Deepkill

by Michael Kilian

  Once they were clear of the inlet, Cat churned on steadily north toward the New Jersey shore, just to see if he’d let it pass this time.

  Sooner would he go a day without whiskey. She wasn’t a quarter mile off the edge of the shoreline shallows when Burt took a long squint at the horizon and called out: “Mind your helm, Cat. Our course is east by southeast.”

  “Steer toward Deepkill.”

  “Yep.”

  “The shoal this side of the Kill runs mighty shallow in places, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “At low tide, a big boat like this might run aground if the current’s been playing games with the bottom—like it always does.”

  “Hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Why do you work that area at all? You almost never pull up a fish.”

  “Couple of sea robins last week—when you weren’t around.”

  “I mean real fish—keepers. What people make the trip for.”

  “Workin’ Deepkill is just something I like to do. They get their money’s worth. I give them more time out here than the other boats.”

  Hand still on the wheel, she leaned a little closer to him, bracing herself as the Roberta June took an unexpectedly large swell on the quarter. She sought his eyes, but they stayed on the horizon.

  “What’s down there, Burt?” she said.

  He took the longest time to reply, but not with any useful answer.

  “You ever kill anyone in the Navy, Cat?”

  The question hit her sharply.

  “Is that what’s down there? Someone you killed?” she asked.

  His gaze continued unaltered. “Just mind the helm,” he said.

  Westman used his cell phone to call his Alexandria office, where one of his fellow special agents should have been on duty. But three tries got him only one-sided chats with the office voice mail. Calling CGIS headquarters in Arlington proved more productive. The director himself responded.

  “Did you get the faxes I sent?” Westman asked.

  “Affirmative. You turned those personal items over to the Bureau?”

  “I returned them to the gentleman who owned them.”

  “The dead man?”

  “Right. We put all three remains on a forty-seven and transferred them to the Annapolis wharf. Those were Payne’s instructions.”

  “That evidence should be at the center of the investigation. Ought to be moving faster than this.”

  “The Bureau’s primary. What can we do?”

  “I’ll take it up with headquarters.”

  “Should I come in?”

  “You still aboard the Manteo?”

  “Yes. We’re just off Sandy Point.”

  “When it’s convenient, have the skipper drop you off. You’re wanted at Buzzard’s Point yourself.”

  “What for, sir?”

  “Request from Admiral dePayse. I guess she wants a fill on the situation—in person.”

  Westman looked at his watch. “How soon do I have to be there?”

  “No rush. Seven o’clock.”

  “In the evening?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  Westman rejoined Dewey on the bridge. The younger man was on the radio, talking to Activities Baltimore—the conversation not dissimilar to the one Westman had just had with his director.

  While he waited, Westman went to the forward windows, looking up at the wounded Bay Bridge. The state police appeared to have gotten all the vehicles off the westbound span except for those involved in the wreck and explosion. There were men crawling around the support girders. Westman couldn’t tell whether they were repair crew or evidence technicians. In either case, they were very brave.

  “I’ve been ordered to get under way,” said Dewey, hanging up his microphone. “They’re going to send some auxiliarists and a couple of patrol boats from Baltimore to flesh out security here. They want the Manteo at Cape May, to help cover Delaware Bay.”

  “I have to go ashore. Washington.”

  Dewey leaned back against the control console, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll drop you at the Naval Academy. You can get transport there, can’t you?”

  “Think so.”

  “We’re going to be putting in a lot of duty hours before this thing is done.”

  “They saw three men running off the bridge,” Westman said. “It would be nice to get those bastards.”

  Dewey reached into a drawer and took out his Coast Guard issue Sig Sauer 9mm automatic and holster, hooking it to his web belt. Then he looked to DeGroot. “Prepare to get under way, Master Chief.”

  Chapter 7

  The new safe house Turko had chosen for himself was a second-floor rear apartment in a wooden, walk-up building in one of Ocean City’s seediest sections, just a few blocks from the frowsy resort town’s aging amusement park in a neighborhood currently crawling with every variety of inebriated, stoned, and strung-out youth—of male, female, and indeterminate gender.

  Turko had been a lawyer once, back in Chechnya. Most of his clients had been people just like these miscreants.

  The police here were tough on shoplifters, but otherwise tolerant of behavior good for commerce. Turko had little fear of being picked up for looking suspicious. In these surroundings, he was noticeable mostly for being too well dressed.

  Once inside his little three-room apartment, he immediately set about altering his appearance, changing into a pale-blue T-shirt with a dolphin on the front, baggy yellow shorts, and the flip-flop sandals that so many Americans favored as beach wear—though Turko thought them silly. He’d bought the clothing at a nearby Sun and Fun store, one of many along the shore. They had such an infinite variety of this unseemly garb, he figured he could disguise himself many times over without having to go to any other place.

  He had selected this apartment because it had both front and rear doors, as well as a small balcony that overlooked the dingy, sandy alley where he had parked his car. There were chain locks on both doors, which he augmented with wooden wedges on the bottom. They weren’t an absolute bar to intruders, but could give him time to use the balcony and make his escape with a short drop to the ground.

