Code 61

by Donald Harstad

  “Sally?”

  “What?”

  “Use the night scope, and check the whole area for a minute. Especially to the right. Make sure we aren't missing anything.”

  “Oooh. Okay.”

  After about a minute, she said, “Nothing.”

  We waited some more. Finally, she said, “Do you really think he might come here?” “I don't want to take the chance that he will,” I said. Twenty minutes later, Sally spoke. “I thought I saw something.”

  “Where?”

  “Over there.”

  That did me a lot of good. I could hear her fumbling for the night scope. “Just a sec … ”

  “Where?”

  “Look toward the back door, then keep going to the right. About halfway to the tree line, I thought I saw something move…. ”

  I looked. I saw nothing. Then I heard the click of the night scope being turned on.

  “Jesus Christ!” I'd never heard somebody yell in a whisper before.

  “What?”

  “There's somebody out there!”

  “Give me the scope.”

  “Just a minute … ”

  “Just give me the goddamned scope!” I hissed.

  “Jeeez,” she said, but handed it over, reluctantly. I was about to ask her where this somebody was, when I saw him. He was keeping low, and moving around the house from the back to the front, staying under the first floor windows, and apparently going to the front door.

  “He looks like he's headed to the front door,” I said.

  I watched for a moment. The rain had let up a bit, but he was still difficult to make out. There was something about the way he walked that struck me as familiar.

  “Call Borman,” I whispered, “and alert him.” Coming from the direction of the rear of the house, our intruder would have come up from the east, or bluff side.

  Not from Borman's direction. I wanted Borman to be aware that he might have to move in a hurry.

  Sally keyed the mike on her walkie-talkie, and said, “Eight? Eight?”

  Either she'd had her receiver volume turned up earlier, or she'd bumped the dial when she took it out of the case. Either way, there was a loud scratching sound from her radio, and Borman clearly said “Eight … ” in what I thought was a booming voice. I must have jumped a foot.

  Sally was quick. Very. She had the volume back down before he finished with “ … go ahead.”

  The man I was watching turned, and cocked his head. He might have heard the radio, but probably not clearly. He listened for a few seconds, and then turned back toward the house. But in that few seconds, I hit the zoom button, and I made him.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  “What, what?” said Sally. Over in her direction, I could hear Borman's voice, barely audible now, calling us.

  “Answer him, tell him to stand by, we have movement.”

  She did.

  “I made our man out there,” I said.

  “Peale?”

  “William Chester.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Wednesday, October 11, 2000

  23:30

  “The vampire hunter?” asked Sally.

  “Yep.” He was holding very still, as I looked. There was no doubt. I could see bulges on his back and down one side, that looked like that pack he'd had earlier, and something else I couldn't quite make out. But it was him, all right. I watched him move toward the porch, creep up the steps, and then crouch down using a pillar as cover, and peer into the house through the glazed doors. He froze there. After a minute, I handed the night scope to Sally.

  “Look at the front porch, behind the right-hand pillar.”

  Without the benefit of the scope, the night was suddenly much darker.

  “Oh, yeah. I see him.” After a second, she said, “Carl, ya think, I mean, since he hunts vampires, you know … ”

  “That he's got one now?”

  “Yeah. Like that.”

  “Naw. I think he's still looking.” I tried to sound convincing, but I was thinking on another track altogether. I was hurriedly going back through all the evidence regarding Dan Peale. Could he and Chester be the same person? They were close to the same height, if the data on Peale was correct. They could be of an age. He'd appeared just as we were getting into Peale, and that had been a remarkable coincidence even at the time.

  “What's he doing?” I whispered to Sally.

  “Just squatting there,” she said.

  I picked up my own walkie-talkie, and called Borman, sotto voce.

  “We have a man on the grounds,” I said, “but I believe I recognize him. Whiskey Charlie.”

  “Ten-nine?” he crackled back.

  “Initials Whiskey Charlie.”

  There was a pause, then, “Ah, ten-four. The expert, then?”

  “Ten-four. That's the one. Heads up, he might know more than we do. Ah, and let's go code sixty-one on this…. ” No names, no locations.

  “Ten-four.”

  I placed the walkie back in its carrier. “What's he doing, now?”

  “Hasn't moved.”

  My mind was flying, trying to evaluate our situation. It occurred to me it was possible that if Chester wasn't Peale, he may have followed Peale to the house. If we approached, we would cause some sort of commotion, especially if we confronted him on the porch. If Peale were in the house, he could well take off.

  But the actions of the people in the house, at least those we'd seen, seemed very normal.

  Which left me with Peale not in the house, but meant that Chester could be Peale and just be waiting for the residents to go to bed before he entered.

  That didn't add up, really, either. I completed my little circle of reasoning.

  “Bullshit,” I said, “it's just Chester.”

  “I know it's just Chester,” answered Sally, “and now he's moving,” thereby relinquishing her right to the night scope.

  “Give me the scope,” I said.

  She did, and I picked him up as he crossed the porch and kept going left, toward the far side of the house. He hesitated at the corner, then disappeared around the side of the house.

