Caller unknown, p.33
Caller Unknown, page 33
He didn’t know how many men would come or from which direction. He needed to be lucky: very lucky. There was no sound apart from the patter of snowmelt falling from the boughs and the thin soughing of the wind.
He looked at his watch: 8.18. He’d gotten to the cabin almost an hour ago. It seemed a lot longer. Were they coming? Could he have been mistaken? Maybe the car lights he’d seen behind him had been perfectly innocent vehicles heading toward Tranquility?
There was a faint snap of a twig from the southern flank of the house and instantly he was alert, pulling his body back into the woodpile, staring at the corner from where the noise had come. A strange red pinprick of light flickered on a tree bough to his right. A gun barrel appeared around the corner of the cabin with a light shining under it. The red bead moved from the tree, passed over the woodpile and along the side of the cabin. A man emerged slowly behind it. His whole body was covered by a Tyvek suit, but instead of the familiar white color this one was jet black. A mask obscured the wearer’s face.
The figure inched along the side of the cabin, machine gun extended, then crouched down beside the Volvo and gestured behind. Now another figure, similarly clad and armed, came out of the shadows and followed the same route as the first.
The second man advanced in an awkward loping run and joined the first gunman at the side door. Looks were exchanged and now they both uncrouched and the first slowly pulled open the screen door. The second wedged something underneath it to prevent it swinging back, while the first man tried the handle on the inside door. It opened without a whisper.
It was the moment of reckoning. By now the cabin must have reeked of gas fumes, but perhaps the men’s masks retarded the smell. They slunk into the shadowed hallway without hesitation.
For a moment, Ed was lost, but then his breath and consciousness came back in a rush and he rose and clicked the lighter. The flames licked around the rag protruding from the bottle and it instantly caught, starkly lighting the woodpile and the side of the cabin.
He threw the bottle at the open doorway. Twenty feet: an easy throw. The bottle flew like a meteor into the black mouth of the hallway beyond. One of the men was momentarily visible in it, turning, attracted by the sudden flame of light behind him. The bottle shattered on the pine boards of the hallway and instantly boiling fire was eating the figure’s feet. The flames whooshed up, engulfing his suit.
Time stood still for a millisecond as the burning man stood motionless, frozen, it appeared, by the caul of flame now entirely surrounding him and running up the hall walls to the ceiling. The machine gun emerged from the flames, pointing in Ed’s direction. The hood of the suit suddenly melted. A shriek pierced the roar of the flames. Ed felt a displacement of air and a thwack, like an axe into wood, as a round thudded into a fir behind him. The figure pirouetted, staggered and fell to its knees. There was now a strange blue glow from inside the gas-filled room that rapidly expanded outward toward the gas-tank housing, turning orange as it came.
Then the world exploded. A shingle came spinning toward Ed out of the light, slowly but very quickly at the same time. It caught him a glancing, stunning blow and he fell behind the woodpile just as a split second later a hundred other missiles from the explosion speared the place where he had been standing and flew into the trees behind. A thousand fires blossomed, contending with the snow and ice, steam and smoke intermingling.
A second or two later, Ed came to in this strange burning yet freezing world. The woodpile had been blown back over him and he had been saved from the worst of the firestorm by the damp logs covering him from head to foot. He was half in and half out of a layer of snow, but he felt his hands and face scorching, his eyebrows singeing, and an instant later smelled the acrid odor of burning hair. Then the fireball was gone.
The explosion had sucked the hearing from him. All there was was a distant ringing.
He shrugged off the rotten logs and struggled to his feet. The woodpile lay all around him, smoking from the heat. There were gobbets of fire burning in the woods; the dry bracken had caught light in odd places. There was now just a raging orange and red inferno where the rear of the cabin had been. He was driven back by the savagery of the fire, his face burning, raw.
