Chapter Nineteen
Late afternoon. The shed in shadow, the shadow of the ridge halfway into the slate-blue harbor. Cold. Clear sky, and tonight would freeze hard. Smell of wood smoke drifting from the village. On another evening he would have been enchanted.
He had run up the slope so fast he could taste blood in his mouth and he had dry-heaved as he topped out on the wooded ridge. Would they have marked him as so suspicious? Would they bother to send a patrol? Who knew, they might. The women, who were some kind of officials, were clearly alarmed. He could not unsee the mass grave. He told Storey with no explanation that they had to move, right now.
They left their packs but slung the rifles. He guided them back down, angling south, right, away from the town center, but as far from the trench as he could. So, when they got to the narrow field and the road, they had to cut back across the meadow as they ran. Storey carried Collie clutched to his chest and made sure she couldn’t see the bodies. They moved fast without the packs. They did hear engines and dove. Into a tall thicket of mugwort and grass, Storey tumbling with her as best he could, taking the hit on his opposite shoulder, all three watching through weeds, hearts pounding, as five sand-colored military vehicles passed, heading into town. Flatbed trucks and Humvees with mounted machine guns. When they rose cautiously again and crouched, Jess saw that Storey’s face was cut and bleeding. No time. No time to ask. They ran.
Brown’s big boatshed was right across the road. They crossed the two lanes of undulating pavement, skirted the toppled hurricane fence, ducked behind the row of old lobster boats eight feet from the shed wall. “Hold on,” Jess whispered. He bellied forward as he had before, peered around the corner. Twilight in the hangar, no light on. There wouldn’t be, would there? He hesitated. Then stood, took two steps through the open bay so that he was standing just inside the dark warehouse, and shouted: “Beckett! Silas Beckett!”
It echoed flat off the metal walls and died somewhere up in the girdered trusses of the roof.
“I’ve got your daughter, Collie! She’s safe, well fed. She’s wearing her lion suit and she loves her dog, Crystal, and oatmeal with milk and honey!”
Nothing. The words lapped against the steel drum of the building like the ripples of tossed stones.
“I came to bring her back. Just that. I have no dog in this fight. I was here moose-hunting. I am from Colorado. I just want to get Collie back home.”
He caught movement up and to his right. Gleam of light in one window of the cradled sailboat. He could see now that all the windows of the yacht’s deckhouse had been blacked out, covered and taped as if for staining the wood. But the light swam out of the hatch, flashlight or spot, and then he was blinded. It was on his face. He winced, blinked, raised both hands. Looked down, saw the red dot skittering on his chest.
“You’re alone?” Not a shout, even. The voice so clear and commanding it traveled the distance without effort.
Jess made an instant decision, no need to put Storey at risk. “Yes!” he shouted.
“Let me see her.”
Jess half turned toward the open bay. He called, “Collie, c’mere.”
And now she ran from the corner like a pony out of the gate and Jess knew Storey had uncovered her mouth and released her. “Papa! Papa!” she was yelling, running past Jess, her tail swinging and her mane brushed out from the top of her hood; she ran straight to the middle of an expanse of open concrete and she couldn’t see in the sudden shadow and she stopped dead. She raised her paws. “Papa?” she yelled. Jess could hear the panic. And he watched the beam of the Maglite swing to her and saw her cringe away. “Papa? Papa, where are you?”
The light snapped off. Silence. Jess held his breath. He could hear metal crick in the roof and water lap on the ramp below. Finally:
“Col?”
“Papa!” The shout a cry now, more desperate than relief. “Where are you? Papa, where are you?”
“Col! Col!” The man’s voice cracked. “Col, I can’t come out now.” The emotion reined in. The man’s timbred words echoed from the drydocked yacht, from back in the dark and above.
“Papa! Come out! Come out!” Her cry rose into the girders. Jess was riveted to the floor. She ran. Straight to the boat, straight across the open floor, into the shadows, and Jess saw her trip over the wheeled tank of a compressor. She hit hard and flew onto concrete and he jumped. He ran to her, fuck the red dot, and he picked her up, and she was sobbing so hard she could not breathe. He picked her up and covered her and squeezed and held her and the gasp of her without breath was louder than his own exhortations, “I got you, Collie. I got you, honey, I got you…” Until her arms reached up and found his neck and she squirmed herself higher and gripped him until her face was tight in his beard and she cried and he soothed and soothed her.
When she had finally quieted he said, “Here, let’s stand.” He slid her down gently to the floor and held her hand. She shook it free and took two steps and put one paw straight into the shadows. “Papa? Papa! Where are you? Papa, please.”
“I can’t, honey. I love you, Col. I love you so, so…More…” Silence. Then his preacher’s voice again, utterly commanding. That was it: it harnessed something greater than he, the speaker. Jess heard a hard resolve.
“Take her.”
“What?”
“Take her. Wherever you are going.”
“What?”
“If she stays here she will die.”
“I…what about the grandma, your mother?”
“How did you—?” Voice cold and hard. Then silence. The red dot crawled on his chest again. He felt it, looked down. His heart hammered. Collie was frozen, unable to digest the words. She looked wildly from the boat in the shadows to Jess.
“Her photo was in your house! Grantham Gifts. Looked like you, two of you together.”
