Convergence at Two Harbors

by Dennis Herschbach

  As he splashed cold water on his face, he wished he had never agreed to smuggle the men into Canada. He knew he had broken the law. He spotted the flash drive that had been found on his boat. It was lying on the table where he had tossed it before going to bed.

  More for something to take his mind off what he had done than anything else, David turned on his laptop and plugged the flash drive into the UB port. For a second the computer made its working sounds, and then a notice popped up on its screen asking him if he wanted to open the files. Another click on the control pad and the screen was filled with file numbers.

  David clicked on the first file, and it opened. To his amazement it was a high resolution picture of the ore docks rising six stories above the harbor’s water behind his apartment.

  He opened the next file to find another picture of the docks, this one taken from a different angle. Each file was one of a series of pictures from the same site. Some showed the road in Two Harbors leading to the yards behind the docks, some were of the docks taken from the breakwater across the bay, and it was obvious that several were taken from the water just below the massive steel beams that supported the huge ore hoppers of the docks. Still another had obviously been taken from the top of Pork City Hill, an area off limits to all but the dock and railroad workers.

  David thought, This is odd. Those men didn’t appear to be tourists, and if they were, why didn’t they just get a passport and enter the country legally? He opened the next file.

  To his complete amazement, the file was a daily log of activities: the time a train pushed its load of cars onto the top of the dock, how long it took the train to empty the gondolas into the ore hoppers. It detailed the time a ship arrived, where it docked, how long it took to load. The journal documented how many workers could be seen on the dock, what they were doing, and if they were vigilant of what was occurring on the ground.

  Most troubling, though, was the record of security personnel, where they moved, and when they took their stations. The hair on the back of David’s neck began to bristle, and a wave of heat flushed over his body. He opened the next file.

  This time, there was no mistaking what the files were about. On this file were estimates of the type of explosives and the quantities that would be needed to completely take down the docks. There was little doubt that the files were plans to blow up the ore docks in Two Harbors.

  Opening the last file, David found five names:

  1. Imad Diqqa

  2. Murad Judal

  3. Jibril Al-Nams

  4. Afu Jaber

  5. Yusuf El ‘Elyan

  6. Zaim Hassan Zayed

  Sweat poured from his forehead as David realized he had bumbled his way into a situation far more serious than helping some illegal workers leave the country. As he sat holding the flash drive in his shaking fingers, his telephone rang.

  “Hello,” David said, his voice shaking with trepidation.

  “David, this is Herminio,” the man on the other end blurted out. “I’m not sure how they know, but I received a call from an FBI agent named Erickson a few minutes ago. He said he wanted to ask me some questions about my organization, the AIJ. He said it was nothing serious but to be at his office in forty minutes or he would send two of his assistants to pick me up.”

  David felt his insides knot. Then he heard Herminio say in a hushed voice, “Hold on a minute, David. Someone is knocking on my door. I guess he didn’t want to wait for me to come in on my own.”

  David waited, fiddling with the flash drive in his hand. After five minutes, he was getting agitated because Herminio did not return to the phone, and after a full ten minutes, he hung up the phone and paced the floor, trying to make sense of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  Chapter Ten

  Sheriff Deidre Johnson walked into her office and quietly closed the door behind her. She sat at her desk, cradled her head in her hands, and closed her eyes, and she wondered how David Craine could have gotten himself in so deep. It seemed like yesterday that she sat in his political science class when she was a high school junior. She remembered his caring manner.

  “Deidre,” she remembered him asking, “Will you stay after school today? There are some things we should talk about.”

  Mr. Craine looked up from his desk when Deidre knocked on his office door.

  “Come in Deidre. I’m so glad you could stay for a few minutes today,” he said with his characteristic politeness. That was one thing about Mr. Craine—he treated every student as though they mattered.

  “No, leave the door open please,” he said. “It gets stuffy in this little room if the door’s closed.” Deidre knew better, and she respected him for his propriety.

  “Deidre,” Mr. Craine had started, “I’m not sure what is going on, but your grades have begun to plummet. At the beginning of the year all your assignments were turned in on time, and you were almost straight A. Now you’re so far behind it’ll be a miracle if you can pull out a passing grade for the semester.”

  Deidre remembered how her face reddened, and tears welled up in her eyes. All she could do was look at the floor and swallow hard.

  Mr. Craine continued. “I’ve taught long enough to know that something destructive is going on in your life. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you are using drugs, but your eyes are too clear and you don’t show any other symptoms of that sort of thing. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Deidre could do nothing but shake her head no and continue to look at the floor. It was becoming more difficult for her to hold back her tears.

  “Deidre, if you’re in trouble, I can help, but only if you’ll let me.”

  With that Deidre crumbled. “How can you help?” she sobbed unintelligibly. “Do you know what it’s like? He came home drunk last weekend and lined us up against the wall while he pointed a shotgun at us, all the while screaming he was going to kill us!”