  He’d told no one of this little retreat, informing Pec only of another apartment he had rented in Wilmington.

  The advance rent in Ocean City he’d paid for in cash. He’d stocked the place with groceries, so there was no need to leave the apartment for days—or even a week or more if necessary.

  But now he discovered he’d neglected one thing.

  Turko was a Moslem more by circumstance of birth and family than inclination. His abstinence in America was due more to the need for a clear head than any fervent faith.

  Now he needed to put such temperance aside. His nerves had held throughout this enterprise, even as he’d waited in the farmhouse for his team to return. Here, where he was at last safe, they’d begun to fray.

  He’d turned on the apartment’s barely functioning television set and, as he watched the aftermath of the bridge explosion replayed seemingly continuously, his anxiety began to overwhelm him like a swiftly spreading fever.

  Pec should have been satisfied with the turn of events. The United States Department of Homeland Security had ordered the highest level of alert. The Congress had adjourned. The U.S. military was at its highest state of readiness, and large numbers of National Guard and Reserves had been activated.

  The stock market had dropped more than five hundred points before trading had been ordered stopped and the exchanges closed. Air travel had been shut down for more than a day and access had been at least temporarily halted to all major bridges and tunnels. According to the television, National Guard troops were riding subways and Amtrak passenger trains again.

  It wouldn’t last forever, but the American nation was once more in a state of officially ordained chaos. Once again, it had been shown to be weak and vulnerable.

  But Pec, Turko knew, would not be happy. There had been an almost rapturous glow in his eyes when h
e’d told Turko his plan to knock down the Bay Bridge and kill a White House official. That glow would now be extinguished. The President, joined by the Homeland Security adviser, had gone on television to assure the nation all was still well. The bridge still stood. There had been only six fatalities—a woman and her three children, a state policeman who had fallen from the bridge into the bay, and Amin Sandar, one of Turko’s cowardly crew.

  Pec had dreamed of hundreds if not thousands of deaths. He wanted massive slaughter.

  Turko needed a drink.

  He went out the back door of the apartment, locking it behind him. Pausing on the stairs that led down to the wide, sandy alley, he calmed himself as best he could. There was a dog below, poking its nose between two garbage cans, and a fat blond girl in a bathing suit who was sprawled snoring on a lawn chair on the balcony opposite. Neither took note of him. No one else was to be seen.

  Turko had his pistol at his back in his belt, hidden by his overlarge T-shirt but reached easily. He waited a minute more, then continued down the stairs.

  It was only three blocks to the nearest liquor store and he decided to leave his car and walk. He passed a bar on the corner—filled with noisy drinkers, most of them young and many of them already tipsy or worse. He had an impulse to stop for a drink right then and there, but restrained himself. There was nothing more unpredictable than a drunk, and he could ill afford to be accosted by one. He did pause at the Sun and Fun store a few doors on to buy a pair of oversized sunglasses and a stupid-looking beach hat. Continuing to the liquor store, he bought two half-gallon bottles of vodka—nothing remarkably cheap or expensive—and then returned to his apartment by a different, longer route, coming down the alley from the other end.

  The dog had vanished. The blond woman was still on her chair, in much the same position.

  With the wind out of the northeast, the warmth of the bright sunlight was tempered by a cooling breeze, but Turko continued to sweat. His flat had no air-conditioning, yet he was reluctant to open his windows.

  Closing and locking his back door, setting chain and wedges in place, Turko went to the small kitchen, putting one of the bottles of vodka in the freezer. Opening the other, he filled a tall glass halfway, added ice, and then Coca-Cola from a can. Stirring the mixture with his finger, he returned to his living room and the television, which he’d left on. Seating himself, he took a large swallow of his drink, rejoicing in the spreading, soothing warmth that followed.

  They were now showing a picture of the pretty woman who’d been killed on the bridge. Turko’s wife had been pretty. She’d been blown to bits by a Russian artillery shell fired into their apartment building.

  He had tried to persuade himself that the Russian gun crew had no particular intention of killing her. As he sat there now, he contemplated the fact that he’d had no intention of killing the woman smiling at him from the television screen. Her death had been a random matter—as much a matter of chance as a traffic accident. He felt no remorse for her, nor anger for what she represented. He’d been doing his job, carrying out his mission. He’d done what he did because it had been asked of him—just as the members of the Russian gun crew had likely done.

  Turko had never found out which Russians fired that shell into his building. He’d had to settle for killing several soldiers who simply belonged to the artillery service. He’d shot most of them. One he’d strangled to death.

  He wished there were Russians here.

  His nervousness and fear were abating. He took another large swallow.

  Turko had been careful, as always, to cock his pistol and place it within easy reach on the table beside him. Unfortunately, it was the drink and not the gun that was in his hand when a dark figure appeared in the bedroom doorway.

  Dropping the glass, Turko snatched at the pistol as he flung himself forward onto the carpet. He was very good with guns. Firing by instinct without aiming, he hit the man in the belly as he came forward—the force of the bullet lifting the intruder from the floor.

