The Last Family

51

When Paul, Thorne, Rainey, and the other agents got to the pier, the Shadowfax was gone and the yacht harbor was a disaster site of astounding proportions. Flames reached like fingers high into the blackness, and the base of the clouds was stained bright red for miles. The heat was blistering, evaporating the rain. In the distance fire engines were racing in from all over, and the basin’s parking lot was filling with emergency vehicles, ambulances, cars, and trucks. There were onlookers from the boathouses and condominiums nearby, emergency personnel and uniforms moving about in the light and smoke like frightened animals.

Paul and Thorne made the end of the pier where the Shadowfax had been moored. Thorne lifted a cleanly severed mooring rope. It was here. He waved his hand where forty boats locked to a pier were creating a wall of flame two hundred feet high. “The Hatteras with a SWAT sniper and his spotter was out there. That section of boathouses was where another SWAT guy was stationed. See-over there.” Thorne bit his bottom lip in anguish as he pointed to a burning boathouse. “Sean was over there-and there was a Coast Guard vessel anchored right out there.”

“Come on,” Paul said, authority filling his voice. “Let’s see if we can get some information.” They ran down the pier. Paul, Thorne, and Rainey joined a flow of uniforms into the building.

“Who’s in charge in here?” Thorne yelled as they entered.

A police sergeant, his face blackened from the smoke, recognized Thorne and rushed over. “Mr. Greer! There’s a girl from the boat in the bar there. I’m trying to coordinate…” He stared out the window where the world burned.

Erin was in the club’s bar, wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by a ring of policemen. There was an emergency medical team attending her as cops fired questions at her. She looked like a feeble old woman who’d been rescued from a flood. Paul pushed a policeman roughly aside. “What the hell…,” a uniform yelled, and grabbed Paul’s jacket and twisted it. Paul whirled and put his cane against the man’s throat, pressing the shocked cop against a wall. Two other uniforms grabbed Paul from behind. Thorne moved in and flashed his badge. “Everybody back,” he yelled. “He’s ranking here!” Paul knelt and looked directly into his daughter’s face.

“Daddy?” She blinked and seemed to come out of her trance. Her eyes flooded and her lip quivered.

“Erin, it’s all right, it’ll be okay.” Paul sat beside her and put his right arm around her shivering shoulders, drawing her against him. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“Daddy. He has them. I saw him. It was him driving the boat away.”

“We have to know who was on the boat and exactly where they were.”

“Mama and Reb are in the V berth. Reid and Woody… I don’t know. Woody was in the lounge, I think. Reid in the aft berth. Mama and Reb were going to get out, too, but the man was… the man came and…” She hugged him desperately and buried her face in his chest. “It was horrible! People were on those boats and they died-didn’t they? They just weren’t there anymore. Why, Daddy?” she asked. “He took Mama and Reb… help them. Please, please help them. He’ll kill them.”

“No, Erin,” he lied. “He wants them alive. We’ll get them.” Paul turned his head. “Get a chopper here,” Paul said curtly to the soot-faced officer now standing near the tight group.

“We have one,” Thorne said. “All-weather giant parked on the quadrangle.”

“We found a policeman dead near the fence and Agent Vance beside a sailboat in the lot,” a policeman said. “A German shepherd was huddled against a fence near him.”

“Wolf. It’s our dog,” Erin said tearfully.

“Bring the dog,” Paul said, hoping that its presence would help calm her.

Paul spoke calmly even though he was panicking inside. “Erin, tell me everything you can remember.”

“Mama helped me get out of the hatch-I guess Woody and Reid are dead-or they would have…”

“Okay, Erin.” Paul looked at the medical personnel. “Can you give her something? To calm her.”

The attendant nodded and started fumbling through his case.

“We have to set up communication with Martin,” Paul said.

“Woody had a radio on board with him,” Thorne said.

Erin nodded. “He had the thing in his ear to listen.”

Paul turned to the closest policeman. “Can we get a fast boat?”

A Coast Guard ensign, standing beside Rainey, spoke up. “How fast y’all needing ta go?”