Deeper Than Red (Red Returning Trilogy) (24 page)

“Those guys don’t understand,” Cade said, observing three young men in mock-up U.S. Army uniforms. “They’re too young to remember or relate to what happened here.”

“And too utterly stupid,” Max growled. “Look at them clowning with their fake guns and senseless grins. Like Auschwitz guards at a mass burial, only their guns were real … and still smoking. These idiots don’t know there was often little difference between Nazis and Soviets. They were both—”

Liesl reached over and gripped Max’s arm then patted it gently, aborting his tirade. He turned to face her and Cade. “I’m sorry.” He looked back at the little booth and the careless actors. “I didn’t exist when this place was real. But the things that happened here could have been yesterday. Maybe even today.” He shot a knowing glance at Liesl, and she understood it clearly. The two of them had battled a Soviet-brand evil and neither one was certain it had vaporized in a helicopter over the East River.

When Max turned back to Erica, she was studying him closely, silently. Liesl watched her look away when Max drew near her. Perhaps Erica also was too young, too untouched by a dangerous world to appreciate the things that tugged so hard against Max Morozov, the son.

T
uesday’s dawn was a couple of hours away when Henry slid from the stern of
Exodus II
into the water.
Like I said,
he silently reminded the young FBI agents, who most certainly still slumbered,
I’m not waiting for that old store clerk to get off work.

Stroking silently toward the distant shore, he didn’t fear anything beneath him, though he packed a knife and revolver in a waterproof pouch strapped around his waist. There were also wire snips he’d helped himself to from an open shed by the marina store.

In the dark, he couldn’t see the red tile roof of Vandoren’s house, but he’d taken his bearings the day before, as soon as the dockmaster had pointed the place out to him. Now, he glided through the calm, colorless waters, remembering the nights he would swim the tidal creek behind the cabin in Charleston, fearless of what creatures had roamed in from the sea and might overtake him. Usually on those nights, he was too numbed by drink and hopelessness to care. Tonight though, all his senses flared on high alert.

When he drew close to shore, he crouched in shallow water and waited. No movement, no sound. He wished the moon to make an appearance and light his surroundings. He thought of Ian and smirked. The old man would probably just pray for moonlight and his god would provide. But seconds later, the moon did appear and Henry’s head jerked toward the heavens.
Coincidence.

Still, he could now see that the house was two stories with a main level terrace and a smaller upstairs balcony. The broad leaves of banana trees swept back and forth in the breeze, blocking Henry’s view of the home’s interiors. He would have to move closer, at a different angle.

Cautiously emerging from the water, he adjusted the pack at his waist and hurried into the dense foliage surrounding the house, hoping not to trip any alarms along the way. The undergrowth rustled with his approach and he stopped every few feet to listen, alert for anyone who might have already detected his steady advance on the house. But still nothing. No wires, no spotlights, and evidently no motion detectors. This was a confident man who lived well and fearlessly in his hidden world, Henry mused.
Not so hidden anymore.

Within fifteen feet of the back terrace, he hunkered low to observe. Only one light shone in the house, a floor lamp that cast a soft glow over what Henry guessed to be the living room. Though dimly lit, Henry saw large paintings in bold colors on the walls. A glassy pyramid rose from a tall pedestal near a sofa. But no sign of life. Henry noticed a couple of open windows and the slightest stirring of movement in the house. He waited and listened. Moments later, a noise like a wind chime, like crystal shattering, rang out inside the house. The ring tone of a phone. A man’s voice answered immediately.

“Is it ready?” the voice asked. And that was all. A moment later, a figure crossed the lit room and another light came on, this one revealing an adjacent kitchen. Henry hovered motionless and watched. It had to be Vandoren. If he’d waited for better information from the FBI or that store clerk, he might now positively identify the man. But he hadn’t been willing to wait any longer.

The size of him surprised Henry, who envisioned him a small wizard like the legendary Merlin of Arthurian tales. But this man filled the window with his unfit bulk, his silver hair curled against the back of his neck. He wore a blousy white shirt and Henry caught the glint of gold on his fingers and around one beefy wrist. The light in the kitchen went out but Henry didn’t move. Seconds later, he heard a door open and close, the scuff of shoes along pavement, the sound receding. Henry waited a few seconds more before daring to follow, catching no sense of anyone else around him.

