I took the lead and we followed the creek to where it emptied out into the cove, then walked through the dunes to the beach. We trudged along in the sand, skirting the edge of the peninsula, until we came to the point. Lights glowed off shore.
“That’s Chernko’s yacht,” I said. “He and Ramsey are on one of their nocturnal cruises.”
“That doesn’t mean we should be any less careful,” Flagg said. “Keep a sharp eye out. We might not be the only ones with night vision.” He looked to the right and the left. “What about those dogs you mentioned?”
“Probably watching a re-run of Lassie,” I said. “They’ll find us. Hope you brought along some dog treats.”
“Nope. I’ve got something better.”
Flagg reached into his backpack and pulled out what looked like three pipes of varying lengths lashed together in parallel fashion. The apparatus had a strap, which he slung over his left shoulder.
“What’s that thing?” I said.
“Glorified blow-gun. Ready?”
We climbed a ridge of dunes and struck off inland, using the rotunda as a beacon. The ground rose gradually and the landscape changed from dunes to low brush, then we were in the strip of scrub forest that bordered the vast lawn. Once we were among the scraggly oak woods, I navigated by dead reckoning. After a couple of minutes, we came to the bunker. I was eager to show Flagg my find, and quickened my pace. He reached out and grabbed the back of my shirt.
“Down,” he said. My Marine training returned. We dropped belly first onto the ground. “There,” he whispered.
I followed his pointing finger. Someone was walking along the base of the hill that concealed the bunker.
“Crap,” I whispered. “Place is under guard.”
We watched the figure until it disappeared around the end of the mound. I was thinking we might be able to time an approach with the guard’s rounds, but the first guard was only out of sight for a couple of seconds before another one appeared at the opposite end of the bunker. There were two of them, moving counter-clockwise around the hill.
Flagg brought his arm close so we could see the second hand moving around the glowing dial of his watch. He timed a patrol cycle.
“We’ve got twelve seconds before the first guy disappears and the second one pops out at the other end. Plenty of time to cover ground. You do the count.”
I watched until both guards were out of sight and said, “Up!”
We were on our feet and running. I counted ten to myself and said, “Down!”
We hit the ground simultaneously around a dozen yards closer to the bunker. The guard popped out a second later.
“Cutting it a little close, Soc.”
“I’ll do an eight count this time. Up!”
We got our legs under us again and did the sprint and drop with plenty of time to spare. We repeated the exercise two more times. On the last drop, we were both panting.
“Outta shape,” Flagg said between breaths.
“Can’t be age,” I panted.
“Hell no! One more and we’re there.”
Up again and down again. This time we landed so close we could have thrown a stone and hit the passing sentry. Flagg slipped the pipe arrangement off his shoulder, snapped open a folding stock to its full extension and braced it against his shoulder. He squinted through the cylinder on top of the other pipe.
“That thing works on humans?” I whispered.
“It was designed for humans.” He snickered. “Your tax dollars at work. Now zip your mouth.”
Flagg led the slow-walking guard by a hair, and pulled the trigger. There was a soft thut sound, not much louder than someone blowing out a cake full of birthday candles. The guard grabbed his shoulder, spun around and crumpled to the ground. Then the second guard appeared and Flagg popped him nicely, too.
The fast-acting drugs in the dart had put the guards to sleep almost instantly. They lay crumpled on the ground within yards of each other. Both men wore black jumpsuits and if we hadn’t been using goggles, we would not have seen them guarding the bunker. The machine pistols they had been carrying lay on the ground. Each weapon had a night vision spotting scope.
Both men were in their thirties. Their eyes were glazed and drool came from their mouths. Flagg knelt down and removed the darts. He made sure the guards were on their sides, so they wouldn’t suffocate on their own saliva. Then we bound their hands and feet with duct tape from a roll Flagg carried in his sack. I led the way to the door at the end of the bunker. I had my black box with me and used it to neutralize the lock.
When the green light flashed, Flagg produced a Sig Sauer pistol and pushed the door open. I haven’t packed a weapon since I left the Boston Police Department, but Flagg always carries a personal arsenal, so I let him take the lead.
When the door opened, there was the stale smell of cooked food and cigarette smoke that I had noticed on my first visit. We passed through the radiation lock, then into the main space. I found the wall switch and the big room flooded with light. Flagg looked around, wonder in his eyes.
“What a dump.”
“Your taxpayer dollars at work,” I said.
We walked to the box-shaped structure and stepped inside. There was a man lying on the only cot with bedding. He was covered with an army blanket. I went over and put my fingers against his neck. His skin was warm and I could feel blood pulsing through his carotid artery. I shook his shoulder, but he didn’t respond.
“He’s alive.”
Flagg lifted the man’s chin. “This your friend Malloy?”
“Never saw the guy, so I don’t know what he looks like. I’ll take a ball park guess and say yes.” I called Malloy by name, but he didn’t respond. “Out cold. We’ve got to get him away from this place.”
