The Last Storm

by Jack Hunt

  Alex watched them lifting up the doors on the freezers and peering inside.

  “Still, do you honestly think he would be dumb enough to keep the drugs in this building? I think we should be looking at that cop’s place in Girdwood. My money is that he carried them out and stashed them, then Greg bumped him off and made it look like suicide.”

  The guy laughed. “You talk too much. Now start looking.”

  They went one by one through each of the freezers, lifting them up and tossing out large amounts of frozen fish and meat onto the ground. “This is a joke! Do you see Cayden doing any of this?”

  “Just get on with it,” the black guy said.

  “He’s gone over the edge. Don’t you think?”

  “I think if you keep whining he’s going to throw you over an edge. Probably off the top of this building. Now keep your mouth shut and do what he’s paying you to do.”

  The white guy laughed. “You really have bought into his bullshit, haven’t you?”

  “All I know is he pays well.”

  “Yeah and look at how things have changed over the past year. Since he started using, we have come this close to being nabbed by the cops. I swear, I’m not doing time for that asshole. Good pay or not, there are others in Anchorage who run operations that are smart. This is reckless. You have to admit. No one in their right mind would take an entire building hostage.”

  “It’s barely eighty people.”

  “Still. He’s putting all of us at risk.”

  “And you’re getting paid well.”

  The other guy continued grumbling as they searched. Alex looked at Kip who took out a piece of gum, peeled off the wrapping and stuck it in his mouth. He was as cool as a cucumber.

  “There is nothing here, let’s get the hell out,” the white guy said.

  “Not until we tear this place apart.”

  “Really?”

  “You see, you don’t get it, do you, Raymond? The sooner we get through all of this, the sooner we get the hell out of here. You don’t want to be here. Well neither do I but he’s not going to leave until we have searched this place from top to bottom.”

  They swung open the large cage door that was already unlocked and made their way in. The only things separating them from Alex and Kip were multiple heavy cupboards. They opened them and started tossing clothes and artwork out onto the ground, creating a huge messy pile.

  “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

  “Stop bitching.”

  The black guy moved around to work on the next cupboard and Alex could tell they were close to being caught. All he had to do was look down through the crack between the two cupboards and he would see them. Kip knew this too as he glanced at Alex and muttered the words, “Move around.”

  Alex shifted and moved out of view. However, there wasn’t enough room for both of them. He was about to tell Kip to take his place when…

  “Hey!” the black guy shouted.

  Now had he known what Kip was going to do next he would have stopped him, or at least come to his aid, but it all happened so quick. Kip stood up and put his hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.”

  “Get out here now.”

  They raised their guns at him and Alex could only watch in horror through a thin crack. He heard the sound of cupboards being shifted and then Kip being shoved up against a wall.

  “Anyone else back there?”

  “No, I’m alone,” he replied.

  Alex didn’t dare breathe or peek out from his hiding spot. He contemplated opening fire for a split second and he might have done so if it wasn’t for the thought of harm coming to Jess and Hayley from his actions. It wouldn’t help if both of them were caught. All he could do was listen as they dragged Kip out of there, forcing him towards the exit. Alex moved out and caught Kip glance back for a second before he disappeared around the corner. He waited a few minutes longer before making his way out and exiting the storage locker. He crossed the room fast, keeping his gun raised in expectation of being spotted. He heard their voices growing distant as they made their way up to the first floor. When he was certain it was safe to move, Alex took off to see where they were taking him.

  Kip pushed back against the men as they shoved him down the hallway, occasionally striking him in the back with the butt of their guns. “Keep moving, old man.”

  They took him to where his store was and shoved him into the room. Inside there was a tall, slender man with stubble and hair swept back sitting behind his table with his feet up. He was chewing on an apple.

  Kip’s legs buckled as he was forced to his knees.

  “There’s no need for that. Get him up,” the stranger said.

  Hauled to his feet, he groaned feeling a shot of pain go from his leg up his back. He wasn’t young anymore. Years gone by, he would have lashed out and taken a beating if need be, but that was when he was cocky and thought he could tackle anything that came his way. It was the same cockiness that had driven him into the Marines. Back then it was all about serving his country and protecting those he loved but his views had changed now that he was older, now that he’d seen the way the government had abandoned their veterans. Sure they had Veterans Day to honor those who had served but how did that help him pay his bills? How did that help him deal with the trauma of what he’d seen overseas? It was a joke. He loved the brotherhood and camaraderie but that was it.

  “What do we have here?” the man said tossing his apple into a trash can across the room and swinging his legs off the table.

  “Found him in the basement hiding behind storage lockers.”

  “Huh. Anyone else?”

  “Nope, just him.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  He eyed Kip. “And who might you be?”

  “The guy who fucked your mother,” Kip replied showing his disdain for him. He spat near the guy’s feet. There were a few things he wouldn’t put up with and answering to an asshole who killed innocents was one.

  “Cute.”

