hurried-where? Toward the falls.
Yeah, that was it.
The falls. That black line. The collar jerked in his hands.
Put the damn collar on. Why? Hands don’t work. This water’s not so bad, not so cold. The rumbling was shaking him now, the air different, the spray cloud from the helo above him going somewhere else now, the spotlight more intense.
Put the collar on. You’re close. Really goddamned close.
Put the collar on. Might be interesting, see what happens.
Then amazingly, he felt his boots dragging on the bottom.
What the hell? Supposed to be deep out here in the middle.
His upper body was being clutched upright by the rushing current, and then he actually heard the throaty roar of falling water. Shocked finally into action, he thrust his head and arms through the collar just as he felt his feet banging up against the lip of the falls. He nearly popped out of the collar with the shock of lift. His shoulder sockets screamed with pain as the winch locked and the helo rose off the river.
Fold your arms, he remembered, now on the verge of passing out. Fold your arms under the collar. Then he felt his shoulder bang up against the edge of the skid and a strong, grappling arm was reaching under his sweater for his belt, and then he was sprawling across the cabin floor, sliding along the length of a slippery, wet bag and jointly into the arms of Karen Lawrence and a very excited Doberman. See, he tried to tell them as he passed out, that wasn’t so bad.
It was after eleven when the docs were finished with him and Mcnair was allowed into the hospital room. The Park Police helo had flown them both to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center up on Wisconsin Avenue after finding out they were Navy. Train had tried to talk to Karen before she was whisked off to another room in the ER, but he really hadn’t been operating all that well himself. Mcnair’s face was a surprisingly welcome sight.
“Well, G-man,” Mcnair said, pulling up a chair. “They say you’re going to live. Feet like talking?”
“Why do I think I’m gonna have to listen first?” Train replied carefully. The skin on his face felt rubbery. His voice was a hoarse croak. He could feel some vestiges of intense cold still lurking in the marrow of his long bones.
“What, you expect me to chew your ass?”
Yup.
“Consider it chewed. Actually, putting aside the fact that you invaded a crime scene and otherwise messed around with an ongoing police investigation, you did pretty good.
We should have left somebody there.”
Train shrugged, then regretted it immediately. His shoulders were very sore.
“The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Train said, ling to make his lips work. “Where did that blessed come from?”
“Park Police. They own the river, and they have the helicopters and the crews who know how to do water rescue.
You two were lucky enough to have a Park Police helicopter already up and operating a possible drowning down at Little Falls dam.”
“Man, lucky is the word. I need to thank that guy. Is Karen okay? I forgot everything I learned about cold water out there tonight.”
“Well, not everything. Yeah, she’s gonna be okay. Not harmed physically.
Scared shitless, mentally. That was a bad ride she took.”
In a body bag. This guy is a serious whacko.”
Mcnair eased his notebook out of his pocket. “Speaking of whackos,” he said. “How many were there? Commander Lawrence says she thinks two, but she never saw them.”
“Two,” Train said. “I think. It was dark out there, but I’m pretty sure I saw two figures in that boat. They went upriver, by the way.”
“Actually, they went across the river.”
“Huh?”
“To the Maryland side, where they apparently hauled their little bitty boat up to the C&O canal and then shagged ass down the canal, locks and all, back toward Washington.
A Washington co’p car responded to an intrusion alarm at the Washington Canoe Club and got there in time to see a boat shooting out into the middle of the river under Key Bridge.”
“They follow ‘em?”
“Hell no. The D.C. harbor police boat was broke-dick at the pier. Busted like everything in the District is these days.
So whoever they were got clean-ass away. Commander Lawrence told us something interesting, though, about the initial grab.”
“Where did it happen?”
, Down at the barn, like you figured. But she said that she was going into one of the rooms in the barn, and this black glove appeared in front of her face and then a very intense, very bright purple-red flash.
Next thing she knew, she was trussed up in that bag. She thinks they took her upstairs to the haystack and carved out a burial chamber in the hay.
Anyway, about that light: Any ideas, G-man?”
Train sat back against the pillows for a moment and closed his eyes. “So she was there all the time.”
“Apparently. Now about that bright purple-red flash?”
Train hesitated. “That sounds like a retinal disrupter.”
Mcnair’s eyes had a speculative look in them. “Come again, Spock?”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard of them. It’s an optical weapon-like an electronic flash- bang grenade, minus the bang. It emits a blast of light centered on the color frequency of a particular group of rods and cones in the human eye. Puts the brain in stimulus-overload condition. Total disorientation for about a minute.
Plenty of time to disable a guy. Or wrap somebody and stuff him in a car, or a bag.”
Mcnair was making notes. “And which government organization carries these nasties?”
“Silly question, Detective.”
“I knew that,” Mcnair said. “Okay. Docs say they’ll probably let you out after morning rounds. Your dog’s down at the Maryland Staties’ K-9 unit kennels. That’s a barracks out on the Bladensburg Road, and one of my people retrieved your Suburban. It’s out front.”
“Thanks. Where’s Karen?’ “Down the hall, actually. They admitted her.
Gave her a sedative, and they’ve got a shrink laid on for the A.m. Like I said, they didn’t hurt her, physically. She must be one selfcontrolled lady. I’d a gone snakeshit, mummied up like that.”
Train shook his head. “Assuming this was Galantz, I’ve conjured up a theory about why he snatched her.”
Mcnair closed his notebook and raised his eyebrows.
“This guy is after Sherman,” Train said. “She’s been with Sherman, and he probably thinks they’re an item.
Maybe he thinks she’s Elizabeth Walsh’s replacement. Grab , then lure Sherman to some dark and lonely place. Have some fun with both of them.”
Mcnair grinned at him. “And?”
“And what? What’s funny?”
Mcnair tapped his notebook once with his fingertips and stood up, stretching. “And,” he said. “Optical weapons.
Telephone bugs with built-in transceivers. Like you said, those are federal toys.” He paused. “We found the place up in the haystack where they hid her. Probably hid themselves there, too, all day-the whole time we were there looking. Your theory doesn’t read, G-man. This is a steelyeyed motherfucker. He could have had Sherman’s ass anytime he wanted to. You wouldn’t be holding back on me by any chance?”
“Moi?”
“Yeah, you, G-man. Like, for starters, who was the second guy?”
