As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  Standing there in front of him, looking the other way, was that Asheville cop, holding the sniper’s rifle in one hand and a dead crow in the other.

  “Drop the rifle and that stupid bird,” came a voice from behind Segal.

  Segal turned around slowly, at the same time moving away from the drop-off, lest he join the unfortunate sniper on the road below. He looked up the hill. A few yards away was the lead Cormorant guy, the one they called “the colonel.” Segal recognized him from the photo from the VA hospital. The colonel had his finger on the trigger of a lightweight machine gun. The weapon was pointed at him but could also be easily and quickly swung to cover the other two people he saw, Mattie and Francis Elah. He had figured he might get to meet Francis Elah before the day was over, but seeing him standing there in the flesh after seeking him so intently still made an impression. And Mattie, what the hell? He stood gawking.

  “Drop the rifle now,” the colonel said, more insistent this time.

  Segal snapped back to the present. He let the rifle drop, still trying to work out the implications.

  “Now, empty your other hand.”

  “It’s just a bird,” Segal said. “A dead bird.” He held the bird aloft, making sure the camera, if it was still functioning, would take in the scene. He looked apologetically at Francis. “It’s Richard,” he said in a low voice.

  “Put it down anyway,” the colonel said, “then put your hands behind your head and walk slowly this way.” He motioned with the muzzle of his gun.

  Segal bent and placed the body of Richard on the ground with as much reverence as the situation allowed, then complied. He realized that for the second time that day, a dangerous man was pointing a gun at him and he was not freaking out. This was something he could tell Dr. Gold the next time he saw her, if there was a next time.

  When he got near, the colonel relieved him of his pistol and motioned for him to join the others. “What were you looking at over the edge there?” the colonel asked.

  “See for yourself,” Segal said.

  The colonel edged over the crest toward the place where the tunnel entrance was cut into the hillside. He peered over and saw the body of his sniper in the road below. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath. He studied the picture for a moment, then pulled himself from the frightening drop.

  His earpiece crackled. He listened. “Go ahead, Two,” the colonel said.

  “I’m at the inn. At the designated room. No sign of our man. No sign of captives. Do you want me to search the rest of the inn?”

  “Negative, no time. Disable the cars in the parking lot and bring the van north. Pick us up at the north end of the tunnel. We’re reverting to backup operation, the IED plan.”

  “Copy.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Plan B

  Dinah walked through the dining room at the Pisgah Inn, deserted now. She checked the building and parking lot for any sign of activity and saw none. She held the earpiece she’d taken from the guard. She’d heard someone identified as “Two” check in earlier and formed the impression he was headed toward the inn, so she’d moved everyone out of the room.

  Lucile called from the entrance to the kitchen. “Dinah, come here and look at this.”

  Dinah took care not to silhouette herself against any of the windows of the dining room. Lucile leaned against a counter studying the iPad, which she showed to Dinah. It was the view from Richard’s camera. Dinah said, “Hold that. I’m going to check on our guy.” She made sure the prisoner was still secure. He said nothing.

  Emily Elah was at the stove in the kitchen making Suzie a snack. “Don’t worry, we’re keeping an eye on that knuckle-head,” she said.

  Suzie seemed to like that word, laughing and trying it out for herself: “Knucklehead.”

  Dinah turned her attention to the iPad. “My God, it’s Francis and Mattie!”

  Emily and Suzie came over. They all saw Francis and Mattie and the man with the gun.

  “How are we even seeing this?” Dinah asked. They had already watched the other events transpire. They had seen Segal and the sniper and then the confusing, jostled sequence of the crow attack, ending with a view of the sniper on the road and then nothing but sky and grass. Now, this.

  “Segal,” Lucile said. “It’s got to be Segal. He must be holding the camera, or holding up the bird with the camera.” As soon as she stated that conclusion, the image was jarred and came to rest, showing nothing but blue sky with some blades of grass in the foreground.

  “What does that mean?” Dinah asked.

