle that?”

Our anonymous van driver had proven a gregarious type, staying for long periods at several of his stops, apparently mixing a little chitchat with business. Twice, the surveillance cars had been able to park close enough to observe him through binoculars, eating or drinking with his contacts and obviously enjoying himself. That had also been the case in St. Albans, where he’d had an early supper, and where we’d assumed he would spend the night.

Spinney’s question to us, however, was less concerned with a long day running to overtime. All of us were acutely aware of the failing light, and with the adjustments our strategy would have to undergo. It was Al Hammond’s call to make.

I looked over at him and raised my eyebrows, causing him to speak for one of the rare times all day. “Night doesn’t bother me any.”

I waited for more, got nothing, and asked Spinney if he’d copied that direct. I could hear the smile in his response. “I guess if he can do it, so can we.”

Route 105 runs along the Vermont-Canadian border, zigzagging from town to town, almost touching the boundary at a couple of points. From Enosburg Falls to East Berkshire to Richford, the gently rolling, sparsely populated land is utterly dominated by the looming presence of Jay Peak to the east, toward which we were flying. In contrast to the soft hills and shallow valleys below, rapidly vanishing into the gloom of the encroaching darkness, Jay stood like a white-topped tidal wave—huge, expansive, vaguely threatening—glowing in the day’s sole remaining light.

Similarly, Al and I were still bathed in the soft red glow to our back reflecting off the curved windshield and casting a pink wash on the map across my lap. And yet we were overflying a world soon to be as opaque as a black hole. Looking up at the orange-and-red-tinted clouds overhead, I suddenly felt vulnerable and alone, cast adrift from the lightness above, and yet abandoned by the very land I’d been receiving comfort from mere moments earlier. It was, I knew, only a metaphorical sensation, stimulated by too much stress and a lack of sleep, but it served as a reminder of what I was facing—and perhaps of my chances of success. Given what had happened to Benny Travers, just for the sake of a little gained turf, or what Dennis DeFlorio and Tony Brandt and Amy Lee had suffered in the name of “keeping face,” I began feeling like a tired swimmer in deep water, praying for a foothold.

“Gets you lost in your thoughts, doesn’t it?”

I looked up, startled at this intrusion coming over the headphones I’d forgotten I was wearing, and saw Al smiling beside me.

“Prettiest time of the day, as far as I’m concerned—the one time I really do feel like a bird in this thing.”

He dipped the plane slightly to my side and pointed across my chest at the now inky-black ground beneath us. “That’s him right there—the headlights.”

I nodded without comment. Twisting further around in my seat, I could see the lights of Spinney’s four-car surveillance team, safely trailing several miles behind. I saw Jay Peak, now quite close and to our right, and played a small pen light across my map, surprised and a little embarrassed at how far we’d traveled while I’d been daydreaming.

“We’re coming up on North Troy,” Al told me. “Newport’s just beyond.”

Newport is Vermont’s biggest town this close to the border, so isolated from the rest of the state by the comparative emptiness of its surroundings that it’s almost become a Canadian extension. This illusion is heightened by Lake Memphremagog, a thirty-two-mile-long body of water that lies almost equally half in Vermont, half in Québec, and which provides a natural conduit to a well-populated and nearby neighbor.

As we lazily came around the northern shoulder of Jay, now glistening with its summit-top red warning beacons, the pale expanse of the lake came into view, surprisingly long and flat in this mountainous, tree-choked setting. At its base, the scattered lights of Newport lay sprinkled about invitingly. Certainly it was attracting our friend in the van, whose tiny headlights were steadily drawn toward the downtown area.

By now, although we were all in total darkness, there was enough traffic hovering around the town’s outskirts to make Spinney’s small convoy indistinguishable from any other cars.

“Tango One from Zulu. You better take over.”

“I’ve got him in sight already.” Al put the plane into a gentle bank and slowly circled the lights below, as he had over a half-dozen other towns this long day, waiting to find out if the van was going to make a stop or keep on moving. I suspected the former, since I’d all but convinced myself that this entire part of the trip—straight from St. Albans and with no stops in between—had been to reach a particular goal.

