Start life anew. The phrase triggered the memory that had been eluding me. “Come on!” I said, getting up and heading for the door.
Brady didn’t hesitate. “What is it?” he asked as we climbed into the white Explorer.
I drove fast through the flowing darkness. “It’s Dyer,” I said. “He told Harry the soundman that he lives on the island, but he doesn’t. According to the records, he lives in California and only came here after Harry’s regular assistant got himself smashed up in an automobile accident out there. When Dyer showed up at the sound truck here looking for work, Harry thought he was a gift from God, but it wasn’t God’s work, it was Dyer’s.”
“And according to Harry, he’s wired the whole sound system,” said Brady. “What in hell’s he got in mind?” He gripped the handle above his door. “Put the pedal to the metal, J.W.!”
I did that, and in our headlights the highway raced toward us. We came to the driveway leading to the Celebration and I flashed my FBI ID card at the guards. They waved us through.
We’d almost reached the parking area when a dark Land Rover flicked on its headlights and started toward us. The road was narrow and I pulled off to the side to let the car pass. As it did, the parking area lights shining through the Rover’s clear windows gave us a plain view of the driver and of a passenger in the rear seat.
“Dyer and Janie!” exclaimed Brady.
I gunned onto the parking area and threw a fast U-turn. Brady was out of the truck in a flash. “You go after them!” he said. “I have to find Christa!”
I spun sand and raced after Dyer.
At the highway I saw headlights going toward West Tisbury and followed them. I felt like a tin man, empty of all emotion other than a cold fear that I might be pursuing the wrong vehicle.
The Explorer had plenty of zip and I closed rapidly until, to my relief, I saw that the car ahead of me was indeed the Land Rover.
I accelerated past Dyer, pulled in front of him, and slammed on my brakes. The Land Rover smashed into the rear of my truck and both vehicles slewed off the road and stopped.
My neck hurt, but I climbed out and ran back to the Land Rover. Steam boiled from its smashed radiator but its headlights were still on. I yanked the rear right-hand door open and found Janie, dazed, held safely by her seat belt. In the driver’s seat, Dyer, his door ajar, also seemed stunned. I reached in and unsnapped Janie’s seat belt and pulled her to me.
“You’ll be all right,” I said.
“Where’s Mommy? He said he was taking me to Mommy!”
“She’s fine,” I said in the gentlest voice I could manage. “I’ll take you to her.”
I looked up and saw that Dyer had not only unsnapped his own seat belt, but was brandishing a pistol. He twisted and swung it back toward me in a clumsy arc.
“You’re not taking anybody anywhere,” he mumbled.
I pushed Janie down and dropped to my knees as he fired. Window glass exploded above my head and Janie cried out in fear.
Time seemed to slow down. I dug the Beretta from my belt as Dyer fired again and I imagined that I heard the slug whisper by my ear.
Then I straightened fast and shot him four times and he dropped his pistol and fell out of his open door onto the ground.
“Stay right here,” I said to Janie.
I walked around to where Dyer was lying. There was blood coming out of his mouth, but he was still alive.
“You’re pretty quick,” he said in a bubbly voice, “but you won’t be taking the girl to Mommy.”
“Lie still,” I said. “There’s a cell phone in my car. I’ll call for an ambulance.”
“Too late for that,” he said in a weakening, watery voice. “Besides, all the ambulances are going to be busy.”
There was something near amusement in his tone and it gave me a chill. “What do you mean?”
I had to put my ear next to his lips to hear his reply. “I mean that Mommy and the pols and the movie stars and all the fucking fans are going to get more of a grand finale than they expect. When the first fireworks go up, there’ll be an even bigger bang, and the whole crowd will go up, too, in pieces. Nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”
His failing voice choked and ceased, and as I looked with horror back toward the site of the Celebration, I saw a thin trail of sparks rise over trees and the first starburst of the fireworks fill the sky with diamonds. All I could think of was Zee.
