"I don't think I have much of a choice," I said, picking up the two cases, the plastic handles cutting into my sweaty hands.
"You're right, you don't," he said. "Now. Lead on." I
looked at him. "Lead on where?"
"To Battery A. Wherever the hell that is."
I looked over at the hills and trees and high grass. "Sorry, Gus. I just know it's over there, to the east. What are you expecting, a sign saying 'This way to the German uranium?'"
"No," he said, stepping closer. "I expect you to find Battery A and a way inside, or you're going to join Clem in a few minutes. Got it?"
I started walking toward the interior of the park.
"Gotten," I said.
A gravel-lined trail led from the parking lot to a sign that showed a schematic diagram of the park, and as I recalled, Battery A was one of two large artificial hills toward the eastern side of the park But getting to Battery A and getting inside was going to be hard indeed. Decades of tourists coming through this old military site had prompted the state to weld shut old doors, pour concrete down ventilation tubes, and put metal bars on gunports, to prevent teenagers or whomever from gaining access to the underground tunnels and chambers. Even in the relatively short time I had lived nearby, I had noticed how, each year, more and more barriers had been constructed on the old structures in the park.
Now I had a madman behind me with a pistol, eager and ready to kill again, looking for an easy way in to a place where the uranium had been hidden more than a half century ago.
I said aloud, not looking back, "I gather there's no squad of FBI agents racing their way south to meet up with us."
"You got that right," he said.
"And Laura Reeves. She knows nothing of what's going on. She doesn't know that I found about Whizzer or anything else, right?”
Gus laughed. "Good deduction work there as well. Too bad it's about a half hour too late."
The rumbling of the thunder grew louder as we made our way into the darkening interior of the park. "So why are you going renegade? You don't like your pension plan?"
"Close," Gus said, keeping right in step with me, his legs sometimes bumping into the cases I was carrying. "I look at the money I make, I look at the shitty places I travel to do the government's bidding, and if this job and what I do is so important, I should be compensated for it. Not living on a daily stipend, exaggerating your mileage report, trying to stretch out your daily meal payment. The hell with that. So I found out about the uranium, and here we are. One big payoff and I can retire. Brazil looks good this time of year."
I quickly looked back at him. The trees arched overhead, making a tunnel-like effect. "The uranium. How did you find out about that?"
A laugh. "Never you mind. You're asking way too many questions as it is. Let's just say I'm the agent of change, getting that stuff where it belongs."
"Libya? You're going to help Libya get the bomb?"
He shrugged. "If I don't, somebody will. Why not get paid for it?"
"And Libya gets the bomb, that's a good thing?"
"Not my concern," Gus said. "You see anybody shedding tears that Pakistan and India have the bomb? Let 'em kill each other all they want, and let God sort it out. Looking out for number one has done well for me so far. And that's how I intend to close out the day. Now, get a move on, before I decide I don't need you anymore."
With the fading light from the storm it was hard to see where we were going. Woods and brush made a thick tangle on both sides or the trail, and I had a quick fantasy of spinning around and popping Gus on the side of the head with the black plastic cases. Then, when he was stunned, I would run past the trees and the bushes and make like a scared bunny and hide in the underbrush. An attractive fantasy, one that unfortunately would no doubt end with a few bullet holes blasting into my hide.
Rain came down for a moment or two, and then let up. The trail widened, and to our right a concrete overhang appeared. Wide metal doors were set into the concrete. I set the cases down on the ground and rubbed my hands.
"Gus," I said. "You carrying a light of some sort?"
He chuckled. "Man, I got this thing nailed. Of course I do. What's up?"
"Shine the light up there, at the concrete overhang. At the upper lip."
A rustle of clothing and then a beam of light shot out.
Carved in the upper portion of the concrete overhang was BATTERY B. "Nice," Gus said. "Getting close, aren't we?"
"We are," I said.
Gus lowered the flashlight beam down to the tall metal doors, and I made out the thick bead of welding material, extending top to bottom, closing the doors forever. He let the flashlight beam rest on the weld for a long moment.
"You better hope things are better at Battery A," he said quietly. "Now, get going. I don't want to get rained on."
I picked up the cases without a word and kept on walking. People, I thought. Where the hell are all the people? Knowing the cantankerous nature of the local residents and tourists alike, I was sure that not everyone had left the park once the gate had closed. There was no fence around the preserve, meaning anyone walking down Atlantic Avenue could wander in without any questions or problems. I had another quick little fantasy, of a little group of hard-drinking construction workers coming up the trail, so many that even Gus wouldn't think of shooting them all.
The landscape lit up, as if a gang of photographers had suddenly taken a picture of the surroundings, and it only took a few seconds for the rumbling to reach my ears. There's the answer, I thought. Who wants to be out in the woods waiting to get rained on during a thunderstorm?
And meanwhile, the FBI agents are doing their thing up in Porter, and Laura Reeves is probably landing in her helicopter, and everybody's doing their own thing, while the uranium is about a few minutes away from leaving this country and heading overseas. Not to mention that the pilots of the fighter-bombers were probably getting their briefings, and the final mapping coordinates had been plugged into the cruise missiles.
All this destruction, all this death, all focused on this rainy stretch of land in New Hampshire.
Another flash of lightning. Another concrete overhang approaching on the right. Gus noted it as well and I didn't have to say a word. He lit up the concrete and the old carved letters appeared in the gloom. BATTERY A. He lowered the light and there were the same tall double doors.
Welded, top to bottom.
"Guess it's not your night, Lewis," he said. "I've had better. Can I borrow your light?"
