Storm Surge

by Rhoades, J. D.

  Torres looked around at the rapidly disappearing crowd. “What do I do when I find him?”

  “Shoot him,” Bohler snarled.

  “Sir?”

  Bohler sighed. “Okay, don’t shoot him. But bring his ass here.” He looked over at McMurphy, who was showing his picture to the blonde kid. The kid was nodding. “Oh yeah,” he said. “That’s that guy. Max. He works at the marina.”

  “Was he on the boat?” McMurphy said.

  The blonde kid screwed up his face in concentration. “I’m not sure…”

  The Latina spoke up. “I saw him at the office,” she said. “He was getting his check.”

  McMurphy looked around. “You see him get off the boat, either?” They looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Maybe he got lost in the crowd,” Bohler said.

  “Maybe,” McMurphy answered grimly. “Or maybe two innocent people are trapped on that island with a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Who?” the blonde kid asked. “Max? What are you, nuts? Max is an okay dude.”

  McMurphy’s mouth set in a tight line. “How well do you know him?”

  The blonde kid shrugged. “I know him to talk to. You know, ‘how’s it hangin’ Max?’ ‘Okay, Sonny, how’ve the waves been?’ Y’know, stuff like that.”

  “So you think if you ask an actual contract killer ‘how’s it hangin’, Max?’ he’d answer, ‘not bad, Sonny, you know, one time I shot four men in a bar then set the bar on fire so the two guys who were only wounded, and who might have made it, burned to death?”

  Sonny just stared at him.

  McMurphy grimaced. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in twenty-two years of law enforcement, kid, it’s that nobody knows anybody.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sharon ran through the rain as hard as she could, her breath like fire in her lungs. She could hear Glory’s Nikes splashing on the muddy path behind her and felt a brief flash of envy when she realized the girl wasn’t even breathing hard. She looked up the path ahead to where Max was pounding along ahead of them. He didn’t seem particularly winded either. If I get out of this alive, she thought, I am definitely quitting smoking. She thought of what he’d said to her after he’d killed the man who was about to…her mind sheared away from completing the thought. But she kept coming back to Max’s words, the matter-of-fact tone in his voice.

  He needed killing.

  It was a flat, unemotional judgment, pitiless as the Old Testament. You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. There was nothing in the voice or in the face of the man who said those words that even remotely resembled slow-talking, amiable Max. The man who could say those words so calmly or who could bury a cleaver in a man’s head was someone she’d never met, possessing the body of someone she thought she at least knew a little about.

  But he wasn’t wrong, a voice said in her mind. That man deserved to die. You would have killed him yourself to save your daughter. And yourself. Sharon’s train of thought was interrupted as her foot slipped out from under her. She stumbled, grabbed frantically at nothing. The gun in her hands went flying. Then Sharon was lying face down in the light-brown muck of the pathway that the pounding rain was turning from soggy to soupy. She got a mouthful of water, spit it out, gagging and gasping for breath. She looked up. Max had slung the machine gun on his shoulder. He was standing over her, looking down with no expression on his face. He had his hand out to help her up. She got to her knees, brushing uselessly at the mud caked on the front of her jeans and blouse. She didn’t take his hand. Lightning cracked above her, freezing everything for a second in its harsh glare. The thunder that followed close behind was so loud it seemed as if it would flatten her back down into the earth. In that instant, Max looked like an apparition from Hell.

  “Go away,” she whispered at him. “Just go away.” His expression never changed. He stood there, hand out, as the thunder rolled and boomed around them. Then Glory was bending at her side, pulling her up. “Come ON, Mom!” she pleaded. Max withdrew his hand, his face still blank. He picked up the shotgun and looked down. It too was caked with mud, a plug of the stuff sticking out of the barrel. He handed the weapon to Glory. “Come on,” was all he said. He turned and stared running again.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Glory said frantically.

  Sharon turned and looked at her daughter. “He’s not a good guy, baby,” she said.

