To Darkness and to Death

  “I’ll call for help as soon as I’m away.” She skirted around him as best she could, bumping into crates and feeling her way past tarp covered machines.

  “Lisa,” he moaned.

  She moved toward the front of the building by touch and memory, fixing the location where she last saw Randy’s light when he had found the wine bottles. She caught a whiff of something, something that smelled like mildewed cloth and crankcase oil, and remembered Randy’s description of the case of wine. She must be getting close. “Don’t worry,” she called to the man in the darkness behind her. “We’re both going to get out of here alive.”

  8:50 P.M.

  Russ was watching Clare make her way back to the table when his phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said to his dinner companions. “I have to take this.”

  “You didn’t even check the number,” Linda said in an undertone. “Can’t they do without you for a couple of hours?”

  He opened his mouth to explain that with two major investigations and a missing person, he shouldn’t even be at the party, but he bit off the words. What was the use? “I’m sorry,” he said, then retreated to the entryway and opened his phone.

  “Van Alstyne here,” he said.

  “Hey, Chief, it’s Eric, up to Haudenosaunee.”

  “Eric. How’s it going? Find anything?” Russ watched as Clare arrived at the table. Instead of sitting down, she bent over and said something to Parteger. The view was so good he almost missed McCrea’s next sentence.

  “We found a few more of those Planetary Liberation Army pamphlets.”

  “Any correspondence? Anything that might be a threat to van der Hoeven?” Hugh rose from his seat and stepped back, gesturing for Clare to precede him. They began maneuvering between the tables, headed toward the entryway.

  “No. It’s all pretty generic stuff. But,” Eric stressed, “we found something very interesting in the cellar. They were stacked up, nice and clean, but there were a dozen bleach jugs, the same number of empty detergent boxes, fifteen dry gas cans, and—get this—a half of a box of sawdust.

  The ingredients for homemade napalm. “Holy shit,” Russ said. Clare and Hugh walked past him. “Hang on,” he said to Eric. He clamped a hand over the phone. “Are you leaving?”

  Clare shook her head. “Hugh’s helping me get the wine out of my car. We’ll be right back.”

  “I want to ask you about your conversation with the housekeeper this morning.”

  Her eyes brightened with curiosity. “Okay.”

  Russ turned back to his phone. “Eric? Good work. I’m going to call Harlene and have her alert the state police and the Feebs that we have a possible terror weapon on the loose. I’m going to give out the number at Haudenosaunee. Stay within earshot of the phone, in case anyone needs to ask you questions.”

  He hung up and speed-dialed Harlene. Dammit, he didn’t want to wait until Clare and Parteger got back. Besides, Clare shouldn’t be lugging wooden crates around dressed like that. Didn’t that pansy-shirted Brit have any sense at all?

  “Dispatch.”

  He strode across the lobby toward the front doors. “Harlene, it’s Russ.”

  “Hey, Chief. What can I do you for?”

  “Listen carefully. I need you to notify the state police threat response team and the district FBI office that we may have a terrorist weapon situation.”

  Harlene, thirty-plus-year veteran of the dispatch board, didn’t turn a hair. “They’re going to want to know what type.”

  He pushed open one of the elaborate glass-and-pine doors. The lights around the portico were so bright they nearly drowned out the moon. “Eric’s found evidence suggesting home-brewed napalm. Direct any questions to him up at Haudenosaunee. You got the number there?”

  “Yep.”

  “We don’t know the amount, but it looks as if it could be several dozen gallons. This may be associated with Millie van der Hoeven’s disappearance. The stuff may be in the hands of a militant ecoterrorist group, the Planetary Liberation Army. You got that?”

  “Got it.”

  He walked down the curving drive toward the guest parking. “Oh, and get Kevin on the radio. Tell him to break the stakeout. I want him to have another talk with Lisa Schoof. We need to know everything about anything she might have seen and heard while at Haudenosaunee.”

  “Will do.”

