Deadly Shore, page 20
"What?" yelled Ann.
"Where … are … we … going?" Doyle yelled back, spacing his words so she could understand.
"Away … from … here." What else could she say? She had no escape plan mapped out. All she knew was that they were there and the men with guns were right in back of them. There was no place to hide except behind the dunes. No! There was one other place. About a quarter mile from her house in the direction they were going was a town beach parking lot. Between the parking area and the beach was a boardwalk that wound its way through the dunes to the beach. Its purpose was to keep people from walking on the dunes. If they could make it, they could hide under the boardwalk. If Flint's men didn't know the area that well—and she was pretty sure they weren't the beach-going types—she and Doyle could hide unseen for the duration of the hurricane. It might also give them a place of safety from the storm itself.
"Keep walking," she yelled. "I know where we are going."
He gave her a thumbs up in response.
They were almost over the third dune when Doyle stumbled and fell on top of her, knocking her to the sand. She reached back to push Doyle off when she felt something wet. It wasn't rain, it had a different consistency. She looked down at her fingers. It was something dark. Blood. Doyle had been shot. She hadn't even heard a shot. She looked back, but couldn't see anyone. A lucky shot, it had to be.
Now she panicked. She had never seen anyone get shot before. In fact, she had never personally been around a victim of violence.
"Joe, are you okay?" Her voice had taken on a pleading tone.
"I'm okay, I think. They got me in the leg. It hurts like hell." He had to yell to be heard. "I don't think it's bad."
"Then get up. We have to go."
"What?"
"Get up!"
If anything, the storm was getting worse. She heard a faint crash. Most likely her shed. It wasn't as strong as her house. Almost as loud as the wind was the pounding of the waves. They were getting closer. She was pretty sure the water wouldn't come up this far, but it was scary nonetheless.
She grabbed Doyle's hand and helped him to his feet. With his free hand he still gripped the backpack. She knew now precisely where she wanted to go, if she could find it in the maelstrom. She held his arm and pulled him along, fully aware of the pain he was in. She would take a look at it when they arrived at the boardwalk. She didn't know how much she would be able to see, or for that matter, what she could do even if she could see. Didn't matter, the important thing was to get out of sight. It was clear that these people would kill them both without a second thought if they caught up to them.
She looked behind her. Nothing. But then, she really couldn't see more than thirty feet before it became a wall of blackness. And here it was, mid-afternoon. It could have been midnight, and there could be a hundred of Flint's men behind them for all she knew. She also noticed she was hunched down as she walked. Part of it was due to the storm, but she knew that the other part was fear of being hit by a stray bullet. As if ducking would make a difference.
Doyle stumbled and she heard him cry out in pain. Was he hit again? She stopped, but he waved her on. It was just a stumble. She turned her head again. Nothing. For a brief second she thought she heard someone yell, but it could have been her imagination.
They kept on. They had to be getting close. She felt it. Amazingly, Doyle seemed to be gaining strength. Maybe it was desperation. Whatever the reason, she wasn't going to question it. There, she heard it again! It was a voice. They were close. She just hoped she was going in the right direction and hadn't gotten turned around in the storm.
She crashed into something and she felt a sharp pain in her right shin. She fell forward onto something flat. It was the boardwalk! Right behind her Doyle also hit the wood and fell right next to her. She heard him cry out.
"We're here," she said. Whether he heard her or not, he didn't answer. She crawled across the boardwalk, Doyle in tow, and half-fell into the sand on the other side. She tried to picture the boardwalk in her mind and where she might be between the parking lot and the beach. She took a chance and turned toward the parking lot. It made sense to her for two reasons: 1) some of the higher parts of the walk were closest to the parking area; and 2) she didn't know how far up the beach the ocean had come. The last thing she wanted was to get trapped by the sea.
