Trouble in Paradise

Fifty-Eight

The helicopter came up from the southeast, across the causeway to Paradise Neck and then across the harbor. It hovered for a time over the explosion site, then banked suddenly and flew down the Stiles Island coast and paused again, this time over the boat house explosion.

It moved away from the yacht club and began unhurriedly to fly back and forth over Stiles Island, looking at what there was to look at. Across the empty span where the bridge had hung, there was a gathering of trucks and automobiles and people. The helicopter paused again over the small downtown where people were gathered in the street, looking up, then moved on toward the open ocean side of the island where the restaurant was located.

In the van, Crow heard the helicopter first and glanced up through the van window. It wasn’t in sight yet. As the van pulled up beside the restaurant, they all heard it.

“Chopper,” Fran said.

Macklin looked up through the van window and watched the helicopter come in over the treetops and hover over them. Then he got out of the van and walked around to the back and opened the doors.

“Everybody out,” he said, and the six women climbed out and stood silently beside the van.

The helicopter dropped down a little and Macklin fired four rounds from his handgun at it. The helicopter heeled sharply and soared in the same motion and was out of range almost at once.

“Let ’em know we’re here,” Macklin said.

“I think they know that,” Crow said.

“They’re going to know it even more in a minute,” Macklin said. “JD, gimme the cell phone.”

Five hundred yards offshore, holding the boat steady against the rough chop, Freddie Costa watched the helicopter fly back across the island, out of pistol range. The prow of the boat pounded steadily as the short waves pushed at it. He looked at his watch. Three and a half hours.

Across the island, across Stiles Island gut, where the roiling water foamed over the wreckage of the bridge on the Paradise side, in the mobile operations command truck, a radio operator talked with the helicopter pilot. Ray Danforth stood listening. Suitcase Simpson was with him, looking a little uncomfortable among the State SWAT team cops with their black fatigues and their assault weapons and their funky gun belts.

“I think the bandits are at the restaurant on the open ocean side of the island. We drew some small arms fire,” the pilot said. “There’s a power boat maybe four, five hundred yards offshore. From here, it doesn’t look like he can get closer.”

“Okay,” Danforth said to the radio operator. “Tell them to stay out of range but monitor.”

He turned to Suitcase.

“When is high tide around here?”

“Don’t know,” Suitcase said, “but I’ll find out.”

“Do that,” Danforth said.