Chaotic Be Jack

by Robert Tarrant

  Moe and Justin both seemed startled by the question. Neither spoke for a few seconds as if they were replaying the events in their own minds. Finally Justin said emphatically, “We did everything we could, short of dying ourselves, and that wouldn’t have served any good purpose.”

  Moe exhaled deeply and said, “Boss, I asked myself that same question all of the way back here. The car was gone. Owen must have been inside it when it went into the Intracoastal.”

  Justin spoke up. “I know he was inside it, the last thing I saw as I was being pushed under water by the car was Owen sliding back inside. He went into the Intracoastal in that car.” He paused and then added, “The sunroof and the driver’s window were both open. If he was a strong swimmer, he may have gotten out, but you saw the conditions out there. The Intracoastal was flowing like a rampaging river. I doubt that anyone could have made it to shore before they were pummeled to death. Strong swimmer or not.”

  I said, “Maybe we should have stayed along the edge and looked for him?”

  Justin shook his head and said, “Jack, the three of us were nearly exhausted at the time. It’s a wonder we didn’t fall in as it was. If we’d have stayed in that flowing water along the edge, it would have ended with more deaths. You saw the conditions, sometimes we couldn’t see fifteen feet if front of us in that driving rain. Searching further would have ended in disaster. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to save someone, no matter how much you want to.”

  I believed Justin’s words, it’s just that I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow we had let Owen . . . and Julia down. Maybe when I saw what they were driving, I should have insisted that they ride with one of us. Maybe . . . maybe we . . . maybe . . . I don’t know what we should have done differently, but I felt sick inside.

  We all fell quiet for a few minutes. The only sound was the incessant howling of the wind and the occasional startling thud of something flying up against one of the plywood shutters covering the back wall. The eerie flickering on and off of the lights just further contributed to the jangling of my nerves. I looked first to Moe and then to Justin and asked, “I could use a drink, what about you guys?”

  They both nodded and replied, “Yeah.”

  I went around the bar and took the keys from their hiding place to unlock one of the liquor cabinets. I’ll need to amend the hurricane preparedness checklist to include leaving one bottle out. I pulled a bottle of Booker’s bourbon from the cabinet and set it and three shot glasses on the bar. I’m not much of a bourbon drinker, but the situation just seemed like it called for a good healthy shot of something stronger than my usual Landshark beer. I filled the three shot glasses to the rim and returned the bottle to the cabinet. We needed to calm our nerves and take the edge off of our aches and pains, not anesthetize ourselves.

  Justin lifted one of the glasses and said, “Here’s to living through the night.”

  I said, “I’ll sure drink to that.”

  Moe added, “Damn right.”

  We clinked glasses and each drained the bourbon in one drink. It burned so much and felt so good at the same time.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The pitching and rolling of the New London had become so violent that twice engineering had been unable to override the low oil sensors quickly enough to prevent the diesel power plant from stopping. They had been able to restart it both times, but for precious moments the huge ship had been totally defenseless against the raging sea. Chief Engineer Dotson had reported to the bridge that he had several injuries among the men working in the confines of the engine room.

  Looking at the endless blob of red that covered the weather radar screen, Chief Mate Hans Nilsson couldn’t help but feel that they were sailing directly into a portal to hell. The intensity of the battering the New London was taking from every direction made it nearly impossible to remain upright on the bridge. Suddenly, Second Mate Cox gasped and pointed at a ceiling mounted monitor that showed the closed circuit television view of the cargo deck from the back of the bridge. The image on the screen showed a stack of forty-foot long cargo containers toppling into the roiling ocean.

  The blaring alarm indicated that the autopilot had again been overpowered by the relentless waves. The helmsman silenced the alarm but didn’t attempt to reset the autopilot. This was the fifth time the alarm had sounded in the past hour. He would control the ship manually from this point on. At least that would eliminate one blaring alarm from the cacophony of sirens and bells that kept signaling first one and then another peril assaulting the ship and crew.

