The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer

by Rick Boyer

  "C'mon, Jim; you like boating . . ."

  Naturally, I felt the gut-wrenching rush of adrenalin, too. But I don't suppose it would do any good to tell him how I really felt. I loved it.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  AFTER NINETY MINUTES of churning along, we cut speed and crept up on Tuckernuck slow and easy, at one-third throttle, Jim watching the echo sounder carefully. We had used dead reckoning for most of the way, relying on compass heading and speed over time for a rough fix. Now we used the RDF to catch the radio beacons at Brant Point, Chatham, and Woods Hole to pinpoint our position. At two-fifteen, the water shoaled fast: our depth reading going from twenty-some feet to less than eight in under a minute. We knew then we had reached Tuckernuck Bank, and Jim stopped Whimsea dead in the water, saying he wasn't going to risk a cracked hull or a stranded vessel in these tricky waters.

  "Sure t'ing, kid, that's why we brought the Zode," said Roantis, going out onto the foredeck with John Smith. I lowered the bow anchor, which seemed to bump the bottom immediately, even though we were still two miles off the island. Jim threw a hook off the stern as well, to keep the cruiser pointing toward Tuckernuck. We doused the running lights, keeping only the tiny anchor light going. Working by flashlight, Roantis undid the big bundle and we all unfolded the heavy-gauge rubber with metallic coating. I saw the word ZODIAC on the side. So that's what the mysterious "Zode" was: a Zodiac rubber boat, just like Jacques Cousteau's. John Smith attached an air tank to the valves of the boat and inflated it in three winks, the rubber making a hollow, pneumatic echo as the raft flumped and stretched into shape, resulting in a hardness and rigidity that left me, well, envious. I was wondering if I could hook that bottle up to my—

  "C'mon Doc, let's get her launched," said Roantis. And we put the Zode into the sea, with John Smith handing down the huge Mercury motor as if it were a hiker's day pack. He wasn't wearing the cape after all, but a black wet suit with matching hood, a nylon pack on his broad back, and a black knife as big as a machete strapped to his calf. I was wearing cutoffs, a sweat shirt, a navy-blue wool sweater over the sweat shirt, and a woolen black watch cap pulled down low over my head. I put on a pair of high-top sneakers and laced them tight. I threw my waterproof camera bag into the Zode. Roantis was crouched in the bow, holding an illuminated compass. He wore his .45 in a shoulder rig made of nylon. Mr. John Smith, in the stern, secured my camera bag between his feet. You couldn't even see Roantis or his big friend in the dark. No kidding.

  The friend, Mr. Smith, intrigued me. Except for a few foreign phrases to Roantis, he hadn't spoken in two hours. Probably shy.

  The outboard motor had been altered with a special blackened shroud and an exhaust pipe that extended down below the surface. The purpose of these modifications was immediately apparent when John Smith started it. It was slightly louder than a Mixmaster. Circling Whimsea in our silent craft, allowing the engine to warm up, we told Jim we'd return within an hour.

  "But if we're not back by five, raise the Coast Guard on your radio," I said. "See ya, guy. Don't take any wooden nickels . . ."

  And we were off, bouncing over the swells in the dark with the big motor purring at our backs. In the bow, Roantis kept his eyes riveted to the compass, indicating course changes to John Smith by waving his arm. The warm sea breeze blew over us as we crouched low in the boat. I suppose our speed was about ten or twelve miles an hour. Not fast, but we didn't have far to go. just to be on the safe side, I'd brought my Browning Hi Power, which I now took out of the waterproof camera bag and shoved into the nylon Bianchi shoulder rig Roantis had loaned me. The automatic rode right under my left armpit, thirteen hollow-point rounds in the magazine and one up the spout. God, I hoped we wouldn't have to use any of the hardware.

  In a little while I heard surf. The muffled motor was a double boon: it enabled us not only to travel in silence, but to hear as well. We crept up to the beach, which was a faint pale line stretched out before us. Then we were riding the surf with the engine off . . . we skidded into the sandy shallows with the motor tipped up. jumping out, we towed the boat through the calf-deep water. The water was warm on my legs. We slogged up to the wet sand at the water's edge, then dragged the Zode across the beach to where the trees and scrub began. We stood there for a second on the sand in the dark, listening to the gentle surf, looking up and down the beach for a landmark. I felt the delicious thrill of being somewhere I shouldn't be.

