“You got no choice, my man.” Kermit smiled. “Information is forthcoming.” He beeped the horn. “The ol’ K-Dog is the only channel in town.”
CHAPTER TEN
Andie was gone when Michael got back to Hut No. 7.
He stood in the doorway and examined his small living space. Everything appeared to be as he had left it. There was a pile of dirty clothes in the corner (to the extent that a round hut had a corner). His old battered briefcase was still collecting dust next to his dresser. And then, his black and white picture of the Irish revolutionary and his namesake, Michael Collins, stared down at the him from its place on the wall.
Michael, then, noticed a note on his pillow. He set his backpack on the floor and walked over to the bed. He picked up the note.
It was from Andie. She needed to talk with him.
Upon reading those words, Michael rolled his eyes. Of course she wanted to talk, he thought, she always wanted to talk.
But this time, Andie didn’t want to talk about their relationship.
###
His mind flooded with a mixture of anger and grief. Michael ran outside, down the path toward the resort’s bar and main office. It was the same path he had walked with Tad Garvin a little more than twenty-four hours ago.
He went in the back door, cut through the shabby lobby, and startled Andie when he burst into the office.
“What’s going on with Father Stiles?” Michael moved toward her. She sat at the desk, her face drawn. She didn’t say anything, and so Michael continued. “When?”
“This morning. I got the call this morning, but it happened a few days ago. The people at the church weren’t sure how to reach you.” Andie paused. She tried to find the right words.
Michael looked at her, and she stared back at him with tears in her eyes.
“Is he …” Michael’s voice trailed off.
He was unable to complete the question, but Andie understood. She nodded and got up. Andie walked out from behind the desk to Michael.
She held him, and she kissed his cheek. She whispered that she was sorry in his ear, and she did all the things that people do to comfort someone who had lost. They were the right things to do, but they were never enough.
Michael stepped back from her. He struggled to find the words. Father Stiles had been a mentor and a friend. He knew Michael’s secrets, but never passed judgment. The priest had helped raise him after his mother died, and he had been the one constant in his life that he could always trust.
Michael shook his head. “I don’t know what to think.”
Andie didn’t let him get too far away. She closed the space and took Michael’s hand. “You don’t have to think anything right now.”
“I know, but I’m not sure …” Michael’s voice trailed off, again.
“They said it was cardiac arrest,” Andie said. “There wasn’t anything that anybody could have done.” Michael looked away from her, thinking.
“We should just take it one step —” A loud crash interrupted Andie.
It came from the other side of the wall, wood splintering. Someone was in the bar. There was the sound of glass breaking, as liquor bottles smashed on the floor.
Michael wiped away a tear, his eyes narrowing.
He and Andie ran out of the office and into the lobby. Andie unlocked an interior door between the lobby and the bar.
They looked around. The bar’s front door was broken and open and the floor was covered with shattered glass and a large puddle of alcohol. As they surveyed the empty space, Michael heard an engine start outside.
They went to the bar’s open front doorway and stopped. Helpless, they stood and watched a forest green SUV bounce away.
Michael felt dizzy, confused. One second he had been thinking about going to jail, then Father Stiles, and now this. Michael turned to look at Andie, and, when he did, the breeze from the Caribbean changed directions. Air came through the bar toward the door, and Michael caught the smell of gasoline.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The crowd was happy. It had been a long time since the crowd was happy, and it made him smile. He checked the rearview mirror as the fire grew and a thick line of smoke twisted up into the sky.
The crowd wanted to watch the show, but he didn’t want to stop, yet. He needed to get further away.
“I know what happened,” he shouted at them. “I don’t need to watch.” He giggled and pounded the steering wheel.
Some in the crowd disagreed, but he didn’t listen.
“Don’t you see? Don’t you see what I can accomplish when you let me think.? You have to trust me sometimes.” He shouted at them to be quiet. “Just let me get further away. Then I’ll stop.”
He turned onto the main highway, and he drove a half-mile further and then pulled over. He looked at the darkening sky. The fire continued to burn.
It had been a good morning.
After waiting for Michael Collins to return, the crowd had wanted to attack the lawyer in his hut. But he was too smart for that. The crowd was impatient, but he knew there’d be a better opportunity.
Collins didn’t know he was there. Collins didn’t know he was in danger.
The explosion was huge, bigger than the one he had watched on YouTube, better than the website promised.
He savored the moment, but felt a little sad that it was over so quickly. He had thought it would be more of a challenge, especially after the debacle with Father Stiles.
He yelled at the crowd again. “I want to hear some congratulations! I want to hear some praise from you.”
He smiled.
Michael Collins and Andie Larone were dead.
He was sure of it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It took ten minutes for the Sunset’s bar to collapse upon itself. Flames shot up a hundred feet. The air had turned thick and gray. Unlike Cancun or even Playa del Carmen, there was nobody to call. Nobody was going to come and put out the fire.
Michael could only watch it burn.