“Okay.” Red dot relented. But Collie was running again. She was running in her suit and screaming, “Papa! Papa!” and Jess didn’t think but bolted after her and she hit an extension cord and fell again. She howled and slid and he scooped her up into his arms and she did not struggle but screamed into his chest until she had no voice.
No more Maglite. Dusk moved on the harbor. Almost dark inside the cavernous shed. The man called, “Listen to me. They will shoot you on sight. There’s a Boston Whaler on the dock below. Keys under the coffee cup in the holder. As soon as full dark, take it. There are extra fuel cans forward. South along the shoreline, stay within a quarter-mile of the coast. Four hundred yards, no more. Closer if you can. Run without lights, half throttle. They are short on patrols and the radar will not pick you up. You’ll have to cross the mouth of the Fore at Portland Harbor. Gun it, you should be okay. You can make it to Portsmouth in six hours. When you pass the point and first see the lights of the town pier, cut inland and tie up at the docks with the brick shed and the green security lights. Understood?”
“What about the grandmo—”
Hesitation. “Detained. Deceased. Cuz of…It’s on me.”
“And your wi—her—?”
“Same.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry,” Jess croaked.
“When I jotted the coordinates I thought it’d be different. By tomorrow I’ll probably be…”
He didn’t finish.
“Why don’t you take the Whaler? We could all…” Jess let his voice trail off. He knew why. Beckett’s soldiers depended on him in the next actions. And he had ignited such a hell the feds would hound him to the ends of the earth. The man knew there was no way out, not anymore.
She had crumbled in his arms, what it felt like. Like he was trying to hold her together, the whimpers less about grief or terror now and more about limbs, heart, lungs, struggling to stay intact. Jess squeezed her to his chest as she shuddered.
“I’ll try,” Beckett lied. “Leave your coordinates, where you live, under the cup. Where the keys were. I have a man at the dock.”
“Okay,” Jess said. He turned away.
“Hey!” The call was abrupt, decisive. Jess turned back.
“I want to say goodbye. To her.”
“Okay.” Jess was confused.
“So many people depend…If I come out, is your man gonna shoot me?”
“My man?”
“What do you take me for?”
He knew. Beckett knew Storey was back somewhere with rifle leveled. He knew his daughter—that unless someone else had been holding her back she would have run out at the first sound of his voice. Again the sense that the colonel was very smart and very dangerous.
“I want to say—I want to hold my daughter. Once. Your word.” It was a command.
“My word, of course,” Jess stammered. “I brought her all this way.” Lame, he knew. It could still be a setup. But he believed what he was saying and he thought Beckett would hear it.
He did. The Maglite flashed in his face again, and then he could see it moving to the side of the dark hulk of boat, and stutter as the man came down a ladder fast. It stayed on his chest and got brighter as the man came on, and then it flicked off and he heard, “Okay,” and Jess blinked and Beckett was there, ten feet off, compact, thick glasses, sweatshirt hood down, lit dimly by the arc lights of a dock to the north. He was aiming a handgun level with both hands, aiming at Jess’s head, close enough to kill him and miss his daughter. Was she passed out? Face buried in his chest? No. She might have smelled her father. Or heard the soft, “Col? Col? It’s Papa.” She squirmed and stiffened and slid from his grasp. In an instant she was grabbing at her father’s leg. Beckett must have been overcome, because the gun was gone, shoved somewhere into his work pants, and he was kneeling and his arms were around her. Her paws clutched at his head, knocked his cap to the concrete, and she was bawling and bawling and crying “Papa” over and over.
Beckett could not convince her. He forgot about Jess, about Jess’s buddy outside with a rifle, about his own army, his command. He must have. Because he knelt on the cold floor of the shed and held his daughter. And she clutched him, pawed at his hair, his face, tried to crawl into his sheltering chest. Jess could hear him trying to utter words, to quell his own quiet crying, to comfort her, but he could not. He could only sob with relief, with fresh sorrow. This man who had already lost his wife and mother. He gasped, summoned himself, held her face in both hands, enough away that she could look at him while he spoke.
“Col, Col, listen to me. Listen, okay?” She could not listen. He kissed her cheeks again and again, thumbed her tears, and she tried to crawl close again but he held her inches away. “Listen, baby. I will come find you. If I can. Not today, but later. I promise. Know why?”
She would not know. Refused. But he repeated it again and again until she squeaked, “Why?”
“Because I love you more than anything on earth. You know that?”
Jess could not see her face but he saw her head tilt.
“And you’re the strongest little lion, right? And I have to go to work now, and you will go with these nice men where it is safe. These are good men, and, honey, you will be safe, and you will grow up—”
He stopped himself. He pushed her gently outward. Her fingers were tangled in his hair. She would not let go. “You go now, honey. You go with him, and I will find you.”
Jess stepped forward and swept her up and she went limp. Completely. As if she had lost all fight. Her lion hood was crumpled down and her hair was wet. The man looked up and Jess saw the nod. Jess turned. He carried her against his chest and walked toward the open bay door.
“One day,” the man called. Jess turned back. “One day…” Silence. He heard the water lapping at the ramp. Jess waited. In the middle of the dark shed. “One day, please try to tell her…”
“I will,” Jess said. He thought of the man and the girl grinning, each holding up a fish, the one huge, the other tiny. How they beamed. He thought of Collie’s mother behind the camera, probably the happiest, proudest woman on earth.
Jess turned. Through the bay door the harbor was all shadow now, and the sea and sky merged in a slate-dark blue with no horizon.