Takedown (12 page)

G
avin anxiously paced the vinyl-floored hallway of North Shore Hospital’s trauma center. He had been asked numerous times to
sit in the waiting room, but he simply couldn’t sit. On the other side of the double doors an emergency operation was being
performed on Amy to remove her ruptured spleen, a fairly routine operation had she not been eight months’ pregnant. She also
had three broken ribs and a concussion, but the spleen had to be taken out now or she would bleed to death. This was the good
news. The doctors had told him that it didn’t look good for both the mother and the baby making it. Something about the possibility
of a detached placenta.

He turned quickly at the sound of a door opening. Chris was walking toward him with his palms up.

“So what’s going on?” he said.

“Splenectomy, for starters.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re taking out her spleen.”

Chris frowned. “What’s a spleen do?”

“I don’t know.
They
don’t even know. It has something to do with cleaning your blood.”

“I thought the liver does that.”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever it does she can live without it. The problem is the pregnancy. It complicates everything. They
…” He
had to pause to fight back tears. “… they said they don’t know if the baby will make it because the placenta may have been
detached from the impact, and they don’t want to do a C-section unless they absolutely have to because of the trauma Amy’s
been through.”

Chris cursed under his breath but didn’t have anything to say.

“How could this have happened?” Gavin said to the ceiling, then looked Chris in the eye. “Can you tell me how something like
this can happen? A cement truck, for crying out loud?
A cement truck?
What, did I have a sign out that said, ‘Drive-in House’?”

Chris sighed. “We need to talk a minute about what happened.”

Gavin shook his head in disbelief. “Sure, why not?”

“Okay, why don’t you start by telling me what you saw and who the dead guy in the backyard was.”

“Larry… Larry Larson. He was the decorator Amy hired.”

“Decorator? You?”

Gavin shrugged. “She said the house was too masculine.”

“Whatever. Go on.”

“He was going over colors with her,” Gavin said, then paused to reflect. “I think I was talking to him when you called me.
The next thing I know I’m driving up the block and this cement truck runs me off the road and plows into my house. What am
I—a magnet for this kinda crap?”

“Is that it?”

“That’s all I can think of at the moment. Tell you the truth, my mind hasn’t been there. It’s been here… just here.”

Chris nodded, but then sighed. “There’s more. It gets weird. I’d tell you to sit down, but there’re no chairs here.”

“What gets weird?”

“Did you see the driver?”

Gavin remembered the driver laughing as he passed. “Not really. Just a glimpse. Why?”

“Did you know the truck had a passenger?”

“Yes! I remember that. And I remember thinking that was strange.”

“It gets stranger, Gav. The passenger was the operator. He’s dead. The driver’s missing,” Chris said, nodding, as if what
wasn’t said was what Gavin needed to sit down for.

Gavin’s first thoughts didn’t seem to come from his mind so much as from his chest, where two drills were busy boring holes—
one of anger and the other of fear. When his brain finally caught up to his heart, he said, “A copycat? Someone trying to
gain instant recognition?”

“That was the second thing I thought of,” Chris said.

“What was the first?”

“That Karl Dengler had escaped.”

In that instant Gavin wondered why he hadn’t thought of that. Did he really believe, deep down, that the Krogan demon did
in fact exist and Dengler was no longer a threat? “Dengler’s in solitary, Chris. To escape would be impossible.”

“That’s what I thought, too, until I saw this.” Chris reached inside his jacket and pulled out a plastic bag, handing it to
Gavin.

“What’s this?” Gavin looked at Chris and then the bag, which had enough gray dust inside to obscure the lightweight but hard
object inside.

“Go on. Open it.”

Gavin opened the bag and looked in.
What the
… “Where did you get this?”

“The, uh, ashtray… of the cement truck.”

Gavin’s eyes were paralyzed, staring, staring. “Forensics. One of the sickos who were at the marina when the boat went off
the ramp into that sailboat. One of those guys knew about the lobster-claw roach clip. One of them handed it to me. One of
them could have planted it.”

Chris shook his head. “Not possible. I found it, Gav. I checked
the ashtray for drugs and there it was, just like then. Forensics hadn’t even been there yet.”

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Gavin said angrily.

Chris shrugged his shoulders. “If it is, it’s a pretty damn good one. I can only think of a handful of people who know the
punch line… and Dengler’s one of ’em.”

“Did you… ?”

“Of course. It was the first thing I did. He’s locked up snug as a bug.”

“Then who else c—”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you might be able to shed a little light on this.”

Gavin could only think of one thing, and he wasn’t about to talk about it with Chris. He looked at his watch. 8:05. He wondered
when the Bronx Zoo closed. He had to find out. As insane the notion that any of what Buck had told him was actually true,
he had to call the zoo—now. “I don’t have a clue. I’ve got to make a call.”

