Rolling Thunder

by Matt Lincoln

  “Hey, man, I ain’t smoking,” he slurred, blinking at me with bright red, glassy eyes. He thrust a grimy hand in my general direction. When I didn’t take it, he lowered his arm slowly.

  “Can we do this outside, dude?” he loud-whispered, a puff of sour breath hit my face as he rubbed his palms on his shorts and looked around with a twitching stare. “Don’t want nobody to hear.”

  Outside sounded good to me. At least the open air would diffuse some of the stench.

  “Lead the way,” I said as I slid from the stool and looked back at Tessa. “You want to come with? If you’d rather stay inside—”

  “No, I’ll come,” she said. “It’s got to smell better out there.”

  That was probably an accurate assessment.

  We followed Dollar through the bar, out the door, and down the sidewalk to the alley next to the building. He stopped at the mouth of the alley and waved us in, trailing behind us. The narrow passage was dead-ended at the back of another building and contained nothing but a rancid, overflowing dumpster that still smelled better than the informant. A single yellow bulb mounted above the trash cast a dirty pool of light, and there was an olive green, solid metal door led out of the restaurant a few feet behind the dumpster, presumably from the kitchen.

  We congregated next to the foul metal container, Dollar in front of us with his back to the alley’s entrance. He looked from me to Tessa, and an oily smile formed on his gaunt, malnourished face.

  “Your new partner’s a lot prettier than the old one,” he said carefully as if he had to sort his words before he could pluck them from his tongue. “‘Cept it was Holm that called me. How come he’s not with you?”

  “He’s off tonight, and she’s not my partner.” I left it there with no attempt at introductions. He really didn’t need to know her name. “Holm says you have something for us.”

  Dollar gave a woozy nod and made a long, awkward attempt to clear his throat. “Man, I’m thirsty,” he slurred. “Cotton-mouth, you know how it is. You got a drink on you? Need to wet my whistle somethin’ fierce.”

  “Just spill it, Dollar.”

  An injured look formed on his face. “I was just trying to be friendly-like,” he whined.

  “We’re not friends,” I said. “Now if you’ve got something, I want to hear it. Otherwise, I’ll get Metro to pick you up for public intoxication.”

  He snorted laughter. “Dude, I’m not drunk. I’m friggin’ stoned out of my mind.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said dryly. “Listen, Dollar—”

  I pressed my mouth shut over the rest as I caught a glimpse of movement over the informant’s shoulder, by the entrance to the alley. Shadows slinking through shadows. Instinctively, I pulled my piece and pointed it in the direction of the motion.

  “Federal agent,” I called. “Identify yourself.”

  Dollar’s arms shot up, trembling. “Hey, man! It was just a little bit of weed, I swear…”

  “Shut up,” I hissed.

  I felt Tessa’s hand on my arm as she shuffled behind me. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  Before I could answer, the crack of a gun exploded in the alley. Dollar jerked and cried out, a red stain blooming rapidly near his left shoulder as he crumpled to the ground.

  I fired twice into the shadows, then whirled and grabbed Tessa, shoving her behind the dumpster. “Stay down,” I growled. “Don’t move.”

  Without waiting to hear her response, I whirled back and took several leading steps away before dropping to a crouch as I narrowed my eyes to scan the shadows.

  Another shot rang out and grazed past me. I didn’t move, my gaze finding the muzzle flash from the dark, where I took aim and fired.

  There was a heavy thud. One arm flopped into the light cast by the yellow bulb mounted above the dumpster, a gun held loosely in the hand. The weapon slipped from the fingers on impact with the ground.

  Then I heard a faint click.

  I dropped flat on the pavement, half a second before three shots flew over my splayed form. I was rolling before the gunfire stopped, tracking the movement of the muzzle flashes as they stuttered closer to my position.

  Then I jackknifed to my knees and raked fire across the shadows until I heard something fall heavily.

  “Anybody else want to commit suicide tonight?” I called into the silence that rolled over the final thud of the second assailant hitting the ground.

