Waldo said, “Huh?”
“He fishtailed,” said Fitch. “Half his rig came sliding down the hill when it went over the edge. Broke the connections in half. Guess it came close to you.”
“Just a little.” Waldo suddenly chuckled, his blue eyes merry, even in the dim light. “Hell of a fish story. The one that got away.” He spread his hands as wide as he could accommodate to demonstrate just how big it had been.
“This lake have a dock?” asked Teddy.
“Oh, yeah,” said Fitch. “I almost forgot.”
“Well, I’ll get you over there right now,” said Waldo. He started up the outboard engine with an expert motion, and motioned at the two young people. “What did you forget, fella?”
“We’re fleeing from the FBI,” Fitch matter-of-factly told the elderly man. “The people up there,” he pointed with one hand, “they’re Feds, and we’re in very big trouble right now.”
“Of course, it’s all made up,” supplied Teddy helpfully. “Someone just trying to get a boatload of money, you’ll forgive the pun. And they’re trying to kill me. Him, too.”
“You kids want a beer?” asked Waldo politely. He knew when his leg was being pulled. Talk about a whopper of a story. “There’s Coors in that cooler by your feet, young fella.”
“I’m tempted but we’re going to need every ounce of sober we’ve got to get out of here.”
The boat gained speed and Waldo turned on the running lights, so he wouldn’t be bumping into other nighttime users of the lake.
Fitch looked back, trying to see the lights of the police cars, but all he could see were dim glimpses because of the thick trees. “You mind if we hurry?”
Waldo shrugged and gave his outboard a little more gas. “Take us just a minute,” he said placatingly. “But they’ll probably be waiting for us there.” He paused and chuckled again. “With you all being wanted criminals and all.”
“He’s right,” said Teddy. “If the front part of the truck didn’t block traffic, then they’re on their way, right now.”
“They’ve got to go all the way down to the entrance and it runs a long circle around to the other side of the lake, plus it’s a really winding road,” said Fitch. He’d been to this lake before a few times with F-Bob. “That’s right, Waldo?”
“Yep. That’s right. Should take an official fella about five, ten minutes to get down from the road up above. Unless they knew you’d be in the lake, in which case, they would have sent some G-Men down ahead of you.” He laughed again. It had been a perfect day. Fishing, sunshine, an exciting event, and two kids full of good humor. Besides which a huge tractor trailer which hadn’t fallen on either him or his boat.
“So, is there another road out of here?” asked Teddy. She shivered again and Fitch put his arm around her shoulders. She almost flinched away from the contact but she maintained her composure. It had gone from bad to worse. Fitch had saved them, at the expense of someone else’s property, and only prolonged the inevitable.
“Heck, no,” replied Waldo cheerfully. “Only trails up the mountains. One that leads to the Pacific Crest Trail. Saw a bunch of boy scouts headed up that way yesterday, or was it Friday?”
“One way in, only one way out,” Teddy summed it up.
“Well, now,” said Waldo. “That’s not exactly true. You can take the boat up the river to the next lake. Or you could take Lake Creek down all the way to the Metolius River. Be one heck of a trip. Lots of water falls, rocks, eddies, currents, and such.”
Fitch looked at Teddy. Teddy looked at Fitch. With what they had at the present moment they knew which way they had to go. Neither one of them liked it particularly. He said, “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”
The boat reached the dock and Waldo expertly pulled it up to the side. He stood and prepared to toss his rope around one of the wharf’s supports, when Fitch said urgently, “Waldo, quick, do they have a blanket or something? Teddy’s suffering from hypothermia.”
Teddy got the cue just before Waldo turned back around. She put her arms around her body and shook convulsively, tucking her head into her chest, and allowing her teeth to chatter loudly. Waldo took one concerned look, and stepped off onto the dock, hurrying toward the little office at the end. “I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder. “Just you hold onto your little lady, there, and I’ll fetch something warm for her.”