  “I’m afraid that means R.I.P. Richard,” Lucile said.

  Dinah let that sink in. It bothered her plenty, as much as the death of Gloria and of Chickey. More maybe. After all, she knew Richard better than the other two and thanks to Francis Elah Richard had jumped the spark gap between animal and human. Perhaps for the first time she felt the magnitude of what Francis had accomplished.

  The earpiece crackled. The others leaned in to hear it. “Two reporting, colonel.”

  “Go ahead, Two.”

  “I’m at the inn. At the designated room. No sign of our man. No sign of captives.”

  There was a pause. Dinah understood what it meant. She put a finger to her lips and pointed at the man handcuffed in the back. Emily moved quickly to him and stuffed a dishrag in his mouth.

  More crackling. “Do you want me to search the rest of the inn?”

  “Negative, no time. Disable the cars in the parking lot and bring the van north. Pick us up at the north end of the tunnel. We’re reverting to backup operation, the IED plan.”

  “Copy.”

  Dinah waited. No further communication. Emily Elah wiped her eyes with her forearm. Suzie jumped a bit in her wheelchair, her face flush. “Mom,” she said, and then Emily went to her daughter, kneeled down and held her close.

  How long had it been since they’d been with Francis, Dinah wondered. Weeks now. Too long for a family to be apart and under these circumstances.

  Dinah put her finger over her mouth. Footsteps in the parking lot. Hard to make out through the wall, like cotton in her ears on a big airplane.

  “Stay here,” Dinah said. She slipped out her gun and moved to the front of the building. When she peeked around the doorjamb, she saw a man trotting toward the white van at the far end of the parking lot. He had an assault rifle slung over one shoulder and in one hand a bundle of thick black wires. He got in and pulled out, turning north onto the parkway, speeding away.

  Dinah stepped out. The first thing she noticed was that the hood of her car was up, and likewise, that of the little Honda that belonged to Mattie. She walked to her car and looked at the engine compartment.

  “What did he do?” Lucile asked. She joined Dinah, scanning the engine from the other side. “I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

  “He took most of the ignition wires,” Dinah said. She pointed to the empty space between the coil and the distributor, as well as the bare spark plugs.

  “The car won’t run without them?”

  “Not even a little,” Dinah said. She put her hands on her hips and visually scoured the open lot, as though some spare ignition wires might be lying on the ground somewhere.

  “What do we do?” Lucile asked. “I think we can assume Mattie, Francis, and Segal are in deep-shit trouble.”

  “They’re not the only ones,” Dinah said. “I think the president is headed this way to go hiking with the first lady today. I got a look at the itinerary.”

  “The president and first lady?” Lucile repeated. “Good lord.”

  “We thought the terrorists were looking for Francis and Richard, which they were. Francis because he wouldn’t help them on a mission. I think we know what that mission was.”

  “Killing the president and the first lady?” Lucile’s eyes widened.

  Dinah nodded.

  “Where do you think they’re heading in the van? They can’t be returning to Asheville to get close to the president. He�
�s got Secret Service with enough firepower to stop a freight train”

  Dinah’s expression changed. “I don’t think they have any intention of going to Asheville.” She opened the door to the backseat of her car, which was a mess of various pieces of athletic equipment, including a small backpack, the kind used by trail runners. She pulled it out and found a worn and folded trail map of Pisgah National Forest. She spread it out on the hood of her car. “We’re here,” she said, pointing, “on the Parkway.” Then she ran her finger along the heavy black line on the map. “A little north of here, the way we came, is an overlook where they could pull the van off the road.”

  “Plus, it’s just after a sharp curve, so anyone coming from Asheville wouldn’t have much warning before they saw it sitting there,” Lucile added.

  “Look at this, too.” Dinah moved her finger off the heavy black line and onto a faint dotted line beside it. “This is a hiking trail. It comes right up to the parkway at that point. That could be a getaway route for them.”