  He spotted Clare’s little red car beneath one of the sleek light poles dotting the lot. He broke into a trot. “Keep me informed,” he told Harlene. “Anything at all, I want to know. Chief out.” He beeped off without waiting for her reply.

  Clare was overseeing Parteger, who was stuffed halfway into the rear seat of her Shelby. One crate sat on the asphalt near her feet—or where her feet would be if he could see them. Her upper body was wrapped in a fur that looked like something Mamie Eisenhower might have worn.

  “What is that?” Russ asked.

  She plucked at the thing. “A beaver jacket. It belonged to my grandmother. I don’t have many occasions to wear it, but it’s terrifically warm.” Her voice was apologetic; whether for the existence of the fur or for not bringing it out more often, he couldn’t tell.

  Parteger wiggled out of the backseat without the remaining wine. “Oh, look,” he said. “The police. What a surprise.”

  Russ ignored him. “When you were talking, did either Lisa Schoof or Eugene ever say anything to you about Millie transporting anything on or off the property?”

  “No,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Eric McCrea’s been doing the search of the house at Haudenosaunee. He’s found dozens of empty bleach bottles, detergent boxes, and gas cans. Plus sawdust.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Oh, that’s not good.”

  “What?” Parteger said. “What is it?”

  “You combine them to make an accelerant,” Clare said, still looking at Russ. “All you need is a triggering mechanism and boom, instant inferno.”

  Parteger looked at Russ skeptically. “And you think someone at this . . . Haudenosaunee has been playing junior chemist?”

  “It’s not difficult,” Clare said. “It’s not much different from an old-fashioned Molotov cocktail.” She kicked the wine crate. Bottles clinked in emphasis. “You put the accelerant in a container, add some sort of basic fuse, and . . .”

  She looked down at the crate.

  She looked up at Russ.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  Russ lunged for the crate, prying and yanking at the top until the slender nails holding it together groaned out of their holes and he toppled backward. A musky petroleum smell bloomed in the cold night air. Clare reached for one of the bottles. “Wait,” Russ said. Climbing to his feet, he yanked his handkerchief out of his pocket. “Don’t touch them directly. You may get some on you.” Working quickly but carefully, he removed the dozen bottles and set them on the pavement.

  Clare looked into the bare box. “Where’s the fuse?” She dropped to her hands and knees beside the wooden crate. “I think the bottom on the inside of this box is higher than the bottom on the outside.” Russ patted his jacket pockets. “I need something to pry it open.” Clare rose from the pavement, turned toward her car, and reached inside. He heard the pop of a glove compartment, and then she was handing him a Swiss army knife. He slid the knife blade between the boards and pressed it up and in. The false bottom tilted up smoothly. Beneath it, twisted wires, a stripped-down cell phone, and an even layer of blasting caps had been composed into the arts-and-crafts project from Hell.

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Clare said. He wasn’t sure if she was praying or not.

  “What’s going on?” Hugh’s voice was tight with fear. “What the bloody hell is going on?”

  “These are bombs,” Russ said. “The wine crates are bombs.” He looked into Clare’s eyes and saw his own horror there. She got it. First there would be the explosion. Then, in a moment too quick for human reckoning, a spray of shrapnel, deadly splinters embedding in
unprotected flesh, and finally the sticky, liquid flame clinging to everything it touched.

  “We have to clear the ballroom,” he said, amazed, as he always was, at how matter-of-fact his voice could be despite his fear.

  She nodded.

  “We have to get this thing out of your car,” Hugh said, turning to the backseat.

  “Leave it,” Clare said.

  “But Clare, if it goes off—”

  “Leave it!”

  Hugh reared back. Unlike Russ, he had evidently never heard Clare unleash her command voice.

  “The car can be replaced. You can’t.” She turned, snatched up her skirts, and ran for the entrance to the resort.

  Russ pounded alongside her, trying to hit the speed dial for Harlene with his arm jerking up and down. “Harlene,” he gasped, when he finally made the connection, “IEDs here at the resort.” Improvised explosive devices. “We need fire, we need emergency, we need every unit in the county turning out for this.”

