Deepkill

by Michael Kilian

  “It’s gone!” someone yelled.

  “Pull up, Skip! Up!”

  He could hear and feel the loading hatch being retracted, the plane lifting. With his arm still hooked in the wheel, Schilling pulled back as hard as he could, centering the rudder as he sensed the nose and left wing come up. His eyes were now on the airspeed, which was decreasing rapidly as they came out of the dive. A stall would be fatal now.

  Life so short and death so long. Just half an hour before, they’d been standing around the hangar, drinking coffee, talking, killing time. Waiting for maintenance to finish with some small problem.

  About five knots above stall speed, he pushed the control forward again, seeking level flight. When he achieved and sustained it, only then did he look again to the altimeter.

  Two hundred feet.

  His arm was numb. He clicked his microphone back on, holding the control wheel with his knee.

  “Crew report!” he said.

  They were flying again. The altitude held steady. Losing six tons had done it. Schilling began a long, slow, agonizingly shallow turn back toward Dover.

  “Report!” he repeated.

  There was a long pause; then Olssen could be heard, but not coherently.

  “Jim! What’s the situation?”

  “Fuckin’ terrible, Cap.” The copilot sounded a little crazed.

  “Cargo clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Cap?”

  “What?”

  “We lost Mikulski.”

  “Lost Mikulski? He was just …”

  “He went out with the load.”

  Schilling stared down at the sea, until tears turned all into a blur.

  When he awoke from this terrible, recurring memory—nearly four decades later—there were tears in his eyes again.

  Chapter 4

  Schilling sat up in a sudden rush. He was in his bed, and covered in sweat. His mouth was as dirt-dry as it had been on that long-ago flight. His head was spinning and there was a pain in his side.

  He hadn’t been dreaming. Merely remembering.

  Again.

  There was a pint bottle of whiskey on his night table—to his surprise, still nearly half-full. Burt uncapped it, eyeing the round opening in the faint, gloomy light as he might the barrel of a loaded pistol. Then he drank—hard. As he lowered the bottle again, he heard the breeze gently stir the bushes on the dune opposite his house. In the storm of the night before last there’d been a furious wind and pounding waves on the bay. Now everything was at peace.

  Except him.

  He had to go to the bathroom—the curse of his age. He’d be seventy-three in the fall. He thought upon that as he stood before the toilet. He could not comprehend how he had come to be this old—how his battered, chemically assaulted tissues could have survived this incredibly long.

  But they were now clearly giving up. The pain in his side ebbed and waned, but no longer completely went away. He’d made a doctor’s appointment at the VA Hospital in Maryland, but he knew what the medical men would say. They’d been saying it for some time, but now their prophecy was coming true.

  All prophecies came true, if you waited long enough. The world was coming to an end. Someday, some millennium, some billion years to come, there would no longer be an Earth. No bay, no breeze. No toilets.

  Burt washed his hands and face. He’d slept in a pair of cut-off denim shorts. Leaving them in place, he pulled on an old white T-shirt and, with some clumsiness in the dark, went downstairs. Without turning on any lights, he found his cigarettes and matches, fetched a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the kitchen, then quietly went out onto his screened-in front porch.

  The air was cool and fragrant. Though he had a view of the bay from the upstairs windows, all he could see from the porch was the shadowy back side of the small dune across from his house and the sand-tracked narrow street that ran in front of it. His rusting old Chevrolet pickup truck was parked in front of his wooden steps. Just to the other side was his pretty blond neighbor’s Jeep Wrangler, its worn white paint a faint gleam in the lingering night.

  Burt set his things on an old, listing table and sank into a creaking, ancient wicker chair drawn up beside it. He managed to light and inhale from his cigarette and then take a drink of whiskey without coughing. A major accomplishment. Perhaps a sign of a promising day.

  He finished his smoke and then another before finally draining his glass of whiskey. Tilting the chair back against the clapboard wall of the house, he closed his eyes. He could sleep now. This was the only time and place where sleep came easy.

