Noah Boyd - The Bricklayer

But the Rubaco Pentad changed everything. After murdering a former Hollywood reporter a month earlier, it had demanded one million dollars to prevent the next killing. What was different about the Pentad’s crime, other than the before-the-fact violence, was that the demand was made directly to the director of the FBI. In extortion or kidnapping drops, the Bureau always had at least some degree of surprise on its side, but the Pentad had taken that advantage away, leaving the agency unsure what to do next. The FBI was being told not only to come up with the money, but also to deliver it. Evidently the group felt its plan was so flawless that it could afford to humiliate the Bureau and still get away with the money.

The clear New Hampshire sky was full of stars; a halfmoon hung distantly in the northeast. West looked around for some indication of what he was supposed to do next. He checked the coordinates on the GPS again. They matched those in the instructions exactly. Maybe he was just supposed to wait. He put the bag down and reread a copy of the demand note.

FBI,

Only your unconditional compliance with the following two conditions will prevent the next murder:

1. Delivery of $1,000,000 in hundred-dollar bills at precisely 9:42 P.M. on August 14 at 43.072N 70.546W.

2. The public or media must not learn about the demand for money.

If either condition is violated, even by a ‘leak,’ the next person, a politician we have selected, will die. Although we doubt your ability to comply fully, we’re willing to let the world-famous FBI try to get it right the first time. If not, this war will get progressively more expensive in terms of lives as well as money. Neither of which are we necessarily opposed to.

If the FBI continues to violate the rights of this country’s citizens, the money will be used to finance much more drastic measures. More lives will be taken, and not one at a time. The FBI will be fully credited with the resulting mass destruction.

Make sure your delivery boy is a good swimmer. The Rubaco Pentad

West checked his watch. It was almost nine thirty. Time was getting short.

Of course, he thought, the water. They wanted a good swimmer. He picked up the bag and walked across the parking lot tarmac and around behind the club. There was a waist-high fence that separated the asphalt from the grassy slope that led to the Piscataqua River. He vaulted over it and walked down to the edge. Music from inside the club lilted softly behind him.

Twenty yards to his right, he could see a faint optic-green glow among a cluster of large shrubs. Under them was a black tarp with a glow-in-the-dark arrow painted on top. The Pentad would probably have left it during the day when the paint would not have luminesced and been noticeable. The arrow pointed to a building on an island in the river, which was dimly silhouetted by the moonlight. It was a large white structure that, because of the notched turrets at either end, looked like a medieval castle.

The tide appeared to be out, making West wonder if he was supposed to swim across the river, roughly two hundred yards. He spoke into the mike on his chest. ‘Can someone find out what time low tide is here?’ The entire operation was being monitored in the Boston office’s major-case room.

After a few minutes someone said, ‘Nine forty-two P.M.’ That answered West’s question about crossing the river. It was the exact time given in the instructions. Slack tide, the time of least current. Under the tarp were a scuba tank, fins, and a mask. At first glance the tank appeared old-fashioned, but it wasn’t the tank. It was the harness that held it. Modern tanks come with a zippered vest or at least padded straps that divers can get in and out of easily. This one was fitted with excessively long black nylon webbing, crisscrossed unnecessarily, using far too much strapping. Some of it had been doubled in places that weren’t necessary, and although it would be uncomfortable, it looked functional. Placed inside the mask was a wrist compass, which he strapped on. West explained over the radio what was going on. ‘Can you find out something about the building on the other side? It looks like that’s where I’m heading.’

West stripped down to his swimsuit. The ‘good swimmer’ portion of the demand letter had been interpreted as an attempt by the Pentad to neutralize any FBI electronic devices, so the office technical agent had put a waterproof bag with a neck strap in a side pocket of the larger money-bag. Next to it was an underwater flashlight. Also a waxsealed container had been jury-rigged by the head firearms instructor, who had placed a Smith & Wesson snubnose inside it.

It was now nine forty. As West started to slip on the fins provided, he found a folded piece of paper inside. ‘34°’ was the only thing written on it. He held up his wrist and checked the heading to the ‘castle.’ It was exactly thirty-four degrees.

‘Command, it looks like they want me to swim underwater straight to that building. Any idea what it is yet?’

‘We’ve got the head resident agent in Portsmouth on the line. He says it’s a hundred-year-old naval prison. Been closed for thirty years. That’s Seavey’s Island you’re heading to. It’s a secure naval shipyard now. We’ve got some of the surveillance units already at the main gate. They’ll be on your land side by the time you get across.’

‘Just make sure they don’t get me burned. That note sounds like these people would be just as happy if we screwed this up.’ He pulled the transmitter mike off his chest and packed everything into the water-tight bag. As he stepped into the water, he took another deep breath and said, ‘Well, tough guy, this is what you wanted.’

The water was cold, but the biggest problem was swimming underwater with the twenty-two-pound bag of fake money. The weight kept him deeper than he wanted to be. Some of the time he had to drag it along the bottom while keeping his eye on the compass. And the strange configuration of the harness webbing that was cutting into his waist and shoulders wasn’t helping. Halfway across, the tide started coming back in and the current began picking up. It took him more than a half hour to get across the river.

As he got closer to the other side, he could see more luminescent green light. He felt the river bottom sloping up, so he set the bag down on it. Keeping a foot through the carrying straps, he surfaced to confirm his location. He was close to the prison now. Maybe too close. It looked black in its own shadow. And silent, making him want to hold his breath as if the building were a wounded animal he had stumbled across, its only means of attack to lure in those who believed it was dead. The structure was no longer two-dimensional, but seemed to wrap around the end of the island, and at the same time around him. Its west end had wings that ran north and south for hundreds of additional feet and at its tallest point was at least six stories high. So much for making the drop and leaving everything else to the surveillance agents. It looked like he was on his own.

He dove down and gripped the bag and saw that the green lights were a couple of glowsticks that had been attached to the underwater wall of the castle. When he got within a couple of feet, he snapped on the flashlight and could see the sticks had been laced through the remains of a metal gridwork that had once secured some type of conduit, possibly sewage, since the prison had been built when the country’s rivers were considered nature’s refuse solution. The underwater passageway was narrow, but he could fit through it. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the moneybag into the opening and followed it in.

A few minutes later he broke through the surface and found himself standing in a large stone room, the floor of which was bedrock except for the large rectangular access opening that he was now standing in. There were water-marks on the walls that indicated seawater filled the room to three-quarters at high tide. Toward the top of one wall were three heavy metal rings anchored into the stone and concrete, the kind that prisoners might have been chained to. He wondered if the U.S. Navy of a hundred years ago hadn’t used the room for ‘retraining,’ taking the most uncooperative prisoners to the subterranean cell for an obedience lesson taught by two high tides a day and the flesh-nibbling crabs that rode in on them.