The Hellfire Club(97)
The footbridge from the mainland to Susquehannock Island spanned roughly five hundred feet, short enough to swim at a normal time but too far now, given the swift current. Charlie held up the flame of his lighter to inspect the underside of the bridge; a stabilizing beam ran its length, with perpendicular bars roughly every ten feet. He could probably have made it across when he was at peak army fitness, a decade ago, but attempting to complete such a challenge today seemed mad.
And yet, what choice did he have?
Charlie put the lighter back in his pocket, then took off his overcoat and suit jacket and dropped them on the muddy bank under the bridge. He rolled up his sleeves and jumped up to the first perpendicular bar, which he was relieved to find was relatively dry. His grip was firm and felt steadier than he’d anticipated. Good. He swung himself back and forth like a trapeze artist until his body was parallel with the ocean and he could hook one leg around the long beam that undergirded all five hundred feet of the bridge. With his back to the ocean, he began to shimmy across.
About halfway along, he could faintly make out two women’s voices, one of them Margaret’s, though their tones were too low for him to discern what they were saying. As he continued, he heard a gunshot, and he froze, suspended above the churning waters. He started moving at an increased pace and soon heard another blast of gunfire. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard his wife speak again. As he approached the island, one set of heavy footsteps clomped on the footbridge above him, then a second set, then more. He heard Margaret’s voice as she crossed the bridge above his head.
When Charlie arrived on Susquehannock Island, he jumped to the ground, poked his head out, and saw four people walking briskly in the other direction, returning to the mainland. In the light of the car, the outlines of the men revealed their guns. As did the woman’s. She spoke, and Charlie recognized Leopold’s voice. Her gun was resting at the small of Margaret’s back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Thursday, April 22, 1954—
Early Morning
Capitol Hill
A few hours after he got home, Isaiah Street was almost relieved to be awoken by the pounding on his front door, even though, according to his watch, it wasn’t yet five a.m. He’d been in the grasp of his recurring nightmare, reliving the time the Tuskegee Airmen of the 332d Fighter Group lost some of the B-24s they were escorting on a bombing run. Struck by German bombers flying in formation, eight of the B-24s were hit by Luftwaffe fire over N?mes, France; three crashed. From his cockpit he’d watched two of the planes go down; he saw only three airmen able to secure their parachutes and jump.
Renee murmured something inaudible; Street pulled the covers over her shoulders and reached for his bathrobe, then jogged to the door to stop the knocking before it woke the twins. Eye to the peephole, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see Charlie, disheveled, with a panicked expression discernible even through the tiny distorted lens. Street opened the door, stepped out onto the front stoop, and closed the door gently behind him.
Charlie dispensed with greetings. His face was a study in pure terror. “They have Margaret.”
Street gripped Charlie by both shoulders. “Stay calm.” He could see Charlie’s panic rising. “It’s the only way to help her.” Street shook him gently. “She’s going to be okay. Just let me get dressed.”
“I’ll be in that car,” Charlie said, pointing to the black Hertz Studebaker Commander parked in front of Street’s modest town house, revealed by a street lamp. “If you have a gun, bring it.”
“I have two,” Street said.
Three minutes later, Street was dressed and in the car. Charlie hit the gas and raced through the remnants of the storm. He told Street about the events of the night: After Leopold and her two thugs had driven away with Margaret, Charlie had run across the bridge to his rental car. Headlights turned off, Charlie trailed them for miles, a task made a bit easier by the storm, which kept Leopold from driving as fast as she no doubt would have otherwise.
“I followed them all the way back to Washington,” Charlie said. “Around the Bay Bridge, there was enough traffic for me to turn my lights on and blend in.”
Charlie turned left onto Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast. The street was dark and empty, the sun not yet risen, the disquieting hour before dawn when it feels as if no one else is alive. The stillness was interrupted by the click-clack sound of Street loading an odd-looking pistol that resembled a flare gun, with room for bullets in the pistol grip. Street caught Charlie’s uneasy glance.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s an FP-forty-five Liberator,” Street told him. “The only guns I have here. I have others back in Chicago. It’s designed to look like a flare gun, but it ain’t. Mainly used by OSS during the war.”
“You were OSS? Clandestine services?”
“I’m a Tuskegee Airman, you know that,” Street said.
“Okay, but were you also OSS?”
Street paused and then said, “Yes, I was, and I’m also still in a branch of former OSS who continue to serve, in our way. We can talk about that later—where are we going?”
Charlie raised an eyebrow at his friend and was ready to press him further but was distracted by the view of the immense black dome looming five blocks ahead.