Capital Crimes (27 page)

TED FINISHED HIS STEAK while watching CNN.

“Word from the FBI is that they are now watching I-95 north and south of Washington, D.C., for an RV driven by Theodore Fay, known as the right-wing shooter. With the death of Speaker of the House Eft Efton, the number of his victims has risen to five, four fatalities. We’ll keep you posted on the manhunt as news comes in.”

Ted sat back in his recliner and heaved a deep sigh of relief. He had pulled it off. Now all he had to do was enjoy his retirement. He had prepared well, buying this house more than sixteen years before, and the hangar at about the same time. If he had learned anything at the Agency it was that preparation was nearly everything. He had fooled them and the FBI from day one, stealing materials from Tech Services and building identities that could be penetrated only by accident. He still had three left, should he need them, but he didn’t expect to. He was now hunkered down in his Maine island cottage with everything he needed to live—and the airplane, if he needed to escape. He had, he believed, thought of everything.

He began to grow sleepy; he had, after all, been up since three-thirty that morning, and it had been a tense day. He went over the events of the day once more, to be sure he had not forgotten something, some threat, however small. He was confident that he had not.

He washed his dishes, turned off the TV and the kitchen light, went to his bedroom, and began unpacking the bags he had brought. Everything had been bought in Maine, much of it from the L.L. Bean catalogue. He put his things away, and as he opened a cupboard to stow some wool shirts he came upon an instrument he had nearly forgotten.

That first summer so many years ago, he had staked out a perimeter about seventy-five yards from the house, trenching the soil and laying wire for a triangulating sensor system. In an emergency, he could switch on the system and, on a small cathode ray tube, see any spot where the perimeter had been breached and track any living thing bigger than a cat as it approached the house. For the fun of it, he switched it on; maybe he would spot a deer coming his way. The unit warmed up, and the screen came up blank of intruders.

TO THE NORTH of the house, the SWAT team leader watched as the kitchen lights went off, and the bedroom light came on. He called Jack. “Looks like Buddy is turning in,” he said. “He’s left the kitchen and gone to the bedroom.”

“I can confirm that from our ears,” Kinney replied. “We hear him moving around the bedroom now, apparently unpacking. Let’s move a couple of men up now on each side of the house for eyeball surveillance. We’ll wait an hour after the bedroom lights go off and we hear deep breathing.”

“Roger that.”

TED LOOKED AGAIN at the CRT and still saw a blank screen. He left the cupboard door open, turned down the bed, and got out a pair of flannel pajamas from a drawer. As he began to unbutton his shirt, he heard a soft beep from the cupboard; he looked at the CRT and saw a blip on the north side of the house. A deer, he thought, or maybe a raccoon; he continued to unbutton his shirt. Then the instrument beeped again. This time the blip was on the south side of the house. Was he being surrounded by deer? Both blips remained absolutely stationary, but they were still there. Was somebody watching the house? Was somebody, maybe, listening? He switched on the bedside radio, which was already tuned to Bay Radio, which played the old, big band music he loved. He moved quietly around the room, putting a few things into a small duffel, things he might need.

SMITH TOOK the headphones off. “He’s playing music,” he said to Kinney.

“Music?”

“Big band stuff, fairly loudly.”

“There’s a radio station up here that plays big band,” an agent said. “I had it earlier on my Walkman.”

“Maybe it helps him sleep,” Smith said.

“Maybe it’s to cover up other noise,” Kinney replied.

“Hang on, I just heard a toilet flush,” Smith said. “He just sat on the bed, too. The springs squeaked.”

Kinney’s cell phone rang. “Jack here.”

“The bedroom light went off. The house is dark.”

“Right, we hear him in bed, but there’s radio music playing, so we can’t hear his breathing. Check back in an hour if there’s no change.”

THE MUSIC STOPPED, and an announcer spoke. “We now pause for a test of the national alert system,” he said. “We’ll return to Bay Radio in sixty seconds.” Ted reached out and turned up the radio. A glance at the CRT across the room showed two more blips moving in. Now.

