WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

masts. Dock lamps and neighboring boat lanterns cast shimmering patterns of

light on the dark, oily-looking water where Dilworth’s forty-two-footer had been

moored.

“Harbor Patrol?” Lem asked worriedly.

“They followed him out to open sea. Seemed as if he was going to turn north,

swung close by the point, but then he went south instead.”

“Did Dilworth see them?”

“He had to. As you see—no fog, lots of stars, clear as a bell.”

“Good. I want him to be aware. Coast Guard?”

“I’ve talked to the cutter,” Cliff assured him. “They’re on the spot, flanking

the Amazing Grace at a hundred yards, heading south along the coast.”

Shivering in the rapidly cooling air, Lem said, “They know he might try putting

ashore in a rubber boat or whatever?”

“They know,” Cliff said. “He can’t do it under their noses.”

“Is the Guard sure he sees them?”

“They’re lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“Good. I want him to know it’s hopeless. If we can just keep him from warning

the Cornells, then they’ll call him sooner or later—and we’ll have them. Even if

they call him from a pay phone, we’ll know their general location.”

In addition to taps on Dilworth’s home and office phones, the NSA had installed

tracing equipment that would lock open a line the moment a connection was made,

and keep it open even after both parties hung up, until the caller’s number and

street address were ascertained and verified. Even if Dilworth shouted a warning

and hung up the instant he recognized one of the Cornells’ voices, it would be

too late. The only way he could try to foil the NSA was by not answering his

phone at all. But even that would do him no good because, after the sixth ring,

every incoming call was being automatically “answered” by the NSA’s equipment,

which opened the line and began tracing procedures.

“The only thing could screw us now,” Lem said, “is if Dilworth gets to a phone

we don’t have monitored and warns the Cornells not to call him.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Cliff said. “We’re on him tight.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” Lem worried. As the wind got hold of it, a metal

clip on a loose line clanged loudly off a spar, and the sound made Lem jump. “My

dad always said the worst happens when you least expect it.”

Cliff shook his head. “With all due respect, sir, the more I hear you quote your

father, the more I think he must’ve been just about the gloomiest man who ever

lived.”

Looking around at the wallowing boats and wind-chopped water, feeling as if he

was moving instead of standing still in a moving world, a little queasy, Lem

said, “Yeah . . . my dad was a great guy in his way, but he was also . . .

impossible.”

Hank Gorner shouted, “Hey!” He was running along the dock from the

Cheoy Lee where he and Cliff had been stationed all day. “I’ve just been on

With the Guard cutter. They’re playing their searchlight over the Amazing

Grace, intimidating a little, and they tell me they don’t see Dilworth. Just

the woman.”

Lem said, “But, Christ, he’s running the boat!”

“No,” Gorner said. “There’s no lights in the Amazing Grace, but the Guard’s

searchlight brightens up the whole thing, and they say the woman’s at the

wheel.”

“It’s all right. He’s just below deck,” Cliff said.

“No,” Lem said as his heart started to pound. “He wouldn’t be below deck

at a time like this. He’d be studying the cutter, deciding whether to keep going

or turn back. He’s not on the Amazing Grace.”

“But he has to be! He didn’t get off before she pulled out of the dock.”

Lem stared out across the crystalline-clear harbor, toward the light near the

end of the northern breakwater. “You said the damn boat swung out close to the

north point, and it looked as if he was going north, but then he suddenly swung

south.”

“Shit,” Cliff said.

“That’s where he dropped off,” Lem said. “Out by the point of the northern

breakwater. Without a rubber boat. Swimming, by God.”

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