Just out of earshot, Fitch let Teddy go like a hot potato and disengaged the rope from the dock. Teddy remarked, “You really suck.”
“One day you can explain to Waldo why you had to steal his boat, little miss prim. You can even send him a check, if you’re feeling guilty. God knows you can afford it.” He rearranged himself at the back of the boat and gunned the outboard engine once more.
At the foot of the wharf, Waldo heard the noise and turned back. Teddy could see the puzzled look on his face under the row of yellow lights that illuminated the dock. She waved at him and yelled, “Really, really, sorry!” Then under her breath she said to Fitch, “You know damned well, I don’t have a dime to my name right now. Not unless your step-monster left some cash in these pants.”
“That’s about as likely as diamonds falling from the skies,” commented Fitch idly. “Edana manages Dad’s money like an anally retentive CPA.” He directed the fiberglass boat toward the east end of the lake. “But don’t worry, we won’t be on the creek long. I’ve got a plan.”
“Oh, glorioski,” she said. “Cliffs, motorcycles, four-wheeling extreme, now what? We go over a waterfall?” She paused. “You know, Waldo is going to mention to Special Agent Psychopath that we’re headed down the creek. He’s standing there, on the dock, watching.”
Fitch waved at Waldo. Waldo had meandered back down the dock and was standing at the end, looking at them, as if they had broken his heart. Then he waved back.
“I like him,” she said.
“Me, too,” said Fitch, “but they’re...going...to...kill...us. You slowly. Me quickly. Dead. Dead. Dead. If I had a choice between screwing someone’s eighteen-wheeler up or stealing Mr. Waldo Newman’s boat and being summarily shot in the head, I’m going to screw up the eighteen wheeler and steal Waldo’s boat. Get over it.”
They began entering the stream and Fitch added, “Thank God, the water’s deep enough here. Maybe we can get down far enough before they find a helicopter.”
Teddy settled in the boat and splashed her feet in the excess water at the bottom. “Sure we’re not sinking?”
“Nope, I’m not sure. But we won’t have far to swim.”
This was true. Lake Creek wasn’t very large. Perhaps six to ten feet across, swollen with recent rains and run-off. If it hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have been able to negotiate it. Teddy winced as the boat crunched across some hidden rocks. “What was it you were going to tell me...up there.” She pointed with her index finger. “Something about your father.”
“Yeah, well, that’s something else.” Fitch frowned as he concentrated, and Teddy almost smiled. He looked kind of strange, her savior. Dripping wet, his blonde-hair dark across his head, a wet seal with suddenly solemn eyes. Someone she’d learned to trust in a very short period of time. But he’d trusted her, as well. “Before I tell you that, I need to know something.”
“What?” The boat scraped across more rocks. It was an awful noise, like someone dragging fingernails over a chalkboard.
“You’ve got something they want, and you need it, right now. Leverage. Teddy, we can’t keep running. You’ve got to realize that by now. You’ve got to fight back, with whatever you have. Tell me what it is, so we can make a plan.”
Teddy stared at Fitch. His face was still stitched together in a mighty frown. The swollen creek was starting to speed up, the current going faster, and it was butting against rocks and debris under the water. “I’ve got proof,” she said at last.
“Proof of what?”
“That my uncle had my father killed. Undeniable proof. Irrefutable.”
�
��You’re kidding, right.”
Teddy’s face was grave. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“No, you don’t. There’s a little something about my father you should know.”
“Your father?” she repeated numbly.
“Ye-ah,” he said slowly. “Did I mention he’s the Director of the National Security Agency? He probably goes to parties with your uncle. Well, I called him today, and look who showed up on our doorstep, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
Teddy ground her teeth together and didn’t say anything.
