If Angels Fall

SEVENTY-NINE

From a thousand feet up, through the Coast Guard spotter’s bubble, it looked like ameteor speeding across the heavens, cutting a southwest path across thesparkling sea, leaving a fading trail of white water. Another check through thebinoculars to be certain. Twin outboards. Mercs. Northcraft. Affirmative.

“Air C-351, sighted the craft! Copy?”

“Roger, C-351. Coordinates? Over?”

“Got him running hard at … standby…”

The guard’s C-130 Hercules had locked on to Keller’sboat in the gulf about seven miles off Point Reyes, bearing southwest to theislands at forty-three knots.

Within six minutes, the guard’s rescue chopper, atfive hundred feet, moved in behind the boat, hanging back about a quarter milewhile the cutter Point Brower, with two FBI sniper teams aboard, nowwithin a mile, was coming from the south to intercept.

“We’ve got a visual,” Langford Shaw acknowledged asthe bureau’s Huey, pounding at maximum speed, came up fast taking the lead. Itheld at two hundred yards behind Keller’s boat, stern portside. Altitude: threehundred feet.

Through binoculars, Shaw and his chief observerchecked the suspect and the boat against enhanced photos from the hobby storesecurity camera and the buy and trade magazine.

“Move up another hundred yards,” Shaw told the pilotas he and the observer continued comparing pictures. “It’s Keller,” Shawconcluded. “And that’s the boat. Pull back a hundred.”

“No hostages,” the observer said, “Wait, I see — ”

“Sir,” blurted one of the snipers looking through hisscope, “edge of the tarp at eight o’clock!”

Part of a child’s sneaker was sticking out from underit.

The second FBI helicopter arrived, taking a mirrorpoint to Shaw’s chopper at Keller’s starboard stern. Listening to the radiodispatches, Reed requested and was given a pair of high-powered binoculars.Focusing on the tarp, he glimpsed Zach’s shoe!

His shoe moved. Didn’t it?

“That’s my son’s foot. That’s Zach!”

The sniper team in Reed’s chopper also locked on toKeller his head bouncing in the scope’s cross-hairs.

Why was a rope tied to Keller’s ankle?

A Navy ship? No. Keller saw the markings. U.S. CoastGuard. The cutter appeared out of nowhere a few hundred yards ahead. Turningbroadside. To block him!

“Edward Keller!” His name boomed out — a bullhorn?

He eased up on the throttle.

“FBI, Mr. Keller. Stop your craft now! I repeat, thisis…”

***

‘Movement under the tarp, sir,” a sniper reported toShaw.

“Drop him a line, Fred,” Shaw ordered the negotiator.

The chopper tracked directly above Keller, matchinghis speed.

“Mr. Keller, we’re dropping a phone to you now.”

A line with a padded bag at the end of it was paid outfrom the chopper, landing safely on Keller’s deck. The rope slackened,collapsing on him like netting. Keller shrugged it off, then tossed the baginto the ocean.

The noise was frightening, hurting his ears, but Zachrealized police were trying to save them, and worked even harder at the rope.Gabrielle and Danny watched frozen in fear, hands over their ears.

Come on! Zach’s fingers and wrist ached as he sawed.

Keller vanished from the sniper’s scopes.

Slamming the throttle down, twin engines growling, theboat veered south, cutting a magnificent white-capped swath as crosswinds sweptthe tarp back revealing everything: the children, the ropes, the cinder blocks.

Shaw’s throat tightened.

“Get on him now! We’re going to take him out! Warnhim, Fred!”

“Mr. Keller, surrender now or you will be fired upon!”

Shaw ordered the sniper teams in both choppers, andthose on the Coast Guard cutter, to lock on Keller. He turned to histhree-member assault team. They would be first in the water for a rescue inadvance of the guard’s chopper.

“Move in everybody! Now! Now! I want him now!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Shaw saw them. Four ofthem! And two more coming in the distance. News helicopters hovering over thescene. He’d be damned if they were going to see dead kids on the fucking news!He went on his intercom to Agent Fred Wheeler.

“Fred, get on the same frequency as the press pilots.Tell them to back off. This airspace is sealed for two miles!”

It was too late. The entire drama was unfolding liveon every U.S. network. The parents of the children watched on TV monitors setup for them by news crews outside Keller’s house in San Francisco. Camerastrained on them provided live reaction.

“Put a warning shot in his quarterdeck,” Shaw ordered.

“I got it,” answered Agent Lyle Bond, a sniper on thesecond chopper with Reed.

“Take it, Lyle, go!” Shaw said.

Bond’s marksmanship scores were in the FBI’s top onepercent. Keller’s boat swayed gently within Bond’s scope as he stayed with him,partners in a tragic ballet, waiting for the precise moment — there it was — Bondsqueezed his trigger.

The round ripped through the deck of Keller’s boatlike a sledgehammer, shattering the hull below, leaving a baseball-sized holeinches from his foot. He began taking on water.

“Mr. Keller stop your craft now!!”

Keller yanked on the throttle, killing the Mercs,stopping the boat, his own hissing wake washing around him, water rushing inthrough the gap in the hull.

The choppers were pounding.

Whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop.

In one smooth motion, Keller tossed Zach overboard,then Gabrielle, then Danny. The long yellow ropes attached to their anklesslithered prettily on the surface.

The children thrashing.

Screaming.

Jaws dropped.

Eyes widened in horror.

Reed watched from the helicopter.

The other parents watched the TV monitors at thehouse.

Fast. It was unfolding too fast.

“My God! I can’t believe this!” one network anchor’svoice broke across the nation.

In a heartbeat, the two FBI helicopters swooped in — takingtheir points starboard and portside — locking on Keller as he muscled thecement blocks overboard.

“Green light! Green!” Shaw ordered. “Take him in theboat!”

Bullets rained on Keller, smashing into the boat, intohim. A round passed through his right thigh, another exploded in his shoulder,a third grazed his skull as he dove into the water, disappearing beneath thesurface.

Zach treaded water rapidly, witnessing the scene,unable to find Danny and Gabrielle. The noise, the surface spray wasoverwhelming. The choppers moved. So close, he can almost touch-

“Help!”

Instantly the blocks jerked violently at his ankle,dragging him under with Danny and Gabrielle … water bubbling, rushing past,filling his ears, mouth … until the tension overcame the point where he hadcut the rope, forcing it to snap, freeing all three children twenty feetbeneath the surface.

***

Keller remained tied to the blocks, plummeting feetfirst, crimson bubbles trailing his descent. Dazed from his wounds, he tiltedhis head, his lungs filling with water, losing time, lost in time as he gazedinto the light. The children were silhouetted against the sun — floating,flying in the resplendent waters

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.

Then it happened. As ordained by God.

The sky above, heaven above, blossoming…

Once. Twice. Three times.

Three beings, celestial entities summoned frometernity, each gliding, floating to each child, taking them to their breasts,severing their lines to him … the brilliant yellow rope floating away. Hegrew deeply tired, watching them ascend with the children, to the sun, to God.

He was forgiven.

He was at peace.