Archer Mayor - The Dark Root

I couldn’t complain, though. The committee running this coordinated operation-nominally under Frazier’s guidance-had listened to all viewpoints, and mine had been catered to with my squad of six now very bored people. They’d even gone beyond that. Boucher had found a couple of others like Blood-people living on the border with no past smuggling histories, but who were on the financial ropes and vulnerable to persuasion-and the committee had placed small squads on their properties, too.

So now I was trying to come to grips with the fact that despite my instincts-and my further belief that, of all the candidates, Blood was the best-I’d still been wrong. Either Truong did have enough money elsewhere to keep himself going, or he had other means to restock his coffers. It was possible he’d undermined more than one of Da Wang’s pipelines, that despite Nguyen’s denials and all the other intelligence we’d gathered on him, he’d still managed to keep some part of his business from all of us. But I still didn’t believe it, even when confronted by the obvious.

A small tone went off in my ear, indicating someone wanted me on channel two-the frequency of the Swanton headquarters dispatcher.

“Alpha One from 6-40,” came the flat, disinterested voice, “We got a hit on Whiskey-Three. 2-53 investigating.”

I switched my radio over and murmured an acknowledgment. I wasn’t as attuned as the Border Patrol was to the names and locations of all their dozens of monitors-I relied on Richard for that. I switched back to channel one in time to hear his low, calm voice say, “Memphremagog, eastern bank.”

“10-4.” I shifted my weight to get more circulation to my left leg. Normally, sensor hits were recorded by the dispatcher, and either checked remotely by camera or by a notified patrol unit. Given this particular detail, however, and the fact that none of us knew for sure where Truong might try to cross, all of us were being told of every “hit,” regardless of where it was located. Only the small mobile sensors, like the several Richard was monitoring, bypassed this system, since their broadcast strength wasn’t enough to reach the Swanton receiver.

Of the three types of sensors, the infrareds gave off the most alerts, since they were designed to capture anything that broke their invisible beams, including animals, falling branches, and even occasional tricks of light. The seismic units, triggered by the vibrations of passing vehicles, and the magnetics, which could pick up the metal shoelace holes on a single pair of boots, were custom-made for this kind of surveillance. But the infrareds were the cheapest, the lightest, and the easiest units to install, and as such accounted for the majority out here. I therefore assumed the sensor by the lake was one of them, and that its object of interest was either a floating log or two lovers in a canoe with a fetish for frostbite.

The tone went off again in my ear. This time, the dispatcher sounded a little more interested. “6-40 to all units. Whiskey-Eighteen just went dead. 6-40 to 2-53.”

2-53 was the Derby-based car that had gone out to investigate the first hit. “6-40. This is 2-53. I’m on City Farm Road now, heading north. I’ll take a look from Allen Hill.”

I stayed on the main frequency, eavesdropping. I remembered Allen Hill from the guided tour of the landscape Boucher had given me five days earlier. From the top of it, the lake had spread out below like a vast black oil slick, curving around the tree-spiked humps of the islands and peninsulas with a menacing invasiveness. It was easy to imagine the lone patroller now, sitting in the warmth of his vehicle, adjusting his night-vision goggles to fit against high-power binoculars, steadying his elbows on the steering wheel.

“6-40, this is 2-53. We have multiple craft on the water, northeast of Black Island. Looks like they’re heading toward the Holbrook Bay area, moving fast.”

The Swanton dispatcher slipped into his Chuck Yeager, calm-in-any-storm voice. “10-4, 2-53. Advise you stay put for further incursions while we tend to mop-up.” He followed with an alphabet soup of call letters, directing multiple units-both vehicles and boats-to converge on the scene.

He was interrupted by 2-53 again: “6-40, you better step up the response. Now I’ve got more Charlies heading south, maybe to Indian Point. They’re spreading out to hit the shore on a broad base. We’re going to need everybody we can get.”

Swanton Dispatch reacted accordingly. Unit by unit, he read off numbers, including Spinney’s helicopter crew. Like heavy footfalls coming along a corridor, I could hear him getting closer to me and my small, suddenly alert band. “Alpha One,” he finally said. “2-57 is to follow the Johns River SOP. Your command has been terminated.”

2-57 was Richard Boucher, and he was being ordered to take over from me and abandon the Blood farm. In the pause that should have been filled with my own curt and acquiescent “10-4, Alpha One command terminated,” I heard the double tone of our own frequency go off in my ear-Boucher wondering why I was hesitating and impatient to get going.

I switched channels. “Go ahead.”

“Joe,” he said, without all the formalities, “you hear that last request?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking. Anything going off on your monitors?”

“Negative. The action’s on the lake.”

“It is right now-out in the open where everyone can see it.”

Swanton signaled to me to answer. I went back to their frequency and told them to wait. When I returned, Richard asked, “What’re you saying? You still think he’ll hit here?” His voice was incredulous, and a touch irritated.

“This could be his last shot. He laid the ground, did his homework, took his time. I have a hard time believing it all boils down to a bunch of boats flying across open water in clear weather, especially since he must know we’re on high alert.”

This time it was Boucher who hesitated. “They’re still going to need troops along the eastern shore.”

“Fine. How many will it take?”

“I’m running the sensors,” he said.

“How ’bout you, me, and Steve stay put, and I cut the other three loose?”

I knew what that decision was costing him. The northern border was normally quiet enough to be considered by some a retirement post. To be on duty and miss an event like this cut deep. “Thanks, Richard. I appreciate it.”

I let him do the honors of breaking the news to 6-40. In true military style, they took it without comment, saving their wrath for when it could be dished out face to face, by the man with the most brass on his shoulders.

I stayed on the general frequency, as I knew Boucher and Steve were doing from their hiding spots. Tucked away among my little pile of rocks, I could hear all hell breaking loose, as VSP, Newport Police, and sheriff ’s units were called in for backup, visualizing from experience what was taking place. Five minutes later, adding to the unreality, I heard the distant thudding of Spinney’s helicopter through the ear that wasn’t covered by the headphone, some six miles to the west.

As the minutes dragged on, I began wondering if the anticipated dressing down I’d be getting later wouldn’t be richly deserved.

The small double tone went off. I switched over.

“Joe, I got a hit, about halfway between us,” Boucher reported.

“Okay. Hang on.”

The trick to mobile sensors was to place them strategically, far enough apart to give the listener not only a sense of which direction the object was moving in, but also at what speed. Richard and I were waiting for the second hit.

“Got it,” he said moments later. “He’s heading toward you, and he’s on wheels, moving fast.” Then he added quickly, “I got another one on the first sensor-something big.”