Miraculously, one of the two men emerged and staggered back the way he had come, the Tyvek suit hanging in black strings around his blackened body. White and red flesh sizzled. The man’s eyeballs looked like they had fused, showing as white orbs in his black, blistered face. He appeared to proceed silently, despite the fact that his mouth gaped open and he was being burned alive, but perhaps his screams were inaudible to Ed, deafened as he was by the explosion. Then he was gone.
Beyond the front of the cabin the air warped and bent in the nova-like heat between him and the boathouse. He crouched and fumbled around in the disintegrated woodpile until his hand closed on the checkered grip of the revolver.
The flames were higher than the trees. In front, the carport was blazing, an unearthly orange glow surrounding the Volvo. Its tires were already alight and Ed realized it would be only moments before its gas tank blew to add to the hellish conflagration. He backed away shakily.
Two cars had been following him. There could be several more men out there. For a few yards he was safe, but then there was that strip of gravel and lakefront some thirty feet wide. Unless the inferno of the cabin distracted any shooters, he would, briefly, be a sitting duck.
He flung himself into the gap.
The shot came a second later.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Jim had put Max back in his cab and was pacing up and down beside the abandoned SUV when he saw Deputy Pollitt’s truck, a white GM Sierra, with the yellow flashes and star of Somerset County’s Sheriff’s Department, approaching from the direction of Hadsville. Pollitt pulled up next to Jim’s truck and climbed down. He clamped his slightly undersized brown Stetson onto his head. The portly deputy’s gut protruded from his parka, straining somewhat at his brown uniform shirt underneath.
“How ya doing?” he asked, giving Jim’s scrawny right hand a good pumping with his own beefy mitt. But the beady eyes set into his puffed face were not looking at Jim, instead assessing first the SUV, then the Winchester slung over Jim’s shoulder.
“You expecting trouble?” he asked.
“Just being cautious,” Jim answered, chewing his gum reflectively. He jerked his head at the Suburban. “Like I said, don’t know why people from away would be here this time of year.”
Pollitt grunted and squatted to inspect the skid mark of the SUV and its mashed rear end. From the plates, the truck was only a year old.
“Looks like government issue,” he decided. “I’ll get the plates checked. One thing’s for sure, the driver didn’t know the roads hereabouts.” He stood up and looked toward Tranquility. With the recession and the economy in free fall, things were hard and burglary was on the up. The summer houses around the lake would be easy prey with only Dove living up here out of season. But hard-up burglars didn’t drive nearly brand-new SUVs.
He was still staring over toward the lake when a black and orange mushroom cloud erupted over the treeline to the northwest. The sound of the explosion reached the two men a couple of seconds later; it was like a protracted roar of thunder. Max barked frenziedly in Jim’s cab.
“Jesus, what the hell was that?” Pollitt asked as in the distance small blazing meteorites began to rain down from the burning cloud onto the forest.
“Gas tank has blown,” Jim said calmly. “Could be the Constance place.”
“That place has been deserted for years,” Pollitt said.
“Well, those tanks don’t blow themselves,” Jim answered.
Pollitt stepped back to his cab and pulled out the mic from the stand on the dash.
“Hello, Madison, do you read, over?” he asked, flicking the mic to receive.
A few seconds later came the crackling response from the dispatcher.
“This is Madison receiving you, over.”
“Hey, Agnes, this is Stan Pollitt. I have an incident up here at Tranquility. An explosion at a cabin, possibly suspicious persons involved. Am requesting additional units and a fire truck stat, over.”
“Roger that, Deputy. What’s your 10-20? Over.”
“On the Three Mile Road. I’m here with Jim Dove. We have a suspicious vehicle wreck that might be related to the fire. The license is Massachusetts Feb 89 316 BG4. Please run it through the database. In the meantime I’m going on to that fire. It’s two miles to the northwest. Jim reckons it’s the Constance place. Over.”
“Roger on the license and on the backup. We’ll get the Rockwood engine on its way, but be advised there are currently no additional units near your position.”
