Third Strike (23 page)

I slipped Zee's Beretta out of my pocket, flicked off the safety, got my feet under me, took three quick steps, and levered my left forearm around the man's throat before he knew I was there.

I yanked back as hard as I could. I held nothing back. I wanted to crush him.

He gurgled in his throat and grabbed and scratched at my arm with both of his hands.

I jammed the muzzle of the Beretta into the soft place under his right armpit. My finger tightened on the trigger.

“
Do it,
” I told myself.

But I couldn't.

He was clawing at my arm where it was levered around his throat. I felt him growing weaker.

I lifted the Beretta and smashed the butt down on top of his head.

A moan started in his chest and rose up into his constricted throat. It stopped there, and the man's entire body shuddered and twitched.

Then he went limp in my arms.

I eased him to the ground. He lay on his left side, motionless. I looked at his face. I thought I might have seen him in Father Zapata's church, but maybe not. He was a stranger to me.

I wondered if I'd killed him after all.

I bent down and pressed my fingers against the side of the man's throat. I found a fluttering pulse. I kept my fingers there, and after a minute his pulse seemed to strengthen.

He'd wake up with one helluva headache.

I hoped he wouldn't wake up for a while, because I wasn't done. I still had a job to do, and I couldn't afford to take the time to tie him up.

I stuffed the Beretta into my pocket. At that moment, the unconscious man's phone rang.

I fished in his pocket, where I'd seen him put it, pulled it out, opened it, and grumbled, “Yeah?”

“Everything all right?” said a deep voice. He spoke with no accent.

“Uh-huh,” I grunted.

“Fredo?” he said. “That you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, okay,” said the voice. “I thought I heard something.”

I mumbled, “Umm,” and shut the phone, figuring if I tried to say more I'd be pressing my luck.

I knelt down and stuffed the phone into the pine needles under the boulder. Maybe it would provide some kind of evidence later.

When I stood up and looked at my watch, a raindrop hit the back of my hand.

Callahan's plane was due in about five minutes.

I picked up the man's Uzi. A path wound up the slope. I started to follow it. I expected to find a man with an FIM-92 missile launcher on the hilltop.

The rain moved in quickly. It came aslant on a sharp northeasterly wind. The trees swayed and creaked, and almost instantly the ground under my feet was soft and moist.

I made no effort to move silently. I held the Uzi in both hands with my finger on the trigger and followed the path quickly up the hill.

The man was standing on the far side of a clearing. He was looking intently through an opening in the foliage toward the airport. The Stinger was mounted on his right shoulder. It was a simple-looking device—a tube about four feet long extending back over his shoulder, a square piece braced against the front of his shoulder with a handle and a battery pack and what I assumed was a trigger mechanism. He had it aimed upward at about a forty-five-degree angle, and he was squinting through a sight of some kind. He held the handle in his left hand. His right hand fingered the trigger.

I stood in the path, partially hidden by the close-growing bushes. He stood on the other side of the clearing about twenty feet away. His back was to me, and he seemed to be concentrating on what he was seeing through the sights of his terrible weapon, but even under the cover of the wind and rain, there was no way I could get close enough behind him to grab him by the throat and whack him on the head before he saw me.

Then I heard the drone of a jet engine. It seemed as if it was directly overhead. I looked up, but the plane was higher than the low-hanging storm clouds.

I wondered if Callahan's plane would decide not to try landing in this weather. But I doubted it. Instrument landings were routine.

The sound of the plane's engine faded into the clouds. I guessed it was circling, preparing to make its final approach.

The man with the Stinger was pointing his weapon up at the sky, and I remembered that he didn't need to aim it, that its infrared homing mechanism would take care of that. As I understood it, all he had to do was launch the missile in the general direction of the plane. Its high-tech capabilities would do all the fine-tuning.

It looked to me as if the man was about to shoot.

“Hey!” I yelled.

He whirled around to face me, and in that moment I saw that it was Harry Doyle.

W
hen you live on an island you're always conscious of the weather, especially of the wind and of tropical storms moving up the coast or brewing between Africa and the Caribbean. Although we all keep track of the latest forecasts, they are rarely of much help to us residents of Martha's Vineyard, because island weather often is quite different from mainland conditions. Also, in spite of the fact that the island's land mass is only around 120 or so square miles, it's not uncommon for it to have completely different kinds of weather only a few miles apart. My house in Edgartown can be in a blazing hot summer sun, but if I drive to South Beach to cool myself in the surf I can find a thick fog with a chilly wind blowing. Or I can leave home in a steady rain and find dry roads in Vineyard Haven or bright sun in Chilmark.

And, as in all of New England, there is truth in the old saying, “If you don't like the weather, wait a minute.” So when the wind veered and the storm clouds came roiling in from the east, I was not surprised, but I wished Thor had kept his hammer quiet for a bit longer.

As Brady drove away, I was filled with a desire to be many places at once, to be invincible and invisible. But I was here and very mortal and touched by an urgent fear. I knew I had no time to waste if I was to find the missile site I knew was near.

