I listened until the silence below was interrupted by conversation and called loudly for the others to come up. I gathered them in the conference room and filled them in on what Merrill Cooms had told me.
Quinn went to work setting the stage for a Howie visit to Cooms' Ohio home. Howie was as hyper as the rest of us so it took our resident clairvoyant an interminable time to regress. Once there however, Quinn had nailed the time perfectly as Howie saw our target approach the window!
"It's him," Howie mumbled, his voice barely audible.
Howie had tried to explain to us that when he was under, as he called it, he had trouble telling if he was speaking aloud. Therefore, sometimes what he said was unintelligible or so quiet we had difficulty even hearing. When trying to move, we could see his limbs twist. He never mastered the ability to run. If he tried to follow a moving automobile, he could sometimes attach himself, if the vehicle was slow or stopped, but the act was tenuous at best.
Howie recoiled at the sound of the shot and continued to dictate as the intruder fell to the ground clutching his leg, his hand drenched in blood. In spite of the wound, he hobbled away at a brisk pace to the nearby woods at the edge of the property.
"He's climbing a tree next to the wall . . . he fell . . . he's up again . . . and over." We dared not to take a deep breath for fear of waking him.
"He has a bicycle!" Howie said, in a louder voice. "It has a motor . . . an electric motor and he's on a narrow trail!" Howie's body began a strange movement we knew to be his effort to move more rapidly. "It's tough keeping up," he mumbled. He kept trying, and we learned later, he maintained contact for nearly a mile. The intruder rode slowly on the bumpy forest trail but as soon as he reached a paved roadway, Howie lost him."
Howie woke with a start and immediately related details he remembered. "It was the same guy as Delaware and Alabama only the mustache is gone. He was wearing a hoodie and dressed in black, including gloves. No plate on the bike but it said, Volt-Wheel, for a brand name."
"That's why Mr. Cooms and his man didn't hear him," Betsy said. "An electric motor doesn't make any noise."
I tried to think where we could go from here. "Howie, if Quinn could get you back to the road, is there any way you could stay with this guy to his car, or whatever he's driving?"