by Chris Knopf
Not long after, I reached the ferry dock. The red-haired woman behind the ticket counter was at the ready.
"When's the next ferry?" I asked.
"Gettin' out of Dodge?"
"I hear there's another storm coming."
"That is correct. A real hurricane this time," she said. "Headin' up the coast, and kissing Long Island on the way by. They're talking up to sixty knots steady. That's gale force at least."
"When?"
"Day after tomorrow. You've got plenty of time. Unless you want to take the two," she turned around and looked at the big clock behind her, "which is in about a half-hour."
"Give me a walk-on," I said. "I've got to look after my boat. She's anchored in New London."
I bought the ticket and went back outside. I walked around the back of the ferry office, then cut through a parking lot of an adjacent building and took a narrow street, nearly an alley, out to the road that curved around the southern coast and headed back east. I took out Gwyneth's map and followed it to an old naval outpost on the southeast corner of the island. I went down the battered driveway, around an abandoned brick building, pulled off my backpack and sat on a rock facing out to sea. I took out my cell phone and called Randall Dodge.
He answered the phone by saying, "Your theory's holding
"How close can you get?"
"A section of road in the hoity-toity part of town. Humboldt's Crossing, between Meadowland and Page."
I studied the map.
"I see it. Near the middle of the country club, close to the airport. Any chance of getting the exact house?"
"Not without directly hacking the service provider," he said. "They could easily catch my ass."
"I thought Indian hackers moved through cyberspace like ghosts on the wind."
"It's been a while. I'm a little rusty on security protocols."
"I truly appreciate what you've done."
"Happy to do it, Sam. You can tell Attorney Swaitkowski that you've cashed in the last of the favors I owe her."
"Not a problem. I finally got her a paying gig."
I hung up with Randall, and feeling like my luck with Native Americans was running strong, called Two Trees. When he answered, I told him where I was and asked if he could possibly come pick me up. When he said he could, I asked him to keep it to himself, that I'd explain when he got there.
"You're trying to get somewhere undetected," he said.
"Like a ghost on the wind."
While I waited, I saw the ferry enter the mouth of the channel. There was no way to know if the lady in the ticket office would look to see if I got on, but the odds were she wouldn't. She had no reason to, and with no one else there to man the counter, had little wherewithal.
I heard the sound of a car heading down the drive, so I got up and went around to meet Two Trees. He leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door for me. I sat down with my backpack in my lap.
"Where you headed, Cap'?" he asked. I pointed to a spot on the map. He nodded. "I know what you got in mind."
"How much more would you like to know?" I asked.
"The more you tell me, the more I'd have to give up if the new cop puts it to me. What's your druthers?"
"Here's what I'd like, and you tell me what's okay for you," I said.
I told him that the Fey boy had gone missing soon after one of Fey's former business partners was found hanging in the shower. His other former partner was not only looking for the kid, he'd brought in two serious hard cases to help with the search. Anika Fey made it clear this assistance was unwelcome, but there was nothing she could do about it for reasons that were hers alone. Nobody wanted the cop involved, including Anika, so for the time being, I was going to honor that. I had a bead on where the kid might be, through sources I preferred to keep to myself.
"You can tell Kinuei any or all of that if he asks," I said. "Or even if he doesn't, though I'd like it if you held off. None of this constitutes a crime that I'm aware of, so there's no compelling obligation."
"Other than potentially pissing off our local fuzz," said Two Trees.
"Other than that."
We drove silently for a few minutes, then I said, "Since you're already part way in, how about aiding and abetting a bit."
He looked over at me.
"That depends."
I pointed to another section of the map.
"Which of these houses do you know for sure are empty?"
He leaned over for a quick look.
"All of 'em," he said. "And they'll be that way till Memorial Day. I know because I drive 'em to and from the airport every year."
"If you were a precocious kid with a laptop, which one would you pick to hide out in?"
I'd yet to see him smile, but the equivalent brightened his face.
"Ah," he said.
He waited until we arrived at the spot I'd showed him on the map. I thanked him and was about to get out of the car when he said, "I was a precocious kid myself, in some ways. For my money, I'd pick the Hillman place. They've got signs posted all over that warn of surveillance cameras and electronic alarm systems. Only the alarm company, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't exist. I've checked. Since I know what a cheapskate Gene Hillman is, wouldn't surprise me if he just bought the signs. They still have Sound Security checking up on the place, though that's a club thing. They check on everybody."
"Blue and white cars?" I asked.
"That's them. Nasty bastards from off island. They have their own little house in the club and everything's brought in for them, so they don't have to fraternize with the rest of us."
I pulled out the map again. He pointed to the Hillman's.
"If Kinuei asks me if I told you this, I'm saying no way. Just so you know," he said.
When the car was out of sight, I crossed the road and started down a path under a canopy of neon leaves, lit by the sun blasting in from the western sky. According to Gwyneth's map, the path crossed into the club, continued on under tree cover, and then opened up on a field. Although several estates backed up on the field, there was a right of way up to the road. To reach the Hillman's from there meant about a mile of exposure if I stuck to the road. I decided to figure that out when I got there.