SMITH PULLED OFF the earphones again. “The radio is playing that national alert test that drives everybody crazy. I can’t even listen.”

“It only lasts one minute,” Kinney said.

Smith looked at his watch and waited. Finally, he listened again. “We’re back to music, but it’s louder than before. Why would he turn up the radio as he was going to bed?”

Kinney winced. “He’s on to us. We have to go in right now.” He pressed a button on his cell phone, and the SWAT team leader answered. “We have to go in right now. Position your people to enter in sixty seconds from my mark. Ready… mark!” Kinney snapped the phone shut and punched a button on his wrist chronograph, starting the second hand.

“Everybody in position; we go in one minute.”

58

KINNEY LOOKED AT HIS WATCH, then pressed the button on his cell phone.

“Yeah?” the team leader said.

“Go,” he said, and he waved his half of the SWAT team forward. They were all running toward the house now.

INSIDE THE BEDROOM CUPBOARD, more than a dozen blips were converging on the cottage. Ted had already tiptoed out of the bedroom with the duffel, grabbed his parka, and was moving slowly down the stairs to the basement. He was pretty sure they couldn’t hear him down here. He got into his warm clothes, went to a large cupboard against the west wall, took hold of it and shifted it away from the wall a couple of feet. Behind the cupboard was a heavy wooden door. He pushed it open and tossed his duffel through the opening, then he backed through the opening on his knees, and reached out and dragged the cupboard back against the wall, hiding the door. He shut the thick door and double-bolted it from the inside, then he turned around in the tunnel, slipped on his night-vision goggles, and waited for his eyes to adjust.

THE SWAT TEAM had the doors open in a few seconds, and the black-clad men, wearing night-vision goggles, moved through the house, searching each room, each closet, each cupboard. “Okay,” the team leader shouted, “goggles off, lights on!”

People began switching on the house lights in each room.

Kinney burst through the front door, followed closely by Kerry Smith. “You got him?” he yelled.

The team leader came out of the bedroom. “He’s not here,” he said, “but come look at this.”

Kinney followed him into the bedroom and saw the CRT in the cupboard. He could see a couple of blips moving around the house; his men were searching the perimeter. “He saw us coming,” he said.

“Basement door!” somebody shouted from the hall.

“Go get him!” Kinney said to the team leader. He followed the man into the hallway; SWAT team members were already swarming down the stairs, guns at the ready.

Kinney was right behind them. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, the lights were on, and he looked around. Workbench, hot water heater, furnace, all the usual basement stuff. He opened a large cupboard and found an assortment of tools neatly laid out. “He’s in this house somewhere,” Kinney said. “Find him.” He could already hear the noise of team members taking the upstairs apart, and the men in the basement started up the stairs to help.

“Wait a minute!” Kinney said. Everybody stopped.

TED COULD SEE the tunnel ahead. He began crawling along the plank floor, dragging the duffel. It had taken him three summer vacations to dig this thing and shore it up. He hoped he was crazy, paranoid, that the blips were really deer, but he wasn’t going to take the chance. Then he heard the burglar alarm go off upstairs.

He reached another door, opened it, and slipped through into the concrete culvert. Closing and bolting the door behind him, he began to move down the culvert, which was larger in diameter than his tunnel. He was now on his feet in a half crouch, moving quickly. A minute later, the culvert had passed under the road, and he emerged into starlight. He waded as quietly as he could through the shallow end of a small pond, into which the culvert emptied, and made dry land.

He looked up, checked the stars, and began jogging overland, keeping roughly parallel to the road.

He had, maybe, three-quarters of a mile to go, about twelve minutes. He paced himself, breathing deeply. Five minutes later he was loosening clothing to cool down.

“WHAT?” the SWAT team leader asked.

“Is anything in this basement movable, except that cupboard?” Kinney pointed at the large piece of furniture.

“No, sir, I don’t think so,” the man replied.

“Have a couple of your men move it away from the wall,” Kinney said.

The leader made a motion, and two large men got hold of the cupboard and moved it out.

“There,” Kinney said, pointing at the door. “Get it open.”

The two men tried and failed to open it.

“Use a door charge,” Kinney said.