Chapter Twenty-six
Brady
After I leaped out of J.W.’s Explorer, I stood there for a minute in the parking lot. The image of Janie’s confused little face peering at us from the rear window of that Range Rover was burned into my mind. So was the image of Frank Dyer’s determined, snarly face behind the wheel.
I hoped to hell J.W. caught up with them.
I shook my head. I had to focus on Christa. If I didn’t grab her now, I might never get another chance.
I started trotting toward the soundstage. I weaved among the acres of vehicles that were jammed close together in the big sandy field that served as the parking lot for the Celebration for Humanity. Ahead of me I could see the scaffolding behind the giant stage rising up against the night sky. It was illuminated by pulsing red-white-and-blue lights.
Somebody—it sounded like Evangeline—was speaking. Her distorted voice boomed and echoed from the speakers, but it was easy to hear the emotion in it. “We celebrate the harmony and love that unite all people in every corner of the world,” she was saying. “We must lift our voices as one. Our message of peace and unity must be heard. So please, everyone, join us now in song.”
Then instruments began playing, and twenty thousand voices—performers and audience all together—began singing “America the Beautiful.”
As I trotted along the side of the parking area, I saw that the stage was jammed with performers, all with their arms around one anothers’ waists. They were swaying back and forth and singing their hearts out, and so was the audience.
Suddenly from somewhere behind me came the roar of an engine. I jumped back just in time to avoid getting run down by a speeding vehicle. When I turned to shake my fist at it, I saw that it was a green Range Rover.
A moment later, another green Range Rover whizzed past me, and two others followed closely behind that one.
Each of the four green Range Rovers carried several men dressed in black.
Simon Peters.
The phrase “rats deserting a sinking ship” passed through my mind.
I didn’t know what kind of sinking ship we were dealing with here. But the Simon Peters appeared to be deserting it, and they were in an awfully big hurry. And Frank Dyer had been the lead rat.
He was capable of anything, Charlie had said.
If Dyer and the other Simon Peters were in such a big hurry to get out of there, I was pretty sure I’d better get Christa Doyle the hell out of there, too. And pronto.
I shoved my way past a clot of people beside the stage. Some of them wore uniforms. More security, I assumed. But they were singing, too, all caught up in the emotional fervor of the occasion, and they didn’t try to stop me as I worked my way around the side of the stage area, amid cables and speakers and more singing people.
About then they began the second verse. I couldn’t remember how many verses there were to “America the Beautiful.” Many, I thought. I wondered if they intended to sing all of them.
At that moment, without warning, Princess Ishewa’s expressive face flashed in my memory. Explosions, she had said. Bright lights. Whatever her second sight had shown her had horrified her.
The images she had seen had gotten her killed.
I remembered that a giant fireworks display would begin at the finale, like cannons merging with the music toward the end of the “1812 Overture.”
“America the Beautiful” was surely the finale.
Cannons?
Princess Ishewa’s voice was speaking to me. I heard it clearly. “Stop Christa,” she was sayi
ng.
Something forced me to pause and close my eyes, and inside my head images began to flash. I saw great explosions of fire, one after the other, as rapid as repeating gunshots, as loud as cannons. They were blinding against the dark sky, and huge clouds of black smoke billowed up into the night.
In my head I heard the screaming of twenty thousand terrified voices.
The images were vivid and real, more like memory than imagination. It was as if I’d seen it all before, as if I’d witnessed it in some other life.
Already seen.
Déjà vu.
Second sight.
I didn’t believe in any of that. And yet I absolutely knew, though I couldn’t say how, that Princess Ishewa was speaking to me, telling me that I had to get Christa out of there before they finished singing.
I began to run. I darted around the back of the stage, and in the shadows way off to the side I spotted the sound truck. That’s where she was. I headed for it.
Suddenly a man in a khaki Park Service uniform stepped in front of me. “Hey,” he said. He fumbled for a revolver that was holstered on his hip.