  “Shit. He went around the other side.”

  What to do? Move, and possibly reveal our position? Stay put and never see where he went? One set of night-vision gear didn't help, although I probably wouldn't have split us up, regardless.

  “Okay, Sally. We gotta go to our right. We'll go about a hundred feet, then head toward the house. Maybe fifty feet, to the big tree that's in the yard, there. We'll be out of the trees, so we lie down. Got that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. We stay on the ground, and we look at the back side of the house, and this side, and I think we also get the front from there.” I began moving. “Keep it quiet,” I said, “and just hang on to my coat.” I had the scope, and could see very clearly, indeed. Sally would be moving into darker ground without that benefit.

  It took us about a long minute to cover the distance. I glanced at the house through the scope, and saw that we could see the back and the near side. Just the edge of the front porch. That would have to do.

  “We're at the tree. It's on your right.”

  “I can see it when we're this close,” she said.

  I looked up, without the night scope. The tree loomed large, and distinctly. I cleared my throat quietly. “Okay. Well, then … ”

  With that, we both lay down in the wet grass, in the rain, and waited.

  I handed the scope to Sally. “You watch, I'm going to try to contact the office from here.”

  “Right.” She eagerly took the vision gear from me. As soon as she started looking, she said “Nothing.” That at least let me know the equipment was still functioning.

  I tried the office three times on the INFO channel, to no avail. Then I tried Borman on the OPS channel. Damn. We were now way over his radio horizon, and had even more trees between us. I'd probably have to stand up to get either one of them.

  We lay there i
n complete silence for a good fifteen minutes, and I was beginning to believe that Chester, or whoever he really was, had either gotten into the house, or left altogether.

  “You think Mr. Chester could be Dan Peale?” whispered Sally.

  “Possible,” I whispered back. But I'd had a little time to think about it. “Don't think so, though. I don't think the timing's right for some stuff.” But I was tired, and I couldn't be absolutely sure that there hadn't been time for him to be in both Nation County and in Lake Geneva. “Not sure, though.”

  “How do we find out for sure?” she asked.

  I hate whispered conversations. If we're supposed to be quiet, then, by God, shut up. In this case, however, it had a benefit. Because she'd asked the question, I stopped planning alternative approaches to reacquiring Chester, and realized that Borman was the only person on our side who'd actually ever seen Dan Peale. And I didn't think Borman had ever actually seen William Chester. How do we find out, indeed?

  “We let Borman take a look at him,” I said. “Now hush up.”

  I got a sharp little fist in the ribs for that.

  We lay there in the rain for another five minutes, as I tried to persuade myself that patience was, indeed, a virtue. We'd already moved once. Twice might be pushing our luck too far. I was a little concerned, though, because the area where I thought that elevator shaft into the mine was located was now more behind us than to our right. All I needed was for Peale to emerge from the ground at our rear.

  “You might use the scope,” I whispered, “and check behind us once in a while.”

  I could almost hear her mental relays click into place. “Shit,” she whispered. “Shit, shit, shit … ” as she rolled over, and raised her head to see behind us.

  After a second, I made out, “Clear.” There was a rubbery rustling as she rolled back onto her stomach, to see ahead again.

  It was relatively quiet for almost a minute, with only the heavy dripping of the tree to listen to. Then, Sally made a subdued noise that sounded like a cross between a balloon with a slow leak, and a frog with sinus trouble. As she did, I caught a faint movement at the far end of the Mansion. It had to be Chester, coming around to the rear.

  “Give me the scope,” I hissed. Reluctantly, she did. I pressed it to my eye, and sure enough, there was William Chester in all his green glory. As he crept under the rear kitchen window, the interior lights suddenly came on, and framed him in a brilliant rectangle. He ducked back, and I blinked, because of the “bloom” of the night scope as it failed to adjust instantly to the light.

  I lost sight of him. At first, I thought he'd stepped back around the corner, but as I made a precautionary sweep of the area, I caught a glimpse of him moving to our right, toward the bluff and the trees. Toward the same area where Old Knockle had spotted him and the illegal car on the day of Edie's wake. Of course. He must have parked down there again, and was on his way back to the road.

  I stood, to get a better view of him as he faded into the wet woods, and said to Sally in a normal tone of voice, “Call Borman. Have him go to the face of the cliff, down at the highway. He's heading for the highway!” I hated to move Borman, but we needed him to get a look at Chester, to make sure he wasn't Peale. We also needed him to make sure that Chester didn't get away in a car.

  I started off toward the bluff, a good distance behind Chester, but I knew where he was headed. I could hear Sally behind me, telling Borman to get moving.

  Running while holding a night scope to your eye is about impossible. There's no compensation for the bouncing you do as you move, and everything is just a blur. I put the scope at my side, and kept moving, but slower, since I couldn't see much in the natural light, and I didn't want to run smack into a tree. The damned night scope had degraded my night vision for a few minutes.

  “Where are we going?” asked Sally.

  “He went into the woods just ahead of us here,” I said. “It'll take him a few minutes to get down a ravine that's just ahead here somewhere.” I put the scope back to my eye, and looked around. I thought I could see the upper reaches of the ravine just to our right.

