A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror (29 page)

“He just showed up with money?”

“Yeah. I don’t think Ashley knew anything about Bear Mountain Bridge, though. In fact, Stanfield told me not to mention anything about it to her.”

“Ashley?”

“Corcoran. Ashley Corcoran. My roommate. She’s okay.”

“So it was money.”

“I told him they could have it all back. I’d pay it back somehow. But he said all I had to do was, like, play this little game for a couple of hours and it would be all over. He said I could just forget about repaying it.”

“And all you had to do was become a terrorist.”

“Yeah. Here I am.”

* * *

Morning turned to afternoon. The sun continued to blaze down out of a cloudless sky. It was a perfect Indian Summer day. Lou climbed to the top of the knoll again to look and listen. There was nothing to endanger them that he could detect. The only sounds were the whir of traffic on the Parkway and the buzzing of the last bees of the year in the laurel. At around two o’clock, he lay down on a bare spot with his head propped on his boots, just to rest for a few minutes. Sydney was awake and moving around. It would be all right.

* * *

He woke up slowly and cleared his head… slowly. He found himself looking up into Sydney’s face. His head was in her lap. She was clean and fresh-smelling.

“Would you believe that you must’ve been having some sort of nightmare?” she said.

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“I don’t have the foggiest, but I think it’s getting close to supper time. At least my stomach is telling me it is. Do you hear anything down there?”

“It must be talking Greek,” he said. He raised himself up to a sitting position.

“The sun looks like it’s about ready to sneak behind the trees over there on the next mountain,” Sydney said, shielding her eyes.

“Yeah, and we’re going to freeze our butts up here for the next five hours until it’s time to make it over to Borrow Pit.”

“Do you want your socks? They’re completely dry.”

“Yeah, how about passing them over here? Hey, you look like you got cleaned up while I was out. You didn’t go down by the lake, I hope.”

“Would you believe a stream down at the base of this hill?”

“Jesus! You’re crazy! Here I am, creeping and crawling like I expect to be attacked any minute, and you’re strolling around. You could’ve gotten us both...”

“But I didn’t.”

“You could have. You only get one chance.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s your skin, too.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“Do as I tell you.”

“Okay.”

“All right, then.”

“Do you want to do that make-up sex thing?” she asked.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Are you crazy or just completely friggin’ nuts?”

“You don’t have to be so sarcastic,” Sydney said.

“Here on the rocks? With you?”

“
Excuse me.
It was just an impulse. Ill-timed, it seems.”

“Timing has nothing to do with it.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re feeling doomed.”

“And that was my last wish? Fuck you. I just go with my impulses.”

“I’m capable of a lot: lying, walking out, frittering away the most important things—but there’s a limit, even for me.

“And I’m where you draw the line.”

“
You
said it.”

“You’re not all that much yourself.”

“Should have been flattered, huh?”

“You said that.”

Lou stood, walked away briefly, and then came back. “It’s the principle.”

“And, like, I wouldn’t know anything about that. Right?”

“Well, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have put principle on your top ten list.”

“A lot you know.”

“Let’s just drop it. I’m simply saying....”

“I’m a slut.”

“I’m saying we’re miles apart when it comes to this.”

“If I’m a slut, you’re a hypocrite, and I’d rather be me.”

“Fine.”

“You probably had the impulse too, but you’re too tight-assed to put it to words.”

“Now who’s flattering herself?”

“It’s not a crime to say what’s on your mind. I believe in that! I’d rather be authentic than anything else.”

“Good for you.”

“Good for me.”

Silence descended again, and their tempers cooled.

* * *

Darkness crept in as the sun sank into the trees along the crest of Long Mountain. With the darkness came the chill. A breeze rolled across the ridge and down into their little canyon. Soon they rested beneath a cloudless sky filled with stars. Lou sat still: his back to a boulder, Sydney huddled beside him, and the M-2 propped close at hand, not to be lost in the night.

This was like many other nights he’d spent in the mountains north of Kontum: wind masking the rush of the stream below, the whispers of frightened men, and the little pain of fear in his chest. Was that the whistle and crunch of artillery shells impacting all around their perimeter?

They sat waiting for the time to move from the safety of this place to the unknown of another place.

“This is going to be hairy,” he said.

“You’re telling me.”

“Right now, we’re the only ones who know where we are and where we’re going. That gives us a big advantage over someone who has to cover the whole damned woods looking for us. So we’re safe for now. But with us moving to a certain spot at a certain time, surprise goes out the window.”

“And only certain people know where we’re going. Assholes.”