“Can you advise when the backup might arrive, over?” Pollitt asked.
There was a pause as if the dispatcher had referred the question to someone newly arrived at their end, then a fresh voice came on the line.
“Stan, this is MacDonald. I hear you have an incident?”
Just then there came another belch of flame into the winter sky at the source of the initial explosion, then another roar, slightly more muted than the first.
“You bet, Sheriff: it looks like we have a major gas explosion, make that explosions, on a cabin by the lake and we also have a 10-37 in the road into Tranquility. Something strange is going on.”
“I’ll mobilize the backup.”
“I’m going over there to see what’s happening.”
“Be careful. Observe only and keep this frequency open.”
“Roger that.” Pollitt replaced the mic on the dash and looked at Dove. The bait store owner had always been a hard man to read. It was always the way with these vets—teak-hard and undemonstrative—but even so he was surprised that Jim was not showing a little more animation at the way the day was proceeding. If he’d had the time to think, he might even have said Dove had been expecting the turn of events. But there was no time for questions.
“I’m going to have a closer look,” he said. “You comin’?”
Jim shifted the wad of gum to the other side of his mouth and spat. “Sure. The Constance place is my responsibility.”
“OK, but we’ll go in my truck. Official business.”
“Fine, but the dog’s coming too.”
“Alright. He can ride in the cage in the back.”
Jim fetched a battered maroon fishing hat from the back seat of his truck and a backpack with some spare ammo, clippers, wire, and other odds and ends, then, on reflection, locked the vehicle. He’d never bothered locking his truck this time of year at Tranquility, but he was suddenly not sure when he would be coming back to it.
Pollitt swung open the tailgate and opened the animal cage where the county placed impounded strays. Max jumped up and allowed himself to be latched in as Jim got into the passenger seat.
The cruiser took off toward the pillar of smoke. Jim pointed out the turnoff to the Constance place. There were tire marks in the slush. Pollitt stopped the cruiser and rested for a moment.
Jim turned to him. “Place is still burning, Stan.”
“I know. I’m just wondering about the stutter lights and siren.”
“Don’t. If these are bad guys, we don’t want to give them warning.”
“I guess you’re right,” Pollitt answered. He took a deep breath and put the cruiser back in drive and they inched up the gravel track under the trees. As they approached the gate, they saw a second SUV, identical to the first, parked there. Pollitt drew up behind it and got out, unholstering his service sidearm. Jim got down too, hushing Max’s yapping from the cage. Both men peered through the SUV’s tinted glass. The vehicle was empty and locked.
“Looks like they’ve gone on,” Pollitt said unnecessarily.
They both looked north. The smoke column was very close now and in the utter silence both of them thought they could hear the distant crackle of flames. The smell of burning was strong.
Pollitt reached into the truck, got the mic and keyed it.
“Madison, do you copy, over.”
“Hi, Stan. Please confirm your 10-20, over.”
“We’re at the driveway to the cabin that’s afire. There’s another suspicious vehicle parked here. Another Massachusetts plate. Could be something to do with the fire. Please advise on backup, over.”
“Sheriff won’t be there for an hour, and about the same with the fire truck. Sorry, Stan.”
Pollitt muted the receiver. Jim was checking the slide on his Winchester. “You wanna go on?” Pollitt asked.
“I guess,” said Jim.
“OK.” He keyed the mic again. “Agnes, please tell MacDonald that Jim and I are going in on foot. I’m taking a handset with me.”
“Roger, Stan, and good luck. I’ll keep the frequency open and advise the sheriff.”
Pollitt rehoused the car mic, reached in and took a handset and a yellow slicker from the back seat, then circled around to open the tailgate. Jim got Max out of the cage and put the dog to heel.
Pollitt keyed numbers into the combination of the gun safe welded to the floor pan next to the dog cage. The mechanism clicked open, revealing a shotgun on a Styrofoam inlay and a half-dozen boxes of shells. He took out the gun and two magazines, one of which he slotted into the underside of the gun. He slammed the lid of the safe and whirled the rollers again.
