Night Strike

by Michael W. Sherer

  I showed the photo to a couple dozen mothers, focusing on the ones with daughters about the same age as the girl in the picture. For my trouble I got a few cold shoulders, some suspicious looks, and several sympathetic ears. A few thought they might have seen her, but no one knew her. Worried that someone would question my motives and call the cops, I expanded the locus to include as many others as I could before I called it quits. No luck.

  Two women sat on opposite ends of a bench on the path back to my car. One was in her sixties or seventies, a babushka in a tweedy skirt and sleeveless cotton blouse, eating a sandwich from a brown paper bag, occasionally tossing a crumb at a little finch hopping on the ground a few feet away. Brown and gray showed at the roots of her otherwise flame-colored hair, and the arms that ballooned out of the blouse jiggled whenever she flicked her wrist toward the bird.

  The woman at the opposite end sat hunched over a smart phone with her back half-turned away from the older woman, squinting at the small screen in the bright sun. Brown hair the color of dirt fell in waves to her shoulders, hiding a plump face with small eyes set too close together. In her twenties probably, pancake make-up over pale skin and dark mascara aged her several years. The stubby fingers working the touch screen sported black nail polish and two rings with large baubles set in them. She had a quasi-Goth look going on that didn’t quite gel.

  I approached the older woman first, holding the photo out so she wouldn’t be alarmed. “Have you seen this girl?”

  The woman straightened and reached for the photo. She studied it carefully, and handed it back with a shake of her head.

  “Did she run away from home?” She spoke with an accent.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know.”

  “Then why you looking for her?”

  The question brought the younger woman’s head up, and her head turned briefly as she glanced in our direction.

  “I think she’s in danger. I need to find her.”

  I gave her a tight smile. I didn’t know what else to say. Between the lack of sleep and whatever triggered the panic attacks I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. Not even meds seemed to help. I glanced at my watch to see if I was due for a dose. Not yet.

  The woman took the photo and examined it again. This time, the younger woman swiveled on the bench and leaned over for a look trying hard for an air of bored ennui. But when her eyes rested on the photo, surprise flashed across her face. It was gone in an instant, replaced by something else.

  “You know her?” I said.

  She shook her head and refused to look at me. “I don’t think so.”

  The old woman pushed the photo toward her. “You take closer look. Maybe you see her around. On the playground, maybe.”

  The younger one shook her head again, more adamantly this time as she pressed her lips together. “Sorry, no. I have to go.”

  She gathered up her purse and phone and hurried away.

  The old woman shrugged and held the photo out. “Is beautiful little girl. I hope she is okay.”

  I nodded and wandered toward the lot where I’d parked. The young woman had followed a path out of the park to the street and now walked west, talking animatedly on her phone. With nothing to go on but what I’d thought was a flicker of recognition, I left the car where it was and cut across the lot on a diagonal, coming out on the sidewalk a hundred yards behind her. Set back from the street, buildings along the way offered no doorways to hide in, but she never turned around.

  A minute or two later, she disappeared around the edge of a hedge. When I reached the spot, I turned to follow and saw her round the corner of a Korean restaurant across a parking lot. Behind the restaurant, a short set of cement stairs led down to another lot fronting a small strip mall. The lot doubled for yet another strip mall on the street to the west. Across that street sat the back of Crossroads shopping center, hulking buildings spread out over several city blocks, like a giant she-mall that had whelped these little pups all around her.

  The woman turned into an open door in the middle of the strip. I sauntered past the first few shops—a dry cleaner, teriyaki joint, small fitness club—and slowed as I approached the door. Voices floated out the open door to the shady walkway. I stepped into the lot and peered at the sign on the fascia covering the walk. A storefront church, if the sign was accurate.

  “…should I do?” The Goth girl’s voice reminded me not to get too close.

  “You’ll do what’s right, Masha,” a man’s voice responded.

  “I don’t know why I come here,” she said, her voice louder now. “You’re no help.”

