The Daisy Ducks (30 page)

Speaking of needing help, I knew that sooner or later
Mary and the Concord contingent would have to be notified of my
upcoming trek through the mountain wilderness. This call to her was
going to be dicey, to say the least. It seemed that each time we
talked, I had worse news.

When I finally called, Roantis, as promised, helped
me out by positively assuring Mary I would be in no danger.

"Listen, Liatis," I heard her say as he
held the phone slightly away from his ear, "if anything goes
wrong—if Charlie gets even a skinned knee—I don't care how many
people you've killed with your bare hands, you're going to wish you
were dead."

"Uh, sure Mary, I understand. Do you want to
speak to him again?" He handed me the phone.

"Listen Charlie: I don't know exactly what's
going on down there, but I don't like it. This is sounding more and
more like a bad dream. When he was driving me home from the airport,
Joe said he was taking some time off. He asked if I wanted to drive
down to the Carolinas and make sure you don't get your ass in a
sling. I told him no. But now that the cops are making you stay put
there and you're planning some hare-brained rescue mission, I'm
calling him back. You can expect us tomorrow."

"But honey, it's a two-day drive."

"Then we'll fly down and rent a car at the
airport. We'll arrive by tomorrow afternoon. You'd better be there,
buddy. I mean it."

I returned to the men at
the table. Roantis and Summers were going over the maps inch by inch.

* * *

The next afternoon, we watched a light plane circle
and approach the Asheville Regional Airport. The Flying K Ranch's
Mooney touched down on the tarmac and taxied over to the tie-down
area. Fred opened the cabin door and motioned all of us over with his
arm.

"Lend a hand, guys—I can't carry all this
stuff." he said, removing his mirrored aviator glasses. We
leaned into the cabin. Piled lengthwise along the tiny cabin aisle
were four gun cases. These we put into the camper. Then there were
several heavy canvas rucksacks and a long package wrapped in cloth.
Fred grinned as he peeled the top of the package off I saw a long,
pointed cone of metal peeking out at me. It looked like a steel ice
cream cone. It looked nasty.

"What the hell's that?" I asked him.

"Soviet rocket launcher. RPG-Seven."

"Where'd you get it? How'd you get it?"

"A friend."

"That's nice."

We all went back to the motel so Kaunitz could settle
in. He rented the room next to ours. An hour later Roantis, Tommy
Desmond, and I went back to the airport to pick up Mary and Joe. I
was glad Tommy was coming along; he could charm a cobra out of its
skin.

Mary came down the boarding stairs quickly, as if she
couldn't wait to look around and see what I was up to. Her wide,
Italian cheeks shook a little with each step. She pranced along on
the blacktop with a no-nonsense look in her eye. Joe followed his
older sister in that shambling, shoulder-swinging walk that moved his
220 pounds along faster than it seemed to the casual eye. Mary
spotted the three of us and put her hand up to her forehead. She
trotted over and planted a kiss on me. I hugged her.

"Pretty down here, isn't it hon?"

"Uh-huh. I can't wait to leave. Now what's going
on? Liatis, what the hell's going on?"

He told her as we all walked back into the terminal.

"Daughter? I never knew you had a daughter."

"Stepdaughter. They took her. We're going to get
her back."

"Not Charlie. He's not going."

"Yeah Mary. We need him. We need Joe, too. And
maybe you."

Mary glared at him. But he just stood there with that
pit bulldog look in his eyes. It wasn't a mean look. It was a look
devoid of any emotion. It was all business.

Mary put her hands on her hips and thrust her chin
forward. I knew what that look meant.

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Help us out. Two, maybe three days. Doc won't
be in on any rough stuff. Okay?"

She didn't say anything, just strutted away. Joe came
forward and shook all our hands. Good old Joe. Roantis buttonholed
him and told him about our predicament with the state police. Joe
shifted his feet and looked at the ground, then asked for a cup of
coffee. We all went back to the motel.

It was when Joe was calling Trooper Hunnicutt out in
Robbinsville that I saw the egg truck pull into the motel parking
lot. The name on the side of the truck was IDLENOT FARMS—POULTRY
AND EGGS. I wasn't paying close attention, and only the appearance of
the driver jerked me out of a daydream.

