Ariel's Island

by Pat McKee

  One thing was sure. For Fowler there would be no arrest, no interrogation, no trial, no jail, no humiliation, no pain. And by leaving the gun in my hand as his last act, Fowler gave me the option, no—he challenged me, he dared me—to follow him, and by my death to wrap up this Shakespearean tragedy with a pile of bodies in the study, and so leave Strange & Fowler inviolate.

  But I’d endured far too much to quit now, to take the easy way out, to admit defeat, to hand victory to the spirits I wrestled daily: to acknowledge that I really wasn’t worthy. And there was Melissa. Last night with Melissa gave me the hope I had a chance with her. And whatever Fowler may have thought, whatever he may have said, I wasn’t going to give that up, and without me now, I knew Melissa had no chance in the hands of her maniacal uncle.

  I threw down the gun and ran in full flight out the door to my car, abandoning all pretense that I could prove my innocence to the Frederica Island Security Force. If this new German sports car was worth anything, I could elude the cops in their minivans at least until I got off the island, and then I might have a chance to lose myself in the backwoods of South Georgia and come up with a plan. I passed two patrol cars speeding in the opposite direction, heading directly toward Fowler Cottage, as I screamed down Frederica Island Drive toward the causeway. If they were going to catch me, they were going to have to have something that could outrun a 911.

  Nine

  I cut hard toward the bridge, which was not yet blocked, the only way off the island. Fowler had allowed that this strategic choke-point had been equipped for the Summit with a tank-proof carbon-steel barrier that could be raised hydraulically in seconds from beneath the cobblestone in the event that an emergency required the isolation of the island from the mainland. Once raised and locked in position, he had boasted, nothing—not even an M-1 Abrams tank—could cross that bridge. I had to get past the barrier before security reached Fowler’s Cottage, decided they had a murderer on the island, and radioed the guard house to trigger the barricade.

  As soon as I hit the base of the bridge on the island side, I saw steel posts rising from the pavement, yet only inches extended from the road-bed. Downshifting hard, I aimed the wheels between the teeth and redlined the engine, feeling the jolt of tires against metal, hearing the screech of the carbon-fiber rear bumper rip from the back of the car. I splintered the wooden arm extended from the guard house, which was sufficient to slow only the law-abiding, sending pieces flying into the doorway where the guard stood talking on his radio. Panic distorted his face, and he pawed at the side arm strapped to his hip, then straightened, but by then the 911 was screaming across the causeway.

  The steely teeth of the barrier, now extending toward their full height, glinted in the sun through my rearview mirror, a piece of my bumper still tumbling down the road on the other side, its clatter drowned out by the engine’s roar. I could only hope the tank-trap had missed ripping out something vital. A bumper I could do without. If an oil line were severed, it would disable my car in a few seconds, but the engine winding at 6,000 rpm showed no evidence of damage. Now the barrier behind me would work in my favor, slowing the pursuit of the island cops, and with any luck I’d have a few minutes head start on the Glynn County Sheriff. Even as I blew down the winding marsh roads toward the coast at over 90, the locals didn’t give me much notice. I was just another of the innumerable coked-up, over-privileged brats who ply these ways in exotic sports cars, hurtling toward an early demise.

  My immediate goal was to make it to the Sidney Lanier Bridge, spanning the Brunswick River, a paradox of mass and delicacy. Soaring nearly five-hundred feet, the bridge stretched a mile and a half, dominating the flat coastal landscape even twenty miles inland. The graceful arcs prescribed by its cables and piers seemed to float above the tranquil waters of the harbor. From its height, one could see the roads leading in and out of the islands to the east and glimpse the vast South Georgia wilderness to the west. I would find my bearings, get a look at anyone forming a pursuit, and make a decision as to which direction I’d flee. The thought flashed across my otherwise terror-stricken mind that the old Sidney Lanier Bridge, the dangerous, narrow, rusted structure that the current artful form had replaced a few years ago, was the site of the getaway in Smokey and the Bandit. Unlike the movie, there’d be no heroic escape for me, just the ignominy of flight from a sure murder charge.