  Glory looked after him. He was far ahead and pulling away. “Maybe not,” she said, “But he may be the bad guy we need right now.”

  They ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It had been a struggle humping the heavy bags up the ancient rickety wooden stairway that spiraled up the interior wall of the old lighthouse. The stairway was narrow and cramped and the bags caught and dragged on the ragged wood.

  More than once, Phillips cursed the luck that had put them so short-handed. If we do meet serious resistance, Worth had said, this won’t be nearly enough. And now, even the inconvenience of a civilian and her teenaged daughter was proving an impediment.

  Phillips was not a superstitious man, but he couldn’t help but wonder if some angry deity hadn’t placed him on some sort of cosmic blacklist. His last assignment had ended badly, with the entire team dead and the mission objective turning out to have been worthless.

  Unfortunately, Phillips had only discovered that after attempting to procure the object for himself. It had taken some fast talking to persuade his employer that there had merely been a misunderstanding, and he’d been let know that he was under serious scrutiny. This mission had been assigned as penance. The others didn’t know, but he was doing this one on the cuff.

  Finally, he was at the top, where the stairs came up through a trapdoor into the watch room, a wide circular space that once held fuel and supplies for the big oil lamp that provided the light. At one time, the empty space in the center of the watch room had held the machinery to turn the giant, exquisitely engineered lenses that focused the lamp’s glow into a mighty beam which could cut through rain and fog to warn passing mariners off the rocks and shoals near the island. That lens was long gone since the Coast Guard had deactivated the old light. It sat, Phillips supposed, in a museum somewhere. Only an empty hole in the ceiling of the watch room remained. There was a ladder halfway around the circle from the stairs, leading straight up through a trapdoor to the former lantern room. Phillips had to take two trips to haul his burden up there. When he was done, he looked around and gave a low whistle.

  The lantern room was a glass cage, with thick storm panes reinforced by steel beams outside and in. The room gave a commanding view of the island, from one end to the other. Phillips could see over the tops of houses, all the way to the clubhouse at the other end. He looked out at the sea. It was slate-gray, shot through with white foam, pitching and rolling angrily as it was lashed by rain and wind. The clouds were so low it seemed as if they might graze the roof directly overhead. The wind blasted great gouts of rain against the heavy glass windows of the lighthouse, but the panes, old as they were, had been made to take worse. The original plan was for Phillips to set up his weapon outside on the gallery that ran around the outside of the watch room below, but the tempest outside rendered that option more than a little insane. He’d watch from the safety of the lantern room, he resolved, and be ready to take the weapon outside if there was anything at which to shoot. Which, he reflected, would be unlikely. Approaching the island at this point, by air or sea, would be truly crazy.

  Phillips looked back at the length of the island again. He frowned. He could see a stretch of the main dirt road that ran down the windward side. There were figures moving down there. He reached into one of the bags and pulled out a pair of high-powered binoculars.

  The shifting veils of blowing rain cut visibility considerably, but he scanned back and forth, focusing on the road. He swore under his breath as the rapidly moving figures popped back into view from under a stand of overhanging tr
ees. He reached into the bag again and pulled out a microphone headset. He put it on quickly, fired up the transmitter, and keyed his mike.

  “Two, this is Four, radio check.” There was no response from Barstow.

  “Two, this is Four, acknowledge.” Nothing,

  “One, Three,” he broadcast. “This is Four. Somebody check on Two. I think we have a problem.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Roger that,” Blake sent back. “Three. What’s your status?”

  “I’m at the power station,” Worth transmitted.

  “Wait one. Four, what’s the problem?”

  “Our guests have decided to leave the party. Under their own power. And there seems to be someone with them. I can’t tell who it is, but I can’t raise Two. And he’s not kitted out like Two.”

  Blake considered for a moment, then looked down at Montrose. “What’s the status?”