Flagg peeled back the blanket. Malloy was dressed in a rumpled navy blue running suit and sneakers. One wrist was chained to the bunk frame. Flagg produced a pair of metal cutters from his miracle bag. He made short work of the chain and we lifted the man up onto rubbery legs. We draped his limp arms around our shoulders, put him between us and dragged him back through the bunker and out the air lock.
We decided to head straight back to the bridge rather than take the long route out to the point and along the beach to the creek. We would be in the open, but our exposure would only be a few minutes. We were almost at the low brush bordering the lawn when I glanced back. Two blobs of fuzzy light were headed in our direction across the wide expanse of lawn. As the blobs neared, they sprouted legs.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Brutus and Cassius.”
Flagg must have been puzzled at the mention of a couple of old Romans. He said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ramsey’s guard dogs.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Flagg said. “No problem.”
Unlike Flagg, I thought there was a problem, actually two problems. Without Lisa around to pacify the Dobermans, within seconds they’d be sinking their fangs into our ankles. Flagg told me to hold Malloy up and slipped the blow-gun off his shoulder. There was that soft puff sound again. I thought Flagg had missed because the lead dog kept on coming, and was almost on us, but after a few seconds, his gallop slowed and he crashed to the ground.
The second dog slowed to avoid his fallen pal. There was another thut. The dog leaped into the air, came down in a clump and lay there. Flagg went over to the limp forms and removed a dart from the chest of one dog and the flank of the other.
“They’ll be fine. They’ll wake up in an hour or so after their nap.”
He tossed the darts into his bag with the others, grabbed Malloy’s arm and threw it over his shoulder. It was slow going because we had to stop from time to time for a rest. Flagg was right. Neither one of us was young again. But somehow, with a lot of grunts and surges of
adrenaline, we made it to the creek. We stretched Malloy out on the ground face-up and caught our breath. Then I called Lisa on the hand radio and was happy to hear her voice.
“Everything okay?” I said.
“All quiet here. What about you?”
“Mission accomplished. We’re about to cross the creek.”
“Were there any problems?”
“A few. No big deal, though,”
“That’s a relief. I’ve ranged from high anxiety to extreme boredom.”
“The boredom part is about to end. We could use some help with a package.”
I clicked off and went over to Flagg. “Figured it out yet?”
“Yeah. You grab his legs. I’ll take his arms.”
Flagg squatted and got a lock grip on the wrists, then stood again. I did the same, grabbed Malloy under the knees and lifted. Malloy sagged like a full hammock. We moved forward onto the pilings. First the right foot, then the left. Our human load rocked from side to side, threatening our balance. A couple of times we teetered. Slowly, laboriously, we got him to the other side and stood him upright again. My shoulder muscles were screaming.
Lisa emerged from the woods and saw us with Malloy. “Who is that?”
“We’ll explain later. We’ve got to get him to the Jeep.”
She ran ahead, showing us the way with her flashlight. I had about reached the end of my rope physically when we emerged into the clearing where the Jeep was parked. We lifted Malloy into the back seat. Lisa flashed the light onto the ravaged face.
“He looks terrible,” she said. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital!”
“Can’t risk it,” Flagg said. “They’d ask too many questions.”
He took Malloy’s pulse, put his head against his chest, and looked into the man’s gaping mouth. “I think I know the drug they used to knock him out. It won’t kill him. He’s going to need somewhere quiet to sweat it out of his system.”
Lisa wasn’t through yet. “A hospital would be quiet.”
Flagg said, “The guys who did this to him won’t let some nurses or doctors stop them. They’ll kill anyone who gets in their way. Then they’ll kill him.”
“Flagg’s right,” I said. “Whoever had him locked up is going to come looking for him. He needs to be somewhere he can’t be found.”
Our warnings must have sunk in. Lisa stopped protesting. And after a moment of thought, she said, “I know just the place.”
CHAPTER 31
The outline of Henry Daggett’s dune shack loomed from the fog shrouding the beach. Lisa unlocked the door and Flagg and I trundled Malloy inside. We rolled him into the bunk. The cottage was damp and musty, but it quickly dried out and was almost cozy after we fired up a load of kindling in the stove and lit a couple of kerosene lanterns.
Flagg said he would keep watch on Malloy. He sat in the rocking chair and closed his eyes in a deceptive pose. Flagg had a cat-like ability to maintain a steel-spring alertness even while he slumbered. Sometimes I wondered if he ever really slept.
On the walk back to the main house, Lisa asked if Flagg would be okay on his own.
“He’ll be fine. Flagg by himself is the equivalent of a Marine platoon.”
“Will that poor man be all right?”
“He’s in good hands. Flagg is a trained paramedic.”
I advised her to get a good night’s sleep. She gave me a quick hug and headed for the main house. I went up to my apartment and popped a beer to settle me down. I drank it out on the deck and stared into the fog, letting the events of the night tumble over in my mind. I finished the beer and was headed for the bedroom to turn in when I heard a knock at the door. It was Lisa, in her nightgown and pink terry cloth bathrobe. She apologized, said she was unnerved by the rescue mission, and asked if she could bundle.
Once again, like a Colonial lad of yore, I slept in my clothes, within inches of a warm and beautiful woman, separated by an imaginary wooden board.
