'What's your plan?'
'I might go ashore.'
'Alone?'
'Yeah. Might be a good idea to have someone on the ground.'
'Police chiefs don't usually do that kind of work,' Danforth said.
'This is a small- town department,' Jesse said.
'It's sort of informal here. We all pitch in.'
'You don't have anyone else you'd trust?' Danforth said.
'Or you don't want to ask anyone else?'
Jesse shrugged.
'Whatever,' he said.
'Who's going to run the department?'
'Molly,' Jesse said, 'and Suit.' He nodded at Simpson.
'I ought to come with you, Jesse,' Suitcase said.
'You stay here. Molly shouldn't have to run it alone.'
'You remember what that cop said in Tucson,' Suitcase said.
'I'm not going up against anyone,' Jesse said.
'I'm just reconnaissance, you know? I'm just going to scoot around in the bushes and see what I can see and radio it back.'
'I could cover your back,' Suit said.
'You're too big to scoot around in the bushes,' Jesse said.
'You go with Lieutenant Danforth. Molly will stand by in the station, and I will have a look see on the island.'
'How you going to get there?' Suitcase said.
'I'm working on that.'
'Doc?'
'He's been around this harbor all his life,' Jesse said.
'You going to have him put you in the water?'
'Probably,' Jesse said.
'And?' Suit said.
'And we'll see,' Jesse said.
FIFTY-EIGHT.
The helicopter came up from the south east, across the causeway to Paradise Neck' and then across the harbor. It hovered for a time over the explosion site, then banked suddenly and flew down the Stiles Islam coast and paused again, this time over the boat house explosion.
It moved away from the yacht clut and began unhurriedly to fly back and forth over Stiles Island, looking at what there was to look at. Across the emptj span where the bridge had hung, there was a gathering of trucks and automobiles and people. The helicopter paused again over the small downtown where people were gathered in the street, looking up, then moved on toward the open ocean side of the island where the restaurant was located.
In the van, Crow heard the helicopter first and glanced up through the van window. It wasn't in sight yet. As the van pulled up beside the restaurant, they all heard it.
'Chopper,' Fran said.
Macklin looked up through the van window and watched the helicopter come in over the treetops and hover over them. Then he got out of the van and walked around to the back and opened the doors.
'Everybody out,' he said, and the six women climbed out and stood silently beside the van.
The helicopter dropped down a little and Macklin fired four rounds from his handgun at it. The helicopter heeled sharply and soared in the same motion and was out of range almost at once.
'Let 'em know we're here,' Macklin said.
'I think they know that,' Crow said.
'They're going to know it even more in a minute,' Macklin said.
'JD, gimme the cell phone.'
Five hundred yards offshore, holding the boat steady against the rough chop, Freddie Costa watched the helicopter fly back across the island, out of pistol range. The prow of the boat pounded steadily as the short waves pushed at it. He looked at his watch.
Three and a half hours.
Across the island, across Stiles Island gut, where the roiling water foamed over the wreckage of the bridge on the Paradise side, in the mobile operations command truck, a radio operator talked with the helicopter pilot. Ray Danforth stood listening. Suitcase Simpson was with him, looking a little uncomfortable among the State SWAT team cops with their black fatigues and their assault weapons and their funky gun belts.
'I think the bandits are at the restaurant on the open ocean side of the island. We drew some small arms fire,' the pilot said.
'There's a power boat maybe four, five hundred yards offshore. From here, it doesn't look like he can get closer.'
'Okay,' Danforth said to the radio operator.
'Tell them to stay out of range but monitor.'
He turned to Suitcase.
'When is high tide around here?'
'Don't know,' Suitcase said, 'but I'll find out.'
'Do that,' Danforth said.
FIFTY- NINE.
'Lemme call Carleton Jencks,' Doc said.
'Snapper's father?'
'Yeah. He knows the harbor better than I do.'
The phone rang.