“Who?”

Gavin pulled out his cell phone. “Great. It’s off. Can’t use a cell phone in a hospital… have to use the one in the waiting
room,” he said and left Chris, who followed him down the hall.

“Does this have something to do with the lobster claw?”

Think, think.
“Maybe Buck knows something.”

“The guy who just had the heart attack? You’re going to call him
now?
”

“I’ll leave him a message to call me as soon as he can,” Gavin lied. The last person he wanted to tell was the Reverend Buchanan.
“Did you get anything from the cement company?”

“Not much, but we did talk to the crew at the construction site.”

“What construction site?”

“Where the truck was stolen. All anybody could tell us was that someone, whom no one saw, called the operator to the passenger
side of the truck while the foundation was being poured. The next thing they knew, the truck was driving away with the cement
still pouring out. There was a cement trail four blocks long. If that doesn’t sound like Krogan… uh, I mean Dengler, I don’t
know what does.”

“But you said—”

“He is, he is. Snug—”

“As a bug in a rug. I know. You need a better analogy with this one,” Gavin said, pushing through the waiting room door. His
eyes darted around the room until he saw the phone in an alcove across from a few vending machines. Actually, two phones.
Both were occupied.

“Looks like we’ve got a minute,” Chris said. “Want a coffee?”

“No,” Gavin said. “I’ll go outside and use the cell.”

Chris nodded and headed for the vending machines. Gavin pressed the on button and hurried through the emergency room’s airlock
to the warm outside air while it booted up. The signal was poor, but he managed to get through to information and a moment
later was connected to the Bronx Zoo’s general information. After listening to a zoo advertisement about their new jungle
world and Asian rain forest exhibits, he was offered five choices that each led to several other choices before he settled
for “hours and rates, press one.” The zoo was open daily from 10:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. He cursed. Before he shut off the phone,
he thought of calling Buck. A ridiculous thought. Why would he want to do that? If the tortoise was dead and Buck knew it,
he would have already called.
More likely the tortoise is still alive,
he said to himself. On second thought, Buck was in a hospital recovering from a heart attack and probably could not be reached
easily. Why was he even thinking this? He shut off the cell and went back inside.

“Here,” Chris said, handing Gavin a steaming cup of coffee.

“I told you I didn’t want any.”

“Decaf. Milk, no sugar.”

Gavin sighed and took it.

“Did you reach him?”

“Who?”

Chris stared at him for a moment. “Buck?”

“No.”

“Hmm. So where’re you staying tonight?”

“Staying?”

“Look, I know it’s hard to think now about anything else but Amy, but you don’t have a house anymore. I think you should stay
with Pat and me. We’ve got the bedroom in the basement and a bath. You could have your privacy and use the basement door.”

Gavin shook his head the whole time Chris was talking. “I’m staying here.”

Chris looked as if he was about to say something but didn’t.

“Thanks Chris. Maybe later. I’ll let you know.”

Chris nodded. “Fine. Just don’t be bashful. I’ll leave the basement door open. You can come whenever you want. Up to you.”

A
ll that is needed for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing,’” Walter Hess said aloud to himself as he sat on the
edge of his small cabin boat, his back to the water, scuba gear on. His pastor had preached those very words again just Sunday,
quoting some important person—maybe FDR.

He checked his watch. 11:34 P.M. The
Sachacus,
America’s fastest ferry, had been docked for over two hours now. If the maintenance tech was on his usual schedule, he would
soon take his lunch break at the table near the coffee machine one hundred feet from the ferry in the ticket sales building.
If Hess’s calculations were correct, this little breach of company procedure should take just over an hour, and would cost
one boat and over two hundred lives. But not just any lives. Gamblers. Diseased lives supporting alcoholic Indians running
a casino. Only a government run by Jews would encourage such a thing. His lip curled as he thought of those who were polluting
the nation’s blood and heart. The crescent moon kept the cover of darkness secure in the waters just off Sea Cliff Beach.
The small chop was calm enough to operate easily in but disruptive enough to camouflage bubbles and the headlamp. His boat
was anchored among many other moored boats in front of the Sea Cliff Yacht Club. When a jumbo jet flew over, headed toward
La Guardia Airport, he pointed his finger at it and said, “Bang.”

Hess decided to check his equipment list one more time before
taking the plunge. Headlamp… already on his head with fresh batteries. Air… not for breathing, but an extra tank of compressed
air on his back to supply his pneumatic tools. He had already checked the additional air-line from the tank and tested the
easy-connect with both the drill and grinder, the next items on his list. With his free hand, he tapped the tools clipped
onto his weight-belt: first the drill, which had a three-quarter-inch steel bit and then the grinder, complete with a four-inch
diamond blade and a gauge to set the blade depth at three millimeters. Next: the grappling hook and cable in a small black
gym bag. Red crayon in the right sleeve of his wetsuit: check. And finally, his knife, just in case. The tool had proved invaluable
the day before.

