*
7:27 P.M. I insisted that Skarda drive slowly. I told the boys we had plenty of time, although they didn’t seem to believe me. I was just as anxious as they were, yet the cautionary admonishment of my high school baseball coach kept echoing in my head—“Hurry, but don’t rush”—although he was speaking about something else entirely.
We circled the building and headed for the hole Skarda had cut in the fence. Jimmy wanted to remove his mask. I told him to wait until we reached the creek. Roy walked backward, sweeping the open ground with his assault rifle, covering our rear like he had been trained. I used the cell to contact Josie. She answered in the middle of the first ring.
“Are you there?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“We’re on our way.”
She wanted to say more, yet I ended the call before she could. It was no time for chitchat. We reached the hole in the fence and maneuvered the ATV through it and down the abandoned road. The vehicle hopped and skipped across the uneven terrain, and a couple of times I thought the money bags would slide off the back. Finally we approached the pontoon boat. The bow was up against the shore; the seat cushions had been removed, and all of the lockers were open. Three women, a brunette, redhead, and blonde, stood waiting for us at the bow all dressed in swimsuits—Josie in a one-piece and Claire and Liz in bikinis—and my inner voice said, Minnesota girls, don’t you just love them?
We drove the ATV to the water’s edge. Jimmy and Skarda hopped onto the pontoon. Daniel and I grabbed the sacks of money and heaved them aboard while Roy covered the trail. Jimmy and Skarda dragged the sacks into the center of the pontoon. They opened the bags and, with help from the girls, stashed the cash in the lockers. “Oh my God, look at all of this,” Claire said. She was the only person who spoke.
I boarded the pontoon, went to the wheel, and started the engine. I called to Roy. He jumped onto the boat and stood at the bow while continuing to watch the trail. Skarda and Daniel pushed us off the shore and hopped on. I maneuvered the pontoon around and headed up the narrow channel toward Pike Bay and sprawling Lake Vermilion beyond. The Bandits finished storing away the money, closed the lockers, and returned the cushions to their proper places by the time we reached the mouth of the channel.
Another glance at the watch. 7:41 P.M. If we were lucky, the cops hadn’t even arrived at the vault yet.
I stripped off the mask, gloves, and Kevlar vest and tossed them overboard along with the AK-47. Jimmy and Daniel did the same, adding the now empty money bags. Roy wanted to keep his weapon.
“We’ll need it when we go to free Jill,” he said. I told him I had it covered. He didn’t believe me. Daniel snatched the rifle from Roy’s grasp and flung it into the lake. Roy wanted to fight Daniel over that. Daniel wouldn’t let him. He moved to the stern of the pontoon and sat on the back wall just above the motor while the others tried to calm down Roy.
I had expected the Bandits to be more excited by what we had just accomplished, yet Roy’s outburst made it clear to me why they weren’t. They hadn’t just become rich off a daring raid on a remote vault. All they did was steal the ransom money they needed to buy back their wife, their sister, their cousin, their friend. They were still afraid.
As well they should be, my inner voice said.
I glanced at my watch again. 7:44 P.M. with about an hour and twenty minutes of sunlight left. By then we had all stripped down to swimsuits and T-shirts; I was still wearing Skarda’s sneakers, and Jimmy’s cell phone was in my pocket.
“Where’s the beer?” I asked. My companions looked at me as if I were insane. “You didn’t bring the beer?”
“We thought you were kidding,” Liz said.
“We’re supposed to be a party boat, remember?”
Josie gave me the same smile she had the morning she came into my bedroom, the one that suggested she had me all figured out. I hadn’t realized she was sitting on a cooler until she stood and opened it. She removed two Leinies, twisted off the caps to both, and gave me a bottle. The others helped themselves. The pontoon had an AM/FM radio, and I dialed in WELY. It was playing Bruce Springsteen.
“I saw him once at the old Civic Center in St. Paul when I was a kid,” I said. “Best rock concert ever.”
“I thought you were a jazz guy,” Josie said.
“We were all young once. Listen. There are two ways to do this. One is sly and sneaky. The other is loud and boisterous. Loud and boisterous is more fun.”
“If you say so.”
I eased the throttle forward until the pontoon boat was skimming across the lake as fast as it could. At the same time, I cranked the volume on the radio and started singing along with the Boss—“Tramps like us, baby we were born to run…”
SIXTEEN