Red Tide

by G. M. Ford

  “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.

  43

  “Fifteen minutes,” the foreman bawled. “Right back here in fifteen minutes. Don’t be late.” He waited a minute and then yelled again. “Back here at nine-twenty. Fifteen minutes.”

  Paul followed the others down the long corridor and out onto the deck. Once outside, everyone pulled off their breathing devices and feasted on the cold night air. Some even unlaced their hoods, pulling them from their heads, the men wiping sweat, the women shaking out their hair. Samuel stood leaning against the far end of the rail. Paul moved that way, careful to seem nonchalant and unhurried as he passed among the others.

  “We’ve got to do something,” he whispered to Samuel. “We can’t be the only ones to fail.”

  When he looked for agreement, he saw only doubt. Even fear perhaps.

  “We have to try,” he insisted.

  Samuel gave a tentative nod and a
squawk.

  “I don’t know how. We’ve got to get back to the car.”

  He grabbed Samuel by the arm and led him down the deck, toward the midpoint of the ship where the elevators stood. The area was nearly deserted as Paul pushed the down button and waited. The door slid open with a muted whir. He shepherded Samuel into the car and breathed a silent sigh of relief as the door slid shut.

  Less than a minute later, they stepped out onto Pier Forty-Seven. The air was colder and wetter than it was up on deck three. He tightened his grip on Samuel’s arm and led him across the tarmac toward where they’d parked the car. The pier was a blaze of activity. People moving in all directions at once. Vegetable trucks and forklifts and centipede baggage carriers skittered everywhere. Shouts from the longshoremen filled the air, as they hustled to cram last-minute deliveries into the yawning freight elevators. North, toward the bow, two dozen immaculately uniformed crew members engaged in knots of animated conversation at the foot of a gangway marked in bright white letters: SHIP’S CREW ONLY. A pair of beefy security officers stood ready to enforce the ban.

  Paul skirted the tail end of a segmented baggage carrier as it came clattering by, only to find the little red car now buried three rows deep in the parking lot. The sight sent a shiver through Paul. He hesitated for a moment and then stopped altogether as he noticed the driver’s door standing wide open. Samuel squawked a question. Paul pointed.

  “Did we leave the door open like that?” he asked.

  Samuel reckoned he didn’t have any idea.

  “Hey,” a voice called.

  Paul followed the sound of the voice. The front steps of the trailer. The same man as before. “Come on over here, you two,” the man said, beckoning with his arm. Instead of complying, Paul walked quickly over to the car, bent at the waist and slipped the upper half of his body inside. When he reappeared, his face was blank. He looked at Samuel, who stood stiff and silent, and then back to the man on the steps.

  “I took care of it for ya,” the guy said, coming unsteadily down the stairs. Once on solid ground, he steeled himself and started their way at a measured gait. “What you doin’ down here anyway? You on a break?”

  Samuel nodded.

  Up close, the man reeked of whiskey. His eyes were filigreed with red as he swept his gaze across the two young men. “I seen you forgot your equipment, so I run it back to supply for ya.” He squinted his eyes and waved a grimy finger in their direction. “Y’all come back next year y’all gonna have to be more careful how you handle the gear.” He grinned, showing a yellowed set of teeth, broken and irregular as fence posts. “You don’t want to be havin’ no company equipment in y’all’s backseat neither. Folks get to thinkin’ you was stealin’ or somethin’.” He chuckled. “’Course ain’t no reason at all anybody gonna be stealin’ a damn sprayer. Lest you got one hell of a case of roaches at home or somethin’.” He laughed at his own joke and then checked his watch. “Y’all best be getting back upstairs. Six more minutes and you got to be there. They’ll dock you for sure.”

  Samuel made a noise even Paul couldn’t translate.

  “I…I…” Paul stammered, “I left something.”

  “In the car?”

  “On the sprayer. My watch,” Paul said touching his wrist with his forefinger. “I fastened my watch around the…the…” He stopped, at a loss for words.

  “Around the wand?”

  “Yes, around the wand.”

  The guy slapped his side disgustedly. “Well that was a dumb-ass thing to be doin’, now wasn’t it?” He beckoned to his right, out in front of the equipment trailer. “Come on with me. We’ll see if we cain’t find the damn thing and get you fellas back on the job before it costs you boys hard-earned money.”

  Paul gestured with his head, telling Samuel to follow along as he started around the front of the trailer. When he looked back over his shoulder Samuel hadn’t moved an inch. From long experience, Paul knew the look. Samuel was close to panic. He wanted to remind Samuel what Holmes had said so many times. “You have to be prepared to improvise. Once the first battle starts all plans are out the window.” Instead, Paul turned and said to Samuel, “Just stay right there, I’ll be back in a minute.” Again, no response.

  He ran a couple of steps and caught up with the man, following along silently as they wove their way among a maze of containers and equipment, finally coming to a stop beside an oversized wooden crate. RECHARGE

  was stenciled on the side in black.

