A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror (31 page)

The police had to be thinking that he was in the woods near the pit, so they would be blazing away at the area with all the light they could find. They’d be moving to seal off the area around the van; keeping the roads locked up tight; reasoning that he was laying low until he ran out of food or tried to cross one of the blacktop roads that encircled the area. With daybreak, they’d be all over these woods with searchers and dogs.

Lou knew without looking at the map what the situation was. To the west, south, and north of him lay acre after acre of thick woods and rocky spines rising up like the ridges of a washboard. To the east were the river and the built-up area that paralleled it. The map revealed a trailer camp, just on the eastern side of the Torne. He’d passed it when he reconnoitered, before the operation even started. The camp was off Mine Torne Road, high up in the woods.

It was time to do something outrageous—something they couldn’t expect—to get out of the area. The longer he stayed in the woods, the longer they had to box him in. He had to strike now, tonight; to get out. He had to get cleaned up and eat. Had to plan what to do.

The Torne Ridge was steeper than anything he’d climbed before. With his left leg a throbbing mass of flesh he had to drag along, it seemed to take hours to move a hundred yards. Instead of high stepping over fallen logs and rocks, he had to hop and lurch from tree to tree, log to log, rock to rock. The M-2 became a crutch. Empty of ammunition, it didn’t matter that he rammed the muzzle into the dirt.

It was bitter cold atop the Torne. The wind was strong across the top of the ridge. The view from there was spectacular. To the south he could clearly see an occasional car’s headlights snaking around Bear Mountain. To the west and north, blackness possessed the hills except for a faint corona at the horizon. To the east, the streetlights of Fort Montgomery flickered through the trees. And beyond the town, the bridge seemed disconnected from the hills around it, hovering alight in the darkness like some alien space ship.

The span floated in a cloud of mist lit by searchlights and framed by blackened girders and cables. The inferno hadn’t twisted the steel. Its roadway was alive with worker ants who’d already replaced the approach lights on both sides. All the lamps along the roadway glowed. Above the bridge, atop Anthony’s Nose, the green beacon gleamed in the blackness. And at the level of the river, just under the eastern end of the bridge, a single white light—the one he’d seen from the gorge—flickered.

Now with the wind blowing straight into his face, the image of the bridge blurred and dissolved, along with his fleeting wish that the crew that had so quickly put the bridge right could do the same for him. He turned and plodded down off the Torne toward the trailer camp.

The faint moon shadows in the camp concealed him. A set of headlights bobbed on the winding gravel road and crept by. Lou hobbled after it as it pulled up beside one of the trailers. From thirty feet behind the car, he called out to the driver as he emerged: “Hey! Hold on there for a second, will you?”

A short man whirled. He stared down at Lou as he limped up the road. In the darkness, the man appeared to be about five feet, five and about two hundred pounds, most of which resided at his belt line.

“Geez man! You scared the livin’ bejesus out of me, yelling like that. Don’t be doing that to me now.” It was a tenor voice.

Lou kept the carbine close to his leg. If the man started running, there was no way Lou would be able to catch him, no matter how fat he was. The man waited patiently by the side of his battered Plymouth while Lou struggled up to him, limping badly. As he came up to within ten feet of the man, Lou leveled his carbine.

“I’ll blow you to hell if you move.”

“Be careful with that thing, man! I’m not going anywhere. I’ll give you any damned thing you want.”

“Okay, listen. I don’t want anything from you except cooperation. If you do what I say, you’ll get out of this with no problem at all. But you cross me, and there’s going to be big trouble for both of us. I don’t think you’d like that.”

“I only have a couple of bucks.”

“Keep it. Now come around here and open up your trunk.” Giving Lou a wide berth, the man hurried to the rear of the car, his eyes on the weapon.

“All right. Now, I want you to climb in and lie down. I’m going to close the door on you. It’s only to keep you locked up for a couple of minutes. I’m going to have to get into your trailer for a little while. I’ll be right back to let you out. Understand?”

“Geez, I don’t want to get in there. I won’t have any air.”

“Do what I tell you. You’ll have plenty of air. I told you I’d come right back out. I don’t intend to kill anyone.”

The guy struggled into the trunk. Lou waited for him to move into a semi-comfortable position, and then slammed the metal door. He had the keys to the trailer. He hobbled to the porch; heard no commotion from the car; saw no lights in any of the other trailers.

Inside, he wasted no time. It was two o’clock. Maybe four hours tops to get out of the area before daylight. He found the bathroom; flicked on the light; hop-hobbled to the toilet; sat and stripped.

The wound was easier to look at than the blood. The back of his left leg was caked black and stiff, the sock gleaming ruby. The bullet had burrowed through an inch or two of tissue at the very back of his thigh, shattering capillaries and veins. Leaving the muscle swollen and discolored, it had bored clean entry and exit holes.

The hot shower coursed down his face and chest. The water at his feet flowed red at first, then finally clear. He was lucky. The bullet hadn’t tumbled, hadn’t found a bone. He cleaned the wound thoroughly; applied the whole bottle of iodine he found in the medicine chest.

He found a pair of pants. They were short in the leg and huge at the waist, yet better than wearing torn and bloody ones. He cinched them like a gunnysack with his belt. In the small kitchen, he poked around in the refrigerator and wolfed down a couple of salami slices he found there.

