Nightwatch

Chapter 35

Both Vince and Miriam shouted out in relief when the underground river they had been following dumped them and their canoe unceremoniously into the Eleven Point. It had been a wild ride, which reminded Vince of an amusement-park log flume attraction.

With practically no direct lighting of any sort to illumine their way, they had been at the complete mercy of the narrow, swiftly moving subterranean spring. Vince steered from the aft position, and they somehow circumnavigated a twisting series of tight turns that ended with an incredibly sharp drop-off. They couldn’t begin to count the number of times that the keel of their canoe scraped rock, and the gunwale had a nasty dent in it after they crashed into a protruding boulder. But they had survived their ordeal, soaked and chilled but none the worse for wear, and Vince’s main priority now was to make certain they weren’t captured again.

“Where are we, Miriam?” he asked from the rear of the canoe.

Twilight had arrived at this portion of the Eleven Point, and Miriam scanned the riverbank, where a lowlying veil of mist was beginning to form.

“It appears that we’re just upstream from Greenbriar Hollow.”

A chorus of bullfrogs and cicadas sounded over the gentle rush of the water. Vince swatted at a pesky mosquito, and ducked when a small, brown bat flew close overhead.

“Which way to the spot where we left your father?”

“Freeman is just north of here, upstream a mile or so.”

Vince peered upstream. Except for the spot where the spring joined the river, the water was slack, and Vince wondered out loud, “If we could paddle up there, it would sure be easier than traipsing through the underbrush. Any rapids to speak of upstream?”

Miriam shook her head that there weren’t, and Vince dipped his paddle into the clear water. With Miriam’s help they made excellent progress, even with the added security precaution of hugging the bank whenever possible and proceeding with a minimum of noise. They spooked a doe and her fawn drinking from the river, and got an excellent view of a wicked-looking homed owl perched on a cottonwood limb.

With the advent of dusk, their night vision sharpened. Miriam didn’t appear the least bit afraid of traveling on the river at night, and after rounding a wide bend lined with red cedars, she pointed toward an adjoining slough and whispered, “If we head up that backwater, we can pull up the canoe and go on foot to the Freeman overlook, where my Pa is hopefully still waiting for us.”

They made landfall in a muddy swamp, and Miriam had to help Vince make his way onto dry land. She knew exactly where they were, and decided upon a route that would convey them to the overlook but keep them well away from the spot where they had been captured. Vince followed closely on her heels, this time being extra vigilant for booby traps.

After passing over a scrub-filled clearing, they began their way up a steep ridge. Trees hugged the rocky soil, and the dusky sky was all but obliterated by the overhanging limbs, making visibility difficult. He tried to apply his Army training to make the best of his night vision. But even then he was unable to escape several painful lashings from projecting limbs and razor sharp brambles.

Near the crest of the ridge, Miriam halted, cupped her hands around her mouth, and began softly cooing, like a turtledove.

Less than a minute passed before an almost identical bird call answered from the ridge top, generating a broad smile on Miriam’s dirty face.

“It’s Pa!” she excitedly whispered.

The reunion that followed was a joyful one. While Amos Stoddard hugged his daughter, and Junior, Tiny, and C.J. waited their turns, Vince traded a warm handshake with Andrew Chapman.

“Sir,” he said, “you don’t know how good it is to see you.”

Before Vince could continue, Miriam could be heard addressing her father.

“Pa,” said she, relishing the spotlight, “we almost got killed out there.”

“When you failed to show up at the overlook to meet your brother, I thought the worse had happened,” admitted Amos.

“If anyone harmed a single hair on your pretty head, they’re gonna hafta answer to me. Who captured you? Was it those damn foreign storm troopers?”

“It wasn’t exactly the United Nations,” said Vince to Amos and the Vice President in particular.

