Broken Tide | Book 4 | Backflow

by Richardson, Marcus

  "Little punk surprised me," Spanner admitted sourly. "Ain't never been so embarrassed…that skinny little snot-nosed…” He rubbed his throat. "Got me right in the throat with a frickin’ tree branch as I stepped around the corner."

  “Did you see him?” Asked Cami as she peered into the bushes.

  “Oh yeah, it’s the same guy, alright.”

  Flynt stooped and picked up a stout branch. "The little meth-head’s getting smart…”

  A branch snapped in the distance and leaves fluttered to the ground. “Should we go after him?” asked Spanner.

  Cami shook her head. "There's no point. Anybody got flashlights?" No one responded. "It's dark and he's motivated to get away.” She knelt and picked up a clump of disturbed mulch. “We'll never catch him before he gets into the forest preserve. Without night vision or flashlights, he's as good as gone." She stood and brushed off her hands. "Question is, what was he doing here, and what's it mean?"

  Flynt frowned, the shadows on his face in stark relief by the angled light from the tiki torches on the other side of the house. "It means we gotta get ready—something's about to go down. That little punk doesn't have the brains to come up with something on his own, and he certainly doesn't have the brains for recon."

  Cami nodded and swallowed. She hoped everyone else in her group was able to get their own intelligence gathering accomplished, because she sure hadn’t been able to do anything. Guilt wormed in her gut—there they stood complaining about a spy in their midst, when she’d put four spies of her own into play. She cleared her throat. “You think he's working with someone then?"

  Flynt stared into the darkness and tossed the tree branch aside. “I’d bet my life on it. Punk like that? He's barely smart enough to tie his own shoes. Question is, who sent him? And what’re they planning?"

  Spanner looked at Flynt. “You think it's Cisco?"

  "I'd bet money that it is."

  Cami frowned. “Who's Cisco?"

  Flynt sighed and turned to face her. "We need to talk."

  Chapter 8

  Long Island Sound

  Off the coast of Manhattan Island

  Reese grabbed Tony's hand as Sailfish’s cutterboat bumped against Tiberia’s starboard side. Somewhere in the 20 minutes he'd spent on board the Coast Guard cutter the two sailboats had spun around in the currents and Intrepid faced Manhattan.

  Lieutenant Commander Ortiz’s words had struck a chord in Reese's soul. He didn't have the luxury to wait while the Coast Guard driver casually motored around the other side of the rafted sailboats. He needed to get aboard whichever boat was closest; he needed to get them separated, and they needed to raise sail and get under way. Now.

  He clambered aboard Tiberia and grinned despite his internal misgivings. It was good to be back among friends. “Thanks,” he said with a smile.

  “I feel like we should play a song or something…like they do in the movies when a captain comes back aboard a ship…”

  “Don’t be stupid, Tony, that’s just Hollywood…” muttered Byron as he fussed over some coiled lines on the deck near the mast. “Will you stow that football of yours?” he asked as he pointed at the recalcitrant ball.

  Tony snatched it up from the deck and tossed it down the companionway when he saw the coastie watching him.

  Gellar stood up in the cutterboat and handed over a large combat medic pack. "I saw that first aid kit you guys had earlier. Not bad, but you're going to need more where you're going. Take this.”

  “Wow,” Tony said, as he hefted the bag onto Tiberia’s deck. “What you got in there, a surgeon?”

  “We can’t take that—“ Reese began.

  “Shut up, boy, take the gear,” snapped Jo, still aboard Intrepid, behind Reese. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Gellar laughed. “You should listen to your friend there, Lavelle. Cap’n doesn't know I'm giving it to you, so get it stowed quick before she sees."

  “On it,” Tony said. He carried the large bag of supplies across to Intrepid and stowed it below decks.

  Reese reached down and shook Gellar’s hand. "Thank you. I mean that," Reese said. "Between the supplies you're giving us and the heads up on the storm—“

  "Storm?" Byron said as he stood by the mast. "What storm?"

  “Tell you in a second," Reese said. He turned back to Gellar.

  “Here’s some food and water, too, compliments of Lieutenant Commander Ortiz.”