  The guy glanced at his shoulder tattoo. “Well lookie here, we have a Marine. A badass Marine.” He got real close to Kip. “I bet you’ve seen a lot of things in your time, haven’t you, old-timer?”

  “If you mean assholes like you. Yeah.”

  The guy smirked and walked over to the table and picked up a photo of his daughter, one sent to him years after her mother prevented him from having contact. It had been the only one he’d received, and it wasn’t her mother who sent it but his daughter. They’d planned to see one another in a few months for the first time. She’d written to him and they’d spoken once over the phone but that was it.

  “Your daughter?” the man asked.

  Kip said nothing. He walked over to the wall and glanced at a framed article that Doug had given to him on his sixtieth birthday as a way of thanking him for all his help. They’d had a local news crew come down and chat to him, take his photo, and featured it in the local paper. He’d relished that.

  The man squinted at the photo. “Kip Brown. The owner of the Kozy Korner who also assists with maintenance. Well looks like you are famous, Kip. It also looks like you know your way around this building.” He glanced back and smiled. “I’ll assume you’re familiar with the residents. Yes?”

  Kip said nothing.

  The man walked back over to him. “Greg Mitchell. You know him?” he asked. He waited for a response. When he didn’t get it, he continued. “I’ll take that as a yes. Well, you see, Kip, Greg had something of mine and I went to a lot of trouble to get it here only to have it go missing.”

  “The drugs,” Kip replied.

  “Oh, so you do know about it?”

  “Of course.”

  The man got this wide grin on his face as he got closer. “Where is it?”

  “Somewhere you won’t get your hands on it.”

  He scoffed. “Look, I admit what you did for our country was admirable but…”

  Befor
e he finished, he spun and threw a punch into Kip’s stomach causing him to heave and curl over. Cayden patted him on the back. “Come on, old man. I thought you Marines were tougher than that.”

  “You sonofabitch!” Kip spat.

  “I’ll ask again. Where is my package?”

  “In this building,”

  “Where?”

  “That’s for me to know and you never to find out.”

  “Gotta love this guy.” Cayden hit him again, this time knocking him out of the room into the hallway. Kip collapsed onto the ground and coughed hard. He struggled to get up, looking down the hallway to the stairwell. Beyond the crack of the door he saw Alex. Kip shook his head ever so slightly to indicate not to do anything.

  Cayden stepped out into the hallway, as did three of his men, guns trained on him. He crouched down and grabbed a hold of him by the back of the neck and launched two more strikes at his face, each one more brutal than the last. Blood dripped out of Kip’s mouth in large droplets, staining the floor below.

  “Last chance, old man. Where is it?”

  Kip could have told him or he could have lied but there was nothing that riled him more than a self-entitled prick who thought he could waltz into his home and kill people for no other reason than greed. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him.

  He twisted over onto his back gasping. He motioned with his hand for Cayden to come close as he mumbled under his breath. As Cayden got close, he lashed out and caught him on the edge of his chin, knocking him back before starting to laugh. Cayden spat blood from his mouth and got up off the ground, he removed his handgun and then jammed the muzzle into Kip’s mouth.

  “Where is it?” His voice boomed loudly.

  He pulled it out and Kip managed to muster the words, “Fuck you!”

  The gun erupted, and a round tore through his skull.

  Chapter 11

  The lights in the public safety building came back on and Ed Solomon breathed a sigh of relief. Deke Lewis, their guy who fixed any problem they had with technology, stood back from the generator. He was a barrel-chested man, with a round face and a permanent red nose from drinking one too many whiskeys. “There we go. We are up and running again. Let’s hope it holds.”

  “Good job.”

  They headed back up to the first floor and glanced out the window.

  “Scott, any sign of Alex yet?”

  “Not so far. However, we have a major problem.”

  “Oh no, what now?”

  “You need to see this.”

  Scott led him up to the third floor where the city council chambers were. It was a large room with a slanted roof, and lots of windows. There was a semi-circle table that was used by the council when they voted on issues and heard complaints. Scott led him over to the window and pointed.

  His eyed widened. The bay of Prince William Sound had risen over the banks and was starting to flood the harbor and town. In all his years, through all the storms they’d encountered, he’d never seen it breach the docks. Boats that were once in slips were now floating in the parking lot as a huge wave crashed and flooded the streets and all the seafood shacks and small buildings closed for the season. What was also surprising to see was large pieces of ice being pushed inland.

  “Holy shit.”

  “What do we do?” Scott asked.

  They’d never encountered a situation like this before. Sure, the weather had got bad and there were many weeks when folks didn’t venture out for fear of getting lost in a blizzard and freezing to death, but this was on a whole new level. Heavy snow and eighty mile an hour winds was one thing, but throw water into the mix and whatever communication they had to the outside world via the landlines would be gone.

  “We need to evacuate.”

  “But the tunnel is closed,” Scott said.