“But I’ve got to admit that you were right, Mr. Stoddard. There is an unlawful, clandestine organization based beneath Freeman Hollow, and I just happen to know one of them personally. He’s an ex-SEAL by the name of Dick Mariano. He was a bad seed when I served with him back in “Nam, and the years haven’t changed him any.” He added, “I guess he and Lewis Marvin met there also.”

“You did say living beneath the hollow?” questioned Amos.

“It’s a regular underground city, just like Meramec Caverns, Pa,” Miriam told him.

“We were held in a cell with steel bars, and with Special Agent Kellogg’s help, we escaped on an underground river, which brought us to the Eleven Point right near Greenbriar float camp.”

“I bet that was Graveyard Springs,” remarked Junior.

“A couple of years ago, we followed it up from the river. It appeared to go for some distance, with plenty of clearance. And we would have explored it further till Tiny here thought he saw a ghost and we skedaddled.”

“Hey, man, I swear I saw something weird in that tunnel,” said Tiny.

“Besides, the place gave me the creeps.”

“Well, the spring goes a good distance beneath this hollow, all right, and we had us one whopper of a float to get to the Eleven Point,” said Miriam.

“Kellogg,” interrupted Andrew Chapman, “you never did say what this fellow Mariano’s agenda was.”

“Sir, if what he told us is true, we’ve got one hell of a predicament on our hands,” Vince cautiously replied.

“Mariano professes to being part of a revolutionary movement, comprised of high-ranking military and government insiders who are attempting a coup d’etat. Remember that partial alert we received right before the Huey attacked? Well, what’s really disturbing is that Mariano admitted that their forces had already initiated the coup by assassinating the President in the Crimea.”

Chapman appeared to be stunned by this revelation. The blood drained from his face, and he gazed blankly at Vince.

“Did he give you any concrete proof of this?”

Vince somberly shook his head.

“Mariano might be a few cards short of a full deck, but I don’t think he’s a liar. He says that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the ringleader, and that he’s orchestrating the coup from Nightwatch.”

Chapman’s expression suddenly changed to one of introspection.

“That son of a bitch! No wonder they want me out of the way. Warner wants to take over himself. I should have seen it coming — the incredible hostility he’s shown to our defense budget proposals these last couple of months, and his abhorrence of SALT Two, the Global Zero Alert Treaty, and any other arms reduction agreement with the Russians.” Pausing for a moment to massage his forehead, he added, “A coup d’etat, of all things.

But what can we do about it?”

Vince beckoned to the case holding the SATCOM, then looked up to meet the curious gaze of Amos Stoddard.

“First off,” said Vince with urgent firmness, “we’re going to need your trust and support. I realize that you have some legitimate gripes against some of the people in Washington, but I know down deep that you love the country itself.”

“Bringing back my baby safely showed a lot of moxie,” Amos acknowledged.

“And I guess all government employees aren’t that bad. I owe you one, Kellogg, so how can we help?”

Vince gestured toward the SATCOM unit, and asked, “Can we deploy it?”

Amos glanced at his son and his two associates, then turned his gaze back to Vince and nodded. Vince immediately knelt beside the case, unsnapped the lid, and anxiously switched on the battery pack. He allowed himself a brief smile when a green light began glowing from the “ready to transmit” port.

“Now I need someone to climb that cedar behind me and place the satellite dish on the topmost accessible limb, pointing to the southwestern horizon,” he instructed.

When no volunteers stepped forward, Amos looked at his son, and Junior meekly nodded.

“I’ll do it, mister.”

It was while Junior began his climb that Vince turned to the Vice President and said, “Now the million-dollar question is, who do we call?”

“The only person I trust in Washington is my dog,” remarked Chapman.

“And since the finger of blame appears to be pointed directly at our esteemed Chairman, I say we go right to the source.”

“You want to contact Nightwatch?” Vince asked, his surprise most obvious.

“Though I don’t think it’s prudent to talk with Admiral Warner, I do know someone on board who’s a trusted friend. I went to high school with Major William Foard, the plane’s pilot, and if anyone can unravel this mystery. Coach is the one.”