The Watchmen

by Brian Freemantle

  “Who the hell told him?” Their information was that the Eschevaux was a fifty-two-foot Sea Ray that had disappeared from the biggest marina at the Norwalk inlet on Sunday night, after Bonwitt had returned from that day’s sailing.

  “Marina people, I guess. When the check was made on the boat’s name.”

  “If Bonwitt gets there before I do, tell him the boat has been seized as a federal exhibit. Same rules for them as everyone else. Nowhere near it.”

  “He won’t,” intruded the pilot, linked to the conversation. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

  All the sports field nighttime lights were on, perfectly illuminating it as a landing area. There didn’t seem to be a lot of light from nearby houses. There was one helicopter, marked Highway Patrol, already droop-rotored like a sleeping insect. There were a lot of cars and three vans, mostly marked police vehicles, parked in perfect pattern on the perimeter. As they began to descend, the pilot of the inbound Washington machine patched into their circuit with an estimate of ten minutes from landing. A new voice came on insisting the area remain totally untrampled. Cowley said he knew and so did everyone within a hundred miles, and the voice said he hoped so.

  The three local force commanders were waiting by an unmarked but antenna-haired communications van. All were in uniform. Steven Barr was tall, bespectacled, and spoke in a slow New England accent. John Sharpe, the sheriff, made a stark comparison, short and overweight, his belt sagging. Alan Petrich, the Highway Patrol chief, was overweight, too, and clearly asthmatic, wheezing his way through the introductions performed by Osnan, a sports-jacketed, angular-faced man.

  To the three men Cowley said, “Thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “Let’s hope it produces something,” said Barr, flat-voiced. “Bastards hit New York again and it goes off this time—and the wind’s in the right direction—we could be right in line.”

  “You’re the one who went into the tower with the secretary-general, aren’t you?” said Sharpe admiringly. “What was it like?”

  If there was a media leak he’d know who it came from, Cowley decided. “A mess. How many people walked around after the boat was found?”

  “My patrolman, Wayne Mitchell,” said Petrich.

  “No one else?” pressed Cowley hopefully.

  “No.”

  “What about the person who found it?” Bradley asked.

  “Wasn’t found,” wheezed the man. “It was a phone in. Woman said she’d seen a flash fire and gave a location that didn’t check out. That’s why it took so long for us to find it.”

  “We got a name for who phoned in?”

  Petrich and the sheriff exchanged looks. “Phone got put down. Gal cheating on her husband, maybe.”

  “Lot of that goes on in these woods,” said Sharpe.

  “You run a numbers check!” demanded Cowley.

  “Doing it,” said the man.

  “The message recorded?”

  The man extended his hand, cupping the cassette. “Every word that went between the caller and my dispatcher.” He smiled.

  “The original?” Cowley demanded again.

  “Didn’t think you’d want the rest.”

  “A copy won’t be admissable in a federal court!” said Cowley, the anger burning through him. He kept his voice even. “I need the original. Can you arrange that now? I don’t want it overrecorded.” He didn’t respond to Bradley’s sideways look.

  As the Highway Patrol commander disappeared inside the communications truck, Cowley told Osnan he wanted the man to become communications and evidence officer, handing him the copied cassette. The end of the conversation was almost drowned out by the noise of the descending Washington helicopter, a huge fore- and aftrotored Chinook. The baggage-laden scientists and technicians filed off with military precision, led by a tall and heavy black man who imperiously demanded Cowley by name, said his was Jefferson Jones and that he hoped to Christ everything had been left as is. Cowley decided that if the man had brought spare scene-of-crime coveralls, he wouldn’t be as constricted as he’d been going into the UN building in the protective space suit.

  Most of the Washington group fit into a commandeered bus Cowley hadn’t seen until it approached the control center. He traveled with Jones, Bradley, and the three local men in a backup carrier, which in turn was followed by marked and unmarked police cars. It was abruptly dark out of the sports field illumination, with only isolated house lights along the streets. Cowley guessed it was a comparatively high-priced residential area. Jones said they intended to carry out the most detailed search possible on the immediate surrounding area and what was left of the boat itself but would probably bring in a Tarhe Sky Crane the following day to fly the wreck for laboratory stripping and examination in Washington.

