Black Water Transit

by Carsten Stroud

  The gypsy cab windows were misted over, but he could just make out two male figures behind the windshield, a tough-looking guy in his mid-thirties with an outlaw biker look to him, and a younger guy, pale-skinned, who, even at a hundred yards, gave off the impression that he was nervous. The older guy was behind the wheel. His mouth was moving, but Kreuger couldn’t hear what he was saying because the damned department wouldn’t spring for a serious directional microwave or laser mike. Bruce Willis would have had one. Life was not fair.

  He shifted his sights. In the blue Crown Victoria he could detect more movement now. Some kind of discussion seemed to be going on. He zoomed in on the driver, a thin-faced young man behind the wheel. He had twisted around in his seat and was talking to the man in the back, the one who had just arrived in a cab. Once again, no sound. Kreuger pulled back to the second-floor exterior wall where Campbell was leaning up against an exhaust fan housing.

  “You think those guys down there are really connected to this operation? I’m telling you, they look like surveillance cops to me.”

  “There’s nothing on the plates that says so. Usually when you get an undercover car and you run it on DMV or NCIC, the computer will flag your request and whatever agency is running the UC unit will come back with a warning. So far, all we got is the registered owner as Boston Bar Investments. We’ve already notified the Port Authority guys about this operation, and the NYPD doesn’t have jurisdiction over the terminal area. So if those guys aren’t Port Authority—and Port Authority says they’re not—then we have to pay attention.”

  Kreuger shrugged.

  “Why don’t we just send somebody down there to ask them what the hell they’re doing?”

  “And if they are connected to this op, we’re blown.”

  Campbell popped the tab on his watch cover.

  “It’s twelve-forty. The freighter’s due in at one. Let’s just hang tight and see what happens when the ship docks.”

  Kreuger nodded, put his head back against the vent housing, and closed his eyes. Campbell adjusted his position, shivered a little in the damp, and counted off the minutes in his head, a Zen thing he used to calm himself down when an operation was getting weird.

  At one o’clock they all heard a huge brassy wail blaring through the air, echoing off the concrete walls, tearing up the wet night air, and everybody twitched at their positions. Campbell and Kreuger stood up and looked out over the roof of the warehouse and saw a huge ship steaming around the point through Buttermilk Channel. The ship’s engines throbbed in the night, a booming bass rumble you could feel inside your rib cage, and a dirty-white bow wave was cresting along her prow. Yellow running lights and the red and green of her navigation markers looked blurry in the heavy mist. Seen this close, the ship looked impossibly huge, like a Close Encounters mother ship gliding in out of the dark. Now they could all hear the turbulence in the water as the captain hit his bow thrusters and the big ship slowed down in the approach canal. Down in the yards, dockworkers were hopping into their tow motors and the huge overhead derrick next to the quayside began to swing in a groan of metal and hydraulics.

  Campbell was reading the bow letters through his binoculars.

  “The Agawa Canyon. Valkyrie, this is Six.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “She’s coming in now.”

  “Start the videotape.”

  “Roger, out.”

  Campbell dug into his kit bag and pulled out a Sony video camera, which he handed to Kreuger. Kreuger flipped the screen open and duck-walked his way back to the edge of the roof, working his way around until he could get a clear line of sight. From where they were, he could videotape the entire unloading operation and, if they were lucky, the arrival of Earl Pike or—maybe—the involvement of the suspect cars down in the perimeter yard.

  Down in the 511 unit, the hammering blare of the ship’s horn had made them all jerk upright. Nicky checked his watch.

  “Jeez. Jimmy, let’s blow. It’s one o’clock, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Hey, trooper. You’re just a ride-along here. This is my unit.”

  “This unit belongs to the NYPD, Detective,” said Casey.

  “Hey, zip it, Whitney.”

  Casey felt her blood rushing north. A burning heat spread across her face and chest. Both her hands went completely numb. Two seconds passed while she fought it, tried to keep the valves shut, and then she blew wide open.

  “You keep calling me Whitney, you sadistic little shit, and I’ll report your bony cracker ass to Race Relations.”

