Red Tide

by W. Dale Justice

  “Time to move.” Deshawn thought. He pulled back quickly, and backtracked through Hurst alley, careful to stay close the the warm bricks of the sun heated tenement. He carefully removed a brick from the boarded up tenement wall. He had spent several nights working the brick free with a flathead screwdriver, then carefully chipping the backside to create a cavity within the wall. He retrieved several baggie packets from his pocket, placed them in the cavity, and returned the brick to its place in the wall. Invisible.

  “I’ll be back later,” he patted the wall with his hand. “Don’t go nowhere.”

  He moved the nine millimeter from the small of his back, pulled his pants up over his hips and transferred the weapon to his front for faster access. He uncharacteristically cinched his belt tighter. The gang-like fashion of wearing your pants so low your ass hung out might be cool, but you couldn’t run. Tonight, he preferred to be fast rather than fashionable.

  He ran north on McMicken to Back Street, cut through a small, shabby park, then through alleys to emerge on Vine Street. At the corner of Vine, he checked both directions, The SUV was not in sight, so he turned left and headed towards the West End.

  “Man, I need to get across Liberty Street.” He told himself. “Then to the Parkway.” Central Parkway. Aptly nicknamed the Rhine in response to the huge German population living north of the Erie Canal in the 1850’s. The canal once cleaved through the middle of downtown Cincinnati leading to the Public Landing on the Ohio River. The Erie Canal connected Lake Erie to the Ohio River, on to the Mississippi River, then on to New Orleans.

  Today, the Parkway was a wide six lane city boulevard separating the downtown business district from a partially gentrified Over the Rhine neighborhood. The north-south running Main and Vine streets were the catalysts for reclamation of what was once one of the worst slums in America. Today, OTR was a regularly patrolled, upscale mixed use entertainment and residential neighborhood bordered on two sides by slums as yet un-reclaimed. OTR is a safe neighborhood in the light of day. When the sun goes down, and the Millenials return to their loft apartments, the street people again own this part of the city.

  Deshawn’s strategy was to make it to Central Parkway and Liberty. If the SUV spotted him, he could make a dash three blocks south to Police Headquarters District One, or into the New Public Housing or the grounds of the brand new Taft High School. The gangs gave District One a wide berth. Community policing and outreach policies had placed lots of cops on the streets since the riots in 2001, which meant a lot of police traffic in and out of District One all day and night.

  “Yeah bitches. Come get me here.” Deshawn smiled. Feeling safe, he paused at Fourteenth Street to look around. Music Hall was right in front of him, District One was almost directly across the street. He wasn’t worried about being stopped by police since he had stashed his drugs in the “brick”. He was running clean at the moment. As he stepped off the curb to cross the mouth of Fourteenth, he heard, then saw the SUV gunning towards him, not forty yards away. They had been parked on Central Parkway in front of Music Hall across from District One, waiting for him.

  Deshawn leaped into a sprint, running east on Fourteenth. The SUV took the turn like a greyhound, and was on his heels. He ran like the wind into Washington Park, seeking it’s underground parking garage as a quick safe haven, but the SUV jumped the curb and pulled up next to him in the grass.

  A searing pain hit Deshawn between the shoulders, then an electric jolt, causing him to lose control of his body. He tumbled forward face first into the turf. Many hands grabbed him up and threw him onto the back seat.

  “Leave them Taser wires in this motherfucker case he start acting a fool.” The doors quickly closed, and the SUV drove quietly back onto Elm Street then headed north towards McMicken.

  Cincinnati is a city of forgotten tunnels. Some were miles long, built by misguided bureaucrats in the 1930’s for a failed subway system never implemented. Some were short and small, built by enterprising criminals from the mid 1800’s up to the 1930’s when Prohibition was enacted to serve as passageways between secret breweries and distilleries connected to speak-easy’s. Some were built in the 1840’s and 1850’s by clergy and God fearing citizens aiding escaped slaves prior to the Civil War, as part of the Underground Railroad. The Over the Rhine neighborhood is laced with tunnels, some as yet undiscovered.

  The room in which Deshawn would face his next tribulation was a stone sub-basement reachable only through a narrow arched roof stone tunnel under McMicken street that once connected a speakeasy to an illegal brewery across the street. A hole in the original floor of a Civil War era building undergoing renovation was discovered that descended almost 30 feet down via a dog-legged wooden ladder system emerging into an unknown arched roof stone chamber. It was dark, damp, and separated the streets above from any sounds with thirty feet of earth and rock. The sewer system was nearly twenty feet above the tunnel, explaining why it was never found by authorities.

  Deshawn woke in semi darkness, his breath warm on his face, even as the damp chill of the room was cool on his body. He couldn’t see very well. A black steak house bag was over his head. He could make out the restaurant logo from lights in the room. Peering downward towards his chest, he saw he was naked, and was duct taped to an ancient desk chair on wooden roller wheels. The chipped and cracked leather seat pricked his bare buttocks. And, there were Taser wires attached to his testicles.