  Solomon nodded and hurried over to the closest landline phone, positioned on a desk across the room. He scooped it up. There was still a dial tone. Thank God! He dialed in the number for AKRR dispatch in Anchorage. Even though he could override the gates with a key, they usually opened the tunnel remotely. They’d had to do it numerous times when there was an emergency and someone needed to be rushed to the hospital.

  Someone picked up on the other end and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Thank God. This is Chief Solomon of the Whittier Police Department. I need—”

  Click. The line went dead.

  “Hello. Hello?” he yelled and tried again to phone but this time there was no dial tone. Absolutely nothing. “Shit!” He slammed the phone down hard. “The line is out.”

  Scott backed up to the window and glanced out. “What about the airport?”

  He shook his head. “There're no planes.”

  “But I saw one there this morning.”

  “It’s not in operation. It belongs to Bud Jenkins and that old coot wouldn’t let us near that even if it did work.”

  There was a small landing strip that was used for private planes but in the winter they rarely saw it used, and it was close to the harbor on the east side, which meant it was probably underwater by now. There were only two options, and that was to leave by boat or to head to the highest ground, which was Begich Towers. From there they would have to hope that the water would recede or the cold weather froze it.

  He tried one more time to get through to Anchorage but the line was dead.

  Without saying another word he took off to alert everyone else. That day there had only been a skeleton crew functioning. Most of the Whittier Fire Department and EMTs were volunteers, and they commuted in. With the extreme weather many didn’t make it and the few that had braved the Arctic conditions weren’t meant to start their shift until eight and by that time the tunnel had been closed. Apart from three police officers, one dispatcher, and two city officials there were only two workers from the fire department, and one EMT on hand.

  Within minutes water started splashing up against the front and rear doors seeping in and covering the floor in a thin layer of water.

  “Where’s Parker?” Solomon asked.

  “Before the lines went dead, he went out to the apartments on Blackstone Road to assist someone who called in to say the power was out and they needed help to get their grandmother to safety,” Debbie said as she went and put her coat on in preparation to leave. A tiny percentage of Whittier lived in what was known as Whittier Manor, it was a low-rise condo that overlooked the railyard. Somewhere between ten and twenty families lived there, mostly fishermen and those working in the canning plant.

  “All right. Gather what you can. Marty, see if you can find some boots and grab up the rain jackets.” Marty Rollins was chief of the fire service, a large guy in his early thirties, well-built and had been through more than one big event in the town. “Someone grab the radio equipment. Debbie, get your things and let’s go.”

  As they hurried collecting what they needed and making sure that no one else was in the building, the water rose to almost knee-deep outside. It was coming in faster than expected, wave after wave pushing inland, soaking and filling every inch of the town.

  “How did it rise so quickly?” Scott asked.

  Debbie shrugged looking petrified. Outside, the early afternoon light had vanished, overtaken by brooding dark clouds and a heavy fog that hung low at street level. If that wasn’t bad enough, the snow continued to fall reducing visibility.

  Their group stood by the door and Solomon gripped the handle. “You ready?”

  They could see the water pressed up against the door and knew it was going to flood in the second they opened it wide. He pulled back the door and had to cling to the handle to prevent himself from losing his footing. Frigid waters rushed in, lapping up against the walls and their legs. Everyone braced themselves then began to move forward out into the cold. Bitter strong winds bit at their skin, trying to topple them over as they waded through what was quickly becoming knee-high water.

  On a
good day the distance between the Public Safety Department and Begich Towers was no more than a six-minute walk but with the water making it virtually impossible to move fast and the numerous obstacles in their path, that time would double.

  Their voices were almost lost in the gale.

  “What about Lucas?” Scott yelled. “We can’t leave him out there.”

  “Okay, listen up,” Solomon said turning towards the rest of them. “Make your way to the towers. Scott and I will go and get Lucas. Marty, you want to lead the way?”

  He nodded and made his way to the front, leading the rest of the group through the harsh blizzard. It couldn’t have got any worse. Rising water, whiteout conditions and winds that felt like they were high up on a mountain were causing all manner of destruction and danger.

  Inside the towers, Alex was in shock. He couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. He didn’t expect him to pull the trigger. As he climbed the stairs to the next floor, his mind was in turmoil. If it wasn’t for the atrocities he’d witnessed over in the Middle East, he might have been inclined to hand over the bag but he knew that wouldn’t have changed matters. His thighs burned as he climbed the steps, making his way to a place of perceived safety. He had no idea what to do other than to find somewhere to hide; somewhere he could gather his thoughts. He stopped on each floor to see if anyone was there. He made it to the third when he noticed it was clear. He shot out and entered the first apartment to his right. He closed the door and locked it and headed over to the window, gripping his gun tightly. His heart was pounding and his thoughts running rampant. As he looked out the window his mouth widened. Water was everywhere. It was as if the entire town’s streets had turned into rivers.

  Alex dropped down, pressing his back against the wall and holding the gun close to his chest. He tapped it a few times against his head. “Think. Think!”

  Overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, he slowed his breathing.