  “We know how much is left?” he asked.

  “My patrolman says it’s burned down mostly to the waterline but that there’s some cabin and superstructure in places,” said the Highway Patrol chief.

  “Then we’re in business.” Jones grinned. “If the bad guys really knew how much we can recover, there wouldn’t be any crime—they’d know we’ll catch them in the end.”

  Cowley thought the black man looked too old still to be influenced by the confidence of the bureau training videos. They left all house lights behind very quickly, and from the widely interspersed streetlamps and heavy jolting Cowley guessed they had turned on to country side roads. Steven Barr seemed to know where they were, warning they were only about two miles away. Almost at once they came to the first road block, jointly manned by Highway Patrol and local police. They had to stop for spiked, tire-puncturing strips to be moved out of their way. Cowley was impressed. There were two more blocks—although no puncturing strips—before Cowley became aware of a growing brightness. His initial, frightened thought was that somehow the fire had again taken hold of the cruiser.

  Barr said, “We’ve got every available floodlight there—ours, the patrol’s, and fire department—each with separate generator trucks.”

  Cowley was about to speak when Jones said, “Seems to me you’ve done one hell of a good job. If all local forces were as efficient, we’d all spend more time at home with our wives and families.”

  When he got out Cowley realized what passed for a road had narrowed to little more than a track, which the generator trucks totally blocked ahead of the arriving vehicles. To the left a sparse forest was whitened by artificial light right to the track edge, where the yellow scene-of-crime sectioning tape began. Although the line of light indicated the direction of the burned-out cruiser, it wasn’t possible to see it or the creek. There was no path leading toward it, either, although about twenty yards back in the direction from which they’d come, their lane widened into a turnoff. In it, already parked, were several vans, one another communications vehicle. Another was Wayne Mitchell’s Highway Patrol car. He stood waiting beside it, a young, fresh-faced blond whom Cowley put no older than twenty-five. He saluted his commander as they approached. Cowley led but it was Jones who again spoke first. “You wanna tell me what we got in there?”

  “Top part of the boat’s mostly gone, just odd bits still there and some deck railing,” said Mitchell. “What’s left is full of water, so I guess it’s holed somewhere although I didn’t see where. The moment I saw the name I recognized it as one of the boats reported missing so I came straight back to the car and called in.”

  “How come you stopped and walked into the forest at this precise point?” asked Cowley.

  “Didn’t,” said the man. “The report that was phoned in put the fire about a mile down the creek, toward the bigger inlet where there’s quite a few boats. So that’s where I started. When I didn’t find anything I walked along the bank until I came to it. It’s not in the creek itself. Looks like a long time ago someone dug out a space to leave a boat: a kind of a canal. That’s where it is—kinda pulled out of the channel and left in its own space.”

  “So did you walk out that way?”
pressed Jones, indicating the lighted area.

  “No sir,” said Mitchell. “Took myself some markers toward the road here—those three trees over there, taller than the rest—and went back along the creek to my car. And drove up here.”

  “Did you go in to check once you got here?” pressed the scientist.

  “Just once. Straight in, straight out.”

  “What’s the ground like, underfoot?”

  “Soft. I can show you my tracks.”

  “This is getting better.” Jones beamed.

  “What about the creek bank and the canal itself?” asked Cowley.

  “Mud.”

  “But the creek is navigable for something fifty-two feet long?” queried Bradley. “That’s a big boat.”

  “Hardly,” said the officer. “I didn’t spend any time looking closely and the current’s washed out any marks there might be on the bottom, but you can see the bottom. And where the water doesn’t reach there’s a lot of score marks on the bank, where it obviously hit.”

  Jones looked in the direction of the light again and said, “Don’t know how we’re going to get the goddamned thing out through those trees.”

  “There’s some open ground by the canal itself,” offered Mitchell.

  “Sufficient to get it clear of the water for the first examination?”

  “I’d say so,” guessed the patrolman.

