The Empty Warrior (13 page)

O’Keefe had never seen the trespassers with his own eyes, but the little bastards invariably left plenty of evidence behind. He had found beer cans, pizza boxes, and used condoms floating near the far shore on several occasions when he had gone out to fish in the early morning. Each time it had happened he ended up trolling around netting trash rather than casting a line. That made him angry enough, but on this night, a night when his impotence laid like an anvil in his heart, the thought of young couples rutting down by the shore of his lake while casting their garbage aside for him to collect raised his ire to a fever pitch. Tonight, he promised himself, he would put an end to it once and for all.

He tossed down the last few swallows of his beer and drove the chair, which now seemed to move with agonizing slowness, back to the dining room. There, he switched back to the sports chair, checking to make sure the Colt was still in the side pocket before moving quickly into the laundry room where he retrieved a long steel flashlight and a pair of night vision binoculars from their designated spots on a low hanging shelf. Neatly stuffing them into the other side pocket, he raced—as nimbly as his somewhat inebriated condition would allow—out of the house and down the concrete ramp into the garage, grabbing his keys from a hook by the kitchen door as he passed.

He punched the combination into the keypad on the side of his van and waited as the door slid aside and the ramp slowly swung down from inside the vehicle.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he breathed impatiently, his arms tight and tingly with anticipation. At last the ramp thudded onto the concrete floor, and O’Keefe pushed his chair up it and into the vehicle. He locked the chair in its passenger-side bay, dropped the left armrest, and pulled his body almost viciously into the driver’s seat.

He was at the wheel with the engine running and the garage door rolling upward before the accessibility ramp was entirely stowed back inside. The van was moving before its sliding side door had powered completely shut. However, he forced himself not to speed off down the drive. His military training had instilled in him a great respect for stealth, even at the expense of speed, particularly when the enemy had no idea someone was approaching. So instead of flying noisily toward his goal, he drove deliberately down the mountain with only the orange glow of parking lights illuminating his path.

The boathouse, from a straight line perspective, was less than a mile from his home, but it was a much longer drive to get there. It was necessary to take the twisting drive down almost to the highway before taking a right through a set of remotely activated steel gates onto a curvy gravel road that led up between the shoulders of two mountains and then back down to the lake. It was even more winding than the driveway and had severe cut backs every 200 yards or so of the descent. Nearer to the lake the road straightened to a degree before emerging from the forest directly in front of the boathouse.

He had driven the route hundreds of times before, but rarely after dusk, and in the darkness the road seemed strangely alien. The glow from his parking lights cast a sickly pall on the forest as he passed while the gravel crunching beneath his tires sounded as loud as a rockslide rolling down the mountain. In the half-light, the trees seemed to lean in over the road, leaving O’Keefe to feel as if he were traversing a leafy tunnel that became more constricted with every revolution of his wheels. Had he not needed both hands, one to steer and one to manipulate the brake and accelerator stick that jutted from the side of the steering column, he would have reached over into the pocket of his chair to touch the cold steel of the Colt that rested there.

But even without a physical reminder of its presence, the thought of it so close by reassured him. He had no intention of using it on a gaggle of partying high school students other than to terrify them, but as he drove there had been time for him to consider a little more carefully the possibilities of what he might be up against. Although the odds were that he would be facing only kids out to have a good time in a place where they had no right to do it, there was no way he could be absolutely certain of who was on his land before actually seeing them. It was hardly unknown for drug smugglers to use remote Appalachian drop sites to bring in their wares, and they were famous for not taking interruptions lightly. If he ran into something like that, he would need the sidearm more than he wished to think about.

At last he emerged from the trees and, cutting the lights, rolled into the open area that surrounded the boathouse and pier. He brought the van up as close beside the structure as he was able, shut it down, and pulled himself once again into the sports chair. He loosed it from the locks and rolled it backward, punching the exit button on the ramp’s control box as he did so. Again, it seemed to take a noisy eternity for it to swing down to the ground. At last it was in position, and he was able to roll out onto the short grass surrounding the truck.

Immediately he was off toward the rough planks of the pier, not pausing even to close up the van. The door to the boathouse was on the left, about a third of the way down the pier. He halted before it, fumbling with the keys in the darkness before finally finding the one that matched the deadbolt on the entry. He unlocked the door and then was inside. With a quick flick of his right wrist, he slapped a switch into the on position, bathing the interior with bright light. He reached for one of the orange life preservers that hung from a rack to his left and clumsily donned it, his alcohol-laden fingers fumbling somewhat with the fastenings before the vest was securely strapped around his ribs.

There were three boats in the structure to choose from. First in line was a houseboat, its open rear deck perfect for lolling about with a rod on a hot summer’s day. Next was his bass boat, little more than a skiff really, that he used to poke into the numerous small coves that proliferated where the mountains met the water. Lastly there was his toy. It was a fast, miniature cigarette boat, which was still much too large for the proportions of his glorified pond; but he had the money, and he liked tearing wide laps around the lake at high speed, so he had bought it anyway. All three boats hung from the ceiling, suspended above the water by steel cables that were attached to wide, thick straps of reinforced canvas fabric that looped beneath the hulls and held the craft securely aloft.

He chose the cigarette boat. The bass boat would have been quieter and shown less of a silhouette, but it would not get out of its own way in a pinch, and he might have the need for speed if things did not go well, so his toy would have to do. He gave the sleek craft a quick inspection before he lowered it. Everything seemed to be in order.