“This is Tango One. He’s pulled into a side street and parked next to a jewelry store.”

“Can you bracket both ends of the street without showing yourselves?”

“Workin’ on it now.”

“Is there an airport nearby?” I asked Al.

“Three miles south of here.”

We circled a couple of more times. “Zulu from Tango One. He’s gone inside. We’re in pretty good position here—got all visible exits covered, and a view through the front window. Want us to get closer?”

“Not yet. You have a car available to pick me up at the airport?”

“That’s affirmative.”

“Okay. That’s where I’m headed. Let’s just babysit this for a while. See what happens.”

Hammond straightened us out toward the south and in a matter of minutes was making his approach to land.

“You want me to stick around?” he asked as we taxied toward the parking area.

“Actually, I’d like to ask an even bigger favor. We’ve been watching this guy play courier all day long, so we know he’s carrying something. If he plans to spend the night here, he’s going to want to stash the stuff somewhere safe. If that happens, I’d like a warrant so we can take a look.”

“Want me to fly someone back to Burlington to meet the U.S. Attorney?”

“If it comes to that, yeah.”

Hammond shrugged. “No problem.”

One of Spinney’s team, detailed from the state police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations, showed up about ten minutes later and drove me back to town. Spinney was in his car, parked inconspicuously at a meter across the street from the Far East Jewelry Store. My driver dropped me off down the block, and I walked the rest of the way, ducking into Spinney’s passenger seat as unobtrusively as possible. I noticed as I did so that the dome light had been disconnected.

“What’s been happening?” I asked.

Spinney didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed on the broad window opposite. “Old-time reunion. These two are chummy.”

“What about the van?”

He pointed to a side street to the right of the store. “Down there. About five minutes ago, the two of them—I guess the other one’s the owner—came out the side entrance and took in several boxes. Tango Two estimates about four of ’em. They’ve stayed in the back of the store ever since. The only one I can see from here is the girl at the counter, and she hasn’t moved.”

He checked his watch. “It’s almost eight. I can’t tell if they’re open, or closed but still have the lights on.”

At that point, as if responding on cue, the girl came around from behind the counter, locked the door, and pulled a shade down over it and the large window next to it.

“Damn,” Spinney muttered. “Should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“What’d you think about getting a warrant? Find out what’s in the boxes?”

I saw the glimmer of a grin in the dark. “Yeah.”

I called Maggie Lanier on the mobile phone, explained our needs, and then flipped a coin with Spinney to decide which one of us was going to sign the application—and thus make the trip back to Burlington. He lost.

I glanced out the window at the night sky. “You’ll love it—stars are out.”

· · ·

Nobody left the store that night. Eventually, all but the nightlights were put out on the ground floor, and others came on one floor above. In the few moments before the curtains were drawn upstairs, I could see the corner of what was obviously a front-facing living room. Presumably, the shipment having been secured somewhere safe, the three friends were settling down for a home-cooked meal and a well-earned night’s rest. I was looking forward to throwing a wrench into that.

As it turned out, I never got the chance. Some three hours later—shortly before I expected Spinney back—a top-down convertible drove quickly down the main street and slowed suddenly before the store’s front window. Half asleep by now, despite the occasional radio chatter we’d been using to keep awake—I was only vaguely aware of what was going on. As if in sluggish slow motion, I focused on the driver, recognized his Asian features, and was bringing the radio up to my mouth when a passenger stood up in the back of the car and aimed something cylindrical at the building. There was a blinding flash as something went shattering through the store’s plate glass.

“We got something…” was all I got out before the squealing tires of the departing car were overwhelmed by a tremendous explosion. The peaceful scene before me vanished in a stunning roar, rocking the car and sending me flying across the seat, my arm covering my head just as both side windows were blown in, followed by a wave of hot air and the by-now familiar clatter of falling debris.

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN ENDLESS NOISE
and total darkness was enervating. I kept wishing one would give in to the other.