Kermit was assigned the task of keeping the resort’s guests from getting too close. Michael stayed away from all of them. He was worried that if he was forced to talk to the guests, there was a good chance he would kill the first person who requested a refund.
Instead, Michael limped through the rest of the resort with a fire extinguisher, inspecting the series of other huts and the resort’s odd scramble of buildings. He looked for a stray ember, trying to prevent another one from catching on fire and figuring out what he should do.
###
When there was nothing left except a pile of charred wood and debris, Michael handed his fire extinguisher to Kermit.
“Keep an eye on things. I’m checking on Andie.”
Kermit cocked his head to the side. “She gonna be fine?”
“Just a cut,” Michael said. “Could’ve been worse. We happened to be in the doorway, and I smelled the gas. Managed to pull us out a few feet before it went up.”
“Then go.” Kermit puffed out his chest, trying to look tough. “I got it under control, muchacho.”
The adrenaline had worn off and Michael started to feel the damage. His arms were red and raw from the sudden burst of heat, probably first-degree burns. His neck and lower back were sore from being snapped forward in the explosion, and his ankle was twisted and swollen from when he had turned and grabbed Andie.
The further he walked away, the more beaten he felt. The currents were pulling him under. People and the things that he loved were getting hurt again.
###
Michael found Andie sitting alone on ‘The Point,’ a rocky peninsula that curved off the Sunset Resort’s shoreline and out into the water a hundred yards.
Andie sat on a beach towel, leaning back against a large boulder. Her face and clothes were dirty. She held a large white bandage with a little bit of dried blood in the middle. Occasionally, Andie touched her forehead with the bandage, using it to check to see if her cut was still closed or had started bleeding aga
in.
“Need a beer?” Michael sat down beside her. He put his hand on her knee.
The edge of her lip curled slightly into a smile.
“You’re trying to be cute now?” Andie looked up at the sky. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.” She sniffed.
“About being cute?” Michael picked up a handful of rocks, letting the smaller stones and sand sift through his fingers while he retained the larger ones. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the waves. “Cuteness is one of my better qualities.”
“Sometimes,” Andie said. “Sometimes it’s a better quality. Sometimes it isn’t.”
They sat without words for awhile longer.
“I know I’m somehow responsible for this,” Michael nodded toward the smoldering pile across the water. “And I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Andie said. “I knew something would happen when I came back.” She paused, before finishing. “I knew that it wasn’t over.”
Andie adjusted and turned, looking at Michael.
“You told me who you were. You told me what you did, and I came back anyway. Full disclosure.” Andie looked at the bandage in her hand. “My fault.”
Michael tossed a rock out into the water, and then set the other stones down on the ground by his side.
“They’ve frozen our accounts. I have to check, but I’m doubtful that they missed any.”
“I know.”
“There’s probably an indictment and they’re probably starting the extradition process to bring me back right now.”
Andie nodded, again. “Figured.”
“And then there’s that.“ Michael looked back toward the shore; smoke rising from where the resort’s bar and office was once located. “And this.” Michael looked at the bandage in Andie’s hand, and then he shrugged his shoulders.
“How many times can I get away?” Michael put his hand on Andie’s knee. “How many people are going to get hurt in the process?”
Andie rolled her head back and around, letting the tension escape her neck.
“Depends on how bad you want to get away.”
Michael nodded. “Or what it’ll cost me.”
“You had nothing to do with Father Stiles,” she said. “It was a heart attack. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“But I could have been there.”
Andie nodded. “You could have.” She shrugged. “But it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“And what about you?” Michael looked at the cut on Andie’s head, then back across the water to where the office and bar once were. “You could’ve gotten killed.”
“But I didn’t,” she said.
Michael picked up another handful of rocks and started sifting them.
“While I was away, I thought about whether I could trust you. Can you believe that?”
Andie smiled. “Of course,” she said. “I pop back into your life, and things go to hell.”
“You said it, not me.” Michael threw another rock into the water. “But if I don’t trust you and Kermit, then I don’t see what point there is in being here, in being anywhere.”
Michael turned to her. “What if I turned myself in? What if I stopped hiding?”
Andie closed her eyes, sad.
“Are you wondering whether I’d wait for you? Whether I’d stick around for twenty years for you to be released?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” Michael shuffled his foot in the sand, and then he threw the remainder of his rocks into the water. They plunked and popped in rapid succession. “Prison isn’t exactly the best place for love to grow.”
“Well, I do love you.” Andie moved closer to Michael, taking his hand. “I’d try.”
“About all that anybody could ask.” Michael raised her hand to his cheek, rubbed it and then gave Andie’s hand a soft kiss. “But I know the odds.” He let her hand go. “It’s asking you to give up a life.”
“I said I’d try.” Andie turned and kissed Michael. She playfully pushed him on his back and climbed on top of him, her legs straddling his torso. “But wouldn’t you rather fight it and stay together? Go down shooting?”