  “Goodness,” said Jimmy Rock, “Whitney’s having a hissy fit.”

  That comment literally knocked the breath out of her.

  “That’s it. That’s all. I’m out of here.”

  She cracked the door, jerked her briefcase out of the footwell, and began to step out of the car. Jimmy Rock twisted in his seat, leveled a finger.

  “Hey, you leave when I tell you, lady.”

  “Jimmy, stop riding the woman,” said Nicky. “We’re all beat.”

  Casey rounded on him.

  “Back off, Sylvester. I need help, I’ll call your mother.”

  Nicky looked out the side window and his face reddened slightly. Jimmy Rock sighed theatrically.

  “Lady, word on you is, you need help from everybody.”

  “Now what the fuck does that mean?”

  “Now what the fuck does that mean … sir.”

  “I don’t have to ‘sir’ you, you Harp peckerwood.”

  “Whoo,” said Jimmy Rock. “Was that a racial slur?”

  Casey set her briefcase down on the tarmac, stepped closer, opened up the passenger door. She held it open with one hand, leaned down, and spoke in a downy-soft voice to Jimmy Rock.

  “You have a problem with me, sir, why not just get out now right here, you and me, and we work it out together?”

  Nicky started to speak, but Jimmy Rock stopped him.

  “No, no, Nicky. Let me get this straight, Officer Spandau. Define ‘work it out’ for me, hah? You gonna punch my lights out?”

  Casey was backing away from the car now. Her face was bony, flat, and mean. The ATF sniper, Farrell Garber, saw the motion and called it in to Campbell.

  “There’s movement in the blue Crown Vic.”

  “Ten-four … I’ll cover. Do nothing. Everyone hold your positions. This could be a diversion.”

  Campbell moved to the edge of the roofline again and got up into a crouch, putting the binoculars on the suspect vehicles. Farrell was right. There was definitely a fight developing down there. What the hell it all meant, he had no clue. He watched as the black woman backed up a few feet, facing the blue car. He could see her mouth working, could vaguely hear her voice over the thumping machinery in the container yard. Inside the 511 unit, Jimmy Rock slammed the steering wheel so hard it cracked.

  “Christ, I hate all this I-am-woman-hear-me-whine crap. Spandau, a bulletin for you. GI Jane was a fucking movie, okay? Demi Moore couldn’t fight her way out of a fog patch. There are no broads in real combat. Never were. Never will be. In actual life, in my police department, you run your mouth off to a real cop, black, white, or windowpane check, you’ll get your ass handed to you in a crate. As a matter of fact, fuck this noise—”

  Nicky scrambled out of the back in a hurry, as Jimmy Rock came boiling up out of the driver’s side. Casey had stepped back away from the car and was now standing in a gravel patch, her briefcase beside her, her hands at her sides and her face hard, her feet apart and legs braced. Up on the roof, Campbell shifted his position and braced himself on one knee. Three subjects out of the blue car, two of them male and a female, in an argument. He glanced down at Garber, saw him in position but not holding a rifle on the subjects—okay—good—and looked back at the action down in the lot.

  Jimmy Rock jogged around the front of the car and moved forward toward Casey, with his pale face white as bone and his mouth a hard slash. Nicky stepped right into him just as Dexter and
Carlo came running across the street in their direction.

  Farrell Garber was back on the air.

  “We have movement from the gypsy cab. Two males.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Campbell, moving his binoculars to track the gypsy cab. The two men inside were out now and running across the park toward the other vehicle. Campbell could hear them shouting something, but the din of machinery from the terminal was drowning out the words. He looked back at the blue car.

  It sure looked like a fight. Now the third man, the guy in the black leather jacket, was out of the car too, bracing the guy in the gray suit. If this was an act, these guys deserved a Tony.

  Nicky Cicero was perhaps fifty pounds and four inches beyond Jimmy Rock’s weight class, but Jimmy Rock moved him aside like he was a cardboard cutout. Nicky caught Jimmy Rock’s sleeve and hissed in his ear.

