The Last Storm

by Jack Hunt

“Like you didn’t expect this to happen?”

  “That’s different, Greg was an asshole I shouldn’t have trusted him,” he said pulling a pack of Marlboro Lights from his pocket and tapping one out.

  “And what about all the others you’re trusting? Who’s to say they won’t turn on you?” Leon asked.

  Cayden smiled. “They wouldn’t dare.”

  Leon stared back and shook his head. “You’ve bought into your own hype. I don’t even recognize you anymore.”

  “Oh shut the fuck up, Leon.”

  Leon walked over to the window and pressed his head against it looking down at the rising waters. “Have you seen it out there?” He sighed. “It’s getting worse. We need to leave.”

  “No one is fucking leaving this place until I have my package.”

  “Shit, Cayden. That guy was probably messing with you. Do you really think it’s in this building?”

  Cayden turned in his seat and had a dead serious expression across his face.

  “You didn’t look in that guy’s eyes before pulling the trigger. He was willing to die to keep that information from me. Now I gotta ask myself why would someone do that? Why wouldn’t they just tell me?”

  “Maybe because you sucker punched him in the gut, stuck a gun in his face?”

  “Leon, you are starting to worry me. Next thing you’ll be telling me is you’ve found God. Well? Have you? As you sure seem to talk a lot about how you don’t recognize me but you’re acting all out of sorts. It’s beginning to disturb me.”

  Leon shook his head. “There’s no point talking to you. You’ll keep going until you land flat on your face.”

  Cayden studied him and for a second Leon thought he was about to explode but instead he said, “Okay. You tell me then what you expect me to do?”

  That caught Leon off guard. He hadn’t got a response out of Cayden like that since they were in their late teens. Back then he always bounced ideas off him and sought his advice over difficult situations. “I don’t expect you to do anything. I just don’t want to see you go over the edge and right now you are teetering on it. The drug use. The alcohol. All these snap decisions. The kinds of deals you are setting up. The lack of slowing down. You are on a collision course with death, and as your friend, I’m asking you to stop and think. Is it all worth it?”

  “It’s sixty million dollars, Leon.”

  “And?”

  “And I have deals that are already set up. Clients who were waiting. What do I tell them?”

  “You don’t tell them anything. You hand them back their money and walk away.”

  He scoffed. “Walk away. You make it sound so easy but you know as well as I do, you don’t walk away from this.”

  There was a long pause then Leon replied, “You might not have any choice. Even if you find this package, do you think we are getting out of here? Have you seen it out there?” He pointed to the window and walked back. “You saw what happened to those people.”

  “So we wait for the water to recede.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Cayden began looking flustered. The coke was kicking in and overtaking his common sense. It was always the same. One minute he was level-headed and open to talk and the next flying off the handle and looking antsy.

  “It will. It’s a bad storm. That’s all. We’ve had them before.”

  “Not like this we haven’t.”

  Cayden walked over and looked out. “There are boats in this town. Once we have that package, we sail out of here and head back to Anchorage.”

  Leon laughed. “Okay, Cayden. Okay. Let’s do it your way. It’s not like you listen to me.”

  Cayden grabbed a hold of him and pushed him up against the window. “I’m at the helm of his ship. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

  “Get off me,” Leon said in a calm voice. “You might throw your weight around with others but it doesn’t work on me. I see through that crap.” Leon pushed him and began to walk towards the door. That’s when he heard the sound of a gun cocking. He froze and turned ever so slightly. Cayden was standing with a Beretta aimed at him.

  Leon scoffed. “Huh. You going to shoot me?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  He walked back to him and stood right across from the barrel and then grabbed it and placed it against his forehead. “I’ve known you since you were a kid. You want to shoot. Go ahead. Get rid of the final piece of your pitiful fucking life. Cause you’ve already done a great job with the little you had.”

  “Don’t push me, Leon.”

  “Go on! Squeeze the fucking trigger, Cayden, or get this thing out of my face.”