  There was a bang behind me. I whirled, weapon pointed, to see Mike rushing out of the metal door with a shotgun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, his eyes wild with anger.

  “What the hell…?” he started and then stopped when he recognized me. “Holy Christ almighty,” he blurted. “I’m gonna go broke on that mint julep deal. Everybody okay out here?”

  I relaxed by degrees and lowered my gun before turning my attention to Tessa. She was wedged in the back corner formed by the dumpster and the wall, trembling and white-faced but physically unharmed. I walked toward her, held a hand out, and when she took it, I pulled her gently to her feet.

  “Sorry I scared you,” I said.

  “It’s fine. I’m alive,” she said in a shaking voice. “Is Dollar…?”

  I squeezed her hand briefly before I let go and glanced around the corner of the dumpster. Dollar Store was flat on his back, breathing shallowly with his eyelids fluttering. “We’re okay. He’s not,” I said to Mike as I tipped my head toward the informant. “Can you call 911, and do you have a bar rag on you?”

  “Yes, and yes.” Mike panned the flashlight beam across the alley to illuminate the motionless bodies of the assailants. At least there weren’t any more live ones lurking around. He leaned the shotgun against the wall, drew a clean rag from his apron and tossed it to me. Then he moved to stand near Tessa.

  “Why don’t you come and sit down over here, on the steps?” he asked, gently steering her toward the concrete stoop beneath the door with a hand on her back. “Before you pass out.”

  She gave a numb nod, and I left her in Mike’s care so I could tend to Dollar.

  He groaned when I knelt beside him and pressed the folded bar towel to the wound in his shoulder, keeping pressure on it. When he tried to lift his head, I pushed it carefully back down.

  “Don’t move. We’ve got an ambulance coming,” I told him as I heard Mike speaking in low tones to a dispatcher, giving the address of the bar and a brief description of the scene.

  Dollar’s eyes widened. “Ambulance?”

  “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “They won’t arrest you.”

  He relaxed but almost instantly tensed again. “They shot me,” he murmured. “It hurts.”

  “Yeah, it does. You’re gonna make it, though.”

  I suspected I already knew how this happened. It was a fair assumption that the shooters were Black Mambas, and they’d followed this poor, stoned son of a bitch to the bar, probably guessing that with his paranoia, he’d draw me outside. Tessa must’ve looked like an unexpected bonus to them.

  Dollar groaned again. “What about Harry?”

  It took me a minute to realize he meant the ridiculous shirt he was wearing, now saturated with blood, and I gave his uninjured shoulder a gentle pat.

  “I think Harry took one for the team,” I said. “Sorry, man.”

  “Oh.” He blinked his red eyes owlishly. “Hey, dude. I was gonna tell you something.”

  “Yeah, you were,” I said as I heard approaching sirens in the distance. “Maybe you could do that real quick?”

  His nod turned into a wince. “It’s about the boat. The sunk one. I know what’s on it. Fifty bricks of heroin.”

  Holy hell. That was a few million dollars’ worth of merchandise. No wonder Cobra Jon hadn’t minded killing a few people to get it back… not that he needed a particular reason to murder people.

  “Do you know when he’s going after it?” I said quietly.

  “Tomorrow, midnight.” Dollar gave a pained cough, and his body tensed aga
in. “He came to me for a night runner.”

  Well, shit. A night runner was a stealth boat, ocean-camouflaged, invisible to radar, and capable of lightless operation with a satellite-run nav system. The military had been using the technology for a few years now, but capable models were just starting to pop up on the black market.

  “You give him one?” I asked.

  “Gave him a connection.” Dollar’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “So he’ll probably get his hands on one, but that’s for his divers. He’s taking the big ship out … personally overseeing the operation.”

  Well, at least that meant we’d be able to spot the cocky bastard out there. Still, we’d never take him out if he saw us coming first. The only way to catch him now would be to find out the location of the wreck and beat him there. “You don’t happen to have the coordinates where the boat went down, do you?”

