Inside the Boathouse

A loud scraping and banging of metal broke the quiet of the boathouse. Rough voices came from the direction of the side door. With a start, Logan realized that someone was coming into the boathouse. He glanced around frantically for a place to hide. He pulled himself into the shadows next to the bin which held the upright oars, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping an arm around them.

"Miller, can't you keep it down? I don't think we need to bring the entire Seattle PD back again," came the hoarse whisper, as a man pushed the heavy metal door open and entered the boathouse.

"We wouldn't even have to come back to this moldy place if you'd done the cleanup right the first time," replied his companion.

"Look, Vann was always in charge of all that. He didn't really feel it was necessary to let us in on the plan. We already yanked all the hardware and all the paperwork. How was I supposed to know there was some backup file Mr. Snow made him keep? The Mr. Snow wasn't even sure where Vann put it. Just go in there and find it, okay? I'm waiting in the car."

The bigger man stumped into the office. "Where the hell did all this mud come from?" he muttered. "I guess even the cops can't keep the evidence clean when it's a mud bath outside."

Logan stilled his breathing. He didn't dare move. He was only a few feet from the office door. Silently, he pulled the gun from his pack and fingered the trigger. Logan really didn't want to have to fire it. Who knew how many other cronies were waiting outside? It had grown darker in the building. The man walked by quickly, ignoring the trail of grime that led straight to Logan's hiding spot. After five minutes, the man emerged from the office.

"You'd think he hide it in an obvious place," he swore and muttered to himself. "What kind of idiot makes a backup copy and doesn't tell anyone else where…" The man had started back towards the side door, but now he stopped, looking at the floor. He stood directly on the path of mud, now backlit by the setting sun, standing out against the dull glow of the concrete floor.

"What the…" His eyes hardened as they followed the streak of mud toward the place where Logan leaned against the wall.

Half hidden in the shadows, Logan tried desperately to impersonate the wall.

The huge man crossed the space in two strides, as he reached for to his gun. Logan lunged forward, pushing off the wall with one hand and grabbing the man's leg with the other. He looked up to see the man holding the gun up in the air. The man brought down hard, aiming for Logan's head. Twisting away, Logan grabbed the hand as it came down and jerked it down hard. The man stumbled and Logan threw both arms around the man's legs, bringing him down with a crash.

The man tried to push up onto his knees. Logan snatched at the gun again as the man tried to bring it around to fire at him. Rolling his body to the side, he forced the bigger man's body over too, pinning the gun underneath them both. Digging his elbows into the man's back, he pushed forward until he was almost completely on top of the other man. The man tried to stand, but Logan's arms were around his neck already. Logan flipped onto his back, arms locked around the man's neck, bringing the heavier man over as well. The bigger man struggled mightily, then suddenly went limp. Logan held on for another few seconds, then pushed the slack massive body off his chest.

"That's more like it. Bling would be proud," he thought, breathing hard. But he hardly had time to relish his little victory. The man was out cold for now, but he'd wake up eventually. He searched the man's pockets quickly. Without waiting to see who had heard the scuffle, he began sliding himself toward the big main doors.

He gave up on the idea of looking for his car. He'd have to make it up as he went along, as Max was fond of saying. The heavy-set man, who now lay in a limp heap behind him, had entered through the side door facing the street. To look for his car, Logan would have to go out that door, sneak past the other man, and make his way halfway down the block. Unlikely. Besides, either the police or the crooks had probably taken his car away anyway.

He turned instead toward the two enormous cargo bay-type doors for the boats and the smaller regular door facing the bay.

"Ten minutes, tops," Logan thought, "before they come in looking for their man." Logan poked his head out of the door leading to the water. Like all classic boathouses, this one had a wide ramp that stretched the entire width of the building, sloping gently out over the water. He considered crawling out into the grass, but there was so little cover that he didn't think he'd get too far.

Logan looked frantically around the boathouse again, searching for some other way out. The long crew boats were useless to him. Even the smallest single scull was almost 30 feet long. He was about to give up and resort to going for a swim, when he spied the corner of something red peeking out from under a tarp. It was an upended, faded canoe, left there by someone who had needed a practical little boat to putter around.

Logan pulled the canoe away from the wall and started to shove it toward the door. To his surprise, it slid easily across the floor. He grabbed a short paddle out of the bin, then gave the canoe a bigger heave and pushed it through the door.

A car doors slammed in the parking lot of the boathouse. Miller exited the black SUV. He wrenched open the door to the boathouse, thrusting his head inside. The sun had completely set and the interior of the boathouse was dark.

Out on the ramp, Logan pushed the aluminum canoe down the ramp. The noise of the metal canoe on the wooden deck seemed deafening. Tucking in his legs with one arm, he half-rolled, half-tumbled down the ramp, shoving the canoe ahead of him. Halfway down, he took a shortcut and shoved the boat off the side of ramp, into the water. Was it possible that the other men hadn't heard him and come out on the ramp yet?

The man stood, half in and half out of the parking lot door. "Hey, you were the one who told me to keep it down. You're lucky the rest of the guys can't hear from inside the truck. What the hell are you doing in there that's so loud? I'm coming in," he whispered loudly. He played the flashlight on the walls, looking for a sign of his partner.

At that moment, the ring of a cell phone erupted from the bushes away to the right. Miller whirled around, raising his gun.

On the deck, Logan looked down at the canoe. The distance from the deck to the canoe was a good foot. Lying down on the deck, he reached down and grabbed the gunnels of the canoe. Without wasting any more time, Logan heaved himself down onto the canoe. He fell awkwardly onto the canoe, which pitched wildly almost heaving him into the chilly water. His legs hit the canoe behind him with a resounding smack.

At the parking lot entrance, Miller took a few cautious steps toward the bushes, but cell phone had stopped. He decided to chalk it to his hang-over. He turned back toward the boathouse and slid past the heavy door, letting it close behind him.

Logan hauled himself upright. Twisting around to sit up, Logan plunged his paddle into the water. Uncertain of his own stability in the canoe, he sat on the bottom on some PFD vests, leaning against the aft seat, just tall enough to reach over the side to paddle. Stroking for all he was worth, he pulled cleanly away from the dock.

Voices rose from inside the boathouse. The men had found the unconscious body of their fallen comrade. The harbor side door flew open and a scowling man came out and scanned the water. The breeze had stirred some ripples, but the lake was otherwise placid and empty.

Fearing some sort of ambush, since they couldn't rouse their partner to give them any useful information, they took one more quick look around the boathouse and headed back into the black SUV.

"I could have sworn I heard a cell phone," Miller muttered under his breath, as he stepped into the car.

Hidden inside a tool shed, Max cuffed Alec smartly in the head.

Can you think of anything more amateur than your cell phone ringing in the middle of a mission?" Max turned on him.

"Max, as I recall, you were the one rushing me out of the car before I even had a chance to put anything away. What happened to rule # 1000, or whatever, a mission is only as good as its preparation? Besides, even with a lot of firepower, we could have taken 'em."

"That's not the point. Right now, they might be our link to what happened here. If we got into it with them, they might shut down and disappear," Max sat down on a wooden crate.

"Well then, it's a good thing we didn't."

Safely round the bend, Logan dug his paddle into the water, moving steadily away from the boathouse, while Max opened the door of the tool shed and stepped out into the rain again.

They both whispered.

"That was a close one."