“Mr. Gunther?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to take the bandages off, just to see how we’re doing, and put in some more drops.”

“Be my guest.”

The emergency-room doctor—a young woman in her thirties—began peeling the tape that was holding the thick dressing firmly over my eyes. “You have a visitor, by the way.”

“Hey, Joe.”

I recognized Spinney’s voice, its usual levity dulled with concern. “Hey, Les. Did you catch ’em?”

“They blew across the border at Derby Line like a rocket. The Mounties and the provincial police are on it now. Haven’t heard back yet. Probably won’t, either, if the escape went off as well as the attack.”

The doctor murmured, “Okay—here we go,” and gently lifted the pads from my eyes. I squinted in pain, even though I could see the lights directly overhead had been turned off, and that the white curtain around my bed did a good job as a filter.

“How’s the vision?” she asked me, her face about ten inches from mine.

I blinked several times, trying to focus on her, and finally switched to Spinney’s face at the foot of the bed. “I haven’t gotten nearsighted, but everything else looks pretty good. They just hurt, and they’re sensitive.”

She smiled but stayed put, watching me. “Okay, good. I’m going to shine a light in your eyes, just to make you really uncomfortable, and then I’ll put in some more drops. After that, you should be able to get out of here.”

She wasn’t underrating her fancy penlight—it hurt like hell and made the tears pour down into my ears—but she seemed satisfied by what she saw.

She straightened up, smiled again, and expertly administered some soothing, cool drops. “You’re all set. The effects of the flash will pass soon enough, and I seriously doubt you’ll have any permanent damage. I’ll give you some drops to self-administer, along with instructions and a pair of horrible-looking cardboard sunglasses you can use until you can get some decent ones. I think you’ll find you’ll need them for a couple of days, though, so don’t be heroic, and just put up with the jokes, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded curtly. “You’re free to go—you can collect your belongings on the way out. Good luck.”

Spinney watched her sweep aside the curtain and disappear into the surrounding hubbub of the rest of the ER. “I always get the old guys with bad breath.”

“What’s left of the jewelry store?” I asked him, checking my watch. I’d been in the Newport hospital for four hours by now.

“A hole in the ground. The fire chief owns the property till he declares it stone cold, so we still hadn’t been allowed in when I left, but those bastards did a job and a half. Maybe they learned from the idiots we caught in Burlington.”

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the gurney, my eyes already adjusted to the semi-gloom. “I take it nobody survived.”

“Nobody and damned near nothing. Based on what you saw, ATF’s pretty sure they used a tube-fired rocket. They’ve got someone heading over to see what they can find in the rubble. It was propane, though, that set the place off like a roman candle. The rocket must’ve hit the gas tanks on the back side of the building.”

I shook my head. “I was half-asleep. I only caught a glimpse of the driver—not enough to make an ID. I don’t even know what make of car it was… A dark four-door convertible is all I remember.”

“We got all we need on the car. They caught it on video at the border. The Canadians’ll probably find it in a field in a few hours, fresh from somebody’s hot sheet. You ready to go?”

I wandered behind him, half blinded, to the counter by the door, picked up my drops and floppy glasses, and finished the paperwork. Outside, it was still dark, and pleasantly cool, so I slipped the glasses into my breast pocket for future use.

I used them at the fire scene, however, surrounded as it was with flashing red, white, and blue electronic strobes, not to mention firefighters equipped with powerful, erratically pointed flashlights. “Hole in the ground” turned out to be a highly accurate description of an erstwhile two-story building. Charred black and glistening with water, the rubble filling the cellar barely came up to my waist. Spinney and I and several other members of the surveillance team stood around the spot where we’d been staked out hours earlier, and watched the fire department slowly gather up its tons of equipment from the flooded street.

The fire chief—short, square, and grim—came up to us, still dressed in his dirty bunker coat and helmet. He gave a curious glance at my Halloween spectacles, but addressed Lester Spinney. “I guess it’s all yours. I don’t suppose you can tell me what it was all about.”