  “You don’t think they’ll drive away in the van?” Lucile asked

  Dinah looked at Lucile. “I don’t think there will be a van when they’re done. Remember they said something about a plan with an IED? That’s military-speak for a homemade bomb. An improvised explosive device. I’ve got to stop this.”

  “How are you going to get down there?”

  “Getting down there will be the least of my problems,” Dinah said, reaching into the backseat again. She strained for contact and came up with two hard objects that empowered and freed her in more ways than one.

  “That’s a waste,” the colonel said. His face flamed red. “One of the finest military assets I’ve ever known.”

  He glared at Segal as if he wanted to execute him then and there.

  Segal stood with Francis and Mattie on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the entrance to the tunnel. The colonel had bound the threesome’s hands in front of them with plastic pull ties and marched them down the mountainside. It had not been an easy descent, especially for Segal. His leg was about to burst with pain.

  On the road, the fallen man lay absolutely motionless. The colonel knelt and removed his dog tags, placing them in his own shirt pocket. He checked the man’s pockets and found no other ID, just a small packet of origami paper. This he replaced in the man’s pocket and patted it flat.

  To Segal, it seemed the most sentimental move the colonel was prepared to make. From a holster at the man’s waist, the colonel removed a pistol, which he placed in his own pocket.

  The sniper had flecks of blood around his eyes and numerous cuts on his neck and the backs of his hands. “Look what your crows did to my man,” the colonel said, glaring at Francis.

  “Those weren’t my crows,” Francis said. “Those were from that flock your guy was running. Those were the genetically modified ones your guy was working with. My crows would never have attacked like that.”

  “Except for Richard,” the colonel said.

  “Richard was the exception to a lot of rules,” Francis said this flatly. Segal caught a glint of sadness in his eyes.

  “If you’re right, how did the other crows get here? If not under your direction?”

  “They probably decided to follow Richard. Crows do that. They follow powerful leaders. Richard killed their leader, leaving a void, so they took up with him. Anyway, check the wounds. You’ll know I’m right. Normal crows can’t do damage like that. Your guy put those reinforcements, the ones made with metal-diamond composite, on the tips of their beaks and their claws. You know this.” Again, Francis talked in a calm, matter-of-fact voice.

  The colonel seemed to think about this, then shook it off. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Doesn’t change anything. They can’t do anything to us now.” Nevertheless, he looked briefly skyward.

  Segal heard a sound in the tunnel and stepped back when the white van came up. It swerved at the last moment when the driver saw the body on the road. The driver got out and came around to see his fallen comrade for himself. From the look on his face, he was more disgusted than upset.

  “Get these three in the van,” the colonel said.

  “What about him?” the man asked.

  “Leave him. It will add to the general confusion. Shock and awe.”

  The man opened the side door and they climbed in with difficulty. Segal’s bound hands hurt. The guy helped boost Mattie with a hand to her butt, which got him a nasty look. Segal ended up on a bench seat, pressed between Mattie and Francis. He became aware of the smells in the hot, enclosed space. There was something he could not identify. He leaned toward Mattie and picked up the faint herbal fragrance of her shampoo. He leaned toward Francis, smelling mint, tobacco, and sweat. That wasn’t it.

  As the van took off, they were jostled, without the benefit of seatbelts. At one point, Segal was turned sideways and got a glimpse of the cargo area. Various objects were packed in, but the one that got his attention was a cube covered with canvas sitting on a wooden pallet. It was securely strapped to grappling points on the wall of the van. From the back of the cube, two wires ran to a metal box. Then he understood. That’s what he smelled. Those were explosives. The van was a bomb.

  He turned around, his skin on fire, sobered even more than before, if that was possible. “Colonel, I never took you for a suicide bomber,” he said.

  The driver laughed. Mattie and Francis seemed to stop breathing.

  From the front passenger seat, the colonel said, “I’m not a suicide bomber. I have no intention of dying today.”