  Turning to Steven Barr, the forensic leader said, “You think you could get me one of those dinky garden tractors, small enough to maneuver through those trees? I’ll want to haul the boat out of the water. Drain it and then go over it tonight and tomorrow. Depending on how we find the creek, after that I might raft it back to where there’s enough hard standing to bring in the lifting helicopter.”

  “I got one of my own in the backyard,” Sheriff Sharpe said proudly. “Happy to make it available.”

  “Then let’s go to work,” urged Jones to the scientific team assembled loosely behind them.

  Jones did have a spare plastic anticontamination coverall, which he loaned to Cowley with the injunction not to enter the forest until there was a signal. Bradley borrowed one from another scientist approximately his size. The technical squad suited up and moved off with the military precision with which they’d disembarked from their helicopter, Wayne Mitchell going to the tree line with them to point out his route. One of the squad, another black man, immediately took a plaster cast of Mitchell’s indentation and one of the patrolman’s foot. From the way they worked Cowley guessed they were a permanent professional team. There was hardly any conversation, everyone seeming to know what to do without any instruction from Jefferson Jones. The group divided into three-man squads, each to a section that they subdivided by tape, stirring and lifting the forest debris with slim, rubber-encased sticks. Twice more footprint casts were taken. From the line, Cowley guessed they were again those of the Highway Patrol officer. Behind the main body a still photographer and a television operator maintained a constant record.

  One of the turnoff trucks turned out to be a refreshment truck—which further impressed Cowley, although the coffee didn’t. He welcomed the excuse to abandon it when he was summoned, by name, to the communications van. From his communication truck back at the sports field, Osnan said Harry Bonwitt had arrived with his marine insurance assessor. He was refusing to accept the legality of what remained of the Eschevaux being a federal exhibit and was insisting on coming down to the scene to examine his property.

  “Put him on.” Cowley sighed.

  “You hear what I’m telling you, sir,” rasped a voice without any greeting.

  “And I’d like you to hear what I’m telling you, Mr. Bonwitt,” Cowley said politely, knowing the exchange was being recorded. “This area is sealed, on my authority as a federal officer. And by that same authority I have declared what’s left of the Eschevaux to be a federal exhibit in any future prosecution. Neither you nor your assessor will be allowed to examine it until all our forensic tests are completed, which isn’t likely to be for at least another twenty-four hours. Probably longer. If you attempt to do so, you will be arrested for attempting to impede a federal investigation. If you want the appropriate statute for that, I’ll be happy to direct you toward it. Is all that clear to you, Mr. Bonwitt?”

  The silence was broken only by the hiss of static. At last the man said, in a quivering voice, “Are you familiar, sir, with the law of habeas corpus?”

  “Perfectly familiar,” assured Cowley. “But I don’t want this to escalate into your arrest or your need to invoke it. There is no cause for either. I’m extremely sorry what’s happened to your boat and I am not in any way trying to be obstructive. I am, in fact, asking for your cooperation. Your boat will be extensively photographed in situ and at all stages during its examination. And as soon as it’s possible I’ll make photographs available to your and your insurance examiner.”

  “I shall sue,” threatened the lawyer. “I’ll sue you personally. And your director. And the bureau. For illegal detention of property.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t imperil your action or my defense by talking about it anymore?” said Cowley, depressing the cut-off switch.

  Terry Osnan answered when Cowley called back almost immediately.

  Osnan said, “He’s stormed off. I think he’s coming your way.”

  “Any more of our guys turned up?”

  “Three.”

  “Send them after him. He’ll be stopped at the first roadblock. They’re to arrest him.”

  “For what?”

  “Willfully obstructing a federal investigation.”

  Cowley got back to the refreshment truck in time to see the plastic-suited Burt Bradley moving into the forest toward the unseen boat. Some of the arc lights had been moved farther in, too. Barr said, “You’ve been given the go-ahead. Mind if Alan and I tag along?”

  “Not if Jones doesn’t. But do me a favor first. Speak to your guys at the first roadblock. The owner’s probably on his way here. Tell them not to let him pass until some bureau guys catch up to arrest him. Might be an idea to leave those blowout strips down.”

