Death Across the Lake

by Lyle Hightower

  She came back to the station, and we requisitioned two bicycles, which we would ride to the north end until we got to the river that separated Burlington from Winooski, after which we would proceed on foot. It was important that we be able to walk off-road to avoid being detected by any Minutemen who might be on the move. There were only a few hundred of them as far as we knew, so it wouldn’t be too hard to give them the slip, but we did run the risk of running into advance scouts, or any of their vehicles.

  We parked our bikes on the road near the river, and started walking towards the bridge. Irene had changed into a kind of poncho thing and a floppy hat that made her look like a field worker, though I knew that under it she had a demolition kit, as well as a gun. I was dressed as usual, though the light was dying and it wouldn’t make much difference.

  “We’ll need to approach the Winooski bridge carefully. If they’ve made it that close to town they’ll have men stationed along the span, or at least on the opposite side.”

  The bridge was just around the corner. We sidled up to an old warehouse building upriver from the bridge and walked along it until we got to the bridge embankment. There was a stand of trees at the far end, and we used these as cover, while Irene took out a small pair of binoculars and scanned the riverfront.

  “We’ll have to be careful, they’ll be looking over this side too. Stay down.”

  “There,” she said. “Just next to the millworks. It’s a jeep.”

  She handed me the binoculars. There was a jeep pulled up next to the building, just behind a telephone pole.

  “There, on the corner opposite the jeep, two soldiers.” They were dressed like civilians, but their boots were Minutemen issue, and they had rifles hanging from their shoulders.

  “There’s a railroad bridge a twenty minute walk that way,” I said. “We might be able to cross there unnoticed.”

  We started walking west along Barrett Street and then Riverside, an old highway that was now overgrown with bushes and trees.

  “I spoke to Harry Smith today, of the Smith House,” I said.

  “Oh, why was that?” Irene asked.

  “The night clerk at the hotel lied twice, first about Irving Peck’s whereabouts, and then about who had told him to lie. He sent me on the trail of a man I thought might have been our suspect, who turned out to be one of your friends.”

  “A ranger? I’d hardly call them my friends. Still, it’s interesting that they would show themselves.”

  “Well, they’re still here, and they were trying to make contact with Peck when he was killed,” I said.

  “To what end?”

  “To arm the Farmers’ Union. Prepare them for a permanent state of guerrilla warfare, or something like that.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It’s not a bad idea. But the ranger I spoke too was pretty adamant they weren’t going to provide any help if they couldn’t reach an agreement about a coordinated defence.”

  “That might be why the negotiations were so difficult,” she said. “There was more riding on it that we realized. I understand why Peck wouldn’t have wanted it known that they were talking to the Rangers, either.”

  We arrived at the railroad bridge and kept a careful watch for twenty minutes for signs of movement. The span of the bridge was open and exposed, and any troops on the other side would have no trouble seeing us. After a while we didn’t see anyone, though the far end of the bridge was a blind spot. We’d have to figure out the situation once we got there, and try to find cover.

  We walked along the bridge, thinking that it would be easier to talk our way out of an altercation if we looked like we were just locals out for a walk. The river ran quickly under the bridge, forty feet below.

  We got to the far end of the bridge without incident, but then suddenly Irene ducked down, and then with out looking at me motioned for me to do the same, and then sticking two fingers up, and then pointing, communicated to me that she saw two soldiers. She motioned again to the left, and we scuttled down the embankment towards the bushes. It was getting dark now, but I wasn’t confident we could remain undetected if they walked close to us.

  We lay face down on the ground, and waited. I could faintly hear young men talking to each other. Then two more voices joined the conversation, and then I could hear the sound of boots on gravel; they had started walking up the embankment, towards us and the bridge.

  “Stay still,” Irene said. “If they cross the bridge, we can keep going.”

  The soldiers came into view. There were four of them, three men and a woman, and they were walking along the tracks towards the bridge. They were just about to walk past us when the woman stopped. The others kept walking, but she stayed a moment, and turned around. She sniffed the air, and for a moment I wondered if she could smell us, but of course she couldn’t. She turned again, and I could see now that she was looking right at us, but still she didn’t react or give any indication she’d seen us. If she did, we probably wouldn’t survive the firefight. They outnumbered us, and all four of them had assault rifles and hand grenades. Two pistols wouldn’t be of much use. I thought about firing first, but doing so might have alerted others in the area and then the whole mission would have to be aborted.

  As suddenly as she stopped, she turned back to her friends who were now halfway across the bridge, and ran after them, tripping and almost falling at one point before catching up with them.

  “Keep up, Henderson. Wouldn’t want to lose you in these woods. The gorillas will eat you alive.”

  “It’s guerrillas, G-E-R-I-L-A-S, you idiot,” she answered. “And there aren’t any around here anyways.”