  The man stopped at the box, looked down and then ran a hand through his greasy hair. “I’ll be damned,” he said to himself. A smile eased itself across his face. “Coupla hours ago,” he said, “the damn thing was empty.”

  Paul hustled forward. The bin was filled with an army of backpack sprayers. Seventy or eighty, something like that. Identical. A great big giant pile of them, all thrown together in a great jumbled mess waiting to be carted off.

  Paul must have made a noise. “Take it easy now,” the guy said. “It’s just a watch.” His eyes nearly closed when he smiled. “Weren’t no diamond-crusted Rolodex or nothing was it?”

  Out in the reaches of his vision, Paul caught a movement. Samuel was walking away. North toward the entry gate. “I…I’ve got to…” Paul stuttered, moving that way.

  “Hey now,” the guy said. “Y’all can…”

  The sound of his feet hissing on the tarmac prevented Paul from hearing whatever the guy said next. He skipped twice, broke into a jog for a few feet and then began to run headlong after the rapidly retreating Samuel.

  “So what if…” Corso began. “What if you wanted to pull off a terrorist act in a major city.” He waved a hand. “You gotta know that when it comes to terrorism, as far as Americans are concerned anyway, what we’re talkin’ about is Arabs and nothing but Arabs. You can pretty much figure for sure they’re not even gonna go looking for anybody else until they run out of Arabs.” Charly Hart sat on the front seat of a patrol car with his feet hanging out the door.

  Corso looked down for agreement, but got nothing more than a grimace. “So the first thing you do is get yourself a crew together. Something other than Arabs. People with an ax to grind against the United States. People with nothing to lose. People who’ve already lost everything they had because an American corporation was more interested in profits than it was in human misery.”

  The look on Charly Hart’s face said he thought Corso’s assessment was a bit harsh. “What?” Corso said. “That seems out of line to you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Remember the heads of the major tobacco companies? Remember those guys? Standing up there in front of God and Congress, raising their hands, swearing they had no idea that cigarette smoke was habit-forming. Remember those turkeys?” Corso’s tone was bitter. “A real high point in American history,” he said.

  Charly fiddled with his watch. Corso went on. “Problem is, though, you gotta come up with people who are all the way under the radar screen. People who have no connection whatsoever with any kind of terrorist organization.” A small twisted smile appeared on his lips. “Which pretty much limits you to amateurs.”

  Charly Hart glared up. “This whole thing stinks of amateurs,” he snapped. “It’s what keeps me wondering if we don’t have our heads up our collective asses, if maybe we’re not making something out of nothing.”

  “Coupla carved-up bodies isn’t nothing.”

  “Isn’t international terrorism neither,” the detective countered.

  The radio began to squawk. Charly Hart leaned farther inside the car and listened. From where he stood in the street, Corso couldn’t make out the words. He waited until the noise stopped and Charly Hart sat up in the seat. “Units have completed a sweep of lower downtown,” Hart said. “Nada. No East Indians. No beat-up Mercedes. No nothing.”

  Jim Sexton leaned back against the hood of the van. A sticky valve ticked rhythmically in the night air as he surveyed the scene inside the enclosure. He watched the small army of green-clad
bodies lining up by the side of the cruise liner, primed and ready for work, and thought how it looked like one of those old science fiction movies where uniformity was the order of the day and everybody dressed the same.

  He’d lost track of the wet guys when they’d stepped into the equipment shed. Everyone who exited the shed was masked and dressed and ready to go, so there was no telling one from another.

  They were going on board now. Crowding into the freight elevators, waiting to be lifted to their respective decks. Jim’s scalp tingled at the sight. He knew what he had to do. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out the phone and flipped it open. Silence. He pushed the SEND and RECEIVE button.

  “Hello,” he said tentatively.

  Two responses came at once. “Dobson here.” And “Hart.”

  Jim opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “You rang?” said the chief.

  “Not me, sir,” said Charly Hart.

  “Had to be one of us,” the chief said. “Only people on this channel are you, me and Gutierrez.”

  “I…” Charly Hart began. He looked over at Corso and scowled. “Hang on a second, Chief,” he said.

  When the detective tried to rock himself upright and failed, Corso stuck out a hand and gently pulled him to his feet. Hart walked to the rear door of the cruiser and pulled it open. The black plastic tray rested in the middle of the backseat. He bent at the waist and used his good hand to rifle through the contents. Notebook, wallet and badge, watch, gun, the car keys and eighty-seven cents in change. He patted around the area for a moment, then straightened up and held the phone to his mouth. “Reuben’s radio is gone, sir,” he said.

  “Gone?”

  “Last time I looked, it was with the rest of his stuff,” Charly Hart said.

  A strained silence ensued. “You out there,” the chief said after a moment. “You with the stolen radio. Do you hear me?”