'None. Fifty feet off the water. Come down, come down. You're too high,' he said.
She eased off the power, trying again to feel for the water; she could see nothing.
'Come down, come down.'
She lifted the nose.
Where is the damn water?
She was eating up the water and approaching the tip of land just around the corner from Friday Harbor.
'Get down,' Sam shouted. 'You're here.'
She killed the power just before it seemed she would smash into the beach. The plane dropped and hit with a resounding smack, bouncing badly. Then it came back down and hit again. Porpoising. Up again, and down, slamming in nose first.
Disoriented and shaken, Haley found herself taxiing slowly with the engine at idle.
'Turn around, turn around,' Sam said. She slammed her foot on the rudder.
Wham. The first shot came. She hit the throttle, bringing her in close to the beach.
The shots stopped. Probably the line of sight to Frick's men was impeded. Next would come shooters on the beach to finish them.
'Straight in, straight in.'
She slammed her foot on the rudder, powering now right into the beach. She flipped on the landing lights, revealing a big rock. It was low tide.
'Dear God, please…' She cut the power and banged onto the rock. Then Sam was there, hobbling, looking terrible, barely able to walk, the water rising fast to his chest.
She opened the wing door.
'They shot him.' It was like she had to say it all over again. Saying it once would not be enough.
'I'm sorry,' Sam said.
With great effort he gently pulled Grant's limp body into the backseat area of the cabin.
He returned to her and took her hands in his own, which trembled and felt freezing cold.
'We need to do the 'focus' thing again,' he said. 'We have to leave.'
Any second there would be a lot more bullets, she realized.
'We're leaking gas.'
Sam had no response.
She fired up the engine and used the rudder.
They had drifted out and away from the rock.
Wham, a bullet came. Then another. She looked down and her shirt was crimson. Maybe from a bullet. She couldn't tell.
'You're hit,' she heard Sam say.
CHAPTER 29
The voice spoke quietly and had the sound of an obvious disguise. That told Ben that his interrogator was most likely someone he knew.
'Make it easy on yourself,' his captor whispered.
'I'd like to take a piss. That would be a real treat, make it very easy on me.'
'We're gonna put a wire up there and shoot you full of electricity. How would you like that?'
'First it was my guts in a bowl. Then you were going to do it to Sarah. But there's no Sarah, is there?'
'You're making me angry.'
'You're making me bored. We both know that if you haven't done it by now, you're not going to do it. What are you, a government interrogator?'
'You're a smart-ass. But if you're so smart and I'm a dumb fed, then you know that we have agreements with other countries and that those countries lack our scruples.'
'The senators and congressmen on Intelligence Oversight say that no such agreement exists.'
'First, most of them don't know. Second, the ones who do know are worried enough about terrorists hurting their friends, family, or constituents that they don't blow the whistle. Third, they want to get reelected. So nobody knows. You follow?'
'You're trying to tell me that the errand-boy orderly that wants to be a surgeon and talks like an Arab butcher is from one of those countries?'
'I'm not telling you anything. You're telling me.'
'I gotta take a leak.'
'If I let you relieve yourself, will you quit playing games and save yourself?'
'I could think a lot better with an empty bladder.'
He could tell that lights were flipped on. Someone played with his manacles and unshackled him. Next he was led blindfolded up some concrete or stone stairs. He heard the sound of a door opening, and then came a new sound. An almost imperceptible mechanical sound, like a refrigerator's, followed by a truck barely audible in the distance. He was led another forty paces or so and into a bathroom. The man put his hand on a toilet and told him to sit to pee. Obviously hitting the bowl would be tough with a blindfold, so it was the only alternative.
As he began relieving himself, he moved the blindfold but did not dislodge it. Looking down at his feet, he could tell that he was in a very expensive bathroom. Marble floors and baseboards were accompanied by ornate wooden wainscoting of light blond bird's-eye maple. It was all he could see, but it was enough to know he must be in one of the most expensive homes on Orcas Island. His mind went to work trying to figure which home.
The man was gone only a minute. Ben finished urinating, pulled up his pants, and was walked back across what looked like a very expensive sandstone floor. They went down some stairs of rough-hewn stone through a very heavy door. He coughed and brought his manacled hands to his face and moved the blindfold up and turned in one motion. For just a second he saw the face of Nelson Gempshorn. A traitor, then, but working for whom? He swung both manacled hands as hard as he could and hit Gempshorn in the jaw hard enough to stagger him. Ben jumped back through the heavy door and closed it.
He ripped off the blindfold and found himself in a beautiful entryway. Suddenly he understood the mysterious quiet. He'd been kept in a wine cellar deep in the ground.
Running down a long hall toward the end of the house, he saw a bedroom with a sweeping view of the water, and beyond that a sliding glass door that might lead to freedom. But before he reached the bedroom, the strong arm of Ros-sitter grabbed him around the waist. An instant later, Len was on him as well. He was done with this escape. Moments later, Nelson Gempshorn came down the hall. A rather large bruise forming on his cheek marred his usual silver-haired, dapper appearance. Although calm, he did appear frustrated and angry.
'You killed all the Arcs,' Nelson snapped. 'And destroyed all the paperwork.'
If they hadn't been putting all manner of shackles on him, he would have knowingly scratched his chin. Things were just starting to become clear. Now they really would kill him when they were finished.
'Rachael Sullivan, this is Sergeant Hershman of the state police.'
Lieutenant Stutz introduced her to a man in his late thirties with dark hair. Hershman struck her immediately as the quiet, brooding type.
'What can we do for you?' Hershman asked Stutz.
'You can step in and take over a murder investigation.'
'I've heard a little,' Hershman said. 'Why don't you tell me the whole story.'
After laying out the basics, Rachael plunged right into the fountain of youth-tale, even though she could sense mounting skepticism. When she had concluded, the young sergeant looked at his watch.
Not a good sign.
Hershman cleared his throat. 'It's a lot easier to believe that your mysterious friend shot two officers in cold blood and stabbed another than to believe what you've been telling me.'
'Wait a minute,' Stutz said. 'You should look at this FBI memo.'
The sergeant read it.
'This is the kind of unsubstantiated rumor that ruins the careers of good men,' said Hershman. 'Classic FBI. It