  Roantis snapped the compass shut and put it away, saying that according to his calculations, we'd landed a half-mile west of Hunter Whitesides's mansion. So we followed him, walking single file, thirty feet apart, up the beach.

  The problem was that Tucknernuck Island was so sparsely settled it was practically deserted. Consequently, landmarks were nonexistent; all we had to guide us was water, sand, and trees. But Roantis left the beach after a few minutes and started cutting diagonally up the sloping sand, headed for the woods. Sure enough, after struggling through thick brush, trying to be as silent as possible, we saw the faint dark outline of a big, big house.

  Roantis's sense of direction and skill at tracking defies belief. But then, he's had a lot of practice sneaking around in the dark. Roantis scanned the place with his night glasses and pointed. I followed his arm and saw the steel tower forty yards away. It was much bigger than it had seemed in the photos—at least sixty feet high. We began to creep toward it but were stopped by a barbed wire fence. Barbed wire? On Tuckernuck Island? Surely this, if anything, was a dead giveaway that Whitesides and company were up to something shady. Roantis handed me the glasses. John Smith also took out a pair from his rucksack. The big house was dark. The large clearing between the house and the woods where we crouched would be a lawn. I saw a group of Adirondack chairs and a wooden table. Then I looked at the steel latticework of the tower again. I recalled the things that geologist Calvin Beard had told me to look for, things that were a dead giveaway for a drilling rig: crown block. Traveling block. The turntable and the "kelly." Drilling motors . . .

  Great, Calvin. But from where we sat, I couldn't see shit. For one thing, the base of the tower was hidden by a small rise on the other side of the fence.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. Roantis whispered close.

  "The fence means dey're up to something. To cut it is a trespass. just t'inking about it from the legal aspect, you know . . . for later on . . ."

  I nodded and thought. Maybe we could get some long-range pix of the tower. Would that be good enough?

  No it wouldn't. That's why we had come all this way in the dead of night: to get close. Again, I heard Calvin Beard briefing me on the wharf at Woods Hole. Look for pipe lying around. Look for the mud hose. Above all, look for the mud, he'd told me. They can't hide the damn mud. The drilling mud, the slurry that's pumped down the pipe as it rotates, is what cools the bit, keeps pressure on the well head, and drives the broken rock back up the hole.

  "Let's go on through," I said. "Even if the photos won't stand up in court, we can use them to pressure the OEI boys." Roantis nodded and soon I heard the crink, crink of John Smith's wire cutters. Then he held the wire clear for us to enter. We went through the breach and crawled up the ridge just above the spot where the base of the structure was. We made no noise. Gazing upward, I could see the pale, linear shapes of the propeller blades sixty feet above. Seeing the whole thing from that distance, I was pretty sure the propeller was fake. It was clever, there was no denying that, because wind machines are now common in coastal New England. But clearly, this was not one of them. For starters, the tower was too massive.

  I crept over the ridge and went down to the tower's base, with Roantis and Smith waiting behind me in the bush. I took out my waterproof flashlight and swept the ground around the place. There it was: mud. Gray-brown drilling mud, caked on the tower frame, spattered on the corrugated tin housing of the drilling motors, set hard in pools and frozen rivers at my feet. Mud everywhere, even a big reservoir of it dug into the ground. And it looked old, as if the dr
illing had stopped weeks ago. At the tower's base was the turntable which drove the "kelly" and turned the pipe and the bit at its terminus. Above it was the caked end of the mud hose, and the traveling block, which raised and lowered the sections of pipe. I shined the light beam straight up and saw the crown block way up there, right underneath the bogus propeller. As I watched, the blades turned lazily in the breeze. They would turn easily, I thought since they were free floating, unconnected to anything.

  It was all there. Every bit of the evidence we needed.

  I took shots of the apparatus and the muddy surroundings, including stacks of pipe and worn-out bits. None of this was visible from the air, the sea, or even the beach; all of it was hidden by the trees and the hill. And people couldn't get over the hill because of the fence. I took the pictures using a small tripod, taking exposures at four, six, eight, ten, and twelve seconds. Roantis was up on the hill behind me, shooting with a Leica loaded with infrared film. He was no stranger to this kind of work.