Taking the proper remote from its hook on the wall he began to drop the speedster toward the water, stopping the pulleys just as the gunwale came to approximately the same level as the seat of his chair. He rolled down the mini-pier that formed one side of the slip and locked down his wheels as close as he dared to the edge of the planking before tossing his flashlight and the night vision binoculars over onto the vinyl passenger seat. Pulling the Colt from the other side pocket, he checked the slide lock, twice, and started to don the shoulder holster before cursing himself for his drunkenness. It obviously wasn’t going to fit over a life preserver. It took him a couple of long minutes to get out of the vest and then back into it after he had strapped on the gun.

Finally he grabbed hold of the gunwale before him and swung his body around, just as he did when he exchanged one chair for another, until he was seated on the edge of the boat, facing away from it, grasping the remote in one hand and holding on tightly to the edge of the windscreen with the other. The boat rocked back and forth unsteadily beneath him. Once the movement subsided somewhat, he carefully slid backward until his buttocks were atop the left-hand seat. He then laid his back across the center console and pulled one leg at a time over the gunwale. In a few moments he was sitting erect before the wheel. Machinery whined as once again he began to lower the craft toward the water. The edge of the slip was almost at a level with his chest before the hull softly impacted the lake and the boat began the familiar swaying motion endemic to any floating object. Impatient as he was, O’Keefe was still careful to lower the straps deeper into the water.

Once he was certain they were far enough below the surface not to interfere with the passage of the hull, he dropped the remote next to the flashlight and fired up the engines, a low rumble shaking the vessel as powerful twin inboards came to life. He stabbed at the garage door opener clipped to the dash, and the overhead door behind him began to roll upward. O’Keefe grimaced at the incredible racket of squeaks and metallic trundling noises made by the opener’s motor and the wheels of the door, but if someone out there heard it, they heard it. There was nothing to be done about it now.

Pungent exhaust fumes carried on the wind that entered through the now fully opened door blew back by his nostrils as he engaged the props. He carefully backed the craft from the slip and out onto the lake.

The open boathouse loosed an enormous amount of light out onto its surface, but O’Keefe had no way to douse the overheads from where he sat, an oversight he at that moment decided to correct as soon as possible.

When the bow was clear, he punched the opener again and the door slid back down almost to the level of the water. Some light still escaped from beneath the structure, but he did not believe that it could be seen from the far end of the lake. A high, rocky promontory jutted into the center of the tarn from the south, giving it its kidney shape, and also obstructing the view between the boathouse and the spillway and dam. Hopefully whoever was down there had not been attentive enough to notice the soft wreath of light that had almost certainly framed the headland during the time the door had been open.

Away from any enclosure now, he swung the bow to the left, reversed the propellers to provide forward thrust, and gave the boat just enough throttle to move it through the water at a walking pace. The speedboat wasn’t exactly a surreptitious way to arrive anywhere, but if he took it easy there were enough insects nosily inhabiting the trees to hide the sound of his approach until he was very close.

O’Keefe crept through the western basin, steering a course almost directly at the head of the promontory. He was certain that whatever scofflaws lay beyond, there was no way they could detect his approach as of yet. The danger would come when he rounded the point. For a short time there would be a long expanse of water behind him against which he would be silhouetted and easily spotted if anyone on the eastern end of the lake was paying attention. If he could gain the far side of the promontory unnoticed, he would be able to troll in slowly, getting close enough to the dam to see while still being camouflaged against the dark and confusing backdrop of rubble and misshapen pines that populated the opposite shore.

A few minutes later he began to round the promontory. He powered the engines up a bit and kept the boat as close to the shore as he dared until he was securely in the eastern basin. There he cut back the throttles nearly to idle. His eyes scanned the darkness before him, searching for some visible evidence of the trespassers he was sure were there. He saw nothing—no flashlights, no fire—nothing. He was halfway down the eastern side of the outcropping before he picked them out. A group of rental trucks, U-hauls and Ryders, were parked neatly across the spillway, approximately midway between the far side of the dam and the base of the mountain that formed the northern barrier of the lake. As he watched, the lighted shapes of several windshields appeared and disappeared, illuminated by the dome lights within as the occupants climbed in and out of their vehicles. O’Keefe killed the engines and drifted, straining to hear. Over the shrill grating of a million insects he could vaguely make out the sound of loading doors being rolled upward and voices which were indecipherable other than that they were both male and female.

The intruders were chatty—yelling, laughing, and joking among themselves. But O’Keefe could not understand anything they were saying. At first he thought he was too far away to pick out individual words, but as he drifted closer it became apparent that his uninvited guests were not speaking English. Whatever language they were using, it was not one that he recognized.

“Jesus,” O’Keefe whispered to himself, “they are drug dealers.” Foreigners. Maybe even terrorists. On his land, getting ready to pick up truckloads of drugs, or explosives, or guns, or whatever contraband they were here for. This was not good at all. There was no way anybody could para-drop enough of anything to fill all those trucks. But what kind of plane could put down on a lake this size and still carry that much cargo? An old PBY? Or maybe they were expecting a whole squadron of seaplanes. If they were, they had some time yet to wait as O’Keefe could hear no approaching engines.

But there was another worry. The slight current in the lake was pulling the boat closer and closer to the dam. Soon he would either have to drop anchor or start the engines, either of which would almost certainly be heard from the shore. And whoever these people were, they had far too much equipment to be amateurs. They almost certainly would have automatic weapons, lots of them; more than a match for his lone .45.

As he continued to drift toward the dam and the spillway, O’Keefe was able to make out some detail in the starlight. There were seven trucks of various sizes and at least twenty people on the shore, all of whom were unloading cartons from the back of each vehicle. What? O’Keefe was confused. “Why,” he asked himself, “would these people be unloading anything?” They should be here to pick up whatever it was they meant to smuggle in. It didn’t make any sense. As he contemplated the conundrum, his view was suddenly obscured, as if a black shroud had been silently dropped between his eyes and the shore.