Tanner’s stomach ached, and it wasn’t from anything he’d eaten. The stern expression on Jefferson’s face told him she was having similar thoughts, but neither of them said anything as Big Boy churned across the bay.
15
The call from command came as Big Boy pushed across Bellport Bay. A white haze hung in the sky as the last of the clouds burnt off and the sun shone through. It was seventy-five degrees, the humidity was at eighty-six percent, and it was only 9AM. A steady breeze kicked up chop, and the sea spray left a sheen of water on every horizontal surface. A line of clouds marched across the sky to the west and by 2PM it would be raining. The air was crisp and fresh, the scent of rot and shit only an undercurrent. Tanner, Randy, and Jefferson had moved up to the command bridge, and the PD boat and the two coastie boats flanked them.
“This is the Herman. We copy you, command,” Randy said.
“Randy, this is Monteeth. Is Lt. Tanner with you?” the chief said through light static.
The question hung there and Jefferson and Randy both stared at Tanner, so he pressed the comm and said, “No, sir.” His Randy voice was pretty good.
“Is he on the vessel?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know of his whereabouts?” The chief’s voice cracked as he strained not to yell.
“No, sir.”
“Bullshit, Vernon. You two are as thick as shit and maggots. I’ll bust you both down to crossing guards or worse. Especially your partner. You there, Tanner? I know you are, you fuckin’ turd!” The chief had lost the battle with himself and was screaming full tilt. “You better get this bitch, Tanner! The Navy is on the way, and when they get here, whatever the hell is going on out there is going to end. You can hide now, and I’m not coming for you, but you better catch this thing or you and Randy and every asshole on your team are done in marine.”
“Copy, sir,” Tanner said. “Randy out.”
“Screw you, Tanner. Command out.”
“Sounds like a good guy,” Jefferson said.
“He is,” Tanner said. “But you know how bosses are, always have to be putting you in your place so they can feel superior. Sad really.”
“Try being a female officer in the military.”
Tanner grunted.
“You think the creature will hunker down for the day?” Randy asked.
Tanner said nothing.
“I’d better get back to my ship,” Jefferson said.
Tanner nodded.
“See you on the other side,” she said, and slipped from the bridge.
Tanner watched her climb aboard her boat: the fine lines of her ass, the gracefulness of her walk. Old senses stirred in him and he drove them down again. When this was over for good or ill she’d be gone, and whatever they might have been would be lost.
“Time for me to go as well,” Randy said.
Tanner stared out at the bay, unable to find words. When he turned to wish his friend luck, Randy had left.
“Bring me down a few notches, helm,” Tanner said. He relinquished the controls so he could move around the boat. As Big Boy came off plane, the three SAFE boats did the same, like they’d all come out of hyperspace at the same moment.
The light tower at the end of Beaver Dam Creek stood four feet out of the bay, and that was the only thing marking the submerged jetty. Rooftops and the second stories of houses stood above the floodwaters, and small rolling waves broke through smashed windows.
“Take us in,” Tanner instructed.
They had the sonar on, but it looked clear of thirty-foot sea monsters. They hadn’t seen any of the creature’s waste, or any other signs, for that matter. The water was four feet above the bulkhead, and all the homes along the canal were flooded and mostly abandoned. A few houses had dinghies tied to front porch railings, but most of the houses sat quiet. Tops of cars, street signs, trees, and other vegetation stuck from the water, and debris bobbed on the miniature tsunami caused by their passage.
“We’re in six feet of water, sir,” the helmsman said.
“Full stop,” Tanner said. “Keep us here and get Little Boy ready to deploy.”
“Sir?”
The kid’s face was priceless. It said, “Sir, are you out of your mind going out in the floodwaters in a sixteen-foot boat with the sea scorpion around?”
“Prepare to deploy Little Boy. Now!”
Tanner put six grenades and the bazooka and its shells in the Zodiac. He checked the Glock 19 on his hip and fetched an MK18 on loan from the coasties from the gun cabinet. Once everything was in the boat, he hailed Randy. “Randy, you copy?”
