Archer Mayor - The Dark Root

I found him about halfway up the opposite hill, among the trees, walking quickly and purposefully, intent on his enigmatic goal. Following by several hundred feet, just barely keeping his shadow in view, I wracked my memory for the details of this island, which I’d last visited in 1967 during the fair. The woods, I knew, eventually yielded to the Cartier bridge, an old British-built fort, and an enormous amusement park that occupied the entire northern tip of the island. There were also several parking areas, and it was toward one of those, I began thinking, that we must be headed-a perfect meeting place-out of the way, and with instant access to a major road out of town.

I caught sight of a strange light from the top of the hill, flickering as it filtered through the leaves of the serried trees. Truong reached a fork in the path, and without hesitation headed directly for the light. I continued following, wishing for the sounds of sirens-some sign that my message had been passed along and coherently delivered.

Gradually, separating itself from the darkness of the enveloping woods, there loomed a larger, thicker, more statuesque shadow-that of a heavy stone tower marking the crown of the hill. The light we’d both been following shimmered from its top, giving the grassy, treeless area at its base some faint distinction, which was further aided by the increasing glow from the east. I hung back more, worried about being spotted.

Truong continued undaunted, leaving the trees and approaching the final, steep climb to the tower itself. I peered ahead, wondering what he knew that I didn’t, and saw a second shadow separate itself from the darkness of the tower’s mass. It was then, more instinctively than from anything I could discern of that second shadow’s intent, that I knew the other man to be Lo Yu Lung-Edward Diep-whose only option now, I was convinced-with the sudden and chaotic turn of events Truong had just precipitated in Chinatown-was to complete the destruction he’d begun so many years ago in that San Francisco restaurant.

The inevitability of what was about to happen welled up inside me with the white heat of frustrated certainty. Truong himself was about to be put down like an overly trusting dog by Dennis DeFlorio’s killer, who would then escape into the night while I impotently stood by.

Without thought or plan, I shouted at the top of my voice, “Stop.”

The effect was instantaneous. Truong dove off the trail, back into the woods, and Diep vanished as if by magic, reabsorbed by the tower’s shadow. I took cover as fast as I could behind the nearest tree trunk, knowing clearly but too late that I was the only one without a gun, and that the other two still believed themselves to be allies.

“Truong,” I shouted again, seizing my only weapon, “this is Joe Gunther, from the Brattleboro Police Department. Give yourself up to the Canadian authorities. We know about your brother, about how you went after his killers. We know you kept Da Wang for last. I was in the truck that chased you through the woods a couple of hours ago. I followed you from Chinatown just now. You’ve been under surveillance for a long time. You’ve got nothing left. You’ll die tonight if you don’t give up.”

My words floated off into the air, replaced by the anonymous hum of the glimmering metropolis across the water.

“Did you ever wonder how Edward Diep found you, or where he came from?” I started again. “You took Henry Lam’s word for it that he was okay. And because Henry trusted him, you trusted him. But Diep was playing you all against each other. He was the one who planted the car bomb that killed that police officer. He was the one who undermined your whole operation in Brattleboro. You know why?”

Again, I could hear only silence, and I began to fear that while I was shouting to the trees, one or both of these men was busy moving around to my back. I paused to reposition myself about forty feet away.

“Whatever happened to Lo Yu Lung?” I yelled out. “Didn’t you wonder why you couldn’t find him?” A muzzle flash and an explosion lit up the night about halfway down from the tower. The bullet smacked into a tree nearby.

I shifted position again. “He’s getting nervous, Truong. Trying to shut me up.”

Two more shots were fired, still comfortably off target, “Lo and Diep are the same man. I’ve got proof. He killed Michael Vu so Vu couldn’t tell you. He told Da Wang where you kept your bank in Newport. Your pal Nguyen knows all this. He knew you were doomed-that you’d been stabbed in the back a long time ago. You just didn’t know it.”

I moved again, hoping I’d said enough, knowing that all this shouting might well be suicidal.

The next shot, when it came, was farther off, directed at someone else. For once, it was Diep who’d had the rug pulled out from under him, and who was scrambling for cover. That last shot, coming from near the tower, revealed his new priorities. Of the three options open to him now-escape, killing me, and killing Truong-only the last held out the hope that he might survive. Left alive, Truong would be a persistent threat, even if he spent a few years in prison.

Ignored for the moment, I circled around the peak of the hill and came up behind the tower, pausing briefly to put my shoes back on. The sky was paling steadily now, and the woods below beginning to gain definition. The cat and mouse were running out of time.

Nevertheless, I didn’t actually see what happened next. There were several flashes from opposing gunfire, and suddenly a yell. Only then did I catch some movement-the flickering of a shadow on a path leading downhill, in the direction of the glowing geodesic dome beyond the woods. The echoing of footsteps on the pavement told me of a chase. In the distance, hopelessly far off, I could finally hear sirens wailing.

Cautiously, I brought up the rear, jogging along the footpath I was pretty sure they’d taken. As I cleared the woods and came into the parking lot of the fancy restaurant near the dome, I saw both of them ahead of me, Truong leading, limping, running incongruously toward the erstwhile American Pavilion.

The dome had burned several years ago, the fire gutting its contents and removing its plastic skin. Gradually being rebuilt, it had been left open to the elements, its latticework of interlocking tetra- and octahedrons a visual wonder and a magnet for pigeons. An odd, space-age structure had been erected within its cocoon-an upended, ten-story-tall concrete, steel, and glass box, almost like a diving tower, with various appendages sticking out from its sides-observation booths, staircases, balconies-the most prominent of which was a long, wide platform, free floating on thin pillars, hovering some seventy feet above the ground like an enormous diving board.

As I watched, Truong leaped through the dome’s dizzying latticework and staggered up a metal staircase that led-switchback on switchback-up to that celestial platform. He paused at several points to fire in Diep’s direction to keep him sufficiently at bay. Only when he was near the top did he wait too long. Diep took advantage of that one extra split second to step clear of his barricade and squeeze off a lucky shot that caught Truong in the back.

Truong staggered on, finally gaining the protection of the winglike concrete projection.

As I watched from the shelter of an empty information booth at the edge of the parking lot, Diep moved out into the open, looking back at me, trying to gauge how best to get at Truong, as cognizant as I was of the approaching sirens. But his nemesis had chosen well. As odd at it had seemed at first, the platform was an ideal defensive position, especially for a man no longer seeking to escape. Utterly protected, approachable from one highly exposed avenue only, it forced Diep to either commit or abandon.