The Wrong Man (Complete 3-Book International Thriller Box Set)

by Fritz Galt

  Within half an hour, he arrived at a ferry landing. It was perfect. Just as the published timetable had read, the double-decker car ferry was waiting there, ready to depart on schedule.

  “Hey there, Skip,” he called crisply, hailing the car ferry operator, who was refueling his forlorn-looking ship.

  Bolton had chosen the departure point well. His truck was at a wharf many miles east of Saint John, and the smaller van had entered a terminal due west of the capital city.

  The twin steel boxes, each four feet tall by eight feet wide, were typical half-height containers. Their short length of ten feet indicated European or military origins, the smallest of their kind among intermodal containers. Due to their small size, they fit easily on airplanes and stacked nicely on highway trailers and rail cars. And they just barely fit into the lower deck of the coastal ferries used in the Maritime Provinces.

  While he waited for the ferry to lower its loading ramp, Bolton double-checked the registration number of the first container, the more important one. The number LFDU24425436 correctly identified the owner as a Dutch shipping firm, but falsely identified the contents as metal pipes. In fact, inside was a ten-megaton nuclear device from Pakistan.

  The second container, ending with the number 47, denoted the same owner and type of contents. In fact, it did contain metal pipes, of a weight equal to that of the bomb.

  The alphabetic part of the number satisfied the AAR rolling stock registration requirements, the U meaning “container.” He smiled with satisfaction. All together, the containers fit nicely into the Official Intermodal Equipment Register databank. They were legit.

  “Pushing off soon?” he asked as he studied the captain, a smartly dressed young man in a merchant marine uniform.

  The captain hauled the fuel line off the deck and hung it on the diesel pump. “Soon as you get loaded.”

  “Looks like I’m your only customer today.”

  “Going to Halifax?”

  Bolton nodded. They might start out for Nova Scotia, but he had another destination in mind.

  He backed up the flatbed trailer onto the lower deck. Then he jumped out and disconnected the electrical plugs attached to the cab. Behind him, the four men jumped from the cab and cranked down a set of legs to stabilize the trailer. As a final precaution, they kicked wooden blocks around the tires.

  “The bay’s getting rough out there,” the captain warned, indicating the waves. “There’s a Category Five hurricane moving up the Atlantic Seaboard. Make sure you secure her tight.”

  Bolton drove the cab out of the ferry and parked it on a dirt shoulder of the road that led to the landing.

  “Last call for Halifax,” a voice said over the Canadian ferry company’s loudspeaker.

  There were no other vehicles or passengers waiting to board that morning. Bolton swung his briefcase ahead of him and stepped onboard.

  “All set?” the captain asked from the ramp.

  “Ready,” Bolton replied with a friendly grin.

  He climbed a set of internal steps to the upper deck. There he found his men waiting indoors in a passenger cabin located just behind the wheelhouse.

  He stood and faced them. “I want two of you below deck with the trailer at all times.”

  The ringleader of the group signaled for two men to go down and take up positions.

  “Okay, here we go,” the captain muttered as he walked past. “I want to beat the storm. You can pay your fares once we’re underway.”

  He entered the wheelhouse and pulled on the air horn.

  At the stern, the ship’s only deckhand hauled in the loading ramp.

  Then Bolton felt the engine surge to life.

  Deke Houston tried to relax as he wandered through the terminal at Maine’s Portland International Jetport. It had been a rough flight from DC, with the pilot battling turbulence the whole way.

  Windy and gray, Portland had the added benefit of an early-December cold snap. He walked along examining displays of fur-lined boots and down-filled parkas.

  He glanced at his extra-large Redskins windbreaker and baggy jeans. It was a lot of clothes for a guy who had lived his entire adult life near the equator. But not enough for Maine.

  As he passed under surveillance cameras mounted around the concourse, he felt an additional chill run down his spine. He was walking through the same terminal that Mohammed Atta, the mastermind behind the terrorist attack on New York and Washington, had taken just three short months before.

  At the rental car desk, he stopped to pick up the key for the car he had reserved. The young woman behind the desk seemed cheerful and trusting enough, and barely needed to glance at his driver’s license.

  “Have a nice trip, Mr. Houston,” she said with a friendly smile, and handed him the keys and a map.

  He stepped outside into the blustery wind and knew for sure that he wasn’t adequately dressed, particularly for a week on an isolated island off the coast. He jogged alongside the terminal building until he reached the blue sedan that he was renting.

  Circling out of the airport and onto Highway 95 heading northeast, he saw empty bird and squirrels’ nests in barren tree branches. Oak, elm and maple leaves lay flat on rain-soaked lawns that were marked off by white picket fences.

  He breezed northward passing the outlet town that had sprung up around L.L. Bean.

  L.L. Bean! Just what he was looking for.

  He spun into the nearest parking lot and trotted to the famous clothing store, now a modern complex with entire wings devoted to different apparel.

  In a quiet, carpeted corner, he found a section lined with racks of winter jackets.

  Too much choice could pose a problem and slow him down.

  He walked up to a saleswoman and pulled her aside.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got five minutes in this town before I have to head out, and I need a jacket for this kind of weather. Can you grab me one, any color, and I’ll just be on my way.”

