I went back inside. Friedrich closed the door after me and locked it. Trudi Bauer was heading back into the office. “Feeling better, Herr Mossman, I hope?”
“Yeah, much,” I said. But inside, my heart was beating like crazy.
“Good. We’ll need you fresh and ready for your big role,” she said. “Willi, our guest is back. Prepare the truck.”
“Go ahead.” Willi nodded to Curtis.
The janitor and Friedrich went over and drew the canvas tarp down.
It was the same truck, only painted. No longer black.
It was now military gray. Like an army truck.
“What do you think, Captain?” Willi grinned at me. “Like it? I know you were familiar with the previous color. Friedrich, Kurt…” He clapped his hands. “Now we can leave.”
Willi beckoned me into the front. In the middle. He climbed in next to me. Curtis, in his sergeant’s uniform, jumped in behind the wheel.
He turned the ignition on and we pulled out of the loading bay as Friedrich hopped out of the sedan and shut the metal door behind us. We continued on, to York, and then, at the light, turned north. I glanced through the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following.
No car picked up behind us.
“Looking for something?” Willi Bauer said. I had no gun now, only the hope that Fiske would be at the scene, as promised.
“No.” I shook my head. “Just nervous. Blame me?”
“You have nothing to be nervous about, Mr. Mossman. Do what we ask of you and everything will go as planned. And you and Mrs. Mossman will have your daughter once again.”
“And a couple of thousand people will be dead,” I said.
“Maybe a hundred thousand. Till they figure out just what is going on.” We turned north and then headed back west at the Boyd’s pharmacy on Ninety-sixth Street. “Think of it as the cost of war,” he said. “In London, just as many have died for two years now, and your own government merely stood on the side and did nothing.”
“Well, we’re coming in now,” I said grudgingly, “whatever you do.”
“We’ll see.” He looked forward. “We shall see.”
We continued west, the truck bouncing on the pavement through the park, to the West Side. There, we continued on through some traffic and picked up the West Side Drive.
“Where are we heading?” I tried to confirm, noting that we were driving north toward the bridge. “What do you need me to do?”
“As you know, to a reservoir,” Willi said. “It’s being guarded by a small detail. You’ll need to advise them that a water-quality test is taking place. You’ll say your instructions come straight from the Civil Defense Unit of the 9th Battalion of the Army Engineers. You’ll outrank anyone on site, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“At two in the morning?”
“As I said, you’ll outrank them. You’ll see to it they don’t object.”
“What’ll happen to the guards?”
“We’ll take their weapons. Maybe lock them in the guardhouse, till we’re gone. We’ll see.”
“That’s all?”
“That and make sure any other guard detachments are diverted while we do what we are there to do. Curtis will be with you.”
I glanced at him, driving. He had a gun in his belt.
“Kensico?” I confirmed. I threw it out there. “In Pound Ridge.”
Willi didn’t answer.
“One thing that’s bugged me,” I said. “You mentioned this poison was a gas. What did you call it?”
“Sarin,” Willi said. “Apparently an acronym of the inventors’ names.”
“A gas would normally dilute as soon as it blended with water,” I said. “Especially in such a vast quantity of water. No matter how lethal.”
“And now you are a chemical engineer as well…?” Willi turned to me with a smile. “Don’t burden yourself with this detail, Charlie. But to answer, it is not gas at all we are putting in, but the ingredients encapsulated in the tiniest of microscopic pellets. They will not dissolve in the water supply at all, but be carried like lethal messengers through the viaducts into the faucets, the food supply, and the drinking water into thousands of bodies. We have special gloves ourselves to avoid any contact; even the tiniest of contacts would be instant death for us too. But not to dwell on all this, Charlie. We have a special role designed for you as well.”
My heart picked up. Tiny, microscopic capsules. Of this deadly poison. Contained in the beer kegs. There had to be millions of them. Who knew how many people would be affected if this came off.
Hundreds of thousands of people could die.
We drove on, passing under the George Washington Bridge, until we hit the Bronx. It was one thirty now. Traffic was nonexistent. I figured we had about another forty or forty-five minutes until we got to our destination. Kensico was in Pound Ridge. I’d never been there, but Fiske figured they would take 9A all the way up and cut over on some local roads up there.
“These guards,” I said. “They’re just going to let us in? They’re going to believe we’re doing a water test? At two in the morning?”
“They are enlisted men, Charlie. Probably their first assignment. You’re a captain. They won’t argue. Just make it convincing, whatever you do. When they’re gone you’ll help us bring the beer kegs up from the truck to the head of the viaducts.”
“Then you’ll make that call?”
“What call?”
“For Emma,” I said, pressing.
“We’ll make it once we’re back. Not before. You’ll be coming with us. Emma will be dropped off at a specific location. Don’t worry, we’ll advise you.”
“So why did you need me? Curtis’s English is good enough.”
“Just do your job. You’ll see, Charlie. All will be made clear.”
The answer, I knew, was that they were going to pin the whole thing on me. Dressed in a stolen army uniform. By the time anyone thought anything else, they’d be long out of the country.
I sat back and took a deep breath. I rested my head against the seat back. I would have felt a whole lot safer to have that gun in my pocket. I knew my only chance I had of surviving the night was Fiske and his team now. Thank God we knew the location. They’d better be there.
We crossed into Westchester County. I saw a sign for Yonkers. I figured we still had another half hour to go. I put my head back and tried to relax, tried to tell myself to calm down, when Willi suddenly pointed to an exit sign, McLean Avenue, and said, “Here.”
Here?
Curtis put his turn signal on and moved into the right lane.
We were still twenty miles away.
“I thought we were going to Kensico?” I said to Bauer, as matter-of-factly as I could. Inside, my body was in riot.
“What made you think that?” Willi turned to me, mooning his eyes wide.
“I don’t know. I just saw the map.” I shrugged. “No big deal.”
“Change of plans, Charlie.” Willi looked at me and smiled. “The Hillview Reservoir is the last stop for water heading into New York City. The Kensico ducts feed directly into it. Besides, too many guards there.”
“Hillview, huh?” Fiske and his team wouldn’t be there. No one would. I was a dead man, I realized. Unarmed. No one backing me up. And Emma … No way to be sure she was ever released. Not to mention that thousands of lives might be lost. I’d just have to do what they wanted, I said to myself. We pulled off. The road was dark. Virtually no other car around. I glanced in the mirror once again and didn’t see anyone following us. My throat felt dry as sandpaper. “All the same to me.”