Hess was doing his best to stay focused and humble, but he couldn’t help but be proud of himself. Pride was the root of all
sin, but after all, he was only human. Last night he hadn’t gotten to sleep until one in the morning, instead watching the
train wreck on every news channel his boat’s little television would pick up. He had seen the experts hypothesize on everything
from al-Qaeda to Salafi to neo-Nazi cults.

And then the news of the Bible Scripture carved into the chest of the dead jock was released, creating new theories and demolishing
some old ones. Pictures of the wreck were splashed across the front pages of every newspaper at the newsstand, though he had
bought only one, and even then, just to read about the business end of his work. He constantly reminded himself not to get
puffed up. After all, the real credit belonged to God—Hess was just a servant, a specialist servant.

It appeared that the experts had no idea who was responsible. The Nassau police department issued a toll-free tip line. He
wanted to call it, but not before God gave him the exact words to say. Which He would, of course… when the time was right.

He thought about the senator whose picture emblazoned the
newspapers and TV news reports. Hess remembered the politician promising to do everything in his power to see justice done.
Justice. People like Sweeney had so little understanding of justice. If he’d open his eyes instead of kissing ethnically inferior
babies for votes, he’d see what justice was being done. Sweeney also had other choice words—insults. It was because of people
like Senator Sweeney that God needed a soldier like Hess.

With yesterday’s success came a new boldness. Hess remembered how nervous he’d been waiting for the train to come, telling
himself over and over to relax, clumsily trying to set the jacks and work the torch with shaking hands. What a difference
a day made! He felt like a new person. The papers labeled him as an “expert technician.” He smiled at the thought. If that
was all he was, he would still have reason to be anxious. An expert technician? Yes. A specialist? Definitely. Destined? Now
therein lay the difference. His anointing from God paved the path before him and gave him true peace… the peace that passed
all understanding, as his pastor would say.

A movement caught his eye.

“A man of habit,” he muttered as he watched the maintenance tech step off the
Sachacus
and walk toward the ticket building, carrying his lunch bag. After the man disappeared through the door, Hess took one final
look around, pulled his mask on, bit into the mouthpiece of his regulator, and fell backward into the channel’s cool dark
waters. Moments later he was some twenty-five feet below, following the channel’s bottom to the superfast catamaran passenger
ferry.

The meaning of the Indian name
Sachacus
was not lost on Hess as he approached the rear of the vessel. The literal translation was, “He is fierce.” Sachacus had been
the chief sachem of the Pequot Indians from 1634 until his death in August 1637. During Sachacus’ brief tenure as chief sachem,
he presided over the most powerful
tribe in southern New England. Now, almost four hundred years later, thanks to the U.S. government, the tribe was back, and
in his estimation, more powerful than ever. But they were about to be served notice to scurry back to their reservation and
close the door behind them.

With the powerful waterjet thrusters in view, Hess began his ascent to the catamaran’s one-hundred-forty-eight-foot-long starboard
hull. Long and white, it penetrated five feet from the water’s surface. Impressed as he was with the turbines, they were not
his mark. He continued on. What he was after was at the other end of the hull. He checked his watch. 11:52. The maintenance
man would be gone for another fifty or so minutes.

He passed the stabilizing fin that extended three feet below the hull. In unsteady seas the onboard computer worked the fin
to steady the vessel for the passengers’ maximum comfort and safety. The thought made Hess smile as he continued on toward
the end of the hull. Once there, he ran his right hand along the front edge until he broke the water’s surface. With his left
hand he took the crayon from his right sleeve and dragged a short red line where his elbow hit, approximately nineteen inches
from the surface. About six inches above that, he dragged another line and tucked the crayon back into his sleeve for later.

Hess held his breath and quietly surfaced, making sure no one was around before starting up the drill. A careful scan of the
dock and the channel satisfied him. As he descended back to his working level, just below the surface, he unclipped the drill
from his weight-belt and attached it to the extra black hose line he had so proudly crafted, then briefly pulled the trigger.
A roar of bubbles gushed out of the drill’s side and the three-quarter-inch bit spun at three thousand RPMs.
So far so good,
he told himself. He brought the sharp bit to bear on the lower red line, two inches from the front edge, pulled the trigger,
and pushed. The flood of air and whine of the
drill was loud underwater, but above the surface there would be no sound but the boil of the bubbles, and that would blend
with the choppy waves and not be noticeable to anyone farther away than the dock.