Chapter Twenty-One
August 16th
An excerpt from Routen’s Birds of North America, edited by Houston Routen, Cacky Press, 1992, pg. 347: The Nycticorax nycticorax, or the Black-Crowned Night-Heron, is of the Ardeidae family. It is found across North America, in Central America and in the Caribbean. Some have been found to winter as far north as Oregon, and on the opposite side of the United States in the New England states. The Night-Heron has a stocky body, with short neck and legs and averages 23 - 26 inches in entirety. The adult has a black crown and back plumage. The wings tend toward pale gray, along with the sides of the neck, which contrasts with the birds’ white throat. The legs are dull yellow and the bird has a bold red eye. The habitat of the Night-Heron inclines towards wetlands, although the species can be found in forest, rivers, and streams. When it is disturbed it can be a noisy animal, with a distinctive krok-krok-krok call and a low, discordant wok. This bird is a migrating species, as well, often associating with other herons, and one of its most distinctive characteristics is that it feeds throughout the night, often avoiding competing with other herons for the same area. Another interesting aspect of the heron is that it also migrates almost exclusively at night, resting during the daylight hours...
Bishop Lee exited the vehicle and raised himself to his full height of six feet, carefully placing a green saucer cap on his head. His driver held the door and waited while the general adjusted his Army green uniform. A conglomeration of medals adorned his left breast. More medals in every color of the rainbow decorated the right side. An infantry cord formed of blue interlocking square knots crossed over his right shoulder. Three silver stars embellished shoulder marks displaying his rank to one and all. Golden leaves circling his cap indicated his status as a general officer. His appearance was orderly, professional, official. It wouldn’t appear to the common onlooker that this was a man who had been traveling for hours, crossing a continent in order to reach this place in the most expedient amount of time possible.
Observing the small town of White’s Point, Oregon, Bishop silently noted the lack of buildings, the lack of people, and the lack of police vehicles parked in front of the Jefferson County’s Sheriff’s Department substation. There were five buildings total, including the substation. One was a grocery store. Another was the post office. A fourth was the gas station, and the final one was a house. There was a single white Mazda parked in a handicapped space in front of the substation and a large red Chevy Suburban on the side. And in the growing twilight there wasn’t a single person to be found. Only dim yellow lights illuminated the tiny parking lot of the sheriff’s department’s substation, accumulating in assorted pools of ocher luminosity.
Bishop stepped away from the green Army sedan. The captain who doubled as his driver and assistant closed the door, adjusted his own saucer cap, and studied the tiny town in turn. It was so small that it possessed a single, small sign at its south entrance that announced its name only, too minor to even have a population listed.
“Doesn’t look like much, sir,” said Captain Randall Judd. His tone was abjectly neutral, mentioning the obvious, but carrying a warning beneath the words. He was a short man, barely five foot four inches, and broad across the chest, but everything about him suggested that he more than made up for his lack of height. The general himself knew that Judd could outrun him in any two mile run, sometimes cracking the ten minute barrier that Bishop’s longer, leaner legs were capable of, on his best days. As a matter of fact, Bishop quite enjoyed Judd’s company and found him to be a personable officer, helpful, anticipatory, and an excellent administrator. When he left to attend the Army War College, in expectancy of his promotion to major, Bishop was going to miss him, as well as his acute observations.
“No, Judd,” sighed Bishop. “But it’s where I need to be.”
Upon entrance into the substation, a startled receptionist, who was also a police officer, stared at them as if they were some alien creatures fresh from outer space. She put down a paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and said, “Can I help...you?” She had a fresh, scrubbed face, a spray of freckles across her nose, with her blonde hair drawn back in a short, ponytail, and the little pin on her uniform that stated her name also had the word, ‘trainee’ on it.
Judd removed his cap and announced, “This is Lieutenant General Bishop Lee. He will need to speak with your commanding officer.”
“Uh, Gal’s down at the lake with the rest,” she said. “That’s Sergeant Galloway, that is.”
“Down at the lake,” repeated Judd. He studied the young woman’s earnest face and the tiny office with wanted posters up on one wall, and the barrier of a desk between them. Behind the young woman was a door to the rear. “That would be in pursuit of Fitch Lee.”
