The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day Page 17

  “Heidi and Jody checked him, Mitch. He’s not anything like that. They thought he might even be a rather meek sort.”

  “Oh, really? They could tell all that in the dark?”

  She clamped her hand over his mouth.

  “Just stop, Mitch. It’ll be all right. Trust me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So…the first thing is the tire…”

  They both got out of the car. Lisa turned on her flashlight, gave him a little wave, and walked rapidly up the gravel road.

  Mitch knelt down by the right front tire and unscrewed the valve cap. Using his apartment key, he pressed it against the stem and held it there until all the air had been released. Once the tire was completely flat, he screwed the cap back on and put the key ring back in his pocket.

  Resting on his haunches a moment longer, he looked over his shoulder and estimated the distance from the Porsche to the nearest tree: no more than four feet. With so little space between where he would be hiding and the fellow himself, it shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to creep up on him undetected. As long as Lisa did her part, kept the fellow distracted with chatter and blocked his view by standing right next to him as he knelt beside the tire, Mitch could come out from behind the tree and overpower him with ease. The only problem would arise if a car happened by at the very instant Mitch grabbed him from behind. But that was a chance they had to take, and it seemed unlikely in any case, as it was close to two o’clock in the morning on a stretch of roadway normally deserted at this time. The only other problem would be lugging an inert body back into the trees. If the fellow proved heavier than anticipated, it could be awkward. But that, too, was out of their control; they would have to deal with it, regardless.

  He stood up and looked at his watch. Lisa had been gone barely five minutes and he did not expect her back for at least another twenty. He wished he could sit in the car, waiting until he saw her flashlight coming over the crest of the gravel roadway, before getting himself into position, but decided not to risk it.

  He walked over to the nearest tree and, resting his back against the trunk, sat down beside it. Closing his eyes, he tried not to think.

  § § § § § §

  Lisa came to a rise at the end of the construction road. The October night was clear and cold and, except for the constant thrumming of crickets, silent. Ahead, she could see the moon-lit skeletal outlines of several partially finished condominiums. They stood silhouetted against a scattered sprinkling of distant, pen-head lights visible beyond the hillside, in the wide expanse of farming country in the valley below. As of yet, construction stood at the framework stage of development—a double-story of two-by-fours and cement foundations—and collectively it occupied an area roughly equivalent to a football field. At either end, and along the backside, an open swath of ground demarcated the site up to the edge of the trees.

  Off to her left, in one of the open spaces, a lone car was parked in the shadow of a storage shed. Lisa walked over and shined her flashlight in the window.

  A man was inside. He had the seat tilted back and, with his head lolled to one side, appeared fast asleep. He had on a dark blue jacket, and a silver and white triangular patch on the shoulder signified the name of a security company.

  Lisa tapped on the window with the butt of her flashlight. The man stirred but did not wake up.

  She tapped again.

  As though to object against the interruption of his sleep, he shifted in his seat; then he opened his eyes. Squinting, he rolled down the window. “Yeah?”

  Lisa directed the light away from his face. “Sorry to disturb you,” she said, “but I’ve had a flat tire. I’m parked at the end of the road. I thought there might be a house up here. Do you suppose you could help me? Or would you get in trouble? I’d be willing to pay you.”

  Rubbing his eyes and letting the information register, the guard looked at his watch. “I suppose I could. Where are you parked again?”

  “Just off the road, down below.”

  “Sure…Why not?”

  The man picked up his own flashlight and got out of the car.

  Lisa immediately perceived that Heidi had not been wrong. He had a slender build and was about her own height. The security jacket he had on hung from his shoulders, and the sleeves seemed a mite too long for his arms. Nothing about him inspired authority, and he easily confirmed the description gleaned from three nights of observation.

  With two flashlights for illumination, they set off down the road together. Lisa had pulled up the hood on her anorak so that it covered most of the wig, leaving just enough of a fringe to identify her as a blonde. To make the disguise even more effective, she had applied more makeup than she usually wore: darkened her eyes with mascara and eyeliner, and added an ample layer of lipstick gloss. How sharp his recall might be, when it came time to give a description of her, was anyone’s guess, but he was sure to remember that she was a blonde.

  § § § § § §

  Mitch opened his eyes. In the time he had been sitting against the tree, a single car had passed. But with the sound of the engine receding into the night, he had heard nothing since then, only the trilled purring of crickets across the road.

  He looked at his watch. Lisa had been gone all of fifteen minutes, enough time to go up and back. By way of an agreed-upon signal, he was to listen for the sound of her voice in conversation with the security guard as they approached. Momentarily, he expected to hear something.

  The soft crunch of footsteps on the crushed gravel brought him up sharp. He cocked an ear and listened.

  “I must have picked up a small nail,” he heard Lisa say.

  “I can see that. You got a spare, though, right?”

  “I don’t know why I wouldn’t have. The car has everything else.”

  “Well, let’s see what we got here…”

  Staying behind the tree, Mitch stood up. He took the bottle of ether from his coat pocket and got out his handkerchief. He unscrewed the bottle cap and poured out enough of the liquid to saturate the cloth. He recapped the bottle and slipped it back in his pocket. With the handkerchief in hand, he moved to the side of the tree.