“Go ahead, boss.”
“I’m going on point. Stay right behind me. I’m leaving Big Boy here to hold the mouth. Have the coasties flank you. Be ready to move up when I signal.”
“Come get me, over,” Jefferson’s voice came over the radio.
“That’s a negative,” Tanner said.
“Not a request, sailor.”
Tanner sighed so long he thought he might pass out. “10-4,” he said.
Tanner got in Little Boy and braced himself as the boom arm lifted the short-range tactical Zodiac powered by a thirty-horse Honda outboard and dropped it in the water. Tanner put the motor down and started it. It roared to life, and he slipped it in gear and headed for Jefferson’s boat. She waited on the bow and stepped easily into the smaller boat.
“Why are you doing this?” Tanner asked.
Jefferson said nothing. Instead, she sat on the gunnel, her MK18 between her legs, and stared into the wreckage of the drowned world.
The desolation was complete in this area. Lives floated in the flotsam and jetsam; pictures, clothes, shards of wood that had once been part of a world people took for granted. With all the people gone and the rot of water filling every crack and empty space, there was no tomorrow for this neighborhood. When it dried out, it would be bulldozed and the battles would begin anew between those who wanted to rebuild and those who felt it was throwing good money after bad as the increase in global water temperatures created more hazardous and more frequent hurricanes.
The outboard gurgled as they slid across the placid surface, down a side street that was still four feet underwater. A woman waved from an upper window, and cats lived on rooftops. They came to a boatyard, and two giant metal warehouses blocked their way, their large doors open. Tanner turned and made a fist, and the three SAFE boats held their positions. Tanner killed the motor and glided into one of the warehouses.
Tops of boats protruded from the water, and cushions and other garbage gathered in one corner. Nothing on sonar, and sea bottom was hard-packed. Tanner started the motor and backed out.
They repeated this process several times, covering the entire neighborhood and seeing no sign of the creature. They headed north back out to the main canal and deeper inland. The flood waters were getting lower, but the wind had done a particularly wicked job here. Roofs were missing, entire walls caved in or gone altogether. Trees toppled on cars and houses, and everywhere piles of garbage, both natural and manmade.
Tanner said, “Reminds of me of a time the Navy dumped us off in Africa to support some militia that had agreed to bring vaccines to the people in the area suffering from an Ebola outbreak. That’s dangerous shit, and it’s important to stamp that crap out no matter where it is because it could get here easy. So we head up the Congo River to meet up with the locals, but someone dropped the dime on us and we were attacked on the river. Lost all my guys. The devastation was amazing.”
“You were the only one to survive?” Jefferson said.
Tanner looked at her, but said nothing. He piloted the boat through backyards, over submerged fences, and across streets and parking lots. Nothing moved except the gentle push and pull of the water as it continued its assault on what was left of man’s creations. A helicopter cruised by overhead and Tanner got on the radio to Randy. “Why are there whirlybirds in the air? I thought we’d grounded them because they spook the creature?”
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“That’s a 10-4, Tann…” Silence over the comm channel. “That’s a 10-4. I’ll get on it.”
Tanner smiled. Randy thought their communications were being monitored, and he was probably right. The chief said he wasn’t coming after him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping an eye on him.
Randy said, “Some good news. Apparently, civilians are searching for the thing using their toy drones. The footage isn’t bad. The captain put out the word that people should email their footage links to us. As they come in, they’ll be examined.”
“10-4. Keep us appraised.”
They continued searching though Jefferson was getting visibly frustrated. After an hour she said, “I don’t think it’s in here.”
“Why?”
“No signs. Wouldn’t we see waste? Broken buildings and other stuff the monster rampaged through?”
Tanner didn’t want to give up, but she had a point and there were plenty of other places to search. It was noon when Tanner called it.
Clouds filled the sky and a light rain fell as Tanner dropped Jefferson off at her boat and headed back to Big Boy. The boom arm eased overhead, and Tanner attached the lanyard of the lift cables to the boat at four points and gave the go-ahead to the bridge. As the boat lifted, it poured huge drops that filled the Zodiac and drenched Tanner through. The tiny fleet motored through the rain, and Tanner hoped their luck changed soon. They were running out of time.