  The borrowed protection was slightly too large but it was still more comfortable than the space suit. The soft ground sucked underfoot as Cowley walked side by side with the Highway Patrol chief. Cowley said, “Patrolman Mitchell did well. I’ll see there’s a commendation from the bureau.”

  “I wish we’d done so well at headquarters,” apologized Petrich. “I’m not sure but I think the original tape might have been overlaid.”

  “When will you be sure?”

  “Couple of hours.”

  The forest floor shelved nearer the creek into a low, sloping bank. What Mitchell had described as a canal was, in fact, the shape of a boat long ago dug out and abandoned. The burned hulk of the Eschevaux fit snugly into it. What remained was almost completely submerged, just some fire-twisted bow and portside rail and a small section of the cockpit protruding above the water. A lot of blackened debris had collapsed below it, but Cowley didn’t think there was enough for there to have been a flying bridge. He didn’t actually know what a Sea Ray looked like. Four forensic technicians were already in the water attaching hawsers so malleable Cowley guessed they were specially manufactured for a purpose like this. Two were standing in the creek itself. As the water only came up to their thighs, Cowley decided it would be difficult to raft the cruiser down to deeper water. The two cameramen were also in the water, taking pictures. Everyone else stood around, waiting for the hulk to be pulled clear of the water. Metal mesh matting had been laid out to receive it.

  Jefferson Jones saw Cowley and the Highway Patrol commander arrive at the forest lip and immediately raised a stopping hand, walking back toward them with Burt Bradley.

  To Petrich the scientist said, “Here’s fine, but I don’t want you any closer without a suit, OK?”

  “OK,” agreed the man.

  “Although it’s probably an unnecessary precaution,” Jones a
dded, to Cowley. “You know what we found? The bastards raked after themselves as they walked away. Didn’t leave a thing, not a goddamned thing! They won’t have left anything in the boat, either.”

  “And look at the creek,” prompted Bradley. “Getting a boat that size this far would have been like Humphrey Bogart and the African Queen all over again.”

  “They certainly knew what they were doing,” said Jones. “I’d have said it would have been impossible to leave ground this soft without a single impression, but that’s what they did. We get them I personally want to ask them how they did it. These guys had jungle training, for sure.”

  “How’d they sink what’s left?” asked Cowley.

  “Holed it twice in the bow, as far as I can make out while it’s still in the water,” said Jones. “We’ll have to be careful how we rig those hawsers so the damn thing doesn’t fall apart as we haul it out.”

  They turned at an approaching noise. Sheriff Sharpe sat commandingly on his garden tractor, maneuvering it through the tree line, smiling at the flash of the official camera. “All gassed up and ready to go,” he announced.

  From this direction it was easier to make out the track at which the forest stopped. Steven Barr was there, beckoning, although Cowley couldn’t hear what he was shouting. He set off back toward the policeman as Barr started toward him. Cowley walked, mentally trying to assess what he had, but perhaps more worryingly what he didn’t have. Even if the Highway Patrol’s copy tape wasn’t admissible in court and the original was lost, a voice print would still be possible if indeed the call had been made by whoever was involved and not some woman cheating on her husband. The total lack so far of a single piece of forensic evidence was the overwhelming disappointment. Jefferson Jones was right. The bastards had known exactly what they were doing, how and where they were doing it, right down to choosing the place to burn the boat and that they’d need rakes to cover their tracks. These guys had jungle training for sure echoed in Cowley’s head. And if …

  Cowley stopped, numbed by the awareness, and turned. Bradley and the uniformed sheriff and Highway Patrol chief were the only people he could see, the others all hidden at the bottom of the slope where the boat lay. He heard the roar of the tractor engine being gunned and screamed, “No! Stop! No!” but the accelerating noise was too loud for them to hear. Cowley started to run back but there was a deafening, ear-blocking explosion and the three men Cowley could see were visibly lifted off the ground. He saw pieces of other bodies—certainly one unattached head—in the air before he was stopped by some invisible force that hit him so hard all the breath was driven from his body and he couldn’t suck it in again. He felt himself lifted off his feet, too, and there was total, spinning blackness. Cowley’s last conscious thought was that there wasn’t any pain and that maybe it didn’t hurt to die after all.