  The security guard raised the hood on the front compartment. He got out a jack and a lug wrench and brought them both around to the tire. He knelt down beside the tire and, as Lisa held the light for him, he fitted the wrench onto one of the lugs.

  “Usually, they’re not too hard to crack,” he said reassuringly, “unless some garage mechanic got carried away with an air gun. But let’s see…”

  He leaned into the effort to loosen the first nut, but it didn’t budge. He took a deep breath, shifted his weight to one side of the wrench, and pushed down as hard as he could. Feeling a slight give, he tried again.

  As though on cue, with a cursory glance in Mitch’s direction, Lisa stepped in closer to the man and a little to his rear. While he continued with his effort, she began a line of patter.

  “Normally, I’d call Triple-A, but it seemed easier to go for help than wait here in the dark. Two o’clock in the morning is not the best time to be standing alongside the road, or even waiting in your car. I’ve never changed a tire…and it doesn’t look like something I’d be able to do, anyway…”

  “You’re lucky I was here,” the guard replied. He had broken the first nut loose and was fitting the wrench onto the next one. “I’d say you’re lucky anybody was here. How’d you get so far out, anyway?”

  Glancing alternately at Mitch and back at the security guard, Lisa explained how she had been delayed by a late-night meeting at the company she worked for. Partway into the explanation, she motioned for Mitch to come from behind the tree.

  Taking his cue, Mitch stepped into the open. Focusing on the back of the man’s head, he moved forward a step at a time; the thin strip of dirt between the gravel roadway and the tree itself muffled his footsteps.

  He moved closer…

&
nbsp; Stopped…

  Hesitated…

  Stepped up to him…

  Grabbing him, he cupped his mouth and nose with the handkerchief…

  Arms locked in a tight embrace, he held on with both hands…

  The man’s legs kicked out…

  His body jerked one way, then another…

  He tried to pull Mitch’s hands away…

  Struggled to stand…

  Fell to one side…

  Then collapsed.

  Mitch held the handkerchief in place a moment longer, then released his grip.

  He felt as if he had just emerged from a Grecian-Roman wrestling match. His face ran with sweat—his heart raced—the adrenaline pulsated. The man had been stronger than he looked; the exertion required to overpower him both startled and surprised.

  “Let’s get him outta sight.” Mitch’s voice was harsh, peremptory; a command, not a request. “Get the legs.”

  Bending down, all in one motion, he grabbed the man under the armpits…lifted him up and back and away. Ignoring Lisa, he had, within moments, manhandled the inert body across the strip of dirt and to the backside of the tree.

  “I’ll take care of him now…Just get the tire started.”

  “Listen, Mitch,” Lisa started to say, “I’m sorry—”

  “Just re-inflate the fucking tire, Lisa, so we can get the fuck outta here! This isn’t the time for an apology. Okay?”

  “But—”

  “It’s already been done, Lisa! Save it for later!”

  He took the roll of duct tape from his coat pocket. He stepped to the back of the tree and spent the next few minutes binding the guard’s hands and feet. He debated whether to tape his mouth but decided against it. The ether would keep him out long enough.

  By the time he finished, Lisa had re-inflated the tire and had replaced the lug wrench and the jack. As he walked up, she was sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine running.

  He got in and, opening the glove compartment, tossed the bottle of ether and the roll of tape inside.

  “Let’s go.”

  She started to say something but thought better of it; instead, she put the car in gear and stepped on the accelerator. Backing onto the roadway, tires squealing, she fishtailed off the way they had come.

  21

  The next step called for retrieving the other cars. A detail almost overlooked, Heidi had realized at the last minute the necessity of having all the cars parked nearby. Afterwards, they surely would want to leave quickly. None of them would feel like traipsing back through the woods. It would take too much time. Hounded by a sense of urgency, their one thought would center on getting away. They may have coated the deed beforehand with the intellectual imprimatur of the end justifying the means, but deep down, they all knew the truth. No matter how they cut it, the powers-that-be would never buy it. Destruction of another’s property, regardless of how noble or high-minded the cause, constituted a crime, a crime for which the penalty might be very severe.

  The keys to both cars had been left in the ignition. Mitch took Heidi’s car first and drove it to the construction site. Lisa was there waiting for him. He got in beside her and they drove back to the filling station. She dropped him off a second time, and a few minutes later he was back at the site with Jody’s car.

  Heidi and the others had assembled near one of the partially completed condos. They had waited there while the guard was being subdued. They did not want to act prematurely or to make the assumption that all would go well. Before they began a wrecking operation, they wanted to be sure the guard had been neutralized.

  They all walked over to where Mitch and Lisa had parked the cars.

  “So it went okay?” Heidi wanted to know.

  “He’ll be out for a while,” Mitch confirmed. He had calmed down from a few minutes earlier: the anger had subsided and now he felt level-headed and lucid, able to view the situation from the standpoint of inevitable necessity.

  “Will he be okay?”

