21. Dane
Chapter twenty-one
Dane
Iwas in the kitchen of the Brattle House at four-eleven a.m., making coffee. My phone buzzed once. I had it to my ear before the second.
“You’re awake,” Eamon said.
“I’ve been awake.”
“Speaker.”
I tapped it and set the phone on the cutting board, screen up.
“Three teams are in position: Watertown for Sorensen, Allston for Voss, and Dorchester for Costa. A fourth team is holding outside the Auburndale house, bomb squad with them. They go at oh-five-hundred on the lead’s call.”
“Are you at the field office, Eamon?”
“Yes, Government Center. Federal liaisons are running the channel from here. Michael’s patched in from Seattle. We’re observers.”
“Understood.”
“Dane, this isn’t ours now. We watch.”
“Yes, I heard you the first time.”
A small breath through the line. Eamon didn’t laugh before five a.m., but he came close.
“Is Farrow up?”
“He’ll be down before five.”
“Stay on the channel.”
I heard beams creaking above me.
Farrow was quiet coming down the stairs. He stopped in the doorway in a grey thermal under an unzipped hoodie. He had a sidearm at the small of his back.
“Coffee’s still fresh,” I said. “I made it at four-thirty.”
I sat at the table. Farrow poured a mug and sat opposite me. The earpiece in his right ear caught the under-counter light.
I drank. The coffee was hot enough to register, but not hot enough to burn.
“Eamon called?” Farrow asked.
“Yes, teams are in place for five a.m.”
“Sorensen first?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Wiley up?” I asked.
“He’s been up. I heard him in the office at four-thirty, whispering with Samuel about whether he should put rosemary in his scones.”
I drank.
Outside, Monday’s snow was still on the front walk in patches the sun hadn’t reached, and a salt truck had gone past at three-fifty.
“Guess you’re not the type for the Pride parade,” Farrow said.
“That’s accurate.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“You are?” I asked
“I rode a float once in 2019. A friend of mine bartended in the South End and built a float out of a flatbed and about three hundred dollars of crepe paper. I was supposed to be helping him drive it. I ended up on top of it in shorts, a tank top, and a pair of sunglasses. I waved at a state senator I’d done a protection detail for the previous March.
She waved back, but I don’t think she recognized me. ”
“She didn’t recognize you?”
“I was wearing shades.”
“Would you do it again?” I asked.
“Sure. With the right company.” He nudged my hand.
A floorboard shifted upstairs. Two sets of feet on the landing. Wiley’s tread was lighter than Samuel’s.
They came in together. Samuel was in flannel, hair sleep-pushed to one side. Wiley was behind him in a Globe sweatshirt and his glasses.
Samuel immediately went to work in the kitchen. “Rosemary scones,” he said. “Savory this morning.”
“Are they at the doors yet?” Wiley asked.
“Five minutes,” I said.
Wiley took down two more mugs and poured for himself and Samuel. He sat at one end of the table.
“Cabot?” Wiley asked.
“He’ll come down when he comes down,” Farrow said. “Tough times are coming with Eleanor. Let him have the extra fifteen minutes.”
My phone buzzed. It was Eamon, three minutes early.
“They moved Sorensen’s call up. Sorensen turned a light off, and they took the shift in her status as the cleanest entry they were going to get. Breach in forty seconds.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll call you when she’s down.”
He hung up.
I repeated, “Forty seconds,” and there was no sound except Samuel stirring his batter.
Three minutes later, Eamon called again.
“Sorensen in custody. No resistance. She was in the kitchen with a coffee maker running. She put her hands flat on the counter when the door opened.”
“Voss next?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I set the phone down.
“Sorensen,” I said.
Wiley exhaled. Samuel started dropping scone dough onto a baking sheet.
“One down,” Wiley said.
Farrow drank his coffee.
The floor creaked above us. Cabot was up. As he came down the stairs, a second, lighter step followed. That would be Vega.
Cabot stopped two steps inside the kitchen and read the room the way he read a room at the Harcourts’.
“Sorensen?” he asked.
“In custody,” I said. “Three minutes ago.”
He nodded once and stood with his hip leaning on the kitchen counter. Vega walked past him to grab a mug of coffee.
“Dane, what do I say first?” Cabot asked.
All the attention shifted towards him.
“To Eleanor, I mean.”
“You haven’t even gotten the briefing yet,” Farrow said. “Eamon will walk you through it on the drive.”
“I know, but I’m asking, anyway.”
“You lead with what federal did at five,” I said. “Three operatives in custody. Bomb squad recovered a device at a fourth address. It was arranged from inside the household. You stop there.”
“I stop?”