16
The Great South Bay was a blown-out mess. Whitecaps dotted the boiling sea, and rain fell sideways in the twenty-mile-per-hour wind. Somewhere above the clouds, the sun had passed noon, and the storm showed no signs of easing. Three-foot waves crashed inland, battering houses that had already seen significant damage. The navigation tower stood out through the thick rain as they exited Beaver Dam Creek. Visibility was only half a mile, and Big Boy rolled side to side as the motion of the sea embraced her and they entered the bay. Huge windshield wipers worked double time clearing the rain, and the sound of them smacking back and forth soothed Tanner’s nerves.
He said, “Bring her up to one quarter, helm.”
The diesel engines rumbled and Big Boy lurched forward through the turbulent sea. The bow lifted and fell as they cut through the chop, and Tanner gripped the arms of his chair. Sea spray hammered the front bridge window, and the helmsman used the computer more than her eyes to navigate. Directly across the bay, hidden by the storm, was the breach, which was the main reason the section of the south shore they’d just searched had been hit harder than anywhere else, and why it was still severely flooded more than a week after Tristin had bid Long Island adieu.
The good news was the longer the storm lasted the longer it would take the Navy to arrive. The destroyer USS Gridley was on the way, but the Atlantic pounded Fire Island with a six-foot swell and that would slow things down. The USCGC Vigilant was anchored nose into the waves, and Jefferson had described a night of non-sleep that would have had an old seaman like him puking. Tanner didn’t do the sleeping on boats thing very well. Cost him endless ribbing in the Navy and always reminded him that fear of the water as a boy had led him to trying to overcome it, which led to the Navy and ultimately to being a cop. Maybe being a marine cop hadn’t been his dream, but it was better than most jobs.
Officer Kimberly Jansen was at the helm, and she held the wheel steady as she examined the display screens mounted atop the dashboard: GPS, front and rear extra cameras, engine status, and the track of the storm all neatly organized before her. Tanner knew she didn’t like him because she let him know it every chance she got. She thought he was a chauvinist pig, and there were times he’d have to agree with her. The world had changed, and at forty-two, he was a dinosaur.
“What’s this weather looking like, helm?” Tanner said.
“It should blow through in the next couple of hours,” Jansen answered. “Clouds will hang around, but visibility should improve.”
“What about Hurricane Dan?”
“One moment,” she said. “It’s on track to hit the east end, but the final path is still unknown. We could see severe wind.”
“Check in on Ally and Sal,” Tanner said.
Jansen called down to the engine room and got an all clear and then did the same with Sal, who was below in the wardroom preparing sandwiches. Tanner checked in with Randy and Jefferson via SAT phone.
“Everything’s OK here, boss,” Randy reported.
“Stay on the line while I patch in Jefferson,” Tanner said.
“10-4.”
“Jefferson? You there?”
Static boomed from the phone in short bursts, and then Jefferson’s voice came through clear. “I’m here. What’s the plan?”
“I’m open to input.”
“This is your sandbox.”
Static filled the line again and Randy said, “We tried the basic stick together route with no bait, and we’ve wasted a good chunk of the day. We need to do better than that.”
“I said monitor, Randy. Ears only,” Tanner said.
“He’s got a point,” Jefferson said.
Tanner sighed and leaned back in his command chair. “Yes, he always has a point.”
Static filled the silence and Tanner worked the problem. If they split up, they could cover more area, but if the thing showed, it might take too long to bring the other boats into the attack. The sea scorpion moved fast, and Tanner wanted to kill the thing the next time he saw it. No games. No more chases. He wanted it hanging from a hook on the pier with him standing next to it on the cover of Newsday. If they stayed together, they might search all day and night and never find the thing, and by tomorrow he’d be off the case. Hell, he might even be locked up.