  I turned and stepped inside the fitness club’s open door just as Masha stormed out and crossed the parking lot. The fitness center was empty except for a skinny kid with a pockmarked face sitting behind the counter reading a magazine. He glanced at me with a bored expression. I took a flyer out of the window and held it up so he could see it. He dropped his gaze to the page in front of him. I stuffed the flyer in a back pocket and followed in Masha’s wake.

  She’d turned the corner around the end of the strip mall across the street from Crossroads Mall, and by the time I rounded the building she’d disappeared. I strode quickly down the walk and glanced in the window of each storefront in the mall—five restaurants in a row. In the last one, on the corner, I caught a glimpse of a waitress leading her to a table in the back. I pushed through the door and was halfway to the rear when the waitress turned and headed my way. She looked at me quizzically. I gave her a big smile and motioned past her toward Masha’s table. She nodded and kept going.

  Masha had barely lowered her ample rear onto the hard plastic chair when I crowded the table and pulled out the chair opposite hers. Her piggy eyes widened as far as they could go, and she opened her mouth in preparation to scream. I put my finger to my lips and sat down.

  “I just want to talk.”

  The alarm on her face turned to curiosity and then annoyance. “Why? I got nothing to say.”

  “You recognized the girl.”

  Wariness crept back into her eyes. She shrugged. “Maybe I’ve seen her at the park. So what?”

  “The person who gave me that photo is dead.”

  Her brows arched.

  I put up a hand. “No, I didn’t do it. Someone else shot him.” I paused. “Look, it’s complicated, but—”

  “Shot him? Who are you? I don’t want anything to do with you. Go away!”

  “No, please. You may be my only chance of finding her. Look, I deliver newspapers. I just fell into this. The man got in my car. Pointed a gun at me. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Who was it?” she said. She misunderstood my puzzled expression. “Who was killed?”

  “I don’t know. An older man. Sixties or seventies. The point is that before he died, he gave me that photo and made me swear to find her and protect her. From what or who, I don’t know. I’m just trying to find the girl so I can warn her, warn her parents.”

  “Parent,” Masha said. “Just her mother.”

  “You do know her. You know where she lives?”

  “No.” A moment’s hesitation before she answered told me otherwise, but she covered herself quickly. “I don’t know you. Even if I knew where she lived I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Not even if her life’s in danger?”

  “You said you don’t know that for sure.” She poked a finger in her hair and wound a strand around it. “I could pass on a message, I suppose. If Anya wants to talk to you she’ll let me know.”

  “Anya? That’s the mother? What’s the girl’s name?”

  She put a knuckle to her lips and reddened, then shook her head and looked at the table.

  “Tell her to call me.” I pulled another of Molly’s cards out of my pocket and scribbled my name and phone number on the back. I pushed the card across the tabletop until it sat in front of her. Her gaze and hands had fallen into her lap. I got up and left, passing the waitress again on the way out.

  A
block and a half from the restaurant I realized how foolish I’d been. The phone call, the argument, the restaurant… Masha was expecting someone. I wheeled around and hustled back the way I’d come. When I turned the corner, a woman approached the restaurant on the covered walkway from the opposite direction. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that was threaded through the back of a ball cap. She’d pulled the visor low over sunglasses, but the face not hidden was remarkably like that of the girl in the photo.

  “Anya!” I called before my brain could think it through.

  She looked up, startled, and froze when she saw me.

  I walked faster. “I need to talk to you. Please. It’s about your daughter.”

  She bolted.

  “Wait!” I broke into a run. “I’m not going to hurt you! Anya, stop!”

  Anya didn’t waste any breath on a reply. By the time I ran past all the storefronts in the mall and hit the parking lot pavement on the other side I heard the sound of an engine revving. With a little squeal of rubber, one of those small, boxy Japanese cars peeled out of the lot onto the street and zoomed away.

