Читать книгу Drago #6: And the City Burned - Art Spinella - Страница 7

Sal fell to his knees, skin the color of parchment paper, face pointed to the sky, eyes closed.

“You damn near killed us, Nick.”

“Just gonna do what you did. Yank the black wires.”

Letting out a long sigh, “That’s my job, pal.” Pointing to the wires, “See that little round gizmo attached to the wire?”

Sure enough, a small, nickel-sized thing-a-ma-bob appeared to be spliced into one wire.

“What is it?”

“Capacitor. It holds a charge. Used in all kinds of electronics. If you had pulled the wires out of the timer first, like you were gonna do, it would have sent a blast of electricity to the dynamite cap and adios hermanos.”

Sal took a deep breath, pulled the two wires from the ignition cap on the top of the dynamite, crossed the bare ends of the wire. A sharp crackle of spark left the smell of ozone behind.

“Can you say ‘boom’?”

I grabbed my cell phone and speed dialed Forte. He answered on the first ring.

“What’s up, Nick?” Quick. Pointed. Punctuated with a tinge of stress.

“Don’t have any of your guys try to disarm the bomb. Sal and I found one that if he’d pulled the wires the wrong way, it would have gone off.”

“Good to know.” He clicked off.

Sal stripped the dynamite from the tank, inspecting each piece of duct tape to make sure there were no other surprises. I lifted the tank and we returned to the Vic.

It wasn’t until we both settled into the seats did the adrenalin kick in. Being that close to the Pearly Gates admittedly shook me.

Watching my hands tremble, “Thanks, Sallie.”

No response.

“You okay?”

A quick nod. Sal rarely gets excited – unless there are donuts involved – but his eyes were locked on some distant point through the windshield. He’s a rock when it comes to dangerous situations. My tendency is to dive in and begin swinging before engaging my brain. He makes an assessment, considers solutions then begins swinging.

My dumb stunt forced Sal to reverse his natural instincts and put the cart in front of the horse. He would have looked the bomb over first, developed a couple of alternatives and deactivated it with care.

“Sorry, Sal,” was all I could say.

Another nod. “Nick, if you ever attempt to do that again, I swear I’ll break all your fingers. My kids would not be happy with you.”

“You don’t have any kids.”

“They’ll still be unhappy with you.”

We continued cruising Bandon, marking possible bomb locations and forwarding them to Forte who, from his desk, directed his and the fire department personnel to those areas.

Turned on the Vic’s air conditioning – something I do maybe twice a year.

“Damn, it’s hot.”

“Global warming,” Sal chuckled.

“Don’t start.”

We traveled in silence for a few minutes, scanning the remaining potential areas for hiding the propane bombs.

“I want it to be 1982.”

“What?”

Wiggling in the driver’s seat, “I want the climate to be just like it was in 1982. That was a great year. Not much winter rain. Mid-70s in the summer. North wind down from a gale to a comfortable light breeze. 1982 was perfect.”

“And you bring this up, why?”

“We’ve had unusually high temperatures this year. Suppose there’s something to this man-made climate change thing.”

“Okay. Let’s say.”

“Well, if you can make global warming stop, as climate change people say, then you can make global warming start.”

“No one wants it to start.”

“I’m just saying. If you can turn a light switch on, you can turn it off. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“That means you have the ability to turn it on a little or a lot. Say with a rheostat. I want the climate to be just like 1982. Instead of stopping it completely and being stuck in this year. If you claim you can stop it then you are also saying you can start it. That means you have control over it and can reverse it. If you have control over the climate then I want it to be just like it was in 1982.”

“Nick, it’s not a rheostat.”

“Of course it is. Climate change people say it has taken decades to make it warmer and will take even more decades to make it warmer still. They never tell you where they want it to be, only that they don’t want it to change. Does that mean they want it to be just like it is now? Or like it was before, whenever that was? Beside the point. If you claim people have made it warmer, it follows that people can make it cooler.”

“That’s logical, okay.”

