Chalk’s eyes watered as the QuikClot heated up as it merged with his blood. He asked, “How’d you get a line on that pilot, anyway? In the first place, I mean.”
“I could say something to make myself appear clever, but given the present circumstances, we know that’s not the case. The truth is, we received an anonymous tip.”
Lily Morgan! That bitch of a whore! He’d kill her, but first he’d find out if Dick Blackshaw had approached her with this sting two years ago, or if she somehow recruited and propositioned him. “Blackshaw is so fucking dead.”
Tahereh said, “I’m not interested in revenge on your courier. He betrayed you. He’s your problem. You’re offering us the device, and you take the gold. Is that right?”
Though another idea was wriggling into the twilight from a dank snake hole in his mind, Chalk said, “That is the sum and substance of my proposal. For the duration, we work together. Common goals and the common good. You help us move the gold, and we’re cool. Then you can disappear. Go irradiate any and all parts of the countryside to your heart’s content. We’ll settle up with the folks who sold the whiz-bang to you, just like the brokers we are. Done and done.”
Tahereh had to know. “How did you find us?”
“Didn’t. One of my men tracked Blackshaw’s kid to Deep Banks Island. We simply stumbled over you all. Not too many crabbers out on the water at oh-dark-sparrowfart sitting in a Zodiac using night vision goggles. And then you started shooting, you sassy vixen. Plugged one of my boys. We figured you’d launched from somewhere close to the action, and there’s a finite number of landings. The Suburban with the empty boat trailer was a dead giveaway. Now, have you seen Blackshaw, or anything else interesting?”
Tahereh dressed the exit wound, which was more ragged than the entry. The round had tumbled or deformed in its brief transit through his arm. It needed more QuikClot gauze to staunch the bleeding. There was gross muscle damage, if not permanent nerve injury.
She said, “There was a younger white man, and a black man in a boat called Miss Dotsy. Towing a small boat. A skiff. They left Deep Banks Island not long before we first — met you.”
Chalk glanced at Slagget with a wan smile. “That’s Blackshaw’s kid, Ben. We’ve got his girlfriend on ice. She’s Natural Resources Police. Not much more than a park ranger with a slingshot. Nothing to worry about. In fact, I think she’ll be good leverage.”
Tahereh wrapped a bandage around Chalk’s upper arm, securing both dressings in place. She said, “So you don’t know where this boy’s father is? Have you seen him at all?”
Chalk smiled broadly. “You do want a piece of that bastard, don’t you. Bad as I do. That’s good. I like your spirit.”
She said, “On the contrary, I only want to know where he is. Richard Blackshaw has gone to a great deal of trouble for this theft. He could be trouble again. He won’t give up. I wouldn’t. So where is he? He’s a wild card until we know.”
Chalk said, “I expect he’ll turn up close by. Don’t think I’m not looking forward to it.”
He pulled out his sat-phone and dialed Dar Gavin’s mobile at the lighthouse. The line burred and burred. No answer. Radio silence from Gavin, Parnell, and The Kid. What the hell was going on? He hoped it was interference from the weather, but he sure as hell wasn’t counting on it.
CHAPTER 38
LuAnna brought Dyze and Ben their coffee. A slight stagger told Ben her energies were starting to fade after the first hours of freedom. The strength she had summoned here just to stay vertical shamed and inspired him. Kimba Mosby emerged with more mugs on a tray. After years of brewing pot after pot for this august body of rogues, Kimba knew how each man preferred his cup; particularly who took a snort of hooch along with.
Dyze sipped, grinned. He said to Ben, “Honey Boy, I couldn’t help but notice before ye said, ‘those boxes’. Which was it? Just the one box, all forlornsome? Or was there another? Ye can tell your old Uncle Lorton.”
The old man was still sharp as a razor. Ben smiled, savored the coffee and his news. “There wasn’t just the one box.”
Sam Nuttle twitched. “You’re giving me the epizootics! Well go on then! What’re we looking at here, Ben? Two boxes? By God, maybe three?”
Ben nodded at Ellis, who paused for effect. “Nineteen boxes.”
Everyone’s intake of breath sounded like Leviathan’s lungs filling for a transcontinental roar. All that followed was silence. All minds were turned inward, multiplying.
Ellis said. “Don’t blow a fuse boys. That’s one hundred fifty-four million dollars, give or take.”
Dyze and the Council remained mute. Absolutely struck dumb.
Ellis smiled. “Divided by two, that is. According to our deal, all y’all’s share is a respectable seventy-seven million. Remember that’s market rate. Before Ben sets his hand to the stuff and wows ’em in Soho.”
Dyze’s hearing aid whistled as he tried to adjust it. He barked, “What was that?”
“Have mercy,” Reverend Mosby whispered.
Ephraim Teach said, “Seventy-seven million, Lorton.” Teach nodded at Knocker Ellis. “After taxes.”
Sonny Wright said, “I don’t suppose we could leave them Tangiermen out of the picture could we? They’s Virginians, after all.”
They all looked to Dyze. He was still Smith Island’s ambassador to its nefarious past. Once he got his hearing aid under control he simply sat there, musing. No one interrupted.
When he did speak up, his first-things-first way of thinking was clear. “Virginny or no, Tangier is cut in like the old days. And Ellis gets what’s due him. He’ll earn every red cent. Don’t forget, we still got them fonny boys to reckon with. And the bomb.” Dyze pondered further, and quietly gazed up toward the Firmament.
Reverend Mosby encouraged him. “Good for you, Lorton. Calling on the Lord for help in this trying business.”
Mosby got no response. Dyze, still looking upwards, seemed to have better luck. He keenly scrutinized Heaven. Then Dyze saw what he was looking for. That’s when Ben realized the old man was not looking to Paradise. He was studying the ceiling.
Dyze used his cane to lever himself to his feet. The Council members parted like wake before a deadrise bow as he hitch-stepped underneath the ceiling’s centermost beam. He seemed to be looking hard for something particular. Then Dyze steadied himself with a hand on Ben’s shoulder. He jabbed the end of his cane at a dark oval knot in the old timber. They all heard a click. What happened next was nothing short of amazing.
The end of the big oak ceiling beam closest to the front door started descending slowly toward the floor. The other end was anchored by an invisible hinge in the ceiling. As the beam came down, there was the muffled sound of something big knocking inside the wall, like the counterweight of an old window sash, but much heavier. Finally, the free end of the beam settled on the floor with a gentle thump. Ben observed that the beam was hollow, but hollow did not mean empty.
Ben had never given this old house timber a second thought. Until this moment he had no idea what it held. The ten-inch-wide slot was lined with layers of old mattress ticking now rotted to shreds. While it lasted, the ticking had protected the biggest brute of a headache gun Ben had ever seen outside a museum.
Some would call it a punt gun. A steroidal flintlock. The barrel, welded up from sections of telescoped pipe, stretched nine feet. Seven inches around at the lock. Its fat stock was old polished curly maple. Its trigger was the size of a grizzly claw. Its hammer could drive a railroad spike; this gun kicked like a Brahma bull.
This massive blunderbuss, and many others like it, were tools of the trade for market gunners and poachers a hundred years ago. Such artillery threw shot or scrap metal by the pound. A man could mohawk fifty ducks out of the air at once. Then, tireless Chesapeake Bay Retrievers like the slaughtered Ginger, always more partner than pet, would swim out into the icy water with their webbed toes and thick oiled-wire pelts, and gather in the fallen fowl. Ducks and geese would fill barrels bound for restaurants from Baltimore to New York City. The birds were once a cash crop on the wing.