OPERATION PROSPERO
What was he talking about? Prospero was rightful King of Milan in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, whose plotting brother abandoned him at sea for twelve years on an island.
An island like Manhattan?
I curled up there, the tarp over me, trapped. And petrified. Still, not so petrified that there wasn’t a tiny but insistent urge inside me to see what they were up to. Curtis had a gun. Clearly, if they found me back here, spying on them—spying on spies—he’d have no choice but to use it. Wherever we were going, I had no doubt Prospero meant something important.
And sinister.
The truck lurched and sputtered its way down the street. York Avenue, I assumed. It made a series of turns, until I felt certain, even without seeing, that we were heading south, maybe on Second Avenue. We continued for a while, pulling up at the occasional light. I couldn’t hear anything said in the cab above the engine, though it was only feet in front of me. How was I ever going to get out of here?
Do you have your gun, Kurt?
Whatever they were up to, the taciturn, muscular janitor with what I’d thought was a Scandinavian accent seemed like just the type who’d have no compunction using it on me.
It was a long trip, wherever we were heading, and I settled in. We stopped and started over what I took to be the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge into Queens, then on all kinds of bumpy city streets in Queens until the truck accelerated and the ride smoothed out on what I took to be a highway. Forty minutes had gone by. It was now going on twelve thirty in the morning. At some point I crept out from underneath the tarp, careful to keep low in case one of them looked back through the window to check on the cargo, took a furtive glance through the small window into the front—and saw a green road sign ahead. Eastern Long Island. Were we on the Southern State Parkway? It was bumpy in there. I had nothing to hold on to but the tarp. I was tossed around. And it was cold. The floor of the truck made it feel like a meat locker. Behind the wheel, Curtis kept up a steady pace.
I looked at the door. How could I get out of here? There was an inside latch that I could possibly open, but the chain Curtis had affixed outside made trying pointless. Instead, I tried to think what I would do whenever they opened the door. Could I possibly hide in here? What would I say if I was caught? How could I alibi myself out of this? The inescapable fact was that I was trapped and there was no way out. And my captors were armed. It was clear whatever they were up to, the last thing they’d want was a witness blabbing about it to the police.
I started to think Liz or Emma, or even Noelle, might never even know what happened to me.
The one thought I played with was to immediately bolt out the back and take off the second the door was opened. Catch them by surprise. Wherever we were, it would be dark. By the time Curtis drew his gun I could be twenty to thirty yards away. In the dark, he might not be able to hit me. That seemed my only chance, I resolved. And then what? Where would I go afterward? Who would I tell? Latimer? The police? And what would I say? What would I actually have witnessed? Nothing. What had they actually done? A beer delivery in the dark of night? I was the one who was spying on them. Truth was, I’d still have nothing.
A greater fear pulsed through me as I also realized that our final destination could well be inside, in an enclosed space. And then where would I run? There were at least two of them larger than me.
I wouldn’t get ten feet.
This could be my last ride.
An hour passed. Close to 1 A.M. The truck rumbled on. When I took another peek I saw road signs for Lake Ronkonkoma, and then the dual towns of Mastic/Shirley. Curtis and Willi seemed to have no plan to stop. Farther out, there were only beach towns on the far end of the Island. I had been out here only once before, to Southampton, to a fancy party on a huge estate a few summers ago, given by rich Gentile friends at Columbia. Everyone was dressed in blazers and white slacks and the women in nautical dresses and wide, white hats. Liz and I had never felt so out of place.
Until now …
At some point, the truck downshifted with a heavy jerk and we seemed to leave the main road. The road got bumpy, and suddenly one of the barrels toppled over and rolled on its side. Now it was rattling around under the tarp, making noise. I tried to reach over and stop it.
I lowered back down, sure that Curtis or Willi would be looking back through the window at it.
Instead, to my horror, Curtis pulled the truck over on the side of the deserted road.
“Be right back,” I heard him say up front.
I froze, huddled there. I heard him go around the side, unlatch the chain at the rear, twist the outer handle, and then the back doors swung open. Cool air rushed in. I crouched, hidden by the row of beer kegs—thank God the one that had fallen over was in the row closer to the door—and covered up by the tarp.
“Christ, this thing weighs a fucking ton,” Curtis grunted, hopping up into the truck and taking the keg by its sides and righting it. Huddled there, I could literally feel him not five feet from me. I prayed my pounding heart wouldn’t give me away.
He set it back up, pulled the tarp back over it, and seemed to pause a second or two—or what seemed to me like a full minute—where I was sure the next sound I would hear was the hammer of his gun being pulled back and the command: “Whoever you are, come on out of there now!”
I stayed as still as I could. Without releasing a breath.
But to my relief, I heard him shout up front, “Back in business,” and felt the gaze of Willi Bauer probably nodding through the small window, and then I heard Trudi Bauer’s voice from outside—they were obviously following closely behind—“Is there a problem, Kurt?”
“No, Frau Bauer,” Curtis said, jumping back down onto the road. “Just a little housekeeping. We’ll be back on our way.”
He jumped out, then the doors slammed again, the chain was reattached, and I took the deepest breath of my life in relief.
The temperature in the frozen cargo space couldn’t have been more than forty degrees, but I had sweated completely through my clothes.
“Let’s go,” Willi said. “We’ve fallen behind schedule.”
I heard Curtis jump back in the front and felt the engine release back into drive. I felt both relieved and nervous. Relieved that I hadn’t been discovered; nervous, that wherever we were heading, we would be there soon.
Continuing on, I crawled out from under the tarp again and caught a glimpse as we passed some small towns. An old church. Shops. Old clapboard houses. All were dark. Empty. Barely a light anywhere. It was almost two in the morning.
As the truck slowed on one street, I finally caught a glimpse of a sign.
Bridgehampton General Store. Bridgehampton? Farther out than even Southampton. What were we doing all the way out here? Not any beer delivery, I was sure. I checked my watch. Certainly not at two in the morning.
As I was thinking that, the truck slowed and made a right turn. It continued along a long, bumpy road, the kegs bouncing. This went on for at least a mile and seemed to take minutes. I kneeled up and peered out ahead and all I saw was darkness all around and the thin, smoky beams from the truck’s headlights barely illuminating the road ahead. Then we slowed once more and made a right turn, bouncing along at a slow pace, until it jerked to a stop. I felt the emergency brake catch.
We were here.
If you’re going to make a run for it, Charlie, now’s the time.
Curtis came around back and undid the chains. My heart started to race. He turned the latch and flung open the back doors. Again, cold air rushed in. Hidden under the tarp, I didn’t move a muscle. I sucked in a breath, worried that this was it for me. They were going to unload the kegs, pull up the tarp, and find me there.
I waited to hear Willi or Trudi shout, “Unload the cargo.”
But they didn’t.
Not just yet.
Instead, I heard the crunch of gravel and Curtis and the Bauers engaged in conversation a short ways away. “Out there,” Willi said. I lifted my head out from underneath the tarp.
And smelled something.
Something that I didn’t expect. But that now made sense.
Close by enough that I could reach out and touch it.
The ocean.