Mary Jennings was her name. She knew how to work the radios, but wasn’t allowed in the field yet. She had proven herself capable of handling the late shifts at the substation, but the recent situation had pulled away all the other officers, and the one who was with her had gone to get his supper from his wife. She wasn’t quite sure how to answer the two Army officers’ questions or how to respond to their frank gazes. First, there had been the federal agents who had overwhelmed the sheriff’s deputies like a pastry roller over an uncooked piecrust. Then the fugitive suspects had evaded capture at the old restaurant out on 20, causing Deputy Jiminez to call in the cavalry faster than someone could spit. Then Jiminez had dragged in the pair of would-be activists not ten minutes before and left without saying a word, pausing only to leave a paper bag that he told her to check into evidence. Finally, there were these two, who entered the station as if they owned the place. The older one with all the stars on his shoulder looked as if he could eat her up like the big bad wolf. And his name was the same as the name of one of the fugitives. “You’re his father,” she stated hesitantly, not liking the conclusion at all.
Bishop nodded his head. “Among other things, I’m also the director of the NSA. Do you know what that is?”
Mary Jennings cringed. She had always known that there would be a situation like this one day, and she would be in the middle of it. Damned if she did. Damned if she didn’t. Finally, she nodded as well. “The National Security Agency. I know what that is. Just because I’m a trainee doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“Of course not,” said Bishop smoothly. He smiled disarmingly at the young woman and added, “If you’ll call your supervisor-I know that you can do this, and tell him of my request-I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”
“I can call him,” she said. But Mary didn’t want to call Gal, because Gal wouldn’t like another set of government officials breathing down his neck. And so Gal would take it out on Mary, and tell her that she shouldn’t have called him in the middle of a pursuit, or something equally asinine. And if she didn’t call him, he would berate her for doing that.
“In the meantime,” continued Bishop in his cultured, polished voice, keeping eye contact with the young woman. Bishop and his adjutant had been listening to the local police band in the Army sedan for the past hour, and had gained a variety of information, including the discovery of an interesting weapon at the Wren residence. “You have two men in your jail.”
Mary nodded again. Two men were about all the jail could hold. It was a very small jail, only holding cells, and the deputies were confining the men until the Feds returned to question them on charges of aiding and abetting known fugitives. Sh
e knew both men fairly well, and wasn’t happy about them being in the back of the building, shouting sixties slogans and dragging their shoes across the metal grating because they didn’t have metal cups. And they’d only been there for ten minutes. Enough time for her to lock them up, put the weapon Jiminez had collected into a plastic evidence bag, and pick up her book for all of a minute before the two Army officers had walked in.
“I need to speak to Robert Wren,” said Bishop and his eyes went unerringly to the gun in the clear baggie that was sitting on a shelf behind the young trainee. He studied it and tucked the information away in his methodical mind for future reference.
Another pitfall to negotiate, Mary thought with much lament. Why couldn’t this be my off night? “Why not?” she finally said, not knowing what else to say. “It’ll give the two reprobates something to do besides announcing they’re on a food strike and screaming, ‘Hell, no, we won’t go!’”
A muscle in Judd’s face twitched but he maintained a stoic expression.
Minutes later, after acquiescing to the rules that Mary explained to them about visiting prisoners, Bishop stood in front of one of the two cells that the jail had. It was as small as a closet, a mere containment area, a place to be used until any prisoners the sheriff’s department had could be transferred to the larger jail at the county seat in Madras. A short hall lay in front of the two cells, where the general and the captain stood, both men looking through painted, white grates that had replaced traditional bars.
F-Bob stared out at the general while he sat on the tiny bench in the cell, grumbling under his breath. Next door, Joe Peter contemplated graffiti on the walls, while considering what to add on his own. He wasn’t interested in general officers particularly. Among other things he had supported draft dodgers whole-heartedly in the Viet Nam conflict. However, he’d never had to move north because his own draft number had been high.
Flight of the Scarlet Tanager Page 24