  But not for long. He heard the sound of a screen door opening with a noisy spring, and then a gentle click as it was carefully closed. Burt opened his eyes, but otherwise didn’t move except to glance at the luminescent face of his watch. It was a little shy of five A.M., with only the barest, faintest hint of the morning light detectable above the dune.

  As Schilling had discovered just a few weeks before, Catherine McGrath customarily left her house next door to cross to the beach at this lonely, early hour so she could swim in the nude. She had inherited her beach place from her uncle, a former Navy pilot who’d been a friend of Schilling’s. Cat had been a Navy pilot too—though her career had been cut short.

  She had been born in Delaware, but had spent much of her early life in Key West, Pensacola, and the Caribbean, becoming quite used to swimming naked in the reef-sheltered waters there. She’d told Burt about that, but not about these predawn slippings into the sea here at grungy old Lewes, Delaware. He’d discovered this penchant of hers all on his own.

  Usually, she crossed to the beach with her towel wrapped around her, but sometimes it slipped—and sometimes, when she reached the top of the dune and thought no one was about, she removed it altogether.

  Burt kept absolutely still. He was sure she had no idea he was often up at this ghostly hour as well, lurking in the shadows of his screened-in porch.

  The path over the dune began just opposite Burt’s house. He held his breath as she crossed the street before him and started up the sandy slope. A few steps from the top, the towel fell away. There was light enough from the streetlamp down the block to limn the curves and edges of her tall, slender figure. Her blond hair was gathered into a loose ponytail that swung a little as she walked. Her legs were very long. She looked more like a sailing lady than a pilot. Burt liked her either way.

  She was thirty—if that. He was more than twice her age. He sighed.

  Cat reached the top of the dune and, descending, vanished. Only then did Burt Schilling allow himself another bout of violent coughing.

  The water was very cool at this hour. Not quite cold this far into the summer, not as chilly as New England’s, but still far removed from the deliciously warm, clear waters of the Caribbean.

  When she’d lived down there as a teenager, Cat had come to think of herself as one of the sea’s own creatures, a natural denizen of the reefs. Here in Lewes, she had felt herself a stranger. But she was becoming used to it.

  It had been two years since her uncle had died and left her this place; nearly one since her general discharge from the service as a Navy lieutenant.

  Wading into the watery darkness till she could barely touch toes and keep her chin above the gentle swells, she took a very deep breath, then slowly, gracefully, curved her body forward and slid headfirst into the deep—turning and rolling in odd, disorienting tumbles, her eyes wide open but seeing only blackness, above and below and all around, her body gently pushed and lifted by the movement of the bay. There was something almost rapturous in this fixtureless moment. She clung to it until her heart began to pound and her lungs became anxious. Straightening, exhilarated, she let the float of her body whoosh her to the top, opening her mouth to the cool air as she broke the surface.

  Tilting her head back, looking to the gauzy dark above, she treaded water a moment, then turned till she was facing back toward the few dim lights and murky shadows of the land.

  Ca
t had been living here on the Delaware shore ever since her discharge from the Navy, working on her case for reinstatement and sounding out airlines for pilot jobs—without much success on either front.

  She wasn’t giving up. She was a good pilot. Damned good. They’d had no right to do what they did.

  In the meantime, she had become fond of the funny old town of Lewes—the oldest in Delaware—and the sea was still the sea, rough and dirty or no.

  After her discharge, she’d worked for a few weeks taking tourists for seaplane rides out of Atlantic City. But the pay was low, and the commute from Lewes long and difficult. Cat also hated the place and the kind of people it attracted. Flying seaplanes in the Caribbean was another matter, but she needed to stay in the States to press her case with the Navy.

  As it turned out, the New Jersey seaplane operation went out of business a month after she’d joined it.