  We waited a while. Slowly their voices became inaudible, and we got up, cautiously making our way north, walking through the back streets of Winooski, before finding the highway north out of town.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It took us four hours to reach the Grand-Isle bridge. We walked through the underbrush next to the highway, passing platoon after platoon of Minutemen. There were easily a hundred of them on the road, marching south in small groups. We stayed in the trees and were able to avoid being seen. Several times we had to hide in a hollow, or lay flat on the ground behind a tree, waiting for a platoon to pass before it was safe to continue. In the fading light of evening I sometimes saw their faces, young men and women who looked both determined and fearful.

  The bridge was guarded, as we expected, by a platoon of Minutemen soldiers. It was not so much a bridge as it was an old causeway that went over a bog before crossing over open water. The part of the bridge we had to destroy was in the middle, a short span on pontoons that boats could travel under. We’d have to wade through the bog at some distance from the road, and then along the narrow embankment beside the road until we could get to the span in the middle, all without being detected by any Minutemen left behind to defend the bridge. We were already exhausted, but we still had the hardest part of our journey ahead.

  Irene led the way through the swampy morass. Avoiding the Minutemen guard at the entrance to the causeway was easy enough, but it meant walking, in the dark, through water that was at times up to our chins. I fell more than once. Irene held her pack above her head the whole time. The explosives were in a sealed plastic container, but she had doubts about its integrity and didn’t want to take any chances.

  We made it through the bog and then crossed over to the other side of the road, as the causeway embankment was wider on that side, dryer, and provided more cover. We were both shivering in the cold night air. Every time I walked I could feel water squelching in my shoes. We were lucky; no further patrols came down the causeway as we made our way to the centre span.

  “Stay up top, but keep your head down,” she said as we reached it. “While I’m wiring everything up, just keep an eye out for any patrols.”

  I did as she said, and waited, looking in both directions along the winding causeway. I could hear her rappelling down one of the pylons, hear her breath as she reached for the nex
t one, wrapping herself around it as she affixed the explosives and attached wires to the detonators.

  Softly at first, and then more insistently, I heard the sound of an engine out across the water. Then in the distance to the south, I saw lights. It was a boat, and it was heading toward us. I couldn’t tell in the dark if it was one of ours, or if it was a civilian craft. I tapped three times on the steel railing with the butt of my revolver, the signal I was to use if I saw anyone approaching. Whereas I had been listening to Irene climbing from pylon to pylon, I now heard only silence coming from under the bridge, and then a brief, momentary scurrying sound, and the sound of the boat’s motor growing louder, and then suddenly going quiet.

  It drifted slowly towards us in the darkness, and then suddenly an arc lamp came on and blinded me. I heard something drop into the water, and then a voice cry out: “Stop!” I climbed over the railing to the other side to see what was happening. I stuck my head out to look, and saw a man standing on the deck. He had a gun in his hand, and he was looking under the bridge, an expression of fear and confusion on his face. Another man was in the cabin, steering the craft. The man on the deck looked up suddenly and saw me, pointing his gun towards me, but before either of us could fire, I heard two zipping noises cut through the air, the sound of silenced pistol fire. One of the bullets hit the man in the head, and he fell into the water. The man in the cabin reversed the motor, but suddenly a dark shape was on the deck, moving swiftly and silently towards him, and then the same zipping sound cut through the night, and he was dead. Irene switched off the engine and then, standing on the prow, silhouetted by the arc light, she looked up at me, silenced pistol in her shaking hand, a strange look on her face.

  “Can you swim?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “We’ll take the boat back, but just in case we encounter any other Empire State Militia craft, we need to be ready to abandon ship.”

  It was clear now, looking at the an old sport fishing boat, that it was done up in the Empire State livery.

  “What were they doing on this side of the lake?” I said, more as a question to myself than anything else. I knew the answer.

  “Well, this is the final proof that they’re acting in concert,” she said, as she rolled the skipper’s body into the water after going through his pockets. She did this without much apparent exertion, and it took me a moment to realize that she had just lifted a six foot tall man into the water unaided.

  “I’ve never had to kill anyone like that, so close up,” she said, after she set the timer on the explosives and gathered her things on the deck. I reversed the boat and set us on a course for Burlington’s waterfront.

  “I’m sorry. I guess it’s not what you signed up for when you became a librarian.”

  “I wasn’t unaware of what I was getting myself into. They teach you that you are the last bulwark of civilization against chaos, that the intellectual traditions we’ve preserved, from cultures all over the world, are essential to our survival, and that we should be ready to do anything to protect them. But it was always in the abstract. My training as a State Trooper was equally high-minded. I guess if you tell new recruits that they’ll need to kill other humans in cold blood, it might draw the wrong crowd.”

  “Might be that’s what happened to the Minutemen,” I said. “Appeal to the basest instincts of young men and women, who feel cheated and disenfranchised, tell them they can kill their way out of their misery, eliminate the slackers and utopians who are weakening the state. It has its appeal.”

  She was shaking slightly, probably cold, but also in shock. “You should find a blanket, you look like you’re shivering,” I said.