It took about fifteen minutes to breach the border of the country club. The gate was a white metal bar, a symbolic gesture at best, since there was no fence on either side. A sign proclaimed the seriousness of violating the line, unless you were a member of the club, in which case, welcome! I ducked under the bar and proceeded for another half-hour, until I reached the field.
By now it was about four in the afternoon with plenty of light left in the day. I walked back up the path, then moved into the woods, eventually finding a clear spot invisible to passers by. I sat down, opened my backpack and took out a small handheld compass. I'd taken it from the boat's ditch bag, a pre-packaged, watertight sack you were supposed to toss in a lifeboat as you abandoned your sinking ship. I used the compass to get my bearings in relation to Gwyneth's map. I marked the key compass points on the map, along with approximate distances calculated by the time it had taken me to reach my present position. I realized most twelve-year-olds could pull up a GPS on their cell phones, but I wasn't that lucky, and anyway, what did they know about dead reckoning?
I restowed the map and the compass and lay down on the ground, using my backpack as a pillow. It was unlikely that I'd sleep, but I could at least husband my strength while waiting for the sun to go down.
This lasted until I became too twitchy to lie still, so I just sat cross-legged on the ground and busied myself with a pen and pad of paper, writing notes and jotting down observations about the Feys and their associates. Then I started making boxes and connecting them with arrows along which I noted certain actions taken by the different players. I'd always found making schematics very soothing. One of my greatest assets as an engineer was the willingness to veer from orthodoxy and speculate on the unheard-of. Like a lab rat who jumps the wall of
a maze, this often yielded unexpected results. But then again, I never lost touch with what lay at the heart of engineering: logic and order, efficient interconnections and optimized process flow. Boxes and arrows not only reminded me of that, they revealed the beauty and elegance of the machine world itself.
After drawing a schematic titled "Black Swan," I went to a fresh sheet and made two columns, with the headings, "knowns" and "unknowns." Next to the knowns, I put question marks if I didn't trust the source, which meant a lot of question marks. The unknowns stretched to another page. Some of these I decided were irrelevant, and crossed them out. But it was still a long list.
I repeated the process, this time attempting to put each column in order of priority, which helped. At the top of the knowns was, "Axel ran away." At the top of the unknowns was, "What does Hammon have over Fey?" I drew a two-ended arrow between the two, and wrote over it, "Connection?"
I continued on down the columns, drawing more horizontal and diagonal lines. It provided no answers, but did give clarity to the questions. It wasn't until I could no longer read by the fading sun that I put away the pad, reluctantly.
The weather report had called for a clear night, but the moon was scheduled to stay below the horizon past midnight then rise as little more than a sliver. I stood at the edge of the field and looked into darkness. Across the field, several hundred yards away, was another stand of trees, interrupted at irregular intervals by the ridge lines of tall houses. Working off memory and the map, briefly lit by the pocket flashlight held in my mouth, I strode confidently into the field. It was mostly tall grass, but a lot lumpier than it looked that afternoon. I was glad to be wearing light hiking boots and blue jeans, but I kept an easy pace, afraid of twisting an ankle, or worse. Thus engaged, I reached the other side and saw no sign of the right-of-way, which, according to the map was an unpaved tractor path.
I checked the compass, flicking the flashlight on and off as quickly as I could. I was a few fractional degrees off where I was supposed to be, so I course-corrected and in a few minutes almost tripped on to the right-of-way. It was the width of a regular road and paved with gravel. I followed it to the street.
I checked the compass again to get my bearings and was happy to see the waypoint I'd marked on the map line up with reality. I'd waited for this moment to formulate the next part of the plan, but all I could come up with was to walk along the road, keep my eye out for vehicles, and scramble for a place to hide should one come along.
None did, saving my nerves and dignity, until I reached the intersection of Page Lane and Humboldt's Crossing, when the trees above lit up and both nerves and dignity took their losses.
From an uneasy vantage point under some sort of bristling shrub, I saw the car slow down and turn onto Humboldt's Crossing. It was one of Sound Security's blue and white tin cans. I couldn't make out the driver as the car passed by, but I could track the taillights as it moved down the road, beyond where Two Trees had fingered the Hillman place.
Assuming a reasonable amount of time would pass before the area had another drive-through by security, I felt less exposed during the ten minutes it took me to reach the Hillman's house. As promised, a sign next to the mailbox freely disclosed the presence of an elaborate and deadly accurate electronic alarm and closed-circuit TV system. Below the headline was some small print that likely went into the types of punishment intruders would assuredly receive, but I didn't risk the flashlight just to find out for sure.
As I walked down the driveway, I took note of trees and clusters of shrubbery visible in the dim light, any place I might hide if the security car came back this way. The house in front of me was tall, but narrow, with two clear stories and a third formed by large dormers set in the roof. The three-car garage was joined to the east side, the bays facing the street. I walked around and leaned against the garage wall as I forced my hands into a pair of surgical gloves, also filched from the boat's safety supplies. I looked in the garage window. There were two cars covered by what looked like fitted canvas-one big, one little. I continued around to the back of the house, with only starlight to see the condition of the windows and doors.