  Running like a damn felon! What the hell was I thinking? Why was I throwing away everything I had struggled so hard to achieve in a foolish flight from an obviously staged crime-scene? I should turn around now, turn myself in, explain what happened, depend on the good judgment of the police officers, on the wisdom and integrity of the justice system, a justice system I’d dedicated my life to serving.

  But that was the catch, wasn’t it; that was precisely the problem: I knew the system all too well. I knew that police rush to the easiest solutions, that judges incline toward the conclusions of law enforcement, and that courts dispense not justice but resolutions—the quicker the better. Once caught in the avalanche of justice gone bad, I would be buried alive, like any other poor unfortunate overwhelmed by the weight of the system, nowhere to turn, no one to listen.

  No, I knew too much about the justice system, and I didn’t want my fate decided there, not now—now that I knew the ease with which Strange & Fowler had manipulated the system for Milano and could as easily manipulate it against me. I would escape, find a place to hide, and figure out my next move as far from here as possible.

  The barrier island causeway intersects the Coastal Highway at the city limits of Brunswick, and I took the turn to the south, barreling toward the bridge that loomed before me. I was still in second gear, near redline, topping 70, when I crested the bridge, and my stomach took leave of me for a second. The view was majestic and perfect in all directions. Toward the east, I could see no flashing lights on the island causeways, nothing to give me concern. Before me, to the south, lay open highway. To the west the hundreds of thousands of acres of swamp and forest which make up South Georgia stretched uninterrupted for two hundred miles—from I-95 hugging the coast toward Jacksonville, to I-75 winding through the middle of the state on its way to Tampa. Between the two interstate highways lay the vast swamps of the Okefenokee, untouched forests, few towns. The rest were fish camps on slow black rivers and hunting lodges in deep pine woods. Here a man could disappear. Here was where Jefferson Davis was headed as Richmond, the northern stronghold of the Confederacy, collapsed around him. He was captured in Irwinville, just sixty miles north of the Okefenokee. Had Davis made it, he may never have been caught, and the Civil War would have raged on as a guerrilla campaign led from the swamps of South Georgia. Some folks believe it still does.

  At the base of the bridge, the Coastal Highway makes a dramatic turn inland, crossing under I-95 before going south again. Once across the interstate, I could pick up the road to Waycross, which was less than an hour distant, perched at the north end of the Okefenokee. That path would lead me to the highway heading directly to the swamp through Nahunta. The road was used primarily by logging trucks hauling pulp wood to the paper mills on the coast. I could open up the Porsche, make time, look for a path cutting cross country, and find a place to hide.

  I still had my cell phone, which I knew could be tracked. I wanted to use it one last time to send a message to warn Melissa. I pulled into a Waffle House near the entrance ramp to the interstate, texted Melissa, “Anthony knows,” and ducked into the men’s room. I left my cell phone on the sink, confident that in a few minutes someone would pick it up, and with any luck, head down I-95 and take the cops with them. I envisioned some petty thief cruising down the interstate, chatting on his new phone, pulled over by a half-dozen patrol cars and thrown to the ground by a squad of armed officers. By then I should be deep in the woods. I could only hope my unwitting accomplice would have little trouble demonstrating that he’s not me, not wanted for murder, and merely a phone thief.

&
nbsp; My chief concern was FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, a few-thousand acres of top-secret facility just to the west of Brunswick, a place where the FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, and Homeland Security trained, where several-dozen black military helicopters and hundreds of federal troopers stood ready to assist local law enforcement. I figured I had less than an hour to get lost before the choppers took to the air.

  It doesn’t take long to get into the wilderness in South Georgia. The Satilla River, a vast unspoiled waterway teeming with prehistoric gators, catfish the size of johnboats, wild pigs big enough to inspire tales of Hogzilla, and so many rattlesnakes the locals have annual roundups, cuts across the Waycross Highway just before Nahunta on its way to the Brunswick Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean. There are so many nutrients drained by the Satilla that the mouth of the river at St. Simons Sound is one of the largest breeding grounds for hammerhead sharks in the world. Any track through the underbrush near the Satilla would likely take me to an isolated hunting lodge or fish camp on the banks of the river, a place where I could hide, regroup, figure out my next move.

