He pressed the mike button. “What do I tell a cop if I do run into one? And how am I getting out of here?”
A long silence.
“Mother Hen?”
“Rooster, right now, I don’t know how anybody’s getting out of there. Do your best to stay safe and I’ll get back to you. Keep the channel clear.”
There was an edge to Mother Hen’s voice that he hadn’t heard before, and in a rush, he realized how many people he’d just let down. Here he was, trying to extract himself from danger at the very moment when everybody else was walking headlong into it. A terrible weight appeared in his gut. It felt like cowardice.
It felt like shame.
But what choice did he have? He wasn’t the one who’d abandoned anyone on the shore. The others had abandoned him.
The slope toward the river steepened as he approached the tree line, and he forced himself to take smaller steps.
Why did he feel so guilty about all of this? He was a victim, for God’s sake. He only came along because it felt like a grand adventure. That, and because if the mission failed, he’d have nothing to live for back home anyway.
He came along because a perfect stranger saved him from certain death, and it seemed like the right thing to do. The decent thing to do.
Now those perfect strangers were heading into hell to save him again. And he was walking away.
He wished he’d jumped on the boat with the First Lady. Except he couldn’t have, because then they’d have no way of getting away.
Which they still didn’t because he’d stranded the goddamn truck.
The air among the trees was noticeably warmer than the air directly at water’s edge, but the footing became progressively more treacherous.
He hadn’t walked very far — maybe a hundred yards — when he saw a line of headlights approaching. It looked like a clutch of six, maybe eight trucks, neither huge nor small, heading right for him down the Ottawa River Parkway. At the last minute, just before they would have passed closest to him, the first vehicle swung a hard right onto River Road, the approach that led exclusively to Saint Stephen’s Island. The second truck in the line followed, and then the third and the fourth. The others, too. They all bore the markings of various moving and storage companies.
David pulled his radio from his pocket and keyed his mike. “Yo, Mother Hen, is your satellite picture picking up the parade of trucks that’s headed right toward our team?”
The last truck in the line — there turned out to be nine of them in all — stopped just after making the turn, maybe twenty, thirty yards away from David. A man dressed in a puffy blue ski jacket climbed out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the back of the truck.
Mother Hen’s voice chirped loudly, “Do you have traffic for me?”
The noise might as well have been a cymbal crash, it was so loud against the silence of the night. David moved quickly to press the radio against his chest to muffle the sound, but it was too late.
Blue Coat stopped abruptly and turned. He looked in David’s general direction, but not straight at him. And he had a pistol in his hand.
Shit, shit, shit…
If Mother Hen tried to contact him again, they guy would hear it for sure. David reached with his other hand and turned the button he thought was the volume control until it clicked. He’d either turned it off or changed the channel. He hoped that either one would buy him invisibility.
Blue Coat didn’t move for a long time. In the wash of the taillights, David could see him squinting into the night. After what must have been two solid minutes, he holstered his gun — his weapon—and slid open the roll-up panel in the back of the truck. He removed what looked to be planks and saw horse supports.
In fact, that’s exactly what they turned out to be. Blue Coat assembled them at the turn and positioned them in such a way as to block off the entire roadway. Battery-powered yellow lights flashed to alert people that from that point north, River Road was closed.
Blue Coat didn’t bother to close the back of the truck before heading back to his driver’s seat. As he mounted the vehicle, he pulled something from the side door panel and swung it around to point back toward David.
The beam of a powerful flashlight nearly blinded him. He froze, certain that he’d been seen, and, because he could no longer see the driver, equally certain that he would be shot dead within seconds.
Then the light moved. The driver was scanning the tree line, one last look to convince himself that he hadn’t heard what he in fact had. Apparently satisfied, he turned off his light and climbed into his seat. Ten seconds later, he was on his way to join his friends.
His heart hammering and his hands trembling to the point of convulsion, David turned his radio back on.
“… Hen. Respond, please.”
“Rooster here. But barely.”
“Be advised that there’s a line of trucks heading right for you.”
“No kidding,” he said. “You be advised that I am not walking into town. It’s wrong and I’m not doing it.”
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not running. Now I’m going to keep the channel clear.” He turned the volume down to nearly nothing and put the radio back into his pocket.
He’d spoken the truth about not knowing what he was going to do. But one thing was certain: Bad things were about to happen to people to whom he owed a lot. If they needed him, he was going to be as close as he could be — not as far away.
If it came to that, though, he was going to need firepower.
He spun on his heel and ran as fast as the snow would allow back toward the stranded Chevy.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Len Shaw’s spirits lifted when the watchman told him that the trucks were on the bridge. At Dmitri’s insistence, he’d answered the call on speaker. It was already after 1:00 A.M., which put them nearly an hour behind schedule, but there was still plenty of nighttime left to get them loaded up and off the major roads before the morning commuters started to clog the highways.
“Tell the sentries at the gate to line the trucks up the length of the front wall,” Len said. “I want them loaded one at a time. When one is filled, it can be on its way, and the next can pull up to take its place.”
“Will do,” the watchman said. “Once I can find the gate sentries.”
Dmitri’s face darkened. He stood and leaned close to the phone. “You can’t find them? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know, sir.” The watchman’s tone became more formal — more fearful — when he heard Dmitri’s distinctive voice. “All I know is I couldn’t raise them on the radio.”
“Did you send anyone to look for them?”
“Well, sir… no.”
“Don’t you think that might be a good idea?” Len asked.
“I suppose it would, yes. I’ll get right to it.”
“Thank you.” Len pushed the disconnect button. He walked to his window and tried to look down to see the sentries, but couldn’t. Even if he opened the window, the bars over the opening would keep him from being able to look straight down.
“Do you see them?” Dmitri asked.
“The angles are wrong,” Len answered.
Dmitri walked to the window for his own look. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like the timing.”
“I’m sure the watchman will tell us—”
His phone rang again and he pressed the button to connect. “Have you found the sentries?”
“Not yet, sir, but I’ve sent someone to find them. This comes from one of the drivers. He just radioed to tell me that he thought there might have some people lurking at the far end of the bridge. He thought he heard a radio.”