He was clean now, but the soap and water had taken the edge off his wariness. He had to fight against the urge to close his eyes. He sat at the tiny table in the dining area, eating an apple. The trailer was immaculate. The guy’s shoes were lined up neatly in a built-in cabinet down the hallway.

In an overhead cupboard, Lou found a half-f quart of White Horse. He poured a finger into a water glass and downed it in two swigs, burning all the way. He sat again at the back window of the dining area and rested his head in his hands, eyes closed, just to clear the bleariness. His thigh throbbed continuously.
Five minutes to rest up. Maybe ten.
His head dropped.

* * *

He shook his eyes open. It was three o’clock.

* * *

“I don’t want you turning around to look at me, understand? It’s better for both of us that you never get a look at me. Now, make a right when you get out to Mine Torne Road. I want you to do exactly what I say under all circumstances. Understand?”

“I hear you,” the guy said, keeping his eyes and head straight to the front.

“What do you want me to call you?” Lou asked.

“My name’s Titus. That’s what you can call me.”

“Okay, Titus. Drive the speed limit, no slower, no faster. We’re going to go up to Newburgh and across the river. On the other side we’re going to swing on down to the city. That’s where you’re going to drop me off. How are you fixed for gas?”

“I got a full tank. Can I say something?”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m going to do everything you tell me to do. Do you believe that?”

“If you say so.”

“I ain’t seen your face. Do you believe that?”

“Sure.”

“Then you got no reason to shoot my black ass, right?”

“Right, Titus. Now just shut up and drive.”

“Just one more thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“What are you going to do when we come to the roadblock?”

“I’m going to lie on the floor back here with this blanket over me and you’re going to get waved through.”

“They stop all cars. You have to get out. They open the trunk. Everything. I just came through two of them coming home from work. Hey, I don’t want to get caught in the middle of a gunfight.”

“All right. Stop the car. Give me your wallet”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need your license. Get out of the car.”

“Listen. I just want to keep breathing. I can help you. You can barely walk let alone drive a car. And you sure as hell ain’t gonna pass for me.”

Lou drummed his fingers on the back of the seat ahead of him. “Right,” he muttered.

“Lay up at my trailer until the pressure’s off,” Titus said.

For what seemed a long time, Lou pondered this offer. “Titus. If I get it, you get it. I’m desperate.”

“I want to live.”

“Drive exactly as I tell you to,” Lou said. “We’re going to take some back roads.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

It was too dark to tell where they were on Mine Torne. Titus was driving by the car’s parking lights and the light of a quarter moon. Judging from the time they’d been on the road, they had already gotten well clear of the turnoff to Borrow Pit and the police there. As they came up beside a body of water on the left, Lou spoke sharply: “Take this dirt cutaway on the right.”

A military “No Trespassing” sign warned that this was “Saratoga Range— POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE.” Titus swung the car neatly around the metal gate and chain. Driving slowly with the edges of the dirt road barely detectable, he steered up a steep incline and then leveled off on a bare area the size of a football field.

Through all of it, Lou never had less control than now. Titus had no idea that the weapon was empty; and even if Lou did have ammunition, the barrel was clogged with dirt. Brazen was one thing; this was another. This man could go anywhere he pleased and there would be nothing Lou could do about it. But to Titus, the gun was locked and loaded, and that’s all he needed to know.

“There’s another range up here around the next hill.” Lou groused from the back seat.

“You been up here before?” Titus asked.

“Let’s say it’s not completely new to me. This is the military reservation. Too big to patrol effectively. They don’t even try. I’ve been all over these roads.”

“Where we coming out?”

“If I have it right, we’ll come out somewhere above Michie Stadium.”

Lou flicked on the overhead light and consulted his map. The West Point Military Reservation extended ten or fifteen miles north of Mine Torne Road. They stayed in the blackness of the woods for at least ten minutes before another large open area loomed out the right window: Normandy Range.

“We’ll be coming out onto a road in a couple of minutes. Watch for passing cars. I don’t want anyone to see us coming out of here,” Lou barked.

“There’s nothing moving this time of night.”

“Except military police.”

Titus swung around the chain strung across the gravel road and swerved onto the pavement.

“Okay, let’s have some headlights. This is Stony Lonesome. Officer housing. West Point,” Lou said.

“Hey. Cool. Went right around the roadblocks. Now, how do we get out of here?”

“I’d rather try to fool the MPs at the gate than at a road block. I’m betting they’ll accept us as dishwashers in the cadet mess hall. Your black face helps. Sorry about that.”

There were no other cars on the road. The time was 4:00 A.M. Lou sat back in the seat and kept his eyes on Titus up front. The slight illumination from the dashboard silhouetted his frame, highlighting the close-cut shape of his head and his enormous ears.
Stop it. Stay sharp. Stay focused.

Titus drove slowly as ordered. They came down off the top of the ridge above Michie Stadium and slid past it, the grandstand rising over them. They swung around Lusk Reservoir and down a long, steep hill past the cadet chapel; cut beside the gymnasium and the superintendent’s quarters; and stopped on level ground. It was quiet and dark except for the hall lights in the gray stone, fortress-like barracks standing west and south of the expanse of grass before them.