He’d worn a lightweight black diving suit and fins, now shedding the latter at the shoreline. His feet padded noiselessly in dive shoes thin enough to feel the scrabble of shells and natural debris along a flagstone path, its wandering traced by low Malibu lights. For all the years, nothing had diminished his hearing. Just ahead, he detected the rhythmic, deep-sinus breathing of a body exerting itself, syncopated with the heavy footfall. It sounded like the dragging of sandaled feet, surely Vandoren’s. At one point, though, the dragging and breathing halted in one spot and Henry had to draw up short before tumbling upon the man. Soon, though, the pursuit resumed.

Henry was led through a wild subtropic tangle to emerge into a dangerously open yard lit by a spotlight at the back corner of the university. While the man wasted no time clearing the open yard, Henry had to hug the rim of it, stepping carefully through a buffer of Norfolk Island pines that ran along the shore.

When the figure disappeared around the corner, Henry had no choice but to follow. He’d have to tuck his head and run, the thought of praying no one would see him only a passing notion. He’d never found such things to work. Never really tried. Why now? Then again, why not now? Was Liesl not worth the effort?

Before sprinting from cover, he formed a semblance of a prayer.
If you’re really there, please get me where I need to go without anyone seeing. Then show me what’s going on here, for Liesl’s sake.
He didn’t wait another second before plunging into the arc of the spotlight and crouch-running to the building where he paused and peered around the corner. Even before he got there, he could hear voices in that direction. Now, he saw an open warehouse door and a tractor-trailer rig backed inside, its driver still at the wheel. But the trailer was too far inside to see what cargo was being loaded or unloaded. The blousy figure Henry had followed from the house now entered the warehouse through a small, adjacent door and closed it behind him. The level of voices inside the warehouse rose at that point. Someone shouted, “Where’s the hydraulic?”

Several voices responded at once, then the one voice came again. “Well get it! The three of you are not going to lift that thing without it. Are you crazy?” A pause. “No. The sooner we ship it, the better. I never wanted it here. I didn’t have a choice.”

What is it?
But Henry knew he could go no farther without being seen. He scanned the back of the building for an entrance but saw none. No, this was the best vantage point for now. He would wait and watch. But no sooner had he retrained his sights on the truck than he heard other voices, from the opposite corner of the building. Growing louder, at least two people speaking Spanish. The guards making their rounds, Henry guessed. He had nowhere to go. There was no time to retrace his flight across the open yard, and if he did, would they shoot? The warehouse and its populace were in one direction, and the voices continued to rise in the other. They were bantering with each other, both speaking at once, unsuspecting of an intruder lurking around the next corner.

He did the only thing left to do, one more time. Without taking his eyes from the path of the approaching voices, he prayed,
God, please help me.
That was all.

Flattened against the building, his hand firmly on the gun at his waist, he waited for the inevitable. And there came the first man rounding the corner, his image full in the spotlight on that side. But as he cleared the building, instead of looking down the length of it toward Henry, he suddenly rounded on his companion behind him, yet unseen by Henry. There was a dispute unfolding, the first man’s arms now flailing in the direction of the other man. And then, as quickly as they’d arrived, they were gone, retreating the way they’d come, still disputing something of apparent significance. Had one accused the other of not adequately checking a locked entrance? It didn’t matter. Henry was already fleeing the spotlight, headed for the cover of the trees with no small jolt surging inside him. He should have been in the guy’s gunsight by now. All he had to do was turn Henry’s way. What stopped him?

Henry remembered the prayer.
Couldn’t be.
But he’d think on that later.

He had to scout a safer vantage point, and then he saw it. Straight ahead, a small tributary off the bay ran close to the opposite end of the warehouse. Henry was going swimming again. Still inside the tree line, he reached the deep-cut waterway prepared to slip into the water when he realized there was a wide sloping bank on each side. On the side nearest the building, the bank seemed to have caved in at one point, leaving a narrow, muddy ledge just below ground level. Crawling through the black mud, it didn’t take him long to reach a point about thirty yards or less from the front of the truck, where the driver seemed to be awaiting orders.