  “Copy that, Chief,” Harlene said. “Do you have casualties?”

  “They haven’t blown yet, but when they do it’s gonna be bad.” Ahead of him, Clare flung open a door and leaned against it to let him run through.

  “Bomb squad?”

  “Hell, yeah,” he said, knowing it would be futile. The nearest explosive ordinance team was in Troop G, an hour away in Loudonville. Clare had skidded to a stop in front of the registration desk and was trying to juice an obviously skeptical clerk. “Chief out,” he said to Harlene. Pocketing his phone, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out his badge. He hung it in front of the desk clerk’s face. “This is a police emergency. You listen to what this lady says and do what she tells you to do. Got it?” He glanced at Clare without waiting for confirmation from the wide-eyed bell clerk. “I’m going to evacuate the ballroom.”

  She jerked her chin down.

  He ran to the entryway. At the head of the huge room, dwarfed by the moonlit mountains looming behind him, a tall, balding, academic sort was at the podium. He was talking about the preservation of the Adirondack wilderness, his amplified voice underscored by the clinking of dessert forks and coffee spoons.

  “. . . and so we want to recognize those for whom preserving the natural world has become a calling . . .”

  Russ paused at his own table. He put one hand on Linda’s shoulder and the other as close to the centerpiece as he could. “I want you all to get up right now,” he said in a low voice. “Get your coats and go to your cars. Go home immediately.”

  “Russ!” Linda tipped her head back to look at him. “Honey, whatever on earth are you saying?”

  “Bomb threat.” He decided to underplay it. The words “There’s a bomb in the room” tended to produce running and screaming. The only way they were going to clear this ballroom without someone getting hurt was to keep it lowkey. Seriously low-key. Urgently low-key.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Robert Corlew reached for his after-dinner coffee. “These things are always complete smoke. Some bored teenagers with nothing to do on a Saturday night.”

  Or maybe not so low-key. “Linda,” he said, taking her by both arms. “Your life is in danger. If you love me, you’ll leave. Now.”

  He looked into her big blue eyes. Please, honey, he thought. Please.

  She rose from her seat and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you at home, then.” Without a single look behind her, she walked out of the ballroom.

  The table was dead silent. “Jim,” Russ said, “I’m going to make an evacuation announcement. Will you come with me? Having the mayor there may make people a little less skeptical.”

  Cameron nodded. He took his wife’s hand and kissed it. “Better go, alsking.”

  She nodded, pale-faced. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

  He glanced up at Russ, who shook his head, then back to her. “Don’t,” he said. “I’ll find my own way home.”

  Robert Corlew abruptly shoved his chair back and bolted from the table. His wife looked to where he was disappearing out the entryway. “Excuse me,” she said in her hesitant voice, and followed him.

  Russ and Jim Cameron skirted the edge of the room. “What’s the story?” Cameron asked quietly.

  “See those wine crates stacked up by the head table?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Their bottles are full of a home-brewed fire accelerant that works sort of like napalm. The timers are inside a false bottom.”

  Cameron’s face drained of color, but he kept walking toward the front of the room. Toward the bombs. Russ’s respect for the man went up a good five notches. “How do you know?”

  “I took one apart a few minutes ago out in the parking lot.”

  “When’s it set to go off?”

  “I don’t know. I can recognize the basic ingredients of an improvised explosive device, but I’m no expert at figuring out the mechanics.” A waiter trundled out the kitchen doors, a silver coffeepot in each hand. Russ stopped him and showed him his badge. “There’s a bomb threat,” he said in a low voice. “We’re clearing the building. Get back in the kitchen and tell everyone. Then leave.”

  The waiter peered at Russ’s badge. “And you are?”

  “Millers Kill chief of police.”

  The waiter’s mouth formed the word “Oh.” He turned and went back into the kitchen.