  “He’ll probably look for another line of work after tonight,” Mitch said, eliciting one or two chuckles. “But other than that…”

  “It’s unfortunate that we had to involve an innocent bystander,” Heidi said. “But, in warfare, there’s always collateral damage.”

  “Maybe we oughta just get started,” Mitch said. “How long is all this gonna take, anyway?”

  Over a potluck dinner consisting of barbecued spareribs, potato salad, homemade tacos, a tasty lasagna, a slow-simmered batch of chili, lemon meringue pie, German chocolate cake, numerous bottles of wine, and three or four kinds of imported beer, they had debated whether to set fire to the structures or simply to do as much damage as otherwise possible. Initially, thinking it all a bad idea in any case, Mitch had remained neutral; but everyone else thought a roaring inferno, visible for miles out across the valley, would have the greatest impact. The Oregonian newspaper was sure to give it front-page coverage, and local television channels would feature it as a prominent part of their newscast. Someone even suggested that Tony bring along a video camera so as to post it on the Internet.

  A resounding burst of approval had gone up and down the table and, resuming the meal, everyone thought the matter settled. But then Mitch had pointed out the obvious. What, he wondered, would happen if such a conflagration got out of hand? A good portion of the surrounding woods might catch fire and burn down several hundred acres of forest. What would this do to their credibility as environmental activists? Burning down condos was one thing, but the careless destruction of prime forest land would not only contradict their reason for the fire in the first place—it would make them look absurd.

  As the others immediately realized the implications, a prolonged silence had followed. As much as any of them favored a course of action that would definitely get out the message, they had to admit Mitch was right. Like it or not, they needed another plan.

  Several exchanges later, and accompanied by another round of spirits, they came up with an alternative. It didn’t allow as much for the spectacular as the first option, but it did have potential for putting a crimp in the developers’ plans. It offered less of a major hurdle on the way to fruition than it did a bump in the road. But it was better than discarding the idea altogether. The Cleveland escapade, as well as the Mobley Johnson stunt, had put wind in their sails, and they were now beginning to feel like full-fledged activists, ready and able to take on more. Their string of luck thus far precluded any real examination of their goals, not to mention their primary reason for being, and they were determined to press ahead, despite whatever adjustment a circumstance required.

  The circumstance in this case limiting them to Plan B, they set about implementing it with gusto. They had no notion ahead of time as to what they would find inside, but the on-site tool shed offered a tantalizing way to begin.

  Using a rock, Carlos pounded open the padlock and pulled aside the metal door. Flashlight in hand, he surveyed the interior as might an explorer the interior of a newly opened cave long lost from history.

  “Santo Cristo!” he whispered.

  “What is it, Carlos?”

  “Look-it all this!”

  The others gathered around and peered inside. What they saw represented the contents of a condensed version of Lowe’s tool department. Besides a couple of wheelbarrows, a small generator, an air compressor, and a welding machine, there were sledgehammers, picks and shovels, a couple of nail guns, two kegs of nails, Skilsaws, electric drills, two extension ladders, and several other items. All of it was the kind of equipment one might expect to find at the site of a construction project, and it had been left there precisely because a security guard had been assigned to guard it against vandalism and theft.

  “I think we hit pay dirt,” Heidi said.

  “Yeah, but what’ll we do with it?” Tony asked.

  Squeezing between the rest of them, Whit stepped inside and picked up a Skilsaw. Running his finger over the blade, he allowed as how t
hey might use it to cut some of the supporting timbers already in place.

  “We could fire up the generator,” he said.

  “What a great idea!” Mike agreed.

  Heidi looked at Carlos.

  “What do you think?”

  “Man, I haven’t got time to show anyone how to use these things. Unless you know what you’re doing, I wouldn’t mess with it.”

  “I daresay he’s right,” Ralph opined judiciously. “We don’t need to risk someone getting a finger cut off, or worse.”

  “Why don’t we chuck it all over the side of the hill?”

  Everyone turned to look at Jody.

  “It drops off in front of the site, a good fifty feet. Let’s just hurl it all down there. And the same with the truck,” she added, referring to a flatbed, on-site vehicle. “Let’s drive it right over the edge.”

  “Boy, that’ll really piss ’em off,” Tony chortled.

  Heidi looked at the rest of them.

  “We haven’t got time to draw straws,” Mitch said. “Let’s just do it.”

  “Do we have to carry all of it? Some of it looks pretty heavy.”

  “We’ll save the little stuff for you, Tony.” Carlos laughed. “That way you don’t have to worry about a hernia.”

  “What about just loading it on to the back of the truck and driving it over all at once? Wouldn’t that save time?”

  “Good suggestion, Lisa. I’ll see if I can get it started,” Mitch said.

  “The key’s in it,” Jody said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Heidi and I had a chance to check it all out during the three nights we were out here.”

  “How come we didn’t know all this earlier, when we were talking about it?”

  “It wasn’t part of the original plan, Mitch. We were going to burn the place down, remember?”

  “Yeah, well…Anything else we oughta know about?”

  “There’s a bulldozer at the other end.”

  “No shit?” Carlos exclaimed. “A real bulldozer? Do you know how much damage you can do with a bulldozer?”