Crime & Counterpoint (40 page)

Spasms of white-gold shards shattered the sooty sky with such frequency that it seemed heaven had a loose connection. But the lightning failed to penetrate the thick miasma creaming the ocean’s surface, which blanketed the
Black Orpheus
and shrouded its cranes and mast in cotton swirls.

A querulous wave crashed over the gunwale on the starboard side, and many escaped a good soaking. But it didn’t matter.

The sky firecrackered and then…

Cold Spring rain began to fall in torrents. The wind picked up maddeningly, sending the scathing deluge beating down at a sharp angle, but the grey fog held its sway. Picking up their pace, dozens of deckhands worked in frenetic tandem to complete the mid-sea exchange the goods.

Amidst the measured chaos and concealing conditions, Zach penetrated the scores of robust men. He knew it was stupid, perhaps suicidal, but he wasn’t about to sit on the bench. He had to finish the job. Rain dribbled down his face and under his jacket, chilling him to the core. His hair plastered to his forehead; he swiped at the drops stinging his vision. He cursed the stupid weather, and peered out to sea, wondering how the Coast Guard would find them in this mess.

Unexpectedly, he saw himself sinking beneath the surface of the Harlem. He took a step back, his boots sloshed the water. Thunder rumbled.

“
¡Oye! Ven aquí!
” a man yelled.

Zach whipped around sparked by fear. It was a swarthy man with water basting his beard, standing over the sea like Jesus himself.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the Colombian said, hefting a huge crate. “
¡Ayúdame!
”

Zach glanced at the make-shift gangway. Two one-foot wide planks stretched from the unguarded opening of the trawler to the protruding conning tower of the submarine. Along one, Russians transported air-tight cases of assault weapons to the sub. Mutely, Zach eased out onto the narrow strip. His breath arrested, his whole body anticipated the moment the plank would break. He wasn’t that high above the water, but the remembered nightmare of drowning was enough to encourage fear to grow unfettered.

“
Gracias
,” the Colombian said, handing off his burden. “We really loaded them up this time. It’s breaking my back. But Davila said less is more.”

Zach’s ears pricked. Davila. He’d heard the name. From Cervenka. But just then another larger wave swept up and clawed at him as he moved stiffly back to the ship with the crate. The plank moved as the storm tossed the craft. Ironically, if not for the hundred-pounds of coke altering his center of gravity, he might’ve been washed overboard. A cold hand settled around his heart in a gentle death grip. Long fingers began to stroke his muscled back, running up and down, up and down, almost enticingly. Familiar wet fingers.

He attempted to shake off the sickening remembrance as he set the cocaine down with the other crates accumulating along the stern quarter deck, blending conspicuously amidst fish freezers and giant spools. He swiped his free hand across his face as soon as he could. Twice. Once for the rain, once to clear the fear.

His jaw clicked as he tightened it. He stared harder, waiting for the rain to lessen or the fog to thin. Suddenly, from behind him, he heard yelling.

He turned. Men everywhere began to drop what they were doing. They started running. Running and slipping around, colliding into each other, towards what? The coke? No. To the weapons not yet loaded.

Cold dread knifed through his chest, and his old wounds started to pound. And he remembered why he’d stayed angry for so long. Where was his old friend now?

From his vantage point, he could see either side of the bridge and more than fifty men – Colombians, Eurasians, and Russians – begin to pry open the containers and assemble weapons despite the weather’s assault; working with speed and precision to arm themselves with more than just compact pistols. Lightweight AEK and PP-91 submachine guns, AK-12 and 74 assault rifles, and numerous MP-443 semiautomatics appeared in the hands of the combat-fit Eurasians. A Kord machine gun materialized as well.

Damn it.
His pulse ratcheted up several knots. Someone tossed him an MP-443. Fully-loaded. He caught it just in time. It was the same Colombian from the gangplank.

“Know how to use it right?” he asked. “Shoot the fish out of the water.”

Confused at first, Zach didn’t know what to say but a quick glance at the turbulent sea supplied the reason for their sudden activity.

Two majestic white cutters with a red insignia appeared through the fog, turning sudden bright floodlights on the
Black Orpheus
.