Andie took Michael’s wrists and raised them above his head, pinning him to the ground.
“I’m better at fighting, Michael.” Her little grin spread into a wicked smile. It was the spirit that he fell in love with. “You have to have an idea.”
“You want another Houdini act?”
Andie laughed and kissed Michael hard on the lips. It hurt his sore body, but in a good way.
“I always liked ropes,” she said. Then Andie kissed him again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The young agent walked across the FBI’s bullpen of cubicles to the outer offices that were reserved for senior investigators. Agent Billy Armstrong knocked on the door.
“Busy,” Vatch barked.
Armstrong knocked again, opening the door. He peeked his head inside, holding up a sheet of paper. “Thought you’d want to know about this.”
“Doubtful.” Vatch turned away from his computer screen and gestured for Armstrong to come inside. Vatch had been told that he was supposed to mentor Armstrong, which Vatch decided was permission to be even crueler to the young agent than he was to everybody else. “Must be another dress code memo.”
Vatch reached out for the piece of paper, and Armstrong handed the memo to him. He adjusted the distance of the piece of paper from his face, trying to focus. Vatch had needed glasses for the past year, but he refused. They were too expensive and Vatch believed eye doctors were just hucksters selling overpriced plastic.
His beady eyes scanned the document, and Vatch’s tongue flicked out his narrow mouth as he read the lines that Armstrong had highlighted. Then he nodded.
Agent Armstrong beamed, all optimism. “Looks like we’re going to get him.”
Vatch said nothing.
“Been checking the flight register every day since the priest died,” Armstrong continued. “Figured he’d be coming back for the funeral.”
“You’re a regular Nancy Drew.” Vatch put the paper down on his desk, and then he looked back at Armstrong. He had a strange, unfamiliar feeling. Vatch almost thanked Armstrong, but he was able to suppress the impulse. Vatch, instead, gave the young agent a nod, turned back to his computer and resumed typing.
“Shut the door on your way out, will you? Got plans to make.”
###
The flight from Cancun was scheduled to arrive at LaGuardia in the late afternoon. Vatch reviewed the airline’s flight manifest. Since the September 11 attacks, airlines had to submit lists of passengers to the government for all flights.
The CIA and the National Security Agency had always had access to the information, whether through legal or other mechanisms. But for the FBI, access to flight manifests was relatively new. It had been a significant help in tracking down people of interest, although none of the people of interest were terrorists.
According to the list, Michael Collins, Andie Larone, and the weird guy had booked their flight late the night before.
Vatch set the paper down on his desk and leaned back. He thought about how many agents he should call for backup or whether he should just rely on the immigration officers at the airport.
He wanted to do the arrest himself. He didn’t want to share the glory, but he also didn’t want to let Michael slip away again.
It seemed too easy, although Vatch doubted whether Michael Collins knew about the indictment. Grand jury proceedings were supposed to be confidential and he was thousands of miles away.
Vatch pulled up his email account, typed a summary of the situation, and then clicked the “send” button. Instantly, the message was directed to the bureau chief, his immediate supervisor, and United States Attorney Brenda Gadd. Go big or not at all, he thought.
It was a call for six to nine additional agents, but he made it clear that Michael Collins was only to be questioned by him.
Vatch look
ed up at the clock on his wall, and then checked the flight time again.
He had an hour and a half to get to the airport, which was just enough time to find a lowly federal prosecutor and get a warrant from a judge to detain Andie Larone and Kermit Guillardo as material witnesses.
Hopefully they’d lie or be uncooperative, Vatch thought, then he could charge them with obstructing a federal law enforcement investigation, maybe aiding and abetting after the fact.
That would be nice.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kermit Guillardo leaned back in his seat, stretched his legs, and ordered another whiskey sour.
It felt good, not being packed in the back of the plane. He had conned his way into first class, despite Michael’s refusal to buy him a first class ticket. That was the power of quantum chromodynamics.
Kermit looked at his hands, something that most ordinary people would view as a solid mass. Then he touched the armrest of his seat. His hand appeared to stop, but Kermit knew that was an illusion. Physical boundaries did not exist. It was all energy. He could feel the subatomic quarks pull apart, merge with the quarks that built the subatomic parts of the armrest, and then his foundation immediately regenerate to fill the void and stop his hand from going any further. Yet, energy was exchanged between his hand and the armrest and energy was created in preventing a merger between the two.
It was simple, Kermit thought. It was all rooted in the standard model of non-abelian gauge theory:
U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3)
The model was premised on the existence of twelve gauge bosons, some weak and some strong. This wasn’t a particularly new area of physics and mathematics. It had been theorized for thirty years, but he was taking QCD to a whole different level of application.
Through QCD and yoga he changed the power within himself. Kermit built upon his foundational work with the concepts of numeric equilibrium as well as the practical application of general semantics to create a new understanding of the world and how to interact with it.
J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 03 - No Time To Hide Page 5
