Wall of Night

by Grant Blackwood

  He heard a squeak and immediately recognized the sound. Floorboard in the foyer hall.

  He spun.

  A shadow dashed around the corner into the foyer. Then, more creaking: footsteps going up the stairs. Latham sprinted down the hall, moving fast, then stopped short. No, Charlie!

  Even as he was ducking back, he heard a crack from the landing above like two heavy books being slammed together. He felt a sting of heat on his left forearm, but kept back-pedaling.

  Stupid, stupid …

  They’d baited him, and it had almost worked. His forearm was slick with blood. He wriggled his fingers; no bones or ligaments hit. He backed into the kitchen, found a dish towel, then wrapped it around the wound. Wincing, he pressed his arm against chest.

  They were upstairs. If they wanted to get out, they had to come past him.

  Back in the hall, he turned sideways and leaned his head out for a peek at the landing. It was clear. Okay, Charlie, second floor: bathroom at the top of the steps; hallway goes left and right. Master bedroom to the right; spare bedrooms to the left …

  He backed into the foyer, his gun trained on the landing. The tiles felt cold under his feet. He sidestepped toward the stairs, hand groping until his fingers touched the banister. He started up the stairs. At the third step, he stopped. He tested the tread with his toes until he found the cracked floorboard.

  Eyes fixed on the landing above, he put his weight on the tread. It creaked.

  Suddenly, a figure was there, rushing from the bathroom door. Latham shifted his aim and pulled the trigger. The figure’s gun winked back. Bullets ripped into the wall. Charlie dropped to one knee, fired two more shots. The figure kept coming. Center mass, Charlie … He fired twice more.

  The figure let out an explosive grunt, then doubled over and tumbled down the steps, landing in a heap on the tiles. Latham reached out with his foot, kicked the gun away, then rolled the body onto its back. Grandpa Zi. The old man had three wounds, two in his side, one in the sternum.

  “Christ,” Latham muttered. Three shots and he’d kept coming.

  He stepped over the body and started up the stairs. One more to go. Where was she?

  He imagined her hiding in the darkness, listening to the gunfire, waiting for him.

  Check the spare bedrooms first, then move down the hall, clearing rooms as you go—

  He felt a chill breeze on his back. He looked over his shoulder.

  Standing in the center of the foyer, her gun leveled with his chest, was Grandma Zi.

  The front door was open and Latham instantly realized what she’d done: From the laundry room she’d gone out the front door and waited for him to pass. With the moonlight at her back, her face was in shadow. She looked so tiny, almost comically so, with the too-large gun in her hand.

  He was done. He might get off one shot, but not quickly enough. Even so, he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. He tensed, readying himself.

  “Freeze … FBI!”

  Grandma Zi spun toward the kitchen hall. She raised her gun. There was a double boom. Her head snapped back. She pirouetted to the right, then fell crumpled in the open doorway.

  “Charlie!” Randall shouted. “Charlie!”

  “I’m here!” Latham’s legs started trembling. With one hand on the banister, he sat down on the steps. He laid his gun beside his feet. “It’s okay, come on through!”

  Randall came around the corner, sidestepped to Grandma Zi, kicked the gun away, and checked her pulse. “She’s alive, but not by much,” Randall said. “Jesus, Charlie, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, it not bad. God, I’m shaking.”

  Randall let out an adrenaline chuckle. “Your car looks like hell, Charlie.”

  Latham let out his own laugh. “Nothing a little duct tape won’t cure—Mrs. Felton!”

  “What?”

  “My neighbor!” Latham pointed at Grandma Zi. “Take her—Germantown Memorial … it’s three miles down two-seventy. We need her alive, and I need to find their car before the police get here. You’ve gotta buy me a little time.”

  They quickly searched both bodies and found a set of car keys on Grandpa Zi.

  “Go, Paul!”

  Randall scooped up Grandma Zi and ran out the door. As he got in his car and squealed down the street, Latham sprinted across to Mrs. Felton’s house. The front door was locked. He ran to the back door, turned the knob. It was open. “Mrs. Felton!” God, let her be alive … “Mrs. Felton!”