  “You must have made an impression over there,” Byron grunted.

  Reese took the pre-packaged food, and though his stomach growled—he hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch the day before—he couldn’t think of anything other than the incoming storm and what it might mean for Cami and Amber. Without power, they’d have no idea the storm was coming. He placed the MREs on the deck, then took a crate of bottled water. "Seriously, thank you for this."

  Gellar shook his head. "Thank you. Cap’n wasn't about to say it, but I think if you guys hadn’t shown up when you did, we wouldn't be here to be handing over supplies. She made a mistake…” he said as he lowered his voice and leaned toward Reese. "When she pulled that risky maneuver toward the end? She exposed the whole aft end of the boat and we got tore up pretty bad. I lost two good men. I got seven more in sick bay. She knows it and the crew knows it, too. Without you guys, those gang bangers on the yacht woulda won.” He shook Reese’s hand again. "Thank you—we’re not going to forget this."

  Reese gave a small wave as Gellar pushed the cutterboat away. He and the other coastie saluted as the zodiac drifted out and only sat when the driver put the engines in gear and pulled away.

  Reese took a second to watch the ongoing rescue operation underway on the other side of Sailfish. Smoke still poured from the dead yacht and obscured the southern horizon. Behind him, smoke boiled out of dozens of burning buildings as New York City continued to tear itself apart. The world was wreathed in shades of gray and black.

  "Wow, they gave us a lot of stuff," Tony muttered as he reappeared on Tiberia’s deck.

  "That was so thoughtful of them," Libby said as she emerged from below with a tray of crackers topped with slices of SPAM. "Anyone hungry?"

  "Food can wait," Byron growled as he stomped up the deck toward Reese. "What’s this storm he was talking about?"

  “I’ll take some,” Tony said as he snagged a couple SPAM crackers.

  “Why don’t you split up the supplies they gave us?” asked Libby.

  “Sure, thing,” Tony said around a mouthful of SPAM. He disappeared through the companionway after taking one more cracker.

  Reese took a deep breath and gestured at the Coast Guard boat. “Lieutenant Ortiz—she's in command of Sailfish over there. She told me the navy's been tracking a tropical system. They think it's going to turn into a hurricane—and a bad one—but they can't predict when, and they don't know where."

  "They got a cone?" asked Byron, his face deadly serious.

  "A cone of what?" asked Jo as she lounged against the shared railing between the two boats, her bandaged leg propped up on the bench.

  Reese turned and offered a slight smile. "The cone of probability. It's where the hurricane might make landfall, somewhere inside a widening cone from its current position. The closer in time to landfall, the more accurate the prediction, the narrower the cone. If you’re talking a week from landfall, the cone could be huge. If it’s tomorrow, the cone’s pretty narrow.”

  “What about this cone?” asked Jo.

  “Ortiz told me the southern end of the cone touches the Florida-Georgia line and the northern end of the cone is somewhere near the Outer Banks. Anywhere in there is where it's most likely to hit."

  Byron whistled. "That's a lot of coastline…”

  "Agreed," said Reese as he put his hands on his hips. "Ortiz said that we should hurry. Well…she said that I should hurry," he added. "Y'all should be fine getting to Baltimore, but we're headed straight into the teeth of this monster and I'd like to get und
erway as fast as possible,” he said with a nod toward Jo.

  "I don't know if you've seen, but Tiberia’s sporting some new beauty marks that weren’t there a couple weeks ago," Byron announced. “I’d like to get her patched up before we go too much further," he added.

  "You and me both," Reese said. "But I don't know if we have enough time. Is anybody leaking right now?"

  Byron shook his head. Jo raised her hand. "Yeah, I am."

  Libby snorted, and put the tray down before she passed a plate over the railing to Jo. "Oh, hush," she chided gently.

  “Here’s your half of the MREs they gave us,” Tony said as he emerged from below deck with an armful of brown-packaged survival food. He handed them over to Reese. “I’ll be right back with the water.”

  Reese shook his head as he took the food from Tony. "If there's no active leaks, I think we need to get going, right now." He moved across Tiberia’s deck and stepped aboard Intrepid. He looked down at Jo and deposited the MREs in the cockpit next to her. “What do you think?"