  Two minutes later, he was walking out of the multi-level store wearing a maroon ski jacket. Not exactly his style, but a definite improvement against the weather.

  The highway rose and fell over gentle hills, flirting with the shoreline, but never touching it. He passed through small towns, one with a tiny college and another with a state penitentiary that would be an historical landmark in any other part of the country.

  On his way, he felt himself returning to a period of history when his colonial forefathers might have sat on the doorsteps of their houses smoking pipes before returning to the woods to fight the French and Indian War.

  Maine was not a bad retirement option. Cheap real estate. Then he turned up his collar and shivered.

  Following the map given him by the car rental clerk, he turned south and east at Ellsworth and found himself driving over a low bridge onto a large island. After some hills and forests, a small airport and a few hotels, he reached the clapboard, bric-a-brac, tourist haven of Bar Harbor.

  He parked near the marina beside a seafood restaurant. Seafood. That would do just about then.

  When he opened his car door, in wafted the buttery aroma of steamed lobster and clams. His stomach gave a loud gurgle.

  He wadded up the bag of salty bits and pieces of potato chips that was on his lap and tossed it on the floor of the car.

  He stepped outside and studied the restaurant. It was called “The Trap,” a simple enough name, and not too threatening. A quick check of his watch indicated that he had several hours before nightfall.

  Locking the car seemed needless given the quiet, isolated location, but considering the stash of weapons inside his luggage, it might be prudent for the sake of public safety.

  He pressed the “Lock” button on the keychain, the car honked loudly and flashed its headlights and then was locked.

  Now, for a good meal.

  Heavy rain washed against the large windows of London’s Heathrow Airport as Ferrar, disguised as Mr. Henry Swinden, stepped off a long flight fro
m Riyadh.

  Twilight barely illuminated the corners of the terminal. Using his British passport obtained in Karachi, he briskly checked through the EU citizen line.

  Immediately upon passing through customs, he headed for a bank of telephones.

  The most remote booth was available. He paused for a moment looking at the keypad. What was that number in California? The numbers came back to him like a distant tune, and he dialed it.

  The familiar clicking of telephones connecting internationally made his heart skip a beat. He tried to swallow away the dryness in this throat.

  He had dialed Bonnie Taylor’s number. A number that he hadn’t allowed himself to call for years, out of respect for Tray and fear of his own emotional attachment to that girl from Maine, that can-do gal who was now a cutter commander.

  But he had to put aside his past fears. He needed news on Tray Bolton.

  Lightning streaked from the sky as the telephone rang at the other end. There was no immediate answer.

  Bonnie might be on duty.

  It rang a couple more times with no pick-up.

  She might even have been reassigned out of the area. When had they last communicated? Five years ago? Ten?

  Would she still jokingly call him her Lancelot? Their college conversations had been full of simple talk of his role as knight errant ruining the preordained union of King Arthur and Gwenevere, of a renewed age of chivalry, of life’s big deceits, of grand schemes for living life backwards, of questing at windmills.

  How juvenile it all seemed in retrospect. In their minds, they were living life large. In reality, they were making out behind Tray’s back.

  Then, when she left him and Tray for good, the opposite became true. His thoughts had become grounded in reality while he took on larger responsibilities.

  More rings.

  He began to outline his next step. If she didn’t answer, he could call the U.S. Coast Guard and ask for her work number.

  Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the phone picked up. He heard a few clicks, then a recorded voice came on the line. “You have reached my iMac. Kindly leave a message.”

  Through a nearby rumble of thunder, he strained to hear the voice. As tinny as it sounded over the long-distance connection, it was full of life, full of richness. Full of Bonnie Taylor.

  He hung up without leaving a message.

  “British Airways Flight 609 to Montreal is now boarding,” the PA intoned.

  They were announcing his flight.

  Deke Houston entered The Trap in Bar Harbor. After his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, he saw the reason for the restaurant’s name.

  Lobster pots and traps hung from all four walls. And he was the only customer caught inside.

  Self-consciously, he eased himself into a booth and waited.

  Shortly, a waitress in her early forties tied an apron around her slim waist and approached him with a quirky smile.

  “What ah you hah-ving today?” she asked, pulling a pencil from her black, pinned-up hair.

  “I’m hungry. You serving dinner yet?” he asked.

  “Shu-a,” she said, indicating the menu on the table.

  “I take it you recommend the lobster?”

  “Boiled. The red-a the bet-a,” she said with another funny smile.

  “How about your best plate?”

  “Coming right up,” she said. “Can I get you a drink first?”

  He looked at his coaster. “Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale?”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Try the amb-a.”

  “I’ll try the amber.”

  She took away the menu and left for the kitchen.

  He let out a low whistle. Where had she been all his life?

  They sure had the restaurant-ordering banter down pat. It was almost like shorthand, like speaking in code.

  A minute later, she dropped off a mug of foaming beer.

  He thought he would grab her attention. “This town seems a bit sleepy this time of year.”

  “Thah-t’s the way I like it,” she said, giving him a warm, ironic smile. Her even row of teeth made her look a good deal younger than she probably was. “Whe-a ah you from?”