But where was it? I was within the circle I'd drawn on our map, but the landscape was new to me. Oh, to be Sherlock Holmes, capable of deducing truth from the scantiest clue, or Lew Wetzel, unerring in his tracking skills.

But I was neither, and my time was running out. The high branches of the trees were beginning to sway, and the temperatures began to drop as the gray clouds passed under the sun.

I was on a sandy road leading toward South Beach. I started trotting down the road, looking for fresh tire tracks. Somewhere off to my right, not too far from the road, was the site I sought. I'd seen the size of the crates holding the missiles, so I was sure that they and their operators had been brought in by car and that the car would still be in the area to provide them with a swift escape from the search that would certainly follow the crash of the plane.

Other people used this road to get to their houses, so the car must be parked out of their sight. Maybe behind an abandoned building or in a grove of trees.

I watched for any sign of tire tracks leading off the road but saw none. I trotted on, because I could think of nothing else to do. I had odd imaginings. One of them was a genuine wish for a helicopter. If I had a helicopter I could find those guys in two minutes. Another was a vision of a plane exploding in the air and sending fiery pieces of metal spinning to the ground. A third was of me running headlong into a man with an Uzi, who immediately turned it toward me. I felt an additional rush of fear and stumbled when I thought of that, but I kept going.

It seemed that I'd been trotting forever when I finally saw where some tire tracks had turned off the road to the right. I glanced that way and saw no sign of the car, but the soft sand and the bent grass led my eyes toward a thick cluster of tall oak brush. I imagined eyes looking at me from the oaks, like those of lions lying in the tall grass of the veldt, invisible to their prey, so I trotted on down the road as though I was out for an afternoon jog. When the road bent out of sight, I left it and cut to the right, running, bent over, eyes sweeping the trees ahead of me.

Then, believing that a guard must certainly be somewhere near the car, I slowed and moved ahead more carefully. My advantage was that I knew he was there but he didn't know I was there. I made a wide circle out around the cluster of oak brush, glad that the wind was rising and filling the forest with sounds to cover those I was making.

Suddenly I saw a van with the Zapata Landscaping logo. It was hidden from the road by the oak brush and had been turned and was parked facing back toward the road. I froze and let only my eyes move. I saw nothing more at first, but then I saw movement. A man was coming toward the car from some site farther into the woods. The sureness of his stride suggested that he was walking on a trail. Or maybe his confidence was based on the Uzi slung on his shoulder. I instantly recognized him as the man I'd seen at the meetinghouse when I'd slipped away into the cover of trees after Brady's warning phone call.

In the movies, machine-gun-toting villains are always blazing away at pistol-packing heroes and missing them a thousand times before getting popped off themselves by a single round from the hero's trusty handgun. But I didn't think that was a likely scenario if I challenged the guard's Uzi with my old .38, and for a moment I was in a whirlpool of thought, desperately wondering what to do.

Then I heard, or imagined I heard, the distant sound of a plane somewhere off to the southwest, and knew I had no time to waste. Turning, I scurried back to the road, then ran from there toward the cluster of oak brush shouting, “Zapata! Zapata! Abort! Abort!” The sound of the plane grew louder, and I heard, too, the faint sound of what could have been firecrackers, but I believed was gunfire coming from the direction Brady had headed.

Rounding the brush, I came face to face with the guard. The muzzle of his Uzi looked like the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, but I ignored it and shouted, “It's been called off! I just heard from Lundsberg! Callahan's not on this plane! Use your phone! Stop Zapata before it's too late! If he shoots down this plane, the cops will get us before we have another chance! Hurry!”

The big man stared, not knowing what to believe.

“Call him! Quick! If he shoots that missile, we'll never get another chance at Callahan!” He still hesitated, and I screamed, “Jesus Christ, man! Do you want us all shot or in jail for nothing? Here, gimme that phone!” I reached for it.

But he suddenly believed and brushed my hand away. He tipped the Uzi up, dragged out his phone, and shouted into it. “Zapata! Don't fire! Repeat, don't fire! Callahan is not, repeat not, on this plane! Lundsberg says to abort! Do you hear me? I said abort! Do not fire. Callahan is not on this plane! Abort! Abort!”

He turned and stared up the path as if to will his voice to reach Zapata even faster, and when he did I snaked out the .38 and laid it as hard as I could on the side of his head. He went down like a felled ox. I found a pistol in his pocket and put it in mine, and then I grabbed the Uzi and ran up the path.

At its end, in a small clearing on the far side of which branches had been cut away to more clearly reveal the airport runway, stood Zapata, holding a weapon that I took to be the missile launcher. It was pointed toward the ground. The air was full of sound as a jet plane roared over our heads, descended, and touched down. Zapata was watching it, half turned away from me. It had begun to rain, and the noise of the plane and the rain and the rising wind hid the sound of my footsteps as I approached him. Or perhaps he presumed that I was the guard. In any case, he didn't turn until I was close to him. When he did, I leveled the Uzi at him and said, “Put down that launcher. Don't make me kill you.”

