If Angels Fall (60 page)

Zach’s eyes
adjusted to the dimness under the tarp.

The rumbling hum of the twin Mercuries pushing the
boat, which leaped and skipped over the water’s surface, was deafening, rattling
him alert.

That rotten taste was in his mouth again. His head
hurt, his leg was throbbing, and he was hungry. Danny and Gabrielle were lying
on the deck with him, stirring, as the vibrations shook their bodies.

The boat was moving fast.

Ouch -- something was sticking him in the groin -- what?
He reached into his underpants, remembering his pocketknife. He still had it.
He tightened his fingers around it. Okay, he sniffed, don’t sit up, just take a
look around, see what’s going on. What’s that? He looked down at what was
causing the painful pressure on his lower leg.

Heavy, yellow plastic rope was tied around his ankle
and encased in a cast of silver duct tape. Zach followed the rope. It was
coiled in a nearby bundle, knotted and heavily taped to four cement cinder
blocks. Danny and Gabrielle? It was the same with them; rope and tape around
their ankles, tied to the blocks. Another line ran from the bundle away from
the tarp. Holding his breath, Zack lifted the tarp slightly, following the line
along the deck to the front of the boat where it ended in a taped knot around
the creep’s ankle.

They were all connected. What was it for? Zach
struggled to understand. Suddenly, it hit him, harder than anything in his
life: The creep was going to kill them all!

Zach wanted his dad. Where was he? Don’t scream! Where
were the police? Didn’t anyone care? Don’t move! Aren’t they looking for us?
Think! Just think! Where are we going? Think! C’mon! He rubbed tears from his
eyes and felt -- the knife! Yes! He felt the knife in his hand. Okay. He could
do something.

He shifted closer to the rope and opened the blade. It
shrank next to the diameter of the heavy rope, like a steak knife against an
oak tree. He sniffled and began sawing away. The tiny blade was sharp and cut
into the rope, but it was going to take forever. Damn! He might not have time
to cut Danny and Gabrielle free. He concentrated. He could stab the creep. No.
The blade was too small. Panic washed over him. Think, Zach! Think!

Cut the rope and jump out? He could swim. For how
long? What about sharks? What about Danny and Gabrielle? He didn’t know. He
didn’t know anything, only that he had to do something quick. If he tried hard
enough, he could cut through one piece of rope. Which one? He moved closer to
the bundle, examining the coils. One line connected the cement blocks to the
lines wrapped around the children’s ankles. Which one? He double-checked the
web of rope. Okay. Here goes.

He gestured to Danny and Gabrielle to keep still and
quiet, then he gripped his knife and began slicing through the yellow rope.

From a thousand
feet up, through the Coast Guard spotter’s bubble, it looked like a
meteor speeding across the heavens, cutting a southwest path across the
sparkling sea, leaving a fading trail of white water. Another check through the
binoculars to be certain. Twin outboards. Mercs. Northcraft. Affirmative.

“Air C-351, sighted the craft! Copy?”

“Roger, C-351. Coordinates? Over?”

“Got him running hard at ... standby...”

The guard’s C-130 Hercules had locked on to Keller’s
boat in the gulf about seven miles off Point Reyes, bearing southwest to the
islands at forty-three knots.

Within six minutes, the guard’s rescue chopper, at
five hundred feet, moved in behind the boat, hanging back about a quarter mile
while the cutter
Point Brower
, with two FBI sniper teams aboard, now
within a mile, was coming from the south to intercept.

“We’ve got a visual,” Langford Shaw acknowledged as
the bureau’s Huey, pounding at maximum speed, came up fast taking the lead. It
held at two hundred yards behind Keller’s boat, stern portside. Altitude: three
hundred feet.

Through binoculars, Shaw and his chief observer
checked the suspect and the boat against enhanced photos from the hobby store
security camera and the buy and trade magazine.

“Move up another hundred yards,” Shaw told the pilot
as he and the observer continued comparing pictures. “It’s Keller,” Shaw
concluded. “And that’s the boat. Pull back a hundred.”

“No hostages,” the observer said, “Wait, I see -- ”

“Sir,” blurted one of the snipers looking through his
scope, “edge of the tarp at eight o’clock!”

Part of a child’s sneaker was sticking out from under
it.

The second FBI helicopter arrived, taking a mirror
point to Shaw’s chopper at Keller’s starboard stern. Listening to the radio
dispatches, Reed requested and was given a pair of high-powered binoculars.
Focusing on the tarp, he glimpsed Zach’s shoe!

His shoe moved. Didn’t it?

“That’s my son’s foot. That’s Zach!”

The sniper team in Reed’s chopper also locked on to
Keller his head bouncing in the scope’s cross-hairs.

Why was a rope tied to Keller’s ankle?

A Navy ship? No. Keller saw the markings. U.S. Coast
Guard. The cutter appeared out of nowhere a few hundred yards ahead. Turning
broadside. To block him!