  The van pulled off to the right. It was a scenic overlook. On the other side of the road was a vertical cut in the granite, leaving no place to go. Beyond that point, the road made a sharp turn. A car approaching from the opposite direction would come upon this place with little warning and no opportunity to turn around.

  As Segal expected, the van slowed and pulled over, and they were ordered out. Under different circumstances, they could have enjoyed the view. Segal walked to the guard rail and saw a sheer drop on the other side. Beyond was a view over the valley. To his left, fifty or sixty feet away, was a steep trail with steps cut into the dirt and rock. This, Segal knew, led to the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, from which hikers could descend to the road that followed the river. That’s how they’re planning to escape, he thought.

  “That’s far enough,” the colonel said, and Segal moved away from the guard rail.

  The driver made a motion with the muzzle of his rifle, and Segal walked over to Francis and Mattie, who were beside the van. To Segal, it felt like a firing squad, but then he thought of the explosives in the van and realized they would not be firing into it. He was getting accustomed to people pointing guns at him today.

  The colonel walked to the guard rail to confer with the driver. At first, he kept his eye and his gun on them, but as he got into the discussion, he stared directly at his man.

  “They have explosives in there under the tarp,” Segal whispered out of the side of his mouth. “The van is a bomb.”

  Mattie and Francis blanched, glancing frantically from Segal, to the van, to the colonel.

  The driver nodded to the colonel. Apparently, they had worked out the details of their plan. The driver moved along the guard rail to a higher position a few yards away. From there, Segal assumed, he had the best vantage around the curve in the direction from which their target would approach. At the same time, he could easily cover the captives. The colonel moved to the rear doors of the van, slung his weapon over his shoulder, opened the doors, and reached inside. Segal assumed he was arming the detonation device. Whatever his task, it wasn’t long before he closed the doors with a gentle click.

  He walked toward Segal. His machine gun was still slung over his shoulder, but from a pocket, he removed a pistol, the one he had taken from the sniper’s body. The colonel locked eyes. “Step away from the van,” he said. “Not you two. Just the cop.” He made a motion with the pistol for Segal to step toward the railing.


  “You’re forgetting your roles in this drama,” the colonel explained. “You’re the two international terrorists.” He motioned to Francis and Mattie. “Lieutenant Segal here did not originally have a part in this drama, but since he decided to join the cast, we wrote him in.” He smiled a benevolent smile. “Didn’t we?” He looked at the driver, who smiled and nodded. “He is the local cop who’s been on your trail for the last week for the two murders you committed. It will be apparent in the aftermath that you were responsible. Just to tie things up, the bullet they find in Lieutenant Segal, the one fired from this gun, will match the one used to kill the poor secretary at Creatures 2.0. Pretty neat, huh?”

  “Let me guess the final scene,” Francis said shifting forward. “The van blows up when the president’s motorcade comes by. We perish in the blast as well, being either fanatical suicide bombers or just not that good with explosives.”

  The colonel nodded. “I like the first interpretation myself. Better storyline. More jihad-like. I’m sure that’s the one the press will go with.”

  Segal stood by the guard rail and the drop on the other side. He was thinking of making a dash for the stairway path a few yards away. He thought with clarity and precision, almost with detachment. Gone were the panic and confusion that had plagued him these past months. His mind was focused. He could breath.

  “Unfortunately, the lieutenant tracked you down. You shot him before he could prevent the tragedy. Not with anything as crude as an assault rifle, but with a pistol.” The colonel raised the weapon and pointed it at Segal.

  He held the gun for a moment, taking in a slow breath. Segal heard a whirring sound coming from the road.

  CHAPTER 42

  The Jammer

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Lucile said when she saw what Dinah was doing. Dinah had pulled her bag containing her skating gear from the car. She was leaning on the hood, pulling off her shoes, and pulling on first her pads and then her skates.

  “If I remember right, it’s all either downhill or level between here and the overlook,” Dinah said. She pulled the laces tight and tied them. She slid off the hood of the car and took a step and a glide and a turn, checking her equipment.