“So if you can make it cooler, I want it to be just cooler enough to make it 1982 and nothing further back than that. What year would you like it to be?”

“Something in medieval times, I think. When the Romans grew grapes in England and Greenland was green.”

“Good choice. I like grapes.”

We’d covered most of the Bandon area from the Highway 101-42S split to Larry’s Express Lube to the south. Sal had marked and forwarded to Forte some 65 potentially bad sites where bombs would cause enough encircling fire to virtually destroy the town. But it still didn’t make much sense.

“Why are they doing this? Whoever ‘they’ are?” I asked.

I pulled the Vic into the empty police parking lot, shut it down and we sat for a second.

“Don’t know, Nick. Maybe revenge. Maybe someone doesn’t like us having so many tourists and thinks this will scare them off. I’ve been trying to get a mental handle on all the possible reasons, and damned if I can come up with a single one that makes sense.”

We pushed our way through the door, waved at Beth and wound our way to Forte’s office.

It had changed since earlier. On the wall behind his desk, a 5-foot-by-5-foot map of Bandon was marked with large red Xs in all of the places Sal and I had phoned in. Some had circles around the X. Yellow stickies marked some areas.

The Chief’s desk had been swept clear and now was covered in Post-Its, each with a scrawl.

Forte had the phone crooked between his shoulder and ear.

“Yeah, Bill’s Creek Road… See it? The wooded area?... Look there.” He looked at Sal and me, gave a half-hearted smile and held up two fingers. “And have Tommy check near the abandoned mill.”

The Chief hung up and turned to us.

“Two found. Plus yours and the one behind the station means there are 36 to go. At this rate, we’re not gonna make it.” He checked his watch. “A bit more than five hours to go.”

Sal passed around three mugs of cop-house coffee from a stained, battered urn that occupied an equally scarred side table in the office.

Forte nodded thanks, took a swig, made a face. “I took this job for peace and quiet, not bad coffee or maniacal arsonists.”

“Sal and I are going to move further up 101. Other side of the bridge. Might get lucky.”

“I don’t know, Nick. This whole thing has me scratching my head. Why do this? What’s the point?”

“We’ve been asking ourselves the same thing.” After restating our thoughts about revenge and other possibilities, all of them sounded as lame as a matchbook’s 98 pound weakling.

“It’s pretty obvious the first bomb, the one the kid brought in, was a plant. It was intended to be found. The kid got a couple hundred bucks to make sure you saw it.” Checking the corner where it was last stashed, “I see the Mounties came and got it.”

Forte nodded. “Treated it like it was nuclear even though I told them it was disarmed already. Came in bomb gear and helmets with thick Lexan facemasks. Carried it out like a premature baby.”

“What about the others?” Sal asked.

“Both had that capacitor wired into them. Glad you gave us the heads up. The Mounties are supposed to pick ‘em up. But, geez, the state police aren’t set up for this here. They barely have enough bodies to fill two shifts on highway patrol.”

“They sending people from Eugene or Portland?”

Forte nodded. “Yeah, but they’re at least a couple hours away.”

“Helicopter search, maybe?”

Sal answered before Forte could. “With these things in the woods, helicopters couldn’t spot ‘em.”

Forte added, “And one of the two we found was covered in a green tarp. Only found it by accident, really.”

The landline phone on the Chief’s desk jangled. He swiped at it and plugged it into his ear.

“Forte.” His face darkened. “Anyone hurt?” He punched the speakerphone button. On the other end, “…singed is all. The other officer was burned on both arms and chest. Damn, Forte, what’s going on?”

“Don’t know, exactly. Fire under control?”

“Not yet. FD is dumping water on it as fast as they can, but that propane tank and the dynamite went up like the fourth of July. We’ve got at least an acre of flames up here.”

Forte’s eyes closed and he shook his head. “Well, you gotta take care of your own, Brownie. Thanks for at least the offer of sending guys down here, but now it looks like we’ve got a county wide problem.”

