Red Tide (23 page)

41

C
harly Hart slammed the phone on the bed. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. He checked his watch and looked up at Corso who stood with one foot on the balcony and the other on the carpet.

“Problem?” Corso asked.

Hart threw his good hand into the air. “What kind of crazy son of a bitch throws himself off the balcony on a night like this?”

“Son of a bitch who really don’t want to get caught.”

Hart nodded grudgingly, struggled to his feet and shuffled out through the sliding doors onto the balcony. Three stories below, Puget Sound gleamed like a cabochon. A full moon, veiled and pale, rode high over Bainbridge Island, sending a silver stake of light shimmering across the expanse of water, narrowing its beam…thinner and thinner, until it seemed to point directly at the room in which they stood.

Corso stepped all the way outside and leaned over the rail, where a pair of Coast Guard runabouts skirted the pilings, the narrow beams of their halogen searchlights spearing the darkness beneath his feet.

“Reuben’s still in the operating room,” Charly Hart said, as he snuck another peek at his watch. “What in hell can they be doing all this time? It’s been four fucking hours, for christ sakes.”

Corso rejected several responses, opting to keep his mouth shut. Thus encouraged, Hart went on. “I guess Inez came all the way unglued down at the hospital. Hadda be sedated. They got her in the room next to where Reuben’s gonna be.” He stared off into space. “Woman’s a soap opera waiting to happen. One of the great fucking drama queens of our time.” Catching the bitterness in his own voice, Charly Hart clamped his jaw closed.

Corso put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s see what’s going on downstairs,” Corso said. Charly didn’t answer. Just turned and started pushing his feet toward the door.

Samuel checked the zipper on his coveralls and then did the same for Paul.

“Who are you two.” The voice came out of nowhere in the seconds before the face emerged from behind the battered aluminum trailer where they’d just been issued their haz-mat suits. He was older than Holmes. Maybe fifty. Needing a shave. Wearing the same two-tone brown coveralls they were sporting.
NORTHWEST SANITATION
sewn across the back. One size fits all.

“Rishi and Singleton,” Paul told him.

“You new?”

They nodded in unison. He pointed across the lot…to a larger, newer portable building where a line of men walked in one end dressed like they were now and emerged from the other end with tandem breathing devices resting on top of their heads and silver canisters strapped across their backs. “Hurry up,” the man said. “Hustle over there and get yourselves into your gear. The party’s about to start.”

Samuel and Paul passed a quick look. The plan was to sidle back over to the car…to get their facsimile canisters, then to join the rest of the crew over by the west gate.

When they failed to move, the guy stepped in closer, eliminating any question as to what he’d been doing behind the trailer. His breath smelled of old cigarettes and new whiskey. His etched fingers were yellowed at the ends.

“Let’s go, fellas,” he bellowed. “Ain’t no fashion show here.”

He took Samuel by the elbow and began to move him across the yard. Paul trailed along in their wake, casting furtive glances at the Subaru as he moved along.

“Hope to God you two ain’t gonna be this pokey all morning.”

“Oh man…it’s fucked. Took the whole damn antennae mast off and everything.” Pete slapped his hands against his sides. “They’re gonna go ratshit over this. Absolutely ratshit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jim Sexton soothed. “We’re on such a roll, they’ll never even mind.”

He said it, but knew it wasn’t true. These days you could find Jimmy Hoffa’s body and there’d still be some bean counter demanding you justify the pick and shovel. The bottom line was king at KING-TV. And, although it was not a word he generally used…because Beth went absolutely ballistic…“fucked” was precisely what the van was. A deep crease ran the entire length of the vehicle; in places the paint had been ground all the way down to the bare sheet metal. The passenger window was sprung and would no longer roll up. Worse yet, as Pete had so aptly pointed out, the microwave antennae had been torn completely loose and at some point had been run over by the tires, leaving twenty grand worth of high-tech equipment little more than a twisted assemblage of wire and metal, ready for immediate recycling.

“Let’s get real clear here, man,” Pete was saying. “
I
wasn’t the one driving when all this…” He waved a hand at the carnage. Before he could drum up the proper phrase, however, it became apparent to him that Jim wasn’t listening, but instead was staring intently at a pair of men crossing Elliott Avenue arm in arm. Considering the neighborhood, it would have been easy to write the sight off as a pair of drunks helping one another across the street after yet another afternoon of drunken debauchery. Problem was…they were soaking wet. Not the kind of wet you get from the rain. The kind of wet you only get from swimming in your clothes. The kind where you leave big wet tracks on the sidewalk as you move along.

“What do we have here?” Jim asked himself.

A block and a half to the west, the night was aflame with pulsing emergency lights…red and white and blue and red and white and blue…ricocheting off the bricks, dancing on the clouds, as what seemed like half the police cars in town had converged on the Edgewater Hotel.