She followed the wood of the boardwalk for about ten minutes, going excruciatingly slowly and catching splinters in her fingers. Doyle just held onto Ann's raincoat and let her lead the way. Then she felt a space between the wood and the sand. It wasn't much of one, but she knew she was getting closer. Another five minutes of crawling brought them to a space about three feet high.
"In here," Ann said. She wasn't sure Doyle heard her, but he followed anyway.
Under the boardwalk the noise diminished dramatically. Ann figured the sand helped muffle the screaming of the wind. It was still loud, but now she didn't feel she had to yell. Sand came whistling through the hole, but at a lesser rate. Now they were sheltered under the boardwalk, in a small space that felt like a cramped cave.
"How's your leg?" she asked in almost a normal voice.
"Still hurts like hell, but I don't think it did any damage." He struggled to take off his rain-sodden shirt, with Ann helping. He lifted his pants leg and Ann could barely make out a dark patch. He wrapped the shirt around the wound and tied it tight.
"I think I'll live." He tried to sound confident, but Ann knew he was anything but, so she tried to keep him talking.
"I can't believe you brought your backpack."
"Had to. At this point I don't care about the money—well, not too much—but I don't want them to find the cross. It's the only leverage I have over Flint."
Ann turned on her side and reached behind her back, pulling out her gun. Doyle's eyes grew wide.
"You've had a gun all this time?"
She nodded.
"You could have used it on me."
"Would you have used yours on me?"
"No."
"Well then," answered Ann.
They went silent. Two minutes later they heard a noise above them. Someone had found the boardwalk and was following it. Ann looked to the left and saw a hand. The man had the right idea. He was looking for space where someone could hide between the sand and the boardwalk. She saw shoes. He had found what he was looking for. She saw him go down on his hands and knees. In one hand was a flashlight and in the other his gun. Ann gripped her gun with both hands, hoping she wouldn't accidently pull the trigger. She was shaking. She looked over at Doyle. He had passed out. She was essentially all alone. Her heart was pounding and her hands were sweating. Now she was wondering if the gun would slip out of her hands if she tried to shoot it. Shoot it? Could she really point it at someone and pull the trigger? No way.
And then the flashlight was pointed right at her. She heard an exclamation of surprise at suddenly discovering them. She pulled on the trigger with all her might—it was harder than she thought it would be—and her gun went off. Just like that. The noise was deafening and she dropped it into the sand. With the explosion, Doyle jerked to consciousness and smacked his head against the wood above him.
There was no movement from the man with the flashlight. The light lay unmoving in the sand. Tentatively, Ann reached over and picked it up. She brushed against some fingers when she did, almost causing her to drop the flashlight. She turned it toward the man and this time dropped it for real. The man had a hole in his forehead. It almost seemed to be smoking, but maybe that was her imagination.
Doyle reached over and picked up the flashlight and again pointed it at the man.
"Holy shit, Ann," he said. "You got him almost right between the eyes." He spied the man's gun and leaned over and picked it up. "You think they heard it?" he asked.
Ann barely picked up what he said. She had a ringing in her ears and had developed a massive headache.
"Maybe, but I think this is still the safest place."
"What if they see the body?"
"If anything, the storm is getting worse. I don't think they'll find him. There's not enough room to pull him in here."
Suddenly, Ann was very tired. She could hardly keep her eyes open. She leaned back in the sand, determined to stay awake. If another of Flint's men came by, he'd kill them if he found them. She couldn't help it though. She closed her eyes just for a minute.
A second later she was sound asleep.
Chapter 44
At noon, as predicted, Chad hit full force. Marcus and Sara had spent the last seven hours huddled together in the pouring rain. The spot they had picked would have been ideal had the rain not been blowing sideways. They'd found an enormous tree trunk that had fallen securely onto a boulder, providing them protection from other falling branches and trees, while also giving them a wall of rock to hide behind. Broken parts of the boulder gave Marcus a platform to lean his rifle on for a clean shot. The pumping station lay twenty-five yards in front of them.