  There was a tense few seconds as they stared at each other. Before a decision was made, there was a knock at the door and Vic entered. His eyes bounced between them.

  “Uh, I’ll come back.”

  “Stay where you are,” Cayden said pulling the gun away. It left a mark on Leon’s forehead. He slipped the gun back into the small of his back and looked away from Leon. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got a problem. Chris is dead.”

  “What?” Cayden stammered.

  “Found his body on the third floor. He wasn’t responding over the radio. Someone shot him.”

  Cayden glanced at Leon and both of them stormed out of the room heading for the elevator. As the elevator descended he continued to pepper Vic with questions. “Was there anyone with that old guy when you found him? Have you checked all the rooms? How did you overlook this?”

  Cayden preferred to blame others than take responsibility.

  The fact was they were in this mess because of him, because of greed, and because of his inability to think clearly. The drugs had clouded his judgment and made him rash in his decisions. When the elevator opened on the third floor they hurried down to the room where several of the other guys were waiting. Cayden brushed past them and glanced at Chris’s body. Chris had been a good friend of Cayden’s. He was the youngest in their crew and Cayden had taken him under his wing and treated him like he was his brother. At one time Leon had asked him why he spent so much time with Chris and his reply was simple… “because he reminds me of myself at that age.”

  Cayden dropped to a knee and placed a hand on Chris’s chest.

  “I’m going to speak with the rest of the group. Someone must know who did this. I want a list of names of the residents in this building. I want whoever did this found.”

  He ran his hand over Chris’s face and closed his eyelids. Leon saw the muscles in Cayden’s jaw clench, and one of his hands ball. He got up and looked around.

  “That’s not all, boss,” Vic said turning to Jerome who handed him a brick of heroin. “We found this in one of the apartments under one of the tables.”

  Cayden stared at it, a look of glee in his eye. He turned to Leon and shook it in his face. “I told you. I told you it was here. Whoever did this must have the rest. I want this person found and now!”

  He stormed out of the room and headed up to begin collecting names.

  Alex kept only one brick of heroin on him for proof, the rest he stashed away in various apartments on the seventh, eighth and tenth floor. If he was caught, he would have a solid reason for them not to kill him. He was planning on using it as a negotiating tool. He’d want them to release some residents in exchange for the location of the drugs. He would repeat this process until everyone was out. Of course until then he would kill as many of them as he could to dwindle down their crew. Right now he didn’t know how many there were, but at least he had a radio and could listen in on their conversations. He hurried out of the last apartment on the tenth floor for the stairwell, checking both ways before entering. His thoughts were all over the place as he tried to figure out where to go before starting the negotiation process. It had to be somewhere they were less likely to search. Somewhere that put their lives at risk. He glanced up the stairwell and listened to see if anyone was coming as he was sure he heard the sound of boots. It wasn’t coming fr
om above but below. Not wasting any time he ascended until he made it to the fifteenth floor. He peeked out the door and saw several armed men standing near the homeowners lounge. The stairwell went up one more flight to the roof. He had no other choice than to head onto the roof.

  Alex struggled to push the roof door open due to the heavy winds. He slipped out and hung on for dear life as Mother Nature tried to force him off. These were no ordinary winds. These had to be reaching speeds of more than 80 mph. He couldn’t just make a run to one of the many steel air vents that stuck up out of the roof. The wind was too strong. Then again he couldn’t stand in the doorway. He could hear the men climbing the stairs. Seconds. That’s all he had. Pushed into a corner, he felt his heart race. What to do? The heavy sound of boots getting closer, and clear conversation made the decision for him. He took a deep breath and released his grip on the roof’s door and lunged forward racing for an air vent. It was like running on an ice rink. Heavy snow had fallen covering the roof, freezing cold temperatures had turned the snow into something as slick as black ice. His feet gave out from underneath him as the wind veered him off course away from the vent and towards the edge of the building. He gasped, realizing that he was seconds away from being blown off the high-rise.

