But then it had to be.
The problem wasn’t, of course, the Ferrington Police Department, which still employed a few men and women on his payroll—that was the advantage of committing crimes in a poor metropolis populated by the desperate.
No, the trouble was that the feds were involved now.
Thanks to the man that Harmonhimselfhad hired to be yet another player in the death of Hannah and her mother: Colter Shaw.
Well, it had seemed like a fine idea at the time.
But that was, of course, just the nature of being a brilliant inventor. After all, Thomas Edison had as many failures as he’d had successes.
Very likely more.
93
The Kenoah River was tainted only in and around the city of Ferrington, where twentieth-century capitalism and, more recently, Marty Harmon himself had laced the broad waterway with exemplary toxins.
As the current flowed downstream and the chemicals dissipated, the river took on a different tone, the color mellowing from bile to gentle brown. Now here its banks grew lush with trees and plants that could never survive within the city limits. Thirty miles along, where the river broadened to a width of two hundred yards, waterfront development blossomed. Restaurants, shops and pleasure craft docks.
Also working piers, where transport ships were tied up. These weren’t big oceangoing container ships or Ro-Ros—roll on, roll offs. They were old-style break-bulk vessels that carried not containers but pallets.
The ships were usually named after individuals; the owners didn’t paint on the stern clever phrases and puns like the ones doctors and lawyers with sailboats come up with after a martini or two. The ship Martin Harmon had chosen was theJon Doherty—the first name ironic in the extreme.
Measuring one hundred and ten feet, stem to stern, she was sixty-two years old, abraded and rusty, aromatic of grease and diesel fuel, but she had one feature for which Marty Harmon had paid the captain a hundred thousand dollars: a scuffed but spacious stateroom for a passenger. It would be his home for the next week—which was as long as it took theJon Dohertyto travel west to, and then down, the Mississippi River, terminating in New Orleans.
There, another ship—this one a container vessel, with bigger and better accommodations—would take him to the Lagos Port Complex in Nigeria.
Africa...
The continent that was the future of the world.
The continent in which he would begin to seed his small modular reactors, once he got his new company up and running. He would be two years late, but no matter; the miraculous devices would see the light of day. He actually smiled at the clichéd thought.
A long voyage, and boring, though he would have his computer, a printer and reams upon reams of paper. Also, an encrypted satellite phone, on which he would spend the time laying the groundwork for his new life.
The truck turned off the highway and the ride grew rougher.
As he held tight to canvas tie-downs, Harmon thought of the incidents of the past six weeks: the radioactive spill, killing the driver, racing to find the toxic sludge to pump into the Kenoah and arranging for the iodide water to hand out to the good citizens of Ferrington.
A smart plan, constructed on the fly... and all brought down by a goddamn sixteen-year-old girl and her selfies.
Jesus Christ...
The truck squealed to a stop. The driver banged twice on the wall. They hadn’t settled on a code, but it was obvious this meant they’d arrived at the pier where theJon Dohertywas docked.
He lifted the door and looked out. At 11 p.m. the area wasdeserted, except for a few workers loading boxes onto pallets and tying them down. Latin music played from a boom box.
He hopped out and grabbed his bags, then walked to the driver’s side of the truck. Harmon handed him another $10K. “Thank you, Ramon Velasquez.” A reference to the fact that he was undocumented and Harmon knew his full name and if he didn’t keep quiet, he would be shipped back to Mexico by Customs and Border Protection in a lick.
“Is all good, Mr. Harmon.”
The transmission clattered into gear and the truck drove off.
Smelling fuel and a faint but rich swamp scent, Harmon walked toward the pier where the ship was docked. A half-dozen lights were on inside the superstructure. He’d been assured by the captain that he was welcome at any time.
A hundred K in small bills buys one an armful of hospitality.
The tied-up ship rocked gently. Low waves lapped. No spray. The night was sedate. Lewisport had once been a tribal village and later a trading post and way station for travelers. At this time of night, it probably looked much the same as it had then: a cluster of low, darkened structures, the river’s rippling surface, on which moonlight danced, the silhouette of uneven and uninhabited swamp and forest on the far shore.