  Above his head he heard thumping. At the top of the stairs, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a cluster of mewling cats. He picked his way through them and rushed into the bedroom.

  Mrs. Felton lay gagged and bound to her bed. Seeing him, her eyes rolled wildly. Latham removed the gag. “Oh, Charlie, I’m sorry, they made me—”

  “Forget it, Mrs. Felton. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes. My cats! Where are my cats?”

  Latham smiled. “Your cats are fine.”

  There was no way to avoid it. The police had to be involved. One person was dead in his house, another was at the hospital with a bullet in her skull. Even if he were so inclined, Latham couldn’t cover that up. Still, he wasn’t about to let the case unravel. He flipped open his cell phone, called Dutcher, and recounted the incident.

  “Paul’s taken her to the hospital,” he finished. “I’ve got to call the cops, and then my boss. I’ve got their keys; I’m guessing their car is nearby. Can you send Cahil or Tanner?”

  “Charlie, it might be time to cut our losses—”

  “If we get their car, we can track down where they’re living. This could be the break we need, Leland. If we hand it to the police, we lose it all.”

  “You’re sure the police aren’t already on their way?”

  “Aside from Mrs. Felton, my closest neighbor is a quarter mile away. Besides, the sheriff’s station is, two miles from here. If they’d gotten a call, they’d already be here.”

  “Okay, I’m sending Cahil—but I want him out of there before you start making calls.”

  “No problem. Tell him to hurry. I’ve got a dead man lying in my foyer.”

  37

  USS Columbia, Bay of Vrangel, Russia

  “Conn, Sonar: Bottom’s coming up. Looks like we’ve got the shelf, Skipper.”

  “How far, Sonar?” asked Kinsock.

  “We still have three hundred feet under the keel.”

  “Conn, aye.” Kinsock returned to the chart. Clustered around him were Jim MacGregor and Sconi Bob Jurens. “Gentlemen,” he whispered, “now it starts getting dicey. Sconi, if you guys want your tour money back, ask now.”

  Jurens laughed. “How often does a man get a chance to invade Russia?”

  “We’re about to find out. Once we cross into their waters, it’s the same thing as standing on their soil. So we’re agreed: I’ll put you two miles off the beach, you swim the rest.”

  “Suits us fine. How long?”

  “Best case: four hours. That’s without much traffic overhead. We’re gonna take it slow and quiet. If they catch us close in-shore, we’ll have no room to maneuver.”

  “How’s the water temp?”

  Kinsock glanced over his shoulder at the display. “Fifty-two degrees.”

  “Ouch,” said MacGregor.

  Kinsock replied, “Hell, that’s warm for these parts.”

  “Maybe so,” Jurens said, “but cold for my parts. Why don’t you check into finding a tropical current for us, Archie. I’m gonna go roust my guys. Gimme a call when we’re two hours out.”

  Jurens and his men hauled their gear from the coat locker to the Officer’s Wardroom, where they began final equipment checks.

  Jurens watched each man as he worked. We’re okay, he thought. Everybody’s head was where it needed to be: Focused on the job, running through mental checklists, working through contingencies.

  It was a fine line, Sconi knew, this
premission “what if” game: What if the insertion goes wrong? What if somebody gets hurt? What if we lose part of the equipment load? The list is endless, and it inevitably includes the more unnerving questions about capture and death, which is when rehearsal goes from being constructive to destructive.

  There was something about the human brain—caveman wiring, perhaps—that drew it to doom-and-gloom. The defense against “caveman wiring” was to exercise that long-held voodoo to which most operators secretly subscribe: Talk about coming back to the real world and that’s what’ll happen. So far it had worked for Jurens.

  Smitty caught Jurens’s smile. “What’s up, Skipper?”

  “Thinking about a big vanilla milk shake and a cheeseburger.”

  “And about a pound of French fries.”

  Dickie chimed in: “The hell with that. I’m thinking, crash the Playboy mansion, fill a Jacuzzi with grape Jell-O, and—”

  “Whoa. Grape? That’s sick. Now, raspberry I could see, but grape?”