“Edward Keller!” His name boomed out -- a bullhorn?

He eased up on the throttle.

“FBI, Mr. Keller. Stop your craft now! I repeat, this
is...”

***

‘Movement under the tarp, sir,” a sniper reported to
Shaw.

“Drop him a line, Fred,” Shaw ordered the negotiator.

The chopper tracked directly above Keller, matching
his speed.

“Mr. Keller, we’re dropping a phone to you now.”

A line with a padded bag at the end of it was paid out
from the chopper, landing safely on Keller’s deck. The rope slackened,
collapsing on him like netting. Keller shrugged it off, then tossed the bag
into the ocean.

The noise was frightening, hurting his ears, but Zach
realized police were trying to save them, and worked even harder at the rope.
Gabrielle and Danny watched frozen in fear, hands over their ears.

Come on! Zach’s fingers and wrist ached as he sawed.

Keller vanished from the sniper’s scopes.

Slamming the throttle down, twin engines growling, the
boat veered south, cutting a magnificent white-capped swath as crosswinds swept
the tarp back revealing everything: the children, the ropes, the cinder blocks.

Shaw’s throat tightened.

“Get on him now! We’re going to take him out! Warn
him, Fred!”

“Mr. Keller, surrender now or you will be fired upon!”

Shaw ordered the sniper teams in both choppers, and
those on the Coast Guard cutter, to lock on Keller. He turned to his
three-member assault team. They would be first in the water for a rescue in
advance of the guard’s chopper.

“Move in everybody! Now! Now! I want him now!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Shaw saw them. Four of
them! And two more coming in the distance. News helicopters hovering over the
scene. He’d be damned if they were going to see dead kids on the fucking news!
He went on his intercom to Agent Fred Wheeler.

“Fred, get on the same frequency as the press pilots.
Tell them to back off. This airspace is sealed for two miles!”

It was too late. The entire drama was unfolding live
on every U.S. network. The parents of the children watched on TV monitors set
up for them by news crews outside Keller’s house in San Francisco. Cameras
trained on them provided live reaction.

“Put a warning shot in his quarterdeck,” Shaw ordered.

“I got it,” answered Agent Lyle Bond, a sniper on the
second chopper with Reed.

“Take it, Lyle, go!” Shaw said.

Bond’s marksmanship scores were in the FBI’s top one
percent. Keller’s boat swayed gently within Bond’s scope as he stayed with him,
partners in a tragic ballet, waiting for the precise moment -- there it was -- Bond
squeezed his trigger.

The round ripped through the deck of Keller’s boat
like a sledgehammer, shattering the hull below, leaving a baseball-sized hole
inches from his foot. He began taking on water.

“Mr. Keller stop your craft now!!”

Keller yanked on the throttle, killing the Mercs,
stopping the boat, his own hissing wake washing around him, water rushing in
through the gap in the hull.

The choppers were pounding.

Whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop
.

In one smooth motion, Keller tossed Zach overboard,
then Gabrielle, then Danny. The long yellow ropes attached to their ankles
slithered prettily on the surface.

The children thrashing.

Screaming.

Jaws dropped.

Eyes widened in horror.

Reed watched from the helicopter.

The other parents watched the TV monitors at the
house.

Fast. It was unfolding too fast.

“My God! I can’t believe this!” one network anchor’s
voice broke across the nation.

In a heartbeat, the two FBI helicopters swooped in -- taking
their points starboard and portside -- locking on Keller as he muscled the
cement blocks overboard.

“Green light! Green!” Shaw ordered. “Take him in the
boat!”

Bullets rained on Keller, smashing into the boat, into
him. A round passed through his right thigh, another exploded in his shoulder,
a third grazed his skull as he dove into the water, disappearing beneath the
surface.

Zach treaded water rapidly, witnessing the scene,
unable to find Danny and Gabrielle. The noise, the surface spray was
overwhelming. The choppers moved. So close, he can almost touch--

“Help!”

Instantly the blocks jerked violently at his ankle,
dragging him under with Danny and Gabrielle ... water bubbling, rushing past,
filling his ears, mouth ... until the tension overcame the point where he had
cut the rope, forcing it to snap, freeing all three children twenty feet
beneath the surface.

***

Keller remained tied to the blocks, plummeting feet
first, crimson bubbles trailing his descent. Dazed from his wounds, he tilted
his head, his lungs filling with water, losing time, lost in time as he gazed
into the light. The children were silhouetted against the sun -- floating,
flying in the resplendent waters

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
.

Then it happened. As ordained by God.

The sky above, heaven above, blossoming...

Once. Twice. Three times.

Three beings, celestial entities summoned from
eternity, each gliding, floating to each child, taking them to their breasts,
severing their lines to him ... the brilliant yellow rope floating away. He
grew deeply tired, watching them ascend with the children, to the sun, to God.

He was forgiven.

He was at peace.