My eyes blinked open at first light. Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal serenaded me while I brewed a pot of coffee. The toasty fragrance woke Lisa and drew her into the kitchen like one of those cartoon characters floating off the floor on a heavenly aroma. The pinched, worried expression of the night before had faded.
I filled a couple of coffee mugs and sat across the table from her. “Sleep well?” I said.
She took a sip of coffee and said, “Yes, thank you. Considering.”
“Considering the fact that you helped a CIA spook and his pal rescue a kidnap victim being held prisoner in a secret nuclear war bunker?”
She compressed her lips in a quick, tight smile. “Something like that. I was worried about the man you rescued.”
“With any luck the drugs have worn off by now. I’ll check on him in a few minutes.”
“Thank you.” She bit her lower lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone with you and John. I’m a country lawyer. I’m not cut out to be a Green Beret.”
“For a country lawyer on your first special ops mission, you were a pretty cool customer, Lisa.”
It was good to hear her laugh. “I was beyond cool. I was practically frozen stiff with worry. You said last night that there were a few problems.”
“Brutus and Cassius were there to greet us.”
“You didn’t hurt them, did you?”
“Flagg likes dogs. Maybe better than people. He used a tranquilizer gun to give them a nap. They’re awake and probably chasing rabbits by now. If it’s any consolation, he used the same technique on the guys guarding the bunker.”
“There were guards?”
“Two of them. Surveillance cameras probably picked us up on our first visit. The mission didn’t exactly go with 007 precision, but Flagg and I have worked together before and we muddled through.” I got up and said, “I’ll take some coffee and breakfast down to the dune shack. You can come if you want to.”
She shook her head vigorously. “This is way out of my league. I’ll go back to the house and get dressed. Then I’ll spend some time with Gramps. Maybe I can bring him a step closer to reality.”
“With Rosen out of the picture I see that as a distinct possibility.”
“I hope so, Soc. This whole thing is so . . . .”
“Insane?”
“Yes. Insane. It’s hard to believe Michael is so deeply involved in this mess. He must have known someone was being kept a prisoner on his property. Why would he allow that?”
“I can’t answer that question, Lisa. Maybe we’ll know more after we talk to the guy from the bunker.”
Lisa headed back to the main house. I showered and changed into shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. I put some food and a thermos of coffee into a wicker picnic basket I found in a closet and made my way along the sandy path to the beach shack. Flagg was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, his shoulders wrapped in a blanket, a short-barrel shotgun resting on his knees. He looked like a landowner defying the bulldozers in an eminent domain taking.
His hair was lank from dew and there were dark half-moons under his blood-shot eyes, suggesting that he had little or no sleep. I poured him a mug of coffee from the thermos and he exchanged the shotgun for hot buttered toast wrapped in aluminum foil. I pulled up a chair, resting the shotgun on my knees, and stared off at the sea. The fog had retreated and thick clouds blocked the sunlight, giving the water a leaden look.
“Thanks for the hot chow,” Flagg said. “Gets chilly near the ocean. Damp, too.”
“How’s the patient doing?”
“Just checked on him. He was awake. Took one look at me and passed out again. Guess I scared him. Don’t know why.”
Malloy’s reaction wasn’t exactly a surprise. Flagg’s physical presence can be intimidating, and after a sleepless night on the beach he looked like the g
host of Geronimo.
At Flagg’s suggestion, we walked around the cabin for a surveillance check while he stretched his legs. The only signs of life on the beach were a few gulls wheeling above the ribbon of sand that stretched out in both directions. Malloy was awake when we went into the cottage. He lay on his right side and he had pushed himself up on his elbow. I tried to reassure him with a grin and cheery good morning.
“You okay to sit?”
Malloy nodded, but he kept a fearful eye on Flagg. I helped him sit on the edge of the bed. Malloy had a wide face framed by ginger-colored hair and beard. In normal circumstances, he probably resembled a tall leprechaun. Even in the dim light of the cottage, I saw that Malloy had dark pouches under his sea-blue eyes and his lips were dry and crusted.
Flagg pumped a glass of water and handed it over.
“You don’t take in liquid your kidneys will shut down,” he said. “Your body’s been dehydrated, but you’ll be okay, Malloy.”
He nodded dumbly, then a look of sheer terror came to his eyes.
“Malloy? Dear God! I don’t know who I am!”
He tried to stand, but his legs buckled like wet noodles. I grabbed him before he fell on his face, lowered him back onto the bed and propped a couple of pillows behind his head. I dragged a wooden chair up to the bunk and sat so that we’d be at eye level. I told him to take slow easy breaths. He followed my instructions. After a minute or two, his panicked breathing had slowed to normal. He raised his hand to his heart.
Flagg poured him a mug of coffee. Holding the mug in both hands, Malloy slurped down half the contents. Then he demolished the slice of toast.
“Thanks. I’ll be okay.”
“Good. We’ll get back to who you are in a minute, but let’s start with us. My name is Socarides. I’m a private investigator. This is my friend John Flagg. He works for the U.S. government.”
“All right. I’ve got that,” he said in a doubtful voice.
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