کتاب 03-09

9

The embankment was made of rough-hewn granite blocks, rising from a ribbon of sand. The canoe made an agonizingly loud crunch as it came into the shallows. Ben was already waiting to pull their boat up alongside the other two.

The Fireman squeezed Allie’s shoulder and pointed toward the causeway. He murmured something into her ear and Allie nodded and began picking her way along the little ledge of sand, staying low.

“Where’s she going, John?” Harper asked in a whisper.

“The men we came here to rescue are on the other side of the causeway, and the only way to get to them without being seen is through that.”

He pointed again and this time Harper saw one end of a drainage pipe beneath the causeway. At high tide the opening would be underwater, but right now it was nearly dry. Allie crouched and began clearing away the dead branches and rusted beer cans that choked the entrance.

“You’re sending a sixteen-year-old girl to talk to a pair of felons?” Ben asked. “What happens when one of them grabs her by the hair and pulls her out of the pipe?”

“She doesn’t have any hair to grab, Ben, and she knows her business. This isn’t the first time she’s helped someone out of a tight spot,” the Fireman said.

He reached back into his canoe. Steel chimed. He rose with his halligan.

“I trust you, John,” said Father Storey. “As long as you can promise me Allie will be safe.”

“I couldn’t promise that even if she stayed behind to knit with Norma Heald, Tom. But I’m not afraid of the two men hiding on the other side of the causeway. They want to get away, not get caught.”

Michael said, “That pipe looks pretty small. You sure they’ll be able to follow her back through?”

Allie was wrestling with a rusted shopping cart that partially blocked the entrance.

“I’m sure they won’t,” the Fireman said. “One is as tall as Boris Karloff and the other is roughly the size of a water buffalo. If they tried to follow her through, they’d be even more stuck than they are now. No, they’ll have to go over the causeway, as soon as it’s safe to cross without being seen. Ben, Michael, Father: you just be ready to help them. I don’t know how well they’ll be able to walk.”

“What do you mean, they’ll have to go over the causeway?” Ben asked. “When will it be safe for them to go?”

The Fireman clambered up the steep pitch of the embankment, using the halligan’s pick end to hoist himself along. He glanced back and whispered, “When the screaming starts.”

He reached the top of the wall, stood for a moment at the edge of the parking lot with the bronze glow of the firelight shifting over his features, then leaned his halligan against one shoulder and walked away whistling.

“Does he make you feel dumb?” Ben asked no one in particular. “He always makes me feel dumb.”

“What now?” Harper asked.

“I guess we hunker down,” Ben said. “And wait to see if anything goes wrong.”

The Fireman had been gone not a moment—the strong, carrying sound of his whistle had only just faded away—when Allie reared back from the drainage pipe with a mewling cry of horror, stumbled, and sat down in the water.

“That was fast,” Michael said.