  “Detective Rule, you strike a subordinate, you’re over!”

  “Hey,” said Casey, “let the Harp come. I won’t file on him.”

  Dexter Zarnas and Carlo Suarez had reached them by now.

  “What the hell are you clowns up to? This is a stakeout, for Chrissakes. Spandau, get back in your unit!”

  “I’m not getting into any unit with that redneck pig.”

  Nicky turned around, stepped up in front of Casey, and leaned down into her face. “Casey. I’m calling you a cab.”

  “You can call me anything you like. I’m not going anywhere,” said Casey.

  “This is such total bullshit,” said Jimmy Rock.

  On the roof, Garber had to work hard to track the action. The image in his scope danced and jerked as he tried to follow the five figures. He had the crosshairs centered on Jimmy Rock’s back right now, watching as the man confronted the black female.

  Campbell watched Garber’s body as he adjusted, and clicked on the mike.

  “Farrell, have you got your sights on those people?”

  “Ten-four, Six.”

  “Well, get them off, dammit!”

  “Ten-four. But it’s getting ugly down there.”

  Campbell was back on the radio net.

  “Everybody hold your positions. Maintain your perimeter assignments. We don’t know what this is, so let this play out. Do nothing. I repeat, do nothing.”

  Down in the yard, Jimmy Rock came in way too close to Casey and his voice was choked with anger.

  “I got a message for you, lady. Don’t you push me. Don’t you run your mouth at any of my guys. I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know what you did. I’ll bet it was massive. But this I do know: If you were white—even if you were a white broad—you would be anywhere but inside one of the best detective units in the NYPD. So hear me now, and remember. You ever come into my face looking for a fight again, so help me God, I’ll see you bounced right out of the NYPD, I don’t care if Al Sharpton pops a vein at your hearing and Oprah Winfrey gives you a two-hour special. Clear? Or do you need it in big block letters?”

  “Oh, we’re very clear. You haven’t got the balls to—”

  “That’s it,” said Nicky. He reached out to pull Casey away. She chopped him hard across the forearm with her left hand. Nicky rolled smoothly with the strike, closed his right hand around her left wrist, pulled her through the motion, and popped her into an arm bar that had her standing way up on her tiptoes. Dexter Zarnas and Carlo Suarez moved in close to Jimmy Rock, ready to put him down on the ground. Dexter called out to Nicky.

  “Put Spandau in the five-oh-nine unit, Nicky. Take her home. We’ll take the five-one-one unit. Jimmy, let’s go.”

  “Into the unit, Casey,” Nicky said very gently. “You’re going home. Now. Into the car.”

  Caught up in the action down below, Campbell had moved closer to the edge of the roof. One level down, Farrell Garber was sliding to the left along the corrugated iron roofing, trying to adjust his position. Over the headset, Campbell could hear the other agents reporting on the activity around the Agawa Canyon, which had now docked and was preparing to off-load her cargo of containers.

  He turned away to look at the ship and heard Garber’s voice.

  “Six, what the hell is that out there by the projects?”

  Campbell stood up and walked to the edge of the roof. Garber twisted and looked back at Campbell, then pointed to the east, toward a row of projects about a half mile away. Campbell raised his glasses and saw a tiny glimmering reflection on the roof of one building. He adjusted the zoom knob and the image jumped closer.

  A huddled shape, perhaps a man, and a flat clear mirror light. As he centered on it, it suddenly grew brighter—there was a sudden blue-white flicker inside the dark mass—and then he heard a sound, it was close, very close, an impact sound like a fist smacking into an open palm. A terrible weakness rolled over him, a wave of nausea, as if he were about to vomit. The horizon reeled and his muscles turned to rubber. Campbell fell to his knees and then dropped forward, down on his hands now. Something hot that smelled like iron was pouring across his fingers. Black liquid pooled out over the tin roof until it reached the row of nails holding the sheet down, where it began to fill in each tiny indentation. Campbell watched this in a bubble of total silence broken only by the sound of a distant voice on a radio, faint, tinny, urgent … saying what? Something … he was too tired to listen … he looked at the metal sheeting underneath him and watched with detached interest as it became a field of sparkling snow and he was flying over a huge black lake and he thought how nice it would be to lie down in the snow and rest for a while.

