The Black Silent

by David Dun

  "Only one thing I can figure," he said. "Ben was protecting you."

  "They have Sarah James at Lopez," Frick told Khan. "Finally. By Ben's beach house, as it happens. I'm gonna take care of it."

  Khan looked dubious, as though he understood Frick's methods and suspected his pleasure in them. Frick didn't have time to be irritated. Khan was pointing.

  "What the hell?" Frick looked out the conference room window and saw lights from an aircraft taking off from the airport. Running to the hallway past a bewildered special deputy, he grabbed an M4 from the corner. Out on the patio he started aiming at the plane, a mile distant, and coming in his direction.

  Khan came out and stood beside him.

  "You're gonna shoot down an airplane, right in front of Friday Harbor?" Khan asked.

  "You're damn right. Get her; then get Chase."

  "You don't want Haley Walther alive?"

  "I want her, unless I can't have her," Frick said. "Then I want her dead. With that plane she gets away and probably beats us to Anderson's research."

  Frick now had his finger on the trigger. The plane was approaching almost dead on. He waited.

  "Uh, excuse me," McStott said apologetically from behind him. "We found something more."

  Sam was kicking and swimming and thinking about whether there was any chance he would live. Fleetingly he decided that next time he might try a full nelson on the dog, temporarily putting it to sleep in lieu of swimming in the North Pacific in the late fall.

  His limbs were starting to become spastic and it was difficult to swim at all. His leg managed to hurt despite the growing numbness. Occasionally he reached down with his toe, trying to touch the bottom, but got nothing. As he realized that he couldn't swim much longer, that his body would just quit from the cold, he tried to guess how far it was to the beach. His mind was muddled; it wouldn't think right.

  Stroke, stroke, stroke, he told himself. It was all he could think to do.

  Somewhere he heard his cell phone beep, so he couldn't be too far from the shore. He'd thought he'd turned it to silent. Evidently under the profile "silent," he had inadvertently used a quiet beep for the designation silent. He had done that once before. Big mistake.

  It quit beeping. He realized he no longer heard it because he was sinking. Dying in the ocean didn't seem so bad. One good deep breath and he would take in God's ocean.

  In that second he realized that he desperately wanted to cleanse himself. It was a wish that lived at the core of his soul and it burned in him. He didn't know why. Probably one swallow of ocean water and ending it wouldn't accomplish his desire. Something about Haley came to mind. She was really not cut out for this.

  He decided on a couple hard strokes. There was air and he was coughing, although it seemed like someone else was coughing. The liquid of the ocean felt heavy over him.

  He took a couple more strokes, or tried, and knew it was over. The arms would not work. Although he could think of the motion, it just didn't happen. It was not a matter of will. The nerves weren't functioning.

  So sorry, Haley.

  The old pictures in his mind-the torture room, the blood on the walls-taunted him-

  Anna's screaming worse than he could have imagined. He had to stop it. He had to stop it. The memories went and salt water washed across his face.

  A strange thing happened. He touched bottom. Trying to stagger up and stand, he realized he was on a rock. Somehow he managed to flail his arms and take a step that was actually more like falling forward. On the uphill side of the rock, the clifflike slope began, and Sam found himself miraculously in water up to his shoulders. He flailed some more and tried a stepping movement and his legs seemed a little less spastic than his arms. Sudden hope brought determination and he flailed harder, spastic to be sure, yet moving toward higher ground.

  Finally he found himself bent over in a strange sort of walking and paddling routine, now in waist-deep water. He fell repeatedly up the steep slope, thankful that the dog was far enough away not to notice.

  His cell phone beeped quietly. Haley, he guessed. He fell on his face in knee-deep water and started crawling.

  Then he heard the faint drone of an airplane and something inside him radiated brighter hope.

  Haley.

  He wanted to help her find Ben… solve the aging riddle… live out the rest of her life.

  To do that, he needed to discern Ben's plan. At the moment it was like a shredded blueprint. The parts were disjointed and still not quite discernible.