His head barely above the bank, Henry could see between one side of the truck and the frame of the doorway as a great deal of back-and-forth scurrying took place inside. To his amazement, they were all dressed in white coveralls, some with headgear, some without. And then he knew. They were hazardous-material suits.

Just then, one of the white suits emerged from the warehouse and approached the cab of the truck. A very large white suit, the headgear now pulled away to reveal long gray hair curling about the neck of the man Henry had followed.

“Curt!” someone called from inside, and the man hurried back to the warehouse.

There was no doubt now. It was Curt Vandoren, and he was either receiving or shipping something that probably had nothing to do with talking to ghosts or adding a new vase to his living room.

What have you got in there, big man?
Henry watched Vandoren return to the truck cab. Henry couldn’t hear his orders, but when he’d finished giving them, he slapped the side of the door and the truck cranked to life. As Vandoren stepped aside, a loud clang was heard at the back of the truck. No doubt the doors closing. And then the massive vehicle began to move. Henry ducked as it headed straight for him, headlights blazing, then turned wide toward the exit drive. When the back of it cleared the building, there wasn’t enough light for Henry to see the license plate, and there were no other markings on the truck. But he could see clearly inside the warehouse now, though it appeared to be empty, at least from that angle. The wide floor was clear and only a wall of small, stacked cardboard boxes was visible.

But Curt Vandoren was front and center, and moving Henry’s way. He lifted one hand to an ear as he stopped just short of the bank to which Henry clung, his muscles tight and threatening to cramp at any moment.

“It’s on its way,” Vandoren said into his phone. “They’d better be ready for it, because it’s not coming back here.” Pause. “Yes, it’s still sealed tight and sitting level. No accidents. What’s that?” Pause. “Our man’s riding in the cab. He’ll stay with it all the way.” A long pause, then Henry heard the name clearly.

“Ivan, stop worrying. This end’s clear. But listen to me. Don’t ever ask me to do something like this again. I won’t take this kind of risk.”

It was all Henry could do to keep from grabbing the man and pulling him into the muck, pounding his soft, wretched body until he spilled all that he knew.

Where is Ivan? Who has he sent after my child? And what’s in that truck?

Henry seethed without sound, without movement until the man ended the call and returned to the warehouse. Another vehicle approached, a van now pulling up to face the open doorway. A man got out and went inside. Henry finally allowed himself a stretch and a new position, just in time. The van driver reappeared with his arms full of hazmat suits, stacked and wrapped in individual clear bags, evidently unused. The man tossed them into the back of the van, leaving the door open, then retrieved another load. Four suits? Five? But soon to be one less.

The voices retreated and the warehouse grew still. It was now or not at all. Henry scrambled over the top of the bank and first crawled then sprinted toward the van, grabbed one of the bags, a pair of work gloves, and a piece of paper lying nearby, then raced back to the ditch. He dropped onto the muddy shelf and resumed his watch. But still, no one there. He waited another ten minutes. No one. It was time to go.

He reached the bay in no time, but didn’t dare to return for the swim fins he’d left in the brush behind Vandoren’s house. Besides, he couldn’t swim the bay with the evidence he’d confiscated. So he set off running along the shore, in and out of finger inlets and eddies, tripping over driftwood and sinking into washouts. The black veil over the eastern horizon began to lift. It would soon be light enough for anyone to see him thrashing along the wild shoreline toward the marina, muddied, frantic, and carrying a most unusual package.

Henry navigated the entire shoreline of the small bay, finally reaching the marina with the first rays of morning … and the arrival of a white Jeep just pulling into the parking lot. He immediately recognized the two people that climbed from the front seats and turned to stare at him.

As Henry hurried toward them, he noticed Agent Jakes’s right hand move slowly inside his windbreaker.
Leave the gun alone
, Henry silently ordered. “It’s me,” he called in a hushed voice, then cast his first look back toward Vandoren’s house. It was possible for someone there with a pair of binoculars to clearly see what Henry carried. Had he been spotted?