I skidded to a stop.
“Where are you going?” he said. He got his revolver out and pointed it at me. “No one’s supposed to be back here.”
I stepped close to him and put my hand around my ear. “What did you say?” I shook my head and frowned. “All this noise.”
“I said—”
I hauled off and punched him as hard as I could on the point of his chin. His eyes rolled up, his knees buckled, and he went down without uttering a sound.
“I haven’t got time to discuss it,” I said. “Very sorry.”
I picked up his revolver from where it had fallen and ran to the sound truck. The door was shut. I grabbed the handle. Shit. Locked.
I rattled the doorknob. “Christa!” I yelled. “It’s Brady. Come on. Get out of there!”
I heard nothing from inside.
I pounded on the door. “Christa!” I called again. “You’ve got to—”
It didn’t register consciously, but somehow I sensed that someone had come up behind me, and I managed to duck my head sideways so that the heavy, thudding blow landed on my left shoulder rather than the top of my head. It staggered me and instantly numbed my left arm. My instinctive reaction was to drop to the ground and roll away from the direction of the blow, so that the kick of the booted foot that was aimed for my kidneys glanced off my hip.
I managed to scuttle away and turn to face him, and I saw that it was one of the Simon Peters, the one who had stopped me at my car the first time I’d visited Alain Duval. He had a big, square automatic pistol in his hand.
“So it’s you again,” he said. He was grinning at me, as if he was glad to see me.
I’d managed to hang on to the revolver I’d taken from the park ranger. I was holding it behind me in my right hand.
“Why didn’t you leave with the rest of them?” I said to him.
“Frank told me to stay with the girl. He’s the boss.”
“They’ve all deserted you, you know.”
He shrugged. “I do what I’m told.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m telling you to let me talk to her. If you don’t, we’ll all die.”
He laughed. “The only ones that’re gonna die are her and you. You first.” He started to raise his automatic.
A kind of cold numbness had come over me, and I reacted before I thought. I brought the revolver around and shot him before he could shoot me. My first shot hit him high on the right side of his chest, and a red spot blossomed just under his collarbone. It knocked him sideways, so that my second shot got him under his left armpit.
He staggered backward, crashed to the ground, and didn’t move.
I pushed myself to my feet and went over to the Simon Peter, who had fallen in the dark, shadowy area beside the sound truck. He looked dead. I picked up his automatic and tossed it into the darkness.
Then I went to the front of the sound truck. I pounded on the door. “Christa!” I yelled. “It’s Brady. We’ve got to get out of here right now.”
After a moment, the door opened and a man stood there. This one wasn’t a Simon Peter. I recognized him. He was a technician who operated the sound equipment. I assumed he had no idea what was going on.
He frowned at me. “What’s going on?” he said. “Who are you?”
“Is Christa in there?” I said.
“Well, sure,” he said, “but—”
I put the muzzle of the revolver against his forehead. “Out,” I said.
His eyes widened. “I can’t just—”
I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him out the door. He went sprawling on the ground. I stood over him and waved the revolver menacingly. “You go for the cops, I’m gonna shoot that girl in there, understand?”
He nodded.
I leaned over him and pressed the gun against his nose. “I’m dead serious,” I said.
He held up both hands. “Okay, okay. I won’t do nothing. Don’t shoot anybody, for God’s sake.”
I glowered at him for a minute, then turned back to the sound truck. I assumed that as soon as I went in, he’d scoot for the nearest cop. I didn’t have much time.
I pushed the door open. Christa was sitting in a folding chair. She turned when she heard me and smiled. “Oh, good. Uncle Brady. It’s you. I was afraid you weren’t coming.” I noticed that her eyes were vacant and unfocused.
“Christa, we’ve got to get out of here. Right now.”
“I’m almost ready,” she said. “Where’d Harry go?”