  In one detached part of his mind he had registered the fact that he’d been shot, and since there had been no following crack of a rifle shot, probably by a weapon fitted with a sound suppressor. A very big round, judging from the huge hole in his chest, punched right through his Kevlar vest. But it all seemed somehow secondhand and vaguely unimportant right now. What counted was how weary he was, how heavy his body felt.

  He lowered himself onto the roof and rolled over and looked up at the orange clouds moving above him. They were really quite beautiful, he thought. Someone was kneeling beside him. It was Kreuger. He was speaking into a black thing that he was holding near his mouth. Campbell tried to talk, but couldn’t think of anything worth saying. Now he could hear Kreuger’s panicky voice.

  “Incoming! All posts! Six is down! We have—”

  Campbell thought he saw a sliver of hot fire shaped like a spear. It flashed in soundlessly—Campbell had intended to say something to Kreuger about the weapon out there having a silencer, but it had slipped his mind—the round struck Kreuger’s flak jacket about an inch below his name tag. It was as if Kreuger’s chest blew up. Kreuger toppled backward out of Campbell’s line of sight. Campbell was left looking at the covering over the exhaust fan. It was about six feet away from him. He could see what looked like a three-inch-wide hole in the steel cover. There were flecks of blood and tissue spread across the housing. He considered the hole for an indefinite period and came very slowly to an important conclusion, which he felt he ought to try to explain to Kreuger.

  He moved his head, looking for the man, saw a huddled shape tumbling away, and watched as Kreuger’s body rolled to the edge of the roof and disappeared. Too late, he decided, and closed his eyes. It would have been useful to tell Kreuger about the hole in the fan cover, and also the thing about the silencer, but perhaps he’d get another chance. Right now he needed to close his eyes for just a minute. Although he was much warmer now, he was still very tired. All he needed was a little rest and he’d be right as—

  Kreuger’s body dropped fifteen feet off the upper roof and landed with a loud bang right next to Farrell Garber, who somehow managed to ignore it. Down in the lot, the argument between Jimmy Rock and Casey was taking up all their attention, and the sound of the man’s fall was lost in the general machinery noise coming from the dockside. Garber was way too busy to help Kreuger—he figured the guy was either dead or dying—and he was trying very hard to control his rifle scope enough
to acquire a vague target he was sure he could see next to the tiny disc of reflected light on that distant roof—he saw the light growing brighter—in that instant Garber knew exactly what he was looking at—he had seen it once before, in Kuwait—it was street-shine glinting off the forward lens of a light-intensifying Star Lite sniper scope—a professional killer’s tool—he held the image steady—he realized he was whispering the words from the Rifleman’s Creed—I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me I must shoot him before he shoots me I will before God I swear—in his headset he heard a woman’s voice—Baker Baker report Baker this is Valkyrie—Farrell Garber squeezed the trigger—his Remington jumped and the butt slammed into his shoulder—he saw a blue flicker of fire in the scope image—he started a roll to the left—the incoming round punched into his body just next to his left collarbone and exited through his right thigh and turned everything in between to jelly and pulp—until there is no enemy but peace—Farrell Garber’s last words as recorded on the ATF communications net.

  Down in the parking lot, all five cops had locked up solid as soon as they heard the big cracking boom of Garber’s outgoing rifle shot, and they watched as his twelve-pound Remington .308 complete with a Leupold scope clattered off the roof and fell into the yard, where it smashed through the front windshield of a tractor-trailer.

  “What the fuck was that?” asked Dexter.

  Jimmy Rock stepped back from Casey Spandau and looked across the yard. He saw something long and black sticking up from the broken window. What the hell?

  “That’s a rifle!” said Nicky Cicero.

  They all looked up at the rooftops around them. It took about two seconds for the cops to process what was happening, and Jimmy Rock got it first.

  “Cover! Take cover! Everybody down!”