  “DC.”

  She nodded knowingly.

  “Know anybody in DC?” he asked.

  She slid onto the bench across from him, a conspiratorial look on her face.

  “Do I ev-a.”

  Chapter 12

  Herring gulls winged toward land as Tray Bolton’s ferry headed into the swells of the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

  As soon as they were clear of other boat traffic, Bolton signaled the ringleader, and the two men silently advanced toward the captain’s wheelhouse, the small room in front of the snug passenger compartment.

  The captain kept a firm eye on the horizon as Bolton approached and raised a thick hand. With one swift blow to the man’s neck, he crushed several vertebrae, severing the spine. It was a clean and sudden death.

  Bolton kicked the body out of the wheelhouse and took the helm.

  Wordlessly, the al-Qaeda ringleader hauled the body over to the railing and dumped it into the foaming sea. Then he took up a position just outside the wheelhouse. The deckhand was still below, but when he appeared, he would be dealt a similar fate.

  Bolton took one look at a nautical map of the area and swept it off the table. He didn’t need to know the islands of the Canadian Maritimes. He set his compass due south and headed out to open sea.

  Within a few minutes, the mobile phone attached to his belt began to ring.

  That would be the other part of the al-Qaeda cell.

  “So, who do you know down there in DC?” Deke Houston asked The Trap’s waitress, with whom he was rapidly becoming on intimate terms. So intimate, in fact, that he wondered if he had unwittingly stumbled into one of Ferrar’s plants.

  “Two guys, actually.”

  “You know two guys in Washington, DC?” He looked around the room cautiously.

  “One is named Bolton, and the oth-a is Ferr-a.”

  Deke put a finger to his lips. “You want to keep it down?”

  “Naw, why?” she said, looking about the empty place. “They were two football play-as in my high school class. Two very choice men. Both competed at everything, Bolton like it meant life and death, and Ferr-a because he couldn’t let go of a challenge.”

  Deke took a sip of the amber beer and decided that she was only a harmless gossip. “Let me tell you,” he said, warming up to the topic. “They’re still at it.”

  “Grown men,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Grown up problems, too.”

  The woman sighed. “I he-a about them from time to time. Neith-a comes back anymo-a, although their families show up at The Trap every summ-a. I he-a things about those two.”

  “Most of it’s true, I’m sure,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to know the name of Ferrar’s place, would you?”

  “He’s got a family cottage called ‘Boat House,’ on Beav-a Tail Island. It’s the same island whe-a Tray’s family has a cottage, which is called ‘Yacht House.’”

  “Do I sense some competition there?”

  The cook stuck his head out the kitchen door and whistled for her.

  “I’ll get your dinn-a,” the waitress said.

  By the time he finished his dinner, Deke had gleaned valuable intelligence. The only approach to Ferrar and Bolton’s island was by a tiny isthmus that was covered by water every high tide and was impassable during storms. Given today’s strong offshore wind, he would have to charter a boat to get there.

  He offered to buy the waitress a beer, but she refused. “I’ll take a rain check next time you-a back in town,” she said with a grin.

  He paid the bill and dropped an extra twenty on the table. Then he stuffed himself into his ski jacket and blew her a kiss from the door.

  He’d be back.

  Deke figured that he was the only person in the entire town of Bar
Harbor that time of year that was not a resident.

  Nor was he the typical tourist. Though officially on vacation, he was packing a suitcase full of large and small firearms.

  Looking around, he could tell that Bar Harbor had far more pastoral attractions than hunting down international criminals.

  Summertime vacationers to the island’s Acadia National Park could ride the numerous bike trails, visit the lighthouses and bake on the beaches. But those hordes had long since packed up their gear and headed back to Boston and other points south.

  Now the cross-country skiing crowd would be waiting in their city condos for the first snowfall.

  And it looked like that might happen soon.

  On the deserted streets and in the warmly lit tourist shops that lined Main Street, all he saw were locals visiting with each other and huddled against the wind.

  He walked quickly along the marina looking for a boat to charter to Beaver Tail Island.

  One young man, who seemed to be just out of high school, was manning the fuel pump on the dock.

  “Chart-a a boat, huh?” the boy responded to Deke’s query. He looked at the long rows of empty berths. “Won’t find anybody to do that this time of ye-a.”

  To have come so far… Then he spotted a fishing trawler pulling into port.

  “How about that boat?”

  “If you-a nice about it, he might take you. But the-a’s no hotel on Beav-a Tail. Whe-a will you stay?”

  “I’ve got a place,” Deke said.

  The trawler pulled up directly to the pump, and the boy hopped up nimbly onto the deck to access the fuel cap.

  A gray-haired old captain emerged from the wheelhouse, his mackintosh glistening wet. “A new storm’s blowing in,” he said, and eased down some wooden steps to the dock. “Bett-a warn people away.”

  The boy indicated Deke down on the dock. “This man wants to go to Beav-a Tail. Can you give him a lift?”

  The captain studied Deke, who stuck out his hand to shake. The captain shook it grimly.

  “I don’t recommend going the-a,” he said. “With this storm brewing, you’d be strahn-ded the-a a good three days.”