Blood Red Tide (Bad Times Book 2)

by Chuck Dixon

  “Estelle?” he called, entering.

  A man who looked like a linebacker dressed for a court appearance was standing in the waiting room. A second guy dressed the same was behind the reception glass, pressing the buzzer to allow Don in. Big Don sensed that neither man was open to questions and made his way through the door for his own office.

  A slim man in a bad hairpiece sat behind the battered steel desk regarding Big Don with lifeless eyes. He was toying with a nickel-plated Sig Sauer. It was one of the loaded pieces Big Don kept in his desk drawers.

  “Leonid, this is a surprise,” Big Don said, hiding his surprise behind a fixed smile. “Problem with the gold?”

  “What could be the problem with gold?” Leonid said. His voice was lightly accented, the vowels sliding into one another in oily succession.

  Big Don, for once, was left without an answer.

  “Someone wants to talk to you,” Leonid said.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “No friend,” Leonid said. He set the handgun down on the blotter and hit send on a cell phone. He held it up, making Big Don reach across the desk for it.

  “Mr. Brinkley, I hope this is a good time to talk.” The voice sounded like one of those guys in the TV shows his wife liked to watch; the ones with high-class British people worrying about how they’re going to save the manor.

  “Um, sure.”

  “I have a few questions about these people who sell gold by the ton.”

  14

  Their Separate Ways

  “No way! No way in hell, no way!” Chaz said.

  “What are you going to do? You going to sit on your ass the rest of life?” Jimbo asked.

  “I got near ten mil in cash hidden away. If I want to spend the rest of my life doing exactly nothing, then I can do that. Okay with you?”

  The pair were shooting clay at a range neither of them would have been allowed on just two months previous. The membership was more than either of them earned in six months at their former jobs. Their custom engraved trap guns cost more than their last cars.

  “You’ll get fat,” Jimbo said and raised his brand new Kreighoff over-and-under to blast a pair of clay discs flung over their heads from an automated launcher on the roof of the shooting shed behind them.

  “I’m not fat!” Chaz said and missed both his clays.

  “I said you’ll get fat. Again.”

  Jimbo had reloaded and snapped his gun up to nail another pair even before they began their drop.

  “Fucker.”

  Chaz ejected two smoking rounds but ignored his turn. The twin discs soared away into the treetops unmolested.

  “No sense wasting pigeons on you.” Jimbo touched the control screen set into the sheltered gun bench to shut down the launch program.

  “Look at you, man. You’re in the best shape of your life. Ranger ready and born again hard,” Jimbo continued. “All because you thought we’d be going downrange again. You can tell me you’ll keep up the PT and the running and the weight training, but you’re lying to yourself. Guys like us need a purpose like a dog needs a job.”

  “Why are you so eager to get back into it?” Chaz said. “You like that shit? Does it appeal to the Comanche in you or something?”

  “I’ll let that pass.” Jimbo was a Pima.

  “I bought a big house on the beach in Alabama, and when the renovations are done, it’s gonna have a state-of-the-art gym and my own running trail,” Chaz said and slid his double-barrel into a leather case.

  “Six months from now, that gym will have an inch of dust on the floor and the running path will be weeds. Next thing you’ll be golfing.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You’ve already been golfing, haven’t you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “This isn’t about you becoming a fat ass, is it? You really have no itch to see more of The Then.”

  “Damn straight, I don’t,” Chaz said and shouldered the gun case to walk away. “It fucked with my head. I keep thinking about it. That woman was dead, and we went back and changed it. She was stone dead for all those years and years and years, and we made it like it happened different, and now she’s alive and Renzi is the one who died.”

  “It put everything into perspective for me,” Jimbo followed him along the gravel path back toward the main clubhouse. The bang-bang of shooters at other range stations came through the trees to them.

  “I don’t want that kind of perspective, bro. I don’t want to know shit like that is possible. I don’t want to know that anyone can go back and change what shouldn’t be changed. What’s next? You going to go back and save Jesus?”