  Someone kicked his chair from behind as they snatched the bag from his head, launching him across the rough concrete floor. Friction on the worn wooden wheels and uneven floor slowed the chair quickly, and caused it to spin slowly before coming to a stop in front of the last person he ever wanted to see, Dion.

  “Sup Deshawn? You got time to talk, or you tied up at the moment?”

  Laughter revealed the presence of three others. Deshawn’s head became a swivel as he looked around at the remnants of the Tot Lot gang, named after their preferred meeting place, a tiny children’s playground on Vine Street where the street descended from University Heights to the downtown OTR area. It was a yet to be gentrified section of OTR. The gang that once numbered twenty or more, was now reduced to four. The rest had drawn the full attention of the Regional Narcotics Enforcement Division several years back for their brazen disregard of law enforcement while dealing heroin and meth within a few paces of schools and playgrounds. They were now guests of the State of Ohio, and would remain so for some decades to come.

  “Whatchu want wid me, Dion?” I ain’t done nothin’ to you. I stay in my area. I don’t want no trouble, man.”

  “No trouble, Deshawn. We jus’ need to know what you been dealin’ an where it come from is all.” Dion’s eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, and impossible to read. “That’s some bad shit you puttin’ on the street. Word is, it got a kick like nothin’ ever seen. People askin’ for it.”

  “I get my stuff from the same people as you, Dion. They always cuttin’ it with something, you know what I’m sayin’? Last time was cut with rat poison, know what I’m saying? That’s all I know.”

  “This is different. You best be knowin’ what I’m sayin’, bitch. A hundred seventy-somthin’ had to be brought back with Narcan last week. Made a big impression on the street. Don’t make me ask twice.”

  “That the truth, Dion! I ain’t lying, man!”

  “Light him up.” Dion commanded, and half turned away for effect.

  Deshawn’s body went rigid, the veins in his neck, forehead, and arms popping, his hands turned to claws. The pain was too intense to permit him to scream, so his mouth gaped open, but silent. He convulsed as he tried to breath. Spittle went flying as the current was cut off and he could finally gasp. He slumped in the chair panting, his bowels releasing.

  “Ah, man! See what you done? Who gonna’ clean that shit up?” Dion rose from his chair, removed his dark glasses revealing one blue eye, and one brown. “You made me ask twice, fool. I ain’t playin’. Where that shit come from, an’
who bringin’ it in? I need a name.”

  “Oh God. Jesus. Help me Lord, help me.” Deshawn’s chin lolled on his cheat, as he panted and prayed for salvation. His muscular frame completely limp.

  “Jesus done left the room, motherfucker. I need a name, Deshawn, or I’m gonna’ turn your balls into hush puppies.” Dion paced before the once formidable, but now pathetic figure strapped to the chair. “Get ready to light this bitch up again.”

  “Nooooo! Lord Jesus, no! I’ll tell ya’, I’ll tell you. Pleeease!”

  “The name?”

  “Yiban. “Deshawn panted. “He calls himself Yiban.”

  “What the fuck kinda name is that?”

  “Chinese, but he not. He half American.”

  Chapter Three

  Clermont County Sherriff’s Office

  “Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.”

  ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  “What happened, Tim? We had them, cold. The Feds intel was supposed to be spot on.” The three men sat heavily, one behind his desk, the others in chairs facing Sherriff Tim Roden in his office. The door was closed to muffle the noise from the deputies returning from the night’s operation on Big Indian Creek with two perps from the Zodiac. The sun would rise in the east in a few hours.

  “I don’t rightly know, Tom. The Feebees were certain the drop would be carfentanil heroin. They had an undercover on the tug since it left New Orleans. The Feds provided the drugs to the courier from a distributor they busted in Arizona.” Tom Brynan, Chief of Police for the Village of Newtown, a sleepy burg bordering Clermont County that hadn’t had a murder in twenty years, and only enough serious drug busts to count on one hand, until lately. Brynan was an odd choice to head the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition, given his small jurisdiction. That is until one looked deeper at his credentials. Small of stature, he commanded any room.

  “Bath salts. Both bags. We give them carfentanil heroin to smuggle, and we bust them with the same bags filled with bath salts. Both had RFID chips sewn into the bags. They are the same, sealed bags we gave them. Where’s the heroin? How did they get it out of the bags without disturbing the seals, and replace it with bath salts? Jim Beal towered over both men. Rail thin and six five, he paced the room like a caged tiger.

  “They’re still searching the tug and all four barges.” Tom spoke up. “The Coast Guard stopped them at the Public Landing, downtown, and steered them to moor along the Queensgate scrap metal and rail yards. Feds, DEA, dogs, and our people are swarming them, knocking into each other. There’s nothing on that tug or those barges so far. We’re interrogating the crew now.”

  “And those two perps from Big Indian Creek?” Big Jim asked.

  “Two local yokels from Felicity. Tweedle dumb, and tweedle dumber. Each have low level possession convictions. Mostly meth, of which both partake.” Roden answered. “Seems they were recruited yesterday, provided with their black camo duds and a shotgun, and pushed out on the river to play fetch. Both thought this was real James Bond stuff. Hell, they’re still excited about it.”