  They were inside the Buchan home, in the upstairs room where the Senator kept an office. Montrose was crouched on her haunches, staring intensely at the squat, featureless black box of his safe. The safe was set into a niche in the wall behind a bookshelf. The books that concealed it had been yanked out and tossed carelessly on the floor.

  “You sure whatever you’re looking for is in there?” she said. “Cause this thing’s gonna be a bitch to open.”

  “It wasn’t in his office in the Capitol,” Blake said, “or in his home in Georgetown. Or his place back in Vermont.”

  “You been breakin’ into the office of a U.S. fucking Senator? Jesus, what is this thing you’re after?”

  “It’s a package. About the size of a photo album. That’s all you need to know. When you’ve acquired it, you’re not to open or examine the contents, is that understood?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

  “I want to make sure you do, Montrose,” Blake said. “Because I’m going to have to leave you alone with this thing for a little bit. My orders are, that if any member of this team opens that package, or examines the contents, I’m to terminate them.”

  Montrose turned slowly to look at him. “Say what?”

  Blake didn’t answer.

  Montrose shrugged, her face hard. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” She opened the case at her side and took out a pair of alligator clips, trailed by long wires. “Now fuck off and let me work. I’m gonna need the generator.”

  Blake keyed his mike as he backed slowly out of the room, his eyes on Montrose. “Three. Fall back to the objective. And Four, keep trying to rise Two. He might be taking a leak or something.”

  “Or something, yes,” Phillips said.

  ***

  They stood at the ferry landing, staring foolishly at the empty water.

  “How the hell could they have left us?” Sharon said.

  “They didn’t know,” Mercer said. “Or didn’t care.”

  “What do we do now?” Glory asked. Sharon noticed she was looking at Max as she said it. A shiver of panic ran down her spine.

  “Power’s out,” Max said. “I’m betting the phone will be too.” He stood in thought for a moment. “There’s a radio at the marina,” he said. “Ship to shore. And a generator. If we can get to that, we can signal the mainland.”

  “And what then?” Sharon demanded.

  “We’ll take it from there,” he said. “Come on.” He unslung the machine gun and started off at a walk. Glory looked at her mother, then fell in behind him. She didn’t know what else to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Swimmer, Co-pilot.”

  Alvarez keyed his intercom mike. “Co-pilot, swimmer.”

  Even over the headsets, the words were almost drowned out by the roar of the helicopter’s massive engine.

  “Can’t say I like this weather, Chief.”

  The pilot didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying to hold a steady course in the devil wind that seemed determined to throw the big HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter across the sky before dashing it into the sea.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant,” Alvarez called back, “Next time we’ll try to do better. We’ll arrange a SAR on a sunny day with low humidity. Sir.” Neither pilot answered. Alvarez shook his head. Like every non-com since the armies of the Pharaohs, he despaired over the officers the powers that be kept saddling him with.

  “You have to go out,” the saying went. “You don’t have to come back.” At one time, it had been the unofficial Coast Guard motto. Back in the days of the dinosaurs, when Alvarez had been a raw recruit at the training center at Cape May, New Jersey, he had made the mistake of raising his hand when a Company Commander had recited that mantra. The CC had stared at him stonily, then asked ‘yes, Seaman Recruit?” in a deceptively mild voice that would have warned off a saner young man. But Alvarez had been young and dumb and full of come at the time, so he forged ahead. “Sir,” he said, “if we don’t come back, doesn’t that mean the people we went after don’t come back either?” The reaction to that one still brought a smile to Alvarez’ face. The CC had come down on him like a ton of bricks, of course, just as Alvarez would if any young smart-ass pulled that shit on him. But in this modern age, the thinking had come around a bit closer to Alvarez’ jibe. Now they talked about “risk vs. reward matrices” and held hastily called meetings with the station CO, the aircraft commanders, and the flight crew to hash out the question of whether the chance of rescue outweighed the danger to multi-million dollar aircraft and even more valuable trained crew. In the end, though, the result was almost always the same. They went out.