  I had been flying down the road at well over 100 for 15 minutes, passing a dozen logging trucks on the long, flat straights, closing in on the Satilla, allowing with each passing minute for a flicker of hope to catch and grow in my heart that I might find refuge, when I felt it. I felt it even before I heard it, the rhythmic visceral pounding of a helicopter, maybe more than one, moving in my direction, low and fast. I shot off the road into a hammock of live oaks, burying the car deep under the low-hanging branches. In seconds two Black Hawks swept fifty feet above the dense canopy, following the highway, moving west. I stayed motionless for several minutes after watching them fly out of sight, having made no indication of detecting me.

  By my reckoning the Satilla should be ahead only a few miles, making its wide bend south from above Nahunta on its way to the Brunswick River. Once across it, I would look for any track into the forest marking the way to a shelter on the river, most likely deserted, used only in season by a privileged few who had access by dint of wealth, descent, or both. There I could hole up, consider options, make plans, find what I need to get by. I could live off the land, catch fish, shoot deer. Hell, I might never leave.

  Pushing my Porsche harder than I had ever driven before, I hit 125, as fast as I trusted my reflexes. Even then, if a slow-moving logging truck pulled on to the highway a quarter-mile ahead, I would be going too fast for me to end up as anything more than a large greasy spot on his trailer. The temperature gauge showed the engine was over-heating, the air-dam previously enclosed by the now-missing bumper, leaking. But I had to get into the woods soon; I pressed on.

  The Satilla appeared, wide, flat, dark, languid, draining thousands of square miles of deep forest. I took the first trail off to the right, no more than two tire tracks, into the woods. It wasn’t even a couple minutes before I felt the next wave of choppers flying over, but by now I was well into the wilderness on a trail double-sheltered by over-arching branches of live oak and wax myrtle. Safe for the moment, I needed somewhere to hide the car and stop moving.

  It was three long miles of crawling down the road, trying not to tear out the undercarriage of the Porsche on the rocks and logs that littered the trail, trying to keep the engine from seizing while laboring at low rpms, before I saw what I was looking for: a low-slung, unpainted, tin-roofed building with deep screened porches wrapping it on all sides. To the left was a barn, divided, open, wide enough to drive my Porsche into. Which is just what I did and then turned off the engine.

  It took only seconds for me to realize the absolute, perfect, quiet of the place, a peace I had disturbed by my raucous entrance. Once the engine was off, a complete silence enveloped me, punctuated by my rapidly pounding heart. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself. I was safe, at least for the moment, and I needed to let my mind accept this peace before I pressed on.

  The darkness inside the barn contrasted with the bright sunlight outside, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust. I stepped outside the car and looked around. This was not an animal barn but an equipment shed, with a tractor, bush-hog, disk harrow, broadcast seeder for managing food plots, and—of more interest to me—a four-wheeler, far more efficient and much less conspicuous for moving cross country than a Porsche, and the keys were conveniently in the ignition. I turned back to my car to take stock. Other than the jeans and T-shirt I had on, I had no clothes that would be of use out here—unless, of course, I happened upon a black-tie affair and could wear my tux. I was happy I had had the foresight—or dumb luck—when I left Fowler’s cottage to toss one of the Beretta shotguns and box of shells in the back seat, along with my ubiquitous lap top. I decided to look around, dug in the back seat, and grabbed the shotgun.

  In my limited experience, I have found that the sound of a round being chambered in a pump action shotgun has a way of getting one’s attention. That and two black barrels pointed toward your chest, which now appeared at the entrance to the barn, not twenty feet from me. The shotgun, aimed directly me, seemed as big as a howitzer.