  “Grape is good for you, Skipper Good for your urinary tract, or digestion, or something.”

  “I think they mean the real thing, Dickie—not Jell-O.”

  “Hey, don’t mess with the fantasy.”

  From the other table, Zee broke in: “My kids.”

  Jurens looked at him. “What, Zee?”

  “That’s what I’m looking forward to: Seeing my kids again.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Jurens clapped him on the shoulder. “Amen.”

  Three hours later the bulkhead phone trilled and Jurens picked it up, said, “On my way,” then hung up. “We’re there,” he announced. “Haul the gear to the escape trunk; I’ll meet you.”

  Jurens followed the passageway aft, then climbed the ladder and walked into the Control Room. Kinsock was standing before the backlighted Plexiglas status board. The room was quiet except for a few muffled voices. “How’re we doing?” Jurens asked.

  “As good as can be expected for being parked on Ivan’s doorstep. Might have a problem. The current’s running pretty fast—almost six knots and parallel to shore. Add to that our speed …”

  “That’s almost a riptide,” Jurens said.

  “Welcome to springtime in the Sea of Japan. Once you’re out of the trunk, the slipstream from the fairwater is going to beat you like a rented mule.”

  Jurens considered this. Six knots didn’t sound like much, but underwater, burdened with equipment, trying to keep the team together … “Ideas?”

  “I could stop us dead, but you’d still have the current to deal with when you release.”

  “Which escape trunk?”

  “Your pick,” said Kinsock. “Go out the forward trunk and you get bounced off the sail if you lose your grip; aft trunk means you have to dodge the vertical stabilizer.”

  “What about noise? At that speed, isn’t the hatch going to cavitate when we open it?” Jurens asked, referring to the turbulence created by the current striking the hatch face. Such noise, however slight, might be detected by nearby sonar.

  “We put dunce caps on them before we submerged. The current will slip right past ’em.”

  “How about this: Steer her into the current—say at about four knots—and we’ll go out the aft trunk. You turn abeam of the current, then we release and get dragged clear.”

  “Sconi, even if we fast-fill the trunk, the first two guys out will have a two-minute wait That’s a long time in the slipstream.”

  Jurens grinned. “That’s why they pay us the big money.”

  “Well, I’ll say this much: You’ve got a pair of brass ones. Just don’t go banging up my boat, hear me? You scratch the paint, I’ll have your ass.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Kinsock extended his hand. “Good luck. We’ll be back for you in three days.”

  “Glad to hear it My Russian isn’t good enough for an extended stay.”

  They stood together at the foot of the trunk ladder, checking one another’s wet suits, making small adjustments, glancing at the overhead occasionally as each man went through his own premission ritual: Smitty plucking at the neoprene hood beside his left ear; Zee whistling silently and drumming his thighs; Dickie compulsively flexing his fingers inside his gloves.

  They’re ready, Jurens thought In the zone. Good men.

  Jim MacGregor leaned against the bulkhead, one hand resting on the sound-powered phone. “What’s it gonna be when you get back, gentlemen? Coffee or hot chocolate?”

  In unison, the team said, “Chicken soup.”

  MacGregor laughed, and Jurens said, “Habit.”

  The sound-powered phone trilled. MacGregor snatched it up, listened for half a minute, then hung up. “We’re there. Conditions outside: Depth to the surface is thirty feet; you have a quarter moon, medium cloud cover, and light surface fog; water temperature is steady at fifty-one degrees—”

  “Lost a degree,” Smitty muttered.

  “—current is running fore to aft at six knots for a total of ten knots; no surface, subsurface, or visual contacts; the beach appears clear; sea state is five.”

  Up from four, Sconi thought. Gonna be rough out there.

  “Wind is gusting to twenty-five miles per hour, waves four to six feet, medium chop. That’s it. Any questions?” MacGregor asked.

  There were none.

  “Master Chief, you’re first.”

  Jurens climbed the ladder into the trunk and sidestepped to allow room for Smitty. A pair of hands poked through the hatch with a large rucksack. Jurens took it. The hatch closed with a thud.