The Coast Guard had arrived. 

Vienna faded back into coherence. A crackling transmission pulled her from oblivion. Her eyes pried themselves open. Bleary, she couldn’t see anything for several seconds. She was slow to recognize that she was in the same storage room. Alone.

The throbbing of her bullet-wounds gradually greeted her full force. But by degrees, the distant, muffled drill of gunfire filtered through her dream-like state, and she remembered what happened. Her misty gaze swiveled lazily around the room. She saw a VHF radio.

“
…I repeat. A Seahawk is on its way. ETA two minutes. Stay below deck…
”

Hearing this, she grew hysterical and started trying to move, but after knife-stabbing pain shot up and down her wounded leg and arm, she came to the realization that she couldn’t move.

Vienna gazed bleakly, sweating. Water seeped along the fiberglass, coming from the narrow galley through the wide open door. The stream brought with it oily, filmy rainbows. A rivulet teetered towards her, like a drunken sailor. It intermingled with her draining blood, sopping up the crimson.

Then, suddenly, she heard an explosion like the impact of a grenade.
BOOM! The engine room.
Her eyes lit with vivid fear as the ship groaned terribly. She had the clear image of herself dying down here. Trapped. Alone. With a wet hand, she gripped at the locket and struggled to open it. But it was next to impossible with one hand.

Crying stubbornly, she at last managed to open the trinket. But she scarcely was able to look at the picture inside for the tears blinding her eyes. She cursed herself in Russian as the pain swarmed her again like demons.

She dropped her white-gold head to the floor just as she heard a different kind of crackling beyond the doorway. She smelled it in the air.

Fire
.

The frenzy onboard deafened, overpowering the thunder in the night sky. Outgunned, the Coast Guard launched smokers onto the ghost black ship to temper the hammering onslaught. Whitish grey, sweet-sickly-smelling plumes filled the rancid air, and
Black Orpheus
became opaque chaos – but the tactic backfired.

From the Colombians’ sub, sold to them by the Brother’s Circle
,
the call came that it was ready to dive. One by one the spits of individual guns ceased aboard the trawler, and the searing weapons plopped onto the rheumy deck as the crew fled towards the sub under the chemical cloak.

The drill of the Kord 6P50 continued, having reloaded with a new 50-round linked belt. The Kord only had to keep the Coast Guard from boarding for one more minute.

Amidst the palpable pandemonium, Zach stayed low, trying not to get trampled by the veritable stampede. But the Colombian he’d met on the plank nabbed him. “Come on,
cabrón
! Let’s get out of here!”

Zach pretended like he was going to follow, but at the last second, he said, “Go on without me. I’ll be right there.”

The Colombian looked at him like he was crazy, but waved Zach off and practically ran across one of the planks to get to the sub.

Relieved, Zach set his sights on the skin-headed machine gun operator. In the distance, he thought he could hear the whirring of a chopper’s blades, but the wind was too strong to know for sure.

Approaching the gunner from behind, Zach lunged at him, knocking him to the ground and silencing the flashing spits of the rotary gun. The man’s girth was formidable, and Zach applied all his strength to keep the gunman under him. 

They tussled on the slick deck, but the man sprang to his feet first, producing a Russian military standard-issue Grach firearm.

Zach quickly clambered to his feet, evading three armor-piercing bullets. He slugged the Russian in the face, flesh contacting flesh, drawing blood right away. The man roared as Zach grabbed the malefactor by his sopping jacket, thrusting him backwards with vehemence. Unexpectedly, the Russian fell from the quarterdeck and hit a solid metal protrusion. His narrow eyes rolled in the back of his bald head.

Suddenly, Zach noticed angry, black funnels swelling from the entry to the lower deck. He couldn’t see any flames, but only fire could’ve caused that kind of smoke. And just when the rain could have been useful, the downpour faded away and ceased altogether, wind moving on with it.

“Great,” he muttered. He jogged across the deck towards the stairs but abruptly Rick cut him off before he was halfway to the superstructure.

“Where the hell’d you go?!” Rick blocked his path.