“Let’s split up,” he decided. “I’ll head over to Fireplace Neck and head inland as far as I can with Big Boy then penetrate further with the Zodiac. Randy, you head west, Jefferson east. The second Coast Guard boat should hold position and serve as emergency backup.”
“Works for me,” Jefferson said.
“Keep in touch,” Tanner said.
“10-4,” Randy and Jefferson said at the same time.
“Time to chum and get a slick going?” Randy said.
“Do we want to fight this thing inland?” Jefferson said.
“Ideally, we’d flush it into the bay so we can hit it with everything at once,” Tanner said. “In tight quarters, that might be a challenge.”
“We’ll wait for a sign then,” Randy said. “What about hanging a chunk of rotten fish off the back of the boats? That’ll create a small slick and might draw the thing out it.”
“Makes sense,” Tanner said.
He went out on deck and opened one of the large plastic barrels Randy had brought onboard. The scent of rotten fish almost knocked him over, and when the maggots crawled on his hand, he dry heaved and almost coughed up a lung. Big Boy slowed to a crawl and Jefferson and Randy came in close. He tossed them each a chunk of rotten fish. Jefferson saluted him and Randy flipped him the bird. Jansen brought Big Boy about as Tanner tied heavy-gauge fishing line around a chunk of fish and tossed it off the back of the boat and tied the line off on a cleat.
Fireplace Neck was a maze of canals with a large marina at its center. It was a relatively new development, and most of the houses still stood thanks to hurricane strapping and building code enforcement. Unfortunately, there was no code that could protect you from Mother Nature’s most powerful tool: water.
Tanner headed back to the bridge and looked over Jansen’s shoulder at the GPS navigation chart. The maze of canals was created so each house in the development could have a boat slip, and the center marina had a manmade island at its center with a restaurant, gas pump, and a small general store that stocked mostly marine supplies.
“Head up main canal. You’ll hold position in the marina and I’ll head in on the Zodiac. Can you handle things here?”
Jansen turned her head and tried to crack her neck. “Aye, sir,” she said.
; Tanner smiled. If she thought he was a chauvinist pig, then he might as well give her what she wanted.
The rain let up a little, but the wind didn’t. The canal mouth wasn’t visible so sonar led the way. Debris filled the water, and all manner of garbage bounced off Big Boy’s hull as they pushed inland. The houses along main canal were flooded, and there were no boats or other signs of life. When they reached Fireplace Neck’s central marina, Big Boy came to a stop and Tanner deployed the Zodiac. With Sal by his side, the two men set off into the narrow waterways that ran behind the houses, the rattle of the outboard echoing through the destroyed community.
They spent two hours in the rain, powering up and down canals, floating into backyards and hollowed-out structures. Tanner and Sal ate their sandwiches, checked their weapons, but it wasn’t until the end of Tippit Canal that they noticed the strange scale-like shells floating on the surface. The panels were black as night and looked intact, as though they’d been shed, not broken.
Tanner plucked one out of the flotsam and examined it. It was oval, three feet long tip to tip, and smooth to the touch. It was also thin and somewhat pliable. One side had a coating of mucus or some other excretion, and it smelled of rotting flesh.
“What do you make of this?” Tanner said as he handed the specimen to Sal.
“Looks like the thing rubbed up against something, or got snagged on something.”
“Yeah.”
It was 3PM, and the rain started again. Thunder rumbled, and off to the west lightning streaked across the sky. There were eight scales floating in the jetsam, and the longer he studied them, the more they reminded him of the tip of a lobster tail, what were called the uropods. Tanner stacked all eight in the boat and continued on.
“Should we head back?” Sal said.
Tanner stared up into the rain. “Not yet.”
17
“What’s that?” Sal said. He was pointing toward a notch where two six-foot stockade fences came together above the water. At first, Tanner saw nothing special, but when his eye caught the broken harpoon, he froze, unable to process what he was seeing. He sat there for several moments, doing nothing, the fight with the beast rushing back in the form of a waking nightmare. He’d pierced the sea scorpion’s left eye, and if this was that harpoon, it meant they were close.
The Breach Page 8