They watched in silence as the pair crossed the sidewalk and disappeared inside the Belltown Parking Garage. Monthly Rates Available.

“You don’t suppose…” Jim started.

“Don’t even start, man,” Pete jumped in. “Next thing I’m going for a ride in is a tow truck.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Jim wasn’t listening. He’d pulled the walkie-talkie from his pocket and had it pressed tightly to his ear.

“…went off the balcony. Got two Coast Guard and two of our own boats scouring the water side,” the skinny cop was saying.

“What about the others?” Sounded like the chief.

“Rooms were empty. We’re doing a door-to-door.”

“Keep me in the loop,” Click. Silence.

And then, half a block down the hill, a black Mercedes nosed out of the parking garage. Stopping for a moment in the middle of the sidewalk while the driver surveyed the scene. The gentle rocking movement sent one of the chrome headlight rims rolling out into the street. A rhythmic ticking sound said the fan was hitting something as it went around.

The driver turned left…heading south. Without willing it so, Jim Sexton found himself trotting toward the van. He could hear Pete carping in the background…something about giving it a rest…as he slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key.

He was down the hill and around the corner before he realized the van was dragging something. He shrugged and turned up the radio. Warren Zevon. “Werewolves of London.”

42

W
esley shifted his weight from foot to foot. Nathan gave him a little bump with his hip as if to tell him to relax, but it didn’t do any good. If anything, Wesley seemed to get more energized by the contact, so Nathan bumped him again and threw a scowl his way. From the corner of his eye, he watched Wesley’s right hand clenching and unclenching around something he was holding. He looked away.

The foreman of their cadre—they called the work groups “cadres”—was finally winding down. Other groups had been inside for at least ten minutes, while they were still standing outside receiving instructions. Nathan was ready. Everything had gone according to plan. They’d switched backpack sprayers, queued up and nobody had been the wiser. Their hour was finally at hand. Nathan looked up, forcing his eyes to take in the sheer scale of the world they were about to enter. He stifled a shudder.

“Harris,” the foreman called.

“Yeah,” somebody yelled back.

“Got a new partner for you.”

“Another one?”

“Some folks just can’t stand prosperity.”

Harris strolled up from the far end of the line. Like everyone else, he was clad from head to toe in blue.
SANITATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES INC
.

“Singh,” he called out now.

Nathan held his breath as Wesley stepped forward. The one called Harris beckoned Wesley to come closer, then took him aside. “We’re working C deck, you and me.” He looked Wesley up and down. “You ever done this kind of work before?” Wesley shook his head. Harris reckoned how it didn’t matter much either way as it wasn’t what he called “rocket science” anyway. Nathan watched as Harris and Wesley walked toward the far end of the queue and eventually disappeared from sight.

“McGruder,” the foreman called.

“Let me guess,” the man on Nathan’s right said.

“Another training opportunity.”

McGruder stuck out a hand. “Must be you,” he said to Nathan. “I know most of the rest of these monkeys.”

Nathan shook hands. The guy patted him on the shoulder. “Gonna be workin’ right across the hall from Harris and your buddy.” He smiled. “Like old Harris there said, this ain’t exactly rocket science.”

“Come up with a hotel maid on her way home from her shift, says she saw a couple of East Indians get into some red Japanese car and drive south,” the cop said. The cop spread his hands as if to say, “Sorry but that’s it.”

“Thanks,” said Charly Hart. He looked around at the awesome array of police equipment. “Police garage is empty tonight,” he commented.

The cop nodded. “Whatever’s not down at the Weston is right here.”

Another uniformed officer was chugging up the sidewalk in their direction. Guy needed to get out of the squad car more often. His sizable stomach bobbed like a melon as he jogged along. By the time he slid to a stop in front of Charly Hart, he was so out of breath he had to take some time to compose himself before he was able to deliver his message. Even then, the words came out in a series of gasps.

“Down there…”—he pointed north and panted a couple of times—“they got a place…”—couple more deep breaths—“looks like somebody came out of the water.”

“Show me,” Hart said.

Luckily for the out-of-shape cop, Charly Hart wasn’t up to rapid movement. They trudged along in silence for the better part of two hundred yards. The wind had stilled and the tide was at slack, leaving the surface of the water as flat as glass.

Two piers down they came to an unexpected break in the tourist traps, a little dock where a sailboat stood ready to take folks out for a little cruise of the bay for a mere twenty bucks each. Plus tax.

A Harbor Patrol cop stood at the bottom of a set of concrete stairs. He wore a dark blue SPD baseball cap, a black wetsuit and a bright orange life vest. He pointed at a collection of blotches and footprints covering the central portion of the stairs. At least one of them had been barefoot. The outlines of his toes were visible in the dim light.