  As he tried to brace himself that only made it worse.

  Alex toppled, spinning and turning over until he hit the lip of the building. He clasped hold of the steel just as the wind pushed him over the edge. His stomach dropped at the sight of the ground far below. His fingers clung to the steel lip for dear life. He used every ounce of strength he had to hold on as the wind batted him like a rag doll. It didn’t help that ice had formed on the metal making it even more slippery. He knew he couldn’t hold himself up for much longer and if he didn’t get up now, he’d drop.

  Like performing a chin-up he hauled his body into the onslaught of the merciless wind. He clambered over staying as low as he could and digging his nails into the shingles. Like a spider clinging on for dear life, he crawled and inched his way forward towards the closest air vent.

  It didn’t help that every second he was out there his body was losing heat. Shivering and in pain from the cold he worked his way over to one of the air vents and got behind it. Alex remained there for a few minutes to catch his breath as the wind sliced around him as a constant reminder that if he stepped out he might die. The reality was if he didn’t get off that roof, he would die.

  Chilled to the bone and exhausted he knew returning to the stairwell was his only means of survival. Fear gripped him at the thought of falling to his death. The wind didn’t seem to let up. He couldn’t wait any longer. It was now or he’d freeze to death. Alex took a few deep breaths willing his mind to relax. His heart was pounding in his chest as he glanced around the steel vent. There was no way in hell he was going to be able to claw his way across the roof, it was too far away, and he couldn’t make a straight run for it as the wind would push him off course. He took into account the force of the wind and decided to use it to his advantage. Instead of running towards the door he would head about ten feet to the left of it knowing that the wind would knock him towards the door.

  Get a grip. You can do this! Alex launched himself away from the vent into the blizzard conditions and pounded the roof. His legs hammered like pistons. Sure enough the wind pushed him off course causing him to run straight into the doorway. He clasped hold; the blast almost lifted his feet off the ground. Twisting and pulling the knob he barely made it inside before the door slammed closed.

  Alex fell to his knees, out of breath, frozen but alive.

  Chapter 14

  Solomon slipped into some dry clothes taken from one of the abandoned condo apartments. It felt good to feel warm. Ted had attempted to dry out his uniform but it was soaked. Beyond the pane of glass the wind howled as he pulled on a thick top. Outside water continued to rise and the urgency to leave increased. Scott entered the room. “You ready to go?”

  “Not really but we have little choice.”

  Scott leaned against the wall; color had flooded his cheeks once again.

  “Let’s say everything goes well and we manage to extract everyone from the towers. Where next?”

  “Depends on the waters. Depends on the extent of the situation. I say we head to Girdwood. It’s the closest and hopefully with them being so far inland, maybe it’ll be dry. If not there, Anchorage.”

  Scott pushed away from the wall and looked down at his outfit. He had a smile on his face. “The duty belts look a little odd with those civilian clothes, don’t you think?”

  He nodded but his mind was too preoccupied. Solomon walked out and headed downstairs. Water had seeped in under the door and was about five inches deep. “Ted, did you get those flares of yours?”

  He held up a bag.

  Solomon was about to question him regarding his boat when there was a hard thump outside. All of them looked towards the door. There was another, it sounded like someone was knocking on doors farther down. Lucas trudged over in knee-high boots and looked out. “I don’t see anyone.”

  Boom. Another thud, this time against their door. Lucas pulled it open and peered out only to have a man’s limp body slump in front of him.

  “Marty?” Solomon said hurrying over. “Give me a hand, Lucas.” They scooped him up and dragged him in. He was out of breath and shivering like mad. They carried him upstairs and began stripping off his soaking wet clothes. Ted grabbed the insulated blankets and they wrapped every inch of his body. Marty’s face was almost blue, his lips twitched and his eyes rolled back in his head as Solomon and Lucas tried to warm him up. Scott began rubbing his legs, while they worked the arms. Ted got behind him in a seated position so his body would be pressed up against his own, he rubbed furiously up and down his chest and belly. Marty tried to say something but it came out as a stutter because of the cold. They continued to work on him in silence for what felt like half an hour before he was able to speak. His teeth continued to chatter.