  Between the battering of the waves, the force of the hurricane strength winds, the sloshing of the water in the hold, and the shifting of containers on the cargo deck, it had become nearly impossible to control the ship to any predictable degree. The helmsman looked back toward the captain and, to be heard over the dim of the storm, screamed, “I can’t hold her, sir. I can’t hold her.”

  Chief Mate Nilsson turned toward the captain and yelled, “I recommend we abandon ship, sir.”

  After looking around the bridge as if attempting to absorb the words, Captain Clark stood and steadied himself by locking his arm around his high-backed chair saying to Second Mate Cox, “Send the distress signal. Mark our location and send the distress signal.” Picking up the phone, he screamed into the receiver, “Chief Engineer, prepare the crew to abandon ship. Immersion suits, life jackets, and boats. We will be sounding general alarm. Repeat, we are sounding general alarm to abandon ship.”

  Moments later Captain Clark turned toward Chief Mate Nilsson and said, loudly and firmly, “First Mate, sound general alarm. Sound general alarm and abandon ship.”

  Nilsson repeated, “Sound general alarm and abandon ship. Aye, sir.”

  Seven short blasts of a siren followed by one long blast signaled the general alarm. Nilsson reached for the public address microphone. Clark staggered across the bucking bridge and grabbed the microphone from him. “This is the captain speaking. We are abandoning ship. Report to your muster stations and prepare to abandon ship. Each boat is to launch on command of the coxswain. May God be with us all.” It is doubtful that anyone heard the announcement over the howl of the storm and the scream of twisting metal as the ship and cargo came apart, but the procedures had been drilled into each and every crew member. First Mate Nilsson had seen to that.

  The first enclosed lifeboat launched fifteen minutes after the sounding of the general alarm. The boat had just reached the angry sea when a stack of containers toppled over the deck railing. The first containers split the lifeboat open like a ripe melon. Those that followed drove the boat and its occupants to the bottom of the ocean.

  The bow of the New London rose up on a huge wave until the ship was pointed toward the screaming sky at a seventy-degree angle. Another equally powerful wave caught the ship on the port side near the stern. The steel hull cried out in agony as it twisted and broke. Before the next series of waves reached it, the New London slipped beneath the surface.

  After considerable property damage in the Caribbean Islands, but no loss of life, Hurricane Ella had tasted its first blood as it roared toward the Florida coastline.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PJ had expected the drive to Gainesville to take about five hours. With the heavy traffic, poor weather, and frequent stops necessary when traveling with her elderly in-laws, the journey had taken just over eight hours and given her a pounding tension headache. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice people to be around, it’s just that their age meant stopping to stretch one’s legs or use the restroom every hour or so, and every stop seemed to get longer in duration. Additionally, with their diminished hearing, conversation in the car seemed more like a constant yelling match. Still, she knew she had done the right thing getting them out of South Florida before the storm arrived. Life was going to be difficult down there for some time. They would be much more comfortable in Gainesville.

  She’d gotten her in-laws settled into a guest bedroom on the first floor, so
they wouldn’t need to climb the stairs, and she and Angela had taken rooms at opposite ends of the hallway upstairs. Upon their arrival, PJ had mentioned her invitation to Jack. Her friend had acknowledged the unspoken implications of that with a wink and immediately made the suggestion for room assignments. When Jack showed up, he could take the room that shared the Jack and Jill bathroom with PJ’s room. Her friend had made some vague comment about two women having too much bathroom stuff to share the Jack and Jill. PJ couldn’t help but wonder if they were pulling anything over on Angela. She expected not, but chose not to think about it.

  It was late afternoon and, not having heard from Jack, she decided she should reach out to him to see how his journey was going. Traffic was no doubt even heavier than it had been when she made the drive. She called his cell phone and got voicemail, so she left a message saying she was just checking on his progress. After an hour more passed and she hadn’t heard from him she called again, but again got voicemail. She left a second message and asked him to call with his ETA, concealing her concern with a lame statement about wanting to hold dinner for him.