  She now had a different but equally unrewarding flying job, hauling skyborne advertising banners back and forth along the beach between Rehoboth and Ocean City. Occasionally, she helped her neighbor Burt Schilling with his big pay-by-the-head fishing boat, though he didn’t always have money to pay her.

  More or less, she got by, but little by little her savings were slipping away. She doubted she could last until winter if something didn’t turn up.

  Turning again in the water, she looked to the east, past the end of the breakwater by the Lewes-Cape May ferry dock and out toward the open ocean. The red light of a channel marker buoy winked at her. She could hear a buoy bell off to the distance, and farther out, a horn.

  Cat swam a few strokes until her feet could touch bottom again, then kept moving until her breasts were exposed to the air. If she didn’t stop this dawn nude swimming of hers, she’d one day get herself pinched by the local coppers. Lewes would lose its charm in a hurry if she found herself in the Sussex County jail charged with indecent exposure.

  Another quick plunge beneath the surface. At the touch of a fish or some other cold-skinned creature against her leg, she quickly rose again, then started wading back toward the shore. Halting on the sand where she had left her towel, she dried her hair a bit, glanced up and down the beach, then wrapped her torso carefully. There was getting to be too much light.

  She’d heard Schilling coughing earlier, as she had so many nights—presuming he was in bed and the sound was coming through an open window. But now, crossing the road to her house, she spied the red glow of a cigarette in the shadows of his porch and a patch of white she took to be a T-shirt.

  How long had he been there? Damn well long enough, no doubt. Perhaps he’d been there other nights, even every night.

  Cat could forgive him that, as she had his booze and other failings. He was an old guy, and a pretty decent one. This had been a hard and lonely year for her, and he’d been a good friend and good neighbor.

  And Burt was a pilot. Some might say “had been a pilot,” but once a flyer, always a flyer. All pilots were brothers—and sisters. All pilots were different from everyone else. That she knew above all other things.

  On impulse, she paused, then turned and walked boldly over to his porch, leaning close to the screen.

  “You’ll catch a cold there, Captain.”

  “Morning, Cat.”

  “A cold is what you deserve, sitting out here trying to cop a peek of a poor girl taking the waters in solitude.”

  “Didn’t see a thing, Catherine.”

  “Well, your loss then.” She could smell the whiskey, even from there. “You taking the boat out today?”

  “I am. Got a few customers signed up. Maybe we’ll get some more.” She could hear the booze in his voice. This was happening too often. “I could use a hand,” he said. “Only got Amy and the boy for crew. You by any chance free?”

  She knew what he was saying. Cat had been out with him on fishing runs quite a few times—at first for pleasure; then when she needed a few extra bucks; more recently, because they were both worried about his ability to manage the boat. It was a large one—a “head boat” that could carry sixty or more paying passengers. Lewes’s river, more properly known as the Lewes & Rehoboth Canal, had a narrow channel, and was crowded with boats, many of them very big.

  “Maybe later in the week,” she said.

  “You’re flying advertising banners today?”

  “That’s what I do now.”

  “They don’t pay you much, do they?”

  “They’ve got too many green pilots who’d fly for nothing just to rack up the hours.”

  “It’s a waste of your talent.”

  “It’s a job.” She took a step away. “Maybe I’ll get off early. I’ll stop by the dock and see if you’re there. You’re doing half-day trips, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You still have time to get a little sleep.”

  He waved the hand holding the cigarette. “Sleep enough when I’m dead.”

  Cat could think of nothing useful to say to that. Back in her own house, she pulled off the clammy towel and went into her bathroom, taking her time in the lovely, very hot shower. She brushed her teeth, pulled on a pair of khaki shorts and a short-sleeve knit shirt, and went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

  Then she turned on the radio. She had just sat down to a bowl of cereal when the news came on.

  Her stomach clenched and a chill came over her. She sat there motionless, staring at the silly animal on the front of the cereal box as though it held some secret meaning, some explanation for this madness.