  "Let's avoid the Sanker Foundation," Haley said.

  "You're right." Grant turned, exposing the underbelly of the airplane as he sought to move away.

  She heard a strange thunk, and then a much louder smack, accompanied by a very loud whistle. In front of Haley a hole in the windshield appeared. Then another in the side window.

  "Oh God," Grant said. "I-"

  Many bullets followed. Haley lost count. The only one that really mattered was the one that blew Grant's jaw off just as he was saying something about a leg wound.

  Worse than vertigo, the wash of blood disoriented her. Panic set in, but Haley thought enough to switch off the lights.

  Grant's body hung against hers, but she suppressed the panic. She let the body hang because she didn't want it leaning on the yoke. She told herself that she was experienced enough at flying Ben's float plane that she could land this one too. She turned her attention to the copilot's yoke and pedals.

  Although terribly noisy, the plane seemed to fly fine. She checked the gauges and found nothing amiss. She looked out the window and flipped on a custom-installed ice light.

  "Oh no." A fine spray leaked from the wing. One shot had ruptured a fuel tank. A sick feeling came over her and she realized the hopelessness of the situation. Grabbing her cell, she tried calling Sam. Nothing.

  She had flown many planes and this wasn't that completely different-except when it came to landing on the water. The whole hull rode the ocean, not just pontoons. Grant had mentioned that waves up to eighteen inches were okay, according to published specifications. Pilots had actually landed in larger waves-she thought wind waves as high as two or three feet depending on how steep. However, even to land in eighteen-inch waves took skill she didn't have. Doing it at night was even more perilous, but Sam needed her. She would have to try to land close to shore, where the water was calmest.

  She took a heading toward Point Caution. At 135 knots everything on the ground looked very close. The wind whistled horribly and it was cold, even with the heater pumping full blast.

  She didn't want to imagine why Sam wasn't answering.

  With her hands shaking in desperation she picked up the phone and tried again.

  "Happy to see you." His words were slurred and he sounded bad.

  She tried to talk but couldn't.

  "Haley? Haley?"

  "Grant's dead," she blurted, trying to hold it together.

  "Tell me," he said.

  "I'm sorry," she managed. "They shot Grant."

  "Can you land?"

  "I think so. I think so."

  "Do your best," Sam said. "Get him off the stick."

  "I did."

  "I'm well back from Point Caution, toward the UW lab. Had to double back. I'm just beyond the tip of the main point, out of the harbor, where the rocks are steep."

  "How will I see you?" she asked.

  "I'll see you. Talk you down. Try to act like you're landing way out by Point Caution."

  She banked steeply, putting down the flaps. On this airplane they were either up or down. That made it simple.

  If only she had asked Grant more questions. Small planes had a lot of things in common, but the differences in this case could be critical. Flying over what she supposed was the landing spot, she could see next to nothing but the outline of the island. Now she made out lights along the beach.

  She flew out over San Juan Channel, made two left turns, and lined up on a bay southerly of Point Caution. She
slowed the plane down and swooped down to one hundred feet above sea level. According to the fuel gauge she had half a tank. Since she had started with three-quarters, the plane was losing fuel fast.

  After she passed by the bay, she gave it power and raised the flaps, simulating a missed approach. Then she turned around and flew way out over Orcas and Jones Islands, turned and lined up once again for a second missed approach.

  The stream of fuel coming from the wing continued unabated. Hopefully, she was drawing Frick's band of hunters overland to the vicinity of Point Caution.

  She stayed low and held her speed at 120 knots, getting lined up for a controlled descent. Once she reached one hundred feet on the altimeter, she should have set up a descent rate of two hundred feet per minute with an appropriate pitch angle. For the final thirty seconds her eyes would be entirely on her instruments. There would be no looking outside. For that reason she carefully had to gauge the distance to any obstacles, and she had to think way ahead of the plane if she expected to come down anywhere near her target point.

  Without a night flight-designed waterway, it was not an exercise for the faint of heart.

