The question catches her off guard. She looks at him blankly for a few moments before breaking into a hearty laugh.
‘Fair question. Where indeed? I’m so intent on getting out of here, I haven’t even thought of where I’m going.’
‘You can bunk with me if you want. Straight up deal with no hanky-panky. I have room and you’re welcome. Just one rule.’
‘What’s that?’
‘My toothbrush is off limits.’
That brought another laugh, a welcome break from the aura of fear and foreboding the invasion has elicited.
‘I actually own a toothbrush of my own, Malley, but it’s a nice thought and much appreciated. Especially coming from a confirmed bachelor set in his old man ways.’
‘Hey!’
‘Seriously, I do appreciate the generous offer and I do trust you, but I better have a talk with my dad about moving back in with him for a while. He’s been wanting to spend more time with me.’
* * * * * * *
They switch cars and Dana borrows Josh’s high end pickup truck since it’s loaded with her belongings. She drives over the snow lined roads to her dad’s place in Portland. Portland is just enough inland to miss the geographic drama of the coast with its rocky scrum of rowdy North Atlantic waves upon the granite shoreline. Portland is a ‘normal’ town with a hill, streets, an old and new section and a school, University of Southern Maine, that’s larger than Bowdoin. It’s like any other medium size town of the northern tier of Upstate New York to Minnesota and the Dakotas. Normal.
The Ward house is large and rambling as are many Maine houses. The windows are smallish, the outer skin clapboard is patched. There’s nothing fancy outside – or inside, for that matter. During non-winter, it looks almost impoverished with an underdeveloped yard like most of the yards on the street. But, in winter, with snow and freezing wind enhancing the scene, it’s a castle. It’s warm and glowing with a wisp of smoke curling from the small brick chimney with a pipe liner showing a foot or so above the masonry. It’s a house built for winter; the roof is in repair, its patches hidden by the snow, the windows are tight and the attic well blanketed with insulation. The center of the house is the kitchen, of course; linoleum and oilcloth, a well used six-burner stove and a normal fridge with a chest freezer in the utility room. It’s a home for the comings and goings and gatherings of an extended family. At the generous kitchen table under a hanging industrial light, Dana and her father are having an all-too-infrequent father-daughter chat.
‘You know you’re welcome to move right in here, honey. Since your sister, Louise…’
‘Step sister.’
‘Okay, step sister. Anyhow, since Louise got married, her room is empty. Or, use Rodney’s room, for that matter. We have more and more unused space since you kids are growing and leaving. We’d love to have you around again.’
‘Thanks, dad. I didn’t doubt for a minute that you and Mae would make room for me again. I’m still sorting out what to do. I still need to be close to the college and most of my activity is over in Brunswick.’
After a pause, Dana commented, ‘As you know, Dad, we’re on to something very big and bad.’
‘I know, honey, and I’m throwing in whatever help I can.’
‘Oh, you are definitely helping, dad, and its appreciated. You haven’t shared this with anyone, have you? You know it all has to be super secret.’
‘Well, not really.’
It was like an electric shock. She looks up slowly at him and studies his face.
‘Not ‘really’? What does that mean? You either kept it to yourself, or you haven’t. What does ‘not really’ mean?’
At this point, Rudy looks uncomfortable. He looks down. He shifts in his chair. He leans back and applies his attention to the beer bottle by sliding it in circles on the oilcloth.
‘Dad, who did you tell?’
‘No one outside the family, I can definitely tell you that.’
‘So you told the family?’
‘Look, we had some of the kids over and were having dinner and they were asking about you and I just said you were doing okay at school and had this other thing that seemed to interest you.’
‘Dad, who was there?’
‘Well, there was Louise and Rodney and…’
‘Dad! You mentioned this around Rodney?! Oh, my God, it could be Rodney.’
‘What do you mean, ‘it could be Rodney’? He’s family.’