  Deidre buried her head in her hands, and said nothing for a few minutes. Mr. Craine was quiet while he waited for her. Finally she could speak again. “My step-dad always drank a lot—too much I suppose—but he was never like this. This past fall he lost his job, and now he drinks all the time. My little brother’s a nervous wreck. His hands shake so badly he can hardly tie his shoes, and Dad’s so cruel to Mom. He throws things at her, and lately has been slapping her around when she doesn’t do what he expects.” With that Deidre slumped in the chair and wept into her hands.

  Mr. Crain handed her a wad of tissue but never said to buck up or to stop crying. Instead he said, “I don’t know how you kids can take what some of you go through. Deidre, I’m required by law to report this to the authorities. Please don’t think I’m betraying your confidence, but it’s something I must do. Do you understand?”

  Deidre remembered nodding and blankly staring ahead. Snot ran from her nose in stringy threads, and she tried wiping them away only to smear everything around.

  Then Mr. Craine got out of his chair and put his arms around her, and said, “You’ll be safe now.”

  He returned to his desk and picked up the phone. “I’m calling a friend at Social Services. She’s a wonderful lady.”

  Deidre saw him dial and wait for a pickup on the other end of the call. “Hi, Jan? Say, I’ve got a real problem here. Do you suppose you could stop by my office right away? I’d like you to come as soon as you can.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Yes, I think we could say this is an emergency.” Another short pause and, “Great, we’ll see you in five minutes.”

  With that Deidre’s Mr. Craine turned to her. “The Social Service Office is only a block down the street. Jan’s dropping everything and coming right now.” Deidre remembered how calming his voice was to her. “It’s easy for me to tell you not to worry, but believe me, she’ll help you and your family.”

  Jan burst into Mr. Crain’s office like a whirlwind. Deidre hadn’t known what to expect and was a little taken aback by this dynamo. Jan plunked her five-foot-eleve
n-inch frame onto the one remaining chair in the office, and it groaned under her ample weight. Her gray hair looked like it had been combed by a windstorm. Deidre looked into her eyes and was immediately taken by their kindness.

  “So,” Jan began the conversation. “David tells me things are a little tough for you right now.”

  Deidre nodded.

  Jan looked right at her, and said, “I want you to know how proud I am of you for seeking help before something really bad happens. I want to be the one to help, if you’ll let me. Is that what you want?”

  Again Deidre nodded.

  Jan asked Deidre to repeat her story, and this time the words came easier, more matter-of-factly. After hearing the details, Jan said, “We have to get you and your mom, your brother and sister out of this situation. It doesn’t seem that any of you are safe at home right now. Will your mother talk with me?”

  Deidre only shrugged.

  After that, events began to move so quickly they hardly registered for Deidre. That very afternoon Jan met with her mother, and by early evening, while Deidre’s step-dad was out drinking, Jan helped Deidre, her mother, and her siblings pack a few pieces of clothing in an old suitcase. She escorted them to the women’s shelter in downtown Two Harbors. By bedtime the three of them settled in an upstairs apartment in the safe house.

  Deidre didn’t know much of the details after that. A restraining order was taken out against her step-dad, and he was scheduled for a hearing before Judge Anderson, but before that happened he skipped town. Rumor was he had run to California where he became lost in the crowd. At any rate, he never contacted them again.

  By this time Deidre was so far behind in school there was little chance that she could enter her senior year with any chance of graduating on time. That was when Mr. Craine had come to her rescue again.

  Deidre remembered how he offered to tutor her during the summer, how Mrs. Craine had helped her take care of the incomplete her English teacher had given her, and how much time the two of them had devoted to her.

  Even during her last year of high school, after she was back on track to graduate with the rest of her class, the two of them had continued to support her. They invited her family to share Thanksgiving dinner with them, and Mr. and Mrs. Craine made sure they had a Christmas. Mrs. Craine took her shopping for a dress for graduation. She remembered Mr. Crain encouraging her to begin college, and she remembered the day he had told her to call him David from then on.

  Chapter Eleven

  There were some professions traditionally out of bounds for women, and Deidre had set her mind on becoming a law enforcement officer. For those trying to break the barriers, their efforts were often met with male resistance.

  At first, the biases were subtle. When she had enrolled in college at Great Lakes University, she met with a counselor. He opened her file, and they began to discuss her future.

  “Well, Ms. Johnson,” he said as he scanned her records. “You seem to have been an exemplary student, with the exception of two quarters of your junior year. Do you have an explanation for the significant drop in your grades for that time?”

  “I do, but I don’t care to discuss them with you. They are of a very personal nature,” she replied.

  That stopped the counselor for a second. “I see,” he remarked and made a note in her file.

  “Do you have a goal you’re trying to reach, or will you be taking courses to explore where you want to focus your studies?”

  Deidre looked at him, and resolutely said, “I want to major in criminal justice. After graduation, I would like to be a law enforcement officer.”

  Her counselor offered a patronizing smile. “Ms. Johnson, have you thought this decision through? I mean look at you. How tall are you? Five-two?”

  “Five-one,” Deidre interjected. It only made the counselor continue with his line of distorted reasoning.