  At 600 feet over the northernmost end of Lopez Island, she had set up the descent. She eased off the power a bit, slowing from 120 knots, raised her nose, lowered the flaps, and watched the rate-of-descent indicator. Two hundred fifty feet per minute… too fast.. 150 feet per minute… about right… 200 feet per minute, okay… ease off the power and trim the nose… airspeed 80 knots… rate of descent. 180 feet per minute… altitude 400 feet… She could see Friday Harbor coming fast… 200 feet per minute rate of descent… bumpy… bumpy… hold it… altitude 200 feet… She looked out… no anchor lights… ahead… altitude 100 feet… eyes locked in the cockpit. It felt like a spook ride at the fair, only much more frightening. She could not see the water or get a sense of it. She played with the stick gently, raising the nose trying to feel the cushion of air that would be compressed between plane and water. Everything was happening in milliseconds, thoughts faster than words. A lot of it was instinct, but it was instinct that had not been intended for this plane and its subtleties.

  "I'm coming up on the point right over the water," she said into the cell phone wedged between jaw and shoulder. Her voice was tight. "Any anchor lights? Any anchor lights?"

  "None. Fifty feet off the water. Come down, come down. You're too high," he said.

  She eased off the power, trying again to feel for the water; she could see nothing.

  "Come down, come down."

  She lifted the nose.

  Where is the damn water?

  She was eating up the water and approaching the tip of land just around the corner from Friday Harbor.

  "Get down," Sam shouted. "You're here."

  She killed the power just before it seemed she would smash into the beach. The plane dropped and hit with a resounding smack, bouncing badly. Then it came back down and hit again. Porpoising. Up again, and down, slamming in nose first.

  Disoriented and shaken, Haley found herself taxiing slowly with the engine at idle.

  "Turn around, turn around," Sam said. She slammed her foot on the rudder.

  Wham. The first shot came. She hit the throttle, bringing her in close to the beach.

  The shots stopped. Probably the line of sight to Frick's men was impeded. Next would come shooters on the beach to finish them.

  "Straight in, straight in."

  She slammed her foot on the rudder, powering now right into the beach. She flipped on the landing lights, revealing a big rock. It was low tide.

  "Dear God, please…" She cut the power and banged onto the rock. Then Sam was there, hobbling, looking terrible, barely able to walk, the water rising fast to his chest.

  She opened the wing door.

  "They shot him." It was like she had to say it all over again. Saying it once would not be enough.

  "I'm sorry," Sam said.

  With great effort he gently pulled Grant's limp body into the backseat area of the cabin.

  He returned to her and took her hands in his own, which trembled and felt freezing cold.

  "We need to do the 'focus' thing again," he said. "We have to leave."

  Any second there would be a lot more bullets, she realized.

  "We're leaking gas."

  Sam had no response.

  She fired up the engine and used the rudder.

  They had drifted out and away from the rock.

  Wham, a bullet came. Then another. She looked down and her shirt was crimson. Maybe from a bullet. She couldn't tell.

  "You're hit," she heard Sam say.

  CHAPTER 29

  The voice spoke quietly and had the sound of an obvious disguise. That told Ben that his interrogator was most likely someone he knew.

  "Make it easy on yourself," his captor whispered.

  "I'd like to take a piss. That would be a real treat, make it very easy on me."

  "We're gonna put a wire up there and shoot you full of electricity. How would you like that?"

  "First it was my guts in a bowl. Then you were going to do it to Sarah. But there's no Sarah, is there?"

  "You're making me angry."

  "You're making me bored. We both know that if you haven't done it by now, you're not going to do it. What are you, a government interrogator?"

  "You're a smart-ass. But if you're so smart and I'm a dumb fed, then you know that we have agreements with other countries and that those countries lack our scruples."

  "The senators and congressmen on Intelligence Oversight say that no such agreement exists."

