Tsunami Connection (9 page)

February
26,2012

Just two days previously, the ice of
Lake Massawippi had cascaded upon itself, screeching its death throes in almost
Wagnerian-sounding austerity. The MacAuley house was nestled at the head of a
peninsula, stretching into the coldness of the earliest spring melt in over a
century of record keeping, a full sixty days ahead of the normal time. It was a
grey cedar saltbox. On the upper floor, dormers popped out of a
round-the-house, screened-in porch on the first floor, giving the house the
look of a jack-in-the-box.

Over-protective locals, looking to maintain lucrative upkeep
contracts, had stonewalled all inquiries in the area about MacAuley's country
residence. Locals had even refused bribes, such as a proffered twenty-dollar
bill in the local
depanneur
, a Quebec French expression for corner
store. Finally, an older man took a liking to Sarah. During a breakfast chat,
overlooking the lake at the Ripplecove Inn, he not only gave up the location of
the MacAuley cottage on Murray Bay, but also offered her a boat taxi.

"Everything is written in French here unless you find
an old map predating the so-called
La Révolution Tranquille
, or the
Quiet Revolution, referring to the on-going struggle for a French-speaking
country in Quebec, independent of Canada. Before that, everything was written
in English," said the gent in high, black rubber boots accompanied by a
whole-body yellow slicker, perched precariously in the second chair at his
table.

"We went up every road off highway 208 and got close on
Rue des Hirondelles, but we are at a loss for what to do next. We promised to
drop off these wedding pictures and we know that Michael can't abide cell
phones. Here, look. We have pictures of the place, but we never imagined it
would be so hard to get to," said Sarah.

"I'm Bill Enright, my friends call me Fish. I'm sort of
a fixture around here. I've been fishing greys; grey trout that is, since you
was knee-high to a grasshopper. The greys only really bite at this time of
year, just after the ice breaks up. Then they are near the surface and are easy
picking. I use a live walleye skewered on a steel rod with hooks attached. It's
the live fish-like movement that gets 'em. Anyway, I guess you're not
interested in that. I was trolling today by the MacAuley place, just this
morning. I noticed a light and chimney smoke. Never took a liking to that one,
though he's a great voice on him. Anyway, I can drop you on his dock just by
his boathouse on my way home, if you like. I'm leaving in a few minutes."

"That would be wonderful. Don't you think, Aden? How
rude of me. This is my husband, Aden."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," replied Aden,
unknowingly slipping into local intonation patterns out of habit, not mockery.

"You're a sorry one for mocking me like that,"
answered Fish, acknowledging the slight with a burlesque of his own intonation
patterns.

"Sorry," said Aden. "I didn't mean any harm.
They say mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery."

"He could use a hair of the dog," filled in Sarah,
smiling warmly at both men.

"That's a problem an old bachelor like me can relate
to," said Fish, as he pulled a worn, silver flask from under his red and
black checkered wool work clothes. "Have a snort on me."

Aden sniffed gingerly, and then smiled deeply, showing
newfound respect for their friend. "Glenfiddich Single Malt. I'd recognize
that anywhere. Here's to ya," said Aden, tipping the brim of an imaginary
hat with the snout of the flask and nodding his head before he took a deep pull
on the flagon.

"A man after my own heart, I see," nodded Fish.

"Do you know where the place is exactly?" asked
Aden.

"I'd say I do 'iffen′ I heard myself say I'd take
you thaere," replied Fish, stretching his accent to return Aden's earlier
mockery.

"Really, it's just a bad habit. Sorry again."

"I guess I'll forgive ya, since you're such a willing
whisky drinker. Anyway," said Fish, opening a map on the table between
them. "Look here. This is an English map," he said, as he pointed to
a spot on a detailed laminated topographical map of the area. Fish spoke with
or without his audience's attention. He was often in soliloquy.

″I never seen the likes o' this, though. The lake
without ice in February. There's something afoot I can't grasp, 'iffen′
you know what I mean. I'm actually considering believing some 'o those
scientific types about global what-cha-me-call-it,″ spouted Fish.