  Wordlessly she rooted around in the lockers on deck and found a large woollen blanket. It was full of holes but it seemed to do the trick, and she looked out over the bow, a sullen, distant expression on her face. Blood stained the wheel and the rest of the helm.

  A deafening sound came from behind us, and we both jerked our heads to look. A cloud of dark smoke was rising off the bridge, illuminated from below by an enormous fire.

  The bridge was down.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We slipped into town twenty minutes later, and docked just south of the Ferry terminal, negotiating with the harbourmaster for a space for the newly capture boat. He initially refused to let us dock, saying that this was an illegal incursion, and he was going to call the police. When I explained that I was the police, he scratched his head, and then smiled. “Well isn’t that something,” he said, looking at the craft. “I’ll send the invoice for the docking fees to the police department then.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I said.

  Irene and I raced up the hill towards the police station, where we expected to find Chief, coordinating the town’s defence. Just as expected, he was there, with the mayor, in the operations room, sitting next to the radio.

  “We did it,” Irene said. “Killed two Empire State sailors on a patrol boat too.”

  Chief clapped his hands together, “Incredible. I didn’t think I’d ever see either of you again.”

  “This also proves they’re colluding. The only reason they would come across to our side of the lake would be to provide support for the Minutemen forces,” she said.

  The mayor sat up from her chair in the corner.

  “That’s a good point,” she said. “Ms. McGill, can you send a report to State with that information? Also, can you send a general update? Minutemen forces have started trying to move into town over the Winooski bridge. Our people, along with some locals, have been successful so far in holding them back, but we’ve taken some casualties,” she said.

  “Velasquez has been injured, and three townies have been killed,” Chief said. “Go relay our status, and then the two of you should get up to the Winooski river as soon as possible.”

  We ran down the street to the library, where Irene sent the message to State. “Are they going to be able to send any help,” I asked.

  “There’s no help to send. The best we can hope for is strategic intelligence,” she said.

  “Then our best hope is a coordinated local defence. We have to get to the river as fast as we can.”

  The scene up by the Winooski Bridge was like something out of hell. Smoke filled the air, and there were holes pockmarking the road where Minutemen mortar shells had fallen. Walking up towards the bridge, I could see tracer fire coming towards a small platoon of townies who were nestled against a building, trying to return fire with old handguns and rifles. The building, someone’s home, was on fire. On the other side of the road, I could see Molly and McMurtry, and five more uniforms huddling, trying to return fire. An improvised platoon of townies came running up the road behind us, and then ran for cover near the bridge railings, drawing fire, though none of them were hit.

  “Their command will be deciding what to do, once word comes in that the Grand Isle bridge is out,” Irene said, observing the scene, standing up tall as if we were in no danger. She then motioned for us to walk over to where the uniforms were hunkered down, and she gradually crouched as we neared the mouth of the bridge, still seeming completely unfazed by what was happening. I thought maybe she was still in shock, but she seemed alert, focused, almost happy.

  “What’s happening here?” I asked McMurtry.

  “We’re pinned down, and so are they. But that mortar fire is nerve-wracking. One comes in every few minutes. They must be low on ammunition.”

  Just then there was a whistling sound and McMurtry pointed abstractly into the air for a moment and then everything was chaos. I saw and heard nothing, but suddenly found myself lying face down on the ground. I turned myself over, and seeing I was still near where I had been before, I scrambled back to cover. Irene and the others all seemed to have fallen out the same way, and were collecting themselves. Looking across the road, half the building that had been there, providing cover to the platoon of townies was gone. The rubble, which had fallen in a p
ile in the road, started to move, and one by one they picked themselves out of it, but not before rifle fire started pinging off the bricks, and hit two of them, both of whom staggered out into the road before being hit again and falling. The others ran around the back of the building as fast as they could.

  “We need to make a move. They’re winning, and unless we can drive them back, we’ll have to blow the bridge,” Irene shouted.

  “It’s the only evacuation route for the town,” I said. “It would be a death sentence for all of us.”

  Irene stood up and looking around, her eyes settled on the small electric scooter, one of the ones the B.P.D. had for those rare occasions one of our officers had to get somewhere quick.

  “Bailey, help me with this,” she said, running back down the street, away from the bridge, to where the bike was parked. Hunched over, I followed her, and she rooted through a pile of garbage and scrap metal that was a little further down the road from where the bike was parked. She found a large, rusty piece of sheet metal, and handing it to me, said, “you steer, holding this in front of us, and I’ll be on the back with you, firing at their line. Once we’re through, the others will follow. If it works, the Minutemen will run.”

  I wasn’t keen on the plan, but I admired it for its boneheaded simplicity. I ran back to Molly, McMurtry, and the other uniforms to explain the plan, and I took one of their precious assault rifles and a full clip. They then provided covering fire while I ran across the street to the townies and explained the plan to them. Then, crouched low to the ground, I ran back down the incline to where Irene was waiting. We got on the bike and I held the sheet metal like a shield. I wasn’t going to be able to see ahead of us, and I’d have to judge our position by looking to the sides, or down to the ground in front of us.