  A particularly savage gust of wind slammed the chopper sideways. Alvarez’ helmeted head rebounded off the steel wall of the cabin. He shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears, then keyed his intercom again to check it. “Pilot, swimmer. Everyone okay up there?”

  The answer came back through gritted teeth. “Swimmer, pilot. We’re fine. You?”

  Alvarez glanced over at the hoist operator, a wiry kid from Kansas with the improbable last name of Formyduval. The kid raised a single thumb in affirmation. Alvarez looked to the rear of the chopper at their passengers. The sheriff’s deputy was looking a little green, but the FBI guy’s face was impassive.

  “Pilot, swimmer. All okay back here.”

  ***

  The interior was about the size of a minivan, and it smelled of metal and machine oil. Bohler hung on to the bench seat with a grip so tight that he imagined his aching fingers leaving dents in the metal. He took deep breaths, trying to keep his stomach in its accustomed place. He felt the chopper drop sickeningly out from under him, leaving him in midair for a split second before all 15,000 pounds of machine slammed back upwards and met him on the drop. The impact felt harsh enough to crack his spine. He groaned out loud, but the sound was lost in a crack of thunder that overrode even the unholy din of the helicopter’s engines. He glanced over at McMurphy. The FBI man’s face was set, but from where he sat, Bohler could see the rivulets of sweat running down his neck. He felt a little reassured that somebody else was feeling at least as tense as he was.

  McMurphy hadn’t wanted him along, and for a brief moment, Bohler had considered letting himself be barred. He’d never cared much for helicopters, even on clear days. The prospect of going aloft in the teeth of this gale made his knees tremble. But the evacuation of the island had been his responsibility, and he felt the failure to get everyone off personally. It was irrational, he knew; the idiot ferry captain was the one who had taken off without all of his people on board, and part of the blame had to be laid at Coyne’s feet for the cockeyed plan in the first place. But in the end, seeing everyone off safe was Bohler’s job, and he was going to see it finished. In the end it had been the diminutive curly-haired female pilot who had made the final call. She had walked up to where Bohler and McMurphy were standing there bickering and snapped, “both of you shut up and get on board.” They had stopped and looked at her, startled. She stared back at them with a ‘what are you lookin’ at’ expression. “Do everything Chief Alvarez tells
you,” she went on, “Or I’ve authorized him to throw you to the damn sharks.” They had looked into the open door of the chopper. A dark-skinned, grinning man with a crew cut was sitting in the door, his feet hanging out. He was holding out a pair of crash helmets.

  Bohler was glad for the helmet as another lurch slammed his head around. He fumbled for the button of the intercom. “Ah…swimmer,” he said, trying to emulate the protocol they crew used to identify themselves over the circuit. He stopped. He realized he had no official designation. He saw the Chief grin. “Lawman, swimmer,” he chuckled. He saw the kid over by the hoist purse his lips in disapproval. Bohler felt a flash of irritation.

  “What’s the plan? When we get there.”

  “We do a circuit of the island,” the Chief said. “See what we can see. Hopefully, they’ll see us. We’ll head for the open space down near the clubhouse. We’ll land if we can. If there’s too much water, or if the ground’s too soft, we’ll hover and I’ll take the basket down.”

  “How do I get down there?” McMurphy spoke up.

  “Sorry, sir,” Alvarez said. “Can’t do it.”

  “I need to get down there and take that subject into custody. I’m going to have to insist.”

  The pilot spoke up. “Swimmer, pilot. Problem, chief?”

  “Pilot, swimmer. No ma’am. Just explaining to Mr. McMurphy here that he ain’t in our chain of command.”

  “If he gives you any trouble, Chief...” she trailed off.

  “Yes ma’am,” Alvarez answered. “I’ll throw him out.”

  “Very funny,” McMurphy said.

  “She ain’t joking, sir,” the young Guardsman on the hoist piped up. He grinned. “Hell, people fall out of these things alla time. We’d just write it off as an accident.” Bohler stared at him, appalled. The kid winked.