“You let her ask the next question.”
“And when she asks who coordinated it?”
“You answer.”
The next word was barely audible. “Maria.”
“Yes.”
Cabot sighed. “I’m not going to be able to write about this for four months. I don’t know what to do with it between now and then.”
“You let it sit, and you visit Eleanor again, as a friend of the family. The piece you write in April will be a better piece for the four months,” Samuel said.
Cabot looked at Samuel. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You did.”
My phone buzzed.
“Voss is down,” Eamon said. “Voss tried to make an outbound call when the breach started. The team had the cell jammer up.”
“Who’d she try to call?” I asked.
“We’ll know by the time you’re on the ferry. Probably Costa. Possibly the Vineyard directly.”
“The names Kohler gave us—Stein and Verhaege?”
“Stein’s on the warrant,” Eamon said. “Federal has him at a residence in Lowell. He’s a logistics layer between Maria and the Lowell vendor.
They take him at oh-five-twenty. Verhaege is a ghost. Federal believes he’s the operative the device was being handed off to once it left Auburndale, but they haven’t placed him on the ground in the Northeast. Working theory is that he never left Brussels.
The wedding plan didn’t require him personally.
It required someone Henry would name if pressed, to keep the network looking larger than it was. ”
“Costa next?”
“Yes.”
He went off the line.
“Voss,” I announced to the room.
The aroma of rosemary filled the room. “Now, my stomach’s rumbling,” Farrow said.
“Dane, when this is done in the kitchen on the Vineyard at three this afternoon, what happens to Maria?” Wiley asked.
“Federal walks her out the service door at three. She’s at Falmouth by four-thirty. She’ll be processed and held overnight. Arraignment Wednesday.”
“And the household?”
“The household stays. Eleanor keeps her people. Federal will want interviews from the kitchen and ground staff, but she might want the wedding to go as planned. Federal will likely be on the property through the end of the week.”
The phone buzzed.
“Costa,” Eamon said. “Costa fired one round at the door when team three came in. No agents hit. Costa took a round to the shoulder and is conscious; transport en route. It’s not a fatal wound.”
Eamon ended the call.
“Costa is down now, too,” I reported to the room. “He shot back.”
“Injuries?” Wiley asked.
“Nothing fatal,” I said. “Costa took a hit to the shoulder. He’s on the way to the hospital.”
Eamon called one more time. “Auburndale is secure. Bomb squad confirmed the three plastic cases had the components for a cell-triggered explosive device. It was consistent with the consultant’s specifications. Successfully disarmed.”
“And the Vermont property?”
“Federal hit the ski lodge at oh-five-fifteen. Two men inside. Both are in custody. They had drafting materials, more than one cell-trigger schematic, and enough cash to leave the country twice. The lodge was redundant. If Auburndale were compromised, the second device would have come down through Vermont over the weekend.”
“Maria had a backup.”
“Yes.”
Eamon was gone again.
“Done?” Farrow asked quietly.
“The bomb is disarmed,” I said.
The operations for the first part of the day were successful. Cabot and I had a ferry to meet at eleven for Martha’s Vineyard.
Samuel pulled the scones out of the oven. “I’ll scramble eggs.”
Wiley started, “Samuel, you don’t—“
“Eggs. It’s half-past five. Cabot needs to eat something that is not a scone, and Dane has not eaten since yesterday. I’m making eggs.”
He moved toward the refrigerator.
Farrow moved up behind me. He rested one hand on my shoulder for a moment while he rubbed his chin against my head.
Cabot was looking at his hands. “I need to put a tie on.”
“You don’t need a tie for the morning room,” I said.
“I need a tie for myself.”
He went upstairs. Wiley watched him go.
***
We gathered at the front door, ready to head out for the ferry. Farrow stepped up close.
“Bring him home.”
“Cabot?”
“Both of you.”
Reed was with us. He’d drive to the ferry terminal and then ride over. He was an additional operative, just in case.
Cabot spoke up halfway to the terminal. “Think she’ll cry?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
We reached the ferry terminal at nine-fifty-two. Reed parked. An attendant approached and nodded through the windshield. He waved us through to staging without paperwork.
We sat in the SUV with the engine off, waiting for the ferry. None of us got out.
When we boarded, the upper deck was almost empty. December crossings ran light. An older couple stood at the railing with a thermos and binoculars. A man in a Patriots jacket had his back to the wind, vaping and scrolling.
Cabot joined me at the rail. He held on with both hands.
The water below was slate gray in color. Past the channel markers, it was darker. A big herring gull flew over the wake.
“I’ve come down here every August for fourteen years,” Cabot said.
“It’s a tradition.”