“Yeah.”
“Okay, I'm going to put my rain gear on, go into the woods, to where I can see the house. You stay down here, and keep alert. I'll call on my walkie if I see anything, and you do the same.” I started to open the door.
“Wait,” said Sally. “We've got the night-vision scope with us.”
Our department had purchased some Russian Army surplus night vision gear in 1998. Right out of a commercial catalogue. It was inexpensive, and adequate, except the battery didn't last more than four hours. We had one battery, and it took a good four hours to recharge. The recharger, naturally, was in the oiffce.
“I'll take it,” I said. “How much time you got left on the battery?”
“A good three hours.” Sally sounded apologetic. “We used 'em for a few minutes after we got here.”
I would have done the same thing, but didn't say so. Instead, “I'll only use 'em when I think I need to.”
“I really think we need two in the woods, and one down here,” she said. “Much safer down here. Can I go?”
“You got rain gear?” She had guts.
“I'll make something work,” she said. “Go get your stuff on.”
I had a pair of waterproof winter boots in my trunk, along with my rain coveralls and a shelter half. Since it was impossible to dress in the car, by the time I got the stuff on I was wet all over.
I sloshed back over to Borman's car. Sally, being only about five feet tall, had been able to get most of his gear on while she sat in his car, so she was comparatively dry. She'd rolled up his coveralls, and looked totally lost in his hooded raincoat.
“How do I do my gun?” she asked.
“Keep it all under the coat, and when we get set up up there, unzip the bottom of the coat so you can reach the holster.”
“Got it.”
“You gonna be all right down here?” I asked Borman.
“Yes.” He was the irritated one now.
“I dunno just how long we're going to be up there,” I said, “but at least until three A.M. Don't go to sleep, and keep your car locked. You really don't want that bastard getting your car.”
The odds on that were very slim, but I figured it'd help him stay awake.
Sally and I sat on the right side of the hood of Borman's car, as he crept up the drive with only his parking lights on. That way, we could be deposited without any sound of closing doors.
A minute later, she and I were standing in the cold rain, watching the receding red glow of Borman's brake lights as he backed down the drive.
“Hope nobody sees that,” said Sally.
“Not likely,” I said. There were a lot of lights on in the house. Nobody looking our way from a lighted room would be able to see anything. “Let's go this way.”
I led us to the left of the gate pillars, following the shoulder-high wall. As long as the house was lit, it was going to be easy to find the wall. Our landmark.
We went about twenty yards, to where the wall blended into the slope, and the line of trees became the demarcation between the Hunley property and the State of Iowa. It was easier to see than I had anticipated, because the house was so brightly lit. I ducked down and signaled Sally to follow me under a couple of big spruce trees. It was fairly dry under there, and it kept us out of the wind.
I knelt down, and opened the big plastic case that contained the night vision scope.
“This isn't so bad,” she whispered.
“No, better than I thought.” I fumbled a bit, got it by the big handle, and felt for the switch. I peered into the eyepiece, and was in a very brightly lit world of green hues. I swept the area, quickly. We were about fifty yards from the house, on the southwest corner. I could see pretty clearly to the opposite tree line behind the house, although the lights on the lower floor tended to overpower the scope. I looked to my right, back the way we had come. Clear. To my left, I could see about fifteen feet before the trees and undergrowth blocked the view. Behind us, it was even thicker. Good cover. I hit the zoom button, and everything got twice as big. Cool. That was a handy feature, but it was a two-edged sword. If you zoomed, your field of view was so small; you'd miss a lot of stuff. The secret was to use the zoom feature only when necessary.
I shut the night scope off, and put it back in the box, careful not to engage any latches that might make noise.
“Comfortable?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Good. Now let me tell you this… ” and I explained the elevator shaft to the mine to her.
“You mean,” she said, after I was done, “Peale could just pop up any time?”
“Yeah, sorta.”
“Jesus Christ, Houseman.”
“Don't get too worried. Just check around once in a while, that's all.”
“Just where is this elevator shaft?”
“Well, now that's a good question.” I grinned in the dark. “Somewhere to our right, I think, and a lot closer to the bluff.”
“You think?” she hissed.
“It's in with some of the old Kommune foundations. Not sure just where.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Don't know why you're worried,” I said. “You've got the garlic.” I got a discreet kick for that one.
For the next twenty-five minutes, nothing changed except the occasional occupant moving from room to room in the house. I found we could recognize them, sometimes, if they lingered in front of a window. I saw Huck, and Melissa, for sure. Otherwise, it was just cold and damp, with constant dripping as the rain filtered down through the trees.
Sally seemed to devote most of her time to looking toward our right.
Then lights started going off in the house. The parlor and dining room lights went first, then most of the lights in the kitchen. I could see Kevin at one point, very clearly, in the glazed main door. He just stood and stared out the door for a while, then disappeared from view.
“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 in 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.”
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