  Chapter 14

  July 26—Bering Sea

  Macready dreamed of soft sand beaches and azure water warmed by the sun, curling into an aqueous tunnel of glass. What he wouldn’t give to be surfing right now in one of his favorite spots. Southern California or Baja, it made no difference. Anywhere would be warmer than this. Hoar frost and icicles had dripped from the superstructure their first two days out, and it was still the end of summer. Hell, the whole fucking ship was cold. He couldn’t remember ever being this cold, and he felt sorry for the poor bastards who did their tours up here in winter. Of course, some of this territory was inaccessible in winter, even to the big icebreakers. But global warming had opened channels through the Northwest Passage for the past few summers and left the waters they now plied completely ice-free.

  Of course, after nearly five days at sea they’d traveled from the frigid waters of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas to the relative warmth of the Bering Sea. Summer was crabbing and fishing season here for the American fleet from Seattle and Alaska. Macready knew from the short segment of “The Deadliest Catch” he’d seen on television that conditions up here weren’t all that hospitable, even in the warmer months. Little had prepared him, though, for the pitching seas and cold, howling winds the warship plowed through. Fortunately, his watch didn’t take him out on deck for any reason. And he’d gradually gotten his sea legs, so he was able to handle the rolling decks with only occasional, mild bouts of queasiness.

  He’d been assigned to the ship’s infirmary to serve under Kapitan-lyeytyenant Yuryevich Dudayev, the ship’s doctor. Macready worried that the senior officer would quickly see through his borrowed identity, but since Rostropovich was supposed to be second-in-command, he and Dudayev took different watches in the sick bay. The orderlies didn’t concern him much. They did what they were told. Unless something catastrophic occurred on board, Macready anticipated little more than minor complaints ranging from common colds to the occasional cut or burn incurred on the job. A large steel vessel in rolling seas was bound to cause a few accidents, giving sailors some bumps and bruises. He could handle those, stitch up cuts, even set bones. Anything more complicated, though, and he’d be caught with his pants down.

  With few official duties so far, Macready had spent his time off familiarizing himself with the ship. An old Udaloy I-class destroyer, it had been refurbished and rebuilt. A full 163 meters from stem to stern, the ship was driven by two gas turbine engines that produced about 60,000 horsepower per propeller shaft. With a full complement of 300 men and standard load, it displaced about 7,500 tons and had a range of 10,500 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 14 or 15 knots. Though hard to judge its speed on open water, Macready sensed from the pitch of reverberations through the hull and decks that the captain was pushing it for some reason. And as they’d turned south through the relatively narrow Bering Straight, he’d seen how fast the little bit of land he’d been able to glimpse had slipped by. Though nowhere close to the its top speed of 34 knots or more, the ship’s cruising speed had to be somewhere around 25 knots.

  Their speed suggested the captain was on a timetable, and Macready felt the pressure to figure out the ship’s purpose before it was too late. The men who’d assigned him this mission were right to be concerned. The materials mined in secret on Greenland had been used to manufacture optical fiber. Since those fibers had been put on board, they clearly weren’t intended to improve Russian cell phone service. They had a military purpose, and Macready felt frustrated that he hadn’t yet discerned what that was.

  Rostropovich’s rank gave Macready some latitude about where he could go on board without raising questions. The fact that Rostropovich had never served aboard ship before also gave him an excuse to explore. But the medical insignia on his uniform might raise eyebrows in certain quarters, so Macready tried to have a ready explanation wherever he went to explain his presence. The fourth day out, he found something promising. Far below decks, in the bowels of the ship, he came across a seaman stationed in a passageway outside a door, obviously guarding entry to whatever lay on the other side.

  “Someone call a medic?” Macready growled.

  The seaman looked startled and started to shake his head then thought better of it. He turned and rapped a knuckle on the steel door. After a moment or two, the door opened a crack and a pair of eyes peered out. The seaman repeated the question, and got the answer Macready expected. The door shut without giving Macready a glimpse inside.

  He tipped his head toward the door. “Top secret, eh?”

  The seaman shrugged. “Something like that. They didn’t tell me, and I don’t ask.”

