Sea of Crises (11 page)

A long minute passed.

Two minutes.

As she twitched, he leaned in closer, studying her. The pain and the terror that mingled in her eyes were delicious. He felt himself becoming aroused. This was the best part, when the victim knew, with no uncertainty, that death was coming. And it would be capped by that perfect moment, the microsecond just before life ended, when the woman would effectively be dead, but still just alive enough to know it.

He waited patiently as her struggles began to wane, staring into her eyes without blinking, not wanting to miss the precise instant. She spasmed one last time, then her pupils dilated and her corneas glassed over. He continued staring well after the moment, looking for something he knew had to be there, some eternal truth that could only be gleaned in this glorious passage from life to death.

Finally, he took a deep breath and released his grip. She was now just a corpse. He’d wrung out as much as possible. And it had been good. But, still, he longed for more.

He knew it would be coming through the front door shortly.

He left the body slumped in the bed and rejoined Dacoff, who had retrieved the listening devices and the tap on the phone. There was a comfortable recliner in the living room, the well-worn leather marred only by a patch on the left arm that didn’t quite match the rest of the chair. Raen took a seat, crossed his legs and settled in for the wait.

It didn’t take long. His cell phone buzzed softly. It was Ozaki. He put the device up to his ear and heard the one word message.

“Jericho.”

He was out of the chair in an instant, repeating the word for Dacoff, who also reacted immediately. They cleared the back door in less than four seconds and scaled the fence at the rear of the yard in under seven. The property behind the Gale house had an overgrown backyard and appeared vacant. A simple latch on a chain link gate to one side afforded them access to the street beyond, and they hit the curb just as Ozaki pulled up. They threw in their briefcases, their bodies followed. They were still closing the car doors behind themselves as Ozaki sped away.

#

From their spot a block and a half down the street, Nate, Peter and Matt watched quietly as police officers and other official looking people came and went. Their worst suspicions had been confirmed when the coroner’s vehicle had arrived. At that point, Patricia Gale had curled into a fetal position in a corner of the back seat. She remained there now. She had not spoken.

“We should go,” Matt said. “We risk drawing attention. And,” he added with some obvious discomfort, “there’s nothing we can do here now.”

Knowing that the house was under surveillance and concerned that whoever was after them might have already arrived, Matt had placed an anonymous call to the police department from a pay phone at the shopping center before they had started back. He’d reported hearing some disturbing sounds, including a scream, coming from the Gale house. The intent had been to flush out anyone who might have been lying in wait. Their hope had been that Eunice Gale would have simply been surprised to find a patrol officer at her doorstep and told him that all was fine.

And that would have been that.

They would have retrieved the white compact Nate had driven back from the shopping center and parked a block away. Patricia Gale would have driven home, picked up her mother and taken her back to the shopping center, where Matt had devised a plan to lose anyone who might be tailing them.

But the police officers who’d responded to the call had not gotten anyone to come to the door. One of them had finally gone around to the back of the house, where he obviously gained entry, because a minute later he appeared at the front door. And then it became apparent that they were too late to save Patricia’s mother.

From the back seat, Peter asked, “Tell me again why we don’t just talk to the police? Let them know what’s going on?”

Matt shook his head. “The people we’re dealing with are too sophisticated for the police. And too connected. We’d actually be putting ourselves in jeopardy.”

“And you think we’re better able to deal with them? On our own?”

“Well,” Matt said slowly, “in a word, yes.”

Peter turned to Nate. “What does he think he is, some kind of super secret agent?”

Nate shrugged. “Something like that.”

Peter looked from Nate to Matt, a dubious expression on his face. Finally, he sat back. “Ok, Batman, where to now?”

Matt smiled grimly as he started the engine. “That,” he said, “is a good question.” He glanced at Nate. “You got any ideas?”

#

In a driving rain, they crossed over a narrow causeway onto Mount Desert Island and followed the signs directing them to the town of Bar Harbor. Nate, Matt and Peter had each taken turns at the wheel, and they’d made the drive from Minneapolis in just under thirty hours.