His face went pale. He hesitated so long that I almost fired. Then a bitter smile appeared on his face. “If I squeeze this trigger, I imagine both of us will be blown to bits,” he said. “What do you think?”

I thought he was right. “We will be,” I said, “but Callahan won't.”

“I think we're at a standoff,” he said.

When you absolutely know that you're going to die and there's nothing you can do about it, fear disappears and you become quite detached. “No,” I said. “You're all through right here. You can take me with you, but this is the end of it. Put down the weapon and we can both live.”

“Are you so brave?” he said. “Does life mean so little to you?”

I shrugged, wondering what Zee and the children would do without me. I wished that I could be there to see. “I'm not brave,” I said. “I want to live. I hope you do too.”

“I'm trying to decide whether I can lift this thing and shoot you with it before you can shoot me.”

“I don't think you can.”

He seemed to consider his options carefully. Then he said, “Neither do I,” and he bent and lowered the launcher to the ground.

“Step away,” I said. “Do you have any other weapons?”

“No.” He stepped away from the launcher.

“I believe you, but I'm going to search you anyway. Don't do anything to make me nervous.”

I searched him and found not even a pocketknife. I used his bootlaces to tie his hands and then, remembering the firecracker sounds, used his cell phone to call Brady's phone, breathing between my teeth.

I felt weak when I got no answer, and fear for Brady brought a chill of bitterness toward Zapata and his crew. What had happened over there?

I rang off, called 911, and told them where I was and what had happened. Then I walked with Zapata back down the path to the van, where I used the guard's bootlaces to truss him as well. He was still alive, but he was bleeding from one ear. I felt very cold and indifferent toward both of them.

I sat Zapata against a tree and studied him. His dark eyes were full of thoughts.

“What was this all about?” I asked. “What did Joe Callahan do to make you so angry that you'd kill a plane full of people just to get at him?”

“In war they call civilian casualties collateral damage,” he said. “They are the price that must be paid for justice.”

“What justice? Callahan was one of the most humane presidents we've ever had.”

Zapata's face tightened. “Humane? He supported the death squads in Nicaragua.”

“Not for long,” I said. “He got rid of them during his first months in office.”

“Too late,” he said. “Did you ever hear of the Santa Anna Mission Hospital? I was working there with Nate Lundsberg and Lou Mortison.”

“Nate?” I said. “Dr. Lundsberg, you mean?”

Zapata nodded. “He's an amazing man. A saint.”

“Who's Lou Mortison?”

“Bob Mortison's younger brother. Nate was the doctor and Lou and I and Nate's wife, Julia, were his assistants. We were the only medical team in the area, but the CIA had it in their heads that we were supporting the guerrillas. They couldn't send the army, because that would be bad politics, but they could send the death squads, and that's what they did. They killed all our patients, and they killed Lou, and they killed Julia, though not before they raped her, and they burned the place to the ground. Nate and I managed to escape.” He looked up at me with passionate eyes. “We've been waiting thirteen years for justice.”

“You've killed at least two men who didn't deserve it,” I said. “Where's the justice for them?”

The flame faded from his eyes. He looked at the ground. “You mean Alvarez and Bucyck. I didn't know about them until after it happened. That was Harry Doyle's work. We never should have brought him into the group, but he's loyal to Bob Mortison. We needed someone as tough as Harry is, and he would do anything for money. It was his idea to use the missiles, too.”

“Where did you get them?”

“Harry got them. Apparently there were so many made and shipped around the world that nobody knows how many are still out there. I don't know where he got them, but he says there are more if we need them.” He lifted his eyes. “I'm not sorry about the missiles, but I'm sorry about those two men and the other innocent people who would have died on the plane. I hope you can believe that.”

I could believe it.

“I guess I understand Larry Bucyck,” I said. “He was onto your plan. But why Eduardo Alvarez? Why blow up the
Trident
?”

“It was looking like the strike might get settled without Callahan,” he said. “We needed to unsettle it to get Callahan down here. It was Mortison's brainstorm. Blow up the boat, make it look like the strikers did it, and they'd all walk away from the table. Alvarez just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I guess to hell he was,” I said.

The guard groaned and moved a little bit.

I listened for the sound of cars bringing the police, but heard none.

I thought about men like Zapata and Lundsberg. Good men normally, heroic, even, but capable of wickedness almost beyond comprehension. And more than capable of seeing their evil as necessary and therefore moral. I remembered reading about Hitler's last days in the Berlin bunker when he still believed that he'd been right in everything he'd done and that one day the world would come to recognize that.

God save us from idealists. They're more dangerous than fiends.

But was I much different? I was ready to shoot Zapata in cold blood because he was willing to kill a plane full of people I didn't think should be killed. We all must have some thinly covered instinct to destroy anyone or anything that seriously threatens our vision of life as it should be. Show me a sufficient danger and I'll show you my fangs. My avatar, if I have one, has bloody claws.

Then I thought about Brady. What had happened with him? Who had loosed that sputter of shots?

I heard the
whump-whump
sound of helicopter blades, and soon a Coast Guard copter came swinging toward us over the trees. It circled above us.