Patriot

CHAPTER 71

Something monstrous was moving off Portree Bay.

And young Colin McPhee could not sleep. Too cold. The howling wind? Perhaps a disturbing dream or two? Perhaps his blankets were too thin for the late summer arrival of an early wave of arctic air.

Colin gave up on sleep, got up, and lit a fire. After a brief period of gazing into the flames looking for hidden meaning, he made himself a mug of strong black coffee and walked outside into the darkness. As he stood on his covered porch, scrutinizing the night world, he was looking for fresh pictures to paint and new music to write.

He was a writer, a novelist by trade, a tyro, and his innocent mind was still a youthful and hungry organ. He had a novel he was trying to finish, his first. It was a mystery, of sorts, and a damn fine one by his lights. But an unpredicted conundrum in the closing pages of his tale had him stumped.

How did the bloody thing end?

Blocked, he sought inspiration everywhere.

A seeker, McPhee had become, not only of wisdom and truth, plot and character, but of sensory inputs to inform and color his written words. All in the fervent hope of finally discovering, in that intransigent final chapter he’d yet to pen, just how his mystery would end.

Luckily, he’d soon realized, there were clues everywhere, if only one took the time to look hard enough. You had to focus.

And so McPhee continued his search. Above the land, beneath the stars, a phrase he often repeated to himself. He liked the sound and music of those six words playing inside his head. They seemed to have the power to put a bounce in his step and a smile on his face, even now in the wee small hours before dawn.

He descended five narrow wooden steps from his front door and strode though heavy sea grass, still clumped and wet from an earlier shower, toward the beckoning sea. Everything smelled delicious and alive on the night air. The dewy grass, the salty tang of the wind. In the distance, almost a cliché, he heard the curlew’s cry.

His rough wooden cabin stood at the very edge of the land, beneath the stars and high above the sea. He’d built the house himself when the land had thawed, over the course of that spring and summer. One room and one was enough; a hard labor of love, but he had a snug harbor to show for it. He even had lumber left over, logs enough to burn in the stone fireplace as the days grew short and the nights grew long.

Standing now with his legs wide apart at the edge of the craggy promontory, McPhee turned his face into the stiff sea breeze. He inhaled deeply, tasting that trace of iodine on the wind, the scented bite of dried seaweed wafting up from the beaches below.

McPhee was an artist who cherished his senses, primarily because he had so few other blessings to count as his own. But, here, look below! Waves pounded at the frothing shore. He could watch them roll ashore down there, between the toes of his stiff leather boots; they burbled and hissed, sucking at the rocks as they retreated. And fog, the stealthy grey fog, squeezed through the mountains and oozed in runnels down to the sea.

His coffee had grown cold and it was near dawn. He watched in awe as a curved pinkness at the edge of the dark world came to light. Feeling he was on the brink of some illuminating discovery, he came at last to the long flight of wooden steps leading down to the beach. His tiny sandy crescent of the rocky Scottish coast. The wooden steps were wet and shining with moisture and so he trod them cautiously to the bottom.

Just a mile off his rock-strewn beach and the gentle white of the soft sand farther along, wavelets ebbed and flowed, undisturbed, relentless. McPhee raised his eyes to the horizon. Farther out to sea, near the limits of his vision, all was calm. Black and huge, the sea was rolling and swelling heavily beneath pinpricks of starlight splayed across the dome of midnight blue. A perfect sea of tranquility. Dee-da-da-dee-da-da-dee-dee… words as music.

The music of worlds and the magisterial wonder of creation.

All was undisturbed here save the darting and swooping petrels, terns, and sometimes the distant foghorn. Colin let his eyes drift, his hunger for sight and sound strong, unabated.

McPhee saw the black snout first.

It rose up from the deep and appeared at an odd angle so acute he felt his heart leap within his chest. When, after an eternity, the great beast finally reached its apogee and crashed into the sea, it sent a great wave rolling ashore, an infant tsunami.

The dark now gave way to dawn, and with it came a menacing black vision. Not a whale, no. But it was a leviathan, of sorts, a monster.

Oh, he’d seen them before. The slender stalks. The prying eyes. He recognized that black profile, all right. The enemy. He sensed that packs of these monsters were stalking his waters. They’d been reported off Denmark and Norway, too. But he could scarcely accept the terrible sight of one emerging from the depths so close to home, so close to the wee plot where his tiny cottage stood hard by the sea.

A submarine. Russian, most likely. That is, if you believed the papers and pub talk over to Portree Bay. One had been spied in the harbor last month. The navy came and it was gone. What they wanted, what they were doing here on this night, Colin could not imagine. But he was willing to find out.

This was the very first time he’d seen one of the sinister giants completely surfaced. He ducked back among the large boulders and squeezed between two adjacent rocks that provided good cover. He arranged his body so that he was reasonably comfortable. He had a clear view of the submarine. Although its black skin was lifeless and dull, Colin could hear faint creakings of steel and silvery pings, traveling across the water from somewhere deep inside the great hulking hull.

He zipped up his wind cheater and waited and watched. The first fiery red rays from the eastern rim fired shots across the bow of the death machine. Darkness fled, but not before he saw silhouettes emerging up onto the deck at the foot of the tower. He counted six men, then more, moving forward toward the bow, carrying large rectangular objects.

He heard a splash. Then, another.

Rafts.

The Russians were coming!

He stood frozen, watching the crews of the two rubber rafts pulling at their oars in tandem. Well-trained seamen who rowed with a will. He had a notion to turn and run, but the notion quickly faded when he saw how quickly the submariners were approaching. And how exposed he would be going up the cliff.

Six men in each raft, the first less than a hundred yards away now, and the twelve men were starting to look not so much like fresh-faced young sailors as masked creatures from the deep. Fifty yards now. Twenty.