“Do it,” the team leader said to his men. “Everybody upstairs. The concussion will kill your ears in this basement.”

Everybody clambered up the stairs. The last man up held a remote control in his hand. He closed the door behind him.

“Blow it,” the leader said. Everybody stepped back.

The man pressed a button, and the door flew off its hinges into the hallway, followed by noise.

The team leader was first down the stairs, with Kinney right behind him. The explosion had blown out the lightbulbs, so flashlights came on.

The team leader shone his light past the splintered door. “We’ve got a tunnel.” Without another word, he knelt down and started crawling.

Kinney followed, and there were more men behind him. He had no night-vision goggles, but everybody was using flashlights.

“We’ve got another door,” the leader hollered. “Hold up!” He tried the door. “It’s like the other one. We’re going to have to blow it. Everybody out of the tunnel!”

There was barely enough room to turn around, but gradually, the tunnel emptied.

Kinney was half out of breath. “Blow it. I’m going to take some men and see if I can figure out where it comes out.” He motioned for Smith and three SWAT team members to follow him, then he ran up the stairs and out of the house. “All right, stop,” he said. “Look around. See where you’d have a tunnel come out if you built it.”

Everybody stood in the front yard and looked around.

“The beach,” Smith said. “That’s where I’d have it come out.”

“Everybody to the beach,” Kinney said, then started jogging. They were there in less than a minute. “Look for an opening. It’s probably behind something.”

“There’s a culvert,” Smith said, shining his light on it. “A good-sized one.”

“Everybody shut up,” Kinney said. He knelt at the culvert and listened. He was nearly blown off his feet by a rush of air and noise from the pipe.

“They blew the door,” Smith said. “The tunnel leads into the culvert.”

Kinney grabbed a team member. “You go down the culvert as far as you can. Watch out, you might meet Buddy coming the other way. Kerry, you take a man and go down the beach that way,” he said, pointing. “I’ll take a man and go the other way.”

TED CUT ACROSS the road past a farmhouse and ran toward the airstrip. Finally, he had to walk, for fear of having a heart attack; he was fit, but he had just run three-quarters of a mile, carrying a heavy bag. He made the airplane, unlocked it, and tossed his bag into the passenger seat, then released the tiedown ropes. No time for a preflight; he climbed in and started flipping switches. He primed the engine, then turned the key to the starter position. The prop began to swing, and a moment later, the engine caught and started. There was no wind to speak of, so Ted knew he could use either end of the runway.

He started taxiing, then put in twenty degrees of flaps. He stopped at the end of the runway, ran the engine up to full power, paused a moment to make sure it was going to keep running while cold, then released the brakes.

KINNEY RAN for a few hundred yards, then turned back. He met Kerry Smith back at the culvert.

“Hey!” a voice shouted from a distance. “Over here!”

It came from the other side of the house.

Kinney led the group back to the house, past it, and across the road, where the shouts were coming from. Finally, they came across a SWAT team member, standing knee deep in a pond.

“The culvert ended here,” he said.

“Where is the guy going to go?” Kinney asked. “He can’t get off the island without a boat.”

The team leader rushed up.

“Get some men down to Dark Harbor and make sure nobody leaves by boat,” Kinney said.

“Listen,” Kerry Smith said.

“We’ve got to get the chopper in here from Augusta with more men,” Kinney was saying.

“Shut up and listen!” Smith shouted.

Everybody got quiet.

“Do you hear that?”

“What is it?” Kinney asked.

“An airplane engine. Look!”

Just for a moment they caught a flash of moonlight on something climbing away from the island, something with no lights.

“Oh, shit,” Kinney said.

59

KERRY SMITH LOOKED UP in the direction of the parting airplane; it seemed to be making a turn.

“We’re fucked,” he said. “A Cessna i82RG will make a hundred and fifty knots. That’s faster than the helicopter.”

“What direction would you say he’s flying?” Kinney asked.

“I’d say he’s headed southwest, along the coast.”

Kinney thought about his options and realized there was only one. He got out his cell phone and dialed a Washington number.

“White House,” an operator said.