“Okay, I’ll bite,” Ham said. “Where the hell are we?”
“From the looks of it,” Taylor murmured, “I’d say we’re a long way from anywhere else.”
“I get it.” Gerry lit a cigarette and carelessly dropped the spent match on a clump of pine needles. “We’ve been taken on a picnic.” He pointed to the small dock floating beside the beach. “See? We can go swimming and everything. Water might be a little cold, but…”
“Knock it off.” Henry stamped out the smoldering match before it could start a fire, then turned to Omar Bliss. “Are you serious, Colonel? This is where you’re moving us?”
“That’s right.” Bliss had just climbed down from the truck cab. The driver walked up beside him, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “From here on out, this is the place you’re calling home.”
“Uh-huh… yeah.” Mike gave the lodge the once-over and shook his head. “Colonel, I know you mean well, but… I dunno, couldn’t you have done better?”
“Not on short notice, no… and we had to get you out of Worcester as fast as we could. The guys who tried to take a shot at Bob… and I think we know who that was… may try again. Next time, they might not be so subtle and do something like plant a bomb in the lab.”
“Where are we?” By then, Goddard had emerged from the last car in the procession, the one driven by Lloyd. Esther at his side, he sauntered forward to join the rest of the group. “I recognize Lake Monomonac all right, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place before.”
“It belongs to the Monomonac Gun and Rod Club,” the truck driver said. “Sort of a weekend retreat for rich Boston businessmen, or at least it was before the war. Most of its members have gone off to fight, so it’s been closed for a while. Someone in my office knew about it, so…”
“And who are you again?” Henry regarded him as if he was a stranger who’d joined their group uninvited. Which was exactly what he was.
“David Coolidge, from the FBI’s Boston field office.” He walked over to the back of the truck, unfastened its doors, and swung them open. Two more men were seated on benches inside, next to the file cabinets and crates that had been transported from Clark University. “And these are Joe Sabatini and Pete Arnold from the same place. We’re your new security detail.”
“We prefer Max,” Esther said quietly.
“Frank, too,” Ham added.
“They fucked up,” Sabatini muttered. He caught a withering look from Goddard as Esther’s face turned red. “Pardon my French, ma’am, but that’s why we’ve replaced them. If they hadn’t been careless…”
“I understand.” Goddard slowly let out his breath, then looked at Bliss and nodded. “This is fine, Colonel. I’m sure we’ll be able to work here.”
“Sure.” Gerry exhaled smoke, rolled his eyes. “Just let me get my moose gun, and I’ll hunt down some dinner.”
“I said, I’m sure we’ll be able to work here!” Goddard snapped.
Gerry turned pale. No one spoke for a couple of moments. In the past, Goddard would have immediately apologized after snapping at someone. He might have even added a quip of his own. But over the last few days, it had become increasingly obvious that his brush with death had robbed him of his sense of humor. No one had seen him so much as smile since then, and, even with Esther, he’d become short-tempered.
The uncomfortable silence lingered until Bliss coughed into his hand. “Yes, well… anyway, Bob, you and Esther won’t be staying here. You’ve got a place of your own just down the road.” He pointed to a cedar-sided cabin about fifty yards away, just visible through the trees. “We’ll have an agent with you at all times, and the two other men will be bunking with the team here at the lodge.”
“Bunking?” Mike asked. “Did you say bunking?”
“Umm… and another thing, Colonel.” Henry half raised a hand. “You still haven’t told us why Lloyd and Harry aren’t here. Will they be joining us soon, or…?”
“Kapman and Chung have been reassigned,” Bliss said. “They’re still working on Blue Horizon, but they won’t be working here with the rest of you.” He raised a hand before anyone could ask any further questions. “I’ll explain everything once you’ve all unpacked and settled in. We’ll meet in the living room in… say, an hour?”
“That would be fine, Colonel.” Goddard looked at his wife. “Come along, dear… let’s go see our new house.”
Esther nodded unhappily. She was clearly not pleased about having to leave Worcester and relocate to a summer cabin out in the middle of nowhere. But she clung to her husband as they walked down the dirt road. Watching them go, Henry reflected that Goddard suddenly looked his age. He’d never thought of him as being an old man, but now…
“I’m not liking this.” Ham Ballou had moved up beside him; his voice was little more than a whisper. “I’m not liking this at all.”
“You and me both.” Henry was thinking about the fact that the 390 Group been spirited away so quickly that he hadn’t gotten a chance to find Doris and let her know that he wasn’t going to be seeing her for a while. “And even less than you do.”
Wielding a broom like a baseball bat, Henry crept toward the wasp nest dangling from the loft’s bare rafters. Several wasps clung to the plate-sized honeycomb, mindless of the human a few feet away. “Ready back there?” Henry asked, not taking his eyes off the nest.
“Ready when you are,” Mike replied. For some reason, he spoke in a near whisper.
“Okay, then, on the count of three.” Another couple of steps, and Henry was almost directly beneath the nest. “One… two… three!”
He swung the broom in a clean, swift arc. It hit the wasp nest and knocked it from the rafter beam; as it fell to the floor, Henry leaped away, nearly falling over one of the steel-frame camp beds lined up on both sides of the narrow room. Wasps were already swarming from the fallen nest as Ham darted forward, spray gun in his hands.
“Die, you bastards! Die!” he yelled, pumping the gun as fast as he could to drench the nest with insecticide. At once, the loft was filled with an alcohol stench. The wasps caught in the spray fell to the floor and flopped about in dying spasms, but a handful were still airborne and angry. With high-pitched whines, they began to dart toward the giant who’d dared attack their colony.
“Retreat! Retreat!” Ham lunged for the door behind him, but one of the steamer trunks at the foot of each bed got in his way. He yelped as he tripped over it and fell face-first to the bare wooden floor, the sprayer gun skittering out of his reach. “Damn it!” he yelled, swatting at a wasp that flitted past his face. “Hey, someone help me!”
As Henry reached down to pull Ham to his feet, Mike snatched up the sprayer. Careful not to use it until the other two were clear, he hastily pumped more insecticide at the wasps, then followed Ham and Henry through the door. They slammed it shut, then stood for a minute on the small landing at the top of the stairs, trying to get their wind as they shared a laugh at their own silliness.
“I hope… we got ’em all,” Henry gasped.
“Hope so too.” Ham was half–bent over, hands on his knees. “Someone’s got to… go back in there and open a window… air the place out.” Catching the look on Henry’s face, he shook his head. “Not me. I’m on their… most wanted list.”
“Yeah, they’ve got it in for you,” Mike said, then he saw how the other two were eying him. “Whoa, Nellie. Not me…”
“I can’t believe that’s where we’re all going to sleep,” Henry said, shaking his head in disgust. “Six beds in one room. Feels like I’m in the Boy Scouts again.”