LCole 07 - Deadly Cove (33 page)

I remembered something and said, “You know, during the last day of the regular demonstrations, I saw Kara in the crowds. And when the demo was over for the day, I saw her arguing with a couple of her fellow marchers. Any connection?”

“Very perceptive, Mr. Cole. She told me all about it later that night. Three members of her affinity group were giving her a hard time about the police response. Calling me a jackbooted thug, fascist, member of the corporate party state. That sort of thing. Kara didn't like it very much, they got into a shouting match, and that was that.”

“She out of the antinuclear movement?”

Diane looked over at the rest of the cops. “She's still against nuclear power, but she's finally decided that she's for me a bit more. What a life, eh?”

“I guess. How about your end-of-the-season sail run on the
Miranda
?”

“Still on for this Saturday, weather permitting,” she said, looking up at the clouds. “Tell you what, you want to come along?”

“You sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. You, me, and Kara.” She looked around, lowered her voice. “But if you're expecting a threesome, buddy, forget it.”

That drew a fresh smile from me. “Maybe the two of you can figure things out for me instead.”

“Lewis, you're a smart fellow, I'm sure you can figure it out on your own.”

I kept quiet. Her expression changed from Diane my best friend to Diane the police detective sergeant. “Lewis … what's going on?”

I looked at that serious face. “What's going on is that I think Paula Quinn was acting entirely out of emotion. Ever since the shooting, her life has been in turmoil. She knows I've been working the matter. And when that shot came through her window, she went to the nearest place that offered sanctuary. My home.”

Diane nodded. “And?”

“And when I got there and told her that she was safe, that the shooter was under arrest, I think her emotions got ahold of her. She blurted out things that might have made sense at the time, but maybe not down the road.”

“Nice analysis there, pal. So, your Annie Wynn?”

“She's being serious, she's being forward-looking. She's working in an environment that's daily chaos, everything depending on polls, pundits, and the voters. She's looking for something solid to hold on to, and she's wondering if that's going to be me.”

“You're two for two, Lewis. So what, then?”

“Am I the solid one for her? Still thinking it through.”

Now Diane the detective sergeant was back to Diane my oldest friend. “Don't think it through too long. The ones who offer themselves, who offer their love and devotion … they are hard to find. Don't let this one slip through your fingers.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Only good advice if you take it.”

From the line of cops someone blew a whistle, and Diane frowned. “Time to get back to the playground. You take care … and thanks for everything—and I mean everything.”

“Just doing my job, ma'am.”

Standing there, with her riot helmet, her black jumpsuit and heavy boots, her equipment belt with nightstick, gas mask, and handcuffs, my friend suddenly looked very vulnerable. “No, my dear. You're being you. Loyal, trustworthy, all that Boy Scout stuff. Plus being a pain in the ass and sometimes on the outer limits of the law.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Later, Lewis.”

“Later.”

Before she rejoined her fellow police officers, she did something I will always remember.

She reached over and touched my cheek with her gloved hand.

Diane touched me.

Then she was gone.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The protesters approached in a ragged line, carrying wooden staves and plywood shields with the Nuclear Freedom Front logo spray-painted on the front. They wore bandannas or balaclavas over their faces, and some wore hockey helmets. Unlike the other group of demonstrators, they had no happy balloons, papier-mâché puppets, or banners. Just the lines of NFF members approaching, banging their staves on the shields. I was standing with a few reporters, including television crews from the Boston channels and Manchester. Usually television crews and reporters are a cynical and wisecracking lot, able to make jokes at bloody traffic accidents and beach drownings, but they watched in silence as the protesters came up to the fence. There was no joy, no singing, no chanting from those approaching the power plant. Just the marchers and the rhythmic pounding of the staves on the plywood shields.

“Pretty pathetic, don't you think?” came a male voice. Next to me was Ron Shelton, the power plant's spokesman. He was dressed sharp from his hard hat to new work boots, but his arms were folded and his face was drawn from exhaustion.

“Some would say they're just exercising their constitutional rights,” I said.

“No doubt—but you know what else they're doing out there? They're damaging the same environment they claim they love so much. For the past several days, there's been thousands of people out there trampling on the salt marsh, tearing up and tromping on rare vegetation, digging fire pits, shitting and pissing in the woods—have you seen a single chemical toilet out there?—and leaving mounds of trash behind. Us? This whole complex is built on granite bedrock. We had to put up barriers to protect the salt marsh from any runoff, and we had to file thousands of pages of environmental impact statements. Those clowns? Not a fucking thing.”

His face was sharp, and I said, “For what it's worth, everything you've just said has been off the record.”

“Thanks.”

“But one quick question.”

“That's my job. Go ahead.”

“Your sister, is she still singing?”

He looked surprised. “Yeah. She is. Why do you ask?”

“She sounds like a talent. I'd like to hear her sometime.”

“If you don't mind going to temple, sure, I'll let you know.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Ron looked at the ragged group approaching, shook his head, and walked off.

A light drizzle started falling.

*   *   *

My cell phone rang, and I looked at the incoming call. Boston—but not Annie.

I flipped it open and said, “Go ahead, Denise.”

“Where are you?”

“In Tahiti. You?”

“In Boston, still looking for that elusive sense of humor I'm supposed to have. Look, is that demonstration under way yet?”

“Sort of,” I said. “The cops are on one side of the fence, the antinuclear folks are on the other side of the fence. Whether the twain shall meet we'll see.”

“Fine,” Denise said. “Give me another thousand words at the end of the day—and make it good. We're on the verge of getting some venture capital investing to take
Shoreline
digital and high-tech, and your pieces over the past several days are one of the reasons we're getting there.”

“That sounds nice,” I said. “Does it mean I get a raise?”

“It means you keep your job,” she snapped back, and then she hung up.