  The gunshot was amazingly loud, ringing in his ears. As he waited for that to subside, he looked furtively all about him. Seeing no other sign of movement or presence, he returned his focus to the open bedroom door.

  The wounded man gave out a series of small, gasping whimpers, then fell silent. Waiting a moment more, Turko slowly rose, his automatic to the fore. Giving a quick glance to the window facing the alley, he saw that the woman in the bathing suit was standing at her balcony’s railing, staring wide-eyed at his apartment. Not a second later, a red circle appeared in her forehead and she collapsed with a thud he could hear across the alley.

  Then came a sharp, paralyzing pain at the back of his head. He too was falling. As he lost consciousness, he thought he heard his name.

  Chapter 8

  Westman arrived at Buzzard’s Point, the Coast Guard’s national headquarters on the Anacostia River, having stopped at his Alexandria office to retrieve his car and at his nearby town house to shower, shave, and change into a blue dress shirt, a pair of old white duck trousers, and a Navy blazer. He kept on the boat shoes and decided to forgo a tie.

  At the drab government-architecture headquarters building, he showed his ID to the lobby security guards, proceeded through the metal detector, and then took the elevator to the admiral’s floor. The receptionist, a third-class petty officer, asked him to take a seat and wait. It wasn’t for long.

  Joan dePayse emerged quickly from her office and strode forward to greet Westman with a firm handshake. Special agents in the investigative service were not required to observe the tribal niceties of rank, even with admirals, but she would not have treated him formally in any case.

  She had dark hair, gray eyes, and a tan that was surprising for someone who spent so much time in an office. Her hand lingered in his a moment, then fell away as she led him into her large office, with its commanding view of the river. She sat back on the edge of her desk and smiled, but only fleetingly—in recognition of the gravity of the moment.

  “How is it out there?”

  “Grim. We recovered three of the victims when I was aboard the Manteo. One was a child.”

  “You’re certain another of them was one of the terrorist team? I hope so, because that’s what I’ve told the White House, based on your initial report.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiled again. “I wish we had more people to put on this, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do for now. Try to work with the Bureau as much as you can. If that doesn’t fly, go wherever you think best. I want you to report directly to me. I’ll clear it with your director.”

  Westman looked away, to the murky Anacostia below. “I think the perpetrators are still on the Eastern Shore.”

  “The Delaware and Maryland state police have put roadblocks up at all the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal crossings. The bridge at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay has been closed.”

  “They may have boats.”

  “We have boats.”

  Westman watched a small working vessel chuff down the greasy channel. The Coast Guard was the country’s principal enforcer of federal marine environmental laws, but had placed its headquarters beside one of the most polluted waterways on the Eastern Seaboard.

  “The big targets are on this side of the bay, of course,” she said. “You’ve noticed the security.”

  “Certainly have.”

  She stood up straight, looking at her watch. “I think we’re both entitled to a dinner break. You want to try one of those places along the Washington Channel?”

  “Is that, uh, prudent, Admiral?”

  “No fraternization, Special Agent Westman. A working dinner.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Erik, please don’t call me ‘ma’am.’”

  Sitting in a favorite old chair by her living room window, Cat had all but fallen asleep when Burt’s pickup truck noisily pulled up at his house a little past-ten in the evening. Letting the book she’d been attempting to read fall to
the floor, she got to her feet and then went outside, reaching Burt’s driver’s-side window just as he was turning off the engine.

  He looked so very old, but brightened at seeing her.

  “Like a drink?” he asked, grinning.

  “Sure.”

  There was a grocery bag full of liquor in the cab and a case of beer in the back of the truck. He winced getting out of the vehicle and swore lifting the beer, but insisted on doing it himself and managed to heft it into his house without calamity.

  Cat brought in the hard hootch, setting the bag on a clear space on the otherwise-cluttered counter beside his kitchen sink. He’d not done his dishes for a bit. Ignoring that, she took out the bottles, finding bourbon, scotch, and gin. After neatly folding the grocery bag, she turned to face him.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked.

  Burt opened a beer and nodded toward the liquor. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Scotch, please.”

  He reached for the bottle of Johnnie Walker, pouring a little carelessly. It was a nervous night.

  “I was running some errands,” he said. “Tending to some business. You want to go sit outside?”

  “Been there.”

  “We could walk on the beach.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Okay.”

  They sat at his kitchen table. The breeze off the bay stirred the curtains of the windows.

  “You look kinda down, Cat.”

  “I am, a little. I don’t want to work for an airline in Iowa, but if I don’t get reinstated in the Navy, I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “You could hang around here a while.”

  She gave him a small, wry smile, then shook her head. “What will I do for a job in the winter?”

  He took a swig, tilting back his head, then set the beer bottle down on the table. “I guess I’m not thinking that far ahead.”

  “I want to keep flying, but …”

  “But not haulin’ hayheads around the prairies. Like I used to do after I left the Air Force.”

  Cat sipped, making no response. She wondered how late this night would go. They’d had more than a couple of dawners, she and Burt, in her time in Lewes, sitting at this table, drinking beer or whiskey, telling pilot stories, swapping lies.