No, they looked like giant aliens who’d made good their escape from a video game. They were wearing some kind of black body armor that reminded him of Arthurian knights and they all had big, strange-looking weapons, for one thing, and they—

— better run, Colin! the tiny author voice in his mind was saying.

Notice they didn’t arrive in Portree Bay harbor with flags flying and bands playing, boy. No, they’re coming ashore here before dawn because they don’t want anyone to see them—and McPhee was nearly struck dumb. He’d simply gone for a walk and—

— it was already too late to run.

He stood inside his shaking boots, rooted to the sandy soil, peering through a narrow slit in the two rocks as the first flat-bottomed inflatable slid up over the smooth round pebbles and onto the sand.

Six men climbed out and stormed ashore through knee-deep water as the other raft beached and discharged its passengers. Five of the first arrivals huddled with the men from the second wave, securing their watercraft and pointing up to the steps climbing the cliff.

The sixth man strode up onto the beach proper to secure his beachhead with a line and a stake.

Colin’s legs had gone painfully numb from the awkward, cramped position. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. And, in so doing, unfortunately dislodged a large stone. A millisecond later, a shout! A brilliant white light burst into life from atop the sub’s conning tower. The strong white beam was playing over the large boulders to either side of the wooden steps. The stairway to heaven, Colin liked to say.

McPhee squeezed shut his eyes because he’d read somewhere that the eyes were always a dead giveaway, even if one were a mile away, down at the lonesome end of a dark and lonely country road.

But eventually the spotlight came to a stop and he found himself the star of this little seaside drama.

He didn’t wait to be told to come out. His leg was in too much pain. He turned sideways and pushed through between the bulging walls of rock to either side until he was free. The blinding light stayed on him and he didn’t see the approach of two submariners who grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back.

A third man, perhaps the leader, addressed him. Who was he, what was he doing here, where did he come from, he said. Made him feel like the usual suspect in this case, even though he was just a lonely man out for a walk, someone encountered by chance, someone completely innocent of any wrongdoing.

“I live up there,” McPhee said, pointing to the glowing windows in the cabin at the top of the steps. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came down here to get some air. I’ll be on my way, if that’s all right with you gents.”

Naturally enough, it wasn’t all right. After a silence, McPhee said: “My name’s Colin, and what might yours be?”

“I am Ivan Isakov, captain, Russian Baltic Fleet.”

“What can I do for you, Captain?”

“I want you to have a look at something if you don’t mind,” the Russian said in strongly accented English. He reached inside a waterproof rubber pouch slung from his shoulder. The burly captain had thick black hair combed straight back, pomaded, and heavy black brows framing his dark sunken eyes. Someone who lived beneath the sea, his skin had a deathly white pallor.

“What seems to be the trouble?” Colin asked. An innocent enough question for this ghost.

“We are looking for someone.”

He stared beyond the Russian to the far horizon. There, fat cumulus clouds hurried away, pink and purple galleons, setting sail for foreign shores. The sight stirred him deeply, so deep was his grounded place in nature. The true mystery of life, a wise man had once said, is that there is no mystery.

“Who?” was all he could think to say to the ghost.

“None of your bloody business,” the captain said, almost barking at him.

He then pulled out a colored and heavily annotated naval military map, an image taken from a satellite no doubt, laminated, and folded in half. Opening it, he pointed to the harbor town of Portree Bay. “We are here, yes?”

“Close enough.”

“I want to go here,” Isakov said, moving his index finger a few inches north. Colin flinched at the sight of the map. The circled location was the old shooting estate where his father still worked. Where Colin and his family had all lived for most of his life. His mother had died and was buried there. Colin had been raised there. Been married there. Would be buried there, beside his wife.

He said: “Nobody home, I’m afraid. It’s just an old hunting lodge. The only time anyone is ever there these days is a brief window in the fall. Grouse, you see. Ring-necked pheasant. They come to shoot.”

“So do I.”

Captain Isakov had a small, nickel-plated automatic. He shoved the muzzle up into the soft flesh beneath Colin’s chin. It was painful, but he tried not to flinch. There were times when a man had to show bravery, and this was one of them.

“What do you want to know?” Colin said, beginning to see his denouement at last.

“Do you have a truck?” the captain said. “Or an automobile?”

“Yes. A truck. And an old motorcycle or two in the barn behind the house.”

“Good. Give me the keys. All of them.”

“I don’t have them. They’re up there. In a china bowl up on the mantel. Hidden behind a picture of my late wife.”

Isakov had no time for sentiment. “Tell me, Colin. What is the best route to this lodge? The fastest route. Show me on the map.”

“That would be the road just here. You see? The Old Hollows highway. It follows the coast. Here is the first turning. And the next. Can’t miss it.”

Colin prayed the Russian would not catch the lie in his eyes. The coast road he was indicating was twice as long as the inland route. But he needed time. He needed to warn his father. To find him and warn him that the Russians were coming.

“Thank you for your assistance, Colin. Most kind. I am looking for a man named Hawke. Do you know him?”

“Yes. Of course. He’s my neighbor. He taught me to shoot upland game.”

“Is he there now? Hawke? For the shooting?”

“Lord Hawke hasn’t been here for years. No one has.”

“You’re lying. Someone has. A helicopter landed there. Just recently. You didn’t see it? Didn’t hear it?”

“No.”

“Well, no matter. Thank you for your time, Colin,” the smiling Russian said, looking deep into the young man’s eyes. “And I wish you sweet dreams, my boy.”

Colin felt a slight increase of upward pressure from the cold steel muzzle under his chin. And then, in that smallest fraction of a second, just before he finally came to understand the truth, how the great mystery of his life would end, he could swear he heard heaven sigh.