I could see the grin on his face. "Why? You planning on blinding me? Planning on upgrading the flashlight to a laser beam and cutting me in half?"
"No," I shot back. "I'm trying to find your goddamn uranium. You give me the flashlight, I'll do the work. There's more than one way in and out of Battery A. You want to blunder around by yourself, go ahead. This way, I do the grunt work."
No answer. More grumbling of the thunder, and another spray of rain, wetting my hands and hair. I said, "You still got the book I brought, showing the diagrams of the buildings?"
"All right. Hold on. The light and the book, I'm putting on the ground. You do anything quick or unusual, and you're ---"
"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. I'm a dead man. I'm tired of hearing it. Get on with it, okay?"
Gus did just that and I knelt down in the wet gravel, flipping through the book written by a local historian who probably in his wildest dreams never thought his work would be used in such a fashion. I found the schematic of Battery A and B easily enough, but the drawings were old engineering documents from the 1930s. I looked down at the drawings and over at the main entrance, and looked back and forth twice.
“Well?” Gus said.
I got up, flashlight held down, so he wouldn't think I was trying to blind him. "Let's go for a walk. The sketches show some outbuildings in a perimeter around this emplacement. Question is, are they still here, more than fifty years later?"
He didn't answer, so I handed over the light to him. I picked up the containers again, feeling the sharp bite of the handles in my palms. Now a drizzle was coming down, and the warmth of the April day had disappeared. I shivered, and kept on walking into the darkness.
Something bumped on my side as I walked, and I remembered Felix's cell phone, nice and secure in my jacket. Thank God Clem hadn't noticed this little instrument, or it would have been tossed in the LTD's trunk back in the parking lot, next to Clem's rapidly cooling body.
But so what? I doubted Gus would allow me to make a phone call, and if there was a point where I could break free --- quite doubtful --- I'd use that time to bail out and hide, and not to call 911.
The phone kept on thumping me as I kept on walking.
The first outbuilding was a concrete foundation filled with cement and beer cans, the second was a pile of bricks. Gus spent a few minutes poking around the bricks, looking for any kind of opening. Nothing. The drizzle had changed to a light rain, and Gus said, "This book's falling apart in the rain. Where to next?"
"Keep on walking, following the trail," I said, tired and achy and still terrified at the easy and casual way Gus had ended Clem's life. My knees and legs were quivering from all that had happened, and as we went on, the trail came to a fork. The one to the left was well-traveled, while the one to the right was narrow and overgrown.
"Which way?" Gus said.
I didn't say a word for a moment, feeling a burst of resentment and anger boiling up, being treated like a pack mule and a native guide. If I could have led him into the ocean, I would have gladly done it. I dropped the cases for a quick rest.
“To the right,” I said. “The left looks like to goes to the ocean.”
He grunted, and I gathered that was an affirmative sign.
I picked up the cases and made my way to the right. This trail was hard going, rocky and with branches snapping at my face. The light from Gus was moving around so much that it was hard to see where we were going. We were now close enough to hear the sound of the waves crashing in, and the thunder's rumbles had eased up. My throat was dry and my chest hurt from the heavy breathing, from carrying these two damn cases and everything else. Then my feet got wet and I felt mud ooze up past my ankles.
"Hold on," I said. "Shine the light over here."
He did just that, and my heart ached at what I saw. Swampy marshland, with nothing in view that looked man-made, nothing at all.
"I'm running out of patience," Gus said. "I can imagine."
We retraced our steps back along the trail, heading for the intersection, when something caught my eye. I stopped suddenly and Gus nearly bumped into me, and I had a quick, terrifying thought of his finger accidentally tightening on his pistol, blowing a hole through my back. I had no illusions that if that happened, Gus wouldn't do more than just grab the two plastic cases and keep on walking even without my assistance.
"What's wrong?" he said. "Why did you stop?"
"Shine the light over there, to the right."
The beam went over and I saw what had caught my eye: freshly trimmed tree branches, the white stumps shining brightly in the light. A trail barely wide enough for one skinny man made its way into the woods, and I wasn't surprised we had missed the opening on the way in.
"Another trail," Gus said, walking around me to take a better look. "And it seems pretty new. Does it match the drawings in the book?"
"How the hell should I know?" I snapped back at him, dropping the heavy cases again. “The only way to find out is to start walking.”
He took the pistol and tapped the end of the barrel against my neck. “Then start walking.”
My hands cramped up some as I picked up the two cases and blundered my way into the new trail. More branches and limbs snapped at me, and Gus kept close by, no doubt ensuring that I wouldn't break away and start running. But the underbrush and brambles were so thick, it'd probably take me about five minutes to go five feet, plenty of time for him to choose which body part of mine he wanted to shoot first.
The rain was coming down heavier as the trail zigged and zagged its way through the woods, and my arms and shoulders were aching and crying out for relief as I went through, trying hard not to think of what might happen if the trail opened up to a clearing with a couple of picnic tables and a barbecue pit.
The thunder returned, and so did the lightning. I saw a square shape up ahead, and so did Gus. "I see something, real close."
I didn't say anything in reply. It didn't seem necessary. The trail abruptly widened out to a clearing about the size of an acre. A small hill rose up in the middle of the clearing, covered with grass and shrubbery. Another concrete abutment, another metal door. We walked up to the door and I dropped the two cases, not caring at that moment what was going to happen.
Gus came around me again and used the light to illuminate the old metal door. This one was small and looked as if it was used for an entrance for people rather than trucks or tanks. The two hinges looked unimpeded, and Gus whistled in delight as he ran the light up and down, looking at where the edge of the door met the concrete.