  Macready glanced at the door again. A sign over the hatch said, “МЕХАНИЗМ ЛАВКА.” Machine shop.

  “Probably a game of Durak while the rest of us work,” Macready said. Backgammon and chess were common, but the naval hierarchy frowned on card games.

  The seaman smirked in Macready’s direction, then suddenly stiffened at something over Macready’s shoulder. He snapped to attention, eyes front, and saluted. Macready turned and backed up against the bulkhead to make room for the side of beef coming down the passageway. The man looked as many inches wider than Macready as he was shorter, cloth straining over every inch of him as if someone had crammed ground steel into a sausage-casing uniform. Buzz-cut gray hair bristled from his head like a wire brush, and the features on his square-jawed face looked as if they’d been flattened with a 2 x 6, prominent nose squashed sideways and broken in several places. At the sight of Macready, the man stopped, straightened up and reluctantly offered the requisite salute. Macready returned it.

  “You’re a long way from home, sir.” The man sounded like he was gargling glass, and Macready didn’t miss the thinly disguised sneer.

  “In more ways than one, Chief.”

  The ship’s chief petty officer thrust his face up close to Macready’s and stuck out a meaty hand. “I don’t think we’ve met, sir. Ilyich Bogomolov.”

  “Yevgeny Rostropovich.” Macready socketed his hand in the chief’s grip and felt the bones in his hand grind together as Bogomolov squeezed.

  The chief grinned. “If you’re lost, I can have Matros Lebed here show you the way back.”

  “No need for the seaman to leave his post,” Macready said. “I left a trail of bread crumbs.”

  The chief’s face set like concrete, dark chocolate eyes turning bitter and opaque. Then he threw his head back and laughed. He let go of Macready’s hand and smacked him on the upper arm. Still chuckling, he sidestepped past the seaman standing at attention and slipped through the door into the machine shop. When the door clanged shut, the seaman allowed his gaze to shift to Macready and turn accusatory. Macready shrugged and spun on his heel.

  Now that he’d found what he’d been looking for he still needed to find a way inside to discover what the Russians were up
to. His feet automatically headed back to the infirmary, but his head got so lost in thought he nearly ran into Dudayev as he rounded a corner. He quickly pulled back out of sight and hugged the wall, breathing silently through his mouth while he listened for a reaction. But the only sound he heard over the constant rumbling of the engines were the quiet treads of Dudayev’s steps receding down the passageway. Macready poked his head around the corner. At the far end of the narrow corridor, Dudayev was doing the same thing as Macready—peering around the corner. Macready pulled his head back and considered what he’d seen. The doctor didn’t want to be seen in this part of the ship any more than Macready wanted his superior officer to see him.

  He frowned. Dudayev hadn’t been down near the machine shop. Where else could he have come from? Macready glanced around the corner again. Dudayev had disappeared. Macready followed quietly, mind racing. The engine room? But why? At the end of the passageway, Macready stopped and listened, heard nothing. He cautiously peered around the corner. The passageway was empty. He rounded the corner and moved purposefully now, soon encountering more sailors in the passageway as he drew closer to centers of activity aboard ship.

  A klaxon blared suddenly, deafening in the narrow confines of the passageways. Above it, the ship’s whistle sounded a discordant note. While it seemed interminable, the chord lasted a mere ten seconds and stopped, but the ship erupted in activity.

  Somewhere on board the ship had caught fire.

  Chapter 15

  July 26—Seattle

  The key slid into the lock smoothly, as if the lock had been oiled recently, but it wouldn’t turn. Its sibling on the key ring opened the building’s front door right up. The street sounds faded as the door closed behind me. The interior dimness combined with the air conditioning lowered the lobby temperature somewhere south of 68 degrees, actually causing me to shiver in short sleeves. I crossed the cool stone tile floor to the elevator, reminding myself that as far as the manager was concerned my presence there was natural. For a moment, the manager’s name eluded me. Wracking my brain on the way up to D’Amato’s floor, the name finally popped into mind.