  Russ and Cameron crossed the empty stretch of dance floor. The head of the ACC, who was still talking, saw them and made discreet shooing motions to clear them out of the audience’s line of sight.

  “. . . of course, this great work cannot continue without the sort of support tha—What do you think you’re doing?”

  Russ crowded the man from the podium. “Good evening, folks. I’m the chief of police here in Millers Kill, and this is our mayor, Jim Cameron.” Somewhere in the middle of the room, someone started to clap. The sound stopped immediately. “We’ve received a credible threat that bombs have been placed in this location. We are taking this threat absolutely seriously. I want you all to get up and leave the ballroom in an orderly fashion. Please exit the building and go to your cars. Emergency vehicles will be arriving shortly. Please do not impede them.”

  Maybe 10 percent of the people in the ballroom rose and began making their way to the exit. The rest sat where they were, looking at each other. A torrent of voices filled the air. Someone shouted, “What about our coats?”

  Russ leaned toward the mike to tell him what he could do with his damn coat. From the back of the room, a voice that could bounce off the walls cut him off. “Staff members are taking all the coats outside. As soon as you’re past the portico, you can collect your belongings.”

  “Isn’t that Reverend Fergusson?” Cameron asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Russ said, smiling slightly. “You.” He turned to the head-table occupants. “Get out. Now.”

  Louisa van der Hoeven stood unsteadily. “Did my brother have something to do with this?”

  Russ paused. He figured either Eugene, Millie, or a combination of the two was responsible for the explosives. What the hell did Louisa van der Hoeven know that would make her jump to the same conclusion? “We consider him one of the prime suspects,” he said cautiously.

  She turned to her dinner companions. “Then it’s serious. Get the hell out before the place goes up like a tinderbox.” She lurched around the end of the table and took off for the door. As more and more people rose and headed toward the entryway, the mood changed from skepticism to alarm to panic. Russ saw Shaun Reid, cell phone clamped to his ear, dragged by his wife across the dance floor. Several people began running. A woman screamed. At the other end of the ballroom, there was a booming sound as the doors to the adjacent conference area were opened. A petite woman in a severely chic black suit stood next to one and yelled, “You may exit through these doors and then out into the lobby! You may exit through these doors and then out into the lobby!” As the human tide stopped, changed direction, and began to flow toward her, she fought her way
to the now-empty dance floor.

  “I’m Barbara LeBlanc, the manager,” she said when she reached them. “We’re clearing the hotel right now. What else can we do?”

  He motioned toward the retreating crowd, shoving and pushing to get out the doors. “Let’s start by getting as far away as possible from these crates.”

  She followed him toward the dwindling mass of people, looking over her shoulder at the floor in front of the head table. “That’s them?”

  “That’s them.”

  “Could we move them? Some of those glass panels are doors to the terrace outside.”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know when they’re going to go off. I don’t want anybody touching them.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “You have a sprinkler system in here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is there some way to jimmy it so it starts without a fire? If we gave the crates a good drenching, it might help.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” She turned toward the kitchen.

  “Ms. LeBlanc,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t I hear a general evacuation klaxon?”

  She looked embarrassed. “The system’s not up and running yet. This is our opening night.” She cut across the almost empty room and vanished through the kitchen doors.

  “This is an opening night like the Titanic was a maiden voyage,” he muttered. They reached the entryway. The last people in the ballroom, and thank God for that. “Jim,” he said, “you better get out. You’ve done everything you can here.”

  “I’m trying,” the mayor said dryly. “Unfortunately, these people jamming the lobby don’t recognize that rank hath its privilege.”

  Russ was distracted from replying by the sight of Clare, free of her fur, shoving against the crowd to get back inside the doors to the ballroom. Away from safety. Toward danger. “Typical,” he said under his breath. He slapped Cameron on the back and pointed to where the crush of bodies was thinnest. “Get on the phone as soon as you’re safe,” he said. “We don’t need any foot-dragging or turf games among the emergency response units. You can help cut through that.”