Lynden fire chief Mike Stratton stared at the fires from a command post some distance outside the refinery. A few of his senior firefighters stood nearby. He shook his head. “This is the worst fire I’ve ever seen. It’s going to burn for a month, no doubt about it.” The heat from the fires was so intense that it was impossible to get close enough to retrieve the bodies of the dead. That’s what the deputy chief had told him a few minutes ago. It didn’t matter. By the time the fires were brought under control, there wouldn’t be anything left of those bodies except for some ashes long scattered to the winds.
“This is a fucking disaster,” he said, hanging his head.
Jennie Walker opened her eyes. She was lying in a hospital bed and her head hurt. She reached up and discovered a bare piece of scalp where some of her hair had once been. A nurse was standing next to the bed. “Am I hurt badly?” she asked.
“No, dear. You have some minor burns and a concussion. You’re at Harborview hospital in Seattle. You’ll be all right, I’m sure.”
“Well, that’s something,” Jennie said. “But I’ll tell you what.”
“What?”
“I’m quitting my goddamn job and going back to teaching when I get out of here.”
Two hundred miles from Seattle in the small town of Goldendale, a knock sounded on Mrs. Elma Wilkins front door. She was watching the news about the fire at the refinery. As usual, she had the volume turned up because of her poor hearing. Grudgingly, she got up and shuffled to the door.
Three men in suits were standing on her front porch. One of them flashed a badge and an ID card. “Ma’am, I’m Special Agent Brian Carter from the F.B.I. We need to speak to you, please.”
“About what?”
“It’s about that van you sold a few days ago.”
U.S. Forest Service ranger Gary Connolly had taken a vacation after the fugitives held him prisoner overnight. When he heard all three of them had been killed in the fire, he put on his uniform and went back to work the next day.
Federal prosecutor Warren Cosgrove had a second meeting with Cummings’ former partner in crime, Jim Kelso, at the local jail in Eureka the day after the fire in Lynden. He informed Kelso and his lawyer that the government had rescinded their offer of immunity because the information Kelso had provided was useless. Cosgrove also told her he would be seeking the maximum sentence for her client on the bank robbery charges. Attorney Karen Underwood stared out the window and said nothing. Sometimes, she thought, you just can’t win with some clients. She wondered if Cosgrove might consider knocking off a year or two from her client’s sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. She doubted he would agree to it.
David Gordon, the young pilot who had been shot when Cummings hijacked his plane, was still in the hospital in Eureka, but steadily recovering. His girlfriend Dorothy Watkins now spent most of her off-work hours with him at the hospital. The day of the fire, two F.B.I. agents entered his hospital room and informed him that his Cessna was parked at an airstrip in Goldendale, Washington and had been released out of evidence. He could pick it up whenever he wished. The airstrip had agreed to waive any storage charges.
Oregon State Patrol officer Dave Jackson had been raked in the press early on; due to accusations he had assaulted Karen Morris so badly that he caused her to have a miscarriage. But as the body count grew, he simply embellished his story a bit here and there on what actually happened that dark and rainy night. After the fire, the press forgot about him quickly enough. He eventually quit the force and went back to college up in Eugene to get his business degree. Law enforcement, he decided, was not for him.
When the final tally of the dead was calculated on the afternoon of the fire in Lynden, a total of forty-six people, mostly sworn personnel, were found to have either been killed directly by the now-famous trio, or responsible for their deaths in the fire. McKenzie had also been right about something, a bit of history he had remembered right after the helicopter crash. The fugitives had broken the record for F.B.I. agents killed in the line of duty by a single person or gang. Lester ‘Baby Face’ Nelson had held the previous record for roughly eighty years.
Three F.B.I. agents from the San Francisco office drove to a National Guard armory near Eureka and returned a stolen Stinger missile. It was the one recovered near where Ben Cummings and the Morris couple had camped overnight off the main highway. Before they left the armory, they advised one of the senior officers it might be a good idea to upgrade their security a notch or two.
Bill, the man who had sold Karen the sloop Swan Song, watched the reports of the fire on the evening news. When pictures of Ben Cummings and the Morris couple were flashed on the screen, he didn’t recognize Karen Morris from the picture. Two weeks later, while going through an intersection near downtown Seattle, a driver talking on his cell phone who ran the red light killed him.
Special Agent McKenzie recovered from his wounds and went back to duty soon afterward.
Chapter 17
Karen Morris stood at the wheel of Swan Song and guided the sloop out of Birch Bay. The diesel engine chugged along at a soft and steady clip. The sun had set more than an hour before and the light from the fires cast a red glow far out over the water. It reminded her of movies she had seen about the eruption of Vesuvius. She tried not to look back and stare at the massive flames that were still rising hundreds of feet into the sky. Ray was resting below with a bandage wrapped around his stomach to cover the wound in his back. She knew little about gunshot wounds, or how bad Ray’s situation really was, although she knew he looked bad. His face was ashen. She had propped him up with pillows and covered him with a blanket. He was asleep now.