Their breakfast done, the threesome left the restaurant of
the Ripplecove Inn and headed for the boat dock. Aden ran back to the car and
brought out a large, black carryall the size of a hockey goalie's equipment
bag. He was strong, but the weight of the contents, including two Heckler and
Koch MP5SD suppressed submachine guns and ample rounds, had him stiff-legging
one side of his gait. His kit also included some flash bang grenades for
surprise attacks, but he doubted he would need them today as they would be
approaching as friends in a local boat. He had slipped his Glock-17 into the
holster at the small of his back and checked the belt of his ultrathin Kevlar
inner tactical vest. He was glad he had insisted on wearing the vests from the
morning despite the discomfort. Adrenalin pumped through his veins, making it
easier to carry the bag.

In the car, he had texted Kefira and Zak as they sat in the
woods near the location they believed was the MacAuley place. Aden gave Kefira
the map coordinates and said Sarah and he were coming in by boat. It was 10:05
in the morning on February 27, 2012. The weather was unseasonably warm, more
like May than the last days of winter. There was no snow left on the ground,
just crisp soil or mud, depending upon the strength of the sun.

The aluminum fishing boat listed to one side as Aden boarded
with his gear. Fish cocked a leery eye at the bag and started wondering if he
had made the right choice by helping these people. Sarah sensed his inquietude
and flashed him a happy smile while she helped Aden stow the heavy sack
amidships where it would not unbalance the small 19-foot boat.

"Staying awhile, are ya?"

"Never know. Better prepared than not, I always
say," said Aden, extending his hand for the flask again.

"Cures what ails ya, don'it?″

'That it does. That it does,″ piped in Aden, hoping
for another swig.

'We'll be bee lining from point-to-point, passing Round Bay,
Bacon Bay and little Turner Bay, and then it's hard to starboard into Murray
Bay. The old MacAuley place is just around what we call the Murray 'nipple',
but that's a long story better not told in present company. He's got one of the
safest moorings in the whole lake. Can't see it ′til you're on it.
Someone from away might pass it right by. You're some lush when you're not
paying. Gimme back that flask, son."

Kefira and Zak crept toward the back of the house, ever
vigilant for counter measures and security pads or cameras. Camouflaged in
black and green, they blended well into the old-growth evergreen forest near
the lake. At five hundred meters inland, Zak's thermal registering glasses
caught a swiveling metal object in a tree about twenty meters in front of them.
He signaled an attention halt with a raised left hand and bunched fist.
Kefira's eyewear had found the same heat signature. She returned a movie camera
signal that they always used in this circumstance.

Both of them reached down for their cloaking devices and
pressed the cloak mechanism and the comms-off button, to stop the possibility
of an accidental uncloaking incident due to a software glitch in their
experimental invisibility software. When comms made digital contact with a
cloaked operative, it uncloaked him for an instant while the comms transmitted.

They did not need to worry about cameras anymore, and could
give undivided attention to looking for trip wires, footpad or motion sensors.
All of these gave off heat signatures that their eyewear could identify. They
proceeded carefully, picking their way through the woods. Kefira reflected that
she and Zak were lucky that the winter had been unseasonably warm. As a result,
the ground was almost bare where there might have been a meter of snow in a
normal year, which would have made their job much more arduous. Furthermore,
the hard-packed ground made discovering her and Zak very difficult.

Meanwhile, a totally black-clad figure sat in a tree stand,
high up in a tall white pine. He was protected from heat seeking thermal scans
by a special cloth cabin. On his lap was a customized, suppressed and scoped,
takedown model Ruger 10/22 rifle. This operative was waiting patiently for
three people to come by water. His people had been tailing Aden and Sarah since
a few hours after their arrival in town. The communication from the bartender
at the pub in Boston had first alerted him. He was waiting now, sure of the
direction of their attack. His old friend, Fish, was unknowingly providing a
blow-by-blow streaming record of the three of them in the Ripplecove Inn
restaurant.

Too bad about Fish,
MacAuley thought as he scanned
the water.

He heard their boat before he saw them.
The suppressor
will cover me but that supersonic pop coming from the unseasonal heat could
save the third person,
thought the shooter, as a bead of sweat rolled down
his nose. Reaching up, his specially padded gloved hand absorbed the sweat. He
opened a small vent on the upper side of the tent in the hunter's tree stand
and in wafted air.