However, the rain had made it a most uncomfortable seven hours, and now it was about to get a lot worse. Marcus had been in many of the worst trouble spots in the world, having experienced blistering heat and bone-numbing cold, but this was entirely different. This was frightening on a whole different scale. All around them they could hear branches and tree trunks snapping and crashing to the ground. And those were only the large ones. Thousands of smaller ones were breaking and flying through the air, but those they couldn't hear over the roar of the wind and the pounding of the rain.
Marcus could still see the pumping station, but barely. If it got any worse, they'd have to move closer, and there wasn't any cover closer. Sara said something, but Marcus couldn't make out the words. She pointed to the ground and he immediately knew what she had been saying. Their spot under the tree trunk was in a slight indentation, like a shallow foxhole. It was now rapidly filling with water. Again they were faced with the prospect of moving and becoming exposed. The hole was shallow and there was no way they could drown. The worst that could happen would be that they would be even more uncomfortable than they already were. He motioned that they would stay and Sara nodded her head in agreement.
The next two hours were hell. Their rain gear had become useless once the hurricane arrived, becoming more of a hindrance than a help. Besides being awkward and bulky, it was stiflingly hot. Removing the gear gave them freedom of movement and cooled them down considerably. Conversation was reduced to the occasional shout. Eventually that became tiresome and they went quiet. Occasionally, one of the groups would try to call on the walkie-talkie, but the reception was terrible and the frequency of the calls diminished and eventually died out.
A few minutes after 2:30, Marcus, who had closed his eyes for something resembling a rest while Sara kept guard, felt her poking him. He looked up to see her pointing toward the pumping station. Instantly he was alert, pushing himself up from the sucking mud that had been his bed. They watched for a moment while a figure came out of the gloom and approached the fence. He was hunched over in the wind, carrying a backpack and moving slowly. Finally he arrived at the gate and set down the backpack. He reached in and took out wire cutters.
Meanwhile, Marcus was looking through the scope of his rifle. It was an easy shot, one that he had made countless times in the past. He squeezed the trigger. The whole nightmare could have ended with one bullet right at that moment. But it wasn't meant to be.
A millisecond before the gun fired, a small limb fell and nicked the barrel of the rifle. The gun fired, the noise almost unheard in the storm. Marcus knew that the bullet would miss its mark because of the branch, so he immediately aimed and fired again. But in that brief second, his target had disappeared.
*****
Mason was beginning to wonder if his obsession with timeliness had finally reached the ridiculous stage. He had been smart enough to leave his apartment before noon and the height of the storm so he wouldn't face the prospect of a road blocked with debris. Even then, getting to the pond took forever as he dodged thick branches littering the road. If it was this bad now, he thought, whatever would it be like during the height of it? But there was a part of it that excited him and made him glad he had decided to stick to his schedule. It somehow made the process even more meaningful.
He thought of the aftermath of the Twin Towers—the firestorm raging in the towers before they fell, and the storm of dust, ash, smoke, and paper rolling down the avenues after the buildings collapsed. He was finally experiencing what so many others felt, both inside and outside of the buildings. He wasn't sad for his parents at that moment, because they never experienced any of this. It was already long since over for them. This was his 9/11, and it was exhilarating!
He was no longer frustrated that he was unable to send the rest of the emails outlining the reasons for all this—the government's failure to stop 9/11, and in fact, their complicity in the event—and detailed descriptions of how the residents would die. It didn't matter anymore. The people were already panicked enough and the government would get the message that they'd once again failed. He did get satisfaction knowing that he had been able to pay the visit to his cousins and let them know exactly how they were going to die and who was going to do it.
He parked his car deep in the woods where it would be hidden in the unlikely event that a police car happened by. He pulled a .45 from his backpack and set it on his lap. If a police car did happen by, it would be the cop's bad luck. Killing his two explosives men had been easier than he thought it would be. Firing a gun into the face of a cop would be no problem at all. But he hoped he wouldn't see one. He wanted to sit in his car for the next couple of hours and just enjoy in silence the anticipation of what he was about to do.