  “I hate this part,” Smitty murmured.

  “Yep,” Jurens replied.

  “Going from one coffin to an even smaller coffin.”

  “But then we’re out in the big blue.”

  “Thank God.”

  They ducked under the bubble hood, a curved shell enveloping the upper third of the tank. During an emergency egress, this air pocket would be used by sailors to don their Steinke mask; in the SEALs’s case, it allowed them to conserve the oxygen scrubbers on their rebreathers until they exited.

  Inside the hood, Jurens could hear the muffled gurgle of the ocean outside Columbia’s hull. He looked across at Smitty, who gave him a thumbs-up. Jurens reached down and pushed the Diver Ready button. Two seconds passed. The lights blinked out. They were in total darkness. A red battle lantern glowed to life.

  From the bulkhead speaker, MacGregor’s voice: “Divers stand by. I am flooding the tank.”

  With a whoosh, the chamber began filling. Frothy water began climbing their legs.

  “Divers, the tank is flooding.”

  Jurens keyed the squawk box. “Confirm tank flooding.”

  He felt the icy chill through his wet suit and could taste the metallic tang of compressed air around him. His ears began squealing. He worked his jaw until he got a pop. The pain receded. The water reached his thighs, then his crotch. He felt his testicles shrink into his belly.

  With a sucking plop, the water enveloped the bubble hood.

  The “Flood Complete” light flashed to green.

  Jurens placed the regulator in his mouth and drew in a lungful of air; it was cold and coppery. He climbed the ladder to the outer hatch. Now came the hard part. With his feet braced against the ladder and his shoulders against the hatch, he turned the wheel and pushed it open.

  Bubbles rushed past him and disappeared into the darkness. With a clunk, the hatch popped into the locked position. He poked his head through.

  Half-expecting to get the slipstream in the face, he was surprised to feel nothing: The dunce cap was doing its job. He was surrounded by blackness; errant bits of phosphorescent plankton zipped past his mask, and for a dizzying moment he felt like he were hurtling through a star-filled void.

  He clipped his D-ring to the cleat then climbed out and laid himself flat on the hull. The current tugged at the edges of his body. He could feel the th
robbing of Columbia’s engines.

  Smitty appeared, clipped his D-ring to the cleat, then down the length of Jurens’s body until he, too, was lying flat on the deck. Jurens felt a double squeeze on his calf: Secure. He reached forward and closed the hatch.

  The slipstream hit them full force. Sconi could feel it rippling around him, tugging at his limbs, trying to dislodge him. Ahead, in the blackness he could make out the shadow of Columbia’s fairwater.

  They waited, clinging to the hull until finally the hatch opened again. A hand appeared out of the opening; Jurens took the proffered D-ring and locked it into place.

  The process was repeated until Zee and Dickie were clinging to the hull behind Jurens and Smitty. Jurens felt another squeeze on his calf—all secure—then reached into the hatch, dragged out their two equipment bags, and locked them down before closing the hatch.

  Jurens glanced at his watch. Come on, Archie, turn this thing …

  Suddenly he felt a shiver run through the hull. The fair-water began tilting to port, banking like the stabilizer of some great aircraft Jurens started counting. Four one-thousand, five one-thousand …

  Behind him, as planned, each man was sequentially releasing his grip on the boat and grasping the next man’s ankles. Jurens strained under the weight Seven one-thousand … eight … Now!

  He let go.

  38

  Washington, D.C.

  The cover-up—a term that Latham reluctantly decided applied to what he and Holystone were doing—went relatively smoothly.

  In the aftermath of the running gun battle with the Zis, he’d sat on his stairway, staring at the body of Grandpa Zi. In death, the man hadn’t looked the least bit dangerous.

  Cahil had arrived twenty minutes later, taken the Zis’ keys and left. He called fifteen minutes later. “Found it, Charlie. About a quarter mile away. I’ve got the registration; the name looks bogus, but the address looks genuine. This thing has been sanitized. The plates looked altered and all the VIN tags are missing. I’m going through it once more, then head over to the address.”