  When she hadn’t heard back from him an hour later, she called the phone at Cap’s Place, but it also went unanswered. There was no voicemail on the landline at Cap’s place, so she couldn’t leave a message. She decided to call Marge and see if she knew anything. She thought about Moe but realized she didn’t have a cell number for him. It took several attempts to reach Marge, as the cellular circuits were becoming overloaded. The call provided no relief from her growing worry as Marge said she’d left Jack and Moe at Cap’s Place over three hours earlier. Marge also mentioned the street flooding she had encountered. Marge said she would attempt to reach Jack and if she was successful, she’d ask him to call PJ.

  PJ scrolled through her contact list and found the number of a uniform sergeant at Hollywood she knew worked in their emergency management section. She was surprised when he answered on the second ring. “Mark, this is PJ. I hate to bother you, knowing how busy things must be right now, but I’m in Gainesville and I can’t get through to some people down there.”

  He interrupted her, “Shit, PJ, you know I’ll help if I can, but frankly communication is becoming more and more difficult by the minute. Last I heard, dispatch had over two hundred welfare checks backed up. We can’t get to hardly any of them, just too much going on. They’ve already pulled everybody off the streets east of the Intracoastal and I think they’re going to pull everybody off the streets in the whole city soon. Wind’s just too strong. Shit’s blowing around like confetti during a World Series parade.” He paused and then asked, “Who are you looking for anyway?”

  PJ explained about Jack and Moe and the fact that they should have left Cap’s Place hours ago, but that she couldn’t reach them. She quickly added that she knew there could be any number of explanations, but that the situation just didn’t feel right to her. As soon as she had said it, she realized how much she sounded like an insecure wife or girlfriend.

  There was a long pause on the line and then the sergeant said, “Coming from anybody else I’d just blow it off, but I recall your gut instincts saving people’s asses more than once, so let me see what I can do. Don’t count on anything, because, like I told you, we’ve already pulled our patrols off the streets in that area. I will check with the guys who made one last pass in the area before we raised the bridges and see if possibly they had contact with your guys.”

  “They raised the bridges?”

  “Yeah, they had to as a means to assure that no one would cross into the area once they pulled the guys off the street.”

  “How the hell are people supposed to evacuate?”

  “They should have already evacuated, but if they haven’t, they’ll need to go south to the Lehman Causeway.”

  PJ thought to herself, And how the hell would they know that? but she left it unsaid. “I appreciate you checking, Mark. Please call if you learn anything.”

  “Will do, PJ, I’ve captured your number in my phone. I’ll call if I find anything out.”

  PJ stuck her phone in her pocket and stared out the window. It was almost surreal. Such a nice day where she was now, but where she was a few short hours ago a catastrophic storm was arriving. She’d gone through enough storms as a cop, when she couldn’t leave to get out of harm’s way, to know that the inevitable outcome was that property would be destroyed and people would lose their lives.

  PJ sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around herself, hoping to ward off the chill that had suddenly enveloped her. Shaking her head as if she needed to clear cobwebs from her brain she said aloud, “What the hell, PJ, you know that those who die are people too stubborn, or too naive, to heed the warnings.” Another chill caused her to shudder as she realized that Jack fit both of those, stubborn and naive.

  She again pulled out her phone but couldn’t think of anyone else to call, so she stuffed it back into her pocket and attempted to will herself to quit worrying.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The three of us were sitting at the bar, allowing the bourbon to work its magic and watching the lights flicker off and back on. I was startled as the back door opened. I’d become almost desensitized to the roar of the storm outside, but suddenly it surged inside, riding on a burst of moisture laden air. For a second I thought that the door had blown open, but since it opens out, it would mean that the wind had somehow sucked the door open. My confusion was stilled when a man burst through the doorway. He was immediately followed by a second guy who pulled the door closed behind him. They stood just inside the entryway shaking the water from their clothes.