  Dollar shook his head. “Sorry. Watch out for the bomb, though.”

  “What bomb?”

  “Smuggler’s insurance,” he rasped. “He uses HBT-nitrate with a remote trigger, so even if the boat sinks…”

  I sighed. “He can blow it up underwater.”

  Smuggler’s insurance was the name given to bombs with enough explosive power to obliterate a boat, along with any evidence it contained, in case the smuggler got caught. Modern-day pirates were particularly fond of the tactic and liked to wait until authorities boarded the vessel before they shucked off and blew everything.

  “All right,” I said at last. “Thanks, Dollar. I appreciate the heads-up.”

  “Enough to spot me a twenty?” he said hopefully. “Business’s been slow lately.”

  Instead of releasing the rebuke that was on the tip of my tongue, I teased my wallet out one-handed, extracted three twenties, and pressed them into his good hand. After all, the man had been shot trying to help me out, and what he’d told me was actually useful.

  Dollar grinned at me, showing green-stained teeth. “Thanks, dude.”

  “Yeah. You’re welcome,” I said as the first of the emergency vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the alley, painted the space with flickering red and blue. I stayed with him until the EMTs rushed down to take over, then headed back to Tessa and Mike, my brain churning.

  If I didn’t locate that wreck in the next twenty-four hours, my window to catch Cobra Jon would close, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get it open again.

  Chapter 26

  Even though I’d told Tessa that we were headed for a marina, she was still surprised when I brought her on board my boat.

  It had taken around two hours to process the scene at Mike’s bar. Once the ambulance had collected Dollar Store and whisked him away, probably to discover the joys of medical-grade morphine, I’d gotten preliminary confirmation that the assailants had been Black Mambas from the tattoos they shared with my cave victim. Metro didn’t complain all that much when I played the jurisdiction card on the grounds that the attack was tied directly to my case, and I’d had the bodies transported to the morgue at the agency. Doc Dumas would be in first thing tomorrow morning to deal with them.

  Now, at just before midnight, we were standing on the forward deck of the Mariah Jean, the Boatel 50 I’d inherited from my grandfather along with the house. It was docked in a private section of the marina with key card access and oversized slips, so we’d have privacy. More importantly, only my partner knew where to find the boat and that I’d be on it.

  Named after my grandmother who had passed away just a year before my father, the fifty-foot houseboat was basically a camper mounted on pontoons, with a full-length canopied lounge deck as a second floor. Inside was a living room, kitchen, and small dining room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom with a full shower. One bedroom had twin bunk beds, the other a queen-sized bed. More than enough room for me and a guest.

  Tessa looked around at everything as I led her to the entrance that opened onto the living room, a smile on her face.

  “I can’t believe you live here,” she said. “This is amazing.”

  “Thanks.” I wasn’t one to brush off a compliment, and besides, I did love this boat. “Did you want to get out of that dress?”

  Her lips parted silently, and a flush rose to her face.

  “Sorry,” I said as I cleared my throat. “I just meant I’ve got some more comfortable clothes you can wear if you want.”

  It took her a minute to answer. “Yes, that would be great,” she said huskily.

  Pushing down my own response to her reaction, I led her on a quick tour of the place. She gushed over the full-sized appliances in the kitchen, bestowed a charmed smile on the dining room that was really more of a breakfast nook, and gazed a little too long at the queen bed in the master bedroom while I hunted up a pair of drawstring shorts and a t-shirt. She went into the bathroom to change, and I headed for the kitchen to see what I had to drink.

  A few minutes later, we were both on the couch in the living room with a cold beer apiece. She’d tucked her legs beneath her and leaned her head on the back cushion, while I slumped back next to her, legs apart and beer held between them, fighting the exhaustion that sunk into my bones.

  It’d been a damn long day.

  Tessa eventually stirred and tilted her head toward me with a smile. “I still can’t believe you knew my father. Did your father know him, too? You said he was a Marine, right?”