'Okay. Have Molly call him from the switchboard,' Jesse said and picked up the phone.
'This is Harry Smith' the voice said Doc went out to the desk.
'Or James Macklin,' Jesse said.
could have been Cromartie, but the voice didn't have that indefinable Indian overtone that Jesse remembered from his childhood.
There was silence on the phone for a moment, and then Macklin went on.
'I'm on the island. And I wanted to run couple things by you.
First, the next helicopter I see anywhere around here, I shoot a hostage.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Second, any boats, anything, any attempt to land on the island, any interference with us as we go about our business, and I shoot hostages. I got a lot of them. I can shoot a bunch and have plenty left.'
'What business are you going about?' Jesse said.
'Our business,' Macklin said.
'And when will you be through going about it?'
'I'll let you know,' Macklin said.
'Remember what I told you.
I see so much as a fucking sea scallop come ashore, and it'll be a blood bath.'
'We don't want that,' Jesse said.
'No you don't, and if I see you out here, I'll go shoot that broad you been fucking.'
'Which one?' Jesse said and winced silently as he heard the way it sounded.
'Way to go, Stone,' Macklin said.
'Marcy, the real estate lady.'
'Uh-huh.'
'You fuck up, and she goes first.'
Jesse took in air silently and flexed his shoulders, forcing himself to relax.
'I hear you,' Jesse said.
'Got anything to say?'
'We'll cooperate,' Jesse said.
'You've got my word on it.'
'Well, isn't that good,' Macklin said.
He turned off the cell phone and put it on the bar in the empty restaurant where they were holding the hostages. Marcy sat on a bar stool at the other end of the bar looking at the floor.
'Says he'll cooperate,' Macklin said.
'Guess he don't want you to get hurt, Marcy.'
Marcy didn't say anything.
'I mentioned the woman he'd been fucking, and he asked me which one,' Macklin said and put his head back and laughed. It was a loud laugh and long and, Marcy thought, somehow contrived, just as it was contrived the way he threw his head back. He was posturing.
'Where's JD and Fran?' Macklin said to Crow.
'Guard duty,' Crow said, 'I told them to go out and walk around the building, keep an eye out.'
'Good, serves a useful purpose and keeps them from whining at me. This thing is going like down so good there's not enough O's in smooth.'
Crow nodded and glanced out the window at the water that boiled through the offshore rocks as the tide came slowly in. Freddie was out of sight around the low headland to the right. Crow glanced at his watch.
Carleton Jencks came into the office with Snapper.
'I brought my son,' Jencks said.
'Can you get me ashore on Stiles?'
Jencks nodded slowly.
'Got to bring Snapper, though. He's the one knows.'
'Too dangerous to bring a kid.'
'He's got to show us,' Jencks said.
'He can tell us.'
Jencks shook his head.
'Not enough margin for error,' he said.
'Place is about five feet wide.'
'You know how to get ashore on Stiles?' Jesse said to Snapper.
'Yeah.'
'Answer right,' Carleton Jencks said.
'Yes,' Snapper said.
'Yes sir, I do.'
'Tell me.'
'It's on the harbor side, about halfway between the yacht club and the bridge. Me and some other guys used to go over there in my father's rowboat. Anchor it and swim ashore, watch what went on.'
Maybe steal a little something too, Jesse thought. But he had bigger things to worry about, and he dismissed the thought.
'Can you tell me how to go in?'
'Not really... sir... I got to show you. There's no real landmarks, you know?'
Jesse sighed. He had no choice.
'Okay,' he said.
'You and your father.'
He looked at Jencks.
'You know how to use a gun?'
'Yes.'
'You want one?'
'Got one,' Jencks said.
Not the time to ask him for his permit, Jesse thought.
'I got a shotgun on the boat,' Doc said.
'Okay,' Jesse said, 'here's the deal. Doc, you take us. Snapper tells us where. I'll go in alone.'