  The first guy was about 6 feet tall and 220 pounds of what appeared to be a mix of muscle and solid fat. Stringy black hair fell to the collar of his shirt. He had a narrow pockmarked face with a set of teeth drastically in need of a dentist. He was wearing a black long-sleeved work shirt, faded black jeans and heavy boots that looked like something a utility lineman would wear. He gazed upon the three of us with piercing black eyes.

  The second guy was a mountain of a man standing at least 6 foot 6 inches tall and weighing somewhere around 250 pounds with the physique of a dedicated weightlifter who may have indulged in an occasional steroid. He was larger and looked every bit as powerful as Moe. His hair was cropped close to his head. He was dressed just like the first guy, in a long-sleeved dark work shirt, black jeans, and heavy boots. His watery eyes didn’t seem to be tracking in unison. He had the strap of a large duffle bag slung over his shoulder. From the looks of the strain on the strap, the bag must have been heavy.

  After his piercing eyes had taken in the entire room, the first guy’s gaze settled on the three of us. He said, “Wow, are we glad to find you guys. We thought we were going to be trapped out there in the storm. The streets are flooded and they raised the bridges, so you can’t even get away from here. We saw the car outside the door and hoped someone else was still here. My name’s Ty and,” gesturing toward his huge partner, “this is Mooch.”

  There was a long pause as the three of us processed the arrival of these totally unexpected newcomers. Finally, I said, “Well, come on in. We’re not open, but you can certainly take refuge here until we all figure out what we’re going to do.” I knew our plan was to ride the storm out right where we were, but there was something about these two guys that made me unwilling to share that fact with them, at least not just yet. Evidently, Moe and Justin felt the same way because neither of them even twitched at my misrepresentation.

  I gestured toward a nearby table and said, “Grab a seat. You guys hungry? We just had some sandwiches. Can’t offer much with the kitchen all shut down for the storm, but we can make some cold sandwiches if you’re hungry.”

  Ty replied, “Yeah, that would be great. Cold sandwiches are more than we thought we’d be eating tonight.”

  Moe got up from his stool and said to me, “I’ll go put some more sandwiches together.” As he walked past Ty and Mooch on his way to the kitc
hen, Mooch turned and tracked Moe with his eyes. That was when I first saw the tattoo of the iron cross on the back of his neck.

  Ty pointed toward the empty shot glasses on the bar. “Boy, a drink would sure be nice. Been quite the ordeal out there.”

  I looked at the glasses and then to him, “Oh, sorry. We just drained the last little bit from the only bottle that wasn’t locked away. Head bartender locks away all the booze and takes the keys with her.”

  Ty nodded slowly, his eyes boring holes into me. “Suppose all the beer taps are locked up, too.” His tone didn’t even attempt to hide his sarcasm.

  Justin swiveled on his stool and said, “No, the taps aren’t locked. But the system is shut down and drained. The place has been prepared for evacuation. Few more minutes you’d have found the door locked and no one here. There’s a major hurricane coming you know.” His tone was every bit as sarcastic as Ty’s had been. I was surprised by Justin interjecting himself, but can’t say I was disappointed.

  Mooch dropped the heavy duffle on the floor and he and Ty sat down at the table I had indicated. Ty said, “Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. Hell of a storm out there. There are cars abandoned all over. We’re driving a big pickup and even with that a couple of times I thought we were going to flood out. I’m just a little rattled. We’re sure thankful for the shelter.”

  Justin looked first to Mooch and then back to Ty. He asked, “What brought you guys out into this mess anyway?”

  Ty seemed to hesitate before replying, “Ah, we work for a utility up in Georgia, electrical utility, they sent us down here to pre-stage for the storm. Some agreement they have with the local utilities to provide help during major outages. Anyway the directions got screwed up and they sent us here rather than to the staging area a hundred miles back, where we should have been. Damn front office guys can’t get anything right. Anyway, by the time we figured out what was going on, we were trapped here. Couldn’t get back across that big waterway.”