  “Dwayne’s got something going. There’s enough in the kitty for the Taubers to build their own Wayback machine. We could use you. You’re part of the circle.”

  “Circle of crazy. Roenbach’s going because he has a hard-on for that little brainiac. He’s too dumb to know he’s too dumb for her. But what’s your excuse, Jimbo? Admit it, bro. You liked it back there.”

  “God help me, I did,” Jimbo said.

  Everything was making Morris Tauber nervous these days.

  At first, all that gold made him uneasy. The cash was worse. It was so much that it seemed unreal. It all felt wrong and dangerous. He let his little sister handle the arrangements for safe deposit boxes at two dozen banks in as many cities. He didn’t want to know about it. They were keeping a half-million dollars on hand in a North Face bag as petty cash. Just the idea of that was almost obscene.

  Morris could not escape the feeling that something bad was out there, just out of sight, waiting to make itself known.

  He insisted they stay on the move. Hammond got them a brand-new set of credentials and fresh credit cards that were legal in every sense except that they belonged to entirely fictitious people. The Taubers received statements each month and paid their bills like everyone else from checking accounts in the same phony names. Paying in cash drew all kinds of unwanted attention. Morris was now Kevin Francis Eckenrode, and Caroline was Helen Elizabeth Martin-Freeborn.

  They were on the road each day moving from motel to hotel to cabin for about a week when Caroline announced that she’d had it with second-and third-rate motor-lodges and Wayside Inns and Best Westerns. She booked a flight to St. Thomas, and Morris, at a loss and adrift without her, tagged along.

  Caroline was not doing anything to salve his paranoia. She wanted to talk about the Tube; about setting one up on their own and making more expeditions into the past.

  “We’ll need the nuke,” Morris insisted from the shade of his umbrella on a white sugar beach. Caroline lay back on a marvelous chaise in nothing more than a bikini and sunscreen. Morris wore a sun-safe shirt and khakis. He was wearing socks, for God’s sake. With sandals. Jesus.

  “The Iranians will go along with us,” she said. “They’ll come for the money. Besides, they have nowhere else to be.”

  “I know how they feel.” Morris sighed.

  “We need to talk about this, Morris. The theories are all proven. But there are engineering challenges to setting up for a trip back to Ionian, Nisos Anaxos. That’s where you come in.”

  “Carrie...”

  “You can’t be scared all the time, Mo! Hell, the challenge would take your mind off of things. Admit it, for all your worrying, you’re intrigued.”

  “You think getting us into more trouble would take my mind off the trouble we’re already in?”

  “What trouble, Mo? We got away clean. The perfect crime. We stole something that no one knew existed from people who died when elephants were still native to America. And they weren’t even people in the strictest sense. Now we can do whatever we want. Explore whatever area of science we want.”

  “But, Carrie—”

  “Do you have to be such a pussy?”

  “I see Mr. Roenbach has had an influence on you,” Morris sniffed.

  “I wonder what Dwayne’s doing?” She plucked her cell phone from her tote and hit speed d
ial. She lay back and watched the surf as the speaker in her ear rang on the other end.

  Dwayne didn’t really need his arm twisted to fly to St. Thomas. He’d been a multimillionaire only two weeks and was already bored out of his mind. He didn’t know what to do with himself. The fact that Caroline was the one who made the invitation didn’t hurt.

  There was a limo waiting for him at the airport that took him to the Ritz-Carlton on Big Bay. His room was waiting for him under his cover name of John Henry Dent, and it turned out to be a suite. There was a fruit basket on the dinette table, and a note with only a suite number written on it. The mini-fridge was loaded with Coors long-necks. She remembered his brand.

  It was raining by the time Dwayne showered and changed. He met Morris and Caroline at a private cabana at the edge of the beach off the pool area. There was chilled crab and fruit salad waiting for them, and a pitcher of margaritas with three glasses. Morris had a cola. The hiss of the rain would drown their conversation and keep anyone curious away.