The noise of the boat approached. He was between 600 and 700
meters from the house, on the lakeside of the boat's approach, well secluded
and waiting for the target to pass in front of him at Murray's nipple. His
positioning gave MacAuley plenty of time to sight on Fish, Sarah and Aden. He
had to try for one double kill, two people with one bullet, and a second shot
for the third person.

Kefira and Zak were unwittingly, diagonally opposite to
MacAuley's tree stand, about one kilometer to his right at the head of the
peninsula, just behind MacAuley's house. They were each watching an eyewear
display, showing a heat signature moving about inside the house. Their plan was
to support Aden and Sarah when the couple approached the house from the lake
side.

Kefira and Zak's eyewear remarked small house noises, a heat
signature periodically moving about in the house, a light in the kitchen and a
fire in the wood stove. All seemed normal. They could now hear the boat
approaching from across the peninsula. Then there was a fast acceleration of
the motor, and then the sound of the motor idled. A loud splash followed and
then there was the 'clunk' noise of a heavy object hitting the aluminum deck.
After the loud splashes, the only sound they heard was that of a motor idling.
Kefira looked at Zak. They had to decide. Go to check on Aden and Sarah or head
for the house.

"Damn, they're done. Toast, an' all because we
underestimated him again,″ cursed Zak.

'I'll stay here in the back. You go in the front on my comm.
Ready," ordered Kefira.

Then they heard it, a seaplane motor. It revved fast and
picked up speed. The plane banked and took no chances by not passing over the
house. It was gone. They knew that they had missed him and they were even more
leery of traps and mines. Kefira cursed and communicated with Zak around the
front of the house.

"We have to go in the second story windows. Wait. Even
the second story might be booby-trapped. Stop. Make your way back here.
Now," she said emphasizing her role as superior officer despite Zak's
field experience. Kefira had asserted control. Zak came around. Kefira climbed
a tall, hardwood, oak tree, and lunged into the second story window feet first.
At the sound of Kefira's landing on the floor, a dog barked and ran upstairs.
He was wearing a tall, human-shaped, mannequin made of rubberized heat
retaining material. The dog was the heat signature that their eyewear had
identified earlier. Upon seeing Kefira, it started wagging its tail. It was a
house pet, not a guard dog.

"Come in the same way I did," ordered Kefira.

Zak followed and cursed as a pointed piece of glass cut his
arm just above the wrist. He stopped the bleeding by putting pressure on the
wound and then applied Crazy glue, which he always carried with him for just
that purpose, after which he covered the wound with gauze and tape. Zak walked
forward, his weapon extended in front of him, at the end of half-bent arms.

Kefira was kneeling in front of the dog. In the hallway,
Kefira had unclipped the mannequin and was inspecting it, when Zak held her
elbow and told her not to move. A bead of sweat dripped down his face.
Together, they looked at the LED timer, flashing the seconds in a less than
three-minute total, with wires running out of it towards the head of the
mannequin. The dog did not protest as they re-attached the contraption and made
their way back to the window they had earlier entered.

Kefira uncoiled a hand-held device with snap-open clips on
one end. The serrated clips were meant to attach to a branch of a tree or other
object. The piece of equipment operated on a cable that wrapped around a branch
and used gravity to enfold itself around the limb, and then the snap-open
blades set it in position with a hard tug of the cable.

On the first throw, the apparatus dropped to the ground. The
clock was running down. Innocent of its condition, the dog came back into the
room and looked at them, its tail wagging. Kefira pulled the equipment back up.
The second time, she succeeded. She then secured the cable to the water filled
radiators in front of the window. Holding a pulley, they left the house
one-by-one and made their way down the backside of the tree.

Once on the ground, both of them ran for the lakeside of the
peninsula in search of any remains of Aden and Sarah. They would find nothing.
Behind them, the dog exploded, setting the house on fire and starting a process
that complicated their escape. Getting back to their car and leaving the scene
would become more problematical. Both Zak and Kefira shook their heads, the
adrenalin wearing off. The loss of their team members and MacAuley's uncanny
good fortune had blunted their usual positive demeanors. "That bastard
MacAuley seems to be five steps ahead of us, all the time," uttered Zak.
Kefira told him to snap out of it, because they had to move fast to get back to
their vehicle. They left at a sprint, skirting around the growing fire and
making their way through the forest.