The man was short, stocky, and rust-colored, both
hair and skin. His eyes were a piercing blue and seemed to reflect
light back out of them, like airport beacons. He came down out of the
cab, walked quickly around to the side of the truck, and leaned back
against it, his legs crossed at the ankles. He stared up at our room.
I walked out onto the balcony. The sky was turning a fiery reddish
gold out over the distant peaks to the west. The man nodded ever so
slightly at me, his hands shoved deep into his pants pockets. He had
a special aura about him, quick and intense.

"Hi ya, feller," he said in a scarcely
audible voice. "Ya doin' all rhat?"

"Liatis," I said over my shoulder, "I
think your old buddy Sparkles MacAllister has arrived. But did you
know he's driving an egg truck?"

"Huh? Oh yeah. I ordered some eggs. Half a
dozen. Doc, come with me while I get 'em."

We walked down the motel's outdoor metal staircase
and strolled over toward the truck. As we drew closer, I could hear
the purring and grinding of the cooling unit over the cab.
MacAllister snapped his Zippo and lighted a cigarette; the smoke
floated around his ruddy face. The eyes flashed at Roantis.

"Hey sport. How's tricks?" he said,
shifting his feet and recrossing his ankles.

"Okay. How's stuff with you? Got any eggs?"

Sparkles's face lit up. "Oh yeah. Definitely
hard-boiled. You wanted six?"

"Yep. And the other?"

"Uh-huh.”

"How much?"

"The eggs are thirty apiece. The other . . .
cost you eighty bucks."

"Doc, this here is Randall MacAllister. We call
him Sparkles because he's into pyrotechnics. You know, fireworks."

Sparkles shook my hand and walked around to the back
of the truck, exchanging news and pleasantries with Roantis. The men
mentioned several names I hadn't heard before. Then Royce's name came
up.

"He was over to see me couple of months ago."

"What did he want?"

"I'll show you," said MacAllister as he
opened the back of the truck. It was filled with egg cartons and was
cool inside. Sparkles jumped up and searched among the cardboard
cartons. He drew out three metal rods. One of them he held like a
soda straw and tapped it against the metal floorplate so that it
pinged like a tuning fork.

"Thermal lance," said MacAllister. "Hollow
magnesium rod. Attach it to the end of an oxyacetylene cutting torch
and it catches fire. It can melt concrete."

"What the hell did he want that for?"

"Didn't say. But he bought a hundred of 'em.
Want to see the eggs?"

He rummaged deep down and brought up an egg carton
cut in half. Roantis hefted it, then opened it for a quick peek.
Inside were nestled six shiny brass spheres with ring handles. He
shut the carton fast, keeping it out of sight.

"Hey, those are cute," said Roantis. "From
Holland?"

"Uh-huh. just like I promised. Return 'em if you
don't use 'em. I'll charge you just for what you use. Now be careful
with this . . ."

He was holding a long cylinder in his hands, an inch
and a half in diameter and maybe ten inches long. It was a rolled
newspaper tube covered with some kind of grease and shone gold in the
setting sun. The newspaper covering oozed oil with a faint and
strange odor. MacAllister produced a red cardboard object in his
other hand that resembled a truncated railroad flare.

"This is the fuse. Heat-sensitive. Affix it to
the wand when you're ready, not before. I‘ll also give you an
electrical cap. You can take your choice, depending —"

"Yeah, okay," said Roantis absently. "What
about this oil?"

"Put talcum powder on it until it dries out.
Should be all dry and ready to go by late tomorrow. You wanna pay me
now?"

"Doc, will you help pay?"

"Pay for what? For those metal eggs? Are they
what I think they are?"

Roantis nodded slowly.

"I'm not paying for hand grenades, Liatis. I'm a
doctor, for Chrissake. You know what will happen if you're caught
with those?"

He nodded again. "But I won't," he said.