  Then she picked up her spoon and threw it at the wall. The bastards had done it again. They were relentless, like some kind of vermin that resisted extermination.

  Cat had flown F-14 Tomcats before her grounding. There’d been women pilots flying missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Sudan. She wished she was now.

  They kept talking on the radio. The Bay Bridge was closed. The Coast Guard had doubled patrols. Washington’s Reagan National Airport and the Baltimore-Washington Airport were closed. The Air National Guard was flying combat air patrols over the Capital area. A ban had been ordered on all general aviation flights within a 150-mile radius of Washington.

  That, of course, included beach runs hauling advertising banners for Frisky’s Shrimp and Suds.

  Maybe she’d join Burt on his fishing boat anyway—though she’d be hard put to keep from joining him in his damned whiskey.

  Chapter 5

  Once he was finally free of Kent Island, Turko drove south on Highway 50 to the rich man’s town of Easton, Maryland, then cut east across the Choptank River and up the county road to Denton and beyond to the small farmhouse that his team had used as a meeting place and a staging point.

  He turned off his headlights a mile away, steering by the dim gray dawn. Approaching a stand of trees just shy of the farm, he slowed and turned off up a narrow lane that led into the woods. Parking where he was sure his car could not be seen, he quietly shut the door and started toward the house on foot.

  The news report on his car radio had said that men had been seen running from the truck before it exploded, though it was unclear how many there had been. If they had made it off the bridge and onto the Eastern Shore, Turko was sure they’d come here—doubtless in the hope that he would join them at this house and tell them what to do next.

  The Pakistanis had come into the United States relatively recently and would have few friends or resources. As their mission had been to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and Jihad—and they had not done so—they would not know what to do. Even without him, they’d likely try to hide here.

  There were no lights on that Turko could see. He moved from the trees, crossing the neighboring bean field obliquely to come up on the house from the rear. The kitchen door was unlocked. Pausing, he pulled it open and stepped into the darkness within. Standing still, he listened to the sounds of the house for a time—a humming, grumbling refrigerator, a ticking clock—then moved into the hall and repeated the precauti
on.

  The group had not yet arrived. They’d have come off the bridge on foot. He wasn’t certain if they had the wit to steal a vehicle without being detected. They easily could have been picked up by the police as simple car thieves. But if there was a chance they could get here, Turko had no choice but to wait for them.

  He went into the living room, choosing a chair off to the side that had a view out the front window but could not be seen by anyone unless they entered the room. It was a distinctly uncomfortable piece of furniture, but as he had done so many times in this ill-considered operation, Turko made do.

  In its hours of searching, the Manteo had recovered three bodies—the small child’s, a woman’s, and a man’s. The crew laid them in a row on the foredeck and covered them with foul-weather gear. At sea, they would have been taken below, but Dewey fully expected one of the police agencies on shore to come out and collect them.

  Finally, in the rising light of morning, that happened. A police marine unit approached from the Sandy Point area at some speed, heading straight for the Coast Guard vessel. As it drew nearer, Westman took note of two men in sport coats standing at the bow. He recognized one of them as the police boat drew alongside.

  “The FBI is full of first-rate people who could work this investigation,” he said to Dewey. “Look who they chose instead.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “Special Agent Payne. Spell it as you like.”

  Dewey ordered a ladder lowered. The wind was stirring and there were choppy waves rocking the cutter. The other federal agent made the ascent easily, but Payne slipped twice before finally gaining the deck.

  “Hello, Westman. What’re you doing here?”

  “This is a federal waterway. We have jurisdiction, just like you.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. The Coast Guard Investigative Service was usually the first responder when crimes occurred on the water, but the memorandum of agreement between the two agencies required CGIS agents to defer to the FBI and let them take precedence if they wished. Coast Guard units had beaten the FBI to this chaotic scene, but as search-and-rescue teams, not investigators. The bridge blowup would be an FBI case from the git-go.