  “Sounds like Operation Fast and Furious déjà vu.” Brynan spoke up. Fast and Furious was a sting operation where the Feds provided assault rifles to the Mexican drug cartels so they could track how they were smuggled into the US from RFID chips hidden in the rifle stocks. Hundreds of military grade weapons disappeared, never to be seen again. Until one was used to kill a US Border Guard.

  “More like Operation Fast and Fucked Up if you ask me. Same shit, different day.” Beal finished.

  “If there is anything on the tug and barges, the dogs will find it.” Brynan gave voice to all their fears and hopes.

  Railroad Bridge over the Ohio River, Cincinnati

  Jadyn watched the circus in the dark of night from the railroad bridge spanning the river and overlooking the scrap and rail yards as authorities worked through the night searching for drugs on the barges. The tug boat and barges were brightly illuminated, swarming with dog handlers and K-9’s, and hazmat suited deputies traipsing over and digging into mounds of coal. Only ten thousand tons to go.

  The shore was crowded with police vehicles, all their collective lights adding a blue strobe effect to the scene. Sherriff department patrol boats maintained station in the water, using their spotlights to scan the boat’s water line to illuminate divers searching the underside of the flat bottomed barges.

  Jadyn was fascinated by the dedication and focus of so many intelligent people in continuing to pursue a failed plan rather than moving on. It’s as if management had to justify committing so many resources that failure could not be accepted. At least not accepted by the people who ran the Safety Services budgets. Talk about overtime. There had to be 100 people in, on, or around those barges, looking for something that simply was never there. Yiban had been right.

  Jadyn had filmed the performance with his smart phone for the past twenty minutes. That’s enough. He looked up today’s contact number, dialed and attached the mp3 file, then hit send. Confirming the message had been sent, he released the phone, watching it fall until it splashed into the river fifty feet below. Bye bye SIM card.

  Queensgate Landing, Cincinnati, Ohio

  “This is beyond stupid.” DEA Agent Mark Holmgren was fed up. Drug sniffing dogs and their handlers, Federal, State and local police and crime scene units swarmed the tug and four coal barges, searching for hours. Nothing. Now some Einstein ordered the men and women to suit up in hazmat gear, and start sifting through the coal. All ten thousand tons. What a jackass.

  “Screw that.” Mark spoke out loud. He climbed from the barge back onto the tug boat, and headed towards the non-illuminated port side facing the river to catch a smoke. He could temporarily disappear from any supervisor who might question why he wasn’t suiting up like the rest of the agents. “That ain’t in my job description.” He thought.

  He lit up, took a deep draw, and gazed across the river towards Newport, Kentucky. Lights danced off the flowing river from the high rise apartments, and office towers. Beautiful. A flash of light below the railroad bridge caught his attention, and he shifted his gaze southeast in time to observe a tiny splash in the water below the bridge.

  “Huh.” He said to himself. Something had obviously fallen off the trestle into the water. Too small a splash to be a jumper. The railroad bridge soared 70 feet above the water, and was silhouetted against the lights of the Newport skyline. As he took another drag, he checked out the trestle, something to occupy his mind other than lumps of coal. A shadow moved, visible only between the rail road ties attached to the side girders.

  “Huh.” Momentarily at a loss, Mark suddenly jumped as he realized someone was walking south at 1:00AM on a railroad trestle, and would soon be back over dry land. Whoever it was, they had been observing the police search of the tug and barges. He dropped his cigarette into the river, and pulled his smart phone off his belt.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  “This is agent Mark Holmgren, DEA. Connect me with Newport PD Dispatch immediately. This is an emergency.”

  Newport, Kentucky

  Directly across the Ohio River from Cincinnati

  The police cruiser arrived on the Kentucky side at the foot of the railroad bridge just in time to see a male figure scale the embankment and fence designed to keep people from doing exactly what he just did: cross the half mile-wide river on the railroad tracks. Over the years, many people had tried, most successfully. But all it takes is one train crossing the bridge and one pedestrian with nowhere to go but to jump. These type of cases occurred every couple years, and were always a recovery, not a rescue. This moron made it.

  “Should we pick him up?” The driver asked his partner.

  “Orders are to observe and tail from a distance. I guess this is that guy’s lucky day.” His partner responded. Soon, an unmarked car pulled beside them.


  One of the officer’s greeted the arriving detective. “Hey Sam.”

  “Hi Guys. Quiet night?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, until this clown showed up. Shame a train didn’t come along so we could see just how well he could fly. That’s the perp across the street, the guy in the coveralls.” All three men watched as the suspect walked purposely up to a BMW sedan, popped the trunk, and removed his work gloves, coveralls and ball cap.

  “What the hell?” A patrolman questioned. The suspect was now dressed as if he just stepped off the page of the latest Ralph Lauren flyer, one of the beautiful people. Thirtyish, handsome, successful, dressed for success, not railroad bridge climbing in the middle of the night. Like a commuter leaving for work, he took the driver’s seat, and pulled away from the curb.