Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

“I hope to God there is an event,” he said.

“They’re going to be here at three-thirty,” Scotty said, firmly. “That’s what the teletype said, and I believe it.”

Howell looked at his illuminated watch. “Just past nine,” he said. “A long wait.”

The wind whistled through the trees and rustled the pine leaves around them. Scotty snuggled up close and Howell put his arm around her.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’m going to take this film back to Atlanta, write a big lead story, and hold up the Atlanta Constitution for the biggest raise in the history of the newspaper business.”

Howell laughed. “And what if they won’t sit still for it?”

“Then I’ll just call up AP or UPI or maybe the Atlanta Bureau Chief of the New York Times.”

Howell had once held that job himself. “They’d go for it, all right.”

“You think this story could get me on the Times?”

“It might. I think you’d be better off going back to the Constitution with it, though. Then, after you won your Pulitzer, you can accept the Times’s offer.”

She dug him in the ribs. “Listen, I’m serious about all this!”

“Jesus, don’t I know it!” he laughed. “I hope it comes off just the way you want it to.”

“Johnny, what do you want? What are you going to do after you finish the book?” She sounded as if she really wanted to know, so he told her everything he knew.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I think maybe I’ve reached a point in my life where I should go back and figure out what’s happened to me, instead of always chasing what’s going to happen next.”

“Hey, there’s a country song in there somewhere. I think you ought to fool around with that a little and send it to Willie Nelson.”

“Aw, shut up.”

“Why don’t you go back to the Times?” she asked. “You said everybody could go back once.”

“Funny you should mention that,” he snorted. “I got an offer from the Times today. Nairobi.”

“Are you kidding? That’s great! You’re going to take it, aren’t you?”

“Are you kidding? Do you know what Nairobi means? It isn’t just the Serengeti Plain and the game parks, you know, you cover the whole continent. It’s Africa. The asshole of the planet. It’s flying to hell and back on poorly maintained, forty-year-old C-47s flown by half-trained African pilots; getting hassled by the police in South Africa; interviewing insane master sergeants who are suddenly running countries; having to look at the swollen bellies and pitiful eyes of starving kids; bribing customs officials in backwoods airports; having beggars hanging all over you every time you walk down a street; and finally, getting a bullet in the back of the head from some jungle corporal with a superiority complex and not enough reading skills to understand your press credentials. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Gee, you sound really interested.”

“Interested? Do you know the sadistic sons of bitches would probably make me learn Swahili? They’re sticklers for their boys knowing the language, they are.”

“I think it sounds fascinating.”

“That’s because you’re young and stupid.”

“I think you ought to take it.”

“They’d be stunned if I did, I can promise you that. This is just their way of saying I had my chance; I’m not going to Nairobi, and they know it.” Howell was tiring of this conversation. “Listen, why don’t you get some sleep; nothing’s going to happen for a while, yet.”

“Mmmmmmm,” she said, and snuggled closer. She was breathing slowly in a moment.

Howell leaned his head against hers and closed his eyes. He was bone tired. Nairobi. Christ! Over the next hours, he stirred himself every few minutes to have a look about him, but nothing happened. Around midnight, he laid the sleeping Scotty on her side and had some coffee from the thermos and a slice of pie from the paper bag. Then, feeling full and contented, he drifted off into a deeper sleep than he had bargained for.

The noise was familiar, almost too much so to be disturbing. Then Howell was wide awake, trying to remember the sound, to place its direction. A car door, that was it; he had heard a car door slam. Now there was another noise, a sound of metal scraping on metal. He turned to follow its direction.

There was only starlight to see by, but near the shed a car had parked, and its occupant, a large shape, was unlocking a padlock on the shed door. Cursing himself for sleeping so deeply, Howell put a hand over Scotty’s mouth and shook her awake. Holding a finger to his lips, he pointed toward the shed, some thirty yards away. They sat up on their knees, and Scotty began taking pictures.

“Is it Bo?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. He’s big enough. Easy on the film. Don’t use it up too soon.”

Scotty had squeezed off a dozen or more frames with the camera’s machine drive. She stopped. The man, who seemed to be wearing coveralls and a baseball cap, leaned against the fender of his car and waited. Howell and Scotty waited with him. The luminous hands of Howell’s watch read just past three AM.

For ten minutes they sat there, then there was a flash of headlights in the distance, and a very large truck began driving toward them along the road that paralleled the runway. It made a wide circle then pulled up next to the shack, a few feet off the edge of the grass landing strip. It was a moving van, and Howell thought he could read the name of a nationwide moving service painted on the side. Just before the headlights went out, they briefly illuminated Bo Scully, who shook hands with the driver and another man as they got down from the truck.

The two men, assisted by Bo, immediately went to the rear of the van, unlocked the doors, and unloaded half a dozen pieces of furniture. Scotty, looked at Howell with raised eyebrows, then shot another dozen frames. At twenty-five minutes past three, Bo went into the shack, and a moment later the runway lights came on, little spots of blue, reaching away down both sides of the grass strip. Then, a minute or two past the half hour, there was a distant hum, and Howell looked up to see a pair of white landing lights drifting toward the strip. Scotty finished a roll of film, handed it to Howell, and quickly reloaded.

The plane landed at what seemed so great a speed that Howell thought it would never stop, that it would crash through the shack and end up in the trees, on top of them. As it came noisily to a stop and began turning around at the very end of the strip, he was surprised to see that it had four engines and that, illuminated by Bo’s headlights, which had suddenly come on, it bore the insignia of the Georgia Air National Guard. Howell pointed at the plane; Scotty nodded and photographed the insignia, zooming in on it. It would have done little good to speak, because the roar of the four engines overpowered everything, and the propellers kicked up a hurricane of wind and pine straw. As the lighter ground debris blew away, they were able to see better.

The rear door of the airplane flew open, and somebody began kicking out what looked like small bales of cotton, wrapped in burlap. The two men from the truck and Bo quickly loaded them into the furniture van. Scotty handed Howell another roll of film, reloaded, and started to shoot again. Now the man on the plane was handing out what looked like four ordinary suitcases, then, finally, a canvas briefcase. Bo unzipped the briefcase and inspected the contents, apparently counting.

Bo gave the man on the plane a thumbs-up sign, and at that moment, somebody kicked Howell hard in the ass.

Howell turned angrily around to face a flashlight in his face, and, ahead of that, the barrel of a rifle, pointing at his head. His anger immediately turned to fear. The man behind the rifle was shouting, but Howell couldn’t make out what he was saying. He cupped a hand behind his ear to indicate this. The man leaned forward until the rifle barrel was nearly touching Howell’s forehead and shouted again.