Nate had found driving the SUV an interesting experience. It had plenty of power and was reasonably nimble. But it felt heavy as a tank. When Nate queried Matt about it, Matt simply shrugged and said, “I made a few modifications.”

Peter never mentioned anything about it.

North of Chicago, they took a short detour and visited a bank less than a mile from O’Hare Airport, where Matt maintained one of what he called his “safe drops.” Matt spent twenty minutes in the bank and emerged with a small satchel containing, he explained, “a few things that might come in handy.” Apparently, one of those “things” was a substantial amount of cash, which they’d used to the exclusion of credit cards on their cross-country journey.

They stopped for a few hours at a motel outside Syracuse, New York. Before resuming the drive in the morning, Peter and Nate walked to a nearby copy store, where Peter was able to print out from his laptop the research he’d accumulated for his Apollo 18 project, including the voluminous documentation he’d obtained in response to the Freedom of Information request.

When he wasn’t taking his turn at the wheel, Nate had begun a review of Peter’s research. By the time they reached the craggy coast of Maine, he’d made a substantial dent in the paperwork, but he’d yet to find anything he considered particularly noteworthy.

When they’d left Minneapolis, they’d been unsure of their next step, knowing only that they needed time to digest what they’d learned and to formulate a plan of action. It was Peter who suggested they pay a visit to the home of the third member of the Apollo 18 crew, Steve Dayton. Neither Nate nor Matt thought there was much likelihood they’d learn anything of value there, but they liked the idea of getting away to a relatively remote place, and they decided that, in any event, Dayton’s survivors had a right to know what they’d discovered.

Dayton’s widow, Peter explained, had passed away six years earlier, a victim of breast cancer. His only child, a daughter named Margaret, who’d been an infant when Dayton died, had returned to care for her mother when the cancer spread so much that she couldn’t care for herself. Margaret now lived in the home that had apparently been in the Dayton family for generations.

Though Margaret Dayton would have been too young to have any memory of her father or the events surrounding the Apollo 18 tragedy, Peter informed them that he had nevertheless intended to contact her at some point to talk to her about her mother and the years following the loss of her father. He just hadn’t yet gotten to that point.

Out of an abundance of caution, they’d made no attempt to warn the young woman they were coming.

Patricia Gale had seemed to shrink into herself. She said very little during the trip and did not have much of an appetite the few times they stopped to get a bite to eat. At one point she offered to drive, but it was a half-hearted effort, and Nate and his brothers immediately declined, suggesting that she take it easy. She’d not put up a fight.

When they reached Bar Harbor, Matt spent several minutes casually steering the car up and down the water-logged streets of the small seaside town as the rain pelted them. He drove at a leisurely pace, his eyes nevertheless watchful. Nate found himself staring suspiciously at every parked vehicle. Finally, Matt said quietly, “I don’t see anything that jumps out at me.”

Not realizing he’d been holding it, Nate released a lungful of air and took another steadying breath. “Ok, let’s do it.”

They drove back up Main, the wipers working overtime, and Matt turned down one of the small side streets they’d been on a few minutes earlier, pulling up in front of a tiny wooden building with a weather-beaten sign on the side advertising “Dixon’s Wharf.” It was the only address they had for Margaret Dayton.

Matt turned the car around and parked it across the street from the building, facing back in the direction from which they’d come. Nate didn’t need to ask why. Matt gave him a sober look and nodded. Nate zipped up his jacket and glanced back at Peter, who also nodded. Next to him, Patricia Gale seemed to have rallied. She was sitting up and alert. In her lap, Buster panted softly, his tongue lolling out to one side.

Nate slipped out of the SUV, and, lowering his head against the downpour, crossed the street and made his way around to the opposite side of the building, facing the ocean. He opened the front door and entered.

The small vestibule just inside the door was separated from the rest of the space by a narrow counter, behind which an older man sat on a tall stool, a lit pipe clenched in his teeth. In one hand he held a dog-eared paperback book. With the other, he was in the process of turning a page. He appeared to be the only person in the place.