  “You’re never going to get clearance to set up on the island,” Dwayne said. “Even if there was property available, buying land overseas raises all kinds of red flags. And that’s without all the crazy EU regulations about building any kind of structure.”

  “You have a Greek real estate license now?” Caroline said.

  “It’s all there on the internet.”

  “So, you’re saying that the Greeks may object to the installation of a stolen nuclear reactor on one of their island paradises?” Morris said.

  “Yeah, there’s that, too.”

  “There has to be a way,” Caroline said.

  “It’s all right to admit defeat, Caroline,” Morris said. “The island is small and remote and surrounded by smaller islands. There’s nowhere to set up. And we can’t build the plant on the African mainland because it would make for too much travel time to the site. Too much exposure and too many variables.”

  “And the coast of North Africa is no place to be these days anyway,” Dwayne put in.

  “Shit,” Caroline said and swirled her margarita. The men sat without speaking. Caroline sat looking out at the sea as the rain died away. Broad streaks of sunlight broke through the clouds, illuminating a gleaming white shape out on the water. It was one of the many party boats that sailed out of Long Bay packed with seniors by day and hipsters by night.

  “A boat,” Caroline said.

  “What?” Morris said.

  “Let’s buy a boat,” Caroline said.

  Morris was relieved. He thought his little sister was finally changing the subject.

  15

  To Sea

  Caroline had not changed the subject. “We manifest at sea,” she said.

  “We what now?” Dwayne said.

  “Manifest. It’s the term Mo and I have decided on for the exit phase of traveling through the Tauber Tube.”

  “Oh.”

  “We build the new Tube in the hold of a ship, right?” she continued like she was only warming up. They were back in her suite now. Morris sat channel-surfing in silence. Dwayne had switched back to beer. Caroline sat at an imitation Queen Anne desk with her fingers flying over the keyboard of a laptop.

  “Impractical,” Morris said without looking away from the big flat-screen on the wall of the common room.

  “Really?” Caroline’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Think about it. The Aegean is full of ship traffic. We could hide in plain sight. And the Mediterranean is a constant. Open water presents far less risk than manifesting on land. The ocean levels are relatively constant give or take a few feet. We’d be portable and on international water. It’s an elegant solution.”

  “What about the Tesla Tower?” Morris said, turning from the TV to take an interest. “The nuke charges the tower and gives us the jolt of electromagnetic energy to power the Tube array. I need terra firma for the tower.”

  “So, build your tower on the boat,” Caroline said. “You can’t buy a boat,” Dwayne said.

  “The hell I can’t,” she said and dipped her head at her monitor. “We can pick up a container ship for a couple million. Peanuts.”

  “Ship owners get looked into. At purchase time. Each time they enter port. Each time they depart. There’s paper at every step from customs, immigration, local coast guards, environmental agencies, anti-terror agencies, and any official looking for a handout. Our IDs are number one, but they won’t stand up to that level of scrutiny,” Dwayne said.

  Caroline pressed her lips together and tapped furiously on her Alienware. Morris settled on NFL cheer-leader tryouts on ESPN 3, and Dwayne turned his chair to watch as well.

  The Patriots were down to the final twenty and the boys were admiring the pompom work of a stunning redhead when Caroline slammed a hand down on the desk.

  “We charter!” she said.

  The Ocean Raj was a container ship registered in Sri Lanka and berthed at Alexandria on the coast of Egypt and available for charter. A hundred and ninety meters in length and thirty-two meters abeam. The owners, Sea-Globe International LTD, with offices in London, Mumbai, and Trincomalee, were anxious to see their vessel put to sea from the Egyptian port. They offered the bargain rate of a bareboat charter at ten thousand dollars a day on a thirty-day open-end lease with a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars. Insurance was extra, as was fuel.

  A bareboat charter meant that the newly-formed Praxus Enterprises (incorporated in Delaware) would have to supply a captain and crew on their own. They had thirty days to do so or forfeit their deposit. In the meantime, the Ocean Raj would be prepared and guaranteed seaworthy by the agreed upon departure date.