Hanging up, “Couple of the Coquille guys found one of the bombs up near the railroad tracks. Were carrying it to their car when they bumped the timer. It reset for 30 seconds instead of an hour. They just had time to get away before it took out their cruiser and an acre of woods.”

“Wait, did you say an hour?”

“Yeah. Obviously the plan was to detonate earlier there than here.”

“That makes 35 to go,” I said. “And it’s not just Bandon.”

Forte began shaking his head. “Not so sure, Nick. What if they’re distractions only? What if they’re intended to go off earlier than ours just to keep adjacent fire departments from helping us?”

Walking to the Bandon map, running my hand over the outer edges of town, “We’re screwed. Put bombs in these wooded areas and they’ll start a forest fire that wipes out the entire town. Just like ’36.”

Sal rocked in his chair, staring hard at the map, beard twitching, eyes scanning. Then, “We assume the worst. If I were going to burn Bandon to the ground, I’d put maybe 15 of the bombs up near Bill’s Creek Road. The wooded areas near the power station. Another 10 or so north of Larry’s Express Lube from east to west. Maybe spot five or so near the high school and another five on the bluffs overlooking Old Town. The rest diversionary. Coquille, Coos Bay, that stretch of Highway 101 the other side of the bridge and some on 42S near Hennick’s Hardware.”

Visualizing the locations as Sal spoke, it seemed like a daunting task to keep Bandon safe.

The Chief’s phone interrupted. He picked up the receiver and abruptly announced, “Forte.” Listened for a few seconds. “Where?” His face changed color. Like he’d been baked by the Arizona sun. “Anyone hurt?” The “tan” turned beet red. Rage-induced. “I’m sorry, Ben. My condolences to the family.” Another moment listening. “I understand. Let me know if we can do anything.”

He slammed the phone into its base, rattling the coffee mugs. “One of those damn bombs went off in that old abandoned motel on the south side of Coos Bay. A tip came in that the bomb was in one of the rooms. The CB cop who responded to the call opened the door and set it off.”

“Killed him?”

“Yeah. And the building is burning like a son of a bitch.” Forte scrubbed the sides of his head with both hands. “They won’t be sending any reinforcements down our way. Can’t blame Ben. He has his own city to worry about.”

Sal leaned forward, “So it was a booby trap.”

“Yes.”

“Diversion,” I said. “Keep Bandon isolated.”

“Seems so, Nick.” Forte straightened up in his chair. “Damn. What do these bastards want?”

1936

With a bit too much “touch of the spirits,” a man whose name has been lost to history, began yelping for help from the second story window of one of Bandon’s riverside hotels. Flames were consuming the town and the hotel guest assumed, rightfully, that the inferno would soon reach his building, reducing it, and him, to dust and ash.

Hearing the cries, Lighthouse Tender Rose Lead Seaman, named Davis, pushed through the deck crowded shoulder to shoulder with refugees already saved from the blaze, and snatched a ladder from the foredeck. Joined by the Rose’s cook, a Swede named Johannsen, the two men ran to the hotel amidst the showering embers under a targeted spray of water from the ship’s fire hoses.

Tipping the wood ladder to the exterior hotel wall, it fell some four feet shy of the window. With the bitter taste of scorched smoke on his tongue, undeterred, Johanssen lifted it above his shoulders, adrenalin surging through his body, until the top rung reached the windowsill. Davis, not unfamiliar with climbing the Rose’s rigging, scrambled up Johanssen’s back and climbed to the window.

But the drunken hotel guest – who in his intoxicated state had assumed he started the fire because he had been smoking in bed – demanded to come out of the room head first.

Having none of it, and feeling the heat at his back from the encroaching inferno, Davis clocked the man on his “jib boom” as Rose Commander J. H. Jensen aptly described it, making the inebriated man see things Davis’s way. He came out of the window feet first.

Johanssen lowered the ladder to the ground, collected his two charges and still under the spray of the fire hoses returned to the Rose.