She had also made a decision. When they reached Victoria, she would dock the boat and turn herself in to the Canadian authorities. Ray needed a doctor and a hospital. She was familiar enough with Canadian law to know the Canadians would insist on a no-death-penalty clause in exchange for their extradition back to the States. It was standard policy with the Canadians to do that. She realized she would probably spend the rest of her life in prison, but strangely, she was numb about it. She thought about Ben and all of the people he had killed in the last few weeks. She didn’t understand why after all of that, he had chosen to sacrifice himself at the end so Ray could have a chance to escape. It didn’t make sense. Maybe it was a loyalty thing from their days together in the Army. She tried to push the thought from her mind.
The running lights from the other boat were steady up ahead. She kept Swan Song behind them at about two hundred yards. She would follow them right into the Oak Bay Marina in Victoria.
She heard another moan from Ray. Taking a short piece of rope from her pocket, she quickly tied the wheel to a nearby brass railing to keep it steady and then hurried below. The boat was equipped with vane gear, but with the diesel engine running it was useless. Kneeling down next to him, she wiped his forehead with a wet cloth she kept in a small bowl of water. His eyes were closed, and he was white as a sheet.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” she said. “Can you hear me?”
Ray opened his eyes. “I don’t feel so good,” he said. He took a deep, raspy breath and let it out slowly with a rattle.
Karen watched his pupils expand. He seemed to be searching for something far away. He did not take another breath and his body relaxed. His head rolled to the side.
“Ray?”
She put her ear to his chest and strained to hear a heartbeat. There was nothing. She slapped her hands over his breastbone and started giving him CPR. Five hard compressions in a row, as she had been taught, and then a rescue breath. Sweat ran into her eyes as she worked.
Five minutes later, with tears running down her face, she finally gave up the effort. He was gone.
Goddamnit all to hell. She reached down and gently closed his eyes with her fingertips. How did it end up like this? With an effort, she rolled him over on his side. The sheets beneath him were soaked in blood. It was then she saw the wound from the shotgun. Doesn’t lo
ok like much, she thought. But it was enough. The hole in his back was no bigger than a pea. It must have clipped an artery, she thought.
She wondered absently whether Swan Song was now off course in the dark and would run aground, or be split in two by a passing vessel. Puget Sound was a busy place for ships and small craft. She covered Ray with a blanket and went back up on deck.
Untying the rope she had used to secure the wheel, she saw she was still steady up behind the other boat. She took out the chart she bought from the marina store and used a flashlight to figure out her current position, and which route the other boat planned to follow. She saw right away they were headed for Boundary Pass and the Haro Strait, which would take them along the north side of the San Juan Islands. It was about eighty or ninety miles to Victoria along that route, she knew. They would probably arrive in the morning.
For the next couple of hours she continued to follow the other boat, considering her options, but also stalling on what she knew she had to do. When the lead boat reached the more open water at Haro Strait, she knew it was time. It was dark and the moon was suddenly covered in passing cloud. She tied the wheel down again and went below.
A few minutes later, she managed to drag Ray’s body up to the deck. She had wrapped him in a blanket, as well as the bloody sheets, and weighted down the package with some short sections of old steel pipe she found in a storage locker. Using a long coil of rope, she struggled to wrap it multiple times around his body and then secured it tightly. Then she rolled the body to the port side of the boat, and heaved it over the top of the brass railing. It splashed loudly into the water and sank like a stone. She watched for a few seconds to make sure it was gone, and then picked up a small canvas bag at her feet. Inside the bag were the passports and other identification for both Ray and Ben. She had already placed one of the pieces of steel pipe inside it. She tossed the bag into the water.
Going back to the wheel, she untied the rope and resumed her course behind the other boat. Tears streamed down her face again as she sobbed uncontrollably. The wind blew the tears from her cheeks before they could reach her chin. My life is over, she thought. Where will I go? What will I do? She cursed everyone who had been a part of ending her life: A rookie patrolman in Oregon who panicked, a guy Ray thought he could trust but who turned out to be a criminal, and her own weakness for not speaking up when she might have changed things before anyone was killed.
Reporters from every major news organization on the planet attended the F.B.I.’s joint press conference at ten a.m. the following morning. The Ford van purchased by Karen Morris in Auburn had been found abandoned in Lynden. The fugitives had obviously dumped it and switched vehicles, with the second vehicle found at the final crime scene. The F.B.I. concluded that all three fugitives had entered the Cherry Point refinery, killing several security officers, some local police, and slightly wounding F.B.I. Special Agent Ryan McKenzie. Then the fugitives detonated some explosives that caused the raging fire that continued to burn at the complex. The three fugitives were now assumed to have died in the explosion, since no one had seen them escape and nothing had been heard from them since. Once the fire was finally brought under control, they could look for the bodies but it was doubtful anything would be found of them. Best estimates on how long it would take to bring the fire under control ranged from a week to a month. The investigation would continue, it was said, but that was only to sort out the details. Agent McKenzie would receive the F.B.I. Star, as well as the agents killed in the helicopter crash in California. The families of the agents killed in the crash would receive the Memorial Star.