  Everything I saw gave the strong impression that the drilling operation had been abandoned for some time. Why? Easy: OEI had run out of money. Unless Hunter Whitesides was willing to mortgage his fine mansion and hock his big Mercedes, there wasn't enough cash on hand to continue. And that's why they so desperately needed the cores: to attract outside help.

  It was when I was getting a closer shot of the drilling machinery and the small shack in the clearing that we saw the lights go on inside the house. Seconds later, two floodlights snapped on outside. I heard a door open and shut. Then Roantis scurried down the slope to me.

  "The wires, Doc," he said in a hoarse whisper. "They must have been carrying a charge. When the circuit's broken an alarm goes off inside.

  "Give me another second; I've got to get a shot of the pipe under the tarps—"

  I didn't care how much noise I was making now. Circling around to the end of the long bundle, I saw the four-inch circles of exposed pipe ends visible underneath the canvas cover. Three more shots and I was finished.

  "Doc!" Roantis shouted. No whispers now, and I wondered why. Then I heard the rapid patter of feet, and a rising growl. I doused the light and headed up the slope as the big dog spun to a stop at the clearing's edge. I heard him down there, woofing and turning in tight circles, trying to catch a scent. Then there was a commotion at the edge of the clearing, a clump of bushes swishing back and forth. The dog made for the bushes, snarling and raising a ruckus. Somebody at the house yelled, and then there was a gunshot.

  It seemed to me it was time to depart.

  The dog leaped at the waving bush and was met with some thing that made him sit down in a hurry. I heard a flat crack and then saw the dog stretched out as if asleep. By this time I was back at the wire, hanging onto the camera bag with one hand and trying to find the hole in the fence with the other. While I was groping, an arm reached out and grabbed me by the elbow, yanking me through the fence. Then John Smith came barreling through behind me, sheathing his giant black knife. Gunshots were coming faster now. Twice I heard the slugs strike tree trunks above us. We made for the beach and sprinted along the sand, staying close up against the covering trees. We heard buzzing over our heads, which meant whoever was shooting at us was using a pistol, not a high-powered rifle. And we doubted he could see us, but that was scant comfort.

  Roantis huddled us together under a low, spreading pine bough about two hundred yards from the boat. We crouched together on the cold sand, looking up the pale stretch of beach into the darkness beyond. And damned if I didn't think back to that time at Crystal Lake, Michigan, with good old Patty Froelich peeling off her swimsuit. Cold sand does it every time. Damn!

  Roantis took out his pistol and covered the beach behind us. I knew exactly what he was thinking: if we were caught in the open carrying the boat back into the sea, or in open water, we were fish in a barrel.

  So we waited for about ten minutes. When nobody came up the beach after us, we went to the boat, slinking low and slow at the edge of the trees.

  Hauling the heavy Zode and its motor back down the beach took under five seconds. It's amazing what you can do when you're pumped up. We waded into the ocean, shoving the rubber boat along, ready to duck under at the slightest noise from behind. But there was none, and soon we were all aboard, with Mr. Smith starting the big Mercury, and the boat jumping forward, thumping against the incoming breakers, heading back out to where Whimsea was waiting for us.

  Jim had the anchors up and the engines running by the time we bumped up alongside Whimsea's hull.

  "Everything go okay?" he asked, reaching down to help us aboard.

  "Didn't you hear the shots?"

  "Yeah, right, Doc," he said, laughing, "you're a born bullshitter."

  Exhausted and elated, I let it pass. As soon as the boat and motor were hauled aboard, Jim gunned the engines and we were off. John Smith stowed the motor while Roantis and I opened the valves to deflate the rubber boat, then stretched its wet skin out on the foredeck to dry off in the breeze. We all changed into warm, dry clothes, and then I filled four plastic mugs with Scotch and water. Mostly Scotch. We sat in the wheel house sipping the whiskey in the dark, absorbing the cozy hum and vibration of the big engines going full bore as we shot homeward.

