Gideon hung his head. “Yeah, I saw them. I’m sorry.”
His radio burst into life again, another voice inquiring about the intruder. He responded. “Captain, the guy was hunting for buried treasure. Got a map and everything. Bought it down on Canal Street.” He paused and Gideon could hear the crackle of laughter on the other end. “What should I do?”
He listened for a while and then said, “Right. Over.” He grinned. “Today’s your lucky day. We aren’t going to arrest you for criminal trespass. Where’s your boat?”
“On the beach down by that big smokestack.”
“I’m going to escort you back to your boat, understand? For your information, this island is totally off-limits to the public.”
“What, ah, do you do here?”
“Landscaping,” said the guard, to more laughter. “Now let’s go.”
Gideon followed him across the field and down to the road. “Really, what are you doing back in that field, burying all those boxes? They look like coffins.”
The officer hesitated. “They are coffins.”
“What is this, some kind of burial ground?”
“Yeah. It’s the public burial ground for New York City. Potter’s field.”
“Potter’s field?”
“When someone dies in the city, and they don’t have any family or money to pay for a burial, they get buried here. We got Rikers Island inmates doing the work, so we can’t have visitors landing in boats, you understand?”
“Yeah? How many bodies are there?”
“Over a million,” said the guard, with no little touch of pride.
“Holy cow.”
“Largest burial ground in the world. Been going since the Civil War.”
“That’s incredible. And you give them all a Christian burial?”
“Interfaith. We got all kinds of religious figures coming here blessing the dead — priests, ministers, rabbis, imams. Every religion gets its turn.”
They walked past the old power plant. The ruined Dynamo Room loomed above the tangled vegetation, adjacent to a broad field.
“Where’s your boat?” asked the guard, peering across the field toward shore.
“It’s down on the beach over there beyond that seawall.”
Instead of walking straight across the field, the guard walked north along the road, making a loop.
“Why are we going this way?”
“That field’s off-limits,” said the guard.
“What for?”
“Don’t know. There’s a lot of places on the island that are dangerous.”
“Oh really? How do you know where they are?”
“We got a map, shows the no-go areas.”
“On you?”
The guard pulled it out. “We’re required to carry it.”
Gideon took the map and scrutinized it for as long as he dared before the guard folded it up and put it away. After making a broad detour around the field, they arrived at the beach and walked over to the boat.
“Um,” said Gideon, “can I have my stuff back?”
“Guess it isn’t a problem,” the guard said, pulling the map, notebook, and other papers from his pocket, handing them over.
“Is Davids Island open to the public?” Gideon asked.
The guard laughed. “It’s a park but, ah, if I were you I wouldn’t go digging holes over there.” He hesitated. “Mind if I give you a little advice?”
“Please.”
“That map you bought? It’s fake.”
“ Fake?How do you know?”
“Canal Street? You see all those Rolexes, Vuitton bags, Chanel perfume, and Prada shit they’re selling down there? That’s counterfeit central. Although I got to admit a fake treasure map is taking it to another level.” He issued a not unkindly laugh, laying a friendly hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “I’d hate to see you waste your time and get into trouble. Trust me, that’s no treasure map.”
Gideon put on his most crestfallen face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m sorry we’ve got so many scumbags in New York City ripping off the tourists.” The guard glanced up at the sky, which had grown almost black with roiling clouds. The wind was gusting, and the bay was covered with whitecaps. “If I were you, I’d forget Davids Island and get my ass off the Sound. We get some serious riptides and shit around here when there’s a storm, and there’s a big one coming in.”
63
At ten o’clock that evening, Gideon, dressed as a college-aged backpacker, loitered on City Island Avenue, observing Murphy’s at a distance. In his backpack he carried the two illegal firearms, boxes of extra rounds, a knife, a headlamp, a flashlight, a folding shovel, folding pick, rope, Mace, bolt cutters, two pairs of night-vision goggles, maps, and the notebook. The gusts of wind coming off the Sound set Murphy’s old wooden sign swinging back and forth on creaky hinges. The air smelled of salt water and seaweed. The southern horizon was alive with distant flashes of lightning, blooming inside towering thunderheads, approaching fast.
He could see no sign of Mindy. It was a few minutes past their rendezvous time, but he assumed she had arrived early and was probably hanging back somewhere, waiting for him to show.
And as if on cue, he heard her low voice from the darkness of the small park behind him. “Hello, Gideon.”
She stepped out, looking trim and athletic, carrying her own backpack, a woolen beret worn jauntily on her head, her short hair stirred by the wind. She greeted him with an affectionate kiss.
“What a charming surprise.”
“Don’t be an ass,” she said with an arch smile. “That’s part of the cover — just two college kids on a summer trip — like you said, right?”
“Right.”
They crossed the street. Next to the boat rental was a marine yard surrounded by a high chain-link fence, which blocked access to the piers. Gideon looked up and down the street, satisfied himself it was empty, then scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side. Mindy landed softly beside him. They scooted across the yard, scaled another fence, and ended up on the pier leading to the floating docks.
“The outboards are kept in here,” Gideon said, indicating a locked shed. He attacked the lock with the pair of bolt cutters, and in a moment they had hauled out a six-horsepower Evinrude with a full gas can, fuel lines, and a pair of oars. They jumped into a boat; Gideon bolted the engine to the stern and connected the fuel lines while Mindy untied and pushed off.
Gideon started rowing. In a few minutes they’d moved out of the protective slip and into the teeth of the rising wind.
Mindy shielded herself from the blowing spume. “You got a plan yet?”
“Of course. Nodding Crane is already on the island. It’s essential for him to think I’m coming alone. So get down and stay down while I explain.”
“Sure thing, boss.” She curled up below the gunwale.
Beyond the docks, Gideon lowered the engine, fired it up, and headed down the protected channel toward the dark outline of the City Island Bridge. Beyond lay the open water of Long Island Sound. Even in the darkness, he could make out the whitecaps. It was going to be a rough crossing.
“Let’s hear it,” said Mindy from the bottom of the boat.
“I’m going to drop you off at the southern end of the island. I’ll land midway on the island and make my own way to where the burial ground is. On foot, you’ll follow the map I’ve sketched for you. Stick to the route I’ve drawn — the island’s a veritable death trap. By the time I reach the burial ground you’ll already be in position in the trees, covering me. I go in, find the limb, cut out the wire, we split.”
“What about Nodding Crane?”
“He’s going to show, no way to predict when. The field around the burial site is wide open — there’s no way for him to cross it without you seeing him. When he appears, shoot him dead. Don’t mess around.”
“Not very sporting.”