  She raised both hands. "Don't ask me, I don't know anything about sailing. You've proved to me that you mostly know what you're doing—I’ll go with whatever you decide." She picked at the MREs. “Chicken a la king?” she asked as she turned the packet over and read the contents. “I swear, the Coast Guard eats high on the hog.” She grunted. “Someone scratched out ‘king’ on the back and wrote ‘death’ with a sharpie.” She looked up at Reese. “I think our new friends gave us the ones they didn’t like...”

  Reese frowned, then turned and looked at Byron, Tony, and Libby.

  Libby adjusted the floppy straw hat on her head and glanced up at Byron. “Are we in immediate danger of sinking? Other than worrying about the chicken a la death MRE that Jo found..."

  Byron shrugged. "It's hard to tell. What we need to do is find a dry dock and get these holes up out of the water so we can see if there's any serious damage. If you're asking are we taking on water right this second? Then the answer’s no, we’re not. Will we be able to handle rough seas in front of a hurricane?" He shrugged again.

  Tony emerged from Tiberia’s hold once more with half a case of water in his arms. "Well, there's one way to find out," Tony said with more grit in his voice than Reese had heard before. He handed the water bottles to Reese. "Uncle Byron, Aunt Libby…Reese and Jo have put their necks on the line for us more than once. Shoot, they pulled me out of the water last night and saved my life," he said. "I'm for whatever we can do to help them get home."

  Libby smiled and patted her nephew's arm.

  Byron sighed heavily. "I appreciate everything you've done as well," he said. "And at the end of the day, we’re not taking on water. We’re probably fine."

  Reese put the water bottles on the bench aboard Intrepid next to the MREs and sighed. The plan he’d formed in the back of his mind, to just hijack Intrepid and take off whether Byron wanted him to leave or not, evaporated with the tension that had kept his back ramrod straight for the past 20 minutes. He nodded. "Thank you," he said in a quiet voice.

  Byron tugged on his skipper’s hat. "Let's get on with it." He reached down and immediately untied one of the lines that lashed Tiberia to Intrepid.

  Reese nodded and moved to the bows, where he untied the second line that held them together. The second the two boats were separated, Tony scrambled down the length of Tiberia and pulled the cylindrical black rubber fenders back aboard.

  "All right, let's get this dog and pony show on the road," Byron said. He moved back to Tiberia’s cockpit and ordered Tony to raise the mainsail.

  Reese clambered over the deck and into Intrepid’s cockpit. He glanced at Byron. “Jibs?"

  "Everything you got!" Byron called out. A grin split his face. "I'll race you to the Chesapeake."

  "Oh, boy…” Jo moaned. "I'm not gonna like this, am I?”

  Reese settled himself behind the wheel and reached for the winch that would raise the mainsail. A grin split his face. “Better hold on to something, Jo.”

  Chapter 9

  Spalding Residence

  Bee’s Landing Subdivision

  Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina

  Lavelle crossed her arms as she stood in Harriet’s kitchen. “Okay, we’re inside. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  Darien exhaled and leaned on the counter. He looked at Spanner, who nodded encouragement. "I think we have a problem,” he said. “I know who the stranger was."

  Lavelle looked at her daughter, then spread her hands. "Well, by all means, enlighten us."

  "The guy that mugged you,” Darien said to the co-ed. “The guy that you saw, he was part of my crew…in the beginning," he added quickly. Before Lavelle or her daughter could interrupt, he plowed ahead. "Him and his partner—the fat one—went out looking for supplies and when we found them, they had backpacks full of vegetables. They said they took ‘em off a couple kids…”

  “You’re telling me that your guys are the ones who mugged my daughter?" Lavelle growled.

  Darien raised his hands. "Look, that seems like it was a lifetime ago—“

  “Not to me!" the girl hissed with just as much vehemence as her mother. "I still have the bruises on my arm," she said as she thrust her forearm out. In the dim light of the tiki torches from the party, he could barely see the bruise on her arm.