The man glanced up as Nate entered, appraising him with a look of mild curiosity. Then he slowly folded over a corner of the page he’d just turned, set the book down on the counter, and pulled the pipe from his mouth, expelling a cloud of smoke. “Can I help you?” he asked with a thick Maine accent.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Ayeah?” the man said, making a show of peering around. “If he’s here, he sure is quiet.”

“It’s not a he. I’m looking for Margaret Dayton.”

“Ah, then you’ll be waitin’ on the
Sarah Lynne
. Should be in soon. You a buyer?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The man studied Nate for a moment. Then he said, “You’re not here for lobster, are you?”

“No,” Nate said. “Just looking for Ms. Dayton.”

The man took another puff from the pipe, then said casually, “Well, you’re in luck.” He tilted his head toward the window. “Here she comes.”

Nate turned and peered back out the window in the indicated direction. Beyond the wooden jetty that jutted out into the harbor, all he could see was flat gray water and slanting rain. Then, as he watched, a boat materialized out of the mist, headed for a spot near the end of the pier.

“If you’re of a mind,” the man said from behind him, “you might want to go out and help tie her up. That is, of course,” he added, “if you don’t mind getting a little wet.”

There seemed to be an almost playful challenge in the statement. Nate looked back at the man. He’d set the stem of the pipe back between his teeth and sat casually regarding Nate, crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

Despite the tension he was feeling, Nate found himself chuckling. “All right,” he said, pulling the zipper of his jacket up the last inch and turning up the collar. “I will.”

If anything, the rain was coming down harder as Nate walked out the short pier. He reached the end just as the boat did, her captain easing her up against a series of fenders wrapped in rope and mounted on the side of the dock. Though Nate knew next to nothing about boats, he realized that this one was a fishing vessel of some kind. Probably lobster, he thought, remembering the man’s comment. To the side of the bow, just below the gunwale, was the name “Sarah Lynne.” About a third of the way down the length of the boat, a wheelhouse spanned the width of the vessel. In it, Nate saw a solitary figure standing behind water-streaked glass. Aft of the wheelhouse, the deck was open.

“Here,” he heard a woman’s voice call out over the sound of the rain. The captain had stepped out of the wheelhouse and was holding a length of rope. She tossed the rope to him, and he caught it instinctively. “Tie us off up there,” she shouted, pointing to a short vertical post sticking up from the surface of the pier. “I’ll get the one back here,” and, with a nimble motion, she jumped from the boat onto the slick dock, holding the end of a second line.

Uncertain exactly what he should do, Nate looped the end of the rope around the post a couple times and tied what he hoped was an acceptable knot. Then he straightened and watched as the woman tied off the rear line, turned and walked toward him in the downpour.

On her head, she wore a hat with a wide brim that caught the rain and directed it off her shoulders and back. A faded yellow rain slicker topped baggy overalls. A pair of black boots completed the ensemble.

Her hair was a vivid scarlet that stood out against the yellow of her rain gear. Pulled back and tied behind her with a piece of blue cloth, it fell in a long wavy pony tail midway down her back. When she reached him, he saw that a light sprinkling of freckles dotted her nose and the tops of two prominent check bones. She sported an easy smile, her teeth impossibly white. But, for Nate, what really stood out were her eyes. They were an extraordinary emerald green, and the contrast with her red hair was mesmerizing. She planted herself in front of him, oblivious to the rain, and considered him.

Nate was suddenly at a loss for words.

After a moment, she looked behind him at the mess of a knot he’d managed to tie on the bollard and laughed. He felt his face flush, and it drew another chuckle. Laughter, he noticed, seemed to come easy to her.

“Oh, don’t take it the wrong way,” she said. “I think it’s cute.”

She stepped around him, leaned down, took a firm grip on the mooring line and pulled it toward herself, creating slack. Undoing the knot, she re-tied it in a practiced motion, then turned and gave him a frank look. “So, now that we’ve established you have no nautical background, maybe you can tell me who you are and what you’re doing here. You don’t look like a tourist.”