“We have options.”

“Like, we don’t meet them?”

“Maybe. Or we make the rendezvous, but we do it in a way that swings the advantage to us.”

“Oh shit. I’m scared. Let’s just walk out.”

“Walking out is worse.”

“We’d have just ourselves. We wouldn’t have to trust anybody.”

“Time is the critical thing. The longer they have to organize and mobilize, the worse it is for us; especially on foot. We have to get out of this area before they can get it completely sealed off.”

“I say walk.”

“We’re not walking out,” he said.

“Hey, it’s my life too.”

“Then, go on. Walk. I’m making the linkup.”

“You know I can’t. I’d be going in circles.”

“Then don’t walk.”

“Can’t I at least share in the decision making, commander, for chrissake?”

“You can’t make decisions on something you know nothing about, such as land navigation, escape, and evasion.”

“I know how treacherous those guys are. They don’t play by the rules.”

“Listen, it’s my judgment that neither one of us could just keep trekking through these hills indefinitely with no food or shelter. In a few more hours, as the cops tighten up their net, all alternatives to walking will be shut down. We may wind up walking, but that should be our last option.”

“Okay. Why didn’t you say that in the beginning?”

Sydney stayed huddled next to him, shuddering against the wind. The pickup was for midnight. The Joe DiMaggio password bit. Someone would show up in a U-Haul van. Stanfield? Nothing was specified about the approach. Good. If he could keep his eye on the whole area, see everything that happened from some cover, then he could call all the shots, dictate the conditions, and decide whether or not to expose their position. If everything wasn’t perfect (single vehicle, two passengers at most, both out of the van and carrying nothing in their hands), then he could pass on the pickup.

One more thing. He had to observe from an unpredictable place, a place they’d never anticipate.

“Hey,” he said suddenly. “Here it is.”

“Tell me,” she groaned.

“We go to the spot. Check it out. If we like the set up, we go with it. If we don’t, we don’t. It’s all we have.”

“I still say walk.”

“We’re going to play this linkup card.”

“And if we lose?”

Lou stood and pulled her to her feet.

“Come on. We’ve got some things to do.”

* * *

They held hands moving in the dark below the crest of Turkey Mountain. It was about a mile and a half, angling toward Mine Torne Road. Rhododendron and laurel branches—thick, in the low spots that separated a hundred knolls, in the saddles, and along the rounded tops of a thousand spurs—grabbed at their legs. At the northern end of the ridgeline, the mountain climbed to over 400 feet, and then dropped off steeply into the swampy ground beside Popolopen Creek and Mine Torne Road.

Lou swung to a southeasterly course at the end of the ridge. They walked out on a broad finger that pointed directly at the Torne rising above them. They would avoid a direct approach to the pit; they’d come from a direction Stanfield would never expect.

At a sharp curve in the road, they sprinted across Mine Torne Road together. If anyone
was
lying in wait for them, this is where they’d have the best chance of not being seen, of avoiding the sudden headlights of an oncoming car. Directly above them were the cliffs of the Torne.

They walked along the lower slopes of the crag, contouring, keeping themselves parallel to Mine Torne Road two hundred feet to their left and a hundred feet below. At a point along the Torne ridge, directly opposite Borrow Pit, Lou stopped. They both slumped to the ground.

A pair of headlights appeared at the curve at least a mile distant from them, growing in size and brightness as the vehicle came toward them on the straightaway, it’s tires whining on the macadam surface.

“Sydney, watch. Try to identify anything along the road, like another parked truck or car. This is a perfect spot to watch from.”

“He’s going to see us.”

“Not in the woods like this. Looking out, everything is clear on the road because of the headlights in contrast with the darkness of the woods. But looking in, down there on the road, the trees screen us.”

The vehicle came straight at them, bearing slightly southward as it approached the gravel turnoff to Borrow Pit. It was below them. It was white. It slowed only slightly to make the tight curve at the base of the Torne, and then picked up speed again on the straightaway. Turning, they kept the car in view for another half mile. Its headlights vanished as it made the curve at the far end of the Torne. They had seen no parked vehicles near Borrow Pit turnoff.

“Listen, I want you to stay here alone for about half an hour. I don’t want you to move from this spot, understand?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going down by the pit. There’s a building there. I’ve written a note for Stanfield. I want him to find it on the door.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Keep them guessing.”

“They probably won’t find it.”

“They’ll find it. If we don’t make contact with them right away, the building will be the first place they’ll look.”

“If they look at all.”

“They’ll look.”