  “All we need is a skipper,” Caroline said. She’d done the spadework and arranged everything from her suite via the laptop. Even incorporating as an S Corp as Helen Martin-Freeborn was done in cyberspace. She closed the lid of the Alien and reclined back on the chaise in the dark of the veranda off her suite. Dwayne was here with her, with a paperback on his chest, and lulled into a half-doze by the pulse of the surf, and the dying light as the sun sank into the water.

  “Good luck with that,” he said without opening his eyes.

  “You don’t know anyone?”

  “I was Army. We stayed off of boats.”

  “There are agencies for hiring onboard personnel. I can pull resumes and see who’s available, I guess.” She opened the laptop again.

  “You need someone who can keep their mouth shut.

  That’s not going to be in their Facebook profile.”

  “A crooked sea captain. We pay him to keep quiet.”

  “No. Money’s not enough to cover what you have in mind. You need someone who can keep their mouth shut and someone you can trust. That means someone you know.”

  “You don’t know anyone then?” she said, closing the lid again and setting the Alien aside. The veranda went dark, with the glow of the monitor gone.

  “Hammond probably does.” He sighed.

  She moved to Dwayne’s chaise and sat down on the edge. He shuffled over to allow her room. The paperback slid to the deck.

  “Call him,” she said.

  “Can it wait till later?”

  “You promise? You promise. Promise me.”

  “Yeah,” he said and started to rise. “I’ll go to my room and get my cell. His burner number’s on it.”

  She laid a hand on his chest and pressed him back down on the cushion.

  “What’s your hurry?”

  16

  Boats

  It was Jimbo who remembered a guy he knew only as Boats.

  Boats was a Navy SEAL that Jimbo met when they were both at SERE. They crossed paths again in sniper school at Pendleton. Boats wound up on SEAL Team 3, the outfit that specialized in everything waterborne from Zodiacs to the big ships. Unlike most SEALs, Boats actually spent most of his time, in or on the water. He worked his way up to O-2, lieutenant JG, before retiring at thirty-nine. His military experience driving boats in the Gator Fleet let him
breeze through the Maritime Institute for a commercial skipper’s license.

  Jimbo kept in touch with him after mustering out and knew that Boats was between gigs after two years as captain on a Liberian-registered cargo ship.

  “How’d he lose that gig?” Dwayne wanted to know.

  “He was dodgy on that when we spoke. But he still has his paper,” Jimbo said.

  Dwayne was driving them in a rental along an unpaved road to what they’d been told was a marina outside of Freeport, Texas.

  “Guess it couldn’t have been that bad, then,” Dwayne said.

  “Or it was too embarrassing for the company to make public.” Jimbo shrugged.

  “He’s that kind of guy, huh?”

  “Unless he’s changed.”

  “Sounds about right for us. So, Chaz is pussying out on us?”

  “Appears that way,” Jimbo said. “It makes sense for him. I’m not gonna judge. He’s seen enough.”

  “And you haven’t?” Dwayne said. “I want to see it all.” Jimbo grinned.

  Dwayne pulled the rental to a stop on a sandy lot where the road dead-ended at the bank of a broad inlet. A row of masts was visible over the tree line that ran along one side of the lot. There were a couple of salt-faded pickups baking in the sun. Boat trailers rusted in the weeds.

  They followed a wood-decked pier lined with anchored boats, Sea Rays and Esprits, and a couple of catamarans. At the end of the pier, a forty-foot pontoon boat with an enclosed cabin bobbed in the gentle swell. WOTTA PEACH was painted in fading letters across the bow.

  “This is him,” Jimbo said.

  “He takes that on the ocean?” Dwayne said.

  “Naw. He lives on it.”

  A high feminine shriek coming from within the houseboat echoed over the water loud enough to startle a flock of terns from their roost on a sandbar.

  “Yeah,” Jimbo said. “He hasn’t changed.”