Zach shoved Rick to the side. “I’ve gotta get Vienna!”

“Don’t be an idiot!” Rick shouted above the noise as armed Coast Guard boarded the trawler. He grabbed Zach by the back of his jacket. “You really wanna die again? Let the Coast Guard take care of it!”

But before Zach could respond, a high-pitched whine accompanied by the rhythmic thwack of blades cut through the stormy night. Both men lifted their gaze to the ashy heavens.

The Navy had indeed responded. A modified SH-60 Seahawk appeared through the spiraling clouds and reaching waves. The lumbering chopper with its black-clad personnel and bright-as-angels lights hovered over the starboard side and rained its power in 7.62mm bullets spitting from an M240 medium machine gun.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
It devastated the remaining thirty or so men struggling to climb into the sub in a few short seconds.

No more shots. No more bullets.

The loud dome of the
Seahawk’s
obliterating artillery covered Zach’s retreat. He filled his lungs with salty, gunsmoked air and descended into the burning midriff of the ship. Rick grabbed the back of his jacket, but Zach shoved him back violently. “I have to do this!”

Rick looked at him, clearly not understanding, but he let Zach go.

[Flicker]

(“Good evening, sir. Welcome to The Purple Gazelle…”)

Zach’s boots pounded down the wooden planks through a tunnel of blinding smoke billowing past him and up the stairs, eager to grow. He could barely see a foot in front of him. His bones began to quake with apprehension. Whatever common sense he possessed tried to pull him back, but
(“Lovely isn’t she…?”)
if it had been Shelley, shot and threatened by fire, he would have risked everything.

His eyes stung, eliciting tears which evaporated instantly. He reached the bottom landing with a splash.

(((Ripple)))

He peered down. Water. About two inches of it. A kaleidoscopic oil film moved in serpentine patterns, reflecting the bright orange, black, and brake light red flames. They thrashed from the engine room near the other end of the long corridor.

(“So that’s the way the river runs…”)

Zach pushed forward though the path ahead looked daunting. Fiery tongues crept out of the room, licking through the ceiling just above, lashing their way along the wall. Trying to get to him as he rushed down the hall. The roar of the blaze grew vociferous, heat increasing its voltage by tens of degrees. He could make out the plaster on the left wall melting. Peeling. With every step, he expected to collide with burning, devouring hands.

(I’ve got you under my skin… I’ve got you deep in the heart of me…)

He stumbled through the open door of the fourth room. The air was saturated with noxious smoke. Quickly, he found Vienna just where he’d left her. Pooling in her own blood which now mingled with polluted water. Unconscious and paler than a grounded dove, she was soaked below and smoked above.

(“Why did you come?”)

Stripping off his parched jacket, he draped it over Vienna’s face and upper body.

(“Because… I found something worth dying for.”)

Bending, he hefted her into his arms; she was lighter than expected. But then again, adrenaline perverted his strength.

Liquid showered from her, plopping into the shallow film below.

(“You’re torturing me!”)

A dreadful moaning escaped her cracked lips with his handling. She began to struggle as he started for the door but then passed out again, limp.

(“I’m trying to save you.”)

He stared into the face of the glowing, dark corridor and felt his confidence shatter. But he couldn’t stay here; he had no choice.

He took one deep breath, half-filled with carbon monoxide and then stepped into the blazing incinerator, swallowed whole by chain-smoking demons. Without the protection of his coat, the scalding heat saturated his upper body.

[Flicker]

(“I’m sorry, Zach. I’m so sorry.”)

Impassioned thoughts of Shelley drove him mad as flames danced maliciously everywhere. He fought to keep his eyes open – fought to see as he rushed down the hall away from the engine room.

(“Is that the way you always think? That what happens to you is nobody’s problem but yours?”)

But then, a sizzling tower shot up in front of him. His eyes widened with shock as he stopped short, inches from the fire.

Behind, he felt the heat closing in with alarming speed. The crackling grew louder and the corridor grew brighter, turning the smoke cream-colored. He would be boxed in. Panic claimed him but spurred his anger.

(“If you don’t want me to make sure you’re okay then fine, I won’t.”)