I'd been moving silently over grass and brick paths, and was jarred by an ugly sound when I opened the basement hatch, the rusted flap hinges complaining the way they often do. I froze with the door partly open and waited, holding my breath and straining my ears.
Nothing. I waited another few minutes, then as slowly as my arms would allow, eased the hatch door the rest of the way open. There was another door at the bottom of the stairwell. As lightly as I could, I descended the stairs and tried the knob. It opened.
Now it was really dark. I saw nothing, and Gwyneth's map wasn't going to help. It wasn't the first time I'd been in a jet black basement I wasn't supposed to be in, unsure of security measures and mindful of the way a little sound can get very big in a silent house. The key was finding the electrical panel, which would confirm or deny the existence of electronic surveillance, and tell you other things if you knew what you were looking for.
Panels are usually on exterior walls, so I turned right and started feeling my way along, using one hand to search for the box, the other for obstacles in my path. It was slow going, and after a painful, albeit silent bang to my knee, got slower still.
No darkness is absolute once your pupils reach maximum dilation. And even through the gloves, my hands were teaching me a lot about the space. It was furnished, with pictures on the walls, stuffed chairs and sofas, and coffee tables, like the one I'd encountered with my knee. So when I hit a perpendicular wall, sooner than I should have, I guessed that the utilities for the house were on the other side.
I turned the corner and continued to follow the wall, until I touched what should have been proof of the theory- an inside door. I felt for the knob, which was round and smooth. No lock. The knob turned soundlessly and I opened the door.
Sparkling red and yellow lights told me the electric panel was likely to the left of where I stood. I shut the door behind me and thought, at this point-entirely enclosed in the working part of the basement-I could afford to use the flashlight. So I slipped it out of its holster on my belt and shot it in the general direction of the panel, lighting up the face of Axel Fey, who was standing less than ten feet away.
(
So much for silence. His scream was probably louder than my grunt, and certainly higher pitched. I leaped forward and grabbed him by the top of his shirt.
"Don't kill me," he cried.
"Shut up," I whispered as loudly as I could, Anika-style. "It's Sam Acquillo. The boat guy who's been staying at the Swan."
"I'm going to fucking die of sheer terror," said Axel, slumping slightly in my grip. "My heart's rupturing in my chest, I can feel it."
"You're not dying. Here, sit down," I said, dragging him down with me.
From where we sat on the floor I scanned the area with my flashlight. There was a mattress near the panel, with a pile of cans and plastic water jugs nearby. Axel's laptop was on an old wooden milk crate pulled up to the mattress. A power cord and Ethernet cable swooped up to the panel. Candles in candle holders circled the bed.
"I got to hand it to you, Axel. You worked it out."
"Not good enough. You can't take me back there," he said, almost as one sentence.
"How come?"
"Not as long as the Gestapo are there."
"What's the big deal with them?" I asked.
It was hard to read his face even in perfect light, but I tried anyway with the flashlight.
"Could you stick that thing somewhere else? I'm going blind."
"Sorry. So what's with Hammon and company?"
"I'm not at liberty to say, okay? They can't be there forever. I can stay here till next spring. You wouldn't believe how much shit there is in this house. Cheap brands, but who cares."
"You could still get caught," I said.
"I did get caught, but you're smarter than the goon squad who stops by at the exact
same time every day and spends the exact same minutes walking around the house in the exact same direction. Morons."
"No argument there. So they've been here already?"
"Yeah," he said, turning the word into two syllables the way kids do when you've insulted their tender sensibilities.
"So I wonder why I saw one of their cars head down the street about a half-hour ago."
I couldn't see if that worried him or not.
"I don't know," he said. "I only know they come here once a day. Max."
"Good," I said. "So pack up your stuff. We're getting out of here."
Even with the light turned away, I could see the force of his reaction.
"Don't you listen? I said no way. You can't make me."
I told him about the additions to Hammon's posse, including their alleged background and capabilities. He wavered.
"If I could find you, they can, too," I said. "They could be on their way here now. I don't know what happens after that, but I bet you do."
"Shit."
"I'm the best thing you got right now, Axel. Better than hiding in a cave waiting for the end to come."
I watched while he jammed stuff into his backpack. It was smaller than mine, but neatly fit his laptop, some clothes, an iPod, a variety of cords and a toothbrush. I pointed the flashlight at his worn-out high-top sneakers.
"Are those your only pair of shoes?"
"What's wrong with them?-
"Nothing. Follow me."
I led the way to the basement hatch and out to the backyard. The little orange slice of a moon was struggling to get above the horizon, but it was still mostly a world of black and slightly blacker shapes and shadows, especially now that my night vision had been compromised by the flashlight. Axel lurched along behind me, literally clinging to my coattails.
We were about to turn the corner around the garage when the trees lit up with a pale brilliance animated by windblown branches. Headlights coming down the driveway. Two sets, moving fast.