  “And you probably only weigh one-ten at the most. Have you thought about how you could possibly pass the physical requirements at a police academy? Have you thought about what it would be like to have your nose mashed across your pretty face? Why don’t you be realistic? Did you ever consider a more traditional woman’s profession, like nursing? You’d certainly bring comfort to any patient, especially the men.”

  Deidre’s eyes narrowed, and she blurted out, “You might have been able to counsel this way ten years ago, but not today, and not with me. How does sexual harassment sound to you? Do you like the sound of those words?”

  She stopped to compose herself, and with a forced calm to her voice said, “Can we get on with what courses are required for my degree and the sequence in which they should be taken?”

  Almost in disbelief, the counselor looked at Deidre and responded by first clearing his throat and then saying, “Of course. It’s your life, I suppose.” He matter-of-factly went through the list of required and selective courses and helped Deidre draw up a tentative schedule for her first year.

  School had always been easy for Deidre, and college classes were no exception. She was totally engrossed in what she was learning and in four years walked across the stage to accept her diploma. But that was only the beginning.

  In order to become a police officer candidate, Deidre had to complete a program at an accredited academy. Centralia, Minnesota, was the closest and most affordable she could find. She applied, but before being accepted, she had to pass the required physical tests.

  The medical exam presented no problem. Deidre had always been healthy, but the requirement of being able to carry a two-hundred-pound weight over her shoulder was another consideration. During her last year of college she had spent hours in the gym lifting free weights and working out with a couple of friends who were on the football team. The contrast between them was comical. They were six-four and roughly two hundred seventy-five pounds, and she was five one—if she had her shoes on—and weighed in at one-o-five and a half. But Deidre earned their respect with her dedication.

  During the academy’s test, she had no trouble with pushups or pull ups. In fact her lower body weight worked to her advantage, but the lift and carry was another matter.

  A sack about the size of a large man’s torso was filled with two hundred pounds of some sort of grainy material. Deidre would have to lift it to an upright position, place her shoulder under it, and stand up. Then she had to carry it ten yards before setting it down.

  She muscled it up, but her knees almost buckled. One staggering step after another, she made her way across the floor before dropping the bag. The rules didn’t say the bag had to be set down gently. She passed, and no one could deny her claim to admission.

  Chapter Twelve

  The first day of her first class at Centralia, Deidre was introduced to Female Bias 101 when the instructor took attendance.

  “Johnson,” and there was a palpable pause, “Deidre.”

  “Present,” Deidre responded.

  The instructor looked up from his computer printout. “Oh, excuse me,” he said. “I didn’t know they let high school cheerleaders take this course.”

  Everyone in the room burst into laughter, except Deidre. She knew it would be hopeless to respond in this setting, and she looked at the top of her desk.

  After that, the day went a little smoother. When she had completed her last class of the afternoon, an introductory class on law enforcement ethics, her instructor, Pete Hovland, took her aside, and encouraged her. “I know this is going to be tough on you, but hang in there. Not all of police work involves brawn, and, anyway, you’ll find ways to cope. Brain usually wins out over brawn.”

  Pete was one of the older instructors, probably ready for retirement, and he smiled at her. “Hang in there.”

  As it turned out, one of her male classmates from high school in Two Harbors was following the same path she was taking. Ben VanGotten had been a jock in high school. At six-two and two-hundred pounds, he had starred in both football and hockey. Even then he was noted for his crudeness, especially the
things he said to his female classmates. Now, of all the police cadets, he was the one who treated Deidre with the least respect.

  In their self-defense class, which was not supposed to involve actual force, students were paired up by approximate size, all except Deidre. More often than not, her partner was Ben.

  During the first class exercise, Ben was to be a belligerent drunk, and Deidre was supposed to control him with a handhold designed to inflict debilitating pain. It was supposed to be a walk-through exercise, and when Ben flung his free arm around and knocked Deidre to the mat with her lip bleeding, she was taken completely by surprise.

  The instructor smirked. “You have to always be prepared, because you never know what’s going to happen.”

  Day after day Deidre experienced the same abuse. It was especially bad when Ben was paired with her. Whether she was playing the part of the officer or the part of the suspect, she always ended up absorbing punishment. By the end of the second week, she was a mass of black-and-blue marks.

  Deidre had reached her breaking point. On Monday of the third week, she was once again paired with Ben. This time, she was to be a fleeing suspect, and Ben the arresting officer. Ben grabbed her from behind, his hands conveniently finding her breasts. Deidre had enough.

  With one quick stomp of her foot on Ben’s instep, she felt the snap of one of his metatarsals. Ben let go in surprise, and Deidre spun around, delivering a forceful kick to Ben’s groin. He fell to the mat like a felled tree, writhing in pain, not knowing which part of his anatomy he should hold.

  Deidre looked down at Ben, and said, “You always have to be prepared, because you never know what’s going to happen.” Then she stalked out of the room, wondering if she had just kicked her way out of the academy.

  That evening, as she straightened her dorm room for what she thought might be the last time, someone knocked at her door. She opened it, expecting the worst, but it was Pete, the one instructor who had encouraged her.