  “What happened, Marty?”

  “At the towers… mmmen.”

  Solomon’s brow pinched and he looked at the others wondering if they understood what he said. “What?”

  “I think he said men,” Ted said.

  “I know that, what did he mean?”

  “Gggg… guns,” Marty said. He shivered hard and his eyes kept closing.

  “Lucas, go grab some more blankets.”

  “There aren’t any more insulated ones.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Get anything.”

  Lucas disappeared out of the room and they heard him slam the door. The sound of water lapping up against the walls downstairs could be heard.

  “Chief, we can’t stay here,” Scott said.

  “I’m not letting him die.”

  Lucas returned a few minutes later, out of breath but with an armful of blankets. He dumped them down and they took off the wet ones they had and replaced them and continued to fold more over him. Unlike themselves, who had only experienced water up to their waists, Marty had been submerged. His hair had hardened and was covered in icicles, as were his eyebrows. Solomon told him not to talk but just to rest. He didn’t want to put any more strain on his body than was essential. Right now he was in a fight for his life. Tired from rubbing his limbs but pleased to see some color come back into his face, they left him with Ted and ventured out into the hallway. Lucas leaned back against the wall, Scott hopped up onto the banister and Solomon paced — it kept the blood moving.

  “What do you think he meant?” Scott asked.

  “Men. Guns. Seems pretty straightforward,” Lucas replied.

  Solomon walked to the end of the hallway and looked out at the water sloshing around the evergreen trees that were weighed down by a thick layer of snow. Ice formed in areas where the water wasn’t flowing and vehicles were nearly submerged with just the roofs appearing above the water. The condominium itself was up on a rise from Blackstone, but had it been on the same level as the road, th
e first floor would have been filled with water. Right now it was only ankle-deep on the ground floor. He glanced at the boat they arrived in still tied to the tree. It moved with the flow of the water. He thought back to his conversation with Danny on the day he took his life. He remembered Danny telling him about heroin and promising to take him to where it was. Had men shown up to find it? That was the only logical explanation. Sure, fishermen owned rifles but what reason would they have to be flashing them around?

  “Chief?” Lucas asked.

  Still lost in thought, he didn’t hear him.

  “Chief?” Lucas said again. This time he turned.

  “What?”

  “We need to head out.”

  “I know.” He headed back into where Marty was and sat down beside him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow but he had finally found his voice.

  “Marty.”

  His eyes opened. “Hey, chief.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Swept away. I tried to help but I couldn’t hold on.”

  He squeezed his hand reassuringly. “And the towers?”

  “There are armed men inside. They refused to open.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know. Haven’t seen them around these parts.”

  His brow furrowed. “Anyone alive?”

  “I think I saw someone dead on the ground.”

  Solomon stared back blankly. He hadn’t told anyone in the department about his conversation with Danny out of respect to his father and the reputation of the department. The media would have eaten it up and as it stood Danny was being hailed as a hero for preventing Greg from opening fire on residents. The town treated the situation very black and white and he intended to keep it that way. Besides, there was the fact that he wasn’t sure if there was any truth to the existence of heroin. He could have taken sniffer dogs through the apartments but that would have only caused more questions and an internal investigation and he’d seen how those went. No, he kept his cards close to his chest and hoped it would all be swept under the rug and forgotten within a matter of weeks. He hadn’t thought of the complications that could arise from drugs not having been delivered. Were these the same men that Danny had been speaking to on the phone? He recalled him promising to deliver a package. Was that it? And if so, had they shown up to collect? He reached up and squeezed the bridge of his brow feeling a headache coming on. “How many men were there?” he asked.