  "First, most of them don't know. Second, the ones who do know are worried enough about terrorists hurting their friends, family, or constituents that they don't blow the whistle. Third, they want to get reelected. So nobody knows. You follow?"

  "You're trying to tell me that the errand-boy orderly that wants to be a surgeon and talks like an Arab butcher is from one of those countries?"

  "I'm not telling you anything. You're telling me."

  "I gotta take a leak."

  "If I let you relieve yourself, will you quit playing games and save yourself?"

  "I could think a lot better with an empty bladder."

  He could tell that lights were flipped on. Someone played with his manacles and unshackled him. Next he was led blindfolded up some concrete or stone stairs. He heard the sound of a door opening, and then came a new sound. An almost imperceptible mechanical sound, like a refrigerator's, followed by a truck barely audible in the distance. He was led another forty paces or so and into a bathroom. The man put his hand on a toilet and told him to sit to pee. Obviously hitting the bowl would be tough with a blindfold, so it was the only alternative.

  As he began relieving himself, he moved the blindfold but did not dislodge it. Looking down at his feet, he could tell that he was in a very expensive bathroom. Marble floors and baseboards were accompanied by ornate wooden wainscoting of light blond bird's-eye maple. It was all he could see, but it was enough to know he must be in one of the most expensive homes on Orcas Island. His mind went to work trying to figure which home.

  The man was gone only a minute. Ben finished urinating, pulled up his pants, and was walked back across what looked like a very expensive sandstone floor. They went down some stairs of rough-hewn stone through a very heavy door. He coughed and brought his manacled hands to his face and moved the blindfold up and turned in one motion. For just a second he saw the face of Nelson Gempshorn. A traitor, then, but working for whom? He swung both manacled hands as hard as he could and hit Gempshorn in the jaw hard enough to stagger him. Ben jumped back through the heavy door and closed it.

  He ripped off the blindfold and found himself in a beautiful entryway. Suddenly he understood the mysterious quiet. He'd been kept in a wine cellar deep in the ground.

  Running down a long hall toward the end of the house, he saw a bedroom with a sweeping view of the water, and beyond that a sliding glass door that
might lead to freedom. But before he reached the bedroom, the strong arm of Ros-sitter grabbed him around the waist. An instant later, Len was on him as well. He was done with this escape. Moments later, Nelson Gempshorn came down the hall. A rather large bruise forming on his cheek marred his usual silver-haired, dapper appearance. Although calm, he did appear frustrated and angry.

  "You killed all the Arcs," Nelson snapped. "And destroyed all the paperwork."

  If they hadn't been putting all manner of shackles on him, he would have knowingly scratched his chin. Things were just starting to become clear. Now they really would kill him when they were finished.

  "Rachael Sullivan, this is Sergeant Hershman of the state police."

  Lieutenant Stutz introduced her to a man in his late thirties with dark hair. Hershman struck her immediately as the quiet, brooding type.

  "What can we do for you?" Hershman asked Stutz.

  "You can step in and take over a murder investigation."

  "I've heard a little," Hershman said. "Why don't you tell me the whole story."

  After laying out the basics, Rachael plunged right into the fountain of youth-tale, even though she could sense mounting skepticism. When she had concluded, the young sergeant looked at his watch.

  Not a good sign.

  Hershman cleared his throat. "It's a lot easier to believe that your mysterious friend shot two officers in cold blood and stabbed another than to believe what you've been telling me."

  "Wait a minute," Stutz said. "You should look at this FBI memo."

  The sergeant read it.

  "This is the kind of unsubstantiated rumor that ruins the careers of good men," said Hershman. "Classic FBI. It proves nothing."

  Rachael took issue with that. "I admit it's not a criminal conviction, but it's hardly what I'd call gossip."

  "Yeah, well, where's the agent who wrote it? According to you, the FBI knows all about this. So let them handle it." Hershman paused. "Lieutenant, could I talk to you?"

  They adjourned to the officers' quarters, where she could hear all but the whispers.

  Rachael knew what he'd be saying. After a couple minutes their voices grew louder.