I turned and walked back up to the room. Mary asked
me who the fellow with the truck was. I said that he was an old
friend of Liatis's, then flumped down on the bed without saying
anything else. Roantis came up the stairs, passed our room, and went
next door where Kaunitz was staying; I heard his loud knock on the
metal door. Soon afterward, the two of them walked back down the
staircase. Curious, I rose and went over to the window, looking down
into the parking lot. Kaunitz was carrying the long wrapped bundle
with the steel cone at the end. This they gave to MacAllister, who
accepted it eagerly. After the goods had all been safely stowed, the
three men stood talking and laughing softly around the truck.
Glancing down at them, I had a hard time believing my eyes. Was this
really happening in America? Yes it was. Sparkles MacAllister had
carved himself a lucrative niche in the underground economy by
dealing military weaponry to whoever wanted it. Now, it seemed, he'd
taken the rocket launcher in trade for the items Roantis needed, or
thought he needed. What else did he have in that egg truck? Spare
parts for a trident sub?

"Well hon," I volunteered to Mary, who was
lying on the bed reading a paperback book, "it looks like an
interesting few days coming up."

She turned her head in my direction. Before she could
say anything, Joe and Mike Summers knocked and entered, carrying huge
paper cups of coffee. Mike gave one to Mary.

Joe said, "I talked to Hunnicutt and other
officers in Graham County. They told me they got a call today from
the Buncombe County sheriff 's office. Oh, they remember you, Doc.
Seems like you're already famous here in North Carolina."

They all stared at me. I pretended I didn't notice.

"They'll help search for Daisy. But Doc, they
feel there are so many loose ends and unanswered questions, they want
to interview you and Roantis tomorrow. They said ‘in depth.' "

"Why sure," I said, turning my head and
watching the egg truck swing out of the motel parking lot. "I
mean, what have we got to hide?"
 

21

IN THE REGION of the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park, there are many mountain ranges with distinctive names. Besides
the Smokies, there are the Balsams and the Plotts, the Elks, the
Swannanoas, the New Founds, the Nantahalas, the Tusquitees, the
Cheoahs and the Snowbirds. The last two ranges, the Snowbirds and the
Cheoahs, lie in the westernmost part of North Carolina, along the
Tennessee border just south of the Smokies. The day after everyone
showed up, I was standing at the railing of a forest service lookout
tower in the Snowbirds. The tower was ninety-two feet tall, on a
mountain that was five thousand feet high. It was quite a view: I
could see Tennessee and Georgia. With me at the rail were Roantis,
Summers, and Desmond. From this height, the mountains looked less
like a frozen sea of giant waves than a massive green velvet carpet
that lay around us in monstrous folds and wrinkles. Mountain lakes,
cobalt blue and silver, glinted in the clear air. The big impoundment
of Lake Santeetlah lay in the broad valley below us. Scars of white
against the green were waterfalls and fast rivers. Far out on the
horizons, the mountains had a lazy, hazy, smoke blue look. The only
sounds to reach us were the distant caws of crows on the wing and the
wind-hum sound that you hear in high, remote places.

"That's him now," said Roantis, squinting
at the clear sky through his binoculars.

A tiny white plane droned closer. As it neared the
tower, it rolled over and flew upside down. Then it rolled over twice
more and banked into a tight turn. I recognized the Mooney by the
tail; it still looked like it had been put on backward. Kaunitz was
up there doing "reconnaissance." Mainly, though, he was
just strutting his stuff`. He was to land the plane at a small field
in Robbinsville, and we were to pick him up.

Then I heard a squeak, and the door to the tower
cabin swung open. Trooper James Hunnicutt and Sheriff Roger Penland
came out and joined us at the rail. Hunnicutt sighed, leaned over the
rail, and spat a stream of brown juice from his plug. It took a long
time to fall.

"Now jest don't forget, fellers. You are not the
law. We are the law. You uncover anything on your own, we want to
hear about it. Don't y'all go messin' where you shouldn't be messin'.
Now Mr. Roantis, Lieutenant Brindelli tells me you've had quite a
background in the rough stuff, including a lot of time in the bush
over in VYETnam. Just remember, you're in the U S of A now."