“Locked and loaded,” he said. “You?”
Jim nodded his head at the Winchester. “Same,” he answered.
He told the dog to heel again and set off after Pollitt down the gravel drive. The jetting column of smoke dominated the sky. His blood buzzed like wasps, his fingertips with electricity. The feeling of déjà vu was almost overwhelming. He snapped “Heel” again at Max.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Ed was halfway across the ten-yard gap between the blazing house and the boathouse when the Volvo’s gas tank exploded. Up to that millisecond, his head had been in the middle of the sniper’s crosshairs like a fat, overripe melon.
The force of the blast made him take an extra, stumbling step forward. The Sniper’s first round passed about an inch from the rear of his skull. The shockwave of the bullet was like a giant fly swat smacking just past his ear. There was no sound of the gunshot itself, just the hornet passing of the round. He took another stumbling step. Another violent movement in the air. Something plucked the rear of his flapping suit jacket. He rolled as the round slammed into the gravel and whined away into the forest.
The side window of the boatshed was in front of him. Its ledge was only some three and a half feet high. It was an old-fashioned sash that had seen better days, the grille work rotten, the panes loose. He took the momentum from his roll, regained his feet and threw himself forward, raising his arms to protect his face as he hit the window. There was another supersonic disturbance and at the same instant an almighty tug on his left upper arm just as he hit the glass. He crashed through the pane, twisted off balance by the hit, feeling suit material and skin rip as his thighs scraped the broken glass at the sill.
He landed hard on his uninjured right shoulder. The fall was slightly padded by the sail and rigging lying under the window. The Magnum spun out of his hand and slid across the floor into the shadows on the lakeside of the boathouse. Sudden daylight appeared in the clapboard there, followed by an eruption of splinters from the counter opposite, then more glass shattered as another round missed him by inches and smacked into the old sailing dinghy, rocking it on its trestles and sending a cud of dust into the air. He crawled under the dinghy.
Then the shooting stopped. A magazine change? He glanced down at his arm wound. It was just a graze. The suit sleeve, already burned from the explosion, was scored open in a long diagonal; underneath, there was a gouge and a spreading patch of blood. Only when he saw the wound did the pain begin, as if it had been waiting for him to look and make it real.
The boathouse was filled with the orange glow of the burning cabin. Smoke drifted in through the shattered window. The concrete floor was covered with broken glass, smashed grille work, and smears of his blood. Ed saw the Magnum lying next to a pile of wood shavings under the workbench by the lakeside window. His eyes flicked to the broken window and the open double doors to the shed. He was sure the shots had come from the small hill near the Sproule property. He could barely make out the shape of the hill through the window, so the reverse must be true: the smoke would make the interior of the boathouse dim. But the building was in the sniper’s arc of fire. And the high-caliber bullets could pass through the walls easily. Without the gun he was pinned down and defenseless. It was just a matter of time before whoever was up there came down and finished him off. And it was unlikely that the shooter would miss at close quarters.
He had to move again. If it was to be an execution, best to die with a fighting chance. He crawled from under the dinghy over to the gun, felt its checkered grip, snatched it up and with a freestyle lunge threw himself under the cover of the workbench. No shot. He listened. There was just the roar of flames. Maybe the shooter was coming already. He raised the Magnum toward the boathouse doors. No, too easy. The shooter would likely come to the shattered window, glance in, maybe even see Ed’s legs sticking out from under the bench. Ed twisted onto his back and whipped the gun to the window. Nothing. Glass was piercing his suit back. He rolled under the bench again.
The world spun. He checked his wounds. His burns were smarting. Blood was dripping onto the floor from his arm. Both legs of his pants were ripped at the thighs from the broken glass, and some of it was still embedded there like evil little teeth. He laid the Magnum on the floor and plucked the glass shards out one by one as blood welled over the wool.
