Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

The silence was broken only by the hiss of static. At last the man said, in a quivering voice, “Are you familiar, sir, with the law of habeas corpus?”

“Perfectly familiar,” assured Cowley. “But I don’t want this to escalate into your arrest or your need to invoke it. There is no cause for either. I’m extremely sorry what’s happened to your boat and I am not in any way trying to be obstructive. I am, in fact, asking for your cooperation. Your boat will be extensively photographed in situ and at all stages during its examination. And as soon as it’s possible I’ll make photographs available to your and your insurance examiner.”

“I shall sue,” threatened the lawyer. “I’ll sue you personally. And your director. And the bureau. For illegal detention of property.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t imperil your action or my defense by talking about it anymore?” said Cowley, depressing the cut-off switch.

Terry Osnan answered when Cowley called back almost immediately.

Osnan said, “He’s stormed off. I think he’s coming your way.”

“Any more of our guys turned up?”

“Three.”

“Send them after him. He’ll be stopped at the first roadblock. They’re to arrest him.”

“For what?”

“Willfully obstructing a federal investigation.”

Cowley got back to the refreshment truck in time to see the plastic-suited Burt Bradley moving into the forest toward the unseen boat. Some of the arc lights had been moved farther in, too. Barr said, “You’ve been given the go-ahead. Mind if Alan and I tag along?”

“Not if Jones doesn’t. But do me a favor first. Speak to your guys at the first roadblock. The owner’s probably on his way here. Tell them not to let him pass until some bureau guys catch up to arrest him. Might be an idea to leave those blowout strips down.”

The borrowed protection was slightly too large but it was still more comfortable than the space suit. The soft ground sucked underfoot as Cowley walked side by side with the Highway Patrol chief. Cowley said, “Patrolman Mitchell did well. I’ll see there’s a commendation from the bureau.”

“I wish we’d done so well at headquarters,” apologized Petrich. “I’m not sure but I think the original tape might have been overlaid.”

“When will you be sure?”

“Couple of hours.”

The forest floor shelved nearer the creek into a low, sloping bank. What Mitchell had described as a canal was, in fact, the shape of a boat long ago dug out and abandoned. The burned hulk of the Eschevaux fit snugly into it. What remained was almost completely submerged, just some fire-twisted bow and portside rail and a small section of the cockpit protruding above the water. A lot of blackened debris had collapsed below it, but Cowley didn’t think there was enough for there to have been a flying bridge. He didn’t actually know what a Sea Ray looked like. Four forensic technicians were already in the water attaching hawsers so malleable Cowley guessed they were specially manufactured for a purpose like this. Two were standing in the creek itself. As the water only came up to their thighs, Cowley decided it would be difficult to raft the cruiser down to deeper water. The two cameramen were also in the water, taking pictures. Everyone else stood around, waiting for the hulk to be pulled clear of the water. Metal mesh matting had been laid out to receive it.

Jefferson Jones saw Cowley and the Highway Patrol commander arrive at the forest lip and immediately raised a stopping hand, walking back toward them with Burt Bradley.

To Petrich the scientist said, “Here’s fine, but I don’t want you any closer without a suit, OK?”

“OK,” agreed the man.

“Although it’s probably an unnecessary precaution,” Jones added, to Cowley. “You know what we found? The bastards raked after themselves as they walked away. Didn’t leave a thing, not a goddamned thing! They won’t have left anything in the boat, either.”

“And look at the creek,” prompted Bradley. “Getting a boat that size this far would have been like Humphrey Bogart and the African Queen all over again.”

“They certainly knew what they were doing,” said Jones. “I’d have said it would have been impossible to leave ground this soft without a single impression, but that’s what they did. We get them I personally want to ask them how they did it. These guys had jungle training, for sure.”

“How’d they sink what’s left?” asked Cowley.

“Holed it twice in the bow, as far as I can make out while it’s still in the water,” said Jones. “We’ll have to be careful how we rig those hawsers so the damn thing doesn’t fall apart as we haul it out.”

They turned at an approaching noise. Sheriff Sharpe sat commandingly on his garden tractor, maneuvering it through the tree line, smiling at the flash of the official camera. “All gassed up and ready to go,” he announced.

From this direction it was easier to make out the track at which the forest stopped. Steven Barr was there, beckoning, although Cowley couldn’t hear what he was shouting. He set off back toward the policeman as Barr started toward him. Cowley walked, mentally trying to assess what he had, but perhaps more worryingly what he didn’t have. Even if the Highway Patrol’s copy tape wasn’t admissible in court and the original was lost, a voice print would still be possible if indeed the call had been made by whoever was involved and not some woman cheating on her husband. The total lack so far of a single piece of forensic evidence was the overwhelming disappointment. Jefferson Jones was right. The bastards had known exactly what they were doing, how and where they were doing it, right down to choosing the place to burn the boat and that they’d need rakes to cover their tracks. These guys had jungle training for sure echoed in Cowley’s head. And if …

Cowley stopped, numbed by the awareness, and turned. Bradley and the uniformed sheriff and Highway Patrol chief were the only people he could see, the others all hidden at the bottom of the slope where the boat lay. He heard the roar of the tractor engine being gunned and screamed, “No! Stop! No!” but the accelerating noise was too loud for them to hear. Cowley started to run back but there was a deafening, ear-blocking explosion and the three men Cowley could see were visibly lifted off the ground. He saw pieces of other bodies-certainly one unattached head-in the air before he was stopped by some invisible force that hit him so hard all the breath was driven from his body and he couldn’t suck it in again. He felt himself lifted off his feet, too, and there was total, spinning blackness. Cowley’s last conscious thought was that there wasn’t any pain and that maybe it didn’t hurt to die after all.

As they drove north, leaving the Gorki outskirts behind, Dimitri Danilov recognized that his impression from the air was confirmed on the ground. The military manufacturing plants were carefully created individual parts of an entire and composite whole, each factory separated by its perimeter fence and barriered-sometimes tower-dominated-private approach road.

It was one of several realizations, ranging from the fact that even this close the taiga through which they were driving still appeared black, not green, to the complete reversal in how he was being treated. From the one extreme of his dismissively ignored arrival there hadn’t been a waking moment when he hadn’t been in the watchful presence of either Oleg Reztsov or Gennardi Averin or both, like now. And the plainclothed presence of two men at an adjoining breakfast table that morning had been almost embarrassingly obvious. He wondered if they’d already reported his slipping the side plate knife into his pocket before asking for envelopes at the reception desk.