The largest crime spree in Northwest history, the F.B.I. said, was finally over.
After docking at the Oak Bay Marina in Victoria, Karen presented her new passport and her NEXUS card to the Customs Agent without incident, and then caught a cab into town. She was planning to stock her sailboat with supplies for a trip down the Oregon coast, she told the agent. She spent the next few days arranging for deliveries to the marina until Swan Song was fully outfitted for a long ocean voyage.
On the morning of the sixth day, she paid off her temporary mooring fees, sailed back out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and headed west toward the Pacific Ocean. Hidden among enough supplies to last for months was over a million in cash, as well as diamonds and gold coins worth in excess of an additional two million dollars. My payment, she thought as she pulled away from the slip, for a life I once had and then lost. She took the NEXUS card from her pocket and looked at it. My name is Stephanie Marie Turner, she thought. That’s who I am now. That other person is gone.
She wondered if she would enjoy living wherever she ended up. It was a big ocean. She would find a place somewhere out there, she was sure of it. Once she cleared the straits, she would start checking her charts. She had no intention of heading down the coast. She was going southwest, toward the center of the Pacific Ocean and to a new life somewhere. She knew that from now on her life would always be a solitary one. She would never be able to trust anyone with her secret.
Ever.
Epilogue
June 14, 2068
The old woman shuffled over to a stack of books in the living room and picked through them like a hungry bird going over a feeder. She smiled as she found the one she wanted. It was the one she had checked out from the island’s small library the previous day. She laid it on the kitchen table. It had been annoying when the librarian rejected her library card, and instead asked her to place her palm over a scanner in order to check out the book.
New rules, the librarian had said. We’ve upgraded to DNA verification for checkouts.
In a place like this? She thought. A tropical island decades behind the rest of the world? Well, whatever. She had surrendered her now-useless card to the librarian and put her hand on the scanner. I really have to read this one, she thought. Hope it’s better than the other books some people have written about us. Most of them were bullshit.
Thank you, the librarian had said. Enjoy the book.
F.B.I. director Mark McCallum stared in disbelief at the red flag notice in his hand. This has to be a mistake, he thought. A DNA hit on one of the most famous cases in F.B.I. history? Those three were supposed to be dead decades ago. He looked at the name of the place where the hit had originated. It had come from a library terminal in some country outside the United States. He had never heard of the place. Where the hell is it? “Show location,” he said to the computer terminal on his desk. A few seconds later, he saw the location as a projected 3-D image, a hologram shimmering out in front of his desk. It was an obscure little island in the South Pacific, self-governing, with a population of less than a thousand people.
He called up a few stock pictures of the place taken from space, which were highly detailed. There was a lagoon with a small port, dotted with docks and fishing boats, with an even smaller village surrounding the port. A modest road wound along the coast with the occasional home set off a bit from the shore. Looks like paradise, he thought. McCallum shook his head in disbelief and put in a call to the Assistant Director. Someone would have to fly out there immediately and check it out. This has to be a mistake, he thought. It HAS to be.
The old woman picked up the book from her kitchen table and looked at it. The weight was heavy in her hand. Most of the library’s inventory was digital. You just downloaded what you wanted to read to whatever device you used. But there was still enough interest in print versions that the library kept a few paper books on hand for the old-fashioned folk.
She examined the cover. Revenge Story, it said in bold lettering, The Hunt for the Most Vicious American Terrorists in F.B.I. History. She made a wry face. A bit dramatic, she thought. There was a picture of Ray and Ben on the cover, with her standing between them. The cover image looked like it had been taken from a security camera somewhere. She tried to remember where she had been when it was taken, but the memory escaped her.
She had let the book sit for a couple of days now, trying
to gather the courage to open it. I’ll read it down by the beach today. The old woman put on a sun hat and stepped outside. It was another beautiful day and the smell of hibiscus was in the air. She made her way slowly from the house down to the beach, following her private boardwalk until she reached her special spot. She owned this bit of beach and her reclining chair with the sunshade was set back about twenty meters from the water.
Taking a seat, she opened the cover of the book and began to read.
It was late afternoon when two men dressed in conservative black suits knocked at the door of the beach house. There was no answer.
“Go around back and take a look,” the one in charge said.
The other man returned a minute later. “I didn’t see her in there,” he said. “It’s just a one-room cabin with a big picture window. Unless she’s in the bathroom. She could be in there.”
“Well, she can’t be far off. The neighbor said she’s about ninety years old. She’s not in town. We know that already. So how far could she go? Let’s take a look down at the beach.”
“This is probably a wild goose chase anyway, you know that right? Everyone we’ve talked to around here has nothing but nice things to say about her.”
“Yeah, I heard. She was a teacher here for years before she retired, even helped finance a new school. She has that Canadian passport on record here. It’s probably nothing; some stupid glitch with the DNA scanner maybe, but we have to check her out. Think of it as an island vacation. I wouldn’t mind hanging around the hotel here for a couple of days doing the report. Maybe we can get in some fishing.”
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