  “Tell Borman to shut his headlights off before he gets to the highway. We don't want our boy seeing him coming.”

  Sally was a good dispatcher. She repeated exactly what I'd said into her mike. While she did, it occurred to me to try the little infrared searchlight that was a part of the scope. It only had a range of about twenty-five yards, but it made everything within that distance much clearer through the scope. It also drained the battery about four times as fast.

  The beauty of the IR searchlight is that people can't see it without a night scope of their own. Wily, those Russians.

  Sally had a hand on my raincoat as I slowly threaded my way into the ravine. The rocks, which had been slippery the other day, were like greased marble now. It was very slow going.

  “I can't see shit,” said Sally.

  “Good thing,” I said. “Stop here.”

  She did. “What for?”

  “He's got to be down the ravine from us,” I said.

  “Let me watch for a few seconds. I think I should be able to pick up movement.” I must have watched for a good fifteen seconds, which seemed like forever. Nothing. No sound, no sign of Chester.

  “See him?”

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  “Can I,” asked Sally, “take a peek at where we're going? It'd help.”

  Good idea. As we were transferring possession of the night scope, there was a rattling among the rocks somewhere below us. We fumbled the scope, and I heard it hit what sounded like a wet branch, and then a sharp click as it struck a rock.

  “Shit.”

  “Sorry, I'm sorry,” said Sally.

  “You got a flashlight?” I asked, disgusted with my self.

  “Yeah, a Mini-Mag, in here somewhere…. ” And I heard the sound of her raincoat being unzipped and pulled about as she tried to find a path to her utility belt.

  “Not your fault,” I said, waiting for her to hand me the light. I wasn't going to move, because my only orientation for finding the night scope was the knowledge that it was just about straight down from my feet.

  I saw the glow of her little flashlight still inside her raincoat. She must have hit the switch. She was about to cast light all over the place as she brought it out.

  “No! Turn it off!” I whispered as loudly as I could.

  She tried, she really did. I think she reached her other hand inside the twisted raincoat to try to turn the light off without fumbling it, too. In doing so, she lost her balance, and disappeared with a thud and a bump and a rush of raincoat against branches.

  It was thunderously quiet.

  “Shit, Houseman” came a faint voice. “I fell.”

  “You okay?”

  “No.”

  I slowly bent my knees, hanging on to a branch. I had no idea whether I was on a large rock, or just a small one, and I sure as hell didn't think I'd help Sally if I came crashing down on her.

  “What's wrong?”

  “My butt hurts,” she said.

  “You still got that flashlight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead and turn it on,” I said. “We gotta get you up.”

  The light came on right beneath me. She had fallen about four feet.

  “Anything else hurt?” I asked.

  “Just my butt,” she said. She slowly got to her feet, which brought her head to about the level of my knees. “Everything else seems fine.”

  Although the rock I was standing on was pretty big, I was about three inches from the edge. I took about a half step back, and said, “As long as you're down there, see if you can find the scope.”

  She shone the light downward, and said, “Got it.” She reached down and handed it up to me.

  I laid it on my rock, and reached down with my left hand. “Grab hold, and I'll get you up here. Turn off the light before I pull, okay?”

  She did. I counted three, heaved
, and up she came.

  I peered through the night scope as soon as she was stable on the rocks. It still worked. One thing about Red Army gear, it's known for being rugged. I panned down the ravine. Nothing.

  “See anything?”

  “Nope. Even if he didn't hear us, he's long gone.” I decided a little more noise didn't really matter. “See if you can reach Borman,” I said. “See what he's got down at the bottom of this ravine.”

  She did. He reported that all he could see was what he thought was a car. I guessed he still had his lights off. At least he was getting better at following instructions.

  “Tell him we're on the way down, and we think the suspect is ahead of us.”

  She did, and we began moving down the ravine again. It took us about five or six minutes, but we made it to the bottom.

  With my night scope, I could see the car Borman meant, along with Borman and his car about fifty yards up the road, off on the shoulder. There was no sign of our intrepid Mr. Chester. I looked back up the ravine, and over the parts of the bluff below the trees. Nothing.

  “Tell Borman to come on over,” I said. I was disgusted with myself, and with the way things had turned out.

  We checked on the car. A rental out of Jollietville, Wisconsin. No wants, no reports of any activity concerning it. Just a bland car.

  We looked into the car from the outside, but there was nothing in the interior except a receipt on the passenger seat. I could see the header of the rental company on the pink paper. No name. The doors were locked. Lack of clutter was to be expected from a rental. None of us could read the information on the sheet through the rain-spattered window because the drops reflected our flashlight beams. In a moment of inspiration, I lifted the night scope to my eye, and hit the zoom button. No reflections, and the paper became twice as big. “William Chester,” I said. “Rented yesterday, at one-fifteen P.M.”

  When such a simple thing as thinking to use the night scope makes you feel better, you know you're having a bad night. The fact that it was a rental though, and not stolen, confirmed in my mind that Chester definitely was not our vampire.