  "And I'm sorry for that,” Darien said truthfully, “those two got what they deserved during the…unfortunate confrontation…”

  “You mean the time you tried to burn Marty's house down and kill us all?”

  Darien sighed. "Look, I never wanted to kill anyone. This isn’t an easy—“

  “Good," Lavelle snarled as she crossed her arms. "You caused a lot of pain and suffering—I’m never going to let you forget that. Now, what's going—“

  “Look," Flynt said, raising his voice for the first time, "I'm trying to say I'm sorry, and do the right thing here, alright? I think I've done a pretty good job of making amends for all that mess—it’s not gonna happen again—“

  “You're darn right it’s not gonna happen again," Lavelle said. “The next man that lays a hand on my daughter’s gonna get a bullet to the face."

  Darien set his mouth in a grim line but nodded. "I agree. If I was there to see it, I would've done it myself. But that's neither here nor there—what's done is done, as much as I'd like to take it back, I can't. So, I’m not gonna waste any more time thinking about it.” He took a deep breath as her eyes blazed. He pitied the woman’s husband. “What we have to worry about right now is the future…”

  "What, worry about that little punk?” Lavelle’s feisty daughter blurted. “I know exactly what I’ll do the next time I see him.” She put her hand on the pistol at her hip.

  "And if you want, I'll hold him down for you," growled Darien. "But that little pipsqueak of a meth-head isn’t who I'm worried about. It's who he's working for.”

  Lavelle raised her hands and showed her palms to stop him. “Wait, what? How do you know he's working with somebody?" asked Lavelle. “He was just sneaking around the party, right? Probably attracted by the smell of all that food…”

  “He's too stupid, even for that,” Spanner said. “If he was really here to steal food, we’d have caught him right away.”

  Darien nodded. “Agreed. There's no way he would've thought to hide in the shadows like that and watch the party. Somebody told him to do that."

  "Okay, I give up. Who told him to do that?" Lavelle said, throwing her arms wide. "Wait—let me guess,” she said, as she looked at the ceiling, “it's somebody else that used to work for you…?”

  Darien looked away.

  "Oh no," the girl moaned.

  "It is, isn't it?” demanded Lavelle. “I can see by that hangdog look on your face. Good grief—is there anybody else that you used to work with that's gonna threaten us?"

  Darien shook his head and clenched his fists. He deserved that, despite how much it irritated him to hear it thrown in his face like that
. “If I'm right and it is who I think it is, trust me—he'll be plenty bad enough."

  Lavelle pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat heavily. She rested her elbows on the table and propped her face up in her hands. "Okay," she sighed, “explain how bad this is going to be."

  Darien joined her at the table and sat. "When we rolled in here a couple weeks back, I had two escaped convicts we’d picked up on the way from Charleston—“

  She leaned back and crossed her arms. “And how is that any better than the other criminals that you've surrounded yourself with?"

  Spanner stepped forward. "Hey, I've never been to prison—I ain’t no escapee." He spat.

  “A thousand apologies, your honor,” Lavelle said sarcastically. She looked at Flynt and raised her eyebrows for him to carry on.

  "These were two rough dudes. One named Lopez, the other Cisco."

  "Lopez was a bruiser,” Spanner explained, “but he was an idiot.”

  Darien nodded. “He died during the…unpleasantness."

  "Good, one less scumbag to worry about." Lavelle snapped. "What's the story with this Cisco, then?"

  Darien sighed. It would take a lot to calm her down, that much was obvious. He had to skate on thin ice—she was the leader of the whole neighborhood and many thought of her as its savior. They’d do anything for her, including, he assumed, ripping him limb from limb if she screamed ‘murder.’ He leaned forward to stare into her eyes and show how serious he was. “Cisco’s cut from a different cloth. Not quite as big as Lopez, but plenty strong and mean—smart, too. That’s what makes him dangerous. Whenever I saw him watching something or somebody, I could see the wheels turning,” he said as he tapped the side of his own head. “I knew that one was going to be trouble from the get-go."

  "And yet you still brought him along for the fun of it, huh?” Lavelle asked. "Thank you so much for bringing so many fine, upstanding citizens to my neighborhood…”