Starry’s head was swiveling, checking the rearview mirror constantly, looking out and up through the open side window, as if he expected helicopters to be hovering overhead.
Starry was in the right lane and at exactly the midpoint of the bridge, 260 feet above the water, he stopped the van, and turned on the blinkers. “In the back,” he ordered Lake, who was not surprised in the least at this course of events.
Lake slid into the rear. He noted that Preston had already hooked his parachute static line into a large eye bolt in the roof of the van, just in front of the two back doors. Preston kicked the doors open and stepped out, weapon at the ready. “Hook up there and join Preston on security!” Starry yelled.
Lake did as he was ordered, slipping his static line hook over the eye bolt and insuring it slid shut, pushing the safety wire through the small hole in the hook and bending it over to make sure it couldn’t open. He carefully stepped out, making sure his static line wasn’t tangled, and joined Preston. A few cars drove past, but the drivers didn’t seem interested in checking out the van with two armed men standing behind it. Somebody might be making a cellular call to the cops, but they would take a while to respond. Too long, based on how quickly Starry was working.
Lake knew Preston and he were here on the off chance a police car happened by. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He glanced behind. Starry was extending the large nozzle of the sprayer up and out, over their heads, tilted toward the center of downtown San Francisco two miles to the southeast.
As Starry reached over and lowered the pointy spout to puncture the metal top of the glass jar, Lake shot him with the M-16, the high-velocity bullet entering in a tiny black dot squarely between Starry’s eyes, and taking with it most of the back of his skull on the way out along with assorted brain matter and blood.
“What the fuck—” Preston began as he spun about. Lake used his left hand to simply snatch Preston’s AR15 right out of his hand just like a drill sergeant would take a rifle out of a trainee’s hands for inspection, which Lake found ironic as he tossed the weapon into the rear of the van on top of Starry’s body. Preston’s AR-15 wouldn’t have fired anyway, as Starry’s wouldn’t have, but Lake didn’t have time to play around. He jammed the muzzle of his own weapon into the soft spot under Preston’s jaw, twisting about so that the back of Preston’s legs were against the bumper of the van.
“Who’s paying for all this? Who’s giving you the orders?”
Preston was shaking. The man had sat in on all the meetings in dirty halls and campsites and raised his open right hand in the hard-core Patriot salute. Probably even stomped a Jew or a black in some dark alley in the company of others of his kind, but Lake doubted that he’d ever seen someone’s brains blown out or had a gun shoved up against his chin and had to face someone down while all alone.
“Talk or you’re dead,” Lake said.
“What are you doing, man?” Preston’s voice quivered. “Why’d you do that to Starry?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Lake said, emphasizing that by a sudden shove of the barrel. He could hear Preston’s teeth clash together. “Who gave you the orders to do this?”
“I don’t know. Starry didn’t know either, man. We got it off the web. The money followed. Then we were told where to pick up the gear.”
“You did all this just cause someone on the Internet told you to?” Lake asked.
“They were with the cause. There was a notice, man. Four months back. On the Patriot newsletter, looking for volunteers for a special, secret mission. We responded. I don’t know why we got picked.”
Lake wanted to rub his forehead. He’d hoped that the orders had come from the Patriot organization in California. But he believed what Preston was saying and not simply because he was holding a gun on him. The Patriot movement was very fragmented and paranoid. There was no overall leadership and each group did its own thing. If there was one thing that held it together, it was the Internet. At least he could try to follow this lead on the Internet website where the Patriot filth piled up and fermented.
“What happens below?” Seeing the confusion in Preston’s wide eyes, Lake amplified the question. “After we jump. What happens?”
“Boat picks us up. It’s supposed to be waiting. That’s what Starry said. I don’t know nothing else, man.” Preston blinked. “Why’d—”
He never finished, as Lake squeezed the trigger. He’d fine-tuned the trigger tension. He’d had nothing else to do for the past couple of days and it didn’t take much work. The top of Preston’s head mingled with the gore inside and the body flopped back. Lake threw the legs up and tossed the AR-15 on top of the two bodies, then wedged the doors almost all the way shut. His static line kept them from latching.
He then pressed a button on the side of his watch, checked to make sure the pager had activated, then he stepped over the railway onto the walk. He reached inside his shirt, ensuring the High Standard silenced .22 was secured in the shoulder holster, then crossed the walk. He made sure his static line was clear as he stepped up on the outer railing, balancing himself with one hand on a steel cable. The water below was a sheet of black. There was a stiff breeze in his face, something he knew that Starry’s plan had called for to carry the contents of the glass jar toward the city.
Lake paused as tires squealed and two blue vans with dark tinted windows screeched to a halt, one behind, one in front of the parked van. Men in black combat gear flowed out of the vehicles, weapons at the ready, the red dots of their laser sights flickering over the scene, a pair fixing on Lake’s head.
Lake kept his grip on the cable and his other hand away from his side. “I’m Lake. Two bodies inside,” he called out. “Their getaway boat is below. I’m going down to take it out.”
A thin old man dressed in a long black raincoat stepped forward. “Lake, hold on—”
Lake pointed with his free hand. “I think they have bio agents in the glass jar in the sprayer inside, so don’t break it, Feliks. I’ll meet you at the Coast Guard station on the south shore.”
“Lake!” Feliks’ voice threatened. “Take backup.” “They’ll just get in the way.” Lake threw himself out into space, men immediately tucked into a tight body position as he’d been taught on the thirty-four-foot towers at Fort Benning what seemed like a lifetime ago.
Lake counted, knowing it would take longer because he didn’t have the added speed of an airplane to get to the end of the static line. One thousand, two thousand. At five thousand he felt a tug, then a jerk as the chute blossomed open. Just, in time as he hit the water three seconds later, still pulling the quick release he had put into the waist belt.
The shock of the cold water caused Lake to gasp, expelling what little air he had in his lungs. He didn’t panic even though he was completely submerged. He’d been in this situation in the past and he calmly felt for the small knobs for the water wings. Locating them, he pulled and they inflated, popping him to the surface. The chute settled down into the water off to the side and Lake struggled with the chest release, then each leg release.
Lake kicked to get away from the chute and was promptly entangled in the web of parachute line. He immediately stopped kicking. Drawing a knife from inside his left boot he carefully began cutting the 550 cord to clear himself before the chute became soaked and sank.
As he was doing that, he heard the mutter of a boat’s engine. Small, maybe sixty-horsepower, Lake estimated from the sound. It was coming from the southwest. He cut through the last line as the sound of the boat came very close. He kicked as a wave rose him up and looked. The silhouette of a zodiac with a man in it was about forty meters away. Good thing there wasn’t much of a swell, Lake thought, or that zodiac would be in trouble. He glanced up. The current had already pushed him well away from the bridge toward the ocean.