“Harry left like I told him to,” I said. “Now you’ve got to. Come on. Before they finish singing.”
She shook her head. “This is the finale,” she said. “It’s almost over. I got a job to do. Then we can go home. Right? We’re going home?”
I was aware that outside the sound truck the singing throngs had segued into another verse of “America the Beautiful.” How many verses could there be?
“We’re going home right this minute,” I said.
She clenched her jaw and lowered her head and looked up at me. “I gotta do my job first.”
I looked around the inside of the sound truck. There were half a dozen computer monitors on one long table, and coiled cables lay everywhere on the floor. A big panel of lights and switches and levers took up the entire back wall of the inside of the truck.
“What exactly is your job?” I said to Christa.
She smiled. “Well, see, right when they finish singing ‘America the Beautiful’ the fireworks start going off, and that’s when I’m supposed to take this plug here”—she showed me a thick electrical cable with a three-pronged plug on the end of it—“and I plug it in here”—she pointed at a socket on the panel—“and then I just pull down this lever. It’s connected to all the speakers. Frank spent a lot of time hooking it up. It picks up the sound of the fireworks going off and makes ’em really loud. Pretty good, huh?”
I remembered something Joe Begay had told J.W. and me: In the military, Frank Dyer had disarmed land mines.
“You can’t do that,” I said to her.
“What do you mean?” she said. “Course I can. It’s my special job. It’s important. Frank says it’s an honor.”
Princess Ishewa’s face loomed in my memory. I remembered the horror in her eyes, and I heard the explosions, saw the fireballs and billowing black smoke. The agonized screams of twenty thousand souls echoed in my brain.
I grabbed Christa’s shoulder, pulled her toward me, and looked into her eyes. “What did you take?”
“Huh?”
“The drugs. What’re you on?”
She smiled placidly. “Happy pills. I took my happy pills like a good girl.”
“Let me see that cable for a minute.”
“This?” She held up the heavy cable with the three-pronged plug on the end of it.
“Yes. That one.”
She handed it to me.
“Cover your ears,” I said to her.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
I put the cable on the floor, bent down, placed the muzzle of the revolver against the rubber plug, turned my head away, and pulled the trigger.
Inside the truck, it sounded like a bomb going off.
The plug had disintegrated.
“Oh, no!” Christa screamed. “Oh, my God! What did you do?”
“I think I saved twenty thousand lives,” I said. I reached for her hand. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
She pulled away from me and crouched there with her hands covering her face. “You wrecked it,” she wailed. Her shoulders were heaving. “It was my one job, and you wrecked it.”
I went over to her, grabbed her arm, jerked her to her feet, and slapped her face. “Come with me right now,” I said in the sternest voice I could muster. I slapped her again. “You must do what I say. Do you understand?”
She stared at me, and then the tears welled up in her dark eyes. She blinked a few times, then smiled and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We can go home now.” She held out her hand to me, and I took it.
As Christa and I walked out the door of the sound truck, orange and green and pink lights began exploding over our heads. We stopped and tilted our faces up to watch. The ka-booms of the pyrotechnics mingled with the cheering voices of twenty thousand celebrants and shuddered the earth under our feet.
A man was standing in our path. “That’s him,” he said. “That’s the guy.”
It was the park ranger I’d punched on the chin. He was flanked on one side by a man in a suit and on the other by a uniformed policeman. I recognized the guy in the suit. It was J.W.’s FBI friend, Jake Spitz.
Spitz and the cop both had their handguns pointed at me.
“Some show, huh?” I said, gesturing at the sky.
“What the hell is going on?” said Spitz.
I looked at the ranger. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
He rubbed his chin. “If I’d had my wits about me, I’d’ve shot you. I’m not very good with guns.”
“Good thing for me,” I said. I pointed into the shadow beside the sound truck where the Simon Peter I’d shot lay crumpled on the ground. “Did you see that?”
Second Sight Page 24