“Looks like something went up here,” the HP cop said. “Not too long ago either.”

Corso looked down at the sidewalk. The same wet trail crossed the concrete sidewalk and then disappeared on the black asphalt of the street.

“Hell of a long way from where they went out the window,” Charly Hart mused. “Guy musta been an Olympic swimmer.”

The cop shook his head. “Half an hour ago the tide was ebbing hard. The way it swirls around in this part of the bay, it could have dragged ’em down here like they had a motor. All they hadda do was keep their heads above water.” He made an arc with his arm. “Big eddy just spit ’em out here under the building. By the time they were out of the current, with the tide all the way out, they could probably stand. Just walked on out.”

Charly Hart thanked him and turned back toward the street.

“Maybe a dog,” Corso said.

“Just what I was thinking,” Hart said.

He got on the radio and called for a K9 unit. “Foot of Broad Street.”

A blue SPD cruiser slid to a stop at the curb. One cop driving, another riding shotgun. Passenger leaning forward in the backseat in that awkward way of people wearing handcuffs. Driver popped the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Stocky Asian guy whose name tag says T. Masakawa.

Hands Charly Hart a wallet and a laminated ID card.

Jerks a thumb at the man in the backseat. “Picked up this guy walking down the railroad right-of-way. Peter Carrol. Works for KING-TV. Mr. Carrol here just couldn’t manage to be forthcoming about what he was doing there, so we brought him along.”

“Let’s get him out here.”

Although a glance at the ID hadn’t rung a bell, Charly Hart recognized him immediately. “It’s Parka Boy’s cameraman,” he said to no one in particular. “Where’s your buddy?” he asked.

Pete Carrol shook the handcuffs. “What’s this about?” he demanded. “Since when is it illegal to be walking around the city?”

“Since we’ve got terrorists threatening to kill everybody and you don’t seem to be coming up with the right answers.”

Charly waved his good hand at Officer Masakawa. “Let him go.”

Pete stood on the sidewalk rubbing his wrists. Charly stepped in close, took Pete by the shoulder and led him across the sidewalk to the top of the stairs. He bent at the waist and put his nose right up to Pete’s. “I’m only going to say this once, Mr. Carrol. What’s going on here is serious business. It’s got nothing to do with that ‘who gets the story first’ bullshit you spend your life chasing. This is for real.” He pointed at the wet spots on the concrete. “We think we’ve got a couple of terrorists who came out of the water right here. I’m sure you want to do everything possible to help our investigation. I’m also sure that’s the way your federally licensed employers back at the station would want it to be.” He moved even closer. Insisting on eye contact. “Don’t you think so?”

Pete Carrol nodded.

“Yes what?” Charly Hart wanted to know.

“We seen ’em.”

Charly Hart took a deep breath. “Seen who?”

“The wet guys.”

The story came out of him like it was under pressure. Wrecking the truck. How he wasn’t the one driving. How much trouble they were gonna be in. The two wet guys limping into the parking garage. “Couple minutes later they come driving out in a big black Mercedes. Front end all messed up, dropping parts all over the street.” He waved a tired hand. “Nice rig, but the thing was a mess.”

Corso and Charly Hart passed a look.

“Went south on Western,” Pete Carrol said.

“And Parka Boy?”

“Right on their tail.”

Jim knew right away what was going on. He’d covered the original story. Back when all the hoopla about the cruise ship industry coming to Seattle turned into a story of how the boats kept coming back from the inside passage with boatloads of sick people and didn’t know what to do about it. Back when the promise of seven days floating around Alaskan icebergs regularly morphed into seven hundred seriously unhappy people with the trots, many of whom were also spending their free time projectile-vomiting the buffet lunch into marine heads. Some kind of virus the ship lines said. Naturally, bookings went the way of the buffet lunches, and for a while, it looked like the whole cruise ship thing was going to be over before it began.

After it happened three or four times, the cruise lines started hiring teams to disinfect the entire ship between cruises. Hundreds of people spraying god knows what carcinogens all over the place to keep the passengers from losing their lunches. Must have worked, though, because he couldn’t remember a similar story this whole cruise season.

And there they were, the wet brothers, half a block up the street, changing into dry clothes before reporting for work and shouldering themselves into pairs of green coveralls. Jim Sexton clung to the chain-link fence and watched as the duo dressed. Must have been a hundred people milling around in the same coveralls. Most of them wearing black backpack sprayers.

Weird though. Coupla guys driving a Mercedes, on the run from the cops, working for ten bucks an hour on their way out of town. Spraying disinfectant all over the
Arctic Flower.
THE FUN SHIP
, as the sign proclaimed. That’s when the first tingle of fear ran down Jim’s spine.