‘Dad, you know our tribe is made up of solid citizens and not-so-solid citizens. You know Rodney’s problems. We’ve discussed this; the drugs and the raggy bunch of dopes he runs with. If he mentioned anything to the wrong people that we’re on the trail of a possible drug channel… Good lord, he could even be in on it!’
‘Oh, honey, he’s your brother…’
‘Step brother.’
‘Yes, but even then…’
‘Dad, I love you and Mae and appreciate you being willing to take me in, but until this thing is over I think I’m safer with Josh. He got me into this and I have confidence in his survival skills until we get out of it. After the major tossing of my place, I’m not feeling too safe. Please, please, please, no further mention of what I may be up to until this thing is solved or blows over, okay?’
With that, Dana kisses her father on his balding scalp, gives him an awkward hug, throws on her parka and leaves. Rudy sits alone at the table with his mix of embarrassment, pride in his daughter and concern for her. After a bit, he tosses off the remainder of his beer, deposits the bottle quietly in the recycling box, turns off the light and moves towards his wife in the TV room shaking his head.
* * * * * * *
Josh’s ‘cabin’ is really a nice, sturdy log house that he built himself. The house sits on a rise with the approach through the woods and up a sloping graveled drive. From the generous porch, the ocean can be seen in the distance through the trees. The inside is rough hewn, but complete with comfy couches, floor lamps, writing desks and a kitchen that can produce whatever delicacy a skilled cook can create.
Dana had moved in with some trepidation as she was not of a mind for romance or even sex. She had no worries. Josh seemed to be similarly inclined so a nice, room-matey arrangement fell quickly into place. Josh goes off to see his local clients, Dana goes to the college for library research and advisor meetings, but does much of her internet work and writing at the house. They come and go about their businesses, but share many meals when they’re both in residence.
Dana is alone in the cabin in the early evening working on her dissertation and awaiting Josh. When she hears a vehicle slowly crunching up the gravel drive, something registers as unusual; it didn’t barge up the hill and slide to a stop in Josh’s fashion. It’s going slowly to avoid making noise. The hairs on her neck started reacting. When she hears four doors being latched carefully, not slammed as would have been normal, her ears come to points. She quickly moves toward the kitchen and turns off the wall switch that douses the major overhead lights in the main room, but not the reading lamp on the far wall. Her instinct moves her to seek some sort of weapon. Knives. There were lots of knives. She selects the largest, sharpest and most lethal one from the knife block on the counter and drops into a defensive position behind the kitchen island. She tries to think of what to do next. She’s scared and feeling trapped.
Suddenly, a loud thudding noise almost scares her out of her wits.
A voice calls from the bedroom hall…
‘Dana? Where are you?’
‘Jesus, where did you come from? What’s going on? What was that noise?’
‘I rigged the house for defense. The noise was the protective shutters dropping into position. At least the windows are safe for now. I caught sight of them turning in. Looks like four of them. I suspect they’re pros.’
‘Pro what?’
‘Professional killers. We must have gotten too close to the truth and, I
’m afraid they’re here to kill us.’
‘Kill us??’
He is speaking in a stage whisper as he crawls over to the coffee table and pushes it aside.
‘Yes, kill us. Now listen. This is the real thing.’
He moves the coffee table and throws back the rug revealing a flush pull ring imbedded in the hardwood floor. He jerks open the door in the floor revealing a shallow chest containing a small arsenal of pistols, rifles, shotguns, flashbang grenades.
‘Can you shoot?’
‘Yes, sure.’
‘Preference?’
‘I did a lot of skeet. I’m comfortable with a shot gun.’
He slides a pump shotgun and a belt of shells over to her. Without hesitation, she fills the shotgun magazine with buckshot shells and racks one into the chamber. Josh grabs a harness with two pistols in shoulder holsters and extra magazines.