When Chad hit in all its fury and the car rocked from the wind and the rain pounded on the roof, Mason was in heaven. All around him trees were snapping in half and limbs were falling to the ground like concrete from the towers. His intention was to stay in his car until about 2:45, but at two o'clock an enormous tree limb crashed down on his hood, completely obliterating the front of the car. It suddenly dawned on him that if the same thing happened on the roof of the car, he'd be smashed and none of his plan would happen. It was time to leave.
He tried to open the door, but it was stuck. The branch landing on the hood had crumpled the metal so that it interfered with the door. Oh, that was too funny, he thought. He would end up dying in his car, minutes before he was scheduled to launch the D-394. He tried the passenger door with the same result, so he climbed into the back seat. As he did, another tree fell onto the hood of the car, shattering the front windshield and replacing it with the tree. It was getting dangerous. He had to move. He tried the back door on the driver's side. It was stuck. He kicked at the door with no luck. Finally, he took the butt of his gun and smashed the window. He cleaned off as much of the glass as possible and shimmied out, landing head-first on the ground. He stood up and was immediately blown to the ground. The force of the wind was more intense than he had thought. He found it hard to breathe and felt a ringing in his ears. He was now regretting not waiting until the next day.
He slowly got to his feet, bracing himself against the side of the car. He had become slightly disoriented and had to think for a moment which way it was to the water department building. Once he had his bearings, he reached into the car for his backpack and started on his way.
It took forever. Keeping his balance was hard enough, but he also spent half his time looking up, making sure a heavy branch wasn't dropping on top of him. He knew it was stupid. Even if he saw one headed his way, he wouldn't be able to avoid it. But it gave him a little sense of control, imagined or not.
After falling for about the thirtieth time, he resorted to crawling, making no less time than when he was walking. Finally, he saw the fence to the pumping station ahead. He got back to his feet and shuffled along bent over. He reached the fence and held on. Around him was a large open area. The chances of being crushed by a branch had lessened, but in the open space he could feel the full brunt of the wind. He opened his backpack and pulled out his wire cutters. At that moment, something whipped past his face and crashed against the fence. Even in the roar of the wind he could hear it. At the same moment a massive gust of wind threw him to the ground. He felt another something whip past his head and clang into the metal. Bullets! They knew he was here.
Had the gust of wind not knocked him down, he knew the second bullet would have killed him. He was suddenly scared. He had been willing to give his life for his cause, but it had all been theoretical. The appearance of the bullets, however, made death suddenly very real. He started crawling. No more bullets sailed by. He realized he was in a small ditch. The shooter probably couldn't see him. There was no way he was going to get into the pumping station. He had two choices: One would be to head for the pond and empty the D-394 into the water. It might take a while before people would begin to feel the effects, depending on how quickly it entered the pipes that would carry it into civilization. Or the second choice would be to hide and wait until the rain let up and let it loose in the air. It figured that he was in the woods, away from people. It would still kill a significant number of them, but if he was going to let it go in the air, he would have found a more central spot to get the maximum number of victims. Besides, with someone—he had no idea how many of them—on his trail, he might not last until the storm ended. No, he had to try for the pond.
The pond was to his right. He was in the ditch on the left-hand side of the dirt road that ran around the pond. He was probably fifty to a hundred feet from the water. Somehow, he had to get across the road. If he could do that, he'd again be in the safety of the woods and could easily make it to the water. Once he dumped it in, he'd be dead very quickly anyway as he breathed in the powder.
How was he going to get across the road? The shooter was good. He could tell. It was only sheer luck that he wasn't dead. The guy was probably using a sniper rifle. Whatever he did, he had to do quickly. They could be sneaking up on him right now. And then he saw the tree. A tall one had fallen from the woods across the road. If he could stay behind it, he might be safe. He might get this done after all.
