Then they cut around to the west side of the island. They picked up Art Bailey, who was cradling a wounded Knocker Ellis in his arms. Ben got them aboard the Varina Davis as fast as possible. Ellis was clipped in the shoulder, but would live if he got help soon.
They found Sonny Wright drifting in his sneakboat with a bullet through his leg. He was swearing a blue streak. That was a good sign, except that made it harder to hear Ephraim Teach out in his sinkbox calling for them to pick him up.
Sam Nuttle lay in his sneakboat with Chanticleer close to shore. He had been washed a good distance down the beach. He had an in-and-out wound through his right lung. A tension pneumothorax had him gulping like a guppy out of water. The bullet had nicked an artery. He bled too much. Nuttle died before they could get him to Dr. Alan. Most of their men were accounted for, living and dead. Only Lorton Dyze was gone without a trace. Killed In Action. Body Not Recovered.
Ben ordered, “Swing around toward the beach in front of the hotel. Quick now!”
As they approached the southern shore of Spring Island, they could see the hotel fire throwing flames high into the air. Ben knew it must be an inferno in there.
He couldn’t put it off any longer. He saluted the upstairs parlor window. He thought he saw a distant hand move in return salute, but couldn’t be sure. Perhaps he was only seeing what he wanted to see. Ben raised Hurley’s pumpgun and fired three shells into the air, the signal the boat was clear of the island. A piece of Ben died with every shot.
He said, “Wade, take us home as quick as she’ll go. This boat’s gotta be faster than gamma rays tonight.”
Wade Joyce rolled the Varina Davis’s throttles forward to the stops. The boat’s stern squatted for a moment as her big wheels spooled up and dug in. Then she flew forward; leapt up on a plane carving a white foaming V in the water toward the southeast and Smith Island.
Ben watched over the transom. He wondered if his father had held on long enough to finish the job. He waited. The men on deck exchanged worried glances. It was taking too long.
Ben snatched up his rifle and aimed at the box on the sill. It was obscured by smoke and a sheen of tears. Ben whispered, “He’s already gone. He’s already gone. He volunteered. He’d do it himself, but he’s already gone.”
Ellis wrestled up from the deck through the press of helping hands tending him. “No Ben.” He twisted the rifle out of Ben’s grip, and tossed it over the gunwale into the bay. “No son should ever do that. No father should ever — not for all the money in the world.”
Then the bomb blew. Disintegrated the second floor parlor in a blazing rip of wood, flame and smoke. It was done.
Steadying himself with a hand on the washboards, Ben trudged forward with Chalk’s coat into the cabin. A few minutes later, Reverend Mosby checked on him. Ben lay unconscious on a berth as if tossed there in a state of exhaustion. Chalk’s coat lay in pieces on the cabin sole, the pockets turned inside out, the lining shredded.
Deep in Ben’s mind, all the faces that had lurked for so long behind the wall departed one by one; then the wall came tumbling down.
PART V
LAZARUS & TABITHA
CHAPTER 66
The next day, Ben sat with LuAnna. She was more conscious than not, which gave everyone hope. The discreet Dr. Alan brought veterinary-strength antibiotics to supplement the ones collected for LuAnna by the Island mothers. Ben kept the radio tuned quietly to WSDL 90.7 FM, the Eastern Shore’s National Public Radio station. The press got hold of a story. Not the true story. Not by a long shot.
A mild-voiced male journalist said there was a terrorist attack on Spring Island using a weapon of mass destruction. The long-dreaded dirty bomb. The first-ever atomic attack on American soil.
Japan was quick with condolences and offers of support.
Within hours, no fewer than fourteen radical terror groups claimed responsibility. Three of those claimed to be Osama Bin Laden’s former cell taking vengeance on the Infidel.
According to the news, Spring Island was the terrorists’ hideout, but the evil-doers all fried when the bomb they were assembling detonated prematurely.
Of course there was a hero. It was reported that a senior NSA agent named Maynard Chalk had learned of the plot through his intelligence sources, but he was too late to stop the weapon. He was credited with preventing the bomb’s removal from the island. The story was spun that Chalk had saved Washington D.C. from utter nuclear extinction. A dinner in his honor was slated, to be hosted by former Senator Lily Morgan, the new President’s bipartisan nominee for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Chalk remained the man for nine full news cycles. And then the Okmok Caldera erupted in Alaska, burying a C–List starlet who was there training for an upcoming reality TV show. She was entombed in her double pop-out trailer by hot ash, along with her Pomeranian, and her hairdresser. Life for everyone else went on.
After much name-calling and other assorted dudgeon on the part of politicians on both sides of the aisle, the story of the Chesapeake bombing was eventually buried, like the actress, just not as quickly.
Word of an Emergency Restricted Area was delivered to Smith Island by the Natural Resources Police: Spring Island was going to be off-limits to everybody for a very long while. Large warning signs were posted there by workers resembling olive drab Teletubbies in their shapeless MOPP NBC protective suits. If threats of radiation sickness and death were not enough, perhaps dire warnings of prosecution, heavy fines, and lengthy imprisonment would keep the curious away. If not, beefed-up Coast Guard patrols kept protesters and gawkers from exploring the new American hot zone. Only FEMA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission scientists were allowed near the island to check radiation levels, which remained locally high, and hostile to all life forms, including, but not limited to, scoundrels.
Ben was confident Chalk and his ilk would avoid the island for a good while. Long enough for Ben and company to stash the gold in parts unknown. For all Chalk could ever hope to know now, his gold was untouchable. If he got suspicious later, it would be too late.
On the home front, Bob Crockett mopped up on Tangier Island. Crockett called on Ben personally the next morning to say his boys had already secreted the pieces of the plane wreck in a boat shed, and buried the crash victims Chalk abandoned. The plane’s Emergency Locator Transmitter was dismantled and dropped in the bay. It would be at least a month before harried representatives of the NTSB and the FAA would investigate the transmitter’s brief signal. Inquiring on Tangier Island, they would be met with shrugs, silence, roasted goose, and fresh oysters.
The Tangiermen patched the airstrip in just a couple of days. It was easy enough to blame the runway’s poor condition on the brutal storms, which did indeed rally back for Round Two over the bay before blowing out across the Eastern Shore Peninsula into the Atlantic. Soon there was no sign of the crash. The plane would be cut up into scrap later. In seasons to come, more than a few ancient deadrises would sport hull patches made of aviation-grade aluminum.
Ben regretted that a few creatures near Spring Island did succumb to radiation including some gulls, and a few fish. The island was as close to lifeless as Ben could find in the short time he concocted his ruse. The new, large Federal restricted area put a dent in the Chesapeake’s fishery, but the people of Smith and Tangier Islands felt confident they now had the wherewithal to make up for losses in their annual catch.