by Nick Thacker
The anchor was descending, or so I hoped. It sounded like something down there was moving, so I figured that was good enough. I hoped it was good enough.
I looked once more at Elizondo, staring up at me. Helpless.
I saw Frey in the corner, no longer breathing. Felt the twinge of useless loss washing over me, but I pushed it to the side. That would have to wait.
There was a front door on both sides of the bridge, leading out to a white staircase that descended down to the main deck. I took it and walked to the side of the Rummer. I looked over and saw nothing but blackness.
From the other side of the ship I heard the sound of an engine starting. One of the speedboats. I ran over to the starboard side of the Rummer and peered over the edge.
“Let’s go, man!” Joey yelled. “Hurry up.”
I saw the rope ladder they’d used to get onto the boat and the rope that was holding the smaller boat to the Rummer. I undid the knot and took the ladder down. As soon as my feet hit the deck, Joey threw the throttle into forward and then full. I lost my balance but fell into the center of the boat, right where I had been before. Laying down, stretched out, my head uncomfortably but securely resting on the carpeted side of the engine compartment.
“How much time?” Joey yelled down to me.
“No idea,” I shouted back. “Just keep driving until we can’t see the Rummer anymore.”
He nodded, then focused on a spot where the harbor narrowed into one of the rivers that spilled into it. We were safe, we were heading away from the ship, and we were in the home stretch.
That’s when the Rummer exploded.
48
THE DETONATION OF THE SHIP happened in stages. The flames seemed to arise first, then the powerful heatwave carried the pressure to us, rocking the speedboat while we raced away from it.
The sound was next, but it wasn’t a singular explosion. The blast ripped upward into the rain and thunder, adding even more confusion and hell to the mix. It was impressive, honestly. We were safely away from it and Joey killed the engine and we just watched it.
The hurricane was parked just off the coast, as the rain was still intense but the winds were bearable. It was cold, freezing even, and I shivered there with the two of them as we watched on and waited. We would need to get inside soon, as the hurricane would get bored of this spectacle soon enough and resume its course into the coast.
The explosions continued for a whole minute, then the entire fiery mess just sat there on the water and steamed and smoldered. We could hear the rain hissing as it hit the burning hulk of metal and evaporated. Lights of a Coast Guard boat flashed in the distance, and then another set came in from north of us.
“They’ll want to talk to us,” Joey said.
I nodded. “I think we’ll be okay. We’ve got Frey’s testimony, about Elizondo’s business and what he was really up to.”
“Will they believe that?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? The guy also brought a thousand tons of gasoline into Charleston Harbor and aimed it at the port. He would have taken out everything in a half-mile radius.”
“The other distributors,” Joey said.
I looked over at the port to the south, the ships collected in a bundle near one of the docks. They were all owned by one of the major distillers, no doubt. Frey had been right when he’d said that they were all trying to come in before the storm hit, to at least have their products unloaded and ready for overland shipping before the hurricane.
“How did he get it?”
“The fuel? He made it, I’m sure. Corn fuel is just like un-aged whiskey, just stronger. Usually up in the 180-190 proof. And it wouldn’t need to be refined much or chemically altered since it was never meant to be used in vehicles.”
“And he just wanted to blow up all these other ships?”
“They're the other distributors, remember? They were all coming in this weekend, trying to beat the storm. They probably all have to use the same port and docks, so it was a perfect plan. Get them all at once, where it really hurts.”
Joey closed his eyes, taking it all in. “Wow,” he said. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s pretty much what I’ve been thinking.”
I heard the sound of a large engine heading our way, turning wide around the smoking and flaming hull of the Rummer. It was a Coast Guard vessel, speeding toward us.
The boat pulled up alongside us and shined their floodlights down into the speedboat. Shalice ducked away from the light, but Joey and I stared straight up into it.
A man leaned over the side of the boat, holding a megaphone. It wasn’t necessary, even with the noise of the rain, but he had it turned up all the way. “You all have anything to do with this?” the man asked.
I nodded.
“You know what happened here?”
Again, I nodded.
“We’re also looking for a man named Jonathan Frey. ATF agent. You seen him?”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’ve seen him.”
“Will you come aboard our boat? We’d like to discuss it.”
I looked at Joey and then at Shalice, still wearing almost nothing at all. Then I turned back to the huge Coast Guard yacht and yelled back up at the man. “Yeah, I think we’d like that. But we’ll need something to eat.”
The man turned to someone I couldn’t see and negotiated for a moment.
“And a drink wouldn’t hurt either.”
49
MY FATHER’S BODY WASHED UP on the shore a few days later. It was bloated, but the coroner determined the cause of death to be a single gunshot wound to the head. Not execution-style, but likely from one of the thousand stray bullets that had been flying around just before Frey and I jumped ship.
I had to confirm the body, which I did without feeling or emotion whatsoever. Dead body. My father. That was about it. I didn’t care what they did with him, and I wasn’t about to pay any money for a burial service or funeral, so as soon as the police and Coast Guard and coroner were happy with my confirmation I turned and left.
Joey and Shalice were taking some time off up in Charleston, staying in her place. She was going to be fine — Elizondo was a zealot, but he had no stomach for personal torture. None of his men had touched her, and even the incident about removing her clothes turned out to be nothing more than forcing her at gunpoint to strip. Not pleasant, but a bit more palatable than what I’d originally thought.
Still, the case against Elizondo had turned it into a national affair. The ATF was involved, but only to evaluate and determine the truths behind the rumors of Elizondo’s illegal importing. The FBI and CIA was fighting for territorial control over the case, with the balance leaning heavily in favor of the FBI. Truman himself called me and asked about the case, but he assured me it was off the record. I wouldn’t testify, and according to the Feds building the case, I would remain an innocent bystander who happened to be out on the Wassamassaw at the wrong time. Our involvement was listed as ‘kidnap victims’ and our subsequent escape deemed lucky.
Fine by me.
The furthest I could get from all of this the better. My bar had been closed for the better part of three days, and probably would be closed for another three until I felt I had a handle on things without Joey around.
Jonathan Frey’s funeral was small, and it was in Washington, DC. I didn’t attend. Joey mentioned that he’d try to get up to it, but I wasn’t going to ask about it. His death was listed on the ATF website, but few details were given. The most surprising thing about the man was that he was, in fact, a distributor as well as an ATF agent. I didn’t understand how that worked, just that we now needed to find another supplier in the Charleston area.
It had been a stressful week, but I felt good. I was alive, and I had done the job. The ever-changing nature of plans suggests that by not having a plan in the first place, things go more smoothly. My new philosophy, after thinking about it long and hard for some time, was that having a plan was a necessary distraction. A
necessary piece of a long-term mission. If only to put my mind at ease, to know that there was something I could rely on, even though I knew it would change mid-stride. Having no plan at all was planning to fail, or something like that. I now understood what that meant.
Those three days I thought a lot about morality: was I doing the right thing? Did I even care if I was doing the right thing? Like I’d always thought, morality is like death. You can fight against it, but who you are is always going to come through. Death will always find you. So will morality.
I don’t know if I’m good or bad, or if there’s really a difference, but I do know that whoever I am, that’s it. That’s what I’ve got, and there’s not much sense in really fighting it. I’m good at fighting, but I figure that’s a fight that’s not really worth fighting at all.