  “Don’t touch the gun. Step back from the car, hands in the air. One wrong move and you’ll be buried out back next to my bird dog, and no one will ever know you were here.” The voice, disembodied, came from around the corner; its owner had yet to show himself.

  “Keep your hands up. Move to where I can see you good.” And now I could see him. Athletic, medium height, ball cap over large mirrored, aviator sun glasses, trimmed grey beard, camo shirt, faded jeans, heavy boots. Just like every other man within a hundred miles, except there was no trace of the beer gut that usually graced the form of middle-aged men from these parts, only wiry muscle.

  “Who you runnin’ from?”

  “I’d feel a lot more like talking if you’d be so kind as to point the gun in some other direction.”

  He lowered the gun. “I can hit three quail on the rise with one shot. Unless you can move faster than that, I wouldn’t try anything.”

  “Can I put my hands down?”

  “No.”

  “Now, who you runnin’ from? I saw them Black Hawks. They don’t put those in the air to track shoplifters. You a terrorist?”

  I saw nothing to be gained by lying. If he was going to turn me in, I stood my best chance with the feds, not with the locals in cahoots with Fowler.

  “Some might think so. The FBI and every other federal agency are probably looking for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for starters, they think I shot a judge.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “So why the hell you runnin’?”

  “I don’t trust them. I was trying to get someplace where I could figure out my next move.”

  “And how did you just happen to end up here?”

  “Your road is the first one after the river. I couldn’t keep going on the highway or I’d a been caught. Looks like I was anyway.”

  He bent over and spit on the ground. “Feds. Hate them bastards. I sure as hell ain’t going to turn you in to them. Least not yet. Name’s Bill Grey, GBI retired. Most people call me Agent Grey.”

  I went from thinking I was going to be shot, to thinking I was caught, to thinking I was rescued, all in a few seconds. Words failed me. I just stared.

  “So who is it I have the pleasure to meet?”

  “Agent Grey, I’m Paul McDaniel. You’re not . . .”

  “Look, after working for thirty years in the GBI I only learned to hate the feds, bunch of arrogant bastards. The rest of ‘em are idiots. I might let you hide here in the barn while I figure out what to do with you, but I’m going to take your gun and your keys. Don’t want you thinking you can sneak up and shoot me like you shot that judge and run out of here.”

  “I didn’t shoot the judge.”

  “No one ever did. You got any other w
eapons?”

  “No.”

  “I want you to stand with your back to me, legs apart, hands on that wall, and I’m going to pat you down, just to check. We’re going to need to develop a little trust.”

  Holding the shotgun in one hand, he patted me down with the other and lifted my wallet from my back pocket.

  “I have some cash in my backpack if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “I’m not looking for money, Mr. McDaniel, I’m looking to see if you are who you say you are. I see a driver’s license issued to a Paul William McDaniel with a picture that looks a little like you and Georgia State Bar card with your name on it. Shoulda figured you a lawyer with that fancy car.” He stuck my wallet back in my pocket. “You can turn around and put your hands down, but don’t make any quick movements.”

  Agent Grey sat down on a plank laid over two short stacks of concrete blocks up against one wall of the barn. The shotgun was still at his side, but no longer pointed at me, and no longer with his finger on the trigger. He saw me look at the shotgun.

  “I can pick it up faster than you can get to me. Now you’re going to tell me just how you got all those Black Hawks stirred up.”

  “There’s a lot to it.”

  “I ain’t in no hurry. Like I said, we’re going to need to develop a little trust. You can turn that bucket over and sit down if you want. Ain’t nobody gonna come lookin’ for you here, least not for a while.”

  Agent Grey spit on the ground again and focused on me. I began with my going to work for Strange & Fowler, where all my problems started. And I finished with the murder of Judge Richards, the execution of Oliver, the death of Fowler, and the uncertain fate of Melissa. I held back a little about Melissa. Even now, just a few hours since I last saw her, my headlong rush to rescue her from her uncle felt rash and impulsive. I needed time to think before bringing someone else into my confidence.