12:14. The drill bit broke though the other side. The hole was about two and a half inches deep through solid aluminum, as
expected. He detached the drill from the hose, clipped the tool back to his belt, and took hold of the grinder. He knew the
rest of the hull beyond the leading edge was five millimeters thick… a fact he’d gleaned from the ship’s captain during a
friendly conversation. The gauge on his grinder had been preset for three millimeters and welded in place to eliminate any
slippage under pressure. He quickly attached the air hose to the grinder and set the diamond blade on the higher red line.
Staying parallel to the surface, he cut a channel along the hull from the leading edge to a point approximately eight feet
back. As with the drill, the underwater squeal was loud and the gush of bubbles scary. He constantly had to remind himself
that the sound could not be heard above the water… but inside the boat the metal hull would send a drone throughout the vessel.
Even worse than the sound was the visibility. He didn’t have to see while drilling the hole, but cutting a channel in a straight
parallel line one foot below the surface with a steady stream of forced bubbles exploding against his mask was a different
story.

Kicking his feet hard to keep pressure on the grinder, he completed the desired distance. Upon inspection, his line was a
bit wavy, but not enough to cause a problem, he thought. The captain had mentioned also that the ferry would not rise out
of the water as its speed increased; hence his cut line would be at the same depth blazing along at forty-seven knots as it
was now while docked.

Hess turned his back to the leading edge and started cutting the three-millimeter channel on the other side of the right hull,
again pushing against the tool to keep it flat as he cut. He didn’t want any
variation in channel depth. Just a few more minutes and… He cursed. The grinder was slowing, visibility improving, the whine
not as loud. He was running out of air to run the grinder. He tried slowing down, but it was no use. There wasn’t enough.
He pulled the emergency reserve and then the trigger on the grinder. Back in action… but a foot later the grinder slowed
to another halt.

He looked at his watch—12:31—and cursed again. He had hoped to be safely on his way back to his own boat by now. He looked
at his progress. About four feet. Not enough. He needed the other four feet to be sure. Thinking, thinking. He still needed
to attach the grappling hook to the drilled hole. He reattached the dead grinder to his belt and reached for the bag with
the hook… then froze, staring at the light beam from his headlamp. He knew where he could get some air.

As fast as he could, he unbuckled his breathing tanks, wiggled them off his shoulders, and switched the regulator hoses. He
might not be able to breathe, but he could cut.

Hess exhaled as he ascended to keep his lungs from exploding. He broke surface and looked in the direction of the ticket building.
All clear. 12:39. He had about three minutes. He breathed in and out deeply three times, then took a last breath and went
back to work. The grinder came to life with a surge of new air. After the first foot his lungs could no longer hold out. When
he came up for air, he looked again at the dock and the building. 12:41. The tech should be out any moment. He had completed
five feet and wondered if he should quit. If he were spotted, all would be for nothing. He took a deep breath and went back
to work.

Hess worked the grinder for the next fifteen seconds before he noticed a familiar sluggishness. His second air tank was running
out. He cursed, came up for another breath, and pulled the reserve. 12:43.

Don’t be stupid,
he told himself, staring at the closed door. He
could feel the anxiety swirling around his chest and abdomen. He was about to look at his watch again but instead took a breath
and went under. One more foot was all he needed. Six and a half feet should be enough. He started in again but stopped after
six inches, remembering something else he wanted to do back at the leading edge. He broke surface slowly, watching the door
as he rose. While easing his way to the front, he worked off the wing nut holding the grinder’s guide. Pulling off the guide,
he put the grinder back in the three-millimeter channel at the tip of the edge and pulled the trigger. The diamond blade sunk
in easily.

The lunchroom door began to open. Hess instantly took his finger off the trigger.

The maintenance tech took a few steps onto the dock, then stopped. Hess allowed himself to sink, then swam under the hull
and resurfaced on the other side, out of sight. He hadn’t cut as much as he wanted to, but his time was up. He clipped the
grinder back to his belt and found the bag with the grappling hook. He peeked around the hull and saw the tech enjoying a
cigarette. Great, he thought sarcastically. He slowly eased out the hook, which had a cable and U-bolt attached. He slid the
U-bolt through the hole he’d drilled and tightened it up, all the while watching the tech.

With the grappling hook hanging from his drilled hole on a two-foot cable, Hess took his red crayon, wrote on the hull’s bottom,
then started toward his own boat, swimming on his back so he could watch the tech safely onto the
Sachacus
.

1:54. Hess started his engine and left the mooring area at five miles per hour. Once past the no-wake buoy, he eased the throttle
forward until he was cruising out of the harbor and into Long Island Sound. Following the exact path with his GPS that he
had traced on a recent ride on the
Sachacus,
he veered east. One more chore to tend to before calling it a night.