Eugene reluctantly handed Sam the keys.
'Sam,' Martha called out. 'Sarah wants to talk with you.'
Sam walked from the living room to the bedroom and found Sarah sitting up in bed. She asked to be alone with Haley and him.
'I have to tell you something.'
'Yes?' Haley said.
'Ben had someone call before they caught me.'
For a few moments Haley had to think about what Sarah had said.
'It was Nelson Gempshorn,' Sarah continued. 'He said Ben was running but would come to me. He said absolutely not to talk, said the boat would come at eight p.m., at Fisherman's Bay. Then they caught me before I could make the rendezvous. And Nelson said to bring Haley. Ben tried to call her.'
'We didn't connect. I went right over to Sanker,' Haley explained.
'If I missed them, I was supposed to wait for a call at the Horngraves',' Sarah said.
'But where did Ben want to take you?'
'My guess? President Channel. I was to be ready to dive. You know the experimental area?'
'Did you tell Frick about President Channel?'
'No.'
'Nelson was coming in a boat to get you?' Haley asked.
'Yes. That was my understanding.'
'You would be diving underwater? At night?'
'That's what I gathered. I can't be sure.'
'Is there any other connection between Ben and diving and President Channel or Orcas or Waldron Island across the way?' Haley asked.
Sarah thought for a moment. 'I mailed things to West Sound. Just a PO box, no real location. I asked him, but he…' She shook her head. 'On the phone Nelson referred to the place Ben and I took a picnic.'
'Was the picnic at Orcas, along President Channel?'
Sarah nodded.
'Do you know about the other people Ben was working with?'
'Only names-Lattimer, Nelson Gempshorn. I think it's a secret society. They all sign something.'
'Where do they meet?' Haley asked.
'I don't know.'
Haley thought out loud. 'Ben mailed things to West Sound. But that's a fairly big area.
Turtle Mountain and such.'
Sarah nodded.
'Sarah, was Ben involved with anything? Other people?'
She looked uncertain and deeply conflicted. 'I think it was a government secret.' She had tears in her eyes, probably torn between a promise made and the exigencies of the moment.
'What do you mean?' Sam broke in at last. 'Ben's research?'
Sarah nodded. 'Ben has been talking to the government. I don't know who or how or what was said.'
CHAPTER 34
Haley and Sam climbed in the Harlasens' truck and Haley started the drive to the marina, where they hoped to find Sarah's car and the laptop computer. The truck was an
'80s Chevy that somebody had worked over a bit with a flashy interior. No doubt one of the Harlasen boys had an interest.
'The government…,' Haley mused. 'Could they have Ben? The terrorist angle?'
'It's something we can't answer,' Sam said. 'Not yet. I'm wondering about Sarah having to dive in the night. An underwater entrance or a secret approach to something, but what?'
'I don't know how Ben thought we'd think to look in Sarah's computer for a stew recipe,' Haley said. 'Why would I ask Sarah about Sargasso stew? He was gonna pick her up. It was a complete fluke that we figured it out.'
'Maybe we didn't figure out about the computer in the way he intended. Also, if he were gone, wouldn't you be talking to Sarah about things you didn't understand, just the way you did?'
'You could be right on both counts,' Haley said. 'It's just obscure.'
Sam looked hard through the trees along a slight bend in the road. 'Stop,' he said.
Haley hit the brakes and they lurched to a stop. 'Up ahead it looks like a car stopped in the middle of the road. Just beyond that you see flashing lights-it's a cop stopping traffic.'
'I don't see anything,' she said.
'Through the trees. It's just visible.'
'Oh, I see. Yeah. If they stop traffic in this area, they block off the whole lower part of the island. I'm not sure there's any way around.'
'Turn off the headlights quick.' Haley did it. 'Slide over the top of me. Let me drive.'
Sam got behind the wheel of the old, stick-shift Chevy. It was now apparent that somebody had enhanced the power block and power train.
Sam turned around before he flipped on the headlights. After taking a slight turn in the narrow road at fifty, he found a driveway and drove down it, quickly dousing the lights.
Within sixty seconds there was a siren and a deputy's car screaming by with all the lights flashing.
'How'd you know to do that?' asked Haley.
'They would have seen the lights approaching and then all of a sudden they disappear.
Nothing comes. They're gonna think it was a turnaround.'
Sam resumed travel, hurried to the turn, saw no lights, and proceeded to Fisherman's Bay, taking some back roads, trying to avoid as much of the main thoroughfare as possible. They drove the pickup back down along the Fisherman's Bay, the only vehicle on the road, both convinced that at any moment they would be tailed.
They were somewhat surprised when they found Sarah's car unmolested.
'Thank God,' she said.
'Amen.'
'I think I'd rather shoot myself than let them get me.'
'No, you wouldn't.'
'I feel so much better knowing Ben is alive and probably safe. Honestly, I can't believe she didn't tell us immediately,' she said.
'She was doing as she thought Ben had instructed and, truthfully, she didn't have that much real opportunity. She's been totally traumatized and suffering from stress syndrome. Ben or whoever he's with may have their own security concerns that aren't the same as ours. If you think about it, she told us within a few minutes after she got to the house. She couldn't think clearly.'
'You're right. When you say whoever Ben's with, do you mean like the government?' she asked.
'Possibly, but not likely. The feds would never let this go on, even for a few hours. I'm afraid Sarah knows a lot of significant stuff that she doesn't realize is significant. We've got to get that computer back to her and see what jogs her memory. Who knows what's on that thing if Ben used it?'
Sam slid out of the pickup with a big lug nut wrench, broke the window on Sarah's car, and set off the car alarm. He reached in the backseat and grabbed the computer case. In the cradle he noticed her cell phone and took it. Surprising, Frick's men hadn't gotten to her car. They were not a high-IQ group.
Headlights came on just down the road, bathing Sam and the pickup in incandescent light. It occurred to Sam that Frick had left Sarah's car as bait.
'Police! You're under arrest,' someone yelled.
Sam jumped in the truck and they didn't shoot.
Must be a real cop.