  I felt a warm glow growing in me. It wasn't just the booze, but the afterglow of the adrenalin rush and the knowledge of a job well done. There is no better feeling. Roantis lighted a cigarette and let it dangle from his mouth, the end glowing red in the darkened cabin. He blew the smoke out of his nostrils like a dragon. He was looking very fit these days, having abandoned his suicidal lifestyle for one that was merely horrendous. I saw before me a lean, whipcord-hard man, with short grayish hair and crinkles around his Mongol eyes. Roantis is over fifty, maybe five feet seven or eight, and a hundred sixty-some pounds. Not very big or impressive looking. But then, neither is a wad of plastique. Jim sipped his drink and minded the helm, wearing a huge grin. He couldn't hide it if he tried.

  "Feeling better about all this?" I asked him.

  "Feeling great, Doc. Feeling just great. I'll never forget tonight. Can't wait until we do it again . . ."

  "We'll see if you say that when the time comes, sport."

  "Did Mary buy the story?"

  "That I was going fishing with you? Seemed to. If she didn't, you can bet I'll hear about it."

  An hour later we purred into Lewis Bay and slipped into the marina and up to the dock. The Zode was folded and bundled and whisked over to the van along with the special outboard. We all stood at the van while Roantis and his mysterious comrade prepared to take off.

  "Who owns that stuff, anyway?" I asked.

  "The Tenth Group, if you really must know. If this van and boat aren't back tomorrow, Mr. Smith here goes to the stockade. I go to the guillotine."

  "So who is this guy, really?" I asked, nodding in John Smith's direction.

  "Timo Pekkalla. Finnish national training with the Tenth Group out at Fort Devens. But that's very confidential, Doc, if you haven't already guessed."

  The big man laughed and nodded. "Sssank yeeew, so much."

  "Yah, sheeuuuurre," I said. Finns. They make the world's finest knives and rifles, live in places no sane person would even consider, and are not people you want as enemies. If you don't believe me, ask the Russians. I've met some Finns in my time, mostly in northern Minnesota. I love every one I've ever met. just don't get them mad. We all shook hands goodbye, but not before I laid several large bills into Laitis's hand.

  Jim and I went back to the boat. I looked at my watch. Five-thirty; dawn was breaking. I went below into the bow bunk. The day would be busy, busy. Go to Cambridge to the small photo lab in Kendall Square and have the film done. Pray to God some of it came out. Go to the Hsh pier in Boston and buy a couple whole bluefish so Mary and Janice would believe our little white lie about the fishing trip.

  Thinking back on our little escapade, I was glad Timo didn't kill that dog. I'd thought he had, but Ro
antis explained he'd smacked it on the noggin with the flat of the blade and stunned it.

  I had the inescapable feeling that Timo Pekkalla, a.k.a. John Smith, had been in tough scrapes before.

  The afterglow wouldn't go away; I felt warm and tingly all over. I lay in the bunk, watching the dawn come through the fore hatch skylight. This is why we're alive, I thought, feeling the boat rocking under me. Country clubs, bank accounts, and fancy cars don't cut it. Falling in love, having kids, looking out for one another, and having adventures do. Especially the adventures . . . The cabin cruiser swayed and sighed in the current. Her hull squeaked and whined against the dock fenders. And I slept.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  JACK'S TRIAL DATE was set for October tenth. It was hanging over all of us like the sword of Damocles.

  Within four days of our little nighttime jaunt to Tuckernuck Island, Joe and Paul Keegan had sprung the trap. Armed with the necessary evidence, including my photos, they collared Bill Henderson and Michael Chisholm as they emerged from OEI headquarters on the docks of New Bedford. At the same time, both Henderson kids were detained in Woods Hole and Falmouth, while Hunter Whitesides was intercepted on Nantucket as he went to his post office box.

  They were all advised of their rights and taken separately to Boston, where each was interviewed by Joe and Paul. They all refused to talk, which slowed things down for a few days until the state attorneys met with counsels for the defense and waved the evidence in their faces, whereupon the defense attorneys returned to their clients and huddled, long and silent. Joe had a hunch they were advising their clients to cooperate in hopes of a deal being struck, suggesting they might be packing their toothbrushes for Walpole or Deer Island if they didn't.

  I felt sorry for the Henderson kids, who, according to Joe and Paul, were plainly scared to death. Olivia Henderson, their mother, stayed close to them and spent much of her time cursing her husband and urging them to tell all. So much for Bill Henderson's standing with his family. I've noticed that many "successful" men have this problem.