*   *   *

With the other journalists, I tagged along behind the police officers, marching up to the fence, moving in a straight line the best they could over the rough terrain. From where I stood, the line looked pretty thin, and I wondered if the governor's decision to pull away the National Guard had been the right one.

The drizzle was coming down harder.

“Lewis? Lewis Cole?”

A young woman reporter moved over to me, wearing a light blue knit cap over short blond hair. She had on a black wool coat and blue jeans, and she looked like she could be Paula Quinn's younger sister.

“That's right,” I said, “and you must be Melanie, the stringer for the
Chronicle
.”

“The former stringer for the
Chronicle,
” she said, smiling. “Thanks to Paula, I'm now a full-time reporter.”

“Good for you,” I said. “I hope it works out.”

“I hope so, too. I have a message for you, from Paula. She's taking a few days off—understandable, right?”

“Right,” I said. “What's the message?”

“A simple one,” Melanie said. “Just ‘thanks.'”

“Just ‘thanks,'” I repeated. “Appreciate you passing it along.”

“No problem,” she said. She looked over at the fence and the two opposing lines, and she said, “What's going to happen?”

“The protesters are going to try to occupy the plant site. The police are going to try to keep them away. Good chance it's going to get nasty, and quite soon.”

“So much for peaceful protests.”

“The NFF makes no bones about what they plan to do, and if it takes violence, so be it.”

She looked again. “I wonder where their leader is—that Chesak fellow.”

I took off my small knapsack and retrieved a set of binoculars. I brought them up to my face and scanned the approaching crowds. I looked twice more and handed the binoculars over to Melanie. “Doesn't look like he's there. Quite the surprise.”

She took the glasses, gave the crowd a good look. “Yes, quite a surprise.”

Not the last one for the day.

*   *   *

Melanie went closer, and I stayed back, watching half of the protesters break away from the crowd and move to the left, moving quickly, coming to the fence. Some carried ladders and propped them up against the chain-link fence. Cheers broke out as three protesters scaled the ladders and reached the top of the fence, but they were knocked sprawling as police officers up against the fence poked through the openings with their nightsticks, pushing the ladders back. The other group—a ready reserve, it looked like—hung back, cheering on their comrades.

Other police officers stood by the fence as well, squirting pepper spray. Some of the antinuclear activists turned away, but some wearing gas masks or goggles managed to stay there, working at the fence.

More shouts, more pounding of the staves against the shields. The crowds were falling back. The number of people seemed smaller than what I recalled from the other day. Raindrops splattered against my coat. A wind picked up from the east. It looked like the protest was faltering. If it ended in the next half hour or so, I could get home, write my column, and make a very important phone call to Annie Wynn. Then maybe to Diane Woods as well.

It was time for decisions, and all I needed was the proper time and place.

Then it all went wrong.

*   *   *

To the right, about fifty yards away from the place where the police and the protesters were battling, seven or eight young men suddenly stood up, wearing coverings with leaves, twigs, and vegetation about them. Ghillie suits, what snipers use to come up close to their prey.

The men trotted to the fence line, each carrying a length of rope. They clipped the ends of the rope to the fence, and as one, they tugged.

The fence fell.

“I'll be damned,” I whispered.

Sometime during the night, they must have crept up to the fence and quietly sabotaged it, cutting through the supporting wires and frames. Then, at the proper time, this hidden crew had broken a lengthy section of fence. There was a large open space leading right into the power plant property.

The group of protesters that I thought had been waiting and killing time as some sort of ready reserve started running to the opening, moving fast, shields and staves at the ready.

A diversion, that's all the fence climbing with the ladders was. It was just a diversion.

With shouts and yells of triumph, the NFF members ran into the plant property. From the left, a line of police officers was running to the fence opening as well, and in another minute or two, they collided.

*   *   *

Fighting broke out, a confusing mass of police officers and protesters, wrestling, punching, flailing. I tried to keep track of it all and failed. Three demonstrators ran past me, hooting and laughing, hollering, “We did it, we did it, we did it!” Somewhere horns blew. There were whistles as well. The protesters moved against some of the police officers, and there was fighting among them all, nightsticks against wooden staves, against shields, against raised arms.

Near me was a construction trailer, and smoke billowed out as flames burst through broken windows. On the cement wall of a building, a solitary demonstrator was spray-painting
FUCK NUKES
. Two dark gray pickup trucks came in from the plant site, screeching to a halt. Security officers from the power plant tumbled out, shotguns up. I looked around, looked around. More shouting. Two police officers were nearly surrounded by protesters, retreating up on a small rise of land near the burning trailer. One officer fell. The protesters ignored him. They kept on pushing and pushing at the solitary police officer.

Leading the charge was a man I recognized, even with a bandanna over his face: the previously missing Curt Chesak. He was shouting something I couldn't make out, but he was also carrying a length of metal pipe, which he swung back and forth at the police officer holding a nightstick, reaching for a weapon, the police officer stumbling …

It was Diane Woods.

I started running.

Someone tripped me. I fell, scraping my knees and hands. I got up and ran again, and Diane was on the ground, curled on one side, as Curt stood over her, hitting her again and again and again with the length of pipe. He then bent down and tugged at something, and with a whoop and yell of triumph, he held up her riot helmet.

“Diane!” I yelled, getting back to my feet, and there was a
pop pop pop
as tear gas canisters exploded in the crowd. Some of the police officers tugged on their gas masks, but I kept on running, pushing, shoving, and then I was there. The ground was stone and gravel with some tufts of grass, and blood. There was sprayed blood. Diane was on her side. Her hair was matted on one side. Blood streamed from her mouth and nose. Her eyes were closed. I gently rolled her onto her back. My hands were shaking. Rain started pouring down. I touched her skin. It was cold and clammy.