  “Yeah, he was, but I doubt he knew Hawk,” I said, consciously peeling the stiff tone from my voice. “He was killed in action overseas in late ’90, at the start of the Gulf War.”

  “Oh, no,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

  For some reason, I thought I detected a hint of guilt mixed with her sympathy, but I decided not to pursue it. After all, there was zero chance she’d been the one to gun him down.

  “Thanks, but it’s okay,” I said. “I was twelve at the time and we’d lost my mother a few years back, but I ended up living with my grandfather, and… I think that was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  I was surprised I’d said that out loud. Didn’t usually talk about my grandfather much, but not because I was deliberately avoiding the subject or anything. It just never really came up.

  Tessa smiled. “Tell me about him. Your grandfather, I mean.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, wondering why she was so interested. “Well, for one thing, this was his boat. Mariah Jean was my grandmother’s name.”

  “He named it after his wife? That is so sweet.”

  “Yeah, they were solid together. Tobias and Mariah Lancaster, my mother’s parents.” I smirked and sipped my beer. “The gold relationship standard that my father claimed he could never live up to. That attitude ended up causing a few problems.”

  “So, your mom and dad…?”

  I shrugged. “My father was a bitter man about a lot of things, especially after Mom died, but you asked about my grandfather,” I said to change the subject. “While it was just him and me, things were good. Really good.”

  Tessa smiled, but she also looked guilty again.

  “Okay, lady, that’s it.” I poked her playfully in the side. “What are you hiding? There’s something you’re waiting for me to say.”

  She laughed and held a hand up in surrender. “You got me,” she confessed. “Robbie told me about the pirate ship.”

  “That’s what you were trying to get out of me? Wow. You’d make a lousy interrogator.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m a good listener, though. Tell me about it?”

  “What makes you think I need somebody to listen?” I shot back with a smile. “Seriously, I’m not all broken up and tortured about my grandfather. I have no idea why Robbie thinks that.”

  She reached out and took my hand. “He says you hardly ever talk about it.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because we’re at work most of the time.” I gave in with a sigh and relaxed into the couch. “The ship is called the Dragon’s Rogue, and it sailed under Captain Mad Dog Grende
l in the late 1600s. My grandfather heard stories about it when he was a kid from an old man who claimed to be Grendel’s great-great-grandson, who’d heard stories from his grandfather and so forth, back to Grendel himself. He was fascinated, so he started digging around some more. Eventually, he figured out that the ship probably went down somewhere in this area.”

  “So he started looking for it?” she asked.

  “Off and on. Mostly, he did a lot of research and found pretty much everything there was to find.” I swallowed more beer to wet my throat. “The real searching didn’t start until I came to live with him.”

  Her smile warmed. “You helped him look for it.”

  “The search for the Dragon’s Rogue was what saved me,” I admitted. “I was a pretty messed-up kid after my father died. I’d already lost my mom, and once she was gone, with my father deployed most of the time, I was disconnected. I was shuffled around, staying with base families who didn’t really want me there but felt like it was their duty to help a fellow Marine. In the year before he was killed, I’d run off from whoever I was supposed to be staying with and break into my own house, where I could take care of myself.”

  “Oh, Ethan, that’s awful,” Tessa said with glittering eyes.

  I frowned. “It just was. Anyway, the first weekend I was with my grandfather, he asked if I wanted to go out on the boat and search for pirate treasure with him. What twelve-year-old boy could resist that?” My lips twitched into a smile. “We went out just about every weekend. Roamed the seas, kept detailed maps of all the places we’d searched. He taught me how to sail and scuba dive, so I was way ahead of the curve by the time I joined the Navy, and… well, I guess that’s it.”

  “That’s it?” She nudged me with an elbow. “You’re leaving out the part about what else you found in that cave.”

  “He told you about that, too? Of course, he did,” I muttered. “The ship-to-shore boat, the skeleton, they definitely belonged to the Dragon’s Rogue. It’s the first physical evidence that my grandfather was right, and the ship itself has to be around here somewhere.”