‘Now, hear me well. They haven’t made their move yet, but when they do and you get a shot, take it. No hesitation, you hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
‘You can see the front door from the kitchen. Get behind the island. I’ll go over…’
At that moment, three major shots puncture the door and some form of explosive takes it off the hinges. As quickly as the door hits the floor, a man comes through the doorway with a short M-16 with light attached. He intends to sweep the room with the light, but never gets the chance. Dana’s double aught buckshot catches him square in the face where his body armor does no good. As quickly as he the man body crashes to the floor, Josh rolls a flashbang grenade out through the open doorway knowing that the rest will be preparing to enter. As soon as the grenade blows, Josh is out the door. Still a bit disoriented from the flashbang, the men on the porch aren’t expecting anyone to be coming out and Josh is too quick for them. He gets one of them in the leg and kneecap and the other in the throat. His quick glance doesn’t spot the fourth man so Josh jumps back into the house yelling, ‘Dana, don’t shoot, I’m coming in!’
He jumps to the gun slit in the protective window shutter and peeks out. The men on the porch are down, but not out. One throws a grenade – a real grenade -- through the doorway. Josh tackles Dana and throws her roughly to the floor behind the kitchen island.
The grenade makes a mess of the house and sets things afire, but the kitchen island held. Temporarily, neither can hear. Josh rolls off Dana and motions for her to stay down. He springs to the shutter slit in time to see the fourth man jump into the crew cab truck in which they had arrived and head for the gate. Josh pivots to one of the art prints on the wall and hinges it back revealing a row of switches. He pushes three in a sequence then looks out the viewing slit to gage how far the truck is from the gate. When he sees the truck about 50 feet from the gate and accelerating, he hits the last switch.
There was another deafening blast as a Claymore mine hidden in the tree next to the gate explodes sending its 500 ball bearings from its parabolic-shaped and focused housing. The balls tear through the truck breaking all the glass and even cracking the engine block. The driver is shredded. The truck lurches to a stop, on fire.
Fire was also taking hold inside the house. Josh can’t exit the front again; that surprise is gone. He holsters his pistol and grabs Dana’s hand and a flashlight. He half drags her down the hall to the bathroom where, to her amazement, she sees the back of the shower standing open. He pulls her inside, his flashlight revealing a well-built tunnel. He doesn’t have to tell her to follow him. They move through the tunnel as fast as they can, stooped over.
The confines of the tunnel make the distance traveled deceptive. To Dana, it’s several miles. In actuality, less than 100 feet. They find a ladder and climbed it. Josh stops at the top and ever so carefully lifts the hatch. Seeing nothing of concern, he flings it fully open, emerging into the woods and pulling her up and out after him. They are slightly over the top of a hill behind the cabin. As the cabin is burning, she can see it quite vividly from the dark wood and notes that his truck is a short distance away unobservable from the cabin.
Josh gives her one of his pistols and instructs her to stay away from the truck for now, hunker down next to a tree and await his return. He also gives her his cell phone with instructions to call the police and fire department anonymously.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have unfinished business.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘I need you here. Get the phone going and get us some help.’
In a blink, he’s gone, slipping between the trees towards the house. As he approaches the house, he sees that the two men he had shot are still on the porch. One was lying still, but the other is writhing in pain and getting singed by the fire’s gathering intensity.
Josh approaches the porch with his pistol up and ready. The conscious man can’t hear him approach.
‘Do you want help?’
The assassin jerks around to see where the voice is coming from. Without answering, he brings his weapon up to fire. Josh is ready. A single bullet punctures the man’s forehead. The man’s head snaps back and his body goes limp. It’s over.
* * * * * * *
The meeting room in the Portland Federal Building is unadorned, to say the least. It’s more like an interrogation chamber, only larger. A long institutional table was surrounded by metal chairs that scrape and screech on the hard-surface floor. The overhead lighting flatters no one.
FBI agents had arrived at the blazing cabin while the first responders were still futilely attempting to conquer the blaze. Josh had caught the attention of an agent from his hidden place in the woods. Josh and Dana were surreptitiously bundled up in blankets and spirited away in a black Suburban with heavily tinted windows. The Federal agents met with the first responding fire and police and instructed them that the inhabitants of the cabin were not likely to have survived. A tarp was thrown over the smoldering ruins of the crew cab pickup truck and the bodies of the men on the porch were bagged and removed, all under DEA and FBI supervision. The body within the house had been incinerated in the conflagration.