Somehow, he moved forward, skirting past the flames through the narrow gap on the right, pressing Vienna as close to the sweltering wall as possible. The fire singed his back in the frantic second it took him to pass.

[Flicker]

(“You can’t protect her forever… She’s dead. And so are you.”)

As he progressed, the smoke darkened and the loud blare decrescendoed. Hope grew. He had a chance.

But then, something sparked, shooting over his head. Instantaneously, fire-breathing ghouls erupted in front of him again, illuminating everything as they blazed a straight path to the stairs ahead and continued to the galley.

More flames exploded as it reached the bolted table. That chemical spill. The wooden stairs caught the fever, cutting off his clear route.

His muscles grew weary
(“Do not let your wrists sag…”).
He lost his willpower. His lungs burned, screaming at him to breathe. Heat penetrated the soles of his boots as he stood still, sinking in hopeless dread.

(“Does it ever get easier? Thinking you’re going to die?”)

[Flicker]

Fear incited him to
(“Run!”)
turn around. He started back the way he’d come, towards the engine room. The air grew unbearable the nearer to the heart of the fire he got. Fatigue bared down on him, but not for a split second did he consider leaving Vienna to burn.

(“You left me to deal with everything myself. Where have you been?”)

The engine room came up on his right.

He didn’t see or remember the ladder until first Vienna’s legs then his shoulder slammed into the furnace-heated metal. He fought to keep from bellowing as that one instant of contact seared through his shirt and bit into his flesh.
(Why do I try and resist when baby I know so well? I’ve got you under my skin.)
His teeth clicked together against the pain.

A beam crashed down in front of him, sending sprays of the remaining, boiling water onto the walls and splashing him.

But the stairs – he’d reached them.

Clambering over the thick beam, he raced for the first step, desperation driving him. Only the right side was ridden with hissing flames.
(“I can teach you to play the piano. Do you want to learn?”)
He was halfway up when suddenly–

CRACK!

The plank gave beneath his weight, weakened by the fire. His leg broke through, nearly taking the rest of him down. The splintered wood cut into his calf.

Struggling, he used his elbows for leverage as he tried to pull himself out. With Vienna, it was damn near impossible.
(“Don’t leave me.”)
Fingers of fire crawled towards him.

No!
he screamed at himself. This was not how it was supposed to be. A yard shy of his goal. He was not going to stay down. This was not the end.
(“Are you afraid of dying?”)
Not this time.
(“I was only afraid of you getting hurt.”)

The flames drew close and touched him, wrapping around his bicep.

[Flicker]

He heard the deafening collapse of the wall by the engine room. A sharp sensation cut through his upper back. His panic escalated. The feeling nearly debilitated, but
(“You don’t need me.”)
it was the all-consuming thought of Shelley that suddenly filled him with unbreakable courage.
(“But I want you.”)

Gritting and straining, he
(“…try your left hand…”)
half-dropped Vienna so he could grab hold of the railing. He felt the hot metal brand his palm. But he held on, baring his teeth, pushing and pulling, fighting with everything he had to stand on solid ground. His knee screamed as it came through the spikes, feeling just like he remembered.
(“I just can’t stop seeing the train. The men. The guns. You.”)
But he would walk this time. He would win.

(“I finally know what I want after all these years…”)

His calf, then ankle, then boot pulled free. With difficulty, he set his foot on the next step above. Growling, insides quaking, he launched both himself and Vienna up, hearing the wood creak. Fighting, he hurried, steps falling away from him, clipping at his heels as he climbed.

(“I love you, Zach.”)

He gasped, face scarlet, as he reached the top, emerging from the choking, all-consuming vapors. He set Vienna down, dropped to the ground, and rolled to damp the fire eating away at his upper bicep.

Then, he sat on his knees, panting and breathing deep of the briny, smoky air. He could hear the
Seahawk’s
piercing thwack, felt the pain in his knee, the tired, gratifying agony in his whole body, and the thunderous roar of the sea all around him. He closed his eyes, lifted his head to heaven, thanking God.

(“So what’re you gonna do now?”)

He would have his victory.