The Hellfire Club(93)

“No sign of her yet,” she heard Gwinnett say. “We’re frankly not sure if she’s coming back. Maybe not with this weather.”

She heard a gravelly but fainter voice now, sounding as if it was coming over a telephone—the shortwave radio Margaret had heard Gwinnett mention he had in case of emergency. “That’s fine, just know that the mission has now changed. Get us that dossier.”

“Understood. And where is he?”

“Last seen in Manhattan.”

“What about her?”

“We were tailing him, not her, so we lost visibility after she dropped him at the train station.”

The sharp crack of a bolt of lightning hitting somewhere on the island startled Margaret, though she was careful not to make a sound. Thunder growled deeply.

“I can’t even believe I can hear you with this storm,” Gwinnett marveled. “Weather must be helping.”

“Just get the girl…folder,” Margaret made out. The transmitter crackled with static and the next words she could make out were “now top priority.”

“Of course,” Gwinnett said. The noise of the transmitter ended abruptly. Margaret strained to hear Gwinnett’s lowered voice. “Go to the bridge and keep an eye out for her.”

“Got it,” said Cornelius.

At the realization that Cornelius, too, was in the tent and any second would be coming to find her, Margaret turned and fled.





Chapter Twenty-Six





Wednesday, April 21, 1954—Evening


Susquehannock Island, Maryland



Margaret had trusted that Cornelius would follow orders and head right for the bridge, so she ran in the opposite direction. She knew it was a short-term solution; Cornelius would get to the bridge, cross it, and see her car parked nearby. As she’d anticipated, within three minutes of his leaving the tent, Cornelius returned from the bridge to the mainland and briskly walked right to Gwinnett and someone else—was it Kessler beneath that raincoat?—presumably to tell them that she might be on the island. The three began looking around; she guessed they were searching for her.

That was four hours ago.

Margaret lay on her side in a field of brush, sopping wet, watching the campsite, waiting for an idea or an opportunity. Gwinnett had returned to the campsite and now stood there with binoculars searching for Margaret in the distance. She heard him instruct Cornelius and Kessler to run in opposite directions around the island, which they did, though so loudly that it wasn’t difficult for Margaret to avoid them both. She was grateful the other two researchers, Quadrani and Hinman, were no longer there.

At first Gwinnett and his assistants attempted to appeal to her as if nothing was wrong.

“Margaret, where are you?” they shouted, as if she’d gotten lost.

As hours passed, however, and their frustration grew and the raging winds turned raindrops into pinpricks, they abandoned the pretense.

“Margaret, come out!” Cornelius yelled. “There’s nowhere for you to go! Kessler is at your car!”

And then: “You’re going to die in this storm, Margaret! What worse could we do to you?”

She had slowly and silently negotiated the marsh and the wetlands. Fierce winds pushed ashen, billowing thunderclouds across the sky without a break in sight. Night was coming, which complicated matters for both hunter and prey—they would not be able to see her, and she would not be able to see much beyond the lights of their camp.

Every inch of her was wet, and she was knee-deep in the bog. She had never been so cold; her jaw started to tremble, her teeth hitting each other. But it was too risky to move. Thank God she had been absentmindedly holding her night-vision binoculars when she walked to Gwinnett’s tent, she thought. They might save her life.



Charlie and Street just made the train—the five-fifteen Evening Congressional from New York to DC—climbing aboard as it was starting to chug out of the station. Traffic had been especially bad in the rain, the line for tickets was long, and the salesclerk expressed skepticism that they’d make it. But they ran to and then alongside the slow-moving train until they found an open door and jumped on. Sweating, panting, they slowed their pace and found seats in the club car. After a waitress took their drink orders, Charlie finally asked the question.

“So those were photographs of me? Of that night?”

“Correct,” said Street.

“What did they show?”

“Lance driving you to Rock Creek. Some other guy had already purposely crashed the car and placed the dead body by the side. He and Lance carried you to the spot and left. You woke up and LaMontagne showed up—he was cued to do so, I’m sure. The photos make it clear you weren’t driving the car. That it was a setup.”

The waitress returned with their drinks, and Street bought a pack of cigarettes. Charlie stared out the window at industrial sites and trash-filled vacant lots, trying to take in all that he’d just learned.

Street lit a cigarette and exhaled loudly. New Jersey swampland rushed past the window, and Charlie could see his reflection; he felt as if he’d aged ten years in the past week, and he looked it too.

“How long have you known this?” Charlie asked, irritated. “You said you took the pictures?”

“I don’t know who took them,” Street replied. “I said I took them, but that was a lie. Your dad gave them to me just before I met you at the White Horse Tavern. He had—”