Now, with visible bandages, Josh, in Salvation Army clothes, and Dana, in clothes retrieved from her old apartment, sat in the midst of the conference involving local police, DEA, Coast Guard and FBI officials. The senior FBI agent spoke.
‘You guys have stirred up a hornet’s nest, for sure. I’ve read the file. You did amazingly well for an ad hoc bunch of amateurs and you now have our full attention. You were attacked and defended yourselves effectively, although messily. Despite that over-the-top Claymore, the unauthorized ordnance will be forgiven and forgotten, but now it’s become the classic ‘Federal Case’ and we’re taking the project away from you.’
‘But we…’
‘‘But we’ nothing. You are, for the time being, dead people.’
‘Um…’
‘It serves us to have the bad people think they successfully assassinated you two. It’s the story we’ve given the press along with a line that says that ‘the authorities’ have no idea what the gun fight was about, perhaps the standard ‘suspected drug deal gone bad’. Perhaps a meth lab went up destroying the house. And, again, the standard ‘the investigation is ongoing’ which is too often code for it having been filed and forgotten.’
‘But we…’
‘We’ll take up the trail you’ve uncovered, but with new players unknown to the perps. And, by the way, Dana, your brother…’
‘Step brother.’
‘Okay, step brother, was involved. Sorry to have to tell you but forensics has confirmed that Rodney was driving the truck that brought the team to your door. He perished in the firefight.’
Dana hangs her head and there was silence in the room. When she raises her head, she says, ‘I was afraid he had that capability. We weren’t close. I’ll deal with my feelings on this later.’ She clears her throat and continues. ‘So, as ‘dead peop
le’ we are to do what?’
‘You are to disappear as most dead people do. There will be a closed casket funeral while you’ll be having a vacation at government expense in some nice obscure place until this is resolved. We’ll come get you, but for now, you’re to be totally out of sight and out of contact…like dead people. Have I made myself perfectly clear?’
‘How long?’
‘Can’t tell. We’ll come get you. Relax. You’re out of it. Enjoy some hiking. You’ll be in a remote western place. No phones. No e-mail. Can you handle an expense-paid vacation?’
Josh and Dana look at each other with the realization that they are ‘a couple’, at least for the duration. They give each other a silly look – slightly raised eyebrows, crooked smirk, a slight tilt of the head – that says, ‘So, okay’.
They are spirited off to a ranch in Wyoming that caters to summer tourists. Unlike the TV renditions, the flight is by an uncomfortable single engine plane and takes forever Maine-to-Wyoming, not by some Gulfstream V with snacks and drinks served by a uniformed office, but they get there. The final leg to the ranch is by a four-wheel drive truck. Of course, this has to be in November with deep snow and no tourists but that’s by design. Nonetheless, the lodge is warm and cozy, the food hearty, the hosts – ex-military – rough, friendly and efficient. Josh and Dana are, in fact, totally cut off from the outside world. The ‘hosts’ made sure of that. Cell phones and lap tops were confiscated – ‘for safe keeping’ – and there is no other communications gear except a phone that is kept locked up. After weeks of fretting about things that they ‘have’ to do, they submit to the here and now. Books are read. Cards and chess played, cocktail hours observed, group games indulged. Laughter abounds. And, the horses they learn to ride take them through the snow to bleakly beautiful vistas. Altogether, not painful in the least.
The worst part was the uncertainty as to how long it would all last. Dana fretted a bit about her dissertation. Josh worried about his business clients. But, one day a four-wheel drive truck from the FBI field office in Casper crunches through the snow and disgorges a man in a mackinaw, serious boots and a fur-lined hat with ear flaps. He stomps into the lodge and introduces himself.