Third Strike (22 page)

“I know, I know,” he said. “And you're going to ban small dogs, high heels, and pay toilets, too. I don't think I've heard you say that more than a thousand times.”

“It's a sound platform for revolution,” I said. “You have to admit that.”

“I own a smallish dog,” he said, “and Evie looks amazing in heels.”

“I'm not a fanatic,” I said as we passed Cannonball Park. “There are exceptions to every rule.”

We turned right on Pease's Point Way and parked in front of the police station beside a cruiser. Because of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, and other antiterrorist laws and practices implemented after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, the front door of the police station is now locked and you have to push a buzzer to get in. This is because you never know when some international terrorist organization might decide to attack the Edgartown police station.

Now that I thought about it, the fact was that Brady and I were there to tell the Chief that we believed a terrorist group of sorts was planning a missile attack on the Martha's Vineyard Airport. Another of life's ironies.

I punched the buzzer, and Kit Goulart looked out at us, smiled, wiggled her fingers, and pushed the button that opened the door.

“The Chief is in his office,” she said, waving a massive hand in that direction.

We found the Chief sucking on his favorite briar. It was not lighted, because he only smoked out-of-doors, but like all pipe smokers, he found the oral stimulation of chewing the stem to be almost as important as the taste of the tobacco smoke. I knew all about that, having once been a pipe smoker myself and still having a nose that, when I caught a whiff of smoke from a passing pipe, tried hard to lead me after the smoker, inhaling deeply.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“We're the Cassandra brothers,” I said. “We can't find anybody to believe us.”

“I'm tempted to say that's understandable, but I won't,” said the Chief, and waved us to two chairs. “Speak. I don't have much time, so don't waste it.”

Talking fast, I told him about agreeing to try to clear Eduardo Alvarez's name and about what I'd learned from Steve Bronski. I didn't tell him about how Steve happened to break his ankle.

Brady told him about coming down to see Larry Bucyck and what Bucyck had told him, and about us finding Bucyck's body the next day. We both told him about what we'd seen and done at Lundsberg's house on Menemsha Pond and what we'd found there the next morning when we'd returned with Olive Otero. We told him what had happened at Zapata's church and about our encounter with Harry Doyle after we'd talked with Norm Frazier. We showed him our map and told him what we'd seen when we tried to find some of the marked sites. I told him what I'd seen in the storage room of the meetinghouse. I didn't mention picking the locks. We told him of our conversations with the state police, and finally we told him what Brady had learned on the computer, and of our conviction that conspirators intended to use surface-to-air Stinger missiles to shoot down an incoming plane, and that our best guess was that Joe Callahan was the target. We wrapped up our presentation by reiterating the links we'd noticed among Zapata, Mortison, Lundsberg, and Doyle.

When we were done, the Chief studied us with an unfathomable expression. He'd been in the cop business for most of his life and was past being surprised by anything human beings were capable of doing.

Then he nodded. “It doesn't take much to make a killer out of a guy who's normally nice as pie. Maybe the ties between those guys go back to Nicaragua. Mortison lives down here in Katama, so I know a little about him. He's always been a hard case, but he got harder when his brother got himself killed when one of those militia outfits attacked a mission hospital down there in the jungle. Now you tell me that this Dr. Lundsberg ran clinics in Nicaragua and that Zapata was working down there before he came on up here. What I don't get is what all that's got to do with Joe Callahan.”

“Maybe I do,” said Brady. “Early in Callahan's first term, he didn't immediately cut off aid to some of the right-wing political movements that his predecessor supported. By the time he did, there'd been a lot of killing by militias, and it was financed by us. Only Callahan's best pals have forgiven him. It was a bad mistake.”

The Chief glanced at his watch. “If you're lying about all this, somebody will want you both in jail. If you're just wrong, they'll probably still want you there. But I believe you saw what you say you saw.”

I felt relief flow through me and remembered having the same feeling when I was a kid accused of breaking a window I didn't break and having my father believe me. But I had no time to luxuriate in being believed, because the Chief was already reaching for his phone and saying, “We have a time problem. Joe Callahan is flying in on a private jet, and he's supposed to land in about an hour. I'm going to assume that those six crates are gone from the meetinghouse by now. We have to get our people out to these sites immediately.”

His face remained unemotional, but I knew he was wondering if he had enough time and personnel to get the job done. The island cops were already stretched thin by the strike and by Larry Bucyck's murder, to say nothing of maintaining law and order among 100,000 August people who were rowdier than usual because they didn't like being trapped, even though they were trapped in Eden.

I stood and touched the map in front of him. “The wind is from the southwest,” I said. “I don't know if wind direction means much to pilots these days, but I imagine his plane will be landing from the northeast, coming into the wind over Oak Bluffs and the high school on its approach.”

Brady, who'd gotten up and followed me to the desk, nodded and pointed. “So, if you can't cover all of the sites, maybe you should concentrate on those on the northeast. These two sites are the closest ones.” He glanced at me, then back at the Chief. “We've been to one of those places. We can take you there. It'll save you some time.”

“No,” said the Chief. “You two have done your duty already. Leave this up to the people who are getting paid to do the work.” He raised a hand to silence us, then picked up the phone and spoke into it. His voice was very professional. His words were straightforward and tolerated no argument. He finished one call, punched a button on his phone and made another, then another and another. When he finished the last call, he got to his feet, folded our map, jammed it in his pocket, then started toward the door, waving us out in front of him.

As we passed Kit, she said, “Do you have enough men?”

“We'll have to make do with what we've got,” said the Chief.

She frowned, but nodded. “Well, be careful out there.”

“I will,” he said.

As we walked outside beside the Chief, Brady said, “How many people know Callahan's ETA?”

“I don't know,” said the Chief, opening the cruiser's door. Then he paused and looked at Brady. “You're right. If this scheme is what it seems to be, somebody must have given that information to the bad guys.”

“Who told you?” I said.

“I got a call from Washington. The Secret Service still protects ex-presidents. Callahan will have some agents with him on the plane. There aren't many secrets in Washington. When the dust settles we'll have to find the tipster. I'll worry about that later.”

“Have you got enough men to cover all those sites?”

“I have enough for the ones under the approach, at least,” he said. “I'll try to collect more.” He pointed his finger. “You two stay out of it. I have enough to worry about without worrying about you, too.”

He got into the cruiser and drove away.

Above us, the innocent blue sky held clouds whiter than newborn lambs, and the sun shone down onto a world that should have been devoid of murder.

I looked at Brady and quoted the old saw: “‘Nature may be violent, but only man is vile.'”

He nodded, then squinted up at the sky. “Am I imagining things,” he said, “or are those clouds blowing in a different direction than they were when we got here?”

I looked up at the woolly lambkin clouds and felt a chill.

The wind had changed. Now it was blowing from the northeast.

The Chief would be covering the wrong sites.

W
e stood there outside the police station looking at the sky. The clouds off to the northeast were roiling and boiling, and they seemed to be piling up and turning darker by the minute.

“You heard any weather forecasts lately?” I said to J.W.

He shook his head, still frowning at the sky.

“It's almost the end of August,” I said. “The beginning of the nor'easter season along the New England coast.”

He nodded. “They sometimes come in fast this time of year.” He put his forefinger in his mouth, then held it up. “It's a northeast wind, all right.” He pointed at the big oak tree that grew in front of the police station. “See how the leaves are showing their undersides? That means a storm is coming.”

I looked at the tree. The top branches were swaying in the freshening breeze, and the undersides of the leaves looked silver. “So Callahan's plane won't be approaching from the northeast,” I said. “It'll come from the opposite direction.”

J.W. blew out a breath. “The Chief will have the wrong sites covered. We've got to tell him.”

“Don't you think he'll figure it out?”

“He might. But we can't take that chance. Come on.”

He turned and headed back to the station, and I followed him. He poked the button, and when Kit Goulart hit the buzzer, we went inside.

“What now?” Kit said.

“You've got to get ahold of the Chief,” J.W. said.

She frowned at him. “He's doing something pretty important. As you know.”

“This is about that. Get him on the radio. We don't have any time to waste.”

“What exactly is it about?”

“The wind has changed. Now it's coming out of the northeast.”

“You want me to give the Chief a weather report?”

“It's important,” said J.W. “He'll understand.”

She nodded, then picked up the microphone from the console beside her, poked a button, and said, “Chief, come in, please.” She paused, scowled at the phone, then said, “Chief? Are you there? I have information for you.” Another pause. “Chief, come in, damn it.” She looked up at the ceiling for a minute, then looked at us. “He's not answering.”

“We don't have any time,” said J.W. “Keep trying. Tell him about the wind. Tell him it's coming from the northeast. Do you understand?”

“Of course I understand,” said Kit.

“Or call the state police,” said J.W. “Call somebody. Tell them they've got to go to the southwest circles on the map. The Chief will know what that means.” He touched my shoulder. “Come on.” He turned and strode out of the station.

I followed him. Back outside, the sky directly overhead was still blue and dotted with puffy white clouds. But the breeze had picked up a little more, and a dark cloud bank was building on the northeast horizon. The temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees in the past few minutes, and the air felt damp and heavy. The storm was coming fast.

J.W. was heading for his Land Cruiser. I followed him, and we climbed in.

“You got a plan?” I said.

“Not much of one. Somebody's got to check out those sites on the southwest end of the island. If Kit can't get ahold of the Chief in time, that leaves us.” He started up the car.

“We gave the map with your circles on it to the Chief,” I said.

“I've got another map in my glove box.”

I opened the Land Cruiser's glove box. There were many maps in it.

I found one of Martha's Vineyard and opened it on my lap. This one, unfortunately, did not have any circles on it. “You remember the places from what you saw at Lundsberg's?” I said to J.W.

He tapped his head. “I got the map of Martha's Vineyard here.” He leaned over, frowned at the map, then poked at it with his forefinger. “Here,” he said, “on the road to Scrubby Neck Farm. And here, on Deep Bottom Road. The Chief should have the others covered. But not these. These are on the opposite side of the island.”

“We better get going, then.”

He turned onto the road.

I was remembering how the plane had come zooming in over our heads when we were out scouting the circles on the map. I wondered where the wind had been blowing from when that happened. Maybe we were wrong about this wind direction business. I was pretty sure airplanes took off into the wind. But maybe they landed with it behind them.

Well, it didn't really matter. With one of those FIM-92 Stinger missiles you could shoot down an airplane from anywhere on the island. J.W. had seen six crates in the storeroom at Father Zapata's church, and Dr. Lundsberg had circled six areas on his map. Six sites, six missile shooters, each capable of bringing down an airplane twelve thousand feet away. That was more than two miles.

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“What?” said J.W.

“I don't think the wind direction makes any difference to these guys,” I said. “I bet there's a missile launcher at each of the six sites. I bet they intend to shoot all six missiles at Callahan's plane.”

J.W. looked at me. “So if five of them are stopped, or misfire or something, there will still be a sixth, and that'll be enough.”

“More than enough.” I looked at my watch. About fifteen minutes had passed since the Chief told us that Callahan's plane was expected in about an hour. “We've got three-quarters of an hour. Can we get there in time?”

“Gonna be close in this old crate,” he mumbled.

“What's the plan?”

With one eye on the road, he leaned over and poked a finger at the map. “I've got an idea of the layout here,” he said, indicating the road to Scrubby Neck Farm, “so you can drop me off there. Then you'll head over to this spot.” He tapped the other place on Deep Bottom Road. “I figure we can get to this first spot in about fifteen minutes, leaving you another fifteen or twenty to find the other place.”

“You better step on it,” I said.

He stepped on it. There was plenty of Sunday-afternoon island traffic on the road, folks on their way to or from the beach with no deadlines or obligations or any reason to bother traveling at the speed limit, but J.W. nosed up close to the slow vehicles in front of us until they got the hint and pulled over so he could pass them. Still, time seemed to be moving faster than we were.

“Got your weapon?” said J.W.

I patted my leg where Zee's Beretta was a heavy, awkward lump in my pocket. “I do,” I said, “though I'm not sure how it will stand up against a Stinger missile.”

“You've shot people before,” he said.

“A couple,” I said. “I didn't enjoy it, but they were fully prepared to shoot me.”

“You did what you had to do,” he said. “I hope you're prepared to do it again. The trick is, don't hesitate. Don't think about it. Shoot first, think later. Just aim for the middle of him and keep pulling the trigger until you run out of bullets.”

“I can do that,” I said. “How about you?”

“These people intend to assassinate the former president of the United States. What do you think?”

“That,” I said, “answers my question. Can't you drive a little faster?”

We were on the Edgartown–West Tisbury Road, heading west. As we put a little distance between ourselves and Edgartown, the traffic seemed to thin out, and pretty soon we had an empty road ahead of us. I noticed that J.W. had nosed the needle of his speedometer past sixty. The old Land Cruiser was shimmying with its effort.

“We get stopped by a cop,” I said, “we'll surely be late.”

“We get stopped by a cop,” he said, “we can tell him what's going on and get some help.”

“If he believes us.”

“Which he probably wouldn't,” said J.W. “On the other hand, this is one date we can't be late for. Too late even by one minute and it's all over.”

A few minutes later J.W. slowed down, then took a left turn onto a dirt road. It cut through woods and meadows. No houses or other buildings.

I squinted at the map and saw that he was aiming for Scrubby Neck Farm. “You know what you're doing?” I said.

“I think I've got an idea where their launching area is.”

J.W. took a left and then another left, and then we found ourselves at the end of the road.

He stopped and climbed out of the Land Cruiser. “Can you find your way back from here to the road?”

I nodded.

“Okay. Take a left turn on Deep Bottom Road. You should find a trail going off to the left into the woods. Go.” He patted his hip, where he'd tucked his Smith and Wesson .38 into his belt, gave me a thumbs-up, and headed for the woods in back of one of the house lots.

I scrambled over the console into the driver's seat, and suddenly I was alone in J.W.'s Land Cruiser with a puny handgun in my pocket and the life of a former president of the United States in my hands.

I looked at my watch.

I had about twenty-five minutes. Not enough time to ponder the significance of what I was doing.

I found my way back onto the Edgartown–West Tisbury Road, turned left, and began looking for Deep Bottom Road.

I thought about J.W. By now he was sneaking through the woods toward some general area he'd seen on the big map at Dr. Lundsberg's house the previous night. If we were right, there would be a man with an FIM-92 missile launcher there.

I blinked away the image of J.W. and his .38 shooting it out against a man with a weapon powerful enough to blow up an airplane. I had to focus on what I was doing.

I found Deep Bottom Road and turned onto it. It was a narrow dirt road that cut through some scrubby woods. I slowed down to a crawl and looked hard. Off to the left, the land rose to a little lumpy hill. A good vantage for shooting down airplanes.

After a few minutes, I spotted some old ruts leading into the woods. This had to be the place.

My first thought, in the interest of time, was to take the Land Cruiser as far over those ruts as its four-wheel drive would allow.

Then I thought about the noisy old Land Cruiser whining along in four-wheel drive with its bad muffler and all its rattles and clanks. I wondered if I could drive it very far without alerting the man I expected would be waiting on top of the hill. I couldn't take that chance.

So I pulled it over to the side of the road and got out. Now the clouds blanketed the sky and the wind was whipping the tops of the trees. The air was dense with moisture. Soon it would rain.

I began to hurry down the rutted road, and I'd gone about halfway when I heard the murmur of a man's voice. I stopped in my tracks and listened. I couldn't make out his words, but his voice was low and conspiratorial.

I slipped off the ruts into the woods and began to ease my way from bush to bush parallel with the rutted roadway until I saw him. He was a young black-haired man wearing work boots and camouflage pants and a black T-shirt. His back was to me so I couldn't see his face. He was sitting on a big boulder with a cell phone pressed against his ear and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

An Uzi leaned against the boulder he was sitting on. It was an ugly thing, all function, no form, just a mechanism of black metal that could spit out bullets so fast they made one continual blasting noise. It didn't have a stock. You didn't bother holding it to your shoulder and aiming. You just held on with both hands, kept your finger on the trigger, and let the bullets spray, the way I had done the previous night when J.W. and I were fleeing from Dr. Lundsberg's place. I remembered the feeling of lethal power in my hands when I held that Uzi that was spitting bullets at the speed of sound. I didn't want those bullets spitting at me.

I was about thirty yards from the guy. If he didn't turn around, and if I could avoid stepping on a twig or flushing a partridge, maybe I could sneak up behind him.

No other plan occurred to me, so that's what I decided to do.

I kept one eye on the man and one eye on each place I set down my foot. The freshening wind and the damp air helped muffle the sound of my movements.

I found myself drenched with sweat, even though the air was cool. My middle-aged heart was hammering in my chest, and I had the random, panicky thought that if a stroke or a heart attack killed me, ex-President Callahan would also be a dead man.

Luckily, the area around the boulder where the guy with the Uzi sat featured tall pine trees, and the soft ground was cushioned with years of fallen brown needles.

I was no more than ten feet from his back when he snapped his cell phone shut, stood up, and stuffed it into his pants pocket. He took a final drag off his cigarette, dropped it onto the ground, and half turned toward me as he stamped it out under his foot.

I crouched behind a